To make drinking water safer, WVU researcher investigates microbial communities living in pipes

Grant and Award Announcement

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: EMILY GARNER, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AT WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY, SHOWS STUDENTS HOW TO PREPARE WATER SAMPLES FOR ANALYSIS. THE SAMPLES CONSIST OF DNA EXTRACTED FROM MICROORGANISMS FOUND IN DRINKING WATER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM SAMPLES COLLECTED. IN THE BACKGROUND IS RECENT UNIVERSITY GRADUATE MADISON HADDIX. view more 

CREDIT: WVU PHOTO

A West Virginia University engineer is working to solve the unknowns about microorganisms growing inside pipes that bring drinking water to homes and businesses.

Supported by $505,784 from a National Science Foundation CAREER award, researcher Emily Garner has launched a five-year study to learn more about biofilms. Known as “cities of microbes,” biofilms are conglomerations of fungi, algae, bacteria and other single-celled organisms that cling to each other and to surfaces like the insides of water pipes, where they become coated in protective slime.

“Many things influence how biofilms grow in drinking water distribution systems: water chemistry, the presence of disinfectants like chlorine and the forces exerted as water flows through pipes,” said Garner, an assistant professor in the Wadsworth Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources.

“But past research about biofilms doesn’t account for the complexities of varied flow conditions in different parts of a water distribution system. These systems can consist of hundreds of miles of buried pipes, so ensuring the chlorine disinfectant hasn’t decayed by the time it reaches all parts of the system can be a challenge.”

Garner’s lab will develop strategies for maintaining water quality throughout these complex infrastructures and offer recommendations to managers of drinking water distribution systems.

The research also includes an outreach and educational component that will bring K-12 students across West Virginia hands-on activities about water treatment and information about water sector careers.

Research that tests the waters

Rest assured, Garner said, “it’s normal and expected for biofilms to form on the inside of all drinking water pipes. Biofilms rich in organisms that are harmless to humans may even be effective at reducing the growth of harmful pathogens through competition.”

But biofilms can be also detrimental to drinking water quality. The protective environment they create can harbor dangerous microorganisms like salmonella or E. coli, and they can release particles or compounds that affect the taste, odor and color of tap water. They can also facilitate formation of harmful compounds called “disinfection byproducts.”

Garner explained water utilities control the growth of microorganisms by adding small amounts of a disinfectant like chlorine into the water.

“At low enough levels, these disinfectants are not harmful to humans but prevent growth of microorganisms like those in biofilms,” she said. “This is really important for making sure the water that arrives at your home is high-quality and safe, even though it has made a long journey of many miles from the treatment plant.”

To evaluate ways to minimize potential safety hazards, Garner will combine lab experiments with field sampling from water systems throughout West Virginia, where water quality can vary dramatically between communities.

Garner said she drinks plenty of tap water because she knows water quality is high in her home city.

“Here in Morgantown, our water is consistently compliant with all federal drinking water standards, and I drink it daily,” Garner said. “Everyone should be aware that public water systems must create an annual Consumer Confidence Report that describes their water quality and any violations of regulatory requirements for drinking water quality. You probably receive it in the mail, you can often find it online or you can contact your drinking water utility to request it. It’s a good idea to review this report to understand if your drinking water is in compliance with federal regulations.”

Students who chart the waters

Garner’s project, “Elucidating hydrodynamic drivers of microbial water quality in drinking water distribution systems,” prioritizes not only research but also education and training.

Garner will deliver an educational module, “Why Water Matters in Rural Communities,” to K-12 classrooms in West Virginia. Her goal is not only to help kids recognize water’s essential role in supporting healthy, prosperous communities, but also to increase awareness about water careers and promote recruitment of an emerging workforce into apprenticeship programs with local water utilities.

“Having well-trained water professionals is critical for ensuring community access to safe drinking water. Yet the U.S. water sector is facing an imminent workforce crisis. As the existing workforce nears retirement age, we have to raise interest in water sector jobs,” she said.

Garner has a history of leveraging her research to support local communities, especially through the Appalachian Community Technical Assistance and Training Program, in which she assists small utilities in establishing effective, sustainable management practices.

“We provide technical assistance on challenges that often arise among rural utilities,” she explained. “For example, I have partnered with the WVU student chapter of Engineers Without Borders to map the buried water infrastructure of a rural system that had no digital records of where their infrastructure was located.”

Garner will also integrate important topics for rural communities’ water and wastewater systems into courses for engineering undergraduates at WVU, addressing topics such as decentralized wastewater treatment technologies and public health engineering.

Helping plants make better use of sunlight

New findings on photosynthesis

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH (TUM)

 

IMAGE: PROF. FRANZ HAGN (RIGHT) AND DR. UMUT GÜNSEL IN FRONT OF A STRUCTURAL MODEL OF THE TRANSPORT PROTEIN. view more 

CREDIT: ASTRID ECKERT / TUM

Plants use photosynthesis to produce oxygen, nutrients and bioenergy. But this complex biochemical process is inefficient, with only a fraction of the sun's energy actually being utilized in photosynthesis. Researchers want to change this in order to help increase the yield of cultivated crops. A research team in Munich has now discovered that the outer envelope membrane of chloroplasts could play a key role in this process.

Plants absorb carbon dioxide and use the sun and water to turn it into biomass and oxygen. Without photosynthesis, life as we know it would be impossible. However, the photosynthesis process is inefficient, since plants utilize only a small portion of the solar energy involved. Researchers around the world are trying to decode the process in order to optimize it – and to be able to produce more biomass in a shorter period of time.

Logistics as a limiting factor

A research team led by Franz Hagn, Professor for Structural Membrane Biochemistry at TUM and research group leader at Helmholtz Munich, has investigated a new approach to optimizing photosynthesis. The researchers didn't focus on the chemical photosynthesis process, instead they looked at what could be called the logistics. "Increasing the yield of simple sugars and other metabolites in the chloroplasts is the subject of intensive research," says Hagn. "But just improving the process itself won't help. The products must also be transported out of the chloroplasts across the inner and outer envelope membrane so that the plant can use them to grow."

A large number of transport proteins of the inner envelope membrane and their functionalities have already been investigated in detail. However, the role the outer envelope membrane plays in this process is by far less clear. "Among other things there was a theory that the outer envelope membrane functions as a kind of sieve which allows for almost unrestricted passage of these metabolites."

Additional transport mechanisms have to be investigated

The researchers have now shown that this is not the case. Investigating the molecular structure of a transport protein in the outer envelope membrane, they were able to determine the mechanism by which certain molecules reach the outside. The team was thus able to demonstrate that a controlled transport takes place which selects metabolites according to charge and size. "The outer envelope membrane of the chloroplasts has long been ruled out as a barrier for metabolites from photosynthesis. Now we've succeeded in showing that the membrane is probably an important limiting and regulated factor," says Hagn.

Next the scientists want to investigate the structural and functional details of further transport proteins of the outer envelope membrane. In the long term the findings could be used for example to integrate more and larger transport proteins in the outer envelope membrane so that the metabolites could make their way to the outside faster and thus boost the growth of the plant. Hagn: "Increasing the yield of for example energy plants becomes more and more important in the context of climate change, extreme weather and energy shortages."

---

JOURNAL

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology

DOI

10.1038/s41594-023-00984-y 

ARTICLE TITLE

Structural basis of metabolite transport by the chloroplast outer envelope channel OEP21

The future of recycling could one day mean dissolving plastic with electricity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

Chemists at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a new way to recycle a common type of plastic found in soda bottles and other packaging. The team’s method relies on electricity and some nifty chemical reactions, and it’s simple enough that you can watch the plastic break apart in front of your eyes.  

The researchers described their new approach to chemical recycling July 3 in the journal Chem Catalysis.

The study tackles the mounting problem of plastic trash around the world. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States alone produced nearly 36 million tons of plastic products in 2018. A majority of the waste winds up in landfills, said study co-author Oana Luca.

“We pat ourselves on the back when we toss something into the recycling bin, but most of that recyclable plastic never winds up being recycled,” said Luca, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry. “We wanted to find out how we could recover molecular materials, the building blocks of plastics, so that we can use them again.”

In the new research, she and her colleagues got one step closer to doing just that.

The group focused on a type of plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which consumers encounter every day in water bottles, blister packs and even some polyester fabrics. In small-scale lab experiments, the researchers mixed bits of that plastic with a special kind of molecule then applied a small electric voltage. Within minutes, the PET began to disintegrate.

The team has a lot more work to do before its recycling tool can take a realistic bite out of the world’s plastic trash problem. But it was still fun to watch the waste, which can stick around in garbage piles for centuries, disappear in a matter of hours or days, said study lead author Phuc Pham.

“It was awesome to actually observe the reaction progress in real time,” said Pham, a doctoral student in chemistry. “The solution first turns a deep pink color, then becomes clear as the polymer breaks apart.”

One person’s trash

Luca said it’s a whole new way of thinking about the possibilities of trash. Recycling bins, she noted, may look like a good solution to the world’s plastics problem. But most municipalities around the world have struggled to collect and sort the small mountain of rubbish that people produce every day. The result: Less than one-third of all PET plastic in the U.S. comes close to being recycled (other types of plastic lag even farther behind). Even then, methods like melting plastic waste or dissolving it in acid can alter the material properties in the process.

“You end up changing the materials mechanically,” Luca said. “Using current methods of recycling, if you melt a plastic bottle, you can produce, for example, one of those disposable plastic bags that we now have to pay money for at the grocery store.”

She and her team, in contrast, want to find a way to use the basic ingredients from old plastic bottles to make new plastic bottles. It’s like smashing your Lego castle so that you can retrieve the blocks to create a whole new building.

Another’s treasure

To achieve that feat, the group turned to a process called electrolysis—or using electricity to break apart molecules. Chemists, for example, have long known that they can apply a voltage to beakers filled with water and salts to split those water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gas.

But PET plastic is a lot harder to divide than water. In the new study, Pham ground up plastic bottles then mixed the powder into a solution. Next, he and his colleagues added an extra ingredient, a molecule known as [N-DMBI]+ salt, to the solution. Pham explained that in the presence of electricity, this molecule forms a “reactive mediator” that can donate its extra electron to the PET, causing the grains of plastic to come undone. Think of it like the chemistry equivalent of delivering a karate chop to a wooden board.

The researchers are still trying to understand how exactly these reactions take place, but they were able to break down the PET into its basic building blocks—which the group could then recover and, potentially, use to make something new. 

Deploying only tabletop equipment in their lab, the researchers reported that they could break down about 40 milligrams (a small pinch) of PET over several hours. 

“Although this is a great start, we believe that lots of work needs to be done to optimize the process as well as scale it up so it can eventually be applied on an industrial scale,” Pham said. 

Luca, at least, has some big-picture ideas for the technology.

“If I were to have my way as a mad scientist, I would use these electrochemical methods to break down many different kinds of plastic at once,” Luca said. “That way, you could, for example, go to these massive garbage patches in the ocean, pull all of that waste into a reactor and get a lot of useful molecules back.”

---

JOURNAL

Chem Catalysis

 ANIMAL TESTING

Widely consumed vegetable oil leads to an unhealthy gut

UC Riverside-led mouse study reports diets high in soybean oil decrease endocannabinoids in the gut and can lead to colitis

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - RIVERSIDE

 

IMAGE: PHOTO SHOWS, FROM L TO R, FRANCES SLADEK, JAMES BORNEMAN, AND POONAMJOT DEOL. view more 

CREDIT: STAN LIM, UC RIVERSIDE.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- High consumption of soybean oil has been linked to obesity and diabetes and potentially autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression. Add now to this growing list ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, characterized by chronic inflammation of the large intestine.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, examined the gut of mice that were consistently fed a diet high in soybean oil for up to 24 weeks in the lab. They found beneficial bacteria decreased and harmful bacteria (specifically, adherent invasive Escherichia coli) increased — conditions that can lead to colitis.

Soybean oil is the most commonly used edible oil in the United States and is increasingly being used in other countries, particularly Brazil, China, and India. In the U.S., soybean production took off in the 1970s for use as animal feed; a byproduct of the increasing trend in growth was soybean oil. Soybeans, a good source of protein, are easy and cheap to grow.

“Our work challenges the decades-old thinking that many chronic diseases stem from the consumption of excess saturated fats from animal products, and that, conversely, unsaturated fats from plants are necessarily more healthful,” said Poonamjot Deol, an assistant professional researcher in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology and a co-corresponding author on the paper published July 3 in Gut Microbes, an open access journal.

Deol explained it is linoleic acid in soybean oil that is the main concern.

“While our bodies need 1-2% of linoleic acid daily, based on the paleodiet, Americans today are getting 8-10% of their energy from linoleic acid daily, most of it from soybean oil,” she said. “Excessive linoleic acid negatively affects the gut microbiome.”

Deol and her co-authors found that a diet high in soybean oil encourages the growth of adherent invasive E. coli in the gut. This bacterium uses linoleic acid as a source of carbon to meet its nutritional demands. Further, several beneficial bacteria in the gut are not able to withstand linoleic acid and die off, which results in harmful bacteria growing out. Adherent invasive E. coli has been identified in humans to cause IBD.

“It’s the combination of good bacteria dying off and harmful bacteria growing out that makes the gut more susceptible to inflammation and its downstream effects,” Deol said. “Further, linoleic acid causes the intestinal epithelial barrier to become porous.” 

The barrier function of the intestinal epithelium is critical for maintaining a healthy gut; when disrupted, it can lead to increased permeability or leakiness. Toxins can then leak out of the gut and enter the bloodstream, greatly increasing the risk of infections and chronic inflammatory conditions, such as colitis. The researchers note that the increase in IBD parallels the increase in soybean oil consumption in the U.S. and hypothesize the two may be linked.

Toxicologist Frances M. Sladek, a professor of cell biology and a co-corresponding author on the research paper, recalled that heart disease was linked to saturated fats in the late 1950s. 

“Since studies showed that saturated fats can be unhealthy, it was assumed that all unsaturated fats are healthy,” she said. “But there are different types of unsaturated fats, some of which are healthful. For example, the unsaturated fat fish oil is well known to have many beneficial health effects. People therefore assumed that soybean oil is perfectly safe and healthier to consume than other types of oils, without actually doing a direct comparison as we have done.”

Sladek noted that linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid. The soybean oil the researchers used in their experiments had 19% linoleic acid. The American Heart Association recommends 5 to 10% of daily calories be from omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as linoleic acid, in order for the heart to remain healthy. Many seed oils – safflower and sunflower, for example — are sources of linoleic acid. Animal fat can also be a source.

“Every animal has to get linoleic acid from the diet,” Sladek said. “No animal can make it. A small amount of it is needed by the body. But just because something is needed does not mean a lot of it is good for you. Several membranes in the body, in the brain, for example, require linoleic acid for the cells to function properly. If all we ate was saturated fats, our cell membranes would become too rigid and not function properly. Future studies are needed to determine the tipping point for how much daily linoleic acid consumption is safe.”

According to Sladek and Deol, olive oil, which has lower amounts of linoleic acid, is a healthier oil to consume.

“Olive oil, the basis of the Mediterranean diet, is considered to be very healthy; it produces less obesity and we have now found that, unlike soybean oil, it does not increase the susceptibility of mice to colitis,” Sladek said.

James Borneman, a professor of microbiology and plant pathology at UCR and a co-corresponding author on the paper, is an expert on the gut microbiome. He has collaborated at UCR with several groups on research projects, including studies investigating how gut microbes prevent obese people from losing weight. For the current study, he teamed up with Deol and Sladek to examine the gut microbes of the mice that were fed a high soybean oil diet. 

“Adherent invasive E. coli contributes to IBD in humans, and the fact that we find this E. coli in these mice is concerning,” he said. “Sometimes, it can be unclear how research done in mice translates to humans, but in this study it is fairly clear.”  

The research team was also surprised to find that the mice fed on a high soybean oil diet showed a reduction in the gut of endocannabinoids, cannabis-like molecules made naturally by the body to regulate a wide variety of physiological processes. At the same time, the gut showed an increase in oxylipins, which are oxygenated polyunsaturated fatty acids that regulate inflammation.

“We previously found that oxylipins in the liver correlate with obesity,” Deol said. “Some oxylipins have also been found to be bioactive in colitis studies. The bottom line of our current study is that a soybean oil-enriched diet similar to the current American diet causes oxylipin levels to increase in the gut and endocannabinoid levels to decrease, which is consistent with IBD in humans.”

Most processed foods in the U.S. contain soybean oil, perhaps explaining why many Americans have more than the recommended daily allowance for linoleic acid. Further, most restaurants in the U.S. use soybean oil because it is relatively inexpensive.

“Try to stay away from processed foods,” Sladek advised. “When you buy oil, make sure you read the nutrition facts label. Air fryers are a good option because they use very little oil.”

The researchers use olive oil for cooking and salads. Other healthy options for cooking, they said, are coconut oil and avocado oil. They cautioned that corn oil, on the other hand, has the same amount of linoleic acid as soybean oil.

“We recommend keeping track of the soybean oil in your diet to make sure you are not consuming excessive linoleic acid,” Deol said. “That is our take-home message.”

Deol, Sladek, and Borneman were joined by Paul Ruegger, Geoffrey D. Logan, Ali Shawki, Jiang Li, Jonathan D. Mitchell, Jacqueline Yu, Varadh Piamthai, Sarah H. Radi, Sana Hasnain, Declan F. McCole, Meera G. Nair, and Ansel Hsiao of UCR; and Kamil Borkowski and John W. Newman of UC Davis.

The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, American Gastroenterological Association, UCR Metabolomics Core Seed Grant, UC Davis West Coast Metabolomics Center, and U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The title of the paper is “Diet High in Linoleic Acid Dysregulates the Intestinal Endocannabinoid System and Increases Susceptibility to Colitis in Mice.”

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

A diet high in soybean oil is found to encourage the growth of harmful bacteria such as adherent invasive E. coli in the gut.

CREDIT

Sladek lab, UC Riverside.

CAPTION

The increase in IBD parallels the increase in soybean oil consumption in the U.S.

CREDIT

Sladek lab, UC Riverside. Data from Dahlhamer et al, 2016; USDA.

CAPTION

Chart depicts consumption of edible oils in the U.S. for 2017/18.

CREDIT

USDA.

Soybean oil is currently the most highly consumed cooking oil in the U.S.

CREDIT

Stan Lim, UC Riverside.

JOURNAL

Gut Microbes

DOI

10.1080/19490976.2023.2229945 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Diet high in linoleic acid dysregulates the intestinal endocannabinoid system and increases susceptibility to colitis in Mice

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Jul-2023

American mink regrow their brains in a rare reversal of the domestication process

New research by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) suggests that loss of brain size is not permanent in domesticated animals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT

 

IMAGE: NATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA, THE AMERICAN MINK HAS BECOME FERAL THROUGHOUT EUROPE. view more 

CREDIT: KAROL ZUB

Farm animals look different from their wild counterparts in many ways, and one difference is consistent: their brains are smaller than those of their ancestors. From sheep to pigs to cows, domesticated animals have smaller relative brain sizes compared to their wild counterparts—a phenomenon known as the domestication effect. Now, a study by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) has discovered a rare reversal of the domestication effect. Over the course of captive breeding, the American mink has undergone a reduction in relative brain size, but populations that escaped from captivity were able to regain almost the full ancestral brain size within 50 generations. The study is published today in the Royal Society Open Science.

“Our results show that loss of brain size is not permanent in domesticated animals,” says Ann-Kathrin Pohle, a Master’s student at MPI-AB and first author on the paper. “This finding deepens our understanding of how domestication has changed the brains of animals, and how these changes might be affecting animals when they return to the wild.”

Understanding the feral brain

When animals lose brain size through the course of domestication, it’s mostly considered to be a one-way street. Animals almost never seem to regain the relative brain sizes of their ancestral forms, even in feral populations that have been living in the wild for generations. “Once animals loose parts of their body, such as certain brain regions, over the course of evolution, they are gone and cannot simply be regained,” says Dina Dechmann, senior author on the paper, and a group leader at MPI-AB.

Studying whether or not feral animals can regain the relative brain sizes of their wild counterparts is also difficult methodologically. To properly do so, Dechmann says, “you would need to find an animal with separate wild and feral populations to reduce the chance that the groups had mixed. And, you would need to find an animal that could be studied through sufficient brain and skull measurements.” You would need an animal, in other words, like the American mink.

Native to North America, the American mink has been domesticated for the fur trade for over a century. After they were bred in Europe for fur farming, captive animals escaped to form feral populations that have spread throughout Europe. This natural history thus provided the separated populations that Dechmann and her team needed: wild mink from North America, domesticated mink from European fur farms, and feral mink from Europe.

To explore changes in brain size, the team turned to a proxy: skulls. “Braincase size is a good proxy for brain size in mink, and this allows us to take measurements from existing skull collections without the need for living animals,” says Pohle. A museum collection from Cornell University was used to study skulls of wild American mink while European fur farms provided skulls of domesticated animals. For the feral population, Dechmann  and Pohl collaborated with Andrzej Zalewski at the Polish Mammal Research Centre who had a collection of skulls obtained from an eradication program of feral mink. “Usually, the difficulty with skull studies is finding big enough collections to work with,” says Dechmann. “We were incredibly fortunate to work with multiple organizations to obtain the population samples we needed.”

The team took measurements from skulls to calculate relative brain size of the animals. They found that, according to the well-documented domestication process, the brains of captive-bred mink had shrunk by 25% compared to their wild ancestors. But, in contrast to expectations, the brains of feral mink grew almost back to wild size within 50 generations.

Flexible brains

Dechmann suspects she knows why this animal, in particular, has achieved what was thought to be unlikely. American mink belong to a family of small mammals with a remarkable ability to seasonally change their brain size in a process known as Dehnel’s phenomenon. Dechmann, an expert on this process, has documented Dehnel’s in shrews, moles, and weasels.

“While other domesticated animals seem to lose brain size permanently, it’s possible that mink can regain their ancestral brain sizes because they have flexible brain size built into their system,” she says.

This flexibility could have offered advantages to the mink that re-entered the wild. “If you escape from captivity back to nature, you would want a fully capable brain to navigate the challenges of living in the wild. Animals with flexible brains, like the mink, could restore their brains even if they had shrunk it during an earlier time.”

The results don’t reveal if the brains of feral mink function the same as wild type mink. To find that out, the team would have to examine the brains of animals, which is a step for a future study.

 

---

JOURNAL

Royal Society Open Science

DOI

10.1098/rsos.230463 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Domestication effect of reduced brain size is reverted when mink become feral

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Jul-2023

 

Five steps to a world of intelligent life

A path to cognition

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY

Five major changes in the computational capacity of brains have led to the world of intelligent life around us.

That’s the conclusion of Professor Andrew Barron from Macquarie University with Dr Marta Halina from the University of Cambridge and Professor Colin Klein from the Australian National University (ANU), in a paper published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

They say that one billion years of evolution has led to five fundamentally different types of brains, each suited to its purpose.

Their work suggests we have a long way to go before we can add AI to the list. And, as we develop autonomous machines, we can still learn from the coordination of a jellyfish, the single-mindedness of worms, the rapid thinking of bees, and the complex interactions of birds in flight.

Step one is a nervous system to coordinate actions. Jellyfish have diffuse neural networks that are great for coordinating a body and can survive massive damage. But these networks are really bad at putting information together. 

Step two is a centralised nervous system with a brain that can act as a master coordinator and combine information from different senses. Think worms, leeches and tardigrades.

Step three is a brain with feedback (recurrence). Bees can quickly learn different types of art, recognise abstract concepts and navigate using brains that incorporate rapid feedback on actions.

Step four is a brain with multiple recurrent systems feeding back information with and between each system. This allows birds, rats and dogs to do massive parallel processing of information, using the same information multiple different ways at the same time and to recognise relationships between different types of information. It allows monkeys to problem solve and make rudimentary tools.

Step five is reflection. Our brains can modify their own computational structure according to what is needed. A reflective brain can learn the best information flow for a specific task and modify how it processes information on the fly to complete that task in the fastest and most efficient way.

The human brain is reflective, and it has enabled our imagination, our thought processes, and our rich mental lives. It also opened the door for the use of symbolic language, and that expanded our minds even further as it helped us communicate and coordinate so efficiently with each other.

Which brain is best?

“We like to claim we are the smartest animal,” says Professor Barron. “But a bee can do things we just cannot do. A bee is fully functional from the moment its wings dry as it emerges from its cell. It can learn to navigate for kilometres around its hive. I still get lost walking home from the train.

“A jellyfish or a worm might not be Einstein, but they can tolerate a level of damage that would kill or paralyse a mammal. Different types of brains suit animals to different lifestyles. This is why we still share the planet with jellyfish and worms that seem essentially unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. Their brain is perfect for what they need to do. And we can learn from them as we attempt to create new kinds of intelligence for autonomous machines and AI,” Professor Barron says.

---

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI

10.1098/rspb.2023.0671 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Transitions in cognitive evolution

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Jul-2023

Fish mercury peaks in winter and near spawning, and reduces after growing season

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

Fish consumption has long been associated with numerous health benefits. However, it is also the main dietary source of toxic mercury in humans. A year-round study from a Finnish boreal lake shows that mercury concentration in some fishes is significantly higher in winter and near spring spawning and lowest in autumn after the growing season.

The pronounced seasonal changes of warm open-water and cold ice-covered seasons dominate natural cycles in Finnish lakes.

“Summer is the growing season of fish followed by weight loss during winter and spring spawning time” says research team leader, Professor Kimmo Kahilainen from the Lammi Biological Station, University of Helsinki.

Significant changes in temperature and other environmental factors during colder months result in lowered metabolism in fish. Additionally, less food is available for fish during this harsh timeframe. Under these conditions, eventually the energy required to grow is not met by the amount of energy taken in, resulting in weight loss and starvation.

This seasonal cycle means that fish mercury in winter and spring can be up to 30-40% higher compared to summer and autumn. Differences are pronounced in fish feeding on other fish, such as perch and pikeperch, which are important species for both recreational and commercial fishing in the boreal region and continue to be staples in regional dishes. Despite the higher mercury found during these seasons, all fish species in studied southern Finnish lake were below the fish consumption health limit (0.5 mg/kg) for mercury.

Winter is an immensely important driver of natural cycles, but how, and to what extent these colder months influence lake ecosystems is not well understood or just assumed, as minimal field research is conducted during this time of the year compared to warmer months. The nature of the work is demanding, requiring physically intensive and extended periods of time in freezing conditions on potentially unstable surfaces in low light. Such conditions present numerous logical challenges for researchers to contend with and manage effectively and responsibly.

Lead author doctoral researcher Alex Piro from the Lammi Biological Station, University of Helsinki, suggests that “considering our findings in perch and pikeperch, more frequent boreal mercury monitoring in wild fish during winter should be considered due to their higher concentration. When considering the human nutrition and fisheries management perspectives, the sustainable solution would be to consider limiting the fishing near the spawning time.”

This study conducted at the University of Helsinki Lammi Biological Station provides valuable insights into the seasonal dynamics of mercury in fish, contributing to ongoing efforts to accurately monitor and understand mercury levels in fish and support informed decision-making.

---

JOURNAL

Environmental Research

DOI

10.1016/j.envres.2023.116187 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Fish muscle mercury concentration and bioaccumulation fluctuate year-round - Insights from cyprinid and percid fishes in a humic boreal lake