The hits, they just keep coming!

News was made in February when astronomers found seven potential earth-like planets orbiting the red dwarf star Trappist-1.

Wednesday, another red dwarf star is making headlines with the announcement of a ‘super earth’ found orbiting around the small red star LHS 1140.

Super Earth?

VOA spoke with Jason Dittmann, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, about the find.

He is the lead author of the paper laying out the new findings, which is being published Thursday in the journal Nature.

He calls the planet a “Super Earth,” not because it’s any better than our blue-green sphere, but because it “is somewhere between the size of the Earth (the largest rocky planet in the Solar System) and Neptune. These planets are actually pretty common, but we don’t have any of them in our own Solar System so we don’t know much about them.”

Finding one is a big deal in general. But this one, dubbed LHS 1140b, is extra-special because it has turned up in the dwarf star’s habitable zone, that area in space where liquid water can exist on the surface.

The planet is 10 times closer to the star than Earth is to the sun, but red dwarfs are much smaller and much cooler than the giant inferno that keeps us warm.

The other special thing about this planet is that it’s about 5 billion years old, and according to Dittmann, “Five billion years should be more than enough time for life to develop [if it’s easy to develop, no one knows!] So this is definitely a good thing.”

Too close for comfort

In general, one big problem with the habitable planets scientists have found around red dwarfs — and this goes for a few of the seven they’ve found on Trappist-1 — and Proxima b, another found last year — is that they are so close to their star that the stellar radiation that is bombarding the planets can literally strip away any atmosphere.

And this may be the case here.

But LHS 1140, according to team member Nicola Astudillo-Defru, “spins more slowly and emits less high-energy radiation than other similar low-mass stars.” That’s good news because the planet is so old and so big that chances are decent that it’s managed to hold onto an atmosphere.

Another bit of good news is that terrestrial planet LHS 1140b as seen from earth passes almost directly in front of its star, and that makes it a lot easier to do follow up research that Dittmann and his colleagues are already planning.

“We’re definitely already applying for as much telescope time as we can get our hands on,” Dittmann says, “to start looking at this planet’s atmosphere. And when the next generation of telescopes come online [The James Webb Space Telescope, and the ground-based Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and European-Extremely Large Telescope (EELT) ], we’ll be in a great spot to find out what sorts of atmospheres planets around M dwarfs have.”

The Webb telescope is expected to launch next year, but the Giant Magellan telescope won’t be online until 2025, and the EELT won’t be working until 2024.

That’s a long time to wait, and undoubtedly there’ll be a long list of planets to explore by then. But the hope is that by studying the atmosphere of all these planets in the habitable zone, we might find some of the biological signatures of living things. Two of the European members of the team, Xavier Delfosse and Xavier Bonfils say that it’s the best candidate so far.

“The LHS 1140 system might prove to be an even more important target for the future characterization of planets in the habitable zone than Proxima b or TRAPPIST-1. This has been a remarkable year for exoplanet discoveries!” wrote Delfosse and Bonfils.

And there certainly will be more on the way.

 
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A new report says 40 percent of Americans live in counties with unhealthy levels of particle air pollution.

The annual “State of the Air” report, released Wednesday by the American Lung Association, also found that six of the 10 cities with the worst air pollution were in California.

The report found that 125 million Americans experience unhealthy levels of pollution, which has been linked to lung cancer, asthma and cardiovascular damage.

“While most of the nation has much cleaner air quality than even a decade ago, many cities reported their highest number of unhealthy days since the report began [18 years ago],” the report read.

The 10 worst cities for short-term particle air pollution were Bakersfield, Calif., Visalia-Porterville-Hanford, Calif., Fresno-Madera, Calif., Modesto-Merced, Calif., Fairbanks, Ala., San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, Calif., Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem, Utah, Logan, Utah-Idaho, Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif. and Reno-Carson City-Fernley, Nev.

California’s air quality issues are a result of a growing population and its numerous valleys that allow polluted air to settle, the report said. The high number of sunny days in Southern California also boost ozone levels, the report said, adding that the state would be in worse shape were it not for strict auto emission regulations as well as limiting coal-fired power plants.

The cities with the worst year-round particle air pollution were Visalia-Porterville-Hanford, Calif., Bakersfield, Calif., Fresno-Madera, Calif., San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, Calif., Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif., Modesto-Merced, Calif., El Centro, Calif., Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton, Pa.-Ohio-W.Va., Cleveland-Akron-Canton, Ohio and San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles-Arroyo Grande, Calif.

Just six cities recorded no days of unhealthy levels of pollution: Burlington, Vt.; Honolulu; Wilmington, N.C.; Fort Myers / Naples, Fla.; Melbourne, Fla., and Elmira, N.Y.

The report said that year-round levels of air pollution have improved, but shorter term spikes of very polluted air have risen.

“Even with continued improvement, too many people in the United States live where the air is unhealthy for them to breathe,” the report said.

The report used data from states, cities, counties, tribes and federal agencies from 2013 to 2015.

 
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Governments and private donors have pledged $812 million to control and eliminate neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) at a five-day summit convened to advance efforts to fight river blindness, sleeping sickness, schistosomiasis and other disabling diseases of poverty.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation kicked off proceedings Tuesday at a special event. The champagne was flowing as leaders from governments, pharmaceutical companies, and charitable organizations gathered to celebrate the achievements of the 2012 London Declaration.  

That landmark agreement produced a road map for the control, elimination and eradication of 10 of the world’s 18 NTDs by the end of the decade.

“This is an exciting milestone in global health, which is the fifth anniversary of the 2012 London Declaration about neglected diseases,” said Bill Gates, Foundation CEO.

“There are a number of these diseases. They are quite horrific. They affect the poorest of the poor. Part of the reason they have been neglected is because they are in mostly tropical countries,” he said.

NTDs affect 1.6 billion people in 149 countries, including more than one-half billion children. They kill about 170,000 people yearly and cause untold suffering for millions of men, women and children who are disfigured, disabled, stigmatized and unable to work their way out of poverty.

In keeping with its commitment to tackle neglected tropical diseases, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is contributing $335 million in grants to support programs over the next four years focused on “drug development and delivery, disease surveillance and vector control.”

While goals for eliminating NTDs have not all been met, Gates said great progress has been made over the past five years.

“Some of these diseases are on track to be done by 2020, some by 2025, some will take longer than that. But, in areas like sleeping sickness — great results, great tools and just the level of sophistication being put together here.

“Part of what has enabled it is the unbelievable drug donations,” said Gates.

Since 2012, pharmaceutical companies have donated 7 billion treatments, an “incredible commitment,” which Gates said was cause for celebration.

“They have given away these drugs in very, very large quantities and what we have seen is that the limitations thereabout — the lead times, the volumes where they were available, how long they would be available — those have gone away over the last five years.

“So now we can assume that part and focus is on the delivery, the financing for the delivery, the quality of the delivery. And because of that we have made huge progress,” he said.

The World Health Organization cites what it calls remarkable achievements in the fight against neglected tropical diseases.

It reports that nearly 1 billion people annually have been receiving drugs to prevent one or more NTDs.  

Sub-Saharan Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 40 percent of these diseases are concentrated, the WHO notes the development of non-toxic drugs for African sleeping sickness have reduced the number of cases of the deadly disease from 37,000 in 1999 to well under 3,000 cases in 2015.

Other successes include the elimination of trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness in Oman, Morocco and Mexico. Guinea-worm disease is on track for eradication as only 25 human cases of the disease remain.

Edridah Muheki Tukahebwa, NTD program manager in Uganda’s Ministry of Health, told a packed audience attending the Gates event that her country was leading in the elimination of NTDs in Africa, especially in Onchocerciasis or river blindness.

She said a great deal has been achieved since Uganda started a program to control the disease in the early 1990s.

“Of 4.9 million people who were at risk of contracting river blindness, 3.4 million of them are now protected. And the communities that used to be harassed by the black fly bites are now settled, very vibrant and productive.

“With all of this, it is a national priority to eliminate NTDs, including Onchocerciasis or river blindness,” she said.

Pharmaceutical companies offer pledges

Pledges were made at the event by CEOs of pharmaceutical companies including Eisai, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Merck and Gilead to continue drug donations, respectively, for Lymphatic filariasis, leprosy, trachoma, sleeping sickness, river blindness, and leishmaniasis until their particular NTD was eliminated.

Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, called this a game-changing event, noting that drug donations amounted to $20 billion to $30 billion a year.

She told VOA that a lot has been achieved in the last five years.

“By working together, we have reached 1 billion people with NTD, and these are a group of diseases that shackle people in poverty. Not just the current generation, but their children.  

“One billion people have been helped in 2015 alone… so, this is already a game-changer,” she said.

While recognizing that more remains to be done before these terrible diseases are eliminated, Chan said when that goal is achieved “it will be truly, truly amazing.”
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[Mining is big business in South Africa. It is the world’s largest producer of chrome and platinum, and the second largest producer of palladium and zirconium. It is also the 5th largest producer of gold. But digging up all those riches is a dirty business, and it has left behind a poisonous legacy.
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The World Health Organization said Tuesday that unprecedented progress had been made in tackling many of the world’s most disfiguring and disabling neglected tropical diseases over the past 10 years.  

Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said there has been “record-breaking progress towards bringing ancient scourges like sleeping sickness and elephantiasis to their knees.”

About 1.5 billion people in 149 countries, down from 1.9 billion in 2010, are affected by neglected tropical diseases (NTD), a group of 18 disorders that disproportionately affect the very poor.

In 2007, the WHO and a group of global partners devised a strategy for better tackling and controlling NTDs.  

Five years ago, a group of nongovernmental organizations, private and public partners signed the London Declaration, committing greater support and resources to the elimination or eradication of 10 of the most common NTDs by the end of the decade.

“That has been a game changer in the expansion of NTD interventions worldwide,” said Dirk Engel, director of the WHO’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Meeting on Wednesday

The WHO’s fourth report on neglected tropical diseases was launched to coincide with a one-day meeting Wednesday at the agency’s headquarters to take stock of what has been achieved in the fight against NTDs and to explore ways to move the process forward.   

Engel said health ministers, representatives from pharmaceutical companies, academics, donors and philanthropists “will look at the changing landscape of NTDs” and explore better ways of integrating the fight against these diseases into global health and development.    

The report described achievements made in controlling the debilitating diseases. For example, it noted that an estimated 1 billion people received 1.5 billion treatments donated by pharmaceutical companies for one or more NTDs in 2015 alone.

It cited dramatic successes in efforts to eliminate visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic, disfiguring disease that attacks the internal organs.  

“If you get it, it kills. There is no way out,” said Engel.  

The disease is prevalent in Southeast Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Engel said a subregional program was organized to provide early treatment with donated medicines and vector control through indoor residual spraying, similar to that used in malaria control.

“With those two interventions, you reduce the incidence of visceral leishmaniasis almost to nothing,” said Engel. “And the aim was to have less than one case in 10,000 people at the subdistrict level, which is a tough target.”

He noted that the disease had been eliminated in 82 percent of subdistricts in India, 97 percent of subdistricts in Bangladesh, and eliminated entirely in Nepal.

“This is a result that we had not anticipated a few years back,” he said.

While Asia is burdened with the greatest number of NTD cases, Africa has the highest concentration of the diseases. Engel told VOA that between 450,000 and 500,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were infected by at least one tropical disease — but usually several — at the same time.   

He said Africa was making excellent progress in controlling neglected tropical diseases. African sleeping sickness has been reduced from 37,000 new cases in 1999 to fewer than 3,000 cases in 2015, and Guinea worm disease has gone down “to only 25 human cases, putting eradication within reach,” he said.

Engel noted that lymphatic filariasis, an infection transmitted by mosquitoes, causing enlargement of limbs and genitals, also was being brought under control.

“Some countries are lagging a bit behind. Some countries are actually doing fairly well,” he said. “We have just acknowledged the first African country that has eliminated lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem — Togo.”

He noted that so much progress has been made in the treatment of onchocerciasis, or river blindness, that “we are now thinking of setting a new target of elimination post-2020.”

In another important advance, the report found that trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, “has been eliminated as a public health problem” in Oman, Morocco and Mexico.

Affected areas

Neglected tropical diseases used to be prevalent throughout the world. Now, they are found only in tropical and subtropical regions with unsafe water, bad hygiene and sanitation, and poor housing conditions.  

“Poor people living in remote, rural areas, urban slums or conflict zones are most at risk,” said the report.

The World Health Organization said improving water and sanitation for 2.4 billion people globally who lack these basic facilities was key to making further progress in the fight against neglected tropical diseases.

Christopher Fitzpatrick, health economist in the WHO’s department of tropical diseases, told VOA that the socioeconomic costs in terms of lost productivity and out-of-pocket health expenditures by people infected with NTDs is very high.  

“It has been calculated that for every dollar invested [in improving water and sanitation infrastructure], there will be about $30 of return to affected individuals,” he said.
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A frog found in India secretes a substance that has been shown to be highly effective at killing influenza viruses.

Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta say the secreted peptide — a subunit of a protein chain — kills dozens of flu strains that plague humans. It is effective against H1 viruses, including ones that could cause pandemics.  

Unlike humans, frogs don’t have an immune system that is capable of protecting them against pathogens like viruses and bacteria. But they do produce a slimy mucus that does the job for them.  

Researchers at Emory screened 32 peptides derived from the mucus of the frog, called Bahuvistara, and found one that was effective against all H1 viruses. The frog is found in the southern Indian province of Kerala.

Joshy Jacob, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory’s vaccine center and senior author of the study, describing the peptide in the journal Immunity. He and his colleagues administered the peptide to mice and then exposed them to H1 viruses. He said it protected the animals from infection.

“The beauty of this peptide is that it directly kills the virus. It’s virucidal. So if you put the peptide and the virus together, it actually destroys the virus,” Jacob said.

The researchers named the peptide urumin, after a sword blade that snaps and bends like a whip.

Jacob said the mucus is collected from the frog after exposing it to a mild electric current, which makes the amphibians secrete the antiviral agent.

Three dozen peptides

After identifying the more than three dozen immune peptides in the mucus, the protein building blocks were made synthetically in the lab.

Four emerged as antiviral candidates. But one, urumin, killed all H1 viruses.

Jacob said an flu-fighting peptide could be especially useful when vaccines are not available or when circulating viral strains become resistant to current drugs.

He said one of the next challenges would be turning the effective peptide into a pill or injection to protect humans from viruses.

“It’s like when you get a headache, you take a Motrin [a painkiller]. [The peptide] doesn’t keep you from getting [the flu] again, but it kills the virus. It’s like taking an antibiotic for bacterial infection. You take this for a flu infection,” Jacob said.

Jacob said the peptide was not effective against seasonal flu viruses that mutate rapidly. But researchers plan on testing more of the frog-derived peptides to try to find others that work against other types of influenza virus.
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For nuclear physics graduate student Chelsea Bartram, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” were the last straw.

President Donald Trump had disputed photographic evidence of the size of his inauguration crowd. Reporters challenged him. Conway’s response — that the administration gave “alternative facts” — has become a widely used hashtag for anything demonstrably untrue.

“A lot of us do care about this notion of an objective reality,”said Bartram, who is pursuing a doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Many scientists I know, myself included, spend so many hours in the lab sacrificing enormous amounts of their life for this abstract idea” that understanding reality can benefit human civilization, she said. “And then to have someone say, ‘Well, that’s not important anymore,’ it’s so devastating.”

So on Saturday, Bartram plans to join the March for Science, a protest in Washington and more than 500 other cities around the world supporting science’s role in government decisions on health, safety, the economy and more.

The march has more than 200 co-sponsors, including many major scientific and professional societies, zoos, aquaria and advocacy groups. Organizers have not released crowd size estimates.

“This is pretty remarkable and unprecedented,” said geochemist Eric Davidson, president of the 60,000-member American Geophysical Union, one of the march co-sponsors. Many of the group’s members did the climate research that the Trump administration disavows.

“I can’t think of another example where scientists have organized themselves in as many cities with an event as big as this,” he said.

Tipping point

The dispute over crowd sizes was just one small example of what scientists see as a larger pattern. During the campaign, Trump dismissed the scientific consensus about the dangers of human-induced climate change. His appointee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, also does not accept climate science. He has repeatedly clashed with the agency he now heads.

But scientists say their frustration has been building for decades.

“We might have reached a tipping point now, but acting as though this is a new thing is giving too much credit to the current administration,” said march co-organizer and public health expert Caroline Weinberg. “It’s letting people who have been there for a very long time off the hook.”

And it goes far beyond climate change, Weinberg added. “It’s about not paying attention to the best research on things like food stamps. It’s about cutting things like Head Start and after-school programs,” to name a few. “And that all affects health, because that’s a time to set kids on the right path.”

Critics say a public protest risks further politicizing science, turning scientists into just another interest group.

Bartram sums up a widespread response: on hot-button issues like climate change, opponents have already done it. “I don’t think anything we do is going to further politicize it,” she said.

Disconnect

But if the goal is to get policymakers to listen, “a march isn’t going to change anything. That’s the problem,” said Rob Young, head of coastal research at Western Carolina University.

Young said much of the problem stems from the growing disconnect between scientists and voters, especially the rural and working-class people who voted for Trump. He said most probably have never met a scientist.

“It’s easy to demonize us if those folks don’t know who we are,” he added.

Scientists need to get out of the lab more, he said, and explain how their work affects people’s health and livelihoods.

“I hope that when they’re done marching in Washington, that they will come home and that they will march into their local planning board or local town council,” he concluded.

That’s what march organizers hope, too. Many scientists accept much of the blame for the disconnect with voters.

The American Geophysical Union’s Davidson said a major post-march goal is more public engagement. “I think the day is gone when scientists can stay in their ivory towers and assume that everyone is going to recognize their value,” he added.
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Inland cities in the United States could face stress from migration caused by sea levels rising, says a new study.

According to models created by researchers at the University of Georgia, about 13.1 million people from low-lying cities such as Miami could be forced to relocate because of rising sea levels. Top destinations, researchers say, would be Atlanta, Houston and Phoenix.

“We typically think about sea level rise as a coastal issue, but if people are forced to move because their houses become inundated, the migration could affect many landlocked communities as well,” said the study’s lead author, Mathew Hauer, of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of geography.

The researchers say the study is a first to try to predict the impact of rising sea levels, taking into account populations at risk as well as likely migration patterns.

The study suggests that inland cities, as well as coastal areas, have to plan for the potential of higher sea levels.

“Some of the anticipated landlocked destinations, such as Las Vegas, Atlanta and Riverside, California, already struggle with water management or growth management challenges,” Hauer said. “Incorporating accommodation strategies in strategic long-range planning could help alleviate the potential future intensification of these challenges.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
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Scientists like to let the facts speak for themselves. But with the Trump administration’s embrace of what advisor Kellyanne Conway called “alternative facts,” many scientists feel it’s time to speak up. An unprecedented March for Science is planned for April 22 and in more than 500 cities around the world.
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Traditional Chinese medicines like acupuncture, whether they work or not, are gaining fans outside of China. And there is some scientific evidence to support the idea that natural compounds can have a restorative effective. But with popularity of Chinese herbal medicine on the rise, there is also a higher chance of fraud – and increasing pressure on the plants in the wild.
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A federal judge in Detroit has ordered a doctor to stay in jail pending trial for alleged female genital mutilation of two 7-year-old girls.

The judge ruled Monday that Dr. Jumana Nagarwala is a danger and a flight risk.

Authorities arrested Nagarwala last week on charges of carrying out the illegal procedure on two young girls whose families brought them to Detroit after allegedly failing to find anyone in Minnesota to do it.

Nagarwala denies cutting the girls. She says all she did was remove mucus membranes from their genitals in a religious ceremony for a ritualistic burial.

Nagarwala belongs to an exclusive Muslim sect called Dawoodi Bohra, which is primarily concentrated in India.

Female genital mutilation involves cutting some of the most sensitive parts of a young girl’s private parts to initiate them into adulthood, control their sexual desire, and the belief it will make them more desirable as marriage partners.

The World Health Organization says the practice is primarily carried out in about 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It has no benefits and can cause severe short- and long-term health problems.

Contrary to what many people believe, female circumcision is not exclusive to Muslims, and many followers of Islam condemn it.

“In general, this is simply something that is not done and is found to be extremely repugnant,” the Michigan head of the Council of American-Islamic Relations Dawud Walid said. “This is something that is overwhelmingly not acceptable amongst the mainstream Muslim community in America.”
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After nine attempts to sneak across the border between Syria and Turkey, with an indescribable amount of fear and painful near-death experiences, 31-year-old Mustafa Hamed finally found a home in Germany, where he is working hard to piece together his life.

“The most important thing is you are lost here. So you have to find a new job, new friends — you have to find a new life,” Hamed said. “So this is a new start for me.”

His priority right now is mastering the language. His dream is to work in journalism. As he works hard to achieve this dream, he constantly struggles with a nightmare — the memory of his days in Aleppo.

“The clashes started in Aleppo in, maybe, 2012,” he recalled. “You can imagine, it was daily and you can hear every night bombing someplace near you — maybe for just two kilometers [away]. The electricity was cut down for a long time. You have to wait for 7 or 8 hours just to charge your phone.”

Resetting their lives

Psychologist and researcher Kenneth Miller, in his book War Torn: Stories of Courage, Love and Resilience, recounts Hamed’s story, among many others from Guatemala, Mexico, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka.

During his more than 25 years of working with war victims, Miller noticed that the majority of what has been written about war focuses on soldiers. He wanted to draw attention to what’s missing from the conversation: the experience of civilians. In his book, he shares dozens of stories of people he met and worked with in many places around the world.

One of the most compelling stories is from Samad Khan, an Afghan who became a refugee in the 1980s, during his country’s war against the Soviets. Khan participated in Miller’s research in Afghanistan. In one of the counseling sessions on dealing with painful experiences, Khan shared a traumatic memory.

“He was driving a pickup truck with his sister’s family in the back, up a steep, winding mountain road and the road was controlled by the Mujahedeen, the freedom fighters,” Miller said. “They stopped him at one point and asked him to show his papers. So he stopped the car, and got out to show them his papers, but he realized he had forgotten to set the hand brake. He watched in horror as the truck spiraled off the side of the mountain and tumbled hundreds of feet down to the valley below. He had to go down to retrieve the bodies and bring them back to Kabul for burial.”

Overcoming tragedies

However, when Miller met him, Khan was a life-loving community leader. “I said, ‘How did you get over this? You seem to be doing so well now!’ He said it was a combination of the power of his faith and he also had a tremendous support of his extended family and friends,” Miller explained. “They got him through. I tell his story because this is something that recurs in the book, in every country that I worked in, that we are more alike than we are different. His story also captures something that we’ve seen in a lot of refugee communities, which is war, of course, can be devastating, but we’re built to heal. If the conditions are supportive, safe and stable, people have a remarkable capacity to be resilient and to heal.”

When the environment is safe and supportive, Miller says, refugees not only survive painful experiences, but they can thrive.

He tells another story, based on his experience in Guatemala:

“I got adopted by this one family while I was living in the camp for a year. This family fled when they heard about a massacre in a neighboring village where about 370 people were killed. They spent two months hiding in the mountains in the rainy season. They finally came down on the Mexican side of the border and found their way in to the refugee camp. This young fellow, Emilio, had developed a combination of trauma and severe shock. After a couple of days of traditional prayers and use of herbs, he healed. I think more than anything what really helped him heal was this tremendous love and support of his family. He has become a vibrant young professional musician, he became a refugee in Canada, who is doing wonderfully well.”

The social media effect

Miller says he hopes sharing these stories can help raise awareness about refugees’ situations.

“One of the biggest predictors about whether the refugees become severely depressed or adapt successfully is the extent to which they’re either made to feel welcome, given language and the material resources to get a new start, or whether they encounter a lot of discrimination. The more people feel marginalized and discriminated, of course, the harder it is for them to integrate, and the harder it is for them to heal,” he said.

One point Miller raises is the effect of social media. He says these tools can be helpful in raising awareness about the plight of refugees, but they also can be harmful if they’re used to spread misconceptions.

He points to images shared on social media of Syrian refugees on Lesbos, Greece. “When you see this father holding his two children and weeping and just arriving safely after crossing the sea, it mobilizes people and brings them to want to help, do something to counter this. Now, on the other hand, you also see social media being used to spread rumors and lies about refugees. Social media can spread tremendous fear, and that has serious consequences. It gets people turned back. It causes great harm.”

Miller says he also hopes these stories can inspire refugees and help them discover the inner strength they need to survive and start anew.
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The challenge of finding a cure for AIDS may have gotten harder. Scientists have discovered another cell in the body where HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — hides from therapy designed to suppress it to undetectable levels in the blood.

The cells — called macrophages — are part of the immune system and are found throughout the body, including in the liver, lungs, bone marrow and brain. After other immune cells have done their job of destroying foreign invaders, these large white blood cells act as the cleanup crew. They surround and clean up cellular debris, foreign substances, cancer cells and anything else that is not essential to the functioning of healthy cells. In addition, they apparently can harbor HIV.

A new target

While antiretroviral drugs can drive the AIDS virus down to virtually undetectable levels, scientists know if therapy is interrupted, an HIV infection can come roaring back. That’s because of a viral reservoir that until now has been thought only to inhabit immune system T-cells — the cells that are attacked and destroyed by the AIDS virus. Much research is dedicated to trying to find ways to eradicate the T-cell reservoir.

This may mean researchers must find ways to eliminate HIV from macrophages, as well.

The finding was published in Nature Medicine by researchers in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. 

Investigators demonstrated in a mouse model that in the absence of humanized T-cells, antiretroviral drugs could strongly suppress HIV in macrophages. However, when the therapy was interrupted, the virus rebounded in one-third of the mice. This, say researchers, is consistent with persistent infection in the face of drug therapy.

Researchers say their work demonstrates that any possible therapies must address macrophages in addition to T-cells to eradicate viral reservoirs. Investigators say they now have more information pointing to the complexity of the virus, and that targeting the viral reservoir in T-cells in the blood will not necessarily work with tackling HIV persistence in macrophages, which reside in tissues and are harder to observe. 

Senior author Victor Garcia said it’s possible there are other HIV reservoirs still to be discovered.

The lead author of the study, Jenna Honeycutt, called the discovery “paradigm changing” in the way scientists must now try to eliminate persistent infection in HIV-positive individuals. 

Investigators say their next step is to figure out what regulates HIV persistence in infected macrophages. They are also interested in finding HIV interventions that completely eradicate the AIDS virus from the body.
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