thescientist--2020-10-21--Nature-Branded Journals Announce First Open-Access Deal

Springer Nature , the parent company of the Nature suite of journals , will allow researchers affiliated with around 120 German institutions to publish an estimated 400 open-access papers in these titles annually starting in 2021 .
The deal , announced yesterday ( October 20 ) , will be offered to institutions that currently subscribe to Nature journals .
The first to sign up is the Max Planck Society , an association of 86 research institutes .
The deal will be “ an enormous opportunity for scientists in Germany , ” as well as an opportunity for researchers elsewhere to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Blaum , vice president of the Max Planck Society ’ s Scientific Council for Chemistry , Physics and Technology , says in a statement .
Springer Nature signed a similar agreement—to date , the world ’ s largest transformative agreement , in which publishers and research institutions agree to a contract that contains elements geared towards increasing open access—with a consortium of more than 700 research institutions and libraries in 2019 , though that contract excluded Nature and other Nature-branded titles .
Institutions that sign up will pay a flat fee that covers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ publishing of articles in the 34 journals , as well as access to articles in 21 Nature Reviews titles .
According to the terms of the four-year deal , the fee is calculated on Springer Nature ’ s estimate that the cost of each open-access paper is about €9,500 ( $ 11,200 US ) per article .
Springer Nature says in a statement that its cost per published article is higher than less-selective journals because 60 percent of editors ’ time is spent on assessing articles that they don ’ t publish , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of submissions to Nature and Nature-branded journals .
Some open-access proponents criticized the deal .
“ Agreements that arrange for paying exorbitant amounts for publishing OA in prestigious journals do nothing to improve the accessibility and equitability of the scholarly publishing system , and merely show everything can be had if you just throw enough money at it , ” Jeroen Bosman and Bianca Kramer , two librarians and scholarly communication researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands , tell Nature in an email .
Only studies with corresponding authors from eligible institutions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ estimates that about 3.5 percent of articles in its journals will be affected , according to Nature .
Over the last few years , universities and research institutions around the world have been pushing publishers for agreements that advance open access to journals .
Earlier this year , the University of California and Springer Nature announced that they had forged the largest open-access deal in North America to date .

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OLLO
Springer Nature, the parent company of the Nature suite of journals, will allow researchers affiliated with around 120 German institutions to publish an estimated 400 open-access papers in these titles annually starting in 2021.
The deal, announced yesterday (October 20), will be offered to institutions that currently subscribe to Nature journals. The first to sign up is the Max Planck Society, an association of 86 research institutes. The deal will be “an enormous opportunity for scientists in Germany,” as well as an opportunity for researchers elsewhere to build on their scientific findings, Klaus Blaum, vice president of the Max Planck Society’s Scientific Council for Chemistry, Physics and Technology, says in a statement.
Springer Nature signed a similar agreement—to date, the world’s largest transformative agreement, in which publishers and research institutions agree to a contract that contains elements geared towards increasing open access—with a consortium of more than 700 research institutions and libraries in 2019, though that contract excluded Nature and other Nature-branded titles.
Institutions that sign up will pay a flat fee that covers the reading and open-access (OA) publishing of articles in the 34 journals, as well as access to articles in 21 Nature Reviews titles. According to the terms of the four-year deal, the fee is calculated on Springer Nature’s estimate that the cost of each open-access paper is about €9,500 ($11,200 US) per article.
Springer Nature says in a statement that its cost per published article is higher than less-selective journals because 60 percent of editors’ time is spent on assessing articles that they don’t publish, with a rejection rate of 92 percent of submissions to Nature and Nature-branded journals.
Some open-access proponents criticized the deal. “Agreements that arrange for paying exorbitant amounts for publishing OA in prestigious journals do nothing to improve the accessibility and equitability of the scholarly publishing system, and merely show everything can be had if you just throw enough money at it,” Jeroen Bosman and Bianca Kramer, two librarians and scholarly communication researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, tell Nature in an email.
Only studies with corresponding authors from eligible institutions will be open access. Springer Nature estimates that about 3.5 percent of articles in its journals will be affected, according to Nature.
Over the last few years, universities and research institutions around the world have been pushing publishers for agreements that advance open access to journals. Earlier this year, the University of California and Springer Nature announced that they had forged the largest open-access deal in North America to date.


thescientist--2020-10-21--Rapid Characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 Immune Response Using the Simple Western Multi-Antigen Sero

Rapid Characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 Immune Response Using the Simple Western Multi-Antigen Serology Assay

The COVID-19 pandemic creates a need to better understand the SARS-CoV-2 immune response , including variability amongst patients , temporal @ @ @ @ @ vaccinated vs. natural immune responses .
Using Simple Western automated hands-free western blotting platforms , @ @ @ @ @ antigen-down serology assays .
The Simple Western SARS-CoV-2 Multi-Antigen Assay Module quantitatively characterizes serum or @ @ @ @ @ to five SARS-CoV-2 antigens within a 3-hour run and provides information-rich views into antibody binding @ @ @ @ @ time .
In this webinar brought to you by ProteinSimple , scientists at RAIN Incubator @ @ @ @ @ the Simple Western SARS-CoV-2 Multi-Antigen Assay to quickly compare patient immune responses to five key @ @ @ @ @ range of sample types , temporal serum draws , and dilutions .
• Characterization of @ @ @ @ @ assay including sensitivity & comparison to an in-house SARS-CoV-2 IgG ELISA assay • Observed variability @ @ @ @ @ and immune response evolution over time • Specific immune fingerprints that may be indicative of @ @ @ @ @ or other clinical outcomes

FREE Webinar
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
12:00 - 1:00 PM, Eastern Time
Register Now
The COVID-19 pandemic creates a need to better understand the SARS-CoV-2 immune response, including variability amongst individual human samples, temporal changes, and differences in vaccinated vs. natural immune responses. Using Simple Western automated hands-free western blotting platforms, scientists can rapidly perform SARS-CoV-2 antigen-down serology assays. The Simple Western SARS-CoV-2 Multi-Antigen Assay Module quantitatively characterizes serum or plasma human IgG antibodies reactive to five SARS-CoV-2 antigens within a 3-hour run and provides information-rich views into antibody binding profiles across individual human samples or over time. In this webinar brought to you by ProteinSimple, scientists at RAIN Incubator will present insights acquired using the Simple Western SARS-CoV-2 Multi-Antigen Assay to quickly compare human immune responses to five key viral antigens across a wide range of sample types, temporal serum draws, and dilutions.
Topics to be covered
Data-rich profiles of human serum IgG antibodies reactive to multiple recombinant SARS-CoV-2 antigens
Characterization of the Simple Western SARS-CoV-2 multi-antigen assay including sensitivity & comparison to an in-house SARS-CoV-2 IgG ELISA assay
Observed variability in COVID-19 human immune responses and immune response evolution over time
Specific immune fingerprints that may be indicative of disease progression, immunity status or other clinical outcomes
Register Now
Speakers
Paul Johnson
Product Manager
Strategy and New Product Development
ProteinSimple, a Bio-Techne brand
Featured Speaker
Shah A. K. Mohamed Bakhash
Research Assistant
RAIN Incubator


thescientist--2020-10-27--Water on the Moon Confirmed

Water on the Moon Confirmed

In recent years , observations have hinted at the existence of water on the moon , but lacked concrete evidence .
Now , two studies published October 26 in Nature Astronomy have found water near the moon ’ s south pole and claim it is more abundant than previously predicted .
The bulk of the water appears to be found in “ cold traps , ” which are areas that are permanently shadowed .
These dark spots can dip to temperatures as low as –163 ºC , keeping the water in a solid state .
The rest of the water @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it appears to be contained within microscopic glass and dust .
Because this water was found in direct sunlight , which can reach 127 ºC in the sun , the researchers suggest the minerals are protecting the water from vaporizing and dissipating .
“ A lot of people think that the detection I ’ ve made is water ice , which is not true .
It ’ s just the water molecules—because they ’ re so spread out they don ’ t interact with each other to form water ice or even liquid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Goddard Space Flight Center and the lead author of one of the studies , tells the Associated Press .
Now that water on the moon has been confirmed , the next big question is how it got there , says Paul Hayne , a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the lead author of the other study .
“ The origin of water on the moon is one of the big-picture questions we are trying to answer through this and other research , ” Hayne tells Reuters .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ comets , asteroids or small interplanetary dust particles , the solar wind , and the moon itself through outgassing from volcanic eruptions.
” The data behind the observations were collected in part from a lunar orbiter .
There are plans to send a rover to the moon ’ s south pole by 2024 , which will be able to dig beneath the surface , possibly finding new repositories that can not be seen from the surface .
“ Both papers deepen the mysteries of lunar water while providing pieces of the puzzle , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Caltech who was not involved in the research , tells The Washington Post .

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In recent years, observations have hinted at the existence of water on the moon, but lacked concrete evidence. Now, two studies published October 26 in Nature Astronomy have found water near the moon’s south pole and claim it is more abundant than previously predicted.
The bulk of the water appears to be found in “cold traps,” which are areas that are permanently shadowed. These dark spots can dip to temperatures as low as –163 ºC, keeping the water in a solid state. The rest of the water is found at the surface, though it appears to be contained within microscopic glass and dust. Because this water was found in direct sunlight, which can reach 127 ºC in the sun, the researchers suggest the minerals are protecting the water from vaporizing and dissipating.
“A lot of people think that the detection I’ve made is water ice, which is not true. It’s just the water molecules—because they’re so spread out they don’t interact with each other to form water ice or even liquid water,” Casey Honniball of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the lead author of one of the studies, tells the Associated Press.
Now that water on the moon has been confirmed, the next big question is how it got there, says Paul Hayne, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the lead author of the other study. “The origin of water on the moon is one of the big-picture questions we are trying to answer through this and other research,” Hayne tells Reuters. “Currently, the major contenders are comets, asteroids or small interplanetary dust particles, the solar wind, and the moon itself through outgassing from volcanic eruptions.”
The data behind the observations were collected in part from a lunar orbiter. There are plans to send a rover to the moon’s south pole by 2024, which will be able to dig beneath the surface, possibly finding new repositories that cannot be seen from the surface.
“Both papers deepen the mysteries of lunar water while providing pieces of the puzzle,” Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary scientist at Caltech who was not involved in the research, tells The Washington Post.


thescientist--2020-10-27--Alterations in Immune Genes Make Bats Great Viral Hosts

Bats act as reservoirs for lots of viruses—including coronaviruses such as those that cause Middle East respiratory syndrome , severe acute respiratory syndrome , and possibly COVID-19—but they don ’ t often get sick themselves .
How they avoid viral illness has been an open question .
Researchers reported in PNAS yesterday ( October 26 ) that various species of bats have slightly different ways of suppressing inflammation , all centered on changes in genes responsible for triggering innate immune responses .
The authors demonstrate a number of the mechanisms in bats that seem to support their capacity to tolerate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , says Cara Brook , a postdoc at the University of California , Berkeley , who was not involved in the work .
“ This follows a series of other publications that really highlight a dampened inflammatory response in bats that suggests that they are uniquely resistant and resilient to the consequences of immunopathology .
.
.
and don ’ t experience the kind of autoimmune disease that we often incur against ourselves.
” In a study published in 2013 , Linfa Wang , an immunologist at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bat species : the fruit bat ( Pteropus alecto ) and insectivorous bat ( Myotis davidii ) .
They found that both species had lost a gene called AIM2 , which in other mammals encodes a protein that senses pathogenic DNA and triggers inflammasomes , protein complexes that activate proinflammatory signals that in turn promote the maturation of cytokines , small signaling proteins that can be released by immune cells and regulate inflammation and immunity .
In the current study , Wang ’ s group followed up on AIM2 to figure out what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to pathogenic DNA .
They compared macrophages , the innate immune system ’ s primary effector cells , from mice and fruit bats .
The mouse cells , which have a functional gene , make the aggregates of AIM2 and its protein binding partner , which together trigger the inflammasome pathway when cells are exposed to double-stranded DNA .
None of this occurred in the fruit bat cells .
When the researchers added in a copy of the human version of AIM2 to fruit bat kidney cells aggregates still formed , but did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those that encode the effector enzyme caspase-1 , which activates the proinflammatory cytokine IL-1β .
“ We hypothesized that further downstream activation of the inflammasome pathway may be affected in bats and decided to investigate these signaling components in an effort to detect any alteration in their function , ” Wang writes in an email to The Scientist .
The researchers determined that the faulty caspase-1 response was due to bat-specific mutations in two sites within the fragment of the enzyme that must be cleaved in order for it to be activated .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ acids back into the coding sequence , the bat enzyme worked just as the human protein does .
The reverse experiment confirmed these mutations were responsible for the impaired enzyme function .
Introducing both bat-specific mutations into the gene for the human protein resulted in a loss of function of human caspase-1 .
In contrast , they found , the Myotis genus of bats has functional caspase-1 , but these animals ’ genomes instead contain mutations in IL-1β that prevent the cytokine ’ s cleavage and subsequent for cellular secretion .
A third @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eonycteris spelaea ) had diminished , though not completely suppressed , function of both caspase-1 and IL-1β , resulting from a handful of mutations .
When people “ find something about one species of bats , they assume that every bat species does the same thing , and that ’ s not true , ” says Vikram Misra , a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan who did not participate in the study “ What ’ s nice about this paper is that it points to the fact that different species have evolved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ It ’ s very small changes in specific amino acids , where you have one change .
.
.
that can completely change the function of a protein , ” Karen Mossman , a virologist at McMaster University who did not participate in the work , tells The Scientist .
In the future , it will be “ interesting to really understand how all of these subtle changes in these proteins work collectively to give the bats their immune system , ” she adds .
“ It ’ s so similar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ components of the pathways are very similar .
And yet , there ’ re these vast , vast changes and differences in how they respond , say , to a viral infection.
” Although many species of bats don ’ t seem to get sick from viruses , inflammation in bats does exist , such as when they ’ re exposed to fungal diseases , Misra says .
“ Even though inflammation because of the viral infection is dampened , there ’ ve got to be other pathways that bring out inflammation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ we haven ’ t , as a group of bat researchers , addressed completely at this point.
” G. Goh et al.
, “ Complementary regulation of caspase-1 and IL-1β reveals additional mechanisms of dampened inflammation in bats , ” PNAS , doi:10.1073/pnas.2003352117 , 2020 .

ABOVE: Cave nectar bat (Eonycteris spelaea)
FENG ZHU
Bats act as reservoirs for lots of viruses—including coronaviruses such as those that cause Middle East respiratory syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and possibly COVID-19—but they don’t often get sick themselves. How they avoid viral illness has been an open question. Researchers reported in PNAS yesterday (October 26) that various species of bats have slightly different ways of suppressing inflammation, all centered on changes in genes responsible for triggering innate immune responses.
The authors demonstrate a number of the mechanisms in bats that seem to support their capacity to tolerate viruses that make other mammals really sick, says Cara Brook, a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the work. “This follows a series of other publications that really highlight a dampened inflammatory response in bats that suggests that they are uniquely resistant and resilient to the consequences of immunopathology . . . and don’t experience the kind of autoimmune disease that we often incur against ourselves.”
In a study published in 2013, Linfa Wang, an immunologist at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, and colleagues compared the genomes of two bat species: the fruit bat (Pteropus alecto) and insectivorous bat (Myotis davidii). They found that both species had lost a gene called AIM2, which in other mammals encodes a protein that senses pathogenic DNA and triggers inflammasomes, protein complexes that activate proinflammatory signals that in turn promote the maturation of cytokines, small signaling proteins that can be released by immune cells and regulate inflammation and immunity.
What’s nice about this paper is that it points to the fact that different species have evolved different mechanisms for achieving the same ends. —Vikram Misra, University of Saskatchewan
In the current study, Wang’s group followed up on AIM2 to figure out what affect its loss has on cellular responses to pathogenic DNA. They compared macrophages, the innate immune system’s primary effector cells, from mice and fruit bats. The mouse cells, which have a functional gene, make the aggregates of AIM2 and its protein binding partner, which together trigger the inflammasome pathway when cells are exposed to double-stranded DNA. None of this occurred in the fruit bat cells. When the researchers added in a copy of the human version of AIM2 to fruit bat kidney cells aggregates still formed, but did not activate other inflammasome-related genes, including those that encode the effector enzyme caspase-1, which activates the proinflammatory cytokine IL-1β.
“We hypothesized that further downstream activation of the inflammasome pathway may be affected in bats and decided to investigate these signaling components in an effort to detect any alteration in their function,” Wang writes in an email to The Scientist.
The researchers determined that the faulty caspase-1 response was due to bat-specific mutations in two sites within the fragment of the enzyme that must be cleaved in order for it to be activated. When they engineered the equivalent human amino acids back into the coding sequence, the bat enzyme worked just as the human protein does. The reverse experiment confirmed these mutations were responsible for the impaired enzyme function. Introducing both bat-specific mutations into the gene for the human protein resulted in a loss of function of human caspase-1.
Cave nectar bats (Eonycteris spelaea) Feng zhu
In contrast, they found, the Myotis genus of bats has functional caspase-1, but these animals’ genomes instead contain mutations in IL-1β that prevent the cytokine’s cleavage and subsequent for cellular secretion. A third species, the cave nectar bat (Eonycteris spelaea) had diminished, though not completely suppressed, function of both caspase-1 and IL-1β, resulting from a handful of mutations.
When people “find something about one species of bats, they assume that every bat species does the same thing, and that’s not true,” says Vikram Misra, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan who did not participate in the study “What’s nice about this paper is that it points to the fact that different species have evolved different mechanisms for achieving the same ends.”
“It’s very small changes in specific amino acids, where you have one change . . . that can completely change the function of a protein,” Karen Mossman, a virologist at McMaster University who did not participate in the work, tells The Scientist. In the future, it will be “interesting to really understand how all of these subtle changes in these proteins work collectively to give the bats their immune system,” she adds. “It’s so similar to the human immune system; the components of the pathways are very similar. And yet, there’re these vast, vast changes and differences in how they respond, say, to a viral infection.”
Although many species of bats don’t seem to get sick from viruses, inflammation in bats does exist, such as when they’re exposed to fungal diseases, Misra says. “Even though inflammation because of the viral infection is dampened, there’ve got to be other pathways that bring out inflammation. That’s something that I think we haven’t, as a group of bat researchers, addressed completely at this point.”
G. Goh et al., “Complementary regulation of caspase-1 and IL-1β reveals additional mechanisms of dampened inflammation in bats,” PNAS, doi:10.1073/pnas.2003352117, 2020.


thescientist--2020-10-27--Eli Lilly Halts Antibody Trial in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients

The antibody treatment bamlanivimab , or LY-CoV555 , appears to be ineffective in treating severe cases of COVID-19 , the drugmaker Eli Lilly announced yesterday ( October 26 ) .
As a result , a clinical trial testing the drug in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has ended , but studies examining its use in early and mild-to-moderate coronavirus infections will continue .
Ending the clinical trial in hospitalized patients came in response to data showing the drug “ is unlikely to help [ the patients ] recover from this advanced stage of their disease , ” according to the company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tells us they stopped the trial due to futility , as suspected , ” Eric Topol , a clinical trial expert and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute , tells The New York Times .
The result also “ suggests that the timing of monoclonal antibody administration—early—will be important , ” he notes .
The data on the drug support that idea , as results from other clinical trials of bamlanivimab indicate that it might block replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in human cells .
The drug can also cut the rate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms compared with patients not receiving the treatment .
Based on those other clinical trial results , Eli Lilly has asked the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization to treat less severe cases of COVID-19 , the Associated Press reports .

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The antibody treatment bamlanivimab, or LY-CoV555, appears to be ineffective in treating severe cases of COVID-19, the drugmaker Eli Lilly announced yesterday (October 26). As a result, a clinical trial testing the drug in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has ended, but studies examining its use in early and mild-to-moderate coronavirus infections will continue.
Ending the clinical trial in hospitalized patients came in response to data showing the drug “is unlikely to help [the patients] recover from this advanced stage of their disease,” according to the company’s statement. That decision “tells us they stopped the trial due to futility, as suspected,” Eric Topol, a clinical trial expert and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, tells The New York Times. The result also “suggests that the timing of monoclonal antibody administration—early—will be important,” he notes.
The data on the drug support that idea, as results from other clinical trials of bamlanivimab indicate that it might block replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in human cells. The drug can also cut the rate of hospitalizations and emergency room visits in patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms compared with patients not receiving the treatment.
Based on those other clinical trial results, Eli Lilly has asked the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization to treat less severe cases of COVID-19, the Associated Press reports.


thescientist--2020-10-28--The Scientist Speaks Podcast - Episode 10

While T cell immunotherapies effectively battle certain cancers , many cancers do not respond to these treatments .
To find @ @ @ @ @ researchers use modern genetic techniques , such as genome-wide CRISPR-based screens , to enhance the @ @ @ @ @ cancer cell susceptibility to treatment .
Niki Spahich from The Scientist ’ s Creative Services @ @ @ @ @ , assistant professor in genetics and systems biology at Yale University , to learn more @ @ @ @ @ a podcast produced by The Scientist ’ s Creative Services team .
Our podcast is @ @ @ @ @ .
Once a month , we will bring you the stories behind news-worthy molecular biology @ @

Welcome to The Scientist Speaks, a podcast produced by The Scientist’s Creative Services Team. Our podcast is by scientists and for scientists. Once a month, we bring you the stories behind news-worthy molecular biology research.
While T cell immunotherapies effectively battle certain cancers, many cancers do not respond to these treatments. To find solutions to this problem, researchers use modern genetic techniques, such as genome-wide CRISPR-based screens, to enhance the anti-cancer immune response and increase cancer cell susceptibility to treatment. Niki Spahich from The Scientist’s Creative Services team spoke with Sidi Chen, assistant professor in genetics and systems biology at Yale University, to learn more.


thescientist--2020-10-28--Nitrogen-Fixing Microbes Found in Antarctic Sea

It ’ s a problem all earthly life forms must solve : where to get nitrogen ?
From plants to people , the element is a crucial building block of DNA , proteins , and other biomolecules .
“ Carbon , nitrogen , [ and ] phosphorus are the big three things that you totally need to put biomass together , ” says Connie Lovejoy , a microbial ecologist at Laval University in Quebec .
But only a select group of microbes , known as diazotrophs , can pluck N gas from the air or dissolved N in water and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called nitrogen fixation , so that it can then be used to build other biomolecules .
Most of the rest of us piggyback on their labor in some way , and , to a smaller extent , on nitrogen-fixing chemical reactions catalyzed by lightning and volcanoes .
Nitrogen fixation “ is really energy-expensive , ” because it necessitates breaking the triple bond between two nitrogen atoms , explains Deborah Bronk , a chemical oceanographer who leads the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine .
It was long assumed that in the ocean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and that microbes in colder regions would need to scavenge previously-fixed nitrogen from molecules in the water .
It ’ s not clear why scientists thought this , says Bronk , who a few years ago searched the literature for the origins of the idea .
“ I couldn ’ t find the basis of why it was so entrenched , ” she says .
In 2012 , however , Lovejoy and her colleagues reported that Arctic seas are in fact home to diazotrophs , and since then , Bronk ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conclusion .
In a study published October 26 in Nature Geoscience , a Japan-based research team finds diazotrophs at work in the Antarctic , too , specifically , in waters near sea ice .
The study came about when senior author Naomi Harada , a geochemist at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology , was put in charge of an Antarctic research expedition , coauthor Takuhei Shiozaki writes in an email to The Scientist .
Shiozaki , a marine microbiologist who worked with Harada at the time and is now at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the voyage , and collected ocean water samples at 21 spots in the open ocean and closer to the coast .
The study team extracted DNA and RNA from microbes in the samples and looked for the gene for the nitrogen-fixing enzyme , nitrogenase .
They identified some of the microbial species present and tested directly whether the cells in each of the samples were fixing nitrogen , and at what rates .
“ We found substantial nitrogen fixation near [ the ] Antarctic coast , especially around ice-covered region , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high levels of iron , which may be involved [ in ] the Antarctic nitrogen fixation.
” Nitrogenase needs iron to fix nitrogen , and unlike in the Arctic , there ’ s little iron available in the sea around Antarctica .
In addition , concentrations of compounds containing fixed nitrogen are high in those waters , which would seem to mean that being able to fix their own nitrogen wouldn ’ t give diazotrophs much of a competitive advantage over non-diazotrophs .
Bronk , who was not involved in the study , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fixation occurs in the Antarctic seas , given the conditions of low iron and high availability of already-fixed nitrogen in the form of nitrate , and she agrees that the iron locked in sea ice is a likely part of the explanation .
There ’ s little iron present in Antarctic winds , she notes , but over long periods of time , “ it ’ s going to accumulate a fair bit of dust in that ice .
And if you melt that ice , then , over the course of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in [ to the ocean ] much quicker than it would come in from the air.
” But that still doesn ’ t explain why microbes would fix nitrogen when there ’ s plenty of nitrate around , she adds .
Lovejoy , who also was not involved in the study , says it ’ s not unexpected that there is some diazotroph presence in Antarctic waters .
“ I think it ’ s just a matter of maintaining some sort of diversity in the ocean , that you ’ ll always have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have that gene and are able to fix nitrogen , ” she tells The Scientist .
But as to whether they use that ability under a given set of conditions , “ it ’ s always been a little bit of a debate as to what drives nitrogen fixation in general , ” she notes .
“ And that ’ s true in both freshwater and marine systems.
” For Shiozaki , the finding that nitrogen fixation occurs at the bottom of the globe is notable , but he is more struck by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The most surprising thing is that the cyanobacterium UCYN-A was the major diazotroph , ” he says , as that microbe has previously been found in tropical and subtropical waters , as well as the Arctic Ocean .
“ This means that UCYN-A [ is distributed ] all over the world , from tropics to polar regions.
” Lovejoy likewise finds this to be the study ’ s most surprising finding .
Microbes that are able to live in both temperate oceans and in polar regions “ are very , very rare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ studies , “ we need to investigate why UCYN-A is able to thrive in such a wide range of temperature and what limits their nitrogen fixation , ” Shiozaki writes .
“ This will allow us to predict how ocean nitrogen fixation will change with climate changes .
”

ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, JOCREBBIN
It’s a problem all earthly life forms must solve: where to get nitrogen? From plants to people, the element is a crucial building block of DNA, proteins, and other biomolecules. “Carbon, nitrogen, [and] phosphorus are the big three things that you totally need to put biomass together,” says Connie Lovejoy, a microbial ecologist at Laval University in Quebec.
But only a select group of microbes, known as diazotrophs, can pluck N 2 gas from the air or dissolved N 2 in water and convert it into ammonium, a process called nitrogen fixation, so that it can then be used to build other biomolecules. Most of the rest of us piggyback on their labor in some way, and, to a smaller extent, on nitrogen-fixing chemical reactions catalyzed by lightning and volcanoes. Nitrogen fixation “is really energy-expensive,” because it necessitates breaking the triple bond between two nitrogen atoms, explains Deborah Bronk, a chemical oceanographer who leads the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine.
The SHIRASE research vessel used for the study TAKUHEI SHIOZAKI
It was long assumed that in the ocean, only warmer realms could harbor diazotrophs, and that microbes in colder regions would need to scavenge previously-fixed nitrogen from molecules in the water. It’s not clear why scientists thought this, says Bronk, who a few years ago searched the literature for the origins of the idea. “I couldn’t find the basis of why it was so entrenched,” she says.
In 2012, however, Lovejoy and her colleagues reported that Arctic seas are in fact home to diazotrophs, and since then, Bronk’s group and others have reached the same conclusion. In a study published October 26 in Nature Geoscience, a Japan-based research team finds diazotrophs at work in the Antarctic, too, specifically, in waters near sea ice.
The study came about when senior author Naomi Harada, a geochemist at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, was put in charge of an Antarctic research expedition, coauthor Takuhei Shiozaki writes in an email to The Scientist. Shiozaki, a marine microbiologist who worked with Harada at the time and is now at the University of Tokyo, went along on the voyage, and collected ocean water samples at 21 spots in the open ocean and closer to the coast. The study team extracted DNA and RNA from microbes in the samples and looked for the gene for the nitrogen-fixing enzyme, nitrogenase. They identified some of the microbial species present and tested directly whether the cells in each of the samples were fixing nitrogen, and at what rates.
“We found substantial nitrogen fixation near [the] Antarctic coast, especially around ice-covered region,” he says. “Sea ice contains high levels of iron, which may be involved [in] the Antarctic nitrogen fixation.”
Nitrogenase needs iron to fix nitrogen, and unlike in the Arctic, there’s little iron available in the sea around Antarctica. In addition, concentrations of compounds containing fixed nitrogen are high in those waters, which would seem to mean that being able to fix their own nitrogen wouldn’t give diazotrophs much of a competitive advantage over non-diazotrophs.
Bronk, who was not involved in the study, says it’s surprising that nitrogen fixation occurs in the Antarctic seas, given the conditions of low iron and high availability of already-fixed nitrogen in the form of nitrate, and she agrees that the iron locked in sea ice is a likely part of the explanation. There’s little iron present in Antarctic winds, she notes, but over long periods of time, “it’s going to accumulate a fair bit of dust in that ice. And if you melt that ice, then, over the course of a decade, it’s releasing iron in [to the ocean] much quicker than it would come in from the air.” But that still doesn’t explain why microbes would fix nitrogen when there’s plenty of nitrate around, she adds.
Water sampling from the SHIRASE RYO KIMURA
Lovejoy, who also was not involved in the study, says it’s not unexpected that there is some diazotroph presence in Antarctic waters. “I think it’s just a matter of maintaining some sort of diversity in the ocean, that you’ll always have a residual number of organisms that still have that gene and are able to fix nitrogen,” she tells The Scientist. But as to whether they use that ability under a given set of conditions, “it’s always been a little bit of a debate as to what drives nitrogen fixation in general,” she notes. “And that’s true in both freshwater and marine systems.”
For Shiozaki, the finding that nitrogen fixation occurs at the bottom of the globe is notable, but he is more struck by who’s doing the fixing. “The most surprising thing is that the cyanobacterium UCYN-A was the major diazotroph,” he says, as that microbe has previously been found in tropical and subtropical waters, as well as the Arctic Ocean. “This means that UCYN-A [is distributed] all over the world, from tropics to polar regions.” Lovejoy likewise finds this to be the study’s most surprising finding. Microbes that are able to live in both temperate oceans and in polar regions “are very, very rare,” she says.
In future studies, “we need to investigate why UCYN-A is able to thrive in such a wide range of temperature and what limits their nitrogen fixation,” Shiozaki writes. “This will allow us to predict how ocean nitrogen fixation will change with climate changes.”
T. Shiozaki et al., “Biological nitrogen fixation detected under Antarctic sea ice,” Nat Geosci, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-00651-7, 2020.


thescientist--2020-10-28--Epidemiologist Who Helped Eradicate Smallpox Dies

The final leader in the global campaign to eradicate smallpox , J. Michael Lane , died of colon cancer on October 21 at the age of 84 , multiple news outlets report .
Lane became the director of the Global Smallpox Eradication Program at what is now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) in 1973 , seven years before the World Health Organization declared the virus to be eradicated—the only pathogen to hold that distinction .
“ I worked with Mike for a half-century , ” William Foege , a former director of the CDC ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York Times .
“ He was extremely important to the success of the smallpox eradication program .
He worked in many countries , and ran the whole program from Atlanta .
He figured out the complications of administering the vaccine .
And he was a great teacher.
” In 1961 , Lane earned a medical degree from Harvard University , and he followed that up with a master ’ s in public health from the University of California , Berkeley .
Before he took the helm of the smallpox program , Lane was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight against the disease , which killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone , and is known to have terrorized humankind for thousands of years .
Within a year of starting at the agency in 1963 , he was assigned to smallpox , and he soon began traveling to developing countries around the world to teach local leaders how to monitor for outbreaks , help deal with those that erupted , and run vaccination campaigns , according to the Times .
At the same time , Lane recognized the risk of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ although very rarely .
He argued that in the US , where smallpox was not endemic , the risks were too great to justify continued routine vaccination , and in 1972 , the country officially stopped the practice .
After the last smallpox case was in the world ’ s rearview mirror , Lane advocated for destroying laboratory samples of the virus , The Washington Post reports .
Lane stayed at the CDC until 1987 , when he moved on to teaching positions at Emory University in Atlanta and at the Australian National @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the US , he spent some time providing bioterrorism defense training to members of the Army .
He officially retired in 2002 but continued to lecture and write scientific articles about his areas of expertise .
Lane is survived by his wife , Lila Summer Lane , a daughter from his first marriage , a stepdaughter , two grandchildren , and several siblings .

The final leader in the global campaign to eradicate smallpox, J. Michael Lane, died of colon cancer on October 21 at the age of 84, multiple news outlets report. Lane became the director of the Global Smallpox Eradication Program at what is now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1973, seven years before the World Health Organization declared the virus to be eradicated—the only pathogen to hold that distinction.
In 1980, J. Michael Lane (right), the director of the Global Smallpox Eradication Program at the Centers for Disease Control, and former program directors J. Donald Millar (left) and William Foege (middle) pose for a picture following the World Health Organization’s declaration that smallpox had been eradicated. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION PUBLIC HEALTH IMAGE LIBRARY
“I worked with Mike for a half-century,” William Foege, a former director of the CDC’s smallpox program, tells The New York Times. “He was extremely important to the success of the smallpox eradication program. He worked in many countries, and ran the whole program from Atlanta. He figured out the complications of administering the vaccine. And he was a great teacher.”
In 1961, Lane earned a medical degree from Harvard University, and he followed that up with a master’s in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. Before he took the helm of the smallpox program, Lane was heavily involved in the CDC’s fight against the disease, which killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone, and is known to have terrorized humankind for thousands of years. Within a year of starting at the agency in 1963, he was assigned to smallpox, and he soon began traveling to developing countries around the world to teach local leaders how to monitor for outbreaks, help deal with those that erupted, and run vaccination campaigns, according to the Times.
At the same time, Lane recognized the risk of smallpox vaccination, which can be fatal, although very rarely. He argued that in the US, where smallpox was not endemic, the risks were too great to justify continued routine vaccination, and in 1972, the country officially stopped the practice. After the last smallpox case was in the world’s rearview mirror, Lane advocated for destroying laboratory samples of the virus, The Washington Post reports.
Lane stayed at the CDC until 1987, when he moved on to teaching positions at Emory University in Atlanta and at the Australian National University. After the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, he spent some time providing bioterrorism defense training to members of the Army. He officially retired in 2002 but continued to lecture and write scientific articles about his areas of expertise.
Lane is survived by his wife, Lila Summer Lane, a daughter from his first marriage, a stepdaughter, two grandchildren, and several siblings.


thescientist--2020-10-28--Ferret Study Reinforces Role of Aerosols in SARS-CoV-2 Spread

As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded , researchers have hotly debated the primary method of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus—via relatively large respiratory droplets , which fall quickly to the floor under their own weight , or smaller aerosolized droplets capable of circulating in the air for long periods of time .
A study posted to the preprint server bioRxiv last week ( October 19 ) adds yet more evidence that infectious virus can be spread via aerosolized droplets .
“ If I were someone who thought that large droplets were the way [ that SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted ] and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this study might make me rethink my assumptions , ” says Virginia Tech engineer Linsey Marr , who studies how viruses spread through aerosols and was not involved in the study .
Although observational data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 spreads between people at short distances , experimental studies of aerosolized transmission have been limited .
Researchers have found the virus in latent hospital air of rooms with infected patients and have established that normal speaking likely pumps infectious aerosols into the air .
Still , few studies have directly tested airborne transmission experimentally , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which have been a classic model for studying infectious disease transmission , as ferrets and humans share similarities in lung physiology and cellular receptor distribution .
To study virus transmission , Herfst and his colleagues stacked two ferret containers on top of one another , connected only by a 15 cm–wide duct made of PVC pipe with four 90-degree turns .
They infected each of three groups of four ferrets , called “ donor ferrets , ” with a different virus .
One set received SARS-CoV-2 ; another group got SARS-CoV , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outbreak ; and a third was infected with H1N1 influenza , the virus behind the 2009 flu pandemic , as a positive control .
“ The proof for airborne transmission in humans is super limited , and you can ’ t do those experiments in humans for obvious reasons , ” says Erasmus Medical Center virologist Sander Herfst , the senior author of the new study .
The researchers placed each donor ferret by itself in the bottom of the two-cage apparatus and a single healthy ferret , called the “ indirect recipient @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with a steel grate closing both ends of the duct to trap any food , feces , or other large particles .
A fan carried air from the bottom cage to the top cage at 100 liters per minute .
If COVID-19 transmission were only possible via large droplets , the researchers hypothesized that no indirect recipient ferrets should become infected , as the steel mesh , the duct ’ s right-angle turns , the one-meter distance between animals , and gravity should all work against large droplets rising to the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , engineer William Ristenpart , who studies the dispersion of airborne pathogens and was not involved with the study , says the experimental setup mimics classic experiments from the 1960s investigating the transmission of influenza .
“ The little serpentine ductwork they have really prevents ballistic droplets to be carried upward in the airflow , ” he tells The Scientist .
The researchers swabbed the ferrets ’ noses and throats every other day to measure the amounts of viral RNA and infectious virus present .
By the end of the 13-day experiment , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and SARS-CoV groups had caught the viruses from the donor ferrets , while two of the four SARS-CoV-2 recipients were infected .
The four donor and four recipient ferrets infected with SARS-CoV became seriously ill , exhibiting breathing difficulties and less activity than usual , while those infected with SARS-CoV-2 were fully asymptomatic .
“ It ’ s another brick in the edifice of evidence for long-range aerosol transmission , ” says Ristenpart .
The efficiency of long-range SARS-CoV-2 transmission in ferrets may also point to why the virus has spread so aggressively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Mustelidae family , Herfst says .
Millions of minks have been culled in the Netherlands and Denmark due to virus outbreaks .
Historically , scientists have considered aerosols to be particles smaller than five microns across , although Marr says she does not know how that number was derived .
In a letter published in Science earlier this month ( October 16 ) , Marr called for the size threshold to be raised to 100 microns , noting that particles larger than five microns can behave as aerosols—lingering in the air , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after being emitted .
The authors of the new study note that they found particles larger than 10 microns at the entrance of both cages , but they could not specify their maximum size or their composition , a limitation of the aerodynamic particle sizer they used .
They suspect that the particles came from the lower cage because of the direction and high speed of the airflow .
Ferrets groom themselves by licking their fur , which could send a cloud of virus-laden fur particulates into the air .
The study authors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no infectious virus on the fur of the SARS-CoV donor ferrets .
Ristenpart , who helped find that guinea pigs could transmit influenza through aerosolized fur particles in an August study published in Nature Communications , says he appreciates that the authors discussed the possibility that the virus could be transmitted via fur particles .
Although the authors acknowledge that their experiments do not “ discriminate between transmission via small aerosols , large droplets , and fomites , ” Marr says she thinks it ’ s highly unlikely that particles larger than 50 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the cross-sectional area of the duct , the speed of the air , and the 90-degree turns .
The study comes weeks after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged that the novel coronavirus can spread via aerosols .
The agency updated its guidelines to include airborne transmission in mid-September , but removed the language the next day .
If the virus were found to spread among people predominantly through aerosols , Marr says , that would carry practical implications for recommendations of types of masks and ventilation systems best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Now that Herfst has found that the virus transmits effectively through the air , he says he hopes to next tackle how long infectious virus can be detected in the air around infected ferrets , which would help answer how long individuals remain contagious .
J.S .
Kutter et al.
, “ SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are transmitted through the air between ferrets over more than one meter distance , ” bioRxiv , doi:10.1101/2020.10.19.345363 , 2020 .

ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM
JHAYES44
As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, researchers have hotly debated the primary method of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus—via relatively large respiratory droplets, which fall quickly to the floor under their own weight, or smaller aerosolized droplets capable of circulating in the air for long periods of time. A study posted to the preprint server bioRxiv last week (October 19) adds yet more evidence that infectious virus can be spread via aerosolized droplets.
“If I were someone who thought that large droplets were the way [that SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted] and if I were skeptical about aerosols, this study might make me rethink my assumptions,” says Virginia Tech engineer Linsey Marr, who studies how viruses spread through aerosols and was not involved in the study.
It’s another brick in the edifice of evidence for long-range aerosol transmission. —William Ristenpart, University of California, Davis
Although observational data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 spreads between people at short distances, experimental studies of aerosolized transmission have been limited. Researchers have found the virus in latent hospital air of rooms with infected patients and have established that normal speaking likely pumps infectious aerosols into the air. Still, few studies have directly tested airborne transmission experimentally, so the study authors turned to ferrets, which have been a classic model for studying infectious disease transmission, as ferrets and humans share similarities in lung physiology and cellular receptor distribution.
To study virus transmission, Herfst and his colleagues stacked two ferret containers on top of one another, connected only by a 15 cm–wide duct made of PVC pipe with four 90-degree turns. They infected each of three groups of four ferrets, called “donor ferrets,” with a different virus. One set received SARS-CoV-2; another group got SARS-CoV, the virus responsible for the 2003 SARS outbreak; and a third was infected with H1N1 influenza, the virus behind the 2009 flu pandemic, as a positive control. “The proof for airborne transmission in humans is super limited, and you can’t do those experiments in humans for obvious reasons,” says Erasmus Medical Center virologist Sander Herfst, the senior author of the new study.
The researchers placed each donor ferret by itself in the bottom of the two-cage apparatus and a single healthy ferret, called the “indirect recipient ferret,” in the top cage, with a steel grate closing both ends of the duct to trap any food, feces, or other large particles. A fan carried air from the bottom cage to the top cage at 100 liters per minute. If COVID-19 transmission were only possible via large droplets, the researchers hypothesized that no indirect recipient ferrets should become infected, as the steel mesh, the duct’s right-angle turns, the one-meter distance between animals, and gravity should all work against large droplets rising to the top cage.
University of California, Davis, engineer William Ristenpart, who studies the dispersion of airborne pathogens and was not involved with the study, says the experimental setup mimics classic experiments from the 1960s investigating the transmission of influenza. “The little serpentine ductwork they have really prevents ballistic droplets to be carried upward in the airflow,” he tells The Scientist.
ABOVE: In the experiment, an infected donor ferret was housed in the bottom cage, and a healthy indirect recipient ferret was housed in the top cage. Air from the donor ferret’s cage traveled upward to the indirect recipient ferret through a duct with multiple right angles meant to capture large particles. JASMIN KUTTER, ERASMUS MEDICAL CENTER
The researchers swabbed the ferrets’ noses and throats every other day to measure the amounts of viral RNA and infectious virus present. By the end of the 13-day experiment, all indirect recipient ferrets in the influenza and SARS-CoV groups had caught the viruses from the donor ferrets, while two of the four SARS-CoV-2 recipients were infected. The four donor and four recipient ferrets infected with SARS-CoV became seriously ill, exhibiting breathing difficulties and less activity than usual, while those infected with SARS-CoV-2 were fully asymptomatic.
“It’s another brick in the edifice of evidence for long-range aerosol transmission,” says Ristenpart.
The efficiency of long-range SARS-CoV-2 transmission in ferrets may also point to why the virus has spread so aggressively through minks, which also belong to the Mustelidae family, Herfst says. Millions of minks have been culled in the Netherlands and Denmark due to virus outbreaks.
Historically, scientists have considered aerosols to be particles smaller than five microns across, although Marr says she does not know how that number was derived. In a letter published in Science earlier this month (October 16), Marr called for the size threshold to be raised to 100 microns, noting that particles larger than five microns can behave as aerosols—lingering in the air, rather than dropping to the ground shortly after being emitted.
The authors of the new study note that they found particles larger than 10 microns at the entrance of both cages, but they could not specify their maximum size or their composition, a limitation of the aerodynamic particle sizer they used. They suspect that the particles came from the lower cage because of the direction and high speed of the airflow.
Ferrets groom themselves by licking their fur, which could send a cloud of virus-laden fur particulates into the air. The study authors found tiny amounts of viral RNA but no infectious virus on the fur of the SARS-CoV donor ferrets. Ristenpart, who helped find that guinea pigs could transmit influenza through aerosolized fur particles in an August study published in Nature Communications, says he appreciates that the authors discussed the possibility that the virus could be transmitted via fur particles.
Although the authors acknowledge that their experiments do not “discriminate between transmission via small aerosols, large droplets, and fomites,” Marr says she thinks it’s highly unlikely that particles larger than 50 microns traveled to the upper cage based on the cross-sectional area of the duct, the speed of the air, and the 90-degree turns.
The study comes weeks after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged that the novel coronavirus can spread via aerosols. The agency updated its guidelines to include airborne transmission in mid-September, but removed the language the next day. If the virus were found to spread among people predominantly through aerosols, Marr says, that would carry practical implications for recommendations of types of masks and ventilation systems best suited to filter out airborne particles.
Now that Herfst has found that the virus transmits effectively through the air, he says he hopes to next tackle how long infectious virus can be detected in the air around infected ferrets, which would help answer how long individuals remain contagious.
J.S. Kutter et al., “SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are transmitted through the air between ferrets over more than one meter distance,” bioRxiv, doi:10.1101/2020.10.19.345363, 2020.


thescientist--2020-10-29--New Tracer Gives Clear Picture of Alzheimer's and Other Dementias

ABOVE : PET scans of individuals using the new tau tracer TAGAI , ONO , AND KUBOTA ET AL .
A new tracer for brain imaging could offer a clear window into the development of Alzheimer ’ s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions .
The tracing agent , which highlights the accumulation of toxic tau protein deposits in the brain , could distinguish between a range of conditions called tauopathies that can be difficult to tell apart at the early stages , such as frontotemporal dementia and progressive supranuclear palsy .
Tau is a protein involved in maintaining the structure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alzheimer ’ s disease , it aggregates to form knots inside the cells , eventually killing them .
PET scans are a common diagnostic technique used in hospitals , relying on a radioactive tracing agent to reveal the location of a molecule of interest .
Earlier this year , the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first tau PET tracer for Alzheimer ’ s disease , Tauvid .
It has proved challenging to find reliable PET tracers that can bind to the various forms of tau seen in different tauopathies .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offer a sharper signal than previous iterations in development , researchers adapted an existing tracer to make it last longer in the body .
The new tracer , known as 18F-PM-PBB3 , carries a radioactive fluorine isotope to the tau tangles and releases a positron particle detected by a PET scanner when it binds its target .
While the developers succeeded in enhancing tau visualization , their tracer also had the unexpected effect of binding to a greater variety of tau deposits seen across different tauopathies .
This means that the same tracer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for multiple neurodegenerative conditions .
The researchers tested the tracer in 39 patients with a range of tau-related conditions , including Alzheimer ’ s disease .
Based on the location of the tracer ’ s signal on the brain scans , the team was able to predict accurately the type of disease , which was confirmed in some cases by later autopsies .
Their results appear today ( October 29 ) in Neuron .
In the development of Alzheimer ’ s disease , the tau deposits are thought to follow on from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ efforts to create treatments for Alzheimer ’ s have focused on amyloid , the presence of tau is thought to be more closely linked to the development of symptoms .
The researchers were able to accurately predict the severity of the symptoms of Alzheimer ’ s disease in 17 people based on the abundance of tau seen in the scans .
“ Even during the clinical trials for anti-amyloid drugs , we also need to pursue the tau accumulation in those patients to see whether or not the tau accumulation , which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could be suppressed as a result of the amyloid-β suppression , ” says coauthor Makoto Higuchi of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan .
The tracer may have the biggest effect on diseases other than Alzheimer ’ s .
Experimental tracers that had previously been developed were unable to detect all forms of tau seen in tauopathies .
“ One of the problems with the old tracers was that the tau pathology in Alzheimer ’ s disease could be detected , but there were problems with detecting it in the other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Now we really can image the pathology in the patients , and we can make the link with the symptoms , ” says Ilse Dewachter , a neuroscientist at Hasselt University in Belgium who was not involved in the study .
In conditions such as frontotemporal dementia , which can be caused by tau , the early symptoms can be significant behavioral changes and a loss of inhibition , leading to social problems .
“ Even without the radical cure for the tauopathy , we can socially assist those people by predicting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the subjects .
That ’ s the major advantage of imaging tau deposits in the brain , ” says Higuchi .
PET scans would be too expensive for use in mass screening for dementia , but Higuchi notes that they could still be helpful in developing tests that instead look for biomarkers in the blood or cerebrospinal fluid .
As part of such an effort , scans would first categorize individuals as being tau-positive or tau-negative , and then researchers could identify biomarkers that distinguish between the two groups .
See “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alzheimer ’ s Disease ” The imaging might also help identify the right people to take part in clinical trials , as proteins other than tau can cause frontotemporal dementia .
“ If you want to be able to develop trials for patients who present with the same syndromes , we need to know what subtype of pathology they have .
So far , we have no biomarker .
It ’ s really , really hard right now to guess if it ’ s tau or another [ protein aggregating ] , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the University of California , San Francisco , who was not involved in the study .
“ For non-Alzheimer ’ s trials , we really need help screening the right patients.
” Higuchi and his colleagues have patented the tracer and licensed it to APRINOIA Therapeutics , which is testing its use as a diagnostic tool for Alzheimer ’ s disease in clinical trials in the US , China , and Japan .
Higuchi says he hopes that they will soon be able to do clinical trials for diagnosing other forms of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ High-contrast in vivo imaging of tau pathologies in Alzheimer ’ s and non-Alzheimer ’ s disease tauopathies , ” Neuron , doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2020.09.042 , 2020 .

ABOVE: PET scans of individuals using the new tau tracer
TAGAI, ONO, AND KUBOTA ET AL.
A new tracer for brain imaging could offer a clear window into the development of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. The tracing agent, which highlights the accumulation of toxic tau protein deposits in the brain, could distinguish between a range of conditions called tauopathies that can be difficult to tell apart at the early stages, such as frontotemporal dementia and progressive supranuclear palsy.
Tau is a protein involved in maintaining the structure of neurons. In tauopathies, including Alzheimer’s disease, it aggregates to form knots inside the cells, eventually killing them.
PET scans are a common diagnostic technique used in hospitals, relying on a radioactive tracing agent to reveal the location of a molecule of interest. Earlier this year, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first tau PET tracer for Alzheimer’s disease, Tauvid. It has proved challenging to find reliable PET tracers that can bind to the various forms of tau seen in different tauopathies.
In pursuit of a tau tracer that would offer a sharper signal than previous iterations in development, researchers adapted an existing tracer to make it last longer in the body. The new tracer, known as 18F-PM-PBB3, carries a radioactive fluorine isotope to the tau tangles and releases a positron particle detected by a PET scanner when it binds its target.
While the developers succeeded in enhancing tau visualization, their tracer also had the unexpected effect of binding to a greater variety of tau deposits seen across different tauopathies. This means that the same tracer could be used as a diagnostic test for multiple neurodegenerative conditions.
The researchers tested the tracer in 39 patients with a range of tau-related conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease. Based on the location of the tracer’s signal on the brain scans, the team was able to predict accurately the type of disease, which was confirmed in some cases by later autopsies. Their results appear today (October 29) in Neuron.
In the development of Alzheimer’s disease, the tau deposits are thought to follow on from the accumulation of amyloid-β plaques. Although most efforts to create treatments for Alzheimer’s have focused on amyloid, the presence of tau is thought to be more closely linked to the development of symptoms. The researchers were able to accurately predict the severity of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in 17 people based on the abundance of tau seen in the scans.
“Even during the clinical trials for anti-amyloid drugs, we also need to pursue the tau accumulation in those patients to see whether or not the tau accumulation, which is closely associated with the neuronal death, could be suppressed as a result of the amyloid-β suppression,” says coauthor Makoto Higuchi of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan.
The tracer may have the biggest effect on diseases other than Alzheimer’s. Experimental tracers that had previously been developed were unable to detect all forms of tau seen in tauopathies. “One of the problems with the old tracers was that the tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease could be detected, but there were problems with detecting it in the other tauopathies. So this opens new perspectives. Now we really can image the pathology in the patients, and we can make the link with the symptoms,” says Ilse Dewachter, a neuroscientist at Hasselt University in Belgium who was not involved in the study.
In conditions such as frontotemporal dementia, which can be caused by tau, the early symptoms can be significant behavioral changes and a loss of inhibition, leading to social problems. “Even without the radical cure for the tauopathy, we can socially assist those people by predicting the emerging, symptomatic problems in each of the subjects. That’s the major advantage of imaging tau deposits in the brain,” says Higuchi.
PET scans would be too expensive for use in mass screening for dementia, but Higuchi notes that they could still be helpful in developing tests that instead look for biomarkers in the blood or cerebrospinal fluid. As part of such an effort, scans would first categorize individuals as being tau-positive or tau-negative, and then researchers could identify biomarkers that distinguish between the two groups.
The imaging might also help identify the right people to take part in clinical trials, as proteins other than tau can cause frontotemporal dementia.
“If you want to be able to develop trials for patients who present with the same syndromes, we need to know what subtype of pathology they have. So far, we have no biomarker. It’s really, really hard right now to guess if it’s tau or another [protein aggregating],” says Renaud La Joie, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study. “For non-Alzheimer’s trials, we really need help screening the right patients.”
Higuchi and his colleagues have patented the tracer and licensed it to APRINOIA Therapeutics, which is testing its use as a diagnostic tool for Alzheimer’s disease in clinical trials in the US, China, and Japan. Higuchi says he hopes that they will soon be able to do clinical trials for diagnosing other forms of dementia.
K. Tagai et al., “High-contrast in vivo imaging of tau pathologies in Alzheimer’s and non-Alzheimer’s disease tauopathies,” Neuron, doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2020.09.042, 2020.


thescientist--2020-10-29--This Ogre-Faced Spider Can Hear Prey Through Its Legs

ABOVE : The ogre-faced spider Deinopis spinosa not only has the largest eyes of any spider , but is also one of few known to be able to hear at a distance .
JAY STAFSTROM , CORNELL UNIVERSITY If you were able to find the ogre-faced spider Deinopis spinosa during the daytime , you wouldn ’ t see much movement .
Looking like a dead leaf on a branch , it doesn ’ t move at all , hiding from predators and silently waiting out the day .
But during the night , it transforms into one of the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ net stretched between its four front legs , it springs down onto the ground to ensnare insect prey , making use of its hypersensitive , night-vision eyes—the largest of any spider , at nearly 5 mm across together .
Using a different maneuver , it strikes out with its web grasped between its front legs to snatch mosquitoes , moths , and flies passing above it in a rapid , athletic , backbend .
Yet how it detects these prey overhead has long been a mystery .
A new study published today ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that D. spinosa can hear sounds from two meters away , which allows it to catch prey without relying on vision .
The findings place the ogre-faced spider in the ranks of certain jumping spiders , cob-web spiders , and fishing spiders , which have been previously shown to be capable of “ hearing.
” The study ’ s results add to evidence that help debunk an old yet persistent myth that spiders , which have no ears , can only detect mechanical vibrations , say , through their webs , and not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ D. spinosa confirm earlier clues that spiders can hear through the same organ they use to detect mechanical vibration .
“ There have been several hints and actual documentations of acoustic sensitivity in spiders over the years , but this one ’ s [ particularly ] interesting , ” remarks neuroethologist Andrew Mason of the University of Toronto Scarborough who has worked in one of the coauthor ’ s labs as a postdoc but wasn ’ t involved in the current study .
“ The really new piece of it is providing evidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ function as an acoustic transducer and that can be mediated by the sensory organ that ’ s normally associated with substrate vibration.
” Sensory ecologist Jay Stafstrom , a postdoc in neuroethologist and bioacoustician Ronald Hoy ’ s lab at Cornell University , had learned in earlier experiments that D. spinosa uses vision for its forward-striking , net-casting maneuvers but not for its back-bending twists .
Individuals whose eyes were temporarily blinded couldn ’ t catch insects off the ground , but they could still catch prey out of the air , suggesting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some other sensory system ” for the backwards maneuver , Stafstrom says .
Stafstrom , Hoy , and colleagues set out to investigate whether the ogre-faced arachnids were capable of picking up acoustic cues produced by the flapping of insect prey .
Using techniques developed by lab neuroethologist Gil Menda , the team inserted tiny tungsten electrodes into the brains of living spiders in regions thought to be important for processing sensory information , and separately , into detached legs to detect neural activity of peripheral nerves .
To the team ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and legs were responsive to a wide range of tonal frequencies—from 100 to 10,000 Hz—emitted from a loudspeaker 2 meters away .
That range goes well beyond the typical wingbeat frequencies of their prey—which would be roughly between 150 and 750 Hz—into the kilohertz range , which would include the calls of passerine birds , for instance , that have been observed foraging around palm plants that ogre-faced spiders live on .
The researchers wondered if the metatarsal organ—an instrument situated at the lowest leg joint that senses mechanical vibration through movements in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ role in detecting sound .
Indeed , further experiments in which the researchers experimentally restricted the movement of detached legs demonstrated that the organ plays a role in detecting a subset of the frequencies they detect .
That suggests that , at least for some frequencies , the metatarsal organ of ogre-faced spiders can pick up airborne sounds that propagate through the air in pressure waves that deflect the tips of their legs , Stafstrom explains .
“ Even such a small amount of information , like air particles actually deflecting off of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spiders to functionally hear , ” Stafstrom says .
The team suspects that sensitive leg hairs known as trichobothria—which Hoy ’ s team has previously shown enable jumping siders to hear from afar—play a role in detecting lower frequencies .
The scientists followed up with behavioral experiments to test if the spiders would respond to sounds .
And sure enough , 13 of 25 spiders performed back-twists when they heard frequencies between 150 and 750 Hz , as if an insect had whizzed passed them .
Stafstrom also flew out to Florida to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the experiments with a Bluetooth speaker—with similar results , he says .
Curiously , the spiders didn ’ t react behaviorally to higher frequency tones , even though the previous experiments indicated that their central and peripheral neurons are responsive to tones as high as five octaves above a middle A .
Perhaps the spiders have the ability to hear those frequencies not in order to hunt but so they can hide from avian predators , which tend to produce high-frequency sounds .
To Natasha Mhatre , a sensory biologist at Western University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the study , the findings address a long-standing mystery .
Some previous research in other spider species in which researchers recorded the neural responses to experimental vibrations of the leg suggested that they were in fact more sensitive to frequencies greater than 1,000 Hz than to frequencies below that .
That observation was puzzling because most of the vibrations spiders encounter on their web would be below 1,000 Hz , Mhatre says .
“ For the longest time , we didn ’ t really know why on Earth spiders were more sensitive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and not sensitive to the things that they ’ re actually interested in , ” she says .
The team ’ s results suggest that ogre-faced spiders may be sensitive to those higher frequencies because they ’ re listening to airborne sounds , possibly to avoid birds .
“ What this study shows is that yes , some sounds are sufficient .
.
.
to generate joint bending large enough to actually produce a nervous response and therefore for the spider to hear it , ” Mhatre adds .
Both Mason and Mhatre @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precise mechanisms involved , such as which leg in the hunting posture “ hears ” the sound , and whether and how the spider ’ s webs could play an auxiliary role in hearing by modifying the spider ’ s sensitivity to certain sounds .
To Mason , the findings also raise a philosophical question about how spiders perceive the world .
Scientists tend to think about airborne sound and substrate vibration as two distinct entities .
But for the spider , are they two different categories of stimulus , or are they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information ?
“ It may be that it ’ s just all vibration , and the boundary between the air and the web is just not a real boundary.
” For a spider with such a unique Jekyll-and-Hyde lifestyle , still by day and acrobatic at night , Stafstrom says , he ’ s not surprised they have an advanced sensory toolkit .
“ Their behavior requires some really impressive sensory equipment to be able to survive and be successful as an animal .
Trying to figure out how [ exactly ] they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that I ’ ll be trying to answer for many years to come.
” J.A .
Stafstrom et al.
, “ Ogre-faced , net-casting spiders use auditory cues to detect airborne prey , ” Current Biology , doi:10.1016/j.cub.2020.09.048 .

ABOVE: The ogre-faced spider Deinopis spinosa not only has the largest eyes of any spider, but is also one of few known to be able to hear at a distance.
JAY STAFSTROM, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
If you were able to find the ogre-faced spider Deinopis spinosa during the daytime, you wouldn’t see much movement. Looking like a dead leaf on a branch, it doesn’t move at all, hiding from predators and silently waiting out the day. But during the night, it transforms into one of the most agile of arachnid hunters.
Holding a net stretched between its four front legs, it springs down onto the ground to ensnare insect prey, making use of its hypersensitive, night-vision eyes—the largest of any spider, at nearly 5 mm across together. Using a different maneuver, it strikes out with its web grasped between its front legs to snatch mosquitoes, moths, and flies passing above it in a rapid, athletic, backbend. Yet how it detects these prey overhead has long been a mystery.
A new study published today (October 29) in Current Biology demonstrates that D. spinosa can hear sounds from two meters away, which allows it to catch prey without relying on vision. The findings place the ogre-faced spider in the ranks of certain jumping spiders, cob-web spiders, and fishing spiders, which have been previously shown to be capable of “hearing.” The study’s results add to evidence that help debunk an old yet persistent myth that spiders, which have no ears, can only detect mechanical vibrations, say, through their webs, and not airborne sound. The new data on D. spinosa confirm earlier clues that spiders can hear through the same organ they use to detect mechanical vibration.
“There have been several hints and actual documentations of acoustic sensitivity in spiders over the years, but this one’s [particularly] interesting,” remarks neuroethologist Andrew Mason of the University of Toronto Scarborough who has worked in one of the coauthor’s labs as a postdoc but wasn’t involved in the current study. “The really new piece of it is providing evidence that the spider’s leg can function as an acoustic transducer and that can be mediated by the sensory organ that’s normally associated with substrate vibration.”
Sensory ecologist Jay Stafstrom, a postdoc in neuroethologist and bioacoustician Ronald Hoy’s lab at Cornell University, had learned in earlier experiments that D. spinosa uses vision for its forward-striking, net-casting maneuvers but not for its back-bending twists. Individuals whose eyes were temporarily blinded couldn’t catch insects off the ground, but they could still catch prey out of the air, suggesting that “they’re probably using some other sensory system” for the backwards maneuver, Stafstrom says.
Deinopis spinosa uses its ability to hear from afar to snatch prey out of the air with a rapid overhead back-twist that unfolds within 60 milliseconds. Sam Whitehead
Stafstrom, Hoy, and colleagues set out to investigate whether the ogre-faced arachnids were capable of picking up acoustic cues produced by the flapping of insect prey. Using techniques developed by lab neuroethologist Gil Menda, the team inserted tiny tungsten electrodes into the brains of living spiders in regions thought to be important for processing sensory information, and separately, into detached legs to detect neural activity of peripheral nerves. To the team’s surprise, neurons both in the brain and legs were responsive to a wide range of tonal frequencies—from 100 to 10,000 Hz—emitted from a loudspeaker 2 meters away. That range goes well beyond the typical wingbeat frequencies of their prey—which would be roughly between 150 and 750 Hz—into the kilohertz range, which would include the calls of passerine birds, for instance, that have been observed foraging around palm plants that ogre-faced spiders live on.
The researchers wondered if the metatarsal organ—an instrument situated at the lowest leg joint that senses mechanical vibration through movements in the spider’s exoskeleton—could play a role in detecting sound. Indeed, further experiments in which the researchers experimentally restricted the movement of detached legs demonstrated that the organ plays a role in detecting a subset of the frequencies they detect.
That suggests that, at least for some frequencies, the metatarsal organ of ogre-faced spiders can pick up airborne sounds that propagate through the air in pressure waves that deflect the tips of their legs, Stafstrom explains. “Even such a small amount of information, like air particles actually deflecting off of this leg, is enough for the spiders to functionally hear,” Stafstrom says.
The team suspects that sensitive leg hairs known as trichobothria—which Hoy’s team has previously shown enable jumping siders to hear from afar—play a role in detecting lower frequencies.
The scientists followed up with behavioral experiments to test if the spiders would respond to sounds. And sure enough, 13 of 25 spiders performed back-twists when they heard frequencies between 150 and 750 Hz, as if an insect had whizzed passed them. Stafstrom also flew out to Florida to find spiders in the wild and repeated the experiments with a Bluetooth speaker—with similar results, he says.
Curiously, the spiders didn’t react behaviorally to higher frequency tones, even though the previous experiments indicated that their central and peripheral neurons are responsive to tones as high as five octaves above a middle A. Perhaps the spiders have the ability to hear those frequencies not in order to hunt but so they can hide from avian predators, which tend to produce high-frequency sounds.
To Natasha Mhatre, a sensory biologist at Western University in Canada who wasn’t involved in the study, the findings address a long-standing mystery. Some previous research in other spider species in which researchers recorded the neural responses to experimental vibrations of the leg suggested that they were in fact more sensitive to frequencies greater than 1,000 Hz than to frequencies below that. That observation was puzzling because most of the vibrations spiders encounter on their web would be below 1,000 Hz, Mhatre says. “For the longest time, we didn’t really know why on Earth spiders were more sensitive to things that are above 1,000 hertz and not sensitive to the things that they’re actually interested in,” she says.
The team’s results suggest that ogre-faced spiders may be sensitive to those higher frequencies because they’re listening to airborne sounds, possibly to avoid birds. “What this study shows is that yes, some sounds are sufficient . . . to generate joint bending large enough to actually produce a nervous response and therefore for the spider to hear it,” Mhatre adds.
Both Mason and Mhatre say they’re curious about the precise mechanisms involved, such as which leg in the hunting posture “hears” the sound, and whether and how the spider’s webs could play an auxiliary role in hearing by modifying the spider’s sensitivity to certain sounds.
To Mason, the findings also raise a philosophical question about how spiders perceive the world. Scientists tend to think about airborne sound and substrate vibration as two distinct entities. But for the spider, are they two different categories of stimulus, or are they part of a continuous realm of sensory information? “It may be that it’s just all vibration, and the boundary between the air and the web is just not a real boundary.”
For a spider with such a unique Jekyll-and-Hyde lifestyle, still by day and acrobatic at night, Stafstrom says, he’s not surprised they have an advanced sensory toolkit. “Their behavior requires some really impressive sensory equipment to be able to survive and be successful as an animal. Trying to figure out how [exactly] they’re doing it is a question that I’ll be trying to answer for many years to come.”
J.A. Stafstrom et al., “Ogre-faced, net-casting spiders use auditory cues to detect airborne prey,” Current Biology, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2020.09.048.