Culture

Countries looking to contain the spread of harmful species and diseases like COVID-19 should work together in multiple hotspots, according to a new model developed by an Arizona State University researcher.

Because it would be difficult to completely eliminate the novel coronavirus, mathematical modeling suggests countries should focus on keeping the rate of infection low by collaborating in multiple areas. In some circumstances, however, a clear division of labor may be called for.

The findings by Adam Lampert, an assistant professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU, will be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The model is intended to guide policymakers responding to the outbreak of harmful species, including pests, parasites and even infectious diseases like COVID-19. It indicates that sometimes a "divide and conquer" approach is better, while in other situations it is more effective to work together in several locations.

A key question is whether to focus on eliminating the harmful species entirely or controlling its spread to prevent the next outbreak.

"If you want to eradicate the harmful species, or reduce its abundance rapidly, then you may want to split the duties of the agents," Lampert said. "If you want to control it, and keep it at a low level for prolonged periods, then working together becomes important."

Lampert identified three factors to determine if the species should be controlled or eradicated: the annual cost of maintaining the population, the natural growth rate of the harmful species, and its response to the treatment.

For example, when treating an invasive insect outbreak, managers spray pesticide over a large area as a general, blanket treatment method. A more targeted approach can be applied if the species can easily be seen. For example, complete eradication of a harmful plant species is plausible, because managers can physically remove each plant.

Given the ongoing spread of novel coronavirus, Lampert shared that we're seeing a mix of blanketed and targeted control efforts.

"With diseases, you can put a lockdown on the entire country, or a region, and say 'ok nobody goes out', and this way you reduce the infection level over time," he said. "Or you can do some more targeted actions by identifying the people who are sick - and keep them at home."

Lampert's research indicates that effective long-term control methods to reduce the spread of harmful species, including the novel coronavirus, require international cooperation. He says it is unlikely that we will be able to completely eradicate the virus, but controlling the spread is necessary for our social welfare and can be accomplished most effectively if countries work together.

Lampert is already working on additional research applying these findings to COVID-19, specifically. In the future, we can expect to see more intensive findings about the spread and control of harmful species, as the issue is not likely to disappear anytime soon.

"The impact of invasive species is a major problem in ecological systems," Lampert said. "And it's only becoming more and more prevalent because of globalization."

How the embryo develops in the womb is a complicated process, that is still puzzling today. In particular, it is unresolved how the paternal genetic information that is also present in the embryo, and the emerging body cells based on their mixed "blueprint" are tolerated by the maternal immune system and not rejected upon recognition as foreign. While this process is now well understood in humans, pregnancies in the animal kingdom still provoke many unanswered questions. An international team under the leadership of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has intensively studied the unique male pregnancy in 12 species of pipefishes and seahorses. In some species, the males carry the eggs only on their trunk, in others they protect them by skin flaps or even placenta-like systems which supply the offspring with nutrients and oxygen.

"By comparing the genomes of pipefishes and seahorses, we discovered that in the evolution of male pregnancy, the immune system pathways responsible for self and non-self recognition have changed considerably", explains Dr. Olivia Roth, from GEOMAR, first author of the paper which now appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "Moreover, we detected that genes maintaining essential functions in female mammalian pregnancy, are also activated in male pregnancy. This suggests that pregnancy, whether male or female, relies on similar molecular mechanisms and that similar genes are altered in their function in the evolution of a pregnancy", Dr. Roth continues.

In detail, the authors have investigated alteration of genes of the so-called major histocompatibility complex (MHC). The MHC is considered one of the most important innovations in the evolution of vertebrates. There are two types as cornerstones of the so-called adaptive immunity that eventually can cause memorized immunity, the MHC I and the MHC II pathway. Both also play a major role in humans, for example in the context of organ transplants and possible rejection reactions.

The results of the present study show that the fish family of seahorses and pipefishes underwent a dramatic modification of their immune system and lost the second arm of the adaptive immunity, the MHC II. In addition, analogous to mammals, during the male pregnancy of pipefishes and seahorses genes of the other pathway (MHC I) are also down-regulated, which further supports the tolerance of the embryo. "A loss of one MHC-system does not sound dramatic for the layman, but in relation to an organ it would be like finding a new group of fish that can survive without a liver", says Prof. Dr. Thorsten Reusch from GEOMAR, one of the senior authors of the study. "Many immunology textbooks now need to be modified", Thorsten Reusch continues.

A similar loss, albeit completely independent during their evolution, had previously been reported for cod-like fishes. Yet, in contrast to cod, where it remains puzzling why the MHC II has been lost, the loss is in pipefishes and seahorses is associated to the evolution of the unique male pregnancy. Interestingly, the genes lost in the pipefish immune system are coding for precisely those pathways that are attacked by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). "Pipefishes that survive without these critical immune system functions could become an important model system for the study of natural and disease-related immune system deficiencies", Dr. Roth concluded.

ANN ARBOR--Offshore energy-producing platforms in U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico are emitting twice as much methane, a greenhouse gas, than previously thought, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.

Researchers conducted a first-of-its-kind pilot-study sampling air over offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Their findings suggest the federal government's calculations are too low.

U-M's research found that, for the full U.S. Gulf of Mexico, oil and gas facilities emit approximately one-half a teragram of methane each year, comparable with large emitting oil and gas basins like the Four Corners region in the southwest U.S. The effective loss rate of produced gas is roughly 2.9%, similar to large onshore basins primarily focused on oil, and significantly higher than current inventory estimates.

Offshore harvesting accounts for roughly one-third of the oil and gas produced worldwide, and these facilities both vent and leak methane. Until now, only a handful of measurements of offshore platforms have been made, and no aircraft studies of methane emissions in normal operation had been conducted. Each year the EPA issues its U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory, but its numbers for offshore emissions are not produced via direct sampling.

The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, identified three reasons for the discrepancy between EPA estimates and their findings:

Errors in platform counts: Offshore facilities in state waters, of which there are in excess of 1,300, were missing from the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

Persistent emissions from shallow-water facilities, particularly those primarily focused on natural gas, are higher than inventoried.

Large, older facilities situated in shallow waters tended to produce episodic, disproportionally high spikes of methane emissions. These facilities, which have more than seven platforms apiece, contribute to nearly 40% of emissions, yet consist of less than 1% of total platforms. If this emission process were identified, it could provide an optimal mitigation opportunity, the researchers said.

Eric Kort, a U-M associate professor of climate and space sciences and engineering, said EPA officials are already making adjustments to correct their count of offshore platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico. But emissions estimates, particularly for shallow waters, still need adjustments.

"We have known onshore oil and gas production often emits more methane than inventoried. With this study we show that this is also the case for offshore production, and that these discrepancies are large," Kort said. "By starting to identify and quantify the problem, with a particular focus on larger shallow water facilities, we can work towards finding optimal mitigation solutions."

In addition, those shallow-water discrepancies warrant further investigation, Kort added, since deep water facilities may be sending some of the oil and gas they produce via pipeline to others located closer to shore.

U-M's team conducted its sampling in 2018 with Scientific Aviation using a small research plane with enough room for a pilot and passenger in the two front seats, as well as scientific gear where there normally would be two rear two seats. Tubes along the wings of the plane drew in air that was pumped to the equipment for analysis of the amount of methane included as well as wind speed. Circling a single platform gives researchers a better idea of how much methane that single source is emitting.

In addition to 12 individual facilities, the flights also covered larger geographical areas. Flying downwind from clusters of 5 to 70 oil and gas facilities, and taking similar measurements, researchers can evaluate how well inventory estimates compare with large numbers of platforms.

"By measuring emissions from both individual facilities as well as many dozens of facilities we can compare results, evaluate different inventories, and generate a more statistically robust estimate of total emissions from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico," said Alan Gorchov Negron, lead author on the study and a Ph.D. candidate in climate sciences at U-M.

As a pilot study, Kort said the research is promising but has gaps. Greater statistical sampling and identification of the cause of high emissions can guide mitigation and improve reported emissions. To further the work and fill in these gaps, new aerial sampling is in the works funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The project, titled Flaring and Fossil Fuels: Uncovering Emissions & Losses (F³UEL), will mean more flights later over the next three years over the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and California.

Researchers are ramping up production of a promising drug that has proven effective in obliterating SARS-CoV in cellular cultures. The team hopes that the drug might also be effective in the fight against SARS's close genetic cousin, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

Led by Northwestern University and ShanghaiTech University, the team has produced the promising molecule, called valinomycin, in a cell-free system. With this approach, they increased production yields more than 5,000 times in just a few rapid design cycles, achieving higher concentrations of the molecule than achieved previously in cells.

"Because we use cell-free systems, we can optimize production faster than in cells to further increase yields," said Northwestern's Michael Jewett, who co-led the study. "For example, pathway optimization cycles take days rather than weeks or months, and this speed could be ever so important when dealing with a pandemic like the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak."

The research was published online recently in the journal Metabolic Engineering and will appear in the July 2020 print issue.

Jewett is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and director of Northwestern's Center for Synthetic Biology. He co-led the work with Jian Li, an assistant professor in the School of Physical Science and Technology at ShanghaiTech.

Jewett leads multiple projects that use cell-free biotechnology to accelerate COVID-19 therapeutics. His group takes the molecular machinery out of cells, and then uses that machinery to make a product, such as therapeutics, in a safe, inexpensive and rapid manner. The idea is akin to opening the hood of a car and removing the engine, which allows researchers to use the engine for different purposes, free from the constraints of the car.

A naturally occurring peptide, valinomycin has recently emerged as a potential antiviral to treat SARS. Jewett imagines using cell-free synthetic biology to find similar molecules or to modify valinomycin to make it safer and more potent.

This release has been temporarily removed pending editorial review.

Journal

Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice

Immunotherapies have revolutionized treatment for people with a variety of cancers. But when given to those with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a particularly aggressive form of the disease, less than 20% respond.

"A big question in the field has been, Why are the rest not responding?" says Rumela Chakrabarti, an assistant professor at Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine.

In a new paper in Nature Cell Biology, Chakrabarti and colleagues illuminate the molecular details at play. They found a signaling pathway which could be exploited in TNBC patients to better target therapies in the future. Using a mouse model of the disease that mimics key characteristics of human disease, they showed that losing the activity of the protein ELF5 promotes the activity of another protein, interferon-gamma receptor 1. Stabilized Interferon-gamma receptor 1 leads to activated interferon gamma signaling, which in turn leads to increases in tumor aggression and spread, which could be mitigated with therapeutics that block interferon gamma signaling.

"This was an eye-opener," says Chakrabarti, "because often interferon gamma has a protective effect in cancer and is commonly given as a cancer therapy to some patients. It works well in certain cancer types, but for particular subtypes of triple-negative breast cancer we see that blocking interferon gamma may be the best strategy for patients."

Chakrabarti had a deep familiarity with the biology of the ELF5 protein. She began studying it more than a decade ago as a postdoctoral researcher at the State University of New York at Buffalo, finding that its normal function supported pregnancy and lactation. More recently, in 2012 she and colleagues published a previous report in Nature Cell Biology showing that ELF5 could suppress a key transition that occurs to enable breast cancers to spread.

That earlier work, however, did not focus on TNBC specifically, in part because scientists had lacked an effective mouse model. Over the course of three years, Chakrabarti's team developed a preclinical TNBC model that recapitulated two hallmarks of the disease: its propensity to spread and the influx of immune cells that accompanies tumor growth.

In the current study, the researchers found that, when these TNBC mice's tumors also lost the function of the ELF5 protein, their disease course resembled that of human patient's even more closely. "Losing ELF5 made the disease very metastatic and very aggressive," says Chakrabarti.

To elucidate the molecular happenings that resulted in a more dangerous form of TNBC, Chakrabarti and colleagues examined the RNA that was being expressed in tumor cells of the TNBC mice whose tumors lost ELF5 expression. They found increased activity of the interferon-gamma pathway, caused, they believe, by an increase in expression of that protein's receptor. This loss also led to an accumulation of neutrophils, a type of immune cell, which has immune suppressive function. In contrast, normal mammary cells that retained ELF5 had low levels of interferon gamma signaling.

Blocking this signaling using an antibody against the interferon gamma receptor 1, or by genetically manipulating tumor cells to express lower levels of the receptor caused tumors to grow and spread more slowly.

Finally, to determine whether these findings in a mouse model may be relevant to humans, the research team looked at genetic and protein data from patients to determine their level of ELF5 and interferon gamma receptor expression. Patients with lower ELF5 and higher receptor levels, they observed, fared poorer; their cancers tended to spread sooner around their bodies.

The findings, Chakrabarti says, should be considered carefully by clinicians who are using interferon gamma and immunotherapies to treat cancer patients.

"This is telling us that we need to target patients more selectively when we treat them," says Chakrabarti. "It could be that if someone has low ELF5, they should be given an interferon-gamma signaling blocking therapy in addition to their immunotherapy."

In future work, Chakrabarti's group will be diving in deeper into the immunology of TNBC, examining the role that different immune cells are playing in driving cancer metastasis and aggression. They also hope to see whether what they found regarding interferon gamma signaling in TNBC holds true in other tumor types, such as kidney and ovarian cancers.

A new chemical compound created by researchers at West Virginia University is lighting the way for renewable energy.

The compound is a photosensitizer, meaning it promotes chemical reactions in the presence of light. It has many potential applications for improving the efficiency of modern technologies ranging from electricity-producing solar panels to cell phones.

The study, published March 16 in Nature Chemistry, was conducted by researchers in Assistant Professor of Chemistry Carsten Milsmann's lab with support from his National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

These technologies currently rely on precious metals, like iridium and ruthenium, to function. However, only limited supplies of these materials remain in the world, making them nonrenewable, difficult to access and expensive.

"We noticed that there have been few efforts in studying the more abundant metals titanium and zirconium because they are often not as easy to work with. Precious metals have always been the go-to elements because of their favorable chemical properties that make them easier to use and study, and that's predominantly how it has been done in the field," Milsmann said. "We're hoping to change that."

Milsmann's compound is made from zirconium, which is much more abundant and easier to access, making it a more sustainable and cost-effective option. The compound is also stable in a variety of conditions, such as air, water and changes in temperature, making it easy to work with in a variety of environments.

Since the compound can convert light into electrical energy, it could be used in the creation of more efficient solar panels.

Solar panels are typically made using silicon and require a minimum threshold of light to collect and store energy. Instead of using silicon, researchers have long been exploring the alternative of dye-sensitized devices, in which colored molecules collect light and function in low-light conditions. As an added benefit, this also allows the production of semitransparent components. To date, the necessary dyes rely heavily on the precious material ruthenium, but Milsmann's new compound could potentially replace it in the future.

"The problem with most solar panels is that they don't work well on cloudy days. They are pretty efficient, inexpensive and have a long lifespan, but they need intense light conditions to function efficiently," Milsmann said. "One way around that is to make dye-sensitized versions where a colored compound absorbs light to produce electricity in any weather condition. In the future, we could design buildings that produce energy, essentially making the façade of your building, including all of its windows, into a power plant."

On the flipside, the compound could also be used in organic light-emitting diodes, which convert electrical energy into light, essentially reversing the function of a solar panel. This characteristic makes the compund a potential light source for producing more efficient cell phone screens.

"Many cell phone displays contain iridium, another precious metal compound that does exactly what our compound does," Milsmann said. "The advantage of having a light-emitting diode is that most of its energy is turned into light. In the past, light sources were inefficient because they only turned a small fraction of the energy they received into light."

The research team's next step is making the compound water soluble so it can potentially be used in biomedical applications, such as photodynamic therapy for cancer patients.

"The compound can produce reactive oxygen species that induce cell death. It sounds really dangerous, but because the reaction only occurs during exposure to radiation with light, its location and duration can be tightly controlled," Milsmann said. "If you can focus your light onto a specific point, you can generate reactive oxygen species to act only in response to the light, making it safe. This has the potential to remove tumors less invasively than through surgeries and chemotherapy."

Below please find a summary and link(s) of new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries below are not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. A collection of coronavirus-related content is free to the public at http://go.annals.org/coronavirus.

1. Diagnostic Tests in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Review

Diagnostic testing to identify infected persons is central to efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic. This review from McGill University Health Centre synthesizes current knowledge of diagnostic options available to clinicians, highlights key gaps in current diagnostic capacity, and discusses potential solutions. Read the full text: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M20-1301.

Media contacts: A PDF for this article is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. The lead author, Matthew Cheng, MDCM, can be reached through Julie Quenneville at Julie.Quenneville@muhc.mcgill.ca.

2. Community Pharmacists in Taiwan at the Frontline Against the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic: Gatekeepers for the Rationing of Personal Protective Equipment

Compared with other countries, Taiwan has had relatively few cases during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the many measures the government implemented was a system for rationing and distributing surgical masks to the public while prioritizing allocation of masks to health care workers. This essay from National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan describes the roles of community pharmacists in implementing the system and distributing masks to the public. Read the full text: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M20-1404.

Media contacts: A PDF for this article is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. The lead author, Yea-Huei Kao Yang, BS Pharm, can be reached directly at yhkao@mail.ncku.edu.tw.

3. Inflammatory Response Cells During Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome in Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Researchers from Beijing Institute of Hepatology, Beijing Youan Hospital, Capital Medical University
describe the type of immune cells identified by imaging mass cytometry in lung tissue from 2 patients with COVID-19 and fatal acute respiratory syndrome. Read the full text: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/L20-0227.

Media contacts: A PDF for this article is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. To speak with the authors, please contact Lin Jia, MD, at jialin1018@yeah.net.

New Rochelle, NY, April 13, 2020--A new study has shown substantial variability in access to guideline-recommended hormone therapies for older transgender individuals insured through Medicare. The variability in Medicare coverage and out-of-pocket costs for feminizing and masculinizing therapies are detailed in an article published in LGBT Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Click here to read the full-text article free on the LGBT Health website through May 12, 2020.

The article entitled "Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Coverage of Hormone Therapies Used by Transgender Individuals" was coauthored by Michael Solotke, Yale University (New Haven, CT) and colleagues from San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center (CA), University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System (West Haven, CT), Yale School of Medicine, Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), Yale School of Public Health, and Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Medicare coverage and out-of-pocket costs can vary widely depending on the medication regimen. Access to care and to certain medications may be limited to those with adequate means. The study showed that in 2018, the proportion of Medicare plans offering unrestricted coverage ranged from 5%-75% for masculinizing therapies and from 13%-100% for feminizing therapies. Out-of-pocket costs ranged from $180-$2,176 for masculinizing therapies and from $72-$3,792 for feminizing therapies in that same year.

"It is unfortunate when drug costs stand in the way of optimal treatment," says LGBT Health Editor-in-Chief William Byne, MD, PhD, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY. "To minimize this problem, prescribers should be prepared to direct low income and inadequately insured patients to assistance programs, when available, to defray costs, particularly for the gonadotropin releasing hormone agonists for which generic preparations are not yet available."

The latest CUNY coronavirus tracking survey found that a majority of (77%) of New Yorkers who typically attend holiday services found alternative ways to practice their faith during Easter and Passover week. Among the observant, 43% reported watching or listening to services on TV or radio, while 29% took part online. About one in five people (22%) who normally observe the holidays said they did not this year because of the virus. These findings are part of the fifth weekly city and statewide tracking survey from the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy (CUNY SPH), conducted April 10-12.

Schooling at Home a Challenge

In households with lower levels of education, children are finding greater difficulty with distance learning. Just more than a third (37%) of those with a high school degree or less report that their child is able to complete all their on-line coursework, compared with 67% of parents with some college or more who report their child is able to do so. The differences diminish considerably for home-schooling that does not require online assignments, with 56% of parents with high school degrees or less reporting homeschooling going well, compared to 62% of parents with some college or more. Similar results were seen when household income levels were compared.

Of those who chose to take the survey in Spanish, 56% report difficulty schooling their children at home, compared to 33% of English-speaking respondents. Half of Spanish-speaking parents (50%) report that their children are having trouble with online school assignments, compared to 40% of children of English-speaking parents. Internet access is a greater challenge among these households compared to those responding in English (27% vs 15%).

"Many New York parents seem to be coping with the challenge of schooling their children at home," said CUNY SPH Dean Ayman El-Mohandes. "However, when it comes to schoolwork delivered on-line, families with fewer years of education and those responding in Spanish experience the greatest challenges. Their children risk falling behind in the future and deserve immediate attention."

Among respondents to this poll, 30% report having a child under 18 in their household. Of these families, 57% report no difficulties for their child participating in online instruction. The same percentage (57%) reported that their child has been able to do all the online work expected. One in five (19%) reported problems accessing the internet, and one in ten (9%) reported general difficulties using the program. Only 7% report difficulties with providing appropriate space for learning.

A similar percentage (59%) of all parents who are schooling their children at home without an online component reported things going very well. But one in four (25%) reported a lot of trouble, and 12% reported that it is causing a lot of stress and anxiety.

Coronavirus Vaccinations

About one in four New Yorkers (26%) think a vaccine will be available within six months and about (27%) think it will take a year or longer.

If a COVID-19 vaccine were to become available, 53% of New Yorkers said they would take it, 29% would not and 18% were unsure. Week three of the survey showed stronger support for taking the vaccine (62%). This decline parallels that of respondents' perception of their likelihood of infection (58% in week three; 52% in week five).

This week, those 45 years and older were less likely to say they would get vaccinated (44%), while 62% of those under 45 would get vaccinated if it were available.

Of those with children, 53% said they would vaccinate their child, 24% said they would not and 23% were unsure.

Racial/ethnic group was a key variable on vaccine acceptance. Latinx/Hispanics were least likely to say they would get vaccinated (30%), followed by African Americans (50%); Caucasians (71%) and Asians (73%) were significantly more likely to accept vaccination.

Dr. Scott Ratzan, Distinguished Lecturer at CUNY SPH, says, "Medical and public health experts believe that only a coronavirus vaccine can truly protect us from future outbreaks, and a massive effort is underway to produce a new vaccine in record time. But what if the effort succeeds and large numbers of people decide not to vaccinate themselves or their children? Right now, barely more than half of New Yorkers tell us they'll do that. If that is the case, we won't be able to protect our community against a new wave of coronavirus infections."

Trusted Sources of Coronavirus Information

More than a third (35%) of New York City residents say they trust Governor Andrew Cuomo the most for information about the coronavirus. The CDC ranked second at 18%, with television news following at 13%, the WHO and President Trump both at 8%. Social media (5%), Mayor Bill De Blasio (4%), print media (3%) and family and friends at 2% rounded out the top nine most trusted sources.

Housing Struggles Continue

One in three (34%) New Yorkers were unable to pay their rent or mortgage this month. This was lower than they had anticipated two weeks ago, when 40% believed they would not be able to pay.

Among those who were unable to pay their rent, 62% said they feared eviction.

Latinx/Hispanics (45%) and African Americans (38%) most often reported housing issues, compared to 22% of Asians and 21% of Caucasians.

Respondents above the age of 60 were least likely to report housing difficulties.

Perceptions of Racism

Nineteen percent (19%) of New Yorkers said they have witnessed or experienced expressions of racism, violence, or harassment related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Asians were most likely to report incidents of racism, violence, or harassment at 25%, African Americans 21%, Caucasians 17% and Hispanics 15%. Younger people reported witnessing or experiencing racism, violence, or harassment at higher rates than older people. In the 18-29 group, 35% reported racism, 30-44: 23%; 45-59: 14%; 60+: 4%.

Health-Related Responses

This week, one in ten New Yorkers (10%) said they have been tested for the virus, an eightfold increase compared to week three (1.3%).

Slightly more than half (52%) of New York City residents think they have a high chance of getting sick with the virus; the greatest perception of risk was two weeks ago (58%). A consistent generational trend continues with older groups perceiving less risk.

There continues to be an increase in respondents who know someone who has the virus. This week almost half (49%) knew someone who had tested positive for the virus, up from 43% in week four, 30% in week three and 15% in week two.

The number of people reporting someone sick with a fever or symptoms associated with coronavirus in their own household has stayed the same (11%) for the third straight week.

Residents are more confident in their primary care physicians to meet their needs for COVID-19 treatment than local hospitals and ERs. Sixty-nine percent (69%) reported confidence in their primary care physician to treat them for COVID-19 symptoms. Fifty six percent (56%) reported confidence in their emergency rooms, and 59% reported confidence in their local hospital facilities.

When asked about taking Hydroxychloroquine, 45% said they would not ask their doctor to prescribe it until FDA or medical studies confirm that it works, 34% would request it if they had symptoms and 11% want to begin taking it now to prevent COVID-19. Eleven percent (11%) reported they would not take any medicines.

Males were significantly more likely to be willing to take Hydroxychloroquine (50%) than females (40%).

The complete survey results and related commentary can be found at https://sph.cuny.edu/research/covid-19-tracking-survey/week-5 and JHC Impact, an initiative of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives.

Survey methodology:

The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) survey was conducted by Emerson College Polling from April 10-12, 2020 (week 5). This tracking effort started in March 13-15 (week 1) and continued with questions fielded in March 20-22 (week 2) and March 27-29 (week 3) and April 3-5, 2020 (week 4).

The sample for the NY Statewide and New York City results were both, n=1,000, with a Credibility Interval (CI) similar to a poll's margin of error (MOE) of +/- 3 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, age, ethnicity, education and region based on the 2018 1-year American Community Survey model. It is important to remember that subsets based on gender, age, ethnicity and region carry with them higher margins of error, as the sample size is reduced. In the New York City results, data was collected using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines (n=480), SMS-to-online (n=313) and an online panel provided by MTurk and Survey Monkey (n=207). In the Statewide results, data was collected using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines (n=502), SMS-to-online (n=287) and an online panel provided by MTurk and Survey Monkey (n=211).

In the statewide survey regions were broken out into the following:

Region 1: Long Island 14.7% (USC1-4), Shirley, Seaford, Glen Cove, Garden City

Region 2: NYC 45.3% (USC 5-16) Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, Bronx

Region 3: Upstate 40% (USC 17-27): Albany, Harrison, Carmel, Rhinebeck, Amsterdam, Schuylerville, Utica, Corning, Irondequoit, Buffalo, Rochester

The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) is committed to teaching, research and service that creates a healthier New York City and helps promote equitable, efficient and evidence-based solutions to pressing health problems facing cities around the world.

SUMMARY

Researchers developed and demonstrated for the first time a silicon-based electro-optical modulator that is smaller, as fast as and more efficient than state-of-the-art technologies. By adding indium tin oxide (ITO) - a transparent conductive oxide found in touchscreen displays and solar cells - to a silicon photonic chip platform, the researchers were able to create a compact device 1 micrometer in size and able to yield gigahertz-fast, or 1 billion times per second, signal modulation.

Electro-optical modulators are the workhorses of the internet. They convert electrical data from computers and smartphones to optical data streams for fiber optic networks, enabling modern data communications like video streaming. The new invention is timely since demand for data services is growing rapidly and moving towards next generation communication networks. Taking advantage of their compact footprint, electro-optic converters can be utilized as transducers in optical computing hardware such as optical artificial neural networks that mimic the human brain and a plethora of other applications for modern-day life.

THE SITUATION

Electro-optical modulators in use today are typically between 1 millimeter and 1 centimeter in size. Reducing their size allows increased packaging density, which is vital on a chip. While silicon often serves as the passive structure on which photonic integrated circuits are built, the light matter interaction of silicon materials induces a rather weak optical index change, requiring a larger device footprint. While resonators could be used to boost this weak electro-optical effect, they narrow devices' optical operating range and incur high energy consumption from required heating elements.

THE SOLUTION

By heterogeneously adding a thin material layer of indium tin oxide to the silicon photonic waveguide chip, researchers at the George Washington University, led by Volker Sorger, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, have demonstrated an optical index change 1,000 times larger than silicon. Unlike many designs based on resonators, this spectrally-broadband device is stable against temperature changes and allows a single fiber-optic cable to carry multiple wavelengths of light, increasing the amount of data that can move through a system.

FROM THE RESEARCHER

"We are delighted to have achieved this decade-long goal of demonstrating a GHz-fast ITO modulator. This sets a new horizon for next-generation photonic reconfigurable devices with enhanced performance yet reduced size," said Dr. Sorger

DALLAS - April 13, 2020 - Cells in some of the body's most vulnerable entry routes to bacterial infection buffer themselves when the immune system detects danger by reorganizing the cholesterol on their surfaces, a new study led by UTSW scientists suggests. The findings, published today in Nature Microbiology, could offer new strategies for fighting infections that don't involve antibiotics.

Scientists have long known that the mucus membranes that line the intestines, lungs, and other sites play a key role in protecting the body from systemic infection. But exactly how the immune system enhances the defensive properties of so-called mucosal epithelial cells to block infectious agents, such as bacteria, is unclear, say UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers Neal M. Alto, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology, and Arun Radhakrishnan, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular genetics.

Because immune cells, such as macrophages, are typically found in close proximity to mucosal epithelia, Alto and his colleagues wondered whether these cells might secrete a molecule that helps epithelial cells heighten their defenses when the immune system detects a threat, such as an infectious microbe. To investigate this idea, the researchers grew epithelial cells in a petri dish with activated macrophages, then added Listeria monocytogenes, the bacterial species that causes the foodborne illness known as listeriosis. These epithelial cells were significantly more resistant to infection than those in a dish without the macrophages.

When the researchers broadly surveyed gene activity in the macrophages, they found that one in particular, called cholesterol 25-hydroxylase (CH25H), became significantly more active when confronted with L. monocytogenes. Further tests showed that the small molecule produced by this gene was key for preventing epithelial infection.

This gene was discovered at UTSW a quarter century ago, says Radhakrishnan, in the lab space he now occupies. Because Radhakrishnan's own work focuses on cholesterol metabolism - a process in which CH25H plays a starring role - his lab and Alto's formed a collaboration to better understand how this gene might be strengthening epithelial cells' defenses.

Radhakrishnan explains that CH25H changes cholesterol, which normally doesn't mix at all with water, to produce a form called 25-hydroxycholesterol (25HC) that does slightly mix with water. This property of 25HC is exploited to regulate the amount of cholesterol, an essential lipid in every cell in the body. Some of 25HC's functions include turning down the activity of genes involved in cholesterol synthesis and activating an enzyme that converts cholesterol to a form that can be stored in cells.

Surprisingly, when the researchers treated epithelial cells with 25HC, they found that total cholesterol in these cells didn't change during the time period of their experiments. However, using two different types of sensor molecules - one that attaches to cholesterol on the cell surface that's accessible, and another that detects cholesterol on the cell surface that's inaccessible because it's bound by other lipids - Alto, Radhakrishnan, and their colleagues discovered that 25HC depletes the accessible cell-surface cholesterol, pulling it inside the cell.

"Within one hour of treatment, the accessible form of cholesterol was severely depleted from the cell surface," says Radhakrishnan. "By four hours, it was completely gone."

The depletion of accessible cholesterol was essential to protect epithelial cells from L. monocytogenes, Alto says, reliably bolstering the cells' defenses. When the scientists treated the depleted cells with an enzyme that converted the inaccessible cholesterol on the cell surface to an accessible form, the cells became susceptible to infection again.

This defense mechanism worked not only against L. monocytogenes but also Shigella flexneri, a bacterial pathogen that causes a disease called shigellosis, highlighting the broadly antimicrobial nature of this protection.

The scientists plan to further study the mechanism behind this phenomenon to potentially identify parts of this pathway that could be controlled or enhanced by pharmaceuticals. They also plan to test whether this protection applies to viral infections as well.

"Exploring this process in greater depth could give us new leads into potentially manipulating cholesterol metabolism as a way of enhancing immunity to pathogens," Alto says.

A new species of bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus phnomchiensis) has been described from Cambodia's Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary by Wild Earth Allies Biologist Thy Neang in collaboration with North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences' Herpetologist Bryan Stuart. This new species is described in ZooKeys.

The species was discovered by Thy Neang during Wild Earth Allies field surveys in June-July 2019 on an isolated mountain named Phnom Chi in the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary when he encountered an unusual species of bent-toed gecko. "It was an extremely unexpected discovery. No one thought there were undescribed species in Prey Lang," said Neang.

The geckos were found to belong to the C. irregularis species complex that includes at least 19 species distributed in south¬ern and central Vietnam, eastern Cambodia, and southern Laos. This is the first member of the complex to be found west of the Mekong River, demonstrating how biogeographic barriers can lead to speciation. Additionally, the geckos were unique in morphological characters and mitochondrial DNA, and distinct from C. ziegleri to which they are most closely related. Researchers have named the species Cyrtodactylus phnomchiensis after Phnom Chi mountain where it was found.

Bent-toed geckos of the genus Cyrtodactylus are one of the most species-diverse genera of gekkonid lizards, with 292 recognized species. Much of the diversity within Cyrtodactylus has been described only during the past decade and from mainland Southeast Asia, and many of these newly recognized species are thought to have extremely narrow geographic ranges. As such, Cyrtodactylus phnomchiensis is likely endemic to Phnom Chi, which consists of an isolated small mountain of rocky outcrops (peak of 652 m elevation) and a few associated smaller hills, altogether encompassing an area of approximately 4,464 hectares in Kampong Thom and Kratie Provinces within the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia.

The forest habitat in Phnom Chi remains in relatively good condition, but small-scale illegal gold extraction around its base threatens the newly discovered species. A second species of lizard, the scincid Sphenomorphus preylangensis, was also recently described from Phnom Chi by a team of researchers including Neang. These new discoveries underscore the importance of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary for biodiversity conservation and the critical need to strengthen its management.

Further, an assessment of C. phnomchiensis is urgently warranted by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2020) because of its small area of occupancy, status as relatively uncommon, and ongoing threats to its habitat.

"This exciting discovery adds another reptile species to science for Cambodia and the world. It also highlights the global importance of Cambodia's biodiversity and illustrates the need for future exploration and biological research in Prey Lang," said Neang.

"When [Neang] first returned from fieldwork and told me that he had found a species in the C. irregularis group so far west of the Mekong River in Cambodia, I did not believe it. His discovery underscores how much unknown biodiversity remains out there in unexpected places. Clearly, Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary is important for biodiversity and deserves attention," said Neang's co-author Stuart of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

Five years ago, researchers from the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) led by the CSIC Research Professor Paloma Mas made the breakthrough discovery that the circadian clocks in the growing tip of the plant shoot function in a similar way to the clocks in the mammalian brain, which in both cases are able to synchronize the daily rhythms of the cells in distal organs. From that seminal finding, plant researchers have been eager to discover the messenger molecule that could travel from the shoot to the root to orchestrate the rhythms. The answer is just being published this week in the prestigious Nature Plants journal by Paloma Mas' team and collaborators from Japan, UK, and USA. They have identified a small essential clock protein, named ELF4, as the needed messenger. Furthermore, through a series of ingenious experiments, the researchers have discovered that the movement of this molecule is sensitive to the ambient temperature.

The circadian clock is guided by the activity of proteins

Most living organisms, including humans and plants, have an internal biological clock that allows them to anticipate and adapt to the environmental changes produced by the earth rotation every 24 hours. In plants, this circadian biological clock is crucial to set up the time for germination, growth and flowering, among other processes. The circadian clock is built of a set of cellular proteins whose amount and activity oscillate daily. The researchers who discovered this mechanism were awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2017.

Every plant cell contains a circadian clock, that is, it contains all the machinery needed to adapt its responses to the 24 hour-cycle. Nevertheless, as CRAG researchers published in a seminal article in Cell (2015), plants, as mammals, have a master circadian clock, which synchronizes peripheral clocks dispersed throughout the plant. The CSIC professor Paloma Mas explains: "we knew that there was a circadian signal that moves from shoots to roots, but we did not know about the nature of this signal. It could have been hormones, photosynthetic products... Now, we have discovered that it is a core protein of the circadian clock that moves though the plant vasculature."

The researchers designed ingenious grafting experiments with the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, connecting different shoots into several roots in which the clock was not working properly. These experiments allowed them to identify the clock protein ELF4, an acronym that accounts for "EARLY FLOWERING 4", as the messenger that moves from shoots to roots to convey circadian information.

ELF4 delivers temperature information to the roots

Anyone who has ever experienced jet lag, knows that, luckily, the circadian biological clock is able to reset itself by environmental light cues, allowing the body to adapt to the new time zone within few days. In the same way that the circadian clock can synchronize to environmental light, it can also integrate information about ambient temperature.

To discern if the ELF4 protein was transmitting to the roots information about light or temperature changes, the two main regulators of the circadian clock, the researchers tested ELF4 movement under different environmental conditions. They discovered that at lower temperatures (12?C), ELF4 mobility from shoots to roots was favoured, resulting in a slow-paced root clock. Instead, when the experiments were performed at higher temperatures (28?C), they observed less ELF4 movement, which lead to a faster root clock. This newly described mechanism could provide an advantage for optimal root responsiveness to temperature variations.

Knowledge to live in a climate changing world

All this knowledge gathered with a small model plant, could have an impact in the near future. "Climate change and the associated higher temperatures are causing drought, which is already affecting crop productivity in agriculture. Knowing the genes and proteins that plants use to adapt their physiology to the environmental conditions will allow us to design better adapted crops, which will be key to ensure food security", explains CRAG researcher Paloma Mas.

EAST LANSING, Mich. - A nova, or stella nova, the Latin word for "new star," is an explosion on the surface of a star that can produce enough energy to increase the star's brightness by millions of times. Sometimes a nova, which occur in stars called white dwarfs, is so bright it appears as a new star to the naked eye.

The explosion occurs when a white dwarf star strips material from its companion star that piles up on the dwarf's surface, eventually triggering a thermonuclear explosion. While for many years astronomers have thought that nuclear burning of material on the surface of the white dwarf directly powered all the light from the explosion, more recently astronomers started debating that "shocks" from the explosion might power most of the brightness.

Now, an international team of astronomers from 40 institutes across 17 countries led by Michigan State University's Elias Aydi, has found that it is indeed shocks that cause most of the nova's brightness.

The research is detailed in a paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy titled, "Direct evidence for shock-powered optical emission in a nova."

"This is a new way of understanding the origin of the brightness of novae and other stellar explosions," said Aydi, a research associate in MSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy. "Our findings present the first direct observational evidence, from unprecedented space observations, that shocks play a major role in powering these events."

So, what are shocks and how do they form? Picture a supersonic jet airplane. When the jet exceeds the speed of sound, it produces a shock which leads to a loud sonic boom. In a nova explosion, the shocks produce light rather than sound.

When material blasts out from the white dwarf, said Aydi, it is ejected in multiple phases and at different speeds. These ejections collide with one another and create shocks, which heat the ejected material producing much of the light.

Another side effect of astronomical shocks are gamma-rays, the highest-energy kind of electromagnetic radiation. The astronomers detected bright gamma-rays from the star, known as nova V906 Carinae, whose explosion in the constellation Carina was first detected in March 2018.

Using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, they showed that V906 Car had the brightest gamma-rays ever observed for a nova, proving that it hosts energetic shocks.

But the real surprise came because an optical satellite - one of the six nanosatellites that make up a collection of satellites operated by an international consortium called the BRight Target Explorer Constellation of cube-sats - just happened to be looking at the part of the sky where the nova occurred. Comparing the gamma-ray and optical data, the astronomers noted that every time there was a fluctuation in gamma-rays, the light from the nova fluctuated as well.

"We observed simultaneous fluctuations in both the visual and gamma-ray brightness, meaning that both emissions are originating from shocks," said Kirill Sokolovsky, a research associate at MSU and a co-author on the paper. "This led us to the conclusion that shocks are indeed responsible for most of the brightness of the event."

"We were lucky that members of our team were observing that part of the sky with these special satellites and were able to collect this unprecedented set of data," Aydi said.

The team estimates that V906 Car is about 13,000 light years from Earth. This means that when the nova was first detected in 2018, it had actually happened 13,000 years ago.

This new information may also help explain how large amounts of light are generated in other stellar events, including supernovae and stellar mergers, in when two stars collide with one another.
Other MSU researchers involved in the project are Laura Chomiuk, Jay Strader and Adam Kawash, all of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.