It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, December 04, 2020
Rock-a-bye fly: Why vibrations lead to sleepiness
Researchers discover that gentle vibration can induce sleep in flies through a simple form of learning
CREDIT: IMAGE CREDIT: DR. KYUNGHEE KOH, THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY.
PHILADELPHIA - It is common practice to rock babies to sleep. Children and grownups also get drowsy during long car rides. There is something about gentle mechanical stimuli that makes humans of all ages sleepy. Sleep in fruit flies is very much like human sleep, and you can learn a lot about human sleep by studying how fly sleep is regulated. In research published in Cell Reports on December 1st, 2020, researchers report that flies fall asleep during vibration through a simple form of learning called habituation.
"Babies like to be rocked to sleep, but the neural mechanisms underlying this well-known phenomenon remain largely a mystery. We wanted to establish the fruit fly as a model system to study the mechanisms of sleep induction by mechanical stimulation," says Kyunghee Koh, PhD, associate professor of neuroscience at the Vickie & Jack Farber Institute for Neurosciences and the Synaptic Biology Center at Thomas Jefferson University and senior author on the study.
The researchers found that flies sleep longer during vibration and are less responsive to light pulses that would otherwise wake the flies. Also, they are more awake after vibration, suggesting they have accumulated "sleep credit." In other words, they act as if they slept more than they need to during vibration, which allows them to function well with less sleep afterward.
These findings suggest that vibration-induced sleep is similar to regular sleep and serves some of their vital functions. They found that how much extra sleep flies get during vibration depends on the flies' genetic background as well as the vibration frequency and amplitude. Dr. Koh's group also learned that multiple sensory organs are involved in the process.
Interestingly, vibration initially makes flies more active than usual, but gradually puts them to sleep. Also, the ability to go to sleep improves when exposure to vibration is repeated several times, implicating habituation, a form of simple learning. "Flies learn over time that vibration is not threatening, which lowers their reaction to stimulation that would otherwise make them alert," says Dr. Koh. Suppression of alertness appears necessary for vibration-induced sleep because mutant flies with increased dopamine levels that make them more alert do not fall asleep with vibration.
It is yet unclear whether similar mechanisms are at work in humans. But Dr. Koh says, "further investigation may help us develop and optimize sensory stimulation as a sleep aid for humans. Our findings suggest it would be worthwhile to personalize the stimulus parameters for each individual over several sessions."
However, her team's initial goals are to learn more about the underlying neural mechanisms using the fruit fly as a model system. They plan to identify specific neurons in the fly brain involved in the process and determine whether vibration-induced sleep functions like normal sleep to enhance memory and longevity and whether repetitive stimulation of other senses (e.g., sight and smell) can also induce sleep.
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This work was supported by NIH grants R01NS086887 and R01NS084835, a predoctoral fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, and funds from Jefferson Synaptic Biology Center.
Article Reference: Arzu Öztürk-Çolak, Sho Inami, Joseph R. Buchler, Patrick D. McClanahan, Andri Cruz, Christopher Fang-Yen, and Kyunghee Koh, "Sleep Induction by Mechanosensory Stimulation in Drosophila," Cell Reports, DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108462, 2020.
Dolutegravir, the current first-line treatment for HIV, may not be as effective as hoped in sub-Saharan Africa, suggests new research published on World AIDS Day. The study finds that this so-called 'wonder drug' may be less effective in patients resistant to older drugs.
As HIV copies itself and replicates, it can develop errors, or 'mutations', in its genetic code (its RNA). While a drug may initially be able to supress or even kill the virus, certain mutations can allow the virus to develop resistance to its effects. If a mutated strain begins to spread within a population, it can mean once-effective drugs are no longer able to treat people.
HIV treatment usually consists of a cocktail of drugs that includes a type of drug known as a non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI). However, in recent years, HIV has begun to develop resistance to NNRTIs. Between 10% and 15% of patients in much of sub-Saharan Africa are infected by a strain of HIV resistant to these drugs. If a patient is infected with an NNRTI-resistant strain, they are at a two- to three-fold increased risk of the drug regimen failing.
In 2019, the World Health Organization began to recommend dolutegravir as the preferred first-line treatment for HIV in most populations. Dolutegravir was dubbed a 'wonder drug' because it was safe, potent and cost-effective and scientists had seen no drug resistance against it in clinical trials. However, there is little data on the success of dolutegravir against circulating strains of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.
In a study published today in Nature Communications, an international team of researchers from South Africa, the UK and the USA examined the genetic code of HIV to determine if drug resistance mutations in 874 volunteers living with HIV affected their treatment success. The individuals were enrolled in a clinical trial for people initiating HIV treatment to compare two drug regimens: efavirenz, an NNRTI and prior first-line therapy in the region, and dolutegravir.
The goal of this study was to determine whether drug resistance to efavirenz prior to starting treatment affected treatment success (suppression of the virus in the blood) over the first two years of therapy with both of these two regimens.
As expected, the presence of drug resistance substantially reduced the chances of treatment success in people taking efavirenz, successfully suppressing the virus over 96-weeks in 65% of participants compared to 85% of non-resistant individuals. However, unexpectedly, the same pattern was true for individuals taking dolutegravir-based treatments: 66% of those with efavirenz resistance mutations remained suppressed over 96-weeeks compared to 84% of those without the mutations. These relationships held true after accounting for other factors, such as treatment adherence.
"We fully expected efavirenz to be less effective among patients HIV strains resistant to NNRTIs," said Dr Mark Siedner, faculty member at the Africa Health Research Institute in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. "What took us completely by surprise was that dolutegravir - a different class of drug which is generally effective in the face of drug resistance - would also be less effective in people with these resistant strains.
"We are working now to tease out if this was due to the virus or the participants - for instance, if people with resistance are less likely to take their pills regularly. Either way, if this pattern holds true, it could have far reaching impacts on our predictions of long-term treatment control for millions of people taking dolutegravir in the region."
Professor Ravi Gupta from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge said: "This a huge concern. Dolutegravir was very much seen as a 'wonder drug', but our study suggests it might not be as effective in a significant number of patients who are resistant to another important class of antiretroviral drugs."
The researchers say it is not clear why efavirenz-resistant mutations should affect susceptibility of dolutegravir, though one hypothesis is that integrase inhibitors such as dolutegravir push the virus to replicate and mutate faster, in turn developing resistance to the new drug in an evolutionary arms race. Alternatively, it could be due to poor adherence to treatment regimens, even though the analysis accounted for adherence by two independent methods. Further research is needed to find out why.
Professor Gupta added: "What this shows is that we urgently need to prioritise point of care tests to identify people with drug resistance HIV, particularly against efavirenz, and to more closely and accurately monitor treatment adherence. The development of such tests is at an advanced stage, but there a lack of investment from funders and philanthropic donors. We urgently need agencies and individuals to step forward and help support these programmes.
"In addition, we need to provide widespread access to viral load monitoring so that we can find those who are struggling, get them on more appropriate regimens, and limit the emergence of resistance when patients are failing therapy."
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The study was carried out by researchers at: the Africa Health Research Institute, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Witwatersrand, KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, and the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), in South Africa; the University of Cambridge, University of Liverpool, and Imperial College London in the UK; and Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, USA.
The research was supported by USAID, Unitaid, the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), with investigational drug donated by ViiV Healthcare and Gilead Sciences, and by Wellcome and the National Institutes of Health.
Reference
Siedner, MJ et al. Reduced efficacy of HIV-1 integrase inhibitors in patients with drug resistance mutations in reverse transcriptase. Nat Comms; 1 Dec 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19801-x
CANCER NEWS
City of Hope developed cancer-killing virus: activates immune system against colon cancer
The preclinical research demonstrates that combining the oncolytic virus CF33 with an immune checkpoint inhibitor results in lasting resistance to certain tumors
DUARTE, Calif. -- A cancer-killing virus that City of Hope scientists developed could one day improve the immune system's ability to eradicate tumors in colon cancer patients, reports a new study in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
The preclinical research is a first step to showing that City of Hope's oncolytic virus CF33 can target hard-to-treat tumors that "handcuff" the immune system and keep T cells from activating the immune system to kill cancer cells. More specifically, the researchers demonstrated in mouse models that CF33 appears to increase PD-L1 expression in tumor cells and causes them to die in a way that stimulates an influx of activated immune cells.
"CF33 is a safe, innovative virus City of Hope developed that can become a gamechanger because of how potent it is and because of its ability to recruit and activate immune cells," said Susanne Warner, M.D., a surgical oncologist at City of Hope and senior author of the study. "Our oncolytic virus trains the immune system to target a specific cancer cell. Preclinical models show that a combination treatment of oncolytic virus CF33 with anti-PD-L1 checkpoint inhibition leads to lasting anti-tumor immunity, meaning if a similar cancer cell ever tries to regrow, the immune system will be ready and waiting to shut it down."
Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States and is expected to cause 53,200 deaths in 2020, according to the American Cancer Society. City of Hope researchers are excited about the potential of CF33 to enhance colon cancer treatment and point out that CF33 has been effective preclinically against a wide variety of cancers.
Yuman Fong, M.D., the Sangiacomo Family Chair in Surgical Oncology at City of Hope, and his team created oncolytic virus CF33 and expect to open a clinical trial to test the safety of this treatment in human patients in 2021. This treatment addresses a problem in cancer: Most solid tumors do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors because the "uncloaked tumor cell" still isn't recognized by the immune system, Fong said.
"CF33 selectively infects, replicates in and kills cancer cells. This study demonstrates that a designer virus we created to infect a wide variety of cancers can make tumor cells very recognizable to the immune system," Fong said. He, Warner and other City of Hope physician-scientists are working on turning "cold tumors" resistant to treatment into "hot tumors" that can be killed by a well-trained immune system.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved only one oncolytic virus thus far: T-VEC, which is a local immunotherapy treatment that kills melanoma cells.
To confirm their hypothesis, City of Hope scientists tested four groups: control with no treatment, anti-PD-L1 alone, CF33 alone, and a combination of CF33 and anti-PD-L1. Results indicated that a combined treatment of City of Hope's oncolytic virus and anti-PD-L1 appeared to be most effective. It also increased CD8+ T cells, which are immune cells that remember previous diseases and are trained to kill them if they are reintroduced later. In other words, the models developed anti-tumor immunity. This means that animals cured of their cancer were effectively immune to future tumor growth.
Fong and colleagues have demonstrated CF33's anti-tumor immune efficacy against triple-negative breast cancer cell lines, in brain tumor cells, in liver cancer models, and in pancreatic, prostate, ovarian, lung and head and neck cancer. Moreover, a recent City of Hope-led study found that CF33 could be combined with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy to target and eliminate solid tumors that are otherwise difficult to treat with CAR T therapy alone. City of Hope has licensed CF33 to Imugene Limited, a company developing novel therapies that activate the immune system against cancer.
Notably, the CF33 virus may be tracked by non-invasive PET scanning. "If we can perfect the technique, we can give someone a viral injection and watch it work - see where it goes and identify cancer cells that we didn't even know existed," Warner said. "Doctors would have real-time data and know if we should give a patient a higher dose or where to direct the treatment based on tumors that have not yet been killed."
What Warner describes is a developing field called theranostic precision medicine, meaning doctors are able to give patients therapies and concurrently diagnose them to provide the most appropriate treatment for that patient. It is one of many precision medicine approaches City of Hope is developing and offering to patients.
The next step for the current study is to test the innovative CF33 virus platform in different solid tumor models.
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This research was supported by the American Cancer Society Mentored Research Scholar Grant (MRSG-16-047-01-MPC) and through the generosity of the Natalie and David Roberts Family.
About City of Hope
City of Hope is an independent biomedical research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Founded in 1913, City of Hope is a leader in bone marrow transplantation and immunotherapy such as CAR T cell therapy. City of Hope's translational research and personalized treatment protocols advance care throughout the world. Human synthetic insulin and numerous breakthrough cancer drugs are based on technology developed at the institution. A National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center and a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, City of Hope has been ranked among the nation's "Best Hospitals" in cancer by U.S. News & World Report for 14 consecutive years. Its main campus is located near Los Angeles, with additional locations throughout Southern California. For more information about City of Hope, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.
AI predicts which drug combinations kill cancer cells
A machine learning model developed in Finland can help us treat cancer more effectively
IMAGE: AI METHODS CAN HELP US PERFECT DRUG COMBINATIONS. view more
CREDIT: MATTI AHLGREN, AALTO UNIVERSITY
When healthcare professionals treat patients suffering from advanced cancers, they usually need to use a combination of different therapies. In addition to cancer surgery, the patients are often treated with radiation therapy, medication, or both.
Medication can be combined, with different drugs acting on different cancer cells. Combinatorial drug therapies often improve the effectiveness of the treatment and can reduce the harmful side-effects if the dosage of individual drugs can be reduced. However, experimental screening of drug combinations is very slow and expensive, and therefore, often fails to discover the full benefits of combination therapy. With the help of a new machine learning method, one could identify best combinations to selectively kill cancer cells with specific genetic or functional makeup.
Researchers at Aalto University, University of Helsinki and the University of Turku in Finland developed a machine learning model that accurately predicts how combinations of different cancer drugs kill various types of cancer cells. The new AI model was trained with a large set of data obtained from previous studies, which had investigated the association between drugs and cancer cells. 'The model learned by the machine is actually a polynomial function familiar from school mathematics, but a very complex one,' says Professor Juho Rousu from Aalto University.
The research results were published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, demonstrating that the model found associations between drugs and cancer cells that were not observed previously. 'The model gives very accurate results. For example, the values ??of the so-called correlation coefficient were more than 0.9 in our experiments, which points to excellent reliability,' says Professor Rousu. In experimental measurements, a correlation coefficient of 0.8-0.9 is considered reliable.
The model accurately predicts how a drug combination selectively inhibits particular cancer cells when the effect of the drug combination on that type of cancer has not been previously tested. 'This will help cancer researchers to prioritize which drug combinations to choose from thousands of options for further research,' says researcher Tero Aittokallio from the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) at the University of Helsinki.
The same machine learning approach could be used for non-cancerous diseases. In this case, the model would have to be re-taught with data related to that disease. For example, the model could be used to study how different combinations of antibiotics affect bacterial infections or how effectively different combinations of drugs kill cells that have been infected by the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus.
Cancer cases are rising in adolescents and young adults
HERSHEY, Pa. -- Cancer cases in adolescents and young adults have risen by 30% during the last four decades, with kidney cancer rising at the greatest rate, according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine. The team said further research into screening, diagnosis and treatment are needed to address the growing trend in this age group.
Dr. Nicholas Zaorsky, assistant professor of radiation oncology and public health sciences, said that cancer is the leading cause of disease-related death in this age group and that the increasing number of cases is concerning.
"Adolescents and young adults are a distinct cancer population," Zaorsky said. "But they are often grouped together with pediatric or adult patients in research studies. It is important to study how this group is distinct so that care guidelines can be developed to address the increase in cases."
The researchers analyzed data -- including sex, age at diagnosis and type of cancer -- from nearly half a million cancer patients in the United States between 15 and 39 years old across more than four decades. The data were collected by the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program. The team's goal was to determine the number of cancer cases in adolescents and young adults between 1973 and 2015. The results published today (Dec. 1) in JAMA Network Open.
During the time period studied, the researchers found cancer diagnoses increased from 57 to 74 per 100,000 adolescents and young adults. The most common types in males were testicular, melanoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The most common types in females were breast, thyroid, cervical and uterine cancers. Zaorsky, a Penn State Cancer Institute researcher, said that the rates of kidney, thyroid and gastrointestinal cancers are increasing in this age group.
"Other studies have shown these types are increasing among this age group," said Zaorsky. "Our data reinforces the fact that clinicians should be on the lookout for these cancers in their adolescent and young adult patients."
According to Zaorsky, further research is needed to determine why kidney, thyroid, gastrointestinal and other types of cancer are on the rise in adolescents and young adults. He said that environmental, dietary and screening changes during the time period studied may have contributed to the increased incidences.
"These cancers all have unique risk factors," Zaorsky said. "Now that there is a better understanding of the types of cancer that are prevalent and rising in this age group, prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment protocols specifically targeted to this population should be developed."
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Alyssa Scott, Kelsey Stoltzfus, Leila Tchelebi and Pooja Rao of Penn State College of Medicine; Daniel Trifiletti of Mayo Clinic; Eric Lehrer of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; and Archie Bleyer of Oregon Health and Science University and McGovern Medical School also contributed to this research.
This research was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translation Sciences (Grants TL1 TR002016 and UL1 TR002014) through Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute's Translational Science Fellowship. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. The authors disclose no conflict of interest.
PHILADELPHIA (December 1, 2020) - More than 90 percent of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancers could be prevented by widespread uptake of the HPV vaccine. Yet, vaccine use in the United States falls short of public health goals.
In an article in JMIR Nursing, researchers explain how they applied user-centered design principles to develop a mobile health (mhealth) app to improve HPV vaccine uptake and how its use was evaluated with parents and parent-adolescent dyads. The app -- Vaccipack -- is exclusively focused on adolescent vaccines and targets key parental beliefs related to HPV vaccines. The mhealth app is designed for parents (to use and share with their adolescents) to promote the initiation and completion of the HPV vaccine series in their adolescent children.
The study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) evaluated the acceptability of and intention to use the app. It found that intention to use the app was high among both parents and adolescents after being introduced to the app and given time explore it.
"Theory-based content design, although standard practice in behavioral intervention research, has not been a typical approach adopted by app developers," says Anne M. Teitelman, PhD, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, Associate Professor Emerita of Nursing at Penn Nursing. "Evaluation of acceptability and likely use, as we present here, is an important preliminary step for developing apps and in designing behavioral interventions that are most likely to achieve the desired health outcome." Teitelman is the lead investigator of the study and among the developers of the app.
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The article, "Vaccipack, A Mobile App to Promote Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Uptake Among Adolescents Aged 11 to 14 Years: Development and Usability Study" is available online.
Coauthors of the article include Joshua Jayasinghe, BSN, PhD; Ja H. Koo1, BSN; and Annet Davis, RN, MSW, all of Penn Nursing; Emily F. Gregory MD, MHS and Kristen A. Feemster, MD, MPH, MSHP, both of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; Zara Wermers of xTufts University; Jennifer F. Morone, RN, MA-ATR, PhD of Yale University; and Damien C. Leri, MPH, MS-Ed of Big Yellow Star, Inc.
Selecting best microalgae for biodiesel production
An investigation of nine types of microalgae for use as an energy source in commercial biodiesel production based on laboratory-scale data
IMAGE: SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM FOR THE PROCESS TO OBTAIN OVERALL SCORE FOR EVALUATING MICROALGAL SPECIES FOR BIODIESEL PRODUCTION view more
CREDIT: LUCAS MARTÍN
WASHINGTON, December 1, 2020 -- Microalgae are a promising source of energy to replace fossil fuels, as they have several advantages over conventional crops used for commercial biodiesel. Microalgae have a shorter lifecycle and they can be developed in environments unfit for agriculture, so they are not competing with food crops for resources.
In the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, by AIP Publishing, researchers developed a methodology to analyze the properties of different species to select the best microalgae for use as an energy source by taking into account biological, economic, and environmental aspects.
Despite the advantages of microalgae and the improvements in culture procedures, relatively few species have been studied as biodiesel feedstock. Different properties have been evaluated for the purpose of selecting suitable microalgal species for biodiesel, including growth rate and lipid content, lipid productivity, fatty acid composition, and biodiesel quality. Standard methods for determining these properties, however, are often hampered by the volume of material required for analysis and the need for specific equipment, resulting in high costs.
"Our work makes it possible to perform an analysis of the microalgae based on laboratory-scale data, without the need to go through a pilot-scale experiment," said author Lucas Martín.
The researchers created an overall score that standardized criteria for potential large-scale cultures, covering biomass and oil production requirements, triacylglyceride content and biodiesel quality. They examined nine types of microalgae and found the native benthic diatoms H. coffeaeformis, Navicula cincta, and N. gregaria appeared to be the most promising species for biodiesel production.
"This tool provides a useful criterion for selecting suitable microalgal species for commercial biodiesel production," said Martín. "The most surprising thing was the low score obtained by species that are widely studied for the production of biodiesel such as Chlorella vulgaris."
The researchers also uncovered promising new areas for further research. They found many diatom species have favorable characteristics for sustainable biofuel production and are robustly resistant to extreme environmental conditions. This species, however, has not yet generated a significant degree of scientific interest in the bioenergy field but should be at the forefront of bioprospecting efforts for biodiesel production.
"We think this procedure could be applied to any other bioproducts that are being produced for microalgae, in addition to biodiesel," said Martín.
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The article, "A practical tool for selecting microalgal species for biodiesel production," is authored by L.A. Martín, C.A. Popovich, M.C. Damiani, and P.I. Leonardi. The article will appear in Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy on Dec. 1, 2020 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0010668). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0010668.
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes across all areas of renewable and sustainable energy relevant to the physical science and engineering communities. Topics covered include solar, wind, biofuels and more, as well as renewable energy integration, energy meteorology and climatology, and renewable resourcing and forecasting. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/rse.
Google unlawfully fired worker organizers, NLRB alleges
Google violated labor laws when it fired two vocal employees in 2019, according to a complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board on .Wednesday
Google's offices stand in downtown Manhattan on October 20, 2020 in New York City. Accusing the company of using anticompetitive tactics to illegally monopolize the online search and search advertising markets, the Justice Department and 11 states Tuesday filed an antitrust case against Google. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, were among several that were terminated after organizing in late 2019 but were the only two the federal agency identified as being unlawfully fired, according to a copy of the consolidated complaint filed by the NLRB office in San Francisco.
The complaint alleges that Google wrongfully applied workplace policies, such as restricting how calendars could be used, to target employees engaged in organizing activities. It also alleges that employees were unlawfully surveilled while organizing; that workers were interrogated about organizing activities; and that the company placed employees like Berland and Spiers on administrative leave and terminated them in order to discourage other workers from organizing.
Berland had accessed the calendars of several employees as part of organizing efforts against Google's decision to hire a consulting firm known for its anti-union work, according to the complaint and a press release by the employees and their counsel. Spiers had created a pop-up notification to make colleagues aware of their right to organize on the company's community guidelines page and its anti-union website, the complaint and press release state.
"We strongly support the rights our employees have in the workplace, and open discussion and respectful debate have always been part of Google's culture," Google said in a statement. "We're proud of that culture and are committed to defending it against attempts by individuals to deliberately undermine it -- including by violating security policies and internal systems"
The statement adds: "We'll continue to provide information to the NLRB and the administrative judge about our decision to terminate or discipline employees who abused their privileged access to internal systems, such as our security tools or colleagues' calendars."
The NLRB complaint highlights the escalating tensions inside Google, which was long considered one of the best companies to work for.
Google must formally respond to the complaint by December 16, with a hearing scheduled for April 12, 2021.
The legal action comes roughly one year after the federal agency confirmed that it had launched an investigation into Google's labor practices shortly after four employees fired the day before Thanksgiving filed a complaint with the NLRB.
The workers, including Berland, alleged they were terminated as retaliation for workplace organizing; Google said it fired the workers for allegedly violating its data-security policies.
"This is a significant finding at a time when we're seeing the power of a handful of tech billionaires consolidate control over our lives and our society," said Berland in a statement in the press release. "Workers have the right to speak out about and organize, as the NLRB is affirming, but we also know that we should not, and cannot, cleave off ethical concerns about the role management wants to play in that society."
Spiers was fired shortly after the so-called Thanksgiving Four. In a statement at the time, a company spokesperson said, "We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool."
"Colleagues and strangers believe I abused my role because of lies told by Google management while they were retaliating against me. The NLRB can order Google to reinstate me, but it cannot reverse the harm done to my credibility," said Spiers in a statement from the press release.
The company previously settled a case with the agency in September 2019 over a claim that it had fired an employee for expressing conservative views. While it did not admit to wrongdoing, Google agreed to post a list of employees' rights and protections under the National Labor Relations Act for staffers.
The counsel for the terminated Google employees in the ongoing NLRB case, Laurie Burgess, said the NLRB did not issue complaints for wrongful termination of other employees, including those organizing against the company's business with US Customs and Border Protection.
"We intend to vigorously appeal the dismissed charges to the NLRB to ensure that the right to engage in this type of protected activity is not encroached upon," said Burgess in a statement.
Thousands petition Google for more answers on departed researcher
More than 2,000 Google employees and industry supporters are petitioning Google for answers on its firing of renown researcher Timnit Gebru.
Gebru, who claims she was terminated for conditional disagreements regarding one of her research papers, has been vocally critical of the company's treatment of research, diversity and inclusion efforts, and treatment of black employees.
Employees promptly took to Twitter, saying her managers' explanations didn't line up with their experiences.
Employees from Google and other organizations are asking Google for answers about how it handled the departure of renown researcher Timnit Gebru in an online petition that had more than 2,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon.
Gebru, a well-known artificial intelligence researcher, technical co-lead of Google's "Ethical AI" team and vocal critic of tech companies' treatment of Black workers, tweeted Wednesday night that her corporate account had been abruptly shut off after she discussed potentially resigning over a disagreement about a research paper that scrutinized bias in artificial intelligence, which the company asked her to retract.
The company's AI chief, Jeff Dean, who had sung her praises publicly over the last several months, later told employees that he pulled the research paper because Gebru didn't follow protocol for the paper and that it "ignored too much relevant research." He fast-tracked her resignation because of an email she sent to an employee resource group, "Women and Allies," that criticized the company's leadership approach to research, as well as its diversity and inclusion efforts.
Employees promptly took to Twitter, saying Dean's explanations didn't line up with their experiences with research at Google and other organizations.
In the online petition titled "Standing with Dr. Timnit Gebru," which has signatures of more than 1,078 Google employees and 1,413 academic, industry, and civil society personnel, demands clarification on what led to Gebru's termination and research paper handling.
The organized petition shows Google's vocal workforce speaking out again about the company's handling of ethics and treatment of Black employees amid the company's dismal progress in diversity and inclusion efforts. Employees, have requested clarity, specificity and transparency when it comes to diversity efforts after the company made bold commitments in 2020. It also comes on the heels of a National Labor Board complaint filed this week, alleging the company retaliated against employees voicing their concerns about work conditions.
"Instead of being embraced by Google as an exceptionally talented and prolific contributor, Dr. Gebru has faced defensiveness, racism, gaslighting, research censorship, and now a retaliatory firing," the petition states.
The petition calls for Jeff Dean, Google Senior Fellow and Senior Vice-President of Research and Megan Kacholia, Vice-President of Engineering for the Google Brain organization, to explain to the public and to Google's Ethical AI team to explain the process by which Gebru's paper was "unilaterally rejected by leadership." It also asks for the company to provide clear guidelines on "how research will be reviewed and how research integrity will be respected."
"We call on Google Research to strengthen its commitment to research integrity and to unequivocally commit to supporting research that honors the commitments made in Google's AI Principles," the petition states. "Until December 2, Dr. Gebru was one of very few Black women Research Scientists at the company, which boasts a dismal 1.6% Black employees overall."
Signatures include other renowned researchers from universities including Stanford, Harvard, and MIT as well as leaders from other tech companies including product Inclusion specialists, scientists and researchers from Netflix, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.
"This is absolutely infuriating," tweeted President & Director-Counsel of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Sherrilyn Ifill. "I am a huge fan and supporter of the work and uncompromising voice of @timnitGebru. I have learned so much from her about AI bias. What a disaster."
Google declined to comment on the petition and Gebru's departure, but pointed to a statement from Dean that touches on the company's review process for academic papers.
"Our aim is to rival peer-reviewed journals in terms of the rigor and thoughtfulness in how we review research before publication," Dean's statement read in part. "We're actively working on improving our paper review processes, because we know that too many checks and balances can become cumbersome. We will always prioritize ensuring our research is responsible and high-quality, but we're working to make the process as streamlined as we can so it's more of a pleasure doing research here."
Renowned AI researcher says Google abruptly fired her, spurring industrywide criticism of the company Timnit Gebru, an artificial intelligence researcher at Google, said on Thursday that she has been abruptly fired by Jeff Dean, Google's head of AI.
Gebru, who was the technical co-lead of the Ethical AI Team at Google, shared on Twitter what she claims is a dismissal email.
Gebru said she had made a number of requests and threatened to leave if they weren't met but didn't expect immediate termination.
Timnit Gebru, a well-known artificial intelligence researcher at Google, tweeted on Wednesday that the company abruptly fired her, drawing widespread statements of support from other Google employees and tech workers throughout the industry.
Gebru, who was the technical co-lead of the Ethical AI Team at Google and worked on algorithmic bias and data mining, is a well-known advocate for diversity in technology and is the co-founder of a community of black researchers called Black in AI. She has been a vocal critic of tech companies' treatment of Black workers and had tweeted veiled criticism about her employer earlier that day.
Gebru claims she received a dismissal email written by someone named Megan who reports to AI head Jeff Dean. She said the email stated leadership fast-tracked her departure because of an email she sent to women and "Allies" within Google Brain, Google's deep learning artificial intelligence research team, earlier in the week.
Gebru said her main corporate account had been cut off while she was on vacation. "I hadn't resigned — I had asked for simple conditions first and said I would respond when I'm back from vacation," tweeted Gebru.
Google declined to comment.
The email Gebru sent to colleagues, according to a report by Casey Newton, stated that superiors suddenly asked her to retract a research paper while presenting almost no information about what was wrong with it or chances to defend herself. In her email, she suggests this incident is part of a larger pattern at Google of paying lip service to diversity without making actual changes, adding "There is no way more documents or more conversations will achieve anything."
The email that she claims she received from Google, which CNBC has yet to confirm, apparently reads:
"Thanks for making your conditions clear. We cannot agree to #1 and #2 as you are requesting." (Gebru has not publicly detailed what those conditions were.) We respect your decision to leave Google as a result, and we are accepting your resignation. However, we believe the end of your employment should happen faster than your email reflects because certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager."
"As a result, we are accepting your resignation immediately, effective today. We will send your final paycheck to your address in Workday. When you return from your vacation, PeopleOps will reach out to you to coordinate the return of Google devices and assets."
Born and raised in Ethiopia, Gebru studied electrical engineering at Stanford before joining Apple, where she worked on the first iPad, and subsequently Microsoft. Gebru is well known for her work on the race and gender bias of facial recognition systems. In 2018, Gebru and MIT computer scientist Joy Buolamwini co-authored a milestone research paper showing IBM and Microsoft's facial recognition systems were significantly worse when it came to identifying darker-skinned individuals. Google AI head Jeff Dean has praised her publicly on social media.
Several Google employees past and present — as well as tech workers industrywide — took to Twitter to express support for Gebru and point out the irony of terminating an ethics leader in such fashion.
"I thought this was a joke because it seemed ridiculous that anyone would fire @timnitGebru given her expertise, her skills, her influence," wrote former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao on Twitter. "This is one of the many times when I think there is just no hope for the tech industry."
Kate Devlin, an AI researcher at King's College London, said on Twitter: "This is awful. @timnitGebru is one of the best voices in AI Ethics. It's a painful irony that what her employer, Google, is doing to her is shady as hell."
Gebru tweeted that she is now looking for an employment lawyer.
The latest controversy comes on the heels of a complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday that accuses Google of spying on employees, blocking employees from sharing work grievances and retaliation.
Trump Wins Court Ruling Allowing Money to Be Shifted for Wall
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump can redirect $3.6 billion in U.S. military funds to build a wall along the Mexican border because Texas groups that challenged the decision have no legal right to complain, a federal appeals court said.
A section of the U.S. and Mexico border wall stands in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019.
The ruling late Friday from the appeals court in New Orleans overturns a decision by a judge in El Paso, Texas, who said Trump broke the law by declaring a national emergency to redirect military money to the wall project after Congress specifically refused to pay for it.
A three-judge panel, in a split decision, ruled that El Paso County and a group of border-community activists didn’t prove they’ve been sufficiently harmed by Trump’s wall to challenge the funding shift.
The local community may have lost tourism and economic activity because of Trump’s rhetoric alleging the area is dangerous and crime-ridden because of an “invasion” of undocumented immigrants but that harm can’t be tied directly to the Pentagon’s funding shift, the majority ruled.
“A direct link, such as the loss of a specific tax revenue, is necessary to demonstrate standing,” wrote the majority, both of whom appointed by President George W. Bush. “Holding otherwise might spark a wave of unwarranted litigation against the federal government.”
Opponents of the wall, including a bipartisan group of constitutional scholars and former government officials, claim Trump’s funding shift is an abuse of executive power that usurps Congress’s authority to control federal spending. Lawmakers refused to give Trump more than $1.37 billion of the $5.7 billion he sought for the border wall, leading to a standoff that shut down the government for 35 days in early 2019.
U.S. District Judge James Dennis, appointed by President Bill Clinton, dissented, writing that the region’s economic loss of military spending earmarked for nearby Fort Bliss -- the second-largest domestic U.S. Army base -- and damage to El Paso’s reputation as a safe place for tourists and investors provided sufficient grounds for local officials to sue.
Dennis also chided his colleagues for letting Trump make an end run around Congress’s “power of the purse” and for setting the bar too high in defining conditions under which communities wronged by federal actions can legally sue.
The majority acknowledged it reached the opposite decision than did the San Francisco appellate court, which blocked the Pentagon from shifting a different pot of military funds to border wall construction. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the administration’s appeal in that related case, and the Texas border wall opponents are expected to also appeal to the high court.
The case is El Paso County, Texas, et al v Donald Trump et al, 19-51144, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (New Orleans).
HEY, HEY,USA; MYOB Trump signs anti-doping act into law
COLD WAR REDUX
(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law on Friday a bill that lets U.S. justice officials pursue criminal penalties against those involved in doping conspiracies at international events involving American athletes, sponsors or broadcasters.
The Rodchenkov Act, named after the whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov who helped expose Russia’s state-sponsored doping, empowers prosecutors to seek fines of up to $1 million and jail terms of up to 10 years, as well restitution to victims.
“(The law gives) the Department of Justice a powerful and unique set of tools to eradicate doping fraud and related criminal activities from international competitions,” said Rodchenkov’s lawyer Jim Walden, according to Inside the Games.
It was now up to the justice department to develop a robust program, cooperating with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and international law enforcement, to bring the guilty to justice and create zero tolerance for doping in sports, he added.
“Dopings should be on clear notice: This is a new sheriff in town, so cheat at your own peril.”
The bill, passed unopposed by the U.S. Senate last month, was opposed by the International Olympic Committee, who have questioned why American professional and college athletes are exempt.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said there was no need to include U.S. professional and college sports in the legislation as existing law allows their prosecution.
The World Anti-Doping Agency has also expressed concerns over the bill, saying it will destabilize the global anti-doping effort by extending U.S. jurisdiction beyond its own borders. “No nation has ever before asserted criminal jurisdiction over doping offences that occurred outside its national borders - and for good reason,” the agency said last month when the bill passed the Senate. “WADA remains concerned that by unilaterally exerting U.S. criminal jurisdiction over all global doping activity, the Act will likely undermine clean sport by jeopardizing critical partnerships and cooperation between nations.”
Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Ange
Divers discover Nazi WW2 enigma machine in Baltic Sea
BERLIN (Reuters) - German divers searching the Baltic Sea for discarded fishing nets have stumbled upon a rare Enigma cipher machine used by the Nazi military during World War Two which they believe was thrown overboard from a scuttled submarine.
Actor dressed as German soldier shows use of Enigma machine in Bletchley Park Museum
Thinking they had discovered a typewriter entangled in a net on the seabed of Gelting Bay, underwater archaeologist Florian Huber quickly realised the historical significance of the find.
"I've made many exciting and strange discoveries in the past 20 years. But I never dreamt that we would one day find one of the legendary Enigma machines," said Huber.
The Nazi military used the machines to send and receive secret messages during World War Two but British cryptographers cracked the code, helping the Allies gain an advantage in the naval struggle to control the Atlantic.
At Bletchley Park codebreaking centre, a British team led by Alan Turing is credited with unravelling the code, shortening the war and saving many thousands of lives.
Shortly before Germany's surrender in May 1945, the crews of about 50 submarines, or U-Boots, followed an order to scuttle their ships in Gelting Bay, near the Danish border, to avoid handing them to the Allies. Destroying encryption devices was part of the order.
"We suspect our Enigma went overboard in the course of this event," said Huber, of the Kiel-based company Submaris which leads underwater research missions.
Overall, Germans sank more than 200 of their submarines in the North and Baltic Seas at the end of the war.
The Enigma device, which looks like a typewriter, consisted of a keyboard and wheels which scrambled messages. Although several hundred thousand machines were produced, only a few hundred are known to exist. They sell at auction for tens of thousands of euros.
The find, made by divers working on behalf of WWF aiming to find abandoned fishing nets that endanger marine life, will be given to the archaeology museum in Schleswig.
(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
