Researchers have investigated how earthquakes impacted underground life in Yellowstone, where they thrive far from the Sun’s warmth and energy.
In a study published yesterday in the journal PNAS Nexus, a team studied how small earthquakes in 2021 influenced microbes in the rock and water systems beneath the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field. These life forms draw energy not from photosynthesis but from the chemical reactions related to the movement of water through broken rock. The paper’s results could inform how life can exist in unexpected places and carry implications for the search for extraterrestrial life.
A change in chemical menu
“Seismic energy, like that released by earthquakes, can fracture rock and thereby alter subsurface fluid flow paths, release substrates from inclusions, and expose fresh mineral surfaces capable of reacting with water,” the team wrote in the study. All of these events can trigger “fresh” chemical reactions, as described in a PNAS Nexus statement, which modify the kinds of energy accessible to microbes. “However, it is unclear how such seismic-induced changes influence microbial communities.”
To address this gap, the researchers gathered water samples from a borehole (a human-made hole used for analyses) on the western edge of Yellowstone Lake five different times in 2021. This approach revealed a significant rise in hydrogen, sulfide, and dissolved organic carbon in the aftermath of the earthquakes—important sources of energy for numerous organisms living below ground. They also noted increased levels of planktonic cells. This indicates that the water column hosted more microbes than had been observed before the earthquakes.
These chemical and biological shifts suggest that the earthquake swarm temporarily increased the resources available to microbial life. What’s more, they documented a change in the types of molecules over time. This is particularly notable, given that researchers usually deem underground microbial communities in continental bedrock aquifers to be fairly stable. However, the subsurface system in question seemed to change rapidly and clearly in response to seismic energy.
Could this be happening on Mars?
The team concluded that earthquakes’ kinetic energy (energy related to motion) can impact the chemistry and biology of fluids in aquifers—underground areas of water-saturated rock that can pass water into wells and springs. Their results suggest that even small seismic occurrences can lead to significant changes in underground ecosystems.
Yellowstone isn’t the only region with regular seismic activity, so similar quakes elsewhere could trigger comparable changes to underground energy resources. If this process is widespread, it may help explain how microbes survive in deep, isolated environments.
What’s more, it carries implications for life beyond Earth. If a similar mechanism also takes place on other rocky planets with water, it might broaden our understanding of potential habitats for tiny extraterrestrials in places such as Mars.
In our technology-dominated world, it’s easy to forget the human minds that gave rise to the devices and digital tools that permeate everyday life. And the women behind those innovations are often the first to be forgotten.
Whether you realize it or not, you owe women inventors a big thank you for creating many of the technologies you depend on. Their inventions help you surf the internet, get from point A to point B, keep your home safe, and so much more. Here are six women whose contributions to science and technology helped shape our modern world.
Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Kiesler, was a Hollywood actress best known for her role in the romantic biblical drama Samson and Delilah. Behind the scenes of her sparkling acting career, Lamarr nurtured a fascination with inventing.
Lamarr worked on her inventions during her off hours and even between takes on set, using a small set of equipment she kept in her trailer. In 1940, Lamarr met American pianist, composer, and inventor George Antheil. The two connected over their growing concerns about World War II and began brainstorming new technologies that could help the U.S. combat the Axis powers.
Lamarr and Antheil designed a new communication system to guide torpedoes to their targets. The system involved “frequency hopping”—jumping between different frequencies of radio waves—with both the transmitter and the receiver hopping to new frequencies together. This prevented interception of the radio waves, thus helping torpedoes locate their intended targets.
Their frequency hopping technology later gave way to WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth. Following her death in 2000, Lamarr was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her achievement. Today, she’s known as “the mother of WiFi.”
Grace Murray Hopper was a mathematician and naval officer best known today for her pioneering work in computer programming. After receiving her commission as lieutenant (junior grade), Hopper was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University, where she joined a team working on the Harvard MARK 1 computer.
This massive electromechanical computer, built by IBM in the 1940s, was the first in the U.S. Led by Howard Aiken, who developed the MARK 1, Hopper and her colleagues performed calculated rocket trajectories, created range tables for new anti-aircraft guns, and calibrated minesweepers to aid the war effort. Hopper also wrote the over 500-page manual for MARK 1.
When World War II ended, Hopper turned down a professorship at Vassar College to focus on programming, according to Yale University. While working on the first commercial electronic computer—UNIVAC I—in the early 1950s, she pioneered the idea of automatic programming and developed the first computer compiler, paving the way for modern programming languages.
In 1953, Hopper began developing an English-language compiler to allow people to write programs in words rather than symbols. Her work continued to propel computing into the modern era through the latter half of the 20th century, laying the foundation for the software and programming languages of today.
3. Stephanie L. Kwolek (1923-2014), creator of kevlar
Ever heard of Kevlar? Even if you haven’t, chances are you’ve probably used it. This synthetic fiber is used in protective outerwear like jackets and gloves, luggage, workout equipment, consumer electronics, bulletproof vests, and much more. It’s lightweight, heat-resistant, highly durable, and five times stronger than steel.
The woman behind this versatile material is Stephanie L. Kwolek, an American chemist who got her start as a polymer researcher at DuPont. A few decades into her career, DuPont tasked her with developing the next generation of fibers capable of withstanding extreme conditions. Kwolek got to work preparing intermediates, synthesizing aromatic polyamides of high molecular weight, dissolving them in solvents, and spinning the solutions into fibers.
Under certain conditions, large numbers of the rod-shaped polyamide molecules arranged themselves in parallel lines. The resulting solutions were unlike any polymer solutions previously synthesized in the lab, and Kwolek found that she could spin them into strong, stiff fibers that are known today as Kevlar.
4. Mary Anderson (1866-1953), inventor of the windshield wiper
Next time you’re driving in inclement weather, say thank you to Mary Anderson, inventor of the windshield wiper. Anderson—an American real estate developer with no professional background in science or engineering—came up with the idea while riding a trolley car through New York City on a snowy day.
In order to see, her driver kept the windows rolled down and occasionally stopped to wipe the snow and ice off the windshields with his hands, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the early 20th century, reduced visibility due to precipitation was a problem drivers simply accepted and learned to deal with in their own ways. Anderson figured there must be a better way.
She designed a spring-loaded arm with a rubber blade that could be attached to the base of the windshield. When activated via a lever inside the car, the arm would sweep across the glass, clearing away rain, snow, or ice. Others had designed similar devices before, but Anderson’s was the first that worked. She patented it in 1903, and her basic design is still in use today.
5. Marie van Brittan Brown (1922-1999), creator of the CCTV security system
Inventor Marie van Brittan Brown is best known for creating the first closed-circuit television (CCTV) security system, spearheading the development of modern security systems that protect homes, banks, offices, and businesses today.
Brown began her career as a nurse, living and working in Queens, New York. Her husband, Albert Brown, worked as an electronics technician. Both of them worked irregular hours, and Brown often found herself alone at night. Feeling vulnerable, she began devising a way to be able to see who was at her door without opening it.
She and her husband invented a security system that consisted of four peepholes, a sliding camera, television monitors, and two-way microphones, according to MIT. It was the first CCTV security system.
With the microphones, Brown could communicate with people outside, and the four peepholes and sliding camera allowed the system to capture images of people at different heights. She even invented a remote that allowed her to unlock the door from a safe distance and a panic button that would alert police of an intruder. Brown patented the technology in 1969, and the invention was ultimately cited in 32 subsequent patent applications.
6. Gladys B. West (b. 1930), built the foundation of GPS
The Global Positioning System, or GPS, plays a ubiquitous role in modern life. Beyond helping you get from place to place, this satellite-based navigation system is used across a wide variety of sectors, including logistics, construction, defense, emergency services, and so much more.
Mathematician Gladys B. West played an integral role in developing this technology. She began her career as a computer programmer in 1956 at the Naval Proving Ground—known today as the Naval Support Facility Dahlgren—in Virginia.
During her 42 years of service, she worked on complex algorithms that could account for variations in gravitational, tidal, and other forces that distort Earth’s shape. She programmed the IBM 7030 computer to create an extremely accurate model of Earth’s shape, optimized for what later became the GPS orbit that satellites use.
West’s contributions to satellite geodesy and other satellite measurements honed the accuracy of GPS. This technology would not be what it is today without her work, but ironically, she told the Atlanta Black Star in 2018 that she still prefers a paper map when she drives.
Egyptian alabaster vessels may have been the ancient world’s hookah.
In a study published in September in the Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, researchers identified traces of opiates—natural compounds from poppies such as opium, morphine, and heroin—in an ancient alabaster vase in the Yale Peabody Museum’s Babylonian Collection. The team argues that, to date, their work represents the clearest comprehensive evidence of the broader use of opium in ancient Egyptian society.
“Our findings combined with prior research indicate that opium use was more than accidental or sporadic in ancient Egyptian cultures and surrounding lands and was, to some degree, a fixture of daily life,” Andrew Koh, lead author of the study and an archaeologist at the Yale Peabody Museum, said in a Yale University statement.
Multi-lingual inscriptions
Four ancient languages are inscribed on the vase—Akkadian, Elamite, Persian, and Egyptian—along with the mention of Xerxes I, a Persian king from 486 to 465 BCE best known for his invasion of Greece, including the iconic battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. During this time, Egypt was under Persian control.
The vessel also includes an addendum in Demotic, another form of ancient Egyptian writing, which notes that the vase can hold about 41 U.S. fluid ounces (1,200 milliliters). The artifact itself is 8.7 inches (22 centimeters) tall. Intact examples of this sort of vessel—unique quadrilingual-inscribed Egyptian alabaster vessels that reference Persian rulers from the Achaemenid dynasty—are extraordinarily rare.
Koh and his colleagues analyzed dark-brown aromatic residues inside the ancient vase and found “definite evidence,” according to the statement, for noscapine, hydrocotarnine, morphine, thebaine, and papaverine—all of which point to opium. These results remind researchers of opiate residues previously found in a group of Egyptian alabaster vessels and Cypriot base-ring juglets from a New Kingdom (around 1570 to 1069 BCE) tomb likely belonging to a merchant family south of Cairo.
Notably, these findings indicate that similar alabaster vessels, such as several from Tutankhamun’s tomb, may also have carried opiates. Tutankhamun was pharaoh from 1333 to 1323 BCE.
Was King Tut a druggie?
“We think it’s possible, if not probable, that alabaster jars found in King Tut’s tomb contained opium as part of an ancient tradition of opiate use that we are only now beginning to understand,” Koh explained.
When archaeologist Howard Carter found Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, he also uncovered many well-preserved Egyptian alabaster vessels, many of which had sticky, dark brown, aromatic organic residue. Just over a decade later, analytical chemist Alfred Lucas concluded that most of these organic materials were not unguents or perfumes. These vases are now at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, and their organic residues haven’t been studied again since.
Interestingly, Carter had noticed finger marks inside the alabaster vessels—evidence indicating the ancient looters had tried to retrieve as much of their contents as possible. According to the researchers, many of the targeted vessels had the same dark brown substances that Lucas decided were not perfumes.
Simply put, the contents of these vessels must have been valuable. Not only were they buried with a pharaoh, but they were also stolen, Koh said. Ancient people probably wouldn’t have cared so much about standard unguents and perfumes.
The hookahs of the ancient world
For now, researchers “have found opiate chemical signatures that Egyptian alabaster vessels attached to elite societies in Mesopotamia and embedded in more ordinary cultural circumstances within ancient Egypt,” Koh said. “It’s possible these vessels were easily recognizable cultural markers for opium use in ancient times, just as hookahs today are attached to shisha tobacco consumption. Analyzing the contents of the jars from King Tut’s tomb would further clarify the role of opium in these ancient societies.”
One of the medicine prize winners, meanwhile, was on vacation in Yellowstone National Park without cellular service. It would be hours before he found out.
The Nobel Prizes are considered among the world’s most prestigious honors for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, economics and peace. The winners join the pantheon of Nobel laureates, from Albert Einstein to Mother Teresa.
Sometimes, the award is anticipated. Potential winners plan tentative news conferences or, in the western U.S., wait up all night for the news.
While some prizes might feature household names — such as 2009 peace prize winner then-U.S. President Barack Obama or 2016 literature laureate and singer-songwriter Bob Dylan — the natural science categories typically go to people whose names the general public doesn’t know, for decades-old research.
Five of this year’s nine science winners were in the U.S. when the news broke. Some were fast asleep.
Two winners in Japan, seven hours ahead of Stockholm, were awake and working when the call came from a Swedish number. One thought it was a telemarketer.
Wednesday’s chemistry prize was the first time this year that the Nobel committee reached all three winners ahead of the formal announcement.
Here’s how some of this year’s winners found out:
When Associated Press photographer Lindsey Wasson knocked on the door of Mary E. Brunkow’s Seattle home around 4 a.m. local time Monday, it was the scientist’s dog who woke up first. Zelda’s barking roused Brunkow’s husband, Ross Colquhoun.
“I don’t think he really knew what I was there for,” Wasson said. “And I said, ‘You know, sir, I think your wife just won the Nobel Prize.’”
Wasson’s photographs captured Colquhoun waking up Brunkow and telling her the life-changing news: She was among three winners sharing the 2025 medicine prize.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told her husband.
But it was true. The trio had, in research dating back two decades, uncovered a key pathway the body uses to keep the immune system in check, called peripheral immune tolerance. Experts called the findings critical to understanding autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
The following day, AP photographers Mark J. Terrill and Damian Dovarganes headed to Santa Barbara, California, to find physicist John Martinis before the sun rose. His wife, Jean, answered the door and told them to come back later: Martinis needed to sleep.
“For many years, we would stay up on the night the physics award was announced,” she told the photographers. “At some point we just decided, that’s nuts. We’ll figure it out if it’s happening, but let’s just get our sleep.”
She added, laughing: “I was trying to think how I can introduce this. Like, ‘Do you think you should plan a trip to Sweden?”
She finally woke her husband up just before 6 a.m. local time (1300 GMT), telling him only that the AP wanted an interview.
“I kind of knew that the Nobel Prize announcements was this week, so I kind of put two and two together,” Martinis said later. “I opened my computer and looked under the Nobel Prize 2025 and saw my picture along with Michel Devoret and John Clarke. So I was kind of in shock.”
Martinis will get that trip to Sweden. The Dec. 10 award ceremony is in Stockholm.
Everyone but Fred Ramsdell seemed to know he had just won the Nobel Prize in medicine.
Ramsdell was away on a backpacking trip Monday, driving through Yellowstone National Park with his wife and two dogs, Larkin and Megan. He kept his cellphone in airplane mode as he often does on family trips.
As they drove through a small town hours later, his wife started screaming as notifications flooded her phone. She told him he’d just won the Nobel Prize in medicine alongside Brunkow and Shimon Sakaguchi.
“I said, ‘No, I didn’t,’” Ramsdell told the AP in an interview the following day from his car. “She said, ‘Yes, you did. I have 200 text messages that say you won the Nobel Prize.’”
Later Monday, Ramsdell drove to a Montana hotel to connect to Wi-Fi and call friends and colleagues. He didn’t speak with the Nobel committee to get their congratulations until midnight.
He said he was stunned and awed to receive the recognition. But he has no plans to change his phone habits, which he says are important for work-life balance.
The Nobel Committee calls the winners shortly before the formal announcement is made. Some ignore the Swedish number — like Brunkow, who assumed the pre-dawn call was spam.
When his phone rang Wednesday, chemistry winner Susumu Kitagawa was skeptical. He said he answered “rather bluntly, thinking it must be yet one of those telemarketing calls I’m getting a lot recently.”
The Nobel announcements continue with the literature prize Thursday. Will that winner pick up the phone?
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Ramakrishnan reported from New York. Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed.
Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a new form of molecular architecture called metal-organic frameworks that can harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyze chemical reactions.
The structures, metal ions connected by carbon-based linkers, have large holes that allow other molecules to flow in and out, almost like rooms in a house. They can capture and release gases, water or other substances. Changing the size or shape of its components can make a countless amount of new frameworks designed for specific substances, reactions or to conduct electricity.
STOCKHOLM — STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for their development of metal–organic frameworks — which an expert likened to Hermione Granger’s enchanted handbag in the fictional “Harry Potter” series — that could play a part in solving some of humanity’s greatest challenges.
From capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or sucking water out of dry desert air, the trio’s new form of molecular architecture can absorb and contain gases inside stable metal organic frameworks.
The frameworks can be compared to the timber framework of a house, and Hermione’s famous beaded handbag, in that they are small on the outside but very large on the inside, according to Olof Ramström, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
The chemists worked separately but added to each other’s breakthroughs, which began in 1989 with Robson.
“Metal-organic frameworks have enormous potential, bringing previously unforeseen opportunities for custom-made materials with new functions,” Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a news release.
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a group of chemicals that have been around for decades and have now spread into the air, water and soil. They are also referred to as “forever chemicals.”
Hans Ellegren, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, announced Wednesday’s prize in Stockholm. It was the third prize announced this week.
Robson, 88, is affiliated with the University of Melbourne in Australia, Kitagawa, 74, with Japan’s Kyoto University and Yaghi, 60, with the University of California, Berkeley.
Kitagawa spoke to the committee, and the press, over the phone Wednesday after his win was announced.
“I’m deeply honored and delighted that my long-standing research has been recognized,” he said.
The 2024 prize was awarded to David Baker, a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, computer scientists at Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory based in London.
This year’s Nobel announcements continue with the literature prize Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics prize next Monday.
The award ceremony will be held Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, who founded the prizes. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite. He died in 1896.
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Dazio reported from Berlin. Christina Larson contributed from Washington.
In science, there is a surprisingly long list of things we still haven’t exactly figured out yet but still use because they work. This unexpectedly has been the case for lithium-ion batteries—a power source for electric vehicles and various portable electronics—where scientists knew what the mechanism was but weren’t sure exactly how it worked.
Fortunately, MIT scientists have found the answer. For a Science paper published October 2, researchers describe a model that illustrates how coupled ion-electron transfer (CIET), a process in which an electron travels to the electrode with an ion, in this case a lithium ion, may explain the life source of a lithium-ion battery. The insight could “guide the design of more powerful and faster charging lithium-ion batteries,” according to the researchers.
A cascade of molecules
A typical lithium-ion battery works via a chemical mechanism called intercalation. Essentially, during battery discharge, lithium ions dissolved in an electrolyte solution insert themselves inside of a solid electrode. When the ions “de-intercalate” and return to the electrolyte, the battery charges.
The rate of intercalation governs everything from a battery’s net power to its charging speed—the reason the researchers found it imperative to better understand the underlying mechanisms, the paper explained.
Previously, scientists believed that lithium intercalation in a battery electrode was driven by a model describing how quickly lithium ions could diffuse between the electrolyte and the electrode. However, actual experiments hadn’t quite matched what that model predicted, suggesting to researchers that there may be another option.
A traveling pair
For the new study, the researchers prepared more than 50 combinations of electrolytes and electrodes to straighten things out once and for all. Like previous experiments, they found sizable inconsistencies between actual data and the model. So instead, the team came up with several alternatives that could explain what they were seeing.
Finally, they decided on a model based on the assumption that a lithium ion could only enter an electrode if it travels with an electron from an electrolyte solution—coupled ion-electron transfer. This electrochemical pairing makes it easier for intercalation to occur, the researchers explained, and the mathematics behind CIET fits the data well.
“The electrochemical step is not lithium insertion, which you might think is the main thing, but it’s actually electron transfer to reduce the solid material that is hosting the lithium,” Martin Bazant, study co-author and a mathematician at MIT, told MIT News. “Lithium is intercalated at the same time that the electron is transferred, and they facilitate one another.”
Not only that, but the researchers also accidentally discovered that switching up the composition of electrolytes influenced intercalation rates. Follow-up investigations could uncover more efficient ways for creating stronger, faster batteries, they explained.
“What we hope is enabled by this work is to get the reactions to be faster and more controlled, which can speed up charging and discharging,” Bazant said.
Researchers have long believed that frozen environments slow chemical reactions, but new research challenges this belief.
In a study published last month in the journal PNAS, researchers have demonstrated that ice can dissolve iron minerals better than liquid water, with implications for the many Arctic rivers mysteriously turning orange as the planet warms.
Specifically, Jean-François Boily, a co-author of the study and a chemist at Umeå University, and his colleagues revealed that ice at 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius) unlocks more iron from common minerals than liquid water at 39 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius).
Iron dissolves more efficiently
“It may sound counterintuitive, but ice is not a passive frozen block,” Boily said in a university statement. “Freezing creates microscopic pockets of liquid water between ice crystals. These act like chemical reactors, where compounds become concentrated and extremely acidic. This means they can react with iron minerals even at temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius.”
They investigated goethite (a common iron oxide mineral) with a natural organic acid, revealing that repeated cycles of freezing and thawing dissolve the iron more efficiently. That’s because organic compounds formerly trapped in the ice are released during the freezing and thawing, generating additional chemical reactions. The team also noted that while brackish and fresh water furthered the dissolution, salty seawater can subdue it.
These results carry important applications for acidic environments, according to the researchers, including mine drainage sites, frozen dust in the atmosphere, acid sulfate soils on the coast of the Baltic Sea, or any acidic frozen environment where iron minerals and organics interact. Moving forward, Boily and researchers are working to discover whether their results apply to all ice containing iron.
“As the climate warms, freeze-thaw cycles become more frequent,” said Angelo Pio Sebaaly, a graduate student in chemistry at the university and first author of the study. “Each cycle releases iron from soils and permafrost into the water. This can affect water quality and aquatic ecosystems across vast areas.”
Ice is an active player
Notably, it might also have something to do with why rivers in the Arctic are turning an alarming orange. “By resolving the chemical controls on mineral dissolution in ice, this work can help explain how freeze-thaw events are supplying new fluxes of soluble iron to nature,” the researchers wrote in the study.
The paper also highlights ice as an “active player,” according to the statement, as opposed to a “passive storage medium,” confirming yet another element we should keep a close eye on as climate change disrupts environments around the world.
For over two centuries, scientists have known that water transports a positive charge through protons. But they had never actually seen it happen—until now.
In a Science paper published September 11, Yale researchers reported that they devised a method to track, measure, and effectively “see” a proton’s journey through water. For the experiment, the team used a 30-foot-long mass spectrometer—an instrument that separates different elements by mass—that took years to customize and refine. The device allowed them to benchmark how quickly protons moved through six charged water molecules.
“We show what happens in a tiny molecular system where there is no place for the protons to hide,” said Mark Johnson, senior author of the study and a chemist at Yale University, in a release.
Solving a seemingly obvious mystery
There’s a surprisingly long list of things in science that we know—or strongly suspect—to be true, but that have either never been directly confirmed or still lack a good explanation.
That hasn’t stopped scientists and engineers from using these yet-to-be-confirmed ideas to achieve some remarkable breakthroughs. Protons in water, for example, play a role in “everything from eyesight to energy storage to rocket fuel,” the researchers explained.
But protons are terribly small and display quantum mechanical properties, which makes them frustratingly difficult to track.
“They aren’t polite enough to stay in one place long enough to let us observe them easily,” Johnson said. “They are thought to conduct the charge through an atomic-scale relay mechanism, in which protons jump from molecule to molecule.”
Trapped in an organic ‘taxi’
To observe such processes in action, Johnson and his team used 4-aminobenzoic acid, an organic molecule capable of taking an extra proton in two different sites. The two locations can be distinguished by the color of light they absorb, said study co-lead author Payten Harville, a postdoctoral student at Yale, in the release.
For the experiment, the team attached the 4-aminobenzoic acid molecules to the six water molecules. Harville explained that in this setup, protons can only “get from one docking site to the other [by hitching] a ride on a water network ‘taxi.’”
When the protons “hitch” onto the taxi, the team’s specialized mass spectrometer “destructively” analyzes each reaction ten times per second with carefully timed lasers, the researchers explained.
To be clear, the experiment still hasn’t caught the intermediate steps of the proton’s path through water. However, it sets the most stringent parameters for the process so far, Johnson said.
“We’re able to provide parameters that will give theorists a well-defined target for their chemical simulations, which are ubiquitous but have been unchallenged by experimental benchmarks,” he added.
Indeed, if this technology could expand beyond Yale’s custom spectrometer, it could give an extra boost to the precision of experiments in fundamental chemistry. Given how it’s taken science 200 years to get to this point, taking a few more to really drive this method home should be a shorter wait.
Experts estimate that the global production and disposal of plastics emits nearly 2 billion tons of greenhouse gases per year. The vast majority of these materials end up in landfills, but what if we could repurpose some of that waste to remove planet-warming emissions from the atmosphere?
A team of researchers in Denmark has discovered a way to do just that. In a new study, published September 5 in the journal Science Advances, they transformed decomposed #1 plastic—also known as PET (polyethylene-terephthalate) plastic—into an efficient carbon capture material.
“The beauty of this method is that we solve a problem without creating a new one,” lead author Margarita Poderyte, a chemistry PhD candidate at the University of Copenhagen, said in a release. “By turning waste into a raw material that can actively reduce greenhouse gases, we make an environmental issue part of the solution to the climate crisis.”
Two big problems, one innovative solution
As global temperatures rise, the need to mitigate planet-warming pollutants—such as carbon dioxide—is increasingly urgent. This has led scientists to develop ways to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere in addition to cutting emissions. At the same time, the growing amount of plastic waste in landfills, oceans, and pretty much everywhere else on Earth has led to a global microplastics crisis that threatens human and ecosystem health.
Poderyte and her colleagues hope their new approach to carbon capture can kill two birds with one stone. Through a chemical reaction known as aminolysis, they upcycled PET plastic—mainly used in plastic bottles and food packaging—into a CO2 sorbent called BAETA.
This material has a powdery structure that can be made into pellets that are very effective at grabbing CO2 molecules. One pound of BAETA can absorb up to 0.15 pounds of CO2, which is quite efficient compared to most current commercial systems.
BAETA is also more heat-resistant than other amine sorbents, remaining stable at temperatures up to 482 degrees Fahrenheit (250 degrees Celsius). However, it requires a greater thermal energy input to reach maximum CO2 absorption and to release the captured carbon for storage or conversion to other resources. This may lead to greater energy costs, but the researchers believe BAETA can provide a scalable, cost-effective carbon capture system.
Tapping a perniciously abundant resource
Humans produce immense amounts of PET plastic waste, much of which accumulates in oceans. Researchers recently discovered 27 million tons of plastic particles floating in the North Atlantic, the ecosystem impacts of which are still largely unknown.
“If we can get our hands on the highly decomposed PET plastic floating in the world’s oceans, it will be a valuable resource for us as it’s so well suited for upcycling with our method,” Poderyte said. She and her colleagues hope BAETA can help eliminate marine plastic pollution while also tackling the climate crisis.
“We’re not talking about stand-alone issues, nor will the solutions be,” co-author Jiwoong Lee, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, said in the release. “Our material can create a very concrete economic incentive to cleanse the oceans of plastic.”
Our planet is choking on plastics. Some of the worst offenders, which can take decades to degrade in landfills, are polypropylene—which is used for things such as food packaging and bumpers—and polyethylene, found in plastic bags, bottles, toys, and even mulch.
Polypropylene and polyethylene can be recycled, but the process can be difficult and often produces large quantities of the greenhouse gas methane. They are both polyolefins, which are the products of polymerizing ethylene and propylene, raw materials that are mainly derived from fossil fuels. The bonds of polyolefins are also notoriously hard to break.
Now, researchers at UC Berkeley have come up with a method of recycling these polymers that uses catalysts that easily break their bonds, converting them into propylene and isobutylene, which are gases at room temperature. Those gases can then be recycled into new plastics.
“Because polypropylene and polyethylene are among the most difficult and expensive plastics to separate from each other in a mixed waste stream, it is crucial that [a recycling] process apply to both polyolefins,” the research team said in a study recently published in Science.
Breaking It Down
The recycling process the team used is known as isomerizing ethenolysis, which relies on a catalyst to break down olefin polymer chains into their small molecules. Polyethylene and polypropylene bonds are highly resistant to chemical reactions, because both of these polyolefins have long chains of single carbon-carbon bonds. Most polymers have at least one carbon-carbon double bond, which is much easier to break.
While isomerizing ethenolysis had been tried by the same researchers before, the previous catalysts were expensive metals that did not remain pure long enough to convert all of the plastic into gas. Using sodium on alumina followed by tungsten oxide on silica proved much more economical and effective, even though the high temperatures required for the reaction added a bit to the cost.
In both plastics, exposure to sodium on alumina broke each polymer chain into shorter polymer chains and created breakable carbon-carbon double bonds at the ends. The chains continued to break over and over. Both then underwent a second process known as olefin metathesis. They were exposed to a stream of ethylene gas flowing into a reaction chamber while being introduced to tungsten oxide on silica, which resulted in the breakage of the carbon-carbon bonds.
The reaction breaks all the carbon-carbon bonds in polyethylene and polypropylene, with the carbon atoms released during the breaking of these bonds ending up attached to molecules of ethylene. “The ethylene is critical to this reaction, as it is a coreactant,” researcher R.J. Conk, one of the authors of the study, told Ars Technica. “The broken links then react with ethylene, which removes the links from the chain. Without ethylene, the reaction cannot occur.”
The entire chain is catalyzed until polyethylene is fully converted to propylene, and polypropylene is converted to a mixture of propylene and isobutylene.
This method has high selectivity—meaning it produces a large amount of the desired product: propylene derived from polyethylene, and both propylene and isobutylene derived from polypropylene. Both of these chemicals are in high demand; propylene is an important raw material for the chemical industry, while isobutylene is a frequently used monomer in many different polymers, including synthetic rubber and a gasoline additive.
Mixing It Up
Because plastics are often mixed at recycling centers, the researchers wanted to see what would happen if polypropylene and polyethylene underwent isomerizing ethenolysis together. The reaction was successful, converting the mixture into propylene and isobutylene, with slightly more propylene than isobutylene.
Mixtures also typically include contaminants in the form of additional plastics. So the team also wanted to see whether the reaction would still work if there were contaminants. They experimented with plastic objects that would otherwise be thrown away, including a centrifuge and a bread bag, both of which contained traces of other polymers besides polypropylene and polyethylene. The reaction yielded only slightly less propylene and isobutylene than it did with unadulterated versions of the polyolefins.
Another test involved introducing different plastics, such as PET and PVC, to polypropylene and polyethylene to see if that would make a difference. These did lower the yield significantly. If this approach is going to be successful, then all but the slightest traces of contaminants will have to be removed from polypropylene and polyethylene products before they are recycled.
While this recycling method sounds like it could prevent tons upon tons of waste, it will need to be scaled up enormously for this to happen. When the research team increased the scale of the experiment, it produced the same yield, which looks promising for the future. Still, we’ll need to build considerable infrastructure before this could make a dent in our plastic waste.
“We hope that the work described … will lead to practical methods for … [producing] new polymers,” the researchers said in the same study. “By doing so, the demand for production of these essential commodity chemicals starting from fossil carbon sources and the associated greenhouse gas emissions could be greatly reduced.”
Enhancement Streamlines Chemical Data Management with Accurate and Automated IUPAC Naming
BURLINGAME, Calif., June 17, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD), a leading provider of data management solutions for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, is pleased to announce the integration of iChemLabs’ industry-leading IUPAC naming technologies into CDD Vault. This integration is facilitated through the licensing of the ChemDoodle Java Application Programming Interface (API), enhancing CDD Vault’s capabilities in cheminformatics and chemical structure analysis.
The ChemDoodle API is the core intelligence technology powering the popular ChemDoodle 2D and ChemDoodle 3D desktop applications, used by thousands of institutions in over 100 countries. Researchers using CDD Vault will now benefit from the most accurate and reliable chemical nomenclature tools available, streamlining the process of chemical structure identification and documentation.
Key Benefits of the Integration:
Accurate IUPAC Naming: Leveraging iChemLabs’ sophisticated algorithms, CDD Vault users can generate precise IUPAC names for complex chemical structures, ensuring consistency and accuracy in chemical communication. All aspects of chemistry are expertly handled, including the full periodic table, radicals, charges, isotopes, stereochemistry, aromaticity and more.
Seamless Workflow: Integration with the ChemDoodle API enables smooth and efficient workflows, allowing researchers to focus more on discovery and less on manual data entry and correction.
Enhanced Data Integrity: By automating the IUPAC naming process, CDD Vault reduces the risk of human error, enhancing the overall integrity and reliability of chemical data.
User-Friendly Interface: The integration maintains the intuitive, user-friendly interface of CDD Vault, making it easy for researchers to utilize the new naming features without a steep learning curve.
The integration, along with other capabilities (Registration, Activity, Visualization, Assays, ELN, Inventory, Curves, AI, and Automation) provide the most comprehensive and user-friendly data management solutions to the scientific community. Accurate chemical and biological representation is crucial for effective communication and data sharing in drug discovery. Standardization of data together with automation between software applications with the well documented CDD Vault API provides additional interoperability and value.
“CDD’s commitment to innovation and excellence makes them an ideal partner for us,” commented Kevin Theisen, President of iChemLabs. “Our ChemDoodle API is designed to offer robust and precise chemical informatics capabilities, and we are thrilled to see it integrated into CDD Vault. We believe this collaboration will significantly impact the efficiency and accuracy of chemical data management for researchers worldwide.”
“We are excited to partner with iChemLabs to bring their industry-leading IUPAC naming technologies to our users,” said Barry Bunin, CEO of CDD. For more information on how to utilize these capabilities (Registration, Activity, Visualization, Assays, ELN, Inventory, Curves, AI, and Automation) all within CDD Vault, contact CDD (info@collborativedrug.com).
The new IUPAC naming features are now available to all CDD Vault users.
About Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD)
CDD’s flagship product, “CDD Vault®“, is used to manage chemical registration, structure-activity relationships (SAR), and securely scale collaborations. CDD Vault® is a hosted database solution for secure management and sharing of biological and chemical data. It lets you intuitively organize chemical structures and biological study data, and collaborate with internal or external partners through an easy-to-use web interface. Available modules within CDD Vault include Registration, Activity, Visualization, Assays, ELN, Inventory, Curves, AI, and Automation. www.collaborativedrug.com
About iChemLabs
iChemLabs™ is a global leader in chemical informatics software, known for its innovative and high-quality tools that aid chemists in research, education, and industry. Their flagship product, ChemDoodle®, is widely recognized for its advanced chemical drawing, visualization, and analysis capabilities. www.ichemlabs.com
WASHINGTON — The US Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, The Associated Press has learned, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country.
The proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. However, it would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.
The agency’s move, confirmed to the AP on Tuesday by five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive regulatory review, clears the last significant regulatory hurdle before the agency’s biggest policy change in more than 50 years can take effect.
Once OMB signs off, the DEA will take public comment on the plan to move marijuana from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. It moves pot to Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids, following a recommendation from the federal Health and Human Services Department. After the public comment period and a review by an administrative judge, the agency would eventually publish the final rule.
BEVERLY — For most people, their last image of James Carver is from a black-and-white photo from 1989, the year he was convicted of setting a fire that killed 15 people at the Elliott Chambers rooming house in Beverly.
For four days last week, a different version of Carver appeared in a courthouse in Lawrence — in a wheelchair, in handcuffs, wearing court-provided headphones so he could hear the legal arguments over his latest effort to gain freedom.
Carver, now 60, is asking for a new trial, the fifth time he has done so since he was sentenced to life in prison for the notorious Elliott Chambers fire on July 4, 1984. His attorneys say there is new evidence in the case due to advances in fire science and eyewitness identification, and that a new jury should hear that evidence.
“It is overwhelmingly clear that justice was not done and that Mr. Carver is entitled to a new trial,” attorney Lisa Kavanaugh told Judge Jeffrey Karp on Friday in Lawrence Superior Court.
The fire at Elliott Chambers, now the location of a CVS on Rantoul Street, was one of the deadliest in the state’s history. A jury found that Carver, who lived in Danvers at the time, set the fire in a fit of jealousy over his former fiancée dating a man who lived there. Fifteen people died, including a 9-year-old boy who was visiting his grandmother, the rooming house manager.
Carver’s previous requests for a new trial have been denied four times. But the legal team representing him now, which includes attorneys from the state public defender’s Innocence Program and the Boston College Innocence Program, says that advances in fire science and eyewitness identification principles provides new evidence that merits a new trial.
Craig Beyler, a fire science expert for the defense, said investigators at the time of the 1984 fire relied on “myths and misconceptions” about fire science that were common at the time. The investigators concluded the fire was started by someone using an accelerant, such as gasoline, to ignite a stack of newspapers on the floor of an alcove in the building.
Investigators relied on the “myth” that fire does not burn down, and that the fire actually started in the overhead area of the alcove and could have been caused by an electrical problem, Beyler said.
Carver’s attorneys also question the reliability of eyewitness accounts that either placed Carver at the scene of the fire or said he later confessed to setting it. They said a “vast body of scientific research” has emerged since Carver’s trial that bears on the reliability of a witness’ identification of Carver.
Nancy Franklin, a psychologist who specializes in cognition and memory, including eyewitness identification, testified that the witness who identified Carver at the scene had limited time to observe him, in unreliable lighting conditions at night. The witness was a taxi driver who made his observations while stopped at a traffic light at the corner of Rantoul and Elliott streets.
There are also questions about how “police feedback” influenced the witness, saying his descriptions of Carver became more detailed as the police continued to develop more evidence against Carver, Franklin said.
Carver’s lawyers have also submitted evidence suggesting that Carver did not get proper representation from his original defense lawyer due to the lawyer’s “personal and criminal misconduct,” including substance abuse.
In a court filing opposing Carver’s request for a new trial, prosecutors in the Essex County District Attorney’s office said the new evidence is not strong enough to “cast real doubt” on the justice of Carver’s convictions. They said the original investigators did consider whether the fire could have started overhead and “dropped down” to the floor of the alcove, but dismissed that possibility.
As for the new science that might be used to challenge a witness’ identification of Carver being at the scene of the fire, prosecutors said that same science could also be used to revisit testimony from other witnesses who did not identify Carver as the suspect they saw that night.
The new science “constitutes a double-edged sword, and would be as likely to harm the defendant’s case as to help it,” prosecutors said.
They also said there was plenty of evidence beyond the fire investigation and eyewitness accounts that led to Carver’s conviction — including threats and confessions made by Carver himself.
“We had a lot of evidence from the defendant’s own mouth,” Assistant District Attorney Catherine Semel told Karp at Friday’s hearing.
Another hearing in the motion for a new trial is scheduled for May 29. Karp’s ruling is not expected for months and will be subject to appeal.
Karp called the matter a “significant case,” saying, “The defense is asking me to vacate a 40-year-old conviction in a 40-year-old case where 15 people died.”
Carver, who is serving time at Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, was transported to the courthouse in Lawrence each day for the hearing. His daughter attended the hearing on Thursday, sitting in the front row. She declined to comment for this story.
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.
BOSTON — With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Maura Healey is moving to wipe away the prior pot convictions of hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents.
On Wednesday, Healey signed a “first-in-the-nation” executive order that, if approved by the Governor’s Council, would grant a blanket pardon to those with previous misdemeanor convictions for possession of marijuana, which has been legal for more than seven years.
Healey, who estimates the pardon will impact “hundreds of thousands” of people, says those with misdemeanor pot charges on their records from prelegalization days face restricted access to jobs, housing and education.
“The reason we’re doing this is simple, justice requires it,” the first-term Democrat told reporters at a briefing. “Massachusetts decriminalized possession for personal use back in 2008, legalized it in 2016, yet thousands of people are still living with convictions on their records.”
If Healey’s order is approved by the council, those with previous convictions wouldn’t need to apply for pardons — which would be done automatically — but would be able to request a “certificate” from the state verifying the pardon.
The pardons won’t apply to convictions after March 13, and would exclude charges such as possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, distribution, trafficking, or operating a motor vehicle under the influence or convictions outside the state, including federal court, the Healey administration said.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell, the state’s top law enforcement officer, was among those who praised the move. She said it will improve racial justice, with data showing that blacks and other minorities have been “disproportionately” charged with marijuana possession in the state prior to legalization.
“These pardons will transform the lives of thousands, remove barriers allowing them to live with economic dignity, and right past wrongs and stigma that these individuals have faced,” she said in remarks.
Voters legalized marijuana more than seven years ago, but people previously arrested with the drug are still being haunted by past convictions.
A 2008 ballot question made possessing an ounce or less of marijuana a civil offense, punishable by a $100 fine. Four years later, voters approved its medical use.
Then, in 2016, nearly 54% of voters at the ballot box approved legalized recreational marijuana.
Marijuana advocates say voters have made clear over the years that possession of small amounts should not be illegal, and people with old convictions should get a second chance.
Other states where recreational marijuana is legal have taken similar steps to seal or expunge criminal records en masse.
California wiped away past marijuana convictions under a bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an expungement bill in 2019 that allowed an estimated 150,000 people to have previous convictions sealed.
In 2022, President Biden issued a presidential proclamation pardoning many federal offenses for simple marijuana possession offenses. Biden has expanded that pardon to include more offenses and has called for a review of the classification of marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law.
But clearing records of past convictions, even in places where pot is legal, remains controversial. Washington state, which legalized pot in 2012, wrangled for several years to pass a pot expungement bill amid opposition from prosecutors.
In Massachusetts, law enforcement officials and even some lawmakers have pushed back on efforts to retroactively wipe away previous convictions.
Proposals to grant blanket pardons for pot convictions have been filed in the past several sessions only to languish due to lack of support.
A 2018 law allowed Massachusetts residents with previous convictions for offenses that are no longer illegal — including marijuana possession — to have those records expunged from their records. But advocates say since then few people have benefited from the changes.
In some cases, judges refuse to sign off on expungement of previous marijuana possession convictions, even if the individual’s records have been sealed.
Under state law, expungement requests must be deemed to be “in the interest of justice” but the interpretation of what that might be is generally left up to judges.
Pauline Quirion, a lawyer and director of the criminal records sealing project at Greater Boston Legal Services, said anyone who undergoes state Criminal Offender Record Information checks for housing or work can be turned down if they have marijuana charges in their past.
“In practice, any criminal record, no matter how old or how minor, creates barriers to jobs and other opportunities,” she said. “Pardons especially matter where record sealing simply is not enough because an employer or occupational licensor is granted access to the record by state law.”
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
CONCORD â Legalized marijuana in New Hampshire is one step closer to becoming a reality.
The House of Representatives heard a bill on Thursday sponsored by Rep. Erica Layon, a Republican from Derry, on the avenues for legalizing recreational marijuana, as well as regulating and taxing the substance.
âEvery single person in a seat here can find a reason to vote against the amendment and to vote against the bill,â Layon said. âBut the question is, do we have a net benefit to the state by passing this? and I truly do.â
The bill passed 239 to 141 and will move onto the House Finance Committee from here, working its way to the Senate.
While in favor of the bill, Rep. Jonah Wheeler, a Democrat from Hillsborough, said this bill was unfair largely in part because it does not allow provisions for people to grow their own marijuana plants. He said of one of the major amendments to the bill that it restricts the true ability for people to access cannabis.
â[The amendment] takes the bill which would legalize recreational use and private sale of cannabis and makes it an agency store model, restricting recreational use and private sale,â Wheeler said. âThat is not the free market, nor is it a good way to legalize.â
The bill restricts the sale of marijuana to 15 stores and retailers approved by the state. To Wheeler, this limits peopleâs access unjustly. He also expressed concern that national and international companies would buy the locations which would restrict the free market even more.
Layon pushed back on these claims, saying there are provisions in the bill to adjust the number of stores in the state based on demand.
âAfter this has been launched and after we know what it looks like [to sell cannabis] here in New Hampshire in a lawful way, I believe that this is a path where we can move forward and then we can figure out what needs to be done and what needs to be tweaked in the future to make this the best model,â she said.
A provision of the bill would also allow for police officers and law enforcement officials to be trained to recognize when people are driving while under the influence. Layon said this alone should be a reason for people to vote in favor.
If this seems familiar, thatâs because in April 2023, the House passed legislation to legalize cannabis use in New Hampshire, only for it to fail in the Senate.
Gov. Chris Sununu said in a 2023 press release that he would support the legalization of cannabis throughout New Hampshire under certain conditions, but such a bill had yet to cross his desk. In 2017, Sununu historically was the first governor in New Hampshireâs history to decriminalize carrying small amounts of marijuana.
At the hearing on Thursday, Layon said she understood peopleâs hesitance to legalize the drug, but nothing good could come from waiting longer.
âCannabis is here,â Layon said. âThe question is whether or not we provide an outlet for people who are currently turning to the streets a way to buy it in the state.â
BOSTON – A Lawrence man pleaded guilty to distributing large amounts of fentanyl in Lawrence, Andover, Wilmington and Woburn and was connected to the seizure of two kilograms of the illegal drug that was hidden in a cereal box.
Fraily Rodriguez Morillo, 26, indicted by a federal grand jury along with Melvin Antonio Perez Medina and Manuel Fredis Guerrero Guzman in November 2022, according to federal authorities.
Between March 2022 and August 2022, Morillo, Perez Medina and Guzman conspired to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl and 100 grams or more of a fentanyl analogue, in the four communities, according to a statement released by the DOJ.
Specifically, Morillo distributed 50 grams of fentanyl to a cooperating witness in Lawrence on two occasions in April 2022. Later, in July 2022, Morillo worked with Perez Medina to distribute nearly 130 grams of fentanyl on one occasion, and over 560 grams of a mixture of fentanyl and p-fluorofentanyl (a fentanyl analogue) on another occasion, to a cooperating witness in Woburn, authorities said.
In August 2022, Perez Medina was arrested and found in possession of nearly two kilograms of a mixture containing fentanyl and a fentanyl analogue. The nearly two kilograms were found secreted inside of a cereal box, according to the DOJ.
Morillo this week pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl and 100 grams or more of a fentanyl analogue; three counts of distribution and possession with intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl; and one count of distribution and possession with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl and 100 grams or more of a fentanyl analogue.
He is now scheduled for sentencing in federal court in Boston on May 7.
On Jan. 18, 2024, Perez Medina was sentenced to 64 months in prison and three years of supervised release after previously pleading guilty to his role in the conspiracy.
The charges of conspiracy to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl and 100 grams or more of a fentanyl analogue and of possession with intent to distribute and/or distribution of 400 grams or more of fentanyl and 100 grams or more of a fentanyl analogue carries a sentence of at least 10 years and up to life in prison, at least five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $10 million.
The charge of distribution and/or possession with intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl has a sentence of at least five years and up to 40 years in prison, at least four years of supervised release and a fine of up to $5 million.
This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach, authorities said.
Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter/X @EagleTribJill.
BOSTON — A divided state commission is calling for more aggressive steps to shift Massachusetts away from its reliance on natural gas for energy, but it’s not clear if state lawmakers will take up any of the proposed changes.
In a report to the state Legislature, the Gas System Enhancement Working Group takes more steps to shift the state’s utilities away from installing gas infrastructure in the state. In some cases, the changes include only edits of one or two words in the state laws on fixing gas leaks.
But the panel, which included state regulators, environmental groups, labor leaders and representatives of utility companies, was unable to reach consensus on many of the proposed regulatory changes.
One proposal called for a shift from “replacement” to “repair” of leak-prone natural gas lines, which proponents argued would save ratepayers money and accelerate the state’s transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar and other renewable energy. But the utility panelists voted against it, arguing that it would compromise safety and exceed the working group’s mandate.
“A shift in policy that prioritizes repair over replacement does not reduce the risk that leak-prone pipes pose to people, property, and the environment,” they wrote in a summary of the report. “Both cast iron and cathodically unprotected steel will continue to pose concerns as they age.”
The panel was created under a 2014 state law that requires utilities to track and grade all gas leaks on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being most serious, and immediately repair the most hazardous.
The panel’s report noted that Massachusetts gas companies are spending more than $800 million a year installing new gas mains to replace aging leak-prone pipes. The new pipes have a lifespan of 50 years, and will be paid for by energy consumers in the form of higher rates, they noted.
But the report’s authors said estimates suggest utilities will spend $34 billion on new gas infrastructure, which won’t be fully paid for until 2097. They noted that as more properties are retrofitted with heat pumps to replace gas, fewer and fewer customers will be on the gas distribution system.
“However, that gas system will still have the same number of miles of pipe, with the same fixed maintenance costs,” Audrey Schulman, a panelist and director of the Home Energy Efficiency Team, a Cambridge nonprofit, wrote in a summary of the report. “These maintenance costs will be shouldered by fewer and fewer gas customers, making the customers’ overall gas bills increase.”
Schulman said the state is “wasting money and time now by installing long-lived combustion infrastructure, while knowing that combustion is going away.”
“Instead we are investing significantly and actively in the gas and electric system at the same time, without thinking through how to synergize the work to reduce the cost and increase the speed,” she wrote.
“It is as though we are taking out a mortgage to replace the foundation on our horse’s stable, even after we’ve ordered an electric car,” Schulman added.
Massachusetts utilities are under increasing pressure to employ alternatives to natural gas to comply with requirements of a climate change bill approved last year, which requires the state to reduce its emissions to “net-zero” of 1990 levels by 2050.
Meanwhile, environmental groups have been prodding the state to force utilities to move away from new natural gas infrastructure as the state seeks to diversify its energy portfolio to include solar, wind and other renewable sources of power.
But industry officials argue the state will continue to need natural gas for a large portion of its energy, even as it turns to more renewable sources.
Roughly half of New England’s energy comes from natural gas, according to ISO New England, which oversees the regional power grid.
Critics have also noted the pocketbook costs to consumers from replacing natural gas infrastructure in homes and businesses.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com
BOSTON — A divided state commission is calling for more aggressive steps to shift Massachusetts away from its reliance on natural gas for energy, but it’s not clear if state lawmakers will take up any of the proposed changes.
In a report to the state Legislature, the Gas System Enhancement Working Group takes more steps to shift the state’s utilities away from installing gas infrastructure in the state. In some cases, the changes include only those to one or two words in the state laws on fixing gas leaks.
But the panel, which included state regulators, environmental groups, labor leaders and representatives of utility companies, was unable to reach a consensus on many of the proposed regulatory changes.
One proposal called for a shift from “replacement” to “repair” of leak-prone natural gas lines, which proponents argued would save ratepayers money and accelerate the state’s transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar and other renewable energy. But the utility panelists voted against in opposition, arguing that it would compromise safety and exceed the working group’s mandate.
“A shift in policy that prioritizes repair over replacement does not reduce the risk that leak-prone pipes pose to people, property, and the environment,” they wrote in a summary of the report. “Both cast iron and cathodically unprotected steel will continue to pose concerns as they age.”
The panel was created under a 2014 state law that requires utilities to track and grade all gas leaks on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being most serious, and immediately repair the most hazardous.
The panel’s report noted that Massachusetts gas companies are spending more than $800 million a year installing new gas mains to replace aging leak-prone pipes. The new pipes have a lifespan of 50 years and will be paid for by energy consumers in the form of higher rates, they noted.
But the report’s authors said estimates suggest utilities will spend $34 billion on new gas infrastructure, which would not be fully paid for until 2097. They noted that as more properties are retrofitted with heat pumps to replace gas, fewer customers will be on the gas distribution system.
“However, that gas system will still have the same number of miles of pipe, with the same fixed maintenance costs,” Audrey Schulman, a panelist and director of the Home Energy Efficiency Team, a Cambridge nonprofit, wrote in a summary of the report. “These maintenance costs will be shouldered by fewer and fewer gas customers, making the customers overall gas bills increase.”
Schulman said the state is “wasting money and time now by installing long-lived combustion infrastructure, while knowing that combustion is going away.”
“Instead we are investing significantly and actively in the gas and electric system at the same time, without thinking through how to synergize the work to reduce the cost and increase the speed,” she wrote.
“It is as though we are taking out a mortgage to replace the foundation on our horse’s stable, even after we’ve ordered an electric car,” Schulman added.
Massachusetts utilities are under increasing pressure to employ alternatives to natural gas to comply with requirements of a climate change bill approved last year that requires the state to reduce its emissions to “net-zero” of 1990 levels by 2050.
Meanwhile, environmental groups have been prodding the state to force utilities to move away from new natural gas infrastructure as the state seeks to diversify its energy portfolio to include solar, wind and other renewable sources of power.
But industry officials argue the state will continue to need natural gas for a large portion of its energy, even as it turns to more renewable sources.
Roughly half of New England’s energy comes from natural gas, according to ISO New England, which oversees the regional power grid.
Critics have also noted the pocketbook costs to consumers from replacing natural gas infrastructure in homes and businesses.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
Newswise — Magnesium (Mg) alloys have been popularly used for designing aerospace and automotive parts owing to their high strength-to-weight ratio. Their biocompatibility and low density also make these alloys ideal for use in biomedical and electronic equipment. However, Mg alloys are known to exhibit plastic anisotropic behavior. In other words, their mechanical properties vary depending on the direction of the applied load. To ensure that the performance of these Mg alloys is unaffected by this anisotropic behavior, a better understanding of the anisotropic deformations and the development of models for their analysis is needed.
According to Metal Design & Manufacturing (MEDEM) Lab led by Associate Professor Taekyung Lee from Pusan National University, Republic of Korea, machine learning (ML) might hold answers to this prediction problem. In their recent breakthrough, the team proposed a novel approach called “Generative adversarial networks (GAN)-aided gated recurrent unit (GRU).” The model holds powerful data analysis abilities to accurately predict the plastic anisotropic properties of wrought Mg alloys. Their work was made available online in the Journal of Magnesium and Alloyson 16 January 2024.
“Interms of the accuracy of ML predictions from the viewpoint of data science, we realized that there was room for improvement. So, unlike the previously reported methods of prediction, we developed an ML model with data augmentation to attain accuracy, as well as generalizability with respect to various loading modes. This eventually opened ways of integration with a finite-element analysis to extract precise stress estimation of products made from metal alloys with significant plastic anisotropy,” says Prof. Lee, describing the core idea behind their novel model.
To build a model with enhanced accuracy, the team combined the entire flow curves, GAN, algorithm-driven hyperparameter tuning, and GRU architecture, which are some of the key strategies used in data science. This new approach facilitates the learning of entire flow-curve data rather than being limited to train on summarized mechanical properties, like many previous models.
To test the reliability of the GAN-aided GRU model, the team extensively evaluated it under predictive scenarios, ranging from extrapolation, interpolation, and robustness, with datasets of limited size. When put to the test, the model estimated the anisotropic behavior of ZK60 Mg alloys for three loading directions and under 11 annealing conditions.
With these experiments, the team discovered that their model showed significantly better robustness and generalizability than other models designed to perform similar tasks. This superior performance is mainly attributed to GAN-aided data augmentation and supported by the excellent extrapolation ability of GRU architecture and optimization of hyperparameters—parameters whose values are used to control the learning process.
Therefore, this study takes predictive modeling beyond artificial neural networks. It successfully demonstrates the ability of ML-based models for estimating the anisotropic deformation behaviors of wrought Mg alloys. “The overall performance and lifespan of components made from Mg alloy are largely dependent on the plastic anisotropic behavior which makes forecasting and management of deformations a vital part of material design. We believe that the model will assist in the design and manufacturing of metal products for various applications,” concludes Prof. Lee on an optimistic note.
Let us hope that this groundbreaking study paves the way towards many more innovations in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning as well as computational materials science!
Pusan National University, located in Busan, South Korea, was founded in 1946 and is now the No. 1 national university of South Korea in research and educational competency. The multi-campus university also has other smaller campuses in Yangsan, Miryang, and Ami. The university prides itself on the principles of truth, freedom, and service, and has approximately 30,000 students, 1200 professors, and 750 faculty members. The university is composed of 14 colleges (schools) and one independent division, with 103 departments in all.
Prof. Taekyung Lee is an Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering at Pusan National University, Korea. His group, Metal Design & Manufacturing (MEDEM) Lab, is developing advanced metal-forming processes. MEDEM studies the electropulsing treatment, additive manufacturing process, and severe plastic deformation process. MEDEM is also interested in the optimization of processing parameters based on physics, machine learning, and microstructure-mechanical analysis. Prof. Lee earned his Ph.D. at POSTECH, Korea in 2014 and completed the postdoctoral training at Northwestern University, USA. Before coming to Pusan National University, he worked at Kumamoto University, Japan, for two years as an assistant professor.
