WORCESTER The fight against Tay-Sachs disease, a rare, progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder, showed progress based on preliminary results from a University of Massachusetts Medical School expanded access study presented last month.

This was the first time that Tay-Sachs gene therapy has been done in humans, as opposed to animal studies, and the first time gene therapy to correct the enzyme deficiency that causes Tay-Sachs has been inserted safely into the brain, according to Dr. Terence R. Flotte, dean of the medical school andCelia and Isaac Haidak professor of medical education.

Those were the two big things, he said in an interview.

The next step will be to test the therapy in increasing doses on more patients. An investigational new drug proposal has been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a phase 2 clinical trial is expected to start within a few months. Flotte will be the principal investigator in that study.

Axovant Gene Therapies, a Swiss company developing gene therapies for serious neurological diseases, last year licensed exclusive worldwide rights for the development and commercialization of the novel gene therapy programs.

Flotte reported at the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Congress in Barcelona, Spain, that two patients with infantile Tay-Sachs disease, who were treated at UMass Memorial Medical Center with gene therapy developed at the medical school, showed signs that progression of their disease was modified.

The first patient, who has advanced disease, received treatment a year ago, at around age 2. An engineered virus containing corrective genetic material was injected into fluid surrounding the brain. The patient hasnt shown clinical improvement in functioning but biochemical changes were detected in the brain, indicating partial re-creation of the missing enzyme associated with Tay-Sachs, Flotte said.

The second patient, who was around 6 months old when some of the gene therapy was injected into the thalamus region of the brain, about six months ago, has not degenerated further since then.

Flotte said the thalamus is the master relay station for the brain, which allows the genetic material to spread to other parts.

Tay-Sachs, which results from the absence of beta-hexosaminidase (HexA) enzyme, is diagnosed in about 30 children in the United States each year, and there are an estimated 400 to 700 cases worldwide, according to medical school reports.

According to the Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation, the Tay-Sachs gene is carried by one in 27 Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews, French-Canadians or Louisiana Cajuns; one in 50 Irish-Americans; and one in 250 in the general population. If both parents carry the Tay-Sachs gene, there is a 25 percent chance their child will suffer from Tay-Sachs and likely die at a young age.

There is no cure for the disease.

In infantile Tay-Sachs, Flotte explained, babies start to develop typically, reaching milestones such as sitting up. But then as the disease progresses, they lose that ability and face other developmental challenges.

A home run would be to maintain the ability to sit and gain the ability to walk, Flotte said. Helping babies to gain those developmental milestones is really the goal.

Both patients in the study showed indication of enzyme being made in the brain after introduction of the therapy. But Flotte said it was too soon to know if stabilization of their condition will prolong life expectancy.

The median life expectancy for children with infantile Tay-Sachs or a similar inherited neurological disorder, Sandhoff disease, is about three to five years.

The process to insert the gene therapy with millimetric target precision into the skulls of very young children required extensive planning and computer modeling ahead of time, pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Oguz Cataltepe said. A safe trajectory had to be mapped so that blood vessels wouldnt be harmed. A robotic arm was used with the insertion.

Patients also had to be given drugs to suppress their immune system so they wouldn't reject the gene therapy.

Cataltepe said the first patients procedure took about two hours. Subsequent insertions would take longer as more of the therapy is injected directly into the brain.

Flotte said the families faced the daunting procedure with trepidation, but I think some level of hope.

He said families felt because of the outcomes of Tay-Sachs in its natural rapid progression, it warranted the risk.

I think both of them have been very grateful to try the technology available, said Flotte. Still, They recognize these are very early steps.

He added that neither family in the study knew of any hereditary risk. Neither has Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, a group among those with the highest risk.

Flotte said he would like to see Tay-Sachs disease be part of standard newborn screening programs, particularly if therapy becomes available.

Mona Vogel of Groton, whose son, Owen, 6, was diagnosed with juvenile Tay-Sachs when he was about 3, also urges people to get screened for the disease.

Vogel, a single mother by choice, is not of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. She went to two different genetic counselors, and her risk for Tay-Sachs didnt come up. Her donors genetic profile also didnt highlight a risk.

Owen developed typically until he was 3, Vogel said in a phone interview. Then he started falling face-plant falling.

Vogel is active within the Tay-Sachs community and said there had been tentative excitement over apparent progress in previous animal studies, often to be met with disappointment in setbacks.

Theres this combination of excitement and reserved excitement, she said about news that a human gene therapy study shows promise.

The scary part for parents of children with Tay-Sachs is that they dont yet know what the criteria will be for inclusion in the clinical trial and whether they will get a chance to participate.

To come this far and not even have this opportunity is devastating, Vogel said. Theres a lot of consistently heightened emotions thats a mixed bag of all of the above.

Children accepted into the clinical trial will be treated with gene therapy at UMass Memorial, Flotte said. Their progress will be evaluated at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, for independent external assessment.

Vogel said shes trying to remain positive.

For me, I would be perfectly willing to risk it all (to be part of the research), she said. Just so I know we did everything we could do. And I promised this kid Id do it.

As the mother and aunt of a daughter and nephew who both died from infantile Tay-Sachs nearly 20 years ago, I am so grateful to the team at UMass that advanced the research towards treatments and where we are today, wrote Blyth Lord of Newton, founder of Courageous Parents Network, in an email.

In addition to the team at UMass, I credit families and the patient disease groups National Tay-Sachs and Allied Disease (NTSAD) and Cure Tay-Sachs that have channeled family support to research. You need the families, the patient disease groups, the researchers and the money to make this possible. Of course, we know this first phase therapy is early stage and there is still a long way to go, so we will all have to keep going too.

Researchers who collaborated on animal models and therapeutic approaches for Tay-Sachs and similar disorders also include: Miguel Sena-Esteves, associate professor of neurology at UMass; Dr. Heather Gray-Edwards, formerly of Auburn University and currently assistant professor of radiology at UMass; and Douglas Martin, professor of anatomy, physiology and pharmacology in the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Scott-Ritchey Research Center at Auburn University.

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Pfizer and Novartis lead eleven drug manufacturers setting aside a combined $2bn to invest in gene therapy manufacturing since 2018.

According to a Reuters analysis, this strategy aims to better control production of the worlds priciest medicines.

The full scope of Novartis $500mn plan, revealed to Reuters in an interview with the companys gene therapy chief, has not been previously disclosed. It is second only to Pfizer, which has allocated $600mn to build its own gene therapy manufacturing plants, according to filings and interviews with industry executives.

Gene therapies aim to correct certain diseases by replacing the missing or mutated version of a gene found in a patients cells with healthy copies. With the potential to cure devastating illnesses in a single dose, drugmakers say they justify prices well above $1 million per patient.

But the treatments are also extremely complex to make, involving the cultivation of living material, and still pose a risk of serious side effects.

Drugmakers say building their own manufacturing plants is a response to rising costs and delays associated with relying on third-party contract manufacturers, which are also expanding to capitalize on demand.

They say owning their own facilities helps safeguard proprietary production methods and more effectively address any concerns raised by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is keeping a close eye on manufacturing standards.

Theres so little capacity and capability at contract manufacturers for the novel gene therapy processes being developed by companies, said David Lennon, president of AveXis, Novartiss gene therapy division. We need internal manufacturing capabilities in the long term.

SEE ALSO:

The Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre to be built in Scotland

Ricoh: The advantages of 3D printing across the healthcare sector

AstraZeneca experiences significant sales growth due to introduction of new drugs

Read the latest issue of Manufacturing Global here

Pushing the Limits

The approach is not without risks. The rewards are potentially great, however.

Gene therapy is one of the hottest areas of drug research and, given the life-changing possibilities, the FDA is helping to speed treatments to market.

It has approved two so far, including Novartiss Zolgensma treatment for a rare muscular disorder priced at $2 million, and expects 40 new gene therapies to reach the U.S. market by 2022.

There are currently several hundred under development by around 30 drugmakers for conditions from hemophilia to Duchenne muscular dystrophy and sickle cell anemia. The proliferation of these treatments is pushing the limits of the industrys existing manufacturing capacity.

Developers of gene therapies that need to outsource manufacturing face wait times of about 18 months to get a production slot, company executives told Reuters. They are also charged fees to reserve space that run into millions of dollars, more than double the cost of a few years ago, according to gene therapy developer RegenxBio.

As a result, companies including bluebird bio, PTC Therapeutics and Krystal Biotech are also investing in gene therapy manufacturing, according to a Reuters analysis of public filings and executive interviews.

They follow Biomarin Pharmaceutical Inc, developer of a gene therapy for hemophilia, which constructed one of the industrys largest manufacturing facilities in 2017. The FDA is keeping a close eye on standards.

Regulatory Scrutiny

This comes amid the agencys disclosure in August that it is investigating alleged data manipulation by former executives at Novartis AveXis unit.

AveXis had switched its method for measuring Zolgensmas potency in animal studies. When results using the new method didnt meet expectations, the executives allegedly altered the data to cover it up, the FDA and Novartis have said.One of the former executives, Brian Kaspar, denied wrongdoing in a statement to Reuters. Another, his brother Allan Kaspar, could not be reached for comment.

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Pfizer and Novartis lead $2bn spending on gene therapy production - Manufacturing Global

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

DUBLIN, Nov. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Genome Editing Services Market-Focus on CRISPR 2019-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report features an extensive study of the current landscape of CRISPR-based genome editing service providers. The study presents an in-depth analysis, highlighting the capabilities of various stakeholders engaged in this domain, across different geographical regions.

Currently, there is an evident increase in demand for complex biological therapies (including regenerative medicine products), which has created an urgent need for robust genome editing techniques. The biopharmaceutical pipeline includes close to 500 gene therapies, several of which are being developed based on the CRISPR technology.

Recently, in July 2019, a first in vivo clinical trial for a CRISPR-based therapy was initiated. However, successful gene manipulation efforts involve complex experimental protocols and advanced molecular biology centered infrastructure. Therefore, many biopharmaceutical researchers and developers have demonstrated a preference to outsource such operations to capable contract service providers.

Consequently, the genome editing contract services market was established and has grown to become an indispensable segment of the modern healthcare industry, offering a range of services, such as gRNA design and construction, cell line development (involving gene knockout, gene knockin, tagging and others) and transgenic animal model generation (such as knockout mice). Additionally, there are several players focused on developing advanced technology platforms that are intended to improve/augment existing gene editing tools, especially the CRISPR-based genome editing processes.

Given the rising interest in personalized medicine, a number of strategic investors are presently willing to back genetic engineering focused initiatives. Prevalent trends indicate that the market for CRISPR-based genome editing services is likely to grow at a significant pace in the foreseen future.

Report Scope

One of the key objectives of the report was to evaluate the current opportunity and the future potential of CRISPR-based genome editing services market. We have provided an informed estimate of the likely evolution of the market in the short to mid-term and long term, for the period 2019-2030.

In addition, we have segmented the future opportunity across [A] type of services offered (gRNA construction, cell line engineering and animal model generation), [B] type of cell line used (mammalian, microbial, insect and others) and [C] different geographical regions (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world).

To account for the uncertainties associated with the CRISPR-based genome editing services market and to add robustness to our model, we have provided three forecast scenarios, portraying the conservative, base and optimistic tracks of the market's evolution.

The research, analysis and insights presented in this report are backed by a deep understanding of key insights generated from both secondary and primary research. All actual figures have been sourced and analyzed from publicly available information forums and primary research discussions. Financial figures mentioned in this report are in USD, unless otherwise specified.

Key Topics Covered

1. PREFACE1.1. Scope of the Report1.2. Research Methodology1.3. Chapter Outlines

2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

3. INTRODUCTION3.1. Context and Background3.2. Overview of Genome Editing3.3. History of Genome Editing3.4. Applications of Genome Editing3.5. Genome Editing Techniques3.5.1. Mutagenesis3.5.2 Conventional Homologous Recombination3.5.3 Single Stranded Oligo DNA Nucleotides Homologous Recombination3.5.4. Homing Endonuclease Systems (Adeno Associated Virus System)3.5.5. Protein-based Nuclease Systems3.5.5.1. Meganucleases3.5.5.2. Zinc Finger Nucleases3.5.5.3. Transcription Activator-like Effector Nucleases3.5.6. DNA Guided Systems3.5.6.1. Peptide Nucleic Acids3.5.6.2. Triplex Forming Oligonucleotides3.5.6.3. Structure Guided Endonucleases3.5.7. RNA Guided Systems3.5.7.1. CRISPR-Cas93.5.7.2. Targetrons3.6. CRISPR-based Genome Editing3.6.1. Role of CRISPR-Cas in Adaptive Immunity in Bacteria3.6.2. Key CRISPR-Cas Systems3.6.3. Components of CRISPR-Cas System3.6.4. Protocol for CRISPR-based Genome Editing3.7. Applications of CRISPR3.7.1. Development of Therapeutic Interventions3.7.2. Augmentation of Artificial Fertilization Techniques3.7.3. Development of Genetically Modified Organisms3.7.4. Production of Biofuels3.7.5. Other Bioengineering Applications3.8. Key Challenges and Future Perspectives

4. CRISPR-BASED GENOME EDITING SERVICE PROVIDERS: CURRENT MARKET LANDSCAPE4.1. Chapter Overview4.2. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Service Providers: Overall Market Landscape4.2.3. Analysis by Type of Service Offering4.2.4. Analysis by Type of gRNA Format4.2.5. Analysis by Type of Endonuclease4.2.6. Analysis by Type of Cas9 Format4.2.7. Analysis by Type of Cell Line Engineering Offering4.2.8. Analysis by Type of Animal Model Generation Offering4.2.9. Analysis by Availability of CRISPR Libraries4.2.10. Analysis by Year of Establishment4.2.11. Analysis by Company Size4.2.12. Analysis by Geographical Location4.2.13. Logo Landscape: Distribution by Company Size and Location of Headquarters

5. COMPANY COMPETITIVENESS ANALYSIS5.1. Chapter Overview5.2. Methodology5.3. Assumptions and Key Parameters5.4. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Service Providers: Competitive Landscape5.4.1. Small-sized Companies5.4.2. Mid-sized Companies5.4.3. Large Companies

6. COMPANY PROFILES6.1. Chapter Overview6.2. Applied StemCell6.2.1. Company Overview6.2.2. Service Portfolio6.2.3. Recent Developments and Future Outlook6.3. BioCat6.4. Biotools6.5. Charles River Laboratories6.6. Cobo Scientific6.7. Creative Biogene6.8. Cyagen Biosciences6.9. GeneCopoeia6.10. Horizon Discovery6.11. NemaMetrix6.12. Synbio Technologies6.13. Thermo Fisher Scientific

7. PATENT ANALYSIS7.1. Chapter Overview7.2. Scope and Methodology7.3. CRISPR-based Genome Editing: Patent Analysis7.3.1. Analysis by Application Year and Publication Year7.3.2. Analysis by Geography7.3.3. Analysis by CPC Symbols7.3.4. Emerging Focus Areas7.3.5. Leading Players: Analysis by Number of Patents7.4. CRISPR-based Genome Editing: Patent Benchmarking Analysis7.4.1. Analysis by Patent Characteristics7.5. Patent Valuation Analysis

8. ACADEMIC GRANT ANALYSIS8.1. Chapter Overview8.2. Scope and Methodology8.3. Grants Awarded by the National Institutes of Health for CRISPR-based8.3.1. Year-wise Trend of Grant Award8.3.2. Analysis by Amount Awarded8.3.3. Analysis by Administering Institutes8.3.4. Analysis by Support Period8.3.5. Analysis by Funding Mechanism8.3.6. Analysis by Type of Grant Application8.3.7. Analysis by Grant Activity8.3.8. Analysis by Recipient Organization8.3.9. Regional Distribution of Grant Recipient Organization8.3.10. Prominent Project Leaders: Analysis by Number of Grants8.3.11. Emerging Focus Areas8.3.12. Grant Attractiveness Analysis

9. CASE STUDY: ADVANCED CRISPR-BASED TECHNOLOGIES/SYSTEMS AND TOOLS9.1. Chapter Overview9.2. CRISPR-based Technology Providers9.2.1. Analysis by Year of Establishment and Company Size9.2.2. Analysis by Geographical Location and Company Expertise9.2.3. Analysis by Focus Area9.2.4. Key Technology Providers: Company Snapshots9.2.4.1. APSIS Therapeutics9.2.4.2. Beam Therapeutics9.2.4.3. CRISPR Therapeutics9.2.4.4. Editas Medicine9.2.4.5. Intellia Therapeutics9.2.4.6. Jenthera Therapeutics9.2.4.7. KSQ Therapeutics9.2.4.8. Locus Biosciences9.2.4.9. Refuge Biotechnologies9.2.4.10. Repare Therapeutics9.2.4.11. SNIPR BIOME9.2.5. Key Technology Providers: Summary of Venture Capital Investments9.3. List of CRISPR Kit Providers9.4. List of CRISPR Design Tool Providers

10. POTENTIAL STRATEGIC PARTNERS10.1. Chapter Overview10.2. Scope and Methodology10.3. Potential Strategic Partners for Genome Editing Service Providers10.3.1. Key Industry Partners10.3.1.1. Most Likely Partners10.3.1.2. Likely Partners10.3.1.3. Less Likely Partners10.3.2. Key Non-Industry/Academic Partners10.3.2.1. Most Likely Partners10.3.2.2. Likely Partners10.3.2.3. Less Likely Partners

11. MARKET FORECAST11.1. Chapter Overview11.2. Forecast Methodology and Key Assumptions11.3. Overall CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market, 2019-203011.4. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market: Distribution by Regions, 2019-203011.4.1. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market in North America, 2019-203011.4.2. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market in Europe, 2019-203011.4.3. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market in Asia Pacific, 2019-203011.4.4. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market in Rest of the World, 2019-203011.5. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market: Distribution by Type of Services, 2019-203011.5.1. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market for gRNA Construction, 2019-203011.5.2. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market for Cell Line Engineering, 2019-203011.5.3. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market for Animal Model Generation, 2019-203011.6. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market: Distribution by Type of Cell Line, 2019-203011.6.1. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market for Mammalian Cell Lines, 2019-203011.6.2. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market for Microbial Cell Lines, 2019-203011.6.3. CRISPR-based Genome Editing Services Market for Other Cell Lines, 2019-2030

12. SWOT ANALYSIS12.1. Chapter Overview12.2. SWOT Analysis12.2.1. Strengths12.2.2. Weaknesses12.2.3. Opportunities12.2.4. Threats12.2.5. Concluding Remarks

13. EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS

14. APPENDIX 1: TABULATED DATA

15. APPENDIX 2: LIST OF COMPANIES AND ORGANIZATIONS

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/78rwbq

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DetailsCategory: More NewsPublished on Wednesday, 27 November 2019 13:20Hits: 402

Collaboration will Target a Therapeutic Approach for Treating Asthma and Allergic Diseases

NEW YORK, NY, USA I November 26, 2019 I Hoth Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: HOTH) ("HOTH" or the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing new generation therapies for dermatological disorders such as atopic dermatitis, chronic wounds, psoriasis and acne, today announced it has entered into a licensing agreement with North Carolina State University (NC State) to study NC State's Exon Skipping Approach for Treating Allergic Diseases.

This Exon Skipping Approach was developed by Dr. Glenn Cruse, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine. During Dr. Cruse's research, a new approach for the technique of antisense oligonucleotide-mediated exon skipping to specifically target and down-regulate IgE receptor expression in mast cells was identified. These findings set a breakthrough for allergic diseases as they are driven by the activation of mast cells and the release of mediators in response to IgE-directed antigens.

Mr. Robb Knie, Chief Executive Officer of Hoth, commented, "This new collaboration will allow us to leverage this invention from the renowned expertise of Dr. Glenn Cruse and his scientific team at North Carolina State University. We look forward to seeing how their work advances and what this might mean for patients suffering from undesirable steroid side effects who need an alternate treatment for asthma and other allergic diseases."

The high-affinity IgEreceptor (FcRI) plays a central role in the initiation ofallergic responses. The research project looks to target novel genes, which are critical for surface IgE receptor expression. The project will utilize splice-switching oligonucleotides (SSOs) to force expression of a truncated isoform of the target genes to reduce expression ofFcRIin mouse asthma models.

Through this collaborative project, NCSU looks to establish the most effective approach for targeting genes that regulate surface expression of FcRI in mast cells that mediate allergic airway inflammation. The study will be administering SSOs for the target genes, to optimize delivery and examine the best therapeutic approach.

About Hoth Therapeutics, Inc.Hoth Therapeutics, Inc. isa clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing new generation therapies for dermatological disorders. HOTH's pipeline has the potential to improve the quality of life for patients suffering from indications including atopic dermatitis, chronic wounds, psoriasis, and acne. HOTH has the exclusive worldwide rights to BioLexa, the company's proprietary lead drug candidate topical platform that uniquely combines two FDA approved compounds to fight bacterial infections across multiple indications. HOTH is preparing to launch its clinical trial for the treatment of adolescent subjects, 2-17 years of age, with mild to moderate atopic dermatitis during 2020. To learn more, please visitwww.hoththerapeutics.com.

SOURCE: Hoth Therapeutics

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Hoth Therapeutics and North Carolina State University Enter License Agreement for Gene Therapy | More News | News Channels - PipelineReview.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

At an old Amgen facility tucked just beyond the Rockies. In a warehouse behind a Walmart supercenter in Durham, North Carolina. On a long-time Bristol Myers Squibb site outside Princeton. The tech has emerged, and now the arms race to physically build a generation of gene therapies has begun.

Novartis will spend $500 million scaling its gene therapy manufacturing efforts, Reuters reported today. Thatll put it nearly on par with Pfizer, who committed $600 million for its facilities even before any of its gene therapies have been approved. Together, 11 companies Reuters surveyed will spend $2 billion on gene therapy production.

Additionally, the Boston Globereported today that Vertex had completed its search for a gene therapy research and manufacturing campus in Boston, settling on a 256,000 square-foot center at the Raymond Flynn Marine Industrial Park.

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'Breakthrough' bladder cancer drug spinout gets $570M to back launch of a new gene therapy in the US - Endpoints News

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Since 21 October, the FDA has been on a tear in approving five new drugs (all with list prices of more than $100,000 per year) months ahead of when they were expected to be approved.

For instance, the FDA signed off on Vertex Pharmaceuticals Trikafta (elexacaftor/ivacaftor/tezacaftor), a new treatment for those with the most common cystic fibrosis mutation, after only three months of reviewand well ahead of its 19 March 2020 user fee action date.

On 14 November, more than three months ahead of its 27 February 2020 action date, the FDA granted accelerated approvalto BeiGenes Brukinsa (zanubrutinib) for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma who have received at least one prior therapy.

One day later, Novartis Adakveo (crizanlizumab-tmca)won approval for its sickle cell disease treatment two months ahead of its PDUFA date in mid-January 2020. And yesterday, the FDA granted an accelerated approvalto another sickle cell drug, Global Blood Therapeutics Oxbryta (voxelotor), three months ahead of its PDUFA date.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Givlaari (givosiran), meanwhile, had a PDUFA date of 4 February 2020, butwon approval on 20 November. But other recent approvals, like SK Life Sciences Xcopri (cenobamate tablets) to treat partial-onset seizures in adults, and Shionogis complicated urinary tract infection drug Fetroja (cefiderocol), won approvals near their PDUFA dates.

The string of quick approvals may provide more ammunition for those who criticize the agency formoving too quickly. An article inJAMA Internal Medicinelast summer found that few cancer drugs approved via the accelerated approval pathway improved survival in confirmatory trials.

However, viewers of therecent Senate committee hearing considering a new FDA commissioner have seen there are still senators who believe the FDA is not moving quickly enough with some approvals.

As the proportion of new drugs receiving expedited approvals in recent yearshas been increasing, so has the number of approvals for rare diseases.

Janet Woodcock, director of the FDAs Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, explained recentlythat the agency is working on its own analyses to provide a more robust response to these critiques of its approval standards.

She also explained how the high number of approvals in recent years for rare diseases may be influencing this perception of a lower bar, especially as more treatments are approved on the basis of a single-arm study or with an external control group. In addition, she pointed to the astoundingly high launch prices for some of these rare disease treatments that may also be part of the reason for the pushback.

Indeed, before discounts, Trikafta willcost$311,503 annually, Brukinsa will cost $12,935 for a 30-day supply, Adakveo will cost between $7,000 and $9,500 per month ($84,000 to $114,000 per year), Oxbryta will cost $125,000 per year and Givlaari willcost$575,000 per year.

RAPS: First published in Regulatory Focus by the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society, the largest global organization of and for those involved with the regulation of healthcare products. Click here for more information.

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Gene Therapy and Antisense Drugs Market report has recently added by QYReports Markets which helps to make informed business decisions. This research report further identifies the market segmentation along with their sub-types. Various factors are responsible for the markets growth, which are studied in detail in this research report.

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Top Key Players Profiled in This Report:

GenVec Inc., Avigen Inc., Genome Therapeutics Corp., Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Isis Pharmaceuticals, Cell Genesys Inc.

Market segmentation by Region:

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Gene Therapy and Antisense Drugs Market Growing Massively by 2019-2026 Major Players GenVec Inc., Avigen Inc., Genome Therapeutics Corp., Tekmira...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

At an old Amgen facility tucked just beyond the Rockies. In a warehouse behind a Walmart supercenter in Durham, North Carolina. On a long-time Bristol Myers Squibb site outside Princeton. The tech has emerged, and now the arms race to physically build a generation of gene therapies has begun.

Novartis will spend $500 million scaling its gene therapy manufacturing efforts, Reuters reported today. Thatll put it nearly on par with Pfizer, who committed $600 million for its facilities even before any of its gene therapies have been approved. Together, 11 companies Reuters surveyed will spend $2 billion on gene therapy production.

Additionally, the Boston Globereported today that Vertex had completed its search for a gene therapy research and manufacturing campus in Boston, settling on a 256,000 square-foot center at the Raymond Flynn Marine Industrial Park.

Unlock this story instantly and join 66,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily and it's free.

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Feds add fraud charges to the multitude of accusations made against former MiMedx execs - Endpoints News

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A leading market research firm, Facts & Factors added the latest industry analysis report on "Cell and Gene Therapy Consumables Market By Product Type (Kits & Buffers, Diagnostic Assay, Culture Medium, and Cryopreservation Media) and By Application/ Therapeutics (Cardiovascular, Urology, Dermatology, Critical Care, Respiratory, Endocrine & Metabolic, Neuroscience, Hematology & Oncology, Obstetrics, Immunology, and Gastroenterology): Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis, and Forecast, 2018 2027" consisting of 110+ pages during the forecast period 2019 to 2027 and the Cell and Gene Therapy Consumables Market report offers comprehensive research updates and information related to market growth, demand, and opportunities in the global Cell and Gene Therapy Consumables Market.

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Excerpt from:
Cell and Gene Therapy Consumables Market Size, CAGR, Trends 2019: Industry Growth, Demand, Share, Analysis till 2027 - World Industry Reports

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Scientists are running tests on the body of the canine, which is 18,000 years old.

Love Dalen

Using carbon dating on the creature's rib bone, experts from Sweden's Centre for Palaeogenetics were able to confirm that the specimen had been frozen for around 18,000 years, but extensive DNA tests have so far been unable to show whether the animal was a dog or a wolf.

"It's normally relatively easy to tell the difference between the two," David Stanton, a researcher at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, told CNN.

"We have a lot of data from it already, and with that amount of data, you'd expect to tell if it was one or the other. The fact that we can't might suggest that it's from a population that was ancestral to both -- to dogs and wolves," he explained.

Stanton told CNN that the period the puppy is from is "a very interesting time in terms of wolf and dog evolution."

"We don't know exactly when dogs were domesticated, but it may have been from about that time. We are interested in whether it is in fact a dog or a wolf, or perhaps it's something halfway between the two," he said.

Further tests might provide more insight into exactly when dogs were domesticated, Stanton said.

Scientists from the Center for Palaeogenetics said on Twitter that genome analysis had revealed that the puppy was male. They said that, after conferring with their Russian colleagues, they would call the puppy Dogor -- meaning "friend" in Yakutian.

The scientists plan to run more genome data tests on the creature to find out more about its origins.

Read the original:
Is it a dog or is it a wolf? 18,000-year-old frozen puppy leaves scientists baffled - CNN

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

(CNN) -- The 18,000-year-old body of a near perfectly preserved puppy has left scientists puzzled.

Russian scientists discovered the body of the canine near Yakutsk, in eastern Siberia. Preserved by permafrost, the specimen's nose, fur and teeth are remarkably intact.

Using carbon dating on the creature's rib bone, experts from Sweden's Centre for Palaeogenetics were able to confirm that the specimen had been frozen for around 18,000 years, but extensive DNA tests have so far been unable to show whether the animal was a dog or a wolf.

"It's normally relatively easy to tell the difference between the two," David Stanton, a researcher at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, told CNN.

"We have a lot of data from it already, and with that amount of data, you'd expect to tell if it was one or the other. The fact that we can't might suggest that it's from a population that was ancestral to both -- to dogs and wolves," he explained.

Stanton told CNN that the period the puppy is from is "a very interesting time in terms of wolf and dog evolution."

"We don't know exactly when dogs were domesticated, but it may have been from about that time. We are interested in whether it is in fact a dog or a wolf, or perhaps it's something halfway between the two," he said.

Further tests might provide more insight into exactly when dogs were domesticated, Stanton said.

Modern dogs are thought to have been domesticated from wolves, but exactly when is unclear -- in 2017, a study published in the journal Nature Communications found that modern dogs were domesticated from a single population of wolves 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.

In contrast, a 2016 University of Oxford study, published in the journal Science , suggested that dogs were independently domesticated twice from gray wolves during the Paleolithic era, once in Asia and once in Europe.

Scientists from the Center for Palaeogenetics said on Twitter that genome analysis had revealed that the puppy was male. They said that, after conferring with their Russian colleagues, they would call the puppy Dogor -- meaning "friend" in Yakutian.

The scientists plan to run more genome data tests on the creature to find out more about its origins.

The-CNN-Wire & 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

Read more from the original source:
18,000-year-old frozen puppy discovered in Siberia - WPTV.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

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Read more from the original source:
Discover more about you with 50% off AncestryDNA's Genetic Ethnicity Test - Android Central

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Smaller and darker than its western counterpart: an Eastern European house mouse

Image: George Shuklin, CC BY-SA 1.0

It's been thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Iron Curtain is now a distant and dimming memory. But that's only true if you're a human. In the mouse world, Europe is still divided in East and West. As this map shows, the line that separates both halves of the continent is strangely similar to the Cold War frontier between capitalism and communism.

The Squeaky Curtain starts at the Baltic Sea, cutting through Denmark, Germany and Austria before almost making it to the Adriatic. Instead, the line shadows the formerly Yugoslav coast before swerving east, keeping the southern Balkans in 'the West', finally diving into the Black Sea.

West of the line lives the Mus musculus domesticus, the Western European house mouse. To the East roams the Mus musculus musculus, the Eastern European house mouse. On average, the eastern mouse is smaller and browner, the western one generally a bit sturdier and usually grey. Both subspecies branched from the same ancestor, some 500,000 years ago in Asia.

What ultimately separated house mice into these two subspecies are the humans they chose to follow. The ones moving through Asia's interior via Russia towards Eastern Europe turned into Eastern European house mice. The ones aiming for the Mediterranean, hitchhiking on ships to reach Western Europe (and eventually also the Americas and Australia) became Western European house mice.

The 'Squeaky Curtain', dividing Europe from the Baltic to the Black Seas in two zones, for Western and Eastern house mice.

Image: Macholn, M., Baird, S.J., Munclinger, P. et al. Genetic conflict outweighs heterogametic incompatibility in the mouse hybrid zone?. BMC Evol Biol 8, 271 (2008) doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-271

When the two subspecies met up again in Europe, is unclear. "It has been suggested that source populations first met in the southern region of the current hybrid zone, and only more recently in central and northern Europe, with progressive contact from south to north similar to a zipper being pulled up through Europe," write the authors of Genetic conflict outweighs heterogametic incompatibility in the mouse hybrid zone?, a scientific paper that examines interbreeding between Western and Eastern European house mice (and the origin of this map).

'Progressive contact' isn't necessarily a euphemism for doing the dance with two tails. The long genetic separation means the subspecies have drifted far apart. While males of either subspecies generally don't care whom they mate with, females prefer the company of males of the same subspecies. That limits interbreeding. And hybrid couples usually produce fewer offspring than 'pure' Eastern or Western ones. Both factors help explain why interbreeding only occurs in a relatively narrow and stable hybrid zone no more than 10 to 20 km wide.

The reduced capacity for interbreeding may be an indication that the two subspecies are in the process of becoming two separate species, entirely unable to interbreed. Only at the centre of the hybrid zone do hybrid mice occur in significant numbers relative to their Eastern and Western forebears. But not everything is gloomy for the hybrids: they're more resistant to parasite-borne diseases than both Eastern and Western European house mice.

Strange Maps #1000

Map taken from open-access article by Macholn, M., Baird, S.J., Munclinger, P. et al. Genetic conflict outweighs heterogametic incompatibility in the mouse hybrid zone?. BMC Evol Biol 8, 271 (2008) doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-271

Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.

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Squeaky Curtain divides Europes mice in East and West - Big Think

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Still waiting for new beginning.

The words in bold, white, are painted alongside a mural of a lion and lioness, on a sign near the forest guest house in Palpur village inside the Kuno Palpur wildlife sanctuary in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The guest house overlooks Kuno river and offers a clear glimpse into the heart of the forest and the wildlife of the sanctuary. The sun shines bright on the landscape, welcoming a new day and perhaps the start of a new chapter for the sanctuary.

After more than two decades of roadblocks, the Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary is ready as the new home for Asiatic lions, starting with those that are to be relocated from Gujarats Gir Sanctuary, currently the only home of the Asiatic lions in India. In a recent visit over two days, we witnessed the revamped sanctuary.

The areas of grassland habitat are ready to provide food for the animals that lions prey upon like nilgai (blue bull), chital (spotted deer), sambhar, chinkara. The grass on the sites of the 24 villages that existed here and have already been relocated outside, as a part of the lion reintroduction program, have grown. There is no sign of human habitat. The villages have been developed into large grasslands, making the sanctuary almost free from human habitation for the free and flexible movements of lions, Vijendra Shrivastav, sub-divisional officer, Kuno Palpur (West) Wildlife Sanctuary said, speaking about the preparations of the sanctuary to receive lions from Gir Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat.

We are asking just for two pride of lions that typically includes a male, three to five females and their young cubs. On successful relocation, the family of lions will access the unused habitats and will also increase the seasonal mast availability for wildlife in the sanctuary and diversity.

It has been 29 years since Kuno Palpur was identified as the site for the relocation of Asiatic lions, from their last habitat in Gujarat, to protect them from extinction. Currently, there are 523 (as per the last census carried out in 2015) lions in Gir and this relocation project was supposed to have been completed by 2020.

The Action Plan for the Reintroduction of the Asiatic Lions (Panthera leo persica) in Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary Draft 2016 prepared by the expert committee for translocations of lions from Gir to Kuno Sanctuary observed that the last free-ranging population of approximately 523 Asiatic lions Panthera leo persicaare found in the 22,000 square kilometreof the Gir landscape in Gujarat, western India. Carnivore populations restricted to single sites face a variety of extinction threats from genetic and stochastic environmental factors. The draft is now under implementation.

Catastrophes such as an epidemic, an unexpected decline in prey, natural calamities or retaliatory killings could result in the extinction of the lion population when they are restricted to single populations, the action plan adds.

Reintroduction of Asiatic lions to an alternative site to ensure their long-term viability has become a major conservation agenda since the late 1950s. Failure of the first attempt of the Asiatic lion reintroduction in India (Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary of Uttar Pradesh) in the 1960s has been ascribed to the lack of an a prioriscientific study on lion prey base, habitat requirements, local peoples attitude and a post-release monitoring program, notes the plan.

In the early 1990s, after ecological assessment of some protected areas within the historical range of lions was undertaken, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) identified Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary (Kuno WLS) in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh as the most potential reintroduction site. Subsequently, between 1996 and 2001, 23 villages were resettled from inside the identified Kuno sanctuary by the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department (MPFD) and an area of about 1,280 square km was demarcated as Kuno wildlife division.

Located in north Madhya Pradesh, Kuno was one of the hunting grounds of the royal families of the region and was notified as a sanctuary in 1981. The sanctuary is classified under the semi-arid Gujarat Rajputana biogeographic zone, a senior forest officer of the Madhya Pradeshs forest department said.

Kuno was one of the hunting grounds of the royal families of the region.

According to Azad Singh Dabhas, a retired forest officer, in the 1990s, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) took up the matter of finding an alternative home for the species and identified Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary as the most suitable site.

He explained that the idea was that in case of catastrophes such as an endemic, an unexpected decline in prey, natural calamities or retaliatory killings could result in the extinction of threatened species which are restricted to a single site Gir National Park in Gujarat.

Between 1996 and 2001 the Madhya Pradesh Government relocated 23 villages containing 1,547 families from Kuno Sanctuary in preparation for the new lion population. Not a single incidence of poaching and human-animal conflict has been reported in the last three years, said a senior official of the sanctuary.

Though the sanctuary is inhabited by carnivores such as leopard, wolf, jackal, Indian fox and striped hyena, in the last over two decades, the population of chital, sambar, nilgai, chinkara, wild pig, chowsingha, and blackbuck are found in abundance.

One of the major challenges was of the sites of the relocated villages to develop them into grasslands. The sites of the relocated villages have developed into large grasslands, extending in size to as much as 1,500 ha in some cases, said Shrivastav.

According to Atul Chouhan, Kuno Sangharsh Samiti, The state tourism department is successfully running a three-star hotel located on the Shivpuri Highway. A large number of visitors prefer to stay in the forest guest house, which is located inside the Kuno Reserve and is around 25 kilometres from the Tiktoli, the entry gate to the Kuno Reserve. Round the year more than 2,000 visitors come to Kuno Reserve. And the number of visitors to Kuno is rising up. If, lions are going to be introduced in Kuno Reserve the footfall is certainly going to rise.

The Samiti, now with about 2,000 members, was formed by like-minded people of Sheopur district in 2009-10 after the Gujarat government refused to share lions. The Samiti, along with the forest dwellers who were shifted from the sanctuary have held protests, submitted memorandums to the government alleging that they sacrificed their ancestral homes and land in a way to provide a safe place for the lions. They demanded that the government should respect their sacrifice and take constructive efforts to introduce lions in Kuno Palpur.

Chouhan wants the government to involve youth of the villages in tourism activities by training them as field guides of the sanctuary.

From the 24 villages, a total of 1,545 families were affected. The villagers were relocated to Karhal tehsil of Sheopur district.

We have left our ancestral homes, anticipating that we are doing it for a bigger cause by understanding the need of the government to provide a safe place for lions and conversation of our natural heritage. But, what we have received nothing in return. There are no signs of lions being introduced in the Kuno. The government has done injustice with us, said Kapoor Singh Yadav, a resident of village Naya Paron situated on the Sheopur-Shivpuri State Highway.

Yadav, along with his family members and 50 odd families of village Paron, which was situated inside the Kuno Palpur Sanctuary, shifted to the new location in 2004.

As per the action plan, the Standing Committee of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) endorsed the lion reintroduction program in Kuno. However, the proposal met with resistance from the Gujarat Forest Department (GFD) which was reluctant to provide founder lions from Gir for reintroduction purposes. An affidavit was also filed before the Supreme Court of India objecting the lion reintroduction.

Gujarat government has been refusing to give lions to Madhya Pradesh alleging that it would not be safe to shift the mighty beast to a state which has failed to protect its own tiger population.

After legal tangles spanning for almost two decades, the apex court finally gave its verdict in April 2013 and explicitly directed the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India (GoI) to expedite the lion reintroduction in Kuno in compliance with theIUCN guidelinesof carnivore reintroduction.

Accordingly, the 2016 draft action plan was developed under the directives of the Additional Director General (Wildlife) to guide a successful lion reintroduction in Kuno. The plan, now under implementation, enlists various ecological, biological, management and social facets in accordance with the IUCN/SSC guidelines to develop a time-bound protocol essential for implementing the reintroduction program. Some management actions recommended in the action plan are concomitant and should continue for the long-term, it notes.

Gir in Gujarat is the last refuge of the Asian lion population. According to the 14th Lion Estimation Population Report, the lion population has increased by 27%from 411 in 2010 to 523 in 2015. The increase in lion numbers inside the protected area has been just 6% (as of 337 to 356), however, the rise outside has been higher 126% (from 74 to 167).

A large number of lions wander outside the Gir National Park in the eco-sensitive zone of the Gir Protected Area. In 2018, when the deaths of 23 lions in Gir took place, the Gujarat government maintained it to be a one-off incident. The government allegedly refused to touch and go in deep to dig out the medical analytical cause behind the deaths. After the incident, the Gujarat government launched a Rs350 crore (almost $49 million) lion conservation project. The project was reviewed by Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in July 2019, when, during rains visuals of lion frisking in the urban areas of Gir Forest hit social media.

The expert committee has suggested a four-phase plan for the reintroduction of lion in Kuno which involves organisational commitments, ecological monitoring and quantifying social carrying capacity of lion reintroduction, followed by capture, translocation and soft release of lions in Kuno, post-reintroduction monitoring & research, conflict mitigation, followed with an annual review of the project. The first three phases would be undertaken over a period of two years, after which, upto the next 20 years or so the plan highlights genetic management & supplementation, under which six lions (two males and four females) should be supplemented in the Kuno population from Gir until 16-20 years from the first reintroduction at an interval of four years.

The report maintains, carnivore reintroduction is an appropriate conservation strategy to restore the integrity of ecosystems. However, many pitfalls exist that can result in the total or partial failure of a reintroduction program and can potentially waste valuable and limited resources.

According to Kuno divisional forest officer, current habitat management initiatives by Madhya Pradesh Forest Department (MPFD) inside Kuno WLS such as weed eradication, fire management, grassland management, waterhole management etc. would continue so as to enhance nutritional carrying capacity for wild ungulates, which would serve as a prey base for the lions

Although the current carrying capacity of lions at Kuno WLS is a maximum of 40 lions, Population Habitat Viability Analysis (PHVA) models for Kuno lions show that the lion population will be viable for long- term only at a minimum figure of around 80 individuals.

Expecting approximately a realised growth that has been observed for recovering tiger populations, along with supplementation every four years from Gir; the lion population in Kuno WLS should reach the current carrying capacity of 40 within 15 years.

To reach the required self-sustaining population size of 80 lions, the time required would be close to 30 years.

This article first appeared on Mongabay-India.We welcome your comments atideas.india@qz.com.

Continued here:
Kuno will soon be India's next lion sanctuary after Gujarat's Gir - Quartz India

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

When Alex Blackwell began her elite cricket career in 2001, the landscape of the sport looked very different. The Womens National Cricket League was entering just its sixth season and it would be a very brave player who dared to dream of full-time professionalism or television coverage for womens cricket.

Never one to be plagued by a lack of courage, Blackwell took up the fight to advocate for change in the sport. Little by little, the battles were won and in 2015, she quit her job as a genetic counsellor to become one of the first full-time professionals in womens cricket, marking the beginning of an era of extraordinary change.

Blackwell has been at the forefront of this revolution her career has seen not only the shift from amateurism to full-time professionalism, but a great deal of social change as well.

While always open about her sexuality with teammates, family and friends, Blackwell chose to come out publicly in 2013. She spoke openly about her disappointment that Cricket Australia had not implemented an anti-homophobia policy, as well as criticising the marketing of womens sport more broadly, believing sporting bodies chose to centre more traditionally feminine athletes in promotional material.

In 2015, Cricket Australia agreed to sign on to the anti-homophobia policy, due in no small part to the pressure from its athletes, including Blackwell, who had the strength and conviction to speak out.

When the national body released its transgender inclusion policy in August this year, Blackwell was one of its most vocal advocates. To deprive [transgender people] of access to sport would be wrong, she said in August. We wont be discriminating based on trans or gender diverse identity.

After 18 years dominating on the field, there is little chance Blackwell will be short of things to occupy her time when Sydney Thunders WBBL season draws to a close. As well as being a qualified genetic counsellor, she is in high demand as a speaker, commentator and media personality.

In 2018 she became the first woman to be elected on to the board of Cricket NSW in the organisations 159-year history. Earlier this year she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of New South Wales for her work in fighting for equality on and off the cricket pitch.

After retiring from state and national cricket in early 2018, Blackwell threw her energy into Sydney Thunder, a team she had captained to the competitions maiden title in 2015-16. A possible retirement lurked at the end of the 2018-19 season, but an agonising final ball loss to eventual champions Brisbane Heat in the semi-final was enough to propel her into one final season, though she made the decision to step back from captaincy.

I was heartbroken, but also amazed, by last years semi-final, said Blackwell. I . . . well, a little bit selfishly . . . thought to myself: Ive worked so hard to get to this point and contributed to cricket for a long period of time for it to reach this point. I thought the WBBL was an amazing competition to be a part of and decided I could go again and Im pleased I did. Its been good fun, and Ive enjoyed supporting Rachael Haynes because I think shes led the team very well.

Her career with the Thunder has spanned five seasons, 71 matches, 1751 runs and the clubs most valuable player award has been named in her honour.

At 36, and with a player-of-the-match honour from Wednesdays win over the Melbourne Stars still fresh in her back pocket, Blackwell is part of that rare breed of athletes who are able to walk away from the game on their own terms, still at the top of their game, having achieved everything possible in the sport.

When the Womens T20 World Cup final rolls into the MCG in March 2020, with its hopes of world record crowds and Cricket Australias commitment to prize money parity for its mens and womens teams, there is little doubt Blackwell will be there to witness the spectacle, supporting the women who are carrying the baton forward.

And as she does, she may reflect on what 18-year-old Alex would think about it all seeing these women carry not just their own hopes and dreams for a World Cup win, but the pride of a nation on their shoulders as they stand on equal footing with their male counterparts.

After 18 years at the top, there is one thing certain about Alex Blackwell she has left the game of cricket in a much more fair, equitable, inclusive and better place than it was when she arrived.

Read the rest here:
Alex Blackwell leaves the game having led a cricket revolution - The Guardian

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

CHICAGO The largest study of its kind found new evidence that genes contribute to same-sex sexual behavior, but it echoes research that says there are no specific genes that make people gay.

The genome-wide research on DNA from nearly half a million U.S. and U.K. adults identified five genetic variants not previously linked with gay or lesbian sexuality. The variants were more common in people who reported ever having had a same-sex sexual partner. That includes people whose partners were exclusively of the same sex and those who mostly reported heterosexual behavior.

The researchers said thousands more genetic variants likely are involved and interact with factors that arent inherited, but that none of them cause the behavior nor can predict whether someone will be gay.

The research provides the clearest glimpse yet into the genetic underpinnings of same-sex sexual behavior, said co-author Benjamin Neale, a psychiatric geneticist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

We also found that its effectively impossible to predict an individuals sexual behavior from their genome. Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior but its still a very important contributing factor, Neale said.

The study was released Thursday by the journal Science. Results are based on genetic testing and survey responses.

Some of the genetic variants found were present in both men and women. Two in men were located near genes involved in male-pattern baldness and sense of smell, raising intriguing questions about how regulation of sex hormones and smell may influence same-sex behavior.

Importantly, most participants were asked about frequency of same-sex sexual behavior but not if they self-identified as gay or lesbian. Fewer than 5% of U.K. participants and about 19% of U.S. participants reported ever having a same-sex sexual experience.

The researchers acknowledged that limitation and emphasized that the studys focus was on behavior, not sexual identity or orientation. They also note that the study only involved people of European ancestry and cant answer whether similar results would be found in other groups.

Origins of same-sex behavior are uncertain. Some of the strongest evidence of a genetic link comes from studies in identical twins. Many scientists believe that social, cultural, family and other biological factors are also involved, while some religious groups and skeptics consider it a choice or behavior that can be changed.

A Science commentary notes that the five identified variants had such a weak effect on behavior that using the results for prediction, intervention or a supposed cure is wholly and unreservedly impossible.

Future work should investigate how genetic predispositions are altered by environmental factors, University of Oxford sociologist Melinda Mills said in the commentary.

Other experts not involved in the study had varied reactions.

Dr. Kenneth Kendler a specialist in psychiatric genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University, called it a very important paper that advances the study of the genetics of human sexual preference substantially. The results are broadly consistent with those obtained from the earlier technologies of twin and family studies suggesting that sexual orientation runs in families and is moderately heritable.

Former National Institutes of Health geneticist Dean Hamer said the study confirms that sexuality is complex and there are a lot of genes involved, but it isnt really about gay people. Having just a single same sex experience is completely different than actually being gay or lesbian, Hamer said. His research in the 1990s linked a marker on the X chromosome with male homosexuality. Some subsequent studies had similar results but the new one found no such link.

Doug Vanderlaan, a University of Toronto psychologist who studies sexual orientation, said the absence of information on sexual orientation is a drawback and makes it unclear what the identified genetic links might signify. They might be links to other traits, like openness to experience, Vanderlaan said.

The study is a collaboration among scientists including psychologists, sociologists and statisticians from the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. They did entire human genome scanning, using blood samples from the U.K. Biobank and saliva samples from customers of the U.S.-based ancestry and biotech company 23andMe who had agreed to participate in research.

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Genetics linked to same-sex behavior, but there is no 'gay gene,' huge study indicates - Denton Daily

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A Gir cow dairy farmer near Halvad in Gujarats Morbi district. (Express photo by Javed Raja)

A recent decision by the Narendra Modi government to import frozen semen of Gir bulls from Brazil has generated a lively debate, incorporating shades of both cultural sentiment and the hard science of cattle breeding. Arousing excitement and curiosity is that at the centre of it all is a Bos indicus milch cattle breed native to India specifically the Saurashtra region of Gujarat and imported as early as 1849 into the US and Brazil in the latter part of the century. The decision to source the germplasm of our own breed now from Brazil re-bred and re-branded as Brahman Cattle there has naturally raised the question: Why should the country import Gir semen when we have these animals and there are many farmers, too, rearing them here?

The above question, however, needs to be addressed through the prism of pragmatism rather than simply culture, tradition and sentiment. Although India has been the worlds top milk producer for more than two decades, its annual yield per cow of 1,642.9 kg, according to the United Nations Food & Agricultural Organisation data for 2017, is behind the global average of 2,430.2 kg and the corresponding 4,237.3 kg for New Zealand, 7,026.8 kg for the European Union and 10,457.4 kg for the US.

A major reason for this abysmal milk productivity is the absence of an organised national breeding programme. Currently, artificial insemination coverage is restricted to just 30% of Indias total breedable bovine population. Whats more, hardly a fifth of the bulls in semen stations across the country have been selected through any scientific progeny testing exercise.

Simply put, more than 80% of the animals whose semen is now being used for breeding milch cows are of unknown, if not poor, genetic merit. Most of these bulls have been picked up from villages or institutional farms solely based on the dams (mother) peak lactation yields, whether recorded or otherwise. The sires (male parent) breeding value or genetic potential which is what gets transmitted to the progeny, in terms of milk production, fat and protein percentage, fertility or body confirmation traits is rarely ascertained. If the seed used is itself suspect, how can artificial insemination be of help in any breeding programme for improving milk yields, which is a function of genetic make-up as much as nutritional environment and managerial practices.

Average milk yields from cows of identified indigenous milch breeds such as Gir, Red Sindhi and Sahiwal are 1,600-1,700 kg per year. While two times or more that of nondescript animals, they are still unviable for farmers to rear, especially when yields from crossbred cows average 3,000 kg-plus. No doubt, we have Gir cows giving over 6,000 kg annually. But their number, as per records with the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, is just two. Further, there are 11 that are reported to produce 5,000-6,000 kg and another 116 between 4,000 and 5,000 kg.

If a mere 129 Gir cows, out of an estimated female breed population of over five million in India, are confirmed as yielding above 4,000 kg of milk in an annual lactation cycle, it calls for an effective intervention strategy. To reiterate the earlier point, if dairying is to be profitable for those who do the real rearing, milk yields have to be substantially increased. Essential to that is the scientific selection of male parents with proven genetic potential. Import of semen or even bulls from Brazil, of what is ultimately our own native breed, should be viewed as both practical and necessary in this context.

The performance of Gir cattle in Brazil stands out in comparison to India, which is its original breeding tract. The Brazilian average milk yield for these cows is 3,500 kg/year, as against below 1,600 kg in India. The highest recorded production from any Gir cow in our country is 6,352 kg, whereas there is a sizable population of this breed in Brazil yielding between 12,000 and 15,000 kg. These facts cannot and should not be ignored. Responses such as the purity of our native breeds is being compromised overseas are based more on misplaced national pride and sentiment than sound economics or science. If Brazil, through adopting modern assisted reproductive techniques, has achieved dramatic productivity improvement in a cattle breed that is essentially ours, why should we shy away from importing their germplasm to attain similar, if not superior, levels of performance? If we can lay the red carpet and offer a plethora of incentives for our diaspora to return and invest in their homeland, why should a different and adversarial yardstick apply to our non-resident cattle?

Gir cattle are well adapted to tropical environments. Natural selection over centuries has endowed these animals with high heat tolerance, resistance to parasites and diseases, and immense capacity to survive feed and water deprivation over long periods. Also, their cows have better milk yield potential vis--vis other pure indigenous breeds, barring maybe Sahiwal. Yet, a lot of that potential remains unharnessed for want of a proper strategy of selective breeding and creation of a super elite population. What could be better than a hardy, low-input cost animal matching the best of global benchmarks in milk productivity!

The import of germplasm and bulls of high genetic merit is one of the many ways for expanding the base of our indigenous cattle population itself. The dwindling numbers of pure breeds, as opposed to nondescripts, does not augur well for small and marginal farmers, for whom rearing exotic or even crossbred cows isnt affordable beyond a point. While breed purity may be accorded importance, attachment based on blind belief and faith economics in contrast to information on ancestry derived through genomics shouldnt end up making imports too cumbersome and counterproductive.

Genetic improvement has to be an integral part of our livestock policy and plans to increase milk production, while also aiming at protection, conservation and promotion of indigenous breeds. Importing semen of high genetic merit bulls from Brazil is only a step in this direction. While apprehensions in certain quarters are understandable, the policy should be given a fair chance, as it also opens up economic opportunities for the smallholder who can ill-afford to maintain a pure Jersey or Holstein-Friesian. Breed is stronger than the pasture, the quote from George Eliots Victorian novel Silas Marner, should hopefully sum it all up.

The author is former Secretary of Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Government of India

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Indigenous livestock breeding: Deja Moo Bringing the cows home - The Indian Express

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The June bug flaunts a gaudy wing, the fire bug flies for fame; the bedbug has no wings at all, but he gets there all the same. Unnamed American poet, circa 1890

In an Industrial Avenue strip mall, a working beagle named Stella vigorously noses into baseboards, bookcases, table legs and chairs.

Beagles are bred to track rabbits; Stella has learned to hunt bedbugs.

Flat, oval-shaped, rust brown and vampirish, bedbugs have skittered into the public spotlight following their discovery in nine federal government office buildings in the National Capital Region.

Civil servants are up in arms about the infestations. The Public Service Alliance of Canada has called on the government to check all federal offices for bedbugs and train workers to identify them. Meanwhile, the government has advertised a $400,000 pest control contract to clear bedbugs from employees cars and homes.

But civil servants are not alone in confronting the menace. Local office buildings, libraries, nursing homes, hotels and apartment blocks have been invaded by the common bedbug, Cimex lectularius, as part of an extraordinary resurgence of the nocturnal pest.

The pest control firm Orkin Canada publishes a list of the top 25 bedbug cities in the country based on the number of treatments the company performed. Last year, Ottawa ranked sixth in the nation.

Right now, we cant keep up with demand, says Rob Caron, Ottawa regional manager for Orkin Canada, the firm that employs Stella, a trained detection dog.

Stella, Ottawas resident bedbug sniffing dog. Trained in California, Stella is now being deployed to federal government buildings at night to detect bedbugs.Errol McGihon / Postmedia

The bedbug control business has increased 10 to 15 per cent in each of the past 15 years in Ottawa, Caron says. To meet that demand, the Ottawa office has launched a nightshift and is trying to secure a second sniffer dog.

Once on the verge of disappearing from public consciousness in North America, bedbugs have roared back to prominence during the past 20 years as part of what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an alarming resurgence in the population.

Scientists say bedbugs have developed resistance to some common pesticides, while at the same time benefitted from the explosion of international travel. Bedbugs have no wings, but theyre accomplished hitchhikers: They regularly travel to new locations in clothing, backpacks, luggage and furniture.

A single, fertilized female can launch an infestation.

It means that a whole new generation of Canadians is now confronting one of mankinds oldest nemeses. As ancient as the dinosaurs, bedbugs have evolved to survive almost anything, even DDT.

As a species, they are lousy with both contradictions and curiosities. Bedbugs like to live in groups, but have insanely violent mating practices. Theyre among the most feared insects on Earth, but dont transmit disease. They eat only blood; they can starve for months; they can expand their bodies to feast.

Its enough to keep you up at night. But should it?

The dreaded bedbug.SunMedia

The history

Few animals, few objects even, evoke such profound feelings of horror, fear and fright as bedbugs, writes Klaus Reinhardt, a German professor of applied zoology, in his engrossing 2018 book, Bedbug.

It was once impolite even to say the word bedbugs in public, he says, for fear it would invite them into a home. Even today, the subject is fraught.

You can joke about cockroaches in an apartment, or fleas, he says, but you dont make a joke about bedbugs in someones house.

Bedbugs have unnerved humans for thousands of years, but the blood-sucking insects were on the scene long before Homo sapiens arrived.

A recent study found that bedbugs evolved more than 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, when dinosaurs reigned. Primitive birds were then the most likely hosts for the insects.

Bats evolved about 50 or 60 million years ago, and bedbugs developed a taste for their blood. When humans sought refuge in those same bat caves, several species of bedbugs evolved to feed on them.

Scientists have identified more than 100 different kinds of bedbug, many of them highly specialized. Latrocimex, for instance, is a bedbug that feeds exclusively on the blood of fish-eating bats that live in South Americas mangrove forests. Others feed on pigeons, swallows and purple martins.

Some bedbug species are small, others are large, most are brownish, and all suck blood, writes Reinhardt, former vice-president of the Royal Entomological Society of London. (Founded in 1833, the society counts Charles Darwin among its former vice-presidents.)

Only two types of bedbugs target humans: the common bedbug, Cimex lectularius, found in temperate areas of the planet, and Cimex hemipterus, which lives in the tropics. Theyll feed on the blood of mice, rats, dogs, cats and birds if humans are not readily available.

For all of recorded history, bedbugs have been part of the human experience and the subject of our dark humour. In the ancient Greek comedy, The Frogs, first performed in 405 BC, the god of wine, Dionysus, searches out hostels with the fewest bedbugs on his way to the underworld.

A story on bedbugs from the Ottawa Citizen on Sept. 2, 1943.jpg

In Ottawa, early inhabitants of the rough-hewn lumber town shared poems and jokes about the same scourge. In 1891, the Citizen reported that a lease in Paris had been declared null and void after the discovery of a single bedbug. This may be very good law in Paris, a writer editorialized, but we fear that if an attempt was made to enforce this in Ottawa, a good many leases may be cancelled.

Bedbugs used to be associated with poverty and neglect; harbouring them was often viewed as shameful.

In 1898, a judicial inquiry was held following an uproar about a Citizen story which reported that bedbugs had been found in the Ottawa police dormitory so many that one officer threw a handful on a colleagues bed. After a hearing, Judge D.B. MacTavish ruled that only a few bugs were present; the officers who supplied the information were fined $10 each for failing to report the problem to superiors.

Bedbugs remained a common nuisance in Ottawa until the 1950s when their populations suddenly declined across North America. Better housing conditions, along with new and corrosive pesticides, combined to send them into retreat.

In the 1980s, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considered them a threatened species.

But the common bedbug would not go gently into the night.

The biology

Traumatic insemination is the scientific name for the ghastly mating practice of the bedbug.

Male bedbugs possess a knife-like penis (aedeagus) that they use to pierce the belly of females. Theres no courting ritual, no display behaviour involved: Males set upon females when theyre engorged with blood and unable to flatten themselves against the ground.

The females have a fully functional genital tract, but for reasons about which scientists can only theorize, male bedbugs only go for the stomach. (The males of one bedbug species, Afrocimex constrictus, will also skewer other males.) Their sperm is injected directly into the females abdominal cavity and propelled towards her unfertilized eggs.

To put it mildly, bedbugs have an unusual form of reproduction, says Klaus Reinhardt, an evolutionary biologist who was drawn to bedbug research decades ago.

Klaus Reinhardt, a professor of applied zoology in Dresden, Germany, is the author of the recently published book, Bedbug, an entertaining and scholarly account of the bedbug that also makes a a plea for a greater tolerance of the insects.jpg

Bedbugs are something of an evolutionary marvel since few species have flourished with such an injurious form of procreation.How do females survive to perpetuate the species?

The counter-intuitive answer is that females survive because most of their ancestors died, says Reinhardt. In other words, only females that had survived the deadly male attacks in the past were able to produce offspring, with this survival ability written in their genes.

Those females produced more offspring, which themselves laid more eggs after surviving the sexual procedure. Over time, the only females that remained were those that were best at surviving traumatic insemination and laying eggs natural selection.

Female bedbugs had to evolve quickly in order to defend themselves. Theyve developed whats known as a spermalege a unique organ that protects against bodily damage and sexually transmitted microbes. It features a deep, padded groove where theyre commonly stabbed. The padding is made from resilin, an intensely elastic material that makes it easier for males to penetrate, and minimizes the damage to females.

Despite their evolutionary battle of the sexes, bedbugs still like to huddle together in dark places.To find each other, they emit pheromones that alert other bedbugs to their presence. They release a different scent to raise an alarm.

The smell of bedbugs has been variously described as sickly sweet, musty and buggy. The 19th century novelist, Honor de Balzac, described it as the typical odour of French boarding houses.

Bedbugs like to spend their days gathered in cracks and crevices near their food source, then emerge late at night in search of a meal. Peak feeding hours are between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.

All bedbugs males, females, adults, children drink blood. They have five nymphal stages and each new stage can only be reached after a blood meal, which is drawn through the bedbugs sucking mouthpart, its proboscis. Females require a blood meal to develop their eggs.

Bedbugs can sense the warmth of sleeping people, as well as the carbon dioxide they exhale. After crawling onto a victim, bedbugs rock back and forth to drive their proboscis into a blood vessel. They take about 10 minutes to drink their fill. To avoid detection and ensure a smooth flow of blood, they inject their victims with both a local anesthetic and an anti-coagulant.

They consume up to three times their own body weight in blood.

They are the ultimate binge drinkers, says Reinhardt.

Bedbugs feed on Stephen Kells, a University of Minnesota entomologist, at his lab in St. Paul, Minn.ALLEN BRISSON-SMITH / NYT

Only their segmented bodies and expandable skin allow for such overindulgence. In hard times, when a blood meal is not readily available, bedbugs can flatten themselves and endure more than six months without eating.

The parasites become sluggish after a big meal, and some are unable to stagger back to their daytime hiding places. These wayward bedbugs can end up in clothes, purses or backpacks, and be carried to a new home.

A single hitchhiker can establish a new infestation since a well-fed, fertilized female can lay more than 200 eggs.Her male offspring they take about eight weeks to mature will mate with their siblings and with their mother. Indeed, genetic tests have confirmed that most home infestations come from a lone female.

The defence

Stella is a four-year-old rescue dog trained to detect the pheromones that bedbugs excrete when theyre lonely or scared. Shes a regular visitor to office buildings and hotels in Ottawa where she scours cubicles and rooms for the telltale scent of an infestation.

If the scent is there, shes going to find it, says her handler, Natalie Leblond, 33, of Ottawa. Ive seen her alert on one baby bug hiding behind a nightstand.

Trained in California, Stella has had her bug-hunting proficiency certified by the World Detector Dog Organization, a non-profit dedicated to improving the trade, which takes advantage of the remarkable noses of dogs. Their sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 more acute than our own, which means they can detect some odours in parts per trillion.

Stella will sit down whenever she smells a bedbug, and tap with her paw to confirm the location. Shes fed strictly as a reward for her discoveries.

Stella works for her food: she doesnt eat out of a bowl, says Leblond, who will plant synthesized bedbug pheromones to ensure the beagle can be fed when real bedbugs are nowhere to be found.

Bedbugs tend to stay within two metres of their food source, which means theyre commonly found along the seams of mattresses, or in the cracks formed by box springs and bed frames. They can hide behind night tables or picture frames, in wall cracks or floor seams. They also like wall plugs, clocks, radiators and radios.

Stella, Ottawas resident bedbug sniffing dog with Natalie Leblond, a K9 handler withf Orkin Pest Control Ottawa.Errol McGihon / Postmedia

Bedbugs often announce their presence with dark spots on bed sheets. This fecal spotting is the result of bedbugs releasing drops of old, blackened blood from their guts during the feeding process.

In an office environment, bedbugs are often found in the material of chairs, sofas or the cracks between cubicle partitions. They love to hide in the cubicle walls, says Orkin Candas Rob Caron. They like to be in the dark, to feel safe, and they love material more than metal.

When an infestation is confirmed, Orkin technicians vacuum and steam clean affected areas. Heat treatments are the most effective means of killing bedbugs, says Caron, since the insects will desiccate when temperatures are held at 60 C for at least two hours. The heat bomb will drive bedbugs down so floors and baseboards have to be steam treated at the same time.

With serious infestations, chemical treatments will also be used as part of an integrated pest management strategy. Bedbugs are very resilient, Caron says. If you dont remove everything, and do every single crack and crevice, theyll come back.

Entomologist Murray Isman, an emeritus professor at the University of British Columbia who has served as a consultant for the federal government on the question of bedbugs, says complete eradication is difficult since the insects can hide in tiny cracks or holes for long periods of time. Whats more, theyre easily re-introduced in high-traffic buildings.

Thats why its a real challenge to eradicate them, Isman says. Realistically, the goal is managing them to the point where someone sees one-bug-a-month kind of thing.

Nathalie Leblond didnt know anything about bedbugs when she applied for the job of dog handler at Orkin Canada two years ago. I didnt even know what they looked like, she says. But I know a lot now: We see bedbugs every day.

Working with a bedbug detection dog is not for everyone, she says, since the hours are long and some places they visit are heavily infested: You have to really want to work dogs and train. Ill steam my boots if I go into an infested place and put my clothes in the wash right away when I get home just in case.

Leblond takes Stella home with her every night; they have never brought home a bedbug.

Anyone can get them, even if you are the cleanest person, Leblond says. You can sit on a bus, and if theres one left behind, it can get on you, and you can bring it home. People who are cleaner, theyre going to find them sooner so it doesnt get to the point of a big infestation. But it has nothing to do with dirt.

Bedbugs.JEWEL SAMAD / AFP/Getty Images

The horror?

Bedbug bites dont hurt thanks to the painkiller the insects deliver in their spit.

Its one of the reasons bedbugs can survive in an office environment where sleeping is generally considered bad form. Desperately hungry bedbugs will take advantage of motionless workers to feed even during the daytime.

And its not just civil servants being victimized: Bedbugs have been reported in Googles posh New York offices and the New York Times newsroom.

Humans dont have to be sleeping, says UBCs Murray Isman. Bedbugs dont jump on people that are moving around, but if youre lying down on a sofa in a lunchroom, or sitting at your desk and not moving very much, bedbugs will have access to a decent blood meal.

In an interview from his home in Dresden, Germany, Klaus Reinhardt says office-dwelling bedbugs can also survive on mice and rats.

If youre an office worker and if you sit eight hours on your chair and dont move much, I think this might be some possibility for a little bedbug nibble, he says. But it is odd, I have to say. Most bedbugs will not feed during the daytime.

70 Cremazie in Gatineau was evacuated due to bed bugs, October 10, 2019.Jean Levac / Postmedia News

The vast majority of people will develop welts from bedbug bites, but it can take up to 11 days for the telltale, itchy red spots to appear. The welts are an allergic reaction to the chemical cocktail that bedbugs deliver through their saliva.

A small percentage of the population is immune. Reinhardt once subjected himself to repeated bedbug bites as part of a broader experiment to better understand immunity rates. Only one of the 19 test subjects failed to develop welts.

The experiment followed in the finest tradition of bedbug research. In the 20th century, biologist Albrecht Hase, best known for his work on lice control, submitted to more than 2,500 bedbug bites during his research career. Robert Usinger, widely regarded as the worlds greatest bedbug researcher, once strapped a collection of bedbugs to his body to ensure they stayed well fed while he travelled with them.

In rare cases, bedbug bites can cause a severe allergic reaction, or lead to secondary infections, or anemia, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, most of the damage inflicted by bedbugs is psychological. In a 2010 study, researchers interviewed 474 people who had endured bedbug infestations; 29 per cent of them said they suffered from insomnia as a result.

Some patients have disturbed sleep from just the knowledge of having an active or past infestation in their own bed, researchers reported.

Says Isman: People are freaked out by them. They get very anxious about having them in their home, or being bitten, even though the bites themselves are typically no worse than a mosquito bite.

Reinhardt, a professed fan of bedbugs, insists the insects should not elicit so much fear and loathing.

While other insects such as lice and mites want to live on people, he says, bedbugs want to dine and dash. Whats more, unlike other blood-sucking insects such as mosquitos and ticks, bedbugs do not transmit disease. Bedbugs have been accused of spreading dozens of diseases everything from HIV to TB, from hepatitis to leprosy but scientists have always proved them innocent.

In hundreds of experiments, Reinhardt says, there has never been any proven transmission. (For some reason, pathogens do not replicate in the guts of bedbugs.)

Mosquitos have killed billions of people through the spread of malaria, dengue and yellow fever, yet it is the common bedbug that keeps people awake.

The bedbug is not even dangerous, argues Reinhardt. We should not be so scared of them. But we still are scared of them, I think, because of the intimate relationship with our beds: Mosquitos, they fly away, but bedbugs, they stay next to you.

aduffy@postmedia.com

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Bedbug invasion: Why the itch-inducing pests are making a big comeback in a building near you - Ottawa Citizen

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GREENWICH For years, community members have been asking substance abuse counselor John Hamilton about the root causes of drug addiction.

People want to know, is it genetics? Is it the environment? Hamilton said during a presentation at the First Presbyterian Church in Greenwich on Wednesday morning.

Both can play a role, but more factors are involved when it comes to addiction, said Hamilton, president and CEO of Liberation Programs, a Connecticut nonprofit that helps individuals overcome addiction.

Experts look at an individuals behavior, their brain mechanisms and the drug theyre using when determining a persons likelihood of experiencing addiction, he said. Even memory can play a part.

Hamilton recalled the story of a colleagues client who had struggled with heroin addiction for years. The man got into a car accident, lost his long-term memory and forgot he was addicted to heroin.

He never had a heroin problem again because he lost that memory, Hamilton said.

As the opiate crisis and a newfound vaping epidemic grip the nation, he offered community members information about substance use while providing solutions for building resiliency.

Statistics on substance use among adolescents and young adults dominated the beginning of conversation in the churchs sanctuary members of the Greenwich Retired Mens Association.

In Greenwich, the biggest issue overlooked is the high number of youths who abuse alcohol, he said. While 171 people die in America each day from the opiate epidemic, that number swells to 415, if alcohol-related deaths are added, he said. If tobacco deaths are accounted for, the number increases to 1,000 deaths per day.

What we really are getting overshadowed by with all the issues around the opiate epidemic is the fact that kids are still choosing to drink as their substance of choice, said Hamilton. And with all the anxiety and stress that theyre under, the kids that are not comfortable in their own skin, those are the ones that are going to be at risk.

In his work at Liberation Programs, Hamilton often see clients who are trying to conceal or suppress underlying traumas by using drugs or alcohol.

People do drugs for two reasons, he said. To feel good or to feel better.

Most of his clients are categorized in the latter group. They have anxiety, they have depression, Hamilton said. Its about disconnection to their feelings, disconnection to family, the community anything they can do to not have to actually be present because theyre not comfortable in their own skin.

A recent community survey gives a clearer picture of drug and alcohol use among youth in town.

More than 50 percent of 12th-graders reported drinking within 30 days of completing the survey. Results showed 34 percent of seniors had access to marijuana, 12 percent could find cocaine, heroin or LSD and 6 percent could obtain amphetamines.

While the number of students smoking cigarettes has decreased over the last five years in town, the percentage of youths smoking e-cigarettes has increased. In the survey, about 65 percent of 12th-graders reported having access to electronic cigarettes.

In drug trends, perception of risk influences (an) epidemic, said Hamilton. So, if a kid thinks something is safe, theyll use it and thats what happened with e-cigarettes. It was positioned as a safer alternative to smoking and now we know it wasnt.

Another finding of the survey showed parents perceptions of substances, could influence their childs likelihood of experiencing problems with drugs of alcohol. A parents disapproval of drugs or alcohol can reduce the likelihood of their child using them.

While Hamilton acknowledged that Wednesdays presentation was morbid, he offered attendees a glimmer of hope.

The good news is, we know, every year you delay the age of onset for that first use of a substance, it significantly reduces the likelihood that (the) child is gonna have a problem with alcohol and drugs in their lifetime, he said.

If a kid starts drinking before the age of 14, they have a 40 percent chance of having a problem with alcohol in their life, regardless of genetics, he said.

But if the person waits to until theyre 21 to have their first drink, that number drops to less than a 7 percent chance, he concluded.

Just before closing the discussion, Hamilton offered tips to parents and other adult attendees with children or youth in their lives.

He encouraged parents to lead by example and to exhibit healthy mood-regulation during times of stress. Parents should refrain from judging their children and remain open, nurturing and responsive when their youngsters approach them about these issues, Hamilton said.

If parents want children to change their behaviors, they should give them the skills and support to do so while providing incentives and other motivations, he said.

You here in this room could be that consistent, supportive, loving person in the childs life, Hamilton said. And that could make a difference for everything else going on in their life.

tatiana.flowers@thehour.com

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Expert offers insights into addiction in Greenwich presentation - CT Insider

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Most of us eat grains every day in bread, cereals, biscuits or pasta. In recent years, withgluten intolerance on the rise, wheat has been getting bad press. But how much do you know about this grain that forms such a significant part of our diet, and how has the wheat we eat changed over the centuries?

The era of the landrace

Wheat has been cultivated for more than 10,000 years, beginning in theFertile Crescentand arriving in the UK around 5,000 years ago. Milling wheat for flour only became common in the 12thcentury, but by the turn of the 19thcentury, wheat was the UKs most significant crop grown for human consumption. However, this wheat was very different to the crops that fill our fields today the ears would tower over our modern dwarf varieties, commonly reaching 160 centimetres tall, and with great genetic diversity. These landrace varieties were created by generations of natural selection and farmers saving diverse seed year after year. Over time, the landrace would become adapted to the specific soil and climate of the region, as the genotypes that do best in those environments became more prevalent. However, the pursuit of higher yields and industrialisation of agriculture over the past 150 years has meant these ancient varieties have been lost from our fields and all that remains of these traditional landraces is a handful of seeds that make up a series of entries, known as accessions, in gene-banks around the world.

Selecting the best

Around the mid-1800s, the first plant breeders realised that if they saved the best ears out of the landrace they got single varieties that yielded higher, but werent as diverse, explains Ed Dickin, a keen grain breeder who lectures in crop production at Harper Adams University. The first of these seedsmans varieties, such as Squareheads Master, were developed in the 1860s; measuring in at around 130 centimetres, they had a shorter and stiffer straw as well as a significantly higher yield.

At a similar time, around the 1870s, the UK began importing more wheat from Canada. The millers started using roller mills, and roller milling works well with a hard wheat with a thick bran, as the bran is easily separated from the white flour stream, Ed explains. This, combined with the rising demand for white loaves to make the sandwiches of the increasingly industrialised workforce, meant bakers were also keen on the higher protein levels of the imported wheat.

The laws of inheritance

Around 1900, the work of the monk Gregor Mendel was rediscovered. Mendel had worked on the ideas of genetics and the laws of inheritance at a similar time to Darwin, but it wasnt until the turn of the 20thcentury that this work was applied to the breeding of wheat. It was discovered that although imported Canadian grains didnt produce a good yield in our climate, they still produced high protein grain, and the newly formedPlant Breeding Institute (PBI)set about capturing this trait by crossing it with some of the British varieties.

A key part of wheat genetics is that the plant is self-pollinating, meaning the pollen from the anthers falls onto the stigma within the same flower. To cross varieties, breeders must remove the male anther part of a wheat flower before it produces pollen, then once the stigma has matured, introduce pollen from the plant they wish to cross the wheat with. This process, known as hybridisation, produces a first-generation F1 plant that will be a genetic cross of the parents. However, the next generation, an F2, will have huge diversity because of the large number of genotypes created by the hybridisation process. To produce a stable variety, multiple generations of self-pollination and careful selection of plants is required. This is the method the PBI utilised in 1916, crossing the Canadian Red Fife with a low protein British variety to produce Yeoman, a hard wheat that measured in at around 110 centimetres tall.

While this breeding improved the bread making properties of homegrown wheat, the UK was still importing much of its bread wheat a trait that continued until the 1960s when a trio of changes came into place. The first was the advent of theChorleywood Bread Process, an industrialised process that could utilise lower protein wheats. In combination with this, thePlant Varieties and Seeds Act of 1964allowed breeders to collect royalties from the seeds they bred, and the UKs entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) meant that there were tariffs on the import of Canadian wheat consequently, the use of British wheat began to increase.

The quest for higher yields

Since the 1980s, breeders of milling wheat have been increasingly focused on their largest market white sliced bread meaning that the modern varieties such as Skyfall are bred for this purpose, producing high yields, of sufficient protein levels for roller milling and the Chorleywood Bread Process.

Baker, miller and grain grower Andy Forbes points out the wider impact this had on the wheat grown: Wheat used to be tall to out compete the weeds, but if you put chemical fertiliser on it to increase the yield, theres a risk it will fall over, known as lodging. Thats one of the main reasons shorter varieties were grown, but once its shortened, the wheat doesnt shade out the weeds, so farmers started using herbicides to get rid of weeds.

One of the global figures at the heart of developing these new wheats was Norman Borlaug, who spearheaded the so called green revolution. But while the grain volume produced by his semi-dwarf crops was significantly higher, the use of nitrogen fertiliser to drive up yield, and herbicides and fungicides to manage disease, has been shown tohave an impact on soilhealth, and the genetic homogeneousness of modern wheats also means theyre highly susceptible to disease. By growing the pure line varieties, you get a high yield, but you lose the ability to adapt, Ed explains. Theyellow rustpopulation, like any other diseases, is a diverse population, so the parts of the population that can overcome the plants resistance become more dominant. But the modern wheat cant adapt because its a monoculture, so the breeders are constantly having to bring in new sources of resistance to address this. Its the breeders treadmill.

The pressure for high yielding wheats is also driven by the way the commodity market operates. Most grain in this country is sold via a trader, who acts as a middleman between farmers and buyer whether thats a flour mill, grain exporter or feed mill. The traders set the price based on the global market, taking the sale price out of farmers control. Producing a commodity means the cost of production is the only thing a farmer can reasonably expect to influence, farmer Fred Price from Gothelney Farm points out. As a price taker, this creates an inevitablebias towards increasing yield in an attempt to reduce cost of production.

Fit for purpose?

From the agroecological farmers perspective, modern wheats dont grow well in a low input, organic system; quite simply, theyre designed for a different growing system that is reliant on external inputs. Organic farmers dont have access to or want to use these chemicals, Andy explains. But they also dont have access to wheats that dont need these inputs, or that are suited to their local climate.

In a regenerative farming system, Im looking for flavour and resilience, says Fred. Andby resilience, I mean varieties that have genetic diversity and traits that put crop resources into physiological traits such as root density and crop height that buffer fluctuations in climate and pathogen pressure. These, in theory, are going to impact the yield. But there is a trade-off between resources being put into yield or traits which improve resilience:height improves weed competition, restricts fungal spread upwards through the plant, genetic diversity restricts susceptibility to particular strains of infection, and so on.

In addition, there has been an increase in demand for sourdough bread, as well as a rise in awareness about the health benefits of whole grains. But the modern wheat we grow in this country is suited to neither market. Thick branned wheat thats suitable for roller wheat is no good for stone milling, Ed points out. You want a variety with a thinner bran because all the bran is going to go in the flour. Similarly, the gluten levels in the flour will be different than those used in Chorleywood bread, meaning these flours arent ideal for sourdough baking.

Its clear our modern wheats, bred for high input farming systems and roller milling, arent suitable for agroecological farming or whole wheat baking. So, what grains should we be growing? How can we rebuild genetic diversity in our wheat? And can we re-localise our supply chains?

Photograph:Brandon Giesbrecht

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A Brief History of Wheat - Resilience

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The Galpagos Islands are famously known asthe Enchanted Islesdue to the treacherous currents and swirling mists that often cause the islands to disappear right in front of your eyes. During the colonial period, the Galpagos was sometimes considered a menacing and ominous place full of mystery. Several mysteries unfolded on Floreana, an island located in the southern end of the Archipelago with a history of love affairs and mysterious deathswhich continues to fascinate all who visit the island.

Today, Floreana is home to a community of 140 people as well as marvelous native and endemic faunaalthough this island has lost more species than any other in Galpagos. Some of the unique species found on the island include the endemic Floreana Medium Tree-finch, the endemic Galpagos Petrel, and the Galpagos Short-eared Owlthe latter being the islands only native predator.

Galpagos Short-eared Owls are considered a sub-endemic species of the Short-eared Owl found in other parts of the world. They are widely distributed among the Enchanted Isles, but the Floreana population possesses unique genetic traits not found in neighboring populations. Genetic population-level analyses have shown no evidence of owl movement from nearby Santa Cruz Island to Floreana Island, although the same analyses suggest that owl movement does occur in the opposite direction, from Floreana to Santa Cruz, but why this happens is unknown.

In addition to occasionallong-distance travel to Santa Cruz Island (34 miles), prior to our study therewere indications that Floreana owls may also travel to Isabela Island (around43 miles) on the western side of the Archipelago (birds banded on Floreanalater were observed on Isabela), adding uncertainty to the Floreana owlmovement patterns.

To date, evidence suggesting these long-distance movements have come from banding and point count studies conducted on Floreana, where the number of owls sighted at different times of the year varies greatly (from two to 40 or more). This high fluctuation may result from owls leaving the island at certain times of yearperhaps due to changes in preferred prey availability. It is known that the owls feed on Galpagos Petrel chicks on Floreana Island, observational studies indicate that their population numbers appear to increase when petrels are breeding in the highlands and decrease during the months when petrels are absent.

As on most islands around the world, and within the Enchanted Isles of Galpagos, native and endemic fauna are not alone in paradise. Invasive mammals, such as mice, rats, and feral cats are also present on Floreana and negatively impact native and endemic fauna. The Galpagos National Park Directorate, with support from Island Conservation and other partners, is working torestore the islandthrough the removal of these invasive species. This would allow the unique species of Floreana to recover and prepare the island for the reintroduction of some species that have disappeared from the island (e.g., the Floreana Giant tortoise, Mockingbird and snake species).

Before removing invasive rodents and feral cats from the island, risk to native species needed to be evaluated and managed. Therefore, in 2017 the Galpagos National Park, with support from Island Conservation and other scientists, determined that the population of Galpagos Short-eared Owls on Floreana would need to be placed in temporary captivity to minimize any risk from the operation. We also identified knowledge gaps associated with the owls ecology on the island that required additional research in order to implement this mitigation tactic.

In mid-2019, we worked to identify and resolve the movement patterns of Floreana Short-eared Owls to inform risk mitigation planning for the species during the rodent and feral cat eradication proposed for the island, and to recommend the best dates for trapping and placing owls in temporary captivity prior to the established implementation date for the eradication campaign. To obtain the required data, we walked for hours at night through vast open, often muddy areas, and through thick forests. We searched for Short-eared Owls to trap and fit with satellite transmitters utilizing a backpack fashion-like deployment.

Prior to our field work, we carried out extensive research to identify the appropriate equipment to deploy on the species, with careful consideration of their crepuscular (twilight) and nocturnal habits. The Short-eared Owls required small satellite transmitters, which are only available as solar-powered units. We also had to determine the most appropriate data transmission schedule to increase our chances of gathering the most accurate information while reducing the amount of power required to do so.

After our preparation and research, we successfully deployed four transmitters on four Short-eared Owls (females and males). The data transmitted shows fascinating movement patterns within the owl population. After deploying the transmitters in August and September, in early October one of the owls fitted with a satellite transmitter translocated itself to Isabela Island (data shows the bird spending time in an area between Cerro Azul and Sierra Negra volcanoes). So far, the other three have remained on Floreana.

We look forward to learning more from these owls and improving our understanding of their movement patterns. With this information, we will be able to develop the best protocols for ensuring the protection of this species during the invasive rodent and feral cat removal phase of this project torestore Floreana.

This article was originally published by the Galapagos Conservancy

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In Search of Galpagos Short-eared Owls on Floreana Island - Island Conservation - Island Conservation News

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Choline is a nutrient that supports various bodily functions, including cellular growth and metabolism. The body makes some choline, but the majority comes from dietary sources.

In 1998, the Institute of Medicine officially recognized choline as an essential nutrient. However, some research suggests that most people do not get enough of it.

Continue reading this article to learn more about choline, including the recommended daily intake, its sources, and how it can benefit people's overall health.

Choline is an essential nutrient that supports vital bodily functions and people's overall health. Although the body makes some choline, people need to incorporate choline-rich foods into their diet to get enough of it.

Choline supports numerous vital bodily functions, including:

Choline exists as both water-soluble and fat-soluble molecules. The body transports and absorbs choline differently depending on its form.

Water-soluble choline molecules go to the liver, where the body converts them into a type of fat called lecithin.

Fat-soluble choline usually comes from dietary sources, so the body absorbs it in the gastrointestinal tract.

Choline supports several vital bodily functions and may offer a wide range of other health benefits, such as:

Choline is an essential nutrient for brain development.

In one observational study of 2,195 participants aged 7074 years, those with higher choline levels had better cognitive functioning than participants with low choline levels.

Another observational study from 2019 found that inadequate levels of choline, vitamin C, and zinc were associated with poorer working memory in older men.

The authors of a 2018 study found an association between higher dietary intakes of choline and a lower risk of ischemic stroke.

The study looked at nearly 4,000 African American participants, with an average 9 year follow-up period.

Some research has shown that choline plays a role in metabolizing fats.

The authors of a small 2014 study found that female athletes who took choline supplements had lower body mass indexes (BMIs) and leptin levels than the control group. Leptin is a hormone that controls body fat.

Choline can affect fetal development and may influence pregnancy outcomes. In one 2013 study, for example, women in their third trimester of pregnancy received either 480 milligrams (mg) or 930 mg of choline per day.

Those who took higher doses had reduced markers of preeclampsia. Symptoms of preeclampsia include high blood pressure, swelling, and severe headaches.

One 2018 study found that choline supplementation improved lung function and reduced symptoms of fatty liver disease in 10 adult males with cystic fibrosis.

The precise amount of choline a person needs depends on the following factors:

The following table lists the estimated adequate intakes (AI) for choline based on age, biological sex, and pregnancy and lactation status:

However, most people do not meet the recommended AIs for choline.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, males aged 2059 consume an average of 406421 mg of choline per day, while females in the same age group consume around 290303 mg per day.

Pregnant women, those who are lactating, and people who have genetic alterations that increase the body's demand for choline may also have a higher risk of choline deficiency.

Although some people believe that vegetarians and vegans may be at risk of choline deficiencies, there is only mixed evidence to support this.

In fact, some of the foods with the highest choline content include soybeans, potatoes, and mushrooms. Eating a nutritious diet that focuses on whole foods should be enough to prevent deficiency.

Choline deficiency can contribute to the following health conditions:

Although choline deficiencies can lead to adverse health effects, too much choline can also cause problems, including:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provide the following upper intake levels for choline based on age:

People can get choline from various dietary sources. Infants require lots of choline during the first few months of life, most of which they get from breast milk or fortified formula.

After infanthood, most people get choline from their diet.

Dietary sources of choline include:

Some multivitamins and dietary supplements, as well as prepackaged and fortified foods, may contain choline in the form of lecithin.

People can also find supplements that contain only choline. The exact amount of available choline varies, so it is vital that people read labels before taking any dietary supplements.

Choline supplements are available in pharmacies, health food stores, and online.

Healthcare professionals can test a person's choline levels by taking a blood sample and looking at how much choline is present.

However, the authors of one 2018 article state that different testing procedures can affect the choline concentration in blood samples.

For this reason, blood tests may not be a good indicator of whether or not a person is getting enough choline.

Choline is an essential nutrient that regulates vital bodily functions, such as forming cell membranes and aiding communication between neurons.

The body does not produce enough choline on its own, so people need to get it from food sources, such as meat, eggs, and vegetables.

Current scientific studies suggest that choline may improve memory and cognition and reduce the risk of ischemic stroke.

Choline supports brain development and growth in newborn babies. Research also suggests that choline may reduce the risk of preeclampsia and congenital irregularities.

Though the recommended intake for choline is relatively low (125550 mg per day), most people do not get enough.

Choline deficiency can cause muscle and liver disease and contribute to cardiovascular disease, dementia, and neural tube irregularities in infants.

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Sherrie Wallington, an assistant professor of nursing, will study why black female D.C. residents screened for breast cancer dont pursue follow-up treatment with a grant from the Children's National Hospital.

A nursing professor received a $50,000 grant to study breast cancer mortality rates among black women in D.C., according to a release on the nursing school website last week.

The Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Childrens National Hospital awarded Sherrie Wallington, an assistant professor of nursing, a grant to study why black female D.C. residents screened for breast cancer dont pursue follow-up treatment. Breast cancer mortality experts said black women face financial pressures, like requesting time off from work and access to transportation to health care facilities, which could lead to disparities in breast cancer mortality.

Women are coming in to get screened and then, after diagnosis, were somehow losing them, Wallington said in the release. Theyre not coming back for recommended treatment or follow-up.

The research team will begin conducting focus groups and reviewing electronic health data of cancer treatment outcomes this June, according to the release. Wallington said in the release that she hopes to gain insight into why breast cancer mortality rates are higher among black women, despite the fact that white women are 20 percent less likely to undergo breast cancer screenings.

This study may tease out factors that impede women from coming back to seek the recommended treatment after theyve been diagnosed, Wallington said in the release.

Wallington was not available for comment.

Breast cancer mortality experts said economic barriers could contribute to why black women dont receive recommended follow-up treatments.

Lucio Miele, department head of the Department of Genetics at Louisiana State University, said making time to receive follow-up treatments and getting to and from appointments are problems that black women experience disproportionately to other populations and could keep them from attending follow-up appointments after the initial screening.

For instance, to get radiation therapy you need to be able to show up for your treatments, and if you cant because youre working or because you dont have money for transportation, then youre not going to be compliant with radiation therapy, Miele said.

He said researchers should take an interdisciplinary approach involving experts in biostatistics, epidemiology and clinical data analysis to study breast cancer mortality rates because several factors could contribute to the racial disparity in mortality rates.

Its actually a group of multiple diseases that are heterogeneous, both in terms of the types of genetic lesions that these tumors have and in terms of response to treatment and prognosis, so you cant lump everything under one category, he said.

Christopher Louis, an assistant professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University, said researchers should use several methods like health data analyses, surveys and patient interviews to gain a comprehensive understanding of why black women face higher breast cancer mortality rates.

He said late-stage cancer diagnoses and lower screening rates could put black women at a higher risk of mortality than other populations. Louis said factors like transportation expenses and insurance costs, which black women face at higher rates than other populations, could contribute to why some black women typically dont go to their doctors for follow-up treatments.

A 2018 study from the American Cancer Society found that a lack of private and Medicare insurance and unfavorable tumor characteristics were the most important factors contributing to disparities in breast cancer mortality rates.

Some women lack trust in clinicians or health care providers, costs of care and transportation issues are among the most commonly referenced reasons for a lack of follow-up after a positive screening for breast cancer, he said in an email.

John Cawley, a professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University, said researchers have proven that black women face higher rates of breast cancer mortality than other populations but have not agreed on a clear reason for the disparity.

Whats needed is research that better explains why these disparities exist and gives us better information about how to address them, how to reduce them, he said.

This article appeared in the November 25, 2019 issue of the Hatchet.

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Nursing professor conducts research on breast cancer mortality rates - GW Hatchet

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Its hard to imagine an animal with giant in its name going unnoticed for decades. But two such species make our list of near missescreatures once believed to be gone forever. (Most species considered extinct arent so lucky.)

Here are the tales of eight underdogs that clawed, buzzed, and scampered their way back onto the radar:

With rounded ears, a short muzzle, and big, dark eyes, the black-footed ferret is the only ferret species native to North Americaand its downright adorable. Perhaps surprisingly, this once-presumed-extinct animal owes its recovery to a dog named Shep, an unlikely ally that helped saved the species by killing one of its members.

In the early 1900s, black-footed ferret numbers plummeted when grassland habitats in the western U.S. were converted to farmland. In addition to habitat loss, this change led to severe declines in the ferrets favorite food: prairie dogs. Several infectious diseases, including sylvatic (bubonic) plague, which ferrets contract from infected prairie dog prey, also hit the species hard. Because black-footed ferrets are found only in North America, declines in the U.S. meant the dwindling of the entire global population.

By 1979, these fuzzy carnivores were considered extinct.

But just two years later, in 1981, Shep brought a dead black-footed ferret home to her owners, Lucille and John Hogg, a pair of Wyoming cattle ranchers. The Hoggs then took the ferret to their local taxidermist, who confirmed its identity.

Conservationists soon found the remnant population on a nearby ranch and brought the 18 survivors into captivity to help increase their numbers. Today, thanks to careful captive breeding and strategic releases, about 300 to 400 black-footed ferrets scamper about North America.

A New Zealand storm-petrel sails over the sea. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Aviceda

With nearly 100 different species of seabirds breeding on its shores and islands, New Zealand is sometimes called the Seabird Capital of the World. But habitat loss and predation by invasive mammals have caused the nations seabird numbers to plummet.

For the entire twentieth century, there was not a single recorded observation of a New Zealand storm-petrela species only known to science because of three specimens collected in the nineteenth centuryand so it was presumed extinct. (The New Zealand storm-petrel is one of about two-dozen storm-petrel species.) The situation shifted in 2003, when birders photographed a member of the long-lost storm-petrel species. Two years later, one of these sparrow-sized birds flew onto the boat of a conservation ranger-turned-fisher who was able to identify the species.

With these two encounters assuring scientists that the storm-petrels were out there, Chris Gaskin, a founding member of the Northern New Zealand Seabird Trust, and his collaborators spent years trying to find more of them and figure out where they nest.

The birds are small, nocturnal, and spend most of their lives at seaall of which made them difficult to track down. They largely eluded the scientists until 2013, when Gaskin and his team finally found a nesting site. Theyve since captured 400 birds, but Gaskin believes there could be a few thousand alive. Still, the storm-petrels situation remains precarious, Gaskin says, since the team only knows of a single site where they breed and nest. Chances are theyre on other islands, Gaskin says. We just havent discovered them.

The worlds biggest bee seems like it would be hard to overlook. But following heavy deforestation in its native habitatthe North Molucca Islands in IndonesiaWallaces giant bee went missing for nearly 40 years.

Dwarfing your average honeybee, Wallaces giant bee has enormous mandibles (jaws) and a 2.5-inch wingspanabout the width of a tennis ball. The species was named for its discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist and entomologist, who published a joint paper with Charles Darwin in 1858 arguing the theory of evolution through natural selection. Aside from Wallaces first identification, the only other recorded sighting of this outsize insect occurred in 1981 when entomologist Adam Messer collected a few specimens. Wallaces giant bee then went MIA until earlier this year.

In January 2019, a search team found a single female. The teams photographs and videos are the first-ever documentation of a live specimen of Wallace's giant bee.

Because species this rare can become targets for collectors, Simon Robinson, an Australian biologist on the trip, told Douglas Quenqua at The New York Times that he and his team are keeping the exact location of their discovery quiet. They hope they can learn more about this ultra-rare species and how to help its numbers buzz back.

The Fernandina giant tortoise was extinct for more than 100 years. But on February 17, 2019, researchers found one. Washington Tapia, director of the Galpagos Conservancys Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative, and his team discovered the female tortoise on the island of Fernandina in the Galapagos, the first of her kind spotted since 1906.

The team had found a clue suggesting the species still roamed Fernandina Island several years prior. In 2015, Galpagos National Park ranger Jeffreys Malaga and Charles Darwin Foundation researcher Patricia Jaramillo spotted feces they believed belonged to the species. Because Fernandina Island is an active volcano, its terrain is challenging to navigate, so it took Tapia years to finally track down the poo-producing (or so he presumes) tortoise. She is now the only known survivor of her kind.

But, based on tracks found it the area, it looks like there may be more Fernandina giant tortoises out there. It created hope for people to know conservation is possible and that changing human activities is necessary for it to continue, Tapia told National Geographic. This female is estimated to be 100 years old, but she could live to be 200. If more tortoises are found, she could have another century to breed and help her species rebound.

The crested gecko is now one of the most popular species of lizard in the reptile pet trade. Image Credit: Sukee Bennett, WGBH

The crested gecko is unique in many ways. It can lick its own eyeballs and use electromagnetism to stick to walls. Its coloration and scale patterns vary wildly between individuals, and it has a spiky fringe that fans out above its eyes, earning it the nickname eyelash gecko. It also has the distinction of going unseen by humans longer than any other species on this list.

After its identification in 1866 by a French zoologist named Alphone Guichenot, the crested gecko was not seen again for nearly 130 years. In 1994, this little reptile, which at around 35 grams weighs about the same as 7 nickels, was rediscovered. During an expedition led by German herpetologist Robert Seipp, scientists found the crested gecko on its native islands of New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific.

Soon after the crested geckos reemergence, several live specimens were collected on the islands and brought to Europe and the United States for research. Some specimens were also bred in captivity. While the export of crested geckos from the wild is now prohibited, captive breeding has been very successful: This species is now one of the most commonly owned pet lizards in the world.

Its not just fauna that sometimes reappear on our radar. Some plants only grow in incredibly remote locations, meaning its difficult for humans to know if theyre still around.

One such plant, a hibiscus relative known as Hibiscadelphus woodii, wasrediscovered in January 2019 on a remote cliff in the Kalalau Valley in Kauai, Hawaii: It wasnt spotted by an extreme expeditioner, but rather a drone surveying the cliff face. The found specimen was not flowering, but its species produces bright yellow blooms that transform to purple over time.

First discovered by botanist Kenneth R. Wood and his colleagues in 1991, this hibiscus relative was listed as presumed extinct in 2016 after seven years without a single sighting. Until, that is, a team of researchers flew a drone to scour the hidden ridges deep within the Kalalau Valley. They captured images of a shrub that resembled H. woodii peeking out of the steep rocks that line the Kalalau Valley. This location is home to many threatened plant species, but because they grow so far down on the steep cliff, they are largely inaccessible.

Though researchers were unable to reach the plant by hiking or rappelling, in February, drones once again helped them confirm the sighting. Now, drones may even be sent back into the valley to collect clippings that scientists could use to learn more about the plant, and potentially help it recover by growing cuttings in a greenhouse.

Ben Nyberg, who worked with National Tropical Botanical Garden on this rediscovery project, told Zo Schlanger at Quartz this is the first instance he knows of in which a drone was used to rediscover a presumably extinct plant species.

A Takah sports an antenna so that scientists can monitor its movements. Data like this can better help researchers protect endangered species. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, russellstreet

Along with its namesake storm-petrel, New Zealand is home to another bird that famously surprised scientists with its reemergence: the takah. Like most birds in New Zealand, takah numbers were hit hard when Polynesian voyagers, and then European settlers, introduced rats, stoats, possums, and other predators to a country with no native land mammals.

Faced with a host of new threats, nearly 60 of New Zealands bird species went extinctand for about 50 years the large, flightless takah was believed to be among them.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, its iridescent blue and green feathers were scarcely seen. But in 1948, driven by promising tracks and photographs, an expedition set out to see if any takah had somehow survived. Physician Geoffrey Orbell and his team uncovered a small population of the birds in the remote Murchison Mountains, to the delight of the nation.

Scientists still dont understand how this population escaped predation. But they have since helped takah numbers increase through captive breeding and release onto pest-free islands and fenced-in sanctuaries cleared of mammalian predators. Today, there are approximately 350 takah in New Zealand.

A Lord Howe stick insect at the Melbourne Museum in Melbourne, Australia. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Peter Halasz

Nicknamed the tree lobster, the Lord Howe stick insect is about the size of a human hand. It inhabits Lord Howe Island, about 350 miles off Australias east coast. And like many island-dwelling species, the Lord Howe stick insect was no match for rats, which invaded the island when a ship crashed nearby in 1918. Just a few years later, the insects were difficult to find. In 1960, experts declared them extinct.

Unlike the other species on this list, the reemergence of the Lord Howe stick insect came down to genetics. In 2001, scientists found similar-looking stick insects on nearby islands. They looked different enough, though, that many experts doubted they could be tree lobsters.

To find out, scientists sequenced the genome of the newly discovered insects (a massive genome about 25 percent larger than the human genome) and found that the variation was small enough for them to be considered the same species. Scientists have since bred more from this population. They hope to one day reintroduce the tree lobster to Lord Howe Islandif theyre able to reduce or eliminate invasive rat populations.

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Scientists use animals and technology to rediscover eight extinct species | NOVA - NOVA Next

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As Black Thanksgiving quickly approaches, it may be necessary for some people who are unfamiliar with this holiday to understand the black genealogy. In black culture, the family dynamic is not dictated by genetics, DNA or blood. Instead, much like race, family is a social construct.

To help our readers understand this subject, we assembled a team of experts to rank the importance of black family members. Our panel included a geneticist (although he isnt licensed, he has watched more episodes of Maury than anyone on earth), a Ph.D. student (Phil da Emcee, a who is studying Meghan Thee Stallions Knees) and Louisa Perkins, a board-certified babysitter.

While subject to individual variations, this familial hierarchy determines everything from funeral seat placement to Thanksgiving plate fixing. Here are the top 10 family members in descending order

As we mentioned earlier, familial status is not determined by blood. In black communities, all pastors are considered members of the family. To be clear, pastors, are different from preachers because anyone can be a preacher but a family pastor is passed down through generations. Even if a family doesnt attend a church, they are assigned a pastor by the ancestors. When introducing oneself at black gatherings, one must always mention ones pastor.

One of the reasons pastors are considered family members is because they keep their position even after death. My grandfather died before I was born, but he is still my grandfather. Similarly, I havent attended church in years, but my pastor is still Bishop R.O. Johnson, who passed away in 1989.

As one of the greatest uncles in African-American history, I am qualified to say that nephews are slightly more bothersome, but not less important than nieces. Nephews are bad as fuck and they require you to do shit. I had to wrestle with my nephews, teach them how to ride a bike and show them how to use a socket wrench.

Nieces, on the other hand, are easy. As long as you buy them shit, let them ride in the front seat and pretend their boring-ass tea parties are interesting, they are cool. When my niece turned 6, I took her to the mall and let her ride the escalators. She still talks about that shit all the time.

I can uncle like a motherfucker

Not to be confused with siblings, these are people whose Holy Ghost credentials has elevated them to special titles. Even if they dont attend your church, everyone knows at least one head deacon or usher board president who everyone in the neighborhood refers to as Sister Wilma or Brother Jay.

Sisters have some of the best selections of pocketbook candy one can find and always have a real handkerchief in their purse. Brothers always have a lot of shit in their wallet and can fix a lawnmower in a three-piece suit. Sisters and brothers only listen to gospel music, usually on a.m. radio. These are the proverbial prayer warriors. They are the source of 73 percent of prayers in the black community.

They fucking love Joe Biden.

To qualify as a playcousin, one must live within one-quarter mile of the family home and should also be granted carte blanche spend-the-night privileges. playcousins can go in your refrigerator and if they are at your house at dinnertime, they eat, too.

These are your real sisters and brothers, although it is still not determined by DNA. In black families, there is only one kind of sibling while Caucasian families have multiple varieties. I still dont understand the difference between a step-sister, a half-brother and a regular sibling but thats white people shit. Ive only known one black stepsister in my life, my next-door neighbor who, along with her older sibling Stephanie, also qualified as a playcousin.

If you asked her her name, shed always say:

Im Steps sister.

Uncles are the male siblings of your mother or father; the male friends of your mother or father; or any relative more than 20 years older than you. Therefore, in black families, a 42-year-old nephew of a 12-year-old is technically the younger childs uncle. Uncles are skilled in alternator repair, can shine shoes with spit and are the only family members allowed to light a barbecue grill.

All uncles have chest hair.

Periodt.

Aunts rank higher than uncles simply because they are responsible for:

Contrary to popular belief, cousins are not the same as playcousins. A playcousin could elevate themselves to a real cousin but a blood cousin can never be demoted. And according to the Black Bylaws, cousins are required to fight for all coequal cousins, regardless of fault or blame.

What kind of white nonsense is this cousin-ranking bullshit? There is just one level of black cousins. I dont even know what a second cousin is, much less a third cousin, once removed? Who removes their cousins? Where are they removed from and why?

My female cousin once broke up with a guy because he disparaged another cousin. Then she keyed his car. Then the rest of her girl cousins jumped him. They were definitely wrong, but they were legally right according to Article I, Section 4 of the Cousin Constitution.

Look, I dont make the rules.

The importance of parents is understood, but in black culture, a grandmother can also be a mama and a grandfather can be a daddy if they raised the child. There are daddies who are uncles and aunts who are mamas. If two children are childhood friends for more than 10 years, the parents of the children become each mutual mamas and daddies. In fact, even before America acknowledged same-sex relationships, a lot of children in black communities grew up with two mamas.

They rank No. 1. These are the ancestors, the prayer-givers, the babysitters and the backbone of the black family.

When you get in trouble, a grandmother is the lawyer who petitions your parents for leniency. I dont quite know how this works, but all grandmothers are born with an unabridged Bible, a full arsenal of seasonings and two shawls. Grandmothers love shawls and high beds. Their mattresses must be, on average, 11 feet off the ground and covered by a fitted sheet, a top sheet, a blanket, a quilt, a cover and a comforter.

Grandfathers know shit. They know how to fish, fix plumbing and they know the shortcut to everywhereeven places they have never beenbut they only know the former names of the road. If a street is named David Jenkins Memorial Boulevard, your grandfather still calls it Old Canton Road. Grandfathers are immune to gluten and like their bacon fried hard.

These familial names are very important and you can only understand them if you live in the black community.

For instance, my mother raised her niece, Nikey, since birth, so Nikey calls my mother mama. So, even though, in white genealogy, Im Nikeys second cousin, Im her brother in blackology, which makes her son, who is my second cousin, my nephew (who I had to teach how to ride a bike in 95-degree weather). My mothers sister, Marvell, is not Nikeys aunt. Thats her grandmama. And her grandmother. Nikeys great-grandmother, who is my grandmother, died. She was also Nikeys grandmama. Her name was Marvell, too.

See how it works?

Read the original:
Family Members, Ranked - The Root

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith