Exploring the worldwide impact of COVID-19 on conflict risk under climate change.

Objectives: Understand whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the risk of different types of conflict worldwide in the context of climate change. Methodology: Based on the database of armed conflict, COVID-19, detailed climate, and non-climate data covering the period 2020-2021, we applied Structural Equation Modeling specifically to reorganize the links between climate, COVID-19, and conflict risk. Moreover, we used the Boosted Regression Tree method to simulate conflict risk under the influence of multiple factors. Findings: The transmission risk of COVID-19 seems to decrease as the temperature rises. Additionally, COVID-19 has a substantial worldwide impact on conflict risk, albeit regional and conflict risk variations exist. Moreover, when testing a one-month lagged effect, we find consistency across regions, indicating a positive influence of COVID-19 on demonstrations (protests and riots) and a negative relationship with non-state and violent conflict risk. Conclusion: COVID-19 has a complex effect on conflict risk worldwide under climate change. Implications: Laying the theoretical foundation of how COVID-19 affects conflict risk and providing some inspiration for the implementation of relevant policies.

Four new eudesmane-type and one new eremophilane-type sesquiterpenes from the whole plant of Carpesium abrotanoides L.

The extract of the whole plant of Carpesium abrotanoides L. yielded five new sesquiterpenes including four eudesmanes (1-4) and one eremophilane (5). The new compounds were characterized by spectroscopic analysis especially 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy and HRESIMS data. Structurally, both compounds 1 and 2 were sesquiterpene epoxides and 2 owned an epoxy group at C-4/C-15 position to form a spiro skeleton. Compounds 4 and 5 were two sesquiterpenes without lactones and 5 possessed a carboxy group in the molecule. Additionally, all the isolated compounds were preliminarily evaluated for the inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV-2 main protease. As a result, compound 2 showed moderate activity with an IC50 value of 18.79 µM, while other compounds were devoid of noticeable activity (IC50 > 50 µM).

Evaluation of an intelligent artificial climate chamber for high-throughput crop phenotyping in wheat.

BACKGROUND: The superposition of COVID-19 and climate change has brought great challenges to global food security. As a major economic crop in the world, studying its phenotype to cultivate high-quality wheat varieties is an important way to increase grain yield. However, most of the existing phenotyping platforms have the disadvantages of high construction and maintenance costs, immobile and limited in use by climatic factors, while the traditional climate chambers lack phenotypic data acquisition, which makes crop phenotyping research and development difficult. Crop breeding progress is slow. At present, there is an urgent need to develop a low-cost, easy-to-promote, climate- and site-independent facility that combines the functions of crop cultivation and phenotype acquisition. We propose a movable cabin-type intelligent artificial climate chamber, and build an environmental control system, a crop phenotype monitoring system, and a crop phenotype acquisition system. RESULT: We selected two wheat varieties with different early vigor to carry out the cultivation experiments and phenotype acquisition of wheat under different nitrogen fertilizer application rates in an intelligent artificial climate chamber. With the help of the crop phenotype acquisition system, images of wheat at the trefoil stage, pre-tillering stage, late tillering stage and jointing stage were collected, and then the phenotypic information including wheat leaf area, plant height, and canopy temperature were extracted by the crop type acquisition system. We compared systematic and manual measurements of crop phenotypes for wheat phenotypes. The results of the analysis showed that the systematic measurements of leaf area, plant height and canopy temperature of wheat in four growth periods were highly correlated with the artificial measurements. The correlation coefficient (r) is positive, and the determination coefficient (R2) is greater than 0.7156. The root mean square error (RSME) is less than 2.42. Among them, the crop phenotype-based collection system has the smallest measurement error for the phenotypic characteristics of wheat trefoil stage. The canopy temperature RSME is only 0.261. The systematic measurement values of wheat phenotypic characteristics were significantly positively correlated with the artificial measurement values, the fitting degree was good, and the errors were all within the acceptable range. The experiment showed that the phenotypic data obtained with the intelligent artificial climate chamber has high accuracy. We verified the feasibility of wheat cultivation and phenotype acquisition based on intelligent artificial climate chamber. CONCLUSION: It is feasible to study wheat cultivation and canopy phenotype with the help of intelligent artificial climate chamber. Based on a variety of environmental monitoring sensors and environmental regulation equipment, the growth environment factors of crops can be adjusted. Based on high-precision mechanical transmission and multi-dimensional imaging sensors, crop images can be collected to extract crop phenotype information. Its use is not limited by environmental and climatic factors. Therefore, the intelligent artificial climate chamber is expected to be a powerful tool for breeders to develop excellent germplasm varieties.

The Spatiotemporal Pattern and Driving Factors of Cyber Fraud Crime in China

As a typical cybercrime, cyber fraud poses severe threats to civilians’ property safety and social stability. Traditional criminological theories such as routine activity theory focus mainly on the effects of individual characteristics on cybercrime victimization and ignore the impacts of macro-level environmental factors. This study aims at exploring the spatiotemporal pattern of cyber fraud crime in China and investigating the relationships between cyber fraud and environmental factors. The results showed that cyber fraud crimes were initially distributed in southeastern China and gradually spread towards the middle and northern regions;spatial autocorrelation analysis revealed that the spatial concentration trend of cyber fraud became more and more strong, and a strong distinction in cyber fraud clustering between the north and the south was identified. To further explain the formative causes of these spatial patterns, a generalized additive model (GAM) was constructed by incorporating natural and social environmental factors. The results suggested that the distribution of cyber fraud was notably affected by the regional economy and population structure. Also, the high incidence of cyber fraud crime was closely associated with a large nonagricultural population, a high proportion of tertiary industry in GDP, a large number of general college students, a longer cable length, and a large numbers of internet users.

SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid suppresses host pyroptosis by blocking Gasdermin D cleavage.

SARS-CoV-2 is an emerging coronavirus that causes dysfunctions in multiple human cells and tissues. Studies have looked at the entry of SARS-CoV-2 into host cells mediated by the viral spike protein and human receptor ACE2. However, less is known about the cellular immune responses triggered by SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins. Here, we show that the nucleocapsid of SARS-CoV-2 inhibits host pyroptosis by blocking Gasdermin D (GSDMD) cleavage. SARS-CoV-2-infected monocytes show enhanced cellular interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß) expression, but reduced IL-1ß secretion. While SARS-CoV-2 infection promotes activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome and caspase-1, GSDMD cleavage and pyroptosis are inhibited in infected human monocytes. SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein associates with GSDMD in cells and inhibits GSDMD cleavage in vitro and in vivo. The nucleocapsid binds the GSDMD linker region and hinders GSDMD processing by caspase-1. These insights into how SARS-CoV-2 antagonizes cellular inflammatory responses may open new avenues for treating COVID-19 in the future.

A cohort autopsy study defines COVID-19 systemic pathogenesis.

Severe COVID-19 disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 is frequently accompanied by dysfunction of the lungs and extrapulmonary organs. However, the organotropism of SARS-CoV-2 and the port of virus entry for systemic dissemination remain largely unknown. We profiled 26 COVID-19 autopsy cases from four cohorts in Wuhan, China, and determined the systemic distribution of SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the lungs and multiple extrapulmonary organs of critically ill COVID-19 patients up to 67 days after symptom onset. Based on organotropism and pathological features of the patients, COVID-19 was divided into viral intrapulmonary and systemic subtypes. In patients with systemic viral distribution, SARS-CoV-2 was detected in monocytes, macrophages, and vascular endothelia at blood-air barrier, blood-testis barrier, and filtration barrier. Critically ill patients with long disease duration showed decreased pulmonary cell proliferation, reduced viral RNA, and marked fibrosis in the lungs. Permanent SARS-CoV-2 presence and tissue injuries in the lungs and extrapulmonary organs suggest direct viral invasion as a mechanism of pathogenicity in critically ill patients. SARS-CoV-2 may hijack monocytes, macrophages, and vascular endothelia at physiological barriers as the ports of entry for systemic dissemination. Our study thus delineates systemic pathological features of SARS-CoV-2 infection, which sheds light on the development of novel COVID-19 treatment.

Bat SARS-Like WIV1 coronavirus uses the ACE2 of multiple animal species as receptor and evades IFITM3 restriction via TMPRSS2 activation of membrane fusion.

Diverse SARS-like coronaviruses (SL-CoVs) have been identified from bats and other animal species. Like SARS-CoV, some bat SL-CoVs, such as WIV1, also use angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) from human and bat as entry receptor. However, whether these viruses can also use the ACE2 of other animal species as their receptor remains to be determined. We report herein that WIV1 has a broader tropism to ACE2 orthologs than SARS-CoV isolate Tor2. Among the 9 ACE2 orthologs examined, human ACE2 exhibited the highest efficiency to mediate the infection of WIV1 pseudotyped virus. Our findings thus imply that WIV1 has the potential to infect a wide range of wild animals and may directly jump to humans. We also showed that cell entry of WIV1 could be restricted by interferon-induced transmembrane proteins (IFITMs). However, WIV1 could exploit the airway protease TMPRSS2 to partially evade the IFITM3 restriction. Interestingly, we also found that amphotericin B could enhance the infectious entry of SARS-CoVs and SL-CoVs by evading IFITM3-mediated restriction. Collectively, our findings further underscore the risk of exposure to animal SL-CoVs and highlight the vulnerability of patients who take amphotericin B to infection by SL-CoVs, including the most recently emerging (SARS-CoV-2).