Female healthworkers need better radiation protection to minimise breast cancer risk

Standard PPE does not fully protect breast tissue; Employers should invest in equipment that ensures the safety of all their staff

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Women working in healthcare who are regularly exposed to radiation from x-rays and other imaging procedures need better ionising radiation protection to help minimise their risk of developing breast cancer, argue doctors in The BMJ today.

Ionising radiation is a known human carcinogen and breast tissue is highly radiation sensitive. As such, there are concerns that regular exposure to ionising radiation during image guided procedures may be linked to a higher risk of breast cancer in female healthcare workers.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) such as lead gowns are used to shield the body from harmful radiation during these procedures. But studies have shown that current radiation PPE provides inadequate protection to breast tissue as it leaves the area close to the armpit (known as the upper outer quadrant and axilla - the most common site of breast cancer) exposed.

“Providing adequate breast covering PPE could therefore reduce radiation exposure and potentially help prevent breast cancer in female healthcare workers,” write Isobel Pilkington and colleagues. 

They acknowledge that measuring the risk of occupational radiation induced breast cancer in women working in healthcare is challenging, but as the number of female trainees entering these specialties increases, they say “it is essential that the available evidence is considered and equipment provision improved to minimise this risk.”

They point to observational evidence suggesting an increase in breast cancer risk among female US orthopaedic surgeons compared with an age matched female population, and to a small Finnish study showing breast cancer at 1.7 times the expected rate in radiologists, surgeons, and cardiologists compared with female physicians not working with radiation.

In a study using artificial female torsos to measure radiation exposure, researchers found inadequate upper outer quadrant protection and no statistically significant reduction in dose when standard PPE was compared with a torso without PPE.

Occupational radiation exposure has not been identified as a risk factor for male breast cancer. However, the Ionising Radiation Regulations 2017 state that the radiation dose delivered to all workers should be As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA). The most effective way to achieve this, say the authors, is by reducing the duration of exposure, increasing the distance from the source, and shielding all workers with effective PPE.

They point to additional protection, such as capped sleeves and axillary wings, that can be worn under standard gowns to protect the upper outer quadrant of the breast, and say the European Society for Vascular Surgery 2023 Clinical Practice Guidelines on Radiation Safety have already recommended female operators consider adopting this extra protection. 

“Providing appropriate protection is a legal requirement of an employer, who has a duty of care to all workers exposed to radiation,” they write. “The female breast appears to be particularly vulnerable and it is therefore important employers invest in protective equipment that enhances the safety of all their staff.”

[Ends]

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JOURNAL

The BMJ

DOI

10.1136/bmj-2023-075406 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Protecting female healthworkers from ionising radiation at work

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2023

New study demonstrates hospital safety climate and organizational characteristics predict healthcare-associated infections and occupational health outcomes

Findings provide first published evidence of relationship between standard precaution adherence and safety of both healthcare workers and patients

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ASSOCIATION FOR PROFESSIONALS IN INFECTION CONTROL

Arlington, Va., April 13, 2023 – New data published today in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) provide the first published evidence that a positive safety climate and adherence to standard precautions predict key healthcare-associated infection (HAI) and occupational health outcomes among patients and health care workers, respectively. The findings highlight features within hospitals’ organizations and safety climates that could be modified to improve these outcomes.

“Despite the infection prevention and safety benefits associated with standard precautions, generating consistent adherence in the healthcare setting has been notoriously challenging, for reasons that are not completely clear,” said Amanda J. Hessels, PhD, MPH, RN, Assistant Professor, Columbia University School of Nursing and Nurse Scientist at Hackensack Meridian Health and the lead author on the published study. “To our knowledge, our study findings are the first to demonstrate an association between adherence, hospitals’ patient-safety climates, and outcomes, and should help to advance the state of the science in patient and occupational health and safety.”

Annually approximately 385,000 sharps injuries occur among America’s 5.6 million healthcare workers, and approximately 2 million hospitalized patients acquire one or more HAIs after receiving healthcare.  Standard precautions such as hand hygiene, use of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), and safe use and disposal of sharps, are federally regulated sets of actions designed to limit the risk of blood-borne and other infections among healthcare workers and prevent patient HAIs. Research shows that adherence to standard precautions happens less than 50% of the time.

Dr. Hessels and colleagues created a novel study to determine the relationships among patient safety climate, self-reported or observed standard precaution adherence, and HAIs or healthcare worker sharps and splash exposures.

The researchers surveyed 452 U.S.-based registered nurses about their hospital units’ patient safety climates, collected observational adherence data on 5,285 standard precautions using a standardized tool, and obtained corresponding unit-level data on patient HAIs and healthcare worker sharp and splash exposure data.

Results show:

• Overall adherence to all categories of standard precautions was 64.4%, with significant differences by provider role.
• Overall adherence was highest among nurses (69.1%), followed by other providers (62.1%) and physicians (58%).
• There is a positive correlation (p < 0.1) between patient safety climate in aggregate and reported standard precaution adherence.
• There is an additional, positive correlation between positive perceptions of a work environment that is conducive to standard precautions and reported adherence (p < 0.1).

Additionally, researchers found that a group of variables comprising observed standard precaution adherence, overall patient safety climate, and multiple potential confounders – including hospital Magnet status, level of nurse staffing, hospital ownership, and teaching status -- reliably predicted:

• The rates of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI; p = 0.2) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA; p = 0.3) among patients.

• Nurse mucotaneous exposures (p = 0.004), all staff mucotaneous exposures (p = 0.007), and all staff sharps and needle injuries (p = .001).

Finally, researchers concluded that these variables also explained the sizeable variance in MRSA (41%), CAUTI (23%), mucotaneous exposures (43%), and needlestick and sharps injuries (38%) among those units that reported positive patient safety climates and reliable adherence to standard precautions vs. those that did not.

“Keeping our healthcare workforce and patients safe is our number one priority as healthcare professionals,” said Patricia Jackson, RN, MA, CIC, FAPIC, 2023 APIC president. “The findings from this study provide important insights into the factors that impact HAIs and occupational injuries and will help infection preventionists design focused strategies for improvement.”

About APIC

Founded in 1972, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is the leading association for infection preventionists and epidemiologists. With more than 15,000 members, APIC advances the science and practice of infection prevention and control. APIC carries out its mission through research, advocacy, and patient safety; education, credentialing, and certification; and fostering development of the infection prevention and control workforce of the future. Together with our members and partners, we are working toward a safer world through the prevention of infection. Join us and learn more at apic.org.

 

About AJIC

As the official peer-reviewed journal of APIC, The American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) is the foremost resource on infection control, epidemiology, infectious diseases, quality management, occupational health, and disease prevention. Published by Elsevier, AJIC also publishes infection control guidelines from APIC and the CDC. AJIC is included in Index Medicus and CINAHL. Visit AJIC at ajicjournal.org.

NOTE FOR EDITORS

“Impact of patient safety climate on infection prevention practices and healthcare worker and patient outcomes,” by Amanda J. Hessels, Jingwen Guo, Cara T. Johnson, and Elaine Larson, was published online in AJIC on April 13, 2023. The article may be found at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2023.01.021

AUTHORS

Amanda J. Hessels, PhD, MPH, RN, CIC, CPHQ, FAPIC, FAAN (corresponding author: ah3269@cumc.columbia.edu; amanda.hessels@hmhn.org), Columbia University School of Nursing, New York, New York, USA; Hackensack Meridian Health, Ann May Center, Neptune, NJ

Jingwen Guo, MS

Columbia University Data Science Institute, New York, New York, USA

Cara T. Johnson, RN, MPH

Columbia University School of Nursing, New York, New York, USA

Elaine Larson, RN, PhD, FAAN, CIC

Columbia University School of Nursing, New York, New York, USA

 

Acknowledgments: This project was supported by the Research Scientist Development Award Agreement Number, 1K01OH011186, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Its contents are solely the responsibility

of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Health and Human Services.               

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Infection Control

DOI

10.1016/j.ajic.2023.01.021 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Impact of patient safety climate on infection prevention practices and healthcare worker and patient outcomes

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Apr-2023

Major genetic study reveals how antibiotic resistance varies according to where you live, demographics, and diet

Women and those on higher incomes found to have more antibiotic resistance genes; living in cities also fuels resistance.

Reports and Proceedings

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

**Note: the release below is from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2023, Copenhagen, 15-18 April). Please credit the conference if you use this story**

A genetic study analysing the microbiome (bacteria in the gut) of a large nationally representative sample of the Finnish population finds that geographic, demographic, diet, and lifestyle factors are driving the spread of antibiotic resistance in the general population.

The most comprehensive study of its kind by Dr Katariina Pärnänen from the University of Turku in Finland and colleagues, being presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (15-18 April), highlights the urgent need for targeted interventions to reduce antibiotic resistance tailored to different demographics and lifestyles.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can spread through healthy adult populations and go largely unnoticed. Antimicrobial resistance poses a significant threat to humanity, and has become a leading cause of death worldwide, involved in an estimated 5 million deaths in 2019 and estimated to be the direct cause of 1.27 million deaths [1]. Estimates suggest that antimicrobial resistance will overtake cancer as the leading cause of death worldwide by 2050 [2].

Despite the remarkable efforts to map the overall composition and health associations of the gut microbiome over the last decade, a deeper understanding of the factors driving the distribution of antimicrobial resistance within the general population is urgently needed.

To find out more, researchers investigated the extent to which demographic, dietary, health and geographic factors influence the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in gut metagenome faecal samples from 7,098 symptomless adults taking part in the national FINKRISK study—a large representative Finnish population survey carried out every 5 years since 1972.

The FINRISK project collects extensive health and lifestyle data, including major diagnoses, blood measurements, habitual diet, and prescription drug use, that are proxies for the three ecological mechanisms that influence ARG abundance—acquisition of external ARGs from food; host health status (endemic resistance); and drug-mediated selection of resistant bacteria.

Researchers used shotgun metagenomes (untargeted genetic sequencing of all bacteria living in the gut) to examine the associations between participants’ antibiotic resistance gene load, diversity, and composition and geography, demography, lifestyle, and health factors.

As expected, the analyses found that antibiotic use was linked to higher ARG loads, but other drug classes, such as psycholeptic drugs (e.g., opioids and barbiturates), were also associated with higher abundance of ARGs.

The analyses also found that more frequent raw vegetable and poultry consumption (both foods containing high quantities of resistant bacteria) was associated with higher ARG loads and diversity.

What’s more, ARG loads, composition, and diversity were also associated with geography. For example, people living in western Finland had a higher abundance and more diverse ARGs than those living in the east. And higher population density was also associated with higher ARG load and diversity.

Interestingly, ARG loads had clear variation according to demographics, with women and participants on higher incomes having more resistance genes.

“Our findings clearly show that geography, demographics, and diet play an underappreciated role in antibiotic resistance,” says Dr Pärnänen. “This has important implications for the antibiotic resistance crisis as more and more people are living in densely populated areas and cities and are able to buy more expensive types of foods, such as meat, and fresh produce, and also medication. Reducing or preventing the spread of antimicrobial resistance will require action plans at national levels that go beyond regulating the misuse of antibiotic prescriptions.”

For interviews with the report authors, please contact Dr Katariina Pärnänen, University of Turku, Finland E) katariina.parnanen@utu.fi T) +35 8400 664 640

Alternative contact in the ECCMID Press Room: Tony Kirby T) + 44(0)7834 385827 E) tony@tonykirby.com

Notes to editors:

[1] Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis - The Lancet
[2] 160525_Final paper_with cover.pdf (amr-review.org)

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

This research was supported in part by grants from the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, the Alhopuro foundation, the Paavo Nurmi Foundation, the Urmas Pekkala Foundation, the Finnish Medical Foundation, the Academy of Finland and the National Institutes of Health. Additional support was provided by Illumina Inc. and Janssen Pharmaceutica through their sponsorship of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UCSD. Computation was done at CSC, the IT centre for Scientific computing.

This press release is based on abstract 04221 at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) annual meeting. The material has been peer reviewed by the congress selection committee. There is no full paper available at this stage and the work has not yet been submitted to a medical journal for publication.

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ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Apr-2023

Estonian researchers developed a method for instant energy-performance label

Business Announcement

ESTONIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL

 

IMAGE: AT THE EHITUSE MÄEMAJA THE DIGIAUDIT PLATFORM WAS TESTED view more 

CREDIT: TALTECH

The researchers of the FinEst Centre for Smart Cities of Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia, Europe) developed the DigiAudit platform to monitor and analyse energy use and indoor climate indicators of buildings and large real estate portfolios in real time. Thinnect, an Estonian IoT start-up company, will help sell the solution and market it worldwide.  We can only reach zero-emission buildings when we have reliable data The European Union has set a target for all buildings to be zero-emission, or near-zero energy, by 2050. However, there is no reliable data on the energy consumption of many buildings, so it is not possible to monitor the condition of buildings or estimate their energy use. The DigiAudit platform solves this problem and also allows companies to simplify the additional reporting obligations imposed under the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). In the pilot project, 25 educational buildings in Tallinn and Tartu were connected to the IoT platform. Continuous monitoring of energy, ventilation and air quality in hundreds of buildings generated big data, which analytics were developed to handle. It enables the monitoring and comparison of the condition of the buildings, as well as diagnostics and detection of errors in the technical systems of the buildings and the use of the buildings. Comparative overview of the energy consumption and indoor climate quality of large real estate portfolios The platform provides property owners with information on the total energy use, energy costs and carbon footprint of their portfolio of buildings. The energy labels and indoor climate classes of all buildings connected to the platform are also presented, which enables comparison with other similar buildings. According to DigiAudit's project lead, Professor Jarek Kurnitski, the uniqueness of the solution lies in the real-time energy labeling of the entire real estate portfolio. Improving the energy efficiency of buildings is crucial from the point of view of the Estonia 2035 strategy, as buildings already account for 53% of the final energy consumption. The platform gives building owners and managers a simple, comparable overview of the actual energy consumption of the various buildings in the entire portfolio, as well as the quality of the indoor climate. In the project, a method was developed to compare the energy efficiency of an individual building with other buildings of the same type. A data set containing energy efficiency indicators of 35,000 Estonian buildings was analyzed. Based on this, a model was developed that approximately shows the energy efficiency of a single building position. As a result of the study, the project team saw that energy efficiency measures to date have improved the performance of buildings, and if progress continues, 73 percent of new or renovated buildings could achieve carbon neutrality. DigiAudit platform solutions are based on data, and in order to achieve meaningful analysis results, it is crucial to assess the quality of the data. Building ventilation performance and air quality are assessed based on the carbon dioxide level measured in the premises. It turned out that the raw data collected by the installed building automation systems are sometimes unreliable. To solve the problem, a method was developed that corrects the data in such a way that they can be compared with the limit values of the carbon dioxide level specified in the indoor climate standards. Also, a method was made to automatically evaluate whether the room is in use or not. The impact of the methods on the assessment of the indoor climate was important, and the assessment of the period of use is particularly important. If nighttime and weekends are used in the analysis of air quality in schools and kindergartens, the situation appears more positive than it is. The platform separates capacity monitoring functions from maintenance-related automatic diagnostics. The user interface consists of three views, in which the detail of the information presented depends on the user. Dashboard views were created for the city government, city property board and those responsible for administration/maintenance according to their information needs.   At the Ehituse Mäemaja inside the ventilation systems were tested. CREDIT TalTech Scientists can solve multifaceted problems The goal of all pilot projects of FinEst Centre for Smart Cities is to create a functioning product or service that is usable in many cities. DigiAudit is one of the first examples where the goal has been successfully achieved. The cooperation with the start-up company Thinnect has been going on for some time and now the solution has been transferred with a licensing agreement and the first working product has been created. According to Jürgo Preden, the CEO of Thinnect (the company bringing the solution to the market), DigiAudit is a scientific breakthrough that has no competitor on the market today. ‘Nowadays, no building manager can keep track of where exactly energy is being used because buildings are so complex and their operation changes over time. This is where the DigiAudit system plays an important role – it helps understand where energy is being used and how to reduce the consumption,’ Preden said. BACKGROUND Thinnect is a start-up, predominantly owned by Estonian capital, offering IoT technology and services – namely, solutions that enable accurate monitoring and management of buildings. In addition to Estonia, the smart environment solutions of Thinnect are used in eight other countries. The systems developed by the company can be used for saving energy as well as for improving the ease of use and efficiency. The FinEst Centre for Smart Cities, located at Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia, Europe), has six pilot projects in operation where Estonian and Finnish cities develop and test innovative smart city solutions. The founders of the center are TalTech, Aalto University, the City of Helsinki innovation company Forum Virium and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. The creation of the center is funded by the European Commission and the Ministry of Education and Research through Horizon 2020 and the European Regional Development Fund.

Nature-based management is making rivers more resilient

Research paper in Nature Communications Earth and Environment shows progress in Australia towards United Nations goals, making rivers more able to recover from flood, drought and other impacts.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: A CHANGE OF SCENERY: WOLLOMBI BROOK AT WARKWORTH PRE- AND POST-RECOVERY view more 

CREDIT: DPI WATER ARCHIVE/NICK COOK

In July 2022, the 120-kilometre Wollombi Brook, which flows north into the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, suffered one of its biggest floods on record. And it held up remarkably well, says Professor Kirstie Fryirs of the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University. “Yes, there was widespread inundation, but the flood waters were slower and the vegetation prevented large scale erosion and sediment movement.

“All the hard work that a very active community put into nature-based rehabilitation for more than 20 years, such as continuous streamside revegetation, played a role in this outcome.” It is one of the best examples in Australia of sustainable environmental restoration in the management of rivers, she says.

It represents the sort of transformation Professor Fryirs and research fellow Dr Kathryn Russell of the University of Melbourne think the multi-billion-dollar river management industry worldwide should be working towards.

“It’s important,” says Dr Russell, “as part the worldwide effort to achieve river sustainability and resilience to drought, fire and flood.” More specifically, the researchers say, Wollombi Brook encapsulates the sort of changes we need to make to meet river health goals set by the United Nations in its Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to 2030.

Adopting the UN environmental goals as principles in river management will be essential to conserve and improving river health, make effective use of diverse and traditional knowledges, integrate grassroots to the global action, improve the robustness and cost efficiency of restoration efforts, and secure river resilience to climate change and natural disasters.

Accelerating and upscaling

Dr Russell is lead author and Professor Fryirs second author of a paper recently published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment. Nine additional authors from a diversity of backgrounds also contributed. The paper does not investigate river management directly, but rather how the industry behind it in Australia has been changing to meet those goals. The verdict is that progress has been solid but patchy.

“We’re doing a lot of good things at the local level,” Professor Fryirs says, citing several examples in eastern NSW. Dr Russell provided urban examples of Norman Creek in Hanlon Park/Bur’uda across the river from the University of Queensland in Brisbane and the Sunbury Integrated Water Management Plan, which will protect creeks and safeguard water supplies in western Melbourne.

“But this work needs upscaling and better resourcing – from short sections of river to corridors to catchments – if we are going to get anywhere close to achieving some of the UN’s global goals,” Professor Fryirs says. “Australia seems to have reached a pivotal point with fires, floods and droughts. If we don’t get this right at this time, then we may well have lost that moment.”

Analysis and recommendations

The authors analysed the spread of papers delivered to the long-running Australian Stream Management (ASM) conference over the 25 years between 1996 to 2021. From their analysis they extracted information on how the structure and the approaches of Australia’s river management industry have changed over time, and what the successes and failures have been.

They found that the river management industry has matured over those 25 years, with increasing diversity and collaboration between its different components. However, there has been little measurable expansion of the participation of local communities and of the use of adaptive management or ‘learning by doing’ and ‘learning from mistakes’.

In contrast to parts of the world where expensive engineering solutions – big dams, channels and pipelines – are still prevalent, such as China, India and South America, the researchers say that what they have found in Australia is typical of much of the developed world like Europe and North America. “The trends are quite similar,” says Dr Russell. “While our analysis is local, our recommendations are global.”

On the basis of their analysis the authors made five recommendations to support sustainable development – that practitioners from different areas of management should work together and with communities (including First Nations communities) holistically; that nature-based, rather than engineering solutions should be implemented; that greater resources should be devoted to adaptive river management; that knowledge and understanding should be preserved by institutions; and that practitioners should have more influence in formulating government policy.

Professor Kirstie Fryirs works on river geomorphology and management in Macquarie University’s School of Natural Sciences.

Dr Kathryn Russell works on the impacts of urbanisation on stream physical form and function in the University of Melbourne’s School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences.

Their co-authors are from the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Water Technology Pty Ltd, Streamology Pty Ltd, Alluvium Consulting Pty Ltd, Hydrobiology, and Melbourne Water.

Abstract

Globally, river management is a multi-billion-dollar industry. The United Nations (UN) Decade of Ecosystem Restoration calls for accelerated action towards integrated, participatory, and adaptive water resources management. Here we test whether the required shifts are occurring in the Australian stream management industry, an environmental management industry in a developed western nation. We undertook structured review and topic modelling of 958 peer-reviewed papers presented at the national stream management conference from 1996-2021. We investigated trends in collaboration, transdisciplinary knowledge, diversity of input and perspectives, adaptive management, interaction with policy, and responses to natural events. We found that the industry has matured over the past 25 years, with increasing collaboration, diversity and interdisciplinarity. However, there was no measurable increase in on-ground community participation or use of adaptive management. The findings highlight opportunities for the industry to mature further to achieve UN 2030 goals for integrated water resource management and ecosystem restoration.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00748-y

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JOURNAL

Communications Earth & Environment

DOI

10.1038/s43247-023-00748-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Evolution of a river management industry in Australia reveals meandering pathway to 2030 UN goals

Scientists develop new way to measure wind

Using data from two NOAA satellites, University of Arizona researchers developed an algorithm for measuring wind via water vapor

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

 

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS USE SATELLITES TO TRACK WATER VAPOR MOVEMENT IN THE ATMOSPHERE TO MEASURE WIND SPEED AND DIRECTION. view more 

CREDIT: NONE REQUIRED

Wind speed and direction provide clues for forecasting weather patterns. In fact, wind influences cloud formation by bringing water vapor together. Atmospheric scientists have now found a novel way of measuring wind – by developing an algorithm that uses data from water vapor movements. This could help predict extreme events like hurricanes and storms.

A study published by University of Arizona researchers in the journal Geophysical Research Letters provides, for the first time, data on the vertical distribution of horizontal winds over the tropics and midlatitudes. The researchers got the water vapor movement data by using two operational satellites of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, the federal agency for weather forecasting.

Wind brings everything else in the atmosphere together, including clouds, aerosols, water vapor, precipitation and radiation, said Xubin Zeng, co-author of the study and the director of the Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorology Collaborative at UArizona. But it has remained somewhat elusive.

"We never knew the wind very well. I mean, that's the last frontier. That's why I'm excited," Zeng said.

Thanks to more advanced algorithms, Zeng said, the researchers were able to do the estimation of horizontal winds not just at one altitude, but at different altitudes at the same location.

"This was not possible a decade ago," Zeng said.

Wind measurement typically is done in three different ways, Zeng explained. The first is through the use of radiosonde, an instrumental package suspended below a 6-foot-wide balloon. Sensors on the radiosonde measure wind speed and direction, and take measurements of atmospheric pressure, temperature and relative humidity. The downsides of radiosonde balloons, Zeng said, is the cost. Each launch could cost around $400 to $500, and some regions, such as Africa and the Amazon rainforest, have limited radiosonde stations. The other limitation is that radiosondes are not available over oceans, Zeng said.

Another way to measure wind is using cloud top, which is the height at which the upper visible part of the cloud is located, Zeng said. By tracking cloud top movement using geostationary satellite data, weather experts monitor wind speed and direction at one height. But Zeng said cloud tops exist most of the time below 2 miles or above 4 1/2 miles above Earth's surface, depending on whether the clouds are low or high. This means wind information is usually not available in the middle, between 2 and 4 1/2 miles.

Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, is a method that precisely measures wind movements at different elevations, and it provides very good data, Zeng said. But with lidar, measurements can be acquired only in one vertical "curtain," with measured wind typically in the east-west direction, he added.

Nowadays, Zeng said, to study topics like air quality and volcano ash dispersion, which are directly influenced by wind, experts use weather forecasting models to ingest measurements from different sources rather than using direct measurements of wind. But model outputs are not good enough when there is rainfall, Zeng said.

In their study, Zeng and his team avoided using data from models. They instead used data from the movement of water vapor recorded by the two NOAA satellites. The satellites moved in the same direction separated by a 50-minute interval, and they detected the water vapor movement through infrared radiation.

While our eyes cannot detect the minute movements of water vapor in the atmosphere, lead study author Amir Ouyed, a member of Zeng's research group, used machine-learning algorithms that do better image processing to track water vapor.

"For decades, people were saying, 'You have to move the cloud top or water vapors enough so that you can see the difference of the pattern.' But now, we don't need to do that," Zeng said.

"The resolution of the data is coarse, with a pixel size of 100 kilometers. It's a demonstration of the feasibility for our future satellite mission we are pursuing where we hope to provide the 10-kilometer resolution," Zeng said.

Zeng and his collaborators at other institutions are planning to pursue a new satellite wind mission in which they envision combining water vapor movement data and measurements from wind lidar to provide better wind measurements overall.

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JOURNAL

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

10.1029/2022GL101830 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Global Three-Dimensional Water Vapor Feature-Tracking for Horizontal Winds Using Hyperspectral Infrared Sounder Data From Overlapped Tracks of Two Satellite

New specimens and species of the Oligocene toothed baleen whale Coronodon from South Carolina and the origin of Neoceti

The five new skulls represent two new species: Coronodon planifrons and Coronodon newtonorum, and young juveniles of Coronodon havensteini

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON

 

IMAGE: NEW SPECIES OF FOSSIL TOOTHED BALEEN WHALES view more 

CREDIT: ROBERT W. BOESSENECKER

A new study published in the journal PeerJ by Robert W. Boessenecker (CofC), Brian L. Beatty (NYIT), and Jonathan H. Geisler (NYIT) reports a wealth of new fossils of the early toothed baleen whale Coronodon from Oligocene (23-30 million years old) rock layers near Charleston, South Carolina. These include five new skulls, representing two new species: Coronodon planifrons and Coronodon newtonorum, and young juveniles of Coronodon havensteini – first named from a single skull by this team in 2017. Coronodon is one of the most primitive members of the group that includes living baleen whales – its name translate to “crown tooth” referring to the large, multi-cusped teeth that overlap in the mouth. An ongoing scientfic controversy concerns whether these teeth were used for cutting, filter-feeding, or a combination of both. 

The two new species, Coronodon planifrons and Coronodon newtonorum, are found in the same rock layer and date to the same time period (late Oligocene; 25-23 myo). Coronodon havensteini (30-28 myo) is older and is a possible ancestor of these two species. Coronodon planifrons is named after a skull with a flat ‘forehead’ and possibly an extra tooth relative to the other species. Coronodon newtonorum is also known from a single skull and mandible, with slightly smaller teeth and an unusual shaped mouth that made it look like it was permanently ‘smiling’. 

New specimens of Coronodon havensteini include an old adult and two calves, and providing a rare window into the early growth and development of an Oligocene whales. Unlike modern dolphins and baleen whales, the snout stays the same length during growth – rather than being shorter in juveniles. The early growth of the snout is probably related to its large teeth, and underscores how important the teeth are to understanding this early whale. 

These new specimens and species indicate that Coronodon had a proportionally large head relative to its skeleton, swam in a style much like modern baleen whales, and likely had a flexible chin and joints in the skull that are typically associated with filter feeding. However, Coronodon appears to have lacked baleen. Reconstruction of the evolutionary tree of baleen whales places Coronodon as its earliest branch and this key to understanding the transition from feeding with teeth to feeding with baleen. 

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JOURNAL

PeerJ

DOI

10.7717/peerj.14795 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Imaging analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

New specimens and species of the Oligocene toothed baleen whale Coronodon from South Carolina and the origin of Neoceti

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Apr-2023

Tastes differ – even among North Atlantic killer whales

Detailed overview of orca diets provides insight into potential impacts on Arctic food webs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE FEEDING HABITS OF ORCAS VARY DEPENDING ON LOCATION AND INDIVIDUAL. view more 

CREDIT: RUNE DIETZ

Killer whales (also known as orcas) are intelligent predators. While it’s known that killer whales in the Pacific Northwest exploit widely different food types, even within the same region, we know much less about the feeding habits of those found throughout the North Atlantic. Thanks to a new technique developed by a research team led by McGill University, it is now possible to quantify, for the first time, the proportion of different prey that killer whales in the North Atlantic are eating by studying the fatty acid patterns in their blubber.

In the largest study of its kind, this approach was used to look more closely at the diets of killer whale from the eastern and northern coasts of Canada all the way to northern Norway. It provides the most detailed overview of North Atlantic killer whales diets to date. As climate change leads to a northward redistribution of killer whales, the results have implications not only for the health and survival of these killer whales, but also in terms of potential impacts on sensitive species within Arctic ecosystems.

A new tool to keep track of shifting diets

“In a context of climate change, it becomes increasingly urgent to understand and be able to quantify killer whale diets and how they are changing so that we can foresee the potential impacts on local food webs,” says Anaïs Remili, a PhD candidate in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University and the first author on a paper published in Journal of Animal Ecology.  “By measuring the composition of the fatty acids of approximately 200 killer whales and of 900 of their prey of different species, we were able estimate the specific proportions of each prey species in the whales’ diets. This means that scientists can potentially keep track of any shifts in these diets in the future.”

Orca food habits vary – by region and individual

The team found that killer whales have very different diets throughout the North Atlantic. In some areas, killer whales prefer to consume other whales: belugas and narwhals in the Eastern Canadian Arctic and baleen whales and porpoises in Eastern Canada.  

Killer whales feed predominantly on fish, especially herring in the Eastern North Atlantic (Norway, Faroe Islands, Iceland), and in the Central North Atlantic (Greenland) they primarily eat seals.

Interestingly, however, the McGill researchers also found that not all the whales in any given location feed on the same prey. For example, in the Eastern Canadian Arctic, half of the whales eat mainly belugas and narwhals, while the other half consume mainly ringed seals. In Greenland, killer whales consumed a mixture of all available prey. Lastly, in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, most whales are herring eaters, but a small number of whales in Norway and Iceland also consume a substantial proportion of marine mammals such as porpoises and seals. It is the first time that researchers have been able to detect individual diet preferences with this level of detail.

“Quantifying the diets of killer whales and other top predators is crucial in a context of changing environments, because it can provide insights into how these animals adapt to shifts in their prey populations and habitat conditions,” adds Melissa McKinney, the senior author on the paper, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill and the Canada Research Chair in Ecological Change and Environmental Stressors. “Our results also point to the need for further research on the ecology of the individuals since we found such large differences among individuals of the same populations.”

The study:

“Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis reveals a high level of dietary specialization in killer whales across the North Atlantic by Anaïs Remili et al. in Journal of Animal Ecology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13920

CAPTION

The diets of killer whales in the North Atlantic vary by location and by individual. To find out more, watch the video: https://youtu.be/qJh-1XRxTq8

By measuring the fatty acid of killer whales in different locations, researchers have been able to gain insight into their eating habits.

CREDIT

Anais Remili

JOURNAL

Journal of Animal Ecology

DOI

10.1111/1365-2656.13920 

ARTICLE TITLE

Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis reveals a high level of dietary specialization in killer whales across the North Atlantic

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Apr-2023