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Frontiers in Psychology

Short-term attentional perseveration associated with real-life creative achievement

What makes some people more creative than others? Psychologists have suggested that creativity partly depends on a person's ability to continuously switch attention between the details and the bigger picture of a given task. But in two carefully designed experiments, Darya Zabelina and Mark Beeman from Northwestern University found evidence for the opposite effect, at least for one measure of creativity: creative people with achievements in the real world may concentrate so much on one aspect that they have difficulty switching to another.

Across two studies, 74 college students were selected from among a large number of students for their extremely high or low scores on a questionnaire about their achievements in creative fields like cooking, science, writing, and music. Each student was subjected to a series of 128 challenges to quickly (within 1 second) and accurately identify either the details or the larger picture, in alternating sets of trials. This task required persistence, such that participants needed to zoom in on the details for some time before unpredictably zooming out to see the bigger picture (and vice versa), over a series of challenges.

When the researchers accounted for differences in intelligence and reaction speed, creative achievers made significantly more (9% of challenges) mistakes than less creative students (2%). Thus higher scores on real-world measure of creativity (but not on divergent thinking task) predicted persistence in the attention task. It appears that the tendency for persistent attention is a defining characteristic of individuals who have achieved noteworthy creative successes, even though this tendency seems to undermine the ability to engage in the type of flexible thinking associated with other measures of creative cognition. Results thus suggest that people's attentional styles may differ depending on the type of creativity they exhibit.

Researcher contact:

Darya L. Zabelina
Northwestern University
Email: darya.zabelina@u.northwestern.edu

URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Cognition/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00191/abstract


Frontiers in Microbiology

Biogeography of Persephonella in deep-sea hydrothermal vents of the Western Pacific

Ever since the origin of life on Earth, bacteria and Archaea have been far richer in species than any other group of organisms. But it is difficult to assess their full biodiversity because most species of bacteria and Archaea cannot be grown in the laboratory. For example, Persephonella bacteria – aptly named after the Greek goddess of hell, after their extreme habitat – can only survive around thermal vents on the ocean floor at depths of 2 to 3 km, under extreme pressure, in complete darkness, and in superheated water of up to 300 °C. Sayaka Mino and colleagues from the University of Hokkaido used deep-sea submersibles to sample Persephonella hydrogeniphila from the Okinawa Trough between Japan and China and the South Mariana Trough south of Japan. They show that this species is highly diverse, with pronounced genetic and metabolic differences between the two ocean troughs. This implies that both populations have been long isolated from each other, presumably because P. hydrogeniphila cannot easily spread across parts of the ocean floor that lack thermal vents. This study confirms that we have hardly begun to sample the enormous biodiversity at the ocean floor – we currently know more about the surface of Mars.

Images of the bacterial colonies, thermal vents, and the submersible are available. These can be requested from Gozde Zorlu, Frontiers Communications Officer at gozde.zorlu@frontiersin.org

Researcher contact:

Sayaka Mino
Hokkaido University, Japan
Email: mino@ec.hokudai.ac.jp

URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Extreme_Microbiology/10.3389/fmicb.2013.00107/abstract


Frontiers in Plant Science

When proteomics reveals unsuspected roles: the plastoglobule example

Chloroplasts are complex green organelles that host the photosynthetic reactions within plant cells, converting solar into electric energy. They contain so-called plastoglobules, droplets of oil approximately 100 nm across. Traditionally plastoglobules have been viewed as "junk cupboards" for storing excess lipids. But in an exciting review article on this topic, Claire Bréhélin and colleagues from the University of Bordeaux synthetize data from recent proteomics studies on plastoglobules. They conclude that far from being passive storage organelles, plastoglobules actively participate in the plastid's metabolism. For example, plastoglobules contain more than 30 different proteins, including unknown proteins, enzymes, and proteins called plastoglobulins that maintain structure. Plastoglobules also store pigments (e.g. carotenoids, which give fruit their red color) and vitamins E and K and play an active role in the plant's response to stress. Bréhélin et al. suggest that plastoglobules might be a promising target of "molecular farming", that is, increasing the yield of crops through genetic modification.

Researcher contact:

Claire Bréhélin
Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias
France
Email: claire.brehelin@u-bordeaux2.fr

URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Virology/10.3389/fmicb.2013.00108/abstract


Frontiers in Microbiology

Genetic variability and evolutionary dynamics of viruses of the family Closteroviridae

The family Closteroviridae includes viruses causing economic losses in different agricultural crops worldwide, including citrus, grapevine and vegetables. Presently, control of viral diseases consists of prophylactic measures to limit virus dispersion and the use of resistant cultivars obtained by plant breeding or genetic engineering. However, viruses have a great potential for rapid evolution and they often overcome the disease control methods. Characterization of the genetic diversity of viral populations provides relevant information on the processes involved in virus evolution and epidemiology and it is crucial for designing reliable diagnostic tools and developing efficient and durable disease control strategies. In this review by Luis Rubio and colleagues, analyses of the genetic variability of closteroviruses showed a risk of emergence of new diseases produced by: A) generation of new genotypes by genome recombination, or adaptation to new hosts or insect vectors, B) introduction of new genotypes by long distance transport of infected propagative plant material, and C) increased virulence resulting from interaction between different viruses of viral genotypes. On the other hand, genetic stability provided by strong negative selection in some closteroviruses could be exploited for crop protection based on genetic engineering.

Researcher contact:

Luis Rubio
Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias
Work phone: +34 96 342 4131
Cell: +34 620 478 679
Email: lrubio@ivia.es

URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Virology/10.3389/fmicb.2013.00108/abstract


Also of interest, published last week in Frontiers in Oncology:

Implementing and Integrating a Clinically-Driven Electronic Medical Record for Radiation Oncology in a Large Medical Enterprise

Hospitals can save medical personnel's time, physical space for filing, and money with Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), digital databases that consolidate all information about patients in an integrated enterprise-wide system. The Radiation Oncology department of the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, US, shifted from paper medical records to exclusively EMRs and the move involved adapting 2 pre-existing systems, at a one-time cost of approximately $ 125000. John P. Kirkpatrick and colleagues report that over $ 21000 are saved per year and that 90% of clinicians who used the system agreed that the EMR is an improvement over paper charts. Clinicians were typically positive about the effects of EMRs on the quality of care, patient safety, the quality of records, communication within the department, and ease of use.

Researcher contact:

John P. Kirkpatrick
Duke University Medical Center
Email: john.kirkpatrick@dm.duke.edu

URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/radiation_oncology/10.3389/fonc.2013.00069/abstract

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