Tech

As humanity develops new types of plastics and chemicals, researchers are constantly trying to keep up with understanding how these contaminants affect the environment and wildlife. A new study gives a first look at the presence and potential effects of these pollutants in stranded dolphins and whales along the coast of the southeastern United States.

The extent of pollution in the world's oceans is bad enough as is, but new types of plastics and chemicals are constantly entering the market -- and then inevitably the oceans.

In a recent study in Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers measured the presence of such chemicals in whales and dolphins that washed ashore in Florida and North Carolina. The impacts of many of these contaminants are poorly understood and this study provides a first glimpse of their implications for ocean life. The authors also report some of the highest mercury and arsenic levels recorded to date in stranded dolphins and whales.

"Marine mammals are ecosystem sentinels that reflect anthropogenic threats through their health -- which has implications for human health as well," says lead author Assistant Professor Annie Page-Karjian of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University, in the United States.

"For example, many of the species in this study prey upon fishes that are also preferred species for human consumption -- so monitoring concentrations of contaminants in these animals provides a relatively low-cost snapshot of the potential exposure risk in humans, as well as other marine animals."

Past research has already shown that plastics, and the chemicals used to create plastics, can severely harm animals' livers, kidneys, and their reproductive health. Because of their place near the top of food chain, dolphins and whales are among the first species harmed by such pollution.

To study these contaminants in wild animals, Page-Karjian and her collaborators measured the levels of these chemicals in dolphins and whales that washed ashore between 2012 and 2018. Using samples of the animals' livers and blubber, the authors also correlated their findings to signs of disease and infection.

The stranded animals included 11 different species, providing the first evidence for two rarer species: white-beaked dolphin and Gervais' beaked whales. Since the stranded animals represented males and females, as well as fetal, young, and adult animals, the authors were also able to look at differences between the groups.

Beyond the toxins found in plastics, such as bisphenol-A, the authors also measured heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and mercury, which can damage animals' immune, reproductive, and nervous systems at high concentrations. These results showed that species such as bottlenose dolphins experienced higher amounts of lead and mercury, compared to pygmy sperm whales. Furthermore, female bottlenose dolphins had higher levels of arsenic than their male counterparts.

The current study was limited to blubber and liver samples, and future work is needed to fully understand potential effects on other organs. But these results help establish a baseline for future work, which may help guide future responses to stranded marine animals.

"While exposure to contaminants and toxic elements may not lead directly to stranding, such exposure is thought to impact animal survival through indirect effects on behavior, reproduction, and immunity," says Page-Karjian. "This study highlights the importance of marine mammal stranding response efforts, and exemplifies why it is necessary to conduct necropsies of these animals and collect and archive tissue samples for future research. In the face of ever-growing consumer chemical industries, toxicology should be consistently integrated into standardized health assessments of free-ranging wildlife."

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Half of all the calcium in the universe -- including the very calcium in our teeth and bones -- was created in the last gasp of dying stars.

Called "calcium-rich supernovae," these stellar explosions are so rare that astrophysicists have struggled to find and subsequently study them. The nature of these supernovae and their mechanism for creating calcium, therefore, have remained elusive.

Now a Northwestern University-led team has potentially uncovered the true nature of these rare, mysterious events. For the first time ever, the researchers examined a calcium-rich supernova with X-ray imaging, which provided an unprecedented glimpse into the star during the last month of its life and ultimate explosion.

The new findings revealed that a calcium-rich supernova is a compact star that sheds an outer layer of gas during the final stages of its life. When the star explodes, its matter collides with the loose material in that outer shell, emitting bright X-rays. The overall explosion causes intensely hot temperatures and high pressure, driving a chemical reaction that produces calcium.

"These events are so few in number that we have never known what produced calcium-rich supernova," said Wynn Jacobson-Galan, a first-year Northwestern graduate student who led the study. "By observing what this star did in its final month before it reached its critical, tumultuous end, we peered into a place previously unexplored, opening new avenues of study within transient science."

"Before this event, we had indirect information about what calcium-rich supernovae might or might not be," said Northwestern's Raffaella Margutti, a senior author of the study. "Now, we can confidently rule out several possibilities."

The research will be published on August 5 in The Astrophysical Journal. Nearly 70 co-authors from more than 15 countries contributed to the paper.

Margutti is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a member of CIERA (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics). Jacobson-Galan is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Margutti's transients research group.

'A global collaboration was ignited'

Amateur astronomer Joel Shepherd first spotted the bright burst, dubbed SN2019ehk, while stargazing in Seattle. On April 28, 2019, Shepherd used his new telescope to view Messier 100 (M100), a spiral galaxy located 55 million light years from Earth. The next day, a bright orange dot appeared in the frame. Shepherd reported the anomaly to a community astronomical survey.

"As soon as the world knew that there was a potential supernova in M100, a global collaboration was ignited," Jacobson-Galan said. "Every single country with a prominent telescope turned to look at this object."

This included leading observatories in the United States such as NASA's Swift Satellite, W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Lick Observatory in California. The Northwestern team, which has remote access to Keck, was one of the many teams worldwide who triggered its telescopes to examine SN2019ehk in optical wavelengths. University of California Santa Barbara graduate student Daichi Hiramatsu was the first to trigger Swift to study SN2019ehk in the X-ray and ultraviolet. Hiramatsu also is a staff scientist at Las Cumbres Observatory, which played a crucial role in monitoring the long-term evolution of this supernova with its global telescope network.

The worldwide follow-up operation moved so quickly that the supernova was observed just 10 hours after explosion. The X-ray emission detected with Swift only lingered for five days and then completely disappeared.

"In the world of transients, we have to discover things very, very fast before they fade," Margutti said. "Initially, no one was looking for X-rays. Daichi noticed something and alerted us to the strange appearance of what looked like X-rays. We looked at the images and realized something was there. It was much more luminous than anybody would have ever thought. There were no preexisting theories that predicted calcium-rich transients would be so luminous in X-ray wavelengths."

'The richest of the rich'

While all calcium comes from stars, calcium-rich supernovae pack the most powerful punch. Typical stars create small amounts of calcium slowly through burning helium throughout their lives. Calcium-rich supernovae, on the other hand, produce massive amounts of calcium within seconds.

"The explosion is trying to cool down," Margutti explained. "It wants to give away its energy, and calcium emission is an efficient way to do that."

Using Keck, the Northwestern team discovered that SN 2019ehk emitted the most calcium ever observed in a singular astrophysical event.

"It wasn't just calcium rich," Margutti said. "It was the richest of the rich."

Uncovering new clues

SN2019ehk's brief luminosity told another a story about its nature. The Northwestern researchers believe that the star shed an outer layer of gas in its final days. When the star exploded, its material collided with this outer layer to produce a bright, energetic burst of X-rays.

"The luminosity tells us how much material the star shed and how close that material was to the star," Jacobson-Galan said. "In this case, the star lost a very small amount of material right before it exploded. That material was still nearby."

Although the Hubble Space Telescope had been observing M100 for the past 25 years, the powerful device never registered the star -- which was experiencing its final evolution -- responsible for SN2019ehk. The researchers used the Hubble images to examine the supernova site before the explosion occurred and say this is yet another clue to the star's true nature.

"It was likely a white dwarf or very low-mass massive star," Jacobson-Galan said. "Both of those would be very faint."

"Without this explosion, you wouldn't know that anything was ever there," Margutti added. "Not even Hubble could see it."

Many states continue to lack the policies and preparations needed to address safety concerns of holding elections in November, despite the lessons learned in recent 2020 primary elections that were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research from the RAND Corporation.

Nine states have none of the policies that researchers judged as being most important to encourage safer voter participation during the 2020 elections. Meanwhile, 12 states and the District of Columbia -- encompassing about one-third of registered voters in the U.S. -- have embraced some form of each of the three strategies, according to the reports.

To consider whether states have the flexible policies needed to support safety measures for elections in 2020, researchers considered whether states had programs such as online registration that make registering to vote more accessible, whether states had flexible remote voting options such as vote-by-mail (without a required excuse), whether states require witness or notary signatures for mail-in ballots, and whether states had an early voting period.

Geographically, Western states generally have more flexible policies on these dimensions and so may be best positioned to address safety concerns through remote and distributed procedures, while states in the South and some in the Northeast have less-flexible policies that may make it more difficult to adapt to challenges such as the need for social distancing.

Researchers say that some of these states have begun to respond to these challenges by temporarily modifying voting processes, such as relaxing excuse requirements for absentee ballots. These temporary changes may address the near-term challenge, but will not increase longer-term resilience during similar disruptions in the future.

"The COVID-19 pandemic presents a severe threat to states' 2020 election plans, which will have higher turnout and higher stakes since this is a presidential election year," said Jennifer Kavanagh, co-leader of the research team and a senior political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. "To be prepared to conduct elections during a pandemic, states will need registration and voting options that reduce crowds, minimize direct personal contact and limit common access to high-touch surfaces."

The RAND report is intended to inform state legislatures and election officials as they work to prepare for the 2020 general election and consider how to navigate the challenges created by COVID-19 by mitigating health risks and protecting the election's legitimacy.

The COVID-19 pandemic already has disrupted elections during 2020, with officials in some states extending access to mail-in ballots and offering other accommodations during primaries.

RAND researchers assessed policies in place in all 50 states to determine where each one stands across three dimensions of the election process -- remote voting, early voting and voter registration -- that can be used by state legislatures and election officials to conduct safe and secure elections despite the threat posed by the pandemic.

The project includes a report assessing efforts in all 50 states, an interactive map that allows users to quickly review a state's election practices and a second report that addresses in detail issues of access and integrity for each of the approaches available to increase voting safety.

Forty states have early voting options, with an additional six having a limited early voting option for those with qualifying reasons. Of this group, eight have early voting periods that extend beyond 30 days, while 13 states have early voting periods that last 16 days to 30 days.

Researchers conclude that all the options available to improve safety during the 2020 election have a low risk of threatening the integrity of balloting, although vote-by-mail options pose a slightly elevated risk compared to in-person voting.

"For some states, integrity may be the priority while others will emphasize safety," said Quentin E. Hodgson, co-leader of the project and a senior researcher at RAND. "Ultimately the options chosen by a given state will reflect the priorities of state policymakers and elections officials, as well as the constraints of existing policies and laws."

Researchers say states will need to act quickly to ensure in-person registration and voting is conducted safely, which will require evaluating existing registration offices and polling places for suitability to promote social distancing and sanitation, identifying new polling places, and recruiting and training poll workers.

For states planning for increased absentee ballots and vote-by-mail, they will need to purchase equipment and recruit additional workers to process a greater volume of ballots than they have done previously. The researchers found that they will also need to plan for potential delays in postal delivery of ballots and engage in a robust public communications effort to ensure voters know when and how they can register and vote this fall.

The researchers conclude that implementing online voting carries significant cybersecurity risk and is not a viable option for the 2020 election.

Vaccination against the human papilloma virus (HPV) reduces the risk of a condition that often leads to cervical cancer, according to an analysis of Danish health registry data.

The study, which is published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, followed two groups of women: those born in 1993 who were offered free HPV-vaccination at the age of 15 years, and those born in 1983 who had not been offered free HPV-vaccination. Individuals were followed from age 15 to 25 years.

Vaccination coverage was 91% in the 1993 birth group and less than 0.1% in the 1983 group. A precancerous condition called high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia was detected in 4% of the 15,748 screened women born in 1983 and in 3% of the 19,951 screened women born in 1993.

The investigators found a reduced risk of about 30% for high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in the 1993 birth group offered free HPV-vaccination as girls compared with the 1983 birth group not offered free vaccination.

Researchers from Flinders University and the University of Adelaide studied a group of women in South Australia who have experienced anorexia nervosa for over 10 years but have not responded well to traditional treatments, are reluctant to change their practices or seek help for their disordered eating practices.

The research explores, from an anthropological perspective, how the women experienced SE-AN as profoundly embodied, representing a core part of their identity and how they got on in the world.

Lead researcher Dr Connie Musolino, from Flinders University's Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, says that trying to separate the mental health aspects of a person's anorexia from their day-to-day eating and body practices was described by participants as more than the loss of an identity.

"It would dismantle their sense of being-in-the world," explains Dr Musolino. "It structures every aspect of daily life. One participant described her anorexia nervosa as "the glue" that holds everything together."

Dr Musolino says these findings highlight why severe and enduring anorexia nervosa becomes more difficult to treat and problematic for people to recover from.

"There have been growing calls for SE-AN treatment approaches that emphasise improving a person's quality of life over focusing only on a full recovery in medical terms," she says.

"We argue that experiences of SE-AN are culturally informed. Over time, everyday rituals and routines became part of that person's structured life, and that becomes very difficult to address only in medical terms."

The study is the subject of an article - "Embodiment as a Paradigm for Understanding and Treating SE-AN: Locating the Self in Culture", by Dr Connie Musolino, Professor Megan Warin and Dr Peter Gilchrist - published in Frontiers Psychiatry, Vol. 11, Article 543. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00534 (published 12 June 2020). The article was published as part of the Special edition of Frontiers Psychiatry: Towards an Improved Understanding of Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa.

This study was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant (LP 110200179).

In recognising the need for improved SE-AN treatment, Dr Musolino applauds the push by Butterfly Foundation (a national charity for people impacted by eating disorders and body image issues) for more holistic approaches to care in the field of eating disorders. She believes this approach can be improved by acknowledging how eating disorders are experienced as embodied and cannot be separated from the socio-cultural structures which inform them.

Dr Musolino says broadening a quality-of-life approach that works with people's strengths and identities will help to develop greater understanding of how to best improve the wellbeing of people with SE-AN.

"A change in methods will help us to understand these people's fear of living differently, and the safety that embodied routines bring," she says.

Children's own temperament could be driving the amount of TV they watch - according to new research from the University of East Anglia and Birkbeck, University of London.

New findings published today show that the brain responses of 10-month-old babies could predict whether they would enjoy watching fast-paced TV shows six months later.

The research team says that the findings are important for the ongoing debate around early TV exposure.

Lead researcher Dr Teodora Gliga, from UEA's School of Psychology, said: "The sensory environment surrounding babies and young children is really complex and cluttered, but the ability to pay attention to something is one of the first developmental milestones in babies.

"Even before they can ask questions, children vary greatly in how driven they are to explore their surroundings and engage with new sights or sounds.

"We wanted to find out why babies appear to be so different in the way that they seek out new visual sensory stimulation - such as being attracted to shiny objects, bright colours or moving images on TV.

"There have been various theories to explain these differences, with some suggesting that infants who are less sensitive will seek less stimulation, others suggesting that some infants are simply faster at processing information - an ability which could drive them to seek out new stimulation more frequently.

"In this study we bring support for a third theory by showing that a preference for novelty makes some infants seek more varied stimulation."

Using a brain imaging method known as electroencephalography (EEG), the research team studied brain activity in 48 10-month old babies while they watched a 40-second clip from the Disney movie Fantasia on repeat.

They studied how the children's brain waves responded to random interruptions to the movie - in the form of a black and white chequerboard suddenly flashing on screen.

Dr Gliga said: "As the babies watched the repeated video clip, EEG responses told us that they learned its content. We expected that, as the video became less novel and therefore engaged their attention less, they would start noticing the checkerboard.

"But some of the babies started responding to the checkerboard earlier on while still learning about the video - suggesting that these children had had enough of the old information.

"Conversely, others remained engaged with the video even when there was not much to learn from it," she added.

Parents and carers were also asked to fill in a questionnaire about their babies' sensory behaviours - including whether they enjoyed watching fast-paced brightly-coloured TV shows. This was followed up with a second similar questionnaire six months later.

Dr Gliga said: "It was very interesting to find that brain responses at 10 months, indicating how quickly infants switched their attention from the repeated video to the checkerboard, predicted whether they would enjoy watching fast-paced TV shows six months later.

"These findings are important for the ongoing debate on early TV exposure since they suggest that children's temperament may drive differences in TV exposure.

"It is unlikely that our findings are explained by early TV exposure since parents reported that only a small proportion of 10-month-olds were watching TV shows," she added.

Elena Serena Piccardi, from Birkbeck, University of London, said: "The next part of our research will aim to understand exactly what drives these individual differences in attention to novelty, including the role that early environments may have.

"Exploration and discovery are essential for children's learning and cognitive development. Yet, different children may benefit from different environments for their learning. As such, this research will help us understand how individualized environments may nurture children's learning, promote their cognitive development and, ultimately, support achievement of their full potential.

Called “calcium-rich supernovae,” these stellar explosions are so rare that astrophysicists have struggled to find and subsequently study them. The nature of these supernovae and their mechanism for creating calcium, therefore, have remained elusive.

Now a Northwestern University-led team has potentially uncovered the true nature of these rare, mysterious events. For the first time ever, the researchers examined a calcium-rich supernova, dubbed SN 2019ehk, with X-ray imaging, providing an unprecedented glimpse into the star during the last month of its life and ultimate explosion.

The study, which includes data from W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii, is published in the August 5, 2020 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

The new findings revealed that a calcium-rich supernova is a compact star that sheds an outer layer of gas during the final stages of its life. When the star explodes, its matter collides with the loose material in that outer shell, emitting bright X-rays. The overall explosion causes intensely hot temperatures and high pressure, driving a chemical reaction that produces calcium.

“These events are so few in number that we have never known what produced calcium-rich supernova,” said lead author Wynn Jacobson-Galan, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Northwestern University. “By observing what this star did in its final month before it reached its critical, tumultuous end, we peered into a place previously unexplored, opening new avenues of study within transient science.”

“Before this event, we had indirect information about what calcium-rich supernovae might or might not be,” said senior author Raffaella Margutti, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University and a member of CIERA (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics). “Now, we can confidently rule out several possibilities.”

‘THE RICHEST OF THE RICH’

While all calcium comes from stars, calcium-rich supernovae pack the most powerful punch. Typical stars create small amounts of calcium slowly through burning helium throughout their lives. Calcium-rich supernovae, on the other hand, produce massive amounts of calcium within seconds.

“The explosion is trying to cool down,” Margutti explained. “It wants to give away its energy, and calcium emission is an efficient way to do that.”

Using Keck Observatory’s Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS), the researchers discovered SN 2019ehk emitted the most calcium ever observed in a singular astrophysical event.

“The beautiful Keck spectrum revealed it wasn’t just calcium-rich,” Margutti said. “It was the richest of the rich.”

‘A GLOBAL COLLABORATION WAS IGNITED’

Amateur astronomer Joel Shepherd first spotted the bright burst in April 2019 while using his new telescope to view Messier 100 (M100), a spiral galaxy located 55 million light years from Earth. After seeing a bright orange dot appear in the frame, he immediately reported the discovery to the astronomical community.

“As soon as the world knew that there was a potential supernova in M100, a global collaboration was ignited,” Jacobson-Galan said. “Every single country with a prominent telescope turned to look at this object.”

The worldwide follow-up operation moved so quickly, the supernova was observed just 10 hours after exploding. Leading observatories such as NASA’s Swift Satellite, Lick Observatory, and Keck Observatory were among the telescopes triggered to examine SN 2019ehk in optical wavelengths.

University of California Santa Barbara graduate student Daichi Hiramatsu was the first to trigger Swift to study SN 2019ehk in the X-ray and ultraviolet. The X-ray emission detected with Swift only lingered for five days before completely disappearing.

“In the world of transients, we have to discover things very, very fast before they fade,” Margutti said. “Initially, no one was looking for X-rays. Daichi noticed something and alerted us to the strange appearance of what looked like X-rays. We looked at the images and realized something was there. It was much more luminous than anybody would have ever thought. There were no preexisting theories that predicted calcium-rich transients would be so luminous in X-ray wavelengths.”

UNCOVERING NEW CLUES

SN 2019ehk’s brief luminosity told another a story about its nature. The Northwestern researchers believe the star shed an outer layer of gas in its final days. When the star exploded, its material collided with this outer layer to produce a bright, energetic burst of X-rays.

“The luminosity tells us how much material the star shed and how close that material was to the star,” Jacobson-Galan said. “In this case, the star lost a very small amount of material right before it exploded. That material was still nearby.”

Although the Hubble Space Telescope had been observing M100 for the past 25 years, the powerful device never registered the star — which was experiencing its final evolution — responsible for SN 2019ehk. The researchers used the Hubble images to examine the supernova site before the explosion occurred and say this is yet another clue to the star’s true nature.

“It was likely a white dwarf or very low-mass massive star,” Jacobson-Galan said. “Both of those would be very faint.”

“Without this explosion, you wouldn’t know that anything was ever there,” Margutti added. “Not even Hubble could see it.”

A simple method for making clear coatings that can block heat and conduct electricity could radically cut the cost of energy-saving smart windows and heat-repelling glass.

The spray-on coatings developed by researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, are ultra-thin, cost-effective and rival the performance of current industry standards for transparent electrodes.

Combining the best properties of glass and metals in a single component, a transparent electrode is a highly conductive clear coating that allows visible light through.

The coatings - key components of technologies including smart windows, touchscreen displays, LED lighting and solar panels - are currently made through time-consuming processes that rely on expensive raw materials.

The new spray-on method is fast, scalable and based on cheaper materials that are readily available.

The method could simplify the fabrication of smart windows, which can be both energy-saving and dimmable, as well as low-emissivity glass, where a conventional glass panel is coated with a special layer to minimise ultraviolet and infrared light.

Lead investigator Dr Enrico Della Gaspera said the pioneering approach could be used to substantially bring down the cost of energy-saving windows and potentially make them a standard part of new builds and retrofits.

"Smart windows and low-E glass can help regulate temperatures inside a building, delivering major environmental benefits and financial savings, but they remain expensive and challenging to manufacture," said Della Gaspera, a senior lecturer and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at RMIT.

"We're keen to collaborate with industry to further develop this innovative type of coating.

"The ultimate aim is to make smart windows much more widely accessible, cutting energy costs and reducing the carbon footprint of new and retrofitted buildings."

The new method can also be precisely optimised to produce coatings tailored to the transparency and conductivity requirements of the many different applications of transparent electrodes.

How the tech works

The standard approach for manufacturing transparent electrodes is based on indium, a rare and expensive element, and vacuum deposition methods, which are bulky, slow and costly.

This makes transparent electrodes a major cost in the production of any optoelectronic device.

In the new study published in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, researchers in RMIT's School of Science made transparent electrodes using the far cheaper material tin oxide, spiked with a special combination of chemicals to enhance conductivity and transparency.

The ultra-thin transparent coatings, which are over 100 times thinner than a human hair, only allow visible light through, while blocking both harmful UV light and heat in the form of infrared radiation.

The scientists used a process called "ultrasonic spray pyrolysis" to fabricate smooth, uniform coatings of high optical and electrical quality.

A precursor solution is nebulised, using commercially available technology to create a fine spray mist that forms ultra-small and uniformly-sized droplets. This solution is sprayed on a heated support layer, such as glass.

When the solution hits the hot layer a chemical reaction is triggered, decomposing the precursor into a solid residue that is deposited as an ultra-thin coating. All the by-products of the reaction are eliminated as vapours, leaving a pure coating with the desired composition.

Global demand for smart glazing

The global market size for smart glass and smart windows is expected to reach $6.9 billion by 2022, while the global low-E glass market is set to reach an estimated $39.4 billion by 2024.

New York's Empire State Building reported energy savings of $US2.4 million and cut carbon emissions by 4,000 metric tonnes after installing smart glass windows.

Eureka Tower in Melbourne features a dramatic use of smart glass in its "Edge" tourist attraction, a glass cube that projects 3m out of the building and suspends visitors 300m over the city. The glass is opaque as the cube moves out over the edge of the building and becomes clear once fully extended.

First author Jaewon Kim, a PhD researcher in Applied Chemistry at RMIT, said the next steps in the research were developing precursors that will decompose at lower temperatures, allowing the coatings to be deposited on plastics and used in flexible electronics, as well as producing larger prototypes by scaling up the deposition.

"The spray coater we use can be automatically controlled and programmed, so fabricating bigger proof-of-concept panels will be relatively simple," he said.

Unique molecular mechanics allowing parasites to thrive in the guts of one billion people open the door to new treatments that are safe for the host.

Around one billion people on the planet are infected with parasitic helminths, round worms that live in soil and colonize human guts through dirty water. The helminths owe their ability to survive in the low oxygen environment of the human gut to a unique enzyme variant, Donnelly Centre researchers have found.

The findings raise hopes of new treatments to quell growing resistance of parasites to available medications. Infections are common in less developed countries where they can leave long-lasting consequences on child development.

“When parasites are outside the body, which they are for a part of their lifecycle, they breathe oxygen just like we do,” says Andrew Fraser, a senior author and a professor of molecular genetics in the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at U of T’s Faculty of Medicine. “We were trying to understand how these parasites survive inside the human gut where there’s almost no available oxygen.”

The study was also co-led by Gustavo Salinas, a professor at Universidad de la República in Uruguay, and Jennifer Shepherd, a professor at Gonzaga University in the U.S.

The findings have been published in e-Life, an online journal for life-sciences.

Most animals, including humans, make energy through aerobic, or oxygen-dependent metabolism, with the help of a molecule called ubiquinone, or UQ. When they are inside their host, parasitic helminths switch to an unusual type of anaerobic metabolism that burns a related molecule called rhodoquinone, or RQ.

In their previous study, Fraser’s team uncovered that UQ and RQ are made from different precursor molecules by the same enzyme called COQ2. But how does COQ2 know to use the UQ precursor when there’s oxygen around but use the RQ precursor when there’s no oxygen?

“Somehow there has to be a switch,” says Fraser. “If we could understand how that switch works and if we could take a small compound and interfere with that switch, prevent it from making RQ, that might be a way to kill a parasite in humans.”

First clues emerged when Michael Schertzberg, a research technician in the lab, noticed that helminths produce two protein variants of COQ2. The variants are made by alternative splicing, a process through which gene coding segments, or exons, are variably included into templates for protein synthesis, allowing for diverse proteins to be encoded by the same gene. The two COQ2 variants are identical but for a small part encoded by two mutually exclusive exons, dubbed A and E. These are exactly the same size — flipping from the A variant to the E variant is like switching a block in a complicated Lego structure.

The researchers next engineered C. elegans worm strains producing either enzyme variant alone to test their ability to make UQ and RQ. Although not a parasite, C. elegans is a highly related helminth that also uses rhodoquinone. They found that the worms lacking the E variant lost their ability to make RQ and could no longer survive without oxygen.

Genome scanning across diverse animal lineages further strengthened the idea that the E variant is required for life without oxygen. The E variant is not even encoded in the COQ2 gene of most animals, including humans, who need air to live. It is only found in helminths and a few other species known to make RQ, such as oysters and other marine organisms, where it is likely an adaptation to changing oxygen levels in tidal environments.

Importantly, when they looked at the parasitic helminths Ascaris and Strongyloides stercoralis, they found that they also make and switch to the E variant when they are inside the host.

June Tan, a lead co-author and an expert in alternative splicing, has rarely seen in helminths two alternatively spliced variants with such distinct functions, like flipping a switch.

“For me the most surprising finding was how restricted the E variant was to just those species that make RQ,” says Tan, who is a postdoctoral fellow the lab.

“We think alternative splicing switches the enzyme core around the catalytic site so that it allows them to use a different precursor molecule to make RQ versus UQ.”

When Margot Lautens, a PhD student in the lab, computationally laid each variant over the reference molecular structure of the enzyme, she indeed found that the A and E exons encode a core segment which is crucial for the catalytic activity. The researchers think that when oxygen levels dip, the enzyme flips its inner core from the prevalent A form to the less common E form which can make RQ and sustain a parasite’s life.

The finding opens a therapeutic opportunity to specifically target the enzyme in the parasite without touching its counterpart in the host.

“If you look at the A form of COQ2, it looks the same in every animal. An inhibitor would act on human too,” says Fraser.

“But the E variant has key differences and you could target just that form. This gives us a beautiful way to help us find inhibitors that will hit specifically the E form and that’s what we’re doing now.”

The research was supported by funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and Agencia Nacional para la Innovación y la Investigación ANII in Uruguay.

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When large forces, for example in bridge construction, act on a heavy beam, the beam will be slightly deformed. Calculating the relationship between forces, internal stresses and deformations is one of the standard tasks in civil engineering. But what happens when you apply these considerations to tiny objects - for example, to a single DNA double helix?

Experiments with DNA molecules show that their mechanical properties are completely different from what those of macroscopic objects - and this has important consequences for biology and medicine. Scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) has now succeeded in explaining these properties in detail by combining ideas from civil engineering and physics.

Unexpected behaviour at the molecular level

At first glance, you might think of the DNA double helix as a tiny little spring that you can simply stretch and compress just like you would an ordinary spring. But it is not quite that simple: "If you stretch a piece of DNA, you would actually expect the number of turns to decrease. But in certain cases the opposite is true: "When the helix gets longer, it sometimes twists even more," says civil engineer Johannes Kalliauer from the Institute of Mechanics of Materials and Structures at TU Wien. "Apart from that, DNA molecules are much more ductile than the materials we usually deal with in civil engineering: They can become 70% longer under tensile stress."

These strange mechanical properties of DNA are of great importance for biology and medicine: "When the genetic information is read from the DNA molecule in a living cell, the details of the geometry can determine whether a reading error occurs, which in the worst case can even cause cancer," says Johannes Kalliauer. "Until now, molecular biology has had to be satisfied with empirical methods to explain the relationship between forces and the geometry of DNA."

In his dissertation, Johannes Kalliauer got to the bottom of this issue - and he did so in the form of a rather unusual combination of subjects: His work was supervised on the one hand by the civil engineer Prof. Christian Hellmich, and on the other hand by Prof. Gerhard Kahl from the Institute of Theoretical Physics.

"We used molecular dynamics methods to reproduce the DNA molecule on an atomic scale on the computer," explains Kalliauer. "You determine how the DNA helices are compressed, stretched or twisted - and then you calculate the forces that occur and the final position of the atoms." Such calculations are very complex and only possible with the help of large supercomputers - Johannes Kalliauer used the Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC) for this purpose.

That way, the strange experimental findings could be explaned - such as the counterintuitive result that in certain cases the DNA twists even more when stretched. "It's hard to imagine on a large scale, but at the atomic level it all makes sense," says Johannes Kalliauer.

Strange intermediate world

Within the atomic models of theoretical physics, interatomic forces and distances can be determined. Using certain rules developed by the team based on principles from civil engineering, the relevant force quantities required to describe the DNA strand as a whole can then be determined - similar to the way the statics of a beam in civil engineering can be described using some important cross-sectional properties.

"We are working in an interesting intermediate world here, between the microscopic and the macroscopic," says Johannes Kalliauer. "The special thing about this research project is that you really need both perspectives and you have to combine them."

This combination of significantly different size scales plays a central role at the Institute for Mechanics of Materials and Structures time and again. After all, the material properties that we feel every day on a large scale are always determined by behaviour at the micro level. The current work, which has now been published in the "Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids", is intended to show on the one hand how to combine the large and the small in a scientifically exact way, and on the other hand to help to better understand the behaviour of DNA - right down to the explanation of hereditary diseases.

Metabolic fatty liver disease, known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, is one of the most common causes of liver disease in Western countries and covers a spectrum of disorders. It is strongly associated with metabolic diseases, such as obesity or type 2 diabetes mellitus. During ageing lipids accumulate in the liver and this may compromise its normal function. The UPV/EHU's Lipids & Liver research group at the Department of Physiology of the Faculty of Medicine and Nursing conducts research into "non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and associated metabolic diseases. In this work we aimed to find out which mechanisms may be involved in the development of this liver disease throughout the ageing process so that it can either be treated or have its onset delayed", explained Dr Patricia Aspichueta, head of the research group.

It is a disease that progresses slowly: "In some patients it does not develop but remains in the first fat accumulation phase, just in hepatosteatosis; in other patients, it may take as long as 20 years to progress from hepatosteatosis to the onset of steatohepatitis with or without fibrosis; however, there are patients in whom it progresses more rapidly with ageing," explained Aspichueta. That is why it is very important to know "which mechanisms are involved in making the liver more susceptible to specific inputs, thus furthering the development and/or progression of the disease".

One of the proteins linked to cell ageing is osteopontin, a multifunctional protein found in many tissues and which, as shown by previous studies conducted by the Lipids & Liver group, modulates liver metabolism and "has been associated with processes of highly negative diseases, such as cancer and cirrhosis of the liver", explained Aspichueta. In a piece of work that has formed part of the PhD thesis by the researcher Beatriz Gómez-Santos, "strangely enough, we found that, contrary to expectations, osteopontin is protective, in other words, it is needed to prevent the early onset of this disease during ageing", she added. "We have seen that if osteopontin is inhibited or silenced, as is proposed in certain contexts (to prevent hepatic fibrosis, etc.), the fat appears early and the disease emerges earlier. So during ageing it is essential to maintain this protein at physiological levels in the liver."

Men and women

The study of metabolic diseases is complex, because the metabolic changes that take place are very dynamic and occur in a coordinated way among various tissues. What is more, the changes taking place in the molecules throughout their metabolisation is studied: "Among other things we use radioactively marked molecules and monitor the path they follow, where they are incorporated, etc." The researchers stress that "this finding is essential because we have learnt a tremendous amount about the ageing process".

Right now, Gómez-Santos is exploring "the liver susceptibility that men and women develop throughout their lives causing them to go down with liver disease. In parallel, in men and women, we are analysing the metabolic processes linked to the development and progression of liver disease". The evidence provided by various studies suggests that the incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is higher in men than in women. What is more, in women the incidence appears to be lower in the premenopausal stage. It is a complex study with different variables having a single objective: "What we want to achieve ultimately is healthy ageing. We want to prevent metabolic disease from emerging, or if it has already emerged, to prevent it developing more rapidly."

The journal Materialia has recently published the outcome of a piece of research conducted by a group of researchers comprising several from the Department of Physical Chemistry at the UPV-EHU's Faculty of Science and Technology and BCMaterials, and others from centres at the University of Minho (Portugal). In this work the research group developed a new composite material that can be used for tissue engineering, specifically for regenerating bone tissue. "The ultimate goal of this line of research would be to be able to generate tissue that could then be implanted to treat bone diseases," said José Luis Vilas-Vilela, head of the UPV/EHU's Department of Physical Chemistry and one of the authors of this study.

The material developed comprises a scaffold or matrix which in turn is made up of one of the main components of silk (fibroin), a biocompatible material of natural origin, and which is loaded with magnetic nanoparticles. The purpose of adding the nanoparticles was to make the material "magnetoactive" so that they would respond when a magnetic field is applied to them and thus transmit mechanical and electrical stimuli to the cells. "The inserting of stimuli, which may be electrical, magnetic, mechanical or of another type, has been proven to encourage cell growth and differentiation, because this procedure in some way mimics the cellular microenvironment and imitates the stimuli that occur in the environment in which the cells carry out their functions," explained the researcher.

Positive in vitro study

This study was conducted in vitro, and two methodologies were tested to obtain the fibroin matrix: in one, films were created, and in the other, a kind of fabric was produced by interweaving the fibres. "These are two pretty good methodologies for building this scaffolding which simulates the extracellular matrix, the support to which the cells can attach themselves in order to grow," specified the researcher. The magnetoactive nanoparticles also form part of the structure as they have been incorporated into the fibroin. So when we apply a magnetic field, we bring about a response by these nanoparticles, which vibrate and thus deform the structure, they stretch it and transmit the mechanical stress to the cells," he said.

This PhD holder in chemistry says that the results have shown them that both types of matrix or scaffold "encourage cell growth; the film type works better, the cells grow better, but more than anything, we have confirmed, for the first time, that the magnetic stimulus exerts a positive effect on cell growth".

This has signified a step forward in the line of research of this research group in the quest for suitable materials and methods for tissue fabrication. "We know that our aim is a long-term one and now we are taking the first steps. We are developing various types of materials, stimuli and processes so that we can have the means to achieve the regeneration of different tissue. In addition, the idea would be to use the stem cells of the patients themselves and be capable of differentiating them towards the type of cell we want to form the tissue with, be it bone, muscle, heart or whatever might be needed. That would be the ultimate goal towards which we are already taking significant steps," he said.

To achieve that ultimate goal, this research group needs to meet various challenges. The most immediate ones would be, according to the expert, "to combine various stimuli and insert a variation into the ones already applied, such as the direction in which the deformation of the structure used is applied. We also need to explore cell viability and functionality, how the cells are fed and how the waste they produce is extracted. There are many factors where progress needs to be made, but what has been achieved is spurring us on to continue", he concluded.

Asterids comprise around 100,000 flowering plants, from heather to tomatoes. Up to now, their family relationships had not yet been fully clarified. A new study by the University of Bonn, Pennsylvania State University (USA) and Fudan University (China) has now somewhat closed this knowledge gap. It is the world's most detailed phylogenetic analysis ever conducted for asterids. The results of the study have been published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Evolution is a process of gradual change. As a rule, organisms therefore differ from each other more markedly the longer it has been since their developmental paths separated. This association is even more apparent in their genes than in their external appearance. A comparison of the genetic make-up of numerous species therefore makes it possible to reconstruct their family tree.

This is precisely what the researchers involved in the study did. "For a total of 365 different species, we analyzed an average of over 1,000 genes each that are active in these plants," explains Prof. Dr. Maximilian Weigend from the Nees Institute for Biodiversity of Plants at the University of Bonn. "This makes our study of the asterid group the largest such study on this plant group to date."

Among the asterids are such diverse species as coffee, heather or even the water hawthorn, which is found in Madagascar and resembles a water fern. In total, the group comprises around 100,000 species, or almost a quarter of all flowering plants worldwide. Their appearance and the ecological niches they occupy vary accordingly.

Uncertain tiles in the family tree mosaic

The group is divided into a number of orders, each of which is in turn broken down into different plant families. The position of many of these subgroups in the family tree has been a matter of debate. If the family relationships were a mosaic, the position of many of the tiles would still be uncertain.

The current study has now changed this to some extent. "We selected the species studied to cover all plant orders and almost all families of asterids," Weigend stresses. "Subgroups whose ancestry is still unclear were particularly well represented."

This enabled the researchers to clarify a number of open questions, such as the position of the Boraginaceae, which includes for instance forget-me-nots. However, new questions arose in other areas - the researchers now know at which points in the mosaic they have to sequence the genome of other plants in order to clarify remaining questions. The study is therefore an important step on which those involved in the project and other working groups can now build.

A large part of the species studied originates from Bonn

99 of the 210 newly studied plants come from the University of Bonn's Botanic Gardens. "Due to its high quality, DNA from living plants allows much more precise conclusions than that obtained from herbarium specimens that have been stored in museums for decades," says Weigend. "You would have to travel to more than 40 different countries to collect the samples here used from the wild and would probably be busy for years." The living collections in botanic gardens are an increasingly important resource for research and development, since modern methods can be used to answer ever new questions, the researcher emphasizes. "At the same time, it's becoming more and more difficult to legally to obtain access to plant material from other countries, which further underlines the importance of the collections."

Sequencing many hundreds of genes in over 200 species generates a huge amount of data. Evaluating these by computer places enormous demands on software and hardware. "The sequences were evaluated primarily by our partners at Pennsylvania State University and Fudan University," explains Maximilian Weigend. "Such large-scale investigations can nowadays only be carried out in international collaborations."

The results make it possible to understand the evolution of flowering plants more precisely than before. The botanist stresses that although this is basic research, it also has tangible practical implications - for example, if one wants to understand how plants have reacted to changing climatic conditions in the past and therefore also what the impact of current or future changes in environmental conditions might be. "In addition, many important crops used by humans are asterids, from potatoes to kiwis and coffee," he explains.

Many species also produce important agents that could be the basis for future drugs. And if you are looking for an alternative to a plant-based agent, it is best to take a look at a related species. Weigend: "This is another reason why it's important to know the family tree of asteroids in as much detail as possible."

Finding out if the food and water we consume are safe from toxic and carcinogenic metals can now be much faster and simpler. Researchers at the University Johannesburg developed an efficient and more sensitive method to test for dangerous levels of heavy metals, like arsenic, cadmium and chromium in vegetables and water. The method can be used to test other foods also. It is possible to test for several metals at the same time and automation can be added. The method can be used to test other foods. The instrumentation used is readily available in laboratories in developing countries.

Is it safe?

Researchers at the University of Johannesburg have developed a faster, more economical method to directly identify toxic and carcinogenic heavy metals in vegetables and drinking water.

Trace metals such as lead (Pb), arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd) and thallium (Tl) are toxic even at very low concentrations (levels). Arsenic, cadmium and chromium hexavalent compounds are also recognised as carcinogens by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the US National Toxicology Program (NTP).

Combining accurate established techniques, the method makes it possible to test for several trace metals simultaneously.

"The study provides a simple, fast and sensitive method for laboratories with limited resources. The research results can also improve food quality for consumers," says lead author Prof Philiswa Nomngongo. She is the SARChI Chair: Nanotechnology for Water at the University of Johannesburg.

"This study contributes data that can be used as a reference when setting up or revising the guidelines for the maximum allowable levels in common vegetables and palatable water," she adds.

"The method is environmentally friendly and conforms to green analytical chemistry principles. It does not introduce secondary pollution."

New combination of techniques

Previous studies used similar methods, but for analysis of organic pollutants says Mr Luthando Nyaba, co-author of the study, also at the University of Johannesburg.

"This is the first time where a clay-based adsorbent is combined with a cloud point extraction method for simultaneous analysis of trace metals in vegetables and palatable water," he says.

"In this method, we convert solid vegetable samples into liquid form. This makes it possible to directly analyse trace metals with a suitable analytical instrument. Direct, simultaneous analysis means that more vegetable samples can be analysed at the same time, and quicker than was possible before," adds Nyaba.

The method uses ultra-sound assisted cloud-point extraction and dispersive micro-solid phase extraction to preconcentrate samples from vegetables and water. The samples are then directly analysed with inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry.

The equipment used for the research is a few years old, says Nomngongo. However, if "we buy vegetables at 8 in the morning, we have the analysis results by 1 in the afternoon," she adds.

Chemistry like mobile apps

To identify trace metals in foods and water, analytical chemistry techniques are required. These evolve over time much like apps on mobile phones, he says.

"The developers of a phone app can fix software bugs without rewriting the app completely. They add fixes to a new version, and users download the new version to benefit.

"Analytical chemists are like software developers, making updates to an existing method to make them compliant with new analytical chemistry principles. In this case, one of our goals was to significantly the reduce the amounts of hazardous solvents traditionally used in testing for trace metals," adds Nyaba.

Hard to detect

All over the world, unwanted trace metals are showing up in vegetables and drinking water. These metals are among many pollutants that seriously affect human health. Monitoring which metals occur in foods and beverages can really challenge a laboratory.

Firstly, often labs cannot directly measure some trace metals in foods, because they occur in 'too low doses': the equipment is not designed to detect such low concentrations. This means that sophisticated methods and expensive equipment are needed to detect the presence of some trace metals.

Secondly, vegetables are inherently very complex to accurately analyse for chemical elements. This creates long, time-consuming procedures to prepare samples to be ready for metals testing.

Combined, this means that monitoring for trace metals in agricultural produce is generally slow, expensive, and can only be done by highly qualified scientists. For developing countries, monitoring can be inaccessible because of that.

More than a good thing

To stay healthy, humans need to eat vegetables and drink water. High quality vegetables contain many micronutrients, including trace metals the body needs to function well.

But too high doses of some metals can make people sick, though health conditions such as cancer may take years to manifest. Others are so toxic that very low amounts can make people extremely ill within days or weeks.

"We need to eat foods containing some trace metals, such as copper, zinc, and iron. But others are toxic: lead, arsenic cadmium, mercury, among others. On the one hand, vegetables form a vital part of human nutrition. On the other, they are good accumulators of heavy metals," says Nomngongo.

"Knowing the level of metal contamination in the vegetables we eat and the water we drink can make a difference to health and quality of life," she adds.

Metals everywhere

Unwanted metals affect food crops and drinking water world-wide. Heavy metals pollution from urbanisation, factories, mines, and other industries filter into sources for drinking water and irrigation in agriculture. Some agricultural fertilizers, including re-purposed sewage sludge, also affect food crops.

Many of these metals bio-accumulate in the human body, in animals, plants and the environment. This means that the metals cannot be removed and that the resulting problems can only be managed, not cured.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and national governments publish drinking water guidelines and other standards, which show what levels of metals in food and water are likely to affect human health. And the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) publish lists of known and probable human carcinogens.

Next steps

Locally, the research results can help improve the quality of life for communities that depend on the studied water sources, says Nomngongo.

"The results can also assist the South African government and environmental protection agencies to set, review and enforce water quality regulations," she adds.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University innovators are working on inventions to use micro-chip technology in implantable devices and other wearable products such as smart watches to improve biomedical devices, including those used to monitor people with glaucoma and heart disease.

The Purdue team developed a fully implantable radio-frequency transmitter chip for wireless sensor nodes and biomedical devices. The research is published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II. The transmitter chip consumes lowest amount of energy per digital bit published to date.

The transmitter works in a similar fashion to communication technology in mobile phones and smart watches, but the Purdue transmitter has an unprecedented level of miniaturization and low-energy consumption that it can be implanted into an eye to monitor pressure for a glaucoma patient or into another part of the body to measure data related to heart functions.

"A transmitter is an integral part of these kinds of devices," said Hansraj Bhamra, a research and development scientist who created the technology while he was a graduate student at Purdue. "It facilitates a wireless communication between the sensor node or biomedical device and a smart phone application. The user can simply operate the device through a smart phone application and receive the biophysiological data in real-time. The transmitter in this case enables a 24-hour intraocular pressure monitoring for glaucoma patients"

The Purdue transmitter chip works with sensor nodes in a process similar to the way sensors in the smart cars and other Internet of Things devices connect through various communication components to achieve tasks such as auto-driving.

"In addition to being low power, our transmitter operates on wireless power to replace the conventional batteries," said Pedro Irazoqui, the Reilly Professor of Biomedical Engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue. "Batteries are undesirable since they increase the device size and weight and make it uncomfortable for patients. In addition, the batteries are built of toxic material and require frequent recharging or replacement surgeries."