Culture

If only it were as simple as finding more grassland for an antelope.

The story of efforts to conserve the endangered oribi in South Africa represent a diaspora of issues as varied as the people who live there. On its surface, like many threatened species, you have conflict between a need for habitat and private landownership.

But dig a little deeper and you'll uncover a seedy underbelly of political corruption, gambling, struggles over land, and racial tensions. No matter how much success is made through more traditional conservation efforts, says a new study by a University of Georgia researcher, the species will continue to be threatened until the human conflicts can be mitigated or resolved.

"It's an interesting case study because the oribi is so dependent on habitat that's on private lands," said Elizabeth Pienaar, an associate professor at the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. "But it's also a species that has gotten trapped in much larger political and social conflicts. ... This is the dark side of conservation. We can say, look, the species needs X, Y and Z to survive and recover, but in cases like this, conservation efforts are mired in a complex political, social and historical framework. These much larger issues remain unresolved."

For the oribi (OR-uh-bee), said Pienaar, solutions start with access to native grassland that has rapidly disappeared on the South African landscape. This means education for farmers who own land where oribi graze, but quickly scales up to include enforcement to prevent illegal poaching and even de-escalation of racial tensions during a time when land reform (the return of white-owned farmland to Black residents) is causing considerable conflict.

Meeting with farmers can help

Threatened or endangered species in other parts of the world face different issues, but the success of their conservation is likely tied up in socio-political webs, said Pienaar. The study, published recently in the journal Endangered Species Research, is the first of two parts that aim to provide insights for conservation agencies and organizations navigating similar waters. It was co-authored by master's student Adrienne Louw and professor Adrian Shrader of the University of Pretoria.

Often, landowners want to conserve species because it's part of their cultural heritage or because they care about wildlife and land stewardship. But a misunderstanding of the animals' needs, a lack of outreach from government agencies due to budget constraints and a general mistrust of the government stemming from years of political conflict and corruption work against even the most basic education and outreach efforts.

"The farmers don't want to be told what to do, but you can give them advice and they will implement it as they see fit," added Pienaar. "That could be one of the most impactful things: somebody who is seen as a neutral third party going out there and just meeting with them. And the farmer will try a few things and if it doesn't affect their profit margin, they'll do it. That's what they're looking for--some advice."

Separately, said Pienaar, local communities require employment and food security to reduce the need for illegal hunting. Poverty is a serious problem in South Africa, where 65.4% of the population lives below the poverty line, and infrastructure and service delivery in rural areas is poor. Improved economic and social security, including options to purchase meat at affordable prices, may reduce conflicts and poaching pressures. But poverty extends beyond financial insecurity, she added. Poverty is a lack of voice, an inability to define one's future.

In addition, communities resent the loss of their traditional hunting rights under neocolonial management of wildlife. Poaching becomes a means of political protest against landowners and the government, particularly if the government is perceived to have failed communities by not providing needed services.

Underground gambling rings exacerbate the issue

These solutions only address a portion of the problem, though. Improving access to habitat and community services won't stop a serious threat to oribi: illegal hunting at night, with trained greyhounds and hunting dogs, which sustains underground gambling rings.

Called "taxi hunting," greyhound owners--who have the income or wealth to purchase these expensive hunting dogs--arrive at the edge of a farm under cover of night. The dogs, trained to run and capture the small antelopes, are fast and silent. Whoever's dog catches the oribi wins the pot of money, as does the dog that kills the most antelope.

If a farm owner can't stop the taxi hunt before the dogs are released, they are almost powerless to prevent it. It's illegal for them to shoot a hunting dog that is with its handler, even if it's on the farmer's land. And if they do, there could be retribution in the form of arson, property damage or arrest of the farmer for shooting the dogs.

Then, add race into the mix: Farm owners are white, while the taxi hunters are black. "So, the farmers feel threatened because not only is there a push for land reform, but they are dealing with increased rural crime while also trying to prevent poaching by people who are not at risk of poverty," said Pienaar. "It's not just about protecting the oribi. It's about protecting their family's safety, their property and their heritage."

And then there's the oribi, stuck in the middle.

"But it's not just the oribi. The oribi is a case study that is consistent with other species at risk, like rhinos and pangolins," said Pienaar. "Biologists and ecologists are fantastic in terms of what these species need in terms of habitat or maintaining viable populations. But if you cannot resolve larger socio-political conflicts, the animal is still at risk. Most conservation issues, that I'm aware of, are about people and the pressures they face."

Legend has it that Marie Antoinette's hair turned gray overnight just before her beheading in 1791.

Though the legend is inaccurate--hair that has already grown out of the follicle does not change color--a new study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons is the first to offer quantitative evidence linking psychological stress to graying hair in people.

And while it may seem intuitive that stress can accelerate graying, the researchers were surprised to discover that hair color can be restored when stress is eliminated, a finding that contrasts with a recent study in mice that suggested that stressed-induced gray hairs are permanent.

The study, published June 22 in eLife, has broader significance than confirming age-old speculation about the effects of stress on hair color, says the study's senior author Martin Picard, PhD(link is external and opens in a new window), associate professor of behavioral medicine (in psychiatry and neurology) at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

"Understanding the mechanisms that allow 'old' gray hairs to return to their 'young' pigmented states could yield new clues about the malleability of human aging in general and how it is influenced by stress," Picard says.

"Our data add to a growing body of evidence demonstrating that human aging is not a linear, fixed biological process but may, at least in part, be halted or even temporarily reversed."

Studying hair as an avenue to investigate aging

"Just as the rings in a tree trunk hold information about past decades in the life of a tree, our hair contains information about our biological history," Picard says. "When hairs are still under the skin as follicles, they are subject to the influence of stress hormones and other things happening in our mind and body. Once hairs grow out of the scalp, they harden and permanently crystallize these exposures into a stable form."

Though people have long believed that psychological stress can accelerate gray hair, scientists have debated the connection due to the lack of sensitive methods that can precisely correlate times of stress with hair pigmentation at a single-follicle level.

Splitting hairs to document hair pigmentation
Ayelet Rosenberg, first author on the study and a student in Picard's laboratory, developed a new method for capturing highly detailed images of tiny slices of human hairs to quantify the extent of pigment loss (graying) in each of those slices. Each slice, about 1/20th of a millimeter wide, represents about an hour of hair growth.

"If you use your eyes to look at a hair, it will seem like it's the same color throughout unless there is a major transition," Picard says. "Under a high-resolution scanner, you see small, subtle variations in color, and that's what we're measuring."

The researchers analyzed individual hairs from 14 volunteers. The results were compared with each volunteer's stress diary, in which individuals were asked to review their calendars and rate each week's level of stress.

The investigators immediately noticed that some gray hairs naturally regain their original color, which had never been quantitatively documented, Picard says.

When hairs were aligned with stress diaries by Shannon Rausser, second author on the paper and a student in Picard's laboratory, striking associations between stress and hair graying were revealed and, in some cases, a reversal of graying with the lifting of stress.

"There was one individual who went on vacation, and five hairs on that person's head reverted back to dark during the vacation, synchronized in time," Picard says.

Blame the mind-mitochondria connection

To better understand how stress causes gray hair, the researchers also measured levels of thousands of proteins in the hairs and how protein levels changed over the length of each hair.

Changes in 300 proteins occurred when hair color changed, and the researchers developed a mathematical model that suggests stress-induced changes in mitochondria may explain how stress turns hair gray.

"We often hear that the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell, but that's not the only role they play," Picard says. "Mitochondria are actually like little antennas inside the cell that respond to a number of different signals, including psychological stress."

The mitochondria connection between stress and hair color differs from that discovered in a recent study of mice, which found that stress-induced graying was caused by an irreversible loss of stem cells in the hair follicle.

"Our data show that graying is reversible in people, which implicates a different mechanism," says co-author Ralf Paus, PhD, professor of dermatology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "Mice have very different hair follicle biology, and this may be an instance where findings in mice don't translate well to people."

Hair re-pigmentation only possible for some

Reducing stress in your life is a good goal, but it won't necessarily turn your hair to a normal color.

"Based on our mathematical modeling, we think hair needs to reach a threshold before it turns gray," Picard says. "In middle age, when the hair is near that threshold because of biological age and other factors, stress will push it over the threshold and it transitions to gray.

"But we don't think that reducing stress in a 70-year-old who's been gray for years will darken their hair or increasing stress in a 10-year-old will be enough to tip their hair over the gray threshold."

Looking for better ways to treat patients with esophageal cancer, University of Colorado Cancer Center member Martin McCarter, MD, is investigating whether a new treatment sequence will result in better outcomes.

As they await the results of a group of clinical trials -- including one at the CU Cancer Center -- McCarter and other University of Colorado researchers (led by surgery resident Bobby Torphy, MD, PhD) looked at data from the National Cancer Database to see if they could identify other patients who have undergone the new sequence, and what the outcomes for those patients were. The group published a paper in the Annals of Surgical Oncology in April detailing their findings.

We sat down with McCarter, professor of surgical oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, to talk about the data and the next steps in his research.

Q: What is the motivation behind these esophageal cancer clinical trials and your review of the National Cancer Database data?

A: The big picture is that outcomes for esophageal cancer are still very poor, even in patients who can undergo an operation, and we're constantly looking for ways to improve that. The current standard of care is a combination of chemotherapy and radiation given together, followed by surgery. Treatment sequencing has evolved in other areas, particularly rectal cancer, in what is referred to as a "total neoadjuvant approach," in which patients get prolonged chemotherapy, followed by radiation therapy, then followed by surgery. They've been doing that in rectal cancer, and that has resulted in some improvements in cancer outcomes. The data for this approach in esophageal cancer is limited but in our minds it would make sense to try it. There are a couple of early-phase trials looking at that sequence, to see if it can help improve things for patients with esophageal cancer-- including an investigator-initiated study here at CU led by CU Cancer Center member Jeffrey Olsen, MD. It's going to take a few years for those trials to mature, but in the meantime, we wanted to look at a large national database to see if we could determine if other people have been using this sequence. We used the National Cancer Database to ask that question, and we found about 5% of patients were getting this prolonged sequence. Based on the data, it appears that those patients actually have a better survival rate than patients who just get chemo and radiation prior to surgery.

Q: How does the sequence you're proposing differ from the current standard of care?

A: The current standard is that patients get five weeks of radiation, and they get a little bit of chemotherapy at the beginning and in the middle of that radiation therapy. Then they wait six or eight weeks, then they have surgery. This new approach adds chemotherapy for two to three months first, then transitions to chemo and radiation therapy, and then on to the surgery. The thought behind it is that in general, people don't die from the local cancer; they die from cancer that has spread microscopically before we even see it. If we treat them aggressively with chemotherapy first, then we are attacking the microscopic disease first and then following that by trying to control the local disease with radiation and ultimately with surgery as well.

Q: Is it easy to determine from the data if someone underwent this treatment sequence?

A: It is not. We had to make some assumptions and do some pretty significant modeling to answer the question. These determinations were based on dates within the database and the fact that the patients got pure chemo, followed by pure radiation, and then they got surgery. They had to have all three of those things, and then the dates had to be separated enough such that they weren't getting the standard chemo and radiation followed by surgery. The problem is we really don't know, just from the data, why they got chemo first. Maybe doctors were making some of the same assumptions we did, which is that we ought to hit them hard first, but they were doing that without a whole lot of guidance or trials.

Q: Could using this approach eliminate the need for surgery in esophageal cancer patients?

A: That's certainly the direction things have headed in rectal cancer. People are a little less likely to avoid surgery in esophageal cancer just because the surveillance techniques are pretty inadequate. We know that a number of patients probably have a complete response to the chemo and radiation and may not need an operation; the problem is we can't really predict who those patients are, even with our best diagnostic scopes and scans.

Q: What's the next step in this research?

A: The next step is awaiting the formal results from the current trial. As a phase 2 trial, it's evaluating the potential toxicity of using this sequencing, but also evaluating the responses. Do we see better pathologic responses, and in the long term are there patients who don't need the esophageal surgery, or for those who do get the esophageal surgery, do we see improvements in overall long-term five-year survivorship? This data study was to set the table and see if we can learn any more about this sequencing strategy because we have very little to go on right now.

Managing type 2 diabetes typically involves losing weight, exercise and medication, but new research by Dr. Makoto Fukuda and colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine and other institutions suggests that there may be other ways to control the condition through the brain. The researchers have discovered a mechanism in a small area of the brain that regulates whole-body glucose balance without affecting body weight, which suggests the possibility that modulating the mechanism might help keep blood sugar levels in a healthy range.

"A growing body of evidence strongly suggests that the brain is a promising yet unrealized therapeutic target for type 2 diabetes, as it has been shown that it can regulate glucose metabolism," said Fukuda, assistant professor of pediatrics-nutrition at Baylor. "To further materialize this concept, it is of great interest to identify potentially druggable molecular targets mediating the brain's antidiabetic effects."

Regulating whole-body glucose balance from the brain

Research has shown that within the hypothalamic region of the brain, a small area known as the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (VMH) contains glucose-sensing neurons and regulates glucose metabolism in peripheral tissues.

"VMH neurons are thought to be crucial mediators of the neural glucoregulatory mechanism," Fukuda said. "However, the signaling mechanisms within VMH neurons that mediate whole-body sugar control remain elusive. In this study, we identified a molecular pathway in the VMH that mediates whole-body glucose balance and involves Rap1, an enzyme known to mediate overnutrition-associated disorders."

The researchers worked with a diabetes model of high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice, in which they either activated or eliminated Rap1 specifically in VMH neurons by using either genetic or pharmacological techniques.

They discovered that activation of Rap1 in the hypothalamus exaggerated the high blood sugar levels or hyperglycemia in the diet-induced obesity mouse model. In contrast, genetic loss of hypothalamic Rap1 decreased hyperglycemia in dietary obesity.

"Interestingly, the changes in glucose levels were observed without alterations in body weight, suggesting a primary role of Rap1 in glucoregulatory function," Fukuda said. "Our findings that Rap1 activity can be regulated via pharmacological intervention provide proof-of-concept for the potential of targeting Rap1 signaling within the brain to improve glucose imbalance and induce antidiabetic effects."

While having no effect on body weight regardless of sex, diet and age, Rap1 deficiency in VMH neurons markedly lowered blood glucose and insulin levels and improved glucose and insulin tolerance.

Taken together, the data suggest that hypothalamic Rap1 is a molecular pathway for the control of glucose metabolism and mediates high-fat diet-induced glucose imbalance, thereby making it a potential target for therapeutics.

"If we gain weight, blood glucose seems to be disturbed. That's why obese people may have diabetes," Fukuda said. "But in this mouse model we discovered that by modulating the activity of Rap1 in a small brain area we could regulate whole-body glucose metabolism without body weight change. There is still much work to do, but our findings suggest that maybe in the future obese people with diabetes could lower blood sugar levels by manipulating this mechanism of Rap1 in the brain without having to lose weight."

Find all the details of this study in JCI Insight.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Political institutions such as the timing of elections and presidentialism had a larger influence on COVID-19 strategies than the institutions organizing national healthcare, according to a research team led by a professor at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Olga Shvetsova, a political scientist at Binghamton University, and fellow researchers explored policy strategies on public health by the federal incumbents worldwide. Specifically, they looked at whether national incumbents led the charge as the pandemic unfolded or waited for the states (provinces) to enact the measures.

Multiple levels of government contributed to the COVID-19 policy response in federations and non-federations both. Decentralization in a country did not diminish the stringency of the overall government pandemic response. Early on, policies in federations were more stringent than those in non-federations.

"Our evidence shows that, by and large, the coordination among the federal and subnational governments in federations did not fail, and the incumbents in federations collectively managed to provide at least as much protection to their citizens as the incumbents in unitary states, though the balance of federal versus subnational policy contributions varied," said Shvetsova.

Still, different federations responded in different ways. The researchers discovered a large variation across federations, so significant that they believe it deserves an institutional explanation.

Specifically, scholars explored how "political incumbents' strategies in mitigating . . the COVID-19 pandemic were influenced in federations by the constitutional/electoral and health-related political institutions.

"We developed conjectures about the institutional variables conducive to more stringent public health policies and about institutional determinants of greater involvement of the federal government in pandemic public health policies," Shvetsova said.

They found that political institutional variables influenced COVID-19 federal strategies, even to a greater extent than countries' healthcare institutions.

"Diffusion of executive accountability, such as in a multiparty executive and with more fragmented parliaments, possibly increased the willingness to engage in more stringent policy response to the virus," Shvetsova said.

The research found that presidential executives avoided making stringent policies if the next election date was closer. Also public health policies of Left national executives were on average more stringent.

The paper, "Federal Institutions and Strategic Policy Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic," was peer reviewed and is in the process of being published in Frontiers in Political Science - Elections and Representation.

If you listen to songbirds, you will recognize repeated melodies or phrases. Each phrase is made up of distinct sounds, strung together. A study from researchers at McGill University has found that the song phrases of many songbird species follow patterns that are similar to those used in human speech. At least in some respects.

The songbirds the researchers studied, like humans---no matter what language they speak---tend to use shorter elements (whether these are words or sounds) when they are putting together longer phrases. Linguists speculate that this pattern, known as Menzerath's Law, may make communication more efficient by making things easier to understand or say.

But the McGill team suggest that, at least in songbirds, physical factors such as muscle fatigue and limited lung capacities may also play a role. They also speculate that similar factors could contribute to seeing Menzerath's Law in humans.

Do physical elements play a role in songbird (and human) vocal patterns?

"Although we see Menzerath's Law in all the songbird species we looked at, and others have seen it among primates and penguins, we aren't sure this necessarily reflects enhanced communication efficiency in non-human animals," said Jon Sakata, a professor in McGill's Biology Department and the senior author on the paper that was recently published in Current Biology. "It is possible that these patterns of communication that we saw in songbirds are caused by physical predispositions and constraints."

Interestingly, Sakata also notes that the brain mechanisms regulating breathing and vocal muscles seem to be organized in similar ways in birds and humans.

Even song from untutored birds follow similar patterns

The idea that physical elements may play a role in these song patterns is supported by the fact that when the researchers compared the song patterns of birds that had been typically reared and tutored by their parents with those that had not been taught to sing by their parents (untutored birds), they found the same patterns.

"The individual units of sound made by untutored birds were very different from those made by the typically raised birds," said Logan James, the first author on the paper and a former PhD student in Professor Sakata's lab, now a post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. "However, the 'rules' by which they organize these aberrant elements is indistinguishable from typically raised birds. These results suggest that physical predispositions or limitations may play a role in producing these song patterns."

Further work will need to be done in this area to see whether this is indeed the case. For example, work linking species variation in the strength of Menzerath's Law to species variation in the biomechanics of vocal production would be a useful next step.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Communities surrounding the Salton Sea, the inland body of water straddling California's Riverside and Imperial counties, show high rates of asthma due, possibly, to high aerosol dust levels resulting from the sea shrinking over time.

Scientists suspect, however, the Salton Sea plays an additional role in pulmonary health.

A University of California, Riverside study performed on mice has found Salton Sea aerosol turns on nonallergic inflammation genes and may also promote lung inflammation. For comparison, aerosolized fungal allergen (Alternaria) -- a common household fungal allergen -- produces an allergic inflammation in the lungs of mice.

"Our work strongly suggests that soluble components in Salton Sea water promote a unique inflammation-associated response," said Dr. David Lo, a distinguished professor of biomedical sciences at the UC Riverside School of Medicine, who led the study published in the journal Science of The Total Environment. "What relationship this response may have to asthma is not yet understood."

Lo's team exposed the mice to aerosolized suspensions generated from three separate sources: aqueous solutions of Alternaria filtrate, Salton Sea water, and Pacific Ocean water. Each exposure study lasted seven days and was performed in an exposure chamber and a control chamber, the latter receiving only pumped filtered air.

The researchers found exposure to aerosolized Alternaria triggered a dramatic allergic inflammation in the lungs of the mice. Aerosolized Salton Sea water increased B cell activity in the lung tissue of the mice; B cells are immune cells that make antibodies to fight bacteria and viruses. In contrast, mice exposed to Pacific Ocean aerosol showed no lung response.

"What's interesting is that the aerosolized Salton Sea triggered an inflammatory response in the lungs that is clearly distinct from the characteristic allergic inflammatory responses produced by Alternaria exposures," said Lo, who directs UCR's Bridging Regional Ecology, Aerosolized Toxins, & Health Effects Center, or BREATHE. "What we may surmise from this is that while Salton Sea spray may not be sufficient to generate asthma alone, it could play an important role in the progression to asthma or other inflammatory diseases. More research is clearly needed."

In recent years, the Salton Sea has increased in salinity and shrunk in size, generating toxic dust threatening the health of disadvantaged and vulnerable low-income communities living around the sea, many of whom are migrant workers. Primarily fed only by agricultural runoff and inflow of three rivers, the sea is rapidly retreating, which exposes the surrounding dry lakebed or "playa" and increases the levels of aerosol dust. Childhood asthma rates in the region around the Salton Sea are 20%-22.4%, higher than the state average of 14.5%.

Lo cautioned the current work did not test the biological effects of actual dust generated at the playa.

"In this paper, we report only our first steps in identifying the potential aerosols that may be contributing to lung disease in residents near the Salton Sea," he said. "We know the Salton Sea water aerosols are neither the only contributor to inhaled aerosols nor the only source of potential aerosol toxins in the region."

Lo's group is already exploring whether the inflammatory response the researchers observed in mice serves as an aggravating factor, leading eventually to asthma; if the inflammatory response in the mice is identical to that seen in humans; and whether it's a predisposing factor for people born and raised in the Salton Sea region. For those already predisposed to asthma, the researchers are planning to study whether the inflammation resulting from Salton Sea water aerosols worsens their health outcomes.

"We are only just getting started in answering these and other questions," Lo said. "It's so early in the process that we don't even really know what disease we are looking at."

The work was done in close collaboration with scientists at the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering's Center for Environmental Research and Technology, or CE-CERT, and in partnership with members of the communities around the Salton Sea.

Lo was joined in the research by first author Trevor A. Biddle, Qi Li, Mia R, Maltz, Purvi N. Tandel, Rajrupa Chakraborty, Keziyah Yisrael, Ryan Drover, and David R. Cocker III.

In a first-of-its-kind study in the world conducted at Tel Aviv University, researchers found that water generated from the air in the heart of an urban area, the city of Tel Aviv, complied with all of the strict drinking water standards set both by the State of Israel and by the World Health Organization. The researchers examined the quality of the water produced from the water vapor in the urban atmosphere, which is characterized by industry and massive construction, and found that it was suitable for drinking. The test was performed using a dedicated facility of the Israeli company Watergen, which partnered in the study.

The study was conducted by a team of experts from the hydrochemistry laboratory at the Porter School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Tel Aviv University, led by graduate student Offir Inbar and supervised by Prof. Dror Avisar, Head of TAU's Moshe Mirilashvili Institute for Applied Water Studies. Also participating in the study was Watergen's research and development team, Prof. Alexandra Chudnovsky, and leading researchers from Germany. The study's results were published in two leading journals: Science of the Total Environment and Water.

The researchers explain that the growing global shortage of clean drinking water requires thinking outside the box and developing new technologies for producing potable water. The Earth's atmosphere is a vast and renewable source of water, which may be an alternative drinking water resource. Our atmosphere contains billions of tons of water, 98% of which is in a gaseous state - that is, water vapor.

Offir Inbar explains that this is the first study in the world to examine air pollution from another angle - its effect on drinking water generated from the air. According to Inbar, no filtration or treatment system was installed in the device used in the study; the water that was produced was the water that was obtained from the air. The researchers performed a wide range of advanced chemical analyses of the water, and found that in the vast majority of cases, including during different seasons and at different times of the day, the water extracted from the air in the heart of Tel Aviv was safe to drink. In addition, with the help of a variety of innovative technologies for monitoring the composition of the atmosphere and by applying advanced statistical methods, for the first time the researchers were able to quantitatively link the process the air goes through in the days leading up to the point of water production and the chemical composition of the dew.

Offir Inbar explains: "The study showed that wind direction greatly affects water quality, so for example when the wind comes from the desert we find more calcium and sulfur, that is, residues of desert dust aerosols, in the water. However, when the wind comes from direction of the sea, we find higher concentrations of chlorine and sodium, which are found in the sea. Moreover, we found that the distant sources from which the air came before it reached the point of water production can be identified in the water. For example, water produced from air coming from the Sahara region differs in composition from water produced from air coming from Europe."

The researchers note that water quality is also affected by anthropogenic pollution from transportation and industry. "Using advanced methods, we found a direct link between the concentrations of ammonia, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide in the air and the concentration of their decomposition products in water," says Inbar. "We found low concentrations of copper, potassium, and zinc in the water, which probably come from man-made pollution. From a research point of view, the chemical link we found between the meteorological parameters and the composition of the water makes it possible for the first time to study the atmosphere using water extracted from it. And environmentally speaking, this link allows us to know what minerals should be added to water extracted from air in order to provide people with quality drinking water. In general, we found that potable water from air does not contain enough calcium and magnesium - and it is advisable to add these minerals to the water, as they are added to desalinated drinking water in some countries."

A significant portion of the water we drink today in Israel is desalinated seawater. According to Inbar, this is only a partial solution, and not one that can provide drinking water to the vast majority of the world's population. "In order to desalinate seawater, you need a sea, and there isn't access to the sea from every place in the world," says Inbar. "After desalination, a complete infrastructure must be built that will carry the desalinated water from the waterfront to the various towns, and large parts of the world don't possess the engineering and economic means to build and maintain such infrastructure. Water from the air, however, can be produced anywhere, with no need for expensive transport infrastructure and regardless of the amount of precipitation. From an economic perspective, the higher the temperature and humidity, the more cost-effective the production of water from the air is."

Devices for generating water from the air that include water purification and treatment systems can already be found in a large number of countries in the world, where they provide quality drinking water to people living in distressed areas.

"The concern was that water produced from air in the heart of an urban area would not be suitable for drinking - and we proved that this is not the case," Inbar concludes. "We are currently expanding our research to other areas in Israel, including Haifa Bay and agricultural areas, in order to investigate in depth the impact of various pollutants on the quality of water extracted from the air."

Until recently, data on criminal victimization did not include information on the status--immigrant or citizen--of respondents. In a recent study, researchers used new data that include respondents' status to explore the association between citizenship status and risk of victimization. They found that for many, a person's foreign-born status, but not their acquired U.S. citizenship, protects against criminal victimization.

The study, by researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) at College Park and the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), is forthcoming in Criminology, a publication of the American Society of Criminology.

"Understanding how patterns of victimization vary between U.S.-born citizens and different groups of immigrants is critical for informing policy and practice," says Min Xie, professor of criminology and criminal justice at UMD at College Park, who conducted the study with Eric Baumer, professor of sociology and criminology at PSU. "Our findings challenge claims that crime is more prevalent among immigrants, suggesting that using immigration control to reduce crime is likely to be impractical," says Xie.

Prior to 2017, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the nation's largest survey on criminal victimization, did not record immigration information. In this study, researchers used new data from the 2017-2018 NCVS, looking at a nationally representative sample of households and people ages 12 and older. In 2017-2018, nearly 482,500 people and more than 296,500 households were interviewed by the NCVS, with response rates of 83% (people) and 74% (households).

These new data are unique because of the addition of a question on citizenship status: Respondents were asked to self-identify as U.S.-born citizens, naturalized citizens, or non-U.S. citizens. Researchers labeled those who did not answer the citizenship question or said "don't know" as having ambiguous citizenship status. By incorporating nonresponse to the citizenship question in a new way, the study explored patterns of victimization among a group of noncitizens who, in many respects, parallel the undocumented immigrant population.

Respondents were asked to recall incidents of violence (rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault) and household property crimes (burglary, motor vehicle theft, and other types of theft) in the preceding six months. The study controlled for previously identified demographic and socioeconomic factors of criminal victimization, including respondents' race/ethnicity, age, sex, marital status, years of education, employment status, and years of residence, as well as other information about the household.

The study found that for both violent and property crime, the victimization rate of foreign-born citizens as a whole was significantly lower than that of U.S.-born citizens.

Within the foreign-born population, the victimization rate was statistically indistinguishable between naturalized citizens and noncitizens after accounting for differences between these groups in age, home ownership, and other socioeconomic factors. However, these two immigrant groups had significantly lower rates of victimization than that of the ambiguous citizenship group.

"Naturalized citizens and known noncitizens are on the one end of the continuum with a lower risk of victimization, and U.S.-born citizens and the ambiguous citizenship status respondents are on the other end with a higher risk of victimization," says Baumer. "Our findings provide important insights at a time when the U.S. immigration systems are facing major challenges amid tension surrounding immigration and growing concerns about social and racial-ethnic injustice."

One limitation of the study is that immigrants who are in marginalized and vulnerable positions may be reluctant to report certain types of crimes to NCVS interviewers, the authors note, but they suggest that the results are not unduly affected by underreporting. Another limitation, they note, is that the higher victimization risks for the ambiguous citizenship status group might reflect factors besides immigration or documentation status.

HOUSTON - (June 22, 2021) - We can't detect them yet, but radio signals from distant solar systems could provide valuable information about the characteristics of their planets.

A paper by Rice University scientists describes a way to better determine which exoplanets are most likely to produce detectable signals based on magnetosphere activity on exoplanets' previously discounted nightsides.

The study by Rice alumnus Anthony Sciola, who earned his Ph.D. this spring and was mentored by co-author and space plasma physicist Frank Toffoletto, shows that while radio emissions from the daysides of exoplanets appear to max out during high solar activity, those that emerge from the nightside are likely to add significantly to the signal.

This interests the exoplanet community because the strength of a given planet's magnetosphere indicates how well it would be protected from the solar wind that radiates from its star, the same way Earth's magnetic field protects us.

Planets that orbit within a star's Goldilocks zone, where conditions may otherwise give rise to life, could be deemed uninhabitable without evidence of a strong enough magnetosphere. Magnetic field strength data would also help to model planetary interiors and understand how planets form, Sciola said.

The study appears in The Astrophysical Journal.

Earth's magnetosphere isn't exactly a sphere; it's a comet-shaped set of field lines that compress against the planet's day side and tail off into space on the night side, leaving eddies in their wake, especially during solar events like coronal mass ejections. The magnetosphere around every planet emits what we interpret as radio waves, and the closer to the sun a planet orbits, the stronger the emissions.

Astrophysicists have a pretty good understanding of our own system's planetary magnetospheres based on the Radiometric Bode's Law, an analytical tool used to establish a linear relationship between the solar wind and radio emissions from the planets in its path. In recent years, researchers have attempted to apply the law to exoplanetary systems with limited success.

"The community has used these rule-of-thumb empirical models based on what we know about the solar system, but it's kind of averaged and smoothed out," Toffoletto said. "A dynamic model that includes all this spiky behavior could imply the signal is actually much larger than these old models suggest. Anthony is taking this and pushing it to its limits to understand how signals from exoplanets could be detected."

Sciola said the current analytic model relies primarily on emissions expected to emerge from an exoplanet's polar region, what we see on Earth as an aurora. The new study appends a numerical model to those that estimate polar region emissions to provide a more complete picture of emissions around an entire exoplanet.

"We're adding in features that only show up in lower regions during really high solar activity," he said.

It turns out, he said, that nightside emissions don't necessarily come from one large spot, like auroras around the north pole, but from various parts of the magnetosphere. In the presence of strong solar activity, the sum of these nightside spots could raise the planet's total emissions by at least an order of magnitude.

"They're very small-scale and occur sporadically, but when you sum them all up, they can have a great effect," said Sciola, who is continuing the work at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory. "You need a numerical model to resolve those events. For this study, Sciola used the Multiscale Atmosphere Geospace Environment (MAGE) developed by the Center for Geospace Storms (CGS) based at the Applied Physics Laboratory in collaboration which the Rice space plasma physics group.

"We're essentially confirming the analytic model for more extreme exoplanet simulations, but adding extra detail," he said. "The takeaway is that we're bringing further attention to the current model's limiting factors but saying that under certain situations, you can get more emissions than that limiting factor suggests."

He noted the new model works best on exoplanetary systems. "You need to be really far away to see the effect," he said. It's hard to tell what's going on at the global scale on Earth; it's like trying to watch a movie by sitting right next to the screen. You're only getting a little patch of it."

Also, radio signals from an Earth-like exoplanet may never be detectable from Earth's surface, Sciola said. "Earth's ionosphere blocks them," he said. "That means we can't even see Earth's own radio emission from the ground, even though it's so close."

Detection of signals from exoplanets will require either a complex of satellites or an installation on the far side of the moon. "That would be a nice, quiet place to make an array that won't be limited by Earth's ionosphere and atmosphere," Sciola said.

He said the observer's position in relation to the exoplanet is also important. "The emission is 'beamed,'" Sciola said. "It's like a lighthouse: You can see the light if you are in line with the beam, but not if you are directly above the lighthouse. So having a better understanding of the expected angle of the signal will help observers determine if they are in line to observe it for a particular exoplanet."

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Sunday church service in Amish country is more than just belting out hymns, reading Bible passages and returning home an hour later to catch a football game or nap.

It's an all-day affair: A host family welcomes church members - between 20 to 40 families - into their home to worship and have fellowship with one another from morning to night. Church is a biweekly activity; each gathering takes place in a member's home and is a key ritual in the Amish community which values in-person communication.

New research from West Virginia University sociologists suggests this face-to-face interaction, coupled with a distrust in preventative medicine, led to "excess deaths" among the Amish population in 2020.

The death rate for that year soared above the baseline average from 2015 to 2019, with the largest spike - 125% - occurring in November.

Researchers, led by Rachel Stein, associate professor of sociology, analyzed obituary information published in an Amish/Mennonite newspaper to examine excess death among this segment of the population in 2020. Their results are published in the Journal of Religion and Health.

"By taking multiple years of historical data, we can create an average rate of death," explained co-author Katie Corcoran, associate professor of sociology. "For 2020, when the pandemic started, we identified how much extra deaths occurred on top of that average. We call that excess deaths."

The team emphasized that these deaths may or may not be directly related to COVID-19; however, the excess death rates among the Amish/Mennonites mirrored the general COVID-19 infection waves in the United States. Researchers did not access official death certificates (which do not indicate religion/faith) and obituaries usually lacked the cause of death.

Information was taken from The Budget, a weekly correspondence newspaper published in Ohio geared toward the Amish and Mennonite communities.

Stein, who grew up in Amish country, decided to explore COVID-19's impacts after noticing many community members not practicing social distancing at the onset of the pandemic. Also, the Amish do not use modern technology, such as electricity, and tend to distrust preventative medicine, lifestyle choices engrained in their culture and religion.

"There's been a lot of minimizing of the severity of COVID," Stein said. "There's a perception that COVID is like the flu. If people get sick, then people get sick and will eventually get over it.

"I don't want to convey that all Amish aren't taking COVID seriously. That's not true. There are certainly groups of Amish who perceive COVID as a real problem and they've had loved ones negatively affected by it."

God's law beats man's law

Co-author Corey Colyer, associate professor of sociology, views the team's findings through the intersection of religion and government guidelines.

Colyer believes that policies established by government entities can leave behind a bad taste for members of religious communities bearing a history of persecution.

"Mandates prohibiting church can backfire," Colyer said. "We've picked up on that in letters to The Budget. The Amish, conservative Mennonites and other Anabaptists have collective memories of persecution."

Colyer explained that when the Anabaptists formed in the Counter-Reformation, they were heavily persecuted and even rounded up and executed in Europe.

"When this pandemic hit and the state prohibited worship, they didn't take it lightly," Colyer said. "They don't look at it as a 'nanny state' or a government overstepping its bounds. They take it as persecution. Any attempt to curtail religious gathering and practice interferes with their sacred business.

"When states step in and say, 'You can't gather for Church,' they say, 'Well, there's man law and there's God's law. We're going to follow God's law.'"

The study suggests that, in general, many groups complied with government guidelines limiting religious gatherings in March and April. But many resumed church services by summer.

When government restrictions relaxed more so in the fall in Ohio, that's when researchers observed the greatest spike in excess deaths.

The coming days, weeks and months will remain problematic from a public health standpoint in these communities, as most members will not practice social distancing or get vaccinated, the research team said.

Researchers stressed that the Amish should not be singled out. Their methodology could be applied in studying other religious groups and the impacts of COVID-19. They noted that in some countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, Muslim and Christian obituaries are clearly distinguishable. There are also Jewish newspapers across the United States and the world that report obituaries. An unrelated study (Connelly, 2020) showed how COVID-19 decimated a Jewish community.

At the end of the day, all human beings, regardless of race, religion or creed, can succumb to the virus.

"COVID does not respect doctrinal boundaries," Colyer said. "Many of the Amish believe that God will protect them. The evidence suggests that COVID doesn't care if you are Amish or English, Christian or atheist. The consequences are the consequences."

Cities must become fully car-free in order to be liveable in the future, according to the UCL experts behind a new modelling report looking at urban car use.

The experts have called for a shift in collective behaviour to reduce the number of private cars in cities. Globally, the number of cars produced is increasing faster than the population; 80m cars were produced in 2019, while the population increased by 78m.

The researchers said future city planning must include a focus on reducing dependence on cars, promoting fewer and shorter trips and encouraging walking and cycling as primary modes of local transport. Public transport should be encouraged for longer journeys, the researchers argued, and cars should only be used for emergencies or special occasions.

For the paper, published in Open Science, researchers created a mathematical model of car use in a city, where residents either used a car on a daily basis or used public transport. Estimated costs were the length of time journeys take because this is the biggest factor when deciding how to travel, with the baseline for the model being driving with no traffic.

Lead author Dr Rafael Prieto Curiel commented: "The city of the future, with millions of people, cannot be constructed around cars and their expensive infrastructure. In a few decades, we will have cities with 40 or 50 million inhabitants, and these could resemble car parks with 40 or 50 million cars. The idea that we need cars comes from a very pollutant industry and very expensive marketing."

Using the model, the researchers found one extreme scenario for a city with 50 million inhabitants and 50 million cars, where all residents use a car on a daily basis to try to minimise their commute time. As a result, the city experiences the highest levels of congestion and requires more infrastructure such as avenues, bridges and car parks to accommodate so many cars.

In this scenario, where everyone tries to reduce their commute times by driving, they instead reach the worst-case scenario. This is where the cost (commuting time) that everyone puts on the streets by driving creates a paradox where commuting times are at the maximum.

It is generally assumed that improving public transport infrastructure would improve baseline costs (time) as more residents opt for this over driving. The model showed that even without improving infrastructure, baseline costs could be lowered by reducing the number of people allowed to drive at a time.

For example, if one group of people is allowed to drive one week and must use other modes of transport the next, the average commuting time could be reduced by up to 25% with a non-selfish modal share where the number of cars on the road is reduced. This would lead to less congestion and a faster city on average.

Decreasing car use in cities depends mainly on providing citizens with more travel options, plus local shops and services. Ensuring residents understand the local costs of car use can help individuals make informed choices, while interventions such as congestion charges, tolls and driving and parking controls can further help to discourage car use.

Global car production - including electric cars - contributes 4% of total carbon dioxide emissions. Other associated costs include petrol and electricity use, the materials and infrastructure required, and congestion generated by high volumes of cars.

Some cities have implemented some of the above-mentioned interventions. London, whilst being an example of a city where public transport is highly used, has implemented congestion charging and low emission zones.

Mexico City, for example, has banned some vehicles based on their licence plate, but the policy has led to an overall increase in cars as drivers buy older, cheaper and therefore more polluting cars to get around the restrictions.

The experts conclude from the model that encouraging people to take alternative modes of transport is key is to making driving less appealing. Making public transport faster, reliable, secure and comfortable is also essential.

Report author Dr Humberto González Ramírez (Université Gustave Eiffel) said: "Currently, much of the land in cities is dedicated to cars. If our goal is to have more liveable and sustainable cities, then we must take part of this land and allocate it to alternative modes of transportation: walking, cycling and public transport."

The mathematical model can be applied to any city. It is particularly useful when applied to cities where more than 90% of journeys are by car, such as in the US cities of Dallas, Houston and Detroit.

Promoting sustainable transport is the objective of many cities and a core part of one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

A new study by Penn State researchers, who looked at emergency room admissions across the U.S. over a recent five-year period in a novel way, suggests that the agriculture industry is even more dangerous than previously believed.

The research revealed that from Jan. 1, 2015, to Dec. 31, 2019, more than 60,000 people were treated in emergency departments for nonfatal, agricultural-related injuries. Significantly, nearly a third of those injured were youths, according to study author Judd Michael, Nationwide Insurance Professor of Agricultural Safety and Health and professor of agricultural and biological engineering, College of Agricultural Sciences.

"This study revealed the true magnitude of the agricultural-related injury problem," he said. "We were slightly surprised at the sheer number of farm-related injuries and concerned by the high number of youths who were injured."

Before this research, knowledge of nonfatal agricultural injuries was somewhat limited by the available sources of information, Michael noted. Existing data are based mostly on regional or national periodic surveys, he added. The Bureau of Labor Statistics captures only nonfatal occupational injuries through its Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, often called the SOII.

That survey collects data on work-related nonfatal injuries and illnesses among employees in all industries in the U.S. But its data exclude self-employed farmers and family members as well as workers on farms with fewer than 11 employees.

"It has been estimated that the SOII was undercounting occupational injuries and illnesses in agriculture by about 78%," Michael said.

To reach their conclusion, researchers conducted a cross-sectional study using data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System -- or NEISS -- for patients treated in emergency departments over the five-year period. By querying all cases in the NEISS database using the location code "farm," and with a narrative search using relevant key words, they created a unique view of one of the country's most dangerous occupations.

Over the period, an estimated 62,079 people were treated in an emergency department for agricultural-related injuries. The mean age estimate in this population was 39 years old, with ages ranging from 1 to 95. Almost two-thirds of patients were male, and almost 80% were white. Approximately 30% and 22% of those injured were youth and elderly patients, respectively. These age groups are usually not present in the typical workforce but are involved in agriculture.

According to findings recently published in the Journal of Agromedicine, most injuries occurred from April through September. The most common injury was fracture, followed by open wound or amputation. The primary source of injury was in the "vehicles" category, with tractors being the dominant vehicle type.

Historically, researchers have known that youth are at greater risk than adults for injury around a farm or ag environment, but it is not necessarily because they are working, Michael noted. Rather, in family farm environments where the kids are present, they are exposed to dangers.

"Small farms are family-oriented businesses, and often they have all their family members helping out," he said. "And the kids who are helping out or visiting the farm are exposed to hazards that they may not understand or know how to react to. They're not mature enough to foresee hazardous situations. And that leads to injuries or worse, in some cases, fatalities."

Getting a better handle on the number of agriculture-related injuries and how they occur is important, Michael pointed out, because that knowledge may lead to a reduction in accidents.

"Agriculture and forestry are among the most hazardous industries in the U.S., and part of our overall goal here at Penn State in the ag safety and health program, and certainly within my role as the Nationwide Insurance Professor, is to conduct research that will help us understand the causes of injuries and fatalities," he said. "Because we know that if we understand why they happen, it's much easier to prevent them."

Interstate highway systems and networks of dense urban roads typically receive top billing on maps, in infrastructure legislation and in travelers' daily commuting routes. However, more than 80% of all US roads are considered low-volume roads - defined as those that carry fewer than 1000 vehicles per day. According to a new report published by the Ecological Society of America, "The Ecology of Rural Roads: Effects, Management and Research," this less-traveled road network can have an outsized impact on surrounding ecosystems, altering the local hydrology, affecting wildlife populations and shuttling invasive species into new areas.

"Rural roads provide important transportation connections for rural populations but,while apparently innocuous, can lead to drastic changes in whole landscapes, including the plants and animals that live in them," said Alisa W. Coffin, a research ecologist at the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service Southeast Watershed Research Laboratory in Tifton, GA.

Proper planning and maintenance of rural roads improves farmers' ability to get products to market, creating more reliable conditions for agricultural trade and for other social and economic opportunities. Maintaining and improving rural infrastructure is important not only for surrounding rural communities, but also for the broader public that depends on the goods and services that these communities produce. However, roads may also introduce heavy metals and road salt into waterways, alter flooding regimes and even change the rate at which nearby trees release water into the atmosphere. Animal deaths from vehicle collisions on rural roads can dramatically alter wildlife populations. When transportation planners fail to account for these cumulative impacts, it compromises the clean water and healthy ecosystems that support the wildlife and people that live nearby.

Road ecology is a relatively new discipline, and Coffin and her colleagues hope their paper can increase awareness of the importance of low-volume rural road networks. The report also describes best management practices and policy applications.

"Transportation authorities are increasingly looking to the science of road ecology for solutions on how to improve our transportation systems while also mitigating for their negative ecological effects," said Coffin. "The science shows that new roads bring additional negative effects and that mitigation improves ecological outcomes."

The report is No. 23 in Issues in Ecology, a series of reports published by the Ecological Society of America that use commonly understood language to present the consensus of a panel of scientific experts on issues related to the environment. Previous reports in the series are available at https://www.esa.org/publications/issues/.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and migraine often co-occur, but researchers knew relatively little about how or why this happens. A new study in Frontiers in Neuroscience is the first to investigate if the conditions have a common genetic basis. By studying identical twins, where one twin in each pair lives with PTSD or migraines and the other twin does not, the researchers found common genes that may play a role in both conditions. These genes may help to explain why the conditions co-occur, and could reveal new treatment targets for both.

PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that typically occurs after a traumatic experience, such as a life-threatening event. Most people will experience a traumatic event at some point in their lives, but the vast majority will not develop PTSD, so there is something special about those who do.

Identical twins can reveal epigenetic risk factors

Those who live with PTSD are also more likely to experience migraine headaches, suggesting common risk factors for these conditions. The synergy between PTSD and migraines is not understood as no studies have examined this link before. This latest study suggests that our genes may hold the answer, and specifically, epigenetic changes.

Epigenetics refers to the influence of our environment on how our genes are expressed, and typically involves biochemical modifications to DNA. Identical twins have exactly the same genes, but different experiences as they grow up may result in different epigenetic changes. This can mean that some genes are more or less likely to be expressed in each twin.

The researchers used this phenomenon in twins to see which genes show altered activity in PTSD and migraine and whether the conditions shared common changes. Six pairs of twins volunteered for the study, where both twins had experienced traumatic events, but only one of each pair lives with PTSD.

Given the low probability that all these conditions are met, the sample size could never be large. But because identical twins share all of their DNA - but not all of their epigenetic marks - the study is still powerful. The researchers also enrolled 15 pairs of twins where one of each pair experiences migraine headaches. The researchers took blood samples from the twins and analyzed them to detect epigenetic changes associated with PTSD or migraine.

Exciting findings

Excitingly, the study revealed that certain genes are similarly affected in PTSD and migraine, suggesting that they may share some risk factors.

"Our results suggest that common genes and signaling pathways are involved in PTSD and migraine and this might explain why PTSD and migraine can co-occur frequently," explained Prof Divya Mehta of the Queensland University of Technology, senior author on the study. "This might further imply that common environmental risk factors for both PTSD and migraine might be acting on these genes."

So, what do these findings mean for those living with PTSD and/or migraines? Well, the genes and epigenetic modifications the researchers identified could form the basis for new treatments. Epigenetic changes offer an excellent drug target, as they can often be reversed.

"These results may have implications for treatments, as one medicine or therapy might only be effective for a single disorder," said Mehta. "For co-occurring disorders such as PTSD and migraine, once we know which common genes are implicated in both disorders, we can develop new therapeutics to target these, thereby reducing symptoms and curing both."