Tech

New research on the importance of non-cognitive skills - such as conscientiousness, self-esteem and feeling in control of one's life - for graduates' earnings potential offers important lessons for young people receiving their A-level results.

The study by Gerda Buchmueller and Professor Ian Walker, of Lancaster University Management School, confirms previous evidence on the importance of curriculum choice: STEM subjects add more value in terms of earnings than Arts subjects. Moreover, graduates from elite institutions, on average, earn more than those from less prestigious establishments.

But even within any given course, the variance in graduate earnings is still large - despite prior ability, as measured by cognitive tests such as A-levels, having little variation across students within a course. What varies are their non-cognitive skills, and these differences drive degree class - and give rise to large pay differentials.

The research will be presented at the annual congress of the European Economic Association in Manchester this month.

Co-author Gerda Buchmueller, from Lancaster University's Department of Economics, said: "While what you learn matters, how well you master what you learn is important too. Indeed, earnings differentials between degree classes are as large today as they were 20 years ago, even though four-times more students now earn first-class degrees.

"The analysis points to the importance of university students' own skills as inputs into their own further intellectual development: non-cognitive skills complement cognitive ability, as well as complementing good quality teaching."

The authors pointed to important lessons for young people:

Understand that your choices matter for your future. Choose to do as well as you can in school. Be mindful of your non-cognitive skills.

Choose university if you think it is the right way for you to develop your skills. But otherwise choose to develop your skills elsewhere. A dead-end job will end badly.

Choose the best institution you can get into. Choose a subject that you will be enthusiastic about - one where you will want to choose to put in the effort to be successful. And be sure to choose any opportunity to improve your skills, especially if your chosen subject is, on average, not a high return one.

Analytical skills are particularly highly valued in the labour market - ask at open days precisely how your course of interest will fill any gaps in your skill set.

Professor Walker said: "Employers remunerate skills, not qualifications. Students who choose to treat university as consumption will take away only memories - and unfortunately for taxpayers, the loan system makes them pick up much of the resulting debt.

"But students who choose to engage in university as an investment opportunity will, on average, go on to develop improved skills - and the taxpayer will be forever in their debt."

Gluten-free diets have been trendy for several years now, with adherents claiming that avoiding grains that contain the substance helps with weight loss or improves general health. However, for people with celiac disease, avoiding gluten is not a fad but a necessity. Now, researchers reporting in the Journal of Proteome Research have developed a method to detect proteins from rye, which could help food manufacturers meet regulatory requirements for "gluten-free" claims on foods.

According to the Celiac Disease Foundation, celiac disease affects about 1% of people worldwide. In people with the disorder, eating gluten -- a group of similar proteins found in wheat, barley and rye -- triggers an immune response that damages the small intestine and causes a variety of gastrointestinal symptoms. Although many foods with "gluten-free" labels are now available, some might contain trace amounts of grains that could cause problems for those with celiac disease. Scientists have developed mass-spectrometry-based approaches to detect gluten proteins specific to wheat and barley, but Michelle Colgrave and CSIRO colleagues wanted to identify gluten and other proteins from a less well-studied grain: rye.

To develop their method, the researchers obtained 20 varieties of rye from 12 different countries, which they milled and treated with a solution that selectively extracted gluten proteins. Then, the team used mass spectrometry to identify and quantify peptides, or protein fragments, from each sample. This analysis revealed six peptides that were detected in all rye varieties but not in other grains. The researchers next analyzed several commercial flours, breakfast cereals and snack foods. They detected the six rye peptides in all foods that contained rye as a labeled ingredient. In addition, one sample of flour from a wheat-related grain called spelt was contaminated with about 2% rye, and a "gluten-free" breakfast cereal had trace amounts of rye that were not disclosed on the ingredients list. The rye-specific peptide markers will complement those already developed for wheat and barley, providing the ability to detect all gluten-containing grains, the researchers say.

Tiny nanoparticles play a gargantuan role in modern life, even if most consumers are unaware of their presence. They provide essential ingredients in sunscreen lotions, prevent athlete's foot fungus in socks, and fight microbes on bandages. They enhance the colors of popular candies and keep the powdered sugar on doughnuts powdery. They are even used in advanced drugs that target specific types of cells in cancer treatments.

When chemists analyze a sample, however, it is challenging to measure the sizes and quantities of these particles - which are often 100,000 times smaller than the thickness of a piece of paper. Technology offers many options for assessing nanoparticles, but experts have not reached a consensus on which technique is best.

In a new paper from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborating institutions, researchers have concluded that measuring the range of sizes in nanoparticles - instead of just the average particle size - is optimal for most applications.

"It seems like a simple choice," said NIST's Elijah Petersen, the lead author of the paper, which was published today in Environmental Science: Nano. "But it can have a big impact on the outcome of your assessment."

As with many measurement questions, precision is key. Exposure to a certain amount of some nanoparticles could have adverse effects. Pharmaceutical researchers often need exactitude to maximize a drug's efficacy. And environmental scientists need to know, for example, how many nanoparticles of gold, silver or titanium could potentially cause a risk to organisms in soil or water.

Using more nanoparticles than needed in a product because of inconsistent measurements could also waste money for manufacturers.

Although they might sound ultramodern, nanoparticles are neither new nor based solely on high-tech manufacturing processes. A nanoparticle is really just a submicroscopic particle that measures less than 100 nanometers on at least one of its dimensions. It would be possible to place hundreds of thousands of them onto the head of a pin. They are exciting to researchers because many materials act differently at the nanometer scale than they do at larger scales, and nanoparticles can be made to do lots of useful things.

Nanoparticles have been in use since the days of ancient Mesopotamia, when ceramic artists used extremely small bits of metal to decorate vases and other vessels. In fourth-century Rome, glass artisans ground metal into tiny particles to change the color of their wares under different lighting. These techniques were forgotten for a while but rediscovered in the 1600s by resourceful manufacturers for glassmaking again. Then, in the 1850s, scientist Michael Faraday extensively researched ways to use various kinds of wash mixes to change the performance of gold particles.

Modern nanoparticle research advanced quickly in the mid-20th century due to technological innovations in optics. Being able to see the individual particles and study their behavior expanded the possibilities for experimentation. The largest advances came, however, after experimental nanotechnology took off in the 1990s. Suddenly, the behavior of single particles of gold and many other substances could be closely examined and manipulated. Discoveries about the ways that small amounts of a substance would reflect light, absorb light, or change in behavior were numerous, leading to the incorporation of nanoparticles into many more products.

Debates have since followed about their measurement. When assessing the response of cells or organisms to nanoparticles, some researchers prefer measuring particle number concentrations (sometimes called PNCs by scientists). Many find PNCs challenging since extra formulas must be employed when determining the final measurement. Others prefer measuring mass or surface area concentrations.

PNCs are often used for characterizing metals in chemistry. The situation for nanoparticles is inherently more complex, however, than it is for dissolved organic or inorganic substances because unlike dissolved chemicals, nanoparticles can come in a wide variety of sizes and sometimes stick together when added to testing materials.

"If you have a dissolved chemical, it's always going to have the same molecular formula, by definition," Petersen says. "Nanoparticles don't just have a certain number of atoms, however. Some will be 9 nanometers, some will be 11, some might be 18, and some might be 3."

The problem is that each of those particles may be fulfilling an important role. While a simple estimate of particle number is perfectly fine for some industrial applications, therapeutic applications require much more robust measurement. In the case of cancer therapies, for example, each particle, no matter how big or small, may be delivering a needed antidote. And just as with any other kind of dosage, nanoparticle dosage must be exact in order to be safe and effective.

Using the range of particle sizes to calculate the PNC will often be the most helpful in most cases, said Petersen. The size distribution doesn't use a mean or an average but notes the complete distribution of sizes of particles so that formulas can be used to effectively discover how many particles are in a sample.

But no matter which approach is used, researchers need to make note of it in their papers, for the sake of comparability with other studies. "Don't assume that different approaches will give you the same result," he said.

Petersen adds that he and his colleagues were surprised by how much the coatings on nanoparticles could impact measurement. Some coatings, he noted, can have a positive electrical charge, causing clumping.

Petersen worked in collaboration with researchers from federal laboratories in Switzerland, and with scientists from 3M who have previously made many nanoparticle measurements for use in industrial settings. Researchers from Switzerland, like those in much of the rest of Europe, are keen to learn more about measuring nanoparticles because PNCs are required in many regulatory situations. There hasn't been much information on which techniques are best or more likely to yield the most precise results across many applications.

"Until now we didn't even know if we could find agreement among labs about particle number concentrations," Petersen says. "They are complex. But now we are beginning to see it can be done."

This summer alone, intense heat waves have been to blame for at least 11 deaths in Japan, a record-breaking 45.9-degree Celsius temperature in France, and a heat advisory affecting 147 million people on the U.S. East Coast. Conjectured as the "new normal," these extreme air temperatures can heat our bodies, causing sunstrokes or even organ damage.

A new study by researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) shows that if every building in California sported "cool" roofs by 2050, these roofs would help contribute to protecting urbanites from the consequences of these dangerous heatwaves. Their study, "Interacting implications of climate change, population dynamics, and urban heat mitigation for future exposure to heat extremes," was recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

The researchers predict that heat waves are likely to become two to 10 times more frequent across the state by mid-century. But if cool roofs were adopted throughout California's most populous areas - the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento - by 2050 these reflective roofs could bring down heat wave exposures (defined as each time a person experiences a heat wave) by 35 million each year, compared to an estimated 80 million heat wave cases in 2050 with no increase in cool roof adoption. This is the latest example of Berkeley Lab's research into the potential for reflective roofs, walls, and pavements to mitigate urban heat, reduce air conditioning usage, and save water.

"Urban spaces are a small fraction of the globe, but they are where most people live," said Pouya Vahmani, a postdoctoral research fellow in Berkeley Lab's Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division and lead author of the study. "If we're able to cool those areas even a little bit, it can have a huge impact on health and roll back significant impacts of climate change."

Predicting future heat waves

City dwellers are more vulnerable than their rural counterparts to a heat wave's negative effects. Due to the urban heat island effect, air temperatures spike several degrees higher in cities than in surrounding vegetated areas. Built surfaces readily absorb daytime heat and release it at night, keeping cities warmer overnight as well.

When nighttime temperatures remain elevated, human bodies struggle to cool down and recover from the day's scorching heat. In summer, when urban heat island effects peak, human health can be severely compromised. Add a heat wave to this already heat-stressed environment, and impacts exacerbate.

In this new study, the Berkeley Lab researchers had two goals. First, they wanted to predict heat wave occurrences across California's 29 major urban counties between now and 2050. They used regional climate conditions between 2001 and 2015 as a starting point to simulate mid-century climate under two global warming scenarios.

Combining these climate conditions with high-resolution satellite images allowed them to incorporate urban features like buildings, roads, and vegetation, which absorb and release heat, and for more accurate future climate predictions. Then, the researchers used county-level population estimates for 2050 to assess population exposure to future heat waves.

"We wanted to gain a better picture of future climate change risks for California's urban environments and adaptation options," said Andrew Jones, a scientist in Berkeley Lab's Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division and co-author of the study. "Making such refined and realistic predictions can help urban planners and citizens prepare for heat events in an increasingly warming future."

Their study found that heat waves with air temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and lasting at least three consecutive days become two to 10 times more frequent under future global warming scenarios. With the added burden of urban centers getting more populous, the researchers expect that by 2050 there will be 80 million heat wave exposure cases in California each year, compared to an average of 37 million cases annually under current climate conditions.

"That's more than double the cases we've seen under current climatic conditions," Vahmani said.

Also, regions like downtown Los Angeles and Santa Clara, Alameda, and Orange Counties that historically benefited from cool sea breezes will experience more frequent, more intense heat waves by mid-century. "That's significant," Vahmani said, "because many of these regions aren't prepared to deal with the extreme heat."

Cool roofs to the rescue

Coating roofs white or installing sunlight-reflecting tiles in urban clusters could be one solution, according to the researchers.

"It's not necessarily a complicated or costly technology," Vahmani said. "But cool roofs, in general, are more effective if everyone adopts them."

The second goal of their study was to analyze the effectiveness of cool roofs in mitigating heat wave impacts. To do that, the research team repeated the same high-resolution regional climate simulations, only this time replacing all existing building roofs with cool roofs. Specifically, they wanted to know if the increased solar reflectance might shield urban populations against heat waves.

They found that if every building in California sported cool roofs by 2050, it could bring down the annual number of heat wave exposures in California to 45 million from 80 million .

This mitigation potential surprised the team. "Although a small percentage of California's land is urban, I was surprised at how effective cool roofs could be in pushing back risks of heat extremes," Jones said.

Alongside reduced exposure to heat waves and associated health risks, this study predicts that widespread adoption of cool roofs could drastically cut energy demands by reducing air conditioning use.

Jones acknowledges that 100% conversion to cool roofs by 2050 may be challenging. While cities like Los Angeles mandate cool roofs for new constructions, retrofitting existing buildings can be expensive.

The team now wants to find the minimum cool roof coverage needed to accrue benefits similar to those reported in the study.

But the positive effect of cool roofs will be limited to reducing day time temperatures when the roofs reflect sunlight. At night, when roads and packed buildings slowly release heat, these roofs aren't capable of directly providing cooling benefits.

"What they can do is reduce the amount of heat cities absorb during the day," Jones said, "which can indirectly lower the heat available for release in the night."

A study published this week in the journal Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research has found that genes have a greater influence than previously thought not only on the number of moles you have but also where they are on your body.

Survival of skin cancer is known to be influenced by gender, with female patients demonstrating higher rates of survival linked to the melanoma sites tending to occur in the lower body, rather than men, who tend to be affected in the upper body, neck and scalp.

In this study, the team from King's College London analysed a large group of 3,200 healthy twins, predominately female, and counted moles on their head and neck, back, abdomen and chest, upper limbs and lower limbs.

They found that:

In women, the lowest genetic effect on mole count was on the back and abdomen (26%), and the highest on the lower limbs (69%)

The larger number of moles on women's lower limbs is unlikely to be due to sun exposure alone but down to a sex-specific genetic make up

Lead researcher Dr Alessia Visconti, from the Department of Twin Research at King's College London, said: "We've known for some time that moles are a major risk factor for melanoma skin cancer. With this research we now know that not only the number but also the location of moles on the body is in large part due to genetics.

"Our results add to previous evidence that indicates greater sun exposure alone is unlikely to be the reason why women have more moles on their legs.

"While sun exposure does contribute to mole count and skin cancer risk, policymakers, campaigners and health researchers will need to take the sex-specific genetic element into account when developing strategies to prevent and treat skin cancer."

August 14, 2019 -- OTTAWA -- A paper published today in Pediatrics suggests that children and youth who do not sleep enough and use screens more than recommended are more likely to act impulsively and make poorer decisions. The findings come from the globally recognized Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (HALO) at the CHEO Research Institute in Ottawa.

"Impulsive behaviour is associated with numerous mental health and addiction problems, including eating disorders, behavioural addictions and substance abuse," said Dr. Michelle Guerrero, lead author and postdoctoral fellow at the CHEO Research Institute and the University of Ottawa. "This study shows the importance of especially paying attention to sleep and recreational screen time, and reinforces the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth. When kids follow these recommendations, they are more likely to make better decisions and act less rashly than those who do not meet the guidelines."

The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth recommend:

9-11 hours of sleep a night

no more than 2 hours of recreational screen time a day

The paper, "24-Hour Movement Behaviours and Impulsivity," analysed data for 4,524 children from the first set of data of a large longitudinal population study called the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which will follow participants for 10 years. In addition to sleep and screen time, the ABCD Study also captures data related to physical activity. Physical activity is a third pillar of the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, which recommend at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily.

The ABCD Study allowed Guerrero and her team to look at the three pillars of the movement guidelines against eight measures of impulsivity, such as one's tendency to seek out thrilling experiences, to set desired goals, to respond sensitively to rewarding or unpleasant stimuli, and to act rashly in negative and positive moods. The study results suggest that meeting all three pillars of the movement guidelines was associated with more favorable outcomes on five of the eight dimensions.

Guerrero and her team say that studies using feedback devices to measure the movement behaviours in future research will help further our understanding of how physical activity, screen time, and sleep relate to children's impulsivity.

DALLAS (SMU) - You likely know to avoid suspicious emails to keep hackers from gleaning personal information from your computer. But a new study from SMU (Southern Methodist University) suggests that it's possible to access your information in a much subtler way: by using a nearby smart phone to intercept the sound of your typing.

Researchers from SMU's Darwin Deason Institute for Cybersecurity found that acoustic signals, or sound waves, produced when we type on a computer keyboard can successfully be picked up by a smartphone. The sounds intercepted by the phone can then be processed, allowing a skilled hacker to decipher which keys were struck and what they were typing.

The researchers were able to decode much of what was being typed using common keyboards and smartphones - even in a noisy conference room filled with the sounds of other people typing and having conversations.

"We were able to pick up what people are typing at a 41 percent word accuracy rate. And we can extend that out - above 41 percent - if we look at, say, the top 10 words of what we think it might be," said Eric C. Larson, one of the two lead authors and an assistant professor in SMU Lyle School's Department of Computer Science.

The study was published in the June edition of the journal Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies. Co-authors of the study are Tyler Giallanza, Travis Siems, Elena Sharp, Erik Gabrielsen and Ian Johnson - all current or former students at the Deason Institute.

It might take only a couple of seconds to obtain information on what you're typing, noted lead author Mitch Thornton, director of SMU's Deason Institute and professor of electrical and computer engineering.

"Based on what we found, I think smartphone makers are going to have to go back to the drawing board and make sure they are enhancing the privacy with which people have access to these sensors in a smartphone," Larson said.

The researchers wanted to create a scenario that would mimic what might happen in real life. So they arranged several people in a conference room, talking to each other and taking notes on a laptop. Placed on the same table as their laptop or computer, were as many as eight mobile phones, kept anywhere from three inches to several feet feet away from the computer, Thornton said.

Study participants were not given a script of what to say when they were talking, and were allowed to use shorthand or full sentences when typing. They were also allowed to either correct typewritten errors or leave them, as they saw fit.

"We were looking at security holes that might exist when you have these 'always-on' sensing devices - that being your smartphone," Larson said. "We wanted to understand if what you're typing on your laptop, or any keyboard for that matter, could be sensed by just those mobile phones that are sitting on the same table.

"The answer was a definite, "Yes."

But just how does it work?

"There are many kinds of sensors in smartphones that cause the phone to know its orientation and to detect when it is sitting still on a table or being carried in someone's pocket. Some sensors require the user to give permission to turn them on, but many of them are always turned on," Thornton explained. "We used sensors that are always turned on, so all we had to do was develop a new app that processed the sensor output to predict the key that was pressed by a typist."

There are some caveats, though.

"An attacker would need to know the material type of the table," Larson said, because different tables create different sound waves when you type.  For instance, a wooden table like the kind used in this study sounds different than someone typing on a metal tabletop.

Larson said, "An attacker would also need a way of knowing there are multiple phones on the table and how to sample from them."

A successful interception of this sort could potentially be very scary, Thornton noted, because "there's no way to know if you're being hacked this way." 

The Deason Institute is part of SMU's Lyle School of Engineering, and its mission is to to advance the science, policy, application and education of cyber security through basic and problem-driven, interdisciplinary research.

The mechanisms by which new species arise are still not fully understood. What are the evolutionary processes that drive the evolution of new species? Evolutionary biologists traditionally assumed that geographical barriers between animal populations play a decisive role (allopatric speciation): a species is physically separated into two or more isolated populations, thereby preventing gene flow between these groups. The subpopulations adapt to their respective habitats and evolve into independent species with different characteristics. In recent years, however, the evolutionary biologist Professor Axel Meyer from the University of Konstanz has not only been able to show that new species can evolve from a source population within a shared habitat and in the presence of gene flow (sympatric speciation), but that this type of speciation might be much more common than previously thought. His laboratory is investigating both the ecological and genetic mechanisms that facilitate sympatric speciation. In a recent publication in the scientific journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, Axel Meyer and his colleagues Paolo Franchini, Peiwen Xiong, Carmelo Fruciano, Ralf Schneider, Joost Woltering and Darrin Hulsey identify the decisive role that a kind of genetic switch, microRNAs, play in sympatric speciation.

Rapid evolution of cichlids

The researchers led by Axel Meyer analyze the Midas cichlid fish from Nicaragua's volcanic crater lakes as a model system in their research. Cichlids are known for their ability to adapt to new environments at an exceptionally rapid rate and to form new species. The new fish species originate from a population found in the large lakes of Nicaragua, but after colonizing several very small and young crater lakes, they adapted to new ecological niches, evolved new characteristics (e.g. a more elongated body or a different jaw) and evolved into a variety of new species in less than 22,000 years. A further distinctive feature of these Midas cichlids is that they evolved into different species within the same population, sometimes repeatedly, by adapting to different ecological niches within their small crater lakes. The Midas cichlids of Nicaragua are thus one of the best known examples for sympatric speciation. Within such a short time period new mutations are very unlikely to happen. This made finding a molecular mechanism that can bring about different body shapes, adaptations and thereby distinct ecological niches so difficult and interesting. The evolution of microRNAs and new target sites for them to regulate the expression of genes offers one potential molecular mechanism that can bring about very fast evolutionary change with very little genetic differences between the extremely young species.

microRNA

The biologists from Konstanz carried out genetic analyses of five species of Midas cichlids from the crater lakes Apoyo and Xiloá. Here, they focused in particular on the function of the so-called microRNA - a non-coding ribonucleic acid that has a regulatory effect on gene expression. The researchers found an increased activity of microRNA in young fish one day after they hatched during a phase in which the fish bodies are formed. They analyzed the interaction between microRNA and gene expression, identifying specific pairs of microRNAs and genes that influence each other. The microRNA suppresses the expression of the target genes and thus has a regulatory effect on them: the more active a particular microRNA is, the more effectively the target gene is suppressed or "switched off". "Our research results provide strong evidence that extremely quickly evolving microRNA regulation contributes to the rapid sympatric speciation of Midas cichlids," says Paolo Franchini.

The diversity and ecology of African parasitoid wasps was studied for over a year during a project run by the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku in Finland. Parasitoid wasps are one of the animal groups that are the most rich in species. However, the tropical species are still very poorly known. Understanding the diversity of parasitoid wasps inhabiting rainforests is important, because tropical biodiversity is dwindling at an accelerating rate.

The Earth's biodiversity is still poorly known. New animal and plant species are still being discovered, especially in the equatorial rainforests. Scientists at the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku have studied parasitoid wasp diversity in different parts of the tropics for years.

"The parasitoid wasps are amazingly rich in species, and form a significant part of the insect diversity of tropical rainforests. Exploring their diversity and how they live is interesting in its own right, but also important if we're to slow down the ongoing decline of biodiversity," says Doctoral Candidate Tapani Hopkins from the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku, who led the project.

The study investigated the diversity and ecology of parasitoid wasps in Kibale National Park in Uganda. It focused on the so-called rhyssine wasps, which are among the largest parasitoid wasps in the world. They can be several centimetres in length and parasitise the insect larvae of decaying wood. The scientists gathered insects for an entire year, which provided a good picture of how species that fly at different times of the year live.

"There were fewer wasps when it rained and more during the drier seasons. They're mainly found near the decaying wood of primary forest. Before this, we didn't know practically anything about them, but now I can even predict future catches based on the weather and vegetation," says Hopkins.

Scientists at the University of Turku have studied tropical parasitoid insect diversity for over two decades. The research has revealed hundreds of species that are new to science, especially in the Amazon region of South America.

"In this project, our rainforest field studies were expanded to Africa for the first time. This is extremely interesting in the context of our research, since our aim is to understand parasitoid insect diversity globally. There are possibly over 100,000 parasitoid wasp species on Earth. Many rainforest species live in areas which are changing rapidly due to human activity. It's terrifying to think how many species go extinct before they're even discovered. Our research is a race against time and we'll continue our active field work throughout the tropics," says Professor of Biodiversity Research Ilari E. Sääksjärvi.

Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite shows that Tropical Storm Krosa contains powerful thunderstorms with heavy rain capabilities as it moves toward landfall in southern Japan.  Krosa's center is expected to make landfall in the western part of Shikoku Island, Japan.

On Aug. 14, 2019, the Japan Meteorological Agency has issued warnings for Kyushu, Shikoku and southeastern portions of Honshu. Because Krosa is such a large storm, it is expected to affect all of the big islands of Japan.

At 12:05 a.m. EDT (0505 UTC), the Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite used infrared light to examine the storm. Infrared data provides temperature information, and the strongest thunderstorms that reach high into the atmosphere have the coldest cloud top temperatures.

Aqua's MODIS found strongest thunderstorms in a small area southwest of the center where cloud top temperatures were as cold as minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62.2 Celsius). That area was surrounded by a much larger area with powerful storms as cold as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 Celsius). Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms with the potential to generate heavy rainfall.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC noted at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) that Krosa had maximum sustained winds near 45 knots (52 mph/83 kph). Krosa was centered near 31.0 degrees north latitude and 132.7 degrees east longitude. Tropical storm Krosa was located approximately 237 nautical miles south of Iwakuni, Japan. Krosa has tracked north-northwestward.

After the storm makes landfall in Kyushu, Japan, it is forecast to pass to the south of the Korean peninsula, and turn to the northeast as it becomes extra-tropical over the Sea of Japan.

Soft robots have a distinct advantage over their rigid forebears: they can adapt to complex environments, handle fragile objects and interact safely with humans. Made from silicone, rubber or other stretchable polymers, they are ideal for use in rehabilitation exoskeletons and robotic clothing. Soft bio-inspired robots could one day be deployed to explore remote or dangerous environments.

Most soft robots are actuated by rigid, noisy pumps that push fluids into the machines' moving parts. Because they are connected to these bulky pumps by tubes, these robots have limited autonomy and are cumbersome to wear at best.

Cutting soft robots' tether

Researchers in EPFL's Soft Transducers Laboratory (LMTS) and Laboratory of Intelligent Systems (LIS), in collaboration with researchers at the Shibaura Institute of Technology in Tokyo, Japan, have developed the first entirely soft pump - even the electrodes are flexible. Weighing just one gram, the pump is completely silent and consumes very little power, which it gets from a 2 cm by 2 cm circuit that includes a rechargeable battery. "If we want to actuate larger robots, we connect several pumps together," says Herbert Shea, the director of the LMTS.

This innovative pump could rid soft robots of their tethers. "We consider this a paradigm shift in the field of soft robotics," adds Shea. The researchers have just published an article on their work in Nature.

Soft pumps can also be used to circulate liquids in thin flexible tubes embedded in smart clothing, leading to garments that can actively cool or heat different regions of the body. That would meet the needs of surgeons, athletes and pilots, for example.

How does it work?

The soft and stretchable pump is based on the physical mechanism used today to circulate the cooling liquid in systems like supercomputers. The pump has a tube-shaped channel, 1 mm in diameter, inside of which rows of electrodes are printed. The pump is filled with a dielectric liquid. When a voltage is applied, electrons jump from the electrodes to the liquid, giving some of the molecules an electrical charge. These molecules are subsequently attracted to other electrodes, pulling along the rest of the fluid through the tube with them. "We can speed up the flow by adjusting the electric field, yet it remains completely silent," says Vito Cacucciolo, a post-doc at the LMTS and the lead author of the study.

Developing artificial muscles in Japan

The researchers have successfully implanted their pump in a type of robotic finger widely used in soft robotics labs. They are now collaborating with Koichi Suzumori's laboratory in Japan, which is developing fluid-driven artificial muscles and flexible exoskeletons.

The EPFL team has also fitted a fabric glove with tubes and shown that it is possible to heat or cool regions of the glove as desired using the pump. "It works a little like your home heating and cooling system" says Cacucciolo. This application has already sparked interest from a number of companies.

As methane concentrations increase in the Earth's atmosphere, chemical fingerprints point to a probable source: shale oil and gas, according to new Cornell University research published today (14 August) in Biogeosciences, a journal of the European Geosciences Union.

The research suggests that this methane has less carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 (denoting the weight of the carbon atom at the centre of the methane molecule) than does methane from conventional natural gas and other fossil fuels such as coal.

This carbon-13 signature means that since the use of high-volume hydraulic fracturing - commonly called fracking - shale gas has increased in its share of global natural gas production and has released more methane into the atmosphere, according to the paper's author, Robert Howarth, the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell University in the US.

About two-thirds of all new gas production over the last decade has been shale gas produced in the United States and Canada, he said.

While atmospheric methane concentrations have been rising since 2008, the carbon composition of the methane has also changed. Methane from biological sources such as cows and wetlands have a low carbon-13 content - compared to methane from most fossil fuels. Previous studies erroneously concluded that biological sources are the cause of the rising methane, Howarth said.

Carbon dioxide and methane are critical greenhouse gases, but they behave quite differently in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide emitted today will influence the climate for centuries to come, as the climate responds slowly to decreasing amounts of the gas.

Unlike its slow response to carbon dioxide, the atmosphere responds quickly to changes in methane emissions. "Reducing methane now can provide an instant way to slow global warming and meet the United Nations' target of keeping the planet well below a 2-degree Celsius average rise," Howarth said, referring to the 2015 Paris Agreement that boosts the global response to climate change threats.

Atmospheric methane levels had previously risen during the last two decades of the 20th century but levelled in the first decade of 21st century. Then, atmospheric methane levels increased dramatically from 2008-14, from about 570 teragrams (570 billion tons) annually to about 595 teragrams, due to global human-caused methane emissions in the last 11 years.

"This recent increase in methane is massive," Howarth said. "It's globally significant. It's contributed to some of the increase in global warming we've seen and shale gas is a major player."

"If we can stop pouring methane into the atmosphere, it will dissipate," he said. "It goes away pretty quickly, compared to carbon dioxide. It's the low-hanging fruit to slow global warming."

Europe has the capacity to produce more than 100 times the amount of energy it currently produces through onshore windfarms, new analysis from the University of Sussex and Aarhus University has revealed.

In an analysis of all suitable sites for onshore wind farms, the new study reveals that Europe has the potential to supply enough energy for the whole world until 2050.

The study reveals that if all of Europe's capacity for onshore wind farms was realised, the installed nameplate capacity would 52.5 TW - equivalent to 1 MW for every 16 European citizens.

Co-author Benjamin Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Sussex, said: "The study is not a blueprint for development but a guide for policymakers indicating the potential of how much more can be done and where the prime opportunities exist.

"Our study suggests that the horizon is bright for the onshore wind sector and that European aspirations for a 100% renewable energy grid are within our collective grasp technologically.

"Obviously, we are not saying that we should install turbines in all the identified sites but the study does show the huge wind power potential right across Europe which needs to be harnessed if we're to avert a climate catastrophe."

Spatial analysis of Geographical Information System (GIS)-based wind atlases allowed the research team to identify around 46% of Europe's territory which would be suitable for siting of onshore wind farms.

The advanced GIS data at sub-national levels provided a far more detailed insight and allowed the team to factor in a far greater range of exclusionary factors including houses, roads, restricted areas due to military or political reasons as well as terrains not suitable for wind power generation.

The greater detail in this approach allowed the research team to identify more than three times the onshore wind potential in Europe than previous studies.

Peter Enevoldsen, assistant professor in the Center for Energy Technologies at Aarhus University, said: "Critics will no doubt argue that the naturally intermittent supply of wind makes onshore wind energy unsuitable to meet the global demand.

"But even without accounting for developments in wind turbine technology in the upcoming decades, onshore wind power is the cheapest mature source of renewable energy, and utilizing the different wind regions in Europe is the key to meet the demand for a 100% renewable and fully decarbonized energy system."

The study estimates that more than 11 million additional wind turbines could be theoretically installed over almost 5 million square kilometres of suitable terrain generating 497 EJ of power which would adequately meet the expected global energy demand in 2050 of 430 EJ.

The authors identified Turkey, Russia, and Norway as having the greatest potential for future wind power density although large parts of Western Europe were also considered ripe for further onshore farms because of favourable wind speeds and flat areas.

Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, said: "One of the most important findings of this study, aside from the fact that it concludes that the European onshore wind potential is larger than previously estimated, is that it facilitates the ability of countries to plan their onshore wind resource development more efficiently, thereby easing the way for commitments by these countries to move entirely to clean, renewable energy for all purposes."

UCLA-led research finds that a comprehensive dementia care program staffed by nurse practitioners working within a health system improves the mental and emotional health of patients and their caregivers.

While the program did not slow the progression of dementia, it did reduce patients' behavioral problems and depression, and lower the distress of caregivers, the researchers found.

The paper is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The findings, based on data from the UCLA Alzheimer's and Dementia Care Program, suggest that such programs are a promising approach toward improving the psychological health of patients and caregivers, said Dr. David Reuben, chief of the UCLA Division of Geriatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the study's lead author.

"Although the program was implemented at only one site, the principles of the program and model of care can be adopted and adapted to fit other health systems," he said.

The researchers examined data from people with dementia and their caregivers after a year of enrollment in UCLA's program. Participants were enrolled in the program from July 2012 to December 2014.

To determine outcomes for patients and caregivers, the researchers measured patients' cognition, ability to function and depressive symptoms. They also gauged the caregivers' emotional state and the financial, physical, psychological and social effects of the strain they experience. Caregivers typically are family members, who tend to the needs of spouses, partners or parents with dementia, a progressive condition that has no cure.

The researchers found that for 58% of 543 patients and 63% of 447 caregivers, symptoms improved or minor symptoms were maintained.

Results of the research, which was an observational study, suggest there are other effective ways to help the 6 million Americans affected by Alzheimer's or other dementias, Reuben noted.

"This study shows that providing high quality of care for persons with dementia, and providing caregiver support and education, can make a difference in health outcomes that are important to people," Reuben said.

One thing is clear when it comes to Zika: pregnant women must do everything they can to avoid getting infected. If the virus gains entry to the mother's cells, it can also infect the baby and cause severe birth defects, typically with a condition known as microcephaly in which the head is underdeveloped.

What is less clear is why many infected mothers nevertheless give birth to normal-looking children. In fact, only about five percent of infants delivered by women with Zika are born with microcephaly.

Now, a team of Rockefeller scientists say the reason for this difference might reside in the mother's antibodies. In a study reported in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the researchers show that the risk of giving birth to a child with microcephaly might be related to how the immune system reacts against the virus--specifically what kind of antibodies it produces.

It's an insight that might yield important ramifications for ongoing efforts to develop a Zika vaccine.

The related-virus theory

Previously, some scientists have suggested that Zika-induced birth defects may be linked to mothers' experiences with some other mosquito-borne viruses, including the dengue and West Nile virus, which are similar to Zika. The reasoning went that if a woman contracted and survived a first infection with dengue, for example, and then later became infected with Zika during pregnancy, antibodies that had once fought off dengue might still be in her system. Such antibody remnants were suspected capable of reacting against the Zika virus in an undesirable way, harming the baby rather than protecting it or the mother from disease.

But when research associate professor Davide Robbiani and his colleagues analyzed blood samples from around 150 pregnant women with the virus--all collected in Brazil during the country's 2015 Zika outbreak--they found no evidence for a connection between birth defects and history of related viruses. Instead, they discovered that antibodies generated against the Zika virus itself may be to blame.

In mothers who delivered babies with microcephaly, such Zika-specific antibodies carried molecular features that seemed to correlate with the condition. This finding was later confirmed in animals suggesting that, rather than protect the body from Zika, some antibodies may in fact help the virus enter maternal cells, increasing the risk of fetal brain damage.

New vaccine challenges

"Although our results only show a correlation at this point, there could be significant implications for vaccine development," says Robbiani, who led the international study together with Michel C. Nussenzweig, the Zanvil A. Cohn and Ralph M. Steinman Professor.

There is currently no approved vaccine against Zika and, in light of the new findings, developing one could turn out to be trickier than experts have previously realized. "A safe vaccine would need to induce the immune system to selectively produce antibodies that are protective, avoiding those that potentially enhance the risk of microcephaly," Robbiani says.

As a first step toward this goal, he is conducting further research to establish which types of antibodies might be harmful to unborn babies, and by what mechanisms they promote fetal damage.