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Cerebral edema, swelling that occurs in the brain, is a severe and potentially fatal complication of stroke. New research, which was conducted in mice and appears in the journal Science, shows for the first time that the glymphatic system - normally associated with the beneficial task of waste removal - goes awry during a stroke and floods the brain, triggering edema and drowning brain cells.

"These findings show that the glymphatic system plays a central role in driving the acute tissue swelling in the brain after a stroke", said Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., co-director of the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Center for Translational Neuromedicine and senior author of the article. "Understanding this dynamic - which is propelled by storms of electrical activity in the brain - point the way to potential new strategies that could improve stroke outcomes."

First discovered by the Nedergaard lab in 2012, the glymphatic system consists of a network that piggybacks on the brain's blood circulation system and is comprised of layers of plumbing, with the inner blood vessel encased by a 'tube' that transports cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The system pumps CSF through brain tissue, primarily while we sleep, washing away toxic proteins and other waste.

While edema is a well-known consequence of stroke, there are limited treatment options and the severity of swelling in the brain depends upon the extent and location of the stroke. Because the brain is trapped in the skull, it has little room to expand. If the swelling is severe, it can push in on important structures such as the brainstem, which regulates the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, resulting in death. In extreme cases and often as a last resort, surgeons will remove a part of the skull to relieve the pressure on the brain.

Prior to the findings of the new study, it has been assumed that the source of swelling was the result of fluid from blood.

An electrical wave, then the flood

Ischemic stroke, the most common form of stroke, occurs when a vessel in the brain is blocked. Denied nutrients and oxygen, brain cells become compromised and depolarize - often within minutes of a stroke. As the cells release energy and fire, they trigger neighboring cells, creating a domino effect that results in an electrical wave that expands outward from the site of the stroke, called spreading depolarization.

As this occurs, vast amounts of potassium and neurotransmitters released by neurons into the brain. This causes the smooth muscles cells that line the walls of blood vessels to seize up and contract, cutting off blood flow in a process known as spreading ischemia. CSF then flows into the ensuing vacuum, inundating brain tissue and causing edema. The already vulnerable brain cells in the path of the flood essentially drown in CSF and the brain begins to swell. These depolarization waves can continue in the brain for days and even weeks after the stroke, compounding the damage.

"When you force every single cell, which is essentially a battery, to release its charge it represents the single largest disruption of brain function you can achieve - you basically discharge the entire brain surface in one fell swoop," said Humberto Mestre, M.D., a Ph.D. student in the Nedergaard lab and lead author of the study. "The double hit of the spreading depolarization and the ischemia makes the blood vessels cramp, resulting in a level of constriction that is completely abnormal and creating conditions for CSF to rapidly flow into the brain."

The study correlated the brain regions in mice vulnerable to this post-stroke glymphatic system dysfunction with edema found in the brains of humans who had sustained an ischemic stroke.

Pointing the way to new stroke therapies

The findings suggest potential new treatment strategies that used in combination with existing therapies focused on restoring blood flow to the brain quickly after a stroke. The study could also have implications for brain swelling observed in other conditions such as subarachnoid hemorrhage and traumatic brain injury.

Approaches that block specific receptors on nerve cells could inhibit or slow the cycle of spreading depolarization. Additionally, a water channel called aquaporin-4 on astrocytes - an important support cell in the brain - regulates the flow of CSF. When the team conducted the stroke experiments in mice genetically modified to lack aquaporin-4, CSF flow into the brain slowed significantly. Aquaporin-4 inhibitors currently under development as a potential treatment for cardiac arrest and other diseases could eventually be candidates to treat stroke.

"Our hope is that this new finding will lead to novel interventions to reduce the severity of ischemic events, as well as other brain injuries to which Soldiers may be exposed," said Matthew Munson, Ph.D., program manager, fluid dynamics, Army Research Office, an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "What's equally exciting is that this new finding was not part of the original research proposal. That is the power of basic science research and working across disciplines. Scientists 'follow their nose' where the data and their hypotheses lead them - often to important unanticipated applications."

(Boston)--Using a combination of pluripotent stem cells (cells that can potentially produce any cell or tissue type) and machine learning (artificial intelligence that allows computers to learn automatically), researchers have improved how they generate lung cells.

Using this technique, cells can be grown in a laboratory and stored for more than one year without losing their lung identity and used to model lung diseases thereby finding better treatments and cures for lung diseases in the future.

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are derived from the donated skin or blood cells of adults and, with the reactivation of four genes, are reprogrammed back to an embryonic stem cell-like state. iPS cells can be differentiated toward any cell type in the body and do not require the use of embryos.

Building on previous work from the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) of Boston University and Boston Medical Center, researchers in the CReM, working together with investigators from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), reprogrammed blood from adults into iPS cells. They then treated these stem cells with growth factors over a period of one month until they became cells which were very similar to adult lung cells.

According to the researchers, often when this type of experiment is performed the resulting cells are not a pure collection of the cell that they aimed to create (target cell) and they do not keep the characteristics of the target cell for prolonged periods of time.

"Therefore, we developed a combination of techniques that examines the gene expression of thousands of single cells combined with DNA barcoding of each individual cell and machine learning to build up a dynamic picture of what factors favor cells that go on to be lung cells in our system. Using this knowledge we were able to improve our methods for generating lung cells so that we can now create more relevant cells that keep their cell identity in a dish for more than one year," explained Killian Hurley, MD, PhD, researcher at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, who co-authored the study with Jun Ding, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow at CMU.

The researchers believe this study will improve their ability to model lung disease and treatments in the laboratory for diseases including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and neonatal respiratory distress or early-onset interstitial lung disease.

Millions of people in the United States and around the world have severe lung diseases, often without good treatments or cure. Some of these diseases may even require lung transplantation which is a complex and high risk surgery with the need for donor organs always exceeding the supply.

"The machine learning methods we developed for this study can also be applied to studies of other tissues and organs," said Ding. "We hope that our newly developed techniques for generating a pure, unlimited supply of cells using patients-derived stem cells can make possible new treatments or cures for diseases. These developments would prolong lives and improve the quality of those lives."

"The key hurdle to understanding what goes wrong with an individual patient's lung cells has been our inability to access those cells or to grow them in the laboratory. This approach allows us to now engineer from any individual patient those very finicky cells and to introduce bar codes into those cells that allow us to track and understand each cell and all their progeny over time in the laboratory dish. The result is an inexhaustible source of new lung cells that can be prepared from any patient of any age," added co-corresponding author Darrell Kotton, MD, David C. Seldin Professor of Medicine and Director, CReM, who led the work together with Ziv Bar-Joseph, PhD, the FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science at CMU.

The first genetic analysis of schizophrenia in an ancestral African population, the South African Xhosa, appears in the Jan. 31 issue of the journal Science. An international group of scientists conducted the research, including investigators from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and New York State Psychiatric Institute, as well as the University of Cape Town and the University of Washington.

The study was carried out in the Xhosa population because Africa is the birthplace of all humans, yet ancestral African populations have rarely been the focus of genetics research. (There is no evidence that the Xhosa have an unusually high risk of schizophrenia). The researchers analyzed blood samples collected from 909 individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and 917 controls living in South Africa. Their study revealed that participants with schizophrenia are significantly more likely to carry rare, damaging genetic mutations compared to participants without schizophrenia. These rare mutations were also more likely to affect brain and synaptic function. Synapses coordinate the communication between brain nerve cells called neurons; the organization and firing of neuronal synapses are ultimately responsible for learning, memory, and brain function.

The genes and pathways identified by this research inform the understanding of schizophrenia for all human populations, the researchers say. Further studies in African populations might also suggest potential mechanisms for the design of more effective treatments.

"The presence of only a few DNA variations damaging to synaptic function could have an outsized effect on schizophrenia," says co-author Ezra Susser, MD, DrPH, professor of epidemiology and psychiatry at the Columbia Mailman School, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and New York State Psychiatric Institute. "While these variants differ from person to person, we believe they may disrupt neural pathways that elevate risk for schizophrenia."

The relative lack of genetics studies in Africa leaves a major gap in understanding human genetics. Almost 99 percent of human evolution took place in Africa after the first modern humans originated and before humans migrated from Africa to Europe and Asia 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. Because of the lack of studies in Africa, many generations of human genetic history are missing from our understanding of human adaptation and of human disease. Studies of ancestral African populations like the Xhosa have more diverse background DNA, which facilitates the identification of truly rare mutations.

An international team of astrophysicists led by Australian Professor Matthew Bailes, from the ARC Centre of Excellence of Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), has shown exciting new evidence for 'frame-dragging'--how the spinning of a celestial body twists space and time--after tracking the orbit of an exotic stellar pair for almost two decades. The data, which is further evidence for Einstein's theory of General Relativity, is published today (31 January 2020) in the prestigious journal, Science.

More than a century ago, Albert Einstein published his iconic theory of General Relativity - that the force of gravity arises from the curvature of space and time and that objects, such as the Sun and the Earth, change this geometry. Advances in instrumentation have led to a flood of recent (Nobel prize-winning) science from phenomena further afield linked to General Relativity. The discovery of gravitational waves was announced in 2016; the first image of a black hole shadow and stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own galaxy was published just last year.

Almost twenty years ago, a team led by Swinburne University of Technology's Professor Bailes--director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav)--started observing two stars rotating around each other at astonishing speeds with the CSIRO Parkes 64-metre radio telescope. One is a white dwarf, the size of the Earth but 300,000 times its density; the other is a neutron star which, while only 20 kilometres in diameter, is about 100 billion times the density of the Earth. The system, which was discovered at Parkes, is a relativistic-wonder system that goes by the name 'PSR J1141-6545'.

Before the star blew up (becoming a neutron star), a million or so years ago, it began to swell up discarding its outer core which fell onto the white dwarf nearby. This falling debris made the white dwarf spin faster and faster, until its day was only measured in terms of minutes.

In 1918 (three years after Einstein published his Theory), Austrian mathematicians Josef Lense and Hans Thirring realised that if Einstein was right all rotating bodies should 'drag' the very fabric of space time around with them. In everyday life, the effect is miniscule and almost undetectable. Earlier this century, the first experimental evidence for this effect was seen in gyroscopes orbiting the Earth, whose orientation was dragged in the direction of the Earth's spin. A rapidly spinning white dwarf, like the one in PSR J1141-6545, drags space-time 100 million times as strongly!

A pulsar in orbit around such a white dwarf presents a unique opportunity to explore Einstein's theory in a new ultra-relativistic regime.

Lead author of the current study, Dr Vivek Venkatraman Krishnan (from Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy - MPIfR) was given the unenviable task of untangling all of the competing relativistic effects at play in the system as part of his PhD at Swinburne University of Technology. He noticed that unless he allowed for a gradual change in the orientation of the plane of the orbit, General Relativity made no sense.

MPIfR's Dr Paulo Friere realised that frame-dragging of the entire orbit could explain their tilting orbit and the team presents compelling evidence in support of this in today's journal article--it shows that General Relativity is alive and well, exhibiting yet another of its many predictions.

The result is especially pleasing for team members Bailes, Willem van Straten (Auckland University of Tech) and Ramesh Bhat (ICRAR-Curtin) who have been trekking out to the Parkes 64m telescope since the early 2000s, patiently mapping the orbit with the ultimate aim of studying Einstein's Universe. 'This makes all the late nights and early mornings worthwhile', said Bhat.

Expert commentary:

Lead author Vivek Venkatraman Krishnan, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR):
'At first, the stellar pair appeared to exhibit many of the classic effects that Einstein's theory predicted. We then noticed a gradual change in the orientation of the plane of the orbit.'

'Pulsars are cosmic clocks. Their high rotational stability means that any deviations to the expected arrival time of its pulses is probably due to the pulsar's motion or due to the electrons and magnetic fields that the pulses encounter.'
'Pulsar timing is a powerful technique where we use atomic clocks at radio telescopes to estimate the arrival time of the pulses from the pulsar to very high precision. The motion of the pulsar in its orbit modulates the arrival time, thereby enabling its measurement.'

Dr Paulo Freire:
'We postulated that this might be, at least in-part, due to the so-called "frame-dragging" that all matter is subject to in the presence of a rotating body as predicted by the Austrian mathematicians Lense and Thirring in 1918.'

Professor Thomas Tauris, Aarhus University:
'In a stellar pair, the first star to collapse is often rapidly rotating due to subsequent mass transfer from its companion. Tauris's simulations helped quantify the magnitude of the white dwarf's spin. In this system the entire orbit is being dragged around by the white dwarf's spin, which is misaligned with the orbit.'

Dr Norbert Wex, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR):
'One of the first confirmations of frame-dragging used four gyroscopes in a satellite in orbit around the Earth, but in our system the effects are 100 million times stronger.'

Evan Keane (SKA Organisation):
'Pulsars are super clocks in space. Super clocks in strong gravitational fields are Einstein's dream laboratories. We have been studying one of the most unusual of these in this binary star system. Treating the periodic pulses of light from the pulsar like the ticks of a clock we can see and disentangle many gravitational effects as they change the orbital configuration, and the arrival time of the clock-tick pulses. In this case we have seen Lens-Thirring precession, a prediction of General Relativity, for the first time in any stellar system.'

From Willem van Straten (AUT):
'After ruling out a range of potential experimental errors, we started to suspect that the interaction between the white dwarf and neutron star was not as simple as had been assumed to date.'

Trees are known for their great, but not unlimited, trunk height and diameter. They have evolved to develop a heavy above-ground biomass, but this integral feature poses a challenge to the trunk's stability.

Despite its evident importance, the principle by which plant stems respond to their increasing weight remains unknown. To address this question, a theory of "vertical proprioception", a mechanism that balances the radial growth of the stem with the weight increase, has been developed.

To study the theory, researchers at the University of Helsinki, University of Cambridge and Natural Resources Institute Finland manipulated the aerial weight of downy birch (Betula pubescens).

The researchers observed that the tree was indeed able to adjust its stem radial growth in response to the added weight, and the strength of this response varied along the length of the stem. Furthermore, a degree of lateral stem movement was required for this response: static trees did not grow as thick as free-moving ones.

"Even though the idea of plants sensing their own weight and thickening their stem accordingly sounds intuitive, our study is the first one to address this question in trees", says Juan Alonso-Serra from the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki.

One approach to understand how this weight-sensing mechanism works is by comparing normal plants with plants lacking this ability. The researchers took advantage of a naturally occurring birch mutant named elimäki. This exceptional tree grows upright for three months, after which its stem suddenly bends at the very base, and the whole tree collapses.

The researchers showed that, unlike normal trees, elimäki trees fail to properly adjust their width to their increasing weight, which makes them less stable mechanically. The lack of a proper response in elimäki trees is linked to a single position (locus) in the birch genome, enabling the future identification of the mutated gene.

The use of mutant trees was a key part of the project. In most plant models, such as Arabidopsis, genetic studies are feasible because a new generation can be produced within months, whereas the same typically takes decades with trees.

However, birches are exceptional as they are the among the few tree species where flowering can be induced already at six months' age. This provides a unique opportunity to address basic and applied questions concerning the life and development of trees.

From wind turbines and electric motors to sensors and magnetic switching systems: permanent magnets are used in many different electrical applications. The production of these magnets usually involves sintering or injection moulding. But due to the increasing miniaturisation of electronics and the more exacting requirements, this places on magnetic components in terms of geometry, these conventional manufacturing methods are frequently coming up short. Additive manufacturing technologies, however, offer the required flexibility of shape, enabling production of magnets tailored to the demands of the application in question.

Tailor-made magnets

Researchers at TU Graz - in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Vienna and Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) as well as a team from Joanneum Research in Graz - have now succeeded in manufacturing super magnets with the help of laser-based 3D printing technology. The method uses a powdered form of the magnetic material, which is applied in layers and melted to bind the particles, resulting in components made purely of metal. The team of scientists have now developed the process to a stage where they are able to print magnets with a high relative density while still managing to control their microstructures. "The combination of both these features enables efficient material use because it means we can precisely tailor the magnetic properties according to the application," explain Siegfried Arneitz and Mateusz Skalon from the Institute of Materials Science, Joining and Forming at TU Graz.

The initial focus of the research group was the production of neodymium, or NdFeB, magnets. On account of its chemical properties, the rare earth metal neodymium is used as the basis for many strong permanent magnets which are crucial components for lots of important applications, including computers and smartphones. The researchers have published a detailed description of their work in the journal Materials. In other applications, such as electric brakes, magnetic switches and certain electric motor systems, the strong force of NdFeB magnets is unnecessary and also undesirable.

Search for alternatives to rare earths

For this reason, Siegfried Arneitz, a PhD student at TU Graz's Institute of Materials Science, Joining and Forming, is continuing the research into 3D-printed magnets by building on the results achieved so far. He is writing his dissertation on the 3D printing of Fe-Co (iron and cobalt) magnets. These magnets represent a promising alternative to NdFeB magnets in two respects: mining rare earth metals is resource intensive and not very attractive from a sustainability standpoint, and the recycling of such metals is still in its infancy. But Fe-Co magnets are less harmful to the environment.

Rare earth metals also lose their magnetic properties at higher temperatures, while special Fe-Co alloys maintain their magnetic performance at temperatures of 200° to 400° Celsius and demonstrate good temperature stability.

Arneitz is upbeat about his initial findings: "Theoretical calculations have shown that the magnetic properties of these materials can be improved by a factor of two or three. Given the flexibility of shape that 3D printing offers, we're confident we can get closer to this goal. We're going to continue working on this topic in collaboration with various other institutes so we can develop alternative magnetic materials for areas in which neodymium magnets are not necessary."

Various teams and institutes at TU Graz are working on additive manufacturing techniques, and have recorded a steady stream of research breakthroughs. To find out more, read the Planet Research article Additive Manufacturing: The 3D Revolution: https://www.tugraz.at/en/tu-graz/services/news-stories/planet-research/singleview/article/die-3d-revolution0/

Strigolactones (SLs) are a class of chemical compounds found in plants that have received attention due to their roles as plant hormones and rhizosphere signaling molecules. They play an importantrole in regulating plant architecture, as well as promoting germination of root parasitic weeds (*1) that have great detrimental effects on plant growth and production.

This study was conducted as part of the SATREPS(*2)(Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development) program by Dr. Wakabayashi, Prof. Sugimoto and their colleagues at the Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Tokyo and Tokushima University. They discovered the orobanchol synthase responsible for converting the SL carlactonoic acid, which promotes symbiotic relationships with fungi, into the SL orobanchol, which causes root parasitic weeds to germinate.

By knocking out(*3)the orobanchol synthase gene using genome editing, they succeeded in artificially regulating SL production. This discovery will lead to greater understanding of the functions of each SL and enable the practical application of SLs in the improvement of plant production.

The results of this study were published in the International Scientific Journal Science Advances on December 18, 2019.

Main points

>Strigolactones are known to have various functions such as the development of plant architecture, promoting mutually beneficial mycorrhizal relationships with fungi and serving as germination signals for root parasitic weeds.

>Strigolactones are classified into canonical and non-canonical SLs based on their chemical structures. Canonical SLs have an ABC ring, whereas non-canonical SLs have an unclosed BC ring.

>This study discovered the synthase gene responsible for converting the non-canonical SL carlactonoic acid into the canonical SL orobanchol.

>The group succeeded in generating tomato plants with the synthase gene knocked out in which carlactonoic acid (CLA) accumulated and orobanchol production was prevented. The germination rate of root parasitic weeds was lower for these knock out plants.

Research Background

Strigolactones (SL) are a class of chemical compounds that were initially characterized as germination stimulants for root parasitic weeds. SLs have also received attention for their other functions. They play an important role in controlling tiller bud outgrowth and also in promoting mycorrhizal symbiosis in many land plants, whereby plants and fungi mutually exchange nutrients.

Up until now, around 20 SLs have been isolated; with differences in stereochemistry in the C ring and modifications in the A and/or B rings. In recent years, SLs with unclosed BC rings have been discovered. Currently, SLs with a closed ABC ring are designated as canonical SLs, whereas SLs with an unclosed BC ring are non-canonical SLs. However, it is not clear which compounds function as hormones and which compounds function as rhizosphere signals.

If SL production could be suppressed, plants would induce the germination of fewer root parasitic weeds and their adverse effects on crop production would be mitigated. By increasing SL production, on the other hand, plant nutrition would be improved through the promotion of relationships with mycorrhizal fungi. Furthermore, manipulation of the endogenous levels of SL would control plant architecture above ground. Understanding the functions of individual SLs would lead to the development of technology to artificially control plant architecture and the rhizosphere environment. Consequently, there is much interest in how these SLs are biosynthesized.

It has been elucidated that SLs are biosynthesized fromβ-carotene. Four enzymes are involved in conversion ofβ-caroteneto carlactonoic acid (CLA), a common intermediate of SL biosynthesis. In Japonica rice, conversion of CLA into orobanchol proceeds with two enzymes catalyzing two distinct steps. However, the biosynthesis pathway for orobanchol in other plants remained unknown. This study discovered the novel orobanchol synthase, which converts CLA into orobanchol in cowpea and tomato plants (Figure 1).

Research Methodology

This research group had isolated orobanchol from cowpea root exudates and determined the structure. From metabolic experiments using cowpea, it was predicted that cytochrome P450(*4)would be involved in the conversion of CLA into orobanchol. In this study, cowpea plants were grown in phosphate rich and poor conditions, where orobanchol production was restricted and promoted, respectively. The genes expressed in the roots of plants in both conditions were comprehensively compared. The group screened for CYP genes whose expression correlated with orobanchol production, expressed them as recombinant proteins, and performed an enzyme reaction assay.

From these results, it was understood that the VuCYP722C enzyme catalyzed the conversion of CLA to orobanchol. Furthermore, the SlCYP722C gene, a homolog (*5) of VuCYP722C in tomato was confirmed to be an orobanchol synthase gene. The SlCYP722C gene was knocked out (KO) in tomato plants using genome editing. In contrast to the wild type (control) tomato plants, orobanchol was not detected in root exudates of the KO plants, with CLA being detected instead.

Thus, the research group proved that SlCYP722C is the orobanchol synthase in tomato that converts the non-canonical SL CLA into the canonical SL orobanchol. The architecture of the KO and wild-type plants was comparable (Photo 1). This demonstrated that orobanchol doesn't control plant architecture in tomato plants. It is thought that these KO tomato plants would still be able to benefit from mycorrhizal fungi, as the activity of CLA against the hyphal branching of the fungi was comparable with that of canonical SLs. Furthermore, it was found that the germination rate of the root parasitic weed Phelipanche aegyptiaca was significantly lower in the hydroponic media of the KO tomato plants (Figure 2). P. aegyptiaca causes great damage to tomato production all over the world, especially around the Mediterranean region. This research showed that it is possible to limit the damage that this parasitic weed does to tomato production by knocking out the orobanchol synthase gene.

Further Research

This research group succeeded in preventing the synthesis of the major canonical SL orobanchol and accumulating the non-canonical SL carlactonoic acid. The same method can be utilized to elucidate the genes responsible for the biosynthesis of other canonical SLs. Further understanding of the functions of various SLs would allow plants to be manipulated in order to maximize their performance under adverse cultural conditions. Root parasitic weeds detrimentally affect not only tomato but a wide range of other crops including species of Solanaceae, Leguminoceae, Cucurbitaceae and Poaceae. These results will lead to the development of research to alleviate the damage inflicted by root parasitic weeds and increase food production worldwide.

Engineers have developed a new scanning technique inspired by the natural world that can detect corroding metals in oil and gas pipelines.

By mimicking how bats use differing wavelengths of ultrasound to detect objects, hunt, and avoid predators, engineers have developed a new system that combines two separate types of radiation, fast neutrons and gamma rays, to detect corrosion - a major cause of pipeline leaks.

With thousands of kilometres of pipelines used to transport oil and gas over huge distances globally, leaks are a major issue costing millions annually and have the potential to cause accidents and injuries as well as significant environmental damage.

Typically, corrosion in oil pipelines is measured with ultrasonic or electromagnetic techniques. However, these are not practical for underground pipelines, or for pipelines covered with insulating layers of concrete or plastic.

The new system, developed by Engineers from Lancaster University, the National Physical Laboratory, and a technology company, Hybrid Instruments Ltd, exploits the reflected signals, known as 'backscatter', of a combination of isolated fast-neutron and gamma radiation.

Neutrons and gamma rays have useful complementary characteristics. Neutrons interact mainly with low-density materials like plastics. In addition, fast neutrons have a high penetrating power, so they are suitable for probing thick materials. Gamma rays interact mainly with metals and not always are able to penetrate very thick materials of high density.

The two radiation types produce a different electronic signal. This means researchers can retain data on both types of radiation simultaneously using a novel detecting device called a 'Mixed Field Analyser', previously developed by Lancaster University and Hybrid Instruments Ltd.

The system produces a pencil-like beam of probing radiation, of neutrons and gamma, which is directed at the steel section being inspected.

The team tested the two imaging techniques in real time in a laboratory on samples of carbon-steel of different thicknesses.

The researchers were able to see differences in steel thickness. The sensors also worked when an insulating layer was replicated, with concrete or plastic, indicating the likelihood that defects in steels, as well as corrosion and rust, would produce variations in the backscatter.

These results indicate that if used on real pipelines then potential issues could be more easily detected and resolved before oil and gas is able to escape.

"The combined beams of neutrons and gamma rays in parallel bouncing back to an array of detectors yield a comprehensive and fast representation of the inner structure of steel," said Mauro Licata, PhD researcher on the project from Lancaster University.

"This system works a bit like the chirps made by bats. These chirps are a superposition of different ultrasound wavelengths, which bounce back to the bats' ears. As well as highlighting the benefits of combining multiple reflection sensing techniques to detect for problems such as corrosion, our work further illustrates the significant potential that can be had from taking inspiration from, and mimicking, systems that have evolved in the natural world."

"Isolating neutrons and gamma rays backscattered from a steel surface in real time, in a way analogous to the way bats' brains isolate backscatter ultrasound and thus avoid confusion with their own chirps, could help us isolate flaws in pipe walls more quickly and effectively," said Professor Malcolm Joyce of Lancaster University and Hybrid Instruments Ltd.
"This is a great example of NPL's world-leading neutron facilities being used for innovative science with a positive impact," said Neil Roberts of the National Physical Laboratory.

The intention is that the detector system would be further developed and used to detect faults by pointing it at sections of pipeline from the outside. However, the investigators say more research is needed in the field of neutron detectors to make the system faster.

The researchers suggest the technology could also be used in other applications, such as inspecting the integrity of structures such as bridges.

The research has been outlined in the paper 'Depicting corrosion-born defects in pipelines with combined neutron/γ ray backscatter: a biometric approach', which has been published by the journal Scientific Reports.

The tool has produced encouraging results in a clinical study and its impact on management and outcomes of women with ovarian cancer will now be evaluated in a major trial at 18 hospitals in the UK, including Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

The tool is able to distinguish between malignant and benign ovarian cysts with 90 per cent accuracy, in cases that cannot be distinguished on ultrasound. It was developed by researchers led by Professor Isabelle Thomassin-Naggara at the APHP-Sorbonne Université, with Professor Andrea Rockall at Imperial College London.

Currently, to investigate potential cases of ovarian cancer doctors use ultrasound scanning and blood tests. However, in a quarter of cases these methods cannot identify with confidence whether a patient's cyst in benign or malignant. This leads to surgical investigations, which are invasive and carry risks, such as potential loss of fertility. In most cases women are then diagnosed as having benign cysts.

The team believes that the new tool can be used as a triage test to decide whether patients need further follow up or treatment. They also believe that the findings from the study, published in the JAMA Network Open, could help stratify patients who are high risk so they can be given treatment at a much earlier stage.

Professor Andrea Rockall, senior author of the study and Chair of Radiology at Imperial College London, said:

"Ovarian cancer is referred to as a 'silent killer' as cases are often diagnosed at an advanced stage of the disease. When it is diagnosed earlier the chance of survival is much improved.

There is a real unmet clinical need to find less invasive ways to identify women at risk of ovarian cancer. Our tool has the potential to help triage patients who are low risk so they can have less invasive treatment options, as well as identifying high risk patients so they can receive treatment at an earlier stage and have a better chance of long-term survival."

Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in women and usually affects women after the menopause or those with a family history of the disease. There are 6,000 new cases of ovarian cancer a year in the UK but the long-term survival rate is just 35-40 per cent as the disease is often diagnosed at a late stage once symptoms such as bloating are noticeable. Early detection of the disease could improve survival rates.

Currently, to investigate potential cases of ovarian cancer clinicians use an ultrasound of the pelvis which shows the ovaries, womb and surrounding structures. They look for cysts in the ovaries and if these look suspicious, women are referred for additional investigations. Clinicians also use a blood test to look for a substance called CA125 - an indication of cancer. These methods are effective at differentiating most benign cysts with those that are malignant. However, in 20-25 per cent of cases the ultrasound is unable to confidently characterise whether a cyst is malignant or benign.

When this occurs, patients may need to undergo surgery in order to confirm if the cyst is malignant or benign. This is invasive and the majority turn out to be benign. In some small cases, this can also lead to a loss of fertility in younger patients.

If the nature of the cysts could be known before surgery, patients would potentially benefit from a more limited surgical approach or follow-up, saving the patients from additional risks as well as cutting unnecessary costs for the NHS.

In the new study, researchers looked at the effectiveness of a tool called Ovarian-Adnexal Reporting Data System Magnetic Resonance Imaging (O-RADS MRI) in identifying the risk of malignancy in ovarian cysts that could not be categorised by ultrasound in 1340 women. The study took place from March 2013 to March 2016 at 15 centres across Europe, including Hammersmith Hospital, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Each patient underwent a routine pelvic MRI examination which looked for particular features in cysts that could not be identified during an ultrasound examination such as changes to tissue structure. The researchers developed a risk stratification score which scored the cysts based on five categories. Radiologists then used this tool to score the cysts.

A score of one to three was identified as no mass or benign and a score between four and five was deemed high risk. The women then underwent appropriate standard care, such as surgery if they were identified as high risk or a two year follow-up if their cysts were benign.

A team of radiologists also analysed patients' medical records and ultrasound scans to compare the tool.

The team found that the system outperformed current methods and was 90 per cent accurate at identifying malignant and benign cysts.

The team also found that in patients who scored two or three the risk of a malignant tumour was very low. The researchers believe that these patients can make an informed decision, with the support of their physicians, to undergo a minimally invasive approach towards their treatment such as close monitoring and follow-up rather than surgery.

Using ultra-bright X-ray flashes, a team of researchers has tracked down a potential target for new drugs against sleeping sickness: The scientists have decoded the detailed spatial structure of a vital enzyme of the pathogen, the parasite Trypanosoma brucei. The result provides a possible blueprint for a drug that specifically blocks this enzyme and thus kills the parasite, as the team led by Christian Betzel from the University of Hamburg, Lars Redecke from the University of Lübeck and DESY and Henry Chapman from DESY reports in the journal Nature Communications.

Sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis) is a tropical disease caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei, which is transmitted by the bite of tsetse flies, that inhabit much of tropical Africa. In the body, the parasite first multiplies under the skin, in the blood and in the lymphatic system and then migrates to the central nervous system. If left untreated, the disease is almost always fatal. Thanks to intensive control measures, the number of registered cases has fallen dramatically in recent years. Nevertheless, sleeping sickness is still considered one of the most significant tropical diseases. According to the World Health Organisation, more than 60 million people in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa are at risk. War, displacement and migration can cause the disease to flare up.

In the search for a possible starting point for drugs against the pathogen, the researchers had targeted a central enzyme of the unicellular organism, inosine-5'-monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH). "This enzyme belongs to the central inventory of every organism and is an interesting target for drugs because it regulates the concentration of two vital nucleotides in the cell: guanosine diphosphate and guanosine triphosphate," says Redecke. "The cell needs these nucleotides to supply energy and to build larger structures such as the genome. If you interrupt this cycle, the cell dies."

The enzyme has a kind of on/off switch that is activated by the docking of the cell's own molecules. A promising approach is to block this switch with a precisely tailored molecule. In order to construct such an inhibitor, the exact spatial structure of the switch must be known. Structural biologists can determine the structure of biomolecules using X-rays. To do this, they first grow small crystals from the biomolecules, which then generate characteristic diffraction patterns when illuminated with X-rays. From these patterns the atomic structure of the crystal and its building blocks, the biomolecules, can be calculated.

This approach is often complicated by the intractability of most biomolecules against forming crystals. And if such crystals can be grown, they are usually extremely sensitive to the high-energy X-rays and are quickly destroyed. "Although the structures of numerous IMP dehydrogenases are already known, there had been no success in growing crystals of the Trypanosoma brucei version of the enzyme", reports Betzel, who is also a researcher in the Cluster of Excellence CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter at the University of Hamburg and DESY.

The team therefore chose an alternative route: the group of co-author Michael Duszenko at the University of Tübingen induced certain insect cells to crystallise biomolecules within them. Using this so-called in cellulo crystallisation, the same team had already deciphered another key enzyme of the sleeping sickness pathogen, cathepsin B, which is also a potential drug target. It turned out that the altered insect cells also produce crystals of the dehydrogenase now investigated. These crystals form tiny needles around 5 thousandths of a millimetre (5 micrometres) thick and up to 70 micrometres long, so that they protruded from the producing cells.

The in-cellulo crystals are so small that very bright X-rays are required to analyse them. The larger a crystal is, the more atoms within it can scatter X-rays, causing a better diffraction pattern. The researchers therefore used the LCLS X-ray laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the US for the analysis. "X-ray lasers generate extremely intense flashes," explains Chapman, who is a Lead Scientist at DESY in the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science CFEL and one of the spokespersons of the Cluster of Excellence CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter. "Although the sensitive crystals evaporate immediately, they first generate a diffraction pattern from which the structure can be obtained." The method used here to exploit these properties, called serial femtosecond crystallography, was developed earlier by many of the researchers involved in this study and named one of the top ten breakthroughs of the year by Science magazine in 2013.

The team recorded the diffraction patterns of more than 22,000 microcrystals and was able to calculate the spatial structure of the enzyme with an accuracy of 0.28 millionths of a millimetre (nanometre) - this corresponds roughly to the diameter of an aluminium atom. "The result does not only show the exact structure of the enzyme switch, the Bateman region, but also which molecules of the cell activate the switch and how these so-called co-factors bind to the enzyme switch," reports Karol Nass who performed this work during his PhD studies at DESY. He now works at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland and is, together with Redecke, a main author of the publication.

The switch is operated by the molecules adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and guanosine monophosphate (GMP). "The advantage of our method is not only that we are able to investigate the enzyme at room temperature, at which the enzyme naturally operates, but also that during in cellulo crystallisation the natural co-factors bind to the enzyme," said Betzel. According to the researcher, the data might now provide an approach for inhibiting the parasite's IMP dehydrogenase. "One could think of constructing a kind of clasp that would cover the binding sites of both co-factors, for example."

However, a remaining challenge is to design the IMP dehydrogenase inhibitor in such a specific way that it blocks the parasite's enzyme, but not the human enzyme. If this is successful, the method could potentially be extended to other pathogens, explains Betzel. "Other parasites have a very similar structure, and it might also be possible to attack those via the respective IMP dehydrogenase. The enzyme is a very interesting target for drugs, for example against the fox tapeworm or the elephantiasis pathogen."

The universities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Tübingen, the Russian Academy of Sciences, Arizona State University, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA, the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, the US National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC, the University of Gothenburg and DESY were involved in this research.

The steady rise of the world's urban population will drive an immense demand for new housing, commercial buildings, and other infrastructure across the planet by midcentury. This building boom will likely escalate global carbon emissions to dangerous levels and intensify climate change -- particularly if it relies on traditional materials such as concrete and steel.

But if society is able to use more wood-based products to meet this building demand, this urban growth might actually present an opportunity to mitigate climate change, according to a new paper led by researchers at Yale and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Writing in the journal Nature Sustainability, a multidisciplinary team of researchers and architects predicts that designing mid-rise urban buildings with engineered timber -- rather than relying mainly on carbon-intensive materials -- has the potential to create a vast "bank vault" that can store within these buildings 10 to 68 million tons of carbon annually that might otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

Simultaneously, society would drastically reduce carbon emissions associated with the construction sector, said Galina Churkina, who led the collaborative research while she was as a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES).

"Since the beginning of the industrial revolution we have been releasing into the atmosphere all of this carbon that had been stored in forests and in the ground," said Churkina, who is a senior scientist at PIK. "We wanted to show that there can be a vision for returning much of this carbon back into the land."

Beyond that, achieving a large-scale wood-based construction sector has the potential to create a new "symbiotic relationship" between natural systems and cities, said Alan Organschi, another author, from the Yale School of Architecture and Gray Organschi Architecture in New Haven.

"The city would become a carbon sink rather than a carbon source," he said. "We would essentially be storing the carbon that would otherwise be combusted for energy or aerobically digested on the forest floor and allowing the forest to 'continue' in this restorative, carbon-absorbing system."

Other authors include Barbara Reck, a senior research scientist and industrial ecologist at F&ES, Thomas Graedel, professor emeritus of industrial ecology at F&ES, as well as researchers from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Tsinghua University's Department of Earth Systems Science, and Gray Organschi Architecture's Timber City Research Initiative.

Although the practice of building with wood dates back to ancient times, the use of heavy, solid timber began to wane as steel and reinforced concrete technologies and techniques became cheaper and more reliable in the late 19thcentury. For larger projects, meanwhile, the use of wood became increasingly unpopular for many reasons, including the variant nature of wood products, the absorption and desorption properties that can change the shape of wood materials, and concerns about the risk of fire in wood-built buildings.

But technological advances have re-shaped the wood materials sector. While many might think of wood products as simply the pieces found in the lumber section of Home Depot, "mass timber" technologies these days refers to engineered wood products that are laminated from smaller boards and materials. These methods enable producers to break wood materials down to their smallest components and recompose them to suit a project -- removing the materials' vulnerabilities and weaknesses. (Also, extensive testing of glue-laminated beams and cross-laminated timber structures has demonstrated fire-resistance in buildings up to 18 stories in height.)

Indeed, mass timber is now used in urban building projects across the world, from Portland, Oregon to Tokyo, Japan.

"Using timber as the main building material for inner cities may seem counterintuitive, but novel technologies combined with an overwhelming climate benefit make it something every city planner should consider," said Reck.

Achieving a large-scale expansion of the mass timber sector will require changes in building codes, retraining of the construction workforce, expansion of the bio-based products sector, innovative urban planning, and a significant downscale in the production of mineral-based materials, researchers say.

Critically, it would also require advances in forest sustainable and continued re-forestation efforts to prevent over-exploitation of forest resources and ecosystems, as well as more research into the lifecycle of wood products to assure that the carbon stored in these products remains stored over the long term, Churkina says.

The authors acknowledge that growing the mass timber industry to a scale that challenges traditional building sectors will require additional research and coordination across sectors. But, they say, their findings suggest the vast potential to address a critical global challenge facing humankind in the decades ahead.

"To me it's like the first step," said Organschi. "It raises the question: why would we do this? And the answer is, well, if we do it right -- and that's a big if -- the sheer capacity of buildings to work as climate mitigation tools is amazing. It's amazing."

London, January 30, 2020 - Born in Brooklyn, New York, the rap artist Maino (Jermaine John Colman) takes his experiences not only from growing up in the famous borough, but also the 10 long years he spent behind bars at Riker's Island Penitentiary. A new dialogue paper, by two academics and co-founders of HIP HOP PSYCH (HHP) in Forensic Science International: Mind and Law, published by Elsevier, review Maino's time behind bars using his lyrics, and exploring the connections between hip-hop, mental health and resilience.

"Hip-hop has opened up new conversations around mental health with hard-to-reach groups around the world," noted the HHP co-founders, Akeem Sule, MD and Becky Inkster, DPhil, both of whom hold affiliations with Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge, UK. "Which is being driven in part by influential hip-hop artists, like Maino, speaking openly about their own struggles."

The global influence hip-hop has and its particular relevance to youth culture means it must continually find new ways to reach its audience by creating innovative solutions. Hip-hop dominates music streaming services and connects with listeners around the world; the lessons of past mistakes some hip-hop artists tell through their music is often a hardship that listeners can find some commonality with.

Several mental health disorders can also be tied back to such adverse social and environmental experiences (including incarceration, financial difficulties or loss of a loved one). Depression may often result and is projected to be the second-leading cause of disability in 2020, according to the World Health Organization.

The dialogue paper specifically focused on the resilience factors exhibited in Maino's most well-known track, 2009's 'All the Above', and others including his latest release, 2019's 'Motivation'. As a public figure with well-documented life experiences such as interviews circulated through social channels like Instagram and Twitter, the researchers were able to gain further insights as to what resilience factors shaped Maino's journey and what might inspire others to discover their own resilience.

"Our views of Maino's lyrics do not necessarily imply a permanent level of success for his life's trajectory. Sometimes his lyrics reference positive outcomes, but it does not limit the possibility that Maino could still be exposed to critical life events in the future," said the co-founders. They also want to emphasize the intention of their paper is to not present a forensic psychiatric opinion of Maino, nor a diagnosis of a mental disorder or providing a prognosis of his reoffending chances.

The co-founders make connections between his lyrics and various concepts relevant to mental health such as stress inoculation, locus of control, cognitive reframing, positive visual imagery, turning points and psychometric tools for measuring resilience.

While Drs. Inkster and Sule cannot say for certain that Maino may, or may not reoffend, they highlight the critical need to examine opportunities to use hip-hop as part of already established restorative justice programs, both inside prison and out in the community, to help limit reoffending and improve the chances of successful rehabilitation.

Visual processing is about how the brain perceives and processes the impressions of the eyes. Problems with processing visual impressions can also impact a variety of other skills.

"We've confirmed that visual processing may apply to dyslexia, but also to why some children have problems with mathematics and motor skills," says Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Psychology.

In addition, problems with visual processing may explain why some dyslexics respond more slowly when driving a car, at least as has been shown to be the case in a driving simulator.

Clear connection

A research group from NTNU compared two groups, described in a new article in Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research.

One group consisted of the top ten per cent of performers on a test that is often used to determine whether an individual has dyslexia, and the other group consisted of the ten per cent who struggled the most on the test.

In total, the researchers surveyed almost 200 people. They used two different computer programs to test the participants. One program checked how efficient the brain is at detecting movement or rapid changes in the surroundings, while the control task was to find a figure hidden in a pattern.

"We found a clear difference between the two groups with high or low literacy in their ability to perceive movement," says Sigmundsson.

This strengthens previous findings that have pointed in the same direction. The researchers found no difference between the groups in their ability to solve the control task with figures that included shape and colour.

Researchers at NTNU have previously linked dyscalculia, which is when a person has problems solving mathematical problems, to visual processing. The same connection applies to motor difficulties in children.

New app makes vision easier to investigate

Visual processing may well be an innate ability that can't be improved by training that much, if at all. This can limit how good you can become at certain things, and you can only compensate with other skills and exercises to a certain point.

But a new app can at least make it easier to investigate the issue. It can help to determine if someone is struggling with visual processing associated with rapid changes in their surroundings.

In the work related to their most recent article, the research team used an app called Magno. NTNU researchers designed the app for Android. Professor John Krogstie, who heads the university's Department of Computer Science (IDI) was also involved in the study.

Interdisciplinary

"At IDI we've had several tasks related to this problem, both in being able to conduct the test itself and how to manage the test results if a lot of people are going to take this kind of test," says Krogstie.

In addition to the computer technology challenges of creating such systems per se, the scope here is related to general solutions that contribute to learning using IT solutions, Krogstie says.

"By knowing more about the specific challenges a learner has, we can create customized solutions that take the challenges into account," says Krogstie.

This project is linked to broader activity in the Learner Computer Interaction workshop at the department.

"This is an interdisciplinary activity that requires collaboration across academic fields. Having a good working relationship with other people, including people who work on the psychology of learning, is a natural fit. Working together on Magno helps us work better across academic subject areas. That's useful in a lot of different ways," says Krogstie.

Researchers have for the first time found a connection between the immune systems of different bird species, and the various climatic conditions in which they live. The researchers at Lund University in Sweden believe that as the climate changes, some birds may be exposed to diseases that they are not equipped to handle.

Watch video story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZqfAy8l0M&feature=youtu.be

The results of the study indicate that evolution has calibrated the immune systems of a number of bird species over millions of years, enabling them to deal with diseases specific to the particular environment and climate in which they live.

Rapid climate change increases the risk that these tailor-made immune systems may be insufficient, and not only in birds. Emily O'Connor, one of the biologists behind the study, believes that the results could apply to certain other animals as well, as the immune system genes they examined are common to all vertebrates.

"Evolution may not be able to "keep up" with climate change. There is a risk that many animals simply will not be able to cope with changes in the number and type of pathogens that they will be exposed to", she says.

When the climate changes and, for example, northern Europe becomes warmer and wetter, diseases that previously have not existed in temperate climates could start to appear. This may present a challenge for some animals.

Emily O'Connor and her colleagues studied 37 different bird species living in different climatic regions. They investigated diversity in immune system genes in each species, which influences how effectively the immune system is able to combat diseases.

They also looked at temperature and precipitation for the different areas from 1901 to 2017. In this way, they have demonstrated that diversity of immune system genes a species has is related to the climate it lives in. Species that live their entire lives in tropical, rainfall-rich areas and do not move, have the most diverse immune system genes. This high diversity enables these species to handle more pathogens, according to the researchers.

Migratory birds that spend their winters in tropical areas and breed in temperate climates have immune systems similar to those of European resident birds. According to the researchers, this could be because they are able escape disease by moving.

The initiative is part of the project urGENTestimar, by the artist Ada Vilaró and the physicist Josep Perelló, researcher at the Institute of Complex Systems of the UB (UBICS) and head of the Research Group OpenSystems, focused on citizen science. Other participants in the article are Anna Cigarini and Julian Vicens, members of the same group in the UB.

Getting people in touch in public spaces

The launch of FiraTàrrega 2017 was a particular art and citizen science activity which involved the deployment of a device based on community participation, for forty hours -in the town square of Tàrrega.

The objective of the study was to measure the willingness of people to cooperate, paring them to take part in the prisoner's dilemma game. This is a paradigmatic game which makes people decide between cooperating and betraying their game partner's trust.

This action in FiraTàrrega 2017 put emphasis on the importance of people's presence and the need to interact in public spaces. This is why there were two different options for the dilemma: first, participants had to look at each other in the eye for thirty seconds before deciding whether to cooperate or defect. In the second option, participants could solve the dilemma with no previous visual or voice contact, with their partner, that is, without knowing each other at all. Before the game started, participants were asked if they identified themselves as men, women, or non-binary gender -which was the starting point information of the study. Out of the 374 participants, 290 of them played after looking at each other in the eye.

Women and men, two different cooperation patterns

Looking in the eye affects the cooperation pattern in men and women in different ways, and the gender identity of the one with whom we interact is another relevant factor in such differences. In general, women show expectations regarding the other person's cooperative attitude, a 7% more than men. On the other hand, men are more impulsive in their actions and spend less time taking the decision to defect, compared to women. If their partner is a man, visual contact has a negative influence in their cooperation, 11% less compared to the non-interaction case, in which they don't know the gender of the other person. Therefore, men's trust when having a man as a partner is 20% less compared to the trust women show in front of men.

There are other differences between men and women regarding the ability to guess what the other is about to do in the game. Women prove to be better "guessers" regarding the intentions of the other person in the game, especially when interacting with men (reaching 91% of right guessing). This result contrasts the case of man-man interaction, where correct predicting is of 68%.

"Results suggest that, in short-lived social situations, non-verbal signals have an impact on men and women in different ways", notes Josep Perelló. "Conclusions of the study -continues the researcher- suggest that we consider our gender identity and the gender identity of those with whom we interact when we want to increase and promote equity and respect conditions in public spaces. To do so, we have to put emphasis on the role of women, considering their prosocial behaviour: high levels of cooperation, trust, and ability to guess the others' decisions".

Online platforms and street art, an alliance for public and participative research

The deployment of urGENTestimar was a shared experience in different rituals: observing, eating, sleeping, walking, running... Citizens were invited to stop a daily activity and put in practice several communion moments that allowed them to interact. A process of transformation shared by the people, time and place. Scientific research was shown before, during and after the opening event for FiraTàrrega, through three actions: previous work with associations and collectives in Tàrrega, launch of a conversation group through a bot in Telegram, and interaction experience in the square for forty hours.

The activity in the town square of Tàrrega included several experimental stations. Each of these had two interconnected tablets, separated by a wall. After reading the game instructions and answering a social and demographic questionnaire, participants were set to play the prisoner's dilemma game. This experimental game contrasts the standard approach for the study of human behaviour through social dilemmas. In the field of social sciences, common experimental spaces are controlled laboratories or online platforms to neutralize the influence of the atmosphere. According to Julian Vicens, co-author of the article, "the online platform carried out by the research group OpenSystems of the University of Barcelona enabled obtaining an important quantity of data in a natural space of interaction and outside the laboratory".

"FiraTàrrega was, therefore, the perfect environment to show that these massive contexts are where gender should be paid more attention to. The combination of street arts and citizen science focused on social themes can offer a shared experience and collective reflection to participants in order to give unpublished scientific results on human behavior that are valid and interesting for all", concludes Anna Cigarini, also co-author of the article.

About the Prisoner's Dilemma

In game theory, the Prisoner's Dilemma is a game where two players can cooperate or defect, although each player is more prone to defect than cooperate. Since participants do not know with whom they are playing, plus they cannot talk to each other, the analysis of their actions enables us to quantify their cooperative behavior, their attitude towards social rules of cooperation, justice and equity, and their expectations regarding the other player's behavior. In this case, Anna Cigarini notes that "we wanted to study the effect of non-verbal communication, that is, visual contact, in expectations and interaction patterns between men and women to better understand behavior and expectations when interacting in short-lived social atmospheres".