Vocational rehabilitation helps lift people with disabilities out of poverty

Findings from the Substantial Gainful Activity Project reported in this special issue of the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation

IOS PRESS

Research News

IMAGE: IMPACTS OF THE SGA PROJECT INNOVATIONS. CREDIT: JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION view more 

CREDIT: CSAVR, ROCKVILLE, MD, USA

Amsterdam, NL, November 10, 2020 - Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits do not always keep individuals with disabilities out of poverty. To support these individuals' efforts to lift themselves out of poverty, the Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA) Project was piloted in Kentucky and Minnesota. It showed that individuals who engaged in a vocational rehabilitation services intervention were able to earn increased income above SGA-level earnings. The authors recommend expanding the project to other US state agencies.

In a special issue of the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation Guest Editors Susan Foley, PhD, Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI), University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA, and Purvi Sevak, PhD, Mathematica, Princeton, NJ, USA, have assembled seven insightful reports on the SGA Project from early design through completion of randomized controlled trials in two states. Stephen Wooderson and John Connelly of the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation (CSAVR) were invited to author a paper about how vocational rehabilitation agency leaders view and value participation in research. Two additional papers report on recent related research.

The relationship between earnings and SSDI benefits receipt has been a major issue in the United States since the program began in 1956. One metric used to determine if a person is unable to engage in work is termed "substantial gainful activity," a monthly dollar amount calculated by the Social Security Administration. State vocational rehabilitation agencies provide employment services to people with disabilities including those receiving SSDI.

"We are in another economic downturn. It is not easy to predict what will happen and how this will affect people with disabilities, but if past is prologue, the next few years may see more applicants to poverty and disability insurance programs," explained Dr. Foley and Dr. Sevak. "During the coronavirus pandemic, vocational rehabilitation agencies are again innovating to consider more remote and virtual ways of connecting, expanding dual customer approaches to serve businesses and workers as clients, and looking for more tools to put in a practitioner's toolbox. Finding solutions to help people return to work and find work that can provide economic stability will be an important role for state vocational rehabilitation agencies."

The Rehabilitation Services Administration funded the SGA Project to identify vocational rehabilitation agency practices that lead to improved earnings for SSDI clients upon completion of vocational rehabilitation. It awarded a cooperative agreement to the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Mathematica Policy Research.

Working with more than 100 practitioners representing over 20 vocational rehabilitation agencies, the design phase of the SGA Project identified high performing agencies and key practices that might contribute to that performance with the ultimate goal of designing an effective intervention.

The testing phase of the project tested an intervention designed to improve earnings outcomes of SSDI beneficiaries who were clients of Kentucky and Minnesota state vocational rehabilitation agencies. Mathematica Policy Research assessed service, employment, and earnings outcomes, while ICI interviewed and followed SSDI clients who participated to understand why people seek work, what influences their choices about earnings levels, and how vocational rehabilitation services played a role in their decisions.

Frank Martin, PhD, and Purvi Sevak, PhD, both from Mathematica, Princeton, NJ, USA, review the implementation and impacts of the SGA Project demonstration in Kentucky, They describe the SGA Project model components, the implementation experience in Kentucky, and the impact of the innovations on vocational rehabilitation service and employment outcomes. Although results from the present study showed that participants did not consistently receive all components of the innovations, the innovations led to a 17 percentage point increase in clients with a signed individualized plan for employment (IPE) within 30 days of application, an 8 percentage point increase in closures with competitive employment, and a nearly 6 percentage point increase in the number of clients with earnings at or above the SGA level. The SGA earnings threshold for non-blind SSDI beneficiaries was $1,090 at the start of the testing phase in 2015 and $1,170 at the end of the testing phase in 2017.

A noteworthy aspect of the project was that it emphasized financial counseling, which required the hiring of work incentive coordinators, who were trained and certified to provide a much richer set of early and ongoing financial counseling. "Kentucky's successful implementation of an office-level random assignment design permitted a rigorous test of the SGA Project innovations," noted the authors. "Early, positive impacts on key outcomes suggest other agencies might use this approach to rigorously assess the effectiveness of new services and programs and for a broader set of vocational rehabilitation clients."

Key findings from the SGA Project include:

• Delivering services at a faster pace is feasible. The number of days to signed individual plan for employment (IPE) was reduced; the number of clients with a signed IPE within 30 days of their application increased by 17 percentage points. Quicker access to and progress through services allow people to maintain momentum in their search for work.

• SGA Project innovations can increase competitive employment. A combination of rapid client engagement, a faster pace of vocational rehabilitation services, financial and benefits planning, job placement services, and a coordinated team approach led to an 8 percentage point increase in employment and a 5.7 percentage point increase in the rate of SGA-level earnings for SSDI beneficiaries, potentially helping them on their path to higher income and financial independence.

• People with disabilities are able to return to work after receiving SSDI benefits. Researchers found that having a team of trusted individuals to provide accurate information, counsel clients, and help identify the types of jobs clients would like to do in their local labor market was a successful strategy.

• Partnerships between state vocational rehabilitation agencies and researchers in universities and private organizations are increasing knowledge about what will work to help people with disabilities advance economic opportunities.

• Randomized controlled trials of public vocational rehabilitation services, the gold standard to find out what works, while admittedly challenging to implement, are possible.

• Research that vocational rehabilitation agencies value and can use have a likelihood of improving outcomes for clients.

Writing about the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation (CSAVR), John Connelly, JD, and Stephen Wooderson, MS, both from CSAVR, Rockville, MD, USA, present the case for why researcher-vocational rehabilitation partnerships are an important strategy for innovation and provide suggestions for strengthening those partnerships.

CSAVR launched its Vision 2020 goals with an express interest in innovation. The CSAVR is a membership organization of the chief administrators of the 78 public vocational rehabilitation agencies. The Council's members and their agency staff assist some 1.2 million persons with disabilities to become or remain productive members of the workforce, as well as provide support to their business customers with such issues as recruitment and the provision of reasonable accommodations.

The authors describe CSAVR's investment in research and provide data from a survey of state vocational rehabilitation agencies on research participation. "Researchers can increase state vocational rehabilitation agency participation in their projects by involving the agency in study design, minimizing the time and resource burden on the agency, and demonstrating that the proposed research will yield products that benefit customers and improve staff competency," they commented. "Vocational rehabilitation agencies are motivated to engage in research that will clearly add value and improve operations with minimal burden. It is hoped that greater agency participation in research will yield better data to guide agencies in the future."

The Guest Editors point to some of the challenges encountered during the project. Access to work incentives counseling, finding high paying jobs through job placement services, and team communication across large geographic areas can create barriers to services for people receiving SSDI. Another challenge noted was that vocational rehabilitation staff may be skeptical in adopting the SGA model. "Because the pacing innovation was a major shift from their usual, more deliberate approach, some counselors initially resisted adopting the faster approach," they commented.

Dr. Foley and Dr. Sevak suggest that the rapid engagement coordinated team approach studied by the SGA Project is another tool in the toolbox to attain goals. "We are finding more and more practices that are showing promise. Team approaches, rapid response, and dual customer strategies that match talent to opportunity are evolving. Every worker gets a job, every job gets a worker," they concluded.

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Study of LGBTQ+ experience in the geosciences finds difficulties, dangers in fieldwork

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

 

IMAGE: UNTIL NOW, NO STUDY HAS FOCUSED ON FIELDWORK ACCESSIBILITY FOR LGBTQ+ GEOSCIENTISTS, IN SPITE OF OBVIOUS HAZARDS. FOR INSTANCE, ACCORDING TO NEWSWEEK, IN 2019 THERE WERE 71 COUNTRIES WHERE HOMOSEXUALITY... view more 

CREDIT: OLCOTT, ET AL.

LAWRENCE -- For a geoscientist, the benefits of performing fieldwork are countless. Researching in nature gives geoscientists firsthand contact with the earth's raw materials and a chance to test ideas and develop theories -- as well as to make new discoveries. For this reason, geoscientists often trek to faraway locations, negotiating difficult physical terrain and distinctive cultural landscapes to access geologic features vital to their research.

But there's a problem: For geoscientists from minority and underrepresented populations, fieldwork can prove daunting -- and even physically dangerous. Women scientists could face harassment or sexual assault; scientists with disabilities could find field sites impossible to access; racial minority researchers might face prejudice and bigotry.

But until now, no study has focused on fieldwork accessibility for LGBTQ geoscientists, in spite of obvious hazards. For instance, according to Newsweek, in 2019 there were 71 countries where homosexuality is illegal.

Recently, an investigation from University of Kansas researchers appeared in Eos, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, examining the challenges of fieldwork for LGBTQ geoscientists. Alison Olcott, associate professor of geology, and Matthew Downen, who recently earned his doctorate in geology from KU, surveyed the experience of LGBTQ scientists in "everything from wilderness treks, oceanographic cruises, and class field trips to museum and laboratory visits, trips to research centers, and attending conferences around the world."

They found 55% of the geoscientists who identify as LGBTQ indicated they'd been in an area where they didn't feel safe due to their identity, expression or presentation -- while about a third have refused to do fieldwork due to concerns for personal safety related to their identity.

"There are many places with really excellent geological samples that might not be safe for an LGBTQ+ geologist to go travel," Olcott said. "It's something unrecognized in the field, by academic advisers in particular. It seemed like an unseen, unacknowledged problem in the geosciences, where we're dependent on where the rocks are -- but not everyone is equally safe to go to these places."

The impetus for the study came from Downen, inspired by his years attending a growing LGBTQ social event thrown each year at the Geological Society of America's conference.

"It used to just be a small dinner with maybe 10 to 15 people -- but in the last few years it just skyrocketed," he said. "One year, it was over 60 people, and not everybody could attend. I remember seeing so many new younger people, people my age. There were a lot of different identities and genders represented, and I was floored by all the incredible diversity."

Downen wondered about the experiences of the emerging LGBTQ community in the geosciences, so he began collecting data informally for a presentation to the KU chapter of the organization Out in STEM.

"I was curious to know who really is out there and what the community really looks like within geology," he said. "I also wanted to do this research because it's important for people in the LGBTQ+ community in geology to know there are other people out there like them."

Looking to improve the data, Downen and Olcott conducted a broader, more rigorous survey of geoscientists online. Their results revealed that "many of these scientists felt unseen, unheard and unsupported in their field."

Most striking, the KU researchers found that LGBTQ graduate students in geosciences often aren't adequately supported by faculty advisers, especially as "relative to faculty, students typically have far less control over their field site selection." Their survey found LGBTQ graduate students (29%) are significantly less likely than professors (57%) to have opted out of fieldwork in a specific locality because of safety fears.

"In geology, usually the graduate student is doing a project based off of the adviser's main project," Olcott said. "An adviser will likely say, 'Oh, I have this grant to go to to a field locality and look at these examples.' We were really struck that so many professors had not done a research project because of their identity, but it was only 29% of the graduate students. It seemed like graduate students were being put in a position where they were being made to do things where they felt unsafe, but couldn't say no or didn't feel comfortable saying, 'Hey, I'm not safe here because of who I am.'"

The authors suggest institutions and mentors should provide more resources to LGBTQ graduate students in the geosciences to ensure their security in the field. "People who are advising students and leading field trips or fieldwork need to better educate themselves and be more aware of different policies or just the attitudes in a certain area," Downen said.

Olcott and Downen said faculty mentors and institutions could provide travel guidance and resources geared to LGBTQ personnel prior to fieldwork. In the classroom, professors could confront homophobia by using inclusive language and students' preferred pronouns. Meantime, faculty and staff should offer supportive academic advising, visible allyship and diversity training.

Both authors stressed homophobia and barriers to fieldwork aren't limited to far-flung countries but often are faced much closer to home.

"We're not saying North America and Europe are awesome and everywhere else is terrible for LGBTQ+ geoscientists," Olcott said. "It's a more granular issue -- just because the place on the map is designated friendly, it doesn't mean necessarily that way everywhere."

"If you're traveling globally, a world map showing where your identity could be criminalized is just kind of the most basic thing," Downen said. "Even in the U.S., depending on where you go, it may not be friendly there, either -- that's where some LGBTQ+ geoscientists have reported their worst field experiences due to their LGBTQ+ identity."

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The study by Olcott and Downen soon will be republished in a double print-issue on "the Future of Geoscience" in Eos. In late October, Olcott presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America

Do neurosurgeons face sexual harassment in their profession?

JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGERY PUBLISHING GROUP

Research News

 

Charlottesville, VA (November 10, 2020). It's 2020, and as much as we wish it weren't so, sexual harassment is still with us. One need only look at social media or a steady stream of court cases: most recently, the #MeToo movement has cast a light on sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment isn't defined by social status, wealth, or educational experience. It affects both women and men. Sexual harassment can be found in the workplace, at social activities, and even in the home. It is also found in the medical specialties.

Do neurosurgeons face sexual harassment in their profession? Yes. We've known this for some time from anecdotal evidence. What we did not know, until now, is the depth and breadth of sexual harassment in this field.

At the behest of the One Neurosurgery Summit, which represents the major neurosurgical organizations in North America, a survey on this matter was developed and disseminated to members of the neurosurgical community. The results of this survey have been published in a new article in the Journal of Neurosurgery: "Toward an understanding of sexual harassment in neurosurgery" by Deborah L. Benzil, MD, and colleagues. "While the results of this study are distressing, having the information will allow us to start some important conversations and continue forward progress!" the lead author has remarked.

Broadly speaking, the survey was designed to elicit the following information: 1) respondents' perceived attitudes about systemic issues in neurosurgery that permit sexual harassment; 2) the prevalence and severity of sexual harassment in the field; and 3) populations at highest risk of experiencing sexual harassment and those most likely to perpetuate it.

The survey was performed using the SurveyMonkey platform, and all responses were collected confidentially and anonymously. To capture respondents from all levels of neurosurgery, emailed invitations were sent to active and resident members of the Society of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), as well as to transitional, emeritus, and inactive members of the CNS. The emails were sent to 5166 persons; 622 (12%) completed the entire survey.

Twenty percent of the survey respondents were female, and this represents a greater percentage than that of women actively engaged in neurosurgery: 19% of residents and 8% of practicing neurosurgeons are female. Looking back over their neurosurgical careers, 62% of respondents reported that they had witnessed sexual harassment and 55% reported that the harassment had been directed against them.

Sexual harassment was demonstrated across several behaviors: "the telling of explicit or offensive jokes (49%) ... unwelcome flirtations (22%), inappropriate physical contact (16%), discussion about sex/personal life (18%), and inappropriate comments about the body (15%). Although rare, rape was reported by 2 individuals (< 1%)."

Of persons who had been subjected to sexual harassment, 78% experienced it during training, 49% during post-residency employment, and 17% while attending national professional or educational meetings. Disappointingly, 37% reported that they had experienced sexual harassment more than 10 times. One would like to believe that over the years such occurrences have become less frequent. Unfortunately, the authors tell us, "there was a fairly even distribution between less than 1 year and more than 10 years ago."

Fewer than one-third of respondents reported that they had addressed incidents of sexual harassment when they occurred, and 85% reported barriers to reporting incidents, such as fear of retaliation or retribution, negative impact on future careers, loss of reputation, and associated stress.

Given the predominance of men in the neurosurgical community, it is not surprising that men were identified far more often as perpetrators of the harassment (72%). Female neurosurgeons were more likely to report having witnessed or experienced harassment, but it does affect both women and men. People in positions of power (such as chairs, faculty members, or supervisors) (86%) were most often identified as the persons responsible for the harassment.

"Male dominance, a strong hierarchical structure, and a permissive environment" are associated with the risk of sexual harassment in institutions. Based on the responses to the survey, all three can be found in neurosurgery, despite the fact that the profession has made great strides in the last decade to attract and retain more women. One effect of sexual harassment is that it can deter talented people from following their professional goals. The authors worry that such an atmosphere can lead to female neurosurgeons experiencing burnout and having less involvement in the profession. As Dr. Benzil has commented, "We want the best and brightest to enter and succeed in neurosurgery. The data about sexual harassment suggests we still have work to do."

To counteract the negative behaviors revealed by the survey, the authors suggest a change in the culture of the neurosurgical profession, "starting with an improved awareness of unconscious bias in medical school and reaching every level of organized neurosurgery and leadership." Some practical steps are proposed, such as a profession-wide zero tolerance statement with regard to sexual harassment, fair and transparent mechanisms of reporting its occurrences, establishment of best practices for social events, and greater diversity in speakers, honored guests, and scientific panels.

This paper offers detailed tables showing responses to the survey questions broken down by age or gender, and abundant demographic information on the respondents. Supplemental online materials include the questionnaire itself as well as written responses by respondents on incidents of sexual harassment that they have faced. These personal accounts are well worth reading.

When asked about the article, Dr. Benzil responded, "Unfortunately, many of us knew how serious this problem was within neurosurgery, but we needed to make all aware of the depth and breadth of it. With this data in hand, we can build on the positive steps neurosurgery has made, face the problem and find effective solutions."

The article is accompanied by an editorial by Drs. Doug Kondziolka and Linda Liau, who discuss some findings of the survey and steps to address and overcome sexual harassment in the neurosurgical community.

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Article: Benzil DL, Muraszko KM, Soni P, Air EL, Orrico KO, Rutka JT: Toward an understanding of sexual harassment in neurosurgery. Journal of Neurosurgery, published ahead of print November 10, 2020. DOI: 10.3171/2020.6.JNS201649

Disclosure: The authors report no conflict of interest concerning the materials or methods used in this study or the findings specified in this paper.

Editorial: Kondziolka D, Liau LM: Editorial: Sexual harassment in neurosurgery: #UsToo. Journal of Neurosurgery, published ahead of print November 10, 2020. DOI:

10.3171/2020.8.JNS202583.

Disclosures: The authors report no conflict of interest.

For additional information, please contact Ms. Jo Ann M. Eliason, Communications Manager, Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group, One Morton Drive, Suite 200, Charlottesville, VA 22903. Email: jaeliason@thejns.org; Phone: 434-982-1209.

For 76 years, the Journal of Neurosurgery has been recognized by neurosurgeons and other medical specialists the world over for its authoritative clinical articles, cutting-edge laboratory research papers, renowned case reports, expert technical notes, and more. Each article is rigorously peer reviewed. The Journal of Neurosurgery is published monthly by the JNS Publishing Group, the scholarly journal division of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Other peer-reviewed journals published by the JNS Publishing Group include the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics, Neurosurgical Focus, and Neurosurgical Focus: Video. All five journals can be accessed at http://www.thejns.org.

Founded in 1931 as the Harvey Cushing Society, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) is a scientific and educational association with more than 10,000 members worldwide. The AANS is dedicated to advancing the specialty of neurological surgery in order to provide the highest quality of neurosurgical care to the public. All active members of the AANS are certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Neurosurgery) of Canada, or the Mexican Council of Neurological Surgery, AC. Neurological surgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of disorders that affect the entire nervous system including the brain, spinal column, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. For more information, visit http://www.AANS.org.

SYSTEMIC RACISM

Racial/ethnic minorities comprise small portion of patients referred with AL amyloidosis

Need for more awareness of disease and access to treatments to reach marginalized communities

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Research News

 

(Boston)--Despite being theoretically at an increased risk for AL amyloidosis, underrepresented minorities make up only a small percentage of patients seen at specialized treatment centers for this disease.

AL amyloidosis is caused when a person's antibody-producing white blood cells (i.e. plasma cells) do not function properly and generate abnormal protein fibers made of components of antibodies called light chains, which then deposit in various organs of the body. This severe illness is closely related to, and occasionally overlaps with, multiple myeloma--a cancer of plasma cells. Multiple myeloma is known to be most common hematologic cancer among Black Americans with an incidence rate that is more than two times higher than that observed among White Americans.

To better understand how AL amyloidosis may affect various groups of patients differently, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) examined disease characteristics, treatments, and outcomes according to the self-reported race/ethnicity of patients referred to the Amyloidosis Center from 1990-2020. Among over 2,400 patients with AL amyloidosis seen during this 30-year period, only 14 percent were underrepresented minorities--considerably lower than in the general population. "Systematic underdetection among minorities, along with access barriers to referral centers, may be at the root of this discrepancy," says lead author Andrew Staron, MD, a hematology/oncology fellow at Boston Medical Center.

Despite similarities in disease manifestation, the researchers observed younger age and more severe illness among racial/ethnic minorities. Proportionately, fewer minority patients underwent aggressive treatment with stem cell transplantation as compared to non-Hispanic White patients. The researchers learned that this treatment difference was largely explained by lower educational level and more advanced heart disease among minorities, rather than race/ethnicity itself.

"These findings indicate that, in order to mitigate disparities, earlier disease detection and efforts to reduce economic and/or language barriers are key. After controlling for disease severity and treatment, race/ethnicity did not independently impact survival," explained corresponding senior author Vaishali Sanchorawala, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Amyloidosis Center at BUSM and Boston Medical Center.

According to the researchers, diagnosing AL amyloidosis can be perplexing and requires awareness by healthcare providers to pursue tissue biopsy. Its manifestations such as structural heart changes, nephrosis (kidney disease), and neuropathy (disease of the peripheral nerves) can mimic common disorders like hypertension and diabetes mellitus. "Because these conditions are more prevalent among certain racial/ethnic minority groups, there is an even greater need for awareness of AL amyloidosis in marginalized communities so that the diagnosis is not missed or delayed," adds Sanchorawala.

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These findings appear in Blood Cancer Journal.

PRIVATIZED HEALTH CARE

Under-insured transgender Americans turn to riskier sources for gender-affirming hormones

Insurance coverage and use of hormones among transgender respondents to a national survey

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS

Research News

 

Under-Insured Transgender Americans Turn to Riskier, Non-Licensed Sources for Gender-Affirming Hormones

Transgender people who lack access to insurance coverage for gender-affirming hormone therapy are more likely to use hormones from sources other than a licensed prescriber, compared to those with insurance coverage. Analysis of the most recent United States Transgender Survey shows that about 9 percent of transgender adults - which comes to about 170,000 transgender adults in the U.S. today - access hormones from non-licensed sources like friends or online. The study found an association between the use of non-prescribed hormones and lack of health insurance or denial of insurance coverage for gender-affirming medical care. Survey respondents also identified insurance coverage as a prevailing barrier; it was ranked as a top issue affecting transgender people in the United States, ranked second only to direct violence.

The authors note that hormones accessed from an unlicensed source may pose health and safety risks, as medications may be unmonitored for content, quality, formulation and dosing. Additionally, use of non-prescription hormones likely entails decreased monitoring of hormone levels and less opportunity for mitigating risks or other forms of harm reduction and preventive care.

Insurance Coverage and Use of Hormones Among Transgender Respondents to a National Survey
Daphna Stroumsa, MD, MPH, et al
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
https://www.annfammed.org/content/18/6/528

CAPTION

When wildfires break out on hot, windy days, they pose a serious threat to people and the environment. This week on Reactions, learn how firefighters are using fertilizer to keep dangerous blazes at bay: https://youtu.be/fNGq8hEuNb8.

CREDIT

The American Chemical Society

Study: crop diversification can improve environmental outcomes without sacrificing yields

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: RED CLOVER IS GROWN IN ROTATION WITH CORN AND SOYBEAN. THE CLOVER COMPETES WITH WEEDS GROWING IN OAT STUBBLE AND ADDS NITROGEN FOR THE SUCCEEDING CORN CROP. SUCH CROP DIVERSIFICATION... view more 

CREDIT: PAULA R. WESTERMAN

AMES, Iowa - A new study shows diversifying agricultural systems beyond a narrow selection of crops leads to a range of ecosystem improvements while also maintaining or improving yields. But a professor of agronomy at Iowa State University who co-authored the study said some marketing and agricultural policy considerations will have to change for farmers to adopt diversification practices more widely.

The study, published last week in the academic journal Science Advances, analyzed the results of 5,188 separate studies that included 41,946 comparisons between diversified and simplified agricultural practices. An international team of researchers carried out the study, known as a meta-analysis, and looked for patterns in the mountains of data collected in previous field studies. The results showed that in 63% of the cases examined, diversification enhanced ecosystem services while also maintaining or even improving crop yields. The researchers described this as a "win-win" result.

"The overall conclusion is there's a lot to be gained from diversifying cropping practices," said Matt Liebman, a professor of agronomy at Iowa State and co-author. "Across many different countries in many different climates and soils, with many different crops, the general pattern is that with diversification, you maintain or increase crop yields while gaining environmental benefits."

Agriculture in the Midwest is dominated by just a few crops, mainly corn and soybeans. But the study looked at a range of farming practices aimed at introducing more diversity to cropland. Those diversification practices include crop rotations, planting prairie strips within and along fields, establishing wildlife habitat near fields, reducing tillage and enriching soil with organic matter. Such measures improve water quality, pollination, pest regulation by natural enemies, nutrient turnover and reduced negative climate impacts by sequestering carbon in the soil.

"My colleagues and I wanted to test if diversification is beneficial for both agricultural production and ecosystem services. The current trend is that we simplify major cropping systems worldwide. We grow monocultures on enlarged fields in homogenized landscapes. The results of our study indicate that diversification can reverse the negative impacts that we observe in simplified forms of cropping on the environment and on production itself," said lead author Giovanni Tamburini at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and University of Bari.

Changes in policy needed

Liebman said barriers related to government ag policy, market considerations and the dissemination of data discourage farmers from adopting many of the diversification practices examined in the study. But showing that such practices do not depress yields, and in some cases increase them, might encourage farmers to consider the practices.

Many current policies and market conditions incentivize farmers to focus on a few highly productive and profitable crops. In Iowa, that means corn and soybeans are grown on the majority of cropland. But Liebman said rethinking those considerations, as well as working with farmers to transfer knowledge that allows them to gain confidence with diversification, could lead to wider use of the practices.

The meta-analysis approach allowed the research team to combine data from thousands of other studies that tested how crop diversification affects yields. The researchers used innovative data analytics to find patterns in those results, Liebman said. The approach allowed the research team to gain a new level of insight that isn't possible with individual experiments.

"What our study suggests is that if we want improved water quality and enhanced wildlife habitat and if we want to continue to work on the soil erosion problem, diversification offers a lot of options to us," Liebman said.

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Radioactive elements may be crucial to the habitability of rocky planets

Earth-size planets can have varying amounts of radioactive elements, which generate internal heat that drives a planet's geological activity and magnetism

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA CRUZ

Research News

 

IMAGE: THESE ILLUSTRATIONS SHOW THREE VERSIONS OF A ROCKY PLANET WITH DIFFERENT AMOUNTS OF INTERNAL HEATING FROM RADIOACTIVE ELEMENTS. THE MIDDLE PLANET IS EARTH-LIKE, WITH PLATE TECTONICS AND AN INTERNAL DYNAMO... view more 

CREDIT: ILLUSTRATIONS BY MELISSA WEISS

The amount of long-lived radioactive elements incorporated into a rocky planet as it forms may be a crucial factor in determining its future habitability, according to a new study by an interdisciplinary team of scientists at UC Santa Cruz.

That's because internal heating from the radioactive decay of the heavy elements thorium and uranium drives plate tectonics and may be necessary for the planet to generate a magnetic field. Earth's magnetic field protects the planet from solar winds and cosmic rays.

Convection in Earth's molten metallic core creates an internal dynamo (the "geodynamo") that generates the planet's magnetic field. Earth's supply of radioactive elements provides more than enough internal heating to generate a persistent geodynamo, according to Francis Nimmo, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz and first author of a paper on the new findings, published November 10 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"What we realized was that different planets accumulate different amounts of these radioactive elements that ultimately power geological activity and the magnetic field," Nimmo explained. "So we took a model of the Earth and dialed the amount of internal radiogenic heat production up and down to see what happens."

What they found is that if the radiogenic heating is more than the Earth's, the planet can't permanently sustain a dynamo, as Earth has done. That happens because most of the thorium and uranium end up in the mantle, and too much heat in the mantle acts as an insulator, preventing the molten core from losing heat fast enough to generate the convective motions that produce the magnetic field.

With more radiogenic internal heating, the planet also has much more volcanic activity, which could produce frequent mass extinction events. On the other hand, too little radioactive heat results in no volcanism and a geologically "dead" planet.

"Just by changing this one variable, you sweep through these different scenarios, from geologically dead to Earth-like to extremely volcanic without a dynamo," Nimmo said, adding that these findings warrant more detailed studies.

"Now that we see the important implications of varying the amount of radiogenic heating, the simplified model that we used should be checked by more detailed calculations," he said.

A planetary dynamo has been tied to habitability in several ways, according to Natalie Batalha, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics whose Astrobiology Initiative at UC Santa Cruz sparked the interdisciplinary collaboration that led to this paper.

"It has long been speculated that internal heating drives plate tectonics, which creates carbon cycling and geological activity like volcanism, which produces an atmosphere," Batalha explained. "And the ability to retain an atmosphere is related to the magnetic field, which is also driven by internal heating."

Coauthor Joel Primack, a professor emeritus of physics, explained that stellar winds, which are fast-moving flows of material ejected from stars, can steadily erode a planet's atmosphere if it has no magnetic field.

"The lack of a magnetic field is apparently part of the reason, along with its lower gravity, why Mars has a very thin atmosphere," he said. "It used to have a thicker atmosphere, and for a while it had surface water. Without the protection of a magnetic field, much more radiation gets through and the surface of the planet also becomes less habitable."

Primack noted that the heavy elements crucial to radiogenic heating are created during mergers of neutron stars, which are extremely rare events. The creation of these so-called r-process elements during neutron-star mergers has been a focus of research by coauthor Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, professor of astronomy and astrophysics.

"We would expect considerable variability in the amounts of these elements incorporated into stars and planets, because it depends on how close the matter that formed them was to where these rare events occurred in the galaxy," Primack said.

Astronomers can use spectroscopy to measure the abundance of different elements in stars, and the compositions of planets are expected to be similar to those of the stars they orbit. The rare earth element europium, which is readily observed in stellar spectra, is created by the same process that makes the two longest-lived radioactive elements, thorium and uranium, so europium can be used as a tracer to study the variability of those elements in our galaxy's stars and planets.

Astronomers have obtained europium measurements for many stars in our galactic neighborhood. Nimmo was able use those measurements to establish a natural range of inputs to his models of radiogenic heating. The sun's composition is in the middle of that range. According to Primack, many stars have half as much europium compared to magnesium as the sun, and many stars have up to two times more than the sun.

The importance and variability of radiogenic heating opens up many new questions for astrobiologists, Batalha said.

"It's a complex story, because both extremes have implications for habitability. You need enough radiogenic heating to sustain plate tectonics but not so much that you shut down the magnetic dynamo," she said. "Ultimately, we're looking for the most likely abodes of life. The abundance of uranium and thorium appear to be key factors, possibly even another dimension for defining a Goldilocks planet."

Using europium measurements of their stars to identify planetary systems with different amounts of radiogenic elements, astronomers can start looking for differences between the planets in those systems, Nimmo said, especially once the James Webb Space Telescope is deployed. "The James Webb Space Telescope will be a powerful tool for the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres," he said.

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In addition to Nimmo, Primack, and Ramirez-Ruiz, the coauthors of the paper include Sandra Faber, professor emerita of astronomy and astrophysics, and postdoctoral scholar Mohammadtaher Safarzadeh.

Researchers model source of eruption on Jupiter's moon Europa

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: THIS ARTIST'S CONCEPTION OF JUPITER'S ICY MOON EUROPA SHOWS A HYPOTHESIZED CRYOVOLCANIC ERUPTION, IN WHICH BRINY WATER FROM WITHIN THE ICY SHELL BLASTS INTO SPACE. A NEW MODEL OF THIS... view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE CREDIT: JUSTICE BLAINE WAINWRIGHT

On Jupiter's icy moon Europa, powerful eruptions may spew into space, raising questions among hopeful astrobiologists on Earth: What would blast out from miles-high plumes? Could they contain signs of extraterrestrial life? And where in Europa would they originate? A new explanation now points to a source closer to the frozen surface than might be expected.

Rather than originating from deep within Europa's oceans, some eruptions may originate from water pockets embedded in the icy shell itself, according to new evidence from researchers at Stanford University, the University of Arizona, the University of Texas and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Using images collected by the NASA spacecraft Galileo, the researchers developed a model to explain how a combination of freezing and pressurization could lead to a cryovolcanic eruption, or a burst of water. The results, published Nov. 10 in Geophysical Research Letters, have implications for the habitability of Europa's underlying ocean - and may explain eruptions on other icy bodies in the solar system.

Harbingers of life?

Scientists have speculated that the vast ocean hidden beneath Europa's icy crust could contain elements necessary to support life. But short of sending a submersible to the moon to explore, it's difficult to know for sure. That's one reason Europa's plumes have garnered so much interest: If the eruptions are coming from the subsurface ocean, the elements could be more easily detected by a spacecraft like the one planned for NASA's upcoming Europa Clipper mission.

But if the plumes originate in the moon's icy shell, they may be less hospitable to life, because it is more difficult to sustain the chemical energy to power life there. In this case, the chances of detecting habitability from space are diminished.

"Understanding where these water plumes are coming from is very important for knowing whether future Europa explorers could have a chance to actually detect life from space without probing Europa's ocean," said lead author Gregor Steinbrügge, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).

The researchers focused their analyses on Manannán, an 18-mile-wide crater on Europa that was created by an impact with another celestial object some tens of millions of years ago. Reasoning that such a collision would have generated a tremendous amount of heat, they modeled how melting and subsequent freezing of a water pocket within the icy shell could have caused the water to erupt.

"The comet or asteroid hitting the ice shell was basically a big experiment which we're using to construct hypotheses to test," said co-author Don Blankenship, senior research scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) and principal investigator of the Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) instrument that will fly on Europa Clipper. "The polar and planetary sciences team at UTIG are all currently dedicated to evaluating the ability of this instrument to test those hypotheses."

The model indicates that as Europa's water transformed into ice during the later stages of the impact, pockets of water with increased salinity could be created in the moon's surface. Furthermore, these salty water pockets can migrate sideways through Europa's ice shell by melting adjacent regions of less brackish ice, and consequently become even saltier in the process.

"We developed a way that a water pocket can move laterally - and that's very important," Steinbrügge said. "It can move along thermal gradients, from cold to warm, and not only in the down direction as pulled by gravity."

A salty driver

The model predicts that when a migrating brine pocket reached the center of Manannán crater, it became stuck and began freezing, generating pressure that eventually resulted in a plume, estimated to have been over a mile high. The eruption of this plume left a distinguishing mark: a spider-shaped feature on Europa's surface that was observed by Galileo imaging and incorporated in the researchers' model.

"Even though plumes generated by brine pocket migration would not provide direct insight into Europa's ocean, our findings suggest that Europa's ice shell itself is very dynamic," said co-lead author Joana Voigt, a graduate research assistant at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The relatively small size of the plume that would form at Manannán indicates that impact craters probably can't explain the source of other, larger plumes on Europa that have been hypothesized based on Hubble and Galileo data, the researchers say. But the process modeled for the Manannán eruption could happen on other icy bodies - even without an impact event.

"Brine pocket migration is not uniquely applicable to Europan craters," Voigt said. "Instead the mechanism might provide explanations on other icy bodies where thermal gradients exist."

The study also provides estimates of how salty Europa's frozen surface and ocean may be, which in turn could affect the transparency of its ice shell to radar waves. The calculations, based on imaging from Galileo from 1995 to 1997, show Europa's ocean may be about one-fifth as salty as Earth's ocean - a factor that will improve the capacity for the Europa Clipper mission's radar sounder to collect data from its interior.

The findings may be discouraging to astrobiologists hoping Europa's erupting plumes might contain clues about the internal ocean's capacity to support life, given the implication that plumes do not have to connect to Europa's ocean. However, the new model offers insights toward untangling Europa's complex surface features, which are subject to hydrological processes, the pull of Jupiter's gravity and hidden tectonic forces within the icy moon.

"This makes the shallow subsurface - the ice shell itself - a much more exciting place to think about," said co-author Dustin Schroeder, an assistant professor of geophysics at Stanford. "It opens up a whole new way of thinking about what's happening with water near the surface."

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Schroeder is also an assistant professor, by courtesy, of electrical engineering and a center fellow, by courtesy, at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Co-authors include Krista Soderlund, Natalie Wolfenbarger and Duncan Young from the University of Texas at Austin; Christopher Hamilton from the University of Arizona, Tucson; and Steven Vance from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The research was supported by the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation. A portion of the work was carried out by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, under a contract with NASA.

Galaxies have gotten hotter as they've gotten older

Study of 10 billion years of microwaves reveals a warming predicted by dark matter theory

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: BRICE MÉNARD OF JOHNS HOPKINS AND YI-KUAN CHIANG OF OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY. view more 

CREDIT: RON SCHEFFLER

Who says you can't get hotter with age?

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and other institutions have found that, on average, the temperature of galaxy clusters today is 4 million degrees Fahrenheit. That is 10 times hotter than 10 billion years ago, and four times hotter than the Sun's outermost atmosphere called the corona. The findings are published in the Astrophysical Journal.

"We have measured temperatures throughout the history of the universe," said Brice Ménard, a Johns Hopkins professor of physics and astronomy. "As time has gone on, all those clusters of galaxies are getting hotter and hotter because their gravity pulls more and more gas toward them."

Yi-Kuan Chiang, lead author of the study who was a Johns Hopkins post-doctoral researcher until moving to Ohio State University last year, added: "This drag is so violent that more and more gas is shocked and heated up."

Imagine all those gas atoms being sucked towards galaxies like they were myriads of meteoroids piercing Earth's atmosphere, Ménard said. They accelerate as gravity pulls them toward the Earth's surface and heat up due to friction with the atmosphere before burning into what are seen as shooting stars, he added. This pattern of heating due to gravitational forces can be applied to entire galaxies, clusters of galaxies and beyond into the "large scale structures" of the universe formed by gravity - a theory attributed to James Peebles, the 2019 Nobel laureate in physics.

"Our measurements are a great confirmation of that theory," Ménard said.

To perform this analysis, the team used data collected by the astronomical community over two decades, first from a telescope on the ground that conducted the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and then the Planck mission, a space telescope led by the European Space Agency.

The team used a technique that Ménard developed with Chiang. With it, they estimated the "redshift" of gas concentrations seen in images of microwave light going back in time all the way to 10 billion years ago. "Redshift" describes the way wavelengths of light lengthen due to the expansion of the universe. The farther away something is, the longer its wavelength - and the older its origin.

The method allowed them to measure the gradual increase in the gas temperature as a function of the age of the universe. This trend is also predicted by numerical simulations showing how dark matter and the atoms present in the gas evolve with time. As illustrated in the figure, these visualizations show gas temperatures changing from a cool blue canvas from 10 billion years ago into one speckled with hot red today.

The warming of the universe has nothing to do with climate warming on Earth, Ménard said. It is a consequence of gravitational attraction that had been predicted but which now can be precisely measured with these novel techniques.

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Researchers from the University of Tokyo and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics contributed to this work, which was supported in part by NSF grant AST1313302 and NASA grant NNX16AF64G (Y.C., B.M.). Other support has come from the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy--EXC-2094-390783311 (E.K.), and JSPS KAKENHI grant Nos. JP15H05896 (R.M., E.K.) and JP20K14515 (R.M.).

Reporters interested in speaking with Ménard can call Doug Donovan at 443-462-2947 or email him at dougdonovan@jhu.edu.

Johns Hopkins University news releases are available online, as is information for reporters. To arrange a video or audio interview with a Johns Hopkins expert, contact a media representative listed above or visit our studio web page. Find more Johns Hopkins stories on the Hub.

The universe is getting hot, hot, hot, a new study suggests

Temperature has increased about 10 times over the last 10 billion years

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The universe is getting hotter, a new study has found.

The study, published Oct. 13 in the Astrophysical Journal, probed the thermal history of the universe over the last 10 billion years. It found that the mean temperature of gas across the universe has increased more than 10 times over that time period and reached about 2 million degrees Kelvin today -- approximately 4 million degrees Fahrenheit.

"Our new measurement provides a direct confirmation of the seminal work by Jim Peebles -- the 2019 Nobel Laureate in Physics -- who laid out the theory of how the large-scale structure forms in the universe," said Yi-Kuan Chiang, lead author of the study and a research fellow at The Ohio State University Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics.

The large-scale structure of the universe refers to the global patterns of galaxies and galaxy clusters on scales beyond individual galaxies. It is formed by the gravitational collapse of dark matter and gas.

"As the universe evolves, gravity pulls dark matter and gas in space together into galaxies and clusters of galaxies," Chiang said. "The drag is violent -- so violent that more and more gas is shocked and heated up."

The findings, Chiang said, showed scientists how to clock the progress of cosmic structure formation by "checking the temperature" of the universe.

The researchers used a new method that allowed them to estimate the temperature of gas farther away from Earth -- which means further back in time -- and compare them to gases closer to Earth and near the present time. Now, he said, researchers have confirmed that the universe is getting hotter over time due to the gravitational collapse of cosmic structure, and the heating will likely continue.

To understand how the temperature of the universe has changed over time, researchers used data on light throughout space collected by two missions, Planck and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Planck is the European Space Agency mission that operates with heavy involvement from NASA; Sloan collects detailed images and light spectra from the universe.

They combined data from the two missions and evaluated the distances of the hot gases near and far via measuring redshift, a notion that astrophysicists use to estimate the cosmic age at which distant objects are observed. ("Redshift" gets its name from the way wavelengths of light lengthen. The farther away something is in the universe, the longer its wavelength of light. Scientists who study the cosmos call that lengthening the redshift effect.)

The concept of redshift works because the light we see from objects farther away from Earth is older than the light we see from objects closer to Earth -- the light from distant objects has traveled a longer journey to reach us. That fact, together with a method to estimate temperature from light, allowed the researchers to measure the mean temperature of gases in the early universe -- gases that surround objects farther away -- and compare that mean with the mean temperature of gases closer to Earth -- gases today.

Those gases in the universe today, the researchers found, reach temperatures of about 2 million degrees Kelvin -- approximately 4 million degrees Fahrenheit, around objects closer to Earth. That is about 10 times the temperature of the gases around objects farther away and further back in time.

The universe, Chiang said, is warming because of the natural process of galaxy and structure formation. It is unrelated to the warming on Earth. "These phenomena are happening on very different scales," he said. "They are not at all connected."

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This study was completed in collaborations with researchers at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, Johns Hopkins University, and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics.

CONTACT: Yi-Kuan Chiang, chiang.224@osu.edu

Written by: Laura Arenschield, arenschield.2@osu.edu