Most Americans support Medicare negotiation despite claims it would hurt innovation

WEST HEALTH INSTITUTE

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IMAGE: FEW AMERICANS BELIEVE NEGOTIATING DRUG PRICES WILL HURT PHARMACEUTICAL INNOVATION AND COMPETITION; MOST WANT GOVERNMENT TO PLAY MAJOR ROLE IN CONTROLLING COSTS view more 

CREDIT: WEST HEALTH-GALLUP

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 3, 2021 -- A new West Health/Gallup survey finds nearly all Democrats (97%) and the majority of Republicans (61%) support empowering the federal government to negotiate lower prices of brand-name prescription drugs covered by Medicare. Overall, 8 in 10 Americans prefer major government action to control prices over concerns about it hurting innovation and competition from the pharmaceutical industry. The results come from a nationally representative poll of more than 3,700 American adults.

While President Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress and former President Donald Trump have called for such negotiation, Republicans on Capitol Hill and the pharmaceutical industry itself have been fiercely opposed to the measure, claiming lower prices would hurt competition and reduce innovation. However, this belief is not widely shared among the American people. According to the survey, less than 20% of all Americans believe Medicare negotiation would hurt innovation or market competition, including a minority of Republicans (39%).

"Americans aren't buying the claim that attempts to reign in drug prices will stifle innovation and devastate the pharmaceutical industry," said Tim Lash, Chief Strategy Officer for West Health, a family of nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations dedicated to lowering healthcare costs to enable successful aging. "These misleading arguments are meant to preserve profits rather than protect patients. The time has come to finally enable Medicare negotiation. Americans are becoming increasing restless for it to happen even if the pharmaceutical companies are not."

If enacted, Medicare negotiation as described in H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, is projected to save the federal government, businesses, and workers hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030. According to a new analysis from West Health and its Council for Informed Drug Spending Analysis (CIDSA), private employers could also save $195 billion and workers would see another $98 billion in savings. These savings are in addition to the estimated savings of $456 billion in federal direct spending forecast by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

When choosing between the need for major reform in drug pricing and maintaining the status quo, 90% of Americans chose to support reforms, including 96% of Democrats, 88% of Independents and 83% of Republicans. Sweeping support also exists for specific actions including setting limits on out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs (87% strongly or somewhat supporting) and general healthcare (84%) in Medicare and limiting hospital charges for those with private insurance (83%), and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices for all Americans, not just Medicare beneficiaries, is supported by 70% of respondents.

"There is little question that substantial public support exists for more government action when it comes to addressing drug costs," said Dan Witters, Gallup senior researcher. "And while there are differences across the political spectrum, even among Republicans, sentiment for public action is substantial."

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About Gallup

Gallup delivers analytics and advice to help leaders and organizations solve their most pressing problems. Combining more than 80 years of experience with its global reach, Gallup knows more about the attitudes and behaviors of employees, customers, students and citizens than any other organization in the world.

About West Health

Solely funded by philanthropists Gary and Mary West, West Health is a family of nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations including the Gary and Mary West Foundation and Gary and Mary West Health Institute in San Diego, and the Gary and Mary West Health Policy Center in Washington, D.C. West Health is dedicated to lowering healthcare costs to enable seniors to successfully age in place with access to high-quality, affordable health and support services that preserve and protect their dignity, quality of life and independence. Learn more at westhealth.org and follow @westhealth.

Scientists make powerful underwater glue inspired by barnacles and mussels

Silk proteins formed fibers, crosslinks, and iron complexes similar to those used by the sea creatures

TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: MODEL AIRPLANE ASSEMBLED WITH SILK-BASED GLUE view more 

CREDIT: MARCO LO PRESTI, TUFTS UNIVERSITY

If you have ever tried to chip a mussel off a seawall or a barnacle off the bottom of a boat, you will understand that we could learn a great deal from nature about how to make powerful adhesives. Engineers at Tufts University have taken note, and today report a new type of glue inspired by those stubbornly adherent crustaceans in the journal Advanced Science.

Starting with the fibrous silk protein harvested from silkworms, they were able to replicate key features of barnacle and mussel glue, including protein filaments, chemical crosslinking and iron bonding. The result is a powerful non-toxic glue that sets and works as well underwater as it does in dry conditions and is stronger than most synthetic glue products now on the market.

"The composite we created works not only better underwater than most adhesives available today, it achieves that strength with much smaller quantities of material," said Fiorenzo Omenetto, Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering at Tufts School of Engineering, director of the Tufts Silklab where the material was created, and corresponding author of the study. "And because the material is made from extracted biological sources, and the chemistries are benign - drawn from nature and largely avoiding synthetic steps or the use of volatile solvents - it could have advantages in manufacturing as well."

The Silklab "glue crew" focused on several key elements to replicate in aquatic adhesives. Mussels secrete long sticky filaments called byssus. These secretions form polymers, which embed into surfaces, and chemically cross-link to strengthen the bond. The protein polymers are made up of long chains of amino acids including one, dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA), a catechol-bearing amino acid that can cross-link with the other chains. The mussels add another special ingredient - iron complexes - that reinforce the cohesive strength of the byssus.

Barnacles secrete a strong cement made of proteins that form into polymers which anchor onto surfaces. The proteins in barnacle cement polymers fold their amino acid chains into beta sheets - a zig-zag arrangement that presents flat surfaces and plenty of opportunities to form strong hydrogen bonds to the next protein in the polymer, or to the surface to which the polymer filament is attaching.

Inspired by all of these molecular bonding tricks used by nature, Omenetto's team set to work replicating them, and drawing on their expertise with the chemistry of silk fibroin protein extracted from the cocoon of silkworms. Silk fibroin shares many of the shape and bonding characteristics of the barnacle cement proteins, including the ability to assemble large beta sheet surfaces. The researchers added polydopamine - a random polymer of dopamine which presents cross-linking catechols along its length, much like the mussels use to cross-link their bonding filaments. Finally, the adhesion strength is significantly enhanced by curing the adhesive with iron chloride, which secures bonds across the catechols, just like they do in natural mussel adhesives.

"The combination of silk fibroin, polydopamine and iron brings together the same hierarchy of bonding and cross-linking that makes these barnacle and mussel adhesives so strong," said Marco Lo Presti, post-doctoral scholar in Omenetto's lab and first author of the study. "We ended up with an adhesive that even looks like its natural counterpart under the microscope."

Getting the right blend of silk fibroin, polydopamine, and acidic conditions of curing with iron ions was critical to enabling the adhesive to set and work underwater, reaching strengths of 2.4 MPa (megapascals; about 350 pounds per square inch) when resisting shear forces. That's better than most existing experimental and commercial adhesives, and only slightly lower than the strongest underwater adhesive at 2.8 MPa. Yet this adhesive has the added advantage of being non-toxic, composed of all-natural materials, and requires only 1-2 mgs per square inch to achieve that bond - that's just a few drops.

"The combination of likely safety, conservative use of material, and superior strength suggests potential utility for many industrial and marine applications and could even be suitable for consumer-oriented such as model building and household use," said Prof. Gianluca Farinola, a collaborator on the study from the University of Bari Aldo Moro, and an adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts. "The fact that we have already used silk fibroin as a biocompatible material for medical use is leading us to explore those applications as well," added Omenetto.

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Male piglets less resilient to stress when moms get sick during pregnancy

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Research News

 

IMAGE: RESEARCH FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS SHOWS MALE PIGLETS WHOSE MOTHERS WERE ILL DURING PREGNANCY SHOW GENETIC CHANGES IN THE AMYGDALA AND ARE LESS RESILIENT TO A SECOND STRESSFUL EVENT,... view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

URBANA, Ill. -When pigs get hit with significant illnesses during key stages of pregnancy, their immune response may negatively affect developing piglets, making them less productive on the farm. New research from the University of Illinois shows that when those piglets - especially males - experience a second stressor in early life, they are at higher risk of neurodevelopmental and other neurological anomalies, putting them at an even greater disadvantage in production settings.

"With more information about maternal illness, what we call maternal immune activation, we can make better decisions about how to handle these types of immune challenges within animal production settings," says Marissa Keever-Keigher, doctoral student in the Department of Animal Sciences at Illinois and lead researcher on the study.

Studying brain development in the domestic pig is relevant on the farm, of course, but pig studies can also inform human neurodevelopmental research. That's because the pig's development, genetics, brain structure, and more are very similar to our own.

In previous pig studies looking at the effects of maternal immune activation, Keever-Keigher and her colleagues showed important genetic changes occur in the piglet amygdala, a brain structure that plays an important role in learning, social behavior, and stress response in both humans and pigs.

The researchers also knew from primate and rodent studies that a second immune challenge, known as a double hit, can further disrupt typical brain development in young animals. To test the double hit hypothesis in pigs, the team chose weaning as the second challenge.

"While weaning is not itself an immune challenge, it is an extremely stressful time during a piglet's life and can elicit an immune response," says Haley Rymut, doctoral student in animal sciences and co-author on the study. "Piglets have to deal with a broad array of stressors, including physical stressors from being handled and moved, and emotional stressors from being taken away from the mom and placed with their peers. Any of those physical or emotional stressors can kick off an immune response."

The researchers looked at a combination of factors for piglets in the study: whether or not their moms were infected with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) during gestation, and whether or not they were weaned at 21 days of age, the typical age in production settings. They also noted the sex of the piglets, as their earlier research indicated male piglets showed more changes in the amygdala as a result of maternal illness.

"Using high throughput sequencing technologies, we were able to monitor the levels of more than 16,000 genes in the pigs. We uncovered more than 100 genes and molecular pathways affected by either maternal immune activation, weaning, sex, or a combination of factors in the amygdala on day 22 for all piglets. The effect of pre- and postnatal stressors on neuropeptide genes confirms the plasticity of the infant brain during development to respond and adapt to challenges," says Sandra Rodriguez-Zas, professor in animal sciences and faculty advisor to Keever-Keigher and Rymut. Rodriguez-Zas is principal investigator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded study.

Many of the genes expressed at higher or lower-than-typical rates in weaned piglets from virus-infected mothers have been associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) in previous studies. But genes relevant to other neurological disorders were affected too.

"We also found changes in expression of genes associated with neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington's and Alzheimer's disease," Keever-Keigher says.

As in the scientists' previous work, the double hit affected male piglets more than females, with greater dysregulation of genes in the amygdala. The researchers found evidence of more protective pathways in female brains, giving them an advantage in handling stressful events.

The study provides valuable clues for researchers studying ASD, SSD, and neurodegenerative disorders in humans, even though some aspects might not translate directly.

Rymut says, "For most children, weaning isn't nearly as stressful as it is for pigs in a production setting. But many other traumatic events early in childhood could set up that double hit."

On the farm, pigs from virus-infected mothers often show anti-social behaviors. Because pigs are typically group-housed and fed via communal feeders, pigs that don't like being around their peers are often last to feed and generally more stressed, leading to slower growth rates and lower overall body condition scores.

"The lesson for swine producers, I think, is to be really mindful of stressful conditions in the production cycle, and try to mitigate those as much as we can in order to create the most productive and healthy livestock animals and benefit producers' bottom lines," Keever-Keigher says.

Rymut adds, "Also, knowing how the different sexes respond could help producers manage animals that are less likely to be productive as a result of maternal immune activation."

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The article, "Interacting impact of maternal inflammatory response and stress on the amygdala transcriptome of pigs," is published in G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics [DOI: 10.1093/g3journal/jkab113]. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Dual Purpose for Dual Benefit" program (grant number 2018-67015-27413). Rod Johnson, professor and head of the Department of Animal Sciences is co-investigator on the grant and co-author on the G3 paper.

The Department of Animal Sciences is in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois.

Researchers figured out how the ancestors of modern horses migrated

Molecular biologists studied the DNA of ones that migrated from North America to Eurasia and back

URAL FEDERAL UNIVERSITY

IMAGE: CABALLINE HORSE DESCENDANTS NOW LIVE IN CANADA, USA, 

CHINA, RUSSIA AND KAZAKHSTAN. view more 

CREDIT: URFU

An international research team determined that ancestors of modern domestic horses and the Przewalski horse moved from the territory of Eurasia (Russian Urals, Siberia, Chukotka, and eastern China) to North America (Yukon, Alaska, continental USA) from one continent on another at least twice. It happened during the Late Pleistocene (2.5 million years ago - 11.7 thousand years ago). The analysis results are published in the journal. The findings and description of horse genomes are published in the journal Molecular Ecology.

"We found out that the Beringian Land Bridge, or the area known as Beringia, influenced genetic diversity within horses and beyond," said senior researcher at the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Ural Federal University (Russia) Dmitry Gimranov. "Owing to the appearance of this land part, the flow of genes among mammoths, bison, and wolves could occur regularly. And if 1-0.8 million years ago horses from North America were not yet widespread in Eurasia, then in the periods of 950-450 and 200-50 thousand years ago, there was a bidirectional spread of genes over long distances."

In other words, horses migrated between continents not only in one direction but also vice versa. The first wave of migration was predominantly from North America to Eurasia. The second migration was dominated by the movement from Eurasia to North America.

The most important researchers conclude that most animals used the Beringian Land Bridge only once, and horses several times. This fact could significantly affect the genetic structure of horse populations and made them very interesting objects of research for paleogeneticists.

To determine the area of settlement of horses, molecular biologists studied horses' DNA from both continents. From 262 samples of bones and teeth, they selected 78 with sufficient DNA. Researchers conducted radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis at the Denmark and USA laboratories. In addition, they looked at the research data from 112 samples.

"The data shows that horses returned to North America from Eurasia across Beringia at about the same time as bison, brown bears, and lions," says Dmitry Gimranov. "That is, in the last "days" of the late Pleistocene, when the territory was not covered by water and it was like a bridge for the movement of many groups of animals. With the beginning of climate warming (the beginning of the Holocene or 11.7 thousand years ago) and the last disappearance of Beringia at the end of the Pleistocene, the biogeographic significance of this ecological corridor radically changed the history of terrestrial animal species on both continents."

Although the North American horse population eventually became extinct in the early Holocene, horses became widespread on both continents due to domestication and are now found far beyond their historical range.

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Note

The Bering Land Bridge was located on the place of the modern Bering Strait, separating the extreme northwest of America and the extreme northeast of Asia. The physical and geographical region of Beringia stretched from the Lena River in Russia to the Mackenzie River in Canada. It consisted of both land and sea components. The land area of Beringia changed during the Pleistocene (from 2.6 million years to 11.7 thousand years ago) along with the size of continental ice and its effect on sea level.

 

Nanomaterials with laser printing

New laser-driven method

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE NEW LASER-DRIVEN METHOD: MATERIAL IS TRANSFERRED FROM A DONOR TO AN ACCEPTOR CARRIER. view more 

CREDIT: MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF COLLOIDS AND INTERFACES

In the journal Nature Communications, an interdisciplinary team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces presents for the first time a laser-driven technology that enables them to create nanoparticles such as copper, cobalt and nickel oxides. At the usual printing speed, photoelectrodes are produced in this way, for example, for a wide range of applications such as the generation of green hydrogen.

Previous methods produce such nanomaterials only with high energy input in classical reaction vessels and in many hours. With the laser-driven technology developed at the institute, the scientists can deposit small amounts of material on a surface and simultaneously perform chemical synthesis in a very short time using high temperatures from the laser. 'When I discovered the nanocrystals under the electron microscope, I knew I was onto something big,' says Junfang Zhang, first author of the study and doctoral researcher. The discovery turned into a new and environmentally friendly method for synthesizing materials that can, among other things, efficiently convert solar energy into electricity.

Without detours with sunlight to hydrogen: 'Nowadays most of green hydrogen is produced from water using electricity generated by solar panels and stored in batteries. By employing photoelectrodes we can use solar light directly,' says Dr. Aleksandr Savateev.

The newly developed principle works with so-called transition metal oxides, mainly copper, cobalt and nickel oxides, all of which are good catalysts. The special feature of these oxides is the variety of their crystal forms (nanocrystals such as nanorods or nanostars), which affect their surface energy. Each structure can have a different effect on catalytic reactions. Therefore, it is important that these nanostructures can be made targeted - or even untargeted, but repeatable. The developed technology could also be used to find quickly and efficiently new catalysts. 'Laser dot by laser dot, we can create different catalysts side by side by simply varying the composition and conditions, and then also test them in parallel right away,' says Dr. Felix Löffler adding, 'But now we need to work on making the catalyst systems more persistent in all applications'.

The method

Similar to the principle of a typewriter, material is transferred from a donor to an acceptor carrier. On the former is the 'ink', a solid polymer, which is mixed with metal salts, the latter consists of a thin carbon nitride film on a conductive electrode. Targeted laser irradiation transfers the salts to the acceptor along with the molten polymer. The brief high temperatures cause the salts to react within milliseconds and they transform into metal oxide nanoparticles with desired morphology.

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Original publication
Zhang, J., Zou, Y., Eickelmann, S. et al.
Laser-driven growth of structurally defined transition metal oxide nanocrystals on carbon nitride photoelectrodes in milliseconds
Nat Commun 12, 3224 (2021)
Published: 28 May 2021

CAPTION

This is how the new laser-driven method works.

CREDI

Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces

Experts propose 'five Cs' to tackle vaccine hesitancy

SAGE

Research News

 

The reluctance or refusal to accept Covid-19 vaccinations can be tackled by a five-pronged strategy to addressing the behavioural and socio-demographic factors behind vaccine hesitancy. Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, a group of population health, demographic, epidemiology and behavioural scientists propose an approach focused on confidence, complacency, convenience, communication and context.

While confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines is crucial, they write, complacency, particularly among younger people and those of lower socioeconomic status, is strongly associated with lower vaccine uptake.

One of the authors, Dr Mohammad Razai, of the Population Health Research Institute, St George's, University of London said: "As the lower age groups are being offered the vaccine, addressing complacency through repeated risk communication is crucial to facilitate informed decision-making. It is important to emphasise the greater societal benefits of population level immunity and the protection it offers to those vulnerable, their families and friends."

The strategy also covers convenience of vaccination delivery, communication to combat misinformation, and recognition of context including ethnicity, religion, occupation and socioeconomic status.

Another author, Professor Melinda Mills, Nuffield Professor of Demography and Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at Nuffield College and the University of Oxford, said: "A concerted international effort is required to understand, analyse and overcome vaccine hesitancy. It is estimated that at least 60-70% of the world's population needs to be vaccinated to achieve an effective herd immunity. However, European data show lower intention to be vaccinated amongst racial and ethnic minorities, those with lower education, younger people and people with previously poor compliance with recommended vaccinations. COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities related to ethnicity and socioeconomic status and higher vaccine hesitancy in these groups could compound it even further."

The authors conclude that tailored, appealing, culturally competent, local community but also multi-lingual messages delivered by organisations such as the Red Cross, Red Crescent and UNICEF could have the highest chance of success in addressing vaccine hesitancy.

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Ben-Gurion U. studies show promise using drones to elicit emotional responses

AMERICANS FOR BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: SET OF RENDERED FACES REPRESENTING SIX BASIC EMOTIONS IN THREE DIFFERENT INTENSITY LEVELS. ALL EMOTION CATEGORIES PERFORMED WELL, ONLY DISGUST DID NOT PERFORM AS WELL AS THE OTHER EMOTIONS. view more 

CREDIT: ©VIVIANE HERDEL.

BEER-SHEVA, Israel...June 2, 2021 - As drones become more ubiquitous in public spaces, researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have conducted the first studies examining how people respond to various emotional facial expressions depicted on a drone, with the goal of fostering greater social acceptance of these flying robots.

The research, which was presented recently at the virtual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, reveals how people react to common facial expressions superimposed on drones.

"There is a lack of research on how drones are perceived and understood by humans, which is vastly different than ground robots." says Prof. Jessica Cauchard together with Viviane Herdel of BGU's Magic Lab, in the BGU Department of Industrial Engineering & Management. "For the first time, we showed that people can recognize different emotions and discriminate between different emotion intensities."

BGU researchers conducted two studies using a set of rendered robotic facial expressions on drones that convey basic emotions. The faces use four core facial features: eyes, eyebrows, pupils, and mouth. The results showed that five different emotions (joy, sadness, fear, anger, surprise) can be recognized with high accuracy in static stimuli, and four emotions (joy, surprise, sadness, anger) in dynamic videos. Disgust was the only emotion that was poorly recognized. Click here to watch the "Drone in Love" video.

"Participants were further affected by the drone and presented different responses, including empathy, depending on the drone's emotion," Prof. Cauchard says. "Surprisingly, participants created narratives around the drone's emotional states and included themselves in these scenarios."

BGU researchers propose a number of recommendations that will enhance the acceptability of drones for use in emotional support and other social situations. These include adding anthropomorphic features, using the five basic emotions, and using empathetic responses to drive compliance in health and behavior change applications.

"BGU is spearheading some of the most remarkable robotic research in the world," says Doug Seserman, chief executive officer, Americans for Ben-Gurion University. "We foresee continued innovation leveraging human-drone interaction technologies, leading to greater adoption and more beneficial applications."

Andrea Hildebrandt, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg and Anastasia Kuzminykh of the University of Toronto also contributed to this study.

CAPTION

Screenshots from video stimuli of drone displaying Surprise. The emotion intensity increases from a to to b.

CREDIT

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

About Americans for Ben-Gurion University

Americans for Ben-Gurion University plays a vital role in maintaining David Ben-Gurion's vision of an "Oxford in the Negev." By supporting a world-class academic institution that not only nurtures the Negev, but also shares its expertise locally and globally, Americans for Ben-Gurion University engages a community of Americans who are committed to improving the world. The Americans for Ben-Gurion University movement supports a 21st century unifying vision for Israel by rallying around BGU's remarkable work and role as an apolitical beacon of light in the Negev desert.

For more information visit http://www.americansforbgu.org

Salps fertilize the Southern Ocean more effectively than krill

The iron released by the tunicates' fecal pellets is more bioavailable than that from krill pellets

ALFRED WEGENER INSTITUTE, HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR POLAR AND MARINE RESEARCH

Research News

 

Experts at the Alfred Wegener Institute have, for the first time, experimentally measured the release of iron from the fecal pellets of krill and salps under natural conditions and tested its bioavailability using a natural community of microalgae in the Southern Ocean. In comparison to the fecal pellets of krill, Antarctic phytoplankton can more easily take up the micronutrient iron from those produced by salps. Observations made over the past 20 years show that, as a result of climate change, Antarctic krill are increasingly being supplanted by salps in the Southern Ocean. In the future, salps could more effectively stimulate the fixation of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in Antarctic microalgae than krill, as the team of researchers report in the journal Current Biology.

In many parts of the Southern Ocean, iron is the primary limiting resource for the growth of phytoplankton. Accordingly, the amount of available iron has a major impact on how much CO2 the microalgae can fix and, in turn, how much biomass is available at the base of the food web. Studies clearly show that, as climate change progresses, Antarctic krill, the key species in the Southern Ocean, will increasingly be supplanted by salps.

"We investigated what a dominance shift from krill to salps would mean for primary production," explains Dr Scarlett Trimborn from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). As head of the AWI research group EcoTrace, during an expedition with the Research Vessel Polarstern she and her colleagues conducted experiments with natural phytoplankton populations in the Southern Ocean near Elephant Island. As a source of iron, the researchers offered the microalgae communities fecal pellets from krill and salps, since a dominance shift between the two species would mean higher feces production by salps in the future.

"We were surprised to find that, compared to krill, the fecal pellet material from salps released more iron per microgram of carbon. In addition, we determined that the iron released by the salps' fecal pellets was more bioavailable for phytoplankton than the iron from krill pellets," reports Sebastian Böckmann from the EcoTrace group and first author of the study. The phytoplankton communities were able to take up as much as five times more iron from the salps' fecal pellets than from the krill feces. This improved uptake could be due to ligands, which enhance the iron's bioavailability for the algae. This aspect could result in significantly increased CO2 fixation among the phytoplankton.

The Southern Ocean is extremely important for the future of our climate, as its vast expanses of water can potentially absorb or release large quantities of CO2 from or into the atmosphere. In some regions, e.g. surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula, climate change is affecting the sea-ice cover. When the ocean is ice-free, more sunlight penetrates the upper water layers, providing an energy source for photosynthesis. That being said, the availability of the resource iron is what chiefly determines CO2 uptake in microalgae. "Although we know from which sources iron is transported into the Southern Ocean, it's still completely unclear how much of the iron the microalgae can take up, especially with regard to its release through recycling on the part of grazers like salps and krill. Our study makes an important contribution to modelling biogeochemical cycles in the Southern Ocean of tomorrow," Trimborn summarises.

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Original Publication:

Sebastian Böckmann, Florian Koch, Bettina Meyer, Franziska Pausch, Morten Iversen, Ryan Driscoll, Luis Miguel Laglera, Christel Hassler, and Scarlett Trimborn: Salp fecal pellets release more bioavailable iron to Southern Ocean phytoplankton than krill fecal pellets. Current Biology (2021), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.02.033

EMBARGOED until: Wednesday, 2 June 2021, 17:00 CEST, 11:00 US Eastern Time

 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's shadow figment technology foils cyberattacks

Make-believe shadow world is designed to sidetrack hackers, buying time for the good guys

DOE/PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

Research News

VIDEO: SHADOW FIGMENT IS A CYBERSECURITY TECHNOLOGY DESIGNED TO PROTECT CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE LIKE BUILDINGS AND THE ELECTRIC GRID. THE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED BY PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY IS DESIGNED TO LURE HACKERS... view more 

CREDIT: ANIMATION: SARA LEVINE | PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

RICHLAND, Wash.--Scientists have created a cybersecurity technology called Shadow Figment that is designed to lure hackers into an artificial world, then stop them from doing damage by feeding them illusory tidbits of success.

The aim is to sequester bad actors by captivating them with an attractive--but imaginary--world.

The technology is aimed at protecting physical targets--infrastructure such as buildings, the electric grid, water and sewage systems, and even pipelines. The technology was developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The starting point for Shadow Figment is an oft-deployed technology called a honeypot--something attractive to lure an attacker, perhaps a desirable target with the appearance of easy access.

But while most honeypots are used to lure attackers and study their methods, Shadow Figment goes much further. The technology uses artificial intelligence to deploy elaborate deception to keep attackers engaged in a pretend world--the figment--that mirrors the real world. The decoy interacts with users in real time, responding in realistic ways to commands.

"Our intention is to make interactions seem realistic, so that if someone is interacting with our decoy, we keep them involved, giving our defenders extra time to respond," said Thomas Edgar, a PNNL cybersecurity researcher who led the development of Shadow Figment.

Exploiting attackers' "success"

The system rewards hackers with false signals of success, keeping them occupied while defenders learn about the attackers' methods and take actions to protect the real system.

The credibility of the deception relies on a machine learning program that learns from observing the real-world system where it is installed. The program responds to an attack by sending signals that illustrate that the system under attack is responding in plausible ways. This "model-driven dynamic deception" is much more realistic than a static decoy, a more common tool that is quickly recognized by experienced cyberattackers.

Shadow Figment spans two worlds that years ago were independent but are now intertwined: the cyber world and the physical world, with elaborate structures that rely on complex industrial control systems. Such systems are more often in the crosshairs of hackers than ever before. Examples include the takedown of large portions of the electric grid in the Ukraine in 2015, an attack on a Florida water supply earlier this year, and the recent hacking of the Colonial pipeline that affected gasoline supplies along the East Coast.

Physical systems are so complex and immense that the number of potential targets--valves, controls, pumps, sensors, chillers and so on--is boundless. Thousands of devices work in concert to bring us uninterrupted electricity, clean water and comfortable working conditions. False readings fed into a system maliciously could cause electricity to shut down. They could drive up the temperature in a building to uncomfortable or unsafe levels, or change the concentration of chemicals added to a water supply.

Shadow Figment creates interactive clones of such system in all their complexity, in ways that experienced operators and cyber criminals would expect. For example, if a hacker turns off a fan in a server room in the artificial world, Shadow Figment responds by signaling that air movement has slowed and the temperature is rising. If a hacker changes a setting to a water boiler, the system adjusts the water flow rate accordingly.

Shadow Figment: undermining ill intent

The intent is to distract bad actors from the real control systems, to funnel them into an artificial system where their actions have no impact.

"We're buying time so the defenders can take action to stop bad things from happening," Edgar said. "Even a few minutes is sometimes all you need to stop an attack. But Shadow Figment needs to be one piece of a broader program of cybersecurity defense. There is no one solution that is a magic bullet."

PNNL has applied for a patent on the technology, which has been licensed to Attivo Networks. Shadow Figment is one of five cybersecurity technologies created by PNNL and packaged together in a suite called PACiFiC.

"The development of Shadow Figments is yet another example of how PNNL scientists are focused on protecting the nation's critical assets and infrastructure," said Kannan Krishnaswami, a commercialization manager at PNNL. "This cybersecurity tool has far-reaching applications in government and private sectors--from city municipalities, to utilities, to banking institutions, manufacturing, and even health providers."

"The development of Shadow Figment illustrates how PNNL technology makes a difference in so many lives," said Kannan Krishnaswami, a commercialization manager at PNNL. "The Laboratory's research provides protection against an array of threats, including cyberattacks."

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The team's most recent results were published in the spring issue of the Journal of Information Warfare.

Edgar's colleagues on the project include William Hofer, Juan Brandi-Lozano, Garrett Seppala, Katy Nowak and Draguna Vrabie. The work was funded by PNNL and by DOE's Office of Technology Transitions.

 

CMU Team develops machine learning platform that mines nature for new drugs

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Computational Biology Department in the School of Computer Science have developed a new process that could reinvigorate the search for natural product drugs to treat cancers, viral infections and other ailments.

The machine learning algorithms developed by the Metabolomics and Metagenomics Lab match the signals of a microbe's metabolites with its genomic signals and identify which likely correspond to a natural product. Knowing that, researchers are better equipped to isolate the natural product to begin developing it for a possible drug.

"Natural products are still one of the most successful paths for drug discovery," said Bahar Behsaz, a project scientist in the lab and lead author of a paper about the process. "And we think we're able to take it further with an algorithm like ours. Our computational model is orders of magnitude faster and more sensitive."

In a single study, the team was able to scan the metabolomics and genomic data for about 200 strains of microbes. The algorithm not only identified the hundreds of natural product drugs the researchers expected to find, but it also discovered four novel natural products that appear promising for future drug development. The team's work was published recently in Nature Communications.

The paper, "Integrating Genomics and Metabolomics for Scalable Non-Ribosomal Peptide Discovery," outlines the team's development of NRPminer, an artificial intelligence tool to aid in discovering non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs). NRPs are an important type of natural product and are used to make many antibiotics, anticancer drugs and other clinically used medications. They are, however, difficult to detect and even more difficult to identify as potentially useful.

"What is unique about our approach is that our technology is very sensitive. It can detect molecules with nanograms of abundance," said Hosein Mohimani, an assistant professor and head of the lab. "We can discover things that are hidden under the grass."

Most of the antibiotic, antifungal and many antitumor medications discovered and widely used have come from natural products.

Penicillin is among the most used and well-known drugs derived from natural products. It was, in part, discovered by luck, as are many of the drugs made from natural products. But replicating that luck is difficult in the laboratory and at scale. Trying to uncover natural products is also time and labor intensive, often taking years and millions of dollars. Major pharmaceutical companies have mostly abandoned the search for new natural products in the past decades.

By applying machine learning algorithms to the study of genomics, however, researchers have created new opportunities to identify and isolate natural products that could be beneficial.

"Our hope is that we can push this forward and discover other natural drug candidates and then develop those into a phase that would be attractive to pharmaceutical companies," Mohimani said. "Bahar Behsaz and I are expanding our discovery methods to different classes of natural products at a scale suitable for commercialization."

The team is already investigating the four new natural products discovered during their study. The products are being analyzed by a team led by Helga Bode, head of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at Goethe University in Germany, and two have been found to have potential antimalarial properties.

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This study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of California San Diego; Saint Petersburg University; the Max-Planck Institute; Goethe University; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; and the Jackson Laboratory.