Young adults in a 20-year-long study shed light on what matters for mental health of ethnic diverse youth

Study sets the stage to learn about development of psychopathology and resilience among ethnically diverse children growing up in low resource contexts

ELSEVIER

Research News

 

Washington, DC, March 16, 2021 - A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports on the young adult assessment of the now 20-year longitudinal Boricua Youth Study (BYS), a large cohort that brings much needed insight about development and mental health of children from diverse ethnic background growing up in disadvantaged contexts.

The present article, with its companion report on prevalence of conditions and associated factors, provides an update on the study's fourth wave, which follows-up two probability-based population samples of children of Puerto Rican heritage. Unique to the study is its two-site design, which allows for comparison of a single ethnic group in two contexts: one in which the group is an ethnic minority living in an disadvantaged area (South Bronx, NY); and another where though challenges are many, children do not grow up being part of an ethnic minority group (San Juan, Puerto Rico).

"The BYS provides a unique opportunity to understand developmental processes relevant to young adults who are not easily included in clinical, school, internet or telephone-based studies," said lead author Cristiane Duarte, PhD, MPH, Ruane Professor at the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York. "By focusing on an underserved ethnic group (Puerto Ricans), whose risk for future psychiatric disorders has been well documented in the USA, we add relevant information to a rich tradition of population-based longitudinal studies that have informed our knowledge of developmental psychopathology."

Children have been followed since the year 2000, when the original 2,491 participants were between the ages of 5 to 13 years old. Young adults were re-assessed on average 11.3 years after the last study contact, with retention of more than 80 percent of the original sample. The current article presents the cohort composition during young adulthood as it pertains to survival, mobility, parental involvement and other parameters that are crucial to the understanding of developmental psychopathology processes but are not frequently captured by more selective studies.

Hoping to help advance the field, the paper also provides detailed descriptions of methods and measures used, plus strategies utilized to engage and retain a low-income ethnically diverse cohort. The main aim of the first three waves of the study, initiated by Drs. Bird and Canino at the turn of the 21st century was to investigate development, specifically related to antisocial behaviors at the two study sites.

Co-author Glorisa Canino, PhD, Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, said: "The study included the ascertainment of a wide array of putative risk factors that could be related to differences across contexts. After the completion of the first three waves, the question remained as to whether similar patterns observed in childhood would persist into late adolescence and early adulthood."

The risks threatening the positive development of Puerto Rican youth and other diverse racial/ethnic youth, living in disadvantaged contexts, are now likely being compounded by number of relevant factors. These include the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underserved racial/ethnic minorities; a prolonged economic depression; and a recent major natural disaster (Hurricane Maria) together with the long-term experiences of discrimination and structural racism that have afflicted these same families for centuries.

The BYS gathers data from childhood through young adulthood on areas such as family relationships, cultural stress and psychiatric disorders, with the addition of domains specific to late adolescence and young adulthood (e.g., sexual risk behaviors, substance use, and financial independence). As such, the study is poised to answer questions that are important to the lived experiences of this ethnic group as they might pertain to mental health and has the capacity to assess the role of context and gender in these associations.

"This study is distinctive and even more relevant today as we unpack the role of minority status in the development of Latinx youth," said co-author Margarita Alegria, PhD Professor, Harvard University. "This represents a unique opportunity to identify assets and risks of Latinx youths' mental health as they transition to emerging adults."

Of note, currently Hector Bird, MD, study co-author states, "The retention of over 80 percent of a sample of children, now young adults, seen more than ten years after the last encounter, has been remarkable. We sincerely hope that the current readers and those of years to come will benefit from the results of this work both in informing epidemiologic methodology as well as from the implications of the findings for the mental health of Puerto Rican and other ethnic groups."

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Notes for editors

The article is "Developmental Psychopathology and Ethnicity I: The Young Adulthood Assessment of the Boricua Youth Study," by Cristiane S. Duarte, PhD, Glorisa J. Canino, PhD, Margarita Alegria, PhD, Maria A. Ramos-Olazagasti, PhD, Doryliz Vila, MS, Patricia Miranda, MPH, Vijah Ramjattan, BA, Kiara Alvarez, PhD, George J. Musa, PhD, Katherine Elkington, PhD, Melanie Wall, PhD, Sheri Lapatin, MIA, Hector Bird, MD (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2020.02.015). It currently appears on the JAACAP Articles In Press page and will appear in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, volume 60, issue 3 (March 2021), published by Elsevier.

Copies of this paper are available to credentialed journalists upon request; please contact the JAACAP Editorial Office at support@jaacap.org">support@jaacap.org or +1 202 587 9674. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Gregory Flynn at gregory.flynn@nyspi.columbia.edu">gregory.flynn@nyspi.columbia.edu.

The study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Health (DA033172 and MH098374).

Investigators are in the process of assessing the next generation Puerto Rican children born out of the original cohort participants as part of the US National NIH program ECHO (Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes). Find out more by visiting the ECHO homepage.

About JAACAP

Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) is the official publication of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. JAACAP is the leading journal focusing exclusively on today's psychiatric research and treatment of the child and adolescent. Published twelve times per year, each issue is committed to its mission of advancing the science of pediatric mental health and promoting the care of youth and their families.

The Journal's purpose is to advance research, clinical practice, and theory in child and adolescent psychiatry. It is interested in manuscripts from diverse viewpoints, including genetic, epidemiological, neurobiological, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, social, cultural, and economic. Studies of diagnostic reliability and validity, psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological treatment efficacy, and mental health services effectiveness are encouraged. The Journal also seeks to promote the well-being of children and families by publishing scholarly papers on such subjects as health policy, legislation, advocacy, culture and society, and service provision as they pertain to the mental health of children and families. http://www.jaacap.org

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In everything we publish, we uphold the highest standards of quality and integrity. We bring that same rigor to our information analytics solutions for researchers, health professionals, institutions and funders.

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+1 202 587 9674
support@jaacap.org">support@jaacap.org

FSU researchers discover how 'cryptic species' respond differently to coral bleaching

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE CORAL REEF IN MOOREA BEFORE BLEACHING KILLED THE LARGER CORALS IN 2019. view more 

CREDIT: FSU COASTAL AND MARINE LABORATORY/SCOTT BURGESS

Certain brightly colored coral species dotting the seafloor may appear indistinguishable to many divers and snorkelers, but Florida State University researchers have found that these genetically diverse marine invertebrates vary in their response to ocean warming, a finding that has implications for the long-term health of coral reefs.

The researchers used molecular genetics to differentiate among corals that look nearly identical and to understand which species best coped with thermal stress. Their research was published in the journal Ecology.

"Being able to recognize the differences among these coral species that cannot be identified in the field -- which are known as 'cryptic species' -- will help us understand new ways for how coral reefs maintain resilience in the face of disturbance," said Associate Professor of Biological Science Scott Burgess, the paper's lead author.

The researchers were studying the coral ecosystem at the island of Moorea in French Polynesia when a coral bleaching event struck in 2019.

Corals get their color from algae that live in their tissues and with which they have a symbiotic relationship. But when corals are stressed -- by high water temperature, for example -- algae leave the coral, which turns white, hence the term "bleaching." Bleached corals are not dead, but they are more vulnerable and more likely to die.

Most of the coral at Moorea belong to the genus Pocillopora. During the event, the researchers saw that about 72 percent of the coral colonies from this genus bleached, and up to 42 percent died afterward.

At first, it seemed that the largest colonies were more likely to bleach, but when the scientists examined tissue samples from the coral, they found that colonies belonging to a certain genetic lineage, not coral size, was most important in determining the fate of the corals.

"Because Pocillopora species look so similar, they cannot be reliably identified in the field, which, in the past, has forced researchers to study them as a single group," said Erika Johnston, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biological Science and a co-author of the paper. "Molecular genetics allows us to reconstruct their evolutionary ancestry and are an essential step to species identification in this case."

About 86 percent of the Pocillopora corals that died belonged to a group that shares a set of DNA variations, which is known as a haplotype and reflects their common evolutionary ancestry.

"The good news is that not all of the corals died from bleaching, and many species survived," Burgess said. "The bad news is that the species that died is, as far as we are aware at the moment, endemic to that specific region. So on the one hand, we're worried about losing an endemic species, but on the other hand, our results show how co-occurring cryptic species can contribute to coral resilience."

CAPTION

The coral reef at Moorea during the bleaching event in 2019. Most of the corals had turned white because they expelled the algae living in their tissues, a process known as bleaching.

CREDIT

(California State University, Northridge/Peter Edmunds)

It's an ecological analogy to having a diverse financial portfolio, where a variety of investments decreases the likelihood of a complete loss.

"Having multiple species that perform a similar function for the reef ecosystem but differ in how they respond to disturbances should increase the chance that Pocillopora corals continue to perform their role in the system, even though the exact species may be shuffled around," Burgess said.

Maintaining healthy ecological portfolios may be a better management option than attempting to restore a specific species.

"If we maintain the right type of diversity, nature in a way can pick the winners and losers," Burgess said. "However, the worry for us scientists is that unless the leaders of governments and corporations take action to reduce CO2 emissions, ecological portfolios that can maintain coral reef resilience will be increasingly eroded under current and ongoing climate change. This is concerning because coral reef ecosystems provide economic, health, cultural and ecological goods and services that humans rely on."

Future research will look into the composition of the algae that live inside the coral, the depth distributions of each cryptic coral species and the evolutionary relationships among the cryptic species.

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Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and California State University, Northridge contributed to this study.

This work was conducted as part of a National Science Foundation grant awarded to Burgess.

The potential economic impact of volcano alerts

While volcano alerts keep risk-area residents informed of volcanic hazards, a new study finds that alerts issued during long periods of volcanic unrest can negatively impact a region's economy

SOCIETY FOR RISK ANALYSIS

Research News

 

The Volcano Alert Level (VAL) system, standardized by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 2006, is meant to save lives and keep citizens living in the shadow of an active volcano informed of their current level of risk.

A new study published in Risk Analysis suggests that, when an alert remains elevated at any level above "normal" due to a period of volcanic unrest, it can cause a decline in the region's housing prices and other economic indicators. Because of this, the authors argue that federal policymakers may need to account for the effects of prolonged volcanic unrest -- not just destructive eruptions -- in the provision of disaster relief funding.

A team of geoscientists and statistical experts examined the historical relationship between volcano alerts issued by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and regional economic growth for three of the country's most dangerous volcanoes: Washington State's Mount St. Helens, Hawaii's K?lauea, and California's Long Valley Caldera.

They analyzed the effect of VALs and their predecessors (such as hazard alerts and volcano alerts) on local housing prices and business patterns over a 42-year period, from 1974 to 2016. The economic indicators used in the analysis included annual housing price, number of business establishments per 1,000 square kilometers, the number of employees per 1,000 inhabitants, and payroll per employee.

The team used econometric models to observe economic indicator trends during times when an increase in volcanic activity above "normal" led to a public alert. "Signs of volcanic unrest include ground deformation, rising C02 emissions, and increased earthquake frequency," says Justin Peers, East Tennessee State University.

Both lower and higher alert level notifications were shown to have short-term effects on housing prices and business indicators in all three regions. The most significant negative impacts were seen for California's Long Valley Caldera area from 1982-83 and 1991-97. Home to Mono Lake, Mammoth Mountain, and the very popular Mammoth Lakes ski area, this complex volcanic region has experienced prolonged episodic unrest.

Not all of the volcanic regions experienced a significant long-term economic impact from an elevated VAL. The greatest exception was Mount St. Helens. Peers suggests this could be due to "volcano tourism and close proximity to the major tech hub of Portland, Oregon." Despite catastrophic volcanic potential, the regional economy in the footprint of Mount St. Helens has benefited from tourism to the volcano -- accelerated by the establishment of Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in 1982.

The study's findings are consistent with those from other natural hazards studies that have documented temporary declines in housing prices following successive hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. With natural hazards, the mere presence of information about hazard potential in the form of a public alert level notification may have an adverse effect on local economies.

This sheds light on a systemic issue in disaster resilience, the authors argue. The federal government currently provides disaster relief for direct impacts of volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters, but limited or no assistance for the indirect effects experienced from long periods of volcanic unrest. Durations of volcanic unrest are often protracted in comparison to precursory periods for other hazardous events (such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods). As Peers points out, this makes the issue of disaster relief for indirect effects particularly important in high-risk volcanic regions.

For experts who study the risks of natural hazards, the team suggests they have developed a repeatable and reliable methodology to test hazard alert effects on local economies using publicly available federal U.S. business statistics. "This could be utilized to examine the impacts of all hazard alerts, such as those for wildfires or earthquakes," the authors write.

And for citizens, "we hope this research will help people better understand that the risks involved with living around a volcano are not entirely from the physical hazards associated with volcanism. It's more financially complicated than that," says Peers.

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About SRA

The Society for Risk Analysis is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, scholarly, international society that provides an open forum for all those interested in risk analysis. SRA was established in 1980 and has published Risk Analysis: An International Journal, the leading scholarly journal in the field, continuously since 1981. For more information, visit http://www.sra.org.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot feeds on smaller storms

The massive storm near the gas giant's equator has been shrinking, but collisions with a series of anticyclones are likely only surface deep

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION

Research News

 

IMAGE: A FLAKE OF RED PEELS AWAY FROM JUPITER'S GREAT RED SPOT DURING AN ENCOUNTER WITH A SMALLER ANTICYCLONE, AS SEEN BY THE JUNO SPACECRAFT'S HIGH RESOLUTION JUNOCAM ON 12 FEBRUARY... view more 

CREDIT: AGU/JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH: PLANETS

WASHINGTON-- The stormy, centuries-old maelstrom of Jupiter's Great Red Spot was shaken but not destroyed by a series of anticyclones that crashed into it over the past few years.

The smaller storms cause chunks of red clouds to flake off, shrinking the larger storm in the process. But the new study found that these disruptions are "superficial." They are visible to us, but they are only skin deep on the Red Spot, not affecting its full depth.

The new study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, AGU's journal for research on the formation and evolution of the planets, moons and objects of our solar system and beyond.

"The intense vorticity of the [Great Red Spot], together with its larger size and depth compared to the interacting vortices, guarantees its long lifetime," said Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, a professor of applied physics at the Basque Country University in Bilbao, Spain, and lead author of the new paper. As the larger storm absorbs these smaller storms, it "gains energy at the expense of their rotation energy."

The Red Spot has been shrinking for at least the past 150 years, dropping from a length of about 40,000 kilometers (24,850 miles) in 1879 to about 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles) today, and researchers still aren't sure about the causes of the decrease, or indeed how the spot was formed in the first place. The new findings show the small anticyclones may be helping to maintain the Great Red Spot.

Timothy Dowling, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Louisville who is a planetary atmospheric dynamics expert not involved in the new study, said that "it's an exciting time for the Red Spot."

Stormy collisions

Before 2019, the larger storm was only hit by a couple of anticyclones a year while more recently it was hit by as many as two dozen a year. "It's really getting buffeted. It was causing a lot of alarm," Dowling said.

Sánchez-Lavega and his colleagues were curious to see whether these relatively smaller storms had disturbed their big brother's spin.

The iconic feature of the gas giant sits near its equator, dwarfing earthly concepts of a big bad storm for at least 150 years since its first confirmed observation, though observations in 1665 may have been from the same storm. The Great Red Spot is about twice the diameter of Earth and blows at speeds of up to 540 kilometers (335 miles) per hour along its periphery.

"The [Great Red Spot] is the archetype among the vortices in planetary atmospheres," said Sánchez-Lavega, adding that the storm is one of his "favorite features in planetary atmospheres."

Cyclones like hurricanes or typhoons usually spin around a center with low atmospheric pressure, rotating counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern, whether on Jupiter or Earth. Anticyclones spin the opposite way as cyclones, around a center with high atmospheric pressure. The Great Red Spot is itself an anticyclone, though it is six to seven times as big as the smaller anticyclones that have been colliding with it. But even these smaller storms on Jupiter are about half the size of the Earth, and about 10 times the size of the largest terrestrial hurricanes.

Sánchez-Lavega and his colleagues looked at satellite images of the Great Red Spot for the past three years taken from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter and other photos taken by a network of amateur astronomers with telescopes.

Devourer of storms

The team found the smaller anticyclones pass through the high-speed peripheral ring of the Great Red Spot before circling around the red oval. The smaller storms create some chaos in an already dynamic situation, temporarily changing the Red Spot's 90-day oscillation in longitude, and "tearing the red clouds from the main oval and forming streamers," Sánchez-Lavega said.

"This group has done an extremely careful, very thorough job," Dowling said, adding that the flaking of red material we see is akin to a crème brûlée effect, with a swirl apparent for a few kilometers on the surface that doesn't have much impact on the 200-kilometer (125-mile) depth of the Great Red Spot.

The researchers still don't know what has caused the Red Spot to shrink over the decades. But these anticyclones may be maintaining the giant storm for now.

"The ingestion of [anticyclones] is not necessarily destructive; it can increase the GRS rotation speed, and perhaps over a longer period, maintain it in a steady state," Sánchez-Lavega said.

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AGU (http://www.agu.org) supports 130,000 enthusiasts to experts worldwide in Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, we advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.

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Notes for Journalists

This research study will be free available for 30 days. Download a PDF copy of the paper here. Neither the paper nor this press release is under embargo.

Paper title:

"Jupiter's Great Red Spot: strong interactions with incoming anticyclones in 2019"

Authors:

• Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, corresponding author, (Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU)
• Asier Anguiano-Arteaga (Universidad del Pais Vasco UPV/EHU)
• Peio Iñurrigarro (Universidad del Pais Vasco UPV/EHU)
• Enrique Garcia-Melendo (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya UPC)
• Jon Legarreta (Universidad del País Vasco)
• Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU)
• Jose Francisco Sanz-Requena (Universidad Europea Miguel de Cervantes)
• Santiago Perez-Hoyos (Universidad del Pais Vasco UPV/EHU)
• Iñigo Mendikoa (Universidad del Pais Vasco UPV/EHU)
• Manel Soria (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya UPC)
• Jose Rojas (Universidad del Pais Vasco UPV/EHU)
• Marc Andrés-Carcasona (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya UPC)
• Arnau Prat-Gasull (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya UPC)
• Iñaki Ordoñez-Etxebarria (Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU)
• John Rogers (British Astronomical Association)
• Clyde Foster (Astronomical Society of Southern Africa)
• Shinji Mizumoto (Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers ALPO-Japan)
• Andy Casely (Independent scholar)
• Candice Hansen (Planetary Science Institute)
• Glenn Orton (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)
• Thomas Momary (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
• Gerald Eichstädt (Independent scholar)

 

The impact of childhood trauma on performance-enhancing substance use

New research shows that adverse childhood experiences are linked with performance-enhancing substance use in young adulthood

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Research News

Toronto, ON -A new study published in the journal Substance Use and Misuse has found that adverse childhood experiences, such as physical and sexual abuse and neglect, predict greater performance-enhancing substance use in young adults.

Analyzing a sample of over 14,000 U.S. young adults from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, researchers found that adverse childhood experiences are strongly associated with both legal (e.g., creatine monohydrate) and illegal (e.g., anabolic-androgenic steroids) performance-enhancing substance use. This relationship was especially strong among individuals who experienced sexual abuse during childhood, where the likelihood of using anabolic-androgenic steroids increased nine times among men and six times among women.

"Performance-enhancing substance use is common among young adults, despite many adverse outcomes associated with their use, such as the development of eating disorders, muscle dysmorphia, and substance use disorders. To date, we've known relatively little about what may lead to the use of these substances," says lead author Kyle T. Ganson, PhD, MSW, assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. "While it's been documented that adverse childhood experiences are associated with mental health conditions and other substance use behaviors, this study expands our knowledge by now including performance-enhancing substance use."

Over 25% of both men and women in the study reported physical abuse, while roughly 4% reported sexual abuse in childhood. Over 15% of men reported legal performance-enhancing substance use, while 3% reported anabolic-androgenic steroid use. Among both men and women in the study, experiencing all four of the adverse childhood experiences studied had the strongest effect on use of performance-enhancing substance use.

"Our results continue to confirm that experiencing a greater, cumulative number of adverse childhood experiences is strongly associated with poor outcomes. This was particularly true in our study, as both men and women who reported four adverse childhood experiences were significantly more likely to report performance-enhancing substance use," says Ganson.

Being the first known study to investigate such associations between adverse childhood experiences and performance-enhancing substance use, this article's conclusions add to the growing understanding of risk factors of performance-enhancing substance use, as well as add to the literature on the effects of childhood trauma.

"Experiencing childhood abuse may lead to a desire to develop a large, muscular body to protect against future interpersonal trauma, and young people commonly use performance-enhancing substances to build muscle.," says senior author Jason M. Nagata, MD, MSc, assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco's Department of Pediatrics. "In addition to other adverse health outcomes, legal performance-enhancing substance use has been linked to anabolic steroid use, which can lead to irritability, aggression, poor mental health, heart disease, and liver damage."

This study provides further insight into the importance of monitoring for potential performance-enhancing substance use among patients with reported adverse childhood experiences, in addition to providing psychoeducation regarding the consequences associated with performance-enhancing substance use.

"Medical and mental health professionals should be aware of the common use of performance-enhancing substances, particularly among boys and men. Screening for performance-enhancing substance use and adverse childhood experiences should be a regular occurrence," says Ganson. "We also need to ensure that current public policy is informed by research to protect the health and well-being of adolescents and young adults from the adverse outcomes associated with adverse childhood experiences and the dangers of performance-enhancing substance use."

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MSU scientists one million 'hops' closer to ending a disease endemic in

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: BRUCELLA (YELLOW OVALS) CAN INFECT A COW THROUGH THE COW'S EYE AND TRAVEL FROM THERE TO THE LYMPH NODES, WHERE THEY REPLICATE. view more 

CREDIT: ARETHA FIEBIG

Many people have never heard of Brucellosis, but farmers and ranchers in the United States forced to cull animals that test positive for the disease and people infected by the animal-transmitted Brucella abortus (B. abortus) pathogen that suffer chronic, Malaria-type symptoms, certainly have.

Brucellosis is an agricultural and human health concern on a global scale. It was introduced over 100 years ago to Bison and elk in Yellowstone National Park by cattle and has been circulating among the wild herds ever since, leading to periodic outbreaks and reinfection. There is no vaccine for humans, and experimental studies of B. abortus in its natural animal hosts are technically difficult, extremely expensive and only a few facilities are capable of conducting these studies.

That did not stop Sean Crosson, MSU Rudolph Hugh Endowed Professor, and colleague Aretha Fiebig, research associate professor in Michigan State University's Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, from bringing sophisticated genomics tools from the lab to the field to gain new insight into how B. abortus infects cattle and help stop the spread of this deadly disease.

The results of their study were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"B. abortus primarily infects cattle, causing pregnant cows to abort the fetus, but the infection is typically studied in mouse models, which are not the true host of the bacterium," explained Crosson, who has been studying the bacteria for more than 14 years. "If you want to understand the infection biology underlying bovine disease, then it's helpful to study things in the natural host in a field context."

In the microbiological equivalent to tagging cattle, Crosson and Fiebig harnessed the hopping ability of specialized DNA called transposons to tag individual strains of B. abortus with unique barcodes. This gave them the ability to count how many B. abortus bacteria made it from the cow's eye, a common point of infection in the field, to the lymph nodes.

"As molecular biologists, we can harness hopping DNA by separating away the enzyme that allows it to continue moving," said Fiebig, who specializes in bacterial regulatory mechanisms. "We temporarily gave DNA the ability to hop into the B. abortus genome, but it didn't hop out again."

The scientists mixed millions of E. coli bacteria carrying transposons with millions of B. abortus in a broth containing amino acids and sugars, initiating mass tagging through a process called bacterial conjugation where transposons hop into and unite with the B. abortus genome. When the remaining E. coli cells were washed away, they were left with a vat of individually barcoded B. abortus strains.

"We were able to make a rich pool of about a million different barcoded strains," Fiebig said. "When we infected the cattle, we could track almost every single strain and ask, 'how many strains got lost, what strains had an advantage and was that advantage for a genetic reason or just chance?'"

Millions of bacteria went in, but surprisingly few came out. And while the genetic identity of strains that made it through was random, the number of strains that managed to infect individual lymph nodes was remarkably similar.

"We knew there was some restriction, or infection bottleneck, but we didn't understand the magnitude until this study," said Fiebig.

The unexpected results required nontraditional computational analysis, so Marianne Huebner, director of MSU's Center for Statistical Training and Consulting, provided expert guidance on the use of mathematical models to assess the population structures of the bacteria that survived the bottleneck.

Infecting a large animal host with a federally regulated pathogen also presented significant methodological challenges. The researchers relied on the highly skilled veterinarians and high-tech facilities at the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service's (USDA-ARS) National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa where the cows in the study were housed and treated.

The challenging field study paid off, providing critical insight into just how good the cow's mucosal barrier is at restricting B. abortus during infection.

"In the end, we gained a quantitative understanding of an infection bottleneck via a common route of bovine infection in the field," Crosson said. "This information is useful for scientists studying the epidemiology of Brucellosis in livestock and wildlife and can help us build better transmission models as we work to stop the spread of this disease."

The proof of principle paper also opened new doors to discovering specific B. abortus genes involved in the devastating disease.

"Going forward, we better understand how to use our library of barcoded mutants over longer timepoints in a pregnant host to find B. abortus genes that influence the most severe outcomes in cattle, including abortion," Crosson said. "This is a goal of the USDA-ARS as well, to know what genes in B. abortus are critical to infection in the bovine host."

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The researchers emphasized that MSU's College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Natural Science and AgBioResearch in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources were instrumental in supporting the study.

 

Polystyrene waste is everywhere

Scientists just found a way to break it down

DOE/AMES LABORATORY

Research News

 

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and their partners from Clemson University have discovered a green, low-energy process to break down polystyrene, a type of plastic that is widely used in foam packaging materials, disposable food containers, cutlery, and many other applications.

Polystyrene is part of a much larger global plastic waste problem. Hundreds of millions metric tons of polymers are produced each year, a large majority of which is discarded after use. Due to the chemical stability and durability of industrial polymers, plastic waste does not easily degrade in landfills and is often burned, which produces carbon dioxide and other hazardous gases. In order to stop the growing flood of polymer waste and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, plastics have to be recycled or converted into new value-added products.

Currently, recycling of the vast majority of plastics is not economically feasible; their sorting and separation are time and labor intensive, while chemical processing and remanufacturing requires a significant energy input and toxic solvents. Re-processed polymers often show inferior performance to that of the freshly manufactured "made from scratch" materials.

A team of scientists at Ames Laboratory used processing by ball-milling to deconstruct commercial polystyrene in a single step, at room temperature, in ambient atmosphere in the absence of harmful solvents. Ball-milling is a technique that places materials in a milling vial with metal ball bearings which is then agitated until a desired chemical reaction occurs. Called mechanochemistry, this experimental approach has numerous applications in new materials synthesis, and attractive features where plastics recycling is concerned.

The deconstruction of polystyrene proceeds through a series of chemical events involving mechanical cutting apart of the macromolecules, which generates free radicals detectable in the milled material even after its prolonged exposure to air. The metal bearings used for milling and the ambient oxygen act as co-catalysts that enable extraction of the monomeric styrene from the oligomeric radical-bearing species formed. The experiments showed that the temperature rise in the material during milling is not responsible for the observed phenomenon since the temperature inside the milled powder does not exceed 50oC while the thermal decomposition of polystyrene in air starts at about 325oC. The Clemson's group confirmed the comprehensive deconstruction of the original polymer into smaller fragments, oligomeric materials, suitable for further processing into new value-added products.

"This method represents an important breakthrough that enables dismantling of a polymer simultaneously with its break-down under ambient conditions, that is, ~300oC below the thermal decomposition temperature of the pristine material" said Ames Laboratory Senior Scientist Viktor Balema. "We think this proof of concept is an exciting possibility for developing new recycling technologies for all kinds of plastics, and that will contribute to establishment of the circular economy."

His partner from Clemson University, Kentwool Distinguished Professor Igor Luzinov, further commented that "this discovery opens new avenues for low temperature recovery of monomers from multicomponent polymer based systems such as composites and laminates. Also, our technology will allow extracting the monomer from crosslinked materials containing styrene units in their structures."

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow, Professor Aaron Rossini of Iowa State University, further noted that "electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy shows large concentrations of free radical carbon-centered species in polystyrene that was milled in air. This is a startling result because free radicals are normally very reactive. Also, the presence of the radicals gives direct evidence that the milling directly causes scission of the polymer chains. We expect that the reactive sites associated with the free radicals can be used to functionalize the processed polymers to obtain new value-added products."

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The research was funded in part by Ames Laboratory's Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program.

The research is further discussed in the paper "Depolymerization of polystyrene under ambient conditions," authored by Viktor P. Balema, Ihor Z. Hlova, Scott L. Carnahan, Mastooreh Seyedi, Oleksandr Dolotko, Aaron J. Rossini, and Igor Luzinov; featured on the front cover of the New Journal of Chemistry.

Ames Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science National Laboratory operated by Iowa State University. Ames Laboratory creates innovative materials, technologies and energy solutions. We use our expertise, unique capabilities and interdisciplinary collaborations to solve global problems.

Ames Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit https://energy.gov/science.

Pioneering study gives new insight into formation of copper deposits

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research News

 

A groundbreaking study has given new insights into how copper deposit-forming fluids are transported naturally from their source deep underground towards the Earth's surface.

A team of geologists, led by Lawrence Carter from the University of Exeter's Camborne School of Mines, has published a new theory for how porphyry copper deposits form.

Porphyry deposits provide around 75 per cent of the world's copper which is in increasing demand for electric vehicles, power infrastructure and green technologies such as wind turbines. They originally develop several kilometres below the Earth's surface above large magma chambers. Not only are porphyry deposits rare but most large near-surface examples have already been found. Any new model for how and where they form will be of great interest to mining companies.

In the new study, the researchers have shown that vast quantities of mineralising fluids could be extracted and transported from their source magmas and focussed into the ore-forming environment through 'crystal mush dykes'.

Lawrence Carter, a final year PhD student at Camborne School of Mines, based at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus said: "Our study addresses the missing link in models for the formation of porphyry-type copper deposits - how vast quantities of mineralising fluids are extracted and transported from their source magmas and focussed into the ore-forming environment.

"In doing so we provide the first field, petrographic and microscale evidence for fluid transport through what we term 'crystal mush dykes'. Their recognition is paramount to the development of more reliable porphyry exploration models and has significance for other ore-forming systems and volcanic processes."

Collaborating with scientists from the British Geological Survey (BGS) and University of Surrey, this research involved field studies and micro-textural and geochemical analyses of samples from the archetypal Yerington porphyry district in Nevada, where an exceptional ~8 km palaeo-vertical cross-section through a number of porphyry copper deposit systems is exposed.

The team were able to identify a wormy interconnected network of quartz within dykes found in rocks that were once beneath the copper deposits. This represents palaeo-porosity in a once permeable magmatic crystal mush of feldspar and quartz. The mush acted as conduits for vast quantities of porphyry-deposit-forming fluids from deep portions of underlying magmas.

It is believed that this breakthrough may provide insights for the discovery of new porphyry copper deposits, and the proposed mechanism key to the formation of other ore deposit types as well as degassing processes in volcanic systems.

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NERC GW4+ DTP, the Society of Economic Geologists Foundation and the NERC highlight topic 'FAMOS' supported the research.

The paper, entitled "Crystal mush dykes as conduits for mineralising fluids in the Yerington porphyry copper district, Nevada", is published in the leading journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment on March 17th 2021.

Socioeconomic factors play key role in COVID-19 impact on Blacks, Hispanics

AMERICAN THORACIC SOCIETY

Research News

 

IMAGE: BLACKS, HISPANICS MORE IMPACTED BY #COVID-19 DUE TO FACTORS SUCH AS INCOME, NEIGHBORHOOD, HOUSEHOLD SIZE view more 

CREDIT: ATS

March 17, 2021-- A new study published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society reveals how socioeconomic factors partially explain the increased odds that Black and Hispanic Americans have of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

In "Association of Race and Ethnicity With COVID-19 Test Positivity and Hospitalization Is Mediated by Socioeconomic Factors," Hayley B. Gershengorn, MD, associate professor, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and co-authors looked at the medical records of 15,473 patients tested and 295 hospitalized with COVID-19 between March 1, 2020 and July 23, 2020 at University of Miami hospitals and clinics. This research was conducted as a retrospective cohort study--one that follows two groups of former patients.

Dr.Gershengorn and colleagues found that the socioeconomic factors of population density at the patient's recorded address, median income, and household size were significantly related to race/ethnicity and explained some of the relation of race/ethnicity with both test positivity and hospitalization. They found no association between race or ethnicity with death rates or other outcomes for hospitalized patients.

"The associations between race/ethnicity and test positivity or hospitalization were not as strong once we adjusted for these socioeconomic factors," she said.

Of patients who were tested for SARS-CoV-2, 29.0 percent were non-Hispanic white, 48.1 percent were Hispanic white, 15.0 percent were non-Hispanic Black, 1.7 percent were Hispanic Black, and 1.6 percent were "other." Among those tested, 1,256 patients (8.1 percent) tested positive and, of the hospitalized patients, 47 (15.9 percent) died. After adjustment for demographics, race/ethnicity was associated with test positivity and hospitalization.

The researchers conducted a mediation analysis to see if household income, population density and household size explained the association of race and ethnicity with COVID-19 outcomes. Mediation analysis is a statistical technique to help explain underlying reasons for an association of an exposure (in this case, race/ethnicity) and an outcome (in this case, test positivity).

"Numerous studies have demonstrated an association of race and/or ethnicity with outcomes (e.g., case positivity, hospitalization, and, sometimes, mortality) in COVID-19," saidDr.Gershengorn. "Specifically, we have seen that, on the whole, non-white and/or Hispanic people tend to fare worse than non-Hispanic white individuals. Appropriately, much has been written about how these associations with worse outcomes almost assuredly have little to do with differences in biology or intrinsic susceptibility to infection across races and ethnicities. Rather, these associations reflect external factors to which minority individuals are more often subject. One of these proposed factors is socioeconomic circumstance; this hypothesis has face validity, but had not been demonstrated in COVID-19. We set out to prove that socioeconomic disparities mediate the association of race and/or ethnicity with worse outcomes in COVID-19."

Of the three socioeconomic factors the researchers examined, they found that median income mediated the largest proportion of COVID-19 positive tests--27 percent. Population density mediated 17 percent and household size mediated 20 percent.

"We found that all three socioeconomic factors were associated with higher odds of test positivity, regardless of race or ethnicity," she stated. "For example, after accounting for other differences, individuals of all races and ethnicities living in the highest population density neighborhoods had 2.5-fold higher odds of test positivity than those living in areas with the lowest population density." Death following hospitalization for COVID-19 was no more common for Black or Hispanic patients than for non-Hispanic white patients.

The researchers believe it would be useful for similar studies to be done in other regions of the U.S.--and parts of the world--with different ethnic/racial makeups and socioeconomic pressures, in order to show the consistency of their findings in other settings and to better understand which (if any) socioeconomic factors impact the association of race and ethnicity with COVID-19 outcomes.

The research team finds it likely that the associations they found between the specific social determinants of health they evaluated and disease risk would be generalizable to other infections with droplet and airborne transmission. Improvements in the social situations of all patients living in more crowded, less well-off communities may pay dividends for their health when the next pandemic, or the next season of influenza, hits.

Dr. Gershengorn adds, "We need to recognize that however much we measure and adjust for potential mediators--socioeconomic factors, access to health care, access to education--we still have structural racism in this country that likely drives many health-related outcomes for minority people. Quantifying the impact of structural racism is important, but more important is working to abolish it."