Culture

Which is more important in the initial phase of a pandemic: taking precautionary actions or responding to its severity? That is the question that researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) set out to address in an article published in BioEssays.

The authors explored and reported the various strategies taken by the United States of America, European group of nations (comprising nations in the European Union, the Schengen area and the United Kingdom), People's Republic of China, Japan and South Korea. By looking at how the number of new cases changed with the adoption or relaxing of strategies, the data collated suggest that the following three strategies should have been considered for implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) controlled movement by implementing some form of coordinated social distancing, stay-at-home order or extreme lockdown; (2) early and sustained implementation of containment through internal and external border controls; and (3) efficient and early testing to identify symptomatic and asymptomatic transmitters.

These are not new strategies, but were learnt from previous pandemics. However, at a time when these strategies should have been implemented in some form as a precaution to contain COVID-19 in the early days, many countries chose to "wait".

The article explained how a collective strategy is needed, not just country-wide, but globally. If the effort to contain COVID-19 is not implemented in unison, a community that opens up out of phase to the others might see new infections. The researchers observed that incoherent strategy allows waves in each territory to superposition and form a sustain wave for the virus to ride on as it hops from territory to territory, country to country, continent to continent. In particular, because these known strategies were not adopted early with sustained implementation, the US continues to account for a fifth of the world's total COVID-19 cases and is facing the start of a third wave. Another example cited was the post-summer resurgence of COVID-19 cases in Europe when measures were significantly relaxed.

"As the world moves forward and prepares itself for future pandemics of such scale, the lessons learnt from COVID-19 should be part of every country's pandemic response. When another virus of such protean nature hits us again, we will not be caught off-guard by successive wavelets constructively interfering to give a sustained wave," said Joel Lai, the lead author of the study from SUTD.

"This article identifies the effectiveness of various strategies adopted by the governments of key hotspots for COVID-19. We noticed that the strategies were not new, yet, somehow, they were not implemented as swiftly and with authority as expected. These were effective in the past, proven to be effective to tackle COVID-19 and will continue to be effective for future pandemics," Lai added.

COVID-19 has significantly changed the way of life for everyone. In the initial response to the growing number of cases, governments across the spectrum of affected countries have adopted different strategies in implementing control measures, in a hope to reduce the number of new cases. Despite not having any precedence on the nature of this coronavirus, many of the strategies to tackle infectious diseases like COVID-19 is known. The precautions that we could have taken were not implemented as a precautionary preparation, but as a reaction after COVID-19 became widespread.

"Hindsight is always 20/20, but we do not need to be deep in a crisis only to acknowledge that certain precautionary measures should have been executed earlier. This time, with hindsight, precaution was indeed better than the cure," observed Assistant Professor Kang Hao Cheong, the principal investigator for this study from SUTD. "The successes and failures of COVID-19 management thus far have set a precedent for how countries should approach future outbreaks. These should form lessons for mankind to deal with future pandemics as a precaution, not a reaction."

Kyoto, Japan -- Publishing in PNAS, biologists at Kyoto University report on a previously unknown mechanism in the retina that will perhaps lead to a better understanding of how our eyes see at night. The finding was made possible thanks to mice engineered to change fluorescence when a specific molecule -- protein kinase A, or PKA -- is activated.

These 'PKAchu' mice were developed to provide researchers with a way of visualizing the activation of one of the body's most essential and widely studied proteins.

"PKA is found in many cells and is involved in a wide variety of biological processes. It's natural that researchers would find a way to observe its activities," explains first author Shinya Sato of the Graduate School of Biostudies.

"PKAchu mice were developed in 2012 -- 'chu' being Japanese for 'squeak'-- to allow us to closely monitor how PKA acts during specific biological processes. I decided to apply this to my work in retina biology."

The team first developed a method for recording high resolution, microscopic images of living retinal tissue. They then observed how PKA reacts to light stimulation. Knowing the pathways involved, the team hypothesized that light would deactivate PKA.

But to their surprise, the exact opposite happened.

"We started with a six-second illumination of the tissue. Incredibly, this activated PKA in the selected area for nearly 15 minutes," continues Sato. "We then did a ten-minute illumination, during which PKA was inactive. But when the lights were turned off, PKA kicked into gear. It was as if the darkness had activated it."

Single-cell level analysis revealed that this lights-off PKA activation occurred only in rod cells, which are indispensable for our night vision.

Sato hypothesizes that this previously unknown mechanism of rod-specific PKA activation may be a key in boosting light sensitivity in our eyes, contributing to our night vision. Rod-type photoreceptor cells are thought to have evolved from color-sensing cone cells. PKA activation, it now appears, is rod-specific.

Michiyuki Matsuda, the study's senior author, concludes: "We have not only uncovered many interesting aspects of retinal cells, but the further utility of PKAchu mice as well. We are excited to uncover the mechanisms and purpose behind these new findings, and perhaps illuminate our understanding of conditions such as night blindness."

Tsukuba, Japan - Blood stem cell transplants are an important part of treatment for a variety of serious conditions. However, adverse reactions of the host to donor cells present a significant risk. Now, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have pinpointed cell level behavior that could be used to help the host fight back, their findings are published in Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

A significant proportion of patients who receive blood stem cells develop acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD), which is a fatal immune disorder in which the white blood cells of the stem cell donor attack the organs of the recipient. This attack leads to damage to the skin, liver, and gastrointestinal tract.

One of the types of skin cell that is attacked is Langerhans cells (LCs). LCs are known to negatively or positively regulate various types of immune responses--that is, to induce, or prevent them. However, these antigen-presenting cells are known to be killed by T cells in the early phase of aGVHD. Therefore, working out their roles in the disease is difficult.

The researchers carried out two experiments using mice with mucocutaneous aGVHD lesions to assess different aspects of the roles played by LCs.

"We investigated mice with normal and depleted amounts of LCs and found that when LCs were depleted at the outset, the lesions became more severe," study corresponding author Professor Naoko Okiyama explains. "In another experiment we found that the exacerbated disease resulted from a lack of death of OT-I cells that infiltrate the skin."

It was also found that the ability of LCs to cause the programmed death of OT-I cells and stop them from multiplying is partly the result of their expression of proteins in the B7 family.

"Having determined the proteins that contribute to LCs inducing the death of OT-I cells, we can explore the possibility that enhancing the expression of B7 proteins on LCs could provide an opportunity to prevent aGVHD development," says Professor Okiyama. "This could significantly improve treatments and have a positive effect on patient quality of life."

It is hoped that future work to enhance the expression of specific proteins on LCs will lead to more successful blood stem cell transplants.

Soil has the capacity to bind large quantities of carbon in the long term. An international team of researchers, including from the University of Bonn, is now advocating effective use of this potential. Experts estimate that this could reduce the increase of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by a third. At the same time, agricultural yields in many regions would also increase significantly. In a recent publication they present a strategy to achieve these goals. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

The climate summit in Paris in 2015 was also the birth of the so-called "4 per 1,000" initiative. Its name stands for a link that has not received enough attention in climate research and politics for a long time: Every year the amount of carbon in the atmosphere increases by more than four billion tons due to the man-made greenhouse gas CO2. If these four billion tons were instead sequestered in the earth's soils (thus completely halting the greenhouse effect), the amount of carbon contained in the soil would grow by only 0.4 per cent annually (i.e. 4 out of 1,000). In other words: Soils are already a gigantic carbon store. So why not simply dump the excess CO2 in it as an additional minuscule amount?

Experts are indeed confident today that this strategy could significantly slow down climate change. "0.4 percent additional carbon input is somewhat too optimistic," explains Prof. Wulf Amelung, who heads the Division of Soil Science at the University of Bonn. "However, a third of this is probably achievable." Nevertheless, little has changed since 2015. Together with colleagues from Europe, the USA, Australia and China, Amelung and colleagues therefore want to put the issue back on the agenda. In the current issue of the journal Nature Communications, they outline a strategy to effectively use the potential of soils in the fight against climate change. Amelung, together with his French colleague Prof. Abad Chabbi, is in charge of the initiative; in Germany, the TU Munich and Forschungszentrum Jülich were also involved.

There are a number of simple measures to increase the amount of carbon in the soil, such as mulching (i.e. covering the soil with crop residues) or adding plant-based coal. The most important method, however, is to increase plant growth (and thus crop yields): by liming acidic soils, by fertilizing as needed, by using smart irrigation. "The more grows on the soil, the better is it rooted," explains Amelung. "And roots with their widely branching networks of organic material store lots of carbon." Conversely, the organic matter contains essential nutrients for plant growth and thus promotes crop yield. "Our strategy therefore ultimately addresses two important goals: climate protection and food security."

Measures must be adapted locally

However, the global implementation of this ambitious plan is not quite so simple: The quality and characteristics of soils in different locations are too different, and the available management technologies are too dissimilar. "Increasing the carbon input therefore requires locally adapted measures; we need completely different strategies in the rice-growing regions of Asia than, for example, on a cereal field in northern Germany," Amelung emphasizes. In addition, many carbon sequestration measures are particularly effective when soils are partially degraded by long-term overuse and have lost a lot of carbon. "From a cost-benefit perspective, it certainly makes the most sense to start on such areas, not least because the yield increases are likely to be greatest there," explains the soil expert.

Unfortunately, however, knowledge about the condition of soil is very patchy. The researchers therefore recommend the establishment of databases that record the condition of land around the globe on a very small scale, as well as an equally small-scale modeling of possible yield gains and the necessary use of fertilizers. It must furthermore be ensured that there is no mere redistribution of carbon inputs: for example, organic material is moved from one farm to another at great expense and is now missing at its place of origin.

The sequencing of the genome of the cauliflower coral, Pocillopora verrucosa, by an international team, provides a resource that scientists can use to study how corals have adapted to different environmental conditions.

The cauliflower coral, also known as brush or lace coral, is one of the most popular corals in research because it is found throughout the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. "Having the genome will help us understand the genetic basis underlying the species' adaptation to different environmental conditions," says Carol Buitrago-López, a Ph.D. student supervised by Christian R. Voolstra, "which might shine light on how corals could respond to global warming."

Buitrago-López was seeking a sequenced cauliflower coral genome for use in population genomics studies of corals throughout the Red Sea. The habitat gradient in the Red Sea waters means corals have adapted or acclimated to different conditions, such as variation in temperature, salinity and nutrients. After researchers compared populations to identify sites in the genome linked with these adaptations, the next step was to determine what those differences meant. A reference genome is invaluable in this process. "It's very helpful to know where specific genes are or to be able figure out which genes are under selection," says Buitrago-López.

The team's analysis predicted about 27,500 genes based on information from about 50,000 transcripts used for subsequent gene modeling, which is comparable to genomes from closely related corals. However, the cauliflower coral genome has a higher percentage of repetitive elements--in particular, more transposable elements--than closely related corals. This might be indicative of a radiation of the genus, which is consistent with the species' broad distribution in geography and depth.

The researchers also looked at the proportion of genes without introns, a typical signature of genes that were acquired through horizontal gene transfer. The proportion was similar to that in another Pocillopora coral and significantly greater than in a coral of a different genus. It is currently not known what these genes are for.

With the genome revealed, researchers can now investigate these and other patterns and work to understand the evolutionary history of these corals. Figuring out how they have adapted to conditions in the Red Sea may point toward ways to support corals to cope with the pressures of climate change. "With a sequenced genome, you're not working blindly," says Buitrago-López. "It will help to figure out where we should focus our attention."

An interdisciplinary research team has investigated whether there are quantitative differences that can be used to identify individual potters who make traditional, fixed-shape vessels that have been made in the same way for generations. Consequently, they discovered that there are clear variations between individuals in the formation process and hand movements used.

Members of the research team included Dr. Enora Gandon (Institute of Archaeology, University College London), Professor NONAKA Tetsushi (Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University), and Professor Emeritus John A. Endler (Deakin University).

Up until now, the transmission of cultural traditions has been viewed in terms of 'imitation' and 'transmitted information'. However, the results quantitatively show that other factors beyond imitation, such as the individual's corresponding ability and exploratory learning process, play a role. In addition, it is hoped that these results will serve as a basis for determining whether unattributed archaeological artefacts were produced by one or multiple artisans.

These research results were published in the scientific journal 'PloS ONE' as two separate papers on September 22 and October 1 respectively.

Main Points

There were quantitative differences distinct to individual potters, even when standard traditionally-shaped vessels were produced.

There was greater diversity between potters during the formation process compared with the finished product.

Multiple hand movement patterns that could be used to distinguish individual craftsmen were found.

Research Methodology and Findings

Humans pass down various skills to their communities and the next generation. One of these skills that has been transmitted since ancient times is pottery. This study investigated how the individuality of each craftsman stands out during the formation process of traditional pottery pieces, in particular the standardized, unsigned pottery produced for the mass-market.

First of all, the research team recorded video footage of potters making traditionally shaped pottery in the workshops of two different communities located in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (a Hindu community which uses a hand-operated stick-wheel, and a Muslim community which uses a foot-operated kick-wheel). The researchers performed an elliptical Fourier analysis on the recorded images in order to investigate the shape formation process during pottery throwing (Figure 1).

The results revealed that:

1. There were quantitatively distinguishable differences between the pottery produced by individual craftsmen, even among standard traditionally-shaped vessels produced for the consumer market.

2. There was greater variation between potters during the formation process than in the finished form.

Next, the researchers recorded video footage of traditional pottery shapes being made by craftsmen in a workshop in Bhaktapur, Nepal. The research team used this footage to analyze the hand movement patterns and transitions during the vessel formation processes, comparing them with those from the Indian communities.

Out of the 31 identified patterns of hand movements; similarities could be seen between different communities in approximately half of this number (cross-cultural), ten were particular to the Nepalese community (cultural), and five were identified as unique to the particular individual. The remaining movements were only observed once in one individual.

Cross Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA) is a method used to quantify the dynamics of shared activity between two time series. CRQA was conducted on hand position sequences from different trials resulting in plots showing the temporal relationship between all possible combinations of hand positions in one trial with hand positions in another trial during the fashioning. These analyses revealed that there were hand position sequences that were unique to individual craftsmen (Figure 3).

The significance of this research

This research revealed that there is actually much variation in the formation process and the hand movements of the individual craftsmen, even when producing traditionally-shaped pottery in a manner that has been passed down for generations. From these results it can be surmised that each potter has been searching for their own distinct way of forming the shape of the vessel within the constraints of the tools used, such as the type of wheel, and differences in material.

Various theoretical models that have been proposed on the cultural transmission of handicrafts have viewed the inheritance of such skills as 'imitation' and 'transmitted information'. Conversely, this study provides quantitative evidence that traditional 'inherited' craftsmanship is more than mere imitation, shedding light on how individuals' ability is flexibly adopted from exploratory activities channeled by the social environment (e. g. of the pottery workshop) and the processes behind these factors. These aspects have been overlooked by existing theoretical models. The impact of these results will bring about the revision of existing theories that have reduced the transmission of traditional handicraft skills to 'imitation' and 'transmitted information'.

Furthermore, it is also hoped that this study's methodology and data could be used to determine whether unattributed archaeological artefacts were produced by an individual or several craftspeople.

BOSTON - Reports have indicated that COVID-19 may cause heart damage in hospitalized patients with severe cases of the disease, but it's unclear whether cardiac injury also occurs in infected patients who are asymptomatic or experience only mild symptoms. This question is of particular concern for athletes because myocarditis--inflammation in the heart usually caused by a viral infection--can cause sudden cardiac death during exercise. In a special report published in JAMA Cardiology, a group led by sports cardiologists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Emory University School of Medicine offers guidance for athletes' return to play after they have recovered from COVID-19.

The article addresses the most common questions posed by the media, in clinics and athletic training rooms, and during discussions among cardiologists who care for athletes. With a consideration of evolving data, it represents a reassessment of a previous consensus statement by the American College of Cardiology that was published in May.

"This new set of recommendations is based on my and my fellow authors' clinical experience treating athletes with COVID-19 over the past few months. Our primary objective was to outline an approach that reduced unnecessary testing while simultaneously ensuring we use resources responsibly to detect athletes at increased risk of adverse cardiac events attributable to the virus during their return to sports," said senior author Aaron Baggish, MD, director of the Cardiovascular Performance Program at MGH.

Baggish and his colleagues have observed that athletes infected with COVID-19 who experienced no or mild symptoms did not exhibit signs of heart injury. For such athletes, they do not recommend detailed cardiac screening. The prevalence of cardiac injury in athletes who were infected with COVID-19 is still unknown, however, and the team believes it's prudent to screen for heart damage in athletes with moderate to severe symptoms. The experts also note that despite recent small studies showing that cardiac magnetic resonance imaging has detected potential cardiac abnormalities in individuals who have recovered from COVID-19, they feel that current evidence doesn't justify its use as a universal screening tool for athletes' return to play.

"We hope the recommendations put forth in the document will assist practitioners in sports medicine, sports cardiology and general cardiology in the evaluation of athletes for return to play after COVID-19 infection," said lead author Jonathan Kim, MD, MSc, chief of Cardiology Sports at Emory University School of Medicine. "These recommendations are intended to guide the process of determining who requires more detailed cardiac screening and ensure that all athletes post-COVID-19 infection should have a slow and gradual return to training with close monitoring of persistent symptoms, regardless of the severity of infection."

The paper's other authors were Benjamin D. Levine, MD, of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas and The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Dermot Phelan, MD, PhD, of the Sanger Heart and Vascular Institute, Atrium Health, Charlotte, North Carolina; Michael S. Emery, MD, MS, of the Sports Cardiology Center, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Cleveland Clinic; Mathew W. Martinez, MD, of Morristown Medical Center, Atlantic Health System, Morristown, New Jersey; Eugene H. Chung, MD, MSc, of Michigan Medicine at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and Paul D. Thompson, MD of Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

Renewable energy targets (RETs) may be too blunt a tool for ensuring a sustainable future, according to University of Queensland-led research.

PhD candidate Scott Spillias, from UQ's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said that, while RETs are a go-to for policymakers, more nuanced approaches were more effective at actually achieving holistic, sustainable outcomes.

"Many jurisdictions around the world including the European Union, Australia, India and several states in the USA have set specific quantitative targets for renewable energy development," Mr Spillias said.

"While it's encouraging to see action being taken to move us away from fossil fuels, unless there's rigorous analysis and stakeholder engagement that goes into their formulation, these targets could exacerbate many sustainability issues we face.

"For example, California is currently suffering extensive rolling energy blackouts that some attribute to an overzealous pursuit of state-wide targets for renewables.

"They've done this without solving the associated problem of what to do when energy demands are high and there is no sun or wind, and affordable battery storage is not yet a reality.

"Setting a target - a quantitative threshold to be attained, such as 80 per cent wind energy - rather than an objective - a qualitative direction in which to go, such as working to maximise wind energy - can blind us to trade-offs when evaluating different policy actions.

"They can also create psychological incentives to act quickly to implement them, causing decision-makers to lose sight of the more fundamental objectives that motivated the target in the first place.

"Europe's Renewable Energy Directive, for example, instead of reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment, threatens to increase net carbon emissions and deforestation."

The researchers believe that setting such targets are a simple, easy policy instrument, but lack the nuance of more considered mechanisms for energy development.

"Targets may or may not be appropriate tools to use for renewable energy development," Mr Spillias said.

"We argue that, instead, a rigorous decision-making process should be undertaken to evaluate the trade-offs between different sustainability objectives with respect to a variety of possible targets and/or other policy instruments.

"For example, the Sustainable Development Goals have an energy-related objective, but it refers to clean energy not renewable energy.

"Renewable energy is likely going to be the best way to generate clean energy in the future, but importantly it should be recognised as merely the means to achieving that objective, rather than the ends in of itself.

"The energy-related goals and targets we set for ourselves in the years ahead will guide the course of renewable energy development and will flow through to every sector of our society.

"If, for whatever reason, we make mistakes in setting those goals, no matter how well-intentioned they might be, there will be real and enduring consequences for biodiversity, communities, and economies."

HOUSTON - (Oct. 26, 2020) - A horrifying insect soap opera with vampires, mummies and infant-eating parasites is playing out on the stems and leaves of live oak trees every day, and evolutionary biologist Scott Egan found the latest character -- a new wasp species that may be a parasite of a parasite -- within walking distance of his Rice University lab.

Egan, an associate professor of biosciences at Rice, studies gall wasps, tiny insects that cast a biochemical spell on live oaks. When gall wasps lay their eggs on oak leaves or stems, they chemically program the tree to unwittingly produce a tumor-like growth, or gall, which first shelters the egg and then feeds the larval wasp that hatches from it.

Egan describes the wasps as "ecosystem engineers," because their galls are attractive morsels that harbor a supporting cast of opportunistic ne'er-do-wells, thieves and killers. It's a great setting to study how competition for resources drives evolution, and Egan and his students have spent more than a decade documenting the eerie, interspecies who's-eating-who drama.

The latest species they discovered at Rice, Allorhogas gallifolia (al-UHROH'-guhs GAHL'-ihf-ohl-eeuh), is one of four new wasp species from the genus Allorhogas that Egan and collaborators Ernesto Samaca-Saenz and Alejandro Zaldivar-Riveron at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City described in a study this month in Insect Systematics and Diversity.

"They lay their egg in another wasp's gall," Egan said of A. gallifolia, which his group first hatched in 2014. "They're using the gall as a resource, and we're still not certain how, but I think they're attacking herbivorous caterpillars that are feeding on the gall tissue, and the wasp larva are eating those caterpillars after they hatch."

He said more than 50 species of Allorhogas have been found in Central America and Mexico, but only two species were previously documented in the United States, one at the University of Maryland campus in 1912 and another some years later in Arizona.

The A. gallifolia found at Rice was collected as part of an effort to describe the community of natural enemies for one species of gall wasp, Belonocnema treatae (behl-uh-NAHK'-nee-muh TREE'-tee). In that study and others like it that Egan's lab has published for other gall species, thousands of galls are collected across the southeastern United States, and everything that emerges from the galls is studied and cataloged. Egan describes the operation, which runs almost 365 days per year, as a "factory of discovery," and A. gallifolia was one of many mysterious specimens it has produced.

"It did not match any of the previously described species, so we documented that in our 2016 paper and raised the hypothesis that this might be a new species," Egan said. "A year or two went by and lead author Ernesto Samaca-Saenz contacted us and offered to collaborate on determining if this lineage was, in fact, a new species."

Samaca-Saenz is a graduate student in the UNAM lab of Zaldivar-Riveron, an expert in Allorhogas and similar predatory wasps, which can be used by farmers as biological controls for crop pests. By the time Samaca-Saenz reached out about the 2016 paper, Egan's lab had collected a number of other undescribed specimens that they also suspected were new species of Allorhogas. The email kicked off a close collaboration that has taken Rice researchers on a number of trips to Mexico to conduct field work and science outreach in remote village schools.

While the jury is still out on exactly how A. gallifolia interacts with other species on the galls of B. treatae, Egan said he, Samaca-Saenz and Zaldivar-Riveron have discussed a number of hypotheses.

"They think it could be phytophagous, meaning it's actually just eating plant material, or that it could be a gallmaker itself," Egan said. "But I'm convinced that these guys are predators of caterpillars that live inside the Belonocnema galls and eat the gall plant material. I think the larval wasp eats the caterpillar and then emerges out of the side of the gall."

Egan said it will take more research to determine whether that hypothesis is true. If it is, it would be "a whole new way of life that would be unknown to this entire genus." But it would not be the first -- or the creepiest -- interaction between species that Egan and his colleagues have found.

Take 2018's discovery, for example, that the parasitic vine Cassytha filiformis (kuh-SIHTH'-uh FIHL'-ih-form-ihs), commonly known as the love vine, targets B. treatae galls and sucks so many nutrients out of them that it mummifies the larval wasps inside. That marked the first observation of a parasitic plant attacking a gall-forming wasp, but it could not match the ghoulish weirdness of the crypt-keeper wasp they discovered in 2017.

Euderus set (yoo-DEHR'-uhs SEHT') is so diabolical that it was named for Set, the Egyptian god who trapped, murdered and dismembered his brother in a crypt. E. set -- which Egan discovered on a family vacation in Florida and later found on a tree in his front yard -- lays its egg inside the gall of the Bassettia pallida (buh-SEHT'-eeuh PAL'-ih-duh) wasp. Both eggs hatch and the larvae live side by side, maturing inside the gall. When the pair are large enough to emerge as adults, E. set manipulates its step-sibling into trying to escape before its emergence hole is finished. When B. pallida's head gets stuck in the undersized hole, E. set begins eating. Starting from the tail, it devours a tunnel through its roommate, emerging through the head to take its place in the world outside.

There are more than 1,400 known species of gall-forming wasps, and Egan said he believes there are many more species waiting to be discovered in their plant/bug-eat-bug-eat-plant corner of the world.

"We've focused on the gall former Belonocnema a lot, and that's where we initially found this first Allorhogas," he said. "When we reared out that entire community and tried to key out each of the members, A. gallifolia was one of those things where we could not narrow it down to a species. Nothing fit the description.

"Twenty-five percent of all the things we reared out of Belonocnema fit that same type of uncertainty," Egan said. "We can't find anything that's ever been described like them before. Some of those, including one I have on my desk right now, are also mostly likely new species. Considering there are 90 oak species in the United States, and I have studied only three of them, this is the tip of the biodiversity iceberg."

Researchers have developed a novel control architecture that defends complex, interconnected systems previously vulnerable to cyberattacks. Details were published in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica.

Distributed systems are becoming more and more essential in everyday life. From power plants to autonomous vehicles, modular, interconnected systems, colloquially referred to as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), provide crucial services and capabilities while being technologically cost effective.

While well-suited for many applications, these architectures are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks. These systems typically operate via an open communication structure, allowing the individual components to rapidly communicate with each other in order to maintain stability and precise control. Due to the nature of this network topology and the frequent connections necessary for optimal operation, CPS are particularly vulnerable to denial of service (DoS) attacks. DoS attacks can infect a portion of a CPS and through the open communication structure subsequently cascade through the entire system, degrading overall performance and even causing total failure.

Through clever implementation of a set theory-based, novel control paradigm, researchers from Italy and Canada have found a way to mitigate these particularly damaging cyberattacks by implementing a Leader-Follower approach. This approach uses one portion of the network to manage communications to the rest of the network. By assigning different roles to different portions of a CPS, the team was able to design an algorithm that can detect when and where a DoS attack occurs in the network. Upon detection, the algorithm is then able to cut off the infected portion of the network to prevent large-scale degradation while also dynamically adapting to the now-modified network structure. The algorithm can even assign new roles to different portions of the network in response to infection, increasing the robustness of the system against targeted DoS attacks.

"Organizing the distributed controllers in a Leader-Follower paradigm allows us to reduce the data exchange and provide the entire system with a modular capability so that it is possible to disconnect the attacked sub-subsystems without affecting the global operations" said Dr. Francesco Tedesco of the University of Calabria, corresponding author of the study. "Therefore, the success chance of the adversary attack can be significantly mitigated."

Tedesco goes on to say that the algorithm is not only secure; it is computationally efficient. "The required computational resources -- CPUs power, memory resources and bandwidth requirements -- are modest which clearly leads to a low economic impact."

As for what's next, the team is working to detect and apply more specific actions to counter cyberattacks based on predictive ideas, decreasing response time and further dampening the undesirable cascading effect of cyberattacks against interconnected systems.

Exposure to higher air pollution levels and greater population density during the early months of life may be associated with an increase in children's body mass index (BMI). By contrast, living in areas with greater exposure to green space and a more favourable land use mix (a measure of the variety of building types and services in an area) could be associated with the opposite effect. These are two conclusions reached by a study undertaken by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, in which data from nearly 80,000 children living in urban environments in Catalonia was, for the first time, analysed to explore relationships between BMI growth trajectories and multiple urban exposures.

There is a growing body of evidence that environmental urban exposures, such as air pollution, green space and the built environment, may be linked to effects on growth and obesity in children. These effects may begin at a very early stage, during pregnancy and the first few years of life. "Urban environments are characterised by multiple exposures that may influence the BMI, but the results of research to date have been inconsistent and earlier studies did not assess simultaneous exposures," explains the first author of the study, Jeroen de Bont, researcher at ISGlobal and the IDIAPJGol Foundation.

The most notable innovation of this new large scale longitudinal study, funded by the La Marató de TV3 Foundation and published in the journal Environmental Pollution, was that multiple exposures were evaluated simultaneously. The data analysed was extracted from a database of primary care medical records in Catalonia, which included 79,992 children born between 2011 and 2012 in urban areas, who were followed up until they reached five years of age. BMI growth curves were calculated based on routine measurements of weight and height. At the same time, the authors estimated various urban exposures at the level of the census tracts where the children live. These included air pollution (nitrogen dioxides [NO2] and particulate matter [PM10 and PM2.5], green spaces and several characteristics of the built environment (population density, street connectivity, land use, and walkability).

"Our results suggest that the population density in urban areas and exposure to higher levels of air pollution may be associated with a small increase in BMI in children up to five years of age and that greater exposure to green spaces and a more favourable land use mix may be associated with a small decrease in BMI," says de Bont. "The fact that these associations were strongest during the first two months of life," he adds, "could be explained by the effects of exposure during pregnancy, which would persist over time".

According to study coordinator and ISGlobal researcher Martine Vrijheid, earlier findings indicated that the relationship between BMI and air pollution might be explained by the fact that the pollution "could affect foetal growth through various factors, such as oxidative stress and inflammation, and lead to alterations in the basal metabolism of infants, thereby increasing the risk of obesity by inducing insulin resistance and hormonal alterations".

"On the other hand," Vrijheid goes on to explain, "the possible relationship between a lower BMI and exposure to green space could be explained by the fact that such spaces are a valuable resource favouring physical activity on the part of both mother and child and result in a beneficial effect on the development of the foetus and later on that of the child".

A different hypothesis is that the association could be explained by another possible mediating factor--the lower levels of air pollution observed in the greener areas in the study.

In the case of the characteristics of the built environment, Vrijheid goes on to explain that higher population density may be associated with a higher BMI "owing to higher levels of air pollution and because traffic levels in the more populated areas in Spain may give rise to a perceived lack of safety and disincentivise active modes of travel (walking and cycling), thereby increasing childhood obesity."

While there is no clear consensus on how the land use mix affects BMI, the chief hypothesis is that a more varied land use mix decreases the distance between housing, work and services and therefore favours walking and cycling, which in turn increases levels of physical activity.

"For children, the early years of life are a time of great sensitivity; they represent a window of special vulnerability to environmental exposures that can permanently affect the structure, physiology and metabolism of the child's body. Future studies should take into account multiple exposures in the urban setting instead of analysing exposure one by one, as encouraged by the exposome concept, which studies many different exposures a person faces altogether", Vrijheid concludes.

Researchers from Kumamoto University, Japan have proposed that cellular senescence variations during the aging process could lead to control of health and onset of age-related diseases. Based on the characteristics of the secretion of inflammatory cytokines released by aged cells, they hypothesize that there are at least four distinct states of cellular senescence, and that these four states arise from coordinated metabolic and epigenomic changes. Characterizing and categorizing qualitatively different states of cellular senescence could provide a new understanding of the aging and senescence process.

The world's population is aging at an accelerated rate, especially in developed countries. Since the elderly population is expected to increase in the future, it especially important to maintain healthy life spans. Many of the cells that make up the body eventually decline in function and stop growing after repeated divisions in a process called "cellular senescence," an important factor in health and longevity. Premature senescence occurs when genomic DNA is damaged by stressors such as radiation, ultraviolet light, or drugs, but its mechanisms are not yet fully understood. It can be good, like when cells become cancerous, cellular senescence works to prevent the development of malignancy, but it also increases the likelihood of many age-related diseases. It is therefore important for medical science to try to understand and control it.

Although senescent cells lose their ability to proliferate, recent research has shown that they secrete various proteins that act on surrounding cells and promote chronic inflammation and cancer cell growth. This is called the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Cellular senescence is thought to be the cause of aging in the entire body. Senescent cells have been shown to accumulate in the bodies of aged mice, and removal of these cells may suppress whole-body aging. In other words, if cellular senescence is controlled, it may become possible to regulate the aging process of the whole body.

Professor Mitsuyoshi Nakao's research group at Kumamoto University is studying the mechanisms of cellular aging from the viewpoint of epigenetics--a research field that investigates the activities of the approximately 25,000 protein-coding genes on the human genome, related to life phenomena, health & disease conditions, and aging in the human body. To date, the researchers have screened a wide range of factors involved in the aging of human fibroblasts (a cell type present in all tissues and organs) and found that SETD8 methyltransferase, NSD2 methyltransferase, and other proteins play a role in preventing cellular senescence. So far, no biomarker specific to senescent cells has been discovered. It is now a question of how can we understand the cellular senescence process. Thus, the researchers reviewed cellular senescence over time and in terms of the characteristics of protein-secreting SASPs.

They realized that there are at least four phenotypic variations (states) in cellular senescence: 1. initiation (proliferation arrest), 2. early (anti-inflammation), 3. full (increased inflammation and metabolism), and 4. late (decreased inflammation and metabolism). Focusing on the molecular level changes for each period, they showed that variations in cellular senescence may be shaped by a "senescent program" in which the change of intracellular metabolism and epigenomics (gene ON/OFF control) takes place in a coordinated manner.

The researchers then focused on transcriptional and epigenomic factors that regulate the expression of genes that play important functions in the process of cellular senescence. During the initiation state, genes that promote cell proliferation are suppressed, while genes that block proliferation are activated. It is known that the tumor suppressor proteins p53 and retinoblastoma (Rb) play a major role in this process. In the early state, cell morphology changes significantly and cytokines with anti-inflammatory properties are activated. This may be a defense against the later inflammatory action. Then, in the full state, the genes of pro-inflammatory cytokines become highly expressed and produce a strong inflammatory response. At the same time, the expression of metabolic genes, such as mitochondria, and genes that synthesize proteins are increased via the aforementioned Rb (previously reported by this research group). Here, it is thought that metabolic reactions produce the energy needed to synthesize and secrete proteins. Finally, in the late state, the inflammatory response and metabolism decline, but interferon is produced and secreted in response to the cytoplasmic DNA fragments of the nuclear genome and mitochondrial DNA. At present, the mechanisms and significance of these processes are still unidentified, but it is now understood that cellular senescence results in a qualitatively different inflammatory response.

"We hope that our work will provide an opportunity for the scientific community to consider a new understanding of the mechanisms of cellular senescence and body aging," said Professor Mitsuyoshi Nakao. "We believe that phenotypic variation in cellular senescence can lead to new methods to promote healthy longevity and the control and prevention age-related diseases."

Researchers have revealed the key factors that can improve outcomes in children with ADHD, a disorder that costs Australia US$13 billion a year in social and economic losses.

Research, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and published in Pediatrics, highlighted the importance of identifying academic, behavioural and social functioning difficulties in the first years of school and empowering teachers and parents to intervene early.

The Journal of Attention Disorders study, led by the Australian ADHD Professionals Association (AAPDA) and Deloitte Access Economics in collaboration with MCRI researchers, revealed for the first time the true social and economic cost of ADHD to the Australian community.

The financial and non-financial costs of ADHD in Australia reached US$12.75 billion or US$14,575 per person during the 2018/2019 financial year.

MCRI Associate Professor Daryl Efron said little quality evidence had existed on the factors that influence changes in ADHD symptoms and impairments over time.

The Pediatrics study followed 477 children at age seven from the Children's Attention Project over three years, and tracked their performance across a range of areas compared to children without ADHD. Only a minority of participants had been treated with medication.

The study found that children with ADHD who had a poor working memory (a limited capacity to hold information temporarily) at age seven tended to have poorer academic performance at age 10 year whereas ADHD symptom severity was linked to their emotional-behavioral outcomes. Children with ADHD who also had autism spectrum disorder symptoms at seven had poorer emotional and social functioning at 10 years of age.

Associate Professor Efron said given children with ADHD go on to experience persisting problems, early identification and treatment may help improve outcomes.

"The predictors for those who had worse outcomes were significant irrespective of whether children meet diagnostic ADHD criteria, suggesting clinicians should monitor children with symptoms even when they fall below the diagnostic threshold," he said.

"Our results suggest that a broad clinical approach is needed to manage ADHD which includes not only symptom management, but also identification and management of other conditions which often coexist with ADHD."

Associate Professor Efron said the research showed children with ADHD who had academic delays could be identified by teachers without the need for formal assessment, which could speed up intervention.

Prior to the Journal of Attention Disorders paper no international studies have comprehensively mapped the social and economic costs of ADHD across multiple areas and included both children and adults.

AADPA president Professor Mark Bellgrove said the data would help to shine a light on ADHD as a serious mental health condition in Australia and would hopefully improve public policy.

The study found the total financial costs associated with ADHD in Australia were about US$7.45 billion. The financial total includes productivity losses (mostly due to absenteeism, presenteeism and reduced employment) of US$6 billion, health system costs of US$321.1 million, educational costs of US$74.1 million, crime and the justice system costs US$215 million and deadweight losses arising from the need to levy taxes to fund government expenditure on services and programs and reduced taxation revenue was US$790.9 million.

The non-financial costs of lost wellbeing associated with reduced quality of life and premature deaths linked to ADHD amounted to US$5.31 billion.

MCRI and Deakin University Associate Professor Emma Sciberras said the considerable socioeconomic impact and burden of ADHD should drive investment and policy decisions to improve ADHD identification and treatment.

"This data points to the considerable public health significance of ADHD and the need for expansion of clinical services for the condition, as well as increased research investment," she said.

In Australia 3.2 per cent (814,500) of people and one in 20 children have ADHD.

MCRI and University of Melbourne Professor David Coghill said the many structural challenges facing ADHD services should be rapidly addressed.

"One particular barrier to care facing young people with ADHD is the high risk of discontinuity of treatment when transitioning from paediatric to youth and/or adult services," he said.

"The complex reasons for this include poor transition planning, lack of available services and trained professionals in the area, other life transitions occurring at the same time, and the shift during adolescence towards increased independence.

"There is also a need to improve screening approaches that can identify those at risk of ADHD early in life, which will go a long way to reducing the associated costs and burdens."

Professor Coghill said with 81 per cent of the financial costs due to lost productivity, more workplace support was needed to help those with ADHD.

"Medication is likely to result in multiple functional benefits and additionally adjustments in the workplace can be considered, however, further research is needed to demonstrate the real world effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of such approaches," he said.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne, The Royal Children's Hospital, Monash University, La Trobe University, National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration in the UK, The University of Sydney, Joondalup Child Development Centre, University of Western Australia, Deloitte Access Economics, Metro North Mental Health Service, Brisbane, QIMRB Research Institute Herston, Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, University of Queensland, Children's Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Children's Hospital at Westmead and the Hollywood Specialist Centre, Western Australia, also contributed to one or both studies.

Industrial oil-producing microalgae can use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into oils on a large scale. Therefore, it is a potential solution for the sustainable supply of food, nutrition and fuel for human society.

To promote resource sharing and research cooperation for the synthetic biology and molecular breeding of industrial oil-producing microalgae, an international team led by Single-Cell Center (SCC), Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has released the "NanDeSyn Database" (http://www.nandesyn.org). This work was published in The Plant Journal on Oct. 25.

Nannochloropsis spp. is industrial microalgae that can be grown outdoors in a large scale for producing oils. They have highly attractive features as "photosynthetic yeast", such as a haploid nuclear genome of ~30M base pairs, simple and reliable DNA transformation, high genome-editing efficiency, and flexible gene expression regulation techniques.

The global Nannochloropsis research community has accumulated a large amount of functional genomics data, as well as genetic resources such as plasmids and mutant strains.

The "NanDeSyn Database", developed by GONG Yanhai, et al., from SCC, and Nam Kyu Kang, et al., from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), systematically collects and integrates functional genomics and epigenetics data including the latest genome sequences, gene annotations, transcriptomes, proteomes, and small RNAs of all Nannochloropsis species.

At the same time, online data mining tools such as gene search, genome comparison, collinearity analysis, gene enrichment analysis, metabolic pathway analysis, and genome browser are provided through the website.
In addition, combined with literature research, the present research status of each gene, as well as the corresponding vectors and mutant strains, are displayed, so as to promote the free sharing of these research materials.

Dr Cefa Karabag and Dr Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro have collaborated with the Francis Crick Institute in preparing and analysing HeLa cells as part of a research project, documented in the October edition of the PLoS ONE journal: Semantic segmentation of HeLa cells: An objective comparison between one traditional algorithm and four deep-learning architectures.

The HeLa cell line was developed in the 1950s from a particularly aggressive strain of cervical cancer cells taken during a routine biopsy from a 30-year-old African-American mother of five named Henrietta Lacks.

She was treated for the disease by Dr George Gey in the segregated, coloured ward, of The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA.

The City/Francis Crick Institute team prepared and observed the HeLa cell line using Electron Microscopy (EM), which can acquire tens of thousands of data sets that can easily exceed several gigabytes of data per month.

Part of the team's research requires the identification of the nuclei of these cells, which is a complicated task that can take an expert around a week to accomplish.

Dr Cefa Karabag and Dr Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro developed a computational approach that solves this task in minutes, and with minimal effort, using an algorithm. It consists of several steps of processing in which features are highlighted and used to ultimately identify the nucleus of the cell and the membrane surrounding it.

The main contributions of the team's work can be summarised as follows:

The objective comparison of five semantic segmentation strategies - one traditional image processing and four deep learning.

These strategies were compared through the semantic segmentation of the nucleus, nuclear envelope, cell and background of three hundred slices of a HeLa cell observed with electron microscopy.

The open source code for all the segmentation strategies, has been made available through GitHub. All the programming was performed in Matlab® (The Mathworks™, Natick, USA).

The four-class ground truth for 300 slices has been created and made available through Zenodo. The EM data is available through EMPIAR.