Why wild African fruits can supplement low protein staple foods

UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG

VIDEO: WILD FRUITS FROM SOUTHERN AFRICA SHOW GOOD POTENTIAL TO SUPPLEMENT DIETS WITH ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS, RESEARCHERS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG HAVE SHOWN. ALL OF THE 14 SPECIES STUDIED EXCEED... view more 

CREDIT: PHOTOS BY PROF BEN-ERIK VAN WYK, UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG. MAP BY MAPSWIRE (CC BY 4.0). PHOTOS BY USERS JMK, SAPLANTS, AND NJR AT WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, WITH LICENSES (CC BY SA...

In the line-up of wild African fruits, the marula is the best known. For thousands of years, people have depended on the trees for food, medicines, and more. It is also exported globally as the rockstar ingredient of a cream liqueur. The fruit is a success story far beyond the savannas and bushveld where the trees grow.

But there is a whole choir of other wild, indigenous fruits in Southern Africa. And some exceed daily nutritional values recommended by the WHO and others.

Research from the University of Johannesburg uncovers a variety of building blocks for protein in the fruit of 14 species. Several are analyzed for the first time for nutritional value.

The study published in Plants uncovers the essential amino acids in the fruits. These nutrients are essential for healthy development in children, and to maintain health in adults.

One is a very good candidate to boost immune function against viruses, because it contains so much lysine.

"The majority of these are considered essential amino acids because they cannot be made by the human body. We humans need to eat them, so they need to be included in our diets.

"We can improve the nutrition quality of our diets with wild fruit," says Prof Annah Moteetee. She is from the University of Johannesburg and lead author of the study.

"We can eat the fruits by themselves, or use them together with other foods," she adds.

CAPTION

Wild fruits from Southern Africa show good potential to supplement diets with the building blocks of protein. Researchers from the University of Johannesburg studied 14 species. Two of the fruits contain several essential amino acids. All exceed the RDA for lysine. People can only obtain lysine from their food or supplements. Healthy development in children requires lysine. Maintaining a robust immune function also needs it, especially against viruses. The research is published in Plants at https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/4/721

CREDIT

Photos by Prof Ben-Erik van Wyk, University of Johannesburg. Photos by users JMK and SAplants at Wikimedia Commons with CC BY-SA 4.0 licences. Graphic design by Therese van Wyk, University of Johannesburg. All content licenses, with authors listed individually at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p0iK3xHOJcwjVkiiiUGx_ZltqyV7o_c3/view?usp=sharing

The amino acid supplement: The White olive

The fruit of the white olive grow directly out of the tree bark. The unusual berries pack an essential amino acid punch, this first analysis of the nutritional value reveals. Its scientific name is Halleria lucida.

The sweet, soft fruit is delicious to birds and humans, so humans make sure they get to the trees before the birds do, adds Moteetee. But it was more complicated than just getting to the fruit first. A very specific ripening process is crucial to make the berries edible.

"I grew up in Lesotho eating these fruits," she says. "As kids, we would collect them while they are green and unripe. Because by the time they are ripe, the competition with birds and other people is stiff. We would dig a hole in the ground, line it with big leaves, and put the fruit in there," she says.

"So you harvest as much as you can, while you can. You would mark the spot so you could find it the next time. We really enjoyed these fruits as kids. It is one of the reasons I decided to include this fruit in the study. Some researchers say it dries your mouth, but I don't remember that."

The berries look plain but contain several of the essential amino acids recommended by the WHO.

Of all the wild fruits in the study, the white olive had the highest quantities of histidine at 1.56 mg/100 g. Histidine is an essential amino acid for infants.

Of all the species studied, Halleria lucida also had the highest amounts of isoleucine (0.30 g/100 mg), leucine (0.47 g/100 g), phenyalanine (0.31 g/100 g), and valine (0.39 g/100 g). In all instances, the amounts exceed the WHO recommended daily intakes (RDAs).

The analysis showed that the fruit contain protein at 6.98 mg/100g and carbohydrates at 36.98 mg/100 g.

However, the white olive fruit is more suited as a general supplement of essential amino acids, since it contains most of these in lower quantities than the recommended daily intake.

The tree occurs next to rivers in the wild. In South Africa it is also planted in suburban gardens for its flowers or trimmed into hedges.

The carbohydrate supplement: The Lowveld milkberry

The Lowveld Milkberry, or Manilkara mochisia, turned out to be the best source of carbohydrates among the fruits studied, says Moteetee. The fruit is also analyzed for the first time for its nutritional value.

A 100 g portion of the fruit contains 169 kJ of energy. Of that, the proximate value of carbohydrates is 36.98 g per 100g.

However, at best the fruit can be a supplement to a diet, since an average adult would have to eat 5 kg of it every day to meet the RDA value of 2000 kcal.

The immune booster: The jacket plum

The jacket plum's fruit is so packed with lysine, it far exceeds the required daily intake for adults, the researchers found. The jacket plum is also known as Pappea capensis.

Lysine supports healthy growth and development in young children. It is also needed to maintain a healthy immune function, especially against viruses.

Each fruit tested in the study exceeded the WHO RDA for 24 hours in adults, says Moteetee. The highest lysine sampled in the study was 0.77 g per 100 g portion. This is far higher than the required daily intake of 0.0003 g/100 g recommended by the WHO.

Pappea capensis also had the highest quantities of methionine (0.15 g/100 mg) and threonine (0.31 g/mg). Its methionine value is equivalent to the WHO RDA, but lower than recommended by the FDA.

Accompanying the protein is also good dollop of fat, at 5.11 g per 100 g portion.

Like the white olive, the jacket plum contains several of the essential amino acids recommended by the WHO.

The tree looks like an ordinary African tree. But sheep like the leaves so much, they trim trees in the Karoo into lollipop shapes, says Prof Ben-Erik van Wyk. He holds a National Research Chair in Indigenous Plant Use at the University of Johannesburg. He has published a series of books about Southern African plants and their medicinal and traditional uses.

"The tree is used by many cultures in Southern Africa for traditional medicine. The plant is related to the lychee, in the family Sapindaceae. The edible part in both is not the fruit itself but a fleshy attachment to the seed, which is called an aril," he adds.

Immune boost from wild fruit

All 14 of the fruits in the study contain lysine, an essential amino acid for healthy immune function in people, says Moteetee. Even better, all of them significantly exceed the RDA guideline from the WHO.

The jacket plum has the highest lysine content and is also easy to grow.

"These fruits need to be studied further to determine their commercial potential," says Moteetee.. "Measuring protein quality will tell us how digestible and bioavailable the amino acids in these fruits are, for example."

CAPTION

Prof Annah Moteetee is a botanist at the University of Johannesburg. She currently serves as the Senior Director of the Postgraduate School. She led a study into 14 indigenous wild fruits, to see if these can supplement low protein staple foods. She and her team analyzed the fruits for essential amino acids. These building blocks of protein are essential for development in young children and to maintain health in adults. Her research interests are firstly systematics and taxonomic studies of African plants, mainly the family Fabaceae. Secondly the ethnobotany of southern African plants, in particular the ethnobotany of the Basotho people in Lesotho and South Africa. The research is published in Plants at https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/4/721

CREDIT

Photo supplied by Prof Annah Moteetee, University of Johannesburg.

Social media videos (20 seconds long 1280X720pixels 30fp), content licenses and more available for download at Google Drive:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HufDTiYW3j8gRmoBbtpJx3XNLtlkyJqI?usp=sharing

INTERVIEWS: For interviews or email questions contact Ms Therese van Wyk at Theresevw@uj.ac.za

Written by Ms. Therese van Wyk

The authors would like to acknowledge the University of Johannesburg for financial and logistical support. We are indebted to the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Crops, Nelspruit for fruit samples. The National Research Foundation is acknowledged for funding the project.

Plant patch enables continuous monitoring for crop diseases

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS FROM NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY HAVE DEVELOPED A PATCH THAT PLANTS CAN WEAR TO MONITOR CONTINUOUSLY FOR PLANT DISEASES OR OTHER STRESSES, SUCH AS CROP DAMAGE OR EXTREME HEAT. view more 

CREDIT: QINGSHAN WEI, NC STATE UNIVERSITY

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a patch that plants can "wear" to monitor continuously for plant diseases or other stresses, such as crop damage or extreme heat.

"We've created a wearable sensor that monitors plant stress and disease in a noninvasive way by measuring the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by plants," says Qingshan Wei, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work. Wei is an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State.

Current methods of testing for plant stress or disease involve taking plant tissue samples and conducting an assay in a lab. However, this only gives growers one measurement, and there is a time lag between when growers take a sample and when they get the test results.

Plants emit different combinations of VOCs under different circumstances. By targeting VOCs that are relevant to specific diseases or plant stress, the sensors can alert users to specific problems.

"Our technology monitors VOC emissions from the plant continuously, without harming the plant," Wei says. "The prototype we've demonstrated stores this monitoring data, but future versions will transmit the data wirelessly. What we've developed allows growers to identify problems in the field - they wouldn't have to wait to receive test results from a lab."

The rectangular patches are 30 millimeters long and consist of a flexible material containing graphene-based sensors and flexible silver nanowires. The sensors are coated with various chemical ligands that respond to the presence of specific VOCs, allowing the system to detect and measure VOCs in gases emitted by the plant's leaves.

The researchers tested a prototype of the device on tomato plants. The prototype was set up to monitor for two types of stress: physical damage to the plant and infection by P. infestans, the pathogen that causes late blight disease in tomatoes. The system detected VOC changes associated with the physical damage within one to three hours, depending on how close the damage was to the site of the patch.

Detecting the presence of P. infestans took longer. The technology didn't pick up changes in VOC emissions until three to four days after researchers inoculated the tomato plants.

"This is not markedly faster than the appearance of visual symptoms of late blight disease," Wei says. "However, the monitoring system means growers don't have to rely on detecting minute visual symptoms. Continuous monitoring would allow growers to identify plant diseases as quickly as possible, helping them limit the spread of the disease."

"Our prototypes can already detect 13 different plant VOCs with high accuracy, allowing users to develop a customized sensor array that focuses on the stresses and diseases that a grower thinks are most relevant," says Yong Zhu, co-corresponding author of the paper and Andrew A. Adams Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NC State.

"It's also important to note that the materials are fairly low cost," Zhu says. "If the manufacturing was scaled up, we think this technology would be affordable. We're trying to develop a practical solution to a real-world problem, and we know cost is an important consideration."

The researchers are currently working to develop a next-generation patch that can monitor for temperature, humidity and other environmental variables as well as VOCs. And while the prototypes were battery-powered and stored the data on-site, the researchers plan for future versions to be solar powered and capable of wireless data transfer.

###

The paper, "Real-Time Monitoring of Plant Stresses via Chemiresistive Profiling of Leaf Volatiles by a Wearable Sensor," is published in the journal Matter. Co-first authors of the paper are Zheng Li, a former postdoc at NC State who is now an assistant professor at Shenzhen University, and Yuxuan Li, a Ph.D. student at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Jean Ristaino, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology at NC State; Oindrila Hossain, Rajesh Paul and Shuang Wu, who are Ph.D. students at NC State; and Shanshan Yao, a former postdoc at NC State who is now an assistant professor at Stony Brook University.

The work was done with support from the NC State Chancellor's Faculty Excellence Program; the Kenan Institute for Engineering Technology & Science; NC State's Game-Changing Research Incentive Program for the Plant Science Initiative (GRIP4PSI); the NC State Center for Human Health and the Environment Pilot Project Award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, number 2019-67030-29311; USDA APHIS Farm Bill grant number 3.0096; and the National Science Foundation, under grant 1728370.

 

New model accurately predicts how coasts will be impacted by storms and sea-level rise

UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE BEACH AT PERRANPORTH IN NORTH CORNWALL (UK) HAS ALREADY BEEN DRAMATICALLY AFFECTED BY THE EFFECTS OF EXTREME STORMS AND SEA-LEVEL RISE view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

Coastal communities across the world are increasingly facing up to the huge threats posed by a combination of extreme storms and predicted rises in sea levels as a result of global climate change.

However, scientists at the University of Plymouth have developed a simple algorithm-based model which accurately predicts how coastlines could be affected and - as a result - enables communities to identify the actions they might need to take in order to adapt.

The Forecasting Coastal Evolution (ForCE) model has the potential to be a game-changing advance in coastal evolution science, allowing adaptations in the shoreline to be predicted over timescales of anything from days to decades and beyond.

This broad range of timescales means that the model is capable of predicting both the short-term impact of violent storm or storm sequences (over days to years), as well as predicting the much longer-term evolution of the coast due to forecasted rising sea levels (decades).

The computer model uses past and present beach measurements, and data showing the physical properties of the coast, to forecast how they might evolve in the future and assess the resilience of our coastlines to erosion and flooding.

Unlike previous simple models of its kind that attempt forecasts on similar timescales, ForCE also considers other key factors like tidal, surge and global sea-level rise data to assess how beaches might be impacted by predicted climate change.

Beach sediments form our frontline of defence against coastal erosion and flooding, preventing damage to our valuable coastal infrastructure. So coastal managers are rightly concerned about monitoring the volume of beach sediment on our beaches.

The new ForCE model opens the door for managers to keeping track of the 'health' of our beaches without leaving their office and to predict how this might change in a future of rising sea level and changing waves.

Model predictions have shown to be more than 80% accurate in current tests, based on measurements of beach change at Perranporth, on the north coast of Cornwall in South West England.

It has also been show to accurately predict the formation and location of offshore sand bars in response to extreme storms, and how beaches recover in the months and years after storm events.

As such, researchers say it could provide an early warning for coastal erosion and potential overtopping, but its stability and efficiency suggests it could forecast coastal evolution over much longer timescales.

The study, published in Coastal Engineering, highlights that the increasing threats posed by sea level rise and coastal squeeze has meant that tracking the morphological evolution of sedimentary coasts is of substantial and increasing societal importance.

Dr Mark Davidson, Associate Professor in Coastal Processes, developed the ForCE model having previously pioneered a traffic light system based on the severity of approaching storms to highlight the level of action required to protect particular beaches.

He said: "Top level coastal managers around the world have recognised a real need to assess the resilience of our coastlines in a climate of changing waves and sea level. However, until now they have not had the essential tools that are required to make this assessment. We hope that our work with the ForCE model will be a significant step towards providing this new and essential capability."

The University of Plymouth is one of the world's leading authorities in coastal engineering and change in the face of extreme storms and sea-level rise.

Researchers from the University's Coastal Processes Research Group have examined their effects everywhere from the coasts of South West England to remote islands in the Pacific Ocean.

They have shown the winter storms of 2013/14 were the most energetic to hit the Atlantic coast of western Europe since records began in 1948, and demonstrated that five years after those storms, many beaches had still not fully recovered.

CASE STUDY - PERRANPORTH, NORTH CORNWALL

Researchers from the University of Plymouth have been carrying out beach measurements at Perranporth in North Cornwall for more than a decade. Recently, this has been done as part of the £4million BLUE-coast project, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, which aims to address the importance of sediment budgets and their role in coastal recovery.

Surveys have shown that following extreme storms, such as those which hit the UK in 2013/14, beaches recovered to some degree in the summer months but that recovery was largely wiped out in the following winters. That has created a situation where high water shorelines are further landward at sites such as Perranporth.

Sea level is presently forecast to rise by about 0.5m over the next 100 years. However, there is large uncertainty attached to this and it could easily be more than 1m over the same time-frame. If the latter proves to be true, prominent structures on the coastline - such as the Watering Hole bar - will be under severe threat within the next 60 years.

CAPTION

This charts show how the projected rise in sea level over the next 60 years could affect the beach at Perranporth in North Cornwall (UK)

CREDIT

Mark Davidson, University of Plymouth

China seizes two tonnes of smuggled pangolin scales



Issued on: 07/07/2021 - 15:50Modified: 07/07/2021 - 15:49

Pangolins are among the world's most endangered species 

Manan VATSYAYANA AFP/File

Beijing (AFP)

Customs agents in southwest China have seized 2.2 tonnes of pangolin scales and busted an endangered wildlife smuggling gang, state media reported.

Two suspects were detained in the city of Yulin in Guangxi by customs officers, who also seized two kilograms of pangolin paws, the People's Daily said Tuesday.

The pangolin scales had been smuggled across the border from Vietnam, reported official state news agency Xinhua.

Pangolins are among the world's most endangered species and their scales are prized in traditional Chinese medicine as a remedy for various ailments.

China has raised the animal's protected status to the country's highest level due to dwindling numbers, meaning harsher sentences for poachers and smugglers.

In January, a Chinese court imprisoned 17 people for smuggling 23 tonnes of pangolin scales worth $28 million into China from Nigeria.

China banned imports of pangolin products in 2018, and outlawed poaching the animals in 2007.

Studies have suggested that the pangolin may have been the intermediate host that transmitted the coronavirus to humans when it first emerged at a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year.

China will host the UN-convened COP-15 Biodiversity Conference in the southwestern city of Kunming in October.

Scientists home in on recipe for entirely renewable energy

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Research News

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin are homing in on a recipe that would enable the future production of entirely renewable, clean energy from which water would be the only waste product.

Using their expertise in chemistry, theoretical physics and artificial intelligence, the team is now fine-tuning the recipe with the genuine belief that the seemingly impossible will one day be reality.

Initial work in this area, reported just under two years ago, yielded promise. That promise has now been amplified significantly in the exciting work just published in leading journal, Cell Reports Physical Science.

Energy for a song - the theory, and the problem

Reducing humanity's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is arguably the greatest challenge facing 21stcentury civilisation - especially given the increasing global population and the heightened energy demands that come with it.

One beacon of hope is the idea that we could use renewable electricity to split water (H2O) to produce green, energy-rich hydrogen (H2), which could then be stored and used in fuel cells. This is an especially interesting prospect in a situation where wind and solar energy sources produce electricity to split water, as this would allow us to store energy for use when those renewable sources are not available.

The essential problem, however, is that water is very stable and requires a great deal of energy to break up; there is no point using much more energy than you get back from such an effort. A particularly major hurdle to clear is this "overpotential" associated with the production of oxygen, which is the bottleneck reaction in splitting water to produce H2.

Although certain elements are effective at splitting water, such as Ruthenium or Iridium, these are prohibitively expensive and scarce for global commercialisation. Other, cheaper options tend to suffer in terms of their efficiency and/or their robustness. In fact, at present, nobody has discovered catalysts that are cost-effective and robust for significant periods of time.

So, how do you solve such a riddle? Stop before you imagine lab coats, glasses, beakers and funny smells; this work was done entirely through a computer.

By bringing together chemists and theoretical physicists, the Trinity team behind the latest breakthrough combined chemistry smarts with very powerful computers to find one of the "holy grails" of catalysis.

What did the team find?

Then: Two years ago, the team discovered that science had been underestimating the activity of some of the more reactive catalysts and, as a result, the dreaded "overpotential" hurdle seemed easier to clear. Furthermore, in refining a long-accepted theoretical model used to predict the efficiency of water splitting catalysts, they made it far easier to search for the elusive "green bullet" catalyst.

Now: Their subsequent searches, made using an automated combinatorial approach and advanced quantum chemical modelling, have pinpointed nine earth-abundant combinations of metals and ligands (which glue them together to generate the catalysts) as highly promising leads for experimental investigation.

Three metals stand out (chromium, manganese, iron) for the team as being especially promising. Thousands of catalysts based around these key components can now be placed in a melting pot and assessed for their abilities as the hunt for the magic combination continues.

Max García-Melchor, Ussher Assistant Professor in Chemistry at Trinity, is the senior author on the landmark research. He said:

"Two years ago, our work had made the hunt for the holy grail of catalysts seem a little more manageable. Now, we have taken another major leap forward by narrowing the search area significantly and speeding up the way we search.

"Until recently we were looking for a tiny needle in a huge haystack. After reducing the size of the haystack, we have now hoovered up plenty of the remaining hay. To put a sense of scale on this, two years ago we had screened 17 catalysts. Now we have screened 444 and believe it won't be long before we have a database with 80,000 'screenable' catalysts in it.

"'How can we live sustainably?' That is arguably the biggest and most pressing question facing 21st century society. I believe researchers from all disciplines can help to answer that, and we feel a particular strength of our pursuit is the multi-disciplinary approach we are taking."

Michael Craig, PhD Candidate at Trinity, is the first author of the journal article. He added:

"It seems hopeful that science could provide the world with entirely renewable energy, and this latest work provides a theoretical basis to optimise sustainable ways to store this energy and goes beyond that by pinpointing specific metals that offer the greatest promise.

"A lot of research has focused on the effective yet prohibitively expensive metals as possible candidates, even though these are far too rare to do the heavy lifting required to store enough hydrogen for society. We are focused on finding a long-term, viable option. And we hope we will."

###

The research has been supported by the Irish Research Council and the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC), where the team is benefiting from 4,500,000 CPU hours at Ireland's state-of-the-art super-computer facility.

Fecal analysis reveals snow leopard stress levels


Researchers have devised a way to measure physical stress in snow leopards, like the one pictured lounging at Kobe Oji Zoo in Japan, in the hope it will help conservation planning for the "vulnerable" species. Photo by Kodzue Kinoshita

July 7 (UPI) -- The world is a stressful place these days, especially for snow leopards.

Environmental stressors, like rising temperatures, disappearing glaciers and poaching, can negatively impact snow leopard health.

To monitor the hormonal stress levels of snow leopards, scientists in Japan developed a new method for analyzing snow leopard fecal samples.

The new method -- described Wednesday in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution -- can be performed quickly and easily in the field.

RELATED Snow leopards no longer 'endangered,' conservationists rule

"Because conventional hormone monitoring methods require frozen and refrigerated chemical reagents, and laboratory equipment, it is almost impossible to use them on-site." lead study author Kodzue Kinoshita, researcher at Kyoto University, said in a press release.

To perform the new hormonal analysis method, scientists collect a snow leopard's fecal samples, place it in a container with ethanol and shake the container by hand. Researchers then dip test strips into the solution.

After exposure, hormonal concentrations trapped on the test strips are analyzed using a smart phone application.

RELATED New disease threats pose danger to snow leopard population

The process relies on immunochromatography, the same hormonal analysis technology used in pregnancy tests.

Researchers tested the accuracy of the new technology using fecal samples from captive snow leopards at Kohu Yuki Zoo, Asahikawa City Asahiyama Zoo and Nagoya Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Japan.

Because environmental stressors can depress reproductive success, it's helpful for conservation scientists to be able to track hormonal changes in snow leopard populations.

RELATED Pumas are surprisingly social, study says

Snow leopards are listed as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Over the last several decades, warming temperatures have shrunk the snow leopard's range, which is mainly among the mountains of Central and South Asia.

The feline predators are also threatened by poachers, as well as farmers who sometimes carry out retaliatory killings for livestock attacks.

"Simple methods like this, will allow researchers, rangers and zookeepers, to quickly and easily assess the stress status of snow leopards." said Kinoshita. "Getting this insight will be useful for the management of animal welfare and conservation planning."

The researchers suggest their new test could be adapted to analyze hormonal changes in a variety of species, both captive and wild animals.

"As a next step, I would like to apply this method to various other animals and make it more reliable." said Kinoshita. "I would also like to apply it to not only wild animals, but also to zoo animals and pets to clarify the stress of these animals and improve their living environment."

New method lets researchers rapidly monitor snow leopard stress levels in the wild

BRITISH ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY

VIDEO: CAMERA TRAP OF A SNOW LEOPARD IN KYRGYZSTAN. view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT KODZUE KINOSHITA TWINTSTRUST, AND SNOW LEOPARD FOUNDATION IN KYRGYZSTAN

The newly developed method lets researchers rapidly and accurately measure stress hormones in snow leopards without the need for bulky equipment or specialised knowledge. It uses widely available equipment that can be carried into the field, allowing hormone extraction from faecal samples and analysis to be done on site.

This differs from existing approaches to hormone monitoring in wild animals, where faecal samples must be taken to laboratories for hormone extraction and analysis. These approaches are particularly limiting in remote locations, such as the Himalayas.

"Because conventional hormone monitoring methods require frozen and refrigerated chemical reagents, and laboratory equipment, it is almost impossible to use them on-site." explained Dr Kodzue Kinoshita of Kyoto University and author of the study.

The new method developed by Dr Kinoshita extracts hormones from snow leopard faeces by shaking a container with the sample mixed with ethanol by hand. A process called immunochromatography, which is used in pregnancy tests, is used to detect hormone concentrations using test strips and a smartphone application then analyses them.

The accuracy of the new method was tested on faecal samples from captive snow leopards at Kohu Yuki Zoo, Asahikawa City Asahiyama Zoo, and Nagoya Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Japan. Comparisons to conventional methods found that similar hormone concentrations were extracted and changes in these concentrations were also accurately detected.

Stress in animals can be associated with reduced reproductive function, so finding out what in the environment stresses animals is important for conservation.

"Simple methods like this, will allow researchers, rangers, and zookeepers, to quickly and easily assess the stress status of snow leopards." said Dr Kinoshita. "Getting this insight will be useful for the management of animal welfare and conservation planning."

Dr Kinoshita added that the new technique could also be applied to captive snow leopards and other animals. "The hormone analysed in this method is generally not species-specific, so this method can be used to assess various species, including domestic, experimental, zoo, and wild animals."

Snow leopards are listed as 'vulnerable' on the IUCN red list and are threatened by poaching, retaliatory killings for livestock attacks and climate change. It's feared these continued pressures will increase stress in snow leopards, further contributing to population declines.

Snow leopards are also notoriously difficult to study, the mountainous regions in central Asia they inhabit make finding the big cats hard and limits researchers' access to laboratories.

The novel method Dr Kinoshita developed in this study involves adding ethanol to collected snow leopard faeces and then shaking the container with two zirconia beads by hand for two minutes to extract the hormones. The extract is then dropped onto the immunochromatography test strip which turns red as a result of an antigen-antibody reaction, indicating the presence of adrenocortical stress hormones. A smartphone app is used to measure the hormone concentration from the intensity of the colour.

Although this novel method could be applied to the other species, Dr Kinoshita warns that this will need to be tested for each species to ensure the stress hormones detected in the faeces accurately reflects the stress of the animal, as these levels will vary between species.

"As a next step, I would like to apply this method to various other animals and make it more reliable." said Dr Kinoshita. "I would also like to apply it to not only to wild animals, but also to zoo animals and pets to clarify the stress of these animals and improve their living environment."

CAPTION

Collecting snow leopard scats

CREDIT

Credit Kodzue Kinoshita

 

Diversification in supply chain crucial to avoid 'food shock' in cities

PENN STATE

Research News

 

IMAGE: SHOCK MAGNITUDES IN U.S. CITIES DUE TO A 100-YEAR FOOD SUPPLY SHOCK EVENT. SHOCK MAGNITUDES ARE EXPRESSED AS A FRACTION OF THE AVERAGE ANNUAL FOOD INFLOWS TO EACH CITY. DARKER... view more 

CREDIT: MICHAEL GOMEZ, PENN STATE

Diversification in the sourcing of food into cities can go a long way to tempering "food shock" -- a sudden drop in food supply due to unforeseen events, according to a team of researchers from Penn State and Northern Arizona University, who developed a statistical risk model linking supply chain diversity to the probability of a city experiencing food shocks.

"The model is simple, operationally useful and hazard-agnostic," the researchers report today (July 8) in Nature. "Using this method cities can improve their resistance to food supply shocks with policies that increase the food supply chain diversity."

The researchers investigated four types of food -- crops, live animals, feed and meat -- over a four-year period from 2012 to 2015 when there were droughts and production shocks in the Great Plains and the western U.S.

"Cities fundamentally depend on other regions for the provision of food and other basic resources," said Alfonso Mejia, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Penn State. "We looked at food because it interconnects with other critical regional systems -- water and energy -- and food production is inherently linked to climate variability and change. We wanted to apply basic lessons from the natural world -- biodiverse ecosystems are more resistant to shocks, learned through millennia of adapting to disruption of all kinds -- to our human food systems."

Mejia notes that the main finding of their work was that they were able to find a distinct and predictable data-driven relationship between the diversity of the supply chain of cities and the possibility of the city having a food supply disruption. The researchers found that the higher the diversity of the supply chain, the lower the probability of that city experiencing a food shock.

"If a city's food sources are mainly from regions nearby, then its supply chain is not going to be very diverse," said Michael Gomez, doctoral candidate in civil engineering, Penn State. "It's not just distance though, there are other factors that impact diversity."

Some of the variables important to food shock resilience include location, climate, supply network characteristics and level of urbanization. If all a city's beef came from Texas during the drought, for example, then that city would have experienced a food shock with respect to beef during that time.

"There are a number of things that will have a ripple effect on the food supply chain," said Gomez. "Drought, heatwaves, flooding, cyberattacks, global pandemics."

Originally, the available food trade data covered 70 cities including New York and Los Angeles, but Gomez expanded their database to include information on all 284 designated metropolitan areas in the U.S., making their results more robust.

Cities can run into problems with supply chain diversity because they source products from few sources, from locations with similar climates, or from limited geographic areas, among other things, according to the researchers.

The researchers used a traditional engineering approach to look at cities' food supplies. They took the framework of risk analysis of 100-year floods and applied that to food shocks and diversity.

"The idea was to provide cities with an operational way for quantifying resilience and, ultimately, supporting action that can boost resilience through supply chain diversity," said Mejia. "In principle, with our approach, a city can figure out what their supply chain diversity is and what protection against food shock they have. If they decide there is not enough protection, then they can figure out, based in part on other cities' experience, how much diversity in the food chain they need to offer sufficient protection."

Food shocks can cause small variations in the price of food in the supermarket. According to Gomez, populations below the poverty line are the ones most impacted by these increases. However, he notes that designing policies that foster supply chain diversity is a major coordination challenge for cities and other actors involved in the food supply chain.

"But cities could also work together with government at different levels to increase resilience against food supply chain disruptions," said Mejia. "There are several U.S. government programs that relate to food -- the breakfast, lunch, afterschool and nutrition assistance programs. These programs may offer an untapped opportunity for diversifying supply chains and building resilience."

CAPTION

Researchers find that supply chain diversity boosts resilience of cities to food shocks. This image illustrates the food supply chain with flying corn, a loaf of bread, a delivery truck, etc., illustrating where food is sourced from.

CREDIT

Victor O. Leshyk, Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Northern Arizona University

Others working on this project include Benjamin L. Ruddell, director and professor, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems; and Richard R. Rushforth, assistant research professor of computing and cyber systems, both at Northern Arizona University.

The National Science Foundation supported this work. Additional data visualization for this research and the project that supported it is at fewsion.us/few-view-3/.

Study: Oil spill impact on Canadian arctic, the environment and indigenous peoples

As melting sea ice brings more ships through the Northwest Passage, new research shows that Canada must prepare for the costs and consequences of an Arctic oil spill

SOCIETY FOR RISK ANALYSIS

Research News

The growing rate of ice melt in the Arctic due to rising global temperatures has opened up the Northwest Passage (NWP) to more ship traffic, increasing the potential risk of an oil spill and other environmental disasters. A new study published in the journal Risk Analysis suggests that an oil spill in the Canadian Arctic could be devastating--especially for vulnerable indigenous communities.

"Infrastructure along the NWP in Canada's Arctic is almost non-existent. This presents major challenges to any response efforts in the case of a natural disaster," says Mawuli Afenyo, lead author, University of Manitoba researcher, and expert on the risks of Arctic shipping.

Afenyo and his colleagues have developed a new method that could help managers predict the risk of pollutants from increased shipping activity. The paper describes how they used it to assess the socio-economic impacts of a potential oil spill in the Rankin Inlet region of the Canadian Arctic. This area is a critical regional hub for Arctic shipping where traffic has been increasing since 2010. For their analysis, the researchers simulated the conditions of the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, when an oil tanker released 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. It should be noted that an oil spill of the magnitude of the Exxon Valdez has not occurred in the Rankin Inlet; this study is a simulation to project the potential impact of such a spill.

"One of our key findings was that the negative socio-economic impact of an oil spill in the Arctic accelerates quickly with time if there is no intervention," says Afenyo. "Our study also showed that an oil spill in this region has serious social impacts--affecting the family dynamics, hunting traditions, and culture of vulnerable indigenous communities."

Cleaning up a spill in the Arctic is different from that in other parts of the ocean due to the harsh nature of the environment and the remoteness of the region. Oil from a spill can move under the ice, between ice, get absorbed by snow, and become encapsulated in ice. This makes response efforts and long-term monitoring difficult and expensive.

Using two different risk assessment models, the researchers evaluated the probability and consequences of an oil spill in the Rankin Inlet. To estimate the probability, they reviewed past incidents and scientific reports about oil spills and also surveyed scientists, government workers, insurance specialists, and rights holders who live or work in the Arctic.

To estimate the consequences of a spill, they used a multi-period model to predict the socio-economic impacts over a period of five years if no recovery efforts were conducted--one of the most probable scenarios for this area based on current conditions. "This worse-case scenario analysis gives decision-makers the opportunity to put into place intervention that will help mitigate risks to a bare minimum," Afenyo explained.

All of the consequences of a potential spill were incorporated into an influence diagram to help managers assess the risk of a spill in terms of U.S. dollars. It includes such impacts as the destruction of flora and fauna and the disruption of hunting and culture for indigenous communities in the region. In the first year following the spill in the Rankin Inlet, the cost with no intervention was estimated to be $500 million. By the fifth year, this figure rose to $7.5 billion.

"Our method is very comprehensive as it uses both qualitative and quantitative inputs and can be used to assess not only the socio-economic impacts but also the environmental consequences," says Afenyo. He adds that it can serve as a decision-making tool for policy makers, insurance companies, and government institutions responsible for risk assessment and emergency response.

In their analysis, the researchers identified an urgent need to develop a good communication network between indigenous nations within the region, the Canadian federal government, and companies looking to work there. "The challenge will be determining how the Canadian federal government should collaborate with indigenous people to respond rapidly to an oil spill," says Afenyo.

In future research, the team plans to develop an app to help decision-makers assess the socio-economic impacts of shipping spills in the Arctic and examine how different policy responses could minimize the negative impacts of those spills. This would help marine insurers develop practical tools to help accurately calculate risk and insurance premiums for ships traveling through the Arctic. The newly constructed Churchill Marine Observatory will be an important source of data to further improve the accuracy of the model.

###

The paper is co-authored by Changmin Jiang of the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba and Adolf K.Y. Ng in the Division of Business and Management at Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (China). The joint Sino-Canadian research is part of the GENICE project (Microbial Genomics for Oil Spill Preparedness in Canada's Arctic Marine Environment) led by the University of Manitoba and the University of Calgary.

About SRA

The Society for Risk Analysis is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, scholarly, international society that provides an open forum for all those interested in risk analysis. SRA was established in 1980 and has published Risk Analysis: An International Journal, the leading scholarly journal in the field, continuously since 1981. For more information, visit http://www.sra.org.

Disclaimer: AAAS and Eure

Attacks target bases hosting forces in Iraq, Syria



Issued on: 07/07/2021 - 

Attacks on US targets in Iraq and Syria AFP

Baghdad (AFP)

Rocket and drone attacks on Wednesday targeted bases in Iraq and Syria hosting US forces that are part of an international coalition fighting the Islamic State jihadist group.

Fourteen rockets were fired at an air base hosting American troops in Iraq's western province of Anbar, causing minor injuries to two personnel, the US-led coalition said.

It was the latest in a spate of attacks on US military and diplomatic facilities in Iraq, blamed on pro-Iranian armed groups within a state-sponsored paramilitary force.

US forces, who have 2,500 troops deployed in Iraq as part of the anti-IS coalition, have been targeted almost 50 times this year in the country.

A Shite militant group called Revenge of al-Muhandis Brigade claimed responsibility and vowed to defeat the "brutal occupation", according to the US-based SITE intelligence group which monitors extremist groups.

The militant group is named after Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis of Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance, who was killed in a US drone strike early last year along with the revered Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, SITE said.

Late last month, the US carried out deadly air strikes against pro-Iran fighters in both Iraq and Syria.

On Wednesday, the Ain al-Assad base was attacked by 14 rockets that "landed on the base & perimeter," coalition spokesman Wayne Marotto wrote on Twitter.

Iraqi security forces said the rocket launcher had been hidden inside a truck carrying bags of flour.

US forces on Monday night shot down an armed drone above their embassy in Baghdad, according to Iraqi security officials.#photo1

American defence systems fired rockets into the air in the capital, said AFP reporters, with Iraqi security sources saying the salvos had taken out an explosive-laden drone.

Just hours earlier, rockets had also been fired towards Ain al-Assad.

- Syria 'drone attacks' -

Across the border in Syria, where pro-Iran fighters have fought alongside the Damascus regime in the decade-old civil war, Kurdish-led forces also reported attempted attacks near a coalition base.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said they repelled drone attacks near the base in the Omar oil field in the country's east, in the second such operation in days.

"Our frontline forces against IS and coalition forces in the area of the Omar oil field dealt with drone attacks," it said, adding that the drones had caused no damage.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor with sources inside Syria, said pro-Iran militias had probably launched the drones from a rural area outside the town of Al-Mayadeen southwest of the oil field.

It was the second such attack in days, after the SDF reported "two unidentified rocket-propelled grenades landed on the western side of the al-Omar oil field" late Sunday, which had caused no casualties.

Pro-Iranian militias also fired several shells at Al-Omar on Monday last week, causing damage but no casualties, the Observatory said.

The United States had launched air strikes the previous night against three targets it said were used by pro-Iran groups in eastern Syria and western Iraq.

The Observatory said at least five "Iran-backed Iraqi militia fighters" were killed in the strikes on the Syrian side of the border.

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