Newly discovered Fast Radio Burst 190520 prompts more questions due to strange behavior

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

Newly discovered fast radio burst (FRB) 190520 shows unique behavior compared to other FRBs discovered so far.  This deviant cosmic burst was observed by an international team, co-led by researchers at West Virginia University and the Center for Gravitational Waves and Cosmology. Just when you think you understand the pattern, a strange outlier comes along and forces you to re-evaluate all that you know.  

Professor Sarah Burke-Spolaor along with Graduate Assistant Kshitij Aggarwal, both of the WVU Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Center for Gravitational Waves and Cosmology, published their findings in Nature.  In the paper, they describe observing the unique behavior of the fast radio burst called FRB 190520.

Additionally, West Virginia University Graduate Students Jessica Sydnor and Reshma Thomas both played critical roles in the discovery.

Thomas worked closely with Burke-Spolaor to obtain follow-up data on the FRB to better understand some of the interesting properties found by the initial discovery. Snyder aided Burke-Spolaor in imaging and image interpretation to cross check results seen by the FAST collaborators.

The odd one

FRBs are transient radio pulses caused by astrophysical sources located well beyond our galaxy, the Milky Way. While the origins of these millisecond duration, bright, extragalactic flashes are still not fully understood, researchers are closing in on the mystery with each new discovery. This FRB, FRB 190520, proved to be unique enough to be considered an outlier among all known FRBs. First, it was classified as a repeater. A repeater is an FRB that repeats its pulses randomly. Typically, FRBs are unpredictable, but repeaters are more reliable but are also rare.  With repeating behaviors, researchers can better focus and observe the data with relative precision and map out repeating bursts which assists in future observations.  FRB 190520 is one of the most active repeating FRBs to ever be observed. 

Furthermore, this is only the second localized FRB, out of over 20 localized FRBs, with a persistent radio source associated with it. Localization is when an FRB location is pinpointed to a very small area in space, connecting the FRB to a host galaxy near that location. Observations of host galaxy of FRB 190520 showed that it is much closer than expected. Overall, it was behaving very differently than other FRBs, prompting more questions from the team.  Why was this one different?  What was making it behave differently?  Is the behavior due to the actual FRB itself, or its host galaxy?  Could this host galaxy give astronomers more clues which could fill in more pieces of the cosmology puzzle?

Let’s begin to understand how the discovery unfolded. 

The first FRB was discovered in 2007 by West Virginia University Professor Duncan Lorimer, Professor Maura McLaughlin, and an undergraduate student working with Lorimer, D. Narkevic, while analyzing archival data recorded by the Parkes Observatory. This burst was originally dubbed the Lorimer Burst. This discovery opened the doors for a whole field of study around FRBs. FRB 190520 was discovered by researchers using the FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope) in 2019. In 2020, a team of researchers observed FRB 190520 using the VLA (Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array) observatory and found remarkable characteristics, very unique to this particular FRB.

Fast forward 14 years, FRB 190520 sparks a host of new questions.

How do you know the location of an FRB?

Quite like the Doppler effect, astronomers use what is called redshift, or the wavelength of the light that is stretched as sound waves move through space. Much like the sound an ambulance makes; it changes and peaks in pitch as it moves towards you and then drops in pitch as it moves away from you. Light waves move similarly. The light drifts towards the red side of the spectrum for objects that are far away and moving away from us and allows astronomers to measure and calculate the speed of a galaxy relative to Earth.

Combining all that they knew about the FRB, the team used the Realfast observing system at VLA to observe and collect data where they detected a persistent radio source (PRS) colocated with FRB 190520.  Using the position of the FRB with realfast, the team searched for the host galaxy and identified the host galaxy, a dwarf galaxy, at distance of ~0.2.  The team isn’t sure whether the PRS is related to the FRB, or something near the FRB in its environment.  Many theories around both scenarios exist. This is the beginning of a better understanding of repeaters that are also co-localized.

Trip Calculations using Dispersion Measure

Plasma occupying the “empty” space between stars and galaxies actually cause light to slow down, and this effect becomes more extreme at lower radio frequencies. This causes high-radio-frequency signals to arrive first and low-radio-frequency signals to arrive later, causing FRBs to demonstrate a descending “whistle” in the data. The duration of that descending tone can be used to calculate the amount of gas and matter it has passed through, giving them an idea of how far it originated from.The Dispersion Measure (DM) gives us a lot of information about our universe because it tells us about the electron distribution out in space. As the pulses from an FRB far away move through matter, like gas and plasma within the universe, the sounds of the pulses are bouncing off of electrons within the intergalactic medium (outside our own galaxy) causing changes in the pulse.  Astronomers can calculate the dispersion within the Milky Way, our own Galaxy.  Beyond the Milky Way, dispersion in the intergalactic medium is unknown, so researchers need to fill in the blanks with calculated estimates.  There may be lots of matter hiding within the intergalactic medium; another puzzle for another day.

DM of FRB 190520

When calculating its dispersion measure, the team discovered it was very large.  The dispersion measure (DM) is used to estimate how far the FRB could be, and based on the DM alone, it should have been very far away, but combined with the redshift, it wasn’t at all far away; just the opposite. It was very close.  Based on existing observations using the redshift/DM relationship, characteristics of this FRB proved to be vastly unique, even an outlier. This breakthrough calculation now challenges the DM-redshift relations that are routinely used in FRB analysis to determine the distances to FRBs.

The Outlier

FRB 190520 again had to prove its uniqueness.  Its DM was very large, which is typically used to estimate how far the FRB could be located.  Based on the DM alone, it should've been very far, but the redshift proved otherwise. It was actually very close to Earth.

If all FRBs behave the same way, then we can use them to serve as an average point. But if we have deviant FRBs, like FRB 190520, the averages aren’t as evenly presented.  In other words, it could cause the known average to be wider due to the obvious outliers in the mix.

According to Aggarwal, FRB 190520 could throw initial estimates and assumptions out the window.

FRB 190520 is proving to be a portal of continuous unknowns.  This outlier and its host galaxy has now opened more questions around the cosmic world of FRBs, intriguing researchers with more scientific curiosity.  Researchers have used these FRBs to draw important conclusions around other areas of research pertaining to the universe, like its evolution. “If you count up all the stars, gas, and other luminous things we can see, based on cosmological observations, there should be more missing matter accounted for, but we don’t fully have those direct measurements,” Burke Spolaor explains.  FRBs can probe the space between galaxies, helping to fill in those unknown details about the intergalactic medium including the hidden matter. 

Something is going on with FRB 190520, and we want to know more!  The host galaxy, or the environment around this FRB has something unique going on, which could contribute to such a high dispersion. Localization is the key to better understanding outliers like FRB 190520, by pinpointing the FRB to its parent galaxy and estimating its exact distance.

With every discovery, the puzzle becomes more complex, offering more answers to questions pertaining to the evolution of the universe and beyond.

While currently an anomaly, it's quite possible that in five or ten years, it could be considered normal as more details around repeating FRBs, like FRB 190520, are uncovered.

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JOURNAL

Nature

WAIT, WHAT?! 

Trinity scientists create luminescent gels with multitude of applications from counterfeiting to bio-sensing

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Trinity scientists create luminescent gels with multitude of applications from counterfeiting to bio-sensing

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have taken inspiration from nature to create luminescent, self-healing gels with a suite of potential applications ranging from bank note counterfeiting to next-gen bio-sensing and imaging.

Crucially, the scientists have been able to introduce guanosine (a molecule that plays many important metabolic roles in our cells) into these gels, and add other molecules that can do exciting things from a materials and biological sciences perspective. One such addition to these gels is that of lanthanide ions, which possess unique properties including luminescence, magnetism and the ability to speed up specific reactions.  The study was published in the recent edition of the high-impact Cell Press journal Chem, [Wednesday, June 1st, 2022].

 

Guanosine gels exhibit chirality (left-handed helicity in this case) and the scientists focused on transferring that characteristic to the lanthanide elements of the gels once those ions had been added.

 

Although that may seem like just one more simple step in the chemical recipe, it is a leap that opens doors to a multitude of new applications as it means these gels can accurately signal varying intensities of whatever they are designed to sense.

 

From a medical perspective that could mean accurately detecting the presence—and amount—of a biomarker of interest, for example. But the possibilities are so plentiful that the team must now take time to assess which direction to take their research next.

 

Oxana Kotova, Research Fellow in Trinity’s School of Chemistry and AMBER, the SFI Centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research, is first author of the published study.

 

Dr Kotova, who is based in the School of Chemistry, located in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI), said:

“We are interested in developing supramolecular hydrogels like this as they open so many doors to new applications in various fields from biological to material sciences. By transferring chirality onto the lanthanide elements of this gel, we have been able to modify the chiral luminescence response of the latter, which can aid future understanding of recently discovered lanthanide biological functions as well as help the development of future generation sensors and imaging agents. We think it is fascinating that such options arise from a new material that was itself created by taking inspiration from biology.”

 

Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson, Professor of Chemistry in Trinity’s School of Chemistry and AMBER, and based in TBSI, is the senior author of the research article. He added: “The idea that Oxana had here was to use bio-inspired DNA building blocks to generate luminescent responsive soft-material that not only is emissive under light irradiation, but also self-healing, which itself can lead to various applications, such as in responsive ink printing. Furthermore, the material presented in this Chem article, gives rise to the chiral-based emission upon irradiation of visible light. This means that using a technique called circular polarised luminescence (CPL), we can observe either the ‘right or the left handed’ (e.g. the polarised) emission from the material. The use of this spectroscopic technique is fast becoming apparent and its use in chemical and biological research is finding its niche. This has significant consequences for the potential applications of lanthanide based bio-inspired soft material, such as for monitoring biological processes, in live cellular imaging, and in drug delivery, to name just a few. The CPL technique is also important means of developing ‘responsive’ counterfeiting inks for use in printing of bank notes, labels, etc. Hence, the opportunities here are vast for future developments, and we are excited to be part of this important finding, which was only made possible with the coming together of leading research groups with strong expertise.”

 

This research was funded and supported through research funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI, Principal investigator funding) and through the SFI-funded AMBER Centre, which both lead authors are members of.

 

The work is an outcome of an on-going collaboration between research groups from different disciplines and universities initially started with the synthesis of organic ligand by Dr. Ciaran O’Reilly (Department of Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine, TBSI). This ligand was then used to functionalise guanosine hydrogels and bind to lanthanide elements by Dr. Oxana Kotova. While the principle luminescent properties were all studied in Trinity, the circularly polarised luminescence studies were performed by Dr. Lewis E. Mackenzie and Professor Robert Pal in the Department of Chemistry, Durham University, United Kingdom. The morphology of the gels was investigated by researchers within Professor Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson’s group in the School of Chemistry and Advanced Microscopy Laboratories in Trinity. The rheological properties of these luminescent gels were then examined through collaboration with Dr. Sebastian T. Barwich and Prof. Matthias E. Möbius from the School of Physics in Trinity, who are also members of the SFI funded AMBER Centre.

 

 

The paper: Lanthanide luminescence from supramolecular hydrogels consisting of bio-conjugated picolinic-acid-based guanosine quadruplexes can be viewed here.

 

ENDS

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JOURNAL

Chem

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Lanthanide luminescence from supramolecular hydrogels consisting of bio-conjugated picolinic-acid-based guanosine quadruplexes

New study links lactobacillus crispatus bacterium to lower risk of preterm birth

The study, published in mSystems, highlights racial disparities between Black and White women

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY

Washington, DC – June 10, 2022 – Globally, preterm birth complications are the leading cause of death for children under the age of 5. Not everyone faces the same risk, though: In the United States, roughly 10% of pregnancies lead to preterm birth, but for Black women, that likelihood is 14%. Recent studies suggest that the vaginal microbiome, which plays an important role in a woman’s reproductive health, may influence those outcomes.

Findings published in mSystems, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, support that idea. After analyzing data from a large study on pregnant women in North Carolina, researchers found that participants with a high abundance of Lactobacillus crispatus were less likely to have a preterm birth. The researchers also stratified their findings by race and found evidence for the protective effect of L. crispatus in both White and Black populations.

Lactobacillus bacteria are common in the vaginal microbiome, but the specific species that dominate may affect outcomes, said microbiologist and lead author Shan Sun, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC).

“Some species are more or less protective,” Sun said, “but when the vaginal microbiome was dominated by species of L. crispatus, preterm birth was 40% less likely.” Sun and her colleagues also higher alpha-diversity, lower abundance of L. crispatus, and higher abundance of L. iners in the vaginal microbiome of Black women.

In the gut microbiome, greater diversity is often associated with better health. But the opposite seems to be true in the vaginal microbiome, said bioinformatics scientist Anthony Fodor, Ph.D., at UNCC. “If you have one dominant microbe, ok, that’s what you want.” Higher diversity may dampen the protective effects of L. crispatus in Black women, said Sun, but further evidence is needed to probe that hypothesis. Sun is a postdoctoral researcher in Fodor’s lab.

Previous studies have investigated connections between the vaginal microbiome and preterm births, Sun said, but have largely been limited by low numbers of participants. The new findings are based on data on 464 White women and 360 Black women enrolled in the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition (PIN) Study, based at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Between 1995 and 2000, the study enrolled more than 3,000 women and compiled data on a wide range of health, environmental, and social factors.

“We can pull in microbiome data to help us describe how all these determinants of health work together to produce outcomes,” said epidemiologist Stephanie Engel, Ph.D., at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. “We can get at the entire picture of a woman’s experience of pregnancy.” Engel is the current principal investigator of the PIN study. She and Fodor are senior authors of the new study.

What remains unclear, said Engel, is whether L. crispatus is itself protective or is a consequence of some other factor that lowers the risk for preterm birth. “We don’t know if having a specific vaginal microbiome creates a susceptibility for some other agent that’s actually the causal agent,” she said.

Engel said she also hopes researchers will use PIN data to probe the racial disparities in preterm outcomes. “Are we asking the right questions? Is it really race, or racism?” she asked. “There’s still quite a bit to be done to describe the nature of the microbiome during pregnancy and what influences outcomes.”

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The American Society for Microbiology is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of 30,000 scientists and health practitioners. ASM's mission is to promote and advance the microbial sciences.

ASM advances the microbial sciences through conferences, publications, certifications, educational opportunities and advocacy efforts. It enhances laboratory capacity around the globe through training and resources. It provides a network for scientists in academia, industry and clinical settings. Additionally, ASM promotes a deeper understanding of the microbial sciences to diverse audiences.

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JOURNAL

mSystems

Big issues, big answers

Emily Williams and Mark Turiansky receive the 2021-2022 Winifred and Louis Lancaster Dissertation Awards

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

 

IMAGE: MARK TURIANSKY AND EMILY WILLIAMS ARE THE RECIPIENTS OF THE 2021-2022 WINIFRED AND LOUIS LANCASTER DISSERTATION AWARDS view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY IMAGE

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — How can we better hold environmental polluters accountable? How can we enhance the efficiency of qubits? These questions, which loom large for the researchers who study them, are the type of big-issue topics that UC Santa Barbara graduate students are encouraged to tackle. And they’re the central themes of the dissertations that won the 2021-2022 Winifred and Louis Lancaster Dissertation Awards.

This year’s recipients are Emily Williams (geography) and Mark Turiansky (physics), selected by the awards committee for dissertations with “significant impact on the field in terms of methodological and substantive contributions.”

Climate Detective

As global temperatures rise and communities feel the effects of climate change, how do we as a global society address the “uneven distribution of harms and gains?” The tropics, for instance, are already bearing the brunt of sea level rise and ocean acidification, yet they are not the places that have generated the magnitude of carbon emissions that cause these events, nor do they benefit in a proportionate way from the activities that cause these emissions. Elsewhere around the world, weather events of disastrous proportions are increasing in severity and frequency, clearly caused by anthropogenic activity — yet who exactly do we hold accountable?

Inequalities and blind spots such as these are the type of thing that spark Emily Williams’ curiosity and activist drive. A lifelong environmentalist, she got her first taste of the discipline of environmental studies as an undergraduate at UCSB under the tutelage of the late Professor William Freudenburg.

“He opened my eyes to thinking about the causes of climate change,” Williams said. She became conscious of the strategies corporations use to justify their actions and their methods of deflection from their outsized contribution to the problem.

Around that time Typhoon Haiyan, then the most powerful typhoon on record, struck the central Philippines, becoming a strong and real reminder of global warming’s effects. But even more compelling for Williams — who had become part of a civil delegation to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the international climate negotiations space) — was the maddening slowness to address these impacts.

Fast-forward several years, and Williams’ desire to illuminate the gaps in climate accountability resulted in her dissertation, “Interrogating the science of climate accountability: Allocating responsibility for climate impacts within a frame of climate justice.” In it, she builds a ‘best practices’ conceptual framework to identify responsibility for climate impacts. She then tests it using an empirical case study involving the drought in the greater Four Corners region and the Zuni people who live there.

“I had the opportunity to work with very diverse mentors, meaning I got to do the attribution science, engage ethnographic methods, organizational sociology and some science and technology studies-related work,” she said. “It’s certainly hard to do interdisciplinary work, but if you find a group of mentors that will support you in this effort, it’s fascinating.”

Among the things she uncovered in her research is the meteorological concept of vapor pressure deficit and its role on droughts, as a result of increased temperatures. By linking this fundamental principle to vegetation, Williams and her co-authors were able to estimate what the Four Corners region would look like without climate change, and identify the “human fingerprint” in this whodunit of global warming. This ability to definitively attribute effects to human activity can help build a case toward holding polluters accountable, advancing the field of climate justice. It’s also what earned Williams the Lancaster Award.

“Emily’s outstanding integration of theory with qualitative and quantitative methods and her passionate commitment to climate justice truly set her apart,” said her adviser, geography professor David López-Carr. “Her dissertation makes a significant contribution to the nascent climate accountability literature by being the first to identify the human contribution to regional climate change and to follow those climate change impacts on vulnerable populations at the local level. 

“Her work provides a framework for future researchers and practitioners to advance the important area of climate accountability,” he continued, “with real-world implications for holding those responsible for climate change emissions and for mitigating impacts on vulnerable populations.”

“I feel so honored and so humbled to have received this award,” said Williams, who plans to complete a “short post-doc” before moving into the nonprofit world for more advocacy work. “I know for certain that anyone who gets through a Ph.D. program, with all the challenges and opportunities the program presents, deserves such an award. I chose my dissertation topic because I believe so deeply in the importance of ensuring climate accountability work is done within principles of justice. I am just so happy that the selection committee thinks this topic is important too.”

Quantum Mechanic

The quantum world holds much potential for those who learn to wield it. This space of subatomic particles and their behaviors, interactions and emergent properties can open the door to new materials and technologies with capabilities we have yet to even dream of.

Mark Turiansky is among those at the forefront of this discipline at UCSB, joining some of the finest minds in the quantum sciences as a fellow at the NSF-supported UCSB Quantum Foundry. 

“The field of quantum information science is rapidly developing and has garnered a ton of interest,” said Turiansky, who developed an abiding interest in physics as a child. “In the past few years, billions of dollars of funding have been allocated to quantum information science.”

Enabled by relatively recent technologies that allow for the study of the universe at its smallest scales, quantum researchers like Turiansky are still just scratching the surface as they work to nail down the fundamentals of the strange yet powerful reality that is quantum physics.

At the heart of some of these investigations is the quantum defect — imperfections in a semiconductor crystal that can be harnessed for quantum information science. One common example is the nitrogen-vacancy center in a diamond: In an otherwise uniform crystalline carbon lattice, an NV center is a defect wherein one carbon atom is replaced with a nitrogen atom, and an adjacent spot in the lattice is vacant. These defects can be used for sensing, quantum networking and long-range entanglement.

The NV center is only one such type of quantum defect, and though well-studied, has its limitations. For Turiansky, this underlined the need to gain a better understanding of quantum defects and to find ways to predict and possibly generate more ideal defects.

These needs became the basis of his dissertation, “Quantum Defects from First Principles,” an investigation into the fundamental concepts of quantum defects, which could lead to the design of a more robust qubit — the basic unit of a quantum computer.

To explore his subject, Turiansky turned his attentions to hexagonal boron nitride.

“Hexagonal boron nitride is an interesting material because it is two-dimensional,” he explained, “which means that you can isolate a plane of the material that is just one atom thick.” By shining light on this material, it is possible to detect quantum defects called “single-photon emitters” by the bright spots that shine back. These single photons, he added, are “inherently quantum objects that can be used for quantum information science.”

“The main feat was identifying the defect that was responsible for single-photon emission,” Turiansky said. He accomplished it with computational methodologies that he worked to develop in his research.

“One methodology that I’ve worked on a lot is for nonradiative recombination,” he said, describing it in his paper as “fundamental to the understanding of quantum defects, dictating the efficiency and operation of a given qubit.” By applying his methodology, Turiansky was able to determine the origin of these single photon emitters — a topic of much debate in the community. It’s a feat that could be applied to examine other quantum defects, and one that was deemed worthy of the Lancaster Award.

“Mark’s work has moved the field forward by systematically identifying promising quantum defects, and providing an unambiguous identification of the microscopic nature of the most promising quantum emitter in hexagonal boron nitride,” remarked Turiansky’s adviser, materials professor Chris Van de Walle. “He accomplished this by creatively applying the computational approaches he developed and fruitfully collaborating with experimentalists.”

“It’s really an exceptional honor to receive such a prestigious award for my research efforts over the last five years,” Turiansky said. “It’s even more meaningful knowing the high quality of research turned out at UCSB and the fierce competition of my peers. I’m incredibly grateful to my adviser, group members, collaborators, friends and family who helped make this achievement possible.”

How mother-youth emotional climate helps adolescents cope with stress

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: KELLY TU (LEFT) AND XIAOMEI LI, DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, LOOKED AT HOW EMOTIONAL ASPECTS OF PARENTING CAN HELP YOUTH COPE WITH PEER STRESS. view more 

CREDIT: COLLEGE OF ACES, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

URBANA, Ill. – Transition to middle school can be a stressful time for adolescents. They must adjust to a new peer group and social environment while going through the developmental changes of puberty. A recent University of Illinois study looks at how emotional aspects of parenting can help youth better cope with peer stressors during this transitional period.

The researchers evaluated emotional closeness between fifth-graders and their mothers, gauging how it predicted the youths’ ability to deal with social challenges when they started middle school the following year. They combined observations of mother-youth interactions with measures of the youths’ biological stress response capacity.

The study is part of a larger, ongoing project in the research lab of Kelly Tu, examining the mental health and wellbeing of adolescents and the role of parental involvement. Tu is an associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) at U of I, and co-author on the paper.

“Adolescents often turn to their mothers to discuss peer problems. As mothers give advice, it’s not just what they tell adolescents that matter, but also how they are conveying those messages. Therefore, moving beyond mothers’ specific suggestions for coping, here we focus on the emotional climate of these conversations,” explains Xiaomei Li, doctoral candidate in HDFS and the paper’s lead author.

The researchers invited mothers and adolescents in the last semester of fifth grade to the research lab, asking them to spend five minutes talking about a peer problem the youth was facing. The youth also filled out questionnaires reporting on how they typically cope with peer stress, once during fifth grade and again after they started sixth grade the following school year. Being able to engage in active forms of coping—attempting to resolve the problem and managing one’s reactions—is typically considered more beneficial for youths’ successful adaptation to new environments, the researchers say.

During the five-minute conversation, trained observers rated maternal affect (such as smiles, physical and verbal affection, frustration or tension) and dyadic connection or cohesiveness (such as taking turns and communicating smoothly). The researchers also measured youths' biological response in the form of their respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), gauging the baseline RSA at rest while they watched a slide show of nature images. RSA measures the variations in heart rate, and higher baseline RSA indicates greater capacity to respond to stressful situations by regulating the heart rate.

“Stress response is a multi-level mechanism which includes behavioral strategies and biological reactions. We wanted to observe how some common biological markers of the stress response system might inform how youth engage in behavioral strategies to cope with stress, in addition to how their mothers may support them,” Li says.

Youth who experienced more positive affect and greater cohesiveness during their conversations with mothers reported more active coping and advice seeking from parents in middle school. In comparison, youth whose mothers displayed less positive affect (or more criticism and lack of interest) and who were less cohesive with their children during the conversation were less able to actively cope with social stress when starting middle school. This was particularly noticeable for kids with lower baseline RSA.

“For some youth who may be biologically dispositioned to be vulnerable to stress, such as displaying lower baseline RSA, the mother’s positive, warm affect and a cohesive, collaborative conversation atmosphere appear to be especially important for the development and use of active coping,” Li says.

One takeaway from these findings is for parents to think about how to create a positive and supportive space to talk with their children about their problems, Tu explains.

“As a parent, you could be giving great advice. But what our study shows is that how parents talk with their children matters for how adolescents cope with stress. Conversations that are less warm and supportive could undermine parents’ efforts to help. And youth are less likely to seek parents’ advice in the future,” she adds.

Tu and Li say there may also be cultural differences in parental emotional closeness and how much it matters to youth. Study participants included a diverse sample of 57% White, 10% Black, 13% Hispanic/Latino, 6% Asian, and 14% other/mixed race. While the ethnic groups were too small to analyze separately, the researchers recognize the need to better understand cultural factors in future studies.

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The Department of Human Development and Family Studies is in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois.

The paper, “Interactive Contribution of Observed Mother-Youth Emotional Climate and Youth Physiology: A Biopsychosocial Approach to Understanding Youth Coping With Peer Stress,” is published in the Journal of Early Adolescence [https://doi.org/10.1177/02724316221096079]. Authors include Xiaomei Li, Kelly Tu, and Nancy McElwain.

Funding for the research was provided by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch project (ILLU-793-344).  

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JOURNAL

The Journal of Early Adolescence

DOI

10.1177/02724316221096079 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Interactive Contribution of Observed Mother-Youth Emotional Climate and Youth Physiology: A Biopsychosocial Approach to Understanding Youth Coping With Peer Stress

MAGA AMERIKA

University of Kentucky investigators receive $3.7 million to study Kentucky’s sleep deprivation epidemic

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

 

IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY RESEARCHERS CHRISTAL BADOUR AND MAIREAD MOLONEY ARE LEADING A STUDY TO UNDERSTAND WHY RESIDENTS IN APPALACHIAN KENTUCKY ARE SOME OF THE NATION’S MOST SLEEP-DEPRIVED. view more 

CREDIT: ARDEN BARNES | UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY PHOTO

LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 10, 2022) — Poor sleep is linked to a wide range of medical issues, including hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity and cancer. With more than a third of U.S. adults reporting insufficient sleep, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes sleep deprivation as a public health epidemic.

The public health burden of sleep deprivation is especially high in Kentucky: residents are some of the nation’s most sleep-deprived, particularly in rural Appalachia where 25-58% of adults report insufficient sleep, defined as less than six hours a day.

The University of Kentucky has received a $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to find out why people in the Appalachian region of Kentucky have such consistently poor sleep outcomes.

Led by Mairead Moloney, Ph.D., and Christal Badour, Ph.D., associate professors in the College of Arts and Sciences, "Researching Equitable Sleep Time in Kentucky Communities (REST-KY)" will provide answers to long-standing questions about the causes and consequences of sleep deficiencies in rural populations.

The new knowledge will inform interventions to reduce sleep disparities among people in rural Appalachia, who also experience severe health inequities including higher mortality rates for many conditions including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

“Sleep is the critical pivot point for understanding ways in which people in this region experience health disparities,” said Badour. “If we can understand why people are getting poor sleep, we can then identify interventions that can help them sleep better, which would have cascading benefits for many aspects of their health.”

The REST-KY team includes experts across four UK colleges: Suzanne Segerstrom, Ph.D. and Lauren Whitehurst, Ph.D., from the College of Arts and Sciences, Daniela Moga, Ph.D., from the College of Pharmacy, Nancy Schoenberg, Ph.D. from the College of Medicine, and Emily Slade, Ph.D., from the College of Public Health.

“This collaboration of experts across so many disciplines will enable us to get a holistic look at the biological, behavioral, emotional, and social contributions to sleep health,” said Moloney.

Over the five-year study, the team will track the sleep of 400 adults from Appalachian Kentucky, along with health information such as heart rate, physical activity, blood sugar levels, and immune function. Participants will also report their daily experiences including stress and substance use.

Participants will come from 12 Kentucky counties: six that have been identified as insufficient sleep “hotspots” (Pike, Knott, Perry, Letcher, Bell and Whitley), and six that are not considered hotspots of insufficient sleep (Jackson, Lincoln, Russell, Adair, Rockcastle and Estill) – even though they have comparable economic distress, rurality, and demographics.

Results will show what drives sleep deficiencies and health outcomes over time, how factors linked to sleep deficiencies differ between hotspot and non-hotspot counties, and the degree to which daytime distress impacts sleep.

The findings will be used as a basis to develop and implement interventions to improve sleep among Appalachian Kentuckians. 

As one of the NIH’s prestigious “R01” grants, REST-KY builds upon the team’s previous interdisciplinary research, including a 2018 intervention study to address insomnia among women in Appalachian Kentucky.

That study came about thanks to UK programs intended to generate and support collaborative research.

Moloney, Badour and Moga initially connected through UK’s Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) fellowship, and their study received pilot funding through UK’s Igniting Research Collaborations program and support from UK’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science.

“The BIRCWH fellowship and the Igniting Research Collaboration grants are foundational starting points for REST-KY,” said Moloney. “The project is a testament to how internal funding programs at UK can lead to these wonderful collaborations, which generate extramural grants to support groundbreaking research.”

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01MD016236. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

The University of Kentucky is increasingly the first choice for students, faculty and staff to pursue their passions and their professional goals. In the last two years, Forbes has named UK among the best employers for diversity, and INSIGHT into Diversity recognized us as a Diversity Champion four years running. UK is ranked among the top 30 campuses in the nation for LGBTQ* inclusion and safety. UK has been judged a “Great College to Work for" three years in a row, and UK is among only 22 universities in the country on Forbes' list of "America's Best Employers."  We are ranked among the top 10 percent of public institutions for research expenditures — a tangible symbol of our breadth and depth as a university focused on discovery that changes lives and communities. And our patients know and appreciate the fact that UK HealthCare has been named the state’s top hospital for five straight years. Accolades and honors are great. But they are more important for what they represent: the idea that creating a community of belonging and commitment to excellence is how we honor our mission to be not simply the University of Kentucky, but the University for Kentucky.

Latin dance may be a step toward better working memory for older Latinos

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

 

IMAGE: LATINO ADULTS WHO PARTICIPATED IN A HEALTH INTERVENTION THAT PROVIDED LATIN DANCE LESSONS SHOWED SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS IN THEIR WORKING MEMORY, ACCORDING TO A STUDY LED BY SUSAN AGUIÑAGA, A PROFESSOR OF KINESIOLOGY AND COMMUNITY HEALTH. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY MICHELLE HASSEL

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Dance is at the heart of Latin culture, celebrated for its social, historical and cultural significance. And new research suggests that older Latinos who regularly participate in it can help their brains stay healthy, too.

Latinos age 55 and over who participated in a culturally relevant Latin dance program for eight months significantly improved their working memory compared with peers in the control group who attended health education workshops, according to the study’s lead author, Susan Aguiñaga, a professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Working memory – the ability to temporarily keep a small amount of information in mind while performing other cognitive tasks – is integral to planning, organizing and decision-making in everyday life.

The dance program used in the study, Balance and Activity in Latinos, Addressing Mobility in Older Adults – or BAILAMOS – showed promise at enticing older Latinos to become more physically active and help stave off age-related cognitive decline, Aguiñaga said.

“Dance can be cognitively challenging,” Aguiñaga said. “When you’re learning new steps, you have to learn how to combine them into sequences. And as the lessons progress over time, you must recall the steps you learned in a previous class to add on additional movements.”

BAILAMOS was co-created by study co-author David X. Marquez, a professor of kinesiology and nutrition, and the director of the Exercise and Psychology Lab at the University of Illinois Chicago; and Miguel Mendez, the creator and owner of the Dance Academy for Salsa.

BAILAMOS incorporates four types of Latin dance styles: merengue, salsa, bachata and cha cha cha, said Aguiñaga, who has worked with the program since its inception when she was a graduate student at the U. of I. Chicago.

“It’s an appealing type of physical modality,” she said. “Older Latinos are drawn to Latin dance because most of them grew up with it in some way.”

Latin dance can evoke positive emotions that prompt listeners to participate, increasing levels of physical activity in a population that tends to be sedentary, according to the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

More than 330 Spanish-speaking Latino adults who were middle-aged or older were recruited for the study, primarily through community outreach in local churches. Participants were randomly assigned to either the dance group or the control group, which met once a week for two-hour health education classes that covered topics such as nutrition, diabetes and stress reduction.

Participants in the BAILAMOS groups met twice weekly for the dance sessions, taught by a professional instructor for the first four months and later by a “program champion” – an outstanding participant in each group who displayed enthusiasm and leadership qualities. The programs champions were selected and trained by the instructor to lead the sessions during the four-month maintenance phase.

Over the different waves of the four-year study, the dance lessons were held at 12 different locations across Chicago, such as neighborhood senior centers and churches that were familiar and easily accessible to participants, Aguiñaga said.

Participants’ working memory – along with their episodic memory and executive function – was assessed with a set of seven neuropsychological tests before the intervention began, when it concluded after four months and again at the end of the maintenance phase.

Participants also completed questionnaires that assessed the number of minutes per week they engaged in light, moderate and vigorous physical activity through tasks associated with their employment, leisure activities, household maintenance and other activities.

On average, participants were about 65 years old with body mass indices that placed them in the obese category. About 85% of the study participants were female.

As with a small pilot study of BAILAMOS conducted previously, the current study found no differences in any of the cognitive measures between the dance participants and their counterparts in the health education group at four months. However, after eight months, people in the dance group performed significantly better on tests that assessed their working memory.

“That’s probably one of the most important findings – we saw cognitive changes after eight months, where participants themselves had been leading the dance classes during the maintenance phase,” Aguiñaga said. “All of our previous studies were three or four months long. The take-home message here is we need longer programs to show effects.

“But to make these programs sustainable and create a culture of health, we also need to empower participants to conduct these activities themselves and make them their own.”

The study also was co-written by Dr. David Buchner, the Shahid and Anne Carlson Kahn Professor in Applied Health Sciences; and Edward McAuley, an emeritus professor of kinesiology and community health, both at the U. of I.’s Urbana campus.

Co-authors at the Chicago campus were Susan Hughes, a professor emerita of community health sciences; Michael Berbaum, the director of both the Methodology Research Core for the Institute for Health Research and Policy, and the Biostatistics Core of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science; and biostatistician Tianxiu Wang.

Other co-authors were health sciences professor Navin Kaushal, of Purdue University, Indianapolis; Guilherme M. Balbim, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia; neurological sciences professor Robert S. Wilson and professor of nursing JoEllen E. Wilbur, both of Rush University; public health professor Priscilla M. Vásquez, of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science; and Isabela G. Marques, of the CAPES Foundation in Brasilia, Brazil.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

DOI

10.3389/fnagi.2022.755154 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Latin Dance and Working Memory: The Mediating Effects of Physical Activity Among Middle-Aged and Older Latinos

Words matter: How to reduce gender bias with word choice

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CELL PRESS

In the workplace, even subtle differences in language choice can influence the perception of gender, for better or worse. These choices fall into two main categories: minimizing the role of gender by using gender-neutral terms or emphasizing an individual’s gender through “gender marking.” In a commentary in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, behavioral scientist Stav Atir argues that by using these two approaches thoughtfully, one can promote gender equality.

“If anyone suggested saying ‘female politician’ or ‘lady scientist,’ I think many would say ‘No, thank you,’” says Atir (@AtirStav), an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison who studies how gender bias can affect perceptions of professionals.

The gender-neutral approach involves using words like “businessperson,” instead of “businessman” or “businesswoman,” or using gender-neutral pronouns like “they” instead of “he” or “she.” Using this language can erase the conception that men and women are wildly different beings, and it fights back against our natural tendency to rely on stereotypes in our thinking, studies show.

“But wholesale gender neutrality in language is no panacea,” says Atir. This approach suffers from the fact that gender-neutral terms tend to be considered masculine by default.

“Even when gender isn’t explicitly specified, stereotypes often fill in the gender blank,” says Atir. “Occupation words such as ‘businessperson’ or ‘surgeon,’ though technically gender neutral, likely conjure up an image of a man; likewise, ‘nurse’ (also technically gender neutral) conjures up an image of a woman.”

The alternative—using a gender-marking approach—can be used to highlight the success of women in male-dominated fields. “In order to spotlight the breakers of glass ceilings and those following in their footsteps, we must mention their gender,” says Atir.

This approach comes with its own drawbacks, like reinforcing negative stereotypes. “Gender marking, then, should not be used thoughtlessly,” says Atir. “Though it can draw attention to professionals whose gender is underrepresented, it can also have ironic consequences, prompting stereotypical thinking and bolstering the perception of women as exotic exceptions to the male rule.”

“We might be tempted to throw up our hands and give up the endeavor of using language to express and promote our beliefs. That would be a mistake,” says Atir. “Language remains one tool in our toolbox for social change, and, unlike some of our other tools, it’s one that we can all use. The key to using this tool effectively is to tailor our language to the context, taking into account our situation-specific goals.”

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Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Atir: “Girlboss? Highlighting versus downplaying gender through language” https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(22)00105-X

Trends in Cognitive Sciences (@TrendsCognSci), published by Cell Press, is a monthly review journal that brings together research in psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and neuroscience. It provides a platform for the interaction of these disciplines and the evolution of cognitive science as an independent field of study. Visit: http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences. To receive Cell Press media alerts, please contact press@cell.com.

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JOURNAL

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

DOI

10.1016/j.tics.2022.05.001 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Girlboss? Highlighting versus downplaying gender through language

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2022