Culture

Variants of viruses, such as that causing COVID-19, can now be quickly studied in the laboratory, even before they emerge in nature and become a major public health challenge.

The University of Queensland, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Monash University, and Queensland Health have developed a technology to manipulate viruses synthetically allowing rapid analysis and mapping of new potential virus variants.

UQ's lead researcher Professor Alexander Khromykh said the technology was ideal for use during a global pandemic such as COVID-19.

"This technique should give us the ability to answer questions about whether potential virus variants are susceptible to a particular drug or vaccine, even before they emerge in nature," Professor Khromykh said.

"Up until now, we've mostly just waited and reacted to viral variants as they emerge, and in the case of SARS-CoV-2 the world has been hit by Indian, UK and South African variants*, just to name a few.

"Now we can mimic the massive 'experiment' going on in nature - where these mutations pop up due to natural selection - but we can do it safely in a strictly controlled and highly regulated biosecurity laboratory environment."

The UQ-developed process uses copies of fragments from the viral genetic material to assemble the functional viral genome in a test tube.

This allows scientists to rapidly generate virus variants and assess their potential to evade antiviral treatments and vaccine-induced immunity.

QIMR Berghofer helped to evaluate infection and disease caused by the 'test tube'-made virus in pre-clinical models to ensure the technology was able to generate authentic viruses.

Professor Andreas Suhrbier from QIMR Berghofer said the research was essential, as viruses were changing all the time.

"We can now monitor changes in viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and can see which variants may not respond to certain vaccines and anti-viral treatments.

"We can also investigate whether potential variants are more or less virulent in mice, and find out which drugs and vaccines will be effective.

"It's great to finally have this vital tool and start tackling these challenging questions."

The research has been published in Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23779-5).

Blue whales may be the biggest animals in the world, but they're also some of the hardest to find.

Not only are they rare (it's estimated that less than 0.15 per cent of blue whales in the Southern Hemisphere survived whaling), they're also reclusive by nature and can cover vast areas of ocean.

But now, a team of scientists led by UNSW Sydney are confident they've discovered a new population of pygmy blue whales, the smallest subspecies of blue whales, in the Indian Ocean.

And it was the whales' powerful singing - recorded by underwater bomb detectors - that gave them away.

"We've found a whole new group of pygmy blue whales right in the middle of the Indian Ocean," says UNSW Professor Tracey Rogers, marine ecologist and senior author of the study.

"We don't know how many whales are in this group, but we suspect it's a lot by the enormous number of calls we hear."

The discovery was made possible using data from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an organisation that monitors international nuclear bomb testing.

Since 2002, the CTBTO have been using advanced underwater microphones (called 'hydrophones') to detect soundwaves from potential nuclear bomb tests. The recordings - which pick up many other detailed ocean sounds - are available to scientists to use for their marine science research.

The UNSW-led team were studying the data when they found an unusually strong signal: a whale song that had previously been identified in the recordings, but that scientists still knew little about. After closely studying its composition (details like the song's structure, frequency and tempo), they realised that it belonged to a group of pygmy blue whales - but not any of the ones previously recorded in the area.

"I think it's pretty cool that the same system that keeps the world safe from nuclear bombs allows us to find new whale populations, which long-term can help us study the health of the marine environment," says Prof. Rogers.

Pygmy blue whales are the smallest members of the blue whale family, but that's the only small thing about them: they can reach up to 24 metres' long, which is almost the length of two standard buses.

If visual sightings confirm this new population, they would become the fifth population of pygmy blue whales to be discovered in the Indian Ocean.

The findings, recently published in Scientific Reports, have come in time for World Oceans Day.

"Blue whales in the Southern Hemisphere are difficult to study because they live offshore and don't jump around - they're not show-ponies like the humpback whales," says Prof. Rogers.

"Without these audio recordings, we'd have no idea there was this huge population of blue whales out in the middle of the equatorial Indian Ocean."

A chorus of whales

Dr Emmanuelle Leroy, the lead author of the study and former postdoctoral researcher at UNSW Science, is a bioacoustician - someone who studies how animals create and receive sounds. She was studying the CTBTO data when she noticed a peculiar pattern emerging.

"At first, I noticed a lot of horizontal lines on the spectrogram," says Dr Leroy. "These lines at particular frequencies reflect a strong signal, so there was a lot of energy there."

To find out if the signal was a random blip or something more, Dr Leroy and the team scanned 18 years' worth of CTBTO data - the entire available dataset since the recording started - to look for any wider patterns.

They found the songs weren't just a random occurrence.

"Thousands of these songs were being produced every year," she says. "They formed a major part of the ocean's acoustic soundscape.

"The songs couldn't have just been coming from a couple of whales - they had to be from an entire population."

Singing a simple tune

Like many other whales, blue whales are powerful singers: scientists estimate their songs can travel anywhere between 200 and 500 kilometres. These songs are very low frequency (barely audible to the human ear) and have a different structure to other whales' songs.

"Humpback whales are like jazz singers," says Prof. Rogers. "They change their songs all the time.

"Blue whales, on the other hand, are more traditional. They sing very structured, simple songs."

Music style can even change within a whale species: each of the known pygmy blue whale populations in the Indian Ocean sing slightly different melodies. Prof. Rogers says these musical differences are similar to generational slang between humans.

"We still don't know whether they're born with their songs or whether they've learnt it," she says.

"But it's fascinating that within the Indian Ocean you have animals intersecting with one another all the time but whales from different regions still retain their distinctive songs. Their songs are like a fingerprint that allows us to track them as they move over thousands of kilometres."

Dr Leroy compared the acoustic features of the song with the three other blue whale song-types known in the Indian Ocean, as well as with four types of Omura's whale songs (another whale in the area) - but the evidence pointed towards this being an entirely new population of blue whales.

The team named the newly-found population 'Chagos', after the archipelago they were detected nearby.

"We suspect that the whales singing the Chagos song move at different times across the Indian Ocean," says Prof. Rogers.

"We found them not only in the central Indian Ocean, but as far north as the Sri Lankan coastline and as far east in the Indian Ocean as the Kimberley coast in northern Western Australia."

While the team are confident in their findings, Dr Leroy says it's impossible to confirm the species without a visual observation. Visual sightings for such an elusive animal can be tricky and expensive to fund, so it's unlikely this will be verified anytime soon.

"If it isn't a blue whale, it definitely sings like one," says Dr Leroy.

A big find for conservation

The finding is big news for marine conservation, as blue whales were brought to the edge of extinction after whaling in the 20th Century.

And unlike many other types of whales in the Southern Hemisphere, their numbers haven't sprung back.

"Discovering a new population is the first step to protecting it," says Dr Leroy.

Acoustic information hidden in whale songs can also teach us more about the animals, like their spatial distribution, migration patterns and population numbers. A previous study led by Dr Leroy even found the changing pitch of blue whales' songs could be a response to the noise of cracking icebergs.

Prof. Rogers is now leading a team using the CTBTO data to study how the Chagos population has changed over time. The findings could teach us how the whales adapted to warming ocean temperatures over the past 18 years - and how they might fare moving into the future.

"The largest animal in the world is one of the hardest ones to actually study," says Prof. Rogers.

"There are many more of these blue whales out there than we've realised - and we've only been able to find them with the help of this international infrastructure."

For the first time, a unique study conducted at Lund University in Sweden has tracked the meteorite flux to Earth over the past 500 million years. Contrary to current theories, researchers have determined that major collisions in the asteroid belt have not generally affected the number of impacts with Earth to any great extent.

Researchers have been studying geological series since the 19th century in order to reconstruct how flora, fauna and the climate have changed over millions of years. Until now, however, almost nothing has been known about ancient meteorite flux - which makes sense since impact is rare, and the battered celestial bodies quickly break down as they encounter Earth's oxygen. A new study published in PNAS shows how researchers in Lund have reconstructed meteorite bombardment towards Earth over the past 500 million years.

"The research community previously believed that meteorite flux to Earth was connected to dramatic events in the asteroid belt. The new study, however, shows that the flux has instead been very stable", says Birger Schmitz, professor of geology at Lund University.

To conduct the study, researchers at Lund University's Astrogeobiology Laboratory dissolved almost ten tonnes of sedimentary rocks from ancient seabeds in strong acids because the sediment contains residue from the meteorites dating back to when they fell to Earth.

Meteorites contain a small fraction of a mineral, a chromium oxide, which is very resistant to degradation. The microscopic chromium oxide grains were sifted out in the laboratory and serve as time capsules with an abundance of information.

"The dissolved sediment represents 15 periods over the past 500 million years. In total, we have extracted chromium oxide from almost 10 000 different meteorites. Chemical analyses then enabled us to determine which types of meteorites the grains represent", says Birger Schmitz.

A couple of thousand meteorites land on the Earth's surface every year, and approximately 63 000 space rocks have been documented by science. The space rocks originate from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter where battered celestial bodies from gigantic collisions revolve around the sun.

"We were very surprised to learn that only one of the 70 largest asteroid collisions that took place over the past 500 million years resulted in an increased flux of meteorites to Earth. For some reason, most of the rocks stay in the asteroid belt", says Birger Schmitz.

The study not only upends generally accepted meteorite flux theories; it also provides entirely new perspectives on which types of celestial bodies are at greatest risk of colliding with Earth and where in the solar system they originate. From a geological time perspective, kilometre-sized celestial bodies collide with the Earth on a regular basis. One such event took place 66 million years ago, when a celestial body stretching over 10 kilometres in size hit the Yucatán Peninsula. The impact was part of the reason the Earth went dark and dinosaurs starved to death.

"Future impact from even a small asteroid for example in the sea close to a populated area could lead to disastrous outcomes. This study provides important understanding that we can use to prevent this from happening; for example, by attempting to influence the trajectory of rapidly approaching celestial bodies", concludes Birger Schmitz.

New insight on the link between a gene called SORBS2 and congenital heart disease has been published today in eLife, with findings that may help explain the cause of the disease in some patients.

Some people with congenital heart disease are missing part of the long arm of chromosome 4, otherwise known as chromosome 4q. Chromosomes are thread-like structures made up of DNA. When part of the chromosome is missing, it means that some of the genes located on that section are also lost. Previous studies have linked heart defects related to chromosome 4q deletion syndrome to a missing copy of the HAND2 gene that is found in chromosome 4 and is important for heart development. But not every patient with a heart defect is missing HAND2, which suggests other genes are likely involved as well.

"A previous study of one patient with congenital heart disease suggested mutations in a gene called SORBS2 might be responsible, but this finding had yet to be confirmed," explains first author Fei Liang, a physician at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, China.

To explore the potential role of SORBS2 in congenital heart disease, Liang and colleagues suppressed the gene in developing human heart cells grown in the laboratory. This led to the development of abnormally shaped heart cells and interfered with the ability of cardiac muscle cells to undergo necessary changes in gene expression.

The team's additional studies in genetically engineered mice showed that a lack of SORBS2 led to the absence or duplication of the wall between the two upper chambers of the heart in 40% of embryos. This duplication is a condition known as double atrial septum. However, the effect was much milder in comparison to human heart defects, suggesting that SORBS2 may be a 'small effect size' congenital heart disease gene - that is to say, it plays a minor role in the disease.

The team further examined how a lack of SORBS2 can affect gene expression in both mice and human cells. Their results highlighted how the levels of other genes and proteins are elevated or reduced in response to the lack of SORBS2, ultimately leading to heart defects and damage.

Finally, they found that rare, damaging variants of the SORBS2 gene were significantly enriched in 300 congenital heart disease cases where gross chromosomal aberrations did not occur. This provides additional genetic evidence that SORBS2 variants have a role in causing general congenital heart disease.

"Our combined studies help explain the cause of congenital heart disease in chromosome 4q deletion syndrome patients who still have the functional HAND2 gene," concludes senior author Zhen Zhang, a professor at Shanghai Pediatric Congenital Heart Disease Institute and Pediatric Translational Medicine Institute, Shanghai Children's Medical Center. "They provide an effective approach for identifying other genes that play a minor role in congenital heart disease and other multigenic diseases. Interestingly, we found that SORBS2 deficiency can cause double atrial septum, a very rare cardiac anomaly linked to a condition called paradoxical thromboembolism. The exact causes of this anomaly are currently unknown, and we hope our study paves the way for exploring this further."

Converting Central American tropical forests into agricultural land is changing the colour and composition of natural material washing into nearby rivers, making it less likely to decompose before it reaches the ocean, a new Southampton-led study has shown.

The flow of dissolved organic material, such as soil, from land to the oceans plays an important role in the global carbon and nutrient cycles. Changing how land is used can alter the type and amount of material being transported, with widespread implications for ecosystems.

In this latest study, an international research team set out to learn more about the effects of deforestation on the coastal environment by studying material that flowed into rivers from various settings in a Central American rainforest, tracking its progress into the sea off the coast of Belize, home to the world's second largest barrier reef.

Stacey Felgate, a PhD Student at the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre, led the study working with partners in Belize. Stacey said, "Like many countries in the region, Belize is experiencing a rapid rate of deforestation due to increasing need for agricultural and urban land, whilst the economy also relies on the fishing and tourism industries on the coastline. Despite this, there has been very little research into the impact that changing land-use at such a fast pace is having on the region's coastal ecosystems."

The findings of the research, published in the journal JGR Biogeosciences, showed that significantly more coloured material is entering the rivers from land used for farming, compared to naturally forested sites.

As the material continued its journey along the river, the team noticed that it accumulated, suggesting that it was not accessible to the micro-organisms who break down natural matter and convert it into carbon dioxide.

When the material reaches the coast, its coloured nature means that it absorbs light and can darken the sea, potentially affecting marine life such as seagrass and corals which need light to grow. The researchers have therefore identified further research into this possible impact as a vital next step in understand what steps are needed to protect coastal ecosystems from deforestation.

Stacey added, "The potential for human activities on land to negatively impact the coastal environment is not unique to Belize, and so our findings are relevant more broadly, particularly for coastal developing nations where deforestation is ongoing but there are no integrated conservation plans between what is happening on land and what is happening in the oceans."

This study is part of a wider project led by Dr Claire Evans of the National Oceanography Centre. The work was funded by the Commonwealth Marine Economies Programme, which aims to enable safe and sustainable marine economies across the Commonwealth Small Island Developing States.

Other partners in the study included University of Belize, the Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute (Belize), and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

Stacey Felgate discusses the findings of her study and why protecting our oceans matters in the University of Southampton's film for World Oceans Day, 'Below the Surface'

A multidisciplinary team led by researchers from the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) identifies the genomic cellular map associated with hippocampal sclerosis, a major histopathological condition of temporal lobe epilepsy. The study, published in Cell Reports, identifies cell-type specific transcriptional signatures of hyper-excitability and neurodegeneration, providing grounds for improved diagnosis. While the presence of sclerosis is essential for identifying temporal lobe epilepsy (the most common form of drug-resistant epilepsy), it is also detected in some cases of dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Hippocampal sclerosis is characterized by the loss of specific neuronal populations and exacerbated activation of other cell types resident in the brain, such as microglia and astrocytes. However, understanding why some neuronal types are more vulnerable than others has remained largely unclear.

In this work, the researchers have developed a transcriptional map that identifies the precise genetic code of all cell types specifically affected in the disease. "With these maps we seek to match different genes with specific biological elements. In the case of the brain, we aim linking expression of some specific genes with different cell types, such as neurons, astrocytes and microglia", explains Liset Menéndez de la Prida, a scientist at the Cajal Institute of the CSIC, who lead the study together with José López-Atalaya, from the Institute of Neurosciences (CSIC-UMH) in Alicante.

To do this, researchers applied two advanced procedures for biological sampling: laser micro-dissection of localized brain tissue and sorting of individual cell nuclei extracted from rats and mice. Using cutting-edge genomic and bioinformatic approaches allowed them to identify specific genetic signatures of degenerative processes.

"When neurons begin to degenerate, they release some signals that can be detected by microglia, which are mediating the inflammatory and neurotoxic response. Each of these processes involve the activation or inactivation of some genetic programs defining a specific genetic signature. We identify some of these genetic signatures associated to neuronal types", explains López-Atalaya.

Researchers also recorded the electrical activity of individual neurons in vivo and found signs of epileptiform activities in some of them. These more hyperexcitable neurons tended to be located in a specific sublayer within the hippocampal region (the superficial sublayer) and expressed some characteristic genes. "Very strikingly, we found that the hyperexcitability map perfectly matched neurodegeneration signatures" adds de la Prida.

To ease dissemination amongst the neuroscience and clinical communities, researchers have made the data associated with this study accessible as a public resource though two interactive websites.

Temporal lobe epilepsy and Alzheimer's

Temporal lobe epilepsy is associated to many causes, from brain infection, injuries caused by trauma, tumors or various genetic factors associated with anatomical changes of the laminar organization of the cerebral cortex. Something common to this heterogeneous group of disorders is the origin of seizures in the temporal lobe, associated with hippocampal atrophy and sclerosis.

In Alzheimer's disease, which affects similar structures of the temporal lobe, electrographic seizures comparable to those of temporal lobe epilepsy have been described. Both diseases are associated with episodic memory deficits, which involve the hippocampus. In some cases of Alzheimer's, atrophy of the hippocampus is also observed, so the results of this study could be of relevance to identify their underlying commonalities.

The work, funded by prestigious national and international grants, involves multidisciplinary collaborations of researchers from several institutions, including the Hospital de San Pau in Barcelona, the Universidad Europea in Madrid, as well as the Riken Brain Institute and the University of Kyoto in Japan.

When sailing along on the seas and you suddenly spot a porpoise's fin in the distance, chances are that you have only encountered a single animal. Porpoises are most often seen alone, but new research now suggests that they also roam in groups - and even enter into a sophisticated collaboration when hunting.

The way they collaborate surprises us, because the common perception among biologists is that porpoises roam and hunt alone, says Associate Professor Magnus Wahlberg, who is an expert in marine mammals and heads the Marine Biological Research Centre at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU).

Drone footage has revealed group hunting among porpoises coming together to hunt schools of fish.

The research team has recorded almost 44 hours of drone footage from the waters around Funen, corresponding to 159 hunting sequences. In 95 of these, between two and six adult porpoises participated. The researchers expected to see the porpoises hunting alone. And if it turned out that several porpoises were in fact hunting together, the researchers expected that it would be an unstructured hunt without no cooperation whatsoever between the individual animals.

Instead, a seemingly solitary animal has turned out to be more social than previously thought, says PhD student Sara Torres Ortiz, who was at SDU when the research was conducted but is now at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany. She researches animal cognition.

The footage also shows porpoises hunting alone. According to the researchers, solitary hunters are less successful at foraging food than the porpoises that hunt in groups.

In order to hunt in the observed way, the porpoises must be able to share information and coordinate their actions. They take on different roles during the hunt, and the drone footage has revealed six different roles:

The distant gatherer (far bordering) swims around the school of fish at a distance of at least three body lengths.

The close gatherer (close bordering) swims around the school of fish at a distance closer than three body lengths and with its body and head parallel to the school of fish.

The shepherd (herding fish) swims close to the school of fish and influences its direction.

The splitter (cross school) swims through the school

The spear (hunting attempt) swims directly into the school at high speed

Swimming away - swims away from the school.

Each porpoise can take on different roles during the hunt, and the result of the collaboration is that the school of fish eventually becomes so confused and exhausted that the individual hunters are able to capture the fish that stray away from the school.

There are several different types of group hunting in the animal kingdom. The form observed can be called a form of collaborative hunting, and it is more sophisticated than the form called cooperative hunting, explains Sara Torres Ortiz.

Animals such as chimpanzees and raves exhibit cooperative hunting abilities. During this form of hunting, several hunters gather without taking on different roles.

The collaborative hunt, in which the individual hunters take on different roles, is more rare - or, rather: It is not observed very often because it is inherently difficult to follow. The use of drones opens up new possibilities of following a herd of animals from above - like this porpoise study - and this may in the future contribute with new and improved knowledge about hunting animals.

Until now, collaborative hunting has been scientifically described in animals such as lions, fossas, wolves and jackals. Wolves and jackals divide the hunting pack into two teams, where one team lurks while the other team drives the prey forward. Among lions, the strategy is for the entire pack to approach the prey from different directions, after which some hunters lie down to hide while the rest of the group drives the prey towards them.

Sea-dwelling predators are extra difficult to observe, meaning researchers cannot say with certainty whether animals like killer whales and dolphins hunt cooperatively and/or collaboratively. However, several researchers have observed complex hunting behaviours in killer whales and dolphins. For example, killer whales have been seen making waves that push seals off ice floes.

What other surprises await?

The drone footage now raises new questions:

Does the hunting group consist of the same individuals every time, or is it randomly composed? How often do participants change roles? And do porpoises enter into other social relations with each other?

- Drones have truly changed the possibilities of studying marine animals, and it will be exciting to see if they can surprise us again, says Sara Torres Ortiz.

Astrophysicists from the University of Bath have developed a new method for pinpointing the whereabouts of extremely rare extragalactic objects. They hope their technique for finding 'changing-look quasars' will take scientists one step closer to unravelling one of greatest mysteries of the universe - how supermassive black holes grow. Quasars are believed to be responsible for regulating the growth of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies.

A quasar is a region of spectacular luminosity at the centre of a galaxy, powered by a supermassive black hole - the largest type of black hole, with a mass that exceeds that of our sun by millions or billions. There is a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.

Changing-look quasars switch rapidly between a state of high luminosity and one of low luminosity, and scientists are yet to work out why. When the brightness is dialed down, a quasar is too faint to be seen against the backdrop of the host galaxy, making it hard for space scientists to find either it or the supermassive black hole it is connected to.

The new detection method will enable researchers to find quasars undergoing extreme changes in luminosity, and therefore to create a more comprehensive census of supermassive blackholes. The next step will be to study the causes of the luminosity switches, to give scientists a better understanding of how supermassive black holes grow. From this, clues are likely to emerge about the chain of events that give rise to the growth of galaxies, as the energy output from supermassive black holes can affect the fate of galaxies.

Astrophysicist Dr Carolin Villforth, who was involved in the research, said: "These quasars and supermassive blackholes are extremely important for galaxy evolution - the more we learn about them, the more we understand how they influence the growth of galaxies."

WHAT EXACTLY ARE QUASARS?

Quasars are the most luminous persistent source of light in the universe. Many galaxies, including our own, are thought to have one, and astrophysicists have identified more than a million in total.

Quasars are formed when gaseous matter is drawn by gravitations forces towards a supermassive black hole. As this gas approaches the black hole, it forms an 'accretion disk' which orbits the black hole. Energy is released from the disk in the form of electromagnetic radiation, and it is this radiation that produces the quasar's luminosity.

The accretion disk is surrounded by a thick, dusty donut that obscures much of the quasar's emission. Because the dusty structure is very large, the level of obscuration should not change on human timescales, however a changing-look quasar can appear to switch from bright to dark quickly (within a human year), which would be highly surprising if true. Creating a more comprehensive list of changing-look quasars would be a major step towards understanding the reasons behind these apparent transitions.

Previous efforts to identify changing-look quasars have relied on variability in a wide range of wavelengths - a technique called photometric variability, which is known to miss lower luminosity quasars. The Bath researchers used spectroscopic data to assess the changes in very small wavelength ranges, allowing them to detect changing-look quasars that had been missed by photometric searches. Using this technique, they spotted four changing-look quasars millions of lightyears from earth. All four were too dim to be picked up by photometric searches. Earlier identification efforts had only found two of these quasars in the same area.

Former MPhys student at Bath, Bart Potts, who led the research, explained: "We took a previous dataset and applied our new method to see if we could identify any new changing quasars that others had missed. This gave us a bigger set of changing-look quasars for further study, and validated that our methodology was more sensitive than others, which was great. It shows that our methodology is more sensitive to weaker luminosity."

He added: "Ultimately, this finding will give something to the academic community that studies quasars. It will help others further their research into why this specific type of quasar goes through luminosity switches. We are helping our community find important answers to big questions."

Tuesday, 8 June 2021: A study by RCSI indicates that exercise is probably the most effective short-term treatment for depression in people with coronary heart disease, when compared to antidepressants and psychotherapy or more complex care.

The study, led by researchers at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is published in the June edition of Psychosomatic Medicine.

This is the first systematic review to compare treatments for depression in those with coronary disease and the findings provides valuable clinical information to help doctors determine the best treatment plan for patients.

The researchers reviewed treatment trials which investigated antidepressants, psychotherapy, exercise, combined psychotherapy and antidepressants, and collaborative care (i.e. treatments devised by a multidisciplinary team of clinicians with input from the patient).

To measure effectiveness, the researchers looked at factors including patient adherence to the treatment (dropout rate) and change in depressive symptoms eight weeks after commencing treatment.

The strongest treatment effects were found to be exercise and combination treatments (antidepressants and psychotherapy). However, as the combination study results have a high risk of bias, the findings of the review suggest that exercise is probably the most effective treatment. Antidepressants had the most research support, while psychotherapy and collaborative care did not perform very well.

"Depression is common in patients with coronary artery disease. Having both conditions can have a significant impact on the quality of life for patients so it is vital that they access to the most effective treatments," commented Dr Frank Doyle, Senior Lecturer Division of Population Health Sciences, RCSI and the study's first author.

"Our study indicates that exercise is likely to be the best treatment for depression following coronary artery disease. Our findings further highlight the clinical importance of exercise as a treatment as we see that it improves not only depression, but also other important aspects of heart disease, such as lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, in these patients."

"We continue to see emerging evidence of the importance of lifestyle to treat disease - in comparison to other treatments - but further high-quality research is needed. People with coronary heart disease who have symptoms of depression should talk to their doctor about treatments that are most suitable for their personal needs, and clinicians can be confident of recommending exercise to their patients."

Dr Frank Doyle and the study's senior authors, Prof. Jan Sorensen (Health Outcomes Research Centre, RCSI) and Prof. Martin Dempster (School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast), conducted the study in collaboration with researchers in the USA, The Netherlands, the UK and Denmark.

This study was also the first of its kind to establish a new method to conduct systematic reviews known as a hybrid review, which is a combination of umbrella reviews and systematic reviews.

Around the globe, software-intensive organisations shift from plan-based development processes to Agile ones, intending to focus more on team interaction, better products, customers' needs, and readiness to change.

But how do these organisations succeed with large-scale Agile software transformations - and how do the success factors relate? This has been discussed in the scientific community for several years. Now, Associate Professor Daniel Russo from Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University presents a long-term study, which sheds even more light on the widespread phenomenon.

The study is accepted by the world-renowned journal ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology and has already generated attention from practitioners globally.

Not a shopping list

By combining a field study of a large-scale Agile transformation process at a notable Italian mission-critical organisation with a survey of 190 screened software engineers, Daniel Russo has developed an Agile Success Model. In the model, the roles of the stakeholders are clarified, and according to the author, the hope is that practitioners planning an Agile transformation can use the model to gain a deeper understanding of such a process.

- It is essential to say that this is not a shopping list or a recipe on how to be a success. Instead, I see this as a tool for organisations, teams and managers, providing them with an overview of which factors they should primarily focus on when planning or running an Agile transformation, Daniel Russo says.

He highlights the fact that the study is a combination of both qualitative and quantitative analysis. After generating hypothesis in the field, these have been validated through a large scale of professionals who actually use Scrum.

No difference between social and technical skills

So, what are the most critical constructs to project success? According to Daniel Russo, management should prioritise strengthening developers' skills:

- The failure or success of a software project highly relies on both the social and technical skills of the development team. There is no semantic difference between these set of skills. Being great at coding is not enough if you lack communication skills - and likewise, the other way around. This is a crucial consideration for hiring and setting up training programs.

At the same time, the roles of the middle management are of relatively smaller importance. Teams in Agile frameworks experience a relatively high degree of freedom to self-organise, and communication and collaboration are two pivotal activities in the groups.

Top management losses control

But the study also shows that providing an adequate organisational setting is even more critical for project success than just hiring socio-technically skilled developers:

- Project success mainly depends on the top management commitment. The top management has to welcome the fact that they will lose some degree of control over the development after the transformation, Daniel Russo says.

He points out that even though the field study was carried out among professionals who develop mission-critical software, the analysis shows that the model is non-domain specific and can be used in mission-critical and non-critical settings.

Meeting with Scrum.org

The results from Aalborg University supports the new direction of the Scrum Guide 2020, putting much more emphasis on the development side and downsizing middle management.

- The update of the guide was not performed following a scholarly investigation. In this perspective, our study is also a primary contribution to the practitioner's community by backing up the experience-based update of the most used Agile framework, Daniel Russo says.

Rising unemployment, inadequate benefits and low paid work are the main causes of poverty and destitution in Stoke-on-Trent according to the findings of a new study.

The research carried out by Staffordshire University and Citizens Advice Staffordshire North & Stoke-on-Trent, and funded through Research England's Strategic Priorities Fund, aims to understand the impact COVID-19 is having on residents in the city.

The report includes case studies of people who have turned to Citizens Advice and Alice Charity's Foodbank after finding themselves unable to work through the pandemic and facing increasing debt or struggling to claim benefits.

Post COVID-19 crisis and its impact on poverty and destitution in Stoke-on-Trent follows a report produced by Professor David Etherington for the Hardship Commission last year which examined the threat of the pandemic to Stoke-on-Trent's economy.

Ten months on, the new study includes updates the evidence and makes a number of recommendations on the "comprehensive action" needed to tackle the issues.

Professor David Etherington said: "Even before the COVID-19 crisis, Stoke-on-Trent was the 14th most deprived district in England with one of the highest rates of people on low pay and with low level skills. This has been exacerbated during the pandemic with the lowest paid, women, part-time workers and young people hit the hardest.

"A disturbing fact, given that Britain is one of the richest countries in the world, is that thousands of people in Stoke-on-Trent have insufficient incomes to meet basic needs and a consequence of this is that more and more people are turning to foodbanks for welfare support. The Alice Charity's foodbank reported that some parents are going without food for up to three days before coming to the foodbank. Another often-overlooked area is that people often do not take up the benefits they are entitled to."

The report highlights that:

across Stoke-on-Trent there are 50,228 persons of working age in-receipt of one or more benefits - 12,495 more than November 2019. This equates to an increase from 23.6% to 31.4% of the Working Age population.

even with the £20 'uplift', Universal Credit only amounts to the equivalent of 40% of average wages - £409.89 month for single person and £1112 per month for a couple with two children

young people claiming benefits in Stoke on Trent rose from 5.9% 2020 in March to 10.2 in December 2020.

over 90,000 people in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme are in debt, struggling to pay their bills, keep up with their loan payments. Stoke-on-Trent has the 2nd highest rate of Debt Relief Orders (DROs) in England and Wales

the estimated total value of unclaimed benefits across the City is between £71.85m to £84.55m

hunger is now a key issue. Stoke-on-Trent Foodbank has provided food aid to 14,000 people in the last year (2020) and 1,500 received food aid who had never used a foodbank before. The Alice Charity's Foodbank provided more aid in the first two months of 2021 than in the whole of 2018.

The report also predicts a surge in demand for advice services as reported by Citizens Advice North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

Simon Harris, Chief Executive Officer for Citizens Advice Staffordshire North and Stoke-on-Trent, said: "Before lockdown about 40 per cent of our Universal Credit clients were seen face to face and helped to make a claim. Many of these will not have successfully transferred to online channels due to poor digital skills and other factors and will have fallen through the net."

"Given that many more people have fallen behind with rent and bills and other payments over the pandemic, there is undoubtedly significant pent-up demand for debt advice and we anticipate a significant surge at some point in the next 12 months."

The report authors Professor David Etherington and Professor Martin Jones are now calling for action to address high levels of poverty and destitution experienced across the City.

Their recommendations include benefit take-up campaigns - similar to those adopted by the Scottish Government - which involve community groups, advice organisations and foodbanks working together to tackle the issue.

It also advocates using a Scandinavian style employment and training model (Jobrotation) to address unemployment and low skills.

Professor Jones said: "With fears of high unemployment in the UK following the COVID-19 pandemic and the phasing out of the Job Retention scheme, this is a critical time to be thinking about Jobrotation.

"Jobrotation is highly effective at providing opportunities for unemployed people to gain permanent jobs at the same time as upskilling existing employees. It could involve packaging funds from a range of programmes such as the Kickstart scheme, Universal Credit, Apprenticeships Levy and the UK Community Renewal Fund and we urge civic and business leaders to urgently explore these possibilities."

Since March 2020 the Cancer Genomics and BioComputing of Complex Diseases Laboratory at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University has been dedicated to the study of COVID-19. Motivated in particular to study the evolution of coronaviruses, the lab, led by Dr. Milana Frenkel-Morgenstern, has characterized and compared sequences of numerous relevant viruses.

In their most recent study, published in the journal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS), the research team focused on patterns of genetic coding used by viruses which infect a single or narrow range of hosts compared to those which infect a multiple or broad range of hosts.

It was discovered that "promiscuous", or multiple-host, viruses utilize significantly non-optimal codons (the DNA sequences which encode amino acids of the protein) compared to single-host viruses. All of the coronaviruses adopt non-optimal codons to infect multiple hosts. However, instead of being weakly expressed, coronaviruses proteins have been observed to be highly expressed. This effect is provided by a special "trick" of coronaviruses which mitigate degradation which dramatically increase their viral mRNA load during infections.

"Our findings suggest that coronaviruses, with their vast reservoir in many animal species and their promiscuous behavior of infecting multiple hosts, should all be considered potential human pandemic viruses," says Dr. Frenkel-Morgenstern, who led the research with the assistance of Dr. Alessandro Gorohovski, Dr. Sumit Mukherjee and doctoral student Gon Carmi. "Our study also highlights that non-optimal codon usage of coronaviruses should be taken into account in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development, as it may have a further effect on the structure and stability of proteins encoded by SARS-CoV-2."

Mobility analyses show: Only a small proportion of all vehicles are responsible for the majority of the kilometers driven. We are talking above all about long-distance trucks that transport goods all over Europe. If these continue to be fueled with fossil energy, it will hardly be possible to sufficiently reduce CO2 emissions in road traffic. Synthetic fuels from surplus renewable electricity can make a significant contribution to such frequent driver applications.

With electric mobility, hydrogen mobility and synthetic fuels, Empa's future mobility demonstrator, "move", is investigating three paths for CO2 reduction in road traffic against the background of a rapidly changing energy system. "All these concepts have advantages and drawbacks in terms of energy, operation and economics. In order to use them in a smart way, we need a deeper understanding of the overall system," says Christian Bach, Head of Empa's Automotive Powertrain Technologies lab. "Together with our 'move' partners, we are working to develop knowledge that can be put into practice."

The latest project focuses on the production of synthetic methane from hydrogen and CO2 - the so-called methanization. Such fuels, produced synthetically with renewable energy - thus called synfuel or syngas -, can be transported via conventional routes and made available through the existing infrastructure. This is of interest for Switzerland as well as globally, because it opens up an enormous potential for renewable energy.

A methanization process developed at Empa

The basic chemical process of methanization has been known for over 100 years as the Sabatier reaction. In "move", another process developed further at Empa will be used: the so-called sorption-enhanced methanization. Empa researchers hope that this novel process engineering concept will lead to simpler process control, higher efficiency and better suitability for dynamic operation.
Methanization works as follows: Methane (CH4) and water (H2O) are produced by catalytic conversion from carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2). The water is causing problems with conventional processes, however: To remove it, serial methanization stages are typically required - with condensation areas in between. Due to the high reaction temperatures, a proportion of the water is converted back into hydrogen by the so-called water-gas shift reaction. The gaseous product of the methanization reaction thus contains a few percent hydrogen, which prevents direct feeding into the gas grid; the hydrogen must first be removed.

CO2 and water from the air

CO2 for the methanization as well as water for hydrogen production is taken directly from the atmosphere with a CO2 collector from the ETH spin-off Climeworks. The system sucks in ambient air and CO2 molecules remain attached to the filter. Using heat - around 100°C - the CO2 molecules can be released from the filter. Empa researchers see further potential for optimization in the heat required for this CO2 desorption. "Both hydrogen production and methanization continuously generate waste heat," says Bach. "By means of a clever heat management, we want to cover the heat requirements of the CO2 collector as much as possible with this waste heat". In addition to CO2, the Climeworks plant also extracts water from ambient air, which is used for hydrogen production in the electrolysis device. This means that such plants are also conceivable in regions without water supply, for example in deserts (see box).

In addition to new knowledge about technical and energetic aspects, insights about the economic efficiency of synthetic methane are one of the project's prime goals. "In order to ensure this holistic perspective, the project consortium consists of partners who cover the entire value chain - from Empa researchers to energy suppliers, filling station and fleet operators and industrial partners in the technology and plant sectors," says Brigitte Buchmann, member of Empa's Board of Directors and strategic head of "move". The project is supported by the Canton of Zurich, the ETH Board, Avenergy Suisse, Migros, Lidl Switzerland, Glattwerk, Armasuisse and Swisspower.

Currently, Christian Bach's team is concentrating on the investigation of water adsorption on porous materials and the process control of the catalytic reaction. Construction of the plant is planned for mid-2021. "About a year later, we want to refuel the first vehicle," says Buchmann. "With methane from solar energy."

Synthetic fuels from the desert?

When converting our energy system to renewable sources, there is a major challenge: Renewable sources such as sun or wind are not always available everywhere. In winter we have too little renewable energy, in summer there is too much - in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere it is the other way round. But there are also areas with almost continuous sunshine - the so-called sun belt, in which the large deserts of the Earth are located. "From a global perspective, we do not have too little renewable energy worldwide, but "merely" an energy transport problem," says Christian Bach. Synthetic energy carriers could help solve this problem.

Smaller plants in Switzerland can make a valuable contribution to the national energy system by harnessing surplus summer electricity and connecting different energy sectors. However, large plants could exploit their full potential above all in the Earth's sunbelt. This is illustrated by a simple calculation: In order to cover Switzerland's energy needs during winter not covered by hydropower as well as all long-distance domestic traffic exclusively with (imported) synthetic energy sources, a solar power plant would be required in a desert with an area of approximately 700 km2; that is 27 x 27 km or, in other words, 0.008% of the area of the Sahara. The water and CO2 needed for production could be extracted locally from the atmosphere (see main text). "Existing trade mechanisms, transport infrastructures, standards and expertise could simply be used further," says Bach. So could the plant in "move" soon be a model for a gigawatt plant in the desert?

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo used smart watches and a dedicated app to monitor 169 subjects before and during Israel's second COVID-19 lockdown (October 2020). The watches and app provided the researchers with accurate daily data for measuring quality of life parameters, such as mood, stress, duration and quality of sleep, heart rate at rest, meeting others and physical exercise.

The study was conducted by a group of experts from the Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University led by Dr. Erez Shmueli, Dr. Dan Yamin, Shay Oved and Merav Mofaz, in collaboration with TAU's Prof. Noga Kronfeld Schor of the School of Zoology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, and Dr. Anat Lan and Prof. Haim Einat of the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo. The study was recently published at the leading Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

The data collected in the study indicate that, in general, during the lockdown the subjects slept more (6:08 vs. 6:01 hours) met fewer people face to face (11.5 vs. 7.8 daily encounters), exercised less (30 vs. 27 minutes), walked less (daily step count of 8,453 vs. 7,710) felt less happy (0.87 vs. 0.76 on a scale of -2 to 2) and exhibited a lower heart rate at rest (62.6 vs. 62.1 beats per minute).

Among the young participants, a more substantial drop was registered in the daily step count: from 9,500 steps before to 8,200 steps during the lockdown. In comparison, the average daily step count in the 60+ age group decreased from 7,500 to 7,200.

The lockdown was also very detrimental to the younger subjects' mood. On a scale of -2 to 2, their average score declined from 0.89 before to 0.72 during the lockdown, while older subjects reported only a small decrease - from 0.85 to 0.8.

Interestingly, when zooming in on the younger age group, the increase in sleep-duration was mainly expressed in late chronotypes (7:05 hours before vs. 7:24 during the lockdown). Late chronotypes, especially in the age of our younger group which usually work or study and have younger children (also in our study), normally suffer sleep loss. With no need to wake up the children or go to everyday obligations, the more relaxed social schedule induced by the lockdown could allow them to wake up later without using an alarm clock and increasetheir sleep duration. In contrast, when zooming in on the older age group, the increase in sleep-duration was mainly expressed in early chronotypes (6:48 hours before vs. 6:58 during the lockdown). It is possible that this population could not perform some early social activity like group sports, but other explanations may also be possible

Analysis by gender revealed that while men's stress level decreased from -0.79 before to -0.88 during the lockdown, women's stress rose from -0.62 to -0.52. The researchers suggest several possible explanations for these findings:

First, according to the Israeli Ministry of Finance, more women lost their workplace (fired or sent to unpaid vacation) than men. Second, schools and daycares were closed during lockdowns and parents to young children had to stay with them at home. Several studies reported that during lockdowns, men were more concerned about paid work while women were more worried about childcare. Third, according to Israeli Police data, domestic violence against women increased during lockdowns.

Moreover, the lockdown was more 'effective' in keeping women from meeting others face to face. While for men, the number of such encounters decreased from 11 to 9, women reported a sharper decline from 12 to 7 daily encounters on average. Face to face encounters, even a random meeting with a neighbor or a public transportation driver, are known to improve people's mood and reduce depression and anxiety.

"During lockdowns women were more secluded and stressed than men, and generally their welfare and mental health were significantly more affected than men's", adds Dr. Shmueli:

"We were lucky", says Dr. Shmueli. "Roughly two years before the outbreak of the pandemic, we planned a large-scale experiment with the goal of providing earlier and improved diagnosis of infected diseases, by integrating multiple sources of data such as self-reported questionnaires and smart watches. Clearly, we didn't have COVID-19 in our mind back then, but the running experiment allowed us to monitor subjects for a relatively long period before and during the second lockdown in Israel."

"The findings of our study are important by themselves and suggest that certain subpopulations should receive more attention than others during lockdowns. However, in addition to the direct negative effects of lockdowns on wellbeing, lockdowns may also indirectly affect our immune system - it is well known that mood, stress, physical activity and sleep duration and quality have a major effect on our immune system. Paying more attention to the affected subpopulations may therefore help in coping better with the virus, and even improve the effectiveness of vaccines."

"The COVID-19 crisis has channeled substantial resources to the wellbeing and welfare of the elderly, and rightly so, since they are more exposed than the younger population to the health hazards of the disease itself. But our study shows that emphasis should also be placed on the mental health of young people - who paid a heavier price for measures like social distancing and lockdowns."

BOSTON - Last year, people who smoked had a variety of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, with some increasing their smoking to help them cope and others quitting to potentially lessen their vulnerability to COVID-19. That's the finding of new research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and conducted by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

"Studies have shown that alcohol and opioid use increased during the pandemic, but little is known about how smokers responded," says lead author Nancy A. Rigotti, MD, director of MGH's Tobacco Research and Treatment Center and professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "They might have increased their smoking due to stress and boredom. On the other hand, the fear of catching COVID might have led them to cut down or quit smoking. In fact, we found that both happened, and we examined reasons for both outcomes."

Rigotti and her colleagues analyzed survey responses from 694 current and former daily smokers--the average age was 53 years, 40% were male, and 78% were white--who had been hospitalized before the COVID-19 pandemic and had previously participated in a smoking cessation clinical trial at hospitals in Boston, Nashville and Pittsburgh. The survey was administered from May to July 2020.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents believed that smoking increases the risk of contracting COVID-19 or having a more severe case. This perceived risk was higher in Massachusetts (where COVID-19 had already surged) than in Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Higher perceived COVID-19 risk was associated with a higher interest in quitting smoking.

During the pandemic, 32% of respondents increased their smoking, 37% decreased their smoking, and 31% made no change. Those who increased their smoking tended to perceive more stress.

Also, 11% of respondents who smoked in January 2020 (before the pandemic) had quit smoking by the time the survey was administered (an average of six months later), while 28% of former smokers relapsed. Higher perceived COVID-19 risk was associated with a higher likelihood of quitting and a lower likelihood of relapse.

"Even before the pandemic, tobacco smoking was the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. COVID-19 has given smokers yet another good reason to stop smoking," says Rigotti. "Physicians, health care systems and public health agencies have an opportunity to educate smokers about their special vulnerability to COVID-19 and urge them to use this time to quit smoking for good."

"These messages will be more impactful if they guide smokers to programs like tobacco quitlines, which are available in every U.S. state and provide free counseling and medication to quit smoking," adds study co-leader Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH, founding director of ViTAL, the Vanderbilt Center for Tobacco, Addiction, and Lifestyle at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Smokers can access tobacco quitlines by calling 1-800-QUIT-NOW. Smokers can also visit ICOVIDQuit.org to view short videos of peers who successfully quit smoking during the pandemic.