Is Marriage Good or Bad for the Figure? Comparative Study of Nine European Countries

It is generally assumed that marriage has a positive influence on health and life expectancy. But does this “marriage bonus” also apply to the health indicator of body weight? Researchers at the University of Basel and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have investigated this question in cooperation with the market research institute GfK. Specifically, they compared the body mass index of married couples with that of singles in nine European countries. The results of their study have now been published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Numerous studies have shown that marriage is good for your health. As a team of researchers from Basel, Nuremberg, and Berlin have now found, however, that does not apply to all health indicators. Their findings show that married couples on average eat better than singles, but that they also weigh significantly more and do less sport. The researchers compared the relationship between marital status and body mass index, which relates body weight to height. A high body mass index can be a risk factor for chronic illnesses such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease.

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Website Prof. Jutta Mata University of Basel
The researchers drew on representative cross-sectional data from 10,226 respondents in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Their study is the first to compare the relationship between marital status and body mass index in nine European countries. Beyond their focus on married couples, the researchers conducted additional analyses with cohabiting couples. They also examined possible reasons for weight gain by asking respondents about their eating and exercise behaviors.

Findings from all nine countries showed that couples have a higher body mass index than singles – whether men or women. The differences between countries were surprisingly small.

According to the World Health Organization, a normal body mass index is between 18.5 and 25. Overweight is defined as an index between 25 and 30, and obesity as above 30. The average body mass index of the single men in the study was 25.7; that of the married men was 26.3. For women, the average index was 25.1 for singles and 25.6 for married women.

Although these differences may seem small, they are meaningful. In an average-height woman of 165 cm or an average-height man of 180 cm, they represent a difference of about 2 kg. Importantly, the effects of socio-economic status, age, and nationality are already taken into account in these results. “Our findings show how social factors can impact health. In this case, that the institution of marriage and certain changes in behavior within that context are directly related to nutrition and body weight,” says Ralph Hertwig, Director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

Survey findings on respondents’ eating and exercise behaviors offered possible reasons for this trend. For example, couples reported buying more regional and unprocessed products and less convenience food. Moreover, married men were more likely than single men to buy organic and fair trade food. “That indicates that particularly men in long-term relationships are more likely to eat more consciously and, in turn, probably more healthily,” says Jutta Mata, lead author of the study and Assistant Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Basel. But it does not mean that they are generally healthier: The study also shows that married men do less sport than singles. “Our findings indicate that couples are not healthier in every respect, as has previously been assumed,” says Jutta Mata.

The respondents were asked about their eating and exercise behaviors and attitudes in face-to-face interviews. This approach ensures higher data quality: People’s self-reports, for example of their weight, are more realistic if they are asked in person rather than, for example, by telephone.


Source: Univ. of Basel

Basel Physicists Develop Efficient Method of Signal Transmission from Nanocomponents

Physicists have developed an innovative method that could enable the efficient use of nanocomponents in electronic circuits. To achieve this, they have developed a layout in which a nanocomponent is connected to two electrical conductors, which uncouple the electrical signal in a highly efficient manner. The scientists at the Department of Physics and the Swiss Nanoscience Institute at the University of Basel have published their results in the scientific journal “Nature Communications” together with their colleagues from ETH Zurich.

Durch die clevere Anordnung von zwei elektrischen Leitern um das Kohlenstoff-Nanoröhrchen kommt es zu einer effizienten Signalübertragung zwischen Kohlenstoff-Nanoröhrchen und einem sehr viel grösseren Leiter für elektromagnetische Wellen.
The clever arrangement of two electrical conductors around the carbon nanotube leads to an efficient signal transmission between the carbon nanotube and a much larger conductor for electromagnetic waves. © University of Basel, Department of Physics/Swiss Nanoscience Institute
Electronic components are becoming smaller and smaller. Components measuring just a few nanometers – the size of around ten atoms – are already being produced in research laboratories. Thanks to miniaturization, numerous electronic components can be placed in restricted spaces, which will boost the performance of electronics even further in the future.

Teams of scientists around the world are investigating how to produce such nanocomponents with the aid of carbon nanotubes. These tubes have unique properties – they offer excellent heat conduction, can withstand strong currents, and are suitable for use as conductors or semiconductors. However, signal transmission between a carbon nanotube and a significantly larger electrical conductor remains problematic as large portions of the electrical signal are lost due to the reflection of part of the signal.

Antireflex increases efficiency

A similar problem occurs with light sources inside a glass object. A large amount of light is reflected by the walls, which means that only a small proportion reaches the outside. This can be countered by using an antireflex coating on the walls.

Led by Professor Christian Schönenberger, scientists in Basel are now taking a similar approach to nanoelectronics. They have developed an antireflex device for electrical signals to reduce the reflection that occurs during transmission from nanocomponents to larger circuits. To do so, they created a special formation of electrical conductors of a certain length, which are coupled with a carbon nanotube. The researchers were therefore able to efficiently uncouple a high-frequency signal from the nanocomponent.

Weiterführende Links

Research group Prof. Christian Schönenberger
Differences in impedance cause the problem

Coupling nanostructures with significantly larger conductors proved difficult because they have very different impedances. The greater the difference in impedance between two conducting structures, the greater the loss during transmission. The difference between nanocomponents and macroscopic conductors is so great that no signal will be transmitted unless countermeasures are taken. The antireflex device minimizes this effect and adjusts the impedances, leading to efficient coupling. This brings the scientists significantly closer to their goal of using nanocomponents to transmit signals in electronic parts.



Source: Univ. of Basel

Psychology: Does Aging Affect Decision Making?

Aging is associated with significant decline in cognitive functions. But does this translate into poorer decision making? Psychologists from the University of Basel and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development report that in simple decision situations, older adults perform just as well as younger adults. However, according to their study published in the academic journal Cognition, aging may affect decision performance in more complex decision situations.

Important decisions in politics and economics are often made by older people: According to Forbes magazine, the average age of the world's most powerful people in 2013 was 61 years. As populations across the globe age, the selection of older individuals into such powerful roles may even be further intensified.

Aging is associated with a significant decline in so-called fluid cognitive abilities, for example, the ability to store information in memory or to quickly solve cognitive problems. Fluid cognitive abilities may play a role particularly in “decisions from experience”, that is, when the potential consequences of available options is not conveniently summarized but has to be acquired through information search (exploration) and learning. Thus, how do older in comparison to younger adults fare when making decisions from experience?

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Faculty of Psychology, Cognitive and Decision Sciences
Choosing between lotteries
Psychologists from the University of Basel and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin conducted three studies in which younger (average age: 24 years) and older adults (71 years) repeatedly made decisions from experience– either on a computer in the lab (study 1) or on an iPad at home (study 2).

In each lottery, participants had the choice between two options, which were presented as two unlabeled boxes on the screen. Before making a consequential decision, participants could sample the possible gains and losses of each option by clicking onto the two boxes, as often as they liked. They were thus able to learn which option was better, promising the higher gain or the smaller loss in the long run. Surprisingly, older adults put the same amount of effort into exploring the options and chose the advantageous options as often as younger adults.

 “Simple but successful” learning strategies
The psychologists then analyzed participants’ learning processes using computer simulations and found a possible explanation for their results: “Younger as well as older adults are using relatively simple but successful learning strategies”, explains first-author Dr. Renato Frey. These strategies remain relatively unaffected by reduced fluid cognitive abilities. Only in a third study where participants no longer had to choose between two but four or up to eight options, did the researchers observe a decline in decision-making performance by older adults. Overall, the results suggest that simple strategies can be useful to aging decision makers even though such strategies may not fully compensate for age-related cognitive decline in very complex decision situations.



Source: Univ. of Basel

How Natural Channel Proteins Move in Artificial Membranes

Natural channel proteins are integrated into artificial membranes to facilitate the transport of ions and molecules. Researchers at the University of Basel have now been able to measure the movement of these channel proteins for the first time. They move up to ten times slower than in their natural environment, namely the cell membrane. As reported in academic journal “Nano Letters”, the results may prove useful to the ongoing development of new applications such as nanoreactors and artificial organelles.

The membranes of the cells in our bodies are only approximately 4 to 5 nanometers thick and consist of a complex mixture of lipids and specific membrane proteins, which also include channel proteins. This kind of cell membrane can be described as a fluid 2-D solution, in which the components are able to move laterally. These movements within the membrane are dependent on the flexibility and fluidity of the components and ultimately determine the functionality of the membrane.

Dynamic channel proteins

Chemists at the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Molecular Systems Engineering working under Professor Wolfgang Meier and Professor Cornelia Palivan from the University of Basel have now integrated three different channel proteins into artificial membranes of 9 to 13 nanometers in thickness and have measured their movements for the first time. The researchers began by creating large membrane models with embedded and dyed channel proteins; they then put them on a glass surface and measured them using a single-molecule measuring method known as fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. All three channel proteins were able to move freely within the membranes of various thicknesses – this took up to ten times longer than in the lipid bilayers of their natural environment.

Flexibility is a necessity

In thicker membranes, the building blocks of the membrane (polymers) must be able to condense around the channel proteins in order to alter their fixed size. To do so, the membrane building blocks have to be sufficiently flexible. This had already been described in theory. The researchers at the University of Basel have now been able to measure this in a practical experiment for the first time, demonstrating that the thicker the membrane, the slower the movement of the channel protein is in comparison to the movement of the actual polymers that form the membrane.

Weiterführende Links

Research Group Prof. Wolfgang Meier
NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering
“This phenomenon is effectively a local decrease in fluidity caused by condensation of the polymers,” explains lead author Fabian Itel. In essence, however, the behavior of the channel proteins in the artificial membranes is comparable to that in their natural environment, the lipid bilayer, with the time scale of the movements being approximately ten times lower. The research project received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering.

Source: Univ. of Basel

The Bizarre Mating Habits of Flatworms

Failing to find a mating partner is a dent to the reproductive prospects of any animal, but in the flatworm species Macrostomum hystrix it might involve a real headache. Zoologists from the Universities of Basel and Bielefeld have discovered the extraordinary lengths to which this animal is willing to go in order to reproduce – including apparently injecting sperm directly into their own heads. The academic journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B has published their findings.

The absence of a mate usually spells disaster for sexually reproducing animals. However, some simultaneous hermaphrodites – animals who have both male and female sex organs at the same time – have developed an escape route for this scenario: self-fertilization. It is an imperfect solution, as any offspring produced by so-called “selfing” are bound to be inbred, but still better than not reproducing at all.

In previous studies, it had been established that the flatworm species Macrostomum hystrix is capable of switching to just such selfing behavior when isolated from mating partners, a behavior found in many but not all simultaneous hermaphrodites. In their new study, Dr. Lukas Schärer from the University of Basel and his team now show the bizarre, yet remarkable mechanisms Macrostomum hystrix has developed that make this possible.

A shot to the head

The studied flatworms are highly transparent and their insides can therefore be easily observed under the microscope. By doing so, the zoologists discovered that under selfing conditions, when hermaphroditic individuals had to use their own sperm to fertilize their own eggs, the worms had very few sperm in their tail region. This is in stark contrast to worms kept in a group, which contained most sperm in their tails, close to where fertilization actually occurs. Instead, isolated worms had more sperm in their head region.

Weiterführende Links

The Schärer Group
Evolutionary Biology at the University of Basel
This implies a rather strange insemination route: by using its needle-like male copulatory organ, an isolated worm can self-inject sperm into its own anterior body, from where the sperm then moves through the body towards the eggs. “As far as we know, this is the first described example of hypodermic self-injection of sperm into the head. To us this sounds traumatic, but to these flatworms it may be their best bet if they cannot find a mate but still want to reproduce” explains Dr. Steven Ramm, first-author of the study.

Such a convoluted route is likely needed because, although hermaphrodites, there are no internal connections between the worm’s male and female reproductive systems.



Source: Univ. of Basel

Old Astronomic Riddle on the Way to Be Solved

Scientists at the University of Basel were able to identify for the first time a molecule responsible for the absorption of starlight in space: the positively charged Buckminsterfullerene, or so-called football molecule. Their results have been published in the current issue of “Nature”.

Almost 100 years ago, astronomers discovered that the spectrum of star light arrived on earth with dark gaps, so-called interstellar bands. Ever since, researchers have been trying to find out which type of matter in space absorbs the light and is responsible for these “diffuse interstellar bands” (DIB) of which over 400 are known today.

Football molecule and interstellar clouds

Astronomers have been suspecting for a while that big complex molecules and gaseous ions based on carbon could be absorbing the starlight. The Buckminsterfullerene is such a molecule: a structure made up of 60 carbon atoms shaped like a football that was first discovered in the mid-1980s.

After this discovery, the questions arose if it was possible that the football molecule was in fact responsible for the DIB. The research team led by Prof. John P. Maier from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Basel has been studying the electronic absorption of the ionized Buckminsterfullerene since 1993. In fact, the spectrum measured in the lab did show absorption features at two wavelengths that were near two DIB that had been discovered by astronomers the following year.

Conditions similar to outer space

In order to unequivocally prove that these molecules absorb starlight and thus produce the DIB, a gas phase spectrum of the ion was needed. The Basel researchers now succeeded at this: “This is the very first unequivocal identification of such a molecule in the interstellar clouds”, says Professor John P. Maier. “We have achieved a breakthrough in solving the old riddle of the diffuse interstellar bands.”

To obtain the spectrum in the laboratory using a diode laser, several thousand ionized Fullerenes were confined in a radiofrequency trap and cooled down by collisions with high density helium to very low temperatures of around 6 degree Kelvin – conditions very similar to outer space.

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Research group Prof. John P. Maier
The absorptions measured in the laboratory coincide exactly with the astronomical data, and have comparable bandwidths and relative intensities. This identifies for the first time two DIB and proves that ionized Buckminsterfullerene (C60+) is present at the gas-phase in space. “This is remarkable, considering the complexity of this molecular ion and the presence of high-energy radiation in such an environment”, says Maier.


Source: Univ. of Basel

Quantum States in a Nano-object Manipulated using a Mechanical System

Scientists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute at the University of Basel have used resonators made from single-crystalline diamonds to develop a novel device in which a quantum system is integrated into a mechanical oscillating system. For the first time, the researchers were able to show that this mechanical system can be used to coherently manipulate an electron spin embedded in the resonator – without external antennas or complex microelectronic structures. The results of this experimental study will be published in Nature Physics.

Der schwingende Federbalken beeinflusst den Spin der Elektronen in den Stickstoffvakanzzentren (rote Pfeile). Mithilfe eines Fluoreszenzmikroskops lässt sich die Ausrichtung der Spins effizient auslesen.
The oscillating resonator influences the electron spin in the nitrogen-vacancy centers (red arrows). Their spin can be efficiently read out by fluorescence microscopy.
In previous publications, the research team led by Georg H. Endress Professor Patrick Maletinsky described how resonators made from single-crystalline diamonds with individually embedded electrons are highly suited to addressing the spin of these electrons. These diamond resonators were modified in multiple instances so that a carbon atom from the diamond lattice was replaced with a nitrogen atom in their crystal lattices with a missing atom directly adjacent. In these “nitrogen-vacancy centers,” individual electrons are trapped. Their “spin” or intrinsic angular momentum is examined in this research.

When the resonator now begins to oscillate, strain develops in the diamond’s crystal structure. This, in turn, influences the spin of the electrons, which can indicate two possible directions (“up” or “down”) when measured. The direction of the spin can be detected with the aid of fluorescence spectroscopy.

Extremely fast spin oscillation

In this latest publication, the scientists have shaken the resonators in a way that allows them to induce a coherent oscillation of the coupled spin for the first time. This means that the spin of the electrons switches from up to down and vice versa in a controlled and rapid rhythm and that the scientists can control the spin status at any time. This spin oscillation is fast compared with the frequency of the resonator. It also protects the spin against harmful decoherence mechanisms.

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Research Group Prof. Patrick Maletinsky
It is conceivable that this diamond resonator could be applied to sensors – potentially in a highly sensitive way – because the oscillation of the resonator can be recorded via the altered spin. These new findings also allow the spin to be coherently rotated over a very long period of close to 100 microseconds, making the measurement more precise. Nitrogen-vacancy centers could potentially also be used to develop a quantum computer. In this case, the quick manipulation of its quantum states demonstrated in this work would be a decisive advantage.




Source: Univ. of Basel