Ice melt projections may underestimate Antarctic contribution to sea level rise

PENN STATE

Research News

 

IMAGE: THWAITES GLACIER, ANTARCTICA, PICTURED IN 2019. view more 

CREDIT: NASA

Fluctuations in the weather can have a significant impact on melting Antarctic ice, and models that do not include this factor can underestimate the global impact of sea level rise, according to Penn State scientists.

"We know ice sheets are melting as global temperatures increase, but uncertainties remain about how much and how fast that will happen," said Chris Forest, professor of climate dynamics at Penn State. "Our findings shed new light on one area of uncertainty, suggesting climate variability has a significant impact on melting ice sheets and sea level rise."

While it is understood that continued warming may cause rapid ice loss, models that predict how Antarctica will respond to climate change have not included the potential impacts of internal climate variability, like yearly and decadal fluctuations in the climate, the team of scientists said.

Accounting for climate variability caused models to predict an additional 2.7 to 4.3 inches -- 7 to 11 centimeters -- of sea level rise by 2100, the scientists recently reported in the journal Climate Dynamics. The models projected roughly 10.6 to 14.9 inches -- 27 to 38 centimeters -- of sea level rise during that same period without climate variability.

"That increase alone is comparable to the amount of sea level rise we have seen over the last few decades," said Forest, who has appointments in the departments of meteorology and atmospheric science and geosciences. "Every bit adds on to the storm surge, which we expect to see during hurricanes and other severe weather events, and the results can be devastating."

The Antarctic ice sheet is a complex system, and modeling how it will evolve under future climate conditions requires thousands of simulations and large amounts of computing power. Because of this, modelers test how the ice will respond using a mean temperature found by averaging the results of climate models.

However, that process smooths out peaks caused by climate variability and reduces the average number of days above temperature thresholds that can impact the ice sheet melt, creating a bias in the results, the scientists said.

"If we include variability in the simulations, we are going to have more warm days and more sunshine, and therefore when the daily temperature gets above a certain threshold it will melt the ice," Forest said. "If we're just running with average conditions, we're not seeing these extremes happening on yearly or decadal timescales."

To study the effects of internal climate variability, the researchers analyzed two large ensembles of climate simulations. Large ensembles are generated by starting each member with slightly different initial conditions. The chaotic nature of the climate system causes each member to yield slightly different responses, and this represents internally generated variability, the scientists said.

Instead of averaging the results of each ensemble, the scientists fed the atmospheric and oceanic data representing this variability into a three-dimensional Antarctic ice sheet model. They found atmospheric variations had a larger and more immediate impact on the ice sheet, but ocean variability was also a significant factor.

Extensive parts of the ice sheet are in contact with ocean water, and previous studies have suggested that warming oceans could cause large chunks to break away. The process may expose ice cliffs so tall that they collapse under their own weight, inducing a domino effect that further depletes the ice shelf.

The scientists found model simulations that did not include the effects of internal climate variability significantly delayed the retreat of the ice sheet by up to 20 years and underestimated future sea level rise.

"This additional ice melt will impact the hurricane storm surges across the globe. Additionally, for years, the IPCC reports have been looking at sea level rise without considering this additional variability and have been underestimating what the impact may be," Forest said. "It's important to better understand these processes contributing to the additional ice loss because the ice sheets are melting much faster than we expected."

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Also participating from Penn State were David Pollard, research professor in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and Chii-Yun Tsai, a former doctoral student.

The National Science Foundation and the Penn State Center for Climate Risk Management funded this research.

 

Climate patterns linked in Amazon, North and South America, study shows

A tree-ring chronology developed by U of A researchers established a connection between precipitation in the Amazon and the Americas

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Research News

 

IMAGE: DAVID STAHLE, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF GEOSCIENCES, AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS TREE RING LABORATORY view more 

CREDIT: RUSSELL COTHREN

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -University of Arkansas researchers have established a link between climate patterns in the Amazon and large parts of North and South America using their newly developed tree-ring chronology from the Amazon River basin.

The discovery helps researchers better understand large-scale climate extremes and the impact of the El Niño phenomenon.

Tree growth is a well-established climate proxy. By comparing growth rings in Cedrela odorata trees found in the Rio Paru watershed of the eastern Amazon River with hundreds of similar chronologies in North and South America, scientists have shown an inverse relationship in tree growth, and therefore precipitation patterns, between the areas. Drought in the Amazon is correlated with wetness in the southwestern United States, Mexico and Patagonia, and vice versa.

The process is driven by the El Niño phenomenon, which influences surface-level winds along the equator, researchers said. El Niño is the name given to a large-scale irregularly occurring climate pattern associated with unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean.

"The new Cedrela chronologies from the Amazon, when compared with the hundreds of tree-ring chronologies in temperate North and South America, document this Pan American resonance of climate and ecosystem extremes in the centuries before widespread deforestation or human-caused climate change," said Dave Stahle, Distinguished Professor of geosciences and first author of a study documenting the findings in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

The connection was not documented until researchers at the University of Arkansas Tree Ring Laboratory, along with colleagues from Brazil and Argentina, developed rainfall reconstructions from growth rings in Cedrela trees. Most rainfall records in the Amazon only date back about 70 years, but Cedrelas live for 200 to 300 years, providing valuable rainfall proxies that pre-date human-influenced climate change. Their work in the Amazon is documented in a short video, and also on a dedicated web site.

In the past 40 years, drought and flood extremes have increased in the Amazon basin, the researchers noted, raising the question of whether human-induced climate change and deforestation are affecting Amazon climate. While that remains an open question, the longer Cedrela-based precipitation record indicates that periods of rainfall extremes occurred in the past and the current extremes might be partly due to natural climate rhythms.

The study will help researchers better understand an area of unequaled biodiversity. The Amazon is home to an estimated 16,000 species of trees and one-tenth of all known species found on the planet, Stahle noted. "The long climate history written in the growth rings of old Cedrela trees in Amazonia will surely be important to the sustainability of the biome."

School absences correlate to impaired air quality

Even mildly elevated air pollution associated with increase in absences in Salt Lake City

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Research News

 

IMAGE: SCHOOL BOOKS IN A CLASSROOM. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

In Salt Lake City schools, absences rise when the air quality worsens, and it's not just in times of high pollution or "red" air quality days--even days following lower levels of pollutions saw increased absences.

Research is still ongoing, and the evidence isn't yet conclusive enough to draw a cause-and-effect relationship between air quality and children's absences from school but the correlation, according to Daniel Mendoza, a research assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and visiting assistant professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning, merits further exploration. Mendoza and his colleagues published their results in Environmental Research Letters.

Air pollution is harmful for not only the health, but also the education and well-being of children in our community," says study co-author Cheryl Pirozzi, assistant professor in the Division of Respiratory, Critical Care, and Occupational Pulmonary Medicine. "Even at relatively low levels that many people would not think to be harmful air pollution is associated with increased school absences."

"Any pollution is bad," Mendoza says. "And these lower levels of pollution, which are still harmful to our health, have been understudied."

The correlation

Mendoza, who also holds appointments as adjunct assistant professor in the Pulmonary Division at the School of Medicine and as senior scientist at the NEXUS Institute, and his interdisciplinary colleagues looked at absence data from 36 schools in the Salt Lake City School District and compared them with ozone and air particulate matter levels in those neighborhoods from 2015 to 2018.

This kind of neighborhood-level air quality modeling requires a network of research-quality air sensors, and such a network has been building in the Salt Lake Valley over the last several years, operated by the U and by the state Division of Air Quality. That network includes mobile sensors on light rail trains as well as stationary research and regulatory grade sensors.

"These are critical because now we can see small nuances, small differences across neighborhoods," Mendoza says. "Now we can see how one school, for example, had slightly higher or slightly lower values of ozone and particulate matter. And now, instead of looking at the difference between green and yellow days, we can actually see small amounts of variability because of the density of our networks."

To understand the findings, it's important to first review how air quality conditions are reported. Particulate matter is most often reported as PM2.5, or the amount of particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 microns. These particles can reach the deepest parts of our lungs and may actually pass into our bloodstream. The unit of measurement is micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3). Ozone is a molecule made from three oxygen atoms and is highly reactive, damaging the respiratory and circulatory systems. It's reported in parts per billion (ppb).

Although the study looked at elementary, middle and high schools, the authors write that elementary students may be most vulnerable to health effects from air pollution.

"Children are particularly susceptible to the health effects of air pollution," Pirozzi says, "and it is possible that health effects, such as respiratory tract infections or asthma exacerbations, may lead to them missing more school, which can have long-term consequences for them."

Across the school district, they found, school absences increased by 1.04 per μg/m3 of particulate matter and by 1.01 per ppb of ozone, even at levels of air pollution that aren't considered harmful. The worst increase in absences happened the day after high pollution exposure - possibly because reactions to high pollution might reduce exposure and prevent further absences. But on days after low, yet still elevated, pollution, absences continued to rise on the third, fourth and fifth days of exposure--suggesting a cumulative exposure effect, Mendoza says.

"So what that really leads us to think is that even low levels of poor air quality can, in a cumulative manner lead to negative health outcomes--in this case increased school absences. Even on green air quality days, when the pollution was just slightly elevated, if we had several of those days, then kids would still be absent."

Additionally, the researchers write that there may be a disparity between eastside and westside schools. Schools on the west side, with a higher proportion of residents from minority groups, already have a higher rate of absences than the comparatively more affluent east side and are slightly more affected by the same level of pollution. The disparity isn't yet statistically significant, and Mendoza hopes that an interdisciplinary team can further study these socioeconomic factors.

Mendoza acknowledges that there may be more factors at play that could account for some of the absences. Poor air quality days in the winter tend to be colder days, for example, and some children might stay home to stay out of the cold.

"So we're not saying that this is all due to poor air quality," he says. "We do know that there are more social and demographic variables at play here, but we already know the best way to estimate the pollution is in your zip code is by quantifying the percent of minority residents."

The costs

Absences come at a cost to schools, families and the larger economy. As part of the study, the researchers tried to estimate those costs.

First, the cost to schools. Using average per-pupil spending, the authors found that the state spends $41.30 per student per day--funding that doesn't benefit a student who's absent.

Next, the cost to families. Often a child staying home from school means a parent staying home from work. At an average hourly wage of $23.74, an absence can cost an hourly worker close to $200 a day. For families who receive free or reduced lunch, the cost of food then reverts to the family on days home.

And there are costs to the larger economy as well. Factoring in lost wages, lost taxes and lost productivity due to absences, reducing air pollution by 50 percent could save Utah's economy around $426,000 per year just from reducing absences in the Salt Lake School District. This result, the authors say, shows how reducing school absenteeism can and should be considered a benefit of improving air quality in the Salt Lake Valley.

"This is definitely not negligible," Mendoza says. "This is a real definite number, very close to half a million dollars in terms of income that does not need to be lost."

Find the full study here.

 

More evidence of benefits of REGN-COV2 antibody cocktail to both protect from and treat disease

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

Research News

 

In June, two studies in Science reported an antibody cocktail against SARS-CoV-2 developed from studies in humanized mice and recovering patients. The two antibody cocktail was designed to bind the virus to reduce the risk of a drug-resistant form emerging. Now, expanding upon this work, researchers show this antibody cocktail offers benefits in animal models that mimic the diverse pathology of SARS-CoV-2 infection, both when administered prophylactically and therapeutically. "These findings highlight the therapeutic potential of [this approach] to both protect from and treat SARS-CoV-2 disease," the authors say. While multiple studies have described discovery and characterization of potent neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, evaluation of the efficacy of these antibodies in vivo is limited, and it's largely focused on the prophylactic setting. As well, no single animal model has emerged as being more relevant for human disease, which has led some to say multiple animal models may be required to mimic various settings of human infection. Building on studies Johanna Hansen et al. and Alina Baum et al. published in Science in June that identified and characterized a double antibody therapy, Baum and colleagues tested this cocktail, REGN-COV2, in rhesus macaques, which manifest mild COVID-19 symptoms, and in golden hamsters, which show symptoms that are much more severe, including rapid weight loss. When administered three days before viral challenge, treatment almost completely blocked establishment of viral infection in macaques, the authors say. This ability, they note, "matches or exceeds the effects recently shown in vaccine efficacy studies using the same animal models." In macaques treated with the drug one day after infection, the authors report faster viral clearance than in controls who'd not been treated. Next, the authors used the hamster model to evaluate the drug's ability to alter the disease course in more severe cases. Hamsters treated with the drug two days before infection exhibited a "dramatic protection from weight loss" and decreased viral load in the lungs, the authors report. They also report benefits for hamsters treated one day after infection, as compared to controls. "In conclusion," say the authors, "our data provide evidence that REGN-COV2 based therapy may offer clinical benefit in both prevention and treatment settings of COVID-19 disease, where it is currently being evaluated."

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Stay-at-home orders cut noise exposure nearly in half

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Research News

 

People's exposure to environmental noise dropped nearly in half during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, according to University of Michigan researchers who analyzed data from the Apple Hearing Study.

Researchers at U-M's School of Public Health and Apple Inc. looked at noise exposure data from volunteer Apple Watch users in Florida, New York, California and Texas. The analysis, one of the largest to date, included more than a half million daily noise levels measured before and during the pandemic.

Daily average sound levels dropped approximately 3 decibels during the time that local governments made announcements about social distancing and issued stay-at-home orders in March and April, compared to January and February.

"That is a huge reduction in terms of exposure and it could have a great effect on people's overall health outcomes over time," said Rick Neitzel, associate professor of environmental health sciences at U-M's School of Public Health. "The analysis demonstrates the utility of everyday use of digital devices in evaluating daily behaviors and exposures."

The four states reviewed in this analysis had differing COVID-19 responses in terms of stay-at-home orders, which showed through the data.

"California and New York both had really drastic reductions in sound that happened very quickly, whereas Florida and Texas had somewhat less of a reduction," Neitzel said.

Initially, the largest drop in environmental sound exposure was seen on the weekends, where nearly 100% of participants reduced their time spent above the 75 dBA threshold (a sound level roughly as loud as an alarm clock) between Friday and Sunday.

"But after the lockdowns, when people stopped physically going to work, the pattern became more opaque," Neitzel said. "People's daily routines were disrupted and we no longer saw a large distinction in exposures between the traditional five working days versus the weekend."

These data points allow researchers to begin describing what personal sound exposures are like for Americans who live in a particular state, or are of a particular age, or who have or do not have hearing loss.

"These are questions we've had for years and now we're starting to have data that will allow us to answer them," Neitzel said. "We're thankful to the participants who contributed unprecedented amounts of data. This is data that never existed or was even possible before."

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The Apple Hearing Study is the first of its kind to collect data over time in order to understand how everyday sound exposure can impact hearing. The study data will also be shared with the World Health Organization as a contribution toward its Make Listening Safe initiative.

The study continues to recruit participants. To learn more about the study or to download the Research app to participate, visit Apple Hearing Study.

Study: Impacts of COVID-19-related social distancing measures on personal environmental sound exposures

1) Image link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pJdkfxI7xecemprU4ymwPzWetWHHIfFj

2) Study: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abb494

3) Rick Neitzel: https://sph.umich.edu/faculty-profiles/neitzel-richard.html

 

Female surgeons perform less complex cases than male peers, likely due to systemic bias

A new study is one of the first to measure the problem of underemployment among female surgeons in the United States

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL

Research News

 

BOSTON - Female surgeons at a large academic medical center perform less complex surgical procedures than their male counterparts, according to a new study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). This study, published in Annals of Surgery, is one of the first to measure the problem of underemployment among female surgeons in the United States, which can affect compensation, career advancement and job satisfaction.

Only about one in five surgeons practicing in U.S. is female. Unemployment is virtually nonexistent among surgeons, but many female surgeons, as well as professional women in other fields, experience underemployment--the underuse of skills--according to the Federal Reserve Bank. "Women in surgery talk among themselves about how they may be perceived as less confident or competent, and for those reasons they may have less opportunity to do exciting and challenging cases," says Cassandra Kelleher, MD, a pediatric surgeon at MGH and senior author of the Annals of Surgery study. "We wondered if this was true, and if so, why?"

To find out, Kelleher, post-doctoral researcher Ya-Wen Chen, MD, MPH, the lead author of the study, and several colleagues analyzed 551,047 case records from operations performed by 131 surgeons at MGH between 1997 and 2018. To compare the difficulty of surgeries that females and males performed, the researchers used a universally accepted metric known as the work Relative Value Unit (wRVU), which measures the technical complexity of a procedure.

The study found that the mean wRVU for cases performed by male surgeons was 10.8, compared to 8.3 for female surgeons, a difference in complexity of 23 percent. "If you multiply that over the course of a year or a career, that's a huge difference," says Chen.

The study's design ruled out common explanations for why female surgeons perform less complex procedures, such as their choice of subspecialty, or that women are less available due to family commitments. The study also found no sign that the problem has improved over the last two decades and indicated that underemployment was a more significant problem for female surgeons with greater seniority.

For years, female surgeons have been advised to take steps such as attending leadership training conferences to help advance their careers. While these programs have value, the study authors stress that female surgeons themselves are not the problem. "It may be that referring physicians or patients lack confidence in female surgeons to perform complex cases," says Chen. "If that's true, then we are not going to solve the problem solely by having female surgeons attend leadership training. We need a systemic approach."

Finding the right approach will require deeper understanding of the problem, researchers say, so Chen, Kelleher and their colleagues are currently studying new patient referrals received by a group of female and male surgeons.

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Cassandra M. Kelleher, MD, is surgical director for the Fetal Care Program and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at MGH, and an assistant professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Ya-Wen Chen, MD, MPH, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Codman Center at MGH. Maggie L. Westfal, MD, MPH, is a surgical resident at MGH. David C. Chang, PhD, MPH, MBA, is the director of health care research and policy development in the Codman Center and an associate professor of Surgery at HMS.

About the Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2020, Mass General was named #6 in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."

 

Antibodies from patients infected with SARS-CoV in 2003 cross-neutralized SARS-CoV-2 in vitro

Cross-reactive neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 by serum antibodies from recovered SARS patients and immunized animals

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

Research News

 

Antibodies in serum samples collected from patients infected with SARS-CoV during the 2003 outbreak effectively neutralized SARS-CoV-2 infection in cultured cells, according to a new study. The authors also report that, surprisingly, mice and rabbits immunized with a receptor binding domain (RBD) from a strain of SARS-CoV that infects the Himalayan palm civet elicited stronger antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 than animals immunized with an RBD from a human SARS-CoV strain. The authors suggest that their findings may inform strategies to develop universal vaccines against emerging and future coronaviruses. Yuanmei Zhu and colleagues analyzed 20 convalescent serum samples from patients infected with SARS-CoV, determining cross-reactivity for protein antigens derived from four regions of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, including the S ectodomain (S), S1 subunit, RBD, and S2 subunit. While all serum samples reacted strongly with the S and S2 proteins, they reacted more weakly with the S1 and RBD proteins. A separate test using a single-cycle infection assay determined that the convalescent SARS-CoV sera efficiently prevented both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses (which cannot produce viral surface proteins on their own) from infecting cells, although they inhibited SARS-CoV-2 activity less efficiently. The researchers verified their findings in animals and specifically characterized the RBD's ability to mediate cross-reactivity in mice, since the RBD is the least conserved of the spike protein sites between the two viruses. They found that anti-RBD serum from SARS-CoV cross-reacted well with SARS-CoV-2, suggesting a key antigen component is genetically conserved in the RBD sites of the two viruses. Zhu et al. note that although antibody-dependent enhancement (when binding a virus to certain antibodies actually eases its entry into host cells) was not observed in this study, the effect should be addressed during vaccine development.

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Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Oldest monkey fossils outside of Africa found

PENN STATE

Research News

 

IMAGE: RECONSTRUCTION OF M. PENTELICUS FROM SHUITANGBA BY MAURICIO ANTÓN view more 

CREDIT: MAURICIO ANTÓN

Three fossils found in a lignite mine in southeastern Yunan Province, China, are about 6.4 million years old, indicate monkeys existed in Asia at the same time as apes, and are probably the ancestors of some of the modern monkeys in the area, according to an international team of researchers.

"This is significant because they are some of the very oldest fossils of monkeys outside of Africa," said Nina G. Jablonski, Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology, Penn State. "It is close to or actually the ancestor of many of the living monkeys of East Asia. One of the interesting things from the perspective of paleontology is that this monkey occurs at the same place and same time as ancient apes in Asia."

The researchers, who included Jablonski and long-time collaborator Xueping Ji, department of paleoanthropology, Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Kunming, China, studied the fossils unearthed from the Shuitangba lignite mine that has yielded many fossils. They report that "The mandible and proximal femur were found in close proximity and are probably of the same individual," in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution. Also uncovered slightly lower was a left calcaneus -- heel bone -- reported by Dionisios Youlatos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in another paper online in the journal, that belongs to the same species of monkey, Mesopithecus pentelicus.

"The significance of the calcaneus is that it reveals the monkey was well adapted for moving nimbly and powerfully both on the ground and in the trees," said Jablonski. "This locomotor versatility no doubt contributed to the success of the species in dispersing across woodland corridors from Europe to Asia."

The lower jawbone and upper portion of the leg bone indicate that the individual was female, according to the researchers. They suggest that these monkeys were probably "jacks of all trades" able to navigate in the trees and on land. The teeth indicate they could eat a wide variety of plants, fruits and flowers, while apes eat mostly fruit.

"The thing that is fascinating about this monkey, that we know from molecular anthropology, is that, like other colobines (Old World monkeys), it had the ability to ferment cellulose," said Jablonski. "It had a gut similar to that of a cow."

These monkeys are successful because they can eat low-quality food high in cellulose and obtain sufficient energy by fermenting the food and using the subsequent fatty acids then available from the bacteria. A similar pathway is used by ruminant animals like cows, deer and goats.

"Monkeys and apes would have been eating fundamentally different things," said Jablonski. "Apes eat fruits, flowers, things easy to digest, while monkeys eat leaves, seeds and even more mature leaves if they have to. Because of this different digestion, they don't need to drink free water, getting all their water from vegetation."

These monkeys do not have to live near bodies of water and can survive periods of dramatic climatic change.

"These monkeys are the same as those found in Greece during the same time period," said Jablonski. "Suggesting they spread out from a center somewhere in central Europe and they did it fairly quickly. That is impressive when you think of how long it takes for an animal to disperse tens of thousands of kilometers through forest and woodlands."

While there is evidence that the species began in Eastern Europe and moved out from there, the researchers say the exact patterns are unknown, but they do know the dispersal was rapid, in evolutionary terms. During the end of the Miocene when these monkeys were moving out of Eastern Europe, apes were becoming extinct or nearly so, everywhere except in Africa and parts of Southeast Asia.

"The late Miocene was a period of dramatic environmental change," said Jablonski. "What we have at this site is a fascinating snapshot of the end of the Miocene -- complete with one of the last apes and one of the new order of monkeys. This is an interesting case in primate evolution because it testifies to the value of versatility and adaptability in diverse and changing environments. It shows that once a highly adaptable form sets out, it is successful and can become the ancestral stock of many other species."

HEEL BONE
Also working on this project were Jay Kelley, Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University and Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Lawrence J. Flynn, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Chenglong Deng, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Denise F. Su, Department of Paleobotany and Paleoecology, Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

The National Science Foundation, Penn State and Bryn Mawr funded this research.

 

Hydroxychloroquine does not counter SARS-CoV-2 in hamsters, high dose of favipiravir does

KU LEUVEN

Research News

 

IMAGE: LAB TECHNICIANS HAVE TO WEAR PROTECTIVE SUITS WHEN WORKING WITH INFECTIOUS SARS-COV-2 SAMPLES. view more 

CREDIT: LAYLA AERTS - KU LEUVEN

Virologists at the KU Leuven Rega Institute have been working on two lines of SARS-CoV-2 research: searching for a vaccine to prevent infection, and testing existing drugs to see which one can reduce the amount of virus in infected people.

To test the efficacy of the vaccine and antivirals preclinically, the researchers use hamsters. The rodents are particularly suitable for SARS-CoV-2 research because the virus replicates itself strongly in hamsters after infection. Moreover, hamsters develop a lung pathology similar to mild COVID-19 in humans. This is not the case with mice, for example.

For this study, the team of Suzanne Kaptein (PhD), Joana Rocha-Pereira (PhD), Professor Leen Delang, and Professor Johan Neyts gave the hamsters either hydroxychloroquine or favipiravir - a broad-spectrum antiviral drug used in Japan to treat influenza - for four to five days. They tested several doses of favipiravir. The hamsters were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in two ways: by inserting a high dose of virus directly into their noses or by putting a healthy hamster in a cage with an infected hamster. Drug treatment was started one hour before the direct infection or one day before the exposure to an infected hamster. Four days after infection or exposure, the researchers measured how much of the virus was present in the hamsters.

Hydroxychloroquine versus favipiravir

Treatment with hydroxychloroquine had no impact: the virus levels did not decrease and the hamsters were still infectious. "Despite the lack of clear evidence in animal models or clinical studies, many COVID-19 patients have already been treated with hydroxychloroquine," explains Joana Rocha-Pereira. "Based on these results and the results of other teams, we advise against further exploring the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment against COVID-19."

A high dose of favipiravir, however, had a potent effect. A few days after the infection, the virologists detected hardly any infectious virus particles in the hamsters that received this dose and that had been infected intranasally. Moreover, hamsters that were in a cage with an infected hamster and had been given the drug did not develop an obvious infection. Those that had not received the drug all became infected after having shared a cage with an infected hamster.

A low dose of the drug favipiravir did not have this outcome. "Other studies that used a lower dose had similar results," Professor Delang notes. "The high dose is what makes the difference. That's important to know, because several clinical trials have already been set up to test favipiravir on humans."

Cautious optimism

The researchers are cautiously optimistic about favipiravir. "Because we administered the drug shortly before exposing the hamsters to the virus, we could establish that the medicine can also be used prophylactically, so in prevention," Suzanne Kaptein notes.

"If further research shows that the results are the same in humans, the drug could be used right after someone from a high-risk group has come into contact with an infected person. It may likely also be active during the early stages of the disease."

General preventive use is probably not an option, however, because it is not known whether long-term use, especially at a high dose, has side effects.

No panacea

Further research will have to determine whether humans can tolerate a high dose of favipiravir. "In the hamsters, we detected hardly any side effects," says Delang. In the past, the drug has already been prescribed in high doses to Ebola patients, who appear to have tolerated it well.

"Favipiravir is not a panacea," the researchers warn. This flu drug, nor any other drug, has not been specifically developed against coronaviruses. As a result, the potency of favipiravir is to be considered moderate at best.

The study also highlights the importance of using small animals to test therapies against SARS-CoV-2 in vivo. "Our hamster model is ideally suited to identify which new or existing drugs may be considered for clinical studies," explains Professor Johan Neyts. "In the early days of the pandemic, such a model was not yet available. At that time, the only option was to explore in patients whether or not a drug such as hydroxychloroquine could help them. However, testing treatments on hamsters provides crucial information that can prevent the loss of valuable time and energy with clinical trials on drugs that don't work."

Not all research models are equal

Kaptein, Rocha-Pereira, Delang and Neyts recently contributed to a commentary in Nature Communications in which they give additional context to the contradictory messages that have been circulating about (hydroxy)chloroquine. In the early days of the pandemic, several studies were set up to test these drugs in cell cultures. The results suggested that they could have an antiviral effect. As a result, clinical trials were organised to test the drugs on humans. However, cell cultures are not the best proxy for the human body, and no conclusive effect was found in humans.

In their commentary, the authors describe several recent studies on human organ-on-chip and other complex in vitro models, mice, hamsters, and non-human primates. Each of these studies demonstrates that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine do not have the efficacy suggested by the studies in cell cultures. Therefore, the authors conclude that these malaria drugs are very unlikely to be effective in humans as a COVID-19 treatment.

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More information

The study "Favipiravir at high doses has potent antiviral activity in SARS-CoV-2-infected hamsters, whereas hydroxychloroquine lacks activity" by Suzanne Kaptein, Johan Neyts, Joana Rocha-Pereira, Leen Delang et al. was published in PNAS.

The commentary "Emerging preclinical evidence does not support broad use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients" by Funnell et al. was published in Nature Communications (open access).

 

Transgender people who experience discrimination likelier to have poor mental health

Protective factors, such as support from friends, family, and the community, appeared to mitigate the negative impact of discrimination and stigma

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

Research News 

A University of Waikato study has found that transgender people who have experienced stigma, including harassment, violence, and discrimination because of their identity are much more likely to have poor mental health outcomes.

Based on the responses of 1,178 people who completed a national Aotearoa/New Zealand survey, the findings published in the International Journal of Transgender Health, also show that over half (51%) of transgender people had been discriminated against for being transgender.

A team of experts from Waikato, and the University of Otago, assessed the results of the 2018 'Counting Ourselves' survey - a nationwide community-based questionnaire of transgender people living in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Specifically, the team analysed the extent that stigma and discriminatory experiences alongside protective factors such as the support of friends, family, neighbours and communities, are related to the mental health of transgender people in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Their results show that 23% of transgender people had been verbally harassed in public venues (such as public transport, retail stores and restaurants) for being transgender, whilst more than one-third (39%) had been victimised through cyberbullying.

It is well-documented that transgender people face high rates of discrimination, harassment, violence and serious mental health disparities.

Lead Author Kyle Tan says the findings of this research show that experiences of gender minority stress are strongly associated with mental health, including suicide, and that positive, protective factors appear to act as a buffer against this.

"One quarter (25%) of transgender participants who had high levels of discrimination, harassment and violence, and low levels of support from friends, family and community, had attempted suicide in the last year. However, only 3% of those who with low levels of discrimination, harassment, and violence and high levels of protective factors had attempted suicide. This means that those with lower risk factors and higher protective factors were more than eight times less likely to have attempted suicide."

Principal Investigator Dr Jaimie Veale added that these mental health inequities mean that transgender people should be a named priority in mental health and addiction policies.

"To improve the mental health and wellbeing of transgender people, we need to address the stigma and discrimination that they face. We also need to protect transgender people from violence, as a priority in sexual and domestic violence work."

** Reposted with permission of University of Waikato **

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NFL teams with critical mass of women executives have fewer football player arrests

Research from Syracuse University's Falk College shows that a new philosophy and corporate makeup helps keep players on the field and out of the police blotter

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Keeping players on the field and out of the courtroom is key for a team's success. A new study provides a possible pathway to reduce off-the-job player misconduct and it starts at the top. The researchers, Profs. Mary Graham and Bhavneet Walia from Syracuse University along with Chris Robinson from Tulane University, have concluded that teams which employ more women in executive level positions experience significantly fewer player arrests.

"Serious off-the-job misconduct by high-profile employees is not uncommon in professional sport team organizations, media and entertainment firms, and public-facing institutions, said Graham, Professor of Sport Management at Syracuse University's Falk College and lead author on the study. "Our research suggests that firms searching for preventive and remedial solutions to misconduct should consider a basic structural solution to this problem: ensuring that there is a critical mass of women on the top management team."

"Our findings also have implications for organizations beyond those employing professional sport players, particularly visible organizations with high-profile employees, such as media and entertainment companies; and public-facing entities such as courts, schools, and government entities," said Walia, an Assistant Professor of Public Health. "One of our goals was to shed light on organizational factors which might prevent, redress, or ameliorate instances of off-the-job misconduct by high-profile employees, including in the NFL."

Among the study's key findings:

• Having a critical mass of women executives is associated with a reduction in player arrests of 21% for that team organization. Put differently, a critical mass of women executives (two or more) was associated with 0.33 fewer arrests.
• The likelihood that a team, in any given season, experiences a player arrest is 15.4% lower for team organizations with a critical mass of women executives.
• Also examined: the relationship between a critical mass of executives who are racial/ethnic minorities and player arrests. They found no relationship between having a critical mass of minority executives and player arrests." However, the authors speculate that the low numbers of minority executives might make it difficult to discern any effects.

"No studies have examined the relationship between gender diverse management teams and employee misconduct," said Robinson, a sports law attorney who is also a member of the research team. "We argue that the gender diversity of organizations' executive ranks has the potential to shape organization-level culture and norms of behavior that could influence employee conduct. Greater gender diversity also has the potential to shift strategic priorities and improve decision making."

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The study is in-press in the Journal of Organizational Behavior. More information is available at the study website falk.syr.edu/nflstudy.