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Scientists create human-monkey hybrid embryos in a lab

YOU SAY CHYMERA, I SAY KYMERA, 

LET'S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF

Image source: Javier Duran/Adobe
By Mike Wehner @MikeWehner
April 15th, 2021 


“Has science gone too far?” has become something of a meme of late. People post the question sarcastically on images of homemade Oreos with cream from 100 of the cookies, or a fast-food sandwich where the buns are replaced with fried chicken. It’s funny, but scientists are now legitimately asking the question after a team of researchers revealed that they have created chimera embryos in the lab.

A chimera is a hybrid of two species. In this case, scientists working on new possibilities for creating lab-grown organs for human transplants created early embryos that are half-human and half-monkey. The idea is that if scientists can grow parts of animals in the lab, and those pieces are close enough to humans to be used for transplants, a limitless supply of new organs could be on the horizon. The problem? They’re growing human/monkey hybrids in a lab for the purpose of slicing them up and sticking the pieces in living humans.

Scientists have experimented with using certain types of human stem cells in animal embryos in the past, including in pigs and mice. They found that the tissues were simply too different to allow for strong integration. Monkeys, on the other hand, are much more closely related to humans, and when using human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) in cynomolgus monkey embryos in the lab, they found that the human cells integrated at a might deeper level.

Interspecies chimera formation with human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) represents a necessary alternative to evaluate hPSC pluripotency in vivo and might constitute a promising strategy for various regenerative medicine applications, including the generation of organs and tissues for transplantation.

So, scientists found a way to get human stem cells to play nicely with monkey embryos, but that’s not all. They also found that the cells communicated in a way that they didn’t necessarily expect. The findings suggest that there’s a lot to learn about the evolutionary paths of both humans and primates, and it may aid in the development of hybrids in the future, for better or worse.

We also uncovered signaling events underlying interspecific crosstalk that may help shape the unique developmental trajectories of human and monkey cells within chimeric embryos. These results may help to better understand early human development and primate evolution and develop strategies to improve human chimerism in evolutionarily distant species.

Ultimately we’re going to have to make a choice as a species. Are we okay with creating what are essentially organ farms, where we exploit nature (including other species) in order to grow organs for transplant into humans? Could it eventually save human lives? Almost certainly yes. But those lives will be saved after we create a new hybrid species, at least in part, and then kill and harvest its organs. Creepy.

   

Scientists grow human-monkey chimeric embryos in lab



A closeup image shows a chimera human-monkey blastocyst, a proto-embryo tissue mass. Photo by Weizhi Ji/Kunming University of Science and Technology

April 15 (UPI) -- After injecting human stem cells into primate embryos, scientists were able to grow and maintain human-monkey chimeric embryos for up to 20 days.

The international research team, including geneticists in China and the United States, detailed their breakthrough in a new paper, published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists suggest human-monkey chimeric embryos can be used to build models for studying human biology and disease.

"As we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans, it is essential that we have better models to more accurately study and understand human biology and disease," senior study author Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, an expert in pluripotent stem cells who operates a lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, said in a news release. "An important goal of experimental biology is the development of model systems that allow for the study of human diseases under in vivo conditions."

The research builds on previous successes achieved by Izpisua Belmonte and his research partners in China. The team first successfully created human-monkey chimeric embryos a few years ago, keeping them alive for only a few days.

For the most recent experiments, researchers injected monkey embryos with up to 25 extended pluripotent stem cells, stem cells with the potential to form both embryonic and extra-embryonic tissues.

After a day, scientists detected human cells in 132 embryos. After 10 days, 103 of the chimeric embryos were still growing. By Day 19, just three of chimeric embryos were still alive. Throughout the experiment, the viable chimeric embryos maintained large concentrations of human cells.

RELATED Researchers grow human cells in sheep embryos

"Historically, the generation of human-animal chimeras has suffered from low efficiency and integration of human cells into the host species," Izpisua Belmonte said. "Generation of a chimera between human and non-human primate, a species more closely related to humans along the evolutionary timeline than all previously used species, will allow us to gain better insight into whether there are evolutionarily imposed barriers to chimera generation and if there are any means by which we can overcome them."

Scientists observed the formation of new and strengthened communication pathways between human and monkey cells as the chimeric embryos grew.

"Understanding which pathways are involved in chimeric cell communication will allow us to possibly enhance this communication and increase the efficiency of chimerism in a host species that's more evolutionarily distant to humans," Izpisua Belmonte said

Moving forward, scientists plan to identify and study the interspecies communication pathways that are essential to the viability of chimeric embryos. Eventually, researchers hope to convert chimeric embryos into models for studying human biology and disease. In the future, chimeric embryos could also be used to grow transplantable cells, tissues or organs.

In an editorial accompanying the newly published paper, scientists said they built in safeguards to avoid ethical problems throughout their experiments. These include ethical consultations and reviews at the institutional level and with outside bioethicists

expert reaction to study looking at generating human-monkey chimeric embryos

A study published in Cell looks at injecting human stem cells into primate embryos to grow human-monkey chimeric embryos.

 

Dr Alfonso Martinez Arias, Affiliated lecturer, Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, said:

“In my opinion the Cell press release overstates what the results show. For example, it says that ‘After 10 days, 103 of the chimeric embryos were still developing. Survival soon began declining, and by day 19, only three chimeras were still alive’ but in the figures in the manuscript, there is no image of a 19 day old chimera. There is a picture said to be a 19 day embryo but it is impossible to interpret the image. In general the press release is an account of what the ideal experiment would have looked like not what is in the manuscript.

“I think the research is of very low quality. The images of the embryos are extremely poor by current standards and it is impossible to see what they say is there. The manuscript has a total of 9 figures and only 3 of them contain embryos (the gist of the press release), the images are very poor and it is not easy to discern the different cell types. Most importantly there is not a single, clear example of a day 19 chimera which can support their data that 3 embryos survived to this time. The one they show representing a chimera showing different cell types is in Figure 2F and corresponds to a d13 embryo. There is no normal embryo to compare it with but if you do this with published images of human and NH primate embryos, you can see that the one in 2F is very sick. The one d19 they show in Figure 1B is very difficult to accept as an embryo; it is impossible to discern anything. In all cases the specimens appear very sick. In fact the problems are corroborated by the single cell analysis which shows that the human cells are abnormal in the monkey context. I challenge people to find anything in the manuscript that looks like what is drawn in the graphical abstract.

“I do not think that the conclusions are backed up by solid data. The results, in so far as they can be interpreted, show that these chimeras do not work and that all experimental animals are very sick.

“Curiously a related, more rigorous study, was published last year from a group in France on earlier embryos1. It is true that the authors of the French report concluded that these chimeras are not viable beyond day 7. The authors of this new Cell manuscript quote this work but ignore it. Given the lack of evidence for their claim, I would tend to agree with the French group which concluded: ‘that human and non-human primate naive PSCs do not efficiently make chimeras because they are inherently unfit to remain mitotically active during colonization’. In my opinion, the results (as opposed to the statements) of this new work, support this same conclusion.

“This is a complicated area in which, as in the case of the CRISPR babies, society should think and discuss before doing experiments. In my opinion there is extreme overspeculation around this work, particularly given the actual results, and I believe there is a danger that work on this subject of low quality may create a backlash for research on this field.

“I am very surprised that this work has passed peer review and it is of grave concern that work with such technically low quality, could potentially generate big headlines and lead to public concern. Importantly, there are many systems based on human embryonic stem cells to study human development that are ethically acceptable and in the end, we shall use this rather than chimeras of the kind suggested here. Also, chimeras with livestock, as pursued by Hiromitsu Nakauchi, are a more promising route to solve the challenges presented by the authors.

“Statements like the ones in the press release require excellent evidence. In this case this is missing.”

1. https://www.cell.com/stem-cell-reports/fulltext/S2213-6711(20)30499-9?_returnURL=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2213671120304999%3Fshowall%3D

 

Prof Martin Johnson, Emeritus Professor of Reproductive Sciences, University of Cambridge, said:

“This study essentially undermines the commonly held understanding that human embryos wouldn’t be studied beyond 14days in vitro. Although not formally doing so given that stem cells, and not embryonic human cells, were injected into monkey blastocysts on day 6.5, nonetheless the experiments amounted to a circumvention of the 14day rule. This sort of experiment would not be necessary if the 14 day rule was changed and thus provides us with a powerful reason to change this rule.”

 

Sarah Norcross, director of the Progress Educational Trust, said:

“Substantial advances are being made in embryo and stem cell research, and these could bring equally substantial benefits. However, there is a clear need for public discussion and debate about the ethical and regulatory challenges raised.

“Issues raised by this particular research concern the combination of human and nonhuman material (although the embryos in this case were predominantly nonhuman) and how long embryos may be cultured for in the laboratory.

“A related area that deserves further discussion is the creation of synthetic human entities with embryo-like features (SHEEFs) – structures that resemble human embryos, but do not originate from ordinary fertilisation.”

 

Dr Anna Smajdor, Associate Professor of Practical Philosophy, University of Oslo, said:

 “This breakthrough reinforces an increasingly inescapable fact: biological categories are not fixed – they are fluid. This poses significant ethical and legal challenges. Many of the frameworks we rely on to govern our behaviour are based on false assumptions, for example that there is a biological answer to the question ‘what is a human being’?

 “The scientists behind this research state that these chimeric embryos offer new opportunities, because ‘we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans’. But whether these embryos are human or not is open to question.”

 

Prof Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, and Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and Co-Director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford, said:

“The most difficult issue lies in the future. This research opens Pandora’s box to human-nonhuman chimeras. These embryos were destroyed at 20 days of development but it is only a matter of time before human-nonhuman chimeras are successfully developed, perhaps as a source of organs for humans. That is one of the long term goals of this research. The key ethical question is: what is the moral status of these novel creatures? Before any experiments are performed on live born  chimeras, or their organs extracted, it is essential that their mental capacities and lives are properly assessed. What looks like a nonhuman animal may mentally be close to a human. We will need new ways to understand animals, their mental lives and relationships before they used for human benefit.

“Perhaps this will lead us to rethink how animals are treated more generally by humans in science, medicine and agriculture.

“For a fuller discussion of the ethical and legal issues, see:”

https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/6/1/37/5489867

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2016/07/article-announcement-should-a-human-pig-chimera-be-treated-as-a-person/

 

 

‘Chimeric contribution of human extended pluripotent stem cells to monkey embryos ex vivo’ by Tan et al. was published in Cell at 16:00 UK time on Thursday 15th April.

 

 

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

 

 

Declared interests

Prof Martin Johnson: “I have no conflict of interest.”

Sarah Norcross: “The Progress Educational Trust is a charity which improves choices for people affected by infertility and genetic conditions.”

None others received.

SEE FROM 2019

Scientists grow first ever HUMAN-MONKEY embryo in ‘promising’ step for organ harvesting — RT World News

Human cells grown in monkey embryos reignite ethics debate


Scientists confirm they have produced ‘chimera’ embryos from long-tailed macaques and humans

A photo issued by the Salk Institute shows human cells grown in an early stage monkey embryo. Photograph: Weizhi Ji/Kunming University of Science and Technology/PA


Nicola Davis

Science correspondent
THE GUARDIAN
Thu 15 Apr 2021


Monkey embryos containing human cells have been produced in a laboratory, a study has confirmed, spurring fresh debate into the ethics of such experiments.

The embryos are known as chimeras, organisms whose cells come from two or more “individuals”, and in this case, different species: a long-tailed macaque and a human.

In recent years researchers have produced pig embryos and sheep embryos that contain human cells – research they say is important as it could one day allow them to grow human organs inside other animals, increasing the number of organs available for transplant.

Now scientists have confirmed they have produced macaque embryos that contain human cells, revealing the cells could survive and even multiply.

In addition, the researchers, led by Prof Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte from the Salk Institute in the US, said the results offer new insight into communications pathways between cells of different species: work that could help them with their efforts to make chimeras with species that are less closely related to our own.

“These results may help to better understand early human development and primate evolution and develop effective strategies to improve human chimerism in evolutionarily distant species,” the authors wrote.

The study confirms rumours reported in the Spanish newspaper El País in 2019 that a team of researchers led by Belmonte had produced monkey-human chimeras. The word chimera comes from a beast in Greek mythology that was said to be part lion, part goat and part snake.

The study, published in the journal Cell, reveals how the scientists took specific human foetal cells called fibroblasts and reprogrammed them to become stem cells. These were then introduced into 132 embryos of long-tailed macaques, six days after fertilisation.

“Twenty-five human cells were injected and on average we observed around 4% of human cells in the monkey epiblast,” said Dr Jun Wu, a co-author of the research now at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

The embryos were allowed to develop in petri dishes and were terminated 19 days after the stem cells were injected. In order to check whether the embryos contained human cells, the team engineered the human stem cells to produce a fluorescent protein.

Among other findings, the results reveal all 132 embryos contained human cells on day seven after fertilisation, although as they developed, the proportion containing human cells fell over time.

“We demonstrated that the human stem cells survived and generated additional cells, as would happen normally as primate embryos develop and form the layers of cells that eventually lead to all of an animal’s organs,” Belmonte said.

The team also reported that they found some differences in cell-cell interactions between human and monkey cells within chimeric embryos, compared with embryos of the monkeys without human cells.

Wu said they hoped the research would help develop “transplantable human tissues and organs in pigs to help overcome the shortages of donor organs worldwide”.

Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, a developmental biologist from the Francis Crick Institute in London, said at the time of the El País report he was not concerned about the ethics of the experiment, noting the team had only produced a ball of cells. But he noted conundrums could arise in the future should the embryos be allowed to develop further.

While not the first attempt at making human-monkey chimeras – another group reported such experiments last year – the new study has reignited such concerns. Prof Julian Savulescu, the director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and co-director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities at the University of Oxford, said the research had opened a Pandora’s box to human-nonhuman chimeras.

“These embryos were destroyed at 20 days of development but it is only a matter of time before human-nonhuman chimeras are successfully developed, perhaps as a source of organs for humans,” he said, adding that a key ethical question is over the moral status of such creatures.

“Before any experiments are performed on live-born chimeras, or their organs extracted, it is essential that their mental capacities and lives are properly assessed. What looks like a nonhuman animal may mentally be close to a human,” he said. “We will need new ways to understand animals, their mental lives and relationships before they are used for human benefit.”

Others raised concerns about the quality of the study. Dr Alfonso Martinez Arias, an affiliated lecturer in the department of genetics at the University of Cambridge, said: “I do not think that the conclusions are backed up by solid data. The results, in so far as they can be interpreted, show that these chimeras do not work and that all experimental animals are very sick.

“Importantly, there are many systems based on human embryonic stem cells to study human development that are ethically acceptable and in the end, we shall use this rather than chimeras of the kind suggested here.”

Daunte Wright: SIXTH Night of peaceful protests ends in fence breach, arrest

April 17 (UPI) -- The sixth night of demonstrations over the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright near Minneapolis was peaceful until protesters breached security fences, prompting arrests, officers said.

The protests stemmed from former officer Kim Potter's fatal shooting of Wright, a 20-year-old Black man Sunday in Brooklyn Center, Minn., after he was pulled over with an expired tag. Body-worn camera footage appeared to show Potter, a 26-year police veteran, shouting "Taser" several times before she fired a single bullet.

Potter resigned Tuesday and was arrested the next day on second-degree manslaughter charges.

Protests Friday reached a peak of about 1,000 people and looked liked a block party early on, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported, but the tone changed at 9 p.m. after a speaker called for tearing down fences around the Brooklyn Center police headquarters.

Some of the protesters attempted to breach the security fences and few hurled objects at officers, prompting police -- who had previously waited out the protest behind the fences -- to fire flash-bang grenades and move in on the crowd to arrest people, according to the Star Tribune.

Police arrested about 100 people.

The City of Brooklyn Center issued a citywide curfew from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said at a news conference around midnight Saturday some in the crowd began rattling the fence around 8:47 p.m., ABC News reported.

Harrington added officers tried not engaging with protesters, which worked well Thursday, but the "response was very different" Friday.

"This is a night that should have been about Daunte Wright; should have been folks there, recognizing his death and the tragedy that that is," Harrington said. "Tearing down a fence, coming armed to a protest, is not, in my mind, befitting a peaceful protest."

Hennepin County Sheriff David Hutchinson reiterated Harrington's message of disappointment at the news conference.

Sunday's fatal officer shooting of Wright has also sparked protest beyond Minnesota across the country, ABC News reported.

Elon Musk's SpaceX wins $2.9B contract to build lunar lander


SpaceX successfully launched its Starship SN-9 test rocket on February 2, achieving an altitude of about 6 miles before it crashed in a massive fireball on its launch pad. Photo courtesy of SpaceX | License Photo

ORLANDO, Fla., April 16 (UPI) -- Elon Musk's SpaceX has won a $2.9 billion contract to develop the company's Starship rocket as a lunar lander and carry astronauts on Artemis moon missions, NASA announced Friday.

In selecting only SpaceX for the lunar program, NASA ended consideration of Musk's rival, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin space company, and a third proposal by Huntsville, Ala.-based Dynetics.

The award cements SpaceX's role as the dominant company in a new era of space exploration. The decision also clarifies how NASA plans to accomplish new lunar missions -- using the shiny stainless steel Starship as a spacecraft and lander rolled into one reusable vehicle.

NASA had planned to send people to the moon by 2024, but agency officials have acknowledged that timeline wasn't possible because Congress hadn't provided adequate funding for the human lander system.

RELATED SpaceX, Blue Origin, Dynetics await NASA lunar lander decision

NASA sought over $4 billion the last two years to fund lunar landers, but received only about $1.45 billion.

That doesn't necessarily mean astronauts won't set foot on the moon by 2024, acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a press conference Friday at Kennedy Space Center.

"The NASA team will have insight into the progress that SpaceX is making, and if they're hitting their milestones, we may still have a shot at 2024," Jurczyk said.

RELATED SpaceX introduces final members of all-civilian Inspiration4 crew

In the next few years, NASA will require SpaceX to conduct a demonstration flight and landing on the moon, NASA officials said.

Eventually, SpaceX would meet NASA's Orion capsule, which would be launched on NASA's SLS moon rocket, in orbit around the moon. NASA didn't require a launch location for SpaceX's Starship.

RELATED SpaceX Starship rocket explodes again after test flight

NASA still hopes others will provide landers in the future, said Kathy Leuders, associate administrator for the agency's human exploration programs.

"It was in NASA's best interest, along with ... the budget that was there for us to award to one demonstration mission at this time," Leuders said. "And then begin discussions with industry about how to further develop additional competition out there."

She said that no lander will fly until it is proven safe.

Starship provided benefits the other two landers don't have, said Lisa Watson-Morgan, program manager for the human landing system.

"Starship includes a spacious cabin, and two airlocks with a great deal of space for our crew, as well as additional payload capability," Watson-Morgan said. "That will permit us to take experiments to the moon and return samples back and do all the important science that we want to do on this mission."

Starship would be the first spacecraft to land people on another planetary body without an ascent module that can take off and leave the lander on the surface. Apollo missions were designed with ascent modules in case the landing damaged the bottom of the lander.

"The solutions may look different," Watson-Morgan said when asked about the lack of an ascent module. "We did not have a concern there."

Starship, at 160 feet high, is designed to be capable of launching capsules. For deep space missions, however, it would be stacked on an even larger booster -- the Super Heavy.

SpaceX has flown Starship prototypes four times at the company's spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas, about 180 miles south of Corpus Christi. But all four flights were followed by explosions either upon landing, just after landing or just before landing.

NASA had awarded almost $1 billion to all three space companies to develop ideas for the lander, and the space agency had said it may choose two of the proposals.

Raul Castro steps down as head of Cuba's Communist Party



Fidel Castro (L) and his brother, Raul Castro, leader of the Cuban Armed Forces, are pictured in Havana in an undated file photo. UPI File Photo | License Photo


April 16 (UPI) -- Raul Castro, brother of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, announced Friday he's stepping down as head of Cuba's Communist Party.

Speaking on the first day of a party conference, Raul Castro said his resignation will allow a younger group of politicians "full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit" to take control.

"I believe fervently in the strength and exemplary nature and comprehension of my compatriots, and as long as I live, I will be ready with my foot in the stirrups to defend the fatherland, the revolution and socialism," he said at a closed-door meeting, according to NBC News.

Raul Castro has served as first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba since April 2011, when he took over for his brother, who held the position for more than 45 years. Raul Castro also served as president of the country from 2008 to 2018, and acting president during the last two years of Fidel Castro's tenure.

Fidel Castrol died in 2016 after decades of power in the Caribbean island nation.

Current President Miguel Díaz-Canel is expected to take over leadership of the Communist Party with Raul Castro's departure.

NPR reported that Raul Castro's long-time deputy, José Ramón Machado, also was expected to step down in his role of the Politburo, leaving the body without any revolutionary veterans for the first time in decades.

Former President Barack Obama (R) shakes hands with former Cuban President Raul Castro during meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 29, 2015. File Pool Photo by Anthony Behar/UPI | License Photo

Demonstrators protest police violence in Portland, Ore., Oakland, Calif.


April 17 (UPI) -- Residents and business owners in Portland, Ore., and Oakland, Calif., were assessing damages Saturday after protests against police misconduct turned violent in the two cities.

Oakland's demonstrations began peacefully on Friday, but as the night progressed participants lit fires and broke windows while protesting the police-involved deaths of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago last month Daunte Wright Sunday in suburban Minneapolis.

Between 250 and 300 people marched through downtown Oakland, then broke into splinter groups, according to media reports.

Some business owners boarded up their windows in anticipation of the demonstration, but store windows at a downtown Target store were broken and fires were set at several car dealerships.

RELATED Daunte Wright: Night of peaceful protests ends in fence breach, arrest

Oakland police also reported an officer was assaulted.

Protesters dispersed at about 11 p.m., police said, and no citations were issued or arrests made.

In Portland, police declared a riot and made multiple arrests Friday night after demonstrators broke windows and lit fires in the city's downtown.

RELATED Army: 'Shortcomings' uncovered in use of helicopters at 2020 protest



Portland has seen sustained protest activity for much of the last year, but witnesses described the vandalism as more significant in scale than other recent demonstrations.

The Portland Police Bureau announced four arrests following a demonstration involving several hundred people who started marching from Director Park in downtown Portland at about 9:30 p.m.

Police declared that event a riot shortly afterwards when individuals broke windows at downtown businesses, a church and a museum.
RELATED Northern Ireland riots: Police use water cannon on 7th night of unrest



Police and local media reported multiple fires set in dumpsters, a portable toilet and in a construction site outside an Apple Store.

Portland Fire & Rescue extinguished the fires.

A second demonstration in another part of downtown was characterized as "a peaceful event" by police. In that demonstration, marchers held a vigil and walked across the Hawthorne Bridge.

The Oregonian reported that while demonstrations had been previously planned in response to the incidents in Chicago and Minneapolis, they also came just hours after an officer-involved shooting in Portland.

Demonstrators gathered near the scene of that shooting in Lents Park in southeast Portland, about 10 miles from the downtown area.

Little information has been released about the victim, who police described as an armed white man, or the events immediately preceding his death. Police identified the officer involved as Zachary Delong, an eight-year veteran of the bureau. He has been placed on administrative leave.



A crowd of about 100 people gathered in the park early Friday as officers investigated the scene. Police described the crowd as "hostile" and encroaching on the area where investigators were working, but no arrests were made.

Brooklyn Center, Minn., meanwhile, saw a sixth night of protests Friday night, which police said was largely peaceful until protesters breached security fences, prompting arrests.
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Study shows double-masking -- medical mask under cloth -- cuts COVID-19 spread

A procedure mask worn under a cotton bandana filtered out 77% of droplets released, while the procedure mask in combination with a cotton mask reduced droplet spread by 66%, the researchers said.

When used alone, the three non-medical-grade masks -- the polyester gaiter, the bandana and the cotton mask -- had fitted filtration efficiencies of just over 40%, meaning they provided the least protection, according to the researchers.

Disposable medical procedure masks worn alone reduced the flow of virus droplets by up to 60%, the data showed.

In addition, when the medical procedure masks were worn over cotton or polyester coverings, fitted filtration efficiencies ranged from 55% to 60%, they said.

This suggests that double masking with a cotton or polyester covering over a medical procedure masks offers the best protection against the release of respiratory droplets, the researchers said.

"The best form of double masking is when you and the person you are interacting with both have a mask," Sickbert-Bennett said.

Shift work-induced sleep problems may raise risk for heart health problems


Disrupted sleep habits among shift workers may negatively affect their heart health, a new study suggests. Photo by Simon Law/Flickr

April 16 (UPI) -- Working night shifts or hours that deviate from humans' natural body clock may increase a person's risk for heart disease, a study presented Friday during the European Society of Cardiology's virtual scientific congress found.

One in five manual laborers who worked early mornings, late evenings or nights were found to be at high risk for heart attack, stroke and heart disease, the data showed.

This figure is about 50% higher than the prevalence of heart disease in the general population of Portugal, where the research was conducted, based on World Health Organization estimates.

In addition, about 40% reported short sleep duration, of six hours or less, on workdays and an average "social jet lag," or the difference between an individual's normal biological clock and working hours, of nearly two hours, the researchers said.

The odds of being classified as high risk for heart disease and other heart problems increased by 31% for each additional hour of social jet lag, according to the researchers.

"We all have an internal biological clock which ranges from morning types ... to late types ... with most of the population falling in between," study author Dr. Sara Gamboa Madeira said in a statement.

"Our study found that for each hour the work schedule was out of sync with an employee's body clock, the risk of heart disease got worse," said Gamboa Madeira, a physician and researcher at the University of Lisbon in Portugal.

About 16% of actively employed people in the United States work non-daytime schedules, including 6% who work evenings and 4% who work nights, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Working atypical hours or shifts may increase a person's risk for health problems such as insomnia and heart disease, based on recent research.

Nearly half of all adults in the United States are considered to be at high risk for heart disease due their being overweight or having high blood pressure or high cholesterol, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

For this study, Gamboa Madeira assessed the health of 301 laborers, all all of whom performed worked in the distribution warehouses of a retail company in Portugal.

Staff always worked during the early morning, 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.; in the late evening, 3 p.m. to midnight; or at night, 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Study participants completed a questionnaire on their work, sleep and health habits and had their blood pressure and cholesterol measured, Gamboa Madeira said.

The questionnaire was used to assess sleep duration, and to estimate each individual's internal biological clock to establish levels of circadian misalignment, she said.

Circadian misalignment, or social jet lag, is the difference between an individual's biological clock and their normal working hours, according to Gamboa Madeira. The phenomena occurs when there is a mismatch between what the body wants -- for example, to fall asleep at 10 p.m. -- and the schedule imposed by work obligations, she said.

The average age of participants was 33 years, and 56% were men, according to Gamboa Madeira.

Just over half were smokers, 49% had high cholesterol and 10% had high blood pressure, all of which increase a person's risk for heart problems, the data showed.

Twenty percent of the study participants were classified as being at high risk for heart health problems, Gamboa Madeira said.

In nearly 60% of the workers, social jet lag was two hours or less, but it was two to four hours for 33% and four hours or more for 8%, she said.

A higher level of social jet lag was significantly associated with greater odds of being in the high-risk group, the data showed.

"These results add to the growing evidence that circadian misalignment may explain, at least in part, the association found between shift work and detrimental health outcomes," Gamboa Madeira said.

"The findings suggest that staff with atypical work schedules may need closer monitoring for heart health," she said.

Global trade rules can help fight climate change: US trade chief

Issued on: 15/04/2021 - 20:36

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said trade policy must ensure global supply chains of key technologies needed to combat climate change, including batteries for electric cars STR AFP/File


Washington (AFP)

International commerce creates incentives for countries to erode environmental protections to attract investment, and global trade rules are needed to counter that "race to the bottom," US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said on Thursday.

"The view that environmental issues are not an inherent part of trade ignores the reality that the existing rules of globalization incentivize downward pressure on environmental protection," Tai said in her first public speech.

"This puts countries with higher environmental standards at a competitive disadvantage," she said in the address to the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington think tank.


Speaking ahead of President Joe Biden's virtual climate summit next week, Tai said she was committed to strengthening rules in the World Trade Organization (WTO) to combat issues like illegal logging and overfishing.

"The forests are our planet's lungs, and we should use trade policies and trade enforcement actions to protect them," she said, however, the rules are ineffective if they are not enforced.

"Going forward, trade has a role to play in discouraging the race to the bottom and incentivizing a race to the top," Tai said.

"But we have to be mindful that we will only truly address the global scale of this problem through global rules."

Biden has made reversing the climate-sceptic policy of his predecessor Donald Trump a priority, and is hosting a virtual summit of world leaders next week.

- 'Conserve our resources' -

With the world badly off track on meeting goals on curbing global warming that most nations signed up to in the 2015 Paris climate accords, Biden hopes the summit will result in stronger pledges in advance of UN-led talks in Glasgow at the end of the year.

Just days after taking office in January, the US leader signed executive orders he said would "supercharge our administration's ambitious plan to confront the existential threat of climate change."

He announced Washington would rejoin the Paris Agreement and is expected to unveil an ambitious 2030 emissions target.

Biden recently announced a massive $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan that focuses on creating employment through expansion of renewable energy and other environmental projects "to reimagine and rebuild a new economy," Tai noted.

But domestic policies are not sufficient, and environmental standards must be a factored into all US policy areas and throughout international supply chains, to ensure reliable access to key technologies, which "will be essential for our transition to net zero by 2050."

"We must conserve the resources we do have and work with our trading partners to do the same -- to both mitigate and adapt to climate pressures," Tai said.

That is why the WTO fisheries negotiations "are critical" to address subsidies that encourage overfishing, as well as to clean up plastic and other forms of marine pollution.

Once comfortable, life in Lebanon now a struggle for basics

A shopper examines egg prices in a supermarket in Beirut, Lebanon. Many people are struggling to cover basic needs as food prices soar. Photo by Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE

BEIRUT, Lebanon, April 14 (UPI) -- Lebanon's latest economic crisis has transformed the people's once comfortable lifestyle into a struggle to secure basic needs.

Over about 45 years, the population has survived a 15-year civil war, 22 years of Israeli occupation and two major invasions, 30 years of Syrian hegemony, dozens of political assassinations and smaller economic crises, just to name a few.

But they were not prepared for today's growing poverty and unemployment, wrought by the collapse in value of the Lebanese pound, hyperinflation and a shortage of U.S. dollars.

Gone are the times when they could afford nice clothing, branded products, the latest model of cars or mobile phones, low-paid housekeepers from Ethiopia or Sri Lanka, touring restaurants and nightclubs, spending vacations abroad or holding the region's best summer festivals and cultural events.

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Today, putting food on the table is the ultimate priority.

More than half of the population is living below the poverty line of $3.84 dollars a day, unemployed and at risk of hunger. With the country fast running out of hard currency, people are bracing for the worst. The government can no longer sustain its food subsidy program or secure fuel for its power stations to prevent a total blackout.

Those who still have a job, but are paid in Lebanese pounds, or those who can withdraw a restricted amount of their savings blocked by the banks, are barely making ends meet. The rest are mostly living on charity and food donations distributed by local and international NGOs.

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Only the wealthy few who smuggled their money abroad, or the lucky ones working for foreign companies and earning U.S. dollars, are able to maintain a decent living.

The Lebanese pound has lost nearly 90 percent of its value since the financial crisis broke out in October 2019, gradually dropping from a long-stabilized rate of 1,500 pound for 1 U.S. dollar to a low record of 15,000 LL last month.

Going to the supermarket has become an ordeal, with consumer prices jumping every day and people fighting over subsidized items. Even fruits and vegetables, which people used to buy by the kilo or in boxes, have become a luxury to many. Shoppers are limiting their purchase to a few pieces.

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Food prices have increased five times since 2019, while a simple T-shirt at Zara clothing shop now costs 200,000-300,000 LL from a pre-crisis price of 45,000 LL.

"Now we realize how much everything has a value," Sabine Bustros, a mother of two and board member of the Chateau Kefraya wine producer, told UPI. "The crisis has affected my lifestyle ethically. I don't buy things the way I used to do...Many times, these were things we didn't really need."

Even though she now restricts herself to buying the basics, Bustros said she feels "ashamed" for what she can still afford while the number of people going hungry or losing their jobs has grown dramatically.

"There is so much sadness and pain...we used to take everything for granted," she said, explaining that she hasn't been to a restaurant for a year, not only because of the coronavirus restrictions but also the exorbitant bill, which would equal a worker's monthly salary of 800,000 LL.

Sabine Bustros (L), with her late father Michel Bustros who founded in the 1950s Chateau Kefraya, a Lebanese wine label and wine estate in the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon, says she keeps spending to the necessities now. Photo courtesy of Sabine Bustros/UPI

The worsening crisis has forced people to review their priorities, dropping unnecessary spending and saving whenever possible to cover more urgent needs: medical care, education, housing and even little things like buying a new cellphone or fixing a car or refrigerator, which now costs a fortune.

As the fate of their blocked bank savings remains unknown, and no new government has been formed to open the way for a rescue program with the International Monetary Fund, they know that darkest days are ahead.

"The crisis today is a very serious one, especially after the collapse of the youth uprising of Oct. 17," said Sari Hanafi, a sociology professor at the American University of Beirut, referring to the popular non-sectarian protests that broke out in October 2019 to demand the ouster of the government and the country's corrupt political leaders. Eighteen months later, they are still in power and doing little to save the country from a total collapse.

"Lebanese have the talent of language, and some have double nationalities, so it is very easy to think of an escape gate...I mean the good talented people will leave, and this will fragilize the whole ecosystem of Lebanon," Hanafi told UPI.

Although he believes that it is not too late to introduce reforms required by the international community to rescue the country, he said the chances of a serious recovery and reshuffling the political system "is very thin."

Echoing the fears of many, he said, "Lebanon after the crisis will not be the Lebanon before the crisis...But the question is: Who will take over this new Lebanon?"

Many fear the corrupt political class will remain, and the most powerful group, the Iran-backed heavily-armed Hezbollah, would try to exploit the deterioration and impose its own vision for Lebanon, influencing its political, economic, social and cultural life.

"We will certainly reach a point where Lebanon will no longer be the country we have grown up in," Bustros said. "I doubt that we will return to the Lebanon we knew. It is over."

Despite the "unbearable situation" and the available option to live in Paris or New York, she is not willing to leave as long as she is surrounded by her family and friends of the "same education and values."

The Lebanese way of life is not just about wearing European-style clothes, mixing Arabic with French and English words in common conversations, eating out and partying, but it's also about a rich cultural life, heritage, diversity, creativity, ground-breaking private initiatives and resilience.

Nidal Ashkar, a veteran actress and founder of Al Madina Theater, doesn't want to give up on efforts to keep the theater "alive" and open to "all artists and people who still have a dream."

However, Ashkar, who has turned the theater into a space for all types of cultural activities since it was established in 1994, has reached a point where she could not pay the rent, electricity bills or her workers.

"We want to continue...for the sake of all artists who became jobless," she told UPI. "But how we will be able to do that? I really don't know."

AIR