'Giant' ant fossil raises questions about ancient Arctic migrations

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE FOSSIL EXTINCT GIANT ANT TITANOMYRMA FROM WYOMING THAT WAS DISCOVERED OVER A DECADE AGO BY SFU PALEONTOLOGIST BRUCE ARCHIBALD AND COLLABORATORS AT THE DENVER MUSEUM. THE FOSSIL QUEEN ANT IS NEXT TO A HUMMINGBIRD, SHOWING THE HUGE SIZE OF THIS TITANIC INSECT. view more 

CREDIT: BRUCE ARCHIBALD

Simon Fraser University scientists say their research on the latest fossil find near Princeton, B.C. is raising questions about how the dispersal of animals and plants occurred across the Northern Hemisphere some 50 million years ago, including whether brief intervals of global warming were at play.

The fossil was discovered by Princeton resident Beverly Burlingame and made available to the researchers through the town’s museum. Researchers say it is the first Canadian specimen of the extinct ant Titanomyrma, whose biggest species was surprisingly gigantic, with the body mass of a wren and a wingspan of half a foot.

SFU paleontologists Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes, together with Arvid Aase of Fossil Butte National Monument in Wyoming, have published their research on the fossil in the current edition of the scientific journal The Canadian Entomologist.

A decade earlier, Archibald and collaborators discovered a gigantic Titanomyrma fossil from Wyoming in a museum drawer in Denver. “This ant and the new fossil from British Columbia are close in age to other Titanomyrma fossils that have been long known in Germany and England,” says Archibald. “This raises the questions of how these ancient insects traveled between continents to appear on both sides of the Atlantic at nearly the same time.”

Europe and North America were connected by land across the Arctic then, as the North Atlantic had not yet opened enough by continental drift to fully separate them. But was the ancient far-northern climate suitable for their passage?

The scientists found that the ancient climates were hot where these ants lived in Wyoming and Europe. They further found that modern ants with the biggest queens also inhabit hot climates, leading them to associate large size in queen ants with high temperatures. This creates a problem, however, as although the ancient Arctic had a milder climate than today, it still wouldn’t have been hot enough to allow Titanomyrma to pass.

New findings build on earlier research

The researchers suggested in 2011 that this might be explained by geologically brief intervals of global warming around the time of Titanomyrma called “hyperthermals” creating short-term intervals of friendly conditions for them to cross.

They then predicted that Titanomyrma wouldn’t be found in the ancient temperate Canadian uplands, as it would have been cooler than Titanomyrma appears to have required. But now one has been discovered there.

The story becomes more complicated and interesting, as the new Canadian fossil was distorted by geological pressure during fossilization, so its true life size can’t be established. It might have been gigantic like some of the largest Titanomyrma queens, but it could equally be reconstructed as smaller.

“If it was a smaller species, was it adapted to this region of cooler climate by reduction in size and gigantic species were excluded as we predicted back in 2011?” says Archibald. “Or were they huge, and our idea of the climatic tolerance of gigantic ants, and so how they crossed the Arctic, was wrong?”

Archibald says the research is helping scientists better understand how B.C.’s community of animals and plants were forming when climate was much different. “Understanding how life dispersed among the northern continents in a very different climate 50 million years ago in part explains patterns of animal and plant distribution that we see today,” says Archibald.

“Titanomyrma may also help us better understand how global warming could affect how the distribution of life may change. To prepare for the future, it helps to understand the past.” 

He adds: “We’ll need to find more fossils. Do our ideas of Titanomyrma’s ecology, and so of this ancient dispersal of life, need revision? For now, it remains a mystery.”

The giant fossil queen ant Titanomyrma, recently discovered in the Allenby Formation near Princeton, British Columbia, the first of its kind in Canada.

CREDIT

Bruce Archibald

JOURNAL

The Canadian Entomologist

DOI

10.4039/tce.2022.49 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Eocene giant ants, Arctic intercontinental dispersal, and hyperthermals revisited: discovery of fossil Titanomyrma (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Formiciinae) in the cool uplands of British Columbia, Canada

UMass Amherst research professor teams with national weather service to build database on public response to severe weather hazards

The public is being surveyed on perceptions and response to flash floods, tornados, severe thunderstorms and winter weather under a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

 

IMAGE: BRENDA PHILIPS, RESEARCH PROFESSOR AND CO-DIRECTOR OF THE UMASS AMHERST PAROS CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH view more 

CREDIT: UMASS AMHERST

AMHERST, Mass. — University of Massachusetts Amherst research professor Brenda Philips has received a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to work with National Weather Service forecast offices across the country to ascertain the factors that influence people’s responses to severe weather events. The goal of the two-year, $396,855 grant is to build a national multi-year database on human reactions to four types of weather hazards: flash floods, tornados, severe thunderstorms and winter weather events. 

“NOAA collects lots of meteorological data, but only collects a very limited amount of data on societal response to weather and warnings,” says Philips, who has worked closely with National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters as part of her research on severe weather warning systems and as co-director of UMass Amherst’s Paros Center for Atmospheric Research (PCAR).  

“I’m excited about this surveying effort,” Philips says. “We’re launching surveys one to 14 days after medium-to-high-end events happen so we can collect detailed accounts of how people experienced a specific flood, for example. If we aggregate survey responses over many events, we’ll be able to understand better how different segments of the population experience hazards.” 

Finding out how people interpret and react to severe weather is becoming more and more important. A 2020 report from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction found climate-related disasters have jumped 83% in the past 20 years, with major floods more than doubling and severe storms up 40%. 

“We’re seeing more dramatic flash floods and winter events due to climate change,” she says. “Everybody’s having these 100-year and 200-year floods and seeing really unusual situations. Getting a handle on how different environmental, social and situational factors influence an individual’s risk perception is very important,” she added. 

Human response varies depending on the hazard, the type of protective action they are advised to take and also the duration of the warning, Philips says. 

“A tornado warning lasts about 45 minutes. It’s very focused and you should go to a protected area, like a basement, immediately; flash flood warnings last at least two or three hours and cover a large geographic area, so drivers just have to be aware that they might encounter a flooded road,” she says. 

Under the grant Philips received from the weather program office’s social behavioral and economic sciences program, she will work with nine NWS forecast offices (Boston, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Nashville, Little Rock, Philadelphia, Portland and Phoenix) to send surveys soon after weather events to people in the affected areas. Questions address their information sources, preparations prior to the event, whether they sheltered in place in the case of a tornado, or avoided flooded roads for flash flood events.  

By the end of the grant period, Philips hopes to have sufficient responses to be able to start to understand the relative importance of key factors such as environmental cues, demographics, situational circumstances and risk communication. 

“For flash flooding, I’ve done some pilot studies, and those have shown that it’s the social cues — whether other cars are turning around — are one of the biggest influences for turning around,” she says. “Also, the current situation matters. People drive on flooded roads more often to get to work — they’re more likely to take the risk.” 

She also hopes to learn more about any racial, economic and regional factors that need to be addressed as weather offices craft warnings in the future, which could influence what channels they use to do so. 

While the weather service uses multiple channels, such as television, radio and social media, “even then, you have people who say I didn’t get the message,” she says. 

“To start to formulate policy or prioritize research on warning systems, it’s important to start with the people that NOAA is serving,” Philips added. “This research will give NOAA the tools to do that more effectively.” 

 

Contact: Brenda Philips, bphilips@engin.umass.edu 
Melinda Rose, melindarose@umass.edu 

Higher trust in public health agencies during COVID-19 driven more by beliefs that agencies led with clear, science-based recommendations and provided protective resources, than by beliefs that agencies controlled outbreak

Lower trust driven by concerns about external influence and conflicting recommendations

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HARVARD T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Boston, MA—In the first nationally representative survey of U.S. adults on reasons for trust in federal, state, and local public health agencies’ information during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and colleagues found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was highly trusted for information by more than one-third of U.S. adults, whereas state and local health departments were highly trusted by about one-quarter. An additional 37-51% of adults trusted these public health agencies somewhat, and <10% reported no trust at all in these agencies for health information.

High levels of trust were not primarily due to people believing agencies had “done a good job” controlling the spread of COVID-19, but rather to public beliefs that agencies communicated clear, science-based recommendations and provided protective resources, such as tests and vaccines. The survey found that lower levels of trust were primarily related to beliefs that health recommendations were influenced by politics or corporations, or were conflicting.

“Trust in public health agencies is crucial for enabling effective policies that save lives during emergencies,” said lead author Dr. Gillian SteelFisher, principal research scientist in the Department of Health Policy and Management and director of global polling at the Harvard Opinion Research Program. “Emergency programs have been underfunded for decades, but these data make clear how important it is to ensure public health agencies have appropriate stockpiles, have authority to make decisions based on scientific information, and have a stronger communication infrastructure.”

The survey’s findings will be published March 6, 2023, in the March issue of Health Affairs, a themed issue focused on public health lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. The survey was conducted in February 2022 among a nationally representative sample of 4,208 U.S. adults.

The researchers also found significant differences in reasons that the public trusts federal, state, and local public health agencies. Public trust in the CDC was related primarily to beliefs in their scientific expertise, whereas trust in state and local public health agencies was more related to their provision of direct, compassionate care.

In addition, the study found key differences in the primary reasons why adults had lower levels of trust. Among those who reported trusting public health agencies “somewhat” concerns were focused on conflicting recommendations and the perception of political influence. By comparison, those who reported trusting agencies “not very much” or “not at all” raised many more concerns, including agencies’ recommendations going “too far” and limited trust in government generally.

The researchers used the results to suggest takeaways to inform public health leaders in COVID-19 and future emergencies. They suggested a need to enhance policies around stockpiles of protective resources such as masks; to support a robust communication infrastructure in which public health agencies are given clear authority to disseminate science-based recommendations; and to engage trusted partners, such as clinicians and religious leaders, to amplify agency communications. Such measures would allow public health agencies to develop strategies to more effectively engage different segments of the public who have varying levels of trust, the researchers said.

Other Harvard Chan School co-authors included Dr. Mary Findling and Hannah Caporello.

The study was conducted through a cooperative agreement between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, who subcontracted to the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

“Trust in US Federal, State, and Local Public Health Agencies During COVID-19: Responses and Policy Implications,” Gillian K. Steelfisher, Mary G. Findling, Hannah L. Caporello, Keri M. Lubell, Kathleen G. Vidoloff Melville, Lindsay Lane, Alyssa A. Boyea, Thomas J. Schafer, Eran N. Ben-Porath, Health Affairs, March 6, 2023, doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2022.01204

Visit the Harvard Chan School website for the latest news, press releases, and multimedia offerings.

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Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health brings together dedicated experts from many disciplines to educate new generations of global health leaders and produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere. As a community of leading scientists, educators, and students, we work together to take innovative ideas from the laboratory to people’s lives—not only making scientific breakthroughs, but also working to change individual behaviors, public policies, and health care practices. Each year, more than 400 faculty members at Harvard Chan School teach 1,000-plus full-time students from around the world and train thousands more through online and executive education courses. Founded in 1913 as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, the School is recognized as America’s oldest professional training program in public health.

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JOURNAL

Health Affairs

DOI

10.1377/hlthaff.2022.01204 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Trust In US Federal, State, And Local Public Health Agencies During COVID-19: Responses And Policy Implications

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Mar-2023

Commentary outlines steps to strengthen U.S. laboratory system and pandemic preparedness

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE

Weaknesses in the United States laboratory system, which were illuminated during the COVID-19 pandemic, underscore a need for policy changes to improve the country’s infectious disease response, according to a new analysis by a Weill Cornell Medicine investigator.

The analysis, published Mar. 6 in the March issue of Health Affairs, was co-authored by Dr. Jay Varma, professor of population health sciences and medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, Dr. Jill Taylor of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, and Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The authors suggest government and private institutions collaborate to implement systemic changes to improve the monitoring and tracking of highly transmissible diseases.

“The laboratory system in the U.S. is a patchwork of different organizations inside and outside of the government that have to work together in a seamless way to ensure that the American people have the highest quality diagnostic testing and that public health organizations receive data in a clear and quick way to take immediate action,” said lead author Dr. Varma, who is also a director of the Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response.

Laboratory testing helps identify disease in a population, determine how a disease may evolve, detect outbreaks and assess the impact of disease control measures like vaccination. With inefficient test execution and faulty test design during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) “stepwise” approach to developing tests was too slow and insufficient to match the pace of the highly transmissible virus – setting up the institution to be a “single point of failure” when monitoring disease spread, writes the authors. These problems arose again during the 2022 outbreak of Mpox, with the nation facing medical supply shortages and delayed test results due to the lack of clarity and coordination between many different sources reporting public health data.

To address these limitations, the authors acknowledged the need for federal financial investment and provided estimated costs of improving staffing, equipment, infrastructure, and creating secure data systems for the U.S. health system over the next ten years. The authors also suggested internal improvements in CDC structure and operations, and having the institution collaborate with public and private labs to create a “national road map” defining roles and responsibilities for all involved at each stage of a disease outbreak as it evolves. Specifically, the CDC can work with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create a regulatory pathway for at-home tests and with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to coordinate a national database for standardized clinical information.

“The CDC needs to be legally empowered and sufficiently funded to serve as the leading government agency to implement public health strategy,” said Dr. Varma. “The people who can really ensure that happens are elected officials.”

In establishing public-private partnerships, the U.S. laboratory system can improve the reliability and efficacy of current disease tracking methods. Furthermore, the authors encourage expanding the Strategic National Stockpile and increasing access to testing resources, especially early in an outbreak – key investments to prepare the United States for the next pandemic.

“What is critical here is making sure the government, media and the public have the real-time information about the nature of an infectious disease,” explained Dr. Varma. “Making these policy changes will not only improve the quality of testing and reporting and the speed of developing new tests, but also have an impact on rebuilding the confidence in public health.”

Many Weill Cornell Medicine physicians and scientists maintain relationships and collaborate with external organizations to foster scientific innovation and provide expert guidance. The institution makes these disclosures public to ensure transparency. For this information, see profile for Dr. Varma. 

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JOURNAL

Health Affairs

How to prevent concussions in football? Better helmets

UC engineers say the backs of players’ heads are especially vulnerable

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

 

IMAGE: UC BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING STUDENT CHRISTOPHER BOLES USES A MODAL HAMMER TO STRIKE A DUMMY HEAD CONTAINING ACCELEROMETERS. BY COMPARING THE FORCE THE DUMMY REGISTERS WITH AND WITHOUT A HELMET, RESEARCHERS CAN SEE WHICH HELMETS PROVIDE BETTER PROTECTION FROM POTENTIAL CONCUSSIONS. view more 

CREDIT: ANDREW HIGLEY

Football helmets made by four leading manufacturers showed vulnerabilities in tests designed to better understand player concussions, according to a new study.

University of Cincinnati engineers put popular football helmets made by leading brands through impact testing and found that no single design demonstrated superior reduction of potential concussion incidence or consistent energy absorption at every part of the helmet.

Concussions from football are a health concern across all age groups from youth sports to professional leagues.

The NFL saw a dramatic increase in concussions during the 2022 season. Concussions were up 18% over the previous season, including high-profile players such as Cincinnati Bengals’ receiver Tee Higgins.

“We’re not trying to get kids to stop playing football,” said Eric Nauman, a professor of biomedical engineering in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. “We just want them to be able to play without suffering long-term consequences.”

The study was published in the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.

The study was led by Nauman’s former students Kevin McIver and Patrick Lee along with UC’s Sean Bucherl.

Researchers tested three helmets from each of nine models made by four companies.

“We came up with a test on our own based on some military projects we’ve done,” Nauman said. “We can quantify exactly how much of the impact gets attenuated by the helmet.”

They measured the mass of each helmet, an important consideration in determining how much force is applied during a hard tackle or impact with the ground.

Each helmet was fit per manufacturer’s instructions onto a dummy similar to the kind used in automotive crash testing. The dummy contains sensors called accelerometers that measure how fast the head moves upon impact.

Using an instrument called a modal hammer that contains sophisticated sensors to measure applied force accurately, researchers delivered 20 blows by hand at seven impact points around the dummy’s bare head and its head while wearing each of the 27 helmets.

By measuring force applied to the dummy with and without the helmets, researchers were able to single out the strengths of each helmet design at each impact point. All four brands scored highest in minimizing impact in at least one of the impact points measured.

Helmets were able to mitigate between 52% and 83% of the translational acceleration — or change in velocity — researchers measured in the hammer strikes. The back of the helmets fared worst in testing, reducing less than half the rotational acceleration of hammer strikes.

“None of the helmets was uniformly good or uniformly bad, except on the back of the helmet where they were all uniformly bad,” Nauman said. “We didn’t expect the helmets would be so bad in that one place.”

Several well-known NFL players, including Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, sustained concussions when the back of their head hit the turf.

Researchers noted that lab tests alone are insufficient in determining what level of mitigation provides the best protection for particular athletes. They suggested field-based impact tracking in combination with lab tests could be more useful in future assessments.

Once the force ranges are better characterized, the shell and padding can be designed to maximize energy absorption and reduce the majority of unrestricted or sudden head movements, researchers said.

Nauman said helmet padding that provides more absorption from impacts might offer better protection from concussions than a more rigid type. Likewise, he said some of the more flexible helmet shells improved energy absorption from the repetitive hits typical of football.

“There are a lot of ways to fix it,” Nauman said. “The helmets are generally designed to withstand the maximum possible impact. But that’s a 99th percentile type of hit. If you can design a helmet to protect players from the smaller, more typical hits, that would be ideal.”

Nauman said even modest design changes could have profound benefits for players.

“I don’t care as much about the NFL. Our audience is mostly high school or under — the 98 percent of players who don’t play after high school,” Nauman said. “If we can keep them safer through high school, that would be great.”

UC BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING STUDENT SHENGMING HU USES A MODAL HAMMER TO STRIKE A DUMMY HEAD CONTAINING ACCELEROMETERS. BY COMPARING THE FORCE THE DUMMY REGISTERS WITH AND WITHOUT A HELMET, RESEARCHERS CAN SEE WHICH HELMETS PROVIDE BETTER PROTECTION FROM POTENTIAL CONCUSSIONS.

CREDIT

Andrew Higley

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JOURNAL

Journal of Biomedical Engineering

DOI

10.1115/1.4056653 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Design Considerations for the Attenuation of Translational and Rotational Accelerations in American Football Helmet

COI STATEMENT

Gregory D. Myer has consulted with commercial entities to support application to the US Food and Drug Administration but has no financial interest in the commercialization of the products. Dr. Myer’s institution receives current and ongoing grant funding from National Institutes of Health/NIAMS and has received industry sponsored research funding related to brain injury prevention and assessment with Q30 Innovations, LLC, and ElMinda, Ltd. Dr. Myer receives author royalties from Human Kinetics and Wolters Kluwer. Dr. Myer is an inventor of biofeedback technologies designed to enhance rehabilitation and prevent injuries and receives licensing royalties. The remaining authors have no conflict of interest regarding the data presented in this publication.

Does more money correlate with greater happiness?

 

Reconciling previously contradictory results, researchers from Penn and Princeton find a steady association between larger incomes and greater happiness for most people but a rise and plateau for an unhappy minority.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Are people who earn more money happier in daily life? Though it seems like a straightforward question, research had previously returned contradictory findings, leaving uncertainty about its answer.

Foundational work published in 2010 from Princeton University’s Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton had found that day-to-day happiness rose as annual income increased, but above $75,000 it leveled off and happiness plateaued. In contrast, work published in 2021 from the University of Pennsylvania’s Matthew Killingsworth found that happiness rose steadily with income well beyond $75,000, without evidence of a plateau.

To reconcile the differences, the two paired up in what’s known as an adversarial collaboration, joining forces with Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor Barbara Mellers as arbiter. In a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper, the trio shows that, on average, larger incomes are associated with ever-increasing levels of happiness. Zoom in, however, and the relationship becomes more complex, revealing that within that overall trend, an unhappy cohort within each income group shows a sharp rise in happiness up to $100,000 annually and then plateaus.

“In the simplest terms, this suggests that for most people larger incomes are associated with greater happiness,” says Killingsworth, a senior fellow at Penn’s Wharton School and lead paper author. “The exception is people who are financially well-off but unhappy. For instance, if you’re rich and miserable, more money won’t help. For everyone else, more money was associated with higher happiness to somewhat varying degrees.”

Mellers digs into this last notion, noting that emotional well-being and income aren’t connected by a single relationship. “The function differs for people with different levels of emotional well-being,” she says. Specifically, for the least happy group, happiness rises with income until $100,000, then shows no further increase as income grows. For those in the middle range of emotional well-being, happiness increases linearly with income, and for the happiest group the association actually accelerates above $100,000.

Joining forces
The researchers began this combined effort recognizing that their previous work had drawn different conclusions. Kahneman’s 2010 study showed a flattening pattern where Killingsworth’s 2021 study did not. As its name suggests, an adversarial collaboration of this type—a notion originated by Kahneman—aims to solve scientific disputes or disagreements by bringing together the differing parties, along with a third-party mediator.

Killingsworth, Kahneman, and Mellers focused on a new hypothesis that both a happy majority and an unhappy minority exist. For the former, they surmised, happiness keeps rising as more money comes in; the latter’s happiness improves as income rises but only up to a certain income threshold, after which it progresses no further.

To test this new hypothesis, they looked for the flattening pattern in data from Killingworth’s study, which he had collected through an app he created called Track Your Happiness. Several times a day, the app pings participants at random moments, asking a variety of questions including how they feel on a scale from “very good” to “very bad.” Taking an average of the person’s happiness and income, Killingsworth draws conclusions about how the two variables are linked.

A breakthrough in the new partnership came early on when the researchers realized that the 2010 data, which had revealed the happiness plateau, had actually been measuring unhappiness in particular rather than happiness in general. “It’s easiest to understand with an example,” Killingsworth says. Imagine a cognitive test for dementia that most healthy people pass easily. While such a test could detect the presence and severity of cognitive dysfunction, it wouldn’t reveal much about general intelligence since most healthy people would receive the same perfect score.

“In the same way, the 2010 data showing a plateau in happiness had mostly perfect scores, so it tells us about the trend in the unhappy end of the happiness distribution, rather than the trend of happiness in general. Once you recognize that, the two seemingly contradictory findings aren’t necessarily incompatible,” Killingsworth says. “And what we found bore out that possibility in an incredibly beautiful way. When we looked at the happiness trend for unhappy people in the 2021 data, we found exactly the same pattern as was found in 2010; happiness rises relatively steeply with income and then plateaus.”

“The two findings that seemed utterly contradictory actually result from data that are amazingly consistent,” he says.

Implications of this work
Drawing these conclusions would have been challenging had the two research teams not come together, says Mellers, who suggests there’s no better way than adversarial collaborations to resolve scientific conflict.

“This kind of collaboration requires far greater self-discipline and precision in thought than the standard procedure,” she says. “Collaborating with an adversary—or even a non-adversary—is not easy, but both parties are likelier to recognize the limits of their claims.” Indeed, that’s what happened, leading to a better understanding of the relationship between money and happiness.

And these findings have real-world implications, according to Killingsworth. For one, they could inform thinking about tax rates or how to compensate employees. And, of course, they matter to individuals as they navigate career choices or weigh a larger income against other priorities in life, Killingsworth says.

However, he adds that for emotional well-being money isn’t the be all end all. “Money is just one of the many determinants of happiness. Money is not the secret to happiness, but it can probably help a bit,” he says.

Matthew Killingsworth is a senior fellow in Wharton People Analytics in the Wharton School and an associate in MindCORE in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

Daniel Kahneman is professor of psychology and public affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University, and a fellow of the Federmann Center for Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Barbara Mellers is the I. George Heyman Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor with appointments in the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts & Sciences and in the Department of Marketing in the Wharton School at Penn.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2208661120 

ARTICLE TITLE

Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Mar-2023

Wheat’s ancient roots of viral resistance uncovered

The DNA sequence of a gene in wheat responsible for resisting a devastating virus has been discovered, providing vital clues for managing more resistant crops and maintaining a healthy food supply.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

The DNA sequence of a gene in wheat responsible for resisting a devastating virus has been discovered, providing vital clues for managing more resistant crops and maintaining a healthy food supply.

Wheat crops across the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Africa are frequently ravaged by Wheat Yellow Mosaic Virus (WYMV), so there is high demand for wheat varieties or cultivars that can resist this virus.

Published today in PNAS, the study found the resistance gene originated in an ancient Mediterranean wild plant relative of wheat.

Study lead researcher University of Melbourne Dr Mohammad Pourkheirandish said: “This discovery could assist with the development of more resistant wheat cultivars, increase crop yields, and reduce the use of harmful fungicides. It also emphasises the need to preserve biodiversity to protect food supplies.”

WYMV reduces grain yield by up to 80 per cent, causing significant economic losses. The virus is hosted and transmitted by a soil-dwelling fungus that colonises the roots of wheat plants, discolouring wheat leaves, and stunting plant growth.

Microscopic fungal spores containing WYMV can live in soil for up to a decade. While fungicides can kill the spores and stop transmission, the fungicide treatment is neither cost-effective nor ecologically sustainable.

“The viable alternative is to selectively breed or genetically engineer wheat with resistance to WYMV,” Dr Pourkheirandish said.

“Before this research, we knew that a dominant gene called Ym2 reduces the impact of WYMV on wheat plants by more than 70 per cent, but we didn’t understand how the gene achieved this.”

The research team used a technique called positional cloning to locate the Ym2 gene on a chromosome in bread wheat, and found that its DNA sequence codes for a protein of the type known as NBS-LRR. These proteins are ‘guardians’ that detect pathogens and trigger an immune response in plants.

“Now that we know the gene’s DNA sequence, we can select breeding lines carrying Ym2 by simply analysing DNA from a small piece of leaf even without the virus inoculation step,” Dr Pourkheirandish said.

“It will also make it easier to find variants of Ym2 in wild relatives of wheat, which may provide superior disease resistance for further crop improvement.”

The DNA of modern wheat is chimeric, meaning its genetic material derives from several ancestral plants through natural interbreeding, or hybridisation, followed by selective breeding by humans.

By comparing DNA sequences across related species, the researchers discovered that Ym2 in modern bread wheat derives from an ancient wild plant called Aegilops sharonensis, native to eastern Mediterranean countries. A similar gene occurs in Aegilops speltoides, another wild ancestor of bread wheat.

“These wild species would have interbred with cultivated wheat at some point and passed on the genetic resistance that is now so commercially critical,” Dr Pourkheirandish said.

“Ancestral wild plants are a rich source of useful traits, like disease resistance, that plant breeders and geneticists can mine to protect modern crops and maintain a healthy food supply – including the bread, pasta, noodles, couscous, pastries, cakes and other wheat products that many of us depend upon and enjoy.”

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2214968120 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Wheat Ym2 originated from Aegilops sharonensis and confers resistance to soil-borne Wheat yellow mosaic virus infection to the roots

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Mar-2023