Earth

A multinational team of researchers from Tohoku University and institutions in the UK, Germany and Switzerland has revealed the magnetic states of nanoscale gyroids, 3D chiral network-like nanostructures. The findings add a new candidate system for research into unconventional information processing and emergent phenomena relevant to spintronics.

Arrays of interacting nanostructures offer the ability to realize unprecedented material properties, as interactions can give rise to new, "emergent" phenomena. In magnetism, such emergent phenomena have so far only been demonstrated in 2D, in artificial spin ices and magnonic crystals. However, progress towards realizing magnetic "metamaterials", which could form the basis of advanced spintronic devices by displaying emergent effects in 3D, has been hampered by two obstacles. The first is the need to fabricate complex 3D building blocks at dimensions smaller than 100 nm (comparable to intrinsic magnetic lengthscales) and the second is the challenge of visualizing their magnetic configurations.

The research team therefore decided to study nanoscale magnetic gyroids, 3D networks composed of 3 connected vertices defined by triads of curved nanowire-like struts (Figure 1). Gyroids have attracted much interest, as despite their complexity they can self-assemble from a carefully formulated combination of polymers, which can be used as a 3D mold or template to form free-standing nanostructures (Figure 2). As the struts connect to form spirals, gyroids have a "handedness" or chirality, and their shape makes magnetic gyroids ideal systems to test predictions of new magnetic properties emerging from curvature. Measurements of the optical properties of gyroids even showed that gyroids can have topological properties, which along with chiral effects are currently the subject of intense study to develop new classes of spintronic devices. However, the magnetic states which might exist in gyroids had not yet been established, leading to the present study.

The researchers produced Ni75Fe25 single-gyroid and double-gyroid (formed from a mirror-image pair of single-gyroids) nanostructures with 11 nm diameter struts and a 42 nm unit cell, via block co-polymer templating and electrodeposition. These dimensions are comparable to domain wall widths and spin wave wavelengths in Ni-Fe. They then imaged the gyroid nanoparticles with off-axis electron holography, which could map the magnetization and stray magnetic field patterns in and around the gyroids' struts with nanometer spatial resolution. Analysis of the patterns with the aid of finite-element micromagnetic simulations revealed a very intricate magnetic state which is overall ferromagnetic but without a unique equilibrium configuration (Figure 3), implying that a magnetic gyroid can adopt a large number of stable states.

"These findings establish magnetic gyroids as a candidate of interest for applications such as reservoir computing and spin-wave logic," said lead author Justin Llandro." The research takes an exciting first step towards 3D nanoscale magnetic metamaterials which can be used to uncover new emergent effects and advance both fundamental and applied spintronics research."

The report 'Advancing the 2030 Agenda in African cities through knowledge co-production', sheds light on what it takes to co-produce urban knowledge through transdisciplinary (TD) research across different scientific disciplines and with societal actors.

It has been drafted by a team of early-career African scientists funded through the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa programme (LIRA2030), which is run by the ISC together with the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) and with the financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

By sharing initial findings from some of the programme's research projects, the report provides concrete examples of how scientists, communities and policy-makers are working together to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Africa's cities.

"Africa is urbanizing at an unprecedented level, raising some of the biggest challenges but also offering enormous opportunities for advancing equitable, sustainable development on the continent and globally. Responding with impact to those opportunities will require the effective mobilization of diverse types of knowledge and the integration of such knowledge in decision-making and practice at all levels of governance. The LIRA projects presented in this report demonstrate the value of cross-sectoral dialogue, learning, and action for advancing transformative change in African cities. Investing in a new generation of African scientific leaders to take this work forward is imperative."

Heide Hackmann, Chief Executive Officer of the International Science Council.

"Capacity building and learning is a lifelong venture. It involves not just learning new things or new ways of doing the same things, but also 'unlearning' old ways of doing things. This report reminds us that time has come to put that capacity into practice by unlearning conventional ways of doing science in Africa. Through transdisciplinarity, our early career scientists were able to move research from the lab into new spaces of policy and society. They co-produced knowledge with communities and policymakers to become relevant actors of social change in Africa's urbanization narrative. Now that's impact!"

Jackie Kado, Executive Director of NASAC.

Released as the world is facing an unprecedented global pandemic, the report sheds light on the kind of research and action needed to better address complex threats.

"Societal challenges - and today, the COVID19 pandemic - call upon us to bring down the walls that have long separated the different tribes of science, policy and practice, to talk to each other without pride or prejudice and to back up policy decisions with evidence and data, if we are to address the unique speed of unfolding global challenges together. This path-breaking report contains projects that have enabled researchers in and from Africa to transition from focusing on individual excellence in scientific research to believing in bridging different sources of knowledge for deeper engagement with societal challenges, so that we can lead the shift to universities as problem-solvers, and to bring about social change in our cities."

Kareem Buyana, Makerere University, Uganda, and a co-author of the report.

"The greatest value of the TD approach to my research has been re-centring "service" as the raison d'être of science, be that service to practice or service to our collective societal imagination. By recognizing that diverse sources of expertise are often rendered invisible, the TD approach has challenged conventional wisdom, pushing boundaries to develop innovative new methodologies and partnerships that are inclusive and equitable, and which contribute contextually relevant knowledge. The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the realities of health inequalities and poor resilience in cities across the world. It has highlighted the short-sightedness of failure to consider the implications of the cities we build for the health of people and planet. The responses to this pandemic have also shown the importance of integrating context for the effective implementation of public health control measures. By increasing the pool of researchers trained on TD approaches, it is my hope that science and societal leaders of tomorrow will be better positioned to integrate the diverse knowledge sources and systems into strategies to prevent and address the complex global challenges that lie ahead."

Tolu Oni, University of Cambridge, UK, and a co-author of the report.

However, the report emphasizes that a number of fundamental shifts in practices of academic and funding institutions are required in order to enable scientists in Africa to respond to the challenges and opportunities of sustainable urban development. Most importantly, it concludes that the building of scientific capacity, especially of the next generation of scholars, to co-produce knowledge on sustainable urban development must be an ongoing, long-term process, with flexible funding mechanisms and appropriate recognition for researchers involved.

The report is available to download open access here: https://council.science/publications/advancing-the-2030-agenda-in-african-cities-through-knowledge-co-production-2/

Researchers have provided detailed insights and recommendations to help one of the UK's largest police forces recognise, report and analyse instances of violence from children towards parents.

Northumbria Police commissioned a study to improve its understanding of the concept of child to parent violence and the associated risk, following a domestic homicide review of a case involving a mother and son.

At the time of this case, the young person involved was 16 years old, which meant the mother's death was classed as domestic abuse. However, risks in cases such as this are usually present for many months or years before. Agencies need to act on this behaviour when it is first brought to their attention and work in partnership with others to minimise the long-term impact on families.

Researchers from Northumbria University and the Children's Emotional Language and Thinking (CEL&T) organisation began working with Northumbria Police in 2018 to research what is often called Childhood Challenging Violent or Aggressive Behaviour (CCVAB).

The study aimed to explore better ways to understand child to parent violence and highlight the need to formally recognise this within law enforcement and social services. Their aim was to develop new ways to prevent such abuse in the home and provide appropriate support to families.

The results of their research have now been made public and highlight that addressing CCVAB requires a multi-agency partnership approach.

The research team found a lack of coordination and information sharing between health, mental health, education, social care and criminal justice services. This meant that the police are often unaware of known concerns or follow-on actions that have been identified but are still required to respond to calls.

In particular, they found that link between school exclusion and attendance and incidents of CCVAB in the home requires further examination. They also identified the need for adult and child safeguarding teams to work more closely in these cases.

The study also recommends that recognising and recording CCVAB is an essential first step in understanding the extent and profile of this form of abuse.

The recommendations led to Northumbria Police becoming the first force in the country to manually record these cases in March 2019, responding to more than 500 calls in the first nine months. The data now being collected will help to piece together a much clearer picture of the scale of this problem. It is hoped that the systems the force has put into place in response to the findings will be rolled out at a national level.

Jeannine Hughes, a senior lecturer in Northumbria University's Department of Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing, has been researching domestic abuse for two decades and has a background in youth offending social work.

She explained: "We know that there are a lot of families living with this in silence. This is a form of abuse that exists, and we need to be able to provide targeted interventions to help people who find themselves in this situation. The police get called when it reaches crisis point, which is too late.

"As much as the police want to be able to help, we really need local authorities, health and education partners to be working together on an early response before such behaviours are entrenched. Without recording it accurately we can't fully understand the scale of the problem or the underlying causes of this form of abuse."

Jeannine added: "The recording of these statistics will help us to develop a much better understanding of the underlying causes of CCVAB and the key links to adversity. Importantly, it will also help agencies to collect the dots between cases and bring a focus back to local authorities and others. This will lead to a growing recognition for all those affected that this is something that many other families are experiencing and so they should not be afraid to talk about it and ask for help."

Al Coates MBE, Director of CEL&T, added: "While the police service is willing to support families, they are being called out to incidents that they should not be called out to because of their need to respond. They are the service that can't say 'no' and families are forced to turn to them when other services have not met their needs or are not available.

"Thanks to gathering this data, we now know that the force has responded to more than 500 call outs from parents and carers with crisis over a 9-month period, due to the violent and aggressive behaviour of the children in their homes.

"Our report builds on a steadily growing body of research that considers the underlying issues that impact on children who display extreme aggressive and violent behaviour. During this process we've been given access to records and, having worked as a social worker, I thought I'd become hardened to the challenges that children and families face. Yet I confess to being rendered speechless reading some of the incident reports. Stories of incredibly vulnerable children with mental ill health, special educational needs, substance misuse, adversity, trauma and more are all playing out in homes across the region.

"This is a complex issue that matters for many families. For every police call out, there are multiple incidents that don't reach the extreme of 999 call hidden in a veil of silence. There is a need to change the discourse from one of problematising to one of support to enable this to happen and we hope that this report will help to shine a light into a dark room of many family lives."

Dr Wendy Thorley, Director of CEL&T and a key exponent of the need for workers to consider the impact of Special Educational Needs and the Adverse Childhood Experiences, said: "There is a need to recognise that a child's chronological age does not necessarily match the child's developmental age, which can compound the challenges of managing the situations."

Describing the research as "ground-breaking," Detective Chief Inspector Louise Cass-Williams said: "It's hard for victims to report abusive partners - let alone their own child. Child to parent abuse exists in many forms, it can be emotional or financial, it can see children damaging property or their home and, of course, it can be physical and violent. It's in a parent's nature to protect their child but sometimes it's the parent, sibling or family member who needs to be protected from the child.

"This research is a vital first step in understanding this aspect of abuse more than ever before and making sure parents, carers and family members have the best possible support from police and every other agency. It is important that when dealing with cases of child to parent violence, there is a focus by police on appropriate intervention by partners rather than progressing solely down a criminal justice route.

"This study, and the systems Northumbria Police are implementing, mean we will now have the data to be able to do this at a regional level, and we hope that we will be able to translate these to a national level in due course."

Northumbria Police have already taken part in multi-agency awareness raising sessions with their colleagues from the six local authority areas and have, since March, been referring cases on via the MASHs (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs) to allow partner agencies to review and offer appropriate intervention.

ITHACA, N.Y. - The next generation of powerful Earth- and space-based telescopes will be able to hunt distant solar systems for evidence of life on Earth-like exoplanets - particularly those that chaperone burned-out stars known as white dwarfs.

The chemical properties of those far-off worlds could indicate that life exists there. To help future scientists make sense of what their telescopes are showing them, Cornell University astronomers have developed a spectral field guide for these rocky worlds.

"We show what the spectral fingerprints could be and what forthcoming space-based and large terrestrial telescopes can look out for," said Thea Kozakis, doctoral candidate in astronomy, who conducts her research at Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute. Kozakis is lead author of "High-resolution Spectra and Biosignatures of Earth-like Planets Transiting White Dwarfs," published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

In just a few years, astronomers - using tools such as the Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in northern Chile's Atacama Desert, and the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2021 - will be able to search for life on exoplanets.

"Rocky planets around white dwarfs are intriguing candidates to characterize because their hosts are not much bigger than Earth-size planets," said Lisa Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Carl Sagan Institute.

The trick is to catch an exoplanet's quick crossing in front of a white dwarf, a small, dense star that has exhausted its energy.

"We are hoping for and looking for that kind of transit," Kozakis said. "If we observe a transit of that kind of planet, scientists can find out what is in its atmosphere, refer back to this paper, match it to spectral fingerprints and look for signs of life. Publishing this kind of guide allows observers to know what to look for."

Kozakis, Kaltenegger and Zifan Lin assembled the spectral models for different atmospheres at different temperatures to create a template for possible biosignatures.

Chasing down these planets in the habitable zone of white dwarf systems is challenging, the researchers said.

"We wanted to know if light from a white dwarf - a long-dead star - would allow us to spot life in a planet's atmosphere if it were there," Kaltenegger said.

This paper indicates that astronomers should be able to see spectral biosignatures - such as methane in combination with ozone or nitrous oxide - "if those signs of life are present," said Kaltenegger, who said this research expands scientific databases for finding spectral signs of life on exoplanets to forgotten star systems.

"If we would find signs of life on planets orbiting under the light of long-dead stars," she said, "the next intriguing question would be whether life survived the star's death or started all over again - a second genesis, if you will."

At a time when increasing numbers of prisoners are released early from houses of detention to reduce crowding during the coronavirus pandemic, one avenue to reintegration appears to hold promise for individuals who have personal experience with incarceration and mental illness: working as a peer-support specialist in a mental health setting.

Stacey L. Barrenger and Kiara L. Moore of New York University's Silver School of Social Work and Katherine Maurer of McGill University found that serving as a trained peer support specialist in a mental health treatment setting can be beneficial to individuals who have "lived experiences" with psychiatric and criminal histories, helping them with their own recovery and leading more empowered, meaningful, and productive lives.

The researchers' study, "Mental Health Recovery: Peer Specialists with Mental Health and Incarceration Experiences," was published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, and is based on 45 in-depth interviews with 15 peer specialists. The authors noted that this type of paid health care provider position is increasingly common, though it has received little attention from researchers who specialize in mental health care and recovery.

"With their psychiatric and criminal histories, many participants anticipated limited opportunities for work, but becoming a peer support specialist offered a possibility for employment despite their past histories and offered a new identity different from their current identities as patients or criminals," they write. The study participants reported becoming "more hopeful about their futures, their capacity to change, and ability to remain in the community."

Participatory Budgeting began in Brazil in 1988 and then, in 2011, New York City adopted the practice, giving citizens an opportunity to determine priorities for public spending in their communities.

A study of the impact of this ongoing experiment in direct democracy was conducted by Professor Thad Calabrese of NYU Wagner. The analysis, just published in Administration & Society, suggests that the process for determining the use of city legislators' discrete pools of discretionary capital funds has the potential to be directed for political patronage instead.

Calabrese and co-authors Dan Williams of the City University of New York and Anubhav Gupta of the National University of Singapore (and NYU Wagner graduate) found that the capital funds allocated after the input of community members in New York City have been spread among a larger number of community-based organization in smaller amounts than was true before Participating Budgeting began.

At the same time, according to the article, there's been no increase in the aggregate amount of funds allocated within each council district, nor changes, as a result of the consultative process, in allocation categories.

The article, just published in Administration & Society, considers the possibility that Participatory Budgeting may be falling short of its promise of increasing input from residents marginalized from official budget decision making, by increasing their roles in determining how public money is spent. It suggests that legislative determination for the use the funds, or earmarking, and the increased number of smaller projects across legislators' districts, seem to suggest that Participating Budgeting can be co-opted by city legislators to dispense political patronage.

"The analyses here are mostly suggestive of the patronage role in the New York City participatory budgeting process," the researchers state. "That is, the results presented here are consistent with those predicted by patronage."

However, the findings do not argue that patronage is definitely going on, nor does it rule out the benefit that other researchers have highlighted -- that Participatory Budgeting can aid in empowering citizens and increasing democracy.

"Next steps in this analysis might involve determining whether smaller but more numerous capital projects meaningfully improve public service delivery or citizens' satisfaction with these services," they write.

To speak with Calabrese or obtain a copy of the article, titled "Does Participatory Budgeting Alter Public Spending? Evidence From New York City," contact the NYU press officer listed with this release.

According to a study published in Water Research in April 2020, superoxide produces hydroxyl radicals in lake water. Hydroxyl radicals break down poorly biodegradable organic matter such as humic substances and anthropogenic pollutants.

In the aquatic environment, microbes, light and reduced compounds produce superoxide. Superoxide is a reactive oxygen species but relatively unreactive against organic compounds in water despite the prefix 'super' in its name.

Superoxide however can initiate a pathway of redox reactions. It can reduce ferric iron to ferrous one or be reduced itself to hydrogen peroxide. The Fenton reaction between ferrous iron and hydrogen peroxide produces hydroxyl radicals, very effective oxidants of organic matter. According the above mentioned reaction pathway, the production of one hydroxyl radical requires three superoxide ions.

"Superoxide is ubiquitously produced in lake water and thus a potential source of hydroxyl radicals." says Dr. Anssi Vähätalo from University of Jyväskylä, "We tested the reactivity of superoxide with the ferric iron complexed with dissolved organic matter."

A recent work published on Water Research shows that the introduction of superoxide triggered the formation of hydroxyl radical in lake water. A big surprise was that the amount of hydroxyl radicals produced was 24-times larger than expected from the introduced amount of superoxide. The hydroxyl radicals reacted with dissolved organic matter and broke it down extensively. These reactions likely regenerated superoxide and were responsible for the autocatalytic production of hydroxyl radicals.

"Superoxide has a hidden superpower, as it can initiate autocatalytic production of hydroxyl radicals in lake water. Hydroxyl radicals are the nature's own cleansing agent that can remove persistent natural and anthropogenic organic matter from the environment. Superoxide earns its prefix "super" when it produces hydroxyl radicals in an autocatalytic manner", Vähätalo concludes.

Recent studies have shown that nearly all microbes produce extracellular superoxide. Because microbes are ubiquitous so is superoxide too. In surface waters, iron is associated with dissolved organic matter and can catalyze production of hydroxyl radicals from superoxide. Superoxide-driven production of hydroxyl radicals is likely an important part of self-cleaning mechanisms that breaks down refractory organic matters in lakes.

The extreme reactivity of hydroxyl radicals is beneficial in the advance oxidation techniques that aim for the breakdown of anthropogenic pollutants.

"In our study, the produced amount of hydroxyl radical was several times larger than the amount of superoxide introduced into the solution of iron associated with humic substances. This type of autocatalysis of hydroxyl radicals from superoxide is naturally a high desirable property in advance oxidation techniques and worth of further studies", Vähätalo explains.

For home cooks, widespread techniques for judging doneness of chicken may not ensure that pathogens are reduced to safe levels. Solveig Langsrud of the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on April 29, 2020.

Chicken can harbor the bacterial pathogens Salmonella and Campylobacter. High temperatures can kill these microbes, but enough may survive to cause illness if meat is undercooked. Recommendations for monitoring doneness vary widely, and the prevalence and safety of methods commonly used by home cooks have been unclear.

To help clarify consumers' chicken cooking practices, Lansgrud and colleagues surveyed 3,969 private households across five European countries (France, Norway, Portugal, Romania, and the U.K.) on their personal chicken cooking practices. They also interviewed and observed chicken cooking practices in 75 additional households in the same countries.

The analysis indicated that checking the inner color of chicken meat is a popular way to judge doneness, used by half of households. Other common methods include examining meat texture or juice color. However, the researchers also conducted laboratory experiments to test various techniques for judging doneness, and these demonstrated that color and texture are not reliable indicators of safety on their own: for example, the inner color of chicken changes at a temperature too low to sufficiently inactivate pathogens.

Food safety messages often recommend use of thermometers to judge doneness, but the researchers found that the surface of chicken meat may still harbor live pathogens after the inside is cooked sufficiently. Furthermore, thermometers are not widely used; only one of the 75 observed households employed one.

These findings suggest a need for updated recommendations that guarantee safety while accounting for consumers' habits and desire to avoid overcooked chicken. For now, the researchers recommend focusing on the color and texture of the thickest part of the meat, as well as ensuring that all surfaces reach sufficient temperatures.

"Consumers are often advised to use a food thermometer or check that the juices run clear to make sure that the chicken is cooked safely--we were surprised to find that these recommendations are not safe, not based on scientific evidence and rarely used by consumers," adds Dr Langsrud. "Primarily, consumers should check that all surfaces of the meat are cooked, as most bacteria are present on the surface. Secondly, they should check the core. When the core meat is fibrous and not glossy, it has reached a safe temperature."

A minimally invasive optogenetic technique that does not require brain implants successfully manipulated the activity of neurons in mice and monkeys, researchers report April 29th in the journal Neuron. The researchers first genetically engineered neurons to produce a newly developed, extremely light-sensitive protein called SOUL. They then demonstrated that it is possible to shine light through the skull to alter neuronal responses throughout the entire mouse brain, and through a thick membrane called the dura to reach superficial regions of the macaque brain.

"This new tool will allow neuroscientists to apply optogenetics in animal experiments while ensuring that the brains being studied are minimally damaged during the experiments," says co-senior study author Guoping Feng of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "In particular, monkey models are critical for our understanding of high cognitive function and its dysfunction in brain disorders such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, and for developing treatments for these devastating brain disorders."

Optogenetics is a method that involves using light to activate or deactivate neurons that are genetically modified to produce light-responsive proteins called opsins. This approach has allowed neuroscientists to examine the causal role of different types of neurons in a variety of behavioral and cognitive processes. But one major drawback is that this technique typically requires the implantation of optical fibers, which can cause brain damage and inflammation and increase the risk of infection.

"Prior to our study, a few studies have contributed in various ways to the development of optogenetic stimulation methods that would be minimally invasive to the brain," says co-senior study author Robert Desimone of MIT. "However, all of these studies had various limitations in the extent of brain regions they could activate. One major novelty of our study is that it is the first to demonstrate a method to activate any mouse brain region independent of its location with light from outside the skull."

In the new study, the researchers used the light-sensitive protein SOUL to manipulate the activity of neurons in the lateral hypothalamus--one of the deepest regions of the mouse brain. They did so by shining light through an optical fiber positioned above the intact skull. To confirm that the approach was working, they also monitored neuronal responses in that brain region using electrophysiological recordings.

The delivery of blue light stimulated the neurons and disrupted feeding behavior, which is controlled by the lateral hypothalamus. In addition, orange light deactivated the neurons and restored normal food consumption. Further analysis confirmed that this approach did not cause brain inflammation or injury.

The researchers had to modify their technique in macaques, which have much thicker skulls than mice. They delivered light through an optical fiber placed outside the dura--a thick membrane made of dense tissue that surrounds the brain. These experiments showed that SOUL can be used in monkeys to alter neuronal responses in cortex--the outer layer of neural tissue in the brain. According to the authors, no prior study had demonstrated an optogenetic method with such minimal invasiveness in macaques.

Surprisingly, the technique was able to induce and disrupt local field potential oscillations--rhythmic, synchronized electrical activity of neurons. Until now, it has been very difficult to manipulate oscillations to study their causal role in brain functions.

"These oscillations are believed to be very important for many functions of the brain, including memory, attention, sleep, and decision-making," says co-first author Diego Mendoza-Halliday of MIT. "It was exciting to discover that our new opsin can be used as a method to turn on and off these brain waves at will, since it will allow us to better study the role of these waves in multiple brain functions."

Moving forward, SOUL-based optogenetics opens many new avenues of research. For example, this approach could shed light on early brain development, which is especially susceptible to severe tissue damage caused by long-term optical fiber implants. Due to its superior light sensitivity, SOUL can be used to control neuronal responses in larger-scale neural circuits involved in various brain functions. Moreover, SOUL remains active for more than 30 minutes, allowing scientists to study longer-term behaviors of freely moving animals that are not restricted by optical fibers.

For their own part, the researchers will work on improving the sensitivity of SOUL so they could manipulate neuronal activity through the thick skulls of large animals to reach deeper brain regions. In addition to revealing the causes of neurological and psychiatric disorders in animals, this approach could one day be used for the treatment of these disorders in humans.

Although the technique reduces the invasiveness and brain damage associated with optogenetics, it is still a long way from clinical translation. "Before optogenetics can be considered a viable treatment option, the potential risks of such treatments in patients need to be carefully evaluated, particularly those associated with expression of the opsin, a foreign protein, in the brain," Feng says.

Polymetallic nodules and crusts cover many thousands of square kilometres of the world's deep-sea floor. They contain mainly manganese and iron, but also the valuable metals nickel, cobalt and copper as well as some of the high-tech metals of the rare earths. Since these resources could become scarce on land in the future - for example, due to future needs for batteries, electromobility and digital technologies - marine deposits are economically very interesting. To date, there is no market-ready technology for deep-sea mining. However, it is already clear that interventions in the seabed have a massive and lasting impact on the affected areas. Studies have shown that many sessile inhabitants of the surface of the seafloor depend on the nodules as a substrate, and are still absent decades after a disturbance in the ecosystem. Also, effects on animals living in the seabed have been proven. As part of the BMBF-funded project "MiningImpact", the Max Planck Institute in Bremen has now taken a closer look at the smallest seabed inhabitants and their performance.

What about the smallest inhabitants of the seafloor?

The present study shows that microorganisms inhabiting the seafloor would also be massively affected by deep-sea mining. The team led by Antje Boetius, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and director at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, travelled to the so-called DISCOL area in the tropical East Pacific, about 3000 kilometres off the coast of Peru, to investigate conditions of the seafloor as well as the activity of its microorganisms. Back in 1989, German researchers had simulated mining-related disturbances at this site by ploughing the seabed in a manganese nodule area of three and a half kilometres in diameter with a plough-harrow, 4000 metres under the surface of the ocean.

"Even 26 years after this disturbance, the plough tracks on the seabed were still clearly visible," reports first author Tobias Vonnahme, who participated in the study as part of his diploma thesis. "And the bacterial inhabitants were also clearly affected." Compared to undisturbed regions of the seafloor, only about two thirds of the bacteria lived in the old tracks, and only half of them in fresher plough tracks. The rates of various microbial processes were reduced by three quarters in comparison to undisturbed areas, even after a quarter of a century. "Our calculations have shown that it takes at least 50 years for the microbes to fully resume their normal function," says Vonnahme.

Dusty and disordered

So deep down and far away from the strong currents on the sea surface, it is not so surprising that even small-scale traces of the DISCOL experiment were still visible. "However, also the biogeochemical conditions had undergone lasting changes," stresses Antje Boetius. According to the researchers, this is mainly due to the fact that the plough destroys the upper, active sediment layer. It is ploughed under or stirred up and carried away by the currents. In these disturbed areas, the microbial inhabitants can only make limited use of the organic material that sinks to the seafloor from upper water layers. As a result, they lose one of their key functions for the ecosystem. Microbial communities and their functions could thus be suitable as early indicators of damage to deep-sea ecosystems caused by nodule mining - and of the extent of their potential recovery.

Disturbance in another dimension

All mining technologies for manganese nodules currently being developed will lead to a massive disturbance of the seabed down to a depth of at least ten centimetres. This is comparable to the disturbance simulated here, but in completely different dimensions. Commercial deep-sea mining would affect hundreds to thousands of square kilometres of seabed per year, while all plough tracks in the DISCOL combined only covered a few square kilometres. The damage to be expected is correspondingly greater, and it would be correspondingly more difficult for the ecosystem to recover, the researchers stress.

"So far, only few studies have dealt with the disturbance of the biogeochemical function of deep-sea floors caused by mining," explains Boetius. "With the present study, we are contributing to the development of environmental standards for deep-sea mining and pointing out the limits of seabed recovery. Ecologically sustainable technologies should definitely avoid removing the densely populated and bioactive surface layer of the seabed".

A drug that lowers levels of the male hormone testosterone in the body reduces the risk of men with pedophilic disorder sexually abusing children, a study from Karolinska Institutet published today in the journal JAMA Psychiatry shows.

About one in ten girls and one in twenty boys are sexually abused, primarily at the hands of men with pedophilic disorder. Despite law enforcement, technical and political initiatives, the rate of child sexual abuse continues to rise, above all that committed online. There is therefore a pressing need for effective and scientifically proven treatments for people at risk of committing sexual offence.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Gothenburg University in Sweden have now evaluated the effect of a drug called degarelix, which is approved for the treatment of prostate cancer. The drug acts by switching off the production of testosterone, reducing within a matter of hours the levels of the hormone in the body, and is administered by injection every three months.

The double-blinded study included 52 men with pedophilic disorder in Sweden, who were randomly assigned to a degarelix or a placebo group. Treatment with degarelix was shown to dampen two critical risk factors for committing abuse: high sexual desire and sexual attraction to children. The effects were noticeable within two weeks.

"It's important to be able to offer a relatively fast-acting treatment, and the patients' own experiences of the drug were overall positive," says study leader Christoffer Rahm, chief psychiatrist at Psykiatri Södra Stockholm and researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.

Above all, the men described positive effects on their sexuality. Many reported that they felt an inner calm, that thoughts of sex were no longer dominant and that they lost their sexual interest in children. A majority wanted to continue on the drug after the study was over.

"This study is an important step towards an evidence-based treatment for pedophilic disorder," says Dr Rahm. "We're now planning a new study to assay the longer term effects of the drug and to compare them with psychotherapy."

All participation was voluntary and the men were recruited via Preventell, a national helpline initiated by ANOVA, an andrology, sexual medicine and transmedicine clinic at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden. The helpline was set up to prevent sexual abuse and violence by fast-tracking people with dangerous or undesired sexuality into specialised treatment.

While some of the participants in the degarelix group developed hot flashes and reactions at the injection site, conclusions about any mental side-effects were hard to draw since many of the participants were already in a depressive state even before the study started. See the scientific article for a full list of effects and adverse reactions.

Boston, Mass. - With more than a million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States, there is growing concern that low-income communities and racial/ethnic minorities may be disproportionately shouldering the burden of the pandemic. A new study, led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggests that substantial differences in COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths have emerged along racial and socioeconomic lines in New York City.

"Prior studies have shown disparities in health outcomes across New York City's five boroughs-- Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island," said the study's lead author Rishi K. Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil, an investigator at the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research and physician at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. "We wanted to evaluate whether similar patterns have also emerged amid the COVID-19 pandemic."

New York City is the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, with more than 15 percent of total cases nationally. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and from the American Hospital Association, Wadhera and colleagues looked at population characteristics (e.g. race/ethnicity), socioeconomic characteristics (median household income, poverty, education), and hospital bed capacity across the five boroughs. They then evaluated rates per 100,000 people of COVID-19 testing, COVID-19 patient hospitalizations, and COVID-19-related deaths according to patients' borough of residence based on data from the NYC Health Department, last updated on April 25, 2020.

The research team found that COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates varied considerably across New York City boroughs. The Bronx -- the borough with the highest proportion of racial and ethnic minorities, the most persons living in poverty, and lowest levels of educational attainment -- had higher rates of hospitalization and death related to COVID-19 than all other boroughs. In contrast, hospitalization and death rates were lowest in Manhattan, the most affluent borough, which is comprised of a predominately white population. The number of COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 persons was nearly two times greater in the Bronx than in Manhattan.

"The substantial differences in COVID-19 death rates across New York City boroughs are concerning," said Wadhera. "We need to understand the extent to which underlying comorbid illnesses, occupational exposure, socioeconomic determinants of health, and race-based structural inequities explain the disparate outcomes among boroughs, to help shape ongoing public health strategies and policies that aim to mitigate and contain COVID-19."

A first-of-its-kind nanoparticle-based in vivo imaging technique that may one day be used to help diagnose and even treat cancer has been developed by researchers collaborating from Michigan State, Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities.

The technique captures mechanical properties in living subjects that probe fundamental relationships between physics and in vivo (in a living organism) biology. The results are published in the journal Materials Today.

Bryan Smith, associate professor of biomedical engineering at MSU, worked with colleagues to develop the tiny particles, which, once inside living cells, can reveal important information about cell structure -- including how tumor cells physically change as they form a tumor.

"We engineered the ability to measure and quantify the nanomechanical properties of individual living cells within the body of a living animal for the first time," Smith said.

In a study earlier this year, Smith and his team designed nanoparticles that helped "eat" away atherosclerosis, the plaque buildup in arteries that can lead to heart attack. The particles selectively entered immune system cells known as macrophages, delivering a drug instructing cells to devour the harmful plaques.

Now, Smith and his colleagues have created a technique using different nanoparticles that can be embedded into various cell types, including cancerous breast cells, in live animals. Analyzing how the particles move within the cell can reveal a lot about its internal physical properties.

"There previously existed no method to examine mechanical properties in living subjects -- for example, in mammals -- with high spatial resolution," Smith said. "Such techniques promise to open entirely new avenues of inquiry for both disease diagnosis and treatment."

The mechanical properties of biological tissues have been known to play a major role in many disease states, including heart disease, inflammation and cancer, as well as normal physiology such as cell migration and organism development. In the current study, Smith and his team used nanoparticles to first compare the mechanical properties between cells in culture -- both standard 2D and 3D -- and in live animals.

Tracking the movement of the nanoparticles revealed that the environment in which the cells are observed greatly affects their mechanical properties - which could mean that certain cell models may not be such valid representations of live animals.

"This tells cancer scientists interested in cancer mechanics that 2D conditions may poorly replicate, and that certain 3D conditions get substantially closer, to mimicking conditions within the live mouse," Smith said.

The next part of the experiment looked at what actually happens to the internal structure of cancer cells as they begin to form tumors. Previous methods couldn't answer the question because they were too invasive to test in living subjects.

Again, observing the movement of the nanoparticles within the cells, the team measured how "compliant," or soft, the cells were. Importantly, they found that normal cells' pliability remained steady over time, but as cancer cells formed a tumor over the period of a week, they stiffened.

"We found that as a tumor begins to form in a living mouse, individual tumor cells mechanically stiffen. This is a fundamental finding which is ultimately likely to have implications for cancer spread (metastasis) and tumor lethality," Smith said. "The discovery was made possible by integrating state-of-the-art imaging and particle tracking technologies from our and our collaborators' labs."

The research has a number of promising applications in medicine. One of these is simply evaluating which cell culture methods are enough like living organisms to provide meaningful information. Another is measuring the cell mechanical properties of common biological functions, including organ development, in living organisms.

Perhaps the most exciting application may be in disease diagnosis and treatment, Smith said. Nanoparticles might be used to monitor the health of cells and the types of changes they undergo in disease processes - and may even alter that course.

Smith and his colleagues plan to look at the formation and dissemination of cancer metastases, which cause about 90% of cancer deaths.

"I hope one day we'll be able to treat the physics of metastasis," he said. "But, we must first understand the mechanics and how changing them impacts cell behavior. We're now looking into this."

OAK BROOK, Ill. - An unprecedented collaboration among two medical societies and over 60 volunteer neuroradiologists has resulted in the generation of the largest public collection of expert-annotated brain hemorrhage CT images, according to a report published in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence. Leaders of the project expect the dataset to help speed the development of machine learning (ML) algorithms to aid in the detection and characterization of this potentially life-threatening condition.

The creation of the dataset stems from the most recent edition of the Radiology Society of North America (RSNA) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Challenge. For the 2019 edition, participants were asked to create an ML algorithm that could assist in the detection and characterization of intracranial hemorrhage on brain CT. Accuracy in diagnosing the presence and type of intracranial hemorrhage is a vital part of effective treatment, as even a small hemorrhage can lead to death if it is in a critical location.

Rather than using an existing dataset, as had been done for the first two challenges, the competition's organizers set out to create one from scratch. They compiled the brain hemorrhage CT dataset from three institutions: Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, Universidade Federal de São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"The value of this challenge is to create a dataset that might lead to a generalizable solution, and the best way to do that is to train a model from data originating from multiple institutions that use a variety of CT scanners from various manufacturers, scanning protocols and a heterogeneous patient population," said the paper's lead author, Adam E. Flanders, M.D., neuroradiologist and professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. "In this case, we had data from three institutions and international participation. The dataset is unique, not only in terms of the volume of abnormal images but also the heterogeneity of where they all came from."

RSNA and the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR) collaborated to curate the dataset and organizers issued an open call for volunteers within the ASNR membership to annotate the images. A day-and-a-half later, they had 140 volunteers from which they selected 60 to annotate a vast trove of 874,035 brain hemorrhage CT images in 25,312 unique exams. The volunteers marked each image as normal or abnormal. For the abnormal images, they indicated the hemorrhage subtype.

"It was a nail-biter all the way along," Dr. Flanders said of the process. "We were building the airplane while it was in flight. When you consider the number of images that we had to de-identify locally, consume, curate, label, cross-check and then organize into just the right datasets to release to the contestants, there was a lot of work involved by the volunteer workforce, the RSNA Machine Learning Subcommittee, data scientists, contractors and RSNA staff."

The dataset's release attracted interest from far and wide. Organizers received more than 22,200 submissions from 1,787 individual competitors in 1,345 teams from 75 countries. Dr. Flanders was particularly struck by the international reach of the project and the level of enthusiasm even from people outside of the medical realm.

"The 10 top solutions came from all over the world," he said. "Some of the winners had absolutely no background in medical imaging."

The dataset was released under a non-commercial license, meaning it is freely available to the AI research community for non-commercial use and further enhancement.

Dr. Flanders said the objective of engaging with a subspecialty society to leverage their unique expertise in developing a high-quality dataset is an effective and useful pathway to follow for future collaborations. The model worked so well that organizers are using it again for this year's competition, a collaboration with the Society of Thoracic Radiology seeking improved detection and characterization of pulmonary embolism on chest CT.

"I was really impressed by the huge volunteer effort and the tremendous worldwide interest in this project," Dr. Flanders said. "The dataset we created for this challenge will endure as a valuable ML research resource for years to come."

Around the world, there are pools of water filled with nuclear waste waiting for their final resting place. This is waste that was created from decades of nuclear power generation, and the waste must be handled carefully.

In the United States, scientists are studying several solutions for disposing of these wastes. Phil Stauffer and researchers at Los Alamos National Labs have been working with the US Department of Energy and other national laboratories on one long-term, safe, disposal solution: salt.

"Deep salt formations that already exist in the United States are one candidate for long-term disposal," says Stauffer. "This 'high-level' nuclear waste can create a lot of heat, in addition to the radioactivity that must be contained. We need to develop a clear path to dispose of this waste."

Salt deposits exist underground. They are self-healing, have very low permeability and conduct heat well. All of these are important to releasing the natural heat of the nuclear waste. Salt formations can make an excellent barrier to long-term release of radionuclides into the human environment.

The United States and Germany are disposing of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste in repositories in salt deposits. Those wastes don't create as much heat. So, more studies were needed to determine the safety and efficacy of salt deposits for the high-level nuclear waste.

But salt is not just a physical barrier - it's a chemical one, too. So, how these salt deposits would react to the presence of water, heat and other geologic factors needed to be researched.

Recent thermal testing underground began by creating a full-scale mock-up of a waste canister and heating it for nearly a year. This is the first time this has been done in the United States since the late 1980s.

In parallel, the Department of Energy's research team is running a campaign to study generic nuclear waste repositories. This includes studying how water migrates towards heat sources in salt. Enter the "Brine Availability Test in Salt" - or BATS project, with Stauffer and rest of the team. The research team began a pilot program several years ago.

By drilling boreholes into the salt deposits and doing heater tests on these salt-surrounded holes, researchers gain insight to inform decisions. The testing is occurring deep underground, within drifts called hallways using large drill rig equipment.

Phase 1s (s for shakedown) began in the summer of 2018 and ran for nearly a year. "The lessons learned, and insights gained in this initial testing, are proving vital to the design and implementation of the next, larger-scale experiment," says Stauffer.

In addition, researchers can turn to computer modeling to predict some of the outcomes. "Long term modeling can be used to develop the appropriate initial pressure and other important factors for the boreholes," says Stauffer. Factors included are temperature response and water availability.

Phase 1 began in January 2020 and will run for several months. It will include more complicated data collection, including fiber optic cables, electrical resistivity tomography, and real-time isotopic measurements on the water evaporated from the brine.

These aspects of brine availability will be investigated in future phases of the BATS testing. Data from the next experiment will be used to further refine models and will be shared with the international research community. Project plans call for gradually ramping up the scale of the heater experiments to eventually explore salt-brine availability to spent nuclear fuel waste canisters in a configuration representing a possible future high-level waste repository.

The team's research was recently published this paper in Vadose Zone Journal. Research was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy and implemented through a collaboration between Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and DOE-Office of Environmental Management (EM) Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO).