Publisher Health

A new scoring tool that helps to ‘transparently’ prioritise which countries are in greatest need of Covid-19 vaccines, has been developed by a UCL-led team of researchers.
The researchers say the tool considers a far wider range of factors than the current global COVAX facility, which has been criticised by some countries, particularly poorer nations for insufficient access and a lack of flexibility to response to local rapid rises in infections. The study, published in BMC Public Health, asked 28 experts from 13 different countries, what they thought were the most important factors for assessing countries’ needs for vaccines.
The group of experts, who included individuals based at universities and national public health institutes from countries including the UK, Japan, Kenya, Norway and South Africa, regarded the most important consideration when deciding where vaccines were needed was the proportion of the overall population who were not fully vaccinated.
Other important factors included the proportion of high-risk population not fully vaccinated, health system capacity, capacity to purchase vaccines, and the proportion of the population who are classed as clinically vulnerable.
These important factors were then included in a choice task to determine how each factor should be weighted, in order to create a scoring tool.
It is hoped that the scoring tool will be able to make the process of allocating the Covid-19 vaccines across the globe fairer — by being explicit in the criteria used to identify needs and transparent about how the factors were identified and the evidence-based process used to derive the tool.

Based on the findings of a new study published in Brain, researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London are calling for a complete rethink of the national guidelines surrounding who can access genetic testing for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called motor neuron disease. The research suggests that there are hundreds of people with ALS in the UK for whom a genetic basis of their ALS is being missed as they do not fit the narrow requirements for genetic testing. As guidelines are similar in many countries, this situation will likely be the same internationally, meaning potentially thousands of people being unaware of a genetic link to their ALS.
The research estimates that although nearly a quarter of people with ALS who do not have family members with the illness do have a genetic link to their ALS, this link goes undetected in 98% of cases because of current guidelines. As a result, they are not offered proper genetic advice and counselling, and would not be able to access gene-based therapies likely to be available soon or in trials. The researchers say that genetic testing should be open to all patients with ALS, regardless of whether or not other family members are affected, and for all ages.
ALS is a progressive nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing paralysis of muscles. Around 1 in 300 people will be diagnosed with ALS at some point in their lives, with the average person surviving for between two and five years after their symptoms begin. There is currently no cure for ALS.
In some cases, there is an identifiable genetic cause. Given the current restrictive testing guidelines, the researchers wanted to establish the probability of a positive genetic test result in various scenarios to provide evidence for how and when genetic testing should be used. They performed two analyses on global data sets, analysing the four most common ALS genes and a larger panel of 26 ALS genes.
Their analysis revealed that, by limiting testing in those without a family history to people with symptom onset below 40 years, as per current UK guidelines, 115 of 117 positive test results were missed. Extrapolating this data to other health systems across the world, they found that potentially thousands of people with ALS will not know they have a genetic cause of their ALS due to the inaccessibility of testing.
Professor Ammar Al-Chalabi, Professor of Neurology and Complex Disease Genetics at King’s IoPPN, and the study’s lead author, said, “ALS is a condition that destroys lives. Genetic testing means that people and their families can be given correct advice and access to genetic counselling and be supported with family planning. Our study found that there are large numbers of people who are unable to access this care and support because of the arbitrary age limits and rules currently in place.”
While the researchers recognise that expanding the guidelines to include more people will be resource intensive, they argue that, where possible, countries should aim to offer genetic testing to ALS patients of all ages.
Dr Puja Mehta, the study’s first author, said “Our study shows the importance of being able to offer people with ALS of all ages a blood test to identify a possible genetic cause. In addition to accessing appropriate genetic counselling and support, with the exciting prospect of specific gene-based therapies on the horizon, and with clinical trials underway, it will become all the more important for people with ALS to know if they have an identifiable genetic cause.”
Dr Nicholas Cole, Head of Research at the MND Association said: “This research, supported by the MND Association, adds weight to the suggestion that routine genetic testing should be offered to MND patients, regardless of their age at onset or family history of the disease. Genetic testing could provide opportunity for more people with MND to be involved in tailored clinical trials. However, it is imperative that testing is supported by a robust genetic counselling infrastructure to provide tailored support to all those who choose to embark upon this process.
“These findings are thanks to the people with MND who have generously contributed to datasets funded by the MND Association, including ProjectMinE, the UK National DNA Bank for MND Research and the MND Register for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, each of which is accelerating the global effort to find treatments, and eventually a cure for MND.
“Together with our researchers, their support means we are understanding more about this complex disease and helping to focus effort and expertise in the right areas.”
This research was part-funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine are developing new ways to study why an antibiotic causes hair cell death and permanent hearing loss in people.
In a study recently published in Developmental Cell, the researchers explained how they identified the autophagy pathway in hair cells that’s linked to permanent hearing loss brought about by aminoglycosides — a class of antibiotics. The researchers also developed one of the first laboratory models that’s insusceptible to aminoglycoside-induced hearing loss.
“This work identifies multiple potential therapeutic targets for preventing hearing loss caused by aminoglycosides,” said Bo Zhao, PhD, assistant professor of otolaryngology — head and neck surgery.
Ototoxicity — hearing loss caused by medication — is one of the main causes of hearing loss in humans. More than 48 million people in the United States experience trouble hearing.
Aminoglycosides for nearly a century have been used to treat severe infections. Although the drug is a first-line treatment for life-threatening infections — particularly in developing countries — due to their low cost and low incidence of antibiotic resistance, it has been reported to cause hair cell death and subsequent permanent hearing loss among 20-47% of patients, but the underlying mechanisms are not clear. Hair cells are responsible for sound reception in the inner ear.
Zhao, whose lab investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying hearing loss, used biochemical screening to identify proteins found in hair cells. They first discovered that aminoglycosides bound to the protein RIPOR2, which is required for auditory perception.
“As aminoglycosides specifically trigger a rapid localization change of RIPOR2 in hair cells, we hypothesize that RIPOR2 is essential for aminoglycoside-induced hair cell death,” Zhao said.
The researchers developed a model in the lab that has normal hearing but significantly decreased RIPOR2 expression. Through these experiments, Zhao said the model had neither significant hair cell death nor hearing loss after treatment of aminoglycosides.
“We then discovered RIPOR2 regulates the autophagy pathway in hair cells. Knowing this, we developed other laboratory models without the expression of several key autophagy proteins that did not exhibit hair cell death or hearing loss when treated with the antibiotic,” said Jinan Li, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Zhao lab and first author of the paper.
The study authors say the proteins identified in this study could potentially be used as drug targets to prevent aminoglycoside-induced hearing loss in future studies.
In addition to Zhao and Li, authors of the article include Chang Liu, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Zhao lab, and Ulrich Mueller, PhD, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Biology at Johns Hopkins University. Funding for the research was provided by the National Institutes of Health and IU School of Medicine.
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Materials provided by Indiana University School of Medicine. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

If you’re an avid reader of science news, you’ve probably heard of viral proteins such as the COVID-19 spike protein.
Lesser known, perhaps, in the anatomy of viruses are a class of molecules called glycans. But these are important, too.
Glycans are complex carbohydrates that decorate the surface of viruses, and “every virus has a different distribution of carbohydrates,” says University at Buffalo engineering and medical researcher Sriram Neelamegham. As he explains, HIV uses glycans as a shield, employing these molecules to hide from virus-fighting antibodies. H1N1, a strain of the flu, leverages glycans to enter host cells, he adds.
And now, Neelamegham is among scientists illuminating the role that glycans may play in the function of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
In a new study, his team analyzed a subset of glycans called N-glycans, with a focus on N-glycans that are attached to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The researchers found that several of these N-glycans — in particular those attached to the spike protein at sites known as N61 and N801 — are likely critical for SARS-CoV-2 function.
The research was published on Sept. 23 in Science Advances. Neelamegham, PhD, UB Distinguished Professor in chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering, and medicine, is senior author. Qi Yang, a UB PhD student in chemical and biological engineering, is first author.

Long-term memories rely on both the repetition of events and an intricate neurological learning process in making these memories last, shows a new study by a team of neuroscientists. Its findings provide a more detailed understanding of how these types of memories are formed as well as insights into what may disrupt their creation.
“Repetition is a well-documented trigger for memory formation — the more times something is repeated, the better it is remembered,” explains New York University’s Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “However, the brain’s machinery is more complicated than that. Our research shows that the effects of individual repeated events interact in more nuanced ways and have distinct roles in working to form long-term memories — neurons can sense not just repetition, but also the order of repeated experiences and can use that information to discriminate between different patterns of these events in building memories.”
“For example, neurons can tell the difference between two events in escalating order of intensity and those same two events in the opposite order, forming a memory only if the intensity increases over time,” he adds.
The researchers, who also included Thomas Carew, a professor in NYU’s Center for Neural Science, and Tasnim Tabassum, an NYU researcher, sought to better understand what lies behind a well-documented neurological process — specifically, that repeated events induce long-term memory where individual events fail to do so.
What has been unclear is how repeated events interact with one another to form a memory.
To explore this question, the scientists studied Aplysia californica, the California sea slug. Aplysia is a model organism for this type of research because its simple memories are well understood at the molecular and cellular level. Neurons that control them can be isolated and studied in a Petri dish, as the study’s authors did here, reproducing all the essential components of memory formation. The researchers “trained” these neurons by applying repeated chemical pulses that replicated Aplysia’s responses to stimuli, such as mild electric shocks, typically used in experiments. They then monitored the long-term strengthening of connections between the neurons, thereby mimicking and then observing the formation of a long-term memory.

Heat-related deaths are an issue across Washington state, and they occur even in regions that typically have milder climates, according to a University of Washington study published Aug. 30 in the journal Atmosphere. This is the most extensive study yet of heat-related mortality in Washington state, and the first to look beyond the major population centers to include rural areas.
Statewide, the odds of dying were on average 8% higher in recent decades on days when the combination of temperature and humidity, known as the humidex, was in the top 1% of recorded values at that location, compared to a day with a mid-range value for humidex.
“This study shows that heat-related mortality, even in a temperate area like Washington state, is a current environmental public health problem,” said lead author Logan Arnold, who did the work as a UW master’s student in quantitative ecology and resource management. “It’s not a future public health problem that will exist in a warming climate — it’s something that we are already experiencing now.”
Although heat stroke is sometimes listed as the official cause of death, other conditions exacerbated by heat are often the immediate focus. Researchers used statistical methods to uncover “hidden” deaths that may have listed something else, like illness or a chronic disease, as the primary cause.
“This research adds to existing evidence that the burden of heat-health impacts resides in the effect on underlying health conditions,” said senior author Tania Busch Isaksen, a UW associate teaching professor in environmental and occupational health sciences and co-director for the UW’s Collaborative on Extreme Event Resilience. “For example, we see an increase in diabetic and cardiovascular-related mortality associated with extreme heat days. Physiologically it is harder for people with underlying health conditions to thermoregulate, but it is also likely that medications play a role in the body’s ability to dissipate heat.”
The study analyzed deaths from 1980 to 2018 recorded by the Washington State Department of Health. The authors included only non-traumatic deaths in the months of May through September and separated them into 10 federally defined climatic zones. Exposure to heat on the day of death was determined based on home address and the humidex on that date.

The liver is the all-important organ behind processing of various substances we put into our bodies, from food and drink to alcohol and drugs. When things go awry with the liver, the consequences can be deadly. At the root of many liver diseases, from hepatitis to Non-Alcoholic SteatoHepatitis, commonly known as NASH, is scarring, otherwise known as liver fibrosis — and currently, there are no drugs available to treat this scarring.
Researchers are investigating the root causes of liver fibrosis in the hopes of identifying potential targets for drugs in the future. A U-M study identifies a molecule behind the runaway growth of bile duct cells inside the liver.
“Under disease conditions in the liver, there is injury to the bile duct cells,” said Liangyou Rui, Ph.D., the Louis G. D’Alecy Collegiate Professor of Physiology. “The liver has to constantly regenerate new bile duct cells, which sometimes become malfunctional and causes inflammation and scarring.”
This excessive bile duct production, Rui explains, has a special name: ductular reaction. Patients with ductular reaction have more disease complications and poorer outcomes.
In the paper, published in the journal Nature Communications, they describe a molecule called NIK that is highly activated in the malfunctioning bile duct cells. Using a genetically modified mouse model, they removed the NIK gene inside the bile duct cells.
“When removed, you prevent all of those bad things from happening,” said Rui. Furthermore, treating normal mice with NIK inhibitors, molecules that can block the action of NIK, improved their liver disease.
How does NIK cause disease? Under normal circumstances, NIK promotes the regeneration of bile duct cells in response to the various toxic substances that the liver is exposed to while carrying out its normal duties. However, certain viruses, drugs, or other insults can hijack this normal restorative function and lead to excessive growth and the ductular reaction, as well as the secretion of inflammatory mediators that lead to scarring.
The team hopes to work with collaborators at U-M and elsewhere to develop new NIK-inhibitors to turn off this scarring process. The findings also have potential use as a therapy for a certain type of liver cancer called cholangiocarcinoma, which accounts for one third of all liver cancers and has very limited treatment options.
The paper’s first authors are Zhiguo Zhang, Xiao Zhong, and Hong Shen of the U-M Medical School Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology. Dr. Rui is the senior corresponding author. Additional authors are Liang Sheng, Suthat Liangpunsakul, Anna S. Lok, M Bishr Omary, and Shaomeng Wang.
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Materials provided by Michigan Medicine – University of Michigan. Original written by Kelly Malcom. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Without altering the genetic code in the DNA, epigenetic modifications can change how genes are expressed, affecting an organism’s health and development. The once radical idea that such changes in gene expression can be inherited now has a growing body of evidence behind it, but the mechanisms involved remain poorly understood.
A new study by researchers at UC Santa Cruz shows how a common type of epigenetic modification can be transmitted via sperm not only from parents to offspring, but to the next generation (“grandoffspring”) as well. This is called “transgenerational epigenetic inheritance,” and it may explain how a person’s health and development could be influenced by the experiences of his or her parents and grandparents.
The study, published the week of September 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), focused on a particular modification of a histone protein that changes the way DNA is packaged in the chromosomes. This widely studied epigenetic mark (called H3K27me3) is known to turn off or “repress” the affected genes and is found in all multicellular animals — from humans to the nematode worm C. elegans used in this study.
“These results establish a cause-and-effect relationship between sperm-transmitted histone marks and gene expression and development in offspring and grandoffspring,” said corresponding author Susan Strome, professor emerita of molecular, cell and developmental biology at UC Santa Cruz.
Histones are the main proteins involved in the packaging of DNA in the chromosomes. The epigenetic mark known as H3K27me3 refers to methylation of a particular amino acid in the histone H3. This leads to the DNA being more densely packaged, making the genes in that region less accessible for activation.
The new study involved selectively stripping this histone mark from the chromosomes of C. elegans sperm, which were then used to fertilize eggs with fully marked chromosomes. In the resulting offspring, the researchers observed abnormal gene expression patterns, with genes on the paternal chromosomes (inherited from the sperm) turned on or “upregulated” in the absence of the repressive epigenetic mark.

For the first time, scientists will be able to test therapeutics for a group of rare neurodegenerative diseases that affect infants and young children thanks to a new research model created by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs) are a group of neurodegenerative diseases caused by genetic mutations. They lead tens of thousands of children to develop increased muscle tone in their lower extremities, causing weakness in their legs and ultimately affecting their ability to crawl or walk.
“Kids as early as six months of age that have these mutations start to show signs of disease,” says Anjon Audhya, a professor in the Department of Biomolecular Chemistry at UW-Madison. “Between two and five years of age, these kids become wheelchair-bound, and they unfortunately will never be able to walk.”
Audhya explains that many scientists haven’t researched spastic paraplegias because there hasn’t been a good model to study the disease’s origins or test therapeutics. Previous mouse models haven’t worked because the neuronal pathways that carry movement-related information throughout the body appear to be too different from those in humans, and researchers have not yet pursued human clinical trials.
Audhya worked with an interdisciplinary team of UW-Madison researchers to study a specific mutation that causes HSP in young children. They then used what they learned to create a better model — in rats.
The mutation the researchers chose works on a protein called Trk-fused gene, or TFG. Healthy TFG proteins work inside nerve cells, or neurons, to carry other proteins from one part of the cell to another. A neuron’s job is to carry messages in the form of electrical signals between the brain and rest of the body.

This is part of the I Want to Thank You series. We asked readers to tell us about who helped get them through the pandemic; these are a selection of their stories. Other articles focused on family and friends and health care workers.Who helped you make it through the pandemic? When we asked our readers, they mentioned friends, new and old, and family, and the health care workers who cared for them and their loved ones. But some never even met the person who helped them.Here are the stories of four of those people: one who found comfort in LeVar Burton’s reading podcast, one who discovered the Korean supergroup BTS, one who identified with Lily Tomlin’s character in “Grace and Frankie,” and one who never missed a local musician’s daily web performance.Thank You for Your PodcastIn November 2020, Mary Gaughan, her husband and their two daughters left their 900-square-foot apartment in Brookline, Mass., for a house in East Brewster, on Cape Cod. The popular summer vacation town was empty — ideal for avoiding Covid. But it was also lonely and cold, and did little to provide Ms. Gaughan hope.Then she learned about “LeVar Burton Reads,” a podcast in which Mr. Burton, the “Reading Rainbow” host and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” actor, recites short stories. Ms. Gaughan’s daily walks through the woods transformed into literary adventures.“It’s like meeting a friend for the first time,” Mr. Burton said about seeing Ms. Gaughan in person.Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times“Even though we had gotten out of the city, it wasn’t clear how we were going to get back. How was our life going to continue?” Ms. Gaughan, 57, said. “Was there any light at the end of the tunnel? That’s where this found me.”On one walk, Ms. Gaughan listened to Mr. Burton read Nnedi Okorafor’s “Mother of Invention,” set in a future version of Nigeria. It was snowing on Cape Cod, but Ms. Gaughan found herself transported. “It felt like being in a bubble,” she said. (At the start of every show, Mr. Burton encourages listeners to take a deep breath, inspiring Ms. Gaughan to implement a breathing practice into her life.)Though Ms. Gaughan and her family returned to their Brookline apartment last February, Mr. Burton continued to be a calming presence for her. She finally finished the podcast’s 170-episode catalog, which she listened to on the Stitcher app, this spring, but not before recommending it to about 10 friends.“I just want him to know that this had a profound impact on my life during the worst part of the pandemic for us,” Ms. Gaughan said. “At the end of each one, he’ll sort of give you just a few moments of, like, why did he pick this, what does it mean to him, how did he connect with it, which I really liked because, again, I was feeling very isolated, and it’s not just reading a story to you, but, like, sharing things about his life.”After Ms. Gaughan submitted her note, The New York Times flew her out to California to meet Mr. Burton in person for the first time. He often meets fans who, like Ms. Gaughan, have followed him since his “Reading Rainbow” days, he later said. But Ms. Gaughan’s relationship with the podcast was particularly moving, he said. He felt an immediate kinship with her.“It’s like meeting a friend for the first time,” Mr. Burton said. “We have all this history in common, when we first encounter each other. I could tell if we lived closer, we’d, you know, we’d see each other.”Joanne Orrico with a ticket stub from a BTS concert, along with portraits of the K-pop supergroup, at her home in Las Vegas. Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesThank You for ‘Butter’The antidote to Joanne Orrico’s pandemic malaise appeared last summer in a YouTube thumbnail. Mrs. Orrico started the video and almost immediately felt a shift. “Butter,” the relentlessly catchy hit by the K-pop group and worldwide sensation BTS, filled her headphones.“After I listened to it, I listened to it again,” Mrs. Orrico, 56, said. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing.’”The pressure to put on a happy face amid so much suffering and political turmoil had left Mrs. Orrico, a school librarian from Las Vegas, feeling anxious and depressed. But as she learned more about the seven members of BTS — Jung Kook, V, Jimin, SUGA, j-hope, Jin and RM — with their sunny dispositions and positive lyrics, she rediscovered her pep. For Mrs. Orrico, BTS “spoke” to her during a trying time.“It’s important to spread kindness and acceptance and love,” Mrs. Orrico said. Mrs. Orrico, who is of Japanese and Chinese descent, said her immigrant mother had always stressed the importance of behaving like an “American.” Mrs. Orrico never understood the power of representation in the media, but that changed when she learned the Korean group had a global fan base. At a time of rising anti-Asian violence, Mrs. Orrico took pride in knowing people around the world enjoyed BTS songs, most of which are in Korean. Her awakening inspired her to start learning the language and to begin cooking Korean food.Mrs. Orrico, who is of Japanese and Chinese descent, took pride in knowing people around the world enjoyed BTS songs, most of which are in Korean. Her love for the band inspired her to start learning the language and to begin cooking Korean food.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesBTS fans call themselves the Army (Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth); on April 15, some of them packed Allegiant Stadium, in Paradise, Nev. At the concert, Mrs. Orrico looked out at the sea of Army members, many dressed in purple — BTS’s signature color — and the country’s divisions seemed to melt away.“Seeing people of all ages, seeing male, female, Black people, Asian people, Mexican. Grandpas, grandmothers, little kids, and everybody. There was nothing like hearing 40,000 people all singing along to the songs,” she said. “For that brief time, nothing else existed.”Mrs. Orrico’s favorite moment came when the group performed “Life Goes On,” a somber pandemic-themed song that moved Mrs. Orrico to tears the first time she heard it. At the concert, Mrs. Orrico, who attended with a friend she reconnected with after 30 years over their shared BTS fandom, said the group sang the song in a more upbeat tone.“It was purely joyful and happy, like they were just so happy to be there,” she said. “We felt that too.”The actress, writer and producer Lily Tomlin at the RBC House in Toronto, where she was attending the city’s international film festival. It was her performance on the Netflix show “Grace and Frankie” that inspired Hilary Almeida during the early months of the pandemic. Philip Cheung for The New York TimesThank You for Being FrankieHilary Almeida placed her laptop on her husband’s side of the bed and fell asleep to the Netflix hit “Grace and Frankie.”It was April 2020, and Mrs. Almeida believed she had Covid — she had lost her sense and smell and was experiencing fatigue, headache and a low fever but did not take a test because of low national supply — and didn’t want to infect her husband, a physician.For a couple of months at their home in Teaneck, N.J., as her husband slept in the guest room, Grace (Jane Fonda) and Frankie (Lily Tomlin) were Mrs. Almeida’s muses. She felt a particular kinship with Frankie, the eccentric artist with a deep well of compassion. Mrs. Almeida, 65, was working as a middle school E.S.L. teacher, and she played the show on loop after her workday as her symptoms raged for a couple of months.“This vulnerable character, I could relate to all these things,” Mrs. Almeida said. “She was feisty. I consider myself such a strong person but I felt so challenged at the time. I was physically weak and I had a headache. Frankie also had moments where she was vulnerable and she didn’t feel well, but she was full of emotion.”Like so many others, Mrs. Almeida first discovered Ms. Tomlin on the TV show “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” which ran from 1968 to 1973, but her fandom took on another level with “Grace and Frankie,” which, before the pandemic, she would watch with her mother after her mother’s chemotherapy appointments. The practice took on even more importance after her mother died and the pandemic hit.Grace and Frankie are an odd couple, staggering into friendship after their husbands reveal they are in love. In Frankie, Mrs. Almeida found a kindred spirit.“I love her,” Mrs. Almeida said, “the way Grace learned to love her.”The musician Semisi Ma’u at his home in Vista, Calif. Janell Cannon developed a routine that revolved around his rendition of the song “Lata Lullaby.”John Francis Peters for The New York TimesThank You for Your LullabyDuring the pandemic, at her San Diego area home, Janell Cannon and her cat, Taliesin, developed a routine every night around 9.Ms. Cannon would pour herself a glass of wine. Taliesin would curl up on his bed. And together they would listen to Semisi Ma’u’s rendition of “Lata Lullaby.”Mr. Ma’u, a musician with gray Albert Einstein hair based in the San Diego area, played the song, written to honor his mother, nightly on Facebook Live with various family members from March 2020 to March 2021. The performances, with guitars and a piano, would last for about five to 10 minutes, and Ms. Canon was among the locals who tuned in.“I never got tired of it,” Ms. Cannon, 64, said. “The familiarity helped to deal with the uncertainty.”Though Mr. Ma’u and his family played the same song every night, one musician was always allotted time for a solo, whether on guitar or the drums or something else. Ms. Cannon particularly enjoyed when Mr. Ma’u played the fangufangu (nose flute), popular in his native Tonga.Ms. Cannon, author of the popular 1993 children’s book “Stellaluna,” was in isolation, but she was hardly alone.“Everybody loves Semisi,” she said.