Bats offer clues to treating COVID-19

To combat COVID-19, we need to regulate our immune systems to resemble those of bats

HOLY PANDEMIC BATMAN, IT'S NOT WUHAN FLU
IT'S BAT FLU

Bats carry many viruses, including COVID-19, without becoming ill. Biologists are studying the immune system of bats to find potential ways to 'mimic' that system in humans.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:University of Rochester

Bats are often considered patient zero for many deadly viruses affecting humans, including Ebola, rabies, and, most recently, the SARS-CoV-2 strain of virus that causes coronavirus.

Although humans experience adverse symptoms when afflicted with these pathogens, bats are remarkably able to tolerate viruses, and, additionally, live much longer than similar-sized land mammals.

What are the secrets to their longevity and virus resistance?

According to researchers at the University of Rochester, bats' longevity and capacity to tolerate viruses may stem from their ability to control inflammation, which is a hallmark of disease and aging. In a review article published in the journal Cell Metabolism, the researchers -- including Rochester biology professors Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov -- outline the mechanisms underlying bats' unique abilities and how these mechanisms may hold clues to developing new treatments for diseases in humans.

Why are bats 'immune' to viruses?

The idea for the paper came about when Gorbunova and Seluanov, who are married, were in Singapore in March before COVID-19 travel bans began. When the virus started to spread and Singapore went into lockdown, they were quarantined at the home of their colleague Brian Kennedy, director of the Centre for Healthy Aging at the National University of Singapore and co-author of the paper.

The three scientists, all experts on longevity in mammals, got to talking about bats. SARS-CoV-2 is believed to have originated in bats before the virus was transmitted to humans. Although bats were carriers, they seemed to be unaffected by the virus. Another perplexing factor: generally, a species' lifespan correlates with its body mass; the smaller a species, the shorter its lifespan, and vice versa. Many bat species, however, have lifespans of 30 to 40 years, which is impressive for their size.

"We've been interested in longevity and disease resistance in bats for a while, but we didn't have the time to sit and think about it," says Gorbunova, the Doris Johns Cherry Professor of Biology at Rochester. "Being in quarantine gave us time to discuss this, and we realized there may be a very strong connection between bats' resistance to infectious diseases and their longevity. We also realized that bats can provide clues to human therapies used to fight diseases."

While there have been studies on the immune responses of bats and studies of bats' longevity, until their article, "no one has combined these two phenomena," Seluanov says.

Gorbunova and Seluanov have studied longevity and disease resistance in other exceptionally long-lived animals, including naked mole rats. One common theme in their research is that inflammation is a hallmark of the aging process and age-related diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer's, and cardiovascular disease. Viruses, including COVID-19, are one factor that can trigger inflammation.

"With COVID-19, the inflammation goes haywire, and it may be the inflammatory response that is killing the patient, more so than the virus itself," Gorbunova says. "The human immune system works like that: once we get infected, our body sounds an alarm and we develop a fever and inflammation. The goal is to kill the virus and fight infection, but it can also be a detrimental response as our bodies overreact to the threat."

Not so with bats. Unlike humans, bats have developed specific mechanisms that reduce viral replication and also dampen the immune response to a virus. The result is a beneficial balance: their immune systems control viruses but at the same time, do not mount a strong inflammatory response.

Why did bats acquire a tolerance for diseases?

According to the researchers, there are several factors that may contribute to bats having evolved to fight viruses and live long lives. One factor may be driven by flight. Bats are the only mammals with the ability to fly, which requires that they adapt to rapid increases in body temperature, sudden surges in metabolism, and molecular damage. These adaptations may also assist in disease resistance.

Another factor may be their environment. Many species of bats live in large, dense colonies, and hang close together on cave ceilings or in trees. Those conditions are ideal for transmitting viruses and other pathogens.

"Bats are constantly exposed to viruses," Seluanov says. "They are always flying out and bringing back something new to the cave or nest, and they transfer the virus because they live in such close proximity to each other."

Because bats are constantly exposed to viruses, their immune systems are in a perpetual arms race with pathogens: a pathogen will enter the organism, the immune system will evolve a mechanism to combat the pathogen, the pathogen will evolve again, and so on.

"Usually the strongest driver of new traits in evolution is an arms race with pathogens," Gorbunova says. "Dealing with all of these viruses may be shaping bats' immunity and longevity."

Can humans develop the same disease resistance as bats?

That's not an invitation for humans to toss their masks and crowd together in restaurants and movie theaters. Evolution takes place over thousands of years, rather than a few months. It has only been in recent history that a majority of the human population has begun living in close proximity in cities. Or that technology has enabled rapid mobility and travel across continents and around the globe. While humans may be developing social habits that parallel those of bats, we have not yet evolved bats' sophisticated mechanisms to combat viruses as they emerge and swiftly spread.

"The consequences may be that our bodies experience more inflammation," Gorbunova says.

The researchers also recognize that aging seems to play an adverse role in humans' reactions to COVID-19.

"COVID-19 has such a different pathogenesis in older people," Gorbunova says. "Age is one of the most critical factors between living and dying. We have to treat aging as a whole process instead of just treating individual symptoms."

The researchers anticipate that studying bats' immune systems will provide new targets for human therapies to fight diseases and aging. For example, bats have mutated or completely eliminated several genes involved in inflammation; scientists can develop drugs to inhibit these genes in humans. Gorbunova and Seluanov hope to start a new research program at Rochester to work toward that goal.

"Humans have two possible strategies if we want to prevent inflammation, live longer, and avoid the deadly effects of diseases like COVID-19," Gorbunova says. "One would be to not be exposed to any viruses, but that's not practical. The second would be to regulate our immune system more like a bat."
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Journal Reference:
Vera Gorbunova, Andrei Seluanov, Brian K. Kennedy. The World Goes Bats: Living Longer and Tolerating Viruses. Cell Metabolism, 2020; 32 (1): 31 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2020.06.013

University of Rochester. "Bats offer clues to treating COVID-19: To combat COVID-19, we need to regulate our immune systems to resemble those of bats." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .


Bats harbor a gene swiped from an ancient Ebola-like virus -- here's how they may use it

Study suggests that a gene encoding a viral protein has been carefully preserved in Myotis bats for millions of years

Some 18 million years ago, an ancestor of mouse-eared bats 'stole' genetic material from an ancient virus related to Ebola. The swiped genetic sequence -- a gene called VP35 -- has remained largely intact in the bats despite the passage of time, a new study finds. The research also sheds light on the gene's possible function in bats, suggesting that it may play a role in regulating the immune system's response to threats.

Date:July 24, 2018

Source:University at Buffalo

Some 18 million years ago, an ancestor of mouse-eared bats "stole" genetic material from an ancient virus related to Ebola.

The swiped genetic sequence -- a gene called VP35 -- has remained largely intact in the bats despite the passage of time, with few changes since it was co-opted, a new study finds. The research also sheds light on the gene's possible function in bats, suggesting that it may play a role in regulating the immune system's response to threats.

"We're using a multidisciplinary approach to understand the evolution, structure and function of a viral gene co-opted by a mammal," says Derek J. Taylor, PhD, an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo. "From an evolutionary standpoint, it's rare that you can actually see a viral gene sequence like this that has remained intact in a mammalian host. Most of these things are eroded over time -- they get chopped up and shuffled around.

"But VP35 is highly conserved. It's similar in all the bats we looked at, and the bat versions remain very close to what you see in modern Ebola and Marburg viruses. This conservation suggests that the gene has been preserved for an important purpose."

In Ebola and Marburg viruses today, the VP35 gene carries instructions for building a protein that blocks the immune response of infected animals, enabling disease to take hold. When scientists used artificial synthesis to create bat VP35 proteins in the lab, these proteins also acted as immune suppressors, but they were less potent than viral VP35s.

The study answers some important questions, but many mysteries remain. For example: Is the VP35 gene active in mouse-eared bats? Do mouse-eared bats produce any VP35 proteins? If the bats do make VP35 proteins, why is this beneficial?

"Our study explores VP35 function, but further research is needed to determine the specific evolutionary benefit," Taylor says. "Why has this gene been conserved for so long? We don't quite know the answer, and it's possible that VP35 has some other function in bats that we haven't yet discovered."

The study will be published in the journal Cell Reports on July 24, with Megan R. Edwards, PhD, of Georgia State University as first author. The project was led by Christopher F. Basler, PhD, of Georgia State; Daisy W. Leung, PhD, of the Washington University School of Medicine; and Taylor, a professor of biological sciences in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

Similarities -- and differences -- in bats and in deadly viruses

To understand VP35's evolutionary history, the team compared VP35 sequences in 15 bat species from the genus Myotis (the mouse-eared bats), and used these sequences to reconstruct the archaic version of the gene that was first acquired by the bats' forebear some 18 million years ago.

This analysis showed that VP35 was strikingly similar across all 15 modern bats, modern Ebola and Marburg viruses, and the reconstructed ancestral gene. In other words: VP35 has changed very little in viruses and mouse-eared bats in the last 18 million years. Bolstering this conclusion, researchers discovered that the structure of a Myotis VP35 protein and an Ebola VP35 protein were alike in many ways.

Despite these resemblances, bat and viral forms of VP35 differ in function. Lab tests showed that bat VP35 helps to suppress production of an infection-fighting immune protein called interferon beta, but less effectively than Ebola and Marburg VP35s.

"How could a bat use a viral gene that normally suppresses interferon? While we don't know the exact answer, interferon is associated with inflammation, and it turns out that turning off the inflammation response is an important aspect of immune system function -- prolonged inflammation can be harmful in mammals," Taylor says. "So one possibility is that bats recruited a viral anti-inflammation gene to enhance control of inflammation."

Genetic theft: How it happens and why it matters

The new study was inspired in part by Taylor's prior work on VP35 and other "stolen" viral genes. Known as non-retroviral integrated RNA viral sequences (NIRVs), these co-opted genetic snippets are accidentally inserted into the genomes of infected hosts when a virus like Ebola or Marburg hijacks a host's genetic machinery to replicate.

NIRVs are a gold mine of information. Taylor, one of the first scientists to study them, calls them "scars of infection" and likens them to a "viral fossil record": You can investigate them to learn many fascinating things about the co-evolution of viruses and hosts.

In prior research, Taylor and colleagues used NIRVs to show that filoviruses -- the family housing Ebola and Marburg -- are ancient. The scientists also discovered that several mammals harbor the VP35 NIRV, which was originally acquired from archaic filoviruses that shared a common ancestor with Ebola and Marburg. Species that have this NIRV range from bats to hamsters, voles and wallabies.

The new project builds on this work by exploring VP35's modern function and showing that the gene has been meticulously conserved through evolution in mouse-eared bats.

"NIRVs can tell you something about the timescale of virus-host interactions, and they can tell you something about what types of hosts are being affected by a virus," Taylor says. "Now we're using them in this present study to inform functional studies. NIRVs are a fairly new area of study, and it's exciting to see what else we can learn from them."

Journal Reference:
Megan R. Edwards et al. Conservation of Structure and Immune Antagonist Functions of Filoviral VP35 Homologs Present in Microbat Genomes. Cell Reports, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.06.045

University at Buffalo. "Bats harbor a gene swiped from an ancient Ebola-like virus -- here's how they may use it: Study suggests that a gene encoding a viral protein has been carefully preserved in Myotis bats for millions of years." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 July 2018. .

Global wildlife surveillance could provide early warning for next pandemic

Experts propose decentralized system to monitor wildlife markets, other hotspots

Summary:Researchers propose a decentralized, global wildlife biosurveillance system to identify -- before the next pandemic emerges -- animal viruses that have the potential to cause human disease.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Washington University School of Medicine

The virus that causes COVID-19 probably originated in wild bats that live in caves around Wuhan, China, and may have been passed to a second animal species before infecting people, according to the World Health Organization. Many of the most devastating epidemics of recent decades -- including Ebola, avian influenza and HIV/AIDS -- were triggered by animal viruses that spilled over into people. Despite the ever-present danger of a new virus emerging and sparking a worldwide pandemic, there is no global system to screen for viruses in wild animals that eventually may jump to humans.
In a perspective article published July 9 in Science, a diverse group of infectious disease experts, ecologists, wildlife biologists and other experts argue that a decentralized global system of wildlife surveillance could -- and must - be established to identify viruses in wild animals that have the potential to infect and sicken people before another pandemic begins.

"It's impossible to know how often animal viruses spill over into the human population, but coronaviruses alone have caused outbreaks in people three times in the last 20 years," said co-author Jennifer A. Philips, MD, PhD, referring to the SARS, MERS and COVID-19 epidemics. Philips is an associate professor of medicine and co-director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Even a decade ago it would have been difficult to conduct worldwide surveillance at the human-wildlife interface. But because of technological advances, it is now feasible and affordable, and it has never been more obvious how necessary it is."

Every animal has its own set of viruses, with some overlap across species. Often, an animal species and its viruses have lived together for so long that they've adapted to one another, and the viruses cause either no symptoms or only mild to moderate disease. But when different animal species that don't normally have much contact are brought together, viruses have the opportunity to jump from one species to another. Most viruses don't have the genetic tools to infect another species. But viruses with such tools can be lethal to a newly infected species with no natural immunity.

Human activity is making such spillover events more and more likely. As the population of the world continues to grow, the demand for natural resources skyrockets. People push into wild areas to make space for new homes and businesses, and to access resources to fuel their economies and lifestyles. Wild animals are caught and sold for consumption, or as exotic pets at wildlife markets, where diverse species are jumbled together under crowded and unsanitary conditions. Wild-animal parts are shipped around the world as trinkets or ingredients for traditional or alternative medicines.

And yet there is no international system set up to screen for disease-causing viruses associated with the movement of wildlife or wildlife products.

"In the lead up to this article, I spoke with friends and colleagues around the world who do wildlife research in Madagascar, Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador and asked them, 'Where do you take your samples for screening?'" said co-author Gideon Erkenswick, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in Philips' lab. Erkenswick is also the director of Field Projects International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of tropical ecosystems. "In almost every situation, the answer was 'Nowhere.' Locally, there is nobody with dedicated time and resources to do this work. To find new disease-causing viruses, we have to find willing foreign collaborators, then get samples out of the country, which is difficult and expensive."

Philips, Erkenswick, and colleagues in the Wildlife Disease Surveillance Focus Group that authored the Science paper, suggest the establishment of a global surveillance network to screen wild animals and their products at hotspots such as wildlife markets. The idea would be to have local teams of researchers and technicians extract viral genomes from animal samples, rapidly sequence them on site and upload the sequences to a central database in the cloud. The cost and size of the necessary scientific equipment has dropped in recent years, making such screening affordable even in resource-limited settings where most such hotspots are located.

"There's now a genetic sequencer available that is literally the size of a USB stick," Erkenswick said. "You could bring that and a few other supplies into a rainforest and analyze a sample for sequences associated with disease-causing viruses on site in a matter of hours. I mean, if you do chance upon something like the virus that causes COVID-19, do you really want to be collecting it, storing it, transporting it, risking further exposure, sample degradation, and adding months or years of delay, before you figure out what you've got? There are people with the expertise and skills to do this kind of work safely pretty much everywhere in the world, they just haven't been given the tools."

Once viral sequences are uploaded, researchers around the world could help analyze them to identify animal viruses that may be a threat to people and to develop a better understanding of the universe of viruses that thrive in different environments. By comparing genomic sequence data, researchers can identify what family an unknown virus belongs to and how closely it is related to any disease-causing viruses. They can also identify whether a virus carries genes associated with the ability to cause disease in people.

"By knowing the diversity out there, and tracking its evolution, we can ensure that we stay ahead of what's in wildlife populations and at the wildlife-human interface," Philips said. "In the past, before modern transportation, spillover events would have been local and spread slowly, giving people elsewhere time to respond. But now the world is so small that an event in one place puts the whole world at risk. This is not someone else's problem. It's everyone's problem."
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Story Source:

Materials provided by Washington University School of Medicine. Original written by Tamara Bhandari. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:
Mrinalini Watsa, Wildlife Disease Surveillance Focus Group. Rigorous wildlife disease surveillance. Science, 2020; 369 (6500): 145-147 DOI: 10.1126/science.abc0017


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Washington University School of Medicine. "Global wildlife surveillance could provide early warning for next pandemic: Experts propose decentralized system to monitor wildlife markets, other hotspots." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

No association found between exposure to mobile devices and brain volume alterations in adolescents

A new study of 2,500 Dutch children is the first to explore the relationship between brain volume and different doses of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)

How does the use of mobile devices affect children's brains? A team from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, has conducted the first epidemiological study to explore the relationship between brain volume in preadolescents -- more than 2,500 Dutch children -- and different doses of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF). No association was found, although the authors did not rule out the possibility of an association between using mobile devices with a wireless Internet connection and smaller volume of the caudate nucleus.

The potential negative health consequences associated with children's use of mobile devices have been a matter of concern for some time. Exposure to RF-EMF is of particular interest, since the preadolescent brain is still developing and children will experience long periods of exposure to RF-EMF if they use mobile devices throughout their lives.

Most previous research on this subject has separately assessed the association between brain development and different RF-EMF sources, without finding clear associations. The new study, published in Environment International, aimed to investigate brain volume alterations using an integrative approach that considered multiple sources of RF-EMF. This approach allowed a more comprehensive assessment of the possible impact of RF-EMF exposure on the adolescent brain.

The study used data on more than 2,500 children aged 9-12 years from the Generation R Study, a birth cohort based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Parents completed a questionnaire on their children's use of mobile devices. RF-EMF doses to the brain from different sources were estimated and grouped according to three exposure patterns: telephone calls, screen activities, and other environmental factors such as mobile telephone antennas. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were used to determine the volume of various parts of the brain.

The authors found no association between alterations in total or lobe-specific brain volume and overall RF-EMF dose. Nor was brain volume associated with the use of mobile devices for telephone calls, which are the primary contributors of RF-EMF exposure to the brain. However, a link was found between smaller volume of the caudate nucleus -- a brain structure involved in memory and coordination of movements -- and RF-EMF dose from the use of devices with screens (mobile phones, tablets and laptops) with a wireless Internet connection.

"The main objective of the study was to determine whether there were any associations between exposure to RF-EMF and brain volumes," commented ISGlobal researcher Alba Cabré, lead author of the study. "Our findings show that this is not the case. The possible association between the RF-EMF dose received through the use of these devices for screen activities and the volume of the caudate nucleus is a secondary finding for which we currently have no explanation. When you surf the Internet on a mobile phone, tablet or laptop using a wireless connection, the brain's exposure to RF-EMF is much lower than it is when you make phone calls, for example, because of the distance between the device and your head. In any case, this result should be interpreted with great caution, since the influence of other factors and the possibility of a chance finding cannot be ruled out."

RF-EMF Exposure or Use-Related Factors?

One possible explanation for the findings, besides the brain's exposure to RF-EMF, is the influence of social or individual factors related to certain uses of mobile devices. ISGlobal researcher Mònica Guxens, coordinator of the study, commented: "We cannot rule out the possibility that brain alterations may somehow be related to the way in which children use mobile devices." She added: "More research is needed on mobile communication devices and their possible associations with brain development, regardless of whether the relationship is due to RF-EMF exposure or other factors related to the use of these devices."

The average overall whole-brain dose of RF-EMF was estimated at 84.3 mJ/kg/day. The highest overall lobe-specific dose was estimated in the temporal lobe (307.1 mJ/kg/day). Both doses are well below the maximum values recommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).

Journal Reference:
Alba Cabré-Riera, Hanan El Marroun, Ryan Muetzel, Luuk van Wel, Ilaria Liorni, Arno Thielens, Laura Ellen Birks, Livia Pierotti, Anke Huss, Wout Joseph, Joe Wiart, Myles Capstick, Manon Hillegers, Roel Vermeulen, Elisabeth Cardis, Martine Vrijheid, Tonya White, Martin Röösli, Henning Tiemeier, Mònica Guxens. Estimated whole-brain and lobe-specific radiofrequency electromagnetic fields doses and brain volumes in preadolescents. Environment International, 2020; 142: 105808 DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2020.105808

Study says inhalers OK to use amid COVID-19 concerns

Researchers find that the benefits of inhalers for asthma sufferers outweigh the risks of contracting coronavirus, following concerns raised after WHO warned that steroids could reduce immunity.

Date:July 9, 2020   Source:University of Huddersfield

The benefits of using inhalers and nebulisers containing steroids outweigh the risks despite warnings to the contrary during the COVID-19 pandemic, a study by University of Huddersfield researchers has found.

A warning issued by WHO in March advised that steroids used in inhalers and nebulisers could have a negative effect on a user's immunity system, leaving them more susceptible to COVID-19. The concern was that regular steroid use could leave users vulnerable to contracting the virus, or developing a more severe version than non-users.

WHO's cautionary note caused worry for people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), leaving them unsure about whether they could keep using inhalers and nebulisers or not. The British Thoracic Society had reported that demand for inhalers had jumped by 400%, leading to shortages in the UK, following WHO's announcement.

However, Dr Hamid Merchant and Dr Syed Shahzad Hasan from the University of Huddersfield commissioned research into the use of steroids and risk of infections, especially viral infections of the upper respiratory tract. That included previous outbreaks of SARS, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It confused a lot of people," says Dr Hasan. "After the WHO advice, people thought that continuous use of steroids would leave them at a greater risk of contracting the virus or developing more than a mild version of CoViD-19."

Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and oral corticosteroids (OCS) are prescribed to help asthma sufferers and those with COPD, with inhalers used to prevent attacks.

The study has been published in Respiratory Medicine, having assessed evidence and findings from a range of bodies including the British Thoracic Society and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The other authors in the study included Toby Capstick (a consultant pharmacist on respiratory medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust), Syed Tabish Zaidi (Associate Professor in Pharmacy at the University of Leeds) and Chia Siang Kow (a clinical pharmacist from Malaysia).

"We found there is strong evidence that the benefits of continuing with steroids outweighs the risk," declares Dr Merchant.

"There is a risk that the immune system goes down, and there is a chance of acquiring infections but the benefits of continuing with steroids throughout were higher than the risks. We concluded by saying that the patients should continue their regular medicines including steroids."

Journal Reference:
Syed Shahzad Hasan, Toby Capstick, Syed Tabish Razi Zaidi, Chia Siang Kow, Hamid A. Merchant. Use of corticosteroids in asthma and COPD patients with or without COVID-19. Respiratory Medicine, 2020; 170: 106045 DOI: 10.1016/j.rmed.2020.106045

CRIMINAL CAPITALISM

Scientists trace the origin of our teeth from the most primitive jawed fish

Scientists have digitally 'dissected', for the first time, the most primitive jawed fish fossils with teeth found near Prague more than 100 years ago. The results show that their teeth have surprisingly modern features.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:European Synchrotron Radiation Facility

The origin of our teeth goes back more than 400 million years back in time, to the period when strange armoured fish first developed jaws and began to catch live prey. We are the descendants of these fish, as are all the other 60,000 living species of jawed vertebrates -- sharks, bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. An international team of scientists led by Uppsala University (Sweden), in collaboration with the ESRF, the European Synchrotron (France), the brightest X-ray source, has digitally 'dissected', for the first time, the most primitive jawed fish fossils with teeth found near Prague more than 100 years ago. The results, published today in Science, show that their teeth have surprisingly modern features.

Teeth in current jawed vertebrates reveal some consistent patterns: for example, new teeth usually develop on the inner side of the old ones and then move outwards to replace them (in humans this pattern has been modified so that new teeth develop below the old ones, deep inside the jawbone). There are, however, several differences between bony fish (and their descendants the land animals) and sharks; for example the fact that sharks have no bones at all, their skeleton is made of cartilage, and neither the dentine scales nor the true teeth in the mouth attach to it; they simply sit in the skin. In bony fish and land animals, the teeth are always attached to jaw bones. In addition, whilst sharks shed their worn-out teeth entire, simply by detaching them from the skin, bony fish and land animals shed theirs by dissolving away the tooth bases.

This diversity raises many questions about the origin of teeth. Until now, researchers have focused on fossils of a group of ancient fish that lived about 430 to 360 million years ago, called the arthrodires, which were the only stem jawed vertebrates in which teeth were known. However, they struggled to understand how they could have evolved into the teeth of modern vertebrates, as arthrodire teeth are so different in position and mode of tooth addition in comparison to bony fish and sharks.

Scanning the most primitive jawed fishes

A team from Uppsala University, Charles University (Czech Republic), Natural History Museum in London (UK), National Museum in Prague (Czech Republic) and the ESRF, the European Synchrotron (France) set out to determine whether this peculiar type of dentition was really ancestral to ours, or just a specialised offshoot off the lineage leading towards modern jawed vertebrates.

With this aim, they turned to the acanthothoracids, another early fish group that are believed to be more primitive than the arthrodires and closely related to the very first jawed vertebrates. The problem with acanthothoracids is that their fossils are rare and always incomplete. The very finest of them come from the Prague Basin in the Czech Republic, from rocks that are just over 400 million years old, and were collected at the turn of the last century. They have proved difficult to study by conventional techniques because the bones cannot be freed from the enclosing rock, and have therefore never been investigated in detail.

The researchers used the unique properties of the ESRF, the world's brightest X-ray source and the synchrotron microtomography ID19's beamline, to visualise the internal structure of the fossils in 3D without damaging them. At the ESRF, an 844 metre-ring of electrons travelling at the speed of light emits high-powered X-ray beams that can be used to non-destructively scan matter, including fossils.

"The results were truly remarkable, including well-preserved dentitions that nobody expected to be there" says Valéria Vaškaninová, lead author of the study and scientist from Uppsala University. Follow-up scans at higher resolution allowed the researchers to visualize the growth pattern and even the perfectly preserved cell spaces inside the dentine of these ancient teeth.

Like arthrodires, the acanthothoracid dentitions are attached to bones. This indicates that bony fish and land animals retain the ancestral condition in this regard, whereas sharks are specialized in having teeth that are only attached to the skin -- in contrast to the common perception that sharks are primitive living vertebrates. Again, like arthrodires, the teeth of acanthothoracids were not shed.

More different from arthrodires than expected

In other ways, however, acanthothoracid dentitions are fundamentally different from those of arthrodires. Like sharks, bony fish and land animals, acanthothoracids only added new teeth on the inside; the oldest teeth were located right at the jaw margin. In this respect, the acanthothoracid dentitions look remarkably modern.

"To our surprise, the teeth perfectly matched our expectations of a common ancestral dentition for cartilaginous and bony vertebrates." explains Vaškaninová.

The tooth-bearing bones also carry small non-biting dentine elements of the skin on their outer surfaces, a character shared with primitive bony fish but not with arthrodires. This is an important difference because it shows that acanthothoracid jaw bones were located right at the edge of the mouth, whereas arthrodire jaw bones lay further in. Uniquely, one acanthothoracid (Kosoraspis) shows a gradual shape transition from these dentine elements to the neighboring true teeth, while another (Radotina) has true teeth almost identical to its skin dentine elements in shape. This may be evidence that the true teeth had only recently evolved from dentine elements on the skin.

"These findings change our whole understanding of the origin of teeth" says co-author Per Ahlberg, professor at Uppsala University. And he adds: "Even though acanthothoracids are among the most primitive of all jawed vertebrates, their teeth are in some ways far more like modern ones than arthrodire dentitions. Their jawbones resemble those of bony fish and seem to be directly ancestral to our own. When you grin at the bathroom mirror in the morning, the teeth that grin back at you can trace their origins right back to the first jawed vertebrates."


Journal Reference:
Valéria Vaškaninová, Donglei Chen, Paul Tafforeau, Zerina Johanson, Boris Ekrt, Henning Blom, Per Erik Ahlberg. Marginal dentition and multiple dermal jawbones as the ancestral condition of jawed vertebrates. Science, 2020 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz9431

European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. "Scientists trace the origin of our teeth from the most primitive jawed fish." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. 

PREHISTORIC FISH PIC
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/07/fossil-of-giant-70m-year-old-fish-found.html

New evidence of long-term volcanic, seismic risks in northern Europe

An ancient European volcanic region may pose both a greater long-term volcanic risk and seismic risk to northwestern Europe than scientists had realized, geophysicists report. The densely populated area is centered in the Eifel region of Germany, and covers parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:University of California - Los Angeles

An ancient European volcanic region may pose both a greater long-term volcanic risk and seismic risk to northwestern Europe than scientists had realized, geophysicists report in a study in the Geophysical Journal International.

The scientists are not predicting that a volcanic eruption or earthquake is imminent in the densely populated area, which is centered in the Eifel region of Germany, and covers parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg. But the study revealed activity that is uncommon for the region.

"Our findings suggest this region is an active volcanic system, and much more seismically active than many of the faults in Europe between the Eifel volcanic region and the Alps," said Paul Davis, a UCLA research professor of geophysics and a senior author of the study.

Davis and his co-authors report subtle, unusual movements in the surface of the Earth, from which they conclude the Eifel volcanic region remains seismically active. The region has a long history of volcanic activity, but it has been dormant for a long time; scientists think the last volcanic eruption there was some 11,000 years ago.

The geophysicists report that the land surface in that region is lifting up and stretching apart, both of which are unusual in Europe. Although the uplift is only a fraction of an inch per year, it is significant in geological terms, Davis said.

The geophysicists analyzed global positioning system data from across Western Europe that showed subtle movements in the Earth's surface. That enabled them to map out how the ground is moving vertically and horizontally as the Earth's crust is pushed, stretched and sheared.

The dome-like uplift they observed suggests those movements are generated by a rising subsurface mantle plume, which occurs when extremely hot rock in the Earth's mantle becomes buoyant and rises up, sending extremely hot material to the Earth's surface, causing the deformation and volcanic activity. The mantle is the geological layer of rock between the Earth's crust and its outer core.

Corné Kreemer, the study's lead author, is a research professor at the University of Nevada, Reno's Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology. He said many scientists had assumed that volcanic activity in the Eifel was a thing of the past, but the study indicates that no longer seems to be the case.

"It seems clear that something is brewing underneath the heart of northwest Europe," he said.

The Eifel volcanic region houses many ancient volcanic features, including circular lakes known as maars -- which are remnants of violent volcanic eruptions, such as the one that created Laacher See, the largest lake in the area. The explosion that created Laacher See is believed to have occurred approximately 13,000 years ago, with an explosive power similar to that of the spectacular 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines.

The researchers plan to continue monitoring the area using a variety of geophysical and geochemical techniques to better understand potential risks.

The research was supported by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, the United States Geological Survey, the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program and NASA.


University of California - Los Angeles. "New evidence of long-term volcanic, seismic risks in northern Europe." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .

Skull of two million year-old giant dormouse reconstructed

A researcher has digitally pieced together fossilized fragments from five giant dormouse skulls to reconstruct the first known complete skull of the species, which was roughly the size of a cat.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:University of York

A PhD student has produced the first digital reconstruction of the skull of a gigantic dormouse, which roamed the island of Sicily around two million years ago.

In a new study, the student from Hull York Medical School, has digitally pieced together fossilised fragments from five giant dormouse skulls to reconstruct the first known complete skull of the species.

The researchers estimate that the enormous long-extinct rodent was roughly the size of a cat, making it the largest species of dormouse ever identified.

The digitally reconstructed skull is 10 cm long -- the length of the entire body and tail of many types of modern dormouse.

PhD student Jesse Hennekam said: "Having only a few fossilised pieces of broken skulls available made it difficult to study this fascinating animal accurately. This new reconstruction gives us a much better understanding of what the giant dormouse may have looked like and how it may have lived."

The enormous prehistoric dormouse is an example of island gigantism -- a biological phenomenon in which the body size of an animal isolated on an island increases dramatically.






The palaeontological record shows that many weird and wonderful creatures once roamed the Italian islands. Alongside the giant dormouse, Sicily was also home to giant swans, giant owls and dwarf elephants.

Jesse's PhD supervisor, Dr Philip Cox from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and Hull York Medical School, said: "While Island dwarfism is relatively well understood, as with limited resources on an island animals may need to shrink to survive, the causes of gigantism are less obvious.


"Perhaps, with fewer terrestrial predators, larger animals are able to survive as there is less need for hiding in small spaces, or it could be a case of co-evolution with predatory birds where rodents get bigger to make them less vulnerable to being scooped up in talons."

Jesse spotted the fossilised fragments of skull during a research visit to the Palermo Museum in Italy, where a segment of rock from the floor of a small cave, discovered during the construction of a motorway in northwest Sicily in the 1970s, was on display.

"I noticed what I thought were fragments of skull from an extinct species embedded in one of the cave floor segments," Jesse said. "We arranged for the segment to be sent to Basel, Switzerland for microCT scanning and the resulting scans revealed five fragmented skulls of giant dormice present within the rock."





The reconstruction is likely to play an important role in future research directed at improving understanding of why some small animals evolve larger body sizes on islands, the researchers say.

"The reconstructed skull gives us a better sense of whether the giant dormouse would have looked similar to its normal-sized counterparts or whether its physical appearance would have been influenced by adaptations to a specific environment," Jesse explains.

"For example, if we look at the largest living rodent -- the capybara -- we can see that it has expanded in size on a different trajectory to other species in the same family."

Jesse is also using biomechanical modelling to understand the feeding habits of the giant dormouse.

"At that size, it is possible that it may have had a very different diet to its smaller relatives," he adds.

Journal Reference:

Jesse J. Hennekam, Victoria L. Herridge, Loïc Costeur, Carolina Di Patti, Philip G. Cox. Virtual Cranial Reconstruction of the Endemic Gigantic Dormouse Leithia melitensis (Rodentia, Gliridae) from Poggio Schinaldo, Sicily. Open Quaternary, 2020; 6 DOI: 10.5334/oq.79

University of York. "Skull of two million year-old giant dormouse reconstructed." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 July 2020. .


ILLUSTRATIONS ALICE IN WONDERLAND CHAPTER VII
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-VII.html

New study detects ringing of the global atmosphere

Date:July 7, 2020

Source:University of Hawaii at Manoa

A ringing bell vibrates simultaneously at a low-pitched fundamental tone and at many higher-pitched overtones, producing a pleasant musical sound. A recent study, just published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences by scientists at Kyoto University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, shows that the Earth's entire atmosphere vibrates in an analogous manner, in a striking confirmation of theories developed by physicists over the last two centuries.

In the case of the atmosphere, the "music" comes not as a sound we could hear, but in the form of large-scale waves of atmospheric pressure spanning the globe and traveling around the equator, some moving east-to-west and others west-to-east. Each of these waves is a resonant vibration of the global atmosphere, analogous to one of the resonant pitches of a bell. The basic understanding of these atmospheric resonances began with seminal insights at the beginning of the 19th century by one of history's greatest scientists, the French physicist and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace. Research by physicists over the subsequent two centuries refined the theory and led to detailed predictions of the wave frequencies that should be present in the atmosphere. However, the actual detection of such waves in the real world has lagged behind the theory.

Now in a new study by Takatoshi Sakazaki, an assistant professor at the Kyoto University Graduate School of Science, and Kevin Hamilton, an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the International Pacific Research Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the authors present a detailed analysis of observed atmospheric pressure over the globe every hour for 38 years. The results clearly revealed the presence of dozens of the predicted wave modes.

The study focused particularly on waves with periods between 2 hours and 33 hours which travel horizontally through the atmosphere, moving around the globe at great speeds (exceeding 700 miles per hour). This sets up a characteristic "chequerboard" pattern of high and low pressure associated with these waves as they propagate.

"For these rapidly moving wave modes, our observed frequencies and global patterns match those theoretically predicted very well," stated lead author Sakazaki. "It is exciting to see the vision of Laplace and other pioneering physicists so completely validated after two centuries."

But this discovery does not mean their work is done.

"Our identification of so many modes in real data shows that the atmosphere is indeed ringing like a bell," commented co-author Hamilton. "This finally resolves a longstanding and classic issue in atmospheric science, but it also opens a new avenue of research to understand both the processes that excite the waves and the processes that act to damp the waves."

So let the atmospheric music play on!

Journal Reference:
Takatoshi Sakazaki, Kevin Hamilton. An Array of Ringing Global Free Modes Discovered in Tropical Surface Pressure Data. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2020; 77 (7): 2519 DOI: 10.1175/JAS-D-20-0053.1

University of Hawaii at Manoa. "New study detects ringing of the global atmosphere." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 July 2020. .

Care for cats? 

So did people along the Silk Road more than 1,000 years ago

Common domestic cats, as we know them today, might have accompanied Kazakh pastoralists as pets more than 1,000 years ago. This is indicated by new analyses done on an almost complete cat skeleton found during an excavation along the former Silk Road in southern Kazakhstan. An international research team has reconstructed the cat's life, revealing astonishing insights into the relationship between humans and pets at the time.

Date:July 9, 2020

Source:Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

FULL STORY

Person stroking kitten (stock image).
Credit: © kulkann / stock.adobe.com

Common domestic cats, as we know them today, might have accompanied Kazakh pastoralists as pets more than 1,000 years ago. This has been indicated by new analyses done on an almost complete cat skeleton found during an excavation along the former Silk Road in southern Kazakhstan. An international research team led by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Korkyt-Ata Kyzylorda State University in Kazakhstan, the University of Tübingen and the Higher School of Economics in Russia has reconstructed the cat's life, revealing astonishing insights into the relationship between humans and pets at the time. The study will appear in the journal Scientific Reports.

The tomcat -- which was examined by a team led by Dr Ashleigh Haruda from the Central Natural Science Collections at MLU -- did not have an easy life. "The cat suffered several broken bones during its lifetime," says Haruda. And yet, based on a very conservative estimate, the animal had most likely made it past its first year of life. For Haruda and her colleagues, this is a clear indication that people had taken care of this cat.

During a research stay in Kazakhstan, the scientist examined the findings of an excavation in Dzhankent, an early medieval settlement in the south of the country which had been mainly populated by the Oghuz, a pastoralist Turkic tribe. There she discovered a very well-preserved skeleton of a cat. According to Haruda, this is quite rare because normally only individual bones of an animal are found during an excavation, which prevents any systematic conclusions from being drawn about the animal's life. The situation is different when it comes to humans since usually whole skeletons are found. "A human skeleton is like a biography of that person. The bones provide a great deal of information about how the person lived and what they experienced," says Haruda. In this case, however, the researchers got lucky: after its death, the tomcat was apparently buried and therefore the entire skull including its lower jaw, parts of its upper body, legs and four vertebrae had been preserved.

Haruda worked together with an international team of archaeologists and ancient DNA specialists. An examination of the tomcat's skeleton revealed astonishing details about its life. First, the team took 3D images and X-rays of its bones. "This cat suffered a number of fractures, but survived," says Haruda. Isotope analyses of bone samples also provided the team with information about the cat's diet. Compared to the dogs found during the excavation and to other cats from that time period, this tomcat's diet was very high in protein. "It must have been fed by humans since the animal had lost almost all its teeth towards the end of its life."

DNA analyses also proved that the animal was indeed likely to be a domestic cat of the Felis catus L. species and not a closely related wild steppe cat. According to Haruda, it is remarkable that cats were already being kept as pets in this region around the 8th century AD: "The Oghuz were people who only kept animals when they were essential to their lives. Dogs, for example, can watch over the herd. They had no obvious use for cats back then," explains the researcher. The fact that people at the time kept and cared for such "exotic" animals indicates a cultural change, which was thought to have occurred at a much later point in time in Central Asia. The region was thought to have been slow in making changes with respect to agriculture and animal husbandry.

The Dhzankent settlement, where the remains of the cat were found, was located along the Silk Road, an ancient network of important caravan routes that connected Central and East Asia with the Mediterranean region by land. According to Haruda, the find is also an indication of cultural exchange between the regions located along the Silk Road.

The study was funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the University of Leicester and the Max Planck Society.

Journal Reference:
A. F. Haruda, A. R. Ventresca Miller, J. L. A. Paijmans, A. Barlow, A. Tazhekeyev, S. Bilalov, Y. Hesse, M. Preick, T. King, R. Thomas, H. Härke, I. Arzhantseva. The earliest domestic cat on the Silk Road. Scientific Reports, 2020; 10 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67798-6

Why children’s asthma and sleep apnoea has improved in lockdown

Since lockdown began, Jo-Anne Johnson has noticed a strange phenomenon – cases of childhood breathing problems seem to be improving. The clinician explains what might be causing this

SPOILER ALERT

DON'T RUSH INTO CHEMICALLY DISINFECTED SCHOOLS TOO SOON

BEFORE THEY ARE PROPERLY AIRED OUT

SCHOOLS BEFORE THE  PANDEMIC WERE THE WORST PLACE FOR INDOOR AIR QUALITY FOR CHILDREN WHO ARE THERE EIGHT HOURS A DAY 

MORE SO EVEN THAN THE DIESEL POLLUTION FROM THE IDLING SCHOOL BUS

#IEQ        #IAQ

For such a dramatic clinical effect to occur over such a short space of time for so many, there has to be an environmental reason to explain some of it ( AP )

It’s Monday morning and I’m running my regular children’s sleep clinic. Except it’s not a Monday morning like any other I have had in my 20 years of practice. I am running the clinic on my laptop, seeing patients and their families on a video screen rather than in person, in an eerily quiet children’s outpatient department.

After two months of Covid-19 lockdown and working “all hands on deck” to deal with the pandemic surge, I am allowed to resume my outpatient work. One thing that strikes me in this clinic is another new phenomenon. Parents are reporting that their child’s symptoms have dramatically improved over the last few weeks.

Most of the children I see in my clinic have obstructive sleep apnoea, a condition that leads to a disturbed night’s sleep due to the repeated blocking of the upper airways (apnoeas). This leads to daytime symptoms such as tiredness, behavioural issues and poor concentration. Left untreated, these children may not reach their full academic potential and may go on to develop heart failure in later life.

We often see symptoms improving gradually as children get older, but families were reporting a near-resolution of symptoms over just a few weeks. To my amazement, this trend has continued from lockdown into the period of social distancing we are currently facing.

This has led me to reflect on how unexpectedly quiet our paediatric wards have been since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The vast majority of children with Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) have very mild symptoms and are not admitted to hospital. But what about all the other acute conditions that normally fill our wards at this time of year, such as asthma?

Read more

Lockdown prompts drop in children needing emergency asthma treatment
We usually see a surge in children with acute allergic asthma attacks during the period of May-June, which corresponds to the peak tree pollen counts. But we have barely seen any cases in this period.

I’m sure there is an element of increased home-management with parents understandably reluctant to bring their children anywhere near a hospital at this time. But we would still expect to see a significant number of children whose symptoms are severe enough to need specialised hospital treatments.

For such a dramatic clinical effect to occur over such a short space of time for so many children, there has to be an environmental reason to explain at least part of it. The biggest change for children during the Covid-19 pandemic has been the closure of schools and nurseries. Only children of key workers have been allowed to attend primary school and nurseries from late March until early June in the UK.

Whether these effects last remains to be seen. Up to now, our attention has focused on containment of the contagion, but it appears there are other lessons to be learnt

This measure, combined with social distancing policies outside school, is likely to have reduced the spread of not only Sars-CoV-2 among children but also reduced the spread of other viruses. And respiratory viruses are strongly associated with acute asthma and worsening obstructive sleep apnoea symptoms in children.

Another similarity between asthma and obstructive sleep apnoea is their association with allergens. During the period of lockdown, unless making essential journeys for work or school, or to get groceries, the public (including children) were allowed out of their homes only once a day for up to one hour to exercise. This would have reduced their exposure to common airborne allergens such as tree pollen, a potent trigger of allergic asthma and hay fever. Both are positively associated with obstructive sleep apnoea in children.


Nitrogen dioxide emissions in China before and after lockdown (Nasa)

There is also good evidence of a correlation between air pollution and asthma or obstructive sleep apnoea. Fine-particulate matter and gases, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), are known to trigger airway inflammation. As travel has declined globally during the pandemic, there has already been a significant reduction in air pollution levels, particularly in industrial countries across the world. Data from Nasa suggests a 20 per cent to 30 per cent reduction in NO2 emissions in Europe between March 2019 and March 2020.

Read more

What do people with asthma need to know about coronavirus?

Coronavirus: Idris Elba says asthma puts him in ‘high risk’ category

Cleaning products linked to breathing problems in children

The World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020. Since then, saturation news coverage has emphasised the dangers of the disease. As a clinician, I prepared for these dangers, but have been surprised by some of the unexpected consequences of the lockdown, which seem to be related to wide-scale behavioural change.

Whether these effects last remains to be seen. Up to now, our attention has focused on containment of the contagion, but it appears there are other lessons to be learnt.

Jo-Anne Johnson is a senior lecturer in child and family health at Anglia Ruskin University. This article first appeared on The Conversation

USA 
'Teachers’ union ‘double-dog dares’ 

Trump to sit in class during pandemic

'There’s no one that wants their kids back with us more than teachers... but we want to open it safely'

Louise Hall The Independent JULY 9, 2020

The president of the largest US teachers union has said they “double-dog dare” Donald Trump to sit in one of their classrooms during the pandemic when schools reopen.

Mr Trump has demanded that schools resume in-person classes in fall, and has also criticised the Centre for Disease Control’s (CDC) guidelines for re-opening as “expensive” and “tough”.

“There’s no one that wants their kids back with us more than teachers... but we want to open it safely,” National Education Association (NEA) President Lily Eskelsen García told CNN on Wednesday.

“We see what happens when they let bars open prematurely,” she added, referencing a number of states that have seen a surge in cases after re-opening their economies early on.

“This isn’t a bar. We’re talking about second graders. I had 39 sixth graders one year in my class. I double-dog dare Donald Trump to sit in a class of 39 sixth graders and breathe that air without any preparation for how we’re going to bring our kids back safely,” she said.

Watch more

White House denies pressuring CDC to change school guidelines

ROFLMAO ORWELLIAN LOGIC

AMERIKA THE THEOCRACY

Religious schools immune from discrimination suits, Supreme Court says

Trump threatens to withhold $13b if school systems don’t open

White House kicks off push to open schools despite Covid-19 surge

The NEA has insisted on a number of benchmarks before schools can re-open safely including personal protective equipment, deep-cleaning procedures that meet CDC standards, classroom layouts allowing six feet of distancing alongside hand-washing and sanitising stations.

On Wednesday, Mr Trump threatened to cut federal funding for districts ignoring his demand after suggesting that strict guidelines could lead some officials to decide to continue teaching an online-only curriculum by fall.

“In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS,” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter. “The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if US schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!”

The president has made it clear that he disapproves of the CDC’s new guidelines which aim to keep children safe through social distancing, cloth face coverings, the closing of communal areas like dining rooms and playgrounds, and possible implementation of hygienic barriers.

“I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!” he tweeted on Wednesday morning.

Ms Garcia suggested that the “expensive” measures should be funded with the $3 trillion HEROES Act passed by house democrats in May that has not yet been considered by the Republican-controlled Senate.

The US has over three million confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and has seen 132,723 deaths as of Thursday, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University.

UK 

The arts are an essential service – as vital as health, education, defence

CUT THE WAR BUDGET FUND THE ARTS

The Tories’ cash injection is not before time, says Mark Hudson, but it’s still a box of band-aids rather than a life-saving transfusion

The National Gallery allowed its first visitors on Saturday ( EPA )

The government’s announcement of a £1.57bn bailout for the culture sector is an acknowledgement – if somewhat belated – of the vital importance of the arts in our national life. “The beating heart of the nation,” boomed the prime minister. And if that’s hardly the subtlest of metaphors, for once Johnson got it essentially right.

There’s a tendency to think of theatres, art galleries and concert halls as optional luxuries in the wider struggle of life: frivolous add-ons that societies can afford to enjoy once they’ve paid for the really important things: health, education, infrastructure, defence. In fact, the arts, culture – whatever you want to call it – performs a vital function in our society, just as essential, in my opinion, as any of the so-called essential services we’ve been hearing so much about.

Indeed, while the past four months have left us feeling profoundly, and entire rightly, grateful to the NHS and the dedicated professionals who have risked – and in some cases given – their lives to keep the system going, this period has equally demonstrated the absolute centrality of the arts to the mental and physical health of the nation.

While we’ve been cooped up in our domiciles, deprived of life-giving social contact, put on furlough, losing our jobs and our loved ones, what have we actually been doing? While some have been driven frantic trying to homeschool children, while maintaining demanding jobs from the kitchen table, many more have been thrown back entirely on their own emotional resources. When final assessments are made, the Covid-19 pandemic and its lockdown will be found to have been as much a crisis in mental as physical health. And the things we’ve found to fill that terrifying spiritual and emotional gap – that sense of the abyss yawning beneath us – have been to a very large extent, and in the broadest sense, cultural.


Watching telly and posting years-old holiday snaps or listening to your favourite albums on Facebook may not be the most elevated of cultural pursuits, but they cater in varying ways to the imaginative and expressive impulse that is at the root of all art forms, and which can manifest itself in extremely destructive – as well as very positive – ways if not properly nurtured: from insanity, murder and suicide, to sexual abuse, drugs and alcohol addiction.
Read more

Covid-19 was a chance for the BBC to strip the Proms of its jingoism

The public has, in addition, been giving concerts via Zoom, often at an exemplary level, writing poetry (very much less exemplary, if my efforts were anything to go by), gardening, reorganising their photo archives, finishing novels, doing table-top art exercises set by famous artists. Many of the latter were piffling – I, for one, can’t wait to be rescued from Grayson Perry’s Art Club – but they show we just need to do this stuff. We’ve been on virtual gallery tours, seen great masterpieces locked away from the public gaze, with the feeling, certainly at the height of the lockdown when we were endlessly hearing that “things will never go back to the way they were”, that this was as close to a gallery visit as we would ever get again.


Now, with lockdown slowly lifting, the museums and galleries are among the first cultural institutions to open their doors – with the National Gallery allowing its first visitors last Saturday – and they’re opening onto a very different world to the one they closed them on in March. Blockbuster exhibitions, those resource-heavy mainstays of the big galleries will be in short supply in the stark and straitened post-Covid landscape, while more than 50 per cent of museum and gallery directors surveyed by the museum charity the Art Fund doubt the future viability of their institutions: from attracting visitors back to maintaining valuable collections.

Read more

Does new Barbican exhibition have important things to say about men?

These are grave questions. We’ve grown used to having culture on tap, as freely available as water or gas, and actually much cheaper to the consumer. The Victorians gave us our big national and municipal galleries, which are still free to enter. The post-war period gave us the Arts Council and all its works, while the late Nineties and early Noughties gave us a whole raft of spanking new, architecturally remarkable provincial galleries – Tate St Ives, Hepworth Wakefield, Margate’s Turner Contemporary – that have added immeasurably not only to the appeal of our towns and cities, but to the creative, cultural, social and, yes, economic vitality of the country.


The future of this great national resource is by no means guaranteed. The idea of museums and galleries going the way of pubs, banks and petrol stations as redundant chunks of real estate is horrible to contemplate.

Last autumn saw a £100m injection of government cash into the crumbling fabric of our national museums and galleries, a gesture that while very much welcomed was seen as more of a sticking plaster than a permanent remedy. In that context, the current £1.57m bailout, across the entire cultural sector – the breakdown of how it will be used has yet to be announced – feels more like a box of band-aids than a life-saving transfusion.

There are desperate times ahead for the cultural sector. Yet, on the question of attracting audiences back, I’m personally optimistic. After four months of online culture under effective house arrest, which has felt like a lifetime, people will be screaming to get back into real-life cultural spaces, with actual, physical works of art, where the injunction “please don’t touch the exhibits” will feel like a wonderful luxury. We need to support our museums and galleries, not just by giving donations and spending money in the cafe and shop, but by using them, making them ours, as their founders intended. It’s only when you’ve been deprived of the experience of being in a gallery or museum with other people, even if you don’t know them, speak to them or even look at them, that you realise what a precious, life-enhancing and essentially social experience that is.

Fast fashion books: Learn the truth behind brands like Boohoo


Garment workers in Leicester's factories have been found to be paid as little as £3.50 per hour and forced to work, even when they've shown signs of coronavirus, while conditions in other countries are terrifying. As consumers, it’s time to rethink and help bring about change
Eva Waite-Taylor THE INDEPENDENT JULY 8,2020

Globally, people consume in excess of 100 billion pieces of clothing a year. ( iStock/The Independent )

The affordability of clothing coupled with #ootd culture leads many of us to think we need a new outfit whenever we leave our homes. And when it comes to fast fashion, we all plead guilty to it one way or another – either by buying Zara’s polka dot dress last summer or copping Mango's Bottega Veneta inspired clutch bag.

The thrill we get after finding a cheap dress or dupe of a designer piece is undeniably problematic. And we needn’t look far to know that the price tag of many of our fashion buys frequently does not reflect the item's true cost.

The ethical and environmental issues surrounding the fashion industry are no secret and have been brought to light in the past few years, namely after the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013. Around a third of the 3,122 workers died and the devastation also revealed the horrendous conditions many garment workers are forced to work in.

According to a recent McKinsey report, globally, people consume in excess of 100 billion pieces of clothing a year. And the textile industry is said to be the second biggest polluters, and responsible for 92 million tonnes of waste annually. Fast fashion is causing indisputable environmental implications, but the problems don’t stop there.

On a social level, garment workers remain mired in poverty because of the fast fashion business model to churn out fresh cheap lines of clothing at a frightening rate.

Take for example online retailer Boohoo. At the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, many brands grappled to make sense of how they would survive, Boohoo however seemed to have it nailed. Producing new lockdown inspired lines at lightning speed.

But a recent investigation has revealed the poor working condition in its Leicester based factories, with workers expected to be paid as little as £3.50 an hour, despite Britain’s minimum wage being £8.72 for those aged over 25.

Read more

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11 best sustainable kids’ clothing brands you need to know

Labour Behind the Label, garment workers’ rights group, made separate claims in its latest report – stating that those working in the Leicester-based factories that supply to the fast fashion giant were “forced to come into work while sick with Covid-19”.

This news comes after the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) put forward several recommendations in its Fixing Fashion: Clothing consumption and sustainability report, which the government rejected. Points of note include the concerns of child labour, prison labour, and force labour.

Further afield, in countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia, it is no secret that garment workers face unsafe conditions, with many brands turning a blind eye to the illegal subcontracting and allowing forced and unpaid overtime. And for there to be any meaningful change, the solution is rather simple, brands must pay garment workers a living wage – yet seem to continually ignore the calls for action.

What’s worse, when the pandemic hit, and spending nosedived, many brands faced changes in levels of demand, causing retailers – including Arcadia and New Look – to cancel orders to the tune of £2.5bn.

Bangladesh was hit hard by this. With garment manufacturing accounting for 84 per cent of the country’s overall exports, it left workers without an income and in destitution. In response, Lock Stock launched – a scheme bridging the gap between garment workers and wasted clothes. Delivering mystery boxes of clothes (costing £35) from a range of high-street brands for half the cost of the normal retail price.

While this was a positive move at a time when workers were under sheer desperation, this simply is not enough, and the fast fashion industry must wake up to its inequalities. This is not to say brands should relocate garment work, since countries rely heavily on it as a source of income. Instead, the big companies need to take more responsibility for change to happen.

As consumers, it’s time to rethink and help bring about change. Ways to do this include joining the #PayUp movement – a campaign demanding that brands pay for completed and in-progress orders, and support Fashion Revolution, Labour Behind The Label, and Fair Wear.

To help you further, we've compiled a round-up of the books that will help you learn the truth behind the fast fashion industry. After all, knowledge is power.

You can trust our independent round-ups. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections. This revenue helps us to fund journalism across The Independent.

'How to Break Up with Fast Fashion' by Lauren Bravo, published by Headline Publishing Group: £10.65, WHSmith

This book does exactly what it says on the tin: help you be rid of fast fashion once and for all. A guilt-free guide that will change the way you think about clothing for the better. It will inspire you to repair, recycle, and spruce up old items, as well as embrace more sustainable habits when it comes to shopping.


'Slave to Fashion' by Safia Minney, published by New Internationalist Ltd: £13.99, Waterstones

Made up of interviews and micro-documentaries with men, women, and children caught in slavery making clothes for high street brands, this book offers sobering truths and stark realities of the textile industry. While Slave to Fashion does a brilliant job of highlighting the terrible reality of millions of garment workers, it also offers hope of a fairer, more ethical world. lt provides helpful tools on how we should navigate the challenging and difficult fashion world, while also highlighting what governments and businesses should do to call time on this unnecessary suffering.

'Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes' by Dana Thomas, published by Apollo: £7.99, Amazon


Author and journalist Dana Thomas travelled the globe to seek the answers to what we must do about the social and environmental impacts of the fashion industry. As such, the book offers a blueprint for how we must proceed if we are to have a more sustainable future. Filled with eye-opening facts, Fashionopolis exposes the fashion world's toxicity one page at a time.

'To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?' by Lucy Siegle, published by Fourth Estate: £10.65, Amazon

Revealing the inhumane and environmental stories behind the clothes we buy and wear, To Die For is a chilling exposé into the industry. Included within the book are Siegel's conversations with Cambodian garment workers, visits to Bangladesh factories, and the forced teen labour in Uzbekistan. This is a must-read for all.

'The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good While Doing Good' by Elizabeth L. Cline, published by Plume: £10.59, Blackwell's

Journalist and clothing resale expert, Elizabeth L. Cline brings you your definitive guide to building a more ethical and sustainable wardrobe you will love. It begins with guiding you through a sustainable wardrobe clear out, all the way through to how you can mend your clothes. Not just a style guide, The Conscious Closet is also a call to action to transform how we think about clothes.

UK

Coronavirus: Teachers need ‘urgent clarification’ before schools fully reopen, union says

NASUWT calls for ‘coordinated national plan’
Zoe Tidman THE INDEPENDENT JULY 7,2020

School attendance mandatory from September, Gavin Williamson says ( Clive Brunskill/Getty Images )

Teachers need “urgent clarification” over a range of issues for schools to safely reopen in September, a leading union has said.

The NASUWT teachers' union has asked the government for more information, including over how classroom teaching will carry on in the event of staff absences and what extra support will be available to help schools establish a safe return.

Their general secretary said “a significant number of measures” laid out in the guidance for a full reopening in September “require additional resources” in a letter to the education secretary, which urged the government to address the concerns of teachers and school leaders before all students are welcomed back in two months’ time.

“How schools will be able to fund these additional expectations is a key question we are being asked,” Dr Patrick Roach said in the letter to Gavin Williamson.

As well as mentioning extra funding, NASUWT said teachers and headteachers have also raised questions around protections for clinically vulnerable staff and extra cleaning provisions.

Dr Roach also urged Mr Williamson to address concerns over “the logistical challenge” of getting enough school transport so children from different year groups and schools would not have to mix.

He asked the education secretary to design a ”coordinated national plan” for the safe and full reopening of schools in September that addresses the ”many practical and logistical issues” teachers and headteachers have raised.

The Department for Education (DfE) said last week “detailed plans” have been released for schools and colleges in England to welcome back all students from September following disruption due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Certain year groups, including Year 1 and Year 6, were allowed back from the start of June.

Mr Williamson has said it will be “compulsory” for all pupils to go back to school in September.

Read more

Why Gavin Williamson can’t afford to mess up the reopening of schools

“The NASUWT recognises the importance of schools reopening to all children as soon as it is safe to do so,” Dr Roach, the general secretary, said.

“Schools have only a few weeks before they close for the summer break,” he added. “Teachers and headteachers need urgent clarification from the DfE if they are to be able to meet the guidance on September reopening consistently and safely.”
Dr Roach’s letter to the education secretary also called for clarity in the event of a confirmed case of Covid-19 in a school and to ensure the priority for coronavirus testing includes teachers.

DfE said last week guidance published ”provides schools, colleges and nurseries with the details needed to plan for a full return, as well as reassuring parents about what to expect for their children”.

The education secretary said: “The very best place for children to be is in the classroom, which is why we have set out our plans for all young people to return to education full-time from September.”

Mr Williamson added: “I want to reassure parents and families that we are doing everything we can to make sure schools are as safe as possible for children and staff, and will continue to work closely with the country’s best scientific and medical experts to ensure that is the case.”