Studies of autism tend to exclude women, researchers find

A commonly used screening test creates a gender gap that may hinder diagnosis and treatment for women and girls.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: GABRIELI LAB RESEARCHERS ANNIE CARDINAUX (LEFT), ANILA D’MELLO (CENTER), CINDY LI (RIGHT), AND ISABELLE FROSCH (NOT PICTURED) HAVE UNCOVERED SEX BIASES IN ASD RESEARCH. view more 

CREDIT: STEPH STEVENS

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- In recent years, researchers who study autism have made an effort to include more women and girls in their studies. However, despite these efforts, most studies of autism consistently enroll small numbers of female subjects or exclude them altogether, according to a new study from MIT.

The researchers found that a screening test commonly used to determine eligibility for studies of autism consistently winnows out a much higher percentage of women than men, creating a “leaky pipeline” that results in severe underrepresentation of women in studies of autism.

This lack of representation makes it more difficult to develop useful interventions or provide accurate diagnoses for girls and women, the researchers say.

“I think the findings favor having a more inclusive approach and widening the lens to end up being less biased in terms of who participates in research,” says John Gabrieli, the Grover Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. “The more we understand autism in men and women and nonbinary individuals, the better services and more accurate diagnoses we can provide.” 

Gabrieli, who is also a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, is the senior author of the study, which appears in the journal Autism Research. Anila D’Mello, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor at the University of Texas Southwestern, is the lead author of the paper. MIT Technical Associate Isabelle Frosch, Research Coordinator Cindy Li, and Research Specialist Annie Cardinaux are also authors of the paper.

Screening out females

Autism spectrum disorders are diagnosed based on observation of traits such as repetitive behaviors and difficulty with language and social interaction. Doctors may use a variety of screening tests to help them make a diagnosis, but these screens are not required.

For research studies of autism, it is routine to use a screening test called the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) to determine eligibility for the study. This test, which assesses social interaction, communication, play, and repetitive behaviors, provides a quantitative score in each category, and only participants who reach certain scores qualify for inclusion in studies.

While doing a study exploring how quickly the brains of autistic adults adapt to novel events in the environment, scientists in Gabrieli’s lab began to notice that the ADOS appeared to have unequal effects on male and female participation in research. As the study progressed, D’Mello noticed some significant brain differences between the male and female subjects in the study.

To investigate these differences further, D’Mello tried to find more female participants using an MIT database of autistic adults who have expressed interest in participating in research studies. However, when she sorted through the subjects, she found that only about half of the women in the database had met the ADOS cutoff scores typically required for inclusion in autism studies, compared to 80 percent of the males. 

“We realized then that there’s a discrepancy and that the ADOS is essentially screening out who eventually participated in research,” D’Mello says. “We were really surprised at how many males we retained and how many females we lost to the ADOS.”

To see if this phenomenon was more widespread, the researchers looked at six publicly available datasets, which include more than 40,000 adults who have been diagnosed as autistic. For some of these datasets, participants were screened with ADOS to determine their eligibility to participate in studies, while for others, a “community diagnosis” — diagnosis from a doctor or other health care provider — was sufficient. 

The researchers found that in datasets that required ADOS screening for eligibility, the ratio of male to female participants ended up being around 8:1, while in those that required only a community diagnosis the ratios ranged from about 2:1 to 1:1. 

Previous studies have found differences between behavioral patterns in autistic men and women, but the ADOS test was originally developed using a largely male sample, which may explain why it often excludes women from research studies, D’Mello says. 

“There were few females in the sample that was used to create this assessment, so it might be that it’s not great at picking up the female phenotype, which may differ in certain ways — primarily in domains like social communication,” she says. 

Effects of exclusion

Failure to include more women and girls in studies of autism may contribute to shortcomings in the definitions of the disorder, the researchers say. 

“The way we think about it is that the field evolved perhaps an implicit bias in how autism is defined, and it was driven disproportionately by analysis of males, and recruitment of males, and so on,” Gabrieli says. “So, the definition doesn't fit as well, on average, with the different expression of autism that seems to be more common in females.”

This implicit bias has led to documented difficulties in receiving a diagnosis for girls and women, even when their symptoms are the same as those presented by autistic boys and men.

“Many females might be missed altogether in terms of diagnoses, and then our study shows that in the research setting, what is already a small pool gets whittled down at a much larger rate than that of males,” D’Mello says.

Excluding girls and women from this kind of research study can lead to treatments that don’t work as well for them, and it contributes to the perception that autism doesn’t affect women as much as men.

“The goal is that research should directly inform treatment, therapies, and public perception,” D’Mello says. “If the research is saying that there aren’t females with autism, or that the brain basis of autism only looks like the patterns established in males, then you’re not really helping females as much as you could be, and you’re not really getting at the truth of what the disorder might be.”

The researchers now plan to further explore some of the gender and sex-based differences that appear in autism, and how they arise. They also plan to expand the gender categories that they include. In the current study, the surveys that each participant filled out asked them to choose male or female, but the researchers have updated their questionnaire to include nonbinary and transgender options. 

###

The research was funded by the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research, the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, and the National Institutes of Mental Health.

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JOURNAL

Autism Research

DOI

10.1002/aur.2795 

ARTICLE TITLE

Exclusion of females in autism research: Empirical evidence for a “leaky” recruitment-to-research pipeline

Gender inequities in mentoring may disproportionately affect women researchers

New study dives into one facet of academic gender disparities in the life sciences

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS FIND THAT GENDER INEQUITIES IN MENTORS’ RESOURCES MAY DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECT WOMEN RESEARCHERS view more 

CREDIT: NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE, UNSPLASH (CC0, HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

A new analysis of mentoring relationships in academic research finds that gender inequities in the resources available to women mentors in the life sciences appear to disproportionately affect the subsequent careers of women trainees. Leah Schwartz and colleagues at Oregon Health and Science University present these findings on September 8th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology.

While the proportion of women in graduate training programs is increasing, there is a disproportionate tendency for women to leave academic research instead of advancing to positions in which they become mentors themselves. A general tendency exists in PhD and postdoctoral programs for women to mentor women and for men to mentor men. However, prior research has produced mixed findings on whether there are any beneficial or detrimental effects of same-gender versus mixed-gender mentoring.

To surface new insights, Schwartz and colleagues evaluated the outcomes of PhD and postdoctoral mentoring relationships in the life sciences for a total of 11,112 mentors and 26,420 trainees.

The researchers found that trainees with women mentors were less likely to become academic mentors themselves than trainees with men mentors. However, that disparity was substantially reduced when the researchers statistically accounted for factors known to be affected by institutional gender bias, including funding, citation rate, and reputation of the mentor’s institution. This result suggests that, since mentors tend to have trainees of the same gender, gender disparities in resources available to mentors may disproportionately affect women trainees.

The researchers also found that a mentor’s status is mostly unrelated to whether they tend to work with trainees of the same gender. However, mentors with outstanding distinctions—such as being a Nobel Prize recipient or a member of the National Academy of Sciences—were more likely to have men trainees, potentially further contributing to lower representation of women in academic mentorship positions.

These findings suggest that structural inequities in the resources available to women mentors may indirectly affect their trainees. The researchers propose that one strategy to address this issue could be to try to boost the number of women trainees among mentors with outstanding distinctions. 

Coauthor Dr. David adds, “We found that graduate and postdoctoral trainees of women mentors in bioscience are less likely than trainees of men to go on to independent research careers. When we took into account markers of mentor status, such as how widely their work is cited, this discrepancy was substantially reduced, suggesting that it results in part from gender disparities in the recognition that mentors receive from their colleagues.”

#####

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology:   http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001771

Citation: Schwartz LP, Liénard JF, David SV (2022) Impact of gender on the formation and outcome of formal mentoring relationships in the life sciences. PLoS Biol 20(9): e3001771. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001771

Author Countries: United States

Funding: This work was supported by National Science Foundation Award 1933675 (S.V.D.), https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1933675. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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JOURNAL

PLoS Biology

DOI

10.1371/journal.pbio.3001771 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

COI STATEMENT

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

AI researchers improve method for removing gender bias in machines built to understand and respond to text or voice data

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

EDMONTON, Alta. — Researchers have found a better way to reduce gender bias in the machines built to understand and respond to text or voice data while preserving vital information about the meanings of words, according to a recent study that could be a key step toward addressing the issue of human biases creeping into artificial intelligence.

While a computer itself is an unbiased machine, much of the data and programming that flows through computers is generated by humans. This can be a problem when conscious or unconscious human biases end up being reflected in the text samples AI models use to analyze and “understand” language. 

Though other attempts to reduce or remove gender bias in texts have been successful to some degree, the problem with those approaches is that gender bias isn’t the only thing removed from the texts.

“In many gender debiasing methods, when they reduce the bias in a word vector, they also reduce or eliminate important information about the word,” says Bei Jiang, associate professor in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, who co-authored the paper along with graduate student Lei Ding.

For example, when considering a word like “nurse,” researchers want the system to remove any gender information associated with that term while still retaining information that links it with related words such as doctor, hospital and medicine. 

The new methodology is part of a larger project, entitled BIAS: Responsible AI for Gender and Ethnic Labour Market Equality, that is looking to solve real-world problems. 

For example, people reading the same job advertisement may respond differently to particular words in the description that often have a gendered association. A system using the methodology Ding and his collaborators created would be able to flag the words that may change a potential applicant’s perception of the job or decision to apply because of perceived gender bias, and suggest alternative words to reduce this bias.

To read the full story, click here.

To speak with Bei Jang or Lei Ding  about their study, please contact:

Michael Brown
U of A media strategist
mjbrown1@ualberta.ca

Mount Sinai researchers awarded $2.4 million grant from CDC to supp

Grant and Award Announcement

THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL / MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

(New York, NY, September 8, 2022) – As the first responders to the attacks of September 11, 2001, grow older, Mount Sinai’s nationally lauded experts in aging have received a $2.4 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study how best to care for them into old age.

“Because World Trade Center responders were exposed to high levels of toxicants and intense psychological trauma—hazards that can accelerate the aging process—during the emergency response and cleanup following the 2001 disaster, they are likely at increased risk for premature aging and associated age-related syndromes, such as functional decline and fall risk,” says Fred Ko, MD, lead Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

The median age of these first responders is now 59, and by 2030, the majority of them will be 65 or over and at risk for aging-related conditions and consequences of the terrorist attacks.

Mount Sinai has long been a leader in caring for this population through its World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence, part of the Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health at Mount Sinai, which was established by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. The Mount Sinai Hospital is also ranked No. 1 in the nation in geriatrics by U.S. News & World Report.

“Using data from Mount Sinai’s WTC Health Program, the largest clinic for WTC responders, our team found that a substantial portion of general responders met the criteria for frailty. Furthermore, frailty was positively associated with 9/11 exposure severity and overall mortality,” says Dr. Ko.

Dr. Ko worked with co-Principal Investigators William Hung, MD, Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn Mount Sinai, and Katherine Ornstein, PhD, MPH, Adjunct Associate Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn Mount Sinai, and Director of the Center for Equity in Aging at Johns Hopkins University, to develop a WTC-specific frailty assessment tool, the WTC Clinical Frailty Index, based on clinically observable signs and symptoms of aging regularly examined within the program’s surveillance.

“Our preliminary data indicate that one-third of the first responders meet criteria for frailty as determined by our frailty index, an association that increases with age, WTC exposure, and by occupation type. These findings underscore the urgent need for routine systematic assessments, such as frailty, as these heroic responders grow older,” says Dr. Hung.

”The burden of chronic disease in the responder population is high, and the demonstrated risk of fragility is substantial. But Mount Sinai is blessed to have the top geriatrics program in the United States, and this grant is sure to provide both beneficial scientific insights and practical recommendations for WTC responders and other at-risk populations,” says Michael Crane, MD, MPH, Medical Director of the World Trade Center Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence, which cares for more than 22,000 responders at its Manhattan, Staten Island, and Yonkers locations.

Dr. Crane, who served as Medical Director at Con Edison at the time of the 2001 attacks, was a first responder himself. “To this day, I am in awe of the courage and fierce dedication that is so characteristic of our 9/11 responders. Attending to their healthcare in the World Trade Center Health Program alongside our extraordinary colleagues is the honor of a lifetime,” says Dr. Crane.

“In light of the patterns we have seen among these responders, we are pleased to partner with our colleagues at Mount Sinai’s WTC Health Program to understand frailty and aging in this cohort and examine ways to support them to mitigate risk factors and facilitate health aging,” says Dr. Hung.

Results of the study, funded by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of CDC, will be instrumental in improving the capacity of the program to monitor and care for aging responders, said the researchers.

“Our overarching goals will be to refine our frailty index by closely studying frailty progression, associated risk factors and clinical outcomes, and to implement pilot frailty interventions. Specially, we will determine frailty trajectories and risk factors by leveraging the repository of WTC health monitoring data collected by our colleagues at Mount Sinai to validate our frailty index and assess its predictive validity for aging-related clinical outcomes,” says Dr. Ornstein.

 

“Critical to our work will be the development and implementation of evidence-based intervention research that can be widely implemented across hospitals within the Mount Sinai Health System and other hospital settings and clinics where WTC responders are treated,” says Dr. Ornstein.

 

About the Mount Sinai Health System

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.

Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is one of three medical schools that have earned distinction by multiple indicators: It is consistently ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News & World Report's "Best Medical Schools," aligned with a U.S. News & World Report "Honor Roll" Hospital, and top 20 in the nation for National Institutes of Health funding and top 5 in the nation for numerous basic and clinical research areas. Newsweek’s “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals” ranks The Mount Sinai Hospital as No. 1 in New York and in the top five globally, and Mount Sinai Morningside in the top 20 globally. For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

New catalyst offers a more affordable way to produce hydrogen from seawater

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

Hydrogen has drawn attention in recent years as a potential source of clean energy because it burns without producing climate-damaging emissions. However, traditional hydrogen production methods have a substantial carbon footprint, and cleaner methods are expensive and technically complex.

Now researchers are reporting a significant advance, a two-electrode catalyst that relies on one compound to efficiently produce hydrogen and oxygen from both seawater and freshwater. Previous attempts at such bi-functional catalysts to split water into hydrogen and oxygen have generally resulted in poor performance in one of the two functions. Using two separate catalysts works but increases the catalysts’ manufacturing cost.

In work described in Energy & Environmental Science, researchers from the University of Houston, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Central China Normal University report using a nickel/molybdenum/nitrogen compound, tweaked with a small amount of iron and grown on nickel foam to efficiently produce hydrogen and then, through a process of electrochemical reconstruction sparked by cycling voltage, converted to a compound that produced a similarly powerful oxygen evolution reaction.

The researchers said using a single compound for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) – albeit slightly changed through the reconstruction process – not only makes water splitting more affordable, it also simplifies the engineering challenges.

Most materials are best suited for either HER or OER, but both reactions are required to complete the chemical reaction and produce hydrogen from water. Zhifeng Ren, director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH and a corresponding author for the paper, said the new catalyst not only allows for efficient operations with a single catalyst but also works equally well in seawater and freshwater. “Compared with existing catalysts, this is on par with the best ever reported,” he said.

Using alkaline seawater and operating under quasi-industrial conditions, the catalyst delivered a current density of 1,000 milliamps/centimeter squared using just 1.56 volts in seawater, remaining stable for 80 hours of testing.

The catalyst’s strong performance in seawater could solve a problem: most available catalysts work best in freshwater. Splitting seawater is more complicated, in part because of corrosion associated with the salt and other minerals. Ren, who is also M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Physics at UH, said the new catalyst also generates pure oxygen, avoiding the potential byproduct of corrosive chlorine gas produced by some catalysts.

But supplies of freshwater are increasingly limited by drought and population growth. Seawater, in contrast, is abundant. “Normally, even if a catalyst works for salty water, it requires a higher energy consumption,” Ren said. “In this case, requiring almost the same energy consumption as freshwater is very good news.”

Shuo Chen, associate professor of physics at UH and co-corresponding author on the paper, said the catalyst’s reported strong current density at a relatively low voltage lowers the energy cost of producing hydrogen. But that’s just one way the catalyst addresses affordability, said Chen, who is also a principal investigator with TcSUH.

By using one material – the iron-tweaked nickel/molybdenum/nitrogen compound – for the HER and then using cycling voltage to trigger an electrochemical reconstruction to produce a slightly different material, an iron-oxide/molybdenum/nickel oxide, for the OER, researchers eliminate the need for a second catalyst while also simplifying engineering requirements, Chen said.

“If you are making a device with two different materials on two electrodes, you have to figure out how the electric charge can flow through each electrode and design the structure to fit that,” she said. “In this case, the material is not exactly the same, because one (electrode) undergoes electrochemical reconstruction, but it is a very similar material, so the engineering is easier.”

In addition to Ren and Chen, researchers on the paper include Minghui Ning, Fanghao Zhang, Libo Wu, Xinxin Xing, Dezhi Wang, Shaowei Song and Jiming Bao, all with UH; Qiancheng Zhou of Central China Normal University; and Luo Yu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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JOURNAL

Energy & Environmental Science

ARTICLE TITLE

Boosting efficient alkaline fresh water and seawater electrolysis via electrochemical reconstruction

Weedy rice has become herbicide resistant through rapid evolution

Aggressive, herbicide-resistant weed is a threat in nation’s largest rice production region

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS

 

IMAGE: CULTIVATED RICE GROWN AT THE JEANETTE GOLDFARB PLANT GROWTH FACILITY AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS. view more 

CREDIT: JOE ANGELES / WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

In a paper published Sept. 8 in the journal Communications Biology, scientists from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Arkansas report that a crop pest called weedy rice has become widely herbicide resistant in regions where herbicide-resistant rice is planted. The study highlights challenges facing U.S. rice farmers when they battle a weedy enemy that is closely related to a desirable crop plant.

The genetic investigation was conducted with samples gathered in rice fields in Arkansas, where almost 50% of the nation’s rice is grown.

Weedy rice is a closely related cousin of crop rice. It aggressively competes with cultivated rice in the field, leading to loss of yield and reductions in harvest quality that compromise market value. Weedy rice infestations cause an estimated $45 million in economic losses in the United States each year and hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide.

Biologists used whole-genome sequences of 48 contemporary weedy rice plants to show how herbicide resistance evolved by gene flow from crop rice. Almost all other cases of herbicide resistance in agricultural weeds result from selection of tolerant genotypes in the weed species. Just 20 years after herbicide-resistant rice was first adopted in the southern United States, the majority of fields with a history of herbicide-resistant rice cultivation have weedy rice plants that are also herbicide resistant.

“Throughout its nearly 200-year history in the United States, weedy rice had a very low rate of outcrossing with cultivated rice,” said Marshall Wedger, a postdoctoral research associate in biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University and first author of the study. “We found that U.S. weedy rice has persisted through herbicide pressure with the survival of those few plants that outcross, consequently acquiring the herbicide- resistance trait.”

“Technological changes in U.S. rice farming since the 2000s have led to a complete genetic revolution in the makeup of the weedy rice that infests U.S. fields,” said Kenneth Olsen, professor of biology at Washington University and senior author on the study.

“In the last 20 years, weedy rice has gone from being very genetically distinct from U.S. crop varieties to nowadays mostly being derived from crop-weed hybridization,” Olsen said. “The weeds are grabbing certain traits from the crop that are beneficial to them, including herbicide resistance.”

Weeds seize their moment

Weedy rice is a scourge of cultivated rice production around the world. But up until the early 2000s, weedy rice in U.S. fields rarely interbred with the kinds of rice that were commonly grown in this country.

Crop rice and weedy rice are the same species, so they are able to interbreed, or hybridize. Their rate of hybridization rate is usually low — generally less than 1% — because rice is self-pollinated.

But something happened that changed the centuries-old dynamic between these two closely related plants. Starting in the early 2000s, two new kinds of crop rice were adopted in U.S. fields. One was a new hybrid rice that offered substantially enhanced yield, compared with traditional inbred (self-pollinating) rice cultivars. The other was a new kind that had been tweaked to be tolerant to a certain kind of herbicide. These so-called Clearfield™ cultivars allowed farmers to plant rice and then apply chemicals to their fields to kill weedy rice and other agricultural weeds without harming the crop.

As early as 2004, just two years after the new rice was adopted locally, Arkansas farmers already were reporting some cases of herbicide resistance in weedy rice. Such resistant plants were likely outcrosses with herbicide-resistant rice.

“The situation is somewhat analogous to human health and the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. Widespread use of antibiotics ends up strongly selecting for the rapid evolution of the drug-resistant strains,” Olsen said. “With weedy rice, herbicide-resistant weeds were being detected just a couple of years after herbicide-resistant rice was first commercialized.”

How did it happen? For gene flow from a crop into a weedy relative to occur, the two have to be growing in close enough physical proximity for pollen transfer.

“The herbicide-resistant weedy rice plants are the products of outcrossing with herbicide-tolerant crop,” said Nilda Roma Burgos, professor of weed physiology at University of Arkansas and a co-author of the study. “Outcrossing occurs when weedy rice is not controlled 100% by the herbicide and the remaining weedy rice plants flower at the same time as the herbicide-tolerant rice crop.”

Rice and weedy rice certainly grow in the same fields. However, it was the hybrid rice’s pesky habit of producing volunteers — that is, successfully developing and dropping seeds that overwinter and then emerge as new plants in subsequent years — that opened a door for weedy rice.

The crop volunteers grew up exhibiting variable traits, including changes to flowering timing that made it much more likely that they would swap pollen with weedy rice.

“As a de-domesticated weedy relative, weedy rice has always been able to outcross with cultivated rice. Based on our results, this ability to interbreed is what led to most of the herbicide resistance that we see today,” Wedger said.

A uniquely challenging year for growers

The findings from this new study are being reported during a uniquely challenging year for Arkansas rice farmers. Problems with the global supply chain, as well as increases in the costs of key crop inputs such as fertilizer, have made growing rice more difficult and expensive.

At the same time, global climate change is having local effects on the timing of when rice can be planted. This year, farmers had to cram in planting that usually takes place over a period of four weeks into a much-shortened window. Also this year, nighttime temperatures in northeastern Arkansas were stubbornly high during the months of July and August, with possible negative effects on rice yields. Only time will tell what the 2022 harvest, beginning this month, will bring.

One thing is certain, though: The rapid adaptation of weedy rice to herbicide application serves as yet another example of the dangers of relying on single methods of control for agricultural pests, study authors said.

“How quickly a resistant weedy rice population builds up to a point where the herbicide is no longer useful depends on how the producer manages the herbicide-tolerant rice technology,” Roma Burgos said. “There are best management practices guidelines that help growers avoid resistance evolution for a long time, if implemented.”

“Just like in the case of antibiotic resistance, the rise of resistance to this particular herbicide will be met with a new technology that relies on a new herbicide,” Wedger said. “New herbicide-resistant cultivars are already in development, so I expect this process to repeat.”

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JOURNAL

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-022-03803-0 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Genomic revolution of US weedy rice in response to 21st century agricultural technologies

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Sep-2022

Digging a little deeper: New Earth Science Frontiers study explores the nanoscale properties of the Gulong shale oil reservoir

A new study elucidates the role of nanoscopic spaces in the in situ accumulation of shale oil in the Gulong-Qingshankou reservoir in China

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CACTUS COMMUNICATIONS

 

VIDEO: NEW EARTH SCIENCE FRONTIERS STUDY EXPLORES THE NANOSCALE PROPERTIES OF THE GULONG SHALE OIL RESERVOIR view more 

CREDIT: EARTH SCIENCE FRONTIERS

Shale oil, a type of crude oil similar to petroleum, is found between layers of organic-rich shale. It can be refined into petrol, diesel, and other products, making it a sought-after resource. The Qingshankou Formation in the Gulong Sag of the Songliao Basin in China is a large geological body of shale deposits formed at the bottom of an ancient lake. These deposits contain about 15.3 billion tons of pure shale oil. Naturally, the Gulong-Qingshankou Formation is an important national reservoir for shale oil. Recent studies have revealed interesting attributes of this massive reservoir, especially the presence of nanopores in the shale layers containing solid bitumen that has remained unmoved for centuries.

Studying the petrological characteristics of shale can uncover a lot about a reservoir’s formation, spatial and physical properties, oil content, and development value. Consequently, a new study published in Earth Science Frontiers, delves deeper into the petrological and microfabric properties of shale from the Gulong Sag to unearth evidence about the formation, reservoir space, and in situ collection of shale oil. The study was spearheaded by Dr. He Wenyuan from Daqing Oilfield Co Ltd, who says, “Nanopores in shale are considered significant spaces for shale oil accumulation. Since the shale oil in the Gulong Sag is known to have a 90% source-reservoir ratio, exploring the nanopores in this reservoir might help uncover valuable information.”

A press release on Dr. He’s study can be read here. Watch a video explaining the study and its findings here.

Dr. He used electron microscopy, energy spectrum analysis, and thermal simulation to analyze the Gulong shale samples. He found that the Gulong shale is predominantly made of clay, with well-developed nanopores and nanofissures—about 10-50 nm in diameter/width. Over the years, organic matter such as degraded algal debris and kerogen (fossilized organic material), got deposited into these nanopores to form organic clay aggregates. The organic content of this clay was as high as 91.5% (>53% on average). Subsequently, this organic clay became the main source material for producing hydrocarbons, primarily liquid bitumen and shale oil.

Dr. He’s analyses revealed that almost 87% of the original organic matter was consumed during hydrocarbon generation. What’s more, the vacant nanopores left behind by the organic matter were occupied by the liquid hydrocarbons. Given the closed shape of the nanopores and high capillary resistance, the hydrocarbons remained detained inside the rocks with hardly any movement, and eventually solidified into solid bitumen/asphalt. Thus, the Gulong shale deposits self-generated and self-stored the shale oil, which explains the region’s high source-reservoir ratio.

Despite being a preliminary study, these results help draw a clearer picture of the Gulong-Qingshankou reservoir. Talking about the possible implications of these findings, Dr. He says, “The outcomes of this study can potentially propel the progress in exploration and development of shale oil in the region and maybe even China. But for now, future research should focus on further verifying and investigating these exploratory findings.”

Perhaps this is one of those rare occasions when “hitting rock bottom” might be a good thing!

CAPTION

a) and b): A large number of nanopores (red arrows) and nanofissures (yellow arrows) developed in the clay layers, which originally adsorbed organic matter and later became the site for hydrocarbon accumulation. c): A larger view of visual b)

CREDIT

Dr. He Wenyuan and Earth Science Frontiers

CAPTION

New Earth Science Frontiers Study Explores the Nanoscale Properties of the Gulong Shale Oil Reservoir

CREDIT

Earth Science Frontiers

Reference

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13745/j.esf.sf.2022.8.32-en

Authors: He Wenyuan

Affiliations:     

Daqing Oilfield Co Ltd and Heilongjiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Continental Shale Oil

About Earth Science Frontiers
Earth Science Frontiers is a bimonthly peer reviewed scholarly journal co-sponsored by the China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Peking University. It was first published in 1994, and academician Wang Chengshan is the current Editor-in-Chief. Each issue of the journal is centered on a specific geoscience topic and managed by experts in that field as Guest Editors. Each issue also contains a number of articles on self-select subjects. Articles published on Earth Science Frontiers cover all disciplines of earth sciences with emphasis on frontier and innovative basic research. At the same time, the journal also publishes research findings that may be considered contentious. Over the years, Earth Science Frontiers has won several publisher awards, including “The Internationally Most Influential Journal in Chinese Language” and “The Top 100 Outstanding Chinese Scholarly Journals.” In 2019, Earth Science Frontiers was selected among top-tier journals to join a national action plan for achieving excellence in science and technology research publishing in China.

E-mail: frontier@cugb.edu.cn  
Website: http://www.earthsciencefrontiers.net.cn

About Dr. He Wenyuan
Dr. He Wenyuan is the chief geologist, deputy general manager, and commander-in-chief of shale oil exploration and development at the Daqing Oilfield Co Ltd, China’s largest oilfield. He is also a member of the Standing Committee instituted by PetroChina in Daqing Oilfield. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at the China University of Petroleum and is affiliated with Heilongjiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Continental Shale Oil, in Daqing, China. Dr. He  is the recipient of several laurels and accolades, including the first Prize of National Science and Technology Progress.

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JOURNAL

Earth Science Frontiers

DOI

10.13745/j.esf.sf.2022.8.32-en 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Imaging analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Preliminary study on nanopores, nanofissures, and in situ accumulation of Gulong shale oil

American College of Rheumatology comments on 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program proposed rules

Business Announcement

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF RHEUMATOLOGY

WASHINGTON, DC – In comments submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in response to the CY 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program proposed rule, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) applauded proposals that would provide more flexibility and improve care coordination, while raising concerns about proposed cuts to reimbursement for critical services provided by rheumatologists and other cognitive specialists.

"The ACR commends the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for its continued recognition of the value of complex medical decision-making provided by rheumatologists and other cognitive care specialists in the treatment of their patients. However, we fear the significant harm that the decreased conversion factor will have on our rheumatology-care team and our patients while they continue to recover from the stress of the past two years,” said Kenneth Saag, MD, MSc, President of the ACR, referencing provisions in the proposed rule that would continue to operationalize and fine-tune the Evaluation and Management (E/M) code revaluation and documentation requirements.

 

The ACR’s main comments and concerns are outlined as follows:

 

Conversion Factor Decrease That Would Set Back Pandemic Recovery

CMS has proposed decreasing the CY2023 conversion factor from $34.61 to $33.08, a 4.4% decrease that would prove detrimental to the stability of rheumatology providers. In the second year of a public health emergency and facing staggering inflation costs and a significant workforce shortage, rheumatologists struggle to continue providing care for their patients. The ACR strongly urges CMS not to move forward with this adjusted conversion factor, which would have a damaging impact on an already strained system that is still working to recover from the pandemic.

 

Musculoskeletal Ultrasound is a Valuable Diagnostic Tool – Cutting Its Reimbursement Will Hurt Patient Access to Care

ACR strongly opposes these drastic proposed cuts and urges CMS not to proceed. Arbitrarily reducing the work required to appropriately perform and interpret musculoskeletal ultrasound is not justified and devalues the work of the AMA and specialty societies involved in the process. Instead, CMS must maintain the pre- and post-time and allow for greater stakeholder engagement in determining the appropriate practice expenses to allow accurate reimbursement for this important diagnostic service.

 

Split/Shared Services – Agree with CMS to Delay

In the CY 2022 PFS final rule, CMS finalized a policy allowing payment where a physician and non-physician providers (NPP) deliver service together for a split/shared facility-based visit (including prolonged visits). This called for the provider to deliver more than half of the care provided during a shared/split visit to bill for the services, which did not consider the role of medical decision-making as a primary determining factor in the successful outcome of the visit and raises concerns about negative implications on collaborative care and the critical role of medical decision-making in patient care.

 

The ACR supports CMS’s proposal to delay the split/shared visit policy and extend flexibilities to permit split/shared E/M visits to be billed based on one of three components (history, exam, or medical decision making) or time until 2024, allowing physicians and NPPs to establish a more collaborative cadence in their visits that emphasizes the cognitive skills needed to provide the best care for their patients.

 

“Our nation's healthcare system continues to navigate the challenges of a global pandemic that has strained resources and providers,” noted Saag. “We appreciate the policies and flexibilities set forth by CMS to help alleviate these challenges and the agency’s attention to the concerns outlined by the rheumatology provider community while we all work to provide top quality patient care.”

 

For more details, read the ACR’s full comment letter here.

 

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Founded in 1934, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) is a not-for-profit, professional association committed to advancing the specialty of rheumatology that serves over 7,700 physicians, health professionals, and scientists worldwide. In doing so, the ACR offers education, research, advocacy and practice management support to help its members continue their innovative work and provide quality patient care. Rheumatology professionals are experts in the diagnosis, management and treatment of more than 100 different types of arthritis and rheumatic diseases.