Culture

Research by scientists from University of Southampton (UK) and the Central University of Jharkhand (India) and has shown the first COVID-19 lockdown in India led to an improvement in air quality and a reduction in land surface temperature in major urban areas across the country.

The study found that travel and work restrictions imposed early in the pandemic resulted in a significant environmental improvement, due to an abrupt reduction in industrial activities and a major decrease in the use of land and air transport.

The international team used data from a range of Earth Observation sensors, including those from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5p and NASA's MODIS sensors, to measure changes in surface temperature and atmospheric pollutants and aerosols. They concentrated on six major urban areas: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad - comparing data from the 2020 March to May lockdown with pre-pandemic years.

Their findings, published in the journal Environmental Research, provide a strong evidence base for potential environmental benefits through larger scale policy implementation.

The researchers revealed a significant reduction in Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), a greenhouse gas emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels, which equated to an average decrease of 12 percent throughout India and 31.5 percent over the six cities. There was a 40 percent reduction over the national capital, New Delhi. In India alone, about 16,000 premature deaths occur annually due to exposure to poor air quality.

The study also found Land Surface Temperature (LST) over major cities in India substantially declined in contrast with the previous five-year average (2015-2019) with day temperatures being up to 1°C cooler and those at night up to 2°C cooler.

Co- author Professor Jadu Dash, from University of Southampton, commented: "The lockdown provided a natural experiment to understand the coupling between urbanisation and local microclimate. We clearly observed that reduction in atmospheric pollutants (due to reduction in anthropogenic activity during lockdown) resulted in a decrease in local day and night-time temperature. This is an important finding to feed into the planning for sustainable urban development."

Along with surface temperature, the atmospheric fluxes at the surface and top of the atmosphere also significantly declined over major parts of India. The reduction of greenhouse gas concentration, higher atmospheric water vapour content and meteorological conditions played a complex role in the land and near-surface temperature reduction.

Commenting on the research, Dr Bikash Parida, from Central University of Jharkhand said: "Aerosol optical depth (AOD) and absorption AOD showed a significant reduction which could be connected with the reduction in the emission sources across India during the lockdown. The aerosol type sources, such as organic carbon (OC), black carbon (BC), mineral dust, and sea salt also reduced significantly. Moreover, in central India, increases in AOD were attributed to the supply of dust aerosols transported from the western Thar desert region."

Dr Gareth Roberts from the University of Southampton added: "Satellite instruments play a vital role in acquiring information on the Earth's environment in a timely manner. This study has illustrated the importance of Earth Observation data for monitoring changes in the atmospheric pollutants, which are significant health risk, and in highlighting the impact that anthropogenic activities have on regional air quality."

Efforts to contain the novel coronavirus have caused lockdowns and school closures around the world. These efforts and policies have unfortunately cut off many children from valuable resources such as the opportunity for exercise, access to clean water and food, learning, and socialization. Therefore, the effects on mental health and behavior may be found not just in adults but children. However, studies published thus far have been limited to elucidating the mood of middle school and high school students and the conditions for which mood problems occur remain unclear. Therefore, support and assistance methods to help such students, including younger children remained unclear. To fill this knowledge gap, this study conducted a follow-up study during the time Japan was under a state of emergency and schools were closed in March until May of 2020.

Associate Professor Fumito Takahashi of the Faculty of Education, Shinshu University led this cohort study on elucidating the anguish and problems faced not only by middle school and high school-aged students but also that of grade-schoolers from the first grade and above, until the third year of high school. First graders of elementary-age, who were excluded from the past self-reported surveys due to their inability to articulate their problems on self-report questionnaires, were included in this parent-reported survey, so that the problems in this age group could be understood by teachers, clinicians and policymakers. Not only was the mood of subjects under study such as depression and anxiety, but problematic behaviors such as delinquency, inattention and hyperactivity were successfully elucidated. The study showed that in fact, the inattention and hyperactivity in children grades 1 to 3 were the problems that increased the most during the lockdown.

The cohort study showed that when schools close and there are lockdowns in effect to control the spread of disease, households that have any of the following may need special assistance and support: 1) a household with (a) child(ren) under the age of ten (grades 3 and under), 2) households with low income (under 2 million yen per year) 3) households with children with developmental disabilities.

Dr. Takahashi will continue to research conditions or other support and assistance which allow children to thrive, especially those until adolescence who may have developmental disabilities so that their mental health will not worsen. Such studies aim to make environments in which "characteristics" are turned into "disabilities" fewer and to allocate social resources appropriately for those who experience difficulties so that people of all characteristics can live and thrive.

To realize such a society is not just the work of specialists such as psychiatrists and social workers, but the cooperation of guardians, local residents, pediatricians, nurses, and teachers is crucial. Policies that enable the cooperation of each actor are also important. There remains a lot to do, which means that everyone in any position has a way they can be of help.

Drinking straws are single use plastic products which will be subjected to a Europe-wide sales ban from 2021 onwards. This is stated in EU Directive 2019/904 from 5 June 2019. Consequently, alternative materials have to be established for the production of drinking straws as well as other frequently used products which predominantly were made of plastic so far.

As set out in the EU Framework Regulation for food contact material (Regulation (EC) No. 1935/2004), objects that come into direct contact with food must be safe. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has appraised straw, silicone, metal, paper and paper-board, durum wheat, and glass for their suitability to replace plastic in the production of drinking straws.

If frequently used, drinking straws made of silicone, stainless steel or glass are, in the opinion of the BfR, an appropriate alternative to plastic straws. Silicone is suitable as a food contact material (FCM) provided that its manufacture is compliant with the specifications of BfR recommendation No. XV. Metals and alloys (e.g. stainless steel) are also appropriate as FCMs, provided that the specifications of the Council of Europe Resolution regarding metals and alloys are met. Glass is also suitable for food contact. However, there is the risk of breaking. As a result, fragments of glass can get into the food or drink and in case of swallowing dangerous injuries can occur. Meanwhile, there are drinking straws made from particularly durable glass.

In case of single use, durum wheat (e.g. raw macaroni noodles) is an appropriate material for drinking straws from a health perspective. However, the noodles may decompose, particularly in warm and hot drinks, or over a longer time period, and become useless as a result. Furthermore, they may modify the consistency and taste of the drink.

Straws made of paper and paperboard are only useful if substances are added which prevent the paper from softening. These compounds are also known as wet-strength aids. Certain residues of these products, especially chloropropanols, can migrate into food. If the specifications of BfR recommendation no. XXXVI are met, no health risks are currently noted with the use of drinking straws made of paper and paperboard.

There are no risk assessments at the moment regarding the use of drinking straws made out of straw. The BfR recommends that straw is not used for this purpose with regard to potential health risks resulting from bacteria, mycotoxins, or other unwanted substances.

Regardless of the material, drinking straws used more than once should be cleaned thoroughly every time before using. If thorough cleaning of the drinking straws cannot be guaranteed, the BfR recommends that such multiple-use drinking straws are not used for reasons of hygiene. Furthermore, they should not have any sharp edges and should also be replaced if there are any signs of material damage (signs of wear and tear).

Using a brain-training app helps people eat less junk food and lose weight, new research suggests.

The Food Trainer (FoodT app) trains people to tap on images of healthy foods - but to stop when they see unhealthy snacks, creating an association between these foods and stopping.

The new study, by the universities of Exeter and Helsinki, found that playing the game about once a day for a month led to an average one-point reduction of junk food consumption on an eight-point scale (the scale ranges from four or more items per day, to one or zero items per month).

Overall, people who used the app more also reported larger changes in their food intake.

About half of the study's 1,234 participants followed the recommendation and played the game at least 10 times.

Across all participants, an average weight loss of half a kilogram (just over a pound) and a small increase in healthy food eaten was seen.

"As an example, someone who ate each junk food two to four times a week reduced this to once a week after using the app regularly for a month," said Professor Natalia Lawrence, of the University of Exeter.

"Overall, the findings are really encouraging. The app is free and it only takes about four minutes per day - so it's something people realistically can do - and our results suggest it is effective.
"There's some evidence that the benefits were stronger for people who were more overweight.

"We would expect to see this, because the app targets mechanisms that lead people to become overweight, such as the strong urges to approach and consume tempting junk foods."

Dr Matthias Aulbach, of the University of Helsinki, added: "For anyone with unhealthy eating habits - perhaps developed during lockdown - FoodT might be helpful."

The study used FoodT usage data, and the app also periodically asks questions about how often users eat certain foods, along with other information such as their age and weight.

The findings suggest that using the app regularly was linked with bigger changes in eating habits.

"If you're trying to teach the brain something new, it's a good idea to space out the learning over multiple sessions," said Dr Aulbach.

"It may be helpful to do the training in different contexts - not just at home but at work and elsewhere, so the associations you learn don't just relate to one location.

"From our results it seems important that you do the training regularly and don't just stop. So keep it interesting and relevant for yourself so you won't get bored with it: personalise the app as far as possible and pick the foods that you find really hard to resist."

The researchers stress that their findings should be interpreted cautiously, because there was no control (comparison) group and other factors (such as the possibility that people who did more training were also separately more motivated to lose weight) could play a part in the results.

Leaving a review on Google Play, one app user wrote: "Really useful. Seems to work on different levels whether it's the green/red circle association of stop/go which psychologically makes you more aware, I'm not sure - but my cravings have reduced dramatically and I no longer eat in the evening mindlessly."

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder caused by the death of dopaminergic neurons in a part of the brain (known as substantia nigra pars compacta), which leads to a deficit of dopamine (DA), one of the main neurotransmitters active in the central nervous system. Symptomatic treatment focuses on increasing the concentration of dopamine into the brain.

However, dopamine is not directly administered, because it is unable to cross the so called blood-brain barrier, which prevents some of the substances circulating in the blood to penetrate into the nervous system. Thus, DA precursor levodopa (L-DOPA) -an amino-acid which participates in the synthesis of dopamine- is used, due to its better ability to cross such barrier. Nevertheless, long-term and intermittent administration of this drug is associated with important disabling complications, such as motor disorders and involuntary muscle movements.

In a paper recently published in ACS Nano, synthetic melanin-like nanoparticles are used to overcome these limitations. This research was coordinated by Dr Daniel Ruiz-Molina, leader of the ICN2 Nanostructured Functional Materials Group, and Dr Julia Lorenzo, leader of the Protein Engineering Group at the Institute of Biotehcnology and Biomedicine (IBB) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and was developed in collaboration with the Neurodegenerative Diseases group of Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), led by Prof. Miquel Vila.

The main objective of this work was to obtain a "nanoplatform" -which is a biocompatible nano-structure including the substance to be delivered- able to reach the brain through a noninvasive route and generate a slow and controlled release of dopamine. A tailor-made nanoscale coordination polymer (NCP), characterized by the reversible incorporation of DA as its principal component, was tested in vitro and in vivo in rats. Intranasal administration of these nanoparticles, called DA-NCPs, showed a relevant biocompatibility, non-toxicity and a fast and efficient distribution of dopamine in the central nervous system of the animals (avoiding the blood-brain barrier).

As reported by the researchers, the proposed method is effective in delivering dopamine to the brain and, thus, in reversing Parkinson's symptoms. In addition, the synthetic methodology used is simple, cheap and exhibited a satisfactory yield (with a DA loading efficiency up to 60%).

These findings establish nanoscale coordination polymers as promising future candidates for efficient nasal delivery of drugs to the central nervous system, and thus for the symptomatic treatment of people affected by Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative disorders. This type of nano-formulation and administration route may also pave the way to the development of other platforms able to deliver a wide range of drugs into the brain in a controlled manner, for the treatment of various brain diseases (such as brain tumours, Alzheimer's, Epilepsy).

Announcing a new article publication for BIO Integration journal. In this article the authors Craig S. Carlson and Michiel Postema, from University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and Tampere University, Tampere, Finland discuss deep impact of superficial skin inking: acoustic analysis of underlying tissue.

Skin tattoos are a common decoration, but profound scientific study on whether a skin tattoo alters the acoustic response from superficial tissues, and therefore from underlying tissue, was previously lacking; thus, any quantitative effects were unknown.

This study is the first to investigate the nature of artifacts in ultrasound images, which have been observed to originate from tattooed skin. The work was conducted theoretically and experimentally using extremely simplified cases of perfectly flat and homogenous layered media and in tattooed pork. The measured speeds of sound of tattooed materials were higher than those of their uninked counterparts.

The authors concluded that the artifacts observed in in vitro and in vivo brightness-mode scans were explained from near-vertical transitions between areas of different sound speeds. In addition, phantom material is a suitable acoustic alternative for live human skin.

In summary, the presence of superficial tattoos has a small but quantifiable effect on the acoustic response from deeper tissues. The study integrated acoustic physics, biomaterials research, mechanical engineering, and medical imaging to increase knowledge on tattooed skin.

Aging is associated with an overall decline in health and increased frailty, and is a major risk factor for multiple chronic diseases. Frailty syndrome, characterized by weakness, fatigue and low physical activity, affects more than 30% of the elderly population. Increasing our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the aging process is a top priority to facilitate the development of interventions that will lead to the preservation of health and improvements on survival and lifespan.

Cumulative evidence suggests that diet and metabolism are key targetable regulators of healthy lifespan. Prof. Haim Cohen, Director of the Sagol Healthy Human Longevity Center at Bar-Ilan University, focuses much of his research on the SIRT6 protein that is involved in regulating many biological processes, such as aging, obesity, and insulin resistance.

In a study just published in the journal Nature Communications, an international team led by Cohen and his PhD student Asael Roichman -- together with Prof. Rafael de Cabo, of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health, Prof. Manuel Serrani, of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona, and Prof. Eyal Gottlieb from the Technion -- report that transgenic mice express high levels of the SIRT6 gene, and show that their life expectancy can be increased by an average of 30% in both males and females. Translated into human terms this means that a 90-year-old could live until nearly 120!

Furthermore, the mice exhibited significant improvement in overcoming a variety of age-related diseases, such as cancer and blood disorders. Beyond this, strikingly, they were able to conduct the same level of vigorous activity as young mice, and didn't become frail.

Next, through a variety of biochemical methods and metabolic analyses the researchers deciphered the mechanism through which SIRT6 acts as a type of "fountain of youth", facilitating healthy aging. They showed that older animals lose the ability to generate energy in the absence of external energy sources, such as a short fast. On the other hand, the engineered mice maintained an enhanced energy generation capacity from other storage, such as the breakdown of fats and lactic acid. By doing so, they created sugar utilized for energy in muscle and specifically in the brain. In fact SIRT6 activates a physical response that is identical to diets that increase longevity.

"This discovery, combined with our previous findings, shows that SIRT6 controls the rate of healthy aging," says Prof. Cohen, of Bar-Ilan University's Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences. "If we can determine how to activate it in humans, we will be able to prolong life, and this could have enormous health and economic implications." Today, Cohen's lab is developing methods for extending healthy life based on these findings.

This is the main finding of new research involving more than 50,000 participants in 97 samples, published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

The findings show that the more extreme choices and decisions of men can be both positive and negative.

"The question of whether men and women make systematically different choices and decisions is one on the most fundamental (and controversial) questions in psychological research," Associate Professor Stefan Volk from the University of Sydney Business School said.

"We found men were much more likely than women to be at the extreme ends of the behavioural spectrum, either acting very selfishly or very altruistically, very trusting or very distrusting, very fair or very unfair, very risky or very risk averse and were either very short-term or very long-term focused."

The findings could impact policies aimed at regulating extreme behaviours such as the recent GameStop trading frenzy after retail traders on Reddit heavily shorted the stock.

"Our research suggests policies aimed at reducing extreme behaviours should be more tailored towards men," said Dr Volk.

The researchers suggest the differences might have evolutionary roots, but there are also alternative explanations for the existence of what is often referred to as greater male variability.

"Parental investment theory explains that men, in contrast to women, invest less in parenting, are less selective in their partner choice and compete more for sexual partners," Associate Professor Volk explained.

"This evolutionary theorising suggests that men had to deviate from the average to stand out and be attractive to women to reproduce, while women were able to attract sexual partners without deviating from the average.

"Another explanation could be norms and expectations of acceptable gendered behaviour and that men's extreme behaviours are socially constructed and reinforced.

"This alternative theory suggests that the socially constructed patriarchy in many societies has managed to constrain women and the opportunity for them to display the same level of variability as men."

Associate Professor Stefan Volk, worked with an international team to examine sex differences in altruism, cooperation, trust, fairness and attitudes towards time and risk in economic decision-making. The researchers found systematic evidence for greater male variability.

He added these gender differences in variability are difficult to detect in research focused on gender differences in average behaviours. This is why they have been overlooked in most previous research, which traditionally focused on mean gender differences rather than the range of behaviours. But we need to look at differences in extreme behaviours to understand what might be driving those outliers.

The PNAS paper is the second in a series by Associate Professor Volk on greater male variability; the first was just published in the internationally leading psychological journal Psychological Science.

This earlier research involved two large-scale meta-analyses of economic decision-making studies and studies of organisational citizenship behaviour with more than 20,000 participants. While the researchers found no differences in the degree to which men and women behaved cooperatively on average, they did find strong evidence for greater male variability in cooperation.

Investigators from Trinity College Dublin, the Irish Mycobacteria Reference Laboratory, St James's Hospital, and the Department of Public Health HSE East believe tuberculosis (TB) care in Irish Prisons should be supported, considering the findings of their study which is published today (Tuesday, 1st June, 2021) in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

The study describes an investigation into a large outbreak of tuberculosis which occurred in an Irish prison in 2011. This resulted in 34 people contracting active TB from a single infectious case. The use of Whole Genome Sequencing enabled the investigators to track the course of onward transmission, and to link TB cases identified as recently as 2019 to the 2011 outbreak.

The outbreak resulted in litigation costs to the State of more than €5 million euro. The study found that in addition to the active TB cases, 50% of the prison staff tested as close contacts of cases may have developed Latent TB as a result of occupational exposure. This is an asymptomatic, non-infectious form of TB, which may progress to the active form of TB at a future date, in a small number of cases.

Professor Joe Keane, Clinical Medicine, Trinity College Dublin and St James's Hospital Dublin, and co-senior author of the study said:

"This report shows that tuberculosis is an issue in our prisons and will be followed by a 'test and educate' programme- that will mitigate the risk in congregate settings."

Professor Tom Rogers, Clinical Microbiology, Trinity, and formerly Clinical Director, Irish Mycobacteria Reference Laboratory (IMRL) based at St. James's Hospital, said:

" This report demonstrates the power of whole genome sequencing to enhance epidemiological investigations of TB outbreaks over prolonged periods of time. The IMRL has created a national database of TB genomes which will facilitate future public health investigations of TB in Ireland."

Dr Marcus Butler, vice-president, Irish Thoracic Society said:

"This study, along with recommendations from the CDC TB controllers association and a recent review of TB rates in prisons published by The Lancet Public Health, supports the need for improving early TB diagnosis and care in the Irish prison system, through a three-step approach:

1) A TB information and testing service in prisons

2) A Latent TB clinic at St James's Hospital Dublin

3) A National TB lead to oversee this as part of an integrated national TB control service

This integrated national service should comprise a national TB screening programme for high risk groups, investment in contact tracing and TB surveillance activities, and a TB education and awareness programme for healthcare professionals and the public."

Dr Mary O Meara, Specialist in Public Health Medicine , HSE East said:

"This report supports the need for augmenting the public health contact tracing response for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis."

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is used to disinfect minor cuts at home and for oxidative reactions in industrial manufacturing. Now, the pandemic has further fueled demand for this chemical and its antiseptic properties. While affordable at the grocery store, H2O2 is actually difficult and expensive to manufacture at scale.

A team led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has demonstrated a more efficient and environmentally friendly method to produce H2O2, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

"While the two ingredients--hydrogen and oxygen--are either inexpensive or freely available from the atmosphere, hydrogen peroxide is highly reactive and unstable, which makes it very hard to produce," said first author Tomas Ricciardulli, a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at UIUC.

Currently, producing H2O2 requires a complicated, multi-step process and large facilities. Moreso, this traditional method relies on an intermediate chemical (anthraquinone) that is derived from fossil fuels.

Decades ago, researchers proposed a simpler, cheaper, and 'greener' one-step alternative method where a catalyst (palladium-gold nanoparticles) drives the reaction instead. Bonus: the catalyst can be recycled to produce hydrogen peroxide over and over.

"However, hydrogen and oxygen also form water, and this proposed 'direct synthesis' method was known to synthesize 80 percent water and just 20 percent hydrogen peroxide," said lead author David Flaherty, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UIUC. "Scientists have fiercely debated the arrangement of palladium and gold atoms needed in nanoparticles to increase the selectivity for hydrogen peroxide and why this works."

A higher ratio of gold to palladium atoms in the catalyst produces more H2O2 and less water. The researchers found that a catalyst with a ratio of one palladium to 220 gold atoms generates almost 100 percent hydrogen peroxide, which is about the point of diminishing returns.

Significantly, the catalysts give stable performance over many days of use, continuously achieve these remarkable selectivities to H2O2, and do so using clean water as a solvent, which avoids the problematic and corrosive additives often used for this chemistry.

The organization of these atoms within the catalyst also counts: palladium atoms touching one another favor water formation, while palladium atoms surrounded by gold favor H2O2 formation.

What's more, they discovered the influence extends from the first ring of neighboring atoms that surround the palladium atom to the second layer of atoms, called the next nearest neighbors. More H2O2 is synthesized when both a given palladium atom's neighbors and next-nearest neighbors are all gold.

"We demonstrated how to create a very efficient and selective catalyst," said Flaherty, who is also a Dow Chemical Company Faculty Scholar. "While promising, there are still hurdles to overcome to adopt this method commercially."

The Flaherty research group is pursuing the development of nanoparticle catalysts with new compositions and reactors to enable hybrid chemical-electrochemical methods for this reaction. "Our ultimate goal is to develop feasible technology for distributed production of H2O2 which would open doors for many sustainable alternatives to traditional chemical processes."

The researchers also expect that their activities will reveal other key scientific concepts to electrify chemical manufacturing along the way.

Physicists at the University of Bath in the UK, in collaboration with researchers from the USA, have uncovered a new mechanism for enabling magnetism and superconductivity to co-exist in the same material. Until now, scientists could only guess how this unusual coexistence might be possible. The discovery could lead to applications in green energy technologies and in the development of superconducting devices, such as next-generation computer hardware.

As a rule, superconductivity (the ability of a material to pass an electrical current with perfect efficiency) and magnetism (seen at work in fridge magnets) make poor bedfellows because the alignment of the tiny electronic magnetic particles in ferromagnets generally leads to the destruction of the electron pairs responsible for superconductivity. Despite this, the Bath researchers have found that the iron-based superconductor RbEuFe4As4, which is superconducting below -236°C, exhibits both superconductivity and magnetism below -258°C.

Physics postgraduate research student David Collomb, who led the research, explained: "There's a state in some materials where, if you get them really cold - significantly colder than the Antarctic - they become superconducting. But for this superconductivity to be taken to next-level applications, the material needs to show co-existence with magnetic properties. This would allow us to develop devices operating on a magnetic principle, such as magnetic memory and computation using magnetic materials, to also enjoy the benefits of superconductivity.

"The problem is that superconductivity is usually lost when magnetism is turned on. For many decades, scientists have tried to explore a host of materials that have both properties in a single material, and material scientists have recently had some success fabricating a handful of such materials. However, so long as we don't understand why the coexistence is possible, the hunt for these materials can't be done with as fine a comb.

"This new research gives us a material that has a wide temperature range where these phenomena co-exist, and this will allow us to study the interaction between magnetism and superconductivity more closely and in great detail. Hopefully, this will result in us being able to identify the mechanism through which this co-existence can occur."

In a study published in Physical Review Letters, the team investigated the unusual behaviour of RbEuFe4As4 by creating magnetic field maps of a superconducting material as the temperature was dropped. To their surprise, they found the vortices (the points in the superconducting material where the magnetic field penetrates) showed a pronounced broadening near the temperature of -258°C, indicating a strong suppression of superconductivity as the magnetism turned on.

These observations agree with a theoretical model recently proposed by Dr Alexei Koshelev at Argonne National Laboratory in the USA. This theory describes the suppression of superconductivity by magnetic fluctuations due to the Europium (Eu) atoms in the crystals. Here, the magnetic direction of each Eu atom begins to fluctuate and align with the others, as the material drops below a certain temperature. This causes the material to become magnetic. The Bath researchers conclude that while superconductivity is considerably weakened by the magnetic effect, it is not fully destroyed.

"This suggests that in our material, the magnetism and superconductivity are held apart from each other in their own sub-lattices, which only minimally interact," said Mr Collomb.

"This work significantly advances our understanding of these rare coexisting phenomena and could lead to possible applications in the superconducting devices of the future. It will spawn a deeper hunt into materials that display both superconductivity and magnetism. We hope it will also encourage researchers in more applied fields to take some of these materials and make the next-generation computing devices out of them.

"Hopefully, the scientific community will gradually enter an era where we move from blue-sky research to making devices from these materials. In a decade or so, we could be seeing prototype devices using this technology that do a real job."

The American collaborators for this project were the Argonne National Laboratory, Hofstra University and Northwestern University.

In the deep waters that underlie the productive zones of the ocean, there is a constant rain of organic material called 'marine snow'. Marine snow does not only look like real snow but also behaves similarly: Large flakes are rare and fall quickly while highly abundant smaller flakes take their time. Scientists from Bremen and Kiel have now discovered that precisely those features explain why small particles play an important role for the nutrient balance of the oceans. These findings have now been published in Nature Communications and will aid in the further development of biogeochemical models that include the marine nitrogen cycle.

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have been studying biogeochemical processes in the oxygen minimum zone of the eastern South Pacific off Peru, one of the largest low oxygen regions of the world ocean. The researchers focused on so-called marine snow particles of different sizes, which are composed of algal debris and other organic material, aiming to understand how these particles affect the nitrogen cycle in the oxygen minimum zone. Thereby, they solved a long-standing puzzle: How do the nutrients that are concentrated inside the particles reach anammox bacteria that live freely suspended in the water column.

Too much of a good thing can be bad

Oxygen minimum zones are regions of the ocean where little or no oxygen is dissolved in the water. As most animals need oxygen to breathe, they cannot survive in these water bodies. Not surprisingly, oxygen minimum zones are also referred to as marine dead zones. Oxygen minimum zones are a natural phenomenon, but have been found to be expanding in many regions of the ocean as a result of human activity. Global warming contributes to decreasing oxygen concentrations, as warm water stores less oxygen. Warmer surface water also mix less with the deep, cool water below, thus leading to stagnation and reduced ventilation.

Changes to the nitrogen cycle also have deleterious effects on ocean oxygen concentrations. Nitrogen is a vital nutrient that animals and plants need in order to grow. Normally rare in the ocean, nitrogen compounds that can be processed have become increasingly available in many coastal regions. Humans use large amounts of fertilizers with nitrogen compounds such as ammonium and nitrate for agriculture and these nutrients find their way into the ocean via rivers and the atmosphere in ever increasing amounts. This has severe consequences. The additional nutrients enhance phytoplankton growth. When the planktonic organisms die, they are decomposed by bacteria. During this process the bacteria consume oxygen, driving a decline in oxygen concentrations. Once oxygen is fully consumed, anaerobic microbial processes take over, during which microbes essentially "breathe" nitrogen compounds in place of oxygen, and as a result convert nitrate, nitrite and ammonium back to nitrogen gas and release it to the atmosphere.

Which factors drive the loss of nitrogen?

Combined, the anaerobic microbial respiration processes of anammox and denitrification in oxygen minimum zones lead to the loss of up to 40 percent of the oceans nitrogen. However the regulation of microbial nitrogen-loss processes in oxygen minimum zones is still poorly understood. This study is focused on the anammox process, i.e. anaerobic ammonium oxidation with nitrite. In their project, the researchers followed up on the observation that the anammox process is particularly high when organic material in the form of marine snow particles is especially abundant. Their hypothesis was that the organic material, which contains a large amount of fixed nitrogen, serves as a source of ammonium for the anammox reaction. Strangely enough, anammox bacteria do not seem to live on the marine snow itself, but in the water column. So how do these bacteria find their nutrients?

To unravel this puzzle, the scientists used underwater cameras to measure particle abundances over depth profiles at different stations in the oxygen minimum zone off Peru. "We observed that the anammox process occurs mainly in places where the smaller particles are abundant," says Clarissa Karthäuser, shared first author of the paper with Soeren Ahmerkamp. "This indicates that the smaller particles are more important for the anammox process than the larger ones - whereby small means that they are about the size of the width of a human hair and thus barely visible".

These small particles are very abundant in the water column and sink slowly, thus they stay in the oxygen minimum zone longer. Also, the organic material is packed more densely in smaller particles and as a result the small flakes transport a similar amount of material per particle as the larger clumps, which means that overall they transport significantly more nitrogen. "We estimated that the ammonium concentration around the particles is significantly increased," says Soeren Ahmerkamp. "This indicates two things: First, that the higher number and longer residence times of the smaller particles in the water column increase the likelihood that bacteria will encounter a small particle by chance. Secondly, the high ammonium concentrations in the boundary layer of the particle can then provide nourishment to the bacteria."

Important results for earth system models

The new findings are crucial for the improvement of Earth system models. "With this study, we have resolved an important aspect of the anammox process and thus made an important contribution to a better understanding of the nutrient balance in the oceans," says Marcel Kuypers, head of the Department of Biogeochemistry of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. "With this improved process understanding, we provide the link between particle-associated processes and N-cycling in oxygen minimum zones which can be adapted in biogeochemical Earth system models to better assess the effects of anthropogenic deoxygenation on the nitrogen cycle."

Philadelphia, June 1, 2021--Researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a proof-of-concept treatment for blood disorders like sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia that could raise hemoglobin levels by activating production of both fetal and adult hemoglobin. Using a viral vector engineered to reactivate fetal hemoglobin production, suppress mutant hemoglobin, and supply functional adult hemoglobin, the researchers developed an approach that could produce more hemoglobin through a single vector. The results were published in Haematologica.

"Until now, researchers have been exploring one of two approaches to treating blood disorders like sickle cell disease or beta-thalassemia: adding a functional copy of the adult hemoglobin gene, or increasing production of fetal hemoglobin," said senior author Stefano Rivella, PhD, Kwame Ohene-Frempong Chair on Sickle Cell Anemia and Professor of Pediatrics at CHOP. "In this study, we have done both simultaneously, which provides an opportunity to produce more hemoglobin per vector in these patients."

Sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia are genetic blood disorders caused by errors in the genes for hemoglobin, a protein that is found in red blood cells and carries oxygen from the lungs to tissues throughout the body. In utero, the gamma-globin gene produces fetal hemoglobin, but after birth, this gene is switched off and the beta-globin gene is turned on, producing adult hemoglobin. Patients with sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia have mutations in the beta-globin gene, which leads to mutant hemoglobin production and, as a consequence, serious health complications, ranging from delayed growth and jaundice to pain crises, pulmonary hypertension, and stroke.

Current research has focused on treating these blood disorders by either increasing fetal hemoglobin, which is not mutated in these conditions, or adding back a functional copy of adult hemoglobin via gene therapy, using an engineered vehicle known as a viral vector to supply new genetic material. However, there are limitations to both of these approaches, and neither has been established as a fully curative approach.

In order to increase hemoglobin levels in one therapy, the researchers - led by co-first authors Danuta Jarocha, PhD and Silvia Lourenco, PhD - combined the two tactics into a single gene therapy vector. To do so, they focused on a transcription factor called BCL11A, which effectively operates the switch that turns off the production of fetal hemoglobin and turns on the production of adult hemoglobin. The researchers hypothesized that if they could use an engineered vector to repress BCL11A, which would keep fetal hemoglobin production turned on and turn off the production of mutant adult hemoglobin, while also adding back a functional copy of the beta-globin gene, they could induce greater hemoglobin production.

Working in cell lines of patients with sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia, the researchers tested their vector - which included a gene coding for adult hemoglobin and a microRNA sequence that would target BCL11A - and found that the vector was able to elevate fetal and adult hemoglobin simultaneously in vitro. Although BCL11A was not completely knocked down, the suppression was sufficient to reduce production of the mutant adult hemoglobin. By elevating both fetal and functional adult hemoglobin, the vector was able to induce more functional hemoglobin production than that of a vector expressing beta-globin alone.

"Future studies will evaluate this approach using an even stronger vector that we developed in our lab and published on recently," Rivella said. "Combining these two technologies, we hope to make an even more powerful vector that can provide curative levels of hemoglobin to these patients."

This research was supported by the CuRED Frontier Program at CHOP, which is dedicated to finding new and improved curative therapies for blood disorders like sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.

Getting enough sleep can be a real challenge for shift workers affecting their overall health. But what role does being an early bird or night owl play in getting good rest? Researchers from McGill University find a link between chronotype and amount of sleep shift workers can get with their irregular schedules.

"Some people seem to be hardwired to sleep early, while others tend to sleep late. This preference, called chronotype, is modulated by our circadian system - each person's unique internal timekeeper," says lead author Diane B. Boivin, a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University.

Their study published in Sleep is the first to examine the relationship between chronotype and sleep behaviour in shift workers during morning, evening, and night shifts. To investigate this relationship, the researchers tracked 74 police officers as they worked their usual shifts. For close to a month, the officers wore a watch-like device, allowing researchers to measure their sleep.

Not all shifts created equal

"Our results suggest that the effect of chronotype on sleep duration and napping behavior depends on the shift type. On average early risers sleep 1.1 hours longer on morning shifts, while night owls sleep two hours longer on evening shifts," says co-author Laura Kervezee, a former Postdoctoral Fellow at The Douglas Research Centre affiliated with McGill University.

The power of naps

While shift workers take naps to reduce the effect of their irregular schedules on their sleep, the researchers found this behaviour was more prominent during night shifts in early risers. Generally, early risers slept less after night shifts compared to night owls - but they also took more naps prior to their night shifts, so their total daily sleep was similar.

The findings could help design strategies to improve sleep in workers with atypical schedules, the researchers say. Such strategies could include work schedules that consider chronobiological principles.

"People involved in shift work experience an increased risk of sleep disturbances and fragmented sleep periods. Since sleep is essential for optimal performance, health, and well-being, it's important to develop strategies to get better rest," says Boivin, who is also the Director of the Centre for Study and Treatment of Circadian Rhythms at The Douglas Research Centre.

As next steps, the researchers hope to study the impact of chronotype and shift work on other health outcomes.

Algorism plays a significant role in predicting future states of a system. Particularly, non-Markov chain algorithm has been widely applied in epidemic spreading processes, social and man-made memory networks, the environment-related quantum entangled states, and artificial algorisms such as face pose tracking. Traditionally, a large number of memories and computing cells are integrated to achieve these goals by software algorisms, showing high complexity. In the paper published in Science Bulletin, a group led by Bilu Liu and Hui-Ming Cheng from Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (TBSI) of Tsinghua University has realized a non-Markov chain algorithm in a single resistive random access memory (RRAM) based on 2D mineral material for the first time and revealed the related mechanism.

The researchers found that 2D mica is an excellent ionic conductor, the internal potassium ions (K+) in which controllably migrates under the stimulation of a cyclic electric field to induce resistance switching (RS) phenomena. It is interesting that the related RRAM device exhibits both single-window and bipolar RS behaviors, which is modulated by the strength of the electric field. The migration of the intrinsic K+ contributes to the high on/off ratio of 103, long retention time of more than 108 s, high stability and reliability of the 2D mica-based RAAM, superior to the ones relied on the conduction of external ions.

Accordingly, the authors have successfully achieved the non-Markov chain algorithm in a 2D mica-based RRAM with three states (Figure 1). Different polarities of the input voltages were applied to stimulate the device and produce certain passing paths. By this way, the output signal of the device is not only related to the current input voltage but also the previous state, and a multi-path non-Markov chain is realized. This research reveals the controllable ion transport in 2D layer mineral materials and provides a guideline to design and engineer the related functional devices for realization of algorithms in future.