Post-lockdown auto emissions can’t hide in the grass

Polluting clouds of exhaust fumes rise in the air.
Photo Credit: Gerd Altmann

University of California scientists have a new way to demonstrate which neighborhoods returned to pre-pandemic levels of air pollution after COVID restrictions ended.

Vehicle emissions are the biggest source of carbon dioxide in Southern California’s air. As people drove their cars far less in 2020 compared to 2019 due to the pandemic, there was a major drop in CO2 on regional highways. A new study published in AGU Advances using a mobile laboratory shows the CO2 drop was roughly 60%.

By analyzing grass samples from across the state, the same study also showed in fine detail that some parts of California were back to high levels of emissions by 2021, while others — generally in more affluent areas — were not.

“Community scientists sent us hundreds of wild grass samples. We analyzed them for radiocarbon content, which is a proxy for fossil fuel emissions,” said Francesca Hopkins, UC Riverside assistant professor of climate change and study co-author.

Consortium develops sustainable aircraft engines

Flying without pollutant emissions should be possible in the future.
Photo Credit: RUB, Marquard

A new drive technology should make air travel possible with a clear conscience.

In the face of climate change, many people get on the plane with a guilty conscience: the emission of climate-damaging carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels is high. An international consortium wants to change this: The aim of the "MYTHOS" project is to develop aircraft engines that can flexibly use various sustainably produced fuels up to pure hydrogen. The project called "Medium-range hybrid low-pollution flexi-fuel / hydrogen sustainable engine" will start from 1. January 2023 funded by the European Union for four years. The coordination is carried out by Prof. Dr. Francesca di Mare, holder of the professorship for thermal turbo machines and aircraft engines of the RUB.

The overarching goal to which the project team is committed is nothing less than the decarbonization of aviation. "We will be developing and demonstrating a groundbreaking design methodology for future short and medium-range civil engines that can use a wide range of liquid and gaseous fuels and ultimately pure hydrogen," said Francesca di Mare. The fuels for which the engines are to be designed include so-called Sustainable Aviation Fuels, or SAF for short: sustainably produced fuels that are not based on fossil fuels. In order to achieve these goals, the MYTHOS consortium develops a multidisciplinary modeling approach for the characterization of the relevant engine components and uses methods of machine learning.

Checking blood pressure in a heartbeat, using artificial intelligence and a camera

The new technology demonstrates how a camera and artificial intelligence can be used to extract cardiac signals from a person's forehead.
Photo Credit:  University of South Australia

Monitoring blood pressure using a digital camera could soon be the norm, thanks to an innovative technique demonstrated by Australian and Iraqi researchers.

Using the same remote-health technology they pioneered to monitor vital health signs from a distance, engineers from the University of South Australia and Baghdad’s Middle Technical University have designed a non-contact system to accurately measure systolic and diastolic pressure.

The researchers claim that it could replace the existing uncomfortable and cumbersome method of strapping an inflatable cuff to a patient’s arm or wrist, the researchers claim.

In a new paper published in Inventions, the researchers describe the technique, which involves filming a person from a short distance for 10 seconds and extracting cardiac signals from two regions in the forehead, using artificial intelligence algorithms.

The systolic and diastolic readings were around 90 per cent accurate, compared to the existing instrument (a digital sphygmomanometer) used to measure blood pressure, that is itself subject to errors.

Researchers developed a new cancer testing method that makes regular monitoring affordable

Asst Prof Cheow Lih Feng (right), his former PhD student Dr Elsie Cheruba (left) and their team have developed the Heatrich-BS assay, an affordable and highly sensitive blood test for cancer. This new testing method has strong potential to be used in regular cancer monitoring.
Photo Credit: National University of Singapore

The S$50 blood test has high sensitivity, comparable to the gold standard CT scan

Scientists from the National University of (NUS) have discovered a novel low-cost method of testing for cancers. Called the Heatrich-BS assay, this new test sequences clinical samples that have been heated in order to isolate cancer-specific signatures found in a patient’s blood.

The new method provides a promising non-invasive alternative to tissue biopsies. It costs around S$50 from start to finish, compared to other sequencing methods that can cost up to S$1,000 to conduct. Led by Assistant Professor Cheow Lih Feng, the team comprising researchers from the NUS Department of Biomedical Engineering under the College of Design and Engineering as well as the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology, is now exploring industry partnerships to bring their technology to market.

“When you have a S$50 test, it opens up a lot of avenues because it is affordable, so you can do the test quite regularly,” said Asst Prof Cheow, pointing to the potential for their assay to be used in regular cancer monitoring.

You can learn to be fearless

Katharina Spoida (left) and Sandra Süß have examined how the lack of a specific receptor affects the ability to unlearn fear.
Photo Credit: RUB, Marquard

The lack of a specific serotonin receptor helps to unlearn fear faster.

The messenger serotonin plays an important role in the development, but also in the learning of fear and fear. A research team in general zoology and neurobiology around Dr. Katharina Spoida and Dr. Sandra Süß examined in the collaborative research center "Extinction Learning" at the Ruhr University Bochum. The researchers were able to show that mice that lack a certain serotonin receptor unlearn fear much faster than the wild type. The results of the study provide a possible explanation of how drugs for post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSDs) change our brain activity. Those affected often have the ability to unlearn fear, making therapies difficult. The study was carried out on 19. November 2022 published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Everyday sensations cause fear

After a traumatic experience, those affected sometimes suffer fear long later, which is caused by certain sensory impressions from our everyday environment and is then overpowering. Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD for short, is what experts call it. In this disorder, it is not or only with difficulty that those affected can unlearn the connection once they have learned between a neutral environmental stimulus and fear, which affects the success of therapies.

Experimental COVID-19 Vaccine Offers Long-Term Protection Against Severe Disease

A study involving rhesus macaques at the California National Primate Research Center shows that COVID-19 vaccines given to infant animals protect against lung disease one year after vaccination.
 Photo Credit: CNPRC

Two-dose vaccines provide protection against lung disease in rhesus macaques one year after they were vaccinated as infants, a new study shows. The work, published in Science Translational Medicine Dec. 1, is a follow-up to a 2021 studying showing that the Moderna mRNA vaccine and a protein-based vaccine candidate containing an adjuvant, a substance that enhances immune responses, elicited durable neutralizing antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 during infancy in preclinical research.

The co-senior authors of the paper are Kristina De Paris, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Sallie Permar, professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine; and Koen K.A. Van Rompay, leader of the Infectious Disease Unit at the California National Primate Research at the University of California, Davis. Co-first authors are Emma C. Milligan at the Children’s Research Institute, UNC School of Medicine; and Katherine Olstad at the CNPRC.

To evaluate SARS-CoV-2 infant vaccination, the researchers immunized two groups of eight infant rhesus macaques at the CNPRC at 2 months of age and again four weeks later. Each animal received one of two vaccine types: a preclinical version of the Moderna mRNA vaccine or a vaccine combining a protein developed by the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), with a potent adjuvant formulation. Consisting of 3M’s molecular adjuvant 3M-052 formulated in a squalene emulsion by the Access to Advanced Health Institute (AAHI), the adjuvant formulation stimulates immune responses by engaging receptors on immune cells.

Positively charged nanomaterials treat obesity anywhere you want

Illustration of depot-specific targeting of fat by cationic nanomaterials
Illustration Credit: Nicoletta Barolini/Columbia University

Researchers have long been working on how to treat obesity, a serious condition that can lead to hypertension, diabetes, chronic inflammation, and cardiovascular diseases. Studies have also revealed a strong correlation of obesity and cancer--recent data show that smoking, drinking alcohol, and obesity are the biggest contributors to cancer worldwide.

The development of fat cells, which are produced from a tiny fibroblast-like progenitor, not only activates the fat cells’ specific genes but also grows them by storing more lipids (adipocytes and adipose tissue). In fact, lipid storage is the defining function of a fat cell. But the storage of too much lipid can make fat cells unhealthy and lead to obesity.

Challenges in targeting fat cells

The ability to target fat cells and safely uncouple unhealthy fat formation from healthy fat metabolism would be the answer to many peoples’ prayers. A major challenge in obesity treatment is that fat tissue, which is not continuous in the body but is found piece by piece in “depots,” has been difficult to target in a depot-specific manner, pinpointed at the exact location.

There are two main kinds of fat: visceral fat, internal tissues that surround the stomach, liver, and intestines, and subcutaneous fat, found under the skin anywhere in the body. Visceral fat produces potbellies; subcutaneous fat can create chin jowls, arm fat, etc. To date, there has been no way to specifically treat visceral adipose tissue. And current treatments for subcutaneous fat like liposuction are invasive and destructive.

New Stanford chip-scale laser isolator could transform photonics

From left, Alexander White, Geun Ho Ahn, and Jelena Vučković with the nanoscale isolator.
Photo Credit: Hannah Kleidermacher

Using well-known materials and manufacturing processes, researchers have built an effective, passive, ultrathin laser isolator that opens new research avenues in photonics.

Lasers are transformational devices, but one technical challenge prevents them from being even more so. The light they emit can reflect back into the laser itself and destabilize or even disable it. At real-world scales, this challenge is solved by bulky devices that use magnetism to block harmful reflections. At chip scale, however, where engineers hope lasers will one day transform computer circuitry, effective isolators have proved elusive.

Against that backdrop, researchers at Stanford University say they have created a simple and effective chip-scale isolator that can be laid down in a layer of semiconductor-based material hundreds of times thinner than a sheet of paper.

“Chip-scale isolation is one of the great open challenges in photonics,” said Jelena Vučković, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford and senior author of the study appearing Dec. 1 in the journal Nature Photonics.

“Every laser needs an isolator to stop back reflections from coming into and destabilizing the laser,” said Alexander White, a doctoral candidate in Vučković’s lab and co-first author of the paper, adding that the device has implications for everyday computing, but could also influence next-generation technologies, like quantum computing.

Small fish could play big role in fight against malnutrition

 Dagaa, a small pelagic fish, is the largest share of the catch around Lake Victoria in East Africa. Photo Credit: Kathryn Fiorella

According to new research, inexpensive, small fish species caught in seas and lakes in developing countries could help close nutritional gaps for undernourished people, and especially young children, according to new research.

The study, “Small Pelagic Fish Supply Abundant and Affordable Micronutrients to Low- and Middle-Income Countries,” published Dec. 1 in Nature Food.

The researchers found that fish such as herring, sardines and anchovies – known as pelagic fish, meaning they inhabit upper layers of open sea – were the cheapest nutritious fish in 72% percent of the countries.

They also found targeting small pelagic fish could help close nutrient gaps in sub-Saharan Africa, where nutrient deficiencies are rising and children under 5 years consume just 38% of recommended seafood intake. While cheap and nutritious, these small fish are also already caught in sufficient numbers. Just 20% of the current small pelagic fish catch could meet the recommended dietary fish intakes for all children under 5 who live near coastlines.

Hibernating Corals and the Microbiomes That Sustain Them

A microscope image of Northern star coral with its polyps extended.
Photo Credit: Alicia Schickle, Roger Williams University

As winter approaches, many species of animals — from bears and squirrels to parasitic wasps and a few lucky humans — hunker down for some needed rest. The northern star coral (Astrangia poculata) also enters a hibernating state of dormancy, or quiescence, during this time. But what happens to its microbiome while it’s sleeping?

A study led by University of California, Davis, Assistant Professor Anya Brown found that microbial communities shift while this coral enters dormancy, providing it an important seasonal reset. The work may carry implications for coral in warmer waters struggling with climate change and other environmental issues.

“Dormancy, at its most basic, is a response to an environmental stressor — in this case, cold stress,” said Brown, who is part of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory in the Department of Evolution and Ecology. “If we understand more about this recovery period, it might help us understand what microbes may be responsible for recovering coral in warmer tropical systems.”