Earth

Researchers have discovered how a protein in plant roots controls the uptake of minerals and water, a finding which could improve the tolerance of agricultural crops to climate change and reduce the need for chemical fertilisers.

The research, published in Current Biology, shows that members of the blue copper proteins family, the Uclacyanins are vital in the formation of Casparian strips. These strips are essential structures that control mineral nutrient and water use efficiencies by forming tight seals between cells in plants, blocking nutrients and water leaking between.

This is the first evidence showing the implications of this family in the biosynthesis of lignin, one of the most abundant?organic polymers?on earth. This study reveals that the molecular machinery required for Casparian strip lignin deposition is highly ordered by forming nano-domains which can have a huge impact on plant nutrition, a finding that could help in the development of crops that are efficient in taking in the nutrients they need.

Food security represents a pressing global issue. Crop production must double by 2050 to keep pace with global population growth. This target is even more challenging given the impact of climate change on water availability and the drive to reduce fertilizer inputs to make agriculture become more environmentally sustainable. In both cases, developing crops with improved water and nutrient uptake efficiency would provide a solution and this.

Guilhem Reyt from the School of Biosciences and Future Food Beacon at the University of Nottingham has led this research project, he says: "This research is important in revealing the molecular mechanics underpinning efforts to improve mineral nutrient and water use efficiencies and enhanced stress tolerance, making crops more able to withstand flooding, drought, nutrient deficiencies and trace element toxicities.

Such improvements in agricultural and horticultural crops could also potentially benefit subsistence farmers with limited access to inorganic fertilizers which include nitrogen, phosphate and potassium and also sulphur and magnesium. This would help to reduce the cost burden such fertilizers impose and reduce the environmental and ecological damage their production and excess use causes. Improved water use efficiency and stress tolerance will also improve yields for subsistence farmers cultivating marginal lands.

An improved understanding of how roots acquire important trace element and minerals should provide an important molecular mechanistic underpinning to efforts to improve food quality by helping to increase the content of essential mineral nutrients and reduce toxic trace elements in food crops."

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech, Japan) and Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO, Spain) develop a method to generate circularly polarized light from the ultimate symmetrical structure: the sphere. Their approach involves breaking the inherent symmetry of the sphere by electron beam excitation, which allows for precisely controlling the phase and polarization of the emitted light. This method can be used to encode information in the phase and polarization direction of circularly polarized light, enabling novel quantum communication and encryption technologies.

Light waves possess a property called polarization that, although hidden to the naked eye, has tremendous potential in communication and information technologies. This property is related to the orientation of the oscillations perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the wave. The simpler types of polarization are static--for example, purely vertical or horizontal polarization. However, there is circular polarization as well, in which the orientation of the oscillation continually rotates as the wave propagates.

Circularly polarized light (CPL) is a key ingredient of next-generation technologies such as quantum communication and encryption. CPL can have right-handed or left-handed polarization depending on the direction in which the oscillations rotate. This "binary" characteristic of circular polarization can be used to encode information in light in a robust way; in other words, it is unlikely that a receiver would mistake right-handed CPL for left-handed CPL. Thus, developing emitters capable of producing CPL is an active field of research.

One emerging method to produce CPL is to use two-dimensional achiral structures. The word "achiral" is similar to "symmetric," meaning that the mirror image of an achiral structure is indistinguishable from the original object. But how does a symmetric object emit light with two different modes of circular polarization? The answer is "external symmetry breaking," whereby controlled localized excitations or specially designed detection schemes cause achiral structures to produce CPL with the desired orientation. In a recent study published in ACS Nano , scientists at Tokyo Tech, Japan and ICFO, Spain, have found a way to generate CPL from the ultimate symmetric structure--the sphere.

Spherical nanoparticles work as omnidirectional antennas and, being achiral, require external symmetry breaking to produce CPL. In their novel approach, the team of scientists irradiated a spherical nanoparticle with electron beams to trigger a phenomenon known as "cathodoluminescence." This process, which is the basis of 20th century television displays, involves high-energy electrons impinging on the material and exciting multiple local electrons to higher energy states, which then emit this excess energy as photons. Associate Professor Takumi Sannomiya, who led the study, remarks, "The use of electron beams are a versatile way of exciting precise optical modes and presents potential advantages for the on-demand generation of CPL."

However, when using a sphere, a properly designed excitation scheme is necessary to achieve the desired symmetry breaking. The scientists proposed not one, but two different ways to produce left- and right-handed CPL from a sphere. The first way involves manipulating the phase differences between two electric dipoles induced in the sphere by an electron beam. The other way is leveraging the interference produced between magnetic and electric dipoles.

To experimentally visualize the CPL generated by their spherical nanoparticles, the scientists developed a polarimetry technique called four-dimensional STEM-CL, short for "scanning transmission electron microscopy-cathodoluminescence." Notably, the experimental results were almost perfectly in line with the predictions of rigorous theoretical analyses. Excited about the results, Sannomiya concludes, "Our approach holds great potential for the development of customizable CPL sources, whereby the phase and degree of polarization of the emitted light can be readily controlled through positioning of the electron beam." The versatility of this novel method could be of great use to encode information on the phase and polarization of photons, enabling new communication and encryption methods.

The brain's structure has columnar features, which are hypothesized to arise from nerve cells (neurons) stemming from the same parent cell, initially forming radial units. How exactly this process unfolds at the molecular level remains unexplained, however. Now, an important insight comes from Makoto Sato and colleagues from Kanazawa University who show how, in the fly brain, a gene known as Dscam regulates how neurons from one lineage repel each other, and project their axons to different columns. (Axons or nerve fibers are long protrusions of nerve cells, the function of which is to conduct electrical signals.) This finding corroborates the 'radial unit hypothesis', with the mechanism at play being lineage-dependent repulsion between sister neurons.

The researchers first looked at the evolution of neuron growth in the medulla, a part of the fly's visual system featuring a columnar structure. Its development is similar to that of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals; it involves neuroblasts (neural stem-like cells) that produce radially oriented and clonally related groups of neurons. Sato and colleagues recorded the distances between sister neurons (i.e., neurons stemming from the same neuroblast and forming a radial unit) and between axon pairs. From the obtained distance data, the scientists were able to conclude that the sister neurons often repel each other -- this observation is consistent with the formation of columns. Sato and colleagues call this process 'lineage-dependent repulsion'.

The mechanism that enables lineage-dependent repulsion must lie in daughter neurons derived from the same neuroblast 'remembering' the identity of their common mother neuroblast. Sato and colleagues put forward the explanation that the protein Dscam1 is involved. Dscam1 can develop nearly 20,000 variants, but when two identical Dscam1 molecules bind, they lead to a repulsive signal known to control self-avoidance in certain dendritic processes -- dendrites are branch-like extensions of nerve cells. The reasoning then is that daughter neurons stemming from the same neuroblast produce the same Dscam1 variant, and so repel each other, whereas neurons of different lineages express different Dscam1 variants that don't repel each other and can project to the same column.

The scientists were able to support their argumentation by a series of experiments confirming the relation between Dscam1 and lineage-dependent repulsion. Sato and colleagues note that "the mechanism that we propose ... is very simple", and add that it will be "interesting to determine whether similar mechanisms exist in other biological systems including column formation in mammalian brains."

In modern information technology (IT), data are processed and carried by motion of electrons in a CPU. In the electric circuits, the electrons move in a desired direction by an applied electric field. A frequency of the on-off switching of the electron motion, which is referred to as a "CPU clock" for example, is an order of gigahertz (109 Hz).

On the other hand, an oscillating field of light with a frequency of petahertz (1015 Hz) has a potential for realizing petahertz operation of the on-off switching. If one can move electrons with the light frequency, the speed of data processing could be one million times faster than those in conventional computers. An electromagnetic oscillation of light has, however, never driven polarized current (i.e., the time average of the current during the light pulse is zero), because the oscillating light field is temporally/spatially symmetric. Researchers at Tohoku University, Nagoya University, Institute for Molecular Science, Okayama Science University and Chuo University have succeeded in moving electrons in an organic superconductor in a specific direction by irradiation of ultrashort laser pulses.

According to Ohm's law, an induced current (and velocity of electrons) is proportional to the applied electric field. Note that Ohm's law holds, if the electrons are scattered many times in solids. In fact, the resistivity of the materials is determined by the electron-electron and/or electron-phonon scattering processes. If the electric field can be applied on the time scale shorter than the scattering time, however, the electrons in solids do not have enough time to be averaged. Instead, the electrons should be accelerated and generate a polarized net current. Therefore, the researchers have attempted to realize such "scattering-free current" using ultrashort laser pulses which are sufficiently shorter than the electron scattering time (= about 40 femtoseconds in organic superconductors).

One obstacle to realize such an experiment is that electric detection of such a short-time current is impossible. Therefore, the researchers employ the optical detection. Second harmonic generation (SHG) has been well known as the method for detecting electronic symmetry breaking such as a macroscopic dipole moment in ferroelectrics. The SHG can be also induced by the polarized current which is another type of the electronic symmetry breaking.

The researchers shine their ultrashort laser with a pulse width of about 6 fs (6 × 10-15 s) on an organic centrosymmetric superconductor, κ-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu[N(CN)2]Br, and detect a second harmonic generation (SHG) (Fig. 1). This is in contrast to the common sense because the SHG is generated only in the materials in which spatial symmetry is broken. Their detection of the SHG in the centrosymmetric material indicates that a polarized net current is generated during the light irradiation.

To confirm such a non-linear polarized current, the researchers investigate carrier-envelope phase (CEP; relative phase between the oscillation of light and its envelope) dependence of the SHG, because CEP sensitive nature is a characteristic behavior of the current induced SHG. A periodic change of the SHG intensity as a function of the CEP (Fig. 2(a)) is an evidence that the observed SHG is actually attributable to the scattering-free current.

The researchers further demonstrate that the relation between the scattering-free current and the superconductivity. The present result (Fig. 2b) shows that the SHG is detected at the temperature range below 50 K (> superconducting transition temperature (TSC=11.5 K)). The result also shows the intensity of the SHG rapidly grows toward the transition temperature below 25 K (∼2 × TSC) (Fig. 2b), indicating that the scattering-free current is sensitive to a "superconducting fluctuation". In many superconductors, the superconducting fluctuation, or microscopic seeds of superconductivity, has been found at temperatures higher than the superconducting transition (Fig. 3), and the increase in the intensity of the second harmonic seems to be related to the superconducting fluctuations.

The researchers say, "With further understanding of the scattering-free non-linear petahertz current, we may be able to make computers with an operation speed of petahertz which is million times faster than the present ones of gigahertz. This phenomenon can be used also as a tool to elucidate the microscopic mechanism of superconducting states, because it is sensitive to the superconducting fluctuation."

As domestic violence skyrockets amid COVID-19, women's health experts are calling for compulsory training of obstetric health practitioners to ensure they can recognise the signs of coercive control for women in their care.

The recommendation follows new research by the University of South Australia and the University Melbourne that identifies the vital role that health professionals play in a woman's decision to stay or leave an abusive relationship.

Exploring women's experiences of coercive control during pregnancy, birth and post-delivery, the study showed that obstetric health practitioners - doctors, midwives, nurses and social workers - were in a unique position to offer empathy, support and information.

UniSA researcher, Dr Fiona Buchanan, says a greater understanding of coercive control and domestic violence is essential for health practitioners working in paediatrics and obstetrics.

"Coercive control is a form of psychological entrapment, achieved through behaviour that victimises women through acts, words and gestures designed to isolate, frighten and demean them," Dr Buchanan says.

"Disturbingly, women with children are three times more likely to experience domestic violence than women without children and, perhaps worse, is that the frequency and severity of domestic violence is twice as high for women during pregnancy.

"In this study, women said that they felt less isolated and distressed when others acknowledged it was happening - almost as if sharing the burden helped validate their worth and affirm their feelings.

"When concerned health practitioners empathised with their patients and provided information and support, this helped relieve some of this distress.

"This support was singularly important to women's perceptions of themselves and precipitated their decision to leave abusive partners."

In Australia, 25 per cent of women have experienced emotional abuse from a current or previous partner. Disturbingly, one woman is killed every nine days as a result of domestic abuse.

Alarmingly, in the 2017-2019 NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Report, 99 per cent of domestic violence-related homicides were characterised by coercive control, highlighting the immense dangers surrounding this form of psychological abuse.

Co-researcher Professor Cathy Humphreys from the University of Melbourne says health professionals hold a position of trust that enables them to offer first-line support. She says that there are key behaviours that are indicative of psychological abuse and control.

"During pregnancy, instances of overbearing behaviours or alternatively a lack of interest in antenatal care may indicate that a partner is using coercive control tactics," Professor Humphreys says.

"Signs of abuse could be limiting a woman's contact with doctors; refusing to come to scans and appointments; and even making a scene when a visit is running late.

"Similarly, a lack of support or self-focus by partners is also worrisome, with some women saying that their partners blamed them for having too long a labour.

"This damaging behaviour also extends across motherhood, where partners may isolate women from family and friends, as well as criticize them on their mothering abilities.

"All these acts exemplify ways that partners shame and demean women, and all are important warning signals for health practitioners to look out for."

Professor Humphries says that health practitioners' responses either helped women to identify their partners' behaviours as abusive, or exacerbated women's feelings of isolation and helplessness.

"We must find ways to ensure that all obstetric health practitioners can identify coercive control, so that we can help women to act and protect themselves and their children from further abuse.

"There's no excuse for abuse and it's everyone's responsibility to prevent it."

Researchers from the Paul-Drude-Institut in Berlin, the Helmholtz-Zentrum in Dresden and the Ioffe Institute in St. Petersburg have demonstrated the use of elastic vibrations to manipulate the spin states of optically active color centers in SiC at room temperature. They show a non-trivial dependence of the acoustically induced spin transitions on the spin quantization direction, which can lead to chiral spin-acoustic resonances. These findings are important for applications in future quantum-electronic devices and have recently been published in Physical Review Letters.

Color centers in solids are optically active crystallographic defects containing one or more trapped electrons. Of special interest for applications in quantum technologies are optically addressable color centers, that is, lattice defects whose electronic spin states can be selectively initialized and read-out using light. In addition to initialization and read-out, it is also necessary to develop efficient methods to manipulate their spin states, and thus the information stored in them. While this is typically realized by applying microwave fields, an alternative and more efficient method could be the use of mechanical vibrations. Among the different materials for the implementation of such strain-based technologies, SiC is attracting growing attention as a robust material for nano-electromechanical systems with an ultrahigh sensitivity to vibrations that also hosts highly-coherent optically active color centers.

In a recent work published in Physical Review Letters, researches from the Paul-Drude-Institut fuer Festkoerperelektronik, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and the Ioffe Institute have demonstrated the use of elastic vibrations to manipulate the spin states of optically active color centers in SiC at room temperature. In their study, the authors use the periodic modulation of the SiC crystal lattice to induce transitions between the spin levels of the silicon-vacancy center, an optically active color center with spin S=3/2. Of special importance for future applications is the fact that, in contrast to most atom-like light centers, where the observation of strain-induced effects requires cooling the system to very low temperatures, the effects reported here were observed at room temperature.

To couple the lattice vibrations to the silicon-vacancy centers, the authors first selectively created such centers by irradiating the SiC with protons. Then they fabricated an acoustic resonator for the excitation of standing surface acoustic waves (SAW) on the SiC. SAWs are elastic vibrations confined to the surface of a solid that resemble seismic waves created during an earthquake. When the frequency of the SAW matches the resonant frequencies of the color centers, the electrons trapped in them can use the energy of the SAW to jump between the different spin sublevels. Due to the special nature of the spin-strain coupling, the SAW can induce jumps between spin states with magnetic quantum number differences Δm=±1 and Δm=±2, while microwave-induced ones are restricted to Δm=±1. This allows to realize full control of the spin states using high-frequency vibrations without the aid of external microwave fields.

In addition, due to the intrinsic symmetry of the SAW strain fields combined with the peculiar properties of the half-integer spin system, the intensity of such spin transitions depends on the angle between SAW propagation and spin quantization directions, which can be controlled by an external magnetic field. Moreover, the authors predict a chiral spin-acoustic resonance under traveling SAWs. This means that, under certain experimental conditions, the spin transitions can be switched on or off by inverting the magnetic field or the SAW propagation direction.

These findings establish silicon carbide as a highly promising hybrid platform for on-chip spin-optomechanical quantum control enabling engineered interactions at room temperature.

The human ability to digest the milk sugar lactose after infancy spread throughout Central Europe in only a few thousand years. This is the conclusion reached by an international research team led by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The researchers analyzed genetic material from the bones of individuals who had fallen in a conflict around 1200 B.C. on the banks of the Tollense, a river in the present-day German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and report their findings in Current Biology this week. The researchers found that only around one in eight of the assumed warriors had a gene variant that enabled them to break down the lactose in milk. "Of the present-day population living in this same area, around 90 percent have this lactase persistence," explained population geneticist Professor Joachim Burger of JGU, the lead author of the study. "This is a huge difference when you consider that there cannot be many more than 120 human generations between then and today." Aside from lactase persistence and a few other genetic variants, the genomes of the Tollense people are similar to that of today's inhabitants of northern Germany and the Baltic Sea region.

"The only way to explain this difference between these Bronze Age people and those of today is very strong natural selection," emphasized biologist Professor Daniel Wegmann of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, who also played a leading role in the study. "We conclude that over the past 3,000 years, lactase-persistent individuals had more children or, alternatively, those children had better chances of survival than those without this trait." The researchers calculate a remarkable selective advantage: "In each generation lactase-persistent individuals have a six percent greater chance of surviving to reproductive age than non-lactase-persistent individuals," added Professor Joachim Burger.

Back in 2007, Burger and his team established that almost none of the first sedentary farmers in Europe were lactase-persistent. "It is astonishing that at the time of the battle at the Tollense, more than 4,000 years after the introduction of agriculture in Europe, lactase persistence in adults was still so rare," said Burger. However, there is as yet no definitive answer to the question: Why did being able to digest the sugar in milk after infancy provide such a big evolutionary advantage? "With milk being a high-energy, relatively uncontamined drink, its ingestion may have provided greater chances of survival during food shortages or when supplies of drinking water were contaminated. Particularly during early childhood, in the years shortly after weaning, this factor often may have been decisive amongst prehistoric populations," Burger concluded.

The study, which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG), also involved analyzing the genetic material in Bronze Age bones found in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe for comparison. The scientists found that these also showed low frequencies of lactase persistence. Even in bones from individuals from the Eastern European steppes, where previous studies had suspected adult lactase persistence may have originated, the trait was completely absent.

The conflict in the Tollense valley is considered the oldest known battle in Europe. Remains were first discovered there in the 1990s. For over ten years now, archaeologists have been systematically searching a kilometer-long section along the river. So far, the bones of more than 100 individuals have been discovered, many of them exhibiting signs of violent combat. Many still contain arrowheads, while some skulls look to have been crushed by blunt objects. Several thousand men are estimated to have been involved in the conflict, some of whom may have been on horseback.

Organization of cells into specific compartments is critical for their function. For instance, by separating the nucleus from the cytoplasm, the nuclear envelope prevents premature translation of immature RNAs. During mitosis, however, the nuclear envelope disassembles, allowing large cytoplasmic components such as ribosomes to mix with nuclear material. When the nuclear envelope reassembles following mitosis, these cytoplasmic components must once again be removed. "The nuclear envelope can contribute to this by actively importing or exporting substrates up to a certain size, but it was not clear what happens with very large cytoplasmic components", says Mina Petrovic, PhD student in the Gerlich lab and joint first author of the study.

The research team from IMBA and EMBL have now shown that large components such as ribosomes are in fact removed from the forming nucleus before the nuclear envelope is assembled again. This exclusion process requires the protein Ki-67, which was the focus of an earlier publication in Nature by Sara Cuylen-Häring, the other joint first author of this study, when she was a postdoc in the Gerlich lab in 2016. Dr Cuylen-Häring explains: "We previously showed that Ki-67 was responsible for keeping chromosomes separate in early stages of mitosis by acting as a surfactant. Remarkably, we have now found that it changes its properties at the end of mitosis and performs the opposite function, namely clustering of chromosomes. By coming together into a dense cluster at the end of cell division, chromosomes are able to exclude large cytoplasmic components before the nuclear envelope reforms."

This important work shows how a single protein can dynamically change the material properties of cellular components to regulate compartmentalization of key processes within the cell.

In 2013 the Rim Fire-the largest fire on record in the Sierra Nevada-burned one third of the potential California Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis) habitat in Yosemite National Park. The park provides prime habitat for this Spotted Owl subspecies, which is listed as a Species of Special Concern by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and concern grew regarding the fire's effect on Yosemite's owl populations. But recent research provides some good news regarding the park's owls, and it may be due to Yosemite's unique history and fire management strategy.

In a study published last week in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, researchers from The Institute for Bird Populations and Yosemite National Park found that Spotted Owl numbers and nesting rates remained stable in areas of the park that were burned by the Rim Fire. Between 2015 and 2017, the researchers surveyed for Spotted Owls, locating their territories and determining their breeding status. They used satellite data to characterize the habitat in the study area, including how severely it burned.

"What surprised me, primarily, was not that owls were still present, but they were still present in the same numbers and still successfully setting up territories and breeding," says the study's lead author Lynn Schofield, a biologist with The Institute for Bird Populations. While the owls avoided the most severely burned areas, they still held territories within the fire's perimeter.

California Spotted Owls can tolerate forest fire, but Schofield cautions that not all fires are created equal. Yosemite's forests have not been commercially logged since the early 1900s and fire suppression efforts since the 1970s have been kept to a minimum. This results in a forest structure and fire regime that is distinct from what is found outside of the park.

"In Yosemite there is a diversity of forest habitat" explains Schofield, "This means the Rim Fire burned with a diversity of severities creating a range of post-fire habitat for owls to choose from." The study notes that in portions of the adjacent Stanislaus National Forest that were also burned by the Rim Fire, burn severity was more homogenous likely due to the contrasting logging and fire management regime on the National Forest.

The frequency of large, high intensity "megafires" like the Rim Fire is expected to increase in the Sierra Nevada. These megafires are considered one of the most important conservation threats to the California Spotted Owl. This study suggests that Yosemite's owl population has benefited from the park's diverse forest habitats and restored fire regime, and that these factors have allowed them to thrive even after a major disturbance like the Rim Fire.

"At Yosemite, restoring fire to its natural role is one of our management priorities," says Sarah Stock, a wildlife ecologist at Yosemite and co-author of the study. "It's gratifying to see that this strategy is paying off for the park's wildlife." 

NASA's Terra satellite's visible image of Typhoon Haishen revealed a small "pinhole" eye surrounded by several hundred miles of thunderstorms spiraling around it as it continued moving north though the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.

NASA Satellite View: Haishen's Organization

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Typhoon Haishen on Sept. 3 at 0145 UTC (Sept. 2 at 9:45 p.m. EDT).  Satellite imagery shows deep convection and spiral banding of thunderstorms wrapping tightly around the 10 nautical-mile wide eye and into a low-level circulation center.

Satellite imagery was created using NASA's Worldview product at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Haishen on Sept. 1

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on Sept. 3, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) in Honolulu, Hawaii noted that Typhoon Haishen was located about 646 nautical miles east-southeast of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa Island, Japan. It was centered near latitude 20.7 degrees north and longitude 137.7 degrees east. Haishen was moving to the northwest with maximum sustained winds of 95 knots (109 mph/176 kph).

Haishen is forecast to turn northwest while intensifying to 130 knots (150 mph/241 kph) within the next two days. The storm will pass west of Kyushu, Japan to make landfall in South Korea after 4 days.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters with a visible image of former Typhoon Maysak, now an extra-tropical storm. Wind shear continued pushing the bulk of the storm's clouds to the northwest.

Maysak's Landfall

Maysak made landfall on Sept. 2 at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC) about 12 miles west of Busan, South Korea with maximum sustained surface winds of 64 knots (74 mph/119 kph).

Typhoon Maysak's Final Status on Sept. 2

On Sept. 2 at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 UTC), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued their final bulletin on Maysak. At that time, Maysak was located near latitude 36.9 degrees north and longitude 128.9 degrees east. That is about 24 nautical miles north-northwest of Busan, South Korea. Maximum sustained surface winds were near 64 knots (74 mph/119 kph). Maysak was moving to the north-northeast. At the time, the JTWC noted, "Animated enhanced infrared satellite imagery and radar imagery indicate tightly-curved banding wrapping into a defined low-level circulation center."

Maysak was undergoing extra-tropical transition late on Sept 2. It is embedded within the leading edge of a deep mid-latitude shortwave trough (elongated area of low pressure).

NASA's Satellite View on Sept. 3

On Sept. 3, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP revealed southeasterly wind shear battering Maysak had exposed the center of circulation and pushed the bulk of clouds and precipitation to the northwest of the center. The storm extended from the Korean Peninsula into the Sea of Japan.

On Sept. 3, the system completed extra-tropical transition and gained frontal characteristics.

What is Wind Shear?

In general, wind shear is a measure of how the speed and direction of winds change with altitude. Tropical cyclones are like rotating cylinders of winds. Each level needs to be stacked on top each other vertically in order for the storm to maintain strength or intensify. Wind shear occurs when winds at different levels of the atmosphere push against the rotating cylinder of winds, weakening the rotation by pushing it apart at different levels.

What does Extra-tropical Mean?

When a storm becomes extra-tropical it means that a tropical cyclone has lost its "tropical" characteristics. The National Hurricane Center defines "extra-tropical" as a transition that implies both poleward displacement (meaning it moves toward the north or south pole) of the cyclone and the conversion of the cyclone's primary energy source from the release of latent heat of condensation to baroclinic (the temperature contrast between warm and cold air masses) processes. It is important to note that cyclones can become extratropical and still retain winds of hurricane or tropical storm force.

This system is forecast to deepen as a storm-force extra-tropical low-pressure area over North Korea and China.

NASA Researches Tropical Cyclones

Hurricanes/tropical cyclones are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer among women and men in the USA, and recent studies have shown an increasing incidence in less developed regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A team of researchers from South African universities in collaboration with the University of South Carolina-Upstate, have developed method which relies on a hybrid signature (based on patterns in DNA mutation and RNA expression) and assessed its predictive properties for the mutation status and survival of CRC patients.

The research team, led by Mohanad Mohammed at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa investigated publicly-available microarray and RNASeq data from 54 matched formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) samples from the Affymetrix GeneChip and RNASeq platforms. The samples were used to obtain information about differentially expressed genes between mutant and wild-type samples. The researchers then applied bioinformatics techniques which include the use of support-vector machines, artificial neural networks, random forests, k-nearest neighbor, naïve Bayes, negative binomial linear discriminant analysis, and the Poisson linear discriminant analysis algorithms for classification. The Cox proportional hazards model was used for survival analysis.

When compared to the gene list from each of the individual platforms, the researchers noted that the hybrid gene list had the highest accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and AUC for mutation status, across all the classifiers and is prognostic for survival in patients with CRC. Negative binomial linear discriminant analysis method was the best performer on the RNASeq data while the SVM method was the most suitable classifier for CRC across the two data types. The researchers concluded that nine genes were found to be predictive of survival.

"This signature could be useful in clinical practice, especially for colorectal cancer diagnosis and therapy.", notes Mohammed. Future studies should determine the effectiveness of integration in cancer survival analysis and the application on unbalanced data, where the classes are of different sizes, as well as on data with multiple classes. The research has been published in the journal, Current Bioinformatics.

Researchers at Texas A&M University have produced a therapeutic derived from turmeric, a spice long-praised for its natural anti-inflammatory properties, that shows promise in decreasing ocular inflammation in dogs suffering from uveitis, an inflammation of the eye that leads to pain and reduced vision.

Uveitis -- a common condition in dogs, humans, and other species -- can have many causes, often occurring secondary to infectious diseases cancer, and autoimmune diseases; it also is found in patients with longstanding cataracts and after operations correcting cataracts.

"Uncontrolled inflammation inside the eye, also known as uveitis, is a leading cause of complications after cataract surgery in dogs. The management of postoperative ocular inflammation is a major challenge observed in both human and veterinary ophthalmology," said Dr. Erin Scott, an assistant professor at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.

In a recent paper published in Science Advances, Scott and her colleagues at the Texas A&M University College of Pharmacy tested the anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin, a compound found in turmeric, and discovered that when processed to a special nanoparticle formulation to boost absorption, the natural compound is safe and effective at managing uveitis without any known side effects.

Oral medications currently used to treat uveitis must be adequately absorbed into the blood stream for their medicinal effects to be effective. This requires the medication to successfully pass through the intestinal barrier -- the physical barrier between the gut and the rest of the body via the circulatory system -- which limits the absorption of many drugs.

Drug delivery to the eye presents additional challenges because of the blood-ocular barrier -- the physical barrier between blood vessels and tissues of the eye -- which tightly controls what substances can pass into the eye.

Therefore, researchers must find ways to bypass such barriers to improve drug availability within the body.

Scott and her colleagues' research implemented a novel formulation of curcumin that improved transport of the substance across both intestinal and ocular barriers. By adding nanoparticle molecules that interact with receptors on a ubiquitous transmembrane carrier protein, known as the transferrin receptor, curcumin is able to hitch a ride across crucial barriers, improving absorption of the substance and reducing ocular inflammation.

Curcumin is especially attractive as a candidate for management of uveitis because it has no known side effects.

"Current treatments include a combination of systemic and topical anti-inflammatory medications, either in the form of steroids or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)," Scott said. "While both these medications are effective in the treatment of uveitis, they can cause unwanted side effects, such as vomiting, diarrhea, stomach ulcers, negatively impact kidney and liver function, and increase glucose levels in diabetic patients."

Scott and her colleagues hope to start a clinical trial in the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital using this new medication in the near future and are optimistic that the utility of their findings may benefit populations beyond dogs.

"This medication may translate to the treatment of cataracts and uveitis in humans," she said. "By studying animal patients with naturally occurring eye diseases, our findings may accelerate the development of medications to benefit both animals and humans."

AMHERST, Mass. - Venus flytraps do it, trap-jaw ants do it, and now materials scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst can do it, too - they discovered a way of efficiently converting elastic energy in a spring to kinetic energy for high-acceleration, extreme velocity movements as nature does it.

In the physics of human-made and many natural systems, converting energy from one form to another usually means losing a lot of that energy, say first author Xudong Liang and senior researcher Alfred Crosby. "There is always a high cost, and most of the energy in a conversion is lost," Crosby says. "But we have discovered at least one mechanism that helps significantly." Details are in Physical Review Letters.

Using high-speed imaging, Liang and Crosby measured in fine detail the recoiling, or snapping, motion of elastic bands that can reach accelerations and velocities similar to many of the natural biological systems that inspired them. By experimenting with different elastic band conformations, they discovered a mechanism for imitating ant and flytrap fast-motion, high-power impulse events with minimal energy loss.

Liang, who is now on the faculty at Binghamton University, and Crosby are part of a group that includes roboticists and biologists led by former UMass Amherst expert Sheila Patek, now at Duke University. She has studied the mantis shrimp's extremely rapid raptorial appendage-snapping motion for years. Their multi-institution team is supported by a U.S. Army Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grant funded by the U. S. Army Research Laboratory and its Research Office.

In Liang's observations and experiments, he discovered the underlying conditions where energy is most conserved - plus the fundamental physics - and presents what Crosby calls "some really beautiful theory and equations" to support their conclusions. "Our research reveals that internal geometric structures within a spring play a centrally important role in enhancing the energy conversion process for high-power movements," Crosby notes.

The secret turned out to be adding strategically placed elliptical - not circular - holes to the elastic band, Liang says. "Maintaining efficiency is not intuitive, it's very difficult to guess how to do it before you experiment with it. But you can start to form a theory once you see how the experiment goes over time. You can start to think about how it works."

He slowed the action to watch the snapping motion in a synthetic polymer that acts like a rubber band.

Liang discovered that the structural secret is in designing a pattern of holes. "With no holes everything just stretches," he notes. "But with holes, some areas of the material will turn and collapse." When plain bands are stretched and recoiled, less than 70% of the stored energy is harnessed for high-power movement, the rest is lost.

By contrast, adding pores transforms the bands into mechanical meta-materials that create motion through rotation, Liang explains. He and Crosby demonstrate that with meta-materials, more than 90% of the stored energy is used to drive movement. "In physics, bending accomplishes the same movement with less energy, so when you manipulate the pattern of the pores you can design the band to bend internally; it becomes high-efficiency," Crosby adds.

"This shows that we can use structure to change properties in materials. Others knew this was an interesting approach, but we moved it forward, especially for high-speed movement and the conversion from elastic energy to kinetic energy, or movement."

The two hope this advance will help roboticists on their MURI team and others with a performance goal to help them design high-efficiency, rapid kinetic robotic systems.

Liang says, "Now we can hand over some of these structures and say, 'Here's how to design a spring for your robots.' We think the new theory opens up a lot of new ideas and questions on how to look at the biology, how the tissues are structured or their shells are configured to allow rotation that we show is the key," he adds.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have developed a unique method for precisely controlling the deposition of hydrogel, which is made of water-soluble polymers commonly used to support cells in experiments or for therapeutic purposes. Hydrogel mimics the extracellular matrix - the natural environment of cells in the body.

The researchers noticed that their technique - which allows for the encapsulation of a single cell within a minute hydrogel droplet - can be used to coax bone marrow stem cells into specialized cells.

Their findings are reported in the journal Advanced Science.

The new technique is an improvement over existing approaches that often mix much larger amounts of hydrogel with cells in an uncontrolled manner, which can make interactions between cells and their surroundings difficult to study. The new hydrogel deposition technique may also be useful for therapeutic purposes, such as for supporting stem cells used to create new tissues.

"Most experiments use a very high amount of hydrogels to interface with cells, which may not reflect what is happening in the body," said UIC's Jae-Won Shin, assistant professor of pharmacology and regenerative medicine at the College of Medicine, and assistant professor of bioengineering at the College of Engineering, and corresponding author on the paper.

According to Shin, the team's deposition technique brings the ratio between hydrogels and cells in-line with what is seen in the body, and importantly, precisely controls the ratio on a single cell basis.

Shin and colleagues also observed that stem cells in thinner gel droplets expanded more rapidly than they did in bulk gels.

"We observed that stem cells expand several orders of magnitude faster in thin gel droplets, and so they experience more tension than they do in bulk gels made of the same material," said Sing Wan Wong, a postdoctoral fellow in Shin's lab and first author on the study. "We believe this tension encourages stem cells in thin gel coatings to more readily become bone cells, compared to stem cells in bulk gels."

The team believes the thin hydrogel deposition technique may help in the production of bone tissue from stem cells to use as regenerative therapeutics.