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New York, N.Y., Aug. 29, 2019 - A 2019 Airline Water Study released today by DietDetective.com and the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center at the City University of New York reveals that the quality of drinking water varies by airline, and many airlines have possibly provided passengers with unhealthy water.

Unhealthy water violates the federal government's Aircraft Drinking Water Rule (ADWR), which was implemented in 2011 and requires airlines to provide passengers and flight crew with safe drinking water.

The 2019 Airline Water Study ranks 11 major and 12 regional airlines mainly by the quality of water they provided onboard its flights. Each airline was given a "Water Health Score" (5 = highest rating, 0 = lowest) based on 10 criteria, including fleet size, ADWR violations, positive E. coli and coliform water sample reports and cooperation in providing answers to water-quality questions. A score of 3.0 or better indicates that the airline has relatively safe, clean water.

"Alaska Airlines and Allegiant win the top spot with the safest water in the sky, and Hawaiian Airlines finishes No. 2," says Charles Platkin, PhD, JD, MPH, the editor of DietDetective.com and the executive director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center.

The airlines with the worst scores are JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, the study shows. "Except for Piedmont Airlines, regional airlines need to improve their onboard water safety," Platkin says.

The ADWR requires airlines to take samples from their water tanks to test for coliform bacteria and possible E. coli. Airlines are also required to disinfect and flush each aircraft's water tank four times per year. Alternatively, an airline may choose to disinfect and flush once a year, but then it must test monthly. (See: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations).

The 2019 Airline Water Study also finds that the Environmental Protection Agency - one of the federal agencies responsible for ensuring safe aircraft drinking water- rarely levies civil penalties to airlines in violation of the ADWR.

Here are the study's findings:

The major airlines receiving the highest Airline Water Health Score are Allegiant and Alaska - each with a score of 3.3 on a 0-to-5 scale. Hawaiian Airlines is a close second at 3.1.

Piedmont Airlines, which operates American Eagle flights, is the highest-rated regional carrier with a score of 4.33.

Among major airlines, Spirit and JetBlue tied for the lowest score of 1 on a 0-to-5 scale.

Nearly all regional airlines, except Piedmont, have poor Water Health Scores and a large number of ADWR violations. Republic Airways (which flies for United Express, Delta Connection and American Eagle) has the lowest score at 0.44 on a 0-to-5 scale and ExpressJet is second-lowest at 0.56. ExpressJet averages 3.36 ADWR violations per aircraft.

The number of ADWR violations by all airlines in 2018 was significantly less than the number in 2012, the first year after the ADWR was enacted. For major airlines, violations have decreased 69% (262 to 81), while violations among regional airlines have decreased 71% (351 to 103). However, the decrease might reflect a lack of enforcement by the EPA, which has issued few penalties in recent years.

The "Shame on You" Award goes to the EPA and nearly all major airlines (regional airlines weren't contacted) for their very poor response time and lack of cooperation answering detailed questions. The EPA didn't answer most penalty-related questions, and Spirit, Allegiant and Frontier did not respond to any questions. Very weak responses - and responses that didn't address questions - were provided by American, United, and JetBlue, which had a large number of violations during the past seven years.

Testing for coliform bacteria is important, because their presence in drinking water indicates that disease-causing organisms (pathogens) could be in the water system.

When an aircraft's water sample tests positive for coliform, it must be tested again to determine if E. coli is present. If E. coli is not present, the airline must take repeat samples within 24 hrs, disinfect and flush the water system within 72 hrs. Or the airline can shut down the water system within 72 hrs and then disinfect and flush. If the sample is E. Coli positive, the airline must shut off public access to the water system within 24 hrs and disinfect and flush.

The ADWR does not require the same testing as the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations, which includes other microorganisms in addition to total coliform. (See here).

An aircraft flies to numerous destinations and may pump drinking water into its tanks from various sources at domestic and international locations. The water quality onboard also depends on the safety of the equipment used to transfer the water, such as water cabinets, trucks, carts and hoses.

Here's the bottom-line advice from DietDetective.com and the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center. To be extra safe:

NEVER drink any water onboard that isn't in a sealed bottle,

Do not drink coffee or tea onboard,

Do not wash your hands in the bathroom; bring hand-sanitizer with you instead.

Airline Water Health Scores At-a-Glance (5 = highest rating, 0 = lowest):

Major Airlines

Alaska Airlines: 3.3, Allegiant Air: 3.3, Hawaiian Airlines: 3.1, Frontier Airlines: 2.6, Southwest Airlines: 2.4, Delta Air Lines: 1.6, American Airlines: 1.5, United Airlines: 1.2, JetBlue: 1, Spirit Airlines: 1

Regional Airlines

Piedmont Airlines: 4.33, Sun Country Airlines: 2.78, Envoy Air: 2.11, GoJet Airlines: 2, Trans States Airlines: 1.78, Compass Airlines 1.22, PSA Airlines: 1.22, SkyWest Airlines 1.11, Endeavor Air: 0.78, Air Wisconsin Airlines: 0.68, ExpressJet Airlines: 0.56, Republic Airways: 0.44

Airline Water Study Results*

Major Airlines

Alaska Airlines
Onboard Water Health Score: 3.3 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 335
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 2
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.01
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 1
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 64
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Not helpful
Comments: While Alaska Airlines has a very low number of violations per aircraft, and received the highest water score. The airline has several unrecorded violations for its failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

Allegiant
Onboard Water Health Score: 3.3 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 91
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 6
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.06
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 2
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 0
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Not helpful
Comments: Allegiant has a very low number of average violations per aircraft and received the highest water score.

Hawaiian Airlines
Onboard Water Health Score: 3.1 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 57
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 25
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.44
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 0
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 7
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Somewhat helpful
Comments: The airline says it samples water twice as often as EPA guidelines recommend. However, the airline had a relatively high average number of violations per aircraft. It is also important to note that 15 of the airline's 25 violations (since 2012) were in the last 18 months.

Frontier Airlines
Onboard Water Health Score: 2.6 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 91
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 19
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.21
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 4
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 8
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Not helpful
Comments: Frontier had a relatively high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring.

Southwest Airlines Co.
Onboard Water Health Score: 2.4 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 754
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 33
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.04
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 2
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 122
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Not helpful
Comments: Southwest had a very low number of violations per aircraft. However, the airline had an elevated number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring and failure to perform corrective actions as required.

Delta Air Lines
Onboard Water Health Score: 1.6 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 916
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 213
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.23
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 15
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 359
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Helpful
Comments: Delta is the only airline to actually written a blog post on its water. However, the airline had a relatively high number of average violations per aircraft and a very high number of positive E. Coli lavatory samples. Additionally, the airline had a very high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring and a high number of violations for failure to perform corrective actions. Endeavor Air, a subsidiary of Delta, also did not do very well with a score of 0.78.

American Airlines
Onboard Water Health Score: 1.5 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 968
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 108
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.11
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 23
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 660
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Not helpful
Comments: American Airlines had a very high number of galley water samples testing positive for E.Coli. Additionally, American had a relatively high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring and failure to perform corrective actions and repeat or follow up samples. American also owns regional carriers, PSA Airlines and Envoy Air, which have very poor onboard water records. However, its other subsidiary, Piedmont Airlines, received the highest water score.

United Airlines
Onboard Water Health Score: 1.2 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 786
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 79
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.10
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 3
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 205
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Not helpful
Comments: The airline had a high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring and failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result. Additionally, United is associated with the regionals Air Wisconsin, ExpressJet and Trans States Airlines, which have very poor onboard water records.

JetBlue
Onboard Water Health Score: 1 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 254
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 354
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 1.40
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 9
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 144
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Not Helpful
Comments: A poor response from JetBlue representatives and a poor water safety record. JetBlue had the highest number of total ADWR violations among the major airlines and a very high number of average number of violations per aircraft. The airline also had a relatively high number of water samples testing positive for E. coli and a high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring, failure to perform required corrective actions and failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

Spirit Airlines
Onboard Water Health Score: 1 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 135
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 193
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 1.43
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 1
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 31
Cooperation In Water Investigation: Not helpful
Comments: Spirit had the highest number of average of violations per aircraft among the major airlines. Additionally, the airline had a high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring and failure to perform corrective actions as required.

Regional Airlines

Piedmont Airlines (operates as American Eagle, owned by American Airlines)
Onboard Water Health Score: 4.33 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 60
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 1
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.02
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 0
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 5
Comments: Piedmont, a subsidiary of American Airlines Group, had the least number of ADWR violations among all regional carriers.

Sun Country Airlines
Onboard Water Health Score: 2.78 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 30
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 19
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.63
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 2
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 8
Comments: Sun Country had a relatively high number of average violations per aircraft.

Envoy Air (operates as American Eagle, owned by American Airlines)
Onboard Water Health Score: 2.11 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 63
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 63
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 1.00
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 24
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 172
Comments: Envoy had a very high number lavatory water samples testing positive for E. Coli. Additionally, the airline has a relatively high number of violations for failure to perform corrective actions and a high number of violations for failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

GoJet Airlines (operates as United Express, Delta Connection)
Onboard Water Health Score: 2 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 53
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 26
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.49
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 2
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 64
Comments: GoJet Airlines had a relatively high number of average violations per aircraft. As of August 6, 2019, Delta Connection ended its partnership with Gojet and Compass Airlines.

Trans States Airlines (operates as United Express)
Onboard Water Health Score: 1.78 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 46
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 33
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.72
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 2
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 0
Comments: Trans States Airlines had a relatively high number of violations per aircraft.

Compass Airlines (operates as Delta Connection and American Eagle)
Onboard Water Health Score: 1.22 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 56
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 113
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 2.02
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 0
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 65
Comments: Compass had a very high number of violations per aircraft and a very high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring, failure to perform corrective actions as required and failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

Mesa Airlines (operates as United Express and American Eagle)
Onboard Water Health Score: 1.22 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 145
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 73
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.50
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 7
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 67
Comments: Mesa had a relatively high number of violations per aircraft.

PSA Airlines (operates as American Eagle and owned by American Airlines)
Onboard Water Health Score: 1.22 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 144
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 78
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.54
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 7
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 89
Comments: PSA had a relatively high number of violations for lavatory water samples testing positive for E. Coli and failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

SkyWest Airlines (operates as United Express, Delta Connection, American Eagle, Alaska SkyWest)
Onboard Water Health Score: 1.11 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 512
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 117
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.23
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 25
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 1042
Comments: SkyWest had a very high number of the lavatory water samples testing positive for E.Coli. Additionally, the airline had a very high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring and a very high number of violations for failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

Endeavor Air (operates as Delta Connection owned Delta Air Lines.)
Onboard Water Health Score: 0.78 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 157
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 322
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 2.05
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 14
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 430
Comments: Endeavor had a relatively high number of lavatory water samples testing positive for E. Coli and a very high number of average violations per aircraft. Additionally, the airline had a very high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring, failure to perform corrective actions as required and failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

Air Wisconsin Airlines (operates as United Express)
Onboard Water Health Score: 0.67 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 64
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 188
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 2.94
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 4
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 133
Comments: Air Wisconsin had a very high number of average violations per aircraft and violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring and failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result. The airline also had a relatively high number of violations for failure to perform required corrective actions.

ExpressJet Airlines Inc (operates as United Express)
Onboard Water Health Score: 0.56 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 128
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 430
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 3.36
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 12
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 679
Comments: Abysmal. ExpressJet had the highest average number of violations. The airline also had a very high number of lavatory water samples testing positive for E. coli and violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring, failure to perform required corrective actions and failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

Republic Airways (operates as United Express, Delta Connection, American Eagle)
Onboard Water Health Score: 0.44 / 5 Stars
Aircraft Fleet Size: 191
Total ADWR Violations (2012-2019): 132
Avg # of ADWR Violations per Aircraft: 0.69
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For E. Coli (2012-2019): 6
Total Water Samples Testing Positive For Coliform (2012-2019): 125
Comments: Republic had a relatively high number of average violations per aircraft and a very high number of violations for failure to conduct routine monitoring and failure to perform required corrective actions. The airline also had a high number of violations for failure to collect repeat or follow-up samples of a coliform-positive result.

*In compiling these numbers, we categorized airlines as either Major Airline or Regional. Charter and cargo airlines were excluded. Our study is not all-encompassing and includes only those airlines that have violations registered in the EPA's ADWR Public Compliance Reports. As a result, some regional airlines may have been excluded even if they currently have an active presence in national aviation. Furthermore, the EPA's Compliance Reports site does not provide any analytics for the data; the aircraft sampling data was especially difficult to sort through. There were also several instances where the data from one page did not match the values provided by another. The EPA should consider cleaning up their data to resolve inconsistencies and make the site more researcher-friendly.

BOSTON - Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)--the accumulation of liver fat in people who drink little or no alcohol--is increasingly common around the world, and in the United States, it affects between 30 and 40 percent of adults. Currently, there are no approved drugs for the treatment of NAFLD, which is predicted to soon become the main cause of chronic liver problems and the need for liver transplantation.

Now a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has developed a "lab on a chip" technology that can simulate different levels of NAFLD progression in cells across a single continuous tissue.

For the research, which is described in an article published in the journal Lab-on-a-Chip, the scientists used their new platform to evaluate the effects of different drivers of NAFLD--such as fat and oxygen concentrations-- on liver cells. In this way, the platform can allow for detailed studies of NAFLD progression. Other influences such as inflammatory cues can also be superimposed onto the platform to examine their impacts.

In addition, the lab on a chip platform can be used to assess investigational drugs' effects on NAFLD progression, therefore revealing their potential for further testing in clinical trials.

"This platform is unique in that in one continuous liver tissue on a single chip, we are able to look at different severities of the disease and to study how liver tissue might respond to both triggers of NAFLD as well as different therapeutic approaches," said senior author O. Berk Usta, PhD, an investigator in the Center for Engineering in Medicine at MGH and assistant professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. "While further studies into more complex pathologies of NAFLD and its progressive forms are needed to establish a more complete recapitulation, the current platform establishes a basis for lab-based drug efficacy screening for NAFLD," noted Beyza Bulutoglu PhD, the lead author of the manuscript.

Usta suggested that such a strategy may help accelerate the search for effective drugs for NAFLD conditions that range from benign fat accumulation to more serious complications including fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer.

DGIST announced on Wednesday, August 21 that Professor Jae Eun Jang's team in the Department of Information and Communication Engineering developed electronic skin technology that can detect "prick" and "hot" pain sensations like humans. This research result is expected to be applied on the development of humanoid robots and patients wearing prosthetic hands in the future.

The attempt to mimic human's five senses led to the development of innovative electronic devices such as camera and TV, which are inventions that dramatically changed human life. As a result, many scientists are continuously performing research to imitate tactile, olfactory, and palate senses and tactile sensing is expected to be the next mimetic technology for various reasons. Currently, most tactile sensor researches are focusing on physical mimetic technologies that measure the pressure used for a robot to grab an object, but psychosensory tactile research on how to mimic human tactile feeling such like soft, smooth or rough has a long way to go.

As a result, Professor Jae Eun Jang's team developed a tactile sensor that can feel pain and temperature like human through a joint research with Professor Cheil Moon's team in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, Professor Ji-woong Choi's team in the Department of Information and Communication Engineering, and Professor Hongsoo Choi's team in the Department of Robotics Engineering. Its key strengths are that it has simplified the sensor structure and can measure pressure and temperature at the same time and can be applied on various tactile systems regardless of the measurement principle of the sensor.

For this, the research team focused on zinc oxide nano-wire (ZnO Nano-wire) technology, which was applied as a self-power tactile sensor that does not need a battery thanks to its piezoelectric effect, which generates electrical signals by detecting pressure. Also, a temperature sensor using Seebeck effect1) was applied at the same time for one sensor to do two jobs. The research team arranged electrodes on polyimide flexible substrate, grew the ZnO nano-wire, and could measure the piezoelectric effect by pressure and the Seebeck effect by temperature change at the same time. The research team also succeeded in developing a signal processing technique that judges the generation of pain signals considering the pressure level, stimulated area and temperature.

Professor Jang in the Department of Information and Communication Engineering said "We have developed a core base technology that can effectively detect pain, which is necessary for developing future-type tactile sensor. As an achievement of convergence research by experts in nano engineering, electronic engineering, robotics engineering, and brain sciences, it will be widely applied on electronic skin that feels various senses as well as new human-machine interactions. If robots can also feel pain, our research will expand further into technology to control robots' aggressive tendency, which is one of the risk factors of AI development."

The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin (YRB-ML) generally enter the Mei-yu season in the period from mid-June to mid-July. During the Mei-yu season, the YRB-ML often experiences heavy rainfall due to convective systems, which occur and propagate eastward repeatedly in a narrow latitudinal corridor, thereby enhancing their capacity for causing catastrophic flooding.

In the summer of 2016, a particularly heavy rainfall event hit the YRB-ML during the period from 30th June to 6th July, with a record-breaking rainfall amount of 582.5 mm in Wuhan (30.60°N, 114.30°E; the provincial capital city of Hubei province, please see Figure 1). Due to its relatively lower topography compared to surrounding regions, Wuhan suffered a terrific flooding disaster which inundated many roads, trapping residents inside vehicles and buildings. Overall, the event left about 237 dead and 93 missing, affected more than ten provinces and resulted in over $22 billion in damage, making it a high-impact weather event of international significance.

Previous study using global model at relatively coarse resolution can generally simulate the spatial distribution of accumulated precipitation amount of this heavy rainfall event, but considerable model biases still exist. Recently, under the Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP China), supported by the UK-China Research and Innovation Partnership Fund, researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at Chinese Academy of Sciences, have collaborated with colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences at China Meteorological Administration, and the UK Met Office, to investigate this event at both global and regional scale by using the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM). Especially, they used high-resolution convection-permitting model (CPM) at regional scale.

Their results show that both the global driving model and convection-permitting model (CPM) can successfully simulate the accumulated amount and the evolution of this heavy rainfall event by using the Transpose-AMIP integration type. However, the global model produces too much light rainfall, fails to simulate the small-scale features of both atmospheric circulations and precipitation, and afternoon precipitation is also excessively suppressed in the global model. More importantly, it tends to generate steady and excessive heavy rainfall over mountainous regions. By comparison, the CPM added some value in reproducing the spatial distribution of precipitation, the smaller-scale disturbances within the rain-bands, the diurnal cycle of precipitation and also reduce the spurious topographical rainfall. "Enhancement of rainfall mountainous terrain is a key factor in this region, our study highlights the importance of getting these effects 'right' in models for accurately predicting extremely heavy rainfall", said Dr. Puxi Li, the paper's lead author.

The study proves the added value of the convection-permitting model in simulating heavy rainfall event. Researchers plan to go further, "In the future we will use the information in this study to improve global models. More sensitivity tests will also be performed, focusing on the impact of different physical process, such as planetary boundary layer and cloud microphysics", Dr. Kalli Furtado, the corresponding author of the study, added.

Experts have managed to mimic the colour of the Cyphochilus beetle's scales one of the brightest whites in nature

Findings show the colour is created by the structure of the beetles' scales, not by pigments and dyes

By managing to replicate this structure in the lab using plastic, researchers hope to pave the way for sustainable, ultra-white paints made from recycled plastic waste

New paints would have a much lower carbon footprint and help tackle the challenge of recycling single-use plastics

The structure of ultra-white beetle scales could hold the key to making bright-white sustainable paint using recycled plastic waste, scientists at the University of Sheffield have discovered.

Cyphochilus beetle scales are one of the brightest whites in nature and their ultra-white appearance is created by the nanostructure in their tiny scales, as opposed to the use of pigment or dyes.

Experts have now been able to recreate and improve on this structure in the lab using low cost materials - via a technique which could be used as a sustainable alternative to titanium dioxide in white paint.

Dr Andrew Parnell, from the University of Sheffield's Department of Physics and Astronomy, who led the research, said: "In the natural world, whiteness is usually created by a foamy, Swiss cheese-like structure made of a solid interconnected network and air. Until now, how these structures form and develop and how they have evolved light-scattering properties has remained a mystery.

"Having understood these structures we were able to take plastic and structure it in the same way. Ideally, we could recycle plastic waste that would normally be burnt or sent to landfill, structure it just like the beetle scale and then use it to make super white paint. This would make paint with a much lower carbon footprint and help tackle the challenge of recycling single-use plastics."

The findings show that the foamy structure of the beetles' scales had the right proportion of empty spaces, which optimise the scattering of light - creating the ultra-white colouring.

Conventional white paint contains nanoparticles of titanium dioxide, which scatter light very strongly. However, the use of titanium dioxide is harmful to the environment as it contributes to nearly 75 per cent of the carbon footprint of each tin of paint that is produced.

To measure the tiny individual beetle scales, researchers used a technique called X-ray tomography, which is similar to a CT scan but on a miniscule scale. The scientists used the X-ray imaging facilities at the instrument ID16B at the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France.

The intense X-ray source at the ESRF meant whole intact scales could be measured, which was pivotal to understanding them and modelling how they scatter light. To follow how the synthetic material formed, they again used the ESRF to confirm the formation mechanism as the layer dried and became structured.

Dr Stephanie Burg, a PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield said: "This research answers long-standing questions about how the structure inside these scales actually form and we hope these lessons from nature will help inform the future of sustainable manufacturing for paint."

The team also used the instrument Larmor at the ISIS Spallation Neutron Source, which measured the nanostructure of the synthetic whites they made. This was at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire - part of the Science and Technologies Facilities Council.

The work was carried out in collaboration with the coatings company AkzoNobel, makers of Dulux paint. The paper Liquid-liquid phase separation morphologies in ultra-white beetle scales and a synthetic equivalent was published today (29 August 2019) in Nature Communications Chemistry.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a cheaper and more efficient method for Internet-of-Things devices to receive high-speed wireless connectivity.

With 75 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices expected to be in place by 2025, a growing strain will be placed on requirements of wireless networks. Contemporary WiFi and cellular networks won't be enough to support the influx of IoT devices, the researchers highlighted in their new study.

Millimeter wave (mmWave), a network that offers multi-gigahertz of unlicensed bandwidth -- more than 200 times that allocated to today's WiFi and cellular networks, can be used to address the looming issue. In fact, 5G networks are going to be powered by mmWave technology. However, the hardware required to use mmWave is expensive and power-hungry, which are significant deterrents to it being deployed in many IoT applications.

"To address the existing challenges in exploiting mmWave for IoT applications we created a novel mmWave network called mmX," said Omid Abari, an assistant professor in Waterloo's David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. "mmX significantly reduces cost and power consumption of a mmWave network enabling its use in all IoT applications."

In comparison to WiFi and Bluetooth, which are slow for many IoT applications, mmX provides much higher bitrate.

"mmX will not only improve our WiFi and wireless experience, as we will receive much faster internet connectivity for all IoT devices, but it can also be used in applications, such as, virtual reality, autonomous cars, data centers and wireless cellular networks," said Ali Abedi, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cheriton School of Computer Science. "Any sensor you have in your home, which traditionally used WiFi and lower frequency can now communicate using high-speed millimeter wave networks.

"Autonomous cars are also going to use a huge number of sensors in them which will be connected through wire; now you can make all of them wireless and more reliable."

Researchers from the University of Surrey have revealed a new ultra-fast method to detect materials that could be used to build explosives. The new detection method is able to analyse a wider range of materials than current thermal based detection systems used in today's airports, while reducing false positive reports.

In a comprehensive two-part paper published by the journal Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics and Forensic Science International: Synergy, a team of researchers from Surrey detail how they have built on their previous ground-breaking work on super-fast fingerprint drug testing, to develop a technique that is able to detect key explosives in just 30 seconds.

The new method, which uses swabbing material to collect samples of explosives, is able to detect substances such as nitrotoluenes, trinitrotriazine, hexamethylene triperoxide diamine and nitroglycerine. Detection of peroxide-based explosives is key as high-profile terrorist attacks such as the London bombings in 2007 used devices made from these materials.

Surrey's swab spray technique is able to achieve higher sensitivity results than previously published works and was also tested on dirty surfaces such as new and used keyboards.

Dr Melanie Bailey, co-author of the paper from the University of Surrey, said: "It's the unfortunate reality that security, especially in our airports, has to stay several steps ahead of those that wish to cause harm and destruction. The current thermal based way of detecting explosive material is becoming outdated and has the propensity of producing false positives. What we demonstrate with our research is an extremely fast, accurate and sensitive detection system that is able to identify a wide range of explosive materials."

Dr Catia Costa, co-author of the paper from the University of Surrey, said: "The need for fast screening methods with enhanced selectivity and sensitivity to explosives has reached a new boiling point with the recent terrorist activity. The use of paper spray for applications such as these may help reduce false-negative events whilst also allowing simultaneous detection of other substances such as drugs, as previously reported by our group."

Dr Patrick Sears, co-author of the paper from the University of Surrey, said: "The critical advantage of this system is the ability to uniquely identify the explosive being detected, making it much less likely to create false alarms. The selectivity of this system means that it could also be used to identify a range of other threat materials whilst the sensitivity would allow the detection of invisible traces of explosives."

Visible and infrared imagery from NASA's Terra satellite revealed that strong wind shear was adversely affecting Tropical Depression Erin, located about 200 miles off the Carolina coast.

On Aug. 27, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite provided a visible image of Tropical Depression Erin. In the image, Erin appeared as a swirl of clouds around its center with most of its clouds and thunderstorms pushed southeast of center. Strong northwesterly vertical wind shear was pushing at the storm.

Despite fighting wind shear on Aug. 27, Tropical Depression 6 strengthened into a tropical storm by 11 p.m. EDT, and was renamed Erin.

Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite confirmed that wind shear was still affecting Tropical Storm Erin on Wednesday, August 28 at 3:25 a.m. EDT (0725 UTC). Infrared imagery reveals temperature data, and showed the only strong storms in the tropical storm were being pushed to the southeast. Strongest storms were as cold as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 degrees Celsius).

In general, wind shear is a measure of how the speed and direction of winds change with altitude. Tropical cyclones are like rotating cylinders of winds. Each level needs to be stacked on top each other vertically in order for the storm to maintain strength or intensify. Wind shear occurs when winds at different levels of the atmosphere push against the rotating cylinder of winds, weakening the rotation by pushing it apart at different levels.

By 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), Tropical Storm Erin had weakened back to a depression. At that time, the center of Tropical Depression Erin was located near latitude 33.6 degrees north and longitude 72.8 degrees west. That places the center of Erin about 190 miles (305 km) southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The bulk of clouds and precipitation, however, are south of the center. However, because Erin is so far from the coast, there are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

The depression is moving toward the north-northwest near 13 mph (20 kph). Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph (55 km/h) with higher gusts. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1006 millibars.

The cyclone is expected to turn northward later today and then north-northeastward early Thursday morning with an increase in forward speed.

NHC forecaster Daniel Brown noted in the Aug. 28 discussion, "The northwesterly shear that has been affecting Erin is forecast to decrease somewhat later today and tonight, but given the current structure of the system, little overall change in intensity is anticipated during that time. If convection does not re-develop closer to the center later today, Erin could become post-tropical."

A wireless sensor small enough to be implanted in the blood vessels of the human brain could help clinicians evaluate the healing of aneurysms -- bulges that can cause death or serious injury if they burst. The stretchable sensor, which operates without batteries, would be wrapped around stents or diverters implanted to control blood flow in vessels affected by the aneurysms.

To reduce costs and accelerate manufacturing, fabrication of the stretchable sensors uses aerosol jet 3D printing to create conductive silver traces on elastomeric substrates. The 3D additive manufacturing technique allows production of very small electronic features in a single step, without using traditional multi-step lithography processes in a cleanroom. The device is believed to be the first demonstration of aerosol jet 3D printing to produce an implantable, stretchable sensing system for wireless monitoring.

"The beauty of our sensor is that it can be seamlessly integrated onto existing medical stents or flow diverters that clinicians are already using to treat aneurysms," said Woon-Hong Yeo, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech's George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "We could use it to measure an incoming blood flow to the aneurysm sac to determine how well the aneurysm is healing, and to alert doctors if blood flow changes."

Inserted using a catheter system, the sensor would use inductive coupling of signals to allow wireless detection of biomimetic cerebral aneurysm hemodynamics. The research was reported August 7 in the journal Advanced Science.

Monitoring the progress of cerebral aneurysms now requires repeated angiogram imaging using contrast materials that can have harmful side effects. Because of the cost and potential negative effects, use of the imaging technique must be limited. However, a sensor placed in a blood vessel could allow more frequent evaluations without the use of imaging dyes.

"For patients who have had a procedure done, we would be able to tell if the aneurysm is occluding as it should without using any imaging tools," Yeo said. "We will be able to accurately measure blood flow to detect changes as small as 0.05 meters per second."

The six-layer sensor is fabricated from biocompatible polyimide, two separate layers of a mesh pattern produced from silver nanoparticles, a dielectric and soft polymer-encapsulating material. The sensor would be wrapped around the stent or flow diverter, which must be less than two or three millimeters in diameter to fit into the blood vessels.

The sensor includes a coil to pick up electromagnetic energy transmitted from another coil located outside the body. Blood flowing through the implanted sensor changes its capacitance, which alters the signals passing through the sensor on their way to a third coil located outside the body. In the laboratory, Yeo and his collaborators have measured capacitance changes six centimeters away from a sensor implanted in meat to simulate brain tissue.

"The flow rate is correlated really well with the capacitance change that we can measure," Yeo said. "We have made the sensor very thin and deformable so it can respond to small changes in blood flow."

Use of the aerosol jet 3D printing technique was essential to producing the stretchable and flexible electronics necessary for the sensor. The technique uses a spray of aerosol particles to create patterns, allowing narrower feature sizes than conventional inkjet printing.

"We can control the printing speed, the printing width, and the amount of material being jetted," Yeo said. "The parameters can be optimized for each material, and we can use materials that have a broad range of viscosities."

Because the sensor can be fabricated in a single step without costly cleanroom facilities, it could be manufactured in higher volume at lower cost.

The next phase of the aneurysm sensor will be able to measure blood pressure in the vessel along with the flow rates. "We will be able to measure how pressure contributes to flow change," Yeo explained. "That would allow the device to be used for other applications, such as intracranial pressure measurements."

Yeo's research team has also developed a flexible and wearable health monitor able to provide ECG and other information. He says the success of the monitoring technique demonstrates the potential for smart and connected wireless soft electronics based on nanomaterials, stretchable mechanics, and machine learning algorithms.

"We are excited that people are now recognizing the potential of this technology," Yeo added. "There are a lot of opportunities to integrate this sensing mechanism into ultrathin membranes that are implantable within the body."

NASA's Terra satellite passed over the northwestern Atlantic Ocean as Dorian reached hurricane status during the afternoon of August 28, 2019.

On Aug. 28, 2019 at 1:30 p.m. EDT, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite provided a visible image of Dorian near St. Thomas and the U.S. Virgin Islands. At 2 p.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center noted, "Satellite and radar images indicate that the cloud pattern has become better organized during the past several hours."

Dorian strengthened over the warm waters of the eastern Caribbean Sea and was officially designated a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale at 2 p.m. EDT.

At 2 p.m. EDT, a Hurricane Warning is in effect for Vieques and Culebra, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands. The National Hurricane Center issued a Tropical Storm Warning for Puerto Rico with a Hurricane Watch also in effect as changing conditions warrant.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center or NHC said that at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 UTC), the center of Hurricane Dorian was located near latitude 18.3 degrees north and longitude 65.0 degrees west. That puts Dorian directly over the island of St. Thomas.

Dorian is moving toward the northwest near 13 mph (20 kph), and this motion is expected to continue for the next day or two. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 75 mph (120 kph) with higher gusts. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 20 miles (30 km) to the north and east of the center. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 80 miles (130 km) primarily to the east of the center. An elevated weather station on Buck Island just south of St. Thomas reported a sustained wind of 82 mph (132 kph) and a gust of 111 mph (178 kph). The estimated minimum central pressure from nearby observations is 997 millibars.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center provided three key messages for Dorian:

Hurricane conditions are expected in the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Culebra, and Vieques today. Tropical storm conditions are expected in Puerto Rico today with hurricane conditions possible.

Heavy rainfall over portions of Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands could produce flash flooding during the next couple of days. Heavy rains are expected to occur over portions of the Bahamas, Florida, and elsewhere in the southeastern United States later this week and into early next week.

The risk of dangerous storm surge and hurricane-force winds is increasing in the central and northwestern Bahamas and along the Florida east coast, although it is too soon to determine where these hazards will occur. Residents in these areas should ensure that they have their hurricane plan in place and not focus on the exact forecast track of Dorian's center.

On this track, Dorian should continue to move near or over the U.S. and British Virgin Islands this afternoon and then move over the open Atlantic well east of the southeastern Bahamas. Dorian is forecast to continue strengthening during the next few days over the Atlantic waters.

Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology have created a device that acts like a synapse in the living brain, storing information and gradually forgetting it when not accessed for a long time. Known as a second-order memristor, the new device is based on hafnium oxide and offers prospects for designing analog neurocomputers imitating the way a biological brain learns. The findings are reported in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Neurocomputers, which enable artificial intelligence, emulate the way the brain works. It stores data in the form of synapses, a network of connections between the nerve cells, or neurons. Most neurocomputers have a conventional digital architecture and use mathematical models to invoke virtual neurons and synapses.

Alternatively, an actual on-chip electronic component could stand for each neuron and synapse in the network. This so-called analog approach has the potential to drastically speed up computations and reduce energy costs.

The core component of a hypothetical analog neurocomputer is the memristor. The word is a portmanteau of "memory" and "resistor," which pretty much sums up what it is: a memory cell acting as a resistor. Loosely speaking, a high resistance encodes a zero, and a low resistance encodes a one. This is analogous to how a synapse conducts a signal between two neurons (one), while the absence of a synapse results in no signal, a zero.

But there is a catch: In an actual brain, the active synapses tend to strengthen over time, while the opposite is true for inactive ones. This phenomenon known as synaptic plasticity is one of the foundations of natural learning and memory. It explains the biology of cramming for an exam and why our seldom accessed memories fade.

Proposed in 2015, the second-order memristor is an attempt to reproduce natural memory, complete with synaptic plasticity. The first mechanism for implementing this involves forming nanosized conductive bridges across the memristor. While initially decreasing resistance, they naturally decay with time, emulating forgetfulness.

"The problem with this solution is that the device tends to change its behavior over time and breaks down after prolonged operation," said the study's lead author Anastasia Chouprik from MIPT's Neurocomputing Systems Lab. "The mechanism we used to implement synaptic plasticity is more robust. In fact, after switching the state of the system 100 billion times, it was still operating normally, so my colleagues stopped the endurance test."

Instead of nanobridges, the MIPT team relied on hafnium oxide to imitate natural memory. This material is ferroelectric: Its internal bound charge distribution -- electric polarization -- changes in response to an external electric field. If the field is then removed, the material retains its acquired polarization, the way a ferromagnet remains magnetized.

The physicists implemented their second-order memristor as a ferroelectric tunnel junction -- two electrodes interlaid with a thin hafnium oxide film (fig. 1, right). The device can be switched between its low and high resistance states by means of electric pulses, which change the ferroelectric film's polarization and thus its resistance.

"The main challenge that we faced was figuring out the right ferroelectric layer thickness," Chouprik added. "Four nanometers proved to be ideal. Make it just one nanometer thinner, and the ferroelectric properties are gone, while a thicker film is too wide a barrier for the electrons to tunnel through. And it is only the tunneling current that we can modulate by switching polarization."

What gives hafnium oxide an edge over other ferroelectric materials, such as barium titanate, is that it is already used by current silicon technology. For example, Intel has been manufacturing microchips based on a hafnium compound since 2007. This makes introducing hafnium-based devices like the memristor reported in this story far easier and cheaper than those using a brand-new material.

In a feat of ingenuity, the researchers implemented "forgetfulness" by leveraging the defects at the interface between silicon and hafnium oxide. Those very imperfections used to be seen as a detriment to hafnium-based microprocessors, and engineers had to find a way around them by incorporating other elements into the compound. Instead, the MIPT team exploited the defects, which make memristor conductivity die down with time, just like natural memories.

Vitalii Mikheev, the first author of the paper, shared the team's future plans: "We are going to look into the interplay between the various mechanisms switching the resistance in our memristor. It turns out that the ferroelectric effect may not be the only one involved. To further improve the devices, we will need to distinguish between the mechanisms and learn to combine them."

According to the physicists, they will move on with the fundamental research on the properties of hafnium oxide to make the nonvolatile random access memory cells more reliable. The team is also investigating the possibility of transferring their devices onto a flexible substrate, for use in flexible electronics.

Last year, the researchers offered a detailed description of how applying an electric field to hafnium oxide films affects their polarization. It is this very process that enables reducing ferroelectric memristor resistance, which emulates synapse strengthening in a biological brain. The team also works on neuromorphic computing systems with a digital architecture.

BOSTON - A randomized controlled trial of a new disability prevention intervention, called Positive Minds-Strong Bodies (PMSB), indicates that improving coping skills and physical strengthening can significantly improve functioning and mood in racial and ethnic minority and immigrant older adults. A report on this multi-site clinical trial is being published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and is now available online.

A team led by investigators at the Disparities Research Unit in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Medicine developed the PMSB intervention to meet the needs of racial and ethnic minority and immigrant older adults who are greater risk for disability yet often lack culturally competent health services. The PMSB intervention consists of 10 individual sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy (PM) concurrently offered with 36 group sessions of strengthening exercise training (SB) over six months. To the researchers' knowledge, PMSB is the only intervention of its kind offered by community health workers, or paraprofessionals, to mostly minority and immigrant elders.

"Our study is one of few addressing disability prevention for ethnic/racial minority and immigrant elders in four languages," says corresponding author Margarita Alegria, PhD, chief of the disparities research unit at MGH and professor in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS). "The combined intervention significantly improved mood symptoms and functioning in a diverse sample of elders. Participants reported feeling that the culturally tailored intervention made them better understand their problems and how to cope with them, learning skills and exercise that could help them feel and function better. Our work also addresses the national shortage of a disability prevention workforce by providing evidence for the use of community health workers."

To test the effectiveness of PMSB, the researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial of 307 participants, funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Mental Health. The MGH team collaborated with community-based organizations in Massachusetts, New York, Florida, and Puerto Rico serving minority elders, where data was collected, between May 2015 and March 2019.

The PMSB intervention was delivered to English, Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking adults 60 years old or above who were not seeking disability prevention services but eligible based on their elevated mood symptoms and minor to moderate physical dysfunction. Results at six months showed significant intervention effects: improved functioning and lowered mood symptoms. These effects were sustained, with days where the person could not perform their usual roles (i.e. disability days) significantly decreasing 6-months after the intervention. The first report on this large trial shows the PMSB is a promising intervention for reducing disability for racial and ethnic minority and immigrant elders

As the number of individuals aged 65 and over rises to 81 million by 2040, nearly 20 percent will suffer from one or more mental health conditions, with mood disorders the most important risk for premature disability. Considering that one third of older adults in the US are expected to belong to racial/ethnic minority groups by 2040, the disability prevention field desperately needs to provide mental and physical health services that are culturally competent for all older adults. The components of the PMSB intervention are critical steps in the right direction.

The international team of scientists from Gero Discovery LLC, the Institute of Biomedical Research of Salamanca, and Nanosyn, Inc. has found a potential drug that may prevent neuronal death through glucose metabolism modification in stressed neurons. The positive results obtained in mice are rather promising for future use in humans. The new drug can be advantageous in neurological conditions ranging from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's diseases to traumatic brain injury and ischemic stroke. The results have been published in the Scientific Reports Journal.

Brain injuries of different nature and neurological disorders are among the most important causes of death worldwide. According to WHO, stroke is the second most common cause of mortality, and more than a third of people who have survived a stroke will have a severe disability.

What is more, as the population ages, millions more people are posed to develop Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases in the near future. However, there are no efficient drugs for major neurodegenerative diseases. It is thus critically important to understand the biology of these diseases and to identify new drugs capable of improving quality of life, survival, and, in the best-case scenario, curing the disease completely.

Glycolysis is generally considered as the metabolic pathway essential for cell survival since it meets cell energy needs in case of intensive energy consumption. However, it is already known that in the brain tissue, the situation is quite different - different cell types show distinct glucose metabolism patterns. In neurons, only a small portion of glucose is consumed via the glycolysis pathway. At the same time, astrocytes provide nutrients to neurons and utilize glycolysis to metabolize glucose. These differences are mostly due to the special protein called PFKFB3, which is normally absent in neurons and is active in astrocytes. In the case of certain neurological diseases, stroke being one of them, the amount of active PFKFB3 increases in neurons, which is highly stressful for these cells and leads to cell death.

An international team of researchers led by Peter Fedichev, a scientist and biotech entrepreneur from Gero Discovery, and professor Juan P. Bolaños from the University of Salamanca, suggested and further confirmed in the in vivo experiments that a small molecule, the inhibitor of PFKFB3, may prevent cell death in the case of ischemia injury. Inhibition of PFKFB3 improves motor coordination of mice after stroke and reduced brain infarct volume. Moreover, in the experiments using mouse cell cultures, it was shown that PFKFB3 inhibitor protects neurons from the amyloid-beta peptide, the main component of the amyloid plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients.

Professor Juan P. Bolaños: "Excitotoxicity is a hallmark of various neurological diseases, stroke being one of them. Our group has previously established a link between this pathological condition and high activity of PFKFB3 enzyme in neurons, which leads to severe oxidative stress and neuronal death"

"We are glad that our hypothesis that pharmacological inhibition of PFKFB3 can be beneficial in an excitotoxicity-related condition, such as stroke was confirmed. I would like to note that In our work, we used a known molecule to demonstrate that PFKFB3 blockage has a therapeutic effect. But, we have also performed the same experiments with other proprietary small molecule designed in our company and showed that it had a similar effect. There is, of course, still much work to do. We are currently investigating the efficacy of our compounds in the models of orphan excitotoxicity-related neurological diseases. We have already obtained good safety results in mice and believe that we will be successful in our future investigations" said Olga Burmistrova, Director of preclinical development in Gero Discovery.

Gero Discovery team is planning to proceed with preclinical trials and to move into clinical trials soon. "These promising results bring hope to dozens of millions of patients suffering from life-threatening neurological diseases and provide tremendous business opportunities in many indications with unmet needs. We start communicating with potential investors and co-development partners and invite interested parties to collaborate on the further development of this breakthrough medicine through the preclinical and early clinical stage" mentioned Maksim Kholin, the Gero Discovery Co-Founder and Business Development Director.

Jellyfish are about 95% water, making them some of the most diaphanous, delicate animals on the planet. But the remaining 5% of them have yielded important scientific discoveries, like green fluorescent protein (GFP) that is now used extensively by scientists to study gene expression, and life cycle reversal that could hold the keys to combating aging. Jellyfish may very well harbor other, potentially life-changing secrets, but the difficulty of collecting them has severely limited the study of such "forgotten fauna." The sampling tools available to marine biologists on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) were largely developed for the marine oil and gas industries, and are much better-suited to grasping and manipulating rocks and heavy equipment than jellies, often shredding them to pieces in attempts to capture them.

Now, a new technology developed by researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Baruch College at CUNY offers a novel solution to that problem in the form of an ultra-soft, underwater gripper that uses hydraulic pressure to gently but firmly wrap its fettuccini-like fingers around a single jellyfish, then release it without causing harm. The gripper is described in a new paper published in Science Robotics.

"Our ultra-gentle gripper is a clear improvement over existing deep-sea sampling devices for jellies and other soft-bodied creatures that are otherwise nearly impossible to collect intact," said first author Nina Sinatra, Ph.D., a former graduate student at the Wyss Institute who is now a mechanical and materials engineer at Google. "This technology can also be extended to improve underwater analysis techniques and allow extensive study of the ecological and genetic features of marine organisms without taking them out of the water."

The gripper's six "fingers" are composed of thin, flat strips of silicone with a hollow channel inside bonded to a layer of flexible but stiffer polymer nanofibers. The fingers are attached to a rectangular, 3D-printed plastic "palm" and, when their channels are filled with water, curl in the direction of the nanofiber-coated side. The fingers each exert an extremely low amount of pressure - about 0.0455 kPA, or less than one-tenth of the pressure of a human's eyelid on their eye. By contrast, current state-of-the-art soft marine grippers, which are used to capture delicate but more robust animals than jellyfish, exert about 1 kPA.

The researchers fitted their ultra-gentle gripper to a specially created hand-held device and tested its ability to grasp an artificial silicone jellyfish in a tank of water to determine the positioning and precision required to collect a sample successfully, as well as the optimum angle and speed at which to capture a jellyfish. They then moved on to the real thing at the New England Aquarium, where they used the grippers to grab swimming moon jellies, jelly blubbers, and spotted jellies, all about the size of a golf ball.

The gripper was successfully able to trap each jellyfish against the palm of the device, and the jellyfish were unable to break free from the fingers' grasp until the gripper was depressurized. The jellyfish showed no signs of stress or other adverse effects after being released, and the fingers were able to open and close roughly 100 times before showing signs of wear and tear.

"Marine biologists have been waiting a long time for a tool that replicates the gentleness of human hands in interacting with delicate animals like jellyfish from inaccessible environments," said co-author David Gruber, Ph.D., who is a Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Baruch College, CUNY and a National Geographic Explorer. "This gripper is part of an ever-growing soft robotic toolbox that promises to make underwater species collection easier and safer, which would greatly improve the pace and quality of research on animals that have been under-studied for hundreds of years, giving us a more complete picture of the complex ecosystems that make up our oceans."

The ultra-soft gripper is the latest innovation in the use of soft robotics for underwater sampling, an ongoing collaboration between Gruber and Wyss Founding Core Faculty member Rob Wood, Ph.D. that has produced the origami-inspired RAD sampler and multi-functional "squishy fingers" to collect a diverse array of hard-to-capture organisms, including squids, octopuses, sponges, sea whips, corals, and more.

"Soft robotics is an ideal solution to long-standing problems like this one across a wide variety of fields, because it combines the programmability and robustness of traditional robots with unprecedented gentleness thanks to the flexible materials used," said Wood, who is the co-lead of the Wyss Institute's Bioinspired Soft Robotics Platform, the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS, and a National Geographic Explorer.

The team is continuing to refine the ultra-soft gripper's design, and aims to conduct studies that evaluate the jellyfishes' physiological response to being held by the gripper, to more definitively prove that they do not cause the animals stress. Wood and Gruber are also co-Principal Investigators of the Schmidt Ocean Institute's "Designing the Future" project, and will be further testing their various underwater robots on an upcoming expedition aboard the research ship Falkor in 2020.

"At the Wyss Institute we are always asking, 'How can we make this better?' I am extremely impressed by the ingenuity and out-of-the-box thinking that Rob Wood and his team have applied to solve a real-world problem that exists in the open ocean, rather than in the laboratory. This could help to greatly advance ocean science," said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School, the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS.

Irvine, Calif. - An international team of Earth system scientists and oceanographers has created the first high-resolution global map of surface ocean phosphate, a key mineral supporting the aquatic food chain. In doing so, the University of California, Irvine-led group learned that marine phytoplankton are a lot more resilient to nutrient stress than previously thought.

The researchers' findings, published today in Science Advances, hold important implications for climate change predictions. Ocean algae absorb a significant amount of carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere, thereby providing a valuable service in regulating the planet's temperature.

"Understanding the global distribution of ocean nutrients is fundamental to identifying the link between changes in ocean physics and ocean biology," said lead author Adam Martiny, UCI professor of Earth system science and ecology and evolutionary biology. "One of the outcomes of having this map is that we can show that plankton communities are extremely resilient even in nutrient-deficient environments. As lower ocean nutrient availability is one of the predicted outcomes of climate change, this may be good news for plankton, and for us."

Dissolved inorganic phosphate plays an important biogeochemical role in the ocean habitat, but it is notoriously difficult to detect. Phosphorus is a crucial element in essential-to-life molecules such as DNA and adenosine triphosphate, which stores and transfers chemical energy between cells. Unlike many of the other nutrients useful to phytoplankton, Earth has a finite amount of phosphorus, and it's rare in the ocean.

Knowing how much is out there, and where, helps scientists understand the dynamics of the ocean food web, and how it will be impacted to alterations in ocean chemistry brought on by climate change. Martiny and his colleagues analyzed more than 50,500 seawater samples collected on 42 research voyages covering all of Earth's ocean basins.

Martiny said that in addition to identifying regions where the mineral is in short supply, the team was also able to discover previously unknown patterns of phosphate levels in major ocean basins in the Atlantic and Pacific.

"We have for too long had this simplistic view of a nutrient-rich ocean at high latitudes and ocean deserts at low latitudes," he said. "However, in this paper we argue that our current predictions of nutrient stress may be too dire and marine organisms are able to handle a limited supply of phosphate better than we previously thought."