The study looked at data from 4,711 COVID-19 patients who were admitted to Montefiore during the six-week period between March 1, 2020 and April 16, 2020. Of those patients, 581 (12%) had neurological problems serious enough to warrant brain imaging. These individuals were compared with 1,743 non-neurological COVID-19 patients of similar age and disease severity who were admitted during the same period.

“This study is the first to show that the presence of neurological symptoms, particularly stroke and confused or altered thinking, may indicate a more serious course of illness, even when pulmonary problems aren’t severe,” said David Altschul, M.D., chief of the division of neurovascular surgery at Einstein and Montefiore and associate professor in the Leo M. Davidoff Department of Neurological Surgery and of radiology at Einstein. “Hospitals can use this knowledge to prioritize treatment and, hopefully, save more lives during this pandemic.”

Among people who underwent brain imaging, 55 were diagnosed with stroke and 258 people exhibited confusion or altered thinking ability. Individuals with stroke were twice as likely to die (49% mortality) compared with their matched controls (24% mortality) — a statistically significant difference. People with confusion had a 40% mortality rate compared with 33% for their matched controls — also statistically significant.

More than half the stroke patients in the study did not have hypertension or other underlying risk factors for stroke. “This highly unusual finding agrees with other studies of people with COVID-19 in suggesting that infection with the novel coronavirus is itself a risk factor for stroke,” said Dr. Altschul, who is also surgical director of the Montefiore Comprehensive Center for Stroke Care, and the study co- author, along with Emad Eskandar, M.D., M.B.A., chair of neurological surgery at Einstein and Montefiore, professor in the Leo M. Davidoff Department of Neurological Surgery, the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience at Einstein. Dr. Eskandar also holds the Jeffrey P. Bergstein Chair and the David B. Keidan Chair in Neurological Surgery.

The paper is titled, “Neurologic Syndromes Predict Higher In-Hospital Mortality in COVID-19.” The senior author was Mark Mehler, M.D., professor and chair of the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology at Einstein and Montefiore, professor of neuroscience and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, director of the Institute for Brain Disorders and Neural Regeneration, and the Alpern Family Foundation Chair in Cerebral Palsy Research.

Charles Esenwa, M.D., assistant professor of neurology, and Daniel Labovitz, M.D., associate professor of neurology and of medicine, played a major role in selecting participants for the study.

Additional Einstein-Montefiore authors are: Rafael de La Garza Ramos, M.D., Phillip Cezayirli, M.D., Santiago R Unda, M.D., Joshua Benton, B.A., Joseph Dardick, B.A., Aureliana Toma, M.D., Nikunj Patel, B.A., Avinash Malaviya, B.A., M.S., David Flomenbaum, B.S., Jenelys Fernandez-Torres, B.A., Jenny Lu, B.A., Ryan Holland, M.D., Elisabetta Burchi, M.D., Richard Zampolin, M.D., Kevin Hsu, M.D., Andrew McClelland, M.D., Judah Burns, M.D., Amichai Erdfarb, M.D., Rishi Malhotra, M.D., Michelle Gong, M.D., Peter Semczuk, D.D.S., M.P.H., Victor Ferastraoaru, M.D., Jillian Rosengard, M.D., Daniel Antoniello, M.D., Mark Milstein, M.D., and Alexis Boro, M.D

This hellish ecosystem — where breathing alone could be lethal for most of us — seems to have finally crowned its king. At a size of between 46 and 52 mm in length, the centipede Cryptops speleorex is the largest of the cave’s inhabitants known to date. The new species is described in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal ZooKeys.

Already isolated from the outside world several millions years ago during the Neogene, the Movile cave has been drawing the attention of scientists ever since its unexpected discovery in 1986 by Romanian workers, searching for locations suitable for building a power plant in the southeastern parts of the country.

Surprisingly enough, despite its harsh living conditions, the Movile ecosystem was soon found to harbor a diverse and unique fauna, characterised by exceptional species endemism and specific trophic links. So far, the cave has been known to give home to the troglobiont water scorpion, liocranid and nesticid spiders, cave leeches and certainly many more yet to be discovered.

In fact, it was long thought that this unique underground ecosystem was also inhabited by surface-dwelling species widespread in Europe. Convinced that this scenario is highly unlikely, scientists Dr Varpu Vahtera (University of Turku, Finland), Prof Pavel Stoev (National Museum of Natural History, Bulgaria) and Dr Nesrine Akkari (Museum of Natural History Vienna, Austria) decided to examine a curious centipede, collected by speleologists Serban Sarbu and Alexandra Maria Hillebrand, during their recent expedition to Movile.

“Our results confirmed our doubts and revealed that the Movile centipede is morphologically and genetically different, suggesting that it has been evolving from its closest surface-dwelling relative over the course of millions of years into an entirely new taxon that is better adapted to life in the never-ending darkness,” explain the researchers.

“The centipede we described is a venomous predator, by far the largest of the previously described animals from this cave. Thinking of its top rank in this subterranean system, we decided to name the species Cryptops speleorex, which can be translated to the “King of the cave,” they add.

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Writing in Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, Yellen and colleagues documented that more than half of Hudson River tidal marshes formed since 1850. That year, the channel was straightened and a riverside railroad, berms, jetties and human-made islands of dredged soil were built. This all trapped sediment and created backwaters that often — but not always — turned into marshes, an “unintended result of early industrial development,” they state.

“In one case, historical aerial photos document this transition occurring in less than 18 years, offering a timeframe for marsh development,” they point out. Yellen’s co-authors are colleagues Jonathan Woodruff, Caroline Ladlow and undergraduate Waverly Lau at UMass Amherst, plus Sarah Fernald at New York’s department of environmental conservation and David K. Ralston of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Yellen notes that for this “very collaborative” study, the researchers took advantage of “an experiment that has already happened over decades or centuries. Many of these accidental tidal marshes worked; they protect the shoreline and provide one of the richest ecosystems in terms of direct ecological and human benefits.”

Further, marshes are “really useful,” he adds — as a first line of defense against coastal flooding, essential habitat for juvenile commercial fish species, they store huge amounts of carbon that mitigates climate change, they provide habitat for migratory birds, filter nutrients coming off the land “and they’re beautiful.”

Yellen and colleagues write that these tidal wetlands “currently trap roughly 6% of the Hudson River’s sediment load. Results indicate that when sediment is readily available, freshwater tidal wetlands can develop relatively rapidly in sheltered settings. The study sites serve as useful examples to help guide future tidal marsh creation and restoration efforts.”

Their research involved seven sites spanning more than 100 miles of the Hudson Estuary, “from Wall Street up to Albany,” Yellen says. The bays where tidal marshes developed started out six to seven feet deep and have steadily grown vertically. “One concern for marshes globally is that they will be drowned by rising sea level, but this case study shows how marshes can be created and it gave us some timing benchmarks for what is considered a tricky ecosystem restoration,” he adds.

The researchers used two main methods to investigate the river’s history and resilience in the face of sea level rise — sediment cores that shed light on how fast sediment accumulated and historical maps, charts and aerial photos to determine how the sites have changed over time. Yellen summarizes, “As long as there is space for sediment to accumulate, new marshes can develop. There is a community of land trusts up and down the river who are planning now for future sea level rise and considering where new marshes can form. This research will help them and state agencies guide land acquisition and land conservation strategies adjacent to the river to 2100 and beyond.”

The research, part of the Dams and Sediment in the Hudson (DaSH) project, was supported by a grant to Ralston from NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserve Collaborative, plus the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Interior Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center at UMass Amherst.

Also, Lau received a Polgar Fellowship from the Hudson River Foundation for her senior thesis project. She took the lead on one of the sites and made a short film about tidal marshes around the world and the Hudson River marsh near her home in Queens.

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The new class called NFA, which stands for nickel-, iron- and aluminum-based cathode, is a derivative of lithium nickelate and can be used to make the positive electrode of a lithium-ion battery. These novel cathodes are designed to be fast charging, energy dense, cost effective, and longer lasting.

With the rise in the production of portable electronics and electric vehicles throughout the world, lithium-ion batteries are in high demand. According to Ilias Belharouak, ORNL’s scientist leading the NFA research and development, more than 100 million electric vehicles are anticipated to be on the road by 2030. Cobalt is a metal currently needed for the cathode which makes up the significant portion of a lithium-ion battery’s cost.

Cobalt is rare and largely mined overseas, making it difficult to acquire and produce cathodes. As a result, finding an alternative material to cobalt that can be manufactured cost effectively has become a lithium-ion battery research priority.

ORNL scientists tested the performance of the NFA class of cathodes and determined they are promising substitutes for cobalt-based cathodes, as described in Advanced Materials and the Journal of Power Sources. Researchers used neutron diffraction, Mossbauer spectroscopy and other advanced characterization techniques to investigate NFA’s atomic- and micro-structures as well as electrochemical properties.

“Our investigations into the charging and discharging behavior of NFA showed that these cathodes undergo similar electrochemical reactions as cobalt-based cathodes and deliver high enough specific capacities to meet the battery energy density demands,” said Belharouak.

Although research on the NFA class is in the early stages, Belharouak said that his team’s preliminary results to date indicate that cobalt may not be needed for next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

“We are developing a cathode that has similar or better electrochemical characteristics than cobalt-based cathodes while utilizing lower cost raw materials,” he said.

Belharouak added that not only does NFA perform as well as cobalt-based cathodes, but the process to manufacture the NFA cathodes can be integrated into existing global cathode manufacturing processes.

“Lithium nickelate has long been researched as the material of choice for making cathodes, but it suffers from intrinsic structural and electrochemical instabilities,” he said. “In our research, we replaced some of the nickel with iron and aluminum to enhance the cathode’s stability. Iron and aluminum are cost-effective, sustainable and environmentally friendly materials.”

Future research and development on the NFA class will include testing the materials in large-format cells to validate the lab-scale results and further explore the suitability of these cathodes for use in electric vehicles.

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The tool is described in a study published in the journal Ecological Applications by researchers from the University of California, Davis; U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service.

“Huge fires are converting forested areas to landscapes devoid of living trees,” said lead author Joseph Stewart, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis and with USGS. “Managers need timely and accurate information on where reforestation efforts are needed most.”

The tool, also known as the Post-fire Spatial Conifer Regeneration Prediction Tool (POSCRPT), helps forest managers identify within weeks after a fire where sufficient natural tree regeneration is likely and where artificial planting of seedlings may be necessary to restore the most vulnerable areas of the forest.

NOT SO EVERGREEN

Conifers, or plants with cones such as pine trees, dominate many forests in western North America. The study found that conifers are less likely to regenerate after fires when seedlings face drier climate conditions, especially in low-elevation forests that already experience frequent drought stress. Overall, fewer conifers are expected to grow in California’s lower elevations following wildfire due to climate and drought conditions.

“We found that when forest fires are followed by drought, tree seedlings have a harder time, and the forest is less likely to come back,” said Stewart.

A UC Davis team collected post-fire recovery data from more than 1,200 study plots in 19 wildfires that burned between 2004 and 2012, as well as 18 years of forest seed production data. Ecologists at USGS collected and identified over 170,000 seeds from hundreds of seed traps. The scientists combined these data with multispectral satellite imagery, forest structure maps, climate and other environmental data to create spatial models of seed availability and regeneration probability for different groups of conifers, including pines and firs.

Forest managers have used a prototype of the tool in recent years to better understand where to focus regeneration efforts. The new upgrade incorporates information on post-fire climate and seed production and includes an easy-to-use web interface expected to increase the tool’s accuracy and use.

“This work is a great example of how multiple partners can come together to solve major resource management problems that are arising from California’s climate and fire trends,” said co-author Hugh Safford, regional ecologist for the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region and a member of the research faculty at UC Davis.

The study was funded by the USGS’ Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, Ecosystems Mission Area and Land Change Science Program.

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Materials provided by University of California – Davis. Original written by Kat Kerlin. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The Zika virus is primarily transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito from the Aedes genus. However, it can also be passed through sexual contact, blood transfusions, organ transplants, and between mother and baby during pregnancy. The virus has been documented to cause a range of birth defects, including microcephaly and various neurological, musculoskeletal, and eye abnormalities.

A new study from Glenn Yiu, associate professor in the Department of Ophthalmology, and Koen Van Rompay, a core scientist at the California National Primate Research Center, found that Zika infection during the first trimester of pregnancy can impact fetal retinal development and cause congenital ocular anomalies. The virus does not appear to affect ocular growth postnatally, however.

“It has been known that congenital infection with the Zika virus can lead to eye defects, but it was unclear if the virus continues to replicate or affect eye development after birth,” Yiu said. “Our study in rhesus monkeys suggest that the virus primarily affects fetal development during pregnancy, but not the growth of eye after birth.”

In this collaboration between the UC Davis Eye Center and the California National Primate Research Center, two pregnant rhesus monkeys were infected with Zika virus late in the first trimester. The ocular development of the Zika-exposed infants was then studied for two years following their birth.

Ocular birth defects

The Zika-exposed infant monkeys did not display microcephaly or apparent neurological or behavioral deficits. The infants did exhibit several ocular birth defects, however. The defects included large colobomas, a missing gap in the eye due to abnormal development. The Zika-exposed infant monkeys also exhibited a loss of photoreceptors — the light-sensing cells of the retina — and retinal ganglion neuron, which helps transmit visual information to the brain.

Despite congenital ocular malformations at birth, their eyes appeared to follow normal development during their first two years.

The findings suggest that ocular defects due to Zika infection primarily occur in utero and likely do not have a continued impact on ocular development after birth.

Rhesus macaques are natural hosts of the virus and share similar immune and ocular characteristics to humans, including blood-retinal barrier characteristics and the unique presence of a macula, making them superior animal models of the infection than typical laboratory animals like mice and rats. The findings were published in JCI Insight, an open-access peer-reviewed journal dedicated to biomedical research.

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Assistant professor Kristian Forbes, along with colleagues from Africa, Europe and North America, have proposed a four-part approach to detect and contain zoonotic diseases, those that begin in animals but spillover into humans, like COVID-19 and HIV.

“A lot of research effort to prepare against the threat of novel disease emergences of wildlife viruses has been to identify unknown viruses in wildlife that might someday infect humans,” Forbes said. “These efforts have been very successful for identifying new viruses; indeed, thousands have been discovered, but we don’t currently have the tools to know which of them pose the most immediate risks to human health.”

To enable fast detection of new zoonotic disease outbreaks, the team proposes a system of procuring and screening samples from hospital patients with fevers of unknown origin, analyzing samples from suspicious fatalities of unknown cause, testing blood serum in high-risk or sentinel groups and analyzing samples that have already been collected and archived. The team outlined their approach in a recent article published in the journal The Lancet Microbe.

None of these methods are new, Forbes said. But to date they have not been combined into a continent-wide program aimed at rapid detection.

“Given limitations to the current model for preventing disease emergences, our article focuses on a coordinated and widespread strategy for early detection so that novel disease outbreaks can be intercepted before they potentially become global pandemics.”

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A shark-like ray, smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata) are unique for their long flat rostra with roughly 22-29 teeth on either side that is used to detect and catch prey. The species can reach 16-feet in length. NOAA estimates that smalltooth sawfish populations in U.S. waters have declined by as much as 95 percent from a combination of overfishing, bycatch in fishing gear, and habitat loss from increasing coastal development.

The research team compiled sighting records dating as far back as 1895 and recent encounters of sawfish in the Biscayne Bay Habitat Focus Area.

“Our analysis showed sightings have increased exponentially in recent decades, with some individuals even appearing to be making returning annual visits,” said Laura McDonnell, the study’s lead author and a PhD student at UM Abess Center for Ecosystem Science & Policy and researcher at the UM Rosenstiel School. “These findings demonstrate that smalltooth sawfish have been using these waters with some regularity, largely unnoticed prior to the compilation of these records.

“However, the extent to which sawfish use Biscayne Bay and reason for their occurrence remains unknown,” said Joan Browder, a fisheries biologist at NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center and senior author of the study. “Understanding this would be a valuable next research step.”

Many of the smalltooth sawfish documented in this study were found in waters very close to Miami, where they were exposed to high levels of pollution, boat traffic, and fishing.

“These results highlight a need to understand the effects of coastal urbanization on smalltooth sawfish and the conservation implications for this and other endangered species using the area,” said Neil Hammerschlag, research associate professor at the UM Rosenstiel School and UM Abess Center for Ecosystem Science & Policy and co-author of the study.

“Given the documented use of smalltooth sawfish in and around Biscayne Bay, we hope the area will receive informative signage to help inform the public about their endangered status, the importance of reporting encounters, and the dangers of harming sawfish,” said McDonnell.

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Materials provided by University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science. Original written by Diana Udel. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.