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Nature experiences have been linked to mental and physical health. Despite the importance of understanding what determines individual variation in nature experience, the role of genes has been overlooked. Here, using a twin design (TwinsUK, number of individuals = 2,306), we investigate the genetic and environmental contributions to a person's nature orientation, opportunity (living in less urbanized areas), and different dimensions of nature experience (frequency and duration of public nature space visits and frequency and duration of garden visits). We estimate moderate heritability of nature orientation (46%) and nature experiences (48% for frequency of public nature space visits, 34% for frequency of garden visits, and 38% for duration of garden visits) and show their genetic components partially overlap. We also find that the environmental influences on nature experiences are moderated by the level of urbanization of the home district. Our study demonstrates genetic contributions to individuals' nature experiences, opening a new dimension for the study of human-nature interactions.

Objetivos: Desenvolvimento e implementação de reforço do processo de captação ativa de doadores de sangue, a fim de suprir as demandas do Hospital Cristo Redentor (HCR), especializado no atendimento às vítimas de trauma na cidade de Porto Alegre/RS, tendo início em setembro de 2020. Material e métodos: Elaboração e implementação de um fluxo de abordagem humanizada, educativa e transparente dos usuários e familiares para captação/ sensibilização quanto à importância da doação de sangue. O fluxo tem início na entrada do paciente no hospital, adotando estratégia mais abrangente com todos os familiares dos pacientes internados. A solicitação de doadores varia conforme o tipo de cirurgia a ser realizado. As abordagens ocorrem com os pacientes ambulatoriais que internam para realizar cirurgias eletivas, durante a consulta médica e de enfermagem e na marcação cirúrgica. Os pacientes internados vindos da emergência têm seus familiares abordados pela equipe do Serviço Social, de forma a esclarecer as dúvidas referentes à doação e entendimento da importância quanto à necessidade de manter os estoques de hemocomponentes para atender as demandas da hemoterapia. Resultados: A partir da implementação do fluxograma de captação/sensibilização de doadores ocorreu aumento do número de doações direcionadas ao HCR recebidas no Banco de Sangue do Hospital Nossa Senhora da Conceição, que abastece a demanda de estoques de hemocomponentes do serviço. A Agência Transfusional do HCR realiza em média 250 transfusões mensais (período da pandemia), dessas 174 são de Concentrado de Hemácias (CH). O cálculo do percentual de doadores reposição é realizado de acordo com a equação: número de doadores aptos/número total de transfusões de CH. O percentual de reposição foi de 54% (1° semestre 2020) para 111% (2° semestre 2020) e 140% (1° semestre 2021). Discussão: Considerando a drástica diminuição de doações de sangue durante o período da pandemia de COVID-19 e a necessidade de manter um estoque adequado para atendimento de vítimas de trauma, foi necessário o desenvolvimento de estratégias que possibilitassem um incremento do número de doações, a fim de suprir as demandas da Agência Transfusional do HCR. Após a implementação de uma abordagem mais ativa sobre a importância da doação de sangue, observamos uma maior mobilização de amigos e familiares de pacientes internados e consequentemente aumento no número de doações para o HCR, mesmo em nome de pacientes que não necessitaram efetivamente de transfusão. Conclusão: O trabalho de captação de doadores é uma tarefa contínua e integrada que requer participação de todos profissionais da saúde. Diante das adversidades enfrentadas na pandemia, diminuição da capacidade de atendimento de doadores no Banco de Sangue, doações com horário marcado e o isolamento social foi necessário criar métodos para continuar atendendo a demanda de transfusões. O esclarecimento quanto à segurança da doação e da importância da mesma para familiares dos pacientes foi fundamental para o engajamento no processo de captação de doadores. Esse esforço resultou em um salto na média de doadores de reposição de 54% no primeiro semestre de 2020 para 140% no primeiro semestre de 2021. Um aumento considerável no número de doadores de sangue mesmo em um período complicado por tantas restrições.

Interventions to shift the behaviour of consumers using unsustainable wildlife products are key to threatened species conservation. Whether these interventions are effective is largely unknown due to a dearth of detailed evaluations. We previously conducted a country-level online behaviour change intervention targeting consumers of the Critically Endangered saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) horn in Singapore. To evaluate intervention impact, we carried out in-person consumer surveys with >2,000 individuals pre- and post-intervention (2017 and 2019), and 93 in-person post-intervention surveys with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) shopkeepers (2019). The proportion of self-reported high-usage saiga horn consumers in the target audience (Chinese Singaporean women aged 35-59) did not change significantly from pre- to post-intervention (24.4% versus 22.6%). However, post-intervention the target audience was significantly more likely than the non-target audience to accurately recall the intervention message and to report a decrease in saiga horn usage (4% versus 1% reported a behaviour change). Within the target audience, high-usage consumers were significantly more likely than lower-usage consumers to recall the message and report a behaviour change. Across respondents who reported a decrease in saiga horn usage, they cited the intervention message as a specific reason for their behaviour change significantly more than other reasons. Additionally, across all respondents, the belief that saiga is a common species in the wild decreased significantly from pre- to post-intervention. TCM shopkeepers, however, cited factors such as price and availability as the strongest influences on saiga horn sales. In sum, the intervention did significantly influence some consumers but the reduction of high-usage consumer frequency was not significant at the population level. We explore reasons for these findings, including competing consumer influences, characteristics of the intervention, and evaluation timing. This work suggests our intervention approach has potential, and exemplifies a multi-pronged in-person evaluation of an online wildlife trade consumer intervention.

As deforestation breaches into new tropical frontiers, proactive conservation strategies require a trifecta of information on where deforestation is accelerating (emergent), how drivers of deforestation vary spatiotemporally, and where to focus limited conservation resources in protecting the most integral yet threatened forested landscapes. Here we introduce Emergent Threat Analysis, a process integrating Emerging Hot Spot Analysis of deforestation, visual classification of deforestation outcomes over time, and spatial quantification of contemporary forest condition. We applied Emergent Threat Analysis to tropical Southeast Asia, a global epicentre of biodiversity threatened by deforestation. We found that emergent hot spots (EHS)—a subset of hot spots characterized by strong, recent, and clustered patterns of deforestation—accounted for 26.1% of total forest loss from 1992 to 2018, with deforestation within EHS proceeding at 2.5 times the regional rate of gross loss. Oil palm and rubber plantation expansion were the principal drivers of deforestation within EHS of insular and mainland SE Asia, respectively. Over the study period, oil palm shifted in importance from Sumatra and Sarawak to Papua and Kalimantan, whereas rubber became prominent in Cambodia and Tanintharyi from 2006 to 2015. As of 2019, more than 170 000 km ^2 of SE Asia’s remaining forest occurred within EHS, of which 21.7% was protected. High and medium-integrity forest constituted 19.2% and 49.1% of remaining EHS forest, respectively, but of these, 35.0% of high-integrity and 23.9% of medium-integrity EHS forest were protected. Because we anticipate that tree plantation expansion will continue to drive deforestation in SE Asia, significantly heightened protection is needed to secure the long-term preservation of high and medium-integrity forest, especially in highly contested forest frontier regions. Finally, as a flexible, integrated process, Emergent Threat Analysis is applicable to deforestation fronts across the global tropics.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222038.].

Unsustainable wildlife trade is a pervasive issue affecting wildlife globally. To address this issue, a plethora of demand reduction efforts have been carried out. These necessitate consumer research which provides crucial knowledge for designing and evaluating targeted interventions. We implemented a rigorous consumer survey on saiga (Saiga tatarica) horn use in Singapore, where usage is legal and widely sold. Saiga are Critically Endangered antelopes from Central Asia with horns (often marketed as ling yang) used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Few past studies have assessed saiga horn consumers. This work is the most extensive consumer research to date specifically characterising saiga horn consumers and usage. We conducted 2294 in-person surveys on saiga horn use with Chinese Singaporeans, employing neutral questioning approaches. We found 19% of individuals reported saiga horn as a product they choose most often for themselves and/or others when treating fever and/or heatiness (a TCM state of illness), indicating a minimum estimate of high-frequency usage, not including possible low-frequency users. Overall saiga users were most characterised as middle-aged Buddhists and Taoists. However, saiga users were found in a range of demographic groups. Women preferred saiga shavings (the more traditional form), while men preferred saiga cooling water (the more modern form). About 53% of individuals who used saiga horn themselves also bought it for someone else. Buyers for others were most likely to be female middle-aged Buddhists or Taoists. Key motivating reasons for usage were "it works" and "someone recommended it to me." The top two reported recommenders were family and TCM shopkeepers. Saiga users were more likely than non-saiga users to perceive saiga as a common species in the wild. This research holds significance for interventions targeting saiga horn consumption within Singapore and throughout Asia, by identifying potential target audiences, product types, non-desirable alternatives, and motivations for use.

Increasing global demand for oil palm drives its expansion across the tropics, at the expense of forests and biodiversity. Little is known of the dynamics that shape the spread of oil palm, limiting our potential to predict areas vulnerable to future crop expansion and its resulting biodiversity impacts. Critically, studies have not related oil palm expansion to the role of agricultural rent and profitability in explaining how and where oil palm is expected to expand. Using a novel land rent modelling framework parameterised to oil palm expansion across Indonesia between 2000 and 2015, we identify drivers of crop expansion and evaluate whether Indonesia's Forest Moratorium might reduce the rate of future oil palm expansion. With an overall accuracy of 85.84%, the model shows oil palm expansion is driven by price changes, spatial distribution of production costs, and a spatial contagion effect. Projecting beyond 2015, we show that areas under high risk of oil palm expansion are mostly not protected by the current Forest Moratorium. Our study emphasises the importance of economic forces and infrastructure on oil palm expansion. These results could be used for more effective conservation decisions to manage one of the biggest drivers of tropical biodiversity loss.

Genetic and preclinical studies have implicated adenylyl cyclase 1 (AC1) as a potential target for the treatment of chronic inflammatory pain. AC1 activity is increased following inflammatory pain stimuli and AC1 knockout mice show a marked reduction in responses to inflammatory pain. Previous drug discovery efforts have centered around the inhibition of AC1 activity in cell-based assays. In the present study, we used an in vitro approach focused on inhibition of the protein-protein interaction (PPI) between Ca2+/calmodulin (CaM) and AC1, an interaction that is required for activation of AC1. We developed a novel fluorescence polarization (FP) assay focused on the PPI between an AC1 peptide and CaM and used this assay to screen over 23,000 compounds for inhibitors of the AC1-CaM PPI. Next, we used a cellular NanoBiT assay to validate 21 FP hits for inhibition of the AC1-CaM PPI in a cellular context with full-length proteins. Based on efficacy, potency, and selectivity for AC1, hits 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, and 21 were prioritized. We then tested these compounds for inhibition of AC1 activity in cyclic AMP (cAMP) accumulation assays, using HEK293 cells stably expressing AC1. Hit 15 contained a dithiophene scaffold and was of particular interest because it shared structural similarities with our recently reported benzamide series of AC1 inhibitors. We next tested a small set of 13 compounds containing the dithiophene scaffold for structure-activity relationship studies. Although many compounds were non-selective, we observed trends for tuning AC1/AC8 selectivity based on heterocycle type and substituents. Having an ethyl on the central thiophene caused the scaffold to be more selective for AC8. Cyclization of the alkyl substituent fused to the thiophene significantly reduced activity and also shifted selectivity toward AC8. Notably, combining the fused cyclohexane-thiophene ring system with a morpholine heterocycle significantly increased potency at both AC1 and AC8. Through designing a novel FP screen and NanoBiT assay, and evaluating hits in cAMP accumulation assays, we have discovered a novel, potent, dithiophene scaffold for inhibition of the AC1- and AC8-CaM PPI. We also report the most potent fully efficacious inhibitor of AC8 activity known to-date.

The study aimed to determine the study feasibility of a weekly virtual community-based choral singing program and to explore the impact of weekly choral singing on resilience, anxiety, and benefit finding in cancer survivors. Six participants were recruited from the Survivorship Choir (SC), led by a board-certified music therapist and affiliated with a cancer center. Study participants attended their standard 90-minute rehearsals, which were conducted virtually because of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Researchers followed participants over eight weeks, collecting data at weeks one and eight. Five self-report instruments were used and included a researcher-designed Demographic Form. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10) is a 10-item questionnaire assessing participants' resilience. The PROMIS: Emotional Distress-Anxiety Scale measured participants' anxiety levels, and the Carver Benefit Finding Scale assessed participants' benefit finding levels. The participant Feedback Form, designed by the researchers, assessed the study's feasibility and effectiveness. High attendance and completion rates demonstrated the study's feasibility. Choral singing led to a statistically significant increase in resilience (W = 0.00, p =.036, r rb = -1.00) between baseline (M = 28.33, SD = 7.20) and week 8 (M = 33.83, SD = 4.88), demonstrating a large effect. While not significant, anxiety and benefit finding trended in a desirable direction with large effects. The present study format was feasible during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study showed that community-based choral singing, even in a virtual format, may positively affect cancer survivorship by increasing resilience and benefit finding and alleviating anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Informal gold mining (IGM) is a major driver of deforestation and source of global mercury emissions. Policy makers may seek to control the spread of IGM by enforcing rules and/or providing alternative livelihoods. We investigated the dynamics and drivers of IGM in northern Myanmar to shed light on the conditions needed for alternative livelihood and enforcement interventions to succeed. We surveyed 226 respondents who practiced mining and/or farming. We found that mining and agriculture provided complementary livelihoods for many respondents as they met different livelihood needs, and that many of the miners were economic migrants. Livelihood‐based interventions based on agriculture/plantations—as currently planned by the regional government—are thus unlikely to provide true substitutes. The willingness of migrant miners to move under different economic circumstances suggests that livelihood‐based interventions are unlikely to scale well—mining may simply be displaced to other regions, or new migrants might replace old migrants. We estimated that current enforcement efforts were insufficient and that a much higher level of enforcement—either constant presence of enforcement officials at each informal mining site, or confiscating equipment every month—would be required to make informal mining unprofitable. Enforcement effectiveness was further undermined by corruption in the guise of informal payments to local authorities. Our study is the first to estimate costs that enforcement imposes and the level of enforcement required to deter informal gold mining, and adds to the growing body of evidence that enforcement and alternative livelihood approaches alone are unlikely to deter informal gold mining.