Let’s get cracking: Sandia scientists detect gases from fractured rock

Steve Bauer, a retired Sandia National Laboratories geoscientist, is preparing his sensitive mass spectrometer to detect the gases released by crushing a piece of granite. Recently he detected noble gases released by a test explosion underground. Someday this research might improve the prediction of earthquakes or detection of underground explosions.
Photo Credit: Craig Fritz

Geoscientists have detected specific gases being released from fractured rocks in real time after a series of small chemical explosions set underground.

This fundamental research, led by Sandia National Laboratories geoscientist Steve Bauer, could one day improve the prediction of earthquakes or detection of underground explosions.

“In the different shots, we were able to measure different relative amounts of noble gases, which we hope is consistent with the amount of deformation caused by the explosion,” said Bauer, who recently retired. “The chemical explosions had the same amount of TNT equivalent, but produced different amounts of liquids and gases, so they deformed the rock to different extents. My pie-in-the-sky goal is to measure the amount of noble gas at a location after an explosion or earthquake and then be able to understand the amount of strain the rock has experienced.”

Fossil find in California shakes up the natural history of cycad plants

Three-dimensional reconstruction of the whole cone and different views of the same cone scale. Scale bar: cone = 400 microns; cone scales = 200 microns.
Image Credit: Andres Elgorriaga, Brian Atkinson

Cycads, a group of gymnosperms which can resemble miniature palm trees (like the popular sago palm houseplant) were long thought to be “living fossils,” a group that had evolved minimally since the time of the dinosaurs. Now, a well-preserved 80-million-year-old pollen cone discovered in California has rewritten scientific understanding of the plants.

The findings are detailed in a paper by two University of Kansas paleobotanists just published in the journal New Phytologist.

“Cycads aren’t well-known but make up a significant part of plant diversity, accounting for around 25% of all gymnosperms,” said lead author Andres Elgorriaga, postdoctoral researcher with the KU Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum3. “Cycads are plants that have thick stems and short stature, with thick, palm-like leaves on top. They produce cones like pine cones and are related to other seed-bearing plants that also don’t produce flowers, like Ginkgo and the monkey puzzle tree. But they’re also highly endangered, with the highest level of endangerment among all plant groups. Trafficking of cycads also is a significant issue.”

Essential mechanism for bacterial gut colonization discovered

Tomogram of a Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron cell.
Image Credit: Matthew Swulius / Pennsylvania State University
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

New light has been shed on a key event that contributes to the successful colonization of bacteria in the gut of mice, according to a new study from Yale University and Penn State. The study, published in Science, reveals that a physical process called "liquid-liquid phase separation" is essential for the survival and colonization of the beneficial bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron in the gut.

“In our field we are trying to understand how bacteria can colonize your gut and what the molecular components are that allow these organisms to reside in your intestines, because not all bacteria can,” said Guy Townsend, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Penn State College of Medicine and an author on the paper. Prior to this work, researchers did not understand the mechanisms that allowed B. thetaiotaomicron to thrive in the gut of mammals.

The researchers demonstrated the crucial role played by an “intrinsically disordered domain” (IDR) within a particular protein in the bacterium, called Rho, that facilitates liquid-liquid phase separation.

Liquid-liquid phase separation is when two liquids that don't mix well separate into different parts because of their chemical differences. This process helps cells create structures that don't have a membrane and are important for many cell functions.

The inequalities of low-carbon electricity

UNIGE researchers evaluated the consequences of 248 decarbonization scenarios on 296 European regions.
Photo Credit: Rob Martin

Greenhouse gas reduction, new jobs, new investment opportunities: the benefits of decarbonizing the electricity sector - one of the most polluting - are obvious. However, a transition to lower-carbon electricity production could have a negative impact on some regions, depending on their vulnerabilities and their capacity to adapt, while it could have a positive impact on others. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has precisely mapped the socio-economic consequences of electricity decarbonization for 296 regions in Europe by 2050. It shows that the southern and south-eastern regions of the continent could be the most vulnerable. These results can be found in Nature Communications.

The electricity consumed in Europe is largely produced by highly polluting fossil fuel power plants (coal, gas). This sector alone is responsible for a quarter of the continent’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Decarbonizing electricity has therefore become a priority. It is also a prerequisite for the decarbonization of other sectors that need to be electrified, such as heating and transport.

The benefits of such a transition are obvious (reduced air pollution, new employment opportunities). However, the process could also maintain or lead to some new inequalities between regions. For example, an area with a coal-fired power plant will lose many jobs and tax revenues if the plant closes. It will be doubly penalized if there is little land available to build new renewable energy plants.

Beyond Moore’s Law: Innovations in solid-state physics include ultra-thin ‘two-dimensional’ materials and more

From left to right: Kaustav Banerjee and Arnab Pal
Photo Credit: Lilli McKinney

In the ceaseless pursuit of energy-efficient computing, new devices designed at UC Santa Barbara show promise for enhancements in information processing and data storage.

Researchers in the lab of Kaustav Banerjee, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, have published a new paper describing several of these devices, “Quantum-engineered devices based on 2D materials for next-generation information processing and storage,” in the journal Advanced Materials. Arnab Pal, who recently received his doctorate, is the lead author.

Each device is intended to address challenges associated with conventional computing in a new way. All four operate at very low voltages and are characterized as being low leakage, as opposed to the conventional metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) found in smartphones that drain power even when turned off. But because they are based on processing steps similar to those used to make MOSFETs, the new devices could be produced at scale using existing industry-standard manufacturing processes for semiconductors.

The most promising of the two information-processing devices, according to Banerjee, is the spin-based field-effect transistor, or spin-FET, which takes advantage of the magnetic moment — or spin — of the electrons that power the device. In this case, the materials belong to the transition metal dichalcogenide group of compounds, which are based on transition metals. 

Why mosses are vital for the health of our soil and Earth

When mosses cover the soil, it's a good sign, not a bad one. They lay foundations for other plant life to thrive.
Photo Credit: University of New South Wales

Often ignored or even removed, moss provides stabilization for plant ecosystems the world over.

Some people see moss growing in their gardens as a problem, but what they may not realize is this ancient ancestor of all plants is bringing lots of benefits to our green spaces, such as protecting against erosion.

Now a massive global study led by UNSW Sydney has found mosses are not just good for the garden, but are just as vital for the health of the entire planet when they grow on topsoil. Not only do they lay the foundations for plants to flourish in ecosystems around the world, they may play an important role mitigating against climate change by capturing vast amounts of carbon.

In a study published today in the journal Nature Geoscience, lead author Dr David Eldridge and more than 50 colleagues from international research institutions described how they collected samples of mosses growing on soil from more than 123 ecosystems across the globe, ranging from lush, tropical rainforest, to barren polar landscapes, through to arid deserts like those found in Australia. The researchers found that mosses cover a staggering 9.4 million km2 in the environments surveyed, which compares in size to Canada or China.

‘Raw’ data show AI signals mirror how the brain listens and learns

Researchers found strikingly similar signals between the brain and artificial neural networks. The blue line is brain wave when humans listen to a vowel. Red is the artificial neural network’s response to the exact same vowel. The two signals are raw, meaning no transformations were needed.
Illustration Credit: Courtesy Gasper Begus

New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that artificial intelligence (AI) systems can process signals in a way that is remarkably similar to how the brain interprets speech, a finding scientists say might help explain the black box of how AI systems operate.

Using a system of electrodes placed on participants’ heads, scientists with the Berkeley Speech and Computation Lab measured brain waves as participants listened to a single syllable — “bah.” They then compared that brain activity to the signals produced by an AI system trained to learn English.

“The shapes are remarkably similar,” said Gasper Begus, assistant professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and lead author on the study published recently in the journal Scientific Reports. “That tells you similar things get encoded, that processing is similar. “

A side-by-side comparison graph of the two signals shows that similarity strikingly.

Scientists discover anatomical changes in the brains of the newly sighted

MIT neuroscientists discovered anatomical changes that occur in the white matter pathways linking visual-processing areas of the brain in children who have congenital cataracts surgically removed. This image shows the late-visual pathways in the brain.
Illustration Credit: Courtesy of the researchers, edited by MIT News

For many decades, neuroscientists believed there was a “critical period” in which the brain could learn to make sense of visual input, and that this window closed around the age of 6 or 7.

Recent work from MIT Professor Pawan Sinha has shown that the picture is more nuanced than that. In many studies of children in India who had surgery to remove congenital cataracts beyond the age of 7, he has found that older children can learn visual tasks such as recognizing faces, distinguishing objects from a background, and discerning motion.

In a new study, Sinha and his colleagues have now discovered anatomical changes that occur in the brains of these patients after their sight is restored. These changes, seen in the structure and organization of the brain’s white matter, appear to underlie some of the visual improvements that the researchers also observed in these patients.

The findings further support the idea that the window of brain plasticity, for at least some visual tasks, extends much further than previously thought.

How does climate change affect global bird reproduction?

Avian ecologist Jeff Hoover and his colleagues explored the potential effects of global warming on bird reproductive output across the world. 
Photo Credit: Fred Zwicky

A new study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences assessed changes in the reproductive output of 104 bird species between 1970 and 2019. Illinois Natural History Survey avian ecologist Jeff Hoover, a co-author of the paper, spoke to News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates about the findings and how climate change is altering bird ecology and health around the world. 

What is unique about the study?  

This study explored potential effects of global climate change – in particular, warming – on offspring production for over 100 species from more than 200 bird populations across all continents. We looked at data for each of these bird populations over 15 to 49 breeding seasons to consider if changes in local temperatures and precipitation were associated with changes in the average number of offspring produced per female per year.

Beyond effects of a warming climate on individual species’ reproductive output, the study also considered whether climate change may affect offspring production by interacting with other attributes of the birds. Such traits include body mass, migration status, habitat needs, human impacts to local landscapes, the protection/conservation status of sites and whether the birds can produce two broods in a single breeding season. The temporal and spatial scales of this work and the number of species and populations studied were monumental.  

Fish thought to help reefs have poop that’s deadly to corals

A coral-eating butterflyfish on a Moorea reef in July 2019.
Photo Credit: Carsten Grupstra

Feces from fish that are typically thought to promote healthy reefs can damage and, in some cases, kill corals, according to a recent study by Rice University marine biologists.

Until recently, fish that consume algae and detritus — grazers — were thought to keep reefs healthy, and fish that eat coral — corallivores — were thought to weaken reef structures. The researchers found high levels of coral pathogens in grazer feces and high levels of beneficial bacteria in corallivore feces, which they say could act like a “coral probiotic.”

“Corallivorous fish are generally regarded as harmful because they bite the corals,” said Carsten Grupstra, a former graduate student at Rice and lead author of the open-access study in Frontiers in Marine Science. “But it turns out that this doesn’t tell the whole story.”