Tech

WASHINGTON, DC--A major new study by an interdisciplinary team of researchers finds that it is possible--and critical--to bring industrial greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2070. Published Sunday in Applied Energy, the study assesses the range of technologies and policies interventions available to enable global industry decarbonization. This paper was the result of a collaboration among almost two dozen leading technical experts, led by Jeffrey Rissman of Energy Innovation and coauthored by Dallas Burtraw of REsources for the Future (RFF).

The industrial sector was responsible for 33 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2014 (including process emissions and indirect emissions from purchased electricity). Therefore, cutting emissions from this sector is critical to meeting international climate goals, such as those set by the Paris Agreement.

"There are promising technical approaches to dramatically reduce industrial emissions, such as improved energy and material efficiency, as well as increased use of electricity and hydrogen," says Rissman. "Smart, ambitious policy will be necessary to accelerate deployment of these technologies and achieve zero industrial emissions by 2070."

The paper finds that governments can accelerate research and development (R&D) in sustainable manufacturing and incentivize new technology deployment and market scale-up through policy mechanisms such as R&D support, emissions standards, carbon pricing, and government procurement of low-carbon materials and industrial products.

"Industry has many opportunities to reduce emissions, but firms can rarely act alone. Policies like carbon pricing and performance standards are essential to coordinate this effort." says Burtraw. "Deep mid-century decarbonization goals require private sector and government partnership."

The paper also finds that, when used together, the right technologies and policies enable net zero industrial greenhouse gas emissions by 2070. It particularly examines the role of the following technologies, innovation areas, and policy interventions that can be part of the emissions reduction strategy:

Electrification, use of hydrogen, energy efficiency, and carbon capture

Material efficiency, longevity, re-use, material substitution, and recycling

Specific technologies for iron and steel, cement, and chemicals and plastics

Carbon pricing, research support, standards, government purchases, data disclosure

The causes of 40 percent of all cases of certain medulloblastoma - dangerous brain tumors affecting children - are hereditary. These are the findings of a recent genetic analysis carried out by scientists from the Hopp Children's Cancer Center (KiTZ), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and numerous colleagues around the world, which have just been published in the scientific journal Nature. A genetic defect that occurs in 15 percent of these children plays a key role by destabilizing the production and breakdown of proteins. The researchers suspect that protein metabolism defects could be a previously underestimated cause of other types of cancer.

The "Hopp Children's Cancer Center Heidelberg" (KiTZ) is a joint institution of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) and Heidelberg University.

Medulloblastoma are among the most common malignant brain tumors affecting children. They spread from the cerebellum to the surrounding tissue and can also spread to other parts of the central nervous system via the cerebrospinal fluid. Because these tumors grow rapidly, physicians do not have much time to find a suitable treatment.

Physicians at the Hopp Children's Cancer Center (KiTZ) specialize in characterizing the molecular properties of children's cancers in order to be able to recommend other treatment options besides standard therapies, and to develop new therapies with a focus on the mode of action.

Together with colleagues from EMBL, the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) and the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, USA, the KiTZ researchers conducted the most comprehensive medulloblastoma-related genetic investigation to date. They analyzed the genome and tumor genome of 800 children, young people and adults with medulloblastoma and compared the genetic data with data from healthy individuals. In doing so, they came across a particularly striking hereditary difference in children and young people with brain tumors in the Sonic Hedgehog medulloblastoma subgroup.

A hereditary genetic defect in 15 percent of cases meant that patients were no longer able to produce the elongator complex protein 1 (ELP1) in the tumor. The elongator complex protein is involved in ensuring that proteins are properly assembled and folded in line with the genetic code. The latest findings show that, without ELP1, much of the protein metabolism is disturbed: "The assembly and folding of larger proteins in particular does not function properly any more, and the accumulation of these non-functioning or malfunctioning proteins places the cells under permanent stress," says KiTZ Director Stefan Pfister, who is a head of department at the DKFZ and an expert in targeted therapies within the DKTK. "Hundreds of proteins are misregulated in this way, including proteins that are important for nerve cell development."

By analyzing the genome of some parents and grandparents, the researchers also established that the cancer-activating ELP1 genetic defect is hereditary. "That makes this the most common congenital genetic defect associated with medulloblastoma to date", says Jan Korbel, a co-author of the study who works at EMBL. Lead author Sebastian Waszak adds: "The latest results show that around 40 percent of children and young people who suffer from this subtype of medulloblastoma have a congenital genetic predisposition for it. That is a much higher proportion than we had assumed." Identifying hereditary causes of cancer in advance can help to make the right therapeutic decision and reduce the risk of relapse in children. "For example, in the case of a hereditary predisposition for DNA breaks, certain chemotherapies or radiotherapy can lead to secondary tumors. In such cases, the first disease should not be treated too aggressively," says Stefan Pfister.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- As novel coronavirus cases continue to increase across the nation, health professionals on the front lines face frightening realities, rising anxiety and the very real potential for burnout.

"Health care providers are under tremendous pressure right now," said Dr. Jud Brewer, director of research and innovation at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University. "Physician burnout was already reaching 'epidemic' proportions before this pandemic hit."

In fact, a 2014 study found that nearly half of all physicians experience significant symptoms of burnout, and further research suggests that the risk is particularly high for those who perceive that they aren't in control of what unfolds around them. Theoretically, this perceived lack of control leads to anxiety, which can then lead to burnout.

Brewer and his colleagues worked to address these conditions with a smartphone-app mindfulness training program called Unwinding Anxiety. They examined the app's effects in a pilot study of 34 physicians, which appeared in JMIR mHealth and uHealth on Wednesday, April 1. The study was the first to test the effectiveness of an app-based mindfulness program as an intervention for anxiety in physicians.

"Clinicians need effective tools to help them reduce anxiety and burnout," Brewer said. "Digital therapeutics are an ideal solution because people can use them in small doses, at home, on their own schedule. The app-based mindfulness training that we studied does just that: It provides short daily trainings -- about 10 minutes per day -- that people can access from their smartphone, and it gives them tools they can use throughout the day."

The app aimed to reduce anxiety by helping users recognize maladaptive thought patterns and become less reactive to anxious thoughts. And it worked. Three months after using the app for 30 days, participants exhibited a 57% decrease in anxiety scores.

Brewer and his colleagues also found clear links between anxiety and certain aspects of burnout -- cynicism and emotional exhaustion -- which suggests that the app could effectively treat burnout as well. Sure enough, at the three-month follow-up, participants exhibited a 50% decrease in cynicism and a 20% decrease in emotional exhaustion.

"These results provide clear implications that this mindfulness-based digital therapeutic may be a useful tool for busy clinicians to both reduce anxiety and help build resilience against getting burnt out," Brewer said.

He and his colleagues are already at work on the next steps: a randomized controlled trial of app-based mindfulness training for broader populations.

"The pharmaceutical industry hasn't released any new anti-anxiety medications in decades and to my knowledge has no new drugs in the pipeline," he said. "We need effective treatments, especially those that can be widely disseminated at low cost. Digital therapeutics, like app-based treatments, are the next wave of treatment."

Tobacco smoking has been identified as a major risk factor for developing Coronavirus (COVID-19) and complications that may arise as a result.1 In addition, second-hand smoke increases the risk of acute respiratory infections.2 Therefore, official advice is for people to stop smoking tobacco to minimize the risks associated with the current Coronavirus pandemic1. This information may feel alarming and anxiety inducing for people who currently smoke. However, there are evidence-based ways to increase the chances of successfully quitting.

Cochrane has created this Special Collection of existing Cochrane Systematic Reviews that summarize evidence for people wishing to give up smoking and for those helping them to give up. The Cochrane Reviews focus on interventions that are feasible under public health measures that restrict face to face contact with health practitioners. Given the risks of smoking during this pandemic, it is important to provide information that will help people to maximize their chances of success.

The Cochrane Special Collection, COVID-19: Effective options for quitting smoking during the pandemic, includes Cochrane Reviews on nicotine replacement, behavioural support such as telephone, internet and text messaging programmes, and gradual quitting. This is one of several Special Collections relevant to COVID-19, other recently published collections include evidence relevant to critical care and infection control and prevention measures.

Cochrane author, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, from Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford in the UK said, "There is a wealth of evidence on the best ways to stop smoking. The evidence suggests people who smoke should use a combination of stop smoking medicines and behavioural support to give them the best chances of success.3 Options may be limited at this time, but there are ways to boost chances of quitting smoking that don't involve face-to-face contact or prescriptions. This Special Collection pulls together the evidence Cochrane has on this topic, to help health professionals advise people and for quitters to use to inform their own decisions."

Cochrane author, Nicola Lindson, also from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, UK, said "Anxiety and depression improve as a result of quitting smoking,4 so there is good reason to hang on in there when the going gets tough in trying to give up. If one method doesn't work, don't be discouraged - evidence shows some people need to try to quit many times before successfully doing so. Just because you haven't been able to quit smoking before, doesn't mean you won't be able to now."

Cochrane Editor in Chief, Karla Soares-Weiser, added, "Cochrane is helping to build up the evidence base for those healthcare workers and policymakers working on the COVID-19 global response. We have a series of Special Collections being produced and shared with global decision makers. Smoking during the pandemic is associated with risks of contracting coronavirus and complications arising from it. This Collection is particularly helpful for people looking to give up smoking and those helping others to give up."

For freely available reviews related to the coronavirus visit Cochrane's COVID-19 Resources page. Additional research is available on Wiley's COVID-19 Hub.

The Common Nightingale, known for its beautiful song, breeds in Europe and parts of Asia and migrates to sub-Saharan Africa every winter. A new study published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances suggests that natural selection driven by climate change is causing these iconic birds to evolve shorter wings, which might make them less likely to survive their annual migration.

Complutense University of Madrid's Carolina Remacha and Javier Pérez-Tris and their colleagues analyzed twenty years of data on wing shape variation and survival in two populations of nightingales from central Spain. They found that nightingales' average wing length relative to their body size has decreased over the past two decades, becoming less optimal for migration. Shorter-winged birds were less likely to return to their breeding grounds after their first round-trip to Africa. But if this change in wing length is negatively affecting survival, what is driving it?

The "migratory gene package" hypothesis predicts that a suite of adaptations related to migration -- including a long wingspan as well as a higher resting metabolic rate, larger clutch size, and shorter lifespan -- may all be controlled by a set of genes that are linked so that selective pressures on one trait also affect the others. In recent decades, the timing of spring has shifted in central Spain and summer droughts have become longer and more intense, leaving nightingales with a shorter window in which to raise their young. This means the most successful birds may be those that lay smaller clutches of eggs, giving them fewer young to care for. And if natural selection is favoring smaller clutches, it may simultaneously push nightingales away from all of the linked traits in the "migratory gene package."

Natural selection on clutch size that inadvertently leads to shorter wings and, therefore, reduced survival is an example of "maladaptation," where organisms' responses to changing conditions end up being harmful instead of helpful. "There is much evidence that climate change is having an effect on migratory birds, changing their arrival and laying dates and their physical features over the last few decades," says lead author Carolina Remacha. "If we are to fully understand how bird populations adapt to new environments in order to help them tackle the challenges of a rapidly changing world, it is important to call attention to the potential problems of maladaptive change."

Horseshoe crabs are remarkable animals, beautiful in their weirdness. These "living fossils" evolved 450 million years ago and have lived through at least five mass extinctions fatal to the majority of multicellular lifeforms on Earth. Sea-dwelling relatives of spiders, horseshoe crabs can lay millions of eggs, have four pairs of eyes, and (importantly to us) have blue blood containing amoeba-like immune cells. These horseshoe crab immune cells are analogous to the white blood cells of in our bodies, which protect us against a wide range of pathogens.

Few people are aware that these cells from horseshoe crabs, called amebocytes, are indispensable for modern medicine. They are the only known source of Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL), a reagent extraordinarily sensitive to the liposaccharide toxins produced by Gram-negative bacteria, which are responsible for 80% of cases of life-threatening sepsis in humans.

Each year, around 11 million people die from sepsis worldwide. Since its approval by the FDA in 1977, the LAL assay has been the standard test for contamination of medical devices by Gram-negative bacteria.

But every attempt to use LAL to detect these bacteria in the blood of human patients has failed so far, due to the presence of substances in blood that inhibit the test. Combined with concerns about the impacts of harvesting horseshoe crabs for LAL production, the medical community has had two major problems to overcome with this technique. But new research in Frontiers in Marine Science may have found the answer.

"We wanted to find a way to keep horseshoe crabs healthy in the laboratory, in such a way that we could regularly and reliably obtain LAL from them for medical tests while safeguarding their wellbeing as much as possible. Now that we have managed this, harvesting them from the ocean won't be necessary anymore," says Lee Robertson, Director of Scientific Communication and Operations at Kepley BioSystems. This team worked in collaboration with researchers from the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Robertson also emphasizes, "We also show that LAL from healthy and well-fed horseshoe crabs in aquaculture is of a higher quality, which for the first time makes it possible to do quick, affordable, and precise LAL assays on specially treated human blood."

These are welcome results for human patients at risk of life-threatening sepsis, and also for horseshoe crabs, since current harvesting practices are hardly sustainable.

Every year, up to 600,000 individuals of the Atlantic horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus are harvested in the USA alone for transport to the laboratory, bleeding to extract amebocytes for LAL production, and subsequent return to the ocean. Unless they die from the procedure, which has an estimated mortality rate of 30%. L. polyphemus are typically harvested during the spawning season (May-June), when they are extra vulnerable due to the stress of mating and reproduction.

These practices put considerable pressure on wild populations, already classified as a vulnerable species at risk from habitat fragmentation, global warming, and harvesting as feedstock for eels and whelks. But thanks to the new method described here, amebocytes can be extracted up to 24 times per year from L. polyphemus kept long-term in aquaculture, abolishing the need to harvest them from the ocean.

The authors calculate that a single cohort of 45,000 L. polyphemus in aquaculture would yield enough LAL for all current needs, and even allow its use in new clinical applications - in particular for rapid sterility tests on human blood.

In order to achieve this new method, the team developed a recirculating aquaculture system to house L. Polyphemus. To enable regular extraction of amebocytes, they were gently immobilized (while bathing their gills in saltwater), while a capped intravascular catheter was implanted through the pericardial membranes under sterile conditions. Every effort was made to safeguard their wellbeing as much as possible: the entire procedure had a zero mortality rate, and the animals displayed the full range of natural behaviors in aquaculture while maintaining their body weight. Regular body checks and biochemical and cell composition analysis of their blood further proved that they remained healthy throughout.

"This study offered tremendous opportunity to improve conditions of a threatened animal species that is intrinsically linked with human health," says Dr Rachel Tinker-Kulberg, the study's lead author.

"With a carefully developed diet and rigorous monitoring, we were excited to see the health parameters and blood quality respond positively. We have a significant advantage over current LAL collection methods in that our aquaculture-derived LAL has less batch-to-batch variability and it is a more sustainable approach that will yield more reliable and higher quality product. The horseshoe crabs continue to be lively and active in their new environment and even laid eggs."

Tests showed that LAL produced from L. polyphemus in aquaculture tends to have a higher activity than lyophilized and preserved LAL from commercial kits. This suggests that this fresh LAL has a greater concentration of clotting factors necessary for defense against disease-causing bacteria, presumably because animals in aquaculture are better fed and healthier.

The results show that LAL derived from aquaculture can be reliably used to detect endotoxins in human blood. The new blood assay - described in greater detail in an upcoming study by the same authors - was sufficiently sensitive to detect toxins across the clinically relevant range of 1 - 500,000 Colony-Forming Units (CFU) per ml blood.

"LAL has never before been used for patient diagnostics due to cross-reactivity and inhibitors in human blood. Using high quality and potent LAL from aquaculture, we have now developed a method that makes blood samples compatible with the LAL assay, allowing it for the first time to be used in early, potentially life-saving detection of bacteria and fungi in blood," says Dr Anthony Dellinger, President of Kepley BioSystems.

"Infectious disease is in our daily headlines and blood-borne bacterial infections leading to sepsis is the number one cause of untimely deaths worldwide. Humanity has now entered an era of pathogenic contagion that demands diagnostic and therapeutic breakthroughs of note. Our aquaculture method not only spares at-risk populations of horseshoe crabs: it also yields LAL that can finally be used in a quick, affordable, and ultra-sensitive assay for the early stages of sepsis, when time is of the essence for saving patients' lives."

Japan -- Researchers led by Kyoto University have reconstituted the human 'segmentation clock' -- a key focus of embryonic development research -- using induced pluripotent stem cells, iPSCs.

From the first division of a fertilized egg, a complex network of proteins and genes push-and-pull on each other to construct the pattern of cells that form our organs. Like the pendulum on a clock, each swing and pulse needs to carefully align, to maintain the rhythm that forms life.

However, much of our understanding on early human development is exceedingly limited, a key reason being the lack of experimental models that can reproduce these complex biological processes.

"For example, a process called 'somitogenesis' begins about 20 days after fertilization in humans. This is when the embryo develops distinct segments called 'somites' and determines the basic segmented pattern of the body," explains team leader Cantas Alev from Kyoto University's Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology, ASHBi. "Somites eventually contribute to the formation of the vertebrae and ribs."

Emergence of somites is determined by the 'segmentation clock', a genetic oscillator that controls and guides their emergence. While segmentation clock genes and their role in development have been studied in mice, chicks, and zebrafish, almost nothing is known about them in humans.

A way of addressing this problem is to reconstruct the clock using stem cells. In their paper published in Nature, a team consisting of members from ASHBi, Kyoto University's Center for iPS Cell and Research Application, and RIKEN focused on using human iPS cells to form the 'pre-somitic mesoderm', the precursor cells of somites.

"We began by mimicking the signaling pathways active during early development. Applying our knowledge in embryology, we succeeded in generating a culture of pre-somitic mesoderm, or PSM, along with its progeny," continues Alev. "Studying the genes that were being expressed in a rhythmic pattern showed not only that they oscillated with a period of five hours, but also revealed the novel genetic components of the 'segmentation clock' we were looking for."

In addition to the simple oscillation of genes, the team also replicated a second hallmark of the segmentation clock, a 'wave' of expression. Using gene-editing technology, they then assessed the function of the key genes related to spine deformation.

As expected, mutations in these genes dramatically altered aspects of the segmentation clock including synchronization and oscillation. They then went further by generating iPS cells from patients with aforementioned genetic defects, identified the mutations involved, and corrected them.

The study demonstrates how elegantly iPS cells can be used to recapitulate distinct aspects of human embryonic development and other complex biological processes.

"Like many developmental biologists I am fascinated by embryos and embryonic development. The elegance and beauty by how complex organs and tissues are formed from very simple initial structures is astounding. I hope to reconstruct and analyze many other aspects of embryonic development, and expand our still limited understanding of human and non-human development."

This is a combined press release between EMBL, the Hopp Children's Cancer Center Heidelberg and the German Cancer Consortium.

Medulloblastomas are among the most common malignant brain tumours affecting children. They spread from the cerebellum to the surrounding tissue and can also spread to other parts of the central nervous system via the cerebrospinal fluid. Because these tumours grow rapidly, physicians do not have much time to find a suitable treatment.

Researchers from EMBL, together with colleagues from Hopp Children's Cancer Center Heidelberg (KiTZ), the German Cancer Consortium, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have conducted the most comprehensive medulloblastoma-related genetic investigation to date. "We analysed the genome and tumour genome of 800 children, adolescents, and adults with medulloblastoma and compared the genetic data with data from healthy individuals," explains lead author Dr. Sebastian Waszak from EMBL, who was also part of the EMBL led Pan-Cancer project.

In characterising the molecular properties of medulloblastoma, the scientists hope to be able to recommend other treatment options besides standard therapies, and to develop new therapies with a focus on the mode of action. In analysing the healthy and mutated genome, they came across a particularly striking hereditary difference in children and young people with brain tumours in the so-called Sonic Hedgehog medulloblastoma subgroup.

A hereditary genetic defect in 15 percent of cases meant that tumours were no longer able to produce the elongator complex protein 1 (ELP1). This protein is involved in ensuring that other proteins are properly assembled and folded in line with the genetic code. The latest findings show that, without ELP1, much of the protein production in tumours is disturbed: "The assembly and folding of larger proteins in particular does not function properly any more, and the accumulation of these non-functioning or malfunctioning proteins places the cells under permanent stress," says KiTZ Director Dr. Stefan Pfister. "Hundreds of proteins are misregulated in this way, including proteins that are important for nerve cell development."

By analysing the genomes of some of the parents and grandparents of study participants, the researchers also established that this novel genetic disease is hereditary. "That makes this the most common congenital genetic defect associated with medulloblastoma to date," says Dr. Jan Korbel, a co-author of the study and group leader at EMBL Heidelberg. Sebastian Waszak, now a group leader at the Norwegian node of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine, adds: "The latest results show that around 40 percent of children and young people who suffer from this subtype of medulloblastoma have a congenital genetic predisposition for it. That is a much higher proportion than we had assumed."

Identifying hereditary causes of cancer in advance can help to make the right therapeutic decision and can reduce the risk of relapse in children. "For example, in the case of a hereditary predisposition for DNA breaks, certain chemotherapies or radiotherapy can lead to secondary tumours. In such cases, the first disease should not be treated too aggressively," says Stefan Pfister.

UPTON, NY--For years physicists have been trying to decipher the electronic details of high-temperature superconductors. These materials could revolutionize energy transmission and electronics because of their ability to carry electric current with no energy loss when cooled below a certain temperature. Details of "high-Tc" superconductors' microscopic electronic structure could reveal how different phases (states of matter) compete or interact with superconductivity--a state in which like-charged electrons somehow overcome their repulsion to pair up and flow freely. The ultimate goal is to understand how to make these materials act as superconductors without the need for supercooling.

Now scientists studying high-Tc superconductors at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have definitive evidence for the existence of a state of matter known as a pair density wave--first predicted by theorists some 50 years ago. Their results, published in the journal Nature, show that this phase coexists with superconductivity in a well-known bismuth-based copper-oxide superconductor.

"This is the first direct spectroscopic evidence that the pair density wave exists at zero magnetic field," said Kazuhiro Fujita, the physicist who led the research at Brookhaven Lab. "We've identified that the pair density wave plays an important role in this material. Our results show that these two states of matter--pair density wave and superconductivity--coexist and interact."

The team's results come from measurements of single electrons' tunneling spectra using a state-of-the-art spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunneling microscope (SI-STM) in Brookhaven's OASIS laboratory.

"What we measure is how many electrons at a given location 'tunnel' from the sample surface to the superconducting electrode tip of the SI-STM and vice versa as we vary the energy (voltage) between the sample and the tip," Fujita said. "With those measurements we can map out the crystalline lattice and the electron density of states--as well as the number of electrons we have at a given location."

When the material is not superconducting, electrons exist over a continuous spectrum of energies, each propagating at its own unique wavelength. But when the temperature goes down, the electrons start to interact--pairing up as the material enters the superconducting state. When this happens, scientists observe a gap in the energy spectrum, created by an absence of electrons within that particular energy range.

"The energy of the gap is equal to the energy it takes to break the electron pairs apart (which tells you how tightly bound they were)," Fujita said.

As the scientists scanned across the surface of the material, they detected spatially modulating energy gap structures. These modulations in the energy gap revealed that the strength of electrons' binding varies--increasing to a maximum, then dipping to a minimum--with this pattern repeating every eight atoms across the surface of the regularly arrayed crystal lattice.

This work built on previous measurements showing that the current created by pairs of electrons tunneling into the microscope also varied in the same periodic way. Those modulations in current were the first evidence, though somewhat circumstantial, that the pair density wave was present.

"Modulations in the current of the paired electrons is an indicator that there are modulations in how strongly paired the electrons are across the surface. But this time, by measuring the energy spectrum of individual electrons, we succeeded in directly measuring the modulating gap in the spectra where pairing occurs. The modulations in the size of those gaps is direct spectroscopic evidence that the pair density wave state exists," Fujita said.

The new results also included evidence of other key signatures of the pair density wave--including defects called "half-vortices"--as well as its interactions with the superconducting phase.

In addition, the energy gap modulations mirror other Brookhaven Lab research indicating the existence of modulating patterns of electronic and magnetic characteristics--sometimes referred to as "stripes"--that also occur with an eight-unit-cell periodicity in certain high-Tc cuprate superconductors.

"Together these findings indicate that the pair density wave plays a significant role in these materials' superconducting properties. Understanding this state may help us make sense of the complex phase diagram that maps out how superconducting properties emerge under different conditions, including temperature, magnetic field, and charge-carrier density," Fujita said.

Researchers have found evidence of rainforests near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the climate was exceptionally warm at the time.

A team from the UK and Germany discovered forest soil from the Cretaceous period within 900 km of the South Pole. Their analysis of the preserved roots, pollen and spores shows that the world at that time was a lot warmer than previously thought.

The discovery and analysis were carried out by an international team of researchers led by geoscientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany and including Imperial College London researchers. Their findings are published today in Nature.

Co-author Professor Tina van de Flierdt, from the Department of Earth Science & Engineering at Imperial, said: "The preservation of this 90-million-year-old forest is exceptional, but even more surprising is the world it reveals. Even during months of darkness, swampy temperate rainforests were able to grow close to the South Pole, revealing an even warmer climate than we expected."

The work also suggests that the carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere were higher than expected during the mid-Cretaceous period, 115-80 million years ago, challenging climate models of the period.

The mid-Cretaceous was the heyday of the dinosaurs but was also the warmest period in the past 140 million years, with temperatures in the tropics as high as 35 degrees Celsius and sea level 170 metres higher than today.

However, little was known about the environment south of the Antarctic Circle at this time. Now, researchers have discovered evidence of a temperate rainforest in the region, such as would be found in New Zealand today. This was despite a four-month polar night, meaning for a third of every year there was no life-giving sunlight at all.

The presence of the forest suggests average temperatures were around 12 degrees Celsius and that there was unlikely to be an ice cap at the South Pole at the time.

The evidence for the Antarctic forest comes from a core of sediment drilled into the seabed near the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers in West Antarctica. One section of the core, that would have originally been deposited on land, caught the researchers' attention with its strange colour.

The team CT-scanned the section of the core and discovered a dense network of fossil roots, which was so well preserved that they could make out individual cell structures. The sample also contained countless traces of pollen and spores from plants, including the first remnants of flowering plants ever found at these high Antarctic latitudes.

To reconstruct the environment of this preserved forest, the team assessed the climatic conditions under which the plants' modern descendants live, as well as analysing temperature and precipitation indicators within the sample.

They found that the annual mean air temperature was around 12 degrees Celsius; roughly two degrees warmer than the mean temperature in Germany today. Average summer temperatures were around 19 degrees Celsius; water temperatures in the rivers and swamps reached up to 20 degrees; and the amount and intensity of rainfall in West Antarctica were similar to those in today's Wales.

To get these conditions, the researchers conclude that 90 million years ago the Antarctic continent was covered with dense vegetation, there were no land-ice masses on the scale of an ice sheet in the South Pole region, and the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was far higher than previously assumed for the Cretaceous.

Lead author Dr Johann Klages, from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, said: "Before our study, the general assumption was that the global carbon dioxide concentration in the Cretaceous was roughly 1000 ppm. But in our model-based experiments, it took concentration levels of 1120 to 1680 ppm to reach the average temperatures back then in the Antarctic."

In many regions of the world, farming must be done on areas of soil categorized as histosols. Histosols have a thick layer of rich organic matter, called peat.

Scientists are concerned, because farming can cause these soils to lose valuable carbon.

That's where Jacynthe Dessureault-Rompre? and her team at Laval University in Canada come in. She is trying to show that histosols can be sustainably used for farming.

To do this, the research team performed a two-step experiment that involved adding different kinds of plant material to the soil. Their work is similar to how a backyard gardener may add compost to soil to add nutrients that have been lost.

"The first objective was to get a better understanding of plant material decomposition," Dessureault-Rompre? says. "We looked at decomposition qualities of specific plant materials and how these affected long-term carbon stores in the soil. The second objective was to determine which plant performed best based on simulations of the long-term soil carbon storage."

Carbon in these soils is lost by erosion, tillage and a natural process called mineralization. The carbon is released from the soil as carbon dioxide, a harmful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

For their first experiment, the team used three common biomass crops: sorghum, miscanthus, and willow. They put plant material from these crops inside permeable bags and placed the bags directly in the soil.

Then, they analyzed which plant materials had the best decomposition characteristics. The ones that broke down slowly are the best for storing carbon in the soil longer.

"The field decomposition study gave us data on what happened to the three different plant materials over a period of 17 months," Dessureault-Rompre? says. "A good candidate is a crop that will last longer in the soil because the buildup of the carbon stock will be more efficient, therefore you need less biomass applied each year. The stability characteristics of the plant material are very important."

Next, researchers used decomposition data to simulate how much each plant would help the soil over a long period of time. They found that miscanthus and willow performed much better than sorghum. They also calculated amounts of the plants that would help the soils be the most sustainable.

"If you have a crop such as miscanthus that decomposes less than sorghum, the buildup over the years is much more efficient," she explains. "The simulation part added a new perspective because we were then able to see that carbon equilibrium is something that can be achieved. It was fantastic to see that adding plant material year after year allows farmers to overcome the carbon lost during farming in histosols."

She adds that it is hard to estimate when these farmers could adopt this practice. However, it's possible that within the next 10 years, this new soil conservation practice could be used by farmers.

While many scientists don't think histosols should be used for farming, many of the farmers have no choice. For the agricultural community, processing facilities and distribution services to make a living, farmers must grow crops on the land available to them.

The findings from Dessureault-Rompre? and her team are important for easing concerns. This research demonstrates that it is possible to farm these soils sustainably.

"I was afraid this research would be criticized because it is a very new way of looking at crop production on these very special soils," she says. "Many scientists believe that cultivated histosols should be brought back to their natural state or that the degradation process of these soil is irreversible. But this project really aims to develop a sustainable way of growing high value crops on these soils."

Read more about this research in the Soil Science Society of America Journal. This work was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through a Collaborative Research and Development Grant.

An analysis based on mathematical statistics more precise than those previously carried out uncovered the reason why powdery mildew fungi on Åland are most abundant in roadsides and crossings. Identified as the specific cause was that traffic raises the spores found on roadsides efficiently into the air.

New statistical methods make it possible to identify complex mechanisms in nature that could potentially fundamentally alter our understanding of how diseases spread, among other things.

A recently published study utilised a comprehensive monitoring dataset on fungal diseases and the environmental variables affecting their distribution, collected over several years on Åland by Anna-Liisa Laine, professor of ecology at the University of Helsinki. The findings were published in the PLoS Computational Biology journal.

"Consolidating data collected on the road network, plants and the occurrence of plant diseases is no simple task. It required both new kinds of statistical models and computing power, which were not available only roughly ten years ago," says postdoctoral researcher Elina Numminen from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki.

With the adapted statistical model, the researchers were also able to demonstrate how epidemics caused by powdery mildew fungi were usually more extensive and persistent when originating in roadsides compared to epidemics originating in meadows or elsewhere further away from roads.

Plant diseases are common among both wild and cultivated plants, with many plants having a specific powdery mildew fungus of their own. For instance, in the autumn symptoms of such diseases are in evidence on the leaves of many trees.

In this study, the researchers examined on the Åland Islands a powdery mildew fungus that is a common parasite of the ribwort plantain. The fungus is primarily dispersed by wind in the summer, as the small fungal spores fly from one plant to another. To the naked eye, the infection appears as white fungal spore growth covering the plant.

Rivers, ocean currents and forest paths also potential routes of transmission

The researchers are interested in disease transmission, as it helps explain the occurrence and biology of diseases. There are plant diseases that spread along riversides, bird migration routes, ocean currents or, for example, air traffic networks, much like human diseases that spread through social networks.

The transmission process determines the abundance and location of occurrence, while the method of transmission determines how the diversity of the disease branches off temporally and spatially, and, in the end, how the disease evolves through natural selection.

Typically, diseases that spread very efficiently and over long distances do not evolve to adapt well to local conditions. They make do in a range of environments and potentially are more harmful to their hosts. On the other hand, there are diseases that spread less efficiently and over shorter distances.

"New techniques in statistical ecology can significantly expand our previous understanding of not only plant diseases but also, say, the distribution of various invasive or threatened species," Numminen notes. What is more, this makes them essential to predicting future environmental change. According to Numminen, distribution and strain estimates may be based on very simple statistical analyses, whose reliability could be boosted by an injection of ecological realism.

PITTSBURGH--Normally, it takes pricey equipment and expertise to create an accurate 3D reconstruction of someone's face that's realistic and doesn't look creepy. Now, Carnegie Mellon University researchers have pulled off the feat using video recorded on an ordinary smartphone.

Using a smartphone to shoot a continuous video of the front and sides of the face generates a dense cloud of data. A two-step process developed by CMU's Robotics Institute uses that data, with some help from deep learning algorithms, to build a digital reconstruction of the face. The team's experiments show that their method can achieve sub-millimeter accuracy, outperforming other camera-based processes.

A digital face might be used to build an avatar for gaming or for virtual or augmented reality, and could also be used in animation, biometric identification and even medical procedures. An accurate 3D rendering of the face might also be useful in building customized surgical masks or respirators.

"Building a 3D reconstruction of the face has been an open problem in computer vision and graphics because people are very sensitive to the look of facial features," said Simon Lucey, an associate research professor in the Robotics Institute. "Even slight anomalies in the reconstructions can make the end result look unrealistic."

Laser scanners, structured light and multicamera studio setups can produce highly accurate scans of the face, but these specialized sensors are prohibitively expensive for most applications. CMU's newly developed method, however, requires only a smartphone.

The method, which Lucey developed with master's students Shubham Agrawal and Anuj Pahuja, was presented in early March at the IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV) in Snowmass, Colorado. It begins with shooting 15-20 seconds of video. In this case, the researchers used an iPhone X in the slow-motion setting.

"The high frame rate of slow motion is one of the key things for our method because it generates a dense point cloud," Lucey said.

The researchers then employ a commonly used technique called visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Visual SLAM triangulates points on a surface to calculate its shape, while at the same time using that information to determine the position of the camera. This creates an initial geometry of the face, but missing data leave gaps in the model.

In the second step of this process, the researchers work to fill in those gaps, first by using deep learning algorithms. Deep learning is used in a limited way, however: it identifies the person's profile and landmarks such as ears, eyes and nose. Classical computer vision techniques are then used to fill in the gaps.

"Deep learning is a powerful tool that we use every day," Lucey said. "But deep learning has a tendency to memorize solutions," which works against efforts to include distinguishing details of the face. "If you use these algorithms just to find the landmarks, you can use classical methods to fill in the gaps much more easily."

The method isn't necessarily quick; it took 30-40 minutes of processing time. But the entire process can be performed on a smartphone.

In addition to face reconstructions, the CMU team's methods might also be employed to capture the geometry of almost any object, Lucey said. Digital reconstructions of those objects can then be incorporated into animations or perhaps transmitted across the internet to sites where the objects could be duplicated with 3D printers.

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science, a part of The University of Tokyo, demonstrated a novel artificial intelligence system that can find and label 2D materials in microscope images in the blink of an eye. This work can help shorten the time required for 2D material-based electronics to be ready for consumer devices.

Two-dimensional materials offer an exciting new platform for the creation of electronic devices, such as transistors and light-emitting diodes. The family of crystals that can be made just one atom thick include metals, semiconductors, and insulators. Many of these are stable under ambient conditions, and their properties often different significantly from those of their 3D counterparts. Even stacking a few layers together can alter the electronic characteristics to make them suitable for next-generation batteries, smartphone screens, detectors, and solar cells. And perhaps even more amazing: you can make some yourself using office supplies. The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the realization that atomically thin "graphene" can be obtained by exfoliating piece of pencil lead, graphite, with a piece of sticky scotch tape.

So, what keeps you from making your own electronic devices at work between meetings? Unfortunately, the atomically thin 2D crystals have low fabrication yields and their optical contrasts comprise a very broad range, and finding them under a microscope is a tedious job.

Now, a team led by The University of Tokyo has succeeded in automating this task using machine learning. The used many labeled examples with various lighting to train the computer to detect the outline and thickness of the flakes without having to fine tune the microscope parameters. "By using machine learning instead of conventional rule-based detection algorithms, our system was robust to changing conditions," says first author Satoru Masubuchi.

The method is generalizable to many other 2D materials, sometimes without needing any addition data. In fact, the algorithm was able to detect tungsten diselenide and molybdenum diselenide flakes just by being trained with tungsten ditelluride examples. With the ability to determine, in less than 200 milliseconds, the location and thickness of the exfoliated samples, the system can be integrated with a motorized optical microscope.

"The automated searching and cataloging of 2D materials will allow researchers to test a large number of samples simply by exfoliating and running the automated algorithm," senior author Tomoki Machida says. "This will greatly speed the development cycle of new electronic devices based on 2D materials, as well as advance the study of superconductivity and ferromagnetism in 2D, where there is no long-range order."

The only way to accurately measure pressure inside the skull is to insert a catheter or sensor inside. However, this is invasive and techniques with less risk are desired. Intracranial pressure (ICP) needs to be correctly accounted for in a variety of medical situations including neurosurgery, neurology and emergency medicine.

Doctors at Shinshu University School of Medicine discovered a non-invasive way to predict ICP by the brain's natural resonance frequency (NRF). This is because the NRF of the brain was found to be only dependent on the ICP value. The NRF is what frequencies an object will vibrate at when a force is applied.

The NRF of the brain can be measured from the movement of the eardrum and external ear pressure waveform. The NRF of an object is based on its mass, elasticity and other factors. The NRF of the brain is dependent on brain weight, which on average is 1.4kg and the cerebral volumetric compliance, or how much give the skull has.

There are many factors that modulate the ICP value, such as the respiratory rhythm, which changes as much as 55% with inhalation and exhalation. The pressure inside the chest effects the pressure inside the vessels taking blood up to the brain which then effects the ICP.

There was a strong correlation (R =0.99999) between the ICP value and NRF of the brain, which means that ICP can be predicted from the NRF.

More data needs to be collected for high ICP values and small brain weights.

All experiments were conducted in accordance with relevant guidelines, regulations and informed consent.