Serendipity in science shows need for global disease - and basic - research

One gets the impressions that scientists are fighting tooth and nail for research grants and that – in this atmosphere – more funding for research on global problems like malaria is a hard sell. Right now, the NIH spends $170 million of its $30 billion budget on malaria research. That’s $170 million for a disease at which half the world is at risk.

Map of malaria risk (in red). Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Somewhere between a half to 1 million people die from malaria every year and most of these deaths are in children. I am well acquainted with these statistics as I wrote them in the introduction of three first-author papers, several grants, and countless presentations. The numbers served as a plea for the audience to care about my research and a justification for the federal money spent on a disease that doesn’t really affect Westerners.

Apparently the fact that the malaria parasite is really freakin cool is not justification enough. I mean Ebola – c’mon – it only has seven proteins! But the malaria parasite encodes over 5,000 proteins, many of which have no similarity to any known protein in other organisms and many of which are highly specialized for invading cells inside your body and hiding from your immune system.

Malaria parasites (stained dark purple) inside red blood cells. By Department of Pathology, Calicut Medical College, via Wikimedia Commons.

But researchers at the University of Copenhagen (UC) and University of British Columbia (UBC) published exciting new findings last month in Cancer Cell that will hopefully bolster the argument for why global disease research can pay off!

When the malaria parasite invades red blood cells inside the human body, it secretes hundreds of its own proteins, leading to drastic remodeling of the red blood cell: picture a saggy water balloon transforming into a rubber ball with protrusions, or knobs. These knobs stick to molecules on the host’s endothelial wall, sequestering the infected red blood cells and making it easier to acquire nutrients while also avoiding clearance in the spleen.

One of the malaria proteins in the knob, VAR2CSA, binds to highly complex chains of sugars on the placenta of pregnant women, latching the infected red blood cells onto the placenta and endangering both the mother and unborn child. It was while trying to develop a vaccine against malaria for pregnant women, that Dr. Ali Salanti of UC had an idea.

"For decades, scientists have been searching for similarities between the growth of a placenta and a tumor. The placenta is an organ, which within a few months grows from only few cells into an organ weighing approx. two pounds, and it provides the embryo with oxygen and nourishment in a relatively foreign environment. In a manner of speaking, tumors do much the same, they grow aggressively in a relatively foreign environment," Salanti said in a statement to the university last month.

It turned out the complex sugar chain, chondroitin sulfate A (CSA), which the parasite binds to, is found only on the placenta and many types of tumors but not on other healthy cells. Salanti tested whether the malaria protein could be exploited as a way to selectively deliver cancer drugs to tumors.

Working with Dr. Mads Dausgaard at UBC, a prostate cancer researcher, he found that fluorescently labeled VAR2CSA protein, produced in the lab, not only bound tumor cells but was also internalized by the cancerous cells. The researchers attached the protein to a toxin and found that the fusion killed many types of tumor cells but not healthy cells, which lacked the receptor for the VAR2CSA protein.

They next tested the toxin-VAR2 fusion on mice with different types of tumors transplanted. Treatment with the fusion drug essentially halted tumor growth in mice with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, while tumors in mice treated with the toxin not fused to the malaria protein grew four times the size. In mice transplanted with prostate cancer cells, treatment reduced tumor size by over 50% compared to the control and two of the six mice were even in remission 32 days after treatment. Finally, all mice with highly aggressive metastatic breast cancer died when untreated or receiving the toxin alone. In contrast five of the six mice that received the fusion drug survived with no spreading of the cancer more than 50 days after drug treatment. Other organs in the mice appeared normal and even high concentrations of toxin-VAR2 didn’t affect healthy mice.

The University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with Salanti and Dausgaard, has launched a biotech company to pursue their work further, with hopes to test it in humans in the next four years. “The biggest questions are whether it'll work in the human body, and if the human body can tolerate the doses needed without developing side effects. But we're optimistic because the protein appears to only attach itself to a carbohydrate that is only found in the placenta and in cancer tumors in humans," Salanti concluded in his statement.

Reference:

Salanti, A. et al. Targeting Human Cancer by a Glycosaminoglycan Binding Malaria Protein. Cancer Cell, 2015; 28 (4): 500-514. DOI: 10.1016/j.ccell.2015.09.003.

Adjusting to life at the desk vs. life at the bench

I hoped to avoid what seems like the inevitable downward trend in posting rate for blogs like these, but nevertheless, it has been over a month since my last post. As I previously mentioned, I also have a blog on SciLogs, but I hoped to save this site as a more personal and perhaps experimental forum for science writing. If anything it would at least let me re-hone my active voice after years of “The solution was stirred for 10 minutes before calcium chloride was added.”

However, my perfectionist qualities tend to get in the way. If I don’t have anything interesting to say –and can’t say it using the perfect language – why contribute to the ever increasing internet content? One idiosyncratic anxiety of mine is the seemingly endless amount of content and content-producers on the internet versus the amount and desire for content by content consumers. If a Science story has already been covered by major news sources, and the likes of Carl Zimmer, what possibly could I have to contribute?

So how about an update on my career transition?

Something I didn’t expect when I left the bench was a re-ignition in my interest, and dare I say, passion for science. No longer is it work since I haven’t had a single paying science writing gig; I get to pursue science questions that interest me. With the competition for both publication and grants, I always felt I should be reading more about potential techniques or papers in my field – reading about science was a means to an end. Therefore I couldn’t help but perceive any time spent on science outside my field as inversely related to my productivity and chance for success. I am sure this isn’t the case for scientists who truly love what they do. In retrospect, it is just one more reason why research was not the career for me.

However, I lately have less time to pursue these interests – hence the gap in posting – as I am a month into a science policy fellowship with a nonprofit science advocacy organization in D.C. Coming into politics with little knowledge, I have enjoyed the demystification process immensely. I am forced to trade in the academic and scientific jargon of “noncanonical”, “ubiquitous”, and “aliquot” for the language of the beltway:  “taps”, “stopgaps”, and “markups”. I get to look for scientifically inaccurate statements from politicians. This election cycle appears to be especially ripe with Mike Huckabee’s “proof” of life at conception in the form of the “DNA schedule”, which scientists all over the internet have lambasted as both incorrect and a very weird phrase better suited for “a band, an app, or maybe an erectile dysfunction drug."

While it has been an adjustment to have fixed schedule and sit at a computer all day, I appreciate that there is a large creative component, such as writing material for the website, coming up with messaging for worthy issues like stem cell research or comparative effectiveness research, and digging through all that content on the website to find tangible examples backed with solid numbers on how science has improved the lives of American citizens…and why the world will end if we don’t increase NIH’s budget.

Traveling galvinists and armchair travelers: review of the “Fantastic Worlds” exhibit at the Smithsonian

Yesterday I visited the “Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction, 1780-1910” exhibit at the National Museum of American History, which opened on July 1st. 

 

Scene from the 1902 silent film "A Trip to the Moon" 

Improvements in printing technology in the 18^th century afforded the general public greater access to information about science, igniting their curiosity, as well as the imagination of writers such as Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allen Poe, and Mary Shelley.

The exhibit shows how science found its way into popular fiction in the 19^th century, displaying early edition works, including The Origin of Species from the Smithsonian Libraries.

I tend to enjoy small museums and exhibitions whose scopes aren’t too broad, so I found this one, nestled within a small corridor to the Library Gallery pleasant.

I also appreciated that unlike some of the other exhibitions in the museum this one was geared towards adults. Indeed parents seemed to enjoy it, with one dad exclaiming “I loved Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas when I was your age,” shortly before his kid asked if they could leave yet. 

Its housing in the American History Museum is strange as the exhibit mainly features authors and scientists from Britain, Sweden, and France. I am very willing to overlook this though, as it was very nicely organized with six separated subjects, ranging from exploration into the deep sea, Africa, and the Arctic and early studies in man-controlled flight to the more bizarre, such as the re-animation of human bodies with electricity and men on the moon.

In the 19^th century ballooning was used for travel, with aspirations of even travelling to the Arctic, and as a means to study the atmosphere. During one study by meteorologist James Glaisher in 1862, the balloon ascended to 36,000 feet causing him to pass out and his test pigeon to freeze to death. Fiction of the time reflects the great hope placed on ballooning to revolutionize travel, depicting a London sky dominated by aircraft used for everyday errands.

To find out more about ballooning craze of the 18^th century, listen to a podcast about Sophie Blanchard or about a ballooning expedition to the North Pole.

Depiction of man bats as part of The Great Moon hoax, printed in The Sun, 1835.

Of particular interest was information on “The Great Moon hoax”. In 1835 a newspaper in New York published several accounts of the discovery of life on the moon. The discoveries, falsely attributed to the renowned astronomer, Sir Jon Herschel, were published as a series and became increasingly incredible, culminating in the description of man bats.

Listen to this podcast to find out more about The Great Moon hoax.

What I learned from the exhibit was that Edgar Allen Poe was upset at the author of this flimflam for stealing his idea. It turns out that Poe was quite the trickster, also publishing a fake article about a transatlantic hot air balloon ride achieved in 75 hours, setting precedence for the  “War of the Worlds” radio program in the 1960’s.

Though I’ve long been turned off by pulp science fiction, I find the science fiction genre as a whole fascinating. Particularly I am interested in how the genre enables writers to expose societal problems, that otherwise are taboo to discuss, but because set in an alternate world, are more disarming to the general public. In addition, science fiction exposes the anxieties of the day and even in some cases, has predicted the future.

Along these lines, I was interested to learn at the exhibition that the term robot first appeared in a play in 1921. It’s derived from the word robota, Czech for “forced labor,” foreshadowing ideas of both the replacement of human labor by machines and the possibility of artificial intelligence and rebellion by a robot workforce. I can see why people were worried; look how creepy this automaton is from 1870’s.

Patent model of creeping baby doll, 1871

Other interesting facts from the exhibit:

Deptiction of fossils found in the 1800's, including an illustration based on the finding of the ichthyosaur, an extinct marine reptile, found by a then 12-year old Mary Anning. She went on find more fossils in her long career as a paleontolongist.

People once thought that the deep sea was devoid of life. Britain’s Challenger expedition changed this, recording 4,500 new species, in 1873. What drove the exploration of the deep sea in the mid-1800s was the laying of a transatlantic telegraph cable, completed in 1866.

Depiction of Galvani's experiments.

In the late 18^th century Luigi Galvani discovered that an electrical current applied to dissected animals caused their muscles to twitch. This field, a precursor to electrophysiology, was termed galvanism. A fair amount of spectacle surrounded the field as in 1803 a public demonstration was held where an executed criminal was “re-animated” with electro-stimulation.

Mary Shelley was inspired by these accounts, writing Frankenstein, which is prime example of science fiction used as a philosophical study on society and what it means to be human.

Medical induction coils, ca 1850, used for wide array of medical treatments in 1800s.

While Galvani thought he was observing a new form of electricity, termed animal electricity, the physicist Alessandro Volta repeated the experiment and concluded that fluids within the body conducted the electric current derived from the metal. This led to the development of the first battery. 

From Pipettes to Pens

Writing my thesis was one of the most enjoyable experiences in graduate school and during my postdoc I found myself wishing for more time to work on my blog rather than doing bench science. I’ve always liked writing but never considered it a viable career option because of the uncertainty and competition…but research isn’t exactly an easy career either. Shouldn’t I focus the only capitol I have, my passion, on the career I want?

So a little less than a month ago I left my postdoctoral fellowship to pursue a career in science communication. This is the broad term I am use to encompass a career that could be anything from science writing for Scientific American (perhaps a pipe dream) to being a public information officer at a university (promoting their research through press releases and blogs) to being an editor at a scientific journal.

I wrote about getting over my feelings that I disappointed my scientific advisors in Science Extracted. Since then, I moved to Washington DC and am still trying to figure out how to get into any of the above careers, as well careers related to reviewing literature and translating science into plain language for nonprofit or governmental organizations. 

What I have encountered after two hopeful but ultimately dead-end phone interviews is that

many of these jobs want working experience doing the very things I am trying to transition my career towards. Many are also looking for applicants with a Masters in Science Communication or Journalism, however I think this wouldn’t be a problem if I had the work experience.

This does not in any way seem unique to science writing. It appears to me that companies do not want to spend the time to train employees anymore. But where are people supposed to get this experience?

There are always internships – however many of the internships are targeted towards students at either the undergraduate or graduate level. I had already applied and been rejected by the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship, often seen on the resumes of science PhDs cum successful science writers.

I am not writing this to say that I am discouraged, as I did not expect pursuing my dream job would be easy, and it has only been a month. Graduate school taught me, among other things, persistence. But I wanted to write about my career trajectory for other science PhDs looking to transition to writing…and perhaps get feedback/suggestions?

Clearly it would have been better to do more career exploration during my PhD. I can’t help but feel regret that I didn’t take advantage of the science writing certification program at Johns Hopkins while it would have been free. But I also recognize that I didn’t have much free time in graduate school. The time I did have I used to train for several half marathons, travel to several countries, hang out and commiserate with my friends (i.e. networking) and spend time with my husband.

Currently, I am continuing to build my portfolio through blog writing, doing a bit of freelance writing and editing on Upwork, which right now consists of answering health questions on the Internet for a $3-5 an answer, and of course, apply to jobs.

I have also tried to get better about networking (I have business cards) both online and off. At the suggestion of a successful science writer I started a twitter account and actually enjoy the social media aspect. What I am still working on is being comfortable with the schmoozy aspect of self-promotion – I am from the Midwest after all. I hate the idea of just connecting with someone for what they can do for me.

But maybe that’s not the right way to look at it. Maybe somebody else helped that person out once. After all, all I need is for someone to give me a chance and get me that initial experience in science journalism.

Already, I fell lucky to be where I am: a volunteer experience with the UIC press office led me to a science blogger who got me connected with SciLogs, which has been a great, supportive community of bloggers from diverse areas, all passionate about the importance for clear, non-overhyped, and trustworthy science communication.

Science and Poetry, 2nd edition: William Carlos Williams’ The Doctor Stories

Many years ago I picked up a crumbling copy of The Doctor Stories at the Baltimore book festival. Fast forward six years and a cross-country move and it remained in its dilapidated state, unread. Its light weight, and the promise of a future blog post topic, induced me to bring it along on a recent vacation to Greece.

"William Carlos Williams passport photograph 1921" by Unknown - Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikipedia.

I was only familiar with William Carlos William (WCW), having read his poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” in high school.

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

The poem was refreshing in its seeming simplicity, lack of abstraction, and briefness, especially in contrast to more European-style and traditionalist poets I was studying at the time. Still I didn’t give the poem much thought despite growing up in a farming community which was not so far removed from being dependent on the wheelbarrow (but more so the John Deere tracker).

I gained a greater appreciation for WCW’s work after reading The Doctor Stories, which were compiled by his protégé Robert Coyles. Not a protégé poet, but a physician; WCW made his living as a pediatrician in the rural town of Rutherford, New Jersey.

The book is composed mainly of short vignettes of WCW’s encounters with and observations about his patients. While I was hoping for more poetry inspired by medicine and science, the depictions of life and the state of medicine in the 1930s were fascinating.

WCW spent much of his time treating the working class, including immigrants. His writing is full of honesty and a mix of compassion and judgment towards his patients. He made many house calls, allowing him access to the most intimate moments of people’s lives. He would describe their houses, demeanor, and family dynamics in vivid detail.

The candid and unsentimental nature of his narratives is exemplified in one story, where WCW is trying to examine a child’s throat, suspecting diphtheria. But the child resisted and fought WCW, overpowering her father who was trying to restrain her.

I could have torn the child apart in my own fury and enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to attack her. My face was burning with it. The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy, one says to one’s self at such times. Others must be protected against her. It is a social necessity. And all these things are true. But a blind fury, a feeling of adult shame, bred of a longing for muscular release are the operatives. One goes on to the end. –pg 60.

His more sentimental side does come through in such stories as “Ancient Gentility” where he is called to see an old woman who lives in a remote and poor Italian immigrant community. He goes, knowing that they will be unable to pay him for his services. He describes meeting the husband:

He was wonderful. A gentle, kindly creature, big as the house itself, almost, with long pure white hair and big white moustache. Every movement he made showed a sort of ancient gentility. Finally he said a few words as if to let me know he was sorry he couldn’t talk English and pointed upstairs again.

He quickly examined the woman after it was clear she wasn’t sick and went back downstairs. The husband, in lieu of payment, offers him a small silver box.

Why snuff! Of course. I was delighted. As he whiffed the powder into one generous nostril and then the other, he handed the box back to me – in all, one of the most gracious, kindly proceedings I had ever taken part in.

Imitating him as best I could, I shared his snuff with him, and that was about the end of me for a moment or two. I couldn’t stop sneezing. I suppose I had gone at it a little too vigorously. Finally, with tears in my eyes, I felt the old man standing there, smiling, an experience the like of which I shall never, in all probability, have again in my life on this mundane sphere. –pg 101.

Mundane sphere? He is a friend of Ezra Pound and other poets who are meeting in cafes in Montmartre. But it appears that WCW found something rejuvenating in his medical work, writing:

“How do you do it? How can you carry on an active business like that and at the same time find time to write?” But they do not grasp that one occupation complements the other, that they are two parts of a whole, that it is not two jobs at all, that one rests the man when the other fatigues him. –pg 122. 

The book also delves into moral and ethical questions in medicine and the way doctors are held up as gods. In “Old Doc Rivers” he considers the case of a doctor who was an addict and a contradiction of coldness and kindness. But WCW is more interested in “What kind of doctor was he, really?” (–pg 16). WCW knew Rivers, having assisted him with several surgeries and even spending a summer in Rivers' home in his younger years.

Still he takes up the investigation without bias, visiting clinics Rivers worked at to examine medical records and talking with people who knew Rivers.

Although very talented at diagnosing patients and a steady and thorough surgeon, Rivers became sloppier with drugs and age. WCW’s wife asks, “If you know he is killing people, why do you doctors not get together and have his license taken away from him?”As to why no one ever did, WCW writes:

In reality, it was a population in despair, out of hand, out of discipline, driven about by each other blindly, believing in the miraculous, the drunken, as it may be. Here was, to many, though they are diminishing fast, something before which they could worship, a local shrine, all there was left, a measure of the poverty which surrounded them. They believed in him: Rivers, drunk or sober. It is a plaintive, failing story. –pg 40.

There are also the sought after poems about medicine, which, when I finally came upon them towards the end of the book, were somehow unsatisfying. I wanted to know more about the characters in the poems and craved the detail abundant in the previous narratives. An exception is “A Cold Front:”

            This woman with a dead face

            has seven foster children

            and a new baby of her own in

            spite of that. She wants pills

            for an abortion and says,

            Un hum, in reply to me while

            her blanketed infact makes

            unrelated grunts of salutation.

            She looks at me with her mouth

            open and blinks her expressionless

            carved eyes, like a cat

            on a limb too tired to go higher

            from its tormentors. And still

            the baby chortles in its spit

            and there is a dull flush

            almost of beauty to the woman’s face

            as she says, looking at me

            quietly, I won’t have any more.

            In a case like this I know

            quick action is the main thing.

The double entendre “A Cold Front” both refers to the weather, which WCW had to trudge through to get to his patients, and to the demeanor of his patient, with her “expressionless carved eyes.” It is also a commentary on how society perceives women who have abortions or don’t show the proper maternal instincts. But WCW seems to be sympathetic to the woman’s situation and the lack of choice and agency women possessed over their lives.

Still, “I won’t have any more” is a declaration, despite the fact it is the doctors choice as to whether to give her the pills, abortion being illegal at the time. WCW implies that not doing so would be a death sentence, referring to the woman as a cat too tired to escape her tormentors and referring to her face as dead in the first line.

The stories are generally funny with feisty patients, but at times can be graphic in its detail or heartbreaking in its misery. I would recommend The Doctor Stories to anyone interested in the history of medicine or wanting to know more about William Carlos William’s life.

New blog launched through SciLogs

Last week I finally launched my blog Science Extracted through SciLogs. I am so excited to be part of this network of science bloggers who have such diverse interests and perspectives. There will sometimes be overlap in what I post here and on Science Extracted but I will generally try to post unique things on each site so follow me on both! I see Bench and Beyond as a way to try out new ideas and formats and perhaps be a bit more personal.



Without further ado, here is my latest post on Science Extracted:



This week in science 100 years ago: an unexpected mystery

Shiraz on a shoestring! First installment: Doohickey 2013 California red blend

Last night I was in the mood for wine. I should clarify that I am always am in the mood for wine but concerns for health and work productivity temper my hobby to a couple nights a week. But on this particular evening I saw an older couple enjoying a bottle of white at the thai restaurant my husband and I were at.

I am very susceptible to temptation when I see two people drinking wine. It seems so intimate and shared compared to drinking separate beers. It is also more aspirational: the promise of being transformed to a more decadent and romantic life with the pop of the cork.

So when we got home it was the same old decision, should we open a "good" bottle (in the $10-$20 range) or stick with good ol' 3 buck chuck? With 30 meer months away my standard of living has increased non-commensurately with my postdoc salary. 3 buck chuck (then 2 bucks) was fine in my early 20's but now, I crave complexity. 

I recognize that life is even harder for postdocs trying to raise a family, as opposed to a 14 lb. mutt, but living on a postdoc salary does make things tricky for someone with sommelier tastes. While decent wines can be found in the $10-20 range, too often my husband and I crack open a bottle on Friday only to be overcome with the alcohol after-taste or underwhelmed with watery-ness. 

Thus, the regular feature: Shiraz on a Shoestring. Last night's wine was a proprietary red blend from "Doohickey" made from California grapes, 2013 vintage. Selling for around $14, it has a pleasing deep red color. It's nice nose accurately predicts an oaky and vanilla-filled beginning with mouthfuls of blackberry. It is consistently strong at the start and finish without any alcohol after-taste. I would highly recommend and just in time for the weekend!

Reader Request: Where have all the honeybees gone?

Spring is in the air, and so too are the bees. But spring is also a reminder that the US and Europe are still experiencing a mysterious phenomenon where more bee hives than usual are not surviving the winter. This topic was a reader request and as I am infinitely grateful to my blog readers, I tried to get on it as soon as possible and was excited to see that there have been new developments in the last months.

Starting in 2006, beekeepers noticed a drastic increase in the failure of bee colonies. The phenomenon came to be known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) where adult bees were simply disappearing, leaving behind hives with a queen and often enough, honey stores.

Honey aside, honeybees play an incredibly large role in pollinating commercial crops, including almonds and many fruit, worth $15 billion in the US (1). At its peak in the 2007-2008 season, 35% of colonies collapsed. Though CCD has been on the decline in recent years, with 23% of colonies collapsing last year, scientists and farmers alike are still concerned in what causes CCD and how to prevent it.

Leading theories include neonicotinoid pesticide use, the parasitic mite Varroa destructor, the parasitic fungi Nosema, and decreased nutritional diversity and availability.

Nosema and parasitic mites were both implicated early on in the investigation, but there are cases of CCD without any infection and conversely, healthy colonies that are infected.

Pesticide use has long been a suspect. Last year a study from Harvard found that clothianidin and imidacloprid led to loss of six of 12 colonies (2). However many in the science blogosphere – as well as the company that makes imidacloprid – have criticized the amount of pesticide tested, the sample size, and the statistical analysis.

Several other studies have found that bees exposed to these pesticides were more susceptible to Nosema infection due to immune suppression (3,4). Neonicotinoid exposure also impaired olfactory learning and memory (5). Amid mounting studies, the European Union banned neonicotinoids in 2013. The US has been slower to change regulation but the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said earlier this month that it was unlikely to approve new neonicotinoid pesticide use as it continues to assess pesticide safety for bees.

At the same time, a study published in March by researchers at the EPA, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and University of Maryland found that only field doses at the extreme end had a significant effect on colony survival in the three-year study (6). They conclude pesticide use is “unlikely a sole cause of colony declines.”

Thus, despite intermittent news stories suggesting otherwise, no one factor has been able to account for CCD. The USDA, who is leading the federal response, says it is likely a combination of two or more of these factors.

Last month researchers in Australia published a study showing how stress from a variety of sources can rapidly lead to collapse in the colony. They attached tiny radio trackers to bees to examine their foraging behavior (side note: they literally glued them to the bee’s chest). They induced bees to start foraging at a younger age (precocious foraging) by creating colonies with younger demographics (7).

Younger forager bees were less successful at bringing back food and were more likely to die while trying to forage. The consequent decreased food supply led the remaining bees in the hive to start foraging at an even younger age.

Stresses such as starvation and disease are known to cause precocious foraging in bee populations. The researchers used their data to model bee population dynamics under chronic stress and showed that precocious foraging led to a positive feedback loop w

here progressively younger bees were even less successful, leading to a rapid decline in the colony.

While previous models have only been able to account for a slow decline, the researchers say they are the first to “display dynamics of colony population collapse that are similar to field reports.”

“The failure of a honey bee colony is a breakdown of a society…Understanding why and how colonies fail therefore requires more than analyzing how individual bees react to stressors,” said the researchers.

A review published in Science last Month agrees with this assessment saying that while chronic exposure to multiple stressors is driving CCD, “the precise combination apparently differs from place to place.”  (8).

They go on to say “Although the causes of pollinator decline may be complex and subject to disagreement, solutions need not be; taking steps to reduce or remove any of these stresses is likely to benefit pollinator health,” The authors call for growing more bee-friendly flowers and decreasing dietary stress as well as decreased use of pesticides.

References:

1. “Vanishing Bees.” National Defense Resources Council. <http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/animals/bees.asp> Retrieved April 13^th, 2015.

2. Lu, C. Warchol, K.M., Callahan, R.A. (2014). Sub-lethal exposure to neonicotinoids impaired honey bees winterization before proceeding to colony collapse disorder. Bulletin of Insectology 67 (1): 125-130.

3. Pettis, Jeffery S., Johnson, J., Dively, G., et al. (2012). Pesticide exposure in honey bees results in increased levels of the gut pathogen Nosema. Naturwissenschaften 99 (2): 153–8.

4. Di Prisco, G., Cavaliere, V., Annoscia, D., et al. (2013). Neonicotinoid clothianidin adversely affects insect immunity and promotes replication of a viral pathogen in honey bees. PNAS 110(46):18466–18471, doi:10.1073/pnas.1314923110.

5. Williamson, S.M., Wright, G.A. (2013). "Exposure to multiple cholinergic pesticides impairs olfactory learning and memory in honeybees". J of Experimental Biology 216 (10): 1799–807.

6. Dively G.P., Embrey M.S., Kamel A., Hawthorne D.J., Pettis J.S. (2015) Assessment of Chronic Sublethal Effects of Imidacloprid on Honey Bee Colony Health. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0118748. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118748.

7. Perry, C., Sovik, E., Myerscough, M.R., Barron, A.B. 2015. Rapid behavioral maturation accelerates failure of stressed honey bee colonies. PNAS 112(11): 3427–3432, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1422089112.

8. Goulson D, Nicholls E, Botías C, Rotheray EL. (2015). Bee declines driven by combined stress from parasites, pesticides, and lack of flowers. Science. 2015 Mar 27;347(6229):1255957. doi: 10.1126/science.1255957.