It's never too early to begin healthy eating habits

New randomized trial shows promoting healthy guidelines result

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Research News

 

June 1, 2021 -- Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Brazil found that when health workers were trained to promote infant healthy feeding practices to pregnant women their children consumed less fats and carbohydrates at 3 years of age and had lower measures of body fat at the age of 6. The study is the first to show that the roots for obesity start in the first year of life, after mothers stop breastfeeding. The findings are published online in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics.

"The first year after birth is a critical window for the establishment of habits that will influence health patterns throughout one's lifetime, said Caroline N. Sangalli, in the Graduate Program in Health Sciences, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Brazil, and first author. "The message worldwide is that to avoid obesity later in life you cannot start too early to help mothers feed their children well. And this study is proof of principle that it is possible to change a mother's behavior."

"Most surprising was that the mothers in our randomized trial offered ultra-processed foods, that are high in sugar and fat, as early as 6 months of age," said Ma?rcia Vitolo, Graduate Program in Pediatrics: Child and Adolescent Health Care, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Brazil, and co-senior author. "This behavior can be explained by cultural influences and strong marketing of processed baby foods which continues globally".

The researchers conducted the randomized trial in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 31 centers that provide prenatal, infant, and other primary care services to low-income families. The intervention was based on births from May 2008 to February 2009 and consisted of a training program to increase the knowledge of primary healthcare workers centered on the 'Ten Steps for Healthy Feeding for Brazilian Children from Birth to Two Years of Age', the Brazilian dietary guideline.

All families were informed about complementary foods that should not be offered to children under 2 years of age (i.e., cookies, snacks, soft drinks and sweets) through posters in waiting rooms. Trained interviewers measured children's growth and other outcomes at ages 6 months, 12 months, 3 years and 6 years at subsequent home visits. Details about food types, amounts and preparation methods were also recorded.

Energy intake at all ages was lower in the intervention group compared to the control group with a statistically significant difference at age 3 years. Also, children from the intervention group at 3 years of age had lower consumption of carbohydrates and total fat than the control group and at 6 years of age had accumulated less body fat as measured by a smaller waist circumference and thinner skinfolds. "We found that the energy intake in both study groups was above the requirement across all age waves; however, the excess energy intake was less in the intervention group," observed Sangalli, who analyzed the study results with Dr. L.H. Lumey at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health with a grant from the Brazil government. "Although the disparity was slight at the onset, in the long term, the reduced intake of 92 kcal per day adds up to 33,000 kcal per year, and changes of this magnitude could explain changes in weight gain during childhood."

The findings were particularly striking with regard to calories from cookies and powder chocolate, important sources of carbohydrates and fats. During the health workers training, sugar, sweets, soft drinks, salty snacks, cookies and ultra-processed foods were emphasized as foods for mothers to avoid for their babies until 2 years of age.

The intervention group at 6 years of age had lower body fat on several measures but this difference was not reflected in BMI-scores, a less sensitive measure of adiposity. "However with the prevalence of overweight in the intervention group at 7 percent lower than the control group at 6 years, this does suggest a valuable public health impact - especially since estimates indicate that the reduction in 1 percent of obesity prevalence among children up to age 6 years would save $1.7 billion in medical costs," said Vitolo.

"Many individuals including Alice Waters, Jamie Oliver, and Michelle Obama have devoted efforts to improve school lunches and eating habits of school age children to aid in the fight against obesity," said Dr. Lumey, professor of Epidemiology and a co-senior author. "All these efforts are to be applauded and encouraged. What this study suggests is that we might have to think even earlier. Feeding practices early in life can already have a significant impact on the body size of pre-school children."

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Co-authors are Paula Leffa and Ju?lia Valmo?rbida, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Brazil.

The study was supported by Brazilian Ministry of Health, 577/200; Research Support Foundation of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, PPSUS/2006/1537-7; Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, 14/2013-47731/2013-8, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, R01AG066887.

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the seventh largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master's and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit http://www.mailman.columbia.edu.

 

Junk food game helps people eat less and lose weight

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research News

 

Using a brain-training app helps people eat less junk food and lose weight, new research suggests.

The Food Trainer (FoodT app) trains people to tap on images of healthy foods - but to stop when they see unhealthy snacks, creating an association between these foods and stopping.

The new study, by the universities of Exeter and Helsinki, found that playing the game about once a day for a month led to an average one-point reduction of junk food consumption on an eight-point scale (the scale ranges from four or more items per day, to one or zero items per month).

Overall, people who used the app more also reported larger changes in their food intake.

About half of the study's 1,234 participants followed the recommendation and played the game at least 10 times.

Across all participants, an average weight loss of half a kilogram (just over a pound) and a small increase in healthy food eaten was seen.

"As an example, someone who ate each junk food two to four times a week reduced this to once a week after using the app regularly for a month," said Professor Natalia Lawrence, of the University of Exeter.

"Overall, the findings are really encouraging. The app is free and it only takes about four minutes per day - so it's something people realistically can do - and our results suggest it is effective. "There's some evidence that the benefits were stronger for people who were more overweight.

"We would expect to see this, because the app targets mechanisms that lead people to become overweight, such as the strong urges to approach and consume tempting junk foods."

Dr Matthias Aulbach, of the University of Helsinki, added: "For anyone with unhealthy eating habits - perhaps developed during lockdown - FoodT might be helpful."

The study used FoodT usage data, and the app also periodically asks questions about how often users eat certain foods, along with other information such as their age and weight.

The findings suggest that using the app regularly was linked with bigger changes in eating habits.

"If you're trying to teach the brain something new, it's a good idea to space out the learning over multiple sessions," said Dr Aulbach.

"It may be helpful to do the training in different contexts - not just at home but at work and elsewhere, so the associations you learn don't just relate to one location.

"From our results it seems important that you do the training regularly and don't just stop. So keep it interesting and relevant for yourself so you won't get bored with it: personalise the app as far as possible and pick the foods that you find really hard to resist."

The researchers stress that their findings should be interpreted cautiously, because there was no control (comparison) group and other factors (such as the possibility that people who did more training were also separately more motivated to lose weight) could play a part in the results.

Leaving a review on Google Play, one app user wrote: "Really useful. Seems to work on different levels whether it's the green/red circle association of stop/go which psychologically makes you more aware, I'm not sure - but my cravings have reduced dramatically and I no longer eat in the evening mindlessly."

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Development of the app was made possible by donations to a crowdfunding campaign, and app users who consent for their data to be used - anonymously - have enabled this research and app improvements to be made.

For more information on the app, including videos on how to use it, visit http://www.exeter.ac.uk/foodt/

The study received funding from the Gyllenberg Foundation.

The paper, published in the journal Appetite, is entitled: "App-based food Go/No-Go training: user engagement and dietary intake in an opportunistic observational study."

 

Researchers discover how cells can survive in high salt concentrations

INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN BIOMEDICINE (IRB BARCELONA)

Research News

 

IMAGE: IMAGE OF A CELL "RUPTURED " BY A FIRE-POLISHED MICROPIPETTE view more 

CREDIT: UPF - IRB BARCELONA

Cells have to constantly adapt to their surroundings in order to survive. A sudden increase in the environmental levels of an osmolyte, such as salt, causes cells to lose water and shrink. In a matter of seconds, they activate a mechanism that allows them to recover their initial water volume and avoid dying.

Finding out which genes are involved in surviving osmotic stress was the subject of a study led by the laboratories of Dr. Posas and Dr. de Nadal at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and Dr. Valverde at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), in collaboration with a group led by Dr. Moffat from the University of Toronto (Canada). wide-genome genetic screening, the scientists discovered the central role of a gene known as LRRC8A in cellular ability to survive osmotic shock.

This gene codes for a protein that forms channels in the membrane and that allow chloride ions to leave the cell. "Using a human epithelial cell model, as well as other human and mouse cell types, we have been able to demonstrate that this channel opens shortly after the cells are exposed to a high concentration of sodium chloride (NaCl)," explains Dr. De Nadal, who, together with Dr. Francesc Posas, heads the Cell Signalling laboratory at IRB Barcelona. The authors have also identified the molecular mechanism that causes this rapid opening. The chloride channel phosphorylates, which means a phosphate group is added to a specific amino acid in its sequence, thus activating the channel.

"This has been a very complex project, and it has taken us years to see the light," explains Dr. Miguel Ángel Valverde, head of UPF's Laboratory of Molecular Physiology. "We have also shown how vital it is for this channel to become activated and remove chloride in order to start the volume recovery process and for cells to survive over time," he adds.

The use of a violet dye that stains only living cells has allowed the researchers to observe that cell death increases by approximately 50% when the activity of this chloride channel is blocked with a particular compound.

A journey through time to answer old questions

In the '90s, various landmark scientific papers on cell volume regulation described the process by which cells regulate their volume to survive. It was known that the proteins responsible for volume recovery under salt stress require low intracellular concentrations in order to become activated, but it was not known how this occurred under such adverse conditions. With this discovery, the authors have answered a question posed by researchers years ago: how does chloride exit the cell to start the whole process? In the words of the paper's main co-author, Dr. Selma Serra (UPF): "Now we have the answer to that question. It is the LRRC8A channel that brings down the chloride levels in a cell. Until now we had a good understanding of the role played by this channel in cell adpatation to environments with very low salt concentrations. The big challenge was to find out how the same chloride channel could be crucial in the opposite mechanism. At the beginning of the project, it seemed to go against any kind of scientific logic that a channel used to shrink cells could also swell them."

Using electrophysiological and fluorescence microscopy techniques in living cells to ascertain intracellular chloride levels, the researchers have demonstrated the involvement of the LRRC8A chloride channel in responses to high-salt stimuli.

A major technical and conceptual challenge

Studying this process at the molecular level has posed a considerable challenge for the team involved in this project. Because it is very complicated to conduct in vivo studies of cells while they undergo osmotic shock and shrink. "Imagine you're looking at a juicy grape, and suddenly it looks like a raisin, that makes things very complicated for us," say the authors.

Another high-impact factor is that, under these stress conditions, the mechanism for activating the chloride channel is very different to what has been described so far in the literature. The article's lead co-author, Predrag Stojakovic, says, "It came as a big surprise to find out that the signalling pathways in response to stress, the MAP kinase, proteins we've been studying in the lab for months, are directly responsible for activating this channel". MAP kinases are a group of signalling proteins that add phosphate groups to other proteins, thus activating or deactivating them. Using molecular techniques, the authors have looked throughout the channel's protein to find the target sequence of these kinase proteins. "We have been able to identify the specific residue of the chloride channel that leads to activation under the control of the MAP kinase channel in response to stress," says doctoral student Stojakovic. Future implications

"This new piece of research opens up new possibilities for studying cell adaptation and survival salt stress. Certain organs of the body, such as the kidneys, are often exposed to high salt concentration, which can threaten their survival. Knowing what molecules control survival under these conditions could be very useful for understanding certain pathologies that entail volume recovery in response to salts," explains Dr. Posas.

In addition, discovering the role of this channel in these cell regulation processes is highly relevant in many pathologies involving proteins regulated by LRRC8A. This may be significant in situations such as certain kinds of arterial hypertension or cerebral ischemia.

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Alternatives to plastic straws: Which materials are suitable?

Communication No 016/2021 from the BfR of 27 May 2021

BFR FEDERAL INSTITUTE FOR RISK ASSESSMENT

Research News

 

Drinking straws are single use plastic products which will be subjected to a Europe-wide sales ban from 2021 onwards. This is stated in EU Directive 2019/904 from 5 June 2019. Consequently, alternative materials have to be established for the production of drinking straws as well as other frequently used products which predominantly were made of plastic so far.

As set out in the EU Framework Regulation for food contact material (Regulation (EC) No. 1935/2004), objects that come into direct contact with food must be safe. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has appraised straw, silicone, metal, paper and paper-board, durum wheat, and glass for their suitability to replace plastic in the production of drinking straws.

If frequently used, drinking straws made of silicone, stainless steel or glass are, in the opinion of the BfR, an appropriate alternative to plastic straws. Silicone is suitable as a food contact material (FCM) provided that its manufacture is compliant with the specifications of BfR recommendation No. XV. Metals and alloys (e.g. stainless steel) are also appropriate as FCMs, provided that the specifications of the Council of Europe Resolution regarding metals and alloys are met. Glass is also suitable for food contact. However, there is the risk of breaking. As a result, fragments of glass can get into the food or drink and in case of swallowing dangerous injuries can occur. Meanwhile, there are drinking straws made from particularly durable glass.

In case of single use, durum wheat (e.g. raw macaroni noodles) is an appropriate material for drinking straws from a health perspective. However, the noodles may decompose, particularly in warm and hot drinks, or over a longer time period, and become useless as a result. Furthermore, they may modify the consistency and taste of the drink.

Straws made of paper and paperboard are only useful if substances are added which prevent the paper from softening. These compounds are also known as wet-strength aids. Certain residues of these products, especially chloropropanols, can migrate into food. If the specifications of BfR recommendation no. XXXVI are met, no health risks are currently noted with the use of drinking straws made of paper and paperboard.

There are no risk assessments at the moment regarding the use of drinking straws made out of straw. The BfR recommends that straw is not used for this purpose with regard to potential health risks resulting from bacteria, mycotoxins, or other unwanted substances.

Regardless of the material, drinking straws used more than once should be cleaned thoroughly every time before using. If thorough cleaning of the drinking straws cannot be guaranteed, the BfR recommends that such multiple-use drinking straws are not used for reasons of hygiene. Furthermore, they should not have any sharp edges and should also be replaced if there are any signs of material damage (signs of wear and tear).

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About the BfR

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is an scientifically independent institution within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in Germany. It advises the Federal Government and Federal Laender on questions of food, chemical and product safety. The BfR conducts its own research on topics that are closely linked to its assessment tasks.

This text version is a translation of the original German text which is the only legally binding version

 

Men make more extreme choices and decisions, find scientists

Revealed: Men and women do think and act differently

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Research News

 

This is the main finding of new research involving more than 50,000 participants in 97 samples, published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

The findings show that the more extreme choices and decisions of men can be both positive and negative.

"The question of whether men and women make systematically different choices and decisions is one on the most fundamental (and controversial) questions in psychological research," Associate Professor Stefan Volk from the University of Sydney Business School said.

"We found men were much more likely than women to be at the extreme ends of the behavioural spectrum, either acting very selfishly or very altruistically, very trusting or very distrusting, very fair or very unfair, very risky or very risk averse and were either very short-term or very long-term focused."

The findings could impact policies aimed at regulating extreme behaviours such as the recent GameStop trading frenzy after retail traders on Reddit heavily shorted the stock.

"Our research suggests policies aimed at reducing extreme behaviours should be more tailored towards men," said Dr Volk.

The researchers suggest the differences might have evolutionary roots, but there are also alternative explanations for the existence of what is often referred to as greater male variability.

"Parental investment theory explains that men, in contrast to women, invest less in parenting, are less selective in their partner choice and compete more for sexual partners," Associate Professor Volk explained.

"This evolutionary theorising suggests that men had to deviate from the average to stand out and be attractive to women to reproduce, while women were able to attract sexual partners without deviating from the average.

"Another explanation could be norms and expectations of acceptable gendered behaviour and that men's extreme behaviours are socially constructed and reinforced.

"This alternative theory suggests that the socially constructed patriarchy in many societies has managed to constrain women and the opportunity for them to display the same level of variability as men."

Associate Professor Stefan Volk, worked with an international team to examine sex differences in altruism, cooperation, trust, fairness and attitudes towards time and risk in economic decision-making. The researchers found systematic evidence for greater male variability.

He added these gender differences in variability are difficult to detect in research focused on gender differences in average behaviours. This is why they have been overlooked in most previous research, which traditionally focused on mean gender differences rather than the range of behaviours. But we need to look at differences in extreme behaviours to understand what might be driving those outliers.

The PNAS paper is the second in a series by Associate Professor Volk on greater male variability; the first was just published in the internationally leading psychological journal Psychological Science.

This earlier research involved two large-scale meta-analyses of economic decision-making studies and studies of organisational citizenship behaviour with more than 20,000 participants. While the researchers found no differences in the degree to which men and women behaved cooperatively on average, they did find strong evidence for greater male variability in cooperation.

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Scientists demonstrate a better, more eco-friendly method to produce hydrogen peroxide

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES

Research News

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IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PROFESSOR DAVID FLAHERTY AND GRADUATE STUDENT TOMAS RICCIARDULLI DEMONSTRATE A MORE EFFICIENT AND ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY METHOD TO PRODUCE HYDROGEN PEROXIDE, WHICH IS IN HIGH DEMAND FOR ITS... view more 

CREDIT: CLAIRE BENJAMIN/UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is used to disinfect minor cuts at home and for oxidative reactions in industrial manufacturing. Now, the pandemic has further fueled demand for this chemical and its antiseptic properties. While affordable at the grocery store, H2O2 is actually difficult and expensive to manufacture at scale.

A team led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has demonstrated a more efficient and environmentally friendly method to produce H2O2, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

"While the two ingredients--hydrogen and oxygen--are either inexpensive or freely available from the atmosphere, hydrogen peroxide is highly reactive and unstable, which makes it very hard to produce," said first author Tomas Ricciardulli, a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at UIUC.

Currently, producing H2O2 requires a complicated, multi-step process and large facilities. Moreso, this traditional method relies on an intermediate chemical (anthraquinone) that is derived from fossil fuels.

Decades ago, researchers proposed a simpler, cheaper, and 'greener' one-step alternative method where a catalyst (palladium-gold nanoparticles) drives the reaction instead. Bonus: the catalyst can be recycled to produce hydrogen peroxide over and over.

"However, hydrogen and oxygen also form water, and this proposed 'direct synthesis' method was known to synthesize 80 percent water and just 20 percent hydrogen peroxide," said lead author David Flaherty, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UIUC. "Scientists have fiercely debated the arrangement of palladium and gold atoms needed in nanoparticles to increase the selectivity for hydrogen peroxide and why this works."

A higher ratio of gold to palladium atoms in the catalyst produces more H2O2 and less water. The researchers found that a catalyst with a ratio of one palladium to 220 gold atoms generates almost 100 percent hydrogen peroxide, which is about the point of diminishing returns.

Significantly, the catalysts give stable performance over many days of use, continuously achieve these remarkable selectivities to H2O2, and do so using clean water as a solvent, which avoids the problematic and corrosive additives often used for this chemistry.

The organization of these atoms within the catalyst also counts: palladium atoms touching one another favor water formation, while palladium atoms surrounded by gold favor H2O2 formation.

What's more, they discovered the influence extends from the first ring of neighboring atoms that surround the palladium atom to the second layer of atoms, called the next nearest neighbors. More H2O2 is synthesized when both a given palladium atom's neighbors and next-nearest neighbors are all gold.

"We demonstrated how to create a very efficient and selective catalyst," said Flaherty, who is also a Dow Chemical Company Faculty Scholar. "While promising, there are still hurdles to overcome to adopt this method commercially."

The Flaherty research group is pursuing the development of nanoparticle catalysts with new compositions and reactors to enable hybrid chemical-electrochemical methods for this reaction. "Our ultimate goal is to develop feasible technology for distributed production of H2O2 which would open doors for many sustainable alternatives to traditional chemical processes."

The researchers also expect that their activities will reveal other key scientific concepts to electrify chemical manufacturing along the way.

CAPTION

University of Illinois researchers demonstrate a more efficient and environmentally friendly method to produce hydrogen peroxide with palladium-gold nanoparticles, a catalyst that they found performs better when the palladium particles are surrounded by gold.

CREDIT

Claire Benjamin/University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The National Science Foundation and the Energy & Biosciences Institute supported this research, which was conducted in part at the Material Research Laboratory at Illinois and the Synchrotron Radiation Facility at Stanford University. Co-authors also included Coogan Thompson and Ayman M. Karim (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), Sahithi Gorthy and Matthew Neurock (University of Minnesota), and Jason S. Adams (UIUC).

 

How news coverage affects public trust in science

Negative stories without context can undermine confidence in science

ANNENBERG PUBLIC POLICY CENTER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Research News

 

News media reports about scientific failures that do not recognize the self-correcting nature of science can damage public perceptions of trust and confidence in scientific work, according to findings by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania and the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York.

News stories about science follow several specific narratives, the researchers write in a new study in the journal Public Understanding of Science. One is that science is "in crisis" or "broken," a narrative driven in recent years by reports of unsuccessful efforts to replicate findings in psychology, a rise in retractions, failures of peer review, and the misuse of statistics, among other things.

"Attempts and failures to replicate findings are an essential and healthy part of the scientific process," said co-author Yotam Ophir, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Buffalo and a former postdoctoral fellow in APPC's science of science communication program, where the work was conducted. "Our research shows the need for journalists and scientists to accurately contextualize such failures as part of the self-correcting nature of science."

In an experiment, nearly 4,500 U.S. adults were assigned to read one of four different types of news stories about science or a control story. Among the findings:

Exposure to stories highlighting problems reduced trust in scientists and induced negative beliefs about scientists.

Greater effects were seen among people who read stories saying that science was in crisis or broken.

"We've identified a tendency in news coverage to overgeneralize the prevalence of problems in science and take them as an indicator that the enterprise as a whole is broken," said co-author and APPC Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson. What the experiment found, she added, is that "exposure to news that mistakenly concluded that because something has gone wrong science is in crisis can unjustifiably undercut confidence in science."

The experiment

The study sought to provide experimental evidence about the effects of exposure to different narratives about science. It was conducted online with 4,497 U.S. adults in early 2019 - before, Jamieson noted, the world was in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic and "science discovered life-saving vaccines with unprecedented speed."

The experiment tested the effects of four narratives:

the "honorable quest" or discovery, in which a scientist discovers knowledge that is reliable and consequential;

the "counterfeit quest," or retraction of published work, in which a scientist engages in dishonorable and guileful conduct;

the science is "in crisis/broken" narrative, which indicts scientists or the institution of science for failing to address a known problem; and

the "problem explored," where scientists explore and potentially fix a problem revealed by the "crisis/broken" narrative.

Participants were randomly assigned a reading based on edited news stories that were consistent with one of the narratives. For example, one "quest" story told of a discovery in immunotherapy to treat leukemia, while a "counterfeit quest" story described retracted scientific claims about eating behavior. A "science is broken" story described an "alarming increase in the number of retractions," and a "problem explored" story looked at psychologists exploring ways to increase the reliability of psychology studies. A fifth group of participants read a control story about an unrelated subject, baseball.

After completing the readings, the participants were asked about their trust in science, beliefs about science, and support for funding of science.

Trust in science is high

The researchers found that:

Trust in science was moderately high;

Beliefs that science is self-correcting and beneficial were moderate to high;

Among people with higher levels of trust in science, the more they perceived the problem-focused stories to be representative of science, the more likely they were to believe that science is self-correcting;

For people with lower levels of trust in science, the effect was reversed: the more they saw the problem-focused stories as representative, the less likely they were to believe that science is self-correcting;

Support for funding science was not affected by the stories.

"This study," the authors concluded, "demonstrates the adverse, if small, effects of problem-focused media narratives on trust in, beliefs about, and support for scientists and points to the importance of perceived representativeness and audience trust in scientists in the audience's response to them."

The experiment follows up on a 2018 study by Jamieson in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . The earlier study examined three media narratives about science - the honorable quest, counterfeit quest, and crisis/broken. Of the crisis/broken articles examined in that study, just 29% indicated that science is self-correcting and 34% were written by a scientist. That study expressed concern that "defective narratives can enhance the capacity of partisans to discredit areas of science... containing findings that are ideologically uncongenial to them."

How journalists and scientists can bolster trust in science

"By labeling problems in scientific research 'a crisis' and by framing scientific failures as indications that science is unreliable, both scientists and journalists are failing to communicate the true values of science," Ophir said. "Making mistakes is part of science. What the news media and scientists themselves often frame as failure is an indicator of healthy science."

The content analysis found that honorable quest story was the most prevalent. But the study noted that when media reports do discuss failures "they tend to ignore scientific attempts to address the problems," the authors write. "We argue that such narratives about individual or systemic scientific failures fail to communicate scientific norms of continuing exploration, scrutiny, and skepticism and could, particularly if being presented regularly and consistently, harm public trust and confidence in scientific work."

Use of the "problem explored" narrative could lessen the detrimental effects and improve attitudes toward science by "better communicating scientific norms of continuing exploration, scrutiny, and skepticism," the authors write. "As scientific communication in news media is the result of a negotiation between scientists and journalists, these results could guide future science communication efforts by both journalists and members of the scientific community.

"Like others before us..." they conclude, "we believe that such a change will require scientific institutions to reconsider the current incentive structure, that prioritizes the promotion of novel, statistically significant discoveries over [rigorous] self-correction efforts."

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The Annenberg Public Policy Center was established in 1993 to educate the public and policy makers about communication's role in advancing public understanding of political, science, and health issues at the local, state, and federal levels.

MOMMA CAPITALI$M

Mumpreneur success still requires conventional masculine behaviour

UNIVERSITY OF KENT

Research News

 

A new study led by Kent Business School, University of Kent, finds that whilst the mumpreneur identity may enable women to participate in the business world and be recognised as 'proper' entrepreneurs, this success is dependent on alignment with the conventional masculine norms of entrepreneurship.

These conventional masculine behaviours include working long hours and an ongoing dedicated commitment to the success of a business.

Published in the International Small Business Journal and based on an interview study of women business owners, the study highlights the interviewees' belief that entrepreneurship and motherhood are compatible but challenges the claim in existing research that mumpreneurship represents a new feminised identity and a different way of doing business.

The study conceptualises the mumpreneur as the hybrid combination of masculine and feminine behaviours, examining the tensions that emerge in simultaneously running a business and a family, and considering if these are managed through the curtailment of entrepreneurial activity.

The study found that for those women who see themselves as entrepreneurial mums, entrepreneurial curtailment is not an option and conventional masculine behaviours are valued higher than the feminine in the context of successful business development.

The consequences of this hybrid behaviour are significant:

To be identified as a 'normal' entrepreneur, feminine behaviours are accepted alongside masculine commitment to business, so long as they are not disruptive of the latter.

Mumpreneurs must balance both behaviours yet avoid engaging in excessive feminine conduct that may restrict business development or devalue their entrepreneurial activities.

Mumpreneurs perceived as 'too feminine' in their business activities are marginalised as unengaged in 'proper' entrepreneurship, creating a hierarchy of business identities.

Patricia Lewis, Professor of Management at the University of Kent and Principal Investigator said: 'The mumpreneur identity has undoubtedly had a positive impact on the way women's entrepreneurship is viewed. Nevertheless, our study demonstrates that it has not disrupted the dominant discourses of masculine entrepreneurship or gendered power relations in the field. Women are still in a position of being committed to both sides of the balance between business and motherhood but are devalued as entrepreneurs when devoting time to their children rather than business.'

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The paper, 'Postfeminism, hybrid mumpreneur identities and the reproduction of masculine entrepreneurship', is published in the International Small Business Journal (Professor Patricia Lewis, University of Kent; Professor Nick Rumens, Oxford Brookes University; Professor Ruth Simpson, Brunel University London).

URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02662426211013791

DOI: 10.1177/02662426211013791

Small 'snowflakes' in the sea play a big role

New findings from scientists of Bremen will aid in the further development of biogeochemical models that include the marine nitrogen cycle

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT

Research News

 

IMAGE: SMALL MARINE "SNOWFLAKES " ARE VERY IMPORTANT FOR THE NUTRIENT BALANCE OF THE OCEANS. THE PARTICLE SHOWN HERE IS HIGHLY MAGNIFIED - IN REALITY SMALL PARTICLES ARE ONLY ABOUT THE WIDTH... view more 

CREDIT: MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR MARINE MICROBIOLOGY / C. KARTHÄUSER AND S. AHMERKAMP

In the deep waters that underlie the productive zones of the ocean, there is a constant rain of organic material called 'marine snow'. Marine snow does not only look like real snow but also behaves similarly: Large flakes are rare and fall quickly while highly abundant smaller flakes take their time. Scientists from Bremen and Kiel have now discovered that precisely those features explain why small particles play an important role for the nutrient balance of the oceans. These findings have now been published in Nature Communications and will aid in the further development of biogeochemical models that include the marine nitrogen cycle.

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have been studying biogeochemical processes in the oxygen minimum zone of the eastern South Pacific off Peru, one of the largest low oxygen regions of the world ocean. The researchers focused on so-called marine snow particles of different sizes, which are composed of algal debris and other organic material, aiming to understand how these particles affect the nitrogen cycle in the oxygen minimum zone. Thereby, they solved a long-standing puzzle: How do the nutrients that are concentrated inside the particles reach anammox bacteria that live freely suspended in the water column.

Too much of a good thing can be bad

Oxygen minimum zones are regions of the ocean where little or no oxygen is dissolved in the water. As most animals need oxygen to breathe, they cannot survive in these water bodies. Not surprisingly, oxygen minimum zones are also referred to as marine dead zones. Oxygen minimum zones are a natural phenomenon, but have been found to be expanding in many regions of the ocean as a result of human activity. Global warming contributes to decreasing oxygen concentrations, as warm water stores less oxygen. Warmer surface water also mix less with the deep, cool water below, thus leading to stagnation and reduced ventilation.

Changes to the nitrogen cycle also have deleterious effects on ocean oxygen concentrations. Nitrogen is a vital nutrient that animals and plants need in order to grow. Normally rare in the ocean, nitrogen compounds that can be processed have become increasingly available in many coastal regions. Humans use large amounts of fertilizers with nitrogen compounds such as ammonium and nitrate for agriculture and these nutrients find their way into the ocean via rivers and the atmosphere in ever increasing amounts. This has severe consequences. The additional nutrients enhance phytoplankton growth. When the planktonic organisms die, they are decomposed by bacteria. During this process the bacteria consume oxygen, driving a decline in oxygen concentrations. Once oxygen is fully consumed, anaerobic microbial processes take over, during which microbes essentially "breathe" nitrogen compounds in place of oxygen, and as a result convert nitrate, nitrite and ammonium back to nitrogen gas and release it to the atmosphere.

CAPTION

Map with an overview of the oxygen minimum zones. The largest are located offshore Middle and South America, but oxygen depleted areas can also be found in the Baltic Sea. The red box marks the oxygen minimum zone off Peru where samples were collected for this study.

CREDIT

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology / S. Ahmerkamp

Which factors drive the loss of nitrogen?

Combined, the anaerobic microbial respiration processes of anammox and denitrification in oxygen minimum zones lead to the loss of up to 40 percent of the oceans nitrogen. However the regulation of microbial nitrogen-loss processes in oxygen minimum zones is still poorly understood. This study is focused on the anammox process, i.e. anaerobic ammonium oxidation with nitrite. In their project, the researchers followed up on the observation that the anammox process is particularly high when organic material in the form of marine snow particles is especially abundant. Their hypothesis was that the organic material, which contains a large amount of fixed nitrogen, serves as a source of ammonium for the anammox reaction. Strangely enough, anammox bacteria do not seem to live on the marine snow itself, but in the water column. So how do these bacteria find their nutrients?

To unravel this puzzle, the scientists used underwater cameras to measure particle abundances over depth profiles at different stations in the oxygen minimum zone off Peru. "We observed that the anammox process occurs mainly in places where the smaller particles are abundant," says Clarissa Karthäuser, shared first author of the paper with Soeren Ahmerkamp. "This indicates that the smaller particles are more important for the anammox process than the larger ones - whereby small means that they are about the size of the width of a human hair and thus barely visible".

These small particles are very abundant in the water column and sink slowly, thus they stay in the oxygen minimum zone longer. Also, the organic material is packed more densely in smaller particles and as a result the small flakes transport a similar amount of material per particle as the larger clumps, which means that overall they transport significantly more nitrogen. "We estimated that the ammonium concentration around the particles is significantly increased," says Soeren Ahmerkamp. "This indicates two things: First, that the higher number and longer residence times of the smaller particles in the water column increase the likelihood that bacteria will encounter a small particle by chance. Secondly, the high ammonium concentrations in the boundary layer of the particle can then provide nourishment to the bacteria."

Important results for earth system models

The new findings are crucial for the improvement of Earth system models. "With this study, we have resolved an important aspect of the anammox process and thus made an important contribution to a better understanding of the nutrient balance in the oceans," says Marcel Kuypers, head of the Department of Biogeochemistry of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. "With this improved process understanding, we provide the link between particle-associated processes and N-cycling in oxygen minimum zones which can be adapted in biogeochemical Earth system models to better assess the effects of anthropogenic deoxygenation on the nitrogen cycle."

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Original publication

Clarissa Karthäuser, Soeren Ahmerkamp, Hannah K Marchant, Laura A Bristow, Helena Hauss, Morten H Iversen, Rainer Kiko,Joeran Maerz, Gaute Lavik, Marcel MM Kuypers Small sinking particles control anammox rates in the Peruvian oxygen minimum zone Nature Communications, 28 May 2021

CAPTION

Clarissa Karthäuser in the lab. On the screen you see a coloured and highly magnified particle.

CREDIT

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology / C. Karthäuser