Tech

Got a cat that always seems hungry? New University of Guelph research suggests you might want to reduce -- not increase -- how often you feed them.

Animal nutrition specialists in U of G's Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) and Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) have found that feeding cats one large meal a day may help control hunger better than feeding them several times a day.

The research, published in the journal PLOS One, revealed that cats that ate one meal a day were more satisfied, which could result in less food-begging behaviour.

The results also suggest cutting back feeding frequency could help reduce the risk of obesity by controlling cats' appetite and potentially making them eat less - an important discovery given that obesity is the most common?nutritional problem?affecting?cats.

"These findings may surprise the veterinary community and many cat owners who have been told their animals need several small meals a day," said study co-author Prof. Adronie Verbrugghe, a veterinarian with OVC's Department of Clinical Studies, who specializes in companion animal nutrition. "But these results suggest there are benefits to this approach."

Previous research has examined the effects of meal frequency on cat behaviour, but this study is the first to use a comprehensive approach analyzing effects on appetite-suppressing hormones, physical activity, energy expenditure and use of energy sources, said co-author Prof. Kate Shoveller, an expert in animal nutrition with U of G's Department of Animal Biosciences.

"There was no good research to back up the several-meals-a-day approach that many owners hear, and so we wanted to put some real data behind current feeding recommendations to be sure they were right for cats," she said.

The study involved eight?healthy-weight, indoor cats under the age of five.? Each cat was exposed to both feeding regimens and each for a total of three weeks, with the same diet and amount being offered in either one meal or four meals. Some of the cats were fed only in the morning, while the others were fed the same amount in four smaller meals.

The cats were equipped with activity?monitors on harnesses?to measure their voluntary physical activity. Food intake?was recorded?daily,?and body weight was?measured?weekly. Researchers also measured cat metabolism through breath and blood.

Physical activity was higher in cats fed four times a day, but overall energy expenditure?was?similar between the groups. The weights of the cats in both groups did not change over the study period, no matter which feeding schedule they were on.

Cats that ate just once a day had higher post-meal levels of three key appetite-regulating hormones, suggesting they were more satisfied. These cats also showed lower fasting respiratory quotient, suggesting they were burning their fat stores, which is key to maintaining lean body mass.

The cats that ate only one meal a day also had a larger increase in blood amino acids, meaning more protein was available to them to build muscle and other important proteins. This is important given that many cats lose muscle mass as they age, a condition known as sarcopenia.

"Physiologically, it makes sense that feeding only once a day would have benefits," said Shoveller. "When you look at human research, there's pretty consistent evidence that there are positive health outcomes with intermittent fasting and improved satiety."

Even big cats in the wild engage in a form of intermittent fasting, the authors note, feasting when they make a kill and fasting before the next one.

While their data suggest feeding once a day may be a good way to promote satiation and lean body mass, the researchers would like to do longer studies.

"This approach is really yet another tool in a veterinarian or a cat owner's toolbox for managing a cat's weight and keeping their animals healthy and happy," said Verbrugghe. "But we always have to look at each individual animal and account for the cat's and owner's lifestyle. So although this approach might be helpful to promote satiety in some cats, it might not help another."

A vast amount of data is booming generated every single day in this information era, which triggered the development of new highspeed wireless data communication technologies, such as the fifth generation of cellular systems (5G) and the light-fidelity (LiFi). This, combined with the emerging fields of 'Internet of Things' (IoT) and big data, persistently pushing the miniaturization and densification of wireless communication terminals. In this context, the targeted design of wearable LiFi with the merits of portable, conformability, safe and high-speed wireless communications will have boundless prospects in IoT terminals.

In a new paper published in Light Science & Application, a team of scientists, led by Professor Haibo Zeng from MIIT Key Laboratory of Advanced Display Materials and Devices, Institute of Optoelectronics & Nanomaterials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, China, and co-workers have developed a wearable LiFi based on electroluminescence-photodetection bifunctional fibers enabled by perovskite QDs with hybrid components. The bifunctional fibers possess the narrowest luminescence spectrum of ~19 nm, more importantly, the capability of simultaneously transmitting and receiving information.

They propose a hybrid strategy that using organic molecule as hybrid components of perovskite QDs to endow dip-coated fibers with high-quality super smooth perovskite QD film. They ascribe this super smooth perovskite film to the improved solidified stage that govern by the capillary force in dip-coating process."

The as prepared perovskite EL fibers are color-tunable, weavable, integratable and possess the narrowest electroluminescence FWHM of ~19 nm among all the reported fiber shaped EL devices."

The most important result is that the as-prepared fibers are capable of photo responding to laser radiation when operating as an EL device, as well as bilateral real time data transmitting and acquiring through a single fiber."

Maturation of the ribosome is a complex operation. Work by an Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich team now shows that the 90S precursor of the small 40S subunit undergoes a 'molting' process, during which it progressively discards its outermost components.

Protein synthesis, programmed by the genetic information encoded in the DNA, is perhaps the most crucial process that takes place in biological cells. Proteins are indispensable for all organisms, because they are responsible for performing a vast range of biological functions. Indeed, the molecular machines that put proteins together - which are known as ribosomes - are themselves partly made up of specific proteins. The second vital ingredient of every ribosome is a small set of specific RNAs, which serve as scaffolds to which ribosomal proteins can be specifically attached. The synthesis of ribosomes is therefore an extremely complex, multistep process, which includes both assembly and maturation stages. This complexity explains why many of the details of the whole operation are still incompletely understood. Now a group of researchers led by Professor Roland Beckmann at LMU's Gene Center has obtained new insights into the maturation phase that gives rise to the small subunit of the functional ribosome in brewer's yeast. The study, which was carried out in collaboration with colleagues based in Heidelberg, appears in the leading journal Science.

In the cells of higher organisms, mature ribosomes are composed of two distinct subunits, each of which contains a long ribosomal RNA (rRNA) molecule (called 18S in the small and 25S in the large subunit in yeast). The subunits interact with one another and with the messenger RNAs that program the synthesis of each protein. In yeast, the smaller 40S subunit is derived from a much larger precursor complex called the 90S pre-ribosome. The 90S precursor particle contains a single (35S) RNA molecule. The RNAs ultimately associated with each mature subunit are produced by the removal of specific internal and end-fragments. However, one of the segments the RNA found in the 90S precursor plays an important role in ensuring that the mature 18S rRNA in the 40S subunit folds into its correct three-dimensional form.

How the processing of the 35S rRNA is achieved has so far been unclear. The general idea was that, as the 40S subunit matures, the processing steps that give rise to the 18S rRNA take place, and the mature 40S particle eventually 'emerges' from the 90S precursor. The new study adds new details, which reveal that the process is rather more complicated than that. For a start, a specific enzyme (Dhr1) is required to ensure that the initial cleavage of the 35S rRNA precursor occurs at the right position. Dhr1 first exposes the cleavage site, enabling it to interact with the enzyme Utp24, which cuts the correct fragment off one end of the 35S rRNA.

In addition, the 'emergence' of the 40S subunit entails an ordered series of reactions in which the outer shell of the 90S particle is progressively dissociated from the 40S. "It doesn't just go plop," Beckmann remarks. The process is actually reminiscent of the molting of an insect - shedding of the integument takes place layer by layer. "It's rather like those Russian dolls. When you open one, you find a smaller one nestled inside," says Beckmann. - And with the aid of cryo-electron microscopy, the specialists in Munich were able to discriminate between the different three-dimensional complexes characteristic of each step in the process. Earlier biochemical experiments performed by a team at the Center for Biochemistry at Heidelberg University (BZH), led by Professor Ed Hurt, had already cast doubt on the previous en bloc model by providing evidence for the idea that shedding of the outer layers of the 90S particle took place stepwise.

The elucidation of such mechanisms is not only of interest from the point of view of basic research. As Beckmann points out, more and more disorders have been shown to be related to a lack of intact ribosomes. When errors occur in the assembly and maturation of these delicate and intricate molecular machines, they may ultimately lead to a relative dearth of ribosomes, which then perturbs the delicate equilibrium between protein synthesis and degradation. Among the resulting syndromes are diverse forms of muscle atrophy, growth anomalies, anemias and certain cancers.

Colorectal cancer constitute the third most common cancer in the Western world. Their incidence constantly increases as the population ages, and despite recent advances in colorectal cancer therapy, the cancer metastasizes in every third of colorectal cancer patients, and a significant part of these patients eventually die from the disease.

Several mutations in the DNA of gut epithelial cells are critical for initiation and growth of colorectal cancer. Of these, the Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene mutation is the most common in colorectal cancers. This mutation activates cell proliferation, thus enhancing tumor growth.

APC also regulates the intracellular Wnt signaling pathway that is needed for the constant renewal of the gut epithelium. Among the hot topics in the field of stem cell research have been the Wnt-agonists, R-spondins, several of which are critical for the function of the intestinal stem cells and the regeneration of intestinal epithelium. R-spondins have been considered to drive proliferation of intestinal cancer cells, thus it has been speculated that their inhibition could figure in therapeutic strategies of the future.

However, academy professor Kari Alitalo and his doctoral students Marianne Lähde and Sarika Heino at the University of Helsinki challenged this concept and took an opposite approach in their studies. In their new publication in Gastroenterology, they show that R-spondin treatment reduces the growth of intestinal tumors (adenomas) in the early phase of colorectal cancer development.

"Based on this finding, we provide a potential novel rationale for the treatment of colorectal adenomas, especially for Familial Adenomatous Polyposis patients whose APC mutations are inherited. R-spondin acts by slowing the proliferation of the tumor cells and simultaneously by enhancing the function of the healthy epithelial cells in the gut. Thus, the normal cells gain a competitive advantage over the tumor cells", says Marianne Lähde.

Gene therapy reduced the growth of intestinal adenoma cells while supporting the function of healthy intestinal epithelial cells

The researchers developed a virus vector-mediated gene therapy strategy, in which the production of R-spondin 1 can be induced from the liver into the blood stream and delivered all over the body.

When healthy mice were injected with the vector, it enhanced the growth and renewal of the intestinal epithelium, as expected. Surprisingly, however, when the vector was given to intestinal tumor-bearing mice, the number of the tumors was remarkably decreased and the mice lived significantly longer than their counterparts without therapy.

When the finding was further analyzed at the cellular level, the researchers found that R-spondin suppressed the growth and proliferation and promoted apoptosis of the tumor cells, simultaneously supporting the renewal of the healthy intestinal epithelial cells.

The R-spondin treated tumors were further evaluated by a gastrointestinal pathologist, who found that the longer the R-spondin treatment was continued, the more the tumor histology reminded the structure of the healthy intestine.

"According to these results, we can conclude that R-spondin 1 gives healthy intestinal epithelial cells a growth advantage over tumor cells. Following this, the healthy cells of the intestine take over the tumor cells, most of which are eventually expelled and possibly even lost with the faeces," says Marianne Lähde, the first author of the study.

These results are completely new and unexpected, and it has surprised many experts in the field of stem cell research. Based on the new findings, possible new treatment strategies may be considered, especially for patients suffering from heritable APC mutations.

An analysis of genetic data collected from more than 850,000 individuals of European ancestry has found a link between obesity-related genes and rheumatoid arthritis.

In the Arthritis & Rheumatology analysis, investigators found an increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis when body mass index was predicted to be high based on an individual's genetics. This was observed for both men and women.

"These results highlight an important role of obesity in the pathological development of rheumatoid arthritis, as well as provide a potential actionable preventive strategy," said senior author Xia Jiang, PhD, of the Karolinska Institute, in Sweden. "Future studies are needed to understand the biological mechanisms underlying such a link, and to understand how obesity may causally influence rheumatoid arthritis prognosis."

As the antimalarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have drawn attention as potential therapies for COVID-19 and are being widely used off-label, it's now more important than ever to have a thorough assessment of the safety of these medications. A recent analysis published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology provides new insights.

In the analysis of real-world data from the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Events Reporting System, a global database of post-marketing safety reports, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were associated with higher rates of various cardiovascular problems, including life-threatening heart rhythm events, heart failure, and damage to the heart muscle itself (termed cardiomyopathy).

"Moreover, we show how these adverse events carry high risks for severe outcomes including death, even with standard doses of the drugs," said senior author Elad Maor, MD, PhD, of Sheba Medical Center and Tel-Aviv University, in Israel. "The take-home message of our work is that physicians around the world should be careful when prescribing these drugs for off-label indications, especially for patients with cardiac disorders."

Peer Reviewed, Observational Study, Human

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Antifungal preventive medications reduce mortality risk by half in the first year following lung transplantation, according to Mayo Clinic research involving 667 patients who received lung transplants from 2005 to 2018.

The retrospective study, published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, is the largest ever to evaluate the effectiveness of antifungal preventive drugs in lung transplant recipients who are particularly susceptible to invasive fungal infections. These infections are associated with a nearly threefold increase in mortality for lung transplant recipients.

Mayo Clinic researchers used deidentified administrative claims data from OptumLabs Data Warehouse. The study analyzed data for adult patients who underwent single or double lung transplant, or concurrent heart-lung transplant, in the U.S. between Jan. 1, 2005, and Dec. 31, 2018. Of the 667 patients, 385, or 57.8%, received antifungal treatment and 282, or 42.3%, did not. Sixty-five patients died during the study, and all-cause mortality was significantly lower in those patients who received antifungal medications.

"Use of antifungal preventive medications in lung transplant patients is increasingly common, but no studies have established its efficacy," says Kelly Pennington, M.D., the study's first author. "This is the first study to demonstrate a mortality benefit associated with the use of antifungal prophylaxis in lung transplant patients. We still do not know which lung transplant patients receive the most benefit from these medications, and there are other unanswered questions that will require more research." Dr. Pennington is a Mayo Clinic Scholar in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.

A 2019 Mayo Clinic study found that 90% of U.S. transplant centers routinely prescribe antifungal preventive medications after lung transplant, but no prospective studies have established the benefits of these medications. "In our retrospective study, the risk of death within the first year posttransplant is about twice as high in patients not receiving antifungal preventive treatment, compared with those receiving treatment," says Dr. Pennington.

Itraconazole and voriconazole were the two most common antifungal preventive medications prescribed in the study. Patients who received antifungal drugs had a lower rate of fungal infections than those who did not, though the difference was not statistically significant.

Protracted use of antifungal drugs can have negative health effects, including cardiomyopathy, skin cancer and liver dysfunction. Also, antifungal medications are expensive and can interact with other medications. Therefore, the health care team must monitor anti-fungal medications closely.

"Given the variation in practice among transplant centers, the potential for medication side effects, medication costs and risk of drug interactions, it was imperative to determine whether antifungal preventive medications are beneficial for lung transplant recipients," says Cassie Kennedy, M.D., senior author. "Our finding of a significant reduction in mortality risk among lung transplant recipients who received antifungal medications is consistent with several prior studies in hematologic malignancies and bone marrow transplant patients." Dr. Kennedy is a physician in Mayo Clinic's Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. None of the authors has a conflict of interest to disclose. Dr. Kennedy is supported by HNLB1 grant K23 HL128859 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Pennington is supported by Mayo Clinic's Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery. Nilay Shah, Ph.D., is supported by grants from the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Innovation Center, Food and Drug Administration, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Medical Devices Innovation Consortium/National Evaluation System for Health Technology, National Science Foundation, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Korean researchers have developed an energy harvester that can generate electric power from ambient vibrations with diverse frequencies through a novel automatic resonance tuning mechanism. It was recently announced by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) that a research team led by Dr. Hyun-Cheol Song from the KIST Center for Electronic Materials developed an energy harvester that can perform automatic resonance tuning (ART) by adjusting the natural frequency by itself in adapting to the environmental conditions.

Energy harvesting technology is applied to "harvest" electrical energy from dumped energy sources around us, such as vibration, heat, light, and so on. A device that is capable of harvesting energy from its surroundings can generate power on its own, without needing any batteries or being connected to a power outlet. This technology is especially useful to an stand-alone power source for small electronic devices that operate wirelessly, like an IoT system.

Vibrations generated by automobiles, trains, industrial sites and so on can be used to produce electric energy with energy harvesting technology, but for any real-life applications, there must be a way to produce and store as much electric energy as possible from small vibrations. To do this, it is necessary to take advantage of the resonance phenomenon in which the glass is shattered by high-pitched sounds or a large bridge is collapsed by a breeze.

However, an energy harvester has a single natural frequency, yet the vibrations we find in our surroundings occur in a wide range of different frequencies. This is why an energy harvester must be tuned according to the environment where it is installed so as to induce resonance, and this has caused limitations to use energy harvesters.

In order to address this issue, self-tuning energy harvesters that use a motor or a microcontroller have been developed, but they presented problems in that the power generation efficiency was greatly reduced as a result of high energy consumption by the tuning motor or the controller.

Researchers at KIST instead developed an energy harvester with a special structure capable of tuning itself to the surrounding frequency without a separate electrical device. There is a proof mass that moves autonomously inside the energy harvester, and when vibration in the surroundings is detected, the weight moves to a different location according to the vibration frequency. The energy harvester thus gains the same frequency as that of the external vibration and achieves resonance. As a result, the range of frequencies where resonance can be achieved by the energy harvester developed by KIST researchers is 1,400% greater than that of existing devices that have a single natural frequency.

Dr. Hyun-Cheol Song who led this research team said, "The significance of this study is that we were the first to implement an energy harvester that has a simple structure and can perform self-tuning without additional energy consumption. It is expected to greatly speed up the real-life application of energy harvesters.", "I believe that self-tuning energy harvesters will play a key role on a stand-alone power source for wireless sensor networks, wearable electronic devices and the Internet of Things, which is one of the core technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution."

During typical summers in the southeastern U.S., streams of visitors travel to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to witness one of nature's most spectacular displays of light: thousands of male fireflies, all flashing together in near-perfect harmony.

"This is the most beautiful biological phenomenon that I've ever witnessed," said Orit Peleg, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder.

In a study published today in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface, she and her lab members shed new light on this beautiful phenomenon--striving to understand how relatively simple insects manage to coordinate such feats of synchronization.

The team discovered that the light shows may be more complicated than scientists realized: Rather than flash according to some innate rhythm, the fireflies seem to observe what their neighbors are doing, then adjust their behavior to match.

Peleg's team hopes the research will inspire citizen scientists around the world to get out and help to protect populations of these charismatic creatures. Some of these insect species, which use their glow to attract mates, have found themselves competing for attention with human sources of light.

"So many people have had positive experiences with fireflies," said Raphaël Sarfati, lead author of the new study and a postdoctoral researcher at CU Boulder. "They're also very fragile. Many species are on the decline around the world because there is more and more light pollution."

One in a swarm

As Peleg describes it, the firefly display is over almost as soon as it begins. Males belonging to the species Photinus carolinus only flash for about two weeks every June, and then just for a few hours a night.

Studying them "is a constant race against time," Peleg said.

Still, the sight is a must-see: During their mating displays, swarms of males stay low to the ground so as to better show off for females hiding in the leaf litter below. They also flash with a distinct rhythm: a few quick bursts of light followed by a several-second pause, then more bursts. In person, the display looks like a wave of light passing over the hillside.

To date, scientists have struggled to explain how this synchronization works.

"Is it something hardwired in fireflies that makes them want to synchronize?" Sarfati said. "Or is it something more context dependent, maybe based on their environment?"

To find out, the researchers drove to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in June 2019. There, they set up two 360-degree cameras in a wooded area--a new technological approach that allowed the team to map out the locations of the bugs flashing in their vicinity. The group also assembled a pop tent on site and introduced a few fireflies at a time to the isolated environment.

"It was, basically, like we were one of the fireflies in the swarm," Sarfati said.

Follow the leader

The researchers-turned-fireflies found what they were looking for: Male P. carolinus fireflies, the team reported, don't behave the same when they're alone versus in a big group.

When the researchers, for example, put a single male into the pop tent all on his own, that bug would flash without a good sense of rhythm--a few bursts here, a few bursts there. Increase the number of fireflies, however, and things began to change.

"When you start putting 20 fireflies together, that's when you start observing what you see in the wild," Sarfati said. "You've got regular bursts of flashes, and they're all synchronized."

The fireflies, in other words, likely aren't hardwired to flash with a particular pattern. Instead, their light displays seem to be more social. Bugs watch what their neighbors are doing and try to follow along. The group's findings, Peleg said, could help researchers learn more about a range of other synchronous behaviors in nature--and maybe one day design swarming robots that act in tandem.

"This kind of synchrony occurs in many natural systems," Peleg said. "The cells in our hearts all flex and contract at the same time. Neurons in our brains also synchronize."

Firefly populations have also proved tricky for researchers to monitor in the wild, she said. Her team thinks that its 360-degree camera approach could provide a solution, perhaps allowing anyone to head out into the woods to keep an eye on their local fireflies. Peleg, at least, doesn't want to see the glow from these insects disappear.

"There always was this last half an hour at night where we were tired and sitting in the forest, waiting for the fireflies to stop flashing," she said. "It was the most relaxing part of this work."

Physicists at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, together with colleagues in Russia and Poland, have managed to achieve ultrastrong coupling between light and matter at room temperature. The discovery is of importance for fundamental research and might pave the way for advances within, for example, light sources, nanomachinery, and quantum technology.

A set of two coupled oscillators is one of the most fundamental and abundant systems in physics. It is a very general toy model that describes a plethora of systems ranging from guitar strings, acoustic resonators, and the physics of children's swings, to molecules and chemical reactions, from gravitationally bound systems to quantum cavity electrodynamics.

The degree of coupling between the two oscillators is an important parameter that mostly determines the behaviour of the coupled system. However, the question is rarely asked about the upper limit by which two pendula can couple to each other - and what consequences such coupling can have.

The newly presented results, published in Nature Communications, offer a glimpse into the domain of the so called ultrastrong coupling, wherein the coupling strength becomes comparable to the resonant frequency of the oscillators. The coupling in this work is realised through interaction between light and electrons in a tiny system consisting of two gold mirrors separated by a small distance and plasmonic gold nanorods. On a surface that is a hundred times smaller than the end of a human hair, the researchers have shown that it is possible to create controllable ultrastrong interaction between light and matter at ambient conditions - that is, at room temperature and atmospheric pressure.

"We are not the first ones to realise ultrastrong coupling. But generally, strong magnetic fields, high vacuum and extremely low temperatures are required to achieve such a degree of coupling. When you can perform it in an ordinary lab, it enables more researchers to work in this field and it provides valuable knowledge in the borderland between nanotechnology and quantum optics," says Denis Baranov, a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology and the first author of the scientific paper.

To understand the system the authors have realised, one can imagine a resonator, in this case represented by two gold mirrors separated by a few hundred nanometers, as a single tone in music. The nanorods fabricated between the mirrors affect how light moves between the mirrors and change their resonance frequency. Instead of just sounding like a single tone, in the coupled system the tone splits into two: a lower pitch, and a higher pitch.

The energy separation between the two new pitches represents the strength of interaction. Specifically, in the ultrastrong coupling case, the strength of interaction is so large that it becomes comparable to the frequency of the original resonator. This leads to a unique duet, where light and matter intermix into a common object, forming quasi-particles called polaritons. The hybrid character of polaritons provides a set of intriguing optical and electronic properties.

The number of gold nanorods sandwiched between the mirrors controls how strong the interaction is. But at the same time, it controls the so-called zero-point energy of the system. By increasing or decreasing the number of rods, it is possible to supply or remove energy from the ground state of the system and thereby increase or decrease the energy stored in the resonator box.

What makes this work particularly interesting is that the authors managed to indirectly measure how the number of nanorods changes the vacuum energy by "listening" to the tones of the coupled system (that is, looking at the light transmission spectra through the mirrors with the nanorods) and performing simple mathematics. The resulting values turned out to be comparable to the thermal energy, which may lead to observable phenomena in the future.

"A concept for creating controllable ultrastrong coupling at room temperature in relatively simple systems can offer a testbed for fundamental physics. The fact that this ultrastrong coupling "costs" energy could lead to observable effects, for example it could modify the reactivity of chemicals or tailor van der Waals interactions. Ultrastrong coupling enables a variety of intriguing physical phenomena," says Timur Shegai, Associate Professor at Chalmers and the last author of the scientific article.

In other words, this discovery allows researchers to play with the laws of nature and to test the limits of coupling.

"As the topic is quite fundamental, potential applications may range. Our system allows for reaching even stronger levels of coupling, something known as deep strong coupling. We are still not entirely sure what is the limit of coupling in our system, but it is clearly much higher than we see now. Importantly, the platform that allows studying ultrastrong coupling is now accessible at room temperature," says Timur Shegai.

While diabetes is established as a risk factor for severe SARS-CoV2 infection several important specific aspects need to be considered for people with type 1 diabetes. In contrast to older persons with diabetes, children, adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes are not at risk for unfavourable outcomes.

However in a special session on COVID-19 at this year's Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), Prof. Catarina Limbert of the University Center of Central Lisbon and Hospital Dona Estefania, Lisbon, Portugal, will a new review of viruses that are known to contribute to the new onset of type 1 diabetes and new evidence that SARS-CoV2 infection needs to be added to this list.

"Until now, larger multicentre studies did not find a rise in the number of new cases during the pandemic months compared to the same period in years before," she explains. "Nevertheless, the COVID-19 crisis has increased the severity at onset of type 1 diabetes with a doubling of people being admitted with diabetic ketoacidosis during the lockdown."

A population study of 23,804 COVID-19 related deaths in England during 1 March 2020 - 1 May 2020 revealed that the odds of dying in hospital with COVID-19 was higher in people with type 1 diabetes (3·5 times) compared to type 2 diabetes (2 times). However, the average age at death was 78 years in type 2 diabetes and 72 in type 1 diabetes. It appears, that in type 1 diabetes, only older people aged over 50 years), with longer duration of the disease (80% with more than 15 years of disease) and worse glucose control (glycated haemoglobin / HbA1c >10%) are at higher risk of severe clinical outcomes of COVID-19.

Moreover, according to an early report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from the United States with data from 149 082 COVID-19 cases, only 1.7% were among children

In contrast to challenges related to disease severity and outcomes in type 1 diabetes, the pandemic also offered opportunities for improving diabetes care management.

"The COVID-19 crisis was the booster shot to put telemedicine into practice," explains Prof Limbert. "During the lockdown period, health care delivery had to adapt and make a sudden transition to remote care. In paediatric diabetes, digital revolution in type 1 diabetes management already started many decades ago with pumps and now extended to integration of sensors, automated insulin delivery or dosage advisors."

"The need to upload the data for a meaningful telemedicine consultation has motivated families to become more involved with digital diabetes data," she adds. "The use of remote health care promoted autonomy of both young people and their parents in interpreting the data and making decisions. Thus, challenges of COVID-19 turned out to be an opportunity for empowerment of people with type1 diabetes."

Reports of better glycaemic control through diabetes technology among people with type 1 diabetes during the lockdown period are encouraging health care providers establishing a virtual diabetes clinic to complement standard diabetes outpatient care. However, Prof Limbert adds: "But to accomplish a revolution in modern diabetes care management, a new concept of multidisciplinary team that includes an IT specialist, must be considered. This would ensure technical support, technological literacy and data base support that are cornerstones of a diabetes centre."

She concludes: "Importantly, the COVID-19 crises brought to mind how urgent it is to mitigate great disparities in access to health care and diabetes technology in Europe, to achieve more equal standards of type 1 diabetes care."

A 10-year nationwide study investigating survival rates in all people with type 2 diabetes in Sweden, to be published in Diabetologia, finds that non-Western immigrants experienced a higher risk of death with each generation born in the country.

The findings, being presented at Annual Meeting of The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), held online this year, indicate that while first generation immigrants with diabetes appeared to have a survival advantage compared with native Swedes with diabetes (particularly non-Western immigrants), this reduced over time and vanished in second generation immigrants.

This disparity may be tied to various unhealthy behaviours and practices in western culture as well as genetic factors, but more research is needed, researchers say.

"Our findings indicate that among immigrants with type 2 diabetes, exposure to some elements of their lifestyle in Sweden seem to have a larger impact on survival than their region of origin", says Dr Louise Bennet from Lund University in Sweden who led the research. "Poor socioeconomic situation, unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyle, and environmental changes as individuals become more acculturated to the western way of life may contribute to higher death rates among second-generation immigrants."

Previous research has shown that non-Western immigrants to Europe are at high risk for type 2 diabetes and earlier diabetes onset. This increased risk is often attributed to genetic factors, but environmental factors such as poor socioeconomic situation and cultural and social norms may contribute even more.

To provide more evidence about the influence of acculturation (immigrants adapting elements of the culture they move into) and environmental factors, researchers examined mortality patterns across all people (aged 30-75 years) diagnosed with new-onset pharmacologically treated type 2 diabetes in Sweden between 2006 to 2012, identified through the Swedish Prescription Drug Register.

In total, 138,085 individuals were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes between 2006 and 2012 and fulfilled inclusion criteria [1]: 102,163 (74%) native Swedes; 28,819 (21%) first-generation immigrants born outside Sweden to foreign parents; and 7,103 (5%) second-generation immigrants with either one or both parents born outside Sweden. Individuals born in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, or the Caribbean were considered as having non-Western origin.

Participants were followed until December 31, 2016 for all-cause mortality, and until December 31, 2012, for cause-specific mortality. Researchers adjusted for factors that may influence premature mortality including age at diabetes diagnosis, sex, occupational socio-economic group, education level, type of treatment, disposable income, and region of birth.

The analysis found that being a first-generation immigrant was associated with a 20% lower death rate from any cause compared with native Swedes. The overall risk of death was particularly low among immigrants born in the Middle East (59% lower), Latin America (47%), Asia (47%), and Africa (53%). Mortality rates did not differ between individuals of western countries and native Swedes

In addition, analyses showed that death rates fell with older age at migration and shorter stay in Sweden. Compared with native Swedes, first generation immigrants living in Sweden for 24 years or less, had a 44% lower death risk from any cause, this decreased to 9% for those living in the country for more than 24 years.

First-generation non-Western immigrants also had a 63% lower risk of cardiovascular-related mortality and 30% lower risk of cancer mortality, compared with native Swedes.

In contrast, second generation immigrants displayed similar survival rates as native Swedes except for those with both parents born outside Sweden, who had shorter survival.

"We need to focus awareness on second generation immigrants with diabetes, optimise non-pharmacological and drug prevention to improve metabolic control and reduce the future risk of diabetic complications", says Dr Bennet. "Future research should examine a combination of risk factors including lifestyle, migration history, epigenetics, and social and contextual factors."

Researchers note that the study is observational, and does not prove that successive generations of non-Westerns immigrants in Sweden face an increased risk of mortality. They add that while they adjusted for many known patient-related, socioeconomic, and demographic factors, it is still possible that other factors such as physical activity, diet, and smoking that could not be fully controlled for are contributing to the outcomes observed.

- Lithium (Li)-ion batteries (LIBs) are the electrochemical energy storage systems of choice for a wide variety of applications, however other types of emerging battery technologies are currently on the path to share their dominant position.

- Among them Sodium (Na)-ion batteries (NIBs) have great potential to represent the next generation low cost and environmentally friendly energy storage solution. The diverse key performance indicators required by different applications and the market diversification is the driving force pushing the Na-ion technology closer to the market.

- A team of scientists including WMG at the University of Warwick combined their knowledge and expertise to assess the current status of the Na-ion technology from materials to cell development, offering a realistic comparison of the key performance indicators for NBs and LIBs.

LIBs play a primary role in the transition to a low carbon economy. However, as the market rapidly expands, the environmental and social challenges associated with the mass production of LIBs is triggering large attention toward the search for alternative energy storage solutions based on materials that can be sourced in a sustainable and responsible way. In this scenario, NIBs represent an alternative low cost, sustainable and more environmentally friendly energy storage technology.

In the paper 'Challenges of today for Na-based batteries of the future: from materials to cell metrics', published on the 18th of September 2020 in the Journal of Power Sources, a large team of Na-ion technology expert scientists, led by WMG, at the University of Warwick (UK) analyse the prospect of NIBs taking a spot in the energy storage market. The paper also includes researchers from: Helmholtz Institute Ulm (Germany), College de France (France), Humboldt University Berlin (Germany), Institute for Energy technology (Norway), Université de Picardie Jules Verne (France), University of Bordeaux (France) and CIC energiGUNE (Spain).

Na- based batteries offer a combination of attractive properties. They are low cost, use sustainable precursors and have secure raw material supplies. In addition, they are considered as a drop-in technology which could benefit from the already existing Li-ion batteries manufacturing facilities.

As Li-based systems, Na-based batteries come in different forms, such as Na-ion, Na-all-solid-state-batteries, NaO2 and Na/S. While the last ones are seen as disruptive future technologies, the Na-ion technology represent an attractive technology almost ready to challenge the Li-ion batteries in specific applications.

Performance metrics are of utmost importance for the SIB technology to ensure a competitive cost per Wh and find a place in the market. In this work, the most promising electrode materials and electrolyte systems have been reviewed and performance metrics from the academic literature have been used to extrapolate full sodium ion cells performance indicators.

Authors indicate that with the ongoing development, the present best materials available for Na-ion cells should allow approaching the energy density of the present generation of Li-ion commercial cells. One of the most important application field for the developed sodium-ion battery prototypes is certainly stationary energy storage systems, where cost and cycle life represent two fundamental parameters. "In this field sodium-ion batteries have the potential to dominate the future market representing the most promising system to fill the gap between energy production and utilization by securing energy supply. However high-power applications in the electrified automotive field are a potential niche field application for NIBs" says Dr Ivana Hasa, Assistant Professor at WMG.

Further technological improvements are needed to increase the performance especially in terms of energy density. Extremely encouraging results have been achieved for the Na-ion technology in a very short time when compared to the Li-ion technology. Technological improvement will be achieved by cell component fabrication/assembly optimization, as occurred in the last thirty years for the LIB technology.

Dr Ivana Hasa, from WMG, University of Warwick comments:

"From an applied research point of view, the future research efforts should be devoted on fundamental research, materials discovery and understanding of the thermodynamic and kinetic processes governing the chemistry of these systems. In addition, the investigation of upscaled Na-ion batteries is of primary importance to obtain realistic data to benchmark the progress of the technology as well as the adoption of a common reporting methodology in the scientific community enabling a fair comparison among performance results."

The reception of refugees in East German communities did not lead to changes in voting behaviour or attitudes to migration. This is the main finding of a study conducted by Max Schaub (WZB), Johanna Gereke (MZES), and Delia Baldassarri (New York University). In the over 200 East German communities they examined, negative attitudes to migration were widespread. However, the arrival of refugees in the immediate neighbourhood had hardly any influence on these attitudes.

"Widespread reservations about migration appear to have less to do with the local situation than with the impact of migration on society as a whole," explained Max Schaub, research fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

236 East German Communities with and without refugees

The social scientists looked at 236 communities in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony where there had been relatively few foreigners before the so-called refugee crisis of 2015: fewer than 1.5 per cent of the total population. Xenophobic attitudes were widespread in all the communities under study. Migrants were taken in by half of these otherwise comparable communities. This allowed the researchers to examine how attitudes and behaviour developed in communities with and without immigration. In addition to analysing local election results between 2013 and 2017, they carried out extensive interviews with over 1,300 people in these communities.

Personal experience with refugees does not appear to the deciding factor

"Our aim was to discover whether the attitudes and behaviour of locals towards immigrants changed when they were living side by side. It was conceivable that exposure to refugees could boost xenophobia. At the same time, contact with refugees might also lead to more positive attitudes towards foreigners," as Johanna Gereke of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) explained. Neither proved to be the case. The researchers conclude that personal experiences with refugees do not appear to be the most important factor guiding attitudes and voting behaviour.

These findings do not mean that the arrival of refugees had no influence at all on the voting behaviour and attitudes of the established population - only that local exposure had no such effects: "On the one hand, it is plausible that the reception of numerous refugees since 2015 led to growing ill feelings and to the rise of the AfD in recent years. But our study shows that it did not depend on whether people were exposed to refugees in their immediate context," Gereke and Schaub explain.

"Right-wing" and "left-wing" viewpoints come a little closer

The research team made another interesting observation: even though the attitudes towards refugees in the communities under study did not change on average, the researchers found evidence that attitudes converged in the municipalities receiving refugees. They found that the presence of refugees had a somewhat moderating effect on individuals with more right-wing, anti-migration attitudes. Vice versa, people with more left-wing, migration-friendly attitudes became more critical.

High-definition roll-up televisions or foldable smartphones may soon no longer be unaffordable luxury goods that can be admired at international electronics trade fairs. High-performance organic transistors are a key necessity for the mechanically flexible electronic circuits required for these applications. However, conventional horizontal organic thin-film transistors are very slow due to the hopping-transport in organic semiconductors, so they cannot be used for applications requiring high frequencies. Especially for logic circuits with low power consumption, such as those used for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), it is mandatory to develop transistors enabling high operation frequency as well as adjustable device characteristics (i.e., threshold-voltage). The research group Organic Devices and Systems (ODS) at the Dresden Integrated Center for Applied Photophysics (IAPP) of the Institute of Applied Physics headed by Dr. Hans Kleemann has now succeeded in realizing such novel organic devices.

„Up to now, vertical organic transistors have been seen as lab curiosities which were thought too difficult to be integrated in an electronic circuit. However, as shown in our publication, vertical organic transistors with two independent control electrodes are perfectly suited to realize complex logic circuits while keeping the main benefit of vertical transistors devices, namely the high switching frequency", says Dr. Hans Kleemann.

The vertical organic transistors with two independent control electrodes are characterized by a high switching frequency (a few nanoseconds) and an adjustable threshold voltage. Thanks to these developments, even single transistors can be used to represent different logical states (AND, NOT, NAND). Furthermore, the adjustable threshold voltage ensures signal integrity (noise margin) and low power consumption.

With this, the research group has set a milestone with regard to the vision of flexible and printable electronics. In the future, these transistors could make it possible to realize even sophisticated electronic functions such as wireless communication (RFID) or high-resolution flexible displays completely with organic components, thus completely dispensing with silicon-based electronic components.