Tech

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A new study finds that kids who specialize in a chosen sport tend to engage in higher levels of vigorous exercise than their peers and may be more likely to sustain injuries, such as stress fractures, tendinitis and ACL tears.

The findings, which draw from a multi-year, ongoing study of 10,138 older children and teens living throughout the United States, suggest that volume of vigorous activity is a strong predictor of injuries for both boys and girls. In other words, those who engage in the most hours of intense activity per week are the most likely to be injured.

"It's wonderful for a child to love a sport and to want to engage in it, but we must keep in mind the number of hours spent playing," said study author Alison Field, a professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Brown University. "They add up pretty quickly."

She hopes the study's conclusions will help coaches, parents and doctors guide young athletes toward less intense, less specialized training.

This study, published in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine on Wednesday, Sept. 18, helps to explain some of the dangers of sports specialization. Athletes who focus on one particular sport tend to practice more frequently and intensely compared to athletes who do not.

"But if we send out a message that says kids shouldn't specialize, the worry is that parents and kids will just add another sport on top," Field said. "So they'll keep their current sport and do it at a very high level and just add one more sport so they're not 'specializing.' That would really increase their volume, so it probably would not be a good idea."

Instead, Field said the best recommendation is to moderate the amount of time young athletes spend engaging in vigorous physical activity -- and if they must specialize in a sport, replace some of their training with different forms of exercise, such as yoga and conditioning.

Field said a common fear among parents is that if their children don't play more and more, they'll fall behind in their sport and won't ultimately be as good of an athlete.

"But it may actually be the opposite," she said. "If children do too much, they may get injured and fall behind. And it's important also to remember that they should enjoy doing their sport; it should be something that doesn't overwhelm their life."

The study also suggests that sports specialization carries risks even when considered separately from volume of activity. These risk patterns differed for girls versus boys. For girls, once volume was accounted for, no particular sport stood out as being extra risky to specialize in. However, specialization in general increased girls' risk of injury by about 30 percent.

In contrast, specialization in general did not significantly increase boys' risk of injury, once volume was accounted for. But certain sports -- baseball or gymnastics/cheerleading -- did increase their risk.

Field said the precise reasoning behind the gender differences in risk is not yet clear, but it's an area the researchers hope to explore further in future studies. For girls in particular, they also plan to examine age-related differences.

"There's been a lot of concern about females having higher risk of certain injuries," Field said. "The question is: Is that risk highest just as they're going through their pubertal growth spurt, and then does it come back down a bit? And then we need to talk to coaches and trainers and say, 'What can we do to mitigate that risk?'"

Diversity - at least among cancer cells - is not a good thing. Weizmann Institute of Science research shows that in melanoma, tumors with cells that have differentiated into more diverse subtypes are less likely to be affected by the immune system, thus reducing the chance that immunotherapy will be effective. The findings of this research, which were published today in Cell, may provide better tools for designing personalized protocols for cancer patients, as well as pointing toward new avenues of research into anti-cancer vaccines.

Prof. Yardena Samuels of the Institute's Molecular Cell Biology Department wanted to know why, despite the fact that cancer deaths from melanoma have dropped in recent years thanks to new immunotherapy treatments, many patients do not respond to the therapy. The reasons for this have not been clear, though the leading hypothesis, supported by a few studies, has been that tumors with more mutations - a higher "tumor mutational burden" -- are more likely to respond to immunotherapy. Some patients even spend large sums to undergo radiation or chemical treatments to increase tumor mutations, but a causal relationship between the two has not yet been proven. Samuels and her colleagues were intrigued by studies that had suggested a different possible correlation - that between heterogeneity (that is, the genetic diversity among tumor cells) and the response to therapy. To investigate this theory, however, the team had to develop a new experimental system to check exactly which factors play a role.

In the study, which was led by Drs. Yochai Wolf and Osnat Bartok in Samuels' lab, the researchers took mouse melanoma cells and exposed them to a type of UV light known to promote this cancer. This increased both the mutations and the cell heterogeneity in the growth. When they injected mice with either these cells or the regular melanoma cells, the irradiated ones multiplied faster and were more aggressive. Despite the fact that these cells had a higher mutational burden - and thus should have been more responsive to immunotherapy - they actually were less likely to be eradicated than those from the original tumor. In other words, although there was a high mutational burden, there was also high heterogeneity, and the researchers hypothesized that the latter was driving the resistance.

Since mutational burden and heterogeneity generally go hand in hand, the researchers needed to find a way to study one without the other. They removed single cells from a culture of an aggressive cancer growth and then grew new cultures from each cell. Thus, they ended up with 22 new cultures, each with a low level of heterogeneity but carrying some random number of mutations.

When they injected these cells into mice, the researchers were surprised to find that all the tumors grew slowly, and even disappeared without immunotherapy - in those with higher and lower mutational burdens alike. To see if the mice's immune systems were, indeed, responsible for killing the cancer cells, they repeated the experiment in mice with weakened immune systems. In these, the cancer spread rapidly.

To further understand the immune response, the researchers tried the experiment again, this time on mice specifically engineered to lack T cells - the immune cells that are known to fight cancer. "The results were similar to those in mice with weakened immune systems," says Wolf. "When we look at T cells from different tumors, we found much more activity in the homogenous growths, and less in the heterogeneous ones." In fact, the researchers found that in the homogeneous growths, T cells had penetrated to the center of the tumor, while in the heterogeneous ones, they remained on the outside, and there were more T cells of a different type - ones that suppress immune activity.

"We showed the difference between two extremes - highly homogeneous and highly heterogeneous," says Bartok, "but most cancers fall somewhere in between. To systematically generate tumors with intermediate levels of genetic heterogeneity, we created a phylogenetic tree of the parental heterogeneous line, and mapped out how subtypes appear over time. Then we created "cocktails" of homogeneous cell lines based on this tree, with more or less heterogeneous combinations of cells, and injected them into mice." As predicted, the more homogeneous the cell cocktail, the easier it was for the mice's immune systems to eradicate the cancer, whereas the more heterogeneous the tumors were, the more aggressive they became.

"We found that testing the number of cell subtypes and their place on the phylogenetic tree are a much better predictor than mutational burden of the success of immunotherapy," says Samuels. "We also went over data from melanoma patients who had undergone immunotherapy, and found a high correlation between these factors and the success of the treatment. Ultimately, we intend to use the experimental system we created to work on developing applicable personalized protocols for cancer patients."

PITTSBURGH (Sept. 23, 2019) -- From soda bottles to polyester clothing, ethylene is part of many products we use every day. In part to meet demand, the Shell Oil Company is building an ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, Pa., specifically to produce ethylene molecules from the abundant ethane found in natural gas. However, the chemical reaction used to convert ethane into valuable ethylene is incomplete, so such plants produce an impure mixture of ethylene and ethane. Separating pure ethylene from ethane is a difficult and costly process, but one that new research from the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering is poised to streamline.

The technique investigated in two new papers, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Association and Organometallics, would avoid liquefaction and distillation by designing a material that only binds ethylene molecules, thus separating them from ethane.

Ethylene is an olefin--a molecule with an unsaturated bond (like unsaturated fats). Current methods of separating ethylene from ethane involve cooling the mixture to very low temperatures, liquefying it, and feeding it into a large distillation column, which is an energy-intensive and costly process. Developed by a team led by Professors Karl Johnson, PhD, and Götz Veser, PhD, from Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and Professor Nathaniel Rosi, PhD, from the Department of Chemistry, this new process would potentially save a great deal of energy, reducing carbon emissions and costs at the same time.

The heart of this new separation method is isolated copper atoms that olefins like ethylene can bond to strongly. Since copper atoms naturally want to clump together, which destroys their ability to bond with olefins, the Pittsburgh researchers used metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to effectively isolate single atoms of copper in the right location to produce high-grade ethylene at least 99.999 percent pure.

"The uniqueness of this material is that the isolated copper atoms are in the right oxidation state and the right geometry within the metal organic framework to provide very high selectivity--higher than other adsorption methods--and it can easily be scaled up," says Johnson, the W.K. Whiteford Professor in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and Associate Director of the Center for Research Computing. "MOFs are a practical alternative to an inefficient and costly process."

Cambridge engineers have developed a new augmented reality (AR) head-mounted display (HMD) that delivers a realistic 3D viewing experience, without the commonly associated side effects of nausea or eyestrain.

The device has an enlarged eye-box that is scalable and an increased field of view of 36º that is designed for a comfortable viewing experience. It displays images on the retina using pixel beam scanning which ensures the image stays in focus regardless of the distance that the user is fixating on. Details are reported in the journal Research.

Developed by researchers at the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics (CAPE) in collaboration with Huawei European Research Centre, in Munich, the HMD uses partially reflective beam splitters to form an additional 'exit pupil' (a virtual opening through which light travels). This, together with narrow pixel beams that travel parallel to each other, and which do not disperse in other directions, produces a high quality image that remains unaffected by changes in eye focus.

The results of a subjective user study conducted with more than 50 participants aged between 16 and 601 showed the 3D effect to be 'very convincing' for objects from 20 cm to 10 m; the images and videos to be of 'vivid colour' and high contrast with no observable pixels; and crucially, none of the participants reported any eyestrain or nausea, even after prolonged periods of usage over a few hours or even all day.

The HMD is of high brightness and suited to a wide range of indoor and outdoor uses. Further research is progressing on exploring its potential use in areas of different applications such as training, CAD (computer-aided design) development, hospitality, data manipulation, outdoor sport, defence applications and construction, as well as miniaturising the current head-mounted prototype to a glasses-based format.

Professor Daping Chu, Director of the Centre for Photonic Devices and Sensors and Director of CAPE, who led the study, said: "Our research offers up a wearable AR experience that rivals the market leaders thanks to its comfortable 3D viewing which causes no nausea or eyestrain to the user. It can deliver high-quality clear images directly on the retina, even if the user is wearing glasses. This can help the user to see displayed real-world and virtual objects clearly in an immersive environment, regardless of the quality of the user's vision."

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that the spreading of seizures through the brain can be suppressed depending on the amount of pressure within the brain, an important discovery that may revolutionize the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy.

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases, affecting people of all ages. There are many seizure disorders, all of which fall under the umbrella of epilepsy. While many seizure disorders can be treated with medication, some patients have strains of epilepsy that are resistant to drugs, meaning that sometimes surgical intervention is necessary. In these patients, tissue can be surgically removed to eliminate or minimize future seizures.

The lab of Department Head of Biomedical Engineering Bin He, in collaboration with Mayo Clinic, has published a study in the journal Annals of Neurology that finds that within the brain, "focal seizures"--seizures that originate at a single point--can be regulated by push-pull dynamics within the brain.

The paper, "Multiple Oscillatory Push-Pull Antagonisms Constrain Seizure Propagation," further shows that an imbalance of excitation-inhibition activity within an epileptic network may be a promising biomarker for the secondary generalization of focal seizures. In other words, when medical professionals see indications that the excitation and inhibition of neuron firing within the brain is imbalanced, this imbalance may be an indicator as to if the seizure will propagate in the brain.

"People thought that the spread of seizures mainly depends on where seizures originate in the brain, but the propagation of a seizure is actually regulated by the surrounding tissues, which includes that seizure onset zone," says He. "By using an array of electrophysiological recordings, we found that it's not moving outward necessarily; it depends on how much 'pull' a patient receives from the surrounding tissue towards the seizure onset zone, and how much 'push' propagates from seizure onset zone in the same patient. If that pull is weak, then it's going to spread. If that pull is strong, then we can contain the seizure where it is and prevent it from spreading."

Although drug-resistant focal epilepsy is widely recognized among medical professionals to be a network disease (i.e. a seizure spreads through the brain after originating from a single point) in which seizures propagate in coordination with different neuron oscillation frequencies, the mechanism by which different networks constrain the spreading of focal seizures remains unclear.

In the work by He and his team, researchers tackle the problem by looking at various frequencies, including both slow and fast brain rhythms. They further performed novel analysis of functional networks for a given rhythmic band, or the interactions between low and high brain rhythms. By using a novel "cross-frequency directionality" technique to study 24 focal drug-resistant epilepsy patients, the team found that the propagation of seizures through the brain depend on a "push-pull" antagonism control mechanism. This "push-pull" mechanism can potentially reflect connections in the epileptic network, suppressing the seizure.

"This finding will have important implications, and suggests that future treatment options should consider interventions not only upon seizure onset zones, but also the surrounding tissues," says He. "Further delineation of critical network nodes may assist the development of treatments for epilepsy using neuromodulation."

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- New research on two-dimensional tungsten disulfide (WS2) could open the door to advances in quantum computing.

In a paper published Sept. 13 in Nature Communications, scientists report that they can manipulate the electronic properties of this super-thin material in ways that could be useful for encoding quantum data.

The study deals with WS2's energy valleys, which University at Buffalo physicist Hao Zeng, co-lead author of the paper, describes as "the local energy extrema of the electronic structure in a crystalline solid."

Valleys correspond with specific energies that electrons can have in a material, and the presence of an electron in one valley versus another can be used to encode information. An electron in one valley can represent a 1 in binary code, while an electron in the other can represent a 0.

The ability to control where electrons might be found could yield advances in quantum computing, enabling the creation of qubits, the basic unit of quantum information. Qubits have the mysterious quality of being able to exist not just in a state of 1 or 0, but in a "superposition" related to both states.

The paper in Nature Communications marks a step toward these future technologies, demonstrating a novel method of manipulating valley states in WS2.

Zeng, PhD, professor of physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, led the project with Athos Petrou, PhD, UB Distinguished Professor of Physics, and Renat Sabirianov, PhD, chair of physics at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Additional co-authors included UB physics graduate students Tenzin Norden, Chuan Zhao and Peiyao Zhang. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Shifting tungsten disulfide's energy valleys

Two-dimensional tungsten disulfide is a single layer of the material that's three atoms thick. In this configuration, WS2 has two energy valleys, both with the same energy.

Past research has shown that applying a magnetic field can shift the energy of the valleys in opposite directions, lowering the energy of one valley to make it "deeper" and more attractive to electrons, while raising the energy of the other valley to make it "shallower," Zeng says.

The new study builds on this prior work by adding another innovation.

"We show that the shift in the energy of the two valleys can be enlarged by two orders of magnitude if we place a thin layer of magnetic europium sulfide under the tungsten disulfide," Zeng says. "When we then apply a magnetic field of 1 Tesla, we are able to achieve an enormous shift in the energy of the valleys -- equivalent to what we might hope to achieve by applying a magnetic field of about a hundred Tesla if the europium sulfide were not present."

"The size of the effect was very large -- it was like using a magnetic field amplifier," Petrou says. "It was so surprising that we had to check it several times to make sure we didn't make mistakes."

The end result? The ability to manipulate and detect electrons in the valleys is greatly enhanced, qualities that could facilitate the control of qubits for quantum computing.

Valley states as qubits for quantum computing

Like other forms of quantum computing, valley-based quantum computing would rely on the quirky qualities of subatomic particles -- in this case electrons -- to perform powerful calculations.

Electrons behave in ways that may seem odd -- they can be in multiple places at once, for instance. As a result, 1 and 0 are not the only possible states in systems that use electrons in valleys as qubits. A qubit can also be in any superposition of these states, allowing quantum computers to explore many possibilities simultaneously, Zeng says.

"This is why quantum computing is so powerful for certain special tasks," Zeng says. "Due to the probabilistic and random nature of quantum computing, it is particularly suitable for applications such as artificial intelligence, cryptography, financial modeling and quantum mechanical simulations for designing better materials. However, a lot of obstacles need to be overcome, and we are likely many years away if scalable universal quantum computing ever becomes a reality."

The new study builds on Zeng and Petrou's prior work, in which they used europium sulfide and magnetic fields to alter the energy of two valleys in another 2D material: tungsten diselenide (WSe2).

Though WS2 and WSe2 are similar, they responded differently to the "valley splitting" exercise. In WS2, the valley that got "deeper" was analogous to the valley in WSe2 that became "shallower," and vice versa, creating opportunities to explore how this distinction could provide flexibility in applications of the technology.

One characteristic that both materials share could benefit quantum computing: In both WS2 and WSe2, electrons populating the two energy valleys have opposite spins, a form of angular momentum. While this trait is not necessary for creating a qubit, it "provides certain protection of the quantum states, making them more robust," Zeng says.

In a group of animals, who deals with new information coming from the environment? Researchers have discovered that the answer lies not in who, but in where: information can be processed, not only by individual animals, but also in the invisible connections between them. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of scientists provides evidence of information processing occurring in the physical structure of animal groups. The study demonstrates that animals can encode information about their environment in the architecture of their groups and provides rare insight into how animal collectives are able to behaviourally adapt to a changing world.

For behaviour to be of any use, it needs to be modulated according to what's happening in the world around us. We see this in ourselves when we respond to a sudden noise: in a crowded street in broad daylight we might not notice the noise; but in an unfamiliar alley in darkness it might send our hearts racing. This context-dependent modification of behaviour - known as behavioural plasticity - has been very well studied in individual animals. What is much less known is how the process occurs in animal groups.

"When we start looking at how groups respond to their environment, it introduces a possibility that does not exist when you look at individual animals," says senior author Iain Couzin who leads the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour at the University of Konstanz, one of the University of Konstanz' Clusters of Excellence, and the Department of Collective Behaviour at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz. "When you form groups, you suddenly have a network system where social interactions exist, and we wondered whether this invisible architecture was in fact contributing to how groups can respond to changes in the environment."

The researchers focused on two possible mechanisms that could contribute to groups' changing responsiveness: 1) changes in the sensitivity of individuals and 2) changes in the connections between them. They examined how groups of juvenile golden shiner fish (Notemigonus crysoleucas) respond to danger in the environment. "Danger is one of the most important things that animals need to respond to if they are to survive," says Couzin. Researchers were able to manipulate groups' perception of danger by introducing a substance called schreckstoff - a chemical cocktail released from the skin of fish after injury - into the water. Sensing the chemical, fish perceive the risk of a predator nearby, and thereby display alarm behaviour known as "startle" events.

The researchers found that indeed, groups startled more frequently and many more fish participated in startle events when fish perceived greater risk in the environment. However, they found that the increased startle rates were not because individual fish were more sensitive to sensory cues. Rather, it was the physical structure of the group - how the individuals are positioned with respect to one another and how far apart they are - that was the best predictor of a startle event. In other words, by changing the structure of the group, by coming closer together, the strength of the social connectivity among the individuals increased - allowing them to respond effectively and rapidly to changes in their environment, as a collective.

"Making each individual more sensitive to risk can lead to an excessive number of false alarms propagating through the group," says Couzin. "On the other hand, strengthening social connections allows individuals to amplify information about risk, but buffers against the system becoming overly sensitive."

The researchers believe that the results can lead to important insights into the relationships between structure of social networks and how to effectively process information. Such results could benefit the development of new technologies for efficiently solving problems through collective intelligence, such as networked robots.

Says Couzin: "We have traditionally assumed that intelligence resides in our brains, in the individual animal. But we have found the first evidence that intelligence can also be encoded in the hidden network of communication between us."

There is no clear link between cancer incidence and locally produced food from an area with a history of glass manufacture with contaminated soil, according to a new study from, among others, Linköping University in Sweden. A high consumption of certain local foods seems to be linked to an increased risk of certain cancers, but this probably reflects that the exposure to contaminants was higher in the past.

An area of Småland county in Sweden, known as the "Kingdom of Crystal", has been home to an extensive glass industry since the 18th century, but several glassworks have closed in recent years due to poor profitability. At the same time, it was discovered that the soil around the glassworks was heavily contaminated by metals, such as arsenic, cadmium and lead. This was a heavy blow for tourism in the municipalities of Nybro, Emmaboda, Uppvidinge and Lessebo. The discovery also aroused anxiety in those living around the glassworks, who became unsure whether it is safe to eat vegetables and berries from the area.

Somewhat increased levels of the metals had previously been measured in root crops, vegetables, fungi and berries from this area. Food may also contain contaminants known as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), formed by incomplete cooking. These substances have several negative effects on health, including an increased risk for cancer. The researchers observed in a previous study that some types of cancer were more common in the glassworks area than in other areas of Kalmar County and Sweden. They observed also, however, that cancer incidence fell between the 1970s and the 2010s. Since many similar contaminated areas are found both in Sweden and in other countries, the scientists behind the study wanted to investigate whether long-term consumption of locally produced food may have contributed to the incidence of cancer in the Kingdom of Crystal.

The study included 2,200 adults who had lived within two kilometres of a glassworks or a glass landfill site in the municipalities of Nybro or Emmaboda for at least five years during the period 1979-2004. The participants completed a questionnaire to estimate their long-term consumption (20-30 years) of locally produced food, and the researchers collected data from registries about the incidence of cancer.

The study was a case-controlled study, in which the researchers compared the group of people who had developed cancer with those who had not. They examined whether diet or other factors differed between the groups. Some participants supplied blood samples, in which the scientists measured levels of cadmium, lead and arsenic. Levels of a marker for PAHs were measured in urine samples.

Despite the high levels of arsenic, cadmium and lead that had previously been measured in the soil, it does not appear that the population is exposed to abnormally high levels of the contaminants now. The results showed, namely, that the levels of these metals and PAHs in the blood and urine of the study participants as a group were the same, or only slightly higher than, the levels in other groups in Sweden. The researchers believe that the lower exposure today can be explained by the emissions of these contaminants being generally higher in the past.

When analysing in more detail the diet of the participants, however, the researchers found a link between a high consumption of locally grown root crops and vegetables and higher levels of cadmium and PAHs. They also found a link between high consumptions of locally produced fish, lamb, chicken and game and higher levels of lead in the blood.

The study revealed also a link between an increased risk of certain types of cancer and long-term high consumption of locally produced meat and locally caught fish. Living in the Kingdom of Crystal during the first five years of life was also associated with a higher risk. However, a statistical correlation does not necessarily mean that consumption of these foods causes the increased risk of developing cancer.

"The correlations we found between high, long-term consumption of some locally produced foods and certain types of cancer probably reflect a higher exposure during the first half of the 20th century, when emissions from the glassworks were higher. If the consumption of locally produced food does contribute to the development of certain types of cancer, the contribution is probably much lower today than it was previously. It's not dangerous to eat locally produced food occasionally, but it is, even so, important to rinse vegetables and to avoid growing food in any soil that contains glass residue", says Ingela Helmfrid, doctoral student in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, and biologist at the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Centre, Region Östergötland.

The study also showed that previously known risk factors for cancer, such as tobacco use, obesity and a family history of cancer, are associated with an increased risk of cancer.

"The risk of cancer for a particular individual in the region we have studied is low. Several factors influence the onset of cancer, and it takes a long time to develop the disease", says Ingela Helmfrid.

The scientists plan to continue their research. They will investigate whether there is a link between exposure to the metals and other diseases, such as cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease or osteoporosis.

Fundamentalist Christians tap into their willingness to sacrifice to conserve water and energy, shop environmentally and protect the Earth, according to a Michigan State University (MSU) study.

A team of social scientists and sustainability scientists worked to peel off the layers of understanding about how Christianity and environmentalism mix. Their work is reported in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

The group worked off previous findings that indicate those with Christian fundamentalist religious orientation tend to be somewhat less pro-environmental than those with other religious views or those who are not religious. That point of view is thought to be linked to the belief that the Bible asserts people's domination over nature.

But the team, in surveying 518 people in the United States, found indications that religion's emphasis on altruism - self-sacrifice for a greater good - moved people to report they'd be willing to turn off the faucet while brushing their teeth, bring their own shopping bags to the store and turn down the thermostat in cold months.

"In the United States, fundamentalist faith tends to be correlated with political conservatism, and at least since the Reagan administration, conservatives have been less concerned with the environment than liberals," said Thomas Dietz, University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, Sociology and Animal Studies. "We find that fundamentalist Christians are actually more likely than others to enact pro-environmental behaviors once we take account of their political views. The effect of religious beliefs seems to act through higher levels of altruistic concerns with other species and the biosphere."

However, this willingness to sacrifice did not seem to extend to climate change as it relates to protecting biodiversity.

"We hope that our findings encourage steps toward a more integrated theory of environmental decision-making and the design of common practices for pro-environmental behaviors," said Min Gon Chung, a PhD candidate in MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS). Dietz and co-author Jianguo "Jack" Liu also are CSIS members.

In addition to Dietz and Chung, "Activating values for encouraging pro-environmental behavior: The role of religious fundamentalism and willingness to sacrifice" was written by Hana Kang, Patricia Jaimes and Liu.

Cracking an egg to release its yolk requires applying external force (like being smacked against the edge of a bowl) to overcome the strength of the eggshell. Similarly, delivering microcapsule-contained therapeutic biomolecules into the human body requires that their containers be broken after they are injected, so that the cargo can be delivered in the right place at the right time. A number of external stimuli can be used to trigger the release of encapsulated molecules, one of the easiest of which is osmotic pressure, as it simply requires the introduction of water to cause the microcapsules to swell and burst. However, in order to create enough inner pressure to break the capsule shell, large amounts of an osmotic agent must be added to the microcapsule to attract the water, and the resulting high burst pressure could damage tissues or cause blood clots.

A solution to this stumbling block has now been developed by researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), who devised a way to create microcapsules with shells of uneven thickness that allows them to burst at lower osmotic pressures, making them safer for use in the human body. The research is published in Small.

"Our shells' weakest part is 40 times thinner than their strongest part, which makes it much easier for them to break and release their cargo," said first author Weixia Zhang, Ph.D., a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wyss Institute and SEAS. "On the flip side, these microcapsules are exceedingly durable and do not leak if they are not exposed to elevated osmotic pressure, making them very stable and capable of storing their contents for a long time."

To fabricate their inhomogeneous microcapsules, the researchers used a glass capillary microfluidic device that employed a water-in-oil-in-water method to encapsulate a water solution containing sucrose, an osmotic agent, within a shell of monomers suspended in oil. When the monomers are exposed to UV light, they react with each other and crosslink to form a solid, polymer shell around the sucrose solution. By varying the rates at which the sucrose solution "cargo" and the monomer oil "shell" flow through the device, the team discovered that they could introduce variations in the thickness of the shells that formed, creating lopsided capsules with thicker walls on one side and thinner on the other.

The researchers then subjected their microcapsules to osmotic shock by adding water, which diffused into the microcapsules and made them begin to swell at the thinnest part of the shell. After about 20-30 minutes, the thinned shell cracked, forming an opening that was tens of micrometers in size, which is large enough for most biomolecules and nanomaterials to be released successfully. Increasing the difference between the thinnest and the thickest part of the shell led to a greater number of burst microcapsules, confirming that the degree of inhomogeneity impacted the efficacy of cargo release.

"Being able to create microcapsules with high degree of inhomogeneity by altering the shell thickness during the manufacturing process and to release the cargo with much smaller osmotic pressure opens up a new application in controlled release, which is very important for drug delivery in medicine, as well as other fields," said co-first author Liangliang Qu, Ph.D., a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wyss Institute and SEAS.

To test the microcapsules' durability, the team encapsulated a fluorescent polymer within them and measured the change in fluorescent intensity in their cores over time. They observed no change in intensity for 30 days after encapsulation, demonstrating that the microcapsules retained their cargo without leaking. Furthermore, the polymer's size is much smaller than most biomolecules, such as antibodies and enzymes, suggesting that the shells could be used to protect and store biomolecules or drugs for extended periods of time.

Finally, the researchers co-encapsulated a protease (an enzyme that breaks down proteins) and sucrose inside their microcapsules for 37 days, then applied osmotic shock to trigger the release of their contents. The protease retained 91% of its original activity, demonstrating that this storage method did not significantly impair its biological function.

"Compared to other controlled release carriers, such as cells, nanoparticles, or vesicles, this system is highly versatile, stable, and customizable, making it an attractive alternative for safely and effectively delivering drug and other biomolecules for human health and other applications," said corresponding author David Weitz, Ph.D., a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute who is also the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at SEAS.

The team is continuing to develop their microcapsules by optimizing the shell material to further decrease the osmotic pressure required to rupture them. They plan to first apply their technology to the delivery of drugs, such as therapeutic antibodies, with the goal of being able to use the human body's high water content to act as the rupture trigger after injection.

"This project is a great example of how simpler solutions can often be better than complicated ones, as the only input needed to burst the microcapsules is mechanical pressure, rather than complex chemistries or molecular switches," said co-author Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is the Wyss Institute's Founding Director, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at HMS and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that dogs can suffer from the same type of autoimmune encephalitis that people do. The finding could lead to better screening methods for diagnosis and possibly more effective treatments for canine encephalitis.

Autoimmune encephalitis - an immune system reaction against the brain - is common in dogs, with smaller breeds and young adult dogs being most susceptible. The disease is not only challenging to treat, but veterinary neurologists have been unable to differentiate between the large numbers of non-infectious cases, referring to them as "meningoencephalitis of unknown etiology."

"When we diagnose encephalitis based on MRI and spinal tap, we run infectious disease testing. If we rule out infection (which accounts for only a small portion of these cases), we are left with a diagnosis of meningoencephalitis of unknown etiology. This is an umbrella term for autoimmune encephalitis and we treat these dogs with immunosuppression," says Natasha Olby, professor of veterinary neurology and neurosurgery at NC State and corresponding author of a paper describing the work.

"In reality, there are likely to be many different forms of autoimmune encephalitis in which the immune system is reacting to different targets within the brain. Currently we are unable to distinguish these in the living patient. While we treat all the cases with immunosuppression, better categorization of the different forms of encephalitis might enable us to predict prognosis better and fine-tune treatment for different diseases."

Understanding of human autoimmune encephalitis has changed dramatically following the discovery of antibodies to different surface proteins on neurons in people with encephalitis. The most common of these diseases is NMDA receptor encephalitis (NMDARE), in which there are antibodies to the excitatory NMDA receptor. Many more of these surface protein targets have been identified, each associated with a different form of autoimmune encephalitis.

Olby and the NC State research team used a test that screened for antibodies against six different neuronal surface targets known to be involved with autoimmune encephalitis in humans on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from dogs with encephalitis. Human and canine genes for these targets are nearly identical, so a human test works effectively for dogs.

"The test contains cells that express the human target proteins at high levels and if there are antibodies to these targets in the CSF, they will bind to the cells and we can visualize them with a fluorescent tag," Olby says.

The researchers screened CSF banked from 32 dogs with neurological disease - both inflammatory and non-inflammatory. Nineteen of the dogs had been diagnosed with inflammatory disease. Of the 19, three were positive for antibodies to the NMDAR target. All three of those dogs had responded well to immunosuppressive therapy.

"Being able to show that dogs suffer from a specific autoimmune encephalitis is really a paradigm shift," Olby says. "But what causes this immune response is a slightly different question. We haven't found a trigger, but our findings suggest that dogs and humans suffer from the same condition.

"While treatment options will remain the same, we can now look for more antibody targets and perhaps be able to change the diagnosis from 'unknown etiology' to a diagnosis by neuronal cell surface target. Being able to categorize the disease more accurately may give both dogs and humans more options for treatments in the future."

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) announces the publication of a new report, "Impacts to Wildlife of Wind Energy Siting and Operation in the United States," in ESA's Issues in Ecology publication.

An increase in the generation of wind energy is a key component of the U.S. strategy to reduce carbon emissions from the power sector. Approximately 97 gigawatts of wind energy production capacity are currently installed in the U.S., and in 2018, wind energy supplied about 6.5% of the nation's electricity. Scenarios developed by various groups, including U.S. Department of Energy, indicate that a four- to five-fold expansion over current levels of electricity produced by wind is needed by the year 2050 to help meet U.S. carbon emission reduction goals.

The report examines wind-wildlife interactions and places them within the larger context of climate change challenges, citing the need to balance wildlife conservation with the urgent need for rapid and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. It summarizes what is known about wind energy impacts on sensitive wildlife and on where these species live, and it identifies areas where further research is needed.

"ESA's most recent peer-reviewed Issues in Ecology brings together the best available science on interactions between wildlife and wind installations. ESA is pleased to present the report along with the wide range of public and private partners who collaborated on this project. Understanding how to minimize the impacts to wildlife from renewable energy sources like wind energy are integral to address climate change and preserve ecosystems that sustain life on Earth," said ESA Executive Director Catherine O'Riordan.

The American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI), an independent nonprofit science organization that facilitates research and collaboration on issues relating to wind-wildlife interactions, contributed logistical and financial support for the report.

"AWWI is extremely pleased to announce the release of this report that synthesizes the trove of existing research on this important topic," said Executive Director Abby Arnold. "By providing a concise summary of current, accurate, and properly contextualized information about wind-wildlife interactions and efforts to find solutions, it highlights what we know, where more work is needed, and offers a road map for near term future investment and resources. We know wind power can mitigate climate change; we are focusing our attention on the most critical questions to support sustainable wind energy while conserving wildlife and habitat."

The report highlights the need to gather more research to better understand and address wind energy impacts on wildlife while summarizing key findings from available research on wind energy and wildlife interactions for both onshore and offshore wind energy. Wind energy - like any energy source - can have impacts on certain species of wildlife. Wind installations on land can affect some birds and bats, and more research is needed to assess whether there are risks to marine wildlife and fisheries from offshore installations. Studies suggest that properly-sited wind energy facilities that have put measures in place to reduce risk of impacts to wildlife, such as adhering to voluntary federal guidelines, have the lowest environmental impact of any energy generation source.  

"Wind energy is an important tool to help fight climate change," remarked Garry George, clean energy director for National Audubon Society. "Climate change is the biggest threat to birds in North America, as revealed in our 2014 climate report. But if we're going to substantially expand wind energy in this country, we have to make sure that existing and new wind facilities avoid, minimize, and mitigate wildlife impacts to the greatest extent possible. This report will help utilize and prioritize research so we can make that happen."

The Issues report details insights into wind turbine effects on birds and bats. For most songbird species in the U.S. for which there is data, it appears there is unlikely to be a population-level effect from collisions with wind turbines - these collisions represent less than 0.01% of estimated population size. However, groups of certain species like migratory tree bats may be more at-risk of population-level effects. Highlighted in the report findings is the need for more research on why these species are more sensitive than others in order to inform the development of technologies and strategies to minimize impacts.

There are such technologies and strategies currently in use or under development to avoid or reduce adverse impacts during wind energy construction and operation described in the report. These include siting wind farms in areas away from potential at-risk species, selectively or automatically shutting down turbines at certain times to reduce risk, and minimizing impacts through use of technologies or techniques akin to machine-learning technologies intended to detect certain species and technologies that aim to deter certain species collisions using sound or lights.

Taber D. Allison, director of research for AWWI and lead author of the Issues report, explained that the great level of detail of the report is made possible by unprecedented cross-sector research, "The significance of this report is that it distills the results of 25 years of collaborative, focused research that involves knowledge and data contributions from the wind energy industry, state and federal agencies, conservation groups, academia, and scientific organizations." Taber summarized its importance, "It establishes a foundation for the next stage of innovation and solutions."

Thirteen scientific experts in wind energy and wildlife science from organizations, agencies, and universities co-authored the report. Several initiatives are engaged in this collaborative effort, including AWWI, the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative, and the Wind Wildlife Research Fund. Similar efforts are beginning to emerge for offshore wind-wildlife research, state-based and others, such as the Responsible Offshore Science Alliance and the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust.

State and federal agencies including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) were also involved in this collaborative research effort. "The USGS is directly involved in monitoring the health and well-being of our nation's wildlife populations, and we have made meaningful progress in understanding how wildlife interacts with wind energy," commented Jay Diffendorfer, USGS research ecologist. "The knowledge contained in this report will help prioritize and focus future research efforts as demand for clean, emissions-free sources of electricity continues to rise, and ensure we are building scientifically-robust findings and recommendations."

State agencies will also benefit from the information in the Issues report as they engage in decisions around siting new wind farms. Ron Regan, executive director of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, observed, "This new report is a great resource because it synthesizes all of the current science on wind energy and wildlife and reviews the risks and the options for reducing impacts. This will help environmental regulators make informed decisions on the ground."

A unique aspect to this research is that the wind industry has proactively sought to collect data about its impacts on wildlife and to invest in solutions. As a result, more is known about how wind affects wildlife than about any other energy generation source.

"Thanks to the ongoing work of researchers in this field and cross sector investment and collaboration, we can now step back and see what's been accomplished, and what work still needs to be done," remarked Jenny McIvor, vice president of Environmental Policy and Chief Environmental Counsel at Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company and chair of AWWI's Board of Directors. "By establishing what we know, we can best direct our efforts so we can get the benefits of expanding wind energy while also understanding and minimizing our impacts on wildlife."

Phoenix, Arizona, USA: The ancient Incan sanctuary of Machu Picchu is considered one of humanity's greatest architectural achievements. Built in a remote Andean setting atop a narrow ridge high above a precipitous river canyon, the site is renowned for its perfect integration with the spectacular landscape. But the sanctuary's location has long puzzled scientists: Why did the Incas build their masterpiece in such an inaccessible place? Research suggests the answer may be related to the geological faults that lie beneath the site.

On Monday, 23 Sept. 2019, at the GSA Annual meeting in Phoenix, Rualdo Menegat, a geologist at Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, will present the results of a detailed geoarchaeological analysis that suggests the Incas intentionally built Machu Picchu -- as well as some of their cities -- in locations where tectonic faults meet. "Machu Pichu's location is not a coincidence," says Menegat. "It would be impossible to build such a site in the high mountains if the substrate was not fractured."

Using a combination of satellite imagery and field measurements, Menegat mapped a dense web of intersecting fractures and faults beneath the UNESCO World Heritage Site. His analysis indicates these features vary widely in scale, from tiny fractures visible in individual stones to major, 175-kilometer-long lineaments that control the orientation of some of the region's river valleys.

Menegat found that these faults and fractures occur in several sets, some of which correspond to the major fault zones responsible for uplifting the Central Andes Mountains during the past eight million years. Because some of these faults are oriented northeast-southwest and others trend northwest-southeast, they collectively create an "X" shape where they intersect beneath Machu Picchu.

Menegat's mapping suggests that the sanctuary's urban sectors and the surrounding agricultural fields, as well as individual buildings and stairs, are all oriented along the trends of these major faults. "The layout clearly reflects the fracture matrix underlying the site," says Menegat. Other ancient Incan cities, including Ollantaytambo, Pisac, and Cusco, are also located at the intersection of faults, says Menegat. "Each is precisely the expression of the main directions of the site's geological faults."

Menegat's results indicate the underlying fault-and-fracture network is as integral to Machu Picchu's construction as its legendary stonework. This mortar-free masonry features stones so perfectly fitted together that it's impossible to slide a credit card between them. As master stoneworkers, the Incas took advantage of the abundant building materials in the fault zone, says Menegat. "The intense fracturing there predisposed the rocks to breaking along these same planes of weakness, which greatly reduced the energy needed to carve them."

In addition to helping shape individual stones, the fault network at Machu Picchu likely offered the Incas other advantages, according to Menegat. Chief among these was a ready source of water. "The area's tectonic faults channeled meltwater and rainwater straight to the site," he says. Construction of the sanctuary in such a high perch also had the benefit of isolating the site from avalanches and landslides, all-too-common hazards in this alpine environment, Menegat explains.

The faults and fractures underlying Machu Picchu also helped drain the site during the intense rainstorms prevalent in the region. "About two-thirds of the effort to build the sanctuary involved constructing subsurface drainages," says Menegat. "The preexisting fractures aided this process and help account for its remarkable preservation," he says. "Machu Picchu clearly shows us that the Incan civilization was an empire of fractured rocks."

Tropical Storm Tapah had taken on an elongated shape as it moved through the Sea of Japan, between South Korea and Japan. When the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite passed over Tapah, it measured rainfall as the storm was becoming extra-tropical.

GPM passed over Tapah on Sept. 22 at 0000 UTC (Sept. 21 at 8 p.m. EDT). GPM found the heaviest rainfall in the northeastern side of the storm, where it was falling at a rate of over 36 mm (about 1.4 inch) per hour. Heavy rainfall was also visible in a band of thunderstorms feeding into the center from the northeastern quadrant where rain was falling at a rate of 25 mm (1 inch) per hour. Rainfall around the rest of the storm was light. The storm also appeared elongated in GPM imagery which is an indication of a storm becoming extra-tropical.

That means that a tropical cyclone has lost its "tropical" characteristics. NOAA's National Hurricane Center defines "extra-tropical" as a transition that implies both poleward displacement (meaning it moves toward the north or south pole) of the cyclone and the conversion of the cyclone's primary energy source from the release of latent heat of condensation to baroclinic (the temperature contrast between warm and cold air masses) processes. It is important to note that cyclones can become extratropical and still retain winds of hurricane or tropical storm force.

As Tropical Storm Tapah was transitioning into an extra-tropical storm at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on Sunday, Sept. 22, it was centered near 32.8 north latitude and 127.9 east longitude, about 97 miles west-southwest of Sasebo, Japan. Tapah was moving to the northeast and had maximum sustained winds near 55 knots (63 mph). That location was from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center's final advisory on the system.

Hurricanes are the most powerful weather event on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA.

Forecasters use a variety of satellite imagery to understand what's happening in a storm, and sometimes just a visible picture can tell a lot. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters with a visible image of the storm that showed wind shear was pushing clouds away from the storm's center.

The shape of a tropical cyclone provides forecasters with an idea of its organization and strength. When outside winds batter a storm it can change the shape of it and push much of the associated clouds and rain to one side of it. That's what wind shear does.

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

Visible imagery from NASA satellites help forecasters understand if a storm is organizing or weakening, or if it is being affected by vertical wind shear. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP provided a visible image of Jerry on Sept. 22. The image showed the bulk of clouds associated with Jerry were pushed to the east-northeast, indicating a west-southwesterly wind shear.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center or NHC noted that wind shear was affecting the storm on Monday, September 23, 2019. NHC noted that strong winds shear associated with an upper atmospheric, elongated low pressure area located off the southeastern U.S. coast continues to affect Jerry. That system is creating winds from the west-southwest that are pushing the bulk of Jerry's clouds and showers to the east-northeast.

On Monday, September 23, 2019, NOAA's National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm warning for Bermuda.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), NHC reported the center of Tropical Storm Jerry was located near latitude 28.1 degrees north and longitude 68.0 degrees west. Jerry is about 345 miles (560 km) Southwest of Bermuda. Jerry is moving toward the north-northwest near 7 mph (11 kph), and this general motion should continue today. Maximum sustained winds are near 65 mph (100 kph) with higher gusts. Gradual weakening is expected during the next few days. The estimated minimum central pressure is 991 millibars.

A turn to the north is expected tonight followed by a turn to the northeast on Tuesday. On the forecast track, the center of Jerry is expected to pass near Bermuda by Tuesday night or early Wednesday. Jerry is expected to produce 1 to 3 inches of rainfall across Bermuda through Wednesday. Swells generated by Jerry are beginning to increase along the coast of Bermuda, and they will continue to affect the island during the next few days.

Hurricanes are the most powerful weather event on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

For updated forecasts. visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov