It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
PULLMAN, Wash. – Elk treponeme-associated hoof disease, previously thought to be limited to deformations in elks’ hooves, appears to create molecular changes throughout the animal’s system, according to epigenetic research from Washington State University.
The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, also suggest those changes may be heritable. It remains to be seen though whether this means subsequent generations of elk may be more, or less, prone to catching the devastating disease that severely impairs the elk’s ability to find food and escape predators.
“It’s not just the absence or presence of the infection. It’s affecting the animal’s entire physiology, all the cells,” said senior author Michael Skinner, a WSU biologist. “It shows that there's a molecular impact by the presence of the disease organisms.”
Epigenetics are stable molecular processes that can influence how genes behave independent of the DNA sequence itself. Changes in an organism’s epigenetics can be caused by nutrition or environmental factors – and as this study shows, by an infectious disease.
Working with WSU wildlife veterinarian Margaret Wild, Skinner examined cells from leg tendons of 55 infected and uninfected Roosevelt and Rocky Mountain elk. The legs were donated by hunters and collected by wildlife agencies in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and South Dakota.
The researchers found epigenetic alterations that appeared associated with the disease only in the infected elk. Since the tendon cells were away from the infection in the elks’ hooves, the researchers said it was likely that the changes from the treponeme-associated hoof disease were found systemwide.
“We’re building foundational knowledge to understand this disease,” said Wild. “By doing this epigenetic study, we can see apparent systemic impacts from the infection, even though we don't see those pathological changes when we look at the elk.”
This study is part of ongoing efforts by WSU researchers led by Wild to better understand elk treponeme-associated hoof disease. While the infectious disease is named after the treponeme bacteria, the researchers now believe it is likely caused by multiple bacteria. Wild’s team is conducting studies in captive elk to see if they can pinpoint how it is transmitted. Then, they can start looking at factors such as diet that might change the animals’ susceptibility to the disease.
So far, the disease has not been detected in any wild species except for elk, although the WSU researchers are investigating whether there is a connection to bovine digital dermatitis which is commonly found in cattle. They are also using computer modeling to look at environmental factors such as soil type, moisture and geography to see if they can identify physical locations where elk are more likely to have the disease.
“This is a brand-new emerging disease that hardly anything is known about,” Wild said. “We are taking a multi-pronged approach and conducting a broad range of exploratory studies. Our goal is to do as much research as we can to learn about all the impacts this disease is having on individuals and elk populations to help wildlife managers address the disease.”
On September 30th, the Human Brain Project (HBP) formally completes its 10-year runtime as an EU-funded FET Flagship. The project has pioneered digital neuroscience, a new approach to studying the brain based on multidisciplinary collaborations and high-performance computing. The HBP will continue to have an impact on neuroscience for many years through the EBRAINS research infrastructure and a new way of collaborative work in the field.
Between 2013 and 2023, 155 institutions from 19 countries worked together as core partners of the HBP. In total, the HBP was funded with a budget of 607 million Euros over four funding periods, accompanied by specific grant agreements.
The HBP has produced more than 3000 academic publications and more than 160 digital tools, medical and technological applications, an open research infrastructure – EBRAINS – as well as a multinational and uniquely interdisciplinary community that would not have come together otherwise.
The HBP has driven outstanding advances in brain research and in the development of medicine and technology applications. Among the research highlights accomplished by the HBP are the world-leading 3D atlases of the brain, breakthroughs in personalised brain medicine, and the development of new brain-inspired technologies, e.g., in artificial intelligence and neuromorphic computing.
“The brain is one of the most complex systems that we know of, and organised on multiple levels,” explains HBP Director Katrin Amunts. “Gaining a true understanding of how the brain works requires looking at all of these levels together. In the HBP, we have successfully built the tools that empower researchers to do just that: to integrate insights from multiple scales. This could only be achieved by the large-scale, interdisciplinary collaboration that the Flagship enabled.”
This new way of working together presents a strong basis for the future: The HBP has built a digital platform that fosters large-scale collaborations. The EBRAINS digital research infrastructure offers access to digital tools, models, data and services, facilitating the integration of brain science across disciplines and national borders.
“With the EBRAINS infrastructure, the HBP has built an invaluable resource that will remain accessible to the scientific community after the project has ended,” says Philippe Vernier, co-CEO of the EBRAINS AISBL.
“EBRAINS is on the path to becoming a lasting and integral part of the European neuroscience landscape. The infrastructure is already used by a range of projects beyond the HBP and has been selected for the prestigious ESFRI Roadmap of European infrastructure. Already, national nodes of EBRAINS are being set up in 11 countries,” adds Jan Bjaalie, HBP Infrastructure Director. These nodes across Europe provide their expertise and services to the scientific community through EBRAINS, while also helping to further grow the user base in their country.
Further information
An overview of HBP’s results is available in printed and digital publications:
“An extensive guide to the tools developed“ provides a comprehensive snapshot of a wide set of open research technologies of the the HBP, spanning a range of different research methods, from data management to simulation to core infrastructure tools that facilitate the study and integration of insights from different scales of the brain.
For the lonely, a blurred line between real and fictional people
How friends, story characters are represented in the brain
COLUMBUS, Ohio – In lonely people, the boundary between real friends and favorite fictional characters gets blurred in the part of the brain that is active when thinking about others, a new study found.
Researchers scanned the brains of people who were fans of “Game of Thrones” while they thought about various characters in the show and about their real friends. All participants had taken a test measuring loneliness.
The difference between those who scored highest on loneliness and those who scored lowest was stark, said Dylan Wagner, co-author of the study and associate professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.
“There were clear boundaries between where real and fictional characters were represented in the brains of the least lonely participant in our study,” Wagner said.
“But the boundaries between real and some fictional people were nearly nonexistent for the loneliest participant.”
The results suggest that lonelier people may be thinking of their favorite fictional characters in the same way they would real friends, Wagner said.
Wagner conducted the study with Timothy Broom, a PhD graduate of Ohio State who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University. It was published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
Data for the study was collected in 2017 during the seventh season of the HBO series “Game of Thrones.” The study involved scanning the brains of 19 self-described fans of the series while they thought about themselves, nine of their friends and nine characters from the series. (The characters were Bronn, Catelyn Stark, Cersei Lannister, Davos Seaworth, Jaime Lannister, Jon Snow, Petyr Baelish, Sandor Clegane and Ygritte.)
Participants reported which “Game of Thrones” character they felt closest to and liked the most.
“Game of Thrones” was a fantasy drama series lasting eight seasons and concerning political and military conflicts between ruling families on two fictional continents. It was ideal for this study, Wagner said, because the large cast presented a variety of characters that people could become attached to.
For the study, the participants’ brains were scanned in an fMRI machine while they evaluated themselves, friends and “Game of Thrones” characters. An fMRI indirectly measures activity in various parts of the brain through small changes in blood flow.
The researchers were particularly interested in what was happening in a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), which shows increased activity when people think about themselves and other people.
While in the fMRI machine, participants were shown a series of names – sometimes themselves, sometimes one of their nine friends, and other times one of the nine characters from “Game of Thrones.”
Each name appeared above a trait, like sad, trustworthy or smart.
Participants simply responded “yes” or “no” to whether the trait accurately described the person while the researchers simultaneously measured activity in the MPFC portion of their brains.
The researchers compared results from when participants were thinking about their friends to when they were thinking about the fictional characters.
“When we analyzed brain patterns in the MPFC, real people were represented very distinctly from fictional people in the non-lonely participants,” Wagner said.
“But among the lonelier people, the boundary starts breaking down. You don’t see the stark lines between the two groups.”
The findings suggest that lonely people may turn to fictional characters for a sense of belonging that is lacking in their real life, and that the results can be seen in brain, Wagner said.
“The neural representation of fictional characters comes to resemble those of real-world friends,” he said.
But even the least lonely participants were affected by the characters they cared about most in “Game of Thrones,” the study found.
Results showed that the participants’ favorite characters in “Game of Thrones” looked more like their real friends in their brains than did other characters in the show. That was true for all people in the study, no matter how lonely and no matter who their favorite character was, Wagner said.
“Your favorite characters are more real to you, regardless of loneliness,” he said.
IMAGE: PERCENTAGE OF OLDER ADULTS WHO DISAGREE WITH USING LIFE EXPECTANCY AS PART OF CANCER SCREENING GUIDELINESview more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
A majority of older adults disagree with the idea of using life expectancy as part of guidelines that say which patients should get cancer screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies, a new poll finds.
In all, 62% of people aged 50 to 80 said that national guidelines for stopping cancer-detecting tests in individual patients should not be based on how long that person might have left to live, according to new results from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging.
That goes against a trend in such guidelines, which national organizations develop based on medical evidence. Guidelines mainly aim to help health care providers decide when to recommend different tests to a patient – but they also play a role in insurance coverage decisions.
Guidelines have started to factor in life expectancy because the risks from some screening tests increase with age, and because studies show that a person needs to live about 10 years to get the full benefit of finding cancer early.
But the poll finds that even among older adults who can be characterized as “medical minimizers” when it comes to taking action on their own health because they prefer to avoid medical intervention unless it is necessary, a majority (57%) disagreed with the idea of using life expectancy in cancer screening guidelines.
Meanwhile, 70% of all older adults polled don’t consider it a problem if some older adults get cancer screenings even when guidelines don’t recommend them.
The poll team also asked specifically about the 10-year life expectancy limit, which has already become part of some guidelines. In all, 55% of those polled said it was about right, but 27% said it was too short.
“Personalizing cancer screening decisions to each patient’s health situation, rather than using one-size-fits-all age cutoffs, could benefit both very healthy and less healthy patients in different ways,” said Brian Zikmund-Fisher, Ph.D., a health care decision-making researcher and professor from the U-M School of Public Health who worked on the poll. As a result, he notes, “many guidelines recommend considering the patient’s life expectancy.”
“But when it comes to a discussion between a health care provider and an individual patient, personalizing the cancer screening decision essentially means talking about how long that person is expected to live," he added. “It also means sometimes deciding that not doing a screening is actually the healthiest approach.”
“Right now, insurance plans must cover the cost of cancer screenings for people in the groups covered by guidelines set by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force,” explained poll director Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., an associate professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine and physician and researcher at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. “Depending on how the courts eventually rule, insurance coverage of some cancer screenings could end for some older adults, because insurers would be allowed to set their own standards for coverage and not have to abide by guidelines.”
In addition, he noted, cancer screening guidelines change if new evidence about who gets the most benefit from them emerges. For instance, a draft USPSTF guideline that may take effect soon lowers the age for the start of screening mammograms to 40, while continuing to find insufficient evidence for screening women over 75.
Percentage of older adults, broken down by race/ethnicity, who feel older adults should be allowed to get cancer screenings even if guidelines don't recommend a screening for them.
CREDIT
University of Michigan
More poll findings
The poll allowed respondents to say whether they disagreed somewhat, or disagreed strongly, with the idea of screening guidelines using life expectancy. In all 26% strongly disagreed with this. Strong disagreement was more common among women than men (30% vs. 21%) and women were more likely than men to disagree with use of life expectancy in guidelines about both continuing screening (62% vs 50%) and stopping screening (66% vs 57%).
Strong disagreement with use of life expectancy in guidelines about stopping screening was also higher among Black poll respondents than among white or Hispanic respondents (37% vs. 24% vs 28%).
The poll also shows that 74% of white respondents don’t see it as a problem if older adults get screened for cancer against the guidelines that apply to them – compared with 61% of Black and 61% of Hispanic respondents. Zikmund-Fisher notes that white, non-Hispanic Americans tend to have the most access to cancer screening to begin with.
The “medical minimizers” group of poll respondents were those who answered that they tend to lean towards waiting and seeing if action is needed when it comes to situations with their own health where the need for action is not clear, and that they tend to lean towards doing only what is necessary in health decisions.
While 57% of this group disagrees with using life expectancy in cancer screening guidelines, it was much lower than the 73% of those characterized as “medical maximizers,” but not statistically different from the 62% of those whose answers were somewhere in the middle.
The poll report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for IHPI and administered online and via phone in January 2023 among 2,563 adults aged 50 to 80. The sample was subsequently weighted to reflect the U.S. population.
IMAGE: GENERAL VIEW OF THE SANT ANTONI DE LA VESPA DEPOSIT DURING THE EXTRACTION OF ONE OF THE GARUMBATITAN SPECIMENS.view more
CREDIT: GBE-UNED
New studydescribes a new sauropod dinosaur that lived in the Iberian Peninsula 122 million years ago. This new species of dinosaur, Garumbatitan morellensis, was described from remains discovered in Morella (Castelló, Spain) and made it possible to expand the diversity of dinosaurs known in one of the best fossil records from the Early Cretaceous in Europe.
The sedimentary deposits that emerge in the region of Els Ports de Morella (Spain) contain an abundant record of dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous, around 122 million years old. In particular, some of the first dinosaur remains found in Spain were discovered in the Morella region. In recent years, numerous fossils of Mesozoic vertebrates have been found in the vicinity of this location, some of which are extremely relevant, including an important collection of ornithopod dinosaurs, including Morelladon beltrani, and sauropod dinosaurs.
This discovery, by a team of Portuguese and Spanish paleontologists, is described in a paper now published in the prestigious Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. The new dinosaur species, which has been called Garumbatitan morellensis, belongs to the sauropod group, which is made up of quadrupedal herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks and tails that could reach colossal dimensions.
The remains of this new dinosaur were found and excavated in the sediments that emerge in the Morella locality in 2005 and 2008 in the Sant Antoni de la Vespa fossil-site. In this deposit, one of the largest concentrations of sauropod dinosaur remains from the European Lower Cretaceous was recognized, and in which elements of at least four individuals were identified, three of which belonged to this new species. Sant Antoni de la Vespa thus constitutes one of the key locations for the study of dinosaur faunas in Spain during this period.
“One of the individuals we found stands out for its large size, with vertebrae more than one meter wide, and a femur that could reach two meters in length. We found two almost complete and articulated feet in this deposit, which is particularly rare in the geological record”, says Pedro Mocho, leader of this study, paleontologist of Instituto Dom Luiz, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Portugal).
The article now published presents a detailed description of the fossil remains found in Sant Antoni de la Vespa, identifying a set of anatomical characteristics different from other sauropod dinosaurs. Garumbatitan is characterized by the unique morphology of the femur (the upper bone of the leg) and the elements that form the foot. The femur presents a morphology similar to the femora of more modern sauropods from the Late Cretaceous. This study also analyzes the kinship relationships of Garumbatitan morellensis and other sauropod dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous of the Iberian Peninsula. Garumbatitan is one of the most primitive members of a group of sauropods called Somphospondyli, which corresponds to one of the most diverse and abundant groups during the Cretaceous and which became extinct at the end of the Mesozoic.
Finally, this study highlights the enormous complexity of the evolutionary history of sauropods from the European Cretaceous, in particular, from the Iberian Peninsula, with species related to lineages present in Asia and North America, as well as some groups related to forms from the African continent. These results suggest the existence of periods of faunal dispersal between these continents. The future restoration of all fossil materials found in this deposit will add important information to understand the initial evolution of this group of sauropods that dominated dinosaur faunas during the last million years of the Mesozoic era.
“Our study highlights the enormous complexity of the evolutionary history of sauropods from the European Cretaceous – in particular, from the Iberian Peninsula, with species related to lineages present in Asia and North America, as well as some groups related to forms from the African continent. Our results suggest the existence of periods of faunal dispersal between these continents”, explains Pedro Mocho. “The future restoration of all fossil materials found in this deposit will add important information to understand the initial evolution of this group of sauropods that dominated dinosaur faunas during the last million years of the Mesozoic era”, adds Francisco Ortega, co-author of this study, Grupo de Biología Evolutiva of the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED, Spain).
The name of the new species, Garumbatitan morellensis, contains a double reference. On the one hand, Garumbatitan means “the giant of Garumba”, as this specimen was found at the base of Mola de la Garumba, one of the highest reliefs in the Els Ports region. On the other hand, the specific name morellensis refers to the location where the deposit is located, Morella. The fossil remains of Garumbatitan morellensis form part of one of the largest collections of fossil vertebrates from the Iberian Mesozoic deposited at the Temps Museum of Dinosaurs in Morella and which forms part of the Valencian Community Museum Network.
Led by the Portuguese paleontologist Pedro Mocho, this study forms part of the projects developed by the UNED Evolutionary Biology Group in the Morella region. In addition to the different members of these two groups, are also part of the research team researchers from the Institut Català de Paleontologia, Grup Guix de Vila-real, Museo de Ciencias Naturales de València, the Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) and from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (USA).
General view of the Sant Antoni de la Vespa deposit during the extraction of one of the Garumbatitan specimens.
Reconstruction of the life appearance of Garumbatitan morellensis.
Kinship relationships of Garumbatitan morellensis with some of the most relevant sauropods and bone remains of Garumbatitan morellensis.
New sauropod dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Morella (Spain) provides new insights on the evolutionary history of Iberian somphospondylan titanosauriforms
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
28-Sep-2023
Biological particles play crucial role in Arctic cloud ice formation
IMAGE: TUNDRA NEAR THE NY-ÅLESUND VILLAGE IN THE SUMMER OF 2019 WITH THE ZEPPELIN OBSERVATORY IN THE BACKGROUND (LEFT HAND SIDE, ENGULFED IN CLOUDS). THE TUNDRA IS POTENTIALLY A MAJOR SOURCE OF BIOAEROSOLS IN THE ARCTIC. PHOTO: GABRIEL FREITASview more
CREDIT: PHOTO: GABRIEL FREITAS
An international team of scientists from Sweden, Norway, Japan, and Switzerland, has presented research findings that reveal a crucial role of biological particles, including pollen, spores, and bacteria, in the formation of ice within Arctic clouds. These findings, published today in Nature Communications, have far-reaching implications for climate science and our understanding of the rapidly changing Arctic climate.
The research, whose outcomes have unveiled the connection between biological particles and the formation of ice in Arctic clouds, was conducted over multiple years at the Zeppelin Observatory, situated on the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, in the High Arctic. Gabriel Freitas, lead author and PhD student at Stockholm University, detailed their innovative approach: "We have individually identified and counted these biological particles using a sensitive optical technique reliant on light scattering and UV-induced fluorescence. This precision is essential as we navigate through the challenge of detecting these particles in minuscule concentrations, akin to finding a needle in a haystack."
Sugar alcohols as indicators of fungal spores The study delved into the seasonal dynamics of biological particles, establishing correlations with variables such as snow cover, temperature, and meteorological parameters. Furthermore, the presence of biological particles was confirmed through various methodologies, including electron microscopy and the detection of specific substances, such as the sugar alcohol compounds arabitol and mannitol.
Karl Espen Yttri, senior scientist at the Climate and Environmental Research Institute NILU and a co-author of the study, underscored that: "While arabitol and mannitol are present in various microorganisms, their presence in air are related to fungal spores, and might originate both from local sources or from long range atmospheric transport”.
Microbes contribute to ice nucleation at Zeppelin Observatory The quantification of ice nucleating particles and understanding their properties proved to be a cumbersome challenge. Researchers employed two distinct methods, involving the collection of particles on filters over a week, followed by rigorous laboratory analysis.
Yutaka Tobo, Associate Professor at the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan and co-author of the study, described their strategy: "Our method can quantify the ice nucleating ability of aerosol particles immersed in water droplets at temperatures ranging from 0°C down to about -30°C, thereby revealing the concentration of ambient ice nucleating particles active in Arctic low-level clouds."
Franz Conen, Research Fellow at the University of Basel, Switzerland, added, "By subjecting the filters to additional heating at 95°C, we could identify the proteinaceous component of ice nucleating particles, shedding light on their potential biological origin. Our findings unequivocally establish the prevalence of biological particles contributing to ice nucleation at Zeppelin Observatory."
Paul Zieger, Associate Professor at Stockholm University and co-author, emphasized the important implication of these findings for climate science: "This research offers critical insights into the origin and properties of biological and ice nucleating particles in the Arctic that could enable climate model developers to improve the representation of aerosol-cloud interactions in models and reduce uncertainties related to anthropogenic radiative forcing estimates."
Increases in open ocean areas and snow-free tundra, both sources of biological particles in the Arctic, are expected in the coming decades. Therefore, gaining a deeper understanding of the relationship between these particles and clouds may provide valuable insights into the ongoing and future transformations occurring in the Arctic.
