Author: Futurity (National Geo)

Older adults living with food insecurity are more likely to experience malnutrition, depression, and physical limitations that affect how they live, a new study shows.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest federally funded nutrition-assistance program in the United States, and research has shown that SNAP reduces hunger and food insecurity in the general population.

Little evidence is available, however, on how SNAP may affect brain aging in older adults. To bridge this knowledge gap, researchers investigated the relationship between food insecurity, SNAP, and cognitive decline. They found that food sufficiency and participation in SNAP may help protect against accelerated cognitive decline in older adults.

The researchers analyzed a representative sample of 4,578 older adults in the United States using data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, 2012-20. Participants reported their experiences with food insecurity and were classified as food sufficient or food insufficient.

The SNAP status was defined as SNAP participants, SNAP-eligible nonparticipants, and SNAP-ineligible nonparticipants. The researchers found that food insecure adults experienced cognitive declines more rapidly than their food secure peers.

The researchers identified different trajectories of cognitive decline using food insufficiency status or SNAP status. Rates of cognitive decline were similar in SNAP participants and SNAP-ineligible nonparticipants, both of which were slower than the rate of SNAP-eligible nonparticipants.

The greater cognitive decline rate observed in the food insecure group was equivalent to being 3.8 years older, whereas the greater cognitive decline rate observed in the SNAP-eligible nonparticipant group was equivalent to being 4.5 years older.

“For an aging population, roughly four years of brain aging can be very significant,” says Muzi Na, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State, and lead author of the study in the Journal of Nutrition.

“These results really point to the importance of food security for people as they age and the value that SNAP can have in improving people’s cognitive health as they age. We need to make sure that people have access to—and encourage them to use—the SNAP program as they age.”

Future studies are warranted to investigate the impact of addressing food insecurity and promoting SNAP participation on cognitive health in older adults, Na says.

Additional coauthors are from Brown University, the University of South Carolina, the University of North Carolina Wilmington, the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and Penn State.

The Broadhurst Career Development Professorship for the Study of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and the National Institute of Mental Health supported the work.

Source: Penn State

Scholars show a “direct link” from the 1920s to the early 1960s between the race, class, and immigration status of constituents and their district’s share of state funds.

In 1936, when the influential American political scientist Harold Laswell published his seminal work Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (Whittlesey House, 1936), he couldn’t have foreseen that the book’s title would soon become a standard, lay definition of politics, one that endures to this day.

“…there is a strong and persistent bias in who gets what based on the demographics of constituents.”

Given the importance of race, class, and immigration status in shaping American politics, two political scientists—Gerald Gamm at the University of Rochester and Thad Kousser at the University of California, San Diego—wondered how demographic characteristics might affect state spending.

Has state spending across constituencies reflected the same biases that have been shown to shape voting patterns, representation, and policymaking?

To answer that question, Gamm—an expert on Congress, state legislatures, urban politics, and modern party politics—and Kousser—a specialist on term limits, voting reforms, and state politics—took the long view, diving into historical archives and collecting data from six states for 1921, 1941, and 1961.

The researchers picked this time frame to incorporate the sweeping changes in American society and government brought first by the New Deal and then the Second World War.

Their results appear in Legislative Studies Quarterly.

As the title suggests, the duo found “clear evidence of bias” and discovered that race, class, and immigration status played important roles in how and where state legislatures spent money.

Examining historical budget and spending patterns from the state legislatures in California, Illinois, Montana, New York, Vermont, and Virginia—states selected to encompass the widest possible variety “in their region, party systems, size, level of urban development, and in their demography”—the authors discovered that certain demographic factors had a direct effect on how much a state spent on its constituents. Districts with more immigrants or larger numbers of nonwhite residents got significantly less money, while districts dominated by US-born, white Anglo constituents received more state dollars.

“We demonstrate that there is a strong and persistent bias in who gets what based on the demographics of constituents,” Gamm and Kousser write.

The researchers examined 2,517 legislative districts, along with their legislators and constituent populations, to explain spending patterns. They controlled for a host of factors, across two categories, including non-demographic features of the districts and characteristics of the individual legislators.

“Legislators themselves have been the focus in most studies of distributive politics, as scholars have examined the advantages accruing to those with more seniority, those chairing committees, and those in the majority party,” Gamm and Kousser write. But recent scholarship, they note, finds the effect of these factors “quite modest.”

There’s a reason that Gamm and Kousser stopped their historical analysis at 1961. It’s likely the same reason previous scholars have not explored the relationship between district-level spending and demographics: to isolate and test a single explanatory factor in a complex political system encompassing 48 to 50 states, over any period of time, is daunting. To develop a database of every dollar in state spending targeting a specific district—as was necessary for the study—involved hand coding of entire state budgets, line by line, to isolate district-level spending. Some budgets took a full year to code.

Given those constraints, Gamm and Kousser were not able to collect and analyze data that would have shed light on the decades since, taking us up to the current moment when racial resentment, wealth inequality, and nativist fears have featured especially prominently in American politics.

But the period they studied offers a sound basis for speculation. The New Deal brought a period of rapid growth of public spending of all sorts—a trend that accelerated in the post-World War II period. Expectations about the role of government changed dramatically, and the terms were set for a debate that persists to this day over who should receive public funds.

So while the data cannot speak directly to the current era, the scholars conclude, “we speculate that the patterns of discrimination in state spending that we uncovered have persisted to the present day, given the evidence of continuing discrimination in other realms of American life.”

Source: University of Rochester

Digital employees offer companies advantages, but there are also drawbacks, says Lingyao (Ivy) Yuan.

With the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence and spillover from Hollywood special effects, digital humans are entering the workforce. They’re sales assistants that never sleep, multilingual presenters and trainers, and social media influencers who always stay on-brand.

Yuan, assistant professor of information systems and business analytics at Iowa State University, has researched the emergence of digital humans over the last seven years. She says the new technology offers companies several big advantages. Along with their ability to work 24/7; they never ask for a raise and “always follow company policy.”

Digital employees can also be used to provide consistent service and help people share sensitive information. Yuan points to a study that found military veterans were more willing to talk about symptoms with a digital human than real-life medical professionals.

But investing in digital humans costs money and may not be the right choice for certain companies or services, says Yuan. There are also a lot of ethical questions about its use.

“As we’re seeing with ChatGPT, new tech can be a disrupter,” says Yuan. “Companies need to discuss potential impacts and unintended outcomes before jumping into the decision of implementing digital humans. My colleagues and I want to be part of the discussion. We want to provide our insights on the future direction of AI.”

To reach industry leaders, Yuan and her colleagues wrote a paper for Harvard Business Review. They drew from the latest research, including their own, and interviews with founders and CEOs of companies, like Pinscreen and EY, that have deployed digital employees. The article highlights four types of digital humans and offers guidance for companies as they consider investing in this area of AI.

“Even though digital employees are coming, is this the best time for companies to dive into it? It’s still in the early development stage and very expensive. Some companies that have used it have failed, while others have succeeded,” says Yuan.

4 types of digital humans

1. Virtual agents are for specific, one-time tasks. They provide many of the same benefits as chatbots but have a human-like appearance. Companies could use them as sales agents or for trainings. The University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine is researching how virtual agents could help future health care professionals practice identifying symptoms and medical conditions.
2. Virtual assistants also help people with specific tasks, but similar to voice control assistants like Alexa and Siri, the relationship with the user is ongoing. The researchers point to Digital Domain as an early pioneer with this technology. The company is developing digital assistants for Zoom that could take notes during a meeting, provide a summary and arrange schedules. Other potential applications include personal shopping and physical therapy.
3. Virtual influencers are similar to human influencers on social media. They promote brands and fashion trends by posting photos and video. Described as a 19-year-old robot living in LA on Instagram, Miquela (formerly Lil Miquela) has 2.8 million followers. The virtual influencer was featured in ads for Prada and a campaign with Calvin Klein, and currently has a deal with Pacsun, the teen retailer.
4. Virtual companions provide emotional support and form personal relationships with the user. The researchers see this developing technology as having the greatest impact in elder care by reducing loneliness and helping people stay in their homes longer. Along with reminding people when they need to take their medications or go to a doctor’s appointment, virtual companions will have the ability to carry conversations and show empathy.

“Currently, virtual agents are the most prevalent of the four types of digital humans, but we believe the digital human’s fullest potential is as a virtual companion,” says Yuan.

The researchers provide a flow chart in their article to help individual companies decide whether digital humans are the right choice. Questions include: Is there an emotional element to the interaction? Are users unsure of what they want? In many scenarios, using other technology offer better options.

The future of AI and digital humans

When Yuan started her PhD in 2011, interest in AI was still relatively niche. She decided to focus her research on anthropomorphism (i.e., the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to non-human entities) after seeing a picture of three rocks with googly eyes during a presentation at a social psychology seminar.

“It triggered this idea that I was seeing a rock family, but I couldn’t find much literature on the topic from my field back then,” says Yuan.

She finished her dissertation as AI pushed into the mainstream, and says it was a natural transition to shift her research focus.

“I believe the fundamental key to treating AI as a human equivalent is to evoke the process of anthropomorphism. Realistic human faces can be a strong stimulus for people to treat digital humans as if they were real, even if it’s not the only way. I believe the visual and intelligence both need to be there,” says Yuan, adding that more research is needed.

Many of her research projects have been in collaboration with Mike Seymour at the University of Sydney. Seymour was a special effects manager at Disney Studio for 20 years before switching to academia. Together, they’ve blended their areas of expertise and pulled in other faculty, Kai Riemer, University of Sydney; and Alan R. Dennis, Indiana University, to better understand how people perceive and behave with digital humans.

One of their recent studies found participants rated realistic-looking digital humans as more trustworthy compared to cartoon caricatures, especially in 3D virtual reality.

Several of their current research projects are focusing on virtual agents that look like celebrities.

“We’re used to voice control assistants like Alexa and Siri,” says Yuan. “How would people feel about being served by AI customer service that has the face and voice of Hugh Jackman?”

Other projects center on virtual assistants in Zoom and financial settings, and whether the avatar’s appearance affects how people behave or perceive information. Another compares brain activity when people interact with a digital human compared to a real person.

Source: Iowa State University

When neutron stars collide they produce an explosion that, contrary to what was believed until recently, is shaped like a perfect sphere, researchers report.

Although how this is possible is still a mystery, the discovery may provide a new key to fundamental physics and to measuring the age of the universe.

An article about the discovery appears in the journal Nature.

Kilonovae—the giant explosions that occur when two neutron stars orbit each other and finally collide—are responsible for creating both great and small things in the universe, from black holes to the atoms in the gold ring on your finger and the iodine in our bodies. They give rise to the most extreme physical conditions in the universe, and it is under these extreme conditions that the universe creates the heaviest elements of the periodic table, such as gold, platinum, and uranium.

But there is still a great deal we do not know about this violent phenomenon. When a kilonova was detected at 140 million light-years away in 2017, it was the first time scientists could gather detailed data. Scientists around the world are still interpreting the data from this colossal explosion, including Albert Sneppen and Darach Watson from the University of Copenhagen, who made a surprising discovery.

“You have two super-compact stars that orbit each other 100 times a second before collapsing. Our intuition, and all previous models, say that the explosion cloud created by the collision must have a flattened and rather asymmetrical shape,” says Sneppen, a PhD student at the Niels Bohr Institute and first author of the new study.

This is why he and his research colleagues are surprised to find that this is not the case at all for the kilonova from 2017. It is completely symmetrical and has a shape close to a perfect sphere.

“No one expected the explosion to look like this. It makes no sense that it is spherical, like a ball. But our calculations clearly show that it is. This probably means that the theories and simulations of kilonovae that we have been considering over the past 25 years lack important physics,” says Watson, associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute and second author on the study.

How does it work?

How the kilonova can be spherical is a real mystery. According to the researchers, there must be unexpected physics at play.

“The most likely way to make the explosion spherical is if a huge amount of energy blows out from the center of the explosion and smooths out a shape that would otherwise be asymmetrical. So the spherical shape tells us that there is probably a lot of energy in the core of the collision, which was unforeseen,” says Sneppen.

When the neutron stars collide, they are united, briefly as a single hypermassive neutron star, which then collapses to a black hole. The researchers speculate whether it is in this collapse that a large part of the secret is hidden.

“Perhaps a kind of ‘magnetic bomb’ is created at the moment when the energy from the hypermassive neutron star’s enormous magnetic field is released when the star collapses into a black hole. The release of magnetic energy could cause the matter in the explosion to be distributed more spherically. In that case, the birth of the black hole may be very energetic,” says Watson.

However, this theory does not explain another aspect of the researchers’ discovery. According to the previous models, while all elements produced are heavier than iron, the extremely heavy elements, such as gold or uranium, should be created in different places in the kilonova than the lighter elements such as strontium or krypton, and they should be expelled in different directions. The researchers, on the other hand, detect only the lighter elements, and they are distributed evenly in space.

They therefore believe that the enigmatic elementary particles, neutrinos, about which much is still unknown, also play a key role in the phenomenon.

“An alternative idea is that in the milliseconds that the hypermassive neutron star lives, it emits very powerfully, possibly including a huge number of neutrinos. Neutrinos can cause neutrons to convert into protons and electrons, and thus create more lighter elements overall. This idea also has shortcomings, but we believe that neutrinos play an even more important role than we thought,” says Sneppen.

A new ‘cosmic ruler’

The shape of the explosion is also interesting for an entirely different reason.

“Among astrophysicists there is a great deal of discussion about how fast the universe is expanding. The speed tells us, among other things, how old the universe is. And the two methods that exist to measure it disagree by about a billion years. Here we may have a third method that can complement and be tested against the other measurements,” says Sneppen.

The so-called “cosmic distance ladder” is the method used today to measure how fast the universe is growing. This is done simply by calculating the distance between different objects in the universe, which act as rungs on the ladder.

“If they are bright and mostly spherical, and if we know how far away they are, we can use kilonovae as a new way to measure the distance independently—a new kind of cosmic ruler,” says Watson.

“Knowing what the shape is, is crucial here, because if you have an object that is not spherical, it emits differently, depending on your sight angle,” Watson says. “A spherical explosion provide much greater precision in the measurement.”

He emphasizes that this requires data from more kilonovae. They expect that the LIGO observatories will detect many more kilonovae in the coming years.

The analyses have been carried out on data from the kilonova AT2017gfo from 2017. The researchers have analyzed data from the kilonova. Those data are the ultraviolet, optical, and infrared light from the X-shooter spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory, combined with previous analyses of gravitational waves, radio waves and data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The study is an important early result of the HEAVYMETAL collaboration, which was recently awarded an ERC Synergy grant.

Additional researchers from the Cosmic Dawn Center/Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen; GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Germany; the University of Turku, Finland; Tel Aviv University, Israel; and Queen’s University Belfast, UK, contributed to the work.

Source: University of Copenhagen

While most parents recognize that a low-grade fever helps a child’s body fight off infection, one in three would give fever-reducing medication for spiked temperatures below 100.4, a poll finds.

However, medicating low-grade fevers isn’t recommended.

Half of parents would also use medicine if the fever was between 100.4 and 101.9 degrees, and a quarter of parents would likely give another dose to prevent the fever from returning.

“Often parents worry about their child having a fever and want to do all they can to reduce their temperature. However, they may not be aware that in general the main reason to treat a fever is just to keep their child comfortable,” says pediatrician Susan Woolford, co-director of the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health at University of Michigan Health.

“Some parents may immediately rush to give their kids medicine but it’s often better to let the fever runs its course. Lowering a child’s temperature doesn’t typically help cure their illness any faster. In fact, a low-grade fever helps fight off the infection. There’s also the risk of giving too much medication when it’s not needed, which can have side effects.”

The report is based on 1,376 responses from parents of children ages 12 and under polled between August and September 2022.

For infants and newborns three months and younger, any sign of a fever should prompt a call to the provider.

Two in three parents polled say they’re very confident they know whether their child needs medication to reduce a fever. But just over half are sure they understand how temperature readings can change according to the method used.

The method used to take a child’s temperature matters and can affect the accuracy of the measurement, Woolford notes. Parents polled most commonly take their child’s temperature by forehead scan or mouth while less than a sixth use ear, underarm, or rectal methods.

Remote thermometers at the forehead or inside the ear canal can be accurate if used correctly. But forehead readings may be inaccurate, Woolford says, if the scanner is held too far away or if the child’s forehead is sweaty. With ear thermometers, which aren’t recommended for newborns, earwax can also interfere with the reading.

For infants and young children, rectal temperatures are most accurate. Once children are able to hold a thermometer in their closed mouth, oral temperatures also are accurate while armpit temperatures are the least accurate method.

“Contact thermometers use electronic heat sensors to record body temperature but temperatures may fluctuate depending on how it’s measured,” Woolford says.

“Regardless of the device used, it’s important that parents review the directions to ensure the method is appropriate for the child’s age and that the device is placed correctly when measuring temperature.”

Three in four parents say they take their child’s temperature as soon as they notice a possible problem, while a little less than a fourth wait to see if the problem continues or worsens before taking the temperature.

Two-thirds of parents also prefer to try methods like a cool washcloth before using fever-reducing medication. Most parents also say they always or usually record the time of each dose and re-take their child’s temperature before giving another dose.

“A quarter of parents would give their child more medicine to prevent a fever from returning even though it doesn’t help them get better,” Woolford says. “If a child is otherwise doing well, parents may consider monitoring them and using alternative interventions to help keep them comfortable.”

However, if a newborn or infant less than three months old has a fever, they should immediately see a health professional, Woolford adds.

She shares more tips on how to handle fevers in kids:

Let the fever do its job

A fever can be beneficial, and there are several reasons to let a low-grade fever run its course in older children—mainly because it’s working as a weapon to kill the virus or bacteria causing sickness, Woolford says.

Evidence shows that fevers are part of the immune response to prevent viruses and bacteria from replicating and also produce more white blood cells and antibodies.

Fever-reducing medications also mask symptoms.

“Medications used to lower temperatures also treat pain, but pain is often a sign that helps to locate the source of an infection,” Woolford says. “By masking pain, fever-reducing medication may delay a diagnosis being made and delay receiving treatment if needed.”

She adds that parents may also be tempted to take kids in public when they noticeably seem better after medicine when in fact they’re still highly contagious and may infect others.

Don’t overdo it

When parents choose to give fever-reducing medication, it’s helpful to keep a log of temperature readings and when they gave the child medicine. This will provide an accurate record in the event that the child’s fever continues for an extended period of time.

Parents of young children in particular should also avoid using combination cold medications along with fever-reducing medications due to the risk of over dosage.

“As we know, all medications can have side effects and we really don’t want children to get too much medication when it’s not necessary,” Woolford says.

When communicating with the child’s provider to help determine the best recommendations about treatment, it’s helpful for parents to share the timeline of the child’s fever, doses of fever-reducing medication, other symptoms and how the child is acting compared to their “usual” behavior.

Ease discomfort in other ways

Parents may consider other interventions to relieve discomfort and aid in more restful sleep instead of medicine, Woolford says.

Such approaches could include keeping their room cool and not letting them overexert themselves, as well as ensuring the child is in light clothing and encouraging them to stay well hydrated with fluids or popsicles.

Know when to call the doctor

For infants and newborns three months and younger, any sign of a fever should prompt a call to the provider.

For children 4-12 months old, parents should consult with a doctor if a fever is accompanied by signs such as decreased activity, increased fussiness, or decreased urine output. Parents should also call if their child has signs of pain or if they are not acting themselves even when their temperature comes down.

Fevers that reach 104 degrees or fevers that remain for an extended period (more than 24 hours for children under two, or more than three days for children ages two and older) should prompt contact with the provider.

Source: University of Michigan

A substance typically extracted from a rare Chinese plant may offer an effective and environmentally friendly way to control rats on a large scale, according to a new study.

And because the product impedes the ability of rats to reproduce instead of killing them, it is humane.

Rats thrive wherever there are humans. They have colonized every continent except Antarctica. Destruction and disease comes in their wake. Yet our fight against them has proven both ineffective—partly due to resistance—and dangerous to ecosystems.

“I joke a bit about this being a ‘woke’ product. It is sustainable, ethical to animals, and even strong on gender equality, as male rats are also targeted by this contraception. They become infertile for about a month after consuming it, which causes rat populations to drop dramatically,” says Johan Andersen-Ranberg of the plant and environmental sciences department at the University of Copenhagen and a founder of TripBIO, a spinout company involved in the substance’s development.

Rats are lured to a sweet and sticky liquid from a feeder developed by SenesTech, an American company. Among the sweet rat treat’s active ingredients is triptolide, a substance that makes the liquid a kind of contraceptive stew for male and female rats alike.

The substance is derived from Tripterygium wilfordii, also known as Thunder god vine, a rare Chinese vine plant that is harvested in the mountains by local gatherers. According to Andersen-Ranberg, in addition to being difficult to find and unstable in delivery, the plant also produces very little of the active substance. So little, that its value by weight is fifteen times more than gold.

As reported in Nature Communications, the researchers have found the enzymes and genes in the plant responsible for the substance, decoded the relevant DNA, and encoded it in the genetic material of a yeast. By doing so, they can ferment and produce the substance in a much faster, more stable, and, not least, cheaper way.

Dangerous rats, dangerous remedies

Extremely potent poisons are now used for rat control. But rats are cunning critters. If a poison encountered by a rat is not strong enough to kill it, the rodent will quickly find out how to avoid human traps. Furthermore, in Denmark among other places, many rats have developed resistance to milder poison variants.

The powerful poisons damage ecosystems and degrade very slowly, often taking a year before their effect is halved. During this time, birds and any scavengers that eat the rats can also receive lethal doses and carry the poison with them into the wild.

The authorities are aware of these “extremely toxic” current remedies, as the Danish Environmental Protection Agency refers to them, but allow them for a lack of alternatives and because the danger posed by rats is considered to be greater.

While nearly seven hundred years have passed since the Black Death here in Europe, as carriers of disease, rats are still considered a threat to public health. Elsewhere in the world, the problem is much greater. They are also responsible for significant economic damage. Their burrowing can damage sewer lines and even cause a home’s foundation to shift, making them a source of expensive to repair damages.

Environmental, ethical solution

The yeast developed by the researchers can be scaled to produce enough triptolide that even a problem as global and pervasive as rat control can realistically be solved with TriptoBIO as a supplier of this valuable substance.

“With our research and the yeast, we’ve now developed, we can ensure supply and get the price of triptolide down to a level where it is realistic for this environmentally friendly and ethical alternative to existing rat control to be widely used, Andersen-Ranberg says. “We are starting in the US, but are optimistic about getting the rest of the world on board.

“Initially, we will probably only make a few kilos of the substance. But when rat control using our substance grows as large as demand leaves us to believe that it will, we will be producing it by the ton. And we’ll be ready. On top of that, there are plenty of other perspectives for this substance. A number of other projects are also under development in which triptolide is a necessary ingredient. Fortunately, we can easily scale up.”

Source: Kristian Bjørn-Hansen for University of Copenhagen

Asking young people to take a short survey on a tablet before an appointment may help mental health providers identify those at risk of psychosis, according to new research.

The researchers found that when patients took a 21-question pre-visit survey, more than twice as many were identified at risk of psychosis compared to those who did not complete the survey.

But despite the improvement in detecting people at risk, the technology-based screening did not reduce the time between the participants’ first psychotic symptoms and when they received treatment.

Previous studies have shown that the longer the time between the first psychotic incident—such as hallucinations or delusions—and receiving treatment, the more severe the course of the disease.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, psychosis often begins when a person is in his or her late teens to mid-twenties. About 100,000 new cases of psychosis are diagnosed each year in the US.

“The addition of a brief screener at the initial evaluation can make a dramatic difference in clinical decision-making, helping you to realize that an individual needs specialized care,” says Tara A. Niendam, a professor and executive director of the Health Early Psychosis Programs at the University of California, Davis, and first author of the study in JAMA Psychiatry.

Delayed mental health access in US

The researchers used data from 10 community clinics and four school sites in California. Sites were divided by those that used tablets for screening (“active screening”) and those that screened using clinical judgment (“treatment as usual”).

For the sites with active screening, individuals between the ages of 12 and 30 completed a questionnaire on a tablet before their visit with a mental health care provider.

Known as the PQ-B (Prodromal Questionnaire, Brief Version), questions included “Do familiar surroundings sometimes seem strange, confusing, threatening, or unreal to you?” and “Have you seen things that other people can’t see or don’t seem to see?”

If the questionnaire score was 20 or above, the participant was offered a referral to an early psychosis clinic for further evaluation.

If you or a loved one think you may be experiencing psychosis symptoms, UC Davis Health offers a free online screening survey.

Sites not using active screening relied on clinical judgment for further evaluation and referrals to early psychosis clinics.

The researchers evaluated data from 2,432 individuals at the active-screening sites and 2,455 at the treatment-as-usual sites.

Active-screening sites reported a significantly higher detection rate of psychosis spectrum disorders, with 136 cases (5.6%), compared to 65 (2.6%) in the sites that did not use the tablet screening.

The active-screening sites also referred 13 individuals with first-episode psychosis compared to four in the sites that did not use active screening.

But despite the early detection, the data showed no statistically significant difference in the duration of untreated psychosis. The mean for the active screening group was 239 days. The mean was 262.3 for the treatment-as-usual group.

The researchers note this was likely due to multiple factors leading to delayed access to the mental health system in the US.

“On average, our participants experienced untreated psychosis for approximately six months before presenting at one of our participating clinic sites,” says coauthor Mark Savill, assistant professor in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department.

“A multifaceted approach that focuses on supporting individuals to seek help quicker and improving the pathway to appropriate services once they present for care may be necessary to achieve meaningful reductions in the duration of untreated psychosis.”

Benefits of psychosis screening

Twenty-four sites agreed to participate. However, only 10 community clinics and four school sites were able to fully implement the screening. Some study sites, such as primary care clinics, faced challenges implementing the screenings and reporting feedback; schools struggled with staffing issues and parent engagement.

The setbacks highlight some of the challenges that might be faced scaling up programs that offer the active screening. But the results highlight how many young people at risk of psychosis are not being identified with the current system.

“Population-based screening for psychosis has not been addressed systematically in the US prior to this study,” says senior author Cameron S. Carter, a professor of psychiatry and psychology and director of the UC Davis Health Imaging Research Center and the Behavioral Health Center for Excellence.

“Our increased identification of cases using the PQ-B questionnaire is an important finding. More people in this active group are getting into care,” Carter says. “That’s important because we know from previous research that individuals who are identified and receive treatment at the very early stages in their illness are likely to have the best outcomes.”

Additional coauthors are from the University of California, San Francisco; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; and UC Davis.

The National Institute of Mental Health funded the work.

Source: UC Davis

Deaths during pregnancy and the first year postpartum increased by 35% in the first nine months of the pandemic compared to the prior year, according to a new study.

The research found that deaths due to drugs, homicides, obstetric causes, and motor vehicle accidents all increased by 25%-55% during that period.

Only pregnancy-associated suicides declined during 2019-20, says study lead author Claire Margerison, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics in the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.

“We suspect these deaths are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of morbidity and suffering due to mental health, intimate partner violence, and substance use during pregnancy and postpartum,” says Margerison, a population health scientist in the epidemiology and biostatistics department. “These causes of death have been increasing over time, but it appears the pandemic exacerbated the ongoing upward trend in these deaths.”

For the study, published in JAMA Network Open, the researchers looked at death certificate records between 2018-20 of female US residents ages 15 to 44. The certificates have a standardized pregnancy box asking whether the decedent was pregnant at the time of death, within 42 days of death, or between 43 days and one year of death. All three categories were included as pregnancy-associated deaths. After calculating the pregnancy-associated death ratio, which previous studies had looked at, the researchers also looked at causes of death.

According to the report, the overall pregnancy-associated death ratio in 2020 was 66.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, an increase of 35% from the previous year. In that period, deaths due to drugs increased 55%; homicides by 41%; obstetric causes by 28%, and other causes (primarily motor vehicle accidents) by nearly 57%.

“Pregnancy is considered a window of opportunity for screening and prevention related to physical, mental, and behavioral health,” Margerison says. “Our data suggest that such opportunities were missed for hundreds of families during the pandemic.

“There is a critical need for prevention and intervention efforts—including harm reduction strategies—tailored to pregnant and postpartum people, particularly during times of population stress and decreased utilization of preventive care, such as a pandemic.”

Margerison says the study adds to the growing literature showing the impact the pandemic had on pregnancy-associated deaths, and that the team is planning on looking at other demographic patterns such as location and race/ethnicity to see how the pandemic affected different populations.

“We know that there are substantial and persistent inequities in these deaths by race and ethnicity,” Margerison says, adding they also are looking to better understand the pandemic’s impact on pregnant people.

“We’re looking at other data sets to understand how many people are going into emergency departments for similar issues or how many people are getting care in an outpatient setting. We want to understand the magnitude of the iceberg underneath the surface,” she says.

Additional coauthors are from Michigan State; the University of California, Merced; and Johns Hopkins University.

Source: Michigan State

A new way to measure the length of a single telomere could provide information on how rapidly we are aging and what we need to do to slow it down.

Telomeres—the caps at the ends of chromosomes that protect our genetic materials from the brunt of cellular wear and tear—are known to shorten and fray over time. Lifestyle, diet, and stress can exacerbate this process, leading to early loss of telomere protection and increasing the chances of early aging and lifestyle diseases, such as cancer and heart diseases.

To date, approaches for measuring biological aging based on telomere length have been limited as they can only ascertain average telomere lengths within a pool of DNA fragments, or are time-consuming and require highly-skilled specialists.

Being able to accurately and efficiently measure the length of an individual’s telomeres could open the doors to developing lifestyle interventions that slow aging and prevent disease.

“We applied a novel approach that uses DNA sequences—we call them ‘telobaits’—to latch onto the ends of telomeres in large pools of DNA fragments, like fishing in pond. Then, with specific scissor-like enzymes, we snip the telomeres out of the pools,” says Li Shang, associate professor with the Duke-NUS Cancer & Stem Cell Biology Programme and senior author of the study in Nature Communications.

“Using high-throughput genetic sequencing technology, we were able to read the DNA ‘letters’ that comprised each individual telomere, allowing us to very precisely measure their lengths.”

The team successfully validated this approach when they tested it using human cell lines and patient cells. Interestingly, the sequencing results revealed that the genetic sequences within certain parts of the telomeres, known as telomeric variant sequences, were distinct to each individual person.

“Based on this insight, a future area of study for us is the possible use of telomeric variant sequences as a means of biological identification, which could potentially prove useful for expanding the field of forensic science,” Li says.

The team believes this new approach could be used as a predictive biomarker for human aging and disease at the individual level, as well as for population-level studies on the impacts of lifestyle, diet, and the environment on human health.

“This method for telomere length measurement is an important advance in the field of aging research,” says senior coauthor Angela Koh, associate professor who is senior consultant with the department of cardiology at NHCS and associate professor with the SingHealth Duke-NUS Cardiovascular Sciences Academic Clinical Programme.

“From the clinical perspective, we view this as a very promising method for understanding clinical diseases associated with aging such as cardiovascular disease. Our partnership signifies what can be achieved by clinician-and-biomedical scientists to bring complex lab methods towards simpler, quantifiable methods that may be used in broader clinical labs in the future.”

Additional coauthors are from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore; the National University of Singapore; A*STAR’s Genome Institute of Singapore and Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology; National Cancer Centre Singapore; Singapore General Hospital; the SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine; Kumamoto University (Japan); Guangzhou Medical University (China); the Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen (China); Shanghai University (China); and the University of California, Davis.

Source: Duke-NUS

Climate change and the projected savannization of the Brazilian Amazon threaten most land-based mammals that live there, new research shows.

“We’re losing Amazon forest as we speak.”

Threatened animals include jaguars, ocelots, anteaters, and capybara, but also animals that use both forest and savanna habitats, such as pumas and giant armadillos.

The study in the journal Animal Conservation also illustrates how species and lands protected through local conservation efforts are not immune to global climate change.

“We’re losing Amazon forest as we speak,” says lead author Daniel Rocha, who conducted the research as a doctoral student in the department of wildlife, fish, and conservation biology department at the University of California, Davis.

“The Amazon’s biodiversity is very susceptible to climate change effects. It’s not just local; it’s a global phenomenon. We cannot stop this just by law enforcement, for example. These species are more susceptible than we realized, and even protected areas can’t protect them as much as we thought.”

‘Savannization’ in the Brazilian Amazon

Pristine savanna is a unique biome that supports a diverse array of life. But “savannization” here refers to when lush rainforest gives way to a drier, open landscape that resembles savanna but is actually degraded forest. Local deforestation and global climate changes in temperature and precipitation favor this conversion along the southern and eastern edges of the Brazilian Amazon.

Arboreal species like monkeys clearly will be affected by such changes. But the study’s authors wanted to better understand how land-based mammals are expected to fare—especially those who use both forest and savanna habitats when they have access to both.

“Unfortunately, there are more losers than winners.”

The researchers conducted camera trap surveys of land-based mammals in four protected areas of the southern Brazilian Amazon, which is a mixture of rainforest and natural Cerrado, or savanna. Using statistical models, they quantified how savanna habitat affected 31 species. They then looked for differences among species known to use mostly rainforest, savanna, or both habitats.

The results showed that only a few species preferred savanna habitat. Rocha notes that the models were based on pristine—not degraded—savanna, so the negative effects of savannization among animals will likely be even stronger.

Riparian forests, which line the wet edges of rivers and streams, helped buffer the effects of savannization to some extent.

Rainforest winners and losers

“Unfortunately, there are more losers than winners,” says Rocha, who is currently an assistant professor at Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma. “Most Amazon species, when they can choose between good forests and good savanna, they choose the forest. That’s true even for species considered ‘generalists,’ which use both habitats. As we lose forests, they suffer, too.”

The results indicate that if climate-driven savannization causes species to lose access to their preferred habitat, it will reduce the ability of even protected areas to safeguard wildlife. The authors say that should be considered when assessing the potential climate-change effects on these species.

Rahel Sollmann, Rocha’s former advisor at UC Davis who is now at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, Germany, is a coauthor of the study.

The CAPES-Ministry of Education in Brazil, the National Geographic Society, Horodas Family Foundation for Conservation Research, the Explorers Club, Alongside Wildlife Foundation, and the Hellman Foundation funded the work. This study received logistical support from ICMBio.

Source: UC Davis