It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Big Oil’s Carbon Capture Push Is All Talk And No Substance
Big Oil has cleaved into two factions. On the Eastern side of the Atlantic, supermajor oil companies in Europe have majorly divested from oil and gas. Reading the writing on the wall, Big Oil in the European Union has made a concerted effort to place itself at the forefront of the green energy transition, pivoting to rebrand itself as Big Energy. Across the pond in the United States, Big Oil has taken an entirely different approach. Instead of accepting the inevitable and imperative move away from fossil fuels, U.S. supermajors have doubled down on oil and gas and turned to carbon capture as a means of offsetting their environmental impact.
As the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sound the alarm bells about the fast-approaching threat of catastrophic climate change, the United States seems as deadset as ever on finding a way to get on board with the fight against global warming and rebrand itself as climate-conscious without letting go of its sizeable oil and gas industry. Even President Joe Biden, who featured climate change as a central tenet of his platform, has recently sparked the ire of environmentalist and climate activists with what some see as a toothless effort at curbing emissions through the $1 trillion dollar infrastructure bill.
Critics have argued that the bill itself seems co-opted by the oil industry, as efforts like carbon capture continue to receive major government support. Carbon capture has largely functioned as a means of allowing the oil industry to produce barrels of oil with a low(er) carbon footprint, or even net-zero barrels, without encouraging the industry to actually produce less oil and gas. In some cases, carbon capture is merely a means of ramping up oil production via a process known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR). EOR entails capturing natural gas that would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere as a byproduct of oil extraction and then pumping that gas back into the ground to force more oil to the surface.
While a net-zero barrel of oil might sound like a great advance, the reality is that we don’t need to merely offset the emissions of the energy industry. The reality of climate change is so dire that we must offset carbon at the same time that we phase out fossil fuels entirely. We need to be taking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, not merely limiting the amount that we continue to release.Related: Why The U.S. Is So Vulnerable To Rising Oil Prices
Carbon capture is not the only strategy being employed by the oil and gas industry that critics decry as blatant greenwashing. Oil and gas companies in the United States have also begun to invest in solar and to power their own operations with a higher mix of renewable energy. This approach, while great for PR, is not going to do much to move the needle on the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions, however. Part of the problem is that the fossil fuel industry continues to aim for low-hanging fruit when it comes to curbing emissions instead of aiming for the more challenging, and more important, sources of emissions.
The sector has primarily opted to tackle scope 1 and 2 emissions -- those that are directly produced by a company and the goods and energy it consumes -- but the vast majority of emissions occur either upstream or downstream in the value chain and outside of the company’s direct purview. Scope 3 emissions -- such as the exhaust coming out of your tailpipe -- are not technically an oil company’s emissions, but they are a direct result of an oil and gas company’s operations. They are also the most significant source of emissions in the oil and gas value chain.
While U.S. fossil fuel companies are certainly making some headway on climate change -- they’re acknowledging its importance and beginning to take some concrete actions -- it’s all too little too late unless they pivot away from extraction in a very serious way. Justifying continued production with carbon offsetting will not be enough to keep the world on track to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Hopefully, with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) becoming the mainstream, oil companies will have to compete with each other to be more green than ever before in order to stay in investor’s good favor.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
GAS CITY HEARTSđź’“ BLUE HYDROGEN
Invest Medicine Hat looks to future with prospective revenue generator and hydrogen economy
Invest Medicine Hat front and centre at City Council By Tiffany Goodwein
COUNCIL MEMBERS RAVING OVER INVEST MH
Aug 17, 2021 | 5:14 AM
MEDICINE HAT, AB — Weeks after a flurry of public outrage, it was a sea of high praise from council for Invest Medicine Hat, as they presented a mid-year report.
During the council meeting Coun. Phil Turnbull went so far as to say the council meeting was probably “the single best council meeting” he has sat through during the past four years.
Other councillors were not shy to show their support for Invest Medicine Hat including Coun. Darren Hirsch.
“I would just challenge people to start looking at the horsepower within Invest and you will get blown away with the talent that is in this room,” he said.
The praise comes a month after it was learned three city staffers formed a private company to bid on the Invest Medicine Hat privatization contract. The move ultimately triggered an independent review. At the council meeting on Aug. 3, Mayor Ted Clugston said the issue has been forwarded to the Audit Committee, which will vote on who will do the review.
When asked about the timing of the mid-year report, Clugston said it was planned well in advance and had nothing to do with the public scrutiny. Clugston also showed his support for the Invest Medicine Hat team and said he has absolute confidence in their ability.
“What you saw here was astronomical, was groundbreaking, was probably one of the most unique reports in the country of Canada, and frankly being imitated by other jurisdictions who see the value of what we are doing here without perhaps an election going on and people looking for an angle to differentiate themselves and make other people look bad,” he said.
One of the highlights of the mid-year report was the possible development of a new revenue stream for the city, by using the city’s compressed natural gas facility.
“We have been approached by a party looking to utilize the city’s fleet for effectively a hub and spoke type strategy where the city’s CNG station would represent the hub and this private company would build out the spokes,” stated Erik Van Enk, Invest Medicine Hat’s acting managing director. According to city officials, the city-owned compressed natural gas facility is underutilized and is only used to power city buses and sanitary trucks. But the facility has the capacity to be used for much more. Clugston said the interest spurred from the private company, does not mean the city is selling their compressed natural gas facility, rather the city would be the recipient of carbon credits.
“A lot of the revenue comes from the carbon credits, and then we can take those carbon credits they are almost like cash and apply them to offset our usage at the power plant or maybe sell them to other people who are carbon-intensive, so that is a revenue source,” Clugston said.
The name of the company expressing interest in the city’s compressed natural gas facility was not disclosed during the meeting. But it was noted the same company is building a compressed natural gas facility in Redcliff and Swift Current. Invest Medicine Hat also touched on their efforts to establish a hydrogen task force aimed at making Medicine Hat the second hydrogen hub in Canada. Staff at Invest Medicine Hat noted that switching to hydrogen would allow the city to reduce their carbon footprint. It would also help large existing businesses save on carbon taxes which would help those businesses stay in the region.
“We are in direct competition with any jurisdiction looking to attract investment, and in an environment of escalating carbon taxes we have to be cognizant of that and we have to look I think at what the impact would be to the city of Medicine Hat,” acting managing director Erik Van Enk said.
Members of council were eager to discuss their excitement for the prospect of a hydrogen hub in the area the opportunities that could arise.
“It is a game-changer, absolutely incredible. I would go so far as to say mark this moment on our city’s historical timeline. This will be significant, Coun. Robert Dumanowski said.
A report on the viability of the region as a hydrogen hub will come out early next year, according to the city.
The impact of the vacant 1.7 million-square-foot Aurora Sun complex was also discussed.
In March, Aurora Sun confirmed the facility would be going up for sale. According to Invest Medicine Hat, $6 million was provided by the city as an incentive for Aurora Sun to build the facility.
Invest Medicine Hat reiterated that while the facility is vacant it still generates around $1.4 million in property tax revenue every year. If the facility was operational, tax revenue would reach $3.3 million, according to Invest Medicine Hat.
The land is listed for sale under Toronto-based real estate firm Colliers International, and the city including Clugston are confident that another buyer will come soon, noting there have been many businesses expressing their interest.
At one point, Aurora Sun was projected to bring some 650 jobs to Medicine Hat.
Penticton to ponder partnership for green energy facility
The City of Penticton is exploring the possible construction of a green solar hydrogen production plant for use as an energy source.
Frontenac Energy is pitching its technology to the city as a partnership, hoping to open a facility in the district. They use aluminum and water through their proprietary process to create electricity through heat and hydrogen gas.
"This is very new for the natural gas industry. It is being done in other parts of North America at this time, but we'll probably be the first [facility of its kind] in Western Canada if we do it here," Frontenac VP of Business Development Steve Neill told city council at Tuesday's meeting.
Initially, the facility could provide 1 megawatt of power (enough for roughly 1,000 people) to the Penticton grid, which could be scaled up in the future, sold at a rate of $0.054/kwh, even during peak times — a potential for savings, Frontenac says, as currently FortisBC charges the city higher rates during those hours of the day.
Frontenac would also share part of the revenue from carbon credits with the City of Penticton as well.
The process also produces high-pressure steam that could be used for heating purposes at city facilities. By-products include clean water and benign aluminum oxide, the latter of which Frontenac would be recycling and re-selling to smelters.
"We don't landfill anything," said David White, Frontenac CEO and founder said.
"Think of Frontenac as a gas station and a power producer. Very low environmental impact, close to where the consumers would use the product. I think everybody would like to see the world move closer to a cleaner energy source."
All aluminum used would be provided by the community and nearby communities, everything from aluminum pop or beer cans from the community to aluminum siding.
"Our fuel is in the local area and we just buy it and repurpose it," White explained.
"Our solution is cost competitive. We will be able to go toe to toe with fossil fuels on price. So we will stand on our own two feet as a business.We are a small company but we are good at what we do. 100 per cent Canadian owned and we're very excited to get going here in Penticton."
Frontenac representatives said many of the team members live in the Okanagan Valley, leading to the decision to pursue Penticton as their flagship. Also, Penticton is fairly unique in the province in a key way.
"It's a lot easier to deal with a community that has their own electrical utility for buying the electrical power. And in British Columbia there's only about a handful of communities like Penticton that have that ability, so it just made things a lot easier for us to deal with you as well," Neill explained.
If eventual development permits are approved by council, they anticipate an 18-month construction process. Frontenac also noted the project would come with 15-20 jobs for locals, and potential for partnership with the Penticton Okanagan College campus.
Coun. Judy Sentes pointed out at the end of Frontenac's presentation that they are not a registered company in B.C., asking when that will happen, as it adds to credibility.
"My apologies. We should have probably done it before this," White said in answer, adding they plan to register in September.
"We have spent a lot of the summer securing all our equity. So that's been our focus, which we've completed. So now we have the term sheet in hand and we have the money."
Council received the presentation for information only at this time and will be discussing the matter in more detail at future meetings.
Ocean Power Technologies Announces DOE Award Supporting Development of Next Generation Wave Energy Converter Concept
Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. Tue, August 17, 2021
MONROE TOWNSHIP, N.J., Aug. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. ("OPT" or "the Company") (NYSE American: OPTT), a leader in innovative and cost-effective low-carbon ocean energy solutions, today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected the Company to further the development of a next-generation wave energy converter.
"Investment by the U.S. government towards the commercialization of clean energy technology is critical to achieving our nation's net-zero emissions goals," said Philipp Stratmann, President and Chief Executive Officer of OPT. “This award from the DOE will allow OPT to continue innovative blue tech power and data solution development.”
In the DOE’s recently announced awards for clean energy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects, OPT will receive up to $197,203 to perform a preliminary conceptual design and feasibility study of a modular and scalable small-scale Mass-on-Spring Wave Energy Converter (MOSWEC) PowerBuoy® for powering autonomous ocean monitoring systems.
OPT holds multiple patents related to MOSWEC technology, which generates power from the relative motion caused by the ocean waves. OPT’s MOSWEC design has a hermetically sealed hull to protect internal components, is about the size of a standard shipping container, and is easily transportable and deployable. In addition, the design is scalable to support a wide range of applications and missions.
About Ocean Power Technologies Headquartered in Monroe Township, New Jersey, OPT aspires to transform the world through durable, innovative, and cost-effective ocean energy solutions. Its PowerBuoy® solutions platform provides clean and reliable electric power and real-time data communications for remote offshore and subsea applications in markets such as offshore oil and gas, defense and security, science and research, and communications. To learn more, visit www.oceanpowertechnologies.com.
Forward-Looking Statements This release may contain forward-looking statements that are within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are identified by certain words or phrases such as "may", "will", "aim", "will likely result", "believe", "expect", "will continue", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "contemplate", "seek to", "future", "objective", "goal", "project", "should", "will pursue" and similar expressions or variations of such expressions. These forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current expectations about its future plans and performance. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions and estimates which could be inaccurate and which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could vary materially from those anticipated or expressed in any forward-looking statement made by the Company. Please refer to the Company's most recent Forms 10-Q and 10-K and subsequent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a further discussion of these risks and uncertainties. The Company disclaims any obligation or intent to update the forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.
New clean energy tech extracts twice the power from ocean waves
Schematic showing the key operational features of the prototype technology. Credit: RMIT University
Researchers have developed prototype technology that can double the power harvested from ocean waves, in an advance that could finally make wave energy a viable renewable alternative.
The untapped potential of ocean wave energy is vast—it has been estimated that the power of coastal waves around the world each year is equivalent to annual global electricity production.
But the challenges of developing technologies that can efficiently extract that natural power and withstand the harsh ocean environment have kept wave energy stuck at experimental stage.
Now a research team led by RMIT University has created a wave energy converter that is twice as efficient at harvesting power as any similar technologies developed to date.
The innovation, published in the journal Applied Energy, relies on a world-first, dual-turbine design.
Lead researcher Professor Xu Wang said wave energy was one of the most promising sources of clean, reliable and renewable power.
"While wind and solar dominate the renewable market, they are available only 20-30% of the time," Wang said.
"Wave energy is available 90% of the time on average and the potential power contained in offshore waves is immense.
"Our prototype technology overcomes some of the key technical challenges that have been holding back the wave energy industry from large-scale deployment.
"With further development, we hope this technology could be the foundation for a thriving new renewable energy industry delivering massive environmental and economic benefits."
How the wave energy convertor works
One of the most popular experimental approaches is to harvest wave energy through a buoy-type converter known as a "point absorber", which is ideal for offshore locations.
The prototype dual-turbine wave energy conversion technology. Credit: RMIT University
This technology, which harvests energy from the up and down movement of waves, is generally cost-effective to manufacture and install.
But it needs to be precisely synchronized with incoming wave movement to efficiently harvest the energy. This usually involves an array of sensors, actuators and control processors, adding complexity to the system that can cause underperformance, as well as reliability and maintenance issues.
The RMIT-created prototype needs no special synching tech, as the device naturally floats up and down with the swell of the wave.
"By always staying in sync with the movement of the waves, we can maximize the energy that's harvested," Wang said.
"Combined with our unique counter-rotating dual turbine wheels, this prototype can double the output power harvested from ocean waves, compared with other experimental point absorber technologies."
The simple and economical device has been developed by RMIT engineering researchers in collaboration with researchers from Beihang University in China.
Two turbine wheels, which are stacked on top of each other and rotate in opposite directions, are connected to a generator through shafts and a belt-pulley driven transmission system.
The generator is placed inside a buoy above the waterline to keep it out of corrosive seawater and extend the lifespan of the device.
The prototype has been successfully tested at lab scale and the research team is keen to collaborate with industry partners to test a full-scale model, and work towards commercial viability.
"We know it works in our labs, so the next steps are to scale this technology up and test it in a tank or in real-life ocean conditions," Wang said.
"Tapping into our wave energy resource could not only help us cut carbon emissions and create new green energy jobs, it also has great potential for addressing other environmental problems."
"For example, as the frequency of drought increases, wave energy could be used to power carbon-neutral desalination plants and supply fresh water for the agriculture industry—a smart adaptation to the challenge of a changing climate."
More information:Han Xiao et al, Study of a novel rotational speed amplified dual turbine wheel wave energy converter,Applied Energy(2021).DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117423
By Hannah Stevens and Karen Nikos-Rose | August 17, 2021
While a life-altering pandemic has caused a substantial uptick in anxiety and depression symptoms among adults and children alike, LGBTQ+ youth have turned to peers in anonymous online discussion forums for support. New research from the University of California, Davis, suggests these LGBTQ+ teenagers — who already experience disproportionate levels of psychological adversity — exhibited increased anxiety on the popular r/LGBTeens subreddit throughout 2020 and the start of 2021.
With physical isolation leading to an increase in reliance on digital communication, LGBTQ+ youth used this forum to express emotional distress related to LGBTQ+ discrimination, personal struggles with sexuality, romantic relationships and more.
“While researchers and mental health professionals have closely monitored the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health conditions, few have taken a deep dive into the LGBTQ+ youth population specifically,” said Hannah Stevens, a doctoral student in communication and lead author of the paper. It was published today published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance.
Researchers in the Department of Communication analyzed nearly 40,000 subreddit posts — a forum dedicated to a specific topic on the website Reddit — from LGBTQ+ youth. They uncovered trends in anxiety, sadness and anger communicated within the messages.
This research revealed that while anger and sadness remained consistent following the start of the pandemic, anxiety increased significantly. Further analysis linked this trend to 10 key conversation topics: attraction to a friend, coming out, coming out to family, discrimination, education, exploring sexuality, gender pronouns, love and relationship advice, starting a new relationship, and struggling with mental health.
Stevens said the combination of these factors, and limited in-person social interactions outside of the home, have resulted in LGBTQ+ youth turning to online support over the past 18 months. “The raw, emotional messages analyzed through this research reveal eye-opening insights into the most prevalent concerns in their daily lives.”
The study compared the evolution of conversation topics in the r/LGBTeens subreddit to conversations among the larger population of teenagers. Researchers also plotted the changes in LGBTQ+ emotions over time, which found an unprecedented increase in overall negative emotion during the 2020-21 time period.
“By understanding the root causes of anxiety in LGBTQ+ youth, mental health professionals can better tailor the intervention tactics they employ,” Stevens said. “Ultimately, this will result in better mental health outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth.”
###
Co-authors of the paper are Irena Acic and Sofia Rhea, doctoral students in the Department of Communication.
JOURNAL
JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Natural Language Processing Insight into LGBTQ+ Youth Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Content Analysis of Anxiety-Provoking Topics and Trends in Emotion in LGBTeens Microcommunity Subreddit
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
17-Aug-2021
POLYAMOURY IS NATURAL & PRODUCTIVE
Sharing the love helps male acorn woodpeckers father more chicks
Males in polygamous breeding groups with one or two other male woodpeckers sire significantly more chicks over their lifetimes
IMAGE: ACORN WOODPECKERS DOING THE SPREAD-WING DISPLAY. RESEARCHERS HAD LONG ASSUMED THAT ACORN WOODPECKERS OPTING FOR A RARE FORM OF POLYGAMY, IN WHICH CO-BREEDING SIBLINGS ARE FORCED TO COMPETE TO MATE, WERE MAKING AN EVOLUTIONARY COMPROMISE. TO RESEARCHERS, THIS SIBLING RIVALRY SEEMED LIKELY TO RESULT IN INDIVIDUAL WOODPECKERS LEAVING BEHIND FEWER OFFSPRING EACH YEAR THAN IF THEY HAD OPTED FOR A MORE TRADITIONAL COUPLED PAIRING WITH A GUARANTEED OPPORTUNITY TO MATE. TO BALANCE OUT THIS SHORT-TERM LOSS OF EVOLUTIONARY FITNESS, RESEARCHERS HYPOTHESIZED THAT THE WOODPECKERS’ POLYGAMY MUST CONFER SOME INDIRECT OR LONG-TERM ADVANTAGES BUT QUANTIFYING THOSE BENEFITS IN WILD POPULATIONS BEFORE THIS STUDY HAD PROVEN EXTREMELY CHALLENGING. BUT NOW, A NEW STUDY PUBLISHED TODAY IN THE JOURNAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B SUGGESTS THAT EVEN COMPLEX COOPERATIVE BREEDING STRATEGIES MAY OFFER DIRECT EVOLUTIONARY BENEFITS OVER AN ANIMAL’S LIFETIME, AND PERHAPS OFFERS CLUES INTO HOW SOCIAL BEHAVIOR FIRST EVOLVED IN HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS. THE STUDY FINDS THAT MALE ACORN WOODPECKERS BREEDING POLYGAMOUSLY IN DUOS OR TRIOS OF MALES ACTUALLY FATHERED MORE OFFSPRING THAN MALES BREEDING ALONE WITH A SINGLE FEMALE, CONTRARY TO CONVENTIONAL THINKING AMONG BIOLOGISTS THAT MONOGAMOUS MALES NECESSARILY PRODUCE MORE OFFSPRING THAN THOSE IN POLYGAMOUS GROUPS.view more
CREDIT: COPYRIGHT STEVE ZAMEK
A new long-term study led by Sahas Barve, a Peter Buck Fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, finds that male acorn woodpeckers breeding polygamously in duos or trios of males actually fathered more offspring than males breeding alone with a single female, contrary to conventional thinking among biologists that monogamous males necessarily produce more offspring than those in polygamous groups. For females, polygamy is less of a slam dunk but co-breeding duos left behind the same number of offspring as the birds that coupled up, while female trios left behind fewer offspring than either group.
The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that even complex cooperative breeding strategies may offer direct evolutionary benefits over an animal’s lifetime, and perhaps offers clues into how social behavior first evolved in humans and other animals.
The love life of the typical acorn woodpecker is a complex, polygamous affair. A common arrangement for a male of this species, which inhabits oak savannas from Oregon to Colombia, might be ruling over a patch of woodland alongside two of his brothers and a pair of sisters from another family that the brothers all mate and raise chicks with. Some of the group’s offspring may even hang around their childhood territory for years, not to breed with their parents or aunts and uncles, but to help raise the next generation before striking out to become breeders in other groups.
Researchers had long assumed that the woodpeckers opting for this rare form of polygamy, in which co-breeding siblings are forced to compete to mate, were making an evolutionary compromise. To researchers, this sibling rivalry seemed likely to result in individual woodpeckers leaving behind fewer offspring each year than if they had opted for a more traditional coupled pairing with a guaranteed opportunity to mate. To balance out this short-term loss of evolutionary fitness, researchers hypothesized that the woodpeckers’ polygamy must confer some indirect or long-term advantages, but quantifying those benefits in wild populations before this study had proven extremely challenging.
“For the longest time we have thought polygamous breeding was a compromise, and breeding as couples was considered the gold standard for leaving behind the highest number of chicks,” Barve said. “But you can’t really test that without super-detailed, long-term data. Fortunately, that’s exactly what we had for this study.”
The data underpinning this research spans more than 40 years and tracks 499 individual birds over their entire lifetimes at the 2,500-acre Hastings Natural History Reservation in the Carmel Valley along California’s central coast, where a rotating cast of some 150 scientists and interns has been observing acorn woodpeckers since 1968. Researchers working at the Hastings Reserve recorded each bird’s reproductive output from their first attempt to their last along with information including territory quality, group composition, social standing and genetic data linking parents to their offspring for birds hatched between 1984 and 2006.
CAPTION
Female (left) and male (right) acorn woodpeckers. A new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests that even complex cooperative breeding strategies may offer direct evolutionary benefits over an animal’s lifetime, and perhaps offers clues into how social behavior first evolved in humans and other animals. The data underpinning this research spans more than 40 years and tracks 499 individual birds over their entire lifetimes at the 2,500-acre Hastings Natural History Reservation in the Carmel Valley along California’s central coast, where a rotating cast of some 150 scientists and interns has been observing acorn woodpeckers since 1968. Researchers working at the Hastings Reserve recorded each bird’s reproductive output from their first attempt to their last along with information including territory quality, group composition, social standing and genetic data linking parents to their offspring for birds hatched between 1984 and 2006.
CREDIT
Copyright Steve Zamek
Researchers had traditionally explained the evolution of the woodpeckers’ polygamous co-breeding with a concept known as kin selection. In this view, cooperative breeding could have arisen and perpetuated itself among the woodpeckers despite reducing the number of offspring an individual bird parented because even if a male loses out on a breeding opportunity to one of his brothers, the resulting chicks will still carry a portion of that lonely male’s shared DNA. Also, if the unmated male helps raise and support his nieces and nephews, he also increases the chances that they survive and reproduce, passing on a portion of his DNA to the next generation.
Another idea was that the polygamous birds were trading the relative certainty of parenting offspring in a couple for the increased odds of controlling a territory chock-full of acorns afforded to them by teaming up with their brothers or sisters. Strength in numbers is important for these woodpeckers because of the vicious, bloody battles they must fight to win territories with the best granaries. These granaries are trees, usually dead, that have been plugged full of thousands of acorns over many years by the woodpeckers living in their vicinity. Presiding over a granary that is well-stocked can make or break a group’s ability to reproduce during lean years when acorns are less abundant.
The multi-decade data set from the Hastings Reserve allowed Barve and his collaborators to finally assess whether breeding cooperatively was as costly as researchers had long assumed. To do this, the team compared the number of lifetime offspring produced by woodpeckers that did their breeding in pairs with the number produced by birds engaged in some form of cooperative polygamy.
The research team’s analysis revealed that individual males that bred as co-breeding duos and trios left behind 1.5-times more direct offspring than single-breeding males. The study also finds that these co-breeding males tend to spend two to three extra years as breeders compared to their paired-up counterparts, which may be responsible for the increased reproductive success over the co-breeding birds’ lifetimes.
Female woodpecker duos and single-breeders each left behind roughly the same number of young over their lifetimes, but those that bred as trios produced 2.5 fewer chicks. Barve said that while these figures for female birds might not seem as convincing, the co-breeding duos may still be leaving behind a more substantial genetic legacy than their single-breeding counterparts by helping their closely related co-breeders’ chicks survive. The same could be said of the males, which would endow cooperative breeding with even more substantial advantages.
CAPTION
Male (left) and female (right) acorn woodpeckers. Researchers had traditionally explained the evolution of acorn woodpeckers’ polygamous co-breeding with a concept known as kin selection. In this view, cooperative breeding could have arisen and perpetuated itself among the woodpeckers despite reducing the number of offspring an individual bird parented because even if a male loses out on a breeding opportunity to one of his brothers, the resulting chicks will still carry a portion of that lonely male’s shared DNA. Also, if the unmated male helps raise and support his nieces and nephews, he also increases the chances that they survive and reproduce, passing on a portion of his DNA to the next generation. But now, a new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests that even complex cooperative breeding strategies may offer direct evolutionary benefits over an animal’s lifetime, and perhaps offers clues into how social behavior first evolved in humans and other animals. The study finds that male acorn woodpeckers breeding polygamously in duos or trios of males actually fathered more offspring than males breeding alone with a single female, contrary to conventional thinking among biologists that monogamous males necessarily produce more offspring than those in polygamous groups.
CREDIT
Copyright Vivek Khanzode
“We thought acorn woodpeckers lost out on fitness by breeding cooperatively, but we show that breeding in these larger cooperative groups is actually better than breeding in pairs,” Barve said. “This is something that hasn’t been shown before because it’s so hard to get strong enough long-term data to really study it. In that sense, our findings also highlight the value of long-term research in animal behavior.”
Barve added that researchers may no longer need to invoke kin selection as a mechanism for how this cooperative trait evolved and persisted in acorn woodpeckers.
“Acorn woodpeckers have some of the most complicated social systems of any organism,” Barve said. “And these findings help us understand how this social system might have evolved, while opening up the possibility that cooperative breeding behaviors may be more beneficial than previously thought in other species as well. It could even help explain why sociality evolves so commonly throughout the tree of life.”
Funding and support for this research were provided by the Smithsonian and the National Science Foundation.
# # #
JOURNAL
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2021.0579
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Data/statistical analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Animals
ARTICLE TITLE
Lifetime reproductive benefits of cooperative polygamy vary for males and females in the acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus)
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
17-Aug-2021
Use of dexamethasone, remdesivir against Covid-19 varied widely across US health systems
Study using nationwide NIH database suggests possible underuse of dexamethasone, lack of uniform treatment practices
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
As many as one-fifth of patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19 in the United States who may have benefitted from treatment with the anti-inflammatory steroid dexamethasone or closely related drugs were not given such treatment at the height of the pandemic, according to a large, nationwide study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The study also found that the use of dexamethasone and another drug, the antiviral remdesivir, varied greatly across health systems in the U.S. Dexamethasone and remdesivir are among a handful of recommended treatments for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who require oxygen.
For their study, the researchers analyzed anonymized health records of 137,870 people hospitalized in the United States with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 for the thirteen-month period from February 2020 through February 2021.
The research is published online August 16 in Annals of Internal Medicine.
“These findings underscore the wide variation in COVID-19 care across American health systems,” says study lead author Hemalkumar Mehta, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School. “This variation is vital to understand, since it may indicate that many patients who would benefit from these treatments may not be receiving them.”
Dexamethasone is an inexpensive and widely available steroid drug that has been in use in the U.S. since the early 1960s, chiefly to reduce serious inflammation in severe arthritis or allergic anaphylactic shock. The drug became a standard clinical weapon against severe COVID-19 worldwide after a U.K. clinical study, whose results were announced in June 2020, found that it reduced mortality by more than one-third when given to ventilated COVID-19 patients, and by more than one-fifth when given to patients who were getting supplemental oxygen.
Remdesivir, an antiviral drug originally developed as a treatment for Hepatitis C virus infection, showed efficacy against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in early lab-dish tests. Later, in large clinical trials, its use significantly cut the lengths of COVID-19 patients’ hospital stays. In May 2020, remdesivir received emergency use approval in the U.S. for treating COVID-19, and in October 2020 it received full FDA approval.
To get a sense of how these drugs were put to use against COVID-19 in the U.S., the researchers analyzed data from the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C), a National Institutes of Health-sponsored collection of electronic health records on millions of COVID-19 patients from 43 health systems nationwide. The study covered 137,870 adults who were hospitalized with COVID-19, and met other criteria—for instance, those hospitalized for at least one day—between February 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021.
The analysis showed that the rate of dexamethasone use in hospitalized COVID-19 patients—with or without mechanical ventilation—climbed steeply in June 2020 and continued to climb until it peaked in mid-November at just over 50 percent of patients. Usage then fell to about one-third of patients by late February 2021.
The rate of remdesivir use showed a similar pattern, peaking in November 2020 at about 35 percent. The results also showed that the rate of use of the drug hydroxychloroquine rose to about 42 percent in March 2020 but fell back to near zero the following month, after clinical trial evidence suggested that it was ineffective against COVID-19.
Dexamethasone use was higher among patients whose COVID-19 was severe enough to require mechanical ventilation to support the lungs. However, even after June 2020 when dexamethasone’s efficacy had been established, the rate of its use in ventilated patients varied widely across the 40 health systems represented by the data, with a median value of only 80 percent. The analysis revealed that the rate of remdesivir use in hospitalized COVID-19 patients also varied widely across health systems.
The findings, the researchers say, suggest the possibility that dexamethasone has been underused in patients with severe COVID-19, and more generally that clinical practice for treating COVID-19 has not developed a set of uniform standards.
In an accompanying editorial, Marshall J. Glesby, MD, PhD, and Roy M. Gulick, MD, MPH, of Weill Cornell Medicine, highlight the evolving evidence on COVID-19 treatments and its influence on treatment uptake, including considerable variation among U.S. health systems.
“The COVID-19 pandemic unleashed a wave of scientific activity to identify new or repurposed treatments to halt the disease,” says G. Caleb Alexander, MD, MS, a study author and professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology. “It is vital that these treatments are used consistently across hospitals and health systems, so as to prevent as much death and disability as possible.”
The researchers note that their analysis did not take into account factors such as drug shortages and differences between COVID-19 patients receiving oxygen supplementation—differences that might help explain some of the apparent variation in treatment utilization rates.
“It’s possible that, for example, some hospitals had sicker patients on average compared to other hospitals—it will be critical to understand the potential factors in future investigations,” Mehta says.
“Use of Hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir, and Dexamethasone Among Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19 In The United States” was co-authored by Hemalkumar Mehta, Huijun An, Kathleen Andersen, Omar Mansour, Vithal Madhira, Emaan Rashidi, Benjamin Bates, Soko Setoguchi, Corey Joseph, Paul Kocis, Richard Moffitt, Tellen Bennett, Christopher Chute, Brian Garibaldi, and G. Caleb Alexander.
Support was provided in part by the National Institute on Aging (1K01AG070329-01) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (T32HL139426-03).
Disclosures:
Caleb Alexander is past Chair of FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Advisory Committee; has served as a paid advisor to IQVIA; is a co-founding principal and equity holder in Monument Analytics, a health care consultancy whose clients include the life sciences industry as well as plaintiffs in opioid litigation; and is a member of OptumRx’s National P&T Committee.
