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Earth Medicine Science

Bats' White-Nose Syndrome May Be Cured 89

Posted by samzenpus from the wipe-your-nose dept.
New submitter alabamatoy writes: Several news outlets are reporting that a common bacteria may be proving successful in curing "white-nose syndrome" which has been decimating the bat populations across North America. A new treatment using a common bacterium was developed in Missouri by Forest Service scientists Sybill Amelon and Dan Lindner, and Chris Cornelison of Georgia State University. The Nature Conservancy reports: "On May 20, 2015, Scientists and conservationists gathered outside the historic Mark Twain Cave Complex in Hannibal, Missouri, to release back into the wild some of the first bats successfully treated for deadly White-Nose Syndrome." Bats are a key player in the environment, keeping insect populations under control, especially mosquitoes.
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Bats' White-Nose Syndrome May Be Cured More

Bats' White-Nose Syndrome May Be Cured

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  • Red Nose Syndrome is better (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Too bad the bats don't have Red Nose syndrome. If they did, they could at least lead Santa's sleigh through the snow!

  • Excellent news (Score:5, Informative)

    by __roo ( 86767 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @11:52PM (#49772729) Homepage

    This is great news. For those who haven't been following it, white nose syndrome is an emergent disease affecting bats [usgs.gov]. It's caused by a fungus that grows on the skin of the animals, and has been killing millions of bats across many parts of the eastern United States (map [whitenosesyndrome.org]). A decontamination protocol [whitenosesyndrome.org] has been established for researchers and cavers who come into contact with the animals. This is the first really optimistic piece of news about the disease that I've seen.

    • Thank God, Gotham City is safe!

      • Aw, how sad - I got modded down for making a Batman joke, it seems. Not a good one, I freely admit, but are there really people who get offended when you joke about a rather pathetic cartoon character? If only I could afford to worry about so small things.

        • I think you would have been better off going with an 'Ah... that explains why Bruce Wayne had white under his nose when he came out of the bathroom at that fundraiser last night.'
    • White-nose has also affected bats in Middle and South America as well.

      • White-nose has also affected bats in Middle and South America as well.

        Source?

        And I assume your mean "Central" America.

      • As a caver myself, we've been watching this with considerable concern from Europe, but I've not heard this claim before. WNS in Canada, yes, and slowly extending it's affected area to the SW ; yes those are both well reported. but I've not even heard of WNS in Mexico, let alone any further into Central America.

        And yes, every caver I know who has been caving in America for about a decade has been strict over decontamination procedures. Or just didn't bring anything back other than photographs (not difficult

  • Administration... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @12:26AM (#49772827) Journal
    Hopefully the treatment will be amenable to some sort of relatively 'hands off' dispersal method. Veterinary care as all well and good(and, certainly, if it doesn't work in that environment, it probably doesn't work, so it's an obvious place to do R&D); but cave conditions are difficult enough that you won't make a dent in mortality unless you can 'dust' a cave, or set up aerosol dispersal at a cave entrance, or some other wholesale distribution mechanism. Even something that you have to spray directly on affected animals would be pretty tricky in a lot of these roosting environments.

  • The bats control mosquitoes story is overblown. (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Bats eat up to 600 mosquitoes an hour.

    This one may have gotten started with a study in which mosquitoes were released into a room full of bats while researchers counted how many they ate. The bats consumed about 10 per minute, or 600 per hour. But mosquitoes were the only insects in the room for the hungry bats to eat. Since then, studies have found that mosquitoes make up less than 1 percent of bat diets.

    http://www.mosquitoworld.net/mosquito-myths/

  • Mixed feelings about this (Score:3, Informative)

    by Prune ( 557140 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @01:28AM (#49772967)
    Sure, they can be cute; however, in terms of human health, bats are reservoirs for rabies and various coronaviruses that affect humans. For example, a recent paper in Nature showed that SARS can go from some bats to humans without an intermediate host, and the same likely applies to MERS. Worse, ebola-infected bats have also been found. Then, there's this quote from wiki: "Bats harbor more viruses than rodents and are capable of spreading disease over a wider geographic area owing to their ability to fly and their migration and roosting patterns."
    My question for the armchair epidemiologists here is to what extent this is outweighed by bats' feeding on mosquitoes (in the areas which this story concerns).

    • Re:Mixed feelings about this (Score:5, Interesting)

      by weilawei ( 897823 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @03:00AM (#49773195)

      Cute, and potentially deadly weapons of mass destruction [napalmbiography.com]! Note that your concern about germs has not gone unconsidered in history.

      Excerpted from The Scientific Method [amazon.com] by Louis Fieser:

      The carrying power of a 10-11 gram bat is indeed amazing, some 15-18 grams; the incendiary bomb was in this range (17.5 grams). Bats can carry such loads for miles. And bats with dummy bombs released in housed areas dragged the loads into sites highly favorable for fire-starting. We released bats successfully at various altitudes both from the B-2 S and from an open Attack Bomber, in which flying was great fun. The smoke bombs functioned satisfactorily and provided further information. Col. Epler and the Qther officers all favored a full-scale trial with live incendiaries to be injected for a 10-minute take-off just before release. I considered a live test highly hazardous and likely to lead to disclosure o£ the project. I also thought it unnecessary. But the officers insisted that a report to the CWS and AAF chiefs would be incomplete without it and so, on a Saturday, a live test was scheduled for the following Monday.

      Everything went off on schedule, and shortly after dinner the bomber flew in loaded with shrieking, kicking bats. The airmen had taken delight in a form of hunting which consisted in swinging landing nets at the mouth of an inexhaustible cave, and the crates were all jam full. The crates were loaded into the truck and the refrigeration turned on full tilt. But the howling went on without abate for a couple of hours, and it became evident that the refrigerating unit was not adequate to cope with such a large amount of body heat all of a sudden. So we mounted a series of fans in positions to blow air in over cakes of ice. Finally, about midnight, the noise ceased; hibernation had been accomplished. A night watch of soldiers took over, and we turned in.

      The next day the bats were still nicely quiet and we started a trial with the lightest of the dummy bombs. A first batch of bats in hibernation with weights attached was dumped out of the bomber at a low altitude, 2,000 ft. as I recall. The ground crew scurried around in jeeps and eventually located a group of free-fallers large enough to show that few if any of the bats had come out of hibernation. Other batches were released from higher and higher altitudes, which made reconnaissance increasingly difficult. Eventually it was clear that the bats were not in hibernation but dead. Our cooling had been too efficient, too sudden.

      Imagine, then, a surprise attack on Tokyo in which a succession of bombers would operate at high altitude for about half an hour, say starting at midnight, each delivering a load of bat-bombs equivalent to some 3,700 fires. There would be no explosions or fire bursts to give warning, and the bombers would depart. With the activated mechanisms all set for a fourhour delay, bombs in strategic and not easily detectable locations would start popping all over the city at 4 a.m. An attractive picture? AU those working on the project thought so. Then, suddenly, X-ray was cancelled. I never learned the reason, but can make a guess. The bats would be vectors for bombs, but they would be vectors also for germs. Our side might be accused of initiating biological warfare. But the job was done very effectively by M-69s.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by plopez ( 54068 )

        You're a genius! To save the bats we refer to them as 'wetware weapons delivery systems' and the DoD and right wing politicians will start throwing money at the problem.

    • Re:Mixed feelings about this (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @06:00AM (#49773689)

      incorrect.
      Typically less than 1% of a bat population is sick (rabies, etc.). The reason this fallacy has gained traction is that bats, normally a very shy creature, are more likely to come into human contact when they are sick. They become easier to capture and less likely to fly away when a human approaches them.

      i would highly recommend looking at a valid scientific website and not just wiki.

      http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110131133323.htm

  • Bats don't control mosquitoes (Score:3)

    by brianerst ( 549609 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @01:43AM (#49773009) Homepage

    Mosquitoes are an insignificant part (under 1% [mosquito.org]) of the diet of insectivorous bats. Bats prefer moths and wasps - many more calories per catch. Bats will eat mosquitoes, they just prefer just about anything else.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Mosquitoes are an insignificant part (under 1% [mosquito.org]) of the diet of insectivorous bats. Bats prefer moths and wasps - many more calories per catch.

      While there is no doubt that bats have probably played a visible, if not prominent, role in reducing the mosquito problems in many areas, the natural abatement of mosquito populations is an extremely complex process to study, comprising poorly known ecological relationships.

      Bats will eat mosquitoes, they just prefer just about anything else.

      You're claim does not even remotely follow from your citation. Liverwurst is far more nutritious than cake... NO ONE PREFERS liverwurst to cake.

    • The fraction of a bat's diet that is made up of mosquitoes is immaterial. The thing you want to know is what fraction of mosquito predation is done by bats.

      • Re:Bats don't control mosquitoes (Score:4, Interesting)

        by weilawei ( 897823 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @05:28AM (#49773609)

        Interestingly enough, it's difficult to find quantitative information ranking mosquito predators. I tried, and all I came up with was a literature review [e-m-b.org] on British mosquito predation, which primarily listed lots of things known to eat mosquitoes if placed in a tank with only mosquitoes. That paper also made the comment that it's difficult to find information. The phrase "poorly understood" is frequently found in the papers I did come across.

        • There appear to be absolutely no creatures which subsist primarily on mosquitoes, but nobody knows for sure. The problem is that you have to analyze stomach contents to find mosquitoes, you can't just analyze some mosquitoes to find out who eats them.

          As far as anybody can tell, though, we could lose mosquitoes entirely with no big secondary effects. So let's get on eradicating those fuckers. Way more important than anything the Gates foundation has claimed to do.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by afidel ( 530433 )

            As far as anybody can tell, though, we could lose mosquitoes entirely with no big secondary effects. So let's get on eradicating those fuckers. Way more important than anything the Gates foundation has claimed to do.

            Considering one of the pieces of the Gates Foundation anti-malaria campaign is sterile mosquito introduction in an effort to eradicate the local population I think you're a bit off there.

            • Considering one of the pieces of the Gates Foundation anti-malaria campaign is sterile mosquito introduction in an effort to eradicate the local population I think you're a bit off there.

              Sterile mosquitoes are well-known to only retard the problem as long as you're doing it. It will require more severe measures to eradicate the mosquito.

    • Mosquitoes are an insignificant part (under 1% [mosquito.org]) of the diet of insectivorous bats. Bats prefer moths and wasps - many more calories per catch. Bats will eat mosquitoes, they just prefer just about anything else.

      I've seen some pretty impressive insect eating campaigns by bats. One was late day when there were hundreds of swallows flting above a church and catching gawd knows how many insects, must have been a hatch that day. Then as it was almost dark, the swallows flew away to be instantaneously replaced by bats. Likewise hundreds of them. Now imagine should the swallows and bats go away. The insects like that. But we might not.

      Second was one evening I was driving in the woods, and my headlights suddenly illumin

      • Sounds like a great idea until they take up residence in your house.

        They normally huddle in trees. But the eaves and soffits of your house are much better for huddling in to stay warm, because besides being cozy and secluded, they naturally collect heat during the day. It is a very annoying process to exclude the bats without killing them once they're moved in, and once they're out you have to immediately seal every opening over 1/4 inch in diameter or they'll come back. Yes, that small.

        • Sounds like a great idea until they take up residence in your house.

          They normally huddle in trees. But the eaves and soffits of your house are much better for huddling in to stay warm, because besides being cozy and secluded, they naturally collect heat during the day. It is a very annoying process to exclude the bats without killing them once they're moved in, and once they're out you have to immediately seal every opening over 1/4 inch in diameter or they'll come back. Yes, that small.

          Living in a wooded development, we've had issues with Squirrels, bats and chipmunks.

          As it turns out, there is a fairly simple solution to all three. First thing is you need to seal up the ingress points. Turns out we had a triple walled Chimney which was part of an ill thought out scheme to use as ventilation. But the wire mesh deteriorated over the years. So you have to take care of that. But now you might have animals trapped inside. Stinky dead squirrel sucks.

          Now where's the trick. You make a egress

    • You can't say that bats do or do not eat a certain insect. Different species of bats eat different things. The main bats in North America impacted by this are the Big Brown Bat and the Little Brown Bat. Yes, the BBB eats larger insects primarily. The LBB lives near water and eats various aquatic flying insects. May Flies when in season, black fly, but also mosquitoes. They consume large quantities when the other insects are in other stages of their life cycle. Mosquitoes tend to have offspring constantly.

  • we can work on a cure for politicians' "brown-nose syndrome"...

  • Here's the real news about the Pd cure (Score:4, Informative)

    by wherrera ( 235520 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @04:37AM (#49773499) Journal

    The article referred to in the original news above is fluff. Here's the actual publication being used to effect a probiotic cure for the bats:

    http://journals.plos.org/ploso... [plos.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Punko ( 784684 )
      So basically, they've identified bacteria that can fight the fungus. This isn't a cure - its the suggestion of the basis to develop a cure. We're not out of the woods yet.
      • Not out of the woods no, but at least a path towards treating infected populations which may lead to reopening of currently closed caves and rebuilding bat populations where previously impacted. I grew up in Missouri in the area of this study where we have tons of caves, the local grottos (cavers) and conservation department have to either lock down caves that had been open to the public or be incredibly careful not to cross contaminate caves while doing studies on cave ecology, biology, water quality or s
    • The article you reference is not done by the same group that conducted the treatment trials. In fact, the bacteria in that article is a completely different genus. The link below is the research that led up to this treatment. I am an author on the paper below and am a researcher at Georgia State University who was a part of the group that conducted the treatment trials.

      http://www.biomedcentral.com/1... [biomedcentral.com]

      • Thanks for the correction and reference. The original news posting is fluff, without any reference to the biological literature, so I though the cure was new enough to be seen in a one-year search radius, and missed the 2012 paper--my bad.

  • I read that as "white noise syndrome". Like, echolocation not working due to all society's ambient noise. Makes me want to go live in cave sometimes. Should have gone to more rock concerts in my misspent youth.
  • The trials that were conducted were a treatment, not a cure. A cure insinuates the organism is no longer susceptible to the disease, which is not the case with these treatments. A better article, that represents our research and treatments, and quotes us better, is the MNN article below.

    http://www.mnn.com/earth-matte... [mnn.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jafiwam ( 310805 )

      The trials that were conducted were a treatment, not a cure. A cure insinuates the organism is no longer susceptible to the disease, which is not the case with these treatments. A better article, that represents our research and treatments, and quotes us better, is the MNN article below.

      http://www.mnn.com/earth-matte... [mnn.com]

      I expect their cure to be temporary.

      Fungus, if it's stopped by bacteria is due to living space and biological niche being filled.

      Just like someone on lots of antibiotics is at higher risk of thrush infections (fungus) and can be helped by consuming "probiotic" foods, the inoculation will depend on the bacteria PERSISTING on the bat and staying there.

      For whatever reason, bacteria that used to fulfill the role for bats is gone and the niche was exploited by the fungus.

      Finding something more effective

      • I expect their cure to be temporary.

        Again, it is not a cure. To use this word is misleading at best. I am one of the researchers who are developing this treatment, if you did not pick that up from the wording of my comment you replied to.

        Fungus, if it's stopped by bacteria is due to living space and biological niche being filled.

        The bacteria being used for treatment are not contacting the bat or the environment, therefor there is no persistence on either. Please read the article before making these kinds of assumptions. This is exactly now misinformation is spread.

        For whatever reason, bacteria that used to fulfill the role for bats is gone and the niche was exploited by the fungus.

        Quite the contrary. Microbiome research conducted on bats does not sug

  • Didn't RTFA. I assume they got the bats to quit cocaine by putting them in rehab.
  • Not at all surprising, given that all of my fungi-infested girl-friends tended to eat or otherwise use active bacteria-infused yogurt to treat their yeast infections (yeast being fungi).

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