Birds and honey badgers could be cooperating to steal from bees in parts of Africa

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

 

IMAGE: A GREATER HONEYGUIDE FEEDING ON BEESWAX IN NIASSA SPECIAL RESERVE, MOZAMBIQUE view more 

CREDIT: DOMINIC CRAM

The honeyguide bird loves beeswax, but needs help breaking open bees’ nests to get it. So it shows a honey badger the way to the nest, who rips it open and together they share the rewards. Or so the story goes.

This Disneyesque tale of two species cooperating for mutual benefit has captivated naturalists for centuries – but is it true?

“While researching honeyguides, we have been guided to bees’ nests by honeyguide birds thousands of times, but none of us have ever seen a bird and a badger interact to find honey,” said Dr Jessica van der Wal at the University of Cape Town, lead author of the study.

She added: “It’s well-established that honeyguides lead humans to bees’ nests, but evidence for bird and badger cooperation in the literature is patchy – it tends to be old, second-hand accounts of someone saying what their friend saw. So we decided to ask the experts directly.”

In the first large-scale search for evidence of the interaction, a team of young researchers from nine African countries, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of Cape Town, conducted nearly 400 interviews with honey-hunters across Africa.

People in the 11 communities surveyed have searched for wild honey for generations - including with the help of honeyguide birds.

Most communities surveyed were doubtful that honeyguide birds and honey badgers help each other access honey, and the majority (80%) had never seen the two species interact.

But the responses of three communities in Tanzania stood out, where many people said they’d seen honeyguide birds and honey badgers cooperating to get honey and beeswax from bees’ nests. Sightings were most common amongst the Hadzabe honey-hunters, of which 61% said they had seen the interaction.

“Hadzabe hunter-gatherers quietly move through the landscape while hunting animals with bows and arrows, so are poised to observe badgers and honeyguides interacting without disturbing them. Over half of the hunters reported witnessing these interactions, on a few rare occasions,” said Dr Brian Wood from the University of California, Los Angeles, who co-authored the study.

The report is published today in the Journal of Zoology.

Examining the evidence

The researchers reconstructed step-by-step, what must happen for honeyguide birds and honey badgers to cooperate in this way. Some steps, such as the bird seeing and approaching the badger, are highly plausible. Others, such as the honeyguide chattering to the badger, and the badger following it to a bees’ nest, remain unclear.

Badgers have poor hearing and bad eyesight, which isn’t ideal for following a chattering honeyguide bird.

The researchers say perhaps only some Tanzanian populations of honey badgers have developed the skills and knowledge needed to cooperate with honeyguide birds, and they pass these skills down from one generation to the next.

It’s also possible, they say, that badgers and birds do cooperate in more places in Africa but simply haven’t been seen.

“The interaction is difficult to observe because of the confounding effect of human presence: observers can’t know for sure who the honeyguide bird is talking to – them or the badger,” said Dr Dominic Cram in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, a senior author of the study.

He added: “But we have to take these interviews at face value. Three communities report to have seen honeyguide birds and honey badgers interacting, and it’s probably no coincidence that they’re all in Tanzania.”

The authors highlight the need for more scientists to engage with relevant communities and learn from their views and observations, and integrate scientific and cultural knowledge to enrich and accelerate research.

Partner switch?

The greater honeyguide bird, Indicator indicator, is well-known to communities across many African countries, where it has been used for generations to find bees’ nests. Wild honey is a high-energy food that can provide up to 20% of calorie intake – and the wax that hunters share or discard is a valuable food for the honeyguide.

Humans have learned how to read the calls and behaviour of the honeyguides to find wild bees’ nests.

“The honeyguides call to the humans, and the humans call back – it’s a kind of conversation as they move through the landscape towards the bees’ nests,” said Dr Claire Spottiswoode from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, joint senior author of the study.

With our control of fire and tools, humans are useful partners to honeyguides. We can cut down trees, and smoke the bees to subdue them before opening their nests. Honey badgers, Mellivora capensis, are more likely to make the bees angry – and aggressive bees sometimes sting the birds to death.

But honeyguide birds have been around far longer than modern humans, with our mastery of fire and tools.

“Some have speculated that the guiding behaviour of honeyguides might have evolved through interactions with honey badgers, but then the birds switched to working with humans when we came on the scene because of our superior skills in subduing bees and accessing bees’ nests. It’s an intriguing idea, but hard to test,” said Spottiswoode.

The research was primarily funded by the European Research Council.

A honey badger feeding on honeycomb in Niassa Special Reserve, Mozambique

A honey hunter harvests a bees' nest in the Niassa Special Reserve, Mozambique

Trail camera footage of honey [VIDEO] | 

CREDIT

Dominic Cram

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JOURNAL

Journal of Zoology

DOI

10.1111/jzo.13093 

ARTICLE TITLE

Do honey badgers and greater honeyguide birds cooperate to access bees’ nests? Ecological evidence and honey-hunter accounts

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Jun-2023

Researchers on UN Maritime Organization: "At the moment, it’s working against its own green transition"

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF SCIENCE

 

IMAGE: PROFESSOR TEIS HANSEN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN view more 

CREDIT: TEIS HANSEN

The UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) is actively contributing to the shipping industry being far off course from ever reaching its climate goals. In large part, this is because the organization lacks funding and expertise. Without strengthening the IMO, any transition of the enormous industry is hazily imaginable. This, according to the Copenhagen and Lund university researchers behind a new study of the organization.

Three percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions is attributable to the shipping industry. And things remain headed in the wrong direction – with CO2 emissions from ships continuing to rise year after year. This has increased pressure on the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO), the international body responsible for regulating the global shipping sector. Criticism that the IMO is too slow to regulate greenhouse gases from ships comes from corners of the industry itself, as well as from governments, NGOs and other actors.

From July 3-7, the IMO will review its strategy and most likely set more ambitious climate targets than its current ones, which are not yet aligned with the Paris Agreement. However, researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Lund University point out that new goals alone are insufficient.

"More ambitious climate targets are fine. But the problem is that the IMO doesn’t even have the political instruments needed to achieve its former objectives. So, we need to understand why the IMO is so short on success in this area. Because if nothing happens, this enormous industry will account for a larger and larger share of global CO2 emissions," says Professor Teis Hansen of the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Food and Resource Economics.

Consequently, he and fellow researcher Hanna Bach from Lund University scrutinized why the organization is slow in getting the transition started. In their study, they mapped how IMO rules were developed and interviewed IMO employees and various stakeholders.

At odds with their own political goals

The study points to an organization with too little engine power. This has resulted in an international regulatory body without the ability to be forward thinking and unable to manage new types of marine fuels and other technologies, such as batteries and wind assisted propulsion technologies.

"Our research shows that throughout the IMO’s history, the focus has only been on preexistent technologies. In other words, they simply regulate the fuels already being used by the industry. In this way, you regulate retroactively. At the same time, the IMO has no regulation that directly promotes the use of more sustainable fuels, which is what we need," says Hanna Bach.

On the contrary, the organization's goal of reducing air pollution from ships, which mainly consists of sulfur and nitrogen oxides emissions, has pushed development in the wrong direction:

"Until now, the IMO focused on air pollution instead of greenhouse gases. This created an imbalanced legal framework, which in practice, has meant tethering the industry to fossil fuels," says Teis Hansen, who elaborates:

 "With current regulation, the IMO promotes liquefied natural gas as marine fuel because it can reduce sulfur and nitrogen emissions. However, LNG use has contributed to a 150 percent jump in methane emissions – a figure that will increase because more and more liquefied natural gas-powered ships are being ordered. As such, the IMO is working against its own political goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

Send more money, please

Roughly 300 people are currently employed at the International Maritime Organization's London headquarters. This corresponds to approximately 5% of the employees in a medium sized Danish municipality.. To begin with, turning things around requires increased organizational capacity. The researchers point out:

"The secretariat needs more resources. Both with regards to an expanded workforce and for administering other types of political instruments than the ones they have today. This could include a global carbon tax, a global fund to support the transition to green fuels and other types of financial support to promote the use of green technologies," says Hanna Bach. 

According to the researchers, the IMO secretariat is generally short on staff, but also lacks people with the right expertise.

"We interviewed one IMO official who stated, 'We don't have the capacity to follow all of the different technologies, and we don't have the capacity to make good financing decisions in terms of what to support and what not to support.' That's remarkable," notes Teis Hansen. 

The IMO’s murky mandate

In two research articles published in the journals Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions and Marine Policy, the researchers identify even more reasons why the IMO is so reluctant to steer its way onto a greener course. This includes a lack of political consensus among the 175 member states, as well as an unclear mandate:

"There are member states that ask whether the implementation of instruments such as a global carbon tax is actually within the IMO mandate or whether it conflicts with national law. However, the IMO secretariat hasn’t been able to provide a clear answer to this. So, it is constantly up for debate, which consumes a lot of time and stalls negotiations when it comes to implementing new policy instruments," says Hanna Bach.

In general, the IMO needs to be organized better if we are to hope for a global transformation of shipping,” says Teis Hansen, who concludes:

"History shows that we cannot simply rely on the IMO itself to regulate this area in a way that follows their own strategy. To ensure this, we need to look at whether we can strengthen the IMO by organizing the institution better."

 

 

THE SHIPPING INDUSTRY’S “BLACK TRAIL”

• Shipping currently accounts for three percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. The IMO's own projections demonstrate that the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions could increase fifty percent by 2050 if emissions growth is not curbed.
   
• The IMO adopted the first greenhouse gas reduction strategy for shipping in 2018. Among other things, the strategy aims to, at a minimum, halve the shipping industry's greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Thus, the goal is not aligned with the Paris Agreement's requirement to be climate neutral by 2050.
   
• The European Commission has decided to include the maritime sector in the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) from 2024, which means that the EU shipping industry will have to report all emissions.

 

ABOUT THE IMO

• The IMO (International Maritime Organization) was established in 1958 as a specialized agency under the United Nations for the regulation of international maritime relations. The IMO negotiates and adopts international rules to promote maritime safety and environmental protection, among other things.
   
• Strategically, the IMO's work is directed by the IMO Council and Assembly. The Council is the governing body of the IMO, which continuously prioritises and coordinates work. The Council consists of 40 member states. The IMO's highest decision-making body is the Assembly, which consists of all member states. The Assembly adopts resolutions and approves the IMO's overall strategic direction and budget. Moreover, this is where the Council is elected. (Source: Danish Maritime Authority.)

 

 

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JOURNAL

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

DOI

10.1016/j.eist.2023.100720 

ARTICLE TITLE

Flickering guiding light from the International Maritime Organisation's policy mix

 

Researchers create edible, transparent composite packaging with biocellulose

Scientists at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have developed an edible, transparent and biodegradable material with considerable potential for application in food packaging

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SOCIETY OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

 

IMAGE: PROFESSOR TO NGAI view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT YAHOO! NEWS

Plastic food packaging accounts for a significant proportion of plastic waste in landfills. In the face of escalating environmental concerns, researchers are looking to bio-derived alternatives.

Now, scientists at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have developed an edible, transparent and biodegradable material with considerable potential for application in food packaging.

The heavy reliance on petrochemicals and inherent non-biodegradability of plastic packaging mean it has long been a significant contributor to environmental contamination. A team at CUHK have turned their attention to bacterial cellulose (BC) – an organic compound derived from certain types of bacteria which has garnered attention as a sustainable, easily available, and non-toxic solution to the pervasive use of plastics.

Professor To Ngai from the Department of Chemistry, CUHK and corresponding author of the study explained that the impressive tensile strength and high versatility of BC are the key to its potential.

Speaking to SCI, he said, ‘Extensive research has been conducted on BC, including its use in intelligent packaging, smart films, and functionalised materials created through blending, coating, and other techniques. These studies demonstrate the potential of BC as a replacement for single-use plastic packaging materials, making it a logical starting point for our research.’

Unlike the cellulose found in the cell walls of plants, BC can be produced through microbial fermentation, which eliminates the need for harvesting trees or crops. Ngai noted that as a result, ‘this production method does not contribute to deforestation or habitat loss, making BC a more sustainable and environmentally friendly material alternative to plant cellulose.’

Up until now, the widespread adoption of BC has been limited by its unfavourable sensitivity to moisture in the air (hygroscopicity), which detrimentally impacts its physical properties. 

In the recent paper, published in the SCI Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, the researchers at CUHK lay out a novel approach to address the limitations of BC-based materials. By incorporating certain soy proteins into the structure and coating it with an oil-resistant composite, the scientists successfully created an edible, transparent, and robust BC-based composite packaging.

Ngai noted that this approach has a high feasibility for scale-up. ‘It does not require specific reaction conditions like chemical reactions, but rather a simple and practical method with mixing and coating’ he said.

‘This approach offers a promising solution to the challenge of developing sustainable and environmentally friendly packaging materials that can replace single-use plastics on a large scale.’

The study demonstrated that the plastic alternative could be completely degraded within 1-2 months. Unlike other bio-derived plastics such as polylactic acid, the BC-based composite does not require specific industrial composting conditions to degrade.

Ngai explained, ‘The material developed in this research is completely edible, making it safe for turtles and other sea animals to consume without causing aquatic toxicity in the ocean.’

The researchers at CUHK are now exploring the directions for future research. They hope to enhance the versatility of modified BC films, making them suitable for a wider range of applications. Specifically, they are focused on developing a thermosetting glue that can create strong bonds between bacterial cellulose, allowing it to be easily moulded into various shapes when heated.

‘One of the main challenges with bacterial cellulose films is that they are not thermoplastic, which limits their potential for use in certain applications. By addressing this issue, we hope to make bacterial cellulose films more competitive with traditional plastics while maintaining their eco-friendliness,’ explained Ngai.

Ngai hopes that the current study will help to combat the excessive use of single-use plastics, which can persist for hundreds of years after only a few days of being displayed on supermarket shelves.

‘This research serves as a reminder that natural raw materials may already possess the necessary characteristics to perform beyond the functions of plastic packaging.’

Professor To Ngai

CREDIT

Yahoo! News

Bacterial cellulose (BC) – an organic compound derived from certain types of bacteria which has garnered attention as a sustainable, easily available, and non-toxic solution to the pervasive use of plastics.

By incorporating soy protein into the structure and coating it with an oil-resistant composite, the CUHK team successfully created an edible, transparent, and robust BC-based composite packaging.

CREDIT

To Ngai

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JOURNAL

Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture

DOI

10.1002/jsfa.12758 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Edible, strong, and low-hygroscopic bacterial cellulose derived from biosynthesis and physical modification for food packaging

 

Which state is the best in the world?

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF WÜRZBURG

The state is not only the federal government, the states and the municipalities. "We can see the state in everything that surrounds us, for example in the streets, the courts, the police or the schools," says Theresa Paola Stawski. But how well do the states of this world function? This is what the political scientist with a doctorate has been investigating over the past few months. In her ranking, which is available on the internet, Germany is in tenth place out of 173 countries in 2022. Singapore takes first place. Stawski is a research assistant at the Department of Comparative Politics and Systems at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU).

The fact that a patient who needs an X-ray examination receives a doctor's appointment promptly, that there are schools all over the country and that electricity flows day and night, all this constitutes a well-functioning state. Quite a few people in this world can only dream of this. Citizens in South Sudan, Yemen and Libya are doing particularly badly. "These are collapsed states," explains Theresa Paola Stawski. In fact, there is no productive state work there any more. Yemen has at least improved minimally. This can be read in the 2022 report on the "Stateness Index" (StIx) on the website www.stateness-index.org.

A functioning state does not have to be democratic

According to the Stateness Index, a Cypriot currently lives in a "defective" state, just like a Moroccan or an Indian. Citizens from Luxembourg, Norway or Belgium, on the other hand, are lucky enough to live in a highly functional state, just like Germans. "Whether a state functions well or not does not always have something to do with democracy," says Theresa Paola Stawski. Singapore, for example, is not a democracy. Nevertheless, the political scientist's analysis showed that this country is at the top in terms of statehood. The United Arab Emirates is also in the field of highly functional states.

In a country where, for example, there is no freedom of speech, people can still be well provided with all the essentials of life. State research, Theresa Paola Stawski emphasizes, is not identical of democracy studies: "State research is even more fundamental." Nevertheless, it still forms a niche topic within political science. Theresa Paola Stawski has specialised in state research. The DFG research project "The Statehood Index StIx" under the direction of Professor Hans-Joachim Lauth, holder of the Chair of Comparative Politics and German Government, in which she was intensively involved, builds on her dissertation. In it, she dealt with the question of how states develop when democracies become autocracies. And vice versa.

Study over more than 70 years

The new Stateness Index covers a long period of time: the development of the various states since 1950 can be traced via the homepage. The homepage itself is in English, the german side follows later this year. Nevertheless, interested citizens can use it relatively easily. For example, the menu item "Online Analyses" leads to a page with "Settings". If you click on it, you can easily select all years between 1950 and 2022.

Classically, the analysis of states focuses on the state's monopoly on law, violence and administration, but that is by no means everything that constitutes a state. "We did not only measure the formal state, but we also looked at the informal side," explains Theresa Paola Stawski, who cooperated closely with Lukas Lemm from the Institute of Political Science in her research. This informal side concerns, for example, the topic of "corruption". The measuring system and the overall very innovative approach to measuring stateness distinguishes the project, which started in October 2021.

Changes of government have little effect

In some countries, you have to reckon with the fact that the law enforcement agencies are bribed. There may be enough police officers. But when police officers act in a biased way, it is bad for citizens. Well-done reforms can improve governance, according to Theresa Paola Stawski. Mere changes of government, on the other hand, often have little effect. This becomes clear when you go to "Online Analyses" and click on "Country": a graph appears showing Germany's stateness since 1950. There was a jump upwards after reunification. Since 1990, however, the curves have been relatively stable. Regardless of who was in power at the time.

Currently, there is a lot of loud complaining about the German state, but according to Theresa Paola Stawski, this should not mislead citizens. According to her analyses, Germany remains one of the world's best states. "Elsewhere there are famines, epidemics and serious diseases, and almost no medical care," she says. A lot of things that the German population takes for granted are not available at all or no longer available in many countries of the world. Which does not mean, according to the scientist, that citizens in this country should sit back and relax. Further improvements are possible through democratic participation.

Germany ahead of the USA

Incidentally, according to the index, Joe Biden, the President of the USA, is at the head of a state that functions very well, but nowhere near as well as Germany. The United States is only 23rd in the ranking. Ahead of the USA are, for example, Malta, Spain, France and Japan. Directly behind the United States are the Czech Republic, Austria, Canada and Barbados. Australia, Denmark and the Netherlands perform even better than Germany. But Germany could also learn from the Baltic state of Estonia.

Alarming antibiotic resistance discovered in war-torn Ukraine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

LUND UNIVERSITY

Researchers led by Lund University in Sweden have assisted microbiologists in Ukraine in investigating bacterial resistance among the war-wounded patients treated in hospitals. The results, which were recently published in TheLancet Infectious Diseases, reveal that many of the patients were affected by bacteria that exhibited an extremely high level of antibiotic resistance.

“I am quite thick-skinned and have witnessed numerous situations involving patients and bacteria. However, I must admit that I have never encountered bacteria as resistant as this before”, says Kristian Riesbeck, professor of Clinical Bacteriology at Lund University.

There was never any doubt about helping out when Dr. Oleksandr Nazarchuk, a microbiologist at a university in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, got in touch, says Kristian Riesbeck. Help was needed in Ukraine to assess the extent of antibiotic resistance in bacteria among severely injured patients in hospital.

In addition to all the human suffering caused by the war in Ukraine, another battle is being fought – an invisible war against resistant bacteria. This became evident when Kristian Riesbeck and his research colleagues analysed patient samples from seriously wounded patients, many of whom had burn injuries, in Ukraine. The patients had acquired infections while in hospital, primarily due to the overwhelmed wards and destroyed infrastructure. 

Samples were collected from a total of 141 war victims, 133 adults who sustained injures during the war and eight infants diagnosed with pneumonia. These patients were admitted to three different hospitals in Ukraine, where they received emergency surgeries and intensive care to address their conditions.

“We observed that several the Gram-negative bacteria exhibited resistance to broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents, including newly developed enzyme-inhibiting antibiotics that are not yet available in the market. Moreover, nearly ten per cent of the samples contained bacteria that demonstrated resistance even to “our last-resort” antibiotic, colistin. While we have encountered similar cases in India and China before, nothing compares to the extent of resistance observed in this study. As much as six per cent of all the samples contained bacteria resistant to every antibiotic we tested,” says Kristian Riesbeck.

He emphasizes that this clearly highlights the challenges posed by resistant bacteria in times of war. In particular, Kristian Riesbeck expresses concern regarding the resistance displayed by Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria, as they have the potential to cause illness in individuals with a healthy and well-functioning immune system.       

“This makes me very worried. It’s rare to encounter Klebsiella with such high levels of resistance, and it was not what we anticipated. While isolated cases have been documented in China, the magnitude of this situation surpasses anything we have seen before. While many countries are providing military aid and resources to Ukraine, it is equally crucial to assist them in addressing this ongoing situation. There is an evient risk of further spread of resistant bacteria, and this threatens the entire European region,” remarks Kristian Riesbeck. 

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JOURNAL

The Lancet Infectious Diseases

DOI

10.1016/S1473-3099(23)00291-8 

ARTICLE TITLE

Highly multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections in war victims in Ukraine, 2022

A study shows that menstrual education in Spain is still deficient and increases negative experiences of menstruation

According to the UPV and CSIC study, the most common emotions experienced during the first menstruation are embarrassment (reported by 23% of respondents), worry (20%), fear (16%), and stress (15%)

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITAT POLITÈCNICA DE VALÈNCIA

 

IMAGE: SANTIAGO MOLL LÓPEZ, SARA SÁNCHEZ LÓPEZ AND ROCÍO POVEDA BAUTISTA, view more 

CREDIT: UPV

"Menstruation continues to be treated as an uncomfortable subject that has to be hidden and what is hidden is not talked about, is not investigated, is not legislated and does not receive the necessary attention. And menstrual health requires this attention," says Sara Sánchez López, a researcher at the INGENIO Institute, a joint centre of the UPV and the CSIC, and lead author of the study.

The study was conducted through an anonymous online questionnaire to more than 4,000 people, both men and women born or living in Spain between May 2021 and January 2022. The questions addressed issues such as education received about menstruation, comfort to talk about it, emotions experienced during menarche, menstrual hygiene products, economic impact, and social impact, among others.

Their results are revealing: the four most common emotions reported during the first menstruation were embarrassment (23%), worry (20%), fear (16%), and stress (15%).

The study also shows that 35.7% of the women surveyed did not know much about what their periods were when they first started and 56.1% did not know enough about how to proceed. On the other hand, there are numerous testimonies collected in this study in which menstruation has been the cause of mockery or derogatory comments.

 

Besides, the research found a trend between the information available on how to handle the bleeding and the number of times people recall experiencing embarrassment, fear, worry, and disgust, suggesting that knowing what to do when they have their first period reduces the likelihood of experiencing these emotions. "Unfortunately, only 5% of the people surveyed remember having received this information at school," notes Sara Sánchez López.

On the other hand, the data indicate that despite all the social changes that have occurred in these decades, the emotions experienced during first menstruation in Spain have not varied significantly from the 1950s to the early 2000s.

 

"The ambiguity of current legislation regarding the contents on menstruation leaves it up to the discretion of the centre or even the teacher how much time to devote to the subject and what contents to include. Often, it is merely named in its biological function as part of human reproduction," says Rocío Poveda Bautista, also a researcher at INGENIO and co-author of the study.

However, the lack of information is not limited to the first rule. This study shows the need for reliable and accessible information on how to manage menstrual pain, symptoms of

endometriosis and other similar disorders, or on when to see a specialist. Overall, it concludes that more knowledge is needed about how the menstrual cycle affects the whole body and how it varies throughout life, including menopause.

"This study is intended to serve as a guideline for the creation of efficient legislative and social measures. It is a call to action so that menstrual health education, which is still deficient today, is incorporated into the curriculum, to ensure that every schoolchild in Spain receives basic and reliable information on this topic," concludes Santiago Moll López, from the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Universitat Politècnica de València and co-author of the study.

Along with researchers from the UPV and CSIC, this study has also benefited from the valuable contribution of Dr. Dani Barrington from the University of Western Australia, an internationally recognized expert for her research and activism on menstrual health.

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JOURNAL

BMC Women s Health

DOI

10.1186/s12905-023-02293-4 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Spanish menstrual literacy and experiences of menstruation

New review finds the benefits of a widely-used treatment for gambling problems may be overstated

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF ADDICTION

A new meta-analysis (an analysis of past research) published by the scientific journal Addiction presents important findings that shed light on the effectiveness of psychological treatments for gambling problems. The analysis provides both positive and negative insights, including uncovering potential overstatements of the benefits associated with using cognitive-behavioural techniques (CBTs). Significantly more funds are essential to increase the rigor of studies and to improve understanding of treatment impact among individuals experiencing gambling problems.

The analysis pooled the results of 29 randomised controlled trials of CBTs on reducing gambling problems and gambling behaviour, representing almost 4,000 participants. The analysis revealed that participants receiving CBTs had larger reductions in the severity of gambling problems, the number of times gambled, and the amount of money gambled than minimal or no treatment at posttreatment. However, the analysis revealed some concerning factors that may have led to an overestimation of the treatment’s impact. There was also no evidence that reductions in outcomes endured in the months and years after participants terminated CBTs.

The meta-analysis found evidence of publication bias, which occurs when the outcome of a research study affects the decision to publish it. Studies with small sample sizes and large treatment effects overpopulate the literature, and few studies have been conducted that comprise large sample sizes of individuals completing CBTs. Of course, such studies may not exist, but if they do exist, they have not been published – perhaps because the results are not as dramatic – and their data are thus not available to counterbalance the effects of the studies that have been published.

Across the 29 trials, only three studies (10%) had implemented designs to minimize risk of bias, which is the likelihood that the design or conduct of a study will give a misleading result. Most studies had a high attrition rate, meaning lots of participants dropped out of the study partway through, so that posttreatment results were based on incomplete data, perhaps concentrated among people for whom the treatment worked well.

Less than half of the 29 studies (48%) reported results beyond the posttreatment assessment.  That means the estimate of how well participants sustained their improved gambling outcomes beyond treatment was based on a comparatively small amount of data.

Lead author Dr. Rory Pfund of the University of Memphis suggests that some of the shortcomings of the 29 gambling studies can be blamed on the overall lack of funding for gambling research across several countries. For example, in the US: “No US federal agency funds programs to address gambling disorder. Total state funds for gambling treatment centers and program evaluations were limited to $14 million in 2016. That amount is about 4,000 times smaller than the $550 million of federal funds available for alcohol research and about 13,000 times smaller than the $1.8 billion available for drug research in 2022.”

-- Ends –

For editors:

This paper is free to read for one month after publication from the Wiley Online Library: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.16221 or by contacting Jean O’Reilly, Editorial Manager, Addiction, jean@addictionjournal.org.

To speak with co-author Dr Rory Pfund, please contact him at the University of Memphis by email (rapfund@memphis.edu) or telephone (+1 901 678 8720).

Full citation for article: Pfund RA, Forman DP, King SA, Zech JM, Ginley MK, Peter SC, McAfee NW, and Whelan JP. Effect of Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques for Problem Gambling and Gambling Disorder:  A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Addiction. 2023. DOI: 10.1111/add.16221.

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health award numbers L30AA029551 and T32AA018108. This work was also supported by a grant from Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

Declaration of interests:  None.

Addiction is a monthly international scientific journal publishing peer-reviewed research reports on alcohol, substances, tobacco, and gambling as well as editorials and other debate pieces. Owned by the Society for the Study of Addiction, it has been in continuous publication since 1884.

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JOURNAL

Addiction

DOI

10.1111/add.16221 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Effect of Cognitive-Behavioral Techniques for Problem Gambling and Gambling Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Jun-2023

WORKERS CAPITAL

US public pensions could be $21 billion richer right now

New report says benefits of divesting from fossil fuels are environmental and financial

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

New research shows that U.S. public pension funds would be $21 billion richer had they divested from fossil fuels a decade ago.  

The study, out of the University of Waterloo in partnership with Stand.earth, analyzed the public equity portfolios of six major U.S. public pension funds, which collectively represent approximately 3.4 million people, to determine the effect divesting from their energy holdings would have had. In total, researchers estimate that the pension funds would have seen a return on their investments that was 13 per cent higher on average. 

Another analysis of the same eight U.S. public pension funds included in the report found that the carbon footprint that would have been reduced had they divested 10 years ago is equivalent to the emissions for powering 35 million homes per year. 

Researchers say the report proves that divesting creates additional financial value, lowers exposure to climate risks, and reduced the carbon footprint of portfolios.  

“Influential investors, like these large public pension funds, can bring about positive change on a few fronts,” said Dr. Olaf Weber, professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development at Waterloo. “Energy divestments can create higher returns for the funds, which leads to higher returns for the beneficiaries and reduced exposure to climate risks. Consequently, it leads to safer pensions.” 

The report also explored ways that recent changes in the performance of the energy sector due to major global events—such as COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine—would have influenced the funds. During the last three years, the value of the fossil fuel sector went up because of the reduced oil supply from Russia. Hence, divestment has not been that attractive from a financial point of view. However, the report found that even in times of high performance in the fossil fuel sector, divestment does not reduce financial returns in any significant way. 

“If climate chaos like fires and floods weren’t enough, this latest report strengthens the case even further that public pension funds must divest from fossil fuels as part of meeting their fiduciary duties,” said Amy Gray, senior climate finance strategist at Stand.earth. “As the longest-term investors for workers, the last thing pension funds should be doing is gambling with retirement and deferred wages of their members.”  

Future work will include going into more detail regarding the emissions of particular portfolio holdings on a per-holdings basis or analyzing the emissions of specific companies and then excluding those with the highest emissions. 

"This new Waterloo data hits home for me. My mom is a beneficiary of a public pension, and my family is depending on that retirement income for security," said Miguel Alatorre Jr., Fossil Free California.  "It's unconscionable to me that these funds are investing in fossil fuel companies driving climate change, heat waves, wildfires and flooding, all while losing income for workers.” 

The report, The Impact of Energy Investments on the Financial Value and the Emissions of Pension Funds, was presented at the IEEFA Energy Finance Conference on June 22.