The African continent has seen its average monthly temperatures rise by .5 — 2 degrees Celsius over the past century, with up to another two degrees of warming projected for the next 100 years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) high greenhouse gas emissions scenario. It is also well known that the changing climate will disrupt historical precipitation patterns — but which of these, temperature or rainfall, will have the most impact on a species, like white and black rhinos, that have long been the target of conservation efforts?

The question is especially important for rhinos because they don’t sweat, and instead cool themselves off by bathing and finding shade.

“Generally speaking, most, if not all, species will, in one way or another, be negatively affected by the changing climate,” says lead author Hlelowenkhosi S. Mamba, who completed this research as part of her graduate studies at UMass Amherst. “It is therefore important for conservationists to conduct macroecological assessments over large areas to catch trends and model futures for some of the world’s most vulnerable species to prepare to mitigate climate change’s effects, hence minimizing global biodiversity losses.”

To understand how our changing climate will affect rhino populations, Mamba and senior author Timothy Randhir, professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst, focused their efforts on the five large national parks in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania and eSwatini that are home to most of the rhinos. The parks represent diverse landscapes.

Mamba and Randhir then modelled two scenarios for each of the parks: the IPCC’s high-emissions scenario and a more moderate emissions scenario. They projected temperature and precipitation for each of the scenarios out to 2055 and 2085 to arrive at a probability that each park would remain suitable for the rhinos.

They found that each park will see approximately 2.2 ºC warming by 2055 and 2.5 ºC by 2085 under the moderate emissions scenario. Under the high emissions scenario, each park will be warmer by approximately 2.8 ºC in 2055 and 4.6 ºC in 2085.

Nearly every park will become increasingly drier as emissions increase, with the exception of one, Tsavo West National Park in Kenya, which will see more rainfall.

This is all very bad news for the rhinos, because the team also found that, though the change in precipitation will not be ideal for the rhinos, the changes in temperature are greater than what the species can bear.

“The temperature conditions in all study parks will become increasingly unsuitable for both species, but it is predicted that white rhinos will be affected earlier than black rhinos,” the authors write. “All the parks are showing drastic changes in the occurrence probability of rhinos.” And under the high-emissions scenarios, the probability of occurrence of either species shrinks to zero by 2085.

The worst news involves Etosha National Park, in Namibia, and Hlane National Park, in eSwatini, both of which will become too warm for rhinos in either scenario.

But to be forewarned is to be forearmed. “This paper highlights the importance of using climate predictions for both park and rhino management,” says Randhir. “We propose that park managers think now about increasing water supplies, tree cover, watching for stress and planning to allow rhino migration as the world warms.”

Antibodies that target the fusion peptide can neutralize diverse strains of HIV in vitro, that is, in a test tube or culture dish outside of a living organism. The NIAID VRC isolated a fusion peptide-directed human antibody, called VRC34.01, from a person living with HIV who donated blood samples for research. They also isolated two antibodies from rhesus macaques — a species of monkey with immune systems like humans’ — who previously had received a vaccine regimen designed to generate fusion peptide-directed antibodies. Demonstrating that these antibodies protect animals would validate the fusion peptide as a target for human vaccine design. SHIV challenge — administering an infective dose of SHIV — to rhesus macaques is a widely used animal model for assessing the performance of HIV antibodies and vaccines.

In this study, rhesus macaques in each of four groups received a single intravenous infusion of one type of antibody — a 2.5 or 10 mg/kg of bodyweight dose of VRC34.01, or one of the two vaccine-elicited rhesus macaque antibodies — and other monkeys received a placebo infusion. To determine the protective effect of the antibodies, each monkey was challenged five days after infusion with a strain of SHIV known to be sensitive to fusion peptide-directed antibodies.

All monkeys that received a placebo infusion acquired SHIV following the challenge. Among monkeys that received VRC34.01 infusions, none receiving the 10 mg/kg dose and 25% of those receiving the 2.5 mg/kg dose acquired SHIV. Of those that received the vaccine-elicited rhesus macaque antibodies, no monkeys receiving the antibody called DFPH-a.15 acquired SHIV, and 25% of those receiving the antibody called DF1W-a.01 acquired SHIV. Over time, the concentration of antibodies in the blood of animals that received DFPH-a.15 declined. Those animals were re-challenged 30 days later to see if the lower concentration of antibodies had a decreased protective effect, and half of them acquired SHIV.

The three antibodies studied each provided statistically significant protection from SHIV, and the effect was dose dependent, that is, highest in monkeys with greater antibody concentrations in their blood.

According to the authors, these findings represent the proof-of-concept that fusion peptide-directed antibodies can provide protection against SHIV and help determine the concentration of antibodies a vaccine would need to generate to be protective. They suggest that their findings on vaccine-elicited antibodies in some animals support further work to design preventive HIV vaccine concepts targeting the fusion peptide. They conclude that an effective HIV vaccine targeting the HIV fusion peptide likely will need to expand upon the concepts used in this study, by generating multiple varieties of fusion peptide-directed antibodies. This would increase the likelihood that the vaccine could maintain a preventive effect across the vastly diverse HIV variants in circulation.

In this retrospective study, the orthopaedic team at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and Marshall Health performed 25 revision knee replacements with a robotic assisted computer system. The procedure involved placing new implants at the end of the thighbone and top of the shinbone with the computer’s aid to ensure the knee was stable and balanced throughout the range of motion. Researchers then carefully compared the initial positions of the primary implants with the final planned positions of the robotic revision implants for each patient, assessing the differences in millimeters and degrees.

The analysis found that exceedingly small changes in implant position significantly influence the function of the knee replacement. Robotic assistance during revision surgery has the potential to measure these slight differences. In addition, the computer system can help the surgeon predict what size implant to use as well as help to balance the knee for stability.

“Robotic-assisted surgery has the potential to change the way surgeons think about revision knee replacement,” said Matthew Bullock, D.O., associate professor of orthopaedic surgery and co-author on the study. “The precision offered by robotic-assisted surgery not only enhances the surgical process but also holds promise for improved patient outcomes. Besides infection, knee replacements usually fail because they become loose from the bone or because they are unbalanced leading to pain and instability. When this happens patients can have difficulty with activities of daily living such as walking long distances or negotiating stairs.”

The study underscores the importance of aligning the prosthesis during revision surgery. The research also suggests potential advantages, including appropriately sized implants that can impact the ligament tension which is crucial for functional knee revisions.

“These findings open new doors in the realm of revision knee arthroplasty,” said Alexander Caughran, M.D., assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery and co-author on the study. “We continue to collect more data for future studies on patient outcomes after robotic revision knee replacement. We anticipate that further research and technological advancements in the realm of artificial intelligence will continue to shape the landscape of orthopaedic surgery.”

In addition to Bullock and Caughran, co-authors from Marshall University include Micah MacAskill, M.D., resident physician; Richard Peluso, M.D., resident physician; Jonathan Lash, M.D., resident physician; and Timothy Hewett, Ph.D., professor.