Sunday, December 26, 2021

 Sudbury

New grant aims to expand ecological agriculture in northern Ontario

FedNor, EFAO pilot project aims to improve local food

 economies through sustainable farming


Warren Schlote · CBC News · 
Allison Muckle said EFAO is hoping to ease the farm succession crisis and support community-based food economies. (Submitted by EFAO)

A new federal funding stream is aimed at supporting ecological agriculture startups in northern Ontario by covering half of new farmers' eligible equipment costs.

The Ecological Farmers' Association of Ontario announced the new pilot program last week. In addition to partially funding eligible expenses through a FedNor grant, EFAO connects participants with mentorship opportunities.

Ecological agriculture is defined as agriculture that uses regenerative, holistic or organic practices to improve soil health, protect biodiversity and water sources, reduce synthetic chemical usage and use renewable energy sources.

Allison Muckle is the director of northern outreach and new farmer programs at EFAO. She said the grant program is on the smaller side, but this allows her organization to target underserved farmers and have a bigger impact on the north.

"By supporting these sorts of smaller-scale farms that are often selling direct to their customers, I think that really supports the local food economy," Muckle said.

The pilot project has a total of $80,000 available for farmers who are new to ecological farming. 

Agriculture faces 'succession crisis'

Programs such as this, which encourage young people to try out agriculture, are crucial in ending the "farm succession crisis," said Muckle. She said the average age of farmers is now above 50, and many will retire in the near future without plans for who, if anyone, will take over their operations.

"There's a lot of people that want to get into the agriculture industry, but there's a lot of barriers that people are facing," Muckle said, citing the high cost of starting a farm, particularly current land prices, as major barriers to entry that are worsening over time.

Successful applicants will receive a FedNor grant through EFAO for half the purchase price of the equipment they need to start a farm, up to $10,000 per farm. Eligible equipment includes items such as greenhouses, processing equipment and fencing. 

The pilot is in an initial-inquiry phase until Jan. 14, 2022. EFAO will then invite promising proposals to make a formal application.

Funding meant to help younger generation

Muckle said many younger farmers are drawn to agriculture through more sustainable and ecological practices, especially as climate change becomes a more prominent issue.

"I think there's a lot of younger people or a lot of people that are maybe thinking of switching careers who are interested in farming," she said. She said there was already some interest during the first few days of the pilot in late December.

FedNor spokesperson Barclay Babcock said this program is part of $245,892 it gave to EFAO in 2020, with the aim of promoting sustainable agriculture and drawing young farmers who can help innovate the sector.

He said the program aligns with inclusion and clean technology sections of Canada's Innovation and Skills Plan, "given that new, small farm start-ups tend to be youth and women-owned, and focused on sustainable production practices."

Babcock said the Sustainable New Agri-food Products and Productivity (SNAPP) program at the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre is another FedNor investment that aims to overcome barriers inherent to northern Ontario's agri-food sector.

Details about the ecological agriculture start-up grant pilot project are published on EFAO's website.

Posted by at No comments:
B.C. Legion facing holiday eviction from building it helped build on land it donated

By Simon Little and Paul Johnson 
 Global News
Updated December 25, 2021 

A longstanding B.C. legion whose members have been giving back to the community for decades says it's been handed a New Year's Eve eviction notice. Paul Johnson explains why the Kitsilano hall is getting the boot and whether a half century old handshake agreement will allow its veterans to stay.

A Vancouver branch of the Royal Canadian Legion says it’s facing a holiday eviction notice — from a building on land it originally bought, from a building it helped pay to build.

The Shalom Branch 178 was formed 75 years ago and has been active in the community since then, raising money for numerous causes and supporting veterans.

In 1973 it bought a piece of land at Maple Street and West 6th Avenue, which it gifted to a new housing society along with $1 million to help build a 106-unit low-income housing development.

Robert Underhill, second vice-president of the Legion’s B.C.-Yukon Command said that initiative founded on a key agreement.

“There was never, ever a lease created. It was on a handshake that the Legion, because of its donation to get the building they would be able to occupy the hall here for absolutely no fee,” he said.

Nearly 50 years later, Underhill said the society began demanding rent from the Legion. When the organization declined to pay, he said they were hit with a notice to vacate the property by Dec. 31.



“Based on what we know about the agreement, the branch did not pay the rent,” he said. “They have been seeking to try and get some kind of agreement or go back to the original agreement, even better, and the housing society isn’t even discussing it.”

The society that runs the housing project was originally named the Shalom Branch #178 Building Society. Its original board members have long since moved on, and the society has been renamed the “Maple Crest Housing Society.”

Global News attempted to contact the society through Jeff Simons, listed as its business contact on its legal paperwork filed with the province.

No phone number was listed with the organization, and Simons was not home when a reporter visited his his Richmond home, nor did he respond to a request for comment.

Vancouver property lawyer Ashley Syer said the dispute highlights the risks of handshake deals.

“An oral contract is still a contract, it’s just harder to prove,” she said.

She added that the Legion can point to its five decade history of not paying rent for the space, but still would face challenges.

“It is an interesting situation where you have a gift of property and a gift of money to get something up and running, with a certain understanding,” she said.


“But it’s one of the dangers of not papering an agreement like that, is that down the road where you have maybe this change maybe in board membership or maybe in priorities of an organization. If you don’t have the paperwork to back it up, you run the risk of this handshake deal maybe not being so meaningful anymore.”

Katherine Jardine, who has lived in the housing development for the past eight years, said she was heartbroken over the eviction order.

“I have been so distraught for the last few weeks over the situation,” she said.

“Especially when you know that the legion built this place and give a place for people like me that are low income or disabled, people who really need a place they can afford. I’m sorry, this is a disgrace.”

For its part, the Legion branch has no plans to meet the eviction deadline.

Underhill said the branch has written to Attorney General David Eby, who is also the MLA for the district, to ask him to intervene.

“I don’t think its very above board when you’re throwing a tenant out who is trying to help the community,” he said.

“It’s just wrong.”

© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Posted by at No comments:

 

Siksika Nation approves $1.3-billion settlement With the feds

$1.3B settlement with feds

Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Alberta Native News -  | Story: 355518

The Siksika Nation has voted to accept a one-time $1.3-billion payment as resolution to a wrongful surrender claim from more than 100 years ago — one of the longest running land claims in Canadian history.

With a 70 per cent turnout at polls on Dec. 16 and 17 on Siksika reseve and in Calgary, as well as mail-in ballots from those who couldn’t vote in person, 77 per cent voted in favour of the settlement, according to a news release from Siksika Nation.

In addition to the compensation, there is an option for band members to apply for up to 115,000 acres of land purchased by the nation to be added to the reserve from anywhere in Alberta.

Siksika Nation Chief Ouray Crowfoot expressed satisfaction with turnout, but acknowledged that it was a difficult decision for band members to make.

“This settlement is not reconciliation. We will never be restored to the same as before these breaches took place. We lost almost half of our landbase and access to ceremonial sites and our connection to the land,” said Crowfoot.

“One thing the settlement can provide is opportunities. Financial opportunities that can open many doors for our people and be a move towards financial sovereignty. Opportunities that can help remove barriers, build capacity and provide services to help better the standard of life for all our People.”

Siksika’s 1910 land surrender to the Crown was based on a fraudulent vote, with many of the yes votes coming from people who had died or were underage, Crowfoot told CBC News.

The agreement also covers the confiscation of land to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, flooding and release of sewage onto reserve without the nation’s approval, and the illegal seizure of about 500 acres of reserve for the Bow River Irrigation Project.

“This is a case of basically righting a wrong that should’ve never happened,” Crowfoot told the CBC.

He dated efforts to redress this wrong to the 1960s.

Siksika Nation and the federal government have been in negotiations since 2016.

“There’s been a lot of chiefs, a lot of council, a lot of technicians that put in a lot of work over six decades,” said Crowfoot.

The nation intends on using the funds to establish a trust to ensure its future financial independence, he added.

Crowfoot said the investments made with the trust funds will also benefit people outside the nation’s membership, with infrastructure and construction jobs attracting people from off reserve.

“This is not just a win just for Siksika, this is a win for all of southern Alberta,” he said.

Posted by at No comments:

 

Extinct shark named after LSU museum official as she retires

Special retirement honour

The Canadian Press -  | Story: 355481

A Louisiana State University museum official has received a unique retirement gift -- researchers in Alabama and South Carolina named a prehistoric shark species after her.

Suyin Ting has been collections manager for vertebrate paleontology at the LSU Museum of Natural Science for 26 years. Her new namesake is Carcharhinus tingae, which lived 40 million years ago and was identified from fossilized teeth in the museum’s collection.

“I am very honored to be recognized by my peers for my work,” Ting, who studied mammal paleontology, said in a news release Thursday, the day she retired.

But, she added, the fact that David Cicimurri of the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, and Jun Ebersole of the McWane Science Center in Birmingham, Alabama, also identified many other specimens for the museum is much more important. Their contribution to the vertebrate paleontology collection is huge, she said.

Cicimurri, curator of natural history at the South Carolina museum, and Ebersole, director of collections at McWane, spent two days at the museum in 2020, photographing specimens and gathering data. The museum doesn't have a fossil fish specialist, and they were able to identify much of the material previously labeled "fish.”

Because shark skeletons are made of cartilage rather than bone, their teeth are often the only fossils available.

The two scientists realized that some hand-sized teeth were from a previously unrecognized species. Their paper identifying and describing it was published this week in the journal Cainozoic Research.

The researchers spent months studying the teeth, comparing them to those of other fossil and modern-day sharks.

“We were able to determine that the fossil species was closely related to modern requiem sharks, so we used jaws of modern species to reconstruct how the teeth were arranged in the mouth of the extinct species,” Cicimurri said.

According to the researchers, Carcharhinus tingae teeth have not yet been found anywhere but Louisiana, where they are relatively common — evidence that these sharks lived in an ancient ocean that covered what is now Louisiana.

The scientists came to LSU to work on a chapter for a book that is not yet published, to be titled “Vertebrate Fossils of Louisiana."

Posted by at No comments:
How a great white shark altered an N.S. underwater researcher’s diving plans for 2022

By Michael Tutton The Canadian Press
Posted December 24, 2021 12:59 pm

Shark expert, and Executive Director of Dalhousie University’s Ocean Tracking Network, Dr. Fred Whoriskey, weighs in on a weekend shark attack in Nova Scotia waters that sent a 21-year-old woman to hospital with serious injuries – Aug 16, 2021

Chris Harvey-Clark says a close underwater encounter earlier this year with one of the ocean’s great predators has changed his diving plans for 2022.

On Nov. 9, 2021, as Dalhousie University’s veterinarian was scuba diving in waters off Halifax, hoping to see torpedo rays, he was hunted by a great white shark 23 metres below the surface.

In an interview Friday, the diver recalled how the juvenile shark’s length of two to three metres indicated the animal was at its most dangerous stage of development — when it stops focusing on hunting fish and starts seeking large mammals. Rather than being intimidated by the bubbles, noise and lights of the underwater human, the shark seemed curious and appeared to go into stalking mode, the researcher said.

“These days we don’t have the opportunity much to be hunted by large predators, but I can tell you large parts of your brain light right up when you’re on the receiving end,” he said. The animal cruised by him three times, he said, adding that it was a clear sign of its interest in him as prey.

READ MORE: Shark seen feeding off N.S. by whale watchers was young great white: marine biologist

Harvey-Clark said the experience changed his approach to diving at the site.

“My willingness to get in the water in that area from August to November is going to go way down,” said Harvey-Clark, who teaches a summer course on sharks at Dalhousie.

The waters of the coastal Atlantic are warming, and researchers are reporting more shark sightings. Harvey-Clark suggests it’s reaching a point where it’s wise for frequent divers and students of the ocean to consider the risks and be aware of their presence.

The North Atlantic tends to be murky and dark – superb hunting conditions for ambush predators to hunt seals, he explained. “The great whites can discern very subtle shades of grey that you and I can’t see, which means they can see you and you can’t see them in poor visibility.”

READ MORE: Shark Expert Weighs in on Apparent Great White Attack in Cape Breton

He recalled ascending quickly to the surface, but he said that as he came close to the boat, he felt a deep, instinctual terror that humans experience when they sense they are being preyed upon.

“It was really scary,” he said. “I was just waiting for that searing crunch and having some body part carried away.”

Next year, he said he’ll use remote sensing systems at times instead of dives to study torpedo rays, particularly in the summer.

Harvey-Clark, who provides submissions to the Florida-based International Shark Attack File, noted that 2021 was also the year of a suspected shark attack involving a 21-year-old woman from Cape Breton. She was allegedly bitten off the west coast of Cape Breton in late August.

He said he requested an interview with the woman to file a report on the attack, but he heard through his contacts she had declined to be interviewed and as a result, there are no definitive findings on what happened.

“I understand her concern, just seeing one (shark) scared the heck out of me,” he said. “This was the most terrifying event in my life.”

READ MORE: Great White Shark Research Team Embarks on Final N.S. Expedition

Harvey-Clark said that while working on a documentary recently about great white sharks, he was amazed at how close the animals were to the Nova Scotia shore. “They are right there, 30 metres offshore in six metres of water,” he said.

Sightings of great white sharks have increased in recent years. For example, this past summer, tourists on a whale-watching boat off Cape Breton captured video of the predator ripping at a seal carcass.

Fred Whoriskey, executive director of the Ocean Tracking Network at Dalhousie and Harvey-Clark’s research partner, has said there isn’t scientific consensus on whether the great white population is increasing in the northwest Atlantic. But he has said there are tentative signs that more of the animals are coming into the region, such as increased sightings of young sharks by scientists and the public.

The species is listed as endangered in both Canada and the United States — meaning harvesting the animals is prohibited — and Whoriskey has said the restrictions have likely helped the population of great whites recover in recent decades.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 24, 2021.
Posted by at No comments:

CONSERVATIVE GOVT.

Leadership lacking in Manitoba as COVID-19 cases surge, Omicron spreads, say bewildered experts

'Most dangerous series of human-to-human transmission

 in this province': Dr. Aleeza Gerstein

Nathan Liewicki · CBC News · 
Cars line up for COVID-19 testing on King Edward Street in Winnipeg earlier this week. As cases surge and Omicron spreads, people are waiting several hours to get their tests and up to four days to see their results. The province on Friday said it has a backlog of 10,000 specimens waiting to be processed. (Jaison Empson/CBC)

Andrea Carlson was preparing to host a small Christmas Day gathering with members of her extended family.

She abruptly cancelled those plans after Manitoba's top doctor implored everyone to curtail their holiday gathering plans Friday.

Manitoba reported a pandemic-high 742 cases of COVID-19 on Friday, with Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin pointing to the rapid transmission of the Omicron variant fuelling the high case counts.

Instead of gathering with loved ones, Carlson will celebrate with her immediate family of three, connect with extended family via Zoom and drive around to deliver the 15 pounds of turkey she is cooking.

"I'm really sad. I'm tired, but it's the right thing to do," Carlson said.

Dee Pearson isn't changing her family's Christmas plans.

"I get the whole COVID thing but you just don't know when the last time is you're going to be with your family, so that's why we are going to continue to go on," Pearson said.

Larry Tornborough isn't changing his Christmas Day plans. He will be watching football and eating turkey with his friend but believes the province shouldn’t have opened things up as quickly as it did. (Randall McKenzie/CBC)

Larry Tornborough isn't changing his Christmas plans either.

He will be watching football and eating turkey with his friend, but believes the province shouldn't have opened things up as quickly as it did.

"They should have left it as it was … all they've got is people going haywire," Tornborough said.

"One day it's on. One day it's off. You don't know what to do."

What's missing is "authentic leadership" from Premier Heather Stefanson, says Dr. Eric Jacobsohn, an intensive care physician at St. Boniface Hospital and Health Sciences Centre.

Stefanson wasn't part of Friday's press conference — virtually or in person.

Health Minister Audrey Gordon defended the premier's absence.

"What I can say is that I have the full confidence of the premier, as does Dr. [Joss] Reimer and Dr. Roussin to communicate to Manitobans how urgent it is that they follow the public health orders," Gordon said.

Jacobsohn, who is also a cardiac anesthesiologist and professor in the Max Rady College of Medicine at University of Manitoba, estimates the number of cases being reported is between 25 and 30 per cent of the actual cases of COVID-19 the province is adding daily.

Dr. Eric Jacobsohn, a Winnipeg intensive care physician, believes the province needs to issue a lockdown order to prevent further spread of COVID-19 and further deaths that may result from the virus. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

If that's true, those 742 cases would be approaching 3,000 — exorbitantly higher than the 1,000 cases a day Roussin previously warned Manitoba might experience. 

Jacobsohn says the fact the province is pleading with people to stay home, reduce gathering sizes and limit the number of functions they go to is a statement.

"We need to lock down. The question is why aren't we locking down? It's what authentic leadership is about," Jacobsohn told CBC News. "It's not going to be popular, but is this something potentially that will save lives? Yes, and that's how it should have been framed."

Most people in Manitoba's health-care system are calling it "bewildering why a decision wasn't made to lock down," he said.

"We're making a bet here on the health-care system that I would say is a silly bet. I think we're betting on a lame horse."

Dr. Aleeza Gerstein, an assistant professor in microbiology and statistics at the University of Manitoba, also wanted to hear a stronger message from health officials.

"We are now in the middle of the most dangerous series of human-to-human transmission in this province we have yet seen.

"Every single person you are interacting with is a potential carrier of the Omicron variant and you should behave accordingly, which means minimize your contacts to your household unless you absolutely cannot," she said.

Dr. Aleeza Gerstein, an assistant professor in microbiology and statistics at the University of Manitoba, doesn’t understand what is driving policy decisions in the province. (Zoom)

Gerstein knows the timing of enhanced restrictions would be terrible, but believes it's necessary.

"We simply can't afford to do anything except cancel absolutely everything that is not critical because we are already on course for our hospitals to reach unprecedented levels of people requiring acute care in the upcoming weeks," Gerstein said.

She doesn't understand what is driving policy decisions in the province. If she was in charge, a rapid testing drive-thru would have already been created so symptomatic people could know almost immediately if they need to isolate from a positive result.

Instead, Manitoba's COVID-19 testing specimen backlog has reached 10,000 samples and the wait time to receive results is at least four days.

Roussin said Manitobans need to prepare to not have large gatherings next week, but Carlson isn't sure if more restrictions are needed.

"I think the government's doing a good job. I support what they're doing," Carlson said.

"I do in some respects wish that they'd have just come out with a harder line today, but I also think it's up to people to do the right thing."

Changing Christmas Day plans

2 days ago
Duration2:10
After COVID-19 numbers rise, some Manitobans change their holiday gathering plans. 2:10
Posted by at No comments:
Omicron variant has 37 spike protein mutations: Canadian study
The study conducted a near atomic resolution analysis of the variant using a cryo-electron microscope
People queue up for their Covid-19 vaccine booster shots at a clinic inside the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, as the latest Omicron variant emerges as a threat, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (REUTERS)

Updated on Dec 23, 2021
By Anirudh Bhattacharyya

Canadian researchers on Wednesday revealed, what they say, is the first molecular structural analysis of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in the country which has shown that it has three to five times more mutations in its spike protein than any previous variant.

A near atomic resolution analysis of the variant using a cryo-electron microscope, “reveals how the heavily mutated variant infects human cells and is highly evasive of immunity,” the Canadian researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC), which conducted the study, said.

Dr Subramaniam, a professor in the faculty of medicine’s department of biochemistry and molecular biology who led the study, described Omicron having 37 spike protein mutations as “unprecedented”.

“This is important for two reasons. Firstly, because the spike protein is how the virus attaches to and infects human cells. Secondly, because antibodies attach to the spike protein in order to neutralize the virus. Therefore, small mutations on the spike protein have potentially big implications for how the virus is transmitted, how our body fights it off, and the effectiveness of treatments,” he said.

The pre-publication study at bioRxiv noted the Delta variant had seven mutations in the spike protein and had only two in common with Omicron. “Analysis of the sequence of the Omicron genome suggests that it is not derived from any of the currently circulating variants, and may have a different origin,” the Canadian study stated.

“Our experiments confirm what we’re seeing in the real world — that the Omicron spike protein is far better than other variants at evading monoclonal antibodies that are commonly used as treatments, as well as at evading the immunity produced by both vaccines and natural infection,” Dr Subramanian said. It was, however, less evasive of immunity created by vaccines than that produced through natural infection.

“Sera from convalescent patients shows an even greater drop in neutralization potency relative to the Delta variant (8.2x decrease) while the vaccinated group also shows reduction in potency, although to a lesser extent (3.4x decrease),” the study said.

This point was also stressed upon by Dr Subramaniam, as he said, “This suggests that vaccination remains our best defence against the Omicron variant.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anirudh Bhattacharyya is a Toronto-based commentator on North American issues, and an author. He has also worked as a journalist in New Delhi and New York spanning print, television and digital media. He tweets as @anirudhb

Could Omicron have been predicted? First-of-its-kind technology possibly foresees variants

By Noor Ibrahim Global News
Posted December 24, 2021 

What would predicting a variant mean for pandemic preparedness and vaccine manufacturing? Noor Ibrahim talks to a team of researchers that believe their technology can accomplish a first-of-its-kind feat in Canada.

From a fake movie poster allegedly predicting its arrival in the 1960s to a hoax Simpsons episode foreshadowing widespread panic, there’s been no shortage of speculation that the onset of the Omicron COVID-19 variant was foreseen way before its arrival.

But while all of those examples have been downgraded to being just plain misinformation, questions do still remain about whether we could have actually seen Omicron coming.

Health officials have long been warning that the coronavirus, and other viruses, mutates as it replicates and infects new hosts – but could they possibly predict what a variant will look like, and how it will behave, way before the virus even mutates?

READ MORE: COVID-19 mutations make pandemic trajectory unpredictable, experts say

A team of researchers at the University of Waterloo believe they’ve come up with a technology that could come pretty close

“It has been shown by us and other researchers that artificial intelligence and text mining algorithms can be used to model genetic codes and predict virus mutations,” said Mohammad Kohandel, lead of the Mathematical Modelling and Biology Lab at the University of Waterloo, and a pioneer on this project alongside Amir Hossein Darooneh and Michelle Przedborski.

The team believes its technology is the first of its kind in the country.

Their secret? Machine learning and genomes — the building block sequence for the virus.

As a virus is copying itself, it will accidentally make “copying errors” or mistakes in the genome sequence, resulting in a mutation. A variant could have one or many mutations within its sequence.

Delta has two mutations in its genome, Kohandel said. Omicron has 50.

Viruses make ‘copying errors,’ or mutations, when replicating that could make them more or less transmissible. Global GFX for Noor Ibrahim

The parts of the genome that are “conserved,” or stay the same, are the ones targeted by the team’s technology.

Using only the original genome sequence for the COVID-19 virus, artificial intelligence can identify the conserved parts of the genome, and then predict which ones will mutate.

So far, the team has trained the AI to be able to predict — with high accuracy — Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma and other variants. It also predicted 19 out of the 50 highly possible mutations for Omicron.

“It is important to highlight that these predictions are not 100, we just gave which ones are more likely to be mutated,” said Kohandel. “It’s very fast and efficient, so we can have the result during hours.”

Headquartered in Ottawa, a team of 57 national researchers are also doing integral work in studying variants.

The Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network (CoVaRR-Net), is closely monitoring COVID-19 variants identified across the globe, and is actively trying to pinpoint which ones could become “variants of concern” – meaning variants that have become stronger, more transmissible or more resistant to vaccine through mutations.

“The focus now is mainly on Omicron, but also we’re casting a wider net,” said Jesse Shapiro, Pillar 6 lead in computational biology and modelling and professor at McGill University.

“We’re looking at, for example, if the Delta variant and the Alpha variant infected the same person, could that create a hybrid strain?”

Shapiro says CoVaRR-Net researchers are able to recognize old mutations they’ve seen before, which helps them assess how dangerous a new variant can be, in order to alert health authorities.

“We brief the deputy health minister on at least a weekly basis, if not more. We are in pretty much constant communication with the National Microbiology Laboratory and the Public Health Agency of Canada.”

READ MORE: Omicron’s community transmission could ‘rapidly escalate’ in coming days, Tam warns

Shapiro also says researchers know virus mutations have constraints.

Think of it as swapping words out in a sentence: there’s only so much you can change before the sentence stops making sense. Similarly, a mutation has to make sense within the overall genome sequence – otherwise, it will become gibberish, and the sequence will “break,” said Shapiro.

All this information gives scientists a good idea of what to expect next from a virus — although not 100 per cent.

In any case, knowing which parts of a virus will stay the same is integral in crafting a vaccine that would not be impacted by new variants, both Kohandel and Shapiro stress.

“Canada has an army that is standing and ready to go. This is the sort of analogy that we’d like to have for pandemic preparedness,” Shapiro told Global.

Meanwhile, back at the University of Waterloo, Kohandel and his team are trying to refine their technology further by training the AI’s “neural” network to potentially predict variants in the exact order that they will mutate.

Alpha variant evolved to suppress the immune system and Omicron shares a similar mutation: study

Alexandra Mae Jones
CTVNews.ca writer
 Saturday, December 25, 2021

New research investigating how the very first variant of concern for the novel coronavirus developed has found that the Alpha variant evolved mutations that suppressed specific aspects of the immune system, similar to mutations seen in newer variants such as Omicron.

The Alpha variant first emerged in the U.K. in the fall of 2020, introducing the world to the frightening idea of variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Although it has since been outstripped by subsequent variants including Delta and Omicron, studying Alpha’s structure and function helps scientists better understand how virus variants evolve.

Researchers from the U.S. and the U.K. worked together to investigate how Alpha attacked the human body, and found that the mutations that allowed it to thrive go beyond just those centred around the spike protein.

Their research, described in the journal Nature on Thursday, discovered that the Alpha variant upped production of a specific protein that could help it suppress how infected cells signalled the immune system.

To look deeper into how the Alpha variant worked, researchers looked at lab-grown cells infected by this variant to monitor protein levels and how the cells functioned.

They then compared the data to how cells responded to infection with the original strain of COVID-19. The biggest difference was in how the body’s innate immune response reacted — or didn’t. This is the body’s first line of defence, which attempts to keep pathogens from entering. Researchers say Alpha interfered with the rallying cry that usually activates this system.

Inside cells infected with Alpha were an abundance of three viral proteins that are known to help COVID-19 avoid the immune response. One in particular, called Orf9b, achieved this by blocking a protein in our cells that normally switches on the genes that signal our immune system to react.

Researchers said in the study that this type of mutation could have contributed to enhanced transmission of the Alpha variant by suppressing more of that early immune response, which may have allowed for the variant to replicate faster.

These findings show that the spike protein isn’t the only factor researchers should be thinking about when designing treatments to help those infected with COVID-19.

As SARS-CoV-2 uses spike proteins on its surface to attach to receptors in a person’s cells, mutations around spike proteins are often talked about more than other types. With the Delta variant, a more efficient spike protein is thought to help it fuse to our cells better, and all of the current COVID-19 vaccines are targeted to get our cells to produce immune responses against this spike protein.

“The mutations in spike allow the virus to get into cells more effectively,” Devan Krogan, one of the authors of the paper and lead of the University of California San Francisco’s Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) and its Coronavirus Research Group (QCRG), said in a press release.

“But what about after the virus gets into cells? There may be other mutations that allow it to replicate more.”

Although each variant is different, many share similar mutations, with both Delta and Omicron appearing as cousins of the Alpha variant. Delta and Omicron both have similar mutations in the areas that researchers studied of the Alpha variant, which means they could be having similar impacts on the immune system.

“The virus will keep evolving and adapting to the host, and every time it will adapt better and better,” Lorena Zuliani-Alvarez, a co-author and senior scientist at the QBI, said in the release. “That’s why Omicron has 53 mutations.”

The research points out that studying mutations outside of those around the spike protein will give scientists a bigger picture of the virus as it evolves, something that will be crucial in fighting future variants.

“Studying the variants of concern gives us ideas about how SARS-CoV-2 evolves,” Mehdi Bouhaddou, a postdoctoral scholar and co-author, said in the release. “Now we have a sense of the proteins that are mutating most frequently, and the biological consequences of those mutations. I think this helps us prepare for what might come next.”

Posted by at No comments:

Moira Donovan · CBC News · 
This is a representation of the kind of tree that is now a 310-million-year-old fossil in the Dawn of Life gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum. (Danielle Dufault)

An ancient tree that began its modern journey after falling out of a cliff in Nova Scotia is now on display in a new gallery in one of the busiest museums in the country.

After decades of preparation, the Dawn of Life gallery opened this month at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, bringing together a unique collection of fossils from UNESCO world heritage sites across the country. 

One of those fossils is an irregular column discovered at the fossil cliffs at Joggins, N.S. It's a fossilized tree that dates back to the Carboniferous era, when the cliffs that now line the Bay of Fundy were an equatorial swamp at the heart of the supercontinent Pangea.

The 310-million-year-old tree is now part of a permanent ROM exhibit that traces life from its earliest origins, four billion years in the past, to the appearance of the first dinosaurs and mammals about 200 million years ago.

The fossilized tree from the site in Joggins, N.S., now sits in the Dawn of Life gallery at the ROM. (David McKay)

"Across Canada, you'll find sites that speak well to fossils," said Jordan LeBlanc, director of operations at the Joggins Fossil Institute. "I love that we are represented there as well — Joggins is represented with the best."

'You reflect on how old life is'

The Dawn of Life gallery draws on Canada's high proportion of UNESCO world heritage sites to trace life from its oldest known evidence.

"This is something that is really often neglected in museums across the world," said Jean-Bernard Caron, the Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the ROM.

The gallery begins with a single-celled organism from approximately four billion years ago, which scientists call LUCA and which was found in Quebec. 

"As you look at this piece, you reflect on how old life is and how we are all connected to a single ancestor," said Caron.

From there, the gallery moves through fossils from Canada's UNESCO sites, from the early organisms found at Mistaken Point, in Newfoundland, where traces of some of the first examples of multicellular life forms are found, to the Burgess Shale in the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, which tells the story of the origin of animals in what's known as the Cambrian explosion.

"Basically, the roots of our modern world can be traced to the Burgess Shale," said Caron.

Jean-Bernard Caron, the curator of paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, said Dawn of Life is a gallery that could only be executed in Canada, given the high number of UNESCO world heritage sites in the country. (Moira Donovan/CBC)

Fossils from a third UNESCO site — Miguasha National Park in eastern Quebec — show important developments from the "age of fishes," including fossils of fish that would give rise to four-legged, land-based animals from approximately 370 million years ago.

Finally, the gallery leads to the Carboniferous period, where the stump from Joggins serves as a centrepiece, Caron said.

A puzzle piece in our understanding

Trees in that period, unlike those today, had rigid exteriors and fibrous centres. When those centres rotted away, it left a hollow tube into which sand or mud would once have poured, eventually forming the kind of column that now sits in the ROM.

This type of "cast and mould" fossil is common at Joggins, although not many are as large, and dates back to a time when tropical rainforests first appeared on the planet, contributing oxygen to the atmosphere that allowed large organisms to flourish.

This is another representation of the Carboniferous period and the tree that now sits as a fossil in the Royal Ontario Museum. Trees at this time were closer to club mosses than the trees of today, and could reach 50 metres in height. (Danielle Dufault)

But this period isn't only significant to the history of life, it's also a crucial part of our understanding of that history, said John Calder, a geologist and paleontologist who has worked for much of his career on the Joggins fossil cliffs.

"It was in those rainforests that the evolution from amphibians to reptiles happened and is recorded," Calder said. "And Joggins happens to have the oldest example, in the fossil record of reptiles, of this seminal step in the evolution or branching of the tree of life."

About 300 million years ago, a number of these early reptiles either fell into the hollow trunks of trees at Joggins, or — Calder's favourite theory — were using them as dens, when they were buried by mud and sand. 

In the mid-1800s, Charles Lyell, a Scottish geologist and pioneer of modern geology, was walking the beach at Joggins and found a fossilized stump containing the bones of one of these reptiles.

The tree now stands in the Carboniferous section of the Dawn of Life gallery, where it can be touched by visitors, just as had been the case when it was at Joggins Fossil Centre. (David McKay)

The discovery was a sensation — so much so that Charles Darwin would go on to refer to Joggins in On the Origin of Species — and played a role in shaping the understanding of evolution. 

Exalting 'the wonders and importance of nature' 

Calder said it's gratifying to see Joggins shaping that understanding once again by appearing in the ROM's Dawn of Life gallery, in part because of the relationship between Joggins and the people of Nova Scotia — and one person in particular, the late Don Reid.

Several decades ago, Reid found the tree now at the ROM, and Calder has given him the title "the keeper of the cliffs."

"Here's an ex-coal miner who [took] his love of the place he lived in, before others really stepped up to do something, to do the proper recognition of Joggins. He was there, he and his family, and others at Joggins before him," Calder said. 

"And this is the same elsewhere around Nova Scotia. There are people that care, and they get the wonders and importance of nature in the broad sense in Nova Scotia, and what we have to offer, and it's those everyday people who really make it work."

Calder said Reid would have been "thrilled" to see the tree, and the care that went into it, now reaching an even broader audience with the opening of the Dawn of Life gallery.

"He was all about sharing the story of the wonders of Joggins, and so he would be tickled pink to have that tree that he had collected on display at the ROM — and to me that's really what's special."

The tree was carefully packed by staff at the Nova Scotia Museum, including curator of geology Tim Fedak, and sent to the ROM in 2019. (Moira Donovan/CBC)

Billions of years in the making

The gallery is opening after a summer and fall of extreme weather events linked to climate change and amid the ongoing instability caused by the pandemic. Caron, the ROM curator, said it's a way for people to understand what happened in the past, and a reminder of the fragility of life. 

"It took billions of years, sometimes, to create the organisms that we see today," Caron said. "And it's actually very fragile in the sense that you can destroy these life forms, which carry all this history in themselves, in the blink of an eye."

He said there have been several mass extinction events in the history of life of Earth, including ones that are represented in the gallery. But none happened with the speed — or because of a single species — as the changes we're witnessing now. 

"The fossil record in this gallery hopefully gives the visitor a way to reflect on the big challenges that we're facing today," Caron said. "And hopefully, to understand and to value what life is, and hopefully to protect it as well."

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)