How contagious is Delta? How long are you infectious? Is it more deadly? A quick guide to the latest science

Posted on October 16, 2021 by particularkev

Lara Herrero, Griffith UniversityDelta was recognised as a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern in May 2021 and has proved extremely difficult to control in unvaccinated populations.

Delta has managed to out-compete other variants, including Alpha. Variants are classified as “of concern” because they’re either more contagious than the original, cause more hospitalisations and deaths, or are better at evading vaccines and therapies. Or all of the above.

So how does Delta fare on these measures? And what have we learnt since Delta was first listed as a variant of concern?

How contagious is Delta?

The R0 tells us how many other people, on average, one infected person will pass the virus on to.

Delta has an R0 of 5-8, meaning one infected person passes it onto five to eight others, on average.

This compares with an R0 of 1.5-3 for the original strain.

So Delta is twice to five times as contagious as the virus that circulated in 2020.

What happens when you’re exposed to Delta?

SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted through droplets an infected person releases when they breathe, cough or sneeze.

In some circumstances, transmission also occurs when a person touches a contaminated object, then touches their face.

Four Turkish men walk across an open town space. — One person infected with Delta infects, on average, five to eight others.
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Once SARS-CoV-2 enters your body – usually through your nose or mouth – it starts to replicate.

The period from exposure to the virus being detectable by a PCR test is called the latent period. For Delta, one study suggests this is an average of four days (with a range of three to five days).

That’s two days faster than the original strain, which took roughly six days (with a range of five to eight days).

The virus then continues to replicate. Although often there are no symptoms yet, the person has become infectious.

People with COVID-19 appear to be most infectious two days before to three days after symptoms start, though it’s unclear whether this differs with Delta.

The time from virus exposure to symptoms is called the incubation period. But there is often a gap between when a person becomes infectious to others to when they show symptoms.

As the virus replicates, the viral load increases. For Delta, the viral load is up to roughly 1,200 times higher than the original strain.

With faster replication and higher viral loads it is easy to see why Delta is challenging contact tracers and spreading so rapidly.

What are the possible complications?

Like the original strain, the Delta variant can affect many of the body’s organs including the lungs, heart and kidneys.

Complications include blood clots, which at their most severe can result in strokes or heart attacks.

Around 10-30% of people with COVID-19 will experience prolonged symptoms, known as long COVID, which can last for months and cause significant impairment, including in people who were previously well.

Woman in a mask waits in hospital waiting room. — Even previously well people can get long COVID.
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Longer-lasting symptoms can include fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, heart palpitations, headaches, brain fog, muscle aches, sleep disturbance, depression and the loss of smell and taste.

Is it more deadly?

Evidence the Delta variant makes people sicker than the original virus is growing.

Preliminary studies from Canada and Singapore found people infected with Delta were more likely to require hospitalisation and were at greater risk of dying than those with the original virus.

In the Canadian study, Delta resulted in a 6.1% chance of hospitalisation and a 1.6% chance of ICU admission. This compared with other variants of concern which landed 5.4% of people in hospital and 1.2% in intensive care.

In the Singapore study, patients with Delta had a 49% chance of developing pneumonia and a 28% chance of needing extra oxygen. This compared with a 38% chance of developing pneumonia and 11% needing oxygen with the original strain.

Similarly, a published study from Scotland found Delta doubled the risk of hospitalisation compared to the Alpha variant.

Older man with cold symptoms lays down, wrapped in a blanket, cradling his head, holding a tissue to his nose. — Emerging evidence suggests Delta is more likely to cause severe disease than the original strain.
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How do the vaccines stack up against Delta?

So far, the data show a complete course of the Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccine reduces your chance of severe disease (requiring hospitalisation) by more than 85%.

While protection is lower for Delta than the original strain, studies show good coverage for all vaccines after two doses.

Can you still get COVID after being vaccinated?

Yes. Breakthrough infection occurs when a vaccinated person tests positive for SARS-Cov-2, regardless of whether they have symptoms.

Breakthrough infection appears more common with Delta than the original strains.

Most symptoms of breakthrough infection are mild and don’t last as long.

It’s also possible to get COVID twice, though this isn’t common.

How likely are you to die from COVID-19?

In Australia, over the life of the pandemic, 1.4% of people with COVID-19 have died from it, compared with 1.6% in the United States and 1.8% in the United Kingdom.

Data from the United States shows people who were vaccinated were ten times less likely than those who weren’t to die from the virus.

The Delta variant is currently proving to be a challenge to control on a global scale, but with full vaccination and maintaining our social distancing practices, we reduce the spread.

Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We found more than 54,000 viruses in people’s poo — and 92% were previously unknown to science

Posted on June 29, 2021 by particularkev

Philip Hugenholtz, The University of Queensland and Soo Jen Low, The University of QueenslandResearch published today in Nature Microbiology has identified 54,118 species of virus living in the human gut — 92% of which were previously unknown.

But as we and our colleagues from the Joint Genome Institute and Stanford University in California found, the great majority of these were bacteriophages, or “phages” for short. These viruses “eat” bacteria and can’t attack human cells.

When most of us think of viruses, we think of organisms that infect our cells with diseases such as mumps, measles or, more recently, COVID-19. However, there are a vast number of these microscopic parasites in our bodies — mostly in our gut — that target the microbes that live there.

Everybody poos (but not all poo is the same)

There has recently been much interest in the human gut microbiome: the collection of microorganisms that live in our gut.

Besides helping us digest our food, these microbes have many other important roles. They protect us against pathogenic bacteria, modulate our mental well-being, prime our immune system when we are children, and have an ongoing role in immune regulation into adulthood.

It’s fair to say the human gut is now the most well-studied microbial ecosystem on the planet. Yet more than 70% of the microbial species that live there have yet to be grown in the laboratory.

We know this because we can access the genetic blueprints of the gut microbiome via an approach known as metagenomics. This is a powerful technique whereby DNA is directly extracted from an environment and randomly sequenced, giving us a snapshot of what is present within and what it might be doing.

Biologists estimate there are a few hundred trillion viruses living within and outside our bodies.
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Metagenomic studies have revealed how far we still have to go to catalogue and isolate all the microbial species in the human gut — and even further to go when it comes to viruses.

11,810 samples of poo

In our new research, we and our colleagues computationally mined viral sequences from 11,810 publicly available faecal metagenomes, taken from people in 24 different countries. We wanted to get an idea of the extent to which viruses have taken up residence in the human gut.

This effort resulted in the Metagenomic Gut Virus catalogue, the largest such resource to date. This catalogue comprises 189,680 viral genomes which represent more than 50,000 distinct viral species.

Remarkably (but perhaps predictably), more than 90% of these viral species are new to science. They collectively encode more than 450,000 distinct proteins — a huge reservoir of functional potential that may either be beneficial or detrimental to their microbial, and in turn human, hosts.

We also drilled down into subspecies of different viruses and found some showed striking geographical patterns across the 24 countries surveyed.

For example, a subspecies of the recently described and enigmatic crAssphage was prevalent in Asia, but was rare or absent in samples from Europe and North America. This may be due to localised expansion of this virus in specific human populations.

One of the most common functions we discovered in our molecular field trip were diversity-generating retroelements (DGRs). These are a class of genetic elements that mutate specific target genes in order to generate variation that can be beneficial to the host. In the case of DGRs in viruses, this may help in the ongoing evolutionary arms race with their bacterial hosts.

Intriguingly, we found one-third of the most common virally-encoded proteins have unknown functions, including more than 11,000 genes distantly related to “beta-lactamases”, which enable resistance to antibiotics such as penicillin.

Linking gut viruses to their microbial hosts

Having identified the phages, our next task was to link them to their microbial hosts. CRISPRs, best known for their many applications in gene editing, are bacterial immune systems that “remember” past viral infections and prevent them from happening again.

They do this by copying and storing fragments of the invading virus into their own genomes, which can then be used to specifically target and destroy the virus in future encounters.

We used this record of past attacks to link many of the viral sequences to their hosts in the gut ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, highly abundant viral species were linked to highly abundant bacterial species in the gut, mostly belonging to the bacterial phyla Firmicutes and Bacteroidota.

So what can we do with all of this new information? One promising application of an inventory of gut viruses and their hosts is phage therapy. Phage therapy is an old concept predating antibiotics, in which viruses are used to selectively target bacterial pathogens in order to treat infections.

There has been discussion of potentially customising people’s gut microbiomes using dietary interventions, probiotics, prebiotics or even “transpoosions” (faecal microbiota transplants), to improve an individual’s health.

Phage therapy may be a useful addition to this objective, by adding species or even subspecies-level precision to microbiome manipulation. For example, the bacterial pathogen Clostridioides difficile (or Cdiff for short) is a leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhoea that could be specifically targeted by phages.

More subtle manipulation of non-pathogenic bacterial populations in the gut may be achievable through phage therapy. A complete compendium of gut viruses is a useful first step for such applied goals.

It’s worth noting, however, that projections from our data suggest we’ve only investigated a fraction of the total gut viral diversity. So we’ve still got a long way to go.

Philip Hugenholtz, Professor of Microbiology, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland and Soo Jen Low, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Money for telescopes and vaccines is great, but the budget’s lack of basic science funding risks leaving Australia behind

Posted on May 16, 2021 by particularkev

John Shine, Garvan InstituteThe story of the past year has been the pandemic: from the first outbreaks in early 2020, the identification of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and methods to detect it, through to lockdown and quarantine measures, vaccine development, testing and finally distribution. The pandemic is not over, but the recovery has started.

At each stage, it has been scientists and researchers at the forefront of a rapid and successful national and global response to the pandemic. A nation’s capacity to respond to threats like a pandemic does not exist in a vacuum. It depends on scientists. You can’t research a solution without researchers.

In Australia, the higher education sector performs the vast bulk of research, including basic foundational research. This sector has been hit extremely hard by the pandemic, losing billions in revenue leading to the loss of research capacity — the very capacity we need to continue to respond to the pandemic and recover.

For this reason, the lack of recognition for science and scientists in the federal budget, and in particular for the foundational capacity in basic discovery science, is perplexing indeed. Such science capability underpins Australia’s resilience, not just against pandemics but also against natural disasters, economic shocks, technology disruption, the needs of an ageing population, and cyber warfare – many of the government’s stated priority areas.

There is some new funding in the budget, which is welcome. Initiatives such as support for the Square Kilometre Array radiotelescope, supporting women in STEM, climate adaptation, clean energy and government digital resources are essential additions to the Australian scientific landscape. The proposed patent box system promises to stimulate investment in Australian science in medical technologies and clean energy.

Much of this funding is for incremental, short-term, focused technology programs. But such mission-directed science, while worthy, does not substitute for discovery science. If the government wants these missions to be effective, it must invest in basic science too.

If universities are being asked to pivot away from over-reliance on international student income, and towards research commercialisation, there must be a basic science pool to help fuel this translation of research findings into commercial outcomes. At the risk of mixing metaphors, the pivot will be ineffective without a pipeline.

More importantly, the budget does nothing to stem the loss of university science jobs. Failure to act on university funding before the start of the 2022 academic year will mean more university job losses – and it is clear from the decisions already taken at ANU (in science and medicine), Melbourne, Macquarie and Murdoch that these cuts will come from science research.

Medical manufacturing capability

While the government has not revealed in the budget how much money it has committed to onshore mRNA vaccine manufacturing, it is welcome news that there is commitment to developing this capability that will serve the nation well for decades.

The Australian Academy of Science is pleased the government has heeded our advice to future-proof Australia by developing this capability. It will allow Australia to build resilience against future pandemics and potential biosecurity threats that require us to have the onshore capacity to mass-produce vaccines.

Australia will require significant capability development alongside a manufacturing facility. A pipeline of knowledge will need to be developed, from fundamental to applied research related to mRNA vaccines and therapeutics. Australia will need a nationwide consortium of multidisciplinary expertise, in everything from data science to materials engineering, to become a world leader in this new technology.

Building our research capability in this area will allow us to continue solving existing challenges with mRNA vaccines. That’s why the science sector must be included in the scoping and investment in this new capability.

When I was appointed president of the Australian Academy of Science in 2018, I spoke about how it can take decades to translate the outcomes of basic research into something of real value for the community. This remains the case. It has always been the case.

Often, our political leaders want instant answers to the big questions. Australia’s science and research community delivered when it came to COVID-19, but it must be supported and funded to continue making fundamental discoveries if it is to deliver again. The future prosperity of our nation depends on it.

John Shine, President, Australian Academy of Science; Laboratory Head, Garvan Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

4 of our greatest achievements in vaccine science (that led to COVID vaccines)

Posted on February 3, 2021 by particularkev

Adam Taylor, Griffith University

All eyes are on COVID-19 vaccines, with Australia’s first expected to be approved for use shortly.

But their development in record time, without compromising on safety, wouldn’t have been possible without the development of other vaccines before them.

These existing vaccines are some of the greatest achievements of medical science, preventing the spread of infectious disease, saving millions of lives around the world each year.

Here’s what we’ve learned from other vaccines over the past 200 years or so that allowed us to go from discovery of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2, to regulatory approval in some countries in less than a year.

1. Smallpox

Vaccination as we know it started over 200 years ago. Edward Jenner, an English physician, noticed people exposed to cowpox virus, which caused only mild illness, were protected from the severe disease caused by smallpox.

Cowpox and smallpox are part of the poxvirus family. Both share characteristics the immune system recognises. By inoculating people with cowpox, Jenner produced cross-protection against smallpox infection.

With successive development of smallpox vaccines, in 1979 smallpox became the first human infectious disease to be eradicated by vaccination.

2. Polio

Poliovirus is a highly infectious virus that spreads through close contact with infected people, particularly in areas with poor hygiene. Infection can lead to paralysis, typically affecting infants.

The first widely used polio vaccines were developed in the 1950s using newly available methods, known as tissue culture, to grow the virus in the lab.

Tissue culture allowed researchers to grow and inactivate poliovirus, or grow a live form of the virus that was attenuated (or weakened), to form the basis of vaccines that could be given orally. These were distributed in the late 50s.

Researchers still use variants of these early tissue culture techniques to research and develop vaccines today.

The success of mass vaccination in developed countries led to the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Poliovirus is now close to global eradication with only two countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan) reporting low numbers of new infections.

3. Measles

The measles virus is highly contagious, and is spread by through the air when someone coughs and sneezes, as well as via direct contact with fluid from a person’s coughs or sneezes.

Before the development of a measles vaccine in 1963, measles was one of the most lethal infectious agents, causing an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.

In Australia, the vaccine can be given with mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox) vaccines to give the combination MMRV vaccine.

Measles virus illustration showing surface spikes — Measles virus killed millions of people each year before there was a vaccine.
www.shutterstock.com

Global action to eliminate measles via vaccination resulted in a 73% drop in measles deaths worldwide between 2000 and 2018.

Despite this, global coverage of measles vaccines is not enough to prevent outbreaks. Deaths from measles rose from 140,000 in 2018 to 207,500 in 2019.

And in many countries, including Australia, measles outbreaks continue to occur in areas where vaccination rates have fallen.

Engineered versions of the measles vaccine are now being developed to deliver pieces of other viruses, including dengue and HIV, into the body to generate a protective immune response.

4. Diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough)

Diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (or whooping cough) are three separate diseases all caused by different bacteria.

Inactivated toxins produced by these bacteria, and pieces of the bacteria that are safe and mount an effective immune response, have been used since the 1940s in combination to vaccinate against all three diseases.

The diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine was the first combination vaccine. In other words, it was the first vaccine to prevent against multiple diseases. Combination vaccines continue to provide benefits to immunisation schedules by reducing the number of injections required.

These DTP combination vaccines are part of the Australian National Immunisation Program Schedule, and further vaccines have since been added to the mix.

DTP vaccines can now be delivered as a single injection with Haemophilus influenzae type b and poliovirus vaccine. Other combination DTP-based vaccines are also available.

Which brings us to COVID-19

On January 10, 2020, Chinese and Australian scientists provided open access to the newly discovered genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus we now know as SARS-CoV-2.

Australian scientist Eddie Holmes then tweeted a link to the SARS-CoV-2 genome:

This simple act of open science kick-started vaccine development at a rapid pace. On December 2, less than a year later, the Pfizer vaccine became the first fully-tested COVID-19 vaccine to be approved for emergency use, in the UK.

What’s next?

Despite extensive efforts to develop vaccines, diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis still kill millions of people each year.

As we enter the next generation of vaccine design, we can look forward to trialling technologies such as mRNA vaccines, which clinical trials show to be successful against COVID-19, to combat other diseases of global importance.

Adam Taylor, Early Career Research Leader, Emerging Viruses, Inflammation and Therapeutics Group, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Science is political’: Scientific American has endorsed Joe Biden over Trump for president. Australia should take note

Posted on September 20, 2020 by particularkev

Rod Lamberts, Australian National University and Will J Grant, Australian National University

In an unprecedented step, prestigious science publication Scientific American has launched a scathing attack on President Donald Trump and endorsed his opponent, Democratic candidate Joe Biden, in the upcoming US election. It’s the first presidential endorsement in the magazine’s 175-year history.

To this, we say: about bloody time! As we’ve noted before:

Science is political. The science we do is inherently shaped by the funding landscape of government and the problems and issues of society. This means that to have any influence on how science is organised and funded in Australia (or the US or any other country), we as scientists and science communicators must act in ways that matter in the arena of politics.

It’s now more critical than ever, as the editors at Scientific American clearly lay out, that the people who are actually knowledgeable about the world’s crises speak out and represent that knowledge (or “collective wisdom”) in public, out loud and with their names attached.

Under Trump, science isn’t just ignored. It is lampooned and directly attacked, especially on issues such as climate change and the coronavirus pandemic. This actively threatens the lives (and livelihoods) of not just millions of Americans, but countless others around the world.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has shown blatant disregard for scientific recommendations and has actively peddled misinformation, such as when he suggested UV light could be used to treat patients.

Respect the messenger

In the past, it has been suggested scientists who comment beyond their specific, narrow sphere of reach by delving into politics are tainting their credibility – perhaps even behaving unethically.

But as we now stare down the barrel of an ongoing global pandemic (and relentless climate change continuing in the background), to remain quiet on the politics is not just unethical, but actively dangerous.

The argument that science is somehow tainted by offering policy or political opinions is an idea whose time has long gone.

Who is better placed to add valuable weight to public debates about the key problems we’re facing, than those who represent the voice of evidence, reason and debate (such as Scientific American)?

As one of us has previously argued, in Australia we should encourage scientists and science communicators to:

Become more active in challenging the status quo, or to help support those who wish to by engendering a professional environment that encourages risk-taking and speaking out in public about critical social issues.

It’s the principle, not the votes

Scientific American is not entirely alone in pushing for the involvement of scientists in public policy and action. Other reputable publications have taken similar stances in the past.

In 2017, Nature argued “debates over climate change and genome editing present the need for researchers to venture beyond their comfort zones to engage with citizens”. Earlier in 2012, Nature explicitly endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

In Australia, our news publications have a tradition of endorsing political parties at federal elections, but our science publishing landscape has typically remained agnostic.

Peak bodies such as the Australian Academy of Science, and Science and Technology Australia, have commented on the political decision-making process, but have rarely been so forthright as the Scientific American’s recent editorial.

Not only should scientists take a stand, they should also be encouraged and professionally acknowledged for it.

Scientists as citizens have the right to advocate for political positions and figures that support the best possible evidence. In fact, when it comes to matters as serious as COVID-19 and climate change, we believe they have an obligation to.

Scientific American’s intervention may not impact votes, but that’s not the point. The point is it’s crucial for people who believe in knowledge and expertise to stand up and call out misinformation for what it is. To do less is to accept the current state.

Editor in Chief of Scientific American Laura Helmuth speaking to an audience. — Laura Helmuth is the ninth and current Editor in Chief of the Scientific American magazine. She was appointed to the role in April this year.
@webmz_/Twitter

Australia’s work in progress

Nonetheless, many scientists in Australia rely on government funding. This can make it difficult to speak up when legitimate evidence clashes with the orientation of the government of the day. Confronted with the possible loss of funding, what can a scientist do?

There’s no perfect solution. Many may feel the risks of speaking are too great. For many, they will be.

In such cases, scientists could perhaps look for intermediaries to make their case on their behalf – whether these are trustworthy journalists, or publicly visible academics like us.

In the long term, defending those who have gone out of their way to act responsibly will help. The more this becomes normal, the more likely it will become the norm. But it’s also an unfortunate reality that change rarely occurs without discomfort.

When it comes to truly world-shaking crises like COVID-19 and climate change, scientists are political citizens like everyone else. And just like everyone else, they need to weigh the price of action against the price of inaction.

Speaking out can’t always be someone else’s job.

Rod Lamberts, Deputy Director, Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University and Will J Grant, Senior Lecturer, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Thousand Talents Plan is part of China’s long quest to become the global scientific leader

Posted on September 4, 2020 by particularkev

James Jin Kang, Edith Cowan University

The Thousand Talents Plan is a Chinese government program to attract scientists and engineers from overseas. Since the plan began in 2008, it has recruited thousands of researchers from countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, Canada, Japan, France and Australia.

While many countries try to lure top international research talent, the US, Canada and others have raised concerns that the Thousand Talents Plan may facilitate espionage and theft of intellectual property.

Why are we hearing about it now?

China has long been suspected of engaging in hacking and intellectual property theft. In the early 2000s, Chinese hackers were involved in the downfall of the Canadian telecommunications corporation Nortel, which some have linked to the rise of Huawei.

These efforts have attracted greater scrutiny as Western powers grow concerned about China’s increasing global influence and foreign policy projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative.

Last year, a US Senate committee declared the plan a threat to American interests. Earlier this year, Harvard nanotechnology expert Charles Lieber was arrested for lying about his links to the program.

In Australia, foreign policy think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute recently published a detailed report on Australian involvement in the plan. After media coverage of the plan, the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security is set to launch an inquiry into foreign interference in universities.

What is the Thousand Talents Plan?

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) developed the Thousand Talents Plan to lure top scientific talent, with the goal of making China the world’s leader in science and technology by 2050. The CCP uses the plan to obtain technologies and expertise, and arguably, Intellectual Properties from overseas by illegal or non-transparent means to build their power by leveraging those technologies with minimal costs.

According to a US Senate committee report, the Thousand Talents Plan is one of more than 200 CCP talent recruitment programs. These programs drew in almost 60,000 professionals between 2008 and 2016.

China’s technology development and intellectual property portfolio has skyrocketed since the launch of the plan in 2008. Last year China overtook the US for the first time in filing the most international patents.

What are the issues?

The plan offers scientists funding and support to commercialise their research, and in return the Chinese government gains access to their technologies.

In 2019, a US Senate committee declared the plan a threat to American interests. It claimed one participating researcher stole information about US military jet engines, and more broadly that China uses American research and expertise for its own economic and military gain.

Dozens of Australian and US employees of universities and government are believed to have participated in the plan without having declared their involvement. In May, ASIO issued all Australian universities a warning about Chinese government recruitment activities.

On top of intellectual property issues, there are serious human rights concerns. Technologies transferred to China under the program have been used in the oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and in society-wide facial recognition and other forms of surveillance.

A global network

The Chinese government has established more than 600 recruitment stations globally. This includes 146 in the US, 57 each in Germany and Australia, and more than 40 each in the UK, Canada, Japan and France.

Recruitment agencies contracted by the CCP are paid A$30,000 annually plus incentives for each successful recruitment.

They deal with individual researchers rather than institutions as it is easier to monitor them. Participants do not have to leave their current jobs to be involved in the plan.

This can raise conflicts of interest. In the US alone, 54 scientists have lost their jobs for failing to disclose this external funding, and more than 20 have been charged on espionage and fraud allegations.

In Australia, our education sector relies significantly on the export of education to Chinese students. Chinese nationals may be employed in various sectors including research institutions.

These nationals are targets for Thousand Talents Plan recruitment agents. Our government may not know what’s going on unless participants disclose information about their external employment or grants funded by the plan.

The case of Koala AI

Heng Tao Shen was recruited by the Thousand Talents Plan in 2014 while a professor at the University of Queensland. He became head of the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and founded a company called Koala AI.

Members of Koala AI’s research team reportedly now include Thousand Talents Plan scholars at the University of NSW, University of Melbourne and the National University of Singapore. The plan allows participants to stay at their overseas base as long as they work in China for a few months of the year.

The company’s surveillance technology was used by authorities in Xinjiang, raising human rights issues. Shen, who relocated to China in 2017 but was as an honorary professor at the University of Queensland until September 2019, reportedly failed to disclose this information to his Australian university, going against university policy.

What should be done?

Most participants in the plan are not illegally engaged and have not breached the rules of their governments or institutions. With greater transparency and stricter adherence to the rules of foreign states and institutions, the plan could benefit both China and other nations.

Governments, universities and research institutions, and security agencies all have a role to play here.

The government can build partnership with other parties to monitor the CCP’s talent recruitment activities and increase transparency on funding in universities. Investigations of illegal behaviour related to the talent recruitment activity can be conducted by security agencies. Research institutes can tighten the integrity of grant recipients by disclosing any participation in the talent recruitment plans.

More resources should be invested towards compliance and enforcement in foreign funding processes, so that researchers understand involvement in the Thousand Talents Plan may carry national security risks.

Following US government scrutiny in 2018, Chinese government websites deleted online references to the plan and some Chinese universities stopped promoting it. The plan’s website also removed the names of participating scientists.

This shows a joint effort can influence the CCP and their recruitment stations to be more cautious in approaching candidates, and reduce the impact of this plan on local and domestic affairs.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Heng Tao Shen ceased to be an honorary professor at University of Queensland in September 2019.

James Jin Kang, Lecturer, Computing and Security, Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Antarctic endeavours, primary health-care research and dark matter exploration – the coronavirus casualties you haven’t heard of

Posted on April 24, 2020 by particularkev

Lauren Ball, Griffith University

The year 2020 came with big expectations for researchers, myself included. Last year I was successful in the first round of the National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator Grants scheme. Six years since completing my PhD, I managed to launch my Healthy Primary Care research team.

We investigate how principles of wellness such as healthy eating and exercise are incorporated into health care, particularly in general practice. I spent the summer planning how to support my team for the next five years, focusing on impact and research translation into real-world settings.

Big things were in the works. It was an exciting time. But as it turns out, wellness in health care isn’t a priority during the COVID-19 crisis.

As the pandemic lingers, big players (especially pharmaceutical companies) around the world have understandably dropped everything, joining forces to give the virus their undivided attention.

A sudden loss

Many of my team’s projects relied on doctors, nurses and other health professionals to collect or provide data. With the strain placed on health care by the pandemic, continuing was no longer viable. Grant applications, domestic and international travel, conferences and meetings have all been cancelled or postponed indefinitely.

As a supervisor, the hardest part was withdrawing research students and interns I’d lined up to start projects in clinics. This pandemic has challenged the relevance, impact and productivity of our work.

This shock comes shortly after a summer of devastating bushfires which hindered research progress by forcing experts out of fire-affected regions, destroying expanses of equipment and reportedly setting some studies “back months or years”.

This photo was taken in Junee, New South Wales, in January. According to reports, the total tangible cost estimate of the summer bushfires was close to A$100 billion.
Shutterstock

Stoppages across the field

Social distancing, travel bans and quarantine restrictions mean scientific fieldwork across the world has almost completely stopped.

The Australian Antarctic Program, led by the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment has been reduced to essential staff only to keep the Antarctic continent COVID-19-free. Instead of sending 500 expeditioners in the next summer season, the Australian Antarctic Division will only send about 150.

Social distancing measures are also preventing climate scientists from being able to visit their laboratories. If the pandemic continues, this could hamper important weather and climate surveillance practices. In some cases, labs have been reduced to one essential worker whose sole job is to keep laboratory animals alive for when research resumes.

Delays have also impacted one of the world’s largest efforts to investigate the nature of dark matter. The XENON experiment based in Italy is worth more than US$30 million, according to the New York Times. It faced a multitude of roadblocks when the country was forced into lockdown earlier this year.

Young research stars missing opportunities

For young researchers, social distancing and event cancellations are especially damaging to professional development. Scientific conferences and meetings foster collaboration and can also lead to employment opportunities.

Although funding cancellations and grant scheme delays mostly impact established researchers, other schemes supporting early career and postdoctoral researchers have also been postponed, such as the Rebecca L Cooper Medical Research scheme and the Griffith University Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme.

This crisis has left the next generation of researchers unsupported, and have negative flow-on effects for all research areas. In health and disease prevention, research efforts apart from vaccinations are still vital, as the onset of COVID-19 hasn’t stopped the rise of chronic disease.

There are positives

Australia boasts a robust and passionate research workforce, which means we can divert resources to a united cause such as the coronavirus crisis. As the race for a vaccine continues, the value of research has never been more apparent to the non-scientific community. This may help weaken anti-science messages.

The pandemic is also providing opportunity for future university leaders to understand university management, funding and governance decisions. Never before has information been so accessible on where funding comes from.

Online conferencing and collaboration related to research has also made participation more accessible and affordable. This increases inclusively by removing barriers for people who may not be able to attend in-person gatherings, such as people living with a physical disability, full-time carers and people experiencing financial hardship. Less domestic and international travel is also helping reduce carbon footprints.

Charging forward

The health system isn’t working normally, which means my team’s research isn’t working normally. Nonetheless, we’re pivoting well in this uncertain time. We’re helping plan the first online conference for Australian primary care to improve access to relevant research across the country.

New grant opportunities are aligning COVID-19 to our research focus, such as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’s and the Hospitals Contribution Fund’s special call for projects on COVID-19 in general practice.

Some may think non-COVID-19 research isn’t currently necessary, but it will be once we combat this disease. And when that happens, we’ll be ready to continue right where we left off.

Lauren Ball, Associate Professor/ Principal Research Fellow, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Trust Me, I’m An Expert: the science of sleep and the economics of sleeplessness

Posted on December 4, 2018 by particularkev

File 20181120 161621 38clkj.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1 — You know you’re not supposed to do this – but you do.
Shutterstock

Dilpreet Kaur, The Conversation and Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation

How did you sleep last night? If you had anything other than eight interrupted hours of peaceful, restful sleep then guess what? It’s not that bad – it’s actually pretty normal.

We recently asked five sleep researchers if everyone needs eight hours of sleep a night and they all said no, you don’t.

In fact, only about one quarter of us report getting eight or more hours of sleep. That’s according to the huge annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey which now tracks more than 17,500 people in 9500 households.

We’ll hear today from Roger Wilkins, who runs the HILDA survey at University of Melbourne, on what exactly the survey found about how much and how well Australians sleep.

But first, you’ll hear from sleep expert Melinda Jackson, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, about what the evidence shows about how we used to sleep in pre-industrial times, and what promising research is on the horizon. Here’s a taste:

Listen.

Trust Me, I’m An Expert is a podcast where we ask academics to surprise, delight and inform us with their research. You can download previous episodes here.

And please, do check out other podcasts from The Conversation – including The Conversation US’ Heat and Light, about 1968 in the US, and The Anthill from The Conversation UK, as well as Media Files, a podcast all about the media. You can find all our podcasts over here.

The two segments in today’s podcast were recorded and edited by Dilpreet Kaur Taggar. Additional editing by Sunanda Creagh.

Additional audio and credits

Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks

Morning Two by David Szesztay, Free Music Archive.

Dilpreet Kaur, Editorial Intern, The Conversation and Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia needs boldness and bravery from Karen Andrews, the new minister for industry, science and technology

Posted on September 16, 2018 by particularkev

Emma Johnston, UNSW

It’s almost a year since Australia had a named science minister in Cabinet.

Now the role has been revived, following a weekend ministerial reshuffle after Scott Morrison became the new Australian prime minister.

Today Karen Andrews was sworn in as minister for industry, science and technology, and she joins the cabinet for the first time.

I believe the incoming minister is likely to be a strong advocate and effective representative for the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sector. She should have solid support from some key members of cabinet who have a track record of supporting STEM, such as Josh Frydenberg (treasurer), Michaelia Cash (now minister for small and family business, skills and vocational education), and Greg Hunt (minister for health).

But this is a complex portfolio and as a new member she will need to work hard to build cabinet-wide support for solutions to key challenges in the sector.

Andrews is the member for McPherson, an electorate in southern Queensland. She has held the seat since her election in 2010, joining politics as a graduate of mechanical engineering and following a career in human resources and industrial relations.

Active in STEM

During her eight years in parliament, Andrews has shown an avid interest in science and technology.

Previously assistant minister for vocational education and skills, and before that assistant minister for science, Andrews is the co-founder and co-convenor of the Parliamentary Friends of Science group alongside shadow minister for defence Richard Marles.

She has attended Science meets Parliament for many years and participates in Science and Technology Australia’s STEM Ambassador program.

Andrews has promoted the value of STEM education, voiced her support for the potential for nuclear power for Australia, and publicly encouraged vaccination.

In a recent interview she said,

I am very keen that my parliamentary colleagues understand science, technology, engineering and maths and the importance of evidence-based decision making. We all need to make sure we are making decisions based on evidence, not opinions.

We need a better plan

Despite some recent positive actions, Australia still lacks a strong, comprehensive and long-term whole-of-government plan for the STEM sector.

The government showed support for STEM with the release of their National Research Infrastructure Investment Plan, additional funding for supercomputing facilities, and through the establishment of the Medical Research Future Fund.

Given the excellent returns on investment in research and development, it is crucial that similarly bold, and long-term, approaches to investment in both basic and applied non-medical scientific research are soon to follow.

It has been noted that while around A$2 billion has been saved over four years by the government’s changes to the research and development (R&D) tax incentive arrangements, none of that saving has been put towards the recommended premium on industry R&D partnerships with public research institutions.

The sector still faces many challenges in increasing equity, diversity and inclusion. The government has shown support for women in STEM, through the women in STEM and entrepreneurship grants scheme and refunding of the Superstars of STEM program.

However, we can do more to reduce harassment and bullying – and to support Indigenous scientists, LGBTQIA+ scientists and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

I hope to see expansion from the government’s vision outlined in the National Science Statement, that outlines a role for the sector more broadly, along with clear and measurable priorities and goals. This will allow Australian science and technology to move forward with more confidence and purpose.

Similarly, it’s important for Australia to address a shortage in STEM skills, an issue that was highlighted by Andrews in 2015.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics are predicted to be the fastest growing industries globally (it’s estimated up to 75% of the fastest growing occupations will require STEM skills), and Australia has to prepare accordingly. We must reverse our declining participation and performance in STEM subjects.

Policy informed by evidence

Finally, it’s important that as the spokesperson for science and technology in cabinet, Andrews is a bold and brave advocate for policy informed by evidence.

In a 2009 speech by the then Productivity Commission Chairman, Professor Gary Banks, emphasised the importance of evidence-based policy, especially in regard to long-term and complex environmental, social and economic challenges.

Instances such as the Higher-Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and the shift to inflation targeting monetary policy are just two examples of long-term policy being developed from a strong evidence base. It is clear that further investment in evidence-based policy formation is required.

With a new minister, and a new voice in cabinet to promote science and evidence, I am more optimistic about the future of Australian science and technology.

Having a representative that is qualified, demonstrably passionate, and who is engaged with the STEM sector at all levels, gives us hope that we will see visionary leadership and strength from the member for McPherson.

I look forward to continuing to work with the government to make STEM a top priority for Australia, and ensure that our scientists and technologists play a key role in the nation’s future environment, health, wealth and well-being.

Emma Johnston, Professor and Dean of Science, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

3, 2, 1…liftoff! The science of launching rockets from Australia

Posted on June 25, 2018 by particularkev

File 20180619 126537 1qfa7gp.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1 — Aircraft and missiles on display at Woomera, South Australia. Will we launch more rockets from here in the future?
from www.shutterstock.com

Ingo Jahn, The University of Queensland

Australia’s space agency will officially commence operations on July 1 2018.

As inaugural agency head Megan Clarke surveys our national capability in space, many states are putting forward strong cases regarding their existing relationships, human resources and infrastructure.

But from where should Australia launch rockets? Woomera in South Australia launched its first rocket in 1967, but in reality Australia could support multiple launch sites. And the closer to the equator, typically the better.

Let’s look at why.

Launching the payload

The first step in a space venture is to launch the payload (typically a satellite) and get it to stay in a suitable orbit without falling back to earth.

To achieve this, first the rocket must lift itself and the payload from the launch pad, through the lower levels of the atmosphere to altitudes greater than 100 km. This is achieved using a near vertical trajectory.

Once outside the atmosphere, the climb angle is reduced and the rocket starts to accelerate to reach its orbital velocity. It must travel at more than 7.8km/s (approx 28000 km/h) to stay in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). LEOs are orbits with an altitude of less than 2000km, and are used by the majority of small satellites.

The majority of the rocket fuel is used in this acceleration phase. The high final velocity is required to ensure the released payload stays in orbit.

However, by appropriate selection of launch site and launch direction, the required velocity to achieve LEO can be reduced.

The earth rotates one revolution per day in the westward direction, which results in a surface velocity of 0.46km/s (approx 1670 km/hr) at the equator. As you move north or south from the equator, this surface velocity decreases.

So, in the ideal case, launching westwards from the equator, the velocity to stay in LEO is reduced from 7.8km/s to approximately 7.3km/s.

As fuel required to attain these speeds is proportional to velocity squared, this is a substantial saving.

Different launches for different orbits

This speed advantage is most important for spacecraft leaving earth and satellites going to geostationary orbit (a high earth orbit, where they rotate with earth and remain exactly above a fixed point on the ground). By launching from the equator in a purely westward direction they can fully utilise this speed advantage.

However, for small satellites aiming for LEO this has limited value. They would circle above the equator and could only view (or be visible from) a strip several hundreds of kilometres wide.

Instead most LEO launches are slightly to the north or south of the equator, so that the resulting orbit is inclined relative to the earth equatorial plane. From these orbits, after multiple passes, most of the earth (excluding the north and south pole) is visible.

A good example of such an orbit is the International Space Station, which can be tracked at ISS tracker.

International Space Station astronaut Ricky Arnold doing a spacewalk in June 2018.
NASA, CC BY

The exception to this are satellites in what are called sun synchronous and polar orbits, flying almost directly over the north and south pole. These require launches in the north or south direction and cannot utilise the speed advantage.

Blue skies, no wind

The biggest motivator for building launch sites close to the equator is the the speed advantage and associated fuel savings mentioned above. Reductions in fuel mass allow increases in allowable payload mass.

This is reflected by the major well established spaceports: Cape Canaveral in Florida (USA), Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (Russia), Kourou in French Guinea (Europe), and Jiuqan (China) all of which are located in the vicinity of the equator.

Looking ahead, there will be significant demand for future launch capacity to LEO either on inclined or sun synchronous orbits, as they are easy to reach and well suited for observation and communication satellites.

Secondary considerations for choosing launch sites are weather and climate related. Obviously blue sky days with little wind are desirable for launching, but – as demonstrated by Cape Canaveral in Florida – it is possible to operate a space-port in a region regularly visited by hurricanes. Nevertheless NASA cites weather as one of the main causes for launch delays.

Finally, it is desirable for launch sites to be close to towns and cities so that people have somewhere to live, and so that launch sites can contribute to the local community.

Launching from Australia

Australia has a rich heritage in space related innovation, research, and collaboration, dating back to the NASA Mercury and Gemini programs.

Today there are several home-grown start-ups developing launch capabilities for access to space, such as Hypersonix and Gilmour Space Technologies (plus Rocketlab in New Zealand), all specifically targeting small satellite launches.

An evolution from this would be an Australian space port, which would further spur on these developments and help grow Australia’s space industry.

So far the majority of rocket launches in Australia have been conducted at the Woomera Prohibited Area, located in South Australia. An advantage of Woomera is that trajectories initially run over land. This allows easier communications with the rocket or flight experiment, making it ideal for rocket development. But this isn’t essential in space launches.

Being a large country, Australia can accommodate multiple launch sites. Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) recently announced that they have secured land to start construction of the Arnhem Space Centre in the Northern Territory in 2018.

Similarly Australian Space Launch (ASL) is exploring locations in the Bowen region, North Queensland and Southern Launch have started site selection along the south coast.

Space launches from Australia can be expected in the not so distance future.
Having a national launch capability will significantly boost the growing space and satellite industry.

Ingo Jahn, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Sharing my thoughts with the world from a Particular Baptist perspective

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A sudden loss

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There are positives

Charging forward

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Additional audio and credits

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Active in STEM

We need a better plan

Policy informed by evidence

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Launching the payload

Different launches for different orbits

Blue skies, no wind

Launching from Australia

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