FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Methane-eating microorganisms help regulate emissions from wetlands
Without this process, methane emissions from freshwater wetlands could be 30 to 50 percent higher
Though they occupy a small fraction of Earth's surface, freshwater wetlands are the largest natural source of methane emitted into the atmosphere. New research identifies an unexpected process that acts as a key gatekeeper in regulating methane emissions from these freshwater environments.
The study results are published this week in the journal Nature Communications by biologist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia and colleagues.
The researchers report that high rates of anaerobic (no oxygen) methane oxidation in freshwater wetlands substantially reduce atmospheric emissions of methane.
New attention
The process of anaerobic methane oxidation was once considered insignificant in freshwater wetlands, but scientists now think very differently about its importance.
"Some microorganisms actually eat methane, and recent decades have seen an explosion in our understanding of the way they do this," says Matt Kane, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research. "These researchers demonstrate that if it were not for an unusual group of methane-eating microbes that live in freshwater wetlands, far more methane would be released into the atmosphere."
Although anaerobic methane oxidation in freshwater has been gathering scientific attention, the environmental relevance of this process was unknown until recently, Joye says.
"This paper reports a previously unrecognized sink for methane in freshwater sediments, soils and peats: microbially-mediated anaerobic oxidation of methane," she says. "The fundamental importance of this process in freshwater wetlands underscores the critical role that anaerobic oxidation of methane plays on Earth, even in freshwater habitats."
Without this process, Joye says, methane emissions from freshwater wetlands could be 30 to 50 percent greater.
Comparison of wetlands
The researchers investigated the anaerobic oxidation process in freshwater wetlands in three regions: the freshwater peat soils of the Florida Everglades; a coastal organic-rich wetland in Acadia National Park, Maine; and a tidal freshwater wetland in coastal Georgia.
All three sites were sampled over multiple seasons.
The anaerobic oxidation of methane was coupled to some extent with sulfate reduction. Rising sea levels, for example, would result in increased sulfate, which could fuel greater rates of anaerobic oxidation.
Similarly, with saltwater intrusion into coastal freshwater wetlands, increasing sulfate inhibits microbial methane formation, or methanogenesis.
So while freshwater wetlands are known to be significant methane sources, their low sulfate concentrations previously led most researchers to conclude that anaerobic oxidation of methane was not important in these regions.
Crucial process
The new findings show that if not for the anaerobic methane oxidation process, freshwater environments would account for an even greater portion of the global methane budget.
"The process of anaerobic oxidation of methane in freshwater wetlands appears to be different than what we know about this process in marine sediments," Joye says. "There could be unique biochemistry at work."
Adds Katherine Segarra, an oceanographer at the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and co-author of the paper: "This study furthers the understanding of the global methane budget, and may have ramifications for the development of future greenhouse gas models."
Additional financial support for the research was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via the Research Center/Cluster of Excellence at the MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences and department of geosciences at the University of Bremen, Germany.
-- Cheryl Dybas
-- Alan Flurry, University of Georgia
Investigators
Samantha Joye
Christof Meile
Vladimir Samarkin
Related Institutions/Organizations
University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc
Showing posts with label BIOLOGY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BIOLOGY. Show all posts
Friday, July 3, 2015
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
THE WASPS AND THE BRAINS
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Tiny brains, but shared smarts
Unlike humans and other vertebrates, the brains of wasps shrink when they're socialized--but they might 'share' brainpower
A solitary wasp--the kind that lives and forages for food alone--has a fairly small brain. Type out a lowercase letter in 10-point text and you'll get an idea of its size.
But tiny as that brain is, its social cousins, living together in honeycombed nests, have even smaller ones. And that size difference might provide some key information about the difference between insect societies and vertebrate societies.
Biologists have studied the societies of vertebrates--from flocks of birds, to schools of fish, to communities of humans--enough to come up with something called the "social brain hypothesis." Generally, it goes something like this: Social interaction presents challenges that require a lot of brain power, as that interaction requires organisms to navigate complicated territory, including avoiding conflict and building alliances.
Therefore, vertebrates that live in societies have bigger brains. The more complex the organism's society, the bigger its brain regions for processing complex information will be. Scientists believe the complexity of human societies may be one of the reasons we have such large, developed brains.
Sean O'Donnell, a biology professor at Drexel, has spent almost the entirety of his more than 20-year career studying wasps. He says these picnic terrors--actually critical members of the insect world that prey on pest species--represent ideal candidates for seeing whether that hypothesis applies to insects, because they have so much variation.
Some wasps are solitary. Some live in small, primitive groups. Others live in larger, more complex societies. "There are lots of intermediate stages," O'Donnell said.
When O'Donnell, with support from the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Biological Sciences, looked at the brains in 29 related species of wasps spanning the social spectrum, he found that living in a society did indeed affect the size of their brains. It just made them smaller, instead of bigger.
His findings are described in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"If our data is verified, it suggests that there's something really different about how insect societies formed," he said.
O'Donnell's work focused on the "mushroom bodies" of the wasps' brains, structures that are superficially similar to the regions of vertebrate brains that deal with higher cognitive functions.
His research uncovered another interesting difference from vertebrates: the complexity of the wasps' societies seemed to have no significant effect on the size of their brains. The big dropoff in size occurred between solitary and social wasps. In contrast, the brains of wasps in simple societies showed no significant size differences between those in complex societies.
"That suggests to me that going from solitary to a small society is the significant transition," O'Donnell said.
'Sharing' brainpower
Part of what makes vertebrate societies so brain-intensive is that they usually involve groups of organisms with different agendas that aren't related to one another--most of the people you know aren't members of your family.
Insect societies, however, are made up of groups of cooperating close relatives with shared objectives. Wasps might not need the type of brainpower required for social interaction because there's much less of it in their nests and colonies. The insects cooperate and rely on each other without the type of negotiation that can be required in vertebrate societies.
But what advantage could a smaller, less complex brain offer a species? As O'Donnell puts it, "Brains are expensive."
Neural tissues require more energy to develop and maintain than almost any other kind, and biologists have found that natural selection will find the optimal balance between the metabolic costs of developing particular areas of the brain and the benefits yielded.
In some ways, the social wasps may "share" brainpower. Individually, their brains might not stack up to their solitary relatives, but the colony as a whole is "smart."
O'Donnell says the next steps for his work will replicate the wasp research with termites and bees, which also offer a variety of social complexity.
"We would expect to see similar patterns," he said.
Learn more in this Drexel University video on Sean O'Donnell's work.
-- Rob Margetta
Investigators
Sean O'Donnell
Related Institutions/Organizations
Drexel University
Tiny brains, but shared smarts
Unlike humans and other vertebrates, the brains of wasps shrink when they're socialized--but they might 'share' brainpower
A solitary wasp--the kind that lives and forages for food alone--has a fairly small brain. Type out a lowercase letter in 10-point text and you'll get an idea of its size.
But tiny as that brain is, its social cousins, living together in honeycombed nests, have even smaller ones. And that size difference might provide some key information about the difference between insect societies and vertebrate societies.
Biologists have studied the societies of vertebrates--from flocks of birds, to schools of fish, to communities of humans--enough to come up with something called the "social brain hypothesis." Generally, it goes something like this: Social interaction presents challenges that require a lot of brain power, as that interaction requires organisms to navigate complicated territory, including avoiding conflict and building alliances.
Therefore, vertebrates that live in societies have bigger brains. The more complex the organism's society, the bigger its brain regions for processing complex information will be. Scientists believe the complexity of human societies may be one of the reasons we have such large, developed brains.
Sean O'Donnell, a biology professor at Drexel, has spent almost the entirety of his more than 20-year career studying wasps. He says these picnic terrors--actually critical members of the insect world that prey on pest species--represent ideal candidates for seeing whether that hypothesis applies to insects, because they have so much variation.
Some wasps are solitary. Some live in small, primitive groups. Others live in larger, more complex societies. "There are lots of intermediate stages," O'Donnell said.
When O'Donnell, with support from the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Biological Sciences, looked at the brains in 29 related species of wasps spanning the social spectrum, he found that living in a society did indeed affect the size of their brains. It just made them smaller, instead of bigger.
His findings are described in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"If our data is verified, it suggests that there's something really different about how insect societies formed," he said.
O'Donnell's work focused on the "mushroom bodies" of the wasps' brains, structures that are superficially similar to the regions of vertebrate brains that deal with higher cognitive functions.
His research uncovered another interesting difference from vertebrates: the complexity of the wasps' societies seemed to have no significant effect on the size of their brains. The big dropoff in size occurred between solitary and social wasps. In contrast, the brains of wasps in simple societies showed no significant size differences between those in complex societies.
"That suggests to me that going from solitary to a small society is the significant transition," O'Donnell said.
'Sharing' brainpower
Part of what makes vertebrate societies so brain-intensive is that they usually involve groups of organisms with different agendas that aren't related to one another--most of the people you know aren't members of your family.
Insect societies, however, are made up of groups of cooperating close relatives with shared objectives. Wasps might not need the type of brainpower required for social interaction because there's much less of it in their nests and colonies. The insects cooperate and rely on each other without the type of negotiation that can be required in vertebrate societies.
But what advantage could a smaller, less complex brain offer a species? As O'Donnell puts it, "Brains are expensive."
Neural tissues require more energy to develop and maintain than almost any other kind, and biologists have found that natural selection will find the optimal balance between the metabolic costs of developing particular areas of the brain and the benefits yielded.
In some ways, the social wasps may "share" brainpower. Individually, their brains might not stack up to their solitary relatives, but the colony as a whole is "smart."
O'Donnell says the next steps for his work will replicate the wasp research with termites and bees, which also offer a variety of social complexity.
"We would expect to see similar patterns," he said.
Learn more in this Drexel University video on Sean O'Donnell's work.
-- Rob Margetta
Investigators
Sean O'Donnell
Related Institutions/Organizations
Drexel University
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
USDA ISSUES RULE ON ADDING SELENIUM TO INFANT FORMULA
FROM: U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
FDA Issues Final Rule to Add Selenium to List of Required Nutrients for Infant Formula
June 22, 2015
The U. S. Food and Drug Administration today announced a final rule to add selenium to the list of required nutrients for infant formula, and to establish both minimum and maximum levels of selenium in infant formula.
U.S. manufacturers began adding selenium to infant formula after the Institute of Medicine recognized selenium to be an essential nutrient for infants in 1989, and currently, all infant formulas on the U.S. market contain selenium. By amending regulations to add selenium to the list of required nutrients for infant formula and establish a safe range for this use, the FDA is able to require manufacturers currently marketing infant formula in the U.S. to add selenium within this safe range, and to require any manufacturer newly entering the U.S. market to adopt this practice as well.
Specifically, the rule requires 2.0 micrograms (μg) selenium/100 kilocalories as the minimum level and 7.0 μg/100 kilocalories as the maximum level of selenium in infant formula. It also amends the labeling requirements for infant formula to require the listing of selenium in micrograms per 100 kilocalories on infant formula labels.
Selenium, found in breast milk, is an essential nutrient for infants. Among its benefits, it helps the body defend against oxidative stress and aids in the regulation of thyroid hormones. Because infant formula often serves as a sole source of nutrition for infants, selenium in infant formula is needed to ensure that formula-fed infants are getting this essential nutrient at appropriate levels. Selenium is the 30th nutrient required by law to be in infant formula.
FDA Issues Final Rule to Add Selenium to List of Required Nutrients for Infant Formula
June 22, 2015
The U. S. Food and Drug Administration today announced a final rule to add selenium to the list of required nutrients for infant formula, and to establish both minimum and maximum levels of selenium in infant formula.
U.S. manufacturers began adding selenium to infant formula after the Institute of Medicine recognized selenium to be an essential nutrient for infants in 1989, and currently, all infant formulas on the U.S. market contain selenium. By amending regulations to add selenium to the list of required nutrients for infant formula and establish a safe range for this use, the FDA is able to require manufacturers currently marketing infant formula in the U.S. to add selenium within this safe range, and to require any manufacturer newly entering the U.S. market to adopt this practice as well.
Specifically, the rule requires 2.0 micrograms (μg) selenium/100 kilocalories as the minimum level and 7.0 μg/100 kilocalories as the maximum level of selenium in infant formula. It also amends the labeling requirements for infant formula to require the listing of selenium in micrograms per 100 kilocalories on infant formula labels.
Selenium, found in breast milk, is an essential nutrient for infants. Among its benefits, it helps the body defend against oxidative stress and aids in the regulation of thyroid hormones. Because infant formula often serves as a sole source of nutrition for infants, selenium in infant formula is needed to ensure that formula-fed infants are getting this essential nutrient at appropriate levels. Selenium is the 30th nutrient required by law to be in infant formula.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
SCIENTISTS STUDY CORAL REEFS AND OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Coral reefs defy ocean acidification odds in Palau
Palau reefs show few of the predicted responses
Will some coral reefs be able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions in Earth's oceans? If so, what will these reefs look like in the future?
As the ocean absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) released by the burning of fossil fuels, its chemistry is changing. The CO2 reacts with water molecules, lowering ocean pH (making it more acidic) in a process known as ocean acidification.
This process also removes carbonate, an essential ingredient needed by corals and other organisms to build their skeletons and shells.
Scientists are studying coral reefs in areas where low pH is naturally occurring to answer questions about ocean acidification, which threatens coral reef ecosystems worldwide.
Palau reefs dodge ocean acidification effects
One such place is Palau, an archipelago in the far western Pacific Ocean. The tropical, turquoise waters of Palau's Rock Islands are naturally more acidic due to a combination of biological activity and the long residence time of seawater in their maze of lagoons and inlets.
Seawater pH within the Rock Island lagoons is as low now as the open ocean is projected to reach as a result of ocean acidification near the end of this century.
A new study led by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that coral reefs in Palau seem to be defying the odds, showing none of the predicted responses to low pH except for an increase in bio-erosion--the physical breakdown of coral skeletons by boring organisms such as mollusks and worms.
A paper reporting the results is published today in the journal Science Advances.
"This research illustrates the value of comprehensive field studies," says David Garrison, a program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research through NSF's Ocean Acidification (OA) Program. NSF OA is supported by the Directorates for Geosciences and for Biological Sciences.
"Contrary to laboratory findings," says Garrison, "it appears that the major effect of ocean acidification on Palau Rock Island corals is increased bio-erosion rather than direct effects on coral species."
Adds lead paper author Hannah Barkley of WHOI, "Based on lab experiments and studies of other naturally low pH reef systems, this is the opposite of what we expected."
Experiments measuring corals' responses to a variety of low pH conditions have shown a range of negative effects, such as fewer varieties of corals, more algae growth, lower rates of calcium carbonate production (growth), and juvenile corals that have difficulty constructing skeletons.
"Surprisingly, in Palau where the pH is lowest, we see a coral community that hosts more species and has greater coral cover than in the sites where pH is normal," says Anne Cohen, co-author of the paper.
"That's not to say the coral community is thriving because of the low pH, rather it is thriving despite the low pH, and we need to understand how."
When the researchers compared the communities found on Palau's reefs with those in other reefs where pH is naturally low, they found increased bio-erosion was the only common feature.
"Our study revealed increased bio-erosion to be the only consistent community response, as other signs of ecosystem health varied at different locations," Barkley says.
The riddle of resilience
How do Palau's low pH reefs thrive despite significantly higher levels of bio-erosion?
The researchers aren't certain yet, but hope to answer that question in future studies.
They also don't completely understand why conditions created by ocean acidification seem to favor bio-eroding organisms.
One theory--that skeletons grown under more acidic conditions are less dense, making them easier for bio-eroding organisms to penetrate--is not the case on Palau, Barkley says, "because we don't see a correlation between skeletal density and pH."
Though coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean, these diverse ecosystems are home to at least a quarter of all marine life. In addition to sustaining fisheries that feed hundreds of millions of people around the world, coral reefs protect thousands of acres of coastlines from waves, storms and tsunamis.
"On the one hand, the results of this study are optimistic," Cohen says. "Even though many experiments and other studies of naturally low pH reefs show that ocean acidification negatively affects calcium carbonate production, as well as coral diversity and cover, we are not seeing that on Palau.
"That gives us hope that some coral reefs--even if it is a very small percentage--might be able to withstand future levels of ocean acidification."
Along with Barkley and Cohen, the team included Yimnang Golbuu of the Palau International Coral Reef Center, Thomas DeCarlo and Victoria Starczak of WHOI, and Kathryn Shamberger of Texas A&M University.
The Dalio Foundation, Inc., The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, The Nature Conservancy and the WHOI Access to the Sea Fund provided additional funding for this work.
-NSF-
Coral reefs defy ocean acidification odds in Palau
Palau reefs show few of the predicted responses
Will some coral reefs be able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions in Earth's oceans? If so, what will these reefs look like in the future?
As the ocean absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) released by the burning of fossil fuels, its chemistry is changing. The CO2 reacts with water molecules, lowering ocean pH (making it more acidic) in a process known as ocean acidification.
This process also removes carbonate, an essential ingredient needed by corals and other organisms to build their skeletons and shells.
Scientists are studying coral reefs in areas where low pH is naturally occurring to answer questions about ocean acidification, which threatens coral reef ecosystems worldwide.
Palau reefs dodge ocean acidification effects
One such place is Palau, an archipelago in the far western Pacific Ocean. The tropical, turquoise waters of Palau's Rock Islands are naturally more acidic due to a combination of biological activity and the long residence time of seawater in their maze of lagoons and inlets.
Seawater pH within the Rock Island lagoons is as low now as the open ocean is projected to reach as a result of ocean acidification near the end of this century.
A new study led by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that coral reefs in Palau seem to be defying the odds, showing none of the predicted responses to low pH except for an increase in bio-erosion--the physical breakdown of coral skeletons by boring organisms such as mollusks and worms.
A paper reporting the results is published today in the journal Science Advances.
"This research illustrates the value of comprehensive field studies," says David Garrison, a program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research through NSF's Ocean Acidification (OA) Program. NSF OA is supported by the Directorates for Geosciences and for Biological Sciences.
"Contrary to laboratory findings," says Garrison, "it appears that the major effect of ocean acidification on Palau Rock Island corals is increased bio-erosion rather than direct effects on coral species."
Adds lead paper author Hannah Barkley of WHOI, "Based on lab experiments and studies of other naturally low pH reef systems, this is the opposite of what we expected."
Experiments measuring corals' responses to a variety of low pH conditions have shown a range of negative effects, such as fewer varieties of corals, more algae growth, lower rates of calcium carbonate production (growth), and juvenile corals that have difficulty constructing skeletons.
"Surprisingly, in Palau where the pH is lowest, we see a coral community that hosts more species and has greater coral cover than in the sites where pH is normal," says Anne Cohen, co-author of the paper.
"That's not to say the coral community is thriving because of the low pH, rather it is thriving despite the low pH, and we need to understand how."
When the researchers compared the communities found on Palau's reefs with those in other reefs where pH is naturally low, they found increased bio-erosion was the only common feature.
"Our study revealed increased bio-erosion to be the only consistent community response, as other signs of ecosystem health varied at different locations," Barkley says.
The riddle of resilience
How do Palau's low pH reefs thrive despite significantly higher levels of bio-erosion?
The researchers aren't certain yet, but hope to answer that question in future studies.
They also don't completely understand why conditions created by ocean acidification seem to favor bio-eroding organisms.
One theory--that skeletons grown under more acidic conditions are less dense, making them easier for bio-eroding organisms to penetrate--is not the case on Palau, Barkley says, "because we don't see a correlation between skeletal density and pH."
Though coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean, these diverse ecosystems are home to at least a quarter of all marine life. In addition to sustaining fisheries that feed hundreds of millions of people around the world, coral reefs protect thousands of acres of coastlines from waves, storms and tsunamis.
"On the one hand, the results of this study are optimistic," Cohen says. "Even though many experiments and other studies of naturally low pH reefs show that ocean acidification negatively affects calcium carbonate production, as well as coral diversity and cover, we are not seeing that on Palau.
"That gives us hope that some coral reefs--even if it is a very small percentage--might be able to withstand future levels of ocean acidification."
Along with Barkley and Cohen, the team included Yimnang Golbuu of the Palau International Coral Reef Center, Thomas DeCarlo and Victoria Starczak of WHOI, and Kathryn Shamberger of Texas A&M University.
The Dalio Foundation, Inc., The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, The Nature Conservancy and the WHOI Access to the Sea Fund provided additional funding for this work.
-NSF-
Saturday, June 13, 2015
HHS REPORTS ON QUICK AND EASY TEST FOR EBOLA VIRUS
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
HHS pursues fast, easy test to detect Ebola virus infections
Promising point-of-care test could improve diagnosis and speed response
To assist doctors in diagnosing Ebola virus disease quickly, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) will pursue development of an Ebola virus diagnostic test for use in a doctor’s office, hospital, clinic, or field setting that will provide results within 20 minutes.
“Fast and inexpensive point-of-care diagnostics will improve our ability to control Ebola virus disease outbreaks,” said Robin Robinson, Ph.D., director of ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which will oversee this development program for HHS. “Faster diagnosis of Ebola virus infections allows for more immediate treatment and an earlier response to protect public health worldwide.”
Diagnosing Ebola virus infections quickly in resource-poor areas would enable health care providers to isolate and provide necessary treatment and supportive care to patients suffering from Ebola. Quickly isolating patients helps limit the spread of the disease. Emerging evidence has shown that early initiation of supportive care improves outcomes for patients suffering from Ebola virus disease.
The development of this simple, low-cost, lateral-flow test, called the OraQuick rapid Ebola antigen test, will take place under a $1.8 million contract with OraSure Technologies Inc., headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Lateral flow tests detect the presence of a virus with a drop of the patient’s blood or saliva on a test strip, similar to the tests used in doctors’ offices to diagnose strep throat.
The agreement supports clinical and non-clinical work necessary to apply for approval of the test by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The contract could be extended for up to a total of 39 months and $10.4 million.
In addition, OraSure will evaluate whether the test can be used in the post-mortem analysis of oral fluids. During the current epidemic, people died before Ebola virus infections could be confirmed, yet the bodies of people infected with Ebola virus would have remained highly infectious. A simple, rapid test that could determine disease status quickly from the body’s oral fluids would facilitate infection control efforts and support the appropriate handling of remains infected with the Ebola virus.
The OraQuick rapid Ebola antigen test is the first point-of-care Ebola virus testing device to receive BARDA support. To help the United States prepare for and control Ebola virus disease outbreaks, BARDA also is supporting development of vaccines to prevent Ebola virus infections and therapeutic drugs to treat the disease.
BARDA is seeking additional proposals for advanced development of new drugs and products to diagnose and treat Ebola and related illnesses.
The new test is part of BARDA’s comprehensive integrated portfolio approach to the advanced research and development, innovation, acquisition, and manufacturing of vaccines, drugs, therapeutics, diagnostic tools, and non-pharmaceutical products for public health emergency threats. These threats include chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases.
ASPR leads HHS in preparing the nation to respond to and recover from adverse health effects of emergencies, supporting communities’ ability to withstand adversity, strengthening health and response systems, and enhancing national health security. HHS is the principal federal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves.
HHS pursues fast, easy test to detect Ebola virus infections
Promising point-of-care test could improve diagnosis and speed response
To assist doctors in diagnosing Ebola virus disease quickly, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) will pursue development of an Ebola virus diagnostic test for use in a doctor’s office, hospital, clinic, or field setting that will provide results within 20 minutes.
“Fast and inexpensive point-of-care diagnostics will improve our ability to control Ebola virus disease outbreaks,” said Robin Robinson, Ph.D., director of ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which will oversee this development program for HHS. “Faster diagnosis of Ebola virus infections allows for more immediate treatment and an earlier response to protect public health worldwide.”
Diagnosing Ebola virus infections quickly in resource-poor areas would enable health care providers to isolate and provide necessary treatment and supportive care to patients suffering from Ebola. Quickly isolating patients helps limit the spread of the disease. Emerging evidence has shown that early initiation of supportive care improves outcomes for patients suffering from Ebola virus disease.
The development of this simple, low-cost, lateral-flow test, called the OraQuick rapid Ebola antigen test, will take place under a $1.8 million contract with OraSure Technologies Inc., headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Lateral flow tests detect the presence of a virus with a drop of the patient’s blood or saliva on a test strip, similar to the tests used in doctors’ offices to diagnose strep throat.
The agreement supports clinical and non-clinical work necessary to apply for approval of the test by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The contract could be extended for up to a total of 39 months and $10.4 million.
In addition, OraSure will evaluate whether the test can be used in the post-mortem analysis of oral fluids. During the current epidemic, people died before Ebola virus infections could be confirmed, yet the bodies of people infected with Ebola virus would have remained highly infectious. A simple, rapid test that could determine disease status quickly from the body’s oral fluids would facilitate infection control efforts and support the appropriate handling of remains infected with the Ebola virus.
The OraQuick rapid Ebola antigen test is the first point-of-care Ebola virus testing device to receive BARDA support. To help the United States prepare for and control Ebola virus disease outbreaks, BARDA also is supporting development of vaccines to prevent Ebola virus infections and therapeutic drugs to treat the disease.
BARDA is seeking additional proposals for advanced development of new drugs and products to diagnose and treat Ebola and related illnesses.
The new test is part of BARDA’s comprehensive integrated portfolio approach to the advanced research and development, innovation, acquisition, and manufacturing of vaccines, drugs, therapeutics, diagnostic tools, and non-pharmaceutical products for public health emergency threats. These threats include chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases.
ASPR leads HHS in preparing the nation to respond to and recover from adverse health effects of emergencies, supporting communities’ ability to withstand adversity, strengthening health and response systems, and enhancing national health security. HHS is the principal federal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves.
Friday, June 12, 2015
RESEARCHERS LOOK AT BIOLUMINESCENT CREATURES
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Night lights: The wonders of bioluminescent millipedes
A Virginia Tech researcher discusses bioluminescent millipedes and other glowing creatures
There's something inherently magical, even surreal, about seeing hundreds of glowing millipedes scattered across the ground of a sequoia grove on a moonless night in Sequoia National Park.
Every evening, these creatures--which remain hidden underground during the day--emerge and initiate a chemical reaction to produce a green-blue glow, a process called bioluminescence. The eerie night lights of these millipedes highlight nature’s eccentricities. My observations of this phenomena is a fringe benefit of my research of the millipede species known as Motyxia.
Seeing the light
Motyxia, which are the only known bioluminescent millipedes, are found solely in a small region of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. But various types of bioluminescent creatures live throughout the United States. They include:
railroad worms, a beetle that looks similar to a millipede but has a string of lights down each of its sides resembling the lit windows of a passenger train at night,
glowworms with bioluminescent lamps on their heads,
a fly larvae with the bluest bioluminescence in the insect world,
firefly larvae that have two abdominal lamps on their tail,
and even luminescent earthworms.
If you would like to see bioluminescent creatures, visit a moist area, such as a gully or streamside, in a deep dark forest late at night--preferably in the early summer, right after a rain.
When you arrive at your viewing sight, turn off your flashlight and let your eyes adjust to the dark. Within about 15 to 30 minutes, you may begin to discern bioluminescent organisms.
Focus on tiny specks of light, which may be firefly larvae. These organisms may quickly turn off their lights when approached--but then turn them on again. So if you initially see a twinkle, note its position relative to nearby stationary objects so that you may see it light up again.
If you want to light your path as you walk, use red light to maintain your light-adapted vision.
Why the turn on?
When you observe bioluminescence, you may wonder about the purpose of this illuminating phenomenon. My research on Motyxia indicates that "Glow means 'No!'" to predators. That is, Motyxia's glow warns nocturnal predators that these 60-legged creatures are armed and dangerous; any predator that riles a Motyxia risks being squirted by toxins, including hydrogen cyanide, an extremely poisonous gas, which the millipede releases when it feels threatened.
The suggestion that Motyxia's glow wards off marauding nocturnal predators is supported by the fact that Motyxia are blind, so their visual signaling can only be seen by members of other species, such as predators.
My research team and I ran an experiment to test whether Motyxia's coloration warns predators to stay away. Our experiment involved positioning 150 glowing clay millipede models and 150 clay non-glowing millipede models in Motyxia's natural nighttime habitat in California.
The results: Predators attacked a significantly lower percentage of the glowing vs. non-glowing models (18 percent vs. 49 percent.) The relatively greater ability of the glowing millipede models to repel predators supports the "Glow Means No!" idea.
Motyxia's eastern cousins possess bright and conspicuous reds and yellows, apparently also to ward off daytime predators.
Other animals that are toxic, inedible, or otherwise noxious also advertise their danger via warning signals. For example, a rattlesnake uses its rattle and the yellow jacket brandishes yellow and black stripes to advertise its threats.
Toxic animals that show bright, highly conspicuous and sometimes downright garish colors to distinguish themselves thereby help prevent predators from mistaking them for edible prey. Such an error would be costly to both predator and prey.
The conspicuous appearance of toxic animals also helps predators learn to recognize their bright coloration as warnings and remember the unpleasant consequences of ignoring them--e.g. a cyanide-induced fever.
How bioluminescence evolved
How did bioluminescence evolve? This question is another focus of our ongoing research on Motyxia.
By helping to reveal the evolutionary origins of warning colorations--which, by necessity, contribute to some of the most blatant and complex appearances in the living world--we expect to improve our ability to investigate and understand how other complex traits arise in nature.
One possible clue to the origins of bioluminescence is provided by a millipede species known as Motyxia sequoiae, which inhabits habitats that are normally off-limits to other closely related millipedes. These habitats include exposed areas of the forest floor, open mountain meadows and the trunks of oak trees.
So perhaps bioluminescence evolved in Motyxia sequoiae to protect these creatures from predators in particularly vulnerable areas, and thereby enable these millipedes to expand their range to these favorable locations.
But why would Motyxia sequoiae evolve bioluminescence instead of any other defense mechanism, such as camouflage or weapons such as claws or sharp spines?
Have you ever heard the saying that "natural selection...works like a tinkerer"? This is a great way to think about the evolution of warning coloration and other complex biologic features. Tinkerers use what's already available (e.g., odds and ends lying around) to repair machines, appliances and other apparatuses.
A body of research suggests that many species may have similarly acquired bioluminescence by "making do" with, or repurposing, biological equipment they already possessed.
For example, fireflies need an enzyme called luciferase to light up. But the original role of the firefly's luciferase wasn't to help these insects produce light, but instead to help them synthesize fatty acids needed to create brain cells.
The essence of bioluminescence
Despite our growing knowledge, much about Motyxia remains mysterious. For example, how do these blind creatures find mates? What triggers their nightly emergence? With funding from the National Science Foundation, my team is working to answer these and other questions.
This research is part of our larger effort to describe biodiversity and reconstruct the evolutionary histories of arthropods--a group that includes insects, spiders and crustaceans, and accounts for 80 percent of all living species. We contribute our findings to the Tree of Life, which is a worldwide effort to define the evolutionary histories of animals.
Some bright ideas from bioluminescence
In addition to advancing our understanding of the history of life, studies of the bioluminescence of various types of organisms have implications for fields ranging from national defense to medicine.
Here are several examples:
The efficiency of electrical lighting systems, which can be only 10 percent efficient, could be improved by designing them to mimic bioluminescent light, which is 90 percent efficient.
The underbellies of some marine bioluminescent animals blend with background light from the water's surface, and so are camouflaged. The U.S. Navy is studying these phenomena so that it may build similarly camouflaged ships.
Healthy human cells produce ultra-weak amounts of light through a process similar to animal bioluminescence, but cancer cells produce slightly more light. Techniques may ultimately be developed to help locate cancer cells by detecting the greater amounts of light they produce.
A green fluorescent protein identified in a jellyfish species is now widely used in biomedical research as a fluorescent tag to help researchers track specific biological activities, such as the spread of cancer, insulin production and the movement of HIV proteins.
The key enzyme for beetle bioluminescence is a pivotal component of a fast, inexpensive method for sequencing genomes, which in 2008 was used to sequence the full genome of a Neanderthal.
Learn more about Dr. Marek's work at jointedlegs.org
-- Paul Marek, Virginia Tech
Investigators
Paul Marek
Related Institutions/Organizations
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Night lights: The wonders of bioluminescent millipedes
A Virginia Tech researcher discusses bioluminescent millipedes and other glowing creatures
There's something inherently magical, even surreal, about seeing hundreds of glowing millipedes scattered across the ground of a sequoia grove on a moonless night in Sequoia National Park.
Every evening, these creatures--which remain hidden underground during the day--emerge and initiate a chemical reaction to produce a green-blue glow, a process called bioluminescence. The eerie night lights of these millipedes highlight nature’s eccentricities. My observations of this phenomena is a fringe benefit of my research of the millipede species known as Motyxia.
Seeing the light
Motyxia, which are the only known bioluminescent millipedes, are found solely in a small region of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. But various types of bioluminescent creatures live throughout the United States. They include:
railroad worms, a beetle that looks similar to a millipede but has a string of lights down each of its sides resembling the lit windows of a passenger train at night,
glowworms with bioluminescent lamps on their heads,
a fly larvae with the bluest bioluminescence in the insect world,
firefly larvae that have two abdominal lamps on their tail,
and even luminescent earthworms.
If you would like to see bioluminescent creatures, visit a moist area, such as a gully or streamside, in a deep dark forest late at night--preferably in the early summer, right after a rain.
When you arrive at your viewing sight, turn off your flashlight and let your eyes adjust to the dark. Within about 15 to 30 minutes, you may begin to discern bioluminescent organisms.
Focus on tiny specks of light, which may be firefly larvae. These organisms may quickly turn off their lights when approached--but then turn them on again. So if you initially see a twinkle, note its position relative to nearby stationary objects so that you may see it light up again.
If you want to light your path as you walk, use red light to maintain your light-adapted vision.
Why the turn on?
When you observe bioluminescence, you may wonder about the purpose of this illuminating phenomenon. My research on Motyxia indicates that "Glow means 'No!'" to predators. That is, Motyxia's glow warns nocturnal predators that these 60-legged creatures are armed and dangerous; any predator that riles a Motyxia risks being squirted by toxins, including hydrogen cyanide, an extremely poisonous gas, which the millipede releases when it feels threatened.
The suggestion that Motyxia's glow wards off marauding nocturnal predators is supported by the fact that Motyxia are blind, so their visual signaling can only be seen by members of other species, such as predators.
My research team and I ran an experiment to test whether Motyxia's coloration warns predators to stay away. Our experiment involved positioning 150 glowing clay millipede models and 150 clay non-glowing millipede models in Motyxia's natural nighttime habitat in California.
The results: Predators attacked a significantly lower percentage of the glowing vs. non-glowing models (18 percent vs. 49 percent.) The relatively greater ability of the glowing millipede models to repel predators supports the "Glow Means No!" idea.
Motyxia's eastern cousins possess bright and conspicuous reds and yellows, apparently also to ward off daytime predators.
Other animals that are toxic, inedible, or otherwise noxious also advertise their danger via warning signals. For example, a rattlesnake uses its rattle and the yellow jacket brandishes yellow and black stripes to advertise its threats.
Toxic animals that show bright, highly conspicuous and sometimes downright garish colors to distinguish themselves thereby help prevent predators from mistaking them for edible prey. Such an error would be costly to both predator and prey.
The conspicuous appearance of toxic animals also helps predators learn to recognize their bright coloration as warnings and remember the unpleasant consequences of ignoring them--e.g. a cyanide-induced fever.
How bioluminescence evolved
How did bioluminescence evolve? This question is another focus of our ongoing research on Motyxia.
By helping to reveal the evolutionary origins of warning colorations--which, by necessity, contribute to some of the most blatant and complex appearances in the living world--we expect to improve our ability to investigate and understand how other complex traits arise in nature.
One possible clue to the origins of bioluminescence is provided by a millipede species known as Motyxia sequoiae, which inhabits habitats that are normally off-limits to other closely related millipedes. These habitats include exposed areas of the forest floor, open mountain meadows and the trunks of oak trees.
So perhaps bioluminescence evolved in Motyxia sequoiae to protect these creatures from predators in particularly vulnerable areas, and thereby enable these millipedes to expand their range to these favorable locations.
But why would Motyxia sequoiae evolve bioluminescence instead of any other defense mechanism, such as camouflage or weapons such as claws or sharp spines?
Have you ever heard the saying that "natural selection...works like a tinkerer"? This is a great way to think about the evolution of warning coloration and other complex biologic features. Tinkerers use what's already available (e.g., odds and ends lying around) to repair machines, appliances and other apparatuses.
A body of research suggests that many species may have similarly acquired bioluminescence by "making do" with, or repurposing, biological equipment they already possessed.
For example, fireflies need an enzyme called luciferase to light up. But the original role of the firefly's luciferase wasn't to help these insects produce light, but instead to help them synthesize fatty acids needed to create brain cells.
The essence of bioluminescence
Despite our growing knowledge, much about Motyxia remains mysterious. For example, how do these blind creatures find mates? What triggers their nightly emergence? With funding from the National Science Foundation, my team is working to answer these and other questions.
This research is part of our larger effort to describe biodiversity and reconstruct the evolutionary histories of arthropods--a group that includes insects, spiders and crustaceans, and accounts for 80 percent of all living species. We contribute our findings to the Tree of Life, which is a worldwide effort to define the evolutionary histories of animals.
Some bright ideas from bioluminescence
In addition to advancing our understanding of the history of life, studies of the bioluminescence of various types of organisms have implications for fields ranging from national defense to medicine.
Here are several examples:
The efficiency of electrical lighting systems, which can be only 10 percent efficient, could be improved by designing them to mimic bioluminescent light, which is 90 percent efficient.
The underbellies of some marine bioluminescent animals blend with background light from the water's surface, and so are camouflaged. The U.S. Navy is studying these phenomena so that it may build similarly camouflaged ships.
Healthy human cells produce ultra-weak amounts of light through a process similar to animal bioluminescence, but cancer cells produce slightly more light. Techniques may ultimately be developed to help locate cancer cells by detecting the greater amounts of light they produce.
A green fluorescent protein identified in a jellyfish species is now widely used in biomedical research as a fluorescent tag to help researchers track specific biological activities, such as the spread of cancer, insulin production and the movement of HIV proteins.
The key enzyme for beetle bioluminescence is a pivotal component of a fast, inexpensive method for sequencing genomes, which in 2008 was used to sequence the full genome of a Neanderthal.
Learn more about Dr. Marek's work at jointedlegs.org
-- Paul Marek, Virginia Tech
Investigators
Paul Marek
Related Institutions/Organizations
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Thursday, May 28, 2015
NASA PROVIDES HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGE OF EUROPA
FROM: NASA
This 12-frame mosaic provides the highest resolution view ever obtained of the side of Jupiter's moon Europa that faces the giant planet. It was obtained on Nov. 25, 1999 by the camera onboard the Galileo spacecraft, a past NASA mission to Jupiter and its moons which ended in 2003. NASA will announce today, Tuesday, May 26, the selection of science instruments for a mission to Europa, to investigate whether it could harbor conditions suitable for life. The Europa mission would conduct repeated close flybys of the small moon during a three-year period.
Numerous linear features in the center of this mosaic and toward the poles may have formed in response to tides strong enough to fracture Europa's icy surface. Some of these features extend for over 1,500 kilometers (900 miles). Darker regions near the equator on the eastern (right) and western (left) limb may be vast areas of chaotic terrain. Bright white spots near the western limb are the ejecta blankets of young impact craters.
North is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the left. The image, centered at 0 latitude and 10 longitude, covers an area approximately 2,500 by 3,000 kilometers. The finest details that can discerned in this picture are about 2 kilometers across (about 1,550 by 1,860 miles). The images were taken by Galileo's camera when the spacecraft was 94,000 kilometers (58,000 miles) from Europa.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
OCEAN PHOSPHORUS CYCLE AND THE ROLE OF MICROBES
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Revealing the ocean's hidden fertilizer
Tiny marine plants play major role in phosphorus cycle
Phosphorus is one of the most common substances on Earth.
An essential nutrient for every living organism--humans require approximately 700 milligrams per day--we're rarely concerned about consuming enough because it is in most of the foods we eat.
Despite its ubiquity and living organisms' dependence on it, we know surprisingly little about how it moves, or cycles, through the ocean environment.
Scientists studying the marine phosphorous cycle have known that phosphorus was absorbed by plants and animals and released back to seawater in the form of phosphate as these plants and animals decay and die.
But a growing body of research hints that microbes in the ocean transform phosphorus in ways that remain a mystery.
Hidden role of ocean's microbes
A new study by a research team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Columbia University reveals for the first time a marine phosphorus cycle that is much more complex than previously thought.
The work also highlights the important but previously hidden role that some microbial communities play in using and breaking down forms of this essential element.
A paper reporting the findings is published this week in the journal Science.
"A reason to be excited about this elegant study is in the paper's last sentence: 'the environmental, ecological and evolutionary controls ...remain completely unknown,'" says Don Rice, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research through its Chemical Oceanography Program. "There's still a lot we don't know about the sea."
The work is also supported by an NSF Dimensions of Biodiversity grant.
"This is an exciting new discovery that closes a fundamental knowledge gap in our understanding of the marine phosphorus cycle," says the paper's lead author Ben Van Mooy, a biochemist at WHOI.
Much like phosphorus-based fertilizers boost the growth of plants on land, phosphorus in the ocean promotes the production of microbes and tiny marine plants called phytoplankton, which compose the base of the marine food chain.
Phosphonate mystery
It's been unclear exactly how phytoplankton are using the most abundant forms of phosphorus found in the ocean--phosphates and a strange form of phosphorus called phosphonates.
"Phosphonates have always been a huge mystery," Van Mooy says.
"No one's been able to figure out exactly what they are, and more importantly, if they're made and consumed quickly by microbes, or if they're just lying around in the ocean."
To find out more about phosphonates and how microbes metabolize them, the researchers took samples of seawater at a series of stations during a research cruise from Bermuda to Barbados.
They added phosphate to the samples so they could see the microbes in action.
The research team used ion chromatography onboard ship for water chemistry analyses, which allowed the scientists to observe how quickly microbes reacted to the added phosphate in the seawater.
"The ion chromatograph [IC] separates out the different families of molecules," explains Van Mooy.
"We added radioactive phosphate, then isolated the phosphonate to see if the samples became radioactive, too. It's the radioactive technique that let us see how fast phosphate was transformed to phosphonate."
Enter the microbes
The researchers found that about 5 percent of the phosphate in the shallow water samples was taken up by the microbes and changed to phosphonates.
In deeper water samples, which were taken at depths of 40 and 150 meters (131 feet and 492 feet), about 15 to 20 percent of the phosphates became phosphonates.
"Although evidence of the cycling of phosphonates has been mounting for nearly a decade, these results show for the first time that microbes are producing phosphonates in the ocean, and that it is happening very quickly," says paper co-author Sonya Dyhrman of Columbia University.
"An exciting aspect of this study was the application of the IC method at sea. In near-real-time, we could tell that the phosphate we added was being transformed to phosphonate."
Better understanding of phosphorus cycle
A better understanding of phosphorus cycling in the oceans is important, as it affects the marine food web and, therefore, the ability of the oceans to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The researchers say that solving the mystery of phosphonates also reinforces the need to identify the full suite of phosphorus biochemicals being produced and metabolized by marine microbes, and what physiological roles they serve for these cells.
"Such work will help us further resolve the complexities of how this critical element is cycled in the ocean," Dyhrman adds.
Grants from the Simons Foundation also supported the work.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas, NSF
Revealing the ocean's hidden fertilizer
Tiny marine plants play major role in phosphorus cycle
Phosphorus is one of the most common substances on Earth.
An essential nutrient for every living organism--humans require approximately 700 milligrams per day--we're rarely concerned about consuming enough because it is in most of the foods we eat.
Despite its ubiquity and living organisms' dependence on it, we know surprisingly little about how it moves, or cycles, through the ocean environment.
Scientists studying the marine phosphorous cycle have known that phosphorus was absorbed by plants and animals and released back to seawater in the form of phosphate as these plants and animals decay and die.
But a growing body of research hints that microbes in the ocean transform phosphorus in ways that remain a mystery.
Hidden role of ocean's microbes
A new study by a research team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Columbia University reveals for the first time a marine phosphorus cycle that is much more complex than previously thought.
The work also highlights the important but previously hidden role that some microbial communities play in using and breaking down forms of this essential element.
A paper reporting the findings is published this week in the journal Science.
"A reason to be excited about this elegant study is in the paper's last sentence: 'the environmental, ecological and evolutionary controls ...remain completely unknown,'" says Don Rice, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research through its Chemical Oceanography Program. "There's still a lot we don't know about the sea."
The work is also supported by an NSF Dimensions of Biodiversity grant.
"This is an exciting new discovery that closes a fundamental knowledge gap in our understanding of the marine phosphorus cycle," says the paper's lead author Ben Van Mooy, a biochemist at WHOI.
Much like phosphorus-based fertilizers boost the growth of plants on land, phosphorus in the ocean promotes the production of microbes and tiny marine plants called phytoplankton, which compose the base of the marine food chain.
Phosphonate mystery
It's been unclear exactly how phytoplankton are using the most abundant forms of phosphorus found in the ocean--phosphates and a strange form of phosphorus called phosphonates.
"Phosphonates have always been a huge mystery," Van Mooy says.
"No one's been able to figure out exactly what they are, and more importantly, if they're made and consumed quickly by microbes, or if they're just lying around in the ocean."
To find out more about phosphonates and how microbes metabolize them, the researchers took samples of seawater at a series of stations during a research cruise from Bermuda to Barbados.
They added phosphate to the samples so they could see the microbes in action.
The research team used ion chromatography onboard ship for water chemistry analyses, which allowed the scientists to observe how quickly microbes reacted to the added phosphate in the seawater.
"The ion chromatograph [IC] separates out the different families of molecules," explains Van Mooy.
"We added radioactive phosphate, then isolated the phosphonate to see if the samples became radioactive, too. It's the radioactive technique that let us see how fast phosphate was transformed to phosphonate."
Enter the microbes
The researchers found that about 5 percent of the phosphate in the shallow water samples was taken up by the microbes and changed to phosphonates.
In deeper water samples, which were taken at depths of 40 and 150 meters (131 feet and 492 feet), about 15 to 20 percent of the phosphates became phosphonates.
"Although evidence of the cycling of phosphonates has been mounting for nearly a decade, these results show for the first time that microbes are producing phosphonates in the ocean, and that it is happening very quickly," says paper co-author Sonya Dyhrman of Columbia University.
"An exciting aspect of this study was the application of the IC method at sea. In near-real-time, we could tell that the phosphate we added was being transformed to phosphonate."
Better understanding of phosphorus cycle
A better understanding of phosphorus cycling in the oceans is important, as it affects the marine food web and, therefore, the ability of the oceans to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The researchers say that solving the mystery of phosphonates also reinforces the need to identify the full suite of phosphorus biochemicals being produced and metabolized by marine microbes, and what physiological roles they serve for these cells.
"Such work will help us further resolve the complexities of how this critical element is cycled in the ocean," Dyhrman adds.
Grants from the Simons Foundation also supported the work.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas, NSF
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
FTC CHALLENGES CLAIMS OF SUPPLEMENTS PREVENTING GRAY HAIR
FROM: FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
FTC Challenges Marketers’ Baseless Claims That Their Supplements Prevent or Reverse Gray Hair
Defendants Falsely Claimed Their Products Were Backed by Science, Agency Says
Two marketers of dietary supplements have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they made unfounded claims that their products could prevent or reverse gray hair. The agency is pursuing legal action in court against a third company for making similar claims.
Under settlements with the FTC, GetAwayGrey, LLC and its president Robin Duner-Fenter, the sellers of “Get Away Grey,” and Rise-N-Shine, LLC and its president Cathy Beggan, the sellers of “Go Away Gray,” are barred from making these types of gray hair elimination claims unless they have reliable scientific evidence to support them. The FTC also filed a complaint against COORGA Nutraceuticals Corporation and its principal Garfield Coore, who market a line of products called “Grey Defence.”
“These companies claimed their supplements could treat gray hair at its roots,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “In fact, their root problem was a lack of evidence for their claims.”
As detailed in the FTC’s separate complaints against GetAwayGrey, LLC, Rise-N-Shine, LLC, and COORGA Nutraceuticals Corporation and their respective principals, the defendants market dietary supplements containing the enzyme “catalase.” The defendants have claimed the catalase in their products attacks hydrogen peroxide, the chemical that causes hair to turn gray.
In addition to selling a dietary supplement, Rise-N-Shine also has marketed a catalase-containing shampoo and hair conditioner. The companies have sold their products online and through retailers such as CVS and Walgreens at prices ranging from $29.95 to $69.99 per bottle.
The FTC’s complaints allege that ads for the products made false or unsubstantiated claims that the products reverse or prevent the formation of gray hair, including:
“Watch your grey go away! Now, grey hair can be stopped and reversed . . . We stop grey hair by using a vitamin that includes the Catalase enzyme. Just two vitamin pills a day can bring back your natural hair color.” (GetAwayGrey)
“New & Improved! Now With 50% More Catalase . . . . ‘After 3 months of Go Away Gray, I can see white roots coming in darker. I’m very impressed!’ – D. Heindl” (Rise-N-Shine); and
“65% of Grey Defence Customers in [an] Observational Study Reversed Their Grey! Grey Defence Reverses Greying – Detailed Observational Study Proves it.” (COORGA)
The proposed orders against GetAwayGrey and Rise-N-Shine prohibit the defendants from representing that a covered product reverses or prevents the formation of gray hair, and from making any claim about the health benefits, performance, or efficacy of any covered product, unless the claim is non-misleading and the defendants have competent and reliable scientific evidence to substantiate it. They also require the defendants to retain certain records of human clinical testing that they rely on as competent and reliable scientific evidence.
The orders include a suspended $1,817,939 judgment against the GetAwayGrey defendants, and a $2 million suspended judgment against the Rise-N-Shine defendants, which would become due if the defendants are found to have misrepresented their financial condition.
The FTC acknowledges the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus for its referral of the COORGA Nutraceuticals case.
The Commission vote approving the three complaints and two proposed stipulated court orders was 5-0. The complaint and proposed order against GetAwayGrey and Robin Duner-Fenter were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. The complaint and proposed order against Rise-N-Shine and Cathy Beggan were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and the complaint against COORGA and Garfield Coore was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.
For information about how to avoid advertising fraud for these types of products, consumers can read Dietary Supplements: Health Information for Older People, and A Healthy Dose of Skepticism.
NOTE: The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court. Stipulated final orders have the force of law when approved and signed by the District Court judge.
FTC Challenges Marketers’ Baseless Claims That Their Supplements Prevent or Reverse Gray Hair
Defendants Falsely Claimed Their Products Were Backed by Science, Agency Says
Two marketers of dietary supplements have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they made unfounded claims that their products could prevent or reverse gray hair. The agency is pursuing legal action in court against a third company for making similar claims.
Under settlements with the FTC, GetAwayGrey, LLC and its president Robin Duner-Fenter, the sellers of “Get Away Grey,” and Rise-N-Shine, LLC and its president Cathy Beggan, the sellers of “Go Away Gray,” are barred from making these types of gray hair elimination claims unless they have reliable scientific evidence to support them. The FTC also filed a complaint against COORGA Nutraceuticals Corporation and its principal Garfield Coore, who market a line of products called “Grey Defence.”
“These companies claimed their supplements could treat gray hair at its roots,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “In fact, their root problem was a lack of evidence for their claims.”
As detailed in the FTC’s separate complaints against GetAwayGrey, LLC, Rise-N-Shine, LLC, and COORGA Nutraceuticals Corporation and their respective principals, the defendants market dietary supplements containing the enzyme “catalase.” The defendants have claimed the catalase in their products attacks hydrogen peroxide, the chemical that causes hair to turn gray.
In addition to selling a dietary supplement, Rise-N-Shine also has marketed a catalase-containing shampoo and hair conditioner. The companies have sold their products online and through retailers such as CVS and Walgreens at prices ranging from $29.95 to $69.99 per bottle.
The FTC’s complaints allege that ads for the products made false or unsubstantiated claims that the products reverse or prevent the formation of gray hair, including:
“Watch your grey go away! Now, grey hair can be stopped and reversed . . . We stop grey hair by using a vitamin that includes the Catalase enzyme. Just two vitamin pills a day can bring back your natural hair color.” (GetAwayGrey)
“New & Improved! Now With 50% More Catalase . . . . ‘After 3 months of Go Away Gray, I can see white roots coming in darker. I’m very impressed!’ – D. Heindl” (Rise-N-Shine); and
“65% of Grey Defence Customers in [an] Observational Study Reversed Their Grey! Grey Defence Reverses Greying – Detailed Observational Study Proves it.” (COORGA)
The proposed orders against GetAwayGrey and Rise-N-Shine prohibit the defendants from representing that a covered product reverses or prevents the formation of gray hair, and from making any claim about the health benefits, performance, or efficacy of any covered product, unless the claim is non-misleading and the defendants have competent and reliable scientific evidence to substantiate it. They also require the defendants to retain certain records of human clinical testing that they rely on as competent and reliable scientific evidence.
The orders include a suspended $1,817,939 judgment against the GetAwayGrey defendants, and a $2 million suspended judgment against the Rise-N-Shine defendants, which would become due if the defendants are found to have misrepresented their financial condition.
The FTC acknowledges the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus for its referral of the COORGA Nutraceuticals case.
The Commission vote approving the three complaints and two proposed stipulated court orders was 5-0. The complaint and proposed order against GetAwayGrey and Robin Duner-Fenter were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. The complaint and proposed order against Rise-N-Shine and Cathy Beggan were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and the complaint against COORGA and Garfield Coore was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.
For information about how to avoid advertising fraud for these types of products, consumers can read Dietary Supplements: Health Information for Older People, and A Healthy Dose of Skepticism.
NOTE: The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court. Stipulated final orders have the force of law when approved and signed by the District Court judge.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
CDC SAYS PROGRESS MADE REDUCING SOME FOODBORNE INFECTIONS
FROM: U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
CDC data show progress in reducing some foodborne infections in 2014
n 2014, rates of infection from a serious form of E. coli and one of the more common Salmonella serotypes decreased compared with the baseline period of 2006-2008. Meanwhile, some other less common types of Salmonella increased. Campylobacter and Vibrio rose again in 2014, continuing the increase observed during the past few years, according to data published today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today’s report summarizes the rates of infection per 100,000 population and tracks illness trends for key foodborne illnesses.
Infection with Shiga-toxin producing E. coli O157, which can sometimes lead to kidney failure, decreased 32 percent when compared with 2006-2008 and 19 percent when compared with the most recent three years. These infections are often linked to consumption of undercooked ground beef and raw leafy vegetables. Salmonella Typhimurium, which has been linked to poultry, beef, and other foods, was 27 percent lower than it was in 2006-2008, continuing a downward trend begun in the mid-1980s. Two other less common types of Salmonella, Javiana and Infantis, more than doubled for reasons that are unclear. Salmonella Javiana is concentrated in the southeastern United States, but has been spreading within the Southeast and to other areas of the country. However, when all Salmonella serotypes are combined, there was no change in 2014. Campylobacter increased 13 percent and Vibrio increased 52 percent compared with 2006-2008. Yersinia has declined enough to meet the Healthy People 2020 goal.
The data are from FoodNet, CDC’s active surveillance system that tracks nine common foodborne pathogens in 10 states and monitors trends in foodborne illness in about 15 percent of the U.S. population. Today’s report compares the 2014 frequency of infection with the frequency in the baseline period 2006-2008 and in the three most recent years. Overall in 2014, FoodNet logged just over 19,000 infections, about 4,400 hospitalizations, and 71 deaths from the nine foodborne germs it tracks. Salmonella and Campylobacter were by far the most common– accounting for about 14,000 of the 19,000 infections reported.
“We’re cautiously optimistic that changes in food safety practice are having an impact in decreasing E.coli and we know that without all the food safety work to fight Salmonella that more people would be getting sick with Salmonella than we are seeing now,,” said Robert Tauxe, M.D., deputy director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne Waterborne and Environmental Diseases. “The increasing use of whole genome sequencing to track foodborne illness cases will also help; however, much more needs to be done to protect people from foodborne illness.”
The recent decline in the incidence of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O157 follows several years of increasing scrutiny for beef products. Since 1994, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken STEC O157:H7 extremely seriously and made a number of changes in its regulatory oversight of the beef industry to protect public health.
"We are encouraged by the reduction of STEC O157:H7 illnesses, which reflects our science-based approach to beef inspection, and we look forward to seeing further reductions in Salmonella and Campylobacter infections as our improved standards for poultry take effect later this year, " said Al Almanza, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety at USDA. "Data sources like FoodNet allow us to be strategic in developing our food safety policies, and we will do everything within our power to keep reducing cases of foodborne illness from all meat and poultry products."
Under the provisions of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to publish major new regulations in 2015. The regulations are geared toward ensuring produce safety, implementing preventive controls on processed foods, and improving the safety of imported foods.
“Prevention of illness is the fundamental goal of our new rules under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act,” said Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine at FDA. “We have worked with a wide range of stakeholders to devise rules that will be effective for food safety and practical for the many diverse elements of our food system. Once the rules are fully implemented, FoodNet will help us evaluate their impact.”
The FoodNet report also includes results of culture-independent diagnostic tests (a new method for diagnosing intestinal illnesses without needing to grow the bacteria) done in the many hospital laboratories in the FoodNet sites. In 2014, the results of more than 1,500 such tests were reported. More than two-thirds of the tests were for Campylobacter. Other tests performed were for STEC, Salmonella, Shigella and Vibrio. Some of the tests had a positive result. However, the infections were not confirmed by culture, and so CDC experts did not include them in the overall FoodNet results for 2014.
For more information on avoiding illnesses from food, please visit www.foodsafety.gov.
About FoodNet
FoodNet collects information to track rates and determine trends in laboratory-confirmed illnesses caused by nine pathogens transmitted commonly by food: Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, Listeria, Salmonella, STEC O157 and non-O157, Shigella, Vibrio and Yersinia. CDC compares annual data with data from a baseline period (2006-2008) and a recent period (2010-2012) to measure progress. Since 2010, FoodNet has been tracking the increasing use of culture‐independent diagnostic tests used by clinical laboratories for diagnosis of bacterial enteric infection. Because these tests are replacing culture-based tests, their use is creating challenges to the ability to identify cases, monitor trends, detect outbreaks, and characterize pathogens.
FoodNet is a collaboration among CDC, ten state health departments, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the FDA. FoodNet covers 48 million people, encompassing about 15 percent of the United States population. The sites are the states of Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Tennessee, and selected counties in California, Colorado, and New York.
CDC data show progress in reducing some foodborne infections in 2014
n 2014, rates of infection from a serious form of E. coli and one of the more common Salmonella serotypes decreased compared with the baseline period of 2006-2008. Meanwhile, some other less common types of Salmonella increased. Campylobacter and Vibrio rose again in 2014, continuing the increase observed during the past few years, according to data published today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today’s report summarizes the rates of infection per 100,000 population and tracks illness trends for key foodborne illnesses.
Infection with Shiga-toxin producing E. coli O157, which can sometimes lead to kidney failure, decreased 32 percent when compared with 2006-2008 and 19 percent when compared with the most recent three years. These infections are often linked to consumption of undercooked ground beef and raw leafy vegetables. Salmonella Typhimurium, which has been linked to poultry, beef, and other foods, was 27 percent lower than it was in 2006-2008, continuing a downward trend begun in the mid-1980s. Two other less common types of Salmonella, Javiana and Infantis, more than doubled for reasons that are unclear. Salmonella Javiana is concentrated in the southeastern United States, but has been spreading within the Southeast and to other areas of the country. However, when all Salmonella serotypes are combined, there was no change in 2014. Campylobacter increased 13 percent and Vibrio increased 52 percent compared with 2006-2008. Yersinia has declined enough to meet the Healthy People 2020 goal.
The data are from FoodNet, CDC’s active surveillance system that tracks nine common foodborne pathogens in 10 states and monitors trends in foodborne illness in about 15 percent of the U.S. population. Today’s report compares the 2014 frequency of infection with the frequency in the baseline period 2006-2008 and in the three most recent years. Overall in 2014, FoodNet logged just over 19,000 infections, about 4,400 hospitalizations, and 71 deaths from the nine foodborne germs it tracks. Salmonella and Campylobacter were by far the most common– accounting for about 14,000 of the 19,000 infections reported.
“We’re cautiously optimistic that changes in food safety practice are having an impact in decreasing E.coli and we know that without all the food safety work to fight Salmonella that more people would be getting sick with Salmonella than we are seeing now,,” said Robert Tauxe, M.D., deputy director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne Waterborne and Environmental Diseases. “The increasing use of whole genome sequencing to track foodborne illness cases will also help; however, much more needs to be done to protect people from foodborne illness.”
The recent decline in the incidence of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O157 follows several years of increasing scrutiny for beef products. Since 1994, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken STEC O157:H7 extremely seriously and made a number of changes in its regulatory oversight of the beef industry to protect public health.
"We are encouraged by the reduction of STEC O157:H7 illnesses, which reflects our science-based approach to beef inspection, and we look forward to seeing further reductions in Salmonella and Campylobacter infections as our improved standards for poultry take effect later this year, " said Al Almanza, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety at USDA. "Data sources like FoodNet allow us to be strategic in developing our food safety policies, and we will do everything within our power to keep reducing cases of foodborne illness from all meat and poultry products."
Under the provisions of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to publish major new regulations in 2015. The regulations are geared toward ensuring produce safety, implementing preventive controls on processed foods, and improving the safety of imported foods.
“Prevention of illness is the fundamental goal of our new rules under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act,” said Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine at FDA. “We have worked with a wide range of stakeholders to devise rules that will be effective for food safety and practical for the many diverse elements of our food system. Once the rules are fully implemented, FoodNet will help us evaluate their impact.”
The FoodNet report also includes results of culture-independent diagnostic tests (a new method for diagnosing intestinal illnesses without needing to grow the bacteria) done in the many hospital laboratories in the FoodNet sites. In 2014, the results of more than 1,500 such tests were reported. More than two-thirds of the tests were for Campylobacter. Other tests performed were for STEC, Salmonella, Shigella and Vibrio. Some of the tests had a positive result. However, the infections were not confirmed by culture, and so CDC experts did not include them in the overall FoodNet results for 2014.
For more information on avoiding illnesses from food, please visit www.foodsafety.gov.
About FoodNet
FoodNet collects information to track rates and determine trends in laboratory-confirmed illnesses caused by nine pathogens transmitted commonly by food: Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, Listeria, Salmonella, STEC O157 and non-O157, Shigella, Vibrio and Yersinia. CDC compares annual data with data from a baseline period (2006-2008) and a recent period (2010-2012) to measure progress. Since 2010, FoodNet has been tracking the increasing use of culture‐independent diagnostic tests used by clinical laboratories for diagnosis of bacterial enteric infection. Because these tests are replacing culture-based tests, their use is creating challenges to the ability to identify cases, monitor trends, detect outbreaks, and characterize pathogens.
FoodNet is a collaboration among CDC, ten state health departments, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the FDA. FoodNet covers 48 million people, encompassing about 15 percent of the United States population. The sites are the states of Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Tennessee, and selected counties in California, Colorado, and New York.
Friday, May 15, 2015
CDC REPORT CENTERS ON SWIMMING RISK OF NOROVIRUS SICKNESS
FROM: U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
Study Highlights Risk of Norovirus from Swimming
Simple tips can help swimmers stay safe in various swimming venues.
When most people think of norovirus, they think of people marooned on a cruise ship with raging stomach and intestinal illness, unable to leave their cabins. However, an outbreak at an Oregon lake underscores that swimming can also put the public at risk of catching the ugly bug. Fortunately, following a few easy and effective steps can help maximize the health benefits of swimming while minimizing the risk of getting sick.
In honor of Healthy and Safe Swimming week, experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local and state health officials in Oregon report today on a summer 2014 outbreak that spread via swimming in a contaminated lake.
The norovirus outbreak in July 2014 linked to a lake near Portland, Oregon sickened 70 people. Those who swam in the lake were 2.3 times more likely to develop vomiting or diarrhea than those who visited the park but didn’t go in the water. More than half of those who got ill were children between 4–10 years old. Experts believe the outbreak began after a swimmer infected with norovirus had diarrhea or vomited in the water and other swimmers swallowed the contaminated water. To prevent other people from getting sick, park officials closed the lake to swimmers for 10 days.
“Children are prime targets for norovirus and other germs that can live in lakes and swimming pools because they’re so much more likely to get the water in their mouths,” said Michael Beach, Ph.D, CDC’s associate director for healthy water. “Keeping germs out of the water in the first place is key to keeping everyone healthy and helping to keep the places we swim open all summer.”
Swimmers can help protect themselves, their families and friends by following a few easy and effective steps:
Keep the pee, poop, sweat, and dirt out of the water!
Don’t swim if you have diarrhea or have been vomiting
Shower before you get in the water
Don’t pee or poop in the water
Don’t swallow lake or pool water
Every hour—everyone out!
Take kids on bathroom breaks
Check diapers, and change them in a bathroom or diaper-changing area–to keep germs away from the water.
Norovirus was the second-leading cause of outbreaks in untreated recreational water, such as lakes, from 1978-2010. Norovirus can live in water for several months or possibly even years. Swimming venues that are not treated with chlorine can pose a particular risk since there are no chemicals to kill the stomach virus.
May 18–24, 2015, marks the 11th annual Healthy and Safe Swimming Week (formerly known as Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week). This observance highlights ways in which swimmers, parents, pool owners and operators, beach managers, and public health can maximize the health benefits of water-based physical activity, while minimizing the risk of recreational water–associated illness and injury.
Study Highlights Risk of Norovirus from Swimming
Simple tips can help swimmers stay safe in various swimming venues.
When most people think of norovirus, they think of people marooned on a cruise ship with raging stomach and intestinal illness, unable to leave their cabins. However, an outbreak at an Oregon lake underscores that swimming can also put the public at risk of catching the ugly bug. Fortunately, following a few easy and effective steps can help maximize the health benefits of swimming while minimizing the risk of getting sick.
In honor of Healthy and Safe Swimming week, experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local and state health officials in Oregon report today on a summer 2014 outbreak that spread via swimming in a contaminated lake.
The norovirus outbreak in July 2014 linked to a lake near Portland, Oregon sickened 70 people. Those who swam in the lake were 2.3 times more likely to develop vomiting or diarrhea than those who visited the park but didn’t go in the water. More than half of those who got ill were children between 4–10 years old. Experts believe the outbreak began after a swimmer infected with norovirus had diarrhea or vomited in the water and other swimmers swallowed the contaminated water. To prevent other people from getting sick, park officials closed the lake to swimmers for 10 days.
“Children are prime targets for norovirus and other germs that can live in lakes and swimming pools because they’re so much more likely to get the water in their mouths,” said Michael Beach, Ph.D, CDC’s associate director for healthy water. “Keeping germs out of the water in the first place is key to keeping everyone healthy and helping to keep the places we swim open all summer.”
Swimmers can help protect themselves, their families and friends by following a few easy and effective steps:
Keep the pee, poop, sweat, and dirt out of the water!
Don’t swim if you have diarrhea or have been vomiting
Shower before you get in the water
Don’t pee or poop in the water
Don’t swallow lake or pool water
Every hour—everyone out!
Take kids on bathroom breaks
Check diapers, and change them in a bathroom or diaper-changing area–to keep germs away from the water.
Norovirus was the second-leading cause of outbreaks in untreated recreational water, such as lakes, from 1978-2010. Norovirus can live in water for several months or possibly even years. Swimming venues that are not treated with chlorine can pose a particular risk since there are no chemicals to kill the stomach virus.
May 18–24, 2015, marks the 11th annual Healthy and Safe Swimming Week (formerly known as Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week). This observance highlights ways in which swimmers, parents, pool owners and operators, beach managers, and public health can maximize the health benefits of water-based physical activity, while minimizing the risk of recreational water–associated illness and injury.
Sunday, May 3, 2015
CROWDSOURCED SCIENCE TRACKS "SUDDEN OAK DEATH"
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Trees turned to snags: "Sudden Oak Death" fells California oaks in their prime
Citizen scientists assist with research on infectious plant disease
Sudden oak death, beware.
Crowdsourced science is helping to predict the path of the deadly plant disease, demonstrating the contributions trained citizen scientists can make in large-scale geographic tracking projects.
That's the conclusion of a study of sudden oak death monitoring in California. The results are published in this month's issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Ebola of the plant world
"Sudden oak death is the Ebola of the plant world, the most serious threat to non-agricultural plants," says lead paper author Ross Meentemeyer, director of the Center for Geospatial Analytics at North Carolina State University.
The disease, which has killed millions of oak and tanoak trees in California and Oregon, can infect up to 60 landscape plant species and spread from nursery stock to residential landscapes.
Starting in 2008, University of California, Berkeley, researchers expanded their sudden oak death monitoring efforts exponentially, thanks to observations from 1,600 trained volunteers who collected leaf samples from trees in metropolitan and urban-wildland areas.
Citizen scientists often needed in research
"To answer many science questions, we need the efforts of a large number of people--and the general public can help," says Sam Scheiner, National Science Foundation (NSF) director for the NSF-NIH-USDA Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Program, which funded the research.
"This study shows that asking local residents to report on the locations of outbreaks of sudden oak death can provide critical information. The result is a better understanding of the spread of this serious plant disease."
Adds Meentemeyer, "We were able to get data from backyards in the San Francisco Bay area, along with other locations.
"Those data were used to develop accurate computer models for the disease's spread, showing that properly trained and educated citizen scientists can collect data that's just as reliable as that of professionals."
Predictions allow for targeted treatments
Accurate predictions about sudden oak death's spread allow scientists to target treatments to the most vulnerable areas, says paper co-author and forest pathologist Matteo Garbelotto of UC Berkeley.
The annual Sudden Oak Death Blitz, which includes extensive publicity during peak periods for the disease, involves high school students, homeowners, tree specialists, firefighters, teachers and others.
Follow-up evaluation showed that trained citizen scientists were as effective as experts in identifying and collecting diseased tree leaves, whether or not they reported having a professional background in science.
Additional authors of the paper are Monica Dorning and John Vogler of NC State and Douglas Schmidt of UC Berkeley.
-- Cheryl Dybas, NSF
-- D'Lyn Ford, NCSU
Investigators
David Rizzo
Ross Meentemeyer
Related Institutions/Organizations
University of California-Davis
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Trees turned to snags: "Sudden Oak Death" fells California oaks in their prime
Citizen scientists assist with research on infectious plant disease
Sudden oak death, beware.
Crowdsourced science is helping to predict the path of the deadly plant disease, demonstrating the contributions trained citizen scientists can make in large-scale geographic tracking projects.
That's the conclusion of a study of sudden oak death monitoring in California. The results are published in this month's issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Ebola of the plant world
"Sudden oak death is the Ebola of the plant world, the most serious threat to non-agricultural plants," says lead paper author Ross Meentemeyer, director of the Center for Geospatial Analytics at North Carolina State University.
The disease, which has killed millions of oak and tanoak trees in California and Oregon, can infect up to 60 landscape plant species and spread from nursery stock to residential landscapes.
Starting in 2008, University of California, Berkeley, researchers expanded their sudden oak death monitoring efforts exponentially, thanks to observations from 1,600 trained volunteers who collected leaf samples from trees in metropolitan and urban-wildland areas.
Citizen scientists often needed in research
"To answer many science questions, we need the efforts of a large number of people--and the general public can help," says Sam Scheiner, National Science Foundation (NSF) director for the NSF-NIH-USDA Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases Program, which funded the research.
"This study shows that asking local residents to report on the locations of outbreaks of sudden oak death can provide critical information. The result is a better understanding of the spread of this serious plant disease."
Adds Meentemeyer, "We were able to get data from backyards in the San Francisco Bay area, along with other locations.
"Those data were used to develop accurate computer models for the disease's spread, showing that properly trained and educated citizen scientists can collect data that's just as reliable as that of professionals."
Predictions allow for targeted treatments
Accurate predictions about sudden oak death's spread allow scientists to target treatments to the most vulnerable areas, says paper co-author and forest pathologist Matteo Garbelotto of UC Berkeley.
The annual Sudden Oak Death Blitz, which includes extensive publicity during peak periods for the disease, involves high school students, homeowners, tree specialists, firefighters, teachers and others.
Follow-up evaluation showed that trained citizen scientists were as effective as experts in identifying and collecting diseased tree leaves, whether or not they reported having a professional background in science.
Additional authors of the paper are Monica Dorning and John Vogler of NC State and Douglas Schmidt of UC Berkeley.
-- Cheryl Dybas, NSF
-- D'Lyn Ford, NCSU
Investigators
David Rizzo
Ross Meentemeyer
Related Institutions/Organizations
University of California-Davis
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Friday, April 10, 2015
DOCTORS TRAIN WITH HUMAN PATIENT SIMULATOR
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
How robots can help build better doctors
Research seeks to make better 'human patient simulators'
A young doctor leans over a patient who has been in a serious car accident and invariably must be experiencing pain. The doctor's trauma team examines the patient's pelvis and rolls her onto her side to check her spine. They scan the patient's abdomen with a rapid ultrasound machine, finding fluid. They insert a tube in her nose. Throughout the procedure, the patient's face remains rigid, showing no signs of pain.
The patient's facial demeanor isn't a result of stoicism--it's a robot, not a person. The trauma team is training on a "human patient simulator," (HPS) a training tool which enables clinicians to practice their skills before treating real patients. HPS systems have evolved over the past several decades from mannequins into machines that can breathe, bleed and expel fluids. Some models have pupils that contract when hit by light. Others have entire physiologies that can change. They come in life-sized forms that resemble both children and adults.
But they could be better, said Laurel D. Riek, a computer science and engineering professor at the University of Notre Dame. As remarkable as modern patient simulators are, they have two major limitations.
"Their faces don't actually move, and they are unable to sense or respond to the environment," she said.
Riek, a roboticist, is designing the next generation of HPS systems. Her NSF-supported research explores new means for the robots to exhibit realistic, clinically relevant facial expressions and respond automatically to clinicians in real time.
"This work will enable hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses, EMTs, firefighters and combat medics to practice their treatment and diagnostic skills extensively and safely on robots before treating real patients," she said.
One novel aspect of Riek's research is the development of new algorithms that use data from real patients to generate simulated facial characteristics. For example, Riek and her students have recently completed a pain simulation project and are the first research group to synthesize pain using patient data. This work won them best overall paper and best student paper at the International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare, the top medical simulation conference.
Riek's team is now working on an interactive stroke simulator that can automatically sense and respond to learners as they work through a case. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, yet many of these deaths could be prevented through faster diagnosis and treatment.
"With current technology, clinicians are sometimes not learning the right skills. They are not able to read diagnostic clues from the face," she said.
Yet learning to read those clues could yield lifesaving results. Preventable medical errors in hospitals are the third-leading cause of death in the United States.
"What's really striking about this is that these deaths are completely preventable," Riek said.
One factor contributing to those accidents is clinicians missing clues and going down incorrect diagnostic paths, using incorrect treatments or wasting time. Reading facial expressions, Riek said, can help doctors improve those diagnoses. It is important that their training reflects this.
In addition to modeling and synthesizing patient facial expressions, Riek and her team are building a new, fully-expressive robot head. By employing 3-D printing, they are working to produce a robot that is low-cost and will be one day available to both researchers and hobbyists in addition to clinicians.
The team has engineered the robot to have interchangeable skins, so that the robot's age, race and gender can be easily changed. This will enable researchers to explore social factors or "cultural competency" in new ways.
"Clinicians can create different patient histories and backgrounds and can look at subtle differences in how healthcare workers treat different kinds of patients," Riek said.
Riek's work has the potential to help address the patient safety problem, enabling clinicians to take part in simulations otherwise impossible with existing technology.
-- Rob Margetta,
Investigators
Laurel Riek
Related Institutions/Organizations
University of Notre Dame
How robots can help build better doctors
Research seeks to make better 'human patient simulators'
A young doctor leans over a patient who has been in a serious car accident and invariably must be experiencing pain. The doctor's trauma team examines the patient's pelvis and rolls her onto her side to check her spine. They scan the patient's abdomen with a rapid ultrasound machine, finding fluid. They insert a tube in her nose. Throughout the procedure, the patient's face remains rigid, showing no signs of pain.
The patient's facial demeanor isn't a result of stoicism--it's a robot, not a person. The trauma team is training on a "human patient simulator," (HPS) a training tool which enables clinicians to practice their skills before treating real patients. HPS systems have evolved over the past several decades from mannequins into machines that can breathe, bleed and expel fluids. Some models have pupils that contract when hit by light. Others have entire physiologies that can change. They come in life-sized forms that resemble both children and adults.
But they could be better, said Laurel D. Riek, a computer science and engineering professor at the University of Notre Dame. As remarkable as modern patient simulators are, they have two major limitations.
"Their faces don't actually move, and they are unable to sense or respond to the environment," she said.
Riek, a roboticist, is designing the next generation of HPS systems. Her NSF-supported research explores new means for the robots to exhibit realistic, clinically relevant facial expressions and respond automatically to clinicians in real time.
"This work will enable hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses, EMTs, firefighters and combat medics to practice their treatment and diagnostic skills extensively and safely on robots before treating real patients," she said.
One novel aspect of Riek's research is the development of new algorithms that use data from real patients to generate simulated facial characteristics. For example, Riek and her students have recently completed a pain simulation project and are the first research group to synthesize pain using patient data. This work won them best overall paper and best student paper at the International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare, the top medical simulation conference.
Riek's team is now working on an interactive stroke simulator that can automatically sense and respond to learners as they work through a case. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, yet many of these deaths could be prevented through faster diagnosis and treatment.
"With current technology, clinicians are sometimes not learning the right skills. They are not able to read diagnostic clues from the face," she said.
Yet learning to read those clues could yield lifesaving results. Preventable medical errors in hospitals are the third-leading cause of death in the United States.
"What's really striking about this is that these deaths are completely preventable," Riek said.
One factor contributing to those accidents is clinicians missing clues and going down incorrect diagnostic paths, using incorrect treatments or wasting time. Reading facial expressions, Riek said, can help doctors improve those diagnoses. It is important that their training reflects this.
In addition to modeling and synthesizing patient facial expressions, Riek and her team are building a new, fully-expressive robot head. By employing 3-D printing, they are working to produce a robot that is low-cost and will be one day available to both researchers and hobbyists in addition to clinicians.
The team has engineered the robot to have interchangeable skins, so that the robot's age, race and gender can be easily changed. This will enable researchers to explore social factors or "cultural competency" in new ways.
"Clinicians can create different patient histories and backgrounds and can look at subtle differences in how healthcare workers treat different kinds of patients," Riek said.
Riek's work has the potential to help address the patient safety problem, enabling clinicians to take part in simulations otherwise impossible with existing technology.
-- Rob Margetta,
Investigators
Laurel Riek
Related Institutions/Organizations
University of Notre Dame
Sunday, April 5, 2015
DROUGHT AND THE BABOONS
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Born during a drought: Bad news for baboons
Findings have implications for human health
The saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" may not hold up to scientific scrutiny.
After the plains of southern Kenya experienced a severe drought in 2009 that took a terrible toll on wildlife, researchers looked at how 50 wild baboons coped with the drought, and whether the conditions they faced in infancy played a role.
The semi-arid savanna of southern Kenya usually receives an average of 14 inches of rain a year--akin to much of Nebraska or Kansas--but in 2009 it fell to five inches, less than the Mojave Desert.
The year before wasn't much better: rainfall in 2008 dropped to half normal levels.
Grasslands withered
The grasslands the animals depend on for food dried up and watering holes disappeared, leaving many animals starving or weak from hunger.
"We lost 98 percent of the wildebeest population, 75 percent of the zebra population and 30 percent of the elephant population," said Susan Alberts, a biologist at Duke University. "It was impossible to go anywhere without smelling death."
Most baboons made it, but the drought left them underweight and many females stopped ovulating.
In a forthcoming paper in the journal American Naturalist, the researchers compared two groups of females--one group born during low rainfall years, the other born during normal rainfall years.
Born in a drought
All females in the study were adults by time of the 2009 drought, but those born in lean times fared worse in 2009 than those born in times of plenty, the researchers found.
"This study demonstrates lifetime fertility reductions for baboons born during stressful conditions or to low-ranking mothers," said George Gilchrist, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research along with NSF's Divisions of Integrative Organismal Systems and Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.
"These 'disadvantaged' early life experiences are linked with less resilience to stressful conditions experienced as adults."
During the 2009 drought, baboons born during low rainfall years were 60 percent less likely to become pregnant, whereas pregnancy rates dipped by only 10 percent for females born during normal rainfall years.
Drought babies born to higher-status mothers were less affected by the 2009 event.
"It might be that baboons born to higher-ranked moms have better access to food, or suffer lower levels of social stress," Alberts said.
Implications for human health
The findings also help explain why people who are malnourished in early childhood go on to have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease as adults.
Some researchers argue that human babies conceived or born in lean times are programmed for food shortages later in life.
They develop a "thrifty metabolism," aimed at storing fat and conserving energy in order to survive starvation.
Things go awry, the thinking goes, only when the environments they experienced as infants and as adults don't match, such as when a child conceived in famine grows up and eats an excess of cheeseburgers, said paper co-author Amanda Lea, a biologist at Duke.
But the baboon fertility study lends support to another idea, namely that kids who don't get enough to eat during their first year of life are simply less resilient as adults than their counterparts.
"The data suggest that early adversity carries lifelong costs," said co-author Jenny Tung, a biologist at Duke.
"It's bad to be born in bad times, but with the right social or economic environment, that can be mitigated," Alberts added.
Jeanne Altmann of Princeton University is also a co-author of the paper.
In addition to NSF, the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md.; Duke University; Princeton University; and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research supported the research.
-- Cheryl Dybas, NSF
-- Robin Ann Smith, Duke University
Investigators
Jenny Tung
Susan Alberts
Related Institutions/Organizations
Duke University
Born during a drought: Bad news for baboons
Findings have implications for human health
The saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" may not hold up to scientific scrutiny.
After the plains of southern Kenya experienced a severe drought in 2009 that took a terrible toll on wildlife, researchers looked at how 50 wild baboons coped with the drought, and whether the conditions they faced in infancy played a role.
The semi-arid savanna of southern Kenya usually receives an average of 14 inches of rain a year--akin to much of Nebraska or Kansas--but in 2009 it fell to five inches, less than the Mojave Desert.
The year before wasn't much better: rainfall in 2008 dropped to half normal levels.
Grasslands withered
The grasslands the animals depend on for food dried up and watering holes disappeared, leaving many animals starving or weak from hunger.
"We lost 98 percent of the wildebeest population, 75 percent of the zebra population and 30 percent of the elephant population," said Susan Alberts, a biologist at Duke University. "It was impossible to go anywhere without smelling death."
Most baboons made it, but the drought left them underweight and many females stopped ovulating.
In a forthcoming paper in the journal American Naturalist, the researchers compared two groups of females--one group born during low rainfall years, the other born during normal rainfall years.
Born in a drought
All females in the study were adults by time of the 2009 drought, but those born in lean times fared worse in 2009 than those born in times of plenty, the researchers found.
"This study demonstrates lifetime fertility reductions for baboons born during stressful conditions or to low-ranking mothers," said George Gilchrist, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research along with NSF's Divisions of Integrative Organismal Systems and Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.
"These 'disadvantaged' early life experiences are linked with less resilience to stressful conditions experienced as adults."
During the 2009 drought, baboons born during low rainfall years were 60 percent less likely to become pregnant, whereas pregnancy rates dipped by only 10 percent for females born during normal rainfall years.
Drought babies born to higher-status mothers were less affected by the 2009 event.
"It might be that baboons born to higher-ranked moms have better access to food, or suffer lower levels of social stress," Alberts said.
Implications for human health
The findings also help explain why people who are malnourished in early childhood go on to have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease as adults.
Some researchers argue that human babies conceived or born in lean times are programmed for food shortages later in life.
They develop a "thrifty metabolism," aimed at storing fat and conserving energy in order to survive starvation.
Things go awry, the thinking goes, only when the environments they experienced as infants and as adults don't match, such as when a child conceived in famine grows up and eats an excess of cheeseburgers, said paper co-author Amanda Lea, a biologist at Duke.
But the baboon fertility study lends support to another idea, namely that kids who don't get enough to eat during their first year of life are simply less resilient as adults than their counterparts.
"The data suggest that early adversity carries lifelong costs," said co-author Jenny Tung, a biologist at Duke.
"It's bad to be born in bad times, but with the right social or economic environment, that can be mitigated," Alberts added.
Jeanne Altmann of Princeton University is also a co-author of the paper.
In addition to NSF, the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md.; Duke University; Princeton University; and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research supported the research.
-- Cheryl Dybas, NSF
-- Robin Ann Smith, Duke University
Investigators
Jenny Tung
Susan Alberts
Related Institutions/Organizations
Duke University
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
NSF FUNDS STUDYING ECO-EPIDEMOLOGY OF LEPTOSPIROSIS
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Field fever, harvest fever, rat catcher's yellows: Leptospirosis by any name is a serious disease
Infection is more prevalent in lower-income tropical areas
Rat catcher's yellows, field fever, harvest fever, black jaundice.
All are names for the same disease, leptospirosis, an infection caused by corkscrew-shaped bacteria called Leptospira.
Symptoms range from mild--headaches, muscle aches, fever--to more severe conditions, such as meningitis and bleeding from the lungs.
Looking for leptospirosis
"Leptospira bacteria are maintained through a complex transmission cycle," write scientist Claudia Munoz-Zanzi of the University of Minnesota and colleagues in a 2014 paper in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine.
"Humans and other mammals, domestic and wild, become infected after contact with urine from an infected host, or Leptospira-contaminated water or damp soil."
Some 7 to 10 million people contract leptospirosis each year. The disease is most prevalent in tropical areas, but may be found almost anywhere that's warm and wet.
In the developed world, leptospirosis occurs in people involved in outdoor activities, such as canoeing and kayaking in warm places. In developing countries, the disease largely happens to farmers and poorer people who live in cities.
Infection with Leptospira is linked with agricultural practices, fouling of household or recreational water, poor housing and waste disposal, and changes in the density or proximity of infected animals such as rodents, domestic animals like dogs and wildlife.
Rodents most common carriers
Rodents are the most common reservoirs of Leptospira, says Munoz-Zanzi.
With a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)-National Institutes of Health-U.S. Department of Agriculture Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases (EEID) program, Munoz-Zanzi is studying the eco-epidemiology of leptospirosis.
Awards through the EEID program fund scientists to study how large-scale environmental events--such as habitat destruction and climate variability--alter the risks of viral, parasitic and bacterial diseases.
Munoz-Zanzi's goal is to improve knowledge of the social, epidemiological and ecological factors influencing leptospirosis in South America. She and colleagues are working to identify intervention strategies to reduce the disease's effect on the health of humans and other animals.
South-central Chile: a perfect home for Leptospira?
The study is taking place in the Los Rios region of south-central Chile. The area's climate is moderate, with an economy that's based on farming, agriculture, forestry and tourism.
Most of the region's human population is concentrated in a few urban centers, with the rest scattered in small towns or villages and farm areas.
Munoz-Zanzi's research involves contrasting leptospirosis in three community types: urban slums, rural villages, and farms.
Initial findings from the research showed that 20 percent of leptospirosis starts with rodents, including rats and mice, inside households and in other environments in populated areas.
Leptospira-carrying rodents turned out to be more abundant in rural villages than slums and farms.
"Social factors can be important causes of diseases," says Sam Scheiner, NSF EEID program director. "This study shows that the type of community can determine the presence of rats and mice that are disease-carriers. The results have implications for the control of many infectious diseases."
Danger in a puddle
"Because Leptospira live in water and soil," Munoz-Zanzi says, "the environment plays a key role in transmission in household pets, farm animals and people."
When the scientists collected water from puddles, containers, animal troughs, rivers, canals and drinking water, all showed contamination with Leptospira.
In households where puddles were found along with signs of rodent infestations, leptospirosis was common.
"However," says Munoz-Zanzi, "that was true only in lower income houses."
Some 19 percent of samples from these households--most from locations with warmer temperatures, and many with dogs as pets--tested positive.
Community setting important
The scientists are now examining leptospirosis in dogs and livestock, as well as in humans. They're integrating molecular, epidemiological and other data to gain insights into patterns of infection in various community types.
"The more we understand about this disease," says Munoz-Zanzi, "the more we realize the importance of the local community setting."
Ongoing efforts, she says, include the use of mathematical models to develop recommendations for disease control that's locally relevant. The scientists hope to provide people living in the most affected areas with tools to decrease the effects of leptospirosis.
In the meantime, how can people avoid contracting the disease?
"Wear protective equipment to prevent contact with potentially infected animals and environments," says Munoz-Zanzi, "wash after any such contact, and reduce rodents in places where people live and work."
Crowded tropical conditions where rats and mice freely run from house to house may herald another unwanted guest: Leptospira.
-- Cheryl Dybas, NSF
Monday, March 30, 2015
PLANKTON BLOOM FINDS WAY TO MOVE DOWN
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Spring plankton bloom hitches ride to sea's depths on ocean eddies
Eddies--whirlpools within currents--transport plankton downward from the ocean surface
Just as crocus and daffodil blossoms signal the start of a warmer season on land, a similar "greening" event--a massive bloom of microscopic plants, or phytoplankton--unfolds each spring in the North Atlantic Ocean from Bermuda to the Arctic.
Fertilized by nutrients that have built up during the winter, the cool waters of the North Atlantic come alive every spring and summer with a vivid display of color that stretches across hundreds and hundreds of miles.
North Atlantic Bloom turns ocean into sea of plankton
In what's known as the North Atlantic Bloom, millions of phytoplankton use sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) to grow and reproduce at the ocean's surface.
During photosynthesis, phytoplankton remove carbon dioxide from seawater and release oxygen as a by-product. That allows the oceans to absorb additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If there were fewer phytoplankton, atmospheric carbon dioxide would increase.
Flowers ultimately wither and fade, but what eventually happens to these tiny plants produced in the sea? When phytoplankton die, the carbon in their cells sinks to the deep ocean.
Plankton integral part of oceanic "biological pump"
This so-called biological pump makes the North Atlantic Ocean efficient at soaking up CO2 from the air.
"Much of this 'particulate organic carbon,' especially the larger, heavier particles, sinks," says scientist Melissa Omand of the University of Rhode Island, co-author of a paper on the North Atlantic Bloom published today in the journal Science.
"But we wanted to find out what's happening to the smaller, non-sinking phytoplankton cells from the bloom. Understanding the dynamics of the bloom and what happens to the carbon produced by it is important, especially for being able to predict how the oceans will affect atmospheric CO2 and ultimately climate."
In addition to Omand, other authors of the paper are Amala Mahadevan of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Eric D'Asaro and Craig Lee of the University of Washington, and Mary Jane Perry, Nathan Briggs and Ivona Cetinic of the University of Maine.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
"It's been a challenge to estimate carbon export from the ocean's surface waters to its depths based on measurements of properties such as phytoplankton carbon," says David Garrison, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences. "This paper describes a mechanism for doing that."
Tracking a bloom: Floats, gliders and other instruments
During fieldwork from the research vessels Bjarni Saemundsson and Knorr, the scientists used a float to follow a patch of seawater off Iceland. They observed the progression of the bloom by taking measurements from multiple platforms.
Autonomous gliders outfitted with sensors were used to gather data such as temperature, salinity and information about the chemistry and biology of the bloom--oxygen, nitrate, chlorophyll and the optical signatures of the particulate matter.
At the onset of the bloom and over the next month, four teardrop-shaped seagliders gathered 774 profiles to depths of up to 1,000 meters (3,281 feet).
Analysis of the profiles showed that about 10 percent had unusually high concentrations of phytoplankton bloom properties, even in deep waters, as well as high oxygen concentrations usually found at the surface.
"These profiles were showing what we initially described as 'bumps' at depths much deeper than phytoplankton can grow," says Omand.
Staircases to the deep: Ocean eddies
Using information collected at sea by Perry, D'Asaro and Lee, Mahadevan modeled ocean currents and eddies ("whirlpools" within currents) and their effects on the spring bloom.
"What we were seeing was surface water, rich with phytoplankton carbon, being transported downward by currents on the edges of eddies," Mahadevan says.
"Eddies hadn't been thought of as a major way organic matter is moved into the deeper ocean. But this type of eddy-driven 'subduction' could account for a significant downward movement of phytoplankton from the bloom."
In related work published in Science in 2012, the researchers found that eddies act as early triggers of the North Atlantic Bloom.
Eddies help keep phytoplankton in shallower water where they can be exposed to sunlight to fuel photosynthesis and growth.
Next, the scientists hope to quantify the transport of organic matter from the ocean's surface to its depths in regions beyond the North Atlantic and at other times of year and relate that to phytoplankton productivity.
Learning more about eddies and their link with plankton blooms will allow for more accurate global models of the ocean's carbon cycle, the researchers say, and improve the models' predictive capabilities.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas, NSF
Spring plankton bloom hitches ride to sea's depths on ocean eddies
Eddies--whirlpools within currents--transport plankton downward from the ocean surface
Just as crocus and daffodil blossoms signal the start of a warmer season on land, a similar "greening" event--a massive bloom of microscopic plants, or phytoplankton--unfolds each spring in the North Atlantic Ocean from Bermuda to the Arctic.
Fertilized by nutrients that have built up during the winter, the cool waters of the North Atlantic come alive every spring and summer with a vivid display of color that stretches across hundreds and hundreds of miles.
North Atlantic Bloom turns ocean into sea of plankton
In what's known as the North Atlantic Bloom, millions of phytoplankton use sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) to grow and reproduce at the ocean's surface.
During photosynthesis, phytoplankton remove carbon dioxide from seawater and release oxygen as a by-product. That allows the oceans to absorb additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If there were fewer phytoplankton, atmospheric carbon dioxide would increase.
Flowers ultimately wither and fade, but what eventually happens to these tiny plants produced in the sea? When phytoplankton die, the carbon in their cells sinks to the deep ocean.
Plankton integral part of oceanic "biological pump"
This so-called biological pump makes the North Atlantic Ocean efficient at soaking up CO2 from the air.
"Much of this 'particulate organic carbon,' especially the larger, heavier particles, sinks," says scientist Melissa Omand of the University of Rhode Island, co-author of a paper on the North Atlantic Bloom published today in the journal Science.
"But we wanted to find out what's happening to the smaller, non-sinking phytoplankton cells from the bloom. Understanding the dynamics of the bloom and what happens to the carbon produced by it is important, especially for being able to predict how the oceans will affect atmospheric CO2 and ultimately climate."
In addition to Omand, other authors of the paper are Amala Mahadevan of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Eric D'Asaro and Craig Lee of the University of Washington, and Mary Jane Perry, Nathan Briggs and Ivona Cetinic of the University of Maine.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
"It's been a challenge to estimate carbon export from the ocean's surface waters to its depths based on measurements of properties such as phytoplankton carbon," says David Garrison, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences. "This paper describes a mechanism for doing that."
Tracking a bloom: Floats, gliders and other instruments
During fieldwork from the research vessels Bjarni Saemundsson and Knorr, the scientists used a float to follow a patch of seawater off Iceland. They observed the progression of the bloom by taking measurements from multiple platforms.
Autonomous gliders outfitted with sensors were used to gather data such as temperature, salinity and information about the chemistry and biology of the bloom--oxygen, nitrate, chlorophyll and the optical signatures of the particulate matter.
At the onset of the bloom and over the next month, four teardrop-shaped seagliders gathered 774 profiles to depths of up to 1,000 meters (3,281 feet).
Analysis of the profiles showed that about 10 percent had unusually high concentrations of phytoplankton bloom properties, even in deep waters, as well as high oxygen concentrations usually found at the surface.
"These profiles were showing what we initially described as 'bumps' at depths much deeper than phytoplankton can grow," says Omand.
Staircases to the deep: Ocean eddies
Using information collected at sea by Perry, D'Asaro and Lee, Mahadevan modeled ocean currents and eddies ("whirlpools" within currents) and their effects on the spring bloom.
"What we were seeing was surface water, rich with phytoplankton carbon, being transported downward by currents on the edges of eddies," Mahadevan says.
"Eddies hadn't been thought of as a major way organic matter is moved into the deeper ocean. But this type of eddy-driven 'subduction' could account for a significant downward movement of phytoplankton from the bloom."
In related work published in Science in 2012, the researchers found that eddies act as early triggers of the North Atlantic Bloom.
Eddies help keep phytoplankton in shallower water where they can be exposed to sunlight to fuel photosynthesis and growth.
Next, the scientists hope to quantify the transport of organic matter from the ocean's surface to its depths in regions beyond the North Atlantic and at other times of year and relate that to phytoplankton productivity.
Learning more about eddies and their link with plankton blooms will allow for more accurate global models of the ocean's carbon cycle, the researchers say, and improve the models' predictive capabilities.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas, NSF
Friday, March 27, 2015
STUDY SUGGESTS HABITAT FRAGMENTATION HAS WORLDWIDE NEGATIVE IMPACT
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Shrinking habitats have adverse effects on world ecosystems--and ultimately people
Extensive study of global habitat fragmentation points to major trouble ahead
An extensive study of global habitat fragmentation--the division of habitats into smaller and more isolated patches--points to major trouble for the world's ecosystems.
The study shows that 70 percent of existing forest lands are within a half-mile of forest edges, where encroaching urban, suburban and agricultural influences can cause harmful effects such as losses of plant and animal species.
Five continents of habitat fragmentation
The research also tracks seven major experiments on five continents that examine habitat fragmentation and finds that fragmented habitats reduce the diversity of plants and animals by 13 to 75 percent.
The largest effects are found in the smallest and most isolated fragments of habitat.
Results of the study, which involved two dozen researchers across the globe, are reported in a new paper published in Science Advances.
The work is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
"The results are stark," said Doug Levey, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology and a co-author of the paper. "No matter the place, habitat or species, habitat fragmentation has large effects, which grow worse over time."
The scientists assembled a map of global forest cover and found very few forest lands unencumbered by some type of human development.
World's forests shrinking
"It's no secret that the world's forests are shrinking, so we asked about the effects of this habitat loss and fragmentation on the remaining forests," said Nick Haddad, a biologist at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of the paper.
"The results were astounding," he said.
"Nearly 20 percent of the world's remaining forests are the distance of a football field--or about 100 meters--away from forest edges. Seventy percent of forest lands are within a half-mile of forest edges. That means almost no forests can really be considered wilderness."
Covering many ecosystems, from forests to savannahs to grasslands, the experiments combined to show a disturbing trend.
Fragmentation changes how ecosystems function, reduces the amounts of nutrients retained and the amount of carbon sequestered and has other deleterious effects.
Negative effects of fragmentation and help for the forest
"The initial effects were unsurprising," Haddad said. "But I was blown away by the fact that these negative effects became even more negative with time. Some results showed a 50 percent or higher decline in plant and animal species over an average of just 20 years.
"And the trajectory is still spiraling downward."
Haddad points to some possible ways of mitigating the effects of fragmentation: conserving and maintaining larger areas of habitat; using landscape corridors, or connected fragments that are effective in maintaining higher biodiversity and better ecosystem function; increasing agricultural efficiency; and focusing on urban design efficiencies.
"Ultimately, habitat fragmentation has harmful effects that will also hurt people," said Haddad.
"This study is a wake-up call to how much we're affecting ecosystems--including areas we think we're conserving."
-- Cheryl Dybas, NSF
Shrinking habitats have adverse effects on world ecosystems--and ultimately people
Extensive study of global habitat fragmentation points to major trouble ahead
An extensive study of global habitat fragmentation--the division of habitats into smaller and more isolated patches--points to major trouble for the world's ecosystems.
The study shows that 70 percent of existing forest lands are within a half-mile of forest edges, where encroaching urban, suburban and agricultural influences can cause harmful effects such as losses of plant and animal species.
Five continents of habitat fragmentation
The research also tracks seven major experiments on five continents that examine habitat fragmentation and finds that fragmented habitats reduce the diversity of plants and animals by 13 to 75 percent.
The largest effects are found in the smallest and most isolated fragments of habitat.
Results of the study, which involved two dozen researchers across the globe, are reported in a new paper published in Science Advances.
The work is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
"The results are stark," said Doug Levey, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology and a co-author of the paper. "No matter the place, habitat or species, habitat fragmentation has large effects, which grow worse over time."
The scientists assembled a map of global forest cover and found very few forest lands unencumbered by some type of human development.
World's forests shrinking
"It's no secret that the world's forests are shrinking, so we asked about the effects of this habitat loss and fragmentation on the remaining forests," said Nick Haddad, a biologist at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of the paper.
"The results were astounding," he said.
"Nearly 20 percent of the world's remaining forests are the distance of a football field--or about 100 meters--away from forest edges. Seventy percent of forest lands are within a half-mile of forest edges. That means almost no forests can really be considered wilderness."
Covering many ecosystems, from forests to savannahs to grasslands, the experiments combined to show a disturbing trend.
Fragmentation changes how ecosystems function, reduces the amounts of nutrients retained and the amount of carbon sequestered and has other deleterious effects.
Negative effects of fragmentation and help for the forest
"The initial effects were unsurprising," Haddad said. "But I was blown away by the fact that these negative effects became even more negative with time. Some results showed a 50 percent or higher decline in plant and animal species over an average of just 20 years.
"And the trajectory is still spiraling downward."
Haddad points to some possible ways of mitigating the effects of fragmentation: conserving and maintaining larger areas of habitat; using landscape corridors, or connected fragments that are effective in maintaining higher biodiversity and better ecosystem function; increasing agricultural efficiency; and focusing on urban design efficiencies.
"Ultimately, habitat fragmentation has harmful effects that will also hurt people," said Haddad.
"This study is a wake-up call to how much we're affecting ecosystems--including areas we think we're conserving."
-- Cheryl Dybas, NSF
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
VIRUSES IN THE DEEP
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
The 'intraterrestrials': New viruses discovered in ocean depths
Viruses infect methane-eating archaea beneath the seafloor
The intraterrestrials, they might be called.
Strange creatures live in the deep sea, but few are odder than the viruses that inhabit deep ocean methane seeps and prey on single-celled microorganisms called archaea.
The least understood of life's three primary domains, archaea thrive in the most extreme environments on the planet: near hot ocean rift vents, in acid mine drainage, in the saltiest of evaporation ponds and in petroleum deposits deep underground.
Virus in the deep blue sea
While searching the ocean's depths for evidence of viruses, scientists have found a remarkable new one, a virus that seemingly infects archaea that live beneath the ocean floor.
The researchers were surprised to discover that the virus selectively targets one of its own genes for mutation, and that this capacity is also shared by archaea themselves.
The findings appear today in a paper in the journal Nature Communications.
The project was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Dimensions of Biodiversity grant to characterize microbial diversity in methane seep ecosystems. Dimensions of Biodiversity is supported by NSF's Directorates for Biological Sciences and Geosciences.
New information about life in ocean depths
"Life far beneath the Earth's subsurface is an enigma," said Matt Kane, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology. "By probing deep into our planet, these scientists have discovered new information about Earth's microbes and how they evolve."
"Our study uncovers mechanisms by which viruses and archaea can adapt in this hostile environment," said David Valentine, a geoscientist at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and co-author of the paper.
The results, he said, raise new questions about the evolution and interaction of the microbes that call the planet's interior home.
"It's now thought that there's more biomass inside the Earth than anywhere else, just living very slowly in this dark, energy-limited environment," said paper co-author Sarah Bagby of UCSB.
Using the submersible Alvin, Valentine and colleagues collected samples from a deep-ocean methane seep by pushing tubes into the ocean floor and retrieving sediments.
The contents were brought back to the lab and fed methane gas, helping the methane-eating archaea in the samples to grow.
When the team assayed the samples for viral infection, they discovered a new virus with a distinctive genetic fingerprint that suggested its likely host was methane-eating archaea.
Genetic sequence of new virus holds the key
The researchers used the genetic sequence of the new virus to chart other occurrences in global databases.
"We found a partial genetic match from methane seeps off Norway and California," said lead author Blair Paul of UCSB. "The evidence suggests that this viral type is distributed around the globe in deep ocean methane seeps."
Further investigation revealed another unexpected finding: a small genetic element, known as a diversity-generating retroelement, that accelerates mutation of a specific section of the virus's genome.
Such elements had been previously identified in bacteria and their viruses, but never among archaea or the viruses that infect them.
"These researchers have shown that cutting-edge genomic approaches can help us understand how microbes function in remote and poorly known environments such as ocean depths," said David Garrison, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences.
While the self-guided mutation element in the archaea virus resembles known bacterial elements, the researchers found that it has a divergent evolutionary history.
"The target of guided mutation--the tips of the virus that make first contact when infecting a cell--is similar," said Paul.
"But the ability to mutate those tips is an offensive countermeasure against the cell's defenses, a move that resembles a molecular arms race."
Unusual genetic adaptations
Having found guided mutation in a virus-infecting archaea, the scientists reasoned that archaea themselves might use the same mechanism for genetic adaptation.
In an exhaustive search, they identified parallel features in the genomes of a subterranean group of archaea known as nanoarchaea.
Unlike the deep-ocean virus that uses guided mutation to alter a single gene, the nanoarchaea target at least four distinct genes.
"It's a new record," said Bagby.
"Bacteria had been observed to target two genes with this mechanism. That may not seem like a huge difference, but targeting four is extraordinary."
According to Valentine, the genetic mutation that fosters these potential variations may be key to the survival of archaea beneath the Earth's surface.
"The cell is choosing to modify certain proteins," he said. "It's doing its own protein engineering. While we don't yet know what those proteins are being used for, learning about the process can tell us something about the environment in which these organisms thrive."
Viral DNA sequencing was provided through a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant. The research team also included scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, San Diego; and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas, NSF
The 'intraterrestrials': New viruses discovered in ocean depths
Viruses infect methane-eating archaea beneath the seafloor
The intraterrestrials, they might be called.
Strange creatures live in the deep sea, but few are odder than the viruses that inhabit deep ocean methane seeps and prey on single-celled microorganisms called archaea.
The least understood of life's three primary domains, archaea thrive in the most extreme environments on the planet: near hot ocean rift vents, in acid mine drainage, in the saltiest of evaporation ponds and in petroleum deposits deep underground.
Virus in the deep blue sea
While searching the ocean's depths for evidence of viruses, scientists have found a remarkable new one, a virus that seemingly infects archaea that live beneath the ocean floor.
The researchers were surprised to discover that the virus selectively targets one of its own genes for mutation, and that this capacity is also shared by archaea themselves.
The findings appear today in a paper in the journal Nature Communications.
The project was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Dimensions of Biodiversity grant to characterize microbial diversity in methane seep ecosystems. Dimensions of Biodiversity is supported by NSF's Directorates for Biological Sciences and Geosciences.
New information about life in ocean depths
"Life far beneath the Earth's subsurface is an enigma," said Matt Kane, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology. "By probing deep into our planet, these scientists have discovered new information about Earth's microbes and how they evolve."
"Our study uncovers mechanisms by which viruses and archaea can adapt in this hostile environment," said David Valentine, a geoscientist at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and co-author of the paper.
The results, he said, raise new questions about the evolution and interaction of the microbes that call the planet's interior home.
"It's now thought that there's more biomass inside the Earth than anywhere else, just living very slowly in this dark, energy-limited environment," said paper co-author Sarah Bagby of UCSB.
Using the submersible Alvin, Valentine and colleagues collected samples from a deep-ocean methane seep by pushing tubes into the ocean floor and retrieving sediments.
The contents were brought back to the lab and fed methane gas, helping the methane-eating archaea in the samples to grow.
When the team assayed the samples for viral infection, they discovered a new virus with a distinctive genetic fingerprint that suggested its likely host was methane-eating archaea.
Genetic sequence of new virus holds the key
The researchers used the genetic sequence of the new virus to chart other occurrences in global databases.
"We found a partial genetic match from methane seeps off Norway and California," said lead author Blair Paul of UCSB. "The evidence suggests that this viral type is distributed around the globe in deep ocean methane seeps."
Further investigation revealed another unexpected finding: a small genetic element, known as a diversity-generating retroelement, that accelerates mutation of a specific section of the virus's genome.
Such elements had been previously identified in bacteria and their viruses, but never among archaea or the viruses that infect them.
"These researchers have shown that cutting-edge genomic approaches can help us understand how microbes function in remote and poorly known environments such as ocean depths," said David Garrison, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences.
While the self-guided mutation element in the archaea virus resembles known bacterial elements, the researchers found that it has a divergent evolutionary history.
"The target of guided mutation--the tips of the virus that make first contact when infecting a cell--is similar," said Paul.
"But the ability to mutate those tips is an offensive countermeasure against the cell's defenses, a move that resembles a molecular arms race."
Unusual genetic adaptations
Having found guided mutation in a virus-infecting archaea, the scientists reasoned that archaea themselves might use the same mechanism for genetic adaptation.
In an exhaustive search, they identified parallel features in the genomes of a subterranean group of archaea known as nanoarchaea.
Unlike the deep-ocean virus that uses guided mutation to alter a single gene, the nanoarchaea target at least four distinct genes.
"It's a new record," said Bagby.
"Bacteria had been observed to target two genes with this mechanism. That may not seem like a huge difference, but targeting four is extraordinary."
According to Valentine, the genetic mutation that fosters these potential variations may be key to the survival of archaea beneath the Earth's surface.
"The cell is choosing to modify certain proteins," he said. "It's doing its own protein engineering. While we don't yet know what those proteins are being used for, learning about the process can tell us something about the environment in which these organisms thrive."
Viral DNA sequencing was provided through a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant. The research team also included scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, San Diego; and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas, NSF
RESEARCHERS USING METALLIC GLASS, OTHER MATERIALS AT CELL BREAKAGE
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Materials, like metallic glass, can help us understand how cells break
Research could lead to faster wound recovery and prove valuable in constructing buildings, producing golf clubs and more
"Disordered" materials are so-called because they are made up of objects that are in total disarray. Their composition, whether of atoms, molecules, grains or cells, do not lie in a neat, orderly pattern, but, instead, are all jumbled up.
"They're like sand on a beach, or mayonnaise," says M. Lisa Manning, an assistant professor of physics at Syracuse University. "When you mix up the oil and water for mayonnaise, the oil droplets sit unordered. That's what makes the mayonnaise stiff, all the little oil droplets packed together."
Many of these disordered materials, metallic glass, for example, are exceptionally strong, stronger than other metals, which offers potential for many industrial uses. But they also are prone to failure, and often break. Manning is studying these materials, searching for the defects in each that produce a crack-like fissure called a shear band.
"If we can find and identify these defects, then we can understand what causes the shear band," Manning says. "My goal is to figure out how they break. I am looking for defects in these materials. Once we figure out how they break, we can then figure out how to prevent them from breaking."
If successful, these materials--because of their inherent strength--could prove valuable in manufacturing, from constructing buildings to producing golf clubs, and "would be extremely good for making precision objects, because they don't change shape when they cool down," Manning says.
Insights from her research also could have important applications for biology, ultimately leading to possible future medical treatments, because disordered cells also exist in tissues, in developing embryos and in certain cancers.
"If you look at the cells in these tissues, they are disordered and look almost identical to pictures of foams, or emulsions," Manning says. "Embryos look like this, and so do healing wounds, and some cancer tissues too."
Biologists have a good understanding of what happens when a single cell migrates, or moves, she says. "But what is not well studied is how cells in this dense packing order move through tissues, which is important for wound healing," she says. "A cell has to push its way through its neighbors to move.
"If I can understand how non-biological particles move, this can provide new and exciting insights as to how a cell can move through tissues," she adds. "How stiff are the cells around it, for example? If I want a cell to move faster in tissue, should I make it softer or stiffer? The goal is to answer this, and test it."
Understanding this process could speed wound healing and "help repair embryonic defects when cells don't move to the correct places," she says.
In cancer, "recent work has shown that cancer cells are softer than other cells, and have different mechanical properties," she says. "One question I hope to answer: if a cancer cell is softer, does that make it easier to move through tissue and metastasize? If I could stiffen up that cell with a drug, maybe it wouldn't move anymore."
To find the defects, Manning creates computer simulations of the materials and studies sound modes that vibrate within the structure, much like a specific musical note vibrates inside an organ pipe. When the researchers find "localized" vibrations, that is, a mode where the structure vibrates a lot more in a certain place, "that's where the defect is located," she says.
Manning is conducting her research under an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, which she received in 2014. The award supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organization.
As part of the grant's educational component, Manning plans to develop tutorials for high school juniors and seniors in Syracuse University's Project Advance, a program that enables these students to earn college physics credits. Project Advance provides instructional materials to high school teachers, and sponsors extra training sessions for them at the university. Manning is designing teaching modules about current research in materials science that can be directly integrated into the introductory physics curriculum, as well as an online math tutorial to tune up students' math skills.
"The goal is to increase diversity and retention in STEM disciplines," she says, referring to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. "We need more engineers, and we want to keep the ones we have, and recruit a more diverse body of students."
-- Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation
Investigators
M. Lisa Manning
Related Institutions/Organizations
Syracuse University
Materials, like metallic glass, can help us understand how cells break
Research could lead to faster wound recovery and prove valuable in constructing buildings, producing golf clubs and more
"Disordered" materials are so-called because they are made up of objects that are in total disarray. Their composition, whether of atoms, molecules, grains or cells, do not lie in a neat, orderly pattern, but, instead, are all jumbled up.
"They're like sand on a beach, or mayonnaise," says M. Lisa Manning, an assistant professor of physics at Syracuse University. "When you mix up the oil and water for mayonnaise, the oil droplets sit unordered. That's what makes the mayonnaise stiff, all the little oil droplets packed together."
Many of these disordered materials, metallic glass, for example, are exceptionally strong, stronger than other metals, which offers potential for many industrial uses. But they also are prone to failure, and often break. Manning is studying these materials, searching for the defects in each that produce a crack-like fissure called a shear band.
"If we can find and identify these defects, then we can understand what causes the shear band," Manning says. "My goal is to figure out how they break. I am looking for defects in these materials. Once we figure out how they break, we can then figure out how to prevent them from breaking."
If successful, these materials--because of their inherent strength--could prove valuable in manufacturing, from constructing buildings to producing golf clubs, and "would be extremely good for making precision objects, because they don't change shape when they cool down," Manning says.
Insights from her research also could have important applications for biology, ultimately leading to possible future medical treatments, because disordered cells also exist in tissues, in developing embryos and in certain cancers.
"If you look at the cells in these tissues, they are disordered and look almost identical to pictures of foams, or emulsions," Manning says. "Embryos look like this, and so do healing wounds, and some cancer tissues too."
Biologists have a good understanding of what happens when a single cell migrates, or moves, she says. "But what is not well studied is how cells in this dense packing order move through tissues, which is important for wound healing," she says. "A cell has to push its way through its neighbors to move.
"If I can understand how non-biological particles move, this can provide new and exciting insights as to how a cell can move through tissues," she adds. "How stiff are the cells around it, for example? If I want a cell to move faster in tissue, should I make it softer or stiffer? The goal is to answer this, and test it."
Understanding this process could speed wound healing and "help repair embryonic defects when cells don't move to the correct places," she says.
In cancer, "recent work has shown that cancer cells are softer than other cells, and have different mechanical properties," she says. "One question I hope to answer: if a cancer cell is softer, does that make it easier to move through tissue and metastasize? If I could stiffen up that cell with a drug, maybe it wouldn't move anymore."
To find the defects, Manning creates computer simulations of the materials and studies sound modes that vibrate within the structure, much like a specific musical note vibrates inside an organ pipe. When the researchers find "localized" vibrations, that is, a mode where the structure vibrates a lot more in a certain place, "that's where the defect is located," she says.
Manning is conducting her research under an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, which she received in 2014. The award supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organization.
As part of the grant's educational component, Manning plans to develop tutorials for high school juniors and seniors in Syracuse University's Project Advance, a program that enables these students to earn college physics credits. Project Advance provides instructional materials to high school teachers, and sponsors extra training sessions for them at the university. Manning is designing teaching modules about current research in materials science that can be directly integrated into the introductory physics curriculum, as well as an online math tutorial to tune up students' math skills.
"The goal is to increase diversity and retention in STEM disciplines," she says, referring to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. "We need more engineers, and we want to keep the ones we have, and recruit a more diverse body of students."
-- Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation
Investigators
M. Lisa Manning
Related Institutions/Organizations
Syracuse University
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