The findings, which are reported in the journal Science Advances, are based on an analysis of more than 630 billion words drawn from internet web pages, using artificial intelligence tools to measure what words mean based on how they are used by millions of individuals.

“Many forms of bias, such as the tendency to associate ‘science’ with men more than women, have been studied in the past, but there has been much less work on how we view a ‘person,’ ” says April Bailey, a postdoctoral researcher in New York University’s Department of Psychology and the lead author of the paper.

“Our findings show that even when using gender-neutral terms, we prioritize men over women,” adds co-author Adina Williams, a research scientist at Meta AI and a graduate of NYU’s doctoral program in linguistics.

Bias at such a foundational level — our word choices — is potentially consequential, the researchers note.

“Conceptions of ‘people’ form the basis of many societal decisions and policymaking,” observes Andrei Cimpian, a professor in New York University’s Department of Psychology and the senior author of the paper. “Because men and women are each about half of the species, prioritizing men in our collective idea of a ‘person’ creates inequity for women in decisions based on this idea.”

The research team examined words’ meanings by considering how they are used by individuals. Specifically, the team studied how we use words expressing the concept of “person” and its gender-specific counterparts, “woman” and “man.”

To test whether we’re likely to think of men more often than we are of women when writing about “people,” the team used artificial intelligence algorithms that learn the meaning of words based on how they are used, drawing from a language repository collected by the non-profit Common Crawl in May 2017. This repository included more than 630 billion mostly English-language words appearing on nearly three billion web pages.

The researchers considered how word meaning is related to word context and use. For example, if you hear, “Each morning, Joe boiled water in the balak for tea,” you might guess that “balak” means something similar to “kettle,” even though “balak” is unfamiliar, because the words alongside “balak” (“tea,” “boiled,” and “water”) also frequently co-occur with “kettle.”

In the Science Advances paper, the researchers investigated, in three studies, the meaning of “person” and related words (e.g., “people”) by taking into account adjacent words — the linguistic context.

In the first study, they compared the similarity in meaning (inferred via linguistic context) between words for people (e.g., “individual”) and words for men (e.g., “he” and “male”) to the similarity in meaning between words for people and words for women (e.g., “she” and “female”).

They found that words for people were used more similarly, and were thus more similar in their meaning, to words for men than to words for women — and by a statistically significant margin. Put another way, the collective concept “people” overlapped more with the concept “men” than with the concept “women” in the studied words.

In the second study, instead of focusing on words for people, the team examined words denoting features central to this concept — specifically, words for traits that commonly describe what people are like. They compared hundreds of trait words identified in past research as common descriptors of people (e.g., “extroverted,” “analytical,” and “superstitious”) to the same lists of words for women and for men from the paper’s initial study.

They found that the meaning of these descriptor words in the second study were, overall, more similar to the meaning of words for men than to the meaning of words for women, with a statistically significant difference between the two. That is, common words that describe what people are like (e.g., “extroverted”) are also used more similarly to words for men than to words for women.

In a third study, the researchers studied the use of verbs — a reasonable area for exploration given the initial findings. Specifically, if the collective concept “people” overlaps more with the concept “men” than with the concept “women,” then words that describe what people do and what is done to them (e.g., “love,” “annoy”) may also be more likely to be similar in their contextual meaning to words denoting men than to words denoting women.

In this study, they compared the meaning similarities between more than 250 verbs that describe actions that people take (e.g., “facilitate,” “smile,” and “threaten”) and words for men vs. words for women.

As with the second study, which focused on common words that describe what people are like, words that describe what people do (e.g., “run”) were also used more similarly to words for men than to words for women — a difference that was again statistically significant.

Using mice, the team discovered that zinc is needed for the development of disease-fighting immune cells called T cells and prompts regeneration of the thymus, the immune organ that produces T cells.

“This study adds to our knowledge of what zinc is actually doing in the immune system and suggests a new therapeutic strategy for improving recovery of the immune system,” said senior author Dr. Jarrod Dudakov, an immunologist at Fred Hutch.

The study also revealed that an experimental compound that mimics zinc’s action in this organ works even better than the natural mineral to promote immune recovery.

“We are now looking into how zinc may fit in with our other discoveries of how the immune system repairs itself and could eventually lead to therapies to improve immune function for people who receive a blood stem cell transplant for a blood cancer or people with chronic immune decline that accompanies aging,” Dudakov said.

Thymic regeneration and immune function, and zinc

Previously, Dudakov and his team have outlined the molecular pathways and cell types that govern how the immune system’s thymus repairs itself after injury. Such treatments could improve vaccine efficacy and hasten thymic regeneration after stressors like chemotherapy, blood stem cell transplant and radiation exposure.

Dudakov began studying zinc a few years ago when Dr. Lorenzo Iovino, the study’s first author and a research associate at Fred Hutch, joined Dudakov’s lab. Since the scientists knew that low levels of zinc are linked to fewer infection fighting T cells and a shrunken thymus, where T cells develop, Dudakov and Iovino explored how to supplement with zinc in mouse models where the immune system is damaged.

Iovino, who’s also a blood stem cell transplant physician, had shown in a previous study that zinc could boost immune recovery in patients undergoing stem-cell transplants for the blood cancer multiple myeloma.

But the study didn’t explain why zinc was helping.

Zinc is critical for T-cell development and thymic regeneration

As in humans, Iovino and Dudakov found that the thymuses of mice deprived of dietary zinc shrink and produce notably fewer mature T cells, even after as little as three weeks of a no-zinc diet. Iovino was able to show that without zinc, T cells cannot fully mature.

He also found that zinc deficiency slows recovery of T-cell numbers after mice receive immune-destroying treatments akin to those given to patients about to receive a blood stem cell transplant.

Conversely, extra zinc speeds this process, and T cells recover faster than normal. The team saw a similar result in a mouse model of blood stem cell transplant.

“So we had a consistent result of a better reconstitution of the thymus and also a better reconstitution of T cells in the peripheral blood after zinc supplementation,” Iovino said. “But we still didn’t know how exactly zinc was working.”

Iovino discovered that it was the change in zinc levels around cells that release a key regenerative factor that seemed to kick off the thymus’ renewal processes. T cells accumulate zinc as they develop, but release it after a damaging event — like a burst of radiation — kills them off.

Cells use a molecule called GPR39 to sense a change in external zinc, and Iovino found that an experimental compound that mimics rising external zinc levels by stimulating GPR39 could also promote renewal factor release and thymic regeneration.

“What we think is going on is, as you give zinc supplementation, that gets accumulated within the developing T cells. It gets stored and stored and stored, then the damage comes along and the zinc is released,” Dudakov said. “Now you have more zinc than you normally would, and it can instigate this regenerative pathway. With the experimental compound we can just directly target GPR39 and basically get the same effect without any of that pretreatment.”

Getting to the clinic

There’s still a lot to learn before they can turn their findings to therapeutic strategies, the scientists said.

Transplant patients already receive mineral supplements, so if extra zinc were to be incorporated into their treatment regimens, it would be important to make sure that anyone receiving it is truly zinc-deficient. Iovino thinks many patients might be, but right now there isn’t a good test to assess this. He’s currently working on developing one, which would first be used to help researchers determine whether patients’ zinc status correlates with immune recovery after blood stem cell transplant.

Dudakov will pursue GPR39-stimulating compounds as therapies to improve thymic recovery after acute injuries like pre-transplant radiation. The team is currently screening similar compounds to find any that may be more effective.

He and Iovino are also working to determine whether such compounds could help with thymic regeneration in other settings. Unfortunately, our thymuses also slowly shrink and reduce their T-cell output as we age. Dudakov and Iovino would also like to know whether this chronic degeneration could be slowed by boosting the organ’s regenerative processes.

“Our lab is continuing to piece together the molecular players that contribute to thymus regrowth,” Dudakov said. “Ultimately, we aim to develop therapies that trigger natural regeneration and restore immune health.”

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Society of Hematology and The Rotary Foundation.

In an endeavor to make a more efficient product immune to ice for such demanding industries and consumers, Sushant Anand, UIC assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Rukmava Chatterjee, a UIC Ph.D. student, have developed a longer-lasting alternative to conventional deicers. They say it could also benefit other industries.

“We questioned the lifetime of the cryoprotectants and looked at new ways to increase their effectivity,” Anand said. “Glycols dissolve very fast in the water and get washed away before the plane takes off, and it’s a serious problem that costs hundreds of millions of dollars — most of which literally ends up in the drain. We thought, why not improve such chemicals themselves, and make alternatives that can last longer while being more biofriendly. And that is what we ended up doing.”

To accomplish their goal, the researchers developed an extensive family of more than 80 anti-freezing coatings, which can be classified as polymeric solutions, emulsions, creams and gels. The formulations can be easily applied to aluminum, steel, copper, glass, plastic or any industrial surface without preconditioning or expensive surface treatments.

“Our coatings are an all-in-one package which can delay formation of frost for extended hours and simultaneously cause any ice formed on its surface to easily shed off by a gentle breeze or simple substrate tilting,” Chatterjee said.

Their work is reported in an Advanced Materials article titled “A family of frost-resistant and icephobic coatings.”

The coatings are a family of phase change material-based formulations and multifunctional coatings which can tailor solid foulant adhesion on functional surfaces, ranging from ice to bacteria, irrespective of their inherent material structure and chemistry. This was engineered by regulating how chemicals leach out of the material system and by creating a lubricating surface layer that is both slippery and non-freezing in nature.

The anti-freezing gels are also transparent, which is critical for applications like traffic signals, runway lights that assist pilots during landings, automotive windshields or building windows.

“Imagine coating your smartwatch with our gel that can inhibit ice accretion in the chilly negatives while simultaneously preventing any bacterial contamination,” Chatterjee said.

“Since our anti-icing sprays are bio-friendly and anti-bacterial, we even think there is a potential to use them in agriculture to prevent crops from being ruined by severe frost,” Anand said. “But that is a pipe dream, and we need to do more studies to see if there will be any long-term adverse effect on the plants.”

A worldwide patent application titled “Compositions and Methods for Inhibiting Ice Formation on Surfaces” has been filed by UIC’s Office of Technology Management.

“There is great potential in these materials for many applications, and I think the day when commercial versions of our materials come out just got closer,” Anand said.

Anand Research Group members Hassan Bararnia and Umesh Chaudhuri collaborated with Chatterjee on the experiments.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Illinois Chicago. Original written by David Staudacher. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

In a new study published this week in the Journal of Biogeography, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, provide the first detailed description of the stunning array of fungi that make their home on the Polynesian island of Mo’orea. The collection includes more than 200 species of macrofungi — that is, fungi producing visible, fruiting bodies — many of which may be new to science.

“It’s like a treasure trove,” said study lead author Matteo Garbelotto, cooperative extension specialist and adjunct professor of environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley. “It’s truly uncharted territory in evolutionary biology and biodiversity of the fungal kingdom, and this is one the first attempts to generate baseline information on fungal diversity, not just for Mo’orea, but for the entire and vast Insular Oceania region.”

As part of the Mo’orea Biocode Project, the study team spent months trekking across the island in search of new species of fungi, ultimately gathering a total of 553 fungal specimens and sequencing the DNA of 433 of them. Because only a handful of the sequenced specimens have exact genetic matches with other known species, the Mo’orea collections are likely to contain completely new species.

By comparing the DNA sequences of these fungi to those of other species around the world, the team was also able to piece together where the fungal biodiversity on the remote island may have originated. The findings suggest that the majority of the species, or their ancestors, were carried by easterly winds from Australia or other South Pacific islands, though a small number may have been brought to Mo’orea by humans from far-flung locations like East Asia, Europe and South America.

“We were really interested in the biodiversity of the island,” said study first author Todd Osmundson, who completed the work as a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. “Mo’orea is an island in the middle of the ocean, and it’s a geologically young volcanic island. It’s never touched another piece of land. How did fungi get there, and where did they come from?”

Understanding both the biodiversity of fungi on the island and how different species have traveled around the world to arrive at this remote location can help as scientists grapple with the ongoing impacts of global travel and trade on biodiversity.

“The Mo’orea BioCode project was the first all-taxa-survey of a tropical island to include DNA vouchers and other associated information. It included all organisms from marine and terrestrial habitats and everything larger than bacteria,” said George Roderick, William Muriece Hoskins Professor of environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley. “Since, the data has proven to be enormously valuable in monitoring the impacts of global change on Mo’orea but also on other tropical Pacific Islands.”

‘Every day we had a different challenge’

The Mo’orea Biocode Project was led by Neil Davies, executive director of UC Berkeley’s Gump South Pacific Research Station, and ran from 2007 to 2010. One of the motivations for the project was to create a model ecosystem that could be used to answer fundamental questions about how ecosystems work.

“Fungi are really important parts of ecosystems,” said Osmundson, who is currently a professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. “They act as primary decomposers, and in some cases (as) pathogens that break down decaying organic matter and recycle the nutrients into forms that other organisms can use. They’re also really important as symbionts. They live with other organisms and benefit that organism in exchange for other things. For instance, some fungi will attach to the roots of plants and exchange nutrients with them.”

To collect the specimens, the research team spent months on Mo’orea, beginning before dawn each day to gather samples of fungi from all corners of the ecosystem, including the soil, the roots and leaves of plants, and even the air.

As the heat and humidity rose throughout the day, the outdoor conditions would often become inhospitable to both the scientists and the delicate fruiting bodies of the fungi they had collected. By early afternoon, they would take their samples back to the lab and begin the process of documenting and culturing the specimens they had found, often staying up late into the night to complete their work.

“The terrain on the island is incredibly steep, and when it rains it becomes incredibly muddy, and a lot of areas are not managed. So, every day we had a different challenge,” Garbelotto said. “There are some slopes that you can only really explore on ropes. I remember being attached to a rope with my hands sticking out on the precipice, trying to collect a mushroom that was growing on a little outcrop where you couldn’t possibly walk.“

Each of the specimens was photographed and dried for storage in the University Herbarium and compared to databases of known species. As part of the biocode project, the research team also obtained DNA sequences of a specific gene that can be used as a unique “barcode” to differentiate one species from another.

“In many ways, Mo’orea is not a pristine island, and that actually makes it more interesting to me,” Garbelotto said. “The island has completely pristine areas and also has areas that have been inhabited and deeply changed by humans, starting with the arrival of Polynesians 3,000 years ago and continuing until relatively recently with the arrival of the French, the English and the Americans. Compared to places that are completely pristine, Mo’orea is more interesting to me because it’s more representative of what the world actually is.”

Additional co-authors of the paper are Sarah E. Bergemann of Middle Tennessee State University and Rikke Rasmussen, who worked on DNA sequencing as a volunteer at UC Berkeley. The Moorea Biocode Project was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.