Tech

ADELPHI, Md. (Dec. 17, 2018) -- This year has had its share of science and technology advances from Army researchers. The RDECOM Research Laboratory, the Army's corporate research laboratory (ARL), has the mission to discover, innovate and transition science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power.

The lab's chief scientist, Dr. Alexander Kott, handpicked the "coolest" advances to showcase what Army scientists and engineers are doing to support the Soldier of the future with a "Top 10" list from 2018:

Number 10: Transporting quantum information with minimum distortions

Future American Soldiers will rely on powerful quantum computers and sensors, according to Army scientists. They'll need to communicate this quantum information through what's known as entanglement, something Albert Einstein called, "spooky action at a distance."

In 2018, Army scientists published their findings in the journal Nature describing how two separated photons can now stay entangled without distortion.

As a traveling photon hurtles through the air or optical fiber, entanglement gets distorted. Now, scientists found a way to restore the entanglement of the traveling photon by manipulating the one that stayed local. They say this is a big step on the road to ultra-secure battlefield communications.

Number 9: Ultra-broadband super-sensitive atomic antenna

Army scientists are developing a new quantum antenna using atoms excited to unusually high energy levels. Drs. Paul Kunz, Kevin Cox, David Meyer and Fredrik Fatemi from the laboratory's Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate's Quantum Technology Branch are leading a research effort that seeks to equip future Soldiers with more accurate sensors that operate with less background noise.

We use antennas every day to transmit and receive data using electro-magnetic waves. Army researchers used atoms prepared into exotic quantum states known as Rydberg states with super sensitivity to electric fields to achieve communication rates much faster than a comparably-small traditional antenna. A new quantum receiver may allow future Soldiers to perform parallel, fast communications with miniature quantum receivers. This research was published in Applied Physics Letters.

Number 8: Brain-like computer solves super-complex problems

Army scientists discovered a way to leverage emerging brain-like computer architectures for solving extremely complex problems, such as an age-old number-theoretic problem known as integer factorization.

By mimicking brain functions in computing, researchers opened a new solution space that moves away from traditional computing architectures and towards devices that are able to operate within extreme size-, weight-, and power-constrained environments.

Some of the best methods in cyber security rely on the difficulty of factoring large composite integers. It can take years on conventional computers. The research team devised a way to factor large integers by harnessing the massive parallelism of novel computers that mimic the functioning of the mammalian brain. These neuromorphic computers operate under vastly different principles than conventional computers. This advance may help future Army computing devices rapidly solve extremely complex problems in the field conditions where power and connectivity are limited.

Number 7: Peeking inside a gas turbine's combustor with a strong X-ray

Previously it was impossible to image and measure the atomization process in a gas turbine combustor. Now, for the first time ever, Army scientists discovered a way to do this with an experiment at Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source.

"We had a combustion going on, which was done for the first time ever at [Advanced Photon Source] and we imaged the spray breakup at the very tip of the injector using an X-Ray source," said Dr. Tonghun Lee, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who joined forces with the Army's corporate laboratory in 2018. "Typically that region where the liquid breaks up is very dense and it's difficult to image anything inside there."

Scientists said this new information will help design of future gas turbine combustors that may operate on alternative jet fuels, and to develop engines with higher power density and efficiency.

Number 6: Cool coating stops attacks of sand

This discovery is literally cool because it is a thermal barrier material. It coats turbine blades of Army helicopter engines, and keeps the blades from overheating. Unfortunately, in places like the desert, tiny particles of sand get into a turbine engine, melting and sticking to the coating.

"We are facing, especially in Southwest Asia, and other places, brown-out conditions," said Dr. Anindya Ghoshal, a scientist at the laboratory's Vehicle Technology Directorate. "We have a lot of dust particles that blow out, especially when you're hovering."

Army scientists created a new material that rejects the sand particles. With this extra protection, the blades survive far longer and Army helicopters keep flying and fighting. The team published its findings in the Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power.

Number 5: A super-hero nanocrystalline alloy

A new super strong alloy of copper and tantalum can withstand extreme impact and temperature, just like the fictitious material of Captain America's shield. It is also a good candidate for making projectiles or armor for Army applications.

Army scientists created a nanocrystalline alloy of copper and tantalum with grains of an average size of about 50 nanometers, arranged into clusters. This helps it maintain an exceptionally high and consistent level of mechanical strength and microstructure stability.

"Within these very small grains, we built in a microstructure that's even smaller than the grain size due to tantalum's nanoclusters," said Dr. Kristopher Darling, a materials scientist with the lab's Lightweight and Specialty Metals Branch. "This doubles the material's strength and stability, making it immune to the deformation response."

The team published its findings to the journal Nature.

Number 4: Extreme power for jumping robots

Army-sponsored research found a range of general principles that enable biological systems, for example a grasshopper, to jump incredibly fast and far for its size. Such systems amplify the maximum throwing power of a limb by storing the energy in a bow or sling shot with a latch mechanism for sudden release. The design principles are common to animals, plants, fungi and machines that use elastic structures to maximize kinetic energy. The research is part of a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative between Duke University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of California Irvine and Harvard University.

In the future, jumping robots may collect battlefield intelligence while remaining unnoticed. The researchers published their findings in the journal Science.

Number 3: New explosive is more powerful than TNT and safer

A new explosive called BODN is 50 percent more powerful than today's most common explosive TNT. Army scientists developed the energetic material at the Army's corporate laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

Energetic materials can be notoriously unstable and prone to explode. BODN includes molecular features that make it stable. Unlike TNT, BODN is non-toxic. But like TNT, it is easy to melt for manufacturing of artillery shells. Researchers also developed a cost-effective synthesis process for the production of BODN. This research is published in Chemical & Engineering News.

Number 2: Humans teach artificially intelligent agents

Army scientists have developed new human-in-the-loop machine learning techniques for robots or computer programs to learn -- dramatically faster and with significantly less data -- how to perform tasks by interacting with a human instructor. The instructor can teach artificial agents in a variety of ways, including demonstration, real-time intervention, and real-time evaluative feedback. Agents using the new algorithms, called Deep TAMER and Cycle-of-Learning, can effectively interpret the instructor's actions and very quickly learn how to perform new tasks in new environments.

"If we want these teams to be successful, we need new ways for humans to be able to quickly teach their autonomous teammates how to behave in new environments," said Dr. Garrett Warnell, a researcher at the lab and co-author of the papers.

Number 1: Taming the atom

The nucleus of an atom can store tremendous energies. Army researchers and their multinational partners found a new, safe phenomena to release energy from an atom's nucleus in a controlled manner. This technique, which is not a nuclear reaction, was never demonstrated experimentally before.

The researchers arranged electrons at just the right speeds to be captured by atoms, tickling their nuclei to release energy. This significant scientific achievement, published in the journal Nature, marks a step in the Army's quest to find and access alternative energy sources.

"There is clearly a strong motivation to expand the Army's access to energy and new power sources," said Dr. James Carroll, a team leader in lab's Power Components Branch and co-author of the paper.

This is a first demonstration with potential future applications, Carroll said, such as harvesting thousands of times the energy of conventional batteries -- and that might power the future Army.

Warmer winters may not provide sufficient chilling for blackcurrants in the UK, delaying the start of the growing season and resulting in reduced yields and lower fruit quality, researchers have found.

Like many fruit crops and woody plants, blackcurrants require a period of chilling before they start to grow in spring. This reduces the risk of frost damage to new buds and ensures that buds burst rapidly in the spring and flower together, when pollinators are abundant.

Speaking at the British Ecological Society's annual meeting in Birmingham today, a research group based at the James Hutton Institute highlights that milder winters may cause blackcurrant crops to flower later in the year, produce fewer fruit, and over repeated years, have a reduced plant lifespan.

"Blackcurrants have particularly high chill requirements and so are already seeing the effects of milder winters", said Dr Katharine Preedy from Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland.

A key crop worth about £10 million a year to the UK economy, blackcurrants are primarily processed as an ingredient and juice for major brands like Ribena (brand value at £140 million).

Understanding how different blackcurrant varieties may respond to climate change is critical to farmers. About 35% of the crop currently grown is known to require 1,800 hours of chilling below 7°C. Some varieties, however, need far lower temperatures and others can tolerate warmer temperatures as long as the chilling lasts longer.

Many farmers coordinate processing with apple producers in shared facilities, hence, a delayed blackcurrant season may force them to harvest unripe fruit of poorer quality or they might miss the chance to process the fruit at all.

"Blackcurrants are like the canary in the mine. If we can understand what they need in a changing climate, we can apply our knowledge to similar crops like blueberries, cherries, apples and plums", Preedy added.

To explore the relationship between chilling period and bud opening, the ecologists carried out controlled temperature experiments (at temperatures ranging from -4 to +8°C for up to 150 days) on 20 different blackcurrant varieties. The findings were then compared with blackcurrant cuttings sent in from farmers across the UK and temperature data obtained from local met office stations.

They found that each blackcurrant variety preferred different levels of chilling. In addition, some were able to compensate for warmer winter temperatures if they were chilled for long enough, whilst for other more sensitive varieties, longer chilling periods did not compensate for being less cold, causing erratic bud break.

The differences lie in the genetics, as some varieties have evolved in different climatic regions or are the result of selective breeding over the years.

"If we can understand this, farmers can carefully select varieties based on the climate and conditions in which they are going to be planted, and breeders can develop varieties that are more resilient to both warmer winters or periods of extreme cold", said study collaborator Professor Hamlyn Jones from the University of Dundee.

Currently, 12 varieties are widely grown in the UK and Ribena invests in the British Blackcurrant Breeding Programme coordinated by the James Hutton Institute. Whilst previous varieties were produced with tougher skins to increase shelf life, this research demonstrates the potential to develop varieties that can cope better with a changing climate.

"In the future, we hope to identify genetic markers associated with the ability to withstand variable winters, so we can rapidly breed new varieties of blackcurrants", concluded Preedy.

A cheap and effective new catalyst developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, can generate hydrogen fuel from water just as efficiently as platinum, currently the best -- but also most expensive -- water-splitting catalyst out there.

The catalyst, which is composed of nanometer-thin sheets of metal carbide, is manufactured using a self-assembly process that relies on a surprising ingredient: gelatin, the material that gives Jell-O its jiggle.

"Platinum is expensive, so it would be desirable to find other alternative materials to replace it," said senior author Liwei Lin, professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley. "We are actually using something similar to the Jell-O that you can eat as the foundation, and mixing it with some of the abundant earth elements to create an inexpensive new material for important catalytic reactions."

This study was made available online in Oct. 2018 in the journal Advanced Materials ahead of final publication in print on Dec. 13.

A zap of electricity can break apart the strong bonds that tie water molecules together, creating oxygen and hydrogen gas, the latter of which is an extremely valuable source of energy for powering hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen gas can also be used to help store energy from renewable yet intermittent energy sources like solar and wind power, which produce excess electricity when the sun shines or when the wind blows, but which go dormant on rainy or calm days.

But simply sticking an electrode in a glass of water is an extremely inefficient method of generating hydrogen gas. For the past 20 years, scientists have been searching for catalysts that can speed up this reaction, making it practical for large-scale use.

"The traditional way of using water gas to generate hydrogen still dominates in industry. However, this method produces carbon dioxide as byproduct," said first author Xining Zang, who conducted the research as a graduate student in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley. "Electrocatalytic hydrogen generation is growing in the past decade, following the global demand to lower emissions. Developing a highly efficient and low-cost catalyst for electrohydrolysis will bring profound technical, economical and societal benefit."

To create the catalyst, the researchers followed a recipe nearly as simple as making Jell-O from a box. They mixed gelatin and a metal ion -- either molybdenum, tungsten or cobalt -- with water, and then let the mixture dry.

"We believe that as gelatin dries, it self-assembles layer by layer," Lin said. "The metal ion is carried by the gelatin, so when the gelatin self-assembles, your metal ion is also arranged into these flat layers, and these flat sheets are what give Jell-O its characteristic mirror-like surface."

Heating the mixture to 600 degrees Celsius triggers the metal ion to react with the carbon atoms in the gelatin, forming large, nanometer-thin sheets of metal carbide. The unreacted gelatin burns away.

The researchers tested the efficiency of the catalysts by placing them in water and running an electric current through them. When stacked up against each other, molybdenum carbide split water the most efficiently, followed by tungsten carbide and then cobalt carbide, which didn't form thin layers as well as the other two. Mixing molybdenum ions with a small amount of cobalt boosted the performance even more.

"It is possible that other forms of carbide may provide even better performance," Lin said.

The two-dimensional shape of the catalyst is one of the reasons why it is so successful. That is because the water has to be in contact with the surface of the catalyst in order to do its job, and the large surface area of the sheets mean that the metal carbides are extremely efficient for their weight.

Because the recipe is so simple, it could easily be scaled up to produce large quantities of the catalyst, the researchers say.

"We found that the performance is very close to the best catalyst made of platinum and carbon, which is the gold standard in this area," Lin said. "This means that we can replace the very expensive platinum with our material, which is made in a very scalable manufacturing process."

Tropical Cyclone Owen continued to strengthen as it moved east through the Gulf of Carpentaria and toward a landfall in western Queensland, Australia. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image of the storm.

On Dec. 14, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology or ABM posted a warning zone that includes coastal and adjacent inland areas between Karumba and Cape Keerweer, including Kowanyama, Pormpuraaw, Croydon and Palmerville.

Suomi NPP passed over Owen on Dec. 14 at 4:42 UTC (Dec. 13 at 11:42 p.m. EDT) the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument provided a visible image. VIIRS showed the center was surrounded by powerful storms. Clouds and storms from Owen's eastern side stretched over Queensland.

At 10 p.m. AEST (local time, Queensland) or 7 a.m. EST, Owen was a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds near the center of 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour. It was located near 15.3 degrees south and 140.6 degrees east, estimated to be 120 kilometers west southwest of Pormpuraaw and 160 kilometers (99 miles) north northwest of Gilbert River Mouth. Owen is moving east at 31 kph (19 mph).

ABM said "Severe tropical cyclone Owen is expected to continue shifting eastwards into the early hours of Saturday as a low end Category 3 system. Owen is forecast to make landfall about the southeast Gulf of Carpentaria coast, between Gilbert River Mouth and Pormpuraaw, in the very early hours of Saturday, Dec. 15."

For updated forecasts, visit: http://www.bom.gov.au

A study using a PET scan tracer developed at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has identified, for the first time, epigenetic differences between the brains of individuals with schizophrenia and those of unaffected study participants. In their report published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the MGH team describes measuring differences in the expression of histone deacetylase (HDAC) enzymes, important regulators of gene transcription, in a brain structure known to be important for key cognitive functions. While reduced HDAC levels had previously been observed in postmortem brain samples from patients with schizophrenia, use of the tracer, named Martinostat, allows measurement of HDACs in the brains of living individuals.

"HDAC enzymes can profoundly influence gene expression in the brain and may alter cognition," says lead author Tonya Gilbert, PhD, formerly of the Martinos Center. "With Martinostat, instead of being confined to analyzing small tissue samples, as in earlier studies, we can now assay HDAC expression and distribution across the entire living brain in a single PET scan. Beyond comparisons between healthy and disease states, this will enable long-term studies exploring the relationship between HDAC levels and disease onset, progression and symptom severity."

Martinostat was developed by a Martinos Center team led by Jacob Hooker, PhD , senior author of the current report, which is the first to use the tracer to compare HDAC levels in the brains of living individuals with and without a neuropsychiatric disorder. Previous animal studies had linked disruption of HDAC levels to cognitive issues, such as memory formation, and HDAC inhibitors have had beneficial effects in mouse models of several neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases.

For the current study the investigators focused on HDAC levels in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain region known to be important for aspects of executive functions - such as working memory, planning and flexibility - that are impaired in people with schizophrenia. A previous study from the research team had observed lower expression of an important HDAC in DLFPC tissue from deceased patients with schizophrenia than in tissue from unaffected individuals.

The current study enrolled 14 individuals with schizophrenia or the related schizoaffective disorder, all receiving long-term treatment for moderately severe symptoms, and 17 healthy control volunteers. All participants completed a standard assessment of cognitive functions typically affected by schizophrenia, and those with schizophrenia had an interview to assess symptom severity prior to PET scanning with the Martinostat tracer.

As expected, the scans revealed that Martinostat uptake indicating binding to HDAC2 - the enzyme that was reduced in the postmortem study - was significantly lower in the DLFPC of participants with schizophrenia than in the control group, with levels of reduction corresponding with worse cognitive performance scores. An analysis of Martinostat uptake across the whole brain indicated not only that HDAC expression was lower in some structures adjacent to the DLFPC but, unexpectedly, that it was higher in cerebral white matter and in the cerebellum, structures that also have been associated with schizophrenia.

"While we found preliminary correlations between the relative Martinostat signal in the cerebral white matter and multiple aspects of cognitive testing - such as processing speed and working memory - we don't yet know which types of cognitive factors HDAC is most closely correlated with," says Gilbert, who joined Eikonizo Therapeutics Inc. after completing a postdoctoral fellowship on Hooker's team, with whom she continues to collaborate. "Moving forward we hope to apply advanced cognitive measures to our studies to help better understand the relationship between HDAC levels and human cognition."

Hooker, an associate professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, adds, "We're very interested in understanding the role of HDACs across mental illness, as well as neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disease. Martinostat is being used by several teams at MGH to study Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, substance use disorder and several non-brain but HDAC-relevant diseases like heart failure and cancer. It's also being used at other academic medical centers to help learn how epigenetic alterations relate to disease processes."

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Researchers at MIT, Draper, and Brigham and Women's Hospital have designed an ingestible capsule that can be controlled using Bluetooth wireless technology. The capsule, which can be customized to deliver drugs, sense environmental conditions, or both, can reside in the stomach for at least a month, transmitting information and responding to instructions from a user's smartphone.

The capsules, manufactured using 3-D-printing technology, could be deployed to deliver drugs to treat a variety of diseases, particularly in cases where drugs must be taken over a long period of time. They could also be designed to sense infections, allergic reactions, or other events, and then release a drug in response.

"Our system could provide closed-loop monitoring and treatment, whereby a signal can help guide the delivery of a drug or tuning the dose of a drug," says Giovanni Traverso, a visiting scientist in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he will be joining the faculty in 2019.

These devices could also be used to communicate with other wearable and implantable medical devices, which could pool information to be communicated to the patient's or doctor's smartphone.

"We are excited about this demonstration of 3-D printing and of how ingestible technologies can help people through novel devices that facilitate mobile health applications," says Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor and a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

Langer and Traverso are the senior authors of the study, which appears in the Dec. 13 issue of Advanced Materials Technologies. Yong Lin Kong, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor at the University of Utah, is the paper's lead author.

Wireless communication

For the past several years, Langer, Traverso, and their colleagues have been working on a variety of ingestible sensors and drug delivery capsules, which they believe would be useful for long-term delivery of drugs that currently have to be injected. They could also help patients to maintain the strict dosing regimens required for patients with HIV or malaria.

In their latest study, the researchers set out to combine many of the features they had previously developed. In 2016, the researchers designed a star-shaped capsule with six arms that fold up before being encased in a smooth capsule. After being swallowed, the capsule dissolves and the arms expand, allowing the device to lodge in the stomach. Similarly, the new device unfolds into a Y-shape after being swallowed. This enables the device to remain the stomach for about a month, before it breaks into smaller pieces and passes through the digestive tract.

One of these arms includes four small compartments that can be loaded with a variety of drugs. These drugs can be packaged within polymers that allow them to be released gradually over several days. The researchers also anticipate that they could design the compartments to be opened remotely through wireless Bluetooth communication.

The device can also carry sensors that monitor the gastric environment and relay information via a wireless signal. In previous work, the researchers designed sensors that can detect vital signs such as heart rate and breathing rate. In this paper, they demonstrated that the capsule could be used to monitor temperature and relay that information directly to a smartphone within arm's length.

"The limited connection range is a desirable security enhancement," Kong says. "The self-isolation of wireless signal strength within the user's physical space could shield the device from unwanted connections, providing a physical isolation for additional security and privacy protection."

To enable the manufacturing of all of these complex elements, the researchers decided to 3-D print the capsules. This approach allowed them to easily incorporate all of the various components carried by the capsules, and to build the capsule from alternating layers of stiff and flexible polymers, which helps it to withstand the acidic environment of the stomach.

"Multimaterials 3-D printing is a highly versatile manufacturing technology that can create unique multicomponent architectures and functional devices, which cannot be fabricated with conventional manufacturing techniques," Kong says. "We can potentially create customized ingestible electronics where the gastric residence period can be tailored based on a specific medical application, which could lead to a personalized diagnostic and treatment that is widely accessible."

Early response

The researchers envision that this type of sensor could be used to diagnose early signs of disease and then respond with the appropriate medication. For example, it could be used to monitor certain people at high risk for infection, such as patients who are receiving chemotherapy or immunosuppressive drugs. If infection is detected, the capsule could begin releasing antibiotics. Or, the device could be designed to release antihistamines when it detects an allergic reaction.

"We're really excited about the potential for gastric resident electronics to serve as platforms for mobile health to help patients remotely," Traverso says.

The current version of the device is powered by a small silver oxide battery. However, the researchers are exploring the possibility of replacing the battery with alternative power sources, such as an external antenna or stomach acid.

The researchers are also working on developing other kinds of sensors that could be incorporated into the capsules. In this paper, they tested the temperature sensor in pigs, and they estimate that within about two years, they may be able to start testing ingestible sensors in human patients. They have launched a company that is working on developing the technology for human use.

FORT LAUDERDALE/DAVIE, Fla. - Nova Southeastern University (NSU) researchers recently discovered that by testing the level of NER (nucleotide excision repair) gene expression, pediatric oncologists can determine the likelihood of early relapse (less than three years) in their acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients. This is a critical finding because NER gene expression levels can now help guide doctors in their rationale for appropriate treatment targeted to each patient's disease.

ALL is the most common childhood cancer. Treatment has improved dramatically due to evolving methods of determining risk factors and genetic analysis. Five-year survival rates have increased substantially from 57% in 1975 - '77 to 92% in 2006 - '12. Yet, the current genotoxic chemotherapy regimens are still extremely debilitating.

"Our research found a correlation between high NER expression levels and early relapse of ALL among relapsing patients," said Jean Latimer, Ph.D., director of the NSU AutoNation Institute for Breast and Solid Tumor Cancer Research and associate professor and cancer research scientist in NSU's College of Pharmacy. "Being able to identify patients with the highest risk of early recurrence who are not detectable using present clinical measures and then treating them with a more targeted therapy is crucial to overcoming the cancer."

This is critical, according to the research recently published in the peer-reviewed journal, BMC Medical Genomics, because while ALL is much more treatable than in the past, the survival rate after relapse is poor.

"By being able to accurately predict if a child's cancer is likely to recur early or not, we may also spare many children who have low NER levels from the most toxic chemo regimens,'" said Latimer.

It's often said that the Arctic is one of the most vulnerable places to climate change. Temperatures are climbing faster there than anywhere else on the planet. Increasing winter temperatures mean increasing amounts of rain instead of snow, and scientists are still working to understand exactly what this means on the ground.

Now, a team of biologists, meteorologists and geophysicists have reviewed years of snowpack and weather data from two locations in the arctic archipelago of Svalbard and found that the increased amount of winter rain has led to more ice on the ground there. Their findings have just been published in Environmental Research Letters.

The shift is so great, the researchers say, that the ground has virtually not been free from ice during winter since the beginning of this century.

In other words: Santa, it's time to buy crampons and a raincoat.

Rain-on-snow challenges ecosystem

Rain in places like Svalbard poses a challenge that's less of a problem in more southerly climes.

Here, at 78 degrees N, the polar night lasts for more than three months and the ground is underlain by permafrost. That means when it rains on snow, the rain can freeze at the bottom of the snowpack, creating a layer of ice.

Researchers call this kind of ice formation "basal ice", because it lies at the base of the snowpack.

It can sometimes be so thick that it can completely encapsulate and kill plants, and starve animals, like reindeer, which normally graze on mosses, dwarf shrubs and other browse that they find by pawing through the snow.

A cascade of events through the wildlife community

In a 2013 publication in Science magazine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) ecologist Brage Bremset Hansen and colleagues described how an extreme icing event one winter prevented voles, ptarmigan and reindeer from finding food, which caused their populations to crash. Hansen is the senior author of the newly published paper.

Populations of arctic foxes, which feed on the carcasses of dead reindeer, boomed as the other animals died.

But in the following year, the fox population struggled, because any reindeer that had survived the big die-off had more summer food, since their overall numbers had plummeted. That meant fewer carcasses for foxes in the year after the big icing event.

Basal ice can also pose problems for reindeer herders in northern communities, while rain-on-snow, even without ice formation, can saturate snow packs to the point where they can avalanche.

How much ice depends on snow levels

The amount of snow that is already on the ground is an important factor in basal ice formation, the researchers say.

"When, where and how much ice is formed is a complicated process," says Bart Peeters, the lead author of the article and a PhD candidate at NTNU's Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics. "But the main patterns are clear: basal ice forms when rain and meltwater freeze on the frozen ground, although this depends on how deep the snowpack is, if there is any snow at all, and when it starts raining."

When there's a lot of snow on the ground and just a little rain, the rain can get soaked up by the snow and can freeze inside the pack. That means no basal ice.

When there's a thick snowpack, however, and a lot of rain, the rain can accelerate snowmelt so that lots of water cascades through the entire snowpack. It then freezes when it lands on the frozen ground at the bottom of the pack.

These are the conditions that lead to the formation of a thick icy layer.

Widespread winter rain and icing

The researchers wanted to know how widespread the formation of basal ice is during the winter.

They examined 2539 snowpack measurements over 16 years from two locations on the main island of Spitsbergen; one on the coast in a town called Ny-Ålesund, and one in Nordenskiöld Land in the centre of the island. This last area is roughly 20 km south of the meteorological station at the Svalbard Airport in the main city of Longyearbyen.

In addition to data from the two meteorological stations at Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund, the researchers were able to get daily average air temperatures and amount of rain from five other stations scattered across Svalbard. This allowed them to look for patterns in winter rain across both space and time.

What they found was that the average amount of winter rain was more than twice as high on the coast than it was in the centre of the island. That also meant thicker basal ice on the coast.

However, they also found that when it rained in the winter, it usually rained across distances of several hundred kilometers. Likewise, if the ground was covered by thick ice on the coast, the same scenario was found in the centre of the island.

"Winter warm spells and rain-on-snow events on Svalbard tend to occur when the region is influenced by low-pressure systems from the southwest," said Ketil Isaksen, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and a co-author of the study. "These weather systems favour transport of water vapour from southerly Atlantic sources, bringing above-zero temperatures and rain across the entire archipelago."

Moving not an option

The bottom line is that icing tends to occur across large areas, and is not a localized event, the researchers said. As a result, animals that overwinter on the island, such as reindeer and ptarmigan, don't always have the option of moving to a better spot with less ice.

Hansen says that the most important ecological implication of the large-scale rain-on-snow events is that it can simultaneously affect all of the species in the island's overwintering animal community.

"This ultimately means that the ups and downs of populations as well as entire wildlife communities could be synchronized across large distances," he said. "In theory, the synchronization of population dynamics across large distances, caused by fluctuations in weather, will increase the long-term risk of extinction."

He says, however, that there is no evidence that the species that overwinter on the Svalbard tundra are currently at risk.

Hansen is head of a project called INSYNC, funded by the Research Council of Norway, which is looking at how climate change affects the population dynamics of arctic wildlife communities.

Svalbard a bellwether of things to come

Extreme weather events, such as rain-on-snow, are becoming more and more common, the researchers said, and they now understand better how basal ice forms and the factors that affect its thickness and timing.

But as the Arctic continues to warm, the complex relationships between rain, snowpack thickness, air temperatures and timing during the winter suggest that patterns may change, they said.

"We know with high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for decades. As winters get warmer and wetter in the Arctic, it will be interesting to observe the patterns in basal icing when the snowpack melts completely and the ground surface thaws," Peeters said. "However, because the Arctic is warming most rapidly on Svalbard, it's a bellwether of things to come for ecosystems in other regions of the high Arctic."

Traditional cultural values and government policy influence how Chinese backpackers use technology while travelling, according to new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The study looked at how independent Chinese tourists use the internet during their trips abroad and found strong social influences on their digital behaviour. These result from their embedded culture, social circles, and the trust placed in word-of-mouth review platforms.

Researchers found that backpackers enjoy receiving comments and complements on their social media posts, and the process of editing and posting photos. Interacting with comments is an essential element of their trip.

They also highly value digital word-of-mouth recommendations when travelling abroad, making good use of their familiar review platforms, as well as popular ones banned in China. This requires them to learn to use new technologies more commonly used outside their home country.

The findings, published in the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems, also show that Chinese travellers rely hugely on digital technologies such as Ali Pay and WeChat Pay for mobile payments.

The independent travel phenomenon is becoming increasingly important in China both domestically and internationally. Chinese travellers are known as tech-savvy and the study's lead author, UEA's Dr Brad McKenna - who worked with colleagues at the University of Greenwich, and University of Jyväskylä in Finland - said 'Collective' and 'Confucius' values of Chinese culture play a major role in their IT use.

"From a collectivistic culture, the relationship between generations is very close. In addition, for the past 30 years the Chinese one-child policy has had enormous social impacts, such that the new generation has become the core of the family," said Dr McKenna, a lecturer in information systems at UEA's Norwich Business School.

"This has led to a strong usage of social media when travelling, so that families can keep in contact. It has been suggested that the use of social media when travelling has developed into the issue of surveillance through IT. Chinese independent travellers are expected to have a constant virtual presence to appease their families' worries and feel obligated to maintain connectedness with them."

The Chinese concept of guanxi, which requires them to be continuously connected, also influences the way independent travellers use technology. The 'social glue' function of the technology allows them to maintain the high level of connectedness when travelling.

Social media posts enable Chinese travellers to not only share their travel experiences, but also to receive emotional support by replying to comments from their friends and families.

Technical infrastructure plays a strong role in their IT use and Dr McKenna said the findings have implications for the tourism industry: "Tourism providers should realise that Chinese independent travellers derive social inferences predominantly when using digital technology on holiday. How to ensure they can constantly maintain this virtual connection, and how to transfer tourism products into memorable and 'sharable' experiences is crucial.

"Currently, there is a gap between China mobile technology use and the rest of the world. There is a network of Chinese technology, such as WeChat, Weibo, Alipay, and DazhongDianping, and most of the popular Western apps have their Chinese equivalent."

The authors say that when Chinese travellers go abroad they face many unfamiliar apps, and some of those they normally use in China do not work as efficiently, for example Baidu Maps and Baidu.com can be slow. Also, electronic word of mouth (eWoM) review platforms do not have as much information as they would in China.

"Tourism providers should bridge this gap to provide a smooth experience," added Dr McKenna. "Maybe eWoM platforms can work in partnership. For instance, a Chinese online review platform could work with TripAdvisor so that Chinese tourists are able to access more reviews."

The study followed 14 Chinese backpackers in three groups as they travelled in Europe - to Spain and Portugal, the UK and Poland. A Chinese-speaking researcher accompanied the groups, conducting interviews and collecting participant observations.

Online data such as participants' posts on their social media, group chat histories and online travel journals were recorded before, during, and after the trip, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of their travel experiences.

The researchers then identified and analysed seven of the main technology-related tasks the backpackers used while planning their travel or during the trip. These included: using an online travel forum to look for a travel companion or information; using word-of-mouth apps on their mobile device to look up restaurants, bars and attractions nearby; sharing travel experiences on social media; and maintaining connections with friends and families.

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed a new device that can measure and control a nanoparticle trapped in a laser beam with unprecedented sensitivity. The new technology could help scientists study a macroscopic particle's motion with subatomic resolution, a scale governed by the rules of quantum mechanics rather than classical physics.

The researchers from the University of Vienna in Austria and the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands report their new device in Optica, The Optical Society's journal for high impact research. Although the approach has been used with trapped atoms, the team is the first to use it to precisely measure the motion of an optically trapped nanoparticle made of billions of atoms.

"In the long term, this type of device could help us understand nanoscale materials and their interactions with the environment on a fundamental level," said research team leader Markus Aspelmeyer from the University of Vienna. "This could lead to new ways of tailoring materials by exploiting their nanoscale features.

"We are working to improve the device to increase our current sensitivity by four orders of magnitude," Aspelmeyer continued. "This would allow us to use the interaction of the cavity with the particle to probe or even control the quantum state of the particle, which is our ultimate goal."

Making tiny measurements

The new method uses a light-guiding nanoscale device called a photonic crystal cavity to monitor the position of a nanoparticle levitating in a traditional optical trap. Optical trapping uses a focused laser beam to exert a force on an object to hold it in place. The technique was recognized by the award of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics to pioneer, Arthur Ashkin.

"We know that the laws of quantum physics apply on the scale of atoms and the scale of molecules, but we don't know how large an object can be and still exhibit quantum physics phenomena," said Aspelmeyer. "By trapping a nanoparticle and coupling it to a photonic crystal cavity, we can isolate an object that is larger than atoms or molecules and study its quantum behaviors."

The new device accomplishes a high level of sensitivity by using a long photonic crystal cavity that is narrower than the wavelength of the light. This means that when light enters and travels down the nanoscale cavity, some of it leaks out and forms what is called an evanescent field. The evanescent field changes when an object is placed close to the photonic crystal, which in turn changes how the light propagates through the photonic crystal in a measurable way.

"By examining how light in the photonic crystal changes in response to the nanoparticle, we can deduce the position of the nanoparticle over time with very high resolution," said Lorenzo Magrini, first author of the paper.

Collecting every photon

The new device detects almost every photon that interacts with the trapped nanoparticle. This not only helps it achieve extremely high sensitivity but also means that the new approach uses much less optical power compared to other methods in which most of the photons are lost.

Under vacuum conditions, the researchers demonstrated, for each detected photon, a sensitivity two orders of magnitude higher than conventional methods for measuring nanoparticle displacement in an optical trap. They also report that the strength of the interaction between the particle and evanescent field of the cavity was three orders of magnitude higher than what has been reported previously. Stronger interaction means that the photonic cavity can detect more information about the particle's movement.

Similar to several other research groups around the world, the researchers are working toward achieving quantum measurements. They are now improving their setup and working to substantially boost the device's sensitivity. This would allow measurements to be performed under stronger vacuum conditions that increase a particle's isolation from the environment. In addition to studying quantum mechanics, the new device could be used to precisely measure acceleration and other forces that might arise in microscopic length scales.

Face masks appear to provide important protection against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria for hog farm workers and for household members to whom they might otherwise transmit the bacteria, according to a study led by scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In the study, which is published on December 13 in Environmental Health Perspectives, the scientists tracked 101 hog farm workers and 79 household members for four months, taking nasal swabs and asking questions about face mask use. They found that for workers who reported using face masks on the job consistently during the four-month study, there was a 50 to 70 percent reduction in the likelihood of finding dangerous, livestock-derived S. aureus strains in their swabs--and an 80 to 90 percent reduction in the likelihood that household members' swabs would test positive for such strains.

"Face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) could be effective in reducing occupational exposure to livestock-associated S. aureus and preventing the spread of these bacteria to workers and their families," says study senior author Christopher D. Heaney, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Bloomberg School.

In the U.S. and many other developed countries, hogs are raised in dense populations on industrial-scale farms, and are fed antibiotics to treat and prevent diseases, which also promotes animal growth. This chronic use of antibiotics encourages the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains, including strains that can cause serious illness or death when they infect people. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that just one dangerous S. aureus strain, known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), causes about 80,000 severe infections in people per year, of which about 11,000 are fatal.

The spread of drug-resistant S. aureus from livestock to farm workers has been noted in prior studies, and is recognized by many scientists as a potentially serious public health issue. However, there has been conflicting evidence about the utility of face masks and other personal protective equipment for preventing the spread of bacteria from animals to farm workers. Also, no study has yet examined whether such protective measures might also effectively prevent members of farm workers' households from becoming exposed if workers bring these microbes home. Although livestock workers tend to be younger and may be less susceptible to invasive staph infections, they may have family members who are young children, elderly or otherwise especially vulnerable.

In the hope of clarifying the issue of face masks' utility, Heaney and colleagues, with the help of the North Carolina-based Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help (REACH) and the UNC Gillings School of Public Health, recruited the 101 hog farm workers and 79 household members from the top 10 hog-producing counties in North Carolina. The team took nasal swabs to detect bacterial colonization, and administered questionnaires to the participants, every two weeks over four months. The results suggested that wearing face masks had a strong protective effect.

One key comparison was between workers reporting consistent face mask use--defined as use for more than 80 percent of their work hours during the study--and those reporting inconsistent face mask use. For the consistent users, the chances of detecting multidrug-resistant S. aureus, tetracycline-resistant S. aureus and other S. aureus strains associated with livestock in their nasal swabs were reduced by 69 percent, 68 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

When workers reported consistent face mask use, the chances of detection of these S. aureus strains in nasal swabs from household members also appeared to be greatly reduced--by 80 to 90 percent for the tetracycline-resistant and other livestock-associated strains, and by about 33 percent for multidrug-resistant S. aureus, although cases of the latter were so few that the figure was not statistically significant.

Heaney notes that this was an observational study, and ideally would be followed up by a larger, observational or a randomized trial-type study of hog worker mask use to confirm and expand upon the current study findings. "More studies like this are needed because concentrated animal feeding operations are a potential entry point for drug- resistant bacteria into the community," he says. Nora Pisanic, PhD, an assistant scientist at the Bloomberg School who also worked on the study, adds that "following workers and their household members longer, for example 1 or 2 years, might reveal relationships with livestock-associated staph infections."

Federal regulations already require certain farm operators to provide respirators to workers who are exposed to harmful dusts, gases, smoke or sprays. But the use of face masks or other forms of PPE to reduce the transmission of microbes from animals may not fall under those regulations, and is far from universal. As Heaney points out, "When workers are issued face masks they may find it hard to breathe adequately while wearing the masks, especially when doing strenuous tasks in hot conditions. We need to come up with solutions to better protect workers."

A new study published ahead-of-print by SLAS Discovery describes an evaluation of microplate-based high-throughput cellular thermal shift assay (CETSA HT) performed at AstraZeneca to assess its suitability and reliability for application to early drug discovery campaigns.

The CETSA is a technology that measures intracellular compound target engagement by quantifying changes in the thermal stability of the target protein in live cells. The technology has a number of advantages over alternative methods including the ability to detect binding to the intended target in cellular models without requiring any overexpression or tagging of the target protein, or any chemical modifications or probe compounds.

Novel CETSA HT assays are described for two important oncology targets, B-Raf and PARP1, and applied to both primary screening for hit identification and SAR screening for lead optimization. Comparisons are performed with conventional drug discovery assay technologies including a biochemical probe-displacement binding assay and a cellular imaging assay.

The findings demonstrate that CETSA HT shows good correlations to other assay formats, but can also highlight different compound responses that allow for a more thorough understanding of cellular effects. CETSA HT can be reliably applied throughout various stages of early drug discovery to quantify intracellular binding to the desired target, providing a better understanding of the action of small molecules which may help advance novel therapeutic drugs.

Synthetic psychoactive drugs have become a serious public health threat in recent years. This is particularly true of the fentanyls, a large family of synthetic opioids, which can be up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine. Synthetic opioids are highly addictive and, because of their potency, often prove fatal: among the roughly 72,000 drug overdose deaths in the US in 2017, some 30,000 were related to synthetic opioids.

But researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have created monoclonal antibodies--made by identical immune cells--that are effective against several synthetic opioids, including fentanyl and the deadliest of the fentanyls, carfentanil. Their findings could both combat opioid addiction as well as reduce overdose deaths.

The study looked at the efficacy of vaccines containing the newly developed opioid antibodies in animals. The team, led by Kim Janda, tested the antibodies using a common pain response challenge, in which a heated beam of light is applied to a mouse's tail. The time it takes for the mouse to withdraw its tail is measured: quick reactions suggest the animal is feeling pain, whereas a longer response suggests that pain response has been muted.

Mice that were given opioids such as fentanyl or carfentanil without the antibody exhibited a big reduction in tail withdrawal, suggesting they could not sense the pain. When they were given the opioid-blocking antibody, tail withdrawal was normalized, suggesting that the vaccine blocked the analgesic effects of the drug.

The researchers then tested whether the vaccine could prevent against lethal overdose. In mice administered the vaccine followed by a dose of fentanyl that was fatal in non-vaccinated animals. All the vaccinated mice were protected from overdose.

The antibodies were also effective against other forms of fentanyl, including carfentanil and seven other analogs, in both pain tests and lethality studies.

Janda's team has begun to develop human antibodies to synthetic opioids, and will test their efficacy in the future. "When it comes to the very powerful opioid carfentanil the current treatment for this opioid's induced lethality does not work very well--it has no staying power," says Janda. "Antibodies persist longer, and thus have enormous promise for addressing both opioid addiction as well as overdose."

A synthetic opioid vaccine might also be used as a prophylactic measure to protect people at risk of coming into contact with the drugs, such as first responders, who have occasionally overdosed by inhaling tiny quantities of fentanyl. "These antibodies could be used to protect police, EMTs, and other first responders from inadvertent acute fentanyl exposure," says Janda. "A canine version might even one day be used to protect drug-sniffing dogs."

Tight junctions are multi-protein complexes that serve as barriers in epithelial tissues such as the skin or lining of the gut. Loss of a specific tight junction barrier protein, claudin 18, occurs in the majority of gastric cancer patients and is correlated with poor prognosis in patients with advanced gastric cancer. Understanding how claudin 18 loss occurs and what pathways it regulates may provide new strategies to inhibit neoplastic progression in human gastric cancer patients.

In a first-of-its-kind investigation, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center analyzed gastric tissues from mice infected with the bacterium H pylori - which can cause stomach ulcers, gastritis and gastric cancer - as well as from mice genetically engineered to lack claudin 18. The team demonstrated that mice infected with the bacteria lost claudin 18 overtime compared to uninfected mice. The team further showed that the lack of claudin 18 alone was enough to prompt the development of precancerous, abnormal cells and polyps in the engineered mouse model. Their findings were published in the journal Gastroenterology.

"The results were very surprising," said lead author Susan J. Hagen, PhD, an investigator at BIDMC and an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. "Epithelial cells express numerous varieties of claudin proteins at the tight junction. We thought that other claudin molecules would compensate for the loss of claudin 18. It is incredible that manipulating only one protein in the stomach results in gastric cancer development."

OTTAWA - The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) has released three reports on requests for medical assistance in dying (MAID), the result of an independent Expert Panel review conducted at the request of the federal government. The reports were released following their tabling in Parliament today.

The CCA was asked to examine three particularly complex types of requests for MAID that were identified for further review and study in the legislation passed by Parliament in 2016: requests by mature minors, advance requests, and requests where a mental disorder is the sole underlying medical condition.

The Expert Panel's final reports reflect a broad range of knowledge, experience, and perspective from healthcare professions, diverse academic disciplines, advocacy groups, and jurisdictions where MAID is permitted. They gathered and interpreted, with the sensitivity required of the subject, the available evidence, and explored the societal, clinical, legal, and practical implications and issues associated with both permitting and prohibiting MAID in the three topic areas.

The CCA has a well-established approach for convening experts and assessing evidence to inform public policy development in Canada. It brought together a multidisciplinary expert panel of 43 individuals with expertise, knowledge and leadership in a range of disciplines including law, medicine, nursing, bioethics, social sciences, and health sciences, among others.

The CCA is a not-for-profit, independent, and non-partisan organization. The reports provide evidence to inform dialogue and decision-making and do not make recommendations about specific laws, practices, or cases.