Culture

Minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged
children have significantly higher rates of COVID-19 infection, a new study led by
Children's National Hospital researchers shows. These findings, reported online August
5 in Pediatrics, parallel similar health disparities for the novel coronavirus that have been
found in adults, the authors state.

COVID-19, an infection caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that emerged in
late 2019, has infected more than 4.5 million Americans, including tens of thousands of
children. Early in the pandemic, studies highlighted significant disparities in the rates of
infection in the U.S., with minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged adults bearing
much higher burdens of infection. However, says Monika Goyal, M.D., M.S.C.E, a
pediatric emergency medicine specialist and associate division chief in the Division of
Emergency Medicine at Children's National whose research focuses on health
disparities, it's been unclear whether these disproportionate rates of infection also
extend to youth.

To investigate this question, she and her colleagues looked to data collected between
March 21, 2020, and April 28, 2020, from a drive-through/walk-up COVID-19 testing site
affiliated with Children's National -- one of the first exclusively pediatric testing sites for
the virus in the U.S. To access this free testing site, funded by philanthropic support,
patients between the ages of 0 and 22 years needed to meet specific criteria: mild
symptoms and either known exposure, high-risk status, family member with high-risk
status or required testing for work. Physicians referred patients through an online portal
that collected basic demographic information, reported symptoms and the reason for
referral.

When Dr. Goyal and her colleagues analyzed the data from the first 1,000 patients
tested at this site, they found that infection rates differed dramatically among different
racial and ethnic groups. While about 7% of non-Hispanic white children were positive
for COVID-19, about 30% of non-Hispanic Black and 46% of Hispanic children were
positive.

"You're going from about one in 10 non-Hispanic white children to one in three nonHispanic Black children and one in two Hispanic children. It's striking," says Dr. Goyal.
Using data from the American Families Survey, which uses five-year census estimates
derived from home address to estimate median family income, the researchers
separated the group of 1,000 patients into estimated family income quartiles. They found
marked disparities in COVID-19 positivity rates by income levels: while those in the
highest quartile had infection rates of about 9%, about 38% of those in the lowest
quartile were infected.

There were additional disparities in exposure status, Dr. Goyal adds. Of the 10% of
patients who reported known exposure to COVID-19, about 11% of these were nonHispanic white. However, non-Hispanic Black children were triple this number.

Although these numbers show clear disparities in COVID-19 infection rates, the authors
are now trying to understand why these disparities occur and how they can be mitigated.

"Some possible reasons may be socioeconomic factors that increase exposure,
differences in access to health care and resources, as well as structural racism," says
Dr. Goyal.

She adds that Children's National is working to address those factors that might increase
risk for COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes by helping to identify unmet needs --
such as food and/or housing insecurity -- and steer patients toward resources when
patients receive their test results.

"As clinicians and researchers at Children's National, we pride ourselves on not only
being a top-tier research institution that provides cutting-edge care to children, but by
being a hospital that cares about the community we serve," says Denice Cora-Bramble, M.D., M.B.A., chief medical officer of Ambulatory and Community Health Services at
Children's National and the research study's senior author. "There's still so much work to
be done to achieve health equity for children."

Other Children's National researchers who contributed to this study include Joelle N. Simpson, M.D.; Meleah D. Boyle, M.P.H, Gia M. Badolato, M.P.H; Meghan Delaney, D.O,. M.P.H.; and Robert McCarter Jr., Sc.D.

Seemingly everyone has a smartphone in their pocket, and we find new uses for them every day. They can help us avoid traffic jams or connect us to family from afar. They can even translate languages on the fly.

Now, scientists have figured out a new trick. Using a regular smartphone camera and some 3D-printed tools, they've developed an easier way to measure soil density. With the volume and weight of soil samples, scientists can compare the nutrient or carbon stocks in soils so we better manage them. With their new system, they cheaply reproduced expensive, time-consuming methods that require lasers or messy wax.

"The new approach could allow scientists around the world to speed up their work with tools they already have or can easily acquire," says Colby Brungard. Brungard is a researcher at New Mexico State University.

Measuring soil density is simple in principle, but hard in the real world. To determine density, scientists need the weight, or mass, of a clump of soil, along with the volume. Determining weight just requires a scale. But determining the volume of soil clumps - called peds - is traditionally a much more difficult task.

The original method to measure the volume carefully coated the soil ped in wax and then placed it in water. Messy. Three-dimensional laser scanning has emerged as an alternative, but it's pricey and time-consuming.

With these challenges in mind, Brungard was casting about for a better method. Based on a colleague's work, he knew photographs could be used to measure volume. So, he figured all he needed were photos from the right angles and a scale. Brungard decided to pitch the idea of creating a mobile app to students during a guest lecture.

"When I gave the guest lecture, I explained my idea and asked the undergraduate students if any of them had an interest in taking on the project," says Brungard. "Michael Whiting, a student in the class and the lead author of the paper, volunteered and did the research."

The team turned to modern conveniences. They knew that smartphones had cameras good enough to take high-resolution photos of a soil ped. To get a consistent view of the entire soil sample, they used a 3D printer to create a tiny turntable just a few inches across. The turntable had a cradle for the phone, to keep it still. And it had a simple crank allowing it to be turned by hand while the phone grabbed multiple pictures.

The scientists uploaded the pictures to a program that could stitch them together into a 3D image, which gave a measure of the volume. When they compared the smartphone system to the old standbys of laser-scanning or wax-dipping, the final measurements were nearly identical. That accuracy proved true across five different types of soil peds.

The smartphone system was fast, too. It took just 15 minutes per sample, while a laser scan can take an hour and a half. But there was downtime while the computer program analyzed the images, a computationally intensive task. Nonetheless, the method was simple, fast, cheap and accurate. A win-win-win-win.

"The photogrammetry method doesn't involve any complicated or expensive equipment like traditional 3D laser scanners as even low-budget cell phones likely have cameras that are adequate," says Brungard. "Others can quickly replicate this because of the high functionality of cell phones." Plus, plans for the 3D turntable are available online.

Thanks to these widely available tools, other scientists can use smartphones they probably already have and simple 3D printing blueprints to start analyzing this important soil property right away. All with the power they already carry in their pocket.

A project to help church communities become more 'dementia friendly' has had a significant impact across the country.

The Dementia Friendly Church programme began as a collaboration between Peter Kevern, Professor of Values in Health and Social Care at Staffordshire University, and the Anglican Diocese of Lichfield in 2012.

It was developed to inform, inspire and embed change in church communities so that their resources can contribute to the wellbeing of people with dementia. This includes making small practical changes to the layout, worship and hospitality available in church buildings.

The project is directed primarily at church attendees via volunteer 'champions' in each church, with the intention of making churches both 'friendly spaces' for people living with dementia and their carers, and providing them with the tools and encouragement to lead beneficial change in their local communities.

Professor Kevern commented: "Faith-based organisations represent a fantastic resource for helping to care for people in their local communities, one which is usually overlooked and underused by policymakers and statutory providers of social care. The Church of England, for example, covers every square metre of England and reckons to be available to everybody.

"The Diocese of Lichfield alone covers an area serving 2 million people, from isolated rural villages to industrial conurbations. In each of those communities, it can potentially make a difference to the experience of people with dementia."

The Dementia Friendly Church programme has involved partners from local authorities, the health community and the volunteer sector and a total of 3,900 'Dementia Friends' have been trained across the 94 churches in the Anglican Diocese of Lichfield.

Research by Professor Kevern and Revd Dr David Primrose of the Diocese of Lichfield has shown a significant improvement in the ease with which church attendees interact with people with dementia, which translates into making churches more welcoming and responsive places.

Revd Dr David Primrose said: "One of the big barriers around dementia has been an underlying fear - people don't know how to respond, people are anxious. The fact that this programme has enabled people to talk about dementia in church and in the community is itself liberating."

The model has since been adopted and adapted by a number of dioceses across England and Wales, as well as attracting attention from the USA and Canada. The experiences of some of these dioceses are the subject of a recent film, which can be viewed here.

FOLSOM, Calif. - August 5, 2020 - A new research study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, investigated how serum from subjects consuming a diet enriched with blueberries would affect the cells responsible for muscle growth and repair. The emerging study, "Consumption of a blueberry enriched diet by women for six weeks alters determinants of human muscle progenitor cell function," was conducted at Cornell University.

The study was conducted over six weeks with 22 women, 12 aged 25-40 and 10 aged 60-75. For the blueberry-enriched diet, participants consumed the equivalent of 1.75 cups of fresh blueberries/day, given as freeze-dried blueberries (19 g in the morning and 19 g in the evening), along with their regular diet. Participants were also asked to avoid other foods rich in polyphenols and anthocyanins. Serum was obtained from the participants 1.5 hours after consuming the morning dose of blueberries. The researchers then investigated how the serum would affect muscle progenitor cell function through proliferation or cell number, capacity to manage oxidative stress and oxygen consumption rate or metabolism.

The results showed the six-week blueberry-enriched serum obtained from the women aged 25-40 increased human muscle progenitor cell numbers in culture. There was also a trend toward a lower percentage of dead human muscle progenitor cells, suggesting a resistance to oxidative stress, as well as increased oxygen consumption of the cells. There were no beneficial effects seen in the muscle progenitor cells treated with serum from participants aged 60-75 who consumed the blueberry enriched diet.

"The consequences associated with the deterioration of skeletal muscle are a loss of mobility, decreased quality of life, and ultimately, loss of independence. Currently, research on dietary interventions to support skeletal muscle regeneration in humans is limited. This preliminary study of muscle progenitor cell function paves the way for future studies to develop clinical interventions," said Anna Thalacker-Mercer, Ph.D., the study's lead investigator. "While the results cannot be generalized to all populations, this study is an important step in translating findings from cell culture and rodent studies to a potential dietary therapy for improving muscle regeneration after injury and during the aging process."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), muscles lose strength, flexibility, and endurance over time. Muscle mass decreases three to five percent every decade after 30 years of age, and that rate increases over age 60. Therefore, strategies to improve muscle progenitor cell proliferation and lower oxidative stress may also benefit muscle regeneration during the aging process.

Research on the role that blueberries may play in promoting good health is ongoing across multiple areas, including cardiovascular health, diabetes management, brain health, exercise and the gut microbiome.

An online survey involving nearly 800 cigar smokers found while the majority of the people surveyed intended to quit smoking due to concerns about elevated health risks if they contracted COVID-19, more than twice as many reported they increased rather than decreased their tobacco use since the pandemic's onset.

The multi-institutional study led by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examined cigar smokers' perceived risk of COVID-19, quit intentions, and behaviors during the pandemic. Their findings were published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

"We are not sure why many participants reported increasing their tobacco use, but it is possible that they are stressed or anxious, they are bored at home, they stockpiled tobacco products in advance of sheltering-in-place orders, or they are not able to easily access evidence-based cessation resources like pharmacotherapy or behavioral support," said Sarah Kowitt PhD, MPH, the paper's first author, and an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine.

Adam Goldstein, MD, MPH, director of UNC Tobacco Intervention Programs and professor of family medicine at UNC School of Medicine, is the study's senior author.

The researchers conducted an online survey for two weeks starting on April 23 as part of an ongoing study examining perceptions of health effects of cigars. All respondents reported using cigars during the past 30 days and most used other tobacco products, like cigarettes. The average age of those surveyed was 39.3 years, most were white (66.2%), and nearly half (48.9%) were women.

Far more respondents reported increasing their tobacco use since COVID-19 started (40.9%) vs. decreasing their tobacco use (17.8%). This finding was significant, Kowitt said, "because cigar use is associated with multiple cancers and other health effects."

However, Black or African American participants, those who used a quitline (a telephone-based tobacco cessation service), and those with higher COVID-19 risk perceptions had higher intentions to quit using tobacco due to COVID-19 and higher odds of making a quit attempt since COVID-19 started.

Nearly half (46.5%) of the respondents reported they had tried to quit smoking since the pandemic's onset and 70.8% were planning to quit within six months. Kowitt said this finding has important public health policy implications. Studies have shown that to convert quit attempts into successful cessation, support should be made available during this time, including increased access to nicotine replacement therapy, virtual support with tobacco treatment counselors, and mental health assistance, particularly since better perceived mental health was associated with increased intentions to quit.

Kowitt said tailoring support to sub-groups of tobacco users may also be important. For instance, tobacco users who have increased their tobacco use in response to COVID-19 may need additional help with higher dependency, as well as with coping strategies targeting stress and anxiety. Those who have decreased their tobacco use have an even greater chance of successfully quitting with clinician support.

"It is important, especially during the pandemic, that we provide support for tobacco users who want to quit smoking," said Kowitt. "A growing body of research suggests that tobacco users, compared to non-users, may be at greater risk for experiencing COVID-19 complications, so it is critical that we identify opportunities and approaches to encourage tobacco users to consider quitting and to provide them the support they need to quit successfully."

As cases of COVID-19 rise around the world, there has been a surge in the hospitalisation of COVID-19 patients in the United States, India and Brazil. Many are concerned by the ability of the healthcare systems to cope under the strain, particularly the availability of critical resources such as ventilators.

In times of acute shortages, the orthodoxy in healthcare is for scarce resources to be allocated based on who has the best chance of survival. However, Dr Diego Silva, a lecturer in bioethics at the University of Sydney, argues allocation decisions based on a simple utility calculus are unjust because they exacerbate existing social inequities.

In a paper published in Chest Journal, Dr Silva proposes a radical departure from current convention by arguing ventilators be allocated to COVID-19 patients via a lottery.

"At a population level, 'wealth equals health' is accurate. The opposite is also true, poverty leads to ill health. Those who are least likely to contract or die from coronavirus are the young and healthy. So, if saving the most lives favours saving people most likely to physically improve from their symptoms, we are indirectly further disadvantaging the economically poor and socially marginalised," Dr Silva said.

"Allocation based on lottery is also an expression of utility and maximising public resources, it would remove the likelihood of people being given preferential treatment because of social or economic advantages.

"Using a lottery system to allocate ventilators during a pandemic may sound wrong and all else being equal, we should maximise the number of lives saved. However, there's the rub: society pre-COVID-19 was not equal, nor is it during this pandemic. If we believe in a fair, just and equal society the only way to achieve this in a healthcare system is to give everyone an equal chance of receiving critical medical care."

Until now, Italy has been the only country that has experienced an acute shortage of ventilators during the pandemic, however there are concerns some states in the United States, and parts of Brazil and India, may have to confront similar shortages.

There are already troubling signs in the United States. Arizona currently has more than 50 percent of available ventilators in use. More than 50 hospitals across Florida have said there are no ICU beds available.

"Rationing medical care is not something many doctors and health administrators would have a lot of experience with. Usually, the allocation of health resources can be done with time on one's side and there is rarely - if ever - acute scarcity. I would urge hospitals in places where there is a worrying surge in coronavirus cases to start thinking about this ethical dilemma now, so that they are prepared if the hospital systems get inundated with COVID-19 patients," Dr Silva said.

A team of researchers from Nagoya University, Japan, has found the mechanism of the night-to-day transition of the circadian rhythm in green algae. The findings, published in the journal PLOS Genetics, could be applied to green algae to produce larger amounts of lipids, which are a possible sustainable source of biofuel.

Green algae are photosynthetic organisms that live mainly in lakes and ponds and produce lipids internally. Like most organisms, green algae have a circadian clock, which regulates their daily photosynthetic activities. The mechanism of their circadian clocks, however, had not been previously explained.

The team of Takuya Matsuo of the Center for Gene Research and colleagues at Nagoya University has been conducting studies on circadian clocks using Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a species of freshwater green algae.

"We had previously found that a gene called ROC75 is involved in the circadian rhythm of C. reinhardtii in some way," says Matsuo. In the new study, the team further investigated the role of ROC75 in the same species. The results suggest that the ROC75 gene functions from dawn through the day and helps change the green alga's circadian phase from night to daytime by suppressing the activity of night-phased clock genes.

To demonstrate it, the team artificially controlled the activity of ROC75. When ROC75 was inhibited, the alga's circadian rhythm wasn't observed. Then, when the activity of ROC75 was restored, the circadian rhythm resumed. Also, through multiple experiments, the researchers found that the alga's circadian clock restarted, ticking consistently just as if the morning had come. The team thus concluded that ROC75 plays a crucial role in changing green algae's circadian phase from night to daytime.

"This study showed that by controlling the activity of ROC75, we can wake up green algae whenever we want and thereby enhance their photosynthetic activities. In this way, we could make green algae produce larger amounts of lipids that can be converted into biofuel," says Matsuo.

"The role of ROC75 that we found may reflect a survival strategy used by green algae after the species decided to continue to live in water during its evolution. I believe this study takes a step forward in understanding the mechanism and the evolutionary history of circadian clocks in green plants."

Today, our lifestyle brings us in contact with multiple chemicals daily: in packaged food, cosmetics, construction materials, aerosols, and so on; a number of these chemicals have been named "carcinogens." A chemical's carcinogenicity is its ability to cause cancer in humans or other living things. Because cancer is a major cause of illness, disability, and death worldwide, scientists have developed several different ways to test chemicals for carcinogenicity in the laboratory. However, these methods are complex and take a long time to yield results, which makes it difficult for scientists to test large numbers of chemicals.

Now, in a paper recently published in Scientific Reports, an international research team led by Professor Masaharu Seno of Okayama University, Japan, reports a new method that can achieve this quickly. "It takes only one week for our method to yield results," notes Prof Seno, and this represents a considerable improvement over existing methods.

The method involves stem cells--precursor cells that mature into various different cells with specialized functions, such as blood cells or neurons. Previously, Prof Seno's research team had used a certain kind of stem cell from mice, called mouse induced pluripotent stem cells, to establish a model in which healthy stem cells converted to "cancerous" stem cells, also called cancer stem cells (or CSCs), in four weeks when kept in a conditioned culture medium of mouse lung cancer cells. In this study, the researchers reasoned that adding a carcinogenic chemical to the conditioned medium should boost this conversion.

Based on this idea, the researchers conducted a series of week-long experiments to test 110 chemicals. At the end of it, they found that three chemicals--namely, PDO325901, CHIR99021, and Dasatinib--had resulted in the formation of CSCs. What's interesting is, all three are actually known to suppress the intracellular signaling that leads to the growth and survival of cancer cells.

When they injected live mice with stem cells that had been exposed to any of those three chemicals, malignant tumors grew in the mice within six weeks. The CSCs obtained by exposing mouse stem cells to the three chemicals also began making more copies of proteins often associated with the growth of cancer cells.

Upon additional analyses, the scientists were able to identify the specific cellular pathways that these chemicals all trigger to cause the conversion.

These findings prove the efficacy and potential of this rapid testing method. Prof Seno speaks of the many applications the method can have: "Because pluripotent stem cells can develop into all cells in an adult human body, a wide range of cancer stem cells can be obtained with our method, enabling the efficient risk assessment of many chemicals for a variety of cancers. This will lead to more precise cancer prevention strategies as well as treatments." He also asserts that this screening method will be "a good resource for studying the mechanisms of cancer development."

Given how many people are afflicted worldwide by cancer every year, methods such as the ones developed in this study and its precursor can make important contributions to the improvement of people's lives.

Car users from the world's least affluent cities are exposed to a disproportionate amount of in-car air pollution because they rely heavily on opening their windows for ventilation, finds a first of its kind study from the University of Surrey.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year and nine out of 10 people breathe air with high levels of pollutants.

In a study published by the Science of the Total Environment journal, a global team of researchers led by Surrey's Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) investigated air pollution exposure levels for commuters in 10 different global cities - Dhaka (Bangladesh), Chennai (India), Guangzhou (China), Medelli?n (Colombia), Sa?o Paulo (Brazil), Cairo (Egypt), Sulaymaniyah (Iraq), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Blantyre (Malawi), and Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania).

The research team investigated PM2.5 and PM10 exposure levels inside vehicles during peak hours in the morning and evening, as well as off-peak hours in the middle of the day. The scientists measured how exposure levels changed when drivers used recirculation systems, fans and simply opened the windows.

The study discovered that drivers in some of the world's poorest cities experienced higher levels of in-car pollution.

Irrespective of the city and car model used, a windows-open setting showed the highest exposure, followed by fan-on and recirculation. Pollution exposure for windows-open during off-peak hours was 91 percent and 40 percent less than morning and evening peak hours, respectively. The study also found that the windows-open setting exposed car passengers to hotspots of air pollution for up to a third of the total travel length.

The study found that commuters who turn on the recirculation are exposed to around 80 percent less harmful particles than those who open their car windows. Car cabin filters were more effective in removing pollution than fine particles, suggesting that if new cars had more efficient filters, it could reduce the overall exposure of car commuters.

Professor Prashant Kumar, Director of GCARE at the University of Surrey, said: "To be blunt, we need as many cars as possible off the road, or more green vehicles to reduce air pollution exposure. This is yet a distant dream in many ODA countries. Air-conditioned cars are unattainable for many poor and vulnerable commuters across the world, but our data is clear and coherent for all 10 participating cities.

"We must now work with our global partners to make sure they have the information needed to put in place programmes, policies and strategies to protect the most vulnerable in our communities and find realistic solutions to these serious problems."

Professor Abdus Salam from the University of Dhaka said: "The study has drawn important conclusions that can help commuters make decisions in their day-to-day lives to protect their health. Simple choices, like travelling during off-peak hours, can go a long way in reducing their exposure to air pollution."

Professor Adamson S. Muula from the University of Malawi said: "Working with the GCARE team and global collaborators on this study has been an insightful experience. We were given access to affordable technology to collect novel datasets that haven't been available for cities in this part of the world. We also got to see where our cities stand in comparison to other global cities in developing countries. This has allowed for the sharing of much needed knowledge and best practices."

Tousled-like kinases (TLKs) are a potential therapeutic target for cancer treatment due to their central role in DNA repair and replication. The latest work by IRB Barcelona's Genomic Instability and Cancer Laboratory, led by Travis H. Stracker, concludes that TLK inhibition activates the innate immune system, a very important factor in the response to cancer.

"We believe the TLKs are promising targets for cancer therapy and want to understand more about how they work and how cells respond to their reduction or loss," says Stracker. Having headed the Genomic Instability and Cancer Laboratory at IRB Barcelona since 2009, in July this year Stracker took up a new position as group leader at the National Cancer Institute (NIH) in Bethesda, in the US.

Alternative lengthening of telomeres

The group of researchers had previously observed that reduced TLK activity made cancer cells more sensitive to some therapeutic agents. Now, they have found that blocking TLKs triggers an alternative telomere lengthening system (ALT), a pathway used by many cancers, including some of the most aggressive ones like glioblastoma, to maintain telomeres and allow cells to continue dividing.

The group of researchers has discovered that activation of the ALT pathway triggers the innate immune system, potentially attracting immune cells, such as macrophages and T lymphocytes. "The activation of innate immunity in cancer has recently become an active area of research as it has become clear that the innate immune response influences chemotherapy and immunotherapy," comments Stracker.

Genome decondensation and accessibility

In DNA, not all regions have the same function. Some regions contain genes with the information necessary to make proteins, but there are other regions, called heterochromatin, that have a regulatory and structural function, but do not contain genes that give rise to proteins. Another effect of TLK inhibition, observed in this study, is that this heterochromatin, which is usually compacted, ceases to be so, thereby becoming more accessible to the RNA production machinery and leading to an altered composition in the cell.

"This could help us understand our previous observation that TLK depletion caused replication stress and help us exploit the effects of TLK depletion for cancer therapy," says Sandra Segura-Bayona, first author of the study. Segura Bayona is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory headed by Simon Boulton at The Francis Crick Institute in London.

A new study by the University of Kent's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) suggests that utilising Confucianist, Daoist, and Buddhist belief messaging in targeted campaigns could effectively change the behaviour of end consumers in the East Asia illegal wildlife trade chain.

Behavioural change intervention is essential for reducing the demand of illegal wildlife products. With so many conservation campaigns typically approached from the perspective of Western culture, the impact could be limited in different cultures. East Asia is a primary market for many illegal wildlife products such as rosewood, ivory, and pangolin scales and so is often targeted with conservation campaigns, but with limited effect.

The research led by Laura Thomas-Walters, a PhD student studying Conservation Biology at DICE, has identified that resonating with Chinese-influenced societies through cultural values could be most effective for tailoring the messaging in illegal wildlife trade campaigns in East Asia. While China alone has 56 recognised ethnic groups, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism have dominated traditional Chinese ideology.

The study highlighted eight cultural concepts to target messaging around; Harmony (the balance of yin and yang), Jian (frugality), Junzi (an exemplary person), Li (ritual propriety), Qi (the material force of the universe), Ren (inner moral force, humaneness), Shu (altruism) and Zhong (conscientiousness).

For example, in regards to the concept of harmony, messaging could be based around unsustainable product use and the imbalance between humans and nature when species such as pangolins disappear from nature. While in regards to Ren, messaging could reinforce the concept of connection and unity with nature by relating the kindness of humanity to include wildlife.

Laura Thomas-Walters said: 'Chinese culture has a long history of consumptive wildlife use and conservationists have struggled to engage Chinese-influenced societies with illegal wildlife trade campaigns. This study suggests routes that could be taken to target these societies more specifically. Yet, it's important to consider that when designing an intervention, respect rather than judgement is essential, and the involvement of a local partnership or regional expertise is recommended.'

Scientists are increasingly trying to use the body's own immune system to fight cancer. A new study by the University of Bonn and research institutions in Australia and Switzerland now shows the strategies tumor cells use to evade this attack. The method developed for this work contributes to a better understanding of the "arms race" between immune defense and disease. The results could help to improve modern therapeutic approaches. They have been published in the journal Immunity.

Cancer cells differ from healthy body cells - in their appearance, their behavior and the genes that are active in them. Often this does not go unnoticed: The immune system registers that something is wrong and dispatches its troops to fight the tumor. However, this response is often too weak to keep the cancer in check in the long term or even destroy it.

Researchers have therefore been trying for many years to strengthen the immune system's defensive reaction. They do this in a similar way to a policeman who puts his dog on the trail of an escaped criminal. In this case, the role of the sniffer dog is taken over by the cytotoxic T cells: They can detect and kill sick or defective cells. Each T cell is directed against a specific characteristic, also called antigen. For cancer therapy, the researchers are therefore looking for T cells in patients that detect tumor antigens. They can then for instance multiply these and inject them back into the patient. In this way they strengthen the patient's immune response against the cancer.

However, many tumors have unfortunately developed strategies that enable them to evade the immune system. "In our study, we investigated what these strategies look like and what this depends on," explains Dr. Maike Effern from the Institute of Experimental Oncology at the University Hospital Bonn. "We focused on skin cancer, namely melanoma cells."

Melanomas differ from healthy cells in several ways. For example, a whole range of different genes are active in them. Each of these is a potential antigen for T cells. But which is particularly suitable for triggering a strong and lasting immune response? To answer this question, the researchers invented a clever method in their experimental model: They attached a kind of label to various genes that are active in the development of melanoma cells and used them to produce antigens. They then released a group of T cells against the tumor cells, which recognized exactly this molecular label as a disease marker. The researchers then used this strategy to investigate how the cancer cells react to being pursued by the immune system. Depending on the gene tagged with such a label, they found significant differences.

Cancer cells hide from the immune system

"When the T cells were directed against genes responsible for melanoma-typical characteristics, we observed that the cancer cells changed their appearance and suppressed these genes over time," explains Effern's colleague Dr. Nicole Glodde. "So this is how they hide from the immune system."

In contrast, another gene investigated in the study is essential for the tumor's survival. This makes it not so easy to downregulate and thus hide. "In our view, this gene therefore has the potential to induce a very effective T cell response," Effern emphasizes. "Our work potentially clears the way to more effective immune therapies," hopes Prof. Dr. Michael Hölzel, head of the Institute of Experimental Oncology at the University Hospital Bonn and member of the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation at the University of Bonn. "The method we have developed also makes it possible to better understand the processes by which cancer cells slip under the radar of the immune system."

An international research team have discovered how to activate brown fat in humans, which may lead to new treatments for type 2 diabetes and obesity. The results of the collaboration between the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke (CRCHUS) and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR) at the University of Copenhagen were published today in Cell Metabolism.

Brown fat burns energy and generates heat - a process called thermogenesis - after being activated by cold temperature or chemical signals. Humans have small deposits of brown fat, and scientists have long hypothesized that finding alternative ways to pharmacologically activate the fat could help improve metabolism.

Scientists have now discovered that beta2-adrenergic receptors (b2-AR) in brown fat cells are responsible for stimulating thermogenesis. According to Dr. Denis Blondin from CRCHUS, the finding could explain why most clinical trials, which have attempted to induce BAT to burn energy, have performed poorly.

"We show that perhaps we were aiming for the wrong target all along. In contrast to rodents, human BAT is activated through the stimulation of the beta2-adrenergic receptor, the same receptor responsible for the release of fat from our white adipose tissue."

Unlocking the therapeutic potential of brown fat

According to Associate Professor Camilla Schéele at CBMR, this finding has clear therapeutic applications.
"Activation of brown fat burns calories, improves insulin sensitivity and even affects appetite regulation. Our data reveals a previously unknown key to unlocking these functions in humans, which would potentially be of great gain for people living with obesity or type 2 diabetes".

A second phase of research will begin in the autumn, which will attempt to validate the finding by activating brown fat with drugs that target b2-AR, explains Professor André Carpentier from CRCHUS:

"Our next step will be to use a drug that specifically activate that target on brown fat and determine how much it could be of use to burn fat and calories in humans. Once this is done, studies in patients with type 2 diabetes will start to determine if this approach can be useful to improve the metabolic control of the disease."

The health of wallabies and kangaroos is being affected by the herbicide, atrazine, which is used widely in Australia on cereal crops and in forestation to prevent weeds, according to new research.

Atrazine, which has been banned in the European Union since 2003, may be impacting reproduction in marsupials, the University of Melbourne study found, published today in Reproduction, Fertility and Development.

"Exposures to atrazine is causing major abnormalities in the male reproductive system in many animals, triggering male sterility or even male-to-female sex reversal in frogs," Professor in Genetics Andrew Pask said.

"With the marsupial's unique mode of reproduction and the young completing their development in the pouch, mothers are unknowingly passing the toxins on in their breast milk, exposing their young to environmental toxins."

The study is the first time the impacts of pesticides have been investigated in any marsupial and show that they are able to affect reproductive development.

The research found that concentrations of atrazine have been recorded at disturbingly high levels in Victorian rivers and Tasmanian streams immediately after forestry spraying.

Kangaroos and wallabies are at high risk because they eat the sprayed crops and drink from contaminated water resources where chemicals such as atrazine accumulate from run off.

Atrazine affects a broad range of animals from mammals such as rats to amphibians, reptiles and even fish.

With marsupials already experiencing devastating population declines across Australia, and 21 per cent of native mammals currently threatened with extinction, researchers say the potential impacts of environmental toxins are of major concern.

Researchers exposed the adult female tammar wallabies to atrazine contaminated water throughout pregnancy, birth and lactation to help establish the extent of harm being caused by the chemical.

They then examined the reproductive development of their young by assessing their growth and development.

Lead author on the research and PhD student Laura Cook said it is hoped the study will lead to more stringent guidelines around the use of atrazine in Australia.

"Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, such as atrazine, have the ability to impact development and increase disease susceptibility," she said.

"With increased habitat destruction, marsupials are being pushed onto farmland, attracted to the food resources and rare permanent water sources where they may be vulnerable to agricultural contaminants, such as pesticides."

As the global count of COVID-19 infections heads towards the 20M mark, the pandemic has created what the World Health Organisation calls an 'infodemic', giving conspiracy groups a bigger platform than ever before.

Researchers from QUT's Digital Media Research Centre have taken a deep dive into their world to trace wild rumours on Facebook claiming the coronavirus was caused by 5G technology. They found what was once being preached to the already converted was quickly fanned further afield by social media and celebrities spreading the message.

Professor Axel Bruns, Associate Professor Stephen Harrington and Dr Edward Hurcombe have published their first major output from their Australian Research Council Discovery project Evaluating the Challenge of 'Fake News' and Other Malinformation.

Working with researchers from Monash University (Melbourne), Syracuse University (USA), and Cardiff University (UK), the project runs from mid-2020 to mid-2023. The first major article - 'Corona? 5G? Or Both?: The Dynamics of COVID-19/5G Conspiracy Theories on Facebook' has just been published in in Media International Australia.

It traces in detail the developments around the nonsensical and dangerous belief that 5G technology could cause or exacerbate the symptoms of a severe viral infection.

"Pre-existing conspiracy groups have jumped on the COVID-19 bandwagon and retrofitted their conspiracy theories to the pandemic, to argue the coronavirus outbreak justifies and proves their claims," said Professor Bruns.

"If you are against the roll-out of 5G, for example, then you link it with COVID-19. Other COVID-19 related conspiracy theories include claims it was developed in laboratory in Wuhan, or that it is a ruse by a secret 'world government' to suppress civil liberties."

Dr Hurcombe said that the research focussed on the COVID-5G rumour because of all the COVID-related misinformation stories, it has generated the most immediate and visible impacts. In April, mobile phone towers in the UK, The Netherlands and elsewhere were attacked.

"Much of the early circulation of COVID/5G mis- and disinformation remained niche and reached only existing conspiracy communities. It also existed early on in a wide range of languages, but English-language content contributed most prominently to its spread," said Dr Hurcombe.

"We found lockdowns and other government restrictions seemed to lead to a growth in COVID/5G misinformation; this may be due to people assuming some kind of hidden agenda behind them, but also simply a sign of people having more time on their hands to search social media for coronavirus-related content."

Professor Harrington added that celebrities like singer Keri Hilson and actor Woody Harrelson played a significant role in amplifying mis- and disinformation beyond established conspiracist communities.

"Musicians, actors, sportspeople, and fringe politicians, but (especially in Africa) also evangelist preachers, have all been guilty of this," said Professor Harrington.

"Coverage of their statements in entertainment and mainstream media further amplified such misinformation, even if the media coverage was critical."

Professor Bruns said when governments and health spokespeople were forced to respond to conspiracy theories, and mainstream media publish factchecks, the conspiracy theorists have reached their aims.

"It's win-win for the conspiracy theorists - when their claims are widely reported, even critically, they can then present any denials of their claims as evidence that the government is trying to suppress 'the truth'," he said.

"This makes the true believers even more committed.

"However, debunking is still valuable if it stops other citizens from falling prey to such mis- and disinformation. The same is true for content warnings and takedowns: conspiracy theorists will see them as proof that there really is a conspiracy, but at least they stop the content from circulating any further."

Read the full article at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1329878X20946113

Media contact:
Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 3151, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au