Study explores distrust of atheists by believers

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Distrust is the central motivating factor behind why religious people dislike atheists, according to a new study led by University of British Columbia psychologists.

"Where there are religious majorities -- that is, in most of the world -- atheists are among the least trusted people," says lead author Will Gervais, a doctoral student in UBC's Dept. of Psychology. "With more than half a billion atheists worldwide, this prejudice has the potential to affect a substantial number of people."

While reasons behind antagonism towards atheists have not been fully explored, the study -- published in the current online issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology -- is among the first explorations of the social psychological processes underlying anti-atheist sentiments.

"This antipathy is striking, as atheists are not a coherent, visible or powerful social group," says Gervais, who co-authored the study with UBC Associate Prof. Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff of the University of Oregon. The study is titled, Do You Believe in Atheists? Distrust is Central to Anti-Atheist Prejudice.

The researchers conducted a series of six studies with 350 American adults and nearly 420 university students in Canada, posing a number of hypothetical questions and scenarios to the groups. In one study, participants found a description of an untrustworthy person to be more representative of atheists than of Christians, Muslims, gay men, feminists or Jewish people. Only rapists were distrusted to a comparable degree.

The researchers concluded that religious believer's distrust -- rather than dislike or disgust -- was the central motivator of prejudice against atheists, adding that these studies offer important clues on how to combat this prejudice.

One motivation for the research was a Gallup poll that found that only 45 per cent of American respondents would vote for a qualified atheist president, says Norenzayan. The figure was the lowest among several hypothetical minority candidates. Poll respondents rated atheists as the group that least agrees with their vision of America, and that they would most disapprove of their children marrying.

The religious behaviors of others may provide believers with important social cues, the researchers say. "Outward displays of belief in God may be viewed as a proxy for trustworthiness, particularly by religious believers who think that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them," says Norenzayan. "While atheists may see their disbelief as a private matter on a metaphysical issue, believers may consider atheists' absence of belief as a public threat to cooperation and honesty."

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Surgeons perform better with eye movement training

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Surgeons can learn their skills more quickly if they are taught how to control their eye movements. Research led by the University of Exeter shows that trainee surgeons learn technical surgical skills much more quickly and deal better with the stress of the operating theatre if they are taught to mimic the eye movements of experts.

This research, published in the journal Surgical Endoscopy, could transform the way in which surgeons are trained to be ready for the operating theatre.

Working in collaboration with the University of Hong Kong, the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust and the Horizon training centre Torbay, the University of Exeter team identified differences in the eye movements of expert and novice surgeons. They devised a gaze training programme, which taught the novices the 'expert' visual control patterns. This enabled them to learn technical skills more quickly than their fellow students and perform these skills in distracting conditions similar to the operating room.

Thirty medical students were divided into three groups, each undertaking a different type of training. The 'gaze trained' group of students was shown a video, captured by an eye tracker, displaying the visual control of an experienced surgeon. The footage highlighted exactly where and when the surgeon's eyes were fixed during a simulated surgical task. The students then conducted the task themselves, wearing the same eye-tracking device. During the task they were encouraged to adopt the same eye movements as those of the expert surgeon.

Students learned that successful surgeons 'lock' their eyes to a critical location while performing complex movements using surgical instruments. This prevents them from tracking the tip of the surgical tool, helping them to be accurate and avoid being distracted.

After repeating the task a number of times, the students' eye movements soon mimicked those of a far more experienced surgeon. Members of the other groups, who were either taught how to move the surgical instruments or were left to their own devices, did not learn as quickly. Those students' performance broke down when they were put into conditions that simulated the environment of the operating theatre and they needed to multi-task.

Dr Samuel Vine of the University of Exeter explained: "It appears that teaching novices the eye movements of expert surgeons allows them to attain high levels of motor control much quicker than novices taught in a traditional way. This highlights the important link between the eye and hand in the performance of motor skills. These individuals were also able to successfully multi-task without their technical skills breaking down, something that we know experienced surgeons are capable of doing in the operating theatre.

"Teaching eye movements rather than the motor skills may have reduced the working memory required to complete the task. This may be why they were able to multi-task whilst the other groups were not."

Dr Samuel Vine and Dr Mark Wilson from Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter have previously worked with athletes to help them improve their performance through gaze training, but this is the first study to examine the benefits of gaze training in surgical skills training.

Dr Vine added: "The findings from our research highlight the potential for surgical educators to 'speed up' the initial phase of technical skill learning, getting trainees ready for the operating room earlier and therefore enabling them to gain more 'hands on' experience. This is important against a backdrop of reduced government budgets and new EU working time directives, meaning that in the UK we have less money and less time to deliver specialist surgical training."

The research team is now analysing the eye movements of surgeons performing 'real life' operations and are working to develop a software training package that will automatically guide trainees to adopt surgeons eye movements.

Mr John McGrath, Consultant Surgeon at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, said: "The use of simulators has become increasingly common during surgical training to ensure that trainee surgeons have reached a safe level of competency before performing procedures in the real-life operating theatre. Up to now, there has been fairly limited research to understand how these simulators can be used to their maximum potential.

"This exciting collaboration with the Universities of Exeter and Hong Kong has allowed us to trial a very novel approach to surgical education, applying the team's international expertise in the field of high performance athletes. Focussing on surgeons' eye movements has resulted in a reduction in the time taken to learn specific procedures and, more importantly, demonstrated that their skills are less likely to break down under pressure. Our current work has now moved into the operating theatre to ensure that patients will benefit from the advances in surgical training and surgical safety."

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First analysis of tumor-suppressor interactions with whole genome in normal human cells reveals key differences with cancer cells

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Scientists investigating the interactions, or binding patterns, of a major tumor-suppressor protein known as p53 with the entire genome in normal human cells have turned up key differences from those observed in cancer cells. The distinct binding patterns reflect differences in the chromatin (the way DNA is packed with proteins), which may be important for understanding the function of the tumor suppressor protein in cancer cells.

The study was conducted by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and is published in the December 15 issue of the journal Cell Cycle.

"No other study has shown such a dramatic difference in a tumor suppressor protein binding to DNA between normal and cancer-derived cells," said Brookhaven biologist Krassimira Botcheva, lead author on the paper. "This research makes it clear that it is essential to study p53 functions in both types of cells in the context of chromatin to gain a correct understanding of how p53 tumor suppression is affected by global epigenetic changes -- modifications to DNA or chromatin -- associated with cancer development."

Because of its key role in tumor suppression, p53 is the most studied human protein. It modulates a cell's response to a variety of stresses (nutrient starvation, oxygen level changes, DNA damage caused by chemicals or radiation) by binding to DNA and regulating the expression of an extensive network of genes. Depending on the level of DNA damage, it can activate DNA repair, stop the cells from multiplying, or cause them to self-destruct -- all of which can potentially prevent or stop tumor development. Malfunctioning p53 is a hallmark of human cancers.

Most early studies of p53 binding explored its interactions with isolated individual genes, and all whole-genome studies to date have been conducted in cancer-derived cells. This is the first study to present a high-resolution genome-wide p53-binding map for normal human cells, and to correlate those findings with the "epigenetic landscape" of the genome.

"We analyzed the p53 binding in the context of the human epigenome, by correlating the p53 binding profile we obtained in normal human cells with a published high-resolution map of DNA methylation -- a type of chemical modification that is one of the most important epigenetic modifications to DNA -- that had been generated for the same cells," Botcheva said.

Key findings

In the normal human cells, the scientists found p53 binding sites located in close proximity to genes and particularly at the sites in the genome, known as transcriptions start sites, which represent "start" signals for transcribing the genes. Though this association of binding sites with genes and transcription start sites was previously observed in studies of functional, individually analyzed binding sites, it was not seen in high-throughput whole-genome studies of cancer-derived cell lines. In those earlier studies, the identified p53 binding sites were found not close to genes, and not close to the sites in the human genome where transcription starts.

Additionally, nearly half of the newly identified p53 binding sites in the normal cells (in contrast to about five percent of the sites reported in cancer cells) reside in so-called CpG islands. These are short DNA sequences with unusually high numbers of cytosine and guanine bases (the C and G of the four-letter genetic code alphabet, consisting of A, T, C, and G). CpG islands tend to be hypo- (or under-) methylated relative to the heavily methylated mammalian genome.

"This association of binding sites with CpG islands in the normal cells is what prompted us to investigate a possible genome-wide correlation between the identified sites and the CpG methylation status," Botcheva said.

The scientists found that p53 binding sites were enriched at hypomethylated regions of the human genome, both in and outside CpG islands.

"This is an important finding because, during cancer development, many CpG islands are subjected to extensive methylation while the bulk of the genomic DNA becomes hypomethylated," Botcheva said. "These major epigenetic changes may contribute to the differences observed in the p53-binding-sites' distribution in normal and cancer cells."

The scientists say this study clearly illustrates that the genomic landscape -- the DNA modifications and the associated chromatin changes -- have a significant effect on p53 binding. Furthermore, it greatly extends the list of experimentally defined p53 binding sites and provides a general framework for investigating the interplay between transcription factor binding, tumor suppression, and epigenetic changes associated with cancer development.

This research, which was funded by the DOE Office of Science, lays groundwork for further advancing the detailed understanding of radiation effects, including low-dose radiation effects, on the human genome.

The research team also includes John Dunn and Carl Anderson of Brookhaven Lab, and Richard McCombie of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where the high-throughput Illumina sequencing was done.

Methodology

The p53 binding sites were identified by a method called ChIP-seq: for chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), which produces a library of DNA fragments bound by a protein of interest using immunochemistry tools, followed by massively parallel DNA sequencing (seq) for determining simultaneously millions of sequences (the order of the nucleotide bases A, T, C and G in DNA) for these fragments.

"The experiment is challenging, the data require independent experimental validation and extensive bioinformatics analysis, but it is indispensable for high-throughput genomic analyses," Botcheva said. Establishing such capability at BNL is directly related to the efforts for development of profiling technologies for evaluating the role of epigenetic modifications in modulating low-dose ionizing radiation responses and also applicable for plant epigenetic studies.

The analysis required custom-designed software developed by Brookhaven bioinformatics specialist Sean McCorkle.

"Mapping the locations of nearly 20 million sequences in the 3-billion-base human genome, identifying binding sites, and performing comparative analysis with other data sets required new programming approaches as well as parallel processing on many CPUs," McCorkle said. "The sheer volume of this data required extensive computing, a situation expected to become increasingly commonplace in biology. While this work was a sequence data-processing milestone for Brookhaven, we expect data volumes only to increase in the future, and the computing challenges to continue."

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Journal References:

Krassimira Botcheva, Sean R. McCorkle, W.R. McCombie, John J. Dunn, Carl W. Anderson. Distinct p53 genomic binding patterns in normal and cancer-derived human cells. Cell Cycle, 2011; 10 (24) [link]William A. Freed-Pastor, Carol Prives. Dissimilar DNA binding by p53 in normal and tumor-derived cells. Cell Cycle, 2011; 10 (24) [link]

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Scientists use laser imaging to assess safety of zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreen

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Ultra-tiny zinc oxide (ZnO) particles with dimensions less than one-ten-millionth of a meter are among the ingredients list of some commercially available sunscreen products, raising concerns about whether the particles may be absorbed beneath the outer layer of skin. To help answer these safety questions, an international team of scientists from Australia and Switzerland have developed a way to optically test the concentration of ZnO nanoparticles at different skin depths. They found that the nanoparticles did not penetrate beneath the outermost layer of cells when applied to patches of excised skin.

The results, which were published this month in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express, lay the groundwork for future studies in live patients.

The high optical absorption of ZnO nanoparticles in the UVA and UVB range, along with their transparency in the visible spectrum when mixed into lotions, makes them appealing candidates for inclusion in sunscreen cosmetics. However, the particles have been shown to be toxic to certain types of cells within the body, making it important to study the nanoparticles' fate after being applied to the skin. By characterizing the optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles, the Australian and Swiss research team found a way to quantitatively assess how far the nanoparticles might migrate into skin.

The team used a technique called nonlinear optical microscopy, which illuminates the sample with short pulses of laser light and measures a return signal. Initial results show that ZnO nanoparticles from a formulation that had been rubbed into skin patches for 5 minutes, incubated at body temperature for 8 hours, and then washed off, did not penetrate beneath the stratum corneum, or topmost layer of the skin. The new optical characterization should be a useful tool for future non-invasive in vivo studies, the researchers write.

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Zhen Song, Timothy A. Kelf, Washington H. Sanchez, Michael S. Roberts, Jaro Ricka, Martin Frenz, Andrei V. Zvyagin. Characterization of optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles for quantitative imaging of transdermal transport. Biomedical Optics Express, 2011; 2 (12): 3321 DOI: 10.1364/BOE.2.003321

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A revolutionary new 'dry ink' for laser printers and photocopy machines

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Imagine someone inventing a "super-toner," a revolutionary new "dry ink" for copiers and laser printers that produces higher-quality, sharper color images more economically, cutting electricity by up to 30 percent. One that also reduces emissions of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas -- in the production of tens of thousands of tons of toner produced each year. One that reduces the cost of laser printing, making it more affordable in more offices, schools and homes.

Sound like a toner that is too good to be true? Well, a team of scientists at the Xerox Corporation actually invented it. A new episode in the 2011 edition of a  video series from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, focuses on the research and the teamwork that led to this advance.

Titled Prized Science: How the Science Behind ACS Awards Impacts Your Life, the videos are available without charge at the Prized Science website and on DVD.

ACS encourages educators, schools, museums, science centers, news organizations and others to embed links to Prized Science on their websites. The videos discuss scientific research in non-technical language for general audiences. New episodes in the series, which focuses on ACS' 2011 award recipients, will be issued in November and December.

"Science awards shine light on individuals who have made impressive achievements in research," noted ACS President Nancy B. Jackson, Ph.D. "Often, the focus is on the recipients, with the public not fully grasping how the award-winning research improves the everyday lives of people around the world. The Prized Science videos strive to give people with no special scientific knowledge the chance to discover the chemistry behind the American Chemical Society's national awards and see how it improves and transforms our daily lives."

A Revolutionary New "Dry Ink" for Laser Printers & Photocopy Machines features the research of Patricia Burns, Ph.D., Grazyna Kmiecik-Lawrynowicz, Ph.D., Chieh-Min Cheng, Ph.D., and Tie Hwee Ng, Ph.D., winners of the 2011 ACS Award for Team Innovation sponsored by the ACS Corporation Associates. Toner is the fine powder used instead of ink in photocopy machines, laser printers and multifunction devices -- machines that print, copy and fax. The researchers at Xerox developed a new toner called "EA Toner," which stands for "emulsion aggregation." They start with a liquid material that looks like house paint. That's the "emulsion" part. Then, they throw in pigments for color, waxes and other useful things and let everything "aggregate," or stick together. Then, it all dries out, and what's left is a fine powder that they can put into a toner cartridge. That worked fine in the lab, but scaling it up to produce millions of toner cartridges to meet consumers' demands was difficult -- all of the scientists had to work together to make the new toner a commercial reality.

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Gene is first linked to herpes-related cold sores

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — A team of researchers from the University of Utah and the University of Massachusetts has identified the first gene associated with frequent herpes-related cold sores.

The findings were published in the Dec. 1, 2011, issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Herpes simplex labialis (HSL) is an infection caused by herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) that affects more than 70 percent of the U.S. population. Once HSV-1 has infected the body, it is never removed by the immune system. Instead, it is transported to nerve cell bodies, where it lies dormant until it is reactivated. The most common visible symptom of HSV-1 reactivation is a cold sore on or around the mouth. Although a majority people are infected by HSV-1, the frequency of cold sore outbreaks is extremely variable and the causes of reactivation are uncertain.

"Researchers believe that three factors contribute to HSV-1 reactivation -- the virus itself, exposure to environmental factors, and genetic susceptibility," says John D. Kriesel, M.D., research associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine and first author on the study. "The goal of our investigation was to define genes linked to cold sore frequency."

Kriesel and his colleagues previously had identified a region of chromosome 21 containing six genes significantly linked to HSL disease using DNA collected from 43 large families to map the human genome. In the current study, Kriesel and his colleagues performed intensive analysis of this chromosome region using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping, a test which identifies differences in genetic make-up between individuals.

"Using SNP genotyping, we were able to identify 45 DNA sequence variations among 618 study participants, 355 of whom were known to be infected with HSV-1," says Kriesel. "We then used two methods called linkage analysis and transmission disequilibrium testing to determine if there was a genetic association between particular DNA sequence variations and the likelihood of having frequent cold sore outbreaks."

Kriesel and his colleagues discovered that an obscure gene called C21orf91 was associated with susceptibility to HSL. They identified five major variations of C21orf91, two of which seemed to protect against HSV-1 reactivation and two of which seemed to increase the likelihood of having frequent cold sore outbreaks.

"There is no cure for HSV-1 and, at this time, there is no way for us to predict or prevent cold sore outbreaks," says Kriesel. "The C21orf91 gene seems to play a role in cold sore susceptibility, and if this data is confirmed among a larger, unrelated population, this discovery could have important implications for the development of drugs that affect cold sore frequency."

Kriesel's University of Utah collaborators include Maurine R. Hobbs, Ph.D., research assistant professor of internal medicine and adjunct assistant professor of human genetics, and Mark F. Leppert, Ph.D., distinguished professor and former chair of human genetics.

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J. D. Kriesel, B. B. Jones, N. Matsunami, M. K. Patel, C. A. St. Pierre, E. A. Kurt-Jones, R. W. Finberg, M. Leppert, M. R. Hobbs. C21orf91 Genotypes Correlate With Herpes Simplex Labialis (Cold Sore) Frequency: Description of a Cold Sore Susceptibility Gene. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2011; 204 (11): 1654 DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jir633

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Petroleum-eating mushrooms

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Take a Petri dish containing crude petroleum and it will release a strong odor distinctive of the toxins that make up the fossil fuel. Sprinkle mushroom spores over the Petri dish and let it sit for two weeks in an incubator, and surprise, the petroleum and its smell will disappear. "The mushrooms consumed the petroleum!" says Mohamed Hijri, a professor of biological sciences and researcher at the University of Montreal's Institut de recherche en biologie végétale (IRBV).

Hijri co-directs a project with B. Franz Lang promoting nature as the number one ally in the fight against contamination. Lang holds the Canada Research Chair on Comparative and Evolutionary Genomics and is a professor at the university's Department of Biochemistry. By using bacteria to stimulate the exceptional growth capacity of certain plants and microscopic mushrooms, Hijri and Lang believe they are able to create in situ decontamination units able to successfully attack the most contaminated sites on the planet.

The recipe is simple. In the spring, we plant willow cuttings at 25-centimeter intervals so the roots dive into the ground and soak up the degrading contaminants in the timber along with the bacteria. At the end of the season, we burn the stems and leaves and we are left with a handful of ashes imprisoning all of the heavy metals that accumulated in the plant cells. Highly contaminated soil will be cleansed after just a few cycles. "In addition, it's beautiful," says Hijri pointing to a picture of dense vegetation covering the ground of an old refinery after just three weeks.

Thanks to the collaboration of an oil company from the Montreal area, the researchers had access to a microbiological paradise: an area where practically nothing can grow and where no one ventures without protective gear worthy of a space traveler. This is where Hijri collected microorganisms specialized in the ingestion of fossil fuels. "If we leave nature to itself, even the most contaminated sites will find some sort of balance thanks to the colonization by bacteria and mushrooms. But by isolating the most efficient species in this biological battle, we can gain a lot of time."

Natural and artificial selection

This is the visible part of the project, which could lead to a breakthrough in soil decontamination. The project is called Improving Bioremediation of Polluted Soils Through Environmental Genomics and it requires time-consuming sampling and fieldwork as well as DNA sequencing of the species in question. The project involves 16 researchers from the University of Montreal and McGill University, many of which are affiliated with the IRBV. The team also includes four researchers, lawyers and political scientists, specializing in the ethical, environmental, economic, legal and social aspects of genomics.

The principle is based on a well-known process in the sector called phytoremediation that consists in using plant matter for decontamination. "However, in contaminated soils, it isn't the plant doing most of the work," says Lang. "It's the microorganisms i.e. the mushrooms and bacteria accompanying the root. There are thousands of species of microorganisms and our job is to find the best plant-mushroom-bacteria combinations."

Botanist Michel Labrecque is overseeing the plant portion of the project. The willow seems to be one of the leading species at this point given its rapid growth and premature foliation. In addition, its stem grows even stronger once it has been cut. Therefore, there is no need to plant new trees every year. However, the best willow species still needs to be determined.

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