Student astronomer finds galactic missing matter

Distant galaxies used as 'locator pins' to detect 'invisible' cold clump of gas

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Research News

 

IMAGE: ARTIST'S IMPRESSION OF A THIN GAS CLOUD FORMED BY TIDAL DISRUPTION FROM A PASSING STAR. SCIENTISTS THINK THIS IS ONE OF THE POSSIBLE WAYS THE COLD CLUMP OF GAS DETECTED... view more 

CREDIT: MARK MYERS/OZGRAV

Astronomers have for the first time used distant galaxies as 'scintillating pins' to locate and identify a piece of the Milky Way's missing matter.

For decades, scientists have been puzzled as to why they couldn't account for all the matter in the universe as predicted by theory. While most of the universe's mass is thought to be mysterious dark matter and dark energy, 5 percent is 'normal matter' that makes up stars, planets, asteroids, peanut butter and butterflies. This is known as baryonic matter.

However, direct measurement has only accounted for about half the expected baryonic matter.

Yuanming Wang, a doctoral candidate in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, has developed an ingenious method to help track down the missing matter. She has applied her technique to pinpoint a hitherto undetected stream of cold gas in the Milky Way about 10 light years from Earth. The cloud is about a trillion kilometres long and 10 billion kilometres wide but only weighing about the mass of our Moon.

The results, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, offer a promising way for scientists to track down the Milky Way's missing matter.

"We suspect that much of the 'missing' baryonic matter is in the form of cold gas clouds either in galaxies or between galaxies," said Ms Wang, who is pursuing her PhD at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy.

"This gas is undetectable using conventional methods, as it emits no visible light of its own and is just too cold for detection via radio astronomy," she said.

What the astronomers did is look for radio sources in the distant background to see how they 'shimmered'.

"We found five twinkling radio sources on a giant line in the sky. Our analysis shows their light must have passed through the same cold clump of gas," Ms Wang said.

Just as visible light is distorted as it passes through our atmosphere to give stars their twinkle, when radio waves pass through matter, it also affects their brightness. It was this 'scintillation' that Ms Wang and her colleagues detected.

Dr Artem Tuntsov, a co-author from Manly Astrophysics, said: "We aren't quite sure what the strange cloud is, but one possibility is that it could be a hydrogen 'snow cloud' disrupted by a nearby star to form a long, thin clump of gas."

Hydrogen freezes at about minus 260 degrees and theorists have proposed that some of the universe's missing baryonic matter could be locked up in these hydrogen 'snow clouds'. They are almost impossible to detect directly.

"However, we have now developed a method to identify such clumps of 'invisible' cold gas using background galaxies as pins," Ms Wang said.

Ms Wang's supervisor, Professor Tara Murphy, said: "This is a brilliant result for a young astronomer. We hope the methods trailblazed by Yuanming will allow us to detect more missing matter."

The data to find the gas cloud was taken using the CSIRO's Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia.

Dr Keith Bannister, Principal Research Engineer at CSIRO, said: "It is ASKAP's wide field of view, seeing tens of thousands of galaxies in a single observation that allowed us to measure the shape of the gas cloud."

Professor Murphy said: "This is the first time that multiple 'scintillators' have been detected behind the same cloud of cold gas. In the next few years, we should be able to use similar methods with ASKAP to detect a large number of such gas structures in our galaxy."

Ms Wang's discovery adds to a growing suite of tools for astronomers in their hunt for the universe's missing baryonic matter. This includes a method published last year by the late Jean-Pierre Macquart from Curtin University who used CSIRO's ASKAP telescope to estimate a portion of matter in the intergalactic medium using fast radio bursts as 'cosmic weigh stations'.

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Ms Wang and Professor Murphy's research was done in collaboration with CSIRO, Manly Astrophysics, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav.

DOWNLOAD the illustration, photos and a copy of the research at this link.

DECLARATION

The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility which is managed by CSIRO, Australia's national science agency. ASKAP uses the resources of the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. Establishment of ASKAP, the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory and the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre are initiatives of the Australian Government, with support from the Government of Western Australia and the Science and Industry Endowment Fund.

Yuanming Wang is supported by the China Scholarship Council. Tara Murphy acknowledges the support of the Australian Research Council. David Kaplan is supported by a US National Science Foundation grant. This work used resources of China SKA Regional Centre prototype funded by the National Key R&D Programme of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The researchers acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji as the traditional owners of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site.

Mapping hotspots of undersized fish and crustaceans may aid sustainable fishing practices

FRONTIERS

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE DARKER THE SHADING, THE GREATER THE PROPORTION OF INDIVIDUALS CAUGHT COMMERCIALLY THAT ARE SMALLER THAN THE EU-DEFINED MINIMUM CONSERVATION REFERENCE SIZE. INDIVIDUALS SMALLER THAN THE MCRS MUST BE LANDED... view more 

CREDIT: G. MILISENDA AND COATHORS

A new study in Frontiers in Marine Science provides a first-of-its-kind evaluation of which regions of southern European seas are in the most need of fishing restrictions. These areas have persistently shown high numbers of undersized fish and crustaceans, which are typically discarded because they are below the allowable size limit for collection. These findings may offer a strategy for prioritizing conservation efforts and ensuring more sustainable fishery management in the future.

"Natural fish populations need time to reproduce and recover from fishing impacts -- this is the only way to achieve a balance between natural resources and human exploitation," says lead author Dr Giacomo Milisenda, of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn di Napoli in Italy. "Our findings provide evidence supporting active spatial-based management, such as the designation of Fisheries Restricted Areas (FRAs) in order to minimize the capture of immature or undersized specimens and improve the sustainability of demersal -- that is, sea floor -- fisheries."

According to a draft report from the European parliament in early January, Europe is far from reaching its marine sustainability and biodiversity goals. Despite the aims of the recently reformed EU Common Fishery Policy and commitments made by the European Commission, overfishing, habitat destruction and excessive discarding of unwanted catches are still ongoing problems.

The latest report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations found that 75% of Mediterranean and Black Sea fish stocks are overfished. Furthermore, past research has shown that, globally, more than 40% of catches are thrown back. The FAO has also found that roughly 50% of the discarded fish from the Mediterranean Sea is the result of demersal trawling -- a method of dragging nets across the sea floor.

To identify the regions that regularly have high proportions of unwanted catches, Milisenda and his collaborators combined bottom trawling surveys with the itineraries of commercial fishing operations from the last 15 years. They focused on four of the most important fishing waters in the area: the continental Portuguese coast, Catalan Sea, South of Sicily and Liguria and northern Tyrrhenian Seas.

Their findings showed that there were patches that were repeatedly trawled, and that these locations frequently coincided with hot spots of undersized animals. These methods may also make it possible to predict and avoid zones that are likely to have too many of these smaller animals.

In response to January's European parliament draft report, a coalition of NGOs has issued an urgent call for additional resources to safeguard European waters. The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean has already been promoting fishing restrictions that prioritize which regions to protect and Milisenda's findings may help better plan current and future fishing operations.

The authors hope that their research will be used by governments and fishing operations to help address these ongoing environmental emergencies.

"Spatial management can only be successful if it is combined with the active collaboration of stakeholders (fishermen) and an effective regulation plan," says Milisenda.

##

Experimental vaccine blunts the deadliest of synthetic opioids

In early tests, the vaccine was able to diminish fatal respiratory effects of fentanyl and carfentanil

SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Research News

 

LA JOLLA, CA--As the opioid epidemic raged on with an even greater force during COVID-19, the Scripps Research laboratory of chemist Kim Janda, PhD, has been working on new therapeutic interventions that may be able to prevent the bulk of deaths from opioid overdose.

Janda and his team have developed experimental vaccines that have shown in rodents to blunt the deadly effects of fentanyl--which has been driving the boom in opioid deaths--as well as its even more fatal cousin, carfentanil, a growing source of overdoses and a chemical terrorist threat.

"Synthetic opioids are not only extremely deadly, but also addictive and easy to manufacture, making them a formidable public health threat, especially when the coronavirus crisis is negatively impacting mental health," says Janda, the Ely R. Callaway, Jr. Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research. "We've shown it is possible to prevent these unnecessary deaths by eliciting antibodies that stop the drug from reaching the brain."

Once in the brain, synthetic opioids trigger the body to slow down breathing. When too much of the drugs are consumed, which is easy to do, breathing can stop altogether. In a series of experiments involving mice, Janda's vaccines "sequestered" the potent drug molecules to keep them from interacting with the brain and body, thus thwarting dangerous respiratory symptoms.

Findings appear today in ACS Chemical Biology, published by the American Chemical Society.

Janda envisions the vaccine being used in a number of scenarios, including emergency situations to treat overdoses, as a therapy for those with substance abuse disorder, and as a means to protect military personnel who may be exposed to opioids as chemical weapons. They may even be helpful for police dogs that are trained seek out these deadly drugs.

"The respiratory depression data we show is phenomenal for both fentanyl and carfentanil, which brings us hope that this approach will work to treat a number of opioid-related maladies," Janda says.

A long way from 'miracle drug'

Opioids are a diverse class of drugs that have been used to relieve pain for more than 200 years, although the landscape has taken a stark turn in recent decades. The pain drug morphine, isolated from opium, was heralded as a miracle drug in the early 1800s. Not long after, drug makers created a synthetic form, heroin, as a supposedly non-addictive morphine substitute. (The problematic nature of the drug became clear in the 1920s, prompting regulation.)

However, it wasn't until the late 1990s that opioids began to trigger a public health emergency marked by widespread overuse of opioid medications, both from prescriptions and illegal sale of the drugs.

Today, the problem has reached a new crescendo. In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, with synthetic opioids--primarily fentanyl, created in illegal labs--as the main source.

Also deemed a terrorist weapon

Fentanyl is much stronger than most other opioids, up to 100 times stronger than morphine. Carfentanil, meanwhile, is up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine, Janda says, making it the deadliest of all. It is often used in veterinary medicine to sedate large animals such as elephants.

Although carfentanil is not as well-known as a street drug, it is an increasingly used as an adulterant in heroin and cocaine, leading to unexpected drug overdoses. It can also lead to overdose deaths from accidental exposure, such as in veterinary or police settings. Having an emergency vaccine on hand can thwart those risks.

Janda says synthetic opioids also are considered a terrorist weapon; they can be made in large quantities and in several forms, including tablets, powder and spray. They are readily absorbed through the skin or through inhalation. A single terrorist attack using carfentanil could be deadly for large numbers of people, he says.

"Unfortunately, the rise in carfentanil and fentanyl overdose incidents is placing further strain on already overwhelmed public health systems currently battling a pandemic," Janda says. "We look forward to continuing our vaccine research and translating it to the clinic, where we can begin to make an impact on the opioid crisis."

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The study, "A Highly Efficacious Carfentanil Vaccine that Blunts Opioid-Induced Antinociception and Respiratory Depression," is authored by Lisa Eubanks, Steven Blake, Yoshihiro Natori, Beverly Ellis, Paul Bremer and Kim Janda.

Research was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse [U01DA

In symbiosis: Plants control the genetics of microbes

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

Research News

IMAGE: EACH SPORE CONTAINS HUNDREDS OF NUCLEI. THE IMAGE WAS GENERATED USING CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY. THE BRIGHT SPOTS WITHIN THE SPORES REPRESENT NUCLEI LABELLED WITH FLUORESCENT DYE. IMAGES ARE COLOUR CODED ALONG... view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA/ MICROSCOPE LABORATORY (OTTAWA-RDC, AGRICULTURE AND AGRI-FOOD CANADA)

Researchers from the University of Ottawa have discovered that plants may be able to control the genetics of their intimate root symbionts - the organism with which they live in symbiosis - thereby providing a better understanding of their growth.

In addition to having a significant impact on all terrestrial ecosystems, their discovery may lead to improved eco-friendly agricultural applications.

We talked to research lead Nicolas Corradi, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology and Research Chair in Microbial Genomics at the University of Ottawa, and lead author Vasilis Kokkoris, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Corradi Lab, to learn more about their recent study published in the journal Current Biology.

Can you tell us more about your findings?

Nicolas Corradi: "We have uncovered a fascinating genetic regulation between plants and their microbial symbionts, known as Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF).

AMF are plant obligate symbionts that grow within the plant roots and help their hosts to grow better and be more resistant to environmental stressors.

AMF genetics have long been mysterious; while typical cells carry one nucleus, the cells of AMF carry thousands of nuclei that can be genetically diverse. How these nuclei communicate with each other and whether the plants can control their relative abundance, has been a total mystery.

Our work provides insights into this unique genetic condition:

1- We demonstrate that the host plant symbiont influences the relative abundance of thousands of co-existing nuclei carried by their fungal symbionts.

2- We find evidence that co-existing nuclei of different genetic backgrounds cooperate, rather than compete with one another thus potentially maximizing growth benefits for both the fungi and their plant partners."

How did you come to these conclusions?

Vasilis Kokkoris: "We implemented a novel molecular approach accompanied by advanced microscopy and mathematical modelling. Every single AMF spore carries hundreds of nuclei (see image).

By analyzing single spores, we were able to quantify the genetics of thousands of nuclei and define their relative abundance in different fungal strains and across plant species.

To ensure that we accurately analyze single nuclei, we used advanced microscopy to visualize and count the nuclei in the spores.

Lastly, we used mathematical modelling to prove that the observed abundance of nuclear genotypes we identified cannot be a product of luck but instead is the result of a driven cooperation between them.

To better understand what is regulating the AMF nuclei we grew different AMF strains with different hosts and found that plants have control of the relative abundance of the fungal nuclei."

What are the impacts of your discovery?

Nicolas Corradi: "For many years, AMF have been considered to be genetic peculiarities and far away from model organisms. Inconsistencies are commonly observed in plant-AMF experiments. For example, growing the same fungal strain with different plants can lead to drastically different plant yields. For a long time, this variance in plant growth was blamed on the AMF mysterious genetics.

Our research provides an answer as we demonstrate that the genetics of these fungi, and their effect on plant growth, can be manipulated by plants thus explaining the reason for the observed variability on plant growth.

From an environmental standpoint, this new knowledge allows for better understanding how plants can influence the genetics of their symbiotic partners, thus influencing entire terrestrial ecosystems.

From an economic standpoint, it opens doors to improved sustainable agricultural applications."

###

The research was led by the Corradi Lab, at the University of Ottawa and was conducted at the University of Ottawa and the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). Two members of the Corradi lab, uOttawa PhD student Gökalp Yildirir and recent graduate Kelsey Clarke, also contributed to this study.

The other co-authors include Dr. Pierre-Luc Chagnon, Assistant Professor in the Department of biological sciences at the University of Montreal, Dr. Allyson M MacLean, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa and her MSc student Dane Goh, and Dr. Jeremy Dettman and Dr. Franck Stefani from the Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (Ottawa Research and Development Centre).

The paper "Host identity influences nuclear dynamics in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi" is published in the journal Current Biology.

ANIMAL TESTING

Scientists establish multiple primate models of SARS-CoV-2 airborne infection

US ARMY MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

 

Army scientists evaluated three nonhuman primate species as potential models of SARS-CoV-2 airborne infection, according to results published online this week in PLOS ONE. Their work demonstrates that any of these species may be useful for testing vaccines and therapies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in over 104 million cases and more than 2 million deaths worldwide in the past year.

Given the global impact of COVID-19, experts are working rapidly to develop medical countermeasures, and testing in animal models is critically important to evaluate the efficacy of these products. Recent studies suggest that aerosol transmission may be the most prevalent route of human exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Until now, however, the African green monkey was the only nonhuman primate model studied in efforts to replicate airborne transmission of the virus.

In this paper, first author Sara C. Johnston, Ph.D., and colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases analyzed two additional nonhuman primate species as potential models of COVID-19 in humans.

The team exposed cynomolgus macaques, rhesus macaques, and African green monkeys to SARS-CoV-2 using a model system invented at USAMRIID that generates a controlled dosage of highly respirable airborne particles within a sealed chamber. Scientists then monitored the animals for up to 18 days, documenting clinical disease findings and comparing them to human cases. All three species developed disease that resembled mild acute respiratory disease in human patients, and all had corresponding viral loads in nasal and throat swabs. Respiratory abnormalities and viral shedding also were observed for all animals.

"In general, the clinical disease characteristics we noted are similar to those described by others in the field," Johnston commented. "One exception is the presence of fever in all cynomolgus macaques on this study. This finding was exclusive to cynomolgus macaques and was detected only by using implanted body temperature-monitoring devices. Since fever is a hallmark of COVID-19 for human patients, this represents an important clinical finding."

Developing animal models is a complex process, according to Johnston. Variables include the species selected, the dose of virus used, and the route of exposure, with the goal being to combine these elements to create a model that replicates human disease as closely as possible.

JUST PUT EM IN A CAGE AND LET THEM GET SICK

Overall, the USAMRIID data indicate that macaques, in addition to African green monkeys, can be infected by airborne SARS-CoV-2, providing natural transmission models for evaluation of vaccines and treatments.

AFRICAN GREEN MONKEYS ARE A HOST FOR A NUMBER TRANSFERABLE DISEASES, EBOLA, HIV, ETC. TO HUMANS

THEY ARE REGULARLY USED IN MILITARY CB WARFARE EXPERIMENTS 

"In addition to determining critical disease parameters associated with disease progression, and establishing correlations between primate and human COVID-19, this work directly contributes to the advancement of medical countermeasures against the virus," said USAMRIID senior author Aysegul Nalca, M.D., Ph.D. She said the team's next step is to demonstrate the utility of these primate models for the continuing evaluation of vaccine and therapeutic candidates. Having more than one viable model in place, she added, will help to facilitate a more rapid deployment of new medical products to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

About the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases:

For over 50 years, USAMRIID has provided leading edge medical capabilities to deter and defend against current and emerging biological threat agents. The Institute is the only laboratory in the Department of Defense equipped to safely study highly hazardous viruses requiring maximum containment at Biosafety Level 4. Research conducted at USAMRIID leads to medical solutions - vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, information, and training programs - that benefit both military personnel and civilians. Established in 1969, the Institute plays a key role as the lead military medical research laboratory for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Joint Science and Technology Office for Chemical and Biological Defense. USAMRIID is a subordinate laboratory of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command. For more information, visit http://www.usamriid.army.mil.

Reference:

"Development of a Coronavirus Disease 2019 nonhuman primate model using airborne exposure" is available at this link:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0246366

Authors:

Sara C. Johnston, Keersten M. Ricks, Alexandra Jay, Jo Lynne Raymond, Franco Rossi, Xiankun Zeng, Jennifer Scruggs, David Dyer, Ondraya Frick, Jeffrey W. Koehler, Paul A. Kuehnert, Tamara L. Clements, Charles J. Shoemaker, Susan R. Coyne, Korey L. Delp, Joshua Moore, Kerry Berrier, Heather Esham, Joshua Shamblin, Willie Sifford, Jimmy Fiallos, Leslie Klosterman, Stephen Stevens, Lauren White, Philip Bowling, Terrence Garcia, Christopher Jensen, Jeanean Ghering, David Nyakiti, Stephanie Bellanca, Brian Kearney, Wendy Giles, Nazira Alli, Fabian Paz, Kristen Akers, Denise Danner, James Barth, Joshua A. Johnson, Matthew Durant, Ruth Kim, Jay W. Hooper, Jeffrey M. Smith, Jeffrey R. Kugelman, Brett F. Beitzel, Kathleen M. Gibson, Margaret LM Pitt, Timothy D. Minogue, and Aysegul Nalca, all of USAMRIID

Funding:

This research was supported by the Military Infectious Diseases Research Program.

http://libcom.org/library/beasts-burden-antagonism-practical-history

U.S. Air Force Academy intervention reduces unwanted sexual contact by over 40 percent

Study led by George Mason University College of Health and Human Services faculty finds that prevention program effectively reduces unwanted sexual contact among Air Force Cadets, addressing gap in rigorously tested interventions.

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

 DR. KENNETH GRIFFIN LED THE STUDY THAT FOUND THAT THIS PREVENTION PROGRAM EFFECTIVELY REDUCED UNWANTED SEXUAL CONTACT AMONG AIR FORCE CADETS. view more 

CREDIT: GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

Sexual assault and sexual harassment are significant problems in the U.S. military and military service academies in the United States. In 2018, 15.8% of female and 2.4% of male cadets and midshipmen across the military service academies reported unwanted sexual contact in the past year. This unwanted behavior can contribute to a variety of negative mental and behavioral health outcomes.

While the military service academies have implemented multiple sexual assault prevention programs and social marketing campaigns to improve awareness of and response to sexual assault, prevention initiatives have been hindered by an absence of evidence from rigorous research about what works.

Eliminating sexual assault in the military is a key focus of the Biden Administration's newly confirmed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. As one of his first actions in office, Austin has ordered a review of military sexual assault prevention programs.

To address the gap in evidence-based interventions, Dr. Kenneth W. Griffin, professor at George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services, worked with colleagues to rigorously test the effectiveness of the Cadet Healthy Personal Skills (CHiPS) primary prevention program. CHiPS was developed by National Health Promotion Associates (NHPA) and tested in a randomized controlled trial among cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) by a research team led by Dr. Griffin. The results were published online in the American Journal of Public Health January 21, 2021.

Griffin and colleagues found a more than 40% reduction in unwanted sexual contact among U.S. Air Force cadets who participated in the CHiPS intervention compared to those who did not participate in the intervention.

"CHiPS is a small group preventive intervention, developed by NHPA for the U.S. Air Force Academy. The program is based on Botvin Life Skills Training, an evidence-based program which has proven effective at preventing substance abuse, violence, and sexual risk taking among adolescents," explains Griffin. "The intervention is designed to positively change social norms and bystander intervention behaviors surrounding sexual violence; increase knowledge and skills regarding obtaining consent for sexual activities; address the relationship between sexual violence and alcohol and substance abuse; and build social, self-regulation, and healthy relationship skills through interactive learning and behavioral rehearsal scenarios."

Their randomized control study included 832 participants, and the new program was implemented in the summer of 2018. About half of the incoming class of 2021 cadets were assigned to receive the prevention program and half were assigned to a control group.

The CHiPS intervention has been sustained at USAFA and implemented with the incoming classes of cadets each summer since the conclusion of this study. This suggests that the program is both effective and has high potential for institutionalization.

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This research was funded by the Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Contract Number FA7014-17-P-1006.

About George Mason University

George Mason University is Virginia's largest and most diverse public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls 39,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the past half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity and commitment to accessibility. For more information, visit https://www2.gmu.edu/.

About the College of Health and Human Services

George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services prepares students to become leaders and shape the public's health through academic excellence, research of consequence, community outreach, and interprofessional clinical practice. George Mason is the fastest-growing Research I institution in the country. The College enrolls more than 1,900 undergraduate and 1,370 graduate students in its nationally-recognized offerings, including: 5 undergraduate degrees, 13 graduate degrees, and 7 certificate programs. The college is transitioning to a college of public health in the near future. For more information, visit https://chhs.gmu.edu/.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

The strange impact of the first consumer review

Shopping online? Here's what you should know about user reviews

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Research News

 

IMAGE: A PRODUCT'S FIRST REVIEW CAN HAVE AN OUTSIZED EFFECT ON THE ITEM'S FUTURE -- IT CAN EVEN CAUSE THE PRODUCT TO FAIL. view more 

CREDIT: SHANNON ALEXANDER/UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

If you're about to buy something online and its only customer review is negative, you'd probably reconsider the purchase, right? It turns out a product's first review can have an outsized effect on the item's future -- it can even cause the product to fail.

Shoppers, retailers and manufacturers alike feel the effects of customer reviews. Researchers at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business looked at the influence of the first review after noticing the exact same products getting positive reviews on one retailer's website but negative reviews on others, said Sungsik Park, Ph.D., who studied the phenomenon as a doctoral student at UF.

"Why would a product receive a 4.7-star rating with 100 reviews on Amazon, but only four or five reviews with a two-star rating Walmart or BestBuy?" Park wondered.

To find out, Park -- now an assistant professor at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina -- teamed up with UF professors Jinhong Xie, Ph.D., and Woochoel Shin, Ph.D., to analyze what might cause the variation. By comparing identical vacuum cleaners, toasters and digital cameras on Amazon and Best Buy, they were able to isolate the first review as the variable in how the product fared. They showed that the first review can affect a product's overall reviews for up to three years, influencing both the amount and the tone of later reviews.

"The first review has the potential to sway the entire evolution path of online consumer reviews," Shin said.

How could one review have such a lasting impact? When the first review on a retailer's site was positive, the product went on to garner a larger number of reviews overall, and they were more likely to be positive. When a product got a negative first review, fewer people were willing to take a chance on buying it, so it had fewer opportunities to receive positive reviews, creating a lingering impact from the first unhappy customer.

"Once you think about how user reviews are generated, it makes sense," Park said.

The findings, published in the journal Marketing Science, suggest that retailers and manufacturers should take steps to detect negative first reviews and mitigate their impact.

Firms generally monitor their online reviews and evaluate their strategies accordingly, Xie explained. "However, they do so by focusing on average rating rather than a single rating, and after the product has sufficient time to be evaluated by consumers. Our research suggests that firms need to pay attention to a special single review (i.e., the first one) as soon as it is posted."

Consumers, on the other hand, might want to check multiple sites' reviews before they rule out a product. If you're looking at several sites to compare prices, Park suggests comparison shopping reviews, too. (For big ticket items, Park also checks third-party reviews like Consumer Reports.)

Because shoppers consider user reviews more trustworthy than information from advertising, it's important to understand the factors that could skew those ratings.

"We want consumers to know that this information can be easily distorted," Park said.

States with more gun laws have lower youth gun violence, Rutgers study finds

Safety in schools contributed to increased gun and weapon carrying behaviors

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

Research News 

Gun violence among children is lower in states with more gun laws, according to a Rutgers-led study.

The study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, examined youth gun and weapon carrying data from 2005 and 2017 across several states. Researchers found the rates of youths carrying guns were higher in states with less gun laws and lower in states with more gun laws. According to researchers, this phenomenon could be associated with large urban areas and more significant safety concerns within these areas.

Louisiana and Arkansas reported the highest percentages of youth reporting gun carrying behavior in 2017 and 2013 respectively, with 12.7 percent and 12.5 percent respectively. These two states had 13 gun laws in place while the lowest rates of gun carrying among youth were reported in New York in 2013 and Iowa in 2007, with 3.0 percent and 3.5 percent respectively. They had 63 laws and 20 laws, respectively for these years.

"We understood the role of individual characteristics in youth gun carrying, but we often ignored the broader environmental context surrounding youth gun carrying behavior, such as whether gun laws are in place in a state to discourage access to guns," said Professor Paul Boxer, a co-author and professor of psychology at Rutgers-Newark. "Our study helped provide clarity to these associations."

Gun violence among children is a significant public health concern in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms are the third leading cause of death among U.S. children ages 1 to 17.

Researchers highlighted how legislation potentially influences gun violence trends regardless of whether youth carry guns and the need for improved safety in communities and schools.

"Though more work is needed, the current findings point to the potential of gun laws to lower youth gun carrying behavior, which all sides of the gun-law debate can agree is unwanted and dangerous," said John Gunn, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the Rutgers Gun Violence Research Center.

Using Artificial Intelligence to prevent harm caused by immunotherapy

Researchers discover biomarkers to identify lung cancer patients who could be made worse by same drugs that helps many others

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

CLEVELAND--Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze simple tissue scans, say they have discovered biomarkers that could tell doctors which lung cancer patients might actually get worse from immunotherapy.

Until recently, researchers and oncologists had placed these lung cancer patients into two broad categories: those who would benefit from immunotherapy, and those who likely would not.

But a third category--patients called hyper-progressors who would actually be harmed by immunotherapy, including a shortened lifespan after treatment--has begun to emerge, said Pranjal Vaidya, a PhD student in biomedical engineering and researcher at the university's Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD).

"This is a significant subset of patients who should potentially avoid immunotherapy entirely," said Vaidya, first author on a 2020 paper announcing the findings in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. "Eventually, we would want this to be integrated into clinical settings, so that the doctors would have all the information needed to make the call for each individual patient."

Ongoing research into immunotherapy

Currently, only about 20% of all cancer patients will actually benefit from immunotherapy, a treatment that differs from chemotherapy in that it uses drugs to help the immune system fight cancer, while chemotherapy uses drugs to directly kill cancer cells, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The CCIPD, led by Anant Madabhushi, Donnell Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has become a global leader in the detection, diagnosis and characterization of various cancers and other diseases by meshing medical imaging, machine learning and AI.

This new work follows other recent research by CCIPD scientists which has demonstrated that AI and machine learning can be used to predict which lung cancer patients will benefit from immunotherapy.

In this and previous research, scientists from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic essentially teach computers to seek and identify patterns in CT scans taken when lung cancer is first diagnosed to reveal information that could have been useful if known before treatment.

And while many cancer patients have benefitted from immunotherapy, researchers are seeking a better way to identify who would mostly likely respond to those treatments.

"This is an important finding because it shows that radiomic patterns from routine CT scans are able to discern three kinds of response in lung cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy treatment--responders, non-responders and the hyper-progressors," said Madabhushi, senior author of the study.

"There are currently no validated biomarkers to distinguish this subset of high risk patients that not only don't benefit from immunotherapy but may in fact develop rapid acceleration of disease on treatment," said Pradnya Patil, MD, FACP, associate staff at Taussig Cancer Institute, Cleveland Clinic, and study author.

"Analysis of radiomic features on pre-treatment routinely performed scans could provide a non-invasive means to identify these patients," Patil said. "This could prove to be an invaluable tool for treating clinicians while determining optimal systemic therapy for their patients with advanced non- small cell lung cancer."

Information outside the tumor

As with other previous cancer research at the CCIPD, scientists again found some of the most significant clues to which patients would be harmed by immunotherapy outside the tumor.

"We noticed the radiomic features outside the tumor were more predictive than those inside the tumor, and changes in the blood vessels surrounding the nodule were also more predictive," Vaidya said.

This most recent research was conducted with data collected from 109 patients with non-small cell lung cancer being treated with immunotherapy, she said.

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Zinc may help with fertility during COVID-19 pandemic, researchers report

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY - OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH

Research News

 

DETROIT - Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers have reported that zinc supplements for men and women attempting to conceive either naturally or through assisted reproduction during the COVID-19 pandemic may prevent mitochondrial damage in young egg and sperm cells, as well as enhance immunity against the virus.

In "Potential Role of Zinc in the COVID-19 Disease Process and its Probable Impact on Reproduction," published in Reproductive Sciences, Husam Abu-Soud, Ph.D., associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the C.S. Mott Center for Growth and Development, said that in addition to benefiting couples attempting to conceive during the pandemic, zinc supplementation of up to a maximum of 50 mg per day for all adults could be beneficial in enhancing immunity and fighting the viral disease process of COVID-19.

Dr. Abu-Soud and co-authors Ramya Sethuram, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility fellow, and medical student David Bai, reviewed the pathophysiology of COVID-19, particularly in relation to reproductive function. They found that zinc depletion in connection with the cytokine storm - the overreaction of the immune system that causes inflammation, tissue damage and possible organ failure in fighting COVID-19 - can cause mitochondrial damage and an accumulation of reactive oxygen species in the immature egg and sperm. The result could prevent reproduction and conception.

Zinc has beneficial effects as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent, and could prevent or mitigate the damage in the egg and sperm cells that result from the body's immune reaction to the virus, Dr. Abu-Soud said. The use of zinc could improve embryo quality and potentially lessen some pregnancy complications.

He also noted that zinc can be beneficial to the general population in enhancing immunity and fighting the viral disease process. The element works by combating oxidative cell damage.

Zinc alone may be insufficient to reverse the process once widespread oxidative cell damage has occurred. However, if the supplement is administered to those infected with COVID-19 before the cytokine storm phase, zinc may assist in ameliorating disease progression in the mild and early phases by suppressing viral replication and preventing cell damage as a pro-antioxidant, the researchers said.

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About Wayne State University

Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu