Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Simple, fuel-efficient rocket engine could enable cheaper, lighter spacecraft

by Sarah McQuate, University of Washington

It takes a lot of fuel to launch something into space. Sending NASA's Space Shuttle into orbit required more than 3.5 million pounds of fuel, which is about 15 times heavier than a blue whale.

But a new type of engine—called a rotating detonation engine—promises to make rockets not only more fuel-efficient but also more lightweight and less complicated to construct. There's just one problem: Right now this engine is too unpredictable to be used in an actual rocket.

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a mathematical model that describes how these engines work. With this information, engineers can, for the first time, develop tests to improve these engines and make them more stable. The team published these findings Jan. 10 in Physical Review E.

"The rotating detonation engine field is still in its infancy. We have tons of data about these engines, but we don't understand what is going on," said lead author James Koch, a UW doctoral student in aeronautics and astronautics. "I tried to recast our results by looking at pattern formations instead of asking an engineering question—such as how to get the highest performing engine—and then boom, it turned out that it works."

A conventional rocket engine works by burning propellant and then pushing it out of the back of the engine to create thrust.

To start the reaction, propellant flows in the gap between the cylinders, and, after ignition, the rapid heat release forms a shock wave (starts at 11 seconds). After this start-up phase, a number of stable combustion pulses form that continue to consume available propellant. Credit: James Koch/University of Washington

"A rotating detonation engine takes a different approach to how it combusts propellant," Koch said. "It's made of concentric cylinders. Propellant flows in the gap between the cylinders, and, after ignition, the rapid heat release forms a shock wave, a strong pulse of gas with significantly higher pressure and temperature that is moving faster than the speed of sound.

"This combustion process is literally a detonation—an explosion—but behind this initial start-up phase, we see a number of stable combustion pulses form that continue to consume available propellant. This produces high pressure and temperature that drives exhaust out the back of the engine at high speeds, which can generate thrust."

Conventional engines use a lot of machinery to direct and control the combustion reaction so that it generates the work needed to propel the engine. But in a rotating detonation engine, the shock wave naturally does everything without needing additional help from engine parts.

"The combustion-driven shocks naturally compress the flow as they travel around the combustion chamber," Koch said. "The downside of that is that these detonations have a mind of their own. Once you detonate something, it just goes. It's so violent."

To try to be able to describe how these engines work, the researchers first developed an experimental rotating detonation engine where they could control different parameters, such as the size of the gap between the cylinders. Then they recorded the combustion processes with a high-speed camera. Each experiment took only 0.5 seconds to complete, but the researchers recorded these experiments at 240,000 frames per second so they could see what was happening in slow motion.

After the initial shock wave, stable pulses of combustion continue to consume available propellant. Previously researchers didn't understand how a specific number of pulses formed and why they can sometimes merge into one pulse, but this mathematical model developed by University of Washington researchers can help explain the underlying physics. Credit: Koch et al./Physical Review E

From there, the researchers developed a mathematical model to mimic what they saw in the videos.

"This is the only model in the literature currently capable of describing the diverse and complex dynamics of these rotating detonation engines that we observe in experiments," said co-author J. Nathan Kutz, a UW professor of applied mathematics.

The model allowed the researchers to determine for the first time whether an engine of this type would be stable or unstable. It also allowed them to assess how well a specific engine was performing.

"This new approach is different from conventional wisdom in the field, and its broad applications and new insights were a complete surprise to me," said co-author Carl Knowlen, a UW research associate professor in aeronautics and astronautics.

Right now the model is not quite ready for engineers to use.

"My goal here was solely to reproduce the behavior of the pulses we saw—to make sure that the model output is similar to our experimental results," Koch said. "I have identified the dominant physics and how they interplay. Now I can take what I've done here and make it quantitative. From there we can talk about how to make a better engine."

More efficient satellite launch platform on the horizon

More information: James Koch et al, Mode-locked rotating detonation waves: Experiments and a model equation, Physical Review E (2020). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.101.013106

Fifty years of data show new changes in bird migration

by American Ornithological Society

A growing body of research shows that birds' spring migration has been getting earlier and earlier in recent decades. New research from The Auk: Ornithological Advances on Black-throated Blue Warblers, a common songbird that migrates from Canada and the eastern U.S. to Central America and back every year, uses fifty years of bird-banding data to add another piece to the puzzle, showing that little-studied fall migration patterns have been shifting over time as well.

Loyola Marymount University's Kristen Covino and her colleagues used data housed at the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory on migrating Black-throated Blue Warblers between 1965 and 2015. Across the United States, researchers working with this program safely capture migrating birds, collect data on them, and fit them with metal leg bands with unique codes that allow them to be identified if they're captured again. Analyzing almost 150,000 individual records, Covino and her colleagues found that the timing of the birds' spring migration has advanced over the last fifty years, with early migrants passing through banding sites approximately one day earlier each decade. Crucially, their data also covered fall migration, which has been less well-studied, and found that while the timing of the peak of fall migration hasn't changed, fall migration takes longer today than it did fifty years ago.

The North American Bird Banding Program is one of the most expansive historical datasets on migratory birds, including records for over 38 million songbirds banded since 1960. "My coauthor Sara Morris and I were already working together on another paper on Blackpoll Warblers using data we'd requested from banding stations across North America. We wanted to take a similar large-scale approach for this study, but we wanted to demonstrate that we could do this approach with data that is completely available from the Bird Banding Lab," says Covino. "We selected Black-throated Blue Warblers because it's relatively straightforward to determine their age and sex, which means that the data this species generates are both accurate and powerful."

Although the researchers emphasize that their findings can't be explicitly linked to climate change without incorporating climate or environmental data, they believe similar methods could be useful for tracking the effects of climate change on birds. "The protraction of fall migration means that the season is getting longer overall, but it could also mean that the breeding season may be shifting, ending earlier for some individuals but later for others. To determine what this means in the context of breeding season shifts in timing, additional studies that incorporate both arrival on the breeding grounds and, importantly, departure from them are needed," says Covino. "More studies of these patterns of fall migration timing and, even more so, both spring and fall migration timing across years are needed to gain the complete picture of how species are changing migration timing."

Spring migration is now earlier in European and North American birds

More information: "Seasonally-specific changes in migration phenology across 50 years in the Black-throated Blue Warbler" academic.oup.com/auk/article-l … i/10.1093/auk/ukz080.

Cracks make historical paintings less vulnerable to environmental variations

by BioMed Central

Historical wood panel paintings with developed craquelure patterns—networks of fine cracks in the paint- are significantly less vulnerable to environmental variations than previously assumed, according to a study in the open access journal Heritage Science. The findings offer a potential explanation as to why heavily cracked historical paintings remain stable in environments far from 'ideal' museum conditions.

Painted wood is among the most precious and frequently exhibited category of heritage objects and among the most vulnerable to relative humidity and temperature fluctuations.

A team of researchers at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Université de Strasbourg, France and Yale University, USA investigated changes in susceptibility to fracture for the most brittle component of a wood painting—the ground layer, or gesso, a mixture of animal glue and white pigment that is applied between the wooden support and the paint. The gesso is strained when wood expands due to increasing humidity or contracts due to desiccation, which can leads to cracking. Knowledge of this as well as development of technical capabilities to control environment precisely have led to stringent climate control specifications for museums, both in temperature (21 or 22°C) and humidity (45-55%).

Lukasz Bratasz, the corresponding author said: "The current environmental standards for the display of painted wood allow for only moderate variations of relative humidity. The safe range was determined based on laboratory testing of when cracks start to form in new, undamaged material. However, this does not reflect the physical reality of paintings as they age and complex craquelure patterns form. Our research more accurately reflects that physical reality, accounting for changes in the susceptibility to environmental stresses as paintings age."

To investigate the development of cracks in gesso layers subject to different environmental conditions over time, the authors designed specimens of two wooden panels, which they joined with gessoes prepared according to traditional recipes. The specimens were stored at 25°C and relative humidity of 30, 50, 75 and 90% for two weeks before being subjected to splitting test, which measure how resistant gessoes are to cracking.

Using computer tomography to scan historic samples of panel painting, the authors determined the size of existing flaws in the gesso at which new cracks initiate. Those measurements were then used in a computer model of a panel painting to simulate further crack formation. Factoring in the elasticity of the materials and moisture expansion of wood, the authors found that the stress on the gesso decreased as the number of cracks increased over time.

Lukasz Bratasz said: "Stress on the gesso occurs in the areas between cracks. The larger these areas are, the more easily cracks will form. As cracks multiply and the spaces between them become smaller, stress decreases up to a point where, finally, no new cracks will form."

The authors caution that their conclusions are valid for paintings with 'opened' cracks. If cracks are filled in during conservation treatment or varnishing, the vulnerability of a painting to the environment may increase.

Lukasz Bratasz said: "Our findings offer a potential explanation as to why historical panel paintings with developed craquelure patterns remain stable, even if the environmental conditions they are stored in are far from ideal. We hope that this knowledge may contribute to development and acceptance of more moderate-cost climate control strategies in historic buildings and museums, especially ones that may have limited potential for tighter climate control."

Climate systems in museums appear to be too strictly regulated

More information: Fracture saturation in paintings makes them less vulnerable to environmental variations in museums Bratasz et al. Heritage Science 2020 DOI: 10.1186/s40494-020-0352-0

Eliminating viruses in our food with cranberries and citrus fruit

by Institut national de la recherche scientifique

Fresh produce is a major vehicle for noroviruses, a group of viruses that are the most common cause of gastroenteritis in developed countries. However, the viruses are quite resistant to cold pasteurization treatments such as irradiation, which are used to destroy bacteria, moulds, parasites, and insects. The irradiation process uses gamma rays or X-rays to destroy these viruses but at the dose needed to eliminate them, it can affect the physicochemical properties of fresh produce.

Professor Monique Lacroix, a researcher at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), has developed an edible coating based on cranberry juice and citrus extract that makes noroviruses more sensitive to gamma irradiation, making it possible to eliminate them while preserving the quality of food, all without risk to consumers.

A fruit extract spray

The idea is to spray fresh produce such as lettuce or strawberries and then treat it with cold pasteurization such as irradiation. The organic acids and polyphenols in cranberry juice and citrus extract would alter the viral protein and help inhibit its activity.

"Noroviruses usually require an irradiation dose of three kilograys (kGy), but we have shown that the treatment time is reduced by half with this fruit mixture spray, which acts as a natural antimicrobial. Using these natural antimicrobials prevents cell breakdown or brown discolouration," reports Monique Lacroix, lead author on the study whose results were published online on February 12 in the Journal of Applied Microbiology.

Professor Lacroix's team is the first to test the cranberry juice and citrus extract mixture in a combined treatment. "Both the juice and extract have the ability to remove noroviruses when used alone, but when combined with cold pasteurization in the same treatment, the fruit concentrations required are significantly lower," says the food science expert.

Norovirus Contamination

Norovirus contamination can occur before and after harvest. Contaminated water runoff from fields can bring in fecal matter. Food can be contaminated by infected people who handle it.

"Unlike bacteria, noroviruses do not multiply on food. They are deposited there and remain there until a human being is infected," says Alexandra Gobeil, first author of the study and a recent master's graduate in Applied Microbiology at INRS.

Monique Lacroix and her team have tested the coating on lettuce, one of the most fragile vegetables in terms of preservation. She hopes to eventually develop a partnership with the food industry to test combinations of treatments involving natural fruit extracts and cold pasteurization (e.g., UV-C, X-ray, gamma ray, or ozonation) on a commercial scale.

Lemon juice and human norovirus

More information: A. Gobeil et al, Radiosensitivity increase in FCV‐F9 virus using combined treatments with natural antimicrobials and γ‐irradiation, Journal of Applied Microbiology (2020). DOI: 10.1111/jam.14596

Study of stone-age engravings suggests they were created with aesthetic intention

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of researchers from Denmark, Australia and South Africa has found evidence that suggests stone-age etchings found at two sites in South Africa were created with aesthetic intention and that they evolved over time. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes experiments they carried out with volunteers looking at reproductions of stone-age engravings and what they learned from them.

Back in 1973, researchers found ostrich eggshell water containers with images etched onto them in the Diepkloof Rock Shelter in western South Africa. Subsequent testing showed the containers to be from approximately 60,000 years ago. Not far away, archaeologists began excavating Blombos Cave in 1991, and during that work, discovered engraved ochre and bones. They were dated to between 100,000 and 70,000 years ago. Notably, the etchings at both sites were made over very long periods of time, allowing researchers to study their evolution. As time passed, the human brain became more sophisticated, allowing humans to express themselves in more tangible form through etchings. In this new effort, the researchers created drawings of the etchings found in both locations and studied them by showing them to volunteers.

In all, the researchers carried out five experiments designed to test the sophistication of the stone-age drawings. The first involved showing volunteers a drawing in one eye and a flickering pattern in the other eye—the researchers timed how long it took the volunteers to identify patterns in the drawings. The images created more recently were more quickly identified as such.

Another test involved showing volunteers two drawings and asking them which they thought was more likely made intentionally—again, those made more recently were identified as likely being intentional.

A third test involved showing volunteers a drawing for just three seconds and then asking them to reproduce it on a piece of paper. Once again, the volunteers were better able to reproduce those images that were created most recently. The fourth test involved asking the volunteers to guess which of two drawings they were shown came from the same site—and once again, they were more accurate when looking at more recently created images. The final test involved asking the volunteers which of two drawings they thought were created more recently; they chose those that had been created more recently. The researchers suggest that the volunteer answers indicated that the engravings were created with aesthetic intention, and clearly evolved in sophistication over time.

Oldest known animal drawing found in remote Indonesian cave

More information: Kristian Tylén el al., "The evolution of early symbolic behavior in Homo sapiens," PNAS (2020). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1910880117

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Fish in the Sahara? Yes, in the early Holocene

by Public Library of Science

Catfish and tilapia make up many of the animal remains uncovered in the Saharan environment of the Takarkori rock shelter in southwestern Libya, according to a study published February 19, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Wim Van Neer from the the Natural History Museum in Belgium, Belgium and Savino di Lernia, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and colleagues.

Today, the Saharan Tadrart Acacus mountains are windy, hot, and hyperarid; however, the fossil record shows that for much of the early and middle Holocene (10,200 to 4650 years BP), this region was humid and rich in water as well as life, with evidence of multiple human settlements and diverse fauna.

Rock shelters within the Tadrart Acacus preserve not only significant floral and faunal remains, but also significant cultural artifacts and rock art due to early Holocene occupation of these shelters. In this study, the authors worked with the Libyan Department of Antiquities in excavating parts of the Takarkori rock shelter to identify and date animal remains found at this site and investigate shifts in the abundance and type of these animal remains over time.

Fish remains made up almost 80 percent of the entire find overall, which numbered 17,551 faunal remains total (19 percent of these were mammal remains, with bird, reptile, mollusc, and amphibian remains the last 1.3 percent). All of the fish and most of the other remains were determined to be human food refuse, due to cut marks and traces of burning—the two fish genera at Takarkori were identified as catfish and tilapia.

Based on the relative dates for these remains, the amount of fish decreased over time (from 90 percent of all remains 10,200-8000 years BP versus only 40 percent of all remains 5900-4650 years BP) as the number of mammal remains increased, suggesting the inhabitants of Takarkori gradually focused more on hunting/livestock. The authors also found the proportion of tilapia specifically decreased more significantly over time, which may have been because catfish have accessory breathing organs allowing them to breathe air and survive in shallow, high-temperature waters—further evidence that this now-desert environment became less favorable to fish as the aridity increased.

The authors add: "This study reveals the ancient hydrographic network of the Sahara and its interconnection with the Nile, providing crucial information on the dramatic climate changes that led to the formation of the largest hot desert in the world. Takarkori rock shelter has once again proved to be a real treasure for African archaeology and beyond: a fundamental place to reconstruct the complex dynamics between ancient human groups and their environment in a changing climate.

Entomologist confirms first Saharan farming 10,000 years ago

More information: Van Neer W, Alhaique F, Wouters W, Dierickx K, Gala M, Goffette Q, et al. (2020) Aquatic fauna from the Takarkori rock shelter reveals the Holocene central Saharan climate and palaeohydrography. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0228588. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228588

Palaeontologists identify new Jurassic amphibian

by St. Petersburg State University

A group of Russian and German palaeontologists have described a previously unknown genus and species of prehistoric salamanders. The new amphibian is named Egoria malashichevi—in honor of Yegor Malashichev a talented scientist and associate professor of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at St Petersburg University, who passed away at the end of 2018.

The palaeontologists found the remains of the ancient amphibian at the Berezovsky quarry, a fossil locality in the Krasnoyarsk Krai near the town of Sharypovo. Fossils of ancient fish, various reptiles, mammals, herbivorous and predatory dinosaurs have been previously found there. The research materials were collected on field expeditions in the mid-2010s. In these expeditions the scientists from St Petersburg University worked alongside experts from the University of Bonn (Germany), the Tomsk State University, the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Sharypovo Museum of Local History and Nature.

Four vertebrate fossils enabled the scientists to declare the finding of a new genus and species. These were: three trunk vertebrae and the atlas—the first and, in the case of the salamander, the only cervical vertebra. Since the atlas is a highly specialised vertebra, providing for attachment and rotation movements of the skull, it has a rather complex structure, the scientists explain. It is therefore most suitable for describing a new species as it provides much information for analysis. The amphibian proved to have belonged to the geologically oldest stem salamanders.

It was not the first time that remains of ancient salamanders had been found at the Berezovsky quarry. One of them—a basal stem salamander Urupia monstrosa, named after the nearby Uryup River—was about 50-60 centimetres long. Another one—Kiyatriton krasnolutskii—was named after a local historian Sergei Krasnolutskii, the discoverer of the fossil locality Berezovsky quarry. By contrast, this one was quite small in size (about 10-15 centimetres) and looked more like modern Hynobiidae. The newly discovered salamander, judging by the size of the vertebrae, was of medium length (about 20 centimetres).

"Salamanders first appear in the fossil records in the Middle Jurassic, including representatives of both the present-day salamander families and the most primitive ones," said Pavel Skutschas, associate professor of St Petersburg University, doctor of biology, expert in Mesozoic vertebrates. "When they had just appeared, salamanders made efforts to occupy different ecological niches. Thus, the stem salamanders filled the niche of large water bodies; while those close to the present-day salamanders found their niche in small water bodies. As for the newly discovered salamander, it occupied a middle position, although morphologically, it is closer to the primitive."

The scientists not only described the external characteristics of the specimens, but were able to look inside the fossils. In this they were assisted by the experts from the "Centre of X-ray diffraction studies' at the Research Park of St Petersburg University, where the specimens were scanned on up-to-date microtomography scanners. Based on the obtained data, the palaeontologists created 3-D reconstructions of the vertebrae and described their internal structure. As expected, it proved to be very similar to that of the large stem salamanders.

The ancient amphibian received the name Egoria malashichevi—in honour of Yegor Malashichev, associate professor of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at St Petersburg University, who, among other things, studied the morphology of caudate amphibians. "Yegor Malashichev was a wonderful person and a very talented scientist. He supported aspiring palaeontologists and did everything to help them to stay in scientific research," remarked Pavel Skutschas. Additionally, Malashichev studied the phenomenon of lateralisation (body asymmetries associated with the functioning of the nervous system), as well as other asymmetries in motor performance and visual perception. Yegor Malashichev's professional career was almost exclusively connected with St Petersburg University. In 1996, he graduated from the Faculty of Biology and Soil Science. In 2000, he began to teach there, and in 2003, he defended his dissertation and was awarded a Ph.D. in biology. Sadly, in late 2018, he passed away unexpectedly.

The next step for the palaeontologists is to compare the bones of the 'Berezovsky' salamanders with the fossils from Great Britain: the 'Kirtlington' salamanders which were found at the Kirtlington quarry in Oxfordshire. The Siberian and British faunas of the mid-Jurassic time were very similar. Besides, the palaeontologists are aware of similar amphibians that lived in the territory of present-day England. "They may be representatives of the same genera. However, to ascertain this, a detailed comparison of the palaeontological collections is required. In the coming spring, our colleagues from England will come to St Petersburg to study our research materials. We may discover that Urupia and Egoria used to have a very wide habitat, extending across Europe and Asia," said Pavel Skutschas.

A Jurassic world of salamanders

More information: PLOS ONE, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228610

Improving assessments of an endangered lion population in India

by Public Library of Science

An alternative method for monitoring endangered lions in India could improve estimates of their abundance and help inform conservation policy and management decisions. Keshab Gogoi and colleagues at the Wildlife Institute of India present their findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on February 19, 2020.

Conservation practices have enabled Asiatic lions to recover from a population of only 50 individuals in the Gir Forests of Gujarat, India, to an estimated 500 individuals today. Accurate estimates of their abundance are needed in order for conservation efforts to remain successful. However, existing monitoring methods, particularly a technique known as total counts, can miss some individuals while double-counting others, and they provide limited information on spatial density.

In the new study, Gogoi and colleagues demonstrate an alternative method for monitoring Asiatic lions. They used whisker patterns and permanent body marks to identify individual lions using a computer program and analyzed that data with a mathematical modeling method known as spatially explicit capture recapture in order to estimate lion density. They also assessed prey density and other factors that could influence lion density.

The researchers identified 67 individual lions out of 368 lion sightings within a study site of 725 square kilometers in the Gir Forests, estimating an overall density of 8.53 lions per 100 square kilometers.

They were surprised to find that prey density did not appear to influence variations in lion density within the study site. Instead, lion density was higher in flat valley habitats (as opposed to rugged or elevated areas) and near sites where food had been placed to attract lions for tourists to view them.

The findings suggest that baiting lions for tourism greatly perturbs their natural density patterns, in line with other research demonstrating that baiting disrupts lion behavior and social dynamics. The authors recommend that their alternative monitoring method be used to assess lions across their range (in India and Africa) in order to inform ongoing conservation efforts more accurately.

The authors add: "The only population of Asiatic lions in the world survives in the Saurashtra landscape. Conserving this sub-species with the use of best science and management is a global priority and responsibility. Our research paper addresses this priority by developing a robust approach to their population assessment and monitoring which can be used for all lion populations across the world."

India's endangered lion population increases to 600

More information: Gogoi K, Kumar U, Banerjee K, Jhala YV (2020) Spatially explicit density and its determinants for Asiatic lions in the Gir forests. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0228374. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228374

New test identifies poisonous mushrooms

by Kim Kaplan, US Department of Agriculture

A simple, portable test that can detect the deadliest of the mushroom poisons in minutes has been developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and their colleagues.

Eating toxic mushrooms causes more than 100 deaths a year, globally, and leaves thousands of people in need of urgent medical assistance. Amanitin is the class of mushroom toxins that cause the most serious issues.

The new test can identify the presence of as little as 10 parts per billion (equivalent to 10 cents out of $10 million) of amanitin in about 10 minutes from a rice grain size sample of a mushroom or in the urine of someone who has eaten a poisonous amanitin-containing mushroom. The test also works with dog urine, as dogs are known to indiscriminately eat mushrooms.

"We developed the test primarily for mushrooms as food products. Serendipitously, it was sensitive enough to also detect the toxin in urine," said ARS microbiologist Candace Bever, who worked on the development. Bever is with the Foodborne Toxin Detection and Prevention Research Unit in Albany, California.

No definitive point-of-care clinical diagnostic test currently exists for amatoxin poisoning. Early detection of amanitin in a patient's urine would help doctors trying to make a diagnosis.

"Our hope is that doctors and veterinarians will be able to quickly and confidently identify amatoxin poisoning rather than having to clinically eliminate other suspected gastrointestinal diseases first," she added. "We also hope that will give patients a better chance at recovery, even though there are no clearly effective, specific treatments right now."

The test also could be a practical and definitive way for mushroom foragers to identify and avoid eating mushrooms with amanitin toxin if a commercial partner can be found to produce and market a test kit. This test is the most sensitive and reliable field method available to chemically identify amanitin-containing mushrooms. Although mushroom experts can identify deadly mushrooms just by looking at their appearance, experts cannot see the toxin chemicals that lurk inside.

Still this test only identifies the presence or absence of this specific class of toxin; it does not detect other compounds such as hallucinogens or toxins that cause other gastrointestinal or neurological symptoms. So, it cannot determine if a mushroom is edible.

Mushroom hunting has gained in popularity in the last several decades. A single mushroom identification group on Facebook, among many, has more than 166,000 members. Foraging for mushrooms is popular throughout most of Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea, parts of the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, as well as in Canada and the United States. Distinguishing toxic from nontoxic mushroom species is based on first correctly identifying the mushroom and then referencing a mushroom field guide to determine if it is known to contain toxins or not. But mushrooms of the same species can vary in appearance, especially at different life stages and habitats, making them very difficult to identify.

Many poisonous mushrooms closely resemble edible wild mushrooms. For instance, the Springtime Amanita (Amanita velosa) is a highly desirable edible wild mushroom in the Pacific coastal United States. But to the untrained eye, it can appear similar to the Death cap mushroom A. phalloides. The Death Cap accounts for more than 90 percent of fungus-related poisoning deaths in Europe.

"This test can provide more information about a wild mushroom beyond physical appearance and characteristics, and detect something we cannot even see—the presence of amanitins," said Bever. If an affordable product like this was available, foraging could become even more popular and possibly safer.

The new test is an immuno-assay and depends on a very specifically reactive monoclonal antibody—a lab-produced protein that detects and binds only with a specific target. Scientists from the University of California-Davis, Pet Emergency and Specialty Center of Marin and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also contributed to this project.

This research was published in the journal Toxins.

New synthetic route for amanitin, a therapeutically interesting mushroom toxin

More information: Candace S. Bever. Rapid, Sensitive, and Accurate Point-of-Care Detection of Lethal Amatoxins in Urine. Toxins 2020, 12(2), 123; doi.org/10.3390/toxins12020123 (registering DOI)

Progress or pinkwashing: Who benefits from women-focused capital funds?

by Barbara Jayne Orser, The Conversation

An increase in the number of women-focused capital funds promises to help address gender gaps in the provision of financial capital.

Capital funding is the money that lenders and equity holders provide to a business.

A recent study I conducted with Susan Coleman of the University of Hartford in the United States and doctoral candidate Yanhong Li of the University of Ottawa looked at how women entrepreneurs are described within women-focused capital funds. We examined 27 women-focused capital funds in North America.

International studies show that borrower discouragement and informal rejections from potential investors dissuade many women from seeking loans when they start up businesses.

Historically, equity investors have primarily been high-net-worth men. And so a preference to invest in business owners who look and think "just like me" reinforces gender stereotypes. As birds of a feather flock together, women and their businesses can be viewed as too feminine, and therefore less attractive investments. Feminine innovations that benefit women and girls can also be viewed as less attractive.

Our study asked if women-focused capital funds are aimed at truly enhancing gender equity or simply at creating wealth for investors. We were surprised to learn that few funds challenge the institutional constraints that hold back women entrepreneurs. Some actually reinforce gender stereotypes due to how they regard women's supposed entrepreneurial deficiencies.

"Pinkwashing'

For our purposes, we defined "pinkwashing" as capital funds targeted at women solely for marketing purposes. Pinkwashing is most likely the result of creating women-focused funds as an add-on to mainstream finance services, rather than as a central element of the organization's mission to support women.

Several more of our findings should be interesting to would-be investors. Few funds have third-party audits. Online disclosures of fund performance are generally absent. It is often difficult to discern governance and ownership structures of the funds. Lack of reporting standards may reflect the infancy of this capital market.

Stereotypical challenges faced by women also tend to be amplified to legitimize funds, such as the inability to access financial capital and their need for emotional and social support. Women are described as risk-averse, less successful and lacking professional contacts and role models.

In contrast, some funds focus on community building, investment knowledge and circumventing gender biases, offering a positive perspective versus a need to fix women.

Paradoxically, our study's findings provide both optimism and skepticism about the extent to which equality is at the heart of these funds.

We conclude that only a minority of funds seek to counter structural barriers associated with women's access to capital, such as a preference to invest in male-dominated firms and sectors. Most funds are positioned to facilitate individual wealth creation. And few funds prioritize racialized Indigenous people and other underrepresented women versus privileged white women.

Silver lining

At the same time, women-focused capital funds are creating new spaces that enable women investors and small business owners to make choices based on their values, financial knowledge and investment capabilities.

International Women's Day will soon be upon us, and hundreds of investors and women-identified small business owners will gather in Toronto on March 9 for the SheEO Global Summit. Founder Vicki Saunders has a goal—to mobilize the capital, the buying power and the networks of a million volunteers to fund 10,000 women-led ventures.

In the United States, Alicia Robb, founding CEO of Next Wave Impact, is working to reduce the gender imbalance in angel investing and educate women investors. Founding CEO Kathryn Finney of Digitalundivided focuses exclusively on advancing financial capital to Latin-American and Black founders in the U.S. The Indigenous Women Entrepreneurship Fund advances funds for Indigenous businesses in Canada.

Some funds, such as Next Wave Impact, are disrupting the status quo of institutional investment by constructing grassroots engagement, and networks of gender-focused investors and women entrepreneurs.

These change-makers are exemplars of entrepreneurial feminism in the growing market of women-focused capital funds. The investments target women-identified, women-owned and women-led enterprises, and femme and non-binary entrepreneurs.

Ask 'who benefits?'

Investors should keep this in mind before assuming that all women-focused capital funds serve an inclusive economic agenda.

While pinkwashing may be acceptable to some, more transparency is needed to make informed investment decisions. To identify pinkwashing, investors and entrepreneurs are encouraged to examine the governance structure of the funds and ask: "Who appears to benefit from the fund and how?"

Another suggestion is to determine if the fund helps expand the entrepreneurial ecosystem in ways that are likely to benefit women and non-binary femme entrepreneurs, or if the fund serves to perpetuate stereotypes and constraints implicit in the existing ecosystems.

Our study suggests that an increasing number of investment funds described as "women-focused" fall short of this standard in practice.

In light of these findings, due diligence on the part of both investors and entrepreneurs is essential.

Women seeking crowdfunding financing for start-ups are perceived as more trustworthy

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