Cat bacteria treats mouse skin infection, may help you and your pets as well

Researchers identify a bacteria on healthy cats that produces antibiotics against severe skin infections; the findings may lead to new bacteriotherapies for humans and their pets

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

 

IMAGE: TO IDENTIFY CANDIDATES FOR A NEW BACTERIOTHERAPY AGAINST SKIN INFECTION, RESEARCHERS FIRST SCREENED VARIOUS BACTERIA FROM DOGS AND CATS AND CO-CULTURED THEM WITH <EM>S. PSEUDINTERMEDIUS</EM> IN LIQUID AND AGAR ANTIMICROBIAL ASSAYS. view more 

CREDIT: UC SAN DIEGO HEALTH SCIENCES

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine used bacteria found on healthy cats to successfully treat a skin infection on mice. These bacteria may serve as the basis for new therapeutics against severe skin infections in humans, dogs and cats. 

The study, published in eLife on October 19, 2021, was led by Richard L. Gallo, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Dermatology at UC San Diego School of Medicine, whose team specializes in using bacteria and their products to treat illnesses — an approach known as “bacteriotherapy.” 

Skin is colonized by hundreds of bacterial species that play important roles in skin health, immunity and fighting infection. All species need to maintain a diverse balance of healthy skin bacteria to fight potential pathogens.

“Our health absolutely depends on these ‘good’ bacteria,” said Gallo. “They rely on our healthy skin to live, and in return some of them protect us from ‘bad’ bacteria. But if we get sick, ‘bad’ bacteria can take advantage of our weakened defenses and cause infection.” 

This is the case with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP), a bacterium commonly found on domesticated animals that becomes infectious when the animals are sick or injured. MRSP is an emerging pathogen that can jump between species and cause severe atopic dermatitis, or eczema. These infections are common in dogs and cats, and can also occur in humans, though rates of human infection vary around the world. As its name suggests, MRSP is resistant to common antibiotics and has been difficult to treat in clinical and veterinary settings. 

To address this, researchers first screened a library of bacteria that normally live on dogs and cats and grew them in the presence of MRSP. From this, they identified a strain of cat bacteria called Staphylococcus felis (S. felis) that was especially good at inhibiting MRSP growth. They found that this special strain of S. felis naturally produces multiple antibiotics that kill MRSP by disrupting its cell wall and increasing the production of toxic free radicals.

“The potency of this species is extreme,” said Gallo. “It is strongly capable of killing pathogens, in part because it attacks them from many sides — a strategy known as ‘polypharmacy.’ This makes it particularly attractive as a therapeutic.” 

Bacteria can easily develop resistance to a single antibiotic. To get around this, S. felis has four genes that code for four distinct antimicrobial peptides. Each of these antibiotics is capable of killing MRSP on their own, but by working together, they make it more difficult for the bacteria to fight back.

Having established how S. felis kills the MRSP, the next step was to see whether it could work as a therapy on a live animal. The team exposed mice to the most common form of the pathogen and then added either S. felis bacteria or bacterial extract to the same site. The skin showed a reduction in scaling and redness after either treatment, compared with animals that had no treatment. There were also fewer viable MRSP bacteria left on the skin after treatment with S. felis.

Next steps include plans for a clinical trial to confirm whether S. felis can be used to treat MRSP infections in dogs. Bacteriotherapies like this one can be delivered via topical sprays, creams or gels that contain either live bacteria or purified extract of the antimicrobial peptides. 

While these products are in development, what should pet owners do in the meantime?

“Don’t stop washing your pets to keep these ‘good’ bacteria on them,” said Gallo. “Skin has evolved to protect the ‘good’ bacteria, so soap and detergents don’t usually wash the good guys off.”

“It may even be possible that living with a healthy cat provides humans with some protection against MRSP,” Gallo said, “so this may be an argument in support of pet ownership.”

###

This study is part of a growing line of work by Gallo’s group to develop bacteriotherapies for inflammatory skin diseases and skin cancers.

Co-authors include: Alan M. O'Neill, Kate A. Worthing, Nikhil Kulkarni, Fengwu Li, Teruaki Nakatsuji, Dominic McGrosso, Robert H. Mills, Gayathri Kalla, Joyce Y. Cheng, Kit Pogliano, Joe Pogliano and David J. Gonzalez, all at UC San Diego, and Jacqueline M. Norris at the University of Sydney. 

---

JOURNAL

eLife

DOI

10.7554/eLife.66793 

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Oct-2021

COI STATEMENT

Richard L. Gallo is a co-founder, scientific advisor, inventor, consultant and has equity in MatriSys Biosciences and is a consultant, receives income and has equity in Sente. Kate A. Worthing is a co-inventor of technology described in this study that has been disclosed to the University of California San Diego.

Climate change from nuclear war’s smoke could threaten global food supplies, human health

The extreme ozone loss would increase ultraviolet radiation at the Earth’s surface

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: NUCLEAR WAR WOULD CAUSE MANY IMMEDIATE FATALITIES, BUT SMOKE FROM THE RESULTING FIRES WOULD ALSO CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE LASTING UP TO 15 YEARS THAT THREATENS WORLDWIDE FOOD PRODUCTION AND HUMAN HEALTH, ACCORDING TO A STUDY BY RESEARCHERS AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS. view more 

CREDIT: READY.GOV

New Brunswick, N.J. -- Nuclear war would cause many immediate fatalities, but smoke from the resulting fires would also cause climate change lasting up to 15 years that threatens worldwide food production and human health, according to a study by researchers at Rutgers University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and other institutions.

The study appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres.

Scientists have long understood that nuclear weapons used on cities and industrial areas could initiate large-scale fires whose massive amounts of smoke injected into the stratosphere could cause global climate change, leading to the term “nuclear winter.”

But in the new study, researchers for the first time used a modern climate model, including aerosols and nitric oxide emissions, to simulate the effects on ozone chemistry and surface ultraviolet light caused by absorption of sunlight by smoke from regional and global nuclear wars.

This could lead to a loss of most of our protective ozone layer, taking a decade to recover and resulting in several years of extremely high ultraviolet light at the Earth’s surface and further endangering human health and food supplies.

“Although we suspected that ozone would be destroyed after nuclear war and that would result in enhanced ultraviolet light at the Earth’s surface, if there was too much smoke, it would block out the ultraviolet light,” said one of the study’s authors Alan Robock, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “Now, for the first time, we have calculated how this would work and quantified how it would depend on the amount of smoke.”

The study’s results showed that for a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan that would generate five megatons of soot, the enhanced ultraviolet light would begin within a year. For a global war between the United States and Russia generating 150 megatons, it would only begin after about eight years. For intermediate amounts of smoke, the effects would fall between these extreme cases.

For a global nuclear war, heating in the stratosphere and other factors would cause a 15 year-long reduction in the ozone column, with a peak loss of 75 percent globally and 65 percent in the tropics. This is larger than predictions from the 1980s, which assumed large injections of nitrogen oxides but did not include the effects of smoke.

For a regional nuclear war, the global column ozone would be reduced by 25 percent with recovery taking 12 years. This is similar to previous simulations but with a faster recovery time due to a shorter lifetime for soot in the new simulations.

“The bottom line is that nuclear war would be even worse than we thought, and must be avoided,” Robock said. “For the future, in other work, we have calculated how agriculture would change based on the changes of temperature, rain and sunlight, but have not yet included the effects of ultraviolet light. In addition, the ultraviolet light would damage animals, including us, increasing cancer and cataracts.”

The study, which included Rutgers Research Associate Lili Xia, also included researchers from the University of Colorado, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Columbia University, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and Autonomous University of Barcelona.

###

Broadcast interviews: Rutgers University has broadcast-quality TV and radio studios available for remote live or taped interviews with Rutgers experts. For more information, contact John Cramer at john.cramer@rutgers.edu

ABOUT RUTGERS—NEW BRUNSWICK
Rutgers University–New Brunswick is where Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, began more than 250 years ago. Ranked among the world’s top 60 universities, Rutgers’s flagship is a leading public research institution and a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. It has an internationally acclaimed faculty, 12 degree-granting schools and the Big Ten Conference’s most diverse student body.

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres

DOI

10.1029/2021JD035079 

ARTICLE TITLE

Extreme Ozone Loss Following Nuclear War Results in Enhanced Surface Ultraviolet Radiation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Sep-2021

Disclaimer: AAAS 

How quickly does the climate recover?

Research conducted at Mainz University shows that it took the climate 20,000 to 50,000 years to stabilize after the rise in global temperatures of five to eight degrees Celsius 56 million years ago

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JOHANNES GUTENBERG UNIVERSITAET MAINZ

 

IMAGE: THE ANALYZED SEDIMENTS FROM THE PALEOCENE-EOCENE THERMAL MAXIMUM (PETM) CAME FROM THE DANISH ISLAND OF FUR. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO/©: MORGAN JONES

Climate change is causing temperatures to rise and is also increasing the likelihood of storms, heavy rain, and flooding – the recent flood disaster in the Ahr valley in Germany is just one such example. What we need to ask ourselves in this connection is how quickly the climate can recover from the warming caused by an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Professor Philip Pogge von Strandmann of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Germany, set out to investigate this aspect by considering the significant rise in global temperatures of five to eight degrees Celsius that took place 56 million years ago – the fastest natural period of global warming that has impacted on our climate, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). It was most likely triggered by a volcanic eruption that released huge amounts of carbon dioxide or CO2 into the atmosphere. We know that the higher the temperature, the faster rock will weather, and, in addition, if there is a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere, some of it will react with water, forming carbonic acid – the very acid that promotes and accelerates the weathering process. Because of the weathering process, this atmospheric carbon will eventually find its way into the seas via rivers, where it binds CO2 as carbonate and form a persistent ocean-based reservoir of carbon dioxide. "Our theory was that if rock weathers faster due to the increased temperatures, it also helps convert a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into insoluble carbonate in seawater – meaning that, over the long term, CO2 levels would end up falling again and the climate would ultimately recover," explained Pogge von Strandmann. This effect could have helped to keep the Earth's climate fairly stable over billions of years and it could have even prevented the total extinction of all life on the planet.

Weathering of rocks contributes to climate stabilization

In order to test this theory, Professor Philip Pogge von Strandmann and his team decided to analyze the weathering processes that occurred during the warming event 56 million years ago. Their findings indicate that the theory may well be correct. "Rock weathering during that time increased by 50 percent as a result of global warming; erosion – the physical part of weathering – actually tripled. Another consequence of the rise in temperature was that evaporation, rainfall, and storms also increased, which then led to even more erosion. As a result of this increased rock weathering, the climate stabilized, but it took between 20,000 and 50,000 years for this to happen," said Pogge von Strandmann, summarizing the team's findings.

But how did the researchers come to these conclusions? After all, these weathering processes took place 56 million years ago. The answer lies in the rocks themselves. When rocks dissolve, they release lithium – the isotopes lithium-6 and lithium-7 to be precise – which escapes into any surrounding water. The proportion of the isotopes lithium-6 and lithium-7 present in water is determined by the type of weathering, in other words, the amount of erosion produced by weathering. Clay, which is found at the bottom of the sea, mainly stores lithium-6, while lithium-7 remains in the water. The research team conducted two types of scientific investigation: They examined marine carbonates that were formed 56 million years ago – a type of rock that absorbs chemical components from water. They also investigated clay minerals from Denmark and Svalbard, which also formed during this period, looking at the relative proportions of lithium isotopes in these two different kinds of minerals. The researchers were able to use the data obtained to draw conclusions about weathering and climate 56 million years ago. Their results have been published in the journal Science Advances.

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum is also used as an analog to draw conclusions about current and future global warming rates. The authors point out that in the future both weathering and erosion, including soil erosion, as well as storms are likely to increase – the recent floods in Germany are symptomatic of this.

---

JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abh4224 

ARTICLE TITLE

Lithium isotope evidence for enhanced weathering and erosion during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

15-Oct-2021

Ancient driftwood tracks 500 years of Arctic warming and sea ice

Fallen trees kept afloat in sea ice reflect accelerated ice loss in the last 30 years

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION

 

IMAGE: GEOSCIENTIST GEORGIA HOLE USED TREE RINGS TO RETRACE THE PATHS OF DRIFTWOOD, ONCE FROZEN IN SEA ICE, AS IT MADE ITS WAY THROUGH THE ARCTIC. “SOME OF THESE BEACHES ARE REALLY FULL OF DRIFTWOOD—DRIFTWOOD AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. AND WHEN YOU REMEMBER THAT THESE AREAS WE WERE STUDYING HAD NO FOREST, COMPLETELY TREELESS, IT GIVES YOU THAT SENSE OF SCALE.” -GH view more 

CREDIT: GEORGIA HOLE

WASHINGTON—A new study reconstructs the path of frozen trees as they made their way across the Arctic Ocean over 500 years, giving scientists a unique look into changes in sea ice and currents over the last half millennium.

By dating and tracing pieces of driftwood on beaches in Svalbard, Norway’s archipelago in the Arctic Circle, scientists have determined where these fallen trees floated. Retracing the driftwood’s journey let the researchers reconstruct, for the first time, both the level of sea ice over time and the currents that propelled the driftwood-laden ice.

Borne by rivers to the ocean, fallen trees from the north’s expansive boreal forests can be frozen in sea ice and float far, but the new research shows fewer trees are making the long journey as the sea ice that carries them shrinks away.

The new study found a distinct drop in new driftwood arrivals over the last 30 years, reflecting the steep decline in sea ice coverage in a warming Arctic and provides a higher-resolution picture of past Arctic Ocean conditions than other methods allow. The study is published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, which publishes research that advances our understanding of the ocean and its processes.

Sea ice is sensitive to climate change and is an important part of Arctic ecosystems, so understanding how ice, ocean temperatures and currents have varied together over time is necessary for predicting coming changes in the Arctic. But doing so can be elusive: Ice melts, after all. The oldest sea ice is only about four years old (and getting younger), so scientists need to turn to other records.

“This is the first time driftwood has been used to look at large-scale changes in Arctic sea ice dynamics and circulation patterns,” said geoscientist Georgia Hole at the University of Oxford, who led the study.

“They’re taking the analysis one step further to connect changes in driftwood to changes in sea ice, and that’s where we want to go. It’s really exciting,” said Hans Linderholm, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden who was not involved in the research.

Important ice cubes

The Arctic Ocean collects trees that naturally fall into high-latitude rivers in North America and Eurasia. When it was cold enough, some of the trees were frozen into the sea ice. The ice then floated across the ocean, swept along by ocean currents and winds, until beaching on Svalbard’s shores. There they sat, some for hundreds of years, until researchers like Hole and Linderholm came along.

Researchers have used driftwood for climate-change studies before, but the new study is the first to test how useful Arctic driftwood is for peering into past currents and ice coverage. To check their work, the study directly compared driftwood-inferred sea ice coverage to the observational record of sea ice.

“This is a fantastic resource to say something about ocean currents and sea ice conditions,” said Linderholm. “I think they do have a case for matching [tree] provenance changes to changes in sea ice conditions, which is what we’re looking for: to have sea ice information prior to observations.”

A close look at tree rings (IMAGE)

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION

CAPTION

A thin section of a very well-preserved piece of Picea (spruce) driftwood. The tree’s anatomical details allowed Hole to identify and trace it.

CREDIT

Georgia Hole

Tracing trees

In the summer months of 2016 and 2018, Hole and her collaborators combed several beaches in northern Svalbard for driftwood. Back in the lab, they analyzed the tree rings to determine what kind of tree it was and compared the tree ring patterns of each driftwood slice to a database of measured rings from trees across the boreal forests. Hole could then trace trees to individual countries, watersheds and even rivers and see how driftwood sources varied over time.

Hole paired her driftwood data with early sea ice observations, from 1600 to 1850, thanks to records from Icelandic fishers, seal hunters and passing ships. More recent sea ice data came from airplane and satellite imagery. Finally, she compared driftwood-tracking data with sea ice conditions and currents to see how well they correlated.

Her data revealed a slow and steady northward migration of the lowest-latitude sea ice, reflecting warming, along with swings in driftwood arrivals between North America and Eurasia.

“We also saw an increase in variability in the driftwood record from 1700 to 1850, which we interpret as increased variability in sea ice,” said Hole. Colder conditions tend to have more sea ice, so earlier driftwood reflected a wider range of sources. As the Arctic warmed up and sea ice melted, less driftwood could make the long journey.

The unique method provides nuanced insights that other techniques can’t offer, and this study is just the beginning — until the Arctic loses its sea ice altogether, that is.

“It’s such a fragile system,” Hole said. “If the sea ice does decline as predicted, then this will kind of be a dying field.”

CAPTION

A slice of larix (larch) driftwood collected from Phippsøya, The Seven Islands, matched to an origin along the Lena River in Russia in the 1700s. The slice was sanded, revealing the preserved rings.

CREDIT

Georgia Hole

AGU (www.agu.org) supports 130,000 enthusiasts to experts worldwide in Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, we advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.

---

Notes for Journalists:
This research study is published with open access and is freely available. Download a PDF copy of the paper here. Neither the paper nor this press release is under embargo.

Paper title:
“A Driftwood-Based Record of Arctic Sea Ice During the Last 500 Years From Northern Svalbard Reveals Sea Ice Dynamics in the Arctic Ocean and Arctic Peripheral Seas”

Authors:

• Georgia M. Hole (corresponding author), Marc Macias-Fauria, Biogeosciences Research Group, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
• Thomas Rawson, Department of Zoology, Mathematical Ecology Research Group, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
• Wesley R. Farnsworth, Nordic Volcanological Center, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland; Department of Arctic Geology, The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Longyearbyen, Norway
• Anders Schomacker, Department of Geosciences, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
• Ölafur Ingólsson, Department of Arctic Geology, The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Longyearbyen, Norway; Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans

DOI

10.1029/2021JC017563 

ARTICLE TITLE

A Driftwood-Based Record of Arctic Sea Ice During the Last 500 Years From Northern Svalbard Reveals Sea Ice Dynamics in the Arctic Ocean and Arctic Peripheral Seas

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

15-Sep-2021

NREL, mines insight could lead to better silicon solar panels

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DOE/NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Colorado School of Mines are applying a new technique to identify defects in silicon solar cells that cause a drop in efficiency. The lessons learned at the atomic level could lead to improvements in the way manufacturers strengthen their products against what is known as light-induced degradation.

Light-induced degradation, or LID, shaves the efficiency of silicon solar cells by about 2%, which adds up to a significant drop in power output over the 30- to 40-year lifespan of the technology deployed in the field. Solar cells made from silicon account for more than 96% of the global market, and the most commonly used semiconductor used in the manufacture of these cells is made from boron-doped silicon. But boron-doped silicon is susceptible to LID, so manufacturers have developed methods to stabilize the solar modules.

Without an understanding of the defects at the atomic level, the researchers said it is impossible to predict the stability of those modules.

“Some of the modules are stabilized completely. Some of them are only half-stabilized,” said Abigail Meyer, a Ph.D. candidate at Mines and a researcher at NREL. She is the lead author of a new paper detailing efforts to pinpoint the source of the LID phenomenon. The article, “Atomic Structure of Light-Induced Efficiency-Degrading Defect in Boron-Doped Czochralski Silicon Solar Cells,” appears in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

Her co-authors are Vincenzo LaSalvia, William Nemeth, Matthew Page, David Young, Paul Stradins, all from NREL; Sumit Agarwal, Michael Venuti, and Serena Eley, who are from Mines; and P. Craig Taylor, a retired Mines professor who consulted on the research.

Stradins, a principal scientist and a project leader in silicon photovoltaic research at NREL, said the problem of LID has been studied for decades but the exact microscopic nature of what causes the degradation has not been determined. Researchers have concluded, through indirect experimentation and theory, that the problem decreases when less boron is used or when less oxygen is present in the silicon.

The collaboration between NREL and Mines researchers relied on electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to identify defects responsible for the LID. For the first time, the microscopic examination revealed a distinct defect signature as the sample solar cells became more degraded by light. The defect signature disappeared when the scientists applied the empirical “regeneration” process to cure the LID that industry has adopted. To their surprise, the researchers also found a second, “broad” EPR signature affected by light exposure, involving many more dopant atoms than there are LID defects. They hypothesized that not all atomic changes induced by light lead to the LID.

The techniques developed to study LID can be extended to reveal other types of degrading defects in silicon solar cells and in other semiconductor materials used in photovoltaics including cadmium telluride and perovskites, the scientists noted.

###

The Solar Energy Technologies Office within the Department of Energy funded the research.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC.

---

JOURNAL

Energy

ARTICLE TITLE

Atomic structure of light-induced efficiency-degrading defects in boron-doped Czochralski silicon solar cells

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Aug-2021

Disclaimer: AA

Microplastics in belugas worked their way up food chain, SFU researchers find

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Microplastics are being found in even the most remote waters, say Simon Fraser University researchers who studied how the particles ended up in the stomachs of beluga whales through prey.

A new study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment looked at five species of Arctic fish known to be eaten by beluga whales. 

Of the fish studied, 21 per cent were found to have microplastic particles in their gastrointestinal tracts. 

Coupled with the findings of the team’s previous work looking at the amount of microplastic found in beluga stomachs, researchers estimate that the whales ingest upwards of 145,000 particles of microplastics a year.

The lead author of the study, Rhiannon Moore, says that while the possible health impacts on belugas are unknown, the findings underscore how pervasive plastics are.

“When we first investigated seven different beluga stomachs and found microplastics in all of them, I was quite surprised. These are animals that were in very remote northern areas and it wasn’t just one kind of plastic that we found,” says Moore, who recently completed a masters of science degree at SFU.

This is the first study to document microplastics in the stomachs of fish from the Eastern Beaufort Sea, located north of the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Alaska. 

Microplastic fibres, found in textiles and clothing, made up 78 per cent of the particles found in the stomachs of fish. 

The prevalence of microplastics in oceans is an emerging environmental concern and Moore says the studies show how nowhere is immune.

“We use so much plastic in our society, and when improperly discarded they break apart into smaller and smaller pieces, and that makes them easy to be transported in ocean environments,” she says. “The results of these studies just further point to the reality that microplastics don’t stay in one place. They move through the air, the water, they’re in sediment and now we understand they’re moving through the food chain.”

Moore, who is now a Zero Waste Outreach Coordinator with the City of Victoria, says the studies just provide a snapshot in time and pointed out researchers don’t know how long microplastics may stay in the digestive tract of animals or how they may be detrimental to their health.

But it points to a need for humans to make more of an effort reduce the amount of plastic waste we produce.

“This study adds to our long list of pollutants that end up in the Arctic, and highlights the need for urgent action to stem the release of plastics and microplastics in the more densely populated south,” adds Peter Ross, senior scientist at Raincoast Conservation Foundation, and co-author on the study.

###

The research team included scientists from Simon Fraser University, Ocean Wise Conservation Association, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, with support from the Fisheries Joint Management Committee, local hunters and trappers Committees and communities in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

Climate change caused the devastating floods in part of Brazilian´s Southeast region, study says

Torrential rain made over 90,000 people homeless in Minas Gerais state, where the probability of far higher volumes of rain than expected has increased 70% owing to industrialization and global warming

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

Climate change was the main cause of the extremely heavy rainfall that led to severe flooding, deaths and massive damage in cities across Minas Gerais state, Southeast Brazil, in January 2020, according to a study published in the journal Climate Resilience and Sustainability.

Using climate modeling for the region, the study shows that the effects of industrialization and global warming increased the probability of far higher volumes of rain than expected by 70% compared to scenarios with average temperatures 1 °C -1.1 °C lower.

The authors of the study also quantified the damage caused by the extreme event, estimating that over 90,000 people were made temporarily homeless, and at least BRL 1.3 billion (USD 240 million) was lost in the public and private sectors. Most of the material damage was to public infrastructure (BRL 484 million), housing (BRL 352 million), and retail stores and other services (BRL 290 million). Human-induced climate change is blamed for 41% of the total.

The article was published a week after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stressed in its sixth assessment report that “it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”, contributing to rapid intense changes in all regions of the planet.

The extreme precipitation event that occurred in Southeast Brazil on January 23-25, 2020, led to floods and landslides, causing damage to infrastructure and deaths. The event resulted from an intensified South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) combined with the emergence of the Kurumí subtropical cyclone (KSC) over the South Atlantic. Both phenomena increased moisture content throughout the region.

Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, had the wettest January in its history. According to the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET), rainfall totaled 935.2 millimeters (mm), or almost three times the average for the month, with 320.9 mm falling in three days. At least 56 deaths were considered due to flooding and landslides at the time.

The authors emphasize that the study offers new insights regarding the urgent need to take action on climate change, which is already having a significant impact on society in Southeast Brazil: “This calls for immediate improvements in strategic planning to focus on mitigation and adaptation,” they write, adding that public management and policies must evolve from disaster response to include prevention of future disasters. 

The study was supported by FAPESP and derived from a workshop led among others by Sarah Sparrow, a researcher at the University of Oxford (UK) and last author of the article. The workshop was sponsored by the Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP Brazil), a collaboration between UK institutions and organizations in Brazil, including the National Space Research Institute (INPE), the Natural Disaster Surveillance and Early Warning Center (CEMADEN), and the University of São Paulo (USP).

Held online in December 2020 in partnership with Liana Anderson, a researcher at CEMADEN and penultimate author of the article, the workshop discussed a method known as extreme event attribution that aims to quantify the potential effects of human-induced climate change on the probability of extreme weather events.

Two working groups analyzed the Minas Gerais extreme precipitation event. One focused on the influence of climate change on rainfall, while the other quantified the impacts on the population. The findings of both groups were integrated in the published article.

“Close interdisciplinary collaboration enabled us to produce a high-quality study with consistent results in only a few months,” said Ricardo Dal’Agnol, a researcher in INPE’s Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division and first author of the article.

Model

The global climate model used for attribution was the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 3-A (HadGEM3-A), with simulations of extreme weather events. Two experiments were conducted to help design scenarios, one considering only natural factors such as variations in solar irradiance and volcanic activity, and the other also considering anthropogenic factors, such as land-use changes and greenhouse gas emissions compared with the pre-industrial level (1850).

According to the latest IPCC report, the planet’s average temperature is 1.1 °C higher than in the period 1850-1900, the reference period used to approximate pre-industrial temperatures before the sharp rise in emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane.

To understand the spatial distribution of daily precipitation in the study area and estimate precipitation for the attribution analysis, the researchers used the CPC Global Unified Gauge-Based Analysis of Daily Precipitation, and the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station Data (CHIRPS), which integrates satellite imagery and rain gauge station data to create time series for trend analysis and monitoring.

Data on disasters, including location, type, causes, and damage, was extracted from Brazil’s S2iD Integrated Disaster Information System, which holds data recorded by Civil Defense and local government staff within ten days of an occurrence. The authors “highlight the importance of having integrated disaster information systems such as the Brazilian S2iD, which conveys valuable and timely information that allows quantification of the impacts from extreme events”.

The study area in southeastern Minas Gerais was subdivided into 12 mesoregions (official units comprising a group of cities that share geographical and societal features), with a total of 194 municipalities. The state has 853 cities all told. “The most affected mesoregions were metropolitan Belo Horizonte, Vale do Rio Doce and Zona da Mata. Together they accounted for 91% of public economic losses and 93% of private economic losses, 92% of total material damage [and] 91% of the total displaced population,” the authors write, adding that these areas also displayed “the most alarming numbers regarding vulnerability to disasters of residents and dwellings in officially mapped risk areas”.

They also note that although the event was extreme and influenced by climate change, its impacts were exacerbated by lack of urban risk management planning, mitigation and adaptation strategies, as well as underinvestment in infrastructure, and that it may have disproportionately affected the poor living in high-risk situations such as precarious hillside housing. 

“We, therefore, interpret the impacts of this event as a socially constructed climate disaster,” they write, suggesting that future studies should investigate the impact of extreme weather events on poor and vulnerable people. “Moreover, future research could also address the increasingly complicated interactions of human, economic and political aspects within ecological systems,” they add.

According to Dal’Agnol, the model developed to analyze the Minas Gerais disaster can be applied to other regions. “We used scenarios based on the model and satellite rainfall data to estimate probabilities,” he said. “The methodology can be used to analyze other events. At the time of our study, we found little research on extreme weather events in Brazil. More studies like this one are needed to identify regions that are particularly vulnerable to climate change so that government and public policy can be properly prepared to prevent future disasters.”

FAPESP supported the study by awarding scholarships to Dal’Agnol (19/21662-8), Carolina Barnez Gramcianinov (20/01416-0), and Márcia Marques (19/17304-9). 

###

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at http://www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at http://www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

---

JOURNAL

Climate Resilience and Sustainability

DOI

10.1002/cli2.15 

ARTICLE TITLE

The article “Extreme rainfall and its impacts in the Brazilian Minas Gerais state in January 2020: Can we blame climate change?”

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Aug-2021

Dairy calves use brushes for more than combing their hair!

New research in the Journal of Dairy Science® examines young cows’ use of brushes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ELSEVIER

 

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (UBC, VANCOUVER, CANADA), STUDIED BRUSH USE BY YOUNG DAIRY CATTLE, AN UNDEREXAMINED ANIMAL WELFARE ISSUE. view more 

CREDIT: UBC ANIMAL WELFARE PROGRAM

Philadelphia, October 19, 2021 – Dairy cows have a natural drive to groom themselves and to scratch those hard-to-reach itches on their bodies. When given the opportunity, dairy cattle use mechanical brushes daily at every stage of their lives. A new study in the Journal of Dairy Science®, conducted by researchers from the Animal Welfare Program, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, is the first to characterize the use of stationary brushes among weaned dairy heifers.

Cows with no access to brushes tend to rub their heads and bodies against pen walls and the edges of water troughs, risking injury. Additionally, young cattle appear to be motivated to manipulate objects with their mouths. Past studies have found that young cattle that had access to stationary brushes or hanging hemp ropes, which they could manipulate orally, showed reduced levels of abnormal, non-nutritive and potentially harmful oral behaviors, such as tongue rolling and sucking on wire mesh pen walls and other pen hardware.

Providing access to brushes in their housing environment is thus a welfare issue for cattle. However, weaned dairy heifers are often housed in simple environments with few appropriate outlets for grooming or oral manipulation and other natural behaviors. Rotating brushes allow cattle to groom hard-to-reach areas of the body, but stationary brushes may be more economical and offer opportunities for other behaviors, such as oral manipulation.

Lead investigator Marina von Keyserlingk, PhD, noted that, “Although providing brushes for dairy cattle is becoming more common, providing objects for oral manipulation has been underexplored. This appears to be an important behavior for young cattle.” Therefore, this study examined not only grooming, but also oral behaviors focused on the brushes, as well as exploring heifers’ preferences for type and placement of brushes.

In phase 1 of the study, four rectangular scrub brushes were attached to the fence surrounding an experimental group pen housing four heifers at a time. This phase also investigated whether the heifers preferred softer or stiffer bristles, vertical or horizontal orientation of the brushes, or any particular location of the brushes within the pen. In phase 2 of the experiment, the heifers were moved to freestalls either with a scrub brush mounted horizontally to the front stall rail or with no brushes. After five days, brushes were added to the stalls that formerly had not had any to examine any effects after this period of deprivation. Both phases of the experiment used video cameras mounted in the pen or stalls for recording and observation of behaviors.

The research team found that heifers began using the brushes almost immediately, even though they had never been exposed to brushes before. In the first phase, brushes were used primarily for grooming (approximately 60% of brush use), mainly of the head, but the heifers displayed a large amount of oral brush manipulation as well (approximately 40%). After a peak on the first day in the pen, brush use was steady throughout this stage, and all heifers in the pen at any time used each brush at least once. In phase 2, the majority (approximately 75%) of brush use was oral manipulation. The heifers initially deprived of brushes during this phase showed more brush use after they were added back into the stalls (about three times more than the heifers who had access to brushes all along), in a rebound effect.

Oral manipulation of brushes in all stages of the experiment remained consistent over time, reinforcing the team’s view that this is an important behavior for young cattle. Additionally, the lack of differences in use of brushes with different bristle stiffness and horizontal versus vertical orientation suggests that the type of brushes provided may be less important than whether they are provided at all.

“In our study, the patterns of brush use across days suggest that stationary brushes are functionally relevant to the natural behavior of heifers and hold their interest over time, important characteristics for relevant environmental enrichments,” said von Keyserlingk. “Given recent evidence indicating that adult cows are highly motivated to access brushes, depriving cattle of such resources could have negative effects on their welfare.”

###

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Dairy Science

DOI

10.3168/jds.2021-20467 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Stationary brush use in naive dairy heifers