“When people base their self-worth on financial success, they experience feelings of pressure and a lack of autonomy, which are associated with negative social outcomes,” says Lora Park, an associate professor of psychology at UB and one of the paper’s co-authors.

“Feeling that pressure to achieve financial goals means we’re putting ourselves to work at the cost of spending time with loved ones, and it’s that lack of time spent with people close to us that’s associated with feeling lonely and disconnected,” says Deborah Ward, a UB graduate student and adjunct faculty member at the UB’s psychology department who led the research on a team that also included Ashley Whillans, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, Kristin Naragon-Gainey, at the University of Western Australia, and Han Young Jung, a former UB graduate student.

The findings, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, emphasize the role of social networks and personal relationships in maintaining good mental health and why people should preserve those connections, even in the face of obstacles or pursuing challenging goals.

“Depression and anxiety are tied to isolation, and we’re certainly seeing this now with the difficulties we have connecting with friends during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Ward. “These social connections are important. We need them as humans in order to feel secure, to feel mentally healthy and happy. But much of what’s required to achieve success in the financial domain comes at the expense of spending time with family and friends.”

Ward says it’s not financial success that’s problematic or the desire for money that’s leading to these associations.

At the center of this research is a concept psychologists identify as Financial Contingency of Self-Worth. When people’s self-worth is contingent on money, they view their financial success as being tied to the core of who they are as a person. The degree to which they succeed financially relates to how they feel about themselves — feeling good when they think they’re doing well financially, but feeling worthless if they’re feeling financially insecure.

The research involved more than 2,500 participants over five different studies that looked for relationships between financial contingency of self-worth and key variables, such as time spent with others, loneliness and social disconnection. This included a daily diary study that followed participants over a two-week period to assess how they were feeling over an extended time about the importance of money and time spent engaged in various social activities.

“We saw consistent associations between valuing money in terms of who you are and experiencing negative social outcomes in previous work, so this led us to ask the question of why these associations are present,” says Ward. “We see these findings as further evidence that people who base their self-worth on money are likely to feel pressured to achieve financial success, which is tied to the quality of their relationships with others.”

Ward says the current study represents the beginning of efforts to uncover the processes at work with Financial Contingency of Self-Worth.

“I hope this is part of what becomes a longer line of research looking at the mechanisms between valuing money and social-related variables,” says Ward. “We don’t have the final answer, but there is a lot of evidence that pressures are largely playing a role.”

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Materials provided by University at Buffalo. Original written by Bert Gambini. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The study, recently published in NeuroImage, discovered that, in some people, creative insights, colloquially known as “aha moments,” trigger a burst of activity in the brain’s reward system — the same system which responds to delicious foods, addictive substances, orgasms and other basic pleasures.

Because reward-system activity motivates the behaviors that produce it, individuals who experience insight-related neural rewards are likely to engage in further creativity-related activities, potentially to the exclusion of other activities — a notion that many puzzle aficionados, mystery-novel devotees, starving artists and underpaid researchers may find familiar, according to Kounios.

“The fact that evolution has linked the generation of new ideas and perspectives to the human brain’s reward system may explain the proliferation of creativity and the advancement of science and culture,” said Kounios.

The study focused on the phenomenon of aha moments, or insights, as prototypical instances of creativity. Insights are sudden experiences of nonobvious perspectives, ideas or solutions that can lead to inventions and other breakthroughs. Many people report that insights are accompanied by a mind-expanding rush of pleasure.

The team recorded people’s high-density electroencephalograms (EEGs) while they solved anagram puzzles, which required them to unscramble a set of letters to find a hidden word. Such puzzles serve as small-scale models of more complex forms of problem-solving and idea generation. They noted which solutions were achieved as insights that suddenly popped into awareness, in contrast to solutions that were generated by methodically rearranging the letters to look for the right order.

Importantly, the test subjects also filled out a questionnaire that measured their “reward sensitivity,” a basic personality trait that reflects the degree to which an individual is generally motivated to gain rewards rather than avoid losing them.

The test subjects showed a burst of high-frequency “gamma-band” brainwaves associated with aha-moment solutions. However, only highly reward-sensitive people showed an additional burst of high-frequency gamma waves about a tenth of a second later. This second burst originated in orbitofrontal cortex, a part of brain’s reward system.

The study shows that some people experience creative insights as intrinsically rewarding. Because this reward-related burst of neural activity occurred so quickly after the initial insight, only a tenth of a second, it did not result from a conscious appraisal of the solution. Rather, this fast reward response was triggered by, or integrated with, the insight itself.

Low-reward-sensitivity test subjects did experience nearly as many insights as the high-reward-sensitivity ones, but their insights did not trigger a significant neural reward response. Thus, neural reward is not a necessary accompaniment to insight, though it occurs in many people.

This study suggests that measurements of general reward sensitivity may help to predict who will practice, develop and expand their creative abilities over time.

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Materials provided by Drexel University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Purdue University engineers have created a laser treatment method that could potentially turn any metal surface into a rapid bacteria killer — just by giving the metal’s surface a different texture.

In a study published in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, the researchers demonstrated that this technique allows the surface of copper to immediately kill off superbugs such as MRSA.

“Copper has been used as an antimicrobial material for centuries. But it typically takes hours for native copper surfaces to kill off bacteria,” said Rahim Rahimi, a Purdue assistant professor of materials engineering.

“We developed a one-step laser-texturing technique that effectively enhances the bacteria-killing properties of copper’s surface.”

The technique is not yet tailored to killing viruses such as the one responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, which are much smaller than bacteria.

Since publishing this work, however, Rahimi’s team has begun testing this technology on the surfaces of other metals and polymers that are used to reduce risks of bacterial growth and biofilm formation on devices such as orthopedic implants or wearable patches for chronic wounds.

Giving implants an antimicrobial surface would prevent the spread of infection and antibiotic resistance, Rahimi said, because there wouldn’t be a need for antibiotics to kill off bacteria from an implant’s surface.

The technique might apply to metallic alloys that also are known to have antimicrobial properties.

Metals such as copper normally have a really smooth surface, which makes it difficult for the metal to kill bacteria by contact.

The technique developed by Rahimi’s team uses a laser to create nanoscale patterns on the metal’s surface. The patterns produce a rugged texture that increases surface area, allowing more opportunity for bacteria to hit the surface and rupture on the spot.

Researchers in the past have used various nanomaterial coatings to enhance the antimicrobial properties of metal surfaces, but these coatings are prone to leach off and can be toxic to the environment.

“We’ve created a robust process that selectively generates micron and nanoscale patterns directly onto the targeted surface without altering the bulk of the copper material,” said Rahimi, whose lab develops innovative materials and biomedical devices to address health care challenges.

The laser-texturing has a dual effect: The technique not only improves direct contact, but also makes a surface more hydrophilic. For orthopedic implants, such a surface allows bone cells to more strongly attach, improving how well the implant integrates with bone. Rahimi’s team observed this effect with fibroblast cells.

Due to the simplicity and scalability of the technique, the researchers believe that it could easily be translated into existing medical device manufacturing processes.

A YouTube video is available at https://youtu.be/3vFFdNXsoN0.

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Materials provided by Purdue University. Original written by Kayla Wiles. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

A special article published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings calls attention to the risk posed by overreliance on COVID-19 testing to make clinical and public health decisions. The sensitivity of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing and overall test performance characteristics have not been reported clearly or consistently in medical literature, the article says.

As a result, health care officials should expect a “less visible second wave of infection from people with false-negative test results,” says Priya Sampathkumar, M.D., an infectious diseases specialist at Mayo Clinic and a study co-author.

“RT-PCR testing is most useful when it is positive,” says Dr. Sampathkumar. “It is less useful in ruling out COVID-19. A negative test often does not mean the person does not have the disease, and test results need to be considered in the context of patient characteristics and exposure.”

Even with test sensitivity values as high as 90%, the magnitude of risk from false test results will be substantial as the number of people tested grows. “In California, estimates say the rate of COVID-19 infection may exceed 50% by mid-May 2020,” she says. “With a population of 40 million people, 2 million false-negative results would be expected in California with comprehensive testing. Even if only 1% of the population was tested, 20,000 false-negative results would be expected.”

The authors also cite the effects on health care personnel. If the COVID-19 infection rate among the more than 4 million people providing direct patient care in the U.S. were 10% — far below most predictions ¬¬ — more than 40,000 false-negative results would be expected if every provider were tested.

This poses risks for the health care system at a critical time. “Currently, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines for asymptomatic health care workers with negative testing could lead to their immediate return to work in routine clinical care, which risks spreading disease,” says Colin West, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic physician and the study’s first author. Victor Montori, M.D., a Mayo Clinic endocrinologist, also is a co-author.

While dealing with the enormity of the growing COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important for public health officials to stick to principles of evidence-based reasoning regarding diagnostic test results and false-negatives. Four recommendations are outlined in the Mayo Clinic article:

• Continued strict adherence to physical distancing, hand-washing, surface disinfection and other preventive measures, regardless of risk level, symptoms or COVID-19 test results. Universal masking of both health care workers and patients may be necessary.
• Development of highly sensitive tests or combinations of tests is needed urgently to minimize the risk of false-negative results. Improved RT-PCR testing and serological assays — blood tests that identify antibodies or proteins present when the body is responding to infections such as COVID-19 — are needed.
• Risk levels must be carefully assessed prior to testing, and negative test results should be viewed cautiously, especially for people in higher-risk groups and in areas where widespread COVID-19 infection has been confirmed.
• Risk-stratified protocols to manage negative COVID-19 test results are needed, and they must evolve as more statistics become available.

“For truly low-risk individuals, negative test results may be sufficiently reassuring,” says Dr. West. “For higher-risk individuals, even those without symptoms, the risk of false-negative test results requires additional measures to protect against the spread of disease, such as extended self-isolation.”

At Mayo Clinic, RT-PCR testing is “one of many factors we take into account in deciding whether the patient meets criteria for COVID-19,” Dr. Sampathkumar says. If the RT-PCR test is negative but chest X-ray or CT scan results are abnormal, or there has been close contact with a person who has confirmed COVID-19, the recommendation is to continue caring for the patient as if he or she has COVID-19.

“We need to continue to refine protocols for asymptomatic patients and exposed health care workers,” says Dr. Sampathkumar.

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Materials provided by Mayo Clinic. Original written by Jay Furst. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The article, written by a team of Mayo Clinic cardiologists and radiologists, proposes algorithms for evaluating patients and determining a course of treatment.

“The impact of false activation of the catheterization laboratory includes inherent risks, beginning with the invasive arterial procedure itself and related care for these patients,” says J. Wells Askew, M.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiologist. In cases where patients test positive for COVID-19, the risks include respiratory failure, and potential exposure of medical staff and the downstream effects on cardiac catheterization laboratories and cardiac imaging services.

“Nonetheless, it’s critically important for patients who are experiencing a heart attack due to coronary occlusion to receive immediate and appropriate treatment,” says Dr. Askew. “There is an urgent need for an algorithm that guides triage of patients with suspected or proven COVID-19 patients with STE to determine initial invasive or noninvasive pathways.”

The article notes that acute myocardial injury, arrhythmia and shock are common in patients with acute respiratory infections such as COVID-19. Myocardial injury is defined by an elevated cardiac troponin level; when myocardial injury is acute and occurs in the setting of acute myocardial ischemia, it can signal a heart attack.

The article proposes algorithms, based on expert consensus, for responding to patients with STE and acute myocardial injury. It also provides guidance on decision-making regarding the use of an echocardiogram or a coronary CT angiogram for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.

“The reported experiences from countries in which significant exposure to COVID-19 has occurred highlight the challenges we have in treating patients with COVID-19 and STE on the electrocardiogram,” says Dr. Askew. “Health care facilities need to rapidly prepare for this, so they can appropriately triage these patients with invasive or noninvasive pathways. This is critically important to minimize risks for the patient as well as risk of COVID-19 exposure to medical personnel.”

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Materials provided by Mayo Clinic. Original written by Jay Furst. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Described in a paper in the journal Science, the work combines observations by a group of radio telescopes with data from NASA’s recently retired infrared observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope, managed by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Officially named 2MASS J10475385+2124234, the target of the new study was a brown dwarf located 32 light-years from Earth — a stone’s throw away, cosmically speaking. The researchers detected winds moving around the planet at 1,425 mph (2,293 kph). For comparison, Neptune’s atmosphere features the fastest winds in the solar system, which whip through at more than 1,200 mph (about 2,000 kph).

Measuring wind speed on Earth means clocking the motion of our gaseous atmosphere relative to the planet’s solid surface. But brown dwarfs are composed almost entirely of gas, so “wind” refers to something slightly different. The upper layers of a brown dwarf are where portions of the gas can move independently. At a certain depth, the pressure becomes so intense that the gas behaves like a single, solid ball that is considered the object’s interior. As the interior rotates, it pulls the upper layers — the atmosphere -along so that the two are almost in synch.

In their study, the researchers measured the slight difference in speed of the brown dwarf’s atmosphere relative to its interior. With an atmospheric temperature of over 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius), this particular brown dwarf radiates a substantial amount of infrared light. Coupled with its close proximity to Earth, this characteristic made it possible for Spitzer to detect features in the brown dwarf’s atmosphere as they rotate in and out of view. The team used those features to clock the atmospheric rotation speed.

To determine the speed of the interior, they focused on the brown dwarf’s magnetic field. A relatively recent discovery found that the interiors of brown dwarfs generate strong magnetic fields. As the brown dwarf rotates, the magnetic field accelerates charged particles that in turn produce radio waves, which the researchers detected with the radio telescopes in the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico.

Planetary Atmospheres

The new study is the first to demonstrate this comparative method for measuring wind speed on a brown dwarf. To gauge its accuracy, the group tested the technique using infrared and radio observations of Jupiter, which is also composed mostly of gas and has a physical structure similar to a small brown dwarf. The team compared the rotation rates of Jupiter’s atmosphere and interior using data that was similar to what they were able to collect for the much more distant brown dwarf. They then confirmed their calculation for Jupiter’s wind speed using more detailed data collected by probes that have studied Jupiter up close, thus demonstrating that their approach for the brown dwarf worked.

Scientists have previously used Spitzer to infer the presence of winds on exoplanets and brown dwarfs based on variations in the brightness of their atmospheres in infrared light. And data from the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) — an instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla telescope in Chile — has been used to make a direct measurement of wind speeds on a distant planet.

But the new paper represents the first time scientists have directly compared the atmospheric speed with the speed of a brown dwarf’s interior. The method employed could be applied to other brown dwarfs or to large planets if the conditions are right, according to the authors.

“We think this technique could be really valuable to providing insight into the dynamics of exoplanet atmospheres,” said lead author Katelyn Allers, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. “What’s really exciting is being able to learn about how the chemistry, the atmospheric dynamics and the environment around an object are interconnected, and the prospect of getting a really comprehensive view into these worlds.”

The Spitzer Space Telescope was decomissioned on Jan. 30, 2020, after more than 16 years in space. JPL managed Spitzer mission operations for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Spitzer science data continue to be analyzed by the science community via the Spitzer data archive located at the Infrared Science Archive housed at IPAC at Caltech. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Spitzer, visit:

“The membranes that encase lungs and add the elasticity needed for inhaling and exhaling appear to also play a critical role in supplying oxygen to the bloodstream,” said materials science and engineering professor Cecilia Leal, who led the study with graduate students Mijung Kim and Marilyn Porras-Gomez.

For lung tissue to perform effectively, it must be able to transfer oxygen and other gases through its membranes, the researchers said. One way this happens is through a substance — called a surfactant — that reduces lung liquid surface tension to allow this exchange to occur. However, a surfactant called cardiolipin is known to be overly abundant in tissues infected with bacterial pneumonia, the study reports.

The new sensors are thin silicon- and graphene-based films that contain tiny transistors that measure oxygen permeation between biological surfaces. “A thin film of lung membranes is spread out over many tiny sensors at the device surface, giving us a better picture of what is going on over a relatively large area rather than just a spot,” Leal said.

The team used the sensors to compare oxygen transfer between healthy and diseased membranes. The samples consisted of a bovine lipid-protein extract commonly used to treat premature infants suffering respiratory distress, with a portion of the samples combined with cardiolipin.

“We found that more oxygen passes through the tissue diseased by cardiolipin,” Leal said. “Which may help explain previous observations of there being an off-balance of oxygen in the blood of pneumonia patients. Even though an increase in oxygen flow could be perceived as positive, it is important to keep the natural exchange that occurs in the lung — transferring oxygen more rapidly into the bloodstream disrupts this healthy equilibrium.”

The researchers also compared the structure of healthy and diseased tissue using microscopic and X-ray imaging. They found that the tissue combined with cardiolipin showed damaged spots, which they posit may be responsible for increased oxygen transfer and subsequent off-balance oxygen levels in pneumonia patients.

The next stage of this research will be to study lung membranes extracted from healthy and diseased mammalian lungs, Leal said. “Our results raise important insights on lung membrane function, indicating that changes in structure and composition directly relate to oxygen permeation. This work can potentially enable clinical research examining the role of unbalanced oxygen diffusion through lung membranes in a pathological context.”

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Materials provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau. Original written by Lois Yoksoulian. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.