In utero exposure to flame retardants increases anxiety symptoms in adolescents

Dr. Strawn.
Photo Credit: Colleen Kelley/UC Marketing + Brand.

New research led by the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center sheds light on the connection between exposure to environmental toxins in utero and the later development of anxiety during adolescence.

Lead author Jeffrey Strawn, MD, and his colleagues recently published the study in the journal Depression & Anxiety.

Strawn said researchers are increasingly interested in learning more about risk factors for anxiety and depression in children, particularly since there has been a surge of these symptoms during the pandemic. Even prior to the pandemic, anxiety disorders were among the most prevalent and earliest presenting mental health conditions for children, he said.

“We know a lot about early risk factors, including psychological risk factors, temperament, behaviors and family relationships,” said Strawn, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience in UC’s College of Medicine and a UC Health child and adolescent psychiatrist. “But we know incredibly little about the effects of environmental factors like air pollution and other environmental toxicants on anxiety.”

The study focused on a class of chemicals called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) that were used as flame retardants for products like furniture foam padding, insulation, rugs, upholstery, computers and appliances. Exposure to PBDEs during early brain development has been associated with cognitive deficits, reduced language skills and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and the chemicals were banned in the United States in 2004.

Prehistoric predator? Artificial intelligence says no

Artificial intelligence has proven vital in identifying a mysterious Aussie dinosaur
Image Credit: Dr Anthony Romilio

Artificial intelligence has revealed that prehistoric footprints thought to be made by a vicious dinosaur predator were in fact from a timid herbivore.

In an international collaboration, University of Queensland paleontologist Dr Anthony Romilio used AI pattern recognition to re-analyze footprints from the Dinosaur Stampede National Monument, south-west of Winton in Central Queensland.

“Large dinosaur footprints were first discovered back in the 1970s at a track site called the Dinosaur Stampede National Monument, and for many years they were believed to be left by a predatory dinosaur, like Australovenator, with legs nearly two meters long,” said Dr Romilio.

“The mysterious tracks were thought to be left during the mid-Cretaceous Period, around 93 million years ago.

“But working out what dino species made the footprints exactly – especially from tens of millions of years ago – can be a pretty difficult and confusing business.

Solving brain dynamics gives rise to flexible machine-learning models

Studying the brains of small species recently helped MIT researchers better model the interaction between neurons and synapses — the building blocks of natural and artificial neural networks — into a class of flexible, robust machine-learning models that learn on the job and can adapt to changing conditions.
Image Credit: Ramin Hasani/Stable Diffusion

Last year, MIT researchers announced that they had built “liquid” neural networks, inspired by the brains of small species: a class of flexible, robust machine learning models that learn on the job and can adapt to changing conditions, for real-world safety-critical tasks, like driving and flying. The flexibility of these “liquid” neural nets meant boosting the bloodline to our connected world, yielding better decision-making for many tasks involving time-series data, such as brain and heart monitoring, weather forecasting, and stock pricing.

But these models become computationally expensive as their number of neurons and synapses increase and require clunky computer programs to solve their underlying, complicated math. And all of this math, similar to many physical phenomena, becomes harder to solve with size, meaning computing lots of small steps to arrive at a solution.

Now, the same team of scientists has discovered a way to alleviate this bottleneck by solving the differential equation behind the interaction of two neurons through synapses to unlock a new type of fast and efficient artificial intelligence algorithms. These modes have the same characteristics of liquid neural nets — flexible, causal, robust, and explainable — but are orders of magnitude faster, and scalable. This type of neural net could therefore be used for any task that involves getting insight into data over time, as they’re compact and adaptable even after training — while many traditional models are fixed.

Cyber vulnerability in networks used by spacecraft, aircraft and energy generation systems

A new attack discovered by the University of Michigan and NASA exploits a trusted network technology to create unexpected and potentially catastrophic behavior

A major vulnerability in networking technology widely used in critical infrastructures such as spacecraft, aircraft, energy generation systems and industrial control systems was exposed by researchers at the University of Michigan and NASA.

It goes after a network protocol and hardware system called time-triggered ethernet, or TTE, which greatly reduces costs in high-risk settings by allowing mission-critical devices (like flight controls and life support systems) and less important devices (like passenger WiFi or data collection) to coexist on the same network hardware. This blend of devices on a single network arose as part of a push by many industries to reduce network costs and boost efficiency.

That coexistence has been considered safe for more than a decade, predicated on a design that prevented the two types of network traffic from interfering with one another. The team’s attack, called PCspooF, was the first of its kind to break this isolation.

In one compelling demonstration, the team used real NASA hardware to recreate a planned Asteroid Redirection Test. The experimental setup controlled a simulated crewed capsule, specifically at the point in the mission when the capsule prepared to dock with a robotic spacecraft.

Birds of a feather flock together?

Maria Castaño uses a spectrophotometer to analyze tanager feathers.
Photo Credit: University of Rochester | J. Adam Fenster

A biology PhD student analyzes tanager bird feathers to explore how species evolve over time.

Maria Castaño, a third-year PhD student at the University of Rochester in the lab of Al Uy, a professor of biology, studies populations of birds to understand the processes that lead to the creation of new species.

Castaño collects and analyzes DNA sequences and feathers of tanagers from her native Colombia in South America. Her research focuses on two different subspecies of tanagers, which have different colored feathers on their rump areas: one subspecies lives in the lowlands of Colombia and has yellow rump feathers, while another subspecies lives in the mountains and has red rump feathers.

Boeing Demonstrates New Autonomous Anti-Jam Capabilities for U.S. Space Force Satellite Communications Program

Boeing engineers recently demonstrated its space-based smart antenna technology, which detects enemy jammers and autonomously reshapes a satellite’s beams to suppress hostile jammers while maintaining communications with the friendly-force PTS terminals. Boeing’s system brings communication to the warfighter at closer range to the enemy.
Photo Credit: Boeing

Boeing engineers recently demonstrated a new, autonomous technology that can successfully prevent jamming attempts on U.S. Department of Defense satellite communications (SATCOM). The test was conducted on the U.S. Space Force’s Protected Tactical SATCOM Prototype (PTS-P), showing how this technology can provide secure communication in contested environments.

“Maintaining communication with our deployed forces during hostility gives us a tactical edge on the battlefield,” said Justin Bruner, PTS-P Program Manager at the U.S. Space Force. “Our adversaries are always attempting to deny our ability to communicate. On-board, autonomous, real-time nulling of jammers greatly enhances our resiliency, ensuring the United States and our allies can provide our warfighters with secure, reliable communications in a contested environment. Boeing has made significant strides in the development and execution of a nulling algorithm with flight-like firmware, demonstrating agile anti-jam capability. PTS-P and all of our Protected Anti-Jam Tactical SATCOM (PATS) programs are critical to this effort.”

New discoveries made about a promising solar cell material, thanks to new microscope

Visualization of the microscope tip exposing material to terahertz light. The colors on the material represent the light-scattering data, and the red and blue lines represent the terahertz waves.
Illustration Credit: Ames National Laboratory

A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory developed a new characterization tool that allowed them to gain unique insight into a possible alternative material for solar cells. Under the leadership of Jigang Wang, senior scientist from Ames Lab, the team developed a microscope that uses terahertz waves to collect data on material samples. The team then used their microscope to explore Methylammonium Lead Iodide (MAPbI3) perovskite, a material that could potentially replace silicon in solar cells.

Richard Kim, a scientist from Ames Lab, explained the two features that make the new scanning probe microscope unique. First, the microscope uses the terahertz range of electromagnetic frequencies to collect data on materials. This range is far below the visible light spectrum, falling between the infrared and microwave frequencies. Secondly, the terahertz light is shined through a sharp metallic tip that enhances the microscope’s capabilities toward nanometer length scales.

“Normally if you have a light wave, you cannot see things smaller than the wavelength of the light you're using. And for this terahertz light, the wavelength is about a millimeter, so it’s quite large,” explained Kim. “But here we used this sharp metallic tip with an apex that is sharpened to a 20-nanometer radius curvature, and this acts as our antenna to see things smaller than the wavelength that we were using.”

New critical period of sex determination in sea turtles identified

Sea turtles’ sex is determined based on the environment, which makes them especially vulnerable to climate change. An increase in incubation temperatures could jeopardize the production of both sexes.
 Photo credit: Jay Paredes

Unlike humans, turtles, lizards and other reptiles – such as crocodiles – do not have sex chromosomes. Their sex is determined based on the environment, which makes them especially vulnerable to climate change. An increase in incubation temperatures could jeopardize the production of both sexes.

Gauging primary sex ratios in these species is critical because it assesses their vulnerability under both current and future climate change constraints. While there has been great progress in sex ratio prediction, studies have been hampered due to a lack of accurate and representative regional and population sex ratio estimates. As a result, primary sex ratios calculations could be skewed.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University, in collaboration with the Université Paris-Saclay in France, have demonstrated that the timing of key developmental process driven by temperature is vital when it comes to identifying when sex is determined for sea turtle embryos. They also are the first to compare the output of the most widely used sex ratio prediction methods to actual sex ratios from natural clutches in sea turtles.

They have developed a new way to integrate the effect of thermal fluctuations on embryonic sex determination and predict sex ratios with much better accuracy than prior models. This method measures the strength of masculinization or feminization of temperatures using novel parameters that have uncovered how temperature-sensitive sex determination works.

Tiny molecules in breast milk may protect infants from developing allergies

A new study by Penn State College of Medicine researchers found that small molecules found in most humans’ breast milk may reduce the likelihood of infants developing allergic conditions like atopic dermatitis and food allergies.
Photo Credit: Gustavo Fring

Breastfed babies are believed to suffer fewer allergic conditions, like eczema and food allergies, than formula-fed babies; yet the reason has not been well understood. Now, a new study by Penn State College of Medicine finds that small molecules found in most humans’ breast milk may reduce the likelihood of infants developing allergic conditions like atopic dermatitis and food allergies. The researchers said the discovery could lead to strategies for mothers — such as encouragement and support for breastfeeding or dietary and exercise interventions — to help lower the odds of their babies developing allergies.

Atopic conditions, like food allergies, asthma and a skin condition called atopic dermatitis occur in approximately one-third of children as a result of inappropriate activation of the immune system to environmental exposures.

“Infants who breastfeed beyond three months may have a lower risk for these conditions, but we don’t fully understand the biology behind this,” said Dr. Steven Hicks, associate professor of pediatrics and pediatrician at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital.

Understanding a cerium quirk could help advance grid-scale energy storage

When the cerium atom is short three electrons, it is surrounded by water molecules. But when it gives up a fourth electron, some water molecules shift out of the way to let in sulfates. This dance costs energy, but understanding that energy loss paves the way for more efficient cerium batteries.
Image Credit: Dylan Herrera, Goldsmith Lab, University of Michigan

It turns out cerium flow batteries lose voltage when electrolyte molecules siphon off energy to form different complexes around the metal

An explanation for why flow batteries using the metal cerium in a sulfuric acid electrolyte fall short on voltage, discovered through a study led by the University of Michigan, could pave the way for better battery chemistry.

Flow batteries are one of the methods under consideration for storing intermittent sources of renewable electricity, such as solar and wind power. They can bank large quantities of energy by keeping the chemical potential in liquid form, with two electrolytes that flow through porous electrodes to charge and discharge. The metal cerium could store energy at a relatively high voltage, meaning more energy per metal ion, and at low cost.

One of the challenges with cerium is figuring out how to make electric charges transfer to and from the electrode efficiently. On its way through the positive electrode, cerium either picks up or drops off an electron, depending on whether the battery is charging or discharging.

However, the cerium in a sulfuric acid electrolyte doesn’t pick up and drop off the electron as quickly as expected, meaning energy is wasted. It turned out that the water molecules and sulfate molecules were doing a complicated dance around the cerium, and that’s how the energy was lost.