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People who are unable to make their rent or mortgage payments sleep less than than their peers who don't have such problems, and those who are forced to move because of financial problems sleep even less, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

The study, which followed 1,046 people receiving welfare in California over several years, is the first to analyze the relationship between housing insecurity and sleep outcomes after controlling for sleep duration and sleep quality measured prior to experiences with housing insecurity.

The study found that people who were unable to make a rent or mortgage payment slept on average 22 fewer minutes a night than their peers who were able to make their rent or mortgage payments.

People who were forced to move because they could not make their rent or mortgage payments slept on average 32 fewer minutes a night than their peers who were not forced to move. The findings are published online by the journal Sleep.

"This is the first study that demonstrates that housing insecurity represents a distinct impediment to healthy sleep duration and quality," said Robert Bozick, the study's lead author and an adjunct researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "The stability and condition of one's home environment are critically important for health and well-being."

The study analyzed information from the California Socioeconomic Survey, a longitudinal study conducted by RAND of participants in the state's welfare program, which is called CalWORKs.

The survey follows a random sample of 1,657 adults drawn from a population of 15,600 economically disadvantaged families who first enrolled in CalWORKs between 2011 and 2014 in one of six diverse counties: Alameda, Fresno, Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento and Stanislaus.

The new RAND study used information from a sample of 1,046 participants who participated in surveys during 2015-16 and 2017-18, and who answered questions about sleep duration, sleep quality and housing insecurity.

The reductions in sleep quality detailed by the study were small to moderate by conventional standards, but researchers say that sleep is cumulative such that slight reductions accrue over time. This accumulation in turn can create more pronounced sleep deficits.

"Considering the downstream health implications of housing insecurity is particularly timely given the economic fall-out from the coronavirus pandemic," said Bozick, who is a senior fellow at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. "National surveys show many Americans are having trouble making their housing payments, which may lead to greater reliance on social safety net programs like welfare in the near future."

Richard Feynman, one of the most respected physicists of the twentieth century, said "What I cannot create, I do not understand". Not surprisingly, many physicists and mathematicians have observed fundamental biological processes with the aim of precisely identifying the minimum ingredients that could generate them. One such example are the patterns of nature observed by Alan Turing. The brilliant English mathematician demonstrated in 1952 that it was possible to explain how a completely homogeneous tissue could be used to create a complex embryo, and he did so using one of the simplest, most elegant mathematical models ever written. One of the results of such models is that the symmetry shown by a cell or a tissue can "break" under a set of conditions. However, Turing was not able to test his ideas, and it took over 70 years before a breakthrough in biology technique was able to evaluate them decisively. Can Turing's dream be made a reality through Feynman's proposal? Genetic engineering has proved it can.

Now, a research team from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint centre of UPF and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has developed a new type of model and its implementation using synthetic biology can reproduce the symmetry breakage observed in embryos with the minimum amount of ingredients possible.

The research team has managed to implement via synthetic biology (by introducing parts of genes of other species into the E. coli bacteria) a mechanism to generate spatial patterns observed in more complex animals, such as Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) or humans. In the study, the team observed that the strains of modified E. coli, which normally grow in (symmetrical) circular patterns, do as in the shape of a flower with petals at regular intervals, just as Turing had predicted.

"We wanted to build symmetry breaking that is never seen in colonies of E. coli, but is seen in patterns of animals, and then to discover which are the essential ingredients needed to generate these patterns", says Salva Duran-Nebreda, who conducted this research for his doctorate in the Complex Systems laboratory and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the IBE Evolution of Technology laboratory.

Using the new synthetic platform, the research team was able to identify the parameters that modulate the emergence of spatial patterns in E. coli . "We have seen that by modulating three ingredients we can induce symmetry breaking. In essence, we have altered cell division, adhesion between cells and long-distance communication capacity (quorum sensing), that is to say, perceive when there is a collective decision", Duran-Nebreda comments.

The observations made in the E. coli model could be applied to more complex animal models or to insect colony design principles. "In the same way that organoids or miniature organs can help us develop therapies without having to resort to animal models, this synthetic system paves the way to understanding as universal a phenomenon as embryonic development in a far simpler in vitro system", says Ricard Solé, ICREA researcher with the Complex Systems group at the IBE, and head of the research.

The model developed in this study, the first of its kind, could be key to understanding some embryonic development events. "We must think of this synthetic system as a platform for learning to design different fundamental biological mechanisms that generate structures, such as the step from a zygote to the formation of a complete organism. Moreover, such knowledge on the frontier between mechanical and biological processes, could be very useful for understanding developmental disorders", Duran-Nebreda concludes.

ITHACA, NY - When it comes to saving endangered species of a certain size, conservationists often have to think outside the box.

This was reinforced by a recent study published in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, led by faculty in the College of Veterinary Medicine, which analyzed the effects of hanging tranquilized black rhinoceroses upside down by their feet.

"We found that suspending rhinos by their feet is safer than we thought," said Dr. Robin Radcliffe, senior lecturer in wildlife and conservation medicine and first author of the study.

While this finding might sound comical, it is vital information for conservationists working to save these vanishing creatures. To keep rhinos safe from poaching and to distribute individuals across habitats so their gene pools stay healthy, management teams often must move rhinos in remote areas that cannot be accessed by roads or automobiles. This often leaves one option: tranquilizing and airlifting the giant mammals out with a helicopter.

While this technique of moving rhinos from place to place has been used for 10 years, no one had scientifically documented its clinical effects on the animals during transportation, or any potential negative effects once they wake up.

Radcliffe and his colleagues were mindful that the anesthesia drugs used to tranquilize these large mammals can be dangerous.

"These drugs are potent opioids - a thousand times more potent than morphine, with side effects that include respiratory depression, reduced oxygen in the blood and higher metabolism," Radcliffe said. "These side effects can impair rhinoceros health and even lead to mortalities during capture and translocation."

The researchers predicted that hanging rhinos upside down would exacerbate the dangerous effects of these opioids. Horses in this position suffer from impaired breathing, likely due to the heavy abdominal organs pushing against the lungs and chest cavity. Therefore, this method was deemed riskier than transporting the creatures via a platform or sledge with the rhinos laying on their side.

To put the question to rest, Radcliffe and Dr. Robin Gleed, professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine, collaborated with Namibian conservationists to conduct a field study of the highly endangered animals while anesthetized in two different positions: hanging by their feet from a crane to mimic the effects of air transport; or lying on their sides as they would during the immediate period after darting and transport on a sledge.

The researchers traveled to Waterburg National Park in Namibia, where they examined 12 rhinoceroses captured for procedures related to conservation but not being moved. After tranquilizing the animals by darting from a helicopter, the scientists tested each animal while it was hanging upside down and lying on its side, in order to directly compare breathing and circulation in both positions.

The data debunked Radcliffe and his colleague's predictions - that hanging upside down by the feet was worse for rhinos' pulmonary function than lying on their sides. In fact, the rhinos actually fared slightly better when slung up in the sky.

"Hanging rhinos upside down actually improved ventilation (albeit to a small degree) over rhinos lying on their sides," Radcliffe said. "While this was unexpected, and the margins small, any incremental improvement in physiology helps to enhance safety of black rhinoceros during capture and anesthesia."

While this is good news for conservationists working with black rhinos in rugged terrain, Radcliffe said more information is needed.

"Our next step with this research is to extend the time that subject rhinos are suspended upside down to mimic the helicopter-assisted aerial transport of rhinos in the real world," he said, noting that in the remote habitats of Namibia, these helicopter trips can take up to 30 minutes. "Now that we know that it's safe to hang rhinos upside down for short periods of time, we'd like to make sure that longer durations are safe as well."

How to study the stages children go through as they play together has been highlighted in new research by a Swansea University academic.

Play is a crucial part of a child's development. It is how children develop cognitive skills and learn new information as well as social skills and it is an important topic of research by social scientists.

Dr Pete King, who specialises in play and childhood studies, devised a method of studying the process of children's play - the Play Cycle Observation Method (PCOM) - and has now published research which demonstrates how effective it is as an observational tool.

Working with collaborators Professor LaDonna Atkins and Dr Brandon Burr, his latest study put the PCOM to the test in real time by watching three-year-olds at play using an observation booth at the University of Central Oklahoma's Child Study Centre.

Dr King, senior lecturer at the College of Human and Health Sciences, said: "The PCOM focuses on the process of play and initially it was piloted using a video of children playing. We were able to show it could be used effectively in that situation, where the observer is able to pause or rewind to take a closer look at the children's activity.

"However, this is not an option when observing children in real time so how reliable would the PCOM be in those circumstances? This question formed the basis of our research paper."

He explained that the PCOM focuses on the process of play and the Play Cycle, the term used by play professionals to observe and understand play. The cycle can be broken down into several distinct phases - pre-cue, play cue, play return, play frame, flow and annihilation.

The play cue, either verbal or non-verbal, is an invitation to play from a child while the play return is another child's response. The play frame is the physical or imagined boundary that keeps the Play Cycle intact and annihilation is when play has finished.

For this study two members of the research team acted as the independent observers with no experience of using the PCOM. They watched play from the booth and used specifically designed observation sheets to quantitatively record play cues, play returns and Play Cycles. These sheets also collected qualitative data of play frames, annihilation and the role played by adults in the Play Cycle.

The observers watched the same 'target child' at the same time, each carrying out their observation simultaneously, without any discussion or comparison. This was repeated for 11 separate observations of different children. The data was then collected and analysed by a third member of the team.

Their findings have just been published in the Journal of Early Childhood Research.

Dr King said: "We proved that by focusing on the process of play, the PCOM is very child-centred and child-led observational tool. It is not restricted to a type of play such as pretend or social, so offers the opportunity to observe all types of play.

"The benefit of the PCOM is that it not only shows how we can support the various stages of children's play, but it can also be used by the student learning about play and the professional practitioner in respect of reflective practice. In addition, the PCOM is a useful training tool for trainers and lecturers teaching play."

CLEVELAND - Evidence suggests particulate matter is the air pollutant which poses the greatest threat to global health. Studies have shown that exposure to particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns is associated with acute and chronic elevations in blood pressure (BP) as well as hypertension. In the study "The Benefits of Intensive Versus Standard Blood Pressure Treatment According to Fine Particulate Matter Air Pollution Exposure" published this week in the journal Hypertension, researchers at University Hospitals (UH) and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine found intensive BP lowering is effective in reducing cardiovascular risk in patients exposed to high levels of air pollution.

Air pollution, particularly fine particulate matter, has been implicated in cardiovascular risk, partly through effects on BP. Particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns is concentrated particles that develop from human impact on the environment, such as automobile exhaust, power generation and other fossil fuels. Researchers sought to determine if intensive BP lowering on cardiovascular events is modified by air pollution exposure in the NIH-funded Systolic BP Intervention (SPRINT) Trial.

Researchers linked integrated satellite-derived air pollution exposures with residential addresses for 9,286 patients enrolled in the SPRINT trial. The study showed that intensive BP lowering (defined as goal systolic blood pressure lower than 120 mmHg) led to significant reduction in cardiovascular events (combination of heart attack, strokes, heart failure, or death from cardiovascular disease) especially in patients exposed to higher pollution levels. The authors concluded that ambient air pollution may influence the benefit of intensive BP lowering. Lowering BP is particularly beneficial for patients who are exposed to high levels of fine particulate matter and it may even reduce adverse cardiovascular effects of particulate matter pollution.

"Air pollution impacts socioeconomically disadvantaged patients to a higher degree. Living within a particular neighborhood should not mean you are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease," said Sadeer Al-Kindi, MD, cardiologist with UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, Assistant Professor, CWRU School of Medicine and the lead author of the study. "University Hospitals has a history of addressing health care disparities in underserved communities and armed with the information from this study, we can thoughtfully create solutions to better serve these populations."

Patients exposed to high levels of air pollution can take control of their health in knowing that lowering their BP is effective in reducing cardiovascular risk.

"This study improves our understanding of the intersection between air pollution, heart disease and blood pressure. It also has implications in management of patients who are exposed to high levels of air pollution," said Sanjay Rajagopalan, MD, Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine, UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, Professor, CWRU School of Medicine and the senior author of the study.

"This is one of the few findings from SPRINT showing potential heterogeneity in the benefit of BP lowering on cardiovascular outcomes," said Jackson Wright, MD, PhD, a member of the SPRINT Steering Committee, Director, Clinical Hypertension Program, UH Cleveland Medical Center and Professor Emeritus, CWRU School of Medicine. "The findings of this novel analysis of the SPRINT trial may provide additional insight and avenues of further investigation into the harmful impact of air pollution on cardiovascular disease."

"Next steps in this research involve studying the mechanistic underpinnings of this effect modification and identifying methods to reduce pollution exposure and reduce the harmful effects of air pollution on the cardiovascular system," said Dr. Al-Kindi.

Las Vegas, Nev. (Monday, Feb. 1, 2021) - In the summer of 2019, Desert Research Institute (DRI) scientist Rosemary Carroll, Ph.D., waited for the arrival of the North American Monsoon, which normally brings a needed dose of summer moisture to the area where she lives in Crested Butte, Colo. - but for the fourth year in a row, the rains never really came.

"2019 had just a horrendous monsoon," Carroll said. "Just the weakest monsoon. And we'd had a few years of weak monsoons before that, which had really gotten me wondering, how important is the monsoon to late summer streamflow here in the Upper Colorado River basin? And how do monsoons influence the following year's streamflow?"

Working in partnership with colleagues David Gochis, Ph.D., of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Kenneth Williams, Ph.D., of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Carroll set out to explore the importance of monsoon rain in streamflow generation in a Colorado River headwater basin.

The team's findings, which are published in a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters, point to both the importance of monsoon rains in maintaining the Upper Colorado River's water supply and the diminishing ability of monsoons to replenish summer streamflow in a warmer future with less snow accumulation.

Their study focuses on the East River watershed, a pristine, high elevation, snow-dominated headwater basin of the Colorado River and part of the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area (SFA) program that is exploring how disturbances in mountain systems - like floods, drought, changing snowpack and earlier snowmelt -impact the downstream delivery of water, nutrients, carbon, and metals.

Using a hydrologic model and multiple decades of climate data from the East River watershed, Carroll and her colleagues found that monsoon rains normally deliver about 18 percent of the basin's water and produce about 10 percent of the annual streamflow, with streamflow generated primarily in the higher elevations of the basin.

"The amount of streamflow produced by monsoons, while not geographically extensive, is actually somewhat substantial," Carroll said. "It was larger than I thought it would be. That doesn't mean all of that water gets to a reservoir -some likely is used by riparian vegetation or irrigation, but it still does go to meet some need within the basin."

Next, the team explored the ability of these summer rains to produce streamflow during cool years with high snow accumulation, and during warm years with less snow accumulation. During cool years with more snow, soil moisture levels were higher going into summer, and greater streamflow was generated by the monsoon rains. During warmer years with low snowpack, dry soils absorbed much of the monsoonal rains, and less runoff made it to the streams.

"You can think of the soil zone as a sponge that needs to fill up before it can allow water to move through it," Carroll said. "So, if it's already depleted because you had low snowpack, the monsoon then has to fill it back up, and that decreases the amount of water you actually get in the river."

As the climate warms, snowpack in the Rocky Mountains and other mountain systems is expected to decline, leading to reduced streamflow. Rising temperatures also lead to increased soil evaporation and increased water use by plants. According to the results of Carroll's study, these changes will reduce the ability of water from the monsoon to make it to the river as streamflow.

"Our results indicate that as we move toward a climate that is warmer and our snowpack decreases, the ability of monsoon rain to buffer these losses in streamflow is also going to go down," Carroll said. "So, the monsoon is not some silver bullet that is going to help mitigate those changes."

The Colorado River is a critically important resource for people living in Southern Nevada, where it accounts for about 90 percent of the water supply. Although runoff from winter snowpack provides a much larger proportion of streamflow each year than the monsoons, the monsoonal moisture is important to both ecosystems and people in part because it arrives at a different time of year. And in a system like the Colorado River, where every drop of water is allocated, if monsoon rains do not arrive, it creates a shortage somewhere downstream.

"In terms of water resources, if monsoon rains are useful and contribute to late-season streamflow, then the loss of that water obviously has implications for the ecology of these systems," Carroll said. "This water is really important in supporting aquatic habitat there. But it's also really important for human use. If any amount of water that we rely on isn't there, then something has to give. The Upper Basin will have to consider how they are going to manage their water to meet those downstream obligations."

Oak Brook, IL - The February edition of SLAS Technology is a special collection of articles focused on "Artificial Intelligence in Process Automation" by Guest Editor Cenk Ündey, Ph.D. (Amgen, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA).

This SLAS Technology special collection targets the use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and technologies as applied specifically to drug discovery, automated gene editing and machine learning. As AI becomes increasingly more prevalent in research, medicine and even everyday life, laboratory automation has gone beyond hardware advancements toward new levels of precision and complexity. Beyond research, AI serves as a powerful tool for clinicians diagnosing and treating patients in a medical setting. The AI advancements presented in this issue highlight the wide spectrum of medical AI breakthroughs.

This month's issue of SLAS Technology also celebrates the top 10 most-cited articles within the journal's history. Over the past decade, the publication's priority has been to provide a platform for researchers to share technological advancements as well as a resource to continually share the impact of technology on life sciences and biomedical research.

The February issue of SLAS Discovery includes nine articles of original research in addition to the cover article.

Articles of Original Research include:

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells on a Chip: A Self-Contained, Accessible, Pipette-less iPSC Culturing and Differentiation Kit

Core Hairpin Structure of SpCas9 sgRNA Functions in a Sequence- and Spatial Conformation-Dependent Manner

Performance Comparison of Massively Parallel Sequencing (MPS) Instruments Using Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Panels for Ancestry

Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision Strategies for Automated Gene Editing with a Nanofountain Probe Electroporation (NFP-E) System

Other articles include:

Artificial Intelligence Effecting a Paradigm Shift in Drug Development

Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the Rescue: Deploying Machine Learning to Bridge the Biorelevance Gap in Antioxidant Assays

SLAS Celebrates the Top 10 Most-Cited SLAS Technology Articles

The Diagnostic Accuracy of Liquid Biopsy in EGFR-Mutated NSCLC: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 40 Studies

Point-of-Need Diagnostics for Foodborne Pathogen Screening

An Automated Tube Labeler for High-Throughput Purification Laboratories

Hydrocarbons and petroleum are almost synonymous in environmental science. After all, oil reserves account for nearly all the hydrocarbons we encounter. But the few hydrocarbons that trace their origin to biological sources may play a larger ecological role than scientists originally suspected.

A team of researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution investigated this previously neglected area of oceanography for signs of an overlooked global cycle. They also tested how its existence might impact the ocean's response to oil spills.

"We demonstrated that there is a massive and rapid hydrocarbon cycle that occurs in the ocean, and that it is distinct from the ocean's capacity to respond to petroleum input," said Professor David Valentine(link is external), who holds the Norris Presidential Chair in the Department of Earth Science at UCSB. The research, led by his graduate students Eleanor Arrington(link is external) and Connor Love(link is external), appears in
Nature Microbiology(link is external).

In 2015, an international team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge published a study demonstrating that the hydrocarbon pentadecane was produced by marine cyanobacteria in laboratory cultures. The researchers extrapolated that this compound might be important in the ocean. The molecule appears to relieve stress in curved membranes, so it's found in things like chloroplasts, wherein tightly packed membranes require extreme curvature, Valentine explained. Certain cyanobacteria still synthesize the compound, while other ocean microbes readily consume it for energy.

Valentine authored a two-page commentary on the paper, along with Chris Reddy from Woods Hole, and decided to pursue the topic further with Arrington and Love. They visited the Gulf of Mexico in 2015, then the west Atlantic in 2017, to collect samples and run experiments.

The team sampled seawater from a nutrient-poor region of the Atlantic known as the Sargasso Sea, named for the floating sargassum seaweed swept in from the Gulf of Mexico. This is beautiful, clear, blue water with Bermuda smack in the middle, Valentine said.

Obtaining the samples was apparently a rather tricky endeavor. Because pentadecane is a common hydrocarbon in diesel fuel, the team had to take extra precautions to avoid contamination from the ship itself. They had the captain turn the ship into the wind so the exhaust wouldn't taint the samples and they analyzed the chemical signature of the diesel to ensure it wasn't the source of any pentadecane they found.

What's more, no one could smoke, cook or paint on deck while the researchers were collecting seawater. "That was a big deal," Valentine said, "I don't know if you've ever been on a ship for an extended period of time, but you paint every day. It's like the Golden Gate Bridge: You start at one end and by the time you get to the other end it's time to start over."

The precautions worked, and the team recovered pristine seawater samples. "Standing in front of the gas chromatograph in Woods Hole after the 2017 expedition, it was clear the samples were clean with no sign of diesel," said co-lead author Love. "Pentadecane was unmistakable and was already showing clear oceanographic patterns even in the first couple of samples that [we] ran."

Due to their vast numbers in the world's ocean, Love continued, "just two types of marine cyanobacteria are adding up to 500 times more hydrocarbons to the ocean per year than the sum of all other types of petroleum inputs to the ocean, including natural oil seeps, oil spills, fuel dumping and run-off from land." These microbes collectively produce 300-600 million metric tons of pentadecane per year, an amount that dwarfs the 1.3 million metric tons of hydrocarbons released from all other sources.

While these quantities are impressive, they're a bit misleading. The authors point out that the pentadecane cycle spans 40% or more of the Earth's surface, and more than one trillion quadrillion pentadecane-laden cyanobacterial cells are suspended in the sunlit region of the world's ocean. However, the life cycle of those cells is typically less than two days. As a result, the researchers estimate that the ocean contains only around 2 million metric tons of pentadecane at any given time.

It's a fast spinning wheel, Valentine explained, so the actual amount present at any point in time is not particularly large. "Every two days you produce and consume all the pentadecane in the ocean," he said.

In the future, the researchers hope to link microbes' genomics to their physiology and ecology. The team already has genome sequences for dozens of organisms that multiplied to consume the pentadecane in their samples. "The amount of information that's there is incredible," said Valentine, "and I think reveals just how much we don't know about the ecology of a lot of hydrocarbon-consuming organisms."

Having confirmed the existence and magnitude of this biohydrocarbon cycle, the team sought to tackle the question of whether its presence might prime the ocean to break down spilled petroleum. The key question, Arrington explained, is whether these abundant pentadecane-consuming microorganisms serve as an asset during oil spill cleanups. To investigate this, they added pentane -- a petroleum hydrocarbon similar to pentadecane -- to seawater sampled at various distances from natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico.

They measured the overall respiration in each sample to see how long it took pentane-eating microbes to multiply. The researchers hypothesized that, if the pentadecane cycle truly primed microbes to consume other hydrocarbons as well, then all the samples should develop blooms at similar rates.

But this was not the case. Samples from near the oil seeps quickly developed blooms. "Within about a week of adding pentane, we saw an abundant population develop," Valentine said. "And that gets slower and slower the further away you get, until, when you're out in the North Atlantic, you can wait months and never see a bloom." In fact, Arrington had to stay behind after the expedition at the facility in Woods Hole, Massachusetts to continue the experiment on the samples from the Atlantic because those blooms took so long to appear.

Interestingly, the team also found evidence that microbes belonging to another domain of life, Archaea, may also play a role in the pentadecane cycle. "We learned that a group of mysterious, globally abundant microbes -- which have yet to be domesticated in the laboratory -- may be fueled by pentadecane in the surface ocean," said co-lead author Arrington.

The results beg the question why the presence of an enormous pentadecane cycle appeared to have no effect on the breakdown of the petrochemical pentane. "Oil is different from pentadecane," Valentine said, "and you need to understand what the differences are, and what compounds actually make up oil, to understand how the ocean's microbes are going to respond to it."

Ultimately, the genes commonly used by microbes to consume the pentane are different than those used for pentadecane. "A microbe living in the clear waters offshore Bermuda is much less likely to encounter the petrochemical pentane compared to pentadecane produced by cyanobacteria, and therefore is less likely to carry the genes for pentane consumption," said Arrington.

Loads of different microbial species can consume pentadecane, but this doesn't imply that they can also consume other hydrocarbons, Valentine continued, especially given the diversity of hydrocarbon structures that exist in petroleum. There are less than a dozen common hydrocarbons that marine organisms produce, including pentadecane and methane. Meanwhile, petroleum comprises tens of thousands of different hydrocarbons. What's more, we are now seeing that organisms able to break down complex petroleum products tend to live in greater abundance near natural oil seeps.

Valentine calls this phenomenon "biogeographic priming" - when the ocean's microbial population is conditioned to a particular energy source in a specific geographic area. "And what we see with this work is a distinction between pentadecane and petroleum," he said, "that is important for understanding how different ocean regions will respond to oil spills."

Nutrient-poor gyres like the Sargasso Sea account for an impressive 40% of the Earth's surface. But, ignoring the land, that still leaves 30% of the planet to explore for other biohydrocarbon cycles. Valentine thinks the processes in regions of higher productivity will be more complex, and perhaps will provide more priming for oil consumption. He also pointed out that nature's blueprint for biological hydrocarbon production holds promise for efforts to develop the next generation of green energy.

In the United States only about 1.3 percent of all vehicles sold last year were battery powered. And about 90 percent of those sales were by one company -- Tesla. What has Tesla done right and where have other electric vehicle makers gone wrong?

Electric vehicles cannot succeed without developing a nationwide network of fast-charging networks in parallel with the cars. Current EV business models are doomed unless manufacturers that have bet their futures on them, like General Motors and VW, invest in or coordinate on a robust supercharger network. These are the observations in an in-depth study of the industry by management professors at the University of California, Davis, and Dartmouth College.

The researchers explain that big and traditional automakers have made exciting EVs but have essentially ignored the charging station side of the equation. Meanwhile, Tesla worked both sides of the market by building a sufficiently wide network of high-speed charging stations before they sold too many cars. There are about 4,000 high-voltage super-fast charging stations in the U.S., and the majority of them are available only to Tesla vehicles.

"Tesla has played the platform game. Other automakers are still playing a product game," said Hemant Bhargava, a professor of technology management at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. "This advantage that Tesla has is not permanent. Other automakers are collectively investing $200 billion in their new electric models. If they put only a few billion dollars, in a coordinated way, into rolling out a supercharging network, they could have enough stations to be competitive."

Bhargava and his co-authors compare the EV industry to various other platform-based products, such as smartphones, which are not nearly so useful without a mobile data network that delivers high-speed connectivity outside the home.

The article, "The Business of Electric Vehicles: A Platform Perspective," was published recently in Foundations and Trends in Technology, Information and Operations Management. The authors are Hemant K. Bhargava, UC Davis Graduate School of Management; Jonas Boehm and Geoffrey G. Parker, Dartmouth College. Bhargava directs the UC Davis Center for Analytics and Technology in Society, which focuses on platform business.

The researchers contend that elected officials and public policymakers have called for a rapid shift toward EVs from traditional gasoline-powered transportation and have set ambitious goals. Increasingly, these policies and goals are backed by research and evolving public sentiment, with buyers willing to pay premium prices for EVs. But, the authors submit, "where do they charge up?" The lack of charging infrastructure has throttled adoption of EVs. About 17 million automobiles were sold in the United States in 2019, of which only about 245,000 were battery-powered electric vehicles, researchers said.
General Motors, the researchers said, spent $1 billion developing its first electric car, and another $1.2 billion developing the Chevy Volt, and Nissan has spent $5.6 billion developing its electric passenger cars. With the major automakers promising new EV models, Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that 500 different EV models will be available globally by 2022. The lack of a robust charging network for them will be even more of a glaring omission, Bhargava said.

"There's a chicken-and-egg problem here," Bhargava explained. "Charging station providers will not invest huge amount of money in stations until there are enough cars on the road. But you won't have mass sales of cars until there are enough stations."

Meanwhile, Tesla split its investments on both sides of the market and developed the charging infrastructure in parallel -- a necessary element of their success, the researchers said.

"The huge charging station network is one of Tesla's great competitive advantages," said Bhargava.

Despite likely being defensible in the short run, it is very unlikely that proprietary charging networks are defensible in the long run and the likely low profits make this complement rather unattractive to defend, the researchers concluded.

"I would expect that in about 10 years, as the total EVs on the road grow substantially, there will be a force for universal or industry-wide charging stations, like we have today for refueling stations," Bhargava said.

A calculation so complex that it takes twenty years to complete on a powerful desktop computer can now be done in one hour on a regular laptop. Physicist Andreas Ekström at Chalmers University of Technology, together with international research colleagues, has designed a new method to calculate the properties of atomic nuclei incredibly quickly.

The new approach is based on a concept called emulation, where an approximate calculation replaces a complete and more complex calculation. Although the researchers are taking a shortcut, the solution ends up almost exactly the same. It is reminiscent of algorithms from machine learning, but ultimately the researchers have designed a completely new method. It opens up even more possibilities in fundamental research in areas such as nuclear physics.

"Now that we can emulate atomic nuclei using this method, we have a completely new tool to construct and analyse theoretical descriptions of the forces between protons and neutrons inside the atomic nucleus," says research leader Andreas Ekström, Associate Professor at the Department of Physics at Chalmers.

Fundamental to understanding our existence

The subject may sound niche, but it is in fact fundamental to understanding our existence and the stability and origin of visible matter. Most of the atomic mass resides in the centre of the atom, in a dense region called the atomic nucleus. The constituent particles of the nucleus, the protons and neutrons, are held together by something called the strong force. Although this force is so central to our existence, no one knows exactly how it works. To increase our knowledge and unravel the fundamental properties of visible matter, researchers need to be able to model the properties of atomic nuclei with great accuracy.

The basic research that Andreas Ekström and his colleagues are working on sheds new light on topics ranging from neutron stars and their properties, to the innermost structure and decay of nuclei. Basic research in nuclear physics also provides essential input to astrophysics, atomic physics, and particle physics.

Opening doors to completely new possibilities

"I am incredibly excited to be able to make calculations with such accuracy and efficiency. Compared with our previous methods, it feels like we are now computing at lightning speed. In our ongoing work here at Chalmers, we hope to improve the emulation method further, and perform advanced statistical analyses of our quantum mechanical models. With this emulation method it appears that we can achieve results that were previously considered impossible. This certainly opens doors to completely new possibilities," says Andreas Ekström.

The project is funded by the European Research Council within the framework of an ERC Starting Grant.

Read more about the work to explore the secrets of the atomic nuclei.

More on the mathematical shortcut

The new emulation method is based on something called eigenvector continuation (EVC). It allows for emulation of many quantum mechanical properties of atomic nuclei with incredible speed and accuracy. Instead of directly solving the time-consuming and complex many-body problem over and over again, researchers have created a mathematical shortcut, using a transformation into a special subspace. This makes it possible to utilise a few exact solutions in order to then obtain approximate solutions much faster.

If the emulator works well, it generates solutions that are almost exactly - circa 99 per cent - similar to the solutions to the original problem. This is in many ways the same principles used in machine learning, but it is not a neural network or a Gaussian process - a completely new method underpins it. The EVC method for emulation is not limited to atomic nuclei, and the researchers are currently looking further into different types of applications.

HOUSTON - (Feb. 1, 2021) - Rice University engineers have discovered technology that could slash the cost of semiconductor electron sources, key components in devices ranging from night-vision goggles and low-light cameras to electron microscopes and particle accelerators.

In an open-access Nature Communications paper, Rice researchers and collaborators at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) describe the first process for making electron sources from halide perovskite thin films that efficiently convert light into free electrons.

Manufacturers spend billions of dollars each year on photocathode electron sources made from semiconductors containing rare elements like gallium, selenium, cadmium and tellurium.

"This should be orders of magnitude lower in cost than what exists today in the market," said study co-corresponding author Aditya Mohite, a Rice materials scientist and chemical engineer. He said the halide perovskites have the potential to outperform existing semiconductor electron sources in several ways.

"First, there's the combination of quantum efficiency and lifetime," Mohite said. "Even through this was a proof-of-concept, and the first demonstration of halide perovskites as electron sources, quantum efficiency was only about four times lower than that of commercially available gallium arsenide photocathodes. And we found halide perovskites had a longer lifetime than gallium arsenide."

Another advantage is that perovskite photocathodes are made by spin coating, a low-cost method that can easily be scaled up, said Mohite, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of materials science and nanoengineering.

"We also found that degraded perovskite photocathodes can be easily regenerated compared to conventional materials that usually require high-temperature annealing," he said.

The researchers tested dozens of halide perovskite photocathodes, some with quantum efficiencies as high as 2.2%. They demonstrated their method by creating photocathodes with both inorganic and organic components, and showed they could tune electron emission over both the visible and ultraviolet spectrum.

Quantum efficiency describes how effective a photocathode is at converting light to useable electrons.

"If each incoming photon generates an electron and you collected every electron, you would have 100% quantum efficiency," said study lead author Fangze Liu, a postdoctoral research associate at LANL. "The best semiconductor photocathodes today have quantum efficiencies around 10-20%, and they are all made of extremely expensive materials using complex fabrication processes. Metals are also sometimes used as electron sources, and the quantum efficiency of copper is very small, about .01%, but it's still used, and it's a practical technology."

The cost savings from halide perovskite photocathodes would come in two forms: the raw materials for making them are abundant and inexpensive, and the manufacturing process is simpler and less expensive than for traditional semiconductors.

"There is a tremendous need for something that is low-cost and that can be scaled up," Mohite said. "Using solution-processed materials, where you can literally paint a large area, is completely unheard of for making the kind of high-quality semiconductors needed for photocathodes."

The name 'perovskite' refers to both a specific mineral discovered in Russia in 1839 and any compound with the crystal structure of that mineral. Halide perovskites are the latter, and can be made by mixing lead, tin and other metals with bromide or iodide salts.

Research into halide perovskite semiconductors took off worldwide after scientists in the United Kingdom used sheetlike crystals of the material to make high-efficiency solar cells in 2012. Other labs have since shown the materials can be used to make LEDs, photodetectors, photoelectrochemical cells for water-splitting and other devices.

Mohite, an expert in perovskites who worked as a research scientist at LANL prior to joining Rice in 2018, said one reason the halide perovskite photocathode project succeeded is that his collaborators in LANL's Applied Cathode Enhancement and Robustness Technologies research group are "one of the best teams in the world for exploring new materials and technologies for photocathodes."

Photocathodes operate according to Einstein's photoelectric effect, releasing free electrons when they are struck by light of a particular frequency. The reason quantum efficiencies of photocathodes are typically low is because even the slightest defects, like a single atom out of place in the crystal lattice, can create "potential wells" that trap free electrons.

"If you have defects, all your electrons are going to get lost," Mohite said. "It takes a lot of control. And it took a lot of effort to come up with a process to make a good perovskite material."

Mohite and Liu used spin-coating, a widely used technique where liquid is dropped onto a rapidly spinning disk and centrifugal force spreads the liquid across the disk's surface. In Mohite and Liu's experiments, spin-coating took place in an argon atmosphere to limit impurities. Once spun, the disks were heated and placed in high vacuum to convert the liquid into crystal with a clean surface.

"It took a lot of iterations," Mohite said. "We tried tuning the material composition and surface treatment in many ways to get the right combination for maximum efficiency. That was the biggest challenge."

He said the team is already working to improve the quantum efficiency of its photocathodes.

"Their quantum efficiency is still lower than state-of-the-art semiconductors, and we proposed in our paper that this is due to the presence of high surface defects," he said. "The next step is to fabricate high-quality perovskite crystals with lower surface defect densities."

Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer death in Singapore and the world.

The World Conference on Lung Cancer, the largest international gathering of clinicians, researchers and scientists in the field of lung cancer - with more than 6,000 participants - was held from 28 January to 31 January 2021 as a worldwide virtual event hosted by Singapore.

A group of Singapore clinicians and scientists presented new data to enhance understanding and treatment of lung cancer in the Asian population at the conference.

SINGAPORE, 1 FEBRUARY 2021 - Clinicians and scientists from Singapore shared exciting new data on lung cancer treatment in the Asian population at the World Conference on Lung Cancer Singapore, last week. Lung cancer develops very differently in Western and Asian populations, which makes understanding the disease from an Asian perspective a research priority for Singapore and the region.

In Asian lung cancer patients, the most common genetic alteration is the EGFR mutation which occurs more commonly in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Over the years there has been an increase in the proportion of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) among all lung cancer cases, making NSCLC the most prevalent form of lung cancer in Singapore (50%). NSCLC is unique as it occurs in patients who are both smokers and non-smokers. An added complication to treating NSCLC is that many lung cancer patients display TKI-drug resistance, or resistance to anti-cancer drugs, making NSCLC very difficult to treat.

These findings are of particular concern in Singapore as lung cancer has been one of the leading cancers in the past fifty years, and was the top cause of cancer death among males and the second leading cause of cancer death among females, with 6,064 deaths in Singapore from 2013 to 2017.

The Lung Cancer Open Fund - Large Collaborative Grant (OF-LCG) Programme, co-headed by co-chair of the Conference, Associate Professor Daniel Tan, Senior Consultant, Division of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), looks at improving the understanding of lung cancer in Asian patients and seeking new treatment pathways to improve survival outcomes. The Lung Cancer OF-LCG Programme, which is supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore and administered by the Singapore Ministry of Health's National Medical Research Council, is led and championed by leading clinicians and scientists from major healthcare and research institutions including NCCS, National University Cancer Institute Singapore (NCIS), National University Hospital Singapore (NUHS), Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI), Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS), as well as the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) and the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) .

The Lung Cancer OF-LCG Programme team presented new data at the Conference to show key molecular features of EGFR-mutated TKI-drug resistant patients, share results of trials on a novel combination therapy approach as well as report the natural history of early stage cancer. These abstracts were presented during the scientific oral abstract sessions where top ranking abstracts were featured. The team's research sharing also provide a valuable resource for genomic lung cancer research (See Annex A below for more information).

"Our research is conducted by a multidisciplinary team of clinician-scientists, clinicians, researchers, molecular biologists and computational biologists who used a wide range of approaches to examine lung cancer and how it particularly affects the Asian population. The collaboration and integration of methods demonstrates the Lung Cancer OF-LCG Programme's continued efforts to find new ways to improve treatment outcomes in what can be a challenging disease to treat," said Assoc Prof Tan, senior author of the research presentations, who is also Deputy Head of the Division of Clinical Trials and Epidemiological Sciences, NCCS.

An example of those efforts is the creation of THOR, a multi-omics genomics platform that hosts thousands of lung cancer samples presented at the Conference by Dr Anders Skanderup. Dr Skanderup, a scientist from GIS, who is the Big Data Theme lead on the Lung Cancer OF-LCG Programme and member of the Conference's scientific committee, said, "Our work highlights the importance of integrated databases for use by local clinicians and scientists to facilitate collaborations and make new discoveries, as well as helping advance precision medicine."

Assoc Prof Tan added "This flagship conference also features important plenaries looking at the impact of precision medicine on oncologic care, new targeted and immunotherapies in thoracic malignancies, as well as lung cancer screening in never smokers."

The World Conference on Lung Cancer, is the largest gathering of international scientists, researchers and patient advocates in the field of lung cancer and thoracic oncology and was held from 28 January to 31 January 2021. The conference is a key event in the International Association of the Study of Lung Cancer calendar and this year adapted from an in-person event to a worldwide virtual event, due to COVID-19 restrictions, with the planning and delivery of the summit conducted in Singapore.

For more information on the Conference, visit: https://wclc2020.iaslc.org

About the National Cancer Centre Singapore

National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) provides a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to cancer treatment and patient care. We see close to 65 per cent of the public sector oncology cases, and they are benefiting from the sub-specialisation of our clinical oncologists.

To deliver among the best in cancer treatment and care, our clinicians work closely with our scientists who conduct robust cutting-edge clinical and translational research programmes which are internationally recognised. NCCS strives to be a global leading cancer centre, and shares its expertise and knowledge by offering training to local and overseas medical professionals.

http://www.nccs.com.sg

For more information, please contact:

National Cancer Centre Singapore
dharshini.subbiah@nccs.com.sg

ANNEX A

World Conference on Lung Cancer presentation information

Countering drug resistance

Dr Aaron Tan, a Fellow at National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), presented the multi-omics profiling and analysis of TKI resistant patients with EGFR mutant NSCLC. The group profiled tumour and tissue biopsies from 59 advanced patients treated at NCCS to better understand the molecular features of their disease. TKI-resistant patients have limited treatment options so understanding alternative treatment pathways is the main approach to overcoming this challenge. The group was able to show the interplay between genetic alterations, cell lineage plasticity and the tumour environment which leads to the development of the drug resistance. Their research provides a framework for targeting and planning therapeutic strategies to overcome resistance in EGFR mutant NSCLC. For this research, Dr Tan was awarded an Early Career Award at the Conference.

Performing innovative clinical trials to improve response to treatment

Dr Gillianne Lai, Consultant, Division of Medical Oncology, NCCS shared findings from a randomised phase 2 clinical trial. The group investigated the efficacy of treating EGFR-mutated TKI-resistant NSCLC with a combined immune checkpoint therapy using Nivolumab and Ipilumumab. This combined therapy approach is in line with current research to uncover new lines of treatment against EGFR-mutated TKI-resistant NSCLC. As Ipilumumab could potentially enhance cell function, the group hypothesised that the combined therapy would have better outcomes than the conventionally used monotherapy Nivolumab, which has low clinical efficacy for never smokers. Results for the 31 patients who participated in the study did not demonstrate better outcomes for combined immunotherapy with no new toxicity concerns. This study highlights the need for innovative immunotherapy approaches.

Identifying features associated with relapse in early stage lung cancer

Dr Stephanie Saw, Associate Consultant in Division of Medical Oncology, NCCS, shared the long-term outcomes of a resected cohort of EGFR-mutated early-stage lung cancer. A total of 396 patients were included in this study, which showed that despite curative resection and adjuvant chemotherapy, recurrence rates remain high in early-stage EGFR-mutated lung cancer including Stage IA. The patterns of relapse as well as recurrence-free survival rates were comparable to the control arm of the ADAURA study, which showed an impressive disease-free survival benefit with adjuvant Osimertinib. Exploratory analysis using exome and RNA-sequencing revealed molecular features associated with relapse, which could complement clinical features to improve risk stratification for patients. This study highlights the need to develop individualized adjuvant treatment strategies to improve outcomes for early stage EGFR-mutated NSCLC.

A new multi-omics genomics platform with thousands of lung cancer samples

In poster presentations at the Conference, Dr Jacob Alvarez and Dr Anders Skanderup from the Genome Institute of Singapore, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), who are from the Lung Cancer OF-LCG Programme presented a Multi-Ethnic, Open Access Thoracic Cancer Genomics Resource (THOR) aimed at providing genomics data for lung cancer research. THOR is a flexible and user-friendly multi-omics genomics platform that hosts thousands of processed lung cancer samples from published data, comprising of both Asian and Caucasian samples, and allows for cross-cohort genomics analyses. There is growing evidence that racial and ethnic differences influence incidence, mortality and survival, and this resource will allow meaningful analysis in cohorts across the world to better understand and treat lung cancer.

COVID-19 mortality racial disparities in the U.S. are associated with social factors like income, education and internet access, according to a Rutgers study.

The study, published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, highlights the need for public health policies that address structural racism.

The researchers investigated the association between COVID-19 cases and deaths in 2,026 U.S. counties from January to October 2020 and social determinants of health, which can raise the risk for infection and death.

They also looked at factors known or thought to impact COVID-19 outcomes, including the counties' population density, days since the first COVID-19 death and percent of residents who are over age 65, are smokers or who have chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or high blood pressure.

The study found that a 1 percentage point increase in a county's percent of Black residents, uninsured adults, low birthweight infants, adults without a high school diploma, incarceration rate and households without internet increased that county's COVID-19 death rates during the time period examined.

Counties that were the most deprived socioeconomically had a 67 percent increase in the COVID-19 death rate. Michelle DallaPiazza, lead author and an associate professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said the percent of households without internet, which provides updated knowledge of the pandemic and allows remote working and learning, and the percentage of adults without a high school diploma were the factors most associated with a county's COVID-19 death rate.

"The findings are consistent with historical health inequities in marginalized populations, particularly Black Americans," DallaPiazza said. "This adds to the extensive literature on racial health disparities that demonstrate that social and structural factors greatly influence health outcomes, and this is particularly true when it comes to COVID-19."

The application Radar COVID detects twice as many close contacts of people infected with the virus SARS-Cov2 as the manual tracing system. This is the conclusion of the first scientific study that was carried out to assess the application in a trial carried out last summer on the island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands. The following researchers were involved in the project; Àlex Arenas, professor from the Department of Computer Engineering and Mathematics; Lucas Lacasa, from the Queen Mary University, London; and Pablo Rodríguez, from the Association of Computing Machinery, United States. The results have been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

The aim of the study was to check the technical and epidemiological effectiveness of the digital tracing of contacts through the application RadarCOVID at the request of the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence of the Spanish government. To this end, a pilot trial was set up on La Gomera on 22 July. The research team simulated a series of COVID infections in the island's capital, San Sebastián de La Gomera, to verify how accurately the application can detect close contacts and, therefore, contain coronavirus outbreaks, which in this simulated experiment affected 10% of those who had downloaded the application. A publicity campaign was designed to encourage all visitors to the island to download the application. About 33% of the people (more than 3,000 downloads) installed it on their mobiles and 6.3 close contacts were detected per infected individual, a figure that is almost twice the average number detected on the island (3.5) using only manual tracing.

"The number of close contacts that was detected was approximately the same as would be expected in a real situation bearing in mind existing data," says the researcher Àlex Arenas, who adds that "the percentage of downloads was above the threshold required for the application to be efficient" (approximately 20% according to researchers).

Contacts can be digitally traced by using mobile phone applications that notify users of any recent contacts who have recently been diagnosed as positive for COVID-19. This system has been introduced in countries all over the world to supplement the tracing of manual contacts but this is the first empirical test in real outbreaks.

Despite their usefulness in times of pandemic, this sort of application has been looked on with reluctance by part of the population. One reason for this is the possible danger of detecting a large number of false close contacts that may put the health system under unnecessary pressure. "We have seen that the application can accurately check distances between contacts and we know, for example, that when two people are separated by walls the intensity of the Bluetooth technology decreases," Arenas explains. Another reason is the privacy of personal data. In this regard, he points out that the app is "totally private" and the user receives only the warning that there has been a contact but with no other information about the identity of that contact. "If you have been diagnosed as positive by a PCR, your health system generates a unique random number that you can voluntarily enter into your app and all the close contacts detected will be sent a notification. This process is totally anonymous and the system is very safe," he claims.

Even so, the researchers warn that the success of the application depends on the governments, who are responsible for setting up national advertising campaigns to encourage people to download and use the application.

An atlas of harmful algal blooms across the Red Sea reveals their link with industrial aquaculture and how these blooms have changed in recent decades.

Warming oceans and anthropogenic pollution have led to more frequent and extensive harmful algal blooms (HABs) worldwide. These rapid surges in productivity occur when algae suddenly experience advantageous conditions, usually an influx of nutrients, and take over their environment, suffocating other marine life and spreading toxins through the food chain. These blooms harm wild and farmed fish and reduce marine biodiversity.

"HABs are a global problem," says Elamurugu Alias Gokul, a Ph.D. student at KAUST, "and are often associated with socio-economic and environmental issues that affect public health, fisheries and aquaculture."

The Red Sea supports the countries situated along its shores through its thriving coral reefs, excellent biodiversity and growing aquaculture industry. "Aquaculture is essential for the economic prosperity of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," says Gokul, "but it is also a major source of marine pollution." Despite growing concerns that HABs are exacerbated by climate change and aquaculture, there is a lack of studies dedicated to understanding their seasonal and interannual variability across the region.

Gokul and his colleagues analyzed high-resolution satellite data to map HABs across the Red Sea between 2003 and 2017. They studied changes in ocean color to determine the presence or absence of HABs and used remotely sensed concentrations of chlorophyll-a -- a photosynthetic pigment in aquatic algae -- as a proxy for phytoplankton abundance. As the researchers expected, most events occurred during warm summer months in the southern Red Sea, where they were also longer lasting (up to 32 days) and more widespread (up to 5000 square kilometers), possibly due to the monsoon winds that drive nutrient-rich waters from the Indian Ocean.

The researchers then focused on the area around NAQUA, the largest fish farm in the Red Sea, and compared variations in HABs with aquaculture production. Between 2002 and 2010, annual aquaculture output increased from around 4000 tonnes to 22,370 tonnes, and the average size of HABs near the site grew from 65 square kilometers to 392 square kilometers. "The high chlorophyll concentrations in the vicinity of the facility's discharge point suggest that elevated nutrients from aquaculture waste have contributed to the spread of HABs," says Gokul.

The team is already developing an algorithm that can distinguish between individual phytoplankton species. "This information is vital for understanding which species were responsible for past HAB outbreaks across the Red Sea," adds Ibrahim Hoteit, who oversaw the research. "But we also intend to develop an automated remote-sensing system that can detect and report HABs in real time."

These remote-sensing tools could help identify and monitor areas at higher risk from harmful algal blooms, particularly around aquaculture facilities, helping the development of a sustainable waste management plan that protects the marine environment and the future of fisheries in the Red Sea.