WEAPON OF THE JR. ANTI-SEX LEAGUE

Gonorrhea became more drug resistant during COVID-19. A molecular biologist explains the sexually transmitted superbug

by Kenneth Keiler, The Conversation

Credit: CDC

COVID-19 has rightfully dominated infectious disease news since 2020. However, that doesn't mean other infectious diseases took a break. In fact, U.S. rates of infection by gonorrhea have risen during the pandemic.

Unlike COVID-19, which is a new virus, gonorrhea is an ancient disease. The first known reports of gonorrhea date from China in 2600 BC, and the disease has plagued humans ever since. Gonorrhea has long been one of the most commonly reported bacterial infections in the U.S.. It is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which can infect mucous membranes in the genitals, rectum, throat and eyes.

Gonorrhea is typically transmitted by sexual contact. It is sometimes referred to as "the clap."

Prior to the pandemic, there were around 1.6 million new gonorrhea infections each year. Over 50% of those cases involved strains of gonorrhea that had become unresponsive to treatment with at least one antibiotic.

In 2020, gonorrhea infections initially went down 30%, most likely due to pandemic lockdowns and social distancing. However, by the end of 2020—the last year for which data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is available—reported infections were up 10% from 2019.

It is unclear why infections went up even though some social distancing measures were still in place. But the CDC notes that reduced access to health care may have led to longer infections and more opportunity to spread the disease, and sexual activity may have increased when initial shelter-in-place orders were lifted.

As a molecular biologist, I have been studying bacteria and working to develop new antibiotics to treat drug-resistant infections for 20 years. Over that time, I've seen the problem of antibiotic resistance take on new urgency.

Gonorrhea, in particular, is a major public health concern, but there are concrete steps that people can take to prevent it from getting worse, and new antibiotics and vaccines may improve care in the future.

How to recognize gonorrhea

Around half of gonorrhea infections are asymptomatic and can only be detected through screening. Infected people without symptoms can unknowingly spread gonorrhea to others.

Typical early signs of symptomatic gonorrhea include a painful or burning sensation when peeing, vaginal or penal discharge, or anal itching, bleeding or discharge. Left untreated, gonorrhea can cause blindness and infertility. Antibiotic treatment can cure most cases of gonorrhea as long as the infection is susceptible to at least one antibiotic.

There is currently only one recommended treatment for gonorrhea in the U.S.—an antibiotic called ceftriaxone—because the bacteria have become resistant to other antibiotics that were formerly effective against it. Seven different families of antibiotics have been used to treat gonorrhea in the past, but many strains are now resistant to one or more of these drugs.

Why gonorrhea is on the rise

A few factors have contributed to the increase in infections during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CDC tracks the emergence and spread of drug-resistant gonorrhea strains.

Early in the pandemic, most U.S. labs capable of testing for gonorrhea switched to testing for COVID-19. These labs have also been contending with the same shortages of staff and supplies that affect medical facilities across the country.

Many people have avoided clinics and hospitals during the pandemic, which has decreased opportunities to identify and treat gonorrhea infections before they spread. In fact, because of decreased screening over the past two and a half years, health care experts don't know exactly how much antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea has spread.

Also, early in the pandemic, many doctors prescribed antibiotics to COVID-19 patients even though antibiotics do not work on viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Improper use of antibiotics can contribute to greater drug resistance, so it is reasonable to suspect that this has happened with gonorrhea.

Overuse of antibiotics

Even prior to the pandemic, resistance to antibiotic treatment for bacterial infections was a growing problem. In the U.S., antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea infections increased by over 70% from 2017–2019.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae is a specialist at picking up new genes from other pathogens and from "commensal," or helpful, bacteria. These helpful bacteria can also become antibiotic-resistant, providing more opportunities for the gonorrhea bacterium to acquire resistant genes.

Strains resistant to ceftriaxone have been observed in other countries, including Japan, Thailand, Australia and the U.K., raising the possibility that some gonorrhea infections may soon be completely untreatable.

Steps toward prevention

Currently, changes in behavior are among the best ways to limit overall gonorrhea infections—particularly safer sexual behavior and condom use.

However, additional efforts are needed to delay or prevent an era of untreatable gonorrhea.

Scientists can create new antibiotics that are effective against resistant strains; however, decreased investment in this research and development over the past 30 years has slowed the introduction of new antibiotics to a trickle. No new drugs to treat gonorrhea have been introduced since 2019, although two are in the final stage of clinical trials.

Vaccination against gonorrhea isn't possible presently, but it could be in the future. Vaccines effective against the meningitis bacterium, a close relative of gonorrhea, can sometimes also provide protection against gonorrhea. This suggests that a gonorrhea vaccine should be achievable.

The World Health Organization has begun an initiative to reduce gonorrhea worldwide by 90% before 2030. This initiative aims to promote safe sexual practices, increase access to high-quality health care for sexually transmitted diseases and expand testing so that asymptomatic infections can be treated before they spread. The initiative is also advocating for increased research into vaccines and new antibiotics to treat gonorrhea.

Setbacks in fighting drug-resistant gonorrhea during the COVID-19 pandemic make these actions even more urgent.

Scientists develop test to identify best treatment for gonorrhea

Provided by The Conversation 

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

•  

 

Climate risk index shows threats to 90% of the world's marine species

by Daniel G. Boyce, The Conversation

The biodiversity-rich Komodo Island in Indonesia is a climate risk hotspot.

Daniel G. Boyce, Author provided

Climate change impacts marine life through a bewildering web of complex pathways.

Warming oceans and climate extremes are driving species into deeper, more northern and cooler locations, altering their behavior and reconfiguring marine ecosystems in radical and unprecedented ways.

While some impacts can be beneficial, many are harmful, making it difficult to understand the overall effects of climate on individual species and ecosystems. Despite these challenges, we urgently need to understand how changing climate conditions affect marine life to plan and develop adaptation approaches to steward it effectively under climate change.

In our new study, my co-authors and I developed the Climate Risk Index for Biodiversity, which captures the climate risk for nearly 25,000 marine species and their ecosystems. This new index lays the groundwork for supporting climate-smart approaches to managing and conserving marine life.

A climate report card

We used a data-driven statistical approach to create a "climate report card" for each species and ecosystem that tells us which ones will win or lose under climate change. This approach enabled us to study a broad spectrum of life forms, from microscopic plankton to large predators and whales, across all marine ecosystems from the tropics to the poles.

Just as a report card grades students on subjects such as math and science, we assessed each species on 12 specific climate risk factors depending on two different future scenarios—one with lower emissions and one with higher emissions.

The climate risk factors express how the innate characteristics of a species—their body size and temperature tolerance—intersect with past, present and future ocean conditions at all locations where they are found.

The resulting risk scale ranges from negligible (lowest) to critical (highest) and represents both the severity of harmful climate impacts on species and their likelihood of occurring.

Divergent climate futures

Our study focuses on two possible shared socioeconomic pathway scenarios of how future society—and the greenhouse gas emissions it produces—could transpire. The results paint two wildly divergent pictures for marine life and people.

In the high emissions scenario, the global average ocean temperature will increase by three to five degrees Celcius by 2100. Under this scenario, almost 90% of the 25,000 species we assessed were at a "high" or "critical" climate risk. The average species was at risk across 85% of its geographic range.

The proportion of marine species at high or critical climate risk under high emissions by 2100. Darkest red shading denotes the highest risk areas, and darkest blue the lowest. Credit: Daniel G. Boyce

The risk is highest in the subtropical and tropical ecosystems that tend to be biodiversity hotspots and in nearshore ecosystems that support 96% of the global fish catch.

Top predators like sharks and tunas were at significantly higher risk than species further down the food chain, like forage fishes. Such predators can have massive effects on ecosystem structure and functioning.

Our findings also suggest severe ripple effects for people who most rely on the ocean. Under high emissions, climate risks for fished species such as cod and lobsters were consistently greater within the territories of low-income nations, where people depend more on fisheries to meet their nutritional needs.

This represents yet another example of climate inequality wherein low-income countries that have contributed the least to climate change, and are more aggressively reducing their emissions, are experiencing its worst impacts while having the lowest capacity to adapt to them.

Our study stresses that we are at a critical fork in the road and that choosing a more sustainable path that prioritizes climate mitigation will lead to clear benefits for ocean life and people.

Under a low emissions scenario, average ocean temperatures are expected to increase by one to two degrees Celsius by 2100, as per the two degrees Celsius global warming limit in the Paris Agreement.

Under this future, we found a reduced climate risk for virtually all marine life (98.2%). The disproportionate risk for ecosystem structure, biodiversity, fisheries and low-income nations are greatly reduced or eliminated.

Averting harmful climate risks

Our approaches to fisheries management, protected area planning and biodiversity conservation originated in a world with a relatively stable climate. But climate change is rewriting the rule books and threatening to undermine the effectiveness of these traditional approaches.

Cutting emissions is the most direct approach to reducing climate risks. Yet, even with strong mitigation, our study suggests that climate change will continue to affect marine life.

In addition to reducing emissions, it is imperative that we simultaneously find ways to adapt to a warming climate to protect our oceans. We must incorporate new methods and adaptation strategies, develop capacity in under-resourced parts of the world and carefully weigh the pros and cons of adaptation measures.

Our study provides a new tool and index to help inform decision-makers when navigating these complex issues. It can assist with developing strategies to manage and conserve marine life under climate change, monitor changing climate risk and gauge progress towards risk reduction.

While our study paints a potentially grim future under high emissions, it also highlights how our oceans and marine life could benefit from climate change mitigation and adaptation and stresses the urgency with which we must work towards this goal.Study shows 90% of marine species at risk of extinction by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed

Provided by The Conversation 

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

On How US Hegemony Built Spaceship Earth: Marija Radovanovic

Planetary Justice

#worldecology #capitalocene

Marija Radovanovic, Department of Sociology and World-Ecology Research Group, Binghamton University. 

Seventh Annual Conference of the World-Ecology Research Network: Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism in the Web of Life, 23  October, 2021

Buckminster Fuller at MIT - Spaceship Earth - 1979

How should the world's governments respond if we detect an alien civilization?

by Evan Gough, Universe Today

This artist’s impression shows the view from the surface of one of the planets in the 

TRAPPIST-1 system. A powerful laser beacon using current and near-future technology 

could send a signal strong enough to be detected by any alien astronomers here. If we 

can build one, certainly an advanced civilization could. Maybe an ETI somewhere has

 already sent a signal and is on its way. Credit: NASA/ESA/HST

Science fiction is the realm where people traditionally wrestle with the idea of contact with an ETI (Extraterrestrial Intelligence.) But now, those discussions are migrating from science fiction into more serious realms. Academics are going back and forth, one paper at a time, concerning the response and geopolitical fallout from potential contact with an ETI.

The discussion is interesting whether you think it's likely or even remotely possible that humanity ever contacts an ETI. And it might tell us more about humanity than it does about an ETI.

A new paper titled "Geopolitical Implications of a Successful SETI Program" is the latest salvo in the back and forth among professional thinkers. The paper's three authors are associated with institutions including NASA, the Penn State ETI Center, the Department of Philosophy at Spring Hill College, and Harvard Law School. The lead author is Jason T. Wright from Penn State University. The paper's been accepted for publication by the journal Space Policy, and it's currently available on the pre-print site arXiv.org.

This paper is a response to a previous article published in 2020 called "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: A Realpolitik Consideration." That paper was also published in the journal Space Policy, bringing a new emphasis to the discussion around potential contact with an ETI. The authors are Kenneth Wisian and John Traphagan. Wisian is from the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas, and Traphagan is from the Department of Religious Studies and Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations, also at the University of Texas. We'll refer to their paper as WT 2020.

In WT 2020, the two authors pointed out that much of the thinking around ETIs is centered on the risks of Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Messaging an Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI.) What if the ETI is technologically advanced and menacing? What if they're like conquistadors or something? Stephen Hawking expressed this fear well in 2010 when he said, "Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach."

Those types of invading aliens make millions of dollars for Hollywood, but the authors of WT 2020 focused on a different risk, one which doesn't garner as much attention. What's that risk? "Specifically, the risk of merely detecting an alien signal from passive SETI activity is usually considered to be negligible," they write.

What's so risky about merely detecting a signal? Us and our realpolitik.

If you're unfamiliar with the term realpolitik, history is full of examples. Merriam-Webster defines realpolitik as "Politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives." In WT 2020, the authors use this definition of realpolitik from historian John Bew: "…the view of interstate relations where 'the notion that the state could be regulated or controlled by law [is] flawed' and that 'power obey[s] only greater power.'"

Realpolitik is the down-and-dirty, nitty-gritty politics between political groups, usually nations. Realpolitik is separate from the oration political leaders use in elections and public-facing situations, where leaders use political theater to sway the populace and advance their causes. Realpolitik is about the mechanics of power in our world.

A great example of realpolitik comes from World War 2. The American President Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister Churchill played nice with Stalin and Russia. They called Stalin an ally, shook his hand and smiled when they met with him. They needed Stalin to continue to fight and weaken Hitler, and the Americans even sent a steady stream of supplies to Russia to enable their war effort. All good on the surface, as this famous clip from the Yalta Conference shows. At the 2:35 mark, we can watch the three leaders make nice with each other.

But behind the scenes, realpolitik spun a different web. Churchill and Roosevelt needed Stalin to help win the war, and Stalin knew that. Stalin promised democratic elections for Poland after the war because he needed the allies to help him beat Germany. He backtracked on that as soon as the war ended, occupied Poland and other countries, and Russia and the West became open enemies. That's all realpolitik, and Stalin practiced it well.

But that was long ago, and the world was at war. Why is it relevant to our more modern age and the potential contact with an ETI?

Because human nature hasn't changed.

If we passively detect a signal from an ETI, it could be troubling for religious people. Their worldview could be severely threatened, and there may be some significant upheaval in religious countries or even religious extremist violence. But it would die down, the thinking goes, and people would return to their daily lives. It would be revolutionary for scientists, but most people would move on with their lives. That's how the WT 2020 paper sums up the thinking. But how would nations and their political leaders react?

But whenever nations are vying with one another, there will be some measure of realpolitik. And when it comes to contact with an ETI, monopolizing that contact presents potential benefits for the nation that monopolizes it. "The history of international relations viewed through the lens of the realpolitik tradition of realist political thought suggests, however, that there is a measurable risk of conflict over the perceived benefit of monopoly access to ETI communication channels," the authors write in WT 2020. "This possibility needs to be considered when analyzing the potential risks and benefits of contact with ETI."

For Wisian and Traphagan, the danger lies in what we might do to ourselves.

Any ETI would likely have an enormous technological advantage over us, and as long as the ETI wasn't malicious, that advantage presents an opportunity to nations. If a government monopolizes communications with the ETI, it could gain a technological edge. Imagine China, Russia, or the U.S. coveting that technological advantage. Or North Korea, Iran, etc. This is the realpolitik lens that the authors are examining. It could lead to conflict or other undesirable consequences.

In WT 2020, the authors say that realpolitik considerations should be important in planning for successful passive SETI. They make several recommendations. They suggest that scientists working in SETI form supportive relationships with local law enforcement, strengthen the perimeters and security of their institutions, and strengthen personnel security for scientists and their families. The WT 2020 authors also suggest that observational facilities like radio telescopes adopt security measures similar to those of nuclear power plants.

But the new paper, which is a rebuttal to the WT 2020 paper and their realpolitik concerns, doesn't see these security actions as helpful. They also disagree that it's likely any nation could somehow monopolize communications with an ETI.

"While we do not dispute that a realpolitik response is possible, we uncover concerns with W&T's presentation of the realpolitik paradigm," the authors write. They say there are flaws in the WT 2020 analysis and that "… sufficient reason is not given to justify treating this potential scenario as action-guiding over other candidate geopolitical responses."

If a realpolitik response does come into play, it could be the most relevant response. The new paper's authors agree with that much but show that "… it is highly unlikely that a nation could successfully monopolize communication with ETI." The more realistic threat is that a nation thinks it could monopolize communications.

The authors criticize other aspects of the WT 2020 realpolitik scenario, too. For example, if it's a western democracy that detects a signal, could it monopolize it? Unlikely, according to the authors, since western science is well-integrated internationally. Our most powerful observatories have multiple nations and institutions as partners, so monopolization seems doubtful. The scientific community runs on openness, not informational protectionism.

The authors also criticize the sample contact scenario in WT 2020. WT 2020 contends that contact that seems trivial to an ETI could contain valuable technical information that could be useful to a monopolizing nation. This is unlikely. "That this could happen is not obvious at all. First of all, science is cumulative and nonlinear: for a new insight to be useful, we must first have the appropriate scientific context to understand it," they write. Could medieval scholars make use of a textbook on nuclear weapons design? If they could understand it, could they act on it? Not likely, according to the authors, and the same is true of advanced technological information from a highly-advanced ETI.

Also, what specific technological advantage could be gained? We already have enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilization. We have bioweapons, too. Could an ETI unintentionally share information that could allow the monopolizer to build some sort of super-weapon? According to the authors, this is drifting into the realm of science fiction and leaving realpolitik behind.

For the authors, the best way to prevent state actors from even thinking they may gain a monopoly is through openness rather than stricter security and state policing measures. In fact, the measures urged in WT 2020 could precipitate precisely what they're trying to avoid: a realpolitik nightmare.

In their new paper, the authors explain this clearly: "Finally, it is important that implementing extensive security protections in the SETI and METI fields could itself cause the very problems W&T warns about. The existence of hardened facilities and locked-down information flows could itself be interpreted by outsiders as evidence that some world-altering activity was occurring within that community or facility, thus leading to exactly the kind of espionage and conflict that W&T are trying to avoid in the first place, even if nothing had actually been discovered."

There's some agreement between the papers about the risks inherent in contact. "W&T's legitimate worry is that the mere perception of an information monopoly could be enough to generate dangerous conflict," the authors of the new paper write. History shows us that antagonistic nations can be paranoid, engage in saber-rattling, and even launch pre-emptive strikes if they think they're in danger. With all the unknowns around potential contact with an ETI, the worry and fear would be more difficult for some societies to bear than others. There would be flashpoints.

Another point of agreement concerns the security of scientists working on contact with an ETI. "However, even if we have good reason to avoid extensive security protections of facilities per se, there remain other reasons to enact security measures meant to protect the SETI practitioners themselves, especially in the event of detection," the authors write. These scientists could very well become targets of harassment and even assault. There are a lot of crazies out there, as the COVID pandemic showed us, and a rising tide of anti-science thinking.

In their conclusion, the authors say that "… a realpolitik response to a contact scenario is worth considering, but we maintain that it is just one of the various candidate post-contact responses that merit consideration."

They suggest that there are much better alternatives and involve responses "… that might generate cohesion or greater collaboration at the level of international relations."

They also say that the WT 2020 paper relies on the premise that political leaders will misperceive the potential for contact with an ETI to be manipulated by another state. While that fear isn't unfounded, according to the authors, and it needs to be considered, the authors of this paper disagree with the recommendations given in WT 2020.

What do they suggest the world should do when we contact an ETI?

Instead of hardening security at SETI sites, the authors "… recommend transparency,
data sharing, and education of policymakers."

Imagine that. It doesn't make for good science fiction, but it might prevent us from struggling with each other.

Battling with neighbors could make animals smarter

More information: Jason T. Wright, Chelsea Haramia, Gabriel Swiney, Geopolitical Implications of a Successful SETI Program. arXiv:2209.15125v1 [astro-ph.IM], arxiv.org/abs/2209.15125

Provided by Universe Today

Migration as morality politics

by University of Innsbruck

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Migration often serves as an arena for conflicting values. In this context, religious groups, civil society organizations and local authorities often show a more liberal attitude than the state. The political scientist Julia Mourão Permoser applies a new analytical approach to this as yet unexplored aspect.

More than ever, social debate is focusing on refugees and migration. While policy makers respond with strict laws and regulations, members of the public protest against these or protect asylum seekers threatened with deportation. A stir was caused in Austria in recent years by three cases of asylum seekers destined for deportation who were protected by the church: in July 2018, the Archbishop of Salzburg granted church asylum to 23-year-old Ali Wajid, who was to be deported to Pakistan despite being in the middle of an apprenticeship. In November 2019, the parish priest of Unken in Pinzgau took in 26-year-old Sayed Moshtaq Sadat, who was being threatened with deportation to Afghanistan a few months before his final apprenticeship exam. A month later, the police broke a taboo by entering the cloistered area of the monastery in Langenlois to arrest Ziaulrahman Zaland, an Afghan student who had been taken in by the nuns there.

Church sanctuary has a long tradition

Protecting refugees by granting them church sanctuary is a practice known since ancient times in almost all cultures and religions. In Germany and the U.S., there is currently a large church sanctuary movement, says political scientist Julia Mourão Permoser, who conducts research and teaches at the Universities of Innsbruck and Vienna. Some church communities are very open in communicating their willingness to host asylum seekers sought by the authorities.

In the U.S., but also in Europe, there are even entire cities that consider themselves "sanctuary cities." There, administrative staff will not ask about a person's residence status or will not be allowed to pass on such data to the immigration authorities, explains Mourão Permoser. Her research project "Migration as Morality Politics" is investigating the moral conflicts surrounding migration in Europe and the U.S. using a multi-method approach: she conducts in-depth interviews with people who grant church asylum or other forms of "sanctuary," analyzing self-representations and contributions to debates by advocacy groups, and she sheds light on the attitudes of the other side.

Help as a form of protest

The researcher is also studying a third form of support for refugees with irregular status: rescue ships in the Mediterranean, such as the Sea Watch, and organizations that rescue refugees from death in the desert between Mexico and the U.S.

"With their active protests, all of these groups are taking a moral and political stance against the immigration and asylum policies of various countries," explains Mourão Permoser. In some cases they enter into direct confrontation with the state, as for example when NGOs show resistance to various coercive measures taken by the authorities against rescue ships in the Mediterranean.

Closing the research gap

Although refugee rescue organizations, asylum-granting churches and sanctuary cities pursue "grassroots" migration policy in the name of human rights and humanity, the literature on migration policy has not yet sufficiently taken this phenomenon into account, as Mourão Permoser underlines: "So far, migration research has mainly dealt with security interests or economic interests, but not with ethical values."

In the literature on value conflicts in politics, on the other hand, known as "morality politics," the role of religions is taken into account in discussions on sexuality, women's rights, abortion, same-sex marriage or stem cell research: all of these being areas where religions usually take a conservative stance. The fact that religious actors take a liberal stance in migration policy is a special phenomenon that has not so far been examined in detail. It is interesting to note that in both cases their attitude is based on the same traditional values—defending human life and human dignity. "With the new focus on the role of values, I have a contribution to make to both migration research and research on morality politics," says Mourão Permoser.

Legal indifference to refugees

More information: Itamar Mann et al, Floating sanctuaries: The ethics of search and rescue at sea, Migration Studies (2022). DOI: 10.1093/migration/mnac007

Julia Mourão Permoser, What are Morality Policies? The Politics of Values in a Post-Secular World, Political Studies Review (2019). DOI: 10.1177/1478929918816538

Provided by University of Innsbruck 

 

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1897/morality.htmAnarchist Morality - Marxists Internet Archive

 Kropotkin sees the source of all so-called moral ideas in primitive superstitions. The real moral sense which guides our social behavior is instinctive, based ...

ZOMBIE BIOLOGY

The thinking undead: How dormant bacteria calculate their return to life

by University of California - San Diego

Custom artwork illustrates an abacus made from bacterial cells known as spores used to 

count stimuli. Credit: Anne Hashimoto

Facing starvation and stress conditions, some bacteria enter a dormant state in which life processes stop. Shutting down into a deep dormancy allows these cells, called spores, to withstand punishing extremes of heat, pressure and even the harsh conditions of outer space.

Eventually, when conditions become favorable, spores that may have been dormant for years can wake up in minutes and spring back to life.

Spores wake up by re-hydrating and restarting their metabolism and physiology. But until now scientists did not know whether spores can monitor their environment "in their sleep" without waking up. In particular it was not known how spores deal with vague environmental signals that do not indicate clearly favorable conditions. Would spores just ignore such mixed conditions or take note?

University of California San Diego biologists have solved this mystery in a new study published in the journal Science. Researchers in the School of Biological Sciences discovered that spores have an extraordinary ability to evaluate their surrounding environment while remaining in a physiologically dead state. They found that spores use stored electrochemical energy, acting like a capacitor, to determine whether conditions are suitable for a return to normal functioning life.

A microscopy time-lapse movie depicts the color-coded electrochemical potential value overlaid on top of the phase image of a single spore. As revealed by the phase image, the spore remains dormant while exhibiting the ability to count stimuli, as indicated by the multicolor-coded flashes of electrochemical potential changes. Credit: Süel Lab—Kaito Kikuchi

"This work changes the way we think about spores, which were considered to be inert objects," said Gürol Süel, a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology. "We show that cells in a deeply dormant state have the ability to process information. We discovered that spores can release their stored electrochemical potential energy to perform a computation about their environment without the need for metabolic activity."

Many bacterial species form spores—partially dehydrated cells surrounded by a resilient protective coat—as a survival strategy that allows them to remain dormant for thousands of years. Such a remarkable capability makes them a threat in the form of bacterial anthrax as well as a contamination hazard in medicine and the food industry.

This microscopy time-lapse movie shows the color-coded jumps in electrochemical potential value of a single spore in response to short stimuli. With each stimulus, the spore gets closer and closer to exiting dormancy, as visualized by the color transitioning from deep purple to yellow. Credit: Süel Lab—Kaito Kikuchi

Süel and his colleagues tested whether dormant Bacillus subtilis spores could sense short-lived environmental signals that were not strong enough to trigger a return to life. They found that spores were able to count such small inputs and if the sum reached a certain threshold, they would decide to exit the dormant state and resume biological activity.

Developing a mathematical model to help explain the process, the researchers discovered that spores use a mechanism known as integrate-and-fire, based on fluxes of potassium ions for appraising the surrounding environment. They found that spores responded to even short-lived favorable signals that were not enough to trigger an exit from dormancy. Instead of waking up, spores released some of their stored potassium in response to each small input and then summed consecutive favorable signals to determine if conditions were suitable for exiting. Such a cumulative signal processing strategy can reveal whether external conditions are indeed favorable, and prevents spores from "jumping the gun" into a world of unfavorable conditions.

A composite movie showing the phase contrast of a single spore (top left) to visualize the dormant state. A movie (top right) shows the color-coded electrochemical potential of the same spore. The plot (bottom left) shows the corresponding time trace of the electrochemical potential values changing over time. Finally, a corresponding bar plot (bottom right) visualizes the jumps toward the threshold for returning to life. Credit: Süel Lab

"The way spores process information is similar to how neurons operate in our brain," said Süel. "In both bacteria and neurons, small and short inputs are added up over time to determine if a threshold is reached. Upon reaching the threshold spores initiate their return to life, while neurons fire an action potential to communicate with other neurons." Interestingly, spores can perform this signal integration without requiring any metabolic energy, while neurons are among the most energy-dependent cells in our bodies.

A microscopy image reveals several spores with their electrochemical potential color-coded

 according to the strength of the signal. 

Credit: Süel Lab—Kaito Kikuchi and Leticia Galera

The researchers believe the new information about spores reframes popular ideas about cells in extremely dormant states that seem dead. Such findings hold implications for evaluating life on objects such as meteors as well as space missions seeking evidence of life.

"This work suggests alternate ways to cope with the potential threat posed by pathogenic spores and has implications for what to expect from extraterrestrial life," said Süel, who holds affiliations with the San Diego Center for Systems Biology, BioCircuits Institute and Center for Microbiome Innovation. "If scientists find life on Mars or Venus, it is likely to be in a dormant state and we now know that a life form that appears to be completely inert may still be capable of thinking about its next steps."

Authors of the Science paper include: Kaito Kikuchi, Leticia Galera-Laporta, Colleen Weatherwax, Jamie Lam, Eun Chae Moon, Emmanuel Theodorakis, Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo and Gürol M Süel.

Protein synthesis, ATP unnecessary for bacterial spore germination

More information: Kaito Kikuchi et al, Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate environmental signals, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abl7484. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl7484

Jonathan Lombardino et al, An electric alarm clock for spores, Science (2022). doi.org/10.1126/science.ade3921

Journal information: Science 

Provided by University of California - San Diego