ROBOTICS

Autonomous products like robot vacuums make our lives easier. But do they deprive us of meaningful experiences?

News from the Journal of Marketing

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

Researchers from University of St. Gallen and Columbia Business School published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines how the perceived meaning of manual labor can help predict the adoption of autonomous products.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Meaning of Manual Labor Impedes Consumer Adoption of Autonomous Products” and is authored by Emanuel de Bellis, Gita Venkataramani Johar, and Nicola Poletti.

Whether it is cleaning homes or mowing lawns, consumers increasingly delegate manual tasks to autonomous products. These gadgets operate without human oversight and free consumers from mundane chores. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that people feel a sense of satisfaction when they complete household chores. Are autonomous products such as robot vacuums and cooking machines depriving consumers from meaningful experiences?

This new research shows that, despite unquestionable benefits such as gains in efficiency and convenience, autonomous products strip away a source of meaning in life. As a result, consumers are hesitant to buy these products.

The researchers argue that manual labor is an important source of meaning in life. This is in line with research showing that everyday tasks have value—chores such as cleaning may not make us happy, but they add meaning to our lives. As de Bellis explains, “Our studies show that ‘meaning of manual labor’ causes consumers to reject autonomous products. For example, these consumers have a more negative attitude toward autonomous products and are also more prone to believe in the disadvantages of autonomous products relative to their advantages.”

Highlight Saving Time for Other Meaningful Tasks

On one hand, autonomous products take over tasks from consumers, typically leading to a reduction in manual labor and hence in the ability to derive meaning from manual tasks. On the other hand, by taking over manual tasks, autonomous products provide consumers with the opportunity to spend time on other, potentially more meaningful, tasks and activities. “We suggest that companies highlight so-called alternative sources of meaning in life, which should reduce consumers’ need to derive meaning specifically from manual tasks. Highlighting other sources of meaning, such as through family or hobbies, at the time of the adoption decision should counteract the negative effect on autonomous product adoption,” says Johar.

In fact, a key value proposition for many of these technologies is that they free up time. iRobot claims that its robotic vacuum cleaner Roomba saves owners as much as 110 hours of cleaning a year. Some companies go even a step further by suggesting what consumers could do with their freed-up time. For example, German home appliance company Vorwerk promotes its cooking machine Thermomix with “more family time” and “Thermomix does the work so you can make time for what matters most.” Instead of promoting the quality of task completion (i.e., cooking a delicious meal), the company emphasizes that consumers can spend time on other, arguably more meaningful, activities.

This study demonstrates that the perceived meaning of manual labor (MML) – a novel concept introduced by the researchers – is key to predicting the adoption of autonomous products. Poletti says that “Consumers with a high MML tend to resist the delegation of manual tasks to autonomous products, irrespective of whether these tasks are central to one’s identity or not. Marketers can start by segmenting consumers into high and low MML consumers.” Unlike other personality variables that can only be reliably measured using complex psychometric scales, the extent of consumers’ MML might be assessed simply by observing their behavioral characteristics, such as whether consumers tend to do the dishes by hand, whether they prefer a manual car transmission, or what type of activities and hobbies they pursue. Activities like woodworking, cookery, painting, and fishing are likely predictors of high MML. Similarly, companies can measure likes on social media for specific activities and hobbies that involve manual labor. Finally, practitioners can ask consumers to rate the degree to which manual versus cognitive tasks are meaningful to them. Having segmented consumers according to their MML, marketers can better target and focus their messages and efforts.

In promotions, firms can highlight the meaningful time consumers gain with the use of autonomous products (e.g., “this product allows you to spend time on more meaningful tasks and pursuits than cleaning”). Such an intervention can prevent the detrimental effects of meaning of manual labor on autonomous product adoption.

Full article and author contact information available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429231171841

About the Journal of Marketing 

The Journal of Marketing develops and disseminates knowledge about real-world marketing questions useful to scholars, educators, managers, policy makers, consumers, and other societal stakeholders around the world. Published by the American Marketing Association since its founding in 1936, JM has played a significant role in shaping the content and boundaries of the marketing discipline. Shrihari (Hari) Sridhar (Joe Foster ’56 Chair in Business Leadership, Professor of Marketing at Mays Business School, Texas A&M University) serves as the current Editor in Chief.
https://www.ama.org/jm

About the American Marketing Association (AMA) 

As the largest chapter-based marketing association in the world, the AMA is trusted by marketing and sales professionals to help them discover what is coming next in the industry. The AMA has a community of local chapters in more than 70 cities and 350 college campuses throughout North America. The AMA is home to award-winning content, PCM® professional certification, premiere academic journals, and industry-leading training events and conferences.
https://www.ama.org

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JOURNAL

Journal of Marketing

DOI

10.1177/00222429231171841 

ARTICLE TITLE

Meaning of Manual Labor Impedes Consumer Adoption of Autonomous Products

Sponge makes robotic device a soft touch

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

 

IMAGE: ROBOT SPONGE view more 

CREDIT: TIANQI YUE

A simple sponge has improved how robots grasp, scientists from the University of Bristol have found.    

This easy-to-make sponge-jamming device can help stiff robots handle delicate items carefully by mimicking the nuanced touch, or variable stiffness, of a human.   

Robots can skip, jump and do somersaults, but they’re too rigid to hold an egg easily.  Variable-stiffness devices are potential solutions for contact compliance on hard robots to reduce damage, or for improving the load capacity of soft robots.

This study, published at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023, shows that variable stiffness can be achieved by a silicone sponge.

Lead author Tianqi Yue from Bristol’s Department of Engineering Mathematics explained: “Stiffness, also known as softness, is important in contact scenarios. 

“Robotic arms are too rigid so they cannot make such a soft human-like grasp on delicate objects, for example, an egg.

“What makes humans different from robotic arms is that we have soft tissues enclosing rigid bones, which act as a natural mitigating mechanism.

“In this paper, we managed to develop a soft device with variable stiffness, to be mounted on the end robotic arm for making the robot-object contact safe.”

Silicone sponge is a cheap and easy-to-fabricate material. It is a porous elastomer just like the cleaning sponge used in everyday tasks.

By squeezing the sponge, the sponge stiffens which is why it can be transformed into a variable-stiffness device.  

This device could be used in industrial robots in scenarios including gripping jellies, eggs and other fragile substances. It can also be used in service robots to make human-robot interaction safer.

Mr Yue added: “We managed to use a sponge to make a cheap and nimble but effective device that can help robots achieve soft contact with objects. The great potential comes from its low cost and light weight.

“We believe this silicone-sponge based variable-stiffness device will provide a novel solution in industry and healthcare, for example, tunable-stiffness requirement on robotic polishing and ultrasound imaging.”

The team will now look at making the device achieve variable stiffness in multiple directions, including rotation.

 

Paper:

“A Silicone-sponge-based Variable-stiffness Device” by Tianqi Yue at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023.

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

A Silicone-sponge-based Variable-stiffness Device

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Jun-2023

Science shows why our taste in music can’t be siloed into catch-all genres

Scientists have made the case for measuring musical tastes on sub-genre level to gain a more nuanced understanding of sociocultural differences of musical taste

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FRONTIERS

Liking certain things or styles is an important aspect of peoples’ identities and social lives. Tastes can influence the ways humans act and judge. How to best describe musical taste reliably is – due to the ever-changing diversification and transformation of music – difficult and open to debate.

Using an approach which also considered sub-genres, researchers in Germany surveyed more than 2,000 people on their musical taste and took a closer look at the fans of five genres: European classical music, electronic dance music (EDM), metal, pop, and rock.

“Our analyses revealed that people who like the same genre can have very different tastes if asked which sub-genres they like,” said Anne Siebrasse, a doctoral student at Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and lead author of the study published in Frontiers in Psychology. “Accordingly, fans of certain genres should not be perceived as homogeneous groups with the same tastes. Instead, we need to acknowledge differences within these groups that are also related to age, gender, education level, lifestyle, or personality traits.”

Subgroups with different preferences

“When people talk about their musical tastes, they often use genre terms. However, on a genre level, fans of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones would all be rock fans, however they themselves would probably see huge differences,” Siebrasse continued.

To represent these differences empirically, her co-author Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann designed a questionnaire through which participants indicated how much they liked sub-styles associated with the examined genres. By systematically recording liking at genre and sub-genre levels, the researchers obtained a more differentiated picture of musical taste.

As the researchers considered attitudes towards sub-genres, several taste classes emerged. Three of these classes liked all sub-genres to roughly the same degree – very much, moderately, or rather less, the authors wrote. Two taste classes, however, differed in that they preferred sub-styles that were either more challenging or easier to process, respectively. Across all genres, subtypes that represented the mainstream variant were generally preferred over more challenging alternatives.

The researchers also found that sociodemographic and personality variables, including age, milieu-related attitude, and openness, could predict belonging to a genre group or within-genre taste class. For pop music, for example, the researchers found a clear age effect. It showed that peoples’ preferred pop music correlates with subgroup age. The pop music people liked best was from the decade during which they were around 20 years old.

The wider picture

What Siebrasse and Wald-Fuhrmann achieved is a more accurate representation of the actual musical taste of the German resident population than previous studies produced. Some of their results, such as the identification of within-genre taste classes are likely applicable across countries and cultures. Other results, however, including genre-specific findings may be dependent on the history and role of a genre within its respective musical world.

“We have taken an important step towards enabling the further development of questionnaires for researching musical taste,” Siebrasse said. “In the future, our approach should be extended to other genres and regions. A further step could also be to combine this type of survey with specific sound examples.”

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Psychology

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1062146 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

You don't know a person('s taste) when you only know which genre they like: Taste differences within five popular music genres based on sub-genres and sub-styles

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Jun-2023

Experts uncover the water and emissions footprint of snowmaking: Can we rely on it in an era of climate change?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

The first-ever national study to assess the impact of developing artificial snow shows the pressure the process is putting on the climate, with the equivalent of nearly 17,000 homes’ worth of annual energy needed to produce snow for yearly ski operations in just Canada alone.

Publishing their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Current Issues in Tourism, experts from the University of Waterloo, in Canada, and the University of Innsbruck, Austria, found 130,095 tonnes CO2e are needed to produce the estimated 42 million cubic meters of machine-made snow in Canada in an average winter.  For context, this is comparable to 155,141 acres of forest for one year sequestering the comparable amount of carbon.

As more snowmaking is needed under future climate change, water and energy requirements will continue to grow even as average ski seasons get shorter in the decades ahead.

In order to make snowmaking, and indeed skiing in Canada more sustainable, the team calls for collaboration between ski operators, policymakers, and environmental organizations, and skiers to develop and support comprehensive policies and practices that “prioritize sustainability in addressing the challenges posed by climate change and its associated impacts on snowpack”.

“Our results emphasize the need to adopt a systems approach to ensure the long-term sustainability of ski tourism,” says co-author Professor Daniel Scott, from the Geography and Environmental Management department at Waterloo.

“This will include embracing innovation and investing in energy-efficient snowmaking technologies, promoting water conservation measures, and accelerating the transition to renewable energy sources.

“Snowmaking can actually help reduce total emissions from tourism when it enables millions of skiers to ski regionally instead of driving or flying to far off ski resorts or selecting another type of carbon intense holiday. Net-zero compatible ski holidays are already possible in destinations like Quebec and our study shows a vibrant and resilient future for ski tourism is possible.”

Winter mountain destinations are a key part of the tourism sector in Canada. Currently there are 237 ski areas operating and hosting an average of 18.2 million skier visits, including 2.7 million international visits.

This, however, comes with implications for the long-term sustainability of ski tourism. Based on the current electrical grid carbon intensity, the team found that snowmaking in Canada uses 478,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity annually, resulting in 130,095 tonnes of associated CO2 emissions – and an estimated 43.4 million cubic meters of water to produce over 42 million cubic meters of technical snow.

As climate change continues to exert its impact on the snowpack in ski areas around the world, ski operators are increasingly relying on snowmaking to maintain ski seasons and provide an enjoyable experience for visitors.

In Canada, the study estimated snowmaking requirements to increase between 55% and 97% by 2050. Water and energy requirements will rise proportionally, assuming terrain coverage and average snowmaking efficiencies remain static.

However, in Canada at least, good news appears to be on the horizon which much-needed decarbonization policies, which Professor Scott says will decrease ski operations related emissions “substantially”.

“What we can see is that snowmaking emissions are expected to decline substantially, thanks to the ongoing efforts to decarbonize provincial electricity grids in alignment with current policy targets. Future emissions will also be influenced by various other factors, including upgrades in snowmaking and grooming technology and increased terrain coverage.”

The authors state, that while this research provides an essential first evaluation of the environmental impacts of snowmaking, and its potential sustainability, changes in emissions and water use will need to be reassessed alongside destination-level sustainable development as climate change accelerates and decarbonization targets are pursued.

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JOURNAL

Current Issues in Tourism

DOI

10.1080/13683500.2023.2214358 

ARTICLE TITLE

Sustainability of Snowmaking as Climate Change (mal)Adaptation: An Assessment of Water, Energy, and Emissions in Canada’s Ski Industry

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Jun-2023

UCDP: Number of deaths in armed conflicts has doubled

Reports and Proceedings

UPPSALA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THERESE PETTERSSON, PROJECT LEADER AT UCDP - UPPSALA CONFLICT DATA PROGRAM, DEPARTMENT OF PEACE AND CONFLICT RESEARCH AT UPPSALA UNIVERSITY view more 

CREDIT: MIKAEL WALLERSTEDT

At least 237,000 people died in organised violence in 2022. A new report from Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at Uppsala University shows that this is a 97 per cent increase compared with the previous year, and the highest number since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

“We see this increase despite considerable de-escalation in the two deadliest conflicts of 2021; Yemen and Afghanistan. Instead, violence in Ethiopia and Ukraine escalated drastically,” says Shawn Davies, Senior Analyst at UCDP.

Together, the wars in Ethiopia and Ukraine resulted in at least 180,000 battle-related deaths in 2022. This is a low estimate as information from these conflicts is scarce and subject to extensive propaganda. The numbers are likely to be significantly revised as more information becomes available. Even so, the data shows that more people died in those two conflicts in 2022 than in the whole world the year before.

“A common perception is that Russia’s war in Ukraine was the bloodiest conflict in 2022, but in fact, more people died in Ethiopia where the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has fought the Ethiopian army, the latter supported by Eritrea, since late 2020,” says Davies.

In both Ethiopia and Ukraine, fighting has been characterised by trench warfare, with warring parties being accused of using human wave tactics. This type of warfare has contributed to the high casualty numbers.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is the first large-scale interstate war in 20 years. Even if conflicts between states remain a relatively rare occurrence, they have increased in recent years.

“It has also become more common for external states to send troop support to rebel groups fighting against other governments, which essentially means that state armies are fighting each other,” says Therese Pettersson, Project Leader at UCDP.

The number of active conflicts in the world remains at a historically high level. UCDP registered 55 different conflicts where a state was involved on one or both sides during 2022. In contrast, between 31 and 39 such conflicts were registered yearly between 2000 and 2013, whilst the annual number has varied between 52 and 56 from 2015 onwards.

“Albeit most conflicts are small, the number of wars increased from five in 2021 to eight in 2022. Conflicts causing at least 1,000 battle-related deaths during one calendar year are considered wars,” Pettersson clarifies.

The number of non-state conflicts, where rebel groups or other armed organised actors fight each other, also remains on a record high level. UCDP registered 82 such conflicts in 2022. Nine of the ten deadliest non-state conflicts of the year occurred in Mexico where rival drug cartels have fought each other over turf since the 1980s. Gang-related violence has also escalated in Brazil, Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador in recent years.

Furthermore, so-called one-sided violence, where civilians are the target, increased in 2022. At least 11,800 civilians were killed in this type of intentional, targeted violence, carried out by 45 different states or organised groups. The actor killing most civilians in one-sided violence was the Islamic State (IS), but states also attacked civilians on a large scale in several conflicts. Russia and Eritrea both used extensive violence against civilians in the wars in Ukraine and Ethiopia.

The results presented in the press release will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Peace Research.

For more information, please contact:

 

Shawn Davies, Senior Analyst at UCDP, Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, shawn.davies@pcr.uu.se, +4670-404 95 09

Therese Pettersson, Project Leader at UCDP, Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, therese.pettersson@pcr.uu.se, tel: +46-70-649 64 91

Magnus Öberg, Associate Professor, Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, magnus.oberg@pcr.uu.se, +4670-167 90 86

 

About UCDP

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) is the world’s main provider of data on organised violence and the oldest ongoing data collection project for civil war, with a history of almost 40 years. Its definition of armed conflict has become the global standard of how conflicts are systematically defined and studied.

https://ucdp.uu.se/
https://www.pcr.uu.se/forskning/ucdp/

 

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JOURNAL

Journal of Peace Research

Pathways to global sustainability revealed through a worldwide survey of experts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND

The majority of sustainable development researchers believe that in affluent countries, it is necessary to look beyond economic growth to achieve sustainable development, a recent study from the University of Eastern Finland suggests. The study, published in the scientific journal Ecological Economics, investigated the preferred future paths for countries at different income levels among 461 sustainability scholars. The survey results shed light on the strategic choices necessary for achieving global sustainability.

The study focused on green growth and post-growth economic strategies. The green growth strategy aims to enhance both societal and environmental well-being as the economy grows. On the other hand, post-growth paths question this approach and advocate for a shift beyond growth, focusing on environmental and societal well-being instead of economic growth.

“This research reveals that an overwhelming majority of sustainability scholars, over 75 percent, support post-growth pathways for affluent countries already this decade. For less affluent countries, the majority of scholars favoured either green growth or post-growth pathways,” says Postdoctoral Researcher Teemu Koskimäki from the University of Eastern Finland, who conducted the study.

Different paths are needed in countries with different income levels

In the study, scholars were asked to choose which pathways should be pursued in different country income groups in the 2020s and 2030s in order to achieve sustainable development globally. A comparison of the responses revealed that support for post-growth paths increased over time, while support for green growth declined in all contexts. Koskimäki emphasizes that the research results challenge the prevailing green growth focused approach.

“Currently, global Sustainable Development Goals are based on green growth. However, researchers emphasize the urgent need to consider post-growth strategies, particularly in affluent countries.”

Koskimäki stresses the critical importance of understanding the views of sustainability scholars on suitable paths for countries of different income levels.

“Policy-makers at various levels and sectors may rely on these experts as they implement the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

Although sustainability scholars favour post-growth paths, the study shows they are not as familiar with this approach as they are with green growth.

“In my study, I address the challenges that this gap in knowledge and skills can create for achieving global sustainability,” Koskimäki says.

GDP is an insufficient measure of societal well-being

The study also found that most sustainability scholars who responded to the survey consider Gross Domestic Product, GDP, to be an inadequate measure of societal well-being.

“This underscores the need for a broader discussion of progress indicators, especially for wealthier countries, where the costs of continued consumption growth exceed its benefits,” says Koskimäki.

Based on the study's conclusions, research, education, and policymaking should pay attention to targeted transformative change, with a particular focus on facilitating post-growth strategies in the wealthiest countries.

The study offers critical perspectives on the equitable and efficient implementation of various sustainability strategies and underscores the need for targeted approaches that take economic disparities between countries into account. According to Koskimäki, this recognition could facilitate the equitable and efficient achievement of sustainability, both locally and globally.

“The study reveals a potential contradiction between those sustainability paths addressed in sustainability reports and by political decision-makers, and those favored by scholars. A broader, more inclusive conversation is needed to ensure that we are targeting the right transformations and implementing them in a controlled manner,” Koskimäki concludes.

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JOURNAL

Ecological Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107871 

ARTICLE TITLE

Targeting socioeconomic transformations to achieve global sustainability.

Does evening “recovery” affect a person’s mood at work the next day?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WILEY

The quality of recovery a person experiences on a given evening after work may impact their mood when they start their job again the next day, according to new research published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.

The study, which was based on diary entries by 124 employees on 887 days, found that people who had higher quality recovery during the evening than usual had higher levels of wakefulness, calmness, and pleasantness when they started work the next day. However, people’s wakefulness and calmness tended to decline more strongly during the workday after evenings with higher quality recovery.

These findings imply that employees benefit from daily recovery, but these benefits subside during the workday. Therefore, it’s important to engage in recovery on a daily basis.

“Our study shows that daily recovery from work during off-job time is indeed beneficial for employees’ mood; however, these benefits do not last the entire workday. Thus, our findings highlight that the benefits of evening recovery are relatively short-lived,” said corresponding author Maike Arnold, MSc, of the University of Mannheim, in Germany. “We further found that some but not all of these benefits can be explained by a better sleep quality following good evening recovery.”

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joop.12445

 

Additional Information
NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.

About the Journal

The Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology aims to increase understanding of people and organizations at work including: industrial, organizational, work, vocational and personnel psychology; behavioral and cognitive aspects of industrial relations; ergonomics and human factors; and industrial sociology. Innovative or interdisciplinary approaches with a psychological emphasis are particularly welcome. So are papers which develop the links between occupational/organizational psychology and other areas of the discipline, such as social and cognitive psychology.

About Wiley
Wiley is one of the world’s largest publishers and a global leader in scientific research and career-connected education. Founded in 1807, Wiley enables discovery, powers education, and shapes workforces. Through its industry-leading content, digital platforms, and knowledge networks, the company delivers on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology

DOI

10.1111/joop.12445 

ARTICLE TITLE

Time Matters: The Role of Recovery for Daily Mood Trajectories at Work

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Jun-2023

Remnants of ancient virus may fuel ALS in people

Study identifies promising new target for treating underlying cause of the fatal disease

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

More than 5,000 people are diagnosed annually with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a fatal, neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, gradually robbing people of the ability to speak, move, eat and breathe.

To date, only a handful of drugs exist to moderately slow its progression. There is no cure.

But CU Boulder researchers have identified a surprising new player in the disease—an ancient, virus-like protein best known, paradoxically, for its essential role in enabling placental development.

The findings were recently published in the journal eLife.

“Our work suggests that when this strange protein known as PEG10 is present at high levels in nerve tissue, it changes cell behavior in ways that contribute to ALS,” said senior author Alexandra Whiteley, assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry.  

With funding from the ALS Association and the National Institutes of Health, and Venture Partners, her lab is now working to understand the molecular pathways involved and to find a way of inhibiting the rogue protein.

“It is early days still, but the hope is this could potentially lead to an entirely new class of potential therapeutics to get at the root cause of this disease.”

Ancient viruses with modern-day impact

Mounting research suggests about half the human genome is made up of bits of DNA left behind by viruses (known as retroviruses) and similar virus-like parasites, known as transposons, which infected our primate ancestors 30-50 million years ago. Some, like HIV, are well known for their ability to infect new cells and cause disease.

Others, like wolves who have lost their fangs, have become domesticated over time, losing their ability to replicate while continuing to pass from generation to generation, shaping human evolution and health.

PEG10, or Paternally Expressed Gene 10, is one such “domesticated retrotransposon.” Studies show it likely played a key role in enabling mammals to develop placentas—a critical step in human evolution.

But like a viral Jekyll and Hyde, when it’s overly abundant in the wrong places, it may also fuel disease, including certain cancers and another rare neurological disorder called Angelman’s syndrome, studies suggest.

Whiteley’s research is the first to link the virus-like protein to ALS, showing that PEG10 is present in high levels in the spinal cord tissue of ALS patients where it likely interferes with the machinery enabling brain and nerve cells to communicate.

“It appears that PEG10 accumulation is a hallmark of ALS,” said Whiteley, who has already secured a patent for PEG10 as a biomarker, or way of diagnosing, the disease.

Too much protein in the wrong places

Whiteley did not set out to study ALS, or ancient viruses.

Instead, she studies how cells get rid of extra protein, as too much of the typically good thing has been implicated in other neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Her lab is one of a half-dozen in the world to study a class of genes called ubiquilins, which serve to keep problem proteins from accumulating in cells.

In 2011, a study linked a mutation in the ubiquilin-2 gene (UBQLN2) to some cases of familial ALS, which makes up about 10% of ALS cases. The other 90% are sporadic, meaning they are not believed to be inherited.

But it has remained unclear how the faulty gene might fuel the deadly disease.

Using laboratory techniques and animal models, Whiteley and colleagues at Harvard Medical School first set out to determine which proteins pile up when the UBQLN2 misfires and fails to put the brakes on. Among thousands of possible proteins, PEG10 topped the list.

Then Whiteley and her colleagues collected the spinal tissue of deceased ALS patients (provided by the medical research foundation Target ALS) and used protein analysis, or proteomics, to see which if any seemed overexpressed.

Again, among more than 7,000 possible proteins, PEG10 was in the top five.

In a separate experiment, the team found that with the ubiquilin brakes essentially broken, the PEG10 protein piles up and disrupts the development of axons—the cords which carry electrical signals from the brain to the body.

PEG10 was overexpressed in the tissue of individuals with both sporadic and familial ALS, the study found, meaning the virus-like protein may be playing a key role in both.

“The fact that PEG10 is likely contributing to this disease means we may have a new target for treating ALS,” she said. “For a terrible disease in which there are no effective therapeutics that lengthen lifespan more than a couple of months, that could be huge.”

The research could also lead to a better understanding of other diseases, which result from protein accumulation as well as keener insight into how ancient viruses influence health.

In this case, Whiteley said, the so-called “domesticated” virus could a be rearing its fangs again.

“Domesticated is a relative term, as these virus-like activities may be a driver of neurodegenerative disease,” she said. “And in this case, what is good for the placenta may be bad for neural tissue.”

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JOURNAL

eLife

DOI

10.7554/eLife.79452 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

UBQLN2 restrains the domesticated retrotransposon PEG10 to maintain neuronal health in ALS

Motor skills and physical activity practice supports preschoolers’ learning

A doctoral thesis has demonstrated that motor skills and physical activity practice can support the cognitive and early academic skills of preschoolers.

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

A doctoral thesis has demonstrated that motor skills and physical activity practice can support the cognitive and early academic skills of preschoolers, particularly when the activities include motor skills practice, or when motor skills or physical activity practice is combined with the subject to be learnt.

In recent years, concerns have been raised about children and adolescents being less physically active and having weaker motor skills than previous generations. A further cause of concern is the decline of for instance mathematical and language skills, with an increasing number of children in schools and kindergartens needing support in their learning. Prior research has shown that physical inactivity is a new risk factor for skills development. 

Doctoral Researcher Pinja Jylänki from the University of Helsinki investigated whether physical activity and motor skills practice can support the development of cognitive and early academic skills in children of preschool age.

Physical activity or motor skills practice should be combined with the subject taught

In systematic reviews included in her doctoral thesis, Jylänki examined a total of 57 previously completed studies on the topic. Roughly 70% of these studies had demonstrated that motor skill and physical activity interventions have positive effects on preschoolers’ cognitive and early academic skills. 

Effects had been observed particularly in children’s memory and executive function as well as language and early numeracy skills. The most marked effects were seen as a result of motor skills practice, or when motor skills or physical activity practice was combined with the topic being taught. 

“The findings support the idea that practising one skill, motor skills in this case, supports the learning of another skill, that is, early academic or cognitive skills, more than a quantitative increase of physical activity alone,” Jylänki says.

Based on the prior research, it is also advisable to combine the practice of different skills, as such combination was found to be more effective compared to practising motor skills or physical activity exclusively.

However, the field is relatively new, and further research of a high standard is needed to verify the results.

Intervention programme narrowed down learning differences in early numeracy skills

In her doctoral thesis, Jylänki and her colleagues developed an intervention programme called Movement with Early Numeracy. This programme for practising motor and early numeracy skills is designed for Finnish early childhood education. It supports children with challenges in early numeracy skills.

Movement with Early Numeracy combines the practice of numerical concepts with motor skills practice. Concepts describing numerical relational skills, such as ‘more’, ‘less’ or ‘half’ and ‘whole’, were first practised in a story read for children, after which the same concepts were incorporated into motor skills training. The effects of practice were observed in 36 children.

According to the study, the effects were positive, and a delayed measurement showed that the effects remained approximately eight weeks following the intervention. Moreover, differences in numerical relational skills decreased in the eight-week period between children whose performance was lower at the beginning of the intervention and the average performance control group. There were no significant differences between the groups at the end of the intervention. 

“The novelty value of this finding is boosted by the fact that, in previous intervention programmes for early numeracy practice, long-term effects or the narrowing of differences between children with lower and average performance have not often been identified,” Jylänki says.

Jylänki’s doctoral thesis is part of the Active Early Numeracy research project led by Professor Pirjo Aunio (University of Helsinki) and Associate Professor Arja Sääkslahti (University of Jyväskylä).

Jylänki will continue, together with the Active Numeracy research group, to investigate the Movement with Early Numeracy intervention programme using a larger sample.

To gain more information on the effects of the intervention, its effects will also be compared with those of practising motor skills or early numeracy alone. Following the completion of these studies, the programme will be released for public use free of charge.

Pinja Jylänki, Master of Sport Science, defended her doctoral thesis entitled “Active Early Interventions - Supporting Preschoolers’ Cognitive and Academic Skills with Fundamental Motor Skill and Physical Activity Interventions” on 5 May 2023 at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki.