The dark web trades wildlife, but mostly for use as drugs

First published: 03 May 20231. Contemporary wildlife trade is massively facilitated by the Internet. By design, the dark web is one layer of the Internet that is difficult to monitor and continues to lack thorough investigation. 2. Here, we accessed a comprehensive database of dark web marketplaces to search across c. 2 million dark web advertisements over 5 years using c. 7 k wildlife trade-related search terms. 3. We found 153 species traded in 3332 advertisements (c. 600 advertisements per year). We characterized a highly specialized wildlife trade market, where c. 90% of dark-web wildlife advertisements were for recreational drugs. 4. We verified that 68 species contained chemicals with drug properties. Species advertised as drugs mostly comprised of plant species, however, fungi and animals were also traded as drugs. Most species with drug properties were psychedelics (45 species), including one genera of fungi, Psilocybe, with 19 species traded on the dark web. The native distribution of plants with drug properties were clustered in Central and South America. A smaller proportion of trade was for purported medicinal properties of wildlife, clothing, decoration, and as pets. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results greatly expand on what wildlife species are currently traded on the dark web and provide a baseline to track future changes. Given the low number of advertisements, we assume current conservation and biosecurity risks of the dark web are low. While wildlife trade is rampant on other layers of the Internet, particularly on e-commerce and social media sites, trade on the dark web may still increase if these popular platforms are rendered less accessible to traders (e.g., via an increase in enforcement). We recommend focussing on surveillance of e-commerce and social media sites, but we encourage continued monitoring of the dark web periodically to evaluate potential shifts in wildlife trade across this more occluded layer of the Internet.Oliver C. Stringham, Jacob Maher, Charlotte R. Lassaline, Lisa Wood, Stephanie Moncayo, Adam Toomes, Sarah Heinrich, Freyja Watters, Charlotte Drake, Sebastian Chekunov, Katherine G. W. Hill, David Decary-Hetu, Lewis Mitchell, Joshua V. Ross, Phillip Casse

Modulation of Brain Activity during Action Observation: Influence of Perspective, Transitivity and Meaningfulness

The coupling process between observed and performed actions is thought to be performed by a fronto-parietal perception-action system including regions of the inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule. When investigating the influence of the movements' characteristics on this process, most research on action observation has focused on only one particular variable even though the type of movements we observe can vary on several levels. By manipulating the visual perspective, transitivity and meaningfulness of observed movements in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study we aimed at investigating how the type of movements and the visual perspective can modulate brain activity during action observation in healthy individuals. Importantly, we used an active observation task where participants had to subsequently execute or imagine the observed movements. Our results show that the fronto-parietal regions of the perception action system were mostly recruited during the observation of meaningless actions while visual perspective had little influence on the activity within the perception-action system. Simultaneous investigation of several sources of modulation during active action observation is probably an approach that could lead to a greater ecological comprehension of this important sensorimotor process

UCP1 Induction during Recruitment of Brown Adipocytes in White Adipose Tissue Is Dependent on Cyclooxygenase Activity

Background The uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) is a hallmark of brown adipocytes and pivotal for cold- and diet-induced thermogenesis. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we report that cyclooxygenase (COX) activity and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) are crucially involved in induction of UCP1 expression in inguinal white adipocytes, but not in classic interscapular brown adipocytes. Cold-induced expression of UCP1 in inguinal white adipocytes was repressed in COX2 knockout (KO) mice and by administration of the COX inhibitor indomethacin in wild-type mice. Indomethacin repressed β-adrenergic induction of UCP1 expression in primary inguinal adipocytes. The use of PGE2 receptor antagonists implicated EP4 as a main PGE2 receptor, and injection of the stable PGE2 analog (EP3/4 agonist) 16,16 dm PGE2 induced UCP1 expression in inguinal white adipose tissue. Inhibition of COX activity attenuated diet-induced UCP1 expression and increased energy efficiency and adipose tissue mass in obesity-resistant mice kept at thermoneutrality. Conclusions/Significance Our findings provide evidence that induction of UCP1 expression in white adipose tissue, but not in classic interscapular brown adipose tissue is dependent on cyclooxygenase activity. Our results indicate that cyclooxygenase-dependent induction of UCP1 expression in white adipose tissues is important for diet-induced thermogenesis providing support for a surprising role of COX activity in the control of energy balance and obesity development