Best practices in new product development: what separates the Best from the Rest?

No single one practice is sufficient for greater innovation performance, say the researchers, overviewing the results of the most recent PDMA's 2021 global survey

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KAUNAS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: MAX VON ZEDTWITZ, PROFESSOR AT KAUNAS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, LITHUANIA view more 

CREDIT: KTU

No single one practice is sufficient for greater innovation performance, say the researchers, overviewing the results of the most recent PDMA's 2021 global survey. The Best companies, according to the results, are better at employing multiple types of innovation, but the spend more time on radical innovation, are oriented towards risk-taking, and employ long-term strategies. The results were drawn from responses from 651 companies in 37 countries, the most extensive PDMA survey so far.

“I believe, we should fundamentally look at innovation as the ability to learn and the ability to observe what’s going on. If we stop doing that, then it is similar to becoming old. And you know what happens to old people, right?” says Max von Zedtwitz, a professor at the School of Economics and Business, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania, one of the co-authors of the study, discussing the results of the PDMA survey.

The Product Development & Management Association (PDMA)'s 2021 Global Best Practices Research is the fifth edition of PDMA Best Practice studies (BP5). The survey was first conducted in 1990, and the BP4 was carried out in 2012. The sample of BP5 is the most global ever, with 62% of the 651 respondents from Europe and the UK and only 6% (39) from North America.

The Best invest in innovation even in times of crises

The criteria separating the Best companies from the Rest of them were defined in 1997. Although these criteria mainly focus on new product development and market success, the researchers argue that the definition of the Best companies is broad, encompassing all types of businesses and measuring success in general terms.

“The survey focuses on product development in a very general sense: we’re looking at consulting companies and banks, travel agencies and tech companies, and so on. We ask: do these companies hit their financial targets, their revenue targets, their product development targets? Are they successful in comparison with others? Therefore, if a company is the Best by PDMA criteria, it is financially profitable and is competitive. Overall, such companies meet their expectations as far as products and programmes are concerned. In other words, these simply are the best companies,” says Von Zedtwitz.

Benchmark studies like the PDMA’s are used by everyone to improve their own practices. Therefore, among the main takeaways for practitioners, is the recommendation that evolving new product development capabilities is a must for every company if they want just to “stay in the game” as the circumstances and the environment change.

Since the fifth edition of the PDMA's global survey was carried out during the pandemic, the researchers included questions of how the companies responded to the challenges caused by Covid-19. Were they doing everything the same? Were they doing more or less of the same? Or, were they doing something different? The survey revealed that even in the time of crisis, the Best continued investment into new product development with more people, higher budgets and more overall investments, while the Rest took a more defensive approach.

“The Best were all adamant in investing more in product development, not less; they had a more aggressive stance. Whereas, the Rest were either keeping things as they were or planning to cut back in investments to have more financial reserves in case their markets disappeared or revenues became significantly lower,” says von Zedtwitz.

Develop new products significantly faster

In BP5, 213 companies were characterised as the Best (32.3%) and 416 as the Rest (67.7%). However, similarly to previous editions of PDMA Best Practice studies, in BP5, the researchers could not point out a unique single practice that would separate the two.

“Frankly, we were also somewhat disappointed not to be able to find the one thing. Perhaps, the most surprising of all the differences between the Best and the Rest was to see how fast the Best companies were developing new products. They are significantly faster. However, it is not necessarily a skill per se, but rather a result of being good at managing many different things well at the same time,” says von Zedtwitz, professor at KTU School of Economics and Business.

In the paper discussing the results of the survey, the researchers indicate several new product development capabilities and practices that Best companies are better at employing. For example, they focus on radical versus incremental innovation (according to the study, the companies for which radical innovations make up 21%–50% of their total innovation projects, will most likely be among the Best), and in terms of portfolio execution, the Best focus more on entering new markets, applying new technologies, taking more risk, and being more long-term oriented than the Rest.

“In comparison with previous studies, this time it became more evident that Best companies manage their portfolios of new products better,” says von Zedtwitz.

Overall, the Best apply more innovation-oriented strategies, which is also associated with the pursuit of a higher proportion of radical innovation projects. However, the Best not only focus more on radical innovation – they spend more on all types of innovation projects.

Innovation is the DNA of growth

Nowadays, innovation is a synonym for progress, competitive ability and economic growth. However, to understand more about the companies’ attitude towards creating new products and services, it is important to distinguish between the two types of innovation – radical and incremental.

According to von Zedtwitz, who is also a Director of GLORAD Center for Global R&D and Innovation, the difference between radical and incremental innovation, as a result of product development, is established from the customer’s point of view. Incremental innovation is when things do not change that much from a customer’s point of view: the product or service looks the same and feels the same, it does not cost much different but is somewhat better. An example could be – switching from one model of smartphone to the next one. The new model might be a little bit bigger, have more memory and function a little bit better. However, radical innovation often involves a deep-rooted change in product-customer interaction.

“For instance, moving from one of these old cell phones to a smartphone is a radical innovation. Or coming up with a new medicine, a new therapy that addresses a previously considered incurable disease, would be a radical innovation. Doing things fundamentally different or using things in a fundamentally different way is typically a radical innovation,” explains von Zedtwitz.

According to him, in a free market, companies will always feel compelled to innovate, i.e. attempt to do things differently to be more competitive. If the surrounding changes constantly, companies will need to adapt and avoid becoming too complacent.

“One of the slow changes that we all try to adapt to is climate change. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a company that would do nothing about it. The covid-19 pandemic revealed the ability of companies to react to more urgent changes quickly. In the survey, we see how this ability is crucial while defining Best from the Rest,” says von Zedtwitz.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Product Innovation Management

DOI

10.1111/jpim.12663 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Best practices in new product development and innovation: Results from PDMA's 2021 global survey

COI STATEMENT

This research was approved for human subject safety by the Institutional Research Board of the University of Utah and San Francisco State University.

USA

Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on food insecurity and inability to pay rent hit immigrant families hardest, Drexel study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DREXEL UNIVERSITY

Although families with immigrant mothers experienced higher rates of food insecurity and inability to pay rent during the pandemic than other groups, they reported less participation in economic impact payments (EIP) in the form of stimulus checks and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – two programs designed to provide stopgap financial support, according to a new study in JAMA Health Forum from researchers at the Dornsife School of Public Health and Children’s HealthWatch.

The team surveyed 1,396 caregivers in Boston, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Little Rock of families with children under age four before the pandemic from Jan. 2018 through March 2020, with a follow-up survey administered Sept. 2020 through June 2021. The researchers asked about child and household food insecurity, rent or mortgage struggles, their participation status in EIP and SNAP, and demographics.

Among families with mostly low incomes surveyed across the five cities, those with immigrant mothers were 63% more likely to experience household food insecurity and 21% more likely to report being behind on paying their rent or mortgage than families with U.S.-born mothers. Despite this greater need, a majority (96%) of families with U.S.-born mothers utilized SNAP or EIP, and only 74% of those with immigrant mothers participated in at least one of the programs.

Compared to before the pandemic, the number of families with young children behind on rent or mortgage more than doubled from 18% to 41%, and families experiencing food insecurity increased from 21% to 34%, according to the new data.

“Our results show that SNAP and the federal government’s stimulus checks played a major role in reducing household hardships like food insecurity and inability to afford rent during the pandemic, but too many immigrant families were restricted or unable to use these programs,” said lead author Félice Lê-Scherban, PhD, an associate professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health. “Many lawfully present immigrants were prohibited from benefits, while many of those who qualified were afraid to participate after facing anti-immigrant rhetoric related to benefits.” 

The relief packages passed by Congress between March 2020 and March 2021 – which designated trillions of dollars in aid to support the U.S. economy and respond to hardships felt by individuals and families – included streamlined access to higher benefit amounts for SNAP recipients and EIP payments. According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, SNAP enrollment increased from 36 million people in 2019 to 44 million in 2020. Additionally, the IRS issued three stimulus checks to more than 92% of U.S. households during the pandemic ranging from $600 to $1400 per adult and $500 to $1400 per child.

“Our data shows that the design of the stimulus checks and SNAP programs during the pandemic failed to address racial inequities that originated long before the pandemic,” said Lê-Scherban. “For example, families with any members without social security numbers were ineligible for the first round of stimulus checks, which meant that three million U.S. citizens and lawfully present immigrants in mixed immigration-status families were unable to receive the initial stimulus support. After that first check, other restrictions were still in place, shutting out many others who were lawfully in the United States and would benefit from this resource.”

The researchers found that families who received stimulus checks alone or both SNAP and stimulus checks were over 20% less likely to experience food insecurity. Although receiving only SNAP was not significantly associated with changes in food insecurity during the pandemic, the researchers say this may be due to the program design. Although SNAP benefits are traditionally highest for those of lowest income level, the initial change to SNAP during the pandemic paid out the highest benefit to all recipients. In doing so, those already receiving the maximum benefit did not experience an increase at the start of the pandemic. Benefits also may have been insufficient to address greater financial need during the pandemic.

“This is a call to action for policies that are more equity-driven to ensure benefits reach all families who need it, particularly Black, Latino, immigrant, and other marginalized groups,”

said Lê-Scherban. “Especially in times of crisis, inclusive policy design is as important as rapid deployment of relief. Otherwise we lose the opportunity to reduce inequities and instead risk making them even larger.”

Many studies demonstrate the critical importance of nutrition on early childhood development and life-long health. A 2016 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities cites benefits from SNAP contributing to improvements in child health, better performance in school, and long-term health and economic benefits.

The authors say that future research should explore how other policy changes, such as increases in SNAP benefits, a more inclusive stimulus check alongside programs like Child Tax Credit payments may reduce disparities in household hardships. Although the data in this study is not nationally representative, it does contribute to the few data points available on the long-term effect of COVID economic relief programs on reducing hardships among populations most at risk. 

This research was funded by the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

In addition to Lê-Scherban, Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, PhD, Sharon Coleman, Lindsey Rateau, and Tim Heeren, PhD, all of Boston University School of Public Health, Deborah A. Frank, MD of Boston University School of Medicine, Allison Bovell-Ammon, MDiv, of Boston Medical Center, Diana Cutts, MD, of Hennepin County Medical Center, and Maureen Black, PhD, of University of Maryland School of Medicine and RTI International, participated in this research.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum

DOI

10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.0508 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Changes in material hardship and among families with young children associated with federal relief program participation by race, ethnicity, and nativity

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Apr-2023

USA

Why are COVID-19 vaccination rates among children so low? Parents’ worry about long-term risks, responsibility

The USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research finds that 45% of parents of children are concerned about potential long-term risks from the COVID-19 vaccine; 18% fear they’ll be viewed responsible if their child gets sick after the vaccination

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Despite efforts by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pediatric clinicians to increase the COVID-19 vaccination rate among children, many remain unvaccinated due to parental concerns about the vaccine’s long-term effects and anticipated responsibility. Those are findings from a new study published in Pediatricsand conducted by the Center for Economic and Social Research(CESR) at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

The researchers sought to determine the causes of low child vaccination rates. Currently, only 39% of children 5 to 11 and 68% of those 12 to 17 have received vaccinations, compared to 92% of adults.

During the Omicron variant’s spike between February and March 2022, when pediatric COVID-19 cases peaked, the USC Dornsife survey of parents in the nationally representative Understanding America Study revealed that 45% of parents believed the vaccine’s long-term risks to their child outweighed the risks of not being vaccinated.

Ying Liu, research scientist at CESR and the study lead, explained that “parents’ hesitancy may be partly driven by apprehension about the vaccine, stemming from its rapid development and the use of newer techniques.”

Additionally, 18% of parents said they’d feel a heightened sense of responsibility if their child became sick following vaccination.

“People often exhibit a more cautious approach when making medical decisions for others, including their own children, than for themselves,” Liu said. “Some tend to do nothing rather than vaccinate their child, even though such inaction could result in negative consequences.”

Said Arie Kapteyn, director of CESR and professor (research) of economics at USC Dornsife: “This research underscores the pressing need to address parental perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine. By doing so, we believe the vaccination rate among 5- to 17-year-olds could be increased to over 50%.”

The report suggests the following ways to boost child vaccination rates:

• Assure parents that side effects from the vaccine are rare and mild, whereas the health complications from the COVID-19 infection are far more common and severe.
• Highlight that there is no evidence or plausible way in which the vaccine could alter a child’s genetic makeup.
• Emphasize the potential and avoidable negative outcomes from lack of action when delaying or foregoing the vaccination.

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JOURNAL

PEDIATRICS

DOI

10.1542/peds.2022-058971 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Role of Parents’ Perceived Risk and Responsibility in Deciding on Children’s COVID-19 Vaccination

New study: No evidence that shielding reduced COVID-19 infections in Wales

Shielding did not reduce COVID-19 infections in Wales: new study questions benefits of policy for vulnerable people

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SWANSEA UNIVERSITY

A research team from Swansea University have been examining data from the year after the policy was introduced in March 2020, concluding that a “lack of clear impact on infection rates raises questions about the success of shielding.”  

Shielding was introduced to protect those thought to be at highest risk of serious harm should they catch COVID-19, for example because of preconditions such as cancer or medications that they were taking.  Key to protecting vulnerable people was to reduce their risk of contracting COVID-19.

The researchers examined the situation in Wales, but as shielding policy was similar across the UK, their findings will be of relevance in other countries too.    

Working with the NHS, they examined how shielding affected COVID-19 infections, deaths, and admissions to hospital and intensive care. They compared the 117,000 people shielding in Wales with the rest of the population - 3 million in total – who were not.   

The largest clinical categories in the shielded cohort were severe respiratory condition (35.5%), immunosuppressive therapy (25.9%) and cancer (18.6%) 

The team drew on data from anonymous electronic health records routinely collected for the entire Welsh population, which are held securely within the SAIL Databank at Swansea University. 

The researchers found that:  

• Deaths and healthcare utilisation were higher amongst shielded people than the general population, though this would be expected as they are sicker.  
• The known COVID-19 infection rate was also higher in the shielded cohort (5.9%) than in the general population (5.7%) 

The researchers conclude:   

“A lack of clear impact on infection rates raises questions about the success of shielding and indicates that further research is required to fully evaluate this national policy intervention.”  

Commenting on the policy context the authors say: 

“Shielding was an untested public health policy that was introduced in the United Kingdom early in the pandemic, in contrast to other countries where there was more focus on closing borders, lockdown, test and trace systems. The shielding policy was based on assumptions rather than evidence of effectiveness.”  

Professor Helen Snooks of Swansea University Medical School, who led the research, said:   

“Our study found no evidence of reduced COVID-19 infections one year after shielding was introduced. This raises questions about the benefits of shielding for vulnerable people as a policy.   

Work is ongoing to compare these outcomes, as well as self-reported quality of life, with a matched group of people who were clinically vulnerable, but not selected for Shielding. 

Having as much evidence as possible about the effect of policies is essential if we are to learn lessons for the future”.  

The project is known as EVITE Immunity, funded through the National Core Studies Immunity Programme - commissioned by Birmingham University on behalf of UKRI; and involves collaborations with Cardiff University, Warwick University, Welsh Government and NHS Wales. 

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JOURNAL

Public Health

DOI

10.1016/j.puhe.2023.02.008 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Did the UK's public health shielding policy protect the clinically extremely vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic in Wales? Results of EVITE Immunity, a linked data retrospective study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Apr-2023

Finnish population-based study: Vulnerable groups were the least likely to uptake COVID-19 vaccination

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

A large-scale registry study in Finland has identified several factors associated with uptake of the first dose of COVID-19 vaccination. In particular, persons with low or no labor income and persons with mental health or substance abuse issues were less likely to vaccinate.

The study, carried out in collaboration between the University of Helsinki and the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare, tested the association of nearly 3000 health, demographic and socio-economic variables with the uptake of the first COVID-19 vaccination dose across the entire Finnish population. 

This work, just published in the Nature Human Behavior, is the largest study to date on this topic. 

The single most significant factors that associated with reduced likelihood of being vaccinated were lack of labor income in the year preceding the pandemic, mother tongue other than Finnish or Swedish and having unvaccinated close relatives, especially the mother. Among health-related variables, factors related to mental health and substance abuse problems associated with reduced vaccination.

"Lack of labor income can be due to unemployment, sickness or retirement. Furthermore, among individuals with labor income, we saw that low-income earners where the least likely to vaccinate”, explains Tuomo Hartonen, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland FIMM, University of Helsinki.

The study was based on the FinRegistry data. Researchers analysed population-wide national health and population register data from the pre-pandemic period and compared these with the vaccination status data. The analyses were limited to people aged 30-80 years.

"A particular strength of our study is that it is based on registers covering the entire Finnish population. This way we can avoid all selection bias, which is a major challenge of survey studies", Postdoctoral Researcher Bradley Jermy from FIMM says.

The researchers stress that their results describe the association between the studied variables and vaccination uptake at the population level, but do not allow conclusions to be drawn about causal relationships. Furthermore, the generalizability of the findings outside Finland requires further studies. However, it is clear from the results that in Finland, vaccination uptake was lowest among those who are already in a vulnerable position.

Researchers created a machine learning-based model to predict vaccination uptake

In addition to studying single predictors, the research team constructed a machine learning-based model to predict vaccination uptake. This prediction model allowed the researchers to group individuals according to their likelihood of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

Approximately 90% of the total study population received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccination. In contrast, the group with the lowest probability of being vaccinated based on the model had a vaccination rate of less than 19%.

“Our research has created a framework for using machine learning and statistical approaches to identify those groups that are at higher risk of not vaccinating”, says the corresponding author of the study, Associate Professor Andrea Ganna from FIMM.

 “These results and the predictive model could be used in the future, for example in designing vaccination campaigns”, says the Principal Investigator of the FinRegistry study, Research Professor Markus Perola from THL.

“This study is a great example of the possibilities that the FinRegistry study creates for investigating highly topical issues in a short timeframe. The collaboration between THL's genetic and registry researchers and FIMM scientists will help to understand the many pathways that lead to susceptibility to different diseases," Perola continues.

The study is part of the FinRegistry project, a joint research project between the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) at the University of Helsinki.

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JOURNAL

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-023-01591-z 

ARTICLE TITLE

Nationwide health, socio-economic and genetic predictors of COVID-19 vaccination status in Finland

The climate and biodiversity crises are not two separate things

Review study co-written by FAU paleontologist offers new solutions for combating climate change and biodiversity loss

Reports and Proceedings

FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITÄT ERLANGEN-NÜRNBERG

An unprecedented and continuing loss of biodiversity has been sparked by anthropogenic climate change together with the intensive use and destruction of natural ecosystems. However, since the public often views the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis as two separate catastrophes, an international team of researchers including paleontologist Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kiessling from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) calls for adopting a new perspective: In their review study just released in the journal “Science”, they recommend protecting and restoring at least 30 percent of all land, freshwater and marine zones, establishing a network of interconnected protected areas, and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration between institutions.

Human beings have massively changed the Earth’s climate system by producing greenhouse gas emissions that caused the global mean temperature to rise by more than 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to the preindustrial era. The consequences for our planet are manifold and include among others the rising of global sea levels, frequent extreme weather events, and a loss in biodiversity.

Climate and biodiversity go hand in hand

In their newly published report, “Overcoming the coupled climate and biodiversity crises and their societal impacts”, 18 international researchers highlight the connection between climate crisis and biodiversity loss. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kiessling, FAU paleontologist and Chair of Palaeoenvironmental Research at Geozentrum Nordbayern, is one of the co-authors. He explains: “The drastic change in temperatures we experience right now has a great impact on the habitats of animate beings. Since they all have their specific range of tolerance, organisms are forced to shift their territory due to climate change. This comes with different challenges. For instance, mobile species can only migrate to cooler environments for so long until they hit a dead end, for example the coast of a landmass. Sessile organisms like coral reefs on the other hand take several generations to change their habitat. If you look at it long-term, for many of them it may already be too late.” 

What makes matters worse is the loss of ecosystems due to agriculture, fishing and industry. The study’s authors estimate that human activities have altered roughly 75 percent of the land surface and 66 percent of the marine waters on our planet. As a result, today approximately 80 percent of the biomass from mammals and 50 percent of plant biomass have been lost, while more species are in danger of extinction than at any time in human history.

Coming full circle, global warming and the destruction of natural habitats not only lead to biodiversity loss, but also reduce the capacity of organisms, soils and sediments to store carbon, which in turn exacerbates the climate crisis.

Adapting now for a good future

In order to address these multiple crises, the researchers propose a combination of emissions reduction, restoration and protection measures, intelligent land-use management, and promoting cross-institutional competencies among political actors. “The key to a good future must be to not only focus on reducing emissions but to make sustainable adaptions to the already existing change in our climate, especially through nature-based solutions”, says Kiessling. 

This includes the protection of coastlines by maintaining coral reefs and wetlands; the restoration of at least 30 percent of land, freshwater and marine zones to prevent further biodiversity losses; and the connection of protected areas via migration corridors, hence creating a web of safe habitats around the world for animals. The paper further emphasizes that agriculture and fishing must focus on sustainability: Resource-conserving forms of use and a reliable food supply for the human race have to be ensured, with concepts leading to intensified carbon dioxide uptake and carbon fixation in biomass and soils being prioritized. In addition, sufficient havens must be created for species responsible for making harvests possible, e.g. the insects that pollinate fruit trees.

Unanimous approach necessary

For all of these measures to be successful, countries and institutions across the world need to stand on common ground. As Kiessling puts it: “No matter the issue, be it economic, political or social, we all must look at it with climate change, biodiversity and sustainability in mind, and most importantly: We must understand that what impacts one country will definitely have an effect on others. This is why we need joint strategies and regular exchange between institutions and world leaders.” 

The full report is available via the DOI: 10.1126/science.abl4881

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abl4881 

ARTICLE TITLE

Overcoming the coupled climate and biodiversity crises and their societal impacts

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Apr-2023

Neuroptera: Greater insect diversity in the Cretaceous period

Peer-Reviewed Publication

LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN

An LMU team has studied the biodiversity of larvae from the insect order neuroptera over the past 100 million years.

Human activity is currently driving a loss of natural diversity that some experts describe as the sixth major mass extinction event in the history of the Earth. The decline in insects is particularly alarming: Insects are not just a highly diverse group of creatures in and off themselves, but they are also of tremendous ecological and economic importance.

 

The extent to which insects are disappearing can only be described as an exceptional situation. To better understand the underlying processes, it is therefore worth delving into past extinction events. Why? Because in the past, too, some groups of insects have gained in significance and diversified while others have been passed by and forced to withdraw into the few remaining niches.

 

100 million years of larvae diversity

 

The latter point seems to have been the case for neuroptera, whose modern-day representatives include lacewings and antlions. Researchers have long suspected that the importance of this group of insects has tended to decrease since prehistoric times. Until now, however, there had been no quantitative validation of this hypothesis.

 

Now, a team working with LMU biologists Professor Carolin Haug and Professor Joachim Haug have published a study in Scientific Reports documenting the diversity of neuroptera from the Cretaceous period to the present day. For the first time, statistical analysis thus backs up scientists’ view of these insects over the course of evolutionary history.

 

But how do we measure and compare the biological diversity of insects during the process of evolution? At best, we can only paint an incomplete picture of a tiny fraction of the biodiversity that prevailed in past ecosystems, because insect fossils are very rare. And although Jurassic Park may have nurtured expectations to the contrary, DNA for use in relatedness analyses can no longer be extracted from creepie-crawlies encased in amber during the Cretaceous period.

 

Form and function

 

Neuroptera are holometabolic insects whose larvae differ considerably in terms of appearance and lifestyle from adults. Whereas many neuroptera pollinate flowers after metamorphosis, their larvae are often fierce predators – as is apparent from their strikingly stylet-like mouthparts. Precisely these larvae mouthparts became the focus of the researchers’ attention. “Unfortunately, the larval phase is often rather neglected in such analyses,” Joachim Haug says. “Yet the larvae in particular often display morphological attributes that we can use as a very informative data basis.”

 

The basic idea is simple: Different forms are a marker for biodiversity. The more different head shapes and stylets occur in neuroptera larvae, the more ecological functions these creatures assume. It follows that, if an exceptionally large variety of head parts and mouthparts occur in a given geological period, it is reasonable to conclude that these insects occupied many different niches at that time. The principle holds true even if only a few specimens have survived and relatedness remains unclear.

 

A complex pattern

 

The researchers measured the heads of more than 1,000 larvae, including all the nearly 300 fossilized neuroptera larvae that are known worldwide and 800 specimens that are still alive today. In this way, they were able to confirm that the diversity of neuroptera larvae has indeed declined in the last 100 million years.

 

“Although our glance into the past is limited to a small sample size and very specific regions around the globe, we can nevertheless detect greater morphological diversity among neuroptera larvae in the Cretaceous period,” Carolin Haug says. “So, it is probable that actual diversity was in fact substantially greater in the past.” However, the overall picture of neuroptera history is complex: Whereas their diversity as a whole has definitely decreased, some neuroptera lines have diversified and thus gained in importance.

 

“Our work also showed how much potential lies in the morphological study of insect larvae,” Carolin Haug adds. “Quantitative morphology can reveal changes that cannot be quantitatively recorded within a taxonomic framework.”

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-023-32103-8 

ARTICLE TITLE

Quantitative analysis of lacewing larvae over more than 100 million years reveals a complex pattern of loss of morphological diversity

Most people feel “psychologically close” to climate change

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CELL PRESS

 

IMAGE: PERCEIVING CLIMATE CHANGE AS PSYCHOLOGICALLY DISTANT IS NOT A KEY REASON WHY PEOPLE DO NOT ENGAGE IN CLIMATE ACTION view more 

CREDIT: ONE EARTH/ANNE M. VAN VALKENGOED ET AL.

When spurring action against climate change, NGOs and governmental agencies frequently operate on the assumption that people are unmotivated to act because they view climate change as a problem that affects distant regions far in the future. While this concept, known as psychological distance, seems intuitive, researchers report in the journal One Earth on April 21 that most people see climate change as an important and timely issue even if its impacts are not immediately noticeable.

“There is no consistent evidence that perceiving climate change as psychologically distant hinders climate action, with studies reporting mixed results,” write the authors, led by Dr. Anne M. van Valkengoed of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

van Valkengoed and her colleagues collected results from public opinion polls surveying people about their views on climate change, some of which included over 100,000 people from 121 different countries. The polls showed that over 50% of participants actually believe that climate change is happening either now or in the near future and that it will impact their local areas, not just faraway places.

The team also looked at the results of several studies designed to test the relationship between psychological distance and climate action. Out of 26 reviewed studies, only nine found a positive association between psychological distance and climate action. In fact, some studies showed that viewing climate change as impacting distant places and communities made people want to take more action. The researchers also found that 25 out of 30 studies failed to prove that experimentally decreasing psychological distance increased climate action.

The pervasive misconception about the relationship between psychological distance and climate action could actually be impeding progress in mitigating climate change due to social influence, suggest the authors. For example, if people think others perceive climate change as psychologically distant and therefore aren’t taking action, they might be less likely to act themselves. Also, they might think that their efforts are futile because real environmental change relies on the combined efforts of many.

“We therefore recommend researchers, communicators, and policymakers instead focus on how to leverage the finding that many people already perceive climate change as occurring here and now,” said the researchers.

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One Earth, van Valkengoed et al. “The psychological distance of climate change is overestimated” https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(23)00140-9

One Earth (@OneEarth_CP), published by Cell Press, is a monthly journal that features papers from the fields of natural, social, and applied sciences. One Earth is the home for high-quality research that seeks to understand and address today’s environmental grand challenges, publishing across the spectrum of environmental change and sustainability science. A sister journal to Cell, Chem, and Joule, One Earth aspires to break down barriers between disciplines and stimulate the cross-pollination of ideas with a platform that unites communities, fosters dialogue, and encourages transformative research. Visit http://www.cell.com/one-earth. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

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JOURNAL

One Earth

DOI

10.1016/j.oneear.2023.03.006 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The psychological distance of climate change is overestimated

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Apr-2023

Greener batteries

More sustainable and less expensive: organic high-capacity battery

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WILEY

Our modern rechargeable batteries, such as lithium-ion batteries, are anything but sustainable. One alternative is organic batteries with redox-organic electrode materials (OEMs), which can be synthesized from natural “green” materials. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a Chinese team has now introduced a new OEM for aqueous organic high-capacity batteries that can be easily and cheaply recycled.

Traditional inorganic electrode materials in commercial batteries involve a whole spectrum of problems: limited resources, toxic elements, environmental problems, partly unacceptable mining conditions, limited capacity, difficulties in recycling, and high costs. No sustainable batteries can be developed on a large scale based on these electrodes, though they are needed for an energy transition.

Organic batteries with OEMs are still at the very beginning of their long road toward practical application. A team led by Chengliang Wang at Huazhong University of Science and Technology has now taken a significant step in this direction. The goal is to use OEMs in batteries with aqueous electrolytes. These are “greener”, more sustainable, and less expensive than the conventional organic electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries.

The team chose to use azobenzene, a material that can be produced inexpensively on a large scale and is insoluble in water while being highly soluble in organic solvents. Whereas most other functional groups can only transfer one electron, the azo group (–N=N–) in this molecule is able to reversibly transfer two electrons, which contributes to a high capacity. Comprehensive analyses demonstrated that, during the discharge process, the azobenzene is converted to hydroazobenzene after absorbing two of the electrons—through the rapid, reversible binding of two protons (H+). Prototype coin cells and laminated pouch cells of various sizes with azobenzene OEMs and zinc counter-electrodes reached capacities on the scale of ampere hours, which were retained over 200 charge/discharge cycles.

In contrast to polymeric OEMs, the small azobenzene molecules can be inexpensively recycled with a simple extraction using commercial organic solvents. The electrode material is air stable in both its charged and discharged states and can be recycled in yields of over 90% in every state of charge. The recycled products could be directly reused as OEMs with no loss of capacity.

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About the Author

Chengliang Wang is a Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). He focuses on novel conjugated organic and polymeric materials for optoelectronics and batteries.

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JOURNAL

Angewandte Chemie International Edition

DOI

10.1002/anie.202302539 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

A Recyclable and Scalable High-Capacity Organic Battery

Obstetricians more emotionally stable than most

Peer-Reviewed Publication

LUND UNIVERSITY

Swedish obstetricians and gynecologists are noticeably more emotionally stable and conscientious compared to the majority of the Swedish population. Based on the doctors' personalities, their decision-making styles differ in emergency situations. The research study from Lund University is now published in Scientific Reports.

Personality is usually summarized in five traits - the so-called "big five": Emotional stability (neuroticism), extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. Our personality then shapes our decision-making style. In a research study from Lund University, Swedish obstetricians' and gynecologists' personality profiles and clinical experience are linked for the first time to their decision-making styles in acute childbirth situations. 

”Obstetricians and gynecologists have a personality profile that differs significantly from the population at large. On average, 85 percent of Sweden's population has significantly lower emotional stability, extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than the obstetricians in our study. It's hard not to be surprised when the differences are so clear”, says Petri Kajonius, associate professor of personality psychology and behavioral measurement at Lund University. 

It is our personality that defines what we will enjoy in our professional life, and the consequence is likely a self-selection of people who seek a certain profession. Swedish obstetric-focused physicians' personalities make them comfortable in an environment where a childbirth situation can quickly shift to something acute and potentially escalate into a crisis. Here, traits such as emotional stability and conscientiousness are prominent:

”Neuroticism is the opposite of emotional stability and is characterized by anxiety and vulnerability to stress. Someone with high neuroticism may have a harder time handling stress in acute situations, but a small amount of it can increase the inclination to collaborate and make decisions together with others, which can be advantageous”, says Gabriel Raoust, doctoral student at Lund University and consultant in obstetrics and gynecology at Ystad Lasarett, Sweden.

It has been previously established that women exhibit greater levels of neuroticism than men, which coincides with the fact that they are often more inclined to cooperate and less prone to taking risks. The study also showed that the more clinically experienced doctors are - especially men - the more comfortable they are taking the lead and making individual decisions. Traits like agreeableness combined with conscientiousness are beneficial in situations where one must follow checklists and procedures while interacting with others on the team.

“To increase understanding of decision-making processes and the factors that influence doctors' behavior, it is important to realize that it is normal that there are different personalities. An individual-centered or team-based approach depends on the person's "big five" personality and can be surprisingly relevant even in a highly organized and protocol-driven environment like acute obstetrics”, concludes Gabriel Raoust.

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-023-32658-6 

ARTICLE TITLE

Personality traits and decision-making styles among obstetricians and gynecologists managing childbirth emergencies