Archive for September 2020
Science Policy Around the Web September 29th, 2020
By Kellsye Fabian, PhD
California to phase out sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035
On September 23, Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035. According to Newsom, this will aggressively lessen the state’s reliance on fossil fuels while promoting economic growth and jobs creation.
Following the order, the California Air Resources Board, will develop regulations to mandate that every new passenger car and truck sold in-state is electric or otherwise zero-emissions by 2035. The board will also develop regulations to ensure that medium- and heavy-duty vehicles will be zero-emission by 2045. The order requires state agencies, in coordination with the private sector, to accelerate the deployment of affordable fueling and charging stations. The order does not prevent Californians from owning and selling gasoline-powered cars or buying them from outside the state.
The transportation sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. It is responsible for more than 50% of the state’s carbon emission, 80% of smog-forming pollution, and 95% of toxic diesel emissions. Banning the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 would achieve more than 35% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and an 80% improvement in oxides of nitrogen emissions from cars statewide.
Automakers and the fossil fuel industry were critical of Newsom’s plan. According to John Bozella, who heads a group that represents automakers, mandates and bans do not make a successful market and more has to be done to increase consumer demand for zero-emission vehicles. Chet Thompson, a lobbyist for fossil fuel refineries, asserted that the governor does not have the authority to limit car buyers’ choices.
Kassie Siegel, the director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, praised the phaseout of gas-powered cars but said that Newsom had not gone far enough to curtail oil production. The executive order also calls to end the issuance of new hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) permits by 2024, but left it to the state legislature to enact a ban. Furthermore, under Newsom, the state approved drilling permits for more than 1,400 new oil and gas wells in the first half of 2020.
(Dino Grandoni, Faiz Siddiqui, Brady Dennis, The Washington Post)
Science Policy Around the Web September 24th, 2020
By Hannah King, PhD
Eli Lilly reports promising first results for an antibody against COVID-19
The pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has reported the first results of a Phase I human clinical trial investigating the efficacy of a monoclonal antibody against SARS-CoV-2, the first in-human trial of this kind of treatment.
This antibody – LY-CoV555 – was administered to 302 COVID-19 patients with mild or moderate symptoms at either a low, medium or high dose. Treatment with this monoclonal antibody reduced the hospitalization rate by 72% compared to the placebo arm, with only 1.7% of patients requiring hospitalization following treatment (vs 6% in the placebo group).
While these results are exciting and are the first clinical data published for monoclonal antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2, experts have warned against premature celebrations. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute described the results as “quite encouraging” but “not definitive, by any means—of having efficacy”.
The primary goal of this study was to measure a reduction in the coronavirus in blood of patients 11 days following antibody administration. However, only the middle dose of antibody was able to mediate a significant reduction in levels of virus in the blood, while the low and, surprisingly, the high doses did not. The company also did not say whether the reduction in the hospitalization rates were significant, raising questions as to whether this effect was meaningful.
The clinical trial administering Ly-CoV555 is ongoing and aims to enroll 800 patients total. The company intends to pursue an emergency use authorization for this treatment from the FDA, which requires less evidence of efficacy than is required for an unqualified drug approval to market. Despite the possible drawbacks of this treatment, including high cost and difficulties producing it at a large scale, Eric Topol describes it as “our best shot for a near term, potent intervention”. With this in mind, it is likely that the scientific community will be eagerly awaiting the final results from both this and other ongoing studies administering monoclonal antibody therapy for SARS-CoV-2.
(Meredith Wadman, Science Magazine)
Science Policy Around the Web September 22nd, 2020
By Ken Farabaugh, PhD
Life on Venus? Astronomers see a signal in its clouds
Venus is considered Earth’s twin – roughly the same size, and it may have once held liquid water oceans 700 million years ago. However, today it is a hellscape, with surface temperatures over 800 degrees Fahrenheit, an atmosphere nearly 90 times that of Earth stifled by carbon dioxide, and acid clouds that destroy the metal of all the probes that have reached the surface. Yet there is a cloud layer 31 miles below the upper atmosphere, where the air pressure is similar to that on Earth and temperatures may reach a frigid 86 degrees Fahrenheit, where scientists have suggested that life could theoretically exist.
Phosphine is a gas that contains phosphorus and hydrogen atoms, both required for life (as we know it). It is found on Earth in our own intestines and feces, and those of other animals, as a result of anaerobic bacteria living there. However, scientists have not yet elucidated the metabolic pathways that produce this gas. While phosphine can be found at the immense pressures in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, no other known mechanisms, geological or otherwise, are known to produce this gas; it can only theoretically be found on smaller rocky planets as a result of anaerobic life. It is therefore one of the gases that astronomers seek as a marker of extraterrestrial life.
How surprising, then, that only now did we discover phosphine on Venus, the closest planet to Earth! Using the Atacama Large Millimeter array in Chile, scientists found phosphine evident in the atmosphere of Venus, at thousands of times the atmospheric concentration here on Earth. Interestingly, phosphine gas is broken down by light, so for so much phosphine to be present, there must be a continuously renewing source of the gas. The authors of the discovery created models of the planet and atmosphere, and essentially eliminated as many possible sources as have been shown to produce phosphine, like lightning or volcanic activity, leaving only ample anaerobic life.
While the known sources of phosphine gas have likely been eliminated, others argue that the model at best is incomplete, as we cannot know if there are sources of phosphine on Venus that we are simply unaware of, as they do not exist on Earth. The only methods to confirm these hypotheses will be exploratory missions. By coincidence, a probe launched by the European Space Agency and Japanese Space Agency for the BepiColombo mission to Mercury was already intended to do a Venus flyby next month, although the instruments it is carrying are unlikely to be sensitive enough to discover any signs of life. Future missions are being discussed to address the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial life so close to home.
(Shannon Stirone, Kenneth Chang, and Dennis Overbye, New York Times)
Science Policy Around the Web September 10th, 2020
By Dorothy Butler, PhD
AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine study put on hold due to suspected adverse reaction in participant in the U.K.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, scientists work to find an effective therapeutic or vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. In the United States, Operation Warp Speed–a partnership between the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense, and private companies–has invested more than $10 billion in special funding for COVID-19 vaccine development. Vaccine development was moving at record speed with nine coronavirus vaccines in final phase III clinical trials by the beginning of September.
However, global trials for a COVID-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford has been put on hold after a suspected adverse reaction in a trial participant in the United Kingdom. Details of the adverse reaction have not been disclosed, but there is a possibility that it is not connected to the vaccine. While investigations are underway to determine the cause of this reaction, enrolment in trials of this vaccine have been paused in other countries such as Brazil, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. With the immense pressure to push a vaccine through to approval and many hesitant about the safety of such actions, this clinical hold shows that the checks and balances are still functioning and that vaccine safety is still paramount. Some also argue that because of the situation surrounding the development of these SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, details about the studies should be made public to help promote public in the vaccine development, pharmaceutical companies, and governmental regulatory agencies.
As the world waits for progress on the vaccines to continue, many countries have invested in pre-ordering millions of doses of each of the most promising vaccines. This particular Oxford/AstraZenca vaccine had almost 3 billion total pre-ordered doses by the end of August, the highest of any coronavirus vaccine candidate. However, we must still wait for the results of phase III clinical trials before any vaccines will be approved and distributed.
(Rebecca Robbins, Adam Feuersein, Helen Branswell, STAT)
Science Policy Around the Web September 8th, 2020
By Andrew Wright, BSc
Ice sheet melt on track with ‘worst-case climate scenario’
While RCP 8.5, or the ‘worst-case scenario’ climate model may be unlikely in its entirety due to global reductions in coal use, at least one factor, glacial melting, is tightly adhering to the most severe model from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth assessment report according to a paper published in Nature Climate Change. Greenland and Antarctica, which are particularly sensitive to global warming, have lost a combined 6.4 trillion tons of ice since 1992 and now account for a third of all sea level rise. Should the rates of glacial ice melt continue to accelerate at their current pace and track with extreme climate models, sea levels are predicted to rise by 17.8 cm by 2100 from ice melt alone. To put that in perspective, since 1993 the ocean has risen by about 8cm and flooding in the United States has increased by over 200%. In addition, glacial lakes, or reservoirs of ice melt are rapidly forming that pose flood dangers to communities at lower elevations.
The Greenland ice sheet may be past the point of no return now that annual snowfall is no longer sufficient to replenish glacial mass lost through warming oceans and higher air temperatures. In addition, extreme melting events where billions of ice are lost in a single day are starting to occur. As the world is faced with at least some level of inevitable sea level rise that will cause trillions of dollars in damage in coastal and river communities, governments will have to invest not only in carbon reduction strategies, but also protective infrastructure.
(The European Space Agency)
Science Policy Around the Web September 1st, 2020
By Silvia Preite, PhD
Covid-19 re-infection can occur, but the implications for individuals and society remain uncertain.
Eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, documented re-infection cases are occurring in apparently healthy and immunocompetent individuals. After the first infection, individuals were negative for the virus yet tested positive again a few months later. During the second infection, the viral genetic identity was different from the one sequenced the first time, suggesting two unrelated infections with genetically distinct SARS-CoV2 viruses.
In a case reported by Hong Kong researchers, a 33-year-old man was hospitalized with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 symptoms during the early infection, but was asymptomatic during the second infection. These events suggest the immune system’s ability to do its job: train during the first infection, build memory, and work better the second time to protect the disease from occuring. However, in another re-infection case reported in Nevada, a 25-year-old individual had a symptomatic primary infection that resolved during home isolation. In contrast, during the second infection this person required hospitalization, oxygen support, and developed pneumonia. While these reports verify that re-infection with SARS-CoV2 can occur, it is still too early to draw any conclusion about broad implications.
The quality of the immune response to SARS-CoV2 varies between individuals, likely due to a combination of genetic factors, infection history with other coronaviruses, age, and gender. More time is necessary to analyze and characterize the features of primary and secondary infections to understand their implications in the general population better.
Notably, in both cases, the publications did not evaluate whether the two re-infected individuals were infections. If re-infection can lead to new transmission of the virus, herd immunity generated through SARS-CoV2 infection is unlikely to occur and to protect vulnerable individuals from being infected and become sick. In the re-infection case in Hong Kong, the authors conclude that “Even those with previous COVID-19 infection should comply with epidemiological control measures such as universal masking and social distancing.”
(Andrew Joseph, STAT)
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