Earth

Strokes, which occur when the blood supply to part of our brain is interrupted or reduced, are the leading cause of death and disability in the adult population. Among the patients who survive, 75% will experience difficulties carrying out daily activities independently and need long-term functional exercises and rehabilitation. But the outcomes using traditional rehabilitation equipment are poor. In addition, the motivation of patients to train is often low.

The Department of Neurology in Tongji Hospital, which is affiliated to Tongji Medical College at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, is recognised in China for the quality of its scientific research and clinical strength. Similarly, Zhejiang BrainCo, Ltd., incubated by the Harvard Innovation Lab, is a market leader in terms of brain-computer interfaces; considered by many the next generation of artificial intelligence technology.

In the NCyborg Project, the two organisations will draw on their expertise in brain-computer interface technology and brain-inspired intelligent robot technology to establish a stroke rehabilitation process driven by patient initiative. In a paper published in the KeAi journal Brain Hemorrhages, they outline the project's three focus areas:

1.An algorithm for analysing the movement intention of stroke patients based on brain-computer interface technology.
2. A motion control strategy for a rehabilitation robot based on brain-inspired motion perception.
3.The mechanism of stroke rehabilitation using brain-inspired intelligent robots.

They will begin by training the robot to support rehabilitation of the hand - a body part often left with limited movement following a stroke. The team aims to achieve recognition of no less than eight hand movement intentions with an accuracy rate of ?90% and a response time of ?300 ms.

Co-corresponding author, Jonh H. Zhang, explains: "The project's goal is to develop an easy-to-use, reliable and affordable stroke rehabilitation robot that will improve the rehabilitation effect for stroke survivors, speed up the rehabilitation process, and reduce the costs involved."

His co-corresponding author, Bicheng Han, adds: "Our hope is that, within five years, millions of stroke patients will be using this product and see their lives improve."

According to co-corresponding author Zhouping Tang, the 'N' in the NCyborg Project name stands for 'neural', while in fictional stories 'cyborg' is often "an icon that is enhanced mentally and/or physically over and above the 'norm' with technology. In the real word, we believe that NCyborg Project will set up a brand-new stroke rehabilitation pattern which could qualitatively improve the treatment effect for stroke survivors."

Depression has been treated traditionally with inhibitors of serotonin reuptake in the central nervous system. These drugs do not come without side effects, such as lack of immediate therapeutic action, the need for daily doses and the danger of becoming addicted to some of these drugs. That is why scientists continue to work on new therapies to treat depression.

In 2019, an international group of researchers co-led by Dr Yousef Tizabe from the Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and Professor José Aguilera from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Institut de Neurociències at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), observed that a non-toxic derivative of the tetanus neurotoxin (which causes tetanus infections) improved depression symptoms in rat animal models. "One intramuscular dosis of Hc-TeTx made depression symptoms disappear in less than 24 hours, and its effects lasted two weeks", explains Aguilera. Based on these findings, scientists began to work on discovering the mechanism through which this substance produces these effects.

In a recent study coordinated by Professor Aguilera and conducted in collaboration with the research group led by Dr Thomas Scior of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) in Mexico, researchers demonstrated that Hc-TeTx is capable of inhibiting the transport of serotonin within the central nervous system, by binding to neurotrophin receptors, proteins that induce the survival of neurons. These results, published in the journal Molecules, suggest that the drug may not only serve in treating depression, but also be useful in treating neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

According to researchers, the advantages of introducing Hc-TeTx as a new drug are evident. A biweekly or monthly dosis would allow medical professionals to control the progress. Since it is a recombinant product, there would be no problems with drug safety, production or high costs. Furthermore, in neurodegenerative cases, Hc-TeTx would stop the development of the pathology and at the same time eliminate any disease-related depressions.

Researchers recently patented the therapeutic use of Hc-TeTx for the treatment of depression, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and are now looking for investors to be able to conduct clinical trials on humans. "This is an important advance in science, and even more so now when in addition to the high incidence in depression and alterations in behaviours, we see mental alterations as a result of COVID-19 and the negative environments of stress, self-isolation or fear", Aguilera concludes.

New Brunswick, N.J. (July 9, 2021) -- A massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia about 74,000 years ago likely caused severe climate disruption in many areas of the globe, but early human populations were sheltered from the worst effects, according to a Rutgers-led study.

The findings appear in the journal PNAS.

The eruption of the Toba volcano was the largest volcanic eruption in the past two million years, but its impacts on climate and human evolution have been unclear. Resolving this debate is important for understanding environmental changes during a key interval in human evolution.

"We were able to use a large number of climate model simulations to resolve what seemed like a paradox," said lead author Benjamin Black, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. "We know this eruption happened and that past climate modeling has suggested the climate consequences could have been severe, but archaeological and paleoclimate records from Africa don't show such a dramatic response.

"Our results suggest that we might not have been looking in the right place to see the climate response. Africa and India are relatively sheltered, whereas North America, Europe and Asia bear the brunt of the cooling," Black said. "One intriguing aspect of this is that Neanderthals and Denisovans were living in Europe and Asia at this time, so our paper suggests evaluating the effects of the Toba eruption on those populations could merit future investigation."

The researchers analyzed 42 global climate model simulations in which they varied magnitude of sulfur emissions, time of year of the eruption, background climate state and sulfur injection altitude to make a probabilistic assessment of the range of climate disruptions the Toba eruption may have caused. This approach let the team account for some of the unknowns related to the eruption.

"By using a probabilistic approach, we aim at understanding the likelihood that some regions were less impacted by Toba, considering the wide range of estimates of its size and timing, in addition to our lack of knowledge of the underlying climate state," said Black.

The results suggest there was likely significant regional variation in climate impacts. The simulations predict cooling in the Northern Hemisphere of at least 4°C, with regional cooling as high as 10°C depending on the model parameters. In contrast, even under the most severe eruption conditions, cooling in the Southern Hemisphere -- including regions populated by early humans -- was unlikely to exceed 4°C, although regions in southern Africa and India may have seen decreases in precipitation at the highest sulfur emission level.

The results explain independent archaeological evidence suggesting the Toba eruption had modest effects on the development of hominid species in Africa. According to the authors, their ensemble simulation approach could be used to better understand other past and future explosive eruptions.

"Our results reconcile the simulated distribution of climate impacts from the eruption with paleoclimate and archaeological records," according to the study. "This probabilistic view of climate disruption from Earth's most recent super-eruption underscores the uneven expected distribution of societal and environmental impacts from future very large explosive eruptions."

Why do some Europeans discriminate against Muslim immigrants, and how can these instances of prejudice be reduced? Political scientist Nicholas Sambanis has spent the last few years looking into this question by conducting innovative studies at train stations across Germany involving willing participants, unknowing bystanders and, most recently, bags of lemons.

His newest study, co-authored with Donghyun Danny Choi at the University of Pittsburgh and Mathias Poertner at Texas A&M University, was published July 8 in the American Journal of Political Science and finds evidence of significant discrimination against Muslim women during everyday interactions with native Germans. That evidence comes from experimental interventions set up on train platforms across dozens of German cities and reveals that discrimination by German women is due to their beliefs that Muslims are regressive with respect to women's rights. In effect, their experiment finds a feminist opposition to Muslims, and shows that discrimination is eliminated when Muslim women signaled that they shared progressive gender attitudes, says Sambanis, who directs the Penn Identity and Conflict Lab (PIC Lab), which he founded when he came to Penn in 2016.

Many studies in psychology have shown bias and discrimination are rooted in a sense that ethnic, racial, or religious differences create distance between citizens, he says. "Faced with waves of immigration from culturally different populations, many Europeans are increasingly supporting policies of coercive assimilation that eliminate those sources of difference by suppressing ethnic or religious marker, for example, by banning the hijab in public places or forcing immigrants to attend language classes," Sambanis says. "Our research shows that bias and discrimination can be reduced via far less coercive measures--as long as immigration does not threaten core values that define the social identities of native populations."

"The Hijab Effect: Feminist Backlash to Muslim Immigrants" is the fourth study in a multiyear project on the topic of how to reduce prejudice against immigrants conducted by Sambanis and the team. The study's co-authors, Choi and Poertner, started working on this project as postdoctoral fellows at the PIC Lab.

The new paper builds on the first leg of the project which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019 and which explored whether discrimination against immigrants is reduced when immigrants show that they share civic norms that are valued by native citizens. That study found evidence that shared norms reduce but do not eliminate discrimination. The new study explores the impact of norms and ideas that are important to particular subgroups of the native population, and finds stronger effects when such norms are shared by immigrants.

The findings have implications for how to think about reducing conflict between native and immigrant communities in an era of increased cross-border migration, Sambanis says.

He and his co-authors conducted the large-scale field experiment in 25 cities across Germany involving more than 3,700 unknowing bystanders.

"Germany was a good case study because it has received the largest number of asylum applications in Europe since 2015, a result of the refugee crisis created by wars in Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Central Asia," Sambanis says. "Germany has had a long history of immigration from Muslim countries since the early post-war period, and anti-immigrant sentiments have been high as a result of cultural differences. These differences are manipulated politically and become more salient."

The intervention went like this: A woman involved in the study approached a bench at a train station where bystanders waited and drew their attention by asking them if they knew if she could buy tickets on the train.

She then received a phone call and audibly conversed with the caller in German regarding her sister, who was considering whether to take a job or stay at home and take care of her husband and her kids. The scripted conversation revealed the woman's position on whether her sister has the right to work or a duty to stay at home to care for the family.

At the end of the phone call, a bag she was holding seemingly tears, making her drop a bunch of lemons, which scatter on the platform and she appeared to need help gathering them.

In the final step, team members who were not a part of the intervention observed and recorded whether each bystander who was within earshot of the phone call helped the women collect the lemons.

They experimentally varied the identity of the woman, who was sometimes a native German or an immigrant from the Middle East; and the immigrant sometimes wore a hijab to signal her Muslim identity and sometimes not.

They found that men were not very receptive to different messages regarding the woman's attitude toward gender equality, but German women were. Among German women, anti-Muslim discrimination was eliminated when the immigrant woman signaled that she held progressive views vis-à-vis women's rights. Men continued to discriminate in both the regressive and progressive conditions of the experiment.

It was a surprise that the experimental treatment did not seem to make a big difference in the behavior of men towards Muslim women.

"Women were very receptive to this message that we had about Muslims sharing progressive beliefs about women's rights, but men were indifferent to it," says Sambanis. "We expected that there would be a difference, and that the effect of the treatment would be larger among women, but we did not expect that it would be basically zero for men."

The experiment makes gender identity more salient and establishes a common identity between native German women--most of whom share progressive views on gender--and the immigrant women in the progressive condition. This is the basis of the reduction of discrimination, Sambanis says, and it does not require coercive measures like forcing Muslims to take off the hijab. "You can overcome discrimination in other ways, but it is important to signal that that the two groups share a common set of norms and ideas that define appropriate civic behaviors."

The results are surprising from the perspective of the prior literature, which assumed that it is very hard for people to overcome barriers created by race, religion, and ethnicity. At the same time, this experiment speaks to the limits of multiculturalism, says Sambanis. "Our work shows that differences in ethnic, racial, or linguistic traits can be overcome, but citizens will resist abandoning longstanding norms and ideas that define their identities in favor of a liberal accommodation of the values of others," he says.

One of the things the human brain naturally excels at is recognizing all sorts of patterns, such as stripes on zebras, shells of turtles, and even the structure of crystals. Thanks to our progress in math and the natural sciences, we are not limited to just seeing the patterns; we can also understand how they readily originate out of pure randomness.

A notable example of different natural patterns with a single mathematical explanation are Turing patterns. Conceived in 1952 by the renowned mathematician Alan Turing, these patterns arise as the solutions to a set of differential equations that describe the diffusion and reaction of chemicals satisfying a few conditions. Going well beyond pure chemistry, Turing demonstrated that such equations explain, to a remarkably precise degree, how spots, stripes, and other types of macroscopic patterns appear spontaneously in nature. Turing patterns also play a role in morphogenesis--the process by which living organisms develop their shape. Surprisingly, the underlying mechanisms behind Turing patterns are preserved across vastly different scales, from centimeters in animal pigmentation to micrometers in purely chemical systems. Does this mean that Turing patterns could be found at the nanometer scale, in the positions of individual atoms?

Associate Professor Yuki Fuseya from the University of Electro-Communications, Japan, has recently found that the answer is a resounding yes! A specialist on bismuth (Bi) and its applications in condensed-matter physics, Dr. Fuseya never imagined working with Turing patterns, which are mostly studied in mathematical biology. However, on noticing some mysterious periodic stripes he had seen in Bi monoatomic layers, Dr. Fuseya got the wild idea they might actually be Turing patterns. And after three years of trial and error, he finally found success!

In a study published in Nature Physics, Dr. Fuseya led a research team (which included Hiroyasu Katsuno from Hokkaido University, Japan, Kamran Behnia from PSL Research University, France, and Aharon Kapitulnik, Stanford University, USA) that found concrete evidence that Turing patterns can appear at much smaller scales than previously thought.

The finding of the mysterious Bi stripes was serendipitous; the researchers originally intended to produce a Bi monolayer on a niobium diselenide substrate for studying two-dimensional physical phenomena. What they saw was a pattern of stripes with a period of five atoms, or about 1.7 nm, with Y-shaped junctions. These stripes bore a striking resemblance to those found in some species of tropical fish, which naturally arise as one of Turing patterns. Inspired by this observation, Dr. Fuseya's team studied the Bi monolayer problem in more detail from a theoretical standpoint.

The team developed a mathematical model explaining the underlying physical forces in a way that is consistent with the dynamic diffusion-reaction equations that produce Turing patterns. In this model, the interactions between Bi-Bi pairs, Bi and selenium (Se) pairs, and bond angles in Bi-Bi-Bi triplets were considered. The researchers carried out numerical simulations and verified that the generated patterns accurately resembled the previous experimental findings.

These unprecedented findings pave the way towards a new research direction in nanoscale physics that can consider, and even exploit, Turing patterns. "Based on our findings, we may remove undesirable patterns and make perfectly flat thin films, which are crucial for nanoelectronics. On the other hand, we could use Turing patterns as building blocks for new devices to study unexplored areas of physics," highlights Dr. Fuseya. Another attractive aspect of Turing patterns is that they are not static, despite their appearance. Instead, they are in a state of dynamic equilibrium, which means they can "repair" themselves if they are damaged. "We found that Bi, an inorganic solid, is capable of wound healing just like living creatures. This property could lead to new techniques for producing nanoscale devices by combining diffusion and reaction phenomena," remarks Dr. Fuseya.

It is fascinating to think that order can emerge from randomness in the exact same way at scales that are multiple orders of magnitude apart. This study makes it evident how connections are formed in nature at every scale, from the pigmentation of tropical fish to nanoscale crystal growth!

The ratios between the lengths of the second and fourth fingers, known as the 2D:4D ratio, are different in males and females, which is often explained by levels of androgens and oestrogens. However, an alternative theory states that men have bigger body parts, including fingers, which impacts the 2D:4D ratio. A research team including HSE University scholars refuted this hypothesis by collecting data on finger length from 7,500 people. The results of the study were published in Scientific Reports. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87394-6

The assumption with 2D:4D ratio is that the ring finger in men is longer than the index finger, while in women, these fingers have equal length or the index finger is longer than the ring one. It is believed that the ratio is due to differences in sex hormones -- androgens and oestrogens -- particularly during prenatal development.

However, not all researchers agree with this theory. Some believe that 2D:4D ratio differences are only due to differences in total finger length and their uneven growth (allometry) in men and women, which is related to specifics in bone or fat tissue development; prenatal hormone levels don't play any role.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers collected data on finger length and 2D:4D ratio from over 7,500 people, including representatives of the three big races, different ages and nationalities; they then compared the 2D:4D ratios and finger lengths in these cohorts.

It had been assumed that if differences in total finger lengths rather than sexes impact the 2D:4D ratios, then these two indicators will be correlated. But the data analysis showed no evidence of this: sex differences in 2D:4D ratios were present in all nationalities and ages, while finger lengths in men and women varied. In addition, boys and girls under 13 had about the same finger lengths, while the 2D:4D ratios were already present.

The lack of correlation between total finger length and 2D:4D ratio does not confirm the alternative explanation of the ratio differences in males and females based on allometry hypothesis. It is likely that sex and sex hormone levels directly impact the 2D:4D ratio.

'2D:4D ratio is a sexually dimorphic characteristic, while its degree in total and in sex differences varies from population to population. These variations can be explained by both genetic factors and specific environmental factors, such as nutrition and stress levels,' explained Marina Butovskaya https://www.hse.ru/en/org/persons/26536446, Chief Research Fellow at the HSE International Centre of Anthropology. 'The 2D:4D ratio can't be considered a universal masculinization marker, but it makes sense to use it among other indicators to evaluate the risks of oestrogen abundance in embryos and the possible consequences for human health.'

You have probably often said to yourself: "This time, I will only buy what I need!" But then you still ended up coming home with things that were not on your shopping list.

How can you prevent such impulse buying? A team from the Chair of Psychology II at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, looked at this question. The answer is not that simple, says psychologist Dr Anand Krishna. It depends on what type of person you are: a pleasure-seeker or a person who focuses on security.

Anand Krishna and his JMU colleagues Sophia Ried and Marie Meixner have published their results in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Sometimes you buy out of curiosity, sometimes you want to indulge yourself

Sometimes you buy spontaneously, out of pure curiosity. For example, there's a treat you've never tried before. Or you want to treat yourself to something. It could be a chocolate bar, a pretty decorative piece for the living room or a great pair of jeans.

Sometimes you're really happy about the spontaneous purchase. Sometimes, you have a guilty conscience: Money is already tight! However, many people manage to suppress the impulse to reach for a chocolate bar. And they do so when they are in a situation in which they are particularly sensitive to risks.

Dr Krishna emphasises that it is not possible to say that certain customers are predisposed to impulse buying. However, the research results so far give a clue as to how people who want to protect themselves from such purchases should proceed.

How to protect yourself from impulse buying

According to the JMU psychologist, people of pleasure are spontaneous by nature. If they are feeling well and are geared to enjoyment, they will spontaneously reach for an article that promises to give them even more pleasure. At the same time, a relatively small impulse is enough for these people to stop themselves from making a spontaneous purchase: "This can be, for example, a small note in the wallet that says 'Stop!' or something similar," says Krishna.

Then there are the security-oriented people. For them, a warning note in the wallet alone would not help. Security people need time. And in general: even impulse buying does not happen so quickly with them. "Does this really taste as good as it looks?" Such thoughts may go through their minds at the sight of a fine chocolate. They also need more time to say "No!" to the treat. It seems to help them more if they look more often at a note saying "No impulse buying today!" when walking through the shop.

Security people take a tad longer

The research results are interesting especially since one might actually think that security-oriented people are generally more likely to avoid impulse purchases. But this is not the case. If they are in a positive motivational state, they are just as tempted to treat themselves to something good as pleasure-seekers. The big difference is that no matter what they end up doing, it takes them a tad longer cognitively to act.

These findings arose from a laboratory study with around 250 participants. Two experiments were conducted.

The results are interesting for marketing, but also for consumer protection. "The latter because impulse buying can be a problematic and undesirable behaviour for many people," says Anand Krishna. To help, it is important to know that there are two types of people, that different cognitive processes necessitate different methods to prevent impulse buying, and most importantly, that the current situation plays a big role.

Motivational state plays an important role

They have honestly earned the reward in the form of a new pair of jeans, the pleasure-seeker thinks - and buys spontaneously, following what is called in psychology a promotion focus. "Let's say they had ice cream shortly before, so they're attending to rewards and pleasure anyway, and use the chance to get even more pleasure," explains the JMU researcher.

The situation is different if the pleasure-seeker has just come from a conversation at their bank. Despite their basic orientation towards pleasure, the risks of spending too much money are active in their mind. They suppress their impulse and walk past the great pair of jeans, even without much time for reflection.

Goods that certain customers might gladly buy on one day are therefore left behind on another. This is what the results from the Würzburg psychology department suggest. And this is independent of how they are presented. Because it seems to depend on the emotional state in which the customers enter the shop.

The question of what security-oriented customers do when they have to act under time pressure is still open. For example, if they don't want to buy the chocolate bar because they stood on the scales in the morning and they showed two kilos too much. Maybe they still reach for the candy when they have to hurry to the checkout, because there is not enough time to reflect. But more experiments are needed to clarify this.

Seismic waves passing through the ground near Longyearbyen in the Adventdalen valley, Svalbard, Norway have been slowing down steadily over the past three years, most likely due to permafrost warming in the Arctic valley.
The trend, reported in a new study published in Seismological Research Letters, demonstrates how seismic monitoring can be used to track permafrost stability under global climate change. The study is part of a focus section in an upcoming issue of the journal on Arctic and Antarctic seismology.

Julie Albaric of the University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté, while employed at NORSAR (Norway), and colleagues used data collected from a variety of seismic networks and active seismic experiments to learn more about the seismic environment of the Adventdalen valley of Svalbard, and to understand more about the dynamics of permafrost in the region.

The researchers were able to detect seasonal variations in seismic wave velocity, which they attribute to changes in the ice content of shallow (2 to 4 meters deep) permafrost. Seismic waves move faster through solid materials like rock and ice, and slower through more liquid or softer material.

Shallow permafrost is sensitive to seasonal temperature changes, which would explain the seasonal variations in seismic velocity uncovered by Albaric, Daniela Kühn at NORSAR and their colleagues. But the researchers also found a linear decreasing trend in velocity between 2009 and 2011 after analyzing data collected by a permanent seismic network in the area, indicating an increasingly melted permafrost layer.

"To our knowledge it's the first study showing this long-term velocity trend," said Albaric. "Our study demonstrates that it is worth maintaining permanent observatories, such long-term data collections are precious, and that options for data use may turn up that were not the focus of the original installation."

Researchers are looking for ways to monitor permafrost because its stability can have a significant impact on global climate, with widespread melting potentially leading to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Seismic monitoring can be a powerful tool to detect permafrost changes, especially since data are recorded continuously unlike some other geophysical methods, Albaric said. "In addition, seismic methods are very sensitive and depending on the network geometry, they allow us to target different depths and to cover large areas, allowing us to extend the very localized observations provided by borehole temperature measurements."

The ambient seismic activity noise on Svalbard consists of body waves (which move through the interior of the Earth), along with intermittent surface waves that occur when the average temperature rises above the freezing point. These surface waves have a cryogenic origin, the research team suggests.

The challenging Arctic environment makes it difficult to deploy, maintain and retrieve data from the networks, Kühn noted. "In the summer, for instance, the valley fills with a broad, braided river that limits where permanent seismometers can be installed. In the winter, cold temperatures, snow and ice are harsh on equipment and shrink the time when power can be supplied by solar panels."

"Meteorological conditions obviously make field work challenging," added Albaric, "particularly when installing the stations and using a keyboard without gloves at temperatures below -30°C."

What happens when climate change affects the abundance and distribution of fish? Fishers and fishing communities in the Northeast United States have adapted to those changes in three specific ways, according to new research published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Becca Selden, Wellesley College assistant professor of biological sciences, and a team of colleagues examined how fishing communities have responded to documented shifts in the location of fluke and of red and silver hake. The team found that fishers made three distinct changes to their approaches: following the fish to a new location; fishing for a different kind of fish; and bringing their catch to shore at another port of landing.

Selden began this research as a postdoctoral scholar at Rutgers University in New Jersey with Eva Papaioannou, now a scientist at GEOMAR. They combined quantitative data on fish availability from surveys conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and a unique geographic information system database from fishing trip records developed for this project. The researchers then interviewed fishers in 10 ports from North Carolina to Maine.

They explored three dominant strategies, and found that fishers throughout the Northeast were more likely to shift their target species. In interviews, the researchers learned that targeting a mix of species is a critical option for adaptation. Doing so can be complicated, however, because in many cases regulations and markets (or the lack of a market) constrain fishers' ability to take advantage of a changing mix of species in fishing grounds. For example, in Point Pleasant, N.J., fishers can't capitalize on an increase in dogfish in the region because of strict conservation measures that have been in place since 1988, when the species was declared over-fished, and the resulting absence of a market for those fish.

"Most communities tend to fish where they have fished for generations, and therefore, for any fishery management plan to be more climate-ready in the future, it needs to take that into account," Selden said. "They're less likely to move where they fish, more likely to switch what they fish, but only if they can, and regulations play a big role in that being successful."

The researchers also learned about a previously undescribed strategy in which fishers change where they bring the fish ashore to sell. This is particularly common for vessels coming from northern fishing communities that sell fluke in Beaufort, N.C. "Had we not combined the quantitative data with the in-depth interviews with community members, we would have totally missed the phenomenon we saw come to light in Beaufort," Papaioannou said. "It made for such a powerful way of analyzing the data, so that we were really using it to influence the questions we would ask in each interview, and the interviews would drive what we would examine in the quantitative data. I think that approach really made for a much more complete look at the impact of changes in species distribution and fishers' adaptations."

Of the fishing communities they studied, only the one in Beaufort used the tactic of following fish to new grounds. Unlike communities in the north, fishers in Beaufort have targeted fluke heavily in the past, and because the port is on the southern edge of the range for this species they are more vulnerable as the species shifts north. "Beaufort fishers have gone to tremendous lengths to keep fishing fluke," Selden said, "and following fish to new grounds brings its own constraints and concerns." These include the cost of increased fuel use, safety issues due to vessel size, and the local environmental knowledge needed to fish successfully in new locations.

All of these responses are intertwined, Selden said, so as we learn more about the effects of climate change on the future of fishing, understanding, predicting, and planning for any one of them will require examining all three together.

The researchers focused on the Northeast because it has been a hotspot of recent ocean warming, especially in the Gulf of Maine, and in some ways it is a harbinger of what other areas might be experiencing soon, Selden said. Along the East Coast, she said, "you have species that have these state-by-state regulations, you're passing through different jurisdictions and three different fisheries management councils, and species are crossing boundaries all over the place. This all has an impact on fishers, their behavior, and their communities."

Selden plans to continue this work on the West Coast--where there are only three states and one fishery management council--to compare how stable their fishing grounds are and how much fishers are switching species versus shifting where they fish.

"Fisheries are really on the frontline of climate impacts," Selden said. "It's really a bipartisan issue, and there are stakeholders across party lines. That was my motivation to focus on how communities are adapting, how they've adapted to past change. We need to be able to understand how they might adapt to future change and potentially how we would need to change management to facilitate some of the adaptations that they are already demonstrating."

The team is building a website that fishers and communities can use to see some of these patterns and learn more about what their counterparts elsewhere are doing about them. Community leaders and fishery management officials could also use the information to promote a broader understanding of the issues and potentially prioritize fishery development projects or plan for where a species will go next.

A multi-institutional study has discovered spontaneous mutations in RNF2 (RING2) gene as the underlying cause of a novel neurological disorder. This Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) study was led by Dr. Shinya Yamamoto, investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children's Hospital and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, and Dr. Vandana Shashi at Duke University Medical Center. Using a combination of comprehensive clinical tests, trio genome sequencing and functional studies in the fruit flies, and global gene matchmaking efforts, the teams found loss-of-function variants in RNF2 gene disrupt normal neuronal development and function that likely resulted in a wide gamut of symptoms from severe intellectual disabilities, hypotonia, impaired motor skills, epilepsy, growth retardation, seizures and feeding difficulties in two affected individuals. The study appeared in the journal Human Molecular Genetics.

The UDN is a National Institutes of Health-funded research study that brings together clinical and research experts from across the United States to solve the most challenging medical mysteries using advanced technologies. This often involves severely affected patients who, despite years of testing, are unable to get a definitive diagnosis for their medical problems - the crucial first step towards receiving appropriate treatment, support and clinical care.

This study was initiated with the enrollment of an adolescent female patient with the above-mentioned symptoms at one of the UDN's Clinical sites at Duke University. Initially, researchers at Dr. Shashi's lab at Duke performed a whole slew of genetic tests, all of which came back negative. Next, they performed trio whole-exome sequencing, a relatively newer sequencing technology that compares the DNA sequences of the parents and the affected individuals to identify a potential genetic alteration that might explain these symptoms. Using this method, they found this patient carried a rare mis-sense variant in the RNF2 gene, which was not present in genomes of either parent, indicating that the mutation arose spontaneously in the patient's genome.

RNF2 belongs to a large family of evolutionarily conserved Polycomb group genes that encode about 20 proteins critical for brain and skeletal development and function. Mutations in 12 genes that encode proteins of this complex are known to be associated with neurological disorders. However, RNF2 variants had never been linked to a disease before. To identify more patients with this new mutation, the team utilized GeneMatcher, a web tool developed as part of the Baylor-Hopkins Center for Mendelian Genomics for rare disease researchers. This helped them find a younger female patient in France who had a different mis-sense variant in the same gene and suffered from similar symptoms. This was an exciting finding because it suggested that variations in RNF2 were the likely culprit behind these patients' symptoms and linked RNF2 to a novel neurological disorder. However, to firmly establish a causal relationship between RNF2 variants and the new disease pathology, they needed to better understand the biological consequence of the variants found in the two patients, ideally in an in vivo animal model.

The UDN's Model Organisms Screening Core (MOSC) led by Drs. Hugo Bellen, Shinya Yamamoto and Michael Wangler at the NRI and Baylor carried out this task by using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Fruit flies are excellent model systems to test the function of variants identified in disease patients, and MOSC researchers have used this strategy to identify more than 20 new disease gene discoveries in the past few years. When the MOSC team expressed mutated versions of this gene in fruit flies, they were unable to functionally rescue i.e., compensate for the loss of function of this gene, which is in contrast to what they observed when they expressed the normal version of this gene in flies.

"Using fruit flies as a 'living test tube,' we demonstrated that loss-of-function mutations in RNF2 were likely the molecular cause of the symptoms in the two patients," Yamamoto said. "This makes RNF2 the thirteenth Polycomb group gene to be linked to human disease. Although the incidence of each of these dozen diseases that arise from mutations in Polycomb genes is very rare, it is likely they share similar underlying pathogenic mechanisms. Therefore, we propose the term 'polycombopathies' to group and study them together."

While further studies will be needed to better define the clinical spectrum and pathologies of this disorder caused by RNF2, the team is particularly excited by the future therapeutic possibilities that this investigation has opened up.

"Many drugs that modulate the activity of Polycomb group proteins and their interacting partners are currently being studied in the context of various cancers and there is mounting evidence pointing towards convergence in the disease pathologies of cancer and rare neurological diseases at the molecular level, which will greatly facilitate our goal to find therapies for 'Polycombopathies", Yamamoto added.

July 8, 2021 - Women with recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) experience frustration related to their treatment - particularly the risks from repeated use of antibiotics, according to a focus group study in The Journal of Urology®, Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

"This study was prompted by our experience treating countless women with recurrent UTIs referred to our specialized Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery center," comments senior author Ja-Hong Kim, MD, of UCLA Center of Women's Pelvic Health. "The vast majority were understandably dissatisfied with their care pathway, which was primarily antibiotic-focused with minimal effort spent on patient education and prevention strategies."

Lead author Victoria C.S. Scott, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Beverly Hills, Calif adds, "It's important for patients with this chronic condition to feel empowered in sharing their concerns with physicians regarding their health, quality of life and medical treatment and for physicians to respond to these concerns."

New strategies needed 'to minimize and target antibiotic use'

More than half of women will develop a UTI sometime during their lives, and about one-fourth experience recurrent UTIs. Episodes of UTI have a major impact on patients' lives - including pain and other symptoms, reduced quality of life, and repeated courses of antibiotics for prevention and treatment.

"In our experience, many patients labelled with recurrent UTI are either misdiagnosed or mistreated without following the guidelines set forth by specialty societies," says Dr. Kim. "It became clear that a paradigm shift in recurrent UTI management was needed, starting with patient-centered research to assess gaps in the current UTI treatment algorithm." The researchers performed a series of focus groups, with a total of 29 patients participating.

Analysis of the discussions identified several themes related to negative effects associated with antibiotic use. The women were well aware of the risks of developing antibiotic resistance and collateral damage from overuse or inappropriate use of antibiotics. Some patients developed infection with antibiotic-resistant C. difficile bacteria, in one case leading to hospitalization.

The patients also voiced concern about taking antibiotics when they didn't have an infection. Many believed they had been given antibiotics for other causes of urinary symptoms - particularly overactive bladder, which commonly occurs in women with recurrent UTIs but causes less-severe symptoms.

Other themes centered on resentment of the medical profession. The women expressed irritation with physicians for "throwing antibiotics" at them without presenting other, non-antibiotic options for treating recurrent UTIs. They also felt the medical profession underestimated the impact of recurrent UTIs on their lives. The women felt an urgent need for more research on non-antibiotic options, with a special interest in "natural" or "alternative" treatments for prevention of recurrent UTIs.

However, some women shared they were satisfied with their care - particularly those treated by a physician specializing in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. Patients were more likely to be satisfied if they felt their doctor understood their problems and had a system for rapid diagnosis and treatment when UTI episodes occurred.

"Physicians must investigate patients' recurrent UTI experiences and their perceptions of antibiotics during counseling to address their concern over antibiotic overuse," says Dr. Scott. The researchers follow and recommend a strategy of delaying antibiotics until urine culture results are available - as endorsed by the American Urological Association (AUA) and other specialty societies.

Dr. Kim concludes: "There are exciting research developments underway, including the utilization of point-of-care rapid diagnostic assays to accurately and selectively treat UTIs as well as studies to understand the impact of vaginal microbiome on voiding dysfunction. We hope these efforts will pave the way to improved patient experience."

URBANA, Ill. - If you've ever been to an eye doctor, there's a good chance you've felt the sudden puff of air to the eye that constitutes a traditional test for glaucoma. It's no one's favorite experience, but the puff is non-invasive and harmless.

Scientists use a similar method to test learning and memory in animals and humans. Like Pavlov's classic experiments linking a neutral stimulus with a physiological response, the eyeblink test pairs a light or sound with a quick puff of air to the eye. With repetition, the animal learns to close its eye, or blink, in response to the light or sound only. It's called associative learning, and the response is ruled by a brain region known as the cerebellum.

While the eyeblink test has been around since 1922, it had never been attempted in pigs until now. In a new study in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, researchers prove the eyeblink test works in 3-week-old pigs, a model species for nutritional neuroscience research in human infants.

"The idea is, if we can improve structural development in the brain through nutritional interventions, it should take pigs fewer trials to learn the rule. We're in the process of assessing the nutrition piece now, but we had to get the test to work first," says Ryan Dilger, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois and co-author on the study.

Dilger specializes in the effects of nutrition on the developing brain, with much of his work feeding directly into the infant formula industry. He uses neonatal pigs because, unlike rodents, their brain anatomy and structure, gut physiology, and nutritional requirements are strikingly similar to human infants.

Dilger's team typically studies pig brain response to new ingredients through magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, which focuses on the structure and size of various brain regions. They also rely on well-validated behavioral tasks, such as novel object recognition, that reflect activity in the hippocampus and striatum, some of the brain regions related to learning and memory.

But Dilger wanted a tool to specifically assess cognitive processing in the cerebellum. That's when he turned to Henk-Jan Boele and Sebastiaan Koekkoek, eyeblink specialists and neuroscientists at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Although humans and all sorts of animals have undergone the eyeblink test, the behavioral paradigm had never been validated for pigs.

"For human and mouse eyeblink conditioning, we use completely different systems," says Boele, a postdoctoral researcher with dual appointments at Erasmus and Princeton University. "Humans are easy to instruct, usually are very cooperative, and sit still during the experiment, which makes it easy to deliver the puff and measure the eyelid. Mice are mostly head-fixed during the experiment, which makes it easy to deliver the air puff and measure the eyelid. Pigs, instead, were a challenge because we did not want to fixate their head. It was really difficult to reliably deliver the air puff and measure the eyelid responses.

"We tried video cameras, diodes, and all kinds of things, to capture the blink. And we had to use a piece of equipment to deliver the air puff that was very close to the eye to avoid any delays. We need really sharp, short puffs that are not invasive for the animal but are still very precisely timed. So that was a challenge," he says.

The solution was taping a short piece of air tubing next to one eye, and pasting magnetic sensors on the forehead and eyelid to record the blink. The system measured the eyeblink down to the millisecond.

And yes, Boele puffed himself in the eye to test out the system. It worked. "Oh yes, I blinked," he laughs.

To ensure the pigs had free head movement but didn't get up and run around, the researchers placed them in a custom-built sound-dampening box fitted with a pig-sized hammock.

It was apparently very comfy.

Sangyun Joung, a doctoral student in the Neuroscience Program at Illinois and co-author on the study, says, "Each pig had five days of training to habituate them to the hammock and the testing environment. By day three, they were very relaxed, to the point where some of them were literally falling asleep. That was a little challenge for us during the analysis, because that definitely influenced their responses. But it also told us this whole behavior paradigm is not stressful for them. For us, it was interesting and frustrating at the same time."

Once the pigs were used to the setup, the real work began. The pigs did a series of eight tests in a row. The first was the air puff only, to measure the eyeblink reflex. The next six tests paired a small blue LED light with the air puff. The light came on for half a second, 500 milliseconds, and right at the end, with the light still on, the air puff was delivered. That last part, with both the light on and the air puffing, lasted a tiny 50 milliseconds. The final test was the light only - no puff.

The researchers repeated each set of eight tests five times on each of five consecutive days. The time between tests varied a bit to keep the pigs guessing.

"It wasn't just on and off, once per second. The system waits until the eye is in a stable place, and then repeats the test at random times so the pigs can't anticipate the puff," Dilger says.

But they did learn, over the course of the five-day experiment, to anticipate the puff. Pretty soon, pigs were closing their eyes at exactly the 500-millisecond mark during the eighth trial - the one with a light but no puff.

"The timing is perfect. If you look at the conditioned eyelid responses, you can see that the eyelid is closed exactly at the moment the puff would have been delivered," Boele says. "Just perfect motor timing, down to the millisecond. That's beautiful."

The research team learned something else about pigs they hadn't known before.

"We learned that pigs can just close one eye at a time; they can wink. We weren't sure about that, actually," Dilger says. "But because they are pigs, they will frustrate you all day long. Some pigs would just lay there with their one eye closed, which meant we couldn't use that that particular subject. They're smart creatures."

The eyeblink test specifically targets activity in the cerebellum, the part of the brain responsible for making quick, unconscious predictions. These predictions relate to motor responses, such as where to step while you're walking; and cognitive processes, such as predicting what someone is going to say next in a conversation.

"The cerebellum is making short-term predictions all the time, continuously. It's essential to interact with our environment. When we think about learning and memory, often we think about really complex cognitive things, but most of our daily life behavior is just smooth, automatic interactions with our environment," Boele says. "In eyeblink conditioning, your cerebellum basically solves the problem for you. You don't have to think about it. It's making this short-term prediction, and that's what we are studying."

Pigs are born with a more developed cerebellum than human babies. That's clear from eyeblink conditioning tests Boele has done with six-to-eight-month-old infants; they don't typically learn the task at that age.

Unlike humans, pigs need to be able to make motor and cognitive predictions right away, since they can get up and walk around minutes after birth. When Dilger studies the pig cerebellum using MRI, which focuses mostly on structure, he typically doesn't see much change due to nutritional interventions. That's because the cerebellum is more developed at birth in the pig, which makes them a precocial species. But nutritional changes might alter the functioning of the brain region. That is what the eyeblink test will tell him in future studies.

"Often, function follows structure, but not always. Having a nutritional deficiency may show a deficit in eyeblink conditioning, this associative learning task," he says. "We want to be able to use a nutritional intervention as a relatively non-invasive way of understanding cerebellar development here."

Feeling anxious about health, family or money is normal for most people--especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. But for those with anxiety disorders, these everyday worries tend to heighten even when there is little or no reason to be concerned.

Researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine recently studied the behaviors associated with anxiety--published in Psychopharmacology--examining how biological factors impact anxiety disorders, specifically in females. They found that anxiety in females intensifies when there's a specific, life-relevant condition.

The team, led by Thatiane De Oliveira Sergio, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Woody Hopf, PhD, professor of psychiatry and primary investigator at Stark Neurosciences Research Institute, studied male and female rodent models to better understand sex differences in biological responses related to anxiety.

Anxiety disorders occur in twice as often in women than men, and social and cultural factors likely play an important role in the development of anxiety in females, De Oliveira said.

The COVID-19 pandemic heavily influenced anxiety in people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in June 2020--a few months into the pandemic--13 percent of Americans started using or increasing substance use to cope with their emotions and stress due to the unknowns at that time about the pandemic.

Knowing that women have more incidence of anxiety than men, De Oliveira said the roles for many women have amplified during the pandemic--working remotely, teaching children in virtual school, everyday tasks, errands. She said these life-relevant conditions could have increased their anxiety.

"This work is giving us a foundation to start and explore anxiety behaviors that are very important and even more relevant now," De Oliveira said.

While anxiety in humans is complex, anxiety in animals is based solely on biology.

"Biological factors play an important role in these types of mood disorders, but it can be hard to untangle the mechanisms that drive anxiety in humans," De Oliveira said. "This rodent work is important to do to help develop more effective and personalized treatments."

Through studying both male and female rodent models, they found that females and males were very different in their response to the most life-relevant aspects related to anxiety, Hopf said.

In one of the behavioral tasks, rodents had to grab pellets of food which were in the brightly lit center of a big arena. Rats don't like the light, so this creates an anxious conflict. In this task, female rats took longer to touch the food and ate less food relative to males.

The researchers also gave the rodents diazepam--a drug used to treat anxiety--and it greatly reduced anxiety in females, but it had little effect in males when interacting with food. There were also other measures that showed similarities between males and females, Hopf said, including how many times a rat approached the lit center and how long it remained there. Thus, only the parts of the task that were most life-relevant--in this case food--showed sex differences.

Previous studies support the idea that anxiety in females is focused on the most life-relevant aspects of a situation, Hopf said, which aligned with their findings. For example, females--more than males in both studies--showed greater responses to the urine of a predator and had higher anxiety when in the presence of a second rat that was free to wander around.

"Knowing that anxiety can manifest from different concerns in males and females, with females particularly attuned to the most life-relevant conditions, is a valuable step towards seeking better treatments based on sex differences," De Oliveira said.

Major ecosystem changes like sea-level rise, desertification and lake warming are fueling uncertainty about the future. Many initiatives - such as those fighting to fully eradicate non-native species, or to combat wildfires - focus on actively resisting change to preserve a slice of the past.

However, resisting ecosystem transformation is not always a feasible approach. According to a new paper published today in the Ecological Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, accepting and directing ecosystem change are also viable responses, and should not necessarily be viewed as fallback options or as last resorts. The paper presents a set of guiding principles for applying a "RAD" strategy - a framework that involves either resisting, accepting or directing ecosystem changes.

"We are facing the harsh reality that, in some locations, ecosystems are transforming at such a pace that we won't be able to restore or rehabilitate them to what they once were," said Abigail Lynch, the paper's lead author and a research fish biologist at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Climate Adaptation Science Center. "The RAD framework provides a common language for starting productive conversations about what comes next - when we need to consider options to accept and direct change in addition to just trying to resist it."

The paper was a collaborative effort by 20 federal, state and academic researchers from across the United States. It zeroes in on three National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) along the East Coast, where sea-level rise is increasing at three to four times the global average rate and transforming ecosystems and local communities. Managers of the three NWRs have applied all three of the responses outlined in the paper:

John H Chafee NWR (Rhode Island): managers are resisting the effects of sea-level rise by depositing dredged sediment on waterlogged salt marshes and securing the sediment with bags of recycled oyster shells.
Chincoteague NWR (Virginia): After years of resisting dune overwash, managers are now allowing storm-induced waves to fill in waterfowl impoundments, accepting the landward transport of sand and moving National Park Service visitor infrastructure.
Blackwater NWR (Maryland): Managers are directing the effects of sea-level rise by facilitating marsh migration upwards. Assisted marsh migration is ten times cheaper than trying to restore marsh in situ.

According to Erik Beever, a research ecologist at the USGS Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, research affiliate faculty at Montana State University and a coauthor of the paper, the importance of considering costs and benefits is paramount when selecting a course of action within the RAD framework.

"A 'resist' approach may involve less cost in the immediate term or may allow the persistence of a culturally treasured species, but it may involve substantially higher costs over the course of a period as short as 10-15 years," said Beever. "For example, if that treasured species' bioclimatic niche no longer occurs within the management area, facilitating its persistence will require more intensive and more costly efforts."

Accepting ecosystem change can involve a fundamental shift in the way of life for communities that rely on an ecosystem's goods and services. However, solutions that focus on resisting change are becoming increasingly impractical as ecological changes occur more frequently and more dramatically. The paper contends that three broad feasibility criteria - ecological, societal, and financial - must be considered when deciding which RAD strategy is most suitable.

Natural resource managers are using options from within the RAD framework to tackle a variety of problems across many different systems, including:

Loss of corals in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo
Spruce bark beetle epidemic and wildfires on Alaska's Kenai peninsula, where white spruce forests are transforming into grasslands
Projected decline of cisco populations under warming conditions in Minnesota lakes

In the RAD framework, accepting change is not a passive approach; rather, it is a deliberate course of action geared toward a defined set of objectives. While the framework still needs to be tested and fine-tuned, the authors ultimately view it as a strategy of empowerment.

"It might be tempting to throw one's hands up in the air when faced with drastic and transformative environmental change, but there are options available," said Laura Thompson, a coauthor who is a research ecologist at the USGS National Climate Adaptation Science Center and adjunct faculty member at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. "This RAD framework provides the full range of strategies."

BENGALURU, India (July 8, 2021) - A new study led by WCS-India documents how a big cat deity worshipped by Indigenous Peoples facilitates coexistence between humans and leopards.

The study, published in a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science: Human-Wildlife Dynamics called Understanding Coexistence with Wildlife documents how the Indigenous Warli people of Maharashtra, India, worship Waghoba, a leopard/tiger deity to gain protection from leopards, and how they have lived side-by-side with them for centuries (formerly tigers, too). The researchers have identified over 150 shrines dedicated to worshipping Waghoba. The researchers note that while there are still negative interactions with leopards such as livestock depredation, they are likely to be more accepted under the institution of Waghoba.

Warlis believe in a reciprocal relationship, where Waghoba will protect them from the negative impacts of sharing spaces with big cats if the people worship the deity and conduct the required rituals, especially at the annual festival of Waghbaras.

Researchers suggest that such relationships facilitate the sharing of spaces between humans and leopards that live in the landscape. In addition, the study addresses the ways in which the range of institutions and stakeholders in the landscape shape the institution of Waghoba and thereby contribute to the human-leopard relationship in the landscape.

Said the study's lead author Ramya Nair of WCS India: "The main aim of the study is to diversify the way we understand and approach human-wildlife interactions. It does so by shedding light on how local institutions that contribute to co-existence are not devoid of conflict, but have a role in negotiating the conflicts that arise."

Locally produced systems that address issues surrounding human-wildlife interactions may exist in several other cultures and landscapes. The authors note that while conservation interventions have shown a movement toward the inclusion and participation of local communities, we have to recognize that landscapes have a history before our own point of entry into them. This is relevant for present-day wildlife conservation because such traditional institutions are likely to act as tolerance-building mechanisms embedded within the local belief system. Further, it is vital that the dominant stakeholders outside of the Warli community (such as the Forest Department, conservation biologists, and other non-Warli residents who interact with leopards) are informed about and sensitive to these cultural representations because it is not just the biological animal that the Warlis predominantly deal with.

The study was conducted by researchers from WCS-India, NINA, Norway, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway and supported by Wildlife Conservation Trust. Fieldwork was conducted across Mumbai Suburban, Palghar and Thane districts of Maharashtra in 2018-19. An ethnographic approach was taken to collect data wherein researchers conducted semi-structured interviews and conducted participant observation (particularly attending worship ceremonies) concurrent to documenting Waghoba shrines. Questions were asked to explore narratives on the role of Waghoba in the lives of the Warli, the history of Waghoba worship, associated festivals, rituals and traditions, and the ties between Waghoba and human-leopard interactions.