According to a study led by the University of South Florida, the average lifespan of a Florida horse conch is between eight and 10 years, and it doesn’t start reproducing until about age six, giving birth to up to 28,000 offspring each year. This is a dramatic shift from previous belief that a horse conch could live for half a century — meaning far fewer offspring are born to replace those removed as a result of harvest or natural causes.

The interdisciplinary research team, which includes the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and current and former USF graduate students, also found that the largest Florida horse conch is no more than 16 years old. The two-foot shell is on display at the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel. The team’s results, published in PLOS ONE, were based on analyses of museum specimens, reducing harm to an already fragile population if they removed shells from the wild.

To estimate horse conch ages, researchers analyzed chemical bands in the shell, which track water temperature as the snail grows and can be counted like tree rings to measure the passage of time. Unlike tree rings, which are visible, the chemical bands can only be determined by geochemical analysis.

The team was also able to determine the horse conch’s amount of growth each year by wrapping string around each coil and then straightening and measuring the string. They found females grow rapidly each year of their lives, whereas males slow down early and mature at a much smaller size. Researchers determined that female horse conchs start laying eggs at about age six, based on spikes in shell carbon levels.

“Our research shows that horse conch reproduction is less likely to keep pace with intense harvest than previously thought,” said lead author Greg Herbert, associate professor from the USF School of Geosciences. “Horse conch populations are important. They create habitat for other species by leaving empty shells of dead prey around for fish, crabs and other animals to use as homes. They also contribute to the unique experience that we have in Florida of being able to go to the beach and seeing one of the largest seashells in the world at the water’s edge.”

Data from FWC shows that there has been a steady population decline since the mid-1990s. Commercial fishermen reported a peak count of 14,511 Florida horse conchs in 1996, followed by 6,124 in 2000, 1,461 in 2015 and just 67 in 2020.

“We still know very little about how many horse conchs exist and where their preferred habitats or what their optimal environmental conditions are,” said co-author Stephen Geiger, research scientist at the FWC. “Because we have no dedicated funding for more than 1,500 species of mollusks found in the waters that surround Florida, we continue to seek grants that enable us to study their biological traits, including those that will help managers decide if some species are in need of better protection.”

The shells that were studied were collected from the Dry Tortugas, Vaca Key, Sanibel Island and Cape Romano. Researchers say the further north you go, the smaller the Florida horse conch, possibly due to overexploited fisheries and recreational collecting.

An international team of researchers including John Dattilo — professor of recreation, park, and tourism management at Penn State — has been studying how to increase leisure and reduce loneliness during the pandemic among both international college students and older adults.

Across two different studies, the researchers found that people who had meaningful, challenging experiences were less lonely — even when higher levels of social contact and support were not available.

“There is a well-known saying: ‘Time flies when you are having fun,'” said Dattilo. “The unspoken corollary is that time drags when you are bored. Our research shows that both of these ideas are true. By engaging in meaningful activities during free time that demand focus, people can reduce loneliness and increase momentary happiness.”

Loneliness and the pandemic

Despite — or perhaps in part because of — technology that can connect people anywhere at any time, previous research has shown that loneliness has increased over recent decades.

Loneliness touches people of all ages, from children to young adults to older adults. The COVID-19 pandemic, which caused many people to alter their social behavior to prevent the spread of disease, exacerbated the problem of loneliness around the world.

“Loneliness is very connected to our health,” Dattilo explained. “Psychological, emotional, and cognitive health are all challenged when people are lonely. Loneliness is associated with depression and other mental health challenges.”

“Troublingly,” continued Dattilo, “there is a loneliness epidemic. And while the COVID-19 pandemic has increased loneliness for many people, the silver lining is that the pandemic has also exposed the scope of the loneliness problem. Anything we can do as a society to reduce loneliness should improve health and happiness for people everywhere.”

In a new article that appears in Leisure Sciences, the researchers explored loneliness among international university students in Taiwan. The same research team also published an article about reducing loneliness among nursing home residents late in 2021.

Prior research has shown that loneliness among international university students is common around the world. International students are removed from their social networks and live in a different culture, often one that speaks a different language. Typically, international students can prevent loneliness by participating in social activities to receive ‘social support,’ the sense that they are cared for by the people with whom they socialize. During the pandemic, however, many group-based activities and social gatherings have been cancelled or prohibited.

Additionally, the researchers identified that the online social opportunities that became available in the pandemic may be less accessible to international students because of language and cultural differences.

Flow reduces loneliness

According to the researchers, reduced loneliness is associated with engaging in enjoyable activities that require both concentration and skill.

“When people become engrossed in what they are doing, they enter a state that is called ‘flow,'” Dattilo explained. “Flow can be achieved by engaging in mental or physical activities that we value and that require us to concentrate fully to use our skills.”

For people to achieve a state of flow, an activity must require a good deal of their skill but not be so difficult that it seems impossible. Additionally, it must demand concentration to execute and be meaningful to the participant. Artistic endeavors like playing the piano or painting can induce flow. So can physical activities like skiing or chopping wood, along with mental tasks like writing or storytelling. What induces flow differs from person to person based on individual skills and values.

“When we enter a state of flow, we become absorbed and focused, and we experience momentary enjoyment,” Dattilo continued. “When we leave a state of flow, we are often surprised by how much time has passed.”

People with extensive free time — like college students who are locked down during a pandemic, or people who live in a nursing home — can achieve flow when they engage in activities they find to be meaningful. In this way, time passes quickly for them, their life has meaning, and their experience of loneliness is reduced, according to the researchers.

Social support from friends and acquaintances is a primary way that people reduce loneliness. For many people, however, obtaining adequate social support can be challenging. Though the researchers found that students with high levels of social support were less lonely, they found that flow was even more important to reducing loneliness. Helping people achieve flow can reduce loneliness in situations where social support is insufficient. More importantly, it can reduce loneliness for people in any situation.

Encouraging flow for everyone

Some activities never induce flow, while other activities may or may not, depending on the individual. According to Dattilo, there is nothing wrong with watching television, but, typically, it does not help people enter a state of flow because they are unlikely to experience any challenges. Additionally, different people find different activities meaningful and enjoyable. Nursing home residents are unlikely to enjoy playing bingo if they did not enjoy similar games when they were younger, said Dattilo.

“Learning which activities might enable someone to enter a state of flow requires asking questions and listening,” said Dattilo. “People tend to thrive on healthy engagement and challenge. My collaborators and I hope that this research will help people live fuller, happier, healthier lives.”

This research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan. Liang-Chih Chang of National Open University in New Taipei City, Taiwan was the lead author of this research. Pei-Chun Hseih of Brock University in Ontario, Canada and Fei-Hsin Huang of Lungwha University of Science and Technology in Taoyuan City, Taiwan also contributed to this research.

The research includes data from a large and well-characterized prospective cohort of elderly individuals, with detailed data on dietary intake, inflammation, and incidence of CVD. The research confirmed previously observed associations between dietary fiber and CVD and extended those investigations to include the source of the fiber, the relationship of fiber with multiple inflammatory markers, and to test whether inflammation mediated the relationship between dietary fiber and CVD.

Of the 4125 adults enrolled in the Cardiovascular Health Study from 1989 to 1990 participants received a food frequency questionnaire that was administered to those without prevalent CVD at enrollment and then were followed up visits for development CVD (stroke, myocardial infarction, and atherosclerotic cardiovascular death) through June 2015. Blood samples were assessed for markers of inflammation.

“Higher intakes of dietary fiber is associated with lower CVD risk. A common hypothesis has been that higher fiber intakes reduce inflammation, subsequently leading to lower CVD risk” said Rupak Shivakoti, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School. ‘With findings from this study, we are now learning that one particular type of dietary fiber — cereal fiber — but not fruit or vegetable fiber was associated with lower inflammation. With findings from this study we now are learning that cereal fiber has the potential to reduce inflammation and will need to be tested in future interventional studies.”

Although there are data to suggest that fiber in general might have anti-inflammatory effects by improving gut function, modifying diet and satiety (eg, reduced fat and total energy intake), and improving lipid and glucose profile metabolism, why cereal fiber but not vegetable or fruit fiber is associated with lower inflammation is not clear and warrants further investigation, noted Shivakoti. Further, he notes that it is not clear whether cereal fiber per se or other nutrients in foods rich in cereal fiber are driving the observed relationships.

“Additionally, we learned that inflammation had only a modest role in mediating the observed inverse association between cereal fiber and CVD,” observed Shivakoti. “This suggests that factors other than inflammation may play a larger role in the cereal fiber-associated reduction in CVD and will need to be tested in future interventions of specific populations.

Co-authors are from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; University of Washington; Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Harvard Medical School; Boston Veterans Healthcare; Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont; San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System; University of California-San Francisco; Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute; New York Academy of Medicine; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; and Harvard Chan School of Public Health,

The research was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

This new research raises new questions about the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT), a questionnaire widely used along with other methods to diagnose concussions sustained during sports. Findings were presented at the American Physiological Society annual meeting April 5.

“Our findings highlight the importance of considering the effects of exercise and fatigue in assessing concussions in athletes on the field,” said the study’s first author, Stephanie Iring, a doctoral candidate in the laboratory of Jorge Serrador, an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Health Professions. “While players with a head impact may report more symptoms generally, we have to be cautious in using all symptoms on the assessment since some are common after intense exercise even when there was no head impact.”

A concussion is a traumatic brain injury usually caused by a blow to the head. Although not typically life-threatening, the effects can be serious and long-lasting. About 3.8 million sports-related concussions are reported each year in the United States.

SCAT is a tool designed for use by medical professionals to determine whether a player has suffered a concussion. The assessment includes questions about “red flag” symptoms such as neck pain, headache, muscle weakness and vision problems in addition to tests to assess memory loss and other symptoms.

In previous studies of the tool, researchers compared symptoms in athletes who experienced a blow to the head with people who have been at rest. For the new study, researchers compared SCAT scores in rugby players who had sustained a blow to the head with teammates who had just played an intense rugby match but did not have a head impact. They assessed 209 players, 80 of whom had experienced a head impact and 129 who had not.

Compared with those who did suffer a head injury, those who did have a head injury had significantly more symptoms on the SCAT assessment, reporting 26 symptoms on average. Non-injured players reported about nine symptoms. However, many players without a head injury had symptoms similar to those reported by head-injured players, including fatigue and neck pain.

“Our data shows that exertion during a match increased the number and severity of self-reported symptoms in control players even though they had not experienced a head impact,” Iring said. “This could lead to difficulty differentiating these players from those that had experienced a head impact when using on-field assessments.”

Some symptoms, including headache and “not feeling right,” were more closely associated with having a head injury. This suggests these symptoms might be a stronger indicator of concussion in players who have just finished an intense game, according to researchers. In addition to headache, other symptoms more common in those with a head injury included cognitive-sensory effects, emotional-affective symptoms and hypersensitivity. The researchers suggested further studies are needed to examine how these components can be used along with current physiological measures to better assess a concussion in athletes.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Rutgers University. Original written by Patti Verbanas. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The research appears online today in Nature Neuroscience.

“The big game-changer here is discovering locations on the chromosome that speed up or slow down brain aging in worldwide populations. These can quickly become new drug targets,” said Paul Thompson of USC, a lead author on the study and the co-founder and director of the ENIGMA Consortium. “Through our AI4AD (Artificial Intelligence for Alzheimer’s Disease) initiative we even have a genome-guided drug repurposing program to target these and find new and existing drugs that help us age better.”

ENIGMA is working group based at USC that is exploring a vast trove of brain data and has published some of the largest-ever neuroimaging studies of schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and even HIV infection.

To discover the hotspots, or genomic loci, more than 200 ENIGMA-member scientists from all over the world looked for people whose brains were scanned twice with MRI. The scans provided a measure of how fast their brains were gaining or losing tissue in regions that control memory, emotion and analytical thinking.

A million markers screened

After computing brain tissue change rates in 15,000 people of all ages, researchers screened a million markers in their genomes to detect 15 genomic loci — specific, physical locations of genes or other DNA sequences on a chromosome — that were speeding up brain tissue changes.

These loci included some well-known Alzheimer’s risk genes, such as APOE, and some novel ones, Thompson said. The researchers also found overlap with genes involved with depression, schizophrenia and cognitive functioning.

“Some of these genetic variants affect the growth rates of brain substructures in childhood, while others affect the speed of brain tissue loss in older adulthood,” said co-author Neda Jahanshad, an associate professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “The different parts of the brain have specific genes associated with their rates of change.”

Thompson added, “You can see that APOE — the famous Alzheimer’s gene — hits a couple of brain structures adversely — the hippocampus and amygdala — which also makes sense as they are the brain regions most vulnerable to Alzheimer’s and it seems to speed tissue loss there specifically.”

ENIGMA also has international projects studying childhood brain disorders — from Tourette syndrome and autism to epilepsy. The new list of genes that slow down or speed up brain growth in children provides new leads to pursue in these disorders as well, the researchers said.

About this study

In addition to Thompson and Jahanshad, other USC scientists involved in the study included Sophia Thomopoulos, Joanna Bright, Leila Nabulsi, Linda Ding and Alyssa Zhu, all from the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute. For a full list of authors, see the published study.

The study was supported with funding from the National Institutes of Health, including the National Institute on Aging (U01AG068057, R01AG058854, R01AG059874), the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH117601), the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (P41 EB015922), and a Zenith Grant (ZEN-20-644609) from the Alzheimer’s Association.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Southern California. Original written by Leigh Hopper. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

“Our work provides a sort of cooking recipe for patent creation, with a list of ingredients that vary by industrial sector,” says Sandy Dall’erba, professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE) and director of the Center for Climate, Regional, Environmental and Trade Economics (CREATE) at U of I. Dall’erba is a co-author on the study.

“Some sectors depend very much on local input factors, such as the presence of a university, versus elements located further away, such as spending in R&D by another private company. In some cases, this type of collaboration takes place across companies located thousands of miles apart as virtual meetings increasingly have replaced face-to-face meetings,” Dall’erba states.

“In addition, our research measures the extent to which innovation in one sector depends on R&D in the same sector or other sectors. For instance, new patents in the drug and medical industry depend on local and distant R&D in the chemical industry.”

Traditionally, geographical proximity was considered essential for knowledge flows. Clusters such as Silicon Valley’s high-tech industry or Detroit’s automobile industry facilitate face-to-face interactions and informal networking. Economists now acknowledge innovations may be shared across greater distances, but most studies have looked at aggregate results rather than location- and industry-specific patterns.

“We wanted to see the importance of geography for the patterns of knowledge creation in specific industries. We also wanted to examine how information flows across similar or different industries. Finally, we look at spillovers from private and university research and development activities,” says lead author Orsa Kekezi, a scholar at the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University. Kekezi began working on this research while she was a visiting scholar at Illinois.

The researchers analyzed knowledge transfers across 853 metropolitan U.S. counties in five manufacturing industries: chemical, drugs and medical, mechanical, computer and communication, and electrical and electronic.

The study uses patent applications as a proxy for knowledge creation, tracking the flow from where patents are created to where they are cited (based on data from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office). This measures the directionality of innovation and identifies the role of external factors in knowledge output.

The core elements in the analysis are intra- and inter-sectoral knowledge spillovers, as well as intra- and interregional flows, defined as local (within county), short distance (neighboring counties in 50-mile radius), and the rest of U.S. (beyond 50 miles). The researchers also looked at the presence of university and private research and development, as well as other factors, such as the number of graduate degree holders and the industrial diversity in a county.

“Overall, the local environment matters greatly for all the sectors. The industry structure in the region, the size of firms, whether there is a university — these elements all matter for innovation. All sectors benefit from the local environment,” Kekezi states.

But the specifics vary by sector and provide a complex picture of interactions. There is no one-size-fits-all approach for the development of patents, and if you look at average results, you’ll miss the intricate details and patterns across sectors and regions.

“While university research matters for all the sectors, there is large heterogeneity here as well,” says study co-author Dongwoo Kang, a research fellow at the Korea Labor Institute, South Korea. “For example, it matters more for the chemical industry and the drugs and medical industry; those sectors really benefit from basic research.

“Universities provide the core research that is needed for the chemical industry to work. Unlike perhaps the mechanical or electric industries, the chemical industry relies more on faculty scholars who are looking at basic processes,” he adds.

Interregional spillovers matter less in the chemical industry, so face-to-face contact is important. On the other hand, for the drugs and medical industry, both inter-sectoral and long-distance regional spillovers matter, so geographic proximity is not as necessary. And for the electrical and electronic industry, inter-sectoral short-distance spillovers play a significant role.

The study findings can help companies decide where to locate their establishments.

“The idea that a company values proximity to a university, or where research and development are already happening, still holds true. But we also show the network of innovation is not completely local,” Dall’erba states.

“The main takeaway from the paper is that we should not only look at local spillovers. We should look at knowledge that comes from further away, and from other industries,” Kekezi notes. “New ideas don’t come only by looking at what has been done in one’s field, but also from looking at the broader picture and how we can combine different types of knowledge to create something new.”

The development of COVID-19 vaccines serves as an example, Kang adds.

“The U.S. invested a lot of money in research and development to stimulate innovation in creating the first COVID-19 vaccines. This is typically done through a central cluster that serves as a basis for innovation. But there are also other networks making new COVID-19 vaccines. Our findings imply that not only local activities, but also research and development in other places are important for making new COVID-19 vaccines,” he explains.

The findings can also help improve the design of future local and national innovation policies.

“We need to move away from an approach whereby everything is driven by similar mechanisms and instead understand much better what really works for one industry might be quite different from what works for another industry. It’s not just about promoting industry clusters; it’s more complicated than that. When governments try to promote innovation, they need to define a strategy that works for a specific industry and a specific location,” Dall’erba says.