Solve invasive seaweed problem by turning it into biofuels and fertilisers

Seaweed could produce sustainable fuels, chemicals and fertiliser while helping protect tourist hotspots

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

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VIDEO: PROFESSOR MIKE ALLEN AND HIS SON ARCHIE TALK ABOUT THEIR WORK ON PLASTIC POLLUTION AND MAKING FUELS FROM SEAWEED view more 

CREDIT: PROFESSOR MIKE ALLEN, PLYMOUTH MARINE LABORATORY

UK researchers have developed a cheap and simple way of creating biofuel and fertiliser from seaweed, whilst removing plastic from the oceans and cleaning up tourist beaches in the Caribbean and Central America.

Millions of tonnes of rotting seaweed washes up on beaches of Mexico, the Caribbean and elsewhere every year.

Partly fuelled by fertilisers washing into the sea from farming in the Americas, the foul-smelling Sargassum seaweed devastates the tourism industry and harms fisheries and ocean ecosystems.

A research team, led by the University of Exeter and the University of Bath, has developed a cheap and simple way to pre-process seaweed before making bulk chemicals and biofuels from it.

Making biofuels financially viable

"Ultimately, for this to work it has to make financial sense," said Professor Mike Allen, from the University of Exeter and Plymouth Marine Laboratory.

"Processing marine biomass like seaweed usually requires removing it from the salt water, washing it in fresh water and drying it.

"The costs of these processes can be prohibitively high.

"We needed to find a process that would pay for and sustain itself - something both economically and environmentally viable.

"This work provides a crucial missing step towards a true salt-based Marine Biorefinery by establishing the initial fractionation step."

Using acidic and basic catalysts, the team devised a process that releases sugars that can be used to feed a yeast that produces a palm oil substitute. The same method also prepares the residual seaweed for the next stage of processing, called hydrothermal liquefaction.

This process subjects the organic material to high temperature and pressure, turning the seaweed into bio-oil that can be processed further into fuels, and high-quality, low-cost fertiliser.

Ed Jones, first author on the paper and PhD student at the Centre for Sustainable Circular Technologies at the University of Bath said: "In contrast with existing pre-treatment strategies, we show that an entirely salt-based biochemical conversion route can work."

"For the first time this study demonstrates that, rather than a hindrance, the presence of saltwater can be helpful."

Professor Christopher Chuck, Director of the Centre for Integrated Bioprocessing Research at the University of Bath and the project lead said: "The variety of products created by this process is a major strength. The oil industry creates a variety of products including liquid fuel, plastics and fertilisers - and we can benefit from a similar flexibility.

"We can simply alter the process conditions to produce larger or smaller amounts of specific by-products, allowing us to have meet variable demand."

Removing ocean plastics

Not only is all the seaweed used in products, but any plastic collected alongside the seaweed will also be converted alongside the seaweed. Part of the inspiration for the project came from Professor Allen's children, Rosie (12) and Archie (9), who helped collect seaweed samples for trial studies from the Devon coast.

Professor Allen said: "It was Rosie who triggered a whole stream of research following the painstaking removal of plastic litter from the children's seaweed samples by asking: 'Dad, can't you just convert the plastics alongside the seaweed?'"

Removing an environmental nuisance

Another strength of the plan is its use of invasive seaweed such as Sargassum - an environmental nuisance which currently costs the tourist industry vast sums, both in clean-up costs and because it deters visitors.

Professor Allen said: "Many countries in the Caribbean and Central America rely heavily on tourism, so the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing Sargassum problem have put them on their knees. Last month more than 4 million tonnes of problematic seaweed washed up on their shores."

This is the latest in a string of developments around seaweed processing from the team which is supported by UKRI, Global Challenges Research Fund, Roddenberry Foundation, Innovate UK and Newton Fund. Exploiting their diverse expertise in phycology, chemistry, ecology, biotechnology and chemical engineering, they are now seeking to develop seaweed based biorefineries to provide local solutions and opportunities on the global stage.

Beginning with just an inquisitive family on their local Devon beach, the ideas and concepts they have inspired are now being applied on the international stage.

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The latest publication is published in the Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, entitled: "Saltwater based fractionation and valorisation of macroalgae."

A close relative of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats offers more evidence it evolved naturally

CELL PRESS

 

There is ongoing debate among policymakers and the general public about where SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, came from. While researchers consider bats the most likely natural hosts for SARS-CoV-2, the origins of the virus are still unclear. On May 10 in the journal Current Biology, researchers describe a recently identified bat coronavirus that is SARS-CoV-2's closest relative in some regions of the genome and which contains insertions of amino acids at the junction of the S1 and S2 subunits of the virus's spike protein in a manner similar to SAR-CoV-2. While it's not a direct evolutionary precursor of SARS-CoV-2, this new virus, RmYN02, suggests that these types of seemingly unusual insertion events can occur naturally in coronavirus evolution, the researchers say.

"Since the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 there have been a number of unfounded suggestions that the virus has a laboratory origin," says senior author Weifeng Shi, director and professor at the Institute of Pathogen Biology at Shandong First Medical University in China. "In particular, it has been proposed the S1/S2 insertion is highly unusual and perhaps indicative of laboratory manipulation. Our paper shows very clearly that these events occur naturally in wildlife. This provides strong evidence against SARS-CoV-2 being a laboratory escape."

The researchers identified RmYN02 from an analysis of 227 bat samples collected in Yunnan province, China, between May and October of 2019. "Since the discovery that bats were the reservoir of SARS coronavirus in 2005, there has been great interest in bats as reservoir species for infectious diseases, particularly as they carry a very high diversity of RNA viruses, including coronaviruses," Shi says. RNA from the samples was sent for metagenomic next-generation sequencing in early January 2020, soon after the discovery of SARS-CoV-2.

Across the whole genome, the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2 is another virus, called RaTG13, which was previously identified from bats in Yunnan province. But RmYN02, the virus newly discovered here, is even more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in some parts of the genome, including in the longest encoding section of the genome called 1ab, where they share 97.2% of their RNA. The researchers note that RmYN02 does not closely resemble SAR-CoV-2 in the region of the genome that encodes the key receptor binding domain that binds to the human ACE2 receptor that SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect host cells. This means it's not likely to infect human cells.

The key similarity between SARS-CoV-2 and RmYN02, is the finding that RmYN02 also contains amino acid insertions at the point where the two subunits of its spike protein meet. SARS-CoV-2 is characterized by a four-amino-acid insertion at the junction of S1 and S2; this insertion is unique to the virus and has been present in all SARS-CoV-2 sequenced so far. The insertions in RmYN02 are not the same as those in SARS-CoV-2, which indicates that they occurred through independent insertion events. But a similar insertion event happening in a virus identified in bats strongly suggests that these kinds of insertions are of natural origin. "Our findings suggest that these insertion events that initially appeared to be very unusual can, in fact, occur naturally in animal betacoronaviruses," Shi says.

"Our work sheds more light on the evolutionary ancestry of SARS-CoV-2," he adds. "Neither RaTG13 nor RmYN02 is the direct ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, because there is still an evolutionary gap between these viruses. But our study strongly suggests that sampling of more wildlife species will reveal viruses that are even more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 and perhaps even its direct ancestors, which will tell us a great deal about how this virus emerged in humans."

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This work was supported by the Academic Promotion Programme of Shandong First Medical University, the Strategic Priority Research Programme of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation, the National Major Project for Control and Prevention of Infectious Disease in China, the High-End Foreign Experts Program of Yunnan Province, the Taishan Scholars Programme of Shandong Province, the NSFC Outstanding Young Scholars, Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS, and an ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship.

Current Biology, Zhou et al.: "A novel bat coronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV-2 contains natural insertions at the S1/S2 cleavage site of the spike protein" https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30662-X

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

POST MODERN ALCHEMY

Change of direction in immune defense: Frankincense reprograms inflammatory enzyme

Research team has clarified the anti-inflammatory effect of a natural product from frankincense resin

FRIEDRICH-SCHILLER-UNIVERSITAET JENA

IMAGE: FRANKINCENSE RESIN FROM AFRICA (L.) AND INDIA. EXTRACTS OF THIS RESIN CAN REDUCE INFLAMMATION. view more 

CREDIT: JAN-PETER KASPER/FSU

Once upon a time, the Three Kings brought precious gifts to the new-born baby Jesus: as well as gold and myrrh, they also had frankincense in their bags. "Even today, frankincense is a valuable gift," says Prof. Oliver Werz of Friedrich Schiller University - although he is not really thinking about the biblical meaning of frankincense. "The resin extracted from the bark of the frankincense tree contains anti-inflammatory substances, which make it suitable for the treatment of diseases such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis or neurodermatitis, among others," he explains.

Pharmacist Werz and his team have been investigating the anti-inflammatory effect of frankincense resin and its components for several years. Now, together with colleagues in the US, the Jena University researchers have succeeded in uncovering the molecular mechanism of boswellic acid, a substance which is responsible for the anti-inflammatory effect of frankincense. They present their results in the current issue of the specialist journal "Natural Chemical Biology" (DOI: 10.1038/s41589-020-0544-7).

Crystal structure analyses reveal where active substances target the inflammatory enzyme

The enzyme 5-lipoxygenase plays a key role in the effect of frankincense. "It has been known for more than 40 years that this enzyme promotes the formation of leukotrienes, an important group of inflammatory mediators in the human body," explains Werz. However, in its current paper, the research team has for the first time been able to clarify and image the crystal structure of this central inflammatory enzyme with bound inhibitors. The images of the crystal structure allow detailed studies of the enzyme and its interaction with active substances, as well as the development of new anti-inflammatory drugs.

And that is exactly what Werz and his colleagues have done. In addition to zileuton, an anti-inflammatory drug already on the market, which is a synthetic preparation used to treat asthma, the researchers have combined the enzyme with various natural products and analysed the crystal structures of the resulting complexes. The result initially surprised the researchers: while other natural products, in a similar way to zileuton, dock directly to the active site of the enzyme and thus inhibit its function, boswellic acid binds to another site of the enzyme molecule, far from the active site. "However, this binding leads to structural changes in the active site and this also inhibits the enzyme activity," says Werz.

Domino effect in the enzyme structure

Therefore, these structural changes triggered by the frankincense component already have an anti-inflammatory effect. "But the influence of boswellic acid goes far beyond this," says Dr Jana Gerstmeier. The pharmacist from Werz's team is one of the study's two lead authors. "This binding creates a domino effect, which also causes a change in the specificity of the enzyme," Gerstmeier adds. Instead of catalysing the synthesis of pro-inflammatory leukotrienes, 5-lipoxygenase produces anti-inflammatory substances under the influence of boswellic acid. "That means, in simple terms, that the frankincense component reprograms the inflammatory enzyme into an anti-inflammatory enzyme."

According to the authors of the study, these findings can now be used on the one hand to test the boswellic acids from frankincense in relevant disease models and perhaps later to develop them as a drug to treat inflammatory diseases. On the other hand, thanks to the newly discovered binding site on 5-lipoxygenase, other potential drugs can be developed and their effectiveness as anti-inflammatory agents tested in experiments.

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Original publication: Gilbert NC et al. Structural and mechanistic insights into 5-lipoxygenase inhibition by natural products, Nature Chemical Biology (2020), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-020-0544-7

Multitasking in the workplace can lead to negative emotions

Study finds constant email interruptions create sadness and fear

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

 

IMAGE: PARTICIPANT ENGAGED IN ESSAY WRITING UNDER FREQUENT EMAIL INTERRUPTIONS. TOP: CHARACTERISTIC FACIAL SNAPSHOTS OF THE PARTICIPANT, ANNOTATED WITH THE PROBABILISTIC ESTIMATES OF THE METHOD FOR THE PRESENCE OF MIXED EMOTIONS. BOTTOM: EMOTIONAL... view more 

CREDIT: IOANNIS PAVLIDIS, COMPUTATIONAL PHYSIOLOGY LABORATORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

From writing papers to answering emails, it's common for office workers to juggle multiple tasks at once. But those constant interruptions can actually create sadness and fear and eventually, a tense working environment, according to a new study aimed at understanding what shapes the emotional culture of a workplace.

"Not only do people experience stress with multitasking, but their faces may also express unpleasant emotions and that can have negative consequences for the entire office culture," said study senior author Ioannis Pavlidis, director of the Computational Physiology Laboratory at the University of Houston.

Pavlidis, along with Gloria Mark at the University of California Irvine and Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna at Texas A&M University, used a novel algorithm, based on co-occurrence matrices, to analyze mixed emotions manifested on the faces of so-called knowledge workers amidst an essay writing task. One group answered a single batch of emails before they began writing, thus limiting the amount of distraction, while the other group was frequently interrupted to answer emails as they came in.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

"Individuals who engaged in multitasking appeared significantly sadder than those who did not. Interestingly, sadness tended to mix with a touch of fear in the multitasking cohort," Pavlidis said. "Multitasking imposes an onerous mental load and is associated with elevated stress, which appears to trigger the displayed sadness. The simultaneous onset of fear is intriguing and is likely rooted to subconscious anticipation of the next disruption," he added. Because multitasking is a widespread practice, the display of these negative emotions can persist throughout the workday for many people. It is this ubiquitous, continuous and persistent character of the phenomenon that renders it such a dangerous `climate maker', the researchers emphasized.

The facial expressions of the workers who answered emails in one batch remained mostly neutral during the course of their uninterrupted writing task. However, there was an element of anger during the separate email task, perhaps attributed to the realization of the amount of work needed to process all the emails in one session, the researchers theorize. The good news is that email batching is localized in time and thus its emotional effects don't last long. Solutions are possible in this case; the team suggests addressing the email batch at a later time when responding to emails is the only task, recognizing that won't always be possible due to office pressure.

Negative displayed emotions - especially in open office settings - can have significant consequences on company culture, according to the paper. "Emotional contagion can spread in a group or workplace through the influence of conscious or unconscious processes involving emotional states or physiological responses."

Upon return to normalcy following the COVID-19 crisis, the results suggest organizations should pay attention to multi-tasking practices to ensure a cohesive working environment. "Currently, an intriguing question is what the emotional effect of multitasking at home would be, where knowledge workers moved their operation during the COVID 19 pandemic," said Pavlidis.

The study was made possible by a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation and is part of a series that examines multitasking behavior among knowledge workers.

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Celiac disease linked to common chemical pollutants

 

NYU LANGONE HEALTH / NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Elevated blood levels of toxic chemicals found in pesticides, nonstick cookware, and fire retardants have been tied to an increased risk for celiac disease in young people, new research shows.

According to NYU Grossman School of Medicine researchers who led the study, people with the immune disorder have severe gut reactions, including diarrhea and bloating, to foods containing gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. The only treatment is a gluten-free diet, with no bread, pasta, or cake, says lead investigator and doctoral student Abigail Gaylord, MPH.

Reporting in the journal Environmental Research online May 12, the NYU Langone team found that children and young adults with high blood levels of pesticides -- and with high levels of pesticide-related chemicals called dichlorodiphenyldichlorethylenes (DDEs) -- were twice as likely to be newly diagnosed with celiac disease as those without high levels.

The study also found that gender differences existed for celiac disease related to toxic exposures. For females, who make up the majority of celiac cases, higher-than-normal pesticide exposure meant they were at least eight times more likely to become gluten intolerant. Young females with elevated levels of nonstick chemicals, known as perflouoroalkyls, or PFAs, including products like Teflon, were five to nine times more likely to have celiac disease.

Young males, on the other hand, were twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease if they had elevated blood levels of fire-retardant chemicals, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs.

Study co-investigator and health epidemiologist Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, the Jim G. Hendrick, MD Professor at NYU Langone, says further studies are needed to demonstrate that these toxic chemicals are a direct cause of celiac disease. But he noted that all are known to disrupt animal and human hormone levels, which are key to controlling both sexual development and immune defenses against infection.

Previous research has suggested that the origins of celiac disease, which afflicts one in 100 adults worldwide, were largely genetic and passed down from parents to offspring. Trasande, who also serves as chief of environmental pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at NYU Langone, and his colleagues wanted to investigate whether a link existed between environmental exposure to toxins and risk for a particular immune disorder directly affected by hormone levels, such as celiac disease.

"Our study establishes the first measureable tie-in between environmental exposure to toxic chemicals and celiac disease," says senior study investigator and pediatric gastroenterologist Jeremiah Levine, MD. "These results also raise the question of whether there are potential links between these chemicals and other autoimmune bowel diseases, which all warrant close monitoring and further study," says Levine, a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at NYU Langone.

Trasande says that if further studies show similar connections, such results could serve as evidence that the basis or underlying cause for many of these autoimmune disorders may not just be genetic, but also environmental.

For the study, researchers analyzed levels of toxic chemicals in the blood of 30 children and young adults, ages 3 to 21, who were newly diagnosed with celiac disease at NYU Langone Hassenfeld Children's Hospital. Test results were compared with those from 60 other young people of similar age, gender, and race. People with genes HLA-DQ2 and HLA-DQ8 are known to be at greater risk of being diagnosed with celiac disease. Other symptoms of celiac disease include diarrhea, fatigue, and anemia.

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Funding support for the study was provided by the KiDS of NYU Langone.

Besides Gaylord, Trasande, and Levine, other NYU Langone researchers involved in this study are Kurunthachalam Kannan, PhD; Kristen Thomas, MD; and Sunmi Lee, MS.

‘The grief is so unbearable’: Virus takes toll on Navajo

By FELICIA FONSECA and TIM SULLIVAN

TUBA CITY, Arizona (AP) — The virus arrived on the reservation in early March, when late winter winds were still blowing off the mesas and temperatures at dawn were often barely above freezing....

https://apnews.com/c77cc3c537c9a2510b67dcb631b4d988

AP PHOTOS: Volunteers flood Navajo Nation in virus outbreak

By CAROLYN KASTER

Under the watchful eye of Agathla Peak and just south of Monument Valley on the Navajo reservation, the Kayenta Health Center struggled under an onslaught of COVID-19.

https://apnews.com/11f67cac0b84aaa88834f6bc9179d138

TRUMP MINI ME

Pandemic politics costing lives in Brazil

AFP/File / EVARISTO SABrazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's (pictured May 6, 2020) criticism of stay-at-home measures to fight the virus has put him at odds with state and local authorities across Brazil, not to mention his own former health minister


Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro keeps saying coronavirus fears are overblown. Other officials at the federal, state and local levels insist the danger is all too real.

Brazil is torn by a deep political divide over how to respond to the pandemic, and it is taking a heavy human toll.

On Saturday, even as the death toll in Brazil crossed the threshold of 10,000, Bolsonaro continued pressing to get the country back to work.

"The army of unemployed keeps growing," he tweeted.

"Is chaos coming?" added the far-right leader, who has compared the virus to a "little flu" and condemned the "hysteria" surrounding it.

Some argue the "chaos" is already here -- at least as far as the Brazilian government's response goes.

Bolsonaro's criticism of stay-at-home measures to fight the virus has put him at odds with state and local authorities across Brazil, not to mention his own former health minister.

The president sacked the latter, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, last month after a long series of public spats.

Meanwhile, Brazil has emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic in Latin America, with 11,519 deaths so far.

Experts say under-testing means the real figure is likely far higher, and that things stand to get a lot worse.

"We know from history that anytime there's such a cacophony in a situation like this, such huge disagreement on public policy among leaders, tragedy ensues," said Brazilian historian Sidney Chalhoub, a professor at Harvard University.

As an example, he cited the last major cholera outbreak in Europe, in the late 19th century, that killed more than 10,000 people in Hamburg, Germany.

"It was largely caused by divisions between the local political elite and dominant economic interests, which trumped public health concerns. And the result was an even bigger economic catastrophe," he said.

- Polarizing disease -

Bolsonaro supporters have held a series of anti-confinement protests in recent weeks.
 

AFP/File / EVARISTO SAPresident Jair Bolsonaro has sometimes joined his supporters protesting against quarantine and social distancing measures to combat the new coronavirus outbreak

Sometimes the president himself has joined in, hitting the street, shaking hands and giving fiery speeches, all while refusing to wear a face mask.

The protests have included virulent attacks on Congress and the Supreme Court, which have moved to counter Bolsonaro's anti-confinement measures.

At times, they have erupted into violence, including against journalists and even nurses.

But a recent poll by the Datafolha institute found that 67 percent of Brazilians believe stay-at-home measures are needed to contain the virus, even if they hurt the economy.

Even in his own camp, Bolsonaro's support is far from universal.

Another poll found that while 56 percent of those who call themselves right-wing or center-right supported the president's handling of the pandemic, 40 percent did not.

"The more closely related people are to someone who has been infected or died, the more they distance themselves from Bolsonaro," said political scientist Carlos Pereira of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, who conducted the latter poll.

- 'Anti-knowledge' -

Like his US counterpart Donald Trump, whom he admires, Bolsonaro has touted the medication chloroquine as a wonder drug against COVID-19.

AFP/File / JIM WATSONBrazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (L, pictured March 2020) has an outlook on aspects of the pandemic that is similar to his US counterpart Donald Trump


Scientists at Brazil's leading public health research institute, Fiocruz, have stated that preliminary studies do not indicate chloroquine is an effective treatment for the disease.

Perceived to be attacking the president, they have received threats on social media in response.

"We're talking about a far-right, anti-democratic government," some of whose supporters have "fascist" tendencies, said sociologist Debora Messenberg, of the University of Brasilia.

"We can't even talk about society being 'polarized' in the usual sense. It's not a democratic polarization. Right now, the debate is between democracy and authoritarianism," she said.

Brazil, like the United States, is facing the pandemic "with a government that is anti-knowledge," said Chalhoub.

The Bolsonaro administration "is depicting this as a public health catastrophe versus an economic catastrophe. But that's a harmful view that will drive us toward both," he said

Boom heard in Washington state likely an exploding meteor

May 8 (UPI) -- A loud booming sound reported by multiple witnesses in Washington state was likely a meteor exploding over the area, experts said.

The American Meteor Society said several reports came in about a bright object streaking across the sky over the Puget Sound area about 7 p.m. Wednesday, followed by a loud boom that some witnesses said caused their homes to shake.

"The more I read the more inclined I am to believe this was a fireball (which is a meteor that is larger and brighter than normal)," Bob Lunsford with the American Meteor Society told KOMO-TV. "I'm certain now that this was a meteoric event."

Lunsford said the timing of the sightings and the boom, which occurred about three minutes after the streak of light was noted, makes sense for a larger-than-normal meteor explosion.

"If this was larger than normal then the sound could have originated from a higher altitude. So a delay of 3 minutes is entirely possible," Lunsford said.

Space.com said the annual Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower, which is caused by Earth's orbit crossing through debris from Halley's Comet, peaked early Wednesday morning, but will continue to cause sightings for a few weeks.

Honey bees face chronic paralysis pandemic in Britain

New research suggests the chronic bee paralysis virus is spreading quickly among bee colonies in Britain. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo

May 1 (UPI) -- The virus responsible for chronic bee paralysis is spreading rapidly among honey bee colonies in Britain, according to a new study.

Between 2007 and 2017, scientists visited 24,000 beekeepers to survey the health of commercial bee colonies in England and Wales. In 2007, the disease was found only in Lincolnshire, a county in eastern England. Just ten years later, the virus had spread to 39 of 47 English and six of eight Welsh counties.

Though the virus was isolated among just a handful of colonies to start, it quickly made itself apparent. Researchers detailed the disease's spread in a new paper, published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

"The symptoms of the disease are quite easy to spot once you have seen them a few times," said lead study author Giles Budge, professor of environmental sciences at Newcastle University. "Symptoms of chronic bee paralysis can include shaking, black hairless bees with nibbled wings or shaking, greasy looking bees with dislocated wings. Bees can also simply shake too. Colony level symptoms include piles of dead bees right outside the front entrance."

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Researchers used lab tests to confirm the presence of chronic bee paralysis virus at colonies where signs of infection were observed.

Bees infected by the virus usually die within weeks. Once infected, the disease can spread quickly among colony members. Roughly 40 percent of infected colonies are lost entirely, according to figures collected by Budge and his colleagues.

After surveying reports of the virus' spread, scientists confirmed that colonies managed by professional beekeepers, particularly those with imported queens, were more susceptible to the disease -- which were twice as quick to be infected by the virus.

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"Emerging diseases are tricky to study because the number of cases start low and then can build up rapidly," Budge said. "As such, we look for clues that highlight risk, and then we can try to explain why these heightened risks occur -- hence our observations on apiaries owned by professional beekeepers and those that contain imported queens."

A variety of management practices distinguish professional from amateur beekeeping, but scientists aren't yet sure why professionally managed bee colonies are more susceptible to the virus.

Though the disease can decimate entire colonies, the virus is distinct from the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, which was first reported in the United States. As well, pesticide exposure, while allowing the virus to replicate more quickly, doesn't appear to increase the risk that a colony will succumb to the virus.

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Still, researchers suggest the quickly spreading virus is a significant threat to bees and other insects.

"Honey bees are susceptible to many different viruses, and when considered in isolation, I'd argue that CBPV is one of the most important," Budge said. "This disease gets added as a pressure facing honey bees, although it is also worth noting that the virus can also infect other bees and ants, and so should be seen as an insect virus rather than a honey bee virus."

So far, scientists are ready to do little more than warn beekeepers of the threat of chronic bee paralysis virus, but Budge and his colleagues hope to identify effective mitigation strategies sooner rather than later.

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"We are part way through a four year program of research, and have a lot to do before we can advise on evidence based management strategies for chronic bee paralysis," he said. "We are working closely with the Bee Farmers Association, their members, and the national Bee Unit to achieve mitigation as our end goal."