Apple snail invasion could be “disastrous” for rice production and food security in Kenya, study reveals

An invasion of apple snail could be “disastrous” for rice production and food security in Kenya as well as other rice growing regions across Africa, according to a new CABI-led study published in the journal Pest Management Science.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CABI

Ampullariidae - Wikipedia

An invasion of apple snail could be “disastrous” for rice production and food security in Kenya as well as other rice growing regions across Africa, according to a new CABI-led study published in the journal Pest Management Science.

The scientists, led by Kate Constantine, Project Scientist at CABI, highlight apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) (Lamarck), family: Ampullariidae) as a serious problem in Kenya’s Mwea Irrigation Scheme. Extension agents stated apple snail is one of farmers top five complaints and agro-dealers reported that 70% of complaints on a daily basis were due to apple snail.

Household surveys and focus group discussions with smallholder farmers, alongside key informant interviews, revealed the invasive species – which is native to South America – reduced rice yields by up to 14% and net rice income by up to 60% for farmers experiencing moderate levels of infestation (>20% of cultivated area affected).

The researchers stress that it is “essential” that strategies to limit the spread of apple snail are rapidly implemented. This includes, the scientists say, raising awareness, outreach and capacity building at all levels of the farming system.

In Kenya, around 300,000 small-scale farmers are involved in rice cultivation, not only providing labour but also earning their livelihood, with the Mwea Irrigation Scheme in Kirinyaga County accounting for 80-88% of the country’s rice production.

The Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture & Livestock Development predicts that rice consumption will reach 1,292,000 tons by 2030. As a result, rice has been identified as a priority value chain in the National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP 2018-2028) and National Rice Development Strategy-2 (2019-2030), which aims to transform Kenya's agriculture towards sustainable food and nutrition security and socio-economic development.

However, there is considerable untapped potential to expand rice production in the country, with estimates suggesting a production potential of up to 1.3 million hectares of irrigated rice.

Ms Constantine said, “Rice production has seen consistent growth in demand over the last three decades, with its potential to improve rural livelihoods being widely recognized. In Kenya, rice is the third most important cereal grain after maize and wheat, and its consumption is increasing at a faster rate than production.

“However, rice farmers in Mwea face various challenges, including water shortages, rice blast attacks, high input costs, low land productivity, machinery shortages, bird damage, poor infrastructure, and a lack of resilient and acceptable rice varieties.

“The recent introduction of apple snail has added to these challenges, posing a serious threat to rice production in the region and potentially across Africa.”

Fernadis Makale, co-author, added that, in response to the apple snail threat, a Multi-Institutional Technical Team (MITT) drawn from various national and international institutions has been established to lead management efforts and provide consolidated advice to farmers on how to effectively manage the pest.

The researchers found that farmers reported increased use of chemicals to try and combat apple snail as well as the costly practice of hired labour to physically remove egg masses and snails.

Mr Makale said, “The negative impacts will only increase over time as apple snail continues to spread. It is a call for urgent action. There is a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity for potential containment, or possibly even eradication, before apple snail becomes widespread in Kenya, and the only feasible option will become management, with its associated high economic, livelihood and environmental costs.”

The scientists argue that in the absence of action to mitigate spread, the consequences could be disastrous, not only for farmers in Mwea but further afield. For example, if the snail spreads into the irrigated rice-production area of Ahero, at the edge of Lake Victoria, rice production in Tanzania and Uganda would be threatened, and from here inevitable further spread would occur.

“There are also serious food security implications as apple snail threatens any progress that has been made towards Kenya’s self-sufficiency in rice production,” Ms Constantine added.

 

Additional information

Full paper reference

Constantine, K.L., Makale, F., Mugambi, I., Chacha, D. Rware, H., Muvea, A., Kipngetich, V.K., Tambo, J., Ogunmodede, A., Djeddour, D., Pratt, C.F., Rwomushana, I. and Williams, F. 2023. Assessment of the socio-economic impacts associated with the arrival of apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) in Mwea Irrigation Scheme, Kenya. Pest Management Science. 20 July 2023. DOI: 10.1002/ps.7638

The paper can be read open access here once the embargo has lifted: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ps.7638

Please contact k.constantine@cabi.org or w.coles@cabi.org for advance copies of the paper

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JOURNAL

Pest Management Science

DOI

10.1002/ps.7638 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Assessment of the socio-economic impacts associated with the arrival of apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) in Mwea Irrigation Scheme, Kenya

When ET calls, can we be sure we're not being spoofed?

New SETI technique filters out Earth interference to focus on extraterrestrial signals only

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY

 

IMAGE: BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN USES RADIO TELESCOPES TO MONITOR EMISSIONS FROM HUNDREDS OF STAR SYSTEMS NEAR EARTH IN SEARCH OF NARROWBAND SIGNALS THAT COULD BE INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS OR RADIO LEAKAGE FROM CIVILIZATIONS ON OTHER PLANETS. view more 

CREDIT: ZAYNA SHEIKH, BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN

Scientists have devised a new technique for finding and vetting possible radio signals from other civilizations in our galaxy — a major advance in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that will significantly boost confidence in any future detection of alien life.

Most of today's SETI searches are conducted by Earth-based radio telescopes, which means that any ground or satellite radio interference — ranging from Starlink satellites to cellphones, microwaves and even car engines — can produce a radio blip that mimics a technosignature of a civilization outside our solar system. Such false alarms have raised and then dashed hopes since the first dedicated SETI program began in 1960.

Currently, researchers vet these signals by pointing the telescope in a different place in the sky, then return a few times to the spot where the signal was originally detected to confirm it wasn't a one-off. Even then, the signal could be something weird produced on Earth.

The new technique, developed by researchers at the Breakthrough Listen project at the University of California, Berkeley, checks for evidence that the signal has actually passed through interstellar space, eliminating the possibility that the signal is mere radio interference from Earth.

Breakthrough Listen, the most comprehensive SETI search anywhere, monitors the northern and southern skies with radio telescopes in search of technosignatures. It also targets thousands of individual stars in the plane of the Milky Way galaxy, which is the likely direction a civilization would beam a signal, with a particular focus on the center of the galaxy.

"I think it's one of the biggest advances in radio SETI in a long time," said Andrew Siemion, principal investigator for Breakthrough Listen and director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC), which operates the world's longest running SETI program. "It's the first time where we have a technique that, if we just have one signal, potentially could allow us to intrinsically differentiate it from radio frequency interference. That's pretty amazing, because if you consider something like the Wow! signal, these are often a one-off."

Siemion was referring to a famed 72-second narrowband signal observed in 1977 by a radio telescope in Ohio. The astronomer who discovered the signal, which looked like nothing produced by normal astrophysical processes, wrote "Wow!" in red ink on the data printout. The signal has not been observed since.

"The first ET detection may very well be a one-off, where we only see one signal," Siemion said. "And if a signal doesn't repeat, there's not a lot that we can say about that. And obviously, the most likely explanation for it is radio frequency interference, as is the most likely explanation for the Wow! signal. Having this new technique and the instrumentation capable of recording data at sufficient fidelity such that you could see the effect of the interstellar medium, or ISM, is incredibly powerful."

The technique is described in a paper appearing today in The Astrophysical Journal by UC Berkeley graduate student Bryan Brzycki; Siemion; Brzycki's thesis adviser Imke de Pater, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of astronomy; and colleagues at Cornell University and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

Siemion noted that, in the future, Breakthrough Listen will be employing the so-called scintillation technique, along with sky location, during its SETI observations, including with the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia — the world’s largest steerable radio telescope — and the MeerKAT array in South Africa.

Distinguishing a signal from ET

For more than 60 years, SETI researchers have scanned the skies in search of signals that look different from the typical radio emissions of stars and cataclysmic events, such as supernovas. One key distinction is that natural cosmic sources of radio waves produce a broad range of wavelengths — that is, broadband radio waves — whereas technical civilizations, like our own, produce narrowband radio signals. Think radio static versus a tuned-in FM station.

Because of the huge background of narrowband radio bursts from human activity on Earth, finding a signal from outer space is like looking for a needle in a haystack. So far, no narrowband radio signals from outside our solar system have been confirmed, though Breakthrough Listen found one interesting candidate — dubbed BLC1 — in 2020. Later analysis determined that it was almost certainly due to radio interference, Siemion said.

Siemion and his colleagues realized, however, that real signals from extraterrestrial civilizations should exhibit features caused by passage through the ISM that could help discriminate between Earth- and space-based radio signals. Thanks to past research describing how the cold plasma in the interstellar medium, primarily free electrons, affect signals from radio sources such as pulsars, astronomers now have a good idea how the ISM affects narrowband radio signals. Such signals tend to rise and fall in amplitude over time — that is, they scintillate. This is because the signals are slightly refracted, or bent, by the intervening cold plasma, so that when the radio waves eventually reach Earth by different paths, the waves interfere, both positively and negatively.

Our atmosphere produces a similar scintillation, or twinkle, that affects the pinprick of optical light from a star. Planets, which are not point sources of light, do not twinkle.

Brzycki developed a computer algorithm, available as a Python script, that analyzes the scintillation of narrowband signals and plucks out those that dim and brighten over periods of less than a minute, indicating they've passed through the ISM.

"This implies that we could use a suitably tuned pipeline to unambiguously identify artificial emission from distant sources vis-a-vis terrestrial interference," de Pater said. "Further, even if we didn’t use this technique to find a signal, this technique could, in certain cases, confirm a signal originating from a distant source, rather than locally. This work represents the first new method of signal confirmation beyond the spatial reobservation filter in the history of radio SETI."

Brzycki is now conducting radio observations at the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to show that the technique can quickly weed out Earth-based radio signals and perhaps even detect scintillation in a narrowband signal — a technosignature candidate.

"Maybe we can identify this effect within individual observations and see that attenuation and brightening and actually say that the signal is undergoing that effect," he said. "It's another tool that we have available now."

The technique will be useful only for signals that originate more than about 10,000 light years from Earth, since a signal must travel through enough of the ISM to exhibit detectable scintillation. Anything originating nearby — the BLC-1 signal, for example, seemed to be coming from our nearest star, Proxima Centauri — would not exhibit this effect.

Other co-authors of the paper are James Cordes of Cornell, Brian Lacki of BSRC and Vishal Gajjar and Sofia Sheikh of both BSRC and the SETI Institute. Breakthrough Listen is managed by the Breakthrough Initiatives, a program sponsored by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.

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JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

ARTICLE TITLE

On Detecting Interstellar Scintillation in Narrowband Radio SETI

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Jul-2023

Why people tend to believe UFOs are extraterrestrial

by Barry Markovsky, The Conversation

The left image shows bottom-up diffusion, in which information spreads from person to

 person. The right shows top-down, in which information spreads from one authority. 

Credit: Barry Markovsky

Most of us still call them UFOs—unidentified flying objects. NASA recently adopted the term "unidentified anomalous phenomena," or UAP. Either way, every few years popular claims resurface that these things are not of our world, or that the U.S. government has some stored away.

I'm a sociologist who focuses on the interplay between individuals and groups, especially concerning shared beliefs and misconceptions. As for why UFOs and their alleged occupants enthrall the public, I've found that normal human perceptual and social processes explain UFO buzz as much as anything up in the sky.

Historical context

Like political scandals and high-waisted jeans, UFOs trend in and out of collective awareness but never fully disappear. Thirty years of polling find that 25%-50% of surveyed Americans believe at least some UFOs are alien spacecraft. Today in the U.S., over 100 million adults think our galactic neighbors pay us visits.

It wasn't always so. Linking objects in the sky with visiting extraterrestrials has risen in popularity only in the past 75 years. Some of this is probably market-driven. Early UFO stories boosted newspaper and magazine sales, and today they are reliable clickbait online.

In 1980, a popular book called "The Roswell Incident" by Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore described an alleged flying saucer crash and government cover-up 33 years prior near Roswell, New Mexico. The only evidence ever to emerge from this story was a small string of downed weather balloons. Nevertheless, the book coincided with a resurgence of interest in UFOs. From there, a steady stream of UFO-themed TV shows, films, and pseudo-documentaries has fueled public interest. Perhaps inevitably, conspiracy theories about government cover-ups have risen in parallel.

Some UFO cases inevitably remain unresolved. But despite the growing interest, multiple investigations have found no evidence that UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin—other than the occasional meteor or misidentification of Venus.

But the U.S. Navy's 2017 Gimbal video continues to appear in the media. It shows strange objects filmed by fighter jets, often interpreted as evidence of alien spacecraft. And in June 2023, an otherwise credible Air Force veteran and former intelligence officer made the stunning claim that the U.S. government is storing numerous downed alien spacecraft and their dead occupants.

Human factors contributing to UFO beliefs

Only a small percentage of UFO believers are eyewitnesses. The rest base their opinions on eerie images and videos strewn across both social media and traditional mass media. There are astronomical and biological reasons to be skeptical of UFO claims. But less often discussed are the psychological and social factors that bring them to the popular forefront.

Many people would love to know whether or not we're alone in the universe. But so far, the evidence on UFO origins is ambiguous at best. Being averse to ambiguity, people want answers. However, being highly motivated to find those answers can bias judgments. People are more likely to accept weak evidence or fall prey to optical illusions if they support preexisting beliefs.

UFO videos released by the U.S. Navy, often taken as evidence of alien spaceships.

For example, in the 2017 Navy video, the UFO appears as a cylindrical aircraft moving rapidly over the background, rotating and darting in a manner unlike any terrestrial machine. Science writer Mick West's analysis challenged this interpretation using data displayed on the tracking screen and some basic geometry. He explained how the movements attributed to the blurry UFO are an illusion. They stem from the plane's trajectory relative to the object, the quick adjustments of the belly-mounted camera, and misperceptions based on our tendency to assume cameras and backgrounds are stationary.

West found the UFO's flight characteristics were more like a bird's or a weather balloon's than an acrobatic interstellar spacecraft. But the illusion is compelling, especially with the Navy's still deeming the object unidentified.

West also addressed the former intelligence officer's claim that the U.S. government possesses crashed UFOs and dead aliens. He emphasized caution, given the whistleblower's only evidence was that people he trusted told him they'd seen the alien artifacts. West noted we've heard this sort of thing before, along with promises that the proof will soon be revealed. But it never comes.

Anyone, including pilots and intelligence officers, can be socially influenced to see things that aren't there. Research shows that hearing from others who claim to have seen something extraordinary is enough to induce similar judgments. The effect is heightened when the influencers are numerous or higher in status. Even recognized experts aren't immune from misjudging unfamiliar images obtained under unusual conditions.

Group factors contributing to UFO beliefs

"Pics or it didn't happen" is a popular expression on social media. True to form, users are posting countless shaky images and videos of UFOs. Usually they're nondescript lights in the sky captured on cellphone cameras. But they can go viral on social media and reach millions of users. With no higher authority or organization propelling the content, social scientists call this a bottom-up social diffusion process.

In contrast, top-down diffusion occurs when information emanates from centralized agents or organizations. In the case of UFOs, sources have included social institutions like the military, individuals with large public platforms like U.S. senators, and major media outlets like CBS.

Amateur organizations also promote active personal involvement for many thousands of members, the Mutual UFO Network being among the oldest and largest. But as Sharon A. Hill points out in her book "Scientifical Americans," these groups apply questionable standards, spread misinformation and garner little respect within mainstream scientific communities.

Top-down and bottom-up diffusion processes can combine into self-reinforcing loops. Mass media spreads UFO content and piques worldwide interest in UFOs. More people aim their cameras at the skies, creating more opportunities to capture and share odd-looking content. Poorly documented UFO pics and videos spread on social media, leading media outlets to grab and republish the most intriguing. Whistleblowers emerge periodically, fanning the flames with claims of secret evidence.

Despite the hoopla, nothing ever comes of it.

For a scientist familiar with the issues, skepticism that UFOs carry alien beings is wholly separate from the prospect of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence have a number of ongoing research projects designed to detect signs of extraterrestrial life. If intelligent life is out there, they'll likely be the first to know.

As astronomer Carl Sagan wrote, "The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space."

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

Current evidence identifies health risks of e-cigarette use; long-term research needed

New American Heart Association scientific statement outlines current science on health effects of e-cigarette use, calls for more research on long-term impact

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION

Statement Highlights:

• The number of people who use electronic nicotine delivery systems, typically referred to as e-cigarettes, has grown exponentially, especially among youth and young adults. E-cigarette use more than doubled from 2017 to 2019 among middle and high school students.
• Ingredients of e-cigarettes, including nicotine, flavoring agents, sweeteners and propylene glycol and vegetable glycerol, may each independently pose dangerous health risks.
• More clinical studies on the long-term impact of e-cigarettes on the heart, blood vessels and lungs are needed, and experts emphasize additional molecular and laboratory research is needed in the interim to help determine biological implications of e-cigarette use.

Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT / 5 a.m. ET Monday, July 17, 2023

DALLAS, July 17, 2023 — Research increasingly reveals health risks of e-cigarette use, and more studies are needed about the long-term impact e-cigarettes may have on the heart and lungs, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association published today in the Association’s flagship journal Circulation.

The new scientific statement, “Cardiopulmonary Impact of Electronic Cigarettes and Vaping Products,” details the latest usage data and trends, identifies current health impacts, highlights existing basic and clinical scientific evidence surrounding e-cigarettes and recommends research priorities to further understand the short- and long-term health effects of e-cigarette use.

Vaping products, also known as e-cigarettes, are battery-operated systems that heat a liquid solution, or e-liquid, to create an aerosol that is inhaled into the lungs. Most e-liquid formulations deliver nicotine, which has been established as having negative health effects as well as strong addictive properties. The products may also contain other substances, most commonly tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive element of cannabis, as well as methamphetamine, methadone or vitamins. The liquids also include humectants (hygroscopic carriers such as propylene glycol and vegetable glycerol) that act as solvents and create a water aerosol or vapor, flavoring agents, cooling agents such as menthol and sweeteners, in addition to metals from the heating coil and other chemicals.

“E-cigarettes deliver numerous substances into the body that are potentially harmful, including chemicals and other compounds that are likely not known to or understood by the user. There is research indicating that nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are associated with acute changes in several hemodynamic measures, including increases in blood pressure and heart rate,” said the volunteer chair of the scientific statement writing committee Jason J. Rose, M.D., M.B.A., an associate professor of medicine and the associate dean of innovation and physician science development at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. “There has also been research indicating that even when nicotine is not present, ingredients in e-cigarettes, particularly flavoring agents, independently carry risks associated with heart and lung diseases in animals. Negative effects of e-cigarettes have been shown through in vitro studies and in studies of individuals exposed to chemicals in commercially available products.”

The writing committee points to the significance of the clinical diagnosis of “E-cigarette, or Vaping, product use Associated Lung Injury” (EVALI). EVALI was first recognized as a condition by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2019, when approximately 2,800 hospitalizations occurred among e-cigarette users in less than a year. This is cited in the statement as one example that emphasizes the lack of knowledge surrounding the risks of e-cigarettes and their ingredients. In the case of the EVALI hospitalizations, vitamin E acetate has been implicated as the ingredient likely causing illness. This substance is used as a thickening agent in some e-cigarette liquids.

Studies gauging the specific impact e-cigarettes have on heart attacks and strokes are limited. Much research on e-cigarette use has been conducted in people who have also used or were currently using traditional cigarettes. Additionally, large survey studies have focused on younger adults who have a low occurrence of heart attacks and strokes. The writing committee says longer-term studies of e-cigarettes users of all ages are needed, including among people who already have cardiovascular disease.

One recent analysis of the adult Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study found a statistically significant association between former or current e-cigarette use at the time participants enrolled in the study and the development of incident respiratory disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/COPD, chronic bronchitis, emphysema or asthma) within the next two years. The PATH Study, an ongoing study that started in 2013, is one of the first large tobacco research efforts undertaken by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Additional studies cited in the statement indicate a rapid increase since 2010 in the number of people who had ever used e-cigarettes or were currently using the devices, and most of those users were current or former traditional cigarette smokers. In addition, by 2016, data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System indicated about 1.2 million adults in the U.S. who had never smoked combustible cigarettes before were currently using e-cigarettes.

The writing committee noted that e-cigarettes are reported to be the most commonly used tobacco product among youth, particularly high school and middle school students. The statement cites data showing that almost 3 out of 4 young people using e-cigarettes exclusively report using flavored e-cigarette products. This high rate of use by youth makes it critical to assess the short- and long-term health effects of these products, according to the statement.

“Young people often become attracted to the flavors available in these products and can develop nicotine dependence from e-cigarette use. There is significant concern about young people assuming e-cigarettes are not harmful because they are widely available and marketed to an age group that includes many people who have never used any tobacco products,” Rose said. “The long-term risks of using e-cigarettes are unknown, but if the risks of chronic use are like combustible cigarettes, or even if the risks are reduced but still present, we may not observe them for decades. What is equally concerning is that studies show that some youth who use e-cigarettes go on to use other tobacco products, and there is also a correlation between e-cigarette use and substance use disorders.”

Given the established, high health risks of smoking combustible cigarettes, e-cigarette products have been evaluated as smoking cessation tools. The writing committee examined the limited research in this area and concluded that any benefits e-cigarettes may offer to help people stop smoking or stop using tobacco products needs to be clearly balanced alongside the products’ known and unknown potential health risks, including the known risk of long-term dependence on these products.

“E-cigarette companies have suggested that their products are a way to quit smoking traditional cigarettes. There is no strong evidence to support this beyond any short-term benefit. The lack of long-term scientific safety data on e-cigarette use, along with the potential for the addiction to e-cigarette products seen among youth, are among the reasons the American Heart Association does not recommend e-cigarette use for cessation efforts,” said Rose Marie Robertson, M.D., FAHA, the Association’s deputy chief science and medical officer and co-director of the Association’s Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science. “It’s also important to note that e-cigarette products are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for tobacco cessation. The Association recommends a combination of multiple-episode cessation counselling accompanied by personalized nicotine replacement therapy with FDA-approved doses and formulations, as well as medications to help control cravings, to help people who smoke combustible cigarettes with cessation. And all of this needs to be undertaken with the understanding that quitting often takes many tries, and any failures should be seen as just episodes to learn from on the road to finally beating a powerful addiction for good.”

The scientific statement writing committee emphasizes a critical need for additional knowledge and research, specifically:

• Future research should focus on gaining knowledge about serious and potentially long-term effects of e-cigarettes on the heart, blood vessels and lungs.
• Studies are needed that include patients with pre-existing cardiopulmonary disease, such as coronary artery disease or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, to evaluate and compare outcomes among e-cigarette users in comparison to traditional smokers, and those who use e-cigarettes along with traditional cigarettes (referred to as dual users) and nonsmokers.
• More in-depth research is needed about the common chemical ingredients in e-cigarettes and the effects they independently have on pulmonary and cardiac health.
• Clinical studies are needed to study the risks and potential benefits of e-cigarettes as alternatives to traditional combustible cigarettes.
• Since the long-term health impact of e-cigarettes may take decades to emerge, more molecular and laboratory studies are needed in the interim to help determine the biological implications of e-cigarette use.

“Because e-cigarettes and other vaping systems have only been in the U.S. for about 15 years, we do not yet have enough information on their long-term health effects, so we must rely on shorter term studies, molecular experiments and research in animals to try to assess the true risk of using e-cigarettes,” Jason Rose added. “It is necessary for us to expand this type of research since the adoption of e-cigarettes has grown exponentially, especially in young people, many of whom may have never used combustible cigarettes.”

 The scientific statement was prepared by the volunteer writing group on behalf of the American Heart Association’s Council on Cardiopulmonary, Critical Care, Perioperative and Resuscitation; the Council on Epidemiology and Prevention; the Council on Cardiovascular Radiology and Intervention; the Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health; the Council on Peripheral Vascular Disease; the Stroke Council; and the Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. American Heart Association scientific statements promote greater awareness about cardiovascular diseases and help facilitate informed health care decisions. Scientific statements outline what is currently known about a topic and what areas need additional research. While scientific statements inform the development of guidelines, they do not make treatment recommendations.

Statement writing group members and their disclosures are listed in the manuscript.

The Association receives funding primarily from individuals. Foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, device manufacturers and health insurance providers, and the Association’s overall financial information are available here.

Additional Resources:

• Available multimedia is on right column of release link https://newsroom.heart.org/news/current-evidence-identifies-health-risks-of-e-cigarette-use-long-term-research-needed?preview=b658cb9659cd32dfc935ee4ae54a5714
• Spanish news release (to be added) 
• After July 17, view the manuscript online.
• AHA news release: Use of e-cigarettes had negative cardiovascular effects similar to smoking cigarettes (October 2022)
• AHA news release: People who vape had worrisome changes in cardiovascular function, even as young adults (October 2022)
• Action needed to reduce e-cigarette use among adolescents to lower lifetime CVD risk (June 2022)
• AHA news release: No health benefits among adults who used both e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes (May 2022)
• AHA health information: Quit Vaping – Quit Smoking – Quit Tobacco
• AHA health information: The Ugly Truth About Vaping
• Follow AHA/ASA news on Twitter @HeartNews

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public’s health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.

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JOURNAL

Circulation

DOI

10.1161/CIR.0000000000001160 

ARTICLE TITLE

Cardiopulmonary Impact of Electronic Cigarettes and Vaping Products: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association

 

Five new embryos and new surrogate mothers added to the Northern White Rhino BioRescue project

Business Announcement

LEIBNIZ INSTITUTE FOR ZOO AND WILDLIFE RESEARCH (IZW)

 

IMAGE: SOUTHERN WHITE RHINO FEMALE FOR BIORESCUE BREEDING PROJECT view more 

CREDIT: LEIBNIZ-IZW/JUAREZ

Four years since the start of this ambitious project to save the Northern White Rhino from extinction, the BioRescue consortium has made significant progress towards its ultimate aim. Using advanced assisted reproduction technologies, 29 northern white rhino embryos have been created and cryopreserved, ready for a future transfer to a surrogate mother. Most recently, in May 2023, 18 eggs were collected from female Fatu. This resulted in five new embryos created, the highest number of embryos from any collection to date. The sperm for fertilisation came from two different bulls, thereby improving genetic diversity. The BioRescue research project is mainly funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

During the last scientific field trip to Kenya in May 2023, the 13th egg collection from the Northern White Rhinoceros (NWR) was carried out by a team of scientists and conservationists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Safari Park Dvůr Králové, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and Wildlife Research and Training Institute (WRTI) at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The procedure with the female Fatu went smoothly without any complications and 18 eggs were harvested. They were matured and fertilised at the Avantea lab in Cremona, Italy, leading to 5 further embryos being produced, the highest number of embryos from any one egg collection so far. Previous procedures in November 2022 (11th collection) and February 2023 (12thcollection) yielded two and zero embryos, respectively. 

 

Furthermore, in May 2023 the BioRescue team made another promising step towards saving the most endangered mammal species on our planet. The consortium members successfully identified and selected two wild southern white rhino females (SWR) as potential surrogate mothers. Both females were examined and translocated into a safe enclosure. They will now be crucial in supporting the breeding efforts within the BioRescue project for the NWRs. 

 

The consortium members also checked the health status of the SWR teaser bull Ouwan and confirmed that he is still functionally sterilised. The teaser bull indicates by copulating with a female that a potential SWR surrogate mother is ready to receive an embryo. The bull has to be sterilised, otherwise it makes no sense to perform an embryo transfer as the female would become pregnant with the bull’s sperm.

 

The next steps of the BioRescue project will be to perform embryo transfers with SWR embryos to demonstrate that the chosen transfer protocol is suitable and works. Once a proven pregnancy is achieved the team will use the protocol for transferring cryopreserved NWR embryos to produce viable offspring as soon as possible. 

 

All steps of the BioRescue project are monitored and accompanied by an ethical evaluation procedure developed and implemented by the Ethics Laboratory for Veterinary Medicine, Conservation and Animal Welfare at Padua University in Italy. Apart from BMBF, other major donors to the NWR BioRescue project include foundation Nadace ČEZ and Richard McLellan.

 

Media pack

A collection of photos can be accessed via the following link:

https://hidrive.ionos.com/share/6ysxm.-f-5

Photos may only be used for the news section of media relations and in direct editorial connection with the content presented in this press release and must be credited with "Name/BioRescue".

 

Background information

Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW)

The Leibniz-IZW is an internationally renowned German research institute in the Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. and a member of the Leibniz Association. Our mission is to study evolutionary adaptations of wildlife to global change and to develop new concepts and measures for the conservation of biodiversity. To achieve this, our scientists use their broad interdisciplinary expertise in biology and veterinary medicine to conduct basic and applied research - from the molecular to the landscape level - in close dialogue with the public and stakeholders. In addition, we are committed to providing unique and high-quality services to the scientific community.

www.izw-berlin.de 

 

Safari Park Dvůr Králové

Safari Park Dvůr Králové is a safari park in the Czech Republic. It is one of the best rhino breeders outside Africa and the only place where the Northern White Rhino has been bred in human care - the two remaining females, Najin and Fatu, were born here. The Dvůr Králové Safari Park is coordinating efforts to save the northern white rhinos.

https://safaripark.cz/en/ 

 

Kenya Wildlife Service

The Kenya Wildlife Service is the main government institution responsible for the conservation and management of wildlife in Kenya. It also enforces the relevant laws and regulations.

http://kws.go.ke/ 

 

Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Ol Pejeta Conservancy is home to the largest population of the eastern black rhino and the only place in Kenya where chimpanzees can be seen. It is also home to the last two northern white rhinos in the world. Ol Pejeta's state-of-the-art wildlife security measures include a dedicated K-9 unit, motion-sensor cameras along the solar-powered electric fence and a special rhino protection unit with dog squadron.

www.olpejetaconservancy.org 

 

Avantea

Avantea is a laboratory for advanced technologies in biotechnological research and animal reproduction based in Cremona, Italy. Avantea has more than twenty years of experience and know-how in the field of assisted reproduction of farm animals, developed through years of research in biomedicine and animal reproduction. 

www.avantea.it/en/ 

 

University of Padua

The University of Padua in Italy is one of the oldest universities in the world and is celebrating its 800th anniversary. Its Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Sciences develops leading research and education in the field of wildlife conservation and protection, with a particular focus on ethical assessment and evaluation of research projects and educational programmes. 

www.unipd.it/en/

 

Wildlife Research and Training Institute

Wildlife Research and Training Institute (WRTI) is a Government established under the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act No. 47 of 2013 to coordinate and undertake wildlife research and training in Kenya using innovative approaches to provide accurate and reliable data and information for policy formulation and decision making.

wrti.go.ke

 

Disruption risk along global supply chains: technology outage and IR&D investment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KEAI COMMUNICATIONS CO., LTD.

 

IMAGE: OUTAGE AND IR&D INVESTMENT SIMULATION ANALYSIS view more 

CREDIT: XIAOXIAO CHANG, SOUTHEAST UNIVERSITY

In the current global situation, global industrial and supply chains are being reorganized, and their safe and stable operation is facing numerous risks and challenges. One important factor driving this restructuring is the development of key core technologies, which have become crucial in the global economic competition.

With that consideration, a team of researchers from the the School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, conducted a study to address the issue of how product manufacturers can mitigate the risk of losing access to these key core technologies within the context of international competition.

The team used a duopoly Hotelling model, which represents two competing products from two different countries. The study also incorporates game models that consider different scenarios, such as whether enterprises experiencing a core technology outage choose to pursue independent research and development (IR&D) or not.

“We examined four scenarios: the benchmark scenario without independent research and development (IR&D) before and after a technology outage, and the IR&D scenario before and after the technology outage,” explained Lindu Zhao, corresponding author of the study. “Additionally, we evaluated the risk of outage by comparing the impact of a government-initiated outage on the profit change of firms in the initiating country and the firm whose supply was disrupted.”

For enterprises that experienced a technology outage implement IR&D, the team compared the magnitude of profit changes between the two countries' enterprises and analyzed the effectiveness of IR&D investments made by firms in the country affected by the technology outage in managing the risk associated with such outages.

“Our analysis reveals several key findings. First, initiating a core technology outage may result in greater profit loss for the country responsible for the outage, while the country possessing the core technology may experience a larger change in profits compared to the country investing in IR&D,” shared Zhao. “Enterprise investments in IR&D can create a strategic advantage and influence the dynamics of the game between countries.”

The team published their findings in the journal Fundamental Research.

“By reducing technological disadvantages, the IR&D strategy can mitigate the urgency associated with the risk of technology outages and weaken the absolute control exerted by the rival country responsible for the outage. In other words, IR&D investments empower the country to establish a certain level of control and influence over the situation,” Zhao added.

According to the researchers, understanding how to model and incorporate dynamic changes is a crucial challenge for the future of supply chain risk management. This aspect should be further explored to enhance our understanding and improve decision-making in this field.

“There is an old Chinese saying that goes, "Kill one thousand enemies and self-defeat eight hundred”,” Zhao quipped. “This saying emphasizes the idea that both countries face a critical decision when it comes to weighing the potential outcomes of IR&D investment. It raises the question of whether pursuing such investment would result in a "Pyrrhic victory," where the costs incurred outweigh the benefits gained.”

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Contact the author: Lindu Zhao, School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, China, ldzhao@seu.edu.cn

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

 

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JOURNAL

Fundamental Research

DOI

10.1016/j.fmre.2023.06.004 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Technology outage risk and independent research and development investment decision in global supply chains