Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
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Question: Studying the DNA of two distant bat species, the scientists discovered how genes dealing with the bats’ immune system had undergone the most rapid change. This may explain why they are relatively free of disease and live exceptionally long lives compared with other mammals of similar size, such as the rat, said Professor Lin-Fa Wang, an infectious disease expert at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore who led the multi-centre study. “We are not saying bats never get sick or never get infections. What we are saying is they handle infections a lot better,” Wang said in a telephone interview. What was missing from both species of bats was a gene segment known to trigger extreme, and potentially fatal, immune reactions to infections, called the cytokine storm. Cytokine storms end up killing not only offending viruses in the body, but the host’s own cells and tissues too. “Viruses rarely kill the host. The killing comes from the host’s immune response. So it looks like what bats are doing is depress the inflammation (cytokine storm). If we can learn that, we can design drugs to minimize the inflammation damage and control viral infection,” Wang said. The study, which saw the participation of researchers from China, Denmark, Australia and the United States, was published on Friday in the journal Science. Compared with other mammals of similar size, bats live a long time, with lifespans of between 20 and 40 years. Rats live between 2 and 3 years, on average. Interestingly, Wang and his colleagues found that the highly evolved genes that give bats their superior immune system also enable them to fly. Out of more than 5,000 types of mammals on the planet, bats are the only one capable of sustained flight and some species can fly more than 1,000 km in a single night. Such intense physical exertion is known to produce toxic “free radicals” that cause tissue damage and it is these same genes that give the bat the ability to repair itself, Wang said. “What we found was the genes that evolved fastest were genes involved in repairing DNA damage. That makes sense ... because when you fly, metabolism goes up and it generates free radicals that are toxic to cells,” Wang said. “Because bats fly, they (would have had) to evolve and adapt ... to get genes that can repair DNA damage.”  Wang said we have much to learn from the bat, which has evolved to avoid disease and live exceptionally long lives. “Cancer, ageing and infectious disease, these are the three major areas of concern for people,” he said. “We have studied rats for 150 years to understand how to do better in these three areas. Now we have a system, the bat, that has done very well in evolution. We can learn from the bat. With modern techniques, we can design new drugs to slow down the ageing process, treat cancer, fight infections.”

Answer: Long-lived bats offer clues on diseases, aging.


Question: Scientists said on Wednesday many Tibetans possess a rare variant of a gene involved in carrying oxygen in the blood that they likely inherited from an enigmatic group of extinct humans who interbred with our species tens of thousands of years ago. It enables Tibetans to function well in low oxygen levels at elevations upwards of 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) like the vast high plateau of southwestern China. People without this variant would be apt to develop thick blood, leading to high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, low-birth-weight babies and higher infant mortality. This version of the EPAS1 gene is nearly identical to one found in Denisovans, a lineage related to Neanderthals - but is very different from other people today. Denisovans are known from a single finger bone and two teeth found in a Siberian cave. DNA testing on the 41,000-year-old bone indicated Denisovans were distinct from our species and Neanderthals. “Our finding may suggest that the exchange of genes through mating with extinct species may be more important in human evolution than previously thought,” said Rasmus Nielsen, a computational biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Copenhagen, whose study appears in the journal Nature. Our genome contains residual genetic fragments from other organisms like viruses as well as species like Neanderthals with which early modern humans interbred. The researchers called their study the first to show that a gene from an archaic human species has helped modern humans adjust to different living conditions. “Such exchange of genes with other species may in fact have helped humans adapt to new environments encountered as they spread out of Africa and into the rest of the world,” said  Nielsen. Asan Ciren, a researcher with China’s BGI genomics center, added, “The genetic relationship or blood relationship between modern humans and archaic hominins is a hot topic of the current paleoanthropology.”  The researchers said early modern humans trekking out of Africa interbred with Denisovans in Eurasia en route to China. Their descendants harbor a tiny percentage of Denisovan DNA. Genetic studies show nearly 90 percent of Tibetans have the high-altitude gene variant, along with a small percentage of Han Chinese, who share a common ancestor with Tibetans. It is seen in no other people. The researchers conducted genetic studies on 40 Tibetans and 40 Han Chinese and performed a statistical analysis showing that the gene variant almost certainly was inherited from the Denisovans. The gene regulates production of hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. It is turned on when blood oxygen levels drop, stimulating more hemoglobin production. At elevations above 13,000 feet (4,000 meters), the common form of the gene boosts hemoglobin and red blood cell production, causing dangerous side effects. The Tibetans’ variant increases hemoglobin and red blood cell levels only modestly, sparing them these effects.

Answer: Gene from extinct human species fortifies high-altitude Tibetans.


Question: Washington State Secretary of Health John Wiesman approved the county’s application Friday, making it the ninth county in the state to receive approval to move into phase two of the four-phase reopening process. Those counties can allow restaurants to open at 50% of capacity. Hair and nail salons, tattoo and makeup artists, and stores also can start reopening with additional protections in place. Counties applying for a quicker reopening must currently have a population of less than 75,000 and no new cases of COVID-19 in the last three weeks, among other stipulations, in order to be approved. The other eight counties of the 39 in Washington that can begin the second phase include: Columbia, Ferry, Garfield, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Skamania, Stevens and Wahkiakum. Inslee and health officials have said other counties may enter phase two on June 1, depending on public-health COVID-19 data. Reopening businesses must comply with health and safety requirements outlined in their industry’s guidance, officials said. More than 17,950 people in Washington state have tested positive for the coronavirus and at least 992 have died. The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most patients, and the vast majority recover. But it is highly contagious and can cause severe illness and death in some patients, particularly the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.

Answer:
Whitman County 9th county approved for phase 2 reopening.