Science

Monitoring Droughts’ Movements Would Aid Vulnerable Areas, Researchers Say

It’s a major natural disaster that slowly grows in one place and then moves across a region, gaining intensity and size. As it spreads, it destroys land, ruins agriculture and tears apart communities, and it can kill people.

It’s a drought.

Researchers are just beginning to view droughts as this type of dynamic force, and some hope that soon they will be monitored similarly to hurricanes — with scientists able to predict their development, helping to protect those living in their path.

Ten percent of droughts travel between 1,400 to 3,100 kilometers from where they begin, according to a recent study. The study, which analyzed 1,420 droughts between 1979 and 2009, identified “hot spots” around the world and common directions in which droughts move.

Some droughts in the southwest United States, for example, tend to move from south to north. In Argentina, they usually migrate the opposite direction. In Central Africa, droughts tend to go southeastern toward the coast.

“It can start somewhere, move throughout the continent, and obviously cause harm throughout its way,” Julio Herrera-Estrada, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University and leader of the study, said Thursday.

Droughts that travel are usually the largest and most disastrous, the scientists found. They can cause a loss of agriculture, wildlife, wetlands and human life, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Very costly

They are also one of the most expensive natural disasters that people face today, according to Herrera-Estrada, who collaborated on the study with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna.

The most recent moving drought that Herrera-Estrada studied began in 2008 in Ukraine and Russia, and moved 1,700 kilometers northeast, ending in northwest Russia and affecting parts of Kazakhstan on the way. It lasted almost a year.

“People haven’t really thought of droughts in this way,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Future research, Herrera-Estrada said, can shed light on what mechanisms cause some droughts to move and what affects their paths. This can be done accurately, however, only through collaboration among national governments, he said.

“It’s important to have a global or a continental understanding about how droughts are behaving,” he said. Collaboration “benefits people on the ground, farmers, cities that need water, power plants that need water.”

The study was published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.   
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Romania’s Health Care Exodus

Sonia Papiu started her first year of residency as a psychiatrist in the Romanian city of Cluj in January, but she plans to move abroad within the

year, seeking better learning opportunities and hospital conditions.

She will not be alone.

“I don’t think any of my colleagues are planning to stay,” she said. “I think I could learn more abroad. You have higher responsibilities as a resident there.”

In the Romanian system, doctors go through six years of medical school and then three to five years as a hospital resident, treating patients while working under the supervision of senior staff.

Finding a job abroad will be easy. Cluj, one of Romania’s largest cities and a university and business hub, hosts several agencies recruiting for western European hospitals.

Romania has bled out tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, dentists and pharmacists since joining the European Union a decade ago, lured abroad by what the country lacks: significantly higher pay, modern infrastructure and functional healthcare systems. France, Germany and Britain are among the most popular destinations.

The consequences are dire. Romania is one of the EU states with the fewest doctors. Nearly a third of hospital positions are vacant and the health ministry estimates one in four Romanians has insufficient access to essential healthcare.

“Medical staff leaving Romania at an almost massive pace deepens the problems of the healthcare system,” former health minister Vlad Voiculescu has said. “Entire hospitals are facing a major personnel deficit and entire towns don’t have a family physician.”

This despite the fact that Romania is a leading EU state when it comes to the number of medical graduates. But the system — ridden with corruption, inefficiencies and politicized management — has been unable to motivate them to stay. The shortages are even starker in rural areas.

“Because we have one doctor per section for most specialties, when a doctor goes on holiday we need to close down the section,” said Cristian Vlad, the hospital manager in Viseul de Sus, a small town near the Ukrainian border.

Vlad said three hospitals in the region shared one anaesthetist until last year, when his hospital brought in another from neighboring Moldova.

“I live in hope that our resident doctors will change their mind and stay in smaller hospitals, too,” Vlad said.

Turning point

Romania is taking steps to address the issues. Pay has risen significantly, although it still does not measure up to western standards. The net average monthly wage for the healthcare system stood at 2,609 lei ($606) at the end of 2016, nearly double what it was three years ago.

In 2016, the health ministry created a multi-year plan for the medical profession, including a simpler recruitment process, education reform, better promotion opportunities, and subsidies for physicians willing to move to remote villages.

The strategy has yet to be approved by the two-month-old cabinet of Social Democrat Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu.

“Measures to improve healthcare are in place, but the system suffers from inefficiencies, limited accessibility and corruption,” the European Commission said last month.

Yet not all doctors shy away from remote areas. From the village of Tureni, Andreea Kis has been serving as a family doctor for five villages for nearly five years.

“I chose to be a family doctor because this is compatible with family life,” said Kis, a mother of two. “People in the villages preserve their humanity better.”
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Doctors Tie Zika Virus to Heart Problems in Some Adults

For the first time, doctors have tied infection with the Zika virus to possible new heart problems in adults.

The evidence so far is only in eight people in Venezuela, and is not enough to prove a link. It’s also too soon to know how often this might be happening. The biggest trouble the mosquito-borne virus has been causing is for pregnant women and their fetuses.

“I think as awareness increases, the cases will start to show up more,” said Dr. Karina Gonzalez Carta, a Mayo Clinic research fellow working in Venezuela who investigated the heart cases.

She discussed them on an American College of Cardiology press call, ahead of a presentation Saturday at the group’s meeting in Washington.

Many people infected with Zika will have no or only mild symptoms, such as fever, aches, an itchy rash or red eyes. But the virus has caused an epidemic of birth defects in the Caribbean and South America, notably babies with abnormally small heads and brains.

A report last June in the International Journal of Cardiology describes heart problems that have been seen from other viruses spread by mosquitoes, such as West Nile and ones that cause yellow fever, dengue fever and chikungunya.

Doctors have been watching for the same from Zika, and “we were surprised at the severity of the findings” in the Venezuela cases, Carta said.

She studied nine patients, ages 30 to 64, treated at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Caracas who developed heart symptoms such as palpitations, shortness of breath and fatigue an average of 10 days after typical Zika symptoms began.

Only one had any prior heart-related problem – high blood pressure that was under control with medications – and all had lab tests confirming Zika infection. They were given extensive heart tests and were studied for an average of six months, starting last July.

Eight of the nine developed a dangerous heart rhythm problem, and six of the nine developed heart failure, which occurs when a weakened heart can’t pump enough blood.

Doctors don’t know if these problems will be permanent. So far, they haven’t gone away although medicines have improved how patients feel.

“This is the first time we’ve considered that cardiovascular disease may be associated with Zika,” and people who travel to or live in places where Zika is spreading need to watch for possible symptoms, said Dr. Martha Gulati, cardiology chief at the University of Arizona-Phoenix who is familiar with the results.

Zika infections have been reported in more than 5,000 people in the United States, mostly travelers. After a big outbreak in Brazil in 2015, Zika spread throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere. The virus also spread locally in parts of southern Florida and Texas last year.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned pregnant women to avoid travel to Zika zones and to use bug spray and other measures to prevent bites.
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It Might Be Possible to Grow Potatoes on Mars

When humans finally land on Mars one of the first dishes made of locally grown vegetables may be the universally popular French fries.

Researchers from the International Potato Center and the University of Engineering and Technology in Lima, Peru, say potatoes could grow in Martian soil, if they are given certain nutrients and water.

Researchers successfully grew potatoes in soil from the Pampas de La Joya desert in Peru, which they say is the closest chemically to the dry Martian soil.

Helped by scientists from NASA Ames Research Center, they built a special chamber closely mimicking the Martian temperature, air pressure, and oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.

The most promising results have come from a variety of potato specially bred for extreme soil and climate conditions on Earth.

The new experiments were started on February 14 and can be viewed on potatoes.space/mars.
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Report: China Developing Advanced Lunar Mission Spaceship

China is developing an advanced new spaceship capable of both flying in low-Earth orbit and landing on the moon, according to state media, in another bold step for a space program that equaled the U.S. in number of rocket launches last year.

The newspaper Science and Technology Daily cited spaceship engineer Zhang Bainian as saying the new craft would be recoverable and have room for multiple astronauts. While no other details were given in the Tuesday report, Zhang raised as a comparison the Orion spacecraft being developed by NASA and the European Space Agency. The agency hopes Orion will carry astronauts into space by 2023.

China’s Shenzhou space capsule used on all six of its crewed missions is based on Russia’s Soyuz and is capable of carrying three astronauts in its re-entry module.

China came late to crewed space flight, launching its first man into space in 2003, but has advanced rapidly since then. In its most recent crewed mission, two astronauts spent a month aboard a Chinese space station late last year.

A fully functioning, permanently crewed space station is on course to begin operations in around five years and a manned lunar mission has been suggested for the future.

Now firmly established among the big three in space travel, China last year moved ahead of Russia for the first time in number of rocket launches and equaled the United States at 22, according to Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. Russia had 17 launches, while the U.S. might have had several more if Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket fleet hadn’t been grounded following a Sept. 1 launchpad explosion.

 
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Lightweight Vest Offers Vital Protection For Space Colonists

The Earth’s atmosphere, and magnetic fields protect us from the damaging, and potentially deadly effects of gamma rays. But in space, and in some earthly disaster scenarios like a nuclear meltdown, it takes several feet of concrete or lead to keep us safe. But a new vest of flexible light material might solve the gamma ray problem as we try to figure out ways to set up shop on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Researchers Develop Blood Test to Pinpoint Location of Cancer

Researchers are developing a blood test that can tell not only whether someone has cancer, but in what organ the tumors are lurking. The test could mean more prompt, potentially life-saving treatment for patients.

Researchers describe their blood test as a kind of dual authentication process. It is able to detect the presence of dying tumor cells in blood as well as tissue signatures, to signal to clinicians which organ is affected by the cancer.

There already are tests that screen for traces of DNA released by dying cancer cells. Such blood tests show promise in the treatment of patients to see how well anti-cancer therapies are working.

But researchers at the University of California, San Diego discovered a new clue, using organ-specific DNA signatures, that leads them to the particular organ that is affected. 

The finding makes the new blood test potentially useful as a screening tool in people suspected of having cancer.

UC-San Diego bioengineering professor Kun Zhang is senior author of a paper in Nature Genetics about the experimental test.

“So when you try to do these kinds of early screening or early detection [tests], these people are healthy. So if you take a blood draw and then you do a test, and you find some signature of cancer, that is not enough because you do not know what to do next,” Zhang said. “And so, in this case, we developed a method where we can say whether there is a cancer growing in the body and if the answer is ‘Yes,’ we can also say something about where does it grow.”

The test screens for a DNA signature called a CpG methylation haplotype, which is unique for each tissue in the body.

When a cancer grows in an organ, it competes with healthy tissue for nutrients and space, killing off healthy cells, which release their DNA into the bloodstream. 

The haplotype signatures, identified by the blood test, could tell doctors what cells are being destroyed, and therefore what organ is being invaded by cancer. Zhang says knowing a tumor’s location is especially crucial for early detection and treatment.

Researchers created a database of complete CpG methylation patterns for 10 different normal tissues: the lungs, liver, intestine, colon, brain, pancreas, spleen, stomach, kidney and blood. To put together the genetic marker database, the investigators also analyzed tumor and blood samples of cancer patients.

They screened the blood samples of 59 patients with lung or colorectal cancer, comparing those findings to people without cancer.

“It could be potentially used as a screening test,” Zhang said. “So I think that is the real potential. We need to do a few more rigorous clinical observations before we can get to that point.”

Zhang envisions eventually using the blood test to look for markers of cancer as part of routine blood work.
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Bacon, Sugary Sodas, Too Few Nuts Tied to Big Portion of US Deaths

Gorging on bacon, skimping on nuts? These are among food habits that new research links with deaths from heart disease, strokes and diabetes.

Overeating or not eating enough of 10 specific foods and nutrients contributes to nearly half of U.S. deaths from these causes, the study suggests.

”Good” foods that were undereaten are nuts and seeds; seafood rich in omega-3 fats, including salmon and sardines; fruits and vegetables; and whole grains.

”Bad” foods or nutrients that were overeaten include salt and salty foods; processed meats including bacon, bologna and hot dogs; red meat including steaks and hamburgers; and sugary drinks.

The research is based on U.S. government data showing there were about 700,000 deaths in 2012 from heart disease, strokes and diabetes, and on an analysis of national health surveys that asked participants about their eating habits. Most didn’t eat the recommended amounts of the foods studied.

The 10 ingredients combined contributed to about 45 percent of those deaths, according to the study.

More detail on risks, benefits

It may sound like a familiar attack on the typical American diet, and the research echoes previous studies on the benefits of heart-healthy eating. But the study goes into more detail on specific foods and their risks or benefits, said lead author Renata Micha, a public health researcher and nutritionist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

The results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Micha said the foods and nutrients were singled out because of research linking them with the causes of death studied. For example, studies have shown that excess salt can increase blood pressure, putting stress on arteries and the heart. Nuts contain healthy fats that can improve cholesterol levels, while bacon and other processed meats contain saturated fats that can raise levels of unhealthy LDL cholesterol.

In the study, too much salt was the biggest problem, linked with nearly 10 percent of the deaths. Overeating processed meats and undereating nuts and seeds and seafood each were linked with about 8 percent of the deaths.

The Food and Drug Administration’s recent voluntary sodium reduction guidelines for makers of processed foods is a step in the right direction, as are taxes that some U.S. cities have imposed on sugar-sweetened beverages,  Micha said.

A journal editorial said public health policies targeting unhealthy eating could help prevent some deaths, while noting that the study didn’t constitute solid proof that ”suboptimal” diets were deadly.

The study’s recommended amounts, based on U.S. government guidelines, nutrition experts’ advice, and amounts found to be beneficial or harmful in previous research:

‘Good’ ingredients

— Fruits: 3 average-sized fruits daily

— Vegetables: 2 cups cooked or 4 cups raw vegetables daily

— Nuts/seeds: 5 1-ounce servings per week — about 20 nuts per serving

— Whole grains: 2½ daily servings

— Polyunsaturated fats, found in many vegetable oils: 11 percent of daily calories

— Seafood: about 8 ounces weekly

‘Bad’ ingredients

— Red meat: 1 serving weekly — 1 medium steak or the equivalent

— Processed meat: None recommended

— Sugary drinks: None recommended

— Salt: 2,000 milligrams daily — just under a teaspoon.
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Study: Diabetes Linked to Cancer in Asia

Researchers at New York University’s School of Medicine found that diabetes increased the risk of cancer death among Asians by an average of 26 percent, a statistic similar in the West. 

Data for the new study drew on an analysis of 770,000 people with Type 2 diabetes throughout East and South Asia. Diabetics were followed for an average of 13 years to see if they developed cancer and what types. During that time more than 37,300 cancer deaths were identified.

Yu Chen, an epidemiology professor at the NYU School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health who was the study’s lead author, says Asians with Type 2 diabetes are more likely to be diagnosed with rarer cancers than Westerners, including cancers of the liver, thyroid and kidney which was double the risk compared to non-diabetics in Asia. 

There was also a 2.7 percent increased risk of cancer of the endometrium and a 1.7 percent higher risk of breast cancer among diabetic Asians compared to those who were not diabetic.

The number of cancers of the gallbladder and bile ducts in Asia were comparable to those in the West, according to Chen.  Those sites are closer in the body to the pancreas, where insulin is made.

Chen thinks there may be several mechanisms at work, but data suggests that insulin may in some way stimulate the growth of cancer.

“Patients with diabetes that have high levels of insulin, some cancers are very sensitive to insulin, so it may promote the tumor growing,” she said.

The findings were published in the journal Diabetologia.

Chen said the study was undertaken because there’s been little research on an association between diabetes and cancer in Asia.

She said the research suggests Type 2 diabetes should be added to the list of cancer risk factors, along with diet and cigarette smoking.

“Cancer prevention needs to take into account for diabetes the lifestyles related to diabetes – [which] may reduce the risk of diabetes and also cancer,” she said.

Chen suggested that diabetics should receive more cancer screenings, in addition to medical interventions to reduce the risk of diabetes overall.
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Brazil Launches Database to Fight Illegal Amazon Logging

Brazil’s federal environmental agency, Ibama, launched on Tuesday a centralized database to track timber from source to sale, a vital step in the fight against illegal logging in the Amazon.

The system, known as Sinaflor, allows individual trees to be electronically tagged and monitored as they are cut down and pass through the supply chain, with regulators able to check the database via their cell phones while on patrol.

With built-in satellite mapping, timber being sold as legal can be checked against the exact area of licensed commercial production it is claimed to originate from.

The system marks a step change from the current system, which environmentalists criticize as being open to fraud and human error as databases are isolated, poorly managed and cannot be easily accessed to verify documentation attached to timber.

“The new system offers a much more comprehensive process of control,” Suely Araújo, president of Ibama, said in an interview in her office in Brasilia. “What’s not in Sinaflor will be illegal timber.”

The system is the result of four years of work and was envisioned under the forest code passed into law in 2012, which gave the federal government power to create and manage a national system to regulate the supply chain of timber.

Illegal logging is one of the greatest threats to the preservation of the Amazon. In the year until July 2016, Amazonian rainforest six times the size of Los Angeles was cut down.

That was the second rise in two years, ending a 10-year period in which deforestation was dramatically reduced. Brazil’s Environment Ministry, under which Ibama falls, has vowed to reverse the trend.

Sinaflor has already been piloted in the state of Roraima and is being introduced this week in Rondonia. The states are legally obliged to use the system, and Araújo expects to have it up and running across the country by the end of the year.

“When we manage to implement it in the whole country, I think it will be a step change in terms of control,” Araújo said. 
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Malawi Struggles to Retain Nurses in Public Hospitals

In a pediatric ward at Queen Elizabeth Central hospital, the largest referral health facility in Malawi, mothers look frustrated because of a long wait for a nurse to check on their children. A visit to other outpatient wards reveals more packed waiting rooms.

Such is the situation in public hospitals across Malawi where 65 percent of nursing positions remain vacant.

The shortages leave the country’s public health system in dire need of nurses, and recruiting trained staff remains difficult as many registered nurses prefer the higher pay and better working conditions they can find in private hospitals or abroad.  

Malawi’s National Association of Nurses and Midwifery president, Dorothy Ngoma, says it’s a matter of economics.

“They quit on us because we cannot pay them well.  Most of them are joining the NGOs or to private [hospitals].  So they go where they are paid a bit more money and also where they have more incentives.”

Ngoma said incentives can include housing allowances and overtime pay, and private sector salaries can be double what public hospitals offer.

Health ministry spokesman Adrian Chikumbe says the government cannot afford to pay more.

“The government purse now is constrained, and we have not only health workers to provide for.  We also have other cadres in the civil service.”

Well below international standards

Government statistics show that Malawi has three nurses per 10,000 people.  That is well below the World Health Organization recommendation of 10 nurses for every 10,000 people.

But efforts are underway to plug the shortage.

To fill vacancies, the health ministry says it has more than tripled the number of students in its nurse training institutions from 40 to 150 per class.

A U.S.-based NGO, the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance, has also been trying to address the gap.  GAIA sponsors education for nursing students in Malawi who commit to work in public hospitals for the first four years after they graduate.

Scholarship program project officer Chimwemwe Mwangonde explains the incentive program.

“Throughout, we support their tuition and also their upkeep.  At the end of their program in the fourth year we also pay their license examinations for them to work anywhere in the country, be it in the hospital or in the community.”

The program has supported more than 500 registered nurses since its inception in 2005.  GAIA is now seeking funding to double the program’s annual intake to as many as 80 students a year.   

Statistics from the recent program evaluation report show that 93 percent of the graduated nurses have honored their public service commitment. And of those nurses who have met the requirement, nearly all of them have continued to work in the public hospitals.

One of them is Patricia Siyabu. She says her decision was driven by a commitment to service.

“Now it is hard to work in government considering the amount of money that we get comparing to the people in NGO’s.  But I still love working in the government because it is my desire to serve the government.  So I have no dreams of going to the NGOs yet.  Not now.”

And it’s the “not now” part that is causing the concern. Recruiting new nurses to work in public hospitals is one challenge, retaining them over the long term is another one entirely.
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Turning Garbage Into Gas

It’s hard to teach young women about getting ahead through technology when they don’t even have enough light to study. That was the problem facing The Green Girls Project in Cameroon. So project leaders took a break from their lessons and focused on solving that problem. The result is enlightening. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Experimental Program Aims to Bridge Generation Gap

The generation gap is being bridged, one relationship at a time, through partnerships in an expiremental program between U.S. universities and retirement homes. Faith Lapidus explains.
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Report: Syrian Children Suffering from ‘Toxic Stress’ Due to War

Children in Syria are suffering from “toxic stress,” a severe form of psychological trauma that can cause life-long damage, according to a report released Thursday.

The report by the nonprofit Save the Children paints a horrifying picture of terrified children developing speech disorders and incontinence, and some even losing the capacity to speak. Others attempt self-harm and suicide.

Authors of the study, the largest of its kind to be undertaken during the conflict, warned that the nation’s mental health crisis had reached a tipping point, where “staggering levels” of trauma and distress among children could cause permanent and irreversible damage.

“We are failing children inside Syria, some of whom are being left to cope with harrowing experiences, from witnessing their parents killed in front of them to the horrors of life under siege, without proper support,” said Marcia Brophy, a mental health adviser for Save the Children in the Middle East.

Researchers spoke with 450 children, adolescents and adults in seven of Syria’s 14 governorates.

Adults said the main cause of psychological stress is the constant shelling and bombardment that characterize the war that is nearing its sixth anniversary.

Half the children the researchers talked to said they never or rarely feel safe at school and 40 percent said they don’t feel safe to play outside, even right outside their own home.

More than 70 percent of children interviewed experienced common symptoms of “toxic stress” or post-traumatic stress disorder, such as bedwetting, the study found. Loss of speech, aggression and substance abuse are also commonplace. About 48 percent of adults reported seeing children who have lost the ability to speak or who have developed speech impediments since the war began, according to the report.

More than half of the adults interviewed by Save the Children said they knew of children or adolescents who were recruited into armed groups.

The report called on the combatants to stop using explosives in populated areas, halt attacks on schools and hospitals, and stop recruiting children to fight.
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Zap Map: Satellite Tracks Lightning for Better Heads Up

A new U.S. satellite is mapping lightning flashes worldwide from above, which should provide better warning about dangerous strikes.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Monday released the first images from a satellite launched last November that had the first lightning detector in stationary orbit. It includes bright flashes from a storm that spawned tornadoes and hail in the Houston region on Valentine’s Day.

NOAA scientist Steve Goodman said ground radar sees lots of cloud-to-ground lightning, but this satellite provides more detailed views of lightning within clouds. Cloud flashes can later turn into ground strikes, hitting people like a bolt out of the blue. Scientists say this could add more warning time.

Earth gets about 45 lightning flashes a second, but 80 percent stay in clouds.
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Work on Brain’s Reward System Wins Scientists One-million-euro Prize

Three neuroscientists won the world’s most valuable prize for brain research Monday for pioneering work on the brain’s reward pathways — a system that is central to human and animal survival, as well as disorders such as addiction and obesity.

Peter Dayan, Ray Dolan and Wolfram Schultz, who all work in Britain, said they were surprised and delighted to receive the Brain Prize, which they said was a recognition of their persistent curiosity about how the human brain works.

The scientists’ research, spanning almost 30 years, found that dopamine neurons are at the heart of the brain’s reward system, affecting behavior in everything from decision-making, risk-taking and gambling, to drug addiction and schizophrenia.

“This is the biological process that makes us want to buy a bigger car or house, or be promoted at work,” said Schultz, a German-born professor of neuroscience who now works at the University of Cambridge.

He said dopamine neurons are like “like little devils in our brain that drive us toward more rewards.”

Dayan, director of the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at University College London, added to Schultz’s findings with research showing how humans update and change their goals through a dopamine-driven system “reward prediction error.”

He showed that our future behavior is dictated by constant brain feedback on whether anticipated rewards are as expected, or better or worse than expected.

The one-million-euro Brain Prize, given by the Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark, is awarded annually and recognizes scientists for outstanding contribution to neuroscience.

Colin Blakemore, chairman of the selection committee, said the three scientists’ work had helped decipher the way people use and respond to rewards across many aspects of life.

“The implications of these discoveries are extremely wide-ranging, in fields as diverse as economics, social science, drug addiction and psychiatry,” he said in a statement.

Dolan, director of the new Max Planck Center for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing, and Dayan, cracked open a bottle of champagne in London after being told of the prize.

Schultz described the news as a fantastic reward.

“I can hear our dopamine neurons jumping up and down,” he said.
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A Bacterium Found in Soil Could Fight Tuberculosis

Scientists are developing an antibiotic from a microorganism found in soil to fight the tuberculosis bacterium. As TB becomes increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics, soil could hold the key to new drugs against this global killer.

Tuberculosis is treatable with antibiotics, but in thousands of cases, antibiotic misuse has caused the disease to become non-responsive to the drugs.

According to the World Health Organization, there are 10.4 million new cases of tuberculosis every year, killing 1.8 million people.

In 2015, it was estimated that 480,000 infections were not responsive to two major drugs commonly used to treat TB. A quarter-million patients died reportedly of drug-resistant infections.

An international team of researchers has been hunting for new sources of antibiotics in nature to treat deadly illnesses like TB.

Investigators have hit upon a species of bacteria in a large family called Streptomyces found in soil.  

Making synthetic compounds

In the laboratory, they’ve extracted compounds from Streptomyces that target a specific enzyme called MraY in mycobacterium, the pathogen that causes TB. The compounds effectively kill mycobacterium.

Using synthetic chemistry, the researchers were able to recreate these compounds, turning them into more potent versions of the originals.

Structural biology professor David Roper of England’s University of Warwick is part of the team that includes scientists in the United States and Australia sleuthing for novel agents to treat disease.

In the case of the Streptomyces microorganism, Roper said researchers have extracted compounds that target how mycobacterium makes its cell walls. He likens them to bones in the human body.

“If you knock out our skeletons, you’re not going to be a very competent human being, are you? And the same is true for the biosynthesis of the bacterial cell wall. It’s exactly the same principle that penicillin inhibits, although that’s a different enzyme and other antibiotics like vancomycin for example. So, the biosynthesis of the bacterial cell wall is a good target for antibiotics,” said Roper.

Finding the right tools

The work was published in the journal Nature Communications.

In the soil, Roper said the bacteria use the compounds to kill other microorganisms near them, giving them a survival advantage.

“One of the reasons for looking at natural product compounds in general is that these things have been derived from nature, therefore they’ve gone through many millennia years of evolution in the first place, and they’ve been retained by nature so they must have, as it were, long-standing efficacy.”

The challenge has been growing soil bacteria like Streptomyces in the lab with available tools so they can be made into drugs. The team is looking for ways to do that and they are beginning to find the right tools.  

There is no timetable for turning soil bacteria into drugs against diseases like TB, just that it will take time.

As new drugs from soil bacteria become available, Roper doesn’t rule out the possibility that TB eventually may become resistant to them too.  

Researchers, however, have learned from experience with tuberculosis that antibiotics must be used with great care to preserve their effectiveness. 
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Hoard of Coins Extracted From Sea Turtle

Thai veterinarians on Monday removed 915 coins from a 25-year-old sea turtle which had been swallowing items thrown into her pool for good luck, eventually limiting her ability to swim.

The coins and other objects removed from the turtle named Omsin — piggy bank in Thai — weighed 5 kg (11 lb). The turtle itself weighed 59 kg (130 lb).

The green sea turtle, living at a conservation center in Sriracha, Chonburi, east of the Thai capital of Bangkok, had been finding it hard to swim normally because of the weight.

The vets said they believed the seven-hour-long operation was the world’s first such surgery.

“We think it will take about a month to ensure she will fully recover,” said Nantarika Chansue, of Chulalongkorn University’s veterinary science faculty, adding that the turtle would need six more months of physical therapy.

There was no immediate estimate of the value of the coins, some of them foreign and many corroded.
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WHO: Environmental Pollution Kills 1.7M Children Under Five Every Year

Environmental pollution kills more than 1 in 4 children under the age of five every year – that’s 1.7 million children worldwide.   

The World Health Organization warns these child deaths will increase dramatically if action is not taken to reduce environmental risks.

WHO examines the impact of harmful environments on children’s health and offers solutions in two new studies, “Inheriting a Sustainable World: Atlas on Children’s Health and the Environment” and a companion report, “Don’t pollute my future!  The impact of the environment on children’s health.”   

The authors agree that air pollution is the biggest killer and is responsible for 6.5 million premature deaths every year, including nearly 600,000 deaths among children under age five.

Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, notes that young children are most at risk of dying from a polluted environment because of “their developing organs and immune systems, and smaller bodies and airways.”  

While most of these child deaths occur in developing countries, Maria Neira, WHO Director, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health told VOA that air pollution was a big leveler between rich and poor countries.

“You can be a very rich child, your parents very rich, but living in a place, in a city, which is very polluted-then there is very little you can do because we all need to breathe.  

“So, even if you are rich or poor, you still need to breathe and this is very pernicious.  Air pollution is everywhere,” she said.

WHO reports the most common causes of death among children aged one month to five years are diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia.

“These are very much affected by air pollution, water and sanitation, which is inadequate, but also the disease vectors, mosquitos around the house and the community,” said Annette Pruss-Ustun, scientist in WHO’s Public Health and Environmental Department.

“These are mainly a problem in low-and-middle-income countries except air pollution, which also children in high income countries are affected by,” she said.  “But, there they do not die from it because the health care system takes care of them in time.”

WHO reports actions including those of providing safe water and sanitation, limiting exposure to hazardous chemicals, and improving waste management can prevent many environmentally induced deaths.

Maria Neira cited access to clean fuels as one of the most important interventions.

“Almost half of the world population is using dirty fuels for cooking, heating, and lighting at home.  And, this is affecting very much mothers who are staying and cooking at home, but the children who are around mothers—they are exposed as well.”

Neira said that providing clean energy and clean fuels to households will have enormous benefits for the health of the children and others as well.

Besides these decades-old traditional threats, she warned that emerging environmental hazards, such as electronic or e-waste were posing great dangers for children.

”Most of our old computers and electronic material will end up in some place in the African continent where then you put a group of moms to remove certain pieces of that material, particularly heavy metals to recycle them for making some dollars,” she said.  “The problem is that the mothers will go there with their own children.”

She added that exposing children to toxins can lead to reduced intelligence, attention deficits, lung damage and cancer.

Electronic and electrical waste is forecast to increase by 19% between 2014 and 2018, to 50 million metric tons by 2018.

WHO warns that temperature rise due to climate change and rising levels of carbon dioxide will increase pollen in the atmosphere, resulting in higher rates of asthma in children

The health agency is calling for greater action to reduce indoor and outdoor air pollution, second-hand smoke, unsafe water, sanitation and inadequate hygiene.

WHO warns harmful exposures to environmental pollutants can start in the mother’s womb and can lead to “increased risk of chronic respiratory diseases, asthma, heart disease, stroke and cancer” later in life.

 
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Doctors Alarmed by Post-antibiotic Future

Unless new antibiotics are developed quickly, people will once again die from common infections. The World Health Organization has issued an urgent call for scientists to develop these new drugs, and for governments to fund the research.

Dr. Trish Perl, chief of infectious diseases at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said if there are no effective antibiotics, it will affect the entire practice of medicine.

“You all of a sudden understand what it was like to practice medicine maybe 50, 70, 80 years ago, when there weren’t antibiotics,” Perl said.

Without antibiotics, surgery will become much more dangerous. Doctors will be unable to treat diseases caused by E. coli, a bacterium that causes urinary tract infections and diarrhea. Even a virus such as the flu, which can lead to bacterial pneumonia, will mean these viruses will ultimately claim even more lives.

WATCH: Doctors Alarmed by Post-Antibiotic Future

New antibiotics needed

New antibiotics are urgently needed against bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health. Those most at risk: residents of nursing homes, hospital patients, and children. Children may have weaker immune systems than adults, and they receive smaller doses of antibiotics than adults do.

“For the longest time we’ve had a number of different antibiotics in the pipeline at any given time, so whenever we ran out of the ability to use one, we would move to the next one,” Dr. Michael Bell, an expert in drug-resistant pathogens at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told VOA.

But that’s no longer possible. Joe Larsen, the director of biological, chemical and radiological and nuclear countermeasures at the Department of Health and Human Services, said his department drew up a list of pathogens several years ago that were becoming resistant to antibiotics.

Funding needs to change

“There are antibiotics in the pipeline, but the numbers are insufficient … to deal with the increasing rates of antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” he said.

Larsen’s department invests in pharmaceutical and bio-tech firms to make drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for public health emergency preparedness. Larsen is hopeful that a new antibiotic will be approved by the Food and Drug Administration later this year. He also said two to three more antibiotics are being developed that should be available in a year or two.

The WHO said it’s too expensive for pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics on their own because they wouldn’t recoup their investment. Larsen agrees that the way antibiotics are commercialized needs to change.

Bacteria are constantly changing

One reason is that the more an antibiotic is used, the less effective it becomes. That’s because bacteria are constantly changing and finding new ways to resist the drugs that kill them. Once they find a way, they can pass on the gene so other bacteria can become drug-resistant as well.

To preserve the effectiveness of an antibiotic, Larsen said the profits from selling these drugs can’t be linked to the volume of sales the way the market normally works. He said the solution lies in public-private partnerships between governments and pharmaceutical or biotech firms.  

In the meantime, antibiotic resistance is very real.

Lauri Hicks, who leads research on antibiotic use and resistance trends at the CDC, said, “We are seeing greater than 2 million episodes of antibiotic resistant infections each year in the U.S. alone. Twenty-three thousand of these episodes result in death.”

Don’t overuse antibiotics

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked hospitals and doctors to be careful not to overuse antibiotics. But beyond overuse, Bell, of the CDC, said there are other reasons these drugs are being rendered powerless.

“Antibiotic resistance is being generated by not only using too many antibiotics, but also by spread of infection by lack of hygiene, from unintended contact with soiled surfaces, so the infection-control side is equally important,” he said.

Patients can also help. On its website, the CDC says to take antibiotics as prescribed and finish the prescription, even if you feel better. Still, urgent action on a global level is needed to prevent the catastrophe that a post-antibiotic era would cause.
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