Tech

Researchers are developing a new sensor that can detect Ebola in a single drop of blood and provides results in just an hour. With further development, the technology might also enable fast and inexpensive detection of other viruses, including the virus that causes COVID-19.

Ebola is one of the deadliest of all known viruses, killing up to 90% of those infected. Stopping its spread requires quickly detecting and isolating infected people. However, outbreaks tend to occur in remote areas of Africa, requiring blood tests to be transported to distant laboratories for analysis. This leads to significant delays in identifying a new outbreak.

Soma Banerjee, PhD, a visiting scientist in Marit Nilsen-Hamilton's laboratory at Iowa State University, research associate in Ames National Laboratory and research scientist at Aptalogic Inc., will present the research at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology annual meeting during the virtual Experimental Biology (EB) 2021 meeting, to be held April 27-30.

The new sensor is being developed by a research team led by Nilsen-Hamilton, who is also chief scientific officer of Aptalogic Inc., and Pranav Shotriya from Iowa State University. It involves a multidisciplinary effort that includes researchers with expertise in virology, bioinformatics, molecular biology and mechanical engineering from the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the National Center for Biotechnology Information, part of National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine.

The Ebola sensor is based on DNA aptamers, which are short, single-stranded DNA molecules that selectively bind to a specific target. To detect Ebola, the researchers identified aptamers that bind to Ebola virus soluble glycoprotein, a protein that appears in the blood of a person with Ebola before symptoms appear.

Current methods used to detect Ebola are based on analysis techniques that require laboratory facilities and trained individuals to perform the tests. Although alternative methods do exist, they tend to be difficult to read by personnel wearing protective gear or require special storage conditions.

"Our new sensor doesn't require any special storage conditions," said Banerjee. "This is an immense advantage because Ebola outbreaks occur frequently in remote areas where even electricity can be a luxury."

So far, the researchers have shown that the aptamers they selected work well on a portable nanoporous alumin oxide sensor. They also found that the sensor can detect the Ebola glycoprotein in infected macaque blood serum, providing results that are comparable to the standard ELISA-based assay performed using Ebola antibodies.

"Once our device is fully optimized for detecting Ebola, we plan to develop a multiplexed version that can perform multiple tests and detect other viruses and microbes, all from one drop of blood," said Banerjee. "We're also using what we've learned so far to identify aptamers that could be used to detect COVID-19 and other similar viruses."

The researchers are now working to further reduce the one-hour testing time without compromising the accuracy. They also want to make the sensor more user-friendly so that results can be read by personnel without any special training.

Soma Banerjee will present the findings from 11:30-11:45 a.m. Friday, April 30 (abstract). Contact the media team for more information or to obtain a free press pass to access the meeting.

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The building of new homes continues in flood-prone parts of England and Wales, and losses from flooding remain high. A new study, which looked at a recent decade of house building, concluded that a disproportionate number of homes built in struggling or declining neighbourhoods will end up in high flood-risk areas due to climate change.

The study, by Viktor Rözer and Swenja Surminski from the Grantham Research Institute, used property-level data for new homes and information on the socio-economic development of neighbourhoods to analyse spatial clusters of disproportional increase in the flood exposure of newly built homes and investigated how these patterns evolve in different climate change scenarios. Their findings, which discuss the issues of spending on flood defences and the role of spatial planning in adopting to climate change, are published in the IOP Publishing journal, Environmental Research Letters.

Over the last decade, 120,000 new homes have been built in flood-prone areas in England and Wales. The use of spatial planning and other incentives to reduce the number of new properties built in flood-prone areas, including areas likely to become flood prone, is a key component of long-term flood risk management. At the same time, making people and assets more resilient to flooding through adaptation and e?icient recovery is increasingly included in national policies and local flood risk management practice. However, no available studies provide an empirical analysis that captures the effects of recent spatial planning decisions on the dynamic changes in flood exposure and their interactions with the development of local communities in the context of climate change.

Viktor Rözer points out: "The spatial shift of flood risk areas as a result of climate change is expected to disproportionately impact new build homes in declining or struggling areas. What might appear as an attractive option to meet housing demand and stimulate the local economy right now is likely to increase inequality, with those who can afford to moving away from high risk areas, leaving those least able to cope exposed.

"The analysis shows that without further action the share of homes built between 2008 and 2018 that will be at high risk by the 2050s is expected to increase from five percent to eight percent under a 2°C warming scenario and could almost triple to 14% under a high-end warming scenario."

The conclusions suggest that in struggling neighbourhoods, this can lead to knock-on effects where an inability to cope with increasing flood risks can decrease both the attractiveness and property value of a larger area, as chances for a full recovery after a flood event decrease and community development is impaired. This could cause a wider risk with systemic implications, such as an increase in mortgage defaults and foreclosures due to a combination of decreasing real estate prices and lower chances of financial recovery

The analysis is accessible to a broad readership and could have important implications for broader awareness of the range of exposure outcomes associated with risky housing development in the UK, the affordability of private level flood protection, and flood insurance in the face of climate change.

The now-familiar sight of traditional propeller wind turbines could be replaced in the future with wind farms containing more compact and efficient vertical turbines. New research from Oxford Brookes University has found that the vertical turbine design is far more efficient than traditional turbines in large scale wind farms, and when set in pairs the vertical turbines increase each other's performance by up to 15%.

A research team from the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (ECM) at Oxford Brookes led by Professor Iakovos Tzanakis conducted an in-depth study using more than 11,500 hours of computer simulation to show that wind farms can perform more efficiently by substituting the traditional propeller type Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs), for compact Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs).

Vertical turbines are more efficient than traditional windmill turbines

The research demonstrates for the first time at a realistic scale, the potential of large scale VAWTs to outcompete current HAWT wind farm turbines.

VAWTs spin around an axis vertical to the ground, and they exhibit the opposite behaviour of the well-known propeller design (HAWTs). The research found that VAWTs increase each other's performance when arranged in grid formations. Positioning wind turbines to maximise outputs is critical to the design of wind farms.

Professor Tzanakis comments "This study evidences that the future of wind farms should be vertical. Vertical axis wind farm turbines can be designed to be much closer together, increasing their efficiency and ultimately lowering the prices of electricity. In the long run, VAWTs can help accelerate the green transition of our energy systems, so that more clean and sustainable energy comes from renewable sources."

With the UK's wind energy capacity expected to almost double by 2030, the findings are a stepping stone towards designing more efficient wind farms, understanding large scale wind energy harvesting techniques and ultimately improving the renewable energy technology to more quickly replace fossil fuels as sources of energy.

Cost effective way to meet wind power targets

According to the Global Wind Report 2021, the world needs to be installing wind power three times faster over the next decade, in order to meet net zero targets and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Lead author of the report and Bachelor of Engineering graduate Joachim Toftegaard Hansen commented: "Modern wind farms are one of the most efficient ways to generate green energy, however, they have one major flaw: as the wind approaches the front row of turbines, turbulence will be generated downstream. The turbulence is detrimental to the performance of the subsequent rows.

"In other words, the front row will convert about half the kinetic energy of the wind into electricity, whereas for the back row, that number is down to 25-30%. Each turbine costs more than £2 million/MW. As an engineer, it naturally occurred to me that there must be a more cost-effective way."

The study is the first to comprehensively analyse many aspects of wind turbine performance, with regards to array angle, direction of rotation, turbine spacing, and number of rotors. It is also the first research to investigate whether the performance improvements hold true for three VAWT turbines set in a series.

Dr Mahak co-author of the article and Senior Lecturer in ECM comments: "The importance of using computational methods in understanding flow physics can't be underestimated. These types of design and enhancement studies are a fraction of the cost compared to the huge experimental test facilities. This is particularly important at the initial design phase and is extremely useful for the industries trying to achieve maximum design efficiency and power output."

A new coating solution discovered by researchers at Simon Fraser University can transform regular materials into waterproof surfaces. The product will be cheaper to produce, free of harmful fluorinated compounds, and effective on a variety of materials. Their research findings have been published in Nature Communications.

SFU chemistry professor and project lead Hogan Yu estimates that their patented waterproofing solution will be up to 90 percent cheaper to produce. Yu and his team are currently floating the idea by investors and companies with the goal of commercializing the product.

The new formula was invented at Yu's lab when SFU graduate student Lishen Zhang and another student were working on an experiment in 2016. The student used a reagent that had been left open for a few days, surprisingly generating waterproof surfaces. "At the time we believed the extended air exposure led to the degradation of the reagent, which inspired Lishen to explore an unconventional reaction that is now critical to our coating technology," says Yu.

Yu and his team have spent the past five years testing and refining the formula for the coating solution, which is based on a simple combination of chemicals known as organosilane, water and an industrial solvent. A variety of materials, such as fabric, glass, wood and metal can be sprayed with or dipped into the coating mixture. Tests have shown that the treated surfaces remain waterproof for at least 18 months and further testing is underway to determine their performance over an even longer time period or under harsh physical conditions.

The waterproof coating's effectiveness was examined through so-called water contact angle tests. On a water-repellant (hydrophobic) surface, a droplet remains spherical and slides off instead of sinking into and clinging to the surface. The team found that their coating has the highest water contact angles when compared with the branded commercial products, such as Scotchgard™, Woods™, KIWI™, NikwaxTM, NeverWet®, and Grangers™.

Beyond waterproof clothing, the researchers anticipate that their invention could be applied in creating antibiofouling, stain-resistant coatings for iron or steel, anti-icing and water-repelling paint for building construction, as well as efficient membranes for water-oil separation.

"Since the method to produce this waterproofing solution is simple and low-cost, the production can also be easily scaled up for industrial and commercial applications," Yu explains.

This product shows excellent properties in terms of waterproofing, convenience, cost and robustness, and it's also environmentally-friendly," he adds. "We believe this product could help improve people's lives in a number of ways, such as keeping us dry and comfortable on rainy days, which are common on the West Coast where we love to live."

The team is currently liaising with SFU's Technology Licensing Office about IP protection and commercialization plans, after a provisional U.S. patent application was filed in January.

University of South Australia researchers have drawn inspiration from a 300-million-year-old superior flying machine - the dragonfly - to show why future flapping wing drones will probably resemble the insect in shape, wings and gearing.

A team of PhD students led by UniSA Professor of Sensor Systems, Javaan Chahl, spent part of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown designing and testing key parts of a dragonfly-inspired drone that might match the insect's extraordinary skills in hovering, cruising and aerobatics.

The UniSA students worked remotely on the project, solving mathematical formulas at home on whiteboards, digitising stereo photographs of insect wings into 3D models, and using spare rooms as rapid prototyping workshops to test parts of the flapping wing drone.

Their findings have been published in the journal Drones.

Describing the dragonfly as the "apex insect flyer," Prof Chahl says numerous engineering lessons can be learned from its mastery in the air.

"Dragonflies are supremely efficient in all areas of flying. They need to be. After emerging from under water until their death (up to six months), male dragonflies are involved in perpetual, dangerous combat against male rivals. Mating requires an aerial pursuit of females and they are constantly avoiding predators. Their flying abilities have evolved over millions of years to ensure they survive," Prof Chahl says.

"They can turn quickly at high speeds and take off while carrying more than three times their own body weight. They are also one of nature's most effective predators, targeting, chasing and capturing their prey with a 95 per cent success rate."

The use of drones has exploded in recent years - for security, military, delivery, law enforcement, filming, and more recently health screening purposes - but in comparison to the dragonfly and other flying insects they are crude and guzzle energy.

The UniSA team modelled the dragonfly's unique body shape and aerodynamic properties to understand why they remain the ultimate flying machine.

Because intact dragonflies are notoriously difficult to capture, the researchers developed an optical technique to photograph the wing geometry of 75 different dragonfly (Odonata) species from glass display cases in museum collections.

In a world first experiment, they reconstructed 3D images of the wings, comparing differences between the species.

"Dragonfly wings are long, light and rigid with a high lift-to-drag ratio which gives them superior aerodynamic performance.

"Their long abdomen, which makes up about 35 per cent of their body weight, has also evolved to serve many purposes. It houses the digestive tract, is involved in reproduction, and it helps with balance, stability and manoeuvrability. The abdomen plays a crucial role in their flying ability."

The researchers believe a dragonfly lookalike drone could do many jobs, including collecting and delivering awkward, unbalanced loads, safely operating near people, exploring delicate natural environments and executing long surveillance missions.

An international team with researchers from the University of Bayreuth has succeeded for the first time in discovering a previously unknown two-dimensional material by using modern high-pressure technology. The new material, beryllonitrene, consists of regularly arranged nitrogen and beryllium atoms. It has an unusual electronic lattice structure that shows great potential for applications in quantum technology. Its synthesis required a compression pressure that is about one million times higher than the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere. The scientists have presented their discovery in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Since the discovery of graphene, which is made of carbon atoms, interest in two-dimensional materials has grown steadily in research and industry. Under extremely high pressures of up to 100 gigapascals, researchers from the University of Bayreuth, together with international partners, have now produced novel compounds composed of nitrogen and beryllium atoms. These are beryllium polynitrides, some of which conform to the monoclinic, others to the triclinic crystal system. The triclinic beryllium polynitrides exhibit one unusual characteristic when the pressure drops. They take on a crystal structure made up of layers. Each layer contains zigzag nitrogen chains connected by beryllium atoms. It can therefore be described as a planar structure consisting of BeN? pentagons and Be?N? hexagons. Thus, each layer represents a two-dimensional material, beryllonitrene.

Qualitatively, beryllonitrene is a new 2D material. Unlike graphene, the two-dimensional crystal structure of beryllonitrene results in a slightly distorted electronic lattice. Because of its resulting electronic properties, beryllonitrene would be excellently suited for applications in quantum technology if it could one day be produced on an industrial scale. In this still young field of research and development, the aim is to use the quantum mechanical properties and structures of matter for technical innovations - for example, for the construction of high-performance computers or for novel encryption techniques with the goal of secure communication.

"For the first time, close international cooperation in high-pressure research has now succeeded in producing a chemical compound in that was previously completely unknown. This compound could serve as a precursor for a 2D material with unique electronic properties. The fascinating achievement was only possible with the help of a laboratory-generated compression pressure almost a million times greater than the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere. Our study thus once again proves the extraordinary potential of high-pressure research in materials science," says co-author Prof. Dr. Natalia Dubrovinskaia from the Laboratory for Crystallography at the University of Bayreuth. "However, there is no possibility of devising a process for the production of beryllonitrene on an industrial scale as long as extremely high pressures, such as can only be generated in the research laboratory, are required for this. Nevertheless, it is highly significant that the new compound was created during decompression and that it can exist under ambient conditions. In principle, we cannot rule out that one day it will be possible to reproduce beryllonitrene or a similar 2D material with technically less complex processes and use it industrially. With our study, we have opened up new prospects for high-pressure research in the development of technologically promising 2D materials that may surpass graphene," says corresponding author Prof. Dr. Leonid Dubrovinsky from the Bavarian Research Institute of Experimental Geochemistry & Geophysics at the University of Bayreuth.

Researchers from Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, and Italy have developed a breakthrough method for quickly, accurately, and reliably diagnosing cardiac arrhythmias. They called it Directed graph mapping (DGM). The technology principles are published in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology.

One of the members of the research team is Alexander Panfilov, leading specialist of the laboratory of computational biology and medicine at Ural Federal University (Russia), head of the biophysics group at the University of Ghent (Belgium), professor at the Department of Cardiology at Leiden University (Netherlands). The research was led by prof. Nele Vandersickel, a former postdoctoral researcher in Panfilov's group.

"The pioneering step in our approach is application of novel methodology to analyze local arrival time information on the electrodes," said Alexander Panfilov. "We connect these points into a three-dimensional network and thus track the sequential path of the wave. In mathematics, such directed networks are called graphs, they are widely used, for example, in the creation of diverse algorithms for search engines and social networks, in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and epilepsy. We are the first group which applied the theory of graphs to the problems of describing the electrical activity of the heart, localizing the sources of cardiac arrhythmias, identifying their mechanisms, and determining potential targets for ablation."

First, using DGM, researchers processed the results of experiments by another group of scientists. Thus, it was possible to correct the initial conclusions and precisely establish the nature of arrhythmias.

Furthermore, DGM method underwent clinical evaluation in one of the best clinics in Belgium. The study involved 51 patients with complex atrial tachycardia. At the same time, cardiologists used the latest CARTO system of the leading medical and technological company Biosense Webster (USA). This system uses electrodes visualizes a dynamic map of wave disturbance and allows to determine a specific area of the heart where arrhythmias are formed. Test results: the method coped with the task in 38 cases, professional cardiologists - in 33 cases. In other words, DGM is highly effective in almost 75% of cases.

"Our method makes it possible to diagnose arrhythmias origin areas with high accuracy and reliability in a fully automatic mode," said Alexander Panfilov. "In just a minute, it can localize the arrhythmia, that helps to eliminate arrhythmias in the shortest possible time. Considering that in manual data interpretation can take up to a quarter of an hour, the process is 15 times faster."

The authors of the technique are engaged in its further improvement - to better understand the nature of the formation of arrhythmias and to treat even more complex heart diseases, such as atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia.

Note

Cardiac arrhythmias are usually caused by rotating electrical waves that disrupt the normal rhythm of the heart and can cause serious complications and even sudden death.

To cure arrhythmia, it is necessary to remove the pathogenic area in the heart and thus make it impossible for the electric wave to rotate. For this, electrodes are placed in the heart, with the help of which they establish where the wave rotates, and the removal of which area will lead to the treatment of arrhythmia. Cardiologists pass a high voltage electric current through the electrodes. The current then burns the heart tissue and dampens the wave curing the problem zone. This method is the most effective in treating arrhythmias and is called ablation.

In some cases, ablation is performed on several adjacent areas of the heart to create a whole barrier in the path of the propagating vortex. Determining the sections of wave rotation from the electrode records is a difficult task. In most cases, the cardiologist must decide on the "manual" operation. The methods of automatic identification of such sources available so far have shown their ineffectiveness, especially in cases of complex arrhythmias. As a result, the interpretation of the situation depended on the qualifications of the doctors; it took additional time to determine the treatment tactics, and the ablation procedure was laborious. These factors reduced the likelihood of a positive result of operations and increased the risk of complications.

Tightening the EU emissions trading system (EU ETS) in line with the EU Green Deal would dramatically speed up the decarbonization of Europe's power sector - and likely cause a demise of the coal industry. In a new study a team of researchers from Potsdam, Germany has quantified the substantial shifts Europe's electricity system is about to undergo when the newly decided EU climate target gets implemented. Higher carbon prices, the authors show, are not only an inevitable step to cut emissions - they will also lead much faster to an inexpensive electricity system powered by renewable energies.

"Once the EU translates their recently adjusted target of cutting emissions by at least 55% in 2030 in comparison to 1990 into tighter EU ETS caps, the electricity sector will see fundamental changes surprisingly soon," says Robert Pietzcker from the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), one of the lead authors. "In our computer simulations of the new ambitious targets, this would mean that renewables would contribute almost three fourths of the power generation already in 2030 and we would reach zero emissions in the power sector as soon as by 2040. Once the change is initiated, it can gain speed in an unprecedented way."

In order to determine the impacts, the economists studied variations of the emissions reduction targets, increased electricity demand, which might arise from sector coupling, and investments in building an effective transmission grid infrastructure to better pool renewable resources across the European countries. They also analysed the effect of potential unavailability of new nuclear power deployment and carbon capture and storage (CCS) power plants designed to reduce the amount of man-made emissions of CO2. Remarkably, neither nuclear power nor fossil-CCS power plants turned out to be of relevance for achieving the emissions reduction in the computer simulations.

Coal phaseout by 2030, gas-based generation strongly reduced

"All things considered, the 55% target will have massive consequences for the power sector," says Sebastian Osorio from PIK, another lead author. "Under the previous EU climate mitigation target - which meant reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by merely 40% - it was expected that the carbon price within the EU emissions trading system would rise to 35€ per tonne CO2 until 2030. Yet by adhering to the new target of minus 55%, carbon prices in the ETS would in fact more than triple to roughly 130€ per tonne CO2 in 2030. This would be the end of coal-generated power as we know it - a meager 17 terrawatt hours in 2030, 2% of what it was in 2015."

"In contrast to what was observed over the last years, the demise of coal will not lead to more gas-based generation in the future," adds Robert Pietzcker. "With CO2-prices rising above 100€ per tonne CO2, we expect gas-based power generation to decline to less than 40% of its 2015 value by 2030, and to less than 4% in 2045. The plans to build new combined cycle gas power plants in some EU member states feels like traveling back in time to 2005, when utilities planned new coal power plants despite the EU-ETS, thereby creating billions in stranded assets that will never repay their investment costs. The only new constructions that are likely to recover their investment costs are plants with turbines that can switch to high shares of hydrogen. "

Seasonal hydrogen storage in combination with better interconnection between the EU member states and deployment of batteries will allow a stable operation of a clean power system based almost exclusively on renewable sources.

Electricity prices to increase but then return to current levels until 2050

This is not only good news for stabilizing our climate but also for the industry and end users as well, as these changes are going to be accompanied with only minor price hikes. "Shutting down fossil power plants before the end of their lifetime, and the earlier scale-up of wind and solar power in this decade will temporarily raise prices," explains co-author Renato Rodrigues from PIK. "But after 2025, costs will decrease again due to a greater availability of cheap wind and solar power, ultimately bringing electricity prices down to the levels seen over the last decade. Thus the EU is well advised to quickly translate the new target into tighter ETS caps in order to ensure an affordable and sustainable transformation of our power system."

Western Australia's wheatbelt is a biodiversity desert, but the remaining wildlife - surviving in 'wheatbelt oases' - may offer insights for better conservation everywhere, according to researchers.

University of Queensland researcher Dr Graham Fulton and local John Lawson have been reviewing the biodiversity in the woodland oasis of Dryandra, in WA's south west.

"It's hard to witness the devastating loss of wilderness in Western Australia's wheatbelt," Dr Fulton said.

"Ninety-seven per cent of the best native vegetation has been taken - around 14 million hectares - it's an area greater in size than England.

"And the animals have gone with it, it's little wonder Australia has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world.

"Despite this harrowing loss, we're determined to help protect the area's remaining species, learning how best to protect animals in similar threatened habitats the world over."

In this vastly diminished environment, this remaining pocket of native Western Australian woodland - old growth woodland - is a last refuge for the birds.

The researchers counted birds at 70 points through three woodland types: powderbark wandoo (Eucalyptus accedens), wandoo (Eucalyptus wandoo) and brown mallet (Eucalyptus astringens).

Overall 2397 birds, of 52 species were detected by the pair, with evidence suggesting more oases need to be created.

"These birds can only survive thanks to these small islands of woodland scattered through this vast sea of wheat," Dr Fulton said.

"Habitat islands like this are common all around the world, where human development has significantly broken up natural habitats.

"It's time to push government planners globally to take a look at the big picture, building havens for disappearing and under-threat wildlife wherever possible."

The research revealed that diversity of habitat type was critical for protecting remaining species.

"By protecting a wide array of habitat types - not just tokenistic, monocultural protected sites - we can offer species like these birds access to the range of habitat they need to survive and thrive.

"And it's not just birds - even the iconic, and endangered, Australian numbat survives thanks to Dryandra.

"If we're serious about reducing our extinction rate, and protecting species that mean so much to so many, it's time to look at expanding our habitat oases and managing those habitats effectively."

In light of declining natural forests, tree plantations may seem like a good way to replace forest habitats. But what are the possible benefits of these plantations for biological diversity? A team of researchers led by led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) investigated this question using the example of beetles. Beetles account for 27% of all insect species worldwide and are often used as indicators for the effects of climate change and habitat fragmentation on biodiversity. In forest, they serve important functions - for example, they contribute to the decomposition of plant and animal biomass, making the nutrients stored inside of this biomass available to plants.

Tree plantations host significantly fewer beetle species

For their research, the scientists analysed 83 published studies on beetle diversity in tree plantations and old-growth forests. "Of course, the benefit of plantations always depends on the planted tree species," said Dr. Silvia Gallegos from MLU, one of the lead authors of the paper. "Mixed cultures are better than monocultures and native species are better than exotic species." In general, the global analysis showed significant differences in the beetle diversity of plantations and forests. In average, tree plantations were home to one third fewer species than old-growth forests and hosted about half as many individuals.

Furthermore, the researchers found major differences in the composition of beetle communities in plantations and forests. Even tree plantations with a similar number of beetle species and individuals as old-growth forests still displayed a significant difference in species composition. Beetle species that feed on dead organic substances were particularly affected, which might be due to less diverse food resources offered by plantations. Species that feed on other insects were also less common. "This indicates that plantations are home to fewer predators. Old-growth forests might, thus, be more resistant to herbivores and pests than artificial tree plantations," said last author Dr. Stephan Kambach from MLU and iDiv.

Plantations cannot replace pristine forests

The most significant differences in the composition of beetle communities were found in tropical and subtropical regions. In these regions, differences in the number of species and individuals between plantations and forest were also largest. Thus, tree plantations cannot serve as a replacement for tropical primary forests.

With their study, the researchers show that tree plantations, in particular when planted in mixed cultures - might provide an important tool to minimize habitat loss of forest-adapted species. "However, tree plantations can neither sustain the diversity nor the composition of beetle communities of old-growth forests, limiting their value for forest conservation," said first author Georg Albert from iDiv and FSU.

The study was inspired by an iDiv Summer School in 2017, including intensive training in meta-analysis and hands-on synthesis work on genuine research projects. The iDiv Summer School takes place every year with different foci and is attended by young scientists from all over the world.

A recent study by the University of Eastern Finland shows that loneliness among middle-aged men is associated with an increased risk of cancer. According to the researchers, taking account of loneliness and social relationships should thus be an important part of comprehensive health care and disease prevention. The findings were published in Psychiatry Research.

"It has been estimated, on the basis of studies carried out in recent years, that loneliness could be as significant a health risk as smoking or overweight. Our findings support the idea that attention should be paid to this issue," Project Researcher Siiri-Liisi Kraav from the University of Eastern Finland says.

The study was launched in the 1980s with 2,570 middle-aged men from eastern Finland participating. Their health and mortality have been monitored on the basis of register data up until present days. During the follow-up, 649 men, i.e. 25% of the participants, developed cancer, and 283 men (11%) died of cancer. Loneliness increased the risk of cancer by about ten per cent. This association with the risk of cancer was observed regardless of age, socio-economic status, lifestyle, sleep quality, depression symptoms, body mass index, heart disease and their risk factors. In addition, cancer mortality was higher in cancer patients who were unmarried, widowed or divorced at baseline.

"Awareness of the health effects of loneliness is constantly increasing. Therefore, it is important to examine, in more detail, the mechanisms by which loneliness causes adverse health effects. This information would enable us to better alleviate loneliness and the harm caused by it, as well as to find optimal ways to target preventive measures."

A new paper on college science classes taught remotely points to teaching methods that enhance student communication and collaboration, offering a framework for enriching online instruction as the coronavirus pandemic continues to limit in-person courses.

"These varied exercises allow students to engage, team up, get outside, do important lab work, and carry out group investigations and presentations under extraordinarily challenging circumstances--and from all over the world," explains Erin Morrison, a professor in Liberal Studies at New York University and the lead author of the paper, which appears in the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education. "The active-learning toolbox can be effectively used from a distance to ensure quality science education even under sudden conditions in a public health crisis."

The rapid change from largely in-person to fully remote instruction and learning brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic presented numerous challenges for teachers and professors in all subjects--but notably so in the sciences, which often require in-person laboratory work.

Moreover, the switch from in-person to remote instruction in the spring of 2020 meant that educators needed to quickly adjust their methods to fit an online environment--a circumstance Morrison, along with her co-authors Genia Naro-Maciel and Kevin Bonney, faced with their classes beginning mid-semester last spring.

The trio implemented several methods after their courses went remote in March of 2020, allowing for a comparison between in-person and online instruction and learning within the same classes. Among those were the following, which were the focus of the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education paper: an experiential hands-on biodiversity activity, an interactive human genetics lab, and an environmental science research project.

Biodiversity Activity

This experiential hands-on activity, entitled "Backyard Biodiversity," required students to walk around their neighborhoods and identify unique plant species. The exercise could be conducted locally at any time and in any place using the freely available SEEK organismal identification app or an alternative. Paired students from different sites around the world then analyzed data and prepared online presentations, thus fully engaging in the scientific process while stepping away from their computers and into nature.

Interactive Human Genetics Lab

In the interactive lab, online students learned about Mendelian inheritance by remotely interacting with each other and focusing on human traits. Class data collected through these observations were then analyzed and used to discuss related scientific concepts and misconceptions. This online activity successfully engaged students and promoted learning gains by preserving a focus on human traits, and the ability to observe classmates' faces, while facilitating valuable student-student interactions during the collection, analysis, and discussion of class-generated data.

Environmental Science Research Project

The pandemic further provided an opportunity to upgrade an in-person conservation biology research project into an online exploration of environmental health, through the lens of the pandemic being experienced in real time. Students worked digitally in teams to explore, analyze, and present under-emphasized, but significant, interactions between human health and environmental health. The often-overlooked relationships between the spread of diseases like COVID-19 and the wildlife trade or deforestation were focused on to highlight connections among human and non-human systems. Students also explored and learned how to debunk myths and misconceptions, developing key critical thinking skills amidst rampant and increasing misinformation and disinformation.

"The work shows how faculty can leverage the flexibility of the online environment and use existing remote tools to expand active learning possibilities and create meaningful classroom connections, even at a distance and during a global pandemic," says Morrison. "Despite class members being physically distanced from each other all over the planet, timely and effective communication was preserved, and students were able to access alternative and freely available materials to engage in and complete hands-on field, research, and lab activities."

For example, in the Biodiversity Activity conducted last spring, 60 undergraduates without prior botany experience got outside and identified more than 1,200 species of plants around the globe while carrying out the exercise.

Further, the professors note, students were consistently more interested and engaged in the Mendel exercise than in almost any other, and performed better than in earlier in-person courses on exam questions related to these topics. Similarly, pivoting the research exercise to group work focused on the pandemic in real time significantly boosted engagement and interest.

"We observed a level of class engagement and content mastery from students completing these activities that exceeded levels observed during the corresponding in-person learning activities that took place in previous semesters," says Bonney.

"Keeping students engaged and learning was often challenging during the unexpectedly sudden transition from in-person to fully remote education stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic," adds Naro-Maciel. "In response, we successfully adapted three activities to the remote environment, achieving remote experiential learning, designing a remote interactive virtual lab, and actively engaging students in remote research."

Following anecdotal observations of success in promoting learning about key concepts and class engagement, the team plans to formally investigate the effectiveness of these techniques in the future, which may lead to adoption of pedagogical changes that lasts beyond the return to in-person instruction.

In collaboration with researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a University of Maryland (UMD) postdoctoral researcher recently co-published a large-scale study examining the genetic diversity of mangroves over more than 1,800 miles of coastline in the Western Indian Ocean, including Eastern Africa and several islands. While the mangroves of Asia, Australia, and the Americas have been more extensively studied, little work has been done classifying and highlighting genetic diversity in African mangrove populations for conservation. Similar to other wetlands, mangrove trees like the species studied in the new paper in Scientific Reports (Rhizophora mucronata) create habitats for myriad animal and plant life, acting as hubs of biodiversity while also economically supporting many local communities. This work showcases how oceanic currents create both connectivity and barriers between mangrove populations, with important implications for how to protect these ecosystems.

"Whenever I get asked about mangroves, I always say they are my happy place," says Magdalene Ngeve, postdoctoral researcher at UMD in Maile Neel's lab (professor in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture and Department of Entomology). "They are very fascinating systems to work with. When I went to do my field work for my Master's thesis and got to experience mangroves, be close to the trees, and see how much biodiversity they host, I instantly fell in love and knew this is what I should be studying."

Born and raised in Cameroon, Ngeve grew up near the coast, but didn't give her local mangroves much thought until she left to pursue her graduate degrees on a scholarship to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. After studying zoology for her undergraduate work, Ngeve became a biologist with a specialization in environment, biodiversity, and ecosystems for her Master's and conservation ecology and genetics for her PhD. It was there that her love of mangroves blossomed, and she brought that passion with her to UMD as a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow.

"I am so excited we got this study out there, with the collaboration of mangrove experts in Brussels [Belgium] and around the world," says Ngeve. "In conservation, we have limited resources to manage everything on the planet, so we talk about these evolutionary significant units, which are units we should focus on to preserve as much genetic variability as possible to preserve their evolutionary potential and ensure the ecosystem is resilient. This work showed us that we actually have even more distinct populations than we realized, and that is important for conservation."

As Ngeve explains it, people don't often think about ocean currents as a way to spread seeds and seedlings (known as propagules), or even pollen. But for many species, water is the primary way seeds are spread and diversity is ensured. "Ocean currents can be genetic barriers, and they can be facilitators of genetic connectivity at the same time," explains Ngeve. "It just depends on how they all come together and connect. In this study, we saw that ocean current patterns maintain genetic diversity of remote island populations like Seychelles, and cause an accumulation of genetic diversity around where the South Equatorial Current [near the equator] splits near the Eastern African coastline. Seychelles and Madagascan populations likely came to existence from ancient dispersal events from present day Australia and Southeast Asia, and these island populations act as an important stepping stone in spreading diversity to the East African coastline, which we found was a much younger population. Splitting currents also create a barrier to genetic connectivity between even nearby northern and southern populations of the East African coast and the Mozambique Channel."

This study helps fill in an important gap in the research, since African mangroves, especially the genetics aspects, have been understudied according to Ngeve. For her doctoral work, Ngeve presented some of the first genetic work on the mangroves of the West African coast, so this work expanding to the East African coast is a natural next step. By understanding the genetic diversity of these species locally, researchers can make connections across populations for global conservation.

Ngeve is particularly interested in coastal environments, or the intersection of land and sea as a way to look at larger global change phenomena. "Almost everything we do on land affects the ocean, and those intermediate environments are like the bridge," says Ngeve. "We talk a lot about climate change and sea level rise, and coasts and estuaries [like the Chesapeake Bay and Hudson River Estuary] are on the front lines. How are species in these ecosystems surviving and adapting? Foundational species like mangroves and submerged aquatic vegetation, which I also study as a postdoc, are home to so many species and host high biodiversity. Making sure they are resilient means protecting that biodiversity for all that depend on them."

Ngeve is also considering how humans depend on the mangroves, and hopes to find ways that rural communities in her home country of Cameroon can protect the mangroves while still providing for their families. Through her start up project called BeeMangrove, she hopes to transition locals from overharvesting the mangroves for wood as a livelihood to raising honey bees that can simultaneously help pollinate the mangroves and produce honey to sell.

"While studying the Rhizophora racemosa mangrove species which is pollinated by both wind and insects, I had observed that mangroves that are more windward produced more seedlings. From my genetic work, I also observed pollination limitations at study sites. So clearly, there is a pollination problem in the mangroves that don't get the wind," explains Ngeve. "At the same time, there are also mangrove markets where people sell nothing but mangrove wood, and the logging is an issue. It's no doubt that mangroves like other ecosystems are declining, and we are losing so much biodiversity. In rural Cameroon, I began to wonder what these people could do differently. But they are relying exclusively on the mangroves for their livelihood. It's all they have for food, they harvest the wood for building their homes, and sell it to provide for their families and send their children to school - mangroves are everything to them. How do you tell people so dependent on the system to stop logging? You have to provide an alternative."

Ngeve hopes that with future funding, BeeMangrove can be that alternative. She is currently examining perceptions about mangroves in Cameroon. She has worked with local organizations to provide education and outreach to communities, and the first beehive has been installed. The goal is to work with locals from the start to pilot and grow this program with their support.

Growing up in Cameroon, this project is very personal to Ngeve. She is grateful for all the support from her family as a researcher. "My mother became a mangrove researcher herself, tending to my juvenile mangrove plants even after my growth experiment was over," she says. Her father, Jacob Ngeve, is in fact an '88 doctoral alum of the UMD Department of Plant Sciences and Landscape Architecture (then Department of Horticulture). As a quantitative plant geneticist, he has had an international career as an agricultural researcher, and his influence is carried through in her work to this day.

"Growing up in Africa, I remembered seeing photos he would send of him in these very same walls in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources," says Ngeve. "I never imagined I'd be here one day - it is a real privilege. My father would always tell me, 'Education is the only thing a father can give his child, because that, no one can take away from you.' And that meant so much to me because I clung to those words, and against all odds, I studied and followed my dreams. I look forward to making an impact here the way he did."

Ngeve is also incredibly thankful for the mentorship she has received on her road to this work and to UMD, from Neel as her current mentor, to those in Brussels, to her family. "My mentors are the reason I am here, and I look forward to paying forward all they have invested in me."

New research finds that children who were breastfed scored higher on neurocognitive tests. Researchers in the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) analyzed thousands of cognitive tests taken by nine and ten-year-olds whose mothers reported they were breastfed, and compared those results to scores of children who were not.

"Our findings suggest that any amount of breastfeeding has a positive cognitive impact, even after just a few months." Daniel Adan Lopez, Ph.D. candidate in the Epidemiology program who is first author on the study recently published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health. "That's what's exciting about these results. Hopefully from a policy standpoint, this can help improve the motivation to breastfeed."

Hayley Martin, Ph.D., a fourth year medical student in the Medical Scientist Training Program and co-author of the study, focuses her research on breastfeeding. "There's already established research showing the numerous benefits breastfeeding has for both mother and child. This study's findings are important for families particularly before and soon after birth when breastfeeding decisions are made. It may encourage breastfeeding goals of one year or more. It also highlights the critical importance of continued work to provide equity focused access to breastfeeding support, prenatal education, and practices to eliminate structural barriers to breastfeeding."

Researchers reviewed the test results of more than 9,000 nine and ten-year-old participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Variations were found in the cumulative cognitive test scores of breastfed and non-breastfed children. There was also evidence that the longer a child was breastfed, the higher they scored.

"The strongest association was in children who were breastfed more than 12 months," said Lopez. "The scores of children breastfed until they were seven to 12 months were slightly less, and then the one to six month-old scores dips a little more. But all scores were higher when compared to children who didn't breastfeed at all." Previous studies found breastfeeding does not impact executive function or memory, findings in this study made similar findings.

"This supports the foundation of work already being done around lactation and breastfeeding and its impact on a child's health," said Ed Freedman, Ph.D., the principal investigator of the ABCD study in Rochester and lead author of the study. "These are findings that would have not been possible without the ABCD Study and the expansive data set it provides."

UCLA materials scientists have developed a class of optical material that controls how heat radiation is directed from an object. Similar to the way overlapping blinds direct the angle of visible light coming through a window, the breakthrough involves utilizing a special class of materials that manipulates how thermal radiation travels through such materials.

Recently published in Science, the advance could be used to improve the efficiency of energy-conversion systems and enable more effective sensing and detection technologies.

"Our goal was to show that we could effectively beam thermal radiation -- the heat all objects emanate as electromagnetic waves -- over broad wavelengths to the same direction," said study leader Aaswath Raman, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. "This advance offers new capabilities for a range of technologies that depend on the ability to control the flows of heat in the form of thermal radiation. This includes imaging and sensing applications that rely on thermal sources or detecting them, as well as energy applications such as solar heating, waste heat recovery and radiative cooling, where restricting the directionality of heat flow can improve performance. "

Every object emits heat as light, a phenomenon known as thermal radiation. Familiar examples include the filament in a light bulb, glowing coils in a toaster and even the natural light from the sun. This phenomenon also can be detected on our skin and in common objects -- from the clothes you're wearing to the walls around you.

On Earth, for objects at ambient temperatures to modestly hot objects, much of the emitted thermal radiation resides in the infrared part of the spectrum.

Previously, a fundamental challenge had prevented materials from directing their heat in specific directions over a broad spectrum to ensure a sufficient amount of heat is emitted. To solve the puzzle, the researchers created a new theoretical framework using nanophotonic materials. For the first time, the team demonstrated that this new class of effective materials allows broad bands of thermal radiation to disperse over predetermined angles.

"To demonstrate this concept, we layered several oxide materials, that each manipulate infrared light over different wavelengths, and beamed much of the emitted heat toward the same fixed angles, " said the study's first author Jin Xu, a UCLA materials science and engineering graduate student. "Additionally, the oxides we used are common, so supplies would not be a problem in the production of the material. "

The class of materials that directs heat is known as "epsilon-near-zero" or ENZ materials. The researchers call their new material a gradient ENZ material. They demonstrated two such material samples that can beam thermal radiation over broad bandwidths to narrow bands of angles -- from 60° to 75° and 70° to 85° respectively.

Using a thermal imaging camera, the radiation angles could be seen looking at silicon wafers coated with the gradient ENZ materials. Viewed from most angles, the heated discs appeared to be cold, similar to how polished metals such as aluminum look under a thermal camera. However, when viewed at the designed specific angles, the higher-heat signatures could be spotted on the discs.