Culture

Public plant breeding programs are declining across the United States.

A team of scientists led by Kate Evans, a Washington State University horticulture professor who leads WSU's pome fruit (apples and pears) breeding program, found that public plant breeding programs are seeing decreases in funding and personnel.

The study was published in the journal Crop Science.

Evans and her colleagues conducted a survey of 278 plant breeding programs around the country. Public programs are chiefly federal programs, like those run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or based at public research universities.

In the surveys, respondents estimated a 21.4% decline in full time employee (FTE) time for program leaders over the past five years and an estimated 17.7% decline in FTE time for technical support personnel.

The researchers also found that retirement looms for a significant number of plant breeding program leaders. Over a third of the responding programs reported having leaders over the age of 60 and 62% are led by people over 50.

This decline is concerning because plant breeding has a direct impact on food security, Evans said.

"Plant breeding plays a fundamental part of the long-term food security of this country," Evans said. "The tremendous increases in food production over the past century are largely due to plant breeding, and the world's population is only increasing."

The focus on food security has received more attention in the last few months, as the COVID-19 pandemic has moved around the world, she said.

"Plant breeding is a long-term, sustainable way to address concerns over having enough food and keeping our food sources secure," said Evans, who is based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research & Extension Center in Wenatchee.

Plant breeding takes on many forms, from breeding disease tolerance, increasing production, introducing new delicious varieties, or improving drought tolerance.

"It could be a disease, a pest, climate change, any number of things," Evans said. "We do not live in a stable environment, and there are many different ways to deal with that."

Plant pathogens, like bacteria, and pests are always adapting, so varieties of crops that were bred to naturally fight off a disease start to lose their defenses. Plant breeding programs help growers stay ahead of those potentially harmful adaptations.

Another impact of declining breeding programs is losing those with a local focus.

"In Washington, for example, our cereal breeding programs are very focused on local production," Evans said. "They breed wheat that grows very well for eastern Washington."

Another example is the citrus industry. Citrus greening disease has been devastating to growers, particularly in Florida, when trees produce bitter, green, and misshapen fruit. Plant breeding programs are working hard to develop varieties that naturally repel the pest that causes the problems.

One reason that plant breeding programs are declining is expense. It takes many years to develop a new variety of a crop, Evans said. And funding a program for that long requires significant investment.

"We can't rely on grants because those are often only for a few years," she said. "You can't do anything in plant breeding in three years, it requires long-term sustained funding to get a program going."

A post-lockdown economic recovery plan that incorporates and emphasises climate-friendly choices could help significantly in the battle against global warming, according to a new study.

This is despite the sudden reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants during lockdown having a negligible impact on holding down global temperature change.

The researchers warn that even with some lockdown measures staying in place to the end of 2021, without more structural interventions global temperatures will only be roughly 0.01°C lower than expected by 2030.

However, the international study, led by the University of Leeds, estimates that including climate policy measures as part of an economic recovery plan with strong green stimulus could prevent more than half of additional warming expected by 2050 under current policies.

This would provide a good chance of global temperatures staying below the Paris Agreement's aspirational 1.5?C global warming limit and avoiding the risks and severe impacts that higher temperatures will bring.

Piers Forster began working with his daughter, Harriet, after her A levels were cancelled. They analysed the newly accessible global mobility data from Google and Apple. They calculated how 10 different greenhouse gases and air pollutants changed between February and June 2020 in 123 countries. They then brought in a wider team to help with the detailed analysis.

The team's findings, published today in Nature Climate Change, detail how despite carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and other emissions falling by between 10-30% globally, through the massive behavioural shifts seen during lockdown, there will be only a tiny impact on the climate, mainly because the decrease in emissions from confinement measures is temporary.

The researchers also modelled options for post-lockdown recovery, showing that the current situation provides a unique opportunity to implement a structural economic change that could help us move towards a more resilient, net-zero emissions future.

Study lead author Professor Piers Forster, director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate at Leeds and Principal Investigator of the CONSTRAIN consortium, said: "The choices made now could give us a strong chance of avoiding 0.3?C of additional warming by mid-century, halving the expected warming under current policies. This could mean the difference between success and failure when it comes to avoiding dangerous climate change.

"The study also highlights the opportunities in lowering traffic pollution by encouraging low emissions vehicles, public transport and cycle lanes. The better air quality will immediately have important health effects - and it will immediately start cooling the climate."

Study co-author Harriet Forster, who has just completed her studies at Queen Margaret's School, said: "Our paper shows that the actual effect of lockdown on the climate is small. The important thing to recognise is that we've been given a massive opportunity to boost the economy by investing in green industries - and this can make a huge difference to our future climate.

"I'm going to London next month to study art but I also did chemistry at A-level so was glad to use what I learned in my chemistry classes to do something useful."

Study co-author Corinne Le Quéré from the University of East Anglia said: "The fall in emissions we experienced during COVID-19 is temporary and therefore it will do nothing to slow down climate change, but the Government responses could be a turning point if they focus on a green recovery, helping to avoid severe impacts from climate change."

Study co-author Joeri Rogelj from the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London said: "Both sobering and hopeful, the flash crash in global emissions due to lockdown measures will have no measurable impact on global temperatures by 2030; but the decisions we make this year about how to recover from this crisis can put us on a solid track to meet the Paris Agreement. Out of this tragedy comes an opportunity, but unless it is seized a more polluting next decade is not excluded."

Study co-author Matthew Gidden from Climate Analytics, Berlin said: "The lasting effect of COVID-19 on climate will not depend on what happens during the crisis, but what comes after. "Stimulus focused on green recovery and low-carbon investment can provide the economic kick start needed while putting the world on track to meet climate pledges."

Study co-author Professor Mathew Evans. From Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories, University of York and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science said: "The analysis of air quality observations from around the world showed us that the emissions reductions captured by Google and Apple's mobility data were pretty close to those actually being experienced."

Study co-author Christoph Keller from Goddard Earth Sciences, Technology and Research (GESTAR) based in the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA GSFC said: "The decrease in human activity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique opportunity to better quantify the human impact on atmospheric air pollution.

"Near real-time analysis of observations, mobility data, and NASA model simulations offers quantitative insights into the impact of COVID-19 containment measures on air pollution. This study demonstrates how such information can help to advance our understanding of the complicated interactions between air quality and climate."

Further information:

Link to media resources: https://constrain-eu.org/media-resources-forster-et-al-2020/

(Includes animation of fraction of usual NOx and SO2 emissions due to COVID-19)

Please credit all use of resources to CONSTRAIN

Page access password: CONSTRAIN

The paper Current and future global climate impacts resulting from COVID-19 is published in Nature Climate Change on 07 August 2020. (DOI: 10.1038/s41558-020-0883-0)

Once published the paper will be available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0883-0

Christoph Keller is based in the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA GSFC, in Greenbelt, MD, just outside Washington, DC. He is employed by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in the institute "Goddard Earth Sciences, Technology and Research (GESTAR)" funded by GSFC. https://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For additional information contact University of Leeds press officer at a.harrison@leeds.ac.uk

Q&A Current and future global climate impacts resulting from COVID-19

What did the study do?

* The team used newly available mobility data from Apple and Google to estimate how emissions of 10 different greenhouse gases and air pollutants changed between February and June 2020, a time of unprecedented restrictions on work and travel due to COVID-19 lockdowns.

* The data, which covered a total of 123 countries responsible for 99% of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions, provided a unique opportunity to rapidly compare emissions trends consistently across countries and sectors.

* For each country, the team used the mobility data to establish changes in activity levels for six economic sectors (surface transport, residential, power, industry, public/commercial, and domestic aviation).

** For countries where access to Google data was not possible, such as China, Russia and Iran (all large emitters who imposed strict lockdowns), the methodology developed by Le Quéré et al.(2020) was used.

** The team also used Le Quéré et al. to provide estimates for international aviation and shipping.

* The changes in activity/mobility over time were used to estimate how emissions had changed during lockdown, compared to recent baseline emissions:

** For CO2 the baseline was taken from Le Quéré et al. (2019 levels).

** For all other emissions we used the EDGAR database (2015 levels).

* For CO2 alone, results are consistent with the study of Le Quéré et al. based on the analysis of confinement measures and activity data. The method used here makes use of mobility trends at the country level which is more direct than using confinement measures, but could be overestimating changes by around 20%.

* Observed concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from surface air-quality monitoring sites in 32 countries around the world were coupled to NASA's global air pollution model to predict what the concentration of NO2 would have been without the COVID-19 restrictions. Comparing the actual observed concentration during the restrictions to that predicted by the model allowed another way to estimate the change in the emissions of oxides of nitrogen.

* The team then developed a simple set of assumptions to estimate how lockdown emissions changes translated into temperature change - the direct effect of global lockdown on climate. In doing so, the team assumed some restrictions on activity due to COVID-19 (66% of the restrictions level seen in June 2020) will remain in place until the end of 2021, representing a "a "two-year blip".

* Using a simple climate model, the team also considered how choices made around economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis will affect future emissions pathways and therefore global temperatures, from now until 2050.

* These choices included economic recoveries driven by green stimulus packages or increasing reliance on fossil fuels, which were compared to a baseline reflecting a direct return, post-lockdown, to pre-COVID-19 policies and associated emissions levels. In each case, the team included the "two-year blip" at the start.

** Our baseline represents emissions levels reflecting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) until 2030, with no significant strengthening of climate action thereafter.

** The fossil-fuelled recovery assumes strong support for fossil-fuels (an additional 1% of GDP invested). Emissions are 10% higher in 2030 compared to the baseline and continue to rise thereafter.

** The moderate green stimulus assumes that recovery packages target low-carbon energy supply and energy efficiency (an additional 0.8% of GDP invested), do not support bailouts for fossil firms, and begin to structurally change the carbon intensity of economic activity. Greenhouse gas emissions decrease by about 35% by 2030 relative to the baseline and reach global net-zero CO2 by 2060.

** The strong green stimulus invests an additional 1.2% of GDP in low carbon technologies and reduces investment in fossil fuels, leading to a 50% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and global net-zero CO2 by 2050.

What did the study find? (Only present central values. Full uncertainties ranges are reported in the paper.):

* The team's analysis shows that emissions reductions likely peaked in mid-April 2020, with carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and other emissions falling by between 10-30% globally.

** Changes in surface transport were the biggest driver for most types of emission.

** Changes also occurred worldwide, with most countries contributing to the fall in emissions (mobility fell by 10% or more during April 2020 in all but one country, and by 80% in five or more countries).

** These findings are also reflected in satellite data and local ground-based observations, which show similar declines in air pollution.

** The reductions calculated by the mobility data were very similar to the reductions calculated from the air quality monitoring data.

* However, the direct temperature impact of the pandemic will be negligible: even with some lockdown measures staying in place to the end of 2021, global temperatures will only be around 0.01°C lower than expected by 2030 (compared to the current baseline).

** It will be difficult to see any effect of the pandemic on climate before 2030 because of temporary nature of the lockdown emission changes and also the short-term cancellation effects on climate from changes in NOx and SO2 described below.

** Falls in NOx emissions would normally lead to further cooling in the short-term, but this is offset by warming from a 20% reduction in SO2 emissions, which will balance out by 2030 (SO2 emissions lead to aerosol formation, which reflect sunlight back to space and cool the planet, so reducing SO2 reduces its cooling effect).

* Although it will be difficult to see the effects of lockdown on climate in the next decade, after 2030, differences begin to emerge depending on the choices made:

** If, after a two-year blip, economic recovery goes back to current investment levels, or we choose a recovery that strongly invests in fossil fuels, we are likely (>80% probability) to see warming of more than 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels by 2050.

** But if we choose a pathway with a strong green stimulus, investing around 1.2% of global GDP in low carbon technologies, and including climate policy measures, we could prevent around 0.3?C of additional warming by 2050.

** This would give us a good chance (~55%) of staying below the Paris Agreement's 1.5?C aspirational temperature goal.

What are the implications?

* As above, the direct effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the climate will be negligible - a difference of only around 0.01°C by 2030.

* Lockdown's massive but temporary shifts in behaviour have therefore only had a tiny impact on the climate, and pollution levels across the world are already returning to near normal. This means we need structural change in the long-term in order to avoid dangerous climate change.

* The investment choices we make about economic recovery will strongly affect our climate trajectory to mid-century:

** A green recovery that invests in low carbon technologies, avoids fossil fuel lock-in, and cuts global emissions to net-zero by 2050, would mean we avoid around 0.3°C of warming by 2050, this is half of the expected 0.6C warming under current policies.

** This would also set the world on track for meeting the Paris Agreement's long-term temperature goal.

** This 0.3 degrees C could therefore represent the difference between us facing or avoiding dangerous climate change.

* In the short-term, policies that cut road transport emissions (NOx) will help to offset any temporary warming from cleaning up SO2 emissions from the power and industry.

** This will be especially important at a regional level where changes in aerosol concentration can lead to risks from extreme weather, such as heatwaves or rainfall, adding to the economic and health burden caused by the pandemic.

* Finally, rapid and easy access to big data can clearly contribute, in new and unexpected ways, to the evidence base scientific studies relating to COVID-19. We encourage Google, Apple and others to make their data freely available, and to promote its application.

Transgender and gender-diverse adults are three to six times more likely as cisgender adults (individuals whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth) to be diagnosed as autistic, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Cambridge's Autism Research Centre.

This research, conducted using data from over 600,000 adult individuals, confirms previous smaller scale studies from clinics. The results are published today in Nature Communications.

A better understanding of gender diversity in autistic individuals will help provide better access to health care and post-diagnostic support for autistic transgender and gender-diverse individuals.

The team used five different datasets, including a dataset of over 500,000 individuals collected as a part of the Channel 4 documentary "Are you autistic?". In these datasets, participants had provided information about their gender identity, and if they received a diagnosis of autism or other psychiatric conditions such as depression or schizophrenia. Participants also completed a measure of autistic traits.

Strikingly, across all five datasets, the team found that transgender and gender-diverse adult individuals were between three and six times more likely to indicate that they were diagnosed as autistic compared to cisgender individuals. While the study used data from adults who indicated that they had received an autism diagnosis, it is likely that many individuals on the autistic spectrum may be undiagnosed. As around 1.1% of the UK population is estimated to be on the autistic spectrum, this result would suggest that somewhere between 3.5.-6.5% of transgender and gender-diverse adults is on the autistic spectrum.

Dr Meng-Chuan Lai, a collaborator on the study at the University of Toronto, said: "We are beginning to learn more about how the presentation of autism differs in cisgender men and women. Understanding how autism manifests in transgender and gender-diverse people will enrich our knowledge about autism in relation to gender and sex. This enables clinicians to better recognize autism and provide personalised support and health care."

Transgender and gender-diverse individuals were also more likely to indicate that they had received diagnoses of mental health conditions, particularly depression, which they were more than twice as likely as their cisgender counterparts to have experienced. Transgender and gender-diverse individuals also, on average, scored higher on measures of autistic traits compared to cisgender individuals, regardless of whether they had an autism diagnosis.

Dr Varun Warrier, who led the study, said: "This finding, using large datasets, confirms that the co-occurrence between being autistic and being transgender and gender-diverse is robust. We now need to understand the significance of this co-occurrence, and identify and address the factors that contribute to well-being of this group of people."

The study investigates the co-occurrence between gender identity and autism. The team did not investigate if one causes the other.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, and a member of the team, said: "Both autistic individuals and transgender and gender-diverse individuals are marginalized and experience multiple vulnerabilities. It is important that we safe-guard the rights of these individuals to be themselves, receive the requisite support, and enjoy equality and celebration of their differences, free of societal stigma or discrimination."

Glaciers in the Southern Alps of New Zealand have lost more ice mass since pre-industrial times than remains today, according to a new study.

Research led by the University of Leeds, in collaboration with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand, mapped Southern Alps ice loss from the end of the Little Ice Age -- roughly 400 years ago -- to 2019.

The study found that the rate of ice loss has doubled since glaciers were at their Little Ice Age peak extent. Relative to recent decades, the Southern Alps lost up to 77% of their total Little Ice Age glacier volume.

Climate change has had a significant impact on ice loss around the world. Not only do local communities depend on glaciers as sources of fresh water, hydropower and irrigation, but mountain glacier and ice cap melt presently accounts for 25% of global sea-level rise.

Rapid changes observed today for mountain glaciers need to be put into a longer-term context to understand global sea-level contributions, regional climate-glacier systems and local landscape evolution.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, determined volume changes for 400 mountain glaciers across New Zealand's Southern Alps for three time periods; the pre-industrial Little Ice Age to 1978, 1978 to 2009 and 2009 to 2019.

The team reconstructed glacier volumes using historical records of glacier outlines, as well as examinations of moraines and trimlines, which are accumulations of glacial debris and clear lines on the side of a valley formed by a glacier, respectively. Moraines and trimlines can indicate former ice margin extent and ice thickness changes through time.

By comparing changes in the glacier surface reconstructed during the Little Ice Age peak and the glacier surface in more recent digital elevation models, the study found that ice loss has increased two-fold since the Little Ice Age with a rapid increase in ice volume loss in the last 40 years.

Up to 17% of the volume that was present at the Little Ice Age was lost between 1978 and 2019 alone. In 2019, only 12% of ice mass remained in what was formerly the low altitude part of the Little Ice Age glacier region - also called the ablation zone - and much of the what used to be ice-covered in the Little Ice Age ablation zone is now completely ice free.

Study lead author Dr Jonathan Carrivick, from the School of Geography, said: "These findings quantify a trend in New Zealand's ice loss. The acceleration in the rate of ice mass loss may only get worse as not only climate but also other local effects become more pronounced, such as more debris accumulating on glaciers surfaces and lakes at the bottom of glaciers swell, exacerbating melt.

"Our results suggest that the Southern Alps has probably already passed the time of 'peak water' or the tipping point of glacier melt supply. Looking forwards, planning must be made for mitigating the decreased runoff to glacier-fed rivers because that affects local water availability, landscape stability and aquatic ecosystems."

Co-author Dr Andrew Lorrey is a Principal Scientist based at NIWA who was involved with the study. He says "The long-term ice volume decline, rising snowlines, and rapid disintegration of glaciers across the Southern Alps we have observed is alarming. Photographic evidence that has been regularly collected since the late 1970s show the situation has dramatically worsened since 2010.

"Our findings provide a conservative baseline for rates of Southern Alps ice volume change since pre-industrial times. They agree with palaeoclimate reconstructions, early historic evidence and instrumental records that show our ice is shrinking from a warming climate."

Researchers from Michigan State University, University of South Florida, St. John's University, and American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) published a new paper that analyzes relationships between customer complaints, complaint handling by companies, and customer loyalty to understand how customer complaint management affects companies' performance and to inform companies how to manage customer complaints much better and more consistently.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Turning Complaining Customers into Loyal Customers: Moderators of the Complaint Handling - Customer Loyalty Relationship" and is authored by Forrest Morgeson, Tomas Hult, Sunil Mithas, Tim Keiningham, and Claes Fornell.

The angry restaurant patron. The irritated airline passenger. The retail customer screaming about a return or refund. Every company worries about complaining customers. They can be loud, disruptive, and damage a company's brand reputation, sales, employee morale, and market value. But are customer complaints as damaging as they seem?

As it turns out, customers who lodge complaints are not a lost cause. They can still be satisfied and remain loyal if their complaints are handled well. Regrettably, companies rarely handle complaints consistently, partly because they don't know how.

The research team carried out the largest study ever on customer complaints to inform companies how to manage customer complaints much better and more consistently. We studied data from the world-renowned American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) regarding behaviors of 35,597 complaining customers over a 10-year period across 41 industries.

The study finds that the relationship between a company's complaint recovery and customer loyalty is stronger during periods of faster economic growth, in more competitive industries, for customers of luxury products, and for customers with higher overall satisfaction and higher expectations of customization. On the other hand, the recovery-loyalty relationship is weaker when customers' expectations of product/service reliability are higher, for manufactured goods, and for males compared to females.

Hult explains that "We draw two key conclusions from the results. First, companies need to recognize not only that industries vary widely in the percentage of customers who complain (on average, about 11.1 percent), but also that economic, industry, customer-firm, product/service, and customer segment factors dictate the importance of complaint recovery to customers and their future loyalty. Companies should develop complaint management strategies accordingly."

He continues, "Secondly, the financial benefits of complaint management efforts differ significantly across companies. Since complaint management's effect on customer loyalty varies across industries and companies offering different kinds of goods, the economic benefit from seeking to reaffirm customer loyalty via complaint recovery varies as well. Through this study, these performance factors can be identified and considered when designing a company's complaint management system."

Without context, these conclusions suggest that a profit-maximizing strategy simply requires that managers understand the impact of complaint recovery on customer loyalty in their industry. Added to this complexity, however, is the reality that profitability is not evenly distributed throughout the customer base. Fornell says that "Companies need to implement complaint management systems that make it easier for front-line employees to respond to complaining customers in ways that optimize customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and the economic contribution of customers."

Without a deeper understanding of the boundaries of the complaint handling-customer loyalty relationship and the effects of economic, industry, customer-firm, product/service, and customer segment factors, companies will likely allocate cost estimates to complaint management that are too low for the required recovery actions or customer loyalty estimates that are too high, or both, instead of achieving an optimal point of recovery-loyalty yield.

Fornell advises that "Achieving an optimal recovery-loyalty yield is more advantageous than adopting the mantra that the customer is always right. It is a folly to believe that the customer is always right. Economically speaking, the customer is only "right" if there is an economic gain for the company to keep that customer. In reality, some complaining customers are very costly and not worth keeping."

Galit Alter, PhD, Group Leader at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Helen Chu, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, University of Washington School of Medicine, and UW Medicine physician, have recently published a paper which identifies five immune response markers which, collectively, were able to correctly classify both convalescent COVID-19 patients and those who did not survive the disease. The study was published in the journal Immunity.

Dr. Chu's team, responsible for the enrollment, collection, and management of the clinical work in this study, collected samples hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Overall, this study used samples from a cohort of 22 individuals, 12 of whom recovered, and 10 of whom died.

Dr. Alter's team used her systems serology technique, an approach that relies on 60+ assays to create a detailed profile of the immune response, to compare the immune responses of those who had survived to those who had not.

"Any given feature tells only a small part of the story. By looking at the overall profile of the immune response, we can begin to truly understand how the immune system responds to COVID-19 and then use that knowledge to prevent the worst outcomes of this disease," said Alter.

The virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, has two main proteins that the humoral immune system, which is responsible for antibody production, responds to. They are the spike (S) protein and the nucleocapsid (N) protein.

"Most vaccine candidates in development are designed to elicit antibodies against spike antigen, which is the response we observed with individuals who survived natural infection," Chu said. The N protein is produced at significantly higher levels in the virus than the S protein is, but previous studies have shown that an immune response to the N protein does not provide protection against coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2.

Using her systems serology technique, which creates a detailed profile of the humoral immune response, Dr. Alter's lab compared the immune responses from the recovered individuals to the deceased ones. They found that patients who had recovered had a humoral immune response that responded mostly to S protein, while deceased individuals had a shift in immunodominance such that that they had a stronger immune response to the N protein.

"The shift in immunodominance was only apparent after comparing robust, detailed profiles of the immune response from different groups of patients," Alter said.

This immunodominance shift could be detected by measuring five immune response markers: IgM and IgA1 responses to S protein and antibody-dependent complement deposit, IgM, and IgA2 response to N protein. Using these five markers, researchers were able to build a model that could correctly classify clinical samples as belonging to deceased or convalesced individuals. In order to verify this model, 40 clinical COVID-19 samples from Boston, 20 from convalesced individuals and 20 from deceased patients, were assayed. The results showed the same S protein to N protein shift in immunodominance in deceased individuals compared to convalesced ones. Furthermore, in the samples analyzed, this immunodominance shift was more predictive of recovery or death than using demographic factors such as age or sex.

"Finding these early antibody signatures may have implications for assessing COVID-19 vaccine candidates to ensure they produce an immune response similar to that of individuals who survive natural infection," Chu said.

How these predictive immune markers may be influenced by risk factors of COVID-19, time course of infection, or severity of disease is yet to be known. However, this study provides a potential way that at-risk patients can be identified based on individual immune responses and may drive help rational vaccine design.

TAMPA, Fla. (Aug. 7, 2020) -- Despite frequent news announcing "medical breakthroughs," advancements in biomedical and clinical science typically happen incrementally. Scientists refine our understanding of how the world works by harnessing new tools and data that can challenge conventional thinking - a continual process of revision that elicits new answers to old questions, and often poses different questions.

In an eNeuro paper published July 15, University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine researchers describe a reporter mouse strain they created in pursuit of a new way to answer an old question: Is purinergic receptor gene P2X2 expressed in particular populations of sensory nerve cells?

"We needed a suitable mouse model to visualize where P2X2 is located so we might prove the gene is actually expressed in a very discrete group of sensory nerves. And because, moving forward, we want a reporter system that allows us to manipulate these vagal nodose nerves in precise, varied ways for therapeutic purposes," said senior author Thomas Taylor-Clark, PhD, a professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology.

"This paper is an example of how reexamining questions with better techniques leads to clearer understanding, and in this day and age the clarity and reproducibility of data is a paramount issue in science."

The P2X2 receptor (P2X2 for short) belongs to a family of P2X ion channels that sit on the surface of cell membranes and are activated by the neurotransmitter adenosine triphosphate (ATP). P2X2 plays a key role in sensory processes, including taste, hearing, some aspects of blood pressure regulation, and sensing physical stimuli in visceral organs like the lungs and bladder.

Dr. Taylor-Clark studies airway sensory nerves affecting defensive behaviors, including cough, and what happens when they go wrong in disease and injury. To further their research, his team needed a more reliable approach to distinguish which subsets of cells express P2X2, especially in the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) and the peripheral nervous system (nerves outside the brain and spinal cord). Existing pharmacological and biochemical techniques were not selective enough, yielding dramatically different gene expression patterns that hamper accurate estimates of P2X2-expressing cell types.

So, the USF Health researchers created a knockin mouse incorporating a powerful genetic approach that could be used in future experiments. They made a mouse that expresses the bacterial enzyme cre recombinase in cells expressing the P2X2 gene. The enzyme manipulates specific sites (lox sequences) in DNA. Then, they bred this P2X2-cre mouse with a second mouse having specific lox sequences that produce substantial levels of tdTomato - a bright red fluorescent protein - under the control of cre. In offspring of the P2X2-cre mice and the cre-sensitive mice, tdTomato is robustly expressed and specifically reported (visualized) in P2X2-expressing cells, even when levels of P2X2 expression are low.

"With this system, it's easier to see any cell type you want to investigate," Dr. Taylor-Clark said. "And, since many mouse strains have different cre-sensitive genetic expression patterns, you can manipulate virtually any gene or genetic process to test its role in tissue/organ function with a modular approach."

The researchers detailed where they found P2X2. As they suspected, the gene was expressed predominantly in the vagal sensory nerve system, where cell clusters relay sensory information about the state of the body's organs to the central nervous system. In particular, almost all nodose vagal neurons (more than 85%) expressed P2X2, compared to nearly none of the jugular neurons. (Nodose and jugular are the two groups of neurons in the vagal system.).

The researchers demonstrated some P2X2 expression in the tongue's taste buds, the carotid body, trachea (windpipe) and esophagus. They observed P2X2 in hair and support cells of the cochlea (inner ear bone important in hearing), but not, as some previous studies reported, in sensory nerves innervating the hair cells.

With a few exceptions, P2X2 expression was absent in central nervous system cell types. Earlier reporter mouse studies using established biochemical techniques indicated P2X2 expression in virtually every area of the brain, so the USF Health group was surprised to find P2X2 expressed in a very limited subset of neurons, Dr. Taylor-Clark said.

"But, actually, that was encouraging because if we manipulate (gene expression) we want the effects to be very narrow and targeted, not widespread," he added. "Selectivity is the hallmark of any therapeutic approach. Otherwise, you will not get the beneficial outcome you want, and you may get side effects you don't want."

Other studies have suggested that activating nodose sensory nerves diminishes cough, while activating jugular sensory nerves increases cough. Dr. Taylor-Clark hopes to test whether nodose neurons can protect against chronic cough by modifying the P2X2-cre system to selectively silence only the nodose neurons, without adversely blocking all other nerve impulses.

"Our next step is to manipulate this P2X2-cre system so that, instead of expressing tdTomato, we can express a protein that upon addition of a drug then either artificially activates or inhibits P2X2-expressing cells," he said. "Currently, little is understood about the physical interaction of the nodose nerve terminals (endings) in the trachea and other target organs, and how that changes with disease. Our goal is a detailed knowledge of all the different subtypes of sensory nerves and how they control organ function, so we can help drive targeted neuromodulaton therapies."

In severe cases of COVID-19, the infection can lead to obstruction of the blood vessels in the lung, heart and kidneys. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich researchers have now shown that activated immune cells and blood platelets play a major role in these pathologies.

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infects the respiratory tract and in severe cases, the infection can result in lung failure, which necessitates the use of mechanical ventilation. In addition, these patients develop further complications, such as pulmonary embolisms or thromboses (clots) in their veins. Whether or not virus-associated respiratory failure is functionally related to the systemic increase in the incidence of intravascular clot formation has remained unclear. However, a new study led by LMU clinicians Leo Nicolai and Konstantin Stark, which appears in the journal Circulation, has identified a link between virus-induced changes in the blood vessels of the lung and the increased thrombotic risk. Upon post-mortem examination of the lungs of COVID-19 patients who had died of the disease, Nicolai and colleagues found many microclots within the finest branches of the pulmonary vasculature. Similar observations were made in the heart and the kidney.

These clots were primarily made up of platelets and activated immune cells, in particular neutrophils. Detailed analysis of the thrombi suggested that an activating interaction between platelets and neutrophils is responsible for promoting intravascular coagulation. Neutrophils belong to the innate immune system and their principal task is to fight invading pathogens. Their involvement in abnormal clotting has led to the designation of this process as immunothrombosis. In COVID-19 patients, the stimulation of clot formation eventually compromises the supply of blood to nearby tissues. This in turn ultimately leads to respiratory failure, while the tendency to trigger clotting becomes systemic.

Using multidimensional flow cytometry assays, the LMU researchers showed that in COVID-19 patients who had suffered lung failure and required mechanical ventilation, the numbers of activated neutrophils and platelets in the circulation were greatly enhanced. Since the two cell types reciprocally activate each other, these interactions lead to the formation of obstructive blood clots in the lung. In addition, activated neutrophils extrude mesh-like complexes made up of DNA and cytoplasmatic proteins, which are known as neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). These normally serve to trap and destroy bacterial and viral pathogens, but they also play a significant role in immunothrombosis by stabilizing thrombi. While this process is initially localized in the lung exacerbating respiratory failure and result in a systemic thrombogenic state. "These findings contribute to a better understanding of the pathophysiology that underlie disease progression in COVID-19," says Konstantin Stark. "The study also identifies immunothrombosis as a promising target for the prevention and treatment of lung failure and thrombotic complications that arise in cases of COVID-19."

Chemical reactions driven by the geological conditions on the early Earth might have led to the prebiotic evolution of self-replicating molecules. Scientists at Ludwig-Maximilians Universitaet (LMU) in Munich now report on a hydrothermal mechanism that could have promoted the process.

Life is a product of evolution by natural selection. That's the take-home lesson from Charles Darwin's book "The Origin of Species", published over 150 years ago. But how did the history of life on our planet begin? What kind of process could have led to the formation of the earliest forms of the biomolecules we now know, which subsequently gave rise to the first cell? Scientists believe that, on the (relatively) young Earth, environments must have existed, which were conducive to prebiotic, molecular evolution. A dedicated group of researchers is engaged in attempts to define the conditions under which the first tentative steps in the evolution of complex polymeric molecules from simple chemical precursors could have been feasible. "To get the whole process started, prebiotic chemistry must be embedded in a setting in which an appropriate combination of physical parameters causes a non-equilibrium state to prevail," explains LMU biophysicist Dieter Braun. Together with colleagues based at the Salk Institute in San Diego, he and his team have now taken a big step toward the definition of such a state. Their latest experiments have shown the circulation of warm water (provided by a microscopic version of the Gulf Stream) through pores in volcanic rock can stimulate the replication of RNA strands. The new findings appear in the journal Physical Review Letters.

As the carriers of hereditary information in all known lifeforms, RNA and DNA are at the heart of research into the origins of life. Both are linear molecules made up of four types of subunits called bases, and both can be replicated - and therefore transmitted. The sequence of bases encodes the genetic information. However, the chemical properties of RNA strands differ subtly from those of DNA. While DNA strands pair to form the famous double helix, RNA molecules can fold into three-dimensional structures that are much more varied and functionally versatile. Indeed, specifically folded RNA molecules have been shown to catalyze chemical reactions both in the test-tube and in cells, just as proteins do. These RNAs therefore act like enzymes, and are referred to as 'ribozymes'. The ability to replicate and accelerate chemical transformations motivated the formulation of the 'RNA world' hypothesis. This idea postulates that, during early molecular evolution, RNA molecules served both as stores of information like DNA, and as chemical catalysts. The latter role is performed by proteins in today's organisms, where RNAs are synthesized by enzymes called RNA polymerases.

Ribozymes that can link short RNA strands together - and some that can replicate short RNA templates - have been created by mutation and Darwinian selection in the laboratory. One of these 'RNA polymerase' ribozymes was used in the new study.

Acquisition of the capacity for self-replication of RNA is viewed as the crucial process in prebiotic molecular evolution. In order to simulate conditions under which the process could have become established, Braun and his colleagues set up an experiment in which a 5-mm cylindrical chamber serves as the equivalent of a pore in a volcanic rock. On the early Earth, porous rocks would have been exposed to natural temperature gradients. Hot fluids percolating through rocks below the seafloor would have encountered cooler waters at the sea-bottom, for instance. This explains why submarine hydrothermal vents are the environmental setting for the origin of life most favored by many researchers. In tiny pores, temperature fluctuations can be very considerable, and give rise to heat transfer and convection currents. These conditions can be readily reproduced in the laboratory. In the new study, the LMU team verified that such gradients can greatly stimulate the replication of RNA sequences.

One major problem with ribozyme-driven scenario for replication of RNA is that the initial result of the process is a double-stranded RNA. To achieve cyclic replication, the strands must be separated ('melted'), and this requires higher temperatures, which are likely to unfold - and inactivate - the ribozyme. Braun and colleagues have now demonstrated how this can be avoided. "In our experiment, local heating of the reaction chamber creates a steep temperature gradient, which sets up a combination of convection, thermophoresis and Brownian motion", says Braun. Convection stirs the system, while thermophoresis transports molecules along the gradient in a size-dependent manner. The result is a microscopic version of an ocean current like the Gulf Stream. This is essential, as it transports short RNA molecules into warmer regions, while the larger, heat-sensitive ribozyme accumulates in the cooler regions, and is protected from melting. Indeed, the researchers were astonished to discover that the ribozyme molecules aggregated to form larger complexes, which further enhances their concentration in the colder region. In this way, the lifetimes of the labile ribozymes could be significantly extended, in spite of the relatively high temperatures. "That was a complete surprise," says Braun.

The lengths of the replicated strands obtained are still comparatively limited. The shortest RNA sequences are more efficiently duplicated than the longer, such that the dominant products of replication are reduced to a minimal length. Hence, true Darwinian evolution, which favors synthesis of progressively longer RNA strands, does not occur under these conditions. "However, based on our theoretical calculations, we are confident that further optimization of our temperature traps is feasible," says Braun. A system in which the ribozyme is assembled from shorter RNA strands, which it can replicate separately, is also a possible way forward.

Physical Review Letters, 2020

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) took a census of stellar eggs in the constellation Taurus and revealed their evolution state. This census helps researchers understand how and when a stellar embryo transforms to a baby star deep inside a gaseous egg. In addition, the team found a bipolar outflow, a pair of gas streams, that could be telltale evidence of a truly newborn star.

Stars are formed by gravitational contraction of gaseous clouds. The densest parts of the clouds, called molecular cloud cores, are the very sites of star formation and mainly located along the Milky Way. The Taurus Molecular Cloud is one of the active star-forming regions and many telescopes have been pointed at the cloud. Previous observations show that some cores are actually stellar eggs before the birth of stars, but others already have infant stars inside.

A research team led by Kazuki Tokuda, an astronomer at Osaka Prefecture University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), utilized the power of ALMA to investigate the inner structure of the stellar eggs. They observed 32 starless cores and nine cores with baby protostars. They detected radio waves from all of the nine cores with stars, but only 12 out of 32 starless cores showed a signal. The team concluded that these 12 eggs have developed internal structures, which shows they are more evolved than the 20 quite cores.

"Generally speaking, radio interferometers using many antennas, like ALMA, are not good at observing featureless objects like stellar eggs," says Tokuda. "But in our observations, we purposely used only the 7-m antennas of ALMA. This compact array enables us to see objects with smooth structure, and we got information about the internal structure of the stellar eggs, just as we intended."

Increasing the spacing between the antennas improves the resolution of a radio interferometer, but makes it difficult to detect extended objects. On the other hand, a compact array has lower resolution but allows us to see extended objects. This is why the team used ALMA's compact array of 7-m antennas, as known as the Morita Array, not the extended array of 12-m antennas.

They found that there is a difference between the two groups in the gas density at the center of the dense cores. Once the density of the center of a dense core exceeds a certain threshold, about one million hydrogen molecules per cubic centimeter, self-gravity leads the egg to transform into a star.

A census is also useful for finding a rare object. The team noticed that there is a weak but clear bipolar gas stream in one stellar egg. The size of the stream is rather small, and no infrared source has been identified in the dense core. These characteristics match well with the theoretical predictions of a "first hydrostatic core," a short-lived object formed just before the birth of a baby star. "Several candidates for the first hydrostatic cores have been identified in other regions," explains Kakeru Fujishiro, a member of the research team. "This is the first identification in the Taurus region. It is a good target for future extensive observation."

Kengo Tachihara, an associate professor at Nagoya University mentions the role of Japanese researchers in this study. "Japanese astronomers have studied the baby stars and stellar eggs in Taurus using the Nagoya 4-m radio telescope and Nobeyama 45-m radio telescope since the 1990s. And, ALMA's 7-m array was also developed by Japan. The present result is part of the culmination of these efforts."

"We have succeeded in illustrating the growth history of stellar eggs up to their birth, and now we have established the method for the research," summarizes Tokuda. "This is an important step to obtain a comprehensive understanding of star formation."

In JST Strategic Basic Research Programs, a group of Zhongrui Duan (Researcher, Waseda University) and Motoki Tominaga (Associate professor, Waseda University) et al. succeeded in promoting plant growth and increasing seed yield by heterologous expression of protein from Arabidopsis (artificially modified high-speed motor protein(1) ) in Camelina sativa, which is expected as a useful plant for biodiesel.

Cytoplasmic streaming is seen in any plant cells from algae to higher plants as a phenomenon of active cytoplasmic movement with organelles, such as the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria. It is known that cytoplasmic streaming is generated by the sliding of motor protein myosin XI(2), which is binding to organelles, along the cytoskeleton constituting actin filaments. Previously, the research group has achieved the growth promotion and increasing size of the model plant Arabidopsis by the development of high-speed-type myosin. This technology has been expected to apply to other plant species than Arabidopsis.

In this study, the research group showed that the increase of seed yield and the growth promotion of stems and leaves in Camelina could be achieved by heterologous expression of high-speed-type myosin XI gene derived from Arabidopsis in Camelina.

Considering the increase of seed yield in Camelina enabled by the expression of high-speed-type myosin XI, it is expected to increase the productivity of biodiesel per area unit. In the future, it is aimed to increase the productivity and quality of camelina oil by co-expressing the genes related to fat synthesis and modification of fatty acid composition with high-speed-type myosin XI. Moreover, as the group showed that the promotion of plant growth by the high-speed-type myosin XI is also effective in other plant species than the model plant Arabidopsis, application development, such as the reduction of CO2 and biomass, is also expected by increasing the production of plant resources, such as corn, rice, sugar cane, and jatropha.

Researchers from Kumamoto University in Japan have used comprehensive genetic analysis to find that the enzyme NSD2, which is known to regulate the actions of many genes, also works to block cell aging. Their experiments revealed 1) inhibition of NSD2 function in normal cells leads to rapid senescence and 2) that there is a marked decrease in the amount of NSD2 in senescent cells. The researchers believe their findings will help clarify the mechanisms of aging, the development of control methods for maintaining NSD2 functionality, and age-related pathophysiology.

As the cells of the body continue to divide (cell reproduction), their function eventually declines and they stop growing. This cellular senescence is an important factor in health and longevity. Cell aging can also be stimulated when genomic DNA is damaged by physical stress, such as radiation or ultraviolet rays, or by chemical stress that occurs with certain drugs. However, the detailed mechanisms of aging are still unknown. Cell aging can be beneficial when a cell becomes cancerous; it prevents malignant changes by causing cellular senescence. On the other hand, it makes many diseases more likely with age. It is therefore important that cell aging is properly controlled.

Although senescent cells lose their proliferative ability, it has recently become clear that senescent cells secrete various proteins that act on surrounding cells to promote chronic inflammation and cancer development. Since senescent cells are more active than expected, cellular aging is thought to be responsible for whole body aging. This idea has been supported by reports of systemic aging suppression in aged mice after removal of accumulated senescent cells. In other words, if you can control cell aging, you may be able to control the progression of aging throughout the body.

When an oncogene is activated and begins to become cancerous, cellular senescence occurs to prevent it. Researchers at Kumamoto University previously reported that senescent cells markedly increased mitochondrial metabolic functions, and that the enzyme SETD8 methyltransferase prevents cellular senescence. Here, they discovered that NSD2 methyltransferase also plays a role in preventing senescence.

Previously, NSD2 was shown to regulate gene function. Furthermore, it was thought that methylation by NSD2 of the histone proteins wrapped around genomic DNA enhanced the function of genes in the vicinity. However, its association with cell aging was unknown. Using comprehensive genetic screening to suppress the action of the NSD2 gene in fibroblasts when knockdown (RNA interference method) was performed, cell senescence was induced and the typical characteristics of senescent cells appeared. In other words, the researchers had found that NSD2 plays a role in preventing cell senescence.

Next, they comprehensively analyzed all protein-coding gene expressions using mRNA sequencing to explore senescent cells with reduced NSD2. The expression of genes related to cell aging increased and, in particular, the function of genes of proteins that promote cell growth decreased. Histones located in these gene clusters are methylated by NSD2 in proliferating cells, but methylation was found to have decreased in senescent cells with reduced NSD2. Simply put, decreased NSD2 reduces the activities of genes involved in cell growth thus stopping growth.

Researchers then used serum response experiments to examine how NSD2 function is regulated. Normally, cells grow by the actions of proteins that promote growth (growth factors) in serum. Senescent cells, on the other hand, irreversibly stop proliferation and do not typically increase again. The experiment showed that the addition of serum rapidly increased the amount of NSD2, and that NSD2 is required for expression of growth-promoting genes and cell growth. Furthermore, it was found that senescent cells with reduced NSD2 completely lack the ability to grow in serum. Thus, NSD2 is thought to prevent cell senescence by maintaining both cell growth and serum response.

"NSD2 is the fourth protective factor of cellular senescence that our team has identified," said Professor Mitsuyoshi Nakao. "With the discovery that NSD2 protects against cellular senescence, this study clarifies a basic mechanism of aging. We expect this to be useful for elucidating aging mechanisms and developing control methods to regulate enzyme activity by chemicals or metabolites."

Taking advantage of a total lunar eclipse, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have detected ozone in Earth's atmosphere. This method serves as a proxy for how they will observe Earth-like planets around other stars in the search for life. This is the first time a total lunar eclipse was captured from a space telescope and the first time such an eclipse has been studied in ultraviolet wavelengths.

To prepare for exoplanet research with bigger telescopes that are currently in development, astronomers decided to conduct experiments much closer to home, on the only known inhabited terrestrial planet: Earth. Our planet's perfect alignment with the Sun and Moon during a total lunar eclipse mimics the geometry of a transiting terrestrial planet with its star. In a new study, Hubble did not look at Earth directly. Instead, astronomers used the Moon as a mirror that reflects the sunlight that has been filtered through Earth's atmosphere. Using a space telescope for eclipse observations is cleaner than ground-based studies because the data is not contaminated by looking through Earth's atmosphere.

These observations were particularly challenging because just before the eclipse the Moon is very bright, and its surface is not a perfect reflector since it's mottled with bright and dark areas. Furthermore, the Moon is so close to Earth that Hubble had to try and keep a steady eye on one select region, to precisely track the Moon's motion relative to the space observatory. It is for these reasons that Hubble is very rarely pointed at the Moon.

The measurements detected the strong spectral fingerprint of ozone, a key prerequisite for the presence - and possible evolution - of life as we know it in an exo-Earth. Although some ozone signatures had been detected in previous ground-based observations during lunar eclipses, Hubble's study represents the strongest detection of the molecule to date because it can look at the ultraviolet light, which is absorbed by our atmosphere and does not reach the ground. On Earth, photosynthesis over billions of years is responsible for our planet's high oxygen levels and thick ozone layer. Only 600 million years ago Earth's atmosphere had built up enough ozone to shield life from the Sun's lethal ultraviolet radiation. That made it safe for the first land-based life to migrate out of our oceans.

"Finding ozone in the spectrum of an exo-Earth would be significant because it is a photochemical byproduct of molecular oxygen, which is a byproduct of life," explained Allison Youngblood of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Colorado, USA, lead researcher of Hubble's observations.

Hubble recorded ozone's ultraviolet spectral signature imprinted on sunlight that filtered through Earth's atmosphere during a lunar eclipse that occurred on 20-21 January, 2019. Several other telescopes also made spectroscopic observations at other wavelengths during the eclipse, searching for more of Earth's life-nurturing ingredients, such as oxygen, methane, water, and carbon monoxide.

"To fully characterize exoplanets, we will ideally use a variety of techniques and wavelengths," explained team member Antonio Garcia Munoz of the Technische Universität Berlin in Germany. "This investigation clearly highlights the benefits of the ultraviolet spectroscopy in the characterization of exoplanets. It also demonstrates the importance of testing innovative ideas and methodologies with the only habitable planet that we know of to date!"

The atmospheres of some exoplanets can be probed when the alien world passes across the face of its parent star, during a so-called transit. During a transit, starlight filters through the backlit exoplanet's atmosphere. If viewed close up, the planet's silhouette would look like it had a thin, glowing "halo" around it caused by the illuminated atmosphere, just as Earth does when seen from space.

Chemicals in the atmosphere leave their telltale signature by filtering out certain colors of starlight. The spectroscopy of transiting planets' atmospheres was pioneered by Hubble astronomers. This was especially innovative because extrasolar planets had not yet been discovered when Hubble was launched in 1990. Therefore, the space observatory was not initially designed for such experiments. So far, astronomers have used Hubble to observe the atmospheres of gas giant planets that transit their stars. But terrestrial planets are much smaller objects and their atmosphere thinner. Therefore, analyzing these signatures is much harder.

That's why researchers will need space telescopes much larger than Hubble to collect the feeble starlight passing through these small planets' atmospheres during a transit. These telescopes will need to observe planets for a longer period, many dozens of hours, to build up a strong signal. For Youngblood's study, Hubble spent five hours collecting data throughout the various phases of the lunar eclipse.

Finding ozone in the skies of a terrestrial extrasolar planet does not guarantee that life exists on the surface. "You would need other spectral signatures in addition to ozone to conclude that there was life on the planet, and these signatures cannot be seen in ultraviolet light," Youngblood said.

Astronomers must search for a combination of biosignatures, such as ozone and methane, when exploring the possibilities of life. A multiwavelength campaign is needed because many biosignatures--ozone, for example--are more easily detected at specific wavelengths. Astronomers searching for ozone also must consider that it builds up over time as a planet evolves. About 2 billion years ago on Earth, the ozone was a fraction of what it is now.

The upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared observatory scheduled to launch in 2021, will be able to penetrate deep into a planet's atmosphere to detect methane and oxygen.

"We expect JWST to push the technique of transmission spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres to unprecedented limits," added Garcia Munoz. "In particular, it will have the capacity to detect methane and oxygen in the atmospheres of planets orbiting nearby, small-sized stars. This will open the field of atmospheric characterization to increasingly smaller exoplanets."

Legume plants fix atmospheric nitrogen with the help of symbiotic bacteria, called Rhizobia, which colonize their roots. Therefore, plants have to be able to precisely recognize their symbiont to avoid infection by pathogenic microbes. To this end, legumes use different LysM receptor proteins located on the outer cell surface of their roots. In the study published in Science, an international team of researchers led by Aarhus University show that pathogenic (chitin) or symbiotic signalling molecules (Nod factors) are recognized by small molecular motifs on the receptors that direct the signalling output towards either antimicrobial defence or symbiosis.

All land plants have LysM receptors that ensure detection of various microbial signals, but how a plant decides to mount a symbiotic or an immune response towards an incoming microbe is unknown. "We started by asking a basic and, maybe at start, naïve question: Can we identify the important elements by using very similar receptors, but with opposing function as background for a systematic analysis?" says Zoltán Bozsoki. "The first crystal structure of a Nod factor receptor was a breakthrough. It gave us a better understanding of these receptors and guided our efforts to engineer them in plants." Kira Gysel adds.

The study combines the structure-assisted dissection of defined regions in LysM receptors for biochemical experiments and in planta functional analysis. "To really understand these receptors, we needed to work closely together and combine structural biology and biochemistry with the systematic functional tests in plants," says Simon Boje Hansen. By using this approach, the researchers identified previously unknown motifs in the LysM1 domain of chitin and Nod factor receptors as determinants for immunity and symbiosis. "It turns out that there are only very few, but important, residues that separate an immune from a symbiotic receptor and we now identified these and demonstrate for the first time that it is possible to reprogram LysM receptors by changing these residues," says Kasper Røjkjær Andersen.

The long-term goal is to transfer the unique nitrogen-fixing ability that legume plants have into cereal plants to limit the need for polluting commercial nitrogen fertilizers and to benefit and empower the poorest people on Earth. Simona Radutoiu concludes, "We now provide the conceptual understanding required for a stepwise and rational engineering of LysM receptors, which is an essential first step towards this ambitious goal".

Geologists have developed a machine learning technique that highlights the potential for further deposits of the critical metal tungsten in SW England.

Tungsten is an essential component of high-performance steels but global production is strongly influenced by China and western countries are keen to develop alternative sources.

The work, published in the leading journal Geoscience Frontiers, has been led by Dr Chris Yeomans, from the Camborne School of Mines, and involved geoscientists from the University of Nottingham, Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) and the British Geological Survey.

The research applies machine learning to multiple existing datasets to examine the geological factors that have resulted in known tungsten deposits in SW England.

These findings are then applied across the wider region to predict areas where tungsten mineralisation is more likely and might have previously been overlooked. The same methodology could be applied to help in the exploration for other metals around the world.

Dr Yeomans, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Camborne School of Mines, based at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall said: "We're really pleased with the methodology developed and the results of this study.

"SW England is already the focus of UK mineral exploration for tungsten but we wanted to demonstrate that new machine learning approaches may provide additional insights and highlight areas that might otherwise be overlooked."

SW England hosts the fourth biggest tungsten deposit in the world (Hemerdon, near Plympton), that resulted in the UK being the sixth biggest global tungsten producer in 2017; the mine is currently being re-developed by Tungsten West Limited.

The Redmoor tin-tungsten project, being developed by Cornwall Resources Limited, has also been identified as being a potentially globally significant mineral deposit.

The new study suggests that there may be a wider potential for tungsten deposits and has attracted praise from those currently involved in the development of tungsten resources in SW England.

James McFarlane, from Tungsten West, said: "Tungsten has only been of economic interest in the last 100 years or so, during which exploration efforts for this critical metal have generally been short-lived.

"As such is very encouraging to see work that aims to holistically combine the available data to develop a tungsten prospectivity model in an area that has world-class potential".

Brett Grist, from Cornwall Resources added: "Our own work has shown that applying modern techniques can reveal world-class deposits in this historic and globally-significant mining district.

"Dr Yeomans' assertion, that the likelihood of new discoveries of tungsten mineralisation may be enhanced by a high-resolution gravity survey, is something in which we see great potential.

"Indeed, such a programme could stimulate the new discovery of economically significant deposits of a suite of critical metals, here in the southwest of the UK, for years to come."