Race discrimination linked to heightened risk of underweight and premature babies

Adds to existing evidence that discrimination is a risk factor for poor health outcomes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Experience of race discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, skin colour, or nationality is linked to a heightened risk of having an underweight and/or premature baby, finds a pooled data analysis of the available evidence, published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.

The findings add to the existing evidence that race discrimination is a risk factor for poor health outcomes, say the researchers.

For several decades, race has been recognised as a social determinant of health and a risk factor for numerous diseases.  The evidence increasingly suggests that upstream social, environmental, economic and political factors are fundamental drivers of health inequities, and that it is often racism, rather than race, that is the root cause.

For example, maternal death rates among Black and Indigenous women in the USA are 2–3 times higher than those of White women. Similarly, in the UK, maternal death rates are 2–4 times higher among Black and Asian women than they are among White women.

To explore the existing patterns of racial disparities in pregnancy outcomes, the researchers searched 8 electronic databases, looking for relevant studies on self-reported race discrimination and premature birth (before 37 weeks), low birthweight, and high blood pressure associated with pregnancy, and published up to January 2022.

In all, the results of 24 studies were included in the final analysis, with the number of participants in each study ranging from 39 to 9470. Most (20) studies were carried out in the US.

Study participants were of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, including Black or African American, Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, Mãori, Pacific, Asian, Aboriginal, Romani, indigenous German and Turkish.

The pooled data analysis showed that for all the outcomes studied, experience of race discrimination was associated with a heightened risks of premature birth and giving birth to a small-for-gestational age baby.

The overall odds of a premature birth were estimated to be 40% higher. When low quality studies were excluded, the odds of a premature birth were reduced but still 31% higher. And while not statistically significant, the overall odds of a small-for-gestational age baby were estimated to be 23% higher.

Similar results were obtained when further analyses of selected data were carried out.

The researchers acknowledge that many of the studies included in the pooled data analysis were of low quality, and that most were based in the USA, and included few marginalised racial or ethnic groups other than African Americans. As such, they may not be more widely applicable to other ethnic groups and cultural settings.

Nevertheless, they point out: “Our findings align with existing evidence on perceived racial discrimination as an important risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcomes.”

They explain: “Pervasive in people’s day-to-day lives, racism has far reaching implications on the experiences of racialised individuals. As an upstream factor, it shapes other social determinants of health such as employment, poverty, education and housing. 

“Relating more directly to health, racism can impact what services and resources are available, such as referral to specialist care, access to health insurance and access to public health services.”

The researchers highlight various approaches to counter the effects of racism on health outcomes, including the need to improve the training of clinicians.

This can be done by: “universally removing well-documented examples of racial bias which continue to perpetuate health inequities,” they suggest. 

“This includes the lack of teaching on dermatology and differential disease presentations in non-White individuals, inaccuracies in pulse oximetry technology, unsubstantiated race-based adjustments to measuring renal function, and inadequate teaching around individual biases and the social drivers of health inequities.”

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JOURNAL

BMJ Global Health

DOI

10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009227 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Racial discrimination and adverse pregnancy outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Brazilian scientists reveal method of converting methane gas into liquid methanol

The strategy was tested at the Federal University of São Carlos. The conversion took place under ambient temperature and pressure conditions, which could enable methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to be used to produce fuel.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

IMAGE: THE CONVERSION TOOK PLACE UNDER AMBIENT TEMPERATURE AND PRESSURE CONDITIONS, WHICH COULD ENABLE METHANE, A POTENT GREENHOUSE GAS, TO BE USED TO PRODUCE FUEL. view more 

CREDIT: UFSCAR

A group of researchers has succeeded in converting methane into methanol using light and dispersed transition metals such as copper in a process known as photo-oxidation. According to an article reporting the study published in Chemical Communications, the reaction was the best obtained to date for conversion of methane gas into liquid fuel under ambient conditions of temperature and pressure (25 °C and 1 bar respectively).

The term bar as a unit of pressure derives from the Greek word for weight (baros). One bar is equivalent to 100,000 Pascals (100 kPa), which is very close to the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level (101,325 Pa).

The results of the study are an important step in making natural gas available as an energy source for the production of alternative fuels to gasoline and diesel. Although natural gas is considered a fossil fuel, its conversion into methanol emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) than other liquid fuels in the same category.

In Brazil, methanol plays a key role in biodiesel production and in the chemical industry, which uses it to synthesize many products.

Furthermore, methane capture from the atmosphere is crucial to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change, as the gas has 25 times the potential of CO2, for example, to contribute to global warming.

“There’s a great debate in the scientific community about the size of the planet’s methane reserves. According to some estimates, they may have double the energy potential of all other fossil fuels combined. In the transition to renewables, we’ll have to tap into all this methane at some point,” Marcos da Silva, first author of the article, told Agência FAPESP. Silva is a PhD candidate in the Physics Department of the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar).

The study was supported by FAPESP via two projects (20/14741-6 and 21/11162-8), by the Higher Research Council (CAPES, an agency of the Ministry of Education), and by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, an arm of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation).

According to Ivo Freitas Teixeira, a professor at UFSCar, Silva’s thesis advisor and last author of the article, the photocatalyst used in the study was a key innovation. “Our group innovated significantly by oxidizing methane in a single stage,” he said. “In the chemical industry, this conversion occurs via the production of hydrogen and CO2 in at least two stages and under very high temperature and pressure conditions. Our success in obtaining methanol under mild conditions, while also expending less energy, is a major step forward.”

According to Teixeira, the results pave the way for future research into the use of solar energy for this conversion process, potentially reducing its environmental impact still further.

Photocatalysts 

In the laboratory, the scientists synthesized crystalline carbon nitride in the form of polyheptazine imide (PHI), using non-noble or earth-abundant transition metals, especially copper, to produce active visible-light photocatalysts. 

They then used the photocatalysts in methane oxidation reactions with hydrogen peroxide as an initiator. The copper-PHI catalyst generated a large volume of oxygenated liquid products, especially methanol (2,900 micromoles per gram of material, or µmol.g-1 in four hours).

“We discovered the best catalyst and other conditions essential to the chemical reaction, such as using a large amount of water and only a small amount of hydrogen peroxide, which is an oxidizing agent,” Teixeira said. “The next steps include understanding more about the active copper sites in the material and their role in the reaction. We also plan to use oxygen directly to produce hydrogen peroxide in the reaction itself. If successful, this should make the process even safer and economically viable.”

Another point the group will continue to investigate relates to copper. “We work with dispersed copper. When we wrote the article, we didn’t know whether we were dealing with isolated atoms or clusters. We now know they’re clusters,” he explained.

In the study, the scientists used pure methane, but in future they will extract the gas from renewables such as biomass. 
According to the United Nations, methane has so far caused about 30% of global warming since the pre-industrial age. Methane emissions from human activity could be reduced by as much as 45% in the decade ahead, avoiding a rise of almost 0.3°C by 2045.

The strategy of converting methane into liquid fuel using a photocatalyst is new and not available commercially, but its potential in the near term is significant. “We began our research over four years ago. We now have far better results than those of Professor Hutchings and his group in 2017, which motivated our own research,” Teixeira said, referring to a study published in the journal Science by researchers affiliated with universities in the United States and United Kingdom, and led by Graham Hutchings, a professor at Cardiff University in Wales.

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe

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JOURNAL

Chemical Communications

DOI

10.1039/D2CC01757A 

ARTICLE TITLE

Selective methane photooxidation into methanol under mild conditions promoted by highly dispersed Cu atoms on crystalline carbon nitrides

First global map of cargo ship pollution reveals effects of fuel regulations

"Ship tracks" in clouds also help explain how particulate matter interacts with clouds and affects global temperatures

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE COUNTY

A new study in Science Advances led by UMBC’s Tianle Yuan used satellite data from 2003 – 2020 to determine the effect of fuel regulations on pollution from cargo ships. The research team’s data revealed significant changes in sulfur pollution after regulations went into effect in 2015 and 2020. Their extensive data set can also contribute to answering a bigger question: How do pollutants and other particles interact with clouds to affect global temperatures overall?

Tiny particles in the atmosphere, which are called aerosols and include pollution, can harm human health, but they also often have a cooling effect on the planet because of the way they interact with clouds. However, estimates of the extent of that effect range by a factor of 10—not very precise for something so important.

“How much cooling the aerosols cause is a big unknown right now, and that’s where ship tracks come in,” says Yuan, an associate research scientist at the Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research (GESTAR) II Center.

Sea of data

When pollutant particles from ships enter clouds low in the atmosphere, they decrease the size of individual cloud droplets without changing the total volume of the cloud. That creates more droplet surface area, which reflects more energy entering Earth’s atmosphere back to space and cools the planet.

Instruments on satellites can detect these differences in droplet size. And the air over the ocean is generally very clean, making the relatively narrow ship tracks that snake across the ocean easy to pick out. “Most of the original cloud is unpolluted, and then some of it is polluted by the ship, so that creates a contrast,” Yuan explains.

While ship tracks can be relatively obvious in satellite data, you have to know where to look and have the time and resources to search. Before advances in computing power and machine learning, Yuan says, Ph.D. students could focus their entire thesis on identifying a group of ship tracks in satellite data.

“What we did is automate this process,” Yuan says. His group “developed an algorithm to automatically find these ship tracks from the sea of data.” 

This huge advance allowed them to generate a comprehensive, global map of ship tracks over an extended period (18 years) for the first time. Next, they will share it with the world—opening the door for anyone to dig into the data and make further discoveries.

Disappearing act

Even before pollution-limiting regulations were put into place, Yuan and his colleagues found that ship tracks didn’t occur everywhere ships were traveling. Only areas with certain types of low cloud cover had ship tracks, which is useful for adjusting the role of clouds in climate models. They also found that after Europe, the U.S., and Canada instated Emission Control Areas (ECAs) along their coastlines in 2015, ship tracks nearly disappeared in those regions, demonstrating the efficacy of such regulations for reducing pollution in port cities.

However, shipping companies didn’t necessarily reduce their pollution output across the board. Instead, they made changes to adapt to the new rules. Ports in northern Mexico (not part of the ECA system) saw increased activity, and pollution “hot spots” built up along the boundaries of the ECAs as ships altered their routes to spend as few miles as possible inside the restrictive zones. 

In 2020, though, an international agreement set a much more restrictive standard for shipping fuel across the entirety of global oceans, rather than only near coastlines. After that, the only ship tracks the team’s algorithm could detect were those in the cleanest clouds. In clouds with even mild background pollution, the presumed ship tracks blended right in.

Climate conundrum

It seems obvious that reducing pollution from ships would produce a net benefit. However, because particles (such as shipping pollution) have a cooling effect when interacting with clouds, reducing them significantly could contribute to a problematic uptick in global temperatures, Yuan says. 

That’s another reason it’s important to firm up the degree to which particulate pollution cools the planet. If the cooling effect of these pollutants and other particles is significant, humans will need to balance the need to prevent extensive warming with the need to reduce pollution where people and other species live—which creates difficult choices.

“Ship pollution alone can create a substantial cooling effect,” Yuan says, “because the atmosphere over the ocean is so clean.” There is a physical limit to how small cloud droplets can get, so at a certain point, adding more pollution doesn’t increase the clouds’ cooling effect. But over the ocean, because the background is largely unpolluted, even a small amount of pollution from ships has an effect. 

Ocean pollution is also an outsize driver of the cooling effect of aerosols, because low clouds, which are most conducive to creating ship tracks, are more common over water than on land. And, as Yuan reminds us, “the ocean covers two-thirds of the Earth’s surface.”

The bigger picture

Moving forward, Yuan and his colleagues are helping address this conundrum by continuing their work to define more precisely the role clouds play in climate. “We can take advantage of the millions of ship track samples we have now to start to get hold of the overall aerosol-cloud interaction problem,” Yuan says, “because ship tracks can be used as mini-labs.”

By analyzing data from a relatively simple and well-controlled system—narrow ship tracks running through very clean clouds—they can come to conclusions they can be confident about.”

Other research teams can also use the team’s data set and algorithm to come to their own conclusions, amplifying the potential public impact of this work. That spirit of collaboration will help scientists and communities determine how best to approach global challenges like pollution and temperature change.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abn7988 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Global reduction in ship-tracks from sulfur regulations for shipping fuel

New technology can help combat climate crisis

Scientists have created a novel technology that can help to tackle climate change and address the global energy crisis

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: PHOTOCATALYST SHEET CONTAINING LIGHT-ABSORBING PARTICLES AND BACTERIA view more 

CREDIT: N/A

Scientists have created a novel technology that can help to tackle climate change and address the global energy crisis.

Northumbria University’s Dr Shafeer Kalathil is among a team of esteemed academics behind the project, which uses a chemical process that converts sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into acetate and oxygen to produce high-value fuels and chemicals powered by renewable energy.

As part of the process, bacteria are grown on a synthetic semiconductor device known as a photocatalyst sheet, which means that the conversion can take place without the assistance of organic additives, creation of toxins or use of electricity.

The aim of the project is to curtail the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels, secure much-needed green energy supplies and alleviate the global dependence on fossil fuels. A paper detailing the findings of the team’s research has been published in scientific journal Nature Catalysis.

Dr Kalathil, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Fellow, is working on the project with Erwin Reisner, Professor of Energy and Sustainability at the University of Cambridge, Dr Qian Wang, associate professor at Nagoya University in Japan, and partners from Newcastle University.

Dr Kalathil said: “Several incidents have demonstrated the fragility of the global energy supply, such as recent soaring gas prices in UK, the outbreak of conflicts and civil wars in the Middle East and the ecological and humanitarian threat of a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. The search for alternative energy sources is therefore of major global importance.

“Our research directly addresses the global energy crisis and climate change facing today’s society. We need to develop new technologies to address these grand challenges without further polluting the planet we live on.

“There has been an increase in electricity generation from renewable sources such as wind and solar, but these are intermittent in nature. To fill the gap when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine, we need technologies that can create storable fuels and sustainable chemicals. Our research addresses this challenge head on.

“As well as securing additional much-needed energy supplies, our sustainable technology can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and play a key role in the global drive to achieve net zero.”

The project was supported by funding from the European Research Council, UK Research and Innovation, and Research England’s Expanding Excellence in England Fund, which supports higher education research units and departments to expand and increase their activity. The Research England grant was secured via the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment (HBBE), a joint initiative between Northumbria and Newcastle University, which has received a total of £8 million from Research England to conduct project work. Launched in August 2019,  the HBBE develops biotechnologies to create environmentally friendly buildings that can metabolise waste, reduce pollution, generate sustainable energy and improve human health and wellbeing.

Dr Kalathil, who is heavily involved with the HBBE, said: “The aims of the HBBE fit with what we’re trying to achieve with our research – to address key environmental concerns facing our society today and in the future. This emerging field of research represents an interdisciplinary approach that combines the strengths of microbes, synthetic materials and analytical techniques for chemical transformation, and provides an excellent platform to produce high-value, environmentally friendly fuels and chemicals at scale. We’re already in discussions with international chemical manufacturers and cosmetics producers, and the ultimate aim is to develop our technology on a commercial scale.”

There are multiple benefits of this research, which is designed to inspire budding scientists to design and develop new technologies for sustainable energy production. The work also highlights the expertise of Northumbria’s Department of Applied Sciences, which covers an exciting and extensive portfolio of subjects including biology, biomedical sciences, chemistry, forensic science, food and nutritional sciences. Many of Northumbria’s courses in this field are professionally accredited by the Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Biomedical Science, the Chartered Society of Forensic Science and Association for Nutrition, or approved by statutory regulatory bodies such as the Health & Care Professions Council.

Northumbria University has recently gained reinforcement of its already outstanding reputation for excellence in research, having been ranked 8th in the UK for research power for professions allied to health, such as cellular and molecular sciences, in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF2021).

The paper, ‘Bacteria–photocatalyst sheet for sustainable carbon dioxide utilization’, is published in scientific journal Nature Catalysis. The paper and a full list of authors can be found at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41929-022-00817-z.

For more information, visit www.northumbria.ac.uk and @ReisnerLab on Twitter. 

  

CAPTION

Schematic diagram showing that the sunlight-driven bacteria-modified photocatalyst sheet provides acetate for a biohybrid electrochemical system to generate current and close the carbon cycle

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JOURNAL

Nature Catalysis

DOI

10.1038/s41929-022-00817-z 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Bacteria–photocatalyst sheet for sustainable carbon dioxide utilization

Monitoring polar ice melting by combining data from different satellites

Scientists develop a combinational approach to more accurately estimate changes in elevation in the Antarctic ice sheet

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SPIE--INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR OPTICS AND PHOTONICS

 

IMAGE: (A) BOUNDARIES OF SENTINEL-3 (BLUE CIRCLE) AND CRYOSAT-2 (YELLOW LOOP). THE STUDY REGION IS INDICATED IN LIGHT BLUE. (B) COMPARISON BETWEEN THE ELEVATION CHANGES IN THE STUDY REGION EXTRACTED WITHOUT FILTERING (LEFT) AND WITH FILTERING (RIGHT). FILTERING REMOVES OUTLIERS VIA DATA CLUSTERING, IMPROVING THE ACCURACY OF THE RESULTS. view more 

CREDIT: THE AUTHORS, DOI 10.1117/1.JRS.16.034514.

The Antarctic region is particularly vulnerable to climate change, and studies have shown that the melting of Antarctic ice sheets has accelerated considerably in recent years. As a result, sea levels continue to rise globally, threatening the lives of coastal inhabitants.

Given the potentially devastating effects of the melting ice sheets in Antarctica, scientists have been closely monitoring their topography and height for decades. This is usually done using satellites equipped with special altimeter radars, which provide a nearly continuous coverage of most of the Antarctic region. In many cases, data from multiple satellite missions are combined to achieve higher accuracy and precision as well as to compare data from different periods. However, combining these data is not a straightforward process because of the different instrumentation and processing techniques involved.

In a recent study, researchers led by Professor Jingjuan Liao from the Chinese Academy of Sciences tested a new approach that combined elevation data of the Antarctic ice sheet from two different satellites. As explained in their paper published in SPIE’s Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, their goal was to obtain a more accurate map of the latest elevation changes in the Antarctic ice sheet as well as validate their data analysis methods.

The data used in the study came from radar altimeters installed in CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3, and corresponded to surface elevation changes in the ice sheet between 2016 and 2019. CryoSat-2, which was launched in 2010, provides greater coverage of the Antarctic ice sheet and has better accuracy in complex edge regions of ice sheets. In contrast, Sentinel-3, launched in 2016, offers higher resolution under most conditions and performs better in large flat areas.

To improve the accuracy of the results, the team first filtered the data using a clustering algorithm. Essentially, the algorithm divided up the input data points into clusters according to their value and rejected clusters containing outliers (which likely represented large measurement errors).

Additionally, the team employed a fitting model designed to extract elevation changes from the combined satellite data while correcting for measurement biases. To validate the results of this model, they compared them with reliable elevation data gathered using other altimeters.

Their analyses showed that the average elevation of the ice sheets had decreased at a rate of 4.3 ± 0.9 cm/year during 2016-2019. However, the inner continental ice sheet, where the terrain is mostly flat, had shown a milder decrease of only 1.1 ± 0.3 cm per year. “We derived a correlation between elevation changes and the surface slope, with rapid elevation changes occurring more often in areas with large terrain undulations, such as mountainous and marginal ice shelves,” Liao said.

With these results, the researchers are hopeful that their approach would find applications in future investigations of Antarctic ice sheets. “Our study presents an effective method for improving the measurement accuracy by combining elevation information from new radar altimeters. This could enable a long-term monitoring of global climate change in the Antarctic region,” Liao said.

Continued efforts on this front could help mitigate the adverse effects of global warming in the poles.

Read the Gold Open Access article by S. Li, J. Liao, and L. Zhang, “Extraction and analysis of elevation changes in Antarctic ice sheet from CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3 radar altimeters,” J. Applied Remote Sensing 16(3) 034514 (2022), doi 10.1117/1.JRS.16.034514.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Applied Remote Sensing

DOI

10.1117/1.JRS.16.034514 

ARTICLE TITLE

Extraction and analysis of elevation changes in Antarctic ice sheet from CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3 radar altimeters

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Aug-2022

Persistent low wages linked to faster memory decline in later life

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Sustained low wages are associated with significantly faster memory decline, according to a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. While low-wage jobs have been associated with health outcomes such as depressive symptoms, obesity, and hypertension, which are risk factors for cognitive aging, until now no prior studies had examined the specific relationship between low wages during working years and later-life cognitive functioning. The findings are published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and were reported today at the 2022 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference® (AAIC®) 2022 Promoting Diverse Perspectives: Addressing Health Disparities Related to Alzheimer’s and All Dementias.

“Our research provides new evidence that sustained exposure to low wages during peak earning years is associated with accelerated memory decline later in life,” said Katrina Kezios, PhD, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and first author. “This association was observed in our primary sample as well as in a validation cohort.”

Research into the effects of lower income on health is rapidly expanding. Using records from the national Health and Retirement Study (HRS) of adults for the years 1992-2016, the researchers analyzed data from 2,879 individuals born between 1936 and 1941.  Low-wage was defined as hourly wage lower than two-thirds of the federal median wage for the corresponding year. Kezios and colleagues categorized study participants’ history of low wages into those who never earned low wages, intermittently earned low wages, or always earned low wages based on wages earned from 1992 to 2004 and then examined the relationship with memory decline over the next 12 years from 2004-2016

The researchers found that, compared with workers never earning low wages, sustained low-wage earners experienced significantly faster memory decline in older age. They experienced approximately one excess year of cognitive aging per a 10-year period; in other words, the level of cognitive aging experienced over a 10-year period by sustained low-wage earners would be what those who never earned low wages experienced in 11 years.

In the U.S., the federal minimum wage has remained $7.25 per hour since 2009. While economic growth has increased since then, wage and salary growth for employees - particularly those in low-wage jobs - have slowed over time, and the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation.

“Increasing the federal minimum wage, for example to $15 per hour, remains a gridlock issue in Congress, “said Kezios. 

“Our findings suggest that social policies that enhance the financial well-being of low-wage workers may be especially beneficial for cognitive health,” said senior author Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School and the Columbia Butler Aging Center. “Future work should rigorously examine the number of dementia cases and excess years of cognitive aging that could be prevented under different hypothetical scenarios that would increase the minimum hourly wage.”

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 fourth 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 www.mailman.columbia.edu.

JOURNAL

American Journal of Epidemiology

James Webb Space Telescope depicts Cartwheel Galaxy in stunning detail


Kris Holt
·Contributing Reporter
Tue, August 2, 2022 

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI and Webb ERO Production Team

NASA and its partners on the James Webb Space Telescope have shared more spectacular images from the observatory. This time around, they provided a fresh look at the Cartwheel Galaxy, which Hubble and other telescopes previously observed. NASA said JWST has been able to reveal new details about both star formation and the black hole at the center of the galaxy, which is around 500 million light years from Earth.

Using infrared light detection, JWST was able to peer through the dust that obscured the Cartwheel Galaxy from view when other telescopes observed it. The above image is a composite from JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The JWST website has higher-resolution versions.

Data from NIRCam, which is the JWST's primary imager, is colored in blue, orange, and yellow, while MIRI's data is in red. NASA says the blue dots that appear in the red swirls of dust are individual stars or pockets of star formation. "NIRCam also reveals the difference between the smooth distribution or shape of the older star populations and dense dust in the core compared to the clumpy shapes associated with the younger star populations outside of it," the agency noted.

MIRI, meanwhile, was able to unearth more details about the galaxy's dust. It detected regions that are rich in hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds, along with silicate dust, which is similar to a lot of the dust present on Earth. Those regions form several spiraling spokes that led to the naming of the Cartwheel Galaxy. Hubble was previously able to image the spokes, but they're much clearer in the JWST observations. NASA also provided a MIRI-only image of the galaxy:

This image from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) shows a group of galaxies, including a large distorted ring-shaped galaxy known as the Cartwheel. The Cartwheel Galaxy, located 500 million light-years away in the Sculptor constellation, is composed of a bright inner ring and an active outer ring. While this outer ring has a lot of star formation, the dusty area in between reveals many stars and star clusters.

The Cartwheel Galaxy formed following a collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller one. It has two rings, a bright inner ring and a colorful outer one. The outer ring has been expanding from the center of the collision for around 440 million years.

The interior ring contains "a tremendous amount of hot dust," NASA said. The brightest areas host gigantic young star clusters. The outer ring, meanwhile, features star formation and supernovas. When it expands and hits surrounding gas, star formation occurs.

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