Cutting-edge Biodiversity Models Will Help Assess Nature's Vital Contributions to People

Photo Credit: Pixabay

People depend on nature in a multitude of ways. Crop pollination, pest management, storm buffering, and carbon capturing are all part of nature's contributions to people (NCP). But these contributions are subject to change - species that make vital contributions may migrate or even go extinct due to climate change or habitat loss. Forecasting these changes is challenging, but also essential to ensure that humans are adequately prepared to respond.

Part of what makes this so challenging is that current NCP estimates typically rely on data incorporating the physical environment and omit information on species. Given that biodiversity is a cornerstone of NCP, many scientists recognize that biodiversity information can help us better assess the current and future state of NCP.

In a new opinion paper published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, lead author Jamie M. Kass, associate professor and head of the Macroecology Lab at Tohoku University's Graduate School of Life Sciences, and an international team of colleagues argue that recent advances in biodiversity modeling and mapping have great potential for improving NCP estimates.

The 'one-pot' nanosheet method catalyzing a green energy revolution

Illustration Credit: Minoru Osada

A research group from the Institute for Future Materials and Systems at Nagoya University in Japan has developed a new “one-pot” method to make nanosheets using less rare metals. Their discovery should allow for the energy-making process to be more eco-friendly. The journal ACS Nano published the study.

Producing clean energy is important because it helps reduce global warming and contributes to building a carbon-neutral society. A potential source of clean energy uses hydrogen catalysts, such as palladium (Pd). Industries use Pd in electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Afterward, the hydrogen in fuel cells is used to create electricity. The only byproduct is water. 

Pd is commonly used in a spherical ‘nanoparticle’ form for catalyst use. However, a flatter, thinner surface would use fewer precious metals and increase the available surface area for the reaction.

Minoru Osada at Nagoya University and his research group have developed a new way to make Pd nanosheets. They named it the "one-pot method" because it can be done in a single glass bottle. The resulting sheets were so thin (1~2 nm) that they can be compared to the size of a single molecule or DNA strand.

Women with PCOS can stress less about fertility

Photo Credit: Mart Production

Researchers from The University of Queensland have found that women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) respond well to fertility treatments and have the same birth rate as women without the condition.  

Dr Katrina Moss from UQ’s School of Public Health said the findings should offer some reassurance for women with PCOS who are concerned about their fertility.

“We studied 1109 women who were using fertility treatments and found no difference in births between the women with and without PCOS or between those on different treatment paths,” Dr Moss said.

“More women with PCOS used fertility treatment – 38 per cent compared to 13 per cent of women without PCOS, but the birth rate was equivalent, so women with PCOS were not disadvantaged.”

PCOS affects around 1 in 10 Australian women, causing irregular or absent ovulation making it difficult to fall pregnant.

Clinical practice guidelines recommend a stepped treatment for PCOS-related infertility – ovulation induction (OI) followed by intrauterine insemination (IUI) and finally, IVF.

Increased risk of heart rhythm disruption after COVID-19

Ioannis Katsoularis
Photo Credit: Klas Sjöberg

Individuals infected with COVID-19 are also at an increased risk of suffering from heart rhythm disturbances, such as atrial fibrillation. This is shown in a new study at Umeå University, Sweden, which is one of the largest studies of its kind in the world.

"The results underline the importance of both being vaccinated against COVID-19 and that the healthcare system identifies people at increased risk of this type of complications, so that the correct diagnosis is made and appropriate treatment is started in time," says Ioannis Katsoularis, first author of the study and cardiologist at University Hospital of Northern Sweden in Umeå.

The researchers were able to show that those who had been ill with COVID-19 could also suffer from heart rhythm disturbances, both in the form of so-called tachycardias, when the heart ha rate is high, and bradyarrhythmias, when the heart is slow so that a pacemaker is sometimes needed.  

The study shows that the risk of atrial fibrillation and flutter was increased up to two months after infection. In the first month, the risk was twelve times greater than for people who did not suffer from COVID-19infection.

Scientists Have Developed a Powder Model for 3D Printing Magnets

Nanocrystalline materials can serve as raw materials for 3D printing permanent magnets.
Photo Credit: Oksana Meleshchuk

Scientists of the Ural Federal University have described the processes of magnetization reversal of nanocrystalline alloys used as raw materials for 3D printing of magnetic systems. The description of the research and the results have been published in the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials. 

Permanent magnets are products made of hard magnetic materials capable of maintaining the state of magnetization for a long time. They are used as autonomous sources of magnetic field to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy and vice versa. Applications of permanent magnets include robotics, magnetic resonance imaging, production of wind generators, electric motors, mobile phones, high-quality speakers, home appliances, and hard disk drives.

The use of permanent magnets makes it possible to reduce the dimensions of some products and increase their efficiency. The development of power engineering and robotics, miniaturization of high-tech devices, and electric and hybrid vehicles require an annual increase in the production of permanent magnets and at the same time improvement of their magnetic properties. At the same time, one of the most important tasks in the production of permanent magnets is to increase their coercivity (the value of the external magnetic field strength required for complete demagnetization of a ferro- or ferrimagnetic substance).

Protein study could one day advance Parkinson’s, breast cancer care

Jonathan Pruneda, Ph.D., led a study to explore how a form of the common protein ubiquitin is modified during an infection with illness-causing bacteria. With further research, his study's findings could lead to improved care for Parkinson's disease and breast cancer.
Photo Credit: OHSU/Christine Torres Hicks

New research from Oregon Health & Science University could one day lead to therapies that prevent or treat diseases and infections tied to a protein that’s found in all human cells.

A study published today in the journal Molecular Cell describes how the protein ubiquitin is modified during a bacterial infection. The study details the steps taken to create a form of the protein known as lysine 6 polyubiquitin, where a long chain of ubiquitin molecules are linked through the amino acid lysine. This form of ubiquitin helps cells communicate by sending a molecular message — communication that remains poorly understood.

Previous research has indicated that this form of ubiquitin may be linked to the development of Parkinson’s disease and breast cancer. However, the details of how lysine 6 polyubiquitin is formed or how it is involved in disease aren’t yet clear.

To explore this, OHSU scientists turned their attention to illness-causing bacteria and how they manipulate lysine 6 polyubiquitin during infection. Researchers isolated enzymes used by E. coli and Salmonella to cause food poisoning and other illnesses, and observed how the enzymes interacted with ubiquitin.

Allured by Night Light

Skyglow — how bright the night sky is because of artificial light — is a top predictor of where large numbers of migrating birds are going to stop and rest during their migrations across the U.S.
Image Credit: Jeffrey C. Chase

Billions of migrating birds take flight across North America each fall and spring, heading south to their wintering grounds or north to their breeding grounds. 

Most of these birds are songbirds and they’re on the move at night. At times during their long migration, they need to stop, rest and refuel before they take off again. But instead of landing in their typical habitats such as forests or wetlands, artificial light is drawing them within and around cities. 

That’s a problem, said Jeff Buler, a University of Delaware professor of wildlife ecology, because light pollution can be an “ecological trap” for birds. 

“It lures them into cities where they’re at greater risk of colliding with buildings or mortality from other sources like feral cats,” Buler said. 

New research published in the journal Nature Communications finds that skyglow — how bright the night sky is because of artificial light — is a top predictor of where large numbers of migrating birds are going to stop and rest during their migrations across the U.S.

The study, which uses bird stopover data from 2016 to 2020, is a collaboration between UD’s Buler and researchers at Colorado State University, the National Park Service, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Princeton University, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Michigan State University. The research was supported with funding from NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Plague from Egypt: topos or reality?

Fortress in Alexandria, Egypt
From Alexandria and Pelusium, goods and people traveled from Egypt to the entire Mediterranean region. Did epidemics also spread along this route?
Photo Credit: Juan Nino

Many reports from antiquity about outbreaks of plague mention Egypt as the source of pestilences that reached the Mediterranean. But was this really the case? Researchers from the University of Basel are conducting a critical analysis of the ancient written and documentary evidence combined with archaeogenetic findings to add some context to the traditional view.

Red and inflamed eyes, bad breath, fever, violent convulsions, boils and blisters over the entire body: these and other symptoms are mentioned by historian Thucydides in connection with the “Plague of Athens”, which lasted from 430 to 426 BCE. He suspected that the epidemic originated in Aithiopia. “This area isn’t to be confused with the country we now know as Ethiopia, but was a more general term used at the time to refer to the region south of Egypt,” explains Professor Sabine Huebner, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Basel.

Contemporary accounts suggest that later epidemics in the Mediterranean also started in Egypt and Aithiopia, such as the Antonine Plague, the Plague of Cyprian and the Justinianic Plague, which ravaged the ancient world between the second and sixth centuries.

Understudied cell in the brain could be key to treating glioblastoma

Perivascular fibroblasts observed in the study
Image Credit: Courtesy of the researcher / University of Notre Dame

Glioblastoma is one of the most treatment-resistant cancers, with those diagnosed surviving for less than two years.

In a new study in NPJ Genomic Medicine, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have found that a largely understudied cell could offer new insight into how aggressive, primary brain cancer is able to resist immunotherapy.

“A decade ago, we didn’t even know perivascular fibroblasts existed within the brain, and not just in the lining of the skull,” said Meenal Datta, assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at Notre Dame and senior author on the study. “My lab’s expertise is examining tumors from an engineering and systems-based approach and looking at the novel mechanical features in rare cancers that may have been understudied or overlooked.”

Using standard bioinformatics and newer AI-based approaches, Datta’s TIME Lab began analyzing different genes expressed in the tumor microenvironment related to the extracellular matrix — or the scaffolding cells create to support future cell adhesion, migration, proliferation and differentiation — and other various cell types. What they found was a surprising, fairly new cell type: perivascular fibroblasts. These fibroblasts are typically found in the blood vessels of a healthy brain and deposit collagen to maintain the structural integrity and functionality of brain vessels.

Clinical trial proves that the ketogenic diet is effective at controlling polycystic kidney disease

Photo Credit: David B Townsend

It’s official: The ketogenic diet proved to be effective at controlling polycystic kidney disease (PKD) in the first randomized controlled clinical trial of ketogenic metabolic therapy for PKD.

“I’m really happy about these clinical trial results,” said UC Santa Barbara biologist Thomas Weimbs, whose lab was part of an international collaboration to investigate the effect of the fasting response known as ketosis on the cysts that are the hallmark of the disease. “We now have the first evidence in humans that the cysts really don’t like to be in ketosis and that they don’t seem to grow.”

The researchers’ study is published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.

Nurture over nature

For PKD patients, these findings represent an opportunity to control a genetic disease that leads to a progressive condition, causing pain and robbing them of their quality of life, and often resulting in the need for dialysis and kidney transplantation as the cysts destroy the kidneys’ ability to effectively filter and remove waste from the body.

“If you have PKD, the dogma is that it’s a genetic disease,” Weimbs said. “And no matter what you do, you progress toward kidney failure and diet doesn’t make any difference, which unfortunately most patients are told to this day.”