Earth

In 2015, hundreds of children were born with brain deformities resulting from a global outbreak of Zika virus infections. Recently, National Institutes of Health researchers used a variety of advanced drug screening techniques to test out more than 10,000 compounds in search of a cure. To their surprise, they found that the widely used antibiotic methacycline was effective at preventing brain infections and reducing neurological problems associated with the virus in mice. In addition, they found that drugs originally designed to combat Alzheimer's disease and inflammation may also help fight infections.

"Around the world, the Zika outbreak produced devastating, long-term neurological problems for many children and their families. Although the infections are down, the threat remains," said Avindra Nath, M.D., senior investigator at the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and a senior author of the study published in PNAS. "We hope these promising results are a good first step to preparing the world for combating the next potential outbreak."

The study was a collaboration between scientists on Dr. Nath's team and researchers in laboratories led by Anton Simeonov, Ph.D., scientific director at the NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and Radhakrishnan Padmanabhan, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C.

The Zika virus is primarily spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. In 2015 and 2016, at least 60 countries reported infections. Some of these countries also reported a high incidence of infected mothers giving birth to babies born with abnormally small heads resulting from a developmental brain disorder called fetal microcephaly. In some adults, infections were the cause of several neurological disorders including Guillain-Barré syndrome, encephalitis, and myelitis. Although many scientists have tried, they have yet to discover an effective treatment or vaccination against the virus.

In this study, the researchers looked for drugs that prevent the virus from reproducing by blocking the activity of a protein called NS2B-NS3 Zika virus protease. The Zika virus is a protein capsule that carries long strings of RNA-encoded instructions for manufacturing more viral proteins. During an infection, the virus injects the RNA into a cell, resulting in the production of these proteins, which are strung together, side-by-side, like the parts in a plastic model airplane kit. The NS2B-NS3 protease then snaps off each protein, all of which are critical for assembling new viral particles.

"Proteases act like scissors. Blocking protease activity is an effective strategy for counteracting many viruses," said Rachel Abrams, Ph.D., an organic chemist in Dr. Nath's lab and the study leader. "We wanted to look as far and wide as possible for drugs that could prevent the protease from snipping the Zika virus polyprotein into its active pieces."

To find candidates, Dr. Abrams worked with scientists on Dr. Simeonov's and Dr. Padmanabhan's teams to create assays, or tests, for assessing the ability of drugs to block NS2B-NS3 Zika virus protease activity in plates containing hundreds of tiny test tubes. Each assay was tailored to a different screening, or sifting, technique. They then used these assays to simultaneously try out thousands of candidates stored in three separate libraries.

One preliminary screen of 2,000 compounds suggested that commonly used, tetracycline-based antibiotic drugs, like methacycline, may be effective at blocking the protease.

Meanwhile, a large-scale screen of more than 10,000 compounds helped identify an investigational anti-inflammatory medicine, called MK-591, and a failed anti-Alzheimer's disease drug, called JNJ-404 as potential candidates. A virtual screen of over 130,000 compounds was also used to help spot candidates. For this, the researchers fed the other screening results into a computer and then used artificial intelligence-based programs to learn what makes a compound good at blocking NS2B-NS3 Zika virus protease activity.

"These results show that taking advantage of the latest technological advances can help researchers find treatments that can be repurposed to fight other diseases," said Dr. Simeonov.

The Zika virus is known to preferentially infect stem cells in the brain. Scientists suspect this is the reason why infections cause more harm to newborn babies than to adults. Experiments on neural stem cells grown in petri dishes indicated that all three drugs identified in this study may counteract these problems. Treating the cells with methacycline, MK-591, or JNJ-404 reduced Zika virus infections.

Because tetracyclines are U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs that are known to cross the placenta of pregnant women, the researchers focused on methacycline and found that it may reduce some neurodevelopmental problems caused by the Zika virus. For instance, Zika-infected newborn mice that were treated with methacycline had better balance and could turn over more easily than ones that were given a placebo. Brain examinations suggested this was because the antibiotic reduced infections and neural damage. Nevertheless, the antibiotics did not completely counteract harm caused by the Zika virus. The weight of mice infected with the virus was lower than control mice regardless of whether the mice were treated with methacycline.

"These results suggest that tetracycline-based antibiotics may at least be effective at preventing the neurological problems associated with Zika virus infections," said Dr. Abrams. "Given that they are widely used, we hope that we can rapidly test their potential in clinical trials."

"Childhood obesity is a major public health issue that has increased over the last 10 years," said lead investigator Miriam A. Bredella, M.D., professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and vice chair of the Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "Sleeve gastrectomy is the most common bariatric surgery procedure performed in children and adults."

In a sleeve gastrectomy, approximately 75% of the stomach is removed to restrict food intake and induce weight loss. It results in a typically round stomach taking on the shape of a tube or sleeve. The number of sleeve gastrectomy procedures performed on adolescents increased 100-fold from 2005 to 2014.

"In adults, bariatric surgery can have long-term effects on bone, leading to higher fracture risk," Dr. Bredella said. "We wanted to determine the effects of sleeve gastrectomy performed on adolescents during the crucial years when bone mass is being accrued."

The study examined 52 adolescents with moderate to severe obesity, 26 of whom underwent sleeve gastrectomy. The other 26 were in the control group. Mean age was 17.5 years, and mean body mass index (BMI) was 45. BMI of 30 or above is considered obese. Thirty-eight of study participants were girls. Before and 12 months after sleeve gastrectomy (or no surgery), the patients underwent quantitative CT of the lumbar spine, to quantify volumetric bone mineral density. Quantitative CT is a highly accurate technique for detecting changes in volumetric bone mineral density after extreme weight loss.

Recent studies have shown that bone marrow fat responds to changes in nutrition and may serve as a biomarker for bone quality. Therefore, patients underwent proton MR spectroscopy to quantify bone marrow fat of the lumbar spine.

One year following surgery, the adolescents who underwent sleeve gastrectomy lost 34 (+/-13) kg, or 75 (+/-28) pounds, while there was no significant change in weight in the control group. Compared to the controls, sleeve gastrectomy patients had a significant increase in bone marrow fat and a decrease in bone density in the lumbar spine.

"Adolescents who underwent sleeve gastrectomy had bone loss and an increase in bone marrow fat, despite marked loss of body fat," Dr. Bredella said. "While weight-loss surgery is successful for weight loss and improving metabolic disorders, it has negative effects on bone."

Dr. Bredella said the loss of bone density following sleeve gastrectomy was expected because greater weight-bearing strengthens bones. In addition to a loss of bone density, other effects of weight-loss surgery include a disruption of hormones and nutrients important for bone health.

"We need to identify mechanisms that will help prevent bone loss in these patients and to make adolescents with obesity more aware of bone health," she said. "Adolescence is the critical time for bone mass accrual, and any process that interferes with bone accrual during this time can have dire consequences later in life."

A recent study evaluating the use of force by police against children found that Black and Hispanic adolescents are significantly more likely to die from shootings related to police intervention compared to non-Hispanic white adolescents. The findings, led by Children's National Hospital researchers and reported online Nov. 24 in Pediatrics, mirror similar racial and ethnic disparities in adults and highlight the need for interventions and policies to mitigate these tragedies.

In recent years, concerns about police use of force -- particularly its disproportionate application to people of color -- have grown exponentially in the U.S. Between 2003 and 2018, there were 6,512 firearm deaths from police intervention in adults, with non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics having significantly higher per population mortality rates than whites. However, it's been unclear whether similar racial and ethnic disparities exist for adolescents killed by police intervention.

To explore this question, Monika K. Goyal, M.D., M.S.C.E., associate division chief of Emergency Medicine and Trauma Services and director of Academic Affairs and Research at Children's National, and her colleagues used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. This database collects national data from death certificates compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, including cause of death and race and ethnicity.

The researchers identified all adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 years of age who died from firearm injuries due to police intervention between 2003 and 2018 within this database. They then compared rates of these deaths across different racial and ethnic populations based on U.S. Census Bureau data.

Dr. Goyal and her colleagues found that during the 16-year study period, 140 adolescents had died from police intervention, and of those, 113 involved firearms. The vast majority -- about 93% -- were male, with a mean age of about 16 years.

Using census data, the researchers found that the rate of firearm deaths due to police intervention was markedly higher among non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic youth when compared to non-Hispanic white youth. Numbers show that, compared to non-Hispanic white children, non-Hispanic Black children had a six-fold higher risk of death due to legal intervention. Similarly, Hispanic children had a risk of death almost three times higher.

"As the country works to reform policing practices and strives to mitigate disparities in our justice system, it is essential we do not forget the disproportionate impact on children of color," Dr. Goyal says. "Our study confirms these disparities that are stark and unacceptable."

Dr. Goyal adds that the study only collected data on adolescents who died, rather than non-fatal shootings, and thus, may underestimate the true toll of disparities in use of firearms against youth due to police intervention. Although the study was not designed to investigate the causes of these disparities, she says, recent events provide evidence of structural racism and bias among law enforcement personnel and in its policies.

Although these numbers are small, Dr. Goyal notes that there's a potential rippling effect, with the death of each child having wide-ranging impact on an entire community.

"Any death of a child is devastating but when it is due to police violence, it leads to distrust in the system and undermines the primary mission to protect," she says. "The pattern of stark racial and ethnic disparities only adds to this tragedy, further oppressing and alienating communities of color. It's important to investigate, identify and correct those policies and personnel that perpetuate and exacerbate these disparities."

Once enough people receive effective vaccines against the novel coronavirus, experts say, the end of the pandemic may be in sight. But a new poll of older adults - one of the highest-priority groups for vaccination - suggests an uphill climb lies ahead to reach that goal.

In all, 58% of adults aged 50 to 80 say they are somewhat or very likely to get vaccinated to prevent COVID-19, according to new results from the National Poll on Healthy Aging from the University of Michigan.

That number went up to 66% when the poll team asked the question a different way: 20% said they'd want to get vaccinated right away when vaccines become available, but 46% said they'd rather wait for others to get vaccinated first before doing it themselves.

Women, people of color, people between 50 and 64 years old, and those with lower incomes and education levels were less likely to say they'd seek vaccination in general. Only 40% of older adults who are Black, and 51% of those who are Hispanic, said they are somewhat or very likely to get vaccinated, despite the greater risk of hospitalization and death for members of these groups if they develop COVID-19.

People over age 65, whites, men and those with higher levels of education were more likely than others to say they'd want to get vaccinated right away. One-quarter of respondents said they'd consider taking part in a vaccine clinical trial.

The new results come from a poll taken in October for U-M's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, with support from AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M's academic medical center. The poll draws from the answers of a national sample of more than 2,000 adults aged 50 to 80.

"Effective vaccines will be crucial to getting this pandemic under control and preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19, especially among people over 50 and those with underlying health issues," says Preeti Malani, M.D., the poll's director and a specialist in geriatrics and infectious diseases at Michigan Medicine. "Our findings point to a strong need to communicate effectively and transparently about how well the vaccines work, the safeguards built in to protect the safety of recipients, and the public health importance of widespread vaccination starting with priority groups."

Key messengers and messages

Getting out the word about the efficacy of each vaccine will be paramount, the poll suggests; 80% of respondents said that they'll consider how well a vaccine works as part of making their vaccination decision.

Health care providers will also play a critical role in talking with older adults about the vaccine, the poll suggests. Just over half of the older adults polled said their doctor's recommendation would be very important to their decision about vaccination. Just over 40% called recommendations from public health officials very important.

More than half of the respondents said their own research into information available about COVID-19 vaccines will factor into their decisions. That makes it important for the news media, government, vaccine makers, health organizations, hospitals and nonprofits to share easily understandable and accurate information about vaccines, Malani says.

This includes sharing information about any issues spotted in clinical trials, and about the safeguards in place during vaccine development. Nearly half of poll respondents said they worry about the safety of a rapidly developed vaccine.

One factor that didn't seem to make a difference in a person's inclination to be vaccinated against COVID-19 was their personal experience with the disease, either in themselves or someone they know.

Just over half of poll respondents knew someone who had had COVID-19, and 2% said they'd been infected themselves. Nearly one in five said they knew someone who had died of COVID-19. But members of these groups were no more likely to say they'd get vaccinated.

Messaging about the cost of vaccine for consumers also appears to be important. Nearly one-third of respondents said cost was very important to their decision about vaccination.

"Any coronavirus vaccine must be FDA-authorized or approved, safe, effective and accessible. Once vaccines are available, it will be important for Americans to talk to their providers to understand which vaccine is best for them and make an informed choice, and for public health officials to monitor uptake and the impact on community health," says Alison Bryant, Ph.D., senior vice president of research for AARP. "AARP is urging the government to be transparent about the development and authorization or approval process for any vaccines. It is also important to engage higher-risk groups, hear their concerns, and work to address them honestly and with sensitivity."

Reaching those who are on the fence about vaccination - including the 14% who are unsure, and the 11% who are somewhat unlikely to get vaccinated-- will also be important.

More findings

Most poll respondents appear to agree with recommendations from public health authorities that getting a flu shot and prioritizing COVID-19 vaccine for the highest risk members of society are both good ideas.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they had already gotten vaccinated against the flu, or intended to. Nearly half said it was more important to get a flu shot this year than previously.

Nearly all respondents (93%) agreed it's important to prioritize giving COVID-19 vaccines to high-risk individuals. Older adults, those who work directly with the public in healthcare and other professions, and people with underlying health conditions and weak immune systems, have all been identified as possible priority groups.

Researchers have revealed how high-frequency sound waves can be used to build new materials, make smart nanoparticles and even deliver drugs to the lungs for painless, needle-free vaccinations.

While sound waves have been part of science and medicine for decades - ultrasound was first used for clinical imaging in 1942 and for driving chemical reactions in the 1980s - the technologies have always relied on low frequencies.

Now researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have shown how high frequency sound waves could revolutionise the field of ultrasound-driven chemistry.

A new review published in Advanced Science reveals the bizarre effects of these sound waves on materials and cells, such as molecules that seem to spontaneously order themselves after being hit with the sonic equivalent of a semi-trailer.

The researchers also detail various exciting applications of their pioneering work, including:

Drug delivery to the lungs - patented nebulisation technology that could deliver life-saving drugs and vaccines by inhalation, rather than through injections

Drug-protecting nanoparticles - encapsulating drugs in special nano-coatings to protect them from deterioration, control their release over time and ensure they precisely target the right places in the body like tumours or infections

Breakthrough smart materials - sustainable production of super-porous nanomaterials that can be used to store, separate, release, protect almost anything

Nano-manufacturing 2D materials - precise, cost-effective and fast exfoliation of atomically-thin quantum dots and nanosheets

Lead researcher Distinguished Professor Leslie Yeo and his team have spent over a decade researching the interaction of sound waves at frequencies above 10 MHz with different materials.

But Yeo says they are only now starting to understand the range of strange phenomena they often observe in the lab.

"When we couple high-frequency sound waves into fluids, materials and cells, the effects are extraordinary," he says.

"We've harnessed the power of these sound waves to develop innovative biomedical technologies and to synthesise advanced materials.

"But our discoveries have also changed our fundamental understanding of ultrasound-driven chemistry - and revealed how little we really know.

"Trying to explain the science of what we see and then applying that to solve practical problems is a big and exciting challenge."

Sonic waves: how to power chemistry with sound

The RMIT research team, which includes Dr Amgad Rezk, Dr Heba Ahmed and Dr Shwathy Ramesan, generates high-frequency sound waves on a microchip to precisely manipulate fluids or materials.

Ultrasound has long been used at low frequencies - around 10 kHz to 3 MHz - to drive chemical reactions, a field known as "sonochemistry".

At these low frequencies, sonochemical reactions are driven by the violent implosion of air bubbles.

This process, known as cavitation, results in huge pressures and ultra-high temperatures - like a tiny and extremely localised pressure cooker.

But it turns out that if you up the frequency, these reactions change completely.

When high frequency sound waves were transmitted into various materials and cells, the researchers saw behaviour that had never been observed with low-frequency ultrasound.

"We've seen self-ordering molecules that seem to orient themselves in the crystal along the direction of the sound waves," Yeo says.

"The sound wavelengths involved can be over 100,000 times larger than an individual molecule, so it's incredibly puzzling how something so tiny can be precisely manipulated with something so big.

"It's like driving a truck through a random scattering of Lego bricks, then finding those pieces stack nicely on top of each other - it shouldn't happen!"

Biomedical advances

While low-frequency cavitation can often destroy molecules and cells, they remain mostly intact under the high-frequency sound waves.

This makes them gentle enough to use in biomedical devices to manipulate biomolecules and cells without affecting their integrity - the basis for the various drug delivery technologies patented by the RMIT research team.

One of these patented devices is a cheap, lightweight and portable advanced nebuliser that can precisely deliver large molecules such as DNA and antibodies, unlike existing nebulisers.

This opens the potential for painless, needle-free vaccinations and treatments.

The nebuliser uses high-frequency sound waves to excite the surface of the fluid or drug, generating a fine mist that can deliver larger biological molecules directly to the lungs.

The nebuliser technology can also be used to encapsulate a drug in protective polymer nanoparticles, in a one-step process bringing together nano-manufacturing and drug delivery.

In addition, the researchers have shown irradiating cells with the high-frequency sound waves allows therapeutic molecules to be inserted into the cells without damage, a technique that can be used in emerging cell-based therapies.

Smart materials

The team has used the sound waves to drive crystallisation for the sustainable production of metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs.

Predicted to be the defining material of the 21st century, MOFs are ideal for sensing and trapping substances at minute concentrations, to purify water or air, and can also hold large amounts of energy, for making better batteries and energy storage devices.

While the conventional process for making a MOF can take hours or days and requires the use of harsh solvents or intensive energy processes, the RMIT team has developed a clean, sound wave-driven technique that can produce a customised MOF in minutes and can be easily scaled up for efficient mass production.

Sound waves can also be used for nano-manufacturing 2D materials, which are used in myriad applications from flexible electric circuits to solar cells.

Scaling up and pushing boundaries

The next steps for the RMIT team are focused on scaling up the technology.

At a low cost of just $US0.70 per device, the sound wave-generating microchips can be produced using the standard processes for mass fabrication of silicon chips for computers.

"This opens the possibility of producing industrial quantities of materials with these sound waves through massive parallelisation - using thousands of our chips simultaneously," Yeo said.

The team at the Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory, in RMIT's School of Engineering, is one of just a few research groups in the world bringing together high-frequency sound waves, microfluidics and materials.

Yeo says the research challenges long-held physics theories, opening up a new field of "high frequency excitation" in parallel to sonochemistry.

"The classical theories established since the mid-1800s don't always explain the strange and sometimes contradictory behaviour we see - we're pushing the boundaries of our understanding."

KEY FINDINGS

Almost half the world's most connected cities straddle animal-human spillover hotspots

14-20 percent of these cities are in areas with poor health infrastructure, meaning infections resulting from spillovers are likely to go unreported

South and southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have the most cities at greatest risk

The new methodology builds on understanding sources of pathogen transmission at wildlife-human interfaces by locating the most connected airports adjacent to these interfaces, where infections can spread quickly globally.

An international team of researchers has taken a holistic approach to reveal for the first time where wildlife-human interfaces intersect with areas of poor human health outcomes and highly globalised cities, which could give rise to the next pandemic unless preventative measures are taken.

Areas exhibiting a high degree of human pressure on wildlife also had more than 40 percent of the world's most connected cities in or adjacent to areas of likely spillover, and 14-20 percent of the world's most connected cities at risk of such spillovers likely to go undetected because of poor health infrastructure (predominantly in South and South East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa). As with COVID-19, the impact of such spillovers could be global.

Led by the University of Sydney and with academics spanning the United Kingdom, India and Ethiopia, the open-access paper shows the cities worldwide that are at risk. Last month, an IPBES report highlighted the role biodiversity destruction plays in pandemics and provided recommendations. This Sydney-led research pinpoints the geographical areas that require greatest attention.

The paper, "Whence the next pandemic? The intersecting global geography of the animal-human interface, poor health systems and air transit centrality reveals conduits for high-impact spillover", has published in the leading Elsevier journal, One Health. City lists for yellow, orange and red alert zones are available in open access.

Lead author Dr Michael Walsh, who co-leads the One Health Node at Sydney's Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, said that previously, much has been done to identify human-animal-environmental hotspots.

"Our new research integrates the wildlife-human interface with human health systems and globalisation to show where spillovers might go unidentified and lead to dissemination worldwide and new pandemics," said Dr Walsh, from the University of Sydney's School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health.

Dr Walsh said that although low- and middle-income countries had the most cities in zones classified at highest risk for spillover and subsequent onward global dissemination, it should be noted that the high risk in these areas was very much a consequence of diminished health systems. Moreover, while not as extensively represented in the zone of highest risk because of better health infrastructure, high-income countries still had many cities represented in the next two tiers of risk because of the extreme pressures the affluent countries exert on wildlife via unsustainable development.

IDENTIFYING AREAS AT RISK

The researchers took a three-staged approach:

1. First, identify where the sharing of space between wildlife and humans is greatest, and therefore where spillover events would be expected to be most common. The researchers refer to this as the 'yellow' and 'orange' alert zones of two- and three-way interactions between humans, domesticated animals and wildlife.

2. Next, identify where areas of high wildlife-human interface coincide with areas of poor health system performance, which would comprise areas expected to miss ongoing chains of transmission following a spillover event ['red-alert' zone - Figure 4];

3. Finally, identify cities within or adjacent to these areas of spillover risk that are highly connected to the network of global air travel, and therefore may serve as conduits for future pandemics (city names in the alert zones can be seen by zooming up on the high-resolution maps).

"This is the first time this three-staged geography has been identified and mapped, and we want this to be able to inform the development of multi-tiered surveillance of infections in humans and animals to help prevent the next pandemic," the paper reads.

Of those cities that were in the top quartile of network centrality, approximately 43 percent were found to be within 50km of the spillover zones and therefore warrant attention (both yellow and orange alert zones). A lesser but still significant proportion of these cities were within 50km of the red alert zone at 14.2 percent (for spillover associated with mammal wildlife) and 19.6 percent (wild bird-associated spillover).

Dr Walsh said although it would be a big job to improve habitat conservation and health systems, as well as surveillance at airports as a last line of defence, the benefit in terms of safeguarding against debilitating pandemics would outweigh the costs.

"Locally-directed efforts can apply these results to identify vulnerable points. With this new information, people can develop systems that incorporate human health infrastructure, animal husbandry, wildlife habitat conservation, and movement through transportation hubs to prevent the next pandemic," Dr Walsh said.

"Given the overwhelming risk absorbed by so many of the world's communities and the concurrent high-risk exposure of so many of our most connected cities, this is something that requires our collective prompt attention."

Despite being rare, fossils nonetheless appear to be common elements in archaeological records. Their presence is documented at some of the main Iberian archaeological sites from the Palaeolithic (Altamira, Parpalló, Reclau Viver, Aitzbitarte, La Garma, Rascaño, El Juyo and La Pileta) to the Metal Ages (Los Millares, Valencina, Los Castillejos, El Argar, Fuente Álamo, Vila Nova de São Pedro, etc.).

An interdisciplinary research team, comprised of archaeologists, archaeozoologists, palaeontologists and geologists from the Autonomous Universities of Madrid, Málaga, Granada, Córdoba and the Basque Country, as well as from the Altamira National Museum and Research Centre and the Andalusian Earth Sciences Institute (CSIC), coordinated by the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the University of Seville, joined forces to tackle the largest fossils record thus far from archaeological sites in the Iberian Peninsula.

The researchers have analysed a total of 633 specimens of scaphopods, molluscs, shark teeth and mammal remains from 82 archaeological sites in different regions (Andalusia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile-La Mancha, Castile-Leon, Valencia, Madrid, Murcia and the Basque Country in Spain, and Alentejo, the Algarve, Extremadura, Lisbon and Setubal in Portugal).

The vast majority of fossils were collected from areas close to archaeological sites, suggesting their potential value as indicators of regional social and symbolic value during Iberian prehistory. However, there were changes throughout the period analysed, indicating different cultural fashions and traditions.

The Iberian Peninsula has one of the richest paleontological records in Western Europe. However, "there were generally only scarce indications of the collection and use of fossils at Iberian sites during Prehistory, and thus the documentation of this behaviour presented an anomalous situation compared to other regions of Europe, where numerous studies have been published on this practice," explained Miguel Cortés, Professor of Prehistory at the University of Seville and leader of the study.

On the other hand, this confirms the need to take an interdisciplinary methodological approach to detect and study the fossils that are surely still awaiting analysis in the zooarchaeological collections of museums and institutions. In this sense, this work offers a new approach to archaeo-zoological records from archaeological sites, by identifying some cases where a review is needed.

"This work can serve to reappraise a little-known record and begin to solve the apparent anomaly of fossil collection by Iberian prehistoric communities compared to other areas of Western Europe," added Dr. Cortés.

Long ago and far across the universe, an enormous burst of gamma rays unleashed more energy in a half-second than the Sun will produce over its entire 10-billion-year lifetime. In May of 2020, light from the flash finally reached Earth and was first detected by NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. Scientists quickly enlisted other telescopes -- including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Array radio observatory, the W. M. Keck Observatory, and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope network -- to study the explosion's aftermath and the host galaxy. It was Hubble that provided the surprise.

Based on X-ray and radio observations from the other observatories, astronomers were baffled by what they saw with Hubble: the near-infrared emission was 10 times brighter than predicted. These results challenge conventional theories of what happens in the aftermath of a short gamma-ray burst. One possibility is that the observations might point to the birth of a massive, highly magnetized neutron star called a magnetar.

"These observations do not fit traditional explanations for short gamma-ray bursts," said study leader Wen-fai Fong of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. "Given what we know about the radio and X-rays from this blast, it just doesn't match up. The near-infrared emission that we're finding with Hubble is way too bright. In terms of trying to fit the puzzle pieces of this gamma-ray burst together, one puzzle piece is not fitting correctly."

Without Hubble, the gamma-ray burst would have appeared like many others, and Fong and her team would not have known about the bizarre infrared behavior. "It's amazing to me that after 10 years of studying the same type of phenomenon, we can discover unprecedented behavior like this," said Fong. "It just reveals the diversity of explosions that the universe is capable of producing, which is very exciting."

Light Fantastic

The intense flashes of gamma rays from these bursts appear to come from jets of material that are moving extremely close to the speed of light. The jets do not contain a lot of mass -- maybe a millionth of the mass of the Sun -- but because they're moving so fast, they release a tremendous amount of energy across all wavelengths of light. This particular gamma-ray burst was one of the rare instances in which scientists were able to detect light across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

"As the data were coming in, we were forming a picture of the mechanism that was producing the light we were seeing," said the study's co-investigator, Tanmoy Laskar of the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. "As we got the Hubble observations, we had to completely change our thought process, because the information that Hubble added made us realize that we had to discard our conventional thinking, and that there was a new phenomenon going on. Then we had to figure out what that meant for the physics behind these extremely energetic explosions."

Gamma-ray bursts -- the most energetic, explosive events known -- live fast and die hard. They are split into two classes based on the duration of their gamma rays.

If the gamma-ray emission is greater than two seconds, it's called a long gamma-ray burst. This event is known to result directly from the core collapse of a massive star. Scientists expect a supernova to accompany this longer type of burst.

If the gamma-ray emission lasts less than two seconds, it's considered a short burst. This is thought to be caused by the merger of two neutron stars, extremely dense objects about the mass of the Sun compressed into the volume of a city. A neutron star is so dense that on Earth, one teaspoonful would weigh a billion tons! A merger of two neutron stars is generally thought to produce a black hole.

Neutron star mergers are very rare but are extremely important because scientists think that they are one of the main sources of heavy elements in the universe, such as gold and uranium.

Accompanying a short gamma-ray burst, scientists expect to see a "kilonova" whose peak brightness typically reaches 1,000 times that of a classical nova. Kilonovae are an optical and infrared glow from the radioactive decay of heavy elements and are unique to the merger of two neutron stars, or the merger of a neutron star with a small black hole.

Magnetic Monster?

Fong and her team have discussed several possibilities to explain the unusual brightness that Hubble saw. While most short gamma-ray bursts probably result in a black hole, the two neutron stars that merged in this case may have combined to form a magnetar, a supermassive neutron star with a very powerful magnetic field.

"You basically have these magnetic field lines that are anchored to the star that are whipping around at about a thousand times a second, and this produces a magnetized wind," explained Laskar. "These spinning field lines extract the rotational energy of the neutron star formed in the merger, and deposit that energy into the ejecta from the blast, causing the material to glow even brighter."

If the extra brightness came from a magnetar that deposited energy into the kilonova material, then within a few years, the team expects the ejecta from the burst to produce light that shows up at radio wavelengths. Follow-up radio observations may ultimately prove that this was a magnetar, and this may explain the origin of such objects.

"With its amazing sensitivity at near-infrared wavelengths, Hubble really sealed the deal with this burst," explained Fong. "Amazingly, Hubble was able to take an image only three days after the burst. Through a series of later images, Hubble showed that a source faded in the aftermath of the explosion. This is as opposed to being a static source that remains unchanged. With these observations, we knew we had not only nabbed the source, but we had also discovered something extremely bright and very unusual. Hubble's angular resolution was also key in pinpointing the position of the burst and precisely measuring the light coming from the merger."

NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope is particularly well-suited for this type of observation. "Webb will completely revolutionize the study of similar events," said Edo Berger of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and principal investigator of the Hubble program. "With its incredible infrared sensitivity, it will not only detect such emission at even larger distances, but it will also provide detailed spectroscopic information that will resolve the nature of the infrared emission."

There are known differences in the survival rates of women and men with lung cancer. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden set out to investigate potential reasons behind this disparity, such as the presence of other underlying diseases and smoking status. The study, which was published in Chest, shows that women have better survival rates after lung cancer surgery than men, independent of other factors.

Previous studies conducted by Karolinska Institutet and other research bodies have shown a link between female sex and a lower overall disease risk, as well as better survival in many forms of cancer that affect both sexes. But one exception to this is lung cancer, where female sex could be a risk factor.

Previous studies on sex differences in survival after lung cancer treatment have yielded conflicting results. A research group from Karolinska Institutet therefore set out to further investigate the link between sex and survival after lung cancer surgery.

"The healthcare sector is always striving to offer all patients equal treatment tailored to their individual needs," says the study's first author Erik Sachs, resident in cardiothoracic surgery at Karolinska University Hospital and doctoral student at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery at Karolinska Institutet. "This kind of study can help shed light on systematic differences that ultimately affect patient outcomes."

In a national population-based registry study, researchers analysed sex differences in survival in women and men after lung cancer surgery, taking into account a wide range of factors such as socioeconomic differences, age, smoking status, comorbidities, tumour characteristics and the type and extent of surgery. Follow-up was carried out 1, 5 and 10 years after surgery.

The sample consisted of 6,536 patients who underwent lung cancer surgery in Sweden between 2008-2017, of which just over half were women. The mean age was 67 years for women and 68 years for men. More women were non-smokers, and women had a lower incidence of comorbidities than men.

The results show that women had 27 per cent lower mortality compared to men, independent of factors such as comorbidities, age, socioeconomic status, lifestyle factors, physical function, type and extent of surgery, tumour characteristics and tumour stage. The pattern of better survival in women was observed across all age categories except in the youngest patients, where the difference was not as pronounced.

"Our findings are significant, as they suggest that the prognosis for lung cancer can likely be improved, but more research is needed in this area," says Veronica Jackson, researcher at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, specialist in thoracic surgery, and the study's last author. "Further studies that specifically investigate the effects of lifestyle, sociocultural conditions and the presence of any inequalities in the delivery of care would likely be of value."

Researchers have used cutting edge technology to bioprint miniature human kidneys in the lab, paving the way for new treatments for kidney failure and possibly lab-grown transplants.

The study, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and biotech company Organovo and published in Nature Materials, saw the research team also validate the use of 3D bioprinted human mini kidneys for screening of drug toxicity from a class of drugs known to cause kidney damage in people.

The research showed how 3D bioprinting of stem cells can produce large enough sheets of kidney tissue needed for transplants.

Like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, extrusion-based 3D bioprinting uses a 'bioink' made from a stem cell paste, squeezed out through a computer-guided pipette to create artificial living tissue in a dish.

MCRI researchers teamed up with San Diego based Organovo Inc to create the mini organs.

MCRI Professor Melissa Little, a world leader in modelling the human kidney, first began growing kidney organoids in 2015. But this new bio-printing method is faster, more reliable and allows the whole process to be scaled up. 3D bioprinting could now create about 200 mini kidneys in 10 minutes without compromising quality, the study found.

From larger than a grain of rice to the size of a fingernail, bioprinted mini-kidneys fully resemble a regular-sized kidney, including the tiny tubes and blood vessels that form the organ's filtering structures called nephrons.

Professor Little said by using mini-organs her team hope to screen drugs to find new treatments for kidney disease or to test if a new drug was likely to injure the kidney.

"Drug-induced injury to the kidney is a major side effect and difficult to predict using animal studies. Bioprinting human kidneys are a practical approach to testing for toxicity before use," she said.

In this study, the toxicity of aminoglycosides, a class of antibiotics that commonly damage the kidney, were tested.

"We found increased death of particular types of cells in the kidneys treated with aminoglycosides," Professor Little said.

"By generating stem cells from a patient with a genetic kidney disease, and then growing mini kidneys from them, also paves the way for tailoring treatment plans specific to each patient, which could be extended to a range of kidney diseases."

Professor Little said the study showed growing human tissue from stem cells also brought the promise of bioengineered kidney tissue.

"3D bioprinting can generate larger amounts of kidney tissue but with precise manipulation of biophysical properties, including cell number and conformation, improving the outcome," she said.

Currently, 1.5 million Australians are unaware they are living with early signs of kidney disease such as decreased urine output, fluid retention and shortness of breath.

Professor Little said prior to this study the possibility of using mini kidneys to generate transplantable tissue was too far away to contemplate.

"The pathway to renal replacement therapy using stem cell-derived kidney tissue will need a massive increase in the number of nephron structures present in the tissue to be transplanted," she said.

"By using extrusion bioprinting, we improved the final nephron count, which will ultimately determine whether we can transplant these tissues into people."

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Researchers examining subglacial waters both from Antarctica and Greenland found that these waters have higher concentrations of important, life-sustaining elements than previously thought, answering a big unknown for scientists seeking to understand the Earth's geochemical processes.

"The data from an Antarctic lake is particularly exciting," said Florida State University postdoctoral fellow Jon Hawkings. "Most people tend to think of Antarctica as just ice, but we've known about these lakes underneath the glaciers in Antarctica for 40 years and over 400 of them have currently been identified. Some scientists refer to the subglacial environment in Antarctic as the world's largest wetland. The challenge for scientists is it's just extremely difficult to sample them."

Hawkings, along with colleagues at Florida State and Montana State University, has published a new study this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences exploring these subglacial waters.

The study specifically examines the liquid water beneath the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. About 10 percent of the Earth's land surface is covered by these ice sheets, and these polar environments are undergoing rapid change as a result of rising temperatures. Scientists are greatly interested in understanding these environments and how continued warming will affect critical geochemical processes into the future.

Hawkings analyzed the water samples focusing on what are called trace elements - chemical elements that are present in extremely small amounts but that are essential to microscopic organisms and thus the global carbon cycle. Scientists thought for years that the waters beneath glaciers worldwide contained these elements in such miniscule quantities that they didn't play a significant role in the Earth's geochemical and biological processes.

"What we found is actually that ice sheets are seemingly more important to life processes than we originally thought," said FSU Associate Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science Robert Spencer. "As big unknowns in our contemporary understanding of how our planet works are uncovered, it reminds us of how much there still is left to learn."

For example, scientists expected to see less than 5 micrograms per liter of dissolved iron (an extremely important trace element) in some of these subglacial waters, but they saw up to 1,000 micrograms per liter. These large variations may make a major difference in how much life can be sustained in extreme subglacial ecosystems and in the ocean waters that receive ice sheet meltwater.

"These trace elements are kind of like the vitamin tablet people take every day," Spencer said. "Although we only need small amounts of these materials, they are fundamental for the development of healthy ecosystems."

Collecting subglacial waters for analysis is no easy feat though, particularly in Antarctica. Researchers must work in remote and harsh environments.

Hawkings' and Spencer's collaborators from Montana State University, Professors John Priscu and Mark Skidmore, orchestrated a logistically complicated research expedition to Antarctica to drill more than 3,500 feet through the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

After receiving funding from the National Science Foundation in 2016 for the project SALSA (Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access), Priscu led a field campaign that involved moving almost 1 million pounds of gear by aircraft and tractor traverse across the ice sheet to the field site.

Then, from December 2018 through January 2019, the SALSA project Science Team drilled through about three quarters of a mile of ice into Mercer Subglacial Lake, a lake more than 5.5 miles (9 kilometers) long and 50 feet (15 meters) deep. They chose that particular lake as it was located where two ice streams meet.

"We were interested in the physical, chemical and biological processes occurring in that specific lake, but then there is also this broader context of these lakes being part of the greater hydrological system under the ice sheet," Skidmore said. "We want to see what's being generated beneath the ice sheet and how that connects to the coastal environments."

Skidmore took samples under a protocol that Hawkings laid out and then shipped them back to the United States via a temperature-controlled cargo boat, taking several months, and then forwarded to Tallahassee via overnight delivery in special coolers to keep the sample temperatures stable.

Hawkings and colleagues separately collected samples in Greenland from a large meltwater river that emerged beneath Leverett Glacier. The fieldwork, led by Jemma Wadham of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, involved monitoring the hydrological and geochemical characteristics of the river over a three-month period during the summer melt season.

Hawkings and Spencer then conducted geochemical analysis in specially designed laboratories at the FSU-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory that minimize dust or other environmental factors that would potentially contaminate the samples.

The researchers said their collaborative resources and interdisciplinary approach ultimately resulted in a study that will move their field forward.

"Discoveries are made at the intersection of disciplines," Priscu said. "The PNAS paper intersects many disciplines and shows the power of international collaboration. Results in this manuscript have transformed our view of how polar ice sheets influence the Earth System."

WASHINGTON--Weather systems responsible for transporting moisture from the tropics to temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere have been gradually shifting toward the South Pole for the past 40 years, a trend which could lead to increased rates of ice melt in Antarctica, according to new research.

Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow jets of air that carry huge amounts of water vapor from the tropics to Earth's continents and polar regions. The new study finds atmospheric rivers in the Southern Hemisphere are shifting due in part to ozone depletion, greenhouse gas emissions and natural variations in sea surface temperature.

This shift of atmospheric rivers may affect moisture and heat transported into Antarctica, said Weiming Ma, an atmospheric scientist at UCLA and lead author of the new study published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.

"The most important implication of our finding is that due to this shift, more atmospheric rivers are expected to make landfall over Antarctica, which will have effects on the surrounding sea ice and glaciers on the continent," Ma said.

A River from Thin Air

Atmospheric rivers form when warm, turbulent air from the tropics encounter cold fronts in mid-latitude regions. The narrow band between these two competing air masses grows thick with condensed water vapor as temperatures drop in the region of saturated air.

Sometimes measuring thousands of kilometers in length, these cloud systems can contribute up to 60% of the annual precipitation in some regions, such as California, Chile and western Europe.

In the past, scientists have used simulations to predict the future occurrence of atmospheric rivers over western Europe, showing that these weather patterns are likely to become more common under a warming climate. However, since their direction and movement are determined in large part by Earth's jet streams, and as the westerly jet is expected to shift toward the North Pole in future climate models, researchers predict that atmospheric rivers will likely move poleward as well.

But the new study found atmospheric rivers in the Southern Hemisphere have already been following this trend, steadily creeping toward the South Pole for at least the last four decades. Using simulations based on multiple models and datasets spanning back to 1979, the researchers looked for broad trends and potential mechanisms that might explain observed patterns.

A Cloudy Outlook

According to modeling results from the new study, at least part of the observed trend can be explained by increases in greenhouse gas emissions and ozone depletion over Antarctica and their corresponding effect on temperature gradients between the equator and South Pole; however, the shift also appears to be driven by natural, long-term changes in sea surface temperatures.

"We found evidence for cooling over the equatorial Pacific and the Southern Ocean, which is caused by a pattern called the inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation," said Ma. "This is a natural pattern that takes place over multiple decades and one that isn't driven by human activity."

These cooler patterns in sea surface temperature pull the westerly jet stream further south, pushing atmospheric rivers along with them. It's unclear exactly how this might affect rain and snowfall patterns over South America, but it seems likely that portions of Antarctica will experience increased rates of ice melt as a result, according to the researchers.

"Global sea level change depends critically on the fate of the Antarctic ice sheet, and that ice is impacted by how many atmospheric rivers hit Antarctica and how strong they are," said Marty Ralph, the director for the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who was not involved in the new study.

While atmospheric rivers over East Antarctica have been associated with increased snowfall accumulation in some years, they seem to have the opposite effect on the other side of the continent. According to research published in 2019 that used a similar dataset, an average of only 12 atmospheric rivers a year make their way across the western portion of Antarctica, yet they contribute up to 40% of the summer ice melt in some areas and appear to be responsible for the majority of ice melt in winter and in high-elevation glaciers.

Large ice melts in West Antarctica are still fairly rare, occurring only a few times each decade. However, scientists warn that increasing temperatures due to global climate warming and the shifting occurrence of atmospheric rivers in the southern hemisphere will likely cause the frequency and severity of those melting events to increase in the near future.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health illness and substance use disorders are key contributors to disability in young adulthood, and disparities in substance use persist along levels of academic achievement and socioeconomic status.

"Given the increase of multicultural communities, the political climate of U.S. immigration policy, and an increase in xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia -- it is crucial to identify factors that impede healthy development of immigrant and refugee origin youth (IROY). Such as the cross-sectional relationships between immigration-related factors and adolescent well-being to inform prevention programming," said Eunice Areba, a clinical assistant professor in the School of Nursing.

In a recent American Journal of Orthopsychiatry article, a research team from the University of Minnesota examined the psychological, social and behavioral aspects of adolescent health among Somali, Latino and Hmong adolescents related to their level of acculturation (e.g., length of stay in the U.S., language use and nativity) to the majority culture and environment.

The adolescents were participants in the School of Public Health's long-running Project EAT (Eating and Activity over Time) study, which tracks the health and well-being of adolescents into adulthood. Areba and her colleagues found that:

Hmong adolescents were the most acculturated, whereas Somali adolescents were the least acculturated.

There were significant differences in substance use, socioemotional health and academic achievement across Somali, Hmong and Latino youth.

Somali youth reported the lowest involvement in substance use, whereas Latino youth reported the highest involvement.

Latino and Hmong students reported significantly lower self-esteem and higher depressive symptoms compared with Somali youth.

Somali and Hmong adolescents reported higher academic achievement than Latino adolescents.

And, regardless of ethnicity, greater acculturation was associated with higher odds of alcohol and marijuana use and lower academic achievement (evident for only Latino and Somali adolescents).

Overall, acculturation was positively associated with substance use and negatively with academic achievement in adolescence. To help address these disparities, the researchers suggest learning institutions consider adapting prevention programs that include supporting multilingual and multicultural learners, and account for cultural assets within immigrant families that maintain and nurture protective factors as adolescents transition into young adulthood.

"Learning institutions must be inclusive environments that decrease the likelihood of academic underachievement. Additionally, communities should acknowledge and support immigrant and refugee family cultural assets that nurture adolescent health as they transition into young adulthood," said Areba.

Future research will need to consider the reasons for migration and the social and geopolitical context within which refugee and immigrant communities reside. This study was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and supported by Dianne Neumark-Sztainer in the School of Public Health.

A research team from the Center for Design, Manufacturing and Materials at Skoltech has recently published a study focusing on multifunctional materials created through the addition of carbon nanoparticles to polymer matrices, designed to allow self-diagnostic monitoring through an inexpensive technique.

The study, authored by PhD student Hassaan Ahmad Butt from the research group of Professor Sergey Abaimov, has recently been published in Composite Structures and is part of a multiphase project designed to create self-sensing materials which can be incorporated and produced using existing industrial manufacturing routes.

With property demands from polymer composites increasing year by year worldwide, carbon nanoparticles have received a large amount of attention when it comes to their addition to such material systems. Studies have shown that they can increase required mechanical properties with relatively small addition amounts, all the while allowing the final material to be electrically conductive and piezoresistive in nature. However, carbon nanoparticle incorporation into large scale production is problematic, requiring intensive facility upgrades.

"This is why we decided to use masterbatches and industrially available, inexpensive manufacturing techniques. Masterbatches can be stored, transported and incorporated into large scale production routes without the necessity of expensive overhauls. Almost every facility dealing with thermoset polymers has a simple mixer," said Hassaan.

The study examines how the addition of carbon nanoparticles can change the electric conductivity of polymer matrices and how this itself can change during mechanical loading, be monitored, and thus related to the deformation the material is experiencing. In turn, this cuts out the need for complex monitoring techniques, with a simple multimeter being able to determine the answer.

Essentially, the use of such materials has the potential to replace sensors in weight critical systems such as aircraft structures, with the material itself being able to provide measurements. The same materials and production route can be used to manufacture electrically conductive materials for applications such as electric circuit printing, electromagnetic shielding and specialized temperature and humidity sensors. The material concept is not limited to this specific manufacturing route, with possible applicability lying with pultrusion and vacuum infusion as well.

"The current materials have applications ranging from the aerospace sphere to specialized sensors. The materials are unique in the fact that they can be scaled up into structures or scaled down to attach as separate miniature sensors" said Hassaan.

The largest aggregation of fishes ever recorded in the abyssal deep sea was discovered by a team of oceanographers from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UH, USA), Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI, USA) and the National Oceanography Centre (NOC, UK). Their findings were published recently in Deep-Sea Research.

"Our observations truly surprised us," said Astrid Leitner, lead author on the study, who conducted this work as graduate researcher in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). "We had never seen reports of such high numbers of fishes in the sparsely-populated, food-limited deep-sea."

The researchers, including Leitner, Jennifer Durden (NOC) and professors Jeffrey Drazen (Leitner's doctoral research advisor) and Craig Smith, made the observation on an expedition to the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ). The CCZ is a large region stretching nearly from Hawai'i to Mexico, which is being explored for deep sea mining of nodules containing metals such as copper, cobalt, zinc and manganese.

Abyssal seamounts, deep underwater mountains whose summits are 9,800 ft (3,000 m) below the sea surface, dot the deep seascape and are some of the least explored habitats on the planet. During the expedition, the research team sampled three of these seamounts and their surrounding plains as part of an effort to establish an ecological baseline prior to extraction activities.

On the summit of one of the three previously unmapped and completely unexplored seamounts, the team captured on video a swarm of 115 cutthroat eels (Family Synaphobranchidae) at a small bait package containing about two pounds (1 kg) of mackerel. A few eels were caught in a baited trap and identified to be of the species Ilyophis arx, a poorly known species with fewer than 10 specimens in fish collections worldwide.

These eels were observed at the top of all of the seamounts, but not on the surrounding abyssal plain. The findings provide evidence for an abyssal seamount effect (where these mountains can support much higher numbers of animals than other surrounding habitats), and also indicate these eels are likely to be seamount specialists.

After returning from the expedition, the team determined they had documented the highest number of fishes ever been recorded at one time in the abyssal ocean--almost double the previous record.

"If this phenomenon is not just isolated to these two seamounts in the CCZ, the implications on deep sea ecology could be widespread," said Leitner, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. "Our findings highlight how much there is still left to discover in the deep sea, and how much we all might lose if we do not manage mining appropriately."