For a long time now, we have known modern birds evolved from certain lineages of dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago. This has led researchers to look to dinosaurs to explain some of the features unique to birds, for example, feathers, bone structure and so on. But there’s something special about the wings of birds in particular that piqued the interest of researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Department of Earth and Planetary Science.

“At the leading edge of a bird’s wing is a structure called the propatagium, which contains a muscle connecting the shoulder and wrist that helps the wing flapping and makes bird flight possible,” said Associate Professor Tatsuya Hirasawa. “It’s not found in other vertebrates, and it’s also found to have disappeared or lost its function in flightless birds, one of the reasons we know it’s essential for flight. So, in order to understand how flight evolved in birds, we must know how the propatagium evolved. This is what prompted us to explore some distant ancestors of modern birds, theropod dinosaurs.”

Theropod dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, had arms not wings. If the scientists could find evidence of an early example of the propatagium in these dinosaurs, it would help explain how the modern avian branch of the tree of life transitioned from arms to wings. However, it’s not so simple, as the propatagium is made up of soft tissues which do not fossilize well, if at all, so direct evidence might not be possible to find. Instead, the researchers had to find an indirect way to identify the presence or lack of a propatagium in a specimen.

“The solution we came up with to assess the presence of a propatagium was to collect data about the angles of joints along the arm, or wing, of a dinosaur or bird,” said Yurika Uno, a graduate student at Hirasawa’s lab. “In modern birds, the wings cannot fully extend due to the propatagium, constraining the range of angles possible between connecting sections. If we could find a similarly specific set of angles between joints in dinosaur specimens, we can be fairly sure they too possessed a propatagium. And through quantitative analyses of the fossilized postures of birds and nondinosaurs, we found the telltale ranges of joint angles we hoped to.”

Based on this clue, the team found that the propatagium likely evolved in a group of dinosaurs known as the maniraptoran theropods, including the famous Velociraptor. This was backed up when the researchers identified the propatagium in preserved soft tissue fossils, including those of the feathered oviraptorosaurian Caudipteryx and winged dromaeosaurian Microraptor. All the specimens they found it in existed prior to the evolution of flight in that lineage.

This research means it’s now known when the propatagium came into being, and it leads researchers on to the next question of how it came to be. Why these particular theropod species needed such a structure to better adapt to their environment might be a harder question to answer. The team has already begun exploring possible connections between the fossil evidence and embryonic development of modern vertebrates to see if that will shed any light on it. The team also thinks some theropods might have evolved the propatagium not because of any pressure to learn to fly, as their forelimbs were made for grasping objects and not for flying.

“Dinosaurs portrayed in popular media are becoming more and more accurate,” said Hirasawa. “At least now we get to see features like feathers, but I hope we can see an even more up-to-date representation soon where theropods have their propatagium too.”

Maltreatment during childhood is an especially serious risk factor for health problems in the exposed individual, as it brings a host of lifelong consequences. Among the impacts are physical, mental, behavioral, and social ramifications that can continue through pregnancy and parenthood. As a result, adverse experiences during the parents’ childhood can affect their own children’s development and health.

Higher risk of asthma, ADHD, autism, and depression

In the newly published study, a team of researchers headed by Dr. Claudia Buss, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité, shows that health problems are more common in children of mothers who experienced maltreatment themselves as children. The researchers define maltreatment as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse or neglect by a parent or guardian leading to physical or emotional harm or the threat of harm to a child. They analyzed data on more than 4,300 American mothers and their children from 21 long-term cohorts. Mothers reported on their childhood experiences and provided information on health diagnoses in their biological children up to the age of 18, or this information was collected during visits conducted as part of the study. This valuable trove of data extending across two generations of the same family allowed researchers to identify meaningful connections.

They found that children of mothers who reported adverse experiences were at higher risk of asthma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism. These children also have a higher incidence of symptoms and behaviors associated with depression and anxiety disorders, which are known as “internalizing” disorders. Daughters of mothers in this group are also at higher risk of obesity than their sons. “All of these connections are independent of whether the mother has the same diagnosis,” explains Buss, the study’s lead author. “That suggests that the risk of that particular health problem is not being transmitted genetically.”

First study to cover multiple health outcomes

Researchers have not yet fully decoded the exact mechanisms by which the risk is passed on to the next generation. There are indications that adverse childhood experiences could affect maternal biology during pregnancy, as for example stress hormones. This can affect fetal development in a way that the offspring become more vulnerable for impaired health. There is evidence that biological changes like these are more pronounced in mothers who have developed mental health problems, such as depression, as a consequence of their traumatic experiences. If the mother’s mental health is affected by her childhood experiences, this may also impact on how she interacts with her child once it is born, which is likely to be just as important a factor in these multigenerational effects.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine multiple health problems at once in relation to early trauma in mothers in a large, sociodemographically and ethnically diverse sample. That has been done primarily for individual diseases in the past,” explains Dr. Nora Moog, also from the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité and first author of the publication. In keeping with this approach, the researchers showed that children of mothers exposed to early trauma are at greater likelihood of developing multiple physical and mental health problems. The risk is also greater the more serious the mother’s childhood experiences were. “At the same time, I should stress that our findings do not mean that all children of mothers with adverse childhood experiences automatically end up with health problems,” Buss says, providing context for the group’s findings. “The risk is elevated, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to a specific health problem.”

Early identification and support for those affected

“I assume that appropriate support for mothers who suffer from the consequences of childhood maltreatment can have a positive effect on their health and well-being and that of their children. That means it’s very important to identify these mothers and children early on,” Buss points out. One way to do this would be to have doctors address parents’ own childhood experiences during prenatal or pediatric checkups and provide information on how to contact various support programs or counseling services. This kind of early intervention could help two generations: the parent, who experienced maltreatment and may be suffering from health consequences; and the child, who could be prevented from developing health problems.

Developing new, targeted therapeutic measures will depend on better understanding the exact mechanisms by which the elevated risk of health problems is passed on to the next generation. The research team is currently working on that. The researchers also plan to conduct follow-up studies to investigate which children remain resilient, meaning they do not suffer consequences beyond one generation: What makes them, their mothers, and their social environment different? Beyond that, the father’s childhood experiences have received relatively little attention so far, but there are indications that these experiences can also be passed on to the next generation, albeit in some cases by different mechanisms than those involved in mother-child transmission. The researchers plan to explore these research questions in further detail in future projects as well.

About the study

The international team of researchers analyzed the data of 4,337 American mothers from 21 long-term cohorts with an eye to the mothers’ childhood experiences. They also examined information on health diagnoses in the mothers’ biological children up to the age of 18. The cohort data were provided by a research program named Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO). ECHO encompasses 69 cohorts in the United States. It is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Claudia Buss, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité and adjunct professor at the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California Irvine, led the study. She is a principal investigator of a research group within the ECHO consortium and has furthermore received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) and funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

“These objects are way more massive? than anyone expected,” said Joel Leja, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, who modeled light from these galaxies. “We expected only to find tiny, young, baby galaxies at this point in time, but we’ve discovered galaxies as mature as our own in what was previously understood to be the dawn of the universe.”

Using the first dataset released from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the international team of scientists discovered objects as mature as the Milky Way when the universe was only 3% of its current age, about 500-700 million years after the Big Bang. The telescope is equipped with infrared-sensing instruments capable of detecting light that was emitted by the most ancient stars and galaxies. Essentially, the telescope allows scientists to see back in time roughly 13.5 billion years, near the beginning of the universe as we know it, Leja explained.

“This is our first glimpse back this far, so it’s important that we keep an open mind about what we are seeing,” Leja said. “While the data indicates they are likely galaxies, I think there is a real possibility that a few of these objects turn out to be obscured supermassive black holes. Regardless, the amount of mass we discovered means that the known mass in stars at this period of our universe is up to 100 times greater than we had previously thought. Even if we cut the sample in half, this is still an astounding change.”

In a paper published today (Feb. 22) in Nature, the researchers show evidence that the six galaxies are far more massive than anyone expected and call into question what scientists previously understood about galaxy formation at the very beginning of the universe.

“The revelation that massive galaxy formation began extremely early in the history of the universe upends what many of us had thought was settled science,” said Leja. “We’ve been informally calling these objects ‘universe breakers’ — and they have been living up to their name so far.”

Leja explained that the galaxies the team discovered are so massive that they are in tension with 99% percent of models for cosmology. Accounting for such a high amount of mass would require either altering the models for cosmology or revising the scientific understanding of galaxy formation in the early universe — that galaxies started as small clouds of stars and dust that gradually grew larger over time. Either scenario requires a fundamental shift in our understanding of how the universe came to be, he added.

“We looked into the very early universe for the first time and had no idea what we were going to find,” Leja said. “It turns out we found something so unexpected it actually creates problems for science. It calls the whole picture of early galaxy formation into question.”

On July 12, NASA released the first full-color images and spectroscopic data from the James Webb Space Telescope. The largest infrared telescope in space, Webb was designed to see the genesis of the cosmos, its high resolution allowing it to view objects too old, distant or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.

“When we got the data, everyone just started diving in and these massive things popped out really fast,” Leja said. “We started doing the modeling and tried to figure out what they were, because they were so big and bright. My first thought was we had made a mistake and we would just find it and move on with our lives. But we have yet to find that mistake, despite a lot of trying.”

Leja explained that one way to confirm the team’s finding and alleviate any remaining concerns would be to take a spectrum image of the massive galaxies. That would provide the team data on the true distances, and also the gasses and other elements that made up the galaxies. The team could then use the data to model a clearer of picture of what the galaxies looked like, and how massive they truly were.

“A spectrum will immediately tell us whether or not these things are real,” Leja said. “It will show us how big they are, how far away they are. What’s funny is we have all these things we hope to learn from James Webb and this was nowhere near the top of the list. We’ve found something we never thought to ask the universe — and it happened way faster than I thought, but here we are.”

The other co-authors on the paper are Elijah Mathews and Bingjie Wang of Penn State, Ivo Labbe of the Swinburne University of Technology, Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University, Erica Nelson of the University of Colorado, Rachel Bezanson of the University of Pittsburgh, Katherine A. Suess of the University of California and Stanford University, Gabriel Brammer of the University of Copenhagen, Katherine Whitaker of the University of Massachusetts and the University of Copenhagen, and Mauro Stefanon of the Universitat de Valencia.

This magnetic sense, or ‘magnetoreception’, was first noticed in birds, and particularly in migratory songbirds. It has now been observed in many other species including mammals, fish and insects. However, the exact relationship between the magnetic field and the behaviour is difficult to pin down because it can be masked by other environmental factors. Experiments must be very carefully designed if their results are to be statistically sound.

“We aim to provide a balanced overview for researchers who wish to enter this exciting area of sensory biology,” explains Schneider. He and his co-authors outlined a range of methods that are used to deduce whether an animal’s behaviour is affected by a magnetic field. These include using GPS to mark animals’ alignment with the Earth’s field during normal activities, such as cows grazing; observing behaviour after tissues thought to be responsible for magnetoreception have been removed, or genes knocked out; and attaching small magnets on or near the animals’ bodies to disrupt the mechanism. Further work by animal physiologists, neuroscientists, geneticists and others will also be necessary to truly understand this phenomenon.

And this research is not only of academic interest. “Understanding animal magnetoreception will help us to protect animals released into unknown environments in the wild,” adds Lindecke.

The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, comprises a total of more than 11,000 women who had given birth vaginally in Sweden, twice, in the years 1987-2000.

The researchers have previously described how the risk of accidental bowel leakage increases after obstetric anal sphincter injuries (OASIs) during childbirth. The present study focuses on the severity of these problems and their potential impact on women’s lives two decades later.

Three groups were studied: women who had no anal sphincter injuries, those who incurred the OASI during one of the births, and those with an OASI both times they gave birth. The data analysed came from the Swedish National Birth Register and replies to a questionnaire concerning the women’s symptoms of bowel leakage and the psychological impact and effect on social life of the incontinence after 20 years.

Problems increase with number of injuries

Of the women with two OASIs, 10.5 percent report leakage of liquid feces two times or more monthly; this is categorized in the study as high-frequency anal incontinence. When the women with low-frequency incontinence are included as well, the proportion is 34.9 percent. Of all the women with two injuries, 29.6 percent state that leakage affects their everyday life.

The results thereafter follow a descending scale. Of the women with one anal sphincter injury, 6.4 percent report high-frequency leakage and 21.7 percent leakage of both high and low frequency. For 19.7 percent of the latter, the injury affects their everyday life. Of the women with no OASI, 2.7 percent report high-frequency leakage and 10.8 percent either high- or low-frequency leakage, while 8.6 percent report that the incontinence impacts everyday life.

In terms of the severity of these problems, going from no injury to one injury is roughly equivalent to the step from one to two injuries. Thus, the problems are cumulative, and this is also reflected in the women’s subjective perception of how their everyday lives are affected by fecal incontinence.

Incontinence pads for fecal leakage are used by 2.3 percent of the women with no OASI, 7.1 percent of those with one OASI and 8.4 percent of those with two OASIs. The study found no influence of OASIs on other pelvic floor disorders or symptoms in the lower urinary tract.

Major impact on quality of life

Attitudes vary, too. In women with no OASI, fecal incontinence is found “bothersome” by 28.2 percent. The corresponding share in the group with one injury is 43.9 percent, against 46.0 percent among those with two injuries.

The first and corresponding author of the study is Ida Nilsson, a researcher affiliated with Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, in obstetrics and gynecology. She is also a resident obstetrician at Södra Älvsborg Hospital Women’s Clinic in Borås.

“An anal sphincter injury considerably raises the risk of accidental bowel leakage later in life. With repetition of the injury, the risk of persistent fecal incontinence is doubled. The degree of severity also rises, with a higher frequency of leakage occasions, more severe incontinence, and a greater impact on quality of life,” Nilsson states.