Many bacterial pathogens use small injection apparatuses to manipulate the cells of their hosts, such as humans, so that they can spread throughout the body. To do this, they need to fill their syringes with the relevant injection agent. A technique that tracks the individual movement of proteins revealed how bacteria accomplish this challenging task.
Disease-causing bacteria of the genus Salmonella or Yersinia can use tiny injection apparatuses to inject harmful proteins into host cells, much to the discomfort of the infected person. However, it is not only with a view to controlling disease that researchers are investigating the injection mechanism of these so-called type III secretion systems, also known as “injectisomes.”
If the structure and function of the injectisome were fully understood, researchers would be able to hijack it to deliver specific drugs into cells, such as cancer cells. In fact, the structure of the injectisome has already been elucidated. However, it remained unclear how the bacteria load their syringes so that the right proteins are injected at the right time.
Mobile components of the injectisome search for proteins
A team of scientists led by Andreas Diepold from the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg and Ulrike Endesfelder from the University of Bonn has now been able to answer this question: mobile components of the injectisome comb through the bacterial cell in search of the proteins to be injected, so-called effectors. When they encounter an effector, they transport it like a shuttle bus to the gate of the injection needle.
“How proteins of the sorting platform in the cytosol bind to effectors and deliver the cargo to the export gate of the membrane-bound injectisome is comparable to the processes at a freight terminal,” explains Stephan Wimmi, first author of the study as a postdoctoral researcher in Andreas Diepold’s laboratory. “We think that this shuttle mechanism helps to make the injection efficient and specific at the same time — after all, the bacteria have to inject the right proteins quickly to avoid being recognized and eliminated by the immune system, for example.”
To gain this insight into the important loading mechanism of the injectisome, the researchers had to apply new techniques. “Conventional methods, which are normally used to detect that proteins bind to each other, did not work to answer this question — possibly because the effectors are only bound for a short time and then immediately injected,” explains Andreas Diepold, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute and co-leader of the study. “That’s why we had to analyse this binding in situ in the living bacteria.”
“To measure these transient interactions we made use of two novel approaches that work in living cells, proximity labeling and single-particle tracking,” adds Ulrike Endesfelder, whose group worked on the study in three different locations — the Max Planck Institute in Marburg, Carnogie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, and at the University in Bonn. Proximity labeling, in which a protein marks its immediate neighbors like a paintbrush, enabled them to show that the effectors in the bacterium bind to the mobile injectisome components. This binding was examined in more detail using single particle tracking, a high-resolution microscopy method that can follow individual proteins in cells. These methods, which the team refers to as “in situ biochemistry,” i.e. biochemical investigations on site, made the breakthrough possible.
The researchers next want to use their method to investigate other mechanisms that bacteria use to cause infections. “The more we know about how bacteria use these systems during an infection, the better we can understand how we can influence them — be it to prevent infections or to modify the systems in order to use them in the fields of medicine or biotechnology,” says Andreas Diepold.
Central features of human evolution may stop our species from resolving global environmental problems like climate change, says a new study led by the University of Maine.
Humans have come to dominate the planet with tools and systems to exploit natural resources that were refined over thousands of years through the process of cultural adaptation to the environment. University of Maine evolutionary biologist Tim Waring wanted to know how this process of cultural adaptation to the environment might influence the goal of solving global environmental problems. What he found was counterintuitive.
The project sought to understand three core questions: how human evolution has operated in the context of environmental resources, how human evolution has contributed to the multiple global environmental crises and how global environmental limits might change the outcomes of human evolution in the future.
Waring’s team outlined their findings in a new paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Other authors of the study include Zach Wood, UMaine alumni, and Eörs Szathmáry, a professor at Eötvös LorándUniversity in Budapest, Hungary.
Human expansion
The study explored how human societies’ use of the environment changed over our evolutionary history. The research team investigated changes in the ecological niche of human populations, including factors such as the natural resources they used, how intensively they were used, what systems and methods emerged to use those resources and the environmental impacts that resulted from their usage.
This effort revealed a set of common patterns. Over the last 100,000 years, human groups have progressively used more types of resources, with more intensity, at greater scales and with greater environmental impacts. Those groups often then spread to new environments with new resources.
The global human expansion was facilitated by the process of cultural adaptation to the environment. This leads to the accumulation of adaptive cultural traits — social systems and technology to help exploit and control environmental resources such as agricultural practices, fishing methods, irrigation infrastructure, energy technology and social systems for managing each of these.
“Human evolution is mostly driven by cultural change, which is faster than genetic evolution. That greater speed of adaptation has made it possible for humans to colonize all habitable land worldwide,” says Waring, associate professor with the UMaine Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions and the School of Economics.
Moreover, this process accelerates because of a positive feedback process: as groups get larger, they accumulate adaptive cultural traits more rapidly, which provides more resources and enables faster growth.
“For the last 100,000 years, this has been good news for our species as a whole.” Waring says, “but this expansion has depended on large amounts of available resources and space.”
Today, humans have also run out of space. We have reached the physical limits of the biosphere and laid claim to most of the resources it has to offer. Our expansion also is catching up with us. Our cultural adaptations, particularly the industrial use of fossil fuels, have created dangerous global environmental problems that jeopardize our safety and access to future resources.
Global limits
To see what these findings mean for solving global challenges like climate change, the research team looked at when and how sustainable human systems emerged in the past. Waring and his colleagues found two general patterns. First, sustainable systems tend to grow and spread only after groups have struggled or failed to maintain their resources in the first place. For example, the U.S. regulated industrial sulfur and nitrogen dioxide emissions in 1990, but only after we had determined that they caused acid rain and acidified many water bodies in the Northeast. This delayed action presents a major problem today as we threaten other global limits. For climate change, humans need to solve the problem before we cause a crash.
Second, researchers also found evidence that strong systems of environmental protection tend to address problems within existing societies, not between them. For example, managing regional water systems requires regional cooperation, regional infrastructure and technology, and these arise through regional cultural evolution. The presence of societies of the right scale is, therefore, a critical limiting factor.
Tackling the climate crisis effectively will probably require new worldwide regulatory, economic and social systems — ones that generate greater cooperation and authority than existing systems like the Paris Agreement. To establish and operate those systems, humans need a functional social system for the planet, which we don’t have.
“One problem is that we don’t have a coordinated global society which could implement these systems,” says Waring, “We only have sub-global groups, which probably won’t suffice. But you can imagine cooperative treaties to address these shared challenges. So, that’s the easy problem.”
The other problem is much worse, Waring says. In a world filled with sub-global groups, cultural evolution among these groups will tend to solve the wrong problems, benefitting the interests of nations and corporations and delaying action on shared priorities. Cultural evolution among groups would tend to exacerbate resource competition and could lead to direct conflict between groups and even global human dieback.
“This means global challenges like climate change are much harder to solve than previously considered,” says Waring. “It’s not just that they are the hardest thing our species has ever done. They absolutely are. The bigger problem is that central features in human evolution are likely working against our ability to solve them. To solve global collective challenges we have to swim upstream.”
Looking forward
Waring and his colleagues think that their analysis can help navigate the future of human evolution on a limited Earth. Their paper is the first to propose that human evolution may oppose the emergence of collective global problems and further research is needed to develop and test this theory.
Waring’s team proposes several applied research efforts to better understand the drivers of cultural evolution and search for ways to reduce global environmental competition, given how human evolution works. For example, research is needed to document the patterns and strength of human cultural evolution in the past and present. Studies could focus on the past processes that lead to the human domination of the biosphere, and on the ways cultural adaptation to the environment is occurring today.
But if the general outline proves to be correct, and human evolution tends to oppose collective solutions to global environmental problems, as the authors suggest, then some very pressing questions need to be answered. This includes whether we can use this knowledge to improve the global response to climate change.
“There is hope, of course, that humans may solve climate change. We have built cooperative governance before, although never like this: in a rush at a global scale.” Waring says.
The growth of international environmental policy provides some hope. Successful examples include the Montreal Protocol to limit ozone-depleting gasses, and the global moratorium on commercial whaling.
New efforts should include fostering more intentional, peaceful and ethical systems of mutual self-limitation, particularly through market regulations and enforceable treaties, that bind human groups across the planet together ever more tightly into a functional unit.
But that model may not work for climate change.
“Our paper explains why and how building cooperative governance at the global scale is different, and helps researchers and policymakers be more clear-headed about how to work toward global solutions,” says Waring.
This new research could lead to a novel policy mechanism to address the climate crisis: modifying the process of adaptive change among corporations and nations may be a powerful way to address global environmental risks.
As for whether humans can continue to survive on a limited planet, Waring says “we don’t have any solutions for this idea of a long-term evolutionary trap, as we barely understand the problem.” says Waring.
“If our conclusions are even close to being correct, we need to study this much more carefully,” he says.
As climate change continues to impact people across South Florida, the need for adaptive responses becomes increasingly important.
A recent study led by researchers at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, assessed the perspectives of 76 diverse South Florida climate adaptation professionals. The study titled, “Practitioner perspectives on climate mobilities in South Florida” was published in the December issue of the Journal Oxford Open Climate Change, and explores the expectations and concerns of practitioners from the private sector, community-based organizations, and government agencies about the region’s ability to adapt in the face of increasing sea level rise and diverse consequences for where people live and move, also known as climate mobility.
Conducted through extensive interviews, the research underscores the growing significance of climate mobility as a crucial adaptive response in the face of increased climate challenges. While previous studies have primarily focused on resident perspectives on mobility, this study delves into the views of professionals, offering insights that could potentially shape future strategies and outcomes.
“This study is a deep dive aiming to understand the perspectives of leading experts on where we are right now in our climate responses in South Florida,” said Katharine Mach, lead author of the study and a professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the Rosenstiel School. “These types of conversations are crucial to our prospects for unleashing innovations and successes in regional climate adaptations and preparedness.”
Key findings reveal a consensus among the professionals about the inevitability of various forms of climate mobilities in South Florida. Anticipated movements of people and infrastructure assets away from hazardous areas were highlighted, indicating an urgent need for comprehensive adaptation planning.
However, while recognizing the necessity of climate mobility strategies, the interviewed practitioners expressed concerns regarding the current impact of such movements. They highlighted issues of distributional inequities, socio-cultural disruptions, and financial disparities arising from ongoing migrations and gentrification in which climate plays some role.
The findings illuminated a critical gap between individual preparedness among practitioners and the overall readiness of the region to support and manage the expected climate-driven relocations. This discrepancy raises concerns about collective-action failures and the urgency for a more ambitious, long-term transition plan.
Climate mobilities, while presenting benefits, also pose significant challenges. They serve as a path for adaptation planning and policies, prompting crucial questions about incorporation into policy planning and the need for fundamental innovations.
According to the researchers, the study serves as an intervention itself, providing insights that might otherwise remain unexplored, fostering a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with climate mobilities. The findings aim to inform and guide policymakers, stakeholders, and practitioners toward more proactive and inclusive approaches to climate adaptation.
The study’s authors include: Katharine J. Mach1,2, Jennifer Niemann1,2, Rosalind Donald3, Jessica Owley1,2,4, Nadia A. Seeteram5, A.R. Siders 6,7, Xavier I. Cortada 2,4,8,9, Alex Nyburg10, Adam Roberti11, Ian A. Wright12
1 Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA. 2 Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA. 3 School of Communication, American University, Washington, DC, USA. 4 University of Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA. 5 Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. 6 Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA. 7 Biden School of Public Policy and Administration and Geography and Spatial Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA. 8 Department of Art and Art History, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA. 9 Department of Pediatrics, University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA. 10 Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA. 11 Xavier Cortada Foundation, Pinecrest Gardens, FL, USA. 12 Department of Economics, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
The study was supported by the University of Miami Laboratory for Integrative Knowledge (U-LINK), the Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the U.S. National Science Foundation, award numbers 2034308 and 2034239.
Rishi Sunak has come under fierce attack from UK climate experts for the Conservative government’s failure over the past 18 months to appoint a new chair of the independent committee that advises ministers on emissions targets.
In a letter to the prime minister leaked to the Observer, the UK’s leading organisation working on the economic effects of global warming condemned the “excessive delay” in finding a replacement to the previous chair, Lord Deben.
Bob Ward, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change’s head of policy, warned Sunak that the delay is harming efforts to control carbon emissions and damaging the UK’s reputation as a climate change leader.
“Given that the recruitment of the new chair began 18 months ago it is inexplicable that the appointment has still not been announced,” wrote Ward. The work of the committee is at a “critical stage”, he added. “It is not helpful that it does not yet have a new chair as it carries out this work.”
The economist Lord Stern, who is chair of the institute, said: “It seems to be yet another signal that the government does not take climate change policy seriously enough. All this is damaging the confidence of other countries and of investors in the UK’s commitment to climate action.”
The failure to find a new committee chair is the latest example of a lack of consistency displayed by Sunak towards his party’s green commitments. This year, he dismayed environmentalists when he announced legislation for an annual system of oil and gas licensing in the North Sea which followed a scaling back of other measures including delays to a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
The Climate Change Committee is a body of experts set up under the 2008 Climate Change Act to guide national policies for controlling emissions and for helping the country prepare for the impact of global warming. In the past, it has been highly critical of Britain’s poor performance in areas including the nation’s flood defences and domestic energy efficiency.
In July 2022, it was announced that Lord Deben – who was due to stand down – would continue in the post for an extra nine months while a new chair was sought. A year and a half later, the post is still vacant with Prof Piers Forster acting as interim head.
Ed Miliband, shadow secretary of state for climate change, said it was critical that the UK became a clean energy superpower in order to cut power bills for families and to make the nation energy independent.
“This is yet another sign that the Conservatives have given up in the fight for lower bills, energy independence and climate leadership,” Miliband said. “Rishi Sunak should end the delay and make this crucial appointment as soon as possible.”
A key role of the committee is to set out the future amounts of greenhouse gases the UK can emit. The next carbon budget – the UK’s seventh – will delineate how much can be emitted for the period 2038 to 2042.
“The budget must be agreed by the first half of 2025 and be built on robust analysis and rigorous involvement by the committee,” added Ward. “The fact it will still not have a chairman in place by 2024 to direct this work is deeply concerning.”
Lord Deben agreed that a replacement was needed as soon as possible. “It is very important that a successor be appointed because they have to start work on the seventh carbon budget. That takes a couple of years.”
Government sources said the new chair needed to be approved not only by ministers in London, but also by the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, and the devolved government in Northern Ireland. This process is understood not yet to be complete.
One of the front runners for the job is said to be former Tory minister and president of the Resolution Foundation think tank David Willetts.
A government spokesperson said it remained committed to existing climate change targets and is on track to meet net zero in 2050. They also said they would appoint a permanent chair “in due course”.
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A new iguana joins Asia’s rich reptile fauna, officially described as new to science in the open-access journal ZooKeys.
“From 2009 to 2022, we conducted a series of field surveys in South China and collected a number of specimens of the Calotes versicolor species complex, and found that the population of what we thought was Calotes versicolor in South China and Northern Vietnam was a new undescribed species and two subspecies,” says Yong Huang, whose team described the new species.
Wang’s garden lizard (Calotes wangi) is less than 9 cm long, and one of its distinguishing features is its orange tongue.
“Calotes wangi is found in subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests and tropical monsoon forests in southern China and northern Vietnam, mostly in mountainous areas, hills and plains on forest edges, arable land, shrub lands, and even urban green belts. It is active at the edge of the forest, and when it is in danger, it rushes into bushes or climbs tree trunks to hide. Investigations found that the lizards lie on sloping shrub branches at night, sleeping close to the branches,” says Yong Huang.
It is active from April to October every year, while in the tropics it is active from March to November or even longer, and eats a variety of insects, spiders, and other arthropods.
For now, the researchers estimate that the new species is not threatened, but they do note that in some areas its habitat is fragmented.
“In addition, their bodies are used medicinally and the lizards are also eaten,” they write in their research paper.
This is why they suggest that the local government strengthen the protection of their ecological environment and pay close attention to the population dynamics.
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The welcome mat has been rolled out for scores of red crabs as they make their annual coastal dash on Christmas Island.
Each year, the first substantial rain of the wet season triggers tens of millions of adult red crabs to leave their forest homes, in the interior of the island, and march towards the coast to mate and spawn.
Christmas Island is 1,500km from the Australian mainland and lies 350km south of the Indonesian island of Java.
Staff at the Christmas Island national park have spent months preparing for the mass migration, setting up kilometres of temporary roadside barriers to channel the migrating crabs to the safety of underpasses and overpasses.
They also divert traffic away from the crabs as they scurry to the coast.
The park manager, Derek Ball, said the red crab was the island’s keystone species and the entire community pitches in to facilitate the “fascinating phenomenon”.
“Over many years we’ve also targeted the red crab’s biggest threat, the invasive yellow crazy ant,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
“By reducing their numbers, the red crab population numbers are higher than we’ve seen in decades which is an outstanding result not only for the red crabs, but for the entire island ecosystem.”
Crazy ants were first detected on the island in the 1920s, but it wasn’t until the first super colonies formed in the late 1980s that they became a problem.
The ants have killed tens of millions of red crabs over the years by spraying them with potent formic acid.
But there are fewer of the invaders now after scientists deployed a micro-wasp to prey on an insect that historically provided the ants with an abundant food source.
The red crab is found on Christmas Island and, to a much lesser extent, the nearby Cocos Islands.
Its population has more than doubled in the past five years, from 50 million to more than 100 million.
“This iconic natural phenomenon is not just incredible to see, but a fantastic success story of how we can work together to better protect our precious native species,” the federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said on Sunday.
Texas A&M University School of Public Health research on attitudes toward pet vaccination and how they may be linked with human vaccine hesitancy was the subject of a new study recently published in the journal Vaccine.
Simon Haeder, Ph.D., associate professor, analyzed data from an August 2023 survey of more than 2,000 dog and more than 1,400 cat owners to measure pet vaccination rates, perceptions of vaccines and support for pet vaccination requirements.
“Decreasing pet vaccination rates pose challenges to society for a number of reasons, including increased incidents of pet disease and death, increases in exposures for humans, the potential for further genetic adaptations of pathogens, as well as detrimental effects on veterinarians,” Haeder said. “Many individuals consider their pets as part of the family and increases in vaccine-preventable diseases may also affect the financial and emotional health of owners.”
The survey first asked respondents whether they owned a dog, a cat or both. Dog and cat owners were then surveyed about their pets’ vaccine status for five diseases each for dogs and cats. These included rabies for dogs and cats, canine parvovirus and canine distemper for dogs, and feline panleukopenia and feline Bordetella for cats. The respondents then responded with levels of support for vaccination requirements for each of the listed diseases. The survey also queried respondents about perceived safety, efficacy and importance of the various vaccines.
In addition to pet vaccine-specific questions, the survey asked respondents about their level of trust in scientists, support for human vaccination mandates for children, political ideology, religiosity, non-veterinary expenses and frequency of exposure of dogs to other dogs outside the household. Lastly, the survey measured perceptions of safety, efficacy and importance of human vaccines.
The survey found that an overwhelming majority of pet owners had vaccinated their dogs and cats against rabies, though cats were vaccinated less often than dogs. Other core vaccines had slightly lower, but still high uptake, while there appeared to be more hesitancy toward non-core vaccines. Core vaccines are generally recommended for all pets regardless of lifestyle.
Further analysis found that perceptions of importance, efficacy and safety of vaccines served as a reasonable predictor for vaccine hesitancy. Additionally, these perceptions show an association with attitudes toward vaccination requirements. Haeder’s analysis also found that pet owners without non-veterinary expenses such as boarding or training fees showed higher levels of vaccine hesitancy. Lastly, pet vaccination behaviors and perceptions appear to be less associated with political ideology than with human vaccines.
The findings of this study show a high level of confidence in vaccine safety, efficacy and importance for humans and pets. Additionally, the analysis found relations between vaccine hesitancy in humans and animals, with support for animal vaccine requirements being strongly associated with similar requirements for humans. This indicates the potential for spillover effects and the importance of further focus on vaccine hesitancy in humans and animals in research and public health efforts in the future.
“Concerns about growing hesitancy remain and should be taken seriously, for both pets and humans, before the United States falls below important thresholds to prevent major outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases,” Haeder said.
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