Culture

The amount of micro plastic pollution in waters around the Maldives, a global tourist destination known for its beautiful coastline, is amongst the highest in the world and has the potential to severely impact marine life in shallow reefs and threaten the livelihoods of island communities.

Microplastics are pieces of plastic waste that measure less than 5 millimetres long, and due to their often microscopic size are considered invisible water pollutants. Small pieces of plastic can break down over time from plastic bottles, textiles and clothing, remain in the world's oceans.

Marine scientists from Flinders University in Australia recorded the levels of plastic pollution in sand across 22 sites off the coast of Naifaru, the most populous island in Lhaviyani Atoll, to determine how much microplastic is present around the island. Microplastic distribution was found to be ubiquitous in the marine environment, with the results published in Science of the Total Environment journal.

Flinders University Honours student and lead researcher Toby Patti says micro plastics are highly concentrated in waters around Naifaru.

"The concentration of microplastics found on Naifaru in the Maldives (55 -1127.5 microplastics/kg) was greater than those previously found on a highly populated site at Tamil Nadu, India (3 - 611 microplastics/kg), and was a similar concentration to that found on inhabited and uninhabited islands elsewhere in the Maldives (197 -822 particles/kg)."

"The majority of micro plastics found in our study were less than 0.4mm in width, so our results raise concerns about the potential for microplastic ingestion by marine organisms in the shallow coral reef system. The accumulation of microplastics is a serious concern for the ecosystem and the local community living off of these marine resources, and can have a negative impact on human health."

The high levels of microplastics could have been transported by ocean currents from neighbouring countries in the Indian Ocean like India, as well as from Maldivian land reclamation policies, poor sewerage & wastewater systems.

Professor Karen Burke Da Silva says notorious 'rubbish islands' used as landfill sites are also contributing to the high concentration of microplastic found around the island.

"Current waste management practices in the Maldives cannot keep up with population growth and the pace of development. The small island nation encounters several challenges regarding waste management systems and has seen a 58% increase of waste generated per capita on local islands in the last decade," says Professor Burke Da Silva.

"Without a significant increase in waste reduction and rapid improvements in waste management, small island communities will continue to generate high levels of microplastic pollution in marine environments, with potential to negatively impact the health of the ecosystem, marine organisms, and local island communities."

The researchers are now looking at the stomach content of coral reef fish to see if they have bellies full of microplastics in a follow up study.

In a paper published in NANO, a team of researchers from Chengdu Development Center of Science and Technology have significantly enhanced the performance of titanium niobium oxides for lithium-ion batteries. This has applications in electric vehicles and mobile electronics.

Due to its high security and capacity, titanium niobium oxide (TNO) has gained much attention as anode material for lithium-ion batteries. Yet, its electronic conductivity is too low to have high capability at high rates. In order to improve the high-rate performance of TNO effectively, a team of researchers from Chengdu Development Center of Science and Technology, China Academy of Engineering Physics, has combined utilized crystal structure modification, particle size reduction, porous structure, and conductive-phase compositing to solve this problem. The electrochemical performance, especially high-rate performance, of the material was significantly enhanced.

Ti2Nb10O29-x/HRGO hybrid was successfully fabricated by introducing vacancies into Ti2Nb10O29 (TNO) and hybridizing TNO with holey reduced graphene oxide. The structure of TNOx/HRGO is TNOx microspheres with oxygen vacancies wrapped by gossamer-like HRGO. Electrochemical measurements confirmed that TNOx/HRGO hybrid exhibited excellent reversible capacity of 316 mAh/g, 278 mAh/g, 242 mAh/g, 225 mAh/g, and 173 mAh/g at 1 C, 5 C, 10 C, 20 C, and 40 C, respectively. After 300 cycles at 10 C, it still has a high capacity of 238 mAh/g with a high capacity retention of 98%, revealing excellent cycling stability.

The oxygen vacancies of TNOx and the high conductivity of HRGO can effectively enhance the electronic conductivity of the TNOx/HRGO hybrid, and the HRGO holes are beneficial for the transmission of lithium-ion (Li+). The synergy effect of above features improves the rate performance of the TNOx/HRGO hybrid. In addition, the existence of HRGO can buffer volume expansion during the insertion processes of Li+, which can improve cyclic stability of the TNOx/HRGO hybrid.

In this paper, combined utilization of several methods is proved to be an effective way to improve the electrochemical performance of TNO. Ti2Nb10O29-x/HRGO hybrid can be a potential anode material for lithium-ion storage with high security and high capacity, as well as excellent high-rate and cycle performance.

All the chemical elements in the universe, except for hydrogen and most of the helium, were produced inside stars. But among them there are a few (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur and phosphorus) which are particularly interesting because they are basic to life as we know it on Earth. Phosphorus is of special interest because it forms part of the DNA and RNA molecules and is a necessary element in the energetic interchange within cells, and for the development of their membranes.

The study published in Nature, based on an analysis of a large number of infrared spectra (in the H band, with APOGEE) from the public data base of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, could offer a clear set of promising stellar candidates to clarify the origin and the quantity observed of phosphorus in the Galaxy, and specifically, in our Solar System, which until now none of the current models of Galactic chemical evolution have been able to explain.

However, the peculiar chemistry which these stars show is still disconcerting. In fact, not only are they rich in phosphorus, but also in certain other elements, such as magnesium, silicon, oxygen, aluminium and even of heavier elements such as cerium. Suprisingly, after an extensive analysis of all the possible stellar sources and processes known to form chemical elements in the interiors of stars, this chemical pattern is not predicted by the current theories of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis.

"These results show that not only are we dealing with a new type of objects, but that their discovery opens the way for the exploration of new physical mechanisms and nuclear reactions which occur in stellar interiors" explains IAC researcher Thomas Masseron, the leader of the project and the first author of the article.

"It could be an important clue about the origin of the phosphorus, which is a fundamental component of life", says Aníbal García-Hernández, another IAC researcher, who is the second author of the article.

In addition, thanks to Spanish service time, they could obtain the optical spectrum of the most brilliant of the phosphorus stars with the Echelle spectrograph (FIES) on the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, (Garafía, La Palma).

"This spectrum allowed us to obtain the chemical abundances of further elements in these stars which are peculiar and rich in phosphorus, and to rule out definitively any known stellar candidate which could explain the stars which are rich in this elements", indicates Olga Zamora, a co-author of the article, and an IAC support astronomer.

"A discovery which is so unexpected and extraordinary could not have been made without a close interdisciplinary collaboration between astronomers and experts in computation", points out Arturo Manchado, an IAC research and a co-author of the article.

A hallmark of summer, monarch butterflies are a familiar sight in the Midwest, and many butterfly enthusiasts are eager to do what they can to support the declining monarch population. A new study at the University of Chicago provides new insight into the effects that raising monarchs in captivity might have on their ability to migrate south at the end of the summer, and cautions that some methods could have a detrimental impact on the population.

Recognizable by their lacy orange and black wings, monarch butterflies are famous for their seasonal migration. Each fall, millions of monarchs fly from Canada and the northern U.S. south to California and Mexico, where they overwinter before returning north in the spring.

UChicago's Ay?e Tenger-Trolander and Marcus Kronforst, PhD, have been looking into how environmental triggers and genetic variation affect migration behavior. In a 2019 study, they, along with other members of the Kronforst lab, found that a group of commercially bred monarch butterflies seemed to be worse at orienting south than their wild-bred counterparts, spelling trouble for their ability to migrate correctly. What's more, they found that these commercial monarchs had a completely different genetic profile than the wild ones -- likely because commercial-bred monarchs don't have to face the selective pressure of that annual migration.

But that led to more questions. "We published the paper, and other people pointed out that when they tagged commercially bred monarchs before releasing them into the wild, some of them would show up in the overwintering grounds in Mexico," said Kronforst, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. "We wanted to know what that meant, and at the same time, we wanted to see if we could figure out what environmental cues were necessary to tell monarchs that it's time to start flying south."

The new study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on August 5, 2020, had two components: one looked more closely at the flight behaviors of individual commercially bred monarchs by tracking their flights repeatedly, and the other at the effects of natural sunlight exposure on the migration behavior of wild-bred monarch butterflies.

Using a new strategy of testing the flight behavior of commercially derived butterflies repeatedly, Tenger-Trolander noticed something interesting. "We discovered that it's not that all individuals in the population have completely lost the ability to orient south," said the graduate student. "We found that if you repeatedly test the same individuals over and over again, a proportion of the population do repeatedly fly south. What this means is that while the population on average doesn't seem to show the same drive to fly south, some individuals do still have that response."

The researchers say that these results should provoke caution from the monarch-rearing community when it comes to raising and releasing commercially derived butterflies. "These results indicate that mass-rearing butterflies as a response to the declining monarch population may not be the best approach," Tenger-Trolander said. "Breeding monarchs in large facilities could be having unintended effects on their genetics that makes it harder for the butterflies to fly south, and we should be careful about introducing that trait into the wild population."

But what about wild-bred monarch butterflies? Could eggs and caterpillars taken from a wild environment, as opposed to a commercial producer, be better for the population?

Previous research had found that simply raising monarchs in an environmental chamber that mimicked early fall weather wasn't enough to trigger proper migratory behavior; even monarchs that were sourced from the wild population had a hard time orienting south.

To further pick apart the cues that trigger migration, the researchers opted to raise the wild monarchs in a greenhouse, where the butterflies were exposed to true sunlight throughout the day, as well as raising the insects in the lab near a south-facing window and in a large outdoor cage.

To their surprise, the natural light wasn't enough to trigger the appropriate orienting behavior. Compared to the monarch butterflies raised in the outdoor cages, the ones raised in the greenhouse were worse at flying south.

"This isn't what we expected to happen," Tenger-Trolander said. "This shows us that even if you're working with wild-derived butterflies and providing them with the same environmental and sunlight conditions they would be exposed to outdoors, they still require some unknown cues that we haven't been able to replicate indoors."

While the researchers are stumped for the moment, they have plans to continue working on this question to see if they can determine what environmental conditions are necessary to tell monarch butterflies when to migrate.

"In the fall, you have a lot of potential cues telling the butterflies it's time to go," said Tenger-Trolander. "Is it the sunlight, is it the location of the sun in the sky, is it a change in the plants or in the temperature? Is one of those cues the most critical, or is it a combination? Is there a critical period during the monarch's life cycle for these cues to have the right effect? We just don't know."

Kronforst said they're still trying to figure out what cues are necessary for this behavior and to see if they can dissect which genes are controlling it. "And then the next big question will be, can we rewire a monarch that doesn't want to migrate so that it will orient south properly?"

The researchers say that these results can help inform best practices for those at-home monarch enthusiasts who want to raise the butterflies themselves.

"Raising monarchs can be so educational," said Tenger-Trolander. "Kids get to see this weird, magical process happening right in front of their eyes. It creates a lot of people who are interested in conservation and science, who then go on to become activists for maintaining important habitats for many different species. But the big unanswered question is whether breeding monarchs in captivity or rearing wild caterpillars at home bad for the wild population."

"There are a lot of pros to having people raise monarchs, and it's something a lot of people like to do," Kronforst said. "These results lend support to the idea that if people are interested in raising these butterflies, they should try and keep those conditions as natural as possible, because it's going to lead to healthier insects that are more likely to become migratory, and to make the migration successfully."

Renowned journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B has a new front cover fish: the marine angelfish. It commands star power due to a new study highlighting the remarkably high incidence of and tendency for hybridisation in this family (even between divergent species), more so than in any other group of coral reef fishes.

Hybridisation refers to the process by which two different species mate and produce hybrid offspring.

The research was led by Yi-Kai (Kai) Tea, PhD candidate at the University of Sydney's School of Life and Environmental Sciences.

He and his colleagues, Professors Nathan Lo and Simon Ho, Dr Joseph DiBattista from the Australian Museum, Jean-Paul Hobbs from the University of Queensland, and Federico Vitelli from Edith Cowan University, sought to explore why only some fishes create hybrids, and the factors that facilitate this.

After deciding to focus on "one of the most charismatic and iconic groups of coral reef fishes", the marine angelfish, they found that 42 species - nearly half of all known species of marine angelfishes - create hybrids.

"This is among the highest incidences of hybridisation in coral reef fishes," Mr Tea said.

Near-opposites attract

"We also found that hybrids are frequently produced even between angelfish species that are distantly related to each other; some separated by over 10 million years in evolutionary time."

Other hybrids were found between species with over 12 percent pairwise distance in mitochondrial DNA. Pairwise distance is a measurement of differences in pairs of DNA sequences.

"This genetic separation is quite astounding, considering that hybrids are rarely reported between species that share more than 2 percent in genetic distance," Mr Tea said. "Though coral reef fish hybrids are common; they are usually formed by closely-related species."

Boundless hybridisation

A third key finding was that angelfish hybridise wherever different species exist. This contrasts with other coral reef fishes, which tend to only hybridise within certain zones of their shared habitats.

"In terms of coral reef fish hybridisation, much remains unanswered, particularly in the context of why, and how hybrids are formed. We still don't know why some species hybridise and others don't. For example, the regal angelfish, Pygoplites diacanthus, is found throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans, yet no hybrids have ever been reported for this species," Mr Tea said.
"In terms of cracking the secrets to hybridisation in coral reefs, we've only just scratched the surface."

Smart home technologies are marketed to enhance your home and make life easier. However, UK consumers are not convinced that they can trust the privacy and security of these technologies, a study by WMG, University of Warwick has shown.Smart Home technology

The 'smart home' can be defined as the integration of Internet-enabled, digital devices with sensors and machine learning in the home. The aim of smart home devices is to provide enhanced entertainment services, easier management of the home, domestic chores and protection from domestic risks. They can be found in devices such as smart speakers and hubs, lighting, sensors, door locks and cameras, central heating thermostats and domestic appliances.

To better understand consumers perceptions of the desirability of the smart home, researchers from WMG and Computer Science, University of Warwick have carried out a nationally representative survey of UK consumers designed to measure adoption and acceptability, focusing on awareness, ownership, experience, trust, satisfaction and intention to use.

The article 'Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK' published in the top journal PLOS ONE reveals their results, with the main finding that the businesses proposal of added meaning and value when adopting the smart home have not yet achieved closure from consumers, as they have highlighted concern for risks to privacy and security.

Researchers sent 2101 participants a survey, with questions to assess:

- Awareness of the Internet of Things (IoT)

- Current ownership of smart home devices

- Experiences of their use of smart home devices

- Trust in the reliability and competence of the devices

- Trust in privacy

- Trust in security

- Satisfaction and intention to use the devices in the future, and intention to recommend it to others

The findings suggest consumers had anxiety about the likelihood of a security incident, as overall people tend to mildlySmart home tehnology agree that they are likely to risk privacy as well as security breach when using smart home devices, in other words they are unconvinced that their privacy and security will not be at risk when they use smart home devices.

It also emerged that when asked to evaluate the impact of a privacy breach people tend to disagree that its impact will be low, suggesting they expect the impact of a privacy breach to be significant. This emerges as a prominent factor influencing whether or not they would adopt smart home technology, furthermore making it less likely.

Other interesting results highlight:

- More females than males have adopted smart home devices over the last year, possibly as they tend to run the house and find the technology helpful

- Young people ages 18-24) were the earliest adopters of smart home technology, however older people (ages 65+) also adopted it early, possibly as they have more disposable income and less responsibilities - e.g. no mortgage, no dependent children

- People aged 65 and over are less willing to use smart home devices in case of unauthorised data collection compared to younger people, indicating younger people are less aware of privacy breaches

- Less well-educated people are the least interested in using smart home devices in the future, and that these might constitute market segments that will be lost to smart home adoption, unless their concerns are specifically addressed and targeted by policymakers and businesses.

Dr Sara Cannizzaro, from WMG, University of Warwick comments:Dr Sara Cannizzaro, WMG, University of Warwick

"Our study underlines how businesses and policymakers will need to work together to act on the sociotechnical affordances of smart home technology in order to increase consumers' trust. This intervention is necessary if barriers to adoption and acceptability of the smart home are to be addressed now and in the future.

"Proof of cybersecurity and low risk to privacy breaches will be key in smart home technology companies persuading a number of consumers to invest in their technology."

Professor Rob Procter, from the Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, adds:Professor Rob Procter, Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick

"Businesses are still actively promoting positive visions of what the smart home means for consumers (e.g., convenience, economy, home security)... However, at the same time, as we see from our survey results, consumers are actively comparing their interactional experiences against these visions and are coming up with different interpretations and meanings from those that business is trying to promote."

A new theory from psychologists at the University of Bath argues that how we communicate online, including via email and social media, reveals much about our personality and character types.

In an open letter for the journal Molecular Autism, the researchers at Bath and Cardiff highlight clear differences in electronic communication styles between autistic and non-autistic people. And they say these findings have wider relevance about how we communicate online and for being respectful of others’ communication styles.

By looking at the ways in which email style differed between two groups, the researchers observed fewer social niceties and less preamble in emails from autistic people (e.g. ‘I hope you are well’), yet a stronger and polite observance of formal address, (e.g. ‘Dear Dr…’).

In autistic people, they noticed considerable attention to detail, often demonstrated by participants correcting the researcher, by highlighting grammatical errors or broken hyperlinks. But autistic people were also more open to correcting themselves, for example if they found spelling mistakes in their previous emails. Non-autistic people rarely seemed to make these corrections, likely fearing they would appear rude or silly.

They also noted that many autistic people communicated in precise, though socially unconventional ways (for example referring to their arrival time for a meeting as 14:08 or describing a meeting point with map coordinates). Such interactions almost never occurred when emails were exchanged with non-autistic people.

The analysis, say the researchers, is important for all of us – not just those with autism - in thinking about how we might better adapt our own styles and be more respectful of others. The researchers say that the autistic email style is far from a weakness and that we could benefit from adopting a more direct, efficient, and precise autistic-like style in our emails.

Dr Punit Shah from the Department of Psychology at Bath explained: “There is no right or wrong way to email, but there are definitely different email styles and that can be revealing of a whole host of characteristics. Our work only looked at the differences between non-autistic and autistic people, but this topic has much wider relevance and application. In a world where we are increasingly reliant on email communication, how we communicate online really matters.

“Some people may bash off emails in seconds, with little care for polite preamble, formalities, or spelling. But we must try not to read too much into how something is said and focus more on its function. We should also be more willing to give people ‘the benefit of the doubt’ if they seem rude as we don’t know about their social-communication differences, potentially related to autism, or other contextual factors that might have influenced their electronic communication, for example managing child care while emailing remotely from home.

“On the other hand, for some people with autism and many others in society more generally, writing emails to friends and colleagues, or posting to social media can be challenging. For some people, this can create a block where, for fear of an ‘email faux pas’, they become unresponsive online. This can be problematic, potentially leading to feelings of stress and anxiety.

“In our fast-paced online world we will hopefully become as tolerant and respectful of different electronic communication styles as we are of social differences in face-to-face communications.”

To read the open letter ‘Electronic communication in autism spectrum conditions’ see https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-020-00329-2.

Journal

Molecular Autism

DOI

10.1186/s13229-020-00329-2

Both in the periphery and the center of lung tumors, characteristic accumulations of certain white blood cells, known as macrophages, are often found. In this case they are called tumor-associated macrophages. There are two populations with opposite effects on the tumor: while one is tumor-promoting, the second macrophage population inhibits cancer growth. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research and the Justus Liebig University in Giessen have now been able to show that identifying the position and density of the two cell populations in the tumor tissue make it possible to predict the course of the disease. This discovery may lead to new therapeutic possibilities.

Immune cells significantly influence the course of tumors. Depending on the cell type, they can both promote and inhibit tumor growth. This is particularly true for a group of macrophages, which accumulate in the tumor center or the peripheral areas in sometimes large numbers. Depending on their activation state, these so-called tumor-associated macrophages can have a positive or negative influence on the course of the disease.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research and the Justus Liebig University in Giessen discovered that the accumulation of a subpopulation of tumor-associated macrophages in a certain area can lead to conclusions about the further course of the tumor disease. Rajkumar Savai, project leader in the department "Development and Remodelling of the Lung" and member of the Centre for Internal Medicine at Justus Liebig University explains: "With lung tumors, it is usually possible to distinguish the center of the tumor from the peripheral area. Because a particularly large number of immune cells migrate to the latter, we refer to this area as the invasive tumor margin".

For their study, the researchers used an elaborated microscopy technique known as multiplex immunofluorescence microscopy. By this technique, macrophages could be safely identified. Furthermore their distance from neighbouring tumour cells was analysed. In addition, the Max Planck researchers divided these cells into tumor-promoting and tumor-inhibiting tumor-associated macrophages based on certain properties. "We found that more tumor-promoting cells were found in the invasive border area of the tumor than tumor-inhibiting cells. Moreover, they were located more adjacent to the tumor cells," said Savai. "Based on tissue samples from more than a hundred patients, we were then able to identify a pattern."

According to this study, the survival rate in lung cancer patients was lower, in particular when the tumor-promoting macrophages in the invasive marginal areas were particularly close to the tumor cells and at the same time tumor-inhibiting macrophages were further away. The cell number also had an influence on the prognosis of the patients: "If there were fewer tumor-inhibiting macrophages in the tumor center, patients had a lower probability for surviving. Overall, we found more tumor-promoting macrophages than tumor-inhibiting macrophages," Savai said.

The fact that tumor-promoting and tumor-inhibiting macrophages actually have different activity patterns was shown when the Bad Nauheim scientists sequenced the cells' RNA. "We found that the two cell variants had very different gene expression profiles, even when compared with macrophages from outside the tumor tissue," said Savai. The researchers identified five candidates for biomarkers that could be used to predict survival in lung cancer. "These biomarkers could prove to be very helpful for the individual treatment strategy of lung cancer patients," emphasizes Friedrich Grimminger, head of the Giessen Lung Tumor Center and director of the Medical Clinic IV/V at Justus Liebig University. "Based on characteristic gene expression profiles of the tumor-associated macrophages, we have also identified factors in this study that offer themselves as new target structures for specific therapeutic approaches," adds Werner Seeger, Director of the Department "Development and Reconstruction of the Lung" at the Max Planck Institute and the Medical Clinic II of Justus Liebig University.

The glacial history of the Antarctic is currently one of the most important topics in climate research. Why? Because worsening climate change raises a key question: How did the ice masses of the southern continent react to changes between cold and warm phases in the past, and how will they do so in the future? A team of international experts, led by geophysicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), has now shed new light on nine pivotal intervals in the climate history of the Antarctic, spread over 34 million years, by reconstructing the depth of the Southern Ocean in each one. These new maps offer insights into e.g. the past courses of ocean currents, and show that, in past warm phases, the large ice sheets of East Antarctica reacted to climate change in a similar way to how ice sheets in West Antarctica are doing so today. The maps and the freely available article have just been released in the online journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, a publication of the American Geological Union.

The Southern Ocean is one of the most important pillars of the Earth's climate system. Its Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the most powerful current on the planet, links the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and has effectively isolated the Antarctic continent and its ice masses from the rest of the world for over 30 million years. Then and now, ocean currents can only flow where the water is sufficiently deep and there are no obstacles like land bridges, islands, underwater ridges and plateaus blocking their way. Accordingly, anyone seeking to understand the climate history and glacial history of the Antarctic needs to know exactly what the depth and surface structures of the Southern Ocean's floor looked like in the distant past.

Researchers around the globe can now find this information in new, high-resolution grid maps of the ocean floor and data-modelling approaches prepared by a team of international experts led by geoscientists from the AWI, which cover nine pivotal intervals in the climate history of the Antarctic. "In the course of the Earth's history, the geography of the Southern Ocean has constantly changed, as continental plates collided or drifted apart, ridges and seamounts formed, ice masses shoved deposited sediments across the continental shelves like bulldozers, and meltwater transported sediment from land to sea," says AWI geophysicist and co-author Dr Karsten Gohl. Each process changed the ocean's depth and, in some cases, the currents. The new grid maps clearly show how the surface structure of the ocean floor evolved over 34 million years - at a resolution of ca. 5 x 5 kilometres per pixel, making them 15 times more precise than previous models.

Dataset reflects the outcomes of 40 years of geoscientific research in the Antarctic

In order to reconstruct the past water depths, the experts gathered geoscientific field data from 40 years of Antarctic research, which they then combined in a computer model of the Southern Ocean's seafloor. The basis consisted of seismic profiles gathered during over 150 geoscientific expeditions and which, when put end-to-end, cover half a million kilometres. In seismic reflection, sound waves are emitted, penetrating the seafloor to a depth of several kilometres. The reflected signal is used to produce an image of the stratified sediment layers below the surface - a bit like cutting a piece of cake, which reveals the individual layers. The experts then compared the identified layers with sediment cores from the corresponding regions, which allowed them to determine the ages of most layers. In a final step, they used a computer model to 'turn back time' and calculate which sediment deposits were already present in the Southern Ocean at specific intervals, and to what depths in the seafloor they extended in the respective epochs.

Turning points in the climate history of the Antarctic

They applied this approach to nine key intervals in the Antarctic's climate history, including e.g. the warm phase of the early Pliocene, five million years ago, which is widely considered to be a potential template for our future climate. Back then the world was 2 to 3 degrees Celsius warmer on average than today, partly because the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was as high as 450 ppm (parts per million). The IPCC (IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, 2019) has cited this concentration as the best-case scenario for the year 2100; in June 2019 the level was 415 ppm. Back then, the Antarctic ice shelves now floating on the ocean had most likely completely collapsed. "Based on the sediment deposits we can tell, for example, that in extremely warm epochs like the Pliocene, the large ice sheets in East Antarctica reacted in a very similar way to what we're currently seeing in ice sheets in West Antarctica," reports Dr Katharina Hochmuth, the study's first author and a former AWI geophysicist, who is now conducting research at the University of Leicester, UK.

Accordingly, the new maps provide data on important climatic conditions that researchers around the world need in order to accurately simulate the development of ice masses in their ice-sheet and climate models, and to produce more reliable forecasts. Researchers can also download the corresponding datasets from the AWI's Earth system database PANGAEA.

In addition to researchers from the AWI, experts from the following institutions took part in the study: (1) All Russia Scientific Research Institute for Geology and Mineral Resources of the Ocean, St. Petersburg, Russia; (2) St. Petersburg State University, Russia; (3) University of Tasmania, Australia; (4) GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand; and (5) the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics, Italy.

The grid maps depict the geography of the Southern Ocean in the following key intervals in the climate history and glacial history of the Antarctic:

(1) 34 million years ago - transition from the Eocene to the early Oligocene; the first continental-size ice sheet on Antarctic continent

(2) 27 million years ago - the early Oligocene;

(3) 24 million years ago - transition from the Oligocene to the Miocene;

(4) 21 million years ago - the early Miocene;

(5) 14 million years ago - the mid-Miocene, Miocene Climatic Optimum (mean global temperature ca. 4 degrees Celsius warmer than today; high carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere);

(6) 10.5 million years ago - the late Miocene, major continental-scale glaciation;

(7) 5 million years ago - the early Pliocene (mean global temperature ca. 2 - 3 degrees Celsius warmer than today; high carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere);

(8) 2.65 million years ago - transition from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene;

(9) 0.65 million years ago - the Pleistocene.

The data on sediment cores was gathered in geoscientific research projects conducted in connection with the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP), Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, and International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP).

Banks with powerful CEO's and smaller, less independent, boards are more likely to take risks and be susceptible to money laundering, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The study tested for a link between bank risk and enforcements issued by US regulators for money laundering in a sample of 960 publicly listed US banks during the period 2004-2015.

The results, published in the International Journal of Finance and Economics, show that money laundering enforcements are associated with an increase in bank risk on several measures of risk. In addition, the impact of money laundering is heightened by the presence of powerful CEOs and only partly mitigated by large and independent executive boards.

Researchers Dr Yurtsev Uymaz and Prof John Thornton at UEA, and Dr Yener Altunbas of Bangor University, conclude that banks with powerful CEOs warrant the particular attention of regulators engaged in anti-money laundering efforts, especially when boards of directors are small and not independent.

The study is believed to be the first to show that money laundering is also a significant driver of bank risk, alongside banks' business models and ownership structures, the regulatory and supervisory framework, and market competition.

Previously banking research on the determinants of risk-taking has largely ignored the potential role of money laundering, which the authors say is surprising given combatting money laundering is a major focus of US, and other, bank regulators concerned with the stability of the financial system.

For example, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency views it as posing risks to the safety and soundness of the financial industry and the safety of the nation more generally as terrorists employ money laundering to fund their operations.

The Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, also cites changes in money demand and increased volatility of international capital flows and exchange rates due to unanticipated cross-border asset transfers as being among the potential adverse economic consequences of money laundering.

Lead author Dr Uymaz, of UEA's Norwich Business School, said: "It is important to understand all possible risks, given those from money laundering have been increased by the growth in volume of cross-border transactions that have made banks inherently more vulnerable.

"They are also impacted by the fact that regulators are continually revising rules as their focus expands from organized crime to terrorism, while governments have expanded their use of economic sanctions to target individual countries, entities, and even specific individuals as part of their foreign policies.

"Money laundering exposes banks to serious reputational, operational, and compliance risks that could result in significant financial costs, for example through fines and sanctions by regulators, claims against the bank, investigation costs, asset seizures and freezes, and loan losses. It also results in the diversion of valuable management time and operational resources to resolve money laundering-related problems.

"We show that board size and independence can mitigate but not fully offset the impact of money laundering on bank risk, and that powerful CEOs impact adversely on bank risk taking and accentuate the negative impact of money laundering on risk."

The authors use three measures of bank risk. The first is default risk, the assumption being that money laundering enforcements could lead to the failure of an individual bank because of reputational damage and/or the impact of severe financial penalties on bank capital.

The second measure is systematic risk, where, for example, money laundering in the banking sector could be so widespread so as not to be diversifiable against within the sector.

The final one is a measure of systemic risk, which captures the reaction of individual banks to systemic events, for example if financial penalties and other costs associated with enforcements because of money laundering have debilitated the bank.

The general picture of a shark is that of a fast and large ocean predator. Some species, however, question this image - for example angel sharks. They have adapted to a life on the bottom of the oceans, where they lie in wait for their prey. In order to be able to hide on or in the sediment, the body of angel sharks became flattened in the course of their evolution, making them very similar to rays, which are closely related to sharks.

Flattened body as indication for a successful lifestyle

The oldest known complete fossils of angel sharks are about 160 million years old and demonstrate that the flattened body was established early in their evolution. This also indicates that these extinct angel sharks already had a similar lifestyle as their extant relatives - and that this lifestyle obviously was very successful.

Angel sharks are found all over the world today, ranging from temperate to tropical seas, but most of these species are threatened. In order to understand the patterns and processes that led to their present low diversity and the possible consequences of their particular anatomy, the team has studied the body shapes of angel sharks since their origins using modern methods.

Today's species are very similar

For this purpose, the skulls of extinct species from the late Jurassic period (about 160 million years ago) and of present-day species were quantitatively analysed using X-ray and CT images and prepared skulls employing geometric-morphometric approaches. In doing so, the evolution of body shapes could be explained comparatively, independent of body size.

The results show that early angel sharks were different in their external shape, whereas modern species show a comparably lower variation in shape. "Many of the living species are difficult to identify on the basis of their skeletal anatomy and shape, which could be problematic for species recognition," explains Faviel A. López-Romero.

Angel sharks are well adapted, but react slowly to environmental changes

It has been shown that in living species the individual parts of the skull skeleton are more closely integrated than in their extinct relatives. This led to a reduced variability in appearance during the evolution of angel sharks. "The effect of integrating different parts of the skull into individual, highly interdependent modules can lead to a limited ability to evolve in different forms, but at the same time increases the ability to successfully adapt to specific environmental conditions," explains Jürgen Kriwet.

In the case of the angel sharks, increasing geographical isolation resulted in the development of different species with very similar adaptations. "But modular integration also means that such animals are no longer able to react quickly to environmental changes, which increases their risk of extinction," concludes Jürgen Kriwet.

Specific antibodies protect us against viral infections - or do they not? Researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) studied the immune response to papillomaviruses in mice and discovered a hitherto unknown mechanism by which the pathogens outwit the immune system: At the beginning of the infection cycle, they produce a longer version of a protein that surrounds the viral genome. The body produces antibodies against this protein, but they are not effective in fighting the pathogen.

The human immune system has a wide variety of defense strategies to protect the body against pathogens, one of which involves producing antibodies to fight viruses and bacteria. Over time, however, these pathogens have developed elaborate ways of escaping the immune system.

Scientists are already aware of some of these strategies. In human papillomaviruses (HPV), however, up until now they have only known about such strategies in innate, already present immunity and not in adaptive immunity, which does not develop until pathogens enter the body and is associated with the production of antibodies.

Frank Rösl and his co-workers from DKFZ under the supervision of Daniel Hasche have now discovered a new mechanism by which cutaneous papillomaviruses (specific to the skin) trick the immune system.

Certain cutaneous HPV, such as HPV5 and HPV8, occur as natural infections on the skin. They are not sexually transmitted, but are passed on from the mother to the newborn child. Thus, family members are usually colonized with the same HPV types. An infection normally goes unnoticed, because the body is able to overcome it. Depending on the individual status of a person's immune system, their genetic predisposition, age, and other external factors such as UV radiation, however, certain cutaneous HPV types are able to stimulate cell division in their host cells. This leads to skin changes and in rare cases to development of a squamous cell carcinoma, also known as fair-skin cancer.

The experiments were conducted in a particular mouse species, Mastomys coucha, which, like humans, can become infected with cutaneous papillomaviruses shortly after birth and produce specific antibodies against the virus. In combination with UV radiation, infected animals are more likely to develop squamous cell cancer.

The animals' immune system produces antibodies against the two viral proteins L1 and L2 that make up the virus particles, also called capsids. These antibodies can prevent the viruses from entering the host cells and thus neutralize the virus. However, the experiments carried out by the DKFZ scientists showed that besides the normal L1 protein, the viruses also produce a longer version. The latter is not able to actually take part in forming the viral capsid. Instead, it acts as a kind of bait against which the immune system directs its response and produces specific antibodies.

However, the scientists were able to demonstrate that these antibodies are not effective in fighting the papillomavirus. Instead of neutralizing the infectious pathogen through binding to L1, the antibodies merely bind the nonfunctional protein used as bait. While the immune system is busy producing these non-neutralizing antibodies, the virus can continue to replicate and spread throughout the body. It take several more months before neutralizing antibodies are produced that target the normal L1 protein and ultimately the infectious viruses themselves.

"In both rodents and humans, in almost all HPV types that can cause cancer, the L1 gene is designed such that a longer version of the protein can be produced. This is also true for high-risk HPV types such as HPV16 and HPV18, which can cause cervical cancer. It therefore appears to be a common mechanism that enables the viruses to replicate and spread efficiently during the early stage of infection", Daniel Hasche explained. "The fact that antibodies against papillomaviruses can be detected is therefore not necessarily associated with protection against infection. This will need to be taken into account in future when evaluating and interpreting epidemiological studies," Frank Rösl added.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- New rules of engagement on the battlefield will require a deep understanding of networks and how they operate according to new Army research. Researchers confirmed a theory that find that networks of no more than 150 are optimal for efficient information exchange.

"This is the beginning of a new way to address competition and conflict in today's complex world," said Dr. Bruce West, senior scientist, Army Research Office, an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "To increase the utility of the Army's evolving network structures in terms of robustness, resilience, adaptability and efficiency, requires a deeper understanding of how networks actually function, both ours and those of our adversary."

Researchers at ARO and the University of North Texas tested a theory proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar in the 1990s, which suggested that 150 was the largest group that humans can maintain stable social relations. In the vicinity of this size the social group becomes unstable and splinters into smaller groups.

"It takes a network to defeat a network," wrote retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in his book Team of Teams. He discusses understanding the implications of the theory, abstracting from battlefield experiences in Iraq battling the loosely networked but effective terrorist organization Al Qaeda.

Researchers published their findings in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. In their study, they prove Dunbar's conjecture, demonstrating that certain sized network has better information transport properties than others, and that networks of no more than 150 are optimal for internally sharing information.

"A fundamental property of a network is the relation between its functionality and size, which is why understanding the source of the Dunbar Number is important," said West, a co-author of the paper.

The researchers propose that the number 150 arises as a consequence of internal dynamics of a complex network self-organizing within a social system.

Based on that theory, the researchers also indicated that a peaceful demonstration can be turned into a mob by just a few agitators, with the size of 150 being the most vulnerable to such disruption.

"The 150 optimum has been observed by Dunbar and others, but Dr. West and colleagues are the first to computationally capture the theorized process of information dynamics, which are fundamental to problem-solving, development of group factions, and formation of cohesive groups," said Dr. Lisa Troyer, who manages ARO's social and behavioral sciences research program. "This is an important leap forward by for social science theory and will likely lead to further research and insights on collective action."

Dunbar predicted that social groups have optimal sizes. He referred to these group sizes as nested layering and that they have a scaling ratio of approximately three. Consequently, he identified the sequence of sizes of cognitively efficient social groups 5, 15, 50, 150 and 500, explaining that these layers were not equal in terms of strength of relationships.

"The layering sequence is interesting because each number in the sequence is within a factor of two of the empirical magnitudes of entity sizes in the U.S. Army, ranging from a squad of roughly 15 to a platoon of approximately three times the squad size, next to a company consisting of three platoons and followed by a brigade the size of roughly three companies and so on," West said. "This is the intuition on which armies have been hierarchically constructed by military leaders since the Roman Empire."

According to West, understanding how information flows within, is analyzed by, and is accepted or rejected from groups of various sizes is crucial in the training of teams. He said that this is not only true in the development of a single team, but is just as important for the training of teams to work together, to form teams-of-teams.

"The size of a team may be the determining factor in the potential success of a complex mission that depends on adaptability and collective problem solving," West said. "The same understanding can be applied to the reverse process, that of insinuating disinformation within an adversarial group. The size of the group may at times be more important than the form the lie takes for its acceptance and immediate transmission, witness the recent riots."

New detailed observations with NSF’s NOIRLab facilities reveal a young exoplanet, orbiting a young star in the Hyades cluster, that is unusually dense for its size and age. Weighing in at 25 Earth-masses, and slightly smaller than Neptune, this exoplanet’s existence is at odds with the predictions of leading planet formation theories.

New observations of the exoplanet, known as K2-25b, made with the WIYN 0.9-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory and other facilities, raise new questions about current theories of planet formation [1]. The exoplanet has been found to be unusually dense for its size and age — raising the question of how it came to exist. Details of the findings appear in The Astronomical Journal.

Slightly smaller than Neptune, K2-25b orbits an M-dwarf star — the most common type of star in the galaxy — in 3.5 days. The planetary system is a member of the Hyades star cluster, a nearby cluster of young stars in the direction of the constellation Taurus. The system is approximately 600 million years old, and is located about 150 light-years from Earth.

Planets with sizes between those of Earth and Neptune are common companions to stars in the Milky Way, despite the fact that no such planets are found in our Solar System. Understanding how these “sub-Neptune” planets form and evolve is a frontier question in studies of exoplanets.

Astronomers predict that giant planets form by first assembling a modest rock-ice core of 5–10 times the mass of Earth and then enrobing themselves in a massive gaseous envelope hundreds of times the mass of Earth. The result is a gas giant like Jupiter. K2-25b breaks all the rules of this conventional picture: with a mass 25 times that of Earth and modest in size, K2-25b is nearly all core and very little gaseous envelope. These strange properties pose two puzzles for astronomers. First, how did K2-25b assemble such a large core, many times the 5–10 Earth-mass limit predicted by theory? [2] And second, with its high core mass — and consequent strong gravitational pull — how did it avoid accumulating a significant gaseous envelope?

The team studying K2-25b found the result surprising. “K2-25b is unusual,” said Gudmundur Stefansson, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, who led the research team. According to Stefansson, the exoplanet is smaller in size than Neptune but about 1.5 times more massive. “The planet is dense for its size and age, in contrast to other young, sub-Neptune-sized planets that orbit close to their host star,” said Stefansson. “Usually these worlds are observed to have low densities — and some even have extended evaporating atmospheres. K2-25b, with the measurements in hand, seems to have a dense core, either rocky or water-rich, with a thin envelope.”

To explore the nature and origin of K2-25b, astronomers determined its mass and density. Although the exoplanet’s size was initially measured with NASA’s Kepler satellite, the size measurement was refined using high-precision measurements from the WIYN 0.9-meter Telescope at KPNO and the 3.5-meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory (APO) in New Mexico. The observations made with these two telescopes took advantage of a simple but effective technique that was developed as part of Stefansson’s doctoral thesis. The technique uses a clever optical component called an Engineered Diffuser, which can be obtained off the shelf for around $500. It spreads out the light from the star to cover more pixels on the camera, allowing the brightness of the star during the planet’s transit to be more accurately measured, and resulting in a higher-precision measurement of the size of the orbiting planet, among other parameters [3].

“The innovative diffuser allowed us to better define the shape of the transit and thereby further constrain the size, density and composition of the planet,” said Jayadev Rajagopal, an astronomer at NOIRLab who was also involved in the study.

For its low cost, the diffuser delivers an outsized scientific return. “Smaller aperture telescopes, when equipped with state-of-the-art, but inexpensive, equipment can be platforms for high impact science programs,” explains Rajagopal. “Very accurate photometry will be in demand for exploring host stars and planets in tandem with space missions and larger apertures from the ground, and this is an illustration of the role that a modest-sized 0.9-meter telescope can play in that effort.”

Thanks to the observations with the diffusers available on the WIYN 0.9-meter and APO 3.5-meter telescopes, astronomers are now able to predict with greater precision when K2-25b will transit its host star. Whereas before transits could only be predicted with a timing precision of 30–40 minutes, they are now known with a precision of 20 seconds. The improvement is critical to planning follow-up observations with facilities such as the international Gemini Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope[4].

Many of the authors of this study are also involved in another exoplanet-hunting project at KPNO: the NEID spectrometer on the WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope. NEID enables astronomers to measure the motion of nearby stars with extreme precision — roughly three times better than the previous generation of state-of-the-art instruments — allowing them to detect, determine the mass of, and characterize exoplanets as small as Earth.

Notes

[1] The planet was originally detected by Kepler in 2016. Detailed observations for this study were made using the Habitable-zone Planet Finder on the 11-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory.

[2] The prediction from theory is that once planets have formed a core of 5–10 Earth-masses they begin to accrete gas instead: very little rocky material is added after that.

[3] Diffusers were first used for exoplanet observations in 2017.

[4] GHOST, on Gemini South, will be used to carry out transit spectroscopy of exoplanets found by Kepler and TESS. Their target list includes the star K2-25.

More information

This research was presented in a paper to appear in The Astronomical Journal.

The team is composed of Gudmundur Stefansson (The Pennsylvania State University and Princeton University), Suvrath Mahadevan (The Pennsylvania State University), Marissa Maney (The Pennsylvania State University), Joe P. Ninan (The Pennsylvania State University), Paul Robertson (University of California, Irvine), Jayadev Rajagopal (NSF’s NOIRLab), Flynn Haase (NSF’s NOIRLab), Lori Allen (NSF’s NOIRLab), Eric B. Ford (The Pennsylvania State University), Joshua Winn (Princeton), Angie Wolfgang (The Pennsylvania State University), Rebekah I. Dawson (The Pennsylvania State University), John Wisniewski (University of Oklahoma), Chad F. Bender (University of Arizona), Caleb Cañas (The Pennsylvania State University), William Cochran (The University of Texas at Austin), Scott A. Diddams (National Institute of Standards and Technology, and University of Colorado), Connor Fredrick (National Institute of Standards and Technology, and University of Colorado), Samuel Halverson (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Fred Hearty (The Pennsylvania State University), Leslie Hebb (Hobart and William Smith Colleges), Shubham Kanodia (The Pennsylvania State University), Eric Levi (The Pennsylvania State University), Andrew J. Metcalf (Air Force Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and University of Colorado), Andrew Monson (The Pennsylvania State University), Lawrence Ramsey (The Pennsylvania State University), Arpita Roy (California Institute of Technology), Christian Schwab (Macquarie University), Ryan Terrien (Carleton College), and Jason T. Wright (The Pennsylvania State University).

NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab), the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O’odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

The WIYN 0.9-meter Telescope is founded on a partnership between the WIYN Consortium, led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Indiana University, and the NSF’s NOIRLab. Its operations include an international group of universities.

Links

Research paper
Penn State University release
McDonald Observatory release

Contacts:

Gudmundur StefanssonPrinceton UniversityTel: +1 814-777-8712Email: gstefansson@astro.princeton.edu

Jayadev RajagopalAstronomer at NOIRLabTel: 520 318 8292Cell: +1 520 528 3881Email: jrajagopal@noao.edu

Amanda KoczPress and Internal Communications OfficerNSF’s NOIRLabCell: +1 626 524 5884Email: akocz@aura-astronomy.org

An active immune system protects against diseases and infections. An overactive immune system is the body's worst enemy. One example of this is multiple sclerosis, which is a so-called autoimmune disease, while an overactive immune system also leads to some COVID-19 patients becoming seriously ill.

Now, a research group under the leadership of professor and virologist Søren Riis Paludan from the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University, Denmark, has identified a mechanism which is activated in the cells of the immune system when they are attacked by disease. The discovery involves the protein STING, which sends signals to the nucleus of the cell when an infection threatens.

"Until now we've known that the STING protein migrates from an inactive part of the cell to an active when the immune system is alerted, but with this study we can for the first time describe the mechanism that causes the 'migration'. At the same time, we've identified a new protein, STEEP ('STING ER exit protein'), which is responsible for this migration. These are both breakthroughs in terms of understanding the basic disease mechanisms," says Søren Riis Paludan about the study, which has just been published in Nature Immunology.

Previous research has shown that the cells in the immune system are activated through signalling systems organised in what are known as cascades. A system of step-by-step reactions which are e.g. initiated by infection, or when cancer cells are eaten by immune cells. One of these is the cGAS-STING signal cascade, which plays a key role in a number of diseases. The new study shows that STING's 'journey' within the cell trains the activity of the STING signal cascade.

"This part of the process is particularly important because of STING's essential function as part of an innate immune system. The new findings help us to better understand how infectious diseases affect the immune system," says Søren Riis Paludan.

For many years, it has been common knowledge that a well-functioning immune system is extremely important for our health. Even a commonplace infection becomes life-threatening if the immune system is not ready for the fight.

"The immune system is essential in the fight against infection, but if it isn't regulated precisely by the body's own fine-tuning system, it becomes over-activated and creates disease. For example, an overactive immune system has made some COVID-19 patients very ill and difficult to treat," says Søren Riis Paludan.

Identifying the mechanism behind STING's journey and the discovery of the new protein STEEP opens the way to a previously unknown branch in our understanding of the immune system.

"Fundamentally, we're trying to find answers to why in some cases the body's immune system reacts to infections and diseases by causing more illness instead of providing protection. With the STEEP protein, we have a potential source from which we can learn about new principles for how the immune system functions," says Søren Riis Paludan.