Saturday, February 08, 2020

Framing the climate crisis as a terrorism issue could galvanize action

by Jennifer Zhang, Earth Institute, Columbia University

In many vulnerable regions of the world, the climate crisis has exacerbated loss of farmable land and increased water scarcity, fueling rural-urban migration, civil unrest, and violence. As a result, worsening geopolitical instability has aided the rise of terrorism and violence in the Middle East, Guatemala, and the Lake Chad Basin of Africa. Yet when people hear the words, "global warming," they typically don't think of terrorism. If they did, politicians would be far more likely to undertake drastic action to address the climate crisis.

Syria after 2011 is one example of how the climate crisis multiplied existing threats. Water scarcity, which had been worsening over the years, contributed significantly to the outbreak of conflict. The increased death of livestock, reduced arable land, and rise in food insecurity made it significantly easier for the terror organization calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to locally recruit over two thirds of its fighters. Extreme weather phenomena offered ripe opportunities for ISIS to increase support among locals. When a vicious drought swept through Iraq in 2010, ISIS distributed food baskets to local inhabitants. When high winds destroyed vegetation in 2012, ISIS handed out cash to affected farmers. By offering a source of income and opportunity for people when their livelihoods were destroyed by droughts and other extreme weather, ISIS was able to cultivate support and draw members from local populations. In other words, the climate crisis increased geopolitical instability and aided the growth of terrorism.

The US is vehemently opposed to terrorism as a matter of national security. According to the Pew Research Center, in early 2018, over three-quarters of American adults believed terrorism should be a top policy priority for the government, the highest of any given option. Over 46 percent of American adults favored increasing spending on anti-terrorism defenses, though the US military budget is already larger than the next seven highest-spending countries combined. The same survey showed that less than half of American adults believed climate change should be a top policy priority, ranking the second lowest of given issues.

Most Americans see "global warming" as an environmental, scientific, and political issue. Over half of Americans do not see it as a national security issue. While it is informative to present the climate crisis primarily through scientific data on global temperatures, atmospheric carbon concentration, and emissions levels, it does not galvanize people to action nearly as much as characterizing it as a matter of immediate national security. Doing the latter would make it a much higher priority for people in power.

The U.S. military already quietly recognizes climate change as a matter of national security, in part because it sparks conflict and unrest in other countries. In order to conceptually link the climate crisis to national security for the broader public, climate activists should expand and increase rhetorical focus on how the climate crisis worsens migration, foments geopolitical instability, and thereby aids terrorist organizations. Presenting the climate crisis in security-centric concerns and consequences ensures that all Americans—including right-leaning voters and people who would not be swayed by conventional appeals to ecological conservation or species preservation—become aware of how consequential it is. Security-centric framing would also help to shift the tone of climate activism toward addressing immediate threats, rather than simply encouraging global cooperation for the sake of future generations.

Reorienting climate rhetoric around national security also brings the action to a level that feels more achievable—at the national rather than global level. Whereas preserving the planet for future generations sounds aspirational and spiritually uplifting, it is an intrinsically international goal that calls upon many countries to work together for success. Framing plans to deal with the climate crisis in a way that requires concerted goodwill tends to encourage cynicism and blame-shifting when countries fail to meet carbon emission reduction targets. The vast majority of countries are failing to lower emissions to levels that would keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, as the 2015 Paris Agreement aspires to do. This collective failure dissipates blame and often disincentivizes countries from shouldering the burdens of emission reduction. Furthermore, focusing overtly on country-level climate reduction targets conceals the fact that emissions are largely generated by a handful of international corporations—over a third of all carbon and methane emissions since 1965 have been produced by 20 companies, including Saudi Aramco, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell.

Holding corporations accountable for emissions requires immense political momentum, which is more easily galvanized by framing climate action as a necessary defense against immediate danger than as a voluntary restriction of certain economic activities for global well-being. While global cooperation to reduce emissions is what the international community should strive for, using nation-centered rhetoric that focuses on security threats can be an effective conduit to achieving this broader goal. Furthermore, linking the climate crisis to terrorism could increase the motivation and capital for countries to press hard in climate negotiations; in the face of immediate danger, the inertia of other countries or companies seems a paltry excuse for inaction.

Saving nature vital to beating climate crisis, says WWF report

Just being around your cellphone affects your thinking, study finds

by Tim Christie, University of Oregon

As smart phones have become a pervasive part of daily life over the last decade or so, they've changed the way people socialize and communicate. They're always around and always within reach, or nearly always.

So what happens to people's brains and bodies when their phones are out of reach, or within reach but not usable?

That's what Dave Markowitz, assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, and colleagues sought to find out in a recent study published in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal.

Markowitz is interested in understanding the psychology of communication behavior, including language patterns and how media affects social and physical processes. As part of his doctoral thesis at Stanford University, he devised a study examining how subjects responded when exercising self-control with their phones.

He recruited 125 participants for the study, who were assigned to one of three groups and then directed to sit alone in an empty room for six minutes, though they weren't told the duration. Here's how the groups were divided up:

Members of one group were told to entertain themselves with their mobile phone, except no phone calls and no texting.
Members of the second group were told to leave their phones outside the room, sit alone without their device and entertain themselves with their thoughts.
Members of the third group were allowed to keep their phones but told to turn them face down on the table in front of them and not use them. They were also told to entertain themselves with their thoughts.

A fingertip device was used to measure skin conductance, an indicator of arousal. Participants' level of enjoyment, concentration difficulty, mind wandering and general mood were measured using post-study questionnaires.

Markowitz and colleagues found that participants without their phones had more difficulty concentrating and more mind wandering compared to those who used their phone. And those who had to resist using their phone had greater perceived concentration abilities than those who sat without their phone.

"The surprising finding for me was the reduction in concentration difficulty when people had to resist" using the phone, Markowitz said.

One possible reason that resisting the phone led to perceived improvement concentration? Most people think phones are valuable and seeing it front of them, even though they could not use it, offered something to think about compared to sitting without their phone, he said

"At least having it front of you was psychologically better than not having it all," he said. "Having some form of external stimulation, even if it wasn't used, I think that can focus the mind a bit.

It suggests having the phone present is better than not, but what's not clear is whether the phone is special, or if the participants would have reacted the same way with a book in front of them that they weren't allowed to read or pick up, he said.

Markowitz's findings fit with research by Tim Wilson at the University of Virginia, who found that when people were given time for "just thinking," they experience psychological consequences—less enjoyment, more difficulty concentrating, more mind wandering—compared to if they had some form of external stimulation.

"The mind can wander and lose focus when you're not given a thinking aid," which can be less psychologically positive for people, he said.

Markowitz said his study also fits in a framework of trying to understand if technology, or media in general, are mirrors or modifiers of human behavior.

If technology is a mirror, then mediated experiences reflect how people also act offline. If technology is a modifier, then in some cases it's changing the way we behave, think and feel in the world, he said.

"That's still really an open question," he said. "There are some cases where mediated and nonmediated experiences show consistencies in behavior, but other cases where mediation plays a crucial, modifying role. I'm interested in exploring these boundaries.

Put down the phone and live in the moment, says psychiatrist

More information: David M. Markowitz et al. Psychological and physiological effects of applying self-control to the mobile phone, PLOS ONE (2019). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224464

Biodiversity yields financial returns

IT WAS CALLED TRUCK FARMING IN THE THIRTIES

by Ori Schipper, ETH Zurich

A meadow with more than ten species yields more than a meadow with only one species. Credit: Valentin Klaus

Farmers could increase their revenues by increasing biodiversity on their land. This is the conclusion reached by an interdisciplinary research team including the fields of agricultural sciences, ecology and economics at ETH Zurich and other universities.

Many farmers associate grassland biodiversity with lower yields and financial losses. "Biodiversity is often considered unprofitable, but we show that it can, in fact, pay off," says Nina Buchmann, Professor of Grassland Sciences at ETH Zurich. In an interdisciplinary study at the interface of agricultural sciences, ecology and economics, Buchmann and her colleagues were able to quantify the economic added value of biodiversity based on a grassland experiment that examined different intensities of cultivation. Their paper has just been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Creating higher revenues

"Our work shows that biodiversity is an economically relevant factor of production," says Robert Finger, Professor of Agricultural Economics and Policy at ETH Zurich. If 16 different plant species grow in a field instead of just one, the quality of the forage remains more or less the same, but the yield is higher—which directly correlates to the income that can be made from milk sales. "The resultant increase in revenues in our study is comparable to the difference in yield between extensively and intensively farmed land," says Sergei Schaub, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in Finger's and Buchmann's groups.

Switzerland has so-called ecological compensation areas, i.e., grasslands for which farmers pay particular attention to promoting biodiversity. However, these areas often have poor soils and the yields they produce cannot be compared with those of high-quality grassland. Fortunately, the researchers were able to use data from the long-term Jena Experiment, which—among other questions—compared different farming practices at the same site.

"Our results show that biodiversity has an economically positive effect on all areas, regardless of whether farmers mow and fertilize them four times a year or just once," Schaub says. The more intensely the land is farmed, however, the more difficult it becomes to maintain a high level of biodiversity, because only a few plant species can withstand fertilization and frequent mowing, he notes. Finger adds that Swiss farmers already take more advantage of this economic effect than their counterparts in other countries. Generally speaking, biodiversity on the areas used for forage production in Switzerland is already relatively rich in biodiversity because the seed mixtures are adapted to local conditions, he explains.

Biodiversity as risk insurance

The researchers didn't expect their results to be so conclusive. And there's another economic aspect that they didn't even factor in: "Biodiversity is also a kind of risk insurance," Buchmann says. Diverse grasslands are better off to cope with extreme events such as droughts or floods, he explains, because different plant species react differently to such environmental influences, which partially compensates for any losses arising. "This means yields become more stable over time," Buchmann says, as the research team demonstrated in other recent studies.

The researchers believe their results are a clear indication that it's worthwhile for farmers to increase the diversity of plants growing on their land. "Preserving or restoring diverse grasslands can be a win-win situation," the researchers note at the end of their paper. Not only because this increases farmers' yields and operating revenues, but also because it improves and promotes important ecosystem services such as pollination or water quality.

Biological diversity as a factor of production

More information: Sergei Schaub et al. Plant diversity effects on forage quality, yield and revenues of semi-natural grasslands, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14541-4

New material created to clean up fossil fuel industry

by University of Sydney

Researchers at the University of Sydney have created a new material that has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions released during the refinement process of crude oil by up to 28 percent.

Silica-alumina materials are among the most common solid acids that have been widely commercialised as efﬁcient and environmentally-friendly catalysts in the petrochemical and bio-reﬁnery industries.

In a world first, a team of researchers at the University of Sydney led by Associate Professor Jun Huang, have produced a new amorphous silica-alumina catalyst with stronger acidity than any other silica-alumina material created before.

"This new catalyst can significantly reduce the amount of CO2 emitted by oil refineries, which has the potential to make the fossil fuel industry much greener and cleaner," Associate Professor Huang from the Faculty of Engineering and Sydney Nano Institute said.

A significant amount of carbon is emitted during the refinement of crude oil to produce products like petroleum, gasoline and diesel. Estimates suggest 20 to 30 percent of crude oil is transferred to waste and further burnt in the chemical process, making oil refineries the second largest source of greenhouse gases behind power plants.

Credit: University of Sydney

Silica-aluminas with strong Brønsted acidity—a substance that gives up or donates hydrogen ions (protons) in a chemical reaction—are becoming increasingly important to various sustainability processes, including the fields of biomass conversion, CO2 capture and conversion, air-pollution remediation, and water purification.

"Renewable energy is important to achieving a more sustainable energy supply, but the reality is that we will still be reliant on fossil fuels in the foreseeable future. Therefore, we should do all we can to make this industry more efficient and reduce its carbon footprint while we transition to renewable energy sources

"This new catalyst offers some exciting prospects, if it were to be adopted by the entire oil refinery industry, we could potentially see a reduction of over 20 percent in CO2 emissions during the oil refinement process. That's the equivalent of double Australia's crude oil consumption, over 2 million barrels of oil per day."

"The new catalyst also has the potential to develop the biomass industry. We can now look to biomass material like algae to be part of sustainable energy solutions."

The next steps for the researchers are to work on manufacturing the new catalyst at a large, industrial scale.

A greener, simpler way to create syngas

More information: Zichun Wang et al. Acidity enhancement through synergy of penta- and tetra-coordinated aluminum species in amorphous silica networks, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13907-7

A possible explanation for the mysterious ice circles in Lake Baikal

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Russia and one in France has found a possible explanation for the creation of ice circles in Lake Baikal—the deepest lake in the world. In their paper published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, the group describes their two-year study of the ice circles and what they learned about them.

Approximately twenty years ago, scientists became aware of ice circles forming in different locations in Lake Baikal in the spring and summer months. The mysterious circles were so large that they could only be seen from airplanes or satellites. The initial suspicion was that they formed due to methane bubbling up from below. But testing showed no methane deposits below the lake.

The lake is located in Siberia, where it gets so cold that its surface freezes over completely during the winter months. The ice circles that have been observed have appeared in different sizes and different locations—but they are all characterized by a bright center surrounded by a dark circle. Prior research had shown them to be on average 5 to 7 kilometers in diameter. They also last from just a few days to a few months. Additional research showed that the ice rings were not exclusive to Lake Baikal—some were seen in Mongolia, in Lake Hovsgol and another in Russia's Lake Teletskoye. Such sightings suggested they likely appear in most deep lakes that freeze over during the winter. But there was still no explanation for how they formed.

Determined to find the answer, the researchers with this new effort traveled to the lake several times over the winters of 2016 and 2017. On each expedition, the drilled holes in the ice and dropped sensors into the lake where the circles were forming. They also studied infrared satellite images that revealed temperature variations in the lake. In February of 2016, the team found a possible clue—an eddy had formed in the water beneath the ice circle. And the water in the eddy was a couple of degrees warmer than the water around it. The researchers suggest the ice circles are formed due to water movement and temperature differences from surrounding water due to eddy formation. The following year the team found another eddy, this one without a circle above it. They suggested that they had spotted the eddy before a circle formed above it. They were not able to explain why the eddies were forming, however.

Image: Lake Baikal, Siberia

More information: Alexei V. Kouraev et al. Giant ice rings on lakes and field observations of lens‐like eddies in the Middle Baikal (2016–2017), Limnology and Oceanography (2019). DOI: 10.1002/lno.11338

Arctic ice melt is changing ocean currents

by Rexana Vizza / Matthew Segal, NASA

A major ocean current in the Arctic is faster and more turbulent as a result of rapid sea ice melt, a new study from NASA shows. The current is part of a delicate Arctic environment that is now flooded with fresh water, an effect of human-caused climate change.

Using 12 years of satellite data, scientists have measured how this circular current, called the Beaufort Gyre, has precariously balanced an influx of unprecedented amounts of cold, fresh water—a change that could alter the currents in the Atlantic Ocean and cool the climate of Western Europe.

The Beaufort Gyre keeps the polar environment in equilibrium by storing fresh water near the surface of the ocean. Wind blows the gyre in a clockwise direction around the western Arctic Ocean, north of Canada and Alaska, where it naturally collects fresh water from glacial melt, river runoff and precipitation. This fresh water is important in the Arctic in part because it floats above the warmer, salty water and helps to protect the sea ice from melting, which in turn helps regulate Earth's climate. The gyre then slowly releases this fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean over a period of decades, allowing the Atlantic Ocean currents to carry it away in small amounts.

But since the 1990s, the gyre has accumulated a large amount of fresh water—1,920 cubic miles (8,000 cubic kilometers) - or almost twice the volume of Lake Michigan. The new study, published in Nature Communications, found that the cause of this gain in freshwater concentration is the loss of sea ice in summer and autumn. This decades-long decline of the Arctic's summertime sea ice coverhas left the Beaufort Gyre more exposed to the wind, which spins the gyre faster and traps the fresh water in its current.

Persistent westerly winds have also dragged the current in one direction for over 20 years, increasing the speed and size of the clockwise current and preventing the fresh water from leaving the Arctic Ocean. This decades-long western wind is unusual for the region, where previously, the winds changed direction every five to seven years.

Scientists have been keeping an eye on the Beaufort Gyre in case the wind changes direction again. If the direction were to change, the wind would reverse the current, pulling it counterclockwise and releasing the water it has accumulated all at once.

"If the Beaufort Gyre were to release the excess fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean, it could potentially slow down its circulation. And that would have hemisphere-wide implications for the climate, especially in Western Europe," said Tom Armitage, lead author of the study and polar scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Fresh water released from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic can change the density of surface waters. Normally, water from the Arctic loses heat and moisture to the atmosphere and sinks to the bottom of the ocean, where it drives water from the north Atlantic Ocean down to the tropics like a conveyor belt.

This important current is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and helps regulate the planet's climate by carrying heat from the tropically-warmed water to northern latitudes like Europe and North America. If slowed enough, it could negatively impact marine life and the communities that depend it.

"We don't expect a shutting down of the Gulf Stream, but we do expect impacts. That's why we're monitoring the Beaufort Gyre so closely," said Alek Petty, a co-author on the paper and polar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The study also found that, although the Beaufort Gyre is out of balance because of the added energy from the wind, the current expels that excess energy by forming small, circular eddies of water. While the increased turbulence has helped keep the system balanced, it has the potential to lead to further ice melt because it mixes layers of cold, fresh water with relatively warm, salt water below. The melting ice could, in turn, lead to changes in how nutrients and organic material in the ocean are mixed, significantly affecting the food chain and wildlife in the Arctic. The results reveal a delicate balance between wind and ocean as the sea ice pack recedes under climate change.

"What this study is showing is that the loss of sea ice has really important impacts on our climate system that we're only just discovering," said Petty.

Arctic ice sets speed limit for major ocean current

More information: Thomas W. K. Armitage et al. Enhanced eddy activity in the Beaufort Gyre in response to sea ice loss, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14449-z

Scientists resurrected a Wrangel Island mammoth's mutated genes

by Charlotte Hsu, University at Buffalo

Scientists resurrect mammoth’s broken genes — Credit: Rebecca Farnham / University at Buffalo

Some 4,000 years ago, a tiny population of woolly mammoths died out on Wrangel Island, a remote Arctic refuge off the coast of Siberia.

They may have been the last of their kind anywhere on Earth.

To learn about the plight of these giant creatures and the forces that contributed to their extinction, scientists have resurrected a Wrangel Island mammoth's mutated genes. The goal of the project was to study whether the genes functioned normally. They did not.

The research builds on evidence suggesting that in their final days, the animals suffered from a medley of genetic defects that may have hindered their development, reproduction and their ability to smell.

The problems may have stemmed from rapid population decline, which can lead to interbreeding among distant relatives and low genetic diversity—trends that may damage a species' ability to purge or limit harmful genetic mutations.

"The key innovation of our paper is that we actually resurrect Wrangel Island mammoth genes to test whether their mutations actually were damaging (most mutations don't actually do anything)," says lead author Vincent Lynch, Ph.D., an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo. "Beyond suggesting that the last mammoths were probably an unhealthy population, it's a cautionary tale for living species threatened with extinction: If their populations stay small, they too may accumulate deleterious mutations that can contribute to their extinction."

The study was published on Feb. 7 in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.

Lynch, an assistant professor of biological sciences in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, joined UB in 2019 and led the project while he was at the University of Chicago. The research was a collaboration between Lynch and scientists at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Virginia, University of Vienna and Penn State. The first authors were Erin Fry from the University of Chicago and Sun K. Kim from Northwestern University.

To conduct the study, Lynch's team first compared the DNA of a Wrangel Island mammoth to that of three Asian elephants and two more ancient mammoths that lived when mammoth populations were much larger.

The researchers identified a number of genetic mutations unique to the Wrangel Island mammoth. Then, they synthesized the altered genes, inserted that DNA into cells in petri dishes, and tested whether proteins expressed by the genes interacted normally with other genes or molecules.

The scientists did this for genes that are thought or known to be involved in a range of important functions, including neurological development, male fertility, insulin signaling and sense of smell.

In the case of detecting odors, for example, "We know how the genes responsible for our ability to detect scents work," Lynch says. "So we can resurrect the mammoth version, make cells in culture produce the mammoth gene, and then test whether the protein functions normally in cells. If it doesn't—and it didn't—we can infer that it probably means that Wrangel Island mammoths were unable to smell the flowers that they ate."

The research builds on prior work by other scientists, such as a 2017 paper in which a different research team identified potentially detrimental genetic mutations in the Wrangel Island mammoth, estimated to be a part of a population containing only a few hundred members of the species.

"The results are very complementary," Lynch says. "The 2017 study predicts that Wrangel Island mammoths were accumulating damaging mutations. We found something similar and tested those predictions by resurrecting mutated genes in the lab. The take-home message is that the last mammoths may have been pretty sick and unable to smell flowers, so that's just sad.

The last mammoths died on a remote island

More information: Erin Fry et al. Functional architecture of deleterious genetic variants in the genome of a Wrangel Island mammoth, Genome Biology and Evolution (2019). DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evz279

New commuter concern: Cancerous chemical in car seats

by University of California - Riverside

The longer your commute, the more you're exposed to a chemical flame retardant that is a known carcinogen and was phased out of furniture use because it required a Proposition 65 warning label in California.

That is the conclusion of a new UC Riverside study published this month in the journal Environment International.

While much research on automobile pollution focuses on external air pollutants entering vehicle interiors, this study shows that chemicals emanating from inside your car could also be cause for concern.

Though there are other Proposition 65-list chemicals that are typically used in the manufacture of automobiles, this flame retardant is a new addition to the list. Known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, Proposition 65 requires the state to maintain and update a list of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm.

Some scientists assumed that humans stopped being exposed to the chemical, called TDCIPP or chlorinated tris, after it was placed on California's Proposition 65 list in 2013. However, it is still widely used in automobile seat foam. The study shows that not only is your car a source of TDCIPP exposure, but that less than a week of commuting results in elevated exposure to it.

David Volz, associate professor of environmental toxicology at UCR, said the results were unexpected.

"I went into this rather skeptical because I didn't think we'd pick up a significant concentration in that short a time frame, let alone pick up an association with commute time," Volz said. "We did both, which was really surprising."

Over the past decade, Volz has studied how various chemicals affect the trajectory of early development. Using zebrafish and human cells as models, the Volz laboratory has been studying the toxicity of a newer class of flame retardants called organophosphate esters since 2011.

Little is known about the toxicity of these organophosphate esters—TDCIPP is one of them—but they've replaced older flame-retardant chemicals that lasted longer in the environment and took longer to metabolize.

Using zebrafish as a model, Volz found TDCIPP prevents an embryo from developing normally. Other studies have reported a strong association between TDCIPP and infertility among women undergoing fertility treatments.

Knowing its use is still widespread in cars, Volz wondered whether a person's exposure is elevated based on their commute. UC Riverside undergraduates made for excellent study subjects, as a majority of them have a daily commute.

The research team included collaborators at Duke University and was funded by the National Institutes of Health as well as the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Participants included around 90 students, each of whom had commute times that varied from less than 15 minutes to more than two hours round trip. All of them were given silicone wristbands to wear continuously for five days.

The molecular structure of silicone makes it ideal for capturing airborne contaminants. Since TDCIPP isn't chemically bound to the foam, Aalekyha Reddam, a graduate student in the Volz laboratory, said it gets forced out over time and ends up in dust that gets inhaled.

Multiple organophosphate esters were tested, but TDCIPP was the only one that showed a strong positive association with commute time.

"Your exposure to TDCIPP is higher the longer you spend in your vehicle," Reddam said.

While Volz and his team did not collect urine samples to verify that the chemical migrated into the bodies of the participants, they believe that's what happened.

"We presume it did because of how difficult it is to avoid the ingestion and inhalation of dust," Volz said. Additionally, other studies have examined the accumulation of TDCIPP in urine, but not as a function of how long a person sits in a car.

Going forward, the research team would like to repeat the study with a larger group of people whose ages are more varied. They would also like to study ways to protect commuters from this and other toxic compounds.

Until more specific reduction methods can be identified, the team encourages frequently dusting the inside of vehicles, and following U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for reducing exposure to contaminants.

Until safer alternatives are identified, more research is needed to fully understand the effects of TDCIPP on commuters.

"If we picked up this relationship in five days, what does that mean for chronic, long-term exposure, for people who commute most weeks out of the year, year over year for decades?" Volz asked.

Pet tags link widely used flame retardant to hyperthyroidism in cats

More information: Aalekhya Reddam et al, Longer commutes are associated with increased human exposure to tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate, Environment International (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2020.105499

REVENGE
Pangolin identified as potential link for coronavirus spread

AFP

The endangered pangolin may be the link that facilitated the spread of the novel coronavirus across China, Chinese scientists said Friday.

© Sam YEH Researchers at the South China Agricultural University have identified the scaly pangolin as a 'potential intermediate host' for the virus

Researchers have long suspected that the virus, which has now killed more than 630 people and infected some 31,000, was passed from an animal to a human at a market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

Researchers at the South China Agricultural University have identified the scaly mammal as a "potential intermediate host," the university said in a statement, without providing further details.

The new virus is believed to have originated in bats, but researchers have suggested there could have been an "intermediate host" in the transmission to humans.

After testing more than 1,000 samples from wild animals, scientists from the university found the genome sequences of viruses found on pangolins to be 99 percent identical to those on coronavirus patients, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

© AFP Graphic on pangolins, the world's most heavily trafficked mammals.

The pangolin is considered the most trafficked animal on the planet and more than one million have been snatched from Asian and African forests in the past decade, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

They are destined for markets in China and Vietnam, where their scales are used in traditional medicine -- despite having no medical benefits -- and their meat is bought on the black market.

- Shadowy wildlife trade -

Experts on Friday called for the Chinese scientists to release more data from their research.

Simply reporting the similarity between the genome sequences of viruses is "not sufficient," said James Wood, a veterinary medicine professor at the University of Cambridge.

Wood said the results could have been caused by "contamination from a highly infected environment."

"We would need to see all of the genetic data to get a feel for how related the human and pangolin viruses are," Jonathan Bell, a professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said.

China in January ordered a temporary ban on the trade in wild animals until the epidemic is under control.

The country has long been accused by conservationists of tolerating a shadowy trade in endangered animals for food or as ingredients in traditional medicines.

"If we want to do everything in our power to prevent deadly disease outbreaks such as coronavirus, then a permanent ban on wildlife trade, in China, and around the world, is the only solution," said Neil D'Cruze, global head of wildlife research at World Animal Protection.

A price list that circulated on China's internet for a business at the Wuhan market showed a menagerie of animals or animal-based products including live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, camel meat and other game -- 112 items in all.

The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus that killed hundreds of people in China and Hong Kong in 2002-03 also has been traced to wild animals, with scientists saying it likely originated in bats, later reaching humans via civets.

"Working to end the trade in wildlife can help to resolve some of the longer-term risks associated with animal reservoirs of zoonoses," Wood said, referring to infectious diseases that can be passed between animals and humans.

---30---

Pangolin Suspect #1 as direct source of coronavirus outbreak

Researchers at the South China Agricultural University have identified the scaly pangolin as a 'potential intermediate host' for the virus

Chinese researchers investigating the animal origin of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China said Friday the endangered pangolin may be the "missing link" between bats and humans, but other scientists said the search may not be over.

An earlier study—since discredited—pointed to snakes, and there remain numerous candidate species in the Wuhan wildlife market thought to be ground zero of the epidemic.

The SARS outbreak of 2002-3, involving a different strain of coronavirus, was transferred to humans by the civet, a small mammal prized in China for its flesh.

Missing link: A pangolin?

Many animals are capable of transmitting viruses to other species, and nearly all strains of the coronavirus contagious to humans originated in wildlife.

Bats are known carriers of the latest strain of the disease, which has infected at least 31,000 people and killed more than 630 worldwide, mostly in China where the outbreak originate.

A recent genetic analysis showed that the strain of the virus currently spreading among humans was 96 percent identical to that found in bats.

But according to Arnaud Fontanet, from France's Pasteur Institute, the disease likely didn't jump straight from bats to humans.

"We think there's another animal that's an intermediary," he told AFP.

Several studies have shown that the bat-bourne virus lacks the necessary hardware to latch on to human cell receptors. But it's still not clear which animal is the missing link.

Fontanet believes the intermediary was "probably a mammal," possible belonging to the badger family.

After testing more than 1,000 samples from wild animals, scientists at the South China Agricultural University found the genome sequences of viruses in pangolins to be 99 percent identical to those on coronavirus patients, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

But other experts urged caution.

"This is not scientific evidence," said James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge. "Investigations into animal reservoirs are extremely important, but results must be then be published for international scrutiny."

"Simply reporting detection of viral RNA with sequence similarity of 99+ percent is not sufficient," he added.

Wild goose chase?

To conclusively identify the culprit, researchers would need to test each species that was on sale at the market—a near impossibility given that it's now permanently closed.

Martine Peeters, a virologist at France's Institute for Research and Development (IRD), worked on the team that identified the host animal of the Ebola virus during recent epidemics.

Endangered pangolins — Graphic on pangolins, the world's most heavily trafficked mammals.

They found that it was indeed a bat that passed the virus on to humans, and Peeters believes that's likely to be the case this time around.

During her Ebola research, "we collected thousands of bat dropping from several sites in Africa," Peeters told AFP.

Fontanet said that Chinese researchers were doing likewise now.

"They say they've analysed samples from a rubbish truck," he said. "They don't say which, but I think it's likely to have been excrement that was just lying around."

Why does it matter?

While it may be too late for this outbreak, identifying the carrier animal for the novel coronavirus could prove vital in preventing future flare ups.

China for example outlawed the sale of civet for food in the wake of the SARS epidemic.

Eric Leroy, a virologist and vet at the IRD said the search could well turn up a result quickly like in the case of SARS. Equally, it could take years.

"With Ebola, research started in 1976 and we didn't see the first results published until 2005," he told AFP.

One determining factor could be what percentage of the same species are infected.

"If that's low, less than one percent for example, that's obviously going to lower the chance you stumble upon an infected animal," said Leroy.

Prevent future outbreaks?

For Fontanet, coronavirus is just the latest example of the potentially disastrous consequence of humans consuming virus-carrying wild animals.

He said that China needed to "take pretty radical measures against the sale of wild animals in markets."

Beijing has prohibited the practice, but only moved to do so last month, when the outbreak was already out of control.

"Each time, we try to put out the fire, and once it's out we await the next one," said Francois Renaud, a researcher at the Paris-based National Centre for Scientific Research.

He recommended compiling a watch list of all animals that could potentially transmit viruses to humans.

"You need to see epidemics before they come, and therefore you need to be proactive," he said.

Studies suggest role of bats, snakes in outbreak of China virus

Study: To slow an epidemic, focus on handwashing

We learned this lesson during the H1N1 Pandemic
aparently the lesson needs to be repeated over and over

since this is also the way Norovirus spreads.
by David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Based on their study, the authors found that focusing efforts to increase handwashing rates at just 10 airports chosen based on the location of the outbreak could significantly reduce disease spread. In these maps, they show the airports that would be targeted for outbreaks originating near Honolulu, Hawaii, or Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A new study estimates that improving the rates of handwashing by travelers passing through just 10 of the world's leading airports could significantly reduce the spread of many infectious diseases. And the greater the improvement in people's handwashing habits at airports, the more dramatic the effect on slowing the disease, the researchers found.

The findings, which deal with infectious diseases in general including the flu, were published in late December, just before the recent coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, but the study's authors say that its results would apply to any such disease and are relevant to the current outbreak.

The study, which is based on epidemiological modeling and data-based simulations, appears in the journal Risk Analysis. The authors are Professor Christos Nicolaides PhD '14 of the University of Cyprus, who is also a fellow at the MIT Sloan School of Management; Professor Ruben Juanes of MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and three others.

People can be surprisingly casual about washing their hands, even in crowded locations like airports where people from many different locations are touching surfaces such as chair armrests, check-in kiosks, security checkpoint trays, and restroom doorknobs and faucets. Based on data from previous research by groups including the American Society for Microbiology, the team estimates that on average, only about 20 percent of people in airports have clean hands—meaning that they have been washed with soap and water, for at least 15 seconds, within the last hour or so. The other 80 percent are potentially contaminating everything they touch with whatever germs they may be carrying, Nicolaides says.

"Seventy percent of the people who go to the toilet wash their hands afterwards," Nicolaides says, about findings from a previous ASM study. "The other 30 percent don't. And of those that do, only 50 percent do it right." Others just rinse briefly in some water, rather than using soap and water and spending the recommended 15 to 20 seconds washing, he says. That figure, combined with estimates of exposure to the many potentially contaminated surfaces that people come into contact with in an airport, leads to the team's estimate that about 20 percent of travelers in an airport have clean hands.

Improving handwashing at all of the world's airports to triple that rate, so that 60 percent of travelers to have clean hands at any given time, would have the greatest impact, potentially slowing global disease spread by almost 70 percent, the researchers found. Deploying such measures at so many airports and reaching such a high level of compliance may be impractical, but the new study suggests that a significant reduction in disease spread could still be achieved by just picking the 10 most significant airports based on the initial location of a viral outbreak. Focusing handwashing messaging in those 10 airports could potentially slow the disease spread by as much as 37 percent, the researchers estimate.

They arrived at these estimates using detailed epidemiological simulations that involved data on worldwide flights including duration, distance, and interconnections; estimates of wait times at airports; and studies on typical rates of interactions of people with various elements of their surroundings and with other people.

Even small improvements in hygiene could make a noticeable dent. Increasing the prevalence of clean hands in all airports worldwide by just 10 percent, which the researchers think could potentially be accomplished through education, posters, public announcements, and perhaps improved access to handwashing facilities, could slow the global rate of the spread of a disease by about 24 percent, they found. Numerous studies (such as this one) have shown that such measures can increase rates of proper handwashing, Nicolaides says.

"Eliciting an increase in hand-hygiene is a challenge," he says, "but new approaches in education, awareness, and social-media nudges have proven to be effective in hand-washing engagement."

The researchers used data from previous studies on the effectiveness of handwashing in controlling transmission of disease, so Juanes says these data would have to be calibrated in the field to obtain refined estimates of the slow-down in spreading of a specific outbreak.

The findings are consistent with recommendations made by both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. Both have indicated that hand hygiene is the most efficient and cost-effective way to control disease propagation. While both organizations say that other measures can also play a useful role in limiting disease spread, such as use of surgical face masks, airport closures, and travel restrictions, hand hygiene is still the first line of defense—and an easy one for individuals to implement.

While the potential of better hand hygiene in controlling transmission of diseases between individuals has been extensively studied and proven, this study is one of the first to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of such measures as a way to mitigate the risk of a global epidemic or pandemic, the authors say.

The researchers identified 120 airports that are the most influential in spreading disease, and found that these are not necessarily the ones with the most overall traffic. For example, they cite the airports in Tokyo and Honolulu as having an outsized influence because of their locations. While they respectively rank 46th and 117th in terms of overall traffic, they can contribute significantly to the spread of disease because they have direct connections to some of the world's biggest airport hubs, they have long-range direct international flights, and they sit squarely between the global East and West.

For any given disease outbreak, identifying the 10 airports from this list that are the closest to the location of the outbreak, and focusing handwashing education at those 10 turned out to be the most effective way of limiting the disease spread, they found.

Nicolaides says that one important step that could be taken to improve handwashing rates and overall hygiene at airports would be to have handwashing sinks available at many more locations, especially outside of the restrooms where surfaces tend to be highly contaminated. In addition, more frequent cleaning of surfaces that are contacted by many people could be helpful.

Explore furtherUS beefs up screening of travelers for new virus from China
More information: Christos Nicolaides et al. Hand‐Hygiene Mitigation Strategies Against Global Disease Spreading through the Air Transportation Network, Risk Analysis (2019). DOI: 10.1111/risa.13438
Journal information: Risk Analysis

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching.
328 shares

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment