Earth

The study looked at areas in the Brazilian Amazon with varying levels of disturbance from activities like logging or burning. The researchers found that not only did human disturbance reduce overall tree diversity, it increased the proportion of trees with seeds dispersed by animals as opposed to other mechanisms like wind.

Disturbance also led to a significant shift towards small-seeded species, which are more likely to be dispersed by smaller animals like birds and bats. It is not clear if these trees can support larger fruit-eating animals that specialise in large-seeded plants and are important for their seed dispersal.

The researchers observed similar effects in secondary (re-grown) forests recovering from clear felling. Older secondary forest had functionally similar plants to the most heavily disturbed primary forest.

Dr Joseph Hawes, lead author of the study said: "Previous studies in disturbed tropical forests have often found plant communities are more likely to rely on seeds dispersed by wind and other abiotic mechanisms, rather than fruit-eating animals. In contrast, our study found that disturbance led to tree communities in which a greater proportion of species and individuals rely on animal dispersal."

There are likely multiple reasons for this shift. Forest fires and selective logging disproportionately affect certain tree species, which can influence dispersal patterns. Hunting can also reduce seed dispersal by large birds and mammals, leaving smaller animals to disperse smaller seeds.

On the implications of a shift towards smaller-seeded tree species, Dr Hawes added: "Smaller-seeded tree species are becoming more prevalent in forests heavily disturbed by human activity. As larger-seeded tree species are also often those with higher wood densities, these changes in forest composition could have longer-term implications for both the carbon storage and drought sensitivity of tropical forests."

Professor Jos Barlow, co-author said: "This highlights the especially important role played by large-bodied fruit eating animals in the Amazon and helps to underline the need to avoid the loss of these animals and to help encourage their recovery in human-modified forests."

Dr Ima Vieira, co-author said: "Most forest restoration focusses on the vegetation, but we also need to consider fauna in restoration projects because of their important mutualistic interactions with plants. Our study provides further evidence that fauna are key to restoring biodiversity-rich ecosystems in the Amazon."

Dr Joice Ferreira, co-author said: "Avoiding forest loss and degradation should be a priority in public policies as the disruption of plant-animal interactions can lead to catastrophic cascading effects. In Brazil, ambitious restoration goals have been proposed (12 million hectares up to 2030). Disregarding the role of biotic interactions could undermine the success of such efforts."

Tropical forests are fundamentally important for global biodiversity, climate regulation and human livelihoods, but they're increasingly threatened by human impacts. 80% of tropical forest landscapes currently exist in a modified state, either as degraded primary forest or recovering secondary forest.

"Pressure from agricultural expansion, including cattle ranching and mechanised farming e.g. soya, is high in the eastern Amazon but this pressure is not uniform, and some areas are more affected than others. This is also the case for pressures such as from silviculture plantations, selective logging and fire." said Dr Hawes.

The functional traits of species are important components of an ecosystem and can support key ecological processes even when species richness is reduced. Compared to other plant traits like leaf area and wood density, reproductive traits are relatively understudied despite their importance to mutualistic relationships and role in recruiting new trees.

In this study the researchers surveyed 230 forest plots across two regions in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon. The plots covered a gradient of disturbance in forests from undisturbed primary forest, to forest that that had been logged, burned, or logged-and-burned. In total the researchers recorded 26,533 live tree stems from 846 tree species.

Using herbariums and research literature, the researchers compiled information on fruit and seed traits like size, type, shape and dispersal method for each species.

The study focussed on changes in plant communities, rather than changes in animal communities in human disturbed forests. The researchers warn that isolating these disturbance-specific relationships will likely be difficult due to the multiple drivers of change in human-modified landscapes.

Outside of seed dispersal method, the researchers did not consider other factors that may influence successful plant recruitment. This was limited by a shortage of information on what constitutes effective seed dispersal by different animal species.

Dr Hawes said: "One of the next steps in understanding the long-term ecological impacts of human disturbances in tropical forests is to build a comprehensive database for plant traits, including measurements such as seed size that were included in our study. We have contributed our data to the TRY Plant Trait Database, a global research effort to compile and provide free and open access to plant trait data."

Professor Jos Barlow said: "Much of the work was funded by a Brazilian research council grant for visiting professors, and it highlights the importance of long-term scientific collaboration for guiding forest management in the Amazon".

Brussels, 18 February 2020 - Today, at a European Parliament lunch debate hosted by Christophe Hansen MEP (Luxembourg), Alzheimer Europe launched a new report presenting the findings of its collaborative analysis of recent prevalence studies and setting out updated prevalence rates for dementia in Europe.

Over the past three decades, a number of significant pieces of work have been undertaken to estimate the prevalence of dementia at a European level, including:

EURODEM study in the early 80s (updated in 2000)

Alzheimer Europe’s project European Collaboration on Dementia – EuroCoDe (2006-2008)

ALCOVE, the 1st EU Joint Action on Dementia (2011-2013).

As the most recent of these studies is six years old, Alzheimer Europe recognised the importance of establishing more recent dementia prevalence estimates, using the most up-to-date academic literature on the subject.

The findings presented below are based on a collaborative analysis of prevalence studies published since the conclusion of the EuroCoDe project. A total of 16 studies meeting predefined quality criteria were included in the collaborative analysis.

The key findings of this new Alzheimer Europe report include:

For men, there has been a reduction in the prevalence of dementia across all age groups over the past ten years when compared to Alzheimer Europe’s 2008 EuroCoDe estimates.

For women, apart from the age group of women between 75 and 79 years, there has been a reduction in the prevalence of dementia over the past ten years when compared to EuroCoDe.

The number of people living with dementia in the European Union (EU27) is estimated to be 7,853,705 and in European countries represented by AE members, 9,780,678. Compared to its earlier estimates, this constitutes a significant reduction from 8,785,645 for the EU27 and from 10,935,444 for the broader European region.
Women continue to be disproportionately affected by dementia with 6,650,228 women and 3,130,449 men living with dementia in Europe.

The number of people with dementia in Europe will almost double by 2050, increasing to 14,298,671 in the European Union and 18,846,286 in the wider European region.

Alzheimer Europe’s Yearbook also highlighted significant limitations in the available research into dementia prevalence and a lack of research into:

the prevalence of younger people with dementia (i.e. those aged under 65)

the prevalence of different types of dementia

the number of people affected by different stages of dementia including mild cognitive impairment

the prevalence of dementia of people from ethnic minority groups.

Commenting on the findings, Alzheimer Europe Executive Director, Jean Georges, said:

“It is promising to see that healthier lifestyles, better education and improved control of cardiovascular risk factors seem to have contributed to a reduction of the prevalence of dementia. However, our report also demonstrates that the number of people living with the condition is set to increase substantially in the years ahead, which will only place greater pressure on care and support services unless better ways of treating and preventing dementia are identified. If people with dementia, their families and carers are to receive the high-quality and person-centred care they need, governments must ensure their health and care systems are ready to meet this demand and greater investments in research into the treatment and prevention of dementia are needed.”

Children conceived with assisted reproductive techniques including in vitro fertilization (IVF) have a somewhat higher mortality risk during their first weeks of life than children conceived naturally, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal Fertility and Sterility. The researchers link the increased risk to a higher degree of premature births in IVF children and emphasize that the risk of infant mortality is still very small for both groups. Beyond 1 year of age, the risk of mortality was similar for all children regardless of conception method.

"It is important to note that even if we on a group level can see a somewhat increased risk of infant mortality after IVF, the absolute risk for each individual is still very small," says Kenny Rodriguez-Wallberg, associate professor at the Department of Oncology and Pathology at Karolinska Institutet and the corresponding author. "It is also reassuring to know that there is no increased risk of mortality in this group of children beyond the first year of life."

More and more women seek help to become pregnant and the achieving of pregnancies made possible with assisted reproductive techniques have increased in recent years. In most cases, these pregnancies have a happy outcome with a healthy baby. Prior studies show, however, that IVF-pregnancies come with an increased risk of low birth weight, prematurity and birth defects. These risks have partly been linked to the increased probability of twin-births after IVF-treatment.

In the current study, the researchers selected only singleton children and compared mortality in children conceived through different types of assisted reproductive techniques with children who were conceived naturally. They analyzed data on 2.8 million children born in Sweden over a period of 30 years. Some 43,500 of these were the result of assisted reproduction.

In total, 7 236 children died before 1 year of age, of whom only 114 were conceived with assisted reproductive techniques. After adjusting for confounding factors such as the mother's age and earlier infertility, the researchers found that the children conceived through IVF had a 45 percent higher risk of death before 1 year of age than children conceived naturally. The level of risk varied depending on which type of assisted reproductive technique was used, and how many days had passed since birth. The risk gradually declined after the first weeks of life.

During the first week of life, the children conceived after transfer of a frozen embryo had a more than two-fold higher risk of death than the children conceived naturally. This was, however, based on only a small sample of children conceived with frozen embryos. After one week, the risk dropped to about the same level as the naturally conceived children. Infants conceived from transfer of a fresh embryo or with the help of an intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)--where a single sperm is injected into the egg--did not have a higher risk of death than naturally conceived children, irrespective of how many days had passed since birth.

"Our results indicate that the kind of assisted reproductive technique used may make a difference, and therefore it is important to further investigate what causes or underlying mechanisms are behind the risks," says Anastasia Nyman Iliadou, associate professor at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet and senior lead author. "They also show the need for extra attention and care of children conceived with IVF, especially during the first week of life."

According to the researchers, one explanation may be that more IVF-children are born prematurely than those conceived naturally, which in itself could have negative consequences. It is also possible that the underlying infertility leads to a higher risk of complications. The leading causes of infant mortality among children conceived with assisted reproductive techniques included respiratory distress, incomplete lung development, infections and neonatal hemorrhage, which are conditions often linked to prematurity.

WHAT:

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) found in breastmilk may influence a child's growth from infancy through early childhood, according to a study supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study also suggested that maternal obesity may affect HMO composition in breastmilk. The study was led by Lars Bode, Ph.D., at the University of California, San Diego. It appears in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

HMOs are complex sugars found in breastmilk, but infants do not digest them directly. Instead, HMOs serve as prebiotics by influencing the composition of the gut microbiome. Previous studies have found that HMOs may also protect infants from disease-causing microbes. Approximately 150 types of HMOs are known, and mothers have unique combinations and concentrations of them in their breastmilk, influenced in part by genetics and the types of HMO-processing enzymes they have.

Researchers evaluated approximately 800 pairs of mothers and children in a Finnish study of child development. The researchers analyzed the content of HMOs in breastmilk samples (collected when the children were 3 months old), among them two HMOs that are now added to some commercial infant formulas: 2'-fucosyllactose (2'FL) and lacto-N-neo-tetraose (LNnT).

Breastmilk from mothers of taller and heavier infants and children tended to have less diverse HMO composition, higher concentrations of 2'FL and lower concentrations of LNnT. Breastmilk from overweight and obese mothers also tended to have less diverse HMO composition, higher concentrations of 2'FL and lower concentrations of LNnT.

According to the authors, these results confirm findings of two of their previous smaller studies. Together, the three studies found similar patterns of HMO composition and child growth among three different groups of mothers. The authors noted that, although their study linked HMO composition with early childhood growth, it couldn't prove that variations in HMO patterns cause differences in children's growth. If additional studies confirm their findings, specific HMOs might one day provide a treatment for early childhood growth problems and obesity.

Osaka, Japan — Despite technological advances, early drug discovery and development remain a time-consuming, difficult and inefficient process with low success rates. A team from Osaka University has discovered a possible solution for overcoming low production yields in complex reaction sequences, providing a proof-of-concept study in the successful high yield of a potential therapeutic agent.

In a study recently published in Chemical Communications, the researchers demonstrate the production of a potential drug agent using machine-learning to rapidly screen experimental conditions for a complex reaction series. This optimization approach significantly reduced the time, materials and cost required for conventional methods.

For both academic and industrial researchers, an essential step in the development of chemical reactions involves optimizing experimental conditions. This is traditionally achieved by varying one parameter and keeping the others constant—an onerous and costly process. A strategy for quickly identifying optimal parameters is machine learning, a statistical tool used in many fields, including drug discovery.

"While examining the steps of the organocatalyzed Rauhut-Currier and [3+2] annulation sequence, we first realized that a micro-mixing flow system would suppress any undesired side reactions and improve the yield of the desired biologically active spirooxindole derivative," says senior author of the study, Hiroaki Sasai. "The Gaussian process regression (GPR) then allowed us to quickly screen different parameters and explore the optimal flow conditions for our system to maximize the product yield."

These spirooxindole motifs, found in many biologically active molecules and natural products, have gained considerable research interest as possible antiviral drug agents. As with other drugs, making spirooxindoles results in mixtures containing mirror-image variants of the same molecule (enantiomers) with different chemical properties (e.g., drug activity vs. no activity)—the tricky part is preferentially maximizing the yield of the desired variant showing drug activity. A simplified method for achieving this feat with spirooxindoles has remained mostly out of reach until now.

Despite the complexity, selectivity and specificity of the highly efficient reaction sequence, the researchers established the reaction using a micro-mixer flow system, albeit with 49% yield. Using the optimized parameters from GPR, they then obtained the spirooxindole derivatives with three contiguous chiral centers within one minute with up to 89% yield and 98% purity of the desired mirror-image variant.

"It is challenging to predict the effect of changing each experimental parameter when developing a novel reaction without a thorough reaction optimization," explains lead author Masaru Kondo. "However, combining tools like GPR with new synthetic methods in flow systems may simplify and streamline the drug development process for other complicated molecules, reducing cost, time and material waste."

Young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are being discouraged from seeking medical help due to public assumptions that sexually transmissible infections (STIs) are the result of sexual abuse.

The University of Queensland's Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, Director Professor James Ward said not all STIs in young people were the result of sexual abuse.

"This assumption discourages young people from presenting to health services for routine STI screenings for fear of investigation by authorities associated with mandatory reporting," Professor Ward said.

"The median age for teenagers experiencing sex for the first time is around 16 years old for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians," Professor Ward said.

"This means nearly half of all Australians engage in sex earlier than the legal age of consent, which is 16 years old in most jurisdictions," he said.

"Therefore, young people living in non-remote areas are having sexual relationships too, but due to lower rates of infection, they may not encounter an STI at their first sexual relationship. It's the diagnosis of these STIs which people are linking with child sexual abuse in the public discussion."

Professor Ward and his colleagues have cited poorer health outcomes, underlying STI infection rates, social issues and inadequate access to health services as factors that increase the risk of STIs in remote Indigenous communities.

Professor Ward said while it's not certain all STIs diagnosed before the age of 16 stemmed from consensual sexual relationships, the age of sexual debut and underlying prevalence of STIs in remote communities needed to be reported in context.

"Future public discussions should acknowledge these facts, and automatic assumptions that STIs are linked to child sexual abuse should be removed," Professor Ward said.

"More transparent reporting on child sexual abuse, such as outlining the number of cases where there is to a two-year age difference, would correct the interpretation of data and enable targeted community education.

"It would be helpful if greater efforts were directed towards working in partnership with affected communities to deal with these important issues."

A molecule identified by UCLA researchers helps maintain a healthy balance of cells in airway and lung tissue. If the compound, so far only studied in isolated human and mouse cells, has the same effect in people, it may lead to new drugs to treat or prevent lung cancer.

"We think this could help us develop a new therapy that promotes airway health," said Dr. Brigitte Gomperts, a UCLA professor of pediatrics and of pulmonary medicine, a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, and lead author of the study. "This could not only inform the treatment of lung cancer, but help prevent its progression in the first place."

Humans' respiratory systems are constantly being injured -- by pollution and germs in the air we breathe -- and must be replenished with healthy cells. That process is driven by airway basal stem cells, which divide to produce both more stem cells and the mucociliary cells that line the airways and lungs.

There are two types of mucociliary cells: mucus cells, which produce the mucus that trap toxic and infectious particles, and ciliated cells, which have finger-like projections that sweep the mucus away to keep the respiratory system healthy and clear. In healthy lungs, airway basal stem cells stay balanced between producing mucociliary cells and self-renewing to maintain a population of stem cells.

In precancerous cells in the lungs, basal stem cells divide more often than usual, generating a large number of stem cells but too few mucociliary cells. The resulting imbalance of cells in the airway leaves the airways unable to properly clear debris, and it creates a greater risk that the precancerous cells will give rise to a tumor.

In the new study, published today in Cell Reports, Gomperts and her colleagues analyzed airway cells from equal numbers of biopsies of healthy people, people with premalignant lung cancer lesions and people with squamous lung cancer. They discovered that one group of molecules -- collectively called the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway -- was present at different levels in the basal stem cells of the patient samples versus the cells from healthy people.

And when the researchers altered the levels of these molecules in healthy airway cells from mice, the balance between stem cells and mucociliary cells shifted, mimicking the imbalance seen in lung pre-cancers.

"When you activate the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway, these stem cells just divide and divide," said Gomperts, who is also a member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Finally, the team screened more than 20,000 chemical compounds for their ability to reverse this effect in human cells, lowering levels of Wnt and restoring the balance of stem cells and mature airway cells.

One compound stood out for its ability to limit the proliferation of basal stem cells and restore the balance of the stem cells and mucociliary cells to normal. The compound was also less toxic to airway cells than other, previously discovered, molecules that block Wnt/beta-catenin signaling. The team named the compound Wnt Inhibitor Compound 1, or WIC1.

"The identification of this new drug is a nice tool to tease apart the biology of the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway and its effects on lung health," said Cody Aros, the first author of the new paper and a UCLA graduate student. "It's also very exciting that it may act in a new way than other existing Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway inhibitors and has such low toxicity."

Since WIC1 was identified through a random drug screen, the researchers don't yet know exactly how it works, but they're planning future studies on its mechanism and safety.

The compound tested by the researchers was used in preclinical tests only and has not been tested in humans or approved by the Food and Drug Administration as safe and effective for use in humans.

The newly identified compound is covered by a patent application filed by the UCLA Technology Development Group on behalf of the Regents of the University of California, with Gomperts and Aros as co-inventors.

An auditory illusion thought to synchronize brain waves and alter mood is no more effective than other sounds, according to research in adults recently published in eNeuro. The effect reported in other studies might be a placebo but could still have helpful effects for some people.

Binaural beats are an auditory illusion caused by listening to two tones of slightly different frequency, one in each ear. The difference in frequencies creates the illusion of a third sound - a rhythmic beat. Neurons throughout the brain begin to send electrical messages at the same rate as the imaginary beat. Many unsupported claims surround binaural beats, including that listening to them decreases anxiety, increases focus, and improves mood.

Orozco Perez et al. played binaural and monoaural beats to healthy adults and measured their brain activity with electroencephalography. Monoaural beats don't rely on the illusion to create the beats because they consist of edited audio tracks of the two different tones together. Both ears hear all three sounds. Brain activity synchronized with both types of beats, but the effect was stronger with monoaural beats. Neither type of beat affected mood. When the binaural beat played, far apart brain areas synchronized with each other at a different frequency than the beat. This may be how binaural beats improve memory and focus.

HOUSTON - Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) accounts for 14% of all lung cancers and is often rapidly resistant to chemotherapy, resulting in poor clinical outcomes. Treatment has changed little for decades, but a study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found that chemotherapy results in increased heterogeneity within the tumor, leading to the evolution of multiple resistance mechanisms.

The research team, led by Lauren Averett Byers, M.D., associate professor of Thoracic/Head & Neck Medical Oncology, published their findings today in Nature Cancer. Early results were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018 in Chicago.

"There have been few therapeutic advances in the past 30 years, and platinum-based chemotherapy remains the backbone of the standard of care. As a result, five-year survival is less than 7% across all stages," Byers said. "Most patients respond well to platinum chemotherapy initially, but relapse within a few months. There are no highly effective second-line therapies when the tumor recurs."

The team found that after treatment, SCLC tumors rapidly evolve. Before treatment, SCLC is largely homogenous, with the same type of cells found throughout the tumor. Within weeks to months of treatment, many new and different types of cells appear; this diversity within the tumor is called intratumoral heterogeneity.

"Because you end up with a cancer that has multiple resistance mechanisms turned on at the same time in different cells, the cancer becomes much harder to treat," Byers said. "Some cells might be resistant through one mechanism or pathway, and other cells might be resistant through a different one. Treatment targeting one type of resistance will only kill a subset of cancer cells."

A novel method

One challenge in studying why and how SCLC chemoresistance occurs is due to the fact that biopsy or surgery isn't required to confirm cancer recurrence for most patients. This leaves investigators with few SCLC samples with which to conduct genomic and biomarker analyses of drug-resistant tumors.

To overcome the lack of recurrent SCLC samples, the team developed novel disease models by isolating circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from a simple blood draw. The cells, placed under the mouse's skin, develop tumors representative of the patient from whom they were derived. These SCLC models, called circulating tumor cell-derived xenografts (CDX), are unique to each patient and provide an opportunity to assess treatment response to therapy, as well as changes that may occur after therapy.

The investigators performed single-cell RNA sequencing on 14 CDX models to identify gene expression differences between individual cells from chemotherapy-sensitive CDX tumors compared to those that remain resistant. They also performed single-cell sequencing directly on circulating tumor cells retrieved from one patient before treatment, during treatment and after relapse.

"To our knowledge, this is the first time in solid tumors that this type of approach has been applied directly to patient blood samples with RNA sequencing analysis of individual circulating tumor cells," Byers said. "We looked at the tumor model grown from the same patient at the single-cell level before and after treatment, and we saw the same cell diversity in the circulating tumor cells from the patient."

Clinical implications and future research

Byers' lab is beginning to study what causes SCLC to evolve and develop intratumoral heterogeneity to see if the evolution can be stopped or prevented. Clinically, they hope to investigate aggressive early treatment approaches that bring new drugs to patients in the maintenance phase of treatment, before their cancer comes back. Currently, most clinical trials for SCLC enroll patients after their tumor recurs and has become chemoresistant.

"If you look at a lot of the available treatments for relapsed small cell lung cancer, it's really a minority of patients where you see any response - this study may explain why," Byers said. "The next step is to design trials that get drugs to patients earlier, before the cancer has a chance to evolve and become more complex and harder to treat."

Physical climate risk from extreme weather events remains unaccounted for in financial markets. Without better knowledge of the risk, the average energy investor can only hope that the next extreme event won't trigger a sudden correction, according to new research from University of California, Davis.

The paper, "Energy Finance Must Account for Extreme Weather Risk," was published Feb. 17 in the journal Nature Energy.

"If the market doesn't do a better job of accounting for climate, we could have a recession -- the likes of which we've never seen before," said the article's author, Paul Griffin, an accounting professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.

The central message in his latest research is that there is too much "unpriced risk" in the energy market. "Unpriced risk was the main cause of the Great Recession in 2007-2008," Griffin said. "Right now, energy companies shoulder much of that risk. The market needs to better assess risk, and factor a risk of extreme weather into securities prices," he said.

For example, excessive high temperatures, like those experienced in the United States and Europe last summer, can be deadly. Not only do they disrupt agriculture, harm human health and stunt economic growth, they also can overwhelm and shut down vast parts of energy delivery, as they did in Northern California when PG&E shut down delivery during fires and weather that could trigger fire. Extreme weather can also threaten other services such as water delivery and transportation, which in turn affects businesses, families and entire cities and regions, sometimes permanently. All of this strains local and broader economies.

"Despite these obvious risks, investors and asset managers have been conspicuously slow to connect physical climate risk to company market valuations," Griffin said in his article.

"Loss of property is what grabs all the headlines, but how are businesses coping? Threats to businesses could disrupt the entire economic system."

Climate-vulnerable locations also factor into risk for energy markets. In the United States, U.S. oil refining is located on the Gulf Coast, an area exposed to sea-level rise and intense storms. Oil refining in Benicia and Richmond, in Northern California, can be exposed to coastal flooding. Energy companies' transmission infrastructure is located in arid areas, increasing risk of damage, such as the destruction from recent wildfires in California. In addition, it is not clear insurance will be available to cover such risks. Add to those risks, Griffin said, "litigation, sanctions and even loss of business from the property destroyed.

"The climate litigation risk already priced into energy stocks (after, for example, a protracted ExxonMobil court case in the 1990s) would prove insufficient."

Extreme weather climate risk, in summary, is hard to predict.

"While proprietary climate risk models my help some firms and organizations better understand future conditions attributable to climate change, extreme weather risk is still highly problematic from a risk estimation standpoint," he concluded in the article.

"This is because with climate change, the patterns of the past are no guide to the future, whether it be one year, five years or 20 years out. Investors may also normalize extreme weather impacts over time, discounting their future importance."

The collaborative team including an expert of statistical physics from mechanical engineering science (Prof. Hanasaki) and physical chemists (Prof. Sugiyama and Prof. Yoshikawa) developed a new approach that can detect a sign of crystallization in solution before crystals were actually formed. These scientists used the optical trapping to induce crystals in solution at a location where laser was focused. Then a process of crystallization was live recorded through optical microscopy. Whereas the visual inspection tells nothing before crystal nucleation, the analysis reveals the collective motion of molecular clusters from the same movie data from long before the nucleation event.

Their findings were published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters on Nov 21st, 2019.

In general, microscopic observation of materials is carried out by scanning or transmission electron microscopy (SEM or TEM) or scanning probe microscopy (SPM). These microscopes require dry samples and only surface of these samples can be viewed. In contrast, wet materials such as biological cells can be observed by optical microscopy with lower resolution compared to that of SEM, TEM, and SPM. It is, however, difficult to visualize dynamics of highly concentrated molecular clusters in solution by these microscopes.

At the beginning of crystallization, it is known that molecules in solution form clusters with sizes far below the diffraction limit before the crystal nucleation. The cluster means a precursor of crystal, followed by the crystal nucleation, which takes place where sufficient concentration of molecular crystal precursors is reached.

"In 2018, we demonstrated a new methodology based on the algorithm that I had developed and coined the name 'particle image diffusometry' (PID), which allows us to see diffusion coefficient 'field' from the movie data obtained from the standard inverted optical microscope with white light source," said Hanasaki, the first author of the paper and an associate professor in the Institute of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), Japan. "This research was the first 'field' application of the PID, and we non-invasively observed the dynamics of crystal precursors in solution."

"The PID revealed the spatio-temporal dynamics of molecular crystal precursors before the nucleation event, based on the principle of statistical mechanics, although the visual inspection of the microscopy movie tells us nothing before nucleation," adds Hanasaki. Their results indicate that the precursors have the viscosities similar to that of honey, indicating that the material state just before the crystallization is indeed between the typical liquid and solid. "We expect that this research, the first visualization without fluorescence labelling nor tracking during crystallization, opens a new avenue for soft material handling in general. In addition, understanding of the crystal nucleation is important not only for the fundamental physics in terms of phase transition, but also for the pharmaceutical developments, where the control of crystallization protocol is required, coping with the molecular diversity," explains Hanasaki.

Okazaki, Japan - Mosquitos are hazardous insects for human, and many researchers are investigating the way to prevent from a mosquito bite. The activation of sensory receptors triggers the avoidance behaviors in animals including insects. Therefore, the researchers focused on a sensory receptor called TRPA1 which is expressed in sensory neurons and perceives noxious stimuli such as heat and chemicals in this study.

The authors compared TRPA1 from several mosquito species and found that their responses varied among species. Thermal sensitivity of TRPA1 from species inhabiting the temperate zone (Culex pipiens) was considerably higher than that from species inhabiting the tropical zone (Aedes aegypti). In concordance with the finding, Culex pipiens behaviorally avoided high temperature of 30°C, while A. aegypti did not, suggesting that thermal property of TRPA1 changed according to the thermal conditions of habitats.

Sensitivity of TRPA1 to citronella, used as an insect repellent, was also compared. TRPA1 sensitivity to citronella was highly differed among mosquito species. This implies that the effect of repellents potentially varies among species, thus species diversity should be taken into account for controlling mosquitos.

In addition, several chemical compounds that activate mosquito TRPA1 were newly found in the present study. These findings may supply informative information for the development of novel repellents for mosquitos in the future.

The article, "Diverse sensitivities of TRPA1 from different mosquito species to thermal and chemical stimuli" was published in Scientific Reports.

A two degree Centigrade increase in global average temperature will lead to catastrophic consequences for the planet. Humanity has a maximum of 20 to 30 years to prevent this. Having studied the impact of warming on countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, Georgy Safonov, https://www.hse.ru/org/persons/512771 Director of the HSE Centre for Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, warns that responding to climate change does not seem to be a top priority for the region's governments, while potential threats are assessed only in economic terms and almost never as a social challenge.

http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id-moe/15863.pdf

What's Wrong with the Weather?

Rapid Warming

The study focuses on 27 CEECCA (Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia) countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The observed pace of warming in the region is reported to be higher than the global average. According to IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) data, while the average global warming has been around 0.8°C in the last 160 years, an increase of 1°C -2.5°C has been observed in the last 112 years in CEECCA countries, with the fastest pace of warming reported in the last two decades.

Change in Precipitation

As far as precipitation is concerned, the studied countries faced major deviations from the norm between 1950 and 2012, with annual decreases of 2.5 to 50 mm per year per decade in some areas of Southern Europe, Caucasus, Central Asia and Russia and increases of 2.5 to 100 mm per year per decade in northern areas of the region. Overall, CEECCA experienced far less precipitation decrease than many of its neighbouring areas such as Southwestern Europe, the Middle East, China and Africa.

Worrying Scenarios

Higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere cause warming of the Earth's surface and greater thermal radiation. According to the most optimistic RCP2.6 scenario, CO2 concentrations are expected to reach their peak between 2010-2020 and then begin to decrease, so that the average annual temperatures in CEECCA countries may change by 1°-3°C before 2100.

The most pessimistic scenario RCP8.5 projects a consistent increase in CO2 concentrations throughout the 21st century, with temperatures in CEECCA countries rising at least by 5°-7°C before 2100.

In terms of precipitation, the optimistic RCP2.6 scenario projects a slight increase of up to 10%, while the pessimistic RCP8.5 warns that the CEECCA region may face decreases in precipitation of up to 30% in its southern parts and increases of up to 40% in other areas by the end of the 21st century.

This means that southern countries and regions will experience more frequent and dangerous droughts and heat waves, while their northern and eastern neighbours will be increasingly affected by floods, extreme rains and other hydrometeorological hazards.

Besides damaging the ecosystems and undermining the countries' economies, these changes will have diverse and dire social implications, mainly due to their impact on human health and wellbeing, life expectancy and quality of life, which are likely to deepen existing inequalities and cause unprecedented migration.

Natural Disasters: What to Expect

A two-degree C surface warming is likely to lead to the migration of some 300 million people, while at 3°C, it could leave three billion people without access to drinking water and thus provoke their relocation.

While safe drinking water is available, on average, to 84% of people in CEECCA countries, the situation in some areas is more worrying, with just 47% of the population in Tajikistan, 51% in Uzbekistan, 61% in Armenia and 66% in Kyrgyzstan having access to potable water.

Floods, shortage of safe drinking water and pollution of bodies of water could increase infection hazards. Drought-induced dust storms are capable of transporting hazardous pollutants over long distances. Rising temperatures will cause more frequent and longer heatwaves affecting people's health and leading to higher morbidity and mortality.

The 2003 heatwave in Western Europe killed 74,000 people, while the heat and air pollution caused by forest fires in the Central European part of Russia in summer 2010 claimed 54,000 lives.

Food security is also at risk. Climate change over the next 20 to 30 years will reduce the yield of cereals and other crops. Following a climate-induced rise, agricultural production has already begun to decline and is likely to suffer enormous damage in the future unless adequate climate-change adaptation measures are taken.

In Russia, severe droughts in 2010 and 2012 dramatically decreased overall crop yields by 33% and 25% respectively. Without adaptation to climate change, the annual economic loss caused by reduced crop yields in Russia could reach as much as 4 billion U.S dollars.

Melting permafrost threatens three quarters of the Arctic population and is causing damage to infrastructure such as buildings, gas pipelines, heat supply systems, etc. This is particularly important for Russia where permafrost covers two thirds of the territory.

Damage from permafrost melting has already caused more than 5,000 accidents at oil and gas pipelines and has affected roads, buildings, and power lines.
In addition to this, dangerous viruses and bacteria previously buried in frozen ground can be released and leak into rivers and other bodies of water increasing the risk of deadly infections spreading.

In Yakutia alone, there are now more than 15,000 burial sites of cattle killed by anthrax over the past few decades.

Anthrax spores can survive for more than a hundred years, and warming can cause them to be transported over long distances and potentially affect both nearby and remote regions.

Threats under Control

National reports published by CEECCA governments reveal the current level of climate change risk awareness.

Having analysed country reports under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Safonov found significant differences across the CEECCAA countries as well as a few common trends:
all countries consider rising surface air temperatures to be a major risk factor;

two-thirds of the states, in particular Armenia, Georgia and Hungary, are concerned about the impacts on health and expect them to increase and to be serious;

about half of the countries, in particular Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, are worried about the potential spread of infections;

most countries, in particular Armenia, Azerbaijan and Serbia, expect negative consequences from flooding;

one-third of the countries foresee disastrous droughts;

Albania, Slovenia and Russia are concerned about coastal erosion and rising sea levels;

mountainous countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia (Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) are aware of the risks of landslides, rockfalls and avalanches.

reduced access to water is expected in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan), Moldova and Macedonia;

Latvia and Russia are particularly concerned about climate change impacts on urban and rural infrastructure and about damage to forests;

half of the states anticipate threats to food security (food production).

Half-hearted Response

Some countries tend to emphasise the potential short-term benefits of climate change and to ignore its long-term consequences: one-third of CEECCA countries, including Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Russia and some others, believe that climate change can have a positive effect on the agricultural industry.

While higher-income countries, such as Russia and the Baltic states, are showing more progress in their climate policy, low- and medium-income economies such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, due to poor capacity for data analysis and R&D and lack of relevant skills, require international support.

The emergence of superresolution (SR) fluorescence microscopy has rejuvenated the search for new cellular sub-structures and dynamic intermediates. However, limited by the broad emission spectrum of fluorophores and excessive phototoxicity, SR fluorescence microscopy can only be used to highlight a handful of biomolecules simultaneously and is incapable of providing a holistic map of the cellular environment and landscape.

In a new paper published in Light Science & Application, scientists from the State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Frontiers Science Center for Nano-optoelectronics, Peking University, China, State Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Cardiometabolic Molecular Medicine, Institute of Molecular Medicine, Peking University, China and co-workers developed SR fluorescence-assisted diffraction computational tomography (SR-FACT), which combines label-free three-dimensional optical diffraction tomography (ODT) with two-dimensional fluorescence Hessian structured illumination microscopy. The ODT module is capable of resolving mitochondria, lipid droplets, the nuclear membrane, chromosomes, the tubular endoplasmic reticulum and lysosomes. Using dual-mode correlated live cell imaging for a prolonged period of time, they observed novel subcellular structures named dark-vacuole bodies (DBs), the majority of which originate from densely populated perinuclear regions, and intensively interact with organelles such as the mitochondria and the nuclear membrane before ultimately collapsing into the plasma membrane. This work demonstrates the unique capabilities of SR-FACT, which suggests its wide applicability in cell biology in general.

SR-FACT visualizes both the cellular landscape and the molecular identity of live cells. A new algorithm termed the vector iterative search algorithm (VISA) was developed to minimize 3D imaging reconstruction errors under high speed kHz-rate tomographic scanning scheme. As a result, SR-FACT can simultaneously utilize a maximal imaging speed to capture dynamics in live cells and to maintain sufficient photon flux for maximal sensitivity. In the SR-FACT system, the ODT module achieved an ~200-nm lateral resolution at a volumetric imaging speed of 0.8 Hz (40×40×20 ?m3). Hessian 2D-SIM, which allows SR imaging at a fraction of the photon dose used by conventional SIM, was used to guide the interpretation of structures observed by the ODT module. By performing dual-mode correlated imaging in COS-7 cells, they resolved six known organelles without labelling: the tubular endoplasmic reticulum (ER), mitochondria, late endosomes/lysosomes (LEs/LYs), LDs, the nuclear membrane and chromosomes. All these data highlight the unique advantage of SR-FACT in studying the organelle interactome. Moreover, they also observed vacuolated structures with neutral pH that contained mostly liquid in the lumen. Hour-long time-lapsed live cell SR imaging in combination with quantitative analysis reveals the unconventional trafficking routes and indispensable roles of vacuoles in organizing the organelle interactome, all of which suggests that they represent previously unappreciated organelles.

The cause of a disease often affects its treatment plan. The need to fill this gap in our understanding of disease biology is further exaggerated in the case of 'rare' diseases.

So, what is a rare disease? Currently, there is no universal definition for a rare disease since it depends on the country's population and the availability of treatment. In the case of India, a disease is considered rare if less than one person among 5000 is affected by it. In such a scenario, the hope is that efforts are intensified to understand the biology of such rare conditions, strategize treatments and thus create some respite for those affected.

Motivated by one such rare disease and its cause, a team of researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, a pathologist at the Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai and scientists at ACTREC, Navi Mumbai, joined hands to study the basis of a skin cancer known as Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). Their work, published in the journal of Microbial Pathogenesis is a first-of-its-kind study in the Indian population.

Merkel cell carcinoma is a type of cancer that triggers the uncontrolled growth of the Merkel cells of the skin. Also known as touch cells, these are found in close proximity to nerves and enable us to sense touch. Merkel cell tumors are typically caused by a combination of excessive UV-exposure, poor immunity and increased age. A change in the genetic make-up of the Merkel cells due to UV damage sometimes renders these cells to divide uncontrollably, leading to a reddish outgrowth on the skin - a sign of MCC.

More than a decade ago (2008), MCCs were also found to be associated with a virus known as the Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV). This virus, though a part of our normal skin flora, may in some cases, undergo cancer-promoting changes or 'mutations'. When such a rare version of the MCV weaves itself into the genetic material of a Merkel cell, it could lead to MCC.

"A cancer caused by a virus is unique in its own right, as it offers an external target for therapy (the viral proteins). Since MCC comes in two forms, it was essential for us to first determine whether cases seen in India are virus positive or negative. This not only helps with determining prognosis, but also in designing treatment for this cancer," say Dr. Reety Arora, cancer cell biologist and Dr. Bharat Rekhi, pathologist, the two lead authors of the paper.

From a disease perspective, does it matter if the cancer is caused by UV or by the MCV? The answer is a resounding yes. Studies in the past have shown that MCCs caused by invasion of the polyomavirus are less aggressive and show lower progression, when compared to those that are caused due to UV damage. In India, only a handful of MCC cases have been reported, but none of them had been tested for the presence of the MCV. This void in MCC biology in the Indian cohort motivated Dr Reety Arora to begin her investigations.

With collaborative efforts of Dr. Bharat Rekhi from the Tata Memorial Centre, Dr. Reety Arora managed to include cancer tissue samples from 18 primary MCC patients, 11 of whom were men and the remaining 7, women. She first used a protein lock and key technique to identify the presence of the MCV Aka immunohistochemistry, which was utilized to test samples from 18 cases in Dr. Bharat Rekhi's laboratory at TMH. This technique involves the external addition of a protein (key) that can be visualized when it finds and binds to its specific partner protein (the lock), present in the tissue sample. In this case, a protein exclusively produced by the cancer-causing MCV was used as the lock that the externally added key would latch on to. Using this detection technique, Dr. Reety Arora and Dr. Bharat Rekhi discovered that 7 out of the 18 patients showed the presence of the MCV. This is the first time any group has been able to show the presence of MCV in Merkel cell tumors of Indian patients.

To complement the previous protein based detection technique, Dr. Reety Arora, along with Dr. Amit Dutt, used an additional commonly used genetic screening method (PCR) that would help her detect the viral genetic material. Interestingly, 8 out of the 12 samples tested showed the presence of the MCV genetic material. Twenty five percent (3/12) of the samples showed the presence of MCV through both the detection techniques, indicating that most MCC cases in India were likely caused by UV-linked damages.

"Considering MCCs are associated with high tumor mutation burden and therefore cases, especially with advanced disease, are being considered for immunotherapy, their exact diagnosis including testing for MCC polyomavirus as well as differentiation from their mimics is crucial", says Dr. Bharat Rekhi.

"Our group is invested in first understanding how Merkel cell polyomavirus causes Merkel cancer and then how we can intervene in both easier diagnosis and therapy," adds Dr. Reety Arora, who is keen on following up this study and hopeful that it will find fruition someday.