Culture

An international consortium of researchers under the aegis of CMIP6 has calculated new estimates for the melting of Earth's ice sheets due to greenhouse gas emissions and its impact on sea levels, showing that the ice sheets could together contribute more than 40 cm by the end of 2100.

One of the many effects of global warming is the increase of sea levels due to the melting and retreat of the ice sheets in the Arctic and the Antarctic. As the sea level rises, large areas of densely populated coastal land will become uninhabitable. It is vital that we understand the impact climate change interventions could have on the rate of melting and, consequently, changes in sea level.

The Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 (ISMIP6), consisting of more than 60 scientists from 36 institutions across the world - including Dr. Christopher Chambers and Professor Ralf Greve from the Institute of Low Temperature Science at Hokkaido University - has used the latest generation of models to estimate the impact of global warming on ice sheets. Their results were published in a special issue of the journal The Cryosphere on September 17.

The ISMIP6 team projected the changes of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets (GrIS/AIS) between 2015 and 2100 under global warming conditions predicted by climate modelling. The advantage of ISMIP6 was that it used fourteen different models to estimate the changes in the ice sheet under two greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions pathways: the pessimistic scenario, where there is no change in current trends, leading to a rapid increase in GHG emissions; and the optimistic scenario, where comprehensive steps are taken to reduce GHG emissions. Using different models to estimate the changes was vital to this endeavour, as they have different baselines and assumptions.

Ralf Greve and Christopher Chambers modelled the behavior of ice sheets using the SICOPOLIS model. The first version was released in 1995 by Greve, and since then it has been continuously developed and used for a large number of studies. The SICOPOLIS model uses data from 1990 as a baseline for the experiments. As the model has a 25-year history with an uninterrupted development and publication record, it brought a unique perspective to ISMIP6.

The rate of ice sheet change was modelled under different forcings provided by climate models: future changes of precipitation, surface melting over the ice sheets, surface and ocean temperatures. The goal was to estimate how much the mass loss of the ice sheets would contribute to the rise in average sea levels beyond what has already been put in motion. The study found that, by 2100, the GrIS would raise sea levels by 4-14 cm under the pessimistic scenario, but only 1.5-5 cm under the optimistic scenario. For the AIS, the results point to a greater range of possibilities, from ice sheet change that decreases sea level by 7.8 cm to increasing it by 30 cm under the pessimistic scenario, and an increase of 0-3 cm under the optimistic scenario.

"Mass change from the AIS is notoriously difficult to predict: Increasing ocean temperatures erode the bottom of large floating ice shelves, causing loss; while the AIS can also gain mass by increased snowfall due to warmer air temperatures. However, we are constantly improving our understanding of the ice sheets and their interaction with the Earth's climate system. Modelling intercomparison studies like ISMIP6 are an effective tool to provide society with the necessary information, including uncertainties, for rational decisions", said Ralf Greve.

This effort took over six years of collaboration, and the findings of ISMIP6 will help inform the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scheduled for release in 2022. ISMIP6 is part of the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). CMIP6 currently has a total of 23 endorsed Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs), and has been invaluable in assessing our understanding of climate and climate change.

Women with a longer reproductive period had an elevated risk for dementia in old age, compared with those who were fertile for a shorter period, a population-based study from the University of Gothenburg shows.

"Our results may explain why women have a higher risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease than men after age 85, and provide further support for the hypothesis that estrogen affect the risk of dementia among women", says Jenna Najar, a medical doctor and doctoral student at Sahlgrenska Academy who also works at AgeCap, the Centre for Ageing and Health at the University of Gothenburg.

The study, now published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, covers 1,364 women who were followed between 1968 and 2012 in the population studies collectively known as the "Prospective Population-based Study of Women in Gothenburg" (PPSW) and the "Gothenburg H70 Birth Cohort Studies in Sweden" (the H70 studies). The "reproduction period" spans the years between menarche (onset of menstruation) and menopause, when menstruation ceases.

Of the women studied with a shorter reproductive period (32.6 years or less), 16 percent (53 of 333 individuals) developed dementia. In the group of women who were fertile a longer period (38 years or more), 24 percent (88 of 364) developed dementia. The difference was thus 8 percentage points.

The study shows that risk for dementia and Alzheimer's disease increases successively for every additional year that the woman remains fertile. The association was strongest for those with dementia onset after age 85, and the effect was most strongly associated with age at menopause.

These results persisted after adjustment for other factors with an influence, such as educational attainment, physical activity, BMI, smoking, and cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, no association was found between dementia risk and age at menarche, number of pregnancies, duration of breastfeeding, or exogenous estrogen taken in the form of hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) or oral contraceptives.

Several studies have investigated how estrogen in the form of HRT affects dementia risk. Some studies show that dementia risk falls and others that it rises, especially in women who take estrogen late in life.

In the current study Jenna Najar has, instead, investigated the long-term association between factors related to endogenous estrogen and dementia.

"What's novel about this study, too, is that we've had access to information about several events in a woman's life that can affect her estrogen levels. Examples are pregnancies, births, and breastfeeding. Being pregnant boosts estrogen levels tremendously; then they decline once the baby is born, and if women breastfeed the levels fall to extremely low levels. The more indicators we capture, the more reliable our results are," Najar says.

Ingmar Skoog, professor of psychiatry at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg and head of AgeCap, led the study.

"The varying results for estrogen may be due to it having a protective effect early in life but being potentially harmful once the disease has begun."

At the same time, Skoog points out that the duration of women's fertile periods is one risk factor for dementia among many.

Most women whose menopause is delayed do not develop dementia because of this factor alone. However, the study may provide a clue as to why women are at higher risk than men for dementia after age 85, the most common age of onset. Alzheimer's disease, on the other hand, starts developing some 20 years before symptoms of the disorder become apparent.

"Most people affected are over 80 and female," Najar says.

"As a result of global ageing, the number of people affected by dementia will increase. To be able to implement preventive strategies, we need to identify people with an elevated risk of dementia."

A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) explains the advantage that animals have of using a specific type of chaotic type of movement called a "Lévy walk," and how this type of behavior emerges. Using computer modeling, the author shows that this type of movement can allow animals to make flexible decisions between "exploitation" and "exploring" in an environment.

"Lévy walks"--a type of behavior where an organism makes a mixture of small random-like movements and an occasional larger movement--are very common in biological systems. They are seen in the behavior of many animal species including humans, as well as in reptiles, fish, birds, and even individual cells. They are different from what is called a "Brownian walk"--which resembles the random movements of molecules in a gas or liquid, as the organism will occasionally take long movements which bring it to another location. However, the mechanisms through which these movements take place and the advantages they offer are not well understood.

To tackle this, Masato S. Abe of the RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, the author of the paper, began by creating a mathematical model that imitate the motion of the lava of a fruit fly--a commonly used model organism--using two oscillators, which are connected together. When the link between the oscillators was very weak, the larvae basically followed random Brownian motion, and when they were tightly linked together, the larvae just walked in straight lines. When there was a weak linkage, however, they exhibited precisely what a Lévy walk would look like.

An interesting observation of the model was that Lévy walks emerged suddenly near points known as "critical points"--places where the behavior undergoes a rapid transformation. He wondered if this could be beneficial in some way, and found that in these areas, actors were able to respond strongly to even mild environmental stimuli, so it could help animals make finely tuned decisions over whether to exploit the food in one area or explore other areas. Abe then used observations of the actual movements of fruit fly larva to show that they were indeed carrying out behavior that fit with the model.

"Thanks to this model, we can now explain why Lévy walks, emerging near critical points in a system, make sense for organisms performing tasks such as foraging for food, as well as searching for words in their memory. This work will also help us in the field of artificial intelligence to create autonomous agents that can behave more closely like living organisms."

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific and medical journals have published over 100,000 studies on SARS-CoV-2. But according to data scientists who created a machine-learning tool to analyze the deluge of publications, basic lab-based studies on the microbiology of the virus, including research on its pathogenesis and mechanisms of viral transmission, are lacking. Their analysis appears September 16 in the journal Patterns.

"In a crisis like this pandemic, we would expect research outside the lab to happen at a faster pace than lab research," says first author Anhvinh Doanvo (@AnhvinhDoanvo), a volunteer data scientist with the COVID-19 Dispersed Volunteer Research Network. "Nevertheless, the relative lack of lab-based studies seems to be unique to SARS-CoV-2, compared to other human coronaviruses. This shortage of lab-based research means that the scientific community may miss key aspects of the virus that could impact our ability to contain this pandemic and to counter future ones."

The investigators used research abstracts obtained from CORD-19 (COVID-19 Open Research Dataset). CORD-19 is updated daily and includes peer-reviewed studies from PubMed Central, as well as preprints from bioRxiv and medRxiv. At the time they conducted their first analysis at the end of May, the dataset included more than 137,000 studies. The analysis was later updated with data through July 31.

The team used two computational methods to analyze the data. The first was dimensionality reduction, which helps to find big patterns across many documents, such as abstracts from scientific studies, and to identify trends based on those patterns. The second method, topic modeling, allowed them to group the documents into different topics and to compare research on SARS-CoV-2 to research on other coronaviruses. Unlike previous studies that have focused only on keywords, both of these tools enabled them to review the full text of the abstracts.

"Broadly speaking, we found that the research community has produced a lot of work on the clinical manifestations of the virus, epidemiological models of its spread, and other work based on data collected from the field," says senior author Maimuna Majumder (@maiamajumder), a computational epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital's Computational Health Informatics Program.

The researchers also note that research has changed over time, with an acceleration in studies examining public health responses, clinical issues related to the virus, the societal impact of the outbreak, and how the disease spreads across populations, while reporting on the status of the outbreak has begun to plateau. "This is a positive development, as it indicates that the scientific community has transitioned from the role of a passive observer of the virus into a group studying ways to fight its spread," Majumder says.

"But basic microbiological research has been slow to pick up the pace, leaving potential knowledge gaps in its wake," Doanvo says. "It's possible that stronger resourcing in these time- and resource-intensive efforts would better enable the scientific community to respond quickly to this virus."

The researchers hope this analysis will help raise awareness about the importance of prioritizing lab-based studies on SARS-CoV-2 moving forward. They plan to conduct another analysis of scientific studies in about a year, using the tools they have already developed.

When it comes to metabolic health, it's not just what you eat, it's when you eat it. Studies have shown that one effective means of losing weight and tackling obesity is to reduce the number of hours in the day that you eat. Time-restricted feeding - otherwise known as intermittent fasting - has also been shown to improve health even before weight loss kicks in.

The biological explanation for the phenomenon remains poorly understood. So scientists from the University of Copenhagen, the Australian Catholic University and Karolinska Institutet investigated the body's early adaptations to time-restricted feeding. Their study identified a number of key changes in the genetic activity of muscles, as well as the content of muscle fats and proteins, which could explain the positive impact of time-restricted feeding.

Novel insights on short-term time-restricted feeding

The study is the first time scientists have examined the oscillations of metabolites in skeletal muscle and in blood, as well as gene expression in skeletal muscle after time-restricted feeding. By focusing on the short-term and early effects of time-restricted feeding, the goal was to disentangle the signals that govern health from those associated with weight loss.

"We observe that the rhythm of skeletal muscle core clock genes is unchanged by time-restricted feeding, suggesting that any differences are driven more by diet, rather than inherent rhythms," says Postdoc Leonidas Lundell, from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR) at the University of Copenhagen.

"We also see that the metabolite profile of skeletal muscle switches from being predominantly lipid based, to amino acid based, after time-restricted feeding. This coincides with changes in rhythmicity of amino acid transporters, indicating that part of the amino acid profile could be due to absorption from the blood."

Research Fellow Evelyn Parr from the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research at the Australian Catholic University, adds: "Our research is an important step towards understanding how time-restricted eating can improve metabolic health, while bridging the gap between animal models and human intervention studies. It was important to capture these early metabolic responses before assessing what changes might occur after a longer period following a time-restricted feeding pattern."

Eating behavior does not impact the body's core clock

In the study, 11 men with overweight/obesity were assigned one of two eating protocols for a period of five days, either unrestricted feeding, or eight-hours of time restricted feeding. On the fifth day, samples were taken every four hours for a full day. After a 10-day break, they repeated the experiment following the other eating protocol.

After each intervention, the team of scientists studied the gene expression in muscles, as well as the profile of metabolites - molecules that are formed through metabolic processes - in the blood and muscles.

They discovered that time-restricted feeding changed the rhythmic concentration of metabolites in blood and muscle. Time-restricted feeding also influenced the rhythmic expression of genes expressed by muscle, particularly those responsible for helping the transport of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

Critically, the study showed that time-restricted feeding did not alter the muscle's core clock - the cell's inbuilt metronome that regulates its daily cycle of activity. This suggests that the altered rhythmicity of metabolite and gene expression caused by time-restricted feeding could be responsible for the positive health impact.

"Our findings open new avenues for scientists who are interested in understanding the causal relationship between time-restricted feeding and improved metabolic health. These insights could help develop new therapies to improve the lives of people who live with obesity," says Professor Juleen Zierath from Karolinska Institutet and CBMR at the University of Copenhagen.

Scientists from Sechenov University interviewed Russian healthcare experts to find out what problems impeded the development of medical tourism in the country most and what measures would help attract foreigners. The results of the work can form the basis of the state policy in this field. Details of the study were published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Medical tourism (that is, providing medical care to foreign citizens) helps to develop the host country's healthcare system: in addition to the money paid for treatment by patients or insurance companies, it receives investment and an incentive to improve the service quality and the qualifications of its staff. However, to prefer to leave their country for treatment, foreigners must be sure that they will get an appointment with professionals, that it will not be very difficult to issue documents, including a visa, and that treatment itself will not be ruinous.

'Earlier, people came to places where they got better treatment, but now they look at where it is cheaper, comparing the price-quality ratio and service quality. And we began to be late with this. The issues of medical tourism in our country were taken up only a few years ago: the first research on this topic appeared in 2010-2011, and the state's interest in this issue was shown just two years ago, in the decree of President Vladimir Putin dated May 7, 2018,' said Vladimir Reshetnikov, one of the study authors, head of the Semashko Department of Public Health and Healthcare, Sechenov University.

The authors of the article asked experts to list the main problems that hinder the development of medical tourism, the measures that clinics and authorities need to take to improve the situation and the advantages of Russia that will allow it to compete with other countries. 36 heads of medical organisations took part in the survey.

The three most important problems, according to the experts, were the low awareness of foreigners about medical services, the lack of doctors and staff who know a foreign language and the lack of resources (specialists, equipment, etc). Respondents also noted that it is difficult to accommodate patients and obtain the necessary documents and visas, not all clinics have international certificates, and patients sometimes cannot continue to pay for treatment in the case of complications.

The largest number of experts - a quarter of them - agreed that first of all it is necessary to solve the problem of the lack of personnel and equipment. This group of measures also includes the use of the latest technologies, standards and recommendations. In the second place is informing potential patients about the services of medical organisations. This requires maintaining the clinic's website in good condition, translating materials into foreign languages, placing ads on foreign sites and offering online consultations. Experts consider word of mouth - recommendations from doctors and other patients - as well as advertising in search engines and social networks to be an effective way to promote clinic services. Another area of work is the creation of an organisation that supports the export of medical services at the federal level as well as the development of programmes for regional projects.

'The fastest thing to do is to build an organisation, create a structure that will deal with management, advertising and patient logistics. You can quickly change the legal framework, for example, to introduce medical visas. Of course, staff training will require more time,' Vladimir Reshetnikov explained.

Experts named the relatively low cost of services, well-equipped clinics and highly qualified staff as well as geographical location (proximity to the CIS countries) as competitive advantages of Russian healthcare.

'The goal of our work was to understand how to organise the development of medical tourism, to determine where our niche was, and what our strengths and weaknesses were, in order to outline the plan of action. The results are already being implemented in two regions (Sverdlovsk and Moscow regions) and discussed in the Civic Chamber of Russia,' the co-author of the study added.

Research being presented at the ESCMID Conference on Coronavirus Disease (ECCVID, held online from 23-25 September) shows that persistent fatigue occurs in more than half of patients recovered from COVID-19, regardless of the seriousness of their infection. The study is by Dr Liam Townsend, St James's Hospital and Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, and colleagues.

As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to grow worldwide, the number of patients recovering, and also experiencing post-infection problems, is also growing. "Fatigue is a common symptom in those presenting with symptomatic COVID-19 infection. Whilst the presenting features of SARS-CoV-2 infection have been well-characterised, the medium and long-term consequences of infection remain unexplored," explains Dr Townsend.

"In particular, concern has been raised that SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to cause persistent fatigue, even after those infected have recovered from COVID-19. In our study, we investigated whether patients recovering from SARS-CoV-2 infection remained fatigued after their physical recovery, and to see whether there was a relationship between severe fatigue and a variety of clinical parameters. We also examined persistence of markers of disease beyond clinical resolution of infection."

The authors used a commonly-used scale to determine fatigue in recovered patients, called the Chalder Fatigue Score (CFQ-11). They also looked at the severity of the patient's initial infection (need for admission, and critical/intensive care), and also their pre-existing conditions including depression. They also looked at various markers of immune activation (white cell counts, C-reactive protein, Interluekin-6, and sCD25).

The study included 128 participants (mean age 50 years; 54% female) who were recruited consecutively at a median of 10 weeks following clinical recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection. More than half reported persistent fatigue (52.3%; 67/128) at this point.

The researchers offered an outpatient appointment to anyone who had a COVID-19 positive swab test in their laboratory at St James Hospital. This included all admitted patients as well as any hospital staff (including cleaning staff, caterers, etc) since the service was also offered to staff that thought they had COVID-19 symptoms. The majority of those in the non-admitted group had a mild illness but had a swab test performed at St James's Hospital rather than at a community testing facility, as they were employed by St James's Hospital.

Of the patients assessed in this study,71/128 (55.5%) were admitted to hospital and 57/128 (44.5%) were not admitted. "Fatigue was found to occur independent of admission to hospital, affecting both groups equally," explains Dr Townsend.

There was no association between COVID-19 severity (need for inpatient admission, supplemental oxygen or critical care) and fatigue following COVID-19. Additionally, there was no association between routine laboratory markers of inflammation and cell turnover (white blood cell counts or ratios, lactate dehydrogenase, C-reactive protein) or pro-inflammatory molecules (IL-6 or sCD25) and fatigue post COVID-19. Female gender and those with a pre-existing diagnosis of depression/anxiety were over-represented in those with fatigue. Although women represented just over half of the patients in the study (54%), two-thirds of those with persistent fatigue (67%) were women. And while only 1 person of the 61 (1.6%) without fatigue had a history of anxiety or depression, this proportion was 13.4% (9/67) in those with persistent fatigue.

The authors conclude: "Our findings demonstrate a significant burden of post-viral fatigue in individuals with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection after the acute phase of COVID-19 illness. This study highlights the importance of assessing those recovering from COVID-19 for symptoms of severe fatigue, irrespective of severity of initial illness, and may identify a group worthy of further study and early intervention. It also supports the use of non-pharmacological interventions for fatigue management. These interventions will need to be tailored to the individual needs of the patients, and may include lifestyle modification, cognitive behavioural therapy and self-pacing exercise, where tolerated."

A study investigating SARS-CoV-2 infections across 16 mink farms in the Netherlands, being presented at the ESCMID Conference on Coronavirus Disease (ECCVID, held online from 23-25 September) shows that the virus likely jumped between people and mink and back, providing strong evidence that animal to human (zoonotic) transmission is possible.

The study is by a group of Dutch veterinary science experts including Dr Bas Oude Munnink (ErasmusMC), Professor Wim van der Poel (Wageningen University and Research Centre), Professor Arjan Stegeman (Utrecht University) Prof Marion Koopmans (ErasmusMC) and Reina Sikkema (ErasmusMC).

The exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still unknown, although various theories have been put forward. Animal experiments have shown that non-human primates, ferrets, hamsters, rabbits and bats can be infected by SARS-CoV-2 as well as cats, dogs, lions and tigers. Recently, multiple outbreaks in mink farms (containing mink of the Neovison vison species) in the Netherlands have demonstrated that mink are also susceptible for SARS-CoV-2.

The authors did an in-depth investigation of outbreaks on 16 mink farms and humans living or working on these farms, using whole genome sequencing to underpin sources of transmission. They describe SARS-CoV-2 infections on 16 farms, with over 720,000 animals. In total, 66 of 97 (67%) persons tested had evidence for SARS-CoV-2 infection, either by PCR or serology. All people tested had a direct link to an infected mink farm.

The authors say: "Due to longitudinal follow up of the first 4 farms, we have strong evidence that at least two people on those farms were infected by minks. Unfortunately, based on our research we cannot make definite conclusions on the direction of most of the infections, so we do not know the total number of people that were infected by minks. We conclude that initially the virus was introduced from humans and has evolved on mink farms, most likely reflecting widespread circulation among mink in the first SARS-CoV-2 mink farms, several weeks prior to detection."

They add: "Genetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 from the human employees on the farms showed they were the same as those found in mink, and were not identical to those found in unrelated SARS-CoV-2 patients living in the vicinity of farms. Genetic sequences from each of the infected mink farms fell into one of five distinct clusters, showing transmission between different mink farms."

They conclude: "Additional research will be needed to determine the routes of transmission. We conclude that at least some of these employees are very likely to have been infected directly from infected mink and thereby describe the first proven zoonotic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans. Close collaboration between human and animal health departments is essential for early identification and control of SARS-CoV-2 infections."

A small study by Canadian veterinary science experts being presented at this ESCMID Conference on Coronavirus Disease (ECCVID, held online from 23-25 September) suggests that a substantial proportion of pet cats and dogs can be infected by SARS-CoV-2 by their owners. Furthermore, in several cases pets found to be infected had COVID-19-like respiratory symptoms at the time their owner had COVID-19.

"These preliminary results suggest that a substantial proportion of pets in households of persons with COVID-19 seroconvert," says study co-author Dorothee Bienzle, Professor of Veterinary Pathology at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

SARS-CoV-2 has been reported to infect a range of animal species. However, neither risk factors nor susceptibility or clinical features of infection in different animal species are well defined. This study investigated the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 shedding and seropositivity in pets whose owners had COVID-19.

In this study, people who owned a cat, dog or ferret* and had a diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection or symptoms consistent with COVID-19 within a 2-week period, were invited to have their pet swabbed. If humans were outside the 2-week window of suspected infectiousness, collection of a blood sample from their pet for serology was offered. Swabbing of the nose, throat and rectum was done for PCR-testing to test for current infection in the pets, while standard blood antibody ELISA tests were used to detect recent (IgM antibodies) or past infection (IgG antibodies). Results were compared with blood stored from animals collected before December 2019, to act as a control group.

Swabs were collected from 17 cats, 18 dogs and one ferret. All PCR results (for current infection) were negative except those from one cat that were considered indeterminate. Blood samples were taken from 8 cats and 10 dogs. The results indicated presence of IgG or IgM in 4 (50%) and 3 (38%) distinct cat samples, respectively. The sample from the cat with indeterminate PCR results had a positive IgM ELISA result, indicating its infection, although not current, was extremely recent.

"All cats with an indeterminate PCR or positive antibody result were reported to have had respiratory and/or other illness by their owners around the time of the owner's COVID-19 infection," explains Professor Bienzle. "Two (20%) of dogs had positive IgG antibody results, indicating past infection, and one of these was reported to have had an episode of respiratory disease. No dogs had positive IgM results, which would have indicated more recent infection."

She concludes: "While eligible participant number was limited by relatively low human transmission rates in the study area, these preliminary results suggest that a substantial proportion of pets in households of persons with COVID-19 end up developing antibodies. Due to the narrow window of time available to detect a current infection in pets, especially if their owner is still sick and isolating, blood testing the animal at a later time to check for previous infection is preferable for assessment of human-to-animal transmission."

She adds: "Transmission from mink to humans has been reported on mink farms with a high proportion of infected animals maintained in close quarters and cared for by humans. Transmission from pets to humans has not been reported, but since the virus changes minimally or not at all after transmission from humans to animals, such reverse transmission may occur."

Regarding pet care, Prof Bienzle recommends that people infected with SARS-CoV-2 should not only keep away from other people, but also their pets. She says: "There is sufficient evidence from multiple studies, including ours, to recommend that SARS-CoV-2 infected persons should isolate from people and animals."

Her team will be studying COVID-19 antibody prevalence in other pet populations in the near future.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Pity the glycan.

These complex sugar molecules are attached to 80% of the proteins in the human body, making them an essential ingredient of life. But this process, known as glycosylation, has been somewhat overshadowed by flashier biomolecular processes such as transcription and translation.

"Glycosylation is absolutely essential for life on this planet. And yet, we still know relatively little about it," said Matthew DeLisa, the William L. Lewis Professor of Engineering in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. "While much attention has been given to understanding the genome and the proteome, the glycome - which represents the entire complement of sugars, either free or present in more complex molecules such as glycoproteins, of an organism - has been relatively understudied. We need new tools to advance the field forward."

DeLisa's lab has created these very tools by commandeering simple, single-celled microorganisms - namely E. coli bacteria - and engineering them to explore the complex process of glycosylation and the functional role that protein-linked glycans play in health and disease.

The group's paper, "Engineering Orthogonal Human O-linked Glycoprotein Biosynthesis in Bacteria," published July 27 in Nature Chemical Biology. The lead author is Aravind Natarajan, Ph.D. '19.

Previously, DeLisa's team used a similar cell glyco-engineering approach to produce one of the most common types of glycoproteins - those with glycan structures linked to the amino acid asparagine, or N-linked. Now the researchers have turned their attention to another abundant glycoprotein, namely O-linked, in which glycans are attached to the oxygen atom of serine or threonine amino acids of a protein.

The O-linked glycans are more structurally diverse than their N-linked cousins, and they have important implications in the development of new therapeutic treatments for diseases such as breast cancer.

"Our cell-engineering efforts were quite complicated as we not only needed to equip E. coli with the complete set of enzymes for making and attaching glycan structures to proteins, but we also had to carefully rewire native metabolic networks to ensure the availability of important glycan building blocks such as sialic acid," Natarajan said. "The addition of sialic acid to our glycoproteins is significant because this sugar residue is often crucial for targeting drugs to specific cells and increasing their circulatory half-life."

When a cell turns cancerous, it expresses certain biomarkers, including abnormally glycosylated surface proteins, that indicate the presence of cancer. DeLisa's group equipped E. coli with the machinery to produce such proteins, including one that closely resembled a prominent cancer biomarker, mucin 1 (MUC1).

"The glycosylated version of MUC1 is one of the highest-priority target antigens for cancer therapy. It's been very challenging to develop therapies against this target," said DeLisa, the paper's senior author. "But by having a biosynthetic tool like the one we've created that is capable of replicating the MUC1 structure, we're hopeful that this could provide glycoprotein reagents that could be leveraged to discover antibodies or employed directly as immunotherapies, all of which could help in the fight against certain types of cancer."

Both O-linked and N-linked glycans have also been discovered in one of the surface proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. DeLisa is hopeful his group's method of bacterial cell glyco-engineering will open the door for creating glycosylated versions of this S-protein that could lead to therapeutic antibodies against the coronavirus, or the development of a subunit vaccine.

Because of their earlier work replicating N-linked glycans, the researchers were able to get the O-linked system up and running quickly. Now DeLisa's lab is primed to make proteins that carry both types of glycosylation, which is significant because many glycoproteins, such as the S-protein in SARS-CoV-2, carry both N- and O-linked glycan structures.

The researchers are also exploring ways to increase the spectrum of glycoproteins that their engineered E. coli cells can produce and the efficiency with which these products are generated.

"We think of E. coli as a clean chassis or a blank slate when it comes to protein glycosylation, because these bacteria do not normally peform glycosylation reactions like the ones we have installed," DeLisa said. "This allows construction of these pathways from the bottom up, giving us total control over the types of glycan structures that are made, and the specific sites in target proteins where they're attached. That is a level of control that is difficult to achieve with other preexisting cell-based systems or technologies for glycoprotein engineering."

September 17, 2020 - Assessing the potential for violent behavior by patients with psychiatric disorders is an essential but challenging responsibility for mental health professionals. A five-part series currently being published in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice summarizes an expert approach to screening, assessment, and management of the risk of "other-directed violence." The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

Hal S. Wortzel, MD, of the University of Colorado and colleagues outline their experience-informed approach to therapeutic risk management of the potentially violent patient. While violence risk assessment is a legal and ethical requirement, it can also be "a crucial element of the comprehensive treatment plan to achieve therapeutic goals and optimize mental health," Dr. Wortzel and coauthors write.

Model for Therapeutic Risk Assessment of Other-Directed Violence
In several situations, mental health professionals are responsible for assessing the risk for violent behaviors in patients with psychiatric disorders. In many jurisdictions, they also have a duty to warn and protect others who may be at risk of violence. Many clinicians feel they lack the training and experience needed to conduct meaningful violence risk assessments.

In a previous series of "Law and Psychiatry" columns in Journal of Psychiatric Practice, Dr. Wortzel and colleagues shared their approach to assessing the risk of self-directed violence (SDV) in potentially suicidal patients. They emphasized the benefits of therapeutic risk assessment: a patient-centered model that supports the patient's overall treatment and the therapeutic alliance with mental health professionals.

The new series shifts the focus to therapeutic risk assessment for other-directed violence (ODV) - borrowing from the SDV risk assessment skills that many clinicians already have. The series focuses on five essential elements of the therapeutic risk assessment for ODV:

Clinical Risk Assessment - Assessment starts with a clinical interview, including questions about past violent thoughts or behaviors. The authors discuss the need to explore the patient's intent and plan to harm someone, the critical distinction between "risk factors" and "warning signs" for ODV, and approach to collecting collateral data from other sources, preferably with the patient's consent.

Structured Screening or Assessment Tools - Structured tools can provide and document additional information for the clinical risk assessment. While no questionnaire or rating scale can replace the clinical interview, adding various types of tools can provide "a more nuanced, multifaceted approach" to ODV risk assessment.

Risk stratification - Using all available sources of data, the clinician stratifies the individual's risk of ODV, focusing on the severity and temporality (acute versus chronic) of the risk.

Chain analysis - Assessment of pathways related to violent thoughts and behaviors allows the clinician to design effective therapeutic strategies targeting those pathways.

Safety planning - Mental health professionals work with patients toward developing a safety plan to recognize violent thoughts and other warning signs, engage in coping strategies to prevent violent behaviors, and get help when needed.

The first and second parts of the series appear in the July-August and September-October issues of Journal of Psychiatric Practice. The remaining columns are scheduled for upcoming issues.

Dr. Wortzel and colleagues hope their series will provide a "cogent process" for conducting violence risk assessments - in a way that fulfills legal and ethical responsibilities, protects the safety of patients and potential victims, and supports the patient's overall mental health care. The authors conclude: "Providers can collaborate with their patients to gain a better understanding of their risk for both SDV and ODV and develop plans to manage this risk."

While more than 80 percent of white Evangelicals voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, their mobilization at the congregation level has since generally plateaued, and new research finds that progressive congregations have surged in their political activism, likely in direct response to Trump administration policies.

A new study by Kraig Beyerlein, University of Notre Dame associate professor of sociology, and Mark Chaves, Duke University professor of sociology, analyzes data from the National Congregations Study (NCS)-- a nationally representative sample of U.S. congregations over time -- and finds that the very congregations that should have increased their mobilization the most under Trump in fact increased it the least, including on issues for which Trump has strongly advocated, like immigration and endorsing candidates.

Even on issues that inspired religious liberty executive orders, like endorsing political candidates and wanting to do so without losing tax-exempt status, conservative and predominantly white evangelical Protestant congregations trail well behind Black Protestant churches. In addition, these churches increased their political activism the most between the Obama and Trump administrations.

With the 2020 presidential election on the near horizon, Beyerlein discusses what he and his co-researcher learned about the political engagement of U.S. congregations -- and how that may impact results on Nov. 3.

When you examine faith-based political activity at the congregation level, what are you measuring?

The NCS contains a range of political activities, such as offering opportunities for involvement during religious services, organizing voter registration drives or get-out-the-vote efforts, distributing voter guides, hosting candidates as speakers, lobbying elected officials, and mobilizing marches or protests. In more recent waves of the NCS, the cause or issue (such as immigration or poverty) for which congregations lobby or march has also been measured. And for some of these causes or issues, the NCS captures the particular side of the mobilizing effort -- pro- or anti-immigrant rights, for example.

What surprised you most about the mobilization of America's congregations during 2018-19?

This wave of the NCS asked whether congregations had endorsed candidates, and if not, whether they would do so if this action would not put their tax-exempt status at risk. Four percent of congregations had engaged in this partisan political activity, and 17 percent of those that had not said they would if tax law was changed in their favor. Combining these numbers, then, over one-fifth of congregations across the United States would endorse candidates if they were free to do so without legal repercussions.

While this number is higher than anticipated, the real surprise was the type of congregations that would be most likely to endorse candidates under this condition. Predominately white evangelical Protestant churches -- critical mobilizing sites of Trump's political base -- were the least likely, at 11 percent, despite the president signaling his approval by signing an executive order in May 2017, though the implementation of this order remains unclear. Black Protestant churches led the way, by far, in terms of both actually endorsing candidates and desiring to do so if tax law was changed. Moreover, almost half of politically liberal congregations reported that they would endorse candidates if they could. By comparison, only 11 percent of politically conservative congregations answered they would.

Thus, despite Trump's intention to promote this partisan political activity among conservative churches around the nation by attempting to change tax law, the data indicate conservative churches would be the least likely to take advantage of the opportunity to do so.

What are some of your key takeaways on the faith-based political activity of Catholic parishes, especially on immigration and sanctuary churches?

I was very excited that the 2018-19 NCS included a question asking congregations whether they had declared themselves as a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. Up to this point, we lacked a nationally representative estimate of this important and timely congregation-based political activity.

Overall, we found 4 percent of congregations had done so at the time of the 2018-19 NCS. Even though the question asked about declaring rather than actively housing undocumented immigrants, this low number is not surprising given the costs and risks involved in latter, for which the former is a first step. For instance, government repression is a possibility, which happened to churches during the 1980s Sanctuary movement. Given the current administration's anti-immigration policies and rhetoric, it certainly seems like history could repeat itself.

Against this backdrop, it is notable that nearly a third of Catholic parishes declared themselves as a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants under the Trump regime. Combined with their relatively high levels of lobbying or marching for immigrant rights in the 2012 and 2018-19 NCS waves, it is clear that Catholic parishes are an important faith-based force to defend and uphold the human dignity of people regardless of the country in which they were born.

How does the political activity in this fourth wave of data compare to previous waves?

We observed a significant uptick in nearly half of the political activity measures repeated across NCS waves.

Importantly, we found that the post-2012 mobilizing surge was concentrated among Black Protestant churches. Not only does this reflect the historical continuity of activism within Black Protestant churches -- during the U.S. civil rights movement, for instance -- but also the fact that these churches are likely rising up to confront violence against Black people and an administration that does not represent their interests (the majority of members of Black churches vote Democrat).

On the former point, we observed from the fourth wave of the NCS that nearly half of Black Protestant churches organized a discussion about policing in the last year, which is much higher than the rate of congregations of other religious groups. Since prior waves of the NCS did not ask this question, we do not know whether this represents an increase over time for this activity in Black Protestant churches, but it is clear that this issue is of greater salience to these congregations.

Over 99% of terrestrial ice is bound up in the ice sheets covering Antarctic and Greenland. Even partial melting of this ice due to climate change will significantly contribute to sea level rise. But how much exactly? For the first time ever, glaciologists, oceanographers, and climatologists from 13 countries have teamed up to make new projections. Their modelling efforts, involving CNRS and CEA researchers (1), show that the Antarctic Ice Sheet may account for up to 30 cm of sea level rise between 2015 and 2100. However, some scenarios alternatively suggest that the volume added to the ice sheet by snowfall will surpass what is lost through melting, partially offsetting the rise--by 7.8 cm at best. This wide range in estimates (2) mainly reflects incomplete knowledge of melting that occurs on the bottom of ice shelves. But these floating glacial fringes, which can cover an area half the size of France, pen in the rest of the ice sheet. Were they to be lost, the new projections indicate that the ocean would rise several metres over 500 years. Over the same 2015-2100 period, the Greenland Ice Sheet would contribute an additional 1.5 to 14 cm, depending on the level of our greenhouse gas emissions. These findings have been discussed in a spate of scientific articles, including five published in The Cryosphere on 17 September 2020. To refine their predictions, scientists are turning to a new generation of climate models that directly integrate data on the cryosphere, in addition to atmospheric, oceanic, and biogeochemical inputs.

New research from King's College London has found that COVID-19 may be diagnosed on the same emergency scans intended to diagnose stroke. The findings have important implications in the management of patients presenting with suspected stroke through early identification of COVID-19.

In a paper published today in the American Journal of Neuroradiology, study lead and Senior Lecturer in Neuroimaging at King's College London, Dr Tom Booth said the emergency scans captured images of the top of the lungs where a fluffiness known as 'ground glass opacification' allowed COVID-19 to be diagnosed.

225 patients were examined from three London Hyper-Acute Stroke Units. The emergency stroke scan consisted of a computed tomography (CT) of the head and neck blood vessels.

Dr Booth said the results show that when the team saw these changes in the top of the lungs during the emergency scan, they were able to reliably and accurately diagnose COVID-19 and the changes also predicted increased mortality.

"This is particularly relevant given the limitations of currently available Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing as it takes time to complete the test and sometimes it is inaccurate," Dr Booth said. "Additionally, our data have prognostic information given the increased mortality in those with lung changes shown in our cohort. These are useful results because the changes are simple for radiologists and other doctors to see. This is "free information" from a scan intended for another purpose yet extremely valuable."

Primarily, the findings allow earlier selection of the appropriate level of personal protective equipment (PPE) and attendant staff numbers, triage to appropriate inpatient ward settings, self-isolation and contact tracing.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Cornell University systems engineers examined data from a busy New York state food bank and, using a new algorithm, found ways to better distribute and allocate food, and elevate nutrition among its patrons in the process.

"In order to serve thousands of people and combat food insecurity, our algorithm helps food banks manage their food resources more efficiently - and patrons get more nutrition," said lead researcher Faisal Alkaabneh, Cornell's first doctoral graduate in systems engineering.

Alkaabneh and his adviser, Oliver Gao, professor of civil and environmental engineering, are co-authors of "A Unified Framework for Efficient, Effective and Fair Resource Allocation by Food Banks Using an Approximate Dynamic Programming Approach," published in the journal Omega.

The researchers reviewed data of the Food Bank of the Southern Tier, which serves six counties in upstate New York. In 2019, the food bank distributed 10.9 million meals to about 21,700 people each week. Nearly 19% of its patrons are seniors and about 41% are children, according to the group's data.

Last year, the food bank distributed 2.8 million pounds of fresh fruit through 157 partner agencies, and moved about 3.4 million pounds of food through local mobile pantries.

The algorithm Gao and his team used to determine how to allocate several food categories efficiently, based upon pantry requests, demonstrated a 7.73% improvement in efficiency from 2018 to 2019, compared to standard food bank allocation practices. Their calculations also showed a 3% improvement in nutrition using a wider variety of food, Alkaabneh said.

"We hope our research is used as a baseline model for food banks improving practices," Gao said. "and boosting nutrition and policies to help people at risk for hunger."