While meaningful legislation requires an understanding of how access to firearms is associated with different outcomes of harm, this knowledge also calls for accurate, highly-resolved data on firearm possession, data that is presently unavailable due to a lack of a comprehensive national firearm ownership registry.

Newly published research from data scientist and firearm proliferation researcher Maurizio Porfiri, Institute Professor at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and co-authors Roni Barak Ventura, a post-doctoral researcher at Porfiri’s Dynamical Systems Lab, and Manuel Ruiz Marin of the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Spain describe a spatio-temporal model to predict trends in firearm prevalence on a state-by-state level by fusing data from two available proxies — background checks per capita and suicides committed with a firearm in a given state. The study “A spatiotemporal model of firearm ownership in the United States,” in the Cell Press journal Patterns, details how by calibrating their results with yearly survey data, the team determined that the two proxies can be simultaneously considered to draw precise information regarding firearm ownership.

Porfiri, who in 2020 received one of the first newly authorized NSF federal grants for $2 million to study the “firearm ecosystem” in the U.S., has spent the last few years exploring gun acquisition trends and how they relate to and are influenced by a number of factors, from media coverage of mass shootings, to the influence of the sitting President.

“There is very limited knowledge on when and where guns are acquired in the country, and even less is known regarding future ownership trends,” said Porfiri, professor of mechanical and aerospace, biomedical, and civil and urban engineering and incoming director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at NYU Tandon. “Prior studies have largely relied on the use of a single, select proxy to make some inference of gun prevalence, typically within simple correlation schemes. Our results show that there is a need to combine proxies of sales and violence to draw precise inferences on firearm prevalence.” He added that most research aggregates the measure counts within states and does not consider interference between states or spill-over effects.

Their study shows how their model can be used to better understand the relationships between media coverage, mass shootings, and firearm ownership, uncovering causal associations that are masked when the proxies are used individually.

While the researchers found, for example, that media coverage of firearm control is causally associated with firearm ownership, they discovered that their model generating a strong firearm ownership profile for a state was a strong predictor of mass shootings in that state.

“The potential link between mass shootings and firearm purchases is a unique contribution of our model,” said Ruiz Marin. “Such a link can only be detected by scratching the surface on the exact gun counts in the country.”

“We combined publicly available data variables into one measure of ownership. Because it has a spatial component, we could also track gun flow from one state to another based on political and cultural similarities,” said Barak-Ventura, adding that the spatial component of the work is novel. “Prior studies looked at a correlation of two variables such as increasing background checks and an increase in gun violence.”

Barak-Ventura said the team is now using their model to explore which policies are effective in reducing death by guns in a state and surrounding regions, and how the relationship between gun ownership and violent outcomes is disrupted by different legislation.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and by RAND’s National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research through a postdoctoral fellowship award. Roni Barak Ventura’s work was supported by a scholarship from the Mitsui USA Foundation. This study was also part of the collaborative activities carried out under the programs of the region of Murcia (Spain) as well as the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades.

A team of researchers led by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication at the Yale School of the Environment explored this concept and found that there’s potential for partners to influence each other through conversations on climate change.

“We wanted to see if there’s potential for couples to increase support for pro-climate policies and behaviors through more conversations about climate change,” says Matthew Goldberg, associate research scientist at YPCCC and lead author on the study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

The researchers surveyed 758 romantic couples to determine the extent to which they understood each other’s ideas on climate change and the degree to which partners were aligned on climate change beliefs and behaviors.

The team asked each partner questions on the issue, including whether they are worried about climate change, donate to climate organizations, and post about the issue on social media. Participants also were asked to predict what their partner would say.

The results revealed that while many partners exhibited similar beliefs and behaviors around climate change, there also were many discrepancies. There was only 38% alignment between partners on their climate beliefs and only 31% alignment on climate behaviors. The study also found that partners who discuss climate change had a more accurate perception of the other’s beliefs.

These results suggest there’s an opportunity for partners to influence each other through more conversations about climate change.

The researchers used the YPCCC’s Global Warming’s Six Americas framework to classify the participants’ views. The Six Americas framework is based on a range of six viewpoints about climate change that stretch from “alarmed,” at which climate change is seen as an urgent threat, to “dismissive,” at which global warming is considered a hoax or a nonexistent issue.

While there were very few instances of couples holding opposite views, more than a third of couples included one partner whose beliefs were classified as “alarmed,” while the other was a bit less engaged or concerned.

This disparity is exactly the kind of situation where there’s an opportunity to shift the needle on climate change beliefs and behaviors, Goldberg says.

“Mass communication is critical but might not be the most effective way to shift public support on climate change,” he says. “A partner knows their partner infinitely better than some unknown communicator — and knows how to harness the issues that their partner cares about to engage them in action on climate change.”

Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and a senior research scientist at the Yale School of the Environment, who co-authored the report, says talking about climate change is no substitute for action but can help raise awareness of the issue.

“This study finds that people who are very concerned about climate change likely have close significant others that haven’t yet fully engaged the issue. Climate conversations can start right at home, with your loved ones,” Leiserowitz says.

Goldberg says their findings could apply to all kinds of relationships beyond romantic ones and the results open an array of avenues to engage people on climate change.

“Lots of people are very worried about climate change, but they’re not talking about it,” he says. “Discussing climate change can bring more people into alignment — and increase engagement.”

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Materials provided by Yale School of the Environment. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

“To do so, target deconvolution by chemical proteomics is the method of choice. Hence, we first made new chemical tools — the so called affinity matrices — that would allow us to systematically profile the HDACs,” explains Dr. Guillaume Médard, group leader for chemical proteomics at the TUM chair of Proteomics and Bioanalytics led by Prof. Bernhard Küster.

Profiling HDAC drugs by chemical proteomics

“I profiled 53 drugs and most of them, but not all, hit their intended HDAC target,” stated Severin Lechner, a doctoral candidate at the TUM School of Life Sciences. “There were, however, some surprises. Drugs used in hundreds of scientific studies were not as selective as it had been assumed. Many had additional targets that were not previously known.

These results highlight the power of proteomic approaches, as they can probe the binding to thousands of proteins at once. Finally, the team identified several molecules with outstanding selectivity, making them the inhibitors of choice for future scientific studies.

The target landscape of HDAC drugs

“The most unexpected finding was that MBLAC2 is off-target for half of the profiled molecules,” Lechner continues. This protein is not well characterized. Coincidentally, the team of Prof. Maurine Linder in Cornell researched on it at the same time. The two groups collaborated and confirmed that the protein is indeed hindered in performing its function in presence of the drugs.

Working with the group of Prof. Michael Pfaffl at TUM, Lechner examined the hinted unexplained phenotypic effects of some drugs and proved that MBLAC2 inhibition or knock-down leads to an accumulation of extracellular vesicles in the extracellular space. Extracellular vesicles are small membrane-bounded particles secreted by cells and transported through the whole body to transmit biomolecules and information between cells and tissues.

Fundamental research to make tomorrow’s epidrugs

“We are excited because we have uncovered a new player in this field of biology that notably encompasses exosomes, which play crucial roles in neurology, immunology and oncology,” explains Médard. “We are now designing molecules that only hit MBLAC2 so that we can probe this obscure protein in a range of model systems.”

This study will be useful to those who want to use HDAC inhibitors for probing biology or for therapeutic use. It helps in choosing the right chemical tool. It is also a valuable set of data for medicinal chemists who need to understand how chemical structures relate to potency and selectivity to make tomorrow’s epidrugs.

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Materials provided by Technical University of Munich (TUM). Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Eating disorders and especially obesity are one of the most common causes of a variety of diseases in industrialized societies worldwide, especially cardiovascular diseases with permanent disabilities or fatal outcomes such as heart attacks, diabetes, or strokes. The Robert Koch Institute reported in 2021 that 67 per cent of men and 53 percent of women in Germany are overweight. 23 per cent of adults are severely overweight (obese). Attempts to influence eating behaviour with medication have so far proved ineffective. A novel therapy that modulates the excitability of networks that control eating behaviour would be a decisive step towards controlling this widespread obesity.

The research team found an increased rate of obesity and the attendant type II diabetes in people with impaired synaptic LPA signalling. A group led by Professor Johannes Vogt (Faculty of Medicine, University of Cologne), Professor Robert Nitsch (Faculty of Medicine, University of Münster) und Professor Thomas Horvath (Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, USA) has now shown that control of the excitability of neurons in the cerebral cortex by LPA plays an essential role in the control of eating behaviour: AgRP neurons regulate the amount of lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) in the blood. Through active transport, LPC reaches the brain, where it is converted by the enzyme autotaxin (ATX) into LPA, which is active at the synapse. Synaptic LPA signals stimulate specific networks in the brain, thus leading to increased food intake.

In the mouse model, after a period of fasting an increase in LPC in the blood led to an increase in stimulating LPA in the brain. These mice showed typical food-seeking behaviour. Both could be normalized by administrating autotaxin inhibitors. Obese mice, on the other hand, lost weight when these inhibitors were administered continuously. Johannes Vogt explained: ‘We saw a significant reduction in excessive food intake and obesity through gene mutation and pharmacological inhibition of ATX. Our fundamental findings on the LPA-controlled excitability of the brain, which we have worked on for years, therefore also play a central role for eating behaviour.’ Robert Nitsch sees the findings as an important step towards new drug development: ‘The data show that people with a disturbed synaptic LPA signalling pathway are more likely to be overweight and suffer from type II diabetes. This is a strong indication of a possible therapeutic success of ATX inhibitors, which we are currently developing together with the Hans Knöll Institute in Jena for use in humans.’

These findings on the excitation control of neuronal networks in eating behaviour through lysophospholipids and the new therapeutic possibilities they suggest could in future contribute not only to treating eating disorders, but also neurological and psychiatric illnesses.

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The finding is the first measurement of how much hydroxymethanesulfonate, or HMS, is in Fairbanks’ air.

The compound constituted 3% to 7% of the total amount of particles less than 2.5 micrometers, or PM 2.5, during pollution episodes. That amount is substantially higher than observed elsewhere, leading the research team to conclude that Fairbanks’ extreme low temperatures are a factor in the compound’s formation.

“People in the community really are not aware of this,” said Jingqiu Mao, principal investigator on the research. “We feel it’s important to inform the community about this new chemical compound in Fairbanks.”

“Very little is known about the health impact of hydroxymethanesulfonate,” he said. “This compound is new to us in the atmospheric chemistry and air quality communities. We didn’t know this compound could be so abundant.”

The research was published in May in Environmental Science & Technology and authored by James Campbell, a graduate student of Mao’s. The work included scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The research paper is the first produced under a three-year National Science Foundation grant.

Fairbanks has been under mandate by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to improve its wintertime air quality and has been working for years to do so. The community and state face penalties for noncompliance.

The new HMS finding is also significant because recent studies have revealed that hydroxymethanesulfonate can easily be mistaken for sulfate, potentially making prior air pollution measurements inaccurate. Studying HMS also enables a better understanding of other chemical reactions in ambient aerosols in Fairbanks’ winter months.

Knowing the correct makeup of the fine particulate matter pollution is key to implementing appropriate air quality control measures, Mao said.

“A lot of sources contribute to PM 2.5,” he said. “But when you start thinking about improving air quality, which part should be dealt with first? And what are the consequences of that?”

The research team studied Fairbanks’ air in two winters: January to March 2020 and December 2020 to February 2021. Data came from instruments placed near the UAF Community and Technical College in downtown Fairbanks and at a nearby state Department of Environmental Conservation site already measuring total PM2.5, sulfur dioxide and temperature.

Scientists have known that hydroxymethanesulfonate forms through the combination of sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde, which combine when they are attracted to liquid particles in the atmosphere.

Scientists don’t know, however, to what extent factors such as the acidity of the atmospheric droplets, temperature and humidity lead to HMS formation.

They also don’t know which source is most responsible for HMS formation in Fairbanks. Sulfur dioxide comes from combustion of fossil fuels, including heating oil and coal. Formaldehyde likely gets into the air from burning wood.

Studies have shown that wood smoke contributes 40% to 70% to the wintertime PM2.5 mass concentration in Fairbanks.

“Fairbanks is one of the few optimal places for HMS formation,” Mao said. “And that is not necessarily a good thing.”

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Materials provided by University of Alaska Fairbanks. Original written by Rod Boyce. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.