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Tag: Story Ideas: Science

  • AI Pain Recognition System Could Help Detect Patients’ Pain Before, During and After Surgery

    AI Pain Recognition System Could Help Detect Patients’ Pain Before, During and After Surgery

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    Newswise — SAN FRANCISCO — An automated pain recognition system using artificial intelligence (AI) holds promise as an unbiased method to detect pain in patients before, during and after surgery, according to research presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2023 annual meeting.

    Currently, subjective methods are used to assess pain, including the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) — where patients rate their own pain — and the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) — where health care professionals rate the patient’s pain based on facial expression, body movement and muscle tension. The automated pain recognition system uses two forms of AI, computer vision (giving the computer “eyes”) and deep learning so it can interpret the visuals to assess patients’ pain.

    “Traditional pain assessment tools can be influenced by racial and cultural biases, potentially resulting in poor pain management and worse health outcomes,” said Timothy Heintz, B.S., lead author of the study and a fourth-year medical student at the University of California San Diego. “Further, there is a gap in perioperative care due to the absence of continuous observable methods for pain detection. Our proof-of-concept AI model could help improve patient care through real-time, unbiased pain detection.”

    Early recognition and effective treatment of pain have been shown to decrease the length of hospital stays and prevent long-term health conditions such as chronic pain, anxiety and depression.

    Researchers provided the AI model 143,293 facial images from 115 pain episodes and 159 non-pain episodes in 69 patients who had a wide range of elective surgical procedures, from knee and hip replacements to complex heart surgeries. The researchers taught the computer by presenting it with each raw facial image and telling it whether or not it represented pain, and it began to identify patterns. Using heat maps, the researchers discerned that the computer focused on facial expressions and facial muscles in certain areas of the face, particularly the eyebrows, lips and nose. Once it was provided enough examples, it used the learned knowledge to make pain predictions. The AI-automated pain recognition system aligned with CPOT results 88% of the time and with VAS 66% of the time.

    “The VAS is less accurate compared to CPOT because VAS is a subjective measurement that can be more heavily influenced by emotions and behaviors than CPOT might be,” said Heintz. “However, our models were able to predict VAS to some extent, indicating there are very subtle cues that the AI system can identify that humans cannot.”

    If the findings are validated, this technology may be an additional tool physicians could use to improve patient care. For example, cameras could be mounted on the walls and ceilings of the surgical recovery room (post-anesthesia care unit) to assess patients’ pain — even those who are unconscious — by taking 15 images per second. This also would free up nurses and health professionals — who intermittently take time to assess the patient’s pain — to focus on other areas of care. The researchers plan to continue to incorporate other variables such as movement and sound into the model.

    Concerns about privacy would need to be addressed to ensure patient images are kept private, but the system could eventually include other monitoring features, such as brain and muscle activity to assess unconscious patients, he said.

     

    THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS

    Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is an educational, research and scientific professional society with more than 56,000 members organized to advance the medical practice of anesthesiology and secure its future. ASA is committed to ensuring anesthesiologists evaluate and supervise the medical care of all patients before, during and after surgery. ASA members also lead the care of critically ill patients in intensive care units, as well as treat pain in both acute and chronic settings.

    For more information on the field of anesthesiology, visit the American Society of Anesthesiologists online at asahq.org. To learn more about how anesthesiologists help ensure patient safety, visit asahq.org/MadeforThisMoment. Join the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2023 social conversation today. Like ASA on Facebook and follow ASALifeline on Twitter and use the hashtag #ANES23.

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    American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA)

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  • Killing Remains a Threat to Bornean Orangutans

    Killing Remains a Threat to Bornean Orangutans

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    Newswise — PhD candidate Emily Massingham from UQ’s Faculty of Science managed a team of researchers which visited 79 villages across the Bornean orangutan range in Kalimantan, conducting face to face interviews with 431 people.

    “Our study builds on previous research which indicated killing was one of the key reasons for orangutan population decline, alongside habitat loss,” Ms Massingham said.

    “The aim of our project was to understand whether orangutans have been killed in recent times, to look at whether conservation projects are effectively preventing killing, and to gain insights into community perceptions and the motivations behind it.

    “It has been almost 15 years since the previous study, and we did not find a clear decrease in killings despite Indonesia’s commendable efforts to reduce habitat loss.

    “Thirty per cent of villages reported orangutans had been killed in the last 5 -10 years, despite the practice being both illegal and taboo – which also makes it hard to get an accurate picture of the true scale.”

    Ms Massingham said Borneo’s orangutan population had decreased by 100,000 in recent decades, with current estimates suggesting fewer than 100,000 animals remain.

    “Our findings did not indicate that conservation projects are reducing killing, highlighting an urgent need to improve the collective approach to orangutan conservation,” she said.

    “Killing by humans needs to be addressed, as our findings suggest it may still be occurring and poses a real threat to the species.”

    Ms Massingham said orangutans have long lifespans and breed slowly, so are particularly vulnerable to population declines driven by the death of adult apes.  

    “Our interviews revealed some of the situations which lead to the killing or displacement of individual orangutans,” she said.

    “They include protecting crops and taking infant apes to keep as pets.”

    The researchers outlined recommendations that could improve future conservation efforts.

    “Working with communities and collaborating across disciplines and projects will be key,” Ms Massingham said.

    “Conservationists need to work closely with individual villages to understand their needs and perspectives, identify the social drivers of killing of orangutans and implement solutions that reduce human-orangutan conflict.”

    The research was conducted under a RISTEK permit, with the engagement of a local social development organisation to facilitate fieldwork.

    This research is published in Conservation Science and Practice. 

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    University of Queensland

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  • Researchers Capture First-Ever Afterglow of Huge Planetary Collision in Outer Space

    Researchers Capture First-Ever Afterglow of Huge Planetary Collision in Outer Space

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    Newswise — The study, published today in Nature, reports the sighting of two ice giant exoplanets colliding around a sun-like star, creating a blaze of light and plumes of dust. Its findings show the bright heat afterglow and resulting dust cloud, which moved in front of the parent star dimming it over time.

    The international team of astronomers was formed after an enthusiast viewed the light curve of the star and noticed something strange. It showed the system doubled in brightness at infrared wavelengths some three years before the star started to fade in visible light.

    Co-lead author Dr Matthew Kenworthy, from Leiden University, said: “To be honest, this observation was a complete surprise to me. When we originally shared the visible light curve of this star with other astronomers, we started watching it with a network of other telescopes.

    “An astronomer on social media pointed out that the star brightened up in the infrared over a thousand days before the optical fading. I knew then this was an unusual event.”

    The network of professional and amateur astronomers studied the star intensively including monitoring changes in the star’s brightness over the next two years. The star was named ASASSN-21qj after the network of telescopes that first detected the fading of the star at visible wavelengths.

    The researchers concluded the most likely explanation is that two ice giant exoplanets collided, producing the infrared glow detected by NASA’s NEOWISE mission, which uses a space telescope to hunt for asteroids and comets.

    Co-lead author Dr Simon Lock, Research Fellow in Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, said: “Our calculations and computer models indicate the temperature and size of the glowing material, as well as the amount of time the glow has lasted, is consistent with the collision of two ice giant exoplanets.”

    The resultant expanding debris cloud from the impact then travelled in front of the star some three years later, causing the star to dim in brightness at visible wavelengths.

    Over the next few years, the cloud of dust is expected to start smearing out along the orbit of the collision remnant, and a tell-tale scattering of light from this cloud could be detected with both ground-based telescopes and NASA’s largest telescope in space, known as JWST.

    The astronomers plan on watching closely what happens next in this system.

    Co-author Dr Zoe Leinhardt, Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Bristol, added: “It will be fascinating to observe further developments. Ultimately, the mass of material around the remnant may condense to form a retinue of moons that will orbit around this new planet.”

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    University of Bristol

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  • Illinois Researchers Prove That New Method Can Be Used to Measure Ozone Stress in Soybeans

    Illinois Researchers Prove That New Method Can Be Used to Measure Ozone Stress in Soybeans

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    BYLINE: Mike Koon

    Newswise — As the world focuses on not only solving the climate crisis but also sustaining the world’s food supply, researchers need tools to evaluate how atmospheric pollutants affect crops. Over the past decade, the agriculture community has turned to solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) measurements to detect stresses on plants.

    Plants absorb light from the sun to power photosynthesis, and the unused energy is emitted as heat and a tiny glow invisible to human eyes, termed fluorescence. Ever since the first global SIF map was generated in 2011, SIF has been used by researchers to investigate photosynthesis dynamics. For instance, it has been used to determine how high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) or elevated temperature affect a plant’s properties.

    Now a team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the USDA Agricultural Research Service has used SIF to measure the effects of elevated ozone (O3) on soybean plants. The team published its findings in the Journal of Experimental Botany (https://academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jxb/erad356/7272702).

    “Researchers have found SIF to be a faster, safer, and noninvasive way to study photosynthesis,” noted Genghong Wu, the work’s first author and the former PhD student at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, under the supervision of Prof. Kaiyu Guan, the senior author of the work. “That is why it has become so popular. The novelty of this study is that for the first time, SIF was used to measure elevated ozone stress on soybeans in the field.”

    Ozone is a damaging air pollutant that is costly to farmers. The SoyFACE facility provides a testbed for studying the effects of ozone pollution in the field. It is managed by USDA ARS scientist and Prof. Lisa Ainsworth. For the current study, she designed the elevated O3 experiment with four plots as a control, and other four plots with higher amounts of O3. The team used a portable spectroscopic system placed about half meter above the plant canopy to take its measurements on both control and elevated O3 plots.They found that increased O3 levels resulted in a decrease in SIF, by as much as 36 percent during the late growing season.

    Other processes associated with photosynthesis, such as electron transport and leaf-gas exchange, were simultaneously measured along with SIF. “As we observed those levels decrease with higher ozone levels, it confirmed to us that a decrease in SIF is a sign of stress,” Ainsworth said.

    Although SIF is directly related to photosynthesis — the process by which plants absorb light and turn it into chemical energy — it isn’t the only factor to influence SIF. But Wu notes that plant photosynthesis, combined with measures of the size of the plants[MAD3], can give farmers a good estimate of yield.

    One of the advantages of SIF is that it is scalable. Wu is currently studying in Germany with colleagues, who use aircraft flying 1 kilometer off the ground to evaluate SIF’s effects on an entire field. Alongside Prof. Kaiyu Guan, the Founding Director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center and a fellow investigator on this study, Wu hopes to use the method to track photosynthesis in regions around the world from a satellite orbiting the Earth.

    “We want to use SIF to estimate or to monitor the dynamics of photosynthesis on a regional or global scale,” Wu reiterated. “To do that, we need to also further understand the mechanistic relationship between SIF and photosynthesis.”

    The experiments that these colleagues did at SoyFACE to link SIF to air pollution are helping build that mechanistic understanding.

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    College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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  • American University and Football for Peace Join Forces to Promote Sports Diplomacy, Launch Peace Center

    American University and Football for Peace Join Forces to Promote Sports Diplomacy, Launch Peace Center

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    Newswise — American University’s School of International Service (SIS) and Football for Peace (FfP), an international sports diplomacy non-government organization headquartered in London, UK, with the support of the Maryland Sports Commission, are launching the first Football for Peace Center in the United States. The Peace Center will address pressing social and environmental challenges in the U.S. and around the world, focusing on youth empowerment, water prosperity, and societal advocacy.

    “SIS has a long history of promoting leadership in peace and conflict resolution and addressing issues like poverty; geography; and water justice, including access to clean water, that contribute to conflict,” said SIS Dean Shannon Hader, MD, MPH. “Through this partnership and the growth of the Peace Center, we will host a variety of programs and events, reaffirming our dedication to creating positive change and ‘waging peace’ worldwide.”

    The FfP Peace Center will serve as a platform for community service, global campaigns, advocacy, and youth engagement for marginalized communities in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area, as well as for AU students, alumni, and partners, uniquely leveraging the power and popularity of both soccer and American football. As one of the new Center’s initiatives, SIS faculty and students will share their expertise in water politics and justice to support Football for Peace’s Rehydrate the Earth campaign, which will be formally launched later ahead of World Water Day 2024. The campaign is the world’s first global football-led water campaign.

    “It’s great for Football for Peace U.S.A. to be partnering with such a prestigious university like American University and its School of International Service,” said Josh R. Norman, NFL Cornerback & founding board member of FfP USA. “Our heritage comes from professional sports, and we consider football, both soccer and American Football, to have a unique ability to reach far beyond ethnic, religious, social, or environmental differences. We hope to make a lot of a positive impact in the U.S.A.”

    “I am so proud to come back to the States and work with some amazing partners after spending many years playing college soccer, which taught me positive values on and off the pitch. This partnership aligns perfectly with the upcoming World Cup; soccer touches five billion people and has the power to move masses,” said Kash Siddiqi, FfP co-founder and former professional soccer player. “Through this dynamic partnership, we’re not just coming together; we’re playing a pivotal role in promoting peace through soccer and football. Together, we’re turning our shared commitment into advancing Sports Diplomacy Actions locally and internationally. The announcement of the inaugural Capitol Region Football for Peace Center is a significant step toward making this vision a reality.”

    The partnership will provide American University students the opportunity to become involved in sports diplomacy through FfP’s Most Valuable Peacemakers (MVP) Award, an initiative that honours young leaders, renowned athletes, and dignitaries for their efforts in tackling local and global issues and making a positive impact in their communities. Launched in 2015, the MVP Award allows youth to hear from professional athletes and offers soccer training opportunities and community service through soccer. This transformative experience empowers participants to cultivate their peace-building skills through empathy, compassion, and service to others.

    The new Center will also create internship opportunities for students to participate in the Football for Peace projects with a global focus, including Peace Matches. The partnership will also aim to offer opportunities to AU faculty to lead and assist with initiatives to further AU’s mission of creating positive change around the world.

    “Today’s announcement with American University is the first major step for Football for Peace, in an ongoing effort, to partner strategically with a distinguished academic institution while fostering and advocating the growth and mission of the organization in the United States,” said Terry Hasseltine, Executive Director, Maryland Sports Commission and President of the Sport & Entertainment Corporation of Maryland. “Working with a global initiative like Football for Peace, and now their Peace Center at American University, will elevate our long-term legacy footprint for the next generation here in Maryland, while creating the potential to expand regionally and nationally.”

    The agreement between AU SIS and FfP was celebrated during a special event on the AU campus that focused on the impact of sports diplomacy and featured prominent speakers, including Brenda Abdelall, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; George Atallah, assistant executive director of external affairs for the NFL Players Association; Terry Hasseltine, President of the Maryland Sports Commission; Josh Norman, NFL former Washington Commanders’ top cornerback; Oguchi Onyewu, former US Men’s soccer national team Captain and Vice President of Sporting, United States Soccer Federation; tennis star Francis Tiafoe; and Brenden Varma, Deputy Director, UN Information Center.

    About American University’s School of International Service

    American University’s School of International Service (SIS) is a top-10 school of international affairs located in Washington, D.C. Since the school’s founding in 1957, we have answered President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s call to prepare students of international affairs to “wage peace.” SIS produces transformational research and prepares more than 3,000 graduate and undergraduate students for global careers in government, nonprofits, and business. Our students take advantage of Washington’s wealth of resources and professional opportunities—and an active international network of more than 25,000 alumni. They graduate prepared to combine knowledge and practice and to serve the global community as emerging leaders, waging peace and building understanding in our world.

    About Football for Peace

    Football for Peace (FfP) as an organization was inspired by the work of FIFA and Chilean legend Elias Figueroa. In 2013, Kashif Siddiqi, a former international soccer player and soccer diplomat launched Football for Peace internationally. FfP is a sports diplomacy NGO. Its mission is to advance sports diplomacy initiatives that address pressing social and environmental issues, leveraging the unique combination of football and soccer to serve communities in the United States and around the world.

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    American University

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  • Scientists Studying Idalia in Real-Time Available to Comment on Hurricanes and Warming Oceans

    Scientists Studying Idalia in Real-Time Available to Comment on Hurricanes and Warming Oceans

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    Newswise — Is there a connection between the incidence of hurricanes and warming oceans? What do we know?

    Travis Miles and Scott Glenn, physical oceanographers at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, have answers.

    The following quotes from Miles and Glenn are available to the media covering the issue.

    Quote from Miles:

    “Hurricanes draw their fuel from the oceans, intensifying over warm upper ocean features and weakening over cold ones. As our oceans warm ,we expect there to be more frequent major hurricanes with strong winds, as well as increases in precipitation. The impacts of these storms will be further enhanced with increased sea level rise. To better understand and predict the impacts of these storms, we work with a consortia of partners to collect data ahead of and beneath these powerful storms with fleets of ocean robots.”

    Quote from Glenn:

    “Motivated by our shared experience in Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, we continue to build broad partnerships to better characterize the upper ocean heat content well ahead of landfalling hurricanes, and to better understand the rapid co-evolution of the ocean and atmosphere during intense hurricane forcing. Better observations and understanding of these extreme hurricane events leads to better forecasts, and that saves lives.”

     More information:

    • Miles and Glenn are partnering with other institutions to “fly” autonomous underwater robots known as gliders under hurricanes including Hurricane Idalia. This is part of active research in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean to observe what happens to oceans ahead of and during hurricanes.
    • Their research is providing data to the National Weather Service to enable better hurricane forecasting models.

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    Rutgers University-New Brunswick

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  • Crucial Role of Society in Advancing Green Energy Transition

    Crucial Role of Society in Advancing Green Energy Transition

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    Newswise — As wind energy emerges as a linchpin in the global push towards a cleaner future, resistance to deploying renewable energy technologies has risen. This underscores the need for a collective socio-technical approach to designing and implementing renewable energy systems.

    A recent review paper in Nature Energy promotes an interdisciplinary research approach that bridges technical ‘grand challenges’ with societal dynamics, making renewable energy truly sustainable—technically and socially. Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, leading the study, emphasizes the risks societies face if they fail to consider local communities’ values and concerns:

    “Today, design decisions are often made without much debate. And when the public then raises concerns, the response is often not taken seriously, or it’s too late. Societies, therefore, risk losing public backing to the essential energy transition,” says Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, Associate Professor at DTU Wind and Energy Systems and lead author of the recent review article published in Nature Energy on socio-technical grand challenges in wind energy.

    Silo-mentality gets in the way

    Addressing the grand challenge of climate change is often done from the perspective of individual technical disciplines. However, this is at the risk of ignoring how technologies – and their design, development, and deployment – are always social. They are set into specific places and contexts and create certain social responses.

    With local opposition against renewables rising, the paper states there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary perspectives better to address the socio-technical nature of the energy transition. In other words, to meet global decarbonization goals, the technical sciences need to collaborate more with the social sciences and humanities to engage with – and create value for – local communities and broader society.

    The need for increased public participation concerns the planning and development phases and the design and end-of-life phases. In the design phase, in particular, important decisions are made that concern whose interests are considered – and whose aren’t. And recent research shows that these decisions even go back to the algorithms found in digital design tools.

    Case in point: Wind energy. There is little doubt that wind power will play a massive role in the future energy system to meet worldwide decarbonization goals. The level of effort that made wind an initial success got us to roughly a 9% share of electricity usage. That will not be sufficient, however, to make the transformative changes required to reach the expected one-third to one-half of total electricity, according to Julia Kirch Kirkegaard.

    “Denmark, for instance, is normally seen as a pioneer in wind energy, but only a handful of wind turbines were installed onshore in 2022. With an ambition to produce four times as much solar and wind energy on land and five times as much offshore by 2030, we need to find radically new approaches so that we do not see the controversies simply multiplied,” she says.

    “While wind turbines are getting larger, and less land is becoming available, local, societal opposition to deployments of new wind energy infrastructure has been growing. We need to understand better and acknowledge why that is so—otherwise, there is a real risk that societies’ ability to meet climate ambitions is jeopardized.”

    A new approach to socio-technical grand challenges

    Better recognition of how technical and natural sciences, on the one hand, and state-of-the-art in the social sciences, on the other, address the grand challenges facing wind power is needed since, according to Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, they often do not even agree on the most significant challenges.

    The authors warn that the socio-technical research gaps may become grand challenges in their own right if the wind energy sector cannot confront them in due time. Julia Kirch Kirkegaard explains that while it will be a challenge for research, industry and society as a whole to bridge these gaps, the timing for engaging the participants in the deployment of wind energy is obvious:

    “Major technological progress is facing growing resistance from the public. Since we’ll likely see similar conflicts in the future – as we address other aspects of the energy transition and climate mitigation technologies such as Power-to-X, energy islands and more – the time to explore how to bridge these manifold perspectives is now.”

    FACT BOX: Call to action:

    The Nature Energy paper Tackling grand challenges in wind energy through a socio-technical perspective promotes a lens founded in STS (Science & Technology Studies) to push the technical sciences and the state-of-the-art in social sciences and humanities on the issue (i.e., the social acceptance literature) forward and towards more interdisciplinary research:

    • Technical sciences need to move beyond their perspective on local opposition as a barrier to be tackled through technical or economic means to appreciate better their role in society and how their design and deployment decisions shape societal dynamics. It might even make it possible to look at public opposition not as something that must be done away with but as a potential for learning and value-creation.
    • The state-of-the-art in the social sciences (the social acceptance literature) has tended to focus on the planning and development phases, largely overlooking the technologies themselves, their design, and scientific reasons. With this, they lack an appreciation of how decisions about whose concerns should count (or not) are already made in the design phase. Sometimes making solutions to tackle local opposition in the planning and development phases are in vain and too late.

    The work on the Nature Energy paper is a collaborative effort between European and American scholars – at DTU Wind and Energy Systems (Technical University of Denmark), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and Wageningen University & Research (WUR).

    The paper is part of ten papers on the grand challenges in wind energy science, published in Science and Wind Energy Science, encompassing topics like atmosphere, environmental concerns, digitalization, etc.

    The work on grand challenges in wind energy science is facilitated by the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Programme, which has recently determined that for wind power to fulfil its expected role as a major global supplier of carbon-free energy, critical challenges around the design, development, and deployment of wind energy must be addressed.

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    Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

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  • Subaquatic Molecular Exchange

    Subaquatic Molecular Exchange

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    Newswise — “Eat or be eaten” is not always the way things are in nature. It can be beneficial for different species to team up and pool their capabilities. Cnidarians such as corals and anemones were already committing to this kind of biological joint venture with algae from the dinoflagellate group 250 million years ago. Thanks to these symbioses, both sides are able to flourish in nutrient-poor waters where, in isolation, neither would stand a chance of surviving. Corals can thus lay the structural foundation for the most biodiverse of all marine ecosystems. They protect their dinoflagellate symbionts from predators and supply them with inorganic nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Conversely, the algae provide the coral with the products of their photosynthesis: carbohydrates, protein and fat.

    Yet this happy marriage can only work if the ‘barter’ arrangement is precisely regulated. And although a successful exchange of nutrients is critical to the health of the corals and, hence, to the whole of the coral reef ecosystem, the molecular mechanisms that regulate communication within this partnership are still largely unknown. A new study in Current Biology now shows that a signal path from way back in the evolutionary process plays a crucial role in the ‘trade’ that takes place between algae and coral.

    Eaten but not digested

    “Most types of coral have to absorb new dinoflagellate symbionts from their environment in each new generation,” explains LMU biologist Professor Annika Guse, lead author of the new study. The symbionts are initially absorbed like food into the coral’s digestive cavity and from there into the host’s cells. During this process, a kind of bubble known as the symbiosome forms around the algae. The symbiosome is chemically similar to a lysosome – another cell organelle that plays a pivotal role in digestion. “The difference to the lysosome is that, in the symbiosome, the dinoflagellates remain intact,” Guse notes. In effect, the host eats its symbionts without digesting them. “We do not yet know exactly how the algae survive this process.” Inside the symbiosome, the algae then continue to photosynthesize and produce nutrients that they share with their host. All nutrients and communication processes between the partners must therefore penetrate the shell of the symbiosome, which is made up of membranes from both host and symbiont.

    A ‘cell tax’ between symbiont and host

    To do all this, the symbiotic partners evidently use a signal path known as the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), which regulates cellular metabolism in all eukaryotes as a function of environmental factors such as the availability of nutrients. It has already been proven for other species that mTOR is also used for nutritional symbioses: “Various insect hosts use mTOR signal transmission for their bacterial endosymbionts,” Guse says. “Evidence of the same path has also been found for legumes and their fungal partners.” The researchers therefore suspected that mTOR could also be involved in the partnership between cnidarians and dinoflagellates. “We have been able to prove that endosymbiontic corals use the mTOR signal path to incorporate nutrients from the symbionts in the host metabolism.” All the vital components of mTOR exist in both anemones and corals. Annika Guse and her colleagues investigated the extent to which this signal path is activated by the presence of algae partners from the Symbiodiniaceae family at different developmental stages in anemones of the genus Aiptasia. They also tested how inhibiting mTOR signal transmission affected the symbiotic function. “Our findings show that mTOR signal transmission is activated by the symbiosis, and that disruptions to the signal path impair symbiosis at both the cellular and the organismic level,” Guse explains. “With the aid of a specific antibody, we were also able to show that mTOR is localized on the membranes of the symbiosome.”

    Repurposing an age-old signal path

    Studying their findings, the biologists conclude that mTOR is of tremendous importance to the incorporation of nutrients in the host’s metabolism and to the stability of the symbiosis. Given that much of the energy consumed by symbiotic cnidarians comes from their symbiotic partners, it is plausible that the highly conserved mTOR signal path has ultimately been used for efficient nutrient sensing within the framework of symbiosis. Accordingly, Guse and her team propose a model in which the nutrients released by the algae activate mTOR signal transmission in the symbiosome and in the host tissue – similar to the sensing of nutrients from external sources.

    The activation of mTOR signal transmission was probably also an important step in the evolution of this symbiosis, allowing the algae to survive within the host cells. “The mTOR activity controls what is called autophagy, a very ancient immune reaction on the evolutionary scale that is triggered when pathogens penetrate the host and that leads to the destruction of the intruder,” the biologist explains. This, she believes, is the reason why some pathogens – and the bacterial endosymbionts of some insects, too – have developed mechanisms to bypass autophagic elimination. Early symbionts could have been ingested by a cnidarian and absorbed into its cells. Instead of being ejected or destroyed, however, they were retained as they supplied the host cell with nutrients, activating the mTOR signals and thereby stopping the process of autophagy. “We are only now beginning to understand how the complex interaction between host and algae works and was able to develop over a million years of co-evolution,” Guse says.

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    Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen (Munich)

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  • Tunable “Affibodies” Offer a New Approach to Healing Bone Fractures

    Tunable “Affibodies” Offer a New Approach to Healing Bone Fractures

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    Newswise — Instead of bulky metal plates and screws, bone fractures might someday be healed via targeted, controlled delivery of a specialized bone-growth protein.

    University of Oregon researchers have developed a system to get that protein to the site of injury and release it gradually over time. Their approach uses small proteins called affibodies, which can be specially engineered to grab onto specific other proteins and release them at different rates.

    The team reports their results in a paper published June 28, 2023 in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

    Healing is a complex biological process, with many different proteins at the site of injury aiding in regeneration. “This initial proof of concept shows we can release things at different rates, like other proteins, to mimic how the bone would naturally regenerate,” said Jonathan Dorogin, a graduate student in Marian Hettiaratchi’s lab who led the design. Hettiaratchi is an assistant professor in the UO’s Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact.

    One of these many healing-related proteins is bone morphogenetic protein-2, or BMP-2. Early in development, it helps bones form. And when someone breaks a bone, cells around the site of the fracture secrete this protein to help new bone grow. Recently, scientists and doctors have been interested in giving patients infusions of BMP-2 as a treatment to hasten healing.

    But BMP-2 is so powerful that it can easily lead to off-target effects, causing bone growth where it’s not wanted and leading to unexpected complications.

    Hettiaratchi and her colleagues have been trying to develop a more controlled strategy. Affibodies piqued the lab’s interest as a possible solution because they’re small and relatively simple to engineer, Hettiaratchi said. These molecules are cousins to antibodies, immune system molecules that selectively latch onto bacteria or viruses. But affibodies’ pared-down size makes them easier to generate in the lab. And because they’re engineered to be highly specific to the proteins they’re sticking to, there’s less risk of them interacting with other things they’re not supposed to in the body.

    The team screened a set of affibodies by testing how well they stuck to BMP-2, looking for molecules that would stick solidly but still release the protein under the right conditions. As candidate for further testing, they picked one affibody that stuck to BMP-2 more strongly, and another that had a weaker connection.

    They linked those affibodies with a squishy material called a hydrogel, which is often used as a delivery vehicle in the body for BMP-2 and similar treatments. Then, they tested how the whole package behaved in a liquid solution that mimics the environment inside the body.

    Adding affibodies to the hydrogel made it release BMP-2 more slowly than an affibody-free hydrogel, the researchers found. And changing up the affibodies could alter the rate of release, too.

     “Our innovation has been to control when the protein comes out,” Dorogin said.  

    In collaboration with colleagues in the lab of Knight Campus researcher Parisa Hosseinzadeh, the team also used machine learning to better understand how the affibodies were interacting with BMP-2.

    Hettiaratchi and Dorogin anticipate the work will be most useful for severe or complex fractures, where there’s a higher likelihood of a bone not healing correctly. They’ve filed a patent for the design of this BMP-2 delivery strategy, and are moving on to further testing with the hopes that someday, this tunable approach could be used in human patients. 

    They see affibodies as far more than just a platform for BMP-2 delivery, though. Healing is complicated, and the natural process involves a cascade of different molecules rushing to the site of injury at different times and in different quantities.

    Hettiaratchi ultimately envisions an affibody-based system that could deliver many healing-related proteins to the site of an injury, each one tuned to come in at a specific rate depending on when it’s needed during the healing process.

    “BMP-2 was a great protein to start with, because we knew it would be clinically relevant,” Hettiaratchi said. “But the long-term goal is to apply this to many things in the clinic.”

     – By Laurel Hamers, University Communications

    This research is funded in part by the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health. The team also received a pilot grant from the Collins Medical Trust.

    About the Knight Campus 
    The Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact is a hub of discovery and innovation where teams of world-class bioengineers and bioscientists are driving groundbreaking scientific research and providing an innovative approach to technical training, professional development, and entrepreneurship. Made possible by a $500 million lead gift from Penny and Phil Knight in 2016 and a second $500 million gift in 2021, the Knight Campus is home to several research centers of excellence and offers a Ph.D. in bioengineering, a bioengineering minor and an accelerated master’s degree program with multiple industry focused tracks. 

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    University of Oregon

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  • FAMU-FSU Researchers Advance Electric Vehicle Battery Safety with New Energy Absorption Design

    FAMU-FSU Researchers Advance Electric Vehicle Battery Safety with New Energy Absorption Design

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    Newswise — Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering are improving the safety and performance of electric vehicles through a new design that protects their batteries.

    Their design uses tubes filled with paraffin wax, which is a type of phase change material, or PCM. These materials are commonly used to store and dissipate heat, making them useful for protecting a battery from overheating.

    The researchers’ new method uses PCM-filled tubes in another way, exploring their application as protection against an impact. The work was published in the journal Structures.

    “We want to manage the risk of battery damage in a crash,” said Farhad Farzaneh, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the study’s lead investigator. “This is a significant concern in the overall safety and reliability of electric vehicles and will help advance their adoption in the automotive industry.”

    Crash absorbers should be lightweight and capable of absorbing a significant amount of energy during an accident. The PCM-filled tubes soften the blow from impact and absorb heat, keeping nearby battery cells at a safe temperature and protecting against temperature rise that might lead to a fire.

    The research team examined thin-walled aluminum tubes with a range of diameters, thicknesses of exterior metal, and end cap designs. They developed models to predict their performance according to those parameters and verified those models through experiments.

    They found that tubes that were capped on their ends and tubes that were filled with PCM absorbed about 43% and 74% more energy, respectively, than unfilled tubes.

    “Impact loading on the battery module is a major risk in adopting electric vehicles,” said coauthor Professor Sungmoon Jung. “Of course, every measure you adopt to protect a vehicle has trade-offs for things such as weight. Farhad’s research found an innovative way to combine two protective measures into one to improve the safety of electric vehicles.”

    Besides making batteries safer in the event of a crash, the research could indirectly improve battery life by minimizing potential damage from a less intense impact or thermal issues.

    “By incorporating PCM-filled tubes in electric vehicle batteries, we hope to prevent catastrophic events and improve the overall reliability and durability of the battery system,” Farzaneh said.

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    Florida State University

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  • Researchers to Train Farmers on How to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Improve Soil Health

    Researchers to Train Farmers on How to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Improve Soil Health

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    Newswise — EL PASO, Texas (June 21, 2023) — In 2021, agricultural activities contributed to 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Now, researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso will help reduce these emissions by training farmers across the nation on climate-friendly agricultural practices.

    The project is supported by a new $2 million, four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

    The team behind the Carbon SMART (Soil Monitoring, Assessment, Research and Training) project includes soil scientists and geochemists from UTEP as well as geomorphologists, landscape ecologists, sociologists, and environmental anthropologists from Boise State University in Idaho. The researchers will train farmers and ranchers in Idaho and the surrounding region to monitor carbon levels in soil and practice climate-smart conservation practices.

    Increasing carbon in soil is key to increasing soil health, according to the team. Carbon is a key ingredient in photosynthesis, the process by which plants absorb and convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen. Once absorbed from the atmosphere, carbon is stored in the surrounding soil as decaying plant matter.

    “On a global scale, soil collectively holds about twice as much carbon as the atmosphere,” said David Huber, Ph.D, the project’s principal investigator and a research assistant professor in the UTEP Department of Earth, Environmental and Resource Sciences.

    But certain farming practices, like tilling and lack of cover crops, can disrupt soil structure and cause carbon to be released into the atmosphere faster than it is stored naturally, which contributes to atmospheric warming, climate change and reduced soil health. According to Huber, maintaining stable levels of carbon in soil is in the best interest of farmers and critical to preventing further warming.

    In addition to training producers to measure carbon levels in soil, the Carbon SMART team will monitor the success of various conservation methods at maintaining stable carbon levels.

    “This project will offer farmers and ranchers a practical toolset to assess for themselves the virtues of climate-smart conservation practices.” said Huber. “It will also provide important insight into why producers adopted one set of conservation practices but not others.”

    The team that received the grant will primarily work with farmers and ranchers from underserved communities. They plan to begin outreach with non-governmental agencies that work with these producers, as well as partner with state and federal agencies, state agricultural boards and industrial farms.

    “The Carbon SMART project will generate crucial knowledge about conservation practices that enhance carbon storage in soil and can be used to help agricultural producers improve soil health throughout the western U.S.,” said Robert Kirken, Ph.D., dean of the UTEP College of Science. “I’m very proud of the team for earning this grant that helps prevent further climate change while simultaneously helping historically underserved communities, and I’m looking forward to what they accomplish.”

    Additional investigators on the project include UTEP Professor of Earth, Environmental and Resource Sciences Lixin Jin, Ph.D. and Boise State University faculty members Jen Pierce, Ph.D.; Jodi Brandt, Ph.D.; Lisa Meierotto, Ph.D.; and Rebecca Som Castellanos, Ph.D.

     

    About The University of Texas at El Paso 

    The University of Texas at El Paso is America’s leading Hispanic-serving University. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 24,000 students are Hispanic, and half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 169 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.

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    University of Texas at El Paso

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  • Why Do Farmers Need to Test Their Soils?

    Why Do Farmers Need to Test Their Soils?

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    Newswise — October 24, 2022 – The nutrients in the food we eat is a vital component to supporting a healthy lifestyle. But did you know that most of the nutrients in our food comes from the soil it is grown in? The October 22nd Sustainable, Secure Food Blog explains why farmers need to regularly test soils to ensure optimum levels of nutrients.

    Plants need 17 essential nutrients to function and carry their routine physiological processes. Of these nutrients, three are found in air and water: carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O). The remaining 14 nutrients come from the soil. Since humans cannot see, touch, or count nutrients through their naked eyes, they rely on scientific instruments found in soil testing laboratories to measure them.

    That is why every fall, after the harvest of cash crop, farmers collect representative soil cores from 4 to 6 inches depth at several locations on their farm. They send them a soil testing laboratory for analysis.

    Once a soil testing laboratory receives the soil, the lab dries, grinds, and sieves the sample to make it uniform before running the tests. Then they perform the requested tests designed to quantify nutrients in the soil. The results provide information on the soil’s nutrient supplying capacity primarily phosphorus, potassium, and micronutrients.

    Rishi Prasad, a scientist at Auburn University, explains that after soil scientists evaluate the soil test results, they can make recommendations on what is present in the soil and how much additional fertilizer would be needed to achieve optimal crop yields. Maintaining a record of soil test reports also provides valuable information on long-term changes in soil fertility. This allows farmers to make better decisions on fertility management to get optimum yields.

    To read the entire blog, visit: https://sustainable-secure-food-blog.com/2022/10/22/why-do-farmers-need-to-test-their-soils/

    About us: This blog is sponsored and written by members of the American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America. Members are researchers and trained, certified professionals in the areas of growing the world’s food supply while protecting the environment. Members work at universities, government research facilities, and private businesses across the United States and the world.

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    American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

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  • Gray Whale Numbers Continue Decline; NOAA Fisheries Will Continue Monitoring

    Gray Whale Numbers Continue Decline; NOAA Fisheries Will Continue Monitoring

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    Newswise — The population also produced the fewest calves on record this year since counts began in 1994, an accompanying report explains.

    The 38 percent decline from a peak of about 27,000 whales in 2016 to 16,650 this year resembles past fluctuations in the eastern North Pacific population. Researchers at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center said it warrants continued close monitoring. Population counts for eastern North Pacific gray whales are typically conducted over the course of a 2-year period. However, NOAA Fisheries will add a third year counting gray whales that pass along the Central California Coast to this survey, from late December to mid-February 2023.

    “Given the continuing decline in numbers since 2016, we need to be closely monitoring the population to help understand what may be driving the trend,” said Dr. David Weller, Director of the Marine Mammal and Turtle Division at the science center. “We have observed the population changing over time, and we want to stay on top of that.”

    An increase in gray whale strandings led NOAA Fisheries to declare an Unusual Mortality Event for the population in 2019, prompting an investigation into the likely causes. That ongoing investigation has identified several likely contributors. These include ecological changes in the Arctic affecting the seafloor and the amphipods and other invertebrates living in and above the sediment and in the water column that gray whales feed on each summer, according to new research published earlier this year.

    Some gray whales may have struggled to find food amid those shifts, said Dr. Sue Ellen Moore, a University of Washington researcher who leads the UME team assessing ecological influences. She noted that gray whales feed on a wide variety of prey over an enormous range, so there could be many variables affecting how, when, and where they find food.

    While many of the roughly 600 dead whales recorded from 2019 to 2022 appeared malnourished, some did not. Some stranded whales had clearly died of other causes such as getting hit by ships or predation by killer whales. The number of strandings initially spiked in 2019 but then fell in subsequent years. That suggests that most of the gray whale population decline probably occurred in the years shortly after the UME was declared.

    “There is no one thing that we can point to that explains all of the strandings,” said Deborah Fauquier, Veterinary Medical Officer in NOAA Fisheries’ Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, who coordinates the UME investigation. “There appears to be multiple factors that we are still working to understand.”

    Population Reflects Changing Ocean Conditions

    Gray whales are known for their visible migration along the West Coast each year. The population has fluctuated widely before, including a similar drop of roughly 40 percent from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. The population later rebounded to a new high point. Gray whales in the eastern Pacific Ocean are fully recovered from the days of commercial whaling, and were removed from the list of endangered species in 1994.

    A similar spike in strandings led to the declaration of an earlier Unusual Mortality Event in 1999 and 2000, when the population declined by around 25 percent. It later climbed back to a peak in 2015-2016. (While Table 1 in the report includes a higher estimate for 2014-2015, that number was less precise, so scientists rely on the 2015-2016 estimate.)

    Most gray whales migrate between feeding grounds in the Arctic during summer and lagoons in Baja Mexico in the winter where they nourish their newborn calves. This annual roundtrip of more than 10,000 miles exposes them to many stressors along the way. A small group of gray whales also spends the summer feeding along and around the Pacific Northwest Coast.

    The population has likely always fluctuated in response to changes in its environment, without lasting effects, said biologist Dr. Tomo Eguchi, lead author of the new NOAA Fisheries reports on the whale population abundance and calf production. “The population has rebounded multiple times from low counts in the past,” he said. “We are cautiously optimistic that the same will happen this time. Continued monitoring will determine whether and when they rebound.”

    Calf Numbers Also Decline

    NOAA Fisheries researchers track the numbers of gray whales in the population by counting southbound whales heading for Mexico. They monitor calf production by counting mothers and calves migrating north each spring from lagoons in Baja California, where some whales give birth. The most recent count that concluded in May estimated the total calf production this year at about 217. This number was down from 383 calves last year and the lowest since the counts began in 1994.

    Like the gray whale population as a whole, the number of calves born each year has also fluctuated. Low calf counts were recorded for periods of 3 to 4 years at a time before rebounding. Two of the three prior periods of low calf production have coincided with Unusual Mortality Events and declines in the population. This suggests that the same factors that affect gray whale survival likely also affect their reproduction, the report on calf numbers concludes.

    Aerial photographs of gray whales in the lagoons in Mexico showed declines in the body condition of many adult whales, underscoring that connection. “Depending upon the age of the whales, this lower body condition may have led to delayed reproduction and lower calf counts, and/or reduced survival in thin whales,” scientists reported.

    In December, teams will begin the next count by training binoculars on whales migrating south past Granite Canyon, just south of Monterey Bay in California. “What we hope to see in the next few years is that the abundance stabilizes and then starts to show signs of increase,” said Dr. Aimee Lang, a coauthor of the new reports. “We will be watching closely.”

     

    FOR MORE INFORMATION

    Gray Whales in the Eastern North Pacific

    Laguna San Ignacio Ecosystem Science Program

    2019-2022 Gray Whale Unusual Mortality Event

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    NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region

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