“From 2009 to 2022, we conducted a series of field surveys in South China and collected a number of specimens of the Calotes versicolor species complex, and found that the population of what we thought was Calotes versicolor in South China and Northern Vietnam was a new undescribed species and two subspecies,” says Yong Huang, whose team described the new species.

Wang’s garden lizard (Calotes wangi) is less than 9 cm long, and one of its distinguishing features is its orange tongue.

“Calotes wangi is found in subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests and tropical monsoon forests in southern China and northern Vietnam, mostly in mountainous areas, hills and plains on forest edges, arable land, shrub lands, and even urban green belts. It is active at the edge of the forest, and when it is in danger, it rushes into bushes or climbs tree trunks to hide. Investigations found that the lizards lie on sloping shrub branches at night, sleeping close to the branches,” says Yong Huang.

It is active from April to October every year, while in the tropics it is active from March to November or even longer, and eats a variety of insects, spiders, and other arthropods.

For now, the researchers estimate that the new species is not threatened, but they do note that in some areas its habitat is fragmented.

“In addition, their bodies are used medicinally and the lizards are also eaten,” they write in their research paper.

This is why they suggest that the local government strengthen the protection of their ecological environment and pay close attention to the population dynamics.

Simon Haeder, Ph.D., associate professor, analyzed data from an August 2023 survey of more than 2,000 dog and more than 1,400 cat owners to measure pet vaccination rates, perceptions of vaccines and support for pet vaccination requirements.

“Decreasing pet vaccination rates pose challenges to society for a number of reasons, including increased incidents of pet disease and death, increases in exposures for humans, the potential for further genetic adaptations of pathogens, as well as detrimental effects on veterinarians,” Haeder said. “Many individuals consider their pets as part of the family and increases in vaccine-preventable diseases may also affect the financial and emotional health of owners.”

The survey first asked respondents whether they owned a dog, a cat or both. Dog and cat owners were then surveyed about their pets’ vaccine status for five diseases each for dogs and cats. These included rabies for dogs and cats, canine parvovirus and canine distemper for dogs, and feline panleukopenia and feline Bordetella for cats. The respondents then responded with levels of support for vaccination requirements for each of the listed diseases. The survey also queried respondents about perceived safety, efficacy and importance of the various vaccines.

In addition to pet vaccine-specific questions, the survey asked respondents about their level of trust in scientists, support for human vaccination mandates for children, political ideology, religiosity, non-veterinary expenses and frequency of exposure of dogs to other dogs outside the household. Lastly, the survey measured perceptions of safety, efficacy and importance of human vaccines.

The survey found that an overwhelming majority of pet owners had vaccinated their dogs and cats against rabies, though cats were vaccinated less often than dogs. Other core vaccines had slightly lower, but still high uptake, while there appeared to be more hesitancy toward non-core vaccines. Core vaccines are generally recommended for all pets regardless of lifestyle.

Further analysis found that perceptions of importance, efficacy and safety of vaccines served as a reasonable predictor for vaccine hesitancy. Additionally, these perceptions show an association with attitudes toward vaccination requirements. Haeder’s analysis also found that pet owners without non-veterinary expenses such as boarding or training fees showed higher levels of vaccine hesitancy. Lastly, pet vaccination behaviors and perceptions appear to be less associated with political ideology than with human vaccines.

The findings of this study show a high level of confidence in vaccine safety, efficacy and importance for humans and pets. Additionally, the analysis found relations between vaccine hesitancy in humans and animals, with support for animal vaccine requirements being strongly associated with similar requirements for humans. This indicates the potential for spillover effects and the importance of further focus on vaccine hesitancy in humans and animals in research and public health efforts in the future.

“Concerns about growing hesitancy remain and should be taken seriously, for both pets and humans, before the United States falls below important thresholds to prevent major outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases,” Haeder said.

“The more reindeer ruminate, the less additional non-REM sleep they need,” says first author and neuroscientist Melanie Furrer of the University of Zurich. “We think it’s very important that they are able to save time and cover their sleep and digestive needs at the same time, especially during the summer months.”

Light-dark cycles are absent in the Arctic during winter and summer, and previous studies showed that Arctic-dwelling reindeer don’t display circadian behavioral rhythms during these seasons, though they tend to be more active during the daytime during the spring and autumn equinox, when light-dark cycles are present. However, it was unknown whether these seasonal differences also impacted how much — and how well — reindeer sleep.

To investigate the influence of seasonal light-dark cycles on reindeer sleep patterns, the researchers performed non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) on Eurasian tundra reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) in Tromsø, Norway (69°N), during the autumn equinox, summer solstice, and winter solstice. The reindeer, who were all adult females, were part of a captive herd at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, and the experiments were conducted in indoor stables with controlled lighting, unlimited food, and constant temperature.

They found that reindeer slept approximately the same amount during winter, summer, and autumn, despite the fact that they were much more active during the summer. This is in contrast to other species who change the amount they sleep in response to environmental conditions. On average, the reindeer spent 5.4 hours in non-REM sleep, 0.9 hours in REM sleep, and 2.9 hours ruminating during a given 24-hour period, regardless of season.

“The fact that reindeer sleep the same amount during winter and summer implies that they must have other strategies to cope with limited sleep time during the arctic summer,” says Furrer.

One possible strategy is the opportunity for rest during rumination — the re-chewing of partially digested food, which is an important component of digestion for reindeer and other ruminants. Domestic sheep, goats, cattle, and Lesser mouse-deer have all been previously observed to produce sleep-like brain waves during rumination, but it was unclear whether rumination could serve a similar restorative function to sleep.

The researchers found that the reindeer’s EEG readings during rumination resembled brainwave patterns that are indicative of non-REM sleep including increased slow-wave activity and sleep spindles. Sleeping and ruminating reindeer also displayed similar behavior, tending to quietly sit or stand during both activities, and were less reactive to disturbances such as a neighboring reindeer sitting down or getting up — reindeer directly responded to these disturbances (by looking toward the neighboring reindeer) 45% of the time if they were awake, but only 25% of the time if they were ruminating, and 5% of the time if they were in non-REM sleep.

Next, the researchers tested whether rumination could reduce the reindeer’s drive to sleep by depriving the reindeer of sleep for 2 hours and measuring their brain waves during sleep before and after this deprivation. Following sleep deprivation, the reindeer’s EEG readings showed increased slow-wave activity, which is indicative of a build-up of “sleep pressure” — the unconscious biological drive for more and deeper sleep — suggesting that reindeer experience deeper sleep following sleep deprivation.

However, when the reindeer ruminated, this slow-wave activity was decreased during subsequent sleep, and the more they ruminated, the more the slow-wave activity decreased. “This suggests that rumination reduces sleep pressure, which could benefit the reindeer because it means they don’t have to compromise on sleep recovery when they spend more time ruminating,” says Furrer.

This is especially important during the summer, because the more they eat, the more time the reindeer need to spend ruminating. “Rumination increases nutrient absorption, so it’s crucial for reindeer to spend enough time ruminating during the summer in order to gain weight in anticipation of winter,” says Furrer.

Since reindeer appear to sleep while ruminating only some of the time, follow-up studies should compare the impact of rumination while sleeping with rumination while awake and would also ideally measure reindeer behavior and sleep in more natural outdoor conditions, the researchers say. However, such measurements would require surgically implanted EEG sensors rather than the non-invasive surface electrodes used in this study.

“Another thing we could add is to look at young reindeer,” says Furrer. “We know sleep need is much higher in young children and babies compared to adults, so it would be interesting to look at sleep in younger reindeer.”

This research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

There are further subclasses of both Seyfert galaxies and quasars. In the case of Seyfert galaxies, the predominant subcategories are Type-1 and Type-2. Astronomers distinguish them by their spectra, the pattern that results when light is split into its constituent wavelengths. The spectral lines that Type-2 Seyfert galaxies emit are associated with specific ‘forbidden’ emission lines. To understand why emitted light from a galaxy could be forbidden, it helps to understand why spectra exist in the first place. Spectra look the way they do because certain atoms and molecules absorb and emit light at very specific wavelengths. The reason for this is quantum physics: electrons (the tiny particles that orbit the nuclei of atoms and molecules) can only exist at very specific energies, and therefore electrons can only lose or gain very specific amounts of energy. These very specific amounts of energy correspond to the wavelengths of light that are absorbed or emitted.

Forbidden emission lines should not exist according to certain rules of quantum physics. But quantum physics is complex, and some of the rules used to predict it were formulated under laboratory conditions here on Earth. Under those rules, this emission is ‘forbidden’ — so improbable that it’s disregarded. But in space, in the midst of an incredibly energetic galactic core, those assumptions don’t hold anymore, and the ‘forbidden’ light gets a chance to shine out toward us.

Dinushika Mohottige, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Population Science and Policy, and Medicine (Nephrology), at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, served as first author of a paper published today in the journalJAMA Network Open that details the study.

Dr. Mohottige and her senior author and long-time mentor, L. Ebony Boulware, MD, MPH, Dean of Wake Forest University School of Medicine, describe in detail how neighborhood prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD), diabetes, and hypertension are strongly associated with an increased burden of structural racism indicators.

The research team conducted an observational cross-sectional study in Durham County, North Carolina, using public data sources and deidentified electronic health records to explore how a comprehensive collection of data points associate the presence of structural racism and the neighborhood prevalence of these three chronic health conditions.

“It was important to look at these three conditions because they are interconnected and highly associated with heart disease, as well as quality and length of life. Importantly, Black people share a disproportionate burden of these three illnesses,” said Dr. Mohottige, a member of Icahn Mount Sinai’s Institute for Health Equity Research who specializes in kidney health equity and formerly practiced at Duke University with Dr. Boulware. They collaborated with colleagues from Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research.

The authors explain that structural racism is defined as how societies foster discrimination through a series of systems that are reinforcing, such as housing, education, and unemployment. “These systems cascade into discriminatory beliefs, values, and the distribution of resources,” says Dr. Boulware.

“Dr. Mohottige and I agreed it was important to tap the unusual data assets available in Durham to learn how we can improve the health of communities and individuals by identifying the factors that may affect their health the most. Our goal was to use the data to help us identify possible interventions,” says Dr. Boulware. “Data which measure health outcomes such as kidney disease and diabetes — and which also measure social determinants of health, including information on the built environment and reported neighborhood violence — help us understand how the conditions where people live affect their well-being. This is especially true for groups that, because of their race or ethnicity, historically experience worse health outcomes when compared to others.”

The result of their work, incorporating thousands of data points related to where people live at the most localized level, says Dr. Boulware, is a first-of-its-kind observational study of associations of structural racism constructs with the health of individuals residing in these neighborhoods. “This study fills an important evidence gap and helps us identify factors which might be targeted to address community health inequities,” says Dr. Mohottige.

The researchers studied data of aggregate estimates of prevalence of chronic conditions for each of 150 residential neighborhoods in Durham using the Durham Neighborhood Compass, a unique data asset created by public health officials; a corresponding website, Durham Community Health Indicators Project, provides a user-friendly interface in lay language.

Along with the uniquely detailed and comprehensive Compass data, the researchers pulled data from two main buckets. Through global/composite indicators such as the area deprivation index, they gleaned data revealing the extent of Durham’s stark neighborhood advantage and disadvantage. The discrete indicators they drew upon revealed downstream factors widely thought to represent sociopolitical manifestations of structural racism, including reported crime, evictions, police shootings, and election participation. “Very limited evidence exists to tie together these structural racism constructs with the aggregate health of individuals in a given neighborhood using electronic health data and rigorous assessments of chronic conditions,” says Dr. Mohottige.

The team found that:

• Residential neighborhoods with the highest prevalence of CKD, diabetes, and hypertension, tended to be in neighborhoods with the lowest proportions of White residents, and vice versa.
• Neighborhoods with the highest prevalence of CKD, diabetes, and hypertension tended to be in areas with the lowest income and higher area deprivation. They also had the lowest rates of college education.

• A greater burden of most discrete indicators of structural racism (examples include reported violent crime, eviction rates, election participation, income, and poverty) was associated with greater neighborhood prevalence of the three diseases.