Culture

BOSTON - People who survive serious COVID-19 infections have long-lasting immune responses against the virus, according to a new study led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The study, published in Science Immunology, offers hope that people infected with the virus will develop lasting protection against reinfection. The study also demonstrates that measuring antibodies can be an accurate tool for tracking the spread of the virus in the community.

The immune system produces proteins called antibodies in response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. "But there is a big knowledge gap in terms of how long these antibody responses last," says Richelle Charles, MD, an investigator in the Division of Infectious Diseases at MGH and a senior author of the paper. To find out, she and her colleagues obtained blood samples from 343 patients with COVID-19, most of whom had severe cases. The blood samples were taken up to four months after a patient's symptoms emerged. The blood's plasma was isolated and applied to laboratory plates coated with the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the virus's "spike" protein, which attaches to cells, leading to infection. The team studied how different types of antibodies in the plasma bound to RBD. The results were compared to blood samples obtained from more than 1,500 individuals prior to the pandemic.

The researchers found that measuring an antibody called immunoglobulin G (IgG) was highly accurate in identifying infected patients who had symptoms for at least 14 days. Since the standard PCR (nasal swab) test for SARS-CoV-2 loses sensitivity over time, augmenting it with a test for antibodies in patients who have had symptoms for at least eight days (at which time 50 percent are producing antibodies) will help identify some positive cases that might otherwise be missed, says Charles.

The researchers found that IgG levels remained elevated in these patients for four months, and were associated with the presence of protective neutralizing antibodies, which also demonstrated little decrease in activity over time. "That means that people are very likely protected for that period of time," says Charles. "We showed that key antibody responses to COVID-19 do persist."

In another finding, Charles and her colleagues showed that people infected with SARS-CoV-2 had immunoglobulin A (IgA) and immunoglobulin M (IgM) responses that were relatively short-lived, declining to low levels within about two and a half months or less, on average. "We can say now that if a patient has IgA and IgM responses, they were likely infected with the virus within the last two months," says Charles.

Knowing the duration of the immune response by IgA and IgM will help scientists obtain more accurate data about the spread of SARS-CoV-2, explains Jason Harris, MD, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at MGH and co-senior author of the study. "There are a lot of infections in the community that we do not pick up through PCR testing during acute infection, and this is especially true in areas where access to testing is limited," he says. "Knowing how long antibody responses last is essential before we can use antibody testing to track the spread of COVID-19 and identify 'hot spots' of the disease."

The public may have grown tired of candidates who say one thing on the election trail then do another when in office, but a new study suggests truthful candidates might be less likely to make it through to elected office.

Drawing on findings from a lab-based election experiment involving 308 people, research from economists at the University of Bath (UK) and University of Konstanz (Germany) highlights how even though voters indicate trust and legitimacy are important factors in deciding on how to cast their votes, candidates who progress in politics are those most prepared to renege on electoral promises.

In their study, the economists designed a game-theory experiment to test the importance of trustworthiness and to see how individuals react when faced with various different election scenarios. Their two-stage election process first involved individuals vying against each other to win their party's candidacy (similar to US primaries).

They then asked 'candidates' in the experiment how much they would invest (on a scale of 100) as a measure of how eager they were to gain selection in terms of money, time or effort they would put in to get through the selection phase. Those who invested the most had the highest probability of getting through to round two.

If selected to stand for office, candidates next had to choose how much money they would promise to voters in an election, attempting to win over an undecided public. This could reflect campaign promises on tax and spending, for example. Finally, if elected, politicians had to decide how to actually make decisions outside the election race, choosing how much they would transfer to voters or whether to renege on promises.

Their findings highlight that those most likely to make it through the selection process because of their high investments in the first stage were those who reneged on their promises most when elected into office. In other words, those who had been most eager to be selected were also those most likely to deviate from what they had promised.

Lead researcher from the University of Bath's Department of Economics Dr Maik Schneider explains: "Our study highlights why it may not be too surprising to find candidates on the campaign trail who lie. This should concern us all given the low levels of trust in politics.

"There is a clear paradox here in terms of an electorate which says what's missing in politics is greater trust, yet results which indicate that candidates who lie more, somehow still have a higher chance of gaining office.

"From a game theory perspective the reason why this is the case is clear, but these results should serve as a reminder about the importance of challenging untruths among candidates and, more broadly, increasing and improving transparency in the system."

The researchers stress that it is also the case that honest individuals invest time and resources to making it into office, however from these results they were unable to cut through in the same number as their more dishonest rivals.

The team behind the study suggest to improve trust, much more robust fact-checking, transparency around campaign finances and public scrutiny of campaign promises would help. They also argue that schemes to reduce the incentive for dishonesty could include new mechanisms to make campaign promises binding. In the study, when the first stage of the election process was transparent, they found the correlation between 'lie size' when in office and how eager a candidate had been to be selected disappeared.

The new research from Dr Schneider and colleagues, 'Honesty and Self-Selection into Cheap Talk' is published in the Economic Journal.

It builds on earlier work from the same team titled 'Honesty and Self-Selection into Politics'.

Using radio telescopes observing distant stars, scientists have connected optical atomic clocks on different continents. The results were published in the scientific journal Nature Physics (DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-01038-6) by an international collaboration between 33 astronomers and clock experts at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, Japan), the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRIM, Italy), the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF, Italy), and the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM, France).

The BIPM in Sèvres near Paris routinely calculates the international time recommended for civil use (UTC, Coordinated Universal Time) from the comparison of atomic clocks via satellite communications. However, the satellite connections that are essential to maintaining a synchronized global time have not kept up with the development of new atomic clocks: optical clocks that use lasers interacting with ultracold atoms to give a very refined ticking. "To take the full benefit of optical clocks in UTC, it is important to improve worldwide clock comparison methods." said Gérard Petit, physicist at the Time Department at BIPM.

In this new research, highly-energetic extragalactic radio sources replace satellites as the source of reference signals. The group of SEKIDO Mamoru at NICT designed two special radio telescopes, one deployed in Japan and the other in Italy, to realize the connection using the technique of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). These telescopes are capable of observations over a large bandwidth, while antenna dishes of just 2.4 meter diameter keep them transportable. "We want to show that broadband VLBI has potential to be a powerful tool not only for geodesy and astronomy, but also for metrology." commented SEKIDO. To reach the required sensitivity, the small antennas worked in tandem with a larger 34 m radio telescope in Kashima, Japan during the measurements taken from October 14 2018 to February 14 2019. For the Kashima radio telescope, these were among the last observations before the telescope was irreparably damaged by typhoon Faxai in September 2019.

The goal of the collaboration was to connect two optical clocks in Italy and Japan, separated by a baseline distance of 8700 km. These clocks load hundreds of ultra-cold atoms in an optical lattice, an atomic trap engineered with laser light. The clocks use different atomic species: ytterbium for the clock at INRIM and strontium at NICT. Both are candidates for a future redefinition of the second in the International System of Units (SI). "Today, the new generation of optical clocks is pushing to review the definition of the second. The road to a redefinition must face the challenge of comparing clocks globally, at the intercontinental scale, with better performances than today," said Davide Calonico, head of the "Quantum Metrology and Nanotechnology" division and coordinator of the research at INRIM.

The connection is possible by observing quasars billions of light-years away: radio sources powered by black holes weighing millions of solar masses, but so distant that they can be considered fixed points in the sky. The telescopes aim at a different star every few minutes to compensate for the effects of the atmosphere. "We observed the signal not from satellites, but from cosmic radio sources," commented IDO Tetsuya, director of the "Space-Time Standards Laboratory" and coordinator of the research at NICT. "VLBI may allow us in Asia to access the UTC relying on what we can prepare by ourselves." IDO added.

Antennas like the transportable ones used in these measurements can be installed directly at the laboratories developing optical clocks around the world. According to SEKIDO, "a global optical clock network connected by VLBI may be realized by collaboration between the international communities of metrology and geodesy, just like the broadband VLBI network of the VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS) has already been established," while Petit commented: "waiting for long-distance optical links, this research shows that there is still to gain from radio links, where VLBI with transportable antennas can complement the Global Navigation Satellite Systems and telecommunication satellites."

Besides improving international timekeeping, such an infrastructure also opens new ways to study fundamental physics and general relativity, to explore variations of Earth's gravitational field, or even the variation of fundamental constants underlying physics. Federico Perini, coordinator of the research at INAF, commented "We are proud to have been part of this collaboration helping to achieve such a big step forward in developing a technique which, using the most distant radio sources in the Universe, makes possible the measurement of the frequencies generated by two of the most accurate clocks here on the Earth." Calonico concludes "Our comparison using VLBI gives a new perspective to improve and investigate new methods for clock comparisons, also looking at the contamination between different disciplines."

Baltimore, MD-- Recent work led by Carnegie's Kamena Kostova revealed a new quality control system in the protein production assembly line with possible implications for understanding neurogenerative disease.

The DNA that comprises the chromosomes housed in each cell's nucleus encodes the recipes for how to make proteins, which are responsible for the majority of the physiological actions that sustain life. Individual recipes are transcribed using messenger RNA, which carries this piece of code to a piece of cellular machinery called the ribosome. The ribosome translates the message into amino acids--the building blocks of proteins.

But sometimes messages get garbled. The resulting incomplete protein products can be toxic to cells. So how do cells clean up in the aftermath of a botched translation?

Some quality assurance mechanisms were already known--including systems that degrade the half-finished protein product and the messenger RNA that led to its creation. But Kostova led a team that identified a new tool in the cell's kit for preventing damage when protein assembly goes awry. Their work was published by Molecular Cell.

Using CRISPR-Cas9-based genetic screening, the researchers discovered a separate, and much needed, device by which the cell prevents that particular faulty message from being translated again. They found two factors, called GIGYF2 and 4EHP, which prevent translation from being initiated on problematic messenger RNA fragments.

"Imagine that the protein assembly process is a highway and the ribosomes are cars traveling on it," Kostova explained. "If there's a bad message producing incomplete protein products, it's like having a stalled car or two on the road, clogging traffic. Think of GIGYF2 and 4EHP as closing the on-ramp, so that there is time to clear everything away and additional cars don't get stalled, exacerbating the problem."

Loss of GIGYF2 has previously been associated with neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental problems. It is possible that these issues are caused by the buildup of defective proteins that occurs without the ability to prevent translation on faulty messenger RNAs.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft mission, launched on Sept. 8, 2016, is the first U.S. mission designed to retrieve a pristine sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth for further study. The mission's target is Bennu, a carbon-rich near-Earth asteroid that is potentially hazardous, representing an approximately 1 in 2,700 chance of impacting the Earth late in the 22nd century.

Scientists believe Bennu may contain the molecular precursors to the origin of life and the Earth's oceans, so one of the mission's main objectives is to determine Bennu's physical and chemical properties.

"The spacecraft has been observing the asteroid for nearly two years now," said Joshua Emery, associate professor in NAU's Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science and a member of the OSIRIS-REx science team. "Bennu has turned out to be a fascinating small asteroid and has given us many surprises."

The mission's first attempt to pick up the sample is scheduled for Oct. 20, 2020, and the spacecraft is scheduled to return the sample back to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023. In advance of the sample collection, the science team published a set of six papers in Science and Science Advances, four of which Emery co-authored, to share its scientific findings to date while building interest in the upcoming event.

"We've been working for over a decade toward the upcoming sampling attempt," he said. "It's such an exciting time. The spacecraft will send back data pretty quickly to let us know if the maneuver itself was successful, and it'll be exciting to see images from the sampling event, which should be sent back within a day."

The papers describe the detailed characterization of the surface using images, spectroscopy (composition) and thermal measurements. Emery summarizes each of the four papers he co-authored:

Widespread carbon-bearing materials on near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu, published in Science: "OSIRIS-REx spectrometer data show absorptions ("fingerprints") of complex organic molecules and carbonate minerals on Bennu's surface. These materials do not appear to be spatially correlated to any specific geologic features or other compositions, but they are widespread across the surface. These data provide the first concrete detection of carbon-bearing materials on a near-Earth asteroid. The presence of organics on Bennu suggests that asteroids like Bennu may have brought organic molecules to Earth."

Bright carbonate veins on asteroid (101955) Bennu: Implications for aqueous alteration history, published in Science: "Detailed analysis of absorption features in OSIRIS-REx spectrometer data indicate that there are carbonates on Bennu and that these carbonates are similar to those found in certain meteorites. Images of Bennu show that some of the rocks contain bright veins that may be carbonate. Carbonates, and their occurrence in large abundance, mean that fluid flow and hydrothermal deposition on Bennu's parent body would have occurred over distances of kilometers for thousands to millions of years - conditions that suggest large-scale, open-system hydrothermal alteration of carbonaceous asteroids in the early solar system."

Asteroid (101955) Bennu's weak boulders and thermally anomalous equator, published in Science Advances: "By measuring and mapping the temperature of the surface of Bennu at different times of day, we can see how different rocks heat up and cool down, which enables us to determine physical properties of the surface rocks. This analysis distinguishes two boulder populations on Bennu that differ in thermal inertia (resistance to changes in temperature) and strength. Both have lower thermal inertia and inferred strength than expected for boulders and meteorites. The weaker boulder type probably would not survive atmospheric entry and thus may not be represented in the meteorite collection. Our findings imply that other NEAs likely have boulders similar to those on Bennu, rather than finer-particulate regoliths."

Heterogenous mass distribution of the rubble-pile asteroid (101955) Bennu, published in Science Advances: "We measured the gravity field of Bennu in great detail using the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft trajectory and by mapping the orbits of small particles ejected from Bennu's surface. The gravity field provides insight into the interior structure of Bennu. These data show that Bennu does not have a uniform interior. Bennu's center appears to have a lower density than its average. The equatorial bulge also has a relatively low density. The lower-density equator is consistent with recent movement of material to the equator. The lower-density center suggests that Bennu used to spin much faster than its current 4.29 period 'day'."

"It's been such thrill and honor to be part of the OSIRIS-REx team," Emery said. "As lead of the thermal analysis working group, it has been very exciting for me to be very involved in planning the observations the spacecraft has made in preparation for sampling and then figuring out from the data what the surfaces is like. The rocks on Bennu look strange, and we found from the thermal data that they are so weak that we could easily crush them in our hands. Still, they have existed on this asteroid for over a billion years! These rocks also contain complex organic molecules that form naturally in space, and asteroids like Bennu could have brought these organic molecules to Earth billions of years ago to seed the beginnings of life. When the sample is returned to Earth, scientists will be able to study these molecules in exquisite detail."

Emery, who joined NAU in 2019, applies the techniques of astronomical reflection and emission spectroscopy and spectrophotometry of primitive and icy bodies in the near- (0.8 to 5.0 microns) and mid-infrared (5 to 50 microns) to investigate the formation and evolution of the Solar System and the distribution of organic material.

The Jupiter Trojan asteroids have been a strong focus of his research, and he also regularly observes Kuiper Belt objects, icy satellites and other asteroid groups to understand the state of their surfaces as related to these topics. In addition to contributing to Solar System exploration as a science team member on the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission, he also collaborated on the upcoming Lucy Trojan asteroid flyby mission and the NEO Surveyor Mission infrared telescope mission.

New Rochelle, NY, October 8, 2020--The potential for treating cystic fibrosis (CF) using mRNA therapies or CRISPR gene editing is possible regardless of the causative mutation. CF clinical trials showing that a genotype-agnostic gene therapy for CF is possible are reviewed in the peer-reviewed journal Human Gene Therapy. Click here to read the full-text article free on the Human Gene Therapy website through November 4, 2020.

"Treating CF by delivering mRNA that encodes CFTR has the potential to work in any CF patient, independent of the underlying mutation," state James Dahlman, Georgia Institute of Technology, and coauthors. "Another potential treatment is utilizing mRNA encoding nucleases such as CRISPRCas9 accompanied by gRNA and using them to edit DNA in target cells."

Challenges remain to be able to utilize these approaches successfully. First among them is the need to identify drug delivery systems that can reach pulmonary epithelial cells at low doses.

"CF was the first disease target in humans for several vector platforms, including rAAV and rAd. It is gratifying to see these newer technologies applied to CF, particularly to the 5% of patients whose mutations are resistant to CFTR modulator drugs," according to Editor-in-Chief of Human Gene Therapy Terence R. Flotte, MD, Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor of Medical Education and Dean, Provost, and Executive Deputy Chancellor, University of Massachusetts Medical School.

PULLMAN, Wash. - Advertising and location of cannabis retailers influence adolescents' intentions to use marijuana, according to a new study in the Journal of Health Communication by Washington State University researchers.

Stacey J.T. Hust, associate dean in the Murrow College of Communication, and Jessica Fitts Willoughby, associate professor of communication, conducted a survey of 13- to 17-year-olds in Washington State to find out how marijuana advertising and the location of marijuana retailers influence adolescents' intentions to use the drug. The researchers also asked participants about their outcome beliefs--whether or not they thought using marijuana would be good for them personally and or socially.

Their research shows regular exposure to marijuana advertising on storefronts, billboards, retailer websites and other locations increased the likelihood of adolescents using marijuana.

"While there are restrictions against using advertising designed specifically to target youth, it does still appear to be having some influence," Willoughby said. "Our research suggests a need to equip adolescents with the knowledge and skills to critically evaluate marijuana advertisements."

Location of retail stores also played a role but the results of the survey were mixed.

While the actual density of marijuana retailers in an area was not associated with adolescents' intentions to use, study participants who said they lived within five miles of a marijuana shop were more likely to report intentions to use the drug than those who perceived they lived farther away.

"This was especially the case when they also reported having positive beliefs about marijuana use," Hust said. "The study participants who felt positively about marijuana and perceived living close to retailers were the most likely to report intentions to use marijuana."

The results of the research team's study could have significant policy implications as states that have legalized recreational marijuana use grapple with ways to adhere to the drug's legal status while trying to prevent adolescent marijuana use.

For instance, most states with legalized marijuana restrict placing retailers and advertisements next to schools, but other locations, where adolescents live and spend a lot of their time, remain largely unregulated.

"Our findings are particularly relevant given that most states that have legalized recreational marijuana have not restricted their proximity to neighborhoods or living areas, which may be particularly challenging in large metropolitan areas," Hust said. "States may want to consider using census data to identify the proportion of teens living in particular areas as they identify the location for marijuana retailers."

The researchers are currently in the process of conducting a new experiment where they are testing different types of advertisements to see how young people interpret and respond to them.

"One of the things this research and other studies suggest is that these advertisements are pretty prolific in certain areas and we want to see what type of appeals are used in the advertisements and how those appeals affect viewers," Hust said. "Our long-term goal is really to develop a better understanding of how adolescents can make heathy and informed decisions in an environment in which marijuana is legal."

University of Delaware Professor Kristi Kiick is leading collaborative research to create new drug delivery systems with the potential to improve treatment for diseases that affect connective tissues, such as osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease.

The UD researchers have devised tiny cargo-carrying systems many times smaller than a human hair. These systems, or carriers, are made from molecules called peptides that help provide structure for cells and tissues.

The research team is working to program these nanoparticle carriers to selectively bind to degrading collagen in the body. Collagen is a protein that helps plump up or provide structure to connective tissue--everything from our skin to our bones, tendons and ligaments.

When collagen degrades, as a result of disease or injury, the nanoparticles designed by the Kiick lab can attach and remain at the injury site longer than many current treatment options. This allows for the possibility of delivering site-specific medicines over longer periods of time--from days to weeks.

In one collaborative project that involves this work, Kiick is trying to develop drug carriers that could be useful in treating osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disorder characterized by inflammation, pain and stiffness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it affects 32.5 million Americans.

Early studies with Christopher Price, an associate professor in biomedical engineering, suggests that these nanoparticles can be retained in tissue and knee joints. In other related studies, Kiick and her students have shown that drugs can be encapsulated and retained in the nanoparticles, until released by changes in temperature.

"We are interested in learning how to release drugs that can help not just with pain management, but also with slowing down disease progression," said Kiick, Blue and Gold Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. "It has been key that we have been able to collaborate with the Price laboratory in this type of work."

For a long time, small molecule corticosteroids have been a standard of care for managing pain in osteoarthritic joints. Because the joint is full of thick, sticky fluid and is under constant mechanical stress and motion, these small-molecule drugs get expelled from the fluid around the knee pretty quickly, in minutes.

"We are hopeful that by controlling the nanoparticle composition and structure," said Kiick, "we will be able to finely control, or tune, the drug delivery behavior to provide longer-lasting relief for people with inflammatory conditions, such as osteoarthritis."

Kiick and colleagues reported advances on the nanoparticle design on Wednesday, Oct. 7, in a paper published in Science Advances, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Co-authors on the work include Jingya Qin, a graduate student in the Kiick lab, and Jennifer Sloppy, a senior microscopy specialist in UD's Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory.

The paper's key findings demonstrate the research team's ability to control the shape of the nanoparticles, which will impact how well they can bind to tissue in the body and stay in a particular location. The research team also can precisely control the size of the nanoparticles, which has implications for how they might be retained at the injection site and also how they may be used by particular cells before being removed from the body. Finally, the paper describes some of the very fine details of how the specific building blocks inside these peptide molecules can affect the temperature at which those different shaped and sized nanoparticles can be disassembled to release a medicine.

The research builds on Kiick's previous patented and patent-pending work in this area, but she said it is collaboration with others that is driving forward promising results. While the Kiick lab brings expertise in creating novel materials that can be used as delivery systems; Arthi Jayaraman, Centennial Term Professor for Excellence in Research and Education in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is helping the team understand factors related to temperature sensitivity of the delivery vehicles and to develop computational tools that can help the research team characterize the vehicle's shape.

Meanwhile, Price's expertise in understanding post-traumatic osteoarthritis has been key to developing methods to use these nanoparticles to potentially treat disease. Price is exploring how particular drugs and cells interact, which may inform what specific classes of medicines are useful in treating osteoarthritis that develops following traumatic injury. The collaboration will help the Kiick lab tailor what types of nanoparticle devices can be used to deliver these different classes of medicines.

According to Kiick, thinking big, the team could imagine loading a custom cocktail of medicines into the drug-delivering nanoparticles capable of delivering relief over varying timescales and temperatures. The researchers already have the right material nanostructure that can allow this to happen; now they are exploring how to trigger the nanoparticles to release specific medications under particular conditions.

"You could imagine injecting these encapsulated medications at the knee," she explained. "Then, when you want one medication to be released, the patient could ice their knee. If another drug is needed to provide relief over a longer time-period, heat could be applied."

It could be a really simple way to help people manage chronic conditions that cause a lot of pain and reduce mobility. And because the treatment is local, it could reduce side effects that can occur when drugs have to be taken at high doses or over prolonged periods of time.

"If these delivery vehicles could reduce painful effects of osteoarthritis, or delay when osteoarthritis symptoms emerge, there could be important implications for improving quality of life for many people," Kiick said.

Researchers at UNSW Sydney have demonstrated the lowest noise level on record for a semiconductor quantum bit, or qubit. The research was published in Advanced Materials.

For quantum computers to perform useful calculations, quantum information must be close to 100 per cent accurate. Charge noise - caused by imperfections in the material environment that hosts qubits - interferes with quantum information encoded on qubits, impacting the accuracy of the information.

"The level of charge noise in semiconductor qubits has been a critical obstacle to achieving the accuracy levels we need for large-scale error-corrected quantum computers," says lead author Ludwik Kranz, a PhD student at UNSW's Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) working with the Centre's spin off company Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC).

"Our research has demonstrated that we can reduce charge noise to a significantly low level, minimising the impact it has on our qubits," says Kranz.

"By optimising the fabrication process of the silicon chip, we achieved a noise level 10 times lower than previously recorded. This is the lowest recorded charge noise of any semiconductor qubit."

Creating quiet qubits

Qubits made from electrons hosted on atom qubits in silicon - the approach that Prof. Simmons has championed since 2000 - are a promising platform for large-scale quantum computers.

However, qubits hosted in any semiconductor platform such as silicon, are sensitive to charge noise.

The team's research revealed that the presence of defects either within the silicon chip or at the interface to the surface were significant contributors to the charge noise.

"This was a surprise, as we have spent a lot of time optimising the quality of our silicon chip but this showed that even a few impurities nearby can affect the noise," says Kranz.

By reducing the impurities in the silicon chip and positioning the atoms away from the surface and interfaces where most of the noise originates, the team were able to produce the record-breaking result.

"Our results continue to show that silicon is a terrific material to host qubits. With our ability to engineer every aspect of the qubit environment, we are systematically proving that atom qubits in silicon are reproducible, fast and stable," says Prof. Michelle Simmons, Director CQC2T.

"Our next challenge is to move to isotopically pure crystalline Si-28 to capitalise on the long coherence times already demonstrated in this system."

Timing is everything

Using the newly fabricated silicon chip, the team then performed a range of experiments to characterise the charge noise, with unanticipated results.

"We measured the charge noise using both a single electron transistor and an exchange-coupled qubit pair that collectively provide a consistent charge noise spectrum across a wide frequency range," says CQC2T co-author Dr Sam Gorman.

The measurements revealed a key factor that impacts charge noise - time.

"From the noise spectrum we measured, we know that the longer the computation - the more noise affects our system," says Dr Gorman.

"This has major implications for the design of future devices, with quantum operations needing to be completed in exceptionally short time frames so that the charge noise doesn't become worse over time, adding errors to the computation."

Working systematically towards a commercially available silicon quantum computer

To perform error-free calculations required for large-scale quantum computing, a two-qubit gate - the central building block of any quantum computer - needs a fidelity - or accuracy - of over 99%. To reach this fidelity threshold quantum operations need to be stable and fast.

In a recent paper - published in Physical Review X - the Simmons group, using their atomic precision capability, demonstrated the ability to read out the qubits in 1 microsecond.

"This research combined with our lowest charge noise results shows that it is possible to achieve a 99.99% fidelity in atom qubits in silicon," says Prof. Simmons, who is also the founder of SQC.

"Our team is now working towards delivering all of these key results on a single device - fast, stable, high fidelity and with long coherence times - moving a major step closer to a full-scale quantum processor in silicon."

Professor Simmons is working with SQC to build the first useful, commercial quantum computer in silicon. Co-located with CQC2T on the UNSW Sydney campus, SQC's goal is to demonstrate the capability required to reliably produce a 10-qubit prototype quantum integrated processor by 2023.

"Our team's results further confirm that our unique approach - of precisely positioning phosphorus atoms in silicon - is an extremely promising prospect for building the error-corrected, large-scale architecture required for the commercialisation of silicon quantum computers," Prof. Simmons says.

New findings from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission suggest that the interior of the asteroid Bennu could be weaker and less dense than its outer layers--like a crème-filled chocolate egg flying though space.

The results appear in a study published today in the journal Science Advances and led by the University of Colorado Boulder's OSIRIS-REx team, including professors Daniel Scheeres and Jay McMahon. The findings could give scientists new insights into the evolution of the solar system's asteroids--how bodies like Bennu transform over millions of years or more.

OSIRIS-REx rendezvoused with Bennu, an asteroid orbiting the sun more than 200 million miles from Earth, in late 2018. Since then, the spacecraft, built by Colorado-based Lockheed Martin, has studied the object in more detail than any other asteroid in the history of space exploration.

So far, however, one question has remained elusive: What's Bennu like on the inside?

Scheeres, McMahon and their colleagues on the mission's radio science team now think that they have an answer--or at least part of one. Using OSIRIS-REx's own navigational instruments and other tools, the group spent nearly two years mapping out the ebbs and flows of Bennu's gravity field. Think of it like taking an X-ray of a chunk of space debris with an average width about the height of the Empire State Building.

"If you can measure the gravity field with enough precision, that places hard constraints on where the mass is located, even if you can't see it directly," said Andrew French, a coauthor of the new study and a former graduate student at CU Boulder, now at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

What the team has found may also spell trouble for Bennu. The asteroid's core appears to be weaker than its exterior, a fact that could put its survival at risk in the not-too-distant future.

"You could imagine maybe in a million years or less the whole thing flying apart," said Scheeres, a distinguished professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

Evolution of asteroids

Of course, that's part of the fun of studying asteroids. Scheeres explained that Bennu belongs to a class of smaller bodies that scientists call "rubble pile" asteroids--which, as their name suggests, resemble loosely held-together mounds of debris.

Asteroids also change over time more than people think.

"None of them have sat out there unchanging since the dawn of the solar system," Scheeres said. "They're being changed by things like sunlight affecting how they spin and collisions with other asteroids."

To study how Bennu and other similar asteroids may change, however, he and his colleagues needed to take a peek inside.

This is where the team got lucky. When OSIRIS-REx first arrived at Bennu, the spacecraft spotted something unusual: Over and over again, tiny bits of material, some just the size of marbles, seemed to pop off the asteroid and into space. In many cases, those particles circled Bennu before falling back down to the surface. Members of the mission's radio science team at JPL were able to witness how the body's gravity worked first-hand--a bit like the apocryphal story of Isaac Newton inferring the existence of gravity after observing an apple falling on his head.

"It was a little like someone was on the surface of the asteroid and throwing these marbles up so they could be tracked," Scheeres said. "Our colleagues could infer the gravity field in the trajectories those particles took."

Squishy center

In the new study, Scheeres and his colleagues combined those records of Bennu's gravity at work with data from OSIRIS-REx itself--precise measurements of how the asteroid tugged on the spacecraft over a period of months. They discovered something surprising: Before the mission began, many scientists had assumed that Bennu would have a homogenous interior. As Scheeres put it, "a pile of rocks is a pile of rocks."

But the gravity field measurements suggested something different. To explain those patterns, certain chunks of Bennu's interior would likely need to be more tightly packed together than others. And some of the least dense spots in the asteroid seemed to lie around the distinct bulge at its equator and at its very core.

"It's as if there is a void at its center, within which you could fit a couple of football fields," Scheeres said.

The asteroid's spin may be responsible for that void. Scientists know that the asteroid is spinning faster and faster over time. That building momentum could, Scheeres said, be slowly pushing material away from the asteroid's center and toward its surface. Bennu, in other words, may be in the process of spinning itself into pieces.

"If its core has a low density, it's going to be easier to pull the entire asteroid apart," Scheeres said.

For the scientist, the new findings are bittersweet: After measuring Bennu's gravity field, Scheeres and his team have mostly wrapped up their work on the OSIRIS-REx mission.

Their results have contributed to the mission's sample analysis plan, which is currently in development. The returned sample will be analyzed to determine the cohesion between grains--a key physical property that affects the mass distribution observed in the team's study.

"We were hoping to find out what happened to this asteroid over time, which can give us better insight into how all of these small asteroids are changing over millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of years," Scheeres said. "Our findings exceeded our expectations."

HERSHEY, Pa. -- A large, international study of COVID-19 patients confirmed that cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease, stroke and cancer can increase a patient's risk of dying from the virus. Penn State College of Medicine researchers say their findings may help public health officials improve patient care and develop interventions that can target these high-risk populations.

The researchers found that cardiovascular disease may double a patient's risk of dying from COVID-19. They also discovered that other pre-existing conditions may increase a COVID-19 patient's risk of death by one-and-a-half to three times. The results were recently published in PLOS ONE.

"This study suggests that these chronic conditions are not just common in patients with COVID-19, but their presence is a warning sign to a higher risk of death," said Dr. Paddy Ssentongo, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the College of Medicine and research assistant professor in Penn State's Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. "There is a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease and hypertension around the world and in particular, the U.S. With the persistence of COVID-19 in the U.S., this connection becomes crucially important."

The research team conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies published from December 2019 through early July 2020, to determine which chronic conditions put hospitalized patients at risk of dying from COVID-19. They explored 11 co-existing conditions that pose a risk of severe disease and death among COVID-19 patients, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, asthma, chronic liver disease and HIV/AIDS.

Ssentongo and colleagues analyzed data from more than 65,000 patients from 25 studies worldwide. Patients in the selected studies had an average age of 61 years. They found that certain pre-existing health conditions affected survival rates more than others. When compared to hospitalized COVID-19 patients without pre-existing conditions, researchers determined that patients with diabetes and cancer are 1.5 times more likely to die, patients with cardiovascular disease, hypertension and congestive heart failure are twice as likely to die, and patients with chronic kidney disease are three times more likely to die.

"Although the health care community has circulated anecdotal information about the impact of these risk factors in COVID-19 mortality, our systematic review and meta-analysis is the most comprehensive to date that attempts to quantify the risk," said Vernon Chinchilli, distinguished professor and chair of public health sciences, and senior author of this research. "As the COVID-19 pandemic continues through 2020 and likely into 2021, we expect that other researchers will build on our work."

The researchers said that prior studies exploring the association of pre-existing chronic conditions and COVID-19 mortality had limitations in the number of countries included, the number of studies included and the number of conditions explored. They also said these studies had unaddressed sources of bias that limited the conclusions that can be drawn from them.

"We took an all-inclusive, global approach for this study by examining 11 chronic conditions and including patients from four continents: Asia, Europe, North America and Africa," Ssentongo adds. "Research suggests that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may become seasonal and require annual vaccination. Once an approved and effective vaccine is available, high-risk individuals with these pre-existing conditions should receive vaccination priority to prevent high mortality rates."

Even though additional research is needed to fully understand health risks and implications, particularly in understanding the effects of race and ethnicity on COVID-19 survival rates, Ssentongo said these findings can help inform global prevention and treatment strategies.

For seven years now, the University of California system has been working hard to reduce its carbon emissions as part of its Carbon Neutrality Initiative. Each campus has been charged with finding ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions through a variety of measures -- such as increased energy efficiency and replacement of fossil fuel sources with renewable energy -- to meet milestones on the road to carbon neutrality.

While the campuses focus on mitigating the initiative's Scope 1 direct emissions from gas combustion, campus vehicles and fugitive emissions, as well as Scope 2 indirect emissions from purchased electricity, two UC researchers are looking ahead to Scope 3 -- indirect emissions from products and services the campuses sell. David Cleveland, a UC Santa Barbara professor of environmental studies, and UCLA's Jennifer Ayla Jay, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, have campus food systems squarely in their sights. This is significant, according to the researchers, given that these types of indirect emissions can be some of the institutions' largest sources of greenhouse gases.

"Food is a huge part of our climate impact," said Cleveland, who with Jay co-authored a paper that appears in the journal Climate Policy. Few climate change mitigation policies incorporate food system greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), he added, despite the fact that the food system contributes about 30% of anthropogenic GHGE, mostly from animal-source foods.

"It's low-hanging fruit," Cleveland said of the opportunity to reduce indirect GHGE by shifting UC campus food systems toward more plant-based items and away from animal sources, and reducing food waste. "It doesn't involve changing our energy grid or converting from natural gas, which are huge infrastructure investments. Changing the food system is relatively quite inexpensive."

The key to understanding food's carbon emissions, he explained, lies in examining the amount of energy and resources that go into producing it, and the greenhouse gases that are emitted as a result of those practices.

"The fundamental thing is that animals eat plants," Cleveland said, noting that in doing so the plants are converted to become part of the animal and the nutrition it provides when the animal is eaten.

"However, there are a lot of nutrients and energy spent just keeping the animal alive and doing that conversion," he explained. In the case of beef, for example, large quantities of water, grain and soil nutrients are needed to produce a single pound of meat, in addition to the energy required to process and transport it.

"It's much more efficient and less impactful to eat plants directly," he said.

For their study, the researchers used the 10-campus, 280,000 student UC system as a case study and, according to the paper "created scenarios using studies of U.S. dietary changes and existing, planned and potential UC food system changes."

By changing the food system, including moving away from animal source foods, the researchers found that food emissions could be reduced "by 42-55%, equivalent to 8-9% of UC's targeted energy GHGE reduction, and 19-22% of the carbon offsets the UC system would have to buy to meet its target."

"We don't have to go vegetarian or vegan," Cleveland said, "but we could be moving toward diets that are more climate friendly." Red meat (lamb and beef) has the largest carbon footprint. By switching to other types of meat such as chicken, UC food systems can cut down on their emissions. The closer they get to plant-based protein sources, the smaller the footprint becomes. Choices like these, in addition to measures such as reducing food waste, can put UC on its way to the Scope 3 emission reductions that the system wants to achieve by 2050 while also cutting down on offsets.

There's no better time to start reimagining the UC system's campus food services in a way that can cut down on carbon emissions, said Cleveland, adding that relatively small changes -- replacing a fraction of red meat with plant-based alternatives, or making the vegetarian selection the default item on the menu -- can steer choices to foods that are not only lower impact on the environment but also healthier and often lower cost.

"We can do it right now on our campuses," he said. "And we can have all these co-benefits because it's very easy to have climate-friendly food that is also healthier, delicious and more socially equitable than more climate-damaging food."

While older age is widely recognized as a risk factor for increased morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19, younger patients have received less attention as a population vulnerable to adverse clinical outcomes. Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital analyzed records from 419 hospitals using the Premier Healthcare Database to study the clinical trajectories of 3,222 hospitalized COVID-19 patients aged 18-34. Findings were published as a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers found that over one-fifth of the patients (21 percent) required intensive care, 10 percent required mechanical ventilation and 2.7 percent died. For comparison, the team wrote, the death rate of those in the same age group hospitalized with heart attacks is approximately half of that figure.

"There was a significant rate of adverse outcomes," said Jonathan Cunningham, MD, a Cardiovascular Medicine fellow at the Brigham and first author on the letter. "Even though a 2.7 percent death rate is lower than for older patients, it's high for young people who typically do well even when hospitalized for other conditions."

Another striking observation for the researchers was that 57 percent of the young people hospitalized for COVID-19 were Black or Hispanic, a finding consistent with other reports about the disproportionate burden the disease has had on these demographics.

Individuals with cardiovascular risk factors were also over-represented among the young people hospitalized: 36.8 percent and 24.5 percent of patients had obesity and morbid obesity, respectively; 18.2 percent of patients had diabetes and 16.1 percent had hypertension. The researchers found that patients who presented these comorbidities were also more likely to experience adverse outcomes. Patients with morbid obesity, for example, comprised 41 percent of the hospitalized young adults who died or required mechanical ventilation. For individuals with more than one of these conditions, risks for adverse outcomes were comparable to the risks faced by middle-aged adults, aged 35-64, who had none of these conditions, as observed in a study of 8,862 members of this population.

The researchers stress that the dataset, which relies on hospital administrative claims, only lends insight into the adverse outcomes of hospitalized young people.

"We know nothing about the total denominator of patients who got an infection," said corresponding author Scott Solomon, MD, director of noninvasive cardiology in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Brigham. "We think the vast majority of people in this age range have self-limited disease and don't require hospitalization. But if you do, the risks are really substantial."

There was no funding organization for this study. Cunningham reported grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (T32HL094301) during the conduct of the study. Solomon reported grants from industry outside of the submitted work. A full list of disclosures are available in the paper.

Whether someone wears a mask, practices physical distancing or performs other behaviors to prevent COVID-19 infection may be linked to what media outlets they trust.

In 2020, individuals' behavior in response to the pandemic has closely correlated with the kinds of mass media outlets they trust, according to a study authored by USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology PhD students Erfei Zhao and Qiao Wu. The article was co-authored by University Professor Eileen Crimmins, holder of the AARP Chair in Gerontology, and Associate Professor of Gerontology and Sociology Jennifer Ailshire and appeared online in the journal BMJ Global Health on October 8, 2020.

Zhao, Wu and colleagues analyzed response data from the Understanding America Study's COVID-19 panel on how often more than 4800 participants performed five virus-mitigating behaviors during the coronavirus pandemic: (1) wearing a face mask, (2) washing hands with soap or using hand sanitizer several times per day, (3) canceling or postponing personal or social activities, (4) avoiding eating at restaurants, (5) and avoiding public spaces, gatherings or crowds. In addition, the team also looked at risky health behaviors, including going out to a bar, club or other place where people gather; going to another person's residence; having outside visitors such as friends, neighbors or relatives at one's home; attending a gathering with more than 10 people, such as a party, concert or religious service; or having close contact (within six feet) with someone who doesn't live with the respondent.

Using CNN as an example of a left-leaning news source and Fox News as a news source on the right side of the political spectrum, the study identified the relative amount of trust participants reported in either news source with the risky or positive behaviors they engaged in. Around 29% of respondents said they trusted CNN more than Fox News; roughly half (52%) expressed no preference between the two, and one in five (20%) said they trusted Fox more than CNN.

Risky behaviors were highest among participants who reported more trust in Fox News with an average of 1.25 risky acts in a 7-day period, followed closely by those who reported trusting neither outlet, while CNN viewers reported an average of .94 risky behaviors during the same time period. Positive behaviors were more frequently reported among those who trusted CNN (an average of 3.85 preventive actions in a 7-day window) more than those who trusted Fox News (3.41 positive behaviors on average).

The results imply that behavior sharply differs along media bias lines, indicating that partisan narratives are likely getting in the way of solid health messaging that encourages healthy behavior change.

"In such a highly partisan environment, false information can be easily disseminated. Health messaging, which is one of the few effective ways to slow down the spread of the virus in the absence of a vaccine, is being damaged by politically biased and economically focused narratives," said Zhao and Wu.

Researchers have made a breakthrough genetic discovery into the cause of a spectrum of severe neurological conditions.

A research study, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) and gracing the cover of and published in the October edition of Human Mutation, found two new mutations in the KIF1A gene cause rare nerve disorders.

MCRI researcher Dr Simranpreet Kaur said mutations in the KIF1A gene caused 'traffic jams' in brain cells, called neurons, triggering a devastating range of progressive brain disorders. KIF1A-Associated Neurological Disorders (KAND) affects about 300 children worldwide.

"KAND symptoms often appear at birth or early childhood, have varying severity and can result in death within five years of life. Because clinical features overlap with other neurological disorders, children can be misdiagnosed or remain undiagnosed for a long period of time," she said.

"Our study will lead to more diagnoses by expanding the mutation pool further, finding new KIF1A gene mistakes that cause KAND and related disorders."

The study looked at a genetically undiagnosed girl with Rett syndrome, a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that predominantly affects females and causes developmental delay, speech problems and loss of hand skills and three others with a severe neurodevelopmental disorder who showed few Rett syndrome-like features and carried defects in the KIF1A gene.

Dr Kaur said using advanced genetic techniques, the research team identified that the girl with Rett syndrome, a disorder previously not associated with KAND, also had a previously undiscovered mutation in the KIF1A gene.

She said this ended an arduous diagnostic journey of 15 years for the girl.

"We used a range of testing methods to show that the girl had a mutation which disrupted her KIF1A gene that subsequently affected the function of KIF1A in the brain," she said. "The three other study participants, who had clinical features overlapping with Rett syndrome, all had mutations that reduced KIF1A function. This suggests that KIF1A defects contributed towards the development of features overlapping with Rett syndrome."

MCRI Professor John Christodoulou said the study had opened up opportunities to explore personalised therapies for those with KAND that could potentially have a critical impact on affected children and their families.

Professor Christodoulou said he also recommended genetic testing of the KIF1A gene be standard for genetically undiagnosed Rett syndrome individuals.

"Due to the considerable overlap of clinical symptoms of Rett syndrome patients with other neurodevelopmental disorders, it can be challenging to establish a precise genetic diagnosis," he said.

"However, recent advances in next?generation sequencing have allowed us to identify new mutations in a growing list of genes known to cause intellectual disability, severe epilepsy and/or autistic behaviors where individuals have similarities to Rett syndrome, therefore providing a definitive genetic diagnosis for patients and closure for affected families."