Cell Biology

This Synthetic Biology Company Is On The Cusp Of Using Live, Engineered Bacteria As A Cancer Drug – SynBioBeta

Injecting mice with engineered, live bacteria has been shown to shrink cancer tumors. With trials underway to bring this immunotherapy solution to the clinic, Synlogic is paving the way for synthetic biology and living medicines to transform the landscape of healthcare and medicine.

In 1890, William Coley, a young cancer surgeon, was distraught. One of his first patients had just died of widespread cancer, despite Coley amputating his forearm. Determined to do something about it, Coley came across an intriguing solution.

The medical literature of the day hinted that dozens of cancer patients had a regression of their disease while they were also carrying a separate infection. Could the body, in fighting against a pathogen, also be battling a tumor? After injecting bacteria into a patient who showed tumor shrinkage, Coleys toxin, as it came to be known, was tried out on nearly a thousand patients to varying degrees of success.

Controversial at the time, and almost forgotten in the age of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, cancer immunotherapy (also known as immuno-oncology) has been rediscovered by modern-day researchers, who are leveraging the incredible power of our own human immune system to bring new cancer treatments to the mainstream.

William Coley is the grandfather of immunotherapy, says Aoife Brennan, CEO ofSynlogic, a synthetic biology company on the cusp of using live, engineered bacteria as a cancer drug in humans.A new study from the Synlogic teamshows that injecting cancerous mice with live, engineered bacteria can cause long-term remission of certain cancer types.

Many of the observations [Coley] had we are now rediscovering when we look at predictors of response to immunotherapy, Brennan told me. Weve really started to understand that stimulating an immune response can be an appropriate way to treat cancer.

Cancer immunotherapy has come a long way since Coleys day. Treatment options are now available that use antibodies to target specific proteins of cancer. These antibodies come as drugs, vaccines or immune cell infusions, and they work to enable the bodys natural defenses to fight cancer normally.

We also now know that tumors come in a wide range of forms. Some are hot and some are cold, but were not talking about temperature here.

A hot tumor shows signs of inflammation, meaning that the immune system is alert to the tumor and has dispatched T-cells to attack it. But they can get war-weary due to the presence of the bodys checkpoint system, which is there for a good reason: to stop immune cells from going too strong on the offensive. Tumors can trick this checkpoint system into ignoring cancer. Drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors can block these proteins, letting T-cells proceed with their attack.

The problem is that few tumors are hot. Cold tumors are more common and more deadly, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, and pancreatic cancer. How can we get the body to attack cold tumors, too? Heres where a living therapeutic system comes in.

We have this great platform to stimulate an immune response, Brennan says of the method Synlogic is pioneering to treat multiple forms of cancer. Our immune systems evolved to recognize pathogens and have a number of pathways to deal with them. We had this concept: what if we could engineer bacteria to stimulate the right immune responses and multiple different pathways in the same way an infection would?

To take advantage of both biotechnology and the human bodys amazing immune capabilities, companies like Synlogic work at the intersection of biology and engineeringa field we callsynthetic biologyto make useful biological applications. Using tools like gene editing and machine learning, synthetic biology researchers can, for example, develop a strain of bacteria that is stripped down to its bare essentialsyou can think of it as a chassis, like the basic framework of a car. They can then engineer that chassis to include specific, desirable components, and ultimately fine-tune its behavior and functions.

In Synlogics case, they are using these techniques to design living therapeutics programmed to treat disease in new ways. To develop a cancer therapy, Synlogics solution is to inject living bacteria directly into a tumor to stimulate the bodys defenses to act right where theyre needed, not unlike Willam Coley did all those years ago. The best part? Synthetic biology can be used to engineer bacteria that elicit an immune response but pose no danger of causing disease themselves, reducing a danger Coley first recognized in 1891.

Instead of using an attenuated [weakened] pathogen, Brennan continues, we are taking non-pathogenic bacteria and engineering in certain pathways and effectors that are important in the immune response. The first strain weve taken forward, to prove the pathway is viable, is called SYNB1891, in honor of William Coley and the year he injected live bacteria into a patients tumor.

To make their SYNB1891 strain, Synlogic started with a non-pathogenic version ofE. coliknown as the Nissle chassis. To it, they introduced a STING agonist from a different microorganism, Listeria. The STING agonist boosts the bodys defense pathways and is apotent inhibitor of pancreatic cancer. It is further engineered so that it only works in the specific anaerobic environment of the tumor its been injected into.

Once inside the tumor, these therapeutic bacteria can live for up to 10 days, acting like a flare that alerts the bodys immune cells to come and investigate whats going on. When they arrive, they engulf the bacteria with the STING agonist, which then triggers the persons immune system to target and attack the tumor itself.

The publication in Nature Communications highlights the effectiveness of Synlogics technique in mice and points to its potential for human therapeutics.

Weve looked in animals and shown that we can cause tumor regressions, even in cold tumors, says Brennan of the treatment. We can stimulate an immune response in mice that is tumor-specific and that causes complete remission.

In fact, the study shows that around one-third of mice with melanoma showed complete tumor rejection after tumors were injected with SYNB1891. The combined effect of the STING agonist and the bacterial chassis was crucial. Injection of the STING agonist alone led to 10% long-term survival of mice, but SYNB1891 injection increased that to 40%. With lymphoma, the effects were as high as 80% tumor rejection depending on the dose.

The treatment also appeared to provide mice with long-term protection in the form of immune memory. When cured mice were reexposed to the same tumor at least 60 days after the treatment, they remained tumor-free.

Promisingly, treatment of human cells with SYNB1891 led to a similar stimulation of the immune response as seen in mouse models, providing a positive indication that success in mouse models can be translated to treatments in people.

SYNB1891 is now in phase one clinical trials. The first patients that Synlogic is working with are those with cancers that can be accessed close to the skin surface, including breast cancer, melanoma, and lymphoma. The phase one study will slowly increase the dose of the live therapeutic, ensuring safety, primarily, as well as clinical effectiveness.

Weve worked with the FDA to carve a path for this kind of approach and are now treating patients who have tumors with the engineered bacteria, Brennan said.

An exciting prospect is the potential for treating a broad spectrum of tumors, regardless of the type, providing a more off-the-shelf solution that does not require the complexities of personalized treatments.

If you have the right immune cells in the vicinity and overcome some of the cloaking mechanisms that tumors use to evade the immune response, Brennan says, we can essentially take the brake off the immune system and allow it to do its thing with the cancer.

Where William Coleys pioneering experiments were met with skepticism in the late nineteenth century, Synlogic has picked up the mantle and is paving the way for the acceptance of live therapeutics as not just a viable option, but an effective one that can broaden and enhance the landscape of medicine.

The challenge, according to Brennan, is to show that this is a drug development approach that has legs.

With promising preclinical evidence and clinical trials underway for this synthetic biology approach, we hope its just a matter of time before this proof of concept becomes a life-saving treatment.

Follow me on twitter at @johncumbers and @synbiobeta. Subscribe to my weekly newsletters in synthetic biology. Thank you toPeter Bickertonfor additional research and reporting in this article. Im the founder ofSynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write aboutincluding Synlogicare sponsors of theSynBioBeta conferenceandweekly digestheres the full list of SynBioBeta sponsors.

Originally published on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/06/01/this-synthetic-biology-company-is-on-the-cusp-of-using-live-engineered-bacteria-as-a-cancer-drug/

Read more here:
This Synthetic Biology Company Is On The Cusp Of Using Live, Engineered Bacteria As A Cancer Drug - SynBioBeta

Cell Biology

NASA-SpaceX launches will boost science research on the space station – CNN

"I was stunned, in a good way, at the high quality of the science," she told CNN. During her time on the space station, Aun-Chancellor worked on hundreds of experiments across a variety of sciences, including biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science.

As a practicing physician, as well as clinical associate professor of medicine at Louisiana State University Health New Orleans School of Medicine's branch campus in Baton Rouge, she could see the real-world applications of the medical experiments on the station.

"I could picture a patient with each of these experiments," she said. "It's tremendously enlightening and heartwarming because a good portion of the life sciences research on the space station is for people on Earth, not for astronauts who will go to Mars."

She and her fellow astronauts also installed a new Life Sciences Glovebox suited for biological research, which also allows two astronauts to simultaneously interact with the experiment inside.

Aun-Chancellor said that astronauts tend to have an eight-hour workday on the space station, and much of that is dominated by science experiments. She could spend as much as four hours on one experiment alone while the other astronauts worked on different experiments, she said.

From the time construction began on the space station in 1998 until now, nearly 3,000 different experiments have been conducted on the station.

More than 4,000 scientists have had their work represented on the station, with those scientists and research stemming from 108 countries globally, according to NASA.

Now, NASA's Commercial Crew program can expand the amount of astronauts on the space station which means that more science, and even new types of experiments, can happen in the unique microgravity environment.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft launched Saturday atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley. It's the first time in history that a commercial aerospace company has carried humans into Earth's orbit.

The United States hasn't launched its own astronauts into space since the Space Shuttle Program ended in 2011. Since then, NASA's astronauts have had to travel to Russia and train on the country's Soyuz spacecraft.

This mission, called Demo-2, is just the beginning of launching astronauts from American soil for stays of varying lengths on the space station. That means more scientific experiments in space that can help us out on Earth, as well as astronauts who may be going to the moon or eventually, to Mars.

The laboratory orbiting Earth

The majority of the science that has occurred on the space station has taken place over the last 10 years the 10 years prior were spent building and outfitting it to be a laboratory orbiting the Earth.

While the astronauts also work on maintaining the space station, exercising, working with robotics and preparing for and executing spacewalks outside the station, the majority of each day is spent on science, Aun-Chancellor said.

National labs on Earth tend to focus on one kind of science.

"We focus on what we can offer that is unique, which is withholding gravity as a variable," said NASA astronaut Christina Koch, who returned to Earth in February. "The space environment affords a wide spectrum of discovery."

One of the many experiments Koch worked on during her record-breaking stay of 328 days on the space station involved protein crystal growth. Understanding those proteins could lead to pharmaceuticals that can fight cancer.

Zero gravity conditions

Two decades of research on the space station has allowed scientists to realize the potential of eliminating gravity as a factor from their experiments.

They're physiological systems on something the size of a USB stick that can be used to test drug efficiency and model patients, Buchli said.

The experiments vary in how much interaction they require from the crew on the space station. Some are self sufficient, only requiring occasional interaction by an astronaut, while others are much more hands on.

"Science is a time-intensive task and the crew members are our hands, eyes and ears to complete a lot of science," Buchli said.

But the basic fact remains that more people on the space station means more science can be achieved because the amount of crew has been a limiting factor. With Commercial Crew, four NASA astronauts can go up at one time, rather than the three astronauts and Russian cosmonauts that can fit in the Soyuz.

"Commercial Crew can also launch more frequently and bring the woman and manpower to get it done," Aun-Chancellor said. "The science is up there, it's just waiting for us to complete it."

"When we have four US crew members, we can double the number of hours devoted to science each week and accomplish science that wasn't previously feasible in a crew day," Buchli said. "That means more than 100 hours per week can be spent on science in the future."

This means that astronauts could either double up on experiments by working together or split into shift teams where they stagger when the astronauts are awake and asleep, so crews could hand off an experiment that requires 13 hours rather than six especially an issue in life sciences, cell biology and rodent research.

Commercial Crew also expands the flexibility for transporting things to and from the station, she said. The Soyuz launches occur about every six months, while Commercial Crew vehicles will allow them to launch and land with varying lengths of time on station.

That means more live refrigerated samples and cells grown and tested on the space station can be returned exactly when they need to be for scientists to study them on the ground and detail how they changed in space.

More repeats of science experiments can also occur. If a research team is granted a second flight of an experiment, they can repeat it to gather additional data.

"You don't just run an experiment once on the ground," Buchli said. "You refine things as you go. This is exciting because the space station is starting to function more like a ground lab, allowing repetition and the chance to optimize and tweak science."

More frequent flights means that astronauts can also experience missions of shorter duration, which can fill a crucial gap when it comes to monitoring astronaut health. These missions would last between two to three months.

It also means that extended stays are possible to prepare for the long flight to Mars.

This will allow NASA and their Human Research Program to better study the effects of space on human health and develop countermeasures to mitigate them especially as they prepare to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually on to Mars.

The future of science in space

Non-NASA research is managed by the ISS National Laboratory, which utilizes the space station's unique microgravity environment to send up experiments from commercial businesses, academic institutions and government agencies that can benefit Earth.

During his time with the ISS National Lab, Chief Operating Officer Ken Shields has enjoyed watching the variety of both experiments and their investigators as they "push the envelope of existing technologies."

"We're breaking barriers in the world of research development and technology," Shields told CNN. "And we're entering a new era in space research and development."

The space station is like a test kitchen to experiment and prove out concepts, he said.

A small scale of success on the space station may mean that an investigation could later be moved to another low-Earth orbit vehicle. Multiple commercial research and development partners have been running a portion of their business in space through installations on the space station, and the technology advancements gained in space can help Earth.

"The International Space Station is an unmatched tool of inspiration and engagement," he said.

Some of the science conducted on the space station actually stems from student experiments. Seeing their research happen in space will inspire future generations, he said. Going forward, the ISS National Lab wants to make sure that all students, especially those in underrepresented demographics, have the opportunity.

The last 20 years saw the building and completion of the space station, as well as research and development of science and technology experiments in space to provide people with applicable innovations on Earth.

Shields saw nothing but opportunities ahead.

"I'm hopeful that we can continue to enable and facilitate more groundbreaking efforts that have importance not only to individual academic institutions or companies, but are more broadly felt to create solutions to problems that are important to us as a nation," Shields said.

Jackie Wattles contributed to this story.

See more here:
NASA-SpaceX launches will boost science research on the space station - CNN

Cell Biology

Beneath the Oceans Surface, a Virus Is Hijacking the Most Abundant Organism on Earth – SciTechDaily

Rice University scientists are analyzing the role of ferredoxin proteins produced when viral phages alter electron transfer in ocean-dwelling, photosynthetic bacteria that produce oxygen and store carbon. When the virus (pink) infects the bacteria, it produces a ferredoxin protein that hooks into the bacterias existing electrical structure and alters its metabolism. Credit: Illustration by Ian Campbell/Rice University

Rice scientists analyze structure, mechanism of phage protein that steals electrons.

Beneath the oceans surface, a virus is hijacking the metabolism of the most abundant organism on Earth. That may be of interest to those of us above who breathe.

Rice University scientists analyzed the role of ferredoxin proteins produced when phages alter the ability of Prochlorococcus marinus to store carbon and counter the greenhouse gas effect arising from fossil fuel consumption.

P. marinus is a photosynthetic cyanobacteria that resides primarily in the tropics and subtropics, where an estimated 10-to-the-27 (an octillion) of them use sunlight to produce oxygen and collectively store four gigatons of carbon annually. Some of this carbon provides critical feedstocks for other marine organisms.

But phages are not their friends. The virus strengthens itself by stealing energy the bacteria produces from light, reprogramming its victims genome to alter how it transfers electrons.

P. marinus and its carbon-storing mechanism are sensitive to temperature, so it bears watching as climate change warms the oceans and extends its range, said Ian Campbell, a Rice postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The growth in the range of this organism in the oceans could increase the total carbon stored by these microbes, he said. Alternatively, the viruses that infect these bacteria could alter carbon fixation and potentially prevent gigatons of carbon from being taken out of the air annually, according to one recent projection.

Rice University synthetic biologist Jonathan Silberg, left, and postdoctoral researcher Ian Campbell led a team that analyzed the role of ferredoxin proteins produced when viral phages alter electron transfer in ocean-dwelling, photosynthetic bacteria that produce oxygen and store carbon. Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

Campbell said the goal of the study was to explore the variety of ways viruses interact with their hosts. In the process, the researchers discovered the phage wrests control of electron flow in the host itself, rewiring the bacterias metabolism. When the virus infects, it shuts down production of the bacterial proteins and replaces it with its own variants, he said. I compare it to putting a different operating system in a computer.

The researchers used synthetic biology techniques to mix and match phage and cyanobacterial proteins to study how they interact. A part of the study led by Rice biochemist George Phillips also determined for the first time the structure of a key cyanophage ferredoxin protein.

A phage would usually go into a cell and kill everything, said Rice synthetic biologist Jonathan Silberg, the studys lead scientist and director of the universitys Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology program.

But Ians results suggest these phages are establishing a complex control mechanism, he said. I wouldnt say theyve zombified their hosts, because they allow the cells to continue doing some of their own housekeeping. But theyre also plugging in their own ferredoxins, like power cables, to fine tune the electron flow.

Instead of working directly with cyanophages and P. marinus, Campbell and his team used synthetic biology tools to reprogram much larger, better-understood Escherichia coli bacteria to express genes that mimicked interactions between the two.

Taking a phage and a cyanobacteria from the ocean and trying to study the biology, especially electron flow, would be really hard to do through classical biochemistry, Silberg said. Ian literally took partners from both the phage and the host, put them together by encoding their DNA in another cellular system, and was able to quickly develop some interesting results.

Its an interesting application of synthetic biology to understand complex things that would otherwise be arduous to measure, he said.

The researchers suspect the protein they modeled in E. coli, the Prochlorococcus P-SSM2 phage ferredoxin, is nothing new. People knew phages encode different things that do electron transfer, but they didnt know how to connect the wires between the phage and the host, Silberg said. They also didnt know a lot about the phages evolution. The structure makes it clear this phage can be traced to specific ancestral proteins involved in photosynthesis.

Reference: Prochlorococcus phage ferredoxin: Structural characterization and electron transfer to cyanobacterial sulfite reductases by Ian J. Campbell, Jose Luis Olmos Jr., Weijun Xu, Dimithree Kahanda, Joshua T Atkinson, Othneil Noble Sparks, Mitchell D. Miller, George N Phillips Jr., George N. Bennett and Jonathan J. Silberg, 19 May 2020, Journal of Biological Chemistry.DOI: 10.1074/jbc.RA120.013501

Co-authors of the paper are graduate student Jose Luis Olmos Jr., research technician Weijun Xu, postdoctoral researchers Dimithree Kahanda and Joshua Atkinson, undergraduate alumnus Othneil Noble Sparks, research scientist Mitchell Miller, and George Bennett, the E. Dell Butcher Professor of BioSciences and a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. Phillips is a professor of biosciences. Silberg is the Stewart Memorial Professor of Biochemistry and a professor of biosciences, bioengineering, and chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The Department of Energy, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Moore Foundation, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences supported the research.

Continue reading here:
Beneath the Oceans Surface, a Virus Is Hijacking the Most Abundant Organism on Earth - SciTechDaily

Embryology

Over 180 fertility specialists trained in Africa through Merck Foundation – The Southern Times

Sharon Kavhu

WindhoekOver 180 doctors across Africa and Asia have received clinical and practical training for fertility specialists and embryologists under Merck Foundations Embryology and Fertility Program, The Southern Times has learnt.

The initiative which is also part of the foundations More Than A Mother campaignwhichhas trained doctors from countries such as:Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, CAR, Cte D'IVOIRE, DRC, Congo Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malaysia, Liberia, Mali, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Niger, Philippines, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, The Gambia, Togo, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In an interview, Merck Foundations Chief Executive Officer Dr Rasha Kelej told The Southern Times that the program has introduced debut fertility specialists and embryologiststraining programsin some African countries.

We are veryproud that we made history in many countrieswhere we trained the first fertility specialists and embryologists. These countries include: Divas, Chad, Nige, Central African Republic, Zambian, Malawi, Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda, said Kelej.

Through Merck Foundations Embryology and Fertility Program, doctors now appreciate the psychological and emotional stress that infertile couples face andthe best ways toaddress their needs accordingly. Fertility specialists in Africa have been exposed to better ways of counselling their patients to ensure that they are emotionally stable while attending to their medical needs.

Kelej said the training has significantly increased the numbers and broadened the understanding of fertility specialists across Africa and Asia on how infertility clinics should be conducted in order to break the infertility stigma, and encouragesmen to join their wives for treatment. She said the training is also a huge positive step towards creating awareness on infertility prevention.

She added, The doctors we trained have taken an extra mile in their approach, the training graduates from Ghana and Liberia for instance, have moved into communities to educate people on infertility and the need to break the stigma around infertile couples and especially around women.

Merck Foundation has also supported the establishment of the first ever Public In vitro fertilization (IVF) centres in Rwanda and Ethiopia. Meanwhile, in Uganda, Merck Foundation is still waiting for the list of candidates proposed by the countrys ministry of health to start the training program.

IVF is an assisted reproductive technology where fertilization is done by extracting eggs and retrieving sperm samples and then manually combining the egg and sperm in a laboratory dish.

The IVF centres in those countries have recorded several stories and celebrations of first babies for couples who suffered infertility for over ten years. Such news gives us joy, said Kelej.

She said at least 1,400 couples have benefited from the IVF sites in Rwanda and Ethiopia centres which are less than a year old. Rwanda and Ethiopia recorded 1,000 and 400 couples respectively.

While the COVID-19 phase has inconvenienced travelling, Merck Foundation has started a scholarship program for one year online diploma and two years master degree in sexual and reproductive medicines from the United Kingdom Universities. Kelej said her foundation is looking forward to receiving the most of proposed candidates from each African country and the program will scale up to South East Asia.

Original post:
Over 180 fertility specialists trained in Africa through Merck Foundation - The Southern Times

Embryology

New data supports the theory of Neanderthal’s low genetic diversity as the main cause for their extinction – HeritageDaily

What caused the disappearance of the Homo Neanderthalensis, a species that seemingly had as many capabilities as the Homo Sapiens?

There are several theories that attempt to explain it: the climate, competition with the Homo Sapiens, low genetic diversity A study that Valencia University (UV) participates in has analysed the first cervical vertebra from several Neanderthals and confirms that the genetic diversity of the population was low, which hindered their ability to adapt to possible changes to their surroundings and, therefore, their survival. The study has been published in the Journal of Anatomy.

Professor Juan Alberto Sanchis Gimeno, from the Department of Human Anatomy and Embryology at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the UV, the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) and the National Centre of Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) all took part in the study. Three vertebrae from the Kaprina (Croatia) site have been analysed, and material from other sites has been revised.

Neanderthals populated the European continent merely 30,000 years ago, and their disappearance continues being a mystery. Work deciphering their genome has been conducted to learn their genetic diversity, as well as analysing different anatomic traits of the fossil register of the species. In this study we focused on the anatomic variants of the first cervical vertebra, known as the atlas. The anatomic variants of this vertebra have a strong link with genetic diversity: the greater the prevalence of this type of anatomic variants, the lower the genetic diversity of the population, explains MNCN researcher Carlos A. Palancar.

In Homo Sapiens, the anatomic variants of the atlas have been thoroughly studied in recent years. In the case of modern humans, the atlas shows anatomic variants in almost 30% of cases. However, probably due to the bad preservation of this cervical vertebra and the limited material recovered in the fossil register, the atlas of Neanderthals have been looked at this way, explains UV professor Juan Alberto Sanchis Gimeno.

Recently, researchers from the Palaeoanthropology Group of the MNCN established the presence of several anatomic variants in the atlases of Neanderthals of the El Sidrn (Asturias) site. With the objective of confirming the high prevalence of the anatomic variants of this species, the fossil atlases of Neanderthals from the Krapina (Croatia) site have been thoroughly analysed. Krapina is a site that is around 130,000 years old, compared to the 50,000 of El Sidrn. It is the site from where the largest amount of Neanderthal remains have been recovered, which makes it a sample of especial interest for the analysis of the genetic diversity of this species, as all individuals potentially belonged to the same population, says Daniel Garca-Martnez, researcher at the CENIEH.

Subscribe to more articles like this by following our Google Discovery feed - Click the follow button on your desktop or the star button on mobile. Subscribe

The study of the anatomy of the three atlases recovered at this site has revealed the presence of anatomic variants in two of them (66%). One of them, known as Unclosed Transverse Foramen, UTF, has a prevalence of just 10% in modern humans. Verifying the presence of these anatomic variants in Krapina, along with the revision of other atlases submitted to the scientific community, which has not been analysed from this viewpoint heretofore and which offers similar data (over 50%), suggest that the amount of variants in Neanderthals is significantly greater than in current humans, says Palancar. This data supports the theory that their genetic diversity was very low and confirms that it could have been one of the causes for their disappearance, concludes MNCN researcher Markus Bastir.

Asociacin RUVID

Header Image Credit : Asociacin RUVID

- Advertisement -

See the original post:
New data supports the theory of Neanderthal's low genetic diversity as the main cause for their extinction - HeritageDaily

Human Behavior

By now, you probably have experienced the long lines and empty shelves at grocery and warehouse stores. Or you – mg Cannabis Retailer

By now, you probably have experienced the long lines and empty shelves at grocery and warehouse stores. Or you may have tried to buy staples such as canned food and toilet paper online from companies such as Walmart, Target, and Amazon only to discover they are sold out.

This seems unprecedented, but a look back at our history helps explain the phenomenon.

Sander van der Linden, an assistant professor of social psychology at Cambridge University, said a fear contagion phenomenon has taken hold in America. When people are stressed their reason is hampered, so they look at what other people are doing, he said. If others are stockpiling, it leads you to engage in the same behavior. People see photos of empty shelves and regardless of whether its rational, it sends a signal to them that its the thing to do.

As humankind has become more civilized and technological advancements have changed our lives, the survival instinct can become dormant. However, as current events clearly indicate, this survival behavior quickly can be reignited and spread like wildfire.

A look back to the Great Depression can cast some light on human behavior during a crisis.

John Montgomery Ph.D., wrote about this human condition. When we live in environments, such as modern cities, that are drastically different from the environments that were biologically adapted for, we become subject to various evolutionary mismatch effects that can be extremely detrimental to our physical and emotional health, he wrote. Perhaps the most important consequence of this mismatch is that we become highly prone to being triggered repeatedly and unnecessarily into various states of survival mode.

A look back to the Great Depression can cast some light on human behavior during a crisis. As conditions worsened over the course of the Depression and people increasingly lost confidence in banks, they started withdrawing their money in large numbers. Recognizing the crisis, in 1932 President Herbert Hoover denounced traitorous hoarding and organized an anti-hoarding drive. He also delivered a radio address pleading for people to stop hoarding and cease converting bank deposits into cash. Few listened.

Why policy and leadership matter

In the aftermath of the Great Depression, many argued the financial sector was so important it needed to be closely monitored and regulated. For a while it was. But then Republican administrations continued to wind back many of the regulations that kept financial institutions from gorging themselves to death. The lack of oversight ultimately led to the Great Recession of 2007 2009.

After then-President George W. Bush left office, President Barack Obama implemented new regulations aimed at keeping the banking system healthy. However, those safeguards again were rolled back once Donald J. Trump took office.

Early in his administration, as if a thank you to Wall Street, Trump signed a directive aimed at dismantling the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, crafted by the Obama administration in response to the 2008 economic meltdown. Trump also signed a memorandum to reverse the fiduciary rule, which requires brokers to act in their clients best interest, rather than seek the highest profits for themselves, when providing financial planning advice.

Trumps action on the fiduciary rule, which Democrats and consumer groups immediately denounced, allows financial advisors to steer unsuspecting clients toward investments that may enrich the broker but not be in the clients best interest.

The great disconnect from the facts

The premise that the Republican party is the party of fiscal conservatives and the Democrats are fiscal numbskulls just doesnt fit with the facts. In fact, during the past thirty-nine years, all the United States recessions occurred under Republican administrations.

The Great Recession, set off by a subprime mortgage crisis, began in December 2007 under President George W. Bush.

The early 2000s recession, sparked by the dot-com market crash, began in March 2000 under President George W. Bush.

The early 1990s recession, precipitated by a savings-and-loan crisis, began in July 1990 under President George H.W. Bush.

The 1981 recession, which found its genesis in an energy crisis and stagflation, began in July 1981 under President Ronald Reagan.

Moreover, Americas deficit spending, once anathema to Republicans, has increased more under recent Republican administrations than under Democratic presidencies.

Reagan took the federal deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion. George H.W. Bush took it to $290 billion. President Bill Clinton reduced it to zero. George W. Bush took it from zero to $1.4 trillion. Obama halved it to $584 billion. The Trump administration has raised it back to more than $1 trillion.

The U.S. is now in another crisis. The health of the countrys citizens and economy is under attack. People are hoarding supplies, and a survivalist mentality has infected the populace.

In this election year, voters can decide whether we have thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate leaders in Washington or boisterous, dishonest fools on the hill. The choice may be at the very heart of our survival.

Randall Huft is president and creative director at Innovation Agency, an advertising, branding, and public relations firm specializing in the cannabis industry. While working with blue-chip companies including AT&T, United Airlines, IBM, Walgreens, American Express, Toyota, and Disney, he discovered what works, what doesnt, and how to gain market share.

The rest is here:
By now, you probably have experienced the long lines and empty shelves at grocery and warehouse stores. Or you - mg Cannabis Retailer

Human Behavior

IMPERIUM GROUP INTRODUCES DAVID SCHLOSS AND HIS NEW MARKETING TACTICS THAT UTILIZES HUMAN BEHAVIOR – GlobeNewswire

Los Angeles, CA, June 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As time progresses society is seeing different ways to do just about everything. A largely affected industry is marketing. There are so many traditional marketing tactics that simply do not work as well and instead of a clever billboard social media is being utilized. David Schloss is the founder of Covert ROI, a well-established advertising agency. David does not follow the many outdated marketing tactics that have not been adapted to modern technology, he utilizes each and every tool to maximize impressions and audience reach. Coming from being in his mid-twenties with no money in his bank account, David has now had 10 years in this field. Instead of seeing his clients as just a customer like many other agencies, David wants his clients to succeed and create their six or seven-figure income. Services can include setting up Facebook or Instagram ads or completely reconstructing a company's marketing tactics.

After combing through a company's current marketing tactics, David implements new marketing tactics that utilize human behavior to create an attraction to the company or product. One could choose to allow the agency to set them up with different Facebook and Instagram ads or even hire complete social media management teams. David offers lots of other useful services like training or keynote speaking and even case studies that work to get to the core of what is keeping a company from succeeding. David has made it his mission to provide the best services possible in order to maximize his clients profits. His website, https://davidmschloss.com/ , showcases his many success stories. Satisfied clients range from small business owners to high profile CEOS and best selling authors. His website also showcases the many established companies like The Huffington Post, Forbes or Entrepreneur who have written about his very inspiring story.

Technology has progressed so quickly and changed marketing forever. Instead of looking into the sky for fun and quirky billboards we are looking at our screens and David has found the best way to utilize all this new technology. His blog is full of helpful tips and tricks as well as detailed discussions that would help anybody with their marketing tactics. These articles come with helpful recommendations on how much to spend on marketing depending on the season and gives you statistics that reinforce the recommendations. Everything about the website is impressive and if the free blogs are not enough for you there are plenty of different paid services for everyone. The different articles about David provide insight on how he was able to create such a large business and even tell his inspirational story of going from flat broke to creating his successful agency. David Schloss is very persistent and reflects it through his work and all the amazing services that set his company apart. By dissecting his clients companies and using all the different human psychological ploys as well as the tools that are on all the different forms of social media and his genuine dedication to helping companies succeed, he has created a true marketing experience

Contact:

Shazir Mucklai

Imperium Group

shazir@imperium-pr.com

Read more:
IMPERIUM GROUP INTRODUCES DAVID SCHLOSS AND HIS NEW MARKETING TACTICS THAT UTILIZES HUMAN BEHAVIOR - GlobeNewswire

Human Behavior

COVID-19 Is a Symptom of a Bigger Problem: Our Planets Ailing Health – TIME

The COVID-19 outbreak is a global tragedy. Hundreds of thousands have died, healthcare systems are buckling, and the future is uncertain for millions of people whose livelihoods are collapsing. It is absolutely right that the focus today is on saving lives here and now. In the same spirit of doing what we can to safeguard peoples wellbeing, we must not content ourselves with containing the acute crisis. We must also look ahead to what we can learn from this crisis to prevent future risks. COVID-19 is a reminder of how vulnerable even our modern, technologically advanced societies are.

The biggest lesson is that COVID-19 is more than an illness. It is a symptom of the ailing health of our planet. Humanitys dysfunctional relationship with nature has caused this wider disease. Understanding this root cause is critical, if we want to rise stronger after the crisis. COVID-19 is a zoonotic virusmeaning it spilled over from wild animals to humansand evolved into a pandemic due to the now well-established risk cocktail of the 21st century: ecosystem destruction, species loss, global warming, colliding with risky human behavior like illegal wildlife trade. All of this has played out in a globalized network of trade and travel.

COVID-19 is not an isolated event. Research shows that 60% of all known infectious diseases in humans and 75% of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. As we move into natural habitats, and exploit ever more wildlife, contact between humans and disease-carrying species increases.

Zoonotic diseases arent the only symptom of poor planetary health. Climate change is an even more serious crisis; it potentially poses existential risks for future generations, and is already having real-time impact on millions globally, for example through extreme weather events such as cyclones and floods. Changes in climate have a multiplier effect, leading to other problems, from ecosystem stability to food production and human conflict. Ecosystem and biodiversity loss are threatening the planets ability to provide goods and services deforestation for example, disrupts our weather patterns and the water cycle, contributes to climate change, and destroys the habitats of important species. Chemicals and waste are polluting the air, soil and water, killing millions each year.

All of these symptoms make clear that the planets health, and therefore our health, is deteriorating rapidly. And nature, just like a human, can only take so much before things reach the point of collapse.

We have known for a long time that we face a climate crisis and an ecological crisis. And now we are in the midst of another crisis, a tightly interconnected pandemic. It is not enough to focus only on economic recovery. Building resilience based on a whole-system approach is fundamental. This means the protection and sustainable management of our global commonssuch as our atmosphere and the earths rich diversity of plant and animal speciesmust be center-stage of priority-setting in our societies.

This year was meant to be a super year for nature,the world was due to agree on a global plan to protect and restore biodiversity beyond 2020. The next global climate meeting was scheduled to take place in Glasgow, with natural solutions to climate change a key issue for discussion and countries expected to propose new commitments to lower their emissions, in line with the Paris Agreement. The international community was also due to set out a framework for better management of chemicals and waste.

COVID-19 has made it crystal clear that we must deliver on these agendas. They are the means to form a blueprint for an economic and societal future that factors nature into everything we plan and build, from homes to cities to food systems.

But we cannot effectively address common global concerns, such as the environment, individually. The spread of this virus has proven once and for all that, in this globalized world, there are no local problemspollution and pathogens know no borders. Faced with the multifaceted impacts of COVID-19, multilateralism has to evolve. Governments, businesses, the UN, international organizations, scientists and individual citizens need to unite as a single global community to safeguard people from avoidable risks.

After COVID-19, nothing will be the same. But life can be better. We have had a moment to think and reflect. Perhaps we dont need as much stuff as we thought we did. Perhaps we can fill our lives with closer relationships, with moments, with creativity. Perhaps we recognize what really counts in our lives: being safe and being free. When we overcome COVID-19, we should not risk what we have won. We should do what we can to stabilize our environment, our support system. We need to think about how we can restore nature by living life differently.

One thing is clear. We cannot just develop a vaccine for COVID-19, call it job done and rev the economic engines back into the red. We need to use the reboot to incentivize sustainable innovation and green investment. The credits and subsidies that many governments are handing out so generously in this moment are not just a necessitythey are also a chance to direct economic progress towards sustainable development. This is an important insurance policy to avoid future pandemics.

To stabilize the climate, we have the Paris Agreement on keeping global temperature from rising more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. This translates into reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. For biodiversity and ecosystem stability, we need a similar binding target to halt the loss of biodiversity. Of course, setting targets alone does not do the job. Governments must work hard to achieve them. However, we have an important window right now, thanks to the bailout programs and financial stimulus packages arising from the COVID-19 crisis. Coupling science-based targets on climate and nature with these recovery mechanisms is a key strategy we need to deploy now, to win twice: we build resilience against future shocks and we create healthier economies. Because investing in sustainability is not something we do for nature or for the climate. We do it for us.

Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Contact us at editors@time.com.

Read the original post:
COVID-19 Is a Symptom of a Bigger Problem: Our Planets Ailing Health - TIME

Human Behavior

Cameras reveal possible uptick in urban wildlife – University of Georgia

In late March, as communities began to issue shelter-in-place orders, it seemed animals came out of hiding.

Across the globe, reports began to surface of wildlife taking to the newly deserted streets. Even in Georgia, people reported foxes in shrubbery, yips of coyotes or, in one case at the University of Georgia, deer walking across campus. But were animals relishing in fewer humans around, or were we just noticing them more?

As it happens, data collected for a study on wildlife behavior around metro Atlanta may provide some insight. Wildlife cameras set up by researchers at the University of Georgias Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and biologists from Georgias Department of Natural Resources point to a possible uptick in daytime wildlife sightings that may correspond with stay-at-home orders.

While the researchers didnt set out to record animal movements during a global pandemic, their 30 wildlife cameras set up from February through April did just that.

Wed been starting to monitor and look at behavior of wildlife in urban Atlanta to better understand how they behave, which is often very different than rural animals. If we can better understand the behaviors of both people and wildlife, we can better guide management and education efforts in the urban landscape, said Michel Kohl, an assistant professor of wildlife management and wildlife Extension specialist for Warnell.

All of a sudden, this pandemic happens, and we see this massive switch in human behavior that, across the globe, has led to anecdotal evidence that wildlife are responding quite quickly, he said. Now, we have this data that we can dig into and see, maybe, if we saw something similar as Georgia shut down and then started to pick back up.

Although Kohl and Benjamin Carr, a fourth-year Warnell student assisting with data collection and video analysis, have only begun looking into the data, it appears that wildlife responded. At the beginning of the study, around mid-February, cameras were recording a daytime wildlife sighting about every other day. But by late March, as more people began to limit nonessential trips, they were capturing more and more videos during the day.

How this directly relates to the COVID-19 shutdown is still not clear, but its something Kohl and his team will dig into in the coming months.

Our hope is to pair this information with direct measures of human use across the landscape to see how in tune wildlife are with their society, says Kohl. Data from cellphones and other measures of human social distancing can help answer these questions, and additional data might be available from wildlife cameras set up in other parts of the country.

Fourth-year University of Georgia student Benjamin Carr sets posts into the ground as part of a research project to understand more about how coyotes adapt to urban environments. (Submitted photo)

The metro Atlanta cameras were part of a study on coyote behavior in urban environments. With assistance from organizations such as Fernbank Museum of Natural History and the Quality Deer Management Association, cameras were placed in urban and rural areas stretching from DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties all the way to Elberton in Northeast Georgia. When an animal walked in front of one, it would record a 30-second video of wildlife behavior as evidence. Half of the cameras were set up with an object meant to be unknown to coyotesfour small posts set into the ground, surrounded by rope and baited for coyotes.

The study, supported in part by the USDAs National Wildlife Research Center, is part of an international project, spanning sites in Canada, the United States and Mexico, that aims to understand more about how urban coyotes navigate their world and adapt to urban landscapes. Typically, coyotes would approach the unknown object with apprehension and even fear, said Kohl. But urban coyotes can be seen on daytime camera footage nonchalantly trotting right by, barely noticing it.

This information is important for wildlife managers such as Kaitlin Goode, program manager for Georgia DNRs new Urban Wildlife Program. The program provides assistance and education to nine metro Atlanta counties, with the goal of resolving conflicts with wildlife, preventing conflicts before they start and promoting better wildlife habitat and conservation in backyards.

The majority of wildlife conflicts can be resolved by removing food sources and understanding why wildlife do what they do, Goode said. Collaborating on research to understand how wildlife behave in an urban environment helps us provide residents with the best advice for resolving conflict.

She adds, too, that the Urban Wildlife team, which regularly receives calls about human-wildlife interactions, didnt notice an increase in conflict reports during this time period. And Kohl notes that in spring, animals are also on the move which could also explain the uptick in camera videos.

Thats because the camera data represents daytime wildlife sightings from all the research teams cameras and doesnt yet account for sites where there may be large numbers of certain animals. This is squirrels, deer, coyotes, turkeys and whatever else we find, Kohl said. Regardless, the relationship between stay-at-home orders and wildlife sightings suggests an intriguing trend that they plan to continue investigating.

Whether or not animals were more active during stay-at-home orders, Kohl and Goode agree that its an opportunity to better understand wildlife populations in urban areas. Its important, said Kohl, to consider the entire population of a species, not just individual animals.

People think about deer in their backyard, but thats just one data point on an urban landscape, and its one animal in a larger population, said Kohl. When we assemble data about what all animals are doing across the entire urban landscape, we can better understand wildlife populations and their behavior. This means we can more efficiently manage and conserve wildlife, which in turn improves the quality of life for both humans and the wildlife.

Original post:
Cameras reveal possible uptick in urban wildlife - University of Georgia

Human Behavior

Do Unto Others – Thrive Global

Do unto othersas you would have themdo untoyou.Known as the golden rule. I think that we can all agree that, in principle, this sounds good to us. It makes perfect sense. Its interpretation is for all of us to love one another. To be kind. To forgive.

This, of course is predicated on the idea that you, in fact, love yourself. It would hold little meaning if you didnt give yourself the same respect. It may not even occur to you to reciprocate the gesture if you werent in a good place.

In actuality, its when you dont feel good about yourself that you tend to want to throw stones. It goes something like this; Youre not pleased with yourself for whatever reason you see someone else (or others) doing well and flourishing you think;Why them, not me?Youre not where you want to be, so you project onto others. Now, Im not saying that this is what you do. Im saying that this tends to happen. Human behavior is our fickle friend. You may not be able to stop yourself from feeling compelled to compare your life to others. Realistically we know that this kind of thinking sabotages our efforts.

Not only would you be a lot happier, imagine if you really embraced and practiced this idea of doing unto others. In fact, why wouldnt you want love, justice, integrity and equity for all people?

It would no longer be random acts of kindness. It would mean to love others at all times. Prejudice and racism would vanish (I have a dream Martin Luther King Jr.) your fellow human would be treated as, guess what? A human being.

Dont get me started with the current state of affairs in our world. We have a long way to go before the human race is one big global community. In fact, it wont happen in my lifetime. Differences of opinion are skewed. Reality is out of whack.

One way to proceed, particularly during worrisome and fearful times, (although it shouldnt make a difference) is to be even more aware of our actions, and how we treat ourselves and others.

Times have shifted. A new reality has given way. Were being told a lot of things. Our life circumstances have changed. Have tightened. Government is playing a more prevalent role in our lives by telling us what we need to be doing. This does not sit well. Especially whendo unto others isnt really part of the conversation. Its one-sided.

Protesting is inevitable when there is inequality, unlawful acts, human rights violations, and ones dignity being compromised. This is a far cry fromdo unto others and more like aneye for an eye.And yet, weve swung so far over, that we need some kind of consideration. Consideration of others.

We have a responsibility. Each and every one of us. It must start with us. If you lead with love and kindness, guess what, the world will start to be a more loving and kinder place. Intolerant to anything else.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto youis a smart place to start.

See the rest here:
Do Unto Others - Thrive Global