New strain of mosquito borne illness found in Brazil

When a mosquito-borne disease first arrived in the Western Hemisphere last year, humans were relatively lucky. The disease, which causes crippling joint pain persisting for weeks or even months and for which there is no known therapy or vaccine, hopscotched from the Caribbean islands to eventually land in the U.S. and the rest of the Americas. But the type of chikungunya creeping across the region then was one that could only readily spread via Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that is uncommon in the U.S.
 
That ecological happenstance provided some modicum of protection. Chikungunya spread by bites from Aedes aegypti was first detected in Saint Martin last year and in the U.S. this summer. The smaller range of that type of mosquito, however, has helped ensure the disease has not spread widely in the U.S. Right now, chikungunya is primarily limited to Florida and the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Only 11 cases in Florida have been confirmed as locally transmitted in the U.S. (although another 1,545 were brought in by travelers from other locations).
 
Americans were particularly fortunate that the other predominate strain of chikungunya—one that derives from Africa and has fueled significant outbreaks in Asian countries for the past decade—was not seen in this hemisphere. The African strain has been accumulating mutations that allow it to be spread more easily by Aedes albopictus. That bug is common in the eastern U.S. and can survive colder temperatures. It also lays it eggs in a wider variety of settings, making it more difficult to exterminate. Chikungunya (pronounced chik-un-GUHN-ya) is named for the joint pain it causes, literally meaning “that which bends up” in the Makonde language of southeastern Africa.

Credit: CDC

Yet new findings from Brazil suggest that risk to the Americas could be on the rise. Pedro Vasconcelos, director of the Evandro Chagas Institute, Brazil’s confirmatory laboratory, warns that in one of the country’s 26 states it has detected the more problematic African strain of chikungunya. That form of chikungunya is the second to arrive in Brazil, joining the Asian-derived strain carried by A. Aegypti that is already circulating throughout the Western Hemisphere, he told Scientific American.
 
The majority of Brazil’s cases, Vasconcelos says, are in Bahia state along the eastern coast, the same place where the African strain is appearing, so officials think that form of chikungunya is the most common in Brazil. The country currently has more than 200 confirmed cases. Fortunately, the African strain seen in Brazil does not appear to have developed several mutations detected in Southeast Asia. Such genetic adaptations, if present, could make the virus as much as 100 times more infectious to mosquitoes, says Stephen Higgs, a chikungunya expert at Kansas State University. Such single-point mutations could still develop, however, and it is hard to predict how likely that will be, Vasconcelos says. The mutations effectively lower the threshold for what it takes for a mosquito to become infected with chikungunya, replicate the virus in its body and pass it on to humans with its bite.
 
Brazil’s summer starts next month, a season of copious rain that will create more ideal breeding grounds for the mosquitoes, which can then go on to bite humans and spread chikungunya. The appearance of the African genotype of chikungunya “is just going to make a bad situation worse,” says Scott Weaver, an expert in human infections and immunity at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.  
 
Having two genotypes of chikungunya in Brazil will not necessarily increase the risk of spreading more chikungunya in the U.S., says Higgs. But global travel and trade could bring the strain now in Brazil to the U.S. The cooling season here will mitigate the situation, says J. Erin Staples, a medical epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We’re getting into our winter period in the U.S., which will protect most people in the continental United States, but travelers to Brazil or other areas with chikungunya should take preventive steps,” she says, referring to wearing long sleeves or pants and using potent insect repellant.
 
There are two top vaccine candidates for chikungunya right now, but neither has completed the rigorous testing required before they would be available to patients. One has not yet been tested in humans and the other has not made it through all the mandatory stages of testing to ensure it is effective at preventing the disease. Exactly which organization or nation might fund the mass production of these vaccines, assuming they prove effective, also remains an open question. “There are so many things we don’t know about this pathogen,” Higgs said November 4 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Health, “especially when it comes into new territories."

Guilt-prone people are best employees

More than other dimensions of your life which you consider to be more personal, more you, it is the workplace that reveals your truest nature. Thrown in with a "team" of unknown others, you must find some way of belonging, and how you go about doing that says everything about you — everything about how much you value yourself. A new study suggests managers would be wise to not only hire but also champion those people who have a naturally guilty nature. While guilt-prone people are among the most ethical and hard-working employees, they also may be the most reluctant to take their rightful place in business partnerships.

“Because of [a] concern for the impact of their actions on others’ welfare, highly guilt-prone people often outwork their less guilt-prone colleagues, demonstrate more effective leadership, and contribute more to the success of the teams and partnerships in which they are involved,” Dr. Scott S. Wiltermuth, assistant professor of management and organization at the USC Marshall School of Business, stated in a press release.

Guilt Complex vs. Guilt-Prone

While many people like to bandy about the phrase “guilt complex,” psychologists tend to reserve this special term for people who have experienced a traumatic event, such as witnessing an accident or death, which they (wrongfully) believe they somehow caused or might have prevented. A true guilt complex, then, is deep-seated and based on very real trauma. To explain: Older children are generally made to feel responsible for their younger sisters and brothers. If an older child witnessed a younger brother getting hit by a car, for instance, she might believe she could have prevented the accident, even though it may be clear to others there was nothing she could have done. The result would be a guilt complex.

Guilt-prone people, on the other hand, are simply those with a tendency to be over-sensitive to the opinions of others combined with an over-active sense of responsibility toward others. Conscientious, guilt-prone people believe any poor outcome in work or life reflects on themselves alone, even when others are involved; perfectionists, they believe they can do better… always. They are the kind who undersell themselves on a job interview rather than oversell and disappoint.

In five studies, Wiltermuth and his co-researcher, Dr. Taya R. Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University, explored how guilt-prone tendencies shaped a person’s choices within work settings. When Wiltermuth asked experiment volunteers to choose a partner, for instance, highly guilt-prone people were less likely to choose the most competent partner if they themselves had limited experience or expertise in the task area. The reason? They were afraid they would contribute less — they feared letting down their partner more than they feared hurting themselves.

In another experiment, Wiltermuth and Cohen found highly guilt-prone people to be more likely than others to choose being paid based entirely on individual performance. More than others, they also opted to be paid based on the average of their performance and that of others whose competence was more similar to their own, rather than pulling down those who perform more successfully.

"Guilt proneness reduces the incidence of unethical behavior," Wiltermuth noted. "Highly guilt-prone people are conscientious. They are less likely to free-ride on others' expertise, and they will sacrifice financial gain out of concern about how their actions would influence others' welfare.”

Want to succeed in business? Hire and encourage those who worry most about their responsibility to others: the guilty.

New sources of antibiotics

Many of our life-saving medications depend on the discovery of strange medical solutions. Antibiotics were one of the greatest finds and have added 10 years of life on to the average person who would otherwise die from some sort of bacterial infection. In 1928, when research scientist Alexander Fleming discovered the bacteria in a stack of dirty Petri dishes, one of them caught his attention. “That’s funny,” Fleming was reported as saying when he found a surviving mold on a dish, which he later identified as Penicillium notatum.

His discovery laid the ground for a revolutionary medical approach to drug treatment. Since then, researchers have been searching for a potent antibacterial solution to prevent the drug-resistant infections of two million people in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Every year, at least 23,000 of those people die as a result, which is why scientists are searching under every rock — literally — for a solution to the increasingly drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Here's a list of six of the weirdest places they're searching: 

Cockroach Brains

The cockroach’s nervous system contains nine different antibiotics. Some strains are powerful enough to treat E.coli, which causes serious gastrointestinal problems. They are also effective at fighting MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a bacterium resistant to many bacteria and can cause life-threatening infections once it hits the bloodstream.

Alligator Blood

Researchers were curious why alligators could withstand open wounds from territorial fights with other gators without contracting any infections. Their powerful immune systems helped them recover with astonishing speed, and in 2008 researchers extracted white blood cells from the gators and found a wide range of antibacterial compounds. One of the compounds has the ability to kill MRSA , along with 22 different strains of bacteria, including Salmonella, staph, E.coli, strep, and a strain of HIV.

Old Televisions

In 2010, researchers figured out how to turn the compound that makes up LCD TVs into an antibacterial substance. The liquid crystal display destroys E.coli and certain strains of MRSA by heating, cooling, and dehydrating it with ethanol. It could be used to clean hospital and medical facility tools, which would in turn reduce a hospital patient’s risk for infection.

Fungi in Pacific Ocean

There are promising new strains of never-before-discovered fungi strains lying at the body of the Pacific Ocean. It’s mixed in with a 100-million-year-old nutrient-starved sediment that was previously thought a dead zone. But somehow eight different fungi strains have been surviving there, and four were collected and survived the journey to a lab. They’re related to the penicillin antibiotic, which means the fungi could have properties similar enough to fight against bacteria in a whole new way.

Panda DNA

Researchers in China have discovered within a panda’s DNA is a powerful antibiotic compound called cathelicidin-AM. It helps protect them against bacteria and other fungi. In fact, it’s so potent, it can kill bacteria in less than one hour. Unfortunately, pandas are endangered, so it will be difficult to test on live subjects through blood extractions.

Underground Cave

In 1980, researchers discovered a cave contains more than 136 miles of underground passages in Mexico. The Lechuguilla Cave lies 1,600 feet below New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns, making it the deepest limestone cave in America. The rock-eating bacteria that thrive off of the sulfur, iron, and manganese deposits found inside the chandelier-like rock formations could be key. Scientists extracted samples and believes it could extend how long a MRSA-fighting drug lasts in the human body.