Scientists already know that the relationship between the length of a person’s index and ring fingers, known as the 2D:4D ratio is correlated with performance in distance running, age at heart attack and severity of Covid-19.

Now Swansea University digit ratio expert Professor John Manning has been working with colleagues to look more closely at the subject.

Their findings have just been published by the American Journal of Human Biology.

The research analysed 133 professional football players as they underwent a series of body measurements which included measuring digit lengths from hand scans. They also completed an incremental cardiopulmonary test to exhaustion on a treadmill.

Professor Manning, of the Applied Sports, Technology, Exercise and Medicine (A-STEM) research team, said: “With our partners from the Cyprus campus of the University of Central Lancashire, we have clarified the relationship between 2D:4D and oxygen metabolism in a sample of well-trained athletes.

“The players with long ring digits (4D) relative to their index digits (2D) have efficient oxygen metabolism such that they reach very high maximal oxygen consumption in an incremental cardiopulmonary test to exhaustion on a treadmill.”

Long ring digits relative to index digits are thought to be a marker of high testosterone levels in the womb. Testosterone has effects on oxygen metabolism through its influence on the energy producers (mitochondria) within cells.

He added: “Our findings are consistent with those from distance running, where long 4D is related to high performance, and heart disease and Covid-19 where long 4D is linked to low severity of disease.

“Overall, our study illustrates the value of using healthy well-trained athletes to clarify metabolic processes that are important in disease outcomes.”

The team say further work is now necessary to quantify these associations in women.

Professor Manning’s previous research has examined how the difference in finger length between a person’s left and right hand may provide vital information concerning outcomes from contracting Covid-19.

Known as ‘serious games’, these games are designed for more than just entertainment. Ranging from digital applications to physical board games, they are developed for learning, problem solving, raising awareness, research, and stakeholder engagement — with potential in both schools and workplaces. A key application will be for educating people on sustainable development and climate change.

Experts leading in the field at the Universities of Warwick, Cardiff, York, and Sussex, have teamed up for this project, known as GamEngage, to help implement gaming across many sectors. They are bringing together serious game researchers, developers, and practitioners to explore new opportunities in using serious games.

The academics have put together a ‘Serious Games Cookbook’, which aims to support beginners in using and designing serious games by presenting a resource full of detailed guidance. The cookbook will support beginners who are new to the idea of serious games, especially those with specialist knowledge, who want to explore how to apply that knowledge within games. The Cookbook addresses key considerations in using serious games, including establishing play goals, selecting the most suitable game for these goals, and facilitating gameplay within a session. It also discusses crucial aspects of serious game design, covering content and themes, mechanics, player engagement, and strategies for influencing attitudes.

Associate Professor of Global Sustainable Development, Dr Feng Mao, University of Warwick, said: “The cookbook offers a practical guide to help beginners designing serious games, as an emerging and promising tool for learning, engagement, and research, especially in the context of sustainable development and climate change — though we hope it will also be applied more broadly too. We hope to inspire and empower the Cookbook’s readers to meaningfully engage with serious games.”

Dr Katarzyna Stawarz, co-author of the Serious Games Cookbook and Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction at Cardiff University, added: “The Cookbook and its parts can also be used as a research tool, for example as part of co-design workshops as it would help to engage general public with serious topics through the medium of game design: rather than playing games designed by others, they could explore topics important to them that could be introduced in future games or even inform other types of projects. We are hoping to encourage and help readers to explore the different ways in which games and game design could be used.”

A link to the Cookbook is available here: https://publishing.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/uwp/catalog/book/31

In an increasingly fragmented world, the scientific community stands as an example of successful international collaboration and diplomacy. Science is based in a long-standing tradition of knowledge exchange that often transcends political boundaries for the benefit of all humanity. Cost-effective, commercial space technologies can enable novel research or reduce the cost of investigations opening new possibilities for the scientific community. At the same time, international partnerships can further broaden engagement, diversity, and collaboration in science and space exploration. While this might seem like a “win-win” scenario, the interest of the scientific community is to openly share data and analysis. Differing principles and ideals present potential areas of conflict. As governments and private entities fund bold, new projects, leaders, academics, and legal experts are contemplating both the larger consequences, as well as potential prospects.

High stakes leadership and landing on Mars

“When every mission is a first for humanity, the stakes are very high,” says Thomas Zurbuchen who led 54 missions as NASA’s longest serving Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. “When the clock is ticking, and the world is watching, a leader’s most powerful asset is a highly diverse team,” he says. Within this context, diversity can emerge from international and commercial partnerships, and can give rise to new missions. In fact, an estimated two-thirds of science missions have international partnerships.

Now, as the Director for ETH Zurich Space, in Switzerland, Zurbuchen reflects on the value of partnerships as a leadership tool. He uses examples from recent international missions, such as Mars InSight, to discuss how diversity creates opportunities for new and different ideas to come forward — even if some ideas pose an element of risk. He also addresses some of the challenges arising from partnerships. For example, some companies and countries prefer not to share their science data gathered in space, making reproducibility challenging for scientific analysis.

Cross-border diffusion — learning from lightning on Venus

“Scientific ideas move like space plasmas,” says David Malaspina, a space plasma physicist at University of Colorado, Boulder. “When they encounter a border, they find a way across.” Malaspina describes international academic collaborations as vital engines of discovery and attributes the language of science for fostering a sense of awe and wonder for the universe that transcends cultures. In science, and in plasmas, the most interesting physics happens at the boundaries.

Malaspina engages in international and generationally diverse research teams, including a team building a sounding rocket to explore the interface between Earth and space. He is also a member of a team that uses data from the Parker Solar Probe mission to explore Venus, seeking to understand the importance of a planetary magnetic field for habitability of Earth-like planets. He discusses how teams that foster inclusion of diverse perspectives create new opportunities for scientific progress.

Why protect bootprints on the Moon?

Unlike ancient footprints, cave drawings, and stone-age tools found here on Earth, the first traces of human activity on the Moon, including Neil Armstrong’s bootprint, are not protected under any existing laws or regulations. Michelle Hanlon, space lawyer and Executive Director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, thinks this is a travesty.

Hanlon explains why protecting historic sites on the Moon and elsewhere in space not only preserves the past, but also provides a vital foundation for the future. Hanlon explores the gaps in space law and, in particular, she asks, “What are the differing obligations space law imposes on scientific and commercial activities, as well as governmental and private actors.” Hanlon anticipates that space law, ethics, policy, and treaties will take on an increasingly higher strategic priority as nations seek to avoid potential conflicts.

Amid growing global concern over climate change and plastic pollution, researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University are making great strides in the sustainable production of fumaric acid — a component of biodegradable plastics such as polybutylene succinate, which is commonly used for food packaging. The researchers have managed to efficiently produce fumaric acid, which is traditionally derived from petroleum, using renewable resources, carbon dioxide, and biomass-derived compounds.

In a previous study, a research team led by Professor Yutaka Amao of the Research Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Osaka Metropolitan University demonstrated the synthesis of fumaric acid from bicarbonate and pyruvic acid, a biomass-derived compound, using solar energy. They also succeeded in producing fumaric acid using carbon dioxide obtained directly from the gas phase as a raw material. However, the yield in the production of fumaric acid remained low.

In their latest research, published in Dalton Transactions, the researchers have now developed a new photosensitizer and further advanced an artificial photosynthesis technique that doubles the yield of fumaric acid compared to conventional methods.

“This is an extremely important advancement for the complex bio/photocatalyst system. It is a valuable step forward in our quest to synthesize fumaric acid from renewable energy sources with even higher yields, steering us toward a more sustainable future,” said Professor Amao.

The discovery has led the team led by Dr Valentina Rossi of University College Cork, Ireland (UCC) to urge caution in how the fossil is used in future research.

Tridentinosaurus antiquus was discovered in the Italian alps in 1931 and was thought to be an important specimen for understanding early reptile evolution.

Its body outline, appearing dark against the surrounding rock, was initially interpreted as preserved soft tissues. This led to its classification as a member of the reptile group Protorosauria.

However, this new research, published in the scientific journal Palaeontology, reveals that the fossil renowned for its remarkable preservation is mostly just black paint on a carved lizard-shaped rock surface.

The purported fossilised skin had been celebrated in articles and books but never studied in detail. The somewhat strange preservation of the fossil had left many experts uncertain about what group of reptiles this strange lizard-like animal belonged to and more generally its geological history.

Dr Rossi, of UCC’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, said:

“Fossil soft tissues are rare, but when found in a fossil they can reveal important biological information, for instance, the external colouration, internal anatomy and physiology.

“The answer to all our questions was right in front of us, we had to study this fossil specimen in details to reveal its secrets — even those that perhaps we did not want to know.”

The microscopic analysis showed that the texture and composition of the material did not match that of genuine fossilised soft tissues.

Preliminary investigation using UV photography revealed that the entirety of the specimen was treated with some sort of coating material. Coating fossils with varnishes and/or lacquers was the norm in the past and sometimes is still necessary to preserve a fossil specimen in museum cabinets and exhibits. The team was hoping that beneath the coating layer, the original soft tissues were still in good condition to extract meaningful palaeobiological information.

The findings indicate that the body outline of Tridentinosaurus antiquus was artificially created, likely to enhance the appearance of the fossil. This deception misled previous researchers, and now caution is being urged when using this specimen in future studies.

The team behind this research includes contributors based in Italy at the University of Padua, Museum of Nature South Tyrol, and the Museo delle Scienze in Trento.

Co-author Prof Evelyn Kustatscher, coordinator of the project “Living with the supervolcano,” funded by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano said:

“The peculiar preservation of Tridentinosaurus had puzzled experts for decades. Now, it all makes sense. What it was described as carbonized skin, is just paint.”

However all not all is lost, and the fossil is not a complete fake. The bones of the hindlimbs, in particular, the femurs seem genuine, although poorly preserved. Moreover, the new analyses have shown the presence of tiny bony scales called osteoderms — like the scales of crocodiles — on what perhaps was the back of the animal.

This study is an example of how modern analytical palaeontology and rigorous scientific methods can resolve an almost century-old palaeontological enigma.

The path to a better understanding of which genes and mechanisms control male fertility therefore lies via suitable laboratory animals — in this case, bulls.

A research team led by Hubert Pausch, Professor of Animal Genomics at ETH Zurich, studied young bulls to investigate in detail which genes are active in different tissues of the animals’ reproductive organs and how this affects their fertility. Their study was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

For this investigation, the researchers from the Institute of Agricultural Sciences used samples of testicles, epididymis and vas deferens from 118 freshly slaughtered bulls of reproductive age. The animals were not killed specifically for the research.

One thing the scientists characterised using these biopsies was the bulls’ transcriptomes — in other words, all the messenger RNAs present in each kind of tissue, which represent the gene transcripts. This enabled the team to find out which genes are active in which of the three tissues. Based on that knowledge, they created corresponding transcriptome profiles for the bulls. They then compared these profiles with those of humans and mice.

Many genes involved

Through this research, the team discovered a large number of genes and their variants that are associated with fertility in bulls. Most of the genes found are also likely to be relevant to male fertility in humans. In evolutionary terms, the regulation of male fertility is “highly conserved,” Xena Mapel, first author of the study explains. This means that the genes responsible for reproduction function similarly across mammals.

“These genes are closely linked to poor fertility in bulls,” Mapel says. “Such subfertile bulls don’t show up during conventional ejaculate screening. However, they can be reliably detected with our new marker genes.”

Unusual animal model

Although cattle are an unusual choice of animal model, they are ideal for such studies. For one thing, the genes of breeding bulls are well understood, and for another, breeding organisations obtain ejaculate from the animals twice a week as part of normal operations. This is analysed in detail before being diluted and used to inseminate hundreds of cows — or is discarded if the quality of the ejaculate is poor.

The bull cohort analysed here also has the great advantage that all the animals are similar in age. “This cohort is very homogeneous. If we had to carry out a comparable study on men, we’d have to rely on voluntary donors, potentially across all possible age groups. This would give us data that’s very difficult to compare.”

Data on the fertility of young men is collected annually from Swiss recruits to the armed forces, but this can hardly be used for such analyses. “We don’t know what influences the men were exposed to before they took the fertility test, which will be different for every test subject. Furthermore, it’s practically impossible to obtain tissue samples from their reproductive tract, as that would entail an invasive medical procedure.”

Findings to benefit livestock breeders

It is still unclear how the new findings will be incorporated into human fertility research, but they are already paving the way for better diagnostics with which to identify the corresponding genes and their variants in breeding bulls. That means livestock breeders will likely be the first to benefit from the findings, since they will help to minimise financial losses from failed artificial inseminations.

Currently, every bull’s ejaculate is tested for quality before use and the calves’ genomes are analysed; however, some infertile bulls still slip through. If a breeder inseminates cows with semen from an infertile bull, the cows will not become pregnant. And with each insemination costing 80 Swiss francs, that can soon eat up a breeder’s budget: a typical Swiss dairy farm spends several thousand Swiss francs a year on artificially inseminating its herd of cows. But it doesn’t end there: the unsuccessfully inseminated cows often cause further problems to the farmers, as they don’t give birth to calves and no longer produce milk, meaning the farmer has to replace them. And that costs money.

Artificial insemination is now standard in beef and dairy cattle husbandry, and also in pig breeding. In Switzerland, around 800,000 cows are artificially inseminated every year. Natural matings — when a bull mates with a cow naturally — take place only very rarely. “Raising a bull isn’t easy. Most farmers don’t have the space for such a large animal,” Pausch says.