Local exhaust ventilation to control dental aerosols and droplets

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INTERNATIONAL & AMERICAN ASSOCIATIONS FOR DENTAL RESEARCH

Alexandria, VA, USA — Dental procedures produce aerosols which contain oral microbes, creating potential for infectious disease transmission. This study, “Local Exhaust Ventilation to Control Dental Aerosols and Droplets” published in the Journal of Dental Research (JDR), investigated the effect of a Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) device on aerosols and droplets produced during dental procedures. These devices are designed to be placed over the patient’s mouth to capture aerosols and droplets at the source. 

Researchers at Newcastle University, England, conducted experiments on dental mannequins. Ten-minute crown preparations were performed with an air-turbine handpiece in a large open plan clinic, and full mouth ultrasonic scaling was performed for ten minutes in a single dental surgery. Fluorescein was added to instrument irrigation reservoirs as a tracer. In both settings, Optical Particle Counters (OPCs) were used to measure aerosol particles between 0.3 – 10.0 μm and liquid cyclone air samplers were used to capture aerosolised fluorescein tracer. An LEV device with High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filtration and a flow rate of 5,000 L/min was tested during the experiments. 

 

The results show that using LEV reduced the dispersion of aerosols from the air turbine handpiece by 90% within 0.5 m, and this was 99% for the ultrasonic scaler. The settling of larger droplets was also measured for the air-turbine, and this was reduced by 95% within 0.5 m when LEV was used.

 

"This study shows that the effect of LEV was substantially greater than suction alone for the air-turbine and was similar to the effect of suction for the ultrasonic scaler,” said IADR President Eric Reynolds, The University of Melbourne, Australia. “While no mitigation measure alone will completely eliminate risk, LEV appears to be a useful approach, which in addition to other measures, substantially reduces dispersion of aerosols, and therefore risk of exposure to pathogens."

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View a PDF of this press release. 

About the Journal of Dental Research The IADR/AADOCR Journal of Dental Research (JDR) is a multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the dissemination of new knowledge in all sciences relevant to dentistry and the oral cavity and associated structures in health and disease. The JDR 2-year Journal Impact Factor™ is 6.116, ranking #5 of 91 journals in the “Dentistry, Oral Surgery & Medicine” category, and the JDR 5-year Journal Impact Factor™ is 7.199. The JDR ranks #1 of 91 journals in total citations at 26,197 and Eigenfactor at 0.01683. The JDR Editor-in-Chief is Nicholas Jakubovics, Newcastle University, England. Follow the JDR on Twitter at @JDentRes!

International Association for Dental Research

The International Association for Dental Research (IADR) is a nonprofit organization with over 10,000 individual members worldwide, with a mission to drive dental, oral and craniofacial research for health and well-being worldwide. To learn more, visit www.iadr.org. The American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) is the largest Division of IADR with 3,100 members in the United States. To learn more, visit www.iadr.org/aadocr

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JOURNAL

Journal of Dental Research

DOI

10.1177/00220345211056287 

ARTICLE TITLE

Local Exhaust Ventilation to Control Dental Aerosols and Droplets

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Nov-2021

Does previous SARS experience help healthcare workers cope with COVID-19?

Over half of surveyed healthcare workers reported PTSD symptoms, whether or not they had previously worked during the SARS outbreak

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: A DOCTOR HOLDS A FACE MASK AND STETHOSCOPE. view more 

CREDIT: ASHKAN FOROUZANI, UNSPLASH, CC0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

Previous work during the 2003 SARS outbreak has no overall impact on the psychological distress seen in healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, although it was associated with lower scores of PTSD and depression, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Rima Styra of University Health Network, Toronto, Canada, and colleagues.

Surveys of physicians and nurses conducted during the current COVID-19 pandemic have found significant levels of depression, anxiety, insomnia and post-traumatic distress, similar to those seen during the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreaks. Experience working during a prior infectious disease could either heighten or attenuate a person’s psychological response to an emerging infectious disease.

In the new study, Styra and colleagues conducted an online survey of 3,852 healthcare workers in the greater Toronto area, including 1256 nurses (34.1%), 1243 non-clinical staff (28.3%), 1034 allied health staff (28.1%) and 345 physicians (9.4%). 29.1% of respondents had also worked during the 2003 SARS outbreak. Mental health outcomes of healthcare workers were measured using three distinct scales.

More than half (50.2%) of all healthcare workers surveyed had moderate or severe scores for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while rates of anxiety (24.6%) and depression (31.5%) were also high. Non-clinical healthcare workers were found to be at higher risk of anxiety (OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.19–2.15, P = .01) and depression (OR 2.03, 95% CI, 1.34–3.07, P < .001), while healthcare workers using sedatives (OR, 2.55; 95% CI, 1.61–4.03, P < .001), those who cared for only 2-5 patients with COVID-19 (OR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.06–2.38, P = .01), and those who had been in isolation for COVID-19 (OR, 1.36; 95% CI, 0.96–1.93, P = .05) had a higher risk of PTSD. There was no statistically significant effect of previous SARS work experience on clinical or non-clinical healthcare workers’ overall psychological distress. While those who worked during the SARS outbreak experienced lower scores of PTSD (p=0.002) and depression (p<0.001), these differences disappeared after correcting for other factors such as age and career experience. The authors suggest that the data is important in guiding healthcare systems to provide appropriate, targeted and timely support to healthcare workers. 

The authors add: “Our study highlights the universal emotional distress experienced by healthcare workers, both clinical and non-clinical during the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies that there are risk and protective factors of which we should be mindful given the wide reaching implications for staff wellness and  staff retention.”

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0258893 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Surviving SARS and living through COVID-19: Healthcare worker mental health outcomes and insights for coping

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Nov-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Pet cats seem to track their owner's location - and are surprised in experiments when their voice appears to come from somewhere else

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: A CAT RECEIVING ATTENTION view more 

CREDIT: YERLIN MATU, UNSPLASH, CC0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

Pet cats seem to track their owner's location - and are surprised in experiments when their voice appears to come from somewhere else

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Article Title: Socio-spatial cognition in cats: Mentally mapping owner’s location from voice

Author Countries: Japan

Funding: This study was financially supported by the Grant-in-aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) No. 17J08974, No. 19J01485 to S. Takagi, Nos. 25240020, 26119514, 16H01505, 15K12047, 25118002, and 16H06301 to K. Fujita, No. 25118003 to A. Saito, No. JP16J08691 to H. Chijiiwa, and No. JP16J1034 to M. Arahori from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Anicom Speciality Medical Institute Inc. provided support in the form of salaries for author M.A, but had no role in study design, data collection or analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.

Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0257611

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0257611 

ARTICLE TITLE

Socio-spatial cognition in cats: Mentally mapping owner’s location from voice

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Nov-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Anicom Speciality Medical Institute Inc. played no role in the study design, data collection or analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript, providing only financial support in the form of M.A.’s salary. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Capturing the impact of human sewage on Earth’s coastal ecosystems

New worldwide mapping analysis identifies key exposure hotspots in unprecedented resolution

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: A) GLOBAL MAP OF THE TERRESTRIAL SOURCES (GREEN TO BLUE) AND COASTAL DIFFUSION OF INPUTS (YELLOW TO PURPLE) OF TOTAL WASTEWATER N, MEASURED IN LOG10(GN) IN BOTH. COASTAL PLUMES HAVE BEEN BUFFERED TO LINE SEGMENTS TO EXAGGERATE PATTERNS TO BE VISIBLE AT THE GLOBAL SCALE. INSETS SHOW ZOOMED-IN VIEWS OF THE B) GANGES, C) DANUBE, AND D) CHANG JIANG (YANGTZE) RIVERS, SHOWING WASTEWATER PLUMES AT HIGH RESOLUTION. view more 

CREDIT: TUHOLSKE ET AL., 2021, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

A first-of-its-kind, high-resolution mapping analysis estimates the amounts of nitrogen and pathogens released into coastal ecosystems from human wastewater sources around the world. Cascade Tuholske (now affiliated with the Columbia Climate School) and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, present this research in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 10, 2021. The researchers have created a visual representation of this, available here.

Human sewage can introduce disease-causing pathogens and nitrogen into the ocean, potentially impacting human health as well as coastal ecosystems and the communities that depend on them for such purposes as fishing. However, most research into humans’ impact on coastal ecosystems has focused on agricultural runoff, while investigations on human sewage have been limited.

To better capture the impact of sewage on coastal ecosystems, Tuholske and colleagues conducted a novel analysis in which they estimated and mapped nitrogen and pathogen inputs into the ocean from sewage for about 135,000 watersheds around the world at a resolution of 1 kilometer. The assessment employed newly available, high-resolution data on global human populations and modeled how wastewater plumes entering the ocean would overlap with different ecosystems.

The analysis suggests that wastewater from human sewage introduces 6.2 teragrams of nitrogen into coastal ecosystems per year—for comparison, that is about 40 percent of estimated inputs from agriculture. Sixty-three percent of the nitrogen is from sewage systems, 5 percent from septic systems, and 32 percent from untreated, direct input.

Of the watersheds that appear to release the most nitrogen from sewage, most are located in India, Korea, and China, with the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) River contributing 11 percent of the global total. The researchers also identified hotspots for coral reef exposure to nitrogen in China, Kenya, Haiti, India, and Yemen. Seagrass exposure hotspots were found in Ghana, Kuwait, India, Nigeria, and China. The Chang Jiang and Brahmaputra Rivers have the highest input of pathogens.

Further research will be needed to refine the model and its estimates. Nonetheless, this work provides a new resource that could play a key role in efforts to mitigate harm to ecosystems and human health—such as by highlighting locations where tradeoffs between managing nitrogen and pathogen levels are particularly important to consider.

The authors add: "The sheer scale of how much wastewater is impacting coastal ecosystems worldwide is staggering. But because we map wastewater inputs to the ocean across more than 130,000 watersheds, our results identify target priority areas to help marine conservation groups and public health officials to work together and reduce the impacts of wastewater on coastal waters across the planet."  

CAPTION

The global total wastewater input is 6.2Tg N, with 3.9Tg from sewers, 0.3Tg from septic, and 2Tg from direct input. The top 40 countries are shown in the horizontal bar chart; remaining countries are in the pinwheel, grouped by continent or larger geographical region. Values for all countries are also reported in S5 Table in S1 File. Note that the Netherlands is shown in both places (in red) to help connect the scale of the two parts of the figure.

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CAPTION

Maps show where A) coral reefs and B) seagrass beds are heavily impacted (raster cells in top 2.5% of exposure; red dots), not impacted (no exposure to wastewater N; dark blue dots), or impacted but not in the top 2.5% (yellow dots). Raster cells are represented as points which visually over-represents the habitat; red is overlaid on top which makes it visually dominant; blue points are transparent and overlaid on green/yellow points such that higher densities of unimpacted areas are brighter blue.

10.1371/journal.pone.0258898 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Mapping global inputs and impacts from of human sewage in coastal ecosystems

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Nov-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

What’s in the water?

Researchers take a granular look at global inputs and impacts of human wastewater in coastal ecosystems

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

 

IMAGE: EXCESS NITROGEN AND OTHER NUTRIENTS CONTRIBUTE TO HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS view more 

CREDIT: NICHOLAS AUMEN/UCGS

The tendency for most of us when it comes to human wastewater is out of sight, out of mind. Rarely do we consider what happens after we flush that toilet or turn off that tap.

However, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have turned their attention and considerable computational power to the subject and its impacts on global coastal ecosystems. The results aren’t pretty, but they are enlightening.

“The motivation behind this research was a desire to have a fine-grain understanding of how wastewater is impacting coastal waters worldwide,” said Cascade Tuholske, the lead author of a paper that appears in the journal PLOS One. While research on terrestrial threats to coastal marine ecosystems often focuses on agricultural runoff and what happens when fertilizer and livestock waste winds up in the ocean, he said, few studies investigate what happens when human sewage does the same.

“This isn’t the first study to produce a global wastewater model, but it is the first study to map the inputs of nitrogen and pathogens from wastewater across 130,000 watersheds across the planet,” Tuholske said. “And this is important because there are trade-offs in the intervention space.” Information from this model, he added, could make those trade-offs clearer and management decisions easier to make.

The Scale of the Problem
The majority of human wastewater is discharged into the ocean around the world in a variety of treated and untreated states from sewage, septic and direct input sources. Not surprisingly, major human wastewater sources are also places with dense human populations, which tend to aggregate around major watersheds.

“We estimate that 25 watersheds contribute approximately 46% of global nitrogen inputs from wastewater into the ocean,” said Tuholske, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University who conducted this study as a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara. “Nearly half as much nitrogen comes from wastewater as agricultural runoff globally,” he added, “which is a huge fraction.” Coastlines all around the world are affected by increased nitrogen, according to the paper.

Tuholske and an interdisciplinary group of fellow UCSB scientists — Ben Halpern, Gordon Blasco, Juan Carlos Villasenor, Melanie Frazier and Kelly Caylor — have created a data visualization that maps globally the sources and destinations of nitrogen, a common element in both agricultural and human wastewater that causes eutrophication. It’s a phenomenon in which excessive nutrients create phytoplankton blooms just offshore that produce toxins and deprive the waters in the area of oxygen. These so-called “dead zones” not only suffocate the sea life unfortunate enough to be trapped in them, but also can cause problems in the food chain, including for humans.

“Many coastal ecosystems, such as coral reefs and seagrass beds, are particularly sensitive to excess nutrients, even if you don’t have a dead zone,” said Halpern, a professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and the director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis at UCSB. “The whole ecosystem can tip into a highly degraded state when nutrient levels are too high. Coral reefs can be converted into fields of algae that overgrow and kill the corals below them. Our work here helps map where nutrients from wastewater are likely putting these ecosystems at greatest risk.”

For Tuholske, whose research focuses on food systems, the model puts into stark relief the impact of modern diets on coastal ecosystems.

“What was really surprising through this research is how diets shifting to animal-based proteins are impacting marine ecology,” he said. As countries get wealthier and incorporate more meat into their food systems, he explained, the more nitrogen shows up in the wastewater, in addition to the already high levels generated by agriculture.

“The more burgers people are eating, the more nitrogen is getting into the ocean,” he said.

Two Targets
Excessive nitrogen isn’t the only concern with the growing amount of human wastewater being discharged into the ocean; where wastewater goes, so too go pathogens. But the removal of nitrogen or pathogens can require very different methods, which can make it difficult for decisionmakers with finite resources and varying priorities to weigh their options between improving public health and protecting coastal ecosystems.

With the fine-scale estimates of nutrient and pathogen inputs provided by this model, the aim is to provide information that can lead to local solutions that together can tackle a complex global problem.

“These top-down, fine resolution hotspot maps can be matched with bottom-up approaches, and we can transfer knowledge across geographies,” Tuholske said. “Adaptation and mitigation really come from the bottom up, and having a global map helps to target priorities and share knowledge.

“While we map the scale of this problem, we can do something about it,” he added. “We can protect both public health and coastal ecosystems.”

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

How does homeschooling affect adolescents’ character, health and well-being?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: A YOUNG STUDENT WORKING FROM HOME view more 

CREDIT: JESSICA LEWIS, UNSPLASH, CC0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

Compared to peers at public schools, adolescents who are homeschooled are more likely to report greater character strengths and fewer risky health behaviors later in life, but are less likely to attain a college degree, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Tyler VanderWeele of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, US, and colleagues.

School experiences are crucial for shaping individuals’ developmental and well-being trajectories later in life. Past studies have explored associations between types of primary and secondary schools and academic achievement, but outcomes beyond academic performance remain less well understood.

In the new study, researchers used data from 12,288 adolescent children of nurses enrolled in the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS).  In 1999, baseline data, including the type of school a child was attending, was collected on children between the ages of 11 and 19. Data on outcomes were collected primarily from the 2010 wave of the GUTS questionnaire, or, when missing 2010 data, from the 2013 or 2007 questionnaire .

Few statistically significant differences were seen between children who attended public schools, private independent schools and private religious schools. However when comparing students who were homeschooled with those that attended public schools, some differences emerged.  Homeschooled children were more likely to report volunteering activities (β=0.33, 95% CI 0.15-0.52, p<0.002), forgiveness of others (β=0.31, 95% CI 0.16-0.46, p<0.002) and religious service attendance (RR=1.51, 95% CI 1.27-1.80, p<0.002) but less likely to have attained a college degree (RR=0.77, 95% CI 0.67-0.88, p<0.002). They were also somewhat less likely to have used marijuana, had a lower number of lifetime sexual partners, and a greater sense of mission. The results were limited by the fact that the children were all children of nurses and were mostly non-Hispanic White; findings may not be generalizable to other populations.

The authors conclude that the study results might help inform policy-makers, educators, parents and other education stakeholders in their decisions on school policy, especially as homeschooling practices and regulations change in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The authors add: "In a sample of adolescent children of reasonably well-educated parents, we found, on average, little difference in subsequent young adult health and wellbeing outcomes comparing those who attended public schools versus private schools. Those who were home-schooled were less likely to go on to attend college than those in public schools, but they were subsequently more likely to volunteer, to be forgiving, to have a sense of purpose, and to engage in healthier behaviors."

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0258723 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

School types in adolescence and subsequent health and well-being in young adulthood: An outcome-wide analysis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Nov-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Uncovering racial disparities in nonfatal police shootings

Four-state study suggests disparities in police shootings might be greater than previously thought

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: POPULATION ESTIMATES FOR FL ARE 2010–14 ACS 5-YEAR ESTIMATES. POPULATION ESTIMATES FOR CO, TX, AND CA ARE 2015–19 ACS 5-YEAR ESTIMATES. view more 

CREDIT: NIX, SHJARBACK, 2021, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

An analysis of data from four U.S. states suggests that Black people may be more likely than white people to be nonfatally shot and injured by police in these states, and these disparities are greater than seen for fatal police shootings. Justin Nix of the University of Nebraska Omaha and John Shjarback of Rowan University in New Jersey present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 10, 2021.

Previous research on bias in police use of deadly force has primarily focused on police shootings that killed civilians. However, limited insights can be drawn from data that omit instances in which police shootings result in injuries but not death. Datasets which only include fatalities might be systematically biased by post-incident factors which influence mortality, such as whether police officers administer first aid or whether an adult trauma care center is nearby. However, datasets which include non-fatal shootings will count all shootings regardless of post-incident factors, making data less prone to such biases.

Most states lack publicly available data on nonfatal police shootings. To demonstrate the need for such information, Nix and Shjarback investigated potential bias using several years’ worth of data on both fatal and nonfatal police shootings from four of the few states that compile it: Florida, Texas, Colorado, and California. Statistical analysis allowed them to account for demographics and other factors that could influence shooting outcomes, such as access to a trauma center.

They found that Black civilians were more likely than white civilians to be nonfatally shot and injured in each state, and that these disparities were greater than seen for fatal shootings. For instance, from 2016 to 2019, Black people in California were 3.91 times more likely than white people to be nonfatally shot, and 3.08 times more likely to be fatally shot.

The researchers note some limitations in their study, such as lack of data on the number of rounds fired in shootings, limited information on availability of medical care, and the fact that much of the data used were reported by police. The authors underline the need for more comprehensive data in all states in order to draw reliable conclusions about racial disparities in police shootings.

The authors add: “We currently have no comprehensive national data on police firearm discharges. Our study suggests there are likely hundreds of people nonfatally injured by police gunfire each year – a disproportionate share of them Black.”

 

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0259024 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Factors associated with police shooting mortality: A focus on race and a plea for more comprehensive data

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Nov-2021

Extinction Rebellion targets Amazon in Black Friday protests

Activists from the Extinction Rebellion group protest outside of Amazon's headquarters in central London on Friday (AFP/Tolga Akmen)

Fri, November 26, 2021,
Activists from the Extinction Rebellion group blockaded more than a dozen distribution centres of online retail giant Amazon in Britain in what they called coordinated global Black Friday sales protests.

Dozens of demonstrators from the environmental movement -- known as XR -- blocked the company's largest UK warehouse, in Dunfermline in Scotland, as well as sites across England collectively responsible for around half of its deliveries in Britain.

The group also claimed to have targeted Amazon's distribution sites in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, on the busiest day of the year for the retail behemoth.


The disruptive protests were "to confront the exploitative and environmentally destructive business practices of one of the world's largest companies", XR said in a statement.

Police made at least 13 arrests at three of the locations.

Five of them were at an Amazon facility in Kent, southeast England, on suspicion of aggravated trespass, while two men and two women were also arrested on suspicion of public nuisance in Manchester.

The activists blocked the entrances to the UK sites using bamboo structures and so-called lock-on devices, to form human chains, and displayed banners featuring slogans like "Amazon crime", "Infinite growth, finite planet" and "Black Friday exploits people and planet".

The activists said they arrived around 0400 GMT at the sites, which include locations in Newcastle, Manchester and Bristol as well as London, and aimed to stay for at least 48 hours.

"The action is intended to draw attention to Amazon's exploitative and environmentally destructive business practices, disregard for workers' rights in the name of company profits, as well as the wastefulness of Black Friday," an XR spokesperson said.

"The blockade is part of an international action by XR targeting 15 Amazon distribution centres in the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands, aimed at highlighting Amazon's 'crimes'."

The protest is the latest by the activist network, formed in the UK in 2018, which regularly uses civil disobedience to highlight government inaction on climate change but has sometimes drawn a public backlash.

Eleanor Harris, from Glasgow, took part in the Dunfermline blockade.

"The era of exploitative throw-away capitalism will soon be over, either by changing to meet the challenges we now face or by the destruction of our global habitats and societies," she said.

An Amazon spokesperson said the company takes its responsibilities, including a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040, "very seriously".

"We know there is always more to do, and we'll continue to invent and invest on behalf of our employees, customers, small businesses and communities in the UK," they added.

jj/pvh

The formation of the North American Monsoon: a unique case in the world

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA

 

IMAGE: DEFLECTION OF THE EASTWARD JET STREAM (ORANGE CONTOURS) FROM THE MIDLATITUDES TOWARD THE EQUATOR, WHERE IT PRODUCES PRECIPITATION (BLUE SHADING, UNITS OF MM/DAY) AS IT THEN ASCENDS OVER THE SIERRA MADRE MOUNTAIN RANGE (OUTLINED BY MAGENTA CONTOUR). view more 

CREDIT: BOOS, W. R., AND S. PASCALE

Monsoons are not found only in South Asia, but they are part of a global-scale circulation that affects almost all tropical regions (e.g. Australian monsoon, African monsoon, etc.). One occurs in North America too, the North American monsoon, which affects western Mexico and the southwestern United States, in particular, Arizona and New Mexico.

To date, this monsoon was considered similar to other monsoons, although smaller. However, new research published in Nature by two scientists from the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and the University of Bologna now provides a new perspective on the processes that drive its formation.

"The results of our study show that the North American monsoon does not originate from the seasonal oscillation of the ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone) over continental masses like a typical monsoon. Indeed, its origin represents a unique case as it is strongly influenced by Mexican orography which plays a key role in generating a stationary wave in the extratropical atmospheric circulation and deflecting the jet stream towards the Mexican west coast", explains Salvatore Pascale, one of the two authors of the study, researcher for the Atmospheric Physics Group of the Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi" at the University of Bologna and the Centre for Sustainability and Climate Change at the Bologna University Business School. "This new insight into the North American monsoon is relevant for understanding how climate change may affect this monsoon and how rising temperatures may change the extent of these weather phenomena".

Monsoons indirectly influence global atmospheric circulation. They also play a key role in regulating climate in many tropical areas, which usually experience dry winters and wet summers. They are essential in bringing water to regions inhabited by billions of people. The North American monsoon is especially associated with heavy summer rainfall over an area spanning more than a thousand kilometres and it plays a crucial role in the hydrology of western Mexico and the southwestern US.

In the summer season, monsoons generally originate from the rapid warming of tropical landmasses and the resulting transfer of energy to the atmosphere above. In turn, this generates a circulation capable of producing heavy rainfall. Until now, the North American monsoon was thought to originate in the same manner. Thanks to a set of numerical simulations, scientists analysed the origin of this monsoon, showing that the mountain ranges in the region and their interaction with the extratropical circulation are responsible for its formation.

These results have implications for models and types of analyses used to dynamically forecast rainfalls brought by the North American monsoon in the region, especially considering the consequences that climate change could have in terms of droughts or extreme weather events.

The study was published in Nature under the title “Mechanical forcing of the North American monsoon by orography”. The authors are William R. Boos of the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and Salvatore Pascale of the Department of Physics and Astronomy “Augusto Righi” (Atmospheric Physics Group) at the University of Bologna and the Centre for Sustainability and Climate Change at the Bologna University Business School.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-021-03978-2 

ARTICLE TITLE

Mechanical forcing of the North American monsoon by orography

Psychedelics show promise in treating mental illness

Peer-Reviewed Publication

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: DOCTORAL STUDENT BOHAN ZHU WORKS IN THE LAB OF CHANG LU ON PROJECTS THAT COULD LEAD TO NEW TREATMENTS FOR DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER. view more 

CREDIT: TONIA MOXLEY FOR VIRGINIA TECH

One in five U.S. adults will experience a mental illness in their lifetime, according to the National Alliance of Mental Health. But standard treatments can be slow to work and cause side effects.

To find better solutions, a Virginia Tech researcher has joined a renaissance of research on a long-banned class of drugs that could combat several forms of mental illness and, in mice, have achieved long-lasting results from just one dose.

Using a process his lab developed in 2015, Chang Lu, the Fred W. Bull Professor of Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering, is helping his Virginia Commonwealth University collaborators study the epigenomic effects of psychedelics. 

Their findings give insight into how psychedelic substances like psilocybin, mescaline, LSD, and similar drugs may relieve symptoms of addiction, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The drugs appear to work faster and last longer than current medications — all with fewer side effects.

The project hinged on Lu’s genomic analysis. His process allows researchers to use very small samples of tissue, down to hundreds to thousands of cells, and draw meaningful conclusions from them. Older processes require much larger sample sizes, so Lu’s approach enables the studies using just a small quantity of material from a specific region of a mouse brain.

And looking at the effects of psychedelics on brain tissues is especially important.

Researchers can do human clinical trials with the substances, taking blood and urine samples and observing behaviors, Lu said. “But the thing is, the behavioral data will tell you the result, but it doesn’t tell you why it works in a certain way,” he said.

But looking at molecular changes in animal models, such as the brains of mice, allows scientists to peer into what Lu calls the black box of neuroscience to understand the biological processes at work. While the brains of mice are very different from human brains, Lu said there are enough similarities to make valid comparisons between the two.

VCU pharmacologist Javier González-Maeso has made a career of studying psychedelics, which had been banned after recreational use of the drugs was popularized in the 1960s. But in recent years, regulators have begun allowing research on the drugs to proceed.

In work by other researchers, primarily on psilocybin, a substance found in more than 200 species of fungi, González-Maeso said psychedelics have shown promise in alleviating major depression and anxiety disorders. “They induce profound effects in perception,” he said. “But I was interested in how these drugs actually induce behavioral effects in mice.”

To explore the genomic basis of those effects, he teamed up with Lu.

In the joint Virginia Tech - VCU study, González-Maeso’s team used 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine, or DOI, a drug similar to LSD, administering it to mice that had been trained to fear certain triggers. Lu’s lab then analyzed brain samples for changes in the epigenome and the gene expression. They discovered that the epigenomic variations were generally more long-lasting than the changes in gene expression, thus more likely to link with the long-term effects of a psychedelic.

After one dose of DOI, the mice that had reacted to fear triggers no longer responded to them with anxious behaviors. Their brains also showed effects, even after the substance was no longer detectable in the tissues, Lu said. The findings were published in the October issue of Cell Reports. 

It’s a hopeful development for those who suffer from mental illness and the people who love them. In fact, it wasn’t just the science that drew Lu to the project. 

For him, it’s also personal.

"My older brother has had schizophrenia for the last 30 years, basically. So I've always been intrigued by mental health,” Lu said. “And then once I found that our approach can be applied to look at processes like that — that's why I decided to do research in the field of brain neuroscience."

González-Maeso said research on psychedelics is still in its early stages, and there’s much work to be done before treatments derived from them could be widely available.

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JOURNAL

Cell Reports