Thursday, October 19, 2023

Addition of dedicated nursing team to help with catheter insertions can help reduce bloodstream infections in hospitals

by Association for Professionals in Infection Control

A new report published today in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) demonstrates that implementing a dedicated team of nurses to assist with central line insertions can reduce patients' risk of developing bloodstream infections due to those central lines.

In this report, infection preventionists at UNC Health found that having this dedicated team reduced the proportion of central line-associated bloodstream infections occurring within seven days of line placement by 47% among patients included in this program.

Central lines, or central venous access devices, are alternatives to standard IV lines used for hospitalized patients who are critically ill or need long-term treatment. They are more invasive than IV lines and are associated with an increased risk of bloodstream infections; in the U.S., more than 28,000 deaths annually are attributed to such infections. Clinical guidelines offer specific protocols for ensuring proper insertion of a central line, but an internal study of UNC Health providers found that more than 80% of insertions did not follow all recommended practices.

At UNC Health in Chapel Hill, N.C., infection preventionists and hospital leadership aimed to improve patient outcomes by establishing a specialized nursing team dedicated to assisting with central line insertions. The team was tasked with confirming compliance with a clinical checklist, observing and enabling infection-prevention techniques, and ensuring the availability of needed supplies for the procedure.

To measure results, they focused on bloodstream infections occurring within one week of line placement, as this is the time frame in which infections are most likely to be related to the insertion process. In the first three years of the program, the proportion of bloodstream infections associated with central lines in this one-week time frame decreased by 47% among patients whose line insertions were supported by the specialized nursing team.

"While previous studies demonstrated the effectiveness of having dedicated teams to perform central line insertions, there was surprisingly little information available about the use of specialized support teams for this important procedure," said Shelley Summerlin-Long, MPH, MSW, BSN, RN, senior quality improvement leader in the Department of Infection Prevention at UNC Health and the lead author of this study.

"We were eager to evaluate whether having a dedicated nursing team to observe and assist would make a difference in patient outcomes in our hospital. The decrease of related infections by 47% during the team's first three years is remarkable and offers clear validation of this approach."

The UNC Health study was conducted between February 2019 and March 2022. The specialized team of 4.5 full-time nurses provided round-the-clock support for central lines inserted at the bedside of adult inpatients.

Results show:

After a ramp-up period in the first year of the initiative, the nursing team routinely assisted with 110 to 120 central line insertions per month in the second and third years of the program.
When the program began, an average of 60 central lines were placed each month without an assistance request for the specialized team. By the third year of the program, that number had decreased to 44 insertions per month.
During the three-year period, the overall proportion of central line-associated bloodstream infections remained stable at the hospital. Within that, the proportion of such infections among patients whose insertions were assisted by the nursing team decreased from 19% before program implementation to 10% in year three, for an overall reduction of 47%.
The team also conducted audits of more than 100 central lines each month and offered coaching to frontline staff in 90% of cases.

"Decreasing central line-associated bloodstream infections improves the quality of care and saves lives," said Patricia Jackson, RN, BSN, MA, CIC, FAPIC, 2023 APIC president. "The innovative approach described in this study shows that adding trained observers to assist with the placement of central lines has tremendous potential to reduce infections and prevent harm."

More information: A Helping Hand: The Impact of a Central Line Insertion Support Team, American Journal of Infection Control (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.ajic.2023.09.004

Journal information: American Journal of Infection Control

Provided by Association for Professionals in Infection ControlPediatric hospital prevents central line infections for nearly a year

Nokia to cut up to 14,000 jobs after profits drop

Finnish telecom giant Nokia said Thursday it could cut its workforce by as many as 14,000 people after it reported lower-than-expected third-quarter profits.

"In the third quarter we saw an increased impact on our business from the macroeconomic challenges," CEO Pekka Lundmark said in a statement.

Nokia's savings program is expected to reduce the firm's employees to as low as 72,000, reducing costs by up to 1.2 billion euros ($1.14 billion) by 2026, the company said.

The program targets business areas Mobile Networks, Cloud and Network Services and corporate functions.

Nokia reported that its profits reached 133 million euros in the third quarter, a 69 percent drop from the same period a year ago.

"The earnings were much weaker than expected and the outlook is more uncertain. So it's not looking that good in the short term for Nokia," Atte Riikola, an analyst at equity analysis firm Inderes, told AFP.

The telecommunications equipment maker, which is locked in a battle for 5G networks with Swedish rival Ericsson and China's Huawei, said its sales dropped by 20 percent to 4.98 billion euros in the third quarter compared to 2022.

"We saw some moderation in the pace of 5G deployment in India which meant the growth there was no longer enough to offset the slowdown in North America," Lundmark said.

Despite the uncertainty in the third quarter, Nokia expects to see "improvement in our network businesses in the fourth quarter."

But Riikola believed that Nokia's "estimates will come down pretty dramatically."

"There's a possibility for a negative profit warning," he added.

Nokia plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs after sales and profits plunge in a weak market

Jari Tanner, The Associated Press

An attendee photographs the redesigned Nokia Oyj logo on the company's stand on the opening day of the Mobile World Congress at the Fira de Barcelona venue in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. Angel Garcia/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

HELSINKI — Telecom gear maker Nokia said Thursday that it is planning to cut up to 14,000 jobs worldwide, or 16 per cent of its workforce, as part of a push to reduce costs following a plunge in third-quarter sales and profit.

The Finnish company, one of the world’s main suppliers of high-speed 5G wireless networks, said it's trying “to navigate the current market uncertainty" as higher interest rates take a toll.

The company said it is aiming to slash 800 million euros (US$843 billion) to 1.2 billion euros in costs by the end of 2026. That is expected to lead to a reduction from 86,000 employees to between 72,000 and 77,000 over that time period.

Nokia’s third-quarter sales plummeted 20 per cent, to 4.98 billion euros from 6.24 billion in the same three-month period last year. Comparable net profit plunged to 299 million euros in the July-to-September quarter from 551 million a year earlier.

The company’s biggest unit by revenue — the mobile networks business — declined 24 per cent to 2.16 billion euros, driven mainly by weakness in the North American market. Operating profit for the division fell 64 per cent.

“We continue to believe in the mid- to long-term attractiveness of our markets,” Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark said in a statement. “Cloud computing and AI revolutions will not materialize without significant investments in networks that have vastly improved capabilities.”

The market weakness comes as telecom operators, Nokia's main clients, put investments on hold because of higher interest rates and financial costs. Higher rates — enacted by central banks worldwide — combat inflation by making it more expensive for businesses to invest in equipment and more.

The issue is marketwide, Lundmark stressed, adding that Nokia's competitors are facing a similar problem.

The world's other main suppliers of 5G broadband technology are Sweden’s Ericsson, China’s Huawei and South Korea’s Samsung. Ericsson said earlier this year that it was cutting 8 per cent of its global workforce as it looked to reduce costs.

Rather than buying new, operators are using their existing stocks of network equipment like base stations that they hoarded due to a lack of components a few years ago, Lundmark said.

“Investments by operators have reduced remarkably,” Lundmark told reporters during a media briefing. “Perhaps the most serious situation prevails at the North American market, which has a very critical effect to our total profitability.”

Nokia's sales in North America nosedived 45 per cent, to 1.3 billion in the third quarter, from a year earlier.

Even in India, a market that has seen substantial revenue growth in the past few years, the pace of 5G network rollouts — a main growth driver — has started to slow, Nokia said.

“Cost-cutting is necessary so that we can secure our competitiveness and thus our future,” Lundmark said

Chatbots reveal troubling ability to infer private data

by Peter Grad , Tech Xplore

The ability of chatbots to infer private details about users from otherwise innocuous texts is a cause for concern, say Swiss university researchers at ETH Zurich.

In what they term the first comprehensive study of its kind, the researchers found that large language models are capable of inferring "a wide range of personal attributes," such as sex, income and location from text obtained from social media sites.

"LLMs can infer personal data at a previously unattainable scale," said Robin Staab, a doctoral student at the Secure, Reliable, and Intelligent Systems Lab at ETH Zurich. He contributed to a report, "Beyond Memorization: Violating Privacy via Inference with Large Language Models," published on the preprint server arXiv.

Staab said that as LLMs bypass the best efforts of chatbot developers to ensure user privacy and maintain ethics standards as models train on massive amounts of unprotected online data, their ability to deduce personal details is troubling.

"By scraping the entirety of a user's online posts and feeding them to a pre-trained LLM," Staab said, "malicious actors can infer private information never intended to be disclosed by the users."

With half of the United States population capable of being identified by a handful of attributes such as location, gender and birth date, Staab said, cross-referencing skimmed data from media sites with publicly available data such as voting records can lead to identification.

With that information, users can be targeted by political campaigns or advertisers who can discern their tastes and habits. More troubling, criminals may learn the identities of potential victims or law enforcement officials. Stalkers, too, could pose a serious threat to individuals.

Researchers provided the example of a Reddit user who posted a public message about driving to work daily.

"There is this nasty intersection on my commute. I always get stuck there waiting for a hook turn," the user said.

Researchers found that chatbots could immediately infer the user is likely from Melbourne, one of the only cities embracing the right-turn maneuver.

Further comments revealed the sex of the writer. "Just came back from the shop, and I'm furious—can't believe they charge more now for 34d," includes a shorthand term likely familiar to any woman (but not this writer, who thought at first it was a reference to a highway toll hike) who purchases bras.

A third comment revealed her likely age. "I remember watching Twin Peaks after coming home from school," she said. The popular TV show aired in 1990 and 1991; the chatbot inferred the user was a high school student between the ages of 13 and 18.

The researchers found that chatbots also detect language characteristics that can reveal much about a person. Region-specific slang and phrasing can help pinpoint a user's location or identity.

One user wrote, "Mate, you wouldn't believe it, I was up to me elbows in garden mulch today." The chatbot concluded the user was a native of Great Britain, Austria or New Zealand, where the phrase is popular.

Such phrasing or pronunciation that reveals a person's background is called a "shibboleth." In the TV series, detective Sherlock Holmes often identified suspects based on their accent, vocabulary or choice of phrases they used. In the movie "The Departed," one character's use of the word "Marino" instead of "Marine" exposed him as a spy.

And in the TV series "Lost," the secrets of various characters were revealed through specific phrases that dated them.

The researchers were most concerned about the potential for malicious chatbots to encourage seemingly innocent conversation that steers users into potentially revealing comments.

Chatbox inferences allow snooping to a greater degree and at far lower cost than "what previously would have been possible with expensive human profilers," Staab said.

More information: Robin Staab et al, Beyond Memorization: Violating Privacy Via Inference with Large Language Models, arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2310.07298

Journal information: arXiv

'Indirect prompt injection' attacks could upend chatbots

The encounter between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens as told by their genomes

by University of Geneva

About 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals, who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years in the western part of the Eurasian continent, gave way to Homo sapiens, who had arrived from Africa. This replacement was not sudden, and the two species coexisted for a few millennia, resulting in the integration of Neanderthal DNA into the genome of Homo sapiens.

Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have analyzed the distribution of the portion of DNA inherited from Neanderthals in the genomes of humans (Homo sapiens) over the last 40,000 years. These statistical analyses revealed subtle variations in time and geographical space. This work, published in the journal Science Advances, helps us to understand the common history of these two species.

Thanks to genome sequencing and comparative analysis, it is established that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred and that these encounters were sometimes fruitful, leading to the presence of about 2% of DNA of Neanderthal origin in present-day Eurasians. However, this percentage varies slightly between regions of Eurasia, since DNA from Neanderthals is somewhat more abundant in the genomes of Asian populations than in those of European populations.

One hypothesis to explain this difference is that natural selection would not have had the same effect on genes of Neanderthal origin in Asian and European populations. Mathias Currat's team, senior lecturer in the Department of Genetics and Evolution at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, is working on another hypothesis.

His previous work, based on computer simulations, suggests that such differences could be explained by migratory flows: when a migrant population hybridizes with a local population, in their area of cohabitation, the proportion of DNA of the local population tends to increase with distance from the point of departure of the migrant population.

Europe: A territory shared by both species

In the case of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, the hypothesis is that the further one moves away from Africa, Homo sapiens' point of origin, the greater the proportion of DNA from Neanderthal, a population mainly located in Europe. To test this hypothesis, the authors used a database made available by Harvard Medical School that includes more than 4,000 genomes from individuals who have lived in Eurasia over the past 40 millennia.

"Our study is mainly focused on European populations since we are obviously dependent on the discovery of bones and the state of conservation of DNA. It turns out that archaeological excavations have been much more numerous in Europe, which greatly facilitates the study of the genomes of European populations," explains Claudio Quilodrán, senior research and teaching assistant in the Department of Genetics and Evolution at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, and co-first author of the study.

Statistical analyses revealed that, in the period following the dispersal of Homo sapiens from Africa, the genomes of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe contained a slightly higher proportion of DNA of Neanderthal origin than the genomes of those who lived in Asia. This result is contrary to the current situation but in agreement with paleontological data, since the presence of Neanderthals was mainly reported in western Eurasia (no Neanderthal bones have been discovered further east than the Altai region of Siberia).

The arrival of Anatolian farmers modifies genomes

Subsequently, during the transition to the Neolithic, i.e. the transition from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the farmer lifestyle, 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, the study shows a decline in the proportion of DNA of Neanderthal origin in the genomes of European populations, resulting in a slightly lower percentage than that of Asian populations (as currently observed).

This decrease coincided with the arrival in Europe of the first farmers from Anatolia (Turkey's western peninsula) and the Aegean area, who themselves carried a lower proportion of DNA of Neanderthal origin than the inhabitants of Europe at the same time. By mixing with the populations of Europe, the genomes of farmers from Anatolia ''diluted'' Neanderthal DNA a little more.

This study shows that the analysis of ancient genomes, coupled with archaeological data, makes it possible to trace different stages in the history of hybridized species.

"In addition, we are beginning to have enough data to describe more and more precisely the percentage of DNA of Neanderthal origin in the genome of Homo sapiens at certain periods of prehistory. Our work can therefore serve as a reference for future studies to more easily detect genetic profiles that deviate from the average and might therefore disclose an advantageous or disadvantageous effect," concludes Mathias Currat, last author of the study.

More information: Claudio Quilodrán et al, Past human expansions shaped the spatial pattern of Neanderthal ancestry, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adg9817. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg9817

Journal information: Science Advances

Provided by University of Geneva Neanderthals coexisting with Homo sapiens in Europe likely affected by herbivore carrying capacity

Beyond borders: Engaging high school youth internationally in research-based life sciences learning

by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc

A new article in OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology emphasizes the feasibility and importance of making research-based learning in life sciences available to high school youth internationally.

Gayane Ghukasyan, from Yerevan State University, Armenia, and co-authors Vardges Tserunyan, Mher Kurghinyan, and Lusine Hovhannisyan, independent scholars from Yerevan, report on their work on the International Group Project (IGP), which built on the International Biology Olympiad, organized in Yerevan in 2022.

The Olympiad is an annual competition for high school students around the world. The IGP research teams comprised 72 high school students from 32 countries who communicated in a digital environment via videoconferencing. Each team formulated a research question and created and presented a poster in-person to the public based on their research.

Completing the IGP involved forming new collaborations between colleagues with diverse cultural backgrounds and complementary skill sets. The authors formed teams with four students each, ensuring that no team included more than one student from the same country. This was done in order to achieve greater collaboration and intercultural exchange between students.

"This would help not only to introduce the students to an accurate reflection of how scientific research operates, but also aid in finding students who show promise as future researchers," stated the authors.

"The authors report their work on engaging with high school youth from around the world to expand research-based life sciences education upstream, to a high school stage. The paper has broad relevance to youth education in Omics systems science, integrative biology, and life sciences. The paper also cultivates new ways of thinking, for collective problem-solving across generations in the current era of climate emergency. Collective challenges in life sciences require collective solutions, and the findings in the paper are timely in this regard as well," says Vural Özdemir, MD, Ph.D., DABCP, Editor-in-Chief of OMICS.

More information: Gayane Ghukasyan et al, Moving Research-Based Learning in Life Sciences Upstream, and Beyond Borders: An International Group Research Project for High School Youth, OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1089/omi.2023.0079

Provided by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc

The 'AI turn' for digital health: A futuristic view

California supervolcano is cooling off but may still cause quakes

by Lori Dajose, California Institute of Technology

Since the 1980s, researchers have observed significant periods of unrest in a region of California's Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains characterized by swarms of earthquakes as well as the ground inflating and rising by almost half an inch per year during these periods. The activity is concerning because the area, called the Long Valley Caldera, sits atop a massive dormant supervolcano.

Seven hundred sixty thousand years ago, the Long Valley Caldera was formed in a violent eruption that sent 650 cubic kilometers of ash into the air—a volume that could cover the entire Los Angeles area in a layer of sediment 1 kilometer thick.

What is behind the increased activity in the last few decades? Could it be that the area is preparing to erupt again? Or could the uptick in activity actually be a sign that the risk of a massive eruption is decreasing?

To answer these questions, Caltech researchers have created the most detailed underground images to date of the Long Valley Caldera, reaching depths up to 10 kilometers within the Earth's crust. These high-resolution images reveal the structure of the earth beneath the caldera and show that the recent seismic activity is a result of fluids and gases being released as the area cools off and settles down.

The work was conducted in the laboratory of Zhongwen Zhan, professor of geophysics. A paper describing the research appears in the journal Science Advances on October 18.

"We don't think the region is gearing up for another supervolcanic eruption, but the cooling process may release enough gas and liquid to cause earthquakes and small eruptions," says Zhan. "For example, in May 1980, there were four magnitude 6 earthquakes in the region alone."

The high-resolution image shows that the volcano's magma chamber is covered by a hardened lid of crystallized rock, formed as the liquid magma cools down and solidifies.

To create underground images, the researchers infer what the subsurface environment looks like by measuring seismic waves from earthquakes. Earthquakes generate of two types of seismic waves: primary (P-waves) and secondary (S-waves). Both kinds of waves travel at different speeds through different materials—waves are slowed down by elastic materials like liquids but travel quickly through very rigid materials like rock.

Using seismometers at various locations allows one to measure discrepancies in the timing of the waves and determine the characteristics of the materials—how elastic or rigid—they traveled through. In this way, researchers can create images of the subsurface environment.

Though there are several dozen seismometers placed throughout the Eastern Sierra region, Zhan's technique utilizes fiber optic cables (like those that provide internet) to make seismic measurements in a process called distributed acoustic sensing (DAS).

The 100-kilometer stretch of cable used to image the Long Valley Caldera was comparable to a stretch of 10,000 single-component seismometers. Over a year and a half, the team used the cable to measure more than 2,000 seismic events, most too small to be felt by people. A machine learning algorithm processed those measurements and developed the resulting image.

This study is the first time that such deep, high-resolution images have been created with DAS. Previous images from local tomography studies have either been confined only to the shallow subsurface environment at depths of about 5 kilometers, or covered a larger area in lower resolution.

"This is one of the first demonstrations of how DAS can change our understanding of crustal dynamics," says Ettore Biondi, DAS scientist at Caltech and the paper's first author. "We're excited to apply similar technology to other regions where we are curious about the subsurface environment."

Next, the team plans to use a 200-kilometer length of cable to image even deeper into the Earth's crust, to around 15 to 20 kilometers deep, where the caldera's magma chamber—its "beating heart"—is cooling.

In addition to Biondi and Zhan, co-authors are former Caltech postdoctoral fellow Weiqiang Zhu, now of UC Berkeley; Caltech postdoctoral scholar Jiaxuan Li; and former Caltech graduate student Ethan Williams, Ph.D., now of the University of Washington.

More information: Ettore Biondi et al, An upper-crust lid over the Long Valley magma chamber, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi9878

Journal information: Science Advances

Provided by California Institute of Technology Fiber optic cables detect and characterize earthquakes

Researchers reveal possible treatment for sulfur mustard poisoning

106 YEARS LATE(R)

by Addison Dehaven, South Dakota State University

Researchers reveal possible treatment for sulfur mustard in new study — Animals were also susceptible to sulfur mustard poisoning. Seen above, a British soldier outfitting two horses with gas masks on the Western Front in 1918. Credit: IWM Q 10739

During the Battle of Flanders in July 1917, German soldiers deployed sulfur mustard-containing artillery shells on unsuspecting British and Canadian troops, marking the first time "mustard gas" had been used as a chemical warfare agent in war. Since then, sulfur mustard has been used repeatedly in battle—with no known antidote available for treatment.

However, a new study from two South Dakota State University researchers has revealed an effective approach to treating sulfur mustard poisoning. The study was published in the journal ACS Bio & Med Chem Au.

"Since World War I, no one has been able to come up with an effective antidote (to sulfur mustard poisoning)," said Brian Logue, professor in SDSU's Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics. "This study explores a possible treatment."

Logue became involved with this type of research after graduating with his doctorate in 2000. As an undergraduate, he came to SDSU on a ROTC scholarship and was commissioned into the U.S. Army following graduation. During his years in the military, Logue led a research group for the U.S. Army's Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense as a bioanalytical chemist. His primary research focus was on chemical and biological warfare agents and weapons.

"When I got into the Army lab in 2003, their mission was looking at antidotes for chemical agent exposure," Logue said.

When Logue returned to SDSU and set up his research lab, he began investigating if any molecules would be effective in "neutralizing" sulfur mustard after a person had been exposed to it. When Rachel Willand-Charnley joined SDSU's Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics as an assistant professor in 2019, research on an effective treatment began in earnest.

Sulfur mustard history

As noted, sulfur mustard was first used as a chemical weapon during World War I, but its discovery happened nearly a century earlier when French chemist Cesar-Mansuete Despretz reported on early sulfur mustard properties. It quickly earned the nickname "King of Battle Gases" after being a highly effective combat weapon during WWI. It's estimated that the agent was responsible for 33,000 deaths and over 600,000 injuries during the war.

While it was most widely used during WWI, it has been used in combat continuously since, most notably during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s and the ongoing Syrian civil war. When mustard gas is deployed, it can penetrate through various routes of the body, including the skin, respiratory system, conjunctiva and the gastrointestinal system.

The gas has both short- and long-term effects on its victims. Immediate effects include a "bitter taste in the mouth" and a smell of "garlic," according to previous research on the effect of mustard gas during the Iran–Iraq War. Headaches and a loss of vision, followed by blistering and bleeding skin, develop shortly after the gas is deployed. The long-term effects, which can be felt as much as 40 years after exposure, include pulmonary, ophthalmic and dermatologic complications.

"Sulfur mustard causes issues for chemical structures like proteins and DNA that shouldn't have this chemical attached to it," Logue said. "When the chemical becomes attached, essentially the process goes haywire. The results can be pretty nasty in terms of skin exposure. While not immediately lethal, the effects of sulfur mustard incapacitate a person, and the medical system can quickly become overwhelmed."

In terms of chemical weapons, mustard gas is quite "easy" to produce, which is why researchers have been searching for an effective treatment for some time.

Finding a treatment

The challenge with finding a treatment for sulfur mustard is that it has multiple mechanisms of attacking the body and doesn't target a single enzyme, as other chemical weapons do. Because of its multiple mechanisms, there isn't a single anti-toxin that can block the gas and subsequently be used as an antidote.

Logue's prior work indicated that a neutralizing molecule could possibly work as an effective treatment for when skin is exposed to sulfur mustard. As an organic and biochemist, Willand-Charnley was able to help develop an effective therapeutic for this treatment.

"Our goal was to develop a therapeutic that would selectively react with the sulfur mustard," Willand-Charnley said. "Avoiding cross reactivity with biomolecules, thwarting cellular damage."

The research team identified a molecule—methimazole—that has a level of reactivity with sulfur mustard that wouldn't damage skin. Results from this study reveal that methimazole could serve as an effective treatment option.

Now that a molecule has been identified, the team is preparing a grant that would further this research on living organisms. The goal is to one day have this treatment widely available for sulfur mustard exposures.

"Current efficacy studies in vivo are underway to evaluate this promising therapeutic for sulfur mustard injuries," Willand-Charnley said. "Based on these results, we may finally have a viable therapeutic approach to reduce both the immediate and long-term toxicity of sulfur mustard."

More information: Albert Armoo et al, Methimazole, an Effective Neutralizing Agent of the Sulfur Mustard Derivative 2-Chloroethyl Ethyl Sulfide, ACS Bio & Med Chem Au (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acsbiomedchemau.2c00087

Provided by South Dakota State University Analytical methods help develop antidotes for cyanide, mustard gas

Cracking the code of 2022's unprecedented heat waves and droughts

by Chinese Academy of Sciences

Extreme weather events have been making headlines worldwide due to their increasing frequency and severity, often attributed to ongoing global-scale warming. The year 2022 was no exception, with record-breaking heat waves and droughts of highly unusual spatial extent, duration, and intensity.

A study titled "Understanding and Attribution of Extreme Heat and Drought Events in 2022: Current Situation and Future Challenges" examines these events from a global perspective, shedding light on the causes and implications of these extreme weather phenomena.

The research, conducted by a team of scientists from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Met Office, the UK's national meteorological service, delves into some of those events of particularly striking impacts that occurred in various parts of the world in 2022.

Extreme droughts measured by surface soil moisture covered almost 50% of global land areas in 2022, marking the second most widespread year since 1980. In many places, these droughts were also accompanied by unprecedented heat waves with hotspots in China's Yangtze River region, western Europe, the western U.S., the Horn of Africa and central South America.

By exploring the potential roles of circulation patterns, oceanic forcing (notably the "triple-dip" La Niña) and anthropogenic climate change, the study reviews potential causes of the events. With the global community increasingly concerned about the impacts of climate change, the study serves as a crucial reference for advancing our understanding, prediction, and attribution of extreme weather events, ultimately working towards a more resilient future.

Lead author Dr. Lixia Zhang from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences emphasized the significance of this research, "The extreme heat waves and droughts of 2022 were unprecedented in their scale and impact. Our study seeks to unravel the complex interplay of factors that led to these events, with the ultimate goal of enhancing our ability to predict and mitigate the consequences of future extreme weather occurrences."

Commenting on the study, Met Office scientist Robin Clark, one of the co-authors, says, "What happened in 2022, and indeed, in other recent years, really does appear to be a foretaste of what is likely to become increasingly common in coming years and decades as climate change starts taking hold."

The study is published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

More information: Lixia Zhang et al, Understanding and Attribution of Extreme Heat and Drought Events in 2022: Current Situation and Future Challenges, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s00376-023-3171-x

Journal information: Advances in Atmospheric Sciences

Provided by Chinese Academy of Sciences

Looking back on climate extremes in 2021

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