What is lyssavirus? Rare bat disease claims a fourth life in Australia
New South Wales Health confirmed a man aged in his 50s from the state's north died from the virus on Thursday after being bitten by a bat several months ago.
It was the first known case in NSW.
Here's what we know about the disease.
Lyssavirus is a rabies-like infection transmitted via a bite or scratch from an infected bat to humans and other mammals, such as dogs and cats, or by exposure to an infected animal's saliva through the eyes, nose or mouth.
NSW Health says lyssavirus affects the central nervous system and can take anywhere from weeks to years to present.
The early symptoms are flu-like and include headache, fever and fatigue.
The illness progresses rapidly to paralysis, delirium and convulsions.
Death usually follows within a fortnight.
Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) has been found in species of flying foxes, fruit bats and insect-eating microbats, and has been detected in NSW, the Northern Territory, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.
The CSIRO first identified the Australian bat lyssavirus in 1996 after a black flying fox was found displaying nervous symptoms near Ballina in northern NSW.
Later that year a Queensland woman who had recently become a bat handler started to suffer numbness and weakness in her arm before falling into a coma and dying.
In 1998 and 2013, respectively, a woman and an eight-year-old died after they were bitten or scratched by bats.
University of Sydney veterinary scientist Alison Peel said bats had coevolved with lyssavirus over a number of years.
"We know that a large number of bats have been exposed to the virus but not gone on to have clinical signs that they ultimately die of," she said.
"It's a small proportion of bats that go on to develop those clinical signs, whereas in people and other animals it ultimately causes those clinical signs.
Dr Peel said it was yet to be understood why some bats were resistant to the disease and that infected bats often exhibited erratic and aggressive behaviour.
Trish Paterson, who ran the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre in Queensland, said less than 0.1 per cent of the Australian bat population was infected with lyssavirus.
"They catch it from a bite or a scratch from an infected bat, so the bats die from it exactly the same away we do, and it's nasty, very painful, and can take three to four weeks for an animal to die once they've contracted lyssavirus," she said.
Ms Paterson said being fully vaccinated against rabies was crucial for anyone who handled bats and that it was worrying that another person had died from an infection despite receiving prompt medical attention.
"If he received treatment and still contracted the virus, that would be a little bit concerning," she said.
There is no cure for lyssavirus but there are measures that can limit the likelihood of a person developing the disease, including the rabies vaccine.
"ABLV is closely enough related to rabies that all of the preventative measures developed around the world for rabies, including vaccines and post-exposure treatment, work against ABLV," Dr Peel said.
She said the vaccinations were vital for anyone coming into contact with bats, including carers, veterinarians and wildlife officers.
Dr Peel said anyone bitten or scratched by a bat should immediately wash the wound thoroughly for 15 minutes with soap and water and apply an antiviral antiseptic before allowing the affected area to dry.
Post-exposure treatment involves getting a course of the rabies vaccine and potentially a dose of antibodies.
"You're giving your immune system a head start rather than waiting for it to develop those antibodies," Dr Peel said.
Dr Peel said it was rare for post-exposure treatment to fail.
There is no cure once the disease is detected in the body.
People are advised to avoid contact with bats and call WIRES on 1300 094 737 if they find a bat in distress, injured or trapped on the ground.
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News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
The science behind weird and wonderful chip flavours
Now for a topic very close to my heart. Chips or crisps, depending on what you call them. It doesn't feel like that long ago when you'd go to the canteen for a pack of chips and your options were salt, barbecue, salt, and vinegar, and chicken. Now, forget chicken. You can get chicken feet flavoured chips, even duck tongue. I wanted to know how we've arrived at this, frankly, wild array of flavours. So I trundled off to Werribee in Melbourne's West to the CSIRO. Joanna Gambetta: My name is Joanna Gambetta, um, a research scientist in the food chemistry team. Um, I work mainly with flavour and aroma compounds and also with a lot of data analysis and things like that, but mainly trying to understand, um, the drivers of aroma in our foods are in our wines, and how certain things like the environment can modulate what we actually feel in the end. Belinda Smith: So you're the perfect person for me to talk to you this. Joanna Gambetta: I dunno, but I'm the person who volunteered Belinda Smith: going in. I sort of assumed that this whole process of building a flavour from scratch would be entirely done in the lab with whizbang equipment. But I'm wrong. Joanna Gambetta: How do we get these things to taste like something else? We usually first try to figure out what is the flavour that we want, what it is that we are trying to replicate, and one of the first steps would always be to convene a sensory panel, which is basically a group of trained panelists, which is what we call them. Belinda Smith: These panellists are trained to describe not just what they taste, but also what they smell. Both contribute hugely to what we call flavour. And you really want a group of people that come from all backgrounds and ages because when it comes to the ability to taste and smell, Joanna Gambetta: there's a lot of genetic variability. Some people are more bitter sensitive than others. While there are people who are bitter, bitter blind, for example. Or sometimes when we are going through different phases of our life, we might be more sensitive to different taste sensations than others. So kids, for example, have. A higher affinity for sweet than older people. As we age, we become more sensitive to sweetness and we can tell it apart more differently. Or when we become even older. Some of those taste sensations doll down as well. Belinda Smith: This whole process of breaking down flavours to synthetically rebuild them is a pretty recent thing. Hamish Thompson: There's cappuccino Lamington, of course, which is an Australian innovation. There's Prosecco in elderberry. Um, rock four and Roast Chestnut salted caramel. This is Hamish Thompson. There's an American one called Southern Biscuits and Gravy. Belinda Smith: He runs the Museum of Crisps. A website that so far lists nearly 1,400 different chip flavours. Hamish Thompson: Yeah, one called Christmas tree, which actually does apparently taste like kind of pine needles. So, you know, there, there you go. It's a, it's a flavour sensation. Belinda Smith: Sounds like it would taste like one of those air freshness you dangle off your rear view mirror. Hard pass. Anyway, the Potato Crisp itself has a long history dating back more than 200 years. Hamish Thompson: They were originally invented back in 1817 by this guy called William Kitchener, and he was kind of like the TikTok [00:31:00] celebrity chef of his day. Um, so he wrote this book called the the Cook the Cook's Oracle, which was this international bestseller. And in it he sort of describes. Potatoes fried in slices or shavings sprinkled with very little salt. So there you've got a early reference to ready salted. Belinda Smith: There wasn't much movement on the flavor front until the mid 19 hundreds Hamish Thompson: when, you know, you start to see the emergence of new things. So you start to see things like, you know, um, salt and vinegar. Um, and then along comes, you know, prawn cocktail and there's. And onion and all those things. So, so those, those ones that we really kind of associate and barbecue. I think barbecue actually was the first innovation that was a US invention. Belinda Smith: These classic flavours rained until the 1990s when advances in food chemistry meant almost any food could be reduced to its chemical components and its essence reproduced in a lab. So let's say we wanna create BRI and cranberry flavoured chips. Yes, that's a real chip flavour. You've assembled your panel of sensory superstars. What do we do next? Dr. Gambetta? Joanna Gambetta: get them to taste something and describe it and try to tear it apart into its different components. Is it sweet? Is it salty? Is it bitter? Um, does it smell like oranges that sit smell like, like red fruits and things like that? And once we have a map of what that food. Tastes and smells like. Then we go back another step, and then that is where the, when the flavour chemists get involved and try to figure out, okay, where can we find this smells naturally to try and figure out, okay, what is the compound that might be driving this smell or flavour? Belinda Smith: Very rarely is a smell or taste created by one molecule. Take the smell of strawberry, for instance. It's created by mixing maybe half a dozen different molecules, which together create that lovely, fresh, fruity berry smell. We associate with straws, but not all flavours are so simple to build. When things get a bit complex, it's time to head into the lab, and this is where a technique called gas chromatography or GC comes in. Joanna and I stand by this boxy instrument that a meter long. Sitting on the lad bench, Joanna Gambetta: imagine you've got a 20 millilitre vial. You'll put some of your sample in there and you will heat it up so that you can liberate the aromas of it. Kind of like when, imagine you have a hot cup of coffee and then the vapours will carry the, the smell of it. That vapour is actually full of little molecules that compose the, the coffee aroma, for example. So this machine pretty much does something similar, but. To a whole range of different things. We heat it up so that we could, um, get all of the goodies out into the air. And then we have, um, a particular kind of fiber where the goodies will stick to, and then we put them into the machine, and then the machine will separate them into the all the different molecules. Belinda Smith: The vaporised molecules are pushed through a long coil pipe where they separate with each type of molecule, traveling at its own speed. At the end of the coil, the molecules hits a detector ping, which takes that signal and displays it. On a computer as a peak on a graph, a taller peak means more of that particular molecule is present. So what do, Joanna Gambetta: and then through software and databases that other people have, um, composed over the years, we can click on the, on the particular peak and it'll give us their name and their identity. Belinda Smith: And even at this stage as the machine is doing its thing, there's a person right there doing the same Dr. Gambetta points to something poking outta the side of the gas chromatography instrument. Joanna Gambetta: So for certain things, if you see here, we've got like a, a little glass cone that is sticking out. So the whole purpose of that is that you stick your nose in it. What? And then as the compounds are coming out. So the machine will perceive them, but then for example, at minute 20, you might feel an oh, an aroma, and then you just say, Hey, this smells like green grass, for example. So then we can look at the peak in the machine and have that recording of when you said it smells like green grass, and then tie both up and say, ah, this is one hno. It smells like green grass. Belinda Smith: So as the machine's running. You've got someone here sniffing away as it goes. Joanna Gambetta: Yeah, pretty much. That's it. Wow. Uhhuh and that's, and sometimes the pig might be tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, but the person might perceive it as something like super mega intense, which is what I was saying about our nose is being incredible and sometimes just being so much more powerful that any piece of equipment that we might have. Belinda Smith: This is especially true for very pungent molecules that are present in teeny tiny amounts beyond the capacity of a machine to pick up, but pack a really stinky punch to the human nose. Alright, let's, let's get out of the lab. Combining the human experience with laboratory technology means food chemists can then finally start building a chips flavour, starting with its aroma. But while you might know what molecules are in a smell, you also need to know how much of each you need, because sometimes too much of a good thing is terrible. Joanna Gambetta: So during my master's I was working with styles, which are the typical aroma of passion fruit, but this aromas while. In a very, very, very, very, very, very small concentration because they're super potent. They're lovely, and they give you this beautiful aromas. When you have too much of it, they start smelling like cat pee. And definitely that's not something that you want your food to smell like. So once we have nailed down the aromas, then we have to start modulating also what it's gonna taste like. So. Then we start playing with how sour, how sweet. And there are a lot of compounds that can be used to, to try and model it. Obviously salt is always super important. Sugar, the basic ones, but then we can start incorporating herbs and things like that that will also finish the picture. Belinda Smith: There are shortcuts, you know, smokiness could be a shortcut to ham flavour, for instance. And then there's what we see the colour. Joanna Gambetta: So when it comes to food, yes. Visual cues are super, super important because as human we are very visually driven. So colour will give you a lot of information. Belinda Smith: There's a good reason cheese flavoured snacks are bright, yellow and meaty ones are kind of orangey red. Joanna Gambetta: So if this was supposed to be a meat flavour snack and it wasn't kind of reddish, your brain would automatically go, dissonance, this doesn't make sense. This cannot be meat. Belinda Smith: All in all, there's a fair bit of trial and error to really nailing a flavour, especially a complicated one like. Oh, I don't know. Norfolk Turkey with sage and onion stuffing [00:38:00] also a real chip flavour. But Dr. Gambetta says it's not that different to perfecting a recipe in your kitchen at home. Joanna Gambetta: And yeah, that's the whole making food process, um, in the lab. Um, there's a lot of playing around at the beginning until you get it just right and once you are happy with it, then you just standardize it and replicate it. The differences that we play with way bigger toys than you would have in your kitchen, and we do have some gadgets that help us. Belinda Smith: And now we have this wild array of far out flavours. Peach Craft beer, anyone? Oh, oh, no, no. That's, that's an acquired taste. So what does the Museum of Crisps curator Hamish Thompson make of all this? Hamish Thompson: Do you know? I'm, I'm a real traditionalist, which is, this is the thing, whenever you ask somebody about their interest, they, that always kind of veer to the traditional. So I really like, um, salt and black pepper. I think one of the things that kind of fascinates me about the weirdness of it is usually, you know, well, quite often they kinda make me cringe a bit, and I think that kind of keeps me motivated to keep looking for the, for the, for the strangest and most unorthodox flavours. But yeah, I am, I'm, I'm traditional by nature on this, on this particular subject, although I have to say, you know, like if you think about, if you think about potatoes, I mean, they're like the, they're like the best supporting actor. Of the food, food market. You know, they're the sort of thing that can go with anything. Um, and I think that's, you know, so it's, they're like a canvas for, um, for creativity when it comes to flavour. Belinda Smith: That was Hamish Thompson, who runs the Museum of Crisps from his regional Tassie home. Big thanks also to Joanna Gaeta, who is now a lecturer in food science at the University of Newcastle.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
A silver lining to US research funding woes
Belinda Smith: Hi, this is The Science Show, and I'm Belinda Smith, keeping Robyn Williams' seat toasty and warm for the next few weeks. Few activities are as satisfying as making something, whether that's baking the perfect pavlova or knocking up a nesting box. But how would you even begin to create, I don't know, a brand new flavor or bring back to life an extinct species of frog? Those stories are coming up but first is the US experiencing a brain drain? News Grab: Good morning. It's now 5.35 here in the east. We are allowing all of our stations across the country to join us. Now with the breaking news, we are projecting at this hour the 47th president of the United States. Uh, Donald Trump will be, uh, elected to return to the White House. Belinda Smith: Since President Donald Trump retook office, the state of scientific research in the States has been well precarious, to say the least. The administration immediately implemented a federal spending freeze, so that included government funded grants and has proposed billions of dollars in cuts to science and health research. Billions with a B. It's just so hard to keep up with all of this, and it's not even been six months. The silver lining is that other countries like Australia are taking advantage of the situation and targeting programs at US researchers. ABC Health reporter, Olivia Willis, has been looking into this and she joins me now. So Liv, what's the latest out of the states when it comes to research funding? Olivia Willis: So since Trump's return to office in January, there's been. As you say, a real frenzy of government funding freezes, cuts, executive orders, all of which have had a major impact on scientific and medical research on national science and health agencies in the us um, but also science and health funding in, in many parts of the world that are reliant on US funding and that includes, uh, researchers in Australia. We know that so far. Well over a thousand research grants have been terminated at government agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and NASA. Together, those total, several billions of dollars, and there's many more grants that have also been flagged for review. And then on top of that, hundreds of staff have been cut from some of these federal agencies that I mentioned, as well as. The Centers for Disease Control, the FDA and the Trump administration has also targeted specific universities, many of which are Ivy League schools, places like Harvard and Columbia, and frozen their federal funding if they don't comply with a set of demands that the government has laid out. And they're often things related to affirmative action, diversity initiatives, um, campus protests and so on. Big picture for year, the White House budget. Their proposal now is to cut. The National Institutes of Health, their budget by 40%, and the National Science Foundation's budget by 55%. So very, very significant. I will say that thinking broadly about these cuts, the government has said that they're essentially about eliminating waste and bias in government funded research. But I think, you know, they're also the result of efforts to combat what the Trump administration has described as gender, ideology, um, and an executive order to end diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. So we know that many of the cancel grants or grants under review focus on marginalized and underrepresented groups, uh, racial and ethnic minorities. So groups that have, have been largely understudied historically, and the Trump administration perhaps doesn't see this type of research as benefiting broadly the health of all Americans. Belinda Smith: What other areas of faced cuts? Olivia Willis: There's also research areas that have lost funding simply because they're not priorities of the Trump administration or, or I guess the government doesn't see them as fitting in with their own scientific agenda. So things like research into vaccine misinformation, uh, hiv aids, climate science, clean energy. I should note that this is a really fast moving situation and things will probably change. So we know that a number of lawsuits have been launched against the government regarding these funding freezes and cuts. Some of them have been successful. Just a couple of weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that the cancellation of more than $1 billion in research grants at the National Institutes of Health. That they were illegal in order for them to be reinstated. It looks like the government will file an appeal on that judgment, but in the meantime, staff at at certain agencies have been instructed not to cancel any further grants. So it's definitely a fast moving, unfolding dynamic situation. I. Belinda Smith: And may get dragged through the courts for months and months to come. Olivia Willis: I think so. Belinda Smith: Mm. What have these cuts done to researchers? Olivia Willis: Well, I think it's probably important to think about the context of how significant the US is as a player in research funding globally. So. It's, it's one of the biggest funders in the world of research and development. The National Institutes of Health alone is the biggest funder of medical research globally. A huge number of researchers around the world would benefit off funding from that agency. Um, and in 2023, it was estimated that the US actually provided 30% of all global r and d funding. So you can. Get a sense there from just how much they contribute to what those cuts would mean in terms of specific research fields. There's, you know, we're seeing areas of research, I guess, that have been threatened because huge chunks of their funding have been wiped out. And then for the researchers. The people who work at these federal agencies, a lot of people have lost their jobs, um, or their funding. That of course includes principal investigators and professors, but also early career researchers, PhD students, people who rely on scholarships. And I think the other thing is that for many scientists, it appears to have really created, I guess, a climate of, of fear and worry about their jobs and the viability of their research long term. Belinda Smith: You are listening to Belinda Smith on the Science Show, and I'm talking to health reporter Olivia Willis, about the state of research funding in the United States. Now, I've seen reports of countries that are seeing this as an opportunity for them to really beef up their local scientific expertise and try and get that US talent to relocate to their countries and establish their research programs There. What's been going on in that space and what's Australia's done? Olivia Willis: Yeah, we are, so there's several European universities that have set up initiatives. Um, countries like France and Canada are actively recruiting. The European Commission recently announced 500 million euros to make Europe a magnet for researchers in the next two years. So I suspect that's going to be a popular location for some US scientists when it comes to Australia. There are a number of research institutes. That I know have received really significant interest from US researchers since these cuts have happened. And recruiting scientists is something that the Australian Academy of Science is actively working on. So in April, they set up a program to nationally coordinate this recruitment effort. It's called the Global Talent Attraction Program, and I recently spoke to the academy's chief executive, Anna Maria Arabia, about this. Anna-Maria Arabia: We know that talent is everywhere. Uh, but opportunity is not everywhere. And, uh, this is a, an initiative to attract to Australia leading talent that we know, uh, builds capability in Australia that builds our, uh, scientific talent pool. Um, that enables scientific advancements and industries, um, to be seeded and to grow. Um, importantly, talent like this train and mentor, the next generation of young Australian scientists, uh, we know it creates jobs. Um, and, and we know science and technology is part of a really, um, rapid, uh, global race at the moment. Belinda Smith: So the Australian Academy of Sciences calls this a global talent attraction program, but it sounds quite targeted to the us Olivia Willis: Yeah, that's right. So at least initially it is specifically for US scientists, um, and also Australian scientists in the US who are wanting to return home. As I mentioned, in April, they launched the program and that was about essentially getting funders for it and people to kind of support this research. But it was actually just this week that they've announced that applications for the program are now open. Belinda Smith: So it's early days yet really in terms of getting people involved in the program that might be interested in coming to Australia. Do you know if the Australian Academy of Sciences has any priorities in terms of the, the types of research that they're particularly interested in attracting? Olivia Willis: So the program itself, they've described as discipline agnostic, meaning I think that it, it's not limited to any specific areas of research. That being said, when I spoke to Anna Maria Arabia about it, she told me that one of the reasons they wanted to launch it was so they could assess applications against Australia's. What they call capability gaps. So she talked about areas like data science, statistics, mathematics, um, all being areas that as a kind of research landscape we need to bolster and also touched on issues about the fact that our population is aging, that we need to decarbonize. So it sounds like there will be. Some kind of strategic considerations that are made when they're looking at the types of, um, the, the areas of research that they want to bring more expertise in. Anna-Maria Arabia: We are also looking at areas where there is just outstanding talent that we know if they were to come to Australia, there is no doubt that the multiplier effect and the impact of their contribution, uh, would be many times, uh, what it costs to bring them here. It is the story of Australia. Uh, so many of our leading scientists today were born overseas. We look at our own fellowship, who Australia's most distinguished scientists, and we did account since 2017. Um, the fellows elected to the academy. 42% of them were born overseas. It is the Australian story. Uh, our research effort is relatively young and since World War II and so many of our stellar scientists, you only need to think of Professor Michelle Simmons or Lydia Roka or Brian Schmidt, all born abroad, all bought their capability here as young scientists who, who seeded, uh, talent here, who nurtured the next generation and have now built Um, research sectors and industries we could have only dreamed of. Olivia Willis: So what does this program involve? So once the academy has identified scientists that they're interested in bringing to Australia, they'll work with universities and research institutes to look at. Basically where they can place them so the universities and the research organizations will host them. And my understanding is the Academy's talent attraction program will provide the research funding and the relocation support. Belinda Smith: Mm-hmm. And what about like local researchers? You know, it, it's, it's a, it's a tough old grind being scientists having to apply for grants and. Olivia Willis: Is there any support for local people? It is a great question and it's something I put to her as well. You know, as you say, research funding is extremely competitive in Australia. A lot of researchers miss out, and so I asked whether that was a concern, you know, pouring funding into US scientists or international researchers when many of our own researchers are struggling to get grants. Anna-Maria Arabia: I think we should do everything we can in Australia to nurture young talent, but I feel that these are related, but separate strategies. Uh, so to those young researchers, I would say, uh, through this program we are attracting to Australia, uh, individuals who will inspire you, who will mentor and train you. Um, and provide opportunities that don't exist today. They are not taking away money that would otherwise go to support early career researchers. In fact, they create opportunities for them. Belinda Smith: That was Anna Maria Arabia, CEO of the Australian Academy of Science and ABC Health reporter Olivia Willis, filling us in on the US research funding situation. And now a story of scientific endeavor from our shores. Come with me and let's take a trip back to 2013.
