Culture

Tuesday, 29 June 2021 - New research has shown that early testing for blood clots in patients who had received the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine led to them being treated successfully, highlighting the need for heightened awareness of the risk among doctors.

The work, led by researchers from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and the National Coagulation Centre at St James's Hospital, is published in the British Journal of Haematology.

Unusual blood clots with low blood platelets have been recognised as a very rare complication of the AstraZeneca vaccine. However, with increased awareness, patients may not have all of these symptoms when they initially present to medical services.

The researchers highlighted four patients who had clotting complications induced by the vaccine (Vaccine Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia, VITT). Based on the current guidance, each patient could have been classified as a low likelihood for this syndrome when they presented to doctors, but due to the increased awareness and clinical vigilance from the medical teams involved, all were sent for testing early, diagnosed and treated successfully.

"The risk of developing a blood clot from the vaccine is still far lower than the risk of developing clots from Covid-19, but it is imperative that clinicians are vigilant in detecting symptoms among vaccinated patients," said Dr Michelle Lavin, the lead author of the paper and researcher at the Irish Centre for Vascular Biology and the RCSI School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Science.

"Our research has shown that current guidelines lack the sensitivity to detect early cases of vaccine-induced clotting, which could risk missing or delaying diagnoses. As our understanding of this novel condition evolves, heightening our clinical awareness can improve outcomes for patients through early testing and treatment."

This work is part of the Irish COVID-19 Vasculopathy Study (ICVS), supported by a Health Research Board COVID-19 Rapid Response award and also by a philanthropic grant from the 3M Foundation to RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in support of COVID-19 research. The work was carried out in hospitals in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The LSL60101 compound, a specific ligand of the I2-IR receptors in the brain, could shed light on the development of future strategies against Alzheimer's disease. This is stated in the recent studies by the Research Group on Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology of Neurodegenerative Diseases of the University of Barcelona, published in the journals European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and British Journal Pharmacology. In studies carried out with mice, LSL60101 has improved the cognitive deficit and the biomarkers related to the disease in these animal models.

These studies result from the collaboration of the research teams led by professors Carmen Escolano, from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences and the Institute of Biomedicine of the UB (IBUB), and Mercè Pallàs, from the same Faculty and the Institute of Neurosciences (UBNeuro). Framed within a program in the CaixaImpulse program, the studies are also signed by the UB researchers Christian Griñán Ferré, Foteinin Vasilopoulou, Sergio Rodríguez Arévalo and Andrea Bagán. Among the participants are teams of the

Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative disease without a cure yet. Despite the efforts made by the international scientific community, many initiatives in medical chemistry to find future drugs to treat have failed and it is postulated that this situation could be explained by the selection of unsuitable therapeutic targets. Therefore, it is decisive to tackle the fight against Alzheimer's from perspectives that help to shape new therapeutic targets from the side of the innovation in biomedical research.

The paper published in the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry describes the synthesis of a new family of compounds with high affinity and selectivity for I2 imidazoline receptors, altered in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's. The synthesis pathway of compounds, which is efficient and affordable, would allow to apply different structural modifications to access a notable range of compounds of pharmaceutical interest.

The new family of I2-IR receptor ligands is formed by compounds with different structural features. In particular, the interaction of a representative compound --LSL60101 or garsevil-- with the I2 imidazoline receptors improves the cognitive deficit in murine models with neurodegeneration and Alzheimer's. This compound, described for the first time in the scientific literature in 1995 as a specific I2-IR receptor ligand, outstands for its properties in preclinical studies of pharmacokinetics, metabolism and toxicity, and presents a high affinity and selectivity regarding these receptors in the human brain.

Nowadays, the function of the I2-IR receptors under physiological conditions is unknown. However, researchers know these are altered in some neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Moreover, the scientific bibliography features studies with ligands of these receptors as markers of the progress of Alzheimer's disease.

"Apart from fighting the formation of amyloid-beta plaques or neurofibrillary tangles, acting on the neuroinflammation mechanisms could be a suitable therapeutic strategy to stop the progression of such a complex disease like Alzheimer's", notes Professor Carmen Escolano.

LSL60101 versus donepezil: the future of a combined therapy

According to the article in British Journal Pharmacology, the effects of LSL60101 in laboratory animals prove to be mor beneficial than those from donepezil, one of the most commercialized drugs for Alzheimer's treatments.

In the murine models with Alzheimer's, "the new compound created changes in oxidative stress markers and in neuroinflammation makers, one of the main dysfunctions present in most of the neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, LSL60101 reduced the number of amyloid-beta plaques and the levels of this altered protein in the brain of the treated animals. Parallelly, it reduced the phosphorylation of the tau protein, another important biomarker in the progression of the diseases", says Professor Mercè Pallàs.

The results could be explained with the several action mechanisms of LSL60101 and donepezil. Donepezil increases the levels of acetylcholine --a neurotransmitter related to memory and cognitive skills-- because it inhibits the enzyme in charge of its degradation (acetylcholinesterase). Also, LSL60101 is described as a I2 imidazoline receptor ligand, which have increased in the brain of people with dementia. Everything points out to the fact that the interaction of this drug with its receptor is involved in the generation of proinflammatory molecules that would increase the ongoing neuroinflammation in the disease. Therefore, I2 ligands would contribute to reduce the inflammation and thus, would slow the progression of the disease.

Both compounds were efficient in the recovery of the cognitive damage, but one of the objectives of the research study was to find whether the combination could improve the success of the treatment. "The results show that the SL60101-donepezil combined therapy is more efficient in some biomarkers of the disease. Therefore, it is possible that, with the combination of the suitable dose, we could reach an additive or even synergic effect", note the researchers.

Conducting new researches in the study will be a decisive factor to focus on the relation between I2 imidazoline receptors and Alhzeimer's and other diseases, and to boost the design of new therapeutic strategies based on the use of new selective I2-IR ligands to modulate the altered receptors in neurodegenerative pathologies.

Six antibody characteristics could help scientists identify which pregnant women are at risk of placental malaria infections, finds a study published today in eLife.

Malaria infections can be devastating for pregnant mothers, particularly during their first pregnancies. If malaria parasites invade the placenta, they can starve babies of nutrition, potentially causing low birth weight, preterm deliveries, stillbirths, and pregnancy loss. But not all women are susceptible to placental malaria infections, and the new study may help clinicians to identify those at risk and researchers to develop new therapies to protect pregnant women from malaria and related complications.

A protein made by malaria parasites called VAR2CSA allows them to attach to placental cells and invade the placenta. "Many women produce antibodies that can prevent this infection, and even those who have placental malaria during their first pregnancy are less likely to become infected during subsequent pregnancies because they have already developed protective antibodies," explains co-first author Dr Elizabeth Aitken, Research Officer at the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia. "We set out to identify the features of these antibodies that help protect women from placental infections."

In their experiments, the research team used a machine learning technique to identify naturally acquired antibody features mid pregnancy that were associated with protection from placental malaria at delivery. They analysed 169 antibody features in 77 pregnant women from Madang, Papua New Guinea.

Of these features, they identified six that were associated with placental malaria protection. These fell into two broad groups: those related to preventing the parasites from binding to placental cells, and those that led to the destruction of infected blood cells. "Using these features, we created a model that could predict which pregnant women would develop placental malaria infections with 86% accuracy," says co-first author Timon Damelang, a PhD student at the Doherty Institute.

"These results suggest it is likely there are multiple pathways to protection against placental malaria," adds co-first author Amaya Ortga-Pajares, also a PhD student at the Doherty Institute.

"It will be interesting to learn whether this same combination of features can protect pregnant women from placental malaria infections in other populations," concludes senior author Professor Stephen Rogerson, Head of the Malaria Laboratory at the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne. "This new insight is important for the development of novel vaccines or other treatments to protect pregnant women and their babies from the effects of malaria."

New insight on how our experiences during a task or interaction shape our current mood has been published today in the open-access eLife journal.

The study suggests that early experiences may have a larger effect on our mood than more recent events. These findings hold implications for the timing of events in experimental or clinical settings, and suggest new directions for mood interventions tailored to individual patients.

People routinely report on their moods during everyday activities and when they interact with clinicians providing mental health care. It is commonly believed that the most recent experiences during a task or interaction with someone else may have the strongest effect on how an individual feels at a given time. But in a series of experiments, researchers show that early experiences can have a more significant impact on someone's mood. The research team included first author and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Hanna Keren and colleagues at the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, US.

To address the question of how the timing of an event can impact our current mood, Keren and colleagues began with a computational modelling approach. They developed a novel Primacy model, based on the concept that experiences occurring early in an interaction or game prevail over more recent ones in affecting our mood. They then pitted this model against a Recency model, based on the idea that more recent experiences have a stronger effect on mood. They showed that the Primacy model accounts more for self-reported mood when compared to the Recency and other computational models.

They also examined their models in relation to the moods of people of different ages, as well as healthy and depressed participants. To do this, they recruited a group of adult volunteers to participate in an online gambling game with small monetary rewards based on their success in the game. They invited the volunteers to report their moods using a sliding scale at several points during the game. In a second set of experiments, they recruited a group of adolescent volunteers to play a similar game in the laboratory while measuring these participants' brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging. They also collected data on whether the participants had depression, as this can also impact an individual's current mood.

The researchers found that early events during the game had the greatest impact on mood in both the adolescent and adult groups. This was also true for individuals with and without depression. Their imaging data also suggested that earlier experiences in the game 'switched on' parts of the frontal brain associated with moods, rather than later events. These results provided evidence for the neural encoding of the team's Primacy, but not Recency model.

Altogether, the findings raise some important questions, such as why adverse experiences early in a task or interaction may have lasting effects on an individual's mood. Future studies assessing the impact of events on mood over longer time periods might help answer these questions.

In the meantime, Keren and the team suggest their current work may have implications for the way clinicians providing mental health care interact with patients or assess the effectiveness of their treatment, as the timing of good and bad experiences may affect how patients feel about their treatment.

Rising nighttime temperatures are curbing crop yields for rice, and new research moves us closer to understanding why. The study found that warmer nights alter the rice plant's biological schedule, with hundreds of genes being expressed earlier than usual, while hundreds of other genes are being expressed later than usual.

"Essentially, we found that warmer nights throw the rice plant's internal clock out of whack," says Colleen Doherty, an associate professor of biochemistry at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of a paper on the work.

"Most people think plants aren't dynamic, but they are. Plants are constantly regulating their biological processes - gearing up for photosynthesis just before dawn, winding that down in the late afternoon, determining precisely how and where to burn their energy resources. Plants are busy, it's just difficult to observe all that activity from the outside."

And what researchers have learned is that the clock responsible for regulating all of that activity gets messed up when the nights get hotter relative to the days.

"We already knew that climate change is leading to increased temperatures globally, and that nighttime temperatures are rising faster than daytime temperatures," Doherty says. "We also knew that warmer nights hurt rice production. But until now, we had very little insight into why warmer nights are bad for rice.

"We still don't know all the details, but we're narrowing down where to look."

Research that addresses rice yield losses is important because rice is an essential crop for feeding hundreds of millions of people each year - and because a changing climate poses challenges for global food security.

To better understand how warm nights affects rice, Doherty worked with an international team of researchers - including Krishna Jagadish of Kansas State University and Lovely Lawas of the International Rice Research Institute - to study the problem in the field. The researchers established two study sites in the Philippines. Temperatures were manipulated in different areas of each study site using either ceramic heaters or heat tents.

A research team led by Jagadish used the ceramic heaters to maintain experimental plots at 2 degrees Celsius above the ambient temperature, and took samples from the rice plants every three hours for 24 hours. Control plots were not heated, but were also sampled every three hours during the same 24-hour period. These tests were repeated four times. The heat tents were later used to validate the results from the ceramic heater tests.

Meanwhile, a team led by Doherty found that more than a thousand genes were being expressed at the "wrong" time when nighttime temperatures were higher. Specifically, hotter nights resulted in hundreds of genes - including many associated with photosynthesis - becoming active later in the day. Meanwhile, hundreds of other genes were becoming active much earlier in the evening than normal, disrupting the finely tuned timing necessary for optimal yield.

"It's not clear what all of these genes do, but it is clear that these conflicting schedule shifts are not good for the plant," Doherty says.

The researchers found that many of the affected genes are regulated by 24 other genes, called transcription factors. Of those 24, four of the transcription factors were deemed most promising for future study.

"We need to do additional work to figure out exactly what's happening here, so that we can begin breeding rice that's resilient against warmer nights," Doherty says. "Rice is an important food crop. And other staple crops are also affected by hotter nights - including wheat. This isn't just an interesting scientific question, it's a global food security issue."

A team of neuroscientists at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology led by Baher Ibrahim and Dr. Daniel Llano published a study in eLife that furthers our understanding of how the brain perceives everyday sensory inputs.

"There is a traditional idea that the way that we experience the world is sort of like a movie being played on a projector. All the sensory information that is coming in is being played on our cerebral cortex and that's how we see things and hear things," said Llano, a Beckman researcher and associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

However, quite a few studies over the years have challenged this traditional view of how we perceive the world. These studies present a new model: rather than projecting information onto the cortex, the thalamus might be selecting information that is already present in the cortex, based on our learned experiences.

Using a unique mouse brain slice that retains connectivity between three different regions of the brain (midbrain, thalamus, and cortex), Ibrahim and colleagues conducted a series of experiments that involved complicated techniques like electrophysiology, optogenetics, and computer modeling.

Ibrahim discerned that the neurons controlling which signals are relayed to the cortex are cortico-thalamic neurons that act through the thalamic reticular nucleus. These neurons descend from the cortex to the thalamus, making up a population of neurons that is not often talked about, but is nevertheless responsible for controlling what information is relayed to the cortex.

The implications of this research are far-reaching. It is possible to discern from this study that, amongst a veritable sea of sensory inputs, the brain uses these cortico-thalamic neurons to select which sensory inputs to relay up to the cortex via a "non-linear response." This results in humans paying attention to only those sensory inputs that are being relayed to the cortex. Hence, this publication brings to light the neuronal circuitry that is involved in perception-specific sensory information.

"Prior to us doing this particular study, other studies were showing the presence of these non-linear responses in the cortex in other sensory systems, like the visual system. Therefore, I suspect that what we discovered in the auditory system might be a generic mechanism that would be seen across sensory systems with the exception of olfaction," said Llano.

"Learning how to perform all these techniques correctly and efficiently to get reliable data was the most challenging part of this study," added Ibrahim.

Ibrahim, a postdoctoral research associate in Llano's lab, came from a pharmacological scientific background and was not previously trained in performing electrophysiological techniques. This posed unique challenges.

The study ultimately begs the question as to whether everyday sensory perception is a mixture of the internal models of the world that our brain is selecting based on cognitive demand and the input streams flowing from the outside world. This would be a very different way of understanding sensory perception as opposed to what is traditionally taught. Clarity of such concepts is fundamental to understanding situations where these processes of perceptions go awry, namely hallucinations.

The Beckman Institute's recent acquisition of a state-of-the-art multiphoton microscope renders a wide array of possibilities for moving this study forward. This microscope will allow scientists to image the living brain at the cellular level. This will allow Llano and colleagues to study the cerebral cortex of living animals at the cellular level, further allowing them to study hundreds of neurons at a time, and silence specific subpopulations of neurons and see how the responses change.

This study is another step towards understanding the infinitely complex organ that is our brain.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers are taking a close look at rare cases of inflammation of the heart muscle, or myocarditis, in young men who developed symptoms shortly after receiving the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines. Several recent studies suggest that health care professionals should watch for hypersensitivity myocarditis as a rare adverse reaction to being vaccinated for COVID-19. However, researchers stress that this awareness should not diminish overall confidence in vaccination during the current pandemic.

While reports of post-vaccine myocarditis in some areas are higher than baseline, the imminent and greater risk for heart damage and death continues to be from becoming infected with COVID-19. Up to 60% of people who are seriously ill with COVID-19 experience injury to their heart, and nearly 1% of fit athletes who had a mild COVID-19 infection show myocarditis on an MRI.

A retrospective case series published in JAMA Cardiology studied 23 men in the U.S. military who were hospitalized with myocarditis symptoms within four days of receiving the second dose of a messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine. Three of the patients previously had been infected with COVID-19, and their symptoms started after the first dose of the vaccine. The cases occurred between January and April. Sixteen had received the Moderna vaccine and seven had received the Pfizer vaccine. For context, it is important to note that the military administered more than 2.8 million doses of messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines during that time.

All 23 military patients had symptoms of severe chest pain and significantly elevated cardiac troponin levels, which is a protein marker used to measure heart damage. Each patient rapidly recovered, which, combined with the timing and symptoms, supports the diagnosis of hypersensitivity myocarditis. This unusual type of myocarditis is usually related to a drug allergy, but it has been researched in relation to the smallpox vaccine.

"Hypersensitivity myocarditis following vaccination is rare, with the exception of smallpox vaccine. The risk of myocarditis after receiving mRNA vaccine is far less than the risk of myocarditis following actual COVID-19 infection," says Leslie Cooper, M.D., chair of the Department of Cardiology at Mayo Clinic in Florida. Dr. Cooper is senior author of the study, which was conducted with U.S. military medical centers.

Another observational case study recorded details of eight men between the ages of 21 and 56 who were hospitalized with chest pain and diagnosed with myocarditis by laboratory and cardiac MRI. The patients developed symptoms, starting with a fever, within two to four days of receiving their second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. One patient who had previously recovered from COVID-19 had symptoms after the first dose. All eight patients in the study recovered from the effects of myocarditis and no longer had chest pain. The findings, co-authored by Dr. Cooper with researchers from Mayo Clinic and other medical institutions in the U.S. and Italy, are published in Circulation.

"People of all ages should choose to get a COVID-19 vaccine because the risks are extremely low compared to the benefits. Additionally, the growing body of research shows that vaccine-associated myocarditis resolves quickly in almost all cases," says Dr. Cooper.

Using real-time deformability cytometry, researchers at the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin in Erlangen were able to show for the first time: Covid-19 significantly changes the size and stiffness of red and white blood cells - sometimes over months. These results may help to explain why some affected people continue to complain of symptoms long after an infection (long Covid).

Shortness of breath, fatigue and headaches: some patients still struggle with the long-term effects of a severe infection by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus after six months or more. This post Covid-19 syndrome, also called long covid, is still not properly understood. What is clear is that -- during the course of the disease -- often blood circulation is impaired, dangerous vascular occlusions can occur and oxygen transport in is limited. These are all phenomena in which the blood cells and their physical properties play a key role.

To investigate this aspect, a team of scientists led by Markéta Kubánková, Jochen Guck, and Martin Kräter from the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL), the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the German Centre for Immunotherapy measured the mechanical states of red and white blood cells. "We were able to detect clear and long-lasting changes in the cells -- both during an acute infection and even afterwards," reports Professor Guck, currently managing director of MPL. The research group has now published their results in the renowned journal Biophysical Journal.

To analyse the blood cells, they used a self-developed method called real-time deformability cytometry (RT-DC), which has recently been recognized with the prestigious Medical Valley Award. In this method, the researchers send the blood cells through a narrow channel at high speed. In the process, the leukocytes and erythrocytes are stretched. A high-speed camera records each of them through a microscope, and custom software determines which cell types are present, and how big and deformed they are. Up to 1000 blood cells can be analysed per second. The advantage of the method: It is fast and the cells do not have to be labelled in a laborious procedure.

The method could help as an early warning system to detect future pandemics by unknown viruses

The biophysicists from Erlangen examined more than four million blood cells from 17 patients acutely ill with Covid-19, from 14 people who had recovered and 24 healthy people as a comparison group. They found that, for example, the size and deformability of the red blood cells of patients with the disease deviated strongly from those of healthy people. This indicates damage to these cells and could explain the increased risk of vascular occlusion and embolisms in the lungs. In addition, the oxygen supply, which is one of the main tasks of the erythrocytes, may be impaired in infected persons. Lymphocytes (one type of white blood cell responsible for the acquired immune defense) were in turn significantly softer in Covid-19 patients, which typically indicates a strong immune reaction. The researchers made similar observations for neutrophil granulocytes, another group of white blood cells involved in the innate immune response. These cells even remained drastically altered seven months after the acute infection. "We suspect that the cytoskeleton of immune cells, which is largely responsible for cell function, has changed," explains Markéta Kubánková, first author of the research article. In her view, real-time deformability cytometry has the potential to be used routinely in the diagnosis of Covid-19 -- and even to serve as an early warning system against future pandemics caused by as yet unknown viruses.

Mate choice is important for females, who often invest much more energy in offspring than males. However, being too selective is a bad idea, as they might end up not mating at all. Biologists have wondered for a long time how females optimize their chances. Scientists at the University of Groningen have performed experiments with fruit flies that reveal the explanation: mating induces a behavioural change in female flies that makes them more choosy than when they are virgins. The results were published on 21 June in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The fourteenth-century French philosopher Jean Buridan described a donkey who starved to death because he couldn't choose between two bales of hay. Evolutionary biologists have their own version of this decision-making problem: in many species, females invest more energy in reproduction than males. Thus, males try to mate with as many females as possible, while females are choosy as they have to select the best males to father their offspring. But, like with the philosopher's donkey, being too choosy may result in no offspring at all.

Aphrodisiac

In 2005, theoretical biologists suggested an explanation: what if female species' mate preference changes over time? This would be especially beneficial for organisms like flies, who store sperm for later use and mate multiple times. 'The sperm from the last mating is favoured for fertilization, so a first mating with an inferior male is of little consequence but it does ensure that the flies can reproduce', explains Jean-Christophe Billeter, associate professor of Neurogenetics of Social and Sexual Behaviour at the University of Groningen.

The explanation sounds plausible, but is it actually true? It turned out to be difficult to prove this in a controlled experiment. Billeter: 'It is very difficult to distinguish between learned behaviour and a programmed change in mate preference.' However, Billeter and his group have ample experience in studying mating behaviour in fruit flies. And he had noted changes in the way that the flies process cues after a first mating. 'For example, food acts as an aphrodisiac - but only in females who have mated before, not in virgins.' This means that virgin and mated females pay attention to different cues. Other scientists also described differences between virgin and mated flies.

Mutations

As there are lots of lines of fruit flies with specific mutations, this model organism would allow a careful study of how mating preference is governed. Billeter and his colleagues performed a series of experiments to study mate choice. The basic set-up was to observe one female with two males, each from a different strain. These were NL (a Dutch strain) and Tai (originating from West Africa). As fruit flies mate for about twenty minutes, all it takes is to wait to see which of the two males will mount the female. 'We observed thousands of Petri dishes, often overnight, each with two male flies and one female, to get our results.'

In a first experiment, they found a very clear result: virgin flies showed no preference for NL or Tai males. But mated females became choosy; they subsequently mated with Tai males in nearly 100 per cent of the experiments. 'It was a bit of luck to find such a huge difference between the strains', says Billeter. Another series of experiments was then performed to find out how this preference came to be. A male pheromone in the sperm fluid was already known to be responsible for mating-induced changes in female behaviour. And when virgin flies mated with male mutants without pheromones, they did not become choosy. This indicated that the females were not learning to become more choosy, but, in fact, underwent a programmed physiological change leading them to become more selective.

Puzzle

As the pheromone induces the production of a substance called 'juvenile hormone' in the females, the next step was to confirm that this hormone plays a role in developing selectiveness. And indeed, virgin females that were fed this hormone developed a preference for Tai males. But how are Tai and NL males distinguished? 'We figured pheromones were involved, so we then tested females without a sense of smell. And indeed, they did not develop a preference for Tai over NL males.'

At this stage of the study, Billeter visited a conference where Chih-Ying Su from the University of California in San Diego gave a talk on pheromone receptors in fruit flies. They started a collaboration and, using electrical recordings, the Su lab showed that the Or47b Odorant receptor neurons become less sensitive to pheromones after mating, as a result of juvenile hormone signaling. 'So, we figured that the juvenile hormone reduces the sensitivity of the flies' olfactory cells to this pheromone.' The final piece of the puzzle was finding the pheromone that activates Or47b. 'This was identified, and we predicted that Tai flies would have higher levels of this aphrodisiac pheromone than NL flies.' The hypothesis was confirmed: levels in Tai males were twice as high as in NL flies. And dousing NL flies with the pheromone made them as equally attractive as the Tai males.

Ants

This leads to a clear picture: to virgins, all males smell equally lovely. But mating reduces their sensitivity for an aphrodisiac pheromone, and thus induces preference for males with higher levels of this perfume. 'We could only discover this sequence of events because fruit flies are such a powerful model system, thanks to the availability of off-the-shelf tools to manipulate neurons and behaviour', acknowledges Billeter. 'But, now that we have confirmed, in this model, that mating actually flips a switch that induces mating preferences, we expect that researchers will be able to find this in other species as well.'

And there are wider implications. 'We have now discovered a trigger that can change the behaviour of an individual by changing how it responds to a cue. The first author of the paper, postdoc Philip Kohlmeier, is an expert in social insects, such as ants and bees. He is now eager to find out if similar triggers are involved in how social insects specialize in different classes, such as foragers and nurses.'

University of Colorado Boulder researchers have discovered that minuscule, self-propelled particles called "nanoswimmers" can escape from mazes as much as 20 times faster than other, passive particles, paving the way for their use in everything from industrial clean-ups to medication delivery.

The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describe how these tiny synthetic nanorobots are incredibly effective at escaping cavities within maze-like environments. These nanoswimmers could one day be used to remediate contaminated soil, improve water filtration or even deliver drugs to targeted areas of the body, like within dense tissues.

"This is the discovery of an entirely new phenomenon that points to a broad potential range of applications," said Daniel Schwartz, senior author of the paper and Glenn L. Murphy Endowed Professor of chemical and biological engineering.

These nanoswimmers came to the attention of the theoretical physics community about 20 years ago, and people imagined a wealth of real-world applications, according to Schwartz. But unfortunately these tangible applications have not yet been realized, in part because it's been quite difficult to observe and model their movement in relevant environments--until now.

These nanoswimmers, also called Janus particles (named after a Roman two-headed god), are tiny spherical particles composed of polymer or silica, engineered with different chemical properties on each side of the sphere. One hemisphere promotes chemical reactions to occur, but not the other. This creates a chemical field which allows the particle to take energy from the environment and convert it into directional motion--also known as self-propulsion.

"In biology and living organisms, cell propulsion is the dominant mechanism that causes motion to occur, and yet, in engineered applications, it's rarely used. Our work suggests that there is a lot we can do with self-propulsion," said Schwartz.

In contrast, passive particles which move about randomly (a kind of motion known as Brownian motion) are known as Brownian particles. They're named after 19th century scientist Robert Brown, who studied such things as the random motion of pollen grains suspended in water.

The researchers converted these passive Brownian particles into Janus particles (nanoswimmers) for this research. Then they made these self-propelled nanoswimmers try to move through a maze, made of a porous medium, and compared how efficiently and effectively they found escape routes compared to the passive, Brownian particles.

The results were shocking, even to the researchers.

The Janus particles were incredibly effective at escaping cavities within the maze--as much as 20 times faster than the Brownian particles--because they moved strategically along the cavity walls searching for holes, which allowed them to find the exits very quickly. Their self-propulsion also appeared to give them a boost of energy needed to pass through the exit holes within the maze.

"We know we have a lot of applications for nanorobots, especially in very confined environments, but we didn't really know how they move and what the advantages are compared to traditional Brownian particles. That's why we started a comparison between these two," said Haichao Wu, lead author of the paper and graduate student in chemical and biological engineering. "And we found that nanoswimmers are able to use a totally different way to search around these maze environments."

While these particles are incredibly small, around 250 nanometers--just wider than a human hair (160 nanometers) but still much, much smaller than the head of a pin (1-2 millimeters)--the work is scalable. This means that these particles could navigate and permeate spaces as microscopic as human tissue to carry cargo and deliver drugs, as well as through soil underground or beaches of sand to remove unwanted pollutants.

Swarming nanoswimmers

The next step in this line of research is to understand how nanoswimmers behave in groups within confined environments, or in combination with passive particles.

"In open environments, nanoswimmers are known to display emergent behavior--behavior that is more than the sum of its parts--that mimics the swarming motion of flocks of birds or schools of fish. That's been a lot of the impetus for studying them," said Schwartz.

One of the main obstacles to reaching this goal is the difficulty involved in being able to observe and understand the 3D movement of these tiny particles deep within a material comprising complex interconnected spaces.

Wu overcame this hurdle by using refractive index liquid in the porous medium, which is liquid that affects how fast light travels through a material. This made the maze essentially invisible, while allowing the observation of 3D particle motion using a technique known as double-helix point spread function microscopy.

This enabled Wu to track three-dimensional trajectories of the particles and create visual representations, a major advancement from typical 2D modeling of nanoparticles. Without this advancement, it would not be possible to better understand the movement and behavior of either individuals or groups of nanoswimmers.

"This paper is the first step: It provides a model system and the imaging platform that enables us to answer these questions," said Wu. "The next step is to use this model with a larger population of nanoswimmers, to study how they are able to interact with each other in a confined environment."

Basic needs of disaster- and conflict-impacted refugees are often met by humanitarian relief goods and services, and until now little was known about how refugees create economic livelihood beyond immediate relief.

A new exploratory case study from Portland State University Associate Professor of Management Theodore Khoury reveals how Syrian refugees in the Za'atari camp reached beyond basic disaster relief support and leveraged social capital to create informal economic systems that helped improve their quality of life. The study, "Towards a theory of informal supply networks: An?exploratory case study of the Za'atari refugee camp," is published in the Journal of Operations Management and co-authored by Ismail Abushaikha of German-Jordanian University and Zhaohui Wu of Oregon State University.

The ongoing Syrian civil war started in March 2011. Between 2012 and 2018, nearly a half million Syrian refugees passed through the Za'atari refugee camp, the world's second largest refugee camp, located in Jordan just 6 km southwest of the Syrian border. In one of the first case studies of its kind, interviews, observation data, field notes, photos and videos collected in and around Za'atari uncovered complex, refugee-led, informal supply networks that contribute to the resilience of the camp and also benefit Mafraq, the Jordanian host community.

The study dispels the notion of refugees as passive aid recipients awaiting charity, and instead asserts a refugee camp as a society with complex social systems.

"Many refugees reside in camps indefinitely and refugee regimes overlook or are incapable of supporting their development needs and ability to prosper socially and find a durable economic livelihood," says Khoury. "When a formal economy is unavailable or fails to include them, informal economies can evolve to serve them and meet these needs."

Given its city-like settings and energetic marketplaces, Za'atari is often profiled as a "success story" in the media and by relief organizations and donor countries. The researchers conducted 52 interviews, speaking with refugees, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations (NGO and IGO) workers, Mafraq community members, and government officials. The research findings develop a theory of informal supply networks, or an aggregate of predominantly illicit -- yet legitimate -- channels and social relationships that support the economic exchange of goods and services between distinct actors or actor groups; in this case those represented by the interviewees.

"Our theory of informal supply networks offers a new approach to thinking about mass migration and refugee integration," says Khoury. "By understanding social behavior in an extreme context, we can develop more flexible humanitarian relief policy and operations that give refugees agency to create their future through economic exchange."

Supply networks started to emerge when refugees engaged in improvised, secondhand transactions, buying and selling donated relief goods among themselves and with Mafraq residents. Relief goods were also repurposed as new production materials. Refugees in Za'atari coordinated access to critical goods that fell outside the scope of relief-related activities and adopted roles of buyers, suppliers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, traffickers and service providers. Over time, the formal and informal economic activities of all actors gave shape to the supply networks in the camp.

Three informal supply networks -- building materials and housing, electricity and electrical hardware, and food and goods -- were the case study's focus because products and services associated were critical in meeting the basic needs of refugees and therefore had practical implications for the daily lives of refugees; formal relief operations and refugee-initiated informal operations interacted to support the flow of resources in these networks; and these networks were representative of economic activities involving refugees.

The researchers captured the economic activity of each supply network by mapping the flow of materials with actor social activity and relationships. The mapping revealed where transactions occurred and in what direction; the nature of transactions were not always simple or even obvious. Three key insights led to a more critical assessment of the emergency-oriented, formal relief operations and compelled a refugee point of view:

Social ties created prior to the conflict sometimes existed between refugees and merchants or intermediaries within Mafraq, giving some refugees access to resources that others did not have

Governance for specific transactions was unique depending on the kind of goods being exchanged

Representatives of the camp authority, like security guards, routinely tolerated trafficking, recognizing the mutual development support to the host community

Data collection and network mapping uncovered three theoretical dimensions, which delineated the transactions -- and their functioning -- within the informal supply networks:

Positioning of unique social capitals: Social capital is defined as "resources embedded in one's social networks, [and] resources that can be accessed or mobilized through ties in the networks (Lin, 2008, p. 51)." Bonding, bridging and linking represent the three forms of social capital or relationship ties. Bonding accounts for ties that are more familiar, like family, friends and neighbors. Bridging connects actors in parallel networks, like other neighborhoods, clans and social groups. Linking captures ties characterized by differences in power distance, social status or hierarchy. The three forms of social capital defined the boundaries of Za'atari informal supply networks and also expanded boundaries beyond the borders of the camp -- they enabled efficient economic exchanges and cultivated trusting relationships that led to resilient supply networks.

"In 2013, the refugees used to take some of the care packages and sell them in Mafraq stores [...] and buy other things that they needed, so now there is money generating in the camp and in the same time Syrian women started making food and started selling them to the employees and staff of NGOs." (Supply Chain Officer, UNHCR, 2016)

"I used to work in plumbing and now I have a dairy shop [in the market street]. Once one of my friends who owns a restaurant asked me if I could bring chicken drumsticks and I got 15 kilograms of them and they were sold within 3 minutes." (Dairy Products Seller, Refugee, 2016)

Governance of transactions according to specific conventions: The camp's informal economy with supply networks were all linked to the formal relief networks governed by explicit rules and policies and managed through a hierarchy: the Jordanian government entrusted camp management under UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), which in turn coordinated relief operations of other NGOs/IGOs like Portland-based Mercy Corps. In contrast, the informal supply networks were self-organized and transactions were governed by either culturally- or market-guided conventions. For example, electricity followed market-guided conventions under skilled refugees and a fee-for-service model. Building materials and housing supplies were a combination of both, where community leaders prioritized family members and others with preferential relationships while at the same time materials were sold through a profit-driven underground market agnostic to who purchased.

"Refugees in Azraq Camp [in Jordan] are forced to go to the shopping malls [World Food Program Supermarkets] to buy their goods, which is very expensive, but, here [at the Za'atari refugee camp], we have more options in the market to buy from." (Perfume Shop Owner, Refugee, 2016)

"Bikes from some donors were also distributed at some point and some of them [refugees] got more than necessary and then they sold them. Bikes are a major business in Mafraq now as it is widely used in the city of Mafraq and the camp as well." (Supermarket Cashier, Host Community, 2018)

Legitimation of refugee-initiated economic activities: Camp security guards, often hired locally from Mafraq, felt that the citizens of Mafraq also deserved access to relief supplies; they favored the interests of refugees and locals over law enforcement, since they often came from standards of living that were at or below the level of some refugees. This stance translated into a more permeable or flexible camp border in terms of the kinds of goods that could cross the camp boundary. As a result, guards, as representatives of the camp authority, did not consistently stop the trafficking of goods across the camp border and allowed informal supply networks, as well as the traffickers inside and across the camp boundary, to be legitimated. The Jordanian government and camp authorities recognized that this informality helped sustain the livelihoods of refugees, bring positive economic opportunities to Mafraq and reduce conflict in the camp.

"There are not contracts between the owners of the caravans and the users of the caravans [...]. We don't intervene in organizing the market. We intervene if there is a complaint by others. Although this is illegal [selling and renting caravans], as long as there are no complaints, or this is not making troubles for others we don't intervene." (Community Police Officer #2, Government, 2016)

"They [donkeys and sheep] are allowed but we cannot bring them through the camp's main gate. It is not allowed to bring them legally, but once we have them inside the camp, it is ok." (Bedouin Refugee, 2017)

"The situations faced by refugees are beyond difficult and life in Za'atari is a far cry from the life they were forced to leave behind," says Khoury.

The study brings to light that the international policies on refugees and refugee regimes are outdated. Created shortly after WWII, these policies are poorly structured to handle large scale migration as has been seen today in Europe and Southern Asia. The study suggests that given prolonged stays in "permanent temporariness," humanitarian relief operations and host communities need to approach the condition of the refugee camp with longer term solutions in mind.

"When we value the dignity and human agency of refugees and allow for their cultural and social capital to be asserted on their terms, communities can flourish," adds Khoury. "With more thought invested into how refugees can be welcomed and integrated into communities, perhaps we can begin to shift the migration discourse into opportunities for positive social change, rather than ongoing situations of 'crisis.'"

PHILADELPHIA - The use of e-cigarettes, or vaping, causes serious damage to the lungs. After the novel coronavirus responsible for the respiratory disease COVID-19 emerged last year, there have been ongoing concerns about how vaping might impact risk of infection and severity of symptoms. Some evidence shows an increased risk of COVID-19 among those who vape. Research also shows a higher COVID-19 mortality rate in men compared to women, and men are more likely to vape than women. However, there is no evidence to link these two observations.

New research from Jefferson sheds light on this by showing that exposure to e-cigarette vapor increases levels of the coronavirus receptor in the lungs of male mice, particularly when nicotine is present in the vapor. This could make it easier for the virus to infect. The findings were published in Journal of Investigative Medicine on April 29.

Using the spike-like protein on its surface like a key, the novel coronavirus binds to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2) receptor found in the lining of our airways, and unlocks its path into our lung cells.

"It's been shown that cigarette smokers have higher levels of ACE-2 in their lungs and that smoking is a known risk factor for developing lung disease and infection," says Pawan Sharma, PhD and co-senior author of the study. "We wanted to see if a similar effect is seen with e-cigarettes or vaping, and whether any effects observed are different between male and females."

The researchers housed female or male mice in a box attached to an automated system that delivered precisely controlled amounts of e-cigarette vapor, with or without nicotine, for 30 min, twice a day for 21 days. Compared to control mice that breathed room air, mice exposed to e-cigarette vapor had inflammation of their lung tissue and reduced lung function, confirming the dangers of vaping. These effects were observed whether or not nicotine was added to the vapor, pointing to the inherently harmful nature of the chemicals found in e-cigarette vapor.

There was also an increase in the levels of the ACE-2 receptor in the lungs of vapor-exposed mice, male and female. Though this was not tested in the current study, higher levels of ACE-2 receptor could make it easier for the virus to enter the airways, increasing susceptibility to infection.

Interestingly, the presence of nicotine in the vapor further enhanced the increase in ACE-2 specifically in male mice.

The researchers are the first to demonstrate this potential sex-difference in the effect of vaping and nicotine exposure on ACE-2 levels in vivo. Though further research is needed to understand the complexity of risk factors for COVID-19, this result sheds light on important physiological differences that make one sex potentially more vulnerable.

"Our findings provide rationale for looking at the effect of vaping on ACE-2 levels in the lungs of humans," says Dr. Sharma. "If a similar induction of ACE-2 is seen, it provides further evidence for vaping being a risk factor for COVID-19 and can help us understand how to prevent and mitigate infection in this population."

RICHLAND, Wash.--Researchers have increased the lifetime of a promising electric vehicle battery to a record level, an important step toward the goal of lighter, less expensive and long-lasting batteries for future electric vehicles. The work is reported June 28 in the journal Nature Energy.

Such batteries--the goal of research groups the world over--are seen as an important part of the solution to reduce the effects of climate change, and scientists are exploring a dizzying array of options.

One solution on the horizon is a lithium-metal battery for electric vehicles. These batteries hold almost twice the energy of their widely used lithium-ion counterparts, and they're lighter. That combination offers the enticing prospect of an electric vehicle that would be lighter and go much farther on a single charge. But lithium-metal batteries in the laboratory have been plagued by premature death, lasting only a fraction of the time of today's lithium-ion batteries.

Now, a team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has created a lithium-metal battery that lasts for 600 cycles, far longer than other reported results. That means it can be fully charged and discharged 600 times before it dies.

It's a big step forward for a promising technology, but lithium-metal technology is not yet ready for prime time. While the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles today hold less energy, they last longer, typically at least 1,000 cycles. But vehicles won't go as far on one charge as they would with an effective lithium-metal battery.

The new research was done through DOE's Innovation Center for Battery500 Consortium, a multi-institution effort led by PNNL to develop electric vehicle batteries that are lighter, more energy intensive and less expensive than those currently used. PNNL leads the consortium and is responsible for integrating the latest advances from partner institutions into devices known as high-energy pouch cells and demonstrating improved performance under realistic conditions.

Lithium metal: Thin strips of lithium translate to longer lifetime

The PNNL team found a way to increase the battery's lifetime by taking a surprising approach. Instead of using anodes with more lithium, the team used incredibly thin strips of lithium, just 20 microns wide, far thinner than the width of a human hair.

"Many people have thought that thicker lithium would enable the battery to cycle longer," said Jie Xiao, who along with Jun Liu, the director of the Battery500 Consortium, is a corresponding author of the paper. "But that is not always true. There is an optimized thickness for each lithium-metal battery depending on its cell energy and design."

The lithium-metal battery created by the Battery500 team has an energy density of 350 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg)--very high but not unprecedented. The value of the new findings has more to do with the battery's lifetime. After 600 cycles, the battery retained 76 percent of its initial capacity.

Just four years ago, an experimental lithium-metal battery could operate for 50 cycles. That has increased rapidly; two years ago the PNNL team achieved 200 cycles--and now 600. Moreover, the PNNL battery is a pouch cell, which more closely mirrors real-world conditions than does a coin cell, a less realistic type of device used in many battery research projects.

Lithium metal: Why thickness matters

The team's decision to try thinner lithium strips was based on its detailed understanding of the molecular dynamics of the anode as explained in the Nature Energy paper.

The scientists found that thicker strips contribute directly to battery failure. That's due to complex reactions around a film on the anode known as the solid electrolyte interphase, or SEI. The SEI is the byproduct of side reactions between lithium and the electrolyte. It acts as an important gatekeeper that allows certain molecules to go from the anode to the electrolyte and back again while keeping other molecules at bay.

It's an important job. An SEI working effectively allows certain lithium ions to pass through but limits unwanted chemical reactions that reduce battery performance and accelerate cell failure. A primary goal for researchers has been to reduce unwanted side reactions between the electrolyte and the lithium metal--to encourage vital chemical reactions while restraining unwanted ones.

The team found that thinner lithium strips are adept at creating what one might call good SEI, while the thicker strips have a higher chance of contributing to what one might call harmful SEI. In their paper, the researchers use the terms "wet SEI" and "dry SEI." The wet version retains contact between the liquid electrolyte and the anode, making important electrochemical reactions possible.

But in the dry version, the liquid electrolyte doesn't reach all of the lithium. Simply, because the lithium strips are thicker, the electrolyte needs to flow into deeper pockets of the lithium, and as it does so, it leaves other portions of the lithium dry. This stops important reactions from occurring, effectively smothering necessary electrochemical reactions, and contributes directly to the early death of the battery.

It's an important issue, especially in realistic batteries like pouch cells, where the amount of electrolyte available is 20 to 30 times less than that used in experimental coin cells.

Consider how a frying pan gradually builds up a layer of grease if not cleaned thoroughly after each time it is used. Over time, the layer builds up and acts as a barrier, reducing the flow of energy and making the surface less effective. In the same way, an unwanted, dry SEI layer prevents the effective transfer of energy needed inside a battery.

Progress thanks to Battery500

The progress on lithium-metal batteries has been substantial, thanks to the Battery500 Consortium. The goal is to increase the amount of energy packed into a long-duration, safe, affordable battery. More energy per pound of material translates to a lighter vehicle that can go farther on one charge. Today's electric vehicle batteries are in the neighborhood of 200-250 Wh/kg; Battery500 is aiming for a cell level of 500 Wh/kg.

"The Battery500 Consortium has made great progress in increasing the energy density and extending the cycle life," said Distinguished Professor M. Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University, the 2019 Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry and a coauthor of the paper. "But much more needs to be done. In particular, there are safety issues with lithium-metal batteries that must be addressed. That's something that the Battery500 team is working hard to resolve."

(San Antonio, June 29, 2021) - UTSA criminology and criminal justice professors Michael R. Smith and Rob Tillyer working in collaboration with University of Cincinnati Professor Robin Engel examined racial and ethnic disparities in the use of force by the Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD). One of the nation's largest county police departments, the FCPD serves Fairfax County, Va., a major metropolitan county near Washington, D.C.

The team presented the results of its 18-month study today to the Public Safety Committee of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. The team analyzed three years of data, including 1,360 cases of force used by FCPD officers against at least one civilian between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2018.

In addition to investigating the influence of civilian race, ethnicity and other factors on force used by FCPD officers, the team also was charged with providing recommendations for reducing potential bias in officer decision-making and improving future use of force data collection.

"Last year highlighted the racial and social disparities that are a fact of life for many in the U.S. The protests following the killing of George Floyd, public health disparities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and rising violent crime in many cities are examples of the larger social and economic challenges we face," said Smith. "As an urban serving university, UTSA is committed to research that can address the nation's pressing challenges."

Using benchmarks to compare the rate of force used against racial and ethnic subgroups to the expected risk of force across those groups, the researchers also used a series of multivariate regression models to assess factors associated with the totality and severity of force used used against civilians in Fairfax County.

The researchers benchmarked force used against the major racial and ethnic groups in Fairfax County to the racial and ethnic composition of criminal suspects and arrestees in the county. Key findings of the study included:

Average force levels were slightly higher for Blacks (2.4 on a 4.0 scale) than for other racial groups while resistance levels were essentially equal across the racial and ethnic groups.

The rates of force used against White and Black civilians consistently exceeded the benchmarks while Hispanic civilians were underrepresented in force cases compared to the benchmarks. The benchmarking findings for Asian civilians were mixed with some showing overrepresentation and some not.

Comparing rates of force used against minorities relative to Whites utilizing these same benchmarks showed that in all but one case, the rate of force used against minorities was lower than the rate used against Whites.

At the same time, Black, and to a lesser degree Hispanic civilians, experienced more severe force than Whites, and those findings varied by district station.

The researchers concluded that force was used county-wide more often than expected against White and Black civilians based on the benchmark comparisons and generally less often than expected against Hispanic civilians. They also found that Black civilians were more likely to have force used against them in arrest situations compared to Whites.

The researchers offered the FCPD many constructive suggestions on how to enhance its data collection practices, improve its use of force policies and provide evidence-based training to officers to help reduce future disparities in the use of force.

"The Fairfax County Police Department is one of the leading law enforcement agencies in the country. We hope our findings provide the agency and the residents of Fairfax County with a roadmap for improvement," said Smith.

HOUSTON - (June 29, 2021) - When you think about trade and market relationships, you might think about brokers yelling at each other on the floor of a stock exchange on Wall Street. But it seems one of the basic functions of a free market is quietly practiced by fungi.

New research from a Rice University economist suggests certain networks of fungi embrace an important economic theory as they engage in trading nutrients for carbon with their host plants. This finding could aid the understanding of carbon storage in soils, an important tool in mitigating climate change.

A research paper entitled "Walrasian equilibrium behavior in nature" is available online and will appear in an upcoming edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ted Loch-Temzelides, a professor of economics and the George and Cynthia Mitchell Chair in Sustainable Development at Rice, examined through an economic lens data from ecological experiments on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi networks, which connect to plants and facilitate the trading of nutrients for carbon.

Loch-Temzelides found that these relationships resemble how economists think about competitive - also known as Walrasian - markets. The paper demonstrates that Walrasian equilibrium, a leading concept in the economic theory of markets used to make predictions, can also be used to understand trade in this "biological market."

"Far from being self-sacrificing, organisms such as fungi can exhibit competitive behavior similar to that in markets involving sophisticated human participants," Loch-Temzelides said.

His finding also implies that resources are allocated to the maximum benefit of the market participants -- in this case, fungi and plants.

"Mycorrhizal fungi networks around the world are estimated to sequester around 5 billion tons of carbon per year," Loch-Temzelides said. "Manipulating the terms of trade so that carbon obtained from host plants becomes less expensive compared to nutrients could lead to additional carbon being stored in the soil, which could provide major benefits in fighting climate change."

Loch-Temzelides hopes future research by biologists and economists can make progress on better understanding these interactions.