Eco-efficient cement could pave the way to a greener future

Wei Meng (left) and Bing Deng are co-authors on the study. Deng holds a sample of cement made with coal fly ash purified through a flash Joule heating-based process.
Photo Credit: Gustavo Raskosky/Rice University

The road to a net-zero future must be paved with greener concrete, and Rice University scientists know how to make it.

The production of cement, an ingredient in concrete, accounts for roughly 8% of the world’s annual carbon dioxide emissions, making it a significant target of greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. Toward those efforts, the Rice lab of chemist James Tour used flash Joule heating to remove toxic heavy metals from fly ash, a powdery byproduct of coal-based electric power plants that is used frequently in concrete mixtures. Using purified coal fly ash reduces the amount of cement needed and improves the concrete’s quality.

In the lab’s study, replacing 30% of the cement used to make a batch of concrete with purified coal fly ash improved the concrete’s strength and elasticity by 51% and 28%, respectively, while reducing greenhouse gas and heavy metal emissions by 30% and 41%, respectively, according to the paper published in the Nature journal Communications Engineering.

How football-shaped molecules occur in the universe

Graphic Credit: Shane Goettl/Ralf I. Kaiser

For a long time, it has been suspected that fullerene and its derivatives could form naturally in the universe. These are large carbon molecules shaped like a football, salad bowl or nanotube. An international team of researchers using the Swiss SLS synchrotron light source at PSI has shown how this reaction works. The results have just been published in the journal Nature Communications.

“We are stardust, we are golden. We are billion-year-old carbon.” In the song they performed at Woodstock, the US group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young summarized what humans are essentially made of: star dust. Anyone with a little knowledge of astronomy can confirm the words of the cult American band – both the planets and we humans are actually made up of dust from burnt-out supernovae and carbon compounds billions of years old. The universe is a giant reactor and understanding these reactions means understanding the origins and development of the universe – and where humans come from.

In the past, the formation of fullerenes and their derivatives in the universe has been a puzzle. These carbon molecules, in the shape of a football, bowl or small tube, were first created in the laboratory in the 1980s. In 2010 the infrared space telescope Spitzer discovered the C60 molecules with the characteristic shape of a soccer ball, known as buckyballs, in the planetary nebula Tc 1. They are therefore the biggest molecules to have been discovered to date known to exist in the universe beyond our solar system.

HIV can persist for years in myeloid cells of people on antiretroviral therapy

HIV, the AIDS virus (yellow), infecting a human cell
Image Credit: National Cancer Institute

NIH-funded study confirms white blood cell subtype as HIV reservoir, suggests new target for cure efforts.

A subset of white blood cells, known as myeloid cells, can harbor HIV in people who have been virally suppressed for years on antiretroviral therapy, according to findings from a small study supported by the National Institutes of Health. In the study, researchers used a new quantitative method to show that HIV in specific myeloid cells—short-lived monocytes and longer-lived monocyte-derived macrophages—can be reactivated and infect new cells. The findings, published in Nature Microbiology, suggest that myeloid cells contribute to a long-lived HIV reservoir, making these cells an important but overlooked target in efforts to eradicate HIV.

“Our findings challenge the prevailing narrative that monocytes are too short-lived to be important in cure efforts,” said study author Rebecca Veenhuis, Ph.D., an assistant professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology and of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore. “Yes, the cells are short-lived, but our follow-up data show that HIV can persist in monocytes over several years in people who are virally suppressed. The fact that we can detect HIV in these cells over such a long period suggests something is keeping the myeloid reservoir going.”

With fewer salmon to eat, Southern Resident killer whales spend less time in the San Juan Islands

killer whales
Photo Credit: Michelle Klampe

As a key food supply declines, the endangered population of Southern Resident killer whales, known to frequent the Salish Sea off the coasts of Washington and British Columbia, is spending far less time in that region, a new study shows.

The Salish Sea around the San Juan Islands has traditionally been a hotspot for the whales. The Southern Residents would spend the summer months feeding on Chinook salmon, much of which belonged to the Fraser River stock that passes through the islands on its way to spawning grounds upriver.

But 17 years of whale sighting data shows that as the Fraser River Chinook salmon population dropped, the time spent by the Southern Residents around the San Juan Islands also declined ­– by more than 75%, said Joshua Stewart, an assistant professor with Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute and the study’s lead author.

The findings were just published in the journal Marine Mammal Science. Co-authors of the paper are Jane Cogan, an independent researcher in Friday Harbor, Washington; John Durban, a professor with MMI who is also affiliated with the nonprofit SeaLife Response, Rehabilitation and Research (SR3); Holly Fearnback of SR3; David Ellifrit, Mark Malleson and Ken Balcomb of the nonprofit Center for Whale Research; and Melisa Pinnow of San Juan Orcas, a website dedicated to identification of individual orcas.

Components of Cytoskeleton Strengthen Effect of Sex Hormones

Super-high-resolution microscopic image of a cell that has been exposed to the sex hormone dihydrotestosterone. The androgen receptor (violet) and actin (green) are visible in the cell nucleus. Both molecules are stained with fluorescent dyes and thus made visible. The individual structures made visible (right) are only 200 nanometers (200 millionths of a millimeter) small.
Image Credit: Julian Knerr/University of Freiburg

Researchers from Freiburg and Kiel discover that actin acts in the cell nucleus and is partly responsible for the expression of male sexual characteristics

Steroid hormones, to which belong sex hormones like estrogen or testosterone, are important signaling molecules and are responsible among other things for controlling female and male phenotypic sex differentiation. They act by binding to receptor molecules that switch on and off the activity of hormone-dependent genes. Researchers at the University of Freiburg and Kiel University Hospital have discovered that components of the cytoskeleton are critically involved in this process. The findings are relevant for the diagnosis of medical conditions and the study of diseases and cancers in which steroid hormones play important roles. The study was published in the renowned journal Nature.

The new research findings show that filamentous actin, a component of the cytoskeleton, interacts with the androgen receptor directly in the cell nucleus and strengthens its effect. The androgen receptor mediates the signals of sex hormones for male sex development but also promotes the progression of prostate cancer.

Giant planet atmospheres vary widely, JWST confirms

 A ‘hot Jupiter’ called HD 149026b, is about 3 times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system.
Illustration Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Gas giants orbiting our sun show a clear pattern; the more massive the planet, the lower the percentage of “heavy” elements (anything other than hydrogen and helium) in the planet’s atmosphere. But out in the Galaxy, the atmospheric compositions of giant planets do not fit the solar system trend, an international team of astronomers has found.

Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the researchers discovered that the atmosphere of exoplanet HD149026b, a ‘hot Jupiter’ orbiting a star comparable to our sun, is super-abundant in the heavier elements carbon and oxygen – far above what scientists would expect for a planet of its mass. In addition, the diagnostic carbon-to-oxygen ratio of HD149026b, also known as “Smertrios,” is elevated relative to our solar system.

A ‘hot Jupiter’ called HD 149026b, is about 3 times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system.

These findings, published in “High atmospheric metal enrichment for a Saturn-mass planet,” in Nature on [March 27] are an important first step toward obtaining similar measurements for a large sample of exoplanets in order to search for statistical trends, the researchers said. They also provide insight into planet formation.

Beaver Fossil Named After Buc-ee’s

Matthew Brown (left) and Steve May with beaver skulls new and old in the vertebrate paleontology collections at the Jackson School of Geosciences. Brown, the director of the collections, holds a skull from a modern North American Beaver. May, a research associate, holds a skull from Anchitheriomys buceei, a new species of ancient beaver that he discovered in the collections and named.
Photo Credit: UT Jackson School of Geosciences.

A new species of ancient beaver that was rediscovered by researchers in The University of Texas Austin’s fossil collections has been named after Buc-ee’s, a Texas-based chain of popular travel centers known for its cartoon beaver mascot.

The beaver is called Anchitheriomys buceei, or “A. buceei” for short.

Steve May, a research associate at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences, said that the beaver’s Texas connection and a chance encounter with a Buc-ee’s billboard are what inspired the name.

May is the lead author of the paper that describes A. buceei, along with another, much smaller, species of fossil beaver. Published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, the paper provides an overview of beaver occurrences along the Texas Gulf Coast from 15 million to 22 million years ago based on bones and archival records in the UT collections.

While driving down a highway in 2020, May spotted a Buc-ee’s billboard that said “This is Beaver Country.” The phrase brought to mind the Texas beaver fossils he had been studying at UT’s Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections.

Understanding nitrogen metabolism could revolutionize TB treatment, finds study

Illustration Credit: Courtesy of University of Surrey

Development of new drugs to effectively target the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB) could be one step closer following an important discovery from the University of Surrey.

The Surrey study used a technology called fluxomics to reveal important information about how cells process nitrogen, which could help us better understand how harmful bacteria survive and cause disease. These findings have significant implications for studying the behavior and impact of pathogenic bacteria on human health.

In the most comprehensive study of its kind, the research team from Surrey conducted a study on the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, called Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). They wanted to understand how nitrogen is processed within Mtb cells, which is essential for the bacterium's survival. Surprisingly, previous studies had mostly examined the role of carbon in Mtb's survival, leaving the role of nitrogen poorly understood.

Earth’s first plants likely to have been branched, study finds

Selaginella
Photo Credit: Vicky Spencer

A new discovery by scientists at the University of Bristol changes ideas about the origin of branching in plants.

By studying the mechanisms responsible for branching, the team have determined what the first land plants are likely to have looked like millions of years ago. 

Despite fundamentally different patterns in growth, their research has identified a common mechanism for branching in vascular plants.

Dr Jill Harrison from Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences explained: “Diverse shapes abound in the dominant flowering plant group, and gardeners will be familiar with ‘pinching out’ plants’ shoot tips to stimulate side branch growth, leading to a bushier overall form.

“However, unlike flowering plants, other vascular plants branch by splitting the shoot apex into two during growth, a process known as ‘dichotomy’.

As an ancient vascular plant lineage that formed coal seams during the Carboniferous era, lycophytes preserve the ancestral pattern of dichotomous branching.

Surprise effect: Methane cools even as it heats

Annual mean near-surface air temperature response to methane, decomposed into (a) longwave and shortwave effects; (b) longwave effects only; and (c) shortwave effects only.
Full size Image
Illustration Credit: Robert Allen / University of California, Riverside

Most climate models do not yet account for a new UC Riverside discovery: methane traps a great deal of heat in Earth’s atmosphere, but also creates cooling clouds that offset 30% of the heat. 

Greenhouse gases like methane create a kind of blanket in the atmosphere, trapping heat from Earth’s surface, called longwave energy, and preventing it from radiating out into space. This makes the planet hotter. 

“A blanket doesn’t create heat, unless it’s electric. You feel warm because the blanket inhibits your body’s ability to send its heat into the air. This is the same concept,” explained Robert Allen, UCR assistant professor of Earth sciences.

In addition to absorbing longwave energy, it turns out methane also absorbs incoming energy from the sun, known as shortwave energy. “This should warm the planet,” said Allen, who led the research project. “But counterintuitively, the shortwave absorption encourages changes in clouds that have a slight cooling effect.”