CT of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) versus CT of influenza virus pneumonia

A new article investigating the differences in CT findings between coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pneumonia and influenza virus pneumonia found that most lesions from COVID-19 were located in the peripheral zone and close to the pleura, whereas influenza virus was more prone to show mucoid impaction and pleural effusion. The more important role of CT during the present pandemic is in finding lesions and evaluating the effects of treatment.

Date:July 9, 2020   Source:American Roentgen Ray Society

An open-access American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) article investigating the differences in CT findings between coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pneumonia and influenza virus pneumonia found that most lesions from COVID-19 were located in the peripheral zone and close to the pleura, whereas influenza virus was more prone to show mucoid impaction and pleural effusion.

"However," lead author Liaoyi Lin of China's First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University cautioned, "differentiating between COVID-19 pneumonia and influenza virus pneumonia in clinical practice remains difficult."

A total of 97 patients (49 women, 48 men) were enrolled in this study. Of them, 52 patients (29 men, 23 women; age range, 21-73 years) had COVID-19 pneumonia; 45 patients (26 women, 19 men; age range, 15-76 years) had influenza virus pneumonia (28, influenza A; 17, influenza B). All patients had positive nucleic acid testing results for the respective viruses, as well as complete clinical data and CT images.

According to Lin and colleagues: "Between the group of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and the group of patients with influenza virus pneumonia, the largest lesion close to the pleura (i.e., no pulmonary parenchyma between the lesion and the pleura), mucoid impaction, presence of pleural effusion, and axial distribution showed statistical difference (p < 0.05)."

Meanwhile, Lin et al. noted that the properties of the largest lesion, presence of ground-glass opacities, consolidation, mosaic attenuation, bronchial wall thickening, centrilobular nodules, interlobular septal thickening, crazy paving pattern, air bronchogram, unilateral or bilateral distribution, and longitudinal distribution did not show significant differences (p > 0.05).

Additionally, the authors observed no significant difference (p > 0.05) in CT score, length of the largest lesion, mean density, volume, or mass of the lesions between the two groups.

Because the CT manifestations of COVID-19 and influenza virus so often overlap, "even with the characteristics evaluated using AI software," Lin et al. wrote, "no significant differences were detected."

Thus, the authors of this AJR article concluded that the more important role of CT during the present pandemic is in finding lesions and evaluating the effects of treatment.

Journal Reference:
Liaoyi Lin, Gangze Fu, Shuangli Chen, Jiejie Tao, Andan Qian, Yunjun Yang, Meihao Wang. CT Manifestations of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pneumonia and Influenza Virus Pneumonia: A Comparative Study. American Journal of Roentgenology, 2020; 1 DOI: 10.2214/AJR.20.23304

American Roentgen Ray Society. "CT of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) versus CT of influenza virus pneumonia." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

Time to get real on the power of positive thinking

Positive thinking has long been extolled as the route to happiness, but it might be time to ditch the self-help books after a new study shows that realists enjoy a greater sense of long-term wellbeing than optimists.

Date:July 7, 2020 Source:University of Bath

Positive thinking has long been extolled as the route to happiness, but it might be time to ditch the self-help books after a new study shows that realists enjoy a greater sense of long-term wellbeing than optimists.

Researchers from the University of Bath and London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) studied people's financial expectations in life and compared them to actual outcomes over an 18-year period. They found that when it comes to the happiness stakes, overestimating outcomes was associated with lower wellbeing than setting realistic expectations.

The findings point to the benefits of making decisions based on accurate, unbiased assessments. They bring in to question the 'power of positive thinking' which frames optimism as a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby believing in success delivers it, along with immediate happiness generated by picturing a positive future.

Negative thinking should not replace positive thinking though. Pessimists also fared badly compared to realists, undermining the view that low expectations limit disappointment and present a route to contentment.

Their numbers are dwarfed though by the number of people -- estimated to be 80 percent of the population -- who can be classed as unrealistic optimists. These people tend to overestimate the likelihood that good things will happen and underestimate the possibility of bad things. High expectations set them up for large doses of destructive disappointment.

"Plans based on inaccurate beliefs make for poor decisions and are bound to deliver worse outcomes than would rational, realistic beliefs, leading to lower well-being for both optimists and pessimists. Particularly prone to this are decisions on employment, savings and any choice involving risk and uncertainty," explains Dr Chris Dawson, Associate Professor in Business Economics in Bath's School of Management.

"I think for many people, research that shows you don't have to spend your days striving to think positively might come as a relief. We see that being realistic about your future and making sound decisions based on evidence can bring a sense of well-being, without having to immerse yourself in relentless positivity."

The results could also be due to counteracting emotions, say the researchers. For optimists, disappointment may eventually overwhelm the anticipatory feelings of expecting the best, so happiness starts to fall. For pessimists, the constant dread of expecting the worst may overtake the positive emotions from doing better than expected.

In the context of the Covid-19 crisis the researchers highlight that optimists and pessimists alike make decisions based on biased expectations: not only can this lead to bad decision making but also a failure to undertake suitable precautions to potential threats.

"Optimists will see themselves as less susceptible to the risk of Covid-19 than others and are therefore less likely to take appropriate precautionary measures. Pessimists, on the other hand, may be tempted to never leave their houses or send their children to school again. Neither strategy seems like a suitable recipe for well-being. Realists take measured risks based on our scientific understanding of the disease," said co-author Professor David de Meza from LSE's Department of Management.

Published in the American journal Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin the, findings are based on analysis from the British Household Panel Survey -- a major UK longitudinal survey -- tracking 1,600 individuals annually over 18 years.

To investigate whether optimists, pessimists or realists have the highest long-term well-being the researchers measured self-reported life satisfaction and psychological distress. Alongside this, they measured participants' finances and their tendency to have over- or under-estimated them.

Journal Reference:
David de Meza, Chris Dawson. Neither an Optimist Nor a Pessimist Be: Mistaken Expectations Lower Well-Being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2020; 014616722093457 DOI: 10.1177/0146167220934577

University of Bath. "Time to get real on the power of positive thinking." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 July 2020. .

Socio-economic, environmental impacts of COVID-19 quantified

Holistic study charts effects of the coronavirus on sectors and regions globally

How is COVID-19 impacting people and the planet and what are the implications for a post-pandemic world? A new study quantifies the socio-economic losses and environmental gains.

Date:July 10, 2020

Source:University of Sydney

The first comprehensive study of the pandemic shows consumption losses amount to more than US$3.8 trillion, triggering full-time equivalent job losses of 147 million and the biggest-ever drop in greenhouse gas emissions.

The international group of researchers, using a global and highly detailed model, found that most directly hit was the travel sector and regions of Asia, Europe, the United States, with cascading multiplier effects across the entire world economy because of globalisation.

The loss of connectivity imposed to prevent the virus spreading triggers an economic 'contagion', causing major disruptions to trade, tourism, energy and finance sectors, while easing environmental pressures most in some of the hardest-hit areas.

This study focuses on 'live' data to 22 May (with the exception of air travel, for which only a 12-month forecast exists), differing from most assessments of the economic impacts of the pandemic based on scenario analyses and/or projections -- and it is the first to provide an overview of the combined economic, social and environmental impacts, including indirect effects, of the coronavirus.

The findings publish today in the international scientific journal PLOS ONE.

Key Reductions
Consumption: US$3.8 trillion (4.2 percent ~ GDP of Germany)
Jobs: 147m (4.2 percent of the global workforce)
Income from wages and salaries: $2.1 trillion (6 percent)
Most directly hit: US, China (mainland), air transport and related tourism
Greenhouse gas emissions: 2.5Gt (4.6 percent) -- larger than any drop in human history*
Other atmospheric emissions -- PM2.5: Dangerously fine particulate matter emissions fall 0.6 Mt (3.8 percent); SO2 & NOx: Sulfur dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels -- which has been linked to asthma and chest tightness -- and emissions from nitrogen oxide -- from fuel combustion, for example, driving cars -- fall 5.1 Mt (2.9 percent).

Corresponding author Dr Arunima Malik, from Integrated Sustainability Analysis (ISA) and University of Sydney Business School, said the experience of previous financial shocks showed that, without structural change, environmental gains were unlikely to be sustained during economic recovery.

"We are experiencing the worst economic shock since the Great Depression, while at the same time we have experienced the greatest drop in greenhouse gas emissions since the burning of fossil fuels began," Dr Malik said.

"In addition to the sudden drop in climate-change inducing greenhouse gasses, prevented deaths from air pollution are of major significance.

"The contrast between the socio-economic and the environmental variables reveals the dilemma of the global socio-economic system -- our study highlights the interconnected nature of international supply chains, with observable global spillover effects across a range of industry sectors, such as manufacturing, tourism and transport."

The University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence said it was wonderful to see significant applications come to life through a collaborative platform seeded a decade ago with University of Sydney funding.

"Thanks to pioneering work here at Sydney in collaboration with other world leaders in footprinting, it's now possible to simulate the world economy quickly and accurately to see how society and the environment are impacted by changes in our consumption," Dr Spence said.

"This research was conducted in the cloud-based Global MRIO Lab and it is these sorts of global, multidisciplinary collaborations that will help us tackle the complex issues of our time."

Research Using the Global MRIO Lab

To chart the world economy and post-disaster impacts using global multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis or GMRIO, researchers worked in the open-source Global MRIO Lab. This customisable database is an extension of the Australian Industrial Ecology Lab (IE Lab) led by the University of Sydney.

The advancement of GMRIO has underpinned the increasing popularity and uptake of so-called consumption-based accounting, or footprinting, which avoids loopholes such as 'carbon leakage' where pollution is externalised to the producers, rather than consumers of goods and services. The Global MRIO Lab includes data from statistical agencies, including National Accounts and Eurostat and international trade data such as UN Comtrade. The lab is powered by supercomputers calculating the impacts of international trade along billions of supply chains extending to 221 countries.

Input-output (I-O) models were developed in the 1930s by Nobel Prize Laureate Wassily Leontief to analyse the relationships between consumption and production in the economy; I-O or multi-regional input-output (MRIO) models take account of actual data, from I-O records worldwide. Global MRIO or GMRIO models now not only extend to global value chains (GVCs) incorporating all orders of production but are also able to answer flexible and complex questions to a high degree of accuracy within a relatively short time lag. Once assembled, tables can be quickly updated, limited only by the timeliness of the data to hand.

Lead author Professor Manfred Lenzen, also from ISA and a recent co-author of the "Scientists' warning on affluence," said that the Australian-funded and University of Sydney-led innovation of the IO Labs had really catalysed new research efficiency in Australia. "Whilst the Labs were initially developed by a dedicated team from eight Universities and the CSIRO, supported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are now hundreds of users, answering questions ranging from building sustainable cities, avoiding food waste, and carbon-footprinting tourism, to hedging against major disasters such as tropical cyclones," said Professor Lenzen.

For this study into COVID-19, 38 regions in the world were analysed and 26 sectors. In order to incorporate as much information as possible, co-authors were allocated countries with which they had language skills and familiarity, with data translated from sources in 12 languages ranging from Arabic to Hindi and Spanish.

The international team of researchers are from: University of Sydney; Edinburgh Napier University; University of Queensland; UNSW Sydney; Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia; National Institute for Environmental Studies & Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan; Yachay Tech University, Ecuador; Duke University; Beijing Normal University.

* Previous significant drops in greenhouse gas emissions were during the global financial crisis in 2009 (0.46Gt) and as a result of land-use changes (under the Kyoto Protocol) in 1998 (2.02Gt).



Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Sydney. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal References:
Manfred Lenzen, Mengyu Li, Arunima Malik, Francesco Pomponi, Ya-Yen Sun, Thomas Wiedmann, Futu Faturay, Jacob Fry, Blanca Gallego, Arne Geschke, Jorge Gómez-Paredes, Keiichiro Kanemoto, Steven Kenway, Keisuke Nansai, Mikhail Prokopenko, Takako Wakiyama, Yafei Wang, Moslem Yousefzadeh. Global socio-economic losses and environmental gains from the Coronavirus pandemic. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (7): e0235654 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235654

Thomas Wiedmann, Manfred Lenzen, Lorenz T. Keyßer, Julia K. Steinberger. Scientists’ warning on affluence. Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16941-y

University of Sydney. "Socio-economic, environmental impacts of COVID-19 quantified: Holistic study charts effects of the coronavirus on sectors and regions globally." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 10 July 2020. .

Distorted passage of time during the COVID-19 lockdown

Survey results suggest people in United Kingdom perceived time passing differently compared to pre-lockdown

A survey conducted in the U.K. suggests that social and physical distancing measures put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted people's perception of how quickly time passed compared to their pre-lockdown perceptions.

Date:July 9, 2020 Source:PLOS

A survey conducted in the U.K. suggests that social and physical distancing measures put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted people's perception of how quickly time passed compared to their pre-lockdown perceptions. Ruth S. Ogden of Liverpool John Moores University, U.K., presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 6, 2020.

Previous research suggests that one's perception of how quickly time passes can vary according to one's emotions, the number of daily tasks one must perform, and other factors. However, most of that research has been limited to normal day-to-day life. Social and physical distancing measures put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic provide a unique opportunity to examine how significant changes to life's daily routine impact time perception.

Ogden prepared an online questionnaire asking participants to rate on a sliding scale how quickly they felt time was passing compared to normal, both over the course of a single day and over a full week. The questionnaire also evaluated people's emotional state, task load, and satisfaction with levels of social interaction. The final analysis included 604 participants in the U.K. who answered the questionnaire between April 7 and April 30, 2020.

Ogden found that more than 80 percent of participants experienced changes to how quickly they perceived time passing during lockdown compared to pre-lockdown. Those who were older or less satisfied with their current levels of social interaction were more likely to experience slower passage of time over the course of a day or week. Slower passage of time over the course of a day was also associated with higher stress and a lower task load.

These findings suggest that significant changes to life's daily routine distort perception of time. Future research could look deeper into the effects of specific factors, such as whether social satisfaction influences perception of time during normal daily life, or if its significance in this study is due to the unique social impacts of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Author Ruth Ogden notes: "80% of people experienced distortion to the passage of time during the lockdown. Lockdown passing more slowly than normal was associated with older age and reduced satisfaction with social interactions."
make a difference: sponsored opportunity

Journal Reference:
Ruth S. Ogden. The passage of time during the UK Covid-19 lockdown. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (7): e0235871 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235871

PLOS. "Distorted passage of time during the COVID-19 lockdown: Survey results suggest people in United Kingdom perceived time passing differently compared to pre-lockdown." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

Fair justice systems need open data access

Making court records publicly available will enable statistical analysis

Researchers are developing an A.I. platform that provides users with access to the information and insights hidden inside federal court records, regardless of their data and analytic skills.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Northwestern University

Although U.S. court documents are publicly available online, they sit behind expensive paywalls inside a difficult-to-navigate database.

A Northwestern University-led team says these barriers prevent the transparency needed to establish a fair and equal justice system. Making all court records open and available will allow researchers to systematically study and evaluate the U.S. justice system, yielding information with potential to direct policy.

"In principle, litigation is supposed to be open to the public," said Northwestern data scientist Luís A. Nunes Amaral. "In reality, the lack of access to court records seemingly undercuts any claim that the courts are truly 'open.'"

The new insights will be published on Friday, July 10 in the journal Science. Amaral is the corresponding author of the paper. His co-authors include computer and data scientists, legal scholars, journalists and policy experts.

Northwestern artificial intelligence (A.I) researcher Kristian Hammond and the C3 Lab are developing an A.I. platform that provides users with access to the information and insights hidden inside federal court records, regardless of their data and analytic skills.

"The problem with court data is the same problem with a lot of datasets," Hammond said. "The data cost money, and the technical skills to use them cost money. That means very few people have access -- not just to the data -- but the information that we all need that's hidden inside of it."

With this tool, the researchers can link courtroom data to other public data to explore questions such as: How do different judges affect the outcomes of similar cases? Does it make a difference to be defended by a big law firm compared to a smaller one? And how many cases settle?

"We really can ask the broadest questions," Amaral said. "The ultimate goal is to ask if the court system is acting fairly."

Amaral is the Erastus Otis Haven Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and the director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. Hammond is the Bill and Cathy Osborn Professor of Computer Science at McCormick and the director of Northwestern's Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence program.

Northwestern co-authors include data scientist Adam Pah from the Kellogg School of Management; legal scholars David Schwartz, Sarath Sanga, Zachary Clopton and Peter DiCola from the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and journalism researcher Rachel Davis Mersey from the Medill School of Journalism.

Evaluating access to justice

To help quantify and evaluate citizens' access to justice, the researchers examined judicial waiver decisions. Anyone who files a lawsuit in a federal court must pay a $400 filing fee, which is unaffordable for many Americans. To waive these fees, litigants can file an application. Because there is no uniform standard to reviewing these requests, the Northwestern team found judges' decisions varied widely. In one federal district alone, judges approved waivers anywhere from less than 20% to more than 80% of the time.

"If all judges reviewed fee waiver applications under the same standard, then grant rates should not systematically differ within districts," the authors wrote. "We find, however, that they do."

The research team believes these types of variations can be fixed if the public can access and analyze court records, in order to give the justice system quantitative feedback. To do this, the researchers recommend a three-pronged approach:

1. Make court records free to dismantle the barrier to access;

2. Link courtroom data to external data -- such as information on judges, litigants and lawyers -- to build a collaborative knowledge network;

3. Empower the public by providing access to the information that flows from the analysis of the federal court data.

Transforming study and journalistic coverage

To help with this approach, the researchers are developing SCALES-OKN (Systematic Content Analysis of Litigation Events Open Knowledge Network), an A.I.-powered platform that makes the federal courtroom data and insights available to the public. The team believes the tool has potential to transform the ways academics, scientists and researchers approach legal study, as well as how journalists cover the justice system.

"Our ability to understand and improve the law -- everything from employment discrimination to intellectual property to securities regulation -- depends critically on our ability to access legal data," said Sanga, an associate professor at Northwestern Law. "By opening up court records, SCALES will finally enable researchers to systematically examine the court system and the practice of law. Social scientists will use this resource in much the same way that they use the U.S. Census. It will provide both a detailed and big picture view of the process by which litigants navigate the justice system, as well as the process by which judges administer justice."

"SCALES will transform the way journalists are able to cover the American justice system," said Mersey, associate dean of research at Medill. "The interface will allow reporters, both with and without data analytics skills, to quickly and easily access judicial information and court records to cover uses of social justice, equity and due process. At a time when media organizations have trimmed newsroom staffs and decreased the amount of money that can be spent gathering information, SCALES will prove to be a powerful partner in ensuring the justice systems operates in an open and accessible way."

Journal Reference:
Adam R. Pah, David L. Schwartz, Sarath Sanga, Zachary D. Clopton, Peter Dicola, Rachel Davis Mersey, Charlotte S. Alexander, Kristian J. Hammond, Luís A. Nunes Amaral. How to build a more open justice system. Science, 2020 DOI: 10.1126/science.aba6914

Scientists urge caution, further assessment of ecological impacts above deep sea mining

A new study argues that deep-sea mining poses significant risks, not only to the area immediately surrounding mining operations but also to the water hundreds to thousands of feet above the seafloor, threatening vast midwater ecosystems. Further, the scientists suggest how these risks could be evaluated more comprehensively to enable society and managers to decide if and how deep-sea mining should proceed.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:University of Hawaii at Manoa 

Interest in deep-sea mining for copper, cobalt, zinc, manganese and other valuable metals has grown substantially in the last decade and mining activities are anticipated to begin soon. A new study, led by University of Hawai'i (UH) at Manoa researchers, argues that deep-sea mining poses significant risks, not only to the area immediately surrounding mining operations but also to the water hundreds to thousands of feet above the seafloor, threatening vast midwater ecosystems. Further, the scientists suggest how these risks could be evaluated more comprehensively to enable society and managers to decide if and how deep-sea mining should proceed.

Currently 30 exploration licenses cover about 580,000 square miles of the seafloor on the high seas and some countries are exploring exploitation in their own water as well. Most research assessing the impacts of mining and environmental baseline survey work has focused on the seafloor.

However, large amounts of mud and dissolved chemicals are released during mining and large equipment produces extraordinary noise -- all of which travel high and wide. Unfortunately, there has been almost no study of the potential effects of mining beyond the habitat immediately adjacent to extraction activities.

"This is a call to all stakeholders and managers," said Jeffrey Drazen, lead author of the article and professor of oceanography at UH Manoa. "Mining is poised to move forward yet we lack scientific evidence to understand and manage the impacts on deep pelagic ecosystems, which constitute most of the biosphere. More research is needed very quickly."

The deep midwaters of the world's ocean represent more than 90% of the biosphere, contain 100 times more fish than the annual global catch, connect surface and seafloor ecosystems, and play key roles in climate regulation and nutrient cycles. These ecosystem services, as well as untold biodiversity, could be negatively affected by mining.

This recent paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, provides a first look at potential threats to this system.

"The current study shows that mining and its environmental impacts may not be confined to the seafloor thousands of feet below the surface but could threaten the waters above the seafloor, too," said Drazen. "Harm to midwater ecosystems could affect fisheries, release metals into food webs that could then enter our seafood supply, alter carbon sequestration to the deep ocean, and reduce biodiversity which is key to the healthy function of our surrounding oceans."

In accordance with UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the International Seabed Authority (ISA) is required to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment, including deep midwater ecosystems, from harmful effects arising from mining-related activities. In order to minimize environmental harm, mining impacts on the midwater column must be considered in research plans and development of regulations before mining begins.

"We are urging researchers and governing bodies to expand midwater research efforts, and adopt precautionary management measures now in order to avoid harm to deep midwater ecosystems from seabed mining," said Drazen.

Journal Reference:
Jeffrey C. Drazen, Craig R. Smith, Kristina M. Gjerde, Steven H. D. Haddock, Glenn S. Carter, C. Anela Choy, Malcolm R. Clark, Pierre Dutrieux, Erica Goetze, Chris Hauton, Mariko Hatta, J. Anthony Koslow, Astrid B. Leitner, Aude Pacini, Jessica N. Perelman, Thomas Peacock, Tracey T. Sutton, Les Watling, Hiroyuki Yamamoto. Opinion: Midwater ecosystems must be considered when evaluating environmental risks of deep-sea mining. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020; 202011914 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2011914117

University of Hawaii at Manoa. "Scientists urge caution, further assessment of ecological impacts above deep sea mining." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

A 'regime shift' is happening in the Arctic Ocean

Scientists find the growth of phytoplankton in the Arctic Ocean has increased 57 percent over just two decades, enhancing its ability to soak up carbon dioxide. While once linked to melting sea ice, the increase is now propelled by rising concentrations of tiny algae.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences

Scientists at Stanford University have discovered a surprising shift in the Arctic Ocean. Exploding blooms of phytoplankton, the tiny algae at the base of a food web topped by whales and polar bears, have drastically altered the Arctic's ability to transform atmospheric carbon into living matter. Over the past decade, the surge has replaced sea ice loss as the biggest driver of changes in uptake of carbon dioxide by phytoplankton.


The research appears July 10 in Science. Senior author Kevin Arrigo, a professor in Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth), said the growing influence of phytoplankton biomass may represent a "significant regime shift" for the Arctic, a region that is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth.

The study centers on net primary production (NPP), a measure of how quickly plants and algae convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugars that other creatures can eat. "The rates are really important in terms of how much food there is for the rest of the ecosystem," Arrigo said. "It's also important because this is one of the main ways that CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere and into the ocean."

A thickening soup

Arrigo and colleagues found that NPP in the Arctic increased 57 percent between 1998 and 2018. That's an unprecedented jump in productivity for an entire ocean basin. More surprising is the discovery that while NPP increases were initially linked to retreating sea ice, productivity continued to climb even after melting slowed down around 2009. "The increase in NPP over the past decade is due almost exclusively to a recent increase in phytoplankton biomass," Arrigo said.

Put another way, these microscopic algae were once metabolizing more carbon across the Arctic simply because they were gaining more open water over longer growing seasons, thanks to climate-driven changes in ice cover. Now, they are growing more concentrated, like a thickening algae soup.

"In a given volume of water, more phytoplankton were able to grow each year," said lead study author Kate Lewis, who worked on the research as a PhD student in Stanford's Department of Earth System Science. "This is the first time this has been reported in the Arctic Ocean."

New food supplies

Phytoplankton require light and nutrients to grow. But the availability and intermingling of these ingredients throughout the water column depend on complex factors. As a result, although Arctic researchers have observed phytoplankton blooms going into overdrive in recent decades, they have debated how long the boom might last and how high it may climb.

By assembling a massive new collection of ocean color measurements for the Arctic Ocean and building new algorithms to estimate phytoplankton concentrations from them, the Stanford team uncovered evidence that continued increases in production may no longer be as limited by scarce nutrients as once suspected. "It's still early days, but it looks like now there is a shift to greater nutrient supply," said Arrigo, the Donald and Donald M. Steel Professor in Earth Sciences.

The researchers hypothesize that a new influx of nutrients is flowing in from other oceans and sweeping up from the Arctic's depths. "We knew the Arctic had increased production in the last few years, but it seemed possible the system was just recycling the same store of nutrients," Lewis said. "Our study shows that's not the case. Phytoplankton are absorbing more carbon year after year as new nutrients come into this ocean. That was unexpected, and it has big ecological impacts."

Decoding the Arctic

The researchers were able to extract these insights from measures of the green plant pigment chlorophyll taken by satellite sensors and research cruises. But because of the unusual interplay of light, color and life in the Arctic, the work required new algorithms. "The Arctic Ocean is the most difficult place in the world to do satellite remote sensing," Arrigo explained. "Algorithms that work everywhere else in the world -- that look at the color of the ocean to judge how much phytoplankton are there -- do not work in the Arctic at all."

The difficulty stems in part from a huge volume of incoming tea-colored river water, which carries dissolved organic matter that remote sensors mistake for chlorophyll. Additional complexity comes from the unusual ways in which phytoplankton have adapted to the Arctic's extremely low light. "When you use global satellite remote sensing algorithms in the Arctic Ocean, you end up with serious errors in your estimates," said Lewis.

Yet these remote-sensing data are essential for understanding long-term trends across an ocean basin in one of the world's most extreme environments, where a single direct measurement of NPP may require 24 hours of round-the-clock work by a team of scientists aboard an icebreaker, Lewis said. She painstakingly curated sets of ocean color and NPP measurements, then used the compiled database to build algorithms tuned to the Arctic's unique conditions. Both the database and the algorithms are now available for public use.

The work helps to illuminate how climate change will shape the Arctic Ocean's future productivity, food supply and capacity to absorb carbon. "There's going to be winners and losers," Arrigo said. "A more productive Arctic means more food for lots of animals. But many animals that have adapted to live in a polar environment are finding life more difficult as the ice retreats."

Phytoplankton growth may also peak out of sync with the rest of the food web because ice is melting earlier in the year. Add to that the likelihood of more shipping traffic as Arctic waters open up, and the fact that the Arctic is simply too small to take much of a bite out of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. "It's taking in a lot more carbon than it used to take in," Arrigo said, "but it's not something we're going to be able to rely on to help us out of our climate problem."

This research was supported by NASA's Earth and Space Science Fellowship program and the National Science Foundation.

Journal Reference:
K. M. Lewis, G. L. Van Dijken, K. R. Arrigo. Changes in phytoplankton concentration now drive increased Arctic Ocean primary production. Science, 2020 DOI: 10.1126/science.aay8380

Women who deliver by C-section are less likely to conceive subsequent children

Women who deliver their first child by cesarean section (C-section) are less likely to conceive a second child than those who deliver vaginally, despite being just as likely to plan a subsequent pregnancy, according to researchers. The team followed more than 2,000 women for three years after they delivered their first child.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Penn State

Women who deliver their first child by cesarean section (C-section) are less likely to conceive a second child than those who deliver vaginally, despite being just as likely to plan a subsequent pregnancy, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. The team followed more than 2,000 women for three years after they delivered their first child.


Kristen Kjerulff, professor of public health sciences, said that although previous studies showed that women who delivered by C-section were less likely to bear subsequent children, it was unclear to researchers whether this was due to maternal choice or a lower rate of conception.

The researchers followed women from before the birth of their first child and interviewed them every six months until three years after their first delivery. During each interview, they asked women to report how often they had unprotected intercourse in each of the previous six months.

Kjerulff and colleagues analyzed data from 2,021 women between the ages of 18 and 35 who provided data on unprotected intercourse and resulting conceptions for three years after their first birth. Nearly 600 of those women delivered their first child by C-section and those women were more likely to be older, overweight and obese, shorter, and more likely to have sought fertility advice, testing or treatment.

Approximately 69% of women who delivered by C-section conceived after unprotected intercourse compared to approximately 78% of women who delivered vaginally. Women who delivered by C-section also had a reduced likelihood of a live birth. The association remained after researchers accounted for maternal age, pre-pregnancy body mass index, time to conception of the first child, gestational weight gain, prior induced abortions, diabetes, hypertension, hospitalization during pregnancy and other factors.

Dr. Richard Legro, a coauthor of the manuscript published in JAMA Network Open and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, says that controlling for intercourse was a key strength of the study and allowed the researchers to rule out trauma or lingering pain from C-section. Although the study didn't investigate the reasons for the decreased conception rate, he suspects there may be some physiological reasons.

"It's possible that pelvic or [fallopian] tubal scarring as a result of being exposed to open air and contaminants may affect subsequent attempts at getting pregnant," Legro said. "It is also possible that scar formation from the surgical wound in the uterus, though not in an area where pregnancies implant, may have lingering effects on the process of implantation."

Based on the findings from this study, Kjerulff and Legro recommend that women under 35 who fail to conceive after a year of unprotected intercourse following a C-section seek medical help. Legro noted the data from this study may be useful for physicians counseling women who elect to have C-sections.

"It's important that women who elect to have a C-section know that there is a chance they may have difficulty conceiving in the future," Legro said.

Journal Reference:
Kristen H. Kjerulff, Ian M. Paul, Carol S. Weisman, Marianne M. Hillemeier, Ming Wang, Richard S. Legro, John T. Repke. Association Between Mode of First Delivery and Subsequent Fecundity and Fertility. JAMA Network Open, 2020; 3 (4): e203076 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.3076

Bats offer clues to treating COVID-19

To combat COVID-19, we need to regulate our immune systems to resemble those of bats

HOLY PANDEMIC BATMAN, IT'S NOT WUHAN FLU
IT'S BAT FLU

Bats carry many viruses, including COVID-19, without becoming ill. Biologists are studying the immune system of bats to find potential ways to 'mimic' that system in humans.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:University of Rochester

Bats are often considered patient zero for many deadly viruses affecting humans, including Ebola, rabies, and, most recently, the SARS-CoV-2 strain of virus that causes coronavirus.

Although humans experience adverse symptoms when afflicted with these pathogens, bats are remarkably able to tolerate viruses, and, additionally, live much longer than similar-sized land mammals.

What are the secrets to their longevity and virus resistance?

According to researchers at the University of Rochester, bats' longevity and capacity to tolerate viruses may stem from their ability to control inflammation, which is a hallmark of disease and aging. In a review article published in the journal Cell Metabolism, the researchers -- including Rochester biology professors Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov -- outline the mechanisms underlying bats' unique abilities and how these mechanisms may hold clues to developing new treatments for diseases in humans.

Why are bats 'immune' to viruses?

The idea for the paper came about when Gorbunova and Seluanov, who are married, were in Singapore in March before COVID-19 travel bans began. When the virus started to spread and Singapore went into lockdown, they were quarantined at the home of their colleague Brian Kennedy, director of the Centre for Healthy Aging at the National University of Singapore and co-author of the paper.

The three scientists, all experts on longevity in mammals, got to talking about bats. SARS-CoV-2 is believed to have originated in bats before the virus was transmitted to humans. Although bats were carriers, they seemed to be unaffected by the virus. Another perplexing factor: generally, a species' lifespan correlates with its body mass; the smaller a species, the shorter its lifespan, and vice versa. Many bat species, however, have lifespans of 30 to 40 years, which is impressive for their size.

"We've been interested in longevity and disease resistance in bats for a while, but we didn't have the time to sit and think about it," says Gorbunova, the Doris Johns Cherry Professor of Biology at Rochester. "Being in quarantine gave us time to discuss this, and we realized there may be a very strong connection between bats' resistance to infectious diseases and their longevity. We also realized that bats can provide clues to human therapies used to fight diseases."

While there have been studies on the immune responses of bats and studies of bats' longevity, until their article, "no one has combined these two phenomena," Seluanov says.

Gorbunova and Seluanov have studied longevity and disease resistance in other exceptionally long-lived animals, including naked mole rats. One common theme in their research is that inflammation is a hallmark of the aging process and age-related diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer's, and cardiovascular disease. Viruses, including COVID-19, are one factor that can trigger inflammation.

"With COVID-19, the inflammation goes haywire, and it may be the inflammatory response that is killing the patient, more so than the virus itself," Gorbunova says. "The human immune system works like that: once we get infected, our body sounds an alarm and we develop a fever and inflammation. The goal is to kill the virus and fight infection, but it can also be a detrimental response as our bodies overreact to the threat."

Not so with bats. Unlike humans, bats have developed specific mechanisms that reduce viral replication and also dampen the immune response to a virus. The result is a beneficial balance: their immune systems control viruses but at the same time, do not mount a strong inflammatory response.

Why did bats acquire a tolerance for diseases?

According to the researchers, there are several factors that may contribute to bats having evolved to fight viruses and live long lives. One factor may be driven by flight. Bats are the only mammals with the ability to fly, which requires that they adapt to rapid increases in body temperature, sudden surges in metabolism, and molecular damage. These adaptations may also assist in disease resistance.

Another factor may be their environment. Many species of bats live in large, dense colonies, and hang close together on cave ceilings or in trees. Those conditions are ideal for transmitting viruses and other pathogens.

"Bats are constantly exposed to viruses," Seluanov says. "They are always flying out and bringing back something new to the cave or nest, and they transfer the virus because they live in such close proximity to each other."

Because bats are constantly exposed to viruses, their immune systems are in a perpetual arms race with pathogens: a pathogen will enter the organism, the immune system will evolve a mechanism to combat the pathogen, the pathogen will evolve again, and so on.

"Usually the strongest driver of new traits in evolution is an arms race with pathogens," Gorbunova says. "Dealing with all of these viruses may be shaping bats' immunity and longevity."

Can humans develop the same disease resistance as bats?

That's not an invitation for humans to toss their masks and crowd together in restaurants and movie theaters. Evolution takes place over thousands of years, rather than a few months. It has only been in recent history that a majority of the human population has begun living in close proximity in cities. Or that technology has enabled rapid mobility and travel across continents and around the globe. While humans may be developing social habits that parallel those of bats, we have not yet evolved bats' sophisticated mechanisms to combat viruses as they emerge and swiftly spread.

"The consequences may be that our bodies experience more inflammation," Gorbunova says.

The researchers also recognize that aging seems to play an adverse role in humans' reactions to COVID-19.

"COVID-19 has such a different pathogenesis in older people," Gorbunova says. "Age is one of the most critical factors between living and dying. We have to treat aging as a whole process instead of just treating individual symptoms."

The researchers anticipate that studying bats' immune systems will provide new targets for human therapies to fight diseases and aging. For example, bats have mutated or completely eliminated several genes involved in inflammation; scientists can develop drugs to inhibit these genes in humans. Gorbunova and Seluanov hope to start a new research program at Rochester to work toward that goal.

"Humans have two possible strategies if we want to prevent inflammation, live longer, and avoid the deadly effects of diseases like COVID-19," Gorbunova says. "One would be to not be exposed to any viruses, but that's not practical. The second would be to regulate our immune system more like a bat."
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Journal Reference:
Vera Gorbunova, Andrei Seluanov, Brian K. Kennedy. The World Goes Bats: Living Longer and Tolerating Viruses. Cell Metabolism, 2020; 32 (1): 31 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2020.06.013

University of Rochester. "Bats offer clues to treating COVID-19: To combat COVID-19, we need to regulate our immune systems to resemble those of bats." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .


Bats harbor a gene swiped from an ancient Ebola-like virus -- here's how they may use it

Study suggests that a gene encoding a viral protein has been carefully preserved in Myotis bats for millions of years

Some 18 million years ago, an ancestor of mouse-eared bats 'stole' genetic material from an ancient virus related to Ebola. The swiped genetic sequence -- a gene called VP35 -- has remained largely intact in the bats despite the passage of time, a new study finds. The research also sheds light on the gene's possible function in bats, suggesting that it may play a role in regulating the immune system's response to threats.

Date:July 24, 2018

Source:University at Buffalo

Some 18 million years ago, an ancestor of mouse-eared bats "stole" genetic material from an ancient virus related to Ebola.

The swiped genetic sequence -- a gene called VP35 -- has remained largely intact in the bats despite the passage of time, with few changes since it was co-opted, a new study finds. The research also sheds light on the gene's possible function in bats, suggesting that it may play a role in regulating the immune system's response to threats.

"We're using a multidisciplinary approach to understand the evolution, structure and function of a viral gene co-opted by a mammal," says Derek J. Taylor, PhD, an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo. "From an evolutionary standpoint, it's rare that you can actually see a viral gene sequence like this that has remained intact in a mammalian host. Most of these things are eroded over time -- they get chopped up and shuffled around.

"But VP35 is highly conserved. It's similar in all the bats we looked at, and the bat versions remain very close to what you see in modern Ebola and Marburg viruses. This conservation suggests that the gene has been preserved for an important purpose."

In Ebola and Marburg viruses today, the VP35 gene carries instructions for building a protein that blocks the immune response of infected animals, enabling disease to take hold. When scientists used artificial synthesis to create bat VP35 proteins in the lab, these proteins also acted as immune suppressors, but they were less potent than viral VP35s.

The study answers some important questions, but many mysteries remain. For example: Is the VP35 gene active in mouse-eared bats? Do mouse-eared bats produce any VP35 proteins? If the bats do make VP35 proteins, why is this beneficial?

"Our study explores VP35 function, but further research is needed to determine the specific evolutionary benefit," Taylor says. "Why has this gene been conserved for so long? We don't quite know the answer, and it's possible that VP35 has some other function in bats that we haven't yet discovered."

The study will be published in the journal Cell Reports on July 24, with Megan R. Edwards, PhD, of Georgia State University as first author. The project was led by Christopher F. Basler, PhD, of Georgia State; Daisy W. Leung, PhD, of the Washington University School of Medicine; and Taylor, a professor of biological sciences in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

Similarities -- and differences -- in bats and in deadly viruses

To understand VP35's evolutionary history, the team compared VP35 sequences in 15 bat species from the genus Myotis (the mouse-eared bats), and used these sequences to reconstruct the archaic version of the gene that was first acquired by the bats' forebear some 18 million years ago.

This analysis showed that VP35 was strikingly similar across all 15 modern bats, modern Ebola and Marburg viruses, and the reconstructed ancestral gene. In other words: VP35 has changed very little in viruses and mouse-eared bats in the last 18 million years. Bolstering this conclusion, researchers discovered that the structure of a Myotis VP35 protein and an Ebola VP35 protein were alike in many ways.

Despite these resemblances, bat and viral forms of VP35 differ in function. Lab tests showed that bat VP35 helps to suppress production of an infection-fighting immune protein called interferon beta, but less effectively than Ebola and Marburg VP35s.

"How could a bat use a viral gene that normally suppresses interferon? While we don't know the exact answer, interferon is associated with inflammation, and it turns out that turning off the inflammation response is an important aspect of immune system function -- prolonged inflammation can be harmful in mammals," Taylor says. "So one possibility is that bats recruited a viral anti-inflammation gene to enhance control of inflammation."

Genetic theft: How it happens and why it matters

The new study was inspired in part by Taylor's prior work on VP35 and other "stolen" viral genes. Known as non-retroviral integrated RNA viral sequences (NIRVs), these co-opted genetic snippets are accidentally inserted into the genomes of infected hosts when a virus like Ebola or Marburg hijacks a host's genetic machinery to replicate.

NIRVs are a gold mine of information. Taylor, one of the first scientists to study them, calls them "scars of infection" and likens them to a "viral fossil record": You can investigate them to learn many fascinating things about the co-evolution of viruses and hosts.

In prior research, Taylor and colleagues used NIRVs to show that filoviruses -- the family housing Ebola and Marburg -- are ancient. The scientists also discovered that several mammals harbor the VP35 NIRV, which was originally acquired from archaic filoviruses that shared a common ancestor with Ebola and Marburg. Species that have this NIRV range from bats to hamsters, voles and wallabies.

The new project builds on this work by exploring VP35's modern function and showing that the gene has been meticulously conserved through evolution in mouse-eared bats.

"NIRVs can tell you something about the timescale of virus-host interactions, and they can tell you something about what types of hosts are being affected by a virus," Taylor says. "Now we're using them in this present study to inform functional studies. NIRVs are a fairly new area of study, and it's exciting to see what else we can learn from them."

Journal Reference:
Megan R. Edwards et al. Conservation of Structure and Immune Antagonist Functions of Filoviral VP35 Homologs Present in Microbat Genomes. Cell Reports, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.06.045

University at Buffalo. "Bats harbor a gene swiped from an ancient Ebola-like virus -- here's how they may use it: Study suggests that a gene encoding a viral protein has been carefully preserved in Myotis bats for millions of years." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 July 2018. .

Global wildlife surveillance could provide early warning for next pandemic

Experts propose decentralized system to monitor wildlife markets, other hotspots

Summary:Researchers propose a decentralized, global wildlife biosurveillance system to identify -- before the next pandemic emerges -- animal viruses that have the potential to cause human disease.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Washington University School of Medicine

The virus that causes COVID-19 probably originated in wild bats that live in caves around Wuhan, China, and may have been passed to a second animal species before infecting people, according to the World Health Organization. Many of the most devastating epidemics of recent decades -- including Ebola, avian influenza and HIV/AIDS -- were triggered by animal viruses that spilled over into people. Despite the ever-present danger of a new virus emerging and sparking a worldwide pandemic, there is no global system to screen for viruses in wild animals that eventually may jump to humans.
In a perspective article published July 9 in Science, a diverse group of infectious disease experts, ecologists, wildlife biologists and other experts argue that a decentralized global system of wildlife surveillance could -- and must - be established to identify viruses in wild animals that have the potential to infect and sicken people before another pandemic begins.

"It's impossible to know how often animal viruses spill over into the human population, but coronaviruses alone have caused outbreaks in people three times in the last 20 years," said co-author Jennifer A. Philips, MD, PhD, referring to the SARS, MERS and COVID-19 epidemics. Philips is an associate professor of medicine and co-director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Even a decade ago it would have been difficult to conduct worldwide surveillance at the human-wildlife interface. But because of technological advances, it is now feasible and affordable, and it has never been more obvious how necessary it is."

Every animal has its own set of viruses, with some overlap across species. Often, an animal species and its viruses have lived together for so long that they've adapted to one another, and the viruses cause either no symptoms or only mild to moderate disease. But when different animal species that don't normally have much contact are brought together, viruses have the opportunity to jump from one species to another. Most viruses don't have the genetic tools to infect another species. But viruses with such tools can be lethal to a newly infected species with no natural immunity.

Human activity is making such spillover events more and more likely. As the population of the world continues to grow, the demand for natural resources skyrockets. People push into wild areas to make space for new homes and businesses, and to access resources to fuel their economies and lifestyles. Wild animals are caught and sold for consumption, or as exotic pets at wildlife markets, where diverse species are jumbled together under crowded and unsanitary conditions. Wild-animal parts are shipped around the world as trinkets or ingredients for traditional or alternative medicines.

And yet there is no international system set up to screen for disease-causing viruses associated with the movement of wildlife or wildlife products.

"In the lead up to this article, I spoke with friends and colleagues around the world who do wildlife research in Madagascar, Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador and asked them, 'Where do you take your samples for screening?'" said co-author Gideon Erkenswick, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in Philips' lab. Erkenswick is also the director of Field Projects International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of tropical ecosystems. "In almost every situation, the answer was 'Nowhere.' Locally, there is nobody with dedicated time and resources to do this work. To find new disease-causing viruses, we have to find willing foreign collaborators, then get samples out of the country, which is difficult and expensive."

Philips, Erkenswick, and colleagues in the Wildlife Disease Surveillance Focus Group that authored the Science paper, suggest the establishment of a global surveillance network to screen wild animals and their products at hotspots such as wildlife markets. The idea would be to have local teams of researchers and technicians extract viral genomes from animal samples, rapidly sequence them on site and upload the sequences to a central database in the cloud. The cost and size of the necessary scientific equipment has dropped in recent years, making such screening affordable even in resource-limited settings where most such hotspots are located.

"There's now a genetic sequencer available that is literally the size of a USB stick," Erkenswick said. "You could bring that and a few other supplies into a rainforest and analyze a sample for sequences associated with disease-causing viruses on site in a matter of hours. I mean, if you do chance upon something like the virus that causes COVID-19, do you really want to be collecting it, storing it, transporting it, risking further exposure, sample degradation, and adding months or years of delay, before you figure out what you've got? There are people with the expertise and skills to do this kind of work safely pretty much everywhere in the world, they just haven't been given the tools."

Once viral sequences are uploaded, researchers around the world could help analyze them to identify animal viruses that may be a threat to people and to develop a better understanding of the universe of viruses that thrive in different environments. By comparing genomic sequence data, researchers can identify what family an unknown virus belongs to and how closely it is related to any disease-causing viruses. They can also identify whether a virus carries genes associated with the ability to cause disease in people.

"By knowing the diversity out there, and tracking its evolution, we can ensure that we stay ahead of what's in wildlife populations and at the wildlife-human interface," Philips said. "In the past, before modern transportation, spillover events would have been local and spread slowly, giving people elsewhere time to respond. But now the world is so small that an event in one place puts the whole world at risk. This is not someone else's problem. It's everyone's problem."
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Story Source:

Materials provided by Washington University School of Medicine. Original written by Tamara Bhandari. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:
Mrinalini Watsa, Wildlife Disease Surveillance Focus Group. Rigorous wildlife disease surveillance. Science, 2020; 369 (6500): 145-147 DOI: 10.1126/science.abc0017


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Washington University School of Medicine. "Global wildlife surveillance could provide early warning for next pandemic: Experts propose decentralized system to monitor wildlife markets, other hotspots." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .