Climate change threatens global fisheries

Euchaeta marina (Calanoid Copepod).
Photo Credit: Julian Uribe-Palomino IMOS-CSIRO.

A major study has found that the diet quality of fish across large parts of the world’s oceans could decline by up to 10 per cent as climate change impacts an integral part of marine food chains.

QUT School of Mathematical Sciences researcher Dr Ryan Heneghan led the study published in Nature Climate Change that included researchers from the University of Queensland, University of Tasmania, University of NSW and CSIRO.

They modeled the impact of climate change on zooplankton, an abundant and extremely diverse group of microscopic animals accounting for about 40 per cent of the world’s marine biomass.

Zooplankton is the primary link between phytoplankton—which converts sunlight and nutrients into energy like plants do on land—and fish.  Zooplankton includes groups such as Antarctic krill—a major food source for whales—and even jellyfish.

New wood-based technology removes 80 percent of dye pollutants in wastewater

Researchers at Chalmers have developed a new biobased material, a form of powder based on cellulose nanocrystals to purify water from pollutants, including textile dyes. When the polluted water passes through the filter with cellulose powder, the pollutants are absorbed, and the sunlight entering the treatment system causes them to break down quickly and efficiently. Laboratory tests have shown that at least 80 percent of the dye pollutants are removed with the new method and material, and the researchers see good opportunities to further increase the degree of purification.
Illustration Credit: David Ljungberg | Chalmers University of Technology

Clean water is a prerequisite for our health and living environment, but far from a given for everyone. According to the WHO, there are currently over two billion people living with limited or no access to clean water.

This global challenge is at the center of a research group at Chalmers University of Technology, which has developed a method to easily remove pollutants from water. The group, led by Gunnar Westman, Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry, focuses on new uses for cellulose and wood-based products and is part of the Wallenberg Wood Science Center.

The researchers have built up solid knowledge about cellulose nanocrystals* – and this is where the key to water purification lies. These tiny nanoparticles have an outstanding adsorption capacity, which the researchers have now found a way to utilize.

“We have taken a unique holistic approach to these cellulose nanocrystals, examining their properties and potential applications. We have now created a biobased material, a form of cellulose powder with excellent purification properties that we can adapt and modify depending on the types of pollutants to be removed,” says Gunnar Westman.

Can Artificial Intelligence Predict Spatiotemporal Distribution of Dengue Fever Outbreaks with Remote Sensing Data?

Image Credit: Sophia University
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Researchers train machine learning model with climatic and epidemiology remote sensing data to predict the spatiotemporal distribution of disease outbreaks

Cases of dengue fever and other zoonotic diseases will keep increasing owing to climate change, and prevention via early warning is one of our best options against them. Recently, researchers combined a machine learning model with remote sensing climatic data and information on past dengue fever cases in Chinese Taiwan, with the aim of predicting likely outbreak locations. Their findings highlight the hurdles to this approach and could facilitate more accurate predictive models.

Outbreaks of zoonotic diseases, which are those transmitted from animals to humans, are globally on the rise owing to climate change. In particular, the spread of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes is very sensitive to climate change, and Chinese Taiwan has seen a worrisome increase in the number of cases of dengue fever in recent years.

Like for most known diseases, the popular saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” also rings true for dengue fever. Since there is still no safe and effective vaccine for all on a global scale, dengue fever prevention efforts rely on limiting places where mosquitoes can lay their eggs and giving people an early warning when an outbreak is likely to happen. However, thus far, there are no mathematical models that can accurately predict the location of dengue fever outbreaks ahead of time.

The age of onset of Alzheimer’s disease is likely linked to genetic factors

Nick Cochran, PhD
Photo Credit: Courtesy of HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology

Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are progressive neurodegenerative diseases that slowly rob affected individuals of their memory, personality, and, eventually, their life. As devastating as these diseases are anywhere, members of a family in Antioquia, Colombia, suffer from a particularly cruel version that strikes them in their mid-40s and results in death within 10 to 12 years. Several decades ago, a neurologist named Francisco Lopera began studying the family because of their high incidence of very early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Lopera and colleagues discovered that the large Colombian family carries a specific mutation in a gene called presenilin 1 (PSEN1). Having the PSEN1 E280A mutation, as it is called, ensures with certainty that an individual will eventually develop a type of Alzheimer’s disease called autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease. 

Lopera and other colleagues have enrolled more than 6,000 individuals from 26 extended families in the study. The dementia field is learning a lot about the cause and progression of Alzheimer’s disease from this family. In return, they received an answer to their decades-long question about why so many family members were suffering from, and ultimately dying from, the devastating disease. HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology Faculty Investigators Nick Cochran, PhD, and his lab were part of a recent study that dove deeper into the individuals’ genomes and identified new potential gene variants linked to Alzheimer’s disease. 

Microplastics limit energy production in tiny freshwater species

Paramecium bursaria
Image Credit: Picturepest
(CC BY 2.0)

Microplastic pollution reduces energy production in a microscopic creature found in freshwater worldwide, new research shows.

Paramecium bursaria contain algae that live inside their cells and provide energy by photosynthesis.

A new study, by the University of Exeter, tested whether severe microplastic contamination in the water affected this symbiotic relationship.  

The results showed a 50% decline in net photosynthesis – a major impact on the algae’s ability to produce energy and release oxygen.

“The relationship I examined – known as photosymbiosis – is commonly found both in freshwater and the oceans,” said Dr Ben Makin, lead author and associate researcher at the Environment and Sustainability Institute on Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

“We know climate change can damage photosymbiotic relationships, including in corals (leading to ‘bleaching’ events).

Mapping Migration

Avian research often focuses on forests as breeding habitats, but scientists are now working to understand the vital role that small forest patches play in migration. For the first time, a team of researchers from Princeton University and the University of Delaware has created a comprehensive map of migratory pathways and stopover locations in the Eastern United States.
Illustration Credit: Jeffrey C. Chase

Researchers release first comprehensive map of migratory bird patterns in Eastern U.S.

When the song pauses in a game of musical chairs, everyone jostles for one of the remaining seats. Bird migration today is much the same. When it’s time for a break in their biannual travels, songbirds descend to rest and refuel, searching for respite in a dwindling number of forest patches.

Avian research often focuses on forests as breeding habitats, but scientists are working to understand the role that small forest patches play in migration — a vital portion of a bird’s lifecycle when you consider that some species spend as much as half the year in transit. Now, for the first time, a team of researchers from Princeton University and the University of Delaware has created a comprehensive map of migratory pathways and stopover locations in the Eastern United States.

“Small pockets of deciduous forest are often neglected in conservation planning because birds have low breeding success in these spaces,” said Princeton University doctoral candidate Fengyi Guo, lead author of the study. “But the entire population moves across the continent twice annually. Many of them depend on food and shelter in these forest pockets to complete their migration and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Successful conservation of migratory bird populations requires enough habitat to be protected at all stages of its annual cycle.”

Researchers discover a way to fight the aging process and cancer development

Microscope image of C. elegans 10 days after treatment with UV-B rays. Left: Worms with intact DREAM complex cannot repair DNA well. Right: Worms without DREAM complex repair damage and live longer.
Image Credit: © Schumacher Lab

Damage in the human genome can be repaired. But this works better in germ cells, sperm and eggs, than in normal body cells. Responsible for this is the DREAM protein complex, which prevents the activation of all available repair mechanisms. A research team at the University of Cologne has now shown that normal body cells can also be repaired better once this complex has been deactivated. In the long run, the scientists hope to develop better therapies to prevent cancer and aging-associated diseases. 

A protein complex prevents the repair of genome damage in human cells, in mice and in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a team of researchers at the University of Cologne has discovered. They also successfully inhibited this complex for the first time using a pharmaceutical agent.

“When we suppress the so-called DREAM complex in body cells, various repair mechanisms kick in, making these cells extremely resilient towards all kinds of DNA damage,” said Professor Dr Björn Schumacher, Director of the Institute for Genome Stability in Aging and Disease at the University of Cologne’s CECAD Cluster of Excellence in Aging Research.

Drought, Heat Waves Worsen West Coast Air Pollution Inequality

Shasta Lake, Calif. on August 25th, 2014 at Bridge Bay Resort and Marina. Lake Shasta is part of the Central Valley Project, operated by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation.
Photo Credit: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation

A new study led by North Carolina State University researchers found drought and heat waves could make air pollution worse for communities that already have a high pollution burden in California, and deepen pollution inequalities along racial and ethnic lines.

Published in Nature Communications, the study also found financial penalties for power plants can significantly reduce people’s pollution exposure, except during severe heat waves.

“We have known that air pollution disproportionally impacts communities of color, the poor and communities that are already more likely to be impacted by other sources of environmental pollution,” said the study’s lead author Jordan Kern, assistant professor of forestry and environmental resources at NC State. “What we know now is that drought and heat waves make things worse.”

For the study, researchers estimated emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter from power plants in California across 500 different scenarios for what the weather could look like in future years, which they called “synthetic weather years.” These years simulated conditions that could occur based on historical wind, air, temperature and solar radiation values on the West Coast between 1953 and 2008. Then by using information about the location of power plants in California and how much electricity they would be generating under different weather conditions, they estimated air pollution within individual counties.

Tool developed to identify girls at risk of nutritional deficiency

Alexandra Pounds, Research Fellow at the University of Stirling's Institute of Aquaculture, in Bangladesh
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of Stirling

A University of Stirling scientist has led a project which developed a new tool to identify girls in developing countries who are at risk of nutritional deficiency.

Professor Dave Little of the University’s world-renowned Institute of Aquaculture used the resource to discover that adolescent girls in Bangladesh are particularly vulnerable.

Aquaculture is a fast-growing food production sector in many low-income and food-deficit countries and whilst these ecosystems produce highly valuable and nutritious aquatic foods, local communities can still have a poor diet as a result of changes to the supply and accessibility of fish.

Professor Little said: “Adolescent girls represent a particularly vulnerable group in Bangladesh, with higher nutritional needs relative to energy requirements than other adult household members, and at the same time likely to have restricted access to food. 

“For this group, an optimal diet is critical for their own health and – in the case of early marriage and motherhood – for their infants.”

Wastewater could be the key to tracking more viruses than just COVID-19

Boehm lab graduate student Winnie Zambrana showing how wastewater samples are processed to test for evidence of viruses.
Photo Credit: Harry Gregory

Researchers have developed methods for using wastewater to track the levels of various respiratory viruses in a population. This can provide real-time information about virus circulation in a community.

Public health experts commonly track spikes in flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and rhinovirus circulating in a population through weekly reports from sentinel laboratories. These laboratories process samples from only severely ill patients, and it can take weeks for the results to get into the database. Now, for the first time, researchers at Stanford University, in collaboration with Emory University and Verily Life Sciences, have collected fast and accurate readings of a whole suite of respiratory viruses in their local Santa Clara sewer system.

Wastewater is currently the only source for accurate information about COVID-19 rates in communities. PCR testing is no longer widely available, and most people swab themselves at home where their results never reach public health agencies.

Prior to COVID-19, respiratory viruses had not been tracked through wastewater. Most of the viruses the scientists tested for in this study had never been measured in wastewater before. The findings are published in the March 22 issue of The Lancet Microbe.

Attack from the intestine

After an operation, bacteria can enter the organism from the intestine. Combat special cells of the immune system that are located in the liver.
Illustration Credit: Mercedes Gomez de Agüero

Darmbacteria are more common triggers of complications after surgery. This is shown by a new study by research teams from Würzburg and Bern. A solution to this problem could come from the liver.

German hospitals carried out almost 16 million operations in 2021. In Switzerland there are around 1.1 million. Even if the actual procedure is going well, it is not uncommon for a wound infection to occur afterwards, which can have dramatic consequences for those affected. In extreme cases, such infections are fatal.

A new study now shows that the causes of these infections are in a large part of the cases bacteria from the patient's intestine itself. To do this, the intestine does not even have to be injured during the operation. In this way, too, these pathogens overcome the intestinal barrier postoperatively and spread throughout the body through the blood and lymphatic pathways. They can be stopped by special immune cells that patrol all organs, including the liver.

Chemists Synthesize Material with Unusual Properties

Micrographs of ceramics based on barium stannate doped with yttrium. The percentage indicates the amount of yttrium in the tin sublattice. It can be used for electrolytes, electrodes and converters with varying amounts of additives
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the authors of the article

Researchers of the Institute of Hydrogen Energy of the Ural Federal University and the Institute of High Temperature Electrochemistry of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences have created a promising material for hydrogen energy devices. The new material has high proton conductivity and unusual properties (depending on the degree of doping). It can be used as an electrolyte (at high doping levels) and as an electrode (at low doping levels) in solid oxide fuel cells and electrolyzers. A description of the new material and the results of the study are presented in the Journal of Power Sources.

"We synthesized an electrolyte material with a perovskite structure based on barium stannate. By modifying barium stannate with different amounts of yttrium, we obtained materials with curious properties. At high degrees of substitution of tin for yttrium, the materials are ionic (protonic) conductors, which makes them promising electrolytes. At the same time, the introduction of a small amount of yttrium in the composition leads to a pronounced electron transport. This allows these materials to be used as electrodes for the same electrochemical devices, both solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and electrolyzers. This opens up wide possibilities for applications in electrochemical converters, in particular for oxygen-, hydrogen- and water-permeable membranes," explains Georgy Starostin, co-author and Research Engineer at the Hydrogen Energy Laboratory of UrFU.

At least 80% of the world’s most important sites for biodiversity on land currently contain human developments

Photo Credit: Siggy Nowak

A study has found that infrastructure worldwide is widespread in sites that have been identified as internationally important for biodiversity, and its prevalence is likely to increase.

This is the first ever assessment of the presence of infrastructure in Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs): a global network of thousands of sites recognized internationally as being the world’s most critical areas for wildlife.

Infrastructure is one of the greatest drivers of threats to biodiversity according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It can cause natural habitat destruction and fragmentation, pollution, increased disturbance or hunting by humans, the spread of invasive species, direct mortality, and can have wider impacts beyond the development site.

Now, researchers from BirdLife International, WWF and the RSPB, in association with the University of Cambridge, have conducted an assessment of infrastructure in KBAs, finding that it is widespread and likely to increase. The results are published today in Biological Conservation.

“It’s concerning that human developments exist in the vast majority of sites that have been identified as being critical for nature,” said Ash Simkins, a Zoology PhD student at the University of Cambridge who led the study.

Pressure-Based Control Enables Tunable Singlet Fission Materials for Efficient Photoconversion

Applying hydrostatic pressure as an external stimulus, Tokyo Tech and Keio University researchers demonstrate a new way to regulate singlet fission (SF), a process in which two electrons are generated from a single photon, in chromophores, opening doors to the design of SF-based materials with enhanced (photo)energy conversion. Their method overrides the strict requirements that limit the molecular design of such materials by realizing an alternative control strategy.

Singlet fission (SF) is a process in which an organic chromophore (a molecule that absorbs light) in an excited singlet state transfers energy to a neighboring chromophore, resulting in two correlated triplet exciton pairs (pairs of bound electron-hole states, a "hole" signifying the absence of an electron) that decay to low energy triplet excitons. These excitons have long lifetimes and show efficient light emission, making SF promising for efficient light energy conversion.

However, the molecular design of SF-based materials is limited by the requirement that the energy of the excited singlet state must be at least equal to the energy of the two triplet states. One way to overcome this limit is by applying external stimuli, such as temperature or pressure, to manipulate the SF process.

Breakthrough on the way to the biological solar cell

Marc Nowaczyk which everted from the Ruhr University to the University of Rostock. The current works were partly made in Bochum.
Photo Credit: ITMZ University of Rostock

Researchers question the way photosynthesis works.

A research team from the University of Cambridge, the University of Rostock and the Ruhr University Bochum succeeded for the first time in obtaining electrons directly from the early stages of photosynthesis. This breakthrough questions the previous model for the basic functioning of photosynthesis and has the potential to revolutionize the development of solar cells based on biological catalysts. The research work was published in the renowned journal Nature from 22. Published March 2023.

Manufacture hydrogen with sunlight

Biological catalysts, so-called enzymes, have long since determined our everyday life. For example, they are used as additives in detergents, they refine food or are used in large-scale processes to produce medicines or raw materials for the chemical industry. Compared to chemical catalysts, they have the advantage that they only react with very specific raw materials and therefore produce very specific products. In addition, biological catalysts are never based on precious metals or other rare raw materials. "In nature, solutions have always been established that are not limited by the availability of raw materials," says Prof. Dr. Marc Nowaczyk, head of the chair for biochemistry at the University of Rostock and co-author of the study, who did part of the work at the Ruhr University Bochum as part of the graduate school Microbial Substrate Conversion, MiCon for short.