New Omicron subvariant BQ.1.1 resistant to all therapeutic antibodies

Development of new antibody therapies necessary

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DEUTSCHES PRIMATENZENTRUM (DPZ)/GERMAN PRIMATE CENTER

 

IMAGE: THE OMICRON SUBVARIANTS BA.1, BA.4, BA.5 AS WELL AS Q.1.1 HAVE A HIGH NUMBER OF MUTATIONS IN THE SPIKE PROTEIN. SOME OF THESE MUTATIONS ARE ESCAPE MUTATIONS THAT ALLOW THE VIRUS TO ESCAPE NEUTRALIZATION BY ANTIBODIES. IN ADDITION, RESISTANCE TO BIOTECHNOLOGICALLY PRODUCED ANTIBODIES, WHICH ARE ADMINISTERED TO HIGH-RISK PATIENTS AS A PREVENTIVE MEASURE OR AS THERAPY FOR A DIAGNOSED SARS-COV-2 INFECTION, IS ALSO DEVELOPING. OMICRON SUB-LINEAGE BQ.1.1 IS THE FIRST VARIANT RESISTANT TO ALL ANTIBODY THERAPIES CURRENTLY APPROVED BY THE EMA (EUROPEAN MEDICINES AGENCY) AND/OR FDA (US FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION). view more 

CREDIT: MARKUS HOFFMANN, DEUTSCHES PRIMATENZENTRUM

Are the currently approved antibody therapies used to treat individuals at increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease also effective against currently circulating viral variants? A recent study by researchers at the German Primate Center (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research and Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg shows that the Omicron sub-lineage BQ.1.1, currently on the rise worldwide, is resistant to all approved antibody therapies (The Lancet Infectious Diseases).

As a result of an infection with the SARS coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) or a COVID-19 vaccination, an immune response is triggered that entails the formation of neutralizing antibodies that help protect against (re)infection with SARS-CoV-2 or a severe course of the disease. Neutralizing antibodies protect by binding to the viral spike protein, which prevents the virus from entering cells. However, due to mutations in the spike protein, some SARS-CoV-2 variants, particularly the Omicron variant, evade neutralizing antibodies and cause symptomatic infections even in vaccinated or convalescent persons. This is referred to as immune evasion and threatens high-risk groups such as the elderly and people with weakened immune systems, for example, due to illness or medication. They often fail to develop an immune response sufficient for protection from severe disease, even after full vaccination. To protect high-risk patients, biotechnologically produced antibodies are administered as a preventive measure or as an early therapy upon confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Mutations in the spike protein of different SARS-CoV-2 variants confer resistance to individual antibody therapies. Therefore, it is important to regularly monitor whether therapeutic antibodies continue to be effective against currently circulating viral variants.

 

A team of researchers from the Infection Biology Unit at the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research and the Division of Molecular Immunology at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg has investigated how efficiently approved antibody therapies inhibit the currently circulating Omicron subvariants. The researchers found that the Omicron subvariant BQ.1.1, which is on the rise worldwide, is resistant to all available antibody therapies. "For our studies, we mixed non-propagating viral particles carrying the spike protein of selected viral variants with different dilutions of the antibodies to be tested and subsequently measured the amount of antibody needed to inhibit infection of cell cultures. In total, we tested twelve individual antibodies, six of which are approved for clinical use in Europe, and four antibody cocktails" explains Prerna Arora, lead author of the study. The researchers found that the Omicron subvariant BQ.1.1 could not be neutralized by either individual antibodies or antibody cocktails. In contrast, the currently predominant Omicron subvariant BA.5 was still neutralized by one approved antibody and two approved antibody cocktails. "With high-risk patients in mind, we are very concerned about the Omicron subvariant BQ.1.1 being resistant to all approved antibody therapies. Particularly in regions where BQ.1.1 is widespread, physicians should not rely on antibody therapies alone when treating infected high-risk patients, but should also consider administering other drugs such as paxlovid or molnupiravir," comments study leader Markus Hoffmann on the results of the study.

The finding that the Omicron subvariant BQ.1.1 is already resistant to a new antibody therapy that is about to be approved in the U.S. highlights the importance of developing new antibody therapies against COVID-19. "The ever-increasing development of antibody resistance of SARS-CoV-2 variants calls for the development of new antibody therapies that are specifically targeted to currently circulating and future viral variants. Ideally, they should target regions in the spike protein that have little potential for escape mutations," concludes Stefan Pöhlmann, head of Infection Biology Unit at the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research.

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JOURNAL

The Lancet Infectious Diseases

DOI

10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00733-2 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Lab-produced tissue samples

ARTICLE TITLE

Omicron sublineage BQ.1.1 resistance to monoclonal antibodies

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Nov-2022

Synthetic fibers discovered in Antarctic air, seawater, sediment and sea ice as the ‘pristine’ continent becomes a sink for plastic pollution

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

 

IMAGE: DENSITY SEPARATION PROCESS DURING MICROPLASTICS ANALYSIS OF SAMPLES FROM WEDDELL SEA EXPEDITION (C) NEKTON view more 

CREDIT: NEKTON

As nations meet in Uruguay to negotiate a new Global Plastics Treaty, marine and forensic scientists publish new results this week that reveal the discovery of synthetic plastic fibres in air, seawater, sediment and sea ice sampled in the Antarctic Weddell Sea. The field research was undertaken during an expedition to discover Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance. The results are published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

Fibrous polyesters, primarily from textiles, were found in all samples. The majority of microplastic fibres identified were found in the Antarctic air samples, revealing that Antarctic animals and seabirds could be breathing them.

‘The issue of microplastic fibres is also an airborne problem reaching even the last remaining pristine environments on our planet’, stated co-author Professor Lucy Woodall, University of Oxford, Nekton Principal Scientist. ‘Synthetic fibres are the most prevalent form of microplastic pollution globally and tackling this issue must be at the heart of the Plastic Treaty negotiations.’ Professor Woodall was the first to reveal the prevalence of plastic in the deep sea in 2014.

A modelling analysis of air trajectories revealed that areas with higher numbers of fibres were associated with winds coming from southern South America. The discovery reveals that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the associated polar front is not, as previously thought, acting as an impenetrable barrier which would have prevented microplastics from entering the Antarctic region.

‘Ocean currents and winds are the vectors for plastic pollution to travel across the globe and even to the remotest corners of the world’, shared Nuria Rico Seijo, Nekton Research Scientist, Oxford, the co-lead author of the research. ‘The transboundary nature of microplastics pollution provides more evidence for the urgency and importance of a strong international plastic pollution treaty.’

The concentration of microplastics was also discovered by the team to be far higher in sea ice than in other sample types. Research indicates that microplastics are being trapped during the creation of the sea-ice layer every year.

‘Sea ice is mobile, can travel vast distances and reach the permanent ice shelves of the Antarctica continent where it can be trapped indefinitely with its gathered microplastic pollutants’, shared Dr Mánus Cunningham, Nekton Research Scientist, Oxford, the co-lead author of the research. ‘We believe the acquisition of microplastics in the multi-year sea ice combined with its seasonal changes could also be considered a temporary sink and one of the main transporters of microplastics within the Antarctic region’, concluded Dr Cunningham.

Extensive research was also conducted on sediment samples retrieved at depths ranging from 323 to 530 metres below the sea’s surface during the Weddell Sea Expedition. ‘Our discovery of microplastics in seabed sediment samples has revealed evidence of a plastic sink in the depths of the Antarctic waters’, said Professor Woodall. ‘Yet again we have seen that plastic pollution is being transported great distances by wind, ice and sea currents. The results of our research collectively demonstrate the vital importance of reducing plastic pollution globally.’

The scientific and forensic experts at Nekton’s Oxford University and collaborating laboratories (Staffordshire University, University of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela University) used a range of investigative methods to analyse the samples in the study. These include optical (Polarised Light Microscopy), chemical (Raman Spectrometry) investigative technologies and even a specialist adhesive “crime scene” tape to identify the polymer type. The modelling analysis used a method called Air Mass Back Trajectory analysis.

‘Our use of forensic science approaches had two important benefits; improved methods for both the reduction and monitoring of possible procedural contamination in the samples, and also more detailed characterisation of the microplastics, beyond just polymer type, allowing for better understanding of the number of possible sources. We would encourage future studies to harness these forensic approaches to ensure more robust data is gathered’ said Professor Claire Gwinnett, Staffordshire University.

According to the research team, the findings add urgency for a binding, globally agreed treaty to prevent microplastics from entering the environment, particularly oceans. Ahead of the Global Plastic Treaty discussions, they call on policy makers to:

• Reduce plastic pollution and production globally, by creating a robust global plastics treaty that builds on national and regional initiatives;
• Align plastic reduction actions with natural and societal targets to achieve multiple positive outcomes for society;
• Empower local communities to co-develop and use programmes that support full life-cycle solutions to plastic waste management.

They add that concerned individuals can also play their part by adopting simple lifestyle habits to reduce synthetic microfibre pollution. These include:

1. Fill your washing machine: more space to move around in the wash results in microfibres falling off.
2. Wash at 30C: gentle cycles and lower temperatures decreases microfibre shedding.
3. Ditch the dryer: tumble dryers generate about 40 times more microfibers than washing machines.
4. Microfibre capture for washing machines, e.g. GuppyFriend (https://guppyfriend.com) or Coraball (https://www.coraball.com).
5. Choose natural fibres, e.g. organic natural fibres like cotton, linen, hemp.
6. Avoid microfibre cleaning cloths - use natural alternatives.
7. Wash textiles less!

Source: A Sustainable Life: https://www.asustainablelife.co.uk/7-easy-ways-to-reduce-microfibre-pollution/

Polarised Light Microscopy image of polyester textile fibre found in sample (c) Nekton.

Scientists on the Weddell Sea Expedition taking ice core samples (c) Nekton 2022

Ice Shelf in Weddell Sea, seen from The SA Agulhas II research vessel during the field research. (c) Nekton jpg

Expert's recommendations for Global Plastic Treaty Negotiations (c) Nekton.

7 Easy Ways to Reduce Microfibre Pollution - Infographic (c) Nekton 2022

CREDIT

Nekton 2022.

Notes for Editors

The Publication: ‘The transport and fate of microplastic fibres in the Antarctic: The role of multiple global processes’ published in Frontiers in Marine Science. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.1056081/full

Research Partners: The international team, led by Nekton and scientists from Department of Biology, University of Oxford, collaborating with experts from UK and South African research institutions including Staffordshire University (UK), Nelson Mandela University, and the University of Cape Town (South Africa).

Video, photographic and infographic content: https://nektonmission.org/about/press-news

Contact               

• Dr Caroline Wood, University of Oxford, caroline.wood@admin.ox.ac.uk / Tel: +44 789 121 1052
• Oliver Steeds, Nekton, oliver@nektonmission.org / + 44 7984 677509                                               

Nekton: Nekton works to accelerate the scientific exploration and conservation of the ocean for people and the planet. Nekton is an independent, not-for-profit research institute and is a UK registered charity. www.nektonmission.org

University of Oxford: Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the seventh year running, and ​number 2 in the QS World Rankings 2022. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer. Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions. Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 200 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past three years. The university is a catalyst for prosperity in Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom, contributing £15.7 billion to the UK economy in 2018/19, and supports more than 28,000 full time jobs.

Flotilla Foundation: The research was funded by a philanthropic grant from the Flotilla Foundation, a Netherlands based charity that aims to pro­mote the con­ser­va­tion, pro­tec­tion and improve­ment of the phys­i­cal and nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment, in par­tic­u­lar­ly the ocean.

Weddell Sea Expedition: Led by the Flotilla Foundation and in partnership with Nekton, Scott Polar Research Institute, Nelson Mandela University, University of Cape Town and the University of Canterbury – The Weddell Sea Expedition deployed AUVs and ROVs to investigate life beneath the ice and the potential implications of climate change. 36 scientists, surveyors and technicians participated in the 45-day voyage in December 2019 to January 2020. Whilst in the Weddell Sea, the Expedition sought to locate Sir Ernest Shackleton’s vessel The Endurance. The expedition paved the way for the successful discovery of the vessel in 2022.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Marine Science

DOI

10.3389/fmars.2022.1056081 

ARTICLE TITLE

The transport and fate of microplastic fibres in the Antarctic: The role of multiple global processes

Human evolution wasn’t just the sheet music, but how it was played

Brain, gut and immune system were fine-tuned after split from common ancestor of chimpanzees

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE FLUORESCENT GLOW OF MOUSE BRAIN CELLS ON THE RIGHT INDICATES THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A HUMAN-DERIVED GENE ENHANCER, HAQER0059, VERSUS A 6 MILLION YEAR OLD VERSION OF THE ENHANCER AT LEFT, WHICH CANNOT ACTIVATE GENES IN THE SAME WAY BECAUSE IT IS ABOUT 40 BASE PAIRS DIFFERENT FROM THE HUMAN VERSION. view more 

CREDIT: RILEY MANGAN, DUKE UNIVERSITY

DURHAM, N.C. -- A team of Duke researchers has identified a group of human DNA sequences driving changes in brain development, digestion and immunity that seem to have evolved rapidly after our family line split from that of the chimpanzees, but before we split with the Neanderthals.

Our brains are bigger, and are guts are shorter than our ape peers.

“A lot of the traits that we think of as uniquely human, and human-specific, probably appear during that time period,” in the 7.5 million years since the split with the common ancestor we share with the chimpanzee, said Craig Lowe, Ph.D., an assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology in the Duke School of Medicine.

Specifically, the DNA sequences in question, which the researchers have dubbed Human Ancestor Quickly Evolved Regions (HAQERS), pronounced like hackers, regulate genes. They are the switches that tell nearby genes when to turn on and off. The findings appear Nov.23 in the journal CELL.

The rapid evolution of these regions of the genome seems to have served as a fine-tuning of regulatory control, Lowe said. More switches were added to the human operating system as sequences developed into regulatory regions, and they were more finely tuned to adapt to environmental or developmental cues. By and large, those changes were advantageous to our species.

“They seem especially specific in causing genes to turn on, we think just in certain cell types at certain times of development, or even genes that turn on when the environment changes in some way,” Lowe said.

A lot of this genomic innovation was found in brain development and the GI tract. “We see lots of regulatory elements that are turning on in these tissues,” Lowe said. “These are the tissues where humans are refining which genes are expressed and at what level.”

Today, our brains are larger than other apes, and our guts are shorter. “People have hypothesized that those two are even linked, because they are two really expensive metabolic tissues to have around,” Lowe said. “I think what we’re seeing is that there wasn’t really one mutation that gave you a large brain and one mutation that really struck the gut, it was probably many of these small changes over time.”

To produce the new findings, Lowe’s lab collaborated with Duke colleagues Tim Reddy, an associate professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, and Debra Silver, an associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology to tap their expertise. Reddy’s lab is capable of looking at millions of genetic switches at once and Silver is watching switches in action in developing mouse brains.

“Our contribution was, if we could bring both of those technologies together, then we could look at hundreds of switches in this sort of complex developing tissue, which you can't really get from a cell line,” Lowe said.

“We wanted to identify switches that were totally new in humans,” Lowe said. Computationally, they were able to infer what the human-chimp ancestor’s DNA would have been like, as well as the extinct Neanderthal and Denisovan lineages. The researchers were able to compare the genome sequences of these other post-chimpanzee relatives thanks to databases created from the pioneering work of 2022 Nobel laureate Svante Pääbo.

“So, we know the Neanderthal sequence, but let's test that Neanderthal sequence and see if it can really turn on genes or not,” which they did dozens of times.

“And we showed that, whoa, this really is a switch that turns on and off genes,” Lowe said. “It was really fun to see that new gene regulation came from totally new switches, rather than just sort of rewiring switches that already existed.” 

Along with the positive traits that HAQERs gave humans, they can also be implicated in some diseases.

Most of us have remarkably similar HAQER sequences, but there are some variances, “and we were able to show that those variants tend to correlate with certain diseases,” Lowe said, namely hypertension, neuroblastoma, unipolar depression, bipolar depression and schizophrenia. The mechanisms of action aren’t known yet, and more research will have to be done in these areas, Lowe said.

“Maybe human-specific diseases or human-specific susceptibilities to these diseases are going to be preferentially mapped back to these new genetic switches that only exist in humans,” Lowe said.

Support for the research came from National Human Genome Research Institute – NIH (R35-HG011332), North Carolina Biotechnology Center (2016-IDG-1013, 2020-IIG-2109), Sigma Xi, The Triangle Center for Evolutionary Medicine and the Duke Whitehead Scholarship.

CITATION: "Adaptive Sequence Divergence Forged New Neurodevelopmental Enhancers in Humans," Riley J. Mangan, Fernando C. Alsina, Federica Mosti, Jesus Emiliano Sotelo-Fonseca, Daniel A. Snellings, Eric H. Au, Juliana Carvalho, Laya Sathyan, Graham D. Johnson, Timothy E. Reddy, Debra L. Silver, Craig B. Lowe. CELL, Nov. 23, 2022. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.016

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JOURNAL

Cell

DOI

10.1016/j.cell.2022.10.016 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Adaptive Sequence Divergence Forged New Neurodevelopmental Enhancers in Humans

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Nov-2022

Ilhan Omar pushes back on House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's vow to strip her of committee

Sarah Elbeshbishi, USA TODAY
Wed, November 23, 2022 

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar criticized House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy Tuesday for vowing to strip the Democrat of her committee assignments if he's elected House speaker by the new Congress.

In his effort to secure GOP support for the top House leadership role, McCarthy has promised to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee as well as Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., from the House Intelligence Committee.

McCarthy, along with several other Republican lawmakers, have said for months the three Democrats should be removed from their committee because of past statements regarding Israel, China and Russia.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., speaks during a march in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 21, 2021

GOP House leadership: A poor GOP showing in the midterms could hamper Kevin McCarthy's path to be House speaker

Omar pushed back, responding to the GOP leader's comments Monday in a statement released on Twitter.

"McCarthy's effort to repeatedly single me out for scorn and hatred – including threatening to strip me from my committee – does nothing to address the issues our constituents deal with," the statement said. "It does nothing to address inflation, healthcare, or solve the climate crisis."



The Minnesota Democrat also accused McCarthy of amplifying hateful and dangerous rhetoric targeting minorities by GOP lawmakers, specifically naming Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Tom Emmer of Minnesota.

Emmer previously faced accusations of anti-Semitism for a 2019 fundraising letter that claimed Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and George Soros "essentially bought control of Congress."

Omar, a progressive, has often been a target of Greene and other hard-right conservatives, including Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert. Both lawmakers have referred to Omar, among the first Muslim lawmakers in Congress, as a member of the "Jihad Squad" and peddled other anti-Muslim rhetoric aimed at Omar.

"At the same time, they have openly tolerated antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate and racism in their own party," Omar said in her statement.

Omar has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans over comments she's made about Israel. In 2019, she brought on a backlash over tweets accusing Israel of having "hypnotized the world" and another criticizing the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups. She later apologized. Last year, about a dozen House Democrats accused her of equating the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban on Twitter. Omar defended herself, saying she was not drawing a moral equivalency.

Race for House speaker: Kevin McCarthy wants to block three Democrats from committees if he becomes speaker

Some Democrats accuse McCarthy of going after the three Democratic lawmakers as a way to court the far-right caucus of his party in order to gain enough votes to be elected speaker, according to some Democrats.

"I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do," Schiff said on ABC's "This Week." "He is a very weak leader of his conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator. And if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that’s what they’ll do."

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks to members of the press on Nov. 15, 2022.

McCarthy also has vowed to reinstate both Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., to committees if elected speaker after the new Congress is sworn in – even suggesting the lawmakers may receive "better" assignments.

Such a step would require a majority of the House to approve. Republicans will have control when a new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3 but only by a few seats.

In an unprecedented move, House Democrats along with 11 Republicans voted last year to strip Greene of her committee assignments because of violent rhetoric and promotion of conspiracy theories through a stream of past inflammatory social media posts.

Gosar, one of the GOP's far-right members, was censured late last year after the lawmaker posted an anime video on Twitter, which was edited to show him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and attacking President Joe Biden. Gosar was also removed from his committees by the Democratic-led House.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rep. Ilhan Omar hits back as McCarthy vows to strip her of committee

World’s oldest meal helps unravel mystery of our earliest animal ancestors

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE KIMBERELLA FOSSIL. CREDIT: DR ILYA BOBROVSKIY/GFZ-POTSDAM view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: DR ILYA BOBROVSKIY/GFZ-POTSDAM

The contents of the last meal consumed by the earliest animals known to inhabit Earth more than 550 million years ago has unearthed new clues about the physiology of our earliest animal ancestors, according to scientists from The Australian National University (ANU). 

Ediacara biota are the world’s oldest large organisms and date back 575 million years. ANU researchers found the animals ate bacteria and algae that was sourced from the ocean floor. The findings, published in Current Biology, reveal more about these strange creatures, including how they were able to consume and digest food. 

The scientists analysed ancient fossils containing preserved phytosterol molecules -- natural chemical products found in plants -- that remained from the animals’ last meal. By examining the molecular remains of what the animals ate, the researchers were able to confirm the slug-like organism, known as Kimberella, had a mouth and a gut and digested food the same way modern animals do. The researchers say it was likely one of the most advanced creatures of the Ediacarans.  

The ANU team found that another animal, which grew up to 1.4 metres in length and had a rib-like design imprinted on its body, was less complex and had no eyes, mouth or gut. Instead, the odd creature, called Dickinsonia, absorbed food through its body as it traversed the ocean floor.  

“Our findings suggest that the animals of the Ediacara biota, which lived on Earth prior to the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ of modern animal life, were a mixed bag of outright weirdos, such as Dickinsonia, and more advanced animals like Kimberella that already had some physiological properties similar to humans and other present-day animals,” lead author Dr Ilya Bobrovskiy, from GFZ-Potsdam in Germany, said.  

Both Kimberella and Dickinsonia, which have a structure and symmetry unlike anything that exists today, are part of the Ediacara biota family that lived on Earth about 20 million years prior to the Cambrian Explosion – a major event that forever changed the course of evolution of all life on Earth. 

“Ediacara biota really are the oldest fossils large enough to be visible with your naked eyes, and they are the origin of us and all animals that exist today. These creatures are our deepest visible roots,” Dr Bobrovskiy, who completed the work as part of his PhD at ANU, said. 

Study co-author Professor Jochen Brocks, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, said algae are rich in energy and nutrients and may have been instrumental for Kimberella’s growth.  

“The energy-rich food may explain why the organisms of the Ediacara biota were so large. Nearly all fossils that came before the Ediacara biota were single-celled and microscopic in size,” Professor Brocks said.  

Using advanced chemical analysis techniques, the ANU scientists were able to extract and analyse the sterol molecules contained in the fossil tissue. Cholesterol is the hallmark of animals and it’s how, back in 2018, the ANU team was able to confirm that Ediacara biota are among our earliest known ancestors.  

The molecules contained tell-tale signatures that helped the researchers decipher what the animals ate in the lead up to their death. Professor Brocks said the difficult part was differentiating between the signatures of the fat molecules of the creatures themselves, the algal and bacterial remains in their guts, and the decaying algal molecules from the ocean floor that were all entombed together in the fossils. 

“Scientists already knew Kimberella left feeding marks by scraping off algae covering the sea floor, which suggested the animal had a gut. But it was only after analysing the molecules of Kimberella’s gut that we were able to determine what exactly it was eating and how it digested food,” Professor Brocks said. 

“Kimberella knew exactly which sterols were good for it and had an advanced fine-tuned gut to filter out all the rest. 

“This was a Eureka moment for us; by using preserved chemical in the fossils, we can now make gut contents of animals visible even if the gut has since long decayed. We then used this same technique on weirder fossils like Dickinsonia to figure out how it was feeding and discovered that Dickinsonia did not have a gut.” 

Dr Bobrovskiy retrieved both the Kimberella and Dickinsonia fossils from steep cliffs near the White Sea in Russia -- a remote part of the world home to bears and mosquitoes -- in 2018.  

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2022.10.051 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Guts, gut contents, and feeding strategies of Ediacaran animals

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Nov-2022

Witchcraft beliefs are widespread, highly variable around the world

In new global dataset, witchcraft beliefs are associated with weak institutions, conformist cultures

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: A MAP SHOWING COUNTRY-LEVEL PREVALENCE OF WITCHCRAFT BELIEFS AROUND THE WORLD. view more 

CREDIT: BORIS GERSHMAN, 2022, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

A newly compiled dataset quantitatively captures witchcraft beliefs in countries around the world, enabling investigation of key factors associated with such beliefs. Boris Gershman of American University in Washington, D.C., presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 23, 2022.

Numerous prior studies conducted around the world have documented people’s beliefs in witchcraft—the idea that certain individuals have supernatural abilities to inflict harm. Understanding people’s witchcraft beliefs can be important for policymaking and other community engagement efforts. However, due to a lack of data, global-scale statistical analyses of witchcraft beliefs have been lacking.

To deepen understanding of witchcraft beliefs, Gershman compiled a new dataset that captures such beliefs among more than 140,000 people from 95 countries and territories. The data come from face-to-face and telephone surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and professional survey organizations between 2008 and 2017, which included questions about religious beliefs and belief in witchcraft.

According to the dataset, over 40 percent of survey participants said they believe that "certain people can cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen to someone.” Witchcraft beliefs appear to exist around the world but vary substantially between countries and within world regions. For instance, 9 percent of participants in Sweden reported belief in witchcraft, compared to 90 percent in Tunisia.

Using this dataset, Gershman then conducted an investigation of various individual-level factors associated with witchcraft beliefs. This analysis suggests that, while beliefs cut across socio-demographic groups, people with higher levels of education and economic security are less likely to believe in witchcraft.

Gershman also combined this dataset with other country-level data, finding that witchcraft beliefs differ between countries according to various cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic factors. For instance, witchcraft beliefs are linked to weak institutions, low levels of social trust, and low innovation, as well as conformist culture and higher levels of in-group bias—the tendency for people to favor others who are similar to them"

These findings, as well as future research using the new dataset, could be applied to help optimize policies and development projects by accounting for local witchcraft beliefs.

The authors add: “The study documents that witchcraft beliefs are still widespread around the world. Moreover, their prevalence is systematically related to a number of cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic characteristics.”

#####

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276872

Citation: Gershman B (2022) Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis. PLoS ONE 17(11): e0276872. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276872

Author Countries: USA

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0276872 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Nov-2022

Biden says his administration is engaged in talks to avert railroad strike

REINSTATE 56 HOURS PAID SICK TIME

U.S. President Joe Biden visits a fire station on Thanksgiving in Nantucket, Massachusetts

Thu, November 24, 2022 
By Nandita Bose

NANTUCKET, Mass. (Reuters) -President Joe Biden said on Thursday that his administration was involved in negotiations to avert a looming U.S. railroad strike that could shut down supply chains across the country but added that he has not directly engaged on the matter yet.

Speaking to reporters outside a fire station on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, during a Thanksgiving holiday visit, Biden declined to provide details on how the talks were going because it was "the middle of negotiations."

"My team has been in touch with all the parties, and in (a) room with the parties and I have not directly engaged yet because they're still talking," Biden said.

More than 300 groups, including the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Manufacturers, urged Biden last month to get involved to help avoid a strike that could idle shipments of food and fuel while inflicting billions of dollars of damage to an already struggling national economy.

Earlier this week, several of these groups renewed calls for Biden and Congress to swiftly intervene to prevent a strike or employer lockout ahead of the holiday season.

A rail traffic stoppage could freeze almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoke inflation and cost the American economy as much as $2 billion per day by unleashing a cascade of transport woes affecting U.S. energy, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors.

On Monday, workers at the largest U.S. rail union voted against a tentative contract deal reached in September, raising the possibility of a year-end strike.

Labor unions have criticized the railroads' sick leave and attendance policies and the lack of paid sick days for short-term illness. There are no paid sick days under the tentative deal. Unions asked for 15 paid sick days and the railroads settled on one personal day.

The Biden administration helped avert a service cutoff by hosting last-minute contract talks in September that led to the tentative contract deal.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Ontario man captures 'unreal' wave resembling human face

Cody Evans, who reveres the art of coastal photography, said the wave bears a likeness to Poseidon, the ancient Greek god of the sea

Author of the article:National Post Staff
Publishing date:Nov 25, 2022 

A Lake Erie wave resembling a face taken on Nov. 19, 2022.

 PHOTO BY CODY EVANS
Strong winds and high waves whipped up a surge of water that looked a lot like a human face in Lake Erie on Saturday.

Cody Evans, of Ingersoll, Ont., braved the storm and was there at just the right time to capture the leaping visage.

“I was kind of blown away,” he told CBC. “You see a lot of stuff like that in waves and in clouds, but to have it clear like that was just unreal. That photo sure stood out of all the rest.”

Evans said he waited out the worst of the snowstorm before heading to a beach in Port Stanley and knew that day was special.

“It was just crazy, it was like the perfect day. I’ve been going there for three years, trying to get good shots and that was by far the best day I had there,” he said.

Evans, who reveres the art of coastal photography, said the wave bears a likeness to Poseidon, the ancient Greek god of the sea.

He captured 10,000 photographs that day, but the task wasn’t simple. The weather was well below freezing, and the 30 km/h winds stirred up sand and snow, which interfere with the shot, Evans noted.

“When it’s snowing, it’s difficult because your focus will bounce off what you’re trying to focus on,” he explained to CTV.

Evans uses a camera that can capture 20 shots a second, which lets him “get the whole sequence of what’s happening.”

The effect was created by the strong winds, which also causes lake-effect snow. When cold gusts sweep over the Great Lakes during fall and winter, it forms clouds that can produce heavy snow.

“We usually have an active storm track that runs through the lake this time of year especially in the wake of these stronger systems that bring in cold air masses,” Environment Canada meteorologist, Daniel Liota told CBC.

The well-timed shot also owes to the breakwater.

“The waves were crashing pretty good because the pier pushes the water back out into the lake so when the water is pushed back out, the waves collide and they cause those peaks,” Evans noted.

Evans said pursuit for the picture perfect shot is far from complete.

“I’ll have a camera in my hands till I can’t hold one anymore honestly, I love it,’ he said.