The research is important because small mammals such as the western spotted skunk face major threats from human-induced land use change, said Marie Tosa, who as an Oregon State University graduate student spent 2½ years studying the skunks. Her findings provide data to shape future skunk monitoring efforts and identify threats they face.

The western spotted skunk, which typically weighs 1 to 2 pounds and is about the size of a squirrel, is smaller than the striped skunk that is common in urban environments.

“The easiest way to describe them is a tube sock,” said Tosa, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State. “They’re a black and white tube sock. They are mostly black but they have white spots all over them. They have this giant white spot on their forehead. And they’re really, really adorable.”

The western spotted skunk prefers more undisturbed habitat, such as mountainous areas, and is nocturnal, so it is rarely seen. Yet it lives in areas from New Mexico to British Columbia and California to Colorado

“For such an abundant carnivore in these forests, we don’t really know anything about them,” said Taal Levi, an associate professor at Oregon State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and advisor to Tosa. “This project was trying to figure out more about them: trying to learn about their natural history; what they do in these forests; what do they need; how do they influence the ecosystem that they are in.”

Tosa, Levi and Damon Lesmeister of the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station in Corvallis studied the western spotted skunk in part because of what happened to the eastern spotted skunk, which lives in the central and southeastern United States.

The population of that species declined about 90% between 1940 and 1950 and by 99% by 1980. It is now listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and was considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

“Habitat loss is believed to be a factor in the population decline, but the reasons are not well understood because the species was not well studied prior to or during the decline,” said Lesmeister, who conducted research on the eastern spotted skunk in the 2000s.

Tosa conducted her research from 2017 to 2019 in the H.G. Andrews Experimental Forest, a nearly 16,000-acre research forest about an hour east of Eugene. The landscape is steep, with hills and deep valleys and elevation ranges from 1,350 to 5,340 feet.

That landscape made finding and tracking skunks difficult. Tosa started by setting trail cameras with sardines and cat food as bait to lure the skunks. Camera images gave her a general sense of where the skunks were and informed where she placed box traps, which she also baited and camouflaged with burlap, moss and bark.

She then spent hundreds of days driving thousands of miles to check more than 100 cameras and 50 to 100 traps.

When she found a skunk in a trap, she would carefully open it up, secure the animal, tranquilize it to temporarily sedate it and place a radio collar on it. This inevitably led to being sprayed. She estimates she was sprayed 50 to 100 times.

She said the spray smells like really strong raw garlic. Her method to remove the smell? A paste of hydrogen peroxide, Dawn dish soap and baking soda.

Once collared, she could use radio telemetry day and night to locate and track the skunks’ movement.

With that data, she determined that the skunks have a home range up to 12 square miles. That far exceeds similar size mammals and even deer, which have a home range of less than one-half of a square mile. She thinks the skunks are covering so much ground because of limited food resources.

Other findings included:

• The skunks appear to like old growth forests and younger forests. The younger forests are likely appealing because they contain more food, such as berries and small mammals.
• Skunks are vulnerable to winter weather, particularly cold temperatures and accumulated snow. This was particularly evident during a heavy snow event in February 2019.
• Skunks were distributed across 63% of the study area with highly overlapping home ranges, indicating a lack of territoriality.

Tosa’s field research concluded before three wildfires burned in the forest during the past four years. She speculated that the skunks are likely well adapted to fire and is interested in conducting a post-fire study of the skunks.

The research findings were recently published in Ecosphere.

The three groups of bonobos have been living separately in different regions in Central Africa for tens of thousands of years, according to the study published in Current Biology by an international research team co-led by UCL, University of Vienna, and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology scientists.

Using genetic tests, the researchers confirmed previous evidence suggesting that there are three distinct groups of bonobos, originating in central, western, and far-western regions of the bonobo range. By quantifying the differences between these groups, the research team found that they can be as different from one another as the most closely-related chimpanzee subspecies.

Bonobos, commonly seen as the peace-loving primate, are, together with chimpanzees, the closest living relatives to humans as our genomes differ from theirs in only 1% of genetic bases.

The bonobo is endangered, with about 20,000 individuals alive in the wild, and are the most understudied great ape as they live exclusively in the Congo Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where social unrest has constrained research activities.

Joint first author Dr Sojung Han (University of Vienna, Austria, and Institut de Biologia Evolutiva, Spain) said: “Bonobos are a fascinating species, very closely related to humans, with unique patterns of social behaviour. They live in tight social groups which, despite some conflicts, are markedly peaceful and egalitarian. Interestingly, males stay in their birth social group while females migrate across groups, but females still form close alliances and can have higher dominance than males.”

The research team analysed the genomic data of 30 bonobos born in the wild but now living in captivity. They sequenced the exomes (the protein-coding part of the genome) of 20 individuals living in an African sanctuary and analysed the full genomes of 10 other bonobos. While they could not always be certain what region of the Congo basin each bonobo had originated in, the researchers cross-referenced their dataset with previously published mitochondrial DNA data collected from 136 wild bonobos to paint a fuller picture of genetic diversity across the animal’s range.

The researchers estimated that the central group diverged from the other two groups 145,000 years ago, with the two western groups diverging 60,000 years ago, with little mixing between the groups ever since.

Lead author Professor Aida Andrés (UCL Genetics Institute) said: “Bonobos may be even more vulnerable than previously thought, as their population actually consists of at least three smaller populations, some of which may historically have been amongst the smallest across similar primates.

“In order to survive, every species needs sufficient genetic diversity to adapt to a changing environment, and for bonobos, losing one of these three groups would be a devastating loss to the total genetic diversity of the species. It is vital that all three groups of bonobos are conserved in order to protect this fascinating and charismatic species.”

The researchers say the differences between the bonobo groups should be further studied and considered in conservation efforts when planning efforts such as habitat preservation, translocations or potential reintroductions in case individuals are adapted to specific environments.

Dr Sojung Han said: “Unlike modern humans, who are spread all over the world, bonobos are limited to the Congo basin, but our work shows that there are indeed genetic differences between groups. This is exciting, and it will be very interesting to study, in the future, if there are any differential adaptations among these groups.”

Joint first author Dr Cesare de Filippo (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany) said: “This work demonstrates how studying the genomes of endangered species can help better understand their populations and eventually aid conservation efforts. Even the genomes of captive individuals can help us, sometimes, understand their wild populations. Our findings show he vulnerability of bonobos as an endangered species, and stress the need to protect their environment to ensure their conservation.”

The research was supported by Wellcome and the Max Planck Society, and involved researchers based in the UK, Austria, Germany, Spain, Denmark, and Israel.

The largest spacecraft NASA ever built for a mission headed to another planet, Europa Clipper also is the first NASA mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assists, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026. After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times.

“Congratulations to our Europa Clipper team for beginning the first journey to an ocean world beyond Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA leads the world in exploration and discovery, and the Europa Clipper mission is no different. By exploring the unknown, Europa Clipper will help us better understand whether there is the potential for life not just within our solar system, but among the billions of moons and planets beyond our Sun.”

Approximately five minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s second stage fired up and the payload fairing, or the rocket’s nose cone, opened to reveal Europa Clipper. About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket. Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established at 1:13 p.m. with NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. Mission teams celebrated as initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper is in good health and operating as expected.

“We could not be more excited for the incredible and unprecedented science NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will deliver in the generations to come,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper’s scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter — including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager — created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”

The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of our own Moon, but its interior is different. Information from NASA’s Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.

If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than imagined.

“We’re ecstatic to send Europa Clipper on its way to explore a potentially habitable ocean world, thanks to our colleagues and partners who’ve worked so hard to get us to this day,” said Laurie Leshin, director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Europa Clipper will undoubtedly deliver mind-blowing science. While always bittersweet to send something we’ve labored over for years off on its long journey, we know this remarkable team and spacecraft will expand our knowledge of our solar system and inspire future exploration.”

In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa. Coming as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) to the surface, Europa Clipper is equipped with nine science instruments and a gravity experiment, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water. As the most sophisticated suite of science instruments NASA has ever sent to Jupiter, they will work in concert to learn more about the moon’s icy shell, thin atmosphere, and deep interior.

To power those instruments in the faint sunlight that reaches Jupiter, Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays NASA has ever used for an interplanetary mission. With arrays extended, the spacecraft spans 100 feet (30.5 meters) from end to end. With propellant loaded, it weighs about 13,000 pounds (5,900 kilograms).

In all, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper mission since it was formally approved in 2015.

“As Europa Clipper embarks on its journey, I’ll be thinking about the countless hours of dedication, innovation, and teamwork that made this moment possible,” said Jordan Evans, project manager, NASA JPL. “This launch isn’t just the next chapter in our exploration of the solar system; it’s a leap toward uncovering the mysteries of another ocean world, driven by our shared curiosity and continued search to answer the question, ‘are we alone?'”

More About Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Find more information about NASA’s Europa Clipper mission here:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/

Protein degrader molecules are heralding a revolution in drug discovery, with more than 50 drugs of this type currently being tested in clinical trials for patients with diseases for which no other options exist.

The Centre for Targeted Protein Degradation (CeTPD) at the University of Dundee is one of the world’s leading centres for research into how protein degraders work and how they can most effectively be put to use for a new generation of drugs.

Now researchers have revealed previously invisible levels of detail and understanding of how the protein degraders work, which in turn is allowing for even more targeted use of them at the molecular level.

PhD student Charlotte Crowe, together with Dr Mark Nakasone, Senior Postdoctoral Scientist at CeTPD, used a technique called cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), which enables scientists to see how biomolecules move and interact with each other.

This works by flash-freezing proteins and using a focused electron beam and a high-resolution camera to generate millions of 2D images of the protein. They then used sophisticated software and artificial intelligence (AI) models which allowed them to generate 3D snapshots of the degrader drugs working in action.

Their latest research is published in the journal Science Advances and is expected to constitute a landmark contribution to research in the field of TPD and ubiquitin mechanisms.

“We have reached a level of detail where we can see how these protein degraders work and can be deployed [to recruit the disease-causing protein ] and target the ‘bull’s eye’, in molecular terms,” said Charlotte Crowe, who carried out the research together with a wider team of Dundee researchers.

“Protein degrader molecules work in a way that is fundamentally different from the way conventional drugs work. However, until recently the exact details of how this process works at the molecular level had remained elusive.

“Proteins are typically a few nanometres large, which is 1 billionth of a metre, or 1 millionth of the width of a hair. So being able to ‘see’ them in action has not been possible, up until now.

“We have now been able to build a moving image of how it all happens, which means we can more specifically control the process with an incredible level of detail.”

Professor Alessio Ciulli, Director of CeTPD and one of the world leaders in the field of targeted protein degradation, said, “This is incredibly exciting work and opens up the possibility of even more effectively targeted drugs able to finally treat some diseases which up until now have been too difficult to tackle.”

How it works

Proteins are essential for our cells to function properly, but when these do not work correctly they can cause disease.

Targeted protein degradation involves redirecting protein recycling systems in our cells to destroy the disease-causing proteins.

Protein degraders work by capturing the disease-causing protein and making it stick like a glue to the cellular protein-recycling machinery, which then tags the protein as expired in order to destroy it.

The tag is a small protein called ubiquitin, which effectively gets fired at the disease-causing protein like a bullet. In order for the process to work effectively, ubiquitin must hit the right spots on the target protein so that it gets tagged effectively. The new work by the Dundee team enables them to see how the bullet hits the proverbial bull’s eye.

Working with a protein degrader molecule called MZ1, which was developed in the Ciulli laboratory at Dundee, and using high-end mass spectrometry, they were able to identify exactly where on the target protein the vital ‘tags’ are added.

The work shows how degrader drugs hold onto and position disease-causing proteins, making them good targets for receiving ubiquitin molecules (ie. “ubiquitin-atable”) which then leads to their destruction inside the cell.

Protein degradation efficiency and productivity is dependent on the degrader molecule’s ability to hold tight onto the disease-causing protein, and in a position where it can most effectively act. This latest research paints a bull’s eye and holds it steady enough for the molecule to be accurately targeted.

Professor Ciulli said this and other recently published papers were contributing to rapid development of an exciting field of science and drug discovery.

“This rapidly expanding field is fascinating and complementary articles on how this cellular protein-recycling machinery works to fire ubiquitin molecules at target proteins were recently published by the laboratories of biochemists Brenda Schulman (Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry) and Gary Kleiger (University of Nevada, Las Vegas).

“Our collective work provides a leap forward in understanding that will accelerate development of new TPD drugs in future.”