Tech

Optical activity in chiral molecules has become a hot topic in physics and optics, representing the ability to manipulate the polarized state of light. Understanding how molecules rotate the plane of plane-polarized light has widespread applications, from analytic chemistry to biology and medicine--where it can, for example, be used to detect the amount of sugar in a substance. A new study published in EPJ B by Chengping Yin of the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, South China, aims to derive an analytical model of optical activity in black phosphorous under an external magnetic field.

Yin and his fellow authors experimented with black phosphorous?--?a thermodynamically stable form of phosphorus at room temperature and pressure, first synthesized in 1914?--?in a single, closely packed layer of atoms or a monolayer. The researchers discovered that in addition to expected strong optical activity, dichroism?--transmittance difference between left and right circularly polarized light--and circular birefringence, they could tune the phenomena created by altering the applied magnetic field.

The team reached their findings by deriving an analytical method to calculate the optical activity in a monolayer of black phosphorous under an external magnetic field. They were then able to obtain results showing how optical activity can be altered by changing the incident angle of the impinging light and by adjusting the magnitude of the applied magnetic field.

The results discussed in the paper show optical activity conforming to that previously observed in chiral metamaterials?--?material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally occurring materials. In addition to this, they found the co-polarization transmittance increased in step with the angular frequency. The team explains the reason for this is that the conductivity of the monolayer black phosphorous decreases with increasing angular frequency, resulting in a weaker interaction with the incident light.

The researchers say that their findings could have applications in polarization optics, stereochemistry?--?the study of the relative spatial arrangement of atoms that form the structure of molecules and their manipulation?--?and molecular biology.

One of the main natural components of ayahuasca tea is dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which promotes neurogenesis --the formation of new neurons-- according to research led by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).

In addition to neurons, the infusion used for shamanic purposes also induces the formation of other neural cells such as astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.

"This capacity to modulate brain plasticity suggests that it has great therapeutic potential for a wide range of psychiatric and neurological disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases", explained José Ángel Morales, a researcher in the UCM and CIBERNED Department of Cellular Biology.

The study, published in Translational Psychiatry, a Nature Research journal, reports the results of four years of in vitro and in vivo experimentation on mice, demonstrating that these exhibit "a greater cognitive capacity when treated with this substance", according to José Antonio López, a researcher in the Faculty of Psychology at the UCM and co-author of the study.

Changing the receptor eliminates the hallucinogenic effect

Ayahuasca is produced by mixing two plants from the Amazon: the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and the chacruna shrub (Psychotria viridis).

The DMT in ayahuasca tea binds to a type-2A serotonergic brain receptor, which enhances its hallucinogenic effect. In this study, the receptor was changed to a sigma type receptor that does not have this effect, thus "greatly facilitating its future administration to patients".

In neurodegenerative diseases, it is the death of certain types of neuron that causes the symptoms of pathologies such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Although humans have the capacity to generate new neuronal cells, this depends on several factors and is not always possible.

"The challenge is to activate our dormant capacity to form neurons and thus replace the neurons that die as a result of the disease. This study shows that DMT is capable of activating neural stem cells and forming new neurons", concluded Morales.

The banana has its earliest origins in Papua New Guinea, where it was domesticated by indigenous communities at least 7,000 years ago. This ancestor, Musa acuminata, subspecies Banksii, looks very different from the ubiquitous Cavendish banana: peeling back its skin reveals hundreds of large, hard seeds that enable easy reproduction in the wild.

Today, a colorful mix of wild bananas (including Banksii) still grow throughout the humid forests of New Guinea. However, as deforestation and fires decimate tropical and subtropical forests across the South Pacific, we risk losing both the ancestors and the possible future of the banana we know and love.

Against the backdrop of climate change, pests, and rampant diseases, researchers and crop breeders are scrutinizing diverse banana varieties for traits such as disease tolerance, pest resistance, and their ability to adapt to fluctuating temperatures. Wild bananas represent a largely untapped wealth of genetic diversity. Sebastien Carpentier, a scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, explains: "It's very important for breeders to have access to crop wild relatives of bananas to help them find the traits that they are looking for."

Mission: search and collect

At the International Musa Germplasm Transit Center (ITC) in Leuven, Belgium, the Alliance manages the world's largest collection of banana germplasm. Yet despite currently holding 1,617 banana accessions, the genebank only scratches the surface of wild banana diversity. Bart Panis, a senior scientist based at the ITC, notes, "We don't know how much is out there."

In-situ conservation is becoming less likely with the loss of the wild bananas' habitat, therefore scientists like Panis are working against the odds to "fill in the gaps" by collecting samples in their native habitat, then transporting them to genebanks for further research and ex-situ conservation.

Last year, a collecting expedition touched down in Papua New Guinea that included Panis, Carpentier, and several other researchers collaborating with the county's National Agricultural Institute, NARI. For nearly two weeks, the team scoured terrain high and low, gathering a total of 31 bunches of eight different species while observing their adaptations in diverse environments.

One particularly fortuitous find was the giant Musa ingens. Despite competing with neighboring trees to grow as high as 15 meters, this towering species is no match for extensive land clearing and currently faces extinction.

Collection challenges

Collection is not easy work: elusive crop wild relatives are called wild for a reason. While they might have favorable traits, some species remain uncultivated because they are not edible for humans. Even banana specialists cannot always identify wild species in the field, and once they are found, the plants might not be in the brief stage where seeds or genetic material are available (bananas do not follow a predictable schedule for fruiting and flowering).

Preservation of viable material also makes successful storage and transportation a major challenge (fruits had to survive 2-4 weeks of travel before their seeds were extracted in Belgium). Furthermore, researchers must adhere to many countries' strict restrictions on the collection and transportation of plant genetic material.

Ensuring future generations of bananas

Back in Belgium, the team carefully stored genebank samples (techniques include drying and cryopreserving seeds) and began conducting a series of experiments to better understand the newly collected material.

Following field observation of Musa balbisiana persevering in open land recovering from fires (indicating the growth of extensive root systems to facilitate water uptake), the researchers have gained insights on water use efficiency, which could help breeders adapt bananas to resist future drought scenarios-- a serious priority as banana farmers currently suffer from up to 65% harvest losses related to drought.

Carpentier notes that there is also potential to fight pests and diseases, saying, "We need to continue to collect, store and screen for resistance in banana wild relatives." Other points of interest include health benefits (wild bananas have been used in traditional medicine, but this is not well-documented) and implications for increasing the yield of bananas per plant.

The results are summarized in two articles, one in Plants evaluating methods to ensure the viability of collected seeds, and the other in Crop Science summarizing the characterization of diverse phenotypes.

The scientists conclude that this work is just part of the ongoing effort to fill in knowledge gaps and ensure the survival of diverse, resilient bananas. Panis and Carpentier agree that it doesn't matter who does it, but it is critical that these banana wild relatives continue to be collected and conserved before they disappear forever.

Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) are degenerative brain diseases that affect over 5.8 million people in the U.S. Rates of ADRD are higher among Black and Latinx individuals compared to non-Latinx white individuals. APOE-ε4 is the strongest known genetic risk factor for ADRD , however this finding is largely based on studies of individuals of European descent. To better understand the association of the APOE gene with cognitive decline in Latinx populations, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and collaborators analyzed metrics of cognitive decline in six diverse Latinx populations: those of Cuban, Central American, Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and South American backgrounds. They found that the APOE-ε4 genetic variant was associated with risk of cognitive decline in Latinx populations, with the strongest effect among those of Cuban backgrounds. Findings are published in Alzheimer's and Dementia.

"Latinx populations suffer more from Alzheimer's and dementia than other populations," said Einat Granot-Hershkovitz, PhD, first author on the paper and a research fellow in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at the Brigham. "Historically, Latinx populations have been underrepresented in research, especially genetic research. But our findings highlight how important it is to look beyond European ancestry and European genetic risk factors to understand in what ways genetics may or may not contribute to their risk."

The six Latinx subgroups differ based on what proportion of their genes trace back to African, European, and Amerindian (indigenous American) ancestries. Cuban individuals, for example, have the lowest proportion of Amerindian ancestry among the six groups studied and a relatively higher proportion of European ancestry. When the researchers looked at whether the effect of APOE-ε4 is modified by genetic ancestry proportions, they observed that increased proportion of genetic Amerindian ancestry protects from the risk conferred by APOE-ε4 on cognitive decline.

"We think proportion of ancestry is a crude measure of genetics, but there are probably specific genetic factors that may be specific to Amerindian ancestry that drive this difference in the effect of APOE," said Tamar Sofer, PhD, director of the biostatistics core in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at the Brigham and principal investigator of the paper. She acknowledged that non-genetic factors -- like nutrition, sleep, physical activity, or exposure to toxins -- could also play a role.

The researchers based their findings on 4,183 Latinx individuals participating in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos and the ancillary Study of Latinos-Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging. On average, cognitive tests were administered to the participants seven years apart. Since many of the participants are still too young to have developed ADRD, the researchers looked at associated conditions like significant cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment, which often precede more serious states of dementia.

"Ideally there will be another study so we can see what happens long-term as the population becomes older," Sofer said. "We can verify whether the pattern we see is related to Alzheimer's or a different type of dementia or cognitive decline. We still want to verify the long-term patterns before we communicate risks to people in clinic."

Still, the study is important as a large-scale investigation into an under-researched topic.

"Latinx populations should know that they are represented in this area of genetic research now," Granot-Hershkovitz said. "It's not easy to participate in a research study, but there are revelatory findings from this amazing dataset, and hopefully there will be more in the future. This brings us a step further in addressing Latinx health disparities."

NOVEMBER 06, 2020, NEW YORK - Ludwig Cancer Research scientists have developed a method to significantly improve the preclinical evaluation of chimeric antigen-receptor (CAR) T cell therapies, in which the immune system's T cells are extracted from a patient, engineered to target a specific tumor-associated molecule and then grown and reinfused for cancer treatment. Published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the study also reports the construction and evaluation of co-engineered CAR-T cells and applies the method to examine their effects on tumors in a mouse model of the skin cancer melanoma.

Though CAR-T therapies have been approved for blood cancers, their application to solid tumors has proved challenging. This is in part because the complex microenvironments of solid tumors dampen immune responses in a variety of ways, not least through the recruitment of various suppressive immune cells.

"Most of the studies on CAR-T therapies have been done using human T cells in mice that lack their own immune system--because if they had one, it would attack the human CAR-T cells," said Melita Irving, a researcher at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Lausanne Branch who led the study with Ludwig Lausanne Director George Coukos. "But the tumor microenvironment can have a huge impact on your T cell product, so we're really interested in doing studies using engineered mouse T cells in immunocompetent mice. This allows us to observe the dynamic interplay between the immune system and the CAR-T cells that we transfer."

The trouble is that mouse T cells are difficult to engineer and expand optimally in culture in the numbers required to rigorously model CAR-T cell therapies. For the current study, the Ludwig Lausanne team first developed a protocol to overcome those difficulties. It involved, among other things, the sequential use of three immune signaling molecules known as interleukins (IL-2, 7 and 15) in the cultivation and expansion of the engineered T cells.

They showed that CAR-T cells cultured using the protocol are markedly activated when exposed to their target. The cells also show signs of being more youthful and have molecular features common to memory T cells that grow briskly when stimulated by their targets.

"This means that when you transfer these cells, they're very robust cells and can really expand quickly to control tumors," said Irving.

Irving, Coukos and colleagues then engineered their cultured mouse T cells to co-express, along with the chimeric antigen receptor, the IL-15 protein--which promotes the formation of memory T cells. They then examined the efficacy of these "fourth generation" (4G) CAR-T cells against a mouse model of melanoma and compared their activity to that of ordinary mouse CAR-T cells generated using the novel protocol.

"We saw better tumor control by the IL-15 expressing CAR-T cells and better proliferation and persistence of the CAR-T cells themselves," said Irving. The 4G CAR-T cells were also less prone to programmed cell death and expressed lower levels of a cell surface protein named PD-1, which promotes T cell suicide.

Their analysis revealed that the 4G CAR-T cells were not just killing cancer cells more efficiently. They were also reprogramming the microenvironment of the tumor to augment such killing. Their use resulted in an activation of natural killer cells--which target cancer cells--in the tumor microenvironment, and a marked decline in M2 macrophages, which suppress anti-tumor immune responses and support tumor growth.

"We hope that our publication of this protocol will help the T cell engineering community in general and enable a more robust preclinical evaluation of T cell therapies," said Irving.

Northwestern University researchers have developed a new computational approach to accelerate the design of materials exhibiting metal-insulator transitions (MIT), a rare class of electronic materials that have shown potential to jumpstart future design and delivery of faster microelectronics and quantum information systems -- foundational technologies behind Internet of Things devices and large-scale data centers that power how humans work and interact with others.

The new strategy, a collaboration between Professors James Rondinelli and Wei Chen, integrated techniques from statistical inference, optimization theory, and computational materials physics. The approach combines multi-objective Bayesian optimization with latent-variable Gaussian processes to optimize ideal features in a family of MIT materials called complex lacunar spinels.

When researchers search for new materials, they typically look in places where existing data on similar materials already exists. The design of many classes of materials properties have been accelerated in existing works with data-driven methods aided by high-throughput data generation coupled with methods like machine learning.

Such approaches, however, have not been available for MIT materials, categorized by their ability to reversibly switch between electrically conducting and insulating states. Most MIT models are constructed to describe a single material, making generation of the models often challenging. At the same time, conventional machine learning methods have shown limited predictive capability because of the absence of available data, making the design of new MIT materials difficult.

"Researchers understand how to distill information from large materials datasets where it exists and when suitable features are available," said Rondinelli, professor of materials science and engineering and the Morris E. Fine Professor in Materials and Manufacturing at the McCormick School of Engineering, and corresponding author of the study. "But what do you do when you don't have large datasets or the necessary features? Our work disrupts this status quo by building predicative and explorative models without requiring large datasets or features starting from a small dataset."

A paper describing the work, titled "Featureless Adaptive Optimization Accelerates Functional Electronic Materials Design," was published on November 6 in the journal Applied Physics Review.

The research team's method, called advanced optimization engine (AOE), bypasses traditional machine learning-based discovery models by using a latent variable Gaussian process modeling approach, which only requires the chemical compositions of materials to discern their optimum nature. This allowed the Bayesian optimization-based AOE to efficiently search for materials with optimal band gap (electrical resistivity/conductivity) tunability and thermal stability (synthesizability) -- two defining features for useful materials.

To validate their approach, the team analyzed hundreds of chemical combinations using density function theory-based simulations and found 12 previously unidentified compositions of complex lacunar spinels that showed optimal functionality and synthesizability. These MIT materials are known to host unique spin textures, a necessary feature to power the future Internet of Things and other resource-intensive technologies.

"This advance overcomes traditional limitations imposed by chemical intuition-based materials designs," said Chen, Wilson-Cook Professor in Engineering Design and professor and chair of mechanical engineering, and a co-author on the study. "By reframing functional materials design as an optimization problem, we have not only found a solution to the challenge of working with limited data, but also demonstrated the ability to efficiently discover optimal new materials for future electronics."

While the researchers tested their method on inorganic materials, they believe the approach can also be applied to organic materials, such as the design of protein sequences in biomaterials or monomer sequences in polymeric materials. The model also offers guidance on making better decisions toward the optimal design of materials by choosing ideal candidate compounds to simulate.

"Our method paves the way forward for optimization of multiple properties and the co-design of complex multifunctional materials where prior data and knowledge is sparse," Rondinelli said.

Work on this study was born from a project exploring Bayesian optimization in materials discovery within the Predictive Science and Engineering Design (PSED) interdisciplinary cluster program sponsored by The Graduate School at Northwestern. It was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy's (ARPA-E) DIFFERENTIATE program, which seeks to use emerging AI technologies to tackle major energy and environmental challenges.

"This work highlights the impact of the collaborative PSED interdisciplinary design cluster," Chen said. "It also emphasizes the crucial advances occurring in AI and machine learning at Northwestern in design and optimization."

MIAMI--While extreme heat threatens the wellbeing of people all over the world, a new study from scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science found that some disadvantaged communities in California could be overlooked for state climate adaptation funds.

As government and communities across the U.S. ramp up efforts for equity-oriented climate change adaptation, questions about how to effectively identify and prioritize the limited funding across communities in practice remain.

In this study, researchers used California as a case study to evaluate how the state is targeting and prioritizing environmental justice communities for extreme heat adaptations. When the researchers analyzed CalEnviroScreen 3.0, California's program used to designate a census tract as "disadvantaged" and therefore eligible for equity-oriented project monies from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, they found that relying on CalEnviroScreen alone may result in the state overlooking 348 communities that would be eligible under two alternative indices.

"There are limits to the effectiveness of using a single index to guide a fund with projects and communities as diverse as those under the California Climate Investments program," said Lynée Turek-Hankins, a doctoral student at UM's Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy and lead author of the study. "We highlight the need for context-specific tools that can capture local nuances and variabilities."

Although this study focused specifically on extreme heat in California, its findings are applicable for other climate-related hazards and states, said Turek-Hankins.

"Climate change is a threat multiplier for both people and nature. It amplifies risks for communities already grappling with environmental hazards and social stressors. But getting adaptation right at the implementation stage, attuned to differential impacts and benefits across communities, is far from straightforward," said Katharine Mach, associate professor in the Department of Marine Ecosystems and Society at the Rosenstiel School and a co-author of the study. "This analysis points to the importance of combining cross-cutting risk screening with attention to context--the hazards, the needs of communities, and the effectiveness of different resiliency strategies."

For many years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other non-heterosexual (LGB+) folks have been known to be more likely to smoke than their straight counterparts.

But a new, first-of-its-kind Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study paints a more precise picture by looking at LGB+ identities separately and over time, finding that bisexuality is the identity most associated with smoking, especially around the time of coming out.

Published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, the nationally-representative cohort study followed 7,843 youth and young adults over three years, finding that those who came out as bisexual were twice as likely as consistently-heterosexual participants to start smoking. Coming out as lesbian, gay, or another non-heterosexual identity, or having a consistent LG+ identity, was not associated with being more likely to smoke.

The study "highlights the importance of moving beyond static measures of sexual identity towards more dynamic measures that capture critical periods of vulnerability," says Dr. Andrew Stokes, assistant professor of global health at BUSPH and the study's corresponding author.

"This approach turned out to be really important, because it revealed disparities that would have otherwise been missed if we measured identity at one time point, or grouped all LGB+ identities together," says study lead author Alyssa Harlow, a doctoral candidate at BUSPH.

"Bisexual young people may face unique forms of discrimination and stigma that increase their risk for smoking or other substance use behaviors," she says. "For example, they may experience stigma from heterosexual individuals as well as from within the LGB+ community. There's also prior research that shows that bisexual populations have worse mental health outcomes than LG+ populations.

'The findings point to a need for public health interventions specifically designed to address the unique needs, experiences, and stressors associated with coming out and identifying as bisexual," Harlow says.

For the study, the researchers used data from the first four waves of the nationwide Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, which surveyed the same 14-29-year-olds three times between 2013 and 2018. (There were too few transgender respondents in this sample for the researchers to include gender identity in their analysis.) The researchers adjusted for other variables including sex, age, race/ethnicity, education level (for participants over 18) and parents' education level (for participants under 18), and where participants lived (urban/nonurban, and region of the U.S.).

By the third wave, 14% of the respondents had smoked at some point, and 6% were current smokers. The researchers found that the same sexual identity patterns held true both for having smoked at any point in the study period and for being a current smoker.

The researchers found that, compared to a consistent heterosexual identity, coming out as bisexual was associated with being more than twice as likely to smoke. Participants with LG+ identities in the first wave who shifted to a bisexual identity, or vice versa, were twice as likely to smoke.

On the other hand, participants with a consistent LG+ identity throughout the three waves of the study and participants who started out identifying as heterosexual and came out as LG+ were not more likely to smoke than those with a consistent heterosexual identity--while those with a consistent bisexual identity were slightly more likely to smoke.

The researchers say that the study's unique approach to LGB+ identities--separated and over time--could provide valuable insights for other issues that disproportionately affect the community, including mental health issues and substance use.

But to make that possible, more national surveys need to ask youth about their sexual orientation and gender identity, says study co-author Dielle Lundberg, a research fellow at BUSPH.

"The PATH study is unique because it asks youth about their sexual orientation and gender identity. Most national surveys do not," Lundberg says.

"We must advocate for better data. Whenever national surveys fail to ask about sexual orientation and gender identity, they are directly contributing to health inequities for LGBTQ+ populations."

New research by Professor Chris Cherry follows his previous research that drew worldwide attention to the frequency of bicycle crashes at a railway crossing near his UT office.

His new work, "A jughandle design will virtually eliminate single bicycle crashes at a railway crossing," was published in the Journal of Transport & Health and provides a unique opportunity to assess the before and after safety performance of fixing a skewed rail crossing for single bicycle crashes.

A jughandle design realigns the bicycle approach to about 60 degrees, virtually eliminating the risk of a rider's tire being caught in the gap between the rail and the pavement, a cause of serious crashes. This significant finding varies from previous design recommendations of a 90-degree approach.

The initial study conducted in 2017 evaluated video data, shown below, that was collected for two months, capturing 13,247 cyclists crossing two sections of the railway along Neyland Drive in Knoxville. The footage captured such a high rate of bicycle crashes attempting to cross the railroad tracks at a narrow approach that in 2015 the City of Knoxville made improvements, diverting the bike lane (in the shape of a jughandle) to create a safer approach.

The jughandle design was installed in the spring of 2015. The post-project data was collected presumably after riders were familiarized with the design, using the same two months in 2017 that had been analyzed in 2014.

The outcomes of a 2020 study show that a low-cost jughandle realignment reduces crash risk of single bicycle crashes by 98 percent while crossing the rails, and that most riders comply with the realignment by following the new recommended path over the railroad tracks.

Design guidance should encourage any intervention that approaches 60 degrees while limiting emphasis on 90-degree crossings-- which can be impossible to achieve in many environments--that are used in current practice.

Tsukuba, Japan - Often associated with dirty living conditions and the spread of disease, cockroaches understandably have a bad reputation. But of the 4,600 cockroach species alive today, only a few are considered pests, with most choosing to live in leaf litter, rotten logs, or caves, well away from human habitation.

Despite the discovery of fossils dating to the Carboniferous period ~320 million years ago, the evolution of modern cockroaches from these prehistoric ancestors remains a little hazy. To better understand the relationships among modern cockroaches and potentially shed light on their evolutionary history, researchers led by the University of Tsukuba turned to an often-overlooked group of predominantly cave-dwelling cockroaches called the Nocticolidae.

"Previous work indicated that Nocticolidae are a sister group to Corydiidae (sand-dwelling cockroaches), and that these two families, together with Lamproblattidae, are the most basal subgroups of the order Blattodea, which comprises cockroaches and termites," explains senior author of the study Professor Ryuichiro Machida. "Interestingly, similarities in wing design suggest that Nocticolidae species may also be the closest relatives of the extinct insect order Miomoptera, which is often thought to be the common ancestor of many present-day insects."

Somewhat unusually, mating habits and embryonic development can be used to classify and distinguish the various cockroach families. The researchers therefore examined the mating behavior, ootheca (egg sac) handling, and embryonic development of Nocticola sp. cockroaches, which belong to the family Nocticolidae.

Publishing their findings in a recent issue of Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, the researchers observed that short-winged male Nocticola sp. cockroaches rapidly flapped their wings near females before entering into end-to-end copulation. After copulation, females produced an ootheca, which they carried for several days before depositing on the ground. Although such a unique wing-flapping behavior has not previously been observed in cockroaches, the other observed behaviors are consistent with the mating and ootheca handling of Corydiidae species, suggesting a close evolutionary relationship.

Notably though, symbiotic bacteria, which are common to other cockroach families, were not observed in Nocticola sp. However, the egg shape and embryonic development, with the embryo's orientation remaining unchanged, in Nocticola sp. were again consistent with Corydiidae.

"Given the consistencies in mating behavior, egg structure, ootheca handing, and embryonic development between Nocticola sp. and Corydiidae, we predict that there is a close association between Nocticolidae and Corydiidae, supporting a shared common ancestor," says Professor Machida. "Furthering our understanding of the phylogenetic position of Nocticolidae within Blattodea is essential for inferring the higher phylogeny and evolution of insects."

For forty-seven years, the Endangered Species Act has stood as the nation's strongest and most effective law for protecting animals and plants threatened with extinction--from the bald eagle to the American burying beetle, the Alabama leather flower to the Aleutian shield fern.

In 2019, the Trump Administration made the most sweeping changes to the implementation of the Endangered Species Act in decades--making it harder for the federal government to protect the habitats that plants and animals will need in a warmer future. Many biologists and environmental groups have called for these rules to be reversed, to simply return to the Obama era rules.

Now a leading group of conservation scientists and ESA policy experts are making the case that a "rule reversal" will not be sufficient to allow the Act to do its job of protecting species. Instead, they're calling for deeper improvements to the rules the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service use to apply the law--aiming to make the Act more effective and to gain bipartisan and industry support in an era of accelerating climate change.

The team's analysis and policy recommendations were published on November 5 in the journal Science.

INTO THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE

"It's not enough to just go back to where we were eighteen months ago; we need reform," says University of Vermont conservation biologist Joe Roman, one of the co-authors on the new policy study. "We're not talking about revising the Act itself--that legislative can of worms--but it is clear that endangered species, wildlife agencies, landowners, and citizens would all benefit by updating the regulations and policies that are used to implement the law."

At the center of the team's call for reform is a need for clarity.

Consider the divergent cases of the Pacific walrus and the Arctic ringed seal. Both animals face similar threats from rapid losses of sea ice and snow cover. But a 2017 decision not to protect the walrus was based on climate projections that went out only to 2060, because the Fish & Wildlife Service considered conclusions beyond this date to be "based on speculation, rather than reliable prediction." However, five years earlier, the National Marine Fisheries Service listed the seal as "threatened" based on modeling that was presented as "reliable" out to 2100, the same time horizon as the authoritative modeling of the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and others.

In short, the wildlife services have had an ad hoc and inconsistent approach to defining the "foreseeable future,"--and other ESA rules. "This kind of ambiguity hurts everybody," says Ya-Wei (Jake) Li, an expert on the Endangered Species Act at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center and the lead author of the new study in Science, "and invites political interference that undercuts protections for species, erodes public confidence, triggers lawsuits that are costly for all. It polarizes the ESA, a law that could enjoy far more support across the political spectrum."

For example, once the National Marine Fisheries Service had "concluded that the extent of the of sea ice loss was reliably foreseeable to 2100, any conflicting decisions should explain why that conclusion was wrong," write the team of scientists, including Li, Roman, David S. Wilcove at Princeton University, Timothy Male at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center, and Holly Doremus at the University of California, Berkeley. "What is required is consistency and transparency."

NEW APPROACHES

The federal wildlife services, the team argues, should clarify the principles that guide their decisions, provide more public access to the data behind decisions, and give clear explanations of how they exercise discretion in offering--or not offering--protections to threatened species.

In a puzzling case, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, using a so-called ESA 4(d) rule, offered the Gunnison sage grouse full protections on agricultural lands, but the related lesser prairie chicken was exempted from similar protections on the same kind of farmland. "The agency may have had valid reasons for this discrepancy, but they never publicly explained those reasons," the team writes.

"The recommendations that we're focusing on provide the public with more transparency--and transparency alone can really help reduce a lot of the controversy" that has mired the ESA in recent years, says Jake Li. "But we're also advocating for new ideas that would bring better science and more flexible approaches to the decisions the wildlife services make."

For example, in the wake of this presidential election, a new package of regulation and funding for working with landowners--to offer tax incentives for easements and land donations--could unlock recovery opportunities for the many threatened plants and animals that persist on private lands. And investments in remote sensing and other technologies could give a better view of how climate change will impact the nearly 2,400 species protected by the ESA.

"A strong majority of Americans supports the Endangered Species Act and sees wildlife and wild plants as a public good," says Joe Roman, a professor in UVM's Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources and Gund Institute for Environment. "So what will it take to help landowners protect these species? Think of what could happen if we got federal decisionmakers, governors, conservationists, industry leaders to sit down together to help both species and landowners. With the right leadership, you could get broad bipartisan support to make the Endangered Species Act an even better tool for preventing the loss of biodiversity."

During the first two months of the pandemic lockdown, Americans dramatically reduced their use of preventive and elective health care, while increasing use of telemedicine -- but the switch was not enough to offset reductions in in-person care, according to a new study.

The analysis, one of the first to quantify the cuts in elective medical care experienced in March and April, found that the number of mammograms and colonoscopies -- diagnostic procedures that cannot be done via telehealth -- dropped by more than 65% during the period. Overall health care utilization declined by 23% in March and by 52% in April.

Smaller cuts in in-person care and lower rates of telemedicine use were observed among patients who reside in lower-income or predominately non-white zip codes. Researchers say the findings are another example of disparities in health care that have worsened during the coronavirus pandemic.

The study, published online by the journal JAMA Network Open, is based on medical records from more than 5 million Americans who have private health insurance.

"This adds detailed evidence to the anecdotal reports that Americans quit going to see the doctor when the pandemic shutdown started," said Christopher Whaley, the study's lead author and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "If important visits are only delayed for a few months, there will likely be no harm. But if patients do not get important screenings, there could be long-term negative health consequences."

Most studies about the change in medical care since the beginning of the pandemic shutdown have used information from a single health system or geographic market to observe changes in use of medical services.

The new study used insurance claims data from 2018 to 2020 from about 200 employers across all 50 states.

Researchers found that for March and April 2020, utilization of colonoscopy decreased by nearly 70% relative to rates observed in March and April 2019. Relative reductions for mammograms was 67% among women ages 46 to 64.

Blood sugar tests dropped by more than 50%, vaccines among children under age 2 dropped by 22% and angioplasty procedures dropped by nearly 17%. A small drop was seen in chemotherapy treatments. In addition, musculoskeletal surgery, cataract surgery and MRIs all dropped by 45% or more.

Use of prescription drugs for high cholesterol and diabetes saw small drops, while use of asthma medications increased by 11% over March and April.

During the same period, telemedicine visits skyrocketed, increasing by more than 4,000% in April 2020 as compared to April 2019. But the increase in telemedicine visits replaced only about 40% of the decline in medical office visits.

Researchers found that patients who resided in lower-income or predominately non-white zip codes had an increase in telehealth visits that was about a third lower than those who lived in the wealthiest neighborhoods.

"The extent to which access barriers to telemedicine contribute to lower rates of in-person care deferral, and thus increases in potential exposure to COVID-19, should be examined in future work," Whaley said.

What The Study Did: Researchers examined whether the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with changes in non-COVID health care use among a large population of individuals with employer-sponsored insurance, specifically preventive services (e.g., pediatric vaccinations), elective services (e.g., orthopedic surgery) and nonelective services (e.g., labor and delivery care) in March and April 2020 compared with the same months in 2018 and 2019.

Authors: Christopher M. Whaley, Ph.D., of the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, is the corresponding author.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.24984)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

What The Study Did: Changes in rates and risk factors over more than a decade in the U.S. for hospitalizations for a vision-threatening eye infection related to intravenous (IV) drug use were investigated in this study.

Authors: David M. Hinkle, M.D., of the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown, is the corresponding author.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2020.4741)

Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

A joint-study led by a team of marine ecologists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has found that the eco-engineered tiles can increase habitat complexity on seawalls in Hong Kong, thereby effectively enhancing the marine biodiversity. The Hong Kong study is part of a global research project on the relationship between habitat complexity and marine biodiversity on human-built marine structures.

Professor Kenneth Leung Mei-yee, who has recently joined CityU and is the new Director of the State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution (SKLMP) and Chair Professor of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry, led a team made up of researchers from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) as well as universities in the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore to conduct the experiment in Hong Kong. Their findings were published recently in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, titled "Provision of refugia and seeding with native bivalves can enhance biodiversity on vertical seawalls".

Coastal development and reclamation have caused a global increase in artificial vertical seawalls that protect the shoreline from wave action, erosion and flooding. However, these seawalls do not have the natural complexity of rocky shores and can reach extremely high temperatures when exposed at low tide. This makes them unsuitable for many intertidal marine species, including the filter-feeding oysters that improve water quality. The resulting lack of biodiversity weakens the coastal ecosystem.

As part of the international collaboration World Harbour Project initiated by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science to address these issues, Professor Leung led the team to test the effects of eco-engineered tiles on the coastal biodiversity in Hong Kong. Designed for the Project, the experimental tiles were constructed with crevices and grooved surfaces, based on the combination of ecological and engineering principles. The team attached the tiles with crevices of different depth to the vertical seawalls in Sham Shui Kok on Lantau Island and Lok On Pai in Tuen Mun in the western waters of Hong Kong for testing.

Complex habitat on the eco-engineered tiles

Their experimental results showed that the eco-engineered tiles with crevices hosted more species and a higher number of animals than not just scraped seawall, but also the flat eco-engineered tiles after 12 months. Compared with the flat tiles, the tiles with crevices had an increase of 19 to 51% in the number of species, and an increase of 59 to 416% in the number of animals. It demonstrated that by increasing the surface complexity with crevices, the eco-engineered tiles provided shelter and reduced the temperature for animals.

In particular, those with crevices of 2.5 cm or 5 cm deep had up to three times the number of species present in the shaded crevices than the exposed ledges. Species such as snails and limpets preferred the cooler and shaded crevices of the tiles, hence prompting the overall increase in the number of species and individual animals on the tiles.

"The promising results from our Hong Kong experiment clearly showed that we can effectively enhance marine biodiversity on seawalls by increasing habitat complexity through eco-engineering. This technology can be applied to all existing seawalls in Hong Kong to promote biodiversity," said Professor Leung.

The research team also attached live rock oysters to half of the tiles to test if the oysters could further enhance marine biodiversity. They found that the tiles with crevices and seeded with oyster performed the best, with an increase of 38 to 76% in the number of species and an increase of 120 to 571% in the number of animals, when compared with flat and unseeded tiles. The attached oysters survived well during the 12 months, and some oysters provided food for predators, promoting a healthy ecosystem. The tiles with oysters attracted growth of new oysters during the experiment, and the juvenile oysters also preferred the crevices of the complex tiles to the flat tiles.

Supported by the Civil Engineering and Development Department, Professor Leung is running another trial of various eco-engineered fixtures (i.e., tiles, panels, tidal pools, armouring units and oyster baskets) on vertical and sloping seawalls in Ma Liu Shui, Sai Kung and Tuen Mun. He believes there is great potential in applying the eco-engineering technology to help mitigate the negative effects of artificial seawalls not just in Hong Kong, but also internationally.

Effects of complexity varied across the globe

Apart from Hong Kong, the same eco-engineered tiles were deployed in another 13 locations around the world, including London, Sydney and San Francisco, for 12 months under the World Harbour Project.

It was found that the increased complexity consistently enhanced the biodiversity of marine invertebrates on the experimental tiles across all locations, despite some variation. The effects of habitat complexity on total species richness and mobile mollusc (soft-bodied invertebrates like gastropods and limpets) abundance were the greatest at lower or tropical latitudes, while the cover of sessile (non-mobile animals that live attached to a surface) invertebrates, such as oysters, barnacles and mussels, responded more strongly to complexity at subtropical or higher latitudes.

They also found that the magnitude of the complexity effects on the colonization of individual organisms varied spatially according to factors like tidal elevation and latitude, from strongly positive to negligible, or in a few cases, negative. "This suggests that in order to maximize the benefits of eco-engineering, we still need to have a more thorough understanding of how the complexity effects are shaped by the site-specific environmental and biological factors," added Professor Leung.