Tech

The speed of water flow is a limiting factor in many membrane-based industrial processes, including desalination, molecular separation and osmotic power generation.

Researchers at The University of Manchester's National Graphene Institute (NGI) have published a study in Nature Communications showing a dramatic decrease in friction when water is passed through nanoscale capillaries made of graphene, whereas those with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) - which has a similar surface topography and crystal structure as graphene - display high friction.

The team also demonstrated that water velocity could be selectively controlled by covering the high friction hBN channels with graphene, opening the door to greatly increased permeation and efficiency in so-called 'smart membranes'.

Fast and selective fluid-flows are common in nature - for example, in protein structures called aquaporins that transport water between cells in animals and plants. However, the precise mechanisms of fast water-flows across atomically flat surfaces are not fully understood.

The investigations of the Manchester team, led by Professor Radha Boya, have shown that - in contrast to the widespread belief that all atomically flat surfaces that are hydrophobic should provide little friction for water flow - in fact the friction is mainly governed by electrostatic interactions between flowing molecules and their confining surfaces.

Dr Ashok Keerthi, first author of the study, said: "Though hBN has a similar water 'wettability' as graphene and MoS2, it surprised us that the flow of water is totally different. Interestingly, roughened graphene surface with few angstroms deep dents/terraces, or atomically corrugated MoS2 surface, did not hinder water flows in nanochannels."

Therefore, an atomically smooth surface is not the only reason for frictionless water flow on graphene. Rather the interactions between flowing water molecules and confining 2D materials play a crucial role in imparting the friction to the fluid transport inside nanochannels.

Professor Boya said: "We have shown that nanochannels covered with graphene at the exits display enhanced water flows. This can be very useful to increase the water flux from membranes, especially in those processes where evaporation is involved, such as distillation or thermal desalination."

Understanding of liquid friction and interactions with pore materials is vital to the development of efficient membranes for applications such as energy storage and desalination.

This latest study adds to an increasingly influential body of work from the researchers at the NGI, as Manchester reinforces its position at the forefront of nanofluidic research towards improved industrial applications for sectors including wastewater treatment, pharmaceutical production and food and beverages.

In a paper published by the Journal of Sleep Research, researchers reveal how they examined data* from half a million middle-aged UK participants asked if they had trouble falling asleep at night or woke up in the middle of the night.

The report found that people with frequent sleep problems are at a higher risk of dying than those without sleep problems. This grave outcome was more pronounced for people with Type-2 diabetes: during the nine years of the research, the study found that they were 87 per cent more likely to die of any cause than people without diabetes or sleep disturbances.

The study also found that people with diabetes and sleep problems were 12 per cent more likely to die over this period than those who had diabetes but not frequent sleep disturbances.

Malcolm von Schantz, the first author of the study and Professor of Chronobiology from the University of Surrey, said:

"Although we already knew that there is a strong link between poor sleep and poor health, this illustrates the problem starkly."

"The question asked when the participants enrolled does not necessarily distinguish between insomnia and other sleep disorders, such as sleep apnoea. Still, from a practical point of view it doesn't matter. Doctors should take sleep problems as seriously as other risk factors and work with their patients on reducing and mitigating their overall risk."

Professor Kristen Knutson of Northwestern University, the senior co-author of the study, said:

"Diabetes alone was associated with a 67 per cent increased risk of mortality. However, the mortality for participants with diabetes combined with frequent sleep problems was increased to 87 per cent. In order words, it is particularly important for doctors treating people with diabetes to also investigate sleep disorders and consider treatments where appropriate."

Natural selection can reverse evolution that occurs through sexual selection and this can lead to better females, new research shows.

The study - led by the University of Exeter and Okayama University - examined broad-horned flour beetles, whose males have exaggerated mandibles, while females do not.

Male beetles with the largest mandibles win more fights and mate with more females - an example of "sexual selection", where certain characteristics (like a male peacock's tail) improve mating success.

However, having bigger mandibles requires a masculinised body (large head and neck), and a smaller abdomen - which, for females, limits the number of eggs they can carry. A masculinised body is not good for females.

Experimentally enhanced natural selection through predation, however, targets the same males favoured by sexual selection and this results in the evolution of less masculinised bodies and better-quality females.

In the study, broad-horned flour beetles were exposed to a predator called the assassin bug, which ate males with the largest mandibles.

By removing these males, predation effectively reduced the benefits of sexual selection and this means natural selection has an increased impact.

After eight generations of this, females produced about 20% more offspring across their lifespan, compared to a control group of beetles where large-horned males were not removed by predation.

"Males and females of every species share genes, but in some cases - including broad-horned flour beetles - the genes good for one sex aren't always ideal for the other," said Professor David Hosken, of the University of Exeter.

"We see this process, known as intralocus sexual conflict, across the natural world.

"For example, humans share the genes for hips - which males need for walking, and females need for both walking and childbirth.

"Optimal hips for women would be broad enough to allow childbirth, while optimal hip width for men is narrower.

"Humans reach a sort of evolutionary compromise, in which neither males nor females get the body shape that would be optimal for them."

Professor Hosken added: "Our findings show that sexual selection favouring large-horned males drags female body shape away from the female optima.

"This study helps us understand two evolutionary tug of wars, one between natural and sexual selection and the other that takes place over body shape and characteristics shared between the sexes."

SAN RAMON, Calif., June 8, 2021--CooperVision today announced its scientific research program for the 2021 British Contact Lens Association Virtual Clinical Conference and Exhibition, which begins Sunday, June 13. For the first time, the biennial event will be streamed live over the course of 30 hours, welcoming members of the global eye care community to experience and discuss the latest category advancements.

More than 20 CooperVision-authored and sponsored investigations were accepted by the conference committee. The papers and posters span a range of topics that underpin the contact lens industry's evolution, including new data and insights on the complex lifestyle factors involved with addressing presbyopia, misperceptions surrounding soft toric lens fitting, and understanding children's acceptance of innovative optical interventions for slowing the progression of myopia.

"Our commitment to developing evidence-based approaches for many of the world's toughest vision challenges involves sharing the underlying research with peers. It's a privilege to present this work at the 2021 BCLA Conference, especially with its extension to an even more diverse group of eye care professionals (ECPs), scientists, and educators participating virtually," said Gary Orsborn, Vice President, Global Professional, Medical & Clinical Affairs for CooperVision.

The Complexity of Living with Presbyopia

Among several CooperVision presentations regarding presbyopia is an exploration of the daily complexity involved in dealing with the condition, and how this may affect ECP choices. Ethnography Research to Understand the Vision and Switching Experiences of Living with Presbyopia (Zucaro A, et al.) defines three usage personas based on lifestyle choices and self-perception, as well as ranking the activities and locations in which near vision needs were paramount--not all of which were anticipated.

Based on 98 hours of video footage and more than 1,200 data entries of current monovision contact lens, multifocal contact lens and reading spectacles wearers, the analysis suggests that lifestyle and emotional connections to vision have a significant impact on the success of a presbyopia management plan. The authors recommend ECPs consider obtaining more patient input on those dimensions, with an empathetic approach offering the best opportunities to match individuals with correction types.

Clarifying Factors for Soft Toric Lens Fitting Hesitancy

As a leader in soft toric contact lenses, CooperVision continues to discover and tackle ECP hesitancies that present obstacles to successfully fitting people with astigmatism. This dedication is reflected in two papers being presented for the first time at BCLA.

Closing the Toric Gap: Eye Care Professional Attitudes Towards Soft Toric Contact Lens Attributes (Whitenack B, et al.) probes the double-digit percentage gap between the prevalence of astigmatism and documented soft toric lens fitting behaviors in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and the United States. Regardless of country, ECPs were aligned on the importance and prioritization of performance attributes such as vision/fit/comfort, clear vision quality, all-day comfort, good overall fit, rotational stability and orientation position. They also believed at least one toric contact lens brand delivered on each attribute, providing a viable option to meet their needs. However, toric expense versus using a sphere lens to mask astigmatism played a role in their decisions. This suggests a need for manufacturers, distributors and educators to demonstrate toric lenses' value more clearly to ECPs and practice staff.

A CooperVision-sponsored project with Eurolens Research delved into the impression that prescribing toric and multifocal soft contact lenses consume more of an ECP's time compared to sphere options. Chair Time Required for the Fitting of Various Soft Contact Lens Designs (Smith S., et al.) employed a retrospective chart review from a large, multi-practitioner optometric practice, examining time stamp data for fitting spherical, multifocal and toric lens designs with the same silicone hydrogel material. The authors found no differences in fitting times, allowing ECPs to cast aside perceptions that have become outdated as soft lens designs and related tools have evolved.

Children's Acceptance of Myopia Control Interventions

CooperVision's myopia management studies have set a high bar for the category, with widespread visibility and credibility owing to their robust study designs and execution. During BCLA, three papers across the optical intervention spectrum will add to the profession's body of knowledge about children's acceptance.

Myopia Progression and Slit-Lamp Findings in Children: MiSight® 1 day Clinical Trial (Lumb E, et al.) offers additional insights from the oft-cited long-term study of the CooperVision soft contact lenses for slowing the progression of myopia, which are currently worn by children in more than two dozen countries. At the conclusion of year six, both weekend and weekday wearing time had increased to nearly 13 and 14 hours, respectively, compared to the minimum recommendation of 10 hours per day. This suggests that the children happily adapted to MiSight® 1 day--an essential element in ensuring compliance.

Acceptance is also the focus of Wearing Experience with a Novel Myopia Management Spectacle Lens Technology (Rappon J, et al.), which evaluated SightGlass Vision Diffusion Optics Technology with children as young as age six. Superb vision and an excellent wearing experience were demonstrated through year one of the ongoing multi-year study. The unique lenses, which have been shown to reduce myopia progression, displayed high wearing compliance, high-quality distance and near vision (measured objectively and subjectively), and high satisfaction in children liking their appearance and loving their glasses.

Evaluation of Children in the Netherlands Fitted with Custom-Made Ortho-K Contact Lenses (van Hees-Teuben K, et al.) considered the myopia control efficacy observed among children in controlled studies with the real-world practice environment. Three-year tracking of Procornea DreamLite® night lenses, which recently earned CE Mark for slowing the progression of myopia, demonstrated near-stable refraction and axial length growth among 40 children. The evaluation also revealed good subjective acceptance for comfort and handling, vision and happiness with the lenses, supporting that myopic children can readily adapt to treatment.

"Everyone at CooperVision is enthusiastic about the strong program curated by the BCLA Conference organizers this year, especially given the hosting challenges with global travel and health restrictions. The sheer amount of research that will be translated from paper to practice over two days is stunning, and we are proud to play such a significant role in the event's success," said Dr. Orsborn.

In addition to its scientific program, CooperVision has organized several educational workshops and sessions as part of the application and skills development tracks. The company will staff a virtual exhibit to showcase its products and services, highlighting how ECPs can 'Prescribe Freedom' with contact lenses. It is also a co-sponsor of the BCLA Contact Lens Evidence-based Academic Reports (CLEAR) initiative, which will factor prominently into the conference.

A new physiological measurement of heart function developed at UVA Health could improve survival for people with heart failure by identifying high-risk patients who require tailored treatments, a new study suggests.

The study is the first to show a survival benefit from wireless pressure monitoring sensors implanted in the pulmonary arteries. Pulmonary artery proportional pulse pressure, or PAPP, is a new measure of heart function, developed at UVA, that can identify patients at very high risk of hospitalization or death from systolic heart failure or pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the heart and lungs).

Previous research by the researchers showed that patients with low PAPPs were at far greater risk than those with higher PAPPs, so the UVA researchers tested whether these benefits were maintained in patients undergoing implantation of pressure sensors that continuously monitor pressure in the pulmonary artery.

"We found that PAPP is a very good measure of how stiff or compliant the pulmonary arteries are. The stiffness of the pulmonary arteries determines how much resistance the right side of the heart has overcome to pump blood effectively to the lungs," said Sula Mazimba, MD, MPH, a heart failure expert at UVA Health and the University of Virginia School of Medicine. "The importance of this simple measure is that it can identify patients that are at greatest risk of dying or being hospitalized. This allows us to tailor more aggressive treatments."

Treating Heart Failure

Heart failure is a condition where the heart fails to pump blood adequately through the body. It affects more than 6.5 million Americans and more than 26 million people around the world. It causes more than 1 million hospital admissions each year, and approximately half of patients die within five years of diagnosis.

UVA's new study evaluated the benefits of PAPP monitoring in patients with systolic heart failure, in which the heart's left ventricle is weak, as well as those with pulmonary hypertension - high blood pressure in the arteries in the lungs and right side of the heart.

To test whether PAPP monitoring could predict outcomes in these patients, Mazimba and his colleagues reviewed data from 550 participants in the CHAMPION clinical trial. In the trial, participants were randomized to receive an implantable, wireless heart monitor called the CardioMEMS HF System.

Mazimba and his collaborators found that participants with a below-average PAPP had a significantly higher risk of hospitalization or death than those with higher PAPPs. Further, the monitoring offered significant benefit to those with low PAPPs, reducing the risk of death by 46% annually during two to three years of follow-up.

"The implications of this study are highly significant," said Kenneth Bilchick, MD, MS, a cardiologist at UVA Health and co-investigator on the study. "We now have identified a specific group of patients who appear to have a marked improvement in survival with implantation of these pulmonary artery wireless monitors. As a result, the findings of the study could maximize the impact of this technology for a large number of potential candidate patients. This is an excellent example of how secondary analyses of clinical databases maintained by the National Institutes of Health can result in novel and personalized approaches to patient care."

The UVA researchers say more study is needed to determine the full potential of PAPP monitoring to improve care for patients with heart failure, but they were encouraged by the early results.

"In the past, the function of the right chamber of the heart was often ignored and considered to be inconsequential to the overall performance of the heart, but we are now learning that this is not the case," Mazimba said. "Having tools that signal when the right side of the heart is under strain may aid clinicians to adopt timely tailored treatments for heart-failure patients."

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are humbling and powerful forces of nature that can have tremendous impacts on people and human populations. Meteorologists have strived to improve TC forecasting skill, hoping to save lives. In the past few decades, TC track forecasts over the western North Pacific (WNP) have progressed considerably. However, TC intensity forecasts have improved insignificantly, with only a 3-5 day lead time. Therefore, improving TC intensity forecast skill and extending lead forecast time are important and urgent issues.

To address this critical problem, a research group led by Prof. Ruifen ZHAN from the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences/Institute of Atmospheric Sciences at Fudan University, along with the Shanghai Typhoon Institute of China Meteorological Administration, have developed a new forecasting method that provides more precise TC intensity forecasts. The team just published their findings in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

"The new scheme also shows the potential for forecasting TC rapid intensification and rapid weakening, and for extending the current 5-day forecast time limit to 7 days."said Prof. Zhan.

Developers based the new approach on the logistic growth equation. They combined step wise regression (SWR), which is essentially a "trial-and-error" method of variable testing, and machine learning (LightGBM) methods using observed and reanalysis data. Results show that the new scheme produces much less significant TC intensity forecast error than the China Meteorological Administration's official intensity forecast, especially for TCs that have impacted coastal regions of East Asia. Researchers also compared new LightGBM-based data with results obtained using the SWR-based method. The LightGBM-based scheme consistently outperformed conventional SWR-based processes.

"Future work may be needed to overcome the problem of insufficient samples by combining the transfer learning methods based on this research, which is the key whether the new scheme can be used in operational forecasts." added Prof. Zhiwei Wu, a co-author of the study.

Glass is one of the most common subjects we see every day, but the detailed structure of this non-metallic and non-liquid material has always been a major mystery in science. A research team co-led by scientists at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has successfully discovered that the amorphous (non-crystalline) and crystalline metallic materials have the same structural building blocks. And it is the connectivity between these blocks that distinguishes the crystalline and amorphous states of the material. The findings shed light on the understanding of glass structure.

Glass is a non-crystalline amorphous solid which has widespread practical and technological use in daily life. Besides the soda-lime glass used in windows, there are many other types of glasses like metallic glass. Glass phase material is mysterious and special: on the outside, the material behaves like a solid, but inside, it appears as disorderly as a liquid. So its structure has long been the focus of scientific research.

A research team co-led by Professor Wang Xunli, Chair Professor of Physics and Head of the Department of Physics at CityU, has discovered a structure link between a glass solid and its crystalline counterpart, which is a breakthrough in understanding the detailed structure of amorphous material. The work was published in Nature Materials, titled "A medium-range structure motif linking amorphous and crystalline state".

"The structure of glass has been a grand scientific challenge," said Professor Wang.

Unlike a crystalline solid consisting of periodic stacking (long-range order) of fundamental building blocks known as unit cells, a glass material has no long-range order. But a glass material has ordered structures at short-range (2-5 Å) and medium-range (5-20 Å), and even longer length scales. However, due to the lack of contrast resulting from the amorphous nature of the material, it was difficult for scientists to experimentally determine the nature of medium-range order. As a result, it remained a scientific mystery whether there exists any structural link at medium range or longer length scales between the amorphous material and its crystalline counterparts. Further compounding the issue is that an amorphous material often crystalizes into a phase of different composition, with very different underlying structural building blocks.

To overcome this challenge, the team captured an intermediate crystalline phase through precise control of the heating of a metallic glass (a palladium-nickel-phosphorus (Pd-Ni-P) alloy) at a high temperature.

The team subsequently employed different advanced structure analysis techniques, including high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, high precision synchrotron X-ray diffraction and automated computer image analysis. By comparing the structures of the metallic glass (alloy) in its amorphous and intermediate crystalline states, the team discovered that both forms of the alloys share the same building block, which is a "six-membered tricapped trigonal prism cluster (6M-TTP)" consisting of atoms of palladium, nickel, and phosphorus. The team also concluded that it was the connectivity between the clusters that distinguish the crystalline and amorphous states.

"Our experimental study shows that structural building blocks linking the amorphous and crystalline states, such as the trigonal prism cluster for Pd-Ni-P metallic glass, could well extend to the medium-range length scale, on the order of tens of angstroms (Å), which could be a universal feature for amorphous materials. This finding strongly suggests that the structure of the glass differentiates from its crystalline counterpart mainly in the connectivity of the structural building blocks," said Professor Wang.

The researchers believed that understanding the molecular structure of amorphous material was vital to the design of new materials because the structure determined the properties. "Our experimental study shed light on the structure of amorphous materials at extended length scales. This will go a long way aiding our efforts to figure out the structure of glass," Professor Wang added.

Globally, the Earth system has thousands of terragrams (Tg) (1 Tg = 10 12 g) of mineral nanoparticles moving around the planet each year. These mineral nanoparticles are ubiquitously distributed throughout the atmosphere, oceans, waters, soils, in and/or on most living organisms, and even within proteins such as ferritin. In natural environments, mineral nanozymes can be produced by two pathways: "top down" and "bottom up" processes. Specifically, the weathering or human-promoted breakdown of bulk materials can result in nanomaterials directly (a top-down process), or nanomaterials can grow from precursors through crystallization, reaction, or biological roles (a bottom-up process).

These mineral nanoparticles can possess multiple enzyme-like properties, e.g., oxidase, peroxidase, catalase, and superoxide dismutase, depending on the local environment. Iron-containing minerals, e.g., ferrihydrite, hematite, and magnetite, are ubiquitous in Earth systems and possess peroxidase-like activity (Figure 1). Among these iron (oxyhydr)oxides, ferrihydrite exhibited the highest peroxidase-like activity, owing to its smallest particle size and largest specific surface area. Because of the presence of ferrous iron, magnetite has considerably high peroxidase-like activity.

Compared with natural enzymes, mineral nanozymes show several advantages, such as low cost, increased stability, sustainable catalytic activity, and robustness to harsh environments. Because of their larger specific surface area, high ratios of surface atoms, wide band gap, and strong catalytic activities, mineral nanozymes play essential roles in biogeochemical cycles of elements in ecosystems.

Fungi and bacteria contribute approximately 70 Gt carbon (C) (1 Gt = 10 9 t) and 120 Gt C to global biomass, respectively. Given that fungal hyphae can cumulatively extend hundreds of kilometers in soils kg-1 in environments such as the rhizosphere (i.e., 200-800 km kg-1) and that more than 94% of land plants and fungi form a symbiotic relationship, mineral nanozymes may have important implications in microbial-mineral coevolution, nutrient cycling in the surface Earth system, mineral carbon sequestration, and alleviation of global climate changes.

In Earth systems, taxonomically and functionally diverse microorganisms are a vast source of superoxide (O2* -) or hydrogen peroxides (H2O2). These mineral nanozymes can regulate the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), including H2O2, O2* - and hydroxyl radicals (HO* ). By producing a strong oxidative HO* , the interaction between mineral nanozymes and microorganisms may play an important role in driving the biogeochemical cycle of elements (Figure 2).

"All of the investigations on mineral nanozymes are still in the laboratory stage and are not field studies," said Guang-Hui Yu, a scientist at the School of Earth System Science, Tianjin University, in the Chinese city of Tianjin.

"The catalytic activity of mineral nanozymes is mainly determined by the oxygen vacancies (OVs) on the mineral surface", the researchers wrote in an article titled "Fungal Nanophase Particles Catalyze Iron Transformation for Oxidative Stress Removal and Iron Acquisition."

"These oxygen vacancies are often occupied by hydroxyl groups on the mineral surface," they explained.

Since mineral nanozymes can catalyze H2O2 to produce highly oxidizing HO* , they have been extensively used in the field of environmental remediation. Compared with natural enzymes, mineral nanozymes can degrade organic pollutants in a wider pH range. For example, by degrading H2O2, Fe3O4 nanoparticles could effectively remove rhodamine B (RhB) in the pH range from 3.0 to 9.0.

"The effects of mineral nanozymes on microbial communities in the environment remain unclear," wrote the two researchers, "the findings of mineral nanozymes may have revealed a previously unknown feedback route of microbe-mineral coevolution that could shed light on a number of long-standing questions, such as the origin and evolution of life by modulating ROS levels."

These two scholars likewise revealed in the study, which was published in the Science China Earth Sciences, that the discovery of nanomaterials as new enzyme mimetics has changed the traditional idea that nanomaterials are chemically inert in Earth systems. Given the terragram (Tg)-level abundance of mineral nanoparticles in Earth systems, it is statistically highly probable for some of them, particularly those of biotic origin, to behave as mineral nanozymes to catalyze superoxide and H2O2 and promote the biogeochemical cycles of oxygen and other elements.

Philadelphia, June 8, 2021 - When shopping online, participants surveyed spent more money, purchased more items, and spent less on candy and desserts than when they shopped in-store, according to a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier.

In recent years, online grocery shopping has grown exponentially. To describe the grocery shopping patterns of people who shopped both online and in-store and evaluate whether shoppers purchased fewer unhealthy, impulse-sensitive items online, 137 primary household shoppers in Maine who shopped at least once in-store and online (with curbside pickup) were studied for 5,573 total transactions from 2015-2017.

"There were differences in both the quantity and types of food purchased when shopping online compared to in-store. When study participants were shopping online, they spent about 44 percent more per transaction, and they purchased a greater number and variety of items compared to when they shopped in-store," said lead author Laura Zatz, ScD, MPH, Department of Nutrition and Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. "We also found that shopping online was associated with reduced spending per transaction on candy, cold or frozen desserts, and grain-based desserts like cookies and cake."

Spending on sugary drinks and sweet and salty snacks did not change when consumers were shopping online versus in-store. Researchers found that in-store shoppers were spending an average of $2.50 more per transaction on candy and desserts.

When considering why there was no difference in the online versus in-store purchase of sweet and salty snacks and sugary drinks, researchers hypothesized that these items may not be as impulse-sensitive as originally anticipated despite their prominent placement in endcaps and checkout displays.

"Sugary drinks and snacks might have been a planned purchase for many in our study sample. That would fit with other industry research showing that neither sweet and salty snacks nor sugary drinks are in the top five categories of unplanned food purchases," said senior author Eric Rimm, ScD, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"With more people buying their groceries online, it will be really important to understand how that impacts the nutritional profile of the foods they purchase," Dr. Zatz said. "Encouragingly, our results suggest that online grocery shopping is associated with reduced spending on several unhealthy items. However, we'll want to monitor shopping patterns to make sure sophisticated online marketing tactics, like personalized pop-up ads, don't override that." Assessing the evolution of marketing practices in the online grocery setting will be an important area for future inquiry, especially as more consumers use online grocery shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lanthanides are rare-earth heavy metals with useful magnetic properties and a knack for emitting light. Researchers had long assumed that lanthanides' toxicity risk was low and therefore safe to implement in a number of high-tech breakthroughs we now take for granted: from OLEDs (organic light-emitting displays)¬¬ to medical MRIs and even hybrid vehicles.

In recent years, however, some scientists have questioned lanthanides' safety. In matters concerning health care, for example, some MRI patients have attributed a litany of side effects, including long-term kidney damage, to their exposure to the lanthanide gadolinium, a commonly used MRI contrast agent. And in the wake of landmark studies showing that gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) linger in patients' kidneys, bone and brain tissue for months if not years, scientists have searched for clearer evidence linking lanthanide exposure to disease.

But what's slowing scientists down is that they don't know where to start - there are 15 lanthanide elements, and the human genome consists of billions of nucleotide sequences. Understanding how lanthanides might trigger gene mutations associated with cancer and other diseases would require a dataset of mammoth proportions that doesn't yet exist.

Now, a team of researchers led by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley has compiled the most complete library yet of lanthanides and their potential toxicity - by exposing baker's yeast, aka Saccharomyces cerevisiae, to lanthanide metals. Their findings were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Like us, yeasts are eukaryotes - organisms made up of membrane-bound cells whose chromosomes are neatly packaged in a nucleus. We are made up of tens of trillions of cells; yeasts are just one cell.

"Yeast is the smallest eukaryote - but their thousands of genes represent a great approximation to the gene variants in humans," said senior author Rebecca Abergel, who holds titles of faculty scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab, where she heads the BioActinide Chemistry Group, and assistant professor of nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley. "What's cool about this study is that it was done with a library of yeast genes, and we could screen the whole genome of the yeast and compare how a normal gene strain versus a gene-deletion strain was actually affected by lanthanide exposure."

In an investigation spanning nearly a decade, Abergel and her team relied on a barcoded library of the baker's yeast genome to screen which cellular functions were disrupted by lanthanides. The library was developed in the early 2000s as part of the Yeast Deletion Project, a consortium of researchers across the U.S. and Canada, to establish relationships between genes and chemical exposures. Co-senior author Christopher Vulpe, a professor of physiological sciences at the University of Florida, is one of the early adopters of this library for functional profiling of various toxicants.

After testing over 4,000 genes against 13 of the 15 lanthanide metals (the study excluded cerium and promethium), the researchers found that lanthanides interrupt the cell-signaling pathways that keep our bodies functioning - such as our skeletal and neurological processes - by hijacking calcium-binding sites in two key cellular activities: endocytosis, the process that governs how nutrients are imported inside the cells, and the ESCRT (endosomal sorting complexes required for transport) machinery, which sorts proteins and helps cells shuttle in critical nutrients like calcium.

"This study could point us to understanding which lanthanide metals are more toxic than others, and whether someone is more genetically predisposed to lanthanide toxicity," Abergel said.

Abergel's investigation of baker's yeast as a genomic model for human disease began in 2012, when she was awarded a Berkeley Lab LDRD (Laboratory Directed Research and Development) Award for her study titled "Global transcriptome, deletome and proteome profiling of yeast exposed to radioactive metal ions: a tool to distinguish radiation-induced damage from chemical toxicity." Her interest in public health then led to the development of an anti-radiation-poisoning pill, an anti-gadolinium-toxicity pill for MRI patients, and advances in cancer therapies and medical imaging.

As a follow-up to the current study, she and her research team are now studying the toxicity mechanisms of each specific metal, beginning with gadolinium. They also hope to investigate in animal models how cellular abnormalities caused by lanthanide exposure are sustained over time - and possibly even across generations.

"This was a massive study showing all the potential pathways affected by lanthanide metal exposure - but we're just scratching the surface of a huge dataset" and there's much more work to be done, she said.

Lead is a toxic metal, and its widespread use has led to significant environmental pollution and public health problems in many parts of the world. This has led the WHO to include it on a list of ten chemicals that cause serious health problems. However, lead poisoning continues to affect many population groups. A study published today in open access in the journal Environment International found high levels of lead in indigenous people in Peruvian Amazonia living near areas where oil extraction takes place. The research was led by Cristina O'Callaghan-Gordo, a professor and researcher in Health Sciences Studies at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation and the National Institute of Health of Peru.

"The main hypothesis is that the metal reaches them through their diet in areas with the most serious environmental pollution, as the population hunts and fishes for food, and previous studies have shown the that lead is present in animals in this region. On the other hand, in places with lower levels of environmental pollution, the most likely route is occupational exposure, such as coming into direct contact with oil due to participating in clean-up tasks after oil spills," explained Cristina O'Callaghan-Gordo.

The closer and more intense the extraction, the higher the levels of lead

The study included 1,047 people, of whom 309 (31%) were children under 12 years old. The population studied lives in four river basins in Peruvian Amazonia, a remote non-industrialized region.

The work took place between May and June 2016, and involved face-to-face interviews to collect data on the participants' risk factors and lifestyle, as well as blood tests. The research also took the distance between where the population lived and the oil extraction facility into account. The highest blood lead levels were found among participants from the Corrientes river basin, which accounts for most of the oil extraction activity in the region.

The study also found higher levels of lead in the blood of people living less than an hour's walk from an oil facility. The values observed in this study are twice as high as the values reported for children in Europe between 1999 and 2007, at a time when leaded petrol was still used in Europe (which in some countries continued until 2005).

The results showed high levels of lead, especially among males. "This is quite common, as men tend to be involved more often in activities that expose them to lead, such as cleaning up spills," said O'Callaghan-Gordo.

Health problems

This study is the result of an agreement reached between the indigenous peoples' federations in the river basins affected and the Peruvian Government, aimed at addressing their concerns about the potential effects on health. "This study came about at the request of the indigenous communities, as they have been calling upon the Government to do something in this respect for decades," said the researcher.

Alterations in the nervous, haematological, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and renal systems are associated with exposure to lead in both adults and children, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

"Levels of lead like those we found in Peru have effects on health. In fact, any amount of this metal in the blood has consequences for health. The most well-known known effects are neurological and neurodevelopmental problems in children," warned Cristina O'Callaghan-Gordo.

Scientists have established the most reliable estimates to date of past temperature variations in Antarctica.

They highlight significant differences in behaviour between West and East Antarctica.

This study makes it possible to test and consolidate future climate projections.

Antarctica has experienced significant temperature changes, especially since the last glacial period. An international collaboration including scientists from the CNRS1 has now challenged previously accepted estimates of these variations, using new measurements published on June 4, 2021 in Science. Their study highlights differences in behaviour between East and West Antarctica, connected in particular to differing variations in their altitude.

Surface temperatures in Antarctica have risen sharply since the last glacial period. Understanding this increase is key to understanding changes in climate at any given time and to testing our ability to model them. A study involving French scientists now provides the most reliable estimates to date of past temperature variations in Antarctica. Whereas warming since the last glacial period was until now estimated at +9 °C across the entire continent, the new measurements reveal a variation of +10 °C in West Antarctica and between +4 and +7 °C in East Antarctica.

Scientists previously estimated past temperatures using an isotopic thermometer, in other words, by analysing the ratio of different isotopic forms of water. However, the accuracy of this method relies on a calibration that is hard to implement in Antarctica. Now, two new independent methods have been developed in order to overcome this problem. The first consists in measuring the temperature in the boreholes resulting from coring2. The tremendous thickness of the Antarctic ice sheet means that records are well-preserved and can be used to reconstruct past temperatures. The second method is based on the process of snow densification, which is temperature-sensitive and can be measured by analysing the air trapped in ice cores. The two measurements gave similar results, confirming their reliability.

This work highlights the impact on temperature changes in Antarctica caused by variations in the altitude of the ice. It demonstrates the significant differences between East Antarctica, whose elevation has increased slightly since the last glacial period, and West Antarctica, where it has decreased considerably. The data was compared with climate models3 in order to better understand past temperature changes and improve confidence in future projections.

RApid DIgital Crispr Approach (RADICA) is a molecular rapid testing methodology that allows absolute quantification of viral nucleic acids in 40-60 minutes.

RADICA is four times faster and significantly less expensive than conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods as it does not require costly equipment for precise temperature control and cycling.

Method has been tested on SARS-CoV-2 synthetic DNA and RNA, Epstein-Barr virus in human B cells and serum, and can be easily adapted to detect other kinds of viruses.

Singapore, 7 June 2021 - Researchers from Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized-Medicine (CAMP), an Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT's research enterprise in Singapore, have developed a new method for rapid and accurate detection of viral nucleic acids - a breakthrough that can be easily adapted to detect different DNA/RNA targets in viruses like the coronavirus.

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of rapid diagnostics and improved methods to detect viruses, especially as the world seeks to be prepared for future pandemics or the next dangerous pathogen. Particularly, the biomanufacturing industry, with the unique challenges of using cells as cell therapy products, is looking for innovations in rapid methods to detect virus contamination as part of their quality control processes and in release testing. While the reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is considered a gold standard for viral detection, there are limitations and they can often produce variable results.

A more accurate version is the digital PCR method that allows absolute quantification - meaning it reveals the copy number of viruses in a sample - can allow for setting clear thresholds of virus contamination, and is not susceptible to potential fluctuations of reference gene required by standard qPCR methods. However, digital PCR demands a relatively long reaction time of around four hours. Another drawback of all current PCR-based methods is that they need expensive equipment for precise temperature control and cycling.

The new methodological development by CAMP - the RApid DIgital Crispr Approach (RADICA) - allows absolute quantification of viral nucleic acids in 40-60 minutes in an isothermal manner in a water bath, a prototypical and inexpensive laboratory equipment. The team's research is explained in a paper titled "Digital CRISPR-based method for the rapid detection and absolute quantification of nucleic acids" published recently in the prestigious journal Biomaterials.

The RADICA method has been tested on SARS-CoV-2 synthetic DNA/RNA as well as the Epstein-Barr virus in cultured B cells and patient serum. The researchers say the method can be adapted to detect other kinds of viruses, and in other types of samples such as saliva and cell culture media. RADICA is also able to distinguish the virus from their close relatives.

"This is the first reported method of detecting nucleic acids to utilise the sensitivity of isothermal amplification and specificity of CRISPR based detection in a digital format - allowing rapid and specific amplification of DNA without the time consuming and costly need for thermal cycling," says Dr Xiaolin Wu, Postdoctoral Associate at SMART CAMP. "RADICA offers four times faster absolute quantification compared to conventional digital PCR methods."

The team uses extracted DNA/RNA of the sample and divides a 15 μL reaction into thousands of independent partitions. In each partition, the DNA/RNA is amplified and identified by Cas12a protein, an enzyme that can turn the target signal into a fluorescent signal. This allows absolute quantification to be achieved by counting the number of partitions that have the target DNA/RNA and are lit up.

"The last year has shown us the importance of detecting viruses quickly and accurately, and RADICA can help fill existing gaps in this area," says National University of Singapore Professor Hanry Yu, co-corresponding author and Co-Lead Principal Investigator at SMART CAMP. "Cell therapy products have a very short shelf life and patients are usually in need of treatment urgently. Current sterility tests need around 14 days, which is too slow for clinical needs but RADICA shortens the process into hours."

Professor Tim Lu, who is co-corresponding author, CAMP Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Biological Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the team's method is faster, cheaper and more efficient than what is used today and its digital format makes it more tolerant to contamination or inhibitors that may be present in biological samples - often the case with cell therapy products. Professor Lu adds that on top of detecting the presence of a target virus, RADICA also identifies how many viruses there are in the sample which can help doctors and researchers in deciding the course of treatment, as well as production and inventory management of cell therapy products.

While the researchers at CAMP developed RADICA for monitoring cell therapy manufacturing processes and biosafety release testing of cell therapy products, Dr Wu says the method can also be used to detect DNA/RNA targets of different viruses and adapted to devices commonly found in hospitals and service laboratories - providing a potential new way to tackle pandemics.

Nanoclusters, which consist of several or even thousands of atoms, represent an important intermediate state between microscopic atoms and macroscopic matter. A profound comprehension of the composition, structure, and properties of nanoclusters is crucial for exploring or extending their functional applications. Among the numerous types of nanoclusters, metal chalcogenide supertetrahedral clusters (MCSCs) have attracted great attention since the 1980s for their uniform sizes, well-defined structures, and semiconductor properties. Notably, because of their resemblance to II-VI or I-III-VI semiconductor nanocrystals (also known as quantum dots, QDs), MCSCs have been regarded as atomically precise ultrasmall QDs and used to clarify various issues that could not be resolved using traditional QDs, such as the determination of precise site-dependent structure-property relationships.

Generally, research on MCSCs can be categorized into three topics: (1) expansion of the architecture of crystalline MCSC-based frameworks through fabricating clusters with di?erent sizes/compositions and modifying intercluster connecting modes, (2) discretization of MCSCs in the lattice and their solution processability, and (3) exploration of the composition-structure-property relationships, functionality and applications of MCSC-based crystals. Based on this, the development history of metallic chalcogenide supertetrahedral clusters was systematically summarized from the following four aspects:

1) Development of MCSCs: types and sizes

MCSCs can be subdivided into three types: 1) basic-supertetrahedral Tn clusters; 2) cap-supertetrahedral Cn clusters; 3) penta-supertetrahedral Pn cluster. In addition, Tn clusters can further induce a series of pseudo-Tn clusters, including Tn (coreless) clusters, oxychalcogenide o-Tn clusters, super-supertetrahedral Tp,q clusters, etc. Synthetically, the construction of MCSCs is actually a "game" of charge-balance, that is, the coordination of M-E (S, Se or Te) must follow the Pauling's electrostatic valence rule to achieve the local charge balance within the cluster, and the high overall negative charge of the cluster must be compensated by the external counter cations to achieve the overall charge balance. As the MCSCs' size increases, the local and overall charge balance become more and more complex. Therefore, how to expand the size and type of MCSCs has always been the focus of researchers and the difficulty to be solved.

2) Construction of MCSC-based semiconductor open frameworks

The development of MCSC-based open framework materials is intended to solve the restriction of oxide zeolite in photoelectricity due to their inherent insulation. A large number of porous semiconductor materials with unique topological structures and properties have been developed due to the fact that MCSCs are easily assembled with the corner sulfur sharing modes. However, such assembly mode gradually shows the disadvantage of "bottleneck" in the construction of new structures. Researchers began to explore organic ligands and transition metal atoms as a new pattern of intercluster connection modes. This innovative idea not only expands the structures of MCSC-based semiconductor open frameworks, but also enrich the functionality of those materials.

3) Discretization of MCSCs in superlattice and dispersability in solvents

Since the discretization of MCSCs (mainly Tn clusters) in the superlattice is the premise of obtaining real molecular nanoclusters, researchers have successfully realized the discretization of Tn clusters in the superlattice by combining the strategy of "multivalent metal complementarity" and the "superbase-assisted crystallization". In this regard, high-valent metal ions tend to distribute at the corner sites, which greatly controls the coordination ability of the corner S, usually resulting in the discretization of clusters. The introduction of superbase is easy to form a high concentration of counter cations in the mother liquid, which can effectively stabilize the polyanionic clusters. In addition, the selected superbase have an approximately in-plane molecular configuration, which is helpful to make them co-crystallize with the cluster. Notably, the incorporation of a large amount of high-valent metal ions inevitably decreases the negative charge of the individual clusters and weakens the electrostatic interaction between the cluster and the organic counter cations, thus favoring crystallization and subsequent dispersion.

4) Atomically precise site-dependent properties

Due to the site-selective distribution of multi-valent metal ions in the clusters, Tn clusters can be regarded as the excellent structural models to study the dopant-dependent structure-property correlation. In the case of T5 (coreless) clusters, the missing metal sites in the central region can be occupied by other metal atoms through post-modification or precise doping. The doping of a single copper ion can significantly improve the photoelectric response of T5 clusters. The photoluminescence behavior of Mn ions can be studied by doping Mn ions into T5 (coreless) clusters. The co-doping of Cu and Mn ions can realize the single-crystal white emission. In addition, the mechanism of electrochemiluminescence can be explored by using the precise structure model with central vacancy site and Mn doping site.

Older Chinese immigrants who adjust to their new cultural environment by learning the language, following the country's media and socializing with local residents can reduce acculturation gap with their adult children and protect their cognitive function, according to a Rutgers study.

The study, published in the journal Aging and Mental Health, is one of the first to explore the relationship between intergenerational families, acculturation and cognitive function among older Chinese Americans.

Researchers looked 2,900 Chinese Americans over age 60 who had at least one child and who participated in the PINE Study, an epidemiological study of older Chinese Americans. They analyzed three areas of acculturation - language, media use and ethnic social relations - and how they corresponded with episodic memory, working memory and processing speed, which are cognitive abilities that decline with age.

They found that those who had better English proficiency, more frequent use of American media and associated with people outside their Chinese community showed higher cognitive function.

"One potential explanation is that increasing English proficiency is associated with the learning process, which may stimulate memory and related cognitive function," said lead researcher Mengting Li, an assistant professor in Rutgers School of Nursing and a faculty member at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research. "English proficiency could also enhance social engagement, which may help preserve cognitive function."

According to Li, the use of U.S. media is related to better cognitive function through processing and storing the information. The knowledge they gain from U.S. media also can bridge gaps between them and the younger generation, which can decrease family conflicts.

The findings can be used to design interventions to protect cognitive function of older Chinese Americans through improving English proficiency, using and engaging in American media and enhancing social networks, particularly for those who are in high-conflict households, and help with healthy aging, Li said. The findings also might apply to other ethnic minority aging immigrants in the United States who have cultural and linguistic barriers and have conflicted intergenerational relationships resulting from acculturation gap.

"It is important for older Chinese immigrants to not lose sight of their own culture. Meanwhile, they could work toward acculturation of their new community as a way to promote healthy cognitive aging in immigration contexts," Li said. "This study only examined the role of adapting to the receiving communities' culture in cognitive function. Future study should also look at the impact of maintaining the heritage culture on cognitive health."