Tech

Following a new literature review* of the harm reduction potential of snus, Imperial Brands - owners of leading snus brand Skruf - has urged the European Union (EU) to re-examine its position on the product.

Published in the prestigious Harm Reduction Journal, the scientific literature review encouragingly indicates snus use is not a significant risk factor in the development of several cancers (inc. lung, oral and pancreatic), COPD, cardiovascular disease or diabetes.

The review also contributes to the growing evidence base substantiating the Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) potential of snus compared to smoking, comparing the prevalence of use against the reported incidence of tobacco-related diseases across the EU.

Dr Grant O'Connell, Director of Strategic Science and Policy Engagement at Imperial Brands, comments: "Research suggests the health risks associated with snus use, where nicotine is decoupled from harmful tobacco smoke, are considerably lower - around 90-95%** - than those associated with cigarettes.

"Snus should therefore be officially regarded as a reduced harm tobacco product, as advocated by the United Kingdom Royal College of Physicians*** ."

Dr Alan Hardacre, Head of Group Corporate Affairs at Imperial Brands, adds: "Modern snus is a compelling alternative to the various medically licensed - but largely ineffective - nicotine replacement therapies.

"Given the compelling long-term scientific evidence gathered from Sweden and Norway, we again urge the EU to revisit its ban on snus that's currently in place across the rest of its Member States.

"The ban continues to be detrimental to European public health and so we urge the European Commission to base future decisions on the ever-increasing scientific evidence base demonstrating the harm reduction potential of products like snus."

Dr O'Connell concludes: "We must not let this important opportunity to make a genuine difference to EU-wide public health pass us by."

TROY, N.Y. -- As the lithium-ion batteries that power most phones, laptops, and electric vehicles become increasingly fast-charging and high-performing, they also grow increasingly expensive and flammable.

In research published recently in Energy Storage Materials, a team of engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrated how they could -- by using aqueous electrolytes instead of the typical organic electrolytes -- assemble a substantially safer, cost-efficient battery that still performs well.

If you were to take a look inside a battery, you'd find two electrodes -- an anode and a cathode. These electrodes are immersed in a liquid electrolyte that conducts ions as the battery charges and discharges.

Aqueous electrolytes have been eyed for that role because of their non-flammable nature and because, unlike non-aqueous electrolytes, they aren't sensitive to moisture in the manufacturing process, making them easier to work with and less expensive. The biggest challenge with this material has been maintaining performance.

"If you apply too much voltage to water it electrolyzes, meaning the water breaks up into hydrogen and oxygen," said Nikhil Koratkar, an endowed chair professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer. "This is a problem because then you get outgassing, and the electrolyte is consumed. So usually, this material has a very limited voltage window."

In this research, Koratkar and his team -- which included Fudong Han, an endowed chair assistant professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering and Aniruddha Lakhnot, a doctoral student at Rensselaer -- used a special type of aqueous electrolyte known as a water-in-salt electrolyte, which is less likely to electrolyze.

For the cathode, the researchers used lithium manganese oxide, and for the anode, they used niobium tungsten oxide -- a complex oxide that Koratkar said had not been explored in an aqueous battery before.

"It turns out that niobium tungsten oxide is outstanding in terms of energy stored per unit of volume," Koratkar said. "Volumetrically, this was by far the best result that we have seen in an aqueous lithium-ion battery."

The niobium tungsten oxide, he explained, is relatively heavy and dense. That weight makes its energy storage based on mass about average, but the dense-packing of niobium tungsten oxide particles in the electrode makes its energy storage based on volume quite good. The crystal structure of this material also has well-defined channels -- or tunnels -- that allow lithium ions to diffuse quickly, meaning it can charge quickly.

The combination of fast-charging capability and the ability to store a large amount of charge per unit volume, Koratkar said, is rare in aqueous batteries.

Achieving that kind of performance, with a low cost and improved safety, has practical implications. For emerging applications such as portable electronics, electric vehicles, and grid storage, the ability to pack the maximum amount of energy into a limited volume becomes critical.

Traditional explanations for why some animals are monogamous and others are promiscuous or polygamous have focused on how the distribution and defensibility of resources (such as food, nest sites, or mates) determine whether, for example, one male can attract and defend multiple females.

A new model for the evolution of mating systems focuses instead on social interactions driven by genetically determined behaviors, and how competition among different behavioral strategies plays out, regardless of external factors such as defensible resources. In this model, social interactions can drive evolutionary transitions from one mating system to another, and can even drive a population to split into two separate species with different mating systems.

The model is based on three fundamental behavioral strategies: aggression, cooperation, and deception. The conflict between competitive and cooperative social behaviors drives the evolution of the mating systems. In a paper published December 18 in American Naturalist (online ahead of print publication in the February issue), researchers compared the predictions generated by this model with published data on the mating behavior of 288 species of rodents.

"By and large, everything in our predictions seems to be borne out in rodents," said first author Barry Sinervo, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "Our model is a universal equation of sorts for mating systems."

The evolutionary story that emerges from the study goes something like this: An ancestral population of rodents is promiscuous in its mating behavior. Genetic variation within the population results in individuals with distinctive behaviors. Some males are highly aggressive, defend large territories, and mate with as many females as they can. Others are not territorial, but sneak onto the territories of other males for surreptitious mating opportunities. And some are monogamous and defend small territories, cooperating with neighboring males at territorial boundaries.

These three types can coexist, but any imbalance in the relative advantages of different strategies can lead to the elimination of some behaviors and an evolutionary transition to a species that is, for example, entirely monogamous or entirely polygamous. The cooperative behavior of monogamous males, for example, can include paternal care for the young and the ability recognize and affiliate with other cooperative males, making them stronger in the competition with other strategies.

"They are able to find each other and form colonies, and the bigger the colonies get the stronger they are against the barbarians at the gate. Then they split off from the rest of the population as a separate monogamous species," Sinervo said.

This may sound like little more than storytelling, but in fact it emerges from a set of mathematical equations based on game theory and population genetics, and it is supported by extensive research in animal behavior and genetics.

The new paper builds on Sinervo's decades-long research on mating behaviors in California's side-blotched lizards. He showed that three throat colors correspond with different behaviors in the male lizards: blue-throated monogamous males form partnerships and cooperate to protect their territories and their mates; orange-throated males are highly aggressive and usurp territories and mates from other lizards; and yellow-throated males sneak into the territories of other males to mate.

The competition between these strategies takes the form of a rock-paper-scissors game in which orange aggressors defeat blue cooperators, which defeat yellow sneakers, which defeat orange aggressors. Thus, no single type can dominate the population, and the abundance of each rises and falls in cycles. In 2007, Sinervo and his collaborators discovered the same dynamic in the distantly related European common lizard.

"That was when I started thinking that the same thing could be happening in mammals," Sinervo said.

In the new paper, Sinervo and two of his longtime collaborators--Alexis Chaine at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Moulis, France, and Donald Miles at CNRS and Ohio University--generalized the rock-paper-scissors system and extended it to include additional behaviors such as paternal care for offspring (linked to monogamy). They focused on male strategies to simplify the analysis. Sinervo has documented corresponding female strategies in side-blotched lizards and is currently working to incorporate female strategies into the general model.

The three male behavioral strategies represented in the model are:
- Polygyny, characterized by aggression to maintain large territories overlapping with several females, but without paternal care for the offspring, as seen in polygamous mating systems where one male mates with multiple females;
- Monogamy, involving lower aggression and smaller territories, with cooperation at territorial boundaries and investment in paternal care; and
- Sneak, a non-territorial strategy with no paternal care, resulting in sneaking behavior in otherwise territorial systems.

Using a computer to run a mathematical model of these strategies, the researchers simulated the evolution of mating systems over 1,000 generations, varying the strength of different parameters in each simulation. At the start of the simulations, the genes that determine the different strategies were assumed to be equally abundant in the population.

The results of the simulations revealed four evolutionarily stable outcomes determined by the interactions and payoffs (in terms of reproductive success) of the different behavioral strategies. Which stable outcome emerges depends on how much of an advantage each behavior provides.

One of the key factors influencing the effectiveness of a given strategy is a male's ability to recognize which behavioral group other males belong to and choose a neighborhood to settle in where his own strategy will have a competitive advantage. Cooperative, monogamous males need to recognize and affiliate with other cooperative males, whereas aggressive, polygynous males want to avoid other aggressive males and find cooperative males whose territories they can take over.

"It all depends on how good you are at finding the right neighborhood, or how good you are at cooperation and paternal care. By varying these parameters in the model, we were able to find the four different evolutionarily stable states," Sinervo said.

One stable outcome is the rock-paper-scissors dynamic documented in lizards, with the coexistence of all three male strategies. Another stable outcome is the coexistence of polygyny and sneak.

There are two stable outcomes in which only one strategy survives, either polygyny or monogamy. A mix of polygyny and monogamy is rare and unstable, eventually leading to a pure system of one or the other.

Turning to the empirical data, the researchers found evidence in studies of rodent behavior and territoriality of the mating systems and behavioral strategies described in the model. There is even a type of mole rat found in southern Africa that exhibits the rock-paper-scissors combo of all three male strategies that Sinervo discovered in lizards. He noted that, whereas mutual recognition of male strategies is based on throat colors in the lizards, in mammals it is more likely to be mediated by smells. "It's there, but we don't see it. We only saw it in lizards because of their bright colors," he said.

The researchers analyzed the phylogenetic tree of rodents (representing the evolutionary relationships among rodent species) and found the same patterns they had seen in the simulations. Species at the base of the phylogenetic tree, closer to the common ancestor of all rodents, tend to be promiscuous, with multiple mating strategies. Polygyny and monogamy very rarely occur together, but they frequently appear in sister species, suggesting they diverged from an ancestral population of mixed strategies.

The model showed that evolutionary transitions in mating systems are largely driven by increases in the benefits of monogamous behaviors. In rodents, monogamy is the most common evolutionary transition from a promiscuous ancestor, and more rodents are monogamous than polygynous. In the simulations, pure polygyny is a relatively uncommon outcome. "Polygyny is readily invaded by the sneak strategy," Sinervo explained.

Paternal care for the offspring is found in all monogamous species, supporting a key assumption linking paternal care to the evolution of monogamy.

"Promiscuity is very common, and can involve two or three different strategies. But the neat thing is that cooperation and monogamy are far more common than anyone realized," Sinervo said. "The frequency of monogamy in rodents is about 26 percent, much higher than for mammals in general and similar to primates."

The model assumes that these behavioral strategies are genetically based. Evidence in support of this includes research on the role of the hormone vasopressin (and the related hormone oxytocin) in complex social behaviors in numerous species, including rodents and humans. In the monogamous prairie voles, for example, vasopressin has been linked to pair bonding, mate guarding, and paternal care. In some rodent lineages, evolutionary transitions between monogamy and polygyny have been linked to a mutation in a vasopressin receptor gene.

The effects of the genes underlying monogamous behaviors may even drive the evolution of more advanced forms of sociality. Highly social species of rodents--such as mole rats, some of which live in colonies in which only one pair reproduces--originate from monogamous lineages.

Sinervo and his coauthors are not claiming that resources and other external ecological factors have no role in the evolution of mating systems. But the genetic model gives predictions that are consistent with the rodent data and can explain cases where a species' mating system does not match its resource ecology.

The authors also acknowledged that animal behavior can be very flexible and is not entirely determined by genetics. This is especially true in humans, whose behavior is so strongly influenced by cultural and environmental factors. In terms of mating systems, our species can be described as promiscuous, but with very high rates of monogamy. Sinervo said he sees a connection between monogamy and the deeply cooperative social behaviors that are at the core of the human condition.

"We can see analogues for human behavior in other animals, but there's really nothing else like humans," Sinervo said. "There are 'kneejerk' behavioral impulses in us that are not far from rodents, but our cultural and social complexity makes us very different from most mammals."

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (Dec. 19, 2019) - Researchers working on an Army-funded project have developed an algorithm to simulate how electromagnetic waves interact with materials in devices to create equipment more efficiently and accurately. The algorithm could be used in a wide range of fields - from biology and astronomy to military applications and telecommunications.

Electromagnetic waves exist as radiation of energies from charges and other quantum processes. They include radio waves, microwaves, light and X-rays. Mobile phones communicate by transmitting radio waves.

It takes a tremendous amount of computer simulations to create a device like an MRI scanner that images the brain by detecting electromagnetic waves propagating through tissue. Those simulations can take days or months to identify how the electromagnetic waves will react when they encounter the materials in the device. Because of the cost, there is a limit to the number of simulations typically done for these devices.

With funding from the Army Research Office, in a study, published in the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, SMU (Southern Methodist University) researchers revealed a faster algorithm for these simulations. It is a more efficient and less expensive way to predict the behavior of waves.

"We can reduce the simulation time from one month, to maybe one hour," said lead researcher Wei Cai, SMU Clements Chair of applied mathematics. "We have made a breakthrough in these algorithms."

"Electromagnetic waves are central to many important applications in sensing, power, and communication. Being able to conduct related simulations faster and less expensively will have many military applications," said Dr. Joseph Myers, Army Research Office Mathematical Sciences Division chief. ARL is an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "For example, this work will help create a virtual laboratory for scientists to simulate and explore quantum dot solar cells, which could produce extremely small, efficient and lightweight solar military equipment."

The new algorithm modifies a mathematical method called the fast multipole method, or FMM, which was considered one of the top 10 algorithms in the 20th century.

Using this new algorithm, the computer simulations map out how materials in a device like semiconductor materials will interact with light, in turn giving a sense of what a particular wave will do when it comes in contact with that device.

An engineer or mathematician would be able to use this new algorithm to test a device whose job is to pick out a certain electromagnetic wave. For instance, it could be used to test designs for a solar light battery that lasts longer and is smaller than currently exists.

"To design a battery that is small in size, you need to optimize the material so that you can get the maximum conversion rate from the light energy to electricity," Cai said. "An engineer could find that maximum conversion rate by going through simulations faster with this algorithm."

The algorithm could also help an engineer design a seismic monitor to predict earthquakes by tracking elastic waves in the earth, Cai noted.

"These are all waves, and our method applies for different kinds of waves," he said. "There are a wide range of applications with what we have developed."

The computational system used for this project, the SMU MANEFRAME II, is descended from the Army high-performance computing system "Mana," formerly located at the Maui HPC Center in Hawaii, and donated and physically moved to SMU through the efforts of ARO and SMU.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - It's a familiar scene to anyone who's watched footage of brown bears catching sockeye salmon in Alaska: They're standing knee-deep in a rushing river, usually near a waterfall, and grabbing passing fish with their paws or jaws.

But a new study published in the journal Conservation Letters reveals a different picture of how and when bears eat salmon. Most of these bears, also known as grizzlies, are dipping into small streams to capture their iconic prey.

Using a foraging model based on the Wood River basin in southwest Alaska, a study team led by Oregon State University determined that while small-stream habitats have only about 20% of the available salmon in the watershed, they provide 50% of bear consumption of salmon.

"This tells us that populations of sockeye salmon that spawn in little streams are disproportionately important to bears," said study lead author Jonny Armstrong, an ecologist at Oregon State University. "Bears profit from these small streams because they offer salmon at unique times of the season. To capitalize on plentiful salmon runs, bears need them to be spread across time."

Small streams typically have cold water, which leads to populations of salmon that spawn much earlier in the season when no other populations are available to predators such as bears.

These results have potential consequences for how environmental impact assessments are conducted and evaluated for large projects such as the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska's Bristol Bay.

These reports typically focus on how the project will affect the abundance of salmon in lakes and rivers, but they usually overlook smaller habitats, Armstrong said.

"When people want to build a large mine, they think these streams don't matter because they represent a small fraction a watershed, in terms of area or salmon abundance. In conservation and management, we generally place value on the largest runs of salmon at the expense of the smallest ones," Armstrong said. "If we pose a different question and ask which habitats are important for the ecosystem, then small streams become particularly relevant."

The researchers developed a mathematical model that explores how watershed development and commercial fisheries affect how many sockeye salmon are available to grizzlies. The model simulated different patterns of development and explored how they affected the number of salmon bears consumed.

Protecting large salmon runs at the expense of smaller ones turned out to be bad for bears.

"This causes the bears' total salmon consumption to drop off faster compared to strategies that protected small salmon runs and the early feeding opportunities they offer to bears," Armstrong said. "If you impair these areas, you may only reduce the total number of salmon by a little, but the number of salmon that end up in bear's stomachs - you could reduce that a lot."

According to the study authors, there are two significant reasons why the largest bears in the world are drawn to small streams to eat salmon.

First, the fish in these streams are easy to catch for adult and juvenile grizzlies. And second, because the water is colder than in lakes and rivers, salmon spawn in them earlier - probably to give their eggs more time to incubate, the authors said. So, the fish are plentiful by the first week of July - making them the first places bears fish after they emerge from hibernation.

"When they come out of hibernation, the bears are just scraping by and barely making it," Armstrong said. "Having these streams means they can start eating salmon in early July, which is about six weeks before the river- and lake-salmon populations start spawning and become available to bears. It's an incredible foraging opportunity for bears."

Armstrong added, "I'm sure that native Alaskans who subsisted on salmon were keenly aware of this, too."

For the first time, scientists have discovered the molecular mechanism behind how a common virus can wreak havoc on bone marrow and organ transplant patients, according to a paper published in the journal Cell & Host Microbe. The finding could help researchers develop better drugs to prevent related transplant complications.

Cytomegalovirus, also known as CMV, is a common virus that infects more than half of U.S. adults by age 40. Although the vast majority of CMV infections don't cause obvious symptoms, the virus can cause serious illness and even death in patients who undergo transplants. One of the symptoms transplant patients experience is reduced blood cell production in bone marrow, which increases the risk of life-threatening bacterial and fungal infections.

"We've known for about 40 years that CMV is key to many of the complications transplant patients experience," said the study's lead researcher, Jay Nelson, Ph.D., professor, founder and director of Oregon Health & Science University's Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute and a core scientist at OHSU Oregon National Primate Research Center. "But it wasn't until now that we were able to determine exactly how CMV causes these problems."

Physicians already prescribe antiviral drugs to reduce the amount of active CMV in a transplant patient's system. However, these drugs don't prevent reduced blood cell production. Nelson and his colleagues suspected the reason anti-CMV drugs don't work is because they target active infection. CMV can also be latent, meaning it's present but not actively creating an infectious virus.

The study's lead authors, Meaghan Hancock, Ph.D., and Lindsey Crawford, Ph.D., predicted that even when CMV is inactive, it still produces genetic material that maintains the virus in the cell and is involved in reduced blood production.

The research team identified a tiny piece of genetic material called microRNA US5-2, which specifically leads to the production of a cell-signaling protein called Transforming Growth Factor Beta, or TGF-?, which results in bone marrow suppression for some transplant patients.

Nelson and his colleague will now explore drugs that target the TGF-? protein and test its effectiveness against bone marrow suppression in animal models.

New research by University of Alberta biologists uses a new approach to modelling the populations of six species of songbirds in Canada's boreal forest--and the results show that standard modeling methods may not be accurately capturing species distribution patterns.

The study shows that birds of the same species do not necessarily use the same habitats in different parts of the boreal forest, a phenomenon they termed differential habitat selection. They developed habitat models to account for this process to give better estimates of population size and distribution.

"Knowing how species select habitats differently in different parts of their range is an important first step towards a better understanding of their ecology and how populations will respond to human disturbances and conservation efforts," explained Andrew Crosby, postdoctoral fellow who works with Professor Erin Bayne in the Department of Biological Sciences.

The researchers examined nearly 20 years of population data following six boreal songbird species in the Canadian boreal forest, including the Blackburnian warbler, the Black-throated Green warbler, the Brown creeper, the Canada warbler, the Cape May warbler, and the Connecticut warbler. The results clearly show spatial variability in habitat selection within species.

"Bird populations may not respond to changing environmental conditions the way we expect them to if we assume that habitat selection is the same under all conditions and in all places," said Crosby. "This means that the same management actions will likely have different effects in different places. Policies and management strategies will be much more effective if they are tailored specifically for different regions."

The research provides a path forward for improving conservation planning and information for making informed policy decisions and resource allocation.

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 19, 2019 -- The smuggling of contraband, such as explosives and drugs, is a major threat in airport security. These risks have increased in modern times with the uptick in parcel delivery, but security inspection methods have not seen any significant improvements.

In the journal AIP Advances, from AIP Publishing, researchers at Tongji University and Zhejiang University City College propose a new technique for the efficient security detection of contraband items. Typically, airport security uses X-ray imaging to quickly scan through baggage, but this method suffers many limitations.

"In the field of security inspection, the X-ray apparatus is the most important device," said Baozhong Mu, a professor at Tongji University. "However, an X-ray apparatus can't distinguish explosives, drugs and raw materials from usual organic matter."

To address this, luggage with suspicious X-ray results undergoes supplementary screening using a method called energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction. With EDXRD, every material has its own unique fingerprint, so the pattern of light created by the scan can be used to identify a suspicious substance in a bag. Despite this important capability, EDXRD can only cover small, thin areas, making it inefficient as a primary screening mechanism.

The group developed an EDXRD system capable of examining thick objects without the need to conduct multiple scans at different locations. By placing an array of detectors into a spiral setup, the total detection area increases.

Using a test spiral setup of five detectors, the group was able to identify the EDXRD fingerprints of concealed objects and illicit drugs placed anywhere within a bag that was about 4 inches thick. By adding more detectors into the spiral setup, the detection depth can be increased to cover the average luggage size.

"Accurately identifying explosives and drugs without opening the bag was thought to be impossible," Mu said.

With an increased detection depth, the EDXRD spiral array setup can be used to distinguish individual items within an entire suitcase. "This technology is expected to be widely used in five years," he said.

A so-called "tooth-on-a-chip" could one day enable more personalized dentistry, giving dentists the ability to identify dental filling materials that work better and last longer based on a patient's own teeth and oral microbiome.

The miniaturized tooth system is a thin slice of a human molar placed in between transparent rubber slides that are etched with tiny channels, through which fluids flow. The research device mimics a real tooth with a cavity, which allows fluids and bacteria to move between the cavity opening and the inner tooth. Scientists use a microscope to observe the tooth as it interacts with materials and bacteria.

While other mini organs such as livers and lungs have been placed on chips like this for research purposes, this is the first time an organ-on-a-chip system has been created for dental research, reports a paper published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Lab on a Chip.

"Today's cavity fillings don't work as well as they should. They last for five, seven years on average, and then they break off," said the paper's corresponding author, Luiz E. Bertassoni, D.D.S., Ph.D., associate professor of restorative dentistry in the OHSU School of Dentistry and biomedical engineering in the OHSU School of Medicine.

"They don't work because we haven't been able to figure out what's happening at the interface of the tooth and the filling," Bertassoni continued. "This device can help address that by giving us a close-up view of what's happening there in real time. Years from now, dentists could extract a tooth from a patient, load it into this device, observe how a dental filling material interacts with the tooth, and pick a material that's best for that particular patient."

The device is designed to help scientists better understand the innerworkings of dental cells in their natural environment. For example, researchers could use the tooth-on-a-chip to better understand how teeth form and how they respond biologically to all sorts of injuries and treatments.

"It opens up a new window into the complexity of dental care that could change the way we do dentistry quite significantly," Bertassoni said.

ADELPHI, Md. (Dec. 19, 2019) -- This year has had its share of science and technology advances from Army researchers. The U.S. Army CCDC Army Research Laboratory, the Army's corporate research laboratory, has the mission to discover, innovate and transition science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power.

The lab's chief scientist, Dr. Alexander Kott, picked the coolest advances to showcase what Army scientists and engineers are doing to support the Soldier of the future with a top 10 list from 2019:

Number 10: Artificial muscles made from plastic

Future Army robots will be the strongest in the world, if visionary researchers have their way. Robots could be armed with artificial muscles made from plastic.

Army researchers collaborated with a visiting professor from Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering to study how plastic fibers respond when they are twisted and coiled into a spring. Different stimuli cause the spring to contract and expand, mimicking natural muscles.

The team's expertise in polymer science and chemical engineering helped to identify optimal material property values to achieve the desired artificial muscle performance targets, and helped develop and implement techniques to measure those material properties.

Artificial muscles could potentially augment robot performance, allowing our future mechanical partners to buff up, and pump more iron.

Number 9: Monitoring Soldier health and performance with biorecognition receptors

Army and academic researchers are looking at how to monitor Soldier health and performance in real-time, by developing unique biorecognition receptors. These future bioreceptors are small, simple to produce, inexpensive, and robust to environmental stresses.

Once integrated into wearable biosensors, data can be selectively captured from a complex mixture of sources in theater, like blood, sweat or saliva.

"The Army will need to be more adaptive, more expeditionary and have a near-zero logistic demand while optimizing individual to squad execution in multifaceted operational environments," said Dr. Matt Coppock, chemist and team lead. "It can be envisioned that real-time health and performance monitoring, as well as sensing current and emerging environmental threats, could be a key set of tools to make this possible."

The Army of the future may use these wearable sensors to monitor environmental biothreats and health diagnostics, all with great benefits to the Soldier. Chemical Reviews published this research (see Related Links below).

Number 8: A water-based, fire-proof battery

Army researchers and their partners at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have developed a new, water-based and fire-proof battery.

"Our project addresses the risk by allowing high-energy or high-power batteries to be put on the Soldier with no risk of the batteries catching on fire," said Dr. Arthur von Wald Cresce, an Army materials engineer. "We're hoping that by designing safety into the battery, this concern goes away and Soldiers can use their batteries as they please."

These aqueous lithium-ion batteries replace the highly flammable electrolyte in lithium-ion batteries, using a nonflammable, water-based solvent--and also using a lithium salt that is not heat-sensitive, allowing for batteries to be stored and used at a much broader range of temperatures.

Cresce and the team first collaborated with scientists at the University of Maryland to study the properties of a new class of aqueous electrolytes known as water-in-salt electrolytes and published their findings in the journal Science (see Related Links below).

Number 7: Generating power on-demand with hydrogen

Imagine if you could generate power on-demand, using just a tablet and some water.

Army researchers are exploring potential applications for a structurally-stable, aluminum-based nanogalvonic alloy that reacts with any water-based liquid to produce on-demand hydrogen--generating power without a catalyst.

"Imagine a squad of future Soldiers on a long-range patrol far from base with dead batteries and a desperate need to fire up their radio," said Dr. Kris Darling, Army materials scientist. "One of the Soldiers reaches for a metal tablet and drops it into a container and adds water or some fluid that contains water such as urine, immediately the tablet dissolves and hydrogen is released into a fuel cell, providing instant power for the radio."

Number 6: 3-D printing ultra-strong steel

A team of Army researchers have developed a way to 3-D print ultra-strong metal parts, by adapting an alloy originally developed by the Air Force into powder form.

With a method called Powder Bed Fusion, a 3-D printer's laser selectively melts the powder into a pattern. The printer then coats the build plate with additional layers of powder until the part is complete.

The end result is a piece of steel that feels like it was forged traditionally, but has intricate design features that no mold could create, and is about 50% stronger than anything commercially available.

"I think it's going to really revolutionize logistics," said Dr. Brandon McWilliams, an Army team lead. "Additive manufacturing is going to have a huge impact on sustainment...instead of worrying about carrying a whole truckload, or convoys loads of spares, as long as you have raw materials and a printer, you can potentially make anything you need."

Researchers say this capability has the potential to replace parts of today's tanks, or support future, state-of-the-art systems.

Number 5: Human interest detector

Have you ever wanted to get inside a Soldier's head? Army researchers have developed a human interest detector that can determine where people are looking and decode their brain activity.

By monitoring brainwaves, researchers track neural responses and assess what captures a Soldier's attention among a myriad of stimuli in threat environments.

Researchers say this will lead to better situational awareness on the battlefield, enable commanders to make better decisions and ultimately improve the ability of the Soldier to team with future AI agents.

Number 4: AI to identify fuel-efficient materials

A new system of algorithmic bots could tackle the most complex challenges beyond human experimental capabilities.

Building on amazing successes in artificial intelligence, which can even win a game like Jeopardy, Army-funded researchers at Cornell University developed a system called CRYSTAL to explore new materials for long-lasting power for Soldiers. CRYSTAL relies on a collective of algorithmic bots that sift through hundreds of thousands of combinations and elements--a number so vast that it's inaccessible through traditional experimentation.

The system is able to obey the laws of physics and chemistry--where existing machine learning approaches fail--and could identify the next generation of material breakthroughs that will equip Soldiers on the future battlefield.

"The exciting part about basic science research is you can't always predict where the results will lead," said Dr. Purush Iyer, division chief, network sciences at Army Research Office. "We funded this research to better understand collective intelligence (wisdom of crowds). While material science application, such as design of novel alloys, were always on the cards, the serendipitous nature of the eventual outcome, that of a catalyst to aid in designing better fuel cells, is solving a problem of immense importance for the Army--battery power in the field--shows the importance of investing in basic research."

The Materials Research Society Communications published an article (see Related Links below).

Number 3: Robotic arrays for directional communication

An Army team has developed a new way to send directional radio signals in physically complex environments. The team designed small robotic platforms with compact, low frequency antennas and AI to create a system which adaptively self-organizes into a directional antenna array.

Although multi-directional radiation is not possible in low-frequency, this array is configured to emit an omni-directional radiation pattern, creating a directional link on-demand.

A robot with a compact, low-frequency antenna coordinates with other robotic teammates having passive unpowered antennas which help focus the electromagnetic field in a desired direction. Add more robots and the array becomes more focused and has increased range and reliability.

This enables robust and targeted wireless communication at increased ranges through buildings and in challenging urban and subterranean environments.

Number 2: Self-healing material

Imagine a synthetic material that could heal itself when damaged.

Army researchers and their partners at Texas A&M have developed a reversible cross-linking epoxy that is 3-D-printable and is self-healing at room temperature without any additional stimulus or healing agent. The unique chemistry of the material even enables it to be programmed to morph shape when stimulated with temperature.

Army researchers are exploring whether these materials could create reconfigurable Army platforms of the future that could morph shapes on-demand.

Number 1: Soldier-robot teams

How do you train a robot how to think in unknown scenarios--when you don't know what the future battlefield will look like, and you have no control to modify the environment to meet the robot's abilities?

Army researchers have been developing new algorithms and capabilities that are unseen in industry--enabling autonomous agents such as robots to operate in these unknown environments such as future battlefields.

These algorithms are creating the brain of robots, to equip them to interact with unforeseen objects and in unknown scenarios, ultimately preparing them to partner with Soldiers on the future battlefield, whatever it might look like.

Osteoporotic vertebral fractures (OVFs) are a prevalent skeletal condition in the elderly, which occurs due to a net loss in bone density with the inevitable onset of aging. Unfortunately, they are largely under-diagnosed until detected by clinicians through radiological scans. These fractures have a huge impact on daily lifestyle as the spine is responsible for bodily movements and stability. However, the mechanism behind these fractures remain unclear due to the complex physiological interplay between spinal segments. As such, the fractures are asymptomatic and not clinically noticed until it is sustained by patients.

Extensive research is ongoing in the investigation of alternative biomarkers to assess bone strength and consequently allow prediction of fractures before they are sustained. One such biomarker is the computational prediction of failure load through numerical simulation, also known popularly as finite element analysis. With this analysis, not only is non-invasive examination of the spine possible, but a holistic quantitative evaluation of the bone strength too.

Yet, most of the research is focused on the biomechanical analysis of vertebral segments in isolation. The spine consists of many different spinal segments, with majority of the loading borne by the vertebra and intervertebral discs. Hence it is essential to include these afore-mentioned load-bearing segments when considering the structural strength of spine. Functional spinal units have the advantage of mimicking the biomechanical requirements of the spine better than isolated vertebral segments.

This investigation, recently published in the Spine Journal by the Singapore University of Technology and Design's (SUTD) Medical Engineering and Design (MED) Laboratory, in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich, introduced a semi-automatic computational clinical tool that aims to extract structural information, such as failure load, from radiological scans of patients using functional spinal units. Through this study, it was demonstrated that routine clinical scans can be a feasible resource for accurate prediction of OVFs using patient-specific finite element analysis of functional spinal units. These results will then pave the way for a spinal risk assessment tool to be developed and used by clinicians (refer to image).

Improved management of OVFs is essential amidst current clinical challenges. Understanding in detail the causes of OVFs will help organizations looking to tackle the increasing morbidity and mortality rates of the aging population, which poses unnecessary socio-economic burden on society. Implementation of a semi-automatic clinical tool vertebral strength assessment tool could also result in more accurate prediction of osteoporotic fracture risk and aid clinicians with better targeted early treatment strategies.

"Considering the world is aging rapidly, osteoporotic bone fractures are also increasing significantly. So, there is an urgent need to implement computational biomechanical analysis in the clinical scenario since it is a powerful tool for non-invasive evaluation of bone strength. Accordingly, this work lays the foundation towards extracting valuable structural information from improved spine models, such as functional spinal units, in the diagnosis of osteoporosis and prediction of OVFs," said lead researcher, Assistant Professor Subburaj Karupppasamy from SUTD's Engineering Product Development pillar.

Password meters are frequently made available to help users secure their personal data against the threats posed by cyber criminals.

However, the 'inconsistent and misleading' advice offered on some of the world's most popular websites could actually be doing more harm than good, according to new research.

A study by the University of Plymouth assessed the effectiveness of 16 password meters that people are likely to use or encounter on a regular basis.

The main focus was dedicated password meter websites, but the study also sought to assess those embedded in some common online services (including Dropbox and Reddit) and those found as standard on some of our devices.

Published in Computer Fraud and Security, the research says there is a clear level of variation in the advice offered across the different websites.

And while some meters do effectively steer users towards more secure account passwords, some will not pick them up when they try to use 'abc123', 'qwertyuiop' and 'iloveyou' - all listed this week among the worst passwords of 2019.

The study was conducted by Steve Furnell, P rofessor of Information Security and Leader of the University's Centre for Security, Communications & Network Research.

He has previously suggested that global IT giants including Amazon and LinkedIn could be doing far more to raise awareness of the need for better password practices.

He has also shown that over the space of a decade, most of the top ten English-speaking websites had not expanded the password guidance they offer consumers amid the increased threat of global cyber-attacks.

Commenting on the latest research, Professor Furnell said: "Over the festive period, hundreds of millions of people will receive technology presents or use their devices to purchase them. The very least they should expect is that their data will be secure and, in the absence of a replacement for passwords, providing them with consistent and informed guidance is key in the quest for better security.

"What this study shows is that some of the available meters will flag an attempted password as being a potential risk whereas others will deem it acceptable. Security awareness and education is hard enough, without wasting the opportunity by offering misleading information that leaves users misguided and with a false sense of security."

The study tested 16 passwords against the various meters, with 10 of them being ranked among the world's most commonly used passwords (including 'password' and '123456').

Of the 10 explicitly weak passwords, only five of them were consistently scored as such by all the password meters, while 'Password1!' performed far better than it should do and was even rated strongly by three of the meters.

However, one positive finding was that a browser-generated password was consistently rated strong, meaning users can seemingly trust these features to do a good job.

Writing in the study's conclusion, Professor Furnell added: "Password meters themselves are not a bad idea, but you clearly need to be using or providing the right one. It is also worth remembering that, regardless of how the meters handled them, many systems and sites would still accept the weak passwords in practice and without having offered users any advice or feedback on how to make better choices.

"While all the attention tends to focus on the replacement of passwords, the fact is that we continue to use them with little or no attempt being made to support users in doing so properly. Credible password meters can have a valuable role to play but misleading meters work against the interest of security and can simply give further advantage to attackers."

Most (93 per cent) mobile apps for suicide prevention and depression management do not provide all the six suicide prevention strategies that are commonly recommended in international clinical guidelines, a study led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has found.

International guidelines from the UK, US and the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommend six evidence-based strategies for preventing suicide: the tracking of mood and suicidal thoughts, development of a safety plan, recommendation of activities to deter suicidal thoughts, information and educational articles on signs of suicidality, access to support networks, and emergency counselling.

The majority of the apps surveyed in the study provided emergency contact information and direct access to a crisis helpline but the team led by Associate Professor Josip Car from the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) at NTU Singapore found that less than one in ten provided the full set of strategies for suicide prevention.

Most apps included at least three suicide prevention approaches, most commonly emergency contact information (94 per cent of apps tested), direct access to a crisis helpline (67 per cent) and suicide-related education (51 per cent).

Incorrect emergency telephone numbers were found in several apps available worldwide. Among the apps providing incorrect information were two that had been downloaded more than one million times each.

"Some patients may feel more at ease discussing their mental condition online than in person," said Assoc Prof Car, who is Director of NTU's Centre for Population Health Sciences. "They also consider the internet accessible, affordable and convenient. With the high rates of smartphone use around the world, health apps can be a crucial addition in the way users manage their health and wellbeing on a global scale."

"However, for this to become a reality, health app development and release should follow a transparent, evidence-based model," added Assoc Prof Car, who also leads NTU's WHO Collaborating Centre for Digital Health and Health Education.

The study, published online in the journal BMC Medicine today, highlights the need for responsible design and creation of guidelines for apps that could have great impact on people's lives.

How the study was done

There are about 318,000 healthcare apps globally today on the Apple App store and Google Play, of which more than 10,000 are mental health apps. But even as digital mental health interventions seem to offer a promising alternative to in-person visits, according to researchers, very few apps available in the app stores have been evaluated in clinical trials or by regulatory bodies.

In this study, the NTU-led team looked at 69 apps sourced through a systematic search on Apple's App Store and Google Play. 20 were depression management apps and 46 suicide prevention apps. Of the 69, 3 apps covered both conditions. The apps were identified based on keywords used to describe them and selected through a set of criteria including the stated target users, and provision of advice to prevent suicide attempts. The researchers then assessed the apps against the clinical strategies stated in the international guidelines, using a series of 50 criteria-based questions.

Accurate information key to digital-based support

Referring to examples of apps in the study that offered the full set of strategies, Dr Daniel Fung, Chairman of the Medical Board at Singapore's Institute of Mental Health, who was not part of the research team, said, "It is possible to develop support in an automated system that can be stratified to deliver both offline and live help through a combination of applications and human intervention. This review is important to help policy makers develop a technology-based support system to help people in crisis."

Ms Wong Lai Chun, Senior Assistant Director at Samaritans of Singapore, a non-profit organisation focused on crisis intervention and suicide prevention, advised against over-reliance on mobile apps.

"As suicide is a complex and multi-faceted issue, intervention should not be replaced by mobile applications but rather, act as a complement to the existing pool of resources," Ms Wong said.

"The findings in the study raised the worrying issue of inaccurate information and the lack of quality assurance for apps that are accessible to the general public. It is vital that mobile application developers ensure the information in their apps is kept up-to-date."

A drug that provides the benefits obtained from medicinal cannabis without the "high" or other side effects may help to unlock a new treatment for Parkinson's disease.

The drug - HU-308 - lessens devastating involuntary movements called dyskinesias, a side effect from years of treatment for Parkinson's disease.

The research, published today in Neurobiology of Disease, has been conducted by the Centre for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine (CNRM) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the Applied Medical Research Institute of St Vincent's Hospital Sydney.

The study shows that in mice HU-308 is as effective as amantadine, the only available treatment for dyskinesias. Furthermore, the combination of HU-308 with amantadine is more effective than either drug used alone.

Professor Bryce Vissel, director of the CNRM and senior author of the study, said the findings present the possibility of new options for Parkinson's patients.

"Our study suggests that a derivative of HU-308, either alone or in combination with amantadine, may be a more effective treatment for dyskinesias and a much better option than using an unproven potentially harmful substance like cannabis," Professor Vissel said.

"Currently there is limited evidence about the effectiveness of medicinal cannabis. One problem is that no cannabis preparation is the same and cannabis has numerous effects, some of which may not be beneficial in Parkinson's disease."

Cannabis works on several receptors in the brain - CB1 and CB2. The psychoactive effect is caused mostly because of receptor CB1.

Professor Vissel said the HU-308 drug explored by his team works only on receptor CB2, allowing medicinal benefits to be administered without causing psychoactive effects like drowsiness or highness.

Lead author Dr Peggy Rentsch said it is unclear whether medicinal cannabis itself can help Parkinson's patients.

"Medicinal cannabis contains different compounds, some of which make you high and which can impact a person's normal day-to-day activities," Dr Rentsch said.

"Our research suggests HU-308 is an important prototype drug which we believe won't interfere with patients' day-to-day activities. They should maintain normal levels of mental sharpness on a treatment like this."

Professor Vissel and his team are investigating ways to block inflammation of the brain to maintain and restore memory and slow the progression for both Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.

"HU-308 works by reducing inflammation in the brain, affecting the neurons and immune cells.

"In neurological disorders, the immune cells in the brain can lose supportive function with adverse stimuli - including but not limited to trauma or obesity - and become 'activated'. Scientists at the CNRM believe that, after this activation, the immune cells backfire, kill the brain's neurons, destroy them - and become dysfunctional.

"By reducing inflammation in the brain - such as with HU-308 - these immune cells can support normal neural function again, rather than inhibiting it."

Study collaborator Dr Sandy Stayte said: "The fact that amantadine has its own set of side effects, may not work in the long term, and is still the only drug available on the market that is approved for dyskinesias makes our study really exciting.

"First, our study shows HU-308 is equally affective so a drug like HU-308 will be useful for those people who can't take amantadine. Second, for those who can tolerate amantadine, taking the combination may have even greater benefits than taking either drug alone. That means we may end up with a much more powerful treatment than currently available by ultimately prescribing both."

The so-called topological insulators are those materials that are insulators in bulk, i.e. do not allow electric currents in its volume, but are conductors on its surface. Unlike the usual conductors, that is, metals, the electric current circulating in a topological insulator does not suffer any loss of energy. This property opens great possibilities of application in electronics, since it would enable the fabrication of more efficient, faster and low-energy consumption devices; an objective as desirable as necessary in the current scenario of rapid advance of energy demand worldwide, which threatens our environment. For that very reason, the discovery of topological insulators about a decade ago caused a global research boom in the fields of nanotechnology and condensed matter physics.

With technological applications in mind, for example in information technologies, one of the challenges during these years of intense research has been the creation of a magnetic topological insulator. So far, magnetic topological insulators had only been created by the so-called extrinsic route, which consists of doping nonmagnetic topological insulators with magnetic atoms. However, thanks to the efforts of a group of researchers from the Materials Physics Center (CFM, CSIC-UPV/EHU joint centre), Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), it is now possible to grow an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator, that is, one that has magnetic properties by its own very nature. The team that includes DIPC researchers Mikhail Otrokov (CFM Ikerbasque Research Fellow), Evgueni Chulkov (UPV/EHU, Euskadi Research Prize 2019), María Blanco Rey (UPV/EHU) and Pedro M. Echenique (UPV/EHU, DIPC President), has predicted theoretically the first intrinsic magnetic topological insulator, with chemical formula MnBi2Te4. The key to the success of this prediction has been the large experience that this group of scientists has in the fields of topological insulators, magnetism and material science in general. The Ikerbasque fellow and leader of this research, Mikhail Otrokov, states that "previous work from different approaches led us to the conclusion that the intrinsic route was the only feasible one nowadays. Then, we directed our efforts to find an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator based on our prior experience. Thanks to that, we knew what crystalline structure and atomic composition such a material should have".

Donostia (Basque Country, Spain) is not only the place where the theoretical prediction of this first magnetic topological insulator has been carried out, but it has also been the base camp from where its experimental confirmation has been coordinated. This work has involved experts in different areas, from leading research centres in Russia, Azerbaijan, Germany, Austria, Japan, Italy and the USA. The results of this study are being published this week in the prestigious journal 'Nature'. Otrokov has explained that for experimental confirmation, the first step was the synthesis of the compound crystals by the chemical synthesis experts. Once synthesized, the samples were subject to a multitude characterization experiments; structural, magnetic, electronic, of transport, of atomic composition, etc.; until the predicted characteristics were observed and verified.

The results of the study, which had already been disseminated through an open-access server and lectures delivered by the authors at international conferences, have been well received by the international scientific community. Currently, MnBi2Te4 and other materials based on it are studied in several research centers, those of the USA and China showing the most intense activity.

" MnBi2Te4, besides being an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator, has turned out to be antiferromagnetic, just as we had calculated", Blanco tells us. Antiferromagnetism consists of a magnetic order at an atomic scale, such that the material lacks net magnetization. As a result, these materials are much more robust against perturbations by magnets.

This crystal composed of Manganese (Mn), Bismuth (Bi) and Tellurium (Te) has a great potential both at a fundamental and a technological level. It is extremely rich in exotic properties, for example, such as the various Hall effects, including the quantum ones, some of which are used in the calibration of physical constants for its exceptional precision. In addition, MnBi2Te4 can be used to create the so-called Majorana fermions. This is a kind of particle, a quasiparticle to be accurate, that has been considered the cornerstone of quantum computing. Likewise, MnBi2Te4 is the first intrinsic material for which an electromagnetic response very similar to that of an axion is predicted. An axion is a hypothetical particle postulated in the framework of quantum chromodynamics, and it is a good candidate to solve the problem of dark matter. That is why there are a lot of experiments aimed precisely at detecting signals of axion-type behaviour in the family of this compound.

Regarding the practical applications, several devices based on magnetic topological insulators have already been patented. For instance, MnBi2Te4 could be used in chiral interconnect devices, which promise superior performance to the ordinary copper connections currently used in commercially available integrated circuits. Some other applications include optical modulators, magnetic field sensors and memory elements.

The researchers working in Donostia, together with their network of international collaborators, expect to be able to observe in MnBi2Te4 some of the exotic phenomena mentioned above, and discover new intrinsic magnetic topological insulators with even superior properties than those of MnBi2Te4.