Tech

A top ten of record-breaking US weather events of the last decade reveals Hurricane Harvey is the most extreme of the decade, and similar others were among the costliest and deadliest on record, according to magazine Weatherwise.

Hurricane Harvey, the 2017 storm that devastated Texas and Louisiana, is ranked first followed by the 2012 'Frankenstorm' Hurricane Sandy. In third place is deadly Hurricane Maria which ripped through Dominica, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico in the same year as Harvey.

Harvey stands out for several reasons. The category 4 storm was the wettest on record leaving much of Houston under water at one point, and the second costliest in US history at $125bn.

Hurricane's Maria and Sandy were third and fourth most costly respectively, and fifth was Hurricane Irma, which is ranked in fourth place overall in the extreme weather league. This is according to the findings based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Hurricane Center (NHC) and National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

The cost of all ten events on the Weatherwise list, which claimed more than 4,000 lives and caused numerous injuries, was more than $400bn. Effects of some disasters are still being felt, with repairs to the New York City subway ongoing more than seven years after Hurricane Sandy.

The research was carried out by retired meteorologist Douglas Le Comte, with over 40 years' experience writing about global weather. He said the results highlight the need to monitor extreme weather at a time of climate change.

"Every year that goes by seems to bring a new round of record-breaking weather events," adds Le Comte, a Weatherwise contributing editor who worked for the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

"Many disasters, such as powerful hurricanes, massive wildfires, unprecedented droughts, and record-smashing heat waves, have devastating consequences, not just in North America, but elsewhere as well. Witness the catastrophic wildfires in Australia. There's a need to track these events to gauge how our climate is shifting in a warming world."

"On a positive note," he says, "fatalities from global weather events are down due to improved forecasts, warnings, and evacuation efforts, plus better building construction."

The rankings were worked out according to each weather event's cost, death and injury toll, the size of the disaster, as well as its rarity by meteorological standards.

Le Comte's sources included the National Hurricane Center's costliest tropical cyclones tables updated 26th January 2018 and NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) 2019 report Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters.

Other events to make the top ten include wildfires, tornadoes and droughts, such as the Southern Plains Drought (ranked 7th) from October 2010 to September 2011. This persistent period of heat and dryness was blamed for 95 deaths and $14bn in losses to farmers and ranchers in states including Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas.

The 2011 Super Outbreak included the largest ever recorded number of multiple tornadoes from the same weather system. In April of that year, more than 300 twisters brought destruction to five southeast US states. Just one month later, another severe weather outbreak hit the central and southern states with 180 tornadoes. Together, the events claimed nearly 500 lives and left 1,150 injured.

In addition to the top ten, the author highlights six other weather events, which he says could have made the shortlist.

These include the 2019 Missouri River and North Central flooding that inundated millions of acres of cropland as well as many cities and towns, and the 2010 North American blizzard -- or 'Snowmageddon' -- that brought the Northeastern US to a standstill.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego developed an ultrasound-emitting device that brings lithium metal batteries, or LMBs, one step closer to commercial viability. Although the research team focused on LMBs, the device can be used in any battery, regardless of chemistry.

The device that the researchers developed is an integral part of the battery and works by emitting ultrasound waves to create a circulating current in the electrolyte liquid found between the anode and cathode. This prevents the formation of lithium metal growths, called dendrites, during charging that lead to decreased performance and short circuits in LMBs.

The device is made from off-the-shelf smartphone components, which generate sound waves at extremely high frequencies--ranging from 100 million to 10 billion hertz. In phones, these devices are used mainly to filter the wireless cellular signal and identify and filter voice calls and data. Researchers used them instead to generate a flow within the battery's electrolyte.

"Advances in smartphone technology are truly what allowed us to use ultrasound to improve battery technology," said James Friend, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the study's corresponding author.

Currently, LMBs have not been considered a viable option to power everything from electric vehicles to electronics because their lifespan is too short. But these batteries also have twice the capacity of today's best lithium ion batteries. For example, lithium metal-powered electric vehicles would have twice the range of lithium ion powered vehicles, for the same battery weight.

Researchers showed that a lithium metal battery equipped with the device could be charged and discharged for 250 cycles and a lithium ion battery for more than 2000 cycles. The batteries were charged from zero to 100 percent in 10 minutes for each cycle.

"This work allows for fast-charging and high energy batteries all in one," said Ping Liu, professor of nanoengineering at the Jacobs School and the paper's other senior author. "It is exciting and effective."

The team details their work in the XX issue of the journal Advanced Materials.

Most battery research efforts focus on finding the perfect chemistry to develop batteries that last longer and charge faster, Liu said. By contrast, the UC San Diego team sought to solve a fundamental issue: the fact that in traditional metal batteries, the electrolyte liquid between the cathode and anode is static. As a result, when the battery charges, the lithium ion in the electrolyte is depleted, making it more likely that lithium will deposit unevenly on the anode. This in turn causes the development of needle-like structures called dendrites that can grow unchecked from the anode towards the cathode, causing the battery to short circuit and even catch fire. Rapid charging speeds this phenomenon up.

By propagating ultrasound waves through the battery, the device causes the electrolyte to flow, replenishing the lithium in the electrolyte and making it more likely that the lithium will form uniform, dense deposits on the anode during charging.

The most difficult part of the process was designing the device, said An Huang, the paper's first author and a Ph.D. student in materials science at UC San Diego. The challenge was working at extremely small scales, understanding the physical phenomena involved and finding an effective way to integrate the device inside the battery.

"Our next step will be to integrate this technology into commercial lithium ion batteries," said Haodong Liu, the paper's co-author and a nanoengineering postdoctoral researcher at the Jacobs School.

Regular involvement of a GP in the care of children and young people with life-limiting conditions can reduce hospital admissions, a new study has found.

The research - led by the Martin House Research Centre team at the University of York - discovered that children who had less regular contact with a GP had 15% more emergency admissions and 5% more A&E visits than those with more regular consultations.

More than 40,000 children in England live with a life limiting condition. These include conditions for which there is no reasonable hope of cure and from which the child or young person will die, as well as conditions for which treatment is available but not always successful, such as cancer or heart failure. Other conditions include cerebral palsy and severe congenital anomalies.

GPs are rarely actively involved in healthcare provision for children and young people with life-limiting conditions. This raises problems when these children and young people develop minor illness or require management of other chronic diseases.

The study is the first of its type to examine the potential impact of regular GP attendance and continuity of care with a GP for young people with life-limiting conditions. Researchers used the Clinical Practice Research Datalink to analyse attendances at general practices and in hospitals.

Despite the growing number of children and young people living with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions in the UK this study showed that GP attendance rates by them is decreasing. The reasons for this are complex and may include difficulty accessing GP services in a timely fashion and the specialist-led nature of their care.

Study author, Dr Lorna Fraser from the University's Department of Health Sciences, said:" Many of these children and young people have high health care needs and more are now living into young adulthood than ever before.

"The GP can become the main healthcare provider when these young people are discharged from paediatric services. GPs are also in a unique position as a healthcare provider for the whole family which includes bereavement if a child or young person dies."

The study shows there is scope for improvement in communication, including sharing electronic records, between paediatricians and GPs, and for truly integrated care in the community for children and young people with life limiting conditions.

Researchers from Martin House Research Centre, Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, University of Leeds and Warwick Medical School were also involved in the study.

As power plants and energy stores, mitochondria are essential components of almost all cells in plants, fungi and animals. Until now, it has been assumed that these functions underlie a static structure of mitochondrial membranes. Researchers at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), supported also by the Center for Advanced Imaging (CAi) of HHU, and have now discovered that the inner membranes of mitochondria are by no means static, but rather constantly change their structure every few seconds in living cells. This dynamic adaptation process further increases the performance of our cellular power plants. "In our opinion, this finding fundamentally changes the way our cellular power plants work and will probably change the textbooks," says Prof. Dr. Andreas Reichert, Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology I at the HHU. The results are described in a publication in EMBO Reports.

Mitochondria are extremely important components in cells performing vital functions including the regulated conversion of energy from food into chemical energy in the form of ATP. ATP is the energy currency of cells and an adult human being produces (and consumes) approximately 75 kilograms of ATP per day. One molecule of ATP is produced about 20,000 times a day and then consumed again for energy utilization. This immense synthesis capacity takes place in the inner membrane of the mitochondria, which has numerous folds called cristae. It was previously assumed that a specific static structure of the cristae ensured the synthesis of ATP. Whether and to what extent cristae membranes are able to dynamically adapt or alter their structure in living cells and which proteins are required to do so, was unknown.

The research team of Prof. Dr. Andreas Reichert with Dr. Arun Kondadi and Dr. Ruchika Anand from the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology I of the HHU in collaboration with the research team of Prof. Dr. Orian Shirihai and Prof. Dr. Marc Liesa from UCLA (USA) succeeded for the first time in showing that cristae membranes in living cells continuously change their structure dynamically within seconds within mitochondria. This showed that the cristae membrane dynamics requires a recently identified protein complex, the MICOS complex. Malfunctions of the MICOS complex can lead to various serious diseases, such as Parkinson's disease and a form of mitochondrial encephalopathy with liver damage. After the identification of the first protein component of this complex (Fcj1/Mic60) about ten years ago by Prof. Andreas Reichert and his research group, this is another important step to elucidate the function of the MICOS complex.

"Our now published observations lead to the model that cristae, after membrane fission, can exist for a short time as isolated vesicles within mitochondria and then re-fuse with the inner membrane. This enables an optimal and extremely rapid adaptation to the energetic requirements in a cell," said Prof. Andreas Reichert.

Traditional cardiovascular risk factors often assessed in an annual physical, such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, diabetes, and smoking status, are at least as valuable in predicting who will develop coronary heart disease (CHD) as a sophisticated genetic test that surveys millions of different points in DNA, a study led by a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher suggests. The findings, published Feb. 18, 2020, in JAMA, support the utility of these tried-and-true methods.

Identifying elevated risk for CHD as early as possible can help patients avoid potentially fatal events, such as heart attacks, through lifestyle changes and preventive treatments like cholesterol-lowering statins, explains study leader Thomas J. Wang, M.D., the Donald W. Seldin Distinguished Chair in Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern. Toward that end, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association collaboratively developed a risk calculator known as the 2013 ACC/AHA Pooled Cohort Equations that's based on traditional cardiovascular risk factors. However, Wang says, many individuals calculated with this tool to be at low risk still develop CHD, and, conversely, only a minority of those calculated to be high risk end up having heart attacks and other cardiac events.

Some studies have explored the utility of DNA to predict risk more accurately. In August 2018, researchers published a widely cited study in Nature Genetics that showed that variations among individuals at more than 6 million points in their DNA were accurately associated with who had already had a heart attack.

However, says Wang, it's unclear whether this association with cardiac events that had already taken place could translate into predictive value for future events, as well as how this predictive value compared with calculations made using traditional risk factors.

To answer these questions, he and his colleagues used data from two long-running studies that follow heart health in thousands of volunteers: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). Because the polygenic risk calculator had been developed using individuals of European descent, Wang and his colleagues included only this population in their own analysis, extracting data on traditional CHD risk factors and genetics from 7,306 individuals ages 45-79. They ran this information through both the ACC/AHA tool and the polygenic risk calculator for these study volunteers at baseline, then checked how these scores compared with which individuals experienced cardiac events over an average of about 15 years.

Their results showed a strong association between polygenic risk scores and CHD, with those scoring highest on this calculator at baseline most likely to experience cardiac events over the follow-up period. However, these results were roughly the same using the ACC/AHA calculator. Although the polygenic risk calculator reclassified about 5% of individuals to a higher or lower risk category, many of these classifications didn't match who developed CHD or not.

The bottom line, says Wang, is that the polygenic risk score didn't add much information beyond the ACC/AHA score that could help doctors more accurately predict CHD risk.

"Genetics is an important determinant of familial diseases and a key tool for understanding human biology, and the idea that genetics may also be important for predicting common diseases has been a source of excitement over the past several years. But as an everyday clinical tool for predicting cardiovascular risk, human genetics isn't there yet," Wang says. "We should not lose sight of traditional risk factors for assessing risk of cardiovascular disease, counseling about that risk, and strategizing on reducing it."

CHD is the leading cause of death worldwide, killing an estimated 3.8 million men and 3.4 million women each year.

Because pulse trains achieve excellent performance with a simple laser setup, passively mode-locked fiber lasers (MLFLs) based on nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) have numerous applications. However, NPE-based MLFLs are difficult to operate in the desired pulsation regime via manual polarization tuning and are prone to detaching from the desired regime due to polarization drift from environmental disturbances. To address these challenges, automatic or intelligent mode-locking techniques using adaptive algorithms and electric polarization controllers (EPCs) have emerged in recent years. Several automatic mode-locking lasers use temporal information to help identify the mode-locking regimes. Combined with automatic optimization algorithms, such lasers can successfully reach the mode-locking regimes, but their pulse width and spectral shape are unpredictable. Thus, automatic mode-locking techniques based on a temporal discrimination alone cannot achieve mode-locking with the possible shortest pulse width and desired spectral distribution. Even though optical spectral information can be utilized in automatic mode-locking using an optical spectrum analyser (OSA), such bulky and slow equipment only obtains integrated spectral information and therefore cannot be used for real-time mode-locking.

In a new paper published in Light: Science & Application, scientists from the State Key Lab of Advanced Communication Systems and Networks, Shanghai Institute for Advanced Communication and Data Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, for the first time, proposed using time stretch dispersive Fourier transformation (TS-DFT)-based fast spectral analysis as the discrimination criterion to achieve rich mode-locking regimes. By simply inserting a dispersion medium into the real-time feedback loop of an automatic mode-locking laser and combining this method with an intelligent polarization search using a genetic algorithm (GA), they can manipulate the spectral width and shape of the mode-locked femtosecond pulses in real time. The technique is termed as the time-stretch-assisted real-time pulse controller (TSRPC). With the TSRPC, the spectral width of the mode-locked femtosecond pulses can be tuned from 10 nm to 40 nm with a resolution of ~1.47 nm, and the spectral shape can be programmed to be hyperbolic secant or triangular. Benefitting from the TS-DFT and the real-time GA optimizer, the TSRPC overcomes the considerable slowness, cost, and bulkiness of traditional OSAs used in previous automatic mode-locking lasers. The TSRPC can be made even more portable by replacing the DCF with a small optical grating, and its spectral programming resolution can be improved by using an ADC with a higher sampling rate or a medium with large dispersion. Furthermore, with real-time control of the spectral width and shape of the mode-locking pulses, they revealed the complex and repeatable transition dynamics from the narrow-spectrum mode-locking regime to the wide-spectrum mode-locking regime, including five middle phases: a relaxation oscillation, single soliton state, multi-soliton state, triangle-spectrum transition, and chaotic transition, providing deep insight into the ultrashort pulse formation that cannot be observed with traditional mode-locked lasers.

Enzymes with flavin cofactor play an important part in plants, fungi, bacteria and animals: as oxygenases they incorporate oxygen into organic compounds. For instance this allows people to excrete foreign substances more effectively. Until now scientists were agreed that such flavin-dependent oxygenases use flavin C4a-peroxide as oxidizing agent. This is formed by the C4a-atom of the flavin cofactor reacting with atmospheric oxygen (O2), before one of the two oxygen atoms are transferred to the compound. A team headed by Dr. Robin Teufel from the Institute of Biology II at the University of Freiburg has discovered that O2 also reacts to flavin N5-peroxide with the N5-atom of the flavin cofactor. The researchers have published their results in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

The newly-discovered flavin N5-peroxide has different reactive characteristics than the flavin C4a-peroxide. Some bacteria use this to break down stable chemical compounds, including environmental pollutants such as dibenzothiophene, a component of crude oil, or hexachlorobenzene, a plant protection agent. Using X-ray structural analysis and mechanistic studies the scientists were able to clarify how the formation of this flavin N5-peroxide is controlled at an enzymatic level.

In future Teufel and his team want to study how widespread this novel flavin biochemistry is in nature. They also want to improve understanding of the role, reactivity and functionality of the flavin N5-peroxide. With their work they are enabling further studies that will in future allow the prediction of flavin enzyme functionality or modification using biotechnology.

Robin Teufel and his work group are studying enzymatic reactions of the bacterial metabolism at the Institute of Biology II of the University of Freiburg.

Malaria parasites can sense a molecule produced by approaching immune cells and then use it to protect themselves from destruction, according to new findings published today in eLife.

The study, led by scientists from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's (A*STAR) Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), reveals a previously unknown reversible mechanism that malaria uses to evade the immune system, paving the way towards new antimalarial drugs.

As malaria parasites mature within blood cells, they become more recognisable by the immune system as intruders. But the parasites have evolved ways to evade the immune response, such as by producing sticky molecules on infected red blood cells that allow them to bury themselves in tiny blood vessels.

"One way that malaria-infected red blood cells evade the immune system is to attach directly to non-infected red blood cells to form a flower-shaped structure called a rosette," explains lead author and SIgN fellow Wenn-Chyau Lee. "The rosette phenomenon has been shown in all human malaria parasites and might be linked to disease severity, but its exact function in the progression of malaria is unclear."

Recent studies suggest the rosette might work as a mask for the malaria-infected red blood cell and prevent its clearance by the immune system. Lee and the team set out to test this theory.

They started by incubating immune cells called phagocytes with clinical samples of malaria-infected blood cells to study the extent of rosette formation. They found that the rate of rosetting increased by 10-40% in the presence of phagocytes, suggesting that the immune cells trigger the malaria-infected cells to form rosettes.

Next, they attempted to work out how the immune cells were stimulating rosette formation by extracting different components of the blood and analysing which ones were required for rosette formation. Using a step-by-step approach, they identified a substance called human insulin growth factor binding protein 7 (IGFBP7) that was needed for rosettes to form. In fact, when they added IGFBP7 to two different malaria parasite species in the absence of any immune cells, this still stimulated the formation of rosettes.

The team then investigated how the malaria parasites were sensing the IGFBP7 molecule and speculated that it must involve parasite-derived molecules being displayed on the surface of infected red blood cells. Through a process of elimination that involved genetically altering the red blood cells and filtering out components of the blood, they identified a number of molecules that were required for rosette formation. Some of these are thought to be produced by immune cells in response to malaria infection, such as IGFBP7, whereas others are present in the blood with or without the presence of the parasite.

Finally, the scientists investigated whether rosette formation triggered by IGFBP7 could prevent the malaria-infected cells being swallowed up and destroyed by the immune cells - a process called phagocytosis. As anticipated, in the presence of IGFBP7 the rosette formation increased, but the number of infected red blood cells that were engulfed by immune cells was reduced.

"Our work describes a previously unknown defence mechanism in malaria that is mediated by a molecule produced by the very immune cells it is trying to evade," concludes senior author Laurent Renia, Executive Director of SIgN. "By using this molecule, along with other substances in the blood, malaria-infected blood cells recruit non-infected blood cells to form a rosette shield, allowing them to escape destruction by the immune system. Our results suggest that targeting this mechanism could be an effective approach in the development of novel antimalarial drugs."

Philadelphia, February 17, 2020--A multi-institutional group of researchers led by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has linked a strong cancer driver gene to changes in proteins that regulate alternative splicing. The researchers created new computational tools and biological model systems for the study. This collaborative research, led by Yi Xing, PhD, at CHOP and Owen Witte, MD, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Our study provides insight into the relationship between an important cancer driver gene and alternative splicing changes that could be used to guide the development of splicing-targeted cancer therapy," said Xing, PhD, director of the Center for Computational and Genomic Medicine at CHOP and senior author of the study.

The collaborative effort involved researchers at CHOP, UCLA, and the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. John Phillips, MD, PhD, a researcher at UCLA, and Yang Pan, MS, a visiting scholar at CHOP and graduate student at UCLA, were first authors of the study.

Alternative splicing is an essential process that allows for one gene to code for many gene products, based on where the RNA is cut, or spliced, before being translated into proteins. Cancer cells often take advantage of this process to produce proteins that promote growth and survival, allowing them to replicate uncontrollably and metastasize. This happens in many cancers, including prostate cancer, which is associated with shifts in splicing patterns. Yet scientists do not fully understand the process that leads to this change.

To better understand the causes and consequences of alternative splicing changes during cancer progression, the team looked at RNA sequences from nearly 900 prostate tissue samples, ranging from healthy prostate tissue to localized or aggressive metastatic tumor tissue. In order to efficiently analyze such large datasets, the team created a new computational program called rMATS-turbo. Using this program, the researchers identified more than 13,000 alternative splicing events that varied across these 900 prostate samples.

Next, the team developed an analytic tool, dubbed PEGASAS (Pathway Enrichment-Guided Activity Study of Alternative Splicing), to find potential cancer driver genes and pathways that correlated with these alternative splicing changes. They found that Myc, a gene involved in normal cell functions and is amplified in many cancers, was linked to alternative splicing changes in genes that themselves regulate alternative splicing. Using human prostate cells that were engineered to turn on or off Myc activity, researchers further confirmed that these alternative splicing changes were indeed driven by Myc.

Researchers then applied the same PEGASAS strategy to breast cancer and lung cancer datasets and found the same association between Myc activity and alternative splicing, suggesting Myc activation - and thus disruptions in splicing - occurs in many cancers.

"The successful application of PEGASAS to prostate, breast, and lung cancer datasets suggests that this strategy could be useful in analyzing pathway-driven alternative splicing in many cancer types," said Xing. "Given the involvement of oncogenic pathways such as the Myc pathway in pediatric cancers, these tools could reveal pathways and targets for treating pediatric cancers as well."

Information on what our ancestors ate is based mainly on carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of the structural protein collagen in bones and dentin. Nitrogen isotope analysis, in particular, helps scientists determine whether animal or plant food was consumed. Since collagen, like proteins in general, is not easily conservable, this method cannot be used to examine vertebrate fossils older than about 100,000 years. This timeframe is even often reduced to only a few thousand years in arid or humid tropical regions like Africa and Asia, which are considered key regions for human evolution and are therefore of particular interest to science. New methods - such as zinc isotope analysis - are now starting to open up new research perspectives.

Zinc isotopes serve as indicators for food type consumed

The researchers analyzed the ratio of two different zinc isotopes in the dental enamel of fossil mammals that had only recently been discovered in a cave in Laos. These fossils date from the late Pleistocene, more precisely from around 13,500 to 38,400 years ago. In 2015, in the Tam Hay Marklot cave in northeastern Laos, scientists found fossils of various mammals, including water buffalos, rhinos, wild boars, deer, bears, orangutans and leopards. "The cave is located in a tropical region where organic materials such as collagen are generally poorly preserved. This makes it an ideal location for us to test whether we can determine the differences between herbivores and carnivores using zinc isotopes," says study leader Thomas Tütken, professor at the JGU's Institute of Geosciences.

First study with zinc isotopes on fossils shows preservation of food signatures

Zinc is ingested with food and stored as an essential trace element in the bioapatite, the mineral phase of tooth enamel. Thus, zinc has a better chance of being retained over longer periods of time than the collagen-bound nitrogen. The relevant ratio is derived from the ratio of zinc 66 to zinc 64: "On the basis of this ratio we can tell which animals are herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. This means that among the fossils we analyze, we can identify and clearly distinguish between carnivores and herbivores, while omnivores are expected to be in between," says Nicolas Bourgon first author of the study from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and PhD student in Tütken's research group. Lean meat contains more zinc-64 than plant food does. Carnivores, like the tiger, will have a smaller ratio of zinc-66 to zinc-64, as compared to herbivores, like the water buffalo.

In order to exclude alteration from external sources on the samples, the fossils were also examined by the team of Klaus Peter Jochum at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. No changes were found when comparing the concentration and distribution of zinc and other trace elements of fossil tooth enamel with those of modern animals using laser ablation ICP mass spectrometry.

Time horizon to be extended to over 100,000-year-old fossils

The zinc isotope method has now - for the first time - been successfully applied to fossils. "The zinc isotope ratios in fossil enamel from the Tam Hay Marklot cave suggest an excellent long-term conservation potential in enamel, even under tropical conditions," summarize the authors. Zinc isotopes could thus serve as a new tool to study the diet of fossil humans and other mammals. This would open a door to the study of prehistoric and geological periods well over 100,000 years ago. In the future, the next goals are to apply this method to reconstruct human dietary behaviours. The researchers also want to find out how far back in time back in time they can go, by applying their new method to fossils of extinct mammals and dinosaurs that are millions of years old.

Mediterranean-type climates face immediate drops in rainfall when greenhouse gases rise, but this could be interrupted quickly if emissions are cut.

This is the finding of new research published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which adds to the list of known benefits of rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions to keep global heating below 1.5°C.

Decreases in rainfall can impact the water resources of Mediterranean climates, which rely on winter rainfall to supply them through hot, dry summers.

The study, led by the University of Reading in collaboration with the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISAC, Bologna) and Imperial College London, reveals new ways in which climate change affects regions characterised by such climates, such as California, central Chile, and the Mediterranean region itself.

Previous modelling and observational studies have shown that most Mediterranean climates tend to become less rainy as the planet warms, with the exception of California. Mediterranean climates, which are characterised by hot and dry summers, are known to be particularly sensitive to decreases in wintertime rainfall. As a result, they are often described as 'hot spots' of climate change.

However, little was known about how the rate of greenhouse gas concentration increases affects these Mediterranean climates.

Lead author Dr Giuseppe Zappa, now at CNR-ISAC, said: "Whenever greenhouse gases are emitted, they immediately begin impacting climate, but the impacts develop over several timescales." Greenhouse gas build-ups in the atmosphere can affect local climates immediately - on the scale of just a few years - or gradually develop a significant impact over decades or even centuries, like sea-level rise.

Now, the team's modelling simulations of Mediterranean climates show that decreasing rainfall in the Mediterranean and in central Chile occurs rapidly alongside greenhouse gas rises, on the order of a few years.

According to Dr Paulo Ceppi, from the Grantham institute - Climate Change and Environment at Imperial: "Our result implies that water resources in these regions would almost immediately benefit from stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations, since this would interrupt the rapid decrease in rainfall. In other words, climate action is positive not only in the long term, but also after just a few years."

While California did not see the same rapid decrease in rainfall, the simulations showed in the long-term the region would still benefit from a steady increase in rainfall with stabilised emissions.

Although California is defined as a 'Mediterranean' climate, the team say the reason that it responds in a different way to warming than the actual Mediterranean and Chile lies in the ocean.

Dr Ceppi explains: "The warming of the ocean surface is not uniform, with some regions warming faster than others. The resulting ocean warming pattern affects winds and rainfall globally.

"Those areas of the ocean that warm faster than average cause remote changes in atmospheric winds that make Mediterranean regions drier. By contrast, other ocean areas that warm more slowly tend to make California wetter, while having little impact on rainfall in other Mediterranean regions."

AMHERST, Mass. - Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a device that uses a natural protein to create electricity from moisture in the air, a new technology they say could have significant implications for the future of renewable energy, climate change and in the future of medicine.

As reported today in Nature, the laboratories of electrical engineer Jun Yao and microbiologist Derek Lovley at UMass Amherst have created a device they call an "Air-gen." or air-powered generator, with electrically conductive protein nanowires produced by the microbe Geobacter. The Air-gen connects electrodes to the protein nanowires in such a way that electrical current is generated from the water vapor naturally present in the atmosphere.

"We are literally making electricity out of thin air," says Yao. "The Air-gen generates clean energy 24/7." Lovely, who has advanced sustainable biology-based electronic materials over three decades, adds, "It's the most amazing and exciting application of protein nanowires yet."

The new technology developed in Yao's lab is non-polluting, renewable and low-cost. It can generate power even in areas with extremely low humidity such as the Sahara Desert. It has significant advantages over other forms of renewable energy including solar and wind, Lovley says, because unlike these other renewable energy sources, the Air-gen does not require sunlight or wind, and "it even works indoors."

The Air-gen device requires only a thin film of protein nanowires less than 10 microns thick, the researchers explain. The bottom of the film rests on an electrode, while a smaller electrode that covers only part of the nanowire film sits on top. The film adsorbs water vapor from the atmosphere. A combination of the electrical conductivity and surface chemistry of the protein nanowires, coupled with the fine pores between the nanowires within the film, establishes the conditions that generate an electrical current between the two electrodes.

The researchers say that the current generation of Air-gen devices are able to power small electronics, and they expect to bring the invention to commercial scale soon. Next steps they plan include developing a small Air-gen "patch" that can power electronic wearables such as health and fitness monitors and smart watches, which would eliminate the requirement for traditional batteries. They also hope to develop Air-gens to apply to cell phones to eliminate periodic charging.

Yao says, "The ultimate goal is to make large-scale systems. For example, the technology might be incorporated into wall paint that could help power your home. Or, we may develop stand-alone air-powered generators that supply electricity off the grid. Once we get to an industrial scale for wire production, I fully expect that we can make large systems that will make a major contribution to sustainable energy production."

Continuing to advance the practical biological capabilities of Geobacter, Lovley's lab recently developed a new microbial strain to more rapidly and inexpensively mass produce protein nanowires. "We turned E. coli into a protein nanowire factory," he says. "With this new scalable process, protein nanowire supply will no longer be a bottleneck to developing these applications."

The Air-gen discovery reflects an unusual interdisciplinary collaboration, they say. Lovley discovered the Geobacter microbe in the mud of the Potomac River more than 30 years ago. His lab later discovered its ability to produce electrically conductive protein nanowires. Before coming to UMass Amherst, Yao had worked for years at Harvard University, where he engineered electronic devices with silicon nanowires. They joined forces to see if useful electronic devices could be made with the protein nanowires harvested from Geobacter.

Xiaomeng Liu, a Ph.D. student in Yao's lab, was developing sensor devices when he noticed something unexpected. He recalls, "I saw that when the nanowires were contacted with electrodes in a specific way the devices generated a current. I found that that exposure to atmospheric humidity was essential and that protein nanowires adsorbed water, producing a voltage gradient across the device."

While at the proof-of-concept stage, it shows enormous potential as a portable power supply in several practical applications including electric vehicles, phones and wearable technology.

The discovery, published today in Nature Energy, overcomes the issue faced by high-powered, fast-charging supercapacitors - that they usually cannot hold a large amount of energy in a small space.

First author of the study, Dr Zhuangnan Li (UCL Chemistry), said: "Our new supercapacitor is extremely promising for next-generation energy storage technology as either a replacement for current battery technology, or for use alongside it, to provide the user with more power.

"We designed materials which would give our supercapacitor a high power density - that is how fast it can charge or discharge - and a high energy density - which will determine how long it can run for. Normally, you can only have one of these characteristics but our supercapacitor provides both, which is a critical breakthrough.

"Moreover, the supercapacitor can bend to 180 degrees without affecting performance and doesn't use a liquid electrolyte, which minimises any risk of explosion and makes it perfect for integrating into bendy phones or wearable electronics."

A team of chemists, engineers and physicists worked on the new design, which uses an innovative graphene electrode material with pores that can be changed in size to store the charge more efficiently. This tuning maximises the energy density of the supercapacitor to a record 88.1 Wh/L (Watt-hour per litre), which is the highest ever reported energy density for carbon-based supercapacitors.

Similar fast-charging commercial technology has a relatively poor energy density of 5-8 Wh/L and traditional slow-charging but long-running lead-acid batteries used in electric vehicles typically have 50-90 Wh/L.

While the supercapacitor developed by the team has a comparable energy density to state-of-the-art value of lead-acid batteries, its power density is two orders of magnitude higher at over 10,000 Watt per litre.

Senior author and Dean of UCL Mathematical & Physical Sciences, Professor Ivan Parkin (UCL Chemistry), said: "Successfully storing a huge amount of energy safely in a compact system is a significant step towards improved energy storage technology. We have shown it charges quickly, we can control its output and it has excellent durability and flexibility, making it ideal for development for use in miniaturised electronics and electric vehicles. Imagine needing only ten minutes to fully-charge your electric car or a couple of minutes for your phone and it lasting all day."

The researchers made electrodes from multiple layers of graphene, creating a dense, but porous material capable of trapping charged ions of different sizes. They characterised it using a range of techniques and found it performed best when the pore sizes matched the diameter of the ions in the electrolyte.

The optimised material, which forms a thin film, was used to build a proof-of-concept device with both a high power and high energy density.

The 6cm x 6cm supercapacitor was made from two identical electrodes layered either side of a gel-like substance which acted as a chemical medium for the transfer of electrical charge. This was used to power dozens of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and was found to be highly robust, flexible and stable.

Even when bent at 180 degrees, it performed almost same as when it was flat, and after 5,000 cycles, it retained 97.8% of its capacity.

Senior author, Professor Feng Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences), said: "Over the next thirty years, the world of intelligent technology will accelerate, which will greatly change communication, transportation and our daily lives. By making energy storage smarter, devices will become invisible to us by working automatically and interactively with appliances. Our smart cells are a great example of how the user experience might be improved and they show enormous potential as portable power supply in future applications."

Scientists have created one of the most detailed maps of breast cancer ever achieved, revealing how genetic changes shape the physical tumour landscape, according to research funded by Cancer Research UK and published in Nature Cancer today (Monday).

An international team of scientists*, brought together by an ambitious £20 million Grand Challenge award from Cancer Research UK, has developed intricate maps of breast tumour samples, with a resolution smaller than a single cell.

These maps show how the complex cancer landscape - made up of cancer cells, immune cells and connective tissue - varies between and within tumours, depending on their genetic makeup.

This technique could one day provide doctors with an unparalleled wealth of information about each patient's tumour upon diagnosis, allowing them to match each patient with the best course of treatment for them.

In the future, it could also be used to analyse tumours during treatment, allowing doctors to see in unprecedented detail how tumours are responding to drugs or radiotherapy. They could then modify treatments accordingly, to give each patient the best chance of beating the disease.

Dr Raza Ali, lead author of the study and junior group leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, said: "At the moment, doctors only look for a few key markers to understand what type of breast cancer someone has. But as we enter an era of personalised medicine, the more information we have about a patient's tumour, the more targeted and effective we can make their treatment."

The researchers studied 483 different tumour samples, collected as part of the Cancer Research UK funded METABRIC study, a project that has already revolutionised our understanding of the disease by revealing that there are at least 11 different subtypes of breast cancer.

The team looked within the samples for the presence of 37 key proteins, indicative of the characteristics and behaviour of cancer cells. Using a technique called imaging mass cytometry, they produced detailed images, which revealed precisely how each of the 37 proteins were distributed across the tumour.

The researchers then combined this information with vast amounts of genetic data from each patient's sample to further enhance the image resolution. This is the first time imaging mass cytometry has been paired with genomic data.

These tumour 'blueprints' expose the distribution of different types of cells, their individual characteristics and the interactions between them.

By matching these pictures of tumours to clinical information from each patient, the team also found that the technique could be used to predict how someone's cancer might progress and respond to different treatments.

Professor Carlos Caldas, co-author of the study from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, said: "We've shown that the effects of mutations in cancer are far more wide-ranging than first thought.

"They affect how cancer cells interact with their neighbours and other types of cell, influencing the entire structure of the tumour."

The research was funded by Cancer Research UK's Grand Challenge initiative. By providing international, multidisciplinary teams with £20 million grants, this initiative aims to solve the biggest challenges in cancer.

Dr David Scott, director of Grand Challenge at Cancer Research UK said: "This team is making incredible advances, helping us to peer into a future when breast cancer treatments are truly personalised.

"There's still a long way to go before this technology reaches patients, but with further research and clinical trials, we hope to unlock its powerful potential."

Scientists have a developed a new technique to decipher how millions of individual cells are communicating with each other in miniature tumours grown in the lab, known as organoids, according to new research published in Nature Methods today (Monday).

This is the first time that scientists have been able to analyse many different signalling molecules at once in individual cells within replicas of patients' tumours. Understanding how cells communicate could reveal how tumours are able to evade the immune system and become resistant to treatments.

This could allow scientists to develop more effective new drugs, by revealing why tumours respond the way they do to treatments. It could also help doctors to select the best course of treatment for each individual patient, by testing treatments on a bespoke replica of a patient's tumour before prescribing them.

The technique rapidly analyses each individual cell in an organoid, looking for the presence of specific signalling molecules - messages that cells send to neighbouring cells, telling them how to behave.

Dr Chris Tape, lead researcher of the study at UCL, said: "Organoids are already revolutionising cancer research by allowing us to test whether experimental new drugs are effective on lifelike models of tumours. But crucially, this new technique helps scientists to understand why a treatment works or not, by revealing in unprecedented detail how cells are talking to each other".

In order to listen in on cancer cells, the team grew organoids in the lab. These are self-organising 3D structures made up of cancer cells alongside other types of cells, such as immune cells and connective tissue. They mimic the behaviour of cancer in the human body much more accurately than cells grown in a dish.

They then modified a complex technique called mass cytometry, which is used to detect and analyse protein molecules. The organoids were broken up into individual cells, then antibodies combined with heavy metal atoms were added. Antibodies are proteins that selectively bind to certain cancer signalling molecules. The scientists nebulised the cells, to convert them into a fine mist, and electrically charged the heavy meal atoms, so that a magnetic field could be used to separate out the different signalling molecules.

The researchers tested this technique in bowel cancer cells and were able to simultaneously detect 28 key signalling molecules, across 6 different cell types, in over 1 million cells. They found indications that the cancer cells themselves, as well as immune cells and connective tissue, had 'rewired' the normal signalling networks of bowel tissue, allowing tumours to grow unchecked.

The next steps will be to use this technique to look for ways to block the communications between cells that allow them to withstand treatment. The team also hopes to test this new technique in different types of cancer.

Dr Emily Armstrong, research information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "Having a better understanding of this complex communication between cancer cells and other types of cell that make up a tumour could reveal secrets of how cancer comes back after treatment and spreads around the body.

"While this technique is in the early stages of development right now, in the future we may be able to grow replicas of individual patients' tumours, to identify early signs that a drug won't work for them so we can personalise their treatment plan. We hope this could one day help more people to survive cancer".