Could an electric nudge to the head help your doctor operate a surgical robot?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

 

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A STUDY PARTICIPANT UNDERGOING NONINVASIVE BRAIN STIMULATION SITS AT THE SURGICAL ROBOT CONSOLE USING VIRTUAL REALITY SIMULATIONS OF NEEDLE-DRIVING EXERCISES.

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CREDIT: GUIDO CACCIANIGA/JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

People who received gentle electric currents on the back of their heads learned to maneuver a robotic surgery tool in virtual reality and then in a real setting much more easily than people who didn’t receive those nudges, a new study shows.

The findings offer the first glimpse of how stimulating a specific part of the brain called the cerebellum could help health care professionals take what they learn in virtual reality to real operating rooms, a much-needed transition in a field that increasingly relies on digital simulation training, said author and Johns Hopkins University roboticist Jeremy D. Brown.

“Training in virtual reality is not the same as training in a real setting, and we’ve shown with previous research that it can be difficult to transfer a skill learned in a simulation into the real world,” said Brown, the John C. Malone Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering. “It's very hard to claim statistical exactness, but we concluded people in the study were able to transfer skills from virtual reality to the real world much more easily when they had this stimulation.”

The work appears today in Nature Scientific Reports.

Participants drove a surgical needle through three small holes, first in a virtual simulation and then in a real scenario using the da Vinci Research Kit, an open-source research robot. The exercises mimicked moves needed during surgical procedures on organs in the belly, the researchers said.

Participants received a subtle flow of electricity through electrodes or small pads placed on their scalps meant to stimulate their brain’s cerebellum. While half the group received steady flows of electricity during the entire test, the rest of the participants received a brief stimulation only at the beginning and nothing at all for the rest of the tests.

People who received the steady currents showed a notable boost in dexterity. None of them had prior training in surgery or robotics.

“The group that didn’t receive stimulation struggled a bit more to apply the skills they learned in virtual reality to the actual robot, especially the most complex moves involving quick motions,” said Guido Caccianiga, a former Johns Hopkins roboticist, now at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, who designed and led the experiments. “The groups that received brain stimulation were better at those tasks.”

Noninvasive brain stimulation is a way to influence certain parts of the brain from outside the body, and scientists have shown how it can benefit motor learning in rehabilitation therapy, the researchers said. With their work, the team is taking the research to a new level by testing how stimulating the brain can help surgeons gain skills they might need in real-world situations, said co-author Gabriela Cantarero, a former assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins.

“It was really cool that we were actually able to influence behavior using this setup, where we could really quantify every little aspect of people’s movements, deviations, and errors,” Cantarero said.

Robotic surgery systems provide significant benefits for clinicians by enhancing human skill. They can help surgeons minimize hand tremors and perform fine and precise tasks with enhanced vision.

Besides influencing how surgeons of the future might learn new skills, this type of brain stimulation also offers promise for skill acquisition in other industries that rely on virtual reality training, particularly work in robotics.

Even outside of virtual reality, the stimulation can also likely help people learn more generally, the researchers said.

“What if we could show that with brain stimulation you can learn new skills in half the time?” Caccianiga said. “That’s a huge margin on the costs because you’d be training people faster; you could save a lot of resources to train more surgeons or engineers who will deal with these technologies frequently in the future.”

Other authors include Ronan A. Mooney of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Pablo A. Celnik of the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab.

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Anodal Cerebellar t-DCS Impacts Skill Learning and Transfer on a Robotic Surgery Training Task

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Dec-2023

 

How big events can disrupt public transit over an entire city

Study uses new tech to observe real-time impacts on bus service

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New technology has allowed scientists to see how a major sporting event can disrupt public transportation in an entire city for hours before and after the event.

Researchers conducted a case study in Columbus on days that The Ohio State University had home football games, attracting more than 100,000 fans to Ohio Stadium on the university’s campus.

Findings showed that bus service across the entire city was significantly less reliable for more than 7 hours on game days compared to other days, meaning that even bus riders who were not traveling near the university could not get to their destinations in times promised by the schedule.

“Most people in Columbus know that you don’t go near Ohio Stadium during on football Saturdays because traffic is going to be a nightmare,” said Harvey Miller, co-author of the study and professor of geography at Ohio State.

“But the remarkable thing to me is that, if you’re a bus rider, you didn’t have to be anywhere near the stadium to be affected by the game.”

The study was led by Luyu Liu while he was a PhD student at Ohio State and was published recently in the Journal of Transport Geography.

The researchers examined bus service provided by the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), the city’s public transit system. It serves an area with more than 1.2 million residents and generated 19 million trips in 2019.

The primary data source for the study is General Transit Feed Specification data. It is the source of real-time data on bus service that transit apps use to help commuters plan their trips.

The study compared bus service on the 13 days Ohio State had home football games in 2018 and 2019 with days the Buckeyes had away games and on other days when there were no games.

Liu, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, said transit disruptions before and after the games were different.

“The disruptions before the game lasted longer, but were not as severe, while after-game impacts have shorter duration but were more disruptive,” Liu said.

That’s probably because people arrive at games over an extended period, but nearly all leave right after the game is over.

Results showed that the unreliability of the bus serve was 8.7% higher than average at the before-game peak, but 24.5% higher at the after-game peak.

The time between the peaks, when the football game had the most impact on transit reliability, was about 7 hours.

But this period between the peaks was just the “core of the disruption,” the researchers said. Transit service was still affected at least somewhat before and after this 7-hour period.

While this study examined the impact of a football game on bus service, the measures developed by the researchers could be used to analyze any kind of disruption to regular traffic flow and extend well beyond just effects on public transit.

The results could apply to crashes on an interstate, a bridge collapse, construction delays, any large event, and a variety of other situations.

“We found that these disruptions can propagate through the entire transportation system in a city very easily,” said Miller, who is director of Ohio State’s Center for Urban and Regional Analysis.

But with these tools, city transportation planners can prepare in advance.

“We now have the ability to look at what parts of a city’s transportation system are most vulnerable to disruption,” Miller said.

“We could see if a disruption at one particular place would most likely stay localized or whether it will spread out and have a big system-wide impact.”

Public transit is not subject to only short-term disruptions.  The researchers also looked at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on longer-term public transit accessibility in Columbus.

The findings showed mixed results. Reliability actually increased soon after lockdowns were instituted in Ohio in March 2020 as overall traffic declined, allowing buses to move more freely.

But that changed in May 2020 when the transit authority made major schedule changes to adapt to plunging ridership and financial difficulties.

The downtown area, which accounts for the most ridership in the system and experienced the fewest service cuts, had less loss of accessibility and reliability, said Liu. Not all areas of the city fared so well.

“Some parts of the city, particularly the northeast area, have still not recovered their service levels from before the pandemic,” he said.

“That’s bad news for people who rely on public transit to get to their jobs, medical appointments and shopping.”

The researchers said they hope these findings lead officials to find ways to build and improve infrastructure for public transit.

“With climate change, pandemics and other disruptions, transit systems are only going to find more challenges to keeping their services reliable and accessible,” Miller said.

“Planning for these disruptions should be a major focus.”

Adam Porr of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission was also a co-author.

DOI

10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2023.103769 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Measuring the impacts of disruptions on public transit accessibility and reliability

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Dec-2023

Mapping bedbugs: S Korean blockchain engineer fights infestation with data


By AFP
December 19, 2

South Korea has seen a surge in bedbug infestations, with more than 100 cases reported since late November

 - Copyright AFP Patrick T. Fallon

Claire LEE

When news broke about a bedbug outbreak in his native South Korea, 29-year-old blockchain engineer and self-professed insectophobe Kang Jae-gu got straight to work — on the data.

As authorities scrambled to install high-temperature steam heaters at the airport and approve industrial-strength insecticides for home use, Kang started mapping reported infestations.

South Korea has been largely bedbug-free for years, but it has seen a surge in infestations as travel has rebounded after the pandemic — with more than 100 cases of the bloodsucking pests reported since late November, official statistics show.

And while the public has bugged out — and media coverage has spiralled — thousands of people have turned to Kang’s website, bedbugboard.com, for a sober data-driven look at the outbreak.

“I am extremely sensitive to insects, so I sleep under a mosquito net throughout all four seasons,” Kang told AFP.

His fear of bedbugs drove him to create an interactive map that shows the approximate locations of reported infestations across the country, as well as real-time news stories on the issue.

The site now receives as many as 50,000 visitors a day, up from around 40 when Kang launched it.

He used a soothing olive-green colour scheme to try and create “peace of mind” for readers, but he told AFP that having to look at photographs of the critters and their eggs to run the website still gives him “goosebumps”.

– From Paris? –

The bedbug invasion of Seoul comes on the heels of a similar outbreak in Paris, which is set to host the Olympic Games next year.

A surge of reported sightings of the creatures sent a shudder through France during the summer and fall — prompting several school closures nationwide.

Public concern has also spread to Britain and Algeria.

In South Korea, 44 percent of reported cases have been in so-called gosiwon — cheap, tiny housing units typically measuring less than five square metres.

Other affected locations include student dormitories, public bathhouses, and extremely small housing units known as jjokbang, which often lack basic amenities such as bathrooms or kitchens.

Authorities have swung into gear, with Seoul city government allocating 700 million won ($500,000) to defend residents in vulnerable housing from the invading pests.

Incheon International Airport, the main airport serving the capital, plans to install high-temperature steam heaters this month to prevent the entry of the bugs into the country.

Seoul also recently approved Neonicotinoids, a class of insecticides used widely on farms, for home use against bedbugs.

“The city of Seoul defines the inconvenience and concern of citizens caused by bedbugs as a significant public health issue,” said Park Yu-mi, an official at the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

The city “seeks to take the lead in implementing countermeasures,” she added.

– Hard to remove –

Bedbugs have appeared in greater numbers in recent decades, mostly due to high population densities, people taking more holidays and mass transit.

In France, one in 10 households are believed to have had a bedbug problem over the past few years, usually requiring a pest control operation costing hundreds of euros that often needs to be repeated.

The critters bite people to feed on their blood, creating wounds that can be itchy but do not usually cause other health problems.

But exposure to bedbug droppings can trigger asthmatic attacks while bites can cause rashes or more severe reactions such as anaphylaxis, and even depression.

South Korean experts said the insects are particularly hard to eradicate.

“Bedbugs can live for over 100 days even if they do not eat properly. They are thin and also hide well,” Kim Ju-hyeon, a professor at Seoul National University’s school of tropical medicine, said in a YouTube video.

Kang plans to keep his website running until the South Korean outbreaks subside.

He said he has never personally experienced an infestation, but “I can imagine how stressful it would be if that happened to me”.

US bans pharmacy Rite Aid from facial recognition use


By AFP
December 19, 2023

Rite Aid has been ordered to stop using facial recognition for the next five years after finding the technology falsely identified some consumers as shoplifters - Copyright AFP/File Frederic J. BROWN

Pharmacy group Rite Aid was ordered Tuesday to stop using facial recognition for the next five years by a US regulator, which said the company falsely identified consumers as shoplifters using the technology.

The case touches on one of the main concerns about the proliferation of artificial intelligence, and facial recognition in particular, which is deemed to potentially misidentify or discriminate against individuals, especially non-whites and women.

“Rite Aid’s reckless use of facial surveillance systems left its customers facing humiliation and other harms,” said Samuel Levine, director of consumer harms at the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC said that from 2012 to 2020, Rite Aid deployed facial recognition technology to spot repeated shoplifting offenders and other problematic behavior.

But the technology “falsely flagged… consumers as matching someone who had previously been identified as a shoplifter or other troublemaker.”

The pharmacy group, which is currently in bankruptcy proceedings, also failed to properly train employees about the fact that there could be false positives with the technology or to prevent the use of low-quality images.

In addition to the ban, the FTC ordered the group and any other company involved to delete all data connected to its program.

Rite-Aid said it was “pleased to reach an agreement with the FTC and put this matter behind us.”

Fears for miners on second day of S.Africa underground protest

By AFP
December 19, 2023

Workers wait at the surface for news of more than 2,000 miners occupying the Impala Bafokeng platinum mine since Monday - Copyright AFP PHILL MAGAKOE
Zama LUTHULI

Frantic families waited at the surface Tuesday for news of more than 2,000 platinum miners who have taken over two shafts in one of South Africa’s biggest mine protests in years.

Some 2,205 miners started the protest about 500 metres below the surface on Monday but Impala Platinum Holdings, or Implats, said 63 came up during the night in the difficult conditions.

Ambulances were seen taking away some of the workers.

The company has suspended all operations at the mine over what it called an “illegal underground protest”. Implats warned it will “address those employees who engage in illegal conduct and criminal acts in a decisive way”.

The miners say they want promised bonuses and pension fund payments, and some said they had been suspended before the protest started for holding unauthorised labour meetings.

Dozens of miners and families waited at the entrance to the Bafokeng mine, which employs 10,000 people.

A few minutes after emerging from the protest, Mzimase Bandli, 51, told AFP he asked to be let out because a lack of food and water had made him nauseous.

– Worried families –

Sat on the pavement, Bandli said, “I have an intense headache and I haven’t eaten. I was dying of the cold down there.”

The company, which bought the mine this year, said food had been sent underground. But families were fearful of the conditions.

Nokwanda Nabambela, a 39-year-old mother of three, said she was “very scared” for her husband who had been working in the mine for six years.

“We don’t know if they’ve eaten, some of them are on medication,” she said.

“We can see that time is passing and we are worried about their condition. My children are asking where their father is and as you can see some of the women here are carrying babies.”

Some of the suspended miners also waited at the entrance. They said some workers were owed more than $500 from share handouts promised before the ownership changed.

National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) officials “managed to engage workers last night and started the process to address their concerns with management,” a company spokesman told AFP.

“Hopefully we can respond today through the NUM and agree a process to return all workers to the surface,” he added.

South Africa has seen a growing number of underground protests by miners.

The government has also expressed concern over labour unrest in the crucial industry.

More than 100 gold miners spent nearly three days underground in Springs near Johannesburg in October as rival unions battled for control.

Another 440 staged a protest in another gold mine this month while 250 platinum workers demanding better wages occupied a shaft for three days at the same time.

Mining employs hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa — the biggest exporter of platinum and a major exporter of gold, diamonds, coal and other raw materials.

Op-Ed: Brain on a chip — Unproven new technology gets Messiah Complex, again.

By Paul Wallis

DIGITAL JOURNAL
December 18, 2023

Elon Musk standing next to a surgical robot during a Neuralink presentation in 2020 - Copyright AFP Adem ALTAN

The ramifications of a brain on a chip don’t have any boundaries. There are too many variables and too many possible applications. Add to this the advent of noisy, unimpressive AI and organic linkages of human tissue to chips. It’s a very blurry, unsightly mess.

“Brain on a chip” obviously has a very long way to go. What’s really disturbing about this technology is it seems to be following the same messianic marketing pattern as artificial intelligence. It’s great, it’s glorious, and it is almost entirely unproven. Nor is there much mention of integrating any of this technology with existing systems.

There is also an equally disingenuous and apparently illiterate “pseudo-science fiction” B movie environment about brain chips. Anyone who reads science fiction knows that sci-fi is as often as not about what’s wrong with technology as what’s right with it.

Human/chip interactions aren’t exactly new. They’ve been around for a couple of decades. These are the proven capabilities of this type of brain interface. Stephan Hawking is the best-known exponent of the basic interface.

The new technologies are long on hype but very short on specifics. How useful is a brand implant likely to be? Elon Musk is the main advocate for implants. His company Neuralink Is effectively the public face of brain interfaces.

To quote someone: So what?

To be strictly fair, the main stated function of Neuralink’s brain implants is medical applications. There are multiple potential issues with brain implants In urban mythology and in fact. One of the stated issues is “decision paralysis”, according to a study participant. The range of inputs from implants appears to be a significant issue.

This is hardly surprising. Neurology is an incredibly complex science, to say nothing of the issues with associated computer technologies. A lot of work is being done on neurological connections of organic tissues to computer technologies of various kinds.

One of the better known is a thing called Dishbrain, which indicated a strong learning capacity in the organic tissues themselves. These tissues learn how to play Pong. Given that neural tissues are basically learning and remembering mechanisms, this is about a lot of new ball games in play.

Elon Musk startup Neuralink is working on connecting human brains directly to computers – Copyright Virgin Galactic/AFP Handout

Consider the combination of a brain implant and an organic chip.

These interact with a living human brain.

Add the “noise factor” cited by study participants.

The result is a predictable mess.

Add to those factors the individual customization needs of specific individuals. People may have physically similar brains, but those brains can’t work in the same way.

You’ll notice that nothing in this mixture of inputs gets simpler. Add artificial intelligence to the mix, and it becomes exponentially more complex. Imagine AI-level inputs into a human brain. Most of those inputs would be gibberish, and a lot of it. The human brain simply doesn’t work that way.

The human brain also works on a very low microvoltage. That means excessive inputs are dangerous and highly disruptive. These very fine molecular-level neural pathways don’t need any more stress.

I think it’s understandable that people would also be highly suspicious of this large number of new technologies. Not being addressed with brain chip technology are the risks, and these risks are very real physiologically.

Using the same logic, it’s also pretty obvious that people in a brain chip market would also be suspicious of quality issues. Hardware and software of any kind are also subject to a lot of scrutiny, with good reason.

The real pity of it is that this technology can be incredibly useful. It could literally give very sick people new lives. There is absolutely no doubt that the medical applications are critically important. This very strong upside is now being severely downgraded by too much verbosity.

There is another very strong and unavoidable point of market resistance to brain chips. Imagine having some form of the internet or a VPN inside your head. Theoretically, you can change channels or simply turn off inputs. Are you ready to trust this technology?

Brain chips should not be dismissed out of hand. On the other hand, what about possible abuse of brain chips, security, and sanity?

Leave it to the professionals. Proper risk evaluation is required. Meanwhile, keep the corporate skanks and hype merchants out of the mix.

_____________________________________________________________

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

 

How researchers are “CReATiNG” synthetic chromosomes faster and cheaper

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

 

IMAGE: 

SYNTHETIC CHROMOSOMES/DNA IN A TEST TUBE.

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CREDIT: ISTOCK PHOTO

A groundbreaking new technique invented by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science may revolutionize the field of synthetic biology. Known as CReATiNG (Cloning Reprogramming and Assembling Tiled Natural Genomic DNA), the method offers a simpler and more cost-effective approach to constructing synthetic chromosomes. It could significantly advance genetic engineering and enable a wide range of advances in medicine, biotechnology, biofuel production and even space exploration.

CReATiNG works by cloning and reassembling natural DNA segments from yeast, allowing scientists to create synthetic chromosomes that can replace their native counterparts in cells. The innovative technique enables researchers to combine chromosomes between different yeast strains and species, change chromosome structures, and delete multiple genes simultaneously.

Lead researcher Ian Ehrenreich, professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife, said the method is a major improvement over current technology. “With CReATiNG, we can genetically reprogram organisms in complex ways previously deemed impossible, even with new tools like CRISPR,” he said. “This opens up a world of possibilities in synthetic biology, enhancing our fundamental understanding of life and paving the way for groundbreaking applications.”

The study was published Dec. 20 in Nature Communications.

CReATiNG makes difficult research easier, cheaper

The field of synthetic biology has emerged as a way for scientists to take control of living cells, such as yeast and bacteria, to better understand how they work and to enable them to produce useful compounds, such as new medicines. 

“Over the last decade or so, a new form of synthetic biology has emerged called synthetic genomics, which involves synthesizing whole chromosomes or entire genomes of organisms,” Ehrenreich said. “The thing about most synthetic genomics research is that it involves building chromosomes or genomes from scratch using chemically synthesized DNA pieces. This is a ton of work and extremely expensive.” 

However, there have been no alternatives — until now. “CReATiNG offers an opportunity to use natural pieces of DNA as parts to assemble whole chromosomes,” said Agilent postdoctoral fellow Alessandro Coradini, who was study first author. 

The method makes advanced genetic research more accessible by significantly lowering costs and technical barriers so scientists can unlock new solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in science and medicine today.

CReATiNG could help medicine, space exploration and more

The findings are particularly significant for their potential applications in biotechnology and medicine. CReATiNG could lead to more efficient production of pharmaceuticals and biofuels, aid in the development of cell therapies for diseases like cancer and pave the way to methods of environmental bioremediation, such as creating bacteria that consume pollutants. 

The method might even extend to helping humans live for long periods in space or other harsh environments.  Scientists could one day use CReATiNG to develop microorganisms or plants that could thrive in  space stations or during long-distance space travel, though the researchers caution that this would require much future research.

One of the most striking aspects of the study, according to the researchers, is how rearranging chromosome segments in yeast can alter their growth rates, with some modifications resulting in up to a 68% faster or slower growth. This discovery highlights the profound impact that genetic structure can have on biological function and opens up new research pathways to further explore these relationships.

About the study

In addition to Ehrenreich and Coradini, authors on the study include Christopher Ne Ville, Zachary Krieger, Joshua Roemer, Cara Hull, Shawn Yang and Daniel Lusk, all of USC Dornsife.

The study was supported by National Science Foundation grant 2124400, National Institutes of Health grant R35GM130381 and an Agilent Postdoctoral Fellowship.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-44112-2 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Building synthetic chromosomes from natural DNA

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Dec-2023

COI STATEMENT

NA

 

Do steroid creams affect bone health?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WILEY

New research indicates that higher doses of topical corticosteroids, which are commonly used to treat inflammatory skin conditions, are linked with elevated risks of osteoporosis and bone fractures associated with osteoporosis. The findings are published in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology and are based on information from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database.

Investigators selected 129,682 osteoporosis cases and 34,999 major osteoporotic fracture (MOF) cases and matched them with 518,728 and 139,996 controls (without osteoporosis or MOF) by sex and age.

The team found clear dose–response relationships between long-term use of topical corticosteroids and osteoporosis and MOF. For example, compared with no doses, low, medium, and high cumulative of doses topical corticosteroids were associated with 1.22-, 1.26-, and 1.34-times higher odds of developing osteoporosis over five years. These respective doses were linked with 1.12-, 1.19-, and 1.29-times higher odds of experiencing MOF. Women had higher risks of osteoporosis and MOF than men. Also, younger people (<50 years) had a higher risk of osteoporosis compared with other age groups.

“This study emphasizes that using topical corticosteroids to treat inflammatory skin conditions should be done very carefully and clinicians should be aware of these potential side effects,” said corresponding author Chia-Yu Chu, MD PhD, of National Taiwan University Hospital and National Taiwan University College of Medicine.

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jdv.19697

 

 

Additional Information
NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.

About the Journal
The Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (JEADV) publishes articles of general and practical interest in the field of dermatology and venereology including clinical and basic science topics, as well as research with practical implications. It does so through editorials, review and practice articles, original papers of general interest, short reports, letters to the editor, features and EADV announcements.

About Wiley
Wiley is a knowledge company and a global leader in research, publishing, and knowledge solutions. Dedicated to the creation and application of knowledge, Wiley serves the world’s researchers, learners, innovators, and leaders, helping them achieve their goals and solve the world's most important challenges. For more than two centuries, Wiley has been delivering on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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JOURNAL

Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology

DOI

10.1111/jdv.19697 

ARTICLE TITLE

Higher cumulative dose of topical corticosteroids is associated with osteoporosis and major osteoporotic fracture: a nationwide case-control study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Dec-2023

 

Scientists might be using a flawed strategy to predict how species will fare under climate change

University of Arizona researchers say change is happening faster than trees can adapt

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

 

IMAGE: 

A VIEW OVERLOOKING A FOREST OF PONDEROSA PINE AND JEFFREY PINE FROM VERDI MOUNTAIN NEAR TRUCKEE IN CALIFORNIA.

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CREDIT: DANIEL PERRET

As the world heats up, and the climate shifts, life will migrate, adapt or go extinct. For decades, scientists have deployed a specific method to predict how a species will fare during this time of great change. But according to new research, that method might be producing results that are misleading or wrong.

University of Arizona researchers and their team members at the U.S. Forest Service and Brown University found that the method – commonly referred to as space-for-time substitution – failed to accurately predict how a widespread tree of the Western U.S. called the ponderosa pine has actually responded to the last several decades of warming. This also implies that other research relying on space-for-time substitution may not accurately reflect how species will respond to climate change over the next several decades.

The team collected and measured ponderosa pine tree rings from across the Western U.S. going as far back as 1900 and compared the trees' actual growth to how the model predicted the trees should respond to warming.

"We found that space-for-time substitution generates predictions that are wrong in terms of whether the response to warming is a positive or negative one," said Margaret Evans, a coauthor on the paper and an associate professor in the UArizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. "This method says that ponderosa pines should benefit from warming, but they actually suffer with warming. This is dangerously misleading."

Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. U.S. Forest Service ORISE Fellow Daniel Perret is first author and received his tree ring analysis training at the UArizona laboratory through the university's summer field methods course. This research was part of his doctoral dissertation at Brown University with Dov Sax, a professor of biogeography and biodiversity and coauthor on the paper.

This is how space-for-time substitution works: Every species occupies their preferred range of climate conditions. Scientists have assumed that the individuals growing at the hotter end of that range can serve as an example of what might happen to populations at cooler locations in a warmer future.

The team found that ponderosa pine trees grow at a faster rate at warmer locations. Under the space-for-time substitution paradigm, then, this suggests that as the climate warms at the cool edge of distribution, things should be getting better.

"But in the tree ring data, that's not what it looks like," Evans said.

But when the team used tree rings to assess how individual trees responded to changes in temperature, they found that the ponderosa's were consistently negatively impacted by temperature variability.

"If it's a warmer-than-average year, they put on a smaller-than-average ring, so warming is actually bad for them, and that's true everywhere," she said.

The team suspects that this is happening because the trees can't adapt fast enough to keep up with the quickly changing climate.

An individual tree and all its rings are a record of the genetics of that specific tree being exposed to different climatic conditions in one year compared to the next, Evans said. But how a species responds as a whole is the result of the slow pace of evolutionary adaptation to the average conditions at a specific location, which are different from another location. Like evolution, migration of better-adapted trees with the changing temperatures could potentially rescue species, but climate change is happening too fast, Evans said.

Beyond temperature, the team also investigated how trees respond to rainfall. They confirmed that more water is always better, whether you look across time or space.

"These spatially based predictions are really dangerous, because the spatial patterns reflect an end point after a long period of time when species have had a chance to evolve and disperse and, ultimately, sort themselves out on the landscape," Evans said. "But that's just not how climate change works. Unfortunately, the trees find themselves in a situation where change is happening faster than the trees can adapt, which is really putting them at risk of going extinct. It's a word of caution for ecologists."

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

A species' response to spatial climatic variation does not predict its response to climate change

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Dec-2023

 

Research offers a reason why diversity in plant species causes higher farming yield, solving 'a bit of a mystery'

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

 

IMAGE: 

CO-AUTHOR PEGGY SCHULTZ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS COLLECTS DATA ON PLOTS WITH UNDERGRADUATE WORKERS.

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CREDIT: KU MARKETING

LAWRENCE — A study appearing in Nature Communications based on field and greenhouse experiments at the University of Kansas shows how a boost in agricultural yield comes from planting diverse crops rather than just one plant species: Soil pathogens harmful to plants have a harder time thriving.

“It’s commonly observed that diverse plant communities can be more productive and stable over time,” said corresponding author James Bever, senior scientist with the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research and Foundation Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at KU. “Range lands with numerous species can show increased productivity. But the reason for this has been a bit of a mystery.”

While crop rotation and other farming and gardening practices long have reflected benefits of a mix of plants, the new research puts hard data to one important mechanism underpinning the observation: the numbers of microorganisms in the soil that eat plants.

“Diverse agricultural communities have the potential to keep pathogens at bay, resulting in greater yields,” Bever said. “What we show is that a major driver is the specialization of pathogens, particularly those specific to different plant species. These pathogens suppress yields in low-diversity communities. A significant advantage of rangeland diversity is that less biomass is consumed by pathogens, allowing more biomass for other uses, such as cattle. The same process is crucial for agricultural production.”

The new data was developed at the University of Kansas using field experiments at the KU Field Station, along with greenhouse assays and feedback modeling using computers. This project was supported by large collaborative grants to KU from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We conducted an experiment manipulating the number of plants in a plot and varying precipitation levels — we had from one up to six species in a plot,” Bever said. “Then, we evaluated the composition of the soil-pathogen microbiome. What we found is that the variation in pathogen composition in monocultures significantly predicted the yield when combined. When there are distinct pathogen communities, mixing them leads to a greater release of pathogens from your neighbors. The worst scenario is when a neighboring crop has the same pathogens. In that case, you’re experiencing double density — your crop pathogens and those from your neighbor crop.”

At KU, Bever’s collaborators included associate specialist Peggy Schultz as well as Haley Burrill and Laura Podzikowski, both of whom earned doctorates at KU and now are postdoctoral researchers at the University of Oregon and KU, respectively. Lead author Guangzhou Wang worked at KU as a postdoctoral researcher and now is affiliated with China Agricultural University in Beijing, where he worked on the investigation there with co-authors Fusuo Zhang and Junling Zhang. They were joined by co-author Maarten Eppinga of the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

According to Bever, the research argues against the industrial-agricultural practice of planting a single food crop over many acres of land, often referred to as “monoculture.”

“Regarding monoculture practices, the philosophy of promoting plant diversity seems to counter prevailing practices,” he said. “Monoculture — planting vast areas with a single crop — is driven by technological reasons rather than biological ones. Practical aspects of planting and harvesting have motivated this approach. Traditional Native American agriculture and practices in the tropics involve polycultures with multiple species. In China, there’s a movement towards mechanized polyculture production, challenging the predominant monoculture model in the United States. It’s essential to view monoculture as a cost-benefit model with increased inputs and explore alternative methods like crop rotation to manage pathogens over time.”

Bever said mixing plants in various plots would be beneficial to home gardeners and others who cultivate plants.

“When you’re gardening, you’re not relying on mechanical planting and mechanical harvesting,” he said. “It’s definitely to your advantage to mix your crops — to plant them in heterogeneous mixes in the plot. For convenience, we might plant alternating rows of different crops. That’s going to do a better job of controlling pathogens than if you just had many rows of the same crop next to each other. If you had four plots in your backyard that were discrete, you wouldn’t want to put all tomatoes in one and all squash in another, and a third with herbs — you’d want to mix them in. You’ll reduce pathogens by doing that. It’s what our data shows.”

Finally, Bever said his team’s findings that show biodiversity prohibits pathogen growth isn’t as clear-cut outside the plant kingdom. In fact, the idea is contentious in animal systems like Lyme disease.

“Our clear result in the plant world contrasts with the complexity of this literature in the animal world,” he said. “In the context of recent attention on pathogens, such as with COVID, the study of pathogens in ecology has been controversial. The impact of diversity on pathogen impacts, whether it increases or decreases, has been debated. Our findings for plants indicate the bigger concern is the reduction of pathogen spread with increased diversity, rather than an increase. In our study, pathogens, including soil-dwelling ones, were examined. Similar patterns were observed with foliar pathogens, as detailed in an upcoming paper. The controversy arises from differences between how pathogens affect the animal kingdom versus plants.”

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-44253-4 

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Dec-2023