myfeeds

[myfeeds]

Macaque trials offer hope in pneumonia vaccine development

Science News from research organizations Development of a novel pneumococcal vaccine with confirmed efficacy in macaque monkeys Date: November 28, 2023 Source: Osaka Metropolitan University Summary: A research team has successfully developed a novel pneumococcal vaccine by combining the team’s proprietary mucosal vaccine technology with pneumococcal surface proteins that can cover a wide range of serotypes. Experiments were conducted using mice and macaques and it was confirmed that pneumonia caused by pneumococcal infection was clearly suppressed in the target groups of animals inoculated with the vaccine. Share: FULL STORY The global impact of the coronavirus pandemic has ignited a renewed focus on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University are making great strides in combating pneumococcal pneumonia, one of the leading causes of respiratory deaths worldwide. Despite the existence of vaccines against pneumococcal infections such as otitis media, sinusitis, and meningitis, the prevalence of pneumococcal pneumonia remains high. Currently, around 100 new serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae have been identified, and the increase in pneumococcal infections caused by serotypes not covered by the vaccine has become a concern. This situation underscores the need for a more versatile vaccine. Building on their previous success in mucosal responses in 2019, in which they developed a mucosal vaccine that caninduce antigen-specific mucosal immune responses, mainly immunoglobulin A (IgA), on the target mucosal surface, a research team led by Professor Satoshi Uematsu and Associate Professor Kosuke Fujimoto from the Department of Immunology and Genomics at the Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University, has this time set out to bridge the gap in pneumococcal pneumonia vaccination efficacy. To successfully develop a novel pneumococcal vaccine, the research team combined its proprietary mucosal vaccine technology with pneumococcal surface proteins that can cover a wide range of serotypes. Experiments conducted on mice and macaques have demonstrated the vaccine’s efficacy in suppressing pneumococcal pneumonia in the target animal groups. “This research has succeeded in developing a vaccine formulation that can potentially be used in humans, which will advance the development of this vaccine for clinical applications,” said Professor Fujimoto. “This next-generation vaccine technology is expected to contribute to the treatment of infectious diseases in the future.” Story Source: Materials provided by Osaka Metropolitan University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Journal Reference: Chieko Yokota, Kosuke Fujimoto, Natsuko Yamakawa, Masamitsu Kono, Daichi Miyaoka, Masaki Shimohigoshi, Miho Uematsu, Miki Watanabe, Yukari Kamei, Akira Sugimoto, Natsuko Kawasaki, Takato Yabuno, Tomotaka Okamura, Eisuke Kuroda, Shigeto Hamaguchi, Shintaro Sato, Muneki Hotomi, Yukihiro Akeda, Ken J. Ishii, Yasuhiro Yasutomi, Kishiko Sunami, Satoshi Uematsu. Prime-boost-type PspA3 + 2 mucosal vaccine protects cynomolgus macaques from intratracheal challenge with pneumococci. Inflammation and Regeneration, 2023; 43 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s41232-023-00305-2 Cite This Page: Osaka Metropolitan University. “Macaque trials offer hope in pneumonia vaccine development.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 November 2023.

[myfeeds]

Inhalation drug prevents severe pneumonia: Sugar molecule accurately delivers RNA drug to target cells

Overly active immune cells are often behind lung damage in diseases such as Covid-19. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed an RNA agent for a lung spray that slows the activity of these cells, known as macrophages. A new, sugar-based transport mechanism is especially effective in bringing the therapeutic to its target. The team led by Stefan Engelhardt, Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, has developed an RNA-based active ingredient called RCS-21 to prevent severe lung inflammation and fibrosis, i.e. scarring of the lung tissue, for example in SARS-CoV2 infections. In the cell, RCS-21 stops the activity of the molecule microRNA 21. This nucleic acid, which Engelhardt and his team have been researching for a long time, is one of the triggers for the excessive activity of macrophages in severe lung infections. Drug docks onto sugar receptors In the scientific journal Nature Communications, the team now describes how the active substance RCS-21 is delivered to its target particularly effective via an inhaler. To do this, the researchers took advantage of a special feature of macrophages. These scavenger cells are also present in large numbers in the healthy lung. There, they perform the important task of destroying bacteria and fungal spores as quickly as possible. The macrophages identify their targets among other things based on complex sugar molecules on the surface of the invaders. “We have determined in single cell analyses that the corresponding sugar receptors are, on the one hand, among the most common receptors on macrophages,” says Stefan Engelhardt. “On the other hand, the receptors are, in a sense, a unique feature of macrophages — they hardly occur anywhere else.” Therefore team coupled its active ingredient to a sugar molecule, or more precisely: to trimannose. This approach had so far only been pursued with chemically less complex active ingredients. Studies with mice produced clear results. “When the drug was administered as a spray, macrophages took up the active ingredient significantly better than without sugar molecules. In contrast, other cell types even outright exclude the molecules,” says Christina Beck, first author of the article together with Deepak Ramanujam. Active substance successfully tested In experiments with mice, RCS-21 ensured that microRNA 21 was reduced by more than half compared to control animals. Fibrosis and inflammation were also significantly reduced after treatment. Increased microRNA-21 activity was also stopped by treatment with RCS-21 in samples of human lung tissue infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in the laboratory. advertisement Funded by Federal Ministry of Education and Research Studies to prove the drug’s safety are already underway, the first clinical trials in humans are targeted for 2024. Responsibility lies with RNATICS, a TUM spin-off. In 2021 the start-up received around 7 million euros in funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to support the development of the drug. RNATICS co-founder Stefan Engelhardt sees great potential in the mannose technology: “We were able to show that nucleic acid-based active substances can be used in a very targeted manner, at least in the lungs. This technology opens up a wide field for the development of novel RNA-based drugs. I expect a lot to happen in this area in the next few years.”

[myfeeds]

Stealth swimmers: The fish that hide behind others to hunt

An experiment on coral reefs provides the first evidence that predators use other animals for motion camouflage to approach their prey without detection. A new study provides the first experimental evidence that the trumpetfish, Aulostomus maculatus, can conceal itself by swimming closely behind another fish while hunting — and reduce the likelihood of being detected by its prey. In this ‘shadowing’ behaviour, the long, thin trumpetfish uses a non-threatening species of fish, such as parrotfish, as camouflage to get closer to its dinner. This is the only known example of one non-human animal using another as a form of concealment. The research involved hours of diving in the Caribbean Sea, pulling hand-painted model fish along a wire. “When a trumpetfish swims closely alongside another species of fish, it’s either hidden from its’ prey entirely, or seen but not recognised as a predator because the shape is different,” said Dr Sam Matchette, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and first author of the study. Damselfish, Stegastes partitus, form colonies on the seafloor and are a common meal for trumpetfish. Working amongst the coral reefs off the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao, researchers set up an underwater system to pull 3D-printed models of trumpetfish on nylon lines past colonies of damselfish, and filmed their responses. advertisement When the trumpetfish model moved past alone, damselfish swam up to inspect — and rapidly fled back to shelter in response to the predatory threat. When a model of a herbivorous parrotfish, Sparisoma viride, moved past alone, the damselfish inspected and responded far less. When a trumpetfish model was attached to the side of a parrotfish model — to replicate the shadowing behaviour of the real trumpetfish — the damselfish responded just as they had to the parrotfish model alone: they had not detected the threat. Matchette said: “I was surprised that the damselfish had such a profoundly different response to the different fish; it was great to watch this happening in real time.” The study, involving collaborators at the University of Bristol, is published today in the journal Current Biology. “Doing manipulative experiments in the wild like this allows us to test the ecological relevance of these behaviours,” said Professor Andy Radford in the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, and coauthor of the study. advertisement Matchette, along with his co-author and dive buddy Christian Drerup, spent hours underwater, barely moving, to conduct their experiment. Their earlier questioning of divers working at dive shops in the Caribbean revealed that trumpetfish are commonly seen swimming alongside parrotfish and other reef fish — but the reason for this remarkable behaviour had not been tested. In addition, divers were much more likely to have seen the shadowing behaviour on degraded, less structurally complex reefs. Coral reefs around the world are being degraded due to the warming climate, pollution and overfishing. The researchers say the strategy of hiding behind other moving fish may help animals adapt to the impacts of environmental change. “The shadowing behaviour of the trumpetfish appears a useful strategy to improve its hunting success. We might see this behaviour becoming more common in the future as fewer structures on the reef are available for them to hide behind,” said Dr James Herbert-Read in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, senior author of the study. Human duck hunters historically hid behind cardboard cut-outs of domestic animals — called ‘stalking horses’ — to approach ducks without being detected. But this strategy has received little attention in non-human animals and has never been experimentally tested before.

[myfeeds]

New research casts doubt on role of fungus in driving pancreatic cancer

Four years ago, a report that a common species of fungus might fuel pancreatic cancer offered a promising new view of the deadly disease. But in working to validate the finding, Duke Health researchers have found no such association. In a study appearing online Aug. 3 in the journal Nature, the Duke researchers conducted a multi-pronged analysis of data from the earlier study and found no link between the pancreatic microbiome and the development of pancreatic cancer. “We were intrigued by the original finding, as were many research teams,” said senior author Peter Allen, M.D., professor in the Department of Surgery and chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology at Duke University School of Medicine. “There is a growing body of literature connecting the human microbiome to disease, and this was particularly compelling for pancreatic cancer,” Allen said. “But our findings did not support an association between fungi and the development of pancreatic cancer in humans.” Allen and colleagues worked to recreate the 2019 findings published in Nature by a different research team. The original study raised hopes that there might be a possible method of preventing pancreatic cancer with the use of antifungals or some other approach to protect from infection. Focusing on the research team’s original raw sequencing data, the Duke researchers were unable to reproduce the findings. Additional studies, using pancreatic cancer tissue in Duke repositories, also failed to produce the original results. “We believe our findings highlight the challenges of using low biomass samples for microbiome sequencing studies,” Allen said. “The inclusion of appropriate negative controls and efforts to identify and remove sequencing contaminants is critical to the interpretation of microbiome data.” In addition to Allen, study authors include Ashley A. Fletcher, Matthew S. Kelly, and Austin M. Eckhoff. The work was funded by the Duke University School of Medicine through a grant from the Duke Microbiome Center. Kelly and Eckhoff receive funding from the National Institutes of Health (K23-AI135090, T32-CA093245).

[myfeeds]

Butterfly-inspired films create vibrant colors while passively cooling objects

The new films, which don’t absorb any light, could be used on the outside of buildings, vehicles and equipment to reduce the energy needed for cooling while preserving vivid color properties. “In buildings, large amounts of energy are used for cooling and ventilation, and running the air conditioner in electric cars can reduce the driving range by more than half,” said research team leader Wanlin Wang from Shenzhen University in China. “Our cooling films could help advance energy sustainability and carbon neutrality.” In Optica, Optica Publishing Group’s journal for high-impact research, the researchers show that the films they developed lower the temperature of colorful objects to about 2 °C below the ambient temperature. They also found that when left outside all day, the blue version of the films was approximately 26°C cooler than traditional blue car paint. This represents an annual energy savings of approximately 1377 MJ/m2 per year. “With our new films, excellent cooling performance can be achieved, no matter the desired color, saturation or brightness,” said Wang. “They could even be used on textiles to create clothes of any color that are comfortable in hot temperatures.” Inspired by nature A car with blue paint appears blue because it absorbs yellow light and reflects blue light. The large amount of light that is absorbed heats the car. Morpho butterflies, however, produce their highly saturated blue color based on the nanostructure of their wings. The design of the cooling nanofilm mimics these structures to produce vibrant colors that don’t absorb light like traditional paint. advertisement To create their Morpho-inspired nanofilms, the researchers placed a disordered material (rough frosted glass) under a multilayer material made of titanium dioxide and aluminum dioxide. They then placed this structure on a silver layer that reflects all light, thus preventing the absorption of solar radiation and the heating associated with that absorption. The film’s color is determined by how components within its multilayered structure reflect light. To create blue, for example, the multilayer material is designed to reflect yellow light in a very narrow range of angles while the disordered structure diffuses the blue light across a broad area. Although this type of passive photonic thermal management has been accomplished before, it has only been used with white or clear objects because it is difficult to maintain a wide viewing angle and high color saturation. Passive cooling of colorful objects “Thanks to the layered structure we developed, we were able to extend the passive cooling method from colorless objects to colorful ones while preserving color performance,” said Wang. “In other words, our blue film looks blue across a large range of viewing angles and doesn’t heat up because it reflects all the light. In addition, high saturation and brightness can be achieved by optimizing the structure.” To test the new technology, the researchers created blue, yellow and colorless films, which they placed outdoors at Shenzhen University, on surfaces such as roofs, cars, cloth and cell phones, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in both winter and summer. Using thermocouple sensors and infrared cameras to measure temperature, they found that the cooling films were more than about 15 ? cooler than the surfaces they were placed on in the winter and about 35 ? cooler in the summer. The researchers point out that replacing the silver film with an aluminum film would make the films less expensive and manufacturable by a scalable fabrication method such as electron beam evaporation and magnetron sputtering. Now that they have demonstrated the cooling and color performance of the films, the researchers plan to study and optimize other properties such as mechanical and chemical robustness.

[myfeeds]

Sustainable mobility planning supported by doughnut thinking

A new scientific article, carried out in collaboration between Finnish and international researchers, shows how the doughnut model, which examines the overall sustainability of societies, can be applied to transport. Transport and mobility produce a significant part of cities’ carbon emissions and other environmental burdens, but at the same time enable the satisfaction of many basic needs, from going to work to meeting friends. A new scientific article, carried out in collaboration between Finnish and international researchers, shows how the doughnut model, which examines the overall sustainability of societies, can be applied to transport. The new research focuses on promoting ways to understand and measure the accessibility of areas. Accessibility has become an integral part of the toolbox of urban and transport planners and a flourishing field of research. “The central idea of the doughnut model developed by the economist Kate Raworth is to provide the basic conditions for a good life for everyone without exceeding the critical boundaries of the environment,” says postdoctoral researcher Elias Willberg from the Department of Geography, who led the research. “We propose that this idea should also be applied in the transport sector, where reducing emissions has long been difficult. You only have to look at the current extreme weather around the world to notice that there is a great and urgent need for a change in ways of thinking and acting,” he continues. The study published in Transport Reviews was led by Finnish researchers from the Digital Geography Lab of the University of Helsinki and Aalto University. Too narrow metrics one of the most central challenges However, social and environmental concerns are often treated separately in accessibility research. This easily leads to recommendations that consider only of the perspectives. “For example, it is often most effective to improve accessibility by investing in private cars, which increases an unsustainable load on the environment. On the other hand, if social dimensions are not taken into account in the promotion of sustainable transport modes including walking and cycling, it is easy to end up only to improve the mobility opportunities of the well-off,” Willberg continues. advertisement “Accessibility is still largely measured by only taking into account the travel time,” says Aalto University assistant professor Henrikki Tenkanen. “At the same time, the wider effects on the environment and people remain invisible in our measurements. Fortunately, the rapid development of geospatial data and tools has offered more opportunities to bringing these hidden costs to light, and we aim to advance this work.” How to improve accessibility while simultaneously reducing emissions The contradictions related to the fairness of the sustainability transition are increasingly visible in the societal debate around transport. Transport emission reduction measures arouse heated emotions and opposition, especially in areas where the accessibility by other means than car is poor. “The spatial accessibility can be improved in many different ways, but sometimes environmental and social goals inevitably conflict with each other,” says Professor Tuuli Toivonen, leader of the Digital Geography Lab at the University of Helsinki. Because of this, planners and decision-makers must have ways to find out whether it is possible to improve accessibility while simultaneously reducing emissions and how it could be done. “We show that accessibility research is capable of providing even better information and metrics to support this discussion. The key is that knowledge and know-how accumulating from this research are made available to society with open tools and data” she concludes.

[myfeeds]

Newly identified lipid in breast milk might reduce cerebral palsy in infants

In experiments using neonatal mice, researchers at Duke Health have identified a fatty molecule in breast milk that triggers a process in which stem cells in the brain produce cells that create new white matter, reversing the injury. The study appears Aug. 3 in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Eric Benner, M.D., Ph.D., is the study’s corresponding author and is a distinguished assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine. Benner said further study in a clinical trial is needed, but the finding is promising. “Developing therapies for children — especially such medically fragile children — is very difficult to do because there are justifiably strict safety concerns,” Benner said. “The fact that this molecule is already found in something that is safe for premature babies — breast milk — is extremely encouraging. “It’s been known that fats in breast milk benefit a child’s brain development, but there are many types of fats in breast milk,” Benner said. “This work has identified a lipid molecule in breast milk that promotes white matter development. Now, we can begin to develop a therapy that isolates and delivers this lipid in a way that is safe for the unique challenges of these infants.” Benner is a neonatologist at Duke University and one of the co-founders of Tellus Therapeutics, a Duke spinout company developed with the help of the Duke University Office for Translation & Commercialization to bring this therapy from the bench into the neonatal intensive care unit. The fatty molecule identified in the study will be administered intravenously to patients in an upcoming clinical trial. This is significant because many of the infants who are part of this vulnerable population also have gastrointestinal issues and cannot safely be given milk or medication by mouth. advertisement The lipid molecule enters the brain and binds with stem cells there, encouraging the stem cells to become or produce a type of cell called oligodendrocytes. The oligodendrocytes are like a hub that allow for the production of white matter in the central nervous system. This newly produced white matter in pre-term infants prevents the neurological damage that would otherwise impact the child’s ability to move — the hallmarks of cerebral palsy. “The timing of brain injury is extremely difficult to predict, thus a treatment that could be safely given to all preterm babies at risk would be revolutionary,” said Agnes Chao, M.D., a former fellow in the Division of Neonatology and first author of the paper. “As a neonatologist, I’m so excited that I may be able to offer a treatment to families with babies that are affected by preterm brain injury who would otherwise have no other options,” Chao said. In addition to Benner and Chao, study authors include Pavle Matak, Kelly Pegram, James Powers, Collin Hutson, Rebecca Jo, Laura Dubois, J. Will Thompson, P. Brian Smith, Jason R. Gibson, Noelle E. Younge, Blaire Rikard, Simon G. Gregory, Ronald N. Goldberg, Mari L Shinohara, Estefany Y. Reyes, Chunlei Liu. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (1R01NS114578, T32HD094671, K12HD043494, T32HD043728, R01AG070826, R01MH127104, P41EB015897, 1UL1-TR002553), Jean and George Brumley Jr. Neonatal Perinatal Research Institute, with additional support from the Duke Scholars Award from the School of Medicine, Duke University Center for In Vivo Microscopy, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

[myfeeds]

Workers are less productive and make more typos in the afternoon especially on Fridays

A recent interdisciplinary study at the Texas A&M School of Public Health used a novel method of data collection to show that employees really are less active and more prone to mistakes on afternoons and Fridays, with Friday afternoon representing the lowest point of worker productivity. The study, published in a recent issue of PLOS ONE, was authored by Drs. Taehyun Roh and Nishat Tasnim Hasan from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, along with Drs. Chukwuemeka Esomonu, Joseph Hendricks and Mark Benden from the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, and graduate student Anisha Aggarwal from the Department of Health Behavior. The researchers looked at the computer usage metrics of 789 in-office employees at a large energy company in Texas over a two-year period — January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2018. “Most studies of worker productivity use employee self-reports, supervisory evaluations or wearable technology, but these can be subjective and invasive,” said Benden, professor and head of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health. “Instead, we used computer usage metrics — things like typing speed, typing errors and mouse activity — to get objective, noninvasive data on computer work patterns.” The team then compared computer usage patterns across different days of the week and times of the day to see what kinds of patterns emerged. “We found that computer use increased during the week, then dropped significantly on Fridays,” said Roh, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. “People typed more words and had more mouse movement, mouse clicks and scrolls every day from Monday through Thursday, then less of this activity on Friday.” In addition, Roh said, computer use decreased every afternoon, and especially on Friday afternoons. advertisement “Employees were less active in the afternoons and made more typos in the afternoons — especially on Fridays,” he said. “This aligns with similar findings that the number of tasks workers complete increases steadily from Monday through Wednesday, then decreases on Thursday and Friday.” What is the takeaway for employers? To start, flexible work arrangements, such as hybrid work or a four-day work week, may lead to happier and more productive employees. As of May 2023, about 60 percent of full-time, paid workers in the United States worked entirely on-site. The remainder either worked remotely or had a hybrid arrangement that involved a combination of remote and on-site work. In addition, many employees have a compressed workweek in which they work longer hours, but on fewer days. “Other studies have found that those who work from home or work fewer days have less stress from commuting, workplace politics and other factors, and thus have more job satisfaction,” Benden said. “These arrangements give workers more time with their families and thus reduce work-family conflicts, and also give them more time for exercise and leisure activities, which have been shown to improve both physical and mental health.” Not only that, but flexible work arrangements could boost the bottom line in other ways, such as reductions in electricity use, carbon footprint and carbon dioxide emissions. “And now,” Benden said, “the findings from our study can further help business leaders as they identify strategies to optimize work performance and workplace sustainability.”

[myfeeds]

New review calls on Hockey Canada to raise age of body contact from 13 to 15

Hockey leagues in Canada should overhaul current rules and regulations to raise the age of bodychecking in the game from 13 to 15, says new research into the effect of body contact on teens. The literature review was led by Dr. Kristian Goulet of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and calls on provincial and territorial governments to mandate schools — including those involved with school sports — and sports organizations to establish, update, and enforce policies and protocols to prevent concussion, with a keen focus on body contact. Currently, hockey organizations in Canada allow body contact in competitive and recreational leagues from the age of 13. But studies have shown when body contact is initiated, injuries increase significantly, including concussion rates. Almost half of hockey injuries are caused by bodychecking, with injury rates four times higher for kids and teens in leagues that allowed bodychecking. Other studies have found concussion rates decrease by over 50% when eliminating body contact. An estimated 200,000 concussions occur annually in Canada, with children and youth affected primarily. Ice hockey is the leading cause of all sports and recreationally related TBI across paediatric age groups, in both boys and girls. Dr. Goulet is hopeful this review will spur Hockey Canada to lead a new path forward to strengthen our understanding of concussion and guidance for clinical management, especially related to acute care, persistent symptoms, and prevention. “Sport is incredibly important for the mental physical emotional and social health of our kids. However, it is our duty as healthcare providers, parents, coaches, administrators and decision makers, that we take all reasonable efforts to make sport as safe as possible,” says Dr. Goulet, an Assistant Professor in uOttawa’s Faculty of Medicine and the Medical Director of The CHEO Concussion Clinic, The Eastern Ontario Concussion Clinic, and The Pediatric Sports Medicine Clinic of Ottawa.

[myfeeds]

Multicyclic molecular wheels with polymer potential

Molecules that act as connected wheels can hold long molecular chains together to modify the properties of soft polymers. Rotaxanes are interlocked molecular structures with a linear ‘axle’ molecule penetrating one or more cyclic ‘wheel’ molecules. Bulky groups at the end of the axle prevent the wheels from coming off. Now, researchers at Hokkaido University have taken the previous achievements of this technology a step further, making macro-rotaxanes that have multicyclic wheels interlocked with several high-molecular-weight axles. They report their innovation in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Rotaxanes, initially regarded as intriguing chemical curiosities, are now being explored for a wide range of potential applications, ranging from next-generation polymers to ambitious possibilities in molecular computing, sensor technologies and drug delivery. The Hokkaido University researchers, with collaborators elsewhere in Japan, are focusing their attention on making new network polymers, in which ring structures more complex than simple circles hold together different strands of long polymer chains. “We think the multicyclic structures in these macro-rotaxanes could be useful as non-leaching additives, permanently retained in a polymer network by the way they hold onto several neighboring polymer chains,” says polymer chemist Professor Toshifumi Satoh of the Hokkaido team. The 3D wheels act as a unique and highly flexible form of molecular crosslinks, allowing the wheels and the interlocked polymer strands much more freedom of movement than in conventionally cross-linked networks. Structural variations should allow fine control over the properties of soft materials to make them suitable for a variety of industrial and medical applications. Other research groups have achieved some similar success with smaller molecular arrangements, but the advances at Hokkaido University move the field into the realm of larger molecules. The researchers explored some of the possibilities of this significant new development in polymer chemistry using chemicals called polydimethylsiloxanes (PDMSs) to make the multicyclic rings. They were able to build different numbers of cyclic units with rings of different sizes. When combined with silicone polymer chains with short crosslinking agents, the multicyclic units became efficiently incorporated into a newly-forming extended, mixed and interlocked network. “We explored some of the potential for making modified soft materials by measuring the damping performance of the networks, which is essentially the ability of a material to absorb and reduce vibrations,” says Satoh. “This revealed that our macro-rotaxanes achieved significant improvements in damping efficiency relative to conventional polymer networks.” Satoh and his colleagues now plan to explore further possibilities that can be built on the proof-of-concept foundations laid by their current progress.

[myfeeds]

Illegal shooting kills most birds found dead near power lines

Birds can be electrocuted if they come into contact with two energized parts of a power line at once — which can happen when they spread their wings to take off from or land on a power pole. Because of this, energy companies invest substantial time and money into making sure power lines are avian safe, installing safe perches and insulating energized elements. However, a recent study published on August 1 in the journal iScience presents a new priority for conservation, as it suggests that electrocution is no longer the only leading cause of death for birds along power lines. Instead, researchers report that 66% of dead birds that were found along power lines — for which a cause of death could be conclusively determined — died from being illegally shot. “Solving conservation problems only works when we can accurately identify the cause of those problems,” says first author Eve Thomason, a research associate at Boise State University’s Raptor Research Center. “In this case, we need to know how birds are dying along power lines so that we can come up with strategies to reduce bird deaths.” Before starting this research project, Thomason used to perform avian risk assessment for a power company. There, she noticed that she was finding dead birds even along power lines where they should have been safe from electrocution. That’s when she realized that many had been shot, which prompted her to organize a more complete investigation to study how common this shooting pattern was. Over the course of four years, her team hiked or drove along 196 kilometers of power lines in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Oregon in search of dead birds. They collected a total of 410 carcasses, most of which were federally protected species such as eagles, hawks, and ravens. They then took them back to a laboratory to determine each bird’s cause of death. “What’s unique to our study is that all remains were documented, collected, and X-rayed. We tried to identify the cause of death for every bird we found,” says Thomason. “Prior studies typically only documented birds that were in relatively good condition, and X-rays were only sometimes performed.” By X-raying all remains, the researchers were able to more accurately identify bird shootings even when the manner of death was not externally apparent from the carcass. For example, the team examined a bald eagle that a power line owner thought had died from electrocution. However, when they X-rayed the bird, they identified numerous shotgun pellets and entrance wounds throughout the eagle’s body, suggesting that the bird was actually shot and then made contact with power lines as it fell to the ground. The team is planning on continuing their power line surveys and expanding into new areas so they can understand the spatial extent of illegal shooting and see whether there’s a reason why birds are being shot. This provides helpful information for law enforcement as they plan patrols or investigations to prevent this illegal shooting from continuing. “We are just beginning to understand this problem, and in a lot of cases, it’s really difficult to know what’s going on,” says Thomason. “Here’s what the research tells us: when people have been caught doing this activity, we’ve learned that sometimes people shoot protected birds for fun, and sometimes they’re trying to protect their livestock from predators. Because of the complexity of this situation, our team is very lucky to have such great relationships across all the government agencies and utility companies, and it will be vital that, in the future, all these stakeholders are part of crafting solutions.”

[myfeeds]

Using gemstones unique characteristics to uncover ancient trade routes

Since ancient times, gemstones have been mined and traded across the globe, sometimes traveling continents from their origin. Gems are geologically defined as minerals celebrated for beauty, strength, and rarity. Their unique elemental composition and atomic orientation act as a fingerprint, enabling researchers to uncover the stones’ past, and with it, historical trade routes. In AIP Advances, from AIP Publishing, Khedr et al. employed three modern spectroscopic techniques to rapidly analyze gems found in the Arabian-Nubian Shield and compare them with similar gems from around the world. Using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, the authors identified elements that influence gems’ color, differentiated stones found within and outside the region, and distinguished natural from synthetic. The Arabian-Nubian Shield is an exposure of mineral deposits that sandwiches the Red Sea in current-day Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The deposits date back to the Earth’s earliest geological age, and the precious metals and gemstones have been harvested for thousands of years. “We showed the main spectroscopic characteristics of gemstones from these Middle East localities to distinguish them from their counterparts in other world localities,” said author Adel Surour. “This includes a variety of silicate gems such as emerald from the ancient Cleopatra’s mines in Egypt, in addition to amethyst, peridot, and amazonite from other historical sites, which mostly date to the Roman times.” The various spectroscopic techniques they employed revealed different information about the stones. LIBS quickly characterizes chemical composition, while FTIR determines functional groups connected to the structure and indicates the presence of water and other hydrocarbons. Even for chemically identical materials, Raman spectroscopy shows the unique crystalline structure of the gems’ atoms. The authors identified that iron content correlates to amethysts’ signature purple hue, and other elements such as copper, chromium, and vanadium are also responsible for colorization. A signature water peak exposes lab-grown synthetic gems, which are useful for scientific purposes and identical to natural gems but are less expensive. Crystalline structure differentiated amazonite beads from Mexico, Jordan, and Egypt. “Gemstones such as emerald and peridot have been mined since antiquity,” Surour said. “Sometimes, some gemstones were brought by sailors and traders to their homelands. For example, royal crowns in Europe are decorated with peculiar gemstones that originate from either Africa or Asia. We need to have precise methods to distinguish the source of a gemstone and trace ancient trade routes in order to have correct information about the original place from which it was mined.”

[myfeeds]

Scientists develop method to predict the spread of armed conflicts

Some armed conflicts occur between states, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are, however, many more that take place within the borders of a single state. In Nigeria, violence, particularly from Boko Haram, has escalated in the past few years. In Somalia, populations remain at risk amidst conflict and attacks perpetrated by armed groups, particularly Al-Shabaab. To address the challenge of understanding how violent events spread, a team at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) created a mathematical method that transforms raw data on armed conflicts into meaningful clusters by detecting causal links. “Our main question was: what is a conflict? How can we define it?,” says CSH scientist Niraj Kushwaha, one of the coauthors of the study published in the latest issue of PNAS Nexus. “It was important for us to find a quantitative and bias-free way to see if there were any correlations between different violent events, just by looking at the data.” Inspiration “We often tell multiple narratives about a single conflict, which depend on whether we zoom in on it as an example of local tension or zoom out from it and consider it as part of a geopolitical plot; these are not necessarily incompatible,” explains coauthor Eddie Lee, a postdoctoral fellow at CSH. “Our technique allows us to titrate between them and fill out a multiscale portrait of conflict.” In order to investigate the many scales of political violence, the researchers turned to physics and biophysics for inspiration. The approach they developed is inspired by studies of stress propagation in collapsing materials and of neural cascades in the brain. advertisement Kushwaha and Lee used data on violent battles in Africa between 1997 and 2019 from ACLED. In their analysis, they divided the geographic area into a grid of cells and time into sequential slices. The authors predicted when and where new battles would emerge by analyzing the presence or absence of battles in each cell over time. “If there’s a link between two cells, it means a conflict at one location can predict a conflict at another location,” explains Kushwaha. “By using this causal network, we can cluster different conflict events.” Snow and sandpile avalanches Observing the dynamics of the clusters, the scientists found that armed clashes spread like avalanches. “In a way evocative of snow or sandpile avalanches, a conflict originates in one place and cascades from there. There is a similar cascading effect in armed conflicts,” explains Kushwaha. The team also identified a “mesoscale” for political violence — a time scale of a few days to months and a spatial scale of tens to hundreds of kilometers. Violence seems to propagate on these scales, according to Kushwaha and Lee. Additionally, they found that their conflict statistics matched those from field studies such as in Eastern Nigeria, Somalia, and Sierra Leone. “We connected Fulani militia violence with Boko Haram battles in Nigeria, suggesting that these conflicts are related to one another,” details Kushwaha. The Fulani are an ethnic group living mainly in the Sahel and West Africa. Forecasting Policymakers and international agencies could benefit from the approach, according to the authors. The model could help uncover unseen causal links in violent conflicts. Additionally, it could one day help forecast the development of a war at an early stage. “By using this approach, policy decisions could be made more effectively, such as where resources should be allocated,” notes Kushwaha. The study “Discovering the mesoscale for chains of conflict” by Niraj Kushwaha and Eddie Lee appeared in PNAS Nexus.

[myfeeds]

Why you shouldnt declaw tigers or other big cats

Declawing house cats to keep them from scratching people and furniture is controversial — and even banned in some countries and areas in the U.S. — but the practice is not limited to house cats. In a new study, researchers looked at the effects of declawing on larger cat species and found that declawing disproportionately impacts their muscular capabilities as compared to their smaller brethren. While it is illegal in the U.S. to surgically modify an exotic animal, declawing is still done on large cats like lions and tigers, often in an effort to allow cubs to more safely be handled in photo opportunities or for entertainment purposes. “What people might not realize is that declawing a cat is not like trimming our fingernails; rather, it is removing part or all of the last bone of each digit,” says Adam Hartstone-Rose, professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of the research. “Like us, each cat finger has three bones, and declawing is literally cutting that third bone off at the joint.” The researchers looked at the muscular anatomy of over a dozen exotic cats — from smaller species including bobcats, servals and ocelots, to lions and tigers — to determine the effect of declawing on their forelimb musculature. They measured muscle density and mass, and also examined muscle fibers from both clawed and declawed exotic cats. They found that for the larger species declawing resulted in 73% lighter musculature in the forearm’s digital flexors. These muscles are involved in unsheathing the claws. They also found that overall, forelimb strength decreased by 46% to 66%, depending on the size of the animal, and that other muscles in the forelimb did not compensate for these reductions. “When you think about what declawing does functionally to a housecat, you hear about changes in scratching, walking or using the litter box,” says Lara Martens, NC State undergraduate student and lead author of the research. “But with big cats, there’s more force being put through the paws. So if you alter them, it is likely that the effects will be more extreme.” This is because paw size and body mass don’t scale up at a 1:1 ratio. Paw area increases at a slower rate than does body mass (which is proportional to volume), so larger cats have smaller feet relative to their body size, and their paws must withstand more pressure. “Additionally, big cats are more reliant on their forelimbs — they bear most of the weight, and these bigger cats use their forelimbs to grapple because they hunt much larger prey,” Martens says. “So biomechanically speaking, declawing has a more anatomically devastating effect in larger species.” “As scientists, it is our job to objectively document the effects of this surgery on the animals,” Hartstone-Rose says, “but it is hard to ignore the cruelty of this practice. These are amazing animals, and we should not be allowed to cripple them, or any animals, in this way.” The work appears in Animals. NC State undergraduates Sarah Piersanti, Arin Berger, and Nicole Kida, and Ph.D. student Ashley Deutsch, also contributed to the research. The work was done in partnership with colleagues from Carolina Tiger Rescue, a sanctuary that rescues exotic carnivores, especially big cats, who have often been neglected or mistreated.

[myfeeds]

Time-traveling pathogens in melting permafrost pose likely risk to environment

The idea that “time-traveling” pathogens trapped in ice or hidden in remote laboratory facilities could break free to cause catastrophic outbreaks has inspired generations of novelists and screenwriters. While melting glaciers and permafrost are giving many types of dormant microbes the opportunity to re-emerge, the potential threats to human health and the environment posed by these microbes have been difficult to estimate. In a new study, Strona’s team quantified the ecological risks posed by these microbes using computer simulations. The researchers performed artificial evolution experiments where digital virus-like pathogens from the past invade communities of bacteria-like hosts. They compared the effects of invading pathogens on the diversity of host bacteria to diversity in control communities where no invasion occurred. The team found that in their simulations, the ancient invading pathogens could often survive and evolve in the modern community, and about 3 percent became dominant. While most of the dominant invaders had little effect on the composition of the larger community, about 1 percent of the invaders yielded unpredictable results. Some caused up to one third of the host species to die out, while others increased diversity by up to 12 percent compared to the control simulations. The risks posed by this 1 percent of released pathogens may seem small, but given the sheer number of ancient microbes regularly released into modern communities, outbreak events still represent a substantial hazard. The new findings suggest that the risks posed by time-traveling pathogens — so far confined to science fiction stories — could in fact be powerful drivers of ecological change and threats to human health.

[myfeeds]

What nap times reveal about your childs brain development

Infants who nap a lot have smaller vocabularies and poorer cognitive skills — according to new research from the University of East Anglia. Parents the world over are prone to worry about their children getting either too little or too much sleep. But a new study published today reveals that some children are more efficient at consolidating information during sleep, so they nap less frequently. Meanwhile others, usually those with fewer words and poorer cognitive skills, need to nap more frequently. The research team say that reducing naps for these children will not improve brain development, and that they should be allowed to nap as frequently and for as long as they need. Lead researcher Dr Teodora Gliga said: “There is a lot of parental anxiety around sleep. Parents worry that their kids don’t nap as much as expected for their age — or nap too frequently and for too long. “But our research shows that how frequently a child naps reflects their individual cognitive need. Some are more efficient at consolidating information during sleep, so they nap less frequently. advertisement “Children with smaller vocabularies or a lower score in a measure of executive function, nap more frequently. “Young children will naturally nap for as long as they need and they should be allowed to do just that,” she added. The research team studied 463 infants aged between eight months and three years during lockdown in 2020. Parents were surveyed about their children’s sleep patterns, their ability to focus on a task, keep information in their memory, and the number of words that they understood and could say. They also asked parents about their socio-economic status — including their postcode, income, and education — and about the amount of screen time and outdoors activities their child engaged in. Dr Gliga said: “Lockdown gave us an opportunity to study children’s intrinsic sleep needs because when children are in childcare, they rarely nap as much as they need to. advertisement “Because nurseries were closed, it meant less disturbance to the children’s natural sleep patterns. None of the children taking part were attending day care. “What we found is that the structure of daytime sleep is an indicator of cognitive development. “Infants with more frequent but shorter naps than expected for their age had smaller vocabularies, and worse cognitive function. “We also found that this negative association between vocabulary and frequency of naps was stronger in older children,” she added. “While the majority of parents told us that their child’s sleep was unaffected by lockdown, parents from lower socio-economic backgrounds were more likely to report a worsening in sleep. “Screen time increased during lockdown and outdoor activities decreased but these did not explain differences in children’s sleep. “Previous work suggested that caregivers should encourage frequent naps, in pre-school children. “Our findings suggest that children have different sleep needs — some children may drop naps earlier because they don’t need them anymore. Others may still need to nap past three years of age. “In the UK, preschools enrolling three to five-year-olds have no provisions for napping. Caregivers should use a child’s mental age and not chronological age to ascertain a child’s sleep needs,” she added. The study was led by UEA in collaboration with researchers at the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, the University of Leeds and the University of Warwick. It was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). ‘More frequent naps are associated with lower cognitive development in a cohort of 8 to 38- month-old children, during the Covid-19 pandemic’ is published in the journal JCPP Advances.

[myfeeds]

Scientists discover secret of virgin birth and switch on the ability in female flies

For the first time, scientists have managed to induce virgin birth in an animal that usually reproduces sexually: the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Once induced in this fruit fly, this ability is passed on through the generations: the offspring can reproduce either sexually if there are males around, or by virgin birth if there aren’t. For most animals, reproduction is sexual — it involves a female’s egg being fertilised by a male’s sperm. Virgin birth, or ‘parthenogenesis’, is the process by which an egg develops into an embryo without fertilisation by sperm — a male is not needed. The offspring of a virgin birth are not exact clones of their mother but are genetically very similar, and are always female. “We’re the first to show that you can engineer virgin births to happen in an animal — it was very exciting to see a virgin fly produce an embryo able to develop to adulthood, and then repeat the process,” said Dr Alexis Sperling, a researcher at the University of Cambridge and first author of the paper. She added: “In our genetically manipulated flies, the females waited to find a male for half their lives — about 40 days — but then gave up and proceeded to have a virgin birth.” In the experiments, only 1-2% of the second generation of female flies with the ability for virgin birth produced offspring, and this occurred only when there were no male flies around. When males were available, the females mated and reproduced in the normal way. advertisement Switching to a virgin birth can be a survival strategy: a one-off generation of virgin births can help to keep the species going. The study is published today in the journal Current Biology. To achieve their results, researchers first sequenced the genomes of two strains of another species of fruit fly, called Drosophila mercatorum. One strain needs males to reproduce, the other reproduces only through virgin birth. They identified the genes that were switched on, or switched off, when the flies were reproducing without fathers. With the candidate genes for virgin birth ability identified in Drosophila mercatorum, the researchers altered what they thought were the corresponding genes in the model fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. It worked: Drosophila melanogaster suddenly acquired the ability for virgin birth. The research involved over 220,000 virgin fruit flies and took six years to complete. Key to the discovery was the fact that this work was done in Drosophila melanogaster — the researchers say it would have been incredibly difficult in any other animal. This fly has been the ‘model organism’ for research in genetics for over 100 years and its genes are very well understood. advertisement Sperling, who carried out this work in the Department of Genetics, has recently moved to Cambridge Crop Science Centre to work on crop pests and hopes to eventually investigate why virgin birth in insects may be becoming more common, particularly in pest species. “If there’s continued selection pressure for virgin births in insect pests, which there seems to be, it will eventually lead to them reproducing only in this way. It could become a real problem for agriculture because females produce only females, so their ability to spread doubles,” said Sperling. The females of some egg-laying animals — including birds, lizards and snakes, can switch naturally to give birth without males. But virgin birth in animals that normally sexually reproduce is rare, often only observed in zoo animals, and usually happens when the female has been isolated for a long time and has little hope of finding a mate.