Discovering new anti-aging secrets from the world’s longest-living vertebrate

SOCIETY FOR EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY

 

IMAGE: 

TISSUE COLLECTION FROM A GREENLAND SHARK.

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CREDIT: EWAN CAMPLISSON

New experimental research shows that muscle metabolic activity may be an important factor in the incredible longevity of the world’s oldest living vertebrate species – the Greenland shark. These findings may have applications for conservation of this vulnerable species against climate change or even for human cardiovascular health.

Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) are the longest living vertebrate with an expected lifespan of at least 270 years and possible lifespan beyond 500 years. “We want to understand what adaptations they have that allow them to live so long,” says Mr Ewan Camplisson, a PhD student at the University of Manchester, UK.

Previously it was thought that this long lifespan was due to the shark’s cold environment and minimal movement, but the factors behind this species extreme longevity appear to be far more complex - prompting Mr Camplisson and his team to investigate alternative theories.

“Most species show variation in their metabolism when they age,” says Mr Camplisson. “We want to determine if Greenland sharks also show this traditional sign of aging or if their metabolism remains unaltered over time.”

To measure the metabolism of the sharks, Mr Camplisson and his team conducted enzyme assays on preserved muscle tissue samples from Greenland sharks. They measured the metabolic activity of these enzymes with a spectrophotometer across a range of different shark ages and environmental temperatures.

Surprisingly, Mr Camplisson and his team found no significant variation in muscle metabolic activity across different ages, suggesting that their metabolism does not appear to decrease over time and may play a key role in their longevity. “This is quite different to most animals which tend to show some variation in their metabolic enzyme activity as they age,” he says. “The results support our hypothesis that the Greenland shark does not show the same traditional signs of aging as other animals.”

The results of this study also show that the Greenland shark's metabolic enzymes were significantly more active at higher temperatures. “This would suggest that the shark’s red muscle metabolism is not specially adapted for the polar environment, otherwise we would have expected to see less of a temperature related difference in activity,” says Mr Camplisson.

In a world with a rapidly changing climate, long-lived species that are less able to adapt may be the most at risk of extinction. “A female Greenland shark may not become sexually mature until it is 150 years old and with such a long generation time, the species will have far less of a chance to adapt to anthropogenic changes in their environment,” says Mr Camplisson.

Mr Camplisson plans to test more enzymes and tissue types to gain an even deeper understanding of the shark’s metabolic activity. “My ultimate goal is to protect the species and the best way to do this is to better understand them,” he says.

Mr Camplisson is also interested in the possible applications of this research for our understanding of human heart disease. “By studying the Greenland shark and its heart, we may be able to better understand our own cardiovascular health,” he says. “These are issues that become progressively more common and severe with increasing age.”

This research is being presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Prague on the 2-5th July 2024.

A new breakthrough in understanding regeneration in a marine worm

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CNRS

 

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JUVENILE WORM OF THE SPECIES PLATYNEREIS DUMERILII.

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CREDIT: © DR. PIERRE KERNER, INSTITUT JACQUES MONOD

The sea worm Platynereis dumerilii is only a few centimetres long but has a remarkable ability: in just a few days, it can regenerate entire parts of its body after an injury or amputation. By focusing more specifically on the mechanisms at play in the regeneration of this worm’s tail, a research team led by a CNRS scientist1 has observed that gut cells play a role in the regeneration of the intestine as well as other tissues such as muscle and epidermis. Even more surprising, the team found that this ability of gut cells to regenerate other tissue varies according to their location: the closer they are to the posterior end of the worm, the greater the variety of cell types they can rebuild2. This study will appear in Development on 2 July.

Scientists carried out these observations by monitoring the outcome of gut cells and proliferative cells that form close to the amputated end of the worm. This was tracked using different markers in particular by fluorescent beads ingested by the worms. Annelids, or ‘segmented worms’, which have only been studied in the last 20 years, are an ideal model for the study of regeneration, a process that is widespread in animals but still mysterious for scientists.

The research team will continue this work to determine whether cell types, other than gut cells, can play a role in regenerating a variety of cell types.

Notes

1 - Working at the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Université Paris Cité). Scientists at Inserm and Université Paris Cité also contributed to this research.

2 - Only cells involved in the nervous system and growth zone of the worm (a ring of stem cells involved in the continuous growth of the animal until it reaches sexual maturity) cannot, it appears, be generated by gut cells found in the posterior end of the worm.  

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JOURNAL

Development

DOI

10.1242/dev.202452 

ARTICLE TITLE

Variations in cell plasticity and proliferation underlie distinct modes of regeneration along the antero-posterior axis in the annelid Platynereis.

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Jul-2024

 

Six out of ten illegal online ads for medicines are not recognized by consumers

CAPSULE Project, led by Transcrime-Università Cattolica, analyzed consumer awareness towards online purchases of illicit medicines in Italy and Spain

UNIVERSITA CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE

Only half (53%) of online advertisements for medicines are correctly categorized by consumers as legitimate or illicit. This result emerged from  project CAPSULE, conducted  by Transcrime, Joint Research Center of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in cooperation with the Inspection & Certification Department of the Italian Medicines Agency - AIFA and supported by Michigan State University’s Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection (A-CAPP). The project aimed to investigate consumers’ awareness of substandard and falsified medicines (SFMs) and the risk of purchasing them online.

The pharmaceutical illicit market has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, exploiting vulnerable consumers through misleading online advertisements and websites, endangering public health and undermining regulatory measures. Existing efforts to combat the spread of SFMs online focus mainly on targeting online supply. The CAPSULE project instead focused on the demand side of the market, assessing the exposure and behavior of Italian and Spanish consumers to define targeted information campaigns and interventions. The report is available here.

In January 2024, a survey was conducted among a representative sample of Internet users in Italy and Spain who were aware of the possibility of buying medicines online and had been exposed to online advertising or had bought at least one medicine online. The survey exposed them to a mix of legitimate and illegitimate online advertisements for medicines. The results showed that consumers correctly categorized legitimate advertisements 63% of the time, but struggled significantly with illicit ads, correctly identifying them only 43% of the time in Italy and 42% in Spain. The most important factors influencing the decisions of the respondents are the absence of a label certifying authorization by the Ministry of Health, followed by the absence of a drug description or the presence of errors.

To foster responsible choices among consumers, the results of the study highlight the need for awareness campaigns tailored to different demographics and types of consumers: while older participants showed less capacity to detect illicit advertisements, younger participants expressed less trust in healthcare professionals and a higher propensity to rely on the Internet for obtaining healthcare information.

Analysis of respondents' awareness and behavior also showed that:

• Most respondents were aware that legitimate online medicine sales in Italy and Spain are restricted to non-prescription medicines (73% in Italy and 66% in Spain).
• Only one third distinguished dietary supplements from medicinal products, underscoring the difficulty in distinguishing between products subject to different regulations.
• More than half of respondents (58% in Italy, 52% in Spain) rely on the internet for medical information and around 40% look for specific health solutions or alternative treatments online.
• Italian participants exhibited a higher rate of online purchases (69%) of medicines compared to Spain (52%). A substantial majority of Italians (85%) and Spaniards (75%) reported having seen at least one form of online advertisement for medicines.
• A comparison with a previous survey conducted in 2015-2016 by AIFA and Sapienza University of Rome revealed a significant increase in online medicine purchases in both countries.
• Websites are the primary access points for both advertising and purchases for online medicines, followed by social media and e-commerce platforms. Social media are emerging as relevant platforms for advertising.
• In Italy, flu treatments were the most popular online purchases, followed by chronic pain and cholesterol management medicines. Spanish consumers mainly bought performance-enhancing and weight-loss products.

 

“Given the overall increase in online purchases of medicines," says Dr. Marco Dugato, researcher at Transcrime, "the results of the CAPSULE project and, specifically, the difficulty in distinguishing illegal advertising underline, on the one side, the role of targeted awareness campaigns to help consumers make informed choices and, on the other  side,  the need for better crime-proofing of legitimate advertising and selling channels to reduce the diffusion of substandard or fake medicines. This also requires a constant support from research in this area to monitor evolving consumer behavior and market dynamics".

"This collaboration with Transcrime gives continuity to the work on online pharmaceuticals that AIFA has been carrying out for almost twenty years," says Dr. Domenico Di Giorgio, Director of the Office for Product Quality and Fight against Pharmaceutical Crime of the Italian Medicines Agency - AIFA.  "The ability of national centres of excellence to work together in important international initiatives, as Transcrime and AIFA recently did for the MEDI-THEFT project on medicines theft, is one of the most effective features of the Italian approach in this field and a key element in defining strategies to combat pharmaceutical crime and other forms of market distortion."

“This survey findings’ point to the significant availability of substandard and falsified medicines in online marketplaces, but more importantly, the proliferation of advertising such products to consumers,” says Dr. Saleem Alhabash, Associate Director of Research at the A-CAPP Center. “The combination of SFM supply and promotion/marketing of these products via social media presents a heightened risk to the health and well-being of consumers in Italy and Spain, as well as other countries around the world.”

 

 

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ARTICLE TITLE

Six out of Ten Illegal Online Ads for Medicines Are Not Recognised by Consumers

 

New lab test to detect persistent HIV strains in Africa may aid search for cure

WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE

 

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HIV PARTICLES (TINY YELLOW SPHERES) ARE ATTACKING A CD4+ T CELL SHOWN IN BLUE. THE VIRUS PREFERENTIALLY TARGETS T CELLS, WHICH PLAY A CRITICAL ROLE IN THE BODY'S IMMUNE RESPONSE AGAINST INVADERS LIKE BACTERIA AND VIRUSES.

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CREDIT: SETH PINCUS, ELIZABETH FISCHER AND AUSTIN ATHMAN, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

A multinational team led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators developed a test that will help measure the persistence of HIV in people affected by viral strains found predominantly in Africa—a vital tool in the search for an HIV cure that will benefit patients around the world.

The study, published in Nature Communications on July 2, helps fill a major gap in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) research. Most HIV studies have focused on strains circulating in Western countries, predominantly in men who have sex with men affected by subtype B. Few studies have examined strains circulating in Africa, where women are disproportionately affected.

“HIV cure research tends to focus on viral strains circulating in developed countries, but to achieve a cure that is globally applicable, we must study viral strains that are affecting other regions of the world,” said lead author Dr. Guinevere Lee, assistant professor of virology in medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The findings show—like other studies in developed countries—that HIV strains circulating in Africa establish viral reservoirs in the human body. Although antiretroviral therapy can reduce the level of HIV in the blood to an undetectable level, these dormant reservoirs continue to survive. They contain a large number of defective proviral DNA genomes which can’t produce new infectious viruses, but a small number of genomes remain genetically intact and ready to produce active viruses if antiretroviral treatment is interrupted.

The large proportion of defective viral genomes obscures researchers’ attempts to accurately quantify the copies of intact proviruses. “We are looking for a needle in a haystack: To achieve an HIV cure, we need to first find out whether any genome-intact proviruses remain in the body during antiretroviral treatment. Our new assay allows us to do this. Then we need to target and eliminate the intact proviral DNA capable of producing new viruses,” Dr. Lee explained.

Broadening the Lens of HIV Research with a New Assay

Dr. Lee and her colleagues analyzed DNA from immune cells called CD4+ T cells, where viral DNA hides, of 16 women and 7 men receiving antiretroviral HIV treatment in Uganda. Genetic sequencing of the virus revealed two predominant HIV-1 subtypes: A1 and D (a notoriously aggressive strain). The study also identified viral hybrids of A1 and D.

The team then modified existing laboratory tests that identify HIV subtype B proviruses to detect proviruses that are subtypes A1 and D. “The new assay we’ve developed will help researchers home in on the intact proviral genomes relevant to HIV cure research for patients affected by these under studied strains,” Dr. Lee said.

Dr. Lee and her multinational, multi-institution collaborators are already using the new assay to study long-term viral persistence in Uganda. Their findings show that the composition of the HIV proviral genomic landscape is broadly comparable between subtypes A1, D and B suggesting that approaches to target intact HIV reservoirs in Africa will face similar “needle-in-a-haystack” challenges as in North America and Europe. Future studies will also need to evaluate differences in non-B subtypes to understand whether subtype-specific factors impact persistence, reactivation or clearance in viral reservoirs.

Senior authors on the paper include Dr. Andrew Redd, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Jessica Prodger, assistant professor, Departments of Microbiology & Immunology and Epidemiology & Biostatistics at Western University, Canada.

Researchers from Simon Fraser University, Canada; British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Canada; Rakai Health Sciences Program, Uganda; University of Cape Town, South Africa; and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine also contributed to this study.

The National Institutes of Health is funding this work through the Research Enterprise to Advance a Cure for HIV (REACH) Martin Delaney Collaboratory, which is co-led by Dr. Brad Jones, associate professor of immunology in medicine and also associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Dr. Marina Caskey,   professor of clinical investigation at Rockefeller University and an adjunct professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and attending infectious disease physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The REACH Collaboratory is one of 10 NIH-funded collaborative research groups worldwide focused on finding an HIV cure.

This work was supported in part by the Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and NIH grants R21AI150398, R01AI162221 and UM1AI164565.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

 

States with highest COVID-19 vaccination rates showed steepest decline in pediatric asthma prevalence

Study suggests COVID-19 vaccination might have broader benefits for children living with asthma

NEMOURS

WILMINGTON, Del. (July 3, 2024) — States with high rates of COVID-19 vaccination saw more pediatric asthma patients get a break from their symptoms, according to new research published today in JAMA Network Open by leaders from Nemours Children’s Health and Endeavor Health.

“Asthma is one of the most common chronic illnesses among children in the United States, with about 4.7 million children experiencing symptoms each year,” said lead author Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, Executive Vice-President, Enterprise Physician-in-Chief and Chief Scientific Officer of Nemours Children’s Health. “Whether asthma is mild or severe, it affects children’s quality of life. So anything we can do to help kids avoid flare-ups is beneficial.”

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, social distancing and school closures are thought to have resulted in fewer flares of asthma for many pediatric patients. Dr. Davis and coauthor Lakshmi Halasyamani, MD, Chief Clinical Officer of Endeavor Health in Evanston, Illinois, wondered whether that benefit extended into 2021, as the first vaccines against COVID-19 were being widely administered to adults and then children.

In the study, Drs. Davis and Halasyamani compared the change in parent-reported childhood asthma symptoms between 2018-2019 and 2020-2021. They combined that data with state COVID-19 vaccination rates for people ages 5 and up in 2020-2021, as reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  

The researchers found that with each increase of 10 percentage points in COVID-19 vaccination coverage, parent-reported child asthma symptoms decreased by .36 percentage points.

States in the highest quarter of COVID-19 vaccination rates overall had a decrease in asthma symptoms of 1.7 percentage points—an almost 3 times more favorable impact than states in the lowest quarter of COVID-19 vaccination rates overall, which saw an average decrease in asthma symptoms of only 0.6 percentage points in 2020-2021, compared with 2018-2019.

 

The coauthors explained that several factors could have contributed to the reduction in asthma symptoms. Community-level immunity, also called “herd immunity,” in states with higher vaccination rates may have helped reduce children’s risk of contracting COVID-19 and developing asthma complications. Another possibility is that children living in states with higher COVID-19 vaccination rates may have been more likely to get the shots soon after immunizations were approved for their age groups.

 

According to the coauthors, these findings also raise the possibility that COVID-19 vaccinations may effectively fight other illnesses that stem from coronaviruses, including the common cold.

 

“Ongoing vaccination against COVID-19 may offer direct benefits for children with a history of asthma, but this must be confirmed with further research,” said Dr. Halasyamani. “It also raises the question of whether broader population-level COVID-19 vaccination among children and adults can help protect children with asthma, too.”

 

The coauthors pointed out that one limitation of the study is that it did not measure vaccination rates specifically in children with asthma. In addition, while parent-reported data is considered a meaningful measure of patient experience, additional data such as hospital stays or emergency department visits could be used to verify these findings.

About Nemours Children's Health

Nemours Children’s Health is one of the nation’s largest multistate pediatric health systems, which includes two freestanding children's hospitals and a network of more than 70 primary and specialty care practices. Nemours Children's seeks to transform the health of children by adopting a holistic health model that utilizes innovative, safe, and high-quality care, while also addressing children’s needs well beyond medicine. In producing the highly acclaimed, award-winning pediatric medicine podcast Well Beyond Medicine, Nemours underscores that commitment by featuring the people, programs and partnerships addressing whole child health. Nemours Children's also powers the world’s most-visited website for information on the health of children and teens, Nemours KidsHealth.org.

The Nemours Foundation, established through the legacy and philanthropy of Alfred I. duPont, provides pediatric clinical care, research, education, advocacy, and prevention programs to the children, families and communities it serves. For more information, visit Nemours.org.

About Endeavor Health

Endeavor Health℠ is a Chicagoland-based integrated health system driven by the mission to help everyone in their communities be their best. Illinois’ third-largest health system and third-largest medical group serves an area of more than 4.2 million residents across seven northeast Illinois counties. More than 27,000 team members and more than 7,100 physician and advance practice provider partners deliver seamless access to personalized, pioneering, world-class patient care across more than 300 ambulatory locations and nine hospitals, including eight Magnet-recognized acute care hospitals – Edward (Naperville), Elmhurst, Evanston, Glenbrook (Glenview), Highland Park, Northwest Community (Arlington Heights), Skokie and Swedish (Chicago) and Linden Oak Behavioral Health Hospital (Naperville). For more information, visit www.endeavorhealth.org.

 

 

 

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Association of COVID-19 Vaccination with Parent-Reported Symptomatic Child Asthma Prevalence

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Jul-2024

FOR WOMEN, THE WORKPLACE REFLECTS THE HOME

Women in the healthcare workforce are more likely than men to experience verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and bullying, while men experience more physical violence, per global scoping review

PLOS

Women in the healthcare workforce are more likely than men to experience verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and bullying, while men experience more physical violence, per global scoping review.

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Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0003336

Article Title: A gender-based review of workplace violence amongst the global health workforce—A scoping review of the literature

Author Countries: Canada

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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JOURNAL

PLOS Global Public Health

DOI

10.1371/journal.pgph.0003336 

COI STATEMENT

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

 

Measuring body language

A large international and interdisciplinary research team led by by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, develop software to measure the objective kinematic features of movements that express emotions

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT

Is it possible to decode how we feel from our movements? How can emotions be studied “from the outside” by using empirical methods? To answer these questions, a large international and interdisciplinary research team led by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, has developed an integrative scientific methodology. Using artistic and digital means such as motion capture technology, the researchers developed the EMOKINE software to measure the objective kinematic features of movements that express emotions. The results of the study have recently been published in the journal Behavior Research Methods.

The team had a professional dancer repeat short dance choreographies in front of a green screen. She was asked to express different emotions through her movements: anger, contentment, fear, happiness, neutrality, and sadness. To capture the dance movements as “data,” the scientists dived into the MPIEA’s technology pool: the dancer wore a full-body motion capture suit from XSENS®, equipped with a total of 17 highly sensitive sensors. In combination with a film camera, the dynamic body movements were measured and recorded. The researchers then extracted the objective kinematic characteristics (movement parameters) and programmed the software EMOKINE, which provides these movement parameters from data sets at the touch of a button.

Computerized Tracking for Whole-Body Movement

A total of 32 statistics from 12 movement parameters were compiled and extracted from a pilot dance dataset. The kinematic parameters recorded were, for example, speed, acceleration, or contraction of the limbs.

“We identified 12 kinematic features of emotional whole-body movements that have been discussed separately in the literature about previous research. We then extracted all of them from one same data set, and subsequently fed the features into the EMOKINE software,” reports first author Julia F. Christensen of the MPIEA.

Movement tracking has been used in many areas in recent years because the objective recording of movement parameters can provide insights into people's intentions, feelings and state of mind. However, this research requires a theory-based methodology so meaningful conclusions can be drawn from the recorded data.

“This work shows how artistic practice, psychology, and computer science can work together in an ideal way to develop methods for studying human cognition,” says co-first author Andrés Fernández of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany.

The methodological framework that accompanies the software package, and which explicitly uses dance movements to study emotions, is a departure from previous research approaches, which have often used video clips of “emotional actions,” such as waving hands or walking.

“We are particularly excited about the publication of this work, which involved so many experts, for example from the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, the University of Glasgow, and a film team from WiseWorld Ai, Portugal. It brought together disciplines from psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and empirical aesthetics, but also from dance and film,” summarizes senior author Gemma Roig, Professor of Computer Science, Computational Vision, and AI Lab at Goethe University.

The Open-Source Software Package

EMOKINE is freely available on ZENODO and GitHub and can be adapted to other motion capture systems with minor modifications. These freely available digital tools can be used to analyze the emotional expression of dancers and other groups of artists, and also everyday movements.

The researchers now hope that the EMOKINE software they have developed will be used in experimental psychology, affective neuroscience, and in computer vision—especially in AI-assisted analysis of visual media, a branch of AI that enables computers and systems to extract meaningful information from digital images, videos, and other visual inputs. EMOKINE will help scientists answer research questions about how kinematic parameters of whole-body movements convey different intentions, feelings, and states of mind to the observer.

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JOURNAL

Behavior Research Methods

DOI

10.3758/s13428-024-02433-0 

ARTICLE TITLE

EMOKINE: A software package and computational framework for scaling up the creation of highly controlled emotional full-body movement datasets

 

Giant salamander-like creature was a top predator in the ice age before the dinosaurs

FIELD MUSEUM

 

IMAGE: 

ARTIST’S RENDERING OF GAIASIA JENNYAE.

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CREDIT: CREDIT: GABRIEL LIO.

Forty million years before the first dinosaurs evolved, a ferocious predator lurked in swampy waters. Its skull alone was over two feet long. It lay in wait, its jaws open wide, preparing to clamp down its interlocking jaws on any prey unwise enough to swim past. Meet Gaiasia jennyae, the swamp creature with a toilet seat-shaped head. Scientists described the newly-discovered fossil in a paper in the journal Nature. 

“Gaiasia jennyae was considerably larger than a person, and it probably hung out near the bottom of swamps and lakes. It's got a big, flat, toilet seat-shaped head, which allows it to open its mouth and suck in prey. It has these huge fangs, the whole front of the mouth is just giant teeth,” says Jason Pardo, an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the Field Museum in Chicago and the co-lead author of the Nature study. “It’s a big predator, but potentially also a relatively slow ambush predator.”

The fossil is named for the Gai-as Formation in Namibia where it was found, and for Jenny Clack, a paleontologist who specialized in the evolution of early tetrapods-- the four-limbed vertebrates that evolved from lobe-finned fishes and gave rise to amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

Pardo’s co-lead author, Claudia Marsicano of the University of Buenos Aires and her colleagues found the fossil. “When we found this enormous specimen just lying on the outcrop as a giant concretion, it was really shocking. I knew just from seeing it that it was something completely different. We were all very excited,” said Marsicano. “After examining the skull,  the structure of the front of the skull caught my attention. It  was the only clearly visible part at that time, and it showed very unusually interlocking large fangs, creating a unique bite for early tetrapods.”

The team unearthed several specimens, including one with a well-preserved, articulated skull and spine. “We had some really fantastic material, including a complete skull, that we could then use to compare with other animals from this age and get a sense of what this animal was and what makes it unique,” says Pardo. It turns out, there’s a lot about the creature that makes it special. 

While today, Namibia is just north of South Africa, it was even further south 300 million years ago. It was near the 60th parallel, almost even with the northernmost point of Antarctica today. And at that time, the Earth was nearing the end of an ice age. The swampy land near the equator was drying up and becoming more forested, but closer to the poles, the swamps remained, potentially alongside patches of ice and glaciers. 

In the warmer, drier parts of the world, animals were evolving to new forms. Early four-legged vertebrates, called stem tetrapods, branched out and split into lineages that would one day become mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. But on the fringes, in places like what’s now Namibia, more ancient forms remained. 

“Gaiasia is a stem tetrapod-- it’s a holdover from that earlier group, before they evolved and split into the groups that would become mammals and birds and reptiles and amphibians, which are called crown tetrapods,” says Pardo. “It’s really, really surprising that Gaiasia is so archaic. It was related to organisms that went extinct probably 40 million years prior.”

What’s more, for an oddball holdover from an even more ancient time, Gaiasia seemed to be doing pretty well for itself. “There are some other more archaic animals still hanging on 300 million years ago, but they were rare, they were small, and they were doing their own thing,” says Pardo. “Gaiasia is big, and it is abundant, and it seems to be the primary predator in its ecosystem.”

And while Gaiasia jennyae is just one species, it yields big-picture information for paleontologists studying how the world was changing during the Permian period. “It tells us that what was happening in the far south was very different from what was happening at the Equator. And that’s really important because there were a lot of groups of animals that appeared at this time that we don’t really know where they came from,” says Pardo. “The fact that we found Gaiasia in the far south tells us that there was a flourishing ecosystem that could support these very large predators. The more we look, we might find more answers about these major animal groups that we care about, like the ancestors of mammals and modern reptiles.”

Fossil skeleton, including the skull and backbone, of Gaiasia jennyae.

CREDIT

Credit: C. Marsicano.

Gaiasia jennyae as was found in the field with C. Marsicano.

CREDIT

Credit: Roger M.H. Smith

JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-07572-0 

ARTICLE TITLE

Giant stem tetrapod was apex predator in Gondwanan late Palaeozoic ice age

 

Web-based cognitive behavioral treatment for bulimia nervosa

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial, a web-based cognitive behavioral self-help intervention effectively decreased eating disorder symptoms and illness-related burden in individuals with bulimia nervosa, underlining the potential of digital interventions to complement established treatments.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Steffen Hartmann, M.S., email steffen.hartmann@psychologie.uni-heidelberg.de.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.19019)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open