Tech

"The lone actor concept appears might do more harm than good in providing an explanation of the causes and origins of terrorist acts," says Associate Professor Bright.

"Significant confusion surrounds correct profiling of lone terrorists. There are key unanswered questions about the extent to which such people actually radicalise and undertake acts of violence alone."

Associate Professor Bright warns that the inaccurate profiling of a lone terrorist may deflect attention away from links they have with other individuals including established terrorist groups.

To better understand this phenomenon, Associate Professor Bright worked with Associate Professor Chad Whelan of Deakin University and Shandon Harris-Hogan of Victoria University to analyse five lone actor attacks perpetrated in Australia between September 2014 and the end of 2017. They used a personal network design to examine interpersonal relationships and connections they had with others and the nature of these connections.

Their research paper - Exploring the hidden social networks of 'lone actor' terrorists, by David Bright, Chad Whelan and Shandon Harris-Hogan - has been published in Crime, Law and Social Change journal. (DOI 10.1007/s10611-020-09905-2)

The paper discusses implications for policy and practice, with Professor Bright saying the lone actor concept needs to be re-evaluated, because while some individuals undertake their attacks alone, they are usually connected to a broader network of individuals providing varying degrees of ideological and logistical support for these attacks.

The researchers identify a need for more detailed analysis of the personal histories and interconnectedness of apparent lone terrorists.

"if we incorrectly continue to look at the lone terrorist threat as a phenomenon of socially isolated, uncommunicative people, we risk impeding our ability to effectively detect, prevent and mitigate the danger," Associate Professor Bright.

Therefore, he says network-based analysis of lone actors can reveal the extent of their reliance on ideological and/or logistical support from their local social networks.

Such an approach could not only improve understandings of the role and function of social networks underpinning terrorist acts, but also potentially identify more targeted approaches to disrupting, and/or conducting interventions with, wider terrorist networks.

Treating a rare type of malignant lung cancer could improve, thanks to near-infrared irradiation and a cancer-targeting compound. Nagoya University oncologist Kazuhide Sato and colleagues tested the treatment and published their findings in the journal Cells.

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare type of cancer that affects the lung lining. It rarely spreads to other parts of the body, but is usually diagnosed too late, leading to a poor prognosis and very limited treatment options.

Sato and colleagues investigated the effectiveness of near-infrared photoimmunotherapy (NIR-PIT) as a treatment strategy for MPM. NIR-PIT has been fast-tracked for approval by the US Food & Drug Administration for treatment of a type of malignant head and neck tumor. For NIR-PIT to work, a cancer-targeting compound must first be injected. The compound is made of an antibody, which targets a specific structure on the cancer cells, and a photoabsorber, called IR700. When near-infrared light is shone on the body part affected by cancer, the compound aggregates on the cancer cell membranes, leading to acute cell rupture and tumor death.

"The lungs and chest cavity contain a large amount of air and are thus very good at effectively transmitting near-infrared light," says Sato. "NIR-PIT is a safe phototherapy option that can target a region of interest. The antibody-IR700 conjugate is also non-toxic to the body in the absence of near-infrared light irradiation. We thus thought that NIR-PIT could be an effective strategy for controlling localized MPM."

For NIR-PIT to work on MPM, the scientists needed a compound that specifically targeted MPM cancer cells. They focused their attention on an antibody called NZ-1, which targets a specific part of a transmembrane glycoprotein called podoplanin. Podoplanin is normally found on many cell types in the human body, but is particularly abundant in some types of cancer cells, including MPM.

The team's research showed that podoplanin was widely expressed in a variety of MPM cell lines. They found that NZ-1 conjugates well with the photoabsorber IR700 and that NZ-1-IR700 specifically bound to podoplanin on cells in the lab. When podoplanin-positive cells, including MPM cancer cells, were mixed with NZ-1-IR700 and then irradiated with near-infrared light, the cells immediately swelled and ruptured.

The team then injected NZ-1-IR700 in mice with MPM tumors. The compound gradually accumulated at the tumor sites. Shining near-infrared light on the tumor sites led to a reduction of fluorescence from cancer-tagged cells, indicating the treatment worked well as an anti-cancer strategy.

Sato and his colleagues say further studies are needed to find ways that ensure the treatment will not kill healthy podoplanin-positive cells. The researchers also suggest a more focused dose of light could be achieved by shining it into a drainage device inserted into the chest cavity, which is normally used anyway in MPM patients to drain the chest from excess fluids.

A research group at Nagoya University has developed a new technology that can drastically conserve the energy used to capture carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the greenhouse gases, from facilities such as thermal power plants. Conventionally, a significant amount of energy (3 to 4 GJ/ton-CO2) or high temperatures exceeding 100 deg.C has been required to capture CO2 from gases exhausted from a concentrated source, and there are expectations of the development of CO2 capture technology that consumes less energy.

The research group led by Assistant Professor Hiroshi Machida has developed an unprecedented CO2 capture technology, namely H2 stripping regeneration technology(1), in which hydrogen (H2) gas is supplied to the regeneration tower (desorber)(2). It is indicated in this research that, with the implementation of this new technology, combustion exhaust gas can be replaced by CO2/H2 gas at lower temperatures (85 deg.C) than those used in conventional technology. The further reduction of energy can be achieved when it is combined with technologies such as those involved in the promotion of exhaust heat utilization and recovery of reaction heat.

This new technology can exhibit the world's highest energy-saving performance (i.e., separation and collection of energy required is less than 1 GJ/ton-CO2 when a desorber temperature is 60 deg.C) when it is combined with the phase-separation solvent that this research group has also developed.

This technology is expected to be applicable to value-added material production such as the syntheses of methane, methanol, gasoline, etc., from CO2 in the combustion exhaust gas and H2 from renewable energy, and is expected to contribute to carbon recycling.

1) H2 stripping regeneration technology

In the conventional process to synthesize fuel or chemicals from CO2 and renewable H2, pure CO2 is collected and is then mixed with H2 before being supplied to the reduction reactor. In the H2 stripping regeneration technology, H2 gas is supplied at the bottom of the desorber. As a result, CO2 partial pressure in the desorber is lowered, which promotes regeneration and lowers the regeneration temperature. The mixture of CO2 and H2 gases collected from the head of the desorber is supplied directly to the synthesis reactor.

2) Regeneration tower (Desorber)

In the amine absorption method, CO2 absorption and regeneration towers (i.e., absorber and desorber) are used to separate and collect CO2 in the exhaust gas mixture from facilities like power plants. Gases such as N2 and O2, in addition to CO2, are included in the combustion exhaust gas from these facilities and pure CO2 gas is collected with this amine absorption method. Only the CO2 gas is absorbed in the absorber by amine solution, and it is then heated in the desorber to regenerate pure CO2 gas. In other words, only CO2 gas can be extracted from the mixture of gases.

This study has been supported by Advanced Low Carbon Technology Research and Development Program (ALCA ) of JST Strategic Basic Research Programs.

The life span of the Aedes aegypti mosquito ranges from two to four weeks depending on environmental conditions, during which the female lays about one thousand eggs in water-filled containers close to human environments, because it needs human blood in order to reproduce and to complete its life cycle. Male mosquitos lack a blood-feeding system, so only the females are in contact with humans, acting as vectors of the Mayaro, Dengue, Chikunguya, Yellow Fever, and Zika viruses, as well as other pathogens. To date, there are no totaly effective methods to avoid this
contact and the infecting bite of this species.

In order to determine the similarities and differences in the intrinsic disorder predisposition of proteins expressed by each of these arboviruses and to get a "fingerprint" that identifies them, a set of bioinformatic programs developed by this team of researchers was applied to retrieve the Polarity Index Method® (PIM®) profile and the Intrinsic Disorder Predisposition maps of the proteins extracted from the UniProt database. These programs were designed under the assumption that the amino acid sequences contain information defining the ability of a given protein to fold into unique three-dimensional structure or to stay intrinsically disordered and also determining its predominant function.

The PIM® profiles and Intrinsic Disorder Predisposition maps were compared with those generated for other protein groups, such as bacteria, fungi and viruses from the UniProt database, Cell Penetrating Peptides from the CPP database, and two groups of intrinsically disordered proteins, wholly and partially disordered. This comparative analysis characterized the arbovirus group and differentiated it from the other groups of proteins by generating specific "fingerprints" that identified each them.

The authors found 1736 proteins from the 559,228 "reviewed" proteins in the UniProt database that had a similar PIM® profile to the 29 mutated proteins expressed by the five groups of arboviruses. The findings suggest that the PIM® profile characterization might be useful for the identification of proteins expressed by arthropod-borne viruses transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitos.

For more information on the study, please visit: http://www.eurekaselect.com/node/181196/article/bioinformatics-based-identification-of-proteins-expressed-by-arthropod-borne-viruses-transmitted-by-aedes-aegypti-mosquito

The low thermal transport properties are important for applications in thermoelectrics and thermal barrier coatings. Nowadays, the strategies to acquire low thermal conductivity in bulk materials include multi-scale defect (atomic, nano- and meso-scale), heavy molecular weight, complex crystal structure, larger unit cell and strong anharmonicity.

In a recent article in Science China Materials, Prof. Li-Dong Zhao from Beihang University and co-workers proposed a new strategy to search intrinsically low thermal conductivity in one-dimensional crystal structure. By using the first-principles calculations and experimental synthesis, they found a sort of material with extremely low thermal conductivity, namely BiSeX (X= Br, I) with one-dimensional chain structure. The mechanisms behind the low thermal conductivity were revealed from the aspect of crystal structure, by neutron powder-diffraction measurements and temperature tunable aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM).

To elucidate the origins of ultralow thermal conductivity, the authors make comparisons with several analogues that exhibit cubic- (3D), layer- (2D) and chain-like (1D) crystal structures and find that the thermal conductivity shows a decreasing trend from 3D, 2D to 1D (Fig. 1), which is due to the chemical bonding strength between the low-dimensional structure becoming progressively weaker and weaker.

"Based on these guidelines, we found that the chemical bonding along the chain further weakened with added halogen atom", said Prof. Zhao. Therefore, the chemical bondings of BiSeX along all three crystallographic directions are weaker than in other compounds (Fig. 2), showing a quasi-0D crystal structure.

Different from the ultrahigh thermal conductivity diamond (> 2000 W m-1 K-1) with strong covalent bond between carbon atoms, the phonon transport in bismuth selenohalides was significantly suppressed. As a result, they exhibit extremely low thermal conductivity. "The thermal conductivity of BiSeI at 573 K reaches ~0.27 W m-1 K-1, which is close to the theoretical minimum value", emphasized by Prof. Zhao.

These findings open up a prospect of achieving low thermal conductivity materials in one-dimensional chain-containing bulk structure with potential applications in the fields of thermal barrier coatings, thermoelectric materials, etc.

Researchers at the University of Exeter have developed a pioneering production method for heterostructure devices, based on 2D materials such as graphene.

The new study, published in Nature Communications, focuses on a production method, based around mechanical abrasion, where multilayer structures are formed through directly abrading different Van der Waals material powders directly on top of one another.

The new technique saw sharp heterointerfaces emerge for certain heterostructure combinations. The results pave the way for a wide range of heterointerface based devices to be opened up.

To demonstrate the applicability of this method, researchers demonstrated a multitude of different functional devices such as resistors, capacitors, transistors, diodes and photovoltaics.

The work also demonstrated the use of these films for energy applications such as in triboelectric nanogenerator devices and as a catalyst in the hydrogen evolution reaction.

Darren Nutting, from the University of Exeter and co-author of the study said: "The production method is really simple, you can go from bare substrate to functional heterostructure device within about 10 minutes.

"This is all without the need for complex growth conditions, 20 hours of ultra-sonication or messy liquid phase production.

"The method is applicable to any 2D material crystal, and can easily be automated to produce heterostructures of arbitrary size and complexity. This allows for the production of a plethora of device possibilities with superior performance to those created using more complex methods."

Dr Freddie Withers, also from the University of Exeter and lead author added: "The most interesting and surprising aspect of this work is that sharply defined heterointerfaces can be realised through direct abrasion, which we initially expected would lead to an intermixing of materials when directly abrading layer by layer. This observation allows for a large number of different devices to be realised through an extremely simple and low-cost fabrication process.

"We also found that the performance of our materials significantly outperform the performance of competitive scalable 2D materials production technologies. We think this is due to larger crystallite sizes and cleaner crystallite interfaces within our films. Considering the rudimentary development of the abrasive process thus far, it will be interesting to see how far we can push the performance levels."

Heterostructures formed through abraded van der Waals materials is published in Nature Communications.

How did the continents form? Although to a certain extent this remains an open question, the oceanic plateau of the Kerguelen Islands may well provide part of the answer, according to a French-Australian team led by the Géosciences Environnement Toulouse laboratory (CNRS/Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier/IRD/CNES) (1). From a geological point of view, it is the Earth's outermost layer that distinguishes the continents from the oceans: oceanic crust, which is relatively thin, is mainly made up of basalts, resulting from the melting of the Earth's underlying mantle, whereas continental crust, which is thicker and of granitic composition, is derived from magmas that evolved at depth before solidifying. Such magmas form especially at subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another. However, a study published on June 16, 2020 in the journal Terra Nova provides evidence in support of a second model: the formation of embryonic continents within oceanic plateaus such as the Kerguelen plateau. Formed by extensive basalt flows, the crust of such plateaus is abnormally thick compared to normal oceanic crust. The researchers focused on a rock of the granite family (syenite) emplaced in the plateau lavas. By studying the geometry and internal structure of the syenite intrusion and carrying out extensive dating of the rocks, they were able to reconstruct its history and show that it bears strong similarities to those of a large number of intrusions located in continental crust. Such similarities include the discontinuous injection over time of multiple magma sheets (which progressively uplifted the surrounding rocks), the duration of its construction (around 3.7 million years), and the magma fluxes. Could this syenite intrusion be an 'embryonic continent'? To further refine this hypothesis, the same team is currently studying the chemical composition of the syenites in order to understand the origin and evolution of the magmas.

A 'smart' system that controls the storage and release of energy from wind turbines will reduce the risk of power cuts and support the increase of wind energy use world-wide, say researchers at the University of Birmingham.

The system uses the variable speed of the rotors in wind turbine systems to more closely regulate the supply of power to the grid. This means that when electricity demand is high, stored kinetic energy in the turbines can be used intelligently to keep the grid stable. University of Birmingham Enterprise has applied for a patent to protect the system.

Regulating the supply of electricity to keep pace with demand is a continual challenge. Sudden outage of power generation, such as when a generator gets damaged, can cause a 'frequency dip', which can lead to power cuts. The UK's large power stations currently manage these dips by pushing out more electricity.

However, as more wind turbines are integrated into the system, it becomes more difficult to balance supply and demand and keep the system stable, as frequency dips in national power grid occur more quickly and more severely than before when wind generation became such a significant element of electricity generation.

Lead researcher Professor Xiao-Ping Zhang, Director of Smart Grid in the Birmingham Energy Institute, comments: "By 2030 wind is expected to provide half the UK's power, so it's important that we can use the wind farms provide a vital safety mechanism of controlling frequency dips of UK's national power grid. Our proposed frequency control system for wind turbines could revolutionise the UK's power grid's frequency control and, importantly, uses our existing infrastructure of wind turbines and it will not need additional devices and investments."

The most recent severe power cut, in August 2019, caused blackouts across the Midlands, South East, South West, North West and North East of England, and Wales. The incident was triggered by two almost simultaneous unexpected power losses at Hornsea and Little Barford due to lightning strikes.

Thousands of homes were left without power, while people were stranded on trains and traffic lights stopped working. Power was restored some 40 minutes later, but problems on the rail network carried on over the weekend. In this situation, frequency control response services from wind turbines, if available using our proposed approach, would have protected the national grid system from the power cut.

"As the UK increases its reliance on wind power, it will become even more important to find effective ways to use the turbine systems to provide this service and maintain effective regulation of the grid. Current methods of using wind turbines to regulate electricity struggle to provide consistent support because of variable wind speeds and other system conditions," adds Professor Zhang.

The method proposed by the Birmingham team harnesses the potential of wind turbines to operate at variable speeds to provide the flexibility required to respond to fluctuations in supply and demand. Their results are published in IEEE Open Access Journal of Power and Energy. The team has already validated their approach in an industry-standard power grid simulator and is seeking industrial partners to explore commercial opportunities for the technology.

Colloids are complex mixtures in which microscopic particles of one substance are suspended evenly throughout another. They can be prepared in many different ways, but to achieve desirable properties in the final mixture, researchers must maintain a delicate control over the interactions which take place between the particles. In new research published in EPJ E, a team led by Remco Tuinier at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands demonstrate this level of control for a type of colloid in which the suspended particles take the form of hollow, nanoscale cubes - a case which has only previously been explored through theoretical calculations.

Such varieties of functional colloid can be useful in a range of technologies, including materials which manipulate the paths of light travelling through them, as well as highly sensitive light sensors. Their intricate preparation requirements can be achieved by adding in polymers which don't stick to the microparticles, creating zones of lower density around them. When these zones overlap, the particles become attracted to each other in characteristic ways. This behaviour can be finely tuned through three different techniques: adding polymer molecules in different concentrations; varying the size difference between particles and polymer molecules; and changing the particle shapes.

For hollow silica nanocubes suspended in a solution containing molecules of polystyrene, Tuinier's team measured how the scattering of light passing through the mixture was affected by the polymer's concentration. Together with visual observations, this allowed them to assess the stability of the mixture. Altogether, they found that their experimental results agreed remarkably well with previous theoretical calculations. Their conclusions provide new insights into the diverse physics of colloidal mixtures, and could soon allow for new advances in technologies which sense and manipulate the flow of light.

Drought can mean restrictions for watering the lawn, crop losses for farmers and an increased risk of wildfires. But it can also hit you and your power company in the wallet.

In communities that rely on water for power generation, a drought can mean higher electricity costs and pollution linked to the loss of hydropower supplies.

In a recent study, a team led by a researcher from North Carolina State University analyzed the downstream effects of a drought in California that took place in 2012-2016, and was considered one of the worst in the state's history.

They found that drought led to significant increases in power costs for three major investor-owned utilities in the state, but other weather-related events were also likely the main culprit behind those increases.

They also found that increased harmful emissions of greenhouse gases could be linked to hydropower losses during drought in the future, even as more sources of renewable energy are added to the grid.

"There is an expectation that droughts like this will happen again in the future, so there's a lot of attention on the way it impacted the state as a whole and their power system," said Jordan Kern, corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor in NC State's Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources. "We felt there was a need to understand what happens to the grid during drought, especially from a financial, economic, and environmental perspective, and we wanted to provide more clarity."

In the study, Kern and scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill developed a new software tool to model the economic and environmental impact of the drought in California, a state that relies on hydropower to supply a significant portion of its power.

On average, the state uses hydropower to supply 13 percent of its energy needs, Kern and his colleagues reported. During the drought, there were lower levels of precipitation, melted snow and stream flow.

As a result, hydropower accounted for just 6 percent of the state's electricity needs during the worst year of the drought. At the same time, the researchers reported that increased temperatures led to a greater demand for power for cooling.

They found the drought had a "moderate" impact on the market price of electricity. But it was actually another weather event that had a larger impact on costs: a 2014 extreme cold spell known as a "polar vortex" in the eastern United States that led to increased prices for natural gas across the entire country.

Researchers estimated that the loss of hydropower generation cost three main investor-owned utilities in California $1.9 billion. However, increased demand for cooling due to higher temperatures in the period probably had a larger economic cost than the lost hydropower, at $3.8 billion. Both are costs that can be passed on to consumers.

"We tried to figure out exactly how the drought contributed to the increased price for electricity in the market," Kern said. "We found a reasonable impact, but overall, the increase in price during the drought in California was actually due to higher natural gas prices."

Researchers also evaluated whether increases in renewable energy resources, like wind and solar energy, could help prevent increases in emissions of carbon dioxide from power generation during drought in the future.

"Usually what happens in California during a drought is they have to turn on natural gas power plants, and there is a spike in emissions," Kern said. "It was a coincidence that the state was building more renewable energy during the drought. As a result of that, when they lost hydropower, they didn't have to turn on quite as many natural gas plants."

While other previous research has suggested an increased dependence on power generated through wind and solar could offset drought-caused increases in carbon dioxide emissions, the researchers said that's not what they saw.

They reported that even when renewable energy capacity doubled, their model showed the same increase in fossil fuel generation and carbon dioxide emission during drought years.

Kern said that while renewable energy sources result in reduced emissions overall, their analysis points to drought years causing higher emissions, even in systems with more renewable sources.

"During a drought when you don't have hydropower, the grid needs other types of flexible generation," he said. "They still have to have sources of generation that can turn on when they lose hydropower, and we think it's still going to cause periodic increases in emissions, even with increased renewable energy generation."

The study is part of an ongoing effort to understand the impacts of major weather events such as drought, flooding or high winds on electric power systems in order to potentially mitigate power reliability, environmental and financial risks for utilities and their customers.

"My group spends a lot of time figuring out how extreme weather impacts power systems," Kern said. "What we want to know is about extreme weather that impairs functionality of the grid - does it cause blackouts or increase costs for consumers."

The study was published online in the journal Environmental Research Letters. It was co-authored by Yufei Su and Joy Hill of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Environmental Science and Engineering. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation INFEWS programs.

As the demands on information technology increase, the need to improve the storage of data also grows. Many solid-state systems suggested for such a task are founded on the manipulation of skyrmions, perfect for such a role due to their size and stability. In a study published in EPJ B, authors N.P. Vizarim and C.J.O. Reichhardt from the Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA and their colleagues aim to understand how skyrmions behave in a substrate under dc and ac drives.

Skyrmions, nanoscale quasiparticles made up of knotted interlocking magnetic field lines moving through a material, are difficult to understand beyond pure mathematical descriptions.

Thus, to conduct their study the team mathematically modelled a two-dimensional system of size L × L with periodic boundary conditions in the x and y-axis. Throughout this model, they placed a lattice of obstacles for the skyrmion to traverse.

Initially, the skyrmion was only placed under the influence of a dc drive revealing directional locking effects that depended on the scale of the obstacles and whether the pinning mechanism used to hold the quasiparticle in 2D was repulsive or attractive.

A biharmonic ac drive was then applied to the system, generating a circular motion in the skyrmion. The researchers also discovered that by varying ac drive frequencies, a skyrmion's transverse mobility can be enhanced.

One element the team's study did not consider was the effect of temperature on the skyrmion system. Thermal variations can 'wash out' locking effects, hence why skyrmions are closely associated with Bose-Einstein condensates?--?a state of matter found at the edge of absolute zero.

Interestingly, in addition to its place in the development of future computing, skyrmion research may also solve the long-standing mystery of 'ball lightning' providing an example of how fundamental these strange, almost abstract mathematical quirks are to the material world.

"Beam me up" is one of the most famous catchphrases from the Star Trek series. It is the command issued when a character wishes to teleport from a remote location back to the Starship Enterprise.

While human teleportation exists only in science fiction, teleportation is possible in the subatomic world of quantum mechanics--albeit not in the way typically depicted on TV. In the quantum world, teleportation involves the transportation of information, rather than the transportation of matter.

Last year scientists confirmed that information could be passed between photons on computer chips even when the photons were not physically linked.

Now, according to new research from the University of Rochester and Purdue University, teleportation may also be possible between electrons.

In a paper published in Nature Communications and one to appear in Physical Review X, the researchers, including John Nichol, an assistant professor of physics at Rochester, and Andrew Jordan, a professor of physics at Rochester, explore new ways of creating quantum-mechanical interactions between distant electrons. The research is an important step in improving quantum computing, which, in turn, has the potential to revolutionize technology, medicine, and science by providing faster and more efficient processors and sensors.

'SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE'

Quantum teleportation is a demonstration of what Albert Einstein famously called "spooky action at a distance"--also known as quantum entanglement. In entanglement--one of the basic of concepts of quantum physics--the properties of one particle affect the properties of another, even when the particles are separated by a large distance. Quantum teleportation involves two distant, entangled particles in which the state of a third particle instantly "teleports" its state to the two entangled particles.

Quantum teleportation is an important means for transmitting information in quantum computing. While a typical computer consists of billions of transistors, called bits, quantum computers encode information in quantum bits, or qubits. A bit has a single binary value, which can be either "0" or "1," but qubits can be both "0" and "1" at the same time. The ability for individual qubits to simultaneously occupy multiple states underlies the great potential power of quantum computers.

Scientists have recently demonstrated quantum teleportation by using electromagnetic photons to create remotely entangled pairs of qubits.

Qubits made from individual electrons, however, are also promising for transmitting information in semiconductors.

"Individual electrons are promising qubits because they interact very easily with each other, and individual electron qubits in semiconductors are also scalable," Nichol says. "Reliably creating long-distance interactions between electrons is essential for quantum computing."

Creating entangled pairs of electron qubits that span long distances, which is required for teleportation, has proved challenging, though: while photons naturally propagate over long distances, electrons usually are confined to one place.

ENTANGLED PAIRS OF ELECTRONS

In order to demonstrate quantum teleportation using electrons, the researchers harnessed a recently developed technique based on the principles of Heisenberg exchange coupling. An individual electron is like a bar magnet with a north pole and a south pole that can point either up or down. The direction of the pole--whether the north pole is pointing up or down, for instance--is known as the electron's magnetic moment or quantum spin state. If certain kinds of particles have the same magnetic moment, they cannot be in the same place at the same time. That is, two electrons in the same quantum state cannot sit on top of each other. If they did, their states would swap back and forth in time.

The researchers used the technique to distribute entangled pairs of electrons and teleport their spin states.

"We provide evidence for 'entanglement swapping,' in which we create entanglement between two electrons even though the particles never interact, and 'quantum gate teleportation,' a potentially useful technique for quantum computing using teleportation," Nichol says. "Our work shows that this can be done even without photons."

The results pave the way for future research on quantum teleportation involving spin states of all matter, not just photons, and provide more evidence for the surprisingly useful capabilities of individual electrons in qubit semiconductors.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite observed a huge Saharan dust plume streaming over the North Atlantic Ocean, beginning on June 13. Satellite data showed the dust had spread over 2,000 miles.

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Colin Seftor, an atmospheric scientist, created an animation of the dust and aerosols from the plume using data from instruments that fly aboard the Suomi NPP satellite.

"The animation runs from June 13 to 18 and shows a massive Saharan dust cloud that formed from strong atmospheric updrafts that was then picked up by the prevailing westward winds and is now being blown across the Atlantic and, eventually over North and South America," Seftor said. "The dust is being detected by the aerosol index measurements from the Suomi-NPP Suomi NPP satellite' s Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) data overlaid over visible imagery from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)."

On June 18, 2020, the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of the large light brown plume of Saharan dust over the North Atlantic Ocean. The image showed that the dust from Africa's west coast extended almost to the Lesser Antilles in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The image showed that the dust had spread over 2,000 miles across the Atlantic.

Normally, hundreds of millions of tons of dust are picked up from the deserts of Africa and blown across the Atlantic Ocean each year. That dust helps build beaches in the Caribbean and fertilizes soils in the Amazon. It can also affect air quality in North and South America.

NASA continues to study the role of African dust in tropical cyclone formation. In 2013, one of the purposes of NASA's HS3 field mission addressed the controversial role of the hot, dry and dusty Saharan Air Layer in tropical storm formation and intensification and the extent to which deep convection in the inner-core region of storms is a key driver of intensity change.

Suomi NPP represents a critical first step in building the next-generation Earth-observing satellite system that will collect data on long-term climate change and short-term weather conditions. NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense.

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

While most cats and dogs are still being fed 'conventional' wet and dry food, there has been a distinct shift in feeding practices over the past decade to include raw and home-made foods, particularly in Australia, finds an international study, published in this week's issue of Vet Record.

These 'unconventional' diets may help nurture the bond between pets and their owners, but they may also be storing up health problems for these animals, warn the researchers.

Over half the world's population has a pet: in the US alone there are more than 94 million pet cats and 89 million pet dogs.

There is a vast array of 'conventional' wet (tinned, pouches, rolls) and dry (kibble) commercial food options for cats and dogs in developed countries.

But trends in animal nutrition have mirrored those of human nutrition, with the content and origin of commercially available foodstuffs coming in for closer scrutiny. As such, pet owners have been exploring alternative options, including vegan, natural 'ancestral', grain-free, home-made and raw food diets for their dogs and cats.

To look at the extent of this shift over the past decade, the researchers trawled research databases for studies on feeding practices for pet dogs and cats in English-speaking countries and published between 2008 and 2018.

They found nine relevant studies, which indicate that pet feeding practices have changed over the past decade, with a decline in 'conventional products', particularly as the sole diet, and an increase in 'unconventional' diets, especially raw foods.

"In comparison with earlier studies, the differences in feeding practices may partially be explained by a loss of trust in the pet food industry," suggest the researchers, citing a large global pet food contamination crisis that occurred in 2007.

The researchers also mined the 3161 (88%) responses to a widely distributed online survey, from pet owners in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, and the UK. The survey, which ran from September 2016 to January 2017, asked pet-owners what they fed their dogs and cats, and where they sourced it.

Half the respondents had dogs (51%; 1870); 1 in 3 had both cats and dogs (33%; 1200); and around 1 in 6 (16%; 603) only cats. Complete dietary information was provided for 1542 cats and 2940 dogs.

This showed that most animals were fed a diet that included some conventional food (79% of dogs; 90% of cats). But only 13% (381) dogs and around a third (32%; 488) of cats were exclusively fed a conventional diet for their main meals.

Many respondents said they fed their animals a diet that included home-made foods (63.5% of dogs; 45.5% of cats), although few were fed this diet exclusively (7% of dogs; 3.5% of cats).

Raw animal foods were fed to over half of all the animals represented in the survey: two thirds of dogs (66%) and 53% of cats. Vegetarian food was included in the diets of around 1 in 5 (22%) dogs and 1 in 20 (5%) cats. Half of these animals were fed only plant based (vegan) foods.

Feeding practices varied among the countries represented in the survey: exclusive raw food diets were most common in Australia, while exclusive home-made diets were more commonly fed to dogs in Australia and cats in the USA.

Pet-owners in Canada and New Zealand were most likely to feed their dogs and cats an exclusively conventional diet.

"Avoidance of conventional pet foods in favour of [home-made] and [raw food products] may put the health of dogs and cats at risk," warn the researchers, citing published analyses indicating insufficient levels of nutrients or imbalances in these diets and associated health conditions.

Home-made raw food diets pose an additional risk of infection in the absence of chemical or heat treatment steps to kill potentially harmful bacteria and act as a potential reservoir of antibiotic resistant microbes which can be passed on to people, they add.

"Considering the high prevalence of unconventional feeding practices, veterinary healthcare teams must be aware of the potential risks and benefits of these practices and educate their clients to help best meet the nutritional needs of their companion animals," they conclude.

Vapers have been largely reassured by recent EU safety regulations, but some have been pushed to the black market for stronger hits - according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Researchers studied reactions to vaping legislation. The EU's Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) was introduced in 2017 - to ensure safety, provide consumer information and deter young people who had never smoked before, from trying it.

The regulations include things like a maximum volume for liquid, limits on nicotine concentration, and the need for health warning labels. The legislation also prohibits specific hazardous ingredients.

The study reveals how, from a consumer perspective, future regulation should not further restrict liquid or tank volumes and nicotine concentration, but should focus on ensuring e-liquid product safety.

Lead researcher Dr Emma Ward, from UEA's Norwich Medical School, said: "Switching to vaping is now the most popular way for people to stop smoking in the UK.

"Studies have shown that while vape liquid can contain potentially harmful compounds, it is much safer than smoking tobacco.

"But regulation of e-cigarettes varies considerably around the world, from no legislation at all in around half of countries, to total bans in 29 countries."

Prof Caitlin Notley, also from UEA's Norwich Medical School, said: "There have been significant concerns from consumers, industry, and even some in the scientific community about the potential negative impact of the TPD rules.

"We wanted to find out how consumers perceived and experienced the regulations."

The study is the first to investigate consumers' views and experiences of the TPD regulations. The research team looked at 160 interviews and surveys as part of a wider study into e-cigarette use.

Dr Ward said: "We found that awareness about safety legislation was not universal but on the whole, vapers were reassured by manufacturing regulations and requirements for ingredients labels.

"Some of the participants felt the regulations led to more plastic waste, because it meant they needed to use smaller bottles of e-liquid, with more packaging.

"But the most worrying thing that we found was that the restrictions caused some people to buy higher strength e-liquids and prohibited components on the black market via countries where regulations do not apply such as China and the US - potentially putting their safety at risk."

"A large proportion of participants didn't know much about the EU regulations and many said they wanted regulations which were already in place.

"Public health bodies, Stop Smoking Services, and healthcare professionals should consider raising awareness about the regulations to smokers, to offer reassurance about vaping products and e-liquid ingredients. This could help more smokers switch to vaping.

"Harm reduction messages on packaging, comparing e-cigarettes to tobacco could also nudge smokers to switch to less harmful vaping," she added.

Prof Notley said: "All of this is particularly important right now during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Since completely switching from smoking to vaping improves cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, smokers who switch to vaping might be expected to have a better prognosis if infected by Covid-19."