Culture

More than 100 kg of highly toxic uranium (U) and plutonium (Pu) was dispersed in the form of tiny 'hot' radioactive particles after the British detonated nine atomic bombs in remote areas of South Australia, including Maralinga.

Scientists say that these radioactive particles persist in soils to this day, more than 60 years after the detonations. Previously, we had limited understanding of how Pu was released from these "hot" particles into the environment for uptake by wildlife around Maralinga.

But now, a new study published today in Scientific Reports and led by Monash University researchers warns that the particles are actually more complex and varied than previously thought. This means that the processes which slowly release Pu into the environment are also much more complex and varied.

"The British detonated nine nuclear bombs and conducted hundreds of nuclear tests in outback South Australia between 1953 and 1963," said lead study author Megan Cook, a PhD student from the Monash University School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment. "The resulting radioactive contamination and cover-up continues to haunt us."

"The results of our study profoundly changes our understanding of the nature of hot particles at Maralinga - despite the fact that those were some of the best studied particles anywhere in the world," said study co-author Associate Professor Vanessa Wong.

The research team used synchrotron radiation at the Diamond Light Source near Oxford, UK to decipher the physical and chemical make-up of the particles.

At Monash University they dissected some of the hot particles using a nano-sized ion beam, and further characterised the complex make-up of these particles down to the nano-size in exquisite details.

The researchers demonstrated that the complexity of the hot particles arose from the cooling of polymetallic melts from thousands of degrees Celsius in the explosion cloud during their formation.

"We found that the particles contained low-valence plutonium-uranium-carbon compounds that are typically highly reactive, yet, had been stabilised in the hot-particle matrix for nearly 60 years," said corresponding author Dr Barbara Etschmann.

Between 1950 and 1988 alone there were more than 230 recorded nuclear weapon accidents, including at least 10 with documented release of radioactive particles into the environment. The risks of such incidents are only increasing as international treaties such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty were cancelled.

"Understanding the fate of hot particles in the unique setting of the Australian outback is critical for securing Australia in case of nuclear incidents in the region, and returning all the native land affected by the British tests to the traditional Anangu owners of the Maralinga Tjarutja lands," said study co-author Professor Joël Brugger.

Scientists from Hokkaido University have discovered a novel defensive response to SARS-CoV-2 that involves the viral pattern recognition receptor RIG-I. Upregulating expression of this protein could strengthen the immune response in COPD patients.

In the 18 months since the first report of COVID-19 and the spread of the pandemic, there has been a large amount of research into understanding it and developing menas to treat it. COVID-19 does not affect all infected individuals equally. Many individuals are asymptomatic; of those who are symptomatic, the large majority have mild symptoms, and only a small number have severe cases. The reasons for this are not fully understood and are an important area of ongoing research.

A team of scientists from Hokkaido University, led by Professor Akinori Takaoka of the Institute for Genetic Medicine, has shown that RIG-I, a biological molecule that detects RNA viruses, restrains SARS-CoV-2 replication in human lung cells. Their findings, which could help predict COVID-19 patient outcomes, were published in the journal Nature Immunology.

To date, over 162 million people have been affected by COVID-19. About 40% - 45% of these individuals are asymptomatic; as for the rest, around 35% - 40% experienced a mild form of the disease, while the remaining 19% were affected by symptoms that were severe enough to warrant hospitalisation or were fatal, which are usually associated with comorbidities and risk factors such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This range of symptoms indicates that there are vast differences between individual responses to the virus.

Microbial pathogens in our body are detected by proteins called pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which also trigger immune responses to these pathogens. Viral infections are detected by a subset of PRRs; the scientists focused their attention on the protein RIG-I, which belongs to this subset. RIG-I is known to be critical for the detection and response to RNA viruses such as the influenza virus.

In experiments carried out in cell culture lines, the scientists found that there was little innate immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in pulmonary cells, suggesting the signaling pathway leading to immune response was aborted. Nevertheless, viral replication was suppressed. The scientists investigated the role of RIG-I and found that its deficiency caused increased viral replication. Further experiments confirmed that the suppression of viral replication was dependent on RIG-I.

A single previous study has shown that RIG-I expression is downregulated in pulmonary cells of COPD patients. Using primary pulmonary cells from two COPD patients, the scientists showed that this downregulation of RIG-I resulted in the detection of viral replication after 5 days . They also demonstrated that treatment of these COPD cells with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), which upregulates the expression of RIG-I, significantly reduced viral titres in the cells. Furthermore, using RIG-I mutants, they were able to elucidate the mechanisms by which RIG-I suppressed SARS-CoV-2 replication: The helicase domain, a structural element in RIG-I, interacts with the viral RNA, blocking a virus-derived enzyme responsible for replication.

This study has demonstrated a unique viral recognition mode of RIG-I, termed the RIG-I-mediated signaling-abortive anti-SARS-CoV-2 defense mechanism. It has also indicated that RIG-I expression levels are one of the potential parameters for the prediction of COVID-19 patient outcomes. Further work must be done to uncover factors or conditions that modulate RIG-I expression levels, and may lead to new strategies to control SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The issue of concern was that the Escherichia coli (E. coli) genome, consisting of 4.6 million base pairs of a single circular DNA, is too large to manipulate following the extraction and transfer to other bacteria.

In the present study, a group of Rikkyo University researchers led by Assistant Professor Takahito Mukai and Professor Masayuki Su'etsugu has succeeded in splitting the E.coli genome into tripartite-genome of 1 million base pairs per genome (split-genome) using the smallest E. coli genome strain established so far. In addition, they successfully extracted the split-genome from bacteria and installed it in other E. coli.

It is a major breakthrough that E. coli could stably proliferate even after the bacterial genome was split into tripartite-genome. Going forward, it is imperative to clarify how the replication and distribution of the tripartite-genome are controlled. Also, this research group has been developing the technology for synthesizing gigantic DNA without using cells (cell-free) and reported a cell-free technique for amplifying 1 million base pairs of circular DNA. In the future, the installation of cell-free synthesized split genomes in E. coli is expected to lead to the creation of artificial E. coli with designed valuable functions, such as material production.

This achievement is expected to lead to the clarification of the mechanism of genome replication/segregation and also to the application of tools in synthetic biology to convert the genome, the blueprint of life, so that we can create functionally designed life. The results in the present study have been published in the online version as a breakthrough paper in Nucleic Acids Research on April 28, 2021.

"Abominable mystery" -- the early origin and evolution of angiosperms (flowering plants) was such described by Charles Robert Darwin. So far, we still have not completely solved the problem, and do not know how the earth evolved into such a colorful and blooming world.

Recently, a new angiosperm was reported based on numerous exceptionally well-preserved fossils from the Lower Cretaceous of Jiuquan Basin, West Gansu Province, Northwest China. The new discovery is the earliest and unique record of early angiosperms in Northwest China. The study has been accepted for publication in the journal National Science Review and is currently available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwab084.

The new angiosperm was named Gansufructus saligna, and all the fossil specimens were collected from the grayish green mudstone of the upper Zhonggou Formation in Hanxia Section. Remarkably, the plant fossils are almost completely preserved with branched axes, attached leaves and paniculate infructescences, providing valuable materials for the morphological studies of early angiosperms.

Gansufructus saligna is erect and graceful, three to four times branched, with alternate arranged axes and leaves. Leaves are simple and willow-shaped, leaf margin is entire, leaf apex is acute and leaf base is decurrent and estipulate with short petiole. Leaf venation is poorly organized with low-rank venations, primary vein prominent, secondary veins pinnate, and tertiary veins reticulate. The infructescences are loose panicles bearing fruits in different stages of maturity. Each fruit is formed from four basally syncarpous carpels borne in a whorle arrangement. And each carpel subtended by a small and persistent tepal at the base and contains three to five anatropous seeds.

Gansufructus saligna is supposed to be a small, slender plant with flexible stems, delicate leaves and paniculate infructescences, and is suggested to be a terrestrial herbaceous eudicot based on the morphology of both vegetative and reproductive organs. It probably grew along the lakeshores, where the environment is low-lying and humid. Moreover, the current fossil specimens together with other fossil records of early angiosperms from the Jehol biota and other regions, indicate that the presence of diverse early eudicots of low stature colonizing areas during the middle-late Early Cretaceous. This study is of great significance in exploring the origin, evolution, diversity and habitat preferences of early eudicots.

Sloughed off skin and bodily fluids are things most people would prefer to avoid.

But for marine biologist like Cheryl Lewis Ames, Associate Professor of Applied Marine Biology in the Graduate School of Agricultural Science at Tohoku University (Japan), such remnants of life have become a magical key to detecting the unseen.

Any organism living in the ocean will inevitably leave behind traces containing their DNA - environmental DNA (eDNA) - detectable in water samples collected from the ocean

Only recently has molecular sequencing technology become advanced enough to conduct eDNA analysis in the field to identify species that may be endangered, invasive or dangerous, and could otherwise go unnoticed.

Ames chose sampling sites in the Florida Keys (USA) where species of upside-jellyfish Cassiopea occur to test out their newly developed Fieldable eDNA sequencing kit - called FeDS.

Using eDNA for multiple species identification is a multistep process known as metabarcoding. Since the mixed DNA template must first be amplified using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), metabarcoding experiments in the field have only recently been possible thanks to battery-operated thermocyclers and other portable devices.

Determining the identity of a species from small bits of DNA filtered from seawater requires the use of a Next Generation Sequencer (NGS), a machine that traditionally takes up the whole desktop counter in a laboratory and requires an electrical outlet. A novelty of the portable technology used in this study - Nanopore MinION -- is that as pieces of DNA pass through a microscopic pore in the device, differences in electrical current determine the unique code of each DNA strand.

Instead of the typically large sequencing machines used to complete such a task, Ames and her team were testing a Nanopore system the size of a cellphone, powered by a laptop computer. A drop of the prepared eDNA mixture added to the portable sequencer reveals on the screen the genetic code of all the DNA passing through it in real-time.

Then, DNA sequences are searched against a huge database of sequences to determined which species are represented by the eDNA collected onsite that day. Upgraded "offline" versions of the necessary software and pre-downloading of the reference database to the laptop meant that the whole metabarcoding process could be conducted beyond the walls of a laboratory, away from internet connection.

Ames and the team detected 53 species of jellyfish including Cassiopea, the upside-down jellyfish, two venomous species of box jellyfish, many species with hydroid forms, and two species of stalked jellyfish which were previously unreported in the Florida Keys, indicating that the process could reveal species that would otherwise go unnoticed.

"My hope is that one day this system is used for sting mitigation, almost like a weather forecast app that also reports 'jellyfish stings risk' at certain beaches," said Ames.

Ames has spent much of her time conducting research in areas where jelly stings are common, and warnings about whether venomous jellies are in the area could prevent countless injuries to swimmers. Besides practical purposes in fisheries and conservation, the fact that a sample of ocean water can reveal the organisms in the vicinity is truly a marvel.

Researchers at the University of Zurich show how climate mitigation scenarios can be improved by taking into account that the financial system can play both an enabling or a hampering role on the path to a sustainable economic system.

To limit global warming, a profound transformation of energy, production and consumption in our economies is required. The scale of the transformation means that the financial system must have a proactive role. New green investments are needed, as well as a reallocation of capital from high to low-carbon activities. The Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), of which the Swiss National Bank is a member, was recently established with the aim of better understanding and managing the financial risks of climate change. The climate mitigation scenarios developed by the NGFS in collaboration with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations (IPCC) have been a major step in providing financial actors with forward looking views on how low and high-carbon economic activities could evolve over the next decades. However, at this stage, these scenarios are based on large-scale Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) that do not take into account the dynamic nature of the financial system and its actors. "We need to consider how the risk perception of the financial system from the scenarios can change the scenarios themselves," explains Stefano Battiston, professor at the Department of Banking and Finance at the University of Zurich.

Expansion of climate mitigation models

In their paper published in Science, Battiston and an international research group - with two authors being also authors of the upcoming IPPC Assessment Report - present a dynamic approach to complement climate mitigation scenarios. By describing what the world might look like in the coming decades, and being endorsed by financial authorities and large investors, climate mitigation scenarios have the power to change markets' expectations today. But this has an impact on the scenarios. "The economic system could go in the direction of the low-carbon transition, but it could also go the opposite way. It depends on what perception of risk the actors form from the scenarios," Battiston says. If investors find climate policies credible, they will adjust their expectations in a timely manner and reallocate capital to low-carbon investments early and gradually, which enables the transition to a more sustainable economy and a smoother adjustment of prices.

In contrast, investors could find the policies non-credible, delay revising their expectations, and do so later and in a sudden way. In particular, Battiston continues, "if financial actors collectively underestimate the risk of a late and sudden transition, the chance of this scenario materializing increases. This outcome could be a problem for financial stability and would therefore be more costly to society. It is thus also a concern for central banks and financial authorities. And it could lead to insufficient reallocation of capital into low-carbon investments. This is why it is so important."

Evaluate climate-financial risk and look at it dynamically

The authors of the study combine the current IAMs with a climate-financial risk assessment (CFR) in a circular way. In doing so, they show how the perception of the financial system and the timing of the introduction of climate policy measures interact in the low-carbon transition. The feedback loop map possible changes in investors' expectations and thus lead to more coeherent scenarios to assess climate-related financial risk.

The findings from the study have practical implications for the implementation of fiscal policy measures, and financial policy and regulation. They shed also new light on the discussion around the principle of "double materiality", which involves taking into account financial as well as non-financial opportunities and risks for financial firms.

Just half a degree Celsius less warming would save economic losses of Chinese railway infrastructure by approximately $0.63 billion per year, according to a new paper published by a collaborative research team based in Beijing Normal University and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.

The study, which appears in Transportation Research Part D recently, found that the rainfall-induced disaster risk of railway infrastructure has increased with increasing extreme rainfall days during the decades 1981-2016. Limiting global warming to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5oC instead of 2.0oC would significantly reduce the disaster susceptibility of Chinese railway infrastructure to extreme precipitation, according to LIU Kai, the first author of the paper.

LIU is an associated professor at the Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University.

"Flood disaster can inundate the railway track, cause failures of the subgrade and track structure. Based on our statistics, a total of 975 historical railway rainfall-induced disasters was reported from 1981 to 2016. The rainfall-induced debris flow had the largest contribution, about 42%, followed by the rainfall-induced flood, which is about 26%, rainfall-induced landslide--about 18%-- and rainfall-induced compound hazards, about 14%,"Liu said.

The team used a random forest (RF) machine-learning model to calculate the disaster susceptibility and quantify the relationship between susceptibility and precipitation change.

"We found a remarkable increase in the disaster susceptibility of railway lines along the Yangtze River valley, which is the economic center of China with the largest population density." Said LIU, "The disaster susceptibility has increased by 30% during the period 1999-2016 relative to that in 1981-1998 ."

Liu and her team, collaborated with Dr. Tianjun Zhou, professor of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, combined CMIP5, an archive of comprehensive climate models, with socio-economic projections to investigate future climate changes and the accompanying impacts. The researchers specifically examined extreme precipitation changes under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios [RCP4.5 and 8.5 scenarios represent a possible range of radiative forcing values in the year 2100 relative to pre-industrial values (+4.5 and +8.5 W/m2, respectively)] over three time periods including near term (2020-2039), mid-term (2040-2059), and long term (2080-2099).

The scientists found that 32.0% and 45.0% of land area will be exposed to an increase in the annual average extreme rainfall days of more than 0.5 days by 2050 and 2090 under RCP8.5. The proportion of railway infrastructure with high disaster susceptibility is projected to increase from the baseline period level (1981-1998) of 1.1% to 4.5% by 2050 and up to 12% by 2090 under RCP8.5.

"We extended the projection to the changes in the proportions of railway lines at high risk for specific levels of 1.5oC, 2oC, and 3oC global warming and measure the benefits of mitigation by calculating the avoided impact. The avoided impact, or railway exposure to high disaster susceptibility, would be 90% and 391% if warming was limited to 1.5oC compared to the impact for 2oC and 3oC warming under RCP8.5, respectively." said Prof. Zhou, the co-author of the study. Under RCP8.5, with a global average temperature increase of 1.5oC, the direct damage and repair cost could increase to an annual amount of $1.47 billion. With 2oC warming, the damage doubles, and the loss grows to $2.10 billion.

"This study quantifies the influence of the climate change with its associated rainfall change on railway infrastructures in China. Chinese railway is still under large expansion. The mileage of China's railway lines will reach about 200,000 km in 2035 compared to about 140,000 km in 2020. The design of newly planned high-speed railway lines should incorporate climate change effects. How to reduce the disaster susceptibility of the world's most densely populated railway network should be planned to limit the adverse impact," Liu said.

Ending our dependence on coal is essential for effective climate protection. Nevertheless, efforts to phase out coal trigger anxiety and resistance, particularly in mining regions. The governments of both Canada and Germany have involved various stakeholders to develop recommendations aimed at delivering just transitions and guiding structural change. In a new study, researchers at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) compare the stakeholder commissions convened by the two countries, drawing on expert interviews with their members, and examine how governments use commissions to legitimize their transition policies.

In the study, the researchers identify similarities and differences in the broader contexts of the respective transitions. Coal-fired power generation plays a far more significant role in Germany than in Canada, for example. Nevertheless, there are many similarities; in both Canada and Germany, the coal sector is largely concentrated in rural, economically disadvantaged regions. As a result, concerns about job losses have hampered efforts to phase out coal-fired energy generation sooner rather than later. The federal systems of the two countries are not always conducive to a rapid energy transition: the Canadian provinces and Germany's Länder can put the brakes on national ambitions.

Under these circumstances, coming up with a roadmap for the coal phase-out was no easy task. "The national governments of Canada and Germany attempted to legitimize their respective decisions to phase out coal through the strategic involvement of key stakeholders and potential veto players. This was an attempt to strike a balance between different interests," says lead author Konrad Gürtler. The Canadian government set up a task force with a rather limited mandate that focused on achieving a local just transition for workers and communities. Germany's Coal Commission, on the other hand, had to navigate complex expectations around the timing and pathway for the coal phase-out, its impact on the energy transition, and structural change in the affected regions.

In focus: Climate justice, just transitions, and energy justice

In both cases, the governments pursued their legitimation strategies in a two-stage process, explains Gürtler: "Governments involved stakeholders, who in turn had to respond to the expectations of various societal groups. In the process, negotiations engaged with very different ideas of justice: Climate justice, fair transitions, energy justice." The Canadian task force had a strong focus on affected regions and on identifying and representing the needs of communities; in the case of the German Coal Commission, a wide range of stakeholders - from industry associations and trade unions to scientists and environmental activists - brought their concerns to the table.

In early 2019 the Canadian task force presented the government with recommendations for a plan of action, which the government intends to implement within the framework of its proposed "Just Transition Act". This legislation has not yet been passed, however. In Germany, the Coal Commission negotiated a minimal compromise, which was only partially adopted by the federal government. The implementation of this compromise has since been questioned by former members of the Coal Commission and could be overtaken by new developments, such as the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on the Climate Protection Act.

Research has shown that joining a gang is associated with increased criminal behavior. A new study examined whether the intermittent nature of gang membership affects offending. Researchers sought to determine whether the association with increased offending was a consistent attribute or, since people enter and exit and re-enter gangs, whether the intermittent nature of membership affected members' likelihood of offending. The study found that first-time membership was associated with increases in criminal behavior from when gang members were not in gangs, and that joining for a second time significantly raised the likelihood of offending, including more violent behavior.

The study, by researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Maryland, appears in Criminology, a publication of the American Society of Criminology.

The results suggest that gang membership, whether as a new or a repeat experience, is a salient life event and that intermittency can disrupt individuals' offending profiles, according to coauthors Megan Bears Augustyn, associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Jean McGloin, professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland.

Augustyn and McGloin say that based on their documentation of changes in offending behavior that parallel changes in individuals' self-identification as gang members, interventions should take into account the intermittency of gang membership.

Although past researcher has acknowledged the intermittency of gang membership, studies have not investigated whether different stages of gang membership are associated with different offending patterns. In this study, researchers used data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, which examined the development of antisocial behavior among 1,000 youth who were representative of the seventh- and eighth-grade public school population of Rochester, NY, in 1988. The 177 youth included in this study self-reported gang membership; of these, 53 said they had joined a gang for the second time.

The youth were predominantly Black (67 percent), as well as Hispanic (17 percent) and White (16 percent). Most of the youth (73 percent) were male, only 36 percent lived with both biological parents at the start of the study, and most were economically disadvantaged. The average age of participants at the beginning of the study was 13.9 years old. Youth were interviewed up to nine times over about four and a half years.

Joining a gang for the first time was associated with increases in general offending behavior, as well as violence, property crime, and drug sales, when compared to pre-gang time periods. Joining a gang for the second time was also associated with significant increases in general offending, violence, and drug sales (though not property crime), when compared to time out of the gang after first-time membership.

The study also found that joining a gang for the second time had an indirect path to offending via delinquent peers, but not deviant values or drug use. Deviant values were measured as youth's level of agreement with 10 offenses (e.g., stealing something worth $100 or more). This path was not observed in first-time gang membership. This led the researchers to conclude that there are significant changes in individuals' offending behavior both when they first join a gang and when they later join a gang.

The authors note that the gang members they studied came from one urban jurisdiction and joined gangs during adolescence, raising questions about generalizability to other areas and other ages. In addition, the study lacked information from all nine interviews on a number of factors that could explain individuals' reasons for joining gangs. Finally, the study was unable to deconstruct joining a gang for the second time by whether an individual went back to the same gang or joined a different one.

The authors say their research underscores the importance of not only supporting youth's decision to leave a gang in the first place, but also preventing youth from rejoining a gang while navigating the disengagement process since this has significant implications for criminal behavior and the associated snares.

Planned missions to return humans to the Moon need to hurry up to avoid hitting one of the busiest periods for extreme space weather, according to scientists conducting the most in-depth ever look at solar storm timing.

Scientists at the University of Reading studied 150 years of space weather data to investigate patterns in the timing of the most extreme events, which can be extremely dangerous to astronauts and satellites, and even disrupt power grids if they arrive at Earth.

The researchers found for the first time that extreme space weather events are more likely to occur early in even-numbered solar cycles, and late in odd-numbered cycles - such as the one just starting. They are also more likely during busy periods of solar activity and in bigger cycles, mirroring the pattern for moderate space weather.

The findings could have implications for the NASA-led Artemis mission, which plans to return humans to the moon in 2024, but which could be delayed to the late 2020s.

Professor Mathew Owens, a space physicist at the University of Reading, said: "Until now, the most extreme space-weather events were thought to be random in their timing and thus little could be done to plan around them.

"However, this research suggests they are more predictable, generally following the same 'seasons' of activity as smaller space-weather events. But they also show some important differences during the most active season, which could help us avoid damaging space-weather effects.

"These new findings should allow us to make better space weather forecasts for the solar cycle that is just beginning and will run for the decade or so. It suggests any significant space missions in the years ahead - including returning astronauts to the Moon and later, onto Mars - will be less likely to encounter extreme space-weather events over the first half of the solar cycle than the second."

Extreme space weather is driven by huge eruptions of plasma from the Sun, called coronal mass ejections, arriving at Earth, causing a global geomagnetic disturbance.

Previous research has generally focused on how big extreme space weather events can be, based on observations of previous events. Predicting their timing is far more difficult because extreme events are rare, so there is relatively little historic data in which to identify patterns.

In the new study, the scientists used a new method applying statistical modelling to storm timing for the first time. They looked at data from the past 150 years - the longest period of data available for this type of research - recorded by ground-based instruments that measure magnetic fields in the Earth's atmosphere, located in the UK and Australia.

The Sun goes through regular 11-year cycles of its magnetic field, which is seen in the number of sunspots on its surface. During this cycle the Sun's magnetic north and south poles switch places. Each cycle includes a solar maximum period, where solar activity is at its greatest, and a quiet solar minimum phase.

Previous research has shown moderate space weather is more likely during the solar maximum than the period around the solar minimum, and more likely during cycles with a larger peak sunspot number. However, this is the first study that shows the same pattern is also true of extreme events.

The major finding, though, was that extreme space weather events are more likely to occur early in even-numbered solar cycles, and late in odd-numbered cycles, such as cycle 25, which began in December 2019.

The scientists believe this could be because of the orientation of the Sun's large-scale magnetic field, which flips at solar maximum so it is pointing opposite to Earth's magnetic field early in even cycles and late in odd cycles. This theory will need more investigation.

This new research on space weather timing allows predictions to be made for extreme space weather during solar cycle 25. It could therefore be used to plan the timing of activities that could be affected by extreme space weather, such as power grid maintenance on Earth, satellite operations, or major space missions.

The findings suggest that any major operations planned beyond the next five years will have to make allowances for the higher likelihood of severe space weather late in the current solar cycle between 2026 and 2030.

A major solar eruption in August 1972, between NASA's Apollo 16 and 17 missions, was strong enough that it could have caused major technical or health problems to astronauts had it occurred while they were en route or around the Moon.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- A new study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and RTI International (RTI) projects that global chronic and hidden hunger will increase the overall years of life lost due to premature mortality and years lived with disability, also known as disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), globally by over 30 million by 2050 relative to 2010. Expected impacts of climate change on the availability and access to nutritious food will exacerbate this change in DALYs by almost 10 percent.

Researchers published the findings in an article in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, further indicating that policymakers could counteract at least the impacts of climate change with increased investments in food systems now.

"Investment in agricultural R&D, irrigation systems, market access and infrastructure are essential to counteract the effects of factors that increase DALYs in coming decades," said Robert Beach, Senior Economist and Fellow at RTI. "To meet the needs and nutrition requirements for society, it is important for policymakers to invest more broadly in food systems, rather than focusing on the production of calories. Strengthening food systems now, along with health, education and employment opportunities can reduce the effects of climate change and population growth on global hunger."

According to pre-pandemic estimates, 10 percent of the world's population is experiencing hunger or facing severe food insecurity. As climate change and population growth continue to disrupt food systems, researchers found that reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goal of "Zero Hunger" by 2030 is becoming an enormous challenge without extraordinary policy action.

"Improvements in food systems can significantly decrease hunger, but our projections show that population growth will outpace those improvements at current investment levels, especially in Africa south of the Sahara," Timothy Sulser, Senior Scientist at IFPRI. "Climate change exacerbates the pressures on food systems to deliver healthy diets to everyone but investing in food systems can reduce the years lost that we project, particularly in South and East Asia."

The scenarios examined in the study show that avoiding an increase in DALYs due to climate change requires a comprehensive investment strategy from policy and decision makers globally. An increased investment of $25.5 billion annually, would more than offset the negative impacts of climate change on DALYs according to the study.

Using DALYs as a metric is appealing due to its universally comparable nature across a broad range of potential health issues. Chronic hunger impacts are associated with protein-energy undernutrition while hidden hunger refers to micronutrient deficiencies.

The study used a model of the global food system developed by IFPRI and published relationships between regional food availability and DALYs to project the total number of DALYs caused by chronic and hidden hunger and exacerbated by climate change.

"It was exciting to work with this interdisciplinary team to get this innovative approach to analyzing the impacts climate change can have on our health and our lives" said Naomi Fukagawa, director of the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center at the USDA. "Pulling together perspectives from economists and health/nutrition experts is important for understanding and addressing the complex issues facing the future of food systems."

Normally, mountain forests are among the most diverse habitats in alpine regions. Yet, as a team from the Alfred Wegener Institute discovered in the Tibetan Plateau, the higher, treeless areas are home to far more species. Their findings, which were just published in the journal Nature Communications, can help to predict how the biodiversity of alpine regions will decline in response to global warming - when the mountain forests spread to higher elevations.

As anyone who has ever hiked in the mountains knows, the landscape changes with the elevation. At first, for a long time, you trek uphill through forests, until they open up into the first meadows and pastures, where a wide range of plant species bloom in the spring. Farther up, the landscape becomes more barren. Only those plants that have adapted to the alpine climate can thrive here. In order to map the vegetation of the alpine world, biologists most often investigate plant diversity along so-called elevation levels. First they examine the plants in the sprawling forests, then in the alpine meadows, and then in the rocky upper reaches. No matter where researchers do so - in the Alps, the Caucasus or the Rocky Mountains - the results are always similar: the extensive forests are the most species-rich region. With increasing elevation, biodiversity steadily declines.

More species in treeless areas

A team led by biologist Prof Ulrike Herzschuh from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Potsdam has now concluded that this thesis isn't necessarily correct: forests by no means have to be the most diverse part of alpine regions. If the evolution of mountain ranges in the course of millennia is considered, it becomes clear that the landscape above the treeline contains many more species than the mountain forests. As Herzschuh and her colleagues report in the journal Nature Communications, they succeeded in reconstructing the evolution of plant diversity in the Tibetan Plateau over the past 17,000 years. What they found: when, in colder phases, the forests retreated to lower regions and the treeline followed suit, the alpine meadows and alpine landscape grew - and with them, the number of species. In warmer phases, the forests spread higher, and the number of species declined. "If we assume the same size, there are more species in the treeless higher areas than in the forests," says Herzschuh. "This also came as a surprise to us, since conventional studies, which always reflect the elevation levels, have always indicated just the opposite."

Broader range of habitats

The study's authors don't yet have a definitive explanation for their discovery. "However, it's safe to assume that there are now more species in forest areas because they're more extensive than the more barren areas near mountain peaks," says Sisi Liu, first author of the study and member of the AWI's research section Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems. As a result, today there is much more forest available, which can contain various types of habitat, like glades and forest streams. If the alpine areas were larger instead, so Liu and her colleagues surmise, the result would be far more diverse habitats than those found in the forests - shady-moist and sunny-dry areas or sparsely vegetated, nutrient-poor areas and loamy soils - and therefore, a wide range of settings for diverse flora.

Ancient sediments from a Tibetan alpine lake

The southeast Tibetan Plateau is one of the most species-rich mountainous regions in the world, and a so-called biodiversity hotspot. Further, since the region is at such a high elevation, at the end of the last ice age it was heavily glaciated; it was only with the gradual warming of the planet that the forests reclaimed parts of the Plateau. In order to determine how biodiversity changed with the disappearance and return of the forests, Herzschuh and her team assessed the sediments from an ancient lake in the Hengduan Mountains of eastern Tibet. Since the lake was formed after the last ice age, sand, dust and plant remains had gathered there for over 17,000 years. The researchers extracted ancient fragments of DNA strands from the sediments, allowing them to identify which plants lived there at which times. They then combined these biological findings with analyses provided by a mathematical ice model, which can be used to reconstruct the glaciers' changing positions. According to Herzschuh: "With the aid of an ice model developed by our colleagues at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, we were able to precisely trace how the plant community changed with the elevation of the glacier and the shifting treeline."

More forest means less diversity

Interestingly, ca. 8,000 years ago there was a warm phase in which the forests 'migrated' farther uphill than today - and the number of species to be found in the sediment record declined significantly. The findings gleaned by Herzschuh, her PhD candidate Sisi Liu and other colleagues are important in terms of our ability to predict how the biodiversity of mountainous regions around the world could be impacted by climate change; what they learned about the situation in Tibet can also be applied to other alpine regions. "Our data could potentially help to develop new management strategies for combatting the loss of diversity," says Herzschuh. In any case, she claims, the stereotypical image of the mountain forest being the most species-rich type of region needs to be critically reconsidered.

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 20, 2021 - As Congress considers legislation to reform prescription drug pricing, a new analysis conducted by the West Health Policy Center and released by its Council for Informed Drug Spending Analysis (CIDSA) estimates that the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act (H.R. 3) could result in hundreds of billions of dollars in lower commercial health insurance costs by 2030.These savings would come from a $195 billion reduction in employer costs and $98 billion in savings for workers.

The non-profit, non-partisan West Health Policy Center engaged the actuarial firm Milliman, to analyze the impact of the legislation on stakeholders. Using Milliman's analysis and other data sources West Health Policy Center researchers then quantified the dollar impact on employee and employer costs.

H.R. 3 would empower the Secretary of Health and Human Services to directly negotiate prices with drug manufacturers and make those same negotiated prices available to all Americans with private insurance. While the Congressional Budget Office has estimated the impact of H.R. 3 on federal direct spending, CBO has yet to estimate its effect on private health plans. The West Health Policy Center analysis is the first-of-its-kind to do so.

"For decades, American businesses have struggled to keep pace with ballooning prescription drug costs, and have had zero recourse to bring down prices," said Tim Lash, President of the West Health Policy Center. "For American employers to remain competitive, the market failures that have allowed drug costs to increase without interference must be addressed. It appears that H.R. 3 and the considerable savings the legislation could generate might very well be the solution we've been waiting for."

The price of prescription medications has skyrocketed in recent years. Between 2007 and 2018, list prices for branded pharmaceutical products increased by 159% and there are few signs of it slowing. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), spending on prescription drugs will grow faster than any other major medical good or service over the next several years.

Meanwhile, rising healthcare costs continue to be a top concern for American business. A recent study of executives at large employers found that 87% believe that the cost of providing health benefits to their employees will be unsustainable in 5 to 10 years, and 7 in 10 large employers agree that the government needs to negotiate prices for high-cost drugs and limit drug price increases.

"The savings from Medicare negotiation are not confined to federal spending or Medicare beneficiaries - businesses and workers alike stand to reap enormous benefits under the policy," said Sean Dickson, Director of Health Policy at the West Health Policy Center and CIDSA Chair, who conducted this analysis. "Employers are understandably frustrated with the limitations and failures of market approaches to constrain drug prices; they are increasingly open to federal interventions that will reduce their costs and increase their workers' take home pay."

Based on West Health Policy Center's analysis drug manufacturers would increase prices greater than current trends to make up for reduced profits under Medicare negotiation. Under this conservative assumption, employer-sponsored insurance savings would be allocated between $195 billion in lower employer premium costs, $53 billion in employee premium reductions, and $8 billion in lower employee cost-sharing. Workers covered under the Affordable Care Act would see another $36 billion in savings.

"There is no losing here. Even under the worst-case scenario, employers still come out ahead hundreds of billions of dollars and employees could expect greater take home pay," concluded Dickson.

To estimate dollar savings for individuals and employers from Milliman's overall savings estimates, West Health Policy Center used data from National Health Expenditures (NHE), the Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey (EHBS), and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). The full dollar value assessment and methodology by West Health can be found here. Milliman's full assessment and white paper can be found here.

By meta-analysis, experimentally determined COVID-19 virus T cell epitopes were compared with sequences of common cold coronaviruses (CCCoVs). Only one CCCoV-matching epitope was repeatedly identified as highly immunogenic, namely the CD8+ T cell epitope VYIGDPAQL ("VYI" peptide) if presented by the MHC class I allele HLA-A*24:02. Approximately 60% of Japanese individuals carry this allele, which in combination with previous CCCoV infections might help explain the surprisingly low prevalence of COVID-19 in Japan.

Protective immune memory--through B cells, which make antibodies, and/or T cells, which in the case of CD8+ T cells can kill virus-infected cells--can be induced by identical but also by related viruses. Related to the COVID-19 virus SARS-CoV-2, there are four common cold coronaviruses (CCCoVs) that together cause ~20% of common cold infections: OC43, HKU1, 229E, and NL63. Most adults have been infected with CCCoVs multiple times in their lives. Whether or not meaningful CCCoV-induced anti-SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies exist remains a matter of debate. Meanwhile, the generation of T cell memory should depend on the genetic make-up of the infected individual. Namely, immune recognition by T cells depends on the presentation of peptides ("epitopes") by polymorphic major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules, and different MHC alleles (variants between individuals) present different peptides from the same pathogen.

In their recent publication in F1000Research [1], Dijkstra, Frenette, and Dixon provided the first systematic search for SARS-CoV-2 T cell epitope sequences that were experimentally determined in one or more of >15 studies and are identical to at least one of the four CCCoVs. They found that such epitopes are rare. The only such epitope that was repeatedly identified as immunogenic by independent research groups was the peptide VYIGDPAQL, which is also named "VYI" after its first three amino acids. This peptide is a fragment of the virus helicase and identical between SARS-CoV-2 and the CCCoVs OC43 and HKU1. The VYI peptide was found to bind MHC class I allele HLA-A*24:02 and to efficiently stimulate CD8+ T cells from at least some--and sometimes the majority--of investigated HLA-A*24:02+ COVID-19 (convalescent) patients in each study that addressed this matter. This finding was confirmed in two recent studies that were not part of the Dijkstra et al. analysis [1]: Saini et al. 2021 (https://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/6/58/eabf7550.long) and Francis et al. 2021 (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.29.441258v1).

For explaining these findings, Dijkstra et al. [1] conservatively assumed that infections with OC43 or HKU1 had primed the anti-VYI T cells, which then were restimulated upon infection with SARS-CoV-2. The authors also speculated that the surprisingly low prevalence of COVID-19 in Japan may in part be explained by such anti-VYI T cell immune memory, since in this country ~60% of the individuals carry the allele HLA-A*24:02 and in recent years there were OC43 outbreaks. However, it is important to realize that, for now, this remains speculation only, since (i) experimental evidence for CCCoV-induced anti-VYI memory still needs to be provided, and (ii) immune memory does not necessarily mean immune protection. Nevertheless, currently, the VYI/HLA-A*24:02/Japan hypothesis put forward by the authors is one of the most plausible models for genetically explaining differences in resistance against COVID-19 between populations. Dijkstra et al. described how even a small impact on virus replication levels may have a significant impact on the spread of the virus through a population. Their article is also an interesting read on the COVID-19 situation in Japan.

Furthermore, Dijkstra et al. [1] pointed out that the similarity between the spike (S) proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and CCCoVs is low, which suggests that the sequence conservation of this protein is relaxed. Accordingly, the authors subscribe to the fear as expressed by others that SARS-CoV-2 may mutate its S protein to escape the immune protection that is induced by the current generation of S-only vaccines. The inclusion in future vaccines of parts of the virus that are more highly conserved between SARS-CoV-2 and CCCoVs may reduce the risk of such escape. For populations in which HLA-A*24:02 is prevalent, like in Japan, the VYI peptide is a prime candidate for such inclusion.

Orangutans are closely related to humans. And yet, they are much less sociable than other species of great apes. Previous studies have showed that young orangutans mainly acquire their knowledge and skills from their mothers and other conspecifics. Social learning in orangutans occurs through peering, i.e. sustained observation of other members of the species at close range.

An international team led by the University of Zurich (UZH) has now studied peering behavior in young orangutans at two research stations on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. The data was collected by researchers from the Department of Anthropology of UZH, the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Constance, the Universitas Nasional in Jakarta and Leipzig University, who observed more than 3,100 individual peering situations in 50 young animals over a period of around 13 years.

Sex-specific role models

The findings of the study reveal significant differences in the role models of young male and female orangutans. As they get older, young male orangutans increasingly prefer immigrant adult males or immigrant male and female juveniles as role models. In contrast, young females exhibit a consistently high interest in their mother's behavior. When attending to non-mother role models, immature females prefer local adult females and local juveniles of both sexes.

Interestingly, these differences develop at a stage when the immature orangutans are still in constant association with their mothers. The mothers, in turn, show no differences in their patterns of association, which provides male and female immatures with the same opportunities for learning. "Young male and female orangutans simply use these opportunities differently," explains last author Caroline Schuppli from the University of Zurich and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. "The differences in role models are also reflected in the immatures' socially learned knowledge. Females thus develop feeding behaviors that are similar to those of their mothers, whereas males acquire a greater share of their knowledge from animals other than their mothers."

Settling versus migrating

These differences stem from the acquisition of ecologically relevant knowledge as well as from sex-specific behavior. When male orangutans reach sexual maturity, they leave the area where they were born and migrate across different areas for several decades. Since food sources differ from one area to the next, acquiring a diverse set of knowledge is an advantage for males.

Female orangutans, on the other hand, remain in the area where they were born, and thus benefit from as deep a knowledge of the local area as possible. "We also suspect that young males learn sex-specific ecological behavior from adult males. Adult male orangutans are not only significantly larger than females, they also differ in their foraging and feeding behaviors," says evolutionary biologist Schuppli.

Social learning crucial for human development

The findings highlight the importance of social learning for the development of immature orangutans. The fact that social learning is crucial in the development of the semi-solitary orangutans indicates that this is likely also the case for other great apes. It follows from this that the human capacity for social learning is a continuously evolved trait. The findings could also be relevant for developing sustainable strategies for wildlife conservation, especially when it comes to releasing orphaned orangutans raised by humans back into the wild.