Why We Need a Ruminant Revolution: Combating Malnutrition and Metabolic Illnesses to Enable Sustainable Development

Animal source foods (ASF) are essential for proper human development and function. Livestock in general, and ruminants in particular, are essential components of our sustainable global food systems. Of significant worldwide impact, diets with higher-than-recommended levels of ASF can correct the symptoms of metabolic illnesses, offering hope in arresting the current worldwide epidemic of diabetes and other metabolic diseases. Most dietary policy and recommendations are based on the ill-founded belief that plant-based, high-carbohydrate diets are “healthy.” High-quality scientific evidence does not support the belief that vegetarian diets are healthier than omnivorous or animal-based diets. A Therapeutic Carbohydrate Reduction (TCR) lifestyle approach has demonstrated its efficacy in reversing Insulin Resistance (IR) and the non-communicable diseases associated with, or caused, by it. True sustainability is a multifaceted topic consisting of societal, economic, and ecological aspects. The enormous suffering and financial costs of chronic illness must be acknowledged. The production of high-quality animal protein and animal fat by ruminants from feed resources humans cannot directly utilize will be fundamental to feeding a growing population. This essential food production can preserve and enhance the diverse environments where it takes place. We need a revolution in our thinking of what constitutes a healthy diet, of what causes chronic illness, of the vital role that animal product play in the human diet, and the essential nature of ruminant animal agriculture in meeting humanity’s needs. This will mean overthrowing established policies and institutions, and confronting vested belief systems. We’ll need an effort, analogous to the Green Revolution, to develop and deploy the knowledge and technology necessary to meet the needs of the mid-21st Century world

Multispectral imaging of organ viability during uterine transplantation surgery in rabbits and sheep

Uterine transplantation surgery (UTx) has been proposed as a treatment for permanent absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI) in the case of the congenital absence or surgical removal of the uterus. Successful surgical attachment of the organ and its associated vasculature is essential for the organ’s reperfusion and long-term viability. Spectral imaging techniques have demonstrated the potential for the measurement of hemodynamics in medical applications. These involve the measurement of reflectance spectra by acquiring images of the tissue in different wavebands. Measures of tissue constituents at each pixel can then be extracted from these spectra through modeling of the light–tissue interaction. A multispectral imaging (MSI) laparoscope was used in sheep and rabbit UTx models to study short- and long-term changes in oxygen saturation following surgery. The whole organ was imaged in the donor and recipient animals in parallel with point measurements from a pulse oximeter. Imaging results confirmed the re-establishment of adequate perfusion in the transplanted organ after surgery. Cornual oxygenation trends measured with MSI are consistent with pulse oximeter readings, showing decreased StO2 immediately after anastomosis of the blood vessels. Long-term results show recovery of StO2 to preoperative levels

Invariant higher-order variational problems II

Motivated by applications in computational anatomy, we consider a second-order problem in the calculus of variations on object manifolds that are acted upon by Lie groups of smooth invertible transformations. This problem leads to solution curves known as Riemannian cubics on object manifolds that are endowed with normal metrics. The prime examples of such object manifolds are the symmetric spaces. We characterize the class of cubics on object manifolds that can be lifted horizontally to cubics on the group of transformations. Conversely, we show that certain types of non-horizontal geodesics on the group of transformations project to cubics. Finally, we apply second-order Lagrange--Poincar\'e reduction to the problem of Riemannian cubics on the group of transformations. This leads to a reduced form of the equations that reveals the obstruction for the projection of a cubic on a transformation group to again be a cubic on its object manifold.Comment: 40 pages, 1 figure. First version -- comments welcome

Far-UVC (222 nm) efficiently inactivated an airborne pathogen in a room-sized chamber

Funding: We acknowledge the financial assistance of the United Kingdom’s Department for Health and Social Care (2020/092).Many infectious diseases, including COVID-19, are transmitted by airborne pathogens. There is a need for effective environmental control measures which, ideally, are not reliant on human behaviour. One potential solution is Krypton Chloride (KrCl) excimer lamps (often referred to as Far-UVC), which can efficiently inactivate pathogens, such as coronaviruses and influenza, in air. Research demonstrates that when KrCl lamps are filtered to remove longer-wavelength ultraviolet emissions they do not induce acute reactions in the skin or eyes, nor delayed effects such as skin cancer. While there is laboratory evidence for Far-UVC efficacy, there is limited evidence in full-sized rooms. For the first time, we show that Far-UVC deployed in a room-sized chamber effectively inactivates aerosolised Staphylococcus aureus. At a room ventilation rate of 3 air-changes-per-hour (ACH), with 5 filtered-sources the steady-state pathogen load was reduced by 98.4% providing an additional 184 equivalent air changes (eACH). This reduction was achieved using Far-UVC irradiances consistent with current American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists threshold limit values for skin for a continuous 8-h exposure. Our data indicate that Far-UVC is likely to be more effective against common airborne viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, than bacteria and should thus be an effective and “hands-off” technology to reduce airborne disease transmission. The findings provide room-scale data to support the design and development of effective Far-UVC systems.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Upper-Room Ultraviolet Light and Negative Air Ionization to Prevent Tuberculosis Transmission

Background Institutional tuberculosis (TB) transmission is an important public health problem highlighted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the emergence of multidrug- and extensively drug-resistant TB. Effective TB infection control measures are urgently needed. We evaluated the efficacy of upper-room ultraviolet (UV) lights and negative air ionization for preventing airborne TB transmission using a guinea pig air-sampling model to measure the TB infectiousness of ward air. Methods and Findings For 535 consecutive days, exhaust air from an HIV-TB ward in Lima, Perú, was passed through three guinea pig air-sampling enclosures each housing approximately 150 guinea pigs, using a 2-d cycle. On UV-off days, ward air passed in parallel through a control animal enclosure and a similar enclosure containing negative ionizers. On UV-on days, UV lights and mixing fans were turned on in the ward, and a third animal enclosure alone received ward air. TB infection in guinea pigs was defined by monthly tuberculin skin tests. All guinea pigs underwent autopsy to test for TB disease, defined by characteristic autopsy changes or by the culture of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from organs. 35% (106/304) of guinea pigs in the control group developed TB infection, and this was reduced to 14% (43/303) by ionizers, and to 9.5% (29/307) by UV lights (both p < 0.0001 compared with the control group). TB disease was confirmed in 8.6% (26/304) of control group animals, and this was reduced to 4.3% (13/303) by ionizers, and to 3.6% (11/307) by UV lights (both p < 0.03 compared with the control group). Time-to-event analysis demonstrated that TB infection was prevented by ionizers (log-rank 27; p < 0.0001) and by UV lights (log-rank 46; p < 0.0001). Time-to-event analysis also demonstrated that TB disease was prevented by ionizers (log-rank 3.7; p = 0.055) and by UV lights (log-rank 5.4; p = 0.02). An alternative analysis using an airborne infection model demonstrated that ionizers prevented 60% of TB infection and 51% of TB disease, and that UV lights prevented 70% of TB infection and 54% of TB disease. In all analysis strategies, UV lights tended to be more protective than ionizers. Conclusions Upper-room UV lights and negative air ionization each prevented most airborne TB transmission detectable by guinea pig air sampling. Provided there is adequate mixing of room air, upper-room UV light is an effective, low-cost intervention for use in TB infection control in high-risk clinical settings

The infectiousness of tuberculosis patients coinfected with HIV

The current understanding of airborne tuberculosis (TB) transmission is based on classic 1950s studies in which guinea pigs were exposed to air from a tuberculosis ward. Recently we recreated this model in Lima, Peru, and in this paper we report the use of molecular fingerprinting to investigate patient infectiousness in the current era of HIV infection and multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB

Evidence for Geomagnetic Imprinting as a Homing Mechanism in Pacific Salmon

In the final phase of their spawning migration, Pacific salmon use chemical cues to identify their home river, but how they navigate from the open ocean to the correct coastal area has remained enigmatic [1]. To test the hypothesis that salmon imprint on the magnetic field that exists where they first enter the sea and later seek the same field upon return [2-4], we analyzed a 56-year fisheries data set on Fraser River sockeye salmon, which must detour around Vancouver Island to approach the river through either a northern or southern passageway [5, 6]. We found that the proportion of salmon using each route was predicted by geomagnetic field drift: the more the field at a passage entrance diverged from the field at the river mouth, the fewer fish used the passage. We also found that more fish used the northern passage in years with warmer sea surface temperature (presumably because fish were constrained to more northern latitudes). Field drift accounted for 16% of the variation in migratory route used, temperature 22%, and the interaction between these variables 28%. These results provide the first empirical evidence of geomagnetic imprinting in any species and imply that forecasting salmon movements is possible using geomagnetic models

Evidence for geomagnetic imprinting as a homing mechanism in Pacific salmon

In the final phase of their spawning migration, Pacific salmon use chemical cues to identify their home river, but how they navigate from the open ocean to the correct coastal area has remained enigmatic [1]. To test the hypothesis that salmon imprint on the magnetic field that exists where they first enter the sea and later seek the same field upon return [2, 3, 4], we analyzed a 56-year fisheries data set on Fraser River sockeye salmon, which must detour around Vancouver Island to approach the river through either a northern or southern passageway [5, 6]. We found that the proportion of salmon using each route was predicted by geomagnetic field drift: the more the field at a passage entrance diverged from the field at the river mouth, the fewer fish used the passage. We also found that more fish used the northern passage in years with warmer sea surface temperature (presumably because fish were constrained to more northern latitudes). Field drift accounted for 16% of the variation in migratory route used, temperature 22%, and the interaction between these variables 28%. These results provide the first empirical evidence of geomagnetic imprinting in any species and imply that forecasting salmon movements is possible using geomagnetic models.This is the author's final peer reviewed manuscript as accepted by the publisher. The official publication is copyrighted by Elsevier (Cell Press) and can be found at http://www.cell.com/current-biology/home.Keywords: geomagnetic secular variation, magnetic map, salmon, imprinting, magnetoreception, navigation, orientatio

Variation in renal responses to exercise in the heat with progressive acclimatisation

Objectives To investigate changes in renal status from exercise in the heat with acclimatisation and to evaluate surrogates markers of Acute Kidney Injury. Design Prospective observational cohort study. Methods 20 male volunteers performed 60 min standardised exercise in the heat, at baseline and on four subsequent occasions during a 23-day acclimatisation regimen. Blood was sampled before and after exercise for serum creatinine, copeptin, interleukin-6, normetanephrine and cortisol. Fractional excretion of sodium was calculated for corresponding urine samples. Ratings of Perceived Exertion were reported every 5 min during exercise. Acute Kidney Injury was defined as serum creatinine rise ≥26.5 μmol L−1 or fall in estimated glomerular filtration rate >25%. Predictive values of each candidate marker for developing Acute Kidney Injury were determined by ROC analysis. Results From baseline to Day 23, serum creatinine did not vary at rest, but showed a significant (P < 0.05) reduction post-exercise (120 [102, 139] versus 102 [91, 112] μmol L−1). Acute Kidney Injury was common (26/100 exposures) and occurred most frequently in the unacclimatised state. Log-normalised fractional excretion of sodium showed a significant interaction (exercise by acclimatization day), with post-exercise values tending to rise with acclimatisation. Ratings of Perceived Exertion predicted AKI (AUC 0.76, 95% confidence interval 0.65–0.88), performing at least as well as biochemical markers. Conclusions Heat acclimatization is associated with reduced markers of renal stress and AKI incidence, perhaps due to improved regional perfusion. Acclimatisation and monitoring Ratings of Perceived Exertion are practical, non-invasive measures that could help to reduce renal injury from exercise in the heat