Tech

Applying a noble metal, such as gold, to the surface of a crystal induces an electrical field that 'excites' the structure of the crystal

Physicists at University of Warwick demonstrate that by exciting its structure, the crystal is capable of new electrical effects

Effects include converting movement and heat into electricity - making the technique ideal for sensors, infra-red technologies and energy conversion

Useful for mobile technologies as the effects scale down efficiently

A touch of gold - or another noble metal - can change the structure of a crystal and its intrinsic properties, physicists at the University of Warwick have demonstrated in a display of modern-day alchemy.

Scientists at the University of Warwick have found a way to induce electric effects in crystals that they were not previously capable of, such as converting movement or heat into electricity, simply by adding a piece of metal to their surface.

Their method is detailed in a new paper published today (19 August) in Nature and demonstrates that the effects can be a greater magnitude than conventionally studied bulky materials making it ideal for use in technologies such as sensors, energy conversion and mobile technologies.

The key to the technique is in breaking the symmetry of the crystal's structure. A crystal can be made from a number of different atoms, but the term describes an ordered structure of particles that form a symmetric pattern.

Professor Marin Alexe, co-lead author from the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick, said: "In physics, those materials are rather boring. From the point-of-view of functionality, symmetry is not the greatest thing you want to have. You want to break the symmetry in such a way that you would get new effects."

The crystal can function as a semiconductor, allowing an electrical current to flow through it. By adding a small piece of metal to the crystal surface, the scientists created a junction known as a Schottky junction. This induces an electric field into the semiconductor that excites the semiconductor structure underneath the metal, breaking its symmetry and enabling new effects that were not previously possible.

Those effects that researchers observed included a piezoelectric effect, in which movement is converted to electrical energy or vice versa; and a pyroelectric effect, where heat is converted to electrical energy. These properties are known as interface effects and confined in a very shallow region of the crystal, underneath the metals.

Dr Mingmin Yang, who conducted the work at the University of Warwick and has since moved to the RIKEN institute in Japan, said: "Generally, the properties of these crystals are determined by two factors: the intrinsic properties of the elements that the crystal consists of, and how those elements are arranged to form that crystal, which we call its symmetry.

"Our research is demonstrating that how those elements are arranged is not just determined by their own nature, they can also be tuned by external influence. Once we use that influence to change their arrangement, they can exhibit properties that were previously prohibited to them. "

The researchers used the noble metals gold and platinum to create their junction due to their high thermodynamic work function, but copper, silver, gold, iridium or platinum would also be good options. For the crystals, Strontium titanate, Titanium dioxide and silicon were used. None of these materials would normally show a piezoelectric or pyroelectric effect.

Once the materials possess the piezoelectric or pyroelectric effect, they can output electricity when they experience force (in the case of piezoelectric effect) or a temperature change (in the case of the pyroelectric effect). By detecting any electricity generated in the materials the scientists could confirm the existence of these effects.

The observed effects give the technique great potential for use in sensors, which require high sensitivity, or in technologies relying on energy conversion. As a piezoelectric effect, the crystals can harvest energy, or work as an actuator or transducer. With the pyroelectric effect, they can work as a sensor or in infra-red imaging.

In addition, the small scale that this effect is seen on and its high efficiency would make it ideal for use in mobile technologies.

In the team's previous work they have examined the ways of breaking symmetry by mechanical means. This work looked at the possibility of breaking symmetry using an electric field

Professor Alexe added: "Materials with broken symmetry are rich in functionalities. To improve these functionalities, you usually need to tweak the material structure. This requires deploying complicated solid-state chemistry followed by detailed investigations.

"You now have a completely different path to tweak these materials and the ability to tune the effect, something that we have not been able to do before. That opens the field to many other possibilities with these materials and we might not know where those lead."

An elusive protein that many consider the key of fully understanding the causes of genetic Parkinson's disease has come much more clearly into focus.

Impacting millions around the world, Parkinson's is a neurological disorder that progressively attacks motor functions, leading to lasting damage in movement and coordination, among other areas.

Researchers studying the primary causes of the disease have focused on mutations of the protein known as leucine-rich repeat kinase 2, or LRRK2. Understanding how LRRK2 disrupts normal functioning has been difficult due to a lack of information on the structure of the protein. Since LRRK2 is a major drug target, efforts to decipher LRRK2's architecture have even included launching samples into space as a way of using microgravity conditions to help crystalize protein samples, but with no success.

Now, University of California San Diego scientists using leading-edge technologies have produced the first visualizations of LRRK2 inside its natural cellular environment and the first high-resolution blueprint of the protein. They leveraged these depictions to describe how LRRK2 binds to cellular tracks called microtubules and acts as a roadblock for motors that move along these tracks. The findings are described in two research papers published in the journals Cell and Nature.

"These two papers take giant steps towards developing more effective therapeutics for Parkinson's Disease, which impacts so many lives," said Biological Sciences Dean Kit Pogliano, PhD, a professor in the Section of Molecular Biology. "Combining cryo-electron microscopy with live cell imaging allows researchers to see proteins working inside cells and to more rapidly determine how potential drugs affect their function. This will accelerate drug discovery and provide new hope to those suffering from this debilitating disease."

LRRK2: a key therapeutic target for Parkinson's disease

Known as a kinase, LRRK2 is a type of enzyme that adds phosphate chemical tags to other proteins, influencing their function. LRRK2 mutations are the main cause of inherited forms of Parkinson's disease, but researchers do not fully understand how this enzyme functions normally or in disease states.

The answers to such questions have been vigorously pursued, especially because kinases are one of the most established pharmacological targets for therapeutics. Since the LRRK2 gene was first cloned in 2004, there has been a tremendous amount of effort devoted to targeting it for Parkinson's treatment.

Susan Taylor, a world-renowned authority in kinases, recognized that the expertise at UC San Diego was ideally suited to tackle this problem. With support from the Michael J. Fox Foundation, an international team, including researchers across UC San Diego, set out to study LRRK2 using novel technologies.

A cellular blueprint of LRRK2 on microtubules

As described in the Cell paper, UC San Diego researchers led by Elizabeth Villa, PhD, and her colleagues leveraged new groundbreaking technology known as cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), a modality of cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), to view LRRK2 in its natural environment within cells and describe its structure at a level previously unseen.

In many cases, when researchers seek to determine a protein's structure, they begin by isolating the protein outside of cells. When using cryo-EM, scientists freeze the molecules in a thin layer of ice, preserving their structure, and determine their structure at high resolution. Instead, Villa's team images frozen cells that contain the molecules under study, taking pictures at different angles, somewhat like a CAT scan.

"We lifted the hood to look inside the cell at frozen molecules caught in the act of interacting with each other in different places in the cell," said Villa, who noted the significance of co-developing the cutting-edge instruments used in the study with Thermo Fisher Scientific and UC San Diego's considerable efforts in establishing a new cryo-EM facility on campus. "We used electron and ion beams like a light saber to blast away parts of the cell. In the middle we left a window that contains the molecules that we are interested in looking at."

The researchers also used light microscopy to find the molecules within cells, and advanced computational modeling tools to develop a high-resolution integrative model of a mutant LRRK2. Their data revealed LRRK2 bound to cellular highways, called microtubules, decorating them in a stunningly regular and unexpected geometry, and predicted that LRRK2's kinase resembled an "overdrive" state known to occur in Parkinson's disease.

"This combination of powerful new techniques was applied for the first time in this research and made it possible to get the first glimpses into the structure of a mutant LRRK2, with the added benefit of its cellular context," said Villa. "To our knowledge it's the highest resolution structure of a human protein that was determined inside cells before using conventional biochemical tools. We are bringing structure to cell biology."

A molecular blueprint of LRRK2

In order to understand how LRRK2 works at a chemical level and to design therapeutics, an even higher resolution structure is required to reveal the position of atoms and how they interact with potential drugs. In the Nature study, co-senior authors Samara Reck-Peterson, PhD, and Andres Leschziner, PhD, took a deeper look at LRRK2's structure and function and teamed up with Villa's group to determine how LRRK2 interacts with microtubules.

Using cryo-EM, Leschziner's team captured the most detailed image-to-date of LRRK2's structure, down to the atomic level. Stefan Knapp, a professor at Goethe University in Frankfurt Germany, and his group were also instrumental as they determined how to make LRRK2 tractable for structural work. The structure comprised the business end of the protein--which includes the part that tags other proteins with phosphates. The locations of all major Parkinson's disease-causing mutations are found in their structure.

Next, the Leschziner group combined their structure with Villa's and came up with a model that explains how LRRK2 binds to microtubules.

"You can think of the kinase part of LRRK2 as a bit like Pacman, it can be either open or closed," said Leschziner, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Division of Biological Sciences. "Our modeling suggested that, when bound to microtubules, the kinase needs to be in a closed state, indicating that the shape of the kinase may regulate the binding of LRRK2 to microtubules. Teaming up with the Reck-Peterson lab we decided to test this model directly."

LRRK2 is a roadblock for molecular motors

Microtubules are Reck-Peterson's specialty. She and her team are interested in the molecular motors that transport cargo along microtubules, and how defects in this transport cause human neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. Reck-Peterson and her team wondered if LRRK2's interaction with microtubules might be detrimental for the molecular machines that move on them and carry essential cargos from place to place in cells.

Her team discovered that LRRK2 creates roadblocks that stop these molecular machines. They also showed that some drugs that target LRRK2's kinase enhance this effect, while others diminish it. While Leschziner and Reck-Peterson are not sure yet if roadblocks play a role in Parkinson's disease, their findings already have implications for the design of therapeutic drugs that work by inhibiting LRRK2. Their work points to the possibility that kinase inhibitors that close LRRK2's kinase domain might lead to the unwanted effect of blocking the movement of molecular motors.

"It's not yet clear what role LRRK2-microtubule binding plays in Parkinson's disease," said Reck-Peterson, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Division of Biological Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. "But what we have now are cellular and molecular blueprints, and that's what is needed to figure out what LRRK2 does and to fine-tune therapeutic drugs that target LRRK2."

A new approach to a surgical procedure required for dialysis offers better long-term viability and a lower chance of complications compared with conventional techniques, according to work involving rats and 274 patients. The strategy could help improve the safety and long-term performance of dialysis for patients with chronic kidney disease, a widespread and debilitating chronic condition. Chronic kidney disease affects approximately 30 million Americans and imposes a massive burden on the healthcare system, causing more than $84 billion in healthcare costs in 2017, according to the CDC. Many patients with advanced disease suffer from kidney failure and rely on dialysis to replace the lost function of their kidneys. Currently, clinicians perform dialysis by accessing the circulatory system through arteriovenous fistulae, or connections made between arteries and veins, during surgery. However, only half of arteriovenous fistulae remain wide enough after one year, necessitating further surgeries and predisposing some patients to complications like neointimal hyperplasia. In a previous trial, several co-authors of the current study developed a new and safer procedure named RADAR to create arteriovenous fistulae. Instead of using the conventional vein-to-artery approach, RADAR instead starts with the radial artery and attaches it to a vein in the forearm. Here, Hualong Bai and colleagues studied 201 patients who received RADAR and 73 patients who received the traditional vein-to-artery procedure. The authors discovered that fistulae created with RADAR matured more quickly, were more likely to remain accessible for dialysis, and were less likely to require reintervention after 36 months. Furthermore, RADAR decreased the likelihood of neointimal hyperplasia and improved blood flow dynamics in rat models. "These findings are of translational importance and should influence surgical practice to inspire future clinical trials," Bai et al. conclude.

Traditional ways of producing entanglements, necessary for the development of any "quantum internet" linking quantum computers, are not very well suited for fiber optic telecoms networks used by today's non-quantum internet. However, researchers have come up with a new way to produce such particles that is much more compatible.

In today's telecoms network, connected by fiber-optic cable, the photons that are transmitted tend to be absorbed within a few kilometers by the material the cable is made out of. In order to avoid deterioration of the signal, repeaters are established at regular intervals to amplify it.

Similar problems will bedevil efforts towards quantum communications -- and ultimately a quantum internet. Tomoyuki Horikiri and colleagues at Yokohama National University are tackling this issue by developing a new source of entangled photons.

Their findings were published on August 12 in Communications Physics.

A pair of particles, or qubits, becomes entangled when the quantum state of each of them is inescapably connected to the quantum state of the other particle. Therefore, a measurement performed on one qubit will always be correlated to a measurement on the other qubit, regardless of the distance.

This entanglement, famously described in pop-science explanations as "spooky action at a distance," is key to any quantum communication infrastructure of the future.

Exploiting this spooky phenomenon, researchers can use entangled photons to transfer information between two locations. The sender has half the entangled photons and the receiver has the other half. The two users, for example, can establish a random secret bit string for encryption by the shared entanglement.

But long-distance quantum communication also suffers from optical fiber losses, with entangled photons becoming disentangled due to interaction with their surroundings, and quantum repeaters, where quantum memories are loaded, would be necessary for prolonging the distance of quantum communication. The repeater stores quantum state of photon sent by users. . An entanglement "swapping," performed by a measurement on the photons, effectively propagates the entanglement over much longer distances - like runners handing off batons in a relay race.

A quantum repeater works via a repeated exchange of quantum states between light and matter. This requires a source of entangled particles that is compatible with quantum memory. Unfortunately, quantum memory generally absorbs a narrow width of a light beam's spectrum (known as linewidth), but traditional sources of a quantum-entangled pair of photons have a wide spectrum. This results in very poor coupling between an entangled photon pair and the quantum memory.

So far, efforts to develop sources of entangled photons have struggled to meet all the requirements for repeater-quantum memory compatibility and real-world application: a high number of photons (for large amounts of traffic), narrow linewidth, and high entanglement fidelity.

For decades, the most common way to produce entangled particles has been a technique called spontaneous parametric down-conversion, or SPDC. It uses crystals to convert single high-energy photons into pairs of entangled photons with half the original energy.

"This has been great for quantum information experiments," said Horikiri. "But for broadband quantum communications, SPDC is not very compatible with the very narrow energy transitions involved in production of the quantum memory needed for quantum repeaters."

The researchers improved upon this technique in effect by placing the crystal in a bowtie shaped optical cavity, and were able to successfully propagate entangled photons over ten kilometers through optical fiber, repeated once for a total overall distance of 20 kilometers.

Following on from this proof of concept for a new source of quantum-memory-compatible entangled photons that can be deployed through fiber-optic cable with low losses, the researchers now want to deploy their technique via multiple repeater nodes for much longer distances.

New research highlights 'challenging nature' of vested interests in the energy transition

Pioneering new research has highlighted some of the political difficulties with the UK's energy transition, in particular around vested fossil fuel interests.

The research, by Dr Richard Lowes and Dr Bridget Woodman from the University of Exeter's Energy Policy Group, found that those with existing interests around fossil fuel heat were overselling the idea of converting the UK's existing gas infrastructure to run on low carbon gases such as hydrogen.

This overselling comes at the expense of known, low- carbon heating options.

The research is published in the international peer reviewed journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions and the project formed part of the UK Energy Research Centre.

In order to reach goals for net-zero emissions for heating, which makes up around a fifth of UK emissions, huge changes are required to the way that homes and buildings are heated.

The deployment of energy efficiency measures and a move from oil and fossil gas towards the use of heat pumps and heat networks which rely on low carbon electricity has been seen as vital.

The promotion of hydrogen was often in the form of political lobbying and through the production of industry funded reports and research and has been taking place at the same time that the idea of using hydrogen for heat has rapidly risen up the policy agenda.

The research highlights a concern that if the political lobbying by incumbents affects the policy process and slows down the deployment of known low carbon heat options, the UK's climate change goals are at risk of being missed.

Dr Richard Lowes, lead author of the article explained: 'Getting to a sustainable heat system demands rapid and major interventions, it is a huge challenge and there is simply no time for delay.

"During the course of the research we were surprised how rapidly the idea of hydrogen emerged and how strongly it was being promoted by various interests in the heating industry. Over the course of the project, we have also seen similar responses by industrial interests in responses to proposals in the United States.

"We are in no doubt that decarbonising the heat sector will be extremely difficult but it is possible using known technologies. The idea that the gas grid can simply be switched to run on hydrogen remains deeply uncertain from both a cost and technical perspective.

"Hence, we suggest in the paper that: 'Due to the uncertainties associated with hydrogen, in the short term, deployment of known low carbon heating technologies should be at a rate commensurate with the 2050 net-zero target with the expectation that low carbon gas including hydrogen may not prove viable at scale''

Bacteria that can help defuse highly toxic dioxin in sediments in the Passaic River – a Superfund hazardous waste site – could eventually aid cleanup efforts at other dioxin-contaminated sites around the world, according to Rutgers scientists.
Their research, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, needs further work to realize the full potential of the beneficial bottom-dwelling microbes.
“The bacteria-driven process we observed greatly decreases the toxicity of dioxin,” said senior author Donna E. Fennell, a professor who chairs the Department of Environmental Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick.
“Our results showed that although the process is quite slow, it can be enhanced and may even have the potential to remove all toxic chlorines from the compound,” said lead author Rachel K. Dean, a Rutgers doctoral student.
In a process known as dechlorination, the bacteria remove chlorine atoms from 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo‑p‑dioxin (TeCDD), the most toxic of the many dioxins, according to the study.
These chemicals can cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems and immune system damage, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They also can interfere with hormones in the body.
In New Jersey, the decades-old Diamond Alkali Superfund site includes a former chemical manufacturing facility in Newark, a 17-mile tidal stretch of the Passaic River and tributaries, Newark Bay and portions of the Hackensack River, Arthur Kill and Kill van Kull, according to the EPA.

The 2,3,7,8-TeCDD dioxin is a byproduct of combustion and chemical product manufacturing, including the herbicides in Agent Orange. Sampling revealed high levels of dioxin in 1983 and the site landed on the Superfund National Priorities List a year later. Dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls, metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and pesticides were found in sediment in the Lower Passaic River.
Though dredging is required to remove the most highly contaminated sediments in the Passaic River, some contamination has spread and will remain in the river and estuary, where it could be transformed by the bacteria over time, according to the Rutgers scientists.
In the study, scientists took solid material from the river bottom and mixed it with water and other nutrients in the lab to make mud in bottles. Then they added 2,3,7,8-TeCDD and another chemical (dichlorobenzene) that boosted dechlorination by bacteria.
The Rutgers scientists revealed bacteria that are likely involved in the dechlorination process – a novel Dehalococcoidia bacterium – by sequencing their DNA from the dioxin-tainted mud. It is possible that 2,3,7,8-TeCDD could be completely dechlorinated in the Passaic River and estuary.
The next goal is to try to identify the enzymes involved in dechlorination so cleanup technologies could be developed that lead to more dechlorination at this and other contaminated sites, the study says.
Rutgers co-authors include Cassidy R. Schneider, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Rutgers; Haider S. Almnehlawi, who is earning a doctorate at Rutgers and is a faculty member at Al-Muthanna University; and Professor Katherine S. Dawson, an assistant professor in the Rutgers Department of Environmental Sciences.

Journal

Environmental Science & Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.est.0c00876

DNA is not only the blueprint of life, it has become the backbone for making tiny structures that can be inserted into the human body to diagnose and treat disease. In particular, researchers are setting their sights on a technique known as DNA origami, in which they meticulously assemble hundreds of strands of DNA to build a Lilliputian collection of structures that could include drug delivery containers, biosensors and other biocompatible devices.

In efforts that promise to dramatically improve this process, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have now found a way to significantly enhance the accuracy of key information on how heat affects the stability of folded DNA structures.

To function reliably, these structures, only a few tens of nanometers (billionths of a meter) in length, must be carefully shaped in order, for example, to deliver drugs to specific targets. But the forces -- hydrogen bonds -- that bind pieces of DNA together to form the well-known double helix depend on both temperature and their local environment.

To determine how different strands of DNA react to changes in temperature, researchers rely on a series of measurements that form a graph known as the DNA melt curve. The curve reveals, for instance, the temperature at which half the strand has "melted," or unraveled. It also shows the amount of heat the strands must absorb to raise their temperature by one degree C. By revealing these and other thermal properties of the strands, the curve provides scientists with the knowledge to design durable, more complex structures made from DNA.

As important as the DNA melt curve is, there remains a long-standing problem in accurately measuring it. Because of background effects and unknown sources of variability, dozens of identical DNA samples will have different melt curves, limiting scientists' ability to extract meaningful information.

The NIST researchers have designed a novel mathematical algorithm that automatically accounts for these unknown effects, allowing scientists to reap the full benefits of the melt curve.

As scientists who have studied several ways to perfect DNA origami, NIST researchers Jacob Majikes and Alex Liddle were all too familiar with the inaccuracies plaguing the DNA melt curve. In principle, if they and other researchers could precisely reproduce all of the laboratory conditions under which they measured the curve, the uncertainties could be reduced.

But given the minute amounts of DNA in the experiments -- no bigger than a water droplet -- that was difficult to do in practice. So Majikes and Liddle reached out to a NIST mathematician, Anthony Kearsley, and his collaborator, NIST physicist Paul Patrone, in the hopes of finding a mathematical solution.

For Kearsley and Patrone, the challenge was irresistible: The true DNA melt curve was hidden in every set of measurements; the challenge was to find a way to reveal it. No known mathematical theory fully describes the melt curve, so the researchers had to figure out a way to remove the uncertainties in the melt curve using the experimental data alone. With so little information, it meant they had to be creative.

In searching for an algorithm that would solve this problem, the team recognized that the distortions to the true DNA melt curves were behaving in a straightforward manner. That is, the distortions were akin to a special kind of funhouse mirror -- one that preserved the relative spacing between data points even as it contracted or expanded the curve, and that allowed parallel lines to remain parallel. To try and correct those effects, the scientists applied a mathematical tool known as an affine transformation.

Kearsley and Patrone were looking for a particular affine transformation -- one that made each dataset conform to all the others, so that they would essentially look the same. But to find that transformation, using a technique known as constrained optimization, the scientists had to step away from the blackboard and immerse themselves in the mechanics of the DNA laboratory.

Neither Kearsley nor Patrone had even heard of DNA origami, let alone the measurements required to assemble the melt curve. They asked dozens of questions about each component of the nanoscale experiment, determining which parts were important to model and which were irrelevant. After weeks of theoretical calculations, Patrone got his first chance to view the actual experiment. He viewed in amazement the laboratory setup, with its 8x12 array of 96 tiny wells, each containing exactly the same sequence of DNA from which Majikes and Liddle had recorded 96 different DNA melt curves.

Armed with more than enough laboratory data, Kearsley and Patrone fleshed out the optimization problem they thought would work best to remove the errors. Then they applied the algorithm to each of the 96 curves and watched what happened.

On a computer screen, the multitude of curves, distorted in different ways, became indistinguishable, each tracing out the same shape, height and endpoints. The 96 curves had collapsed to become a single DNA melt curve.

"We were convinced we had solved the problem," said Kearsley. The researchers report their findings in Volume 607 of Analytical Biochemistry.

Scientists have used DNA origami to fabricate nanorobots that perform computing operations and pre-programmed tasks inside living organisms. They have also relied on DNA origami to create miniature drug delivery containers that open only when they identify and attach to infected cells.

The team is now spreading the word about the success of their solution, alerting researchers who perform DNA origami that it is possible to accurately measure the melt curve and guide the growth of DNA origami structures. Just as importantly, said Patrone, the same technique could be applied to other biophysical problems in which the true data is obscured by similar types of errors. The researchers are studying how to improve the accuracy of experiments in which human cells flow through tiny cancer-hunting detectors.

Something like a quarter of the world's population suffers from chronic pain at some point in their lives. As opposed to acute pain - for example, the feeling after hitting your finger with a hammer - chronic pain may not even have a clear cause, and it can linger for years or lifetimes. The burden of chronic pain includes damage to mental and physical health, lower productivity and drug addiction. A new study led by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science suggests an original approach to treating this affliction, by targeting a key gateway leading to the activation of genes in the peripheral nerve cells that play a role in many forms of chronic pain. The findings of this study were published today in Science.

Pain starts in the sensory neurons - those that pass information from the skin to the central nervous system. Damage to these neurons, chronic injury or disease can cause the neurons to "short circuit," sending continuous pain messages. Prof. Mike Fainzilber of the Institute's Biomolecular Sciences Department investigates molecules that regulate the biomolecular messaging activities taking place within these nerve cells. These molecules - importins - are found in every cell, acting as conduits between the cell nucleus and its cytoplasm, shuttling molecules in and out of the nucleus and thus controlling access to the genes. This role takes on special significance in the peripheral nerve cells, with their long, thin bodies in which molecular messages can take hours to get from nerve endings to cell nuclei. Some of the importins Fainzilber and his team have identified, for example, relay messages about injury to the body of the nerve cell, initiating repair mechanisms.

To ask whether importins are involved in chronic neuropathic pain, the researchers, led by Dr. Letizia Marvaldi in Fainzilber's group, first set out to screen a number of importin-mutant mouse lines generated by the lab of Prof. Dr. Michael Bader at the Max-Delbruck Center in Berlin, who collaborated in this research. The research was supported by the European Research Council.

Behavioral screens on these different lines revealed a particular importin - importin alpha-3 - as the only importin implicated in controlling pain pathways. The team then sought to identify the gene expression pattern associated with long-lasting pain in peripheral nerve cells, and see how it tied into importin alpha-3 activity. Analyses of differences in the expression patterns between normal neurons and neurons lacking importin alpha-3 directed Dr. Marvaldi's attention to c-Fos, a protein that importin alpha-3 brings into the nucleus. c-Fos is a transcription factor - a molecule that raises or lowers the expression of numerous genes. Further experiments in mice showed that c-Fos accumulates in the nucleus in peripheral nerve cells of mice suffering from chronic pain.

They then used specialized viruses as tools to reduce or disable importin alpha-3 or c-Fos in mouse peripheral nerve cells. These mice had much reduced responses to chronic pain situations than those of regular mice. Further research showed that importin alpha-3 is critical in late and chronic pain. c-Fos is also involved in earlier pain responses, but it seems to enter the nucleus by other means at those earlier stages. This suggests that blocking importin alpha-3 activity might be especially well-suited to preventing lasting, chronic pain.

The research team then took their findings to the next level, asking how easily they can be translated to clinical application. They took advantage of a specialized database, the Connectivity Map (CMap) from the Broad Institute in Massachusetts, which reveals connections between drugs and gene expression patterns. This database enabled them to identify around 30 existing drugs that might target the importin alpha-3-c-Fos pathway. Almost two thirds of compounds they identified were not previously known to be associated with pain relief. The team chose two - one a cardiotonic drug and the other an antibiotic - and tested them again in mice. Indeed, injection with these compounds provides relief of neuropathic pain symptoms in mice.

"The compounds we identified in this database search are a kind of fast track - proof that drugs already approved for other uses in patients can probably be repurposed to treat chronic pain," says Marvaldi. "Clinical trials could be conducted in the near future, as these compounds have already been shown to be safe in humans."

"We are now in a position to conduct screens for new and better drug molecules that can precisely target this chain of events in the sensory neurons," says Fainzilber. "Such targeted molecules might have fewer side effects and be less addictive than current treatments, and they could provide new options for reducing the burden of chronic pain." Also participating in this research were Dr. Nicolas Panayotis, Dr. Stefanie Alber, Dr. Shachar Y. Dagan, Dr. Nataliya Okladnikov, Dr. Indrek Koppel, Agostina Di Pizio, Didi-Andreas Song, Yarden Tzur, Dr. Marco Terenzio, Dr. Ida Rishal and Dr. Dalia Gordon, all of the Weizmann Institute of Sciences Biomolecular Sciences Department; Dr. Franziska Rother of the Max-Delbruck Center, Berlin and the University of Lübeck, Germany; and Prof. Dr. Enno Hartmann of the University of Lübeck.

Many animals respond to unfavourable environmental changes in their habitat by migrating or dispersing to other areas. Seasonally recurring changes in habitat conditions have led to such spectacular annual events as the large mammalian migrations across the African plains, and the monarch butterfly migrations across North America. India has its share of large-scale migrations and dispersals: millions of waterfowl migrate from the northern regions to India and back around winter, and a countless number of insects disperse over long distances as seasons and habitats change. A new study by researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, published today in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, shows that such dispersals, when undertaken by butterflies in search of unpredictable resources, selectively burden the egg-carrying females on their long flights. This has implications for the persistence of populations in a changing environment, especially in an ever-fragmenting natural world.

Let us first distinguish between migration and dispersal for our purposes. Migrations are long-range cyclical movements, i.e. when animals move in a specific direction in a specific season between two known destinations. Thus, seasonal movements of waterfowl between Siberia and India are considered migrations. On the other hand, dispersals are movements in which the direction and distance are unpredictable, and they are undertaken when local resources are exhausted. So, dispersals are essentially movements in a random direction in search of new resource patches whose locations are unknown. Considering these differences in the nature of movement, what effects do dispersals versus migrations have on the decisions of animals regarding whether - and how much - to invest in reproduction and flight when moving?

To study these aspects, Vaishali Bhaumik, a PhD student at NCBS and SASTRA University, and her advisor Dr Krushnamegh Kunte, turned to butterflies--their favourite insects. They had observed that caterpillars of the Lemon Emigrant and Mottled Emigrant butterflies (Catopsilia pomona and Catopsilia pyranthe) seasonally strip off nearly all the leaves from their larval host plants. This forces adult butterflies to disperse for uncertain distances in search of new habitat patches where they may be able to find larval host plants with sufficient foliage on which to lay eggs. Emigrants sometimes end up dispersing for hundreds of kilometres before they settle down in a patch to breed.

The research team compared the flight morphology and reproductive status of these two species of Emigrant with two other sets of butterflies: one containing milkweed butterflies that migrate annually across southern India in response to the Indian monsoon, and another containing close relatives of Emigrants that do not migrate or disperse long distances at all in India, but mostly breed where they are born.

They discovered that female milkweed butterflies that migrate annually in a predictable manner do so in a state of reproductive diapause; i.e., they completely halt reproductive activity and are therefore not burdened with eggs during the long migratory flights, investing all their energies in movement instead. On the other hand, female Emigrants - the long-distance dispersers - fly in a state of full reproductive maturity, i.e., they carry a heavy load of eggs on their flights. By contrast, males of the species always travel light, whether they are migrating, dispersing, or not. Thus, dispersals selectively burden the flight of egg-carrying females.

The study suggests that this stark contrast in reproductive strategies of migrating versus dispersing butterflies stems from differences in the predictability of habitat patches and larval host plants. The annual migrations of milkweed butterflies occur between known habitat patches, so there is some certainty about finding the right habitat patch at a predictable time in relation to the monsoon. So, a reproductive diapause, which takes time to break, and subsequently delayed courting, mating and egg-laying, seems to be a feasible option for migrating milkweed butterflies.

On the other hand, seasonal leaf flushing makes larval hosts a prime resource that Emigrant caterpillars must exploit while it lasts.

These plants occur in randomly available patches, depending on whether other butterflies (and their caterpillars) have already been there. This uncertainty and intense competition for short-lived larval host plant resources mean that female Emigrants have to be ready to lay eggs as soon as they find a suitable host plant patch.

Therefore, a reproductive diapause during dispersal is perhaps not a feasible option for them. This might explain why they disperse while being burdened by eggs that are ready to be laid. Thus, the ability to disperse in a reproductively ready mode comes at the cost of a more expensive flight.

These findings suggest that some species - and their females in particular - may be more vulnerable to the vagaries of long-distance flights to uncertain destinations. This ought to be a vexing problem for a large number of species because of increasingly fragmented and sometimes vanishing habitat patches in a large unsuitable matrix, in which their colonization potential may be compromised.

"Such research findings are a first step towards conservation efforts taken up by the forest department especially for lesser known species such as butterflies," said Shri Ajai Misra, IFS, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) & Chief Wildlife Warden, Karnataka Forest Department, which has supported a string of projects by Dr. Kunte's lab. "The Karnataka Forest Department is utilizing such studies in understanding habitat corridors being used for dispersal/migration by different species so that biodiversity in larger landscapes can be preserved."

Ms. Bhaumik ponders upon what this might mean for the evolution of female traits and reproductive strategies. "Might females have evolved larger flight muscles to be able to fly long distances with their heavy egg loads? Do older and younger females in a large population vary in their abilities to produce more eggs versus disperse further in an uncertain world? Could this lead to alternative reproductive strategies such as 'stay home and breed' versus 'travel far, die trying, but prosper sometimes if lucky'?"

Such thinking opens up a whole new world of looking at butterflies and other critters in fascinating ways. Dr. Kunte and his students cherish these opportunities. He chimed in, "We were fortunate to wonder about how males and females differ in their morphology, reproductive strategies and other biology, and what these differences might tell us about the natural world at large. This has opened up wonderful avenues to start asking interesting questions about the evolution of sexual dimorphism, functional diversity, and biodiversity at large." Dr. Kunte's students have equipped themselves to address such queries with a vast morphometric dataset of hundreds of butterfly species across multiple continents.

What secrets of nature will such large datasets reveal? We will find out!

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- People have always used different words to describe the inebriating effects of alcohol, from "blotto" in the 1920s to "honkers" in the 1950s. Now, new Penn State research suggests the language young adults use to describe the effects they feel from drinking may give insight into their drinking habits.

A team of researchers led by Ashley Linden-Carmichael, assistant research professor in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, examined the language young adults use to describe different levels of inebriation. The team was able to not only discover the language young people are using, but also discovered four distinct "classes" of drinkers: happy drinkers, relaxed drinkers, buzzed drinkers and multi-experience drinkers.

Linden-Carmichael said the results -- recently published in the journal Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology -- can not only give insight into the drinking habits of young adults, but could also help researchers and clinicians fine-tune their language during interventions and research studies.

"We're finding that young adults have a wide range of vocabulary they use around drinking, and we should make sure we're using words that they are using instead of more clinical terms like 'intoxicated,'" Linden-Carmichael said. "Even the word 'drunk' may not be seen as the highest level of drinking. As researchers or clinicians, we need to incorporate contemporary language into our work."

According to the researchers, the young adult age range from 18 to 25 is a high-risk period for dangerous alcohol use, with about 37% of young adults reporting binge drinking -- typically defined as five or more drinks in two hours for men or four or more for women -- at least once in the past month and 10% reporting binge drinking on five or more days in the past month.

Linden-Carmichael said that understanding the drinking habits of young adults is critical to intervention efforts, and that some recent research suggests that how drunk someone feels may be a better predictor of risky behavior than an objective measure of how drunk they actually are, like blood alcohol content (BAC).

"If a young adult is particularly risk-prone and is considering driving home after a night of drinking, are they going to do the math of how many drinks they've had over a certain number of hours or are they going to ask themselves how they feel?" Linden-Carmichael said. "How drunk someone feels is subjective, but understanding how to measure that could be helpful in preventing risky behavior."

For the study, the researchers recruited 323 young adults who reported having at least two heavy episodes of drinking in the previous month. The participants filled out a 10-minute survey during which they provided words they typically used to describe how they feel while drinking. They also answered questions about their typical drinking habits.

"We wanted to get a good representation of language used across the whole United States," Linden-Carmichael said. "We used Amazon's Mechanical Turk as a crowd-sourcing platform to reach young adults from across the country and to have them generate words to describe light, moderate and heavy drinking episodes."

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that most of the participants could be sorted into four categories, each with their own vocabulary and habits.

The largest group was "happy drinkers," who made up 31% of participants and who mostly reported feeling happy when drinking. The next group, at 24%, were "relaxed drinkers," who reported feeling happy, relaxed, and buzzed. "Buzzed drinkers" made up 18% of participants and reported feeling buzzed and dizzy. Relaxed drinkers tended to report heavier alcohol use and buzzed drinkers tended to report drinking less often.

"Finally we had the group that we called the 'multi-experience drinker class,' which made up 27% of our participants," Linden-Carmichael said. "They reported feeling buzzed, tipsy, drunk, and were also the only group to report 'wasted' as a common word to describe how they feel while drinking. So this group might be the one most likely to drink for the purpose of getting drunk."

Linden-Carmichael added that studying these language differences may help give insight into people's motivations for drinking, and that those motivations may give further clues about how much someone is drinking and how often.

"When interventionists are working with young adults who are struggling to reduce their drinking, they might benefit from using the same language that their participants are using," Linden-Carmichael said. "For example, the word 'intoxicated' isn't commonly used and may be associated with winding up in the hospital because of alcohol poisoning. So they could benefit from being sensitive to differences in the way people use different words."

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed a new way to visualize the progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in mouse models of the disease. The new microscopy method provides a high-resolution 3D view that could lead to important new insights into NAFLD, a condition in which too much fat is stored in the liver.

"It is estimated that a quarter of the adult global population has NAFLD, yet an effective treatment strategy has not been found," said professor Pilhan Kim from the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering in the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. "NAFLD is associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes and can sometimes progress to liver failure in serious case."

In The Optical Society (OSA) journal Biomedical Optics Express, Kim and colleagues report their new imaging technique and show that it can be used to observe how tiny droplets of fat, or lipids, accumulate in the liver cells of living mice over time.

"It has been challenging to find a treatment strategy for NAFLD because most studies examine excised liver tissue that represents just one timepoint in disease progression," said Kim. "Our technique can capture details of lipid accumulation over time, providing a highly useful research tool for identifying the multiple parameters that likely contribute to the disease and could be targeted with treatment."

Watching disease progression in real-time

Capturing the dynamics of NAFLD in living mouse models of the disease requires the ability to observe quickly changing interactions of biological components in intact tissue in real-time. To accomplish this, the researchers developed a custom intravital confocal and two-photon microscopy system that acquires images of multiple fluorescent labels at video-rate with cellular resolution.

"With video-rate imaging capability, the continuous movement of liver tissue in live mice due to breathing and heart beating could be tracked in real time and precisely compensated," said Kim. "This provided motion-artifact free high-resolution images of cellular and sub-cellular sized individual lipid droplets."

The key to fast imaging was a polygonal mirror that rotated at more than 240 miles per hour to provide extremely fast laser scanning. The researchers also incorporated four different lasers and four high-sensitivity optical detectors into the setup so that they could acquire multi-color images to capture different color fluorescent probes used to label the lipid droplets and microvasculature in the livers of live mice.

"Our approach can capture real-time changes in cell behavior and morphology, vascular structure and function, and the spatiotemporal localization of biological components while directly visualizing of lipid droplet development in NAFLD progression," said Kim. "It also allows the analysis of the highly complex behaviors of various immune cells as NAFLD progresses."

The researchers demonstrated their approach by using it to observe the development and spatial distribution of lipid droplets in individual mice with NAFLD induced by a methionine and choline-deficient diet. Next, they plan to use it to study how the liver microenvironment changes during NAFLD progression by imaging the same mouse over time. They also want to use their microscope technique to visualize various immune cells and lipid droplets to better understand the complex liver microenvironment in NAFLD progression.

Calgary, AB - People who suffer severe burns or extensive skin injuries are often left to live with extreme scarring, disfigurement, and skin that feels chronically tight and itchy. That's because the body's healing processes have evolved to focus on preventing infection by quickly closing up wounds, rather than regenerating or restoring normal skin tissue.

New research led by Dr. Jeff Biernaskie, PhD, has made an exciting leap forward in understanding how skin heals, which could lead to drug treatments to vastly improve wound healing. The study, published in the scientific journal Cell Stem Cell, was co-led by Dr. Sepideh Abbasi, PhD, Sarthak Sinha, MD/PhD candidate and Dr. Elodie Labit, PhD, postdoctoral fellow.

"We identified a specific population of progenitor cells that reside within the dermis, the deep connective tissue of the skin. Progenitor cells, are unique in that they are able to undergo cell division and generate many new cells to either maintain or repair tissues. Following injury, these dermal progenitors become activated, proliferate and then migrate into the wound where they generate nearly all of the new tissue that will fill the wound, both scar and regenerated tissue," says Biernaskie, professor of stem cell biology in the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM), and the Calgary Firefighters Burn Treatment Society Chair in Skin Regeneration and Wound Healing.

Biernaskie's intensive study, five years in the making, offers new knowledge on why certain dermal cells are able to regenerate new skin, rather than disfiguring scar tissue. Using cutting-edge genomics techniques to profile thousands of individual cells at different times after injury, the research team compared scar-forming versus regenerative zones within skin wounds.

"Remarkably, we found that although these cells come from the same cellular origin, different microenvironments within the wound activate entirely different sets of genes. Meaning, the signals found within 'regenerative zones' of the wound promote re-activation of genes that are typically engaged during skin development. Whereas, in scar-forming zones these pro-regenerative programs are absent or suppressed and scar-forming programs dominate."

Working with these findings, the researchers then showed it's possible to modify the genetic programs that govern skin regeneration.

"What we've shown is that you can alter the wound environment with drugs, or modify the genetics of these progenitor cells directly, and both are sufficient to change their behaviour during wound healing. And that can have really quite impressive effects on healing that includes regeneration of new hair follicles, glands and fat within the wounded skin," says Biernaskie.

This research offers critical insights into the molecular signals that drive scar formation during wound healing and it identifies a number of genetic signals that are able to overcome fibrosis and promote true regeneration of adult skin.

"This proof of principle is really important, because it suggests that the adult wound-responsive cells do in fact harbor a latent regenerative capacity, it just simply needs to be unmasked," says Biernaskie. "Now, we are actively looking for additional pathways that may be involved. Our hope is to develop a cocktail of drugs that we could safely administer in humans and animals to entirely prevent genetic programs that initiate scar formation in order to greatly improve the quality of skin healing."

Researchers, who remotely videotaped a generation of wild chimpanzees learning to use tools, gain insights into how technology came to define human culture.

Using the now-ubiquitous manmade technology of motion-activated cameras, researchers who remotely watched 25 immature chimpanzees grow up have documented how humankind's closest relatives living in the Congo Basin acquire their unique tool skills for harvesting termites, a favorite nutrient-rich element of the chimpanzee diet.

Unlike chimpanzees in East and West Africa, who use a single tool to extract termites, chimpanzees in Central Africa's Congo Basin use tool sets--puncturing sticks or perforating twigs plus fishing probes--to harvest the insects from underground nests or towering earthen mounds scattered across lowland forests. Arguably, chimpanzees living in this region have the most sophisticated arsenal of tool-using skills documented in the animal kingdom. Not only do they use specialized tool sets to harvest termites, ants, and honey, but they customize the implements with different modifications to improve their efficiency.

Trying to untangle how chimpanzees in the Congo Basin acquire these complex tool tasks, University of Miami biological anthropologist Stephanie Musgrave screened thousands of hours of video that recorded visits to termite nests, including those by forest elephants, leopards, and gorillas, in the Republic of Congo's Goualougo Triangle. Her reward was identifying more than 660 hours of periodic visits by 25 young chimpanzees belonging to a notoriously elusive subspecies of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes troglodytes). Recorded over 15 years, this footage captured the development of their tool-using skills from birth until maturity.

Now, in the first study assessing when Central African chimpanzees learn to use and make their unique termite-extracting tool sets, Musgrave and fellow researchers with the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project provide novel insights into how chimpanzee cultures persist over generations--and perhaps how technology came to be a defining aspect of human evolution.

"Chimpanzees have the most complex tool behaviors of any animals outside of humans, so studying how their youngsters become proficient at these tasks can help us better understand how early humans might have acquired complex technological skills," said Musgrave, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and lead author of the study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

"Examining the development of these perishable tool kits is of particular interest because our ancestors likely also used perishable tools--made of plants rather than stone--but these tools are not preserved in the archeological record," she added.

For their study, Musgrave and her co-authors--Elizabeth Lonsdorf, David Morgan, and Crickette Sanz--conducted the first, direct comparison of tool skill acquisition between two populations of chimpanzees, those at Goualougo and those more than 1,300 miles to the east, in Gombe, Tanzania.

Lonsdorf, a professor of psychology at Franklin & Marshall College, studies chimpanzees at Gombe, the oldest field study of wild chimpanzees established by renowned primatologist Jane Goodall 60 years ago. Morgan, of Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, and Sanz, of Washington University in St. Louis, co-founded the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project--the longest-running behavioral study of wild Central African chimpanzees. And, in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, they have studied this population of chimpanzees for more than 20 years. They also pioneered the use of remote video technology to study wild chimpanzee behavior.

For their current study, the research team adapted the methods developed at Gombe for studying the acquisition of tool skills. And, they found notable differences in the timing and sequence in which the chimpanzees in these two populations acquired their termite-gathering skills--differences that could relate to the challenges of using and making multiple tools at Goualougo.

While infants at both Goualougo and Gombe begin trying to use tools within their first two years, the Gombe youngsters learn to make their tools before or at the same time they become proficient at using them. In contrast, the Goualougo youngsters learn to termite fish before acquiring their tool-making skills. In early life, they typically use tools that have been discarded or transferred to them by other, older chimpanzees.

Unlike the Gombe chimpanzees, who use varied materials, the Goualougo chimpanzees also carefully select the materials for their tools, almost always from just a few species of plants. And they modify them to improve their efficiency.

"They have a mental template of the right tool for the job, and there's no mistaking the different tool types," Musgrave said. "Puncturing tools are made from a species of tree that's very durable and resistant, while fishing probes are made from smooth, pliable stems of vegetation. In contrast to Gombe, the chimpanzees at Goualougo fray these probes with their teeth to manufacture a paint-brush-like tip, which makes the tool 10 times more efficient at capturing termites."

After learning to make their own tools, Musgrave discovered, the Goualougo chimpanzees begin to employ them sequentially--using a perforating twig plus a fishing probe to harvest the termites that inhabit the above-ground nests and a puncturing stick plus a fishing probe to extract them from the much-harder-to-pierce underground nests. The latter task is so arduous that the researchers predicted it would be the last mastered and just by a few chimpanzees. They were right.

"I've observed chimpanzees make hundreds of attempts to puncture into a subterranean termite nest," Musgrave said. "Not only does the skill require immense strength but also technical competencies that may continue to develop in adolescence."

The findings underscore how the developmental trajectory of life skills can vary considerably depending on the task and across chimpanzee populations, which have unique local cultures. In the study, the researchers note that the variation in tool traditions between sites could be linked to differences in the role of social input from other chimpanzees.

"In previous research, we documented that mother chimpanzees at Goualougo play a more active and helpful role when compared to mothers at Gombe," Musgrave said. "At Goualougo, mothers are more likely to transfer tools to their offspring. This enhanced assistance could be instrumental in the acquisition of skills over the longer time period."

Figuring out how tool traditions are passed on and how this differs within and between species, Musgrave said, could help humans understand the emergence of cumulative culture during our own evolution.

"One of the key features of human culture is its remarkable complexity," she said. "It's what we call cumulative. Meaning that ideas and innovations accumulate over time, such that new generations inherit and learn to use technologies that are far more complex than any one individual could invent. Comparative studies give us insights into how technology came to be a defining aspect of human evolution."

But, as Musgrave cautioned, the continuation and expansion of such research depends on the long-term preservation of wild chimpanzees and their cultures--which are increasingly endangered by human activities.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- The latest research from the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of agricultural commodity production and distribution, leading to substantial price declines and reduced income for farmers.

Price declines for corn, cotton and soybeans occurred in the first five months of 2020 and are projected to continue. Price reductions associated with the pandemic's market effects have in turn caused a negative impact on farm income and farm-associated expenditures throughout the state.

In anticipation of declining farm income due to price losses, the federal government passed the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). Without CFAP payments, Tennessee corn, soybean, cotton and wheat producers are estimated to have declines in income of $58.8 million, $21.4 million, $20.3 million and $1.2 million, respectively, for a total decline of $101.7 million in producer income for crops in storage. This decline in income is reduced to $43.7 million with CFAP payments. "However, the mitigating effects of CFAP payments do not account for priced inventory, entity payment restrictions or 2019 production caps," said Aaron Smith, associate professor and crop marketing specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ARE). "As such, the estimated $58 million loss in producer income--$101.7 million less $43.7 million--mitigated by the CFAP payments should be considered a maximum, with the actual loss in producer income likely falling somewhere between $43.7 and $101.7 million."

With the temporary closures of restaurants and several beef slaughter and packing plants, the livestock sector has also experienced a large decline in cattle sales for the first four months of 2020, slowing the movement of cattle through the supply chain. Steer and heifer receipts in all weight classes through Tennessee-reported auctions declined by a total of 15,458 head or 24%.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency is accepting CFAP applications through September 11, 2020.

Tennessee's forest product exports have also taken a hit from the COVID-19 outbreak, due to supply and demand disruptions in both the finished wood products markets and the interrelated market for raw materials and inputs. When comparing January-April 2020 to the same period in 2019, Tennessee forest product exports were down by 23% from $62 million to $48 million.

An analysis of the COVID-19 impact on smaller agricultural processing and marketing firms also indicated that most analyzed businesses have suffered marked reductions in sales; however, these reductions varied greatly across the different types of businesses analyzed. "Among those reporting a large negative impact include 71% of apparel manufacturers and 67.5% of beverage and tobacco product manufacturers," said David Hughes, ARE professor and Greever Chair in Agribusiness Development.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters with a visible image of the landfall of Tropical Storm Higos on Aug. 18.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP captured a visible image of Higos as it was making landfall in the Guangdong Province of China on Aug. 19 at 0000 UTC (Aug. 18 at 8 p.m. EDT). Higos came ashore about 18 miles (30 km) south of Macau City. The VIIRS image showed strong thunderstorms wrapped into the center of circulation, and bands of thunderstorms over the South China Sea at the time of the satellite overpass.

On Aug. 19 at 0300 UTC (Aug. 18 at 11 p.m. EDT), Tropical storm Higos had maximum sustained winds near 40 knots (46 mph/74 kph). It was centered about 67 nautical miles west of Hong Kong, China, near latitude 22.3 degrees north and longitude 113.0 degrees east.  Higos was weakening and moving to the northwest.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects Higos to dissipate within a day over China.