Location location location: a carbon footprint calculator for transparent travel to the UN Climate Conference 2022.

Addressing the large carbon footprint of conferences such as the United Nations Climate Change Convention Conference of the Parties (COP) will be important for maintaining public confidence in climate policy. Transparency is also a vital aspect of creating equitable outcomes in climate policies, as those most likely to be affected or who can create change on the ground are often unable to attend in person because of the high financial costs as well as having a large carbon footprint. The selection of host locations for the regular meetings of the UN Climate Change Convention is based on a rotation amongst the five UN regions, which for 2022 was Africa. Here, we present a carbon footprint calculator for travel to COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, weighing the benefits of certain routes and modes of transport. The calculator demonstrates the well-known carbon efficiency of coach and rail over flights but shows that these benefits were partly diminished in the case of COP 27 due to insufficient transport links from Europe to the conference location. However, we also highlight some of the benefits of hosting a COP in the Global South, particularly in the context of climate justice. Users of the calculator are invited to consider all their options for travel and acknowledge the issue of climate justice through careful selection of carbon offsets.

Africa and climate justice at COP27 and beyond: impacts and solutions through an interdisciplinary lens.

Climate justice is not just a financial transaction to protect the environment. It needs to be seen as the protection of the most vulnerable in society after centuries of resource exploitation. African countries disproportionately face impacts of climate change on their environments, their economies, their resources and their infrastructure. This leads to greater vulnerability and increased exposure to the negative effects of a changing climate. In this article, we highlight the importance of climate justice and its role within the United Nations negotiations, and ultimately in concrete action. We discuss current climate impacts across key sectors in the African region, with a focus on health, infrastructure, food and water scarcity, energy and finance. All sectors are affected by climate change. They are interconnected and under threat. This triggers a ripple effect, where threats in one sector have a knock-on effect on other sectors. We find that the current set of intergovernmental institutions have failed to adequately address climate justice. We also contend that a siloed approach to climate action has proven to be ineffective. As we head towards the next set of negotiations (COP27), this paper argues that the economic and social conditions in Africa can be addressed through financial and collaborative support for adaptation and localised solutions, but that this will only be achieved if climate justice is prioritised by the decision makers. This needs to include a global-scale transition in how climate finance is assessed and accessed. Climate justice underpins real, effective and sustainable solutions for climate action in Africa.

Acute and subchronic toxicity and genotoxicity of SE5-OH, an equol-rich product produced by Lactococcus garvieae.

The consumption of soy-based products is associated with a number of health benefits and much of these benefits are proposed to be due to the soy isoflavones daidzein, genistein, glycitein, their glycosides, and equol, an isoflavone naturally produced from daidzein. Equol is a naturally bacterially-derived metabolite of daidzein and is produced by bacteria in the gut of those humans capable of hosting the particular organism. To allow all humans to enjoy the health benefits of equol, a new functional food ingredient has been developed that relies on bacterial conversion of daidzein to equol under strictly controlled conditions. This new food substance, termed SE5-OH, has been studied extensively for its acute and subchronic toxicity in Sprague-Dawley rats, as well as for its potential genotoxicity. The oral LD(50) is >4,000 mg/kg. In a 91-day, subchronic study, the no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) was 2,000 mg/kg/day, the highest dose tested. SE5-OH was negative in Salmonella typhimurium tester strains TA98, TA100, TA1535 and TA1537 and in Escherichia coli tester strain WP2uvrA with and without metabolic activation. SE5-OH was negative for chromosome aberrations in Chinese hamster lung cells up to 3,000 microg/ml with and without metabolic activation and did not induce increases in micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes taken from Sprague-Dawley rats administered (via gavage) up to 4,000 mg/kg SE5-OH twice daily for two consecutive days.

Positron-emission tomography reporter gene expression imaging in rat myocardium.

BACKGROUND: This study examines the quantitative accuracy, detection sensitivity, and time course of imaging the expression of a mutant herpes simplex type-1 virus thymidine kinase (HSV1-sr39tk) PET reporter gene in rat myocardium by using the PET reporter probe 9-(4-[18F]-Fluoro-3-Hydroxymethylbutyl)-Guanine ([18F]-FHBG) and a small-animal PET (microPET). METHODS AND RESULTS: In 40 rats, adenovirus expressing HSV1-sr39tk driven by a cytomegalovirus promoter (Ad-CMV-HSV1-sr39tk, 1x10(6) to 1x10(9) pfu) was injected through a thoracotomy directly into the left ventricular myocardium. After 3 days, myocardial perfusion was imaged with [13N]-ammonia for delineating the left ventricular myocardium, followed by imaging the expression of the reporter gene with intravenous [18F]-FHBG. The total myocardial [18F]-FHBG accumulation was quantified in percent of injected dose (%ID). Immunohistochemistry and autoradiography demonstrated HSV1-sr39tk enzyme (HSV1-sr39TK) and accumulation of [18F]-FHBG in the inoculated myocardium in 3 rats each. In 24 rats with various viral titers, the %ID was correlated with ex vivo well counting (r2=0.981, P<0.0001) and myocardial HSV1-sr39TK activity by tissue enzyme activity assay (r2=0.790, P<0.0001). Myocardial [18F]-FHBG accumulation was identified at viral titers down to 1x10(7) pfu. In 6 rats serially imaged up to day 17, myocardial [18F]-FHBG accumulation on microPET peaked on days 3 to 5 and was no longer identified on days 10 to 17. CONCLUSIONS: HSV1-sr39tk reporter gene expression can be monitored with [18F]-FHBG and microPET in rat myocardium quantitatively and serially with high detection sensitivity. Cardiac PET reporter gene imaging offers the potential of monitoring the expression of therapeutic genes in cardiac gene therapy.

A tri-ethnic examination of symptom expression on the positive and negative syndrome scale in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

This study examined differences in symptom expression as measured by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS [Schizophr. Bull. 13 (1987) 261]) in a tri-ethnic sample of persons diagnosed with schizophrenia. We hypothesized that ethnic differences would be more apparent in Positive Scale symptoms than in Negative and General Scale symptoms of the PANSS. The sample of 351 persons receiving services in community-based mental health clinics came from the initial phase of the San Diego site of the Schizophrenia Care and Assessment Program (SCAP), a longitudinal naturalistic study on the course of schizophrenia treatment. Participants were 88 African-Americans, 198 Euro-Americans, and 65 Latinos. Baseline PANSS scale scores and individual items were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Covariance procedures to examine symptoms by ethnic group and living situation while controlling for income, education, and age. There were no significant ethnic differences on the scale scores. At the item level of analysis, significant ethnic group differences were found in Hallucinatory Behavior, Suspiciousness, Excitement, and for Somatic Concerns. The cultural implications for the ethnic differences in each symptom behavior and the need for further research on symptom expression from an ethnographic perspective are discussed.

Multiplex three-dimensional brain gene expression mapping in a mouse model of Parkinson's disease.

To facilitate high-throughput 3D imaging of brain gene expression, a new method called voxelation has been developed. Spatially registered voxels (cubes) are analyzed, resulting in multiple volumetric maps of gene expression analogous to the images reconstructed in biomedical imaging systems. Using microarrays, 40 voxel images for 9000 genes were acquired from brains of both normal mice and mice in which a pharmacological model of Parkinson's disease (PD) had been induced by methamphetamine. Quality-control analyses established the reproducibility of the voxelation procedure. The investigation revealed a common network of coregulated genes shared between the normal and PD brain, and allowed identification of putative control regions responsible for these networks. In addition, genes involved in cell/cell interactions were found to be prominently regulated in the PD brains. Finally, singular value decomposition (SVD), a mathematical method used to provide parsimonious explanations of complex data sets, identified gene vectors and their corresponding images that distinguished between normal and PD brain structures, most pertinently the striatum.