¿De qué sirve formarse en periodismo científico cuando no se trabaja como tal? Encuesta entre graduados del Programa de Ciencia y Técnica de la Fundación Instituto Leloir

Con el objeto de difundir los avances, dilemas, contextos y aplicaciones de la ciencia y la tecnología, el periodismo científico se legitimó como una rama del periodismo desde mediados del siglo pasado. Un número creciente de universidades e instituciones capacitan a profesionales de diferentes disciplinas en la comunicación de la ciencia. ¿Pero qué aptitudes y habilidades rescatan y aplican aquellos graduados que, finalmente, exploran caminos diferentes y no siguen una carrera en ese campo? A partir de una encuesta entre graduados de un tradicional curso-taller de introducción al periodismo científico, se constata que el 89,5 por ciento de ex alumnos que no adoptaron la especialidad como fuente de trabajo prioritaria declaró haber podido aplicar los conocimientos adquiridos tanto en su trabajo como en otros planos de su vida. Se destaca, según ellos, la utilización de herramientas del periodismo científico en el aula y el desarrollo de la capacidad de lectura crítica de las noticias.Fil: Loewy, Matías. Fundación Instituto Leloir; Argentina.Fil: Calabrese, Aliciao. Fundación Instituto Leloir; Argentina

¿De qué sirve formarse en periodismo científico cuando no se trabaja como tal? Encuesta entre graduados del Programa de Ciencia y Técnica de la Fundación Instituto Leloir

Con el objeto de difundir los avances, dilemas, contextos y aplicaciones de la ciencia y la tecnología, el periodismo científico se legitimó como una rama del periodismo desde mediados del siglo pasado. Un número creciente de universidades e instituciones capacitan a profesionales de diferentes disciplinas en la comunicación de la ciencia. ¿Pero qué aptitudes y habilidades rescatan y aplican aquellos graduados que, finalmente, exploran caminos diferentes y no siguen una carrera en ese campo? A partir de una encuesta entre graduados de un tradicional curso-taller de introducción al periodismo científico, se constata que el 89,5 por ciento de ex alumnos que no adoptaron la especialidad como fuente de trabajo prioritaria declaró haber podido aplicar los conocimientos adquiridos tanto en su trabajo como en otros planos de su vida. Se destaca, según ellos, la utilización de herramientas del periodismo científico en el aula y el desarrollo de la capacidad de lectura crítica de las noticias.In order to spread the progress, dilemmas, contexts and applications of Science and Technology, Science Journalism has been legitimized as a branch of Journalism since half of last century. A growing number of Universities and Institutions are offering specific Science Communication Programs to train professionals with different backgrounds. ¿But what kind of skills and abilities are considered to be useful for those former students who didn´t follow a Career in Science Journalism? By means of a Survey among Graduate Students participating in a classical workshop on Introduction to Science Journalism, it was found that 89,5 per cent of those who didn´t pursue a career in the field reported having applied that knowledge in their work and personal life. According to their opinion, it is (specially) remarkable the utilization of tools from science journalism and the development of critical reading of newspapers articles in the classrooms.Fil: Loewy, Matías. Fundación Instituto Leloir; ArgentinaFil: Calabrese, Alicia Teresita. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Cuadernos para el docente

Horizontes representa una propuesta pedagógica que incluye programas de televisión para las áreas de Lengua, Matemática, Ciencias Sociales y Ciencias Naturales. Su intención es acompañar las actividades de la Escuela Secundaria Rural y difundir contenidos audiovisuales articulados con las unidades didácticas desarrolladas a lo largo de los CUADERNOS DE ESTUDIO de las áreas disciplinares mencionadas

Specificity in S-Nitrosylation: a short-range mechanism for NO signaling?

Significance: Nitric oxide (NO) classical and less classical signaling mechanisms (through interaction with soluble guanylate cyclase and cytochrome c oxidase, respectively) operate through direct binding of NO to protein metal centers, and rely on diffusibility of the NO molecule. S-Nitrosylation, a covalent post-translational modification of protein cysteines, has emerged as a paradigm of nonclassical NO signaling. Recent Advances: Several nonenzymatic mechanisms for S-nitrosylation formation and destruction have been described. Enzymatic mechanisms for transnitrosylation and denitrosylation have been also studied as regulators of the modification of specific subsets of proteins. The advancement of modification-specific proteomic methodologies has allowed progress in the study of diverse S-nitrosoproteomes, raising clues and questions about the parameters for determining the protein specificity of the modification. Critical Issues: We propose that S-nitrosylation is mainly a short-range mechanism of NO signaling, exerted in a relatively limited range of action around the NO sources, and tightly related to the very controlled regulation of subcellular localization of nitric oxide synthases. We review the nonenzymatic and enzymatic mechanisms that support this concept, as well as physiological examples of mammalian systems that illustrate well the precise compartmentalization of S-nitrosylation. Future Directions: Individual and proteomic studies of protein S-nitrosylation-based signaling should take into account the subcellular localization in order to gain further insight into the functional role of this modification in (patho)physiological settings. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 19, 1220-1235.Spanish Government [CSD2007-00020, CP07/00143, PS09/00101, SAF2009-7520, PI10/02136]; Spanish-Portuguese Integrated Action Grant [PRI-AIBPT-2011-1015/E-10/12]; Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) [PTDC/SAU-NEU/102612/2008, PTDC/SAU-NMC/112183/2009, PEst-OE/EQB/LA0023/2011]; COST action [BM1005]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Understanding 34 Years of Forest Cover Dynamics across the Paraguayan Chaco: Characterizing Annual Changes and Forest Fragmentation Levels between 1987 and 2020

Over the past 40 years, Paraguay has lost the majority of its natural forest cover, thus becoming one of the countries with the highest deforestation rates in the world. The rapid expansion of the agricultural frontier, cattle ranching, and illegal logging between 1987 and 2012 resulted in the loss of 27% of original forest cover, equivalent to almost 44,000 km2. Within this context, the present research provides the first yearly analysis of forest cover change in the Paraguayan Chaco between the years 1987 and 2020. Remote sensing data obtained from Landsat images were applied to derive annual forest cover masks and deforestation rates over 34 years. Part of this study is a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of protected areas, as well as an analysis of the degree of fragmentation of the forest. All classification results obtained accuracies above 80% and revealed a total forest cover loss of approximately 64,700 km2. Forest clearing within protected areas was not frequent; however, some natural reserves presented losses of up to 25% of their forest cover. Through the consideration of several landscape metrics, this study reveals an onward fragmentation of forest cover, which endangers the natural habitat of numerous species

International meta-analysis of PTSD genome-wide association studies identifies sex- and ancestry-specific genetic risk loci.

The risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following trauma is heritable, but robust common variants have yet to be identified. In a multi-ethnic cohort including over 30,000 PTSD cases and 170,000 controls we conduct a genome-wide association study of PTSD. We demonstrate SNP-based heritability estimates of 5-20%, varying by sex. Three genome-wide significant loci are identified, 2 in European and 1 in African-ancestry analyses. Analyses stratified by sex implicate 3 additional loci in men. Along with other novel genes and non-coding RNAs, a Parkinson's disease gene involved in dopamine regulation, PARK2, is associated with PTSD. Finally, we demonstrate that polygenic risk for PTSD is significantly predictive of re-experiencing symptoms in the Million Veteran Program dataset, although specific loci did not replicate. These results demonstrate the role of genetic variation in the biology of risk for PTSD and highlight the necessity of conducting sex-stratified analyses and expanding GWAS beyond European ancestry populations

Enhancing Discovery of Genetic Variants for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Through Integration of Quantitative Phenotypes and Trauma Exposure Information

Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health / U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (Grant No. R01MH106595 [to CMN, IL, MBS, KJRe, and KCK], National Institutes of Health (Grant No. 5U01MH109539 to the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium ), and Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (Young Investigator Grant [to KWC]). Genotyping of samples was provided in part through the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Genetics at the Broad Institute supported by Cohen Veterans Bioscience . Statistical analyses were carried out on the LISA/Genetic Cluster Computer ( https://userinfo.surfsara.nl/systems/lisa ) hosted by SURFsara. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank resource (Application No. 41209). This work would have not been possible without the financial support provided by Cohen Veterans Bioscience, the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Genetics at the Broad Institute, and One Mind. Funding Information: MBS has in the past 3 years received consulting income from Actelion, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Aptinyx, Bionomics, BioXcel Therapeutics, Clexio, EmpowerPharm, GW Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Roche/Genentech and has stock options in Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals and Epivario. In the past 3 years, NPD has held a part-time paid position at Cohen Veterans Bioscience, has been a consultant for Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, and is on the scientific advisory board for Sentio Solutions for unrelated work. In the past 3 years, KJRe has been a consultant for Datastat, Inc., RallyPoint Networks, Inc., Sage Pharmaceuticals, and Takeda. JLM-K has received funding and a speaking fee from COMPASS Pathways. MU has been a consultant for System Analytic. HRK is a member of the Dicerna scientific advisory board and a member of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology Alcohol Clinical Trials Initiative, which during the past 3 years was supported by Alkermes, Amygdala Neurosciences, Arbor Pharmaceuticals, Dicerna, Ethypharm, Indivior, Lundbeck, Mitsubishi, and Otsuka. HRK and JG are named as inventors on Patent Cooperative Treaty patent application number 15/878,640, entitled “Genotype-guided dosing of opioid agonists,” filed January 24, 2018. RP and JG are paid for their editorial work on the journal Complex Psychiatry. OAA is a consultant to HealthLytix. All other authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest. Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health/ U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (Grant No. R01MH106595 [to CMN, IL, MBS, KJRe, and KCK], National Institutes of Health (Grant No. 5U01MH109539 to the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium), and Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (Young Investigator Grant [to KWC]). Genotyping of samples was provided in part through the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Genetics at the Broad Institute supported by Cohen Veterans Bioscience. Statistical analyses were carried out on the LISA/Genetic Cluster Computer (https://userinfo.surfsara.nl/systems/lisa) hosted by SURFsara. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank resource (Application No. 41209). This work would have not been possible without the financial support provided by Cohen Veterans Bioscience, the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Genetics at the Broad Institute, and One Mind. This material has been reviewed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. There is no objection to its presentation and/or publication. The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting true views of the U.S. Department of the Army or the Department of Defense. We thank the investigators who comprise the PGC-PTSD working group and especially the more than 206,000 research participants worldwide who shared their life experiences and biological samples with PGC-PTSD investigators. We thank Mark Zervas for his critical input. Full acknowledgments are in Supplement 1. MBS has in the past 3 years received consulting income from Actelion, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Aptinyx, Bionomics, BioXcel Therapeutics, Clexio, EmpowerPharm, GW Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Roche/Genentech and has stock options in Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals and Epivario. In the past 3 years, NPD has held a part-time paid position at Cohen Veterans Bioscience, has been a consultant for Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, and is on the scientific advisory board for Sentio Solutions for unrelated work. In the past 3 years, KJRe has been a consultant for Datastat, Inc. RallyPoint Networks, Inc. Sage Pharmaceuticals, and Takeda. JLM-K has received funding and a speaking fee from COMPASS Pathways. MU has been a consultant for System Analytic. HRK is a member of the Dicerna scientific advisory board and a member of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology Alcohol Clinical Trials Initiative, which during the past 3 years was supported by Alkermes, Amygdala Neurosciences, Arbor Pharmaceuticals, Dicerna, Ethypharm, Indivior, Lundbeck, Mitsubishi, and Otsuka. HRK and JG are named as inventors on Patent Cooperative Treaty patent application number 15/878,640, entitled ?Genotype-guided dosing of opioid agonists,? filed January 24, 2018. RP and JG are paid for their editorial work on the journal Complex Psychiatry. OAA is a consultant to HealthLytix. All other authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Society of Biological PsychiatryBackground: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is heritable and a potential consequence of exposure to traumatic stress. Evidence suggests that a quantitative approach to PTSD phenotype measurement and incorporation of lifetime trauma exposure (LTE) information could enhance the discovery power of PTSD genome-wide association studies (GWASs). Methods: A GWAS on PTSD symptoms was performed in 51 cohorts followed by a fixed-effects meta-analysis (N = 182,199 European ancestry participants). A GWAS of LTE burden was performed in the UK Biobank cohort (N = 132,988). Genetic correlations were evaluated with linkage disequilibrium score regression. Multivariate analysis was performed using Multi-Trait Analysis of GWAS. Functional mapping and annotation of leading loci was performed with FUMA. Replication was evaluated using the Million Veteran Program GWAS of PTSD total symptoms. Results: GWASs of PTSD symptoms and LTE burden identified 5 and 6 independent genome-wide significant loci, respectively. There was a 72% genetic correlation between PTSD and LTE. PTSD and LTE showed largely similar patterns of genetic correlation with other traits, albeit with some distinctions. Adjusting PTSD for LTE reduced PTSD heritability by 31%. Multivariate analysis of PTSD and LTE increased the effective sample size of the PTSD GWAS by 20% and identified 4 additional loci. Four of these 9 PTSD loci were independently replicated in the Million Veteran Program. Conclusions: Through using a quantitative trait measure of PTSD, we identified novel risk loci not previously identified using prior case-control analyses. PTSD and LTE have a high genetic overlap that can be leveraged to increase discovery power through multivariate methods.publishersversionpublishe

Plant–environment interactions through a functional traits perspective: a review of Italian studies

Italy is among the European countries with the greatest plant diversity due to both a great environmental heterogeneity and a long history of man–environment interactions. Trait-based approaches to ecological studies have developed greatly over recent decades worldwide, although several issues concerning the relationships between plant functional traits and the environment still lack sufficient empirical evaluation. To draw insights on the association between plant functional traits and direct and indirect human and natural pressures on the environmental drivers, this article summarizes the existing knowledge on this topic by reviewing the results of studies performed in Italy adopting a functional trait approach on vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens. Although we recorded trait measurements for 1418 taxa, our review highlighted some major gaps in plant traits knowledge: Mediterranean ecosystems are poorly represented; traits related to belowground organs are still overlooked; traits measurements for bryophytes and lichens are lacking. Finally, intraspecific variation has been little studied at community level so far. We conclude by highlighting the need for approaches evaluating trait–environment relationship at large spatial and temporal scales and the need of a more effective contribution to online databases to tie more firmly Italian researchers to international scientific networks on plant traits

Potential causal association between gut microbiome and posttraumatic stress disorder

Background: The causal effects of gut microbiome and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are still unknown. This study aimed to clarify their potential causal association using mendelian randomization (MR). Methods: The summary-level statistics for gut microbiome were retrieved from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of the MiBioGen consortium. As to PTSD, the Freeze 2 datasets were originated from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Working Group (PGC-PTSD), and the replicated datasets were obtained from FinnGen consortium. Single nucleotide polymorphisms meeting MR assumptions were selected as instrumental variables. The inverse variance weighting (IVW) method was employed as the main approach, supplemented by sensitivity analyses to evaluate potential pleiotropy and heterogeneity and ensure the robustness of the MR results. We also performed reverse MR analyses to explore PTSD’s causal effects on the relative abundances of specific features of the gut microbiome. Results: In Freeze 2 datasets from PGC-PTSD, eight bacterial traits revealed a potential causal association between gut microbiome and PTSD (IVW, all P < 0.05). In addition, Genus.Dorea and genus.Sellimonas were replicated in FinnGen datasets, in which eight bacterial traits revealed a potential causal association between gut microbiome and the occurrence of PTSD. The heterogeneity and pleiotropy analyses further supported the robustness of the IVW findings, providing additional evidence for their reliability. Conclusion: Our study provides the potential causal impact of gut microbiomes on the development of PTSD, shedding new light on the understanding of the dysfunctional gut-brain axis in this disorder. Our findings present novel evidence and call for investigations to confirm the association between their links, as well as to illuminate the underlying mechanisms

Discovery of 95 PTSD loci provides insight into genetic architecture and neurobiology of trauma and stress-related disorders

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) genetics are characterized by lower discoverability than most other psychiatric disorders. The contribution to biological understanding from previous genetic studies has thus been limited. We performed a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies across 1,222,882 individuals of European ancestry (137,136 cases) and 58,051 admixed individuals with African and Native American ancestry (13,624 cases). We identified 95 genome-wide significant loci (80 novel). Convergent multi-omic approaches identified 43 potential causal genes, broadly classified as neurotransmitter and ion channel synaptic modulators (e.g., GRIA1, GRM8, CACNA1E ), developmental, axon guidance, and transcription factors (e.g., FOXP2, EFNA5, DCC ), synaptic structure and function genes (e.g., PCLO, NCAM1, PDE4B ), and endocrine or immune regulators (e.g., ESR1, TRAF3, TANK ). Additional top genes influence stress, immune, fear, and threat-related processes, previously hypothesized to underlie PTSD neurobiology. These findings strengthen our understanding of neurobiological systems relevant to PTSD pathophysiology, while also opening new areas for investigation