Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Cal Poly student helps lead international ‘Under the Snakefluence’ study to better understand global human-snake interactions

The study aims to better understand public perceptions of snakes and prevent bites and injuries

California Polytechnic State University

image:
Owen Bachhuber, a Cal Poly biological sciences graduate student, is a co-manager of the "Under the Snakefluence" project.
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Credit: Photo by Megan Hendrickson

A Cal Poly biological sciences graduate student is helping to lead a global study of snake perceptions to reduce the number of bites and deaths resulting from encounters with the reptiles.

The “Under the Snakefluence” study involves surveying of people in more than 20 countries to better understand public perceptions and fears of the creatures and to assess how best to educate people about serpents to promote safe coexistence.

Owen Bachhuber, a student researcher in Cal Poly’s Physiological Ecology of Reptiles Laboratory (PERL), is co-managing the project with Australian Ecologist Dr. Christina Zdenek; and University of Queensland (Australia) Honours student Poppy Wyndam; Arizona State University geography and sustainability Professor Kelli Larson; The Australian National University sociology Associate Professor Gavin Smith; and Cal Poly biological sciences Professor Emily Taylor.

Around 5.4 million people are bitten by snakes each year, resulting in up to 138,000 deaths and 400,000 cases of permanent disability, according to the World Health Organization.

Research shows that attempts to kill snakes can result in more snakebites than would naturally occur. However, many bites occur accidentally when people in rural and agricultural areas work where snakes are abundant. Regardless of the circumstance of the bite, delaying medical treatment can prove fatal or cause permanent disability.

Zdenek co-operates the Australian Reptile Academy, where she trains people on the safe and ethical handling of Australia's highly venomous snakes. She also is a regular guest speaker at community events and a media expert on snakes.

More than 30 co-authors are helping to collect “Under the Snakefluence” survey data in seven different languages, including verbal and written questionnaire options. Besides the U.S. and Australia, participating countries include Canada, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, Uganda, Malawi, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Peru and the Philippines.

Questions focus on knowledge about snakes, their role in the environment and respondents’ emotions toward them. Study leaders also assess knowledge regarding what action to take when one encounters a snake or suffers a snakebite.

“We’re asking questions about the factors that influence people’s perceptions of snakes, including where someone grew up and their culture influences,” said Bachhuber, who has been fascinated with snakes and other reptiles since he was 6 years old. “And then we’re asking can we do to improve those perceptions in educational settings.”

The research team designed their snake perception survey to include cultural beliefs and public perceptions across the globe. Events include medical trainings of doctors and nurses who treat snakebites, as well as handling courses for those who want to safely relocate the reptiles, and other community events on snake safety.

“My role is to meet with these different co-authors and project leaders from around the world to make sure people are feeling represented and heard as part of this study,” said Bachhuber, of Roseville, MN. “We are surveying everyone from rural villagers who don’t read or write to academics and professionals. It’s a broad scope.”

The wide-reaching project already has reached 20 countries at 134 snake education events. The team has gathered over 1,700 responses from survey participants. They are looking to finish data collection in July 2025 and publish their findings in 2026 in an international academic journal and The Conversation, an online source of thought-provoking articles written by researchers and academics.

Another goal of the team is to use its findings to challenge negative perceptions of snakes and in turn reduce the number of snakebites. Many may be unaware of benefits of snakes, including their superb ability to control rodent populations, or that venom is used to design therapeutic drugs and make diagnostic and lab tools. Public outreach materials will be developed and distributed based on research assessments as well.

“Snakebites are such a big issue globally and there’s a lack of funding to treat them,” Bachhuber said. “Snake education is great prevention for that. If you know how to avoid getting bitten by a snake, or what to do if you’re bitten by a snake, you are less likely to die from a snake.

“And so, one of the key goals is to give a voice to these countries where it’s a big problem and hopefully shed light on this issue so they can receive more resources.”

Nature Conserv'Action volunteer, Coline Hervoche, distributes Under the Snakefluence surveys, at a guide training in Côte d'Ivoire. Photo by Michiel van Noppen

Credit

Photo by Michiel van Noppen

An inquisitive Western Rattlesnake in California’s Carrizo Plain.

Credit

Photo by Max Roberts

Skin-penetrating nematodes have a love-hate relationship with carbon dioxide

UCLA neurobiologists’ discovery may lead to new treatments for millions of parasitic infections around the world

University of California - Los Angeles

Key takeaways

Globally, over 600 million people are infected with the skin-penetrating threadworm, Strongyloides stercoralis, mostly in tropical and subtropical regions with poor sanitation infrastructure.

Infections are treated with ivermectin, but some nematodes are starting to develop resistance to this first-line drug.

UCLA biologists have discovered that the nematodes respond differently to carbon dioxide at different stages in their life cycle, which could help scientists find ways to prevent or cure infections by targeting the CO2-sensing pathway.

In the United States, the most well-known skin-penetrating parasitic worm, called a nematode, is the hookworm. But globally, it is estimated that over 600 million people are infected with the skin-penetrating threadworm, also known as Strongyloides stercoralis. This species is found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions with poor sanitation infrastructure. Skin-penetrating nematodes are excreted in the feces of an infected host, and then enter the ground to wait for a new host. When they infect a new host, they can cause serious illnesses.

Currently, infections are treated with ivermectin, but some nematodes are starting to develop resistance to this first-line drug. New medications are needed, and UCLA neurobiologists might have just found a clue needed to inspire their design.

In a paper published in Current Biology, UCLA researchers report that S. stercoralis threadworms respond differently to carbon dioxide at different stages in their life cycle. They also identified a pair of neurons and a gene that detects CO2 in these parasites, and showed how to manipulate them for further research. Because CO2 is found abundantly in tissues such as the lungs and intestine, the discovery could help scientists find ways to prevent or cure infections by targeting the CO2-sensing pathway.

“Skin-penetrating nematodes encounter high CO2 concentrations throughout their life cycle, both in fecal and soil microenvironments and inside the host body,” said corresponding author and UCLA professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics Elissa Hallem. “Our results suggest that responses to carbon dioxide play an important role in how these parasites interact with human hosts as they pass through the different stages of their life cycle and establish an infection.”

The threadworm infection cycle begins when immature larvae excreted in host poop develop into larvae. The infective larvae then crawl off the poop and into the soil to search for a host to infect. After finding a host and entering the host through the skin, the nematodes travel through the host’s body and are thought to pass through the lungs. They ultimately migrate to the small intestine, where they reside as parasitic adults and lay eggs. The larvae that hatch from these eggs are excreted, and the cycle begins again.

The UCLA researchers found that infective larvae are repelled by CO2, while noninfective larvae and adults have a neutral reaction. Young nematodes migrating inside the body are attracted to CO2.

“CO2 repulsion in the infective larvae may initiate host-seeking by driving them off of host feces, where CO2 levels are high,” said Navonil Banerjee, a postdoctoral researcher in the Hallem lab and the first author of the study. “And CO2 attraction in worms already inside the body might direct them toward the lungs and intestines, which are high in CO2.”

Hallem, Banerjee and colleagues discovered these reactions by exposing threadworms at different stages of the life cycle to CO2 and studying their behavior. They then identified neurons that detect CO2 and promote associated behavioral responses. They found that these neurons express a receptor called GCY-9, which is known to help nematodes sense CO2. By removing the gene that encodes GCY-9, the threadworms were unable to detect CO2, showing that this gene is necessary for behavioral responses to CO2.

The identification of chemosensory mechanisms that shape the interaction between parasitic nematodes and their human hosts may help scientists design new drugs that target the CO2-sensing pathway. For example, drugs that block GCY-9 function may impair the ability of parasitic worms to navigate within the body by disrupting their ability to detect CO2, which in turn could prevent an infection from establishing or reduce the severity of an existing infection. Future studies will identify additional genes in the CO2-sensing pathway that could act as molecular targets for new antiparasitic drugs.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Journal

Current Biology

Fewer than 1% of U.S. clinical drug trials enroll pregnant participants, study finds

An analysis by researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health found that most studies exclude participants who are pregnant, potentially leaving critical safety and efficacy questions unanswered.

Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study by researchers from the Brown University School of Public Health found that pregnant women are regularly excluded from clinical drug trials that test for safety, raising concerns for the efficacy of these medications for maternal and child health.

The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, analyzed 90,860 drug trials involving women ages 18 to 45 from the past 15 years and found that only 0.8% included pregnant participants. About 75% of the studies excluded them, potentially leaving critical safety and efficacy questions unanswered.

“When pregnant women are excluded from drug trials, it is harder to know if the medication is safe for mothers and their children,” said Alyssa Bilinski, an assistant professor of health services, policy and practice and of biostatistics at Brown’s School of Public Health. “In practice, this means that some people might decide to take medications even absent rigorous evidence, which could lead to harmful side effects. At the same time, others might avoid medications that could actually help them because there’s not enough data to give them confidence about safety.”

About 24% of the studies the researchers looked at did not specify in the data whether pregnant participants were included, but further investigation suggested that they were generally excluded from such trials. Trials that included participants who were pregnant focused primarily on pregnancy-related conditions, labor and prevention of preterm labor. Chronic conditions affecting pregnant women and their children such as diabetes and asthma were largely overlooked.

“We found only 19 trials for non-infectious chronic conditions like anxiety, depression and asthma that have included pregnant participants,” Bilinski said. “While it may seem risky to include pregnant people in research, it’s even worse to leave them guessing based on incomplete information.”

Importantly, rates of inclusion of pregnant participants in drug trials have not changed in 15 years, despite calls for greater involvement, the researchers showed in their findings.

Randomized control trials follow a standard process for evaluating the safety and efficacy of medications. They work by administering treatment to a randomly selected group of participants while withholding treatment from others. These trials have proven to reliably demonstrate a drug’s efficacy and potential side effects.

Bilinski noted that it wasn’t until 1962 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration mandated that pharmaceutical companies demonstrate the safety and efficacy of their medications, and only in 1993 were trials required to include women.

“That really wasn’t that long ago,” Bilinski said. “Our hope is that 30 years from now, lacking high-quality evidence about medication safety during pregnancy will seem as strange and outdated as excluding women from trials seems to us today.”

Along with Bilinski, Natalia Emanuel, a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, contributed to the work using data from ClinicalTrials.gov.

Journal

American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

DOI

10.1016/j.ajog.2024.12.028

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Fewer than 1% of US Clinical Drug Trials Enroll Pregnant Participants

TECHNOCRACY

A global majority trusts scientists, wants them to have greater role in policymaking, study finds

University of Notre Dame

In what is considered the most comprehensive post-pandemic survey of trust in scientists, researchers have found a majority of people around the world carry widespread trust in scientists — believing them to be honest, competent, qualified and concerned with public well-being.

Researchers surveyed more than 72,000 individuals across 68 countries on perceptions of scientists’ trustworthiness, competence, openness and research priorities.

The results, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, also showed the general public’s desire for more engagement from scientists through communication and policymaking.

“This was a major collaborative study, involving dozens of labs from across the world, all of them asking the same questions to specific audiences, in their specific languages according to their own customs,” said Tim Weninger, the Frank M. Freimann Collegiate Professor of Engineering and director of graduate studies in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. “This is the first time I have seen such a distributed and collaborative effort in the social sciences. Our results show that, generally, denizens worldwide do indeed trust scientists.”

Weninger is an expert in disinformation and fake news and one of 241 researchers who contributed to the study as part of the Trust in Scientists and Science-Related Populism (TISP) Many Labs project, an international, multidisciplinary consortium of researchers at 179 institutions around the world.

Researchers sought to identify levels of trust in scientists, how demographic and country-level factors impact trust and vary between countries, perceptions of scientists in societal roles and policymaking, and which issues people believe scientists should prioritize.

A challenge to a ‘popular, dominant narrative’

The study challenges a “popular, dominant narrative claiming a crisis of trust in science and scientists,” the authors said. Building on previous studies, primarily focused on attitudes in the United States and Europe, the survey also includes individuals and countries long underrepresented in research.

An overwhelming majority of respondents (83 percent) believe scientists should communicate scientific concepts and research findings with the public. More than half (52 percent) believe scientists should be more involved in policymaking.

According to the study, “higher levels of trust were found among women, older people, residents of urban (vs. rural) regions,” higher-income earners, individuals who identify as religious and those with left-leaning or liberal political views. Education also positively correlated with trust.

In most countries, however, political orientation is unrelated to trust in scientists, the study found — one of several results that provided insight into global views.

Additionally, whereas some people might assume religion and science to be at odds, the TISP study found a positive association between trust and science and religious identity.

“That was the most surprising thing to me,” Weninger said. “Religiosity positively and significantly correlated with trust in science. Science and religion are often seen as being at odds with one another. This global study shows that religiosity and trust in science are commonly held in tandem by people across the world.”

The desire for more engagement

Overall, attitudes reveal a desire among the public to see scientists engage in science communication and policymaking — advocating for policies that address specific issues such as climate change and communicating research findings to government officials and politicians.

People also want to see scientists prioritize improving public health, solving energy problems and reducing poverty. The survey showed that people generally believe the scientific community prioritizes defense and military technology above all other research goals, which was found to be a lesser priority for most respondents.

Previous studies have shown trust in science and scientists as critical to managing global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Weninger and the study’s authors said the results of the TISP survey “can help scientists and science communicators better tailor their communication to different audiences” and stressed the need for international research that includes underrepresented and understudied populations.

Challenges and recommendations

While the results of the TISP study strongly challenge current narratives, the consortium noted their findings reveal some areas for concern.

Though 57 percent of global respondents believed scientists are honest, and 56 percent believed scientists are concerned with public well-being, only 42 percent believe scientists are receptive to feedback or pay attention to others’ views.

“Anti-science attitudes, even if held by only a minority of people, raise concerns about a potential crisis of trust in science, which could challenge the epistemic authority of science and the role of scientists in supporting evidence-based policymaking,” the authors stated in the study.

With that in mind, the consortium suggested scientists find ways to be more open to feedback and dialogue with public audiences, increase public science communication efforts to highlight ongoing research in public health and energy, consider ways to reach conservative groups in Western countries and consider the role of the scientist in setting priorities aligned with public values.

The survey’s full dataset is available via a comprehensive dashboard, providing insights on science-related populism, science communication behavior and public perceptions about climate change. Through the dashboard, users can explore specific data at the country level and compare results.

Journal

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5

Article Title

Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries

Article Publication Date

20-Jan-2025

New global research reveals strong public trust in science

Extreme climate pushed thousands of lakes in West Greenland ‘across a tipping point,’ study finds

University of Maine

Greenland-photo — image:
Researchers sample a lake near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, that browned after the extreme events.
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Credit: Photo by Adam Heathcote

West Greenland is home to tens of thousands of blue lakes that provide residents drinking water and sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Yet after two months of record heat and precipitation in fall 2022, an estimated 7,500 lakes turned brown, began emitting carbon and decreased in water quality, according to a new study.

Led by Fulbright Distinguished Arctic Scholar and University of Maine Climate Change Institute Associate Director Jasmine Saros, a team of researchers found that the combination of extreme climate events in fall 2022 caused ecological change that “pushed Arctic lakes across a tipping point,” they wrote in a paper published in the the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). By July 2023, less than one year later, the physical, chemical and biological properties of these lakes were altered, a widespread transformation that typically occurs over hundreds of years, Saros said. Their results were shared with nearby communities.

Greenland normally experiences snow in the fall, but the spike in temperatures caused the precipitation to fall as rain instead, according to the study. The heat also caused permafrost — frozen soil that stores a significant amount of organic carbon — to thaw, releasing an abundance of carbon, iron, magnesium and other elements. As rain fell in record amounts, it washed these newly exposed metals and carbon from soil into lakes across Greenland’s western region, turning them brown.

Saros, also a professor of paleolimnology and lake ecology with UMaine’s School of Biology and Ecology, said the rapid alteration in West Greenland’s lakes contrasts with the slow, multi-decade-long browning experienced in lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, including those in Maine.

“The magnitude of this and the rate of change were unprecedented,” Saros said.

The influx of dissolved organic carbon and nutrients from the permafrost can promote bacteria growth and produce an undesirable taste and odor in the water, in addition to altering color, Saros said. Increased exposure to metals released from permafrost can also cause health problems. By identifying the type and quantity of organic and inorganic materials entering the lakes following the climate extreme events, residents in the surrounding area can better evaluate how to treat their water.

“The increased dissolved organic material can interact with drinking water treatment processes to produce chlorination byproducts called trihalomethanes, which may be carcinogenic,” Saros said.

With altered physical and chemical properties, the lakes became more opaque and less light was able to penetrate their surface. The reduction in light decreased the biodiversity of plankton, which had significant ramifications for the region’s carbon cycle. Researchers found a decrease in phytoplankton that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and an increase in plankton that break down and release carbon. Instead of sequestering carbon dioxide in the summer, the lakes have become a source of it, with a 350% increase in the flux of this greenhouse gas from them.

“The likely explanation is that so much organic carbon mobilized from the landscape into the surface water, and the organic carbon was available for aquatic organisms to use,” Saros said. “Because the lakes turned so brown, it reduced the light coming into the system, which tends to favor organisms that use organic carbon pathways instead of photosynthesis.”

Researchers concluded that the rise in heat and precipitation was caused by several atmospheric rivers. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an atmospheric river is a long, narrow column of water vapor that produces intense rain or snow when it makes landfall. They affect much of the world, and existing climate models predict that by the end of the century, they will become 50-290% more frequent in Greenland, western North America, east Asia, western Europe and Antarctica.

Saros said additional research and monitoring could help determine how these lakes may recover, providing greater insight into lake dynamics in the region. Further studies can also help scientists examine browning lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, how they may recover and potential treatment and intervention.

“It was such an overwhelming climate force that drove all the lakes to respond in the same way,” Saros said. “When it comes to recovery, will it be the same across lakes or different?”

The study was made possible through extensive data collection obtained through annual water sampling and remote sensors in the lakes that operate year-round.

“Our study demonstrates the power of long-term observation. I’ve been working in this area since 2013, and have worked on many projects here. But in the background, my colleagues and I have been trying to maintain a consistent data set of observations,” Saros said. “That’s how we were able to capture and quantify the effects of this extreme climate event.”

In addition to Saros, UMaine Ph.D. students Václava “Vendy” Hazuková, Grayson Huston, Avery Lamb and Guillaume Bourdin co-authored the study.

Other co-authors include Sean Birkel, Maine state climate scientist and assistant professor with the Climate Change Institute and University of Maine Cooperative Extension; Robert Northington from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania; Ryan Pereira from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Binbin Jiang from Zhejiang University of Science and Technology in China; and Suzanne McGowan from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology. Saros said Binbin and Northington were former postdoctoral associates at UMaine.

“Many Ph.D. students were involved in this work, and were totally instrumental in this work,” she said.

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2413855122

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Cal Poly student helps lead international ‘Under the Snakefluence’ study to better understand global human-snake interactions

Credit

An inquisitive Western Rattlesnake in California’s Carrizo Plain.

Credit

Skin-penetrating nematodes have a love-hate relationship with carbon dioxide

Journal

Fewer than 1% of U.S. clinical drug trials enroll pregnant participants, study finds

Journal

DOI

Subject of Research

Article Title

A global majority trusts scientists, wants them to have greater role in policymaking, study finds

Journal

DOI

Article Title

Article Publication Date

Extreme climate pushed thousands of lakes in West Greenland ‘across a tipping point,’ study finds

DOI

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