Tech

WASHINGTON -- A volcano in Ecuador with a deep cylindrical crater might be the largest musical instrument on Earth, producing unique sounds scientists could use to monitor its activity.

New infrasound recordings of Cotopaxi volcano in central Ecuador show that after a sequence of eruptions in 2015, the volcano's crater changed shape. The deep narrow crater forced air to reverberate against the crater walls when the volcano rumbled. This created sound waves like those made by a pipe organ, where pressurized air is forced through metal pipes.

"It's the largest organ pipe you've ever come across," said Jeff Johnson, a volcanologist at Boise State University in Idaho and lead author of a new study detailing the findings in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. Listen to Cotopaxi's unique organ pipe sounds here.

The new findings show the geometry of a volcano's crater has a major impact on the sounds a volcano can produce. Understanding each volcano's unique "voiceprint" can help scientists better monitor these natural hazards and alert scientists to changes going on inside the volcano that could signal an impending eruption, according to the study authors.

"Understanding how each volcano speaks is vital to understanding what's going on," Johnson said. "Once you realize how a volcano sounds, if there are changes to that sound, that leads us to think there are changes going on in the crater, and that causes us to pay attention."

The ongoing eruption of Kilauea in Hawaii could be a proving ground for studying how changes to a crater's shape influence the sounds it makes, according to Johnson.

The lava lake at Kilauea's summit drained as the magma supplying it flowed downward, which should change the tones of the infrasounds emitted by the crater.

Listening to Kilauea's infrasound could help scientists monitor the magma depth from afar and forecast its potential eruptive hazards, according to David Fee, a volcanologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who was not connected to the new study.

When magma levels at Kilauea's summit drop, the magma can heat groundwater and cause explosive eruptions, which is believed to have happened at Kilauea over the past several weeks. This can change the infrasound emitted by the volcano.

"It's really important for scientists to know how deep crater is, if the magma level is at the same depth and if it's interacting with the water table, which can create a significant hazard," Fee said.

Detecting a new kind of sound

Cotopaxi was dormant for most of the 20th century, but it erupted several times in August of 2015. The eruptions spewed ash and gas into the air, endangering the more than 300,000 people who live near the volcano. A massive eruption could melt Cotopaxi's immense snowcap, which would trigger massive floods and mudflows that could reach nearby cities and towns.

The 2015 eruptions were relatively minor but triggered an explosion that caused the crater floor to drop out of sight. That was when Ecuadorian researchers monitoring the volcano noticed weird sounds coming from the crater. The frequency of the sound waves was too low for humans to hear, but they were recorded by the scientists' instruments.

The researchers dubbed the sounds tornillos, the Spanish word for screws, because the sound waves looked like screw threads. They oscillated back and forth for about 90 seconds, getting smaller each time, before fading into the background.

Johnson likens it to the "old Western bar door" that once opened, swings back and forth several times before coming to rest. But because of the crater's size - it's more than 100 meters (300 feet) wide and about 300 meters (1,000 feet) deep - it takes five seconds for the sound waves to go through one full oscillation.

"It's like opening a bar door that goes back and forth for a minute and a half," Johnson said. "It's a beautiful signal and amazing that the natural world is able to produce this type of oscillation."

Pipe organ players create sounds with similar characteristics by using a keyboard to force air through pipes of differing lengths. This is the first time volcanologists have recorded sounds of such low frequency and with this dramatic reverberation coming from a volcano, according to Johnson.

The crater produced tornillo sounds about once a day for the first half of 2016, before they stopped. Johnson and his colleagues are unsure exactly what caused the sounds, but they know it had something to do with the volcano's activity and not just wind blowing across the top of the crater. Each tornillo was associated with gas coming out of the vent, Johnson said.

The researchers suspect one of two things could have excited the volcano into producing the tornillos. Part of the crater floor could have been collapsing, as can happen when magma moves under a volcano, or an explosion was taking place at the bottom of the crater. Explosions are common in open-vent craters like Cotopaxi, where gas accumulates until it reaches a pressure high enough to explode.

A new SLAS Discovery review article by GlaxoSmithKline researchers in the U.S. and U.K. offers an informative guide to the established and emerging tools available for early drug discovery and screening, and provides illustrative scenarios demonstrating considerations that drive decisions on choice of lead discovery tactics.

While high-throughout screening (HTS) remains a mainstay in drug discovery, other approaches have emerged or evolved in the past decade that offer complementary strengths and weaknesses, and are increasingly applied in combination with, or in lieu of, HTS. Great success often can be achieved by combining different approaches in an integrated manner.

Leveridge et al. survey the landscape of lead discovery tactics that researchers use today and explain how this toolbox of approaches is evolving as new science emerges, such as in the areas of complex cellular models and computational techniques. Case studies illustrate how integration of techniques like DNA-encoded library screening (ELT) and HTS, phenotypic and target-based screening, and virtual screening (VS) with experimental approaches can lead to successful outcomes and provide insights and synergies that would never have been obtained through one technique alone.

Tropical Depression 04E formed close to the coast of southwestern Mexico on June 14, and early the next day NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the region. Using infrared light, Aqua identified where the strongest storms were within 04E.

Tropical Depression 04E formed on June 14 at 5 p.m. EDT about 100 miles (155 km) south of Acapulco, Mexico.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over 04E on June 15, 2018 at 5:05 a.m. EDT (0905 UTC) and analyzed the storm in infrared light. Infrared light provides temperature data and that's important when trying to understand where the strongest storms within a tropical cyclone are located. The higher the cloud tops, the colder and the stronger the storms.

Infrared data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument showed coldest cloud top as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius).

Those coldest temperatures appeared in fragmented storms that were located northwest, southwest and southeast of the storm's center. All of those areas were over the Eastern Pacific Ocean and just offshore of mainland Mexico. Storms with cloud top temperatures that cold have the capability to produce heavy rainfall.

After Aqua captured that data, Tropical Depression 04E continued to move toward the coast of southwestern Mexico, bringing those heavy rains to coastal cities. At 11 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted "the depression was producing torrential rainfall over Guerrero and Oaxaca."

NHC's forecast calls for "the depression to produce 3 to 6 inches of rainfall along the Guerrero and Oaxaca coasts, including the city of Acapulco, with isolated higher amounts of 10 inches possible. These rains are likely to produce life-threatening flash floods and mud slides, especially in areas of higher terrain. Farther inland across the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches with isolated amounts of 4 inches are forecast."

A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect from Tecpan de Galeana to Lagunas de Chacahua.

At 11 a.m. EDT on June 15, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the center of Tropical Depression 04E was located near latitude 15.8 degrees north and longitude 99.7 degrees west. That's about 75 miles (125 km) south of Acapulco, Mexico. The depression is moving toward the north-northeast near 3 mph (6 kph) and a slow northeastward motion is expected to begin later today (June 15). Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph (55 kph) with higher gusts.

Swells generated by the depression are affecting portions of the coast of southern Mexico.

On the forecast track, the center of the depression is expected to make landfall on Saturday, June 16 within the warning area and move farther inland on Sunday, June 17. The depression is forecast to become a tropical storm later today, quickly weaken after landfall on Saturday, and then dissipate on Sunday, June 17.

For updated forecasts, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

Tropical Depression Bud's rains were falling over western Mexico when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead on June 15.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Bud after it weakened to a depression on June 15, 2018 at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) and analyzed the storm in infrared light. Infrared light provides temperature data and that's important when trying to understand how strong storms can be. The higher the cloud tops, the colder and the stronger they are.

Infrared data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument showed coldest cloud top temperatures were in thunderstorms flaring east of Bud's center. Bud's center was still over the Eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of western Mexico, but thunderstorms and rainfall extended over land from Bud's northeastern quadrant. Thunderstorms in that quadrant showed temperatures as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius). Storms with cloud top temperatures that cold have the capability to produce heavy rainfall.

At 11 a.m. EDT on June 15, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that "Bud and its remnants are expected to produce heavy rainfall over the Mexican state of Sonora and the southwestern United States." The Government of Mexico has discontinued the Tropical Storm Watch from Altata to Huatabampito, and there are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

At that time, the center of Tropical Depression Bud was located near latitude 25.3 degrees north and longitude 110.0 degrees west. That's about 100 miles (160 km) east-southeast of Loreto, Mexico. NHC said the depression was moving toward the north near 12 mph (19 kph) and this motion is expected to continue through early Saturday, June 16. Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 35 mph (55 kph) with higher gusts. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1002 millibars.

On the forecast track, the center of Bud is expected to move inland over southern Sonora by tonight, June 15. Bud is expected to become a remnant low by tonight and dissipate on Saturday, June 16.

Bud is expected to bring rainfall over the U.S. over the next two days. NHC said "Remnant moisture from Bud is expected to produce 1 to 2 inches of rain with isolated totals of 3 inches across the southwestern U.S. into the southern and central Rockies through Saturday. These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides."

For updated forecasts, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

The results of a study presented today at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR 2018) report that obesity in women and current smoking in men were the strongest predictors of not achieving remission in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) within a year.1

Although early identification and aggressive treatment of RA improves outcomes, this study showed that 46% of women and 38% of men did not achieve remission in the first year despite receiving guideline-based care. Multivariable analysis highlighted that obesity more than doubled the likelihood of not achieving remission in women. Other predictors were minority status, lower education, higher tender joint counts and fatigue scores at baseline. In men, current smoking was associated with 3.5 greater odds of not achieving remission within the first year. Other predictors included older age and higher pain.1

"These results highlight the need to support physicians and empower patients to take advantage of the impact lifestyle changes can have on disease progression," said Professor Johannes W. Bijlsma, EULAR President. "We consider it essential that recommendations reach all audiences - from rheumatologists, patients and patient organisations to healthcare professionals - in order to support all in understanding how to best manage the disease."

Almost all patients within the study were initially treated with conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs), with three quarters being treated with methotrexate. Analysis demonstrated that not using methotrexate significantly increased the likelihood of not achieving remission in women by 28% and men by 45%.1

"Our results suggest that lifestyle changes - smoking cessation in men and weight reduction in women - as well as optimising methotrexate use may facilitate rapid reduction of inflammation, an essential goal of treatment in early rheumatoid arthritis," said Susan J. Bartlett, Professor of Medicine at McGill University (study author).

The study included 1,628 adults with early RA enrolled in the Canadian Early Arthritis Cohort (2007-16) and receiving guideline-based care. Baseline sociodemographic and RA characteristics and patient reported outcomes over 12 months were used to identify predictors of failing to achieve remission (defined as DAS28?>2.6). Participants were mostly female (72%) with an average age of 55. They had an average of two comorbidities, and symptom duration of six months.1

Abstract number: OP0106

New Rochelle, NY, June 13, 2018 -- Researchers have demonstrated that a novel biocompatible adhesive made of two naturally derived polymers is 15 times stronger than adhesive materials currently used for nerve reconstruction and can support the survival, extension, and proliferation of cells essential for nerve regeneration. The study showing the regenerative potential of this new hydrogel adhesive in vitro and when implanted in a mouse model of suture-less repair of sciatic nerves is published in Tissue Engineering, Part A, peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ten.tea.2017.0502) until July 13, 2018.

Ryan Koppes, Northeastern University (Boston, MA), Nasim Annabi, Northeastern U. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA), and coauthors from Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico) and University of Sydney (Australia) describe the materials and technique they developed in the article entitled "Photocrosslinkable Gelatin/Tropoelastin Hydrogel Adhesives for Peripheral Nerve Repair." The researchers used photocrosslinking to combine two polymers with distinct biophysical and biochemical characteristics to form the adhesive hydrogel. This produced a material with improved adhesive strength compared to conventional fibrin-based adhesives, and with the desired mechanical stability, nerve regenerative capability, and biodegradable and immunogenic properties.

"This article presents the development of a regenerative biomaterial that has designer mechanical properties and adhesive characteristics and addresses an important clinical need for nerve regeneration," says Tissue Engineering Co-Editor-in-Chief Antonios G. Mikos, PhD, Louis Calder Professor at Rice University, Houston, TX.

Infections with bacteria resistant to carbapenems, a group of highly effective antibiotics, pose a significant threat to patients and healthcare systems in all EU/EEA countries, warns ECDC in a Rapid Risk Assessment.

Resistance to carbapenems has been reported with increasing frequency and geographical spread since the beginning of the 1990s. The global rise of carbapenem resistance in a certain family of bacteria called Enterobacteriaceae, or carbapenem-resistant Enterobactericaeae (CRE), represents a threat to healthcare delivery and patient safety.

"We should be very concerned about the rise in carbapenem resistance in the EU/EEA as there are very few options for the treatment of patients with CRE infections" says Dominique Monnet, Head of ECDC's Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare-Associated Infections Programme. "In recent years, the proportions of carbapenem resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae - a type of Enterobacteriaceae - rapidly increased to high levels in Greece, Italy and Romania. The same could happen to other EU/EEA countries if appropriate measures are not taken. But the spread of CRE can likely be controlled in most countries through the implementation of appropriate prevention and control measures in hospitals and other healthcare settings."

CRE are often a cause of urinary tract infections and bloodstream infections in hospital settings. Such infections are associated with prolonged hospital stays, high treatment costs, treatment failures and high mortality, primarily due to delays in the administration of effective treatment and the limited availability of treatment options.

Data from the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net) for 2016 show large differences in the national percentages of carbapenem resistant bloodstream infections caused by Klebsiella pneumonia, ranging from 0% to as high as 67%, depending on the country. Although prevalence is still low in most European countries, Romania, Italy and Greece, with 31%, 34% and 67%, respectively, are among the countries reporting the highest prevalences worldwide.

In general, if the frequency of resistance to an antibiotic is high, it cannot be recommended for empiric treatment anymore due to the risk of failure. In case of CRE infection, there is no good antibiotic alternative for empiric treatment that does not carry serious side effects or other complications.

Introduction of CRE into low-prevalence EU/EEA countries can happen when patients are transferred from an EU Member State with a high level of CRE, or from other countries or regions of the world with high reported levels of CRE, e.g. countries in the eastern and southern Mediterranean regions, the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia.

Timely and appropriate laboratory investigation and reporting is essential to avoid delays in appropriate treatment and in the implementation of appropriate infection control measures. Strict adherence to infection control measures and implementation of comprehensive antimicrobial stewardship programmes are key to prevent and control the emergence and spread of CRE, as highlighted in the ECDC rapid risk assessment.

A recent study published in American Psychiatric Association's Psychiatric Services journal found previous research on youth hospitalizations associated with behavioral and mental disorders failed to adequately consider children exhibiting suicidality or self-harm. Previous studies assigned behavioral health disorders, such as depression, as the primary diagnosis, while identifying suicidality or self-harm as a secondary diagnosis. By looking closely at the data, the new study found that nearly 24 percent of all behavioral-related admissions are complicated by suicidality or self-harm.

Behavioral disorders affect nearly 20 percent of children in the nation, and are among the top five most costly conditions. "This is a vulnerable population in need of high quality health care," said Lawrence C. Kleinman, MD, MPH, FAAP, the study's principal investigator, and the Frederick C. Robbins Professor of Child and Adolescent Health at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Child Health and Policy at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital. "As self-harm is rarely a principal diagnosis, our approach offers new insights into the extent to which suicidality and self-harm are a part of pediatric hospitalization."

The study analyzed all hospital discharge records of patients age 0-20 with primary or secondary diagnoses classified as a behavioral disorder from the 2012 Kids' Inpatient Database (KID), part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ's) Healthcare Cost and Utilization (HCUP) project. Depression (34%) and other mood disorders (31%) were the most common primary diagnoses, followed by psychotic disorders (9%) and substance use disorders (7%).

Dr. Kleinman noted almost none of the 24 percent of the children and youth who experienced a suicide attempt or other episode of self-harm were discharged with that as the primary reason for admission (known as the primary diagnosis). While children with suicide attempts may be sent home with a primary diagnosis of their underlying behavioral condition, such as depression, they may also be admitted for the physical consequences of the event, such as poisoning. "Suicide or self-harm is rarely a primary diagnosis," the study concludes, "yet, it is a significant part of all admissions with a behavioral disorder. The primary diagnosis for admitting these children needs to take into consideration not only restoring their physical health, but their mental health as well." The researchers believe these results should stimulate immediate and innovative clinical investigation to better understand how health care services can address the needs of these vulnerable youth.

In a second distinct finding, the rate of behavioral health diagnosis in young women under 21 who deliver babies in the hospital was an order of magnitude higher than in any other group. "The study asks whether this may be a contributor to their becoming pregnant or a consequence of a pregnancy that overwhelms their resilience," said Kleinman."

The study notes public health insurance programs and public hospitals bear a disproportionate share of the mental health admissions. In 2012, behavioral disorders diagnosed in children and adolescents were the primary cause for approximately 250,000 hospitalizations to general and children's hospitals in the United States. Additionally, more than 200,000 hospitalizations for other medical conditions involved the management of a behavioral disorder, adding length of stay and nearly $1.36 billion in cost to those admissions. These costs are disproportionately borne by public insurance programs such as Medicaid and the Child Health Insurance Program. The authors ask if this is in part due to insufficient access for poor children to outpatient mental health services that might have headed off hospitalization. Data suggest children without health insurance do not receive even the hospital services they need.

"In 2012 the health insurance and health care safety net seemed to work for children with public insurance at least regarding hospitalization," said Kleinman. "We believe this suggests such safety net programs should be continued and expanded so all children have access to necessary behavioral health care services."

The researchers hope that these significant findings will lead to enhanced mental health resources and programs for children, teens and young adults.

In a collaborative study involving Equal Channel Angular Extrusion (ECAE), a unique severe plastic deformation (SPD) process, researchers Dr. Ibrahim Karaman from Texas A&M University and Drs. Don Susan and Andrew Kustas of Sandia National Laboratories were able to improve the mechanical properties of magnetic alloys without changing their magnetic properties through microstructural refinement. This process has proven to be troublesome in the past.

Production of high-performance magnetic alloys and other intermetallics could prove particularly useful in aerospace and space exploration where materials must endure harsh environments including temperature extremes, shock, and vibration.

ECAE forces a bar of metallic or polymeric material at a 90-degree angle through a die channel. This process induces SPD without any changes in the cross-sectional area of the sample.

Originally the researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and Texas A&M worked together on a different topic involving shape memory alloys. They quickly realized the potential in combining the strengths of their respective facilities on an entirely new study and subsequently applied the experiences to magnetic alloys.

Sandia saw the need to manufacture magnetic alloys in bulk demonstrating superior mechanical properties. Because ECAE allows the microstructure of materials to be drastically altered without affecting its cross-sectional area, larger samples with dimensions greater than one inch could be produced while improving mechanical properties simultaneously.

"I was initially skeptical about increasing the strength of the particular materials while keeping the magnetic properties unaffected," said Dr. Ibrahim Karaman, department head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M. "However, through collaboration with Sandia scientists, we were able to achieve what we dreamed of and that lead to a patent application for ECAE-processed soft magnetic alloys."

Researchers at Texas A&M carried out the ECAE processing and some microstructural characterization and mechanical testing. Sandia took these findings and administered further microstructural and mechanical characterization and magnetic properties testing.

"ECAE process has been a key element of Texas A&M material processing research in the last two decades and we applied this technique to many unconventional materials with success," said Karaman.

"ECAE has traditionally been applied to common materials such as aluminum, copper, or steel," said Dr. Don Susan, principal member of technical staff at Sandia, who added that these materials were malleable and readily manipulated taking the shape of the die with ease. "This work was groundbreaking because it attempted ECAE on a brittle intermetallic alloy."

Conventionally a cold temperature process, the team had to experiment with high temperature ECAE that had not been extensively explored in magnetic alloys.

"Sandia scientists wanted to apply ECAE to magnetic alloys with low strength and extreme brittleness such as Fe-Co-V," said Karaman.

As a result, their work was able to show ECAE can be done in extreme processing conditions producing high-performance alloys that can withstand demanding mechanical environments.

"We think there may be opportunities to apply ECAE to other intermetallic alloys, such as Fe-Si or Ni-Ti, to refine their microstructures and improve properties as well," said Susan. "These experiments have opened the door for further studies in the field."

"Now Sandia is pursuing a scale-up of the process with a spin-off company from Texas A&M to check the industrial scale magnetic and mechanical properties of these magnetic alloys," said Karaman. "It's exciting for us to see the fruit of our joint collaboration."

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Spring is a busy time for bumblebee queens.

After emerging from hibernation, their to-do list includes making nests, laying eggs, and keeping their larvae warm and fed. It's physiologically demanding, and the stakes are high: the success of the colony depends on a queen's solitary work during this time.

In a study published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers at the University of California, Riverside found that environmental threats are piling onto the stress faced by nest-building bumblebee queens.

Led by Hollis Woodard, an assistant professor of entomology, the team found that exposure to a widely used insecticide and a poor diet negatively impacted bumblebee queens' health and work, which could have dramatic consequences on an already dwindling pollinator group.

Bumblebees are workhorses of the insect pollinator world, playing a key role in both natural and agricultural ecosystems. Crops as diverse as tomato, blueberry, and red clover all depend heavily on their pollination services. Bumblebees, which are both fast and fuzzy, are highly efficient at transporting pollen from one flower to another.

Unlike honeybees, which are perennial, bumblebee colonies arise each year from the work of a single queen to establish a nest of up to 400 workers.

"Queens are probably already a bottleneck for bumblebee population dynamics," said Woodard, whose group studies how bees are adapting to climate and environmental changes. "If a queen dies because of exposure to manmade stressors, then a nest full of hundreds of important pollinators simply won't exist."

Previous studies have implicated insecticides, including the widely used neonicotinoids, with a decline in pollinators. While neonicotinoids are usually applied to seeds, they contaminate soil--where bumblebee queens hibernate--and make their way into plant tissues, including pollen and nectar.

Another stressor bumblebees face is declining floral diversity, driven by agricultural land use and other global changes.

"Bumblebees are floral generalists that collect pollen from a wide variety of plant species, and there is evidence from previous studies that a mixed diet supports bumblebee colony development better than a diet comprising pollen from a single flower," Woodard said.

Woodard's team tested the effects of temporary or sustained exposure to the neonicotinoid imidacloprid and a single-source pollen diet on queens' mortality, activity, and ability to establish healthy nests.

They showed bumblebee queens were far less active and six times more likely to die during sustained exposure (37 days) to the pesticide, which could be somewhat mitigated by a shorter exposure of 17 days. The surviving exposed bees also produced only a third of the eggs and a fourth of the larvae of untreated queens.

While the effects of a single-source pollen diet were overshadowed by the effects of pesticide exposure, a monofloral pollen diet alone was sufficient to negatively affect bumblebee brood production.

"Ours is the first study to explore the impact of multiple stressors on bumblebee queens during an understudied but important phase of their lives. It joins a small but growing body of research suggesting there are unique effects on queens that can have dramatic consequences for future generations," Woodard said.

Woodard said the data support the idea that use of neonicotinoid insecticides in the U.S. should be reconsidered. The member states of the European Union recently agreed to ban neonicotinoids from all fields by the end of 2018 due to the serious danger they pose to bees.

"Our research suggests there are hidden costs to insecticide use that may only be observed if you consider the totality of an organism's life history. This is intricately linked to human well-being because bee heath is extremely important for food production, biodiversity, and the environment," she said.

Fewer than six and more than ten hours of sleep per day are associated with metabolic syndrome and its individual components, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Public Health that involved 133,608 Korean men and women aged 40-69 years.

Researchers at Seoul National University College of Medicine found that compared to individuals who slept six to seven hours per day, men who slept fewer than six hours were more likely to have metabolic syndrome and higher waist circumference. Women who slept fewer than six hours were more likely to have higher waist circumference. Sleeping more than ten hours per day was associated with metabolic syndrome and increased levels of triglycerides in men, and with metabolic syndrome, higher waist circumference, higher levels of triglycerides and blood sugar, as well as low levels of 'good' cholesterol (HDL-C) in women. The authors found that nearly 11% of men and 13% of women slept less than six hours, while 1.5% of men and 1.7% of women slept more than ten hours.

Claire E. Kim, lead author of the study said: "This is the largest study examining a dose-response association between sleep duration and metabolic syndrome and its components separately for men and women. Because we were able to expand the sample of our previous study, we were able to detect associations between sleep and metabolic syndrome that were unnoticed before. We observed a potential gender difference between sleep duration and metabolic syndrome, with an association between metabolic syndrome and long sleep in women and metabolic syndrome and short sleep in men."

Based on common definitions, participants were considered to have metabolic syndrome if they showed at least three of the following: elevated waist circumference, high triglyceride levels, low levels of 'good' cholesterol, hypertension, and high fasting blood sugar. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was just over 29% in men and 24.5% in women. The authors suggest that as the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in Korea is high, it is critical to identify modifiable risk factors such as sleep duration.

The authors used data from the HEXA study, a large-scale community-based study conducted in Korea during the years 2004-2013, which included information on socio-demographic characteristics, medical history, medication use, family history, lifestyle factors, diet, physical activity, and reproductive factors for women. As part of the HEXA study, samples of plasma, serum, buffy coat, blood cells, genomic DNA, and urine were collected, and participants underwent physical examinations by medical professionals. Sleep duration was assessed by asking the question: "In the past year, on average, how many hours/minutes of sleep (including daytime naps) did you take per day?"

Although the biological mechanisms that underlie the association between sleep duration and metabolic syndrome remain unclear, several potential processes have been reported. These include elevated levels of hormones which increase appetite and caloric intake or reduce energy expenditure in people who sleep less than seven hours per day, which may lead to increased waist circumference and development of obesity.

The authors caution that the cross-sectional, observational nature of this study does not allow for conclusions about cause and effect. Estimates of sleep duration were based on self-report data rather than objective measures and may reflect 'time in bed', actual time spent asleep or time people believed they slept. Also, as the study did not distinguish between daytime naps and nighttime sleep, their impact on health could not be assessed separately.

High-temperature desalination technologies can efficiently reduce the concentrations of a chemical element in seawater to make it an effective substitute for fresh water. Research that has investigated how the element boron evaporates could help produce higher-quality drinking and irrigation water.

Boron is a trace mineral found in concentrations of 0.001-100 milligrams per litre in ground and surface freshwater, but in higher concentrations in seawater (averaging 4.5 mg/l). Exposure to high doses of boron can lead to abnormalities in human fetal and reproductive systems. Although boron is essential for plant growth, high concentrations in the soil can damage sensitive crops.

Countries around the world regulate how much boron is allowed in drinking and irrigation water depending on their main water source, whether fresh or sea. "Gulf Cooperation Council countries, including Saudi Arabia, have stringent standards, allowing a maximum boron concentration of 0.5mg/l in drinking water distribution systems," says Alla Alpatova, a postdoctoral fellow at KAUST. To improve boron removal during water desalination, Alpatova and her colleagues sought to understand what happens when seawater undergoes one of two currently used temperature-related desalination processes.

Multi-stage flash (MSF) is a desalination technology that involves heating water and condensing the resulting vapor through incremental stages. Air-gap membrane distillation (AGMD) involves the transport of water vapor through a membrane to be cooled and condensed on the other side. To find out how the various components of seawater affected boron removal, the team compared what happened to seawater and to a solution of boric acid when they were processed through these two technologies.

They found that boron begins to evaporate from solution at a temperature of around 55°C. As the temperature applied to the systems increased, the amount of boron evaporated from seawater also increased. "But even though boron is volatile at high temperatures, both desalination technologies were effective in reducing its concentrations in desalinated water to below the Saudi standard of 0.5mg/l, even at seawater temperatures exceeding 100°C," says Alpatova.

The results show the potential of these technologies for reducing the concentrations of hazardous contaminants in seawater. Understanding how they affect boron evaporation and removal could help improve these methods. The fate of other volatile chemicals in seawater also needs to be investigated, adds Alpatova.

The team is now working on a pilot-scale membrane distillation setup to optimize the system's design and cost efficiency. They will collaborate with industrial partners to test it at a large scale under real desalination conditions.

An international research team led by Takuji Waseda, a professor of the University of Tokyo, Japan, has found an increase in high waves and winds in the ice-free waters of the Arctic Ocean, a potentially dangerous navigational tipping point for the "new and unusual" state of the waters.

The research was conducted as part of an Arctic region research project, called the Arctic Challenge for Sustainability (ArCS). The project umbrellas eight themes, each focused on a different aspect of environmental improvement and sustainability in the Arctic. Through the encompassing research themes, the project has mobilized almost all of the polar scientists in Japan.

"Forecasting of waves and estimating the chance of sea spray icing on a ship is very important for safe navigation under the new and unusual state of the Arctic Ocean," said co-author Jun Inoue, an associate professor of polar science at the National Institute of Polar Research, a part of the Inter-University Research Institute Corporation Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS) in Tokyo, Japan.

Inoue led the first theme of the ArCS project, which focused on studying the predictability of weather and sea-ice forecasts. The first theme of the project also looks into how users of the weather forecasts participate in providing related data to further improve such predictability.

Their results were published in Scientific Reports in March 2018.

Researchers used the ERA-Interim reanalysis, a global atmospheric data collection system, to examine nearly four decades of emerging trends of increasingly extreme waves. They directly measured waves with buoys in the Arctic Sea in the summer of 2016 to validate the results predicted by the ERA-Interim reanalysis.

They saw an increase in both winds and high ocean waves, as expected since a few million square kilometers of the sea's ice covering has melted in the past forty years.

The larger the ice-free water area, the greater the probability of encountering a large wave, according to Waseda, which has potentially grave implications for the shippers navigating through the Northern Sea Route, as well as for the coastal populations.

"As the entire Arctic Ocean is expected to be ice free by 2050, the wave height is projected to increase correspondingly," Inoue wrote. Ice in the Arctic continues to melt, removing the windbreaks from the ice and allowing waves to grow.

"The gradual change in wave heights and frequency over the ice-free Arctic Ocean would influence not only... the business strategy of the [shippers] using the Northern Sea Route, but also on the local life near the coastal region," Inoue said.

Coastal erosion would also increase with the height and frequency of waves, according to Waseda.

"We need a skillful surface wind speed forecast to predict wave heights," Inoue said. Such a tool would help people on ships, and the coasts better prepare for the turbulence and potential flooding

Inoue pointed to the Polar Prediction Project, of which he is a steering committee member, coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization. The project is running the Year of Polar Prediction, an aggregated forum for scientists to better forecast weather and climate conditions in the polar regions.

A fungal pathogen which has led to the extinction of entire species in South America has been recorded for the first time in critically endangered amphibians in India.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) can cause the lethal disease chytridiomycosis, and is considered a significant threat wherever it is found.

It was first discovered in the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, designated one of the eight most important global hotspots and one of the three most threatened by population growth, in 2011.

But new research led by the University of Plymouth has found it for the first time in caecilians, the critically endangered Amboli Toad (Xanthophryne tigerina) and the endangered white-lipped Cricket Frog (Fejervarya cf. sahyadris).

In a study published in Royal Society Open Science, scientists say there is currently no evidence to suggest the bacteria has developed into chytridiomycosis within the Western Ghats.

However, they say the situation should be monitored closely in future and that conservation plans within the region should aim to minimise the risk of the bacteria being spread more widely.

Christopher Thorpe, a postgraduate research student in the University's School of Biological and Marine Sciences, led the study alongside Plymouth colleagues Dr Mairi Knight, David Pryce and Lewis Davies.

It also involved researchers from the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London, George Washington University, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Maharashtra, India.

Mr Thorpe said: "The Western Ghats is home to the highest concentration of rare amphibians in India and a number of species which feature on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list. To find Bd among them is a cause for concern, although we have no way of telling at the moment whether this is a historical infection or something that has developed more recently.

"However, we have previously seen the effects that chytridiomycosis can have in decreasing - or in many cases wiping out - amphibian populations elsewhere in the world. So we urgently need to develop a greater understanding of any factors that might be regulating its existence in the Western Ghats, where the amphibians are already being threatened by habitat loss, habitat degradation, pollution and disease."

The Western Ghats is a chain of hills that runs north-south for around 1,600km along the southwestern coast of India, and part of it has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Scientists from Plymouth have been working in the area for several years, and recently published a study calling for rocky habitats to be protected in order to give endangered amphibian species a great chance of survival.

For this study, scientists visited 13 sites at a range of altitudes in the northern part of the region, and tested 118 individuals from 21 species.

Seventy-nine per cent of the amphibians tested positive for Bd, although it was not currently at a sufficient concentration to have developed into chytridiomycosis.

However, researchers did find infection intensity was much lower in coastal region where temperatures are higher, which could now and in the future provide a refuge from high intensity infection.

X-ray vision has long seemed like a far-fetched sci-fi fantasy, but over the last decade a team led by Professor Dina Katabi from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has continually gotten us closer to seeing through walls.

Their latest project, "RF-Pose," uses artificial intelligence (AI) to teach wireless devices to sense people's postures and movement, even from the other side of a wall.

The researchers use a neural network to analyze radio signals that bounce off people's bodies, and can then create a dynamic stick figure that walks, stops, sits and moves its limbs as the person performs those actions.

The team says that the system could be used to monitor diseases like Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis (MS), providing a better understanding of disease progression and allowing doctors to adjust medications accordingly. It could also help elderly people live more independently, while providing the added security of monitoring for falls, injuries and changes in activity patterns.

(All data the team collected has subjects' consent and is anonymized and encrypted to protect user privacy. For future real-world applications, the team plans to implement a "consent mechanism" in which the person who installs the device is cued to do a specific set of movements in order for it to begin to monitor the environment.)

The team is currently working with doctors to explore multiple applications in healthcare.

"We've seen that monitoring patients' walking speed and ability to do basic activities on their own gives healthcare providers a window into their lives that they didn't have before, which could be meaningful for a whole range of diseases," says Katabi, who co-wrote a new paper about the project. "A key advantage of our approach is that patients do not have to wear sensors or remember to charge their devices."

Besides health-care, the team says that RF-Pose could also be used for new classes of video games where players move around the house, or even in search-and-rescue missions to help locate survivors.

"Just like how cellphones and Wi-Fi routers have become essential parts of today's households, I believe that wireless technologies like these will help power the homes of the future," says Katabi, who co-wrote the new paper with PhD student and lead author Mingmin Zhao, MIT professor Antonio Torralba, postdoc Mohammad Abu Alsheikh, graduate student Tianhong Li and PhD students Yonglong Tian and Hang Zhao. They will present it later this month at the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) in Salt Lake City, Utah.

One challenge the researchers had to address is that most neural networks are trained using data labeled by hand. A neural network trained to identify cats, for example, requires that people look at a big dataset of images and label each one as either "cat" or "not cat." Radio signals, meanwhile, can't be easily labeled by humans.

To address this, the researchers collected examples using both their wireless device and a camera. They gathered thousands of images of people doing activities like walking, talking, sitting, opening doors and waiting for elevators.

They then used these images from the camera to extract the stick figures, which they showed to the neural network along with the corresponding radio signal. This combination of examples enabled the system to learn the association between the radio signal and the stick figures of the people in the scene.

Post-training, RF-Pose was able to estimate a person's posture and movements without cameras, using only the wireless reflections that bounce off people's bodies.

Since cameras can't see through walls, the network was never explicitly trained on data from the other side of a wall - which is what made it particularly surprising to the MIT team that the network could generalize its knowledge to be able to handle through-wall movement.

"If you think of the computer vision system as the teacher, this is a truly fascinating example of the student outperforming the teacher," says Torralba.

Besides sensing movement, the authors also showed that they could use wireless signals to accurately identify somebody 83 percent of the time out of a line-up of 100 individuals. This ability could be particularly useful for the application of search-and-rescue operations, when it may be helpful to know the identity of specific people.

For this paper, the model outputs a 2-D stick figure, but the team is also working to create 3-D representations that would be able to reflect even smaller micromovements. For example, it might be able to see if an older person's hands are shaking regularly enough that they may want to get a check-up.

"By using this combination of visual data and AI to see through walls, we can enable better scene understanding and smarter environments to live safer, more productive lives," says Zhao.