Earth

Ithaca, NY--A half-century of controversy over two popular bird species may have finally come to an end. In one corner: the Bullock's Oriole, found in the western half of North America. In the other corner: the Baltimore Oriole, breeding in the eastern half. Where their ranges meet in the Great Plains, the two mix freely and produce apparently healthy hybrid offspring. But according to scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, hybridization is a dead end and both parent species will remain separate. Findings from the new study were published today in The Auk.

"The debate over whether Bullock's and Baltimore Orioles are one species or two goes to the very heart of what defines a species," said lead author Jennifer Walsh, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cornell Lab. "For a long time, that definition included the inability of one species to reproduce with any other. Bullock's and Baltimore Orioles clearly can mate where their ranges overlap in the hybrid zone, but that's not the whole story."

The oriole conundrum began with the birds long considered to be two distinct species. But the discovery that they interbreed caused the Bullock's and Baltimore Orioles to be lumped together under the name Northern Oriole in 1983, much to the consternation of birders and some biologists who felt that these birds were each highly distinct. In 1995, the American Ornithological Union reversed course and split them back into their two separate species. According to Cornell Lab researchers, this study may finally settle the lump-or-split debate.

The researchers examined genetic markers from almost 300 orioles (Bullock's, Baltimore, and many hybrids) from the woodlands on the banks of the Platte River in Nebraska and Colorado. They found the oriole hybrid zone has been shrinking since it was first intensively studied in the 1950s. The scientists say if hybridization conferred any survival advantage, the zone would have gotten bigger, with more mixing of genes between the parent species, and more hybrids. Instead, ongoing natural selection pressures are limiting the expansion of the hybrid zone and preventing the homogenization of the two species.

"I call hybrid zones the 'supercolliders of speciation,'" says Irby Lovette, co-author and director of the Lab's Fuller Evolutionary Biology Program. "Through these special matings, genes and traits are mixing and matching in new combinations--all of which helps us learn more about where biodiversity comes from, and therefore how new species arise."

The orioles are not alone in their flexible mating standards--about 10% of the world's bird species hybridize. Hybrid zones exist in the U.S. for Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees, Indigo and Lazuli Buntings, and others. But not all hybrid zones are following the same pattern as that of the orioles. For example, Blue-winged- and Golden-winged Warblers have hybridized so much they may be moving toward a merger of the two species.

"We're learning that hybrid zones are really very dynamic, shifting and changing over time," said study author Shawn Billerman. "That aspect of hybrid zones has become recognized as common and widespread in the past 10 to 20 years with the rapid improvement in genetic sequencing."

Though the scientists feel the one-or-two species matter is probably settled, there are other questions they want to pursue. Their next steps are to identify the specific factors that are limiting oriole hybrid expansion, sequence the entire genome for both Bullock's and Baltimore Orioles, and determine the specific genes that cause differences in the appearance and behavior of the two orioles.

Traditional single-cell sequencing methods help to reveal insights about cellular differences and functions - but they do this with static snapshots only rather than time-lapse films. This limitation makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the dynamics of cell development and gene activity. The recently introduced method "RNA velocity" aims to reconstruct the developmental trajectory of a cell on a computational basis (leveraging ratios of unspliced and spliced transcripts). This method, however, is applicable to steady-state populations only. Researchers were therefore looking for ways to extend the concept of RNA velocity to dynamic populations which are of crucial importance to understand cell development and disease response.

Single-cell velocity

Researchers from the Institute of Computational Biology at Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Department of Mathematics at TUM developed "scVelo" (single-cell velocity). The method estimates RNA velocity with an AI-based model by solving the full gene-wise transcriptional dynamics. This allows them to generalize the concept of RNA velocity to a wide variety of biological systems including dynamic populations.

"We have used scVelo to reveal cell development in the endocrine pancreas, in the hippocampus, and to study dynamic processes in lung regeneration - and this is just the beginning", says Volker Bergen, main creator of scVelo and first author of the corresponding study in Nature Biotechnology.

With scVelo researchers can estimate reaction rates of RNA transcription, splicing and degradation without the need of any experimental data. These rates can help to better understand the cell identity and phenotypic heterogeneity. Their introduction of a latent time reconstructs the unknown developmental time to position the cells along the trajectory of the underlying biological process. That is particularly useful to better understand cellular decision making. Moreover, scVelo reveals regulatory changes and putative driver genes therein. This helps to understand not only how but also why cells are developing the way they do.

Empowering personalized treatments

AI-based tools like scVelo give rise to personalized treatments. Going from static snapshots to full dynamics allows researchers to move from descriptive towards predictive models. In the future, this might help to better understand disease progression such as tumor formation, or to unravel cell signaling in response to cancer treatment.

"scVelo has been downloaded almost 60.000 times since its release last year. It has become a stepping-stone tooltowards the kinetic foundation for single-cell transcriptomics", adds Prof. Fabian Theis, who conceived the study and serves as Director at the Institute for Computational Biology at Helmholtz Zentrums München and Chair for Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems at TUM.

“Recognizing and Treating COPD in Older Adults," the latest issue of the What’s Hot newsletter from The Gerontological Society of America, addresses what is known about the prevalence, incidence, and impact of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in older adults.

Despite high incidence of COPD — as many as 30 million Americans are affected — many patients are not diagnosed, according to the publication. This occurs for multiple reasons, including poor awareness of symptoms among patients and providers, low suspicion of disease, and inadequate reimbursement for diagnostic tests.

Once diagnosed, patients face further challenges with a multitude of treatment options and devices, inadequate patient education to manage their condition, exacerbations, and disparate perceptions between patients and providers of what is most important to address in treatment plans.

“This publication provides insight on improving our understanding of COPD, enhancing the tools available to health care professionals in diagnosing and managing the illness, and raising awareness of the impact of COPD in older adults,” said Barbara Yawn, MD, MSc, who served on the advisory board that oversaw the new What’s Hot.

COPD is defined by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) as “a common, preventable, and treatable disease that is characterized by persistent respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation that is due to airway and/or alveolar abnormalities usually caused by significant exposure to noxious particles or gases and influenced by host factors, including abnormal lung development.”

COPD is more common in older adults, but underdiagnosis may occur because they think that shortness of breath or other symptoms are a normal sign of aging, and do not mention these symptoms to their health care providers. But outcomes can be improved with appropriate reporting of symptoms, screening, and treatment. The What’s Hot also indicates that COPD has well-established guidelines for management of the disease, but greater awareness and adherence to guidelines among health care providers is needed as well.

The publication further summarizes the symptoms and differential diagnoses for the disease and identifies additional reasons for underdiagnosis in older adults. Treatment options following GOLD guidelines are explained, along with steps to improve the process of diagnosis and treatment.

“Preventive measures are effective for helping people avoid COPD,” Yawn said. “Early diagnosis and optimal management through pulmonary rehabilitation, immunizations, smoking cessation support, behavioral changes, oxygen therapy when needed, management of associated comorbidities, and pharmacotherapy will enable people with COPD to improve symptoms, increase functional capacity, and live life to its fullest.”

Support for the new What’s Hot was provided by GSK.

Dingoes have gotten around 6-9 per cent bigger over the past 80 years, new research from UNSW and the University of Sydney shows – but the growth is only happening in areas where poison baiting is used.

The findings, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society over the weekend, compared the sizes of dingoes that lived in three baited regions (Kalgoorlie, Pilbara and pastoral South Australia), with those from an unbaited region that stretched from Northern Territory to South Australia.

The scientists measured the skull size – which is a marker of animal size – of nearly 600 dingo specimens originating from the sites.

“Skulls from the baited regions grew by about four millimetres since poison baiting was introduced,” says Michael Letnic, lead author of the paper and professor in conservation biology and ecosystem restoration at UNSW Science.

“This equates to roughly a kilogram in body mass.”

While both male and female dingoes grew, female dingoes had the biggest growth spurt: their skulls increased by 4.5 millimetres, which is almost 9 per cent body mass. Male skulls grew by 3.6 millimetres, or 6 per cent body mass.

The question is: why are dingoes in poison-baited areas growing?

“The most likely theory is that dingoes who survive baiting campaigns have less competition for food,” says co-author Associate Professor Mathew Crowther from the University of Sydney.

He explains that dingoes’ primary prey, kangaroos, have been shown to increase in numbers when dingo populations are suppressed.

“With more food in abundance, dingoes’ physical growth is less restricted.”

The pesticide sodium fluoroacetate – known as 1080 (pronounced ‘ten eighty’) – is commonly used across Australia to control dingo and other pest populations.

A flavourless white powder, 1080 is usually stuck into meat baits and left in dingo hotspots, often via helicopter drops. Baiting was rolled out in Kalgoorlie, Pilbara and pastoral South Australia over the 1960s and 70s.

Dingoes from the unbaited region – which included Indigenous-owned lands and conservation reserves – saw no change in body size.

A predictable cycle

This is not the first time a pesticide has been linked to changes in animal bodies.

“Our interventions have consequences – and they're actually quite predictable consequences,” says Prof. Letnic.

“Whatever pressures we put on animal populations – be it pesticides or not – there will be side effects.”

Scientists usually observe these impacts in invertebrate pests: for example, some insects – like cockroaches – are becoming more resistant to the insecticides used on them.

However, this study is one of the first to show that vertebrates, like dingoes, also change from pesticide use.

“Poison baiting campaigns could be favouring the survival of larger dingoes,” says A/Prof. Crowther. “Smaller dingoes need less poison for a lethal dose, so are more likely to be killed by baiting. This leaves the larger dingoes to survive and breed.”

As a result of their growing size, the 1080 dose required to kill a dingo in the baited regions has increased since the toxin was introduced.

“The reaction to this finding may be to add more poison to the baits, or to find a new poison,” says Prof. Letnic. “But, eventually, the cycle will start again.”

Looking for an explanation

The exact mechanisms at play are still unclear – but a greater abundance of food post-baiting and dingoes adapting to the poison are likely the most influential factors.

Other factors that could have potentially led to the dingoes’ growth, like climate change or interbreeding with dogs, seem unlikely.

“We only tested dingoes in areas that have very low dog hybridisation rates, making it highly unlikely that dog genetics are contributing to the size growth,” says Prof. Letnic. Most dingo-dog hybridisation, he explains, occurs on the east coast of Australia.

The researchers also suggest that – if anything – a warming climate would decrease dingoes’ body size, as cooler conditions favour larger animals.

Further studies that use a broader sample of dingoes from across Australia could help better understand the cause of the dingo body change.

In the meantime, the researchers hope to explore other ecological impacts of 1080 baiting.

“Baiting is changing dingoes, so it could be changing other animal populations,” says Prof. Letnic.

“Animals respond to human interventions, whether directly or indirectly. The changes could well be adaptive, and we must think about that.”

Journal

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

DOI

10.1093/biolinnean/blaa084

Encouraging paid workers to employ the 'right kind' of respectful personal relationship with young people with disability will lift standards in the sector, experts say.

With good quality relationships, children and young adults with cognitive disability feel "valued, respected and cared about" in their daily lives and, in turn, give carers more job satisfaction and self-respect, international researchers say in a new paper published in the international Disability & Society journal.

The in-depth study of 42 pairs of Australian support workers and young people with disability, led by Flinders University Professor Sally Robinson, recommends a personal care system that focuses on high-quality personalised care which builds "self-esteem, confidence and self-respect" in the young person, as well as the support worker.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) can provide increased flexibility by funding people with disability to choose their own care package.

Lead researcher, Flinders Professor of Disability and Community Inclusion Sally Robinson, says there is a pressing need to be able to monitor and support relationships in a strategic and concerted way as support relationships move into increasingly devolved spaces of care under individualised funding policies such as the NDIS.

"It's a significant and responsible relationship between paid carers and people with disability. It must be a mutually beneficial situation, and one the NDIS care packages can do well with proper guidelines," Professor Robinson says.

"Caring is only part of the job; respect and valuing the person with disability - to help them realise their capabilities and other needs - must be enhanced by training and leadership from provider organisations employing support workers in our community.

"Careful consideration needs to be given to personal care relationships and how the experience of mutual recognition shapes the identity of people with disability and the professional self-concept of support workers", she says.

The "dire circumstances" of poor quality of care relationships has come under more scrutiny during COVID-19 social isolation, adds UNSW Sydney co-author Professor Karen Fisher.

"This research found that supporting workers to value the contributions of people with disability in the same way as they treat other people is a protective mechanism for them both."

In some versions of the game blackjack, one way to win against the house is for players at the table to work as a team to keep track of and covertly communicate amongst each other the cards they have been dealt. With that knowledge, they can then estimate the cards still in the deck, and those most likely to be dealt out next, all to help each player decide how to place their bets, and as a team, gain an advantage over the dealer.

This calculating strategy, known as card-counting, was made famous by the MIT Blackjack Team, a group of students from MIT, Harvard University, and Caltech, who for several decades starting in 1979, optimized card-counting and other techniques to successfully beat casinos at blackjack around the world -- a story that later inspired the book "Bringing Down the House."

Now researchers at MIT and Caltech have shown that the weird, quantum effects of entanglement could theoretically give blackjack players even more of an edge, albeit a small one, when playing against the house.

In a paper published this week in the journal Physical Review A, the researchers lay out a theoretical scenario in which two players, playing cooperatively against the dealer, can better coordinate their strategies using a quantumly entangled pair of systems. Such systems exist now in the laboratory, although not in forms convenient for any practical use in casinos. In their study, the authors nevertheless explore the theoretical possibilities for how a quantum system might influence outcomes in blackjack.

They found that such quantum communication would give the players a slight advantage compared to classical card-counting strategies, though in limited situations where the number of cards left in the dealer's deck is low.

"It's pretty small in terms of the actual magnitude of the expected quantum advantage," says first author Joseph Lin, a former graduate student at MIT. "But if you imagine the players are extremely rich, and the deck is really low in number, so that every card counts, these small advantages can be big. The exciting result is that there's some advantage to quantum communication, regardless of how small it is."

Lin's MIT co-authors on the paper are professor of physics Joseph Formaggio, associate professor of physics Aram Harrow, and Anand Natarajan of Caltech, who will start at MIT in September as assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science.

Quantum dealings

Entanglement is a phenomenon described by the rules of quantum mechanics, which states that two physically separate objects can be "entangled," or correlated with each other, in such a way that the correlations between them are stronger than what would be predicted by the classical laws of physics and probability.

In 1964, physicist John Bell proved mathematically that quantum entanglement could exist, and also devised a test -- known a Bell test -- that scientists have since applied to many scenarios to ascertain if certain spatially remote particles or systems behave according to classical, real-world physics, or whether they may exhibit some quantum, entangled states.

"One motivation for this work was as a concrete realization of the Bell test," says Harrow of the team's new paper. "People wrote the rules of blackjack not thinking of entanglement. But the players are dealt cards, and there are some correlations between the cards they get. So does entanglement work here? The answer to the question was not obvious going into it."

After casually entertaining the idea during a regular poker night with friends, Formaggio decided to explore the possibility of quantum blackjack more formally with his MIT colleagues.

"I was grateful to them for not laughing and closing the door on me when I brought up the idea," Formaggio recalls.

Correlated cards

In blackjack, the dealer deals herself and each player a face-up card that is public to all, and a face-down card. With this information, each player decides whether to "hit," and be dealt another card, or "stand," and stay with the cards they have. The goal after one round is to have a hand with a total that is closer to 21, without going over, than the dealer and the other players at the table.

In their paper, the researchers simulated a simple blackjack setup involving two players, Alice and Bob, playing cooperatively against the dealer. They programmed Alice to consistently bet low, with the main objective of helping Bob, who could hit or stand based on any information he gained from Alice.

The researchers considered how three different scenarios might help the players win over the dealer: a classical card-counting scenario without communication; a best-case scenario in which Alice simply shows Bob her face-down card, demonstrating the best that a team can do in playing against the dealer; and lastly, a quantum entanglement scenario.

In the quantum scenario, the researchers formulated a mathematical model to represent a quantum system, which can be thought of abstractedly as a box with many "buttons," or measurement choices, that is shared between Alice and Bob.

For instance, if Alice's face-down card is a 5, she can push a particular button on the quantum box and use its output to inform her usual choice of whether to hit or stand. Bob, in turn, looks at his face-down card when deciding which button to push on his quantum box, as well as whether to use the box at all. In the cases where Bob uses his quantum box, he can combine its output with his observation of Alice's strategy to decide his own move. This extra information -- not exactly the value of Alice's card, but more information than a random guess -- can help Bob decide whether to hit or stand.

The researchers ran all three scenarios, with many combinations of cards between each player and the dealer, and with increasing number of cards left in the dealer's deck, to see how often Alice and Bob could win against the dealer.

After running thousands of rounds for each of the three scenarios, they found that the players had a slight advantage over the dealer in the quantum entanglement scenario, compared with the classical card-counting strategy, though only when a handful of cards were left in the dealer's deck.

"As you increase the deck and therefore increase all the possibilities of different cards coming to you, the fact that you know a little bit more through this quantum process actually gets diluted," Formaggio explains.

Nevertheless, Harrow notes that "it was surprising that these problems even matched, that it even made sense to consider entangled strategy in blackjack."

Do these results mean that future blackjack teams might use quantum strategies to their advantage?

"It would require a very large investor, and my guess is, carrying a quantum computer in your backpack will probably tip the house," Formaggio says. "We think casinos are safe right now from this particular threat."

A current problem for a wide range of chemists is when stirring a solution in the laboratory there is a need to check the properties of the solution and monitor how they change.

In the paper, 'Monitoring chemistry in situ with the Smart Stirrer --a magnetic stirrer bar with an integrated process monitoring system' published in the journal ACS Sensors, researchers from the School of Engineering, the Mathematics Institute and WMG at the University of Warwick present their innovative stirrer sensor.

The small device, called "Smart Stirrer", performed a function of a conventional laboratory stir bar, has an integrated microprocessor and various sensors capable of wireless and autonomous report the conversion of properties of a solution. The advanced sensor stir bar is a capsule shaped magnet encased in plastic.

A beaker filled with a solution is placed on a platform that generates a rotating magnetic field, when the magnetic stirrer is placed in the solution it continuously rotates stirring the liquid.

The Smart Stirrer then monitors:

- Colour

- Transparency

- Conductivity

- Viscosity

- Temperature

Results are sent to a computer over Bluetooth, and any changes notify the user wirelessly. Although the idea of using magnetic stir bar with integrated sensors may not be entirely new, this new affordable, multi-sensor and easy programmable stirrer sensor device is first in its kind.

The concept is valuable to Research and Design laboratories and pharmaceutical and chemistry manufacturing industries because it allows wireless monitoring of several parameters of a chemical reaction simultaneously

Dr Dmitry Isakov, from WMG at the University who led the study comments:

"We are still continuing research into the stirrer, the next revision of the stirrer sensor that will be smaller size and with a bit more sophisticated sensors. We are collaborating with several chemists from Warwick University. This will help us to understand their needs and help to improve the device.

"The beauty of the Smart Stirrer is that it can be used everywhere, such as a sealed vessels thus minimising the contamination of the reactor. It may give a push to new discoveries as well. It is easy to integrate the stirrer into the labware family and make it "speak" to other lab equipment."

Samuel Baldwin, from the Mathematics institute at the University of Warwick worked on the smart stirrer during his WMG summer internship, he comments:

"I have found every stage of development of the Smart Stirrer to be very fulfilling, from circuit design, to manufacturing to finally programming. We have leveraged state-of-the-art technology to build a device with very low power consumption, a broad range of sensor capabilities, and high data-throughput over the Bluetooth Low Energy platform.

"The laboratory of the future is that of automation, reproducibility and safety; our all-in-one Smart Stirrer device eliminates the need for a vast array of individual wired sensors whilst maintaining the control and customisability that one would expect from any piece of advanced laboratory equipment. I look forward to seeing the Smart Stirrer solve laboratory problems and help us understand complex reactions."

A research team led by Prof. SHANG Zhaohui from National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) has proved that Dome A in Antarctica is the best site for optical astronomical observation on Earth. The study was published in Nature on July 29.

Seeing reflects the atmospheric turbulence that makes stars twinkle or smears star images observed by telescopes. At an observatory with good seeing, weak turbulence results in a smaller seeing value and sharper images. This is especially good for viewing faint objects. A small-aperture telescope at such a site can compete with a larger one at other sites.

Due to the geographic and atmospheric properties at Dome A, atmosphere turbulence usually resides in the near-ground, shallow boundary layer, above which is the very stable free atmosphere with superb seeing.

The researchers reported a seeing measurement as good as 0.13 arcseconds and a median free-atmosphere seeing of 0.31 arcseconds, measured with instruments on an 8-m-high tower.

Currently, the best telescopes are located at good sites in Hawaii and Northern Chile, with seeing in the range of 0.6 to 0.8 arcseconds. It is clear that Dome A has the potential to host a good astronomical observatory.

In addition, the median boundary layer thickness is about 14m at Dome A, compared to 30m at Dome C in Antarctica, making Dome A more feasible and cost-efficient for future construction.

Dome A is the highest place on the polar ice cap, with an altitude of 4093m. Kunlun Station is the only station there, but has not yet been developed into a winterover station. Therefore, the team had to design and build unattended instruments to cope with temperatures as low as -80? and frosting problems.

The research team developed the instrument KL-DIMM independently, and participated in the 35th Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE) in November 2018 to the inland Kunlun Station. Two redundant KL-DIMMs started to take data in January 2019. They worked fully automatically through winter and obtained precious nighttime seeing measurement data.

Dome A was first visited by humans in January 2005 via overland traverse from Zhongshan Station by the 21st CHINARE. CHINARE is managed and carried out by the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CAA) and the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC), and has consistently supported the astronomy program at Dome A.

The combination of high altitude, low temperature, long periods of continuous darkness, and an exceptionally stable superb seeing makes Dome A a very attractive location for optical and infrared astronomy.

Whether in flood early-warning systems or in agriculture - rainfall measurements are of great importance. However, there is a lack of accurate data for many regions in the world due to the fact that comprehensive measurements have so far been too expensive. This could change with a new method that has just passed its practical test. Researchers at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) and the University of Augsburg have succeeded in utilizing the commercial microwave link network (CML) operated by mobile network providers for Germany-wide rainfall measurements. This new technology is now planned to be used in West Africa. The team published their results in the scientific journals Hydrology and Earth System Sciences and Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Rain can significantly impair the performance of a mobile network. But a phenomenon that can cause headaches for telecommunications companies is a stroke of luck for meteorological research: "We have developed a completely new method for rain measurement from this interaction between weather events and human technology," says Professor Harald Kunstmann from the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research - Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), the so-called Campus Alpin of KIT. "If a commercial microwave link network (CML) is in place, we neither need a new infrastructure nor additional ground staff." Together with scientists from the University of Augsburg, his KIT team now succeeded in performing the first Germany-wide rainfall measurement with the new method: They were able to derive rainfall maps with high temporal resolution based on the attenuation of the CMLs between several thousand of mobile phone masts that is caused by precipitation. "A comparison with the measurements of the German Meteorological Service shows that we have achieved a high degree of correlation," explains Maximilian Graf, member of the research team.

Improved accuracy thanks to artificial intelligence (AI)

Precipitation could be determined thanks to the CML antennas installed in mobile phone masts for signal transmission over long distances. "A frequency of 15 to 40 gigahertz is used here. Its wavelength corresponds to the typical size of raindrops," explains Dr. Christian Chwala who coordinates this research work at the University of Augsburg. "Increasing precipitation weakens the signal that radio masts use to exchange information. Over one year, we measured the current attenuation obtained from 4,000 CMLs with a temporal resolution of 1 minute. The resulting data set is unique in its resolution and enormous size."

Besides the classical methods of data analysis, the researchers used artificial intelligence (AI) to filter the rain signal from the noisy measurement results. "Other factors, such as wind or the sun, can also cause a slight attenuation of the signal. With the help of our AI, we were able to identify the signal attenuation that was due to rainfall," says Julius Polz, another scientist from the research group. "We have now trained our AI in such a way that we no longer need to calibrate the system using traditional methods of rain measurement." Thus, it is suitable for application in regions without significant rainfall measurements that could be considered for AI training, such as West Africa.

Planned use in West Africa

For Germany, however, the method works mainly in spring, summer, and fall. "This is because sleet and freezing rain cause a higher attenuation than liquid precipitation, and snow cannot be measured with the CML network at all," explains Harald Kunstmann. Several projects are currently underway where the researchers will measure rainfall using CMLs, with one particular focus on Germany, in cooperation with the German Meteorological Service and the Office for the Environment of the state of Saxony. In the course of the summer, further projects will start in the Czech Republic and in Burkina Faso, where a nationwide collection of CML data is to be established for the first time in Africa.

Nobody can shoot a pistol bullet through a banana in such a way that the skin is perforated but the banana remains intact. However, on the level of individual atomic layers, such a feat has now been achieved - a nano-structuring method has been developed at TU Wien (Vienna), with which certain layers of material can be perforated extremely precisely and others left completely untouched, even though the projectile penetrates all layers.
This is made possible with the help of highly charged ions. They can be used to selectively process the surfaces of novel 2D material systems, for example to anchor certain metals on them, which can then serve as catalysts. The new method has now been published in the journal ACS Nano.

New materials from ultra-thin layers

Materials that are composed of several ultra-thin layers are regarded as an exciting new field of materials research. Ever since the high-performance material graphene was first produced, which consists of only a single layer of carbon atoms, many new thin-film materials have been developed, often with promising new properties.

"We investigated a combination of graphene and molybdenum disulfide. The two layers of material are brought into contact and then adhere to each other by weak van der Waals forces," says Dr. Janine Schwestka from the Institute of Applied Physics at TU WIen and first author of the current publication. "Graphene is a very good conductor, molybdenum disulphide is a semiconductor, and the combination could be interesting for the production of new types of data storage devices."

For certain applications, however, the geometry of the material needs to be specifically processed on a scale of nanometres - for example, in order to change the chemical properties by adding additional types of atoms or to control the optical properties of the surface. "There are different methods for this," explains Janine Schwestka. "You may modify the surfaces with an electron beam or with a conventional ion beam. With a two-layer system, however, there is always the problem that the beam affects both layers at the same time, even if only one of them is supposed to be modified.

Two kinds of energy.

When an ion beam is used to treat a surface, it is usually the force of the impact of the ions that affects the material. At TU Wien, however, relatively slow ions are used, which are multiply charged. "Two different forms of energy must be distinguished here," explains Prof. Richard Wilhelm. "On the one hand, there is the kinetic energy, which depends on the speed at which the ions impact on the surface. On the other hand, there is the potential energy, which is determined by the electric charge of the ions. With conventional ion beams, the kinetic energy plays the decisive role, but for us the potential energy is particularly important."

There is an important difference between these two forms of energy: While the kinetic energy is released in both material layers when penetrating the layer system, the potential energy can be distributed very unevenly among the layers: "The molybdenum disulfide reacts very strongly to the highly charged ions," says Richard Wilhelm. "A single ion arriving at this layer can remove dozens or hundreds of atoms from the layer. What remains is a hole, which can be seen very clearly under an electron microscope." The graphene layer, on the other hand, which the projectile hits immediately afterwards, remains intact: most of the potential energy has already been released.

The same experiment can also be reversed, so that the highly charged ion first hits the graphene and only then the molybdenum disulphide layer. In this case, both layers remain intact: the graphene provides the ion with the electrons necessary to neutralize it electrically in a tiny fraction of a second. The mobility of the electrons in the graphene is so high that the point of impact also "cools down" immediately. The ion crosses the graphene layer without leaving a permanent trace. Afterwards, it can no longer cause much damage in the molybdenum disulphide layer.

"This provides us now with a wonderful new method for manipulating surfaces in a targeted manner," says Richard Wilhelm. "We can add nano-pores to surfaces without damaging the substrate material underneath. This allows us to create geometric structures that were previously impossible." In this way, one could create "masks" from molybdenum disulfide perforated exactly as desired, on which certain metal atoms are then deposited. This opens up completely new possibilities for controlling the chemical, electronic and optical properties of the surface.

"We are very pleased that our excellent collaborations via the TU Doctoral College TU-D were able to contribute significantly to these results," says Janine Schwestka, who was a member of the TU-D for more than three years. "In addition, it distinguishes Vienna as a location for science and research that we were able to establish contacts with the University of Vienna through short distances in order to deepen our joint expertise and complement each other methodically".

Gales and rainstorms brought by landfalling typhoons cause extensive casualties and losses of property every year in many coastal areas of the western Pacific. As such, predicting the track and precipitation of typhoons has always been a top priority of weather forecasting. The structural characteristics of the typhoon and the state of the surrounding environment will directly affect the development trend and track of the typhoon. Therefore, it is of great significance to update and correct the temperature, humidity, wind field, and other information relating to the typhoon and the surrounding area in a timely manner when forecasting typhoons.

Lu Zhang, Xiangjun Tian, and their team with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, analyzed a typical typhoon--Typhoon Haikui (2012)--and used the multigrid NLS-4DVar method without tangent linear and adjoint models to assimilate Doppler radar data.

"We analyzed and discussed the predictions of typhoon structure, track, and precipitation," says Tian, "and we found that after assimilating radar data the intensity of the typhoon was closer to the observations."

According to their study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, after the adjustment and improvement of the typhoon structure, the accuracies of the 12-h track and accumulated precipitation forecasts were significantly improved. In addition, the introduction of the multigrid strategy in the assimilation method also improved the efficiency.

"Our study provides a new assimilation method for the efficient assimilation of a large number of radar data," says Tian. "We hope it will help improve the accuracy of small- and medium-scale weather forecasts in numerical weather forecasting."

Sophia Antipolis, 3 August 2020: Women in their 30s and 40s with a common condition affecting how the ovaries work are more likely to get heart disease. That's the finding of a study published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1

"Polycystic ovary syndrome isn't a life sentence - there are many ways to stay heart healthy," said study author Dr. Clare Oliver-Williams of the University of Cambridge, UK. "Small changes add up, like eating more fruits and vegetables and doing more exercise."

It is estimated that 6-20% of women of reproductive age have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).2 Features of the condition include multiple cysts (fluid-filled sacs) on the ovaries, irregular periods, excess body hair or hair loss from the head due to high levels of male hormones, and difficulty becoming pregnant.

Women with PCOS are more likely to be overweight or obese, have diabetes, and have high blood pressure - all risk factors for heart disease and stroke.

This study examined whether this risky profile translates into a greater likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease - and, for the first time, whether that persists across the lifespan. Dr. Oliver-Williams explained: "Some PCOS symptoms are only present during the reproductive years, so it's possible that the raised chance of heart disease might disappear later in life."

The study included 60,574 women receiving treatment to help them get pregnant, such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), from 1994 to 2015. Of those, 6,149 (10.2%) had PCOS. The researchers used medical records to follow the women for nine years. During that period, 2,925 (4.8%) women developed cardiovascular disease.

Overall, women with PCOS were at 19% higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease than women who did not have PCOS.

When divided into age groups, women with PCOS aged 50 and over did not have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular risk compared to their peers without PCOS.

Women in their 30s and 40s with PCOS were at greater risk of cardiovascular disease compared to those without PCOS. The evidence in those under 30 was less clear; this is likely because there were insufficient women of that age in the dataset to identify the risk.

Dr. Oliver-Williams said: "Heart health appears to be a particular problem for young women with PCOS. This may be because they are more likely to be overweight and have high blood pressure and diabetes compared to their peers. Previous studies have suggested that these differences diminish with age. In other words, as women without PCOS get older, they increasingly become overweight and develop high blood pressure and diabetes. In a negative sense, they catch up to their peers with PCOS."

She encouraged young women with PCOS to stay positive: "PCOS can be a distressing condition. Not just because it can affect fertility. The physical effects can cause anxiety and depression. There's so much pressure on young women to achieve what we're told is the physical ideal. It takes age and time to embrace yourself and getting support from others is a vital step, so reach out if you need it."

"Knowledge is power and being aware of the heart risks means women with PCOS can do something about it," said Dr. Oliver-Williams. "Women with PCOS have been dealt a tough hand but this is about how these women play their cards. There are fantastic PCOS support groups where they can find out what has helped others with PCOS lose weight, get more exercise, and have a healthier diet."

She noted that the study only included Scandinavian women taking fertility treatment and caution is needed when extending the findings to other groups.

Parasites have a public relations problem.

Unlike the many charismatic mammals, fishes and birds that receive our attention (and our conservation dollars), parasites are thought of as something to eradicate -- and certainly not something to protect.

But only 4% of known parasites can infect humans, and the majority actually serve critical ecological roles, like regulating wildlife that might otherwise balloon in population size and become pests. Still, only about 10% of parasites have been identified and, as a result, they are mostly left out of conservation activities and research.

An international group of scientists wants to change that. About a dozen leading parasite ecologists, including University of Washington's Chelsea Wood, published a paper Aug. 1 in the journal Biological Conservation, which lays out an ambitious global conservation plan for parasites.

"Parasites are an incredibly diverse group of species, but as a society, we do not recognize this biological diversity as valuable," said Wood, an assistant professor in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. "The point of this paper is to emphasize that we are losing parasites and the functions they serve without even recognizing it."

The authors propose 12 goals for the next decade that could advance parasite biodiversity conservation through a mix of research, advocacy and management.

"Even though we know little to nothing about most parasite species, we can still take action now to conserve parasite biodiversity," said Skylar Hopkins, paper and project co-lead and an assistant professor at North Carolina State University.

Perhaps the most ambitious goal is to describe half of the world's parasites within the next 10 years. Providing taxonomic descriptions allow species to be named, which is an important part of the conservation process, the researchers said.

"If species don't have a name, we can't save them," said Colin Carlson, the other project co-lead and an assistant professor at Georgetown University. "We've accepted that for decades about most animals and plants, but scientists have only discovered a fraction of a percentage of all the parasites on the planet. Those are the last frontiers: the deep sea, deep space, and the world that's living inside every species on Earth."

Importantly, the researchers stress that none of the parasites that infect humans or domesticated animals are included in their conservation plan. They say these parasites should be controlled to safeguard human and animal health.

The paper is part of an entire special edition devoted to parasite conservation. Wood is the lead author on one study in the collection that finds the responses of parasites to environmental change are likely to be complex, and that a changing world probably will see both outbreaks of some parasites and a total loss of other parasite species.

"We need to recognize that there will be a diversity of responses among parasite taxa and not take for granted that every parasite is dwindling toward extinction or about to cause a major outbreak," Wood said.

Parasites often need two or more host species to complete their lifecycle. For example, some parasites first infect fish or amphibians, but ultimately must get transmitted to birds to reproduce and multiply. They ensure that this happens through ingenious ways, Wood explained, often by manipulating the behavior or even the anatomy of their first host to make these fish or amphibians more susceptible to being eaten by birds. In this way, the parasite then gets transmitted to a bird -- its ultimate destination.

Given this dynamic, Wood and colleagues wanted to see what would happen to the abundance of parasites if the ecosystems in which they live changed. They designed an experiment across 16 ponds in central California's East Bay region. In half of the ponds, they installed structures such as bird houses, floating perches and mallard decoys intended to attract more birds, thus temporarily altering the natural ecosystem and boosting biodiversity in these ponds.

After a couple of years, the researchers analyzed parasite biodiversity in each of the 16 ponds. What they found was a mixed bag: Some parasite species responded to elevated bird biodiversity by declining in abundance. But other parasites actually increased in number when bird biodiversity increased. The authors concluded that as biodiversity changes -- due to climate change, development pressure or other reasons -- we can expect to see divergent responses by parasites, even those living within the same ecosystem.

Traditionally, the field of disease ecology assumes one of two paths: That we are either heading toward a future of more disease and massive outbreaks or toward a future of parasite extinction. This paper shows that both trajectories are happening simultaneously, Wood explained.

"This particular experiment suggests that we need to anticipate both trajectories going forward. It starts to resolve the conflict in the literature by showing that everyone is right -- it's all happening," Wood said. "The trick now is to figure out what traits will predict which parasites will decline and which will increase in response to biodiversity loss."

Wood's lab is working on that question now by reconstructing the history of parasites over time, documenting which parasites increased in abundance and which declined. However, there's almost no historical record of parasites and without this information, it's difficult to know how to conserve them. By dissecting museum specimens of fish, the researchers are identifying and counting various parasites found in the specimens at different places and times.

"These pickled animals are like parasite time capsules," Wood explained. "We can open them up and identify the parasites that infected a fish at its death. In this way, we can reconstruct and resurrect information that previously we didn't think was possible to get."

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Compared with adults, children and adolescents are less sensitive to the sweet taste and need 40% more sucrose in a solution for them to detect the taste of sugar, a new study found.

Along with higher taste-detection thresholds, both children and adolescents prefer significantly more concentrated levels of sweetness than adults.

"Both of these dimensions of sweet-taste perception ­- sensitivity and preference - undergo distinct developmental trajectories from childhood to adulthood," said M. Yanina Pepino, a professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who co-wrote the study. "However, they did so independently, and we found no association between the two."

The study included 108 children, 172 adolescents and 205 adults, who ranged in age from 7-67. The National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association supported the research, conducted at the Monell Center in Philadelphia and Washington University in St. Louis.

Julie A. Mennella of the Monell Chemical Senses Center co-wrote the study, published in the journal Nutrients.

The researchers gave participants different pairs of sugar-water concentrations to taste and measured both the concentration that participants preferred and the lowest concentration at which they could detect the taste of sugar.

"While children's lower sensitivity required higher sucrose concentrations for them to detect the taste, participants' sweet-taste sensitivity did not predict the level of sweetness they preferred," said co-author Julie A. Mennella of the Monell Chemical Senses Center.

"To illustrate these age-related differences in taste sensitivity, we estimated the number of 8-ounce glasses of water in which 4 grams of sucrose - the equivalent of one sugar cube - could be dissolved and participants in each age group could start detecting the sweet taste."

For example, children and adolescents' lower sensitivity means they would only be able to detect the taste if the sugar cube were dissolved in five glasses ­- 40 ounces - of water, but adults would be able to detect it in a less concentrated solution of seven glasses - 56 ounces - of water.

Consistent with prior studies, the researchers found that children preferred more intense sweetness than did adults.

Adults favored levels of sweetness similar to a typical cola soft drink, which contains the equivalent of about eight sugar cubes in an 8-ounce glass of water, Mennella said. Children and adolescents preferred a 50% higher sucrose concentration - equivalent to about 12 sugar cubes in 8 ounces of water.

Published in the journal Nutrients, the study built upon and combined data from the researchers' previous research.

"Using the same sensory evaluation methods we used here to measure sucrose preferences, we found previously that the binding potential of dopamine receptors in the striatum, a brain area that encodes the value of rewards, decreased with age - and predicted, independently of age, the most preferred sucrose concentration in healthy young adults," Pepino said.

The researchers hypothesized that the changes in sucrose taste sensitivity and preferences that occur during adolescence may result from distinct developmental trajectories with different underlying mechanisms.

"For example, developmental changes in taste sensitivity may be secondary to changes in the anatomy of the mouth and saliva composition, whereas changes in sweet-taste preferences may be the consequences of changes in the activity and morphology of the brain reward system," Pepino said.

Texas researchers from the University of Houston, Baylor University and Texas A&M University have discovered evidence for why the earth cooled dramatically 13,000 years ago, dropping temperatures by about 3 degrees Centigrade.

The evidence is buried in a Central Texas cave, where horizons of sediment have preserved unique geochemical signatures from ancient volcanic eruptions -- signatures previously mistaken for extraterrestrial impacts, researchers say.

The resolution to this case of mistaken identity recently was reported in the journal Science Advances.

"This work shows that the geochemical signature associated with the cooling event is not unique but occurred four times between 9,000 and 15,000 years ago," said Alan Brandon, Ph.D., professor of geosciences at University of Houston. "Thus, the trigger for this cooling event didn't come from space. Prior geochemical evidence for a large meteor exploding in the atmosphere instead reflects a period of major volcanic eruptions."

After a volcano erupts, the global spread of aerosols reflects incoming solar radiation away from Earth and may lead to global cooling post eruption for one to five years, depending on the size and timescales of the eruption.

The study indicates that the episode of cooling, scientifically known as the Younger Dryas, was caused by numerous coincident Earth-based processes, not an extraterrestrial impact.

"The Younger Dryas, which occurred about 13,000 years ago, disrupted distinct warming at the end of the last ice age," said co-author Steven Forman, Ph.D., professor of geosciences at Baylor University.

The Earth's climate may have been at a tipping point at the Younger Dryas, possibly from the ice sheet discharge into the North Atlantic Ocean, enhanced snow cover and powerful volcanic eruptions that may have in combination led to intense Northern Hemisphere cooling, Forman said.

"This period of rapid cooling is associated with the extinction of a number of species, including mammoths and mastodons, and coincides with the appearance of early human occupants of the Clovis tradition," said co-author Michael Waters, Ph.D., director of the Center for the First Americans at Texas A&M University.

University of Houston scientists Brandon and doctoral candidate Nan Sun, lead author, accomplished the isotopic analysis of sediments collected from Hall's Cave in the Texas Hill Country. The analysis focused on difficult measurements at the parts per trillion on osmium and levels of highly siderophile elements, which include rare elements like iridium, ruthenium, platinum, palladium and rhenium. The researchers determined the elements in the Texas sediments were not present in the correct relative proportions to have been added by a meteor or asteroid that impacted Earth.

That meant the cooling could not have been caused by an extraterrestrial impact. It had to have been something happening on Earth. But what?

"The signature from the osmium isotope analysis and the relative proportion of the elements matched that previously reported in volcanic gases," Sun said.

Kenneth Befus, Ph.D., volcanologist at Baylor University, added that "these signatures were likely the result of major eruptions across the Northern Hemisphere, including volcanoes in the Aleutians, Cascades and even Europe."

"I was skeptical. We took every avenue we could to come up with an alternative explanation or even avoid this conclusion," Brandon said. "A volcanic eruption had been considered one possible explanation but was generally dismissed because there was no associated geochemical fingerprint."

A volcanic cause for the Younger Dryas is a new, exciting idea, he said. Whether a single major eruption of a volcano could drive the cooling observed, however, is still an open question, the researchers said.

Volcanic eruptions cause their most severe cooling near the source, usually in the year of the eruption, with substantially less cooling in the years after the eruption. The Younger Dryas cooling lasted about 1,200 years, so a sole volcanic eruptive cause is an important initiating factor, but other Earth system changes, such as cooling of the oceans and more snow cover were needed to sustain this colder period, Forman said.

This research underscores that extreme climate variability since the last ice age is attributed to unique Earth-bound drivers rather than extraterrestrial mechanisms. Such insights are important guidance for building better models of past and future climate change.