Culture

A new catalyst for the conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) into chemicals or fuels has been developed by researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the University of Duisburg-Essen. They optimized already available copper catalysts to improve their selectivity and long-term stability. The results are described by the team led by Dr. Yanfang Song and Professor Wolfgang Schuhmann of the Bochum Center for Electrochemistry with the team led by Professor Corina Andronescu of the Duisburg-Essen Technical Chemistry III group in the journal Angewandte Chemie, published online on 9 February 2021.

Boron makes copper catalyst stable

The climate gas CO2 can be converted into larger carbon compounds that can be used as base chemicals for industry or as fuels. Researchers are pursuing the idea of converting CO2 electrochemically with the help of renewable energies. This would not only create useful products; they would also serve as storage for the renewable energies. Copper has already emerged as a promising catalyst in previous studies, but it must be in the form of a partially positively charged ion - and that is precisely the problem.

Under conventional reaction conditions, copper is rapidly converted from its positively charged form to the neutral state, which is unfavorable for the formation of products with more than two carbon atoms and thus deactivates the catalyst.

The team from Bochum and Duisburg-Essen therefore modified a copper catalyst with boron. The researchers tested different copper-boron ratios and determined the optimal composition to favor the formation of compounds with more than two carbon atoms. They also showed that the boron-copper catalyst can be operated at current densities that would be required on an industrial scale.

Zinc prevents corrosion damage

They implemented the system in the form of a gas diffusion electrode in which a solid catalyst catalyzes the electrochemical reaction between the liquid and gaseous phases. It is important that sufficient CO2 dissolves in the boundary region between the gas and liquid phases. The scientists succeeded in doing this by using a special binder.

Another challenge is to keep the system stable over a long period of time. For example, corrosion of the electrodes must be prevented. To this end, the chemists integrated a so-called sacrificial anode made of zinc into the system. Since zinc is a less noble metal than copper, this is corroded first, while the copper is spared.

"The combination of a selective and active catalyst material in a gas diffusion electrode and the addition of the stabilizing zinc is an important step towards the use of CO2 for the synthesis of base chemicals," sums up Wolfgang Schuhmann.

Current approaches to a common and debilitating knee injury that occurs more frequently for women than men have focused for too long on biology at the expense of understanding social factors, say the authors of a new paper in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM).

Girls and women are said to be between three to six times more likely to suffer an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, where one of the key ligaments that helps to stabilise the knee joint is damaged. The devastating injury, which in extreme cases can be career ending for professional sportspeople, commonly occurs during sports that involve sudden changes in direction (e.g. basketball, football / soccer, tennis).

The difference in injury rates for men and women has not changed for two decades, but, say the authors, this might be partly due to how injury prevention and management has been approached to date. Writing in the BJSM they argue that much of the focus still centres on biological and hormonal factors, with little attention paid to how sex-based factors are affected by gender and might influence each other.

They suggest that gendered experiences matter in shaping girls' and women's participation in sport as well as disparities in injury outcomes. They demonstrate how this could play out across the lifecourse with gendered expectations of physical abilities (e.g. 'throw like a girl'), to inequitable access to funding, training, and facilities for women's sport (e.g. disparities in access to weight training).

Finally, they suggest there may be a difference between post-injury rehabilitation for men and women recovering from an ACL injury. They say that these social and environmental factors play a much bigger role in how sports injuries occur than once thought, and urge that much more attention be given to these topics.

Dr Sheree Bekker from the Department for Health at the University of Bath (UK) explains: "We wanted to unpack the biases and assumptions that we were seeing in research into and practice around sports injuries in girls and women. Specifically, we wanted to challenge the increasingly pervasive idea that this is simply a problem for girls/women because they are inherently prone to injury just because of their female biology. Approaching ACL injury prevention and management from a strictly biological view can propagate sexism in sport with detrimental consequences for girls and women."

Dr Joanne Parsons from the University of Manitoba (Canada) adds: "Over 20 years of research focussed on biological traits has failed to decrease the ACL injury rate in girls and women. To make a difference, we need to approach the problem in a different way. The recent challenges that the NCAA women's teams faced with access to adequate training equipment is a perfect example of why we have to include society's influence when talking about injury risk for girls/women."

The NCAA represents the National Collegiate Athletic Association - a non-profit that regulates student athletes from over 1,000 North American institutions whilst also organising athletic programmes reaching nearly 500,000 college student-athletes.

Co-author on the paper Dr Stephanie Coen of the University of Nottingham said: "By extending the focus from individual bodies and biology to the gendered environments contextualising ACL injury, our approach identifies new opportunities to intervene and achieve better outcomes for girls and women, with implications beyond athletes. As childhood and youth physical activity levels influence those in adulthood, the sequelae of ACL injury can be lifelong and particularly concerning for girls and women who already participate in physical activity at lower rates than boys and men. There is a wider health equity issue at stake."

When the brain suffers injury or infection, glial cells surrounding the affected site act to preserve the brain's sensitive nerve cells and prevent excessive damage. A team of researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have been able to demonstrate the important role played by the reorganization of the structural and membrane elements of glial cells. The researchers' findings, which have been published in Nature Communications*, shed light on a new neuroprotective mechanism which the brain could use to actively control damage following neurological injury or disease.

The nervous system lacks the ability to regenerate nerve cells and is therefore particularly vulnerable to injury. Following brain injury or infection, various cells have to work together in a coordinated manner in order to limit damage and enable recovery. 'Astrocytes', the most common type of glial cell found in the central nervous system, play a key role in the protection of surrounding tissues. They form part of a defense mechanism known as 'reactive astrogliosis', which facilitates scar formation, thereby helping to contain inflammation and control tissue damage. Astrocytes can also ensure the survival of nerve cells located immediately adjacent to a site of tissue injury, thereby preserving the function of neuronal networks. The researchers were able to elucidate a new mechanism which explains what processes happen inside the astrocytes and how these are coordinated.

"We were able to show for the first time that the protein 'drebrin' controls astrogliosis," says study lead Prof. Dr. Britta Eickholt, Director of Charité's Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. "Astrocytes need drebrin in order to form scars and protect the surrounding tissue." By switching off the production of drebrin inside astrocytes, the researchers were able to study its role in brain injury in an animal model. They used electron microscopy and high-resolution light microscopy to investigate cellular changes in the brain, in addition to undertaking real-time investigations using isolated astrocytes in cell culture. "Loss of drebrin results in the suppression of normal astrocyte activation," explains Prof. Eickholt. She adds: "Instead of engaging in defensive reactions, these astrocytes suffer complete loss of function and abandon their cellular identity." Without protective scar formation, normally harmless injuries will spread, and more and more nerve cells will die.

To enable scar formation, drebrin controls the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton, an internal scaffold responsible for maintaining astrocyte mechanical stability. By doing so, drebrin also induces the formation of long cylindrical membrane structures known as tubular endosomes, which are used in the uptake, sorting and redistribution of surface receptors and are needed for the defensive measures of astrocytes. Summing up the researchers' findings, Prof. Eickholt says: "Our findings also show how drebrin uses the dynamic and versatile cytoskeleton as well as membrane structures to control astrocyte functions which are fundamental to the defense mechanism against injury." She continues: "In particular, the membrane tubules which are formed during this process have not previously been described in this manner, neither in cultured astrocytes nor in the brain."

"Drebrin's role as a cytoskeletal regulator suggests that it may be a risk factor for severe outcomes in both neurological and other disorders, because loss of the protein can produce similar changes in astrocytes," says Prof. Eickholt. She adds: "It is also possible that individuals with defects in the drebrin gene - comparable to those in the animal model - might remain without symptoms until triggers like cellular stresses, environmental toxins or diseases occur." It is hoped that investigations involving patient samples will elucidate the extent to which drebrin also plays a role in degenerative brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease.

What The Study Did: This article discusses possible pathogenic mechanisms of brain dysfunction in patients with COVID-19.

Authors: Maura Boldrini, M.D., Ph.D., of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.0500)

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An elusive whale species in the Southern Ocean could be resilient to near-future ecosystem changes, according to a new study by the universities of Exeter and Copenhagen.

Gray's beaked whales living in the deep oceans of the Southern Hemisphere are rarely seen alive and their ecology has remained a mystery to scientists until now.

The study used genome sequencing of 22 whales washed up on beaches in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to investigate the history of the population over the past 1.1 million years.

Author of the study Dr Kirsten Thompson, of the University of Exeter, said: "The population approximately doubled about 250 thousand years ago, coinciding with a period of increased Southern Ocean productivity, sea surface temperature and a potential expansion of suitable habitat."

The current population appears to have high levels of genetic diversity and no "genetic structure" (patterns of genetic similarity in geographical areas), suggesting the whales leave their birth groups and move widely throughout their Southern Hemisphere range.

Based on these findings, this perfect match of high genetic diversity, a flexible social system and the rich habitats of Southern Hemisphere mean that Gray's beaked whales could be to be resilient to changing conditions.

"Human activity is causing rapid ecological change in every habitat on Earth, including the deep oceans," said Dr Thompson.

"We need to understand how different species might respond to these changes, but we lack detailed knowledge on many animals, particularly deep-sea whales like Gray's beaked whales."

Observation data on this species is impossible to obtain - they are small (five metres), deep-diving whales that spend most of their time below the surface searching and feeding on squid - whalers nicknamed them "scamperdown whales" due to their elusive behaviour.

The study used both mitochondrial DNA to investigate the history of the population, and partial nuclear genomes to estimate population structure.

"Our findings suggest numbers of Gray's beaked whales have been relatively stable for the last 1.1 million years," Dr Thompson said.

"The Southern Hemisphere's oceans could potentially support a surprisingly large number of Gray's beaked whales. Good news for one species at least.

"We show how genomic tools can help to reveal past history, current status and potential near-future changes in animal populations that are enigmatic, rarely observed and beyond the reach of traditional boat surveys."

A new study analyzes the larval dispersal of nine fish species in the western Mediterranean and identifies three large areas in which there is barely fish exchange, so fish would remain in the same area all their life.

The study, published in the journal Progress in Oceanography, is led by experts of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the UB, the Blanes Center for Advanced Studies (CEAB-CSIC), the Balearic Islands Coastal Observing and Forecasting System (ICTS - SOCIB), and the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA, CSIC-UIB).

The three identified areas are the Balearic Sea, the West Algerian Basin, and the Alboran Sea. These marine areas are separated by oceanographic discontinuities that act as barriers, in this case the Ibiza channel and the Almeria-Oran front, two fronts that are hard to cross for fish larvae due to the difficult circulation and exchange of water masses.

These results are relevant for the setting of protecting areas since many of the demersal fish species -those living in seafloors- are sedentary in their adult life and barely move. However, when these are under the larval phase, they move across the currents mainly, a moment when they are more likely to distribute around outside their birth place.

Low Exchange between marine areas

The studied species are the common two-banded sea bream (Diplodus vulgaris), the white seabream (Diplodus sargus), the sheephead bream (Diplodus puntazzo), the dreamfish (Sarpa salpa), the saddle bream (Oblada melanuria), the damselfish (Chromis chromis), the Mediterranean rainbow wrasse (Coris julis), the ocellated wrasse (Symphodus ocellatus) and the East Atlantic peacock wrasse (Symphodus tinca). These species are abundant and present differences at a trophic level, the reproductive seasons and ways and the length of the larval phase (from 7 to 43 days and egg-laying in different seasons).

"Also, there is individualized information of these species on the birth date and larval life length according to a previous study", notes Hèctor Torrado, researcher at CEAB-CSIC and UB-IRBio, and lead author of the study. "This enabled the modelling of the dispersal at an individual level and to infer the potential origin of each individual", he adds.

"Our study shows that the three identified areas present a low exchange of individuals of all species and that should be considered three hydrodynamics units", notes Enrique Macpherson, researcher at CEAB-CSIC and co-author of the study. This information is relevant regarding the marine reserve setting.

Reserves must guarantee connectivity

In order for them to be effective, marine reserves should work as a network that allows an interconnection between them at a populational level. This enables a flux of species and individuals that ensure its efficiency in the conservation of marine ecosystems.

"Therefore, inside every hydrodynamic unit, there can be a good network of interconnected areas but this connection will be weak between units. This information has to be considered when designing a network of protected areas including different areas", notes Marta Pascual, lecturer at the Faculty of Biology and UB-IRBio and co-author of the study.

Most of the fish spend their life in the same oceanographic region where they were born. However, there are some exceptions. For instance, the Balearic Sea features individuals that were born in the same area but some could have arrived from the north, Provençal waters and the Ligurian Sea.

Experts also consider reproductive periods of species as an important factor (egg-laying, hatching period, and the length of the larval period). As the study states, there are seasonal changes in the oceanographic barriers that affect their permeability and as a result, the larval crossing across these barriers. Also, the speed and direction of currents can change over the year, which also affects the larval dispersal and connectivity between areas.

Moreover, there are areas with a higher variation, not only seasonal but also interannual, which can change connectivity between localities at an evolutionary scale.

The dynamics and seasonal variations of water masses can determine the connectivity patterns of these species, experts say. Regarding how much these results of nine species could be extrapolated to other species, scientists say that "in theory, most of coastal fish of western Mediterranean could be extrapolated since we see that the three hydrodynamic units are detected in different species that reproduced in different seasons and with a different larval life length".

"Nevertheless, at a small scale, we observe the importance of the birthdate in the origins of larvae that settle in a place, suggesting that both direction and distance are influenced by the oceanographical variables of the area", conclude the experts.

New study led by the University of Helsinki supports the recognition of new species of South American owls, two of them, Xingu Screech Owl and Alagoas Screech Owl, described for the first time.

In early 2021 two new species of screech owls are being described in a single publication as new to science. A multinational team involving researchers from the University of Helsinki, Brazil, and the USA published a detailed study focusing on the morphological, vocal, and genetic variation in a group of screech owls from the Amazon and Atlantic Forest regions of South America, called the Black-capped / Tawny- bellied Screech Owl complex (Megascops atricapilla - M. watsonii). The term "complex" describes the overall uncertainty in the actual number of species in this group of screech owls, which has varied from one to three over the past decades.

"Not even professional ornithologists who have worked on owls for their entire lives would agree about the actual number of species found in this group, so a study like ours has been awaited for a really long time," says Alex Aleixo, head of the research team responsible for the study, and curator of birds at the Finnish Museum of Natural History in the University of Helsinki, Finland.

The new study published in the scientific journal Zootaxa demonstrated the discovery of six different genetic clusters in the Black-capped / Tawny-bellied Screech Owl complex that are also mutually distinguished by song - a strong indication that they are distinct species.

In contrast, as widely documented in owls, plumage color is variable in the complex, with a single genetic cluster for instance containing five distinct color forms ranging from cinnamon to red. Four out of these six genetic clusters had already been previously recognized as subspecies and given taxonomic names, and the new study support instead their treatment as distinct species. However, two of these clusters had never been recognized or described as unique, and thus had never been given a name. Therefore, the authors described these genetically and vocally diagnosable lineages as new species.

252 specimens, 83 tape-recordings, and 49 genetic samples analyzed

Researchers analyzed altogether, 252 specimens, 83 tape-recordings, and 49 genetic samples from across the range of the Black- capped / Tawny-bellied Screech Owl complex in South America. A significant part of specimens material were collected by the research team itself, mainly by nature tour leader and photographer Sidnei Dantas, who spent a good share of his time in graduate school searching for and tape-recording screech owls in South American rainforests. In addition, natural history collections and their materials collected over the centuries were essential to complete the study ?s unprecedented sampling.

One of these newly described species, the Xingu Screech Owl (Megascops stangiae), has its scientific name in honor of the late Sister Dorothy Mae Stang (1931?2005), an American-born Brazilian member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who over 40 years introduced small farmers living in the Amazon to sustainability practices. The common name Xingu Screech Owl refers to the area where the new species is found, between the Tapajo?s and Xingu rivers, where Stang was a very active community leader until her killing.

The second new species described in the new study is the Alagoas Screech Owl (Megascops alagoensis), (Fig. 2), named after the state of Alagoas in Northeastern Brazil, where it was recorded for the first time in February 2001, and where most of the known population remains. This new species is known from only five isolated forest fragments in Alagoas and Pernambuco states.

Deforestation is a threat

Both new species of screech owls described by the new study, and a third one, formerly treated as a subspecies, but validated as a new species for the first time i.e., the Bele?m Screech Owl (Megascops ater),, are threatened by deforestation. The Xingu Screech Owl is endemic to the most severely burned area of the Amazon by the unprecedented 2019 fires and the Alagoas Screech Owl should be regarded as critically endangered given the extensive forest fragmentation in the very small area where it occurs. Finally, the Bele?m Screech Owl is endemic to the most deforested sector of the Amazon forest, with well over 80% of the original forest already cleared.

Every year, 10 million hectares of forest are lost. Among efforts to revive degraded or deforested land is the Bonn Challenge, with a global goal to bring into restoration 350 million hectares by 2030. Yet such efforts neglect the nuanced but critical factor of bringing genetic diversity into restoration efforts for long-term success, which urgently needs to be addressed.

Integrating genetic diversity involves planting tree species with different genetic makeups and varied species adapted to local environments. If species are the same, they will not be able to reproduce or grow new seedlings. Christopher Kettle, an ecologist and geneticist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) explained:

"If 1,000 seeds are collected from two neighboring trees and planted in a nursery, those seeds would most likely be highly related. This would greatly reduce the probability that they would reproduce in a forest and produce new seeds. You're basically setting your restoration project up to fail from the start. That's one reason we need genetic diversity as a critical component of restoration projects."

New research in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change shows that investing effort in ensuring genetically diverse seedlings actually has the potential to decrease overall restoration costs by up to 11%. While ambitious goals like the Bonn Challenge have resulted in growing political national and international restoration commitments, planting high-value, fast-growing trees, like teak or eucalyptus, in large numbers can actually lower genetic diversity and undermine restoration efforts.

"There are enormous risks for tropical forests with low genetic diversity," said Kettle. "They will also have low capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change; less resilience to new pests and pathogens. They will produce less seeds or fruit, with negative impacts on community livelihoods and income-generation. Investing in genetic diversity is the only sensible thing to do economically and ecologically, and it costs less in the long-run."

Danny Nef, an expert researching climate change and socio-economic changes at the Alliance and ETH Zurich, said that investing in genetic diversity is critical despite higher initial costs. "It would result in one third higher seed collection costs, but expected ecological and socioeconomic long-term benefits would far outweigh additional costs. Even without any positive effects on post-maintenance costs, the total cost of the overall project would only increase by around 1%," he said.

"Something that's amazed me while working on this paper is that not a single study I have found has considered genetic diversity in the cost of restoration. The question is why not? It simply doesn't make sense not to invest a little bit more at the start of restoration initiatives from a cost perspective, when you look at the bigger, holistic benefit."

Agricultural economist Elisabetta Gotor added: "We economists tend to measure income-related expenses because they are easiest to assess. But I think it's time for us to push ourselves, to tackle the resilience outcome generated by the conservation of genetics, looking at what materials are being used for example, for a more meaningful and accurate economic outcome from an environmental perspective."

The global benefits of tropical forest restoration may be harder to measure but "the costs of planting seedlings are often felt at one end of the scale by farmers for example, while the overall benefits occurring from restoration in the long-run are at the global scale," Gottor said. "This is why we have to connect the initial cost of investment in better quality seed, with the magnitude of broader benefits that don't necessary have a market value."

The researchers noted that while their evidence is based on a number of conservative assumptions and literature review, their findings show that long-term benefits associated with high genetic diversity are too low not to be considered and far outweigh costs. "This is an urgent call for restoration policies to integrate diversity at the species and genetic level into restoration planning and management," they said.

"We do not consider efficiency in this context to be the planting of as many trees as possible per invested capital, but rather the long-term establishment of a tree population that serves the aim of restoration and thus ensures the sustainability of the invested capital," they said, adding that building capacity among those responsible for implementing restoration efforts is also key to success.

Women who suffer from vision, hearing or dual sensory loss are more than twice as likely to report depression and anxiety as men who experience the same issues, according to a new study by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU).

The research, which has been published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, looked at survey data from more than 23,000 adults, where participants had self-reported whether they had suffered depression or anxiety, and also whether they experienced vision, hearing, or dual (both vision and hearing) sensory impairment.

Across the whole sample, the prevalence of depression and anxiety was between 2 and 2.56 higher in women compared to men.

Women with dual sensory impairment were almost three and a half times more likely to report depression or anxiety than those who did not have any impairments, while men with dual sensory impairment were more than two and a half times more likely to experience depression, and almost twice as likely to report anxiety than those with no impairment.

Lead author Professor Shahina Pardhan, Director of the Vision and Eye Research Institute at ARU, said: "Our study found that while sensory loss, particularly both vision and hearing loss, results in a higher number of the population reporting depression and anxiety, the association is particularly strong in women.

"This highlights the importance of interventions to address vision and hearing loss, especially in women. Some sensory loss is preventable or treatable, and clearly these issues are taking their toll not just on physical health, but mental health too."

Usually, the different areas in the cerebrum take on a very specific function. For example, they process our movements or things we see or hear, i.e. direct physical information. However, some areas of the brain come into play when dealing with more advanced mental tasks. They process incoming information that has already been pre-processed and is thus already at an abstract level.

It was already known that the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) is one of these regions in the human brain. Nevertheless, it was unclear how this area is able to process such very different functions. In a large study, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig and McGill University in Montreal have helped to solve this question. According to their findings, the different parts of the IPL specialize in different cognitive functions - such as attention, language, and social cognition, with the latter reflecting the ability for perspective taking. At the same time, these areas work together with many other brain regions in a process-specific way. When it comes to language comprehension, the anterior IPL in the left hemisphere of the brain becomes active. For attention, it is the anterior IPL in the right side of the brain. If, on the other hand, social skills are required, the posterior parts of the IPL in both hemispheres of the brain spring into action simultaneously. "Social cognition requires the most complex interpretation," explains Ole Numssen, first author of the underlying study, which has now been published in the journal eLife. "Therefore, the IPLs on both sides of the brain probably work together here."

Moreover, these individual sub-areas then cooperate with different regions of the rest of the brain. In the case of attention and language, each IPL subregion links primarily to areas on one side of the brain. With social skills, it's areas on both sides. Again, this shows that the more complex the task, the more intensive the interaction with other areas.

"Our results provide insight into the basic functioning of the human brain. We show how our brains dynamically adapt to changing requirements. To do this, it links specialized individual areas, such as the IPL, with other more general regions. The more demanding the tasks, the more intensively the individual areas interact with each other. This makes highly complex functions such as language or social skills possible," says Ole Numssen. "The IPL may ultimately be considered as one of the areas with which we interpret the world."

Even in great apes, Numssen says, brain regions that correspond to the IPL do not only process purely physical stimuli, but also more complex information. Throughout evolution, they seem to have always been responsible for processing increasingly complex content. However, parts of the IPL are unique to the human brain and are not found in great apes - a hint that this region has evolved in the course of evolution to enable key functions of human cognition.

The researchers from Leipzig and Montreal investigated such brain-behavior correlations with the help of three tasks that the study participants had to solve while lying in the MRI scanner. In the first task, they had to prove their understanding of language. To do this, they saw meaningful words such as "pigeon" and "house", but also words without meaning (known as pseudowords) such as "pulre", and had to decide whether it was a real word or not. A second task tested visual-spatial attention. For this task, they had to react to stimuli on one side of the screen, although they expected something to happen on the other side. The third task probed their ability for perspective taking using the so-called Sally Anne test. This is a comic strip consisting of four pictures in which two people interact with each other. A question in the end could only be answered correctly if the study participants were able to put themselves in the shoes of the respective persons.

Scientists at the University of Bonn and the caesar research center have isolated a molecule that might open new avenues in the fight against SARS coronavirus 2. The active ingredient binds to the spike protein that the virus uses to dock to the cells it infects. This prevents them from entering the respective cell, at least in the case of model viruses. It appears to do this by using a different mechanism than previously known inhibitors. The researchers therefore suspect that it may also help against viral mutations. The study will be published in the journal Angewandte Chemie but is already available online.

The novel active ingredient is a so-called aptamer. These are short chains of DNA, the chemical compound that also makes up chromosomes. DNA chains like to attach themselves to other molecules; one might call them sticky. In chromosomes, DNA is therefore present as two parallel strands whose sticky sides face each other and that coil around each other like two twisted threads.

Aptamers, on the other hand, are single-stranded. This allows them to form bonds with molecules to which conventional DNA would not normally bind and to influence their function. This makes them interesting for research into active ingredients, especially since it is now very easy to produce huge libraries of different aptamers. Some of these libraries contain millions of times more potential active ingredients than there are people living on Earth. "We used such a library to isolate aptamers that can attach to the spike protein of SARS coronavirus 2," explains Prof. Dr. Günter Mayer of the LIMES Institute (the acronym stands for "Life and Medical Sciences") at the University of Bonn.

Spike is essential for the infection

The spike protein is essential for the virus: It uses it to dock onto the cells it attacks. In the process, the protein binds to a molecule on the surface of its victims called ACE2, which effectively locks into the spike protein, much like a ski boot in a ski binding. The virus then fuses with the cell and reprograms it to produce numerous new viruses. "The vast majority of antibodies we know today prevent docking," Mayer explains. "They attach to the part of the spike protein responsible for recognizing ACE2, which is the receptor binding domain, or RBD."

The now isolated aptamer with the abbreviation SP6 also binds to the spike protein, but at a different site. "SP6 does not prevent viruses from docking to target cells," explains Prof. Dr. Michael Famulok of the LIMES Institute, who also works at the caesar research center in Bonn. "Nevertheless, it reduces the level of cell infection by the virus; we do not yet know which mechanism is responsible for this." The researchers did not use real coronaviruses in their experiments, but so-called pseudoviruses. These carry the spike protein on their surface; however, they cannot cause disease. "We now need to see if our results are confirmed in real viruses," Famulok therefore emphasizes.

New Achilles heel of coronavirus?

If so, in the medium term the work could for instance result in a kind of nasal spray that protects against coronavirus infection for a few hours. The necessary studies will certainly take months to complete. Irrespective of this, however, the results may help to better understand the mechanisms involved in infection. This is all the more important because the existing active ingredients mainly target the receptor domain. In the so-called "British mutation", this domain is altered so that it binds more strongly to ACE2. "The more such mutations accumulate, the greater the risk that the available drugs and vaccines will no longer work," stresses Günter Mayer. "Our study may draw attention to an alternative Achilles' heel of the virus."

The results are also evidence of successful cooperation: Mayer and his postdoctoral researcher Dr. Anna Maria Weber were primarily responsible for characterizing the aptamer. Prof. Famulok's group at the caesar research center was responsible for conducting the pseudovirus experiments, which were led by his colleague Dr. Anton Schmitz. Famulok and Mayer are members of the Transdisciplinary Research Areas "Life & Health" and "Building Blocks of Matter and Fundamental Interactions". Mayer also heads the Center of Aptamer Research and Development (CARD) at the University of Bonn.

Research has found that obesity and mental disorders such as depression and anxiety seem to often go hand in hand. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions are providing new insights into this association by identifying and characterizing a novel neural circuit that mediates the reciprocal control of feeding and psychological states in mouse models.

Similar to human patients, mice that consumed a high-fat diet not only became obese, but also anxious and depressed, a condition mediated by a defective brain circuit. When the researchers genetically or pharmacologically corrected specific disruptions they had observed within this circuit, the mice became less anxious and depressed and later lost excess body weight.

Interestingly, weight loss was not the result of lack of appetite, but of the animals' change of food preference. Before the treatment, the mice naturally preferred to eat a high-fat diet, but after the treatment they turned their preference toward a healthier diet with reduced fat and abundant protein and carbohydrates. The findings, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, for the first time, not only reveal a key regulatory mechanism for coinciding obesity and mental disorders, but also suggest the possibility of a pharmacological treatment.

"Reports indicate that 43% of adults with depression are obese and that adults with mental illness are more likely to develop obesity than those who are mentally healthy," said corresponding author Dr. Qi Wu, a Pew Scholar for Biomedical Sciences, Kavli Scholar and assistant professor in pediatrics-nutrition at Baylor's Children's Nutrition Research Center. "Factors such as hormonal dysregulation, genetic deficiency and inflammation have been proposed to be involved in the connection between obesity and mental disorders. Here we provide evidence that supports the involvement of a neural component."
To investigate the neuronal circuits that could be involved in reciprocally regulating weight gain and depression or anxiety, the researchers provided mice with a high-fat diet. As expected, the animals became obese. They also developed anxiety and depression. In these mice, the team studied the function of neuronal circuits.

"We discovered in normal mice that two groups of brain cells, dBNST and AgRP neurons located in separate brain areas, form a circuit or connection to each other by extending cellular projections," said co-first author Dr. Guobin Xia, postdoctoral associate in the Wu lab. "This newly discovered circuit was malfunctioning in mice that were both obese and depressed."

"Using genetic approaches, we identified specific genes and other mediators that were altered and mediated the circuit's malfunction in the obese and depressed mice," said co-first author Dr. Yong Han, postdoctoral associate in the Wu lab.

"Importantly, genetically restoring the neural defects to normal eliminated the high fat diet-induced anxiety and depression and also reduced body weight," Xia said. "We were surprised to see that the animals lost weight, not because they lost their appetite, but because genetically-aided readjustment of the mental states changed their feeding preference from high-fat to low-fat food."

"Keeping in mind translational applications of our findings to the clinic, we investigated the possibility of restoring the novel circuit pharmacologically," Wu said. "We discovered that the combination of two clinically-approved drugs, zonisamide and granisetron, profoundly reduced anxiety and depression in mice and promoted weight loss by synergistically acting upon two different molecular targets within our newly identified brain circuit. We consider that our results provide convincing support for further studies and future clinical trials testing the value of a cocktail therapy combining zonisamide and granisetron (or a selection of their derivatives) to treat metabolic-psychiatric diseases."

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) cause oxidative stress at the cellular level. Research shows that this way, amongst others, they inhibit the germination capacity of plants, produce cytotoxins or exert toxic effects on aquatic invertebrates. Environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFR) are potential precursors of ROS because they can react with water to form these radical species. "Therefore, EPFR are associated with harmful effects on the ecosystem and human health," explains Gabriel Sigmund, the lead investigator of the study.

"Our study shows that these environmentally persistent free radicals can be found in large quantities and over a long period of time in fire derived charcoal," reports Sigmund, environmental geoscientist at the Center for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CMESS) at the University of Vienna. In all 60 charcoal samples from ten different fires, the researchers detected EPFR in concentrations that exceeded those typically found in soils by as much as ten to a thousand times. Other than expected, this concentration remained stable for at least five years, as an analysis of charcoal samples showed which were gathered at the same location and over several years after a forest fire. "The more stable the environmentally persistent free radicals are, the more likely it is that they will have an impact on ecosystems over longer periods of time," explains Thilo Hofmann, co-author of the study and head of the research group.

Samples from fires in forest, shrubland and grassland spanning different climates

The researchers collected charcoal samples from fires of diverse intensity in boreal, temperate, subtropical, and tropical climates. They considered forest, shrubland and grassland fires and, thus, also different fuel materials (woods and grasses). The original material and the charring conditions determine the degree of carbonization. Consequently, both indirectly influence the extent to which EPFR are formed and how persistent they are. "The analyses show that the concentration of environmentally persistent free radicals increased with the degree of carbonization," Sigmund reports. Woody fuels favored higher concentrations. For these, the researchers were also able to demonstrate the stability of EPFR over several years. "We assume that woody wildfire derived charcoal is a globally important source of these free radicals and thus potentially also of harmful reactive oxygen species," adds Hofmann.

International collaboration across disciplines

"It is our collaboration with colleagues at Swansea University in the United Kingdom that enables us to make these highly differentiated statements," explains Sigmund. The wildfire experts at Swansea University are conducting global research into the effects of fire on environmental processes such as the carbon cycle and erosion. They have collected charcoal samples from around the world and sent them to Vienna for analysis, along with information on the timing, duration and intensity of the fires. CMESS researchers analyzed the samples in collaboration with Marc Pignitter of the Faculty of Chemistry using electron spin resonance spectroscopy (ESR spectroscopy). ESR spectroscopy made it possible to quantify the environmentally persistent free radicals in the studied material and to identify their adjacent chemical structures.

Questions about consequences for the ecosystem

The study has provided insights, but also raised further questions: The fact that environmentally persistent free radicals occur in such high concentrations and remain stable over several years was surprising. In future studies, the researchers are planning to also assess the consequences this may have for the environment. "To what extent is this a stress factor for microorganisms after a fire? How does it affect an ecosystem? The study is an impetus for further research," reports Sigmund.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Water scarcity is often understood as a problem for regions experiencing drought, but a new study from Cornell and Tufts universities finds that not only can localized water shortages impact the global economy, but changes in global demand send positive and negative ripple effects to water basins across the globe.

"We are looking at water scarcity as a globally connected and multi-sector phenomenon," said Jonathan Lamontagne, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Tufts University, who co-authored the study with Patrick Reed, the Joseph C. Ford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell. Tufts graduate student Flannery Dolan is lead author of the study, which suggests water scarcity dynamics are more complicated than traditionally acknowledged.

The study, "Evaluating the economic impact of water scarcity in a changing world," was published March 26 in Nature Communications, and uniquely captures the interdependent effects of global trade consistently with differences in regional climate policies as well as river basin-specific capacity to address water scarcity risks.

The researchers coupled physical and economic models to simulate thousands of potential climate futures for 235 major river basins - a technique known as scenario discovery - to better understand how water scarcity is a globally-connected phenomenon, with local conditions having reverberations across the globe in industries such as agriculture, energy, transportation and manufacturing.

The research found that global trade dynamics and market adaptations to regional water scarcity result in positive and negative economic outcomes for every regional river basin considered in the study.

For instance, in the lower Colorado River basin, the worst economic outcomes arise from limited groundwater availability and high population growth, but that high population growth can also prove beneficial under some climatic scenarios. In contrast, the future economic outcomes in the Indus Basin depend largely on global land-use policies.

"What is happening elsewhere in the world through differences in regional choices related to energy transitions - how land is being managed as well as different regional water demands and adaptive choices - can shape relative advantages and disadvantages of water intensive economic activities," said Reed.

Restrictions in water availability usually lead to a negative regional economic impact, but the research revealed that some regions can experience a positive economic impact if they hold an advantage over other water basins and can become a virtual exporter of water. The Orinoco basin in Venezuela, for example, usually has a reliable supply of water and is often in a relative position that can benefit when other regions are under stress, according to the researchers.

The study also found that small differences in projections for future climate conditions can yield very large differences in the economic outcomes for water scarcity.

"Human activities and market responses can strongly amplify the economic effects of water scarcity, but the conditions that lead to this amplification vary widely from one basin to the next," said Lamontagne.

A river basin can be considered economically robust if it is able to adapt to drought with alternative sources of water or adjust economic activity to limit usage. If a basin is unable to adapt its supply options and if prolonged water scarcity leads to persistent economic decline, then the researchers describe the loss in water basin adaptive capacity as having reached an 'economic tipping point.'

For example, in the Indus region in South Asia, the water supply is under stress due to heavy agricultural use and irrigation leading to unsustainable consumption of groundwater, which places it close to the tipping point.

The conditions that lead to these tipping points are highly variable from basin to basin, depending on a combination of local factors and global conditions. In the Arabian Peninsula, low groundwater availability and pricing of carbon emissions are key factors. In the lower Colorado River basin, a mixture of low groundwater availability, low agricultural productivity, and strong economic demands from the U.S. and Europe lead to tipping points.

"It is noteworthy that the lower Colorado River basin has some of the most uncertain and widely divergent economic outcomes of water scarcity of the basins analyzed in this study," said Reed. "This implies that assumed differences in regional, national and global human system conditions as well as the intensity of climate change can dramatically amplify the uncertainty in the basin's outcomes."

As climate change makes the physical and economic effects of water scarcity more challenging for policy makers to understand, the researchers hope their work will provide the basis for similar analyses and draw attention to the importance of expanded data collection to improve modeling and decision making.

PITTSBURGH, March 26, 2021 - As evidence mounts supporting the use of monoclonal antibody treatment to reduce hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, UPMC and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine physician-scientists are sharing the health system's experience administering the life-saving medication.

In a report published today in the scientific journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases, the UPMC/Pitt team shares how it quickly established the largest and most equitable distribution network for COVID-19 monoclonal antibody infusions across Pennsylvania. The team today also reported preliminary results confirming the treatment reduced likelihood of hospitalization and death in UPMC patients who received it.

"When administered soon after infection, this treatment can help certain people fight the virus and keep them from progressing to serious illness and death," said Ryan Bariola, M.D., associate professor in Pitt's Division of Infectious Diseases and director of the UPMC Community Hospital Antimicrobial Stewardship Efforts (CHASE) Program. "But administering these infusions comes with logistical challenges, so many health care providers opt not to offer the treatment. UPMC overcame these challenges, and we're dedicated to sharing what we learned with other medical centers, clinicians and the public."

Monoclonal--"mono" means "one" and "clonal" means "copy"--antibodies are a type of medication that seeks the COVID-19 virus in a person's body and blocks it from infecting their cells and replicating. Since late 2020, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration has granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to three monoclonal antibody treatments--one from Regeneron and two from Eli Lilly--which are given through a one-time IV infusion. This is the same type of emergency authorization given to the COVID-19 vaccines being administered in the U.S.

This therapy is most helpful when given early, especially within 10 days of infection in people at highest risk of complications from COVID-19.

The U.S. supply of monoclonal antibodies is taxpayer-funded and given without charge to the institutions that administer it. Preparing for high patient demand, UPMC created a weighted lottery to ensure fair allocation of its supply. However, demand was never high enough to trigger use of the lottery.

"This lower use surprised us, and we're still debating why demand was less than expected," said co-author Donald M. Yealy, M.D., UPMC chief medical officer and professor and chair of Pitt's Department of Emergency Medicine. "It likely had to do with so few health care providers investing in the infrastructure, staff and processes needed to administer the drug. This created lower awareness among both patients and clinicians about the life-saving benefits of monoclonal antibodies."

Initially, eligibility was limited to patients 65 years or older, or to those with a body mass index of at least 35 because those were the people studies had indicated were most likely to benefit. UPMC has since expanded eligibility to younger people with certain medical conditions that place them at higher risk for complications from COVID-19, including children, in compliance with the EUA.

To date, UPMC has treated more than 1,000 patients with monoclonal antibodies at 16 sites across the communities it serves in Pennsylvania and New York. It also provides home infusion services when needed. UPMC ensures that all proper infection prevention protocols are followed, and specifically prevents COVID-19 patients from mixing with other patients at the infusion centers.

"Monoclonal antibodies are a crucial part of the COVID-19 treatment spectrum, bridging the gap between preventive measures--such as masks, social distancing and vaccination--and the various therapies for hospitalized COVID-19 patients," said senior author Mark Schmidhofer, M.D., professor of medicine at Pitt and medical director of UPMC's Coronary Intensive Care Unit. "It's a potentially life-saving option and can keep people out of the hospital if prevention fails."