PRISON NATION U$A

Analysis of health and prescription data suggests chronic health conditions in U.S. incarcerated people may be severely undertreated

Findings suggest conditions go untreated in prison inmates compared to general population

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, asthma, HIV infection, and mental illness may be greatly undertreated in the U.S. jail and prison population, suggests a new study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

For their analysis, the researchers used national health survey data covering 2018 to 2020 to estimate rates of chronic conditions among recently incarcerated people, and a commercial prescription database to estimate the distribution of medication treatments to the jail and prison population. Their analysis suggests that for many common and serious conditions, incarcerated people are substantially less likely to be treated compared to the general U.S. population.

The study found that recently incarcerated individuals with type 2 diabetes represented about 0.44 percent of the U.S. burden of the condition, but got only 0.15 percent of oral anti-hyperglycemic medications—nearly a threefold difference. Incarcerated individuals with asthma accounted for 0.85 percent of the total U.S. asthma population, but just 0.15 percent of asthma treatment volume, a more than fivefold difference.

The study will be published online April 14 in JAMA Health Forum.

“Our findings raise serious concerns about the access to and quality of pharmacologic care for very common chronic health conditions among the incarcerated,” says study senior author G. Caleb Alexander, MD, professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School. “We knew going in that the U.S. incarcerated population has a higher prevalence of some chronic diseases. But we were really surprised by the extent of potential undertreatment that we identified.”

Prior studies have found evidence that health care provided to the U.S. incarcerated population—roughly two million individuals—is often understaffed, underfunded, and of poor quality. Yet studying health care issues among the incarcerated involves many challenges. Few studies have examined treatment of common and chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma.

“Health care provided in jails and prisons is provided by a patchwork of health care providers, most commonly private contractors who do not widely share information about the services they provide to incarcerated people,” says study co-author Brendan Saloner, PhD, an associate professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management. “The lack of transparency means that advocates and policymakers have a very incomplete picture of the medicines that are available during a stay in jail or prison.”

The lack of transparency also makes it difficult to research. For their study, the researchers generated two sets of estimates: one for the prevalence of specific conditions among recently incarcerated inmates, the other on the percentage of common chronic illness prescriptions going to jails and state prisons.

For the disease prevalence estimates, the researchers used recent data from U.S. government-sponsored National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. These annual surveys don’t cover prison and jail populations directly, but the researchers estimated condition prevalence among adult survey respondents who either had or had not reported being on parole or having been arrested and booked in the prior year. They combined these figures with U.S. Census data, and generated population estimates for state prisons and local jails to gauge the approximate numbers of incarcerated and non-incarcerated individuals with different conditions.

To get a sense of prescriptions dispensed to the incarcerated vs. the non-incarcerated populations, the researchers used data from the same time period from the health care technology company IQVIA. Because of the lack of data on federal prison inmates, the incarcerated population for the analysis included only individuals in local jails and state prisons. The authors made adjustments for the possibility of missing data, and note that their numbers may underestimate disparities between incarcerated individuals and their counterparts.

The analysis yielded estimates for the prevalence of chronic conditions that suggested particularly heavy burdens of some illnesses in the incarcerated population—for example, hepatitis (6.08 percent prevalence among the incarcerated vs. 1.41 for the non-incarcerated), HIV infection (0.84 percent vs. 0.28 percent), depression (15.10 percent vs. 7.64 percent), and severe mental illness (13.12 percent vs. 4.89 percent).

As for prevalence-treatment differentials among the incarcerated, the study also found that incarcerated individuals with HIV represented about 2.2 percent of the U.S. burden of the condition, but got only 0.73 percent of HIV antivirals—a threefold difference. Incarcerated individuals with severe mental illness represented an estimated 1.97 percent of disease burden, but only 0.48 percent of treatment volume consisting of antipsychotics and mood stabilizers, a fourfold difference.

Alexander says that the findings may reflect not only institutional neglect but also factors such as the temporary nature of many local jail stays, and the high prevalence of mental illness—which tends to complicate treatment of other conditions—in the incarcerated population.

“We hope our results will motivate further investigations that continue to explore these vital matters using a variety of data sources,” he says.

“Estimated Use of Prescription Medications Among Individuals Incarcerated in Jails and State Prisons in the US” was co-authored by Jill Curran, Brendan Saloner, Tyler Winkelman, and G. Caleb Alexander.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum

DOI

10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.0482 

ARTICLE TITLE

Estimated Use of Prescription Medications Among Individuals Incarcerated in Jails and State Prisons in the US

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Apr-2023

Offering medications for opioid addiction to incarcerated individuals leads to decrease in overdose deaths

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER

BOSTON – New research from Boston Medical Center concluded that offering medications to treat opioid addiction in jails and prisons leads to a decrease in overdose deaths. Published in JAMA Network Open, the study also found that treating opioid addiction during incarceration is cost-effective in terms of healthcare costs, incarceration costs, and deaths avoided.

Overdoses kill more than 100,000 people per year in America and this number continues to increase every year. People with addiction are more likely to be incarcerated than treated, with those from communities of color who use drugs more likely to be incarcerated than White people. Most prisons and jails in the United States discontinue medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) upon incarceration, even if taken stably prior to incarceration, and do not initiate MOUD prior to release. Patients often suffer withdrawal symptoms while incarcerated and the post incarceration period is a time of very high-risk for overdose death.

“Offering medications for opioid addiction for incarcerated individuals saves lives. Specifically, offering all three medications—buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone—is the most effective at saving lives and is more cost-effective,” said lead author Avik Chatterjee, MD, primary care and addiction medicine physician at Boston Medical Center and Boston Healthcare for the Homeless and assistant professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. “We hope our study supports policy change at the state and federal level, requiring treating opioid use disorder with medications among people who are incarcerated.”

The study modeled the impact of MOUD access during and upon release from incarceration on population-level overdose mortality and OUD-related treatment costs in Massachusetts using three different strategies: 1) no MOUD provided during incarceration or upon release, 2) offer only extended-release naltrexone (XR-NTX) upon release from incarceration, and 3) offer all three MOUD at intake.

Among 30,000 incarcerated people with OUD, offering no MOUD was associated with 40,927 MOUD treatment starts over a 5-year period and 1,259 overdose deaths after 5 years. Over 5 years, offering XR-NTX at release led to 10,466 additional treatment starts and 40 fewer overdose deaths. In comparison, offering all three MOUD at intake led to 11,923 additional treatment starts, compared to offering no MOUD, and 83 fewer overdose deaths. Among everyone with OUD in MA, “XR-NTX only” averted 95 overdose deaths over 5 years—a 0.9% decrease in state-level overdose mortality, while the all-MOUD strategy averted 192 overdose deaths—a 1.8% decrease.

In this simulation modeling study, researchers found that offering any MOUD to incarcerated individuals with OUD would prevent overdose deaths and offering all three MOUD would prevent more deaths and save money.

Researchers believe that a treatment-based approach is more appropriate than an incarceration-based one for treating addiction. Proactively offering treatment during incarceration can save lives and is a cost-effective health intervention, while also supporting the dignity of people who are incarcerated.

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About Boston Medical Center

Boston Medical Center is a leading academic medical center with a deep commitment to health equity and a proud history of serving all who come to us for care. BMC provides high-quality healthcare and wrap around support that treats the whole person, extending beyond our physical campus into our vibrant and diverse communities. BMC is advancing medicine, while training the next generation of healthcare providers and researchers as the primary teaching affiliate of Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. BMC is a founding member of Boston Medical Center Health System, which supports patients and health plan members through a value based, coordinated continuum of care.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.7036 

ARTICLE TITLE

Associated With Use and Nonuse of Medications for Opioid Use Disorder During Incarceration and at Release in Massachusetts

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Apr-2023

Volunteering or donating to charity could help ease your physical pain, study suggests

New study suggests that volunteering or donating money to charity reduces the effects of physical pain on the ability of people in UK to work.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON

A new, first-of-its-kind study suggests that volunteering with any organisation, or donating money to charity, reduces the effects of physical pain on the ability of people to work, with volunteering having a larger effect than donating to charity.

The study from City, University of London and Harvard University also suggests that the more money donated to charity, the more physical pain was eased. It did not find a similar dose-dependent effect for the number of hours volunteered with an organisation. However, the study did suggest that the magnitude of pain easing from volunteering was more than ten times the effect that each additional year of age of a participant had on increasing pain interference in their work.

While both volunteering and donating to charity was associated with a larger reduction in pain interference than volunteering alone, the difference in the results was not statistically significant.

The authors argue that the positive emotions that have previously been linked with engaging in prosocial behaviour can help explain the current findings. In particular, volunteering has been found to be strongly associated with social connection which is a key predictor of wellbeing, including in relation to physical pain.

While prosocial behaviours, such as volunteering or donating to charity, have long been linked to benefits to one’s mental and physical health, until now, no study had investigated whether such behaviours were directly linked to reductions in physical pain.

In the study, the researchers performed analyses of responses to the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS) between the years 2011 and 2020. The UKHLS is ongoing and is administered to participants annually, face-to-face. It was designed to be representative of the UK population as respondents represent all regions of the UK, ages, as well as educational and socioeconomic sectors.

In the main analysis, the responses of approximately 35,000 participants were used, responding to questions of whether they volunteered or not, donated to charity or not, and which were compared to their responses to whether physical pain interfered with their normal work (be it outside the home or housework) provided on a five-point scale of 0 (not at all) to 5 (extremely).  The average (mean) age of participants ranged from 49 to 48 years old across donating/volunteering groups, to 42 to 46 years old in the non donating/volunteering groups, with about 45 per cent of the respondents being men.

Further analyses found that, overall, respondents who did versus did not donate money to charity reported a slower rise in pain over time, although this effect was not found for those who volunteered.

While the authors cannot fully rule out concerns about reverse causality playing a part in the findings, whereby people experiencing more pain may not engage in prosocial behaviours, they argue that the longitudinal study design, and other factors help counteract these concerns.

Physical pain is one of the main reasons people visit the accident and emergency room in the UK. Approximately nine million people in the UK live with chronic pain and musculoskeletal pain alone accounts for 30 per cent of the country’s medical consultations. Physical pain is known to adversely affect a person’s quality of life, including their mental health, productivity at work, and their experience of their family and workplace. Understanding factors that help to reduce pain is necessary for the design of the public health policies needed to address the issue.

Lead author of the study, Dr Lucía Macchia, Lecturer in Psychology at City, University of London, said:

“This research contributes to the new and fast-growing literature that studies pain from a socioeconomic, psychosocial, and behavioural perspective. The work provides useful information for the design and evaluation of public health policies by uncovering how engaging in prosocial behaviour, which can create powerful positive emotions and reduce negative mood like stress, can positively affect one’s pain.”

The study is published online in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

To speak to Dr Lucía Macchia, contact Shamim Quadir, Senior Communications Officer, School of Health Sciences, City, University of London. Tel: +44(0) 207 040 8782 Email: shamim.quadir@city.ac.uk.

Read the research article in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399923001824

City, University of London

• City, University of London is a global higher education institution committed to academic excellence, with a focus on business and the professions and an enviable central London location.
• City’s academic range is broadly-based with world-leading strengths in business; law; health sciences; mathematics; computer science; engineering; social sciences; and the arts including journalism and music.
• City has around 20,000 students (46% at postgraduate level) from more than 160 countries and staff from over 75 countries.
• In the last REF, City doubled the proportion of its total academic staff producing world-leading or internationally excellent research.
• More than 140,000 former students from over 180 countries are members of the City Alumni Network.
• The University’s history dates from 1894, with the foundation of the Northampton Institute on what is now the main part of City’s campus.  In 1966, City was granted University status by Royal Charter and the Lord Mayor of London became its Chancellor. In September 2016, City joined the University of London and HRH the Princess Royal became City’s Chancellor.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Psychosomatic Research

DOI

10.1016/j.jpsychores.2023.111325 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Prosocial behaviour helps to ease physical pain: Longitudinal evidence from Britain

Study reveals how pollinators cope with plant toxins

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Pollinators such as honeybees produce special enzymes that detoxify defence chemicals produced by plants, new research shows.

Many plants produce alkaloids as protection against herbivores, and these toxins are also found in their nectar and pollen.

The new study, by the University of Exeter and Bayer AG, examined the genes of several species in a group called Hymenoptera – insects including bees, wasps, ants and sawflies that share a common ancestor about 280 million years ago.

Remarkably, all the species tested produce the same group of enzymes (the CYP336 family of cytochrome P450 enzymes) to tackle alkaloid toxins.

“These species differ greatly, but one thing they share is this ability to detoxify alkaloids,” said Dr Angie Hayward, from Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

“We were fascinated to discover this family of genes has been preserved across almost 300 million years of evolution by a whole order of insects with very diverse lifestyles.

“Although some of these species have very little contact with certain key alkaloids, such as nicotine, they appear to have retained the ability to metabolise them, almost as an aspect of their genetic heritage, rather like the case of the human tailbone or appendix.”

The researchers examined the genomes of key hymenopteran species, creating an “evolutionary tree” for the family.

They also extracted the enzymes produced by these species and placed them in a cell-line to see how they would react with alkaloids – and found they do indeed detoxify them.

“Understanding how insects react to specific toxins is vital – it should inform how we produce any new chemicals such as pesticides and insecticides,” said Dr Bartek Troczka, also from the University of Exeter.

“To avoid environmental damage, we need very specific compounds that do very specific things.

“Our paper feeds into the wider attempt to understand how chemicals are broken down by insects and to what extent the genes responsible persist across insect groups.”

Dr Julian Haas, insect toxicologist at Bayer AG, said: “This study highlights the promise of multidisciplinary teamwork to better understand the molecular and evolutionary basis of detoxification mechanisms in insects which will ultimately aid with the understanding of their interaction with other toxins including insecticides.”

The study was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Bayer AG.

The paper, published in the journal Science Advances, is entitled: “A conserved hymenopteran-specific family of cytochrome P450s protect bee pollinators from toxic nectar alkaloids.”

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adg0885 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

A conserved hymenopteran-specific family of cytochrome P450s protect bee pollinators from toxic nectar alkaloids.

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2023

Coral-eating fish poo may act as ‘probiotics’ for reefs

Although coral-eating fish can cause damage to coral, their poo contains potentially beneficial bacteria

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FRONTIERS

Until recently, fish that eat coral — corallivores — were thought to weaken reef structures, while fish that consume algae and detritus — grazers — were thought to keep reefs healthy. But scientists have discovered that feces from grazers leave large lesions on coral, possibly because they contain coral pathogens. By contrast, feces from corallivores may provide a source of beneficial microbes that help coral thrive.

“Corallivorous fish are generally regarded as harmful because they bite the corals,” said Dr Carsten Grupstra of Rice University, lead author of the study published in Frontiers in Marine Science. “But it turns out that this doesn’t tell the whole story. Corallivore feces contain many of the bacterial taxa that associate with healthy corals under normal conditions, potentially resulting in the natural dispersal of ‘coral probiotics’, analogous to fecal microbiota transplantation therapy in humans.”

Good bacteria for healthy reefs?

Tropical coral reefs harbor lots of fish, which defecate all the time. Although fish feces disperse nutrients which may help support a healthy coral reef, they also contain pathogens and sediments which can smother parts of living coral: these dying patches of coral are called lesions. To protect delicate coral reef ecosystems, we need to understand how this cycle of waste and nutrients works.

Grupstra and colleagues studied the effects of feces from both corallivores and grazers on live coral. They placed pieces of coral in jars with sterile seawater and applied feces from corallivore and grazer fish to different jars. Some samples were sterilized, to determine whether the physical characteristics of the feces alone caused the lesions. After the experiment, each piece of coral was examined and categorized as apparently healthy, containing lesions, or dead.

Finally, the scientists sampled the feces of several corallivore and grazer species to find out what bacteria they contained. This helped them understand what kinds of bacteria might be contributing to the effects seen on the coral, whether the feces contained specific coral pathogens, and whether their results from the feces addition experiment could be generalized to other fish that also ate coral or algae and detritus.

Keeping coral healthy

Adding feces to the jars sometimes caused lesions on coral pieces, and potentially even the death of the fragment; fragments without any feces remained healthy. Feces from grazers caused lesions or death in all coral pieces, while feces from corallivores caused fewer and smaller lesions and rarely caused death. Sterilized feces from either type of fish caused little harm, comparable to the low levels of damage caused by corallivore feces. The scientists suspected that this was because of the greater abundance of coral pathogens found in the fresh feces of grazers, and the higher abundance of beneficial microbes found in the fresh feces of corallivores. The fish we assumed were harmful may thus be contributing to important processes that promote coral reef health.

“More research needs to be done to test how fish feces affect corals to see how we might use these feces in management efforts to support coral reef health,” said Grupstra.

The scientists pointed out that the lesion effects of feces may not be so severe under real-world conditions and may not be evenly distributed. The territories and behaviors of fish affect where and when they defecate; feces could disintegrate in the water, limiting lesion formation. Some feces are eaten by other fish, and organisms that live on coral may also move remaining feces that fall on corals, potentially diminishing feces effects.

“Together, these findings result in a more nuanced understanding of the roles of fish on coral reefs and may help us better understand the interactions that are happening on reefs around the world,” said Grupstra. “Both corallivores and grazers have important ecological roles and understanding these roles can help us better manage and conserve these important ecosystems.”

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Marine Science

DOI

10.3389/fmars.2023.1110346 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Consumer feces impact coral health in guild-specific ways

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Apr-2023

$9.9 million Bezos grant for virtual fencing combats climate change

Grant and Award Announcement

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. - The Bezos Earth Fund has awarded $9.9 million to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at Cornell University to support a project developing low-cost virtual livestock fencing that would benefit farmers and animals, improve public health in developing countries and combat climate change.

The multidisciplinary project, housed within CALS’ new Food Systems and Global Change program, aims to improve existing virtual fencing technology, combine it with animal-monitoring technology and make it affordable and accessible to the low-income farmers who need it most.

The Earth Fund, founded in 2020 by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has committed to donating $10 billion this decade to address climate change and protect natural resources. The award to CALS, announced March 15, is the second grant awarded to an educational institution, and the first to an agricultural college.

“Virtual fencing presents an exciting opportunity for grazing systems where traditional fencing may be costly and labor-intensive,” said Mario Herrero, the Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences and professor of global development, who is heading the project and directs the Food Systems and Global Change program in collaboration with Julio Giordano, associate professor of animal science, and David Erickson, the S.C. Thomas Sze Director of the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in Cornell Engineering.

“This technology could enhance grazing management while increasing productivity, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and improving livelihoods. The key is to develop a low-cost system that is accessible to the majority of producers, especially those in impoverished areas. We are thrilled to be partnering with the Bezos Earth Fund to develop and deploy these systems at scale,” said Herrero, also a Cornell Atkinson Scholar.

Livestock production is an enormous and growing component of the global economy and food supply: 40% of Earth’s ice-free land area is used for grazing, and livestock contribute 40%-50% of total agricultural GDP. While people in many parts of the developed world overconsume animal products, for subsistence farmers in developing countries, livestock are a critical resource. They provide additional sources of income, their manure is used to fertilize plant crops without chemical fertilizers and they offer a safety net food source in times of war or crop failure.

Some of the most promising strategies to reduce the environmental impact of livestock farming rely on fencing to prevent animals from overgrazing, protect water sources and reduce human-wildlife conflict. However, in much of the Global South, livestock producers often use hundreds to thousands of acres to support their herds, and fencing is prohibitively expensive.

Fencing prevents animals from overgrazing, which reduces soil erosion and allows plants to recover, thereby increasing their capacity to sequester carbon and combat climate change. It also keeps animals away from sensitive areas such as water sources used by humans, reducing contamination and disease transmission. And it keeps livestock away from areas with known predator populations, decreasing livestock loss and the human-wildlife conflict that often follows.

Virtual fencing involves equipping animals with wearable, GPS-enabled devices that discourage them from leaving grazing areas designated by animal managers. Existing technologies, however, are too expensive for most farmers in low- and middle-income countries.

“Our primary objective is to develop lower-cost virtual fencing systems that are more accessible in areas of the world where farmers will never be able to buy them on their own,” Giordano said. “And once you have these devices on animals, you can also monitor their behavior and physiology, which leads to opportunities for improved animal health and productivity. This ultimately benefits farmers, animals and the environment.”

Benjamin Houlton, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of CALS, highlighted the variety of long-term efforts across campus that will both support this project and benefit from the insights it uncovers.

“This foundational support by the Bezos Earth Fund will catalyze our impactful work in the 2030 Project and AI Initiative, from local to global scales, leveraging Cornell’s unique model of collaboration,” he said. “By combining CALS’ approach to moonshot thinking with the Cornell Atkinson Center and the Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture, these projects will enlist the power of transdisciplinary scholarship, pushing beyond the idea of discipline or domain for real-world impact.”

“The partnership with Cornell CALS, our first grant to an agricultural college, is all about knowledge generation,” said Andy Jarvis, the director of Future of Food for the Bezos Earth Fund. “We need to create knowledge in a space where others can access it. By working with CALS, we’re making this technology open access so that researchers and farmers in developing countries across the globe can access it and adapt it to their needs. These innovative solutions can significantly increase the productivity of land, reduce emissions and make livestock production more sustainable.”

Finding the dream team to beat the heat

Large, superheated objects can be difficult to cool. In Jonathan Boreyko’s lab, the team has found that ice, water, and vapor could be the ideal combination.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: CAMRYN COLÓN SETS UP AN EXPERIMENT IN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR JONATHAN BOREYKO'S LAB. PHOTO BY ALEX PARRISH FOR VIRGINIA TECH. view more 

CREDIT: VIRGINIA TECH

Associate Professor Jonathan Boreyko leads a team at Virginia Tech that has built a strong portfolio of work with ice and water, exploring the possibilities for de-icing planes, building novel water harvesting devices, and creating snow globes out of bubbles. This familiarity with water has given the team a strong sense of its behavior in different states, leading to a new project that shows how ice quenches heat in comparison to water. The findings were published in Chem on April 14.

Mojtaba Edalatpour and master’s student Camryn Colón carried out this project. They investigated methods of quenching heat from metal, a critical step in applications such as metallurgy and firefighting. Both instances require speed. Metallurgists need to rapidly drop the temperature of a forged piece to achieve specific material properties, while firefighters work to stop destruction of property as quickly as possible.  Quenching with water is only effective beneath a critical temperature — any higher and the water levitates on its own vapor and can no longer boil the heat away. 

WATCH VIDEO: https://video.vt.edu/id/1_yk54e4pp

Boreyko’s team wanted to see if using ice, rather than water, could bypass the levitation issue to enable the quenching of ultra-hot surfaces.

Measuring, heating, and measuring again

To conduct this research, Edalatpour and Colón heated an aluminum stage and measured the cooling rate of water versus ice. To ensure a direct comparison, they released the same amount of water and ice onto the surface after it was heated to a desired temperature.

When the initial surface temperature of the stage was between 100 and 300 degrees Celsius, both the water and the ice successfully quenched the surface below 100 C. The ice, however, achieved that result in half the time. At higher initial temperatures — 300 to 500 C — only quenching with ice was successful. Heat transfer with ice was more than 100 times more effective than with liquid water at these high temperatures.

What was the difference? The properties of water prevent it from hitting the sweet spot for removing heat.

That sweet spot is boiling, because the steam escaping in bubbles most efficiently carries the heat away. Because water easily levitates on its vapor at high temperatures, it becomes insulated from the surface and the boiling never occurs. Ice behaves differently. When dropped onto a hot surface, ice absorbs much of the heat as it melts. This reduces the amount of heat available for producing vapor bubbles, preventing the levitation problem. In other words, the meltwater boils at a slower pace compared to pure water, thus helping to maintain boiling at high temperatures. 

Boreyko compared the unusual liquid behavior with worker productivity.

“Think about a workaholic who is always focusing on their job,” he said. “They start off hyper-productive but quickly burn out and become ineffective. It turns out that water is the same way when exposed to ultra-high temperature surfaces: It is so focused and productive at boiling water into vapor that it experiences ‘burnout,’ which is the scientific term for levitation and the catastrophic failure in cooling that results. So ice is like the slow and steady tortoise that wins in the long run. It doesn’t make vapor bubbles very well, but this allows it to keep boiling and avoid levitation when things get heated.”

The frozen path continues

The group’s hypothesis of using ice for quenching followed its recent discovery that ice does not levitate and lose its boiling capability until 550 C, compared to  150 C for water. Based on those findings, Boreyko’s team began several new projects applying its principles. This heat transfer is the first outgrowth to be published.

Colón’s follow-up work includes measuring the cooling performance of ice when the surface is fixed at a constant temperature rather than being allowed to cool down. 

“When you have a constant temperature, you can measure the steady-state heat flux, which would allow us to directly compare the heat transfer of ice versus state-of-the-art boilers,” said Colón. 

The team is also brainstorming how to implement a practical ice quenching system.

“It remains to be seen exactly how to implement three-phase heat transfer for real life applications, but we’re excited to figure it out over the next several years,” said Boreyko. “It might involve making spray nozzles that are able to eject ice particles instead of water, or perhaps it will look more like releasing a pre-formed block of ice onto an overheated surface.  There’s a lot more to figure out before this becomes an on-the-shelf technology.”

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JOURNAL

Chem

Ambrosia beetles can recognise their food fungi by their scents

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF FREIBURG

 

IMAGE: NEST OF A BLACK STEM BORER (XYLOSANDRUS GERMANUS) IN A HAZELNUT BRANCH WITH ADULT FEMALES (LARGE), A MALE (SMALL) AND INDIVIDUAL LARVAE. THE GREYISH FUNGAL COATING OF THE FOOD FUNGUS IS VISIBLE ON THE WALLS OF THE TUNNEL SYSTEM. view more 

CREDIT: ANTONIO GUGLIUZZO

Certain ambrosia beetles species engage in active agriculture. As social communities, they breed and care for food fungi in the wood of trees and ensure that so-called weed fungi spread less. Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Peter Biedermann, professor of Forest Entomology and Forest Protection at the University of Freiburg, now demonstrate for the first time that ambrosia beetles can distinguish between different species of fungi by their scents. "The results can contribute to a better understanding of why beetles selectively colonise trees with conspecifics and how exactly their fungiculture works," says Biedermann. "In addition, the scents of the fungi could be used to develop attractants to control non-native ambrosia beetles."

Beetles orientate themselves by fungal scents

A research team led by Biedermann and the environmental scientist Dr. Antonio Gugliuzzo from the University of Catania/Italy was able to show for the first time that the black stem borer (Xylosandrus germanus) perceives scents of its food fungi and that these act as so-called aggregation pheromones. This means that the beetle uses the scent of the food fungus to find trees that are already colonised by conspecifics. The beetle is an invasive species that is now widespread in Germany and is mainly found in fruit trees. The results have just been published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

"Until now, we could not explain how these beetles attack trees in groups," says Biedermann - because no corresponding scent of the insects' own had been found so far. The experiment now showed that the beetles react to the scents of the specific food fungi that their conspecifics have already cultivated in the branches of a tree. "This enables the beetles to colonise weakened trees in greater numbers and to overcome the tree's defences more easily, thus causing the tree to die," says Biedermann. Further chemical analyses can now be done to determine a component of the fungus scent, which could then be used as an attractant for traps in fruit growing.

Even larvae can distinguish fungi

In another study, environmental scientist Denicia Kassie and biologist Janina Diehl were able to experimentally demonstrate for the first time that another ambrosia beetle species, the fruit-tree pinhole borer (Xyleborinus saxesenii), can recognise and distinguish between its food fungi and so-called weed or harmful fungi based on their scents. Diehl is a doctoral student with Biedermann at the University of Freiburg. "Depending on the condition of the fungi, the beetles in the experiments either specifically sought out the fungal cultures or avoided them," says Diehl. The ability to recognise a potential threat to food fungi or their own health gives the beetles the opportunity to react - and either avoid or specifically combat the harmful fungi. The results of the study have been published in the journal Symbiosis.

The scientists were able to demonstrate the ability to distinguish between different food and harmful fungi in both larvae and adult individuals of the fruit-tree pinhole borer - which each take on their own tasks in the social network in the social maintenance of the food fungus cultures. "These findings are another building block to better understand how the control of fungal breeding by ambrosia beetles works functionally," says Biedermann. "This could also result in ideas for our agriculture to control harmful organisms in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way."

Nest of a fruit-tree pinhole borer (Xyleborinus saxesenii) with adult beetles and larvae. The yellow fungal mycelium of the food fungus is visible in the vicinity of the nest.

CREDIT

Davide Vallotto

Cultures of the food fungus Ambrosiella grosmanniae of the black stem borer in the laboratory of the University of Freiburg

CREDIT

Antonio Gugliuzzo

Factual overview:

• Original publications: Gugliuzzo, A., Kreuzwieser, J., Ranger, Ch. M., Tropea Garzia, G., Biondi, A., Biedermann, P. H. W.: Volatiles of fungal cultivars act as cues for host-selection in the fungus-farming ambrosia beetle Xylosandrus germanus. In: Front. Microbiol. 14:1151078 (2023).https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1151078/full
  Diehl, J.M.C., Kassie, D., Biedermann, P.H.W.: Friend or foe: Ambrosia beetle response to volatiles of common threats in their fungus gardensSymbiosis (2023). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13199-023-00914-y
• Peter Biedermann is Professor of Forest Entomology and Forest Conservation at the University of Freiburg. His research interests include bark beetles, symbioses between insects and microorganisms, especially fungi, and the social behaviour of insects. Janina Diehl is a doctoral student at the University of Freiburg, Denicia Kassie wrote her bachelor's thesis on the topic at the University of Freiburg. Antonio Gugliuzzo is a research assistant at the University of Catania/Italy.
• The research was supported by a DAAD scholarship for Antonio Gigliuzzo, by an Emmy Noether Grant from the DFG for Peter Biedermann and by funding from the University of Freiburg for open access publications.

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DOI

10.3389/fmicb.2023.11510 

Farmer’ beetle finds suitable host trees by tracing scent of its fungus crop

First known chemical cue for aggregation of ambrosia beetles that isn’t synthesized by the species itself

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FRONTIERS

 

IMAGE: ALNUS AMBROSIA BEETLES (XYLOSANDRUS GERMANUS) IN THEIR GALLERIES, TENDING THE BROOD AND FUNGUS view more 

CREDIT: ANTONIO GUGLIUZZO

The alnus ambrosia beetle Xylosandrus germanus, also known as the black stem borer, was accidentally introduced by humans from its native east Asia to North America and Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. X. germanus is a so-called ambrosia beetle, which means that it farms its own food: a specialized fungal symbiont which it ‘sows’ and tends inside the galleries that it digs inside wood. It is a destructive invasive pest, known to attack more than 200 species from 51 families of broadleaf and conifer trees. While it prefers to colonize dead wood, it can also infest and ultimately kill weakened or stressed trees.

A proven way to monitor or even control insect pests is by hijacking their communication system and manipulating it to trap them to their doom. Females of the alnus ambrosia beetle are known to aggregate on individual trees, suggesting that they use chemical signals to find each other and identify suitable trees. And now, scientists have cracked this chemical code. The results are published in Frontiers in Microbiology.

“Here we show that the alnus ambrosia beetle doesn’t produce its own pheromones during tree-host colonization, but rather uses the volatile compounds of their own fungal symbionts to aggregate en masse and potentially kill trees,” said the study’s senior author Dr Peter Biedermann, a professor at the Forestry Institute of the University of Freiburg in Germany.

First evidence of aggregation pheromones in ambrosia beetles

First author Antonio Gugliuzzo, a PhD student at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Catania in Italy, added: “This is the first evidence for the existence of aggregation pheromones in ambrosia beetles of the tribe Xyleborini.”

Like all ambrosia beetles, X. germanus females carry their fungal symbionts in special pockets inside their head. The authors here used molecular methods to culture and identify the two most common symbionts as Ambrosiella grosmanniae, most likely the beetles’ primary food source, and an unknown species of Acremonium that the beetles may or may not eat. In 2020, the researchers caught mated dispersing X. germanus females near Freiburg, and allowed these dig galleries in an artificial medium based on beech sawdust, grow these two fungi, and rear their offspring.

They then used these fungi as bait in two-choice experiments in an apparatus called a still-air olfactometer. Here, X. germanus females were placed in an arena with two dead ends to enter and hide in: for example, one containing an isolate of the two symbionts A. grosmanniae and Acremonium sp., and another with an isolate of an unrelated fungus expected to be unattractive to the beetles – here, an uncharacterized Cladosporium species. The beetles’ preference will depend on their relative attraction to microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOCs) released by the fungi.

In a variant of this experiment, previously healthy beech branches infected with different fungi were presented to the beetles as options for choice.

Beetles prefer odor of symbionts and colonized branches

The results showed that the beetles were most attracted to A. grosmanniae MVOCs and least to Cladosporium MVOCs, and more to branches already colonized by A. grosmanniae than to uncolonized branches. The authors conclude that X. germanus uses MVOCs released by its two symbiont strains as a ‘synomone’ – a chemical signal that benefits both the emitter like and the receiver.

“Occupied tree branches may signal the beetles suitable substrate for the food fungi they depend on. This suitability is probably a delicate balance: trees need specific requirements to allow the beetles to farm the fungus successfully,” said Biedermann.

“But this isn’t an absolute requirement: if a female can’t find any conspecifics, or detect any MVOCs, she could still independently colonize a new tree branch.”

Promising avenue for biological control

These results immediately suggest a new method for biological control.

“Now that we know that the fungi produce attractive volatiles, we may be able to develop new trapping lures for the beetles on the basis of these compounds,” said Biedermann.  

“Moreover, the use of specific volatile compounds for trapping purposes could contribute to the development of innovative and selective trapping methods targeting specific ambrosia beetle species, thereby minimizing catches of non-target arthropods living in the same environment.”

Alnus ambrosia beetles (Xylosandrus germanus) in their galleries, tending the brood and fungus

CREDIT

Antonio Gugliuzzo

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Microbiology

DOI

10.3389/fmicb.2023.1151078 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Volatiles of fungal cultivars act as cues for host-selection in the fungus-farming ambrosia beetle Xylosandrus germanus

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Apr-2023