Culture

PRINCETON, N.J. --Countries across the globe have been struggling to deal with the impact of Covid-19 and its accompanying economic slowdown. As economies "build back better," it may be an opportune time to introduce carbon pricing to tackle climate change, according to new Princeton University policy research.

While endorsed by many economists, carbon pricing has been slower to gain traction because of its potential to shock economies and the difficulty of securing political support for increasing taxes. However, fuel prices are already low and people are buying fewer goods and traveling less, so there could be greater benefits to introducing or strengthening carbon prices, the authors argue in the journal Climate Policy.

Carbon pricing -- whether in the form of taxes or emissions trading -- is an economic approach to account for the environmental costs of emitting greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. Carbon taxes typically apply to the producer with increased costs ultimately trickling down to any activity using carbon. For example, oil-extraction companies would be taxed, adding costs to any process that involved burning oil. Emissions-trading schemes set some cap on emissions and permits to emit are traded, but the number of total permits available correspond to that cap.

"When we think about long-term problems like the pandemic or climate change, it's easy to assume that the solutions could conflict since they all require massive resources," said lead author Kian Mintz-Woo, a former postdoctoral research associate in Princeton's University Center for Human Values and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). "But what we describe in this article is how the context of the coronavirus crisis actually provides a unique opportunity for mutually reinforcing forward-thinking solutions to improve sustainability and wellbeing as countries recover."

Mintz-Woo, who recently joined the Philosophy and Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork, Ireland, added that this research expands on an op-ed co-authored with Princeton Professor Peter Singer published on May 7 by Project Syndicate.

With markets already reorienting to adjust to supply-and-demand shocks brought on by the pandemic, introducing carbon pricing now would result in marginally less disruption and could actually help drive greener economic activity. Placing a price on carbon could prompt industries to move away from more costly fossil-fuel intensive practices and toward long-term economic and environmental sustainability.

"Since carbon pollution already increases health and environmental costs borne by society, forcing those generating the costs to pay for them would lead to fairer production and consumption," Mintz-Woo said.

In the context of low fuel prices over an extended period, as seen in recent months, the researchers suggest that a carbon tax could help stabilize prices and ensure that renewable energy sources -- the prices of which were becoming cost-competitive even before the Covid-19 crisis -- can remain competitive. The researchers say that as economies move toward recovery, a carbon price can drive individuals and firms to adopt less carbon-intensive processes, rather than locking-in unsustainable energy practices that will ultimately require more drastic future corrections.

"Preventing commitment to future emissions is the key," Mintz-Woo said. "But that cannot come at the expense of those who may be at risk for job losses in this transition. Governments should use the revenue to both reduce any regressive effects of the taxation and retrain those who come from industries that could be adversely affected."

The researchers acknowledge that governments are under pressure to prioritize economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, so any policy changes with the potential to dampen a stimulus effect could be unpopular. However, they argue that high prices are not the primary obstacle to consumer purchasing; the cause of the economic slowdown has more to do with restricted market activity during the pandemic.

Revenue generated from a carbon price could contribute toward government spending on social safety nets, fund other green priorities to drive innovation and new jobs, or be returned as credits to taxpayers. In all cases, the potential revenue source could be a welcome infusion during the Covid-19 crisis, when regional and national governments face massive fiscal shortfalls which can be expected to grow in the coming months.

"Right now, governments are considering bailouts for carbon-intensive sectors, like the airline industry," Mintz-Woo said. "While it's really hard on employees in that industry right now, government money would be far better spent on clean research and development investments and other strategies to help companies prepare for the future. And that means preparing for employment transitions away from carbon-intensive jobs and towards areas that will be more beneficial to the environment. Carbon pricing can help us do just that."

Health care workers -- particularly nurses -- have a higher prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection than non-health care workers, according to researchers at Rutgers, which released baseline results from a large prospective study of participants at Rutgers and affiliated hospitals recruited during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study, published in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases, found that in early spring, the participants most likely to test positive for COVID-19 were nurses, workers taking care of multiple patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and those who worked in a hospital with a higher proportion of infected patients.

As of Nov. 15, 2020, according to the CDC, there were more than 216,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases among health care workers in the United States, leading to at least 799 deaths. The Rutgers study evaluated 546 health care workers with direct patient exposure at two New Jersey hospitals and 283 non-health care workers with no direct patient contact.

At the start of the study in March, 40 health care workers and one non-health care worker tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Among all participants enrolled, more than 7 percent of health care workers were found to be positive for the novel coronavirus as compared to the very low rates of positive testing among non-health care workers. Also, consistent with disparities observed in the general public, Black and Hispanic participants had more positive test results.

Health care workers who reported caring for five or more patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and those who spent a greater proportion of their time in patients' rooms were more likely to test positive for the infection themselves.

Of the 40 infected health care workers, 25 were nurses. Intensive care unit workers had the lowest rates of infections among the health care workers, possibly due to the more consistent use of personal protective equipment.

"We have all heard about how health care workers are the heroes on the frontlines of this pandemic, but we still don't have solid answers about the risks to health care workers and who is most at risk ," said lead co-author Emily Barrett, an associate professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health. "The initial results show that at the beginning of the pandemic, the higher rate of infection observed in urban North New Jersey areas, like Newark, was also reflected in the health care workers serving those communities."

"The baseline data reported here have helped us to monitor the spread of infection and examine risk factors for transmission among health care workers and others," said lead co-author Daniel Horton, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and assistant professor of epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health. "These findings and our ongoing follow-up of study participants have informed local strategies to protect the health care workforce, their families and their patients."

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Nov. 16, 2020 - Even before the pandemic and the presidential election, Americans reported some of the highest perceived levels of stress in the world, according to the American Psychological Association. Not only does stress have negative effects on work and personal relationships, it also increases the risk of many chronic conditions, such as heart disease and Alzheimer's disease, and is associated with higher mortality rates.

But eating a Mediterranean diet may provide a relatively easy way to help lessen the physiological effects of stress and promote healthy aging, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Health.

Findings from the study, the first preclinical trial to measure the effects of long-term consumption of a Western versus Mediterranean diet on stress under controlled experimental conditions, are published in the current online edition of the journal Neurobiology of Stress.

"It is very difficult to control or reduce stressors in our lives," said Carol A. Shively, Ph.D., professor of pathology and comparative medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine and principal investigator of the study. "But we do know that we can control our diet, and previous observational studies have suggested that lower perceived stress is associated with high fruit and vegetable consumption.

"Unfortunately, Americans consume a diet rich in animal protein and saturated fat, salt and sugar, so we wanted to find out if that diet worsened the body's response to stress compared to a Mediterranean diet, in which much of the protein and fat come from plant sources."

The researchers studied the effects of the chronic stress of low social status and the acute stress of being socially isolated for 30 minutes in 38 middle-age animals that were fed either a Mediterranean or Western diet. The diets were formulated to closely reflect human diets, with protein and fat derived largely from animal sources in the Western group and primarily from plant sources in the Mediterranean group.

To determine the diets' effect on stress responses, the scientists measured changes in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and in the adrenal gland hormone cortisol, in response to acute and chronic stress.

The sympathetic nervous system is involved in the "fight or flight" response and regulates bodily functions such as heart rate and blood pressure. The parasympathetic nervous system has opposite effects that help the body return to a calmer state. High sympathetic nervous system activity can be harmful to health, so maintaining a healthy balance between the two systems is important, Shively said.

Cortisol, the body's main stress hormone, helps the body access resources needed to fight or flee. However, if stress is continuous, cortisol levels stay high and damage tissues.

Compared to animals fed a Western diet, those fed the Mediterranean diet exhibited enhanced stress resilience as indicated by lower sympathetic nervous system and cortisol responses to stress, and more rapid recovery after the stress ended, Shively said.

"Our study showed that the Mediterranean diet shifted the balance toward the parasympathetic nervous system, which is good for health," Shively said. "By contrast, the Western diet increased the sympathetic response to stress, which is like having the panic button on all the time - and that isn't healthy."

As the animals aged over the 31-month study, which is equivalent to about 9 years in humans, the research group noted that sympathetic nervous system activity increased. However, the Mediterranean diet slowed the aging of the sympathetic nervous system.

The study's findings suggest that population-wide adoption of a Mediterranean-like diet may provide a relatively simple and cost-effective intervention to reduce the negative impact of psychological stress on health and delay nervous system aging, Shively said.

DALLAS, Nov. 16, 2020 -- Atrial fibrillation (AF), an irregular heartbeat that can increase the likelihood of stroke, was detected up to 10 times more frequently in high risk patients recovering from heart surgery who wore a continuous cardiac monitor for a month, compared to patients who had usual follow-up care following their procedure, according to late breaking research presented today at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2020. The meeting is virtually, Friday, November 13-Tuesday, November 17, 2020, and is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science for health care worldwide.

"The incidence of post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF) after discharge from cardiac surgery is not well defined," said Subodh Verma, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiac surgeon at St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto in Canada, and one of the lead authors of the study. "Most studies are limited to the hospitalization phase only; studies beyond hospitalization are few. In addition, very little is known about patients who have little to no AF during hospitalization after cardiac surgery, and they are often sent home with no treatment. Therefore, the question of whether the risk of POAF extends after hospitalization remains an important and unanswered question, especially for patients who had no previous history of AF. Quantifying the risk of ongoing POAF after hospitalization is important because many patients have elevated stroke risk scores that increase the need for prompt AF treatment."

Researchers followed a total of 336 patients treated at eight medical centers across Canada who were recovering from cardiac surgery. The study participants did not have a history of atrial fibrillation prior to surgery and were at-risk for stroke based upon factors including their cardiac health, age and medical history.

The patients in the study were randomly assigned to two groups: 163 study participants underwent 30 days of 24-hour, real time, cardiac rhythm monitoring through an adhesive, patch-based monitor worn on their chest; 173 participants were in the control group and received 30 days of usual care, which did not involve planned cardiac rhythm testing/electrocardiogram assessment unless it was deemed medically necessary. The patients in both groups then had 14 days of continuous cardiac rhythm monitoring approximately six to nine months after their surgery.

The study determined that in the patient group who wore the 24-hour monitoring patch, atrial fibrillation was detected at a rate 10 times higher than in those who received usual care. Atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter lasting ?6 minutes occurred and was detected in 32 (19.6%) patients from the monitoring group and in three (1.7%) patients who received normal care during the 30 days they were followed.

"Our study points to the fact that POAF is not self-limited to hospital stay per se. A significant risk of POAF persists even in those patients without any preoperative or pre-discharge AF. These data may help inform physicians about the importance of surveillance and vigilance in patients at high risk of stroke with respect to monitoring and prompt treatment for AF," added Verma.

Managing the activity of the BCAP protein could help the body repair intestinal tissue from damage caused by inflammation, according to a new study led by experts at Cincinnati Children's.

The findings, published online Nov. 16, 2020, in PNAS, suggest that targeting BCAP with new medications could benefit people living with conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

The multi-center research team was led by first author Ricardo Irizarry-Caro, BSc, and senior author Chandrashekhar Pasare, DVM, PhD, at Cincinnati Children's Division of Immunobiology,

"This study provides fundamental understanding of how macrophages regulate their responses to pathogens to provide an effective yet controlled inflammatory response and avoid damage of the host tissue," Pasare says. "More importantly, this study has implications for small-molecule drug discovery targeting BCAP, which could be used to either promote reparative macrophage transition or induce a robust inflammatory response by just altering one single protein."

Dampening inflammation would be helpful for managing inflammatory diseases such as IBD and rheumatoid arthritis. Meanwhile, in cancer treatment, promoting inflammation could help drive immune responses against solid tumors.

Macrophages and Inflammation

When macrophages sense bacterial pathogens such as E.coli, they activate an inflammatory response to get rid of the pathogen. However, this response needs to be kept in check to avoid damaging host tissue.

The new study shows that macrophages employ a molecule called BCAP to transition into a reparative state following clearance of infection. Turning down macrophage-triggered immune response once their task is complete is important because uncontrolled inflammation can lead to diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Macrophages utilize Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs) to sense various pathogens, and activation of these receptors leads to early inflammation. The authors found that downstream of TLR activation, BCAP simultaneously activates a parallel pathway called the PI3K-AKT pathway, which acts to limit these inflammatory signals.

Specifically, researchers found that BCAP downstream of TLR activation inhibited two key proteins, GSK3b and FOXO1, which places a cap on the inflammation triggered by pathogen sensing. Yet this cap was not enough by itself to make macrophages stand down.

The team also found that BCAP was necessary for promoting a metabolic process called 'histone lactylation,' which leads to macrophage transition and supports intestinal repair after injury.

The co-authors say future research will focus on finding or developing drugs capable of controlling BCAP activity to dampen inflammation and promote tissue repair.

LAWRENCE -- Climate change is an emotionally charged topic that can stir political arguments and inspire people to take action. How people talk about it, especially news media and organizations dedicated to combating the issue, can influence how people think about climate change, a University of Kansas researcher shows in a pair of new studies.

Compelling arguments in climate change news

In one study, Hong Tien Vu, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at KU, and co-authors examined the concept of "compelling arguments" in news media and how it affects public opinion. The study analyzed data from George Mason and Yale universities that surveyed Americans twice a year between 2009 and 2015. It compared that data to media coverage of climate change from The New York Times and Wall Street Journal published before each data collection. Previous research has focused on how coverage is communicated, but the current study incorporated sentiment and emotion of coverage and readers.

"What we wanted to see is, when incorporating emotion, if it affects how people think about climate change," Vu said. "When we factor in these variables, we can see it does in fact influence the way people view the issue."

The study appears in The Agenda Setting Journal and was co-written with Maxwell McCombs of the University of Texas at Austin, Annelise Russell of the University of Kentucky and Paromita Pain of the University of Nevada Reno. It analyzed three attributes of news coverage: existence, effects and solutions, or if the coverage states the problem exists, the effects it has on the planet and what can be done about it. That was compared to how people reported feeling about the issue, in positive or negative emotions, anger or sadness.

The findings showed climate change effects were mentioned most in the coverage, followed by solutions, then existence. Anger had the strongest influence on the salience of the issue on the public, as the more coverage used anger as a way to discuss the issue, the less people felt it was important. Positive emotions in coverage correlated with the public seeing the issue's importance. Priority of the matter also increased with use of negative emotions included in coverage. Anger also played the strongest role when compared to coverage of climate change effects and solutions. When demographic information was included, only political identification had significant effect on how people felt about climate change, showing that the issue has been highly politicized in the United States.

The results show that how media cover the topic can affect how people think about it. Media and media scholarship have long subscribed to a doctrine of presenting two sides of an issue, even if they are not even or there is little argument in favor of a given side. In public affairs news of great importance, such as climate change, news media has a responsibility to properly inform the public.

"When you talk about climate change, it's pretty abstract. News media has to help people make sense of it," Vu said. "What we found was, when we incorporate emotion, the significance level is higher, or the effects of the news on public opinion is higher. Covering facts alone is important, but we clearly see when emotion is included, it has an effect on the perceptions of the public. It's a fine line to walk."

NGOs and climate change social media activism

As the study on media message framing showed, climate change has been highly politicized, which has led to some news outlets not reporting on the topic or doing so in a way that supports a given agenda. With that in mind, Vu and colleagues conducted a study in which they analyzed how global climate nonprofits communicated about the issue through Facebook.

"That makes it very difficult for people to grasp the issue," Vu said of scant news coverage. "That's where I see the role of NGOs being important. Because they are on the ground, they can create resonance with audiences, including the public and policymakers. NGOs have the tools of the emerging media environment at their disposal."

The study analyzed climate change messages on Facebook from 289 climate NGOs in 18 countries. Forthcoming in the journal Science Communication, it was co-written with Matthew Blomberg, Hyunjin Seo, Yuchen Liu and Fatemeh Shayesteh, of KU's School of Journalism & Mass Communications, and Hung Viet Do of Trader Interactive. It analyzed the frames the organizations use in their messaging, including impact, action and efficacy. Impact refers to whether messages talked about the effects of climate change nationally or globally and if they happened in the past, are happening now or will happen in the future. Action applied to who can and should take action, while efficacy examined if messages created a sense of hope that people's actions will make a difference.

The analysis revealed that, in their messages aimed at persuasion, the NGOs used the action frame most frequently, followed by impact. Efficacy was used the least. The researchers also compared characteristics of the home nation of each NGO and the effect that had on message frames used. They found developed nations were more likely to discuss climate actions than developed countries, which focused more on impact, and framed climate change as a global issue affecting everyone.

"If we look at the issue globally, countries are very different from each other and compete with each other," Vu said. "There have been differences in how all countries should work together to combat climate change. Global climate NGOs can work across the world to bridge those differences and mobilize countries to work together. How they communicate about climate change is, therefore, important."

Findings also showed NGOs tend to use a diagnostic frame most often. In other words, the majority of their messages focused on identifying problems more than coming up with solutions or motivating people to understand the issue or take action.

Understanding how NGOs communicate via social media is vital, given their unique ability to reach audiences of people dedicated to combating the issue and policymakers, while bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of media, Vu said. He has previously conducted research about how NGOs discuss the topic on Twitter, and such analysis can help illustrate which methods are the most effective, which parts of the world are leading the conversation and how best to motivate people to take action.

AURORA, Colo. (November 16, 2020) - Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found that many pregnant Black Americans have low levels of choline, an essential nutrient that aids in prenatal brain development. Stress caused by institutional racism may play a role.

The study, out now in Schizophrenia Bulletin, also found that these low levels of choline were associated with higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Higher cortisol induces the mother to hold choline in her liver instead of delivering it to the baby.

"One of the possible causes of higher cortisol and lower choline levels in Black American women is the burden of institutional racism and the chronic subconscious stress that it causes," said Robert Freedman, MD, professor of psychiatry at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and the study's lead researcher.

Women with lower levels of choline delivered on average two weeks prematurely, putting the babies at an increased risk of attention deficit disorder and other childhood mental health problems.

Researchers surveyed a sample of 183 pregnant women, with 25 self-identified Black women.

Choline levels in Black women were lower than those of white women from the same neighborhoods. While Black participants did not indicate more stress, their hair cortisol levels were markedly higher.

Researchers also examined a group of pregnant Black women in Uganda. Choline levels obtained from those 166 participants were significantly higher than Black American levels, indicating that high stress rather than ancestry contributes to low choline levels in Black American women.

In a separate clinical trial with 100 pregnant women, 50 women, of whom seven were Black, received a phosphatidylcholine supplement to raise their choline levels. Fifty received a placebo, eight of them were Black.

Both groups received instruction on how to increase choline in their diets. Premature birth was prevented in the seven Black women who received choline supplements, but not in the eight who received placebo. By age four, their children had fewer problems with attention and social behavior with others.

These two studies combined represent the largest group of Black women studied for the effects of prenatal choline on the outcome of their pregnancy.

"We hope to get the word out, to all women and especially to stressed, pregnant Black women, that taking supplemental choline, in addition to the prenatal vitamins they already take, can significantly improve outcomes for their children," said Freedman.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- The old ethics rules are no longer offering adequate protection to field research subjects, according to two leading social scientists from Brown and Pennsylvania State Universities -- and as a result, individual people and even entire societies are being left vulnerable to financial ruin, emotional manipulation and more.

In a peer-reviewed essay, Rose McDermott, a professor of international relations at Brown, and Peter K. Hatemi, a professor of political science at Pennsylvania State, argue that the advent of computers, the internet and social media have yielded massive change in the design and execution of certain types of large field experiments -- change that traditional ethics guidelines couldn't have anticipated.

Equipped with no widespread formal guidelines on securing voluntary consent in the internet age, scientists are designing big experiments that can, and often do, cause harm, McDermott and Hatemi say. But if research institutions, leading journals and scientific professional organizations were to publish and enforce updated ethical standards, scientists might better understand how to gather important insights without unintentionally damaging people and societies.

"The concern we're voicing is that early ethical guidance doesn't account for field experiments on huge numbers of people, because these experiments weren't common or even possible before the 1990s," McDermott said. "There's evidence that some of these recent experiments have stoked racial resentment, changed election outcomes and caused huge societal divisions. We're not saying these kinds of big field experiments aren't valuable -- we're saying we need to come up with ways to do it ethically."

McDermott's and Hatemi's essay was published as a "Perspective" piece on Monday, Nov. 15 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Perspective pieces undergo the same submission and review processes as research reports, but rather than describing the results of original research, they present a balanced, objective and thoroughly researched viewpoint on a specific field.

McDermott said that when today's scientists design experiments, they most often refer to ethical guidelines written decades ago, such as the Declaration of Helsinki -- a much-revised medical ethics guide first written in 1964 -- and the 1979 report "Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research," now commonly known as the Belmont Report. But those guidelines, she said, were not created with computers, the internet and social media in mind.

"You've had a rise in the ability to do massive computing projects and analyze lots of data very quickly," McDermott said. "With social media platforms, you can have all kinds of access to huge populations. Combine with that the immense pressure on academics to publish high-impact research quickly and frequently, and you've got a world that looks very different than it did when the Belmont Report was published."

As a result, McDermott said, researchers have recently undertaken studies that made important discoveries but also changed people's behaviors, caused them trauma or even financially endangered them.

For example, several studies that have sought to identify what increases or depresses voter turnout have unintentionally altered election outcomes by influencing voters with racially-charged mailers and phone calls and door-to-door visits from fake political candidates. Scientists seeking to understand how social media alters people's moods and political affiliations have inadvertently engaged in the emotional manipulation of hundreds of thousands of people by pushing certain types of posts to their feeds. And many studies investigating the benefits and drawbacks of financial assistance have purposely given or withheld money from research subjects, causing them to become homeless or suffer from increased domestic violence.

"Science is a process of trial and error, and I think in the early days of large field experiments, people couldn't anticipate what might happen to the subjects," McDermott said. "But now we do know what can happen if we're not careful. We need to stop, take a breath and take stock of the damage some of these experiments have done so that we can learn from those mistakes and implement changes."

Those changes, McDermott and Hatemi argue, must come primarily from the top down. In their essay, the two scholars called on academic professional associations, journals and research institutions to update their policies to not only adhere to existing ethical norms but also formulate new requirements to address potential harm in large-scale field experiments that impact entire populations.

McDermott said she hopes the PNAS essay helps spur the kind of systemic change Henry Knowles Beecher kickstarted with his famous 1966 essay exposing unethical practices in the field of medical experimentation. Beecher's investigation eventually led to the passage of federal rules requiring scientists to obtain informed consent from study participants.

"While we would be happy to see individual scholars and individual universities addressing issues of informed consent in their field research, real change can only happen if it's systemic," McDermott said. "It's just like reversing climate change: Yes, it's good that you bought a Prius, but really what we need is for governments to shut down coal-fired plants. All of the institutions that hold power in science need to work in concert."

RENO, Nev. - Meadows in the Sierra Nevada mountains are critical components of watersheds. In addition to supplying water to over 25 million people in California and Nevada, meadows contain large quantities of carbon belowground. While it has been known for some time that meadows have large quantities of soil carbon, whether meadow soils are gaining or losing carbon has remained unclear.

A new study led by researchers in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources at the University of Nevada, Reno, has demonstrated for the first time that meadows throughout the region are both gaining and losing carbon at high rates. Capture and storage of carbon in soil is a natural way to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and combat climate change. However, human activities can disrupt natural processes and lead to the loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere. These results suggest that meadow management may either contribute to climate change or mitigate the harmful effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The research was conducted in partnership with the University of California Merced, as well as numerous restoration practitioners and conservation organizations in more than a dozen meadows throughout the Sierra Nevada mountains. The study is aimed at arming restoration practitioners with information to help make good management decisions.

"Meadows are known for their lush, diverse vegetation supported by soils that stay wet into the summer," explained University of Nevada, Reno, doctoral candidate Cody Reed, who led the study. "However, a long history of human activity in many meadows throughout the Sierra Nevada has resulted in drier soils and the replacement of wetland vegetation with sparse grasses and shrubs."

In research published this week in the scientific journal Ecosystems, Reed and her coauthors, including Associate Professors Benjamin Sullivan and Paul Verburg and Professor Emeritus Sherman Swanson from the University, revealed that meadows with wetland plant communities and dense root mats were large net carbon sinks during the year measured, meaning they removed carbon from the atmosphere. In fact, per acre, the amount of carbon captured in these meadows was similar to rates measured in tropical rainforests. On the other hand, meadows with more bare ground and plant communities associated with drier soil released large amounts of carbon from the soil to the atmosphere.

In the long-term, such changes to the large soil carbon stocks in meadows could add up. And unlike in forests, where most carbon is sequestered in wood aboveground, the change in carbon in meadows is belowground. This means meadow soil carbon is less vulnerable to disturbances such as wildfire and may persist in the ecosystem for longer than aboveground carbon. At the same time, soil carbon provides other important benefits besides taking carbon out of the atmosphere.

"Worldwide, soils may contain up to four times as much carbon as the atmosphere," Reed explained. "Soil carbon in meadows also helps improve water quality and quantity, as well as soil fertility to support diverse plant communities important for wildlife and grazing."

The research will likely help meadow restoration practitioners identify meadows in need of conservation to maintain soil carbon gains and meadows in need of restoration to prevent additional losses of soil carbon to the atmosphere. The researchers estimate that three acres of surrounding forest are required to offset the amount of carbon lost by one acre of degraded meadow. On the other hand, one acre of meadow may sequester as much carbon as six acres of forest.

"Our research shows meadows may be some of the best bang for the buck in terms of carbon management in the region," Sullivan said. "My hope is that soil carbon sequestration can be integrated with other objectives to achieve management strategies that improve ecosystem functions in meadows."

Sullivan said he and his colleagues in the College's Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Science and Experiment Station plan to conduct future research to quantify the impacts of meadow restoration on soil carbon.

EMBARGOED UNTIL 8:34 P.M. ET, Monday, November 16, 2020, Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic researchers leading a global clinical trial have found that rilonacept, an FDA approved drug for other inflammatory diseases, resolved acute pericarditis episodes and reduced risk of pericarditis recurrence. The study was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions.

Pericarditis is an inflammation of the pericardium, which is two thin layers of tissue that surround the heart and help it function. A common symptom is severe sharp chest pain, which is caused by the inflamed layers rubbing against the heart. Pericarditis can be acute, recurrent or chronic, and often occurs after a viral infection or cardiac surgery. Recurrent pericarditis usually occurs 4-6 weeks after the first episode of acute pericarditis and often causes debilitating chest pain, physical limitations, hospitalizations and decreased quality of life.

Currently, there are no FDA approved therapies for pericarditis. Anti-inflammatories and steroids- often with harsh side effects- are used to treat the condition. The Rhapsody global Phase 3 clinical trial studied 61 patients with recurrent pericarditis, who were randomized to rilonacept or placebo. After 16 weeks of treatment, 81% of patients on once-weekly rilonacept, reported no or minimal pericarditis symptoms versus 25% on the placebo. The drug not only resolved active episodes after the first dose, but it also decreased recurrences by 96%.

All patients involved who had been taking corticosteroids tapered and successfully transitioned to rilonacept.

"Recurring pericarditis is painful and can be debilitating to those who suffer from it," said Allan Klein M.D., director of the Center for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pericardial Diseases at Cleveland Clinic, co-principal investigator of the study, and a paid member of Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals' scientific advisory board. "The Rhapsody trial was highly successful, essentially stopping this disease, and provides a new hope for these patients."

Of the 25 safety events in the study, 23 occurred in the placebo group, while only two occurred in the rilonacept group.

Experiments led by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have determined that several hepatitis C drugs can inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, a crucial protein enzyme that enables the novel coronavirus to reproduce.

Inhibiting, or blocking, this protease from functioning is vital to stopping the virus from spreading in patients with COVID-19. The study, published in the journal Structure, is part of efforts to quickly develop pharmaceutical treatments for COVID-19 by repurposing existing drugs known to effectively treat other viral diseases.

"Currently, there are no inhibitors approved by the Food and Drug Administration that target the SARS-CoV-2 main protease," said ORNL lead author Daniel Kneller. "What we found is that hepatitis C drugs bind to and inhibit the coronavirus protease. This is an important first step in determining whether these drugs should be considered as potential repurposing candidates to treat COVID-19."

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus spreads by expressing long chains of polyproteins that must be cut by the main protease to become functional proteins, making the protease an important drug target for researchers and drug developers.

In the study, the team looked at several well-known drug molecules for potential repurposing efforts including leupeptin, a naturally occurring protease inhibitor, and three FDA-approved hepatitis C protease inhibitors: telaprevir, narlaprevir and boceprevir.

The team performed room temperature X-ray measurements to build a three-dimensional map that revealed how the atoms were arranged and where chemical bonds formed between the protease and the drug inhibitor molecules.

The experiments yielded promising results for certain hepatitis C drugs in their ability to bind and inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 main protease -- particularly boceprevir and narlaprevir. Leupeptin exhibited a low binding affinity and was ruled out as a viable candidate.

To better understand how well or how tightly the inhibitors bind to the protease, they used in vitro enzyme kinetics, a technique that enables researchers to study the protease and the inhibitor in a test tube to measure the inhibitor's binding affinity, or compatibility, with the protease. The higher the binding affinity, the more effective the inhibitor is at blocking the protease from functioning.

"What we're doing is laying the molecular foundation for these potential drug repurposing inhibitors by revealing their mode of action," said ORNL corresponding author Andrey Kovalevsky. "We show on a molecular level how they bind, where they bind, and what they're doing to the enzyme shape. And, with in vitro kinetics, we also know how well they bind. Each piece of information gets us one step closer to realizing how to stop the virus."

The study also sheds light on a peculiar behavior of the protease's ability to change or adapt its shape according to the size and structure of the inhibitor molecule it binds to. Pockets within the protease where a drug molecule would attach are highly malleable, or flexible, and can either open or close to an extent depending on the size of the drug molecules.

Before the paper was published, the researchers made their data publicly available to inform and assist the scientific and medical communities. More research, including clinical trials, is necessary to validate the drugs' efficacy and safety as a COVID-19 treatment.

"The research suggests that hepatitis C inhibitors are worth thinking about as potential repurposing candidates. Immediately releasing our data allows the scientific community to start looking at the interactions between these inhibitors and the protease," said ORNL corresponding author Leighton Coates. "You can't design a drug without knowing how it works on a molecular level, and the data we're providing is exactly what developers need to design stronger, more tightly binding drugs for more effective treatments."

Social insects like honeybees and hornets evolved from solitary bees and wasps, respectively. A common trait of many social insects is age-specific behavior: when they emerge from the pupa, workers typically specialize in around-the-clock tasks inside the darkness of the nest, starting with brood care. But they gradually shift towards more cyclic tasks away from center of the nest as they get older -- culminating in foraging outside, exclusively in daylight, towards the end of their life. Here, researchers find evidence that this shift from around-the-clock to rhythmic tasks, which does not occur in solitary insects, seems to be driven by a slower maturation of the endogenous (i.e. internal) "circadian" clock of social honeybees compared to solitary bees.

They find that in the solitary red mason bee Osmia bicornis, where females of every age forage to provide food for offspring, females and males emerge with a mature, fully functional circadian clock, as shown by their 24-h movement rhythm and the activity of the brain cells that produce the "pacemaker" protein Pigment-Dispersing Factor (PDF).

"Our results indicate that the maturation of the circadian clock is delayed in social honeybees as compared to solitary mason bees. We predict that rapid maturation of the circadian clock is the ancestral condition and will be found throughout the solitary bees and wasps, which all need to forage and perform brood care throughout their lifespan. In contrast, a delay in maturation may have evolved secondarily in social species, to enable age-related behavioral shifts from acyclic brood care to daily foraging," says Dr Katharina Beer, a postdoctoral scientist at the Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology of the Julius Maximilian Universitaet Wuerzburg, Germany. Her study, done with Professor Charlotte Helfrich-Foerster, the Chair of Neurobiology and Genetics at Julius Maximilian University, is published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.

The red mason bee is an important pollinator for agriculture, occurring across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Unlike in social insects, there is no infertile worker caste: females overwinter in their natal nest to emerge in the spring, mate, and build new nests in hollow stems. Females forage on many different plant species for pollen and nectar, which they store inside a row of sealed cells, laying a single egg per cell.

Beer and Helfrich-Foerster collected newly emerged bees -- 40 workers (females) from isolated brood combs of honeybees (Apis mellifera), and 56 females and 31 males from isolated pupal cocoons of O. bicornis -- and placed these inside separate tubes inside a Locomotor Activity Monitor system, an apparatus for registering the activity of individual. Infrared beams cross at the center of each tube, which are interrupted whenever the bee moves. By registering the activity pattern, in darkness and at constant temperature, around the clock for 3 to 45 days after emergence, the researchers could derive the rhythm of each bee.

The results showed that none of the honeybees showed a spontaneous ca. 24-h rhythm immediately after emergence from the pupa -- regardless of the degree of contact with the natal colony -- while 88% of O. bicornis females and males did so. The 12% of O. bicornis who did not died young. However in time, at an age of at least two days, each honeybee also developed a pronounced ca. 24-h rhythm. Beer and Helfrich-Foerster conclude that solitary O. bicornis bees, but not social honeybees, emerge with a functional endogenous circadian clock.

What is the neural basis for this difference? To answer this question, the researchers used immunohistochemistry to compare the maturation of the neurons that synthetize PDF, in the two species. In the brain of insects, a cluster of specialized cells called the lateral ventral neurons functions as a circadian pacemaker, secreting bursts of PDF, a so-called neuromodulator which affects the activity of the Central Nervous System. By staining dissected, fixed brains with two antibodies, the first recognizing PDF and the second, labeled with an fluorescent tag, binding to the first, Beer and Helfrich-Förster could count the PDF-producing neurons in each brain hemisphere at different ages, from just before emergence to four weeks after. They show that these steadily increase in number with age in honeybees, but not in O. bicornis.

The authors conclude that the circadian pacemaker is fully mature in newly emerged O. bicornis, but needs to develop to become fully active in honeybees, explaining why young honeybees don't yet show an circadian rhythm. This delay in maturation is likely an evolutionary adaptation to sociality, where young bees need to engage in around-the-clock care of their immature siblings.

"It will be most interesting to perform similar studies on other social insects such as ants, which have various forms of social behavior: some display age-related behavior like in honeybees, wile others don't. If we find similar differences in the maturation of the endogenous clock related to the different social structures of these ant species, this will strongly support our hypothesis," concludes Helfrich-Foerster.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Whether it is ants forming a trail or individuals crossing the street, the exchange of information is key in making everyday decisions. But new Florida State University research shows that the group decision-making process may work best when members process information a bit differently.

Bhargav Karamched, assistant professor of mathematics, and a team of researchers published a new study today that tackles how groups make decisions and the dynamics that make for fast and accurate decision making. He found that networks that consisted of both impulsive and deliberate individuals made, on average, quicker and better decisions than a group with homogenous thinkers.

"In groups with impulsive and deliberate individuals, the first decision is made quickly by an impulsive individual who needs little evidence to make a choice," Karamched said. "But, even when wrong, this fast decision can reveal the correct options to everyone else. This is not the case in homogenous groups."

The paper is published in Physical Review Letters.

Researchers noted in the paper that the exchange of information is crucial in a variety of biological and social functions. But Karamched said although information sharing in networks has been studied quite a bit, very little work has been done on how individuals in a network should integrate information from their peers with their own private evidence accumulation. Most of the studies, both theoretical and experimental, have focused on how isolated individuals optimally gather evidence to make a choice.

"This work was motivated by that," Karamched said. "How should individuals optimally accumulate evidence they see for themselves with evidence they obtain from their peers to make the best possible decisions?"

Krešimir Josi?, Moores Professor of Mathematics, Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston and senior author of the study, noted that the process works best when individuals in a group make the most of their varied backgrounds to collect the necessary materials and knowledge to make a final decision.

"Collective social decision making is valuable if all individuals have access to different types of information," Josi? said.

Karamched used mathematical modeling to reach his conclusion but said there is plenty of room for follow-up research.

Karamched said that his model assumes that evidence accrued by one individual is independent of evidence collected by another member of the group. If a group of individuals is trying to make a decision based on information that is available to everyone, additional modeling would need to account for how correlations in the information affects collective decision-making.

"For example, to choose between voting Republican or Democrat in an election, the information available to everyone is common and not specifically made for one individual," he said. "Including correlations will require developing novel techniques to analyze models we develop."

The discovery of a potential “Achilles heel” in Nef, the protein that is crucial to HIV virulence and its capacity to trigger AIDS, paves the way for the development of a new class of drugs against the virus. Researchers have succeeded in demonstrating a structure that binds this protein to another called AP-2 and regulates endocytosis, the process by which cells take in substances such as nutrients or pathogens by engulfing them in a vesicle.

As a result, it is increasingly clear how Nef manages to subvert human cells’ defense mechanisms, enabling HIV to replicate and bringing the symptoms of AIDS closer.

In an article published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (NSMB), PhD candidate Yunan Januário and Professor Luis Lamberti Pinto da Silva at the University of São Paulo’s Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP-USP) in Brazil comment on the importance of recent discoveries about this protein.

“Researchers have succeeded in obtaining the three-dimensional structure between Nef-CD4 and AP-2, showing the contact surfaces and making possible other studies designed to yield a molecule that occupies this space so as to prevent the effects of the protein from advancing. This ‘photograph’ can serve as the basis for the development of other anti-HIV therapies,” Silva told Agência FAPESP.

With more than 15 years of experience in the field, Silva was invited by NSMB to comment on a study described in the article “Structural basis of CD4 downregulation by HIV-1 Nef”, published in the same issue of the journal and with Yonghwa Kwon, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts (USA) as first author.

“Notably, the study by Kwon et al. provides the structural basis for the cooperative assembly of the AP-2–Nef–CD4 tripartite complex and shows that Nef directly bridges CD4 and AP-2. The study also reveals a structural relationship between Nef-mediated downregulation of CD4 and Nef’s antagonism of major histocompatibility complex I (MHC-I)”, the two Brazilians write in their NSMB article.

According to Silva, Nef was known to be crucial to the advancing effects of HIV as AIDS progresses. In addition, the protein can continue to be produced by the organism of patients in treatment or whose viral load remains too small to be detected. “This has been linked to co-morbidities of the infection. Nef is important, and no drugs exist to target it,” he said.

Since the discovery that AIDS is caused by HIV almost 40 years ago, scientists have learned a great deal about the intricate mechanisms by which the virus attacks the immune system, invading and controlling cells, but they have not yet found a way to block Nef directly. They know Nef is a multifunctional protein with a complex mechanism. It is not part of the structure of HIV, but modifies cells to allow the virus to replicate.

Several classes of antiretroviral drugs act on the immune system to block different stages of the HIV multiplication cycle, reduce viral load, and even halt the development of the disease. The most common antiretrovirals include reverse transcriptase inhibitors (nucleoside and non-nucleoside), which disrupt the virus’s use of reverse transcriptase to copy its genetic material and multiply inside defense cells. They also include protease and integrase inhibitors, which hobble viral replication and cell invasion respectively, and entry inhibitors, which stop the virus from invading defense cells by blocking receptors such as CCR5.

All these drugs have led to remarkable progress in terms of reducing AIDS morbidity and mortality, but viral resistance and the drugs’ side effects require a non-stop search for new ways of combating the virus.

Some 38 million people were living with the virus worldwide in 2019, including 1.8 million children aged 14 or less, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), which also says 67% had access to antiretroviral therapy. In Brazil, the Health Ministry’s statistics show about 866,000 people with HIV in 2019.

Other binding pathways

Silva and his research group at FMRP-USP published a study early this year showing how Nef uses another cellular protein, AP-1G2, and the link between the two pathways. The study was supported by FAPESP.

The group analyzed the effects of Nef on host cell endomembranes, describing the mechanisms by which it uses AP-1G2 and sends CD4 to lysosomes (cell organelles containing enzymes that break down proteins and other molecules). This removes them from the cell surface and helps viral release from cells to spread the infection.

CD4 is the receptor used by HIV to invade cells. If it remains on the cell surface, viral release is blocked: hence its removal by Nef from infected cells. “We pointed to the common point between these two pathways,” Silva said. “In order to send CD4 and MHC-I to lysosomes, Nef hijacks a third cell protein common to both pathways. These findings can help other groups show exactly how Nef interacts with the third protein to identify a novel target, just as was done with AP-2.”

Silva and his group are currently working on another study, also supported by FAPESP. The goal is to discover other targets of Nef. “Several ingredients are available. Now someone has to come along to bring it all together and obtain this molecule capable of inhibiting Nef,” he said.

URBANA, Ill. - Climate change and a growing world population require efficient use of natural resources. Water is a crucial component in food production, and water management strategies are needed to support worldwide changes in food consumption and dietary patterns.

Agricultural production and food manufacturing account for a third of water usage in the U.S. Water use fluctuates with weather patterns but is also affected by shifts in production technology, supply-chain linkages, and domestic and foreign consumer demand.

A comprehensive University of Illinois study looked at water withdrawals in U.S. agriculture and food production from 1995 to 2010. The main trend was a decline in water use, driven by a combination of factors.

"Overall, the use of water for irrigation decreased by 8.3% over this period," says Sandy Dall'erba, regional economist at U of I and co-author on the study.

"However, one needs to identify the drivers of water use by crop as they differ from one commodity to the next, so water-saving strategies for one crop may not be relevant for another one," Dall'erba explains. "For instance, water use in cereal grains, fruits, and vegetables is mostly driven by the efficiency of the irrigation system, domestic per-capita income, and sales to the food processing industry. If irrigation is more efficient, water demand decreases. When demand for fruits and vegetables decreased in 2005-2010 during the financial crisis, so did demand for water."

Oilseed crops, on the other hand, have experienced a 98% increase in water demand over the period. The change is primarily driven by international supply-chain linkages. It means foreign companies, mostly in China, have purchased large amount of U.S. oilseed crops for further processing.

"There has also been a shift in consumer demand from red meat to white meat in the U.S. People consume less beef and more chicken, which require 3.5 times less water per pound of production. Those trends in consumption and taste have helped the U.S. reduce water use for livestock by 14%," Dall'erba says.

Dall'erba and co-author Andre Avelino performed a structural decomposition analysis, looking at 18 factors that drive U.S. water withdrawals across eight crops, six livestock categories, and 11 food manufacturing industries.

Based on data from Exiobase, a global supply-chain database, their analysis included water that's embedded into the production at all stages of the domestic and international supply chain, from crops and livestock to processed food production­ - highlighting the interconnectedness of global agribusiness.

For example, crops produced in the U.S. may rely on fertilizers produced in a different country. Similarly, soybeans produced in the U.S. could be used for food processing in China, or to feed livestock in Europe.

The current U.S.-China trade war is likely to affect these these supply-chain linkages, as Chinese import of oilseeds shifts to South America and Europe. The U.S. exported less soybean and pork to China over the last two years; therefore, less water was embedded into those exports. However, the next few years under a new U.S. administration may see an improvement in these relationships, Dall'erba notes.

The COVID-19 pandemic is also likely affecting water usage. Unemployment and economic crises have always impacted consumer demand, and international trade has sharply declined since the pandemic began. The 2008 recession resulted in decreased water usage and similar effects are expected in the current crisis, Dall'erba states.

Traditionally, scientists measuring the amount of water associated with production and the supply chain rely on a worldwide data set called the Water Footprint Network (WFN), which is based on a crop water-use model. However, Dall'erba and Avelino used data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which are based on observations rather than physical models.

"With the USGS data we find a decrease in the amount of water used, while the WFN data indicated a small increase. The difference is not large, but it's still a big deal, because you would find the wrong trend and reach misleading conclusions if you use the wrong data set," Dall'erba explains.

"This is important information for researchers. If you're in a situation where you have access to data based on observations rather than crop models, you should use those official data, especially because water saving policies are based on this dataset," he notes.

The questions addressed in this research are extremely relevant for any country that is heavy on agricultural production, Dall'erba says. "Namely, how can we feed the 10 billion people we expect to be at the global level by 2080, considering that we cannot necessarily expand the amount of land that's going to be used? And, given climate change, there is quite a lot of uncertainty with respect to the availability of water needed to grow crops and feed livestock in the years to come."

Water management strategies may include farm-level efforts such as increasing efficiency of the irrigation system, switching crops, and growing genetically modified crops.

Other measures may include policies aimed at affecting consumer behavior such as increasing taxes on water-intensive products and supporting ecolabeling, Dall'erba suggests.

Ecolabeling would require food manufacturing companies to report the amounts of water, carbon dioxide emissions, and labor associated with production. That could help consumers make informed choices and potentially shift consumption to less water-intensive products, he concludes.