Monday, March 03, 2025

Nearly 1 in 5 US college athletes reports abusive supervision by their coaches

Athletes with disabilities and those in team sports most at risk, survey reveals

BMJ Group

Nearly 1 in 5 college athletes reports some form of abusive supervision—defined as sustained hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviours—by their coaches, reveals an analysis of survey responses, involving National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes, and published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

While there is no evidence of vulnerability according to race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender, athletes with disabilities and those participating in team sports seem to be most at risk, the findings indicate.

Athletes view their coaches as role models, which makes their interactions susceptible to supervised abuse, say the researchers.

“While transformational leadership can inspire players and impart valuable life lessons that positively impact athletes’ play and contribute to their development, an unethical leader can severely negatively affect an athlete’s mental health, quality of life, and wellbeing in adulthood,” they point out.

Given that most coaches identify as White, male, cisgender, able-bodied and straight, the researchers wanted to find out if race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and disability, were distinguishing features of abusive coach supervision.

They drew on data from the 2021–22 myPlaybook survey administered by the University of North Carolina Greensboro Institute to Promote Athlete Health & Wellness in collaboration with Stanford University’s Sports Equity Lab. The dataset included 4337 NCAA athletes from 123 universities across the USA.

The validated Tepper 2000 questionnaire was adapted to ask respondents whether they had experienced certain abusive coaching behaviours, with each answer ranging from 1 to 5, representing frequency.

Four additional questionnaires probed athlete autonomy, team culture, perceived coach leadership skills and care for their athlete’s wellbeing.

In all, 3317 respondents provided complete data on abusive supervision and 1926 (58%) provided complete data on this plus the areas covered by the other 4 questionnaires.

Most respondents (89%; 2959) were aged between 18 and 21, and male respondents made up 57% (1891) of the total.

Sexual orientation was reported as predominantly straight (3125). And as only 19 identifed themselves as non-binary, transgender, or ‘other’, their number was too small to be statistically meaningful, and they were excluded from the analysis.

Some 81% (2689) of respondents were involved in non-lean sports—where leanness is not considered a competitive advantage—and about 75% (2480) participated in team sports.

Around three quarters of participants shared the same gender as their coach: 1844 male–male pairs; 660 female–female pairs.

Of the total number of respondents, 2699 reported no abusive supervision, but 618 (nearly 19%) said they had experienced it.

There was no significant age difference between those who reported abuse and those who didn’t. And gender identity analysis revealed that while women were slightly more likely to report abuse, this wasn’t statistically significant.

Race/ethnicity data indicated that nearly two thirds (2162) of participants were White, but there was no significant difference between the different racial groups in terms of reporting abuse.

After accounting for potentially influential factors, significant differences were noted in the type of sport played as team sports participants were 10% more likely to report abusive supervision than their peers who participated in individual sports.

And non-lean sports participants reported more abusive supervision than those participating in lean sports, although this didn’t reach statistical significance.

The prevalence of disability was just under 3% (88), and after accounting for potentially influential factors, those reporting a disability were 17% more likely to say they had experienced abusive supervision than their able bodied peers.

Coach behaviours indicative of concern for the athlete’s wellbeing were associated with a lower risk of abusive supervision reports.

Coaches who reacted harshly and who focused predominantly on team success/outcomes were deemed more abusive, with a 24%-47% heightened risk of an abusive supervision report.

On the other hand, those who were attentive to, and respectful of, their athletes’ needs and efforts; who were demonstrably accountable; and who regularly communicated respectfully with their athletes were deemed more supportive. Their risk of being reported as abusive was around 35% lower.

The researchers acknowledge that the survey responses reflect just one point in time, and would not have captured those who discontinued their sporting careers because of the abuse they endured.

And the findings might not be applicable to other age groups, sports organisations, or athletes worldwide, they add.

But they nevertheless comment: “Overall, these findings are concerning as we know from prior research the role abusive coaching plays in psychological, training, performance and academic outcomes in comparison with coaches who use a more athlete-centred and humanistic approach.”

They continue: “Promoting positive coaching strategies that prioritise athlete wellbeing, motivation and teamwork is essential to protecting collegiate athletes and facilitating their development.

“Therefore, NCAA member institutions should consider a nationwide policy that mandates the implementation of a standardised educational programme and training created by the NCAA e-learning team for coaches to recognise and address abusive supervision behaviours while recognising and amplifying supportive supervision behaviours.”

They conclude: “Ultimately, dealing with this problem is crucial for safeguarding NCAA athletes, particularly those from equity-deserving groups. Further solutions-focused research is necessary to advance the goal of fostering a safe sporting environment for collegiate athletes to thrive both on and off the field.”

Journal

British Journal of Sports Medicine

DOI

10.1136/bjsports-2024-108282

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Associations of abusive supervision among collegiate athletes from equity-deserving groups

Article Publication Date

3-Mar-2025

COI Statement

The authors declare that we have no conflicts of interest to report. YAT-W is a member of the BJSM editorial board.

How 3D printing is powering a cleaner environment in the future

Higher Education Press

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Image
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Credit: Mingyi Xu , Miriam Fernandez-Avila Cobo , Danfei Zeng , Yifeng Zhang

Microbial electrochemical systems (MES) are gaining significant attention for their potential to tackle pressing environmental challenges. By harnessing microorganisms to transfer electrons, MES can simultaneously degrade pollutants and generate electricity, presenting a promising solution for sustainable wastewater treatment and energy production. However, the traditional methods of constructing MES components often limit their design flexibility, impeding performance optimization. To address these constraints and improve MES efficiency, innovative approaches are necessary—approaches that can precisely tailor the structure and function of reactor components.

Recently, researchers from the Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark published an extensive review (DOI: 10.1007/s11783-025-1921-y) in the journal Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering. The study delves into how 3D printing is revolutionizing MES, with a focus on reactor design, electrode fabrication, and bioprinting applications. The review provides a thorough analysis of the potential for 3D printing to significantly enhance MES through greater design flexibility and precision.

The review highlights several innovations made possible by 3D printing. One of the most significant advancements is the ability to rapidly prototype and customize reactor designs. This flexibility enables researchers to optimize fluid dynamics and mass transfer within reactors, resulting in improved system performance. Moreover, the precision of 3D printing allows for the fabrication of electrodes with tailored geometries and materials—key factors in enhancing electron transfer and biocompatibility. For example, 3D-printed electrodes can be designed with specific surface properties and porosity to maximize microbial adhesion and facilitate efficient electron exchange. Additionally, the integration of bioprinting techniques enables the construction of stable biofilms on electrodes. By meticulously controlling the architecture and composition of these biofilms, researchers can optimize interactions between microbes and electrodes, further boosting MES efficiency. These breakthroughs address existing design limitations and unlock new possibilities for sustainable applications in wastewater treatment and bioenergy production.

Dr. Yifeng Zhang, a leading expert in environmental engineering, weighed in on the significance of these findings. He remarked, "The integration of 3D printing technology into MES represents a major breakthrough. It provides the precision and flexibility needed to optimize reactor designs and electrode structures, which are critical for enhancing system performance. This innovation not only accelerates the development of sustainable environmental technologies but also opens up new avenues for addressing global challenges in energy and waste management. The potential applications are vast, and we are excited to see how this technology will continue to evolve and impact the field."

The application of 3D printing in MES promises far-reaching implications for multiple sectors, including environmental management and renewable energy. In wastewater treatment, optimized MES reactors could lead to more efficient pollutant degradation, mitigating the environmental impact of industrial and municipal waste. For energy generation, advanced electrode designs could boost the power output of microbial fuel cells, positioning them as a viable alternative for sustainable energy production. Moreover, the scalability and customization of 3D printing allow for tailored MES solutions across a wide range of applications, from small-scale settings to large industrial operations. This technology holds the potential to contribute to a more sustainable future by enhancing resource utilization and reducing carbon footprints.

Journal

Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering

DOI

10.1007/s11783-025-1921-y

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Leveraging 3D printing in microbial electrochemistry research: current progress and future opportunities

Melting Antarctic ice sheets will slow Earth’s strongest ocean current

Melting ice sheets are slowing the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the world’s strongest ocean current, researchers have found.

University of Melbourne

Melting ice sheets are slowing the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the world’s strongest ocean current, researchers have found.

This melting has implications for global climate indicators, including sea level rise, ocean warming and viability of marine ecosystems.

The researchers, from the University of Melbourne and NORCE Norway Research Centre, have shown the current slowing by around 20 per cent by 2050 in a high carbon emissions scenario.

This influx of fresh water into the Southern Ocean is expected to change the properties, such as density (salinity), of the ocean and its circulation patterns.

University of Melbourne researchers, fluid mechanist Associate Professor Bishakhdatta Gayen and climate scientist Dr Taimoor Sohail, and oceanographer Dr Andreas Klocker from the NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, analysed a high-resolution ocean and sea ice simulation of ocean currents, heat transport and other factors to diagnose the impact of changing temperature, saltiness and wind conditions.

Associate Professor Gayen said: “The ocean is extremely complex and finely balanced. If this current ‘engine’ breaks down, there could be severe consequences, including more climate variability, with greater extremes in certain regions, and accelerated global warming due to a reduction in the ocean’s capacity to act as a carbon sink.”

The ACC works as a barrier to invasive species, like rafts of southern bull kelp that ride the currents, or marine-borne animals like shrimp or molluscs, from other continents reaching Antarctica.

As the ACC slows and weakens, there is a higher likelihood such species will make their way onto the fragile Antarctic continent, with a potentially severe impact on the food web, which may, for example, change the available diet of Antarctic penguins.

More than four times stronger than the gulf stream, the ACC is a crucial part of the world’s “ocean conveyor belt”, which moves water around the globe – linking the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans – and is the main mechanism for the exchange of heat, carbon dioxide, chemicals and biology across these ocean basins.

The researchers used Australia’s fastest supercomputer and climate simulator, GADI, located at Access National Research Infrastructure in Canberra. The underlying model (ACCESS-OM2-01) has been developed over a number of years by Australian researchers from various universities.

The projections explored in this analysis were conducted by a research team based at UNSW, who found that the transport of ocean water from the surface to the deep may also slow in the future.

Dr Sohail said it is predicted that the slow-down will be similar under the lower emissions scenario, provided ice melting accelerates as predicted in other studies.

“The 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Many scientists agree that we have already reached this 1.5 degree target, and it is likely to get hotter, with flow-on impacts on Antarctic ice melting,” Dr Sohail said.

“Concerted efforts to limit global warming (by reducing carbon emissions) will limit Antarctic ice melting, averting the projected ACC slowdown.”

Published in Environmental Research Letters today, the research reveals that the impact of ice melting and ocean warming on the ACC is more complex than previously thought.

“The melting ice sheets dump vast quantities of fresh water into the salty ocean. This sudden change in ocean ‘salinity’ has a series of consequences – including the weakening of the sinking of surface ocean water to the deep (called the Antarctic Bottom Water), and, based on this study, a weakening of the strong ocean jet that surrounds Antarctica,” Associate Professor Gayen said.

The new research contrasts with previous studies that suggested the ACC may be accelerating due to steeper temperature differences in different latitudes of the ocean caused by climate change, he says.

“Ocean models have historically been unable to adequately resolve the small-scale processes that control current strength. This model resolves such processes, and shows a mechanism through which the ACC is projected to actually slow down in the future. However, further observational and modelling studies of this poorly-observed region are necessary to definitively discern the current’s response to climate change.”

Journal

Environmental Research Letters

DOI

10.1088/1748-9326/adb31c

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Article Title

Decline of Antarctic Circumpolar Current due to polar ocean freshening

Article Publication Date

3-Mar-2025

Chinese scientists reveal anti-bacterial role of plant metabolite

Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters

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Model for the erucamide-mediated disruption of T3SS injectisome assembly in the bacterial pathogen
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Credit: IGDB

Bacterial pathogens, such as those causing rice bacterial blight, tomato bacterial wilt, and kiwifruit bacterial canker, pose significant threats to global agriculture. However, effective pesticides to control these diseases are scarce, with copper-based bactericides and antibiotics offering limited efficacy and posing environmental risks.

Chinese scientists have recently made a breakthrough in this area, however, by showing that a widespread plant defense metabolite may help combat bacterial diseases in crops. The metabolite, erucamide, inhibits the virulence of pathogenic bacteria by specifically targeting the Type III Secretion (T3SS) injectisome assembly—a needle-like molecular machine used by Gram-negative bacteria to inject effector proteins directly into host cells.

The research was led by Prof. ZHOU Jianmin's team at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Prof. LEI Xiaoguang's group at Peking University. The study was published in Science on February 28.

The researchers determined that erucamide, an ancient and broad-spectrum plant defense metabolite, inhibits T3SS activity in various bacterial pathogens. Genetic analysis demonstrated that plants with elevated erucamide levels exhibit enhanced resistance to bacterial pathogens, whereas those with reduced levels show decreased resistance. These results indicate that erucamide plays a crucial role in plant immunity against bacteria.

Through a combination of advanced techniques—including electron microscopy, biochemical assays, protein structure prediction, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics simulations—the researchers demonstrated that erucamide binds to HrcC, a conserved component of T3SS. This interaction disrupts the assembly of the T3SS injectisome, a structure used by bacteria to inject toxins into host cells.

Remarkably, the binding pocket for erucamide in HrcC is highly conserved across diverse bacterial species, suggesting that this mechanism could have broad-spectrum applicability.

Additionally, the researchers showed that exogenous application of erucamide could protect crops from bacterial diseases, highlighting its potential as a biopesticide for sustainable agriculture.

This study provides important insights into plant immunity and paves the way for developing new, environmentally friendly antibacterial agents, as well as molecular breeding strategies for bacterial disease-resistant crops.

The research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, etc.

Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.ads0377

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

A widespread plant defense compound disarms bacterial type III injectisome assembly

Tattoos may be linked to an increased risk of cancer

Using data from Danish twin pairs, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have found indications that tattoo ink may increase the risk of skin and lymphoma cancers. This is because tattoo ink accumulates in the lymph nodes.

University of Southern Denmark Faculty of Health Sciences

People often put a lot of thought into getting a tattoo. But there's one thing most people forget to think about—what impact the tattoo might have on their health in the long run. What happens to the ink once it's in your skin? Does it all stay in the skin where it's visible, or does it travel further into the body?

Research has shown that tattoo ink does not just remain where it is injected. Particles from the ink can migrate to the lymph nodes, where they accumulate.

Researchers from the Department of Public Health and the Department of Clinical Research at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), together with the University of Helsinki, have investigated whether this could have health consequences. Using data from Danish twin pairs, they found that tattooed individuals are more frequently diagnosed with skin and lymphoma cancers compared to those without tattoos.

Ink particles in the body may affect the immune system

The lymph nodes are a crucial part of the immune system, helping to fight infections and filter harmful substances from the body.

When tattoo ink penetrates the skin, some of it is absorbed into the lymph nodes. The researchers are particularly concerned that tattoo ink may trigger chronic inflammation in the lymph nodes, which over time could lead to abnormal cell growth and an increased risk of cancer.

– We can see that ink particles accumulate in the lymph nodes, and we suspect that the body perceives them as foreign substances, explains Henrik Frederiksen, consultant in haematology at Odense University Hospital and clinical professor at SDU.

– This may mean that the immune system is constantly trying to respond to the ink, and we do not yet know whether this persistent strain could weaken the function of the lymph nodes or have other health consequences.

Studying this link is challenging because cancer can take years to develop. This means that exposure in youth may not lead to illness until decades later, making it difficult to measure a direct effect.

Twin data provides a unique opportunity to study the link

The study is based on data from the Danish Twin Tattoo Cohort, where researchers have information from more than 5,900 Danish twins. By analysing tattoo patterns alongside cancer diagnoses, they found a higher occurrence of both skin and lymphoma cancers in tattooed individuals.

– The unique aspect of our approach is that we can compare twin pairs where one has cancer, but they otherwise share many genetic and environmental factors, says Jacob von Bornemann Hjelmborg, professor of biostatistics at SDU.

– This provides us with a stronger method for investigating whether tattoos themselves may influence cancer risk.

The size of tattoos matters

The results show that the link between tattoos and cancer is most evident in those with large tattoos - defined as bigger than a palm.

For lymphoma, the rate is nearly three times higher for the group of individuals with large tattoos compared to those without tattoos. This rate (more specifically, ‘hazard rate’) accounts for age, the timing of the tattoo, and how long the individuals have been followed in the study.

– This suggests that the bigger the tattoo and the longer it has been there, the more ink accumulates in the lymph nodes. The extent of the impact on the immune system should be further investigated so that we can better understand the mechanisms at play, says Signe Bedsted Clemmensen, assistant professor of biostatistics at SDU.

Another study from the Danish Twin Tattoo Cohort shows that tattoos are becoming increasingly common. Researchers estimate that four in ten women and three in ten men will have tattoos by the age of 25.

The link to lymphoma has also been observed in an independent Swedish study from 2024.

Are some ink colours worse than others?

Previous research has suggested that certain pigments in tattoo ink may be more problematic than others.

– In our study, we do not see a clear link between cancer occurrence and specific ink colours, but this does not mean that colour is irrelevant. We know from other studies that ink can contain potentially harmful substances, and for example, red ink more often causes allergic reactions. This is an area we would like to explore further, says Signe Bedsted Clemmensen.

What are the next steps?

The researchers now plan to investigate how ink particles affect the function of lymph nodes at a molecular level and whether certain types of lymphoma are more linked to tattoos than others.

– We want to gain a better understanding of the biological mechanisms—what happens in the lymph nodes when they are exposed to ink particles over decades? This can help us assess whether there is a real health risk and what we might do to reduce it, concludes Signe Bedsted Clemmensen.

The Danish Twin Tattoo Cohort

Established to investigate the link between tattoos and cancer.
Based on survey responses from 5,900 Danish twins.
Examines both tattooing behaviour and the occurrence of skin and lymphoma cancers among tattooed individuals.
Unique method: By comparing twins, researchers can separate genetic factors from environmental influences.
It is linked to the Danish Cancer Registry to analyse cancer occurrence among participants.

How many Danes have tattoos?

According to the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (2017), approximately 600,000 Danes have a tattoo—equivalent to about 14% of the population.
A 2021 study shows that 30-40% of Danes under the age of 35 have a tattoo.
Researchers from the Danish Twin Tattoo Cohort estimate that four in ten women and three in ten men will have tattoos by the age of 25. Read more
On a global scale, tattoos have become increasingly popular over the past 30 years, especially among young people and women.

Journal

BMC Public Health

DOI

10.1186/s12889-025-21413-3

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Tattoo ink exposure is associatedwith lymphoma and skin cancers – a Danishstudy of twins