Friday, August 18, 2023

It’s not just humans: City life is stressful for coyotes, too

Study also links sickness, social status to higher cortisol

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Though cars are the biggest threat to coyotes taking up residence in U.S. cities, a new study suggests urban living poses a different kind of hazard to coyote health – in the form of chronic stress.

Researchers from The Ohio State University examined the concentration of the stress hormone cortisol in the hair of almost 100 coyotes living in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Results showed that coyotes that lived in the most-developed areas had higher cortisol levels – a proxy for chronic stress – than animals living in suburban or natural areas.

Two other factors stood out for their association to higher stress: poor body condition, mostly related to sickness with the skin disease mange, and being either a loner or an alpha in a pack – the males and females that constitute breeding pairs. Whether the stress linked to these factors can be traced directly to urban living or is just part of coyote life remains a bit of a mystery.

"This is the first mammalian carnivore that has been evaluated for stress in an urban environment," said lead author Stan Gehrt, a wildlife ecologist at Ohio State. "The city does present challenges for them, even though they’re really good at doing what they’re doing. This is helping us understand how well animals are adjusting to urban systems – or not adjusting to them.

"And we found that with coyotes, it’s complicated."

The study was published online recently in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Gehrt, a professor in Ohio State’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, leads the Urban Coyote Research Project that has monitored coyotes living in Chicago since 2000. He and his colleagues spend a lot of time with the animals, collecting biological samples, microchipping them and tracking their movement, and documenting their reproductive success, dietary habits and other behaviors in the urban wild.

For this study, first author Katie Robertson, who completed the work as a PhD student at Ohio State, shaved a bit of hair from the rump just above the tail of 97 coyotes – most alive, but some captured after death from illness or being hit by a car. The animals were also outfitted with radiotracking devices that enabled researchers to monitor their space use and determine their social status. Data collection occurred between 2014 and 2018.

The hair samples were analyzed for their concentration of cortisol, a hormone produced as part of the body’s response to stress. Analyzing hair, as opposed to blood, was intended to provide an estimate of long-term stress over the previous weeks or months before collection rather than a reaction to an immediate stressor. Statistical modeling revealed the factors that were associated with higher stress.

The researchers predicted that coyotes living in the more developed areas of Chicago would have higher concentrations of cortisol – and stress – than coyotes whose packs had more flexibility of movement and less exposure to people in the less dense areas in which they lived.

The results bore out that hypothesis, but the findings also showed there is more to the story of modern coyote life: Poor physical condition is linked to higher stress – which poses a chicken-and-egg question of which problem came first. Sarcoptic mange infection itself doesn’t kill coyotes, but the loss of hair makes them susceptible to succumbing to cold Chicago winters.

In addition, the analysis suggested the responsibility of running a pack, or living outside a pack, is stressful.

"The alphas are the dominant animals in their pack, so they’re the ones that are responsible for all of the territorial defense and they’re the only ones that are breeding," he said. "So there’s a lot going on with the alphas, whereas the subordinates and the pups, they have a pretty easy life. Their parents are doing all the hard work and they’re just coasting a little bit. And that was actually reflected in the cortisol levels."

Transients, on the other hand – adult coyotes that have left their parents but not yet established or joined a pack – have a different set of worries.

"Transients were right up there with the alphas in terms of stress. They don’t have to defend a territory, but they have to avoid getting attacked by resident coyotes – they’re going through territories on a constant basis – and are trying to avoid people and trying not to get hit by cars," Gehrt said.

In 2014, Gehrt reported that some coyotes in Chicago had learned to look both ways before crossing a street – a finding that speaks to both their frequent exposure to risks that threaten their survival and their ability to deftly adapt to hostilities in their environment.

This new study showed plenty of individual variations in stress levels of animals even in the highest-stress groups, which Gehrt said makes sense based on their track record of thriving in the face of growing urbanization.

"We see them on a regular basis living in some pretty challenging areas, and it seems to me they’re adjusting quite well – their survival rates are high, and the food supply is great," he said. "And that’s what we found, that there are trends related to higher stress, but there are also coyotes that are doing quite well in the city with fairly low stress levels – even alphas in some pretty intense environments.

"Even without the urban system, this is the first free-ranging coyote population to be evaluated for stress. And we see there’s stress associated with their very complicated social system and a lot of rules they’re following – intrinsic sources of stress that other species don’t have to deal with. It’s an interesting look into another window of their lives."

E. Hance Ellington and Christopher Tonra of Ohio State also co-authored the study.

This work was funded by Cook County Animal and Rabies Control, the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. Support was also provided by Ohio State, the National Science Foundation and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

JOURNAL

Science of The Total Environment

DOI

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165965

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Stress in the city? Coyote hair cortisol varies with intrinsic and extrinsic factors within a heavily urbanized landscape

WESTERN VS EASTERN PHILOSOPHY

Philosopher: Mindfulness rests on dubious philosophical foundations

Mindfulness is one of the most widespread forms of therapy for people suffering from stress, and many benefit greatly from it. But the philosophical assumptions on which mindfulness is based are dubious and should not be accepted as a matter of course.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

Recent years have seen an explosive growth in mindfulness, which has been adapted from Buddhist meditation practices: in schools, the health services and workplaces, different forms of therapy based on mindfulness are on offer, and meditation apps such as Headspace and Ten Percent Happier are downloaded by millions of people all over the world.

In other words, there is no doubt that mindfulness is fulfilling a need and that many feel that they are being helped by the techniques it offers. But according to PhD Odysseus Stone from the University of Copenhagen, many of the philosophical assumptions about human beings and their relationship to the world on which mindfulness is based are quite dubious and should be examined carefully.

"One of the key claims of mindfulness is that we should learn to view thoughts and emotions that come and go in the mind as if they are clouds passing through the sky. This is an image that you often come across in mindfulness literature. The idea is that we must acknowledge our thoughts and emotions and notice them as events in the mind, but not invest them with importance or spend too much time worrying about them. And this, of course, may sometimes make sense. Consider, for example, if you are to make a presentation at work that you are nervous about. Then it might be sensible to practice mindfulness by acknowledging the nervousness, but trying to avoid letting it take up too much of your energy," explains Odysseus Stone, who has just completed his dissertation on mindfulness, but he also adds:

“However, it doesn't stop there. In mindfulness, this notion is supposed to apply to all our thoughts and emotions, or at least mindfulness offers no clear way of drawing the line. But this quickly becomes highly problematic. Consider our deeply held convictions and attitudes about ourselves, other people, and the social and political world around us. Take, for example, feelings of anger that we might have about the policy decisions of the Danish government. Is it beneficial to view such emotions as if they are passing clouds in the sky with little importance or relation to reality? We should remember that our thoughts and feelings form our perspective on, and open us up to, the world. They cannot and should not all be treated with suspicion."

Control your (own) attention

All the major tech companies are vying for our attention, which thus has become one of the most precious raw materials in the so-called attention economy. For Netflix, Facebook, Amazon or Apple, it's all about getting us to spend our limited time on their platforms.

"Attention is also a key theme within mindfulness, where a number of exercises that train practitioners to control their attention are often highlighted as a form of solution to the information overload we are exposed to. It's all about taking back control, and this is a central component of mindfulness-inspired treatment of stress. In many ways, this is also sensible. We all know the feeling of being highly distracted because of digital technologies" says Odysseus Stone and elaborates:

"But I would say that mindfulness’ focus on the individual's attention makes major structural social problems, such as the attention economy, a matter for the individual rather than something that we need to solve together. This criticism has also been raised in the context of workplace stress, where employees with stress are offered a course in mindfulness rather than changing working conditions. In both cases, the wider structures that give rise to the problems are not being addressed through mindfulness.

But this is not the only problem with the way mindfulness conceives of attention:

“In addition, we may also question the way in which mindfulness views attention itself. Often attention is seen as a bit like a little spotlight inside the head of the individual that can learn to be controlled. According to some philosophers and cognitive scientists, however, this picture is all wrong. Our attention is highly dependent on our embodiment, and is embedded in a material and social context.”

Can you live in the present?

An equally important part of mindfulness' philosophical foundation is the idea that we humans spend far too much of our time pondering the past and the future. These thoughts prevent us from living in the present, which we should focus our attention on instead. In general, we should strive to be present in our lives here and now.

"This is an idea that many other than mindfulness practitioners subscribe to. Often it is based on the philosophical idea that the present moment is especially real or fundamental, or at least more real than the past and the future. On this view, our sense of ourselves as beings with a past and future – our ‘narrative’ sense of ourselves - is based on a kind of mistake.

However, it is not clear that we should accept this idea either. On the one hand, our narratives give our live meaning and structure. It is not clear that they are simply unreal or mistaken. On the other hand, if we ask, “What exactly is this pure now or absolute present moment that is supposed to be especially real?”, it is very difficult to answer. If our experiences and actions are to be coherent and to make sense and make sense to us, they will have to refer to our past and future in one way or the other.”

BOOMERS/GEN X

Marijuana and hallucinogen use, binge drinking reached historic highs among adults 35 to 50

NIH-funded study also shows younger adults reported marijuana, vaping, and hallucinogen use at or near historically high levels

Reports and Proceedings

NIH/NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE

Past-year use of marijuana and hallucinogens by adults 35 to 50 years old continued a long-term upward trajectory to reach all-time highs in 2022, according to the Monitoring the Future (MTF) panel study, an annual survey of substance use behaviors and attitudes of adults 19 to 60 years old. Among younger adults aged 19 to 30, reports of past-year marijuana and hallucinogen use as well as marijuana and nicotine vaping significantly increased in the past five years, with marijuana use and vaping at their highest historic levels for this age group in 2022. The MTF study is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and is conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor.

While binge drinking has generally declined for the past 10 years among younger adults, adults aged 35 to 50 in 2022 reported the highest prevalence of binge drinking ever recorded for this age group, which also represents a significant past-year, five-year, and 10-year increase.

“Substance use is not limited to teens and young adults, and these data help us understand how people use drugs across the lifespan,” said NIDA director, Nora Volkow, M.D. “Understanding these trends is a first step, and it is crucial that research continues to illuminate how substance use and related health impacts may change over time. We want to ensure that people from the earliest to the latest stages in adulthood are equipped with up-to-date knowledge to help inform decisions related to substance use.”

Since 1975, the MTF study has annually surveyed substance use behaviors and attitudes among nationally representative samples of eighth, 10th, and 12th graders. The MTF longitudinal panel study conducts follow-up surveys on a subset of the participants after the 12th grade to track their drug use through adulthood. After high school, the participants are followed every other year through age 30, then every five years afterward, with the oldest participants now in their 60s.

Data for the 2022 survey of adults were collected via online and paper surveys from April 2022 through October 2022. Researchers divided the data into two age groups to conduct trend analyses: 19 to 30 years old and 35 to 50 years old. Key findings include:

Marijuana Use: For adults aged 19 to 30, the percentages of those reporting past-year marijuana use and daily marijuana use reached their highest levels ever reported by the study. Past-year use was reported by approximately 44% of those surveyed in 2022, an increase from five years ago (35% in 2017) and 10 years ago (28% in 2012). Daily marijuana use also reached its highest level reported in 2022 (11%), which was greater than five years (8% in 2017) and 10 years ago (6% in 2012).

Reports of past-year marijuana use among adults aged 35 to 50 also reached an all-time high in 2022 (28%). This had increased from the previous year (25% in 2021) and five years ago (17% in 2017), and more than doubled compared to 10 years ago (13% in 2012).

Vaping: Past-year marijuana vaping was reported by 21% of adults 19 to 30 years old in 2022, the highest levels reported since the measure was first added in 2017 (12%), as well as a notable increase from the past year (19% in 2021) and five years ago (12% in 2017). Past-year nicotine vaping among this younger adult group also reached a historic high in 2022 (24%), nearly double the rate reported five years ago in 2017 (14%), when the measure was first added.

Among adults aged 35 to 50, reports of past-year marijuana vaping remained at similar levels (9% in 2022) since 2019, when these measures were first available in this age group. Prevalence of past-year nicotine vaping has also remained steady in this age group since it has been reported, with 7% reporting in 2022.

Hallucinogen Use: Among adults aged 19 to 30, 8% reported past-year use of hallucinogens, significantly higher than five years ago (5% in 2017) and 10 years ago (3% in 2012). Types of hallucinogens reported by participants included LSD, MDMA, mescaline, peyote, shrooms or psilocybin, and PCP. Most of past-year use in 2022 reported by adults in this age group involved hallucinogens other than LSD (7% in 2022).

Past-year hallucinogen use reached historically high prevalence among adults 35 to 50 years old, reported by 4% in 2022. The prevalence reported in 2022 was also a substantial increase compared to the year before (2% in 2021) and five and 10 years ago (no greater than 1% in both 2017 and 2012).

Alcohol Use: Over the past decade, rates of alcohol use – including past-month use, daily drinking, and binge drinking – have shown an overall downward trend for adults 19 to 30 years old. Past-year drinking slightly increased for this age group in 2022 (84%) compared to five years ago (82% in 2017).

Alcohol use among adults aged 35 to 50 has shown a gradual increase over the past 10 years, with past-year drinking increasing from 83% in 2012 to 85% in 2022. Binge drinking in this older group reached its highest levels (29% in 2022), and increased over the past year, five years, and 10 years (26% in 2021; 25% in 2017; 23% in 2012).

The study also showed that past-year use of cigarettes, sedatives, and non-medical use of opioid medications (“narcotics other than heroin”) showed a 10-year decline for both adult age groups. Reports of past-year amphetamine use continued a 10-year decrease among 19- to 30-year-olds and a 10-year increase among 35 to 50 year-olds. Drug use trends among college and non-college young adults, demographic subgroups, and other additional data are also included in the report.

“The value of surveys such as MTF is to show us how drug use trends evolve over decades and across development – from adolescence through adulthood,” said Megan Patrick, Ph.D., a research professor at the University of Michigan and principal investigator of the MTF panel study. “Behaviors and public perception of drug use can shift rapidly, based on drug availability and other factors. It’s important to track this so that public health professionals and communities can be prepared to respond.”

Results from the related 2022 MTF study of substance use behaviors and related attitudes among teens in the United States was released in December 2022, and 2023 results are upcoming in December 2023.

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For more information on substance and mental health treatment programs in your area, call the free and confidential National Helpline 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or visit www.FindTreatment.gov.

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About the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): NIDA is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world’s research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to inform policy, improve practice, and advance addiction science. For more information about NIDA and its programs, visit www.nida.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

About substance use disorders: Substance use disorders are chronic, treatable conditions from which people can recover. In 2021, over 46 million people in the United States had at least one substance use disorder. Substance use disorders are defined in part by continued use of substances despite negative consequences. They are also relapsing conditions, in which periods of abstinence (not using substances) can be followed by a return to use. Stigma can make individuals with substance use disorders less likely to seek treatment. Using preferred language can help accurately report on substance use and addiction. View NIDA’s online guide.

NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®

ARTICLE TITLE

2022 Monitoring the Future Panel Study Annual Report: National data on substance use among adults ages 19 - 60, 1976 - 2022

Scientists proposed to adapt a Mars ISRU system to the changing Mars environment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BEIJING INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PRESS CO., LTD

Fig. 1. Major subsystems for oxygen production — IMAGE: FIG. 1. MAJOR SUBSYSTEMS FOR OXYGEN PRODUCTION view more
CREDIT: SPACE: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Human missions to Mars will require a substantial launch vehicle to ascend from Mars to rendezvous with a waiting Earth return vehicle in Mars orbit. For an ascending crew of 6, the current best estimate of oxygen propellants required for ascent is about 30 metric tons. Producing oxygen for ascent propellants and possibly life support from the indigenous CO2 on Mars, rather than bringing oxygen to Mars from Earth, is of significant benefit. The oxygen production is accomplished through a process known generically as in situ resource utilization (ISRU). Since the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) Project demonstrated operation of a prototype electrolysis system for converting Martian CO2 to O2 on Mars with great success, it is now appropriate to investigate scaling up this prototype to a full-scale system. In a research paper recently published in Space: Science & Technology, Donald Rapp and Eric Hinterman modeled the performance of a full-scale Mars in situ resource utilization (ISRU) system to produce 30 metric tons of liquid O2, operated for 14 months as the Mars environment changes diurnally and seasonally.

First, the authors introduce the ISRU system layout, requirements, and settings. The simplified layout of the ISRU system is shown in Fig. 1. The heart of the system is the stack (or, more likely, a set of stacks) of electrolysis cells, producing a flow of O2 out of the anode and a mixture of CO, CO2, and inert gases in the cathode exhaust. While the process operates, a compressor first pulls Mars atmosphere into the system and compresses it from Mars pressure to stack pressure. A heat exchanger recuperates some heat from the exhaust gases to incoming gas from Mars, and this gas is preheated to stack temperature before entering the stack. After the electrolysis in the stack, the effluent from the stack is fed back to the heat exchanger to prewarm incoming Mars gas, and the cathode exhaust is vented, while the anode exhaust is fed to the liquefier. Moreover, it is critical that the voltage across the electrolytic cells of the stack(s) must be greater than the Nernst voltage for the oxygen production reaction (0.96 V) and less than the Nernst voltage for side reaction that deposits carbon (1.13 V). The system is required to be on a 14-month (420-sol) run with an average oxygen production rate of 3.0 kg/h to produce a total of 30240 kg of oxygen over this period. There are also several control schemes (see Table 1). In option 1, the electrolysis stacks and the liquefier are operated at constant flow rate 3.0 kg/h, while the compressor revolutions per minute (RPM) is controlled to be greater when the Mars density is lower, and vice versa. In control option 2a, the RPM is always maintained at 3325, and the compressor is the same size as in control option 1, but the number of cells in the stacks is reduced. In control option 2b, the RPM is always maintained at 3325, and the number of cells is the same as in control option 1, but the size of the compressor is reduced. In control option 2c, the number of cells and compressor size are the same size as in control option 1, but the RPM is always maintained at 2705.

Then, the authors examine the intrinsic area-specific cell resistance (iASR), current density (J), and flow rate in different control options. The basic relationship: Vop = <VNO> + Vother + (iASR)(J) is used, in which Vop is the average operating voltage applied to a cell; <VNO> is the Nernst potential for O2 production, averaged across a cell; Vother is a voltage added to balance the equation. In addition, anode pressure = cathode pressure = 0.2 bar, utilization = 0.60, and iASR is assumed to start at 1.00 ohm-cm2 and increase to 1.20 ohm-cm2 after 420 sols of operation. In control option 1, the required cell area to produce 3 kg/h of oxygen is AT = 83750 cm2. With cells of area 100 cm2 each, this requires 840 cells. The span of cell-operating voltages is Max Vop = 1.060, Avg. Vop = 1.048, and Min Vop = 1.036. The RPM varies from 3325 at minimum density, to 2706 at average density, to 2251 at maximum density. In control option 2a, Max Vop = 1.114, Avg. Vop = 1.078, and Min Vop = 1.037. The maximum average cell voltage is perilously close to the Nernst voltage for carbon formation, and considering the uncertainties in estimating iASR, this option is unacceptable. In control option 2b, Max Vop = 1.077, Avg. Vop = 1.048, and Min Vop = 1.014. In control option 2c, Max Vop = 1.077, Avg. Vop = 1.048, and Min Vop = 1.014, which are essentially the same as for control option 2b. The results for the various options are shown in Table 3.

In the above table, change number of cells to 840, 670, 840, 840

Finally, authors discuss the results and draw conclusions. As for the solid oxide electrolysis (SOXE) system, the electrochemical power is 14.6 kW for control option 1 and 4.87*FO2 kW for control option 2. The preheat power is estimated to be ~0.5 kW. The heat loss is approximately 0.35 kW, although it depends on atmospheric conditions. The total SOXE power for any control option is the sum of the electrochemical power, preheating power, and heat loss power. The runs for the various control options yield the results shown in Table 4. As for the compressor, the adiabatic efficiency is a function of inefficiencies of its components, including motor losses, seal friction, and bearing friction. Table 5 summarizes power requirements for compression in various control options. The rate of heat removal from the system by the cryocooler is calculated as the cooling required to lower the temperature of the gaseous oxygen to its boiling point and liquefy it. The result is shown in Table 6. Total power including all contributions is concluded in Table 7.

Infographic for the article

CREDIT

Space: Science & Technology