Culture

Existence of the receptor was now proven experimentally by the team headed by Professor Christopher Grefen from the Chair of Molecular and Cellular Botany at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB). The researchers published their report on the 5. January 2021 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS.

GET pathway for specific proteins

Together with lipids, membrane proteins are a central component of all biological membranes and fulfil important functions in transport and information transfer within and between cells. The majority of membrane proteins are recognised by a signal recognition particle on the basis of signal sequences at the front end of the protein and are incorporated into the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum during their synthesis. From there, the proteins are transported to most of the important cellular membranes.

However, there is a functionally important family of membrane proteins whose signal sequence is located at the end of the protein. "Therefore, these proteins can't be integrated into the membrane the usual way," explains lead author Lisa Yasmin Asseck. These so-called tail-anchored (TA) proteins use a mechanism known as GET pathway. GET stands for Guided Entry of TA proteins.

Transport and insertion

The central component of the pathway is a vehicle within the cell fluid, the cytosolic ATPase GET3. It transfers the newly synthesized TA proteins to the receptors GET1 and GET2, which are bound to the endoplasmic reticulum and ensure their membrane insertion.

While the pathway with all its components has been thoroughly described in mammals and their more closely related yeasts, it remained puzzling in plants. "Some components could be identified in plants based on sequence similarities, but there was no trace of the receptor protein GET2," says Christopher Grefen.

An ancient legacy

His team has now successfully identified this previously undiscovered receptor in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. By specifically eliminating the receptor - using for example the Crispr/Cas9 genetic scissors - the researchers were also able to study its function more closely. "The only difference between wildtype and Arabidopsis mutants lacking the GET2 receptor is that the latter develop shorter root hairs," explains Grefen. "This does not restrict the growth of the plants under laboratory conditions, it could, however, pose a problem in the wild - especially when water is scarce." Interestingly, mammals without a GET2 receptor are unable to survive, whereas yeast cells can grow, since they have developed a backup mechanism that kicks in when the receptor is missing.

A remarkable observation for the researchers is the fact that the GET2 receptors of different organisms show great structural similarities despite differences in sequence. "This suggests that their function is evolutionarily conserved. That means that the GET pathway has been around for a very long time, and today's organisms have inherited it from their last common ancestor during evolution," elaborates Christopher Grefen. "The discovery of the protein sequence of GET2 from Arabidopsis provides an important piece of the puzzle for understanding the cross-kingdom evolution of the GET pathway and, at the same time, serves as basis for further studies in other plant and algal species."

A team of scientists from Siberian Federal University together with their colleagues from Novosibirsk studied the effect of nanoparticles on oil production efficiency. When added to the water that displaces oil from a reservoir, nanoparticles improve the separation of oil drops from mine rock and their washing to the surface. The work received a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, and an article about it was published in the Journal of Molecular Liquids.

The oil and gas industry is one of the main sectors of the Russian economy and its sustainable development equally depends on the discovery of new oil fields and rational utilization of the existing ones. Efficiency could be increased through new methodologies that would improve oil production, and one of the ways to reach this goal is to use nanotechnologies.

Nanomaterials possess many unique properties that make them useful in different areas of the oil and gas industry. They are small in size and have high chemical and thermal stability. Because of these characteristics, low-concentration suspensions of nanoparticles can be pumped into an oil well to improve oil recovery. Nanoparticles increase the wettability of oil-bearing strata, making it easier to separate oil from mine rock.

Another factor that affects the efficiency of oil production is interfacial tension: a force that occurs at an interface between two liquids. Oil in mine rock is subject to the capillary force that keeps it in place. To weaken it, interfacial tension has to be reduced, and this is exactly what nanoparticles do.

A team of researchers from Siberian Federal University and the Kutateladze Institute of Thermophysics of the Siberian Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences studied the effects of the size, concentration, composition, and surface of nanoparticles on the wettability and interfacial tension of crude oil. The goal was to develop a liquid with special recovery-improving additives. Before the experiment, the team prepared nanoliquids based on distilled water and used silicon dioxide (SiO2) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) powders as nanoparticles. To measure the wettability and interfacial tension, the team used an automatic tensimeter: a device that measures the geometrical parameters and therefore the surface tension of liquid drops. The study showed that even the smallest amounts of nanoparticles added to the liquid dramatically changed rock wettability characteristics which led to increased oil recovery.

"Systemic research on the use of nanosuspensions and nanoemulsions in oil and gas field development technologies is extremely important for the industry. However, our project is also relevant from the point of view of fundamental knowledge it provides. Although the properties of nanosuspensions remain largely understudied, it is clear that they are dramatically different from regular coarse suspensions," said Andrey Minakov, a Candidate of Physics and Mathematics, the head of the RSF project, and an assistant professor at the Department of Thermal Physics, SFU.

Despite COVID-19 restrictions and the risk of animal to human disease transmission, illegal wildlife trade on social media networks has continued, with wild animals sometimes sold as 'lockdown pets'. Researchers from Oxford Brookes University and the University of Western Australia, having analysed around 20,000 Facebook posts about wild pet trade, are urging increased governance on social media sites in order to curb potential extinctions and reduce the risk of pandemics.

With the current global pandemic of COVID-19, the role of wild animals in emerging infectious diseases (EID) is in the spotlight. Human-animal transmission has been documented in previous virus outbreaks such as SARS and MERS. Several of the early cases of COVID-19 were linked to a wet market in Wuhan, China, although there is, as yet, not enough evidence to conclude how the virus transmitted to humans.

Despite the known risk of animal to human transmission of disease, the researchers found no clear evidence that the online wildlife trade was discouraged or decreased amidst the pandemic. Examining advertisements on Facebook in Brazil and Indonesia, they found thousands of posts advertising wild animals, with a potential audience of over 200,000 people. Indeed, only 0.44% of over 20,000 online wildlife trade advertisements had any COVID-19-related content.

Adverts mentioning COVID-19 can stimulate wildlife trade

Co-author Anna Nekaris, Professor of Primate Conservation at Oxford Brookes University said: "We anticipated that we would see many posts mentioning COVID-19 regarding the potential dangers of wildlife trade or using it as a reason for a temporary cessation of sales. Instead, advertisements mentioning COVID-19 often stimulated wildlife trade, suggesting the pandemic was a great time to buy an exotic pet for companionship, for example."

Strikingly, they found that no traders or consumers discussed the role of wildlife trade in spreading diseases. Instead, discounts were given, home delivery services were provided, and customers encouraged to spend larger amounts of time due to lockdown with the animals.

Co-author Thais Morcatty, a PhD student at Oxford Brookes University, commented:

"Clandestine markets often expand to supply the demand that still exists and in that case, not only does wildlife trade continue, monitoring it becomes nearly impossible."

Co-author Kim Feddema, a PhD student at the University of Western Australia said:

"The links between wildlife trade and infectious disease are very concerning, however, what we find is that purely focusing on the risk of transmission as justification for widespread bans may not be effective on the ground. In order to have meaningful change that protects wild species and humans, it is imperative that we take into account the nuance and complexity of the situations and listen to what the traders themselves are telling us."

To reach the Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific, humans crossed more than 2,000 kilometres of open ocean, and around 2,000 years earlier than any other sea travel over an equally long distance. They settled in the Marianas around 3,500 years ago, slightly earlier than the initial settlement of Polynesia.

"We know more about the settlement of Polynesia than we do about the settlement of the Mariana Islands", says first author Irina Pugach, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The researchers wanted to find out where people came from to get to the Marianas and how the ancestors of the present Mariana Islanders, the Chamorro, might be related to Polynesians.

To address these questions the researchers obtained ancient DNA data from two skeletons from the Ritidian Beach Cave site in northern Guam, dating to around 2,200 years ago. "We found that the ancestry of these ancient skeletons is linked to the Philippines", says Pugach. "These findings strengthen the picture that has emerged from linguistic and archaeological studies, pointing to an Island Southeast Asia origin for the first settlers of the Marianas", says co-author Mike T. Carson, an archaeologist at the Micronesian Area Research Center at the University of Guam.

"We also find a close link between the ancient Guam skeletons and early Lapita individuals from Vanuatu and Tonga in the Western Pacific region", adds Pugach. "This suggests that the Marianas and Polynesia may have been colonized from the same source population, and raises the possibility that the Marianas played a role in the eventual settlement of Polynesia."

The researchers point out that while the new results provide interesting new insights, they are based on only two skeletons that date from around 1,400 years after the first human settlement in Guam. "The peopling of Guam and the settlement of such remote archipelagos in Oceania needs further investigation", says senior author Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), have developed a new way to cure adhesives using a magnetic field.

Conventional adhesives like epoxy which are used to bond plastic, ceramics and wood are typically designed to cure using moisture, heat or light. They often require specific curing temperatures, ranging from room temperature up to 80 degrees Celsius.

The curing process is necessary to cross-link and bond the glue with the two secured surfaces as the glue crystallises and hardens to achieve its final strength.

NTU's new "magnetocuring" glue can cure by passing it through a magnetic field. This is very useful in certain environmental conditions where current adhesives do not work well. Also, when the adhesive is sandwiched between insulating material like rubber or wood, traditional activators like heat, light and air cannot easily reach the adhesive.

Products such as composite bike frames, helmets and golf clubs, are currently made with two-part epoxy adhesives, where a resin and a hardener are mixed and the reaction starts immediately.

For manufacturers of carbon fibre - thin ribbons of carbon glued together layer by layer - and makers of sports equipment involving carbon fibre, their factories use large, high temperature ovens to cure the epoxy glue over many hours. This energy-intensive curing process is the main reason for the high cost of carbon fibre.

The new "magnetocuring" adhesive is made by combining a typical commercially available epoxy adhesive with specially tailored magnetic nanoparticles made by the NTU scientists. It does not need to be mixed with any hardener or accelerator, unlike two-component adhesives (which has two liquids that must be mixed before use), making it easy to manufacture and apply.

It bonds the materials when it is activated by passing through a magnetic field, which is easily generated by a small electromagnetic device. This uses less energy than a large conventional oven.

For example, one gram of magnetocuring adhesive can be easily cured by a 200-Watt electromagnetic device in five minutes (consuming 16.6 Watt Hours). This is 120 times less energy needed than a traditional 2000-Watt oven which takes an hour (consuming 2000 Watt Hours) to cure conventional epoxy.

Developed by Professor Raju V. Ramanujan, Associate Professor Terry Steele and Dr Richa Chaudhary from the NTU School of Materials Science and Engineering, the findings were published in the scientific journal Applied Materials Today and offer potential application in a wide range of fields.

This includes high-end sports equipment, automotive products, electronics, energy, aerospace and medical manufacturing processes. Laboratory tests have shown that the new adhesive has a strength up to 7 megapascals, on par with many of the epoxy adhesives on the market.

Assoc Prof Steele, an expert in various types of advanced adhesives, explained: "Our key development is a way to cure adhesives within minutes of exposure to a magnetic field, while preventing overheating of the surfaces to which they are applied. This is important as some surfaces that we want to join are extremely heat-sensitive, such as flexible electronics and biodegradable plastics."

How "magnetocuring" glue works

The new adhesive is made of two main components - a commercially available epoxy that is cured through heat, and oxide nanoparticles made from a chemical combination including manganese, zinc and iron (MnxZn1-xFe2O4).

These nanoparticles are designed to heat up when electromagnetic energy is passed through them, activating the curing process. The maximum temperature and rate of heating can be controlled by these special nanoparticles, eliminating overheating and hotspot formation.

Without the need for large industrial ovens, the activation of the glue has a smaller footprint in space and energy consumption terms. The energy efficiency in the curing process is crucial for green manufacturing, where products are made at lower temperatures, and use less energy for heating and cooling.

For instance, manufacturers of sports shoes often have difficulty heating up the adhesives in between the rubber soles and the upper half of the shoe, as rubber is a heat insulator and resists heat transmission to the conventional epoxy glue. An oven is needed to heat up the shoe over a long time before the heat can reach the glue.

Using magnetic-field activated glue bypasses this difficulty, by directly activating the curing process only in the glue.

The alternating magnetic field can also be embedded at the bottom of conveyor belt systems, so products with pre-applied glue can be cured when they pass through the magnetic field.

Improving manufacturing efficiency

Prof Raju Ramanujan, who is internationally recognised for his advances in magnetic materials, jointly led the project and predicts that the technology could increase the efficiency of manufacturing where adhesive joints are needed.

"Our temperature-controlled magnetic nanoparticles are designed to be mixed with existing one-pot adhesive formulations, so many of the epoxy-based adhesives on the market could be converted into magnetic field-activated glue," Prof Ramanujan said.

"The speed and temperature of curing can be adjusted, so manufacturers of existing products could redesign or improve their existing manufacturing methods. For example, instead of applying glue and curing it part by part in a conventional assembly line, the new process could be to pre-apply glue on all the parts and then cure them as they move along the conveyor chain. Without ovens, it would lead to much less downtime and more efficient production."

First author of the study, Dr Richa Chaudhary said, "The curing of our newly-developed magnetocuring adhesive takes only several minutes instead of hours, and yet is able to secure surfaces with high strength bonds, which is of considerable interest in the sports, medical, automotive and aerospace industries. This efficient process can also bring about cost savings as the space and energy needed for conventional heat curing are reduced significantly."

This three-year project was supported by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A?STAR).

Previous work on heat-activated glue used an electric current flowing through a coil, known as induction-curing, where the glue is heated and cured from outside. However, its drawbacks include overheating of the surfaces and uneven bonding due to hotspot formation within the adhesive.

Moving forward, the team hopes to engage adhesive manufacturers to collaborate on commercialising their technology. They have filed a patent through NTUitive, the university's innovation and enterprise company. They have already received interest in their research from sporting goods manufacturers.

Earth's forests are indispensable for both humans and wildlife: they absorb CO2, provide food for large parts of the world's population and are home to all sorts of animals.

However, forest conservation measures are lagging in many countries, says Laura Vang Rasmussen, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Geosciences and Nature Management.

"It is critical for all countries - especially those with poor economic conditions, to prioritize forests and have forest conservation plans. Without the adoption of conservation strategies, droughts and viral outbreaks could have severe consequences on forests and humans alike," she says.

Rasmussen, along with fellow researchers from the University of Manchester, is behind a new Nature-study in which 24 experts from the around the world have ranked the most significant trends that will affect the world's forests over the coming decade.

Drought and new viral outbreaks

In Denmark, we have seen an increase in the number of summers with scant rainfall, and in the rest of the world - particularly on the US West Coast - droughts have been responsible for massive and devastating forest fires. The new study argues that this trend will continue:

"When we lose forest, due to drought for example, the risk of spreading viruses like coronavirus increases. When forest fires disturb natural ecosystems, disease carrying animals such as bats or rats flee from their charred ecosystems into towns and villages. And, as we have seen with the coronavirus pandemic, viral outbreaks have enormous consequences on global health and economy," explains Rasmussen.

Humans are migrating from the countryside to cities, with more people on the way

More people wanting to move from rural areas into the cities can have both positive and negative consequences for the world's forests.

"It could be that the amount of forest increases as more and more farmers abandon their livelihoods in favour of higher wage urban jobs. This would allow forests room to grow. Conversely, we run the risk that ballooning urban populations will increase demand for marketable crops, which will result in more forests being cleared for agriculture," says Laura Vang Rasmussen.

Furthermore, the planet's human population is projected to increase to roughly 8.5 billion by 2030. This will result in an increased demand for meat, cereals, vegetables, etc., meaning that more forests will need to be cleared to accommodate for fields and meat production farms and facilities.

25 million kilometres of new road networks worldwide

By 2050, global road networks are projected to expand by roughly 25 million kilometres.

This is likely to have a positive effect on human mobility, allowing people to shuttle between cities with ease and more readily move and sell goods.

However, the downside of road building is the inevitably of having to clear forestland for roadbed.

Besides having to look after forests for the sake of the environment and wildlife, forest conservation also relates to poverty, concludes Laura Vang Rasmussen:

"It is problematic that forest conservation, agriculture and poverty are seen as distinct from one another. Indeed, the three factors influence each other, as strategies to increase agricultural production can negatively impact forests. On the other hand, an increase in forested areas makes it more difficult for agriculture to produce enough food. As such, we hope that our research is able to contribute towards highlighting the complex dynamics between agricultural production, deforestation, poverty and food security."

The supersharp radio "vision" of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) has revealed previously unseen details in a jet of material ejected at three-quarters the speed of light from the core of a galaxy some 12.8 billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy, dubbed PSO J0309+27, is a blazar, with its jet pointed toward Earth, and is the brightest radio-emitting blazar yet seen at such a distance. It also is the second-brightest X-ray emitting blazar at such a distance.

In this image, the brightest radio emission comes from the galaxy's core, at bottom right. The jet is propelled by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole at the core, and moves outward, toward the upper left. The jet seen here extends some 1,600 light-years, and shows structure within it.

At this distance, PSO J0309+27 is seen as it was when the universe was less than a billion years old, or just over 7 percent of its current age.

An international team of astronomers led by Cristiana Spingola of the University of Bologna in Italy, observed the galaxy in April and May of 2020. Their analysis of the object's properties provides support for some theoretical models for why blazars are rare in the early universe. The researchers reported their results in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Many animal species use social information - from conspecifics or other species - to inform their behavioral choices, for example where to look for food or build a nest. In a recent study, ornithologists have shown for the first time that the ability to use such information can depend on an individual's cognitive skills. In the collared flycatcher, females that mastered a learning task faster were more likely to copy the nest site choices of great and blue tits in the same area.

"Our results are exciting because they show for the first time that differences in cognitive abilities between wild-living individuals has consequences for their ability to learn about their habitat and adapt to environmental changes," says Dr Laure Cauchard, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and one of the two lead authors of the study.

Cauchard and colleagues studied nest site choices in the collared flycatcher Ficedula albicollis on Gotland, a northern population isolated from the main population in southeastern Europe. Every year around the middle of August, collared flycatchers migrate due south across the Mediterranean and Sahara to overwinter in southern Africa. They return to Gotland in early April when oak leaves begin to unfold, food for the caterpillars that are the flycatchers' prey. Great and blue tits reside around Gotland year-round and begin their nests several weeks before the flycatchers' return. Previous studies have shown that flycatchers tend to copy the nest site choices of tits, presumably because these reflect the distribution of prey within the habitat.

In an ingenious experiment, the authors first tricked the flycatchers into adopting a spurious behavioral rule of neighboring tits: namely, to only choose nestboxes with a particular geometric symbol. Every spring between 2012 and 2015, the researchers placed an excess of nestboxes - 29 to 106 per forest patch, suitable for both tits and flycatchers - in 12 to 17 (depending on year) different forest patches on Gotland. At the start, either a white circle or triangle was placed at random on each empty nestbox. The tits had no preference for either symbol, which was unrelated to habitat quality. But as soon as a pair of tits nested in a box, the researchers swapped the symbol for its alternative if necessary, so that every nestbox occupied by tits ultimately came to carry the same symbol. As expected from previous research, on their return the flycatchers tended to copy the tits' apparent (but spurious) nest site preference when they chose their own nestbox. The researchers removed the symbol from every box occupied by flycatchers, to ensure that flycatchers copied only the nest site choices of the tits, and not those of other flycatchers.

When the chicks inside a flycatcher nestbox were six days old - that is, when their need for feeding was at its peak - the authors set a problem-solving task for the parents. The nestbox entrance was closed with a door mechanism, beneath which were three perches. The door only opened whenever a parent bringing food sat on the correct perch. Each bird received a learning score, depending on the number of trials before they had mastered the mechanism.

The learning score did not depend on a flycatcher's sex or estimated age. Slow learners scored consistently worse throughout: not only did they need more trips and an overall longer training period to learn to open the mechanism, but they also made more unsuccessful "guesses" (that is, they sat on the wrong perch more often) per trip. But the most interesting result was the relationship between learning score and the likelihood of copying the tits' apparent nest site preference: the worse the learning score of an individual female flycatcher in a pair, the lower the likelihood that the pair had chosen a nestbox with the symbol typical for nestboxes occupied by tits in the same forest patch. This effect was stronger for young female flycatchers than for older females, and absent in male flycatchers.

The researchers conclude that female flycatchers that learn faster are more likely to copy social behavior from other species. But do the results mean that the slowest learners were less intelligent? Not necessarily, caution the authors.

"We should not look on the slow learners as less intelligent, since the slowest learners still used information from tits to make a decision, in this case to reject rather than copy the tits' apparent preference," says Cauchard. "It may be that slow learners processed the social information differently and made their choice based on costs and benefits that we did not quantify here."

The authors plan to replicate their study in other species to see if results are similar. "By repeating these experiments across species that differ in the environmental and social pressures they face, we can unravel the mechanisms that link cognitive abilities and decision-making."

Beijing, 20 November 2020: the journal Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications (CVIA) has just published the second issue of Volume 5. This issue brings together important research from authors in the USA and China.

Papers in the issue are as follows.

REVIEWS

Current Management Strategies in Patients with Heart Failure and Atrial Fibrillation: A Review of the Literature (http://ow.ly/zw3m30rnFaC) by Alex M. Parker, Juan R. Vilaro, Mustafa M. Ahmed and Juan M. Aranda

Epicardial Adipose Tissue in Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (http://ow.ly/lz9A30rnFbN) by Bin Liu, Yingrui Li, Jianlin Du, Qiang She and Songbai Deng

RESEARCH PAPERS

Comparison of Segmentation Algorithms for Detecting Myocardial Infarction Using Late Gadolinium Enhancement Magnetic Resonance Imaging (http://ow.ly/eGgg30rnOOS) by Yibo Sun, Dongdong Deng, Liping Sun, Yi He, Hui Wang and Jianzeng Dong

WeChat Group of Chest Pain Center for Patients with Acute ST-segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction: Faster Treatment Speed and Better Prognosis (http://ow.ly/qvsK30rnOQm) by Liu Yue, Qin Zhu-Yun, Yang Xin, Tang Rong and Gao Ling-Yun

Comparison of Clinical Value between Right Distal Radial Artery Access and Right Radial Artery Access in Patients Undergoing Coronary Angiography or Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (http://ow.ly/Vsp630rnORC) by Wen Pan, Haixiang Xu, Qingjun Liu and Jianhua Fan

Clinical Analysis of Transcatheter Embolotherapy for Congenital Pulmonary Arteriovenous Fistulas in Children (http://ow.ly/cDPG30rnOSs) by Xue Zhou, Ang Li, Dan Yin, Xu-pei Huang, Jie Tian, Tie-wei Lv, Qi-jian Yi and Ping Xiang

Importance of Mitochondrial-Related Genes in Dilated Cardiomyopathy Based on Bioinformatics Analysis (http://ow.ly/qn8130rnOT2) by Yukuan Chen, Xiaohui Wu, Danchun Hu and Wei Wang

Impact of MitraClip Program on the Volume and Outcomes of Mitral Valve Surgery: A Single-Center Retrospective Study (http://ow.ly/OhOa30rnOTO) by Wei Zhang, Clifton Lewis, Sriniya Mallela, Ali Ebrahimi, Gregory Von Mering and Mustafa Ahmed

CASE REPORT

In-Stent Thrombosis after Antiplatelet Therapy Conversion while Awaiting Coronary Bypass (http://ow.ly/eug030rnOUf) by Nathan Burke, Tawanna Charlton, Hussam Hawamdeh and Ki Park

HOUSTON - (Dec. 22, 2020) - Bigger is not always better, but here's something that starts small and gets better as it gets bigger.

Just light it up and see.

A team led by Rice University chemists Christy Landes and Stephan Link, both associated with the Smalley-Curl Institute, have made hybrid particles that combine the unbeatable light-harvesting properties of plasmonic nanoparticles with the flexibility of catalytic polymer coatings. Their work could help power long-pursued plasmonic applications in electronics, imaging, sensing and medicine.

Plasmons are the detectable ripples of energy created on the surface of some metals when excited by light or other input. Nanoantennas are microscopic bits of these metals, like gold, silver and aluminum. Because they are sensitive to specific inputs depending on their size, shape and type, they are tunable and therefore useful as sensors, bioimaging agents and even as therapeutics.

The goal of lead authors Emily Searles, a chemistry graduate student, and Sean Collins, a former Carl and Lillian Illig Postdoctoral Fellow at Rice, was to create hybrid nanoantennas with maximum energy transfer from their metal cores to a polymer coating.

They found a way to coat gold nanoparticles on an electrochemical support with a light-sensitive, nickel-based polymer. When triggered by light, energy from the gold's plasmons flows into the coating while the applied potential in the electrochemical cell induces new polymerization from monomers in solution, doubling the coating size. The resulting hybrid damps light scattering from the plasmons by transferring energy into the polymer shell.

"The hope is that because we have put the energy in the polymer, we can now harness that energy to react with other molecules on the surface of the soft interface," Searles said. "There are no reactions included in this paper, but that's where we want to go."

The study appears in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano.

The gold-polymer particles studied measured about 35-by-85 nanometers before polymerization and twice that after. At their peak in experiments and simulations, they delivered 50% efficiency in transferring energy from the nanoparticle to the coating, 20% better than the previous benchmark.

Experiments involved putting individual coated particles on an indium tin oxide electrode under a hyperspectral dark-field imaging microscope to record their scattering spectra.

The researchers knew of two possible paths for transferring the light energy between metals and the polymer coating: charge and resonant energy transfer.

"These new hybrids, exploiting energy transfer paths, could solve two current challenges with plasmonic photocatalysis," Link said. "First, efficiencies are often low because charge transfer is slow in comparison to other competing processes.

"Second, charge transfer usually requires a sacrificial counterreaction or the catalyst is poisoned over time," he said. "These energy transfer-based hybrids eliminate the need for a sacrificial reaction because both electron and hole transfer occur simultaneously."

The first challenge was figuring out which polymer was best for getting energy from here to there.

"The nanoantennas and the polymer look very similar if you simply measure the light spectrum they absorb," said Collins, now a lithography process engineer at Intel.

"However, they are actually absorbing the light in completely different ways and the trick is getting those two mechanisms to work together. The nanoantenna casts a huge net to pull light energy in and shares most of the catch to the hungry polymer, giving the polymer far more energy than it could ever harvest alone."

The team determined the plasmonic resonance dipole in the gold and the electric dipole transitions in the nickel polymer aligned when triggered with light, providing a path for charge carriers to migrate from the polymer.

"The energy in the polymer dissipates after a while, but it doesn't appear to return to the gold," Searles said.

The polymer coating does reach a point of diminishing returns, she said. "We found there's a kind of a happy place where you're not going to see any more energy transfer," Searles said. "The polymer you're adding is too far away from the nanoparticle."

All the variables between light input, nanoparticle configuration and polymer will keep Searles busy for years as she researches practical applications.

"The goal is to be able to create a library of these systems," she said. "Depending on the application, we want to shift the spectrum to have the highest energy efficiency. There's a lot of different things to tune, for sure."

Landes emphasized the importance of a collaborative team as well as the ability to combine new imaging and spectroscopy tools to the project.

"If we hope to harness the potential of novel nanomaterials in future applications, it is crucial to understand how such fundamental processes as energy transfer drive their materials properties at the nano- and macroscales," she said. "Such efforts are bigger than can be accomplished by a single method or a single lab."

A FIRST LOOK AT HOW THE DRUG SALVINORIN A WORKS IN THE BRAIN

Media Contact: Vanessa McMains, Ph.D., vmcmain1@jhmi.edu

Recent interest in developing therapies from hallucinogenic drugs has scientists exploring how these chemicals work in the brain. Recently, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers imaged the brains of people who had vaped salvinorin A, a drug used in Native Mexican rituals, and found that, like other psychedelic drugs, it increased the communication across parts of the brain. However, the primary effects of the drug that they observed -- as reported in their paper published Oct. 2, 2020, in Scientific Reports -- suggest that salvinorin A results in more random or disconnected signaling within the default mode network, which is the part of the brain most active when a person is sitting still, relaxing, daydreaming or otherwise not engaged in externally directed mental exercise.

Salvinorin A is a chemical found in the plant Salvia divinorum that produces powerful out-of-body and amnesia-like experiences over a short time frame similar to the effects of nitrous oxide ("laughing gas"), which is used at dental offices.

"Salvinorin A seems to do all the things that researchers believe happen when other psychedelics (such as LSD and psilocybin) act on the brain," says Manoj Doss, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "The funny thing is that some researchers have selectively focused on the default mode network when that's not even where they find the strongest effects of classic psychedelics. In contrast, that is, in fact, where we found the strongest effects of salvinorin A."

In the study, 12 men vaped salvinorin A crystals and then were scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for the next 15 minutes to measure brain activity across networks in the brain. The researchers evaluated the activity within and among eight brain networks: three involved in vision and five others responsible for moving and touch, processing information from the outside world, paying attention, reward evaluation and activating the default mode network when the mind is at rest.

Most of the fMRI-scanned networks seemed to communicate more with one another when influenced by salvinorin A than when the drug was not present, but they communicated less within themselves. The researchers observed particularly decreased synchronization of the default mode network, meaning that the brain's electrical signals became more random and unpredictable.

In future experiments, the research team plans to compare these findings about salvinorin A's impact on the brain with data from imaging done on brains under the influence of other hallucinogenic drugs.

Doss is available for interviews.

SHORT PERIODS OF INTUBATION DURING SURGERY MAY DAMAGE THE LARYNX JUST LIKE LONGER ONES

Media Contact: Brian Waters, bwaters3@jhmi.edu

It's widely known that patients who are intubated for five to six hours during lengthy surgeries are at greater risk for follow-up complications to the larynx (voice box) such as sore throat, difficulty swallowing and hoarseness. Now, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have shown that similar problems also may occur in patients intubated for a much shorter period.

In a systematic review of published research on laryngeal injury following intubation, a research team led by Martin Brodsky, Ph.D., Sc.M., associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, determined that damage to the larynx can occur with an endotracheal tube in place for as little as one or two hours. Although the injury from short-term intubation is most often mild, it can impact a patient's breathing, swallowing or speaking, requiring separate treatment and more recovery time.

The findings were reported in the Nov. 11, 2020, issue of the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia.

Although the most common complications from intubation are mild, more serious problems can occur. "It is important that both patients and their treating physicians be aware of these possible risks," says Brodsky.

The good news, he says, is that for the majority of patients -- some 80% -- their breathing tubes will be removed after surgery with no injury. The remainder are likely to experience swelling, redness, irritation and abrasions that will generally heal on their own.

Although serious complications such as paralysis and subluxation (dislocation of the cartilage) of the larynx can occur with intubation, they are very rare -- they occur in less than 0.5% of cases.

"Based on the findings from our study, we urge doctors to make sure patients understand that when they are going to be intubated during a surgical procedure -- whether it will be a short or long operation -- there are risks involved from injury to the larynx," says Brodsky. "Being intubated for one to two hours does not eliminate the possibility of long-term damage."

Brodsky adds that better awareness before surgery among doctors and patients about potential intubation-generated laryngeal injury can lead to faster recovery times and improved outcomes.

Brodsky is available for interviews.

CENTRO SOL WORKING TO INCLUDE LATINOS AND UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS IN RESEARCH STUDIES

Media Contact: Waun'Shae Blount, wblount1@jhmi.edu

Despite concerted efforts to remedy an ongoing disparity, research has shown that Latinos and other ethnic minorities have been historically underrepresented in medical research studies, especially clinical trials. Engaging Latinos has been particularly challenging because they often do not have equitable access to vital information that would lead them to participate. Additionally, Latinos often deal with health care providers and study coordinators who don't speak Spanish or are not trained to be culturally competent in working with the Latino community. Other barriers to research participation include poverty, housing instability, lack of transportation, mistrust and competing demands, such as child care and work schedules.

This is where Centro SOL (Center for Salud/Health and Opportunities for Latinos), a Johns Hopkins Medicine research center, is helping to bridge the gap. Since its inception in 2013, Centro SOL's mission has been to improve health care and health education for Latinos in the Baltimore metropolitan region by increasing their involvement in research studies.

"Centro Sol is committed to providing the best quality services for researchers and patients," says Sarah Polk, M.D., Sc.M., Centro Sol team member and assistant professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

According to a recent report in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Centro SOL consulted from 2014 through 2019 with 77 researchers working for institutions such as The Johns Hopkins University, and its medical school and school of public health; the University of Maryland; the Maryland Institute College of Art; and out-of-state universities. The report documents how Centro SOL helped these investigators increase participation of Baltimore-area Latinos and others who have limited English proficiency in high-quality, culturally competent and ethical research studies by assisting with study planning, reviews of study materials, recruitment of participants and staff members, and translation services.

For example, the report describes how, during the six-year review period, Centro SOL helped researchers build relationships with its target population. Researchers, states the report, were given guidance on proven methods for communicating that help make prospective study recruits feel comfortable and enable them to clearly understand the potential risks and benefits of participating in a research study.

Centro SOL has worked in numerous health care and community settings to promote equity in health and opportunity for Latinos through both research- and community-based programming. Centro SOL has developed close partnerships with key local leaders and organizations, such as Comité Latino de Baltimore, a community group that works to strengthen the region's Latino community, and Gallery Church, which has a predominantly Latino congregation.

Based on feedback from the researchers it has assisted, Centro SOL continues to refine and improve the services it offers.

To learn more about Centro SOL, including its programs and services, go to http://www.jhcentrosol.org.

Polk is available for interviews.

CLEANING UP CELLULAR TRASH HELPS HEARTS RECOVER AFTER HEART ATTACKS

Media Contact: Vanessa McMains, Ph.D., vmcmain1@jhmi.edu

In a new study, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have shown how an enzyme can activate and engage a "trash and recycling system" in heart cells to help patients better recover from a heart attack. The researchers say in their study, published Oct. 20, 2020, in Nature Communications, that they believe this system could be modified and used to clean up damaged and misfolded proteins that accumulate in heart cells and eventually become toxic.

The researchers found that the enzyme protein kinase G, which ramps up after a heart attack, influences CHIP (carboxyl terminus of Hsc70-interacting protein) to help move misfolded, damaged proteins to the proteasome, the "recycling plant" of the cell. Based on this finding, the researchers showed that CHIP -- modified by protein kinase G or genetically changed to mimic this modification -- has enhanced ability to clear the damaged proteins. Subsequently, they explain, this prevents progress to heart failure after an attack.

The discovery came when lead author, Mark Ranek, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, studied mice genetically engineered to block protein kinase G from being turned on after a heart attack. He noticed that CHIP protein levels were much lower than normal, and misfolded/damaged proteins accumulated in greater number in the mouse hearts. This meant that CHIP was a key factor in clearing the damaged proteins. Further supporting the connection was the fact that blocking protein kinase G weakened CHIP's function, while turning on the kinase or using mutations to mimic that it was protective.

"Because CHIP is so small and easy to work with, we think that it will be possible to develop its genetic mutation form into a gene therapy that could be used to treat not only heart disease, but also diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's that also result from the buildup of misfolded proteins, but in this case in the brain," says David Kass, M.D., the Abraham and Virginia Weiss Professor of Cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Kass and his team have applied for a patent related to the development of such a therapy.

Ranek and Kass are available for interviews.

In what has the potential to significantly change how Corona patients are being treated and the severity of the disease, research spearheaded at Jerusalem's Hebrew University gathered early clinical evidence demonstrating the efficacy of an existing drug in treating COVID-19.

The study was presented at the recent SPARK Conference on Generic Drug Repurposing for COVID-19 by Professor Yaakov Nahmias, Director of the Center for Bioengineering at Hebrew University. Nahmias applied a well-established existing drug to address the buildup of fats in human lung cells caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Initial lab-based results and new data from 1,500 Israel-based Corona patients have been extremely promising and clinical studies are scheduled to begin this week at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, Israel, joining other clinical centers across the United States, South America and Europe.

The study began in July 2020 when Professor Nahmias demonstrated that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was inhibiting the effective breakdown of fat within the lungs. His research then identified the efficacy of Fenofibrate (Tricor), an FDA approved drug that has been on the market since 1975 to address this deficiency in Corona patients. The drug is traditionally designed to address high levels of triglycerides (fats) in the blood. When applied to Corona patients, the study proposes that it will stop the progression of the disease.

"We knew that the system we had developed for Tissue Dynamics provided us with a unique vantage point to understand how the virus operates in the lungs," Professor Nahmias explained. After discovering the efficacy of the drug in the lab-setting, Professor Nahmias, together with Professor Oren Shiboleth of Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv and Dr. Sigal Shafram-Tikva at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, worked to gather data from 1,500 Corona patients who were on a regiment of drugs designed to reduce the fatty buildup in lung cells.

The results were abundantly clear. Patients who were taking the drugs to speed up the breakdown of fats were recovering from the Corona-caused lung infections in a matter of days. The evidence even showed that there was zero mortality among these patients.

"We showed that the human lungs responded to the SARS-CoV-2 virus by completely changing their metabolism, causing a major buildup of fats in lung cells. Our findings show that this unhealthy fat buildup is a critical factor in COVID-19 patient's deterioration. Patients taking fibrates that work directly to breakdown fats recovered fast from the disease, while those taking medications that build fats like thiazolidinediones, showed greater lung damage and mortality," Professor Nahmias explains.

According to the research team, applying the use of this established drug, which is widely available, inexpensive and has a proven safety record, could alter the effects of COVID-19 from a devastating disease to a far more manageable form of a respiratory cold.

In the coming days, the team will begin an investigator-led Phase 3a clinical study, with financial support from Abbott. Taking place at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, this phase will be led by Professor Shlomo Maayan, Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases.

Other clinical studies intended to corroborate Professor Nahmias's findings are also taking place in the US, Europe and South America. "Even as we see the introduction of numerous vaccines intended to reduce the transmission of the disease and protect vulnerable populations, this drug can help the direct treatment of the virus and reduce its severity and mortality. We hope to see the first results of the clinical phase of this study in the coming months," Professor Maayan said.

Washington DC, December 22, 2020 - A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports that in a group of first-year university students COVID-19 mitigation protocols, including remote learning and stay-at-home orders had a modest, but persistent, impact on mood and wellness behaviors. Students enrolled in the university's wellness program, however, had improved mood levels and fewer attention problems.

"Like other college and university students, those in our study were displaced from their dorms and peer groups-required to leave campus immediately-and expected to continue their academic work as usual remotely," said lead author William Copeland, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont's Larner College of Medicine, Burlington, VT, USA.

Principal investigator and senior author, Jim Hudziak, MD, Professor and Director of Child Psychiatry and the Wellness Environment program at the University of Vermont said: "These data emerged as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic from a longitudinal five-year study to test the impact of a novel curricular, residential and digital programs to promote wellbeing and prevent negative outcomes among college students. Our goal was to test the impact of the pandemic on the mood and wellness behaviors in the participants of that study."

The findings are based on surveys conducted during the Spring 2020 semester at the University of Vermont.

As part of a larger study, a sample of 675 first-year university students had already completed a full battery of measures assessing student health and wellbeing at the beginning of the Spring 2020 semester, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students in the study also completed nightly surveys on mood and wellness behaviors throughout the spring semester. Of these students, 576 completed the same battery of measures at the end of the spring semester, 600 completed at least one item from a COVID-19-related survey implemented in late March, and 485 completed nightly surveys of mood and wellness behaviors both before (and after) the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.

The pre- and post-battery tests and nightly assessment results were complementary, but not all students had similar experiences. On the battery, students displayed increased levels of both behavior and attention problems from the start of the semester-pre-COVID-19-to the end of the semester. According to Prof. Copeland, the greater the perceived personal disruption by the pandemic, the greater the impact. The researchers also found that students enrolled in UVM's Wellness Environment program had improved mood levels and fewer attention problems compared to the non-Wellness Environment students. On the nightly survey, students reported lower levels of mood and wellness behaviors (e.g., exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, sleep) following the onset of COVID-19. The researchers noted that these changes occurred immediately and persisted across the rest of the spring semester.

First-year college students are believed to be more at risk for several reasons, including the poorly regulated risk-taking and emotional functioning, typical of late adolescent neurodevelopment. The UVM Wellness Environment program, which is designed to support students in the transition to college and encourage students to make healthier decisions, features educational and residential components and has an expectation that students commit to a substance-free environment. The study's authors hypothesized that students in this program may display fewer adverse effects of the COVID-19-related disruptions.

"We suggest that colleges and universities track students' emotional health and develop specific protocols to support mental health for those that struggle. This study also suggests that wellness programs like UVM's may increase social support and support student resilience in the face of ongoing disruptions from college life,"concluded Prof. Copeland.

The Earth's soils contain more than three times the amount of carbon than is found in the atmosphere, but the processes that bind carbon in the soil are still not well understood.

Improving such understanding may help researchers develop strategies for sequestering more carbon in soil, thereby keeping it out of the atmosphere where it combines with oxygen and acts as a greenhouse gas.

A new study describes a breakthrough method for imaging the physical and chemical interactions that sequester carbon in soil at near atomic scales, with some surprising results.

The study, "Organo-organic and Organo-mineral Interfaces in Soil at the Nanometer Scale," was published Nov. 30 in Nature Communications.

At that resolution, the researchers showed - for the first time - that soil carbon interacts with both minerals and other forms of carbon from organic materials, such as bacterial cell walls and microbial byproducts. Previous imaging research had only pointed to layered interactions between carbon and minerals in soils.

"If there is an overlooked mechanism that can help us retain more carbon in soils, then that will help our climate," said senior author Johannes Lehmann, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science, Soil and Crop Sciences Section, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Angela Possinger Ph.D. '19, who was a graduate student in Lehmann's lab and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech University, is the paper's first author.

Since the resolution of the new technique is near atomic scale, the researchers are not certain what compounds they are looking at, but they suspect the carbon found in soils is likely from metabolites produced by soil microbes and from microbial cell walls. "In all likelihood, this is a microbial graveyard," Lehmann said.

"We had an unexpected finding where we could see interfaces between different forms of carbon and not just between carbon and minerals," Possinger said. "We could start to look at those interfaces and try to understand something about those interactions."

The technique revealed layers of carbon around those organic interfaces. It also showed that nitrogen was an important player for facilitating the chemical interactions between both organic and mineral interfaces, Possinger said.

As a result, farmers may improve soil health and mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration by considering the form of nitrogen in soil amendments, she said.

While pursuing her doctorate, Possinger worked for years with Cornell physicists - including co-authors Lena Kourkoutis, associate professor of applied and engineering physics, and David Muller, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering in Applied and Engineering Physics, and the co-director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science - to help develop the multi-step method.

The researchers planned to use powerful electron microscopes to focus electron beams down to sub-atomic scales, but they found the electrons modify and damage loose and complex soil samples. As a result, they had to freeze the samples to around minus 180 degrees Celsius, which reduced the harmful effects from the beams.

"We had to develop a technique that essentially keeps the soil particles frozen throughout the process of making very thin slices to look at these tiny interfaces," Possinger said.

The beams could then be scanned across the sample to produce images of the structure and chemistry of a soil sample and its complex interfaces, Kourkoutis said.

"Our physics colleagues are leading the way globally to improve our ability to look very closely into material properties," Lehmann said. "Without such interdisciplinary collaboration, these breakthroughs are not possible.".

The new cryogenic electron microscopy and spectroscopy technique will allow researchers to probe a whole range of interfaces between soft and hard materials, including those that play roles in the function of batteries, fuel cells and electrolyzers, Kourkoutis said.

Australian researchers have revealed - for the first time - that people who have been infected with the COVID-19 virus have immune memory to protect against reinfection for at least eight months.

The research is the strongest evidence for the likelihood that vaccines against the virus, SARS-CoV-2, will work for long periods.  Previously, many studies have shown that the first wave of antibodies to coronavirus wane after the first few months, raising concerns that people may lose immunity quickly.  This new work allays these concerns.

The study is the result of a multi-centre collaboration led by Associate Professor Menno van Zelm, from the Monash University Department of Immunology and Pathology,  with the Alfred Research Alliance between Monash University, The Alfred hospital and the Burnet Institute, and published today in the prestigious journal, Science Immunology. The publication reveals the discovery that specific cells within the immune system called memory B cells, "remembers" infection by the virus, and if challenged again, through re-exposure to the virus, triggers a protective immune response through rapid production of protective antibodies.

The researchers recruited a cohort of 25 COVID-19 patients and took 36 blood samples from them from Day 4 post infection to Day 242 post infection.

As with other studies - looking only at the antibody response - the researchers found that antibodies against the virus started to drop off after 20 days post infection.

However - importantly - all patients continued to have memory B cells that recognised one of two components of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the spike and nucleocapsid proteins. These virus-specific memory B cells were stably present as far as eight months after infection.

According to Associate Professor van Zelm, the results give hope to the efficacy of any vaccine against the virus and also explains why there have been so few examples of genuine reinfection across the millions of those who have tested positive for the virus globally.

"These results are important because they show, definitively, that patients infected with the COVID-19 virus do in fact retain immunity against the virus and the disease," he said.

"This has been a black cloud hanging over the potential protection that could be provided by any COVID-19 vaccine and gives real hope that, once a vaccine or vaccines are developed, they will provide long-term protection."