Accelerating progress on sustainable development goals: Assessing secondary school students' knowledge of climate change actions

The youth plays significant role in realising the sustainable development goals (SDGs). What young people know about the SDGs and how to engage with the SDGs can contribute significantly to the realisation of the SDGs within the shortest possible time. Specifically, climate change is central to the SDGs because of its substantial nexus with economic, social and environmental outcomes for all regions of the world. Thus, this study investigates climate change awareness among secondary school students to guide climate change mitigation strategies and practices among young people for the attainment of the SDGs. The study adopts a qualitative research approach using content analysis of the essays on climate change written and presented by students of different secondary schools in Ota, Nigeria. The analysis reveals, among other things, that the students are knowledgeable about climate change and that their schools are the most prevalent source of climate change knowledge. The mostreported climate change effect from the essays include: rise in global temperatures, melting of ice, flooding, rise in sea level, drought, extinction of terrestrial and marine life and health challenges. Common mitigation strategies suggested by the students entail awareness, tree planting, use of low carbon vehicles, use of energy-saving bulbs, reduction of carbon emissions, and recycling of waste. With adequate climate change knowledge and mitigation strategies, many young people can contribute and engage practically with the climate change discourse, thereby improving the climate change statistics in their regions and accelerating progress on the SDGs

Circadian Disruption Primes Myofibroblasts for Accelerated Activation as a Mechanism Underpinning Fibrotic Progression in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Circadian rhythm governs many aspects of liver physiology and its disruption exacerbates chronic disease. CLOCKΔ19 mice disrupted circadian rhythm and spontaneously developed obesity and metabolic syndrome, a phenotype that parallels the progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD represents an increasing health burden with an estimated incidence of around 25% and is associated with an increased risk of progression towards inflammation, fibrosis and carcinomas. Excessive extracellular matrix deposition (fibrosis) is the key driver of chronic disease progression. However, little attention was paid to the impact of disrupted circadian rhythm in hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) which are the primary mediator of fibrotic ECM deposition. Here, we showed in vitro and in vivo that liver fibrosis is significantly increased when circadian rhythm is disrupted by CLOCK mutation. Quiescent HSCs from CLOCKΔ19 mice showed higher expression of RhoGDI pathway components and accelerated activation. Genes altered in this primed CLOCKΔ19 qHSC state may provide biomarkers for early liver disease detection, and include AOC3, which correlated with disease severity in patient serum samples. Integration of CLOCKΔ19 microarray data with ATAC-seq data from WT qHSCs suggested a potential CLOCK regulome promoting a quiescent state and downregulating genes involved in cell projection assembly. CLOCKΔ19 mice showed higher baseline COL1 deposition and significantly worse fibrotic injury after CCl4 treatment. Our data demonstrate that disruption to circadian rhythm primes HSCs towards an accelerated fibrotic response which worsens liver disease

Minimal scarring in a premature neonate

Background: Scar formation and management is one of the major issues in plastic surgery. Scars are a chronic burden to patients, their families, and the wider healthcare system and while non-surgical and surgical options have been shown to reduce scarring and its impact, there are currently no therapeutic options to completely heal scars or to avoid scarring. Early gestation animals have been reported to heal skin wounds without scarring. Case presentation: We report on a premature, underweight-for-age neonate of 30 weeks’ gestation that suffered a combination of deep partial thickness abrasions and full thickness wounds following birth trauma, who eventually healed with minimal skin scarring. Conclusion: This case highlights that more research is needed to understand the mechanism and timelines of foetal skin healing, so the knowledge can be used to develop better therapeutic options to treat skin scars in adults

Exploring the Hierarchies: Multilevel Correlates of Child Mortality in Nigeria and Implications for Interventions

This study examined the multilevel correlates of childhood mortality among women (aged 15–49 years) in Nigeria using pooled data from the 2003, 2008 and 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys. This study considered 25,685 women who stated that they never lived outside their communities. Descriptive and multilevel regression analyses were performed. About 38% of the women reported losing at least a child. The individual-level correlates of childhood mortality were age, age at first birth, years of education, marital status and ethnicity. Household variables such as number of male children ever born (aIRR = 1.031; 95% CI = 1.026–1.036; p = 0.001), no bed net (aIRR = 1.052; 95% CI = 1.011–1.094; p = 0.012) and using biomass/charcoal (aIRR = 1.223; 95% CI = 1.013–1.475; p = 0.036) were positively associated with childhood mortality while wealth index was negatively correlated with childhood mortality. At the community level, lower childhood mortality was observed in South South region (aIRR = 0.853; 95% CI = 0.767–0.949; p = 0.003), but it was higher in North East (aIRR = 1.143; 95% CI = 1.050–1.244; p = 0.002), North West (aIRR = 1.440; 95% CI = 1.318–1.574; p = 0.001) and South East (aIRR = 1.156; 95% CI = 1.028–1.300; p = 0.016) respectively. Higher childhood mortality was associated positively with community poverty (medium: aIRR = 1.107; 95% CI = 1.013–1.210; p = 0.024), low ownership of piped water (aIRR = 1.128; 95% CI = 1.047–1.215; p = 0.002) and problematic distance to health facility (aIRR = 1.046; 95% CI = 1.006–1.088; p = 0.025). There is a need for more interventions to tackle multilevel drivers of child mortality in Nigeria