ReportWire

Tag: PLOS

  • Increasing availability of non-alcoholic drinks may reduce amount of alcohol purchased online

    Increasing availability of non-alcoholic drinks may reduce amount of alcohol purchased online

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Increasing the proportion of non-alcoholic drinks on sale in online supermarkets could reduce the amount of alcohol people purchase, suggests a study published today led by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

    The team used a simulated supermarket that presented shoppers with varying proportions of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and asked them to select drinks to purchase for their next online shop. They found that shoppers who were exposed to more non-alcoholic drinks selected and purchased fewer units of alcohol. The findings are published in PLOS Medicine.

    Excessive alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for a number of diseases, including cancer, heart disease and stroke. Encouraging people to change their behaviour could therefore have significant health benefits at both an individual and population level.

    There is increasing evidence that people can be ‘nudged’ towards reducing their alcohol consumption by making small adjustments to their environment. For example, scientists at Cambridge’s Behaviour and Health Research Unit have previously shown that serving wine in smaller glasses – even while keeping the amount of wine in the glasses the same – led to people consuming less alcohol.

    A recent analysis found that reducing the proportion of unhealthy snacks available can reduce how much of these food products people consume, though the evidence included was limited in both quality and quantity. The Cambridge team wanted to see if a similar approach might work to nudge people towards consuming fewer alcoholic drinks.

    The researchers recruited 737 adults living in England and Wales, all of whom regularly purchased alcohol online, to take part in the study. Of these, just over 600 completed the study and were included in the final analysis – 60% were female and the average (mean) age was 38.

    Participants selected drinks from 64 options in a simulated online supermarket designed to look and function like a real online supermarket. Options included a range of beers, ciders, alcohol-free beer and cider alternatives, and soft drinks.

    Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups, each of which was presented with a different proportion of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. 25% of the drinks seen by Group 1 were non-alcoholic. For Group 2, this increased to 50%, and for Group 3 the proportion of non-alcoholic drinks seen rose to 75%.

    Those exposed to the highest proportion of non-alcoholic drinks (Group 3) selected fewer alcohol units, 17.5 units, compared to 29.4 units in those exposed to the lowest proportion of non-alcoholic drinks (Group 1) – equivalent to a reduction of about 41%.

    Participants were then asked to actually purchase the same drinks in an online supermarket, Tesco, the largest national supermarket in the UK. Around two-thirds of participants completed this second stage, with 422 participants going on to purchase drinks. The researchers point out that ‘cart abandonment’ – where people do not purchase items they put in their shopping cart – is common in online shopping contexts.

    The researchers found that amongst participants exposed to the highest proportion of non-alcoholic drinks, 52% of the drinks purchased were alcoholic, compared to 70% of drinks that were purchased by those exposed to the lowest proportion of non-alcoholic drinks.

    Lead author Dr Natasha Clarke said: “We created our simulated supermarket to be as close as possible to an actual online supermarket and found that increasing the proportion of non-alcoholic drinks that shoppers were exposed to made a meaningful difference to their alcohol selection. Though we’d need to confirm these findings using only a real online supermarket, they are very promising.”

    While the current market for alcohol-free beer, wine and spirits represents only a small share of the global alcohol industry, it is rapidly growing. For example, low and no-alcohol beer currently accounts for 3% of the total beer market, but this is forecast to increase by nearly 13% per year over the next 3 years and is the fastest growing drinks segment in the UK.

    Senior author Dr Gareth Hollands said: “Supermarkets typically stock a wider range of alcoholic drinks than non-alcoholic alternatives aimed at adults, but this is slowly changing. Our results suggest that if non-alcoholic options were to become the majority instead, we might expect to see substantial reductions in alcohol purchasing.”

    Importantly, the overall number of drinks that participants selected and purchased remained similar between groups, suggesting that effects were a result of shifting people’s choices. This implies overall drink sales and potentially revenues may be relatively unchanged, dependent on the pricing of non-alcoholic drinks.

    Professor Dame Theresa Marteau, Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit, said: “We all know that drinking too much alcohol is bad for us, but we’re often unaware of how much we are influenced by the environment around us. Making changes to this environment – from exposing people to a greater proportion of healthier options through to changing the sizes of the utensils we eat and drink from – can help us cut down on potentially unhealthy habits. Even relatively small changes can make a difference both to individuals and at a population level.”

    Although some of the non-alcoholic drink options in the current study contained no sugar and were generally lower in calories than the alcoholic options – an average of 64 calories per non-alcoholic drink versus 233 calories per alcoholic drink – many soft drinks and alcohol-free alternatives still contain large amounts of sugar and calories. The researchers argue that, given the health risks associated with sugary drink consumption, continued regulation and policies to reduce sugar content and consumption from both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks is needed to mitigate these risks.

    The research was funded by Wellcome and carried out at the Behaviour and Health Research Unit, University of Cambridge. Dr Clarke is now a Lecturer in Psychology at Bath Spa University. Dr Hollands is a Principal Research Fellow at UCL.

    Reference

    Clarke, N et al. Impact on alcohol selection and online purchasing of changing the proportion of available non-alcoholic versus alcoholic drinks: A randomised controlled trial. PLOS Med; 30 Mar 2023; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004193

    [ad_2]

    University of Cambridge

    Source link

  • Study explores how community engagement can help improve clinical trial diversity

    Study explores how community engagement can help improve clinical trial diversity

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — COLUMBUS, Ohio – Despite racial and ethnic minority groups making up nearly half of the United States population, underrepresentation in clinical trials remains a critical challenge. In an effort to improve clinical trial diversity, researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine partnered with The African American Male Wellness Agency, Genentech Inc. and Pfizer, Inc. to engage with almost 450 community members in 25 states and five countries to create solutions to barriers of access, awareness, discrimination and racism and workforce diversity.

    Study findings are published online in the journal PLOS One.

    “Equitable representation is key when testing novel therapeutic and non-therapeutic interventions to ensure safety and effectiveness across populations, especially since 20% of new drugs demonstrate differences in exposure and/or response across racial and ethnic groups,” said senior author Dr. Joshua Joseph, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism and an investigator in the Diabetes & Metabolism Research Center.

    “The lack of Black and Hispanic/Latinx populations in clinical research studies for endocrine conditions including diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease research is particularly troubling because these diseases are common with a high prevalence and mortality in racial and ethnic minority populations,” said co-author Timiya Nolan, assistant professor of nursing and principal investigator of Partners in Negating Statistics in Black Women (PINS).

    During the study in 2021, participants attended two webinars in a four-part series titled “Health Equity Through Diversity: From Communities to Clinics to Clinical Trials.” They discussed solutions for advancing health equity through diversifying clinical trials and addressing medical mistrust in communities.

    Each 90-minute webinar began with panelist discussions followed by breakout rooms where moderators led discussions related to health equity while scribes recorded the conversations. The diverse groups of panelists included community members, civic representatives, clinician-scientists, government organizations and biotechnology/biopharmaceutical professionals. Scribe notes from discussions were collected and thematically analyzed to uncover the central themes.

    “We found that based on these discussions, barriers to clinical trial participation were broadly grouped into the themes of access, awareness, discrimination and racism and workforce diversity. Participants noted that innovative, community-engaged, co-designed solutions are essential,” said first author Luiza Reopell, clinical study coordinator with the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism.

    Within each theme, barriers and solutions to clinical trial participation were identified:

    • Access: Barriers included opportunity cost, transportation, caregiver burden and work. Solutions included transportation vouchers and extending clinic hours.
    • Awareness: Barriers included contact with healthcare system, research literacy, language and health literacy. Solutions included using translators or research ambassadors and educating patients.
    • Racism: Barriers included interpersonal, structural and institutional racism. Solutions included investing in communities and offering training for providers.
    • Workforce Diversity: Barriers included lack of coordination and lack of clinical research coordinator diversity. Solutions included hiring racially and ethnically diverse staff and ensuring cultural competence.

    Study collaborators included researchers at Ohio State’s College of Nursing, College of Public Health; and Center for Clinical and Translational Science; the Center for Cancer Health Equity at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute; the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine; The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing; Franklin University; Hue-Man Partnership and the National Center for Urban Solutions.

    Funding for this study includes the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Genentech, Inc. and Pfizer, Inc. provided financial support for the webinar series. The Center for Primary Care Innovation and Transformation at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State College of Nursing provided logistical and technical support with producing the webinar series.

    # # #

    [ad_2]

    Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

    Source link

  • Could a naturally occurring amino acid lead us to a cure for COVID-19?

    Could a naturally occurring amino acid lead us to a cure for COVID-19?

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — After more than two years since its discovery, six million deaths, and half a billion reported cases, there is still no effective cure for COVID-19. Even though vaccines have lowered the impact of outbreaks, patients that contract the disease can only receive supportive care while they wait for their own body to clear the infection.

    A promising COVID-19 treatment strategy that has been gaining traction lately is targeting angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). This is a receptor found on the cell membrane that allows entry of the virus into the cell due to its high affinity for SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein. The idea is that reducing the levels of ACE2 on the membrane of cells could be a way to prevent the virus from entering them and replicating, thereby lowering its infectious capabilities.

    In a recent study published in PLOS ONE, a team of scientists including Associate Professor Shun-Ichiro Ogura from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, analyzed the potential of a natural amino acid called 5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA) to reduce the expression of ACE2. This research was performed in collaboration with SBI Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.

    As the researchers explain in their paper, ALA had been identified in 2021 as a compound that seemed to reduce the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. However, the underlying mechanisms that led to this phenomenon remained unknown, until now.

    The team hypothesized that the results of the 2021 study could be explained by an effect of ALA on the expression of ACE2. To test their hypothesis, they prepared human cell cultures, administered ACE2 on some of them, and compared the levels of ACE2 in treated cells versus control cells. As expected, the amount of available ACE2 in treated cells was significantly lower than in control cells.

    But the story doesn’t end there. Upon uptake, cells transform ALA into a molecule called protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) and subsequently into heme—a precursor of hemoglobin and other useful proteins. This hinted that the expression of ACE2 could be linked to the production of either of these compounds. Thus, the team checked the levels of PpIX and heme in cells treated with ALA. “We observed significant increases in the concentration of intracellular PpIX, suggesting that ALA was uptaken into the cell and converted into PpIX,” remarks Ogura, “However, only a slight increase in heme concentration was observed, which might be due to the lack of an iron source to convert PpIX into heme.”

    After introducing an iron source in the form of sodium ferrous citrate, the intracellular levels of heme increased significantly and the expression of ACE2 became even lower. These results suggest ACE2 expression is kept in check by heme production, the latter of which can be boosted by the co-administration of ALA and an iron source.

    Overall, this study sheds light on how ALA and the heme production pathway could form the basis of a cure for COVID-19. “We believe ALA could be developed into a potential anti-viral agent for SARS-CoV-2, which may play an important role in the eradication of the disease in a global scale in the near future,” concludes Dr. Ogura.

    Let us hope further studies can help us put an end to COVID-19 soon!

    [ad_2]

    Tokyo Institute of Technology

    Source link

  • A simpler way to track the spread of infectious diseases

    A simpler way to track the spread of infectious diseases

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — How society organizes affects different phenomena, from the transmission of information to the spread of contagious diseases. The more links we establish with each other via social and transportation networks, the more spread is favored. To study the dynamics of complex systems, such as society, we can infer these networks – in which nodes, representing individuals, connect through lines – from real-world data. However, these networks are usually large, dense, and cumbersome to manipulate.

    In previous work, Luís M. Rocha’s group at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) found a way to simplify networks by extracting their backbones. The principle behind this method is quite simple: it finds the shortest path to reach every other point in a network and deletes redundant alternatives. But how do we find these shorter paths? Rion B. Correia, a postdoc at the IGC, explains: “In the three-dimensional world we live in, we are used to thinking in terms of shortest paths, for instance, how to go from home to work through the shortest/fastest possible route. But in multi-dimensional systems (adding traffic, multiple modes of transportation, and road constructions), the shortest path is not necessarily the direct path between two points”. Even if there are infinite ways to get from A to B, with this method researchers can focus on the most important paths. Since then, the researchers have applied it to study a variety of networks, from gene interactions to essential communication pathways in the brain.

    Now, the team took this method to a whole new level by testing it on real human contacts. For this, they used previously recorded contacts between nearly 3000 individuals using wearable proximity sensors in a variety of social settings, including schools, a hospital and an art exhibit. Then, they transformed this contact data into social networks, where links represent the amount of time people spent together.

    The researchers concluded that the backbones of social contact networks were very small. “This means that a lot of connections in human communities are redundant”, Rion, first author of this study, explains. Surprisingly, this backbone still preserved the community structure, stemming from people’s tendency to cluster in groups. And it did it much better than other methods.

    Reduced to 6-20% of the original networks, the backbones make it much easier to understand how communities organize and study simple transmission dynamics. In this study, the researchers demonstrated that the backbone is a reliable tool to explain how processes such as viral infection spread in a population, as well as to identify the most relevant social contacts to stop contagion. But the implications of the backbone of social systems go much beyond epidemiology. “The recent pandemic demonstrated that our social lives and overall public health depends heavily on interactions that cross scales from the molecular network of minute pathogens to all our transportation, health, economy, ecology, and governance networks”, Luís highlights. “Our basic research on backbones adds another tool in the study of networks that link the tiniest virus to the most potent economy. It is only through the fundamental understanding of how these systems interact that we can solve these XXI century problems”, he concludes.

    This study was developed by the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) in collaboration with the State University of New York at Binghamton, Aix Marseille Univ, Université de Toulon, CNRS, CPT, Turing Center for Living Systems, France, and partially funded by National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine Program, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), a Fulbright Commission fellowship (LMR), and a CAPES Foundation fellowship.

    [ad_2]

    Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia

    Source link

  • Scientists discover receptor that blocks COVID-19 infection

    Scientists discover receptor that blocks COVID-19 infection

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — University of Sydney scientists have discovered a protein in the lung that blocks SARS-CoV-2 infection and forms a natural protective barrier in the human body.

    This protein, the leucine-rich repeat-containing protein 15 (LRRC15), is an inbuilt receptor that binds the SARS-CoV-2 virus without passing on the infection.

    The research opens up an entirely new area of immunology research around LRRC15 and offers a promising pathway to develop new drugs to prevent viral infection from coronaviruses like COVID-19 or deal with fibrosis in the lungs.

    The study has been published in the journal PLOS Biology. It was led by Professor Greg Neely with his team members Dr Lipin Loo, a postdoctoral researcher, and PhD student Matthew Waller at the Charles Perkins Centre and the School of Life and Environmental Sciences.

    The University study is one of three independent papers that reveal this specific protein’s interaction with COVID-19.

    “Alongside two other groups, one at Oxford, the other at Brown and Yale in the USA, we found a new receptor in the LRRC15 protein that can stop SARS-CoV-2. We found that this new receptor acts by binding to the virus and sequestering it which reduces infection,” Professor Neely said. 

    “For me, as an immunologist, the fact that there’s this natural immune receptor that we didn’t know about, that’s lining our lungs and blocks and controls virus, that’s crazy interesting.

    “We can now use this new receptor to design broad acting drugs that can block viral infection or even suppress lung fibrosis.”

    What is LRRC15?

    The COVID-19 virus infects humans by using a spike protein to attach to a specific receptor in our cells. It primarily uses a protein called the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor to enter human cells. Lung cells have high levels of ACE2 receptors, which is why the COVID-19 virus often causes severe problems in this organ of infected people.

    Like ACE2, LRRC15 is a receptor for coronavirus, meaning the virus can bind to it. But unlike ACE2, LRRC15 does not support infection. It can, however, stick to the virus and immobilise it. In the process, it prevents other vulnerable cells from becoming infected.

    “We think it acts a bit like Velcro, molecular Velcro, in that it sticks to the spike of the virus and then pulls it away from the target cell types,” Dr Loo said.

    “Basically, the virus is coated in the other part of the Velcro, and while it’s trying to get to the main receptor, it can get caught up in this mesh of LRRC15,” Mr Waller said. 

    LRRC15 is present in many locations such as lungs, skin, tongue, fibroblasts, placenta and lymph nodes. But the researchers found human lungs light up with LRRC15 after infection.   

    “When we stain the lungs of healthy tissue, we don’t see much of LRRC15, but then in COVID-19 lungs, we see much more of the protein,” Dr Loo said.

    “We think this newly identified protein could be part of our body’s natural response to combating the infection creating a barrier that physically separates the virus from our lung cells most sensitive to COVID-19.”

    Implications of the research

    “When we studied how this new receptor works, we found that this receptor also controls antiviral responses, as well as fibrosis, and could link COVID-19 infection with lung fibrosis that occurs during long COVID,” Mr Waller said.

    “Since this receptor can block COVID-19 infection, and at the same time activate our body’s anti-virus response, and suppress our body’s fibrosis response, this is a really important new gene,” Professor Neely said.

    “This finding can help us develop new antiviral and antifibrotic medicines to help treat pathogenic coronaviruses, and possibly other viruses or other situations where lung fibrosis occurs.

    “For fibrosis, there are no good drugs: for example, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is currently untreatable.”

    Fibrosis is a condition in which lung tissue becomes scarred and thickened, causing breathing difficulties. COVID-19 can cause inflammation and damage to the lungs, leading to fibrosis.

    The authors said they are developing two strategies against COVID-19 using LRRC15 that could work across multiple variants – one which targets the nose as a preventative treatment, and another aimed at the lungs for serious cases.

    The researchers also said that the presence or lack of LRRC15, which is involved in lung repair, is an important indication of how severe a COVID-19 infection might become.

    “A group at Imperial College London independently found that absence of LRRC15 in the blood is associated with more severe COVID, which supports what we think is happening.” Dr Loo said. “If you have less of this protein, you likely have serious COVID. If you have more of it, your COVID is less severe.

    “We are now trying to understand exactly why this is the case.”

    The research involved screening human cell cultures for genes and investigating the lungs of human COVID-19 patients.

    [ad_2]

    University of Sydney

    Source link

  • Β-blocker use associated with lower rates of violence

    Β-blocker use associated with lower rates of violence

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Reductions in violence are seen in individuals using Beta adrenergic-blocking agents (β-blockers) compared with periods that they are not taking the medication, in a study published January 31st in the open access journal PLOS Medicine. If the findings are confirmed by other studies, β-blockers could be considered as a way to manage aggression and hostility in individuals with psychiatric conditions.

    β-blockers are used to treat hypertension, angina and acute cardiovascular events, heart failure and arrhythmias as well as, migraine, symptoms of hyperthyroidism and glaucoma. They are often used for anxiety and have been suggested for clinical depression and aggression, but evidence is conflicting. They have been linked to an increased risk of suicidal behavior though evidence is inconclusive.

    Seena Fazel of the University of Oxford, UK, and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden investigated psychiatric and behavioral outcomes: hospitalizations for psychiatric disorders; suicidal behavior and deaths from suicide; and charges of violent crime. They compared 1.4 million β-blocker users in Sweden to themselves during medicated and non-medicated periods over an eight-year period from 2006-2013.

    Periods on β-blocker treatment were associated with a 13% lower risk of being charged with a violent crime by the police, which remained consistent across the analyses. Additionally, an 8% lower risk of hospitalization due to a psychiatric disorder was reported as well as an 8% increased association of being treated for suicidal behavior. However, these associations varied depending on psychiatric diagnosis, past psychiatric problems, as well as the severity and type of the cardiac condition the β-blockers were being used to treat.

    Previous research has linked severe cardiac events to an increased risk of depression and suicide, and these results might suggest that the psychological distress and other disabilities associated with serious cardiac problems, rather than the β-blocker treatment, increases the risk of serious psychiatric events. In secondary analyses, associations with hospitalization were lower for major depressive but not for anxiety disorders.

    In order to understand the role of β-blockers in the management of aggression and violence, further studies including randomized controlled trials are needed. If these confirm the results of this study, β-blockers could be considered to manage aggression and violence in some individuals.

    Fazel adds, “In a real-world study of 1.4 million persons, β-blockers were associated with reduced violent criminal charges in individuals with psychiatric disorders. Repurposing their use to manage aggression and violence could improve patient outcomes.”

    #####

    In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Medicine:

    http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004164

    Press-only preview: https://plos.io/3XFCyJF

    Citation: Molero Y, Kaddoura S, Kuja-Halkola R, Larsson H, Lichtenstein P, D’Onofrio BM, et al. (2023) Associations between β-blockers and psychiatric and behavioural outcomes: A population-based cohort study of 1.4 million individuals in Sweden. PLoS Med 20(1): e1004164. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004164

    Author Countries: Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America

    Funding: This study was supported by the Wellcome Trust (No 202836/Z/16/Z): https://wellcome.org/grant-funding (SF), the Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare (2015-0028): https://forte.se/en/ (PL and HL), the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (DIG-1-037-19): https://afsp.org/research-grant-information (BMD), and Karolinska Institutet Funds (2016fobi50581): https://staff.ki.se/ki-foundations-funds-list-of-grants (YM). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

    Competing interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: HL reports receiving grants from Shire Pharmaceuticals; personal fees from and serving as a speaker for Medice, Shire/Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Evolan Pharma AB; and sponsorship for a conference on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder from Shire/Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Evolan Pharma AB, all outside the submitted work. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

    [ad_2]

    PLOS

    Source link

  • Study uncovers widespread unethical practice for assigning authorships

    Study uncovers widespread unethical practice for assigning authorships

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — A recently published survey study of PhD students reveals that an ethically questionable culture for assigning authorships to research papers is widespread within the medical and natural sciences across Europe.

    Under the hashtag #pleasedontstealmywork, dozens of Danish PhD students shared their experiences last spring concerning powerful researchers who use their position to gain co-authorships on papers to which they have not made a significant contribution.

    Under the hashtag #pleasedontstealmywork, dozens of Danish PhD students shared their experiences last spring concerning powerful researchers who use their position to gain co-authorships on papers to which they have not made a significant contribution.

    A new international study led by researchers from the Department of Food and Resource Economics (IFRO) and the Department of Science Education (IND) at the University of Copenhagen now shows that these stories were only the tip of the iceberg.

    ”There are major differences across faculties, but our study shows that around a third of all PhD students working in five different European countries have granted a co-authorship to a more powerful researcher, even though the person had not made a significant contribution to the study” says Mads Paludan Goddiksen, postdoc at IFRO, and first author of the study.

    The Danish minister of higher education and research, Christine Egelund (M), tells Videnskab.dk that she finds the results worrying, and that the ministry will initiate further investigations.

    The study, published in PloS One, was conducted by an international team of researchers led from the University of Copenhagen. In the survey, 1336 PhD students from a wide range of research fields in five European countries were asked if they had granted at least one co-authorship to a person in power even though the person had not made a significant contribution to the study. 34% said yes.

    “Guest authorships like these make it difficult to see who has actually contributed to the study and skews the competition among researchers for positions and funding,” says Mads Goddiksen.

    Guest authorships are a means to maintain good relations

    The problem with guest authorships is biggest within the medical sciences, where 49% of the Ph.D. students had granted a guest authorship to a person in power. In the natural and technical sciences (STEM) it was 42%. In the other faculties, it was much less.

    Goddiksen and colleagues also asked the PhD students who had granted a guest authorship to a person in power, why they had done it. To this, 49% responded that at least a partial reason was that they had been told to do so by the person in power – 14% gave this as the only reason.

    ”In addition, it seems that some PhD students accept that more powerful researchers become guest authors on their papers to avoid conflicts,” says Mads Goddiksen. “We see that half of those who have granted guest authorship to a person in power indicate that they did it, at least partly, to maintain a good relationship to the person in power”. 

    The results are backed by another recent study  where 287 recently graduated PhD candidates from medical faculties in Scandinavia were asked if they had granted a guest authorship. Around a third said yes.

    Both studies give only the perspective of the PhD students, while the perspective of supervisors and other powerful researchers has not been included, Mads Goddiksen emphasises. Nor do the studies take into account that researchers from the natural and medical sciences generally publish a lot more papers than researchers from the humanities and social sciences, which could which could increase the likelihood of being asked to grant a guest authorship.

    A change in culture is required

    One of the researchers behind the study, Peter Sandøe, who is Head of Section at IFRO, as well as professor at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and vice chair of the University’s practice committee, says that the results show an ethically questionable culture that goes against good scientific practice.

    ”It is the result of a problematic culture of authorship attribution that is deeply engrained. This may also mean that the problem is hard to get rid of. When I have raised this with influential researchers, the responses are either that the PhD students don’t know how much the senior researchers are contributing, or that our courses in responsible conduct of research for PhD students, postdocs and supervisors will solve the problem over time. Some even argue that it will affect their ability to compete with peers if they grant fewer guest authorships than is done at other universities,” says Peter Sandøe.

    Peter Sandøe therefore believes that a culture change is required. One way of doing this is by changing the how researchers are assessed. He has, for instance, been involved in assessing applications to the Swedish foundation Riksbankens Jubilæumsfond. This foundation has introduced the rule that applicants are not allowed to give their H-index, full publication lists or other quantitative measures of their research in the application. They may only provide their project application, and their five most relevant publications. Peter Sandøe hopes that such incentives to focus on quality rather than quantity will become more widespread,

    ”In this way, we focus on assessing researchers on their best publications, not the number of publications. This can hopefully create a culture without the incentives that push researchers into always needing more citations and publications. As it is now, these incentives create imbalances and undesirable side effects in the system. Researchers who have many guest authorships will appear to have produced more than they really have. This also means that in the current system, people who behave in an ethically problematic way get a head start in the competition. This needs to change,” says Peter Sandøe.

    [ad_2]

    University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Science

    Source link

  • COVID is changing how we are exposed to household health risks

    COVID is changing how we are exposed to household health risks

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — COVID-19 is changing household behaviors related to how we are exposed to various household chemicals linked to poor health outcomes. People surveyed earlier in the pandemic were using less personal care products but more household cleaners, eating less fast food and restaurant food but more ultra-processed food. These changes which occurred since the pandemic onset are also linked to pandemic-related traumatic stress, which itself may worsen health outcomes.

    Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health along with partners from Dartmouth College, as part of the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) consortium, analyzed responses to a survey from 1,535 adults in six states. Results are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

    Personal care products. Overall, participants reported using fewer personal care products, including hair products (perms or relaxers, hair dye, hair sprays, hair gels) and makeup/body products (nail polish, make-up, perfume, lotion) since the start of the pandemic. Participants who experienced more pandemic-related traumatic stress were more likely to report using fewer hair products and cosmetics. Approximately half of all respondents reported using more liquid soaps (52%) and antibacterial soaps (48%) and 81 percent of respondents reported using more hand sanitizer gels. The use of all three products was associated with pandemic-related traumatic stress symptoms.

    Household cleansers. Two-thirds of respondents reported using more antibacterial cleaners and 54 percent reported using more bleach-containing cleaning products—changes made more likely among those experiencing more pandemic-related traumatic stress.

    Food-related behaviors. Nearly half (49%) of respondents said they eat more home-cooked meals because of the pandemic. One-third (34%) of respondents reported eating less fast food since the start of the pandemic. Both of these behavior changes were more common among those with more symptoms of pandemic-related traumatic stress. In all, 12 percent reported eating more ultra-processed foods, and 24 percent reported eating less processed foods, with the latter more likely among those with symptoms of pandemic-related traumatic stress.

    The Upshot

    While the study did not include measurements of environmental exposures, the researchers say that the scientific literature suggests that these behavior changes likely reflect changes in their exposures to environmental chemicals. They also likely reflect changes—both good and bad—to health outcomes linked to these chemicals.

    “We can infer that some behaviors like less consumption of fast foods and less use of personal care products might lower exposures to some phthalates and phenols, while greater use of personal and household cleansers may be associated with higher exposure to quaternary ammonium compounds and glycol ethers; and more frequent consumption of ultra-processed food could increase exposure to phthalates and phenols,” says lead author Julie Herbstman, PhD, director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) and professor of environmental health sciences.

    Phthalates are linked asthma, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, breast cancer, obesity and type II diabetes and neurodevelopmental and behavioral issues. Phenols like BPA are linked to reproductive dysfunction, reduced birth size, cognitive and/or behavior outcomes, asthma, and obesity. Quaternary ammonium compounds are skin irritants and can also lead to asthma exacerbations. Exposure to glycol ethers may also irritate skin, eyes, nose, and throat and may also lead to anemia and/or adverse reproductive outcomes like birth defects.  

    A Roadmap to Interventions

    The study identifies several factors that make some of these behavior changes more likely, including symptoms of pandemic-related traumatic stress and living in a household where someone tested positive for COVID-19, as well as race/ethnicity. Going forward, the researchers plan to repeat their analysis, adding a biological measure of chemical exposures to assess whether the trends in pandemic-related behavior change reported here do, in fact, result in shifts in exposures measured through biomarkers of internal dose. They also say it is important to continue to monitor pandemic-related behavior change as pandemic severity waxes and wanes.

    The researchers say their study could lead to an intervention to reduce exposure to harmful environmental chemicals.

    “Interventions and campaigns targeting the reduction of environmental exposures, pandemic-related traumatic stress, as well as those that facilitate behavior change can help improve health outcomes that are indirectly related to the pandemic,” says Herbstman.

    The study’s senior authors are Frederica Perera, director of the translational research program at CCCEH and professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and Margaret R. Karagas, professor and chair of epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. A full list of co-authors is available in the journal article.

    Funding for the research was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Heath (U2COD023375, U24OD023382, U24OD023382, U24OD023319, UH3OD023290, UH3OD023275, UH3OD023272, UH3OD023271, UH3OD023313).

    The authors declare no conflicts.

    [ad_2]

    Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health

    Source link

  • Combining multiple maps reveal new genetic risk factors for blindness

    Combining multiple maps reveal new genetic risk factors for blindness

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Combining a map of gene regulatory sites with disease-associated loci has uncovered a new genetic risk factor of adult-onset macular degeneration (AMD), according to a new study publishing January 17th in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Ran Elkon and Ruth Ashery-Padan of Tel Aviv University, Israel, and colleagues. The finding advances the understanding of the leading cause of visual impairment in adults.

    AMD is caused by dysfunction in the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE), a layer of tissue sandwiched between the photoreceptors that receive light, and the choriocapillaris, which nourishes the retina. Because of the central importance of the RPE in AMD, the authors began by exploring a transcription factor (a protein that regulates specific genes) called LHX2 which, based on the team’s analysis of mouse mutants, is central to RPE development. Knocking down LHX2 activity in RPE derived from human stem cells, they found that most affected genes were down-regulated, indicating that LHX2’s role was likely that of a transcriptional activator, binding to regulatory sites on the genome to increase activity of other genes.

    The authors found that one affected gene, called OTX2, collaborated with LHX2 to regulate many genes in the RPE. By mapping the genomic sites that OTX2 and LHX2 could bind to, they showed that 68% of those that bound LHX2 were also bound by OTX2 (864 sites in all), suggesting they likely work together to promote the activity of a large suite of genes involved in RPE development and function.

    A common method for finding genes that may contribute to a disease is to perform a genome-wide association study (GWAS), which identifies genome sequence differences between individuals (termed single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) that co-occur with disease. Numerous such studies have previously been done in AMD. However, a GWAS by itself cannot uncover a causal mechanism. Here, the authors compared their LHX2/OTX2 binding data to GWAS data in order to home in on variations that affected binding of the transcription factors, and thus may contribute to disease.

    One such binding site was located within the promoter region of a gene called TRPM1, which had been previously linked to AMD, and found that the sequence variant at that site altered the binding strength of LHX2; the so-called C version bound it more strongly than the T version, and activity of the TRPM1 gene was higher when the C allele was present instead of the T allele.

    The results of the study indicate that the previously known increased risk of AMD from the variant identified in the GWAS was due to reduction in binding of the LHX2 transcription factor to the TRPM1 gene promoter, with a consequent reduction in activity of this gene. The gene encodes a membrane ion channel, and previous studies have shown that mutations in the gene also cause visual impairment.

    “Our study exemplifies how delineation of tissue-specific transcriptional regulators, their binding sites across the genome, and their downstream gene-regulatory networks can provide insights into a complex disease’s pathology,” the authors said.

    Ashery-Padan adds, “The findings reveal a regulatory module consisting of LHX2 and OTX2 that controls the development and maintenance of the retinal pigmented epithelium, an important tissue of visual function. The genomic analyses further link the genomic regions bound by the two developmental factors to the genetics of the common, multifactorial blinding disease age-related macular degeneration (AMD).”

    #####

    In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001924

    Press-only preview: https://plos.io/3GK3PF3

     

    Citation: Cohen-Gulkar M, David A, Messika-Gold N, Eshel M, Ovadia S, Zuk-Bar N, et al. (2023) The LHX2-OTX2 transcriptional regulatory module controls retinal pigmented epithelium differentiation and underlies genetic risk for age-related macular degeneration. PLoS Biol 21(1): e3001924. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001924

    Author Countries: Israel

    Funding: see manuscript

    Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

    [ad_2]

    PLOS

    Source link

  • Beyond the average cell

    Beyond the average cell

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Nobody wants to be average.

    But for a long time, scientists have found it convenient to think of bacterial cells as just that: “average.”

    Researchers have traditionally relied on population-level strategies to understand fundamental aspects of bacterial physiology. These population-level approaches describe the behavior of idealized average cells, and they serve as the foundation for prevailing models of bacterial growth.

    Models based on an average cell are useful, but they may not accurately describe how individual cells really work. New possibilities opened up with the advent of single-cell live imaging technologies. Now it is possible to peer into the lives of individual cells. In a new paper in PLOS Genetics, a team of biologists and physicists from Washington University in St. Louis and Purdue University used actual single-cell data to create an updated framework for understanding the relationship between cell growth, DNA replication and division in a bacterial system.

    Petra Levin, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, an author of the new paper, has a keen interest in single-cell biology. In her research work, Levin has made seminal contributions to our understanding of bacterial cell growth.

    A chance encounter at the Aspen Center for Physics led to a collaboration with Srividya Iyer-Biswas, a physicist at Purdue University with expertise in both first-principles-based physics theory and high-precision single cell experiments.

    Taking advantage of the Zoom era brought on by the early days of the pandemic, Levin and Iyer-Biswas developed their virtual collaboration to revisit some of the “beautiful, classic models of the bacterial cell cycle,” as Levin describes them.

    They found exciting bits were missing.

    What was the problem? The models counted on the behavior of an “average” cell within a population. But using the average to infer what an actual cell does can be misleading.

    “Imagine each bacterium as singing its own whimsical tune, following its own rhythm,” Iyer-Biswas said. “The collective — a population of millions of cells — has its own music, where no single voice especially stands out, but a song nonetheless emerges. From hearing just the collective rendition, how could one possibly uncover what precisely an individual’s song might be? That is the problem we were faced with.”

    “What is true for the average cell is not necessarily true for the individual cell. Bacteria are just like us in this regard!” Levin added.

    For this new paper, Levin and Iyer-Biswas worked together with Sara Sanders, a postdoctoral scientist in the Levin lab who recently moved to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Kunaal Joshi, a PhD student in the Iyer-Biswas lab, to tackle one basic question.

    They wanted to figure out how these “whimsical” individual bacterial cells — or, as a more typical physicist might say, these stochastic cells — manage to exquisitely coordinate DNA replication with growth and division, so that overall events happen in the right sequence despite the “noisiness” of each process.

    To answer the question, the authors carefully looked at single-cell growth data from the model organism Escherichia coli collected by the Jun laboratory at the University of California, San Diego. They then constructed a minimal mathematical model that captured complex, stochastic behaviors of individual cells and accurately matched individual cell data.

    Based on average cell behavior, others had come to view the basic cell cycle steps of DNA replication and cell division as dependent on each other. But that wasn’t how Levin and Sanders saw it.

    “Decades of genetic and molecular studies indicate that although DNA replication and division are clearly coordinated, they are not dependent on one another,” Levin said. “As long as there are mechanisms to prevent division across uncopied chromosomes, or fix the situation in the unlikely event that does happen, everything is fine. E. coli does not have cell cycle checkpoints like eukaryotic cells do.”

    Meanwhile, Iyer-Biswas and Joshi realized that there was a simple way to understand the individual cell data. Each cell has three independent (stochastic) timers (equivalent to the whimsical tune from above) that start ticking each time DNA replication begins, and whose orchestration determines the sequence of cell cycle events.

    Starting from this simple idea, Joshi discovered he could predict the sequence of DNA replication initiation, the end of DNA replication and division based on when the three timers independently go off and reset. His predictions matched exquisitely with the extant data on individual cell DNA replication and cell division in many different growth conditions.

    By describing a stochastic, not deterministic, relationship between DNA replication and cell division, the authors have shifted how scientists understand a basic process in cell biology.

    “Our ultimate goal is to build a community around high-precision approaches in biology that seamlessly integrate theory and experiment,” Iyer-Biswas said. “A more immediate goal is to transcend system-specific details and provide a unifying framework also applicable to other bacterial species.”

    [ad_2]

    Washington University in St. Louis

    Source link

  • New approach to epidemic modeling could speed up pandemic simulations

    New approach to epidemic modeling could speed up pandemic simulations

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Simulations that help determine how a large-scale pandemic will spread can take weeks or even months to run. A recent study in PLOS Computational Biology offers a new approach to epidemic modeling that could drastically speed up the process. 

    The study uses sparsification, a method from graph theory and computer science, to identify which links in a network are the most important for the spread of disease.

    By focusing on critical links, the authors found they could reduce the computation time for simulating the spread of diseases through highly complex social networks by 90% or more. 

    “Epidemic simulations require substantial computational resources and time to run, which means your results might be outdated by the time you are ready to publish,” says lead author Alexander Mercier, a former Undergraduate Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and now a Ph.D. student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our research could ultimately enable us to use more complex models and larger data sets while still acting on a reasonable timescale when simulating the spread of pandemics such as COVID-19.”

    For the study, Mercier, with SFI researchers Samuel Scarpino and Cristopher Moore, used data from the U.S. Census Bureau to develop a mobility network describing how people across the country commute. 

    Then, they applied several different sparsification methods to see if they could reduce the network’s density while retaining the overall dynamics of a disease spreading across the network. 

    The most successful sparsification technique they found was effective resistance. This technique comes from computer science and is based on the total resistance between two endpoints in an electrical circuit. In the new study, effective resistance works by prioritizing the edges, or links, between nodes in the mobility network that are the most likely avenues of disease transmission while ignoring links that can be easily bypassed by alternate paths.

    “It’s common in the life sciences to naively ignore low-weight links in a network, assuming that they have a small probability of spreading a disease,” says Scarpino. “But as in the catchphrase ‘the strength of weak ties,’ even a low-weight link can be structurally important in an epidemic — for instance, if it connects two distant regions or distinct communities.”

    Using their effective resistance sparsification approach, the researchers created a network containing 25 million fewer edges — or about 7% of the original U.S. commuting network — while preserving overall epidemic dynamics.

    “Computer scientists Daniel Spielman and Nikhil Srivastava had shown that sparsification can simplify linear problems, but discovering that it works even for nonlinear, stochastic problems like an epidemic was a real surprise,” says Moore.

    While still in an early stage of development, the research not only helps reduce the computational cost of simulating large-scale pandemics but also preserves important details about disease spread, such as the probability of a specific census tract getting infected and when the epidemic is likely to arrive there.

    [ad_2]

    Santa Fe Institute

    Source link

  • Current Antarctic conservation efforts are insufficient to avoid biodiversity declines

    Current Antarctic conservation efforts are insufficient to avoid biodiversity declines

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Existing conservation efforts are insufficient to protect Antarctic ecosystems, and population declines are likely for 65% of the continent’s plants and wildlife by the year 2100, according to a study by Jasmine Rachael Lee at the University of Queensland, Australia, and colleagues, publishing December 22nd in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Implementing ten key threat management strategies — at an annual cost of 23 million US dollars — would benefit up to 84% of terrestrial bird, mammal, and plant groups.

    To better understand which species are most vulnerable and identify the most cost-effective actions, researchers combined expert assessments with scientific data to evaluate threats and conservation strategies for Antarctica. They asked 29 experts to define possible management strategies, estimate their cost and feasibility, and assess the potential benefit to different species between now and 2100.

    Climate change was identified as the most serious threat to Antarctic biodiversity and influencing global policy to limit warming was the most beneficial conservation strategy. Under current management strategies and more than 2 degrees Celsius of warming, 65% of land plants and animals will decline by 2100. Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) were identified as the most vulnerable, followed by other sea birds and soil nematode worms. However, regional management strategies could benefit up to 74% of plants and animals at an estimated cost of 1.92 billion US dollars over the next 83 years, equating to 0.004% of global GDP in 2019. The regional management strategies identified as offering the greatest return on investment were minimizing the impacts of human activities, improving the planning and management of new infrastructure projects, and improving transport management.

    As Antarctica faces increasing pressure from climate change and human activities, a combination of regional and global conservation efforts is needed to preserve Antarctic biodiversity and ecosystem services for future generations, the authors say.

    Lee adds, “What this work shows is that climate change is the greatest threat to Antarctic species and what we need is global mitigation efforts to save them. This will not only help to secure their future, but also our own.”

    #####

    In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001921  

    Press-only preview: https://plos.io/3FdShYY

    Citation: Lee JR, Terauds A, Carwardine J, Shaw JD, Fuller RA, Possingham HP, et al. (2022) Threat management priorities for conserving Antarctic biodiversity. PLoS Biol 20(12): e3001921. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001921

    Author Countries: Australia, United Kingdom, United States, South Africa, New Zealand, France, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium

    Funding: see manuscript

    Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

    [ad_2]

    PLOS

    Source link

  • Social media engagement style may be linked with perceived social connectedness – new research

    Social media engagement style may be linked with perceived social connectedness – new research

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Researchers at Aston University have developed a new experimental task, involving a mock social networking site, which grouped people into three distinct styles of social media use—passive, reactive and interactive.

    Led by Dr Daniel Shaw and Dr Charlotte Pennington in the School of Psychology, at Aston University, the new findings also suggest that interactive users reported greater feelings of social connectedness than passive or reactive users.

    Despite the wealth of research into the psychological impact of social networking site (SNS) usage, inconsistent findings have prevented any firm conclusions from being drawn. While some studies have concluded that social media usage was associated with increased social connectedness and reduced loneliness,othersreporteddetriments to loneliness and well being with greater use of such platforms.

    In their new work, published in the journal PLOS ONE, the researchers administered the SocialNetworkingSiteBehaviorTask (SNSBT) online to 526 individuals, who also completed questionnaires on their levels of loneliness, sense of belonging, social connectedness, online social capital and answered questions about their Facebook usage and friendship network.

    The SNSBT grouped users into three discrete groups depending on how often they clicked “Next,” “Like,” or “Share” on 90 images presented to them on the mock SNS. On average, passive users, about 39% of those in the study, clicked “Next” most often(on 85% of images). Reactive users, 35.4% of the study, most often clicked either “Next”(59% of the time)or “Like”(36% of the time). Interactive users, 25.7% of participants, mostly clicked “Like”(51% of the time)or “Share”(20% of the time).

    Analysis of the data revealed that interactive users had, on average, more Facebook friends, spent more time on Facebook, and reported greater feelings of social connectedness and social capital than passive or reactive SNS users. However, this study could not determine if any causal or directional link between these factors exists. The researchers are planning to carry out further work in this area.

    The authors concluded that the simple SNSBT tool they developed, now publicly available, could help researchers quantitatively differentiate betweendifferentSNS usage styles and overcome the limitations of self-report data, enhancing future research in the field of cyberpsychology.

    Dr Daniel Shawsaid: “This study introduces a new tool with which researchers can measure different styles of engagement on social networking platforms and indicates that our style of engagement can be more important for our psychological well being than the amount of time we spend on social media.”

    Dr Charlotte Pennington added: “Individuals displaying more interactive styles of usage on our platform reported stronger feelings of social connectedness and social capital compared with those who showed more reactive or passive behaviour. Our team has developed the first mock social networking site that can be used to measure natural styles of usage, free from the ethical concerns that arise when people log into their own phones.”

    [ad_2]

    Aston University

    Source link

  • Witchcraft beliefs are widespread, highly variable around the world

    Witchcraft beliefs are widespread, highly variable around the world

    [ad_1]

     

    Newswise — A newly compiled dataset quantitatively captures witchcraft beliefs in countries around the world, enabling investigation of key factors associated with such beliefs. Boris Gershman of American University in Washington, D.C., presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 23, 2022.

    Numerous prior studies conducted around the world have documented people’s beliefs in witchcraft—the idea that certain individuals have supernatural abilities to inflict harm. Understanding people’s witchcraft beliefs can be important for policymaking and other community engagement efforts. However, due to a lack of data, global-scale statistical analyses of witchcraft beliefs have been lacking.

     To deepen understanding of witchcraft beliefs, Gershman compiled a new dataset that captures such beliefs among more than 140,000 people from 95 countries and territories. The data come from face-to-face and telephone surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and professional survey organizations between 2008 and 2017, which included questions about religious beliefs and belief in witchcraft. 

    According to the dataset, over 40 percent of survey participants said they believe that “certain people can cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen to someone.” Witchcraft beliefs appear to exist around the world but vary substantially between countries and within world regions. For instance, 9 percent of participants in Sweden reported belief in witchcraft, compared to 90 percent in Tunisia.

    Using this dataset, Gershman then conducted an investigation of various individual-level factors associated with witchcraft beliefs. This analysis suggests that, while beliefs cut across socio-demographic groups, people with higher levels of education and economic security are less likely to believe in witchcraft.

    Gershman also combined this dataset with other country-level data, finding that witchcraft beliefs differ between countries according to various cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic factors. For instance, witchcraft beliefs are linked to weak institutions, low levels of social trust, and low innovation, as well as conformist culture and higher levels of in-group bias—the tendency for people to favor others who are similar to them”

    These findings, as well as future research using the new dataset, could be applied to help optimize policies and development projects by accounting for local witchcraft beliefs. 

    The author adds: “The study documents that witchcraft beliefs are still widespread around the world. Moreover, their prevalence is systematically related to a number of cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic characteristics.”

    #####

    Press-only preview: https://plos.io/3UYlmOl

    In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276872

    Image Caption: A map showing country-level prevalence of witchcraft beliefs around the world

    Image Credit: Boris Gershman, 2022, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

    Image Link: https://plos.io/3UziaJ5 

    Citation: Gershman B (2022) Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis. PLoS ONE 17(11): e0276872. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276872

    Author Countries: USA

    Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. 

    Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

    [ad_2]

    PLOS

    Source link

  • Science in motion: A qualitative analysis of journalists’ use and perception of preprints

    Science in motion: A qualitative analysis of journalists’ use and perception of preprints

    [ad_1]

    Abstract

    This qualitative study explores how and why journalists use preprints—unreviewed research papers—in their reporting. Through thematic analysis of interviews conducted with 19 health and science journalists in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it applies a theoretical framework that conceptualizes COVID-19 preprint research as a form of post-normal science, characterized by high scientific uncertainty and societal relevance, urgent need for political decision-making, and value-related policy considerations. Findings suggest that journalists approach the decision to cover preprints as a careful calculation, in which the potential public benefits and the ease of access preprints provided were weighed against risks of spreading misinformation. Journalists described viewing unreviewed studies with extra skepticism and relied on diverse strategies to find, vet, and report on them. Some of these strategies represent standard science journalism, while others, such as labeling unreviewed studies as preprints, mark a departure from the norm. However, journalists also reported barriers to covering preprints, as many felt they lacked the expertise or the time required to fully understand or vet the research. The findings suggest that coverage of preprints is likely to continue post-pandemic, with important implications for scientists, journalists, and the publics who read their work.

    [ad_2]

    Simon Fraser University

    Source link

  • What Darwin would discover today

    What Darwin would discover today

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — “If Charles Darwin had had the opportunity to dive off the Cape Verde Islands, he would have been completely thrilled”, Eduardo Sampaio is convinced, because Darwin would have seen a fascinating, species-rich landscape. But he lacked the diving equipment. Thus, in his notes The Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin described Cape Verde as a barren landscape.

    Eduardo Sampaio, affiliate member of the Cluster of Excellence “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” (CASCB) at the University of Konstanz, had quite the opposite experience. He was invited on board the ship Captain Darwin by filmmaker Victor Rault to continue his octopus research.

    Victor Rault, 30, set sail from Plymouth on the Captain Darwin in 2021, following in the footsteps of Darwin’s HMS Beagle. He wants to explore how the ecosystem has changed since Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle in 1832. Researchers and citizens have been invited to travel along and conduct experiments in the spirit of Darwin. “When Victor told me about his project, I was baffled”, recalls biologist Eduardo Sampaio from Portugal. He says: “It was immediately clear to me that it’s an excellent idea to retrace the path of Charles Darwin. I was more than keen to jump on board!”

    What do octopuses see in a mirror image?
    Eduardo Sampaio spent ten days on the Captain Darwin. The focus was on the dives: The biologist, who works with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, actually wanted to observe the joint hunting behaviour of octopuses and fish. However, as it was mating season, the animals rarely showed themselves. If they came out, they wanted to interact with other octopuses and did not hunt at all.

    So, he spontaneously changed his research project and conducted a mirror test instead: “We wanted to determine whether the octopuses could realize that they were seeing another individual in the mirror.” In the evening on board, the crew watched the video footage: “When the octopus approached the mirror, it changed colour – but only the side facing the mirror changed. That was very fascinating to watch”, says Eduardo Sampaio. In a further experiment, the researcher now wants to test whether the octopuses can even recognize themselves.

    Bringing Darwin’s research style up to date
    In the evenings, Eduardo Sampaio read Darwin’s The Origin of Species, because “it inspired me”. Often, he wondered: “How can we update Darwin’s kind of scientific work with the new methods we have today, like machine learning and computer vision, to better understand how animals move in their natural habitats or use different strategies to exploit social information?” He does not have an answer yet, but may find it the next time he sails on the Captain Darwin.

    Great support for scientists who do not have the necessary resources
    Eduardo Sampaio will be back on board the Captain Darwin: “This trip, launched as a Citizen Science project, is a great support for researchers who don’t have the means to do this kind of field research, especially for researchers from disadvantaged areas and in countries where research structures are not so well equipped.” Much of the work that researchers usually have to handle themselves was taken over, such as obtaining permits, purchasing equipment and raising funds. “I also realized that citizens can play a much more active role in science than just collecting data”, says Eduardo Sampaio, who hopes that this sailing trip will be a prelude to more exciting Citizen Science expeditions. Eduardo Sampaio and Victor Rault also wrote a report about the collaboration published in PLOS Biology on 15 November 2022.

    Key facts

    • Dr Eduardo Sampaio from the Cluster of Excellence “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” and researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior participated in a Citizen Science-led expedition
    • Publication on the benefits of such research projects in PLOS Biology: Sampaio E, Rault V (2022) Citizen-led expeditions can generate scientific knowledge and prospects for researchers. PLoS Biol 20(11):e3001872. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001872

    [ad_2]

    University of Konstanz

    Source link

  • Moral behavior pays off

    Moral behavior pays off

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Selfless behaviour and cooperation cannot be taken for granted. Mohammad Salahshour of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (now at Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior), has used a game theory-based approach to show why it can be worthwhile for individuals to set self-interests aside.

    One of the most fundamental questions facing humanity is: why do we behave morally? Because it is by no means self-evident that under certain circumstances we set our self-interest aside and put ourselves in the service of a group – sometimes to the point of self-sacrifice. Many theories have been developed to get to the bottom of this moral conundrum. There are two well-known proposed solutions: that individuals help their relatives so that the common genes survive (kin selection), and that the principle of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” applies. If people help each other, everyone benefits in the end (principle of reciprocity).

    Prisoner’s dilemma combined with a coordination game

    Mathematician Mohammad Salahshour of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, has used the tools of game theory to explain the emergence of moral norms – because game theory studies how people make rational decisions in conflict situations. For Salahshour, the question at the outset was: why do moral norms exist in the first place? And why do we have different, or even contrasting moral norms? For example, while some norms such as “help others”, promote self-sacrificing behaviour, others, such as dress codes, appear not to have much to do with curbing selfishness. To answer these questions, Salahshour coupled two games: first, the classic prisoner’s dilemma, in which two players must decide whether to cooperate for a small reward or betray themselves for a much larger reward (social dilemma). This game can be a typical example of a social dilemma, where success of a group as a whole requires individuals to behave selflessly. In this game everybody loses out if too many members of a group behave selfishly, compared to a scenario in which everybody acts altruistically. However, if only a few individuals behave selfishly, they can receive a better outcome than their altruistic team members. .Second, a game that focuses on typical decisions within groups, such as a coordination task, distribution of resources, choice of a leader, or conflict resolution. Many of these problems can be ultimately categorized as coordination or anticoordination problems.

    Without coupling the two games, it is clear that in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, cooperation does not pay off, and self-interested behaviour is the best choice from the individual’s perspective if there are enough people who act selflessly. But individuals who act selfishly are not able to solve coordination problems efficiently and lose a lot of resources due to failing to coordinate their activity. The situation can be completely different when the results of the two games are considered as a whole and there are moral norms at work which favour cooperation: now cooperation in the prisoner’s dilemma can suddenly pay off because the gain in the second game more than compensates for the loss in the first game.  

    Out of self-interest to coordination and cooperation

    As a result of this process, not only cooperative behaviour emerges, but also a social order. All individuals benefit from it – and for this reason, moral behaviour pay off for them. “In my evolutionary model, there were no selfless behaviours at the beginning, but more and more moral norms emerged as a result of the coupling of the two games,” Salahshour reports. “Then I observed a sudden transition to a system where there is a lot of cooperation.” In this “moral state”, a set of norms of coordination evolve which help individuals to better coordinate their activity, and it is precisely through this that social norms and moral standards can emerge. However, coordination norms favour cooperation: cooperation turns out to be a rewarding behaviour for the individual as well. Mahammad Salahshour: “A moral system behaves like a Trojan horse: once established out of the individuals’ self-interest to promote order and organization, it also brings self-sacrificing cooperation”.

    Through his work, Salahshour hopes to better understand social systems. “This can help improve people’s lives in the future,” he explains. “But you can also use my game-theoretic approach to explain the emergence of social norms in social media. There, people exchange information and make strategic decisions at the same time – for example, who to support or what cause to support.” Again, he said, two dynamics are at work at once: the exchange of information and the emergence of cooperative strategies. Their interplay is not yet well understood – but perhaps game theory will soon shed new light on this topical issue as well.

    [ad_2]

    Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft)

    Source link

  • Artificial Neural Networks Learn Better When They Spend Time Not Learning at All

    Artificial Neural Networks Learn Better When They Spend Time Not Learning at All

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — Depending on age, humans need 7 to 13 hours of sleep per 24 hours. During this time, a lot happens: Heart rate, breathing and metabolism ebb and flow; hormone levels adjust; the body relaxes. Not so much in the brain.

    “The brain is very busy when we sleep, repeating what we have learned during the day,” said Maxim Bazhenov, PhD, professor of medicine and a sleep researcher at University of California San Diego School of Medicine. “Sleep helps reorganize memories and presents them in the most efficient way.”

    In previous published work, Bazhenov and colleagues have reported how sleep builds rational memory, the ability to remember arbitrary or indirect associations between objects, people or events, and protects against forgetting old memories.

    Artificial neural networks leverage the architecture of the human brain to improve numerous technologies and systems, from basic science and medicine to finance and social media. In some ways, they have achieved superhuman performance, such as computational speed, but they fail in one key aspect: When artificial neural networks learn sequentially, new information overwrites previous information, a phenomenon called catastrophic forgetting.

    “In contrast, the human brain learns continuously and incorporates new data into existing knowledge,” said Bazhenov, “and it typically learns best when new training is interleaved with periods of sleep for memory consolidation.”

    Writing in the November 18, 2022 issue of PLOS Computational Biology, senior author Bazhenov and colleagues discuss how biological models may help mitigate the threat of catastrophic forgetting in artificial neural networks, boosting their utility across a spectrum of research interests.

    The scientists used spiking neural networks that artificially mimic natural neural systems: Instead of information being communicated continuously, it is transmitted as discrete events (spikes) at certain time points.

    They found that when the spiking networks were trained on a new task, but with occasional off-line periods that mimicked sleep, catastrophic forgetting was mitigated. Like the human brain, said the study authors, “sleep” for the networks allowed them to replay old memories without explicitly using old training data.

    Memories are represented in the human brain by patterns of synaptic weight — the strength or amplitude of a connection between two neurons.

    “When we learn new information,” said Bazhenov, “neurons fire in specific order and this increases synapses between them. During sleep, the spiking patterns learned during our awake state are repeated spontaneously. It’s called reactivation or replay.

    “Synaptic plasticity, the capacity to be altered or molded, is still in place during sleep and it can further enhance synaptic weight patterns that represent the memory, helping to prevent forgetting or to enable transfer of knowledge from old to new tasks.”

    When Bazhenov and colleagues applied this approach to artificial neural networks, they found that it helped the networks avoid catastrophic forgetting.

    “It meant that these networks could learn continuously, like humans or animals. Understanding how human brain processes information during sleep can help to augment memory in human subjects. Augmenting sleep rhythms can lead to better memory.

    “In other projects, we use computer models to develop optimal strategies to apply stimulation during sleep, such as auditory tones, that enhance sleep rhythms and improve learning. This may be particularly important when memory is non-optimal, such as when memory declines in aging or in some conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.”

    Co-authors include: Ryan Golden and Jean Erik Delanois, both at UC San Diego; and Pavel Sanda, Institute of Computer Science of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

    Funding for this research came, in part, the Office of naval Research (grant N00014-16-1-2829), DARPA Lifelong Learning Machines program (HR0011-18-2-0021), National Science Foundation (IIS-1724405) and National Institutes of Health (1RF1MH117155, 1R01MH125557, 1R01NS109553).

    ###

    [ad_2]

    University of California San Diego

    Source link

  • Is ayahuasca safe? New study tallies adverse events

    Is ayahuasca safe? New study tallies adverse events

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — There is a high rate of adverse physical effects and challenging psychological effects from using the plant-based psychoactive ayahuasca, though they are generally not severe, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Daniel Perkins of University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues.

    Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive brewed drink used in traditional medicine and ceremony. Its contemporary use has been expanding throughout the world for mental health purposes and for spiritual and personal growth. Although clinical trials and observational studies have examined the potential benefits of ayahuasca, few have analyzed its adverse effects.

    In the new study, the researchers used data from an online Global Ayahuasca survey carried out between 2017 and 2019, involving 10,836 people from more than 50 countries who were at least 18 years old and had used ayahuasca at least once. Information on participants’ age, physical and mental health and history and context of ayahuasca use was collected.

    Overall, acute physical health adverse effects were reported by 69.9% of the sample, with the most common effects being vomiting and nausea (68.2% of participants), headache (17.8%) and abdominal pain (12.8%). Only 2.3% of participants reporting physical adverse events required medical attention for this issue. Among all participants, 55% also reported adverse mental health effects, including hearing or seeing things (28.5%), feeling disconnected or alone (21.0%), and having nightmares or disturbing thoughts (19.2%). However, of all respondents identifying these mental health effects, 87.6% believed they were completely or somewhat part of a positive growth process.

    The researchers also identified several factors that predispose people to the adverse physical events, including older age, having a physical health condition or substance use disorder, lifetime ayahuasca use and taking ayahuasca in a non-supervised context.

    The authors make the observation that ayahuasca has notable, although rarely severe, adverse effects according to the standards used for assessing prescription medicines. In that sense, they state that ayahuasca practices can hardly be assessed with the same parameters used for prescription medicines, since the myriad of its effects include challenging experiences that are intrinsic to the experience, some of which are considered as part of its healing process.

    The authors add: “Many are turning to ayahuasca due to disenchantment with conventional Western mental health treatments, however the disruptive power of this traditional medicine should not be underestimated, commonly resulting in mental health or emotional challenges during assimilation. While these are usually transitory and seen as part of a beneficial growth process, risks are greater for vulnerable individuals or when used in unsupportive contexts.”

    #####

    In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Global Public Health: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0000438

    Citation: Bouso JC, Andión Ó, Sarris JJ, Scheidegger M, Tófoli LF, Opaleye ES, et al. (2022) Adverse effects of ayahuasca: Results from the Global Ayahuasca Survey. PLOS Glob Public Health 2(11): e0000438. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000438

    Author Countries: Spain, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland,

    Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

    [ad_2]

    PLOS

    Source link

  • Why eye contact is rare among people with autism

    Why eye contact is rare among people with autism

    [ad_1]

    Newswise — New Haven, Conn. — A hallmark of autism spectrum disorder, ASD, is the reluctance to make eye contact with others in natural conditions. Although eye contact is a critically important part of everyday interactions, scientists have been limited in studying the neurological basis of live social interaction with eye-contact in ASD because of the inability to image the brains of two people simultaneously.

    However, using an innovative technology that enables imaging of two individuals during live and natural conditions, Yale researchers have identified specific brain areas in the dorsal parietal region of the brain associated with the social symptomatology of autism. The study, published Nov. 9 in the journal PLOS ONE, finds that these neural responses to live face and eye-contact may provide a biomarker for the diagnosis of ASD as well as provide a test of the efficacy of treatments for autism.

    “Our brains are hungry for information about other people, and we need to understand how these social mechanisms operate in the context of a real and interactive world in both typically developed individuals as well as individuals with ASD,” said co-corresponding author Joy Hirsch, Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry, Comparative Medicine, and of Neuroscience at Yale.

    The Yale team, led by Hirsch and James McPartland, Harris Professor at the Yale Child Study Center, analyzed brain activity during brief social interactions between pairs of adults — each including a typical participant and one with ASD — using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, a non-invasive optical neuroimaging method. Both participants were fitted with caps with many sensors that emitted light into the brain and also recorded changes in light signals with information about brain activity during face gaze and eye-to-eye contact.

    The investigators found that during eye contact, participants with ASD had significantly reduced activity in a brain region called the dorsal parietal cortex compared to those without ASD.  Further, the more severe the overall social symptoms of ASD as measured by ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd Edition) scores, the less activity was observed in this brain region. Neural activity in these regions was synchronous between typical participants during real eye-to-eye contact but not during gaze at a video face. This typical increase in neural coupling was not observed in ASD, and is consistent with the difficulties in social interactions.

    “We now not only have a better understanding of the neurobiology of autism and social differences, but also of the underlying neural mechanisms that drive typical social connections,” Hirsch said.

    [ad_2]

    Yale University

    Source link