Tech

The research team of Prof. ZENG Changgan from Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale of University of Sciences and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), collaborating with Prof. LIU Mengkun from Stony Brook University, applied moiré engineering beyond van der Waals materials for the first time and realized moiré-type electronic modulations in correlated transition metal oxides (CTMOs) at mesoscale. The result was published online on Nature Physics on April 6th.

In van der Waals heterostructures, moiré patterns can be achieved by stacking two-dimensional atomic layers with slightly incommensurate periodicities or small twist angles. Fascinating properties have emerged in these moiré systems, including topological conducting channels in twisted bilayer graphene. Application of moiré modulation beyond two dimensional van der Waals system may reveal many other novel properties, however, it remains a daunting task for researchers.

In this study, the prominent property of spontaneous spatially electronic textures in prototypical CTMO, La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 (LSMO), allowed the researchers to exercise periodic strain modulation.

By growing epitaxial LSMO films on LaAlO3 (LAO) substrates, in the system there existed two different periodic strain modulations with small spacing: domain stripes (DSs) resulted from local relaxations of substrate-imposed shear strain, and miscut stripes (MSs) stemmed from surface miscut steps in the LAO substrate. Observations under scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) validated moiré landscapes generated by the spatial coexistence of DS and MS with a periodicity considerably larger than that of either DSs or MSs and able to be governed by the orientations of these stripe motifs.

Using this method, more complex patterns, such as curved moiré fringes can also be presented. Non-linear relationship between the strain and the conductivity has made the modulation easily constructed.

Conductivity and ferromagnetism are intimately tied in LSMO. Further observations under magnetic force microscopy (MFM) measurements revealed moiré conductivity fringes and moiré modulations of local ferromagnetism, thus the second-order transition, from ferromagnetic metal to paramagnetic metal occurred at Curie point (TC), provided another mechanism of electronic texture modulation. Below TC, these two fringes coexisted, while above TC, magnetic moiré fringes disappeared and only the electronic counterpart persisted.

This study realized moiré engineering beyond van der Waals materials for the first time, demonstrates the feasibility of producing and visualizing surface moiré patterns that yield optical contrast, and provides a potential and brand-new route to achieving spatially patterned electronic textures on demand in strained epitaxial materials.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, aims to send human missions to Mars in the 2030s. But scientists are still trying to learn more about the potential cancer risks for astronauts due to radiation exposure. Cancer risk from galactic cosmic radiation exposure is considered a potential "showstopper" for a manned mission to Mars.

A team led by researchers at Colorado State University used a novel approach to test assumptions in a model used by NASA to predict these health risks. The NASA model predicts that astronauts will have more than a three percent risk of dying of cancer from the radiation exposures they will receive on a Mars mission. That level of risk exceeds what is considered acceptable.

The study, "Genomic mapping in outbred mice reveals overlap in genetic susceptibility for HZE ion- and gamma-ray-induced tumors," was published April 15 in Science Advances.

Radiation exposure in space is 'exotic'

When astronauts are sent into space, they are exposed to a type of radiation that is "pretty exotic, compared to radiation on earth," said Michael Weil, senior author of the study and a professor in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at CSU. The radiation comes from two sources: the sun and from supernovas.

Scientists know very little about these types of radiation and their effects on humans, because exposure on earth is very limited, said Weil.

"The radiation type we're most concerned about are HZE ions or heavy ions," he added. "When you're in space, there is nothing to deflect this type of radiation. Some of these heavy ions will punch through a spacecraft hull, so when you send astronauts into space, you're exposing them to these types of radiation."

This radiation can damage molecules, cells and tissues, with the potential for cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disorders.

Previous studies of radiation risks have used health data from survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While those studies have provided some insight, Weil said the data poses a number of problems for real-world application, including comparing a wartime Japanese population to a peacetime U.S. population.

The type of radiation is also different, and has different effects. During the atomic bombings, people received radiation exposures instantaneously. But astronauts bound for Mars would be exposed to radiation continuously over three years.

Models mimicked genetically diverse humans

For the study, Weil and first author Dr. Elijah Edmondson, a veterinary pathologist and researcher based at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research in Maryland, used a unique stock of genetically diverse mice, mimicking a human population.

Mice were divided into three groups with the first group receiving no radiation exposure and the other two receiving varying levels of exposure.

Edmondson, who conducted the research while completing a veterinary residency in pathology at CSU, said that for this type of research project, genetic variability is crucial.

"Humans are very genetically diverse," he explained. "You want to model that when it's appropriate and feasible to do so."

Weil said although the research team saw different tumor types, similar to humans, but the heavy ions did not cause any unique types of cancer. They also saw differences by sex.

In humans, women are more susceptible to radiation-induced cancers than men; one of the main reasons is that women live longer, allowing sufficient time for cancer to develop. In assessing the cancer risk between male and female mice in the study, scientists said the findings parallel human data.

Edmondson said the study validates the NASA model to measure cancer risks for humans from space radiation.

NASA continuously updates its risk assessment model, said Weil, and has done so based on work that was previously done at CSU.

Where will the research go next?

Weil said he is working on a project with CSU Associate Professor Adam Chicco in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and other universities to use technology that creates human organs, using tissue cultures, on a chip. The researchers would expose these chips to radiation to learn more about the potential risks for astronauts bound for Mars.

Additional co-authors on the study include Dan Gatti (The Jackson Laboratory) and Andrew Ray, Elvin L. Garcia and Christina Fallgren (Colorado State University).

On April 14th, Prof. MA Cheng from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and his colleagues made an important discovery on the mechanism of Li-ion migration in solid electrolytes for batteries. They observed a new type of microscopic feature that can significantly influence ionic transport.

Solid electrolyte is the key component in enabling the safe, energy-dense all-solid-state batteries. Before highly conductive solid electrolytes can be developed in a knowledge-based manner, the mechanism behind Li-ion migration must be thoroughly understood. In many materials, the success of this task lies in whether the "non-periodic features" can be well understood, because such features frequently cause orders of magnitude change in ionic conductivity. At present, only two types of non-periodic features, i.e., grain boundaries and point defects, were considered in most studies.

MA's team discovered an additional type of non-periodic feature that profoundly affects ionic transport. Using aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy, they spotted a large number of single-atom-layer defects in a prototype solid electrolyte Li0.33La0.56TiO3. In contrast to other well-known non-periodic features, the observed defect is essentially a single-atom-layer compound that emerges only on a limited number of atomic planes. Because of the symmetry of these planes, differently oriented defects almost always form closed loops.

"There are actually many of such defect loops in the material, but it is very difficult to observe them," said the first author ZHU Feng, who is currently a Ph.D. student of USTC. "They are visible only along certain orientations. Besides, due to their extremely small thickness and the distraction from other coexisting microstructures, the presence of these defects can hardly be noticed. This might explain why they have not been reported until now."

The observed defects were found to exhibit an atomic configuration that completely forbids Li-ion migration across the defect layer. As a result, when such defects form a closed loop, Li ions can neither enter nor exit the volume inside, and this part of material is thus excluded from the overall ionic transport. The volume isolated this way is as large as ~15%, which can lead to 1-2 orders of magnitude reduction in ionic conductivity.

"The defect loop is acting as Li-ion traps: it prevents the Li ions within the enclosed volume from escaping," said Prof. MA Cheng from USTC, the lead author of the study. "As such, although the defects themselves are only one-atom thin, they still can 'kill' very large volumes of the solid electrolyte, making them non-conductive."

The scientists coined a term called "single-atom-layer trap" (SALT) to describe this unique feature. Its discovery points out that non-periodic features other than grain boundaries and point defects may also greatly alter ionic transport, and that similar study is urgently needed in other solid electrolytes. The reviewer of Nature Communications spoke very highly of the scientific significance of this work: "This was an exciting manuscript to read, reporting on a very novel observation." "I would ... expect that it stirs up quite some discussion both in the solid electrolyte/solid-state battery field as well as generally in the material science and electron microscopy communities."

NASA analyzed weakening Tropical Storm Jeruto's rainfall and found one small area of moderate rainfall displaced from the center, because of strong wind shear.

In general, wind shear is a measure of how the speed and direction of winds change with altitude. Outside winds were pushing against the storm and displacing the heaviest rainfall east of the center.

On April 15 at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 UTC), The Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that Tropical Storm Jeruto was barely holding onto tropical storm status with maximum sustained winds near 35 knots (40 mph/65 kph). Jeruto was located near latitude 16.2 degrees south and longitude 83.1 degrees east, about 828 nautical miles southeast of Diego Garcia.

Seven hours later, NASA gathered data on the precipitation occurring in the weakening storm. NASA has the unique capability of peering under the clouds in storms and measuring the rate in which rain is falling. The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core passed over Jeruto from its orbit in space and measured rainfall rates in the storm on April 16 at 12:06 a.m. EDT (0406 UTC). Winds pushed the heaviest rainfall east of the center, where it was falling at a rate of 1.6 inches (40 mm) per hour in a small area.

Jeruto is expected to dissipate on April 16.

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

Both the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA and NASA manage GPM.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Economic losses due to soybean diseases in the United States from 1996 to 2016 amounted to more than $95 billion, according to a team of researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences who examined the long-term impact of soybean diseases on production in the U.S.

The findings are significant because the U.S. is the world's primary soybean producer and second-largest exporter, noted Paul Esker, assistant professor of epidemiology and crop pathology in the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology.

"Soybeans are among the most economically important crops in the U.S.," said Esker, who pointed to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics that show soybean was cultivated on more than 70 million acres during the 2019 growing season, with total production exceeding 97 million metric tons.

However, quantitative information on crop losses is scarce, hard to obtain, seldom standardized and a challenge to compile and compare across states, agroecosystems and regions, he explained.

"The contribution of disease-associated quality loss toward the total economic loss often is ignored due to insufficient information or unavailability of suitable loss-estimation framework," Esker said.

"Accurate crop loss assessment is the base to devise appropriate management strategies to ensure farmer profitability, safeguard the nation's export soybean crop, preserve global food security and establish research priorities."

Among other factors that influence soybean growth and development, diseases are a significant challenge that can negatively impact production, Esker pointed out. One of the critical tasks of plant scientists and extension educators is to estimate how much damage each disease causes and what this means in terms of yield reduction.

To examine the long-term effects of soybean diseases on production, the team analyzed historical soybean-loss data gathered by soybean extension specialists and researchers and assessed the economic impacts of 23 common soybean diseases from 28 soybean-producing states in the U.S. from 1996 to 2016.

The researchers, who recently reported their findings on April 2 in PLOS ONE, used a mathematical approach called Padwick's model that was published in 1956 to calculate the overall combined loss due to diseases in soybean. This calculation helped to avoid the potential issue of having the combined losses be greater than 100% if individual losses were just added together.

"It also helped standardize the estimate of yield damage due to each disease considered in the study," said Ananda Bandara, a postdoctoral scholar in the Esker research group.

In addition, the researchers used inflation-adjusted soybean prices when computing total economic damage by diseases. Their intent was to normalize prices so that their estimations were comparable across the time period studied.

The team found that the total estimated economic loss due to soybean diseases from 1996 to 2016 in the U.S. was $95.48 billion. The impact in the northern U.S. -- $80.89 billion -- was greater than losses in the southern U.S., which amounted to $14.59 billion.

Over the entire period, the average annual economic loss due to soybean diseases in the U.S. reached nearly $4.55 billion, with approximately 85% of the losses occurring in the North, specifically in states such as Iowa, Illinois and Ohio.

Among Southern states, Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas sustained the greatest losses from diseases. Across states and years, the soybean cyst nematode, charcoal rot and seedling diseases were the most economically damaging diseases, while soybean rust, bacterial blight and southern blight were the least financially damaging.

The research team also investigated disease-associated economic losses before and after the discovery of soybean rust, an epidemic that was reported in the contiguous U.S. in November 2004. Researchers found a significantly greater mean loss -- 51% -- in the years following the discovery of soybean rust compared to the years before its discovery.

"The greater economic losses observed after rust discovery most probably could be related to intensified field scouting efforts and subsequent loss reporting," said Dilooshi Weerasooriya, a postdoctoral scholar in the Esker research group.

Using USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service production data, the team classified state-year combinations into one of four specific production zones. They found that low-production zones had a lower mean economic loss due to diseases in comparison to high-production zones.

"High-production zones are characterized by the presence of a greater number of large-sized farms," Bandara said. "It may be possible that resource utilization, such as timely application of foliar fungicide, could be less efficient in high production zones, which in turn could contribute to greater yield losses."

"Despite perceived challenges, the analysis of historical soybean loss data due to diseases is important to understand the economic impact of diseases, to rank diseases based on their economic importance, and to identify spatiotemporal disease occurrence and progression patterns," Esker said.

"Such information is critical for soybean pathologists and breeders, government and funding agencies, and educators to prioritize research, policy and educational efforts in soybean disease management."

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- One of the defining features of Covid-19 is the excessive immune response that can occur in severe cases. This burst of immune overreaction, also called a cytokine storm, damages the lungs and can be fatal.

A team of MIT researchers has developed specialized proteins, similar in structure to antibodies, that they believe could soak up these excess cytokines.

"The idea is that they can be injected into the body and bind to the excessive cytokines as generated by the cytokine storm, removing the excessive cytokines and alleviating the symptoms from the infection," says Rui Qing, an MIT research scientist who is one of the senior authors of the study.

The researchers have reported their initial findings in the journal Quarterly Review of Biophysics (QRB) Discovery, and they now hope to begin testing their proteins in human cells and in animal models of cytokine release and coronavirus infection.

Shuguang Zhang, a principal research scientist in the MIT Media Lab's Laboratory of Molecular Architecture, is also a senior author of the paper. Shilei Hao, a visiting scientist at MIT, is the lead author of the study, and David Jin, CEO and president of Avalon GloboCare, is also an author.

A molecular sponge

The researchers' work on blocking cytokine storms grew out of a project that Zhang began 10 years ago to develop modified versions of membrane-embedded proteins. These proteins are usually difficult to study because once they are extracted from the cell membrane, they only maintain their structure if they are suspended in special types of detergents.

After working on the problem for several years, Zhang and Qing developed a method for modifying the hydrophobic regions of these proteins, making them soluble in water and much easier to study. Their method, called the QTY code, calls for replacing some hydrophobic amino acids with hydrophilic amino acids that have similar structures. Leucine is converted to glutamine, isoleucine and valine are converted to threonine, and phenylalanine is converted to tyrosine.

Following the development of the QTY code, Jin approached Zhang's lab with the idea of designing water-soluble versions of proteins known as cytokine receptors. These receptors are found on the surface of immune cells, where they bind to cytokines -- signaling proteins that stimulate inflammation and other immune responses.

Jin believed that proteins that mimic these cytokine receptors could help combat cytokine storms, which can be produced by viral or bacterial infections, including HIV and hepatitis. They can also occur as a side effect of cancer immunotherapy.

In April 2019, Zhang's team set out to design proteins that could sop up these excess cytokines like a sponge. To do that, they used the QTY code to make water-soluble versions of cytokine receptors. When proteins are soluble in water, they can travel efficiently through the human bloodstream, while the original, hydrophobic versions of the proteins would likely stick to cells that they encountered.

The researchers also attached an antibody segment called the Fc region to their water-soluble receptor proteins. This region helps to further stabilize the proteins in the bloodstream, and makes them less likely to be attacked by the immune system.

The researchers designed proteins that mimic six different cytokine receptors, which can bind to cytokines such as interferon and interleukin, as well as a class of cytokines called chemokines. In laboratory tests of the proteins' binding strength, the researchers found that their modified proteins were able to bind to cytokines with similar strength as naturally occurring cytokine receptors.

"The cytokine receptors that we designed will soak up the majority of the excessive cytokines that are released during the cytokine storm," Jin says.

Driven by curiosity

In March, when evidence began to suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was inducing cytokine storms in some patients, the researchers realized that the receptor proteins they had designed might be able to help. They decided to quickly publish the results they have generated so far, and they are now planning to do additional tests in human cells and in animal models of Covid-19 infection.

The potential usefulness of this approach underscores the importance of "curiosity-driven research," Zhang says.

"As it turns out, our research initiated in April 2019 is directly relevant to the treatment of Covid-19 infected patients," he says. "Curiosity-driven, or even proactive research often leads to preparedness, which is key to preventing future disasters."

The researchers have filed for patents on the proteins that they designed, as well as on their overall approach to creating water-soluble cytokine receptors. They hope to license the technology quickly and to collaborate with pharmaceutical and biotech companies who can help to move it toward clinical trials.

"Obviously this approach will need further animal studies, and potentially human clinical studies," Jin says. "But we have confidence that this discovery will contribute to clinical applications to address viral diseases that involve cytokine storms."

The search for coveted high-temperature superconductors is going to get easier with a new 'law within a law' discovered by Skoltech and MIPT researchers and their colleagues, who figured out a link between an element's position in the Periodic Table and its potential to form a high-temperature superconducting hydride. The new paper is published in the journal Current Opinion in Solid State & Materials Science. The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation.

Superconducting materials, with zero resistance and thus no dissipation of energy to heat, would be extremely useful for our electronics and power grids. Superconducting magnets are already used in the MRI machine at your local hospital and in particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Right now there are two ways to get to superconductivity, both at the extremes: very low temperatures or very high pressures. Some of the "warmest" superconductors of the first kind, cuprates, still require to be cooled down to some 100 K (-173 °C), which is a far cry from normal conditions. There are predictions that metallic hydrogen can show superconducting properties at almost room temperature; the catch is in the pressure required, which is more than 4 million atmospheres, almost at the limit of our technical capabilities.

That is why scientists are looking at hydrides, compounds of hydrogen and another element, and it has been shown that they work as superconductors at relatively high temperatures and lower pressures. The current record of up to minus 23 °C was shown last year for LaH10, lanthanum decahydride, at the pressure of 170 gigapascals, or 1.7 million atmospheres. Even though pressures are still too high to enable practical use, research in superconducting hydrides already has important implications for other classes of superconductors, which could function at normal pressure and temperature.

Skoltech PhD student Dmitrii Semenok and Skoltech and MIPT Professor Artem R. Oganov together with their colleagues have found a rule that allows predicting the maximum superconducting critical temperature, maxTC, for a metal hydride based only on the electronic structure of metal atoms. This means that the search for new superconducting hydrides is going to get easier.

"The connection between superconductivity and the Periodic Table was puzzling at first. We are still not fully certain about its origin, but we think that it is because elements at the boundary between s- and p- or s- and d-elements (roughly between 2nd and 3rd groups of the Table) have electronic structure unusually sensitive to the crystal field, and this is perfect for the electron-phonon coupling, which is the cause of superconductivity in hydrides", said Artem R. Oganov, a co-author of the work.

In addition to discovering a qualitative rule, they also trained a neural network to predict maxTC for compounds where no experimental or theoretical data was available. For some elements, previously published data on Tc of hydrides seemed to deviate from regular behavior. The researchers then set out to check these data by using USPEX, the evolutionary algorithm developed by Oganov and his students for predicting thermodynamically stable hydrides of these elements.

"For elements where the published values of maxTc were (based on the discovered rule) too low or too high, the group performed systematic searches for stable hydrides. Their new data confirmed the discovered rule and yielded new hydrides for magnesium (Mg), strontium (Sr), barium (Ba), cesium (Cs) and rubidium (Rb). For instance, a predicted strontium hexahydride, SrH6, has a maxTC of 189 K (minus 84C) at 100 GPa, while BaH12, a theoretical barium superhydride, may have a relatively high maxTC up to 214 K (minus 59C).", said Alexander Kvashnin, Skoltech and MIPT senior research scientist and a co-author of the research.

Earlier in 2019, Oganov and his colleagues from Russia, the US and China synthesized cerium superhydride CeH9, which has superconducting properties at 100-110 K and at a (relatively) low pressure of 120 GPa. Another superconductor discovered by the research group (Dmitry Semenok, Ivan Troyan, Alexander Kvashnin, Artem R. Oganov, and their colleagues), thorium hydride ThH10, has a high critical temperature of 161 K.

"Now, using the newly discovered rule and the neural network we can focus on more complex compounds which are even more promising in our quest for room-temperature superconductivity - ternary superhydrides that contain two elements and hydrogen. We have already predicted a number of hydrides that can rival or exceed LaH10", said the first author of the work, Dmitrii Semenok.

Most Russians would like to have two children: a boy and a girl. The others fall between the two extremes of either wanting no children (at least for now) or planning to have three or more. Having a large family is often associated with affluence. The reasons for having another child are many, from wishing to strengthen the family bond and teach older children to care for younger siblings to hoping that the maternity subsidy may help the family improve their housing situation. A HSE demographer used data from a sample of 15,000 respondents to study reproductive attitudes in Russia.

Changes in Reproductive Climate

Fertility projections are largely based on surveys asking families how many children they would like to have -- what demographers call 'reproductive attitudes' or 'reproductive intentions'.

In terms of having children, wishing does not equal planning. The former, i.e. how many children a couple would ideally like to have, is an unreliable predictor of fertility as it changes with age and circumstances. Thus, people may wish to have five offspring but, due to lack of time, resources or resolve, end up having just two. Indeed, most families in Russia have one or two children.

A more accurate predictor of fertility is how may children a couple plans to have in the near future, because it implies just one step between intention and action, particularly if future parents set a deadline of having a baby, e.g. within two or three years.

The desired number of children is often not only an individual family's choice but also a reflection of the relevant social norm.

In addition to this, certain reproductive stereotypes, e.g. 'there must be at least two children (or many children) in the family' are handed down from generation to generation. In recent decades, both in Western countries and in Russia, the two-child family, i.e. the generational replacement approach, with two children replacing their two parents, has become the new norm: a couple wishing to have two offspring usually ends up having two offspring.

However, knowing the reproductive norm is not enough for describing a country's reproductive climate: it is also necessary to assess the average expected number of children.

Tatiana Gudkova calculated the averages of desired and expected births in Russian families over time based on data from Rosstat's 2012 and 2017 Sample Surveys of Reproductive Plans. The two waves of the survey included 10,000 and 15,000 respondents of reproductive age (women aged 18 to 44 and men aged 18 to 60), one per household. The sample was subdivided into age groups of 25 and younger, 25 to 29, 30 to 34, etc.

In addition to the survey, 59 focus groups with a total of more than 350 people were conducted in nine communities, ranging from big cities such as Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Voronezh to smaller district centres in Leningrad, Omsk, Tula and Samara regions. Similarly to the survey respondents, the focus group participants were subdivided into age groups of 20 to 24, 25 to 34 and 35 to 44.

Many Children Versus No Children

The expected number of children is usually lower than the desired number. According to Gudkova, the difference between the two has been narrowing, with a slight decrease in both indicators over the five years.

For women of all ages, the average desired number of children stood at 2.28 in 2012 and 2.15 in 2017, and the average expected number was 1.92 in the first wave and 1.9 in the second wave. The figures for men are 2.3 and 2.14, and 1.97 and 1.93, respectively.

Over this five year period, the average desired number of children dropped significantly by 0.13 for women and by 0.16 for men, but the expected number of children remained virtually unchanged for both. Generally, the two-child family ideal still holds, despite a slight decline in popularity.

The findings from focus groups paint a more detailed picture. It turns out that some couples do not feel ready for parenting yet. By contrast, some other respondents aim to have a large family.

Other studies have confirmed the growing popularity of having three or more children. While just a decade ago, less than 7% of Russian families had many children, today their share, according to Rosstat, is close to 10%, causing some researchers to suggest a revival of the traditional family, meaning a family with many children.

Born or Postponed

The survey reveals that women aged 25-34, i.e. at the peak of reproductive age, report the highest desired and expected numbers of children: around 2.3 in 2012 and more than 2.2 desired children in 2017; up to 2.07 expected children in the first wave of observations and 2.0 in the second wave.

As for men, those aged 30 to 39 report the highest numbers, with almost 2.4 desired children in 2012 and almost 2.3 in 2017, and a little more than 2.0 expected children in both waves.

The youngest and oldest respondents, i.e. women under 25 and men under 29 and both women and men over 40, have the lowest personal fertility projections.

The latter are approaching the end of their childbearing years. The choice of having more children 'is carefully weighed and reassessed after each birth', the researcher explains. The actual number of children is often lower than the desired number. In 2017, the expected and desired numbers of children stood at 1.71 and 2.03 for women in their 40s and at 1.78 and 2.15, respectively, for men of the same age.

As for respondents in their 20s, lower fertility desires and expectations may be due to postponed parenthood.

'Cannot Afford It': Barriers to Childbirth

Conscious parenting delayed until the parents are in their 30s has been associated with the demographic modernisation that emerged in the West in the 1970s and has been gaining momentum in Russia in the 21st century. This reproductive strategy has its advantages, since mature and financially independent parents with established careers can offer their children a higher standard of living and invest more in their education and health.

But there is also a downside: having children later means having fewer children. Women who become mothers later in life may not have enough time ahead of them for more births.

However, postponed parenthood is often a necessity caused by housing and financial constraints, as confirmed by focus groups.

'We live in a rented apartment while our home is under construction. This is the main reason why we are not having children any time soon,' a 20-year-old respondent said.

Some people in their 30s and even 40s mention similar reasons. 'My partner is not making enough money, plus we have a mortgage that we would like to repay before I get pregnant,' according to a female respondent. Another woman echoes her by saying, 'I would like to be able to stand on my own two feet financially first.'

A respondent in her 30s describes parenting as 'a pretty expensive kind of pleasure'. An older woman picks this theme up, 'Look and see for yourself how expensive clothes, food and utilities are today; they charge you for things in kindergartens and schools as well And one also needs a larger living space.'

The following statement made by a young mother of two illustrates the difference between the desired and the actual number of children: 'My husband and I had planned to have three children. But the problem is, our flat is too small for that.'

'My Mind Refuses to Even Imagine ...'

There are quite a number of socio-psychological barriers to childbearing, such as wishing to 'live for oneself', uncertainty about the relationship with the partner or just not being ready for a baby, particularly before the first birth.

'It seems really hard to raise a child,' says a respondent aged around 30. 'Both in terms of their upbringing and the financial aspects.' According to another woman of the same age, 'I just don't feel confident enough. Somehow, I'm not ready yet to call myself a mum. And I don't feel supported by my husband.'

When it comes to a second or third child, the respondents assess their future prospects based on their own, often less than favourable, prior experience. 'I had a long-awaited child after a difficult pregnancy and a difficult birth; I don't think I will ever decide to have another one,' says a young mother.

Older respondents feel somewhat guilty for not having enough time to spend with their offspring. 'You need to make time for each of your children,' says a mother of two. 'Once you spend a while with one child, you don't have much time left to spend with your other child, let alone a third one.'

Many women are concerned that childcare may leave them exhausted morally and physically. A mother of two pre-schoolers admits, 'My mind refuses to even imagine me having three children.'

Another consideration is the challenge of combining family and career. A 20-year-old respondent just past her maternity leave explains, 'I still want to pursue my career , it's been a struggle to find a way to go back to work . Staying at home is intolerable for me.'

Family Not Ready for Baby

Support from the spouse and extended family is crucial in choosing to have children. However, many female respondents were not sure that their partners would be able to sufficiently 'provide for the family' or were 'mature enough' for parenthood.

"I'd been dreaming about a baby for five years, but my husband did not support me in that,' a young mother says. 'That's the way men are nowadays: one could wait forever before they finally decide to have children--there would be a demographic crisis,' according to a middle-aged female respondent. 'They are not ready for parenting at all, let alone having more than one child.'

Similarly, according to some respondents, grandparents are often reluctant to look after their grandchildren and need to be coaxed into doing so. 'This generation of grandparents wants to live for themselves; [they say], if you choose to have children, they are your responsibility,' complains a 20-year-old.

Quantitative data confirms that one in three women and one in four men consider a lack of assistance from relatives an important reason for delaying childbirth.

Reasons for Putting Childbirth on Hold

The study authors asked the respondents to assess the impact of various circumstances on their decision to postpone childbirth (including the first or subsequent births) and calculated the percentages for each answer.

The most common reasons included the following:

lack of financial means (73% of women and 70% of men);

need to find a higher paying job (66% and 69%, respectively);

housing constraints (58% and 56%);

wanting to 'live for themselves' (49% and 51%);

absence of a partner (49% and 48%);

difficulties of combining work and childcare (36% and 33%);

spouse's wish to delay childbirth (36% and 42%).

And finally, approximately one in three women and more than one in four men doubted the strength of their marriage bond. About one third of both genders felt they needed to repay their loans before having children. More than one-quarter of both genders were wary of difficulties with enrolling a child in day care.

Son for My Husband, Daughter for Myself

But what about the long-standing 'gold standard' of having two children per family? Many respondents of various ages believe that having just one child is not enough and overwhelmingly support a two-child family. Some explain it by stereotypes ('Two is a set', 'There is a law of sorts--maybe a social expectation--that a family needs two children'), and by personal experience. 'I used to believe that more [children] is better,' according to a respondent. 'But now I realise that each child needs attention and love, so having two children is ideal.'

All respondents, regardless of age, education and income, opted for two children of different sex, explaining it by a variety of reasons: 'You bear a son for your husband and a daughter for yourself', 'Having both a boy and a girl seems more interesting,' 'I wanted to have a son for the dad and a brother for my daughter.'

Three Children Spells Affluence

According to Gudkova, the once widespread perception of large families as poor and dysfunctional is becoming a thing of the past. Instead, families with many children are increasingly associated with wellbeing and prosperity. [Having a large family] 'is cool and great', according to many respondents.

"[Russian] society is increasingly polarised between those who intend to have only one child and those who want a large family with many children,' the researcher comments.

As a 20-year-old female respondent put it, 'I cannot even imagine being the single child in the family.' '[Having just] one [child] makes no sense,' says a 30-year-old man who would like to have three children and explains: 'It's more fun with many [children] in the family. I am all for family values .'

Those respondents who grew up surrounded by siblings find having many children absolutely natural. 'It's our family tradition to have three children: my dad has two brothers,' says a middle-aged mother of one but promptly adds, 'Three is fine, but that's the limit.'

'I would like to have three children, but my husband wants five,' says a woman in her late 20s. 'His mother has five children and his sister has five children . But I just want three. Five is too many, you could go crazy.'

According to Gudkova, many respondents perceive having three children as 'a sign of a happy and affluent family'. Thus, respondents of different ages said, 'if you can afford it, it's okay to have three or even ten children'.

However, many respondents feel they need to expand their living space before expanding their family. 'My husband and I have always planned to have three children; we just need a bigger flat and then we can manage it,' a young mother says.

She is echoed by an older respondent, 'Of course, we want three children--why not, we only live once. Our health permits it and we have enough energy and make good money; we are now considering taking out a bigger mortgage to increase our living space.'

'Gift from Above' or Family Capital?

The study has revealed numerous reasons for having a baby. But first, what was already known.

Factors which may affect fertility include:

family relations and partner trust, having been divorced before;

education: the higher her level of education and emancipation, the later a woman tends to give birth and the fewer children she has;

religious beliefs (a child is a 'gift from above', 'women must bear children');

socioeconomic circumstances: income and status;

sociocultural factors such as family structure.

Focus groups highlight the diversity of childbearing motives, from longing to experience the joy of motherhood once again ('He [the son] will grow up, and then I will want to have another baby') to wanting to have a baby by the 'right' man ('You choose to have a common child with this particular person') to expecting that a new birth can strengthen the family ('Men want shared children'). There are also economic incentives such as using maternity capital to improve the family housing situation.

However, according to many demographers, maternal capital and other family support measures work as incentives for having children sooner, but do not create motives to have children in the first place.

Most often, a couple was already planning to have a child, and the availability of state support simply caused this pre-planned event to occur earlier. According to some researchers, maternal capital 'has led to earlier second births'.

In contrast, some respondents mentioned less rational motives for childbirth. 'If God gives me seven children, then I will bear seven children; I am against aborting or abandoning children.' 'Now that I have had my second child I'd rather not have more, but if God gives me a third one, there will be a third one,' said a few respondents of different ages.

Among other less rational motives for having a second or third child is wishing to have a child of different sex. 'We've had two girls and consider having a third [child], because my husband wants a son,' explains a respondent in her 20s.

Someone to Care For

Even more interesting is yet another motive for having more children: sparing the firstborn a lonely childhood and teaching them to take care of a sibling.

Respondents who grew up as a single child without brothers and sisters do not want their children to have the same experience.

They strongly believe that a child should not feel lonely. 'I have always wanted a sister, but my mother had an abortion. I want at least two [children],' a 30-year-old woman says. 'I asked my parents for a brother or sister, but they refused to make me this gift,' according to a 20-year-old woman. 'Therefore, I decided that I'd have at least two children ...'

Another motive is that of raising a child capable of caring for others. 'I've had it programmed into me that I want a boy and a girl. My granddad insisted that I needed a second child--he said, a single child would grow up to be a selfish person,' a middle-aged woman recalls. 'A single child is sure to grow up selfish, having one more is a must,' echoes her peer.

Many respondents added that older children should learn how to care for younger siblings. 'Having two children makes one feel more at ease,' a forty-year-old woman comments.

And finally, couples opt for a large family as a guarantee of comfort and security in old age.

'The advantage of being a mother with many children is having one daughter phone you, having another one phone you, having all of them get together with you,' says a respondent in her 30s. 'It's like having your own small republic.'

Loving Family, Comfortable Old Age

The survey confirms the importance of many of the above motives, the following being the most significant ones:

wishing to spare the first-born from feeling lonely (69% of women and 63% of men; the question was about plans to have a second child);

one partner's desire to have another child (58% and 62%, respectively, for second children and 48% each for third children);

wishing to teach older children to care for younger siblings (55% and 51%; 54% and 50%);

seeing it as a guarantee of being cared for in old age (46% -50% in different categories);

wishing to strengthen the family (44%­-50%).

In addition to this, hoping to use maternal capital to improve their housing situation was mentioned by 42% of women and 36% of men as a motive for having a second child and by 44% of women and 37% of men [as a motive for having a third child]. About one-third of respondents in different categories mentioned the motive of improving their living standards.

And finally, about one-quarter of respondents across categories stressed that 'having two/three children can raise one's status in society'.

Fewer Children to Become New Norm?

The two-child family remains the norm in Russia. Outside of this norm, Russian society is increasingly split into those opting for only one child and those who want a large family.

The former argue for their choice by stressing the value of being able to give their only child quality time and attention and to invest more in their wellbeing and education. The latter prioritise a large and loving family, which is now free from the once-common negative attitudes towards couples with many children as financially and morally 'irresponsible'.

At the same time, young people tend to postpone parenthood, and it is anyone's guess how their choices may affect the norm. The only way to know for sure is to estimate the total fertility rate (TFR) over time.

Half a century ago, cassava was a simple staple crop for some smallholder farmers in Asia eking out a living in harsh landscapes.

The hardy crop that Europeans brought from Latin America many centuries before was a dependable source of nutrition - as long as it was skillfully processed to remove the toxins from bitter types to be turned into food.

While sweet varieties of cassava remain a staple in places like Indonesia, which is the world's third-largest producer, things have changed a lot for Manihot esculenta, the scientific name for yuca, manioc or mandioca.

Today, yields in Asia have increased dramatically and industry is growing bitter varieties for starch, biofuels and a variety of other ingredients. In Southeast Asia, only sugarcane and rice surpass cassava in total tonnage produced. Some 8 million farmers from India to China depend on the crop for food and income.

Ideally suited to flourish despite climate change, cassava is poised to become an even more important crop in the next fifty years in Asia, argue scientists in a comprehensive review of cassava research over the last 50 years in Asia. The article was published in March in Breeding Science.

"We need to continue investment in increasing yields, even more so under climate change, land degradation and new pests and disease outbreaks; the next big thing is improving the resilience of our cassava resources," said Luis Augusto Becerra Lopez-Lavalle, the program leader for cassava at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

The article looks at increases in yields, breeding strategies, development and deployment of different varieties over the last half-century. Countries in the study include China, India, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Authors from more than a dozen institutions contributed to the review, which summarizes major contributions from almost 170 different research articles.

The authors highlight the striking versatility and resilience of cassava, which has been gradually improved and adapted to local needs through cutting-edge plant breeding and agronomy.

Thank the genebanks

Becerra said many advances are due to the rich collection of cassava germplasm at the Alliance's genebank in Colombia, which includes a large collection of native varieties generally more diverse than varieties found further afield. By tapping the resources of the genebank and collections kept by breeding programs around the world, scientists have found traits to make widely used varieties more productive and resistant to disease and climate extremes.

In Vietnam, yields have increased from about 3 tons per hectare to 20 tons, largely through improved varieties and fertilizer management. Intercropping - sowing other crops alongside cassava - and crop rotation to include maize, peanuts, and beans, has improved soil fertility and increase farmer incomes.

"The introduction of germplasm into national breeding programs from the Alliance combined with improved agronomic practices markedly increased cassava yield in the region," said lead author Al Imran Malik, who is based at the Alliance's Lao PDR office. Malik also credited partners who support the new ideas and initiatives.

In Indonesia, breeding has focused on better-tasting and more nutritious cassava. In China, scientists have bred high-starch industrial cassava ideal for higher latitudes, which are generally cooler than those in cassava's native range.

"Over the past decades, cassava researchers in Asia, particularly breeders, have had to respond to changing market and policy conditions to ensure that the crop and the farmers that grow it are competitive in global markets," said Jonathan Newby, the research coordinator for the Alliance's cassava program in Southeast Asia.

Across the region today, researchers study erosion and health of the soil, sustainable intensification, artificial intelligence, and advanced genetics for crop improvement. Scientists are also intensely focused on controlling emerging diseases, which threaten productivity gains. Last year, the Alliance worked with national researchers and partners to draw up an emergency control plan for cassava mosaic disease (CMD), a project led by Becerra.

Becerra is also a global research leader in the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas, which contributed to the study.

Cassava cooperation

One of the great lessons of the review was the extent to which local collaboration and ground-up initiatives were key to cassava improvement in the region.

In particular, the Alliance led partnerships with national agricultural research institutes in the region. NARIs from Vietnam, Thailand, China, Japan, Indonesia, Lao PDR, and Cambodia collaborated on many border-crossing cassava projects in the last few decades.

Partnerships among research organizations in Asia facilitated the understanding of specific contexts, allowing researchers to create appropriate recommendations in breeding and agronomy so farmers could grow cassava in accordance with their needs.

The Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) emphasized that the development in cassava research in Asia has great potential outside the region.

"This work will not only contribute to the prosperity of cassava in Asia but also contribute to the food security of people in Africa," said Wenjun Ou, a co-author from CATAS.

Outside of research partnerships, Dr. Malik said funders have been key supporters for ongoing, long-term research. Continued partnerships and support are key for controlling CMD, which requires regionally coordinated efforts in research on seed systems, pest and disease control, and capacity-building.

No longer 'a crop for the poor'

While there is still an impression that cassava is a poor man's crop in Asia, Becerra and Newby push back on this notion, highlighting its potential for wealth creation amongst smallholder farmers targeting a wide global market.
"The future is bright for cassava as food and as an industrial ingredient in a range of new products that modern consumers demand," said Newby. "It will be critical that cassava breeders keep pace with these changes and opportunities to ensure that smallholder farmers in Asia continue to reap the benefits of this 'hidden' crop in our daily lives."

Becerra emphasized how different regions will contribute to a South-South knowledge transfer to ensure further prosperity for the crop, saying, "The key to cassava improvement is still at its center of origin. We ought to help sub-Saharan African farmers obtain the same genetic gains as Asian resource-poor farmers, where the Alliance built on genetic resources from Latin America."

In Nature Medicine, the seven comprehensive cancer centres of Cancer Core Europe (CCE), including the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, have shared how they rapidly reorganised their oncological healthcare systems during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this joint effort, the centres offer guidance to institutions globally by outlining their general consensus measures and organisational strategies adopted to make their operations "pandemic proof".

In the space of just a few weeks, the European cancer centres have had to drastically revise and reorganise their patient care and scientific research due to the coronavirus crisis. For example, treatments have been postponed or adjusted to protect the immune systems of patients with cancer; contact moments have been limited or converted to remote interactions, complete with as many guarantees as possible that this will not affect patient care; and clinical studies have been reassessed to see if they should continue. CCE's seven cancer centres have taken steps to maintain high standards of care despite facing shortages of personal protective equipment, beds, staff and other resources.

"In this situation the centres have not, as they're used to, been able to rely upon the knowledge they've built up over years of thorough research," said Emile Voest, Medical Director of the Netherlands Cancer Institute. 'Our medical staff suddenly find themselves in a parallel universe, where they have to use all their know-how, experience and wisdom to make critical clinical decisions in line with new medical and ethical considerations. That's a drastic change. And why it's essential that other medical institutions can draw upon our experiences and choices so that we all become 'pandemic-proof' in a responsible manner. Not least with an eye to the future."

In Nature Medicine the seven European cancer centres share the choices they have made to adapt to the new COVID-19 world, as well as the considerations and uncertainties they face. Together with other such centres around the world, from now on they will continue to generate and disclose new data in order to make well-founded choices and judgements in the future. 'This will probably be a dynamic and rapidly evolving process,' says Voest. 'We hope that our collective experiences will help guide others.'

"Our medical staff across disciplines (surgery, radiology, pathology, radiation oncology and medical oncology) have been truly amazing at very quickly producing COVID-19-adjusted treatment guidelines," said Prof Carlos Caldas, a member of the senior management at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, whose clinical cancer services are provided by Cambridge University Hospitals and Royal Papworth Hospital. "We hope that our collective experiences will help guide others and will also reassure cancer patients that we are doing everything we can to avoid compromising their oncological care."

There are several aspects that medical institutions need to take into account to ensure continuity in cancer care:

- Clinical activities (adapting tasks to keep cancer centres free of COVID-19; adjusting standard treatment regimens and deviating from established treatment protocols for safety reasons).

- Communication with and psychosocial care for patients.

- Qualified personnel (speed and sufficient capacity to test the centre's own staff for COVID-19 is essential to ensure continuity of care).

- Capacity of care institutions (discussing alternative treatments such as radiotherapy and/or systemic therapies, discussing the postponement of certain elective operations and accelerating treatments as long as sufficient capacity is still available).

- Regional and national collaborations (sharing the burden of care for cancer patients).

'This crisis is also opening up new learning opportunities,' Voest declares. 'Especially with regard to the trend towards using less invasive treatments where possible, which has been picking up gradually in recent years. But also how we can use technological aids to make healthcare faster and more accessible.'

Lithium batteries hold a lot of promise for the future of many applications, including electric vehicles, but tend to be prohibitively expensive, according to a team of researchers based in Japan. That team, led by Naoaki Yabuuchi, professor at Yokohama National University, has developed a new electrode material to make lithium batteries not only cheaper, but longer lasting with higher energy density.

The results were made available online, ahead of print publication, on March 25 in Materials Today.

According to Yabuuchi, many researchers have successfully improved the ability of the battery to hold a charge, but have not yet improved the amount of charge the battery can disperse in a useful way -- such as powering an electrical vehicle for a longer cruising time.

"Electrode materials with higher energy density are needed to advance lithium ion batteries and to further develop electric vehicles," Yabuuchi said. "Our paper demonstrates a new electrode material for this purpose."

Electrode materials in batteries help take the input of stored energy and discharge it to power whatever the battery is in. The material comprising the electrode relies on the exchange of electrons and lithium ions and significantly changes the effectiveness with which the battery operates. In previous studies, researchers found that lithium ions mixed with manganese, titanium and oxygen ions provided an excellent input-output for electrons and lithium ions, but the exchange speed is too slow to use in practical battery applications.

Yabuuchi and his team looked at the chemical combination and decided to pair it with a similar mixture of lithium, oxygen, manganese and titanium ions, but it can also be milled to a desired particle size. Smaller, nano-sized particles can travel quicker and more easily across the electrode, even at room temperature.

The nano-sized electrode comprising manganese and titanium ions results in a more robust exchange of electrons and lithium ions, with the battery capable of holding and dispersing more charge than before while still maintaining a longer use life.

"Both titanium and manganese are abundant elements, meaning we can make cost-effective, without nickel and cobalt ions used for current electric vehicles, and high-performance electrode materials with them," Yabuuchi said. "This finding contributes to the reduction of battery cost and an increase in the practical reality of such applications as electric vehicles and more."

The team continues to study how to further improve the electrode reversibility through chemical compositions and particle size optimization.

"Now, we are collaborating with industry partners to utilize our electrode materials for practical applications," Yabuuchi said. "Our study potentially leads to less dependence on fossil fuels and the development of a new energy society on the basis of renewable energy in the future, on the basis of ever-lasting, high-energy batteries."

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed the first megapixel photon-counting camera based on new-generation image sensor technology that uses single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs). The new camera can detect single photons of light at unprecedented speeds, a capability that could advance applications that require fast acquisition of 3D images such as augmented reality and LiDAR systems for autonomous vehicles.

"Thanks to its high resolution and ability to measure depth, this new camera could make virtual reality more realistic and let you interact with augmented reality information in a more seamless manner," said Edoardo Charbon from the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory (AQUALab) at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Charbon developed the idea for the new camera and is the founder and head of AQUALab, where the image sensor was designed.

In Optica, The Optical Society's (OSA) journal for high-impact research, the researchers describe how they created one of the smallest SPAD pixels ever devised and reduced the power consumption of each pixel to less than 1 microwatt while maintaining speed and timing precision. The new camera can acquire images at up to 24,000 frames per second. For comparison, 30 frames per second is the standard rate used to record video for television.

"For transportation applications, this new camera could help achieve unprecedented levels of autonomy and safety by enabling multiple low-power LiDAR devices to be used on a vehicle, providing fast, high-resolution 3D view of the surroundings," said first author, Kazuhiro Morimoto from Canon Inc. in Japan. "In a somewhat more distant future, quantum communication, sensing and computing could all benefit from photon-counting cameras with multi-megapixel resolution."

A new kind of sensor

In less than 20 years, SPAD sensors have advanced from a novelty to versions that are standard in most smartphone cameras and many household devices. This technology's success comes from the fact that SPAD sensors are extremely efficient at detecting single photons and converting them into electrical signals that are stored in a digital memory. A large format camera can be created by building an array of pixels that each contain a SPAD.

In the new work, the researchers drew on 15 years of SPAD research at the AQUALab in EPFL to create an extremely fast, high-resolution camera that leverages SPAD technology for advanced imaging. The new camera detects single photons and converts them into electrical signals at a record rate of about 150 million times per second. Each SPAD sensor can be finely controlled to allow light in for as little as 3.8 nanoseconds, roughly four billionth of a second. This quick 'shutter speed' can capture extremely fast motion or be used to increase the dynamic range -- the difference between the darkest and lightest tones -- of an acquired image.

The researchers created extremely small SPAD pixels and designed for low power consumption by using a feedback mechanism that almost immediately quenches the avalanche of electrons triggered by photon detection. This improves the overall performance and reliability of the pixels. They also used enhanced layout techniques to pack the SPAD sensors tighter, thus upping the detection area density and enabling a camera with a million pixels.

The researchers then applied sophisticated integrated circuit design techniques to create an extremely uniform distribution of fast electrical signals over the large-scale pixel array. They showed that the shutter speeds varied by only 3 percent over the million pixels, demonstrating that this sensor could feasibly be made using available mass-production techniques.

High-speed 3D imaging

The camera's speed makes it possible to measure the time a photon hits the sensor very precisely. This information can be used to calculate how long it takes individual photons to travel the distance from a source to the camera, known as time-of-flight. Combining time-of-flight information with the ability to capture a million pixels simultaneously enables extremely high-speed reconstruction of 3D images.

The researchers used the new camera to determine the time-of-flight of photons emitted from a laser source and reflected by a target. They also captured complex scenes that are difficult for other imaging techniques to measure, such as an object viewed through a partially transparent window, and they used the camera to acquire conventional pictures with unprecedented dynamic ranges. In future they plan to further improve the performance and timing resolution of the camera and to further miniaturize the components to make it more practical for a variety of applications.

What The Study Did: This randomized clinical trial compared blood pressure control after a heart attack among 200 patients who received either regular follow-up care of four visits to an outpatient clinic or who were given four smartphone-compatible devices (weight scale, blood pressure monitor, heart rhythm monitor and step counter) and had two care visits via a video connection and two outpatient clinic visits. There is a need for interventions that may help to improve patient compliance with guideline-based therapy following a heart attack.

Authors: Martin Jan Schalij, M.D., Ph.D., of the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, the Netherlands, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.2165)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the articles for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflicts of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Healthy soil should have abundant nitrogen to supply plant growth needs, but it should not all be in the inorganic fraction. Rather, organic nitrogen is the preferred storage warehouse from which soil microorganisms can decompose and release inorganic nitrogen to soil and then to plants. This system avoids leaching and volatile losses of nitrogen. Historically, scientists have had difficulty predicting how much nitrogen is made available to plants by soil biological activity due to time and resource constraints.

In an article in Agricultural and Environmental Letters, an experiment on five different soils determined the short-and long-term release of carbon and nitrogen via mineralization by soil microorganisms. Inorganic nitrogen accumulated rapidly in all soils during the first month, but at different rates. The total amount of inorganic nitrogen released for plant uptake during five months was different among soils, but the quantity was highly related to the short-term burst of microbial activity during the first three days of incubation, as determined from carbon dioxide production.

Soil-test biological activity (3 days) offers a simple, rapid, and robust indication of forthcoming soil nitrogen mineralization. The test will inform farmers of the important role that biologically active organic matter plays in soil health development, as well as increase their profitability.

A better framework for the reanalysis of genetic data, a game-changing process which could improve diagnostic rates by up to 32 per cent, was needed, a new study has found.

The research, led by the Murdoch Children's Research (MCRI) and the University of Melbourne and published in Familial Cancer, found considerable variation in the ways that reanalysis of patient data was initiated, which raised concerns about the responsibilities of laboratories and clinicians, as well as patients' abilities to advocate for themselves.

The reanalysis process sees laboratories re-run previously analysed genomic data to check for new genes associated with particular conditions and also new variants in genes previously reported.

Lead researcher MCRI's Dr Danya Vears said previous studies have shown that despite the high diagnostic yield associated with genomic sequencing (up to 68 per cent depending on the genetic condition), a sizable proportion of patients still do not receive a genetic diagnosis at the time of the initial analysis.

Dr Vears said reanalysis of genomic sequencing data could potentially change treatment or management, particularly in rare disease and inherited cancer cases. Yet, there is currently no onus on laboratories to reanalyse data.

"Studies show that systematic data reanalysis leads to considerable increases in genetic diagnosis rates between 4 and 32 per cent. Yet it is time intensive and is not currently feasible for most laboratories to implement," she said.

"Few policies address whether laboratories have a duty to reanalyse and it is unclear until now how this has impacted clinical practice."

The study interviewed 31 genetic health professionals (genetic counsellors and clinical geneticists) across Europe, Australia and Canada about their experiences with data reanalysis and reinterpretation practices after requesting genomic sequencing for their patients. It identified that a combination of patient-, clinician-, and laboratory-initiated reanalysis practice models, were used to trigger reanalysis of patient data.

Dr Vears said the most common was a patient-initiated model, where clinicians instruct patients to return to the genetic service for reassessment after a period of time or if new information came to light.

"Some of our participants felt that this system was working quite well and that patients were returning," she said.

"Yet others raised questions around patients' abilities to proactively request this service. This could be due to their lack of understanding of what a negative result might mean or because it places additional pressure on patients or families to remember to return when they are already dealing with a complex medical situation."

Genetic health professionals felt a laboratory-initiated model would be ideal, but many acknowledged the technology to make this a reality was not yet available. None of the participants indicated that reanalysis within their service relied solely on the clinician to initiate the process.

Dr Vears said, in many cases, the initiation of reanalysis did not have a clear pathway and could occur through multiple channels, which could lead to confusion.

"Regardless of the model that a genetic service adopts, roles and responsibilities need to be clearly outlined so patients do not miss the opportunity to receive ongoing information about their genetic diagnosis," she said.

Dr Vears said translating the power of genomic sequencing from the research context into clinical care was currently one of the major goals of researchers and health-care providers, particularly in areas such as rare disease and inherited cancers.