Thursday, June 03, 2021

Caribbean refinery blows up on retirement funds

By Laura Sanicola and Tim McLaughlin

Hovensa petroleum refinery are seen in St Croix

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Arclight Capital Partners LLC, which invests the retirement savings of Maine teachers, NFL football players and Mayo Clinic doctors, lost hundreds of millions of dollars betting on a troubled Caribbean oil refinery, according to sources and documents reviewed by Reuters.

Boston-based Arclight’s Energy Partners Fund VI, which held a majority stake in the Limetree Bay refinery on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, shed more than a quarter of its value in the year ended March 31, according to financial disclosures by a limited partner in the fund.

The fund has since removed the refinery from its portfolio, while investors holding hundreds of millions of dollars of common and preferred equity in the facility have been forced to write it off as worthless, according to pension fund officials and financial disclosures.

Arclight declined to comment on the performance of the investment. Arclight had been winding down its ownership in the refinery since last year and sold its remaining stake in April, a source familiar with the matter said.

Arclight added the refinery to its Energy Partners Fund VI portfolio after purchasing it out of bankruptcy in 2016 for $190 million, hoping to renovate and restart it, along with other investors. But the refinery, mothballed since 2012, never ran smoothly.

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered the plant shut for at least 60 days after the refinery sprayed nearby neighborhoods with a petroleum mist.

The ownership company Arclight formed to oversee the refinery, Limetree Bay Ventures LLC, is now being dissolved, according to pension fund executives and documents viewed by Reuters. Contractors hired to help restart the refinery also claim they are still owed millions of dollars for their work, according to liens filed with the U.S. Virgin Islands Recorder of Deeds.

Linda Woods, 69, a retired English teacher in Maine, said she never liked the idea of her retirement dollars funding investments in fossil fuels.

But she said she hopes the problems at Limetree Bay will encourage the state legislature to limit oil and gas investments by the pension plan in the future. “This could be a watershed moment,” Woods said.

Earlier this year, New York City pension funds voted to divest their portfolios of some $4 billion worth of fossil fuel investments while other plans face pressure to take similar steps.

RETIREMENT SAVINGS HIT

Arclight closed a $5.6 billion capital campaign for the Energy Partners Fund VI in 2015, winning commitments from several pensions for investments in the private energy infrastructure sector that were not named at the time.

Top commitments included $200 million from the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio; $150 million from the Maine Public Employee Retirement System and $100 million from the Lancashire County Pension Fund in England.

Smaller investors included a pension fund run for Mayo Clinic employees and the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan, financial disclosures show.

Ultimately, the fund ended up with investments that included Limetree Bay, as well as a major coal plant in Ohio and gas pipelines.

Heavy losses hit the fund last year when the Limetree refinery encountered operational problems. Other assets were also hit by slumping energy demand from the pandemic.

In the first quarter of 2020, the overall Arclight VI portfolio tumbled by $1.2 billion. That included a $246 million, or 93%, drop in Limetree Bay’s value, according to disclosures by the state of Connecticut retirement system, which invested $85 million in the fund.

The overall fund declined 26% during the 12-month period that ended March 31, according to financial disclosures by the Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System, which invested $40 million.

The Lancashire fund, meanwhile, said investments in a fossil fuel-focused fund might not pass muster today: "Our investment strategy has evolved since this investment was made, and it would be less likely to meet our current criteria for responsible investment practices.”

Sandy Matheson, executive director of the Maine pension plan, described the developments at Limetree Bay as a “terrible situation.”

The Mayo clinic and the NFL pension plan declined to comment.

Debt holders have also taken a beating. After buying the plant, the Arclight-led ownership recapitalized the facility in 2018 with $1.2 billion in preferred equity and leveraged loan financing.

FS Energy & Power Fund, a business development company managed by EIG Global Energy Partners and FS Investments, disclosed in an investor presentation last month that interest payments on the refinery's debt have not been made in more than 90 days. The fund's refinery-backed debt was valued at $151 million after markdowns of more than 50% from the original principal.

Common and preferred equity stakes in the refinery project, meanwhile, no longer hold any value, according to U.S. regulatory filings by the fund.

EIG declined to comment.

(Editing by David Gregorio)

Fossil secret may shed light on the diversity of Earth's first animals

UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH

Research News

A large group of iconic fossils widely believed to shed light on the origins of many of Earth's animals and the communities they lived in may be hiding a secret.

Scientists, led by two from the University of Portsmouth, UK, are the first to model how exceptionally well preserved fossils that record the largest and most intense burst of evolution ever seen could have been moved by mudflows.

The finding, published in Communications Earth & Environment, offers a cautionary note on how palaeontologists build a picture from the remains of the creatures they study.

Until now, it has been widely accepted the fossils buried in mudflows in the Burgess Shale in Canada that show the result of the Cambrian explosion 505 million years ago had all lived together but that's now in doubt.

The Cambrian explosion was responsible for kick-starting the huge diversity of animal life now seen on the planet.

Now, Dr Nic Minter and Dr Orla Bath Enright have found that some of the animals which became fossils could have remained well preserved even after being carried large distances, throwing doubt on the idea the creatures all lived together.

Dr Minter said: "This finding might surprise scientists or lead to them striking a more cautionary tone in how they interpret early marine ecosystems from half a billion years ago.

"It has been assumed that because the Burgess Shale fossils are so well preserved, they couldn't have been transported over large distances. However, this new research shows that the general type of flow responsible for the deposits in which they were buried does not cause further damage to deceased animals. This means the fossils found in individual layers of sediment, and assumed to represent animal communities, could actually have been living far apart in distance."

Drs Minter and Bath Enright, of the University of Portsmouth's School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences, studied the Burgess Shale area of British Columbia, both on location in the field and with laboratory experiments.

The site is an area rich in fossils entombed in the deposits of mudflows and is one of the world's most important fossil sites, with more than 65,000 specimens already collected and, so far, more than 120 species counted.

The Burgess Shale area has been fundamental to scientists in understanding the origins of animal groups and the communities they lived among and has been closely studied multiple times.

The researchers, together with collaborators from the Universities of Southampton and Saskatchewan in Canada, used fieldwork to identify how the mudflows would have behaved, and then used flume tank laboratory tests to mimic the mudflows and are confident that the bodies of certain creatures could have been moved over tens of kilometres without damage, creating the illusion of animal communities which never existed.

The Burgess Shale was discovered in the early 1900s and led to the idea of the 'Cambrian explosion' of life, with the appearance of animals representing almost all the modern phyla, and inspiring copious research and discoveries.

Dr Bath Enright said: "Many would argue that it is fundamental, even ground zero for scientists in understanding the diversity of life."

It's not known precisely what caused the mudflows which buried and moved the animals which became fossilised, but the area was subject to multiple flows, causing well preserved fossils to be found at many different levels in the shale.

"We don't know over what kind of overall time frame these many flows happened, but we know each one produced an 'event bed' that we see today stacked up on top of one another. These flows could pick up animals from multiple places as they moved across the seafloor and then dropped them all together in one place," said Dr Bath Enright.

"When we see multiple species accumulated together it can give the illusion we are seeing a single community. But we argue that an individual 'event bed' could be the product of several communities of animals being picked up from multiple places by a mudflow and then deposited together to give what looks like a much more complicated single community of animals.

"Palaeontologists need to appreciate the nature of the sediments that fossils are preserved within and what the implications of that are. We could be overestimating the complexity of early marine animal communities and therefore the patterns and drivers of evolution that have led to our present day diversity and complexity."

The researchers hope to do further study to investigate whether differences in the species that are present in other fossil sites are due to evolutionary changes through time or the nature of the flows and the effects of transport and preservation of the fossils.

CAPTION

Drs. Minter and Bath Enright, of the University of Portsmouth's School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences, studied the Burgess Shale area of British Columbia, both on location in the field and with laboratory experiments.

CREDIT

Dr. Orla Bath Enright

UN urges intense restoration of nature to address climate and biodiversity crises

Launching the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, UN calls on countries to meet commitments to restore 1 billion hectares of land

UNEP/FAO

Facing the triple threat of climate change, loss of nature and pollution, the world must deliver on its commitment to restore at least one billion degraded hectares of land in the next decade - an area about the size of China. Countries also need to add similar commitments for oceans, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), launched as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 gets underway.

The report, #GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem restoration for People, Nature and Climate, highlights that humanity is using about 1.6 times the amount of services that nature can provide sustainably.

That means conservation efforts alone are insufficient to prevent large-scale ecosystem collapse and biodiversity loss. Global terrestrial restoration costs - not including costs of restoring marine ecosystems - are estimated to be at least USD 200 billion per year by 2030. The report outlines that every 1 USD invested in restoration creates up to USD 30 in economic benefits.

Ecosystems requiring urgent restoration include farmlands, forests, grasslands and savannahs, mountains, peatlands, urban areas, freshwaters, and oceans.

Communities living across almost two billion of degraded hectares of land include some of the world's poorest and marginalized.

"This report presents the case for why we must all throw our weight behind a global restoration effort. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, it sets out the crucial role played by ecosystems, from forests and farmland to rivers and oceans, and it charts the losses that result from a poor stewardship of the planet," UNEP Executive Director, Inger Andersen, and FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, wrote in the report's foreword.

"Degradation is already affecting the well-being of an estimated 3.2 billion people - that is 40 percent of the world's population. Every single year we lose ecosystem services worth more than 10 percent of our global economic output," they added, stressing that "massive gains await us" by reversing these trends.

Ecosystem restoration is the process of halting and overturning degradation, resulting in cleaner air and water, extreme weather mitigation, better human health, and recovered biodiversity, including improved pollination of plants. Restoration encompasses a wide continuum of practices, from reforestation to re-wetting peatlands and coral rehabilitation.

It contributes to the realization of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including health, clean water, and peace and security, and to the objectives of the three 'Rio Conventions' on Climate, Biodiversity, and Desertification.

Actions that prevent, halt and reverse degradation are necessary to meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius.

Restoration, if combined with stopping further conversion of natural ecosystems, may help avoid 60 percent of expected biodiversity extinctions. It can be highly efficient in producing multiple economic, social and ecological benefits concurrently - for example, agroforestry alone has the potential to increase food security for 1.3 billion people, while investments in agriculture, mangrove protection and water management will help adapt to climate change, with benefits around four times the original investment.

Reliable monitoring of restoration efforts is essential, both to track progress and to attract private and public investments. In support of this effort, FAO and UNEP also launch today the Digital Hub for the UN Decade, which includes the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring.

The Framework enables countries and communities to measure the progress of restoration projects across key ecosystems, helping to build ownership and trust in restoration efforts. It also incorporates the Drylands Restoration Initiatives Platform, which collects and analyses data, shares lessons and assists in the design of drylands restoration projects, and an interactive geospatial mapping tool to assess the best locations for forest restoration.

Restoration must involve all stakeholders including individuals, businesses, associations, and governments. Crucially, it must respect the needs and rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and incorporate their knowledge, experience and capacities to ensure restoration plans are implemented and sustained.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 is a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. It aims to halt the degradation of ecosystems and restore them to achieve global goals. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the UN Decade and it is led by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The UN Decade is building a strong, broad-based global movement to ramp up restoration and put the world on track for a sustainable future. That will include building political momentum for restoration as well as thousands of initiatives on the ground.

About the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

UNEP is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.

About the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and transform agri-food systems, making them more resilient, sustainable and inclusive. Our goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 Members, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide.

Most Americans support Medicare negotiation despite claims it would hurt innovation

WEST HEALTH INSTITUTE

Research News

IMAGE: FEW AMERICANS BELIEVE NEGOTIATING DRUG PRICES WILL HURT PHARMACEUTICAL INNOVATION AND COMPETITION; MOST WANT GOVERNMENT TO PLAY MAJOR ROLE IN CONTROLLING COSTS view more
CREDIT: WEST HEALTH-GALLUP

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 3, 2021 -- A new West Health/Gallup survey finds nearly all Democrats (97%) and the majority of Republicans (61%) support empowering the federal government to negotiate lower prices of brand-name prescription drugs covered by Medicare. Overall, 8 in 10 Americans prefer major government action to control prices over concerns about it hurting innovation and competition from the pharmaceutical industry. The results come from a nationally representative poll of more than 3,700 American adults.

While President Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress and former President Donald Trump have called for such negotiation, Republicans on Capitol Hill and the pharmaceutical industry itself have been fiercely opposed to the measure, claiming lower prices would hurt competition and reduce innovation. However, this belief is not widely shared among the American people. According to the survey, less than 20% of all Americans believe Medicare negotiation would hurt innovation or market competition, including a minority of Republicans (39%).

"Americans aren't buying the claim that attempts to reign in drug prices will stifle innovation and devastate the pharmaceutical industry," said Tim Lash, Chief Strategy Officer for West Health, a family of nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations dedicated to lowering healthcare costs to enable successful aging. "These misleading arguments are meant to preserve profits rather than protect patients. The time has come to finally enable Medicare negotiation. Americans are becoming increasing restless for it to happen even if the pharmaceutical companies are not."

If enacted, Medicare negotiation as described in H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, is projected to save the federal government, businesses, and workers hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030. According to a new analysis from West Health and its Council for Informed Drug Spending Analysis (CIDSA), private employers could also save $195 billion and workers would see another $98 billion in savings. These savings are in addition to the estimated savings of $456 billion in federal direct spending forecast by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

When choosing between the need for major reform in drug pricing and maintaining the status quo, 90% of Americans chose to support reforms, including 96% of Democrats, 88% of Independents and 83% of Republicans. Sweeping support also exists for specific actions including setting limits on out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs (87% strongly or somewhat supporting) and general healthcare (84%) in Medicare and limiting hospital charges for those with private insurance (83%), and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices for all Americans, not just Medicare beneficiaries, is supported by 70% of respondents.

"There is little question that substantial public support exists for more government action when it comes to addressing drug costs," said Dan Witters, Gallup senior researcher. "And while there are differences across the political spectrum, even among Republicans, sentiment for public action is substantial."

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About Gallup

Gallup delivers analytics and advice to help leaders and organizations solve their most pressing problems. Combining more than 80 years of experience with its global reach, Gallup knows more about the attitudes and behaviors of employees, customers, students and citizens than any other organization in the world.

About West Health

Solely funded by philanthropists Gary and Mary West, West Health is a family of nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations including the Gary and Mary West Foundation and Gary and Mary West Health Institute in San Diego, and the Gary and Mary West Health Policy Center in Washington, D.C. West Health is dedicated to lowering healthcare costs to enable seniors to successfully age in place with access to high-quality, affordable health and support services that preserve and protect their dignity, quality of life and independence. Learn more at westhealth.org and follow @westhealth.

Scientists make powerful underwater glue inspired by barnacles and mussels

Silk proteins formed fibers, crosslinks, and iron complexes similar to those used by the sea creatures

TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Research News

If you have ever tried to chip a mussel off a seawall or a barnacle off the bottom of a boat, you will understand that we could learn a great deal from nature about how to make powerful adhesives. Engineers at Tufts University have taken note, and today report a new type of glue inspired by those stubbornly adherent crustaceans in the journal Advanced Science.

Starting with the fibrous silk protein harvested from silkworms, they were able to replicate key features of barnacle and mussel glue, including protein filaments, chemical crosslinking and iron bonding. The result is a powerful non-toxic glue that sets and works as well underwater as it does in dry conditions and is stronger than most synthetic glue products now on the market.

"The composite we created works not only better underwater than most adhesives available today, it achieves that strength with much smaller quantities of material," said Fiorenzo Omenetto, Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering at Tufts School of Engineering, director of the Tufts Silklab where the material was created, and corresponding author of the study. "And because the material is made from extracted biological sources, and the chemistries are benign - drawn from nature and largely avoiding synthetic steps or the use of volatile solvents - it could have advantages in manufacturing as well."

The Silklab "glue crew" focused on several key elements to replicate in aquatic adhesives. Mussels secrete long sticky filaments called byssus. These secretions form polymers, which embed into surfaces, and chemically cross-link to strengthen the bond. The protein polymers are made up of long chains of amino acids including one, dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA), a catechol-bearing amino acid that can cross-link with the other chains. The mussels add another special ingredient - iron complexes - that reinforce the cohesive strength of the byssus.

Barnacles secrete a strong cement made of proteins that form into polymers which anchor onto surfaces. The proteins in barnacle cement polymers fold their amino acid chains into beta sheets - a zig-zag arrangement that presents flat surfaces and plenty of opportunities to form strong hydrogen bonds to the next protein in the polymer, or to the surface to which the polymer filament is attaching.

Inspired by all of these molecular bonding tricks used by nature, Omenetto's team set to work replicating them, and drawing on their expertise with the chemistry of silk fibroin protein extracted from the cocoon of silkworms. Silk fibroin shares many of the shape and bonding characteristics of the barnacle cement proteins, including the ability to assemble large beta sheet surfaces. The researchers added polydopamine - a random polymer of dopamine which presents cross-linking catechols along its length, much like the mussels use to cross-link their bonding filaments. Finally, the adhesion strength is significantly enhanced by curing the adhesive with iron chloride, which secures bonds across the catechols, just like they do in natural mussel adhesives.

"The combination of silk fibroin, polydopamine and iron brings together the same hierarchy of bonding and cross-linking that makes these barnacle and mussel adhesives so strong," said Marco Lo Presti, post-doctoral scholar in Omenetto's lab and first author of the study. "We ended up with an adhesive that even looks like its natural counterpart under the microscope."

Getting the right blend of silk fibroin, polydopamine, and acidic conditions of curing with iron ions was critical to enabling the adhesive to set and work underwater, reaching strengths of 2.4 MPa (megapascals; about 350 pounds per square inch) when resisting shear forces. That's better than most existing experimental and commercial adhesives, and only slightly lower than the strongest underwater adhesive at 2.8 MPa. Yet this adhesive has the added advantage of being non-toxic, composed of all-natural materials, and requires only 1-2 mgs per square inch to achieve that bond - that's just a few drops.

"The combination of likely safety, conservative use of material, and superior strength suggests potential utility for many industrial and marine applications and could even be suitable for consumer-oriented such as model building and household use," said Prof. Gianluca Farinola, a collaborator on the study from the University of Bari Aldo Moro, and an adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts. "The fact that we have already used silk fibroin as a biocompatible material for medical use is leading us to explore those applications as well," added Omenetto.

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Male piglets less resilient to stress when moms get sick during pregnancy

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Research News

IMAGE: RESEARCH FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS SHOWS MALE PIGLETS WHOSE MOTHERS WERE ILL DURING PREGNANCY SHOW GENETIC CHANGES IN THE AMYGDALA AND ARE LESS RESILIENT TO A SECOND STRESSFUL EVENT,... view more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

URBANA, Ill. -When pigs get hit with significant illnesses during key stages of pregnancy, their immune response may negatively affect developing piglets, making them less productive on the farm. New research from the University of Illinois shows that when those piglets - especially males - experience a second stressor in early life, they are at higher risk of neurodevelopmental and other neurological anomalies, putting them at an even greater disadvantage in production settings.

"With more information about maternal illness, what we call maternal immune activation, we can make better decisions about how to handle these types of immune challenges within animal production settings," says Marissa Keever-Keigher, doctoral student in the Department of Animal Sciences at Illinois and lead researcher on the study.

Studying brain development in the domestic pig is relevant on the farm, of course, but pig studies can also inform human neurodevelopmental research. That's because the pig's development, genetics, brain structure, and more are very similar to our own.

In previous pig studies looking at the effects of maternal immune activation, Keever-Keigher and her colleagues showed important genetic changes occur in the piglet amygdala, a brain structure that plays an important role in learning, social behavior, and stress response in both humans and pigs.

The researchers also knew from primate and rodent studies that a second immune challenge, known as a double hit, can further disrupt typical brain development in young animals. To test the double hit hypothesis in pigs, the team chose weaning as the second challenge.

"While weaning is not itself an immune challenge, it is an extremely stressful time during a piglet's life and can elicit an immune response," says Haley Rymut, doctoral student in animal sciences and co-author on the study. "Piglets have to deal with a broad array of stressors, including physical stressors from being handled and moved, and emotional stressors from being taken away from the mom and placed with their peers. Any of those physical or emotional stressors can kick off an immune response."

The researchers looked at a combination of factors for piglets in the study: whether or not their moms were infected with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) during gestation, and whether or not they were weaned at 21 days of age, the typical age in production settings. They also noted the sex of the piglets, as their earlier research indicated male piglets showed more changes in the amygdala as a result of maternal illness.

"Using high throughput sequencing technologies, we were able to monitor the levels of more than 16,000 genes in the pigs. We uncovered more than 100 genes and molecular pathways affected by either maternal immune activation, weaning, sex, or a combination of factors in the amygdala on day 22 for all piglets. The effect of pre- and postnatal stressors on neuropeptide genes confirms the plasticity of the infant brain during development to respond and adapt to challenges," says Sandra Rodriguez-Zas, professor in animal sciences and faculty advisor to Keever-Keigher and Rymut. Rodriguez-Zas is principal investigator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded study.

Many of the genes expressed at higher or lower-than-typical rates in weaned piglets from virus-infected mothers have been associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) in previous studies. But genes relevant to other neurological disorders were affected too.

"We also found changes in expression of genes associated with neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington's and Alzheimer's disease," Keever-Keigher says.

As in the scientists' previous work, the double hit affected male piglets more than females, with greater dysregulation of genes in the amygdala. The researchers found evidence of more protective pathways in female brains, giving them an advantage in handling stressful events.

The study provides valuable clues for researchers studying ASD, SSD, and neurodegenerative disorders in humans, even though some aspects might not translate directly.

Rymut says, "For most children, weaning isn't nearly as stressful as it is for pigs in a production setting. But many other traumatic events early in childhood could set up that double hit."

On the farm, pigs from virus-infected mothers often show anti-social behaviors. Because pigs are typically group-housed and fed via communal feeders, pigs that don't like being around their peers are often last to feed and generally more stressed, leading to slower growth rates and lower overall body condition scores.

"The lesson for swine producers, I think, is to be really mindful of stressful conditions in the production cycle, and try to mitigate those as much as we can in order to create the most productive and healthy livestock animals and benefit producers' bottom lines," Keever-Keigher says.

Rymut adds, "Also, knowing how the different sexes respond could help producers manage animals that are less likely to be productive as a result of maternal immune activation."

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The article, "Interacting impact of maternal inflammatory response and stress on the amygdala transcriptome of pigs," is published in G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics [DOI: 10.1093/g3journal/jkab113]. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Dual Purpose for Dual Benefit" program (grant number 2018-67015-27413). Rod Johnson, professor and head of the Department of Animal Sciences is co-investigator on the grant and co-author on the G3 paper.

The Department of Animal Sciences is in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois.

Researchers figured out how the ancestors of modern horses migrated

Molecular biologists studied the DNA of ones that migrated from North America to Eurasia and back

URAL FEDERAL UNIVERSITY

IMAGE: CABALLINE HORSE DESCENDANTS NOW LIVE IN CANADA, USA,

CHINA, RUSSIA AND KAZAKHSTAN. view more

CREDIT: URFU

"We found out that the Beringian Land Bridge, or the area known as Beringia, influenced genetic diversity within horses and beyond," said senior researcher at the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Ural Federal University (Russia) Dmitry Gimranov. "Owing to the appearance of this land part, the flow of genes among mammoths, bison, and wolves could occur regularly. And if 1-0.8 million years ago horses from North America were not yet widespread in Eurasia, then in the periods of 950-450 and 200-50 thousand years ago, there was a bidirectional spread of genes over long distances."

In other words, horses migrated between continents not only in one direction but also vice versa. The first wave of migration was predominantly from North America to Eurasia. The second migration was dominated by the movement from Eurasia to North America.

The most important researchers conclude that most animals used the Beringian Land Bridge only once, and horses several times. This fact could significantly affect the genetic structure of horse populations and made them very interesting objects of research for paleogeneticists.

To determine the area of settlement of horses, molecular biologists studied horses' DNA from both continents. From 262 samples of bones and teeth, they selected 78 with sufficient DNA. Researchers conducted radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis at the Denmark and USA laboratories. In addition, they looked at the research data from 112 samples.

"The data shows that horses returned to North America from Eurasia across Beringia at about the same time as bison, brown bears, and lions," says Dmitry Gimranov. "That is, in the last "days" of the late Pleistocene, when the territory was not covered by water and it was like a bridge for the movement of many groups of animals. With the beginning of climate warming (the beginning of the Holocene or 11.7 thousand years ago) and the last disappearance of Beringia at the end of the Pleistocene, the biogeographic significance of this ecological corridor radically changed the history of terrestrial animal species on both continents."

Although the North American horse population eventually became extinct in the early Holocene, horses became widespread on both continents due to domestication and are now found far beyond their historical range.

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Note

The Bering Land Bridge was located on the place of the modern Bering Strait, separating the extreme northwest of America and the extreme northeast of Asia. The physical and geographical region of Beringia stretched from the Lena River in Russia to the Mackenzie River in Canada. It consisted of both land and sea components. The land area of Beringia changed during the Pleistocene (from 2.6 million years to 11.7 thousand years ago) along with the size of continental ice and its effect on sea level.

Nanomaterials with laser printing

New laser-driven method

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT

Research News

IMAGE: THE NEW LASER-DRIVEN METHOD: MATERIAL IS TRANSFERRED FROM A DONOR TO AN ACCEPTOR CARRIER. view more
CREDIT: MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF COLLOIDS AND INTERFACES

In the journal Nature Communications, an interdisciplinary team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces presents for the first time a laser-driven technology that enables them to create nanoparticles such as copper, cobalt and nickel oxides. At the usual printing speed, photoelectrodes are produced in this way, for example, for a wide range of applications such as the generation of green hydrogen.

Previous methods produce such nanomaterials only with high energy input in classical reaction vessels and in many hours. With the laser-driven technology developed at the institute, the scientists can deposit small amounts of material on a surface and simultaneously perform chemical synthesis in a very short time using high temperatures from the laser. 'When I discovered the nanocrystals under the electron microscope, I knew I was onto something big,' says Junfang Zhang, first author of the study and doctoral researcher. The discovery turned into a new and environmentally friendly method for synthesizing materials that can, among other things, efficiently convert solar energy into electricity.

Without detours with sunlight to hydrogen: 'Nowadays most of green hydrogen is produced from water using electricity generated by solar panels and stored in batteries. By employing photoelectrodes we can use solar light directly,' says Dr. Aleksandr Savateev.

The newly developed principle works with so-called transition metal oxides, mainly copper, cobalt and nickel oxides, all of which are good catalysts. The special feature of these oxides is the variety of their crystal forms (nanocrystals such as nanorods or nanostars), which affect their surface energy. Each structure can have a different effect on catalytic reactions. Therefore, it is important that these nanostructures can be made targeted - or even untargeted, but repeatable. The developed technology could also be used to find quickly and efficiently new catalysts. 'Laser dot by laser dot, we can create different catalysts side by side by simply varying the composition and conditions, and then also test them in parallel right away,' says Dr. Felix Löffler adding, 'But now we need to work on making the catalyst systems more persistent in all applications'.

The method

Similar to the principle of a typewriter, material is transferred from a donor to an acceptor carrier. On the former is the 'ink', a solid polymer, which is mixed with metal salts, the latter consists of a thin carbon nitride film on a conductive electrode. Targeted laser irradiation transfers the salts to the acceptor along with the molten polymer. The brief high temperatures cause the salts to react within milliseconds and they transform into metal oxide nanoparticles with desired morphology.

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Original publication
Zhang, J., Zou, Y., Eickelmann, S. et al.
Laser-driven growth of structurally defined transition metal oxide nanocrystals on carbon nitride photoelectrodes in milliseconds
Nat Commun 12, 3224 (2021)
Published: 28 May 2021

CAPTION

This is how the new laser-driven method works.

CREDI

Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces

Experts propose 'five Cs' to tackle vaccine hesitancy

SAGE

Research News

The reluctance or refusal to accept Covid-19 vaccinations can be tackled by a five-pronged strategy to addressing the behavioural and socio-demographic factors behind vaccine hesitancy. Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, a group of population health, demographic, epidemiology and behavioural scientists propose an approach focused on confidence, complacency, convenience, communication and context.

While confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines is crucial, they write, complacency, particularly among younger people and those of lower socioeconomic status, is strongly associated with lower vaccine uptake.

One of the authors, Dr Mohammad Razai, of the Population Health Research Institute, St George's, University of London said: "As the lower age groups are being offered the vaccine, addressing complacency through repeated risk communication is crucial to facilitate informed decision-making. It is important to emphasise the greater societal benefits of population level immunity and the protection it offers to those vulnerable, their families and friends."

The strategy also covers convenience of vaccination delivery, communication to combat misinformation, and recognition of context including ethnicity, religion, occupation and socioeconomic status.

Another author, Professor Melinda Mills, Nuffield Professor of Demography and Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at Nuffield College and the University of Oxford, said: "A concerted international effort is required to understand, analyse and overcome vaccine hesitancy. It is estimated that at least 60-70% of the world's population needs to be vaccinated to achieve an effective herd immunity. However, European data show lower intention to be vaccinated amongst racial and ethnic minorities, those with lower education, younger people and people with previously poor compliance with recommended vaccinations. COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities related to ethnicity and socioeconomic status and higher vaccine hesitancy in these groups could compound it even further."

The authors conclude that tailored, appealing, culturally competent, local community but also multi-lingual messages delivered by organisations such as the Red Cross, Red Crescent and UNICEF could have the highest chance of success in addressing vaccine hesitancy.

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Thursday, June 03, 2021

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