Mount Sinai research reveals how Ebola virus manages to evade the body's immune defenses

THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL / MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Research News

New York, NY (July 6, 2021) - Mount Sinai researchers have uncovered the complex cellular mechanisms of Ebola virus, which could help explain its severe toll on humans and identify potential pathways to treatment and prevention. In a study published in mBio, the team reported how a protein of the Ebola virus, VP24, interacts with the double-layered membrane of the cell nucleus (known as the nuclear envelope), leading to significant damage to cells along with virus replication and the propagation of disease.

"The Ebola virus is extremely skilled at dodging the body's immune defenses, and in our study we characterize an important way in which that evasion occurs through disruption of the nuclear envelope, mediated by the VP24 protein," says co-senior author Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD, Professor of Microbiology, and Director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "That disruption is quite dramatic and replicates rare, genetic diseases known as laminopathies, which can result in severe muscular, cardiovascular, and neuronal complications."

After first appearing in 1976 in Africa, the Ebola virus has triggered a number of outbreaks on that continent, the most serious from 2014 to 2016 in West Africa, with a 50 percent mortality rate among its victims. The virus, which causes severe hemorrhagic fever, is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads through human-to-human transmission.

In their laboratory work--much of it conducted with research partners from CIMUS at the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany--investigators identified the cellular membrane components that interact with VP24 to prompt nuclear membrane disruption. These components are emerin and the inner membrane constituents lamin A/C and lamin B. Specifically, the VP24 protein decreases interaction of lamin A/C and emerin, compromising the integrity of the nuclear membrane, which, in turn, results in leakage of DNA and the loss of function by the body's disease-fighting cells.

The researchers further showed that VP24 disrupts signaling pathways that are meant to activate the immune system's defenses against viral invaders like Ebola. The biological consequence of this is even greater interference with the normal physiology of cells, including antiviral immunity.

"We believe our discovery of the novel activities of the Ebola VP24 protein and the severe damage it causes to infected cells will help to promote further research into effective ways to treat and prevent the spread of deadly viruses, perhaps through a new inhibitor," says Dr. García-Sastre, who has spent the past 25 years focused on the molecular biology of rare and common viruses. "Indeed, that research will hopefully identify even more precisely the molecular mechanisms by which viruses like Ebola invade the body and find ways to cleverly avoid its immune defenses."

###

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City's largest academic medical system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai is a national and international source of unrivaled education, translational research and discovery, and collaborative clinical leadership ensuring that we deliver the highest quality care--from prevention to treatment of the most serious and complex human diseases. The Health System includes more than 7,200 physicians and features a robust and continually expanding network of multispecialty services, including more than 400 ambulatory practice locations throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 14 on U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" of the Top 20 Best Hospitals in the country and the Icahn School of Medicine as one of the Top 20 Best Medical Schools in country. Mount Sinai Health System hospitals are consistently ranked regionally by specialty and our physicians in the top 1% of all physicians nationally by U.S. News & World Report.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

 

New study helps explain 'silent earthquakes' along New Zealand's North Island

Seamounts offer clue to solving a tectonic puzzle

EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: MAP OF THE HIKURANGI SUBDUCTION ZONE AND LOCATIONS WHERE ELECTROMAGNETIC RECEIVERS WERE DEPLOYED TO COLLECT DATA. view more 

CREDIT: CHRISTINE CHESLEY, USING GEOMAPAPP AND DATA FROM WILLIAM RYAN ET AL., GEOCHEMISTRY, GEOPHYSICS, GEOSYSTEMS (2009)

The Hikurangi Margin, located off the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, is where the Pacific tectonic plate dives underneath the Australian tectonic plate, in what scientists call a subduction zone. This interface of tectonic plates is partly responsible for the more than 15,000 earthquakes the region experiences each year. Most are too small to be noticed, but between 150 and 200 are large enough to be felt. Geological evidence suggests that large earthquakes happened in the southern part of the margin before human record-keeping began.

Geophysicists, geologists, and geochemists from throughout the world have been working together to understand why this plate boundary behaves as it does, producing both imperceptible silent earthquakes, but also potentially major ones. A study published today in the journal Nature offers new perspective and possible answers.

Scientists knew that the ocean floor at the northern part of the island, where the plates slide slowly together, generates the small, slow-moving earthquakes called slow slip events--movements that take weeks, sometimes months to complete. But at the southern end of the island, instead of sliding slowly as they do in the northern area, the tectonic plates lock. This locking sets up the conditions for a sudden release of the plates, which can trigger a large earthquake.

"It is really curious and not understood why, in a relatively small geographic area, you would go from lots of small, slow-moving earthquakes to a potential for a really large earthquake," said marine electromagnetic geophysicist Christine Chesley, a graduate student at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and lead author on the new paper. "That's what we've been trying to understand, the difference in this margin."

In December 2018, a research team began a 29-day deep-sea cruise to collect data. Similar to taking an MRI of the Earth, the team employed electromagnetic wave energy to measure how current moves through features in the ocean floor. From these data, the team was able to get a more precise look at the role seamounts, large undersea mountains, play in generating earthquakes.

"The northern part of the margin has really large seamounts. It had been unclear what those mountains can do when they subduct (dive down into the deep earth) and how that dynamic affects the interaction between the two plates," said Chesley.

It turns out, the seamounts hold a lot more water than geophysicists had expected -- about three to five times more than typical oceanic crust. The abundant water lubricates the plates where they join, helping to smooth any slippage, and preventing the plates from the sticking that can set up a large earthquake. This helps explain the tendency toward the slow, silent earthquakes at the northern end of the margin.

Using these data, Chesley and her colleagues were also able to closely examine what is happening as a seamount subducts. They discovered an area in the upper plate that seems to be damaged by a subducting seamount. This upper plate zone also seemed to have more water in it.

"That suggests the seamount is breaking up the upper plate, making it weaker, which helps explain the unusual pattern of silent earthquakes there," said Chesley. The example provides another indication of how seamounts influence tectonic behavior and earthquake hazards.

Conversely, the lack of lubrication and the weakening effects of seamounts may make the southern part of the island more prone to sticking and generating large earthquakes.

Chesley, who is on track to complete her Ph.D. in the fall, hopes that these findings will encourage researchers to consider the way water in these seamounts contributes to seismic behavior as they continue to work to understand slow-moving earthquakes. "The more we study earthquakes, the more it seems water plays a starring role in modulating slip on faults," said Chesley. "Understanding when and where water is input into the system can only improve natural hazard assessment efforts."

CAPTION

An electromagnetic sensor on its way to the ocean floor off New Zealand to collect data.

CREDIT

Samer Naif / Lamont-Doherty Electromagnetic Geophysics Lab

Samer Naif, former Lamont Assistant Research Professor, now assistant professor at Georgia Tech; Kerry Key, associate professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; and Dan Bassett, research scientist at GNS Science, collaborated on this research. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Scientist contacts:

Christine Chesley: chesley@ldeo.columbia.edu

Kerry Key: kkey@ldeo.columbia.edu

More information:

Kevin Krajick, Senior editor, science news, The Earth Institute
kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729

The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu.

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is Columbia University's home for Earth science research. Its scientists develop fundamental knowledge about the origin, evolution and future of the natural world, from the planet's deepest interior to the outer reaches of its atmosphere, on every continent and in every ocean, providing a rational basis for the difficult choices facing humanity. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu | @LamontEarth

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