Culture

An amateur fossil hunter has unearthed a new type of prehistoric 'sea dragon' on the beach of the UK's Dorset coast.

The new 2m-long ichthyosaurus is named 'Etches sea dragon', after fossil collector Dr Steve Etches MBE, who found it buried head-first in limestone. Ichthyosaurs are called sea dragons for their usually very large teeth and eyes.

He thought its teeth were unusual, so he passed it on to experts at the University of Portsmouth to identify.

There, a Masters student, Megan Jacobs, who has spent several years working on ichthyosaurs, identified it as a new genus and species, which lived 150 million years ago.

The find is the UK's fifth known ichthyosaur from the Late Jurassic period, and by far the smallest so far.

The research is published in the online journal PLOS ONE.

The specimen was found near Kimmeridge Bay - part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site - in a limestone known as the white stone band. When it died, the seafloor would have been a very soft ooze, allowing the front half of the animal to sink into the mud, before scavengers came along and ate the tail end.

Being buried in a bed of soft ooze meant it was preserved in exceptional condition and even some of its soft tissues were preserved.

Megan said: "Skeletons of Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs in the UK are extremely rare, so, after doing some research, comparing it with those known from other Late Jurassic deposits around the world, and not being able to find a match was very exciting.

"Thalassodraco etchesi is a beautifully preserved ichthyosaur, with soft tissue preservation making it all the more interesting.

"Steve's incredible collection contains many new and exciting animals, and being given the chance to describe this ichthyosaur was a real privilege."

Ichthyosaurs were highly adapted marine predators, with a streamlined body for gliding through the water, incredibly large eyes for enhanced vision, and elongated jaws full of conical teeth, well suited for catching slippery fish and squid.

Thalassodraco etchesi has a deep ribcage, small forelimbs and hundreds of tiny, delicate, smooth teeth.

Professor David Martill, who leads the vertebrate palaeontology research at the University of Portsmouth, said: "Steve is an exceptional fossil collector and although he is sometimes referred to as an amateur collector, he has done so much for palaeontology that he has been awarded an MBE, and is truly a pro.

"If it were not for collectors like Steve, scientists would have very few specimens to work on."

Now that the new sea dragon has been named, work will begin on investigating its biology.

Professor Martill said: "There are a number of things that make this animal special, not least of which is its unusual rib cage and small flippers. It may have swum with a distinctive style from other ichthyosaurs."

The specimen is on display alongside Dr Etches' other many fossils in his museum in Dorset, the Etches Collection, which he built to house the many discoveries he's made over a lifetime of fossil hunting.

Dr Etches said: "I'm very pleased that this ichthyosaur has been found to be new to science, and I'm very honoured for it to be named after me.

"It's excellent that new species of ichthyosaurs are still being discovered, which shows just how diverse these incredible animals were in the Late Jurassic seas."

Thalassodraco etchesi is closely related to Nannopterygius, a genus widespread across Europe, Russia and the Arctic.

Ichthyosaurs were highly successful marine reptiles, living in the seas for most of the Mesozoic, appearing around 248 million years ago in the Triassic period, and becoming extinct in the Late Cretaceous at around 90 million years ago.

Some of the last surviving ichthyosaurs have been found in the chalk on the Isle of Wight, but the first specimens to be described scientifically were found by Mary Anning at Lyme Regis at the beginning of the 19th century from rocks of Early Jurassic age.

The largest ichthyosaurs are from the Triassic period of North America some of which had a skull length of nearly five metres - 10 times bigger than the skull of this newest discovery.

WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation, published by IOS Press, is committed to helping organizations manage the challenges they face during the COVID-19 pandemic by publishing robust, evidence-based research and commentary. All articles featured here and in the WORK COVID-19 Collection are freely available.

Telehealth can deliver robust outcomes for children with special education needs

New research finds telehealth can be very effective in the delivery of support for students with special education needs, particularly when barriers to services exist, as during the current global COVID-19 pandemic. "While services delivered by telehealth should not be considered a replacement for in-person occupational therapy (OT) services, telehealth's positive attributes are powerful," say authors Cynthia Abbott-Gaffney, OTD, MA, OTR/L, Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Occupational Therapy Program, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA, and Karen Jacobs, EdD, OT, OTR, CPE, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College, Occupational Therapy Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA. "Our research highlights the need for robust training, practice and support to ensure that practitioners have the opportunity to develop best practices and identify options for overcoming digital, financial and collaboration support barriers for those we serve."

"Telehealth in school-based practice: Perceived viability to bridge global OT practitioner shortages prior to COVID-19 global health emergency," by Cynthia Abbott-Gaffney and Karen Jacobs (https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-203240).

Author contact: Cynthia Abbott-Gaffney at cynthia.abbott-gaffney@temple.edu

Let's get back to work: Proactive biological cycle management to reduce the risk of COVID-19 in workplaces

Established expertise and knowledge from occupational health and safety experts, following the three principles of biological cycle management, can open an exit ramp from lockdown and support employees' return to work. These principles are self-care (individuals take care of their own health by wearing a mask and handwashing, for example); other-care (individuals protect the health of others); and self-quarantine (individuals stay at home when they have symptoms of COVID-19 or have been exposed to someone who has). Education at work can support compliance with these principles. "Closing a workplace means unemployment and increasing social and family harm. These are physical and mental risks in their own right. Work is supported even in a pandemic by following the principles of biological safety management," observes senior author Vahid Gharibi, PhD Student, Department of Occupational Health, School of Health, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran; and Department of Occupational Health, School of Public Health, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran.

"Let's get back to work: Preventive biological cycle management of COVID-19 in the workplace," by Mehdi Jahangiri, Rosanna Cousins, and Vahid Gharibi (https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-203217).

Author contact: Vahid Gharibi at gharibivahid@gmail.com or +98 912 738 8145 (mobile or WhatsApp)

Yoga practice encouraged to meet the mental, emotional and physical challenges of working from home during COVID-19

Researchers review the evidence of yoga's beneficial impact on stress reduction, the immune system and in certain co-morbidities associated with severe or lethal COVID-19. "Yoga practice can reduce the risks of comorbid conditions and strengthen the immune system by relieving stress and anxiety, directly improving impact markers, or both. Yoga practices can be employed at home and workplaces alike," explain senior authors Akshay Anand, PhD, and Kanupriya Sharma, PhD candidate, Neuroscience Research Lab, Department of Neurology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, India. Yoga-based modules such as Yoga Scholars PGIMER on Facebook, the Common Yoga Protocol developed for the International Day of Yoga and the 5?min Y break AYUSH Protocol can be easily accessed by those working from home.

"The role of Yoga in working from home during the COVID-19 global lockdown," by Kanupriya Sharma, Akshay Anand, and Raj Kumar (https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-203219).

Author contact: Akshay Anand at +919815968102 or akshay1anand@rediffmail.com

Underemployment is overlooked as a significant consequence of the COVID-19 epidemic

While unemployment is a very visible sign of an unhealthy economy, underemployment is a latent and passive manifestation of the same. A large number of workers will become underemployed during the COVID-19 epidemic, working increased hours, for less money, in jobs that underutilize skills and are not appropriate or productive. Researchers review the consequences of underemployment in this time and call for organizations and policy makers to develop programs and policies to mitigate the impacts. Senior investigator Manjeet Kaur, PhD, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India, notes, "A study of employment can never be complete without dealing with the socio-economic and psychological issues related to underemployment, because they harm the individual, organization and economy on the whole."

"Individual, interpersonal and economic challenges of underemployment in the wake of COVID-19," by Manjeet Kaur, Pratibha Goyal, and Mini Goyal (https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-203249).

Author contact: Majeet Kaur at kaurmanjeet2694@gmail.com

Researchers see an opportunity to create a "new normal" for people with disabilities post-Covid-19 pandemic

Peer-reviewed research related to the effect of COVID-19 on individuals with disabilities, analyzed through a "systems-thinking" approach, suggests five key leverage points for the advancement of the disability and rehabilitation fields post-pandemic. They are the development of disability-inclusive public health responses and emergency preparedness; enabling employment and telework opportunities for people with disabilities; and addressing new requirements in rehabilitation service provision, including in the care of people with infectious diseases such as COVID-19; embracing telehealth; and developing greater resilience, distance learning, and employability among the rehabilitation workforce. "If successful, we can move towards a transformed society with improved capacity and capabilities for increasing the health, employment, equity, and quality of life for people with disabilities. To achieve anything less would be a lost opportunity to 'build back better," suggests Tiago S. Jesus, PhD, OT, Global Health and Tropical Medicine and WHO Collaborating Center on Health Workforce Policy and Planning, Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.

"A 'new normal' following COVID-19 and the economic crisis: Using systems thinking to identify challenges and opportunities in disability, telework, and rehabilitation," by Tiago S. Jesus, Michel D. Landry, and Karen Jacobs (http://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-203250).

Author contact: Tiago S. Jesus at jesus-ts@outlook.com

A new study from scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and the University of Chicago sheds light on a hotly contested debate in Earth sciences: when did plate subduction begin?

According to findings published Dec. 9 in the journal Science Advances, this process could have started 3.75 billion years ago, reshaping Earth's surface and setting the stage for a planet hospitable to life.

For geochemists like Scripps assistant professor and study lead author Sarah Aarons, the clues to Earth's earliest habitability lie in the elements that ancient rocks are composed of - specifically titanium. Aarons analyzed samples of Earth's oldest-known rocks from the Acasta Gneiss Complex in the Canadian tundra - an outcrop of gneisses 4.02 billion years old. These rocks are dated from the Hadean eon, which started at the beginning of Earth's formation and was defined by hellish conditions on a planet that would look alien to our modern eyes.

Aarons' research focused on isotopes, which are variations of the same element based on the number of neutrons they have. Taking the samples from Acasta Gneiss provided by Jesse Reimink, an assistant professor at Penn State University, she crushed bits of the rock into a powder that was then heated to form a glass bead, a process that allows dissolution of the titanium she sought to analyze. Once cooled, the bead was dissolved in acid and the titanium was chemically separated from other elements. Aarons was then able to determine the variations of titanium isotopes present in the sample using a mass spectrometer in the Origins lab led by her collaborator Nicolas Dauphas at the University of Chicago.

Aarons compared these samples to newer, modern rocks formed in subduction zones. In samples aged at 3.75 billion years old, she noticed similarities in structure and composition to the modern ones, suggesting that plate subduction began around that time.

"A lot of previous work has been done on these rocks to carefully date them, and provide the geochemical and petrological context," said Aarons. "We were very lucky to get the opportunity to measure titanium isotope compositions, a burgeoning isotope system in these samples."

Studying the history and onset of ancient subduction zones is notoriously difficult. Rocks are constantly destroyed as the crust is driven inward into the mantle, leaving behind few samples that date back into Earth's earliest history. Scientists have long debated when plate tectonics and subduction began, with estimates ranging from 0.85 to 4.2 billion years ago - more than two-thirds of the planet's history. Discovering when plate subduction began means pinpointing when Earth transitioned from a planet dominated by transient landmasses piercing through the oceans' surface to one composed of long-lived continents where long-term biogeochemical cycles are controlled by volcanic degassing and recycling into Earth's interior.

Plate subduction occurs when oceanic crust and continental crust collide. Because continental crust is thicker and less dense, oceanic crust is pushed downward into the Earth's mantle, at an average rate of a few centimeters each year. This contact with the mantle creates areas that are hot enough for magma to escape to the surface, creating volcanoes such as Mount St. Helens and others found along the Pacific Rim.

Plate tectonics and subduction zones are responsible for the way Earth looks, driving the creation of continental plates and the basins that would fill to become oceans. They are also the primary control on the chemical characteristics of the planet's surface, and are likely responsible for Earth's ability to sustain life. These tectonic zones are responsible for the formation of emerged continents and provide an important control on climate by regulating the amounts of the greenhouse carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

In four-billion-year-old rock samples, Aarons saw similarities to modern rocks that are formed in plume settings, like Hawaii and Iceland, where a landmass is drifting over a hot spot. However, in rocks aged at 3.75 billion years, she noticed a shift in trend to rocks that are formed in modern subduction zones, suggesting that around that time in Earth's history these areas began forming.

"While the trend in the titanium isotope data does not provide evidence that plate tectonics was happening globally, it does indicate the presence of wet magmatism, which supports subduction at this time," said Aarons.

Nearly two decades ago, a small-bodied "human-like" fossil, Homo floresiensis, was discovered on an island in Indonesia. Some scientists have credited the find, now nicknamed "Hobbit," as representative of a human ancestor who developed dwarfed features after living on the island, while others suggest it represents a modern human suffering from some type of disease because of its distinct human-like face and small brain.

Colleen B. Young, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri, has always been naturally curious about the nature of the human "footprint," or how humans impact their environments and vice versa. She believes the Hobbit adjusted from a longer-legged version of itself to meet the demands of an isolated, island environment.

"Homo erectus, considered our recent ancestor, likely developed its long legs over time in order to increase its ability to walk long distances as its environment expanded," Young said. "So, when humans arrived on that island in Indonesia and became isolated, their bodies -- once built for efficiency over long distances -- were probably no longer beneficial for their new environment. Instead, a smaller body size probably improved their lifestyle."

Young, who is working on her doctorate in biological anthropology in the College of Arts and Science, tested several popular assumptions about the characteristics of Homo floresiensis by comparing an island fox from California's Channel Islands with its mainland U.S. relative, the gray fox. Young said upon arrival, the island fox underwent a 30% reduction in body size and developed smaller body features that are different than the mainland gray fox. She believes this change in body size was likely due to adjustments the island fox made to survive in its new, isolated environment.

"The gray fox is a migratory, omnivorous animal, similar to our recent ancestors," Young said. "This study indicates that animals living on islands that become smaller in size may also have distinct limbs and body features just because of their new island environment. Therefore, the distinctive body features on the small-bodied Homo floresiensis are probably products of evolving in an island environment, and not resulting from suffering from diseases."

Young said this animal model, which includes taking into account the surrounding ecosystem, can help scientists better understand the body size and limbs of Homo floresiensis, and how they relate to human ancestors. She thinks this model can also help open new doors in the field of anthropology.

"The popular idea that every little difference in a fossil means the discovery of a new species is probably not as accurate as we once thought," Young said. "There was probably a lot more variation going on throughout human evolution than we first thought, and these findings exemplify that variation can occur just by migrating to and living on an island. We're just starting to scratch the surface."

In a similar way to animal guts and the intestinal epithelium, plant roots are in charge of absorbing nutrients and water and of its subsequent transport to the vascular systems. These are carefully monitored by the endodermis, the innermost layer of the cortex, and its diffusion barriers, whose main role is to maintain mineral nutrient homeostasis. But unlike animals, in which the relationship between the epithelium and the microbiota has been somewhat decoded, in plants the way the root diffusion barriers harmonizes with the resident microbiota is still to be fully comprehended.

In a paper published in the last edition of Science, a team composed of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Nottingham, ITQB NOVA, Université Sine-Saloum El Hadj Ibrahima NIASSE, and the University of Bonn has shown that, in the common model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the genes that regulate the endodermal root diffusion barrier influence the configuration of the plant microbiome, and that likewise the microbiomes that colonize the root also influence the function of the root diffusion barrier, transforming the endodermis into a regulatory hub. "It is this tight arrangement between root diffusion barriers and the microbiome that allows to keep the balance of mineral nutrients of plants and provides them a way to cope with fluctuations in mineral nutrient supplies", explains co-author Valeria Custódio, ITQB NOVA PhD student affiliated with the GREEN-IT research unit.

This study not only shows a generalized role of the microbiome in controlling diffusion barrier functions across kingdoms, but it also indicates that this coordination may influence plant performance in a fluctuating environment with consequences on agriculture and food quality, possibly contributing to the future development of plants better adapted to extreme environmental conditions.

Scientists at UC Davis Health have discovered that an enzyme in the colon lining releases hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) - a known disinfecting compound- to protect the body from gut microbes. Their study, published Dec. 9 in the journal Cell Host and Microbe, sheds light on the way microorganisms are spatially organized in the colon. It also calls for a new approach to treating gut inflammation.

Most microbes reside in the large intestine, a naturally low-oxygen environment. They form a community called the gut microbiota.

"More than half of the human body consists of microbes that do not tolerate oxygen very well," said Andreas Bäumler, professor of medical microbiology and immunology and lead author on the study.

The gut microbiota is kept away from the colon's surface. This separation is essential to avoid inflammation caused by unnecessary immune responses to gut microbes. Scientists believed the spatial separation is maintained by oxygen released by cells to prevent microbes from coming too close to the intestinal lining. This study upends that theory.

"We looked at the spatial relationships between the bacteria in the gut and its host, the colon," Bäumler said. "We found that cells in the colon's lining release hydrogen peroxide- not oxygen- to limit microbial growth."

NOX1, an enzyme found in the intestinal lining, provides a significant source of H2O2 in the colon. The naturally generated H2O2 serves as a filter regulating the location of the microbiota in the colon. Pathogens that utilize hydrogen peroxide can only do so when they are directly attached to the intestinal lining. This finding suggests that the body uses the disinfectant to protect the mucosal surface. Meanwhile, the microbial communities at a distance from the colon surface remain unharmed.

Treating gut inflammation with natural filter restoration, not antibiotics

When the body experiences an imbalance in the gut microbial community, it suffers from dysbiosis, a gastrointestinal condition. Dysbiosis may cause inflammation and symptoms such as nausea, upset stomach and bloating. Traditional treatments of dysbiosis rely mainly on the use of antibiotics or probiotics to target the bacteria.

Findings from the new study indicate the need for a different approach to treating gut inflammation and dysbiosis. They pointed to the opportunity of restoring host functions instead of eliminating microbes.

"We need to shift the focus of gut inflammation treatments from targeting bacteria to fixing habitat filters of the host and restoring their functionality," Bäumler said.

Ithaca, N.Y.--As migratory birds travel back and forth between their breeding and wintering grounds twice each year, they face many hazards. For species that migrate during the night, one of those dangers is the disorienting influence of light pollution from cities. A new study in the journal Environmental Pollution examines how artificial light at night and urban landcover are associated with the presence of nocturnal migrants across seasons.

Scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Colorado State University used observations from the Lab's eBird citizen-science program to estimate the seasonal species richness of nocturnally migrating passerines within 333 well surveyed urban areas in the contiguous U.S. "Richness" is defined as the number of different species in an area.

"We modeled the relationship between species richness and the level of light pollution, the proportion of tree canopy cover, and the proportion of impervious surface, such as roads and parking lots, across urban areas" says lead author Frank La Sorte at the Cornell Lab.

Results showed that higher levels of light pollution during the winter and summer was associated with the presence of fewer species . But more light pollution resulted in more species during spring and fall migration. These finding reinforce what other studies have uncovered: that nocturnal migrants are attracted to artificial light at night, which often leaves them disoriented and vulnerable.

As expected, the greatest number of species were found in urban areas during spring and fall migration and the lowest during the winter and summer. Where there was more tree cover, there was also a greater number of species during the summer and especially migration.

"We also found that higher species richness during the winter was associated with higher concentrations of impervious surface," says La Sorte. "We think this is due to the urban 'heat island' effect, which has the potential to reduce cold stress and enhance insect densities for these species."

The study authors say their findings highlight the value of tree canopy cover in urban areas during migration and the breeding season, and the importance of reducing light pollution during migration when the most significant adverse effects for migratory bird populations are likely to occur.

SAN FRANCISCO (December 9, 2020) -- This past year, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences added 213 plant and animal species to the tree of life, providing deeper insight into the rich biodiversity of our planet and helping to inform global conservation strategies. The new species include 101 ants, 22 crickets, 15 fishes, 11 geckos, 11 sea slugs, 11 flowering plants, eight beetles, eight fossil echinoderms, seven spiders, five snakes, two skinks, two aphids, two eels, one moss, one frog, one fossil amphibian, one seahorse, one fossil scallop, one sea biscuit, one fossil crinoid (or sea lily), and one coral. More than two dozen Academy scientists--along with many more collaborators throughout the world--described the new species.

While the coronavirus has presented unique challenges this year for Academy scientists--whose research typically involves expeditions or visits to scientific collections--it has also underscored the importance of their work. "Unfortunately, the pandemic is a symptom of our broken relationship with nature," says Academy virologist and Chief of Science Shannon Bennett, PhD. "These newly described species represent one aspect of a growing collective effort to mend that relationship. By improving our understanding of Earth's biodiversity and bringing us more in touch with the natural world, each new species serves as an important reminder--as does the pandemic--of our vital role in protecting our planet's ecosystems."

Below are thematic highlights from the 213 new species described by the Academy this past year. On January 7, 2021, there will be a virtual NightSchool event celebrating the new species, featuring several of the researchers who described them. For a full list of species and hi-res images, please contact press@calacademy.org.

Looking back moves science forward

For researchers interested in describing new species, there are few places more rich in taxonomic treasures than natural history collections like those found at the Academy. Colloquially known as a 'library of life,' the Academy's collections contain more than 46 million specimens representing many branches across the tree of life.

Since describing species takes time and expertise, a number of specimens in our collections represent species unknown to science. Indeed, that was the case for a number of this year's new species, including the striking bush pit viper, Atheris hetfieldi, which was described from a single Academy specimen collected in the early 1900s.

Importantly, the specimens found in natural history collections span both time and space, providing baseline data for the geographic distribution of species at various points in the past. For example, the collections used by Academy Curator of Botany Frank Almeda, PhD, and visiting researcher Ricardo Pacifico for this year's newly described flowering plants in the genus Microlicia provide researchers with potential locations in Brazil where they might find living specimens. Once found in the wild, the locations can be cross-referenced with information from the archived specimens to paint a picture of how the plant's range has changed over time--invaluable information when assessing the conservation status of the species.

To gain a deeper knowledge of these changes, however, requires specimens collected on geologic timescales--across millennia instead of centuries. Fortunately, fossils can provide these windows to the past.

"Fossils provide a unique opportunity to observe how past species, communities, and ecosystems have responded to environmental change," says Academy collections manager Christine Garcia, who described the fossil scallop Lyropecten terrysmithae, which lived in California around 11 million years ago. "Moreover, this evidence can offer insights into how modern species and ecosystems may respond to human-driven changes in the near future."

Amber fossils can be particularly insightful since they often preserve features that other fossils do not, such as muscle tissue or plant matter. Using this additional information, Academy Research Associate Aaron Bauer, PhD, and his colleagues determined that the amber-trapped amphibian Yaksha peretti likely used its tongue as a slingshot to catch prey, similar to modern-day chameleons, extending the evolutionary origins of this adaptation to 100 million years ago.

Technologies driving discoveries

After running a genetic analysis on an unknown species of sea slug, Lynn Bonomo, an early-career researcher working with Academy Curator of Invertebrate Zoology Terry Gosliner, PhD, was skeptical of her results. "I thought I had messed up," she recalls. According to her analysis, the new nudibranch was a member of Chromodoris, a colorful genus of sea slugs that typically sport prominent black stripes along the length of their bodies. But Bonomo's species, which she aptly named Chromodoris kalawakan ('kalawakan' means 'galaxy' in Filipino), is cloudy gray with pinpricks of white.

After double-checking the analysis and studying the internal morphology of the specimen, however, Gosliner confirmed the finding: C. kalawakan was in an entirely different genus than expected and Bonomo had the basis for describing her first species.

While it is exciting for a new species to bounce between genera, it is not uncommon. Even experts can misidentify unfamiliar species if the organisms lack the typical morphology of one genus or present those of another. To untangle these twisted branches on the tree of life, researchers turn to gene sequencing technologies, like those used by Bonomo, which determine the relationships between species through mathematical analyses.

In addition to morphology and genetics, researchers also use behavior to distinguish species. For example, when describing this year's new species of crickets, Academy Research Assistant David Weissman, PhD, partially relied on analyses of the insects' chirps. Using recording equipment and audio software, entomologists like Weissman capture the sound waves of cricket calls to compare with those of known species.

For some species, technology not only plays a significant role in how they are described but also how they are discovered. At up to 500 feet (approximately 150 meters) below the ocean's surface, mesophotic coral reefs pose challenges for conducting scientific research. Using traditional scuba gear to study these reefs would be impossible due to the intense pressure at such depths and the long duration necessary to reach them.

To overcome these oceanic obstacles, scientists at the Academy use revolutionary diving technologies. Closed-circuit rebreathers scrub the carbon dioxide from exhaled breaths, then return oxygenated air mixed with helium to the diver so they can observe beautiful new species, such as this year's Cirrhilabrus briangreenei, for longer at mesophotic depths.

Together these innovative technologies--gene sequencing, sound analysis, deep-sea diving equipment, and more--allow researchers to explore the biodiversity of our world like never before, adding both species and clarity to the tree of life.

Finding unfamiliar species in familiar places

Despite decades of scouring the Earth, it is estimated that more than 90% of species remain unknown to science. More humbling still, a number of the newly described species each year--including an inconspicuous pipefish--are found hidden in plain sight.

Off the coast of Botany Bay, Australia, a popular scuba diving site near Sydney, pipefish have long been known to exist in the shallows among seagrass or brown algae, hiding from would-be predators. Until Research Associate Graham Short, PhD, discovered Stigmatopora harastii, however, none had been documented in red algae before--brown algae's deepwater relative that's lower in abundance. By subverting researchers' expectations of the genus, this unique evolutionary advantage allowed S. harastii to not only avoid competition with shallow-dwelling pipefish that prefer brown algae, but evade scientific scrutiny as well.

In addition to cryptic behavior driven by evolution, another explanation for finding undescribed species in familiar places is human encroachment on nature. As major cities like Guwahati, India--home to the newly described gecko Crytodactylus urbanus--expand, surrounding ecosystems shrink. As a result, some species lose their preferred habitat and are forced out, while others well-suited to urban landscapes thrive, including some that are new to science.

Though urban expansion can be ecologically disruptive, community outreach can inspire appreciation for the species that still call concrete jungles home. Indeed, part of Research Associate Aaron Bauer's motivation for naming the gecko C. urbanus was to raise awareness about the value of urban species. "Since this diversity occurs where people live, it provides an opportunity for them to connect with nature in their own backyard," Bauer says. Importantly, this increased appreciation of local biodiversity can drive conservation efforts to protect these fragile environments.

From urban spaces to unexpected places, understanding biodiversity--particularly where humans and nature coexist and therefore where nature is most vulnerable--is crucial for effectively stewarding the planet. By continuing to scour the known for the unknown, researchers can deepen that understanding and further foster an appreciation for the natural world.

To ensure that California's groundwater is sustainably managed in the future and over the long-term, current state definitions of what constitutes groundwater may need to be revised, according to research published this week in PNAS. A McGill University-led research team has analyzed big data of more than 200,000 groundwater samples taken from across the state and found that there are problems with the guidelines used for groundwater management. Known as the 'Base of Fresh Water', the guidelines are close to fifty years old and don't reflect current uses, knowledge, concerns or technologies related to managing groundwater in this coastal state with a multi-billion-dollar agricultural industry.

The research shows that existing groundwater wells already penetrate and encroach upon the bases of fresh water that are used to define basin bottoms. In addition, brackish waters exist within current groundwater basins, and fresh water exists outside delineated groundwater basins. Brackish water, which was once deemed unusable, can now be used, thanks to technological advances. Finally, there are concerns about regulating groundwater on the basis of its quality rather than its usage, as is currently the case, since this provides a loophole for potential groundwater users who could drill deeper and skirt existing restrictions on freshwater pumping.

Together, these findings suggest that groundwater may already be poorly safeguarded in some places and that the 'Base of Fresh Water' concept may need to be reconsidered as a means to define and sustainably manage groundwater in future.

Need for up-to-date information to manage a critical resource

"It is challenging for groundwater sustainability agencies to manage groundwater because this critical resource is not being sufficiently monitored," says Mary Kang, an Assistant Professor in McGill University's Department of Civil Engineering and the lead author on the study. An expert on groundwater issues, she has studied the topic in California since 2014. "The base of fresh water was historically set to protect high quality groundwater from oil and gas development. And we find that there is a mismatch between this base of fresh water and what the water quality data shows."

"One component to managing groundwater sustainably is evaluating the physical resource within the context of its users", says Debra Perrone co-author of the study and Assistant Professor in UC Santa Barbara's Environmental Studies Program. "We evaluate the link between groundwater quality, particularly salinity, and groundwater users. We show that the current approach used to manage deep groundwater in some places may risk overlooking the complex realities pertaining to both groundwater salinity and groundwater users. For example, the data suggest that people are constructing groundwater wells deeper than the base of fresh water in some areas."

In 2014, in response to repeated droughts, the state passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to regulate groundwater for the first time in California's history. However, the effectiveness of this legislation is yet to be determined, as it relies upon administrative definitions of groundwater that are based on the extent of fresh water to define a vertical or three-dimensional groundwater basin for managing water.

"The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act currently only applies to fresh groundwater basins since administrative definitions of groundwater originated decades ago when it was economically infeasible to treat and distribute 'unusable' brackish or saline groundwater," says co-author Melissa Rohde, a scientist with The Nature Conservancy of California. Rohde is currently providing scientific support to advance the successful implementation of SGMA. "With technological advances, brackish water is now usable and increasingly desirable with declining access to fresh water. By excluding brackish groundwater from sustainable groundwater management, we run the risk of undermining SGMA and overexploiting this important public resource."

ATLANTA--We all run from a burning building the same way--fast!--but how we describe it depends on the language we speak. In some languages, we might flee, race, or bolt, while in others we might just exit or leave the building quickly..

Different languages describe motion differently, according to distinct lexical rules. And though we may not consciously notice those rules, we follow them--and Georgia State researchers have found they affect how our brains perceive and process descriptions of physical movement.

Our brain has to work a little harder when we're reading about physical movement in a way that is not typical in our native language, according to a new study by ?eyda Özçal??kan, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgia State University, former faculty member Christopher M. Conway, and Samantha Emerson, a former Georgia State University graduate student. Their study, "Semantic P600--but not N400--effects index crosslinguistic variability in speakers' expectancies for expression of motion" was published recently in the journal Neuropsychologia.

"Physical movement always has the same key components, no matter where you live in the world, no matter what language you speak," explains Özçal??kan. "But languages talk about it differently."

Languages such as English, Polish, German and Dutch include the manner in which we move in the actual verb (we bolt, race, dawdle, sashay). But other languages, such as Spanish, Turkish, Japanese or Korean, add the manner at the end as a modifier (we enter rapidly, we ascend slowly).

Languages also differ in the way they describe the path of physical movement. Spanish includes path in the verb: we descend the mountain, or more dramatically, we descend the mountain arduously. But other languages, such as English and German, add the path after the motion: we crawl down the mountain.

The way we habitually express motion becomes internalized, says Özçal??kan, and likely affects how we perceive our world, particularly when speaking. And when we're faced with another language's unfamiliar description, our brain has to work harder momentarily. This can actually be measured with an electroencephalogram (EEG), a test used to evaluate the electrical activity in the brain. In their new study, the researchers tested motion descriptions in English and Spanish and found a surprising pattern.

"We found a very interesting pattern which in scientific language is called the P600 effect," said Emerson, who now works at the Center for Childhood Deafness, Language, & Learning at Boys Town National Research Hospital in Omaha. "It is usually found in response to grammatical errors. We think that when you read a sentence structured in a way that is unfamiliar, you have to stop and go back and analyze it just as you would with a grammatical error."

Then your brain has to "repair" those violations to your expectations, Emerson said. That means your brain has to exert a stronger electrical signal.

This is the first study that has examined actual neural activity in the brain in response to cross-linguistic differences related to motion. "And this study follows a long line of research on motion events at our lab at Georgia State University," said Özçal??kan.

Previous studies in Özçal??kan's laboratory have looked at how individuals use their hands when speaking, which also differs strongly across languages. In future studies, the researchers want to test a variety of the world's languages, to see if the P600 pattern remains when describing physical movement. They also want to test Spanish and English bilingual speakers to see if there is still a P600 effect when one is fluent in both languages.

In the end, this kind of research can give us insights into how our brains interpret the world around us, influenced by language in ways we never would have expected or perhaps even noticed.

Despite their excellent auditory capacities, dogs do not attend to differences between words which differ only in one speech sound (e.g. dog vs dig), according to a new study by Hungarian researchers of the MTA-ELTE 'Lendület' Neuroethology of Communication Research Group at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (ELTE) measuring brain activity with non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) on awake dogs. This might be a reason why the number of words dogs learn to recognize typically remains very low throughout their life. The study is published in Royal Society Open Science.

Dogs can distinguish human speech sounds (e.g. "d", "o" and "g") and there are similarities in the neuronal processing of words between dogs and humans. However, most of the dogs can learn a few words only throughout their lives even if they live in a human family and are surrounded by human speech. Magyari and her colleagues hypothesized that despite dog's human-like auditory capacities for analyzing speech sounds, dogs might be less ready to attend to all differences between speech sounds when they listen to words.

To test this idea, the researchers developed a procedure for measuring electrical activity in the brain non-invasively on awake, untrained, family dogs. Electroencephalography (EEG) is an often used technique in human clinical and research studies and it has been also successfully applied on tranquilized, sleeping or awake but trained dogs. However, in this study, the researchers measured EEG on awake dogs without any specific training.

Researchers invited dogs and their owners to the lab. After the dog got familiar with the room and the experimenters, the experimenters asked the owner to sit down on a mattress together with her dog as it would be a relaxation time for them. Then, the experimenters put electrodes on the dog's head and fixed it with a tape. With the electrodes on, dogs listened to tape-recorded instruction words they knew (e.g. "sit"), to similar but nonsense words (e.g. "sut"), and to very different nonsense words (e.g. "bep").

Video abstract about the research: https://youtu.be/dNQTPmg1KWc

"The electroencephalography is a sensitive method not only to brain activity but also to muscle-movements. Therefore, we had to make sure that dogs tense their muscles as little as possible during measurement. We also wanted to include any type of family dogs in our study not only specially trained animals. Therefore, we decided that instead of training our dog-participants, we will ask them just to relax. Of course, some of the dogs who came to the experiment could not settle down and did not let us do the measurement. But the dropout rate from the study was similar to the dropout rate in EEG studies with human infants. It was also an exciting process for us to learn how we can create a relaxing and safe atmosphere in the lab for both the dogs and their owners." -says lead author Lilla Magyari, postdoctoral researcher at Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary.

The analysis of the recorded electric brain activity showed that dog brains clearly and quickly discriminated the known words from the very different nonsense words starting from 200 ms after the beginning of the words. This effect is in line with similar studies on humans which show that the human brain responds differently to meaningful and nonsense words already within a few hundred milliseconds. But the dogs' brains made no difference between known words and those nonsense words that differed in a single speech sound only. This pattern is more similar to the results of experiments with human infants who are around 14-months. Infants become efficient in processing phonetic details of words, which is an important prerequisite for developing a large vocabulary, between 14 and 20 months. But younger infants do not process phonetic details of words in certain experimental and word learning situations despite the fact that infants are able to differentiate speech sounds perceptually within weeks after birth.

"Similarly to the case of human infants, we speculate that the similarity of dogs' brain activity for instruction words they know and for similar nonsense words reflects not perceptual constraints but attentional and processing biases. Dogs might not attend to all details of speech sound when they listen to words. Further research could reveal whether this could be a reason that incapacitates dogs from acquiring a sizable vocabulary."- concludes Attila Andics, principal investigator of the MTA-ELTE 'Lendület' Neuroethology of Communication Research Group.

Healthcare workers are 7 times as likely to have severe COVID-19 infection as those with other types of 'non-essential' jobs, finds research focusing on the first UK-wide lockdown and published online in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

And those with jobs in the social care and transport sectors are twice as likely to do so, emphasising the need to ensure that essential (key) workers are adequately protected against the infection, say the researchers.

Few studies have looked at the differences in the risk of developing severe COVID-19 infection between different groups of workers. While it's known that those working in healthcare roles are at heightened risk, it's not clear what the risks might be for those working in other sectors.

The researchers therefore compared the risk of developing severe COVID-19 infection in essential and non-essential workers, drawing on linked data from the UK Biobank study (2006-10), COVID-19 test results from Public Health England, and recorded deaths for the period 16 March to 26 July 2020.

The UK Biobank is a long term study tracking the factors potentially influencing the development of disease in around half a million middle and older age adults.

Severe infection was defined as a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, while in hospital, or death attributable to the virus.

The study included 120,075 employees aged 49-64. Of these, 35,127 (29%) were classified as essential workers: healthcare (9%); social care and education (11%); 'other' to include police and those working in transport and food preparation (9%)

Those of Black and Asian ethnicities comprised nearly 3% each of the total. They were more likely to be essential workers, as were women.

In all, 271 employees had severe COVID-19 infection. Healthcare professionals, defined as doctors and pharmacists; medical support staff; health associate professionals, defined as nurses and paramedics; and social care and transport workers had higher rates of severe COVID-19 than non-essential workers.

Compared with non-essential workers, those working in healthcare roles were more than 7 times as likely to have severe infection.

And those working in social care and in education were 84% as likely to do so; while 'other' essential workers had a 60% higher risk of developing severe COVID-19.

When the researchers refined the employment categories further, it emerged that medical support staff were nearly 9 times as likely to develop severe disease; those in social care almost 2.5 times as likely to do so; while transport workers were twice as likely to do so.

And when the researchers looked at the impact of ethnicity, they found that the risks of severe infection for Black and Asian non-essential workers were similar to those for white essential workers, suggesting that ethnicity is a key factor.

Non-essential workers of Black and Asian backgrounds were also more than 3 times as likely to develop severe COVID-19 infection as white non-essential workers, while Black and Asian essential workers were more than 8 times as likely to do so.

With the exception of transport workers, for whom heightened risk of severe COVID-19 infection was linked to socioeconomic status, the findings held true even after accounting for potentially influential risk factors, including lifestyle, co-existing health problems, and work patterns.

This is an observational study, and therefore can't establish cause. And the authors acknowledge that their initial background data were collected more than a decade ago, so they were unable to account for any changes in health, lifestyle, income and employment status. The UK Biobank is also not representative of the broader population.

Nor were the researchers able to take account of the changes in risk over time, such as the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE). Nevertheless, the findings echo those of other studies, they point out.

And they conclude: "Our findings reinforce the need for adequate health and safety arrangements and provision of PPE for essential workers, especially in the health and social care sectors. The health and wellbeing of essential workers is critical to limiting the spread and managing the burden of global pandemics."

The prevalence of depressive symptoms rose substantially among young children during the UK-wide lockdown in response to the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, finds research focusing on one region of England and published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The effect size was medium to large, indicate the findings, which have implications for future partial or complete school closures, suggest the researchers.

Social distancing and school closures during the lengthy lockdown across the UK earlier this year are thought to have badly affected children's mental health.

But there has been little hard evidence to substantiate this, largely because it is hard to find good baseline data, for the same children, collected before the first lockdown on March 23.

The researchers were able to get round this by drawing on data on children living in the East of England who were part of the Resilience in Education and Development (RED) study.

During lockdown,168 of their parents--equivalent to 29% of the overall sample--completed online validated mental health assessments to rate their children's emotional wellbeing, anxiety and depression.

These ratings were then compared with baseline data collected around 18 months earlier, which included a mixture of parent-, teacher-, and child-rated mental health measures.

Compared with the initial baseline assessment, there were no significant changes in levels of anxiety or emotional wellbeing during lockdown.

But a significant increase of 0.74 in depressive symptoms was observed, the effect size of which was medium to large. Put simply, this means that, on average, there was around a 70% chance that depressive symptoms worsened during lockdown in any child.

These findings held true even after accounting for potentially influential factors, including age, gender, and socioeconomic status, although larger numbers of children are needed to confirm this, say the researchers.

To find out whether changes during lockdown might have been driven by specific items within the depression scale, the researchers looked at changes in responses to each individual question in the mental health scales.

This revealed significant increases for 4 out of 5 of the depression questions during lockdown in respect of lethargy, struggling to enjoy activities, and feelings of sadness or emptiness.

This is an observational study; the numbers are relatively small; and from one area of England only, so may not be more widely applicable, caution the researchers.

But they point out: "The backdrop is that children's mental health appears to be worsening across successive cohorts, and even before lockdown, the resources for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services were stretched thin.

"The current findings suggest that lockdown measures will likely exacerbate this, specifically with an increase in childhood depression symptoms, something previously relatively uncommon in children of this age."

They add: "Our findings emphasise the need to incorporate the potential impact of lockdown on child mental health in planning the ongoing response to the global pandemic and the recovery from it."

Dr Karen Street is a paediatric consultant and mental health lead at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), which co-owns the journal with BMJ.

She commented: "This study reports what many paediatricians have observed--while children rarely become ill with COVID-19, they have been significantly affected by the measures taken to reduce transmission of the virus.

She added: "The RCPCH welcomes the government's ongoing commitment to keep schools open. It would also be good to see extra-curricular activities and opportunities for children and young people return as soon as possible.

"While we hope that for many children a return to normality will see a 'rebound' in their emotional wellbeing, we also know that the socioeconomic impact of lockdown for many families will be ongoing for many years, and that this will have secondary negative effects on the mental health of children.

"Persisting mental health problems in childhood and adolescence are associated with poor outcomes for educational attainment, employment, and long term physical and mental health so it is vital there is sufficient investment in health, education and the voluntary sector to support children's mental health as we recover from the pandemic."

A decade after the birth of the first primates born with the aid of a gene therapy technique designed to prevent inherited mitochondrial disease, a careful study of the monkeys and their offspring reveals no adverse health effects.

Led by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University, the study published Dec. 8 in the journal Human Reproduction.

The new study generally bolsters the scientific basis for mitochondrial replacement therapy in human clinical trials, with an important caveat: Researchers found varying levels of carryover maternal mitochondrial DNA that had preferentially replicated and accumulated within some internal organs, although not enough to cause health effects.

"Our data show that MRT is compatible with normal development, fertility and aging in nonhuman primates without any detected adverse effects," the authors write. "However, carry-over maternal or paternal mtDNA contributions increased substantially in selected internal tissues/organs of some MRT animals, implying the possibility of mtDNA mutation recurrence."

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Ph.D., director of the OHSU Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy, led the work.

Researchers say that the initial five rhesus macaque monkeys - born in 2009 - all developed normally to adulthood, and they observed normal healthy development in their offspring as well.

"It's reassuring that the monkeys appear to be healthy and fertile through generations," said co-author Paula Amato, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the OHSU School of Medicine. "It adds to a growing body of evidence that would support moving forward with clinical trials to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial disease."

That won't happen in the United States, at least for the time being.

Through a budgetary rider, Congress has blocked the Food and Drug Administration from providing oversight for such clinical trials in the U.S. Even though the technique was developed at OHSU as a way to break the cycle of disease passed from mother to baby through mutations in mitochondrial DNA, it is only available overseas through clinical trials currently underway in the United Kingdom and Greece.

Mitochondria control respiration and energy production within every cell of the body, so mutations in mtDNA can cause a range of potentially fatal disorders affecting organs with high-energy demands such as the heart, muscle and brain. Mitalipov's mitochondrial replacement technique mitigates this problem by replacing disease-causing mitochondrial mutations in a mother's egg with donor mitochondria.

In 2009, researchers successfully demonstrated the technique with the birth of rhesus macaques at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center.

The new study provides insight about their health over the long term and across generations.

"The question was always there about the long-term safety of this technique," Mitalipov said. "We wanted to find out whether this procedure will somehow show negative effects later in life. We saw no adverse health effects across two generations."

The study also provided important insight about the amount of maternal mtDNA detected within organs. This issue starts with a residual amount of maternal mtDNA that's carried over with the mother's nucleus to a donor egg stripped of its nucleus. This could be a big problem in cases where the technique is intended to prevent the transmission of disease-causing mtDNA from mother to child.

That's because as cells divide, this small remnant can preferentially replicate as the embryo develops - raising the potential for ultimately causing the very disease the therapy was designed to prevent.

Researchers found less than 3% maternal mtDNA in blood, urine and skin cells samples.

However, they also examined internal tissues and organs, after death, and found that initially negligible levels of maternal mtDNA had increased substantially, up to 16.6% in the small intestine. Researchers say this falls well below the level that would be considered disease-causing - and below the level that would be transmitted by a mother through ordinary reproduction.

"For most mutations, you'd need to have 60% mutant mtDNA to cause a disease," Mitalipov said.

It is also irrelevant in cases where the technique is used to treat infertility as opposed to preventing the transmission of known genetic mitochondrial disease.

The study made one other curious finding. Although mitochondrial DNA is normally passed from mother to child, the new study found that up to 33% of the mtDNA in selected tissues in two macaques had been contributed by the paternal line. This is unusual although not unprecedented, and Mitalipov said he is interested in learning more about why the minute level of mtDNA in sperm cells replicated exponentially as the cells divided and the embryos grew.

"Once you turn on this engine, it's like a power plant," Mitalipov said.

8 December 2020 -- Deep Longevity, a Hong-Kong based longevity startup, has published their research on the epigenetics of aging in the Aging and Disease journal.

The article about DeepMAge describes a novel aging clock that was trained to predict human age on more than 6'000 DNA methylation profiles [1]. By analyzing the methylation patterns it can estimate human age within a 3-year error margin, which is more accurate than any other human aging clock [2].

Aging clocks boom started in 2013 when the first DNA methylation aging clocks by Horvath and Hannum were published [3, 4]. They have proven to be an indispensable tool in aging research, letting scientists understand its mechanisms and develop longevity interventions. Unlike its predecessors, DeepMAge is a neural network that may prove to be more efficient in some other ways apart from prediction accuracy. In the original paper, DeepMAge deems people with certain conditions to be older, which may be useful for the development of early diagnostics tools. For example, women with ovarian cancer are on average predicted 1.7 years older than healthy women of the same chronological age, and likewise, multiple sclerosis patients are predicted 2.1 years older. Similar results have been obtained for several other conditions: irritable bowel diseases, dementia, obesity.

Higher age predictions indicate a faster pace of aging in these conditions, which begs the question: is a higher aging rate a precondition to them or is it just an epigenetic footprint of the harm they cause? The authors plan to further investigate the links between epigenetics and longevity using DeepMAge.

According to an author of the published article, Fedor Galkin: " Aging clocks have come a long way since the first works by Horvath and Hannum in 2013. We are happy to contribute to this research field. Now, we are going to explore how epigenetic aging can be slowed down with the interventions available to consumers". Neural network architecture, which DeepMAge is based on, can be modified to digitally emulate the effects of fasting, taking longevity supplements, physical training, and other lifestyle changes.