Earth

From 23 to 25 September 2019, heads of government from around the world will convene at the United Nations General Assembly to discuss efforts to advance climate action and global sustainable development. The summit aims to boost national ambitions to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement and will review the implementation of measures relating to the Sustainable Development Goals. The relationship between air pollution and climate change plays an important role in this context, and is the subject of a new IASS Policy Brief titled "A Practical Approach to Integrating Climate and Air Quality Policy".

Air pollution and the climate crisis are closely related. As well as driving climate change, the main cause of CO2 emissions - the extraction and burning of fossil fuels - is also a major source of air pollutants. An integrated approach to these two issues offers opportunities to maximise synergies, minimise trade-offs and increase efficiency. However, most policy decisions around climate action and air quality are still taken in parallel and with only limited coordination. In this latest IASS Policy Brief, the authors explain what the adoption of an integrated approach to these two issues would entail in practice and make an important contribution to the discussion on the implementation of the United Nations' climate and sustainable development goals.

The IASS Policy Brief draws on case studies to underpin its three key recommendations:

Recommendation 1: Involve crucial stakeholders early and regularly throughout the process. An inclusive vision that encompasses climate, air quality, and other societal concerns will take a wide range of stakeholders into account. The involvement and ownership of these stakeholders is essential for the acceptance of policies and support for their implementation.

Recommendation 2: Assess emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants together, and consider multiple impacts simultaneously. Integrated policymaking on climate and air quality is made easier by using modelling tools that assess emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants in tandem in order to quantify multiple impacts, for example on climate, health, and crops.

Recommendation 3: Take advantage of existing legal frameworks and ongoing policy processes. Existing policy structures can be adapted in order to integrate mitigation efforts in the fields of climate change and air quality. One good example of this is the Gothenburg Protocol, an international agreement on air pollution, to which the climate pollutant black carbon has been added in a recent amendment.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Proteins are the workhorses of our bodies. They keep our organs functioning. They regulate our cells. They are the targets for medications that treat a number of diseases, including cancers and neurological diseases. Proteins need to move in order to function, but scientists still know very little about such motions at speeds slower than a nanosecond.

The reason for that gap in knowledge might seem like a strange problem: Proteins sometimes move too slowly for some key technology scientists use to watch them - so slowly that the technology cannot pick up their movements. These proteins are still moving very fast - nanoseconds to microseconds. But before a new study, researchers could view only proteins moving faster than a nanosecond.

The research, published last month in the journal Science Advances by a team of biophysical chemists at The Ohio State University, changed that. The researchers found a way to measure the ways proteins move at slower speeds - hundreds of nanoseconds to microseconds. The discovery, a fundamental breakthrough, could open a new line of research for scientists trying to understand how proteins behave in the body.

"We know very little about what proteins do on timescales into the microseconds. Traditional experiments provide very little information, because the way we test proteins now loses sensitivity at those speeds - there is a window, depending on how fast a protein is moving, at which we cannot see what the protein is doing and how it is behaving," said Rafael Brüschweiler, Ohio Research Scholar and professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Ohio State. "Our goal here was to open up this window. To come up with a tool to measure how proteins function on these timescales that we have not been able to watch before."

Brüschweiler has been working on ways to better study proteins for decades, starting when he was a graduate student in Switzerland. He and his research group at Ohio State focus on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a tool that helps scientists understand how proteins behave in the body. But the tool - widely accepted in the scientific community as the definitive tool for studying proteins - was, until this discovery, incapable of measuring fundamental protein behavior at speeds slower than a nanosecond.

"On this slower timescale, the information about those proteins is just washed away - it is there, but our tools could not see it," Brüschweiler said. "We thought there was slower motion present, but it was not observable."

For this discovery, Brüschweiler and his team added nanoparticles - silica, or glass - to a solution containing water and proteins, and used the same tool, NMR - essentially magnetic pods as big as two stories high - to see how the proteins responded. The proteins bonded to the silica, making them all of a sudden visible to scientists analyzing their movements.

It was, Brüschweiler said, akin to developing a new microscope that could see something scientists hadn't been able to see before.

"It's a bit like if you have a telescope, and you look at the visible light from the stars," he said. "Now you have an infrared detector, so you can look for the infrared light that we cannot see with the naked eye. It provides a whole new window of information."

That additional information is the building block of science, allowing researchers who study proteins to ask deeper, better questions.

"This will help us look at a protein and ask, how does it behave? What happens when it interacts with another protein or a drug?" Brüschweiler said. "That's the type of information we need in order to understand the function of these proteins. Each protein has its own function in the body, and with this new tool, we get a glimpse of what they are actually doing and start to better understand why."

The ability to evaluate protein behavior at these speeds had flummoxed Brüschweiler for decades. He had attempted to find a solution 25 years ago. That study was "rigorous and nice," he said, "but ultimately a spectacular failure." He began to believe it just might not be possible to study proteins moving at speeds slower than a nanosecond with our tools.

His lab had begun experiments that worked on nanoparticles in biofluids - urine, cell extracts, serum - and he started to wonder if the nanoparticles - which, though very small, are larger than proteins - could help make dynamic protein behavior visible to scientists. And it worked.

"Science really deals with these unpredictable things that no one saw coming," he said. "That's what this is."

When functional ability declines, changing the way of walking by, for instance, walking slower, pausing for rest or using walking aids, can facilitate older adults' outdoor mobility. These were the findings of a study conducted at the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä.

As functional ability declines, older people may start to have difficulties in walking long distances. At this point, older people might change their way of walking consciously or unconsciously.

"Changes may be seen, for instance, in lowering walking speed, pausing walking for rest or even in avoiding long walking distances altogether. These early changes in walking are called walking modifications," doctoral student Heidi Skantz explains.

Previous research on walking modifications has implicitly considered modifications as an early sign of functional decline and such modifications have been shown to predict walking difficulties in the future. This previous research, however, has emphasized mainly the negative side of the use of walking modifications. We think that the potential positive, enabling, effects of walking modifications should also be considered.

"We wanted to find out if some of these changes in walking would be beneficial in maintaining outdoor mobility," Skantz says.

Using walking aids, lowered walking speed and pausing for rest were categorized as adaptive walking modifications, since they were considered to reduce the task demand, whereas reduced frequency of walking and avoiding long walking distances were categorized as maladaptive modifications. This categorization was shown to be meaningful.

"Those older people who used maladaptive walking modifications had smaller life-space mobility and they perceived that they lacked possibilities for outdoor mobility," Skantz says. "As for those older people who had chosen to utilise adaptive walking modifications, they were able to maintain wider life-space mobility and they were also satisfied with their outdoor mobility opportunities."

As functional ability declines, walking long distances might become a harder and scarier task than before. In such a case, it still remains important to continue covering long distances by walking, even if with walking aids or by pausing walking, in order to maintain outdoor mobility.

"Encouraging older people to opt for adaptive walking modifications might be possible by designing age-friendly environments, for instance by providing opportunities to rest when walking outdoors. However this warrants further studies," says Skantz.

The study participants were older people between the ages of 75 and 90, who were living in the Jyväskylä and Muurame regions in central Finland. The study was conducted at the Gerontology Research Center and Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä. This study was supported by European Research Council, the Academy of Finland, the Ministry of Education and Culture and the University of Jyväskylä.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (September 18, 2019) - Many people in danger of the severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis understand exactly what they need to avoid to stay safe. For some it's an allergy to food, for others it can be insect stings, medications, hormones or even physical factors like exercise. But according to the new "Idiopathic Anaphylaxis Yardstick", there are people for whom diagnosis and treatment of anaphylaxis are difficult because the cause is unknown and therefore labeled "idiopathic." The yardstick is published in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).

"Although Idiopathic Anaphylaxis (IA) is relatively rare, medical professionals do run across it," says anaphylaxis researcher Melody Carter, MD, lead author of the yardstick. "Since avoidance is the first line of defense in preventing anaphylaxis, anyone who hasn't had the cause identified is at a disadvantage, including physicians who are treating those with anaphylaxis. We developed the "Idiopathic Anaphylaxis Yardstick" to help physicians who might be searching for guidance on next steps after their patient has an anaphylactic reaction of an unknown origin."

According to the yardstick, a patient history is a vital step in diagnosing IA. Several diseases and disorders have symptoms which mimic anaphylaxis related to an allergy, and some causes of anaphylaxis have been discovered or are better recognized in recent years. Thus, there are many diagnoses labeled as "differential" - not caused by allergy but a reaction to something else. The patient history must include events that happened just before the event - foods that were eaten, drugs taken, activities (ie, exercise) insect stings or exposure to heat or cold. The time, location and duration of the event should also be considered.

"Advances in diagnostics have led to the discovery of disorders that were likely the cause of IA for many patients in the past," says allergist Phil Lieberman, MD, ACAAI member and co-author of the yardstick. "The yardstick contains a detailed discussion of the disorders that should be considered including alpha-gal, clonal mast disease, drug/alcohol induced flushing, tumor-related flushing and hereditary alpha tryptasemia syndrome. We outline diseases and disorders that can cause anaphylaxis or present with symptoms associated with anaphylaxis in order to assist allergists in examining a broad spectrum of possible causes. We also discuss laboratory tests that are essential diagnostic tools."

The yardstick has special sections that address pediatric patients and also provides suggestions for how to proceed with patients who don't respond to other treatments.

The "Idiopathic Anaphylaxis Yardstick" is published online in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of ACAAI. If you are seeking additional guidance on next steps for treating your patient with anaphylaxis, check the yardstick.

TORONTO, ON (Canada) - Research by ecologists at the University of Toronto and Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry shows strong evidence in a freshwater lake of "fishing down the food web" - the deliberate shift away from top predatory fish on the food chain to smaller species closer to the base.

While the effect has historically been observed almost exclusively in marine ecosystems and ocean fisheries, there has been little evidence of the effect in freshwater ecosystems.

A study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports a significant difference in harvests from Lake Simcoe, a large inland lake less than 100 kilometres north of Toronto, between two distinct periods over nearly 150 years. They found evidence of the effect of fishing down the food web during years of commercial fishing in the century leading up to the 1960s, followed by a reversing trend of fishing up the food web in the 50-plus years since commercial fishing operations ceased and recreational fishing increased.

"The early commercial activity that occurred from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s resulted in the depletion of some of the large, iconic predators in the lake such as lake sturgeon, muskellunge and walleye," said Don Jackson, a professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto and a coauthor of the study. "The amount was so significant it was almost the equivalent of losing an entire level of top predators from the food web."

The researchers assembled a 148-year record of fisheries data from the lake, using a long-time series of catch records and available data on the diets of key species on the lake to look for signs of fishing down the web. In some cases, the decline in the catch of species higher up on the food web was even faster than that reported in some marine fisheries.

"Interestingly, however, once recreational fishing took over, the fishing down trend reversed and the number of top predators in the catch began to increase," said lead author Erin Dunlop, a research scientist with Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

The researchers suggest that the shift away from commercial fishing - even when taking into account the arrival of invasive species that alter the diets of fish, the practice of stocking the lake with native top predators to supplement existing populations, and a tendency for recreational anglers to harvest species with smaller body sizes - resulted in the effect of fishing up the food web, and a return towards increased catches of fish from higher up on the food chain.

"Though the decline during the fishing down period was twice as fast as the fishing up period, the results indicate considerable resilience in the system to recover given the range of stressors it has experienced," said Jackson.

The researchers credit the availability of long-term records of fishing in Lake Simcoe with enabling them to show that freshwater systems are as vulnerable to fishing down the food web as marine systems are. They suggest that most records of freshwater ecosystems do not date back far enough to capture the impact of early fisheries, though the effect would likely be the same.

"There is nothing unique to Lake Simcoe being an inland lake that prevents the types of depletion observed in marine commercial fisheries," said Jackson. "Secondly, however, our study shows that fishing down trends are not always expected if harvest pressure comes predominately from recreational fishing.

"In cases where commercial fishing ceases, recovery from past fishery depletion may be possible even while recreational fishing expands."

As hurricanes grow in power as the climate changes, accurately modeling the interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean grows increasingly important to prepare people to batten down or to evacuate. The many mechanisms of the atmosphere-ocean system -- known as air-sea flux -- make modeling extremely complicated, however.

Qi Shi, a postdoctoral researcher in the Great Lakes Research Center at Michigan Technological University, has created the first detailed analysis of ocean and atmospheric responses to currents, waves and wind. In the article "Coupling Ocean Currents and Waves with Wind Stress over the Gulf Stream" published in Remote Sensing this summer, Shi argues that current numerical models simply don't account for the impact of waves, currents and wind coupled together. This coupling is crucial because without it, models do not accurately represent marine atmospheric boundary layer processes.

"We quantified the impact of this coupling to improve the accuracy of air-sea fluxes, because without modeling currents, there is a constant bias in models," Shi said. "What causes that bias? Missing the full spectrum of feedback mechanisms."

Simply put: Better modeling gives weather forecasters and climate scientists a more accurate picture of what happens where atmosphere and ocean meet.

Feedback Mechanisms

Part of what makes modeling air-sea flux so complicated are the sheer number of feedback mechanisms in the system: To model waves, one must account for surface roughness and wind; to model sea surface temperature, one must account for air-sea temperature differences, water vapor, humidity, evaporation and more. Modeling wind and surface currents are equally complex.

Numerical models solve equations that describe the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface to predict future weather and climate. Interactions among each model component, such as heat exchange between atmosphere and ocean, play an important role in driving both oceanic and atmospheric circulation.

Hurricanes and Climate

Hurricanes are fueled with heat and moisture from the ocean. Ocean currents and waves modify wind shear and surface roughness, which are key variables for calculating the air-sea heat and momentum fluxes. Using a high-resolution, three-way coupled ocean-wave-atmospheric modeling system, Shi determined the role of coupling ocean currents, waves and wind stress in reducing model bias in air-sea flux over the Gulf Stream.

Shi's work is the first detailed mechanism study in the current-wave-stress coupling process, which can be applied to increase the accuracy of forecasts for hurricane intensity and climate prediction as well as to better use satellite observations in the numerical models.

"We provide evidence that observation of currents is important and has significant influence on models," Shi said.

Shi said she hopes to see the eventual launch of a satellite that observes ocean currents to validate ground observations.

PITTSBURGH (Sept. 18, 2019) -- Metal nanoparticles have a wide range of applications, from medicine to catalysis, from energy to the environment. But the fundamentals of adsorption--the process allowing molecules to bind as a layer to a solid surface--in relation to the nanoparticle's characteristics were yet to be discovered.

New research from the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering introduces the first universal adsorption model that accounts for detailed nanoparticle structural characteristics, metal composition and different adsorbates, making it possible to not only predict adsorption behavior on any metal nanoparticles but screen their stability, as well.

The research combines computational chemistry modeling with machine learning to fit a large number of data and accurately predict adsorption trends on nanoparticles that have not previously been seen. By connecting adsorption with the stability of nanoparticles, nanoparticles can now be optimized in terms of their synthetic accessibility and application property behavior. This improvement will significantly accelerate nanomaterials design and avoid trial and error experimentation in the lab.

"This model has the potential to impact diverse areas of nanotechnology with applications in catalysis, sensors, separations and even drug delivery," says Giannis (Yanni) Mpourmpakis, the Swanson School's Bicentennial Alumni Faculty Fellow and associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, whose CANELa lab conducted the research. "Our lab, as well as other groups, have performed prior computational studies that describe adsorption on metals, but this is the first universal model that accounts for nanoparticle size, shape, metal composition and type of adsorbate. It's also the first model that directly connects an application property, such as adsorption and catalysis, with the stability of the nanoparticles."

Researchers have announced a prototype for a laser at the heart of the first space-based gravitational wave observatory, known as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission. The team's new laser nearly meets the stringent requirements outlined for LISA's instrumentation, representing an important step toward bringing the ambitious observatory program to fruition.

"What a motivating challenge it was to realize a laser system with state-of-the-art performances, capable of meeting the stringent reliability requirements of a space mission," said Steve Lecomte with the Swiss research firm CSEM, who will present details of the prototype's performance at The Optical Society's (OSA) 2019 Laser Congress, held 29 September to 3 October in Vienna, Austria.

LISA will complement ground-based gravitational-wave detectors, like the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), by deploying a gravitational wave detection system in space. In 2016, NSF announced that LIGO had made the first-ever direct observations of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space and time that were predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years earlier in his general theory of relativity.

Both the LIGO and LISA observatories rely on lasers to detect gravitational waves. In addition to the precision and reliability required for any gravitational wave detector, the laser onboard the LISA mission must meet additional criteria to ensure it is suitable for long-term use in space.

LISA is led by the European Space Agency (ESA) in collaboration with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Exacting requirements for precise measurements

LISA, scheduled to launch in the early 2030s, will consist of three spacecraft arranged in a triangle millions of kilometers across. The spacecraft will relay laser beams back and forth and combine their signals to find evidence of gravitational waves.

The multitude of components within the LISA system must function perfectly individually and together in order for the mission to succeed. For its part, the laser must meet exacting standards in terms of power output, wavelength, noise, stability, purity and other parameters.

The researchers developed a laser that meets nearly all of the requirements outlined by ESA and NASA. All of the laser system's optical and electronic components are either compatible with the space environment or based on technologies for which space-grade components are available.

The system starts with a seed laser, the first packaged self-injection locked laser to be realized at the mission-specified wavelength of 1064 nanometers. The light emitted by the seed laser is injected into a core-pumped Yb-doped fiber amplifier (YDFA), which boosts the average power from 12 to 46 milliwatts. A fraction of the amplified light is then directed to an optical reference cavity, which improves the spectral purity and stability of the laser by orders of magnitude.

The main part of the light then crosses a phase-modulator, which adds features that will allow the mission to compare signals across the three spacecraft through a process known as interferometry. Finally, a second core-pumped YDFA and a double-clad large mode area YDFA amplify the signal to almost 3 watts. Additional components help stabilize the power output.

Confirming performance

The team created a special test station to assess their prototype laser system. They used a cavity-stabilized ultra-narrow 1560 nanometer laser, an optical frequency comb, an active H-maser and temperature-stabilized low-drift photodetectors as references for measuring the stability of the system's frequency and amplitude.

The tests demonstrated compliance with LISA specifications over the full frequency range, with exceptions below 1 megahertz and above 5 megahertz, as well as excellent compliance with regard to noise. Where the tests show minor deviations from the specifications, the researchers have identified likely causes and proposed solutions to fine-tune the system. These solutions include some technical improvements of the seed laser, like adding a drop port to the resonator to reduce high-frequency noise.

"While a launch date shortly after 2030 might appear far away, there is still substantial technological development to be performed. The team is ready to further contribute to this exciting endeavor," Lecomte said.

HOUSTON -- (Sept. 18, 2019) -- Researchers have identified a potential new drug target in the fight against cancer.

In a study this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers describe how a cancer-linked version of the protein mitoNEET can close the primary gateways in the outer surface of mitochondria, the "power plants" that supply cells with chemical energy. These gateways, or "voltage-dependent anion channels" (VDACs), normally open and close to allow the passage of metabolites and other small molecules between mitochondria and the rest of the cell.

"The VDAC channel transports all types of metabolites between the cytosol and the mitochondria," said study co-author José Onuchic, a physicist and co-director of Rice University's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP). "Dysfunction of this channel is involved in many diseases including cancer and fatty liver disease."

The research was performed by an international team of computational and structural biologists from CTBP, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Missouri-Columbia.

In the study, they detailed how mitoNEET regulates VDAC, and showed that the high-affinity interaction between the two proteins could be disrupted by a drug that targets VDAC.

"In its naturally occurring reduced state in healthy cells, mitoNEET has no measurable affinity for VDAC," said Onuchic, a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Scholar in Cancer Research who led Rice's efforts on the project. "This indicates that the mechanism of interaction is redox-dependent and that targeting of the highly important VDAC complex in diseased states can be fine-tuned."

MitoNEET, a known player in cancer as well as diabetes, aging and Parkinson's disease, is a member of the NEET family of proteins, which transport clusters of iron and sulfur molecules inside cells. These clusters help regulate cells by controlling reduction-oxidation, or redox processes, and metabolism.

MitoNEET naturally adheres to the outer surface of the mitochondria, and the researchers said the direct connection of mitoNEET to VDAC, one of the most abundant proteins in the mitochondrial outer membrane, is significant.

Co-author Patricia Jennings, a structural biologist at UCSD, said, "The discovery that mitoNEET directly gates VDAC, the major porin of mitochondria, as well as the accompanying structural analysis and predictions for this interaction, affords a new platform for investigations of methods to induce cancer cells to commit cell suicide, or apoptosis/ferroptosis, in a cancer-specific, regulated process."

A defining characteristic of cancer progression is altered cellular metabolism. Study co-author Rachel Nechushtai of the Hebrew University said the work suggests it may be possible to regulate the metabolic and functional interactions of VDAC with a drug or drugs that could be useful against several kinds of cancer.

Onuchic said, "Fine-tuning a drug that specifically alters the redox-state of interaction between VDAC and mitoNEET would allow the development of new weapons to battle multiple cancers."

Nechushtai and Jennings first detailed the molecular structure of mitoNEET in 2007, and many of the collaborators on the project have worked together for more than a decade to decipher the workings of mitoNEET and related proteins like NAF-1 and MiNT.

"The junction of iron and redox is key to the control of many different cellular processes involved in many human pathologies," University of Missouri co-author Ron Mittler said. "Identifying a master point of regulation for these processes that is mediated by the mitoNEET-VDAC interaction is a major step forward in our understanding of these processes."

The researchers said longstanding ties between the collaborators and joint funding from both the US and Israel played a key role in the success of the project.

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are robust crystalline porous polymer with predictable structural composition and functions. The bottom-up synthesis of COFs allows for incorporation of reactive pendant groups and other active sites within their skeleton. On the other hand, the strong covalent bonding stitching the organic building blocks in COF frameworks secure the high chemical and thermal stabilities of the compound into high extent. These facts garner the judicious postsynthetic functionalization in COFs to introduce new functions with controlled manner.

Recent development of the postsynthetic functionalization of COFs has successfully introduced wide ranges of organic to inorganic functional constituents into COFs to obtain the desired functionalized-COFs. This functionalization involves the formation of specific bonds (covalent and coordination/ionic bonds), chemical reaction (oxidation/reduction reaction) and host-guest interaction between the COFs and functional constituents. As the result, several organic functionalized-COFs, metal/COFs hybrids and other material based-COFs have been reported so far.

In a new review published in the Beijing-based National Science Review, a research group at the State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, chemistry department of Jilin University, China summarizes the recent progress of postsynthetic functionalization of COFs. Co-authors Yusran Yusran, Hui Li, Xinyu Guan, Qianrong Fang and Shilun Qiu trace the courses of postsynthetic functional development in COFs and elaborate comparatively the contribution those functionalizations over the structural qualities and performances of the resultant functionalized-COFs towards specific applications.

These authors emphasize the paramount important of the functional development of COFs for creation COF-based smart materials and outline the challenges in their future development

"The most prominent property of COFs is their high chemical stability that surpass the former porous material such as inorganic zeolites and MOFs, which signals the robust postsynthetic functionalization in COFs to be executed," the authors emphasize in an article titled "Postsynthetic Functionalization of Covalent Organic Frameworks." "Although the desired functionalized-COFs can be achieved via bottom-up approach, postsynthetic functionalization provide more reliable approach with better controlled," they add.

The first example of postsynthetic functionalization of COFs is traced back in 2011, when the prepared COF-LZU1 was modified with Pd complex to obtain Pd/COF-LZU-1 hybrid. Furthermore, the authors include their works in the article for functionalization of 3D-COF-OH into 3D-COF-COOH and incorporation of metal species into 3D-Salphen-COF (JUC-509) to fabricate JUC-509-Y. "Generally, 2D COF variants are more widely synthesized and functionalized compared to 3D COFs. However, in our lab, we demonstrated the functionalization of 3D COFs with reactive pendant groups," add the leading author.

The resultant functionalized-COFs clearly demonstrated stability enhancement as well as better performance and activity towards gas storage/separation, molecules uptake-release, catalysis, electrical storage sensing, and other important applications. "we all witness how the resultant functionalized-COFs with specific functions could do more than the bare COFs in the field of catalysis, adsorbent and other applications," the authors state.

"In the future development of COFs, there are still many things need to develop, such as functionalization of the available linkages which is still less explored." the authors forecast. "Functionalization of COFs via host-guest chemistry so far, are mainly explored for electronic and energy storage applications, thus investigations in wider sophisticated applications are still highly engage. Last but not the least, continuous efforts in development of functionalized 3D COFs may still need special concern," they add.

A new study has estimated for the first time how the eruption of Mount Tambora changed the probability of the cold and wet European 'year without a summer' of 1816.

It found that the observed cold conditions were almost impossible without the eruption, and the wet conditions would have been less likely.

1816 recorded exceptionally low global temperatures, with central and Western Europe seeing a particularly cold and wet summer that led to widespread agricultural failures and famines.

The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia has long been assumed to have been the cause, with a link made as early as 1913. Now, using historical data and modern modelling techniques, researchers led by the University of Edinburgh, UK, have estimated just how important the eruption was.

They publish their findings today in Environmental Research Letters.

The study's lead author, Dr Andrew Schurer, from the University of Edinburgh, said: "The eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815 was among the most explosive of the last millennium. It had an enormous impact locally, devastating the island of Sumbawa. The eruption injected a huge amount of sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere, which would have quickly spread across the world, oxidising to form sulphate aerosols.

"These volcanic aerosols reduce net shortwave radiation causing widespread, long lasting surface cooling. They also lead to a reduction in global rainfall, while wettening some dry regions, and causing dynamic changes in the large-scale circulation of both ocean and atmosphere."

The research team used early instrumental data, combined with new climate simulations from two different models, to conduct an event attribution analysis. Their aim was to determine if, and by how much, the volcanic forcing affected the probability of cold and wet conditions in this 'year without a summer'.

Their results, from summers with similar sea-level-pressure patterns to 1816, using both observations and unperturbed climate model simulations, show that the circulation state can reproduce the precipitation anomaly without external forcing, but only explains about a quarter of the anomalously cold conditions.

Dr Schurer said: "Including volcanic forcing in climate models can account for the cooling, and we estimate it increases the likelihood of the extremely cold temperatures by up to 100 times.

"Although the observed sea-level pressure pattern can account for much of the observed anomalously wet conditions, even without volcanic forcing, there is strong evidence in the model simulations that the volcanic eruption increases the chance of such a wet summer over Central Europe, by about 1.5 to three times.

"Mount Tambora played a dominant role in causing the observed cold conditions, and probably also contributed to the anomalously wet conditions. Without volcanic forcing, it is less likely to have been as wet and highly unlikely to have been as cold."

A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, shows that caregiving programs are five times more effective than nutrition programs in supporting smarter, not just taller, children in low- and middle-income countries.

The research, published in the journal The Lancet Global Health, examined 75 early intervention programs and their effects on children's growth and brain development. Researchers have known adequate nutrition during pregnancy and childhood improve both conditions. But children growing up in poverty face a variety of risk factors that could govern growth and development differently.

Our study found that we cannot just focus on nutrition. Other aspects of nurturing care are just as, if not more important in supporting healthy brains, said lead author Elizabeth Prado, assistant professor of nutrition at UC Davis.

Prado says interventions that promote caregiving and learning, such as parents playing games, singing songs and telling stories with their children, have far bigger effects on children's cognitive skills, language skills and motor development.

We knew that nurturing care was important but were struck by how big its benefits were compared to nutrition and growth, added Leila Larson, a lead collaborator from the University of Melbourne.

Investing in caregiving and learning

Global health programs typically focus on preventing stunting, when children are not growing in height the way they should for their age. Stunted growth has also been associated with lower than average school achievement and cognitive scores.

The association has been influential in prioritizing a global agenda to promote nutrition and growth, said senior author Anuraj Shankar, with the Center for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at Oxford University. However, our true goal isn't just for children to grow taller but for them to fulfill their developmental potential. The study shows that won't happen unless we target caregiving to nurture thriving individuals and communities.

Globally, an estimated 156 million children younger than 5 years have stunted growth and an estimated 250 million are at risk of not fulfilling their developmental potential.

Two surgical procedures used to repair vaginal prolapse -- one involving removal of the uterus via hysterectomy and the other employing mesh support that preserves the uterus -- have comparable clinical outcomes after three years, according to new data from researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine.

The results are published in the September 17, 2019 issue of JAMA.

"The standard practice for vaginal prolapse is a hysterectomy. Though the uterus is really an innocent bystander in this surgery, we have to remove it to gain access to ligaments needed to reattach the top of the vagina," said Charles Nager, MD, lead author of the study and chair of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Our study shows that removing the uterus may not be mandatory and using mesh to support the vagina and pelvic organs in the appropriate locations has a similar outcome."

Vaginal prolapse is a pelvic floor disorder that occurs when muscles are weakened and pelvic organs bulge into the vagina or stick out beyond the opening of the vagina. Symptoms include extreme discomfort, urine leakage and pressure in the vaginal area. "It can significantly impact a woman's quality of life," said Nager. The condition is more likely to occur as a woman gets older. Approximately 13 percent of women in the United States will undergo a procedure for vaginal prolapse by the age of 80.

The Study of Uterine Prolapse Procedures - Randomized Trial (SUPeR) recruited 183 postmenopausal women at nine centers across the nation. Ninety-three women were randomized to mesh surgery and 90 were randomized to hysterectomy. The women were not told which procedure they would receive.

"For three years, 75 percent of the women did not know if they had a uterus or not. It shows how much they wanted to support scientific research and improve their quality of life," said Nager. "Our team is so grateful for their corporation. They helped us conduct a high quality study for the future of health care."

The researchers found that the mesh support surgery (mesh hysteropexy) had a 12 percent better outcome after three years. "This is not quite statistically significant, but the results are promising," said Nager. "We will continue to follow these patients for a total of five years to better understand if one procedure is better than the other."

Additionally, a post-surgery survey found 90 percent of patients in both groups reported "much better" or "very much better" improvement. There were also no differences in patient-reported surgical or pelvic pain and both groups reported improvements in sexual function and lower incidence of painful sex (dyspareunia).

However, mesh procedures for vaginal prolapse have been controversial, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) halted the sale and distribution of mesh kits for this type of surgery on April 16, 2019; the notice was released after completion of the SUPeR study. In doing so, the FDA said there was not yet enough evidence to reasonably demonstrate the kits' safety and effectiveness.

"We hope our findings combined with the use of more modern, safe and effective mesh kits will support the decision on a federal level to make the procedure available again and help women and health care providers make informed treatment decisions," said Nager.

A prominent JCU shark researcher is part of an international team that found shark babies can't reach their physical peak if they're born into environments degraded by human-induced stressors, including climate change.

Dr Jodie Rummer from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (Coral CoE at JCU) is a co-author of a new study that compared the foraging and condition of two populations of newborn reef sharks: one in St Joseph atoll in Seychelles and the other in Moorea, French Polynesia.

"We found that although shark pups are born larger, heavier and better conditioned in Moorea, they soon lost their physical advantage over the pups in St Joseph," Dr Rummer said.

St Joseph is an uninhabited, remote and small atoll in the outer islands of Seychelles, where no environmental changes happened at the time of the study. However, Moorea is a popular tourist destination--one that is still recovering from a loss of up to 95 percent of its live coral cover about five years before the four-year study commenced.

"At birth, newborn sharks receive extra fat reserves from their mother," said Ms Ornella Weideli, lead author from the Save Our Seas Foundation D'Arros Research Centre (SOSF-DRC) and PhD student at the Centre de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire de l'Environnement (CRIOBE) in France.

"These energy reserves sustain them during the first days and weeks after birth," Ms Weideli said. "The 'energy boost' is important, as sharks are independent from their mothers from the moment they are born."

A total of 546 young sharks were captured and measured in that time. What they ate was also analysed. The study found the amount of energy reserves varied between locations.

"Bigger mothers give birth to bigger babies, which is what happens in Moorea," Dr Rummer said. "But that doesn't necessarily mean the babies will eat and grow quickly after that."

Instead, the bigger pups from Moorea soon lost their advantage in size, weight, and condition.

"Against our expectations, the larger pups from Moorea that received greater energy reserves started foraging for food later in life, which resulted in considerable declines in their body condition," Ms Weideli said.

"On the contrary, despite being smaller and lighter for their size, the pups from St Joseph started foraging for food earlier in life and became more successful predators than their Polynesian counterparts."

The authors think the bigger pups lost their physical advantage because Moorea was experiencing a degraded quality and quantity of prey, coupled with human-induced stressors such as over-fishing, climate change and coastal development.

This new study is crucial for informing critical shark nursery areas, sanctuaries, and marine protected areas.

The corals in Moorea bleached earlier this year during very hot temperatures after the completion of the study. Dr Rummer says the sharks in this area will now have an even more difficult time growing and surviving, as the conditions around them continue to degrade and water temperatures rise.

"Sharks are at risk from human-induced stressors because they may not be able to adapt fast enough to keep pace with the changes that are happening in their environment," Dr Rummer said.

"They are slow growers and take a long time to reach sexual maturity. When they do reach sexual maturity, they only have a few babies. Even fewer survive," she said.

"Not enough generations are being born fast enough to make the genetic changes to adapt to what's going on in their habitats."

"Mitigating human-induced stressors, especially during shark pupping season, is key to protecting these species and the ecosystems they support."

New research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Porto (CIBIO-InBIO) shows how global warming could reduce the mating activity and success of grassland birds.

The study examined the threatened grassland bird Tetrax tetrax, or little bustard, classified as a 'Vulnerable' species in Europe, in order to test how rising temperatures could affect future behaviour.

The males spend most of their time in April and May trying to attract females in a breeding gathering known as a 'lek'. In leks, to get noticed, males stand upright, puff up their necks, and making a call that sounds like a 'snort'. They also use this display to defend their territory from competing breeding males.

The international team of researchers - from the UK, Kenya, Portugal, Spain and Brazil - found that high temperatures reduced this snort-call display behaviour. If temperatures become too hot, birds may have to choose between mating and sheltering or resting to save their energy and protect themselves from the heat.

Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the findings show that during the mating season little bustard display behaviour is significantly related to temperature, the time of the day - something referred to as circadian rhythms - and what stage of the mating season it is. The average temperature during the day also affects how much birds display and again as temperatures increase, display rates reduce.

In the study region of the Iberian Peninsula, average daily daytime (5:00 - 21:00 hours) temperatures varied between 10ºC and 31ºC. Snort-call display probability decreased substantially as temperature increased from 4 to 20º C, stabilized from 20 to 30º C, and decreased thereafter.

The researchers warn that the average display activity of the birds will continue to reduce by up to 10 per cent for the temperature increases projected by 2100 in this region due to global warming.

Mishal Gudka, who led the research while at UEA's School of Biological Sciences, said: "This work has shown how global warming may affect important behavioural mechanisms using the mating system of a lekking grassland bird species as an example.

"For lekking birds and mammals undertaking these types of extravagant and energetic displays in a warming climate, less display activity could affect how females choose mates, providing an opportunity for genetically weaker males to mate more frequently. This in turn could lead to more failed copulation attempts, lower fertilisation success and weaker offspring, reducing the overall population health.

"Unfortunately for little bustards, these potential consequences of reduced display combined with other existing threats such as loss of habitat, may push this endangered species towards local and regional extinctions."

The team used a novel method to understand how display behaviour of little bustards is affected by temperature changes. Remote GPS/GSM accelerometer tracking devices were fitted to 17 wild male little bustards living at five sites in Spain and Portugal.

The researchers filmed the birds to observe their behaviour at the same time as accelerometers recorded their position, and using this information they were able to determine the acceleration 'signature' or pattern for snort-calling behaviour.

Co-author Paul Dolman, Professor of Conservation Ecology at UEA's School of Environmental Sciences, said: "Many people are familiar with the impacts of global warming on wildlife through droughts, storms or wildfires as well as earlier migration with warming springs. But climate change affects species in many other subtle ways that may cause unexpected changes.

"Little bustards living in the Iberian Peninsula are already exposed to some of the highest temperatures within their species range. They are one of many bird and mammal species that have an extravagant, energetically demanding display ritual, meaning they are all susceptible to the same issue.

"Our findings highlight the need for further work to understand the mechanisms that underlie responses to climate change and to assess implications these changes may have at a population level."

The authors say the study is a replicable example of how tracking technology and acceleration data can be used to answer research questions with important conservation implications related to the impacts of climate change on a range of different animals.