Plant-based magnetic nanoparticles with antifungal properties

Scientists developed a plant-based technology for obtaining magnetic nanoparticles with antifungal properties

IMMANUEL KANT BALTIC FEDERAL UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: PICTURE OF NANOPARTICLES view more 

CREDIT: THAKUR ET AL. / NANO-STRUCTURES & NANO-OBJECTS, 2020

A team of researchers from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University obtained magnetic nanoparticles using sweet flag (Acorus calamus). Both the roots and the leaves of this plant have antioxidant, antimicrobial, and insecticide properties. The extract of sweet flag was used as a non-toxic reagent for the manufacture of coated particles. The authors of the work also showed the efficiency of the new nanoparticles against several types of pathogenic fungi that damage cultivated plants. A technology developed by the team provides for the manufacture of nanoparticles from a cheap plant-based raw material and reduces the harmful effect of reagents on the environment.

Because of their unique properties, nanoparticles are used in many areas, from medicine to oil production. Their characteristics depend to a great extent on their size and shape, and the ratio between their surface area and volume plays a key role. The bigger it is, the stronger is a nanoparticle's local effect. Magnetic nanoparticles that can be controlled with an external magnetic field or emit heat under the influence of electromagnetic radiation have potential in biology and medicine. For example, particles with increased magnetic moment are used both in medical diagnostics and for the treatment of various conditions. Some studies also indicate that magnetic nanoparticles can have antifungal properties. For these applications, scientists suggest using barium ferrite nanoparticles in biocompatible coating.

"There are several methods of manufacturing coated nanoparticles with given characteristics, but all of them include toxic reagents. We have developed an environmentally friendly technology for the production of barium ferrite with the use of sweet flag extract. The surface of these particles has additional biological properties and the particles themselves possess all necessary magnetic and geometrical characteristics," said Prof. Larissa Panina, a Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics from BFU.

The team mixed an extract made from dried sweet flag roots with barium and iron salts and water. Then, the mixture was heated to evaporate the liquid and obtain powder. After that, the powder was sintered at temperatures up to 900°C, and nanoparticles were formed. To study their morphology, the team used scanning electron microscopy. This method is based on scanning the surface of a studied object with an electron beam and applies to fragments that are just several nanometers in size. The average size of the hexagon-shaped nanoparticles was from 20 to 50 nm. The team also studied the crystalline structure and elemental composition of the particles using X-ray structural analysis and energy dispersive spectroscopy and found out that the new particles had no admixtures.

The barium ferrite nanoparticles synthesized by the team were active against four species of fungi that cause various diseases of fruit and flowering plants. Even in small concentrations, the nanoparticles were able to slow down the growth of pathogens. In the course of the Fenton reaction, the ions of iron in barium ferrite reacted with peroxides and reactive oxygen forms (OH radicals) appeared. Being extremely active, they reacted with substances in harmful cell walls, damaged them, and thus slowed down the growth of pathogens. According to the authors of the study, this is a universal mechanism that might make the nanoparticles active against other species of fungi, too.

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NO ONE ASKED US

Study finds U.S. first responders have mixed feelings about COVID-19 vaccine

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI MILLER SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Research News

 

Firefighters and emergency medical services workers are at high risk of exposure to COVID-19 while on the job and pose an additional risk of transmitting the virus to others. Although vaccines are a promising public health tool for reducing COVID-19 transmission, little has been known about the perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine among first responders.

To provide insight, a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine-led study queried a national sample of U.S. firefighters and emergency medical services workers through an anonymous online survey. The study results, published online Feb. 1 in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, revealed that more than half of the first responders who replied were uncertain about or reported low acceptance of the vaccine.

"Through the national sample of firefighters and emergency medical services workers, we gained insight into the workforce's hesitancy about the COVID-19 vaccine," said study lead and senior author Alberto J. Caban-Martinez, D.O., Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor of public health sciences in the Division of Environment & Public Health at the Miller School. "We can leverage this study's information to design workplace interventions that educate and encourage our first responders to receive the COVID-19 vaccine."

Demographics determine perceptions

Of the 3,169 respondents to the survey, 48.2% expressed high acceptability of the COVID-19 vaccine, 24.2% were unsure, and 27.6% reported low acceptability. The results also revealed key demographic characteristics -- such as age, race, ethnicity, education, marital status, and job ranking -- for each group of respondents.

Additionally, across all ten geographic regions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the southeast (43.1%), the southwest (32.7%) and the west (34.1%) had the highest proportion of first responders who showed low COVID-19 vaccine acceptability.

"An important predictor we discovered from our study was that first responders who had not reported receipt of the influenza vaccine in the prior season had higher odds of being unsure about or not wanting to receive the COVID-19 vaccine," Dr. Caban-Martinez said.

In the study, the co-authors note the importance of tailoring public health campaigns for educating those sub-groups of firefighters and emergency medical service workers who identified as unsure or expressed low COVID-19 acceptability.

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The future of solar technology: New technology makes foldable cells a practical reality

International research team creates solar cells with unprecedented flexibility and resistance

PUSAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

 NEWS RELEASE 10-FEB-2021

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IMAGE: FOLDABLE PEROVSKITE SOLAR CELLS USING CARBON NANOTUBE-EMBEDDED ULTRATHIN POLYIMIDE CONDUCTOR view more 

CREDIT: PUSAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

With the recent development of foldable mobile phone screens, research on foldable electronics has never been so intensive. One particularly useful application of the foldable technology is in solar panels.

Current solar cells are restricted to rigid, flat panels, which are difficult to store in large numbers and integrate into everyday appliances, including phones, windows, vehicles, or indoor devices. But, one problem prevents this formidable technology from breaking through: to be integrated into these items, solar cells need to be foldable, to bend at will repeatedly without breaking. Traditional conducting materials used in solar cells lack flexibility, creating a huge obstacle in developing fully foldable cells.

A key requirement for an efficient foldable conductor is the ability to withstand the pressure of bending within a very small radius while maintaining its integrity and other desirable properties. In short, a thin, flexible, transparent, and resilient conductor material is needed. Professor Il Jeon of Pusan National University, Korea, elaborates, "Unlike merely flexible electronics, foldable devices are subject to much harsher deformations, with folding radii as small as 0.5 mm. This is not possible with conventional ultra-thin glass substrates and metal oxide transparent conductors, which can be made flexible but never fully foldable."

Fortunately, an international team of researchers, including Prof. Jeon, have found a solution, in a study published in Advanced Science. They identified a promising candidate to answer all of these requirements: single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) films, owing to their high transparency and mechanical resilience. The only problem is that SWNTs struggle to adhere to the substrate surface when force is applied (such as bending) and requires chemical doping. To address this problem, the scientists embedded the conducting layer into a polyimide (PI) substrate, filling the void spaces in the nanotubes.

To ensure maximum performance, they also "doped" the resulting material to increase its conductivity. By introducing small impurities (in this case, withdrawn electrons to molybdenum oxide) into the SWNT-PI nanocomposite layer, the energy needed for electrons to move across the structure is much smaller, and hence more charge can be generated for a given amount of current.

Their resulting prototype far exceeded the team's expectations. Only 7 micrometers thick, the composite film exhibited exceptional resistance to bending, almost 80% transparency, and a power conversion efficiency of 15.2%, the most ever achieved in solar cells using carbon nanotube conductors! In fact, as pointed out by Prof. Jeon, "The obtained results are some of the best among those reported thus far for flexible solar cells, both in terms efficiency and mechanical stability."

With this novel breakthrough in solar harvesting technology, one can only imagine what next-generation solar panels will look like.

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Reference

Title of original paper: Foldable Perovskite Solar Cells Using Carbon Nanotube-Embedded Ultrathin Polyimide Conductor
Journal: Advanced Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202004092

About Pusan National University

Pusan National University, located in Busan, South Korea, was founded in 1946, and is now the no. 1 national university of South Korea in research and educational competency. The multi-campus university also has other smaller campuses in Yangsan, Miryang, and Ami. The university prides itself on the principles of truth, freedom, and service, and has approximately 30,000 students, 1200 professors, and 750 faculty members. The university is composed of 14 colleges (schools) and one independent division, with 103 departments in all.

Website: https://www.pusan.ac.kr/eng/Main.do

About Jeon Lab

Website: https://www.jeonlab.com

About the authors

Prof. Il Jeon is a Professor of Chemistry Education and Chemical Materials at Pusan National University, Korea. He completed his undergraduate degree at Oxford University, UK, and received a Ph.D. in Chemistry with honors from the University of Tokyo, Japan. Following this, he worked at LG Display Co. Ltd., South Korea, as a Senior Research engineer and then started a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Tokyo. After completing his fellowship, he worked as an assistant professor and lecturer at the same university. His research group at Pusan National University is working on nanocarbon materials, namely, endohedral fullerene, and carbon nanotubes, for optoelectronics and energy device applications. The team is also developing bioelectronics and integration of artificial intelligence with material science.

Dr. Jungjin Yoon is a postdoctoral researcher at the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), US. He obtained his Bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering at Kyung Hee University and Seoul National University, Korea, respectively. Before joining PSU, he worked at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, as a postdoctoral researcher. With his research experience in mechanical engineering and material science, his research interest now is the perovskite-based flexible optoelectronic devices, the development of transparent conductors, and the device fabrication/integration process.

Temple-Led Team: COVID containment measures in Philly associated with rise in gun violence

Pandemic has exacerbated issues such as poverty, unemployment and structural racism that are empirically tied to violence in Philadelphia

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM

Research News

 

IMAGE: JESSICA H. BEARD, MD, MPH, FACS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SURGERY AND DIRECTOR OF TRAUMA RESEARCH AT THE LEWIS KATZ SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT TEMPLE UNIVERSITY. view more 

CREDIT: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM

(Philadelphia, PA) - While the COVID-19 pandemic brought most of the country to a standstill in March 2020, Philadelphia trauma surgeons noticed an alarming trend in the incidence of firearm violence. Instead of decreasing with containment measures, firearm-injured patients were presenting at even higher rates to Temple University Hospital and other trauma centers around the city.

A team led by Jessica H. Beard, MD, MPH, FACS, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Director of Trauma Research at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM), sought to determine the magnitude of Philadelphia's increase in firearm violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also aimed to understand potential causes of the increase by trying to pinpoint when the increase occurred. They hypothesized that two major events of 2020 could explain the increase in firearm violence in Philadelphia: the enactment of public health policies designed to contain COVID-19 and a national reckoning with systemic racism, including widespread protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.

In a new research letter published in JAMA, Dr. Beard and her team used the Philadelphia Police registry data of shooting victims from January 1, 2016 through November 26, 2020 to determine when the spike in firearm violence began. They examined changes in the number of individuals shot per week in the city following the enactment of Philadelphia's first COVID-19 containment policy (closure of non-essential businesses) on March 16, 2020, and following the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.

The team found that there were 7,159 individuals shot in the city overall during the 256 weeks included in the study. Prior to Philadelphia's first COVID-19 containment policy, there was an average of 25 individuals shot per week. In the weeks after that policy was put in place on March 16, 2020, the average number of individuals shot per week climbed to 46. A time-series analysis found that the increase in firearm violence was strongly associated with the enactment of COVID-19 containment policies. The killing of George Floyd was not associated with any significant increase in the rate of gun violence in the study model.

These findings indicate a significant and sustained increase in firearm violence in Philadelphia following enactment of COVID-19 containment policies.

"In the city of Philadelphia, shootings are often geographically concentrated in lower-income communities," Dr. Beard said. "These communities have not only been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus disease itself, but the pandemic and its associated policies have also exacerbated issues that were already present, including unemployment, poverty, structural racism and place-based economic disinvestment, which are empirically tied to firearm violence in Philadelphia. Our research shows that the measures put in place to contain the pandemic for health and safety reasons had a significant and sustained association with increased firearm violence in the city. In addition to mitigating the impact of COVID-19 in Philadelphia, we must also come together to address what is now an epidemic of gun violence in the city."

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Other researchers involved in the study include Amy J. Goldberg and Zoë Maher in the Department of Surgery, Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, at LKSOM; Sara F. Jacoby in the Department of Family and Community Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing; Beidi Dong in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society, at George Mason University; Elinore J. Kaufman in the Division of Traumatology, Surgical Critical Care and Emergency Surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; and senior author Christopher N. Morrison in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

About Temple Health

Temple University Health System (TUHS) is a $2.2 billion academic health system dedicated to providing access to quality patient care and supporting excellence in medical education and research. The Health System consists of Temple University Hospital (TUH); TUH-Episcopal Campus; TUH-Northeastern Campus; The Hospital of Fox Chase Cancer Center and Affiliates, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center; Jeanes Hospital, a community-based hospital offering medical, surgical and emergency services; Temple Transport Team, a ground and air-ambulance company; Temple Physicians, Inc., a network of community-based specialty and primary-care physician practices; and Temple Faculty Practice Plan, Inc., TUHS's physician practice plan comprised of more than 500 full-time and part-time academic physicians in 20 clinical departments. TUHS is affiliated with the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.

Temple Health refers to the health, education and research activities carried out by the affiliates of Temple University Health System (TUHS) and by the Katz School of Medicine. TUHS neither provides nor controls the provision of health care. All health care is provided by its member organizations or independent health care providers affiliated with TUHS member organizations. Each TUHS member organization is owned and operated pursuant to its governing documents.

It is the policy of Temple University Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center that no one shall be excluded from or denied the benefits of or participation in the delivery of quality medical care on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, disability, age, ancestry, color, national origin, physical ability, level of education, or source of payment.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not res

 

Paid maternity leave has long-term health benefits

Study shows positive effects after more generous leave became law in Norway

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

Research News

 

A study of women who were new mothers in the late 1970s found that those who were given longer, paid maternity leave lived healthier lives as they entered middle age.

While universal paid maternity leave is now available in many Western European nations, this has not always been the case. A new study by University of Georgia economist Meghan Skira looked at the health of Norwegian mothers before and after paid maternity leave became law in 1977. She found that the health benefits of leave continued for years after their children were born.

Skira, an associate professor in the Terry College of Business, worked with economist Aline Bütikofer of the Norwegian School of Economics and Julie Riise of the University of Bergen on the study. Their paper, "The Impact of Paid Maternity Leave on Maternal Health," is online in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and appears in the journal's February 2021 print edition.

Public health studies and some economic studies have found positive short-term benefits for women and children of extended postnatal leave, but the approach by Skira and her co-authors was different. They were able to analyze the longer term health effects of paid maternity leave for thousands of Norwegian women both before and after leave laws were implemented in July 1977.

"This sharp change in who was eligible for paid maternity leave provides a nice natural experiment," said Skira. "It provides an environment where we can examine the causal health effects of paid leave. Our findings show that having access to paid leave leads to important health benefits for mothers around age 40."

The women who gave birth after July 1977 were in better health across the board as they hit middle age, but the biggest gains in health were seen among low-income women who may not have been able to afford to take the full amount of unpaid leave available before the change.

Skira and her co-authors examined biometric data like body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and rates of diabetes combined with self-reported rates of pain, mental health, tobacco use and exercise habits to paint a comprehensive picture of women's health at 40.

The women who had access to paid leave had 2.5% to 3.7% lower BMI than those who did not have access. They were 10% less likely to have high blood pressure. They were 16% to 18% less likely to smoke and 14% to 20% more likely to exercise regularly.

"We know that women are healthier at 40, but we don't know exactly why. We did not find significant changes in income or employment among the women who had access to the reform, so the health improvements are unlikely due to income effects. We speculate that a reduction in stress, more time to recover from childbirth, and perhaps breastfeeding played a role," she said. "More research on exactly why maternal health improved would be valuable."

The study does draw clear causation between women staying home after giving birth and being healthier as they enter middle age.

"In a typical observational study, you would be worried that those who take more leave are different in ways that might make their health better or worse," Skira said. "Those who take longer leave may be wealthier or have more family support. On the other hand, those who have more postpartum health problems may take more leave. But here, because there is this sharp change in access to paid leave for everyone, the concerns about selection into leave-taking are minimized."

This was possible because the Norwegian Institute of Public Health collects health data on its citizens around age 40 as a way to benchmark the nation's well-being. Because of the so-called Age 40 Program, Skira and her co-authors had access to a tremendous set of birth, health and income data for the women who gave birth immediately before and after the law changed in 1977.

Norway expanded its paid leave policies again in 1987 and 1992, but those expansions marginally improved women's health at age 40, Skira said.

"There does seem to be evidence of diminishing returns to leave length," Skira said. "But maternal health is only one dimension of maternity leave to consider -- effects on children's outcomes, women's labor market attachment and employers are also important."

As the mothers of 1977 continue to age, Skira hopes to examine their use of long-term sick leave and disability insurance to see if the health benefits they gained in middle age made a difference in their quality of life as they entered retirement. It's too early to tell what the long-term benefits of this policy shift will be, she said.

"While things have changed since the late 1970s, understanding the effects of this policy change is important since it extended leave benefits from a level similar to what the U.S. offers today under the Family and Medical Leave Act," Skira said. "Our results, therefore, may inform the current debate over family leave policy."

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Israelis unwilling to risk two-state solution, new RAND report

RAND CORPORATION

Research News

 

Israelis across the political spectrum prefer the status quo to the two-state solution, and Palestinians are only willing to accept a two-state solution that Israelis will be unable to accept, according to a new RAND Corporation report that assesses whether there are any alternative solutions to the conflict that average Israelis and Palestinians would support.

Derived from a series of innovative, structured focus group discussions, the report suggests that the Biden Administration's recent reaffirmation of U.S. policy to support a "mutually agreed two-state solution, one in which Israel lives in peace and security alongside a viable Palestinian state," will face a steep uphill climb.

The analysis focused on five plausible alternatives: two-state solution, one-state solution, confederation approach, Israeli annexation of the West Bank's Area C, and perpetuation of today's status quo. Almost all parties were extremely pessimistic about the feasibility of any. About 60% of Israelis said the status quo could feasibly continue, as it has for decades, and many others believed that it was manageable and preferable to the risk of other alternatives. Peace was considered a "romantic notion" that was simply not attainable at this time.

"One of our key goals was to determine if there were areas of overlap in opinions and feeling among Israelis and Palestinians that might offer avenues for negotiation, leading the parties closer to peace," said Daniel Egel, lead author of the report and an economist at nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND. "Sadly, the data show the opposite. The data highlight the deep distrust and profound animosity of each side for the other."

Resolving the crisis will likely require more holistic "peace deals" than have been previously offered, the researchers found. While previous deals have focused on economic dividends, the international community has shied away from the security guarantees that could help find common ground between these two peoples.

Researchers conducted four-hour-long discussions with 273 individual West Bank Palestinians, Gazan Palestinians, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs in 2018 and 2019. The focus groups, based on RAND's Delphi method, aimed to complement extensive polling efforts by others on this topic.

One key finding is that getting Israeli Jews to support any alternative to the status quo will require a shift in both domestic and international politics. "It is hard to imagine a departure from current trends unless strong, courageous leadership among Israelis, Palestinians and the international community articulates a desire for a better future for all," said C. Ross Anthony, co-leader of the report and director of RAND's Israeli-Palestinian Initiative.

Researchers found that among Israeli Jews there are two major impediments to anything but the status quo: a lack of trust in Palestinian objectives and a general belief that none of the other alternatives are feasible. The lack of trust results in fear, xenophobia and a willingness to forgo basic principles of democracy when it comes to the rights of Palestinians.

Another key finding is that Palestinians will likely require international security guarantees for any peaceful resolution. Palestinians perceived all five alternatives as biased against them and primarily serving the interests of the more powerful Israelis.

Palestinians indicated they would be willing to accept a modified two-state solution, with an independent state with geographic contiguity, political autonomy, a standing army and control over the borders. While such a solution would be very difficult for Israel to accept, a two-state solution where the international community made credible commitments to guarantee Palestinian security could be more viable, researchers concluded.

The third key policy finding is that educating Israelis and the Palestinians about the alternatives could help. Pre-testing showed that few focus-group participants started with a clear understanding of any of the alternatives, but receiving a brief overview allowed them to make a more informed decision and some changed their minds.

"An information campaign, educating individuals about all the alternatives, could be an important component of efforts to promote a peaceful resolution to the conflict," said co-author Shira Efron, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and special advisor on Israel for RAND.

"We hope that in the coming years Israelis and Palestinians and the international community will have the courage to make the commitments - and sacrifices - to resolve what has been one of the most enduring political challenges in the post-World War II period," said co-author Charles Ries, adjunct senior fellow at RAND.

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The report, "Alternatives in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," was sponsored by a generous gift from Peter and Carol Richards.

 TAUGHT TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES

Pigs show potential for 'remarkable' level of behavioral, mental flexibility in new study

Researchers teach four animals how to play a rudimentary joystick-enabled video game that demonstrates conceptual understanding beyond simple chance

FRONTIERS

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IMAGE: YORKSHIRE PIG OPERATING THE JOYSTICK view more 

CREDIT: ESTON MARTZ / PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY

Pigs will probably never be able to fly, but new research is revealing that some species within the genus Sus may possess a remarkable level of behavioral and mental flexibility. A study published in Frontiers in Psychology tested the ability of four pigs to play a simple joystick-enabled video game. Each animal demonstrated some conceptual understanding despite limited dexterity on tasks normally given to non-human primates to analyze intelligence.

The study involved two Yorkshire pigs named Hamlet and Omelette, and two Panepinto micro pigs, Ebony and Ivory. All four animals were trained to approach and manipulate a joystick with their snouts in front of a computer monitor during the first phase of the experiment. They were then taught how to play a video game in which the goal was to move a cursor using the joystick toward up to four target walls on the screen.

Each pig performed the tasks well above chance, indicating the animal understood that the movement of the joystick was connected to the cursor on the computer screen. The fact that these far-sighted animals with no opposable thumbs could succeed at the task is "remarkable," according to the researchers.

"It is no small feat for an animal to grasp the concept that the behavior they are performing is having an effect elsewhere. That pigs can do this to any degree should give us pause as to what else they are capable of learning and how such learning may impact them," said lead author Dr. Candace Croney, a professor at Purdue University and director of the Purdue Center for Animal Welfare Science. Sarah T. Boysen, known for her work on chimpanzee cognition, co-authored the study.

Scientists already know that pigs are capable of various types of learning, from the same sort of basic obedience commands taught to dogs like "come" and "sit" to more complex behaviors that require them to change behaviors when the rules of the game change. One study has even shown that pigs can use mirrors to find hidden food in an enclosure, Croney noted.

CAPTION

Corresponding author Dr Candace Croney and one of the Yorkshire study pigs, Omelette

CREDIT

Eston Martz / Pennsylvania State University

In the current study, the team used food to teach and reinforce behaviors, but also found that social contact could strongly influence their persistence. For instance, when the machine dispensing treats failed to work, the pigs continued to make correct responses using only verbal and tactile cues. And only verbal encouragement seemed to help the animals during the most challenging tasks.

"This sort of study is important because, as with any sentient beings, how we interact with pigs and what we do to them impacts and matters to them," Croney said. "We therefore have an ethical obligation to understand how pigs acquire information, and what they are capable of learning and remembering, because it ultimately has implications for how they perceive their interactions with us and their environments."

While the pigs could not match the skill level of non-human primates on the video task and failed to meet the criteria used for primates to demonstrate full mastery of the concept, the researchers said the shortcomings could partially be explained by the nature of the experiment, which was designed for dexterous, visually-oriented mammals.

The study ended before the researchers could investigate a more ambitious goal: whether such a computer interface using symbols could be employed to communicate with the pigs more directly, as has been done with non-human primates.

"Informing management practices and improving pig welfare was and still is a major goal, but really, that is secondary to better appreciating the uniqueness of pigs outside of any benefit we can derive from them," Croney said.

CAPTION

Panepinto micro pig Ebony operating the joystick

CREDIT

Candace Croney

Biosensors monitor plant well-being in real time

 'something that has previously been impossible'

Diurnal in vivo xylem sap glucose and sucrose monitoring using implantable organic electrochemical transistor sensors

LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: AN IMPLANTABLE ORGANIC ELECTROCHEMICAL TRANSISTOR SENSOR. view more 

CREDIT: THOR BALKHED

Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have developed biosensors that make it possible to monitor sugar levels in real time deep in the plant tissues - something that has previously been impossible. The information from the sensors may help agriculture to adapt production as the world faces climate change. The results have been published in the scientific journal iScience.

The primary source of nutrition for most of the Earth's population is mainly plants, which are also the foundation of the complete ecosystem on which we all depend. Global population is rising, and rapid climate change is at the same time changing the conditions for crop cultivation and agriculture.

"We will have to secure our food supply in the coming decades. And we must do this using the same, or even fewer, resources as today. This is why it is important to understand how plants react to changes in the environment and how they adapt", says Eleni Stavrinidou, associate professor in the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Department of Science and Technology at Linköping University.

The research group at Linköping University led by Eleni Stavrinidou, together with Totte Niittylä and his group from Umeå Plant Science Centre, has developed sugar sensors based on organic electrochemical transistors that can be implanted in plants. The biosensors can monitor the sugar levels of trees in real time, continuously for up to two days. The information from the sensors can be related to growth and other biological processes. Plants use sugars for energy, and sugars are also important signal substances that influence the development of the plant and its response to changes in the surrounding environment.

While biosensors for monitoring sugar levels in humans are widely available, in particular the glucometer used by people who have diabetes, this technology has not previously been applied to plants.

"The sensors now are used for basic plant science research but in the future they can be used in agriculture to optimise the conditions for growth or to monitor the quality of the product, for example. In the long term, the sensors can also be used to guide the production of new types of plant that can grow in non-optimal conditions", says Eleni Stavrinidou.

The mechanisms by which plant metabolism is regulated and how changes in sugar levels affect growth are still relatively unknown. Previous experiments have typically used methods that rely on detaching parts of the plant. However, the sensor developed by the research group gives information without damaging the plant and may provide further pieces of the puzzle of how plant metabolism works.

"We found a variation in sugar levels in the trees that had not been previously observed. Future studies will focus on understanding how plants sugar levels change when plants are under stress", says Eleni Stavrinidou.

CAPTION

Chiara Diacci, PhD student at Linköping University and first author of the paper, inserts the sensor in the young tree.

CREDIT

Thor Balkhed

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The research is mainly funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Additional funding comes from: the Wallenberg Wood Science Center, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the Swedish Strategic Research Area in New Functional Materials (AFM) at Linköping University.

The article: "Diurnal in Vivo Xylem Sap Glucose and Sucrose Monitoring Using Implantable Organic Electrochemical Transistor Sensors" Chiara Diacci, Tayebeh Abedi, Jeewoong Lee, Erik O. Gabrielsson, Magnus Berggren, Daniel T. Simon, Totte Niittylä, Eleni Stavrinidou iScience 2020 doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101966

Footnote: The plants used in the experiments are hybrid aspen, Populus tremula.

Family ties explain mysterious social life of coral gobies

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research News

 

IMAGE: ADULT EMERALD CORAL GOBY view more 

CREDIT: JIM GREENFIELD

The strange social structure of tiny fish called emerald coral gobies may be explained by family loyalty, new research shows.

Coral goby groups contain a single breeding male and female and - as "sequential hermaphrodites" - the subordinate gobies can take over either role if one of the breeders dies.

The puzzle for biologists is why breeders tolerate the smaller non-breeders sharing their space and competing for food.

One explanation is "kin selection" (favouring related individuals).

Reef fish are often assumed to disperse at random after hatching, meaning groups of adults should not be closely related, but the new study finds "positive relatedness" among gobies living close together.

"Groups of emerald coral gobies have a fixed structure in which the breeders are biggest," said lead author Dr Theresa Rueger, of the University of Exeter and Boston University.

"The rest are not sexually mature, and they are even known to refrain from eating to avoid threatening the rank above them in the social order.

"They can't risk being evicted from the group, as this usually means being eaten by predators on the reef."

Dr Rueger added: "Kin selection is commonly seen in birds and mammals, and our study demonstrates the potential for weak kin selection among coral gobies.

"In essence, it makes evolutionary sense to favour a distant cousin over an unrelated individual."

The researchers examined the genes of 73 gobies from 16 groups in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, and estimated relatedness among all individuals.

They found that gobies were significantly more related to members of their group than to gobies on the wider reef, and gobies in each reef were significantly more related to each other than to those from different reefs.

Like many reef fish, gobies spend their early life in the open ocean - where predators are larger and may not hunt tiny prey - before returning to a reef.

It might be assumed that the movement of larvae is dictated by ocean currents, but recent research has shown they have some ability to select currents and may therefore be able to return to the reef they came from - explaining relatedness among fish on a reef.

Previous research has explained why non-breeders tolerate their situation; gobies join groups for safety, and must then work their way up the social structure or risk eviction and death.

The new study finally offers an explanation for why breeders tolerate non-breeders that share their resources.

CAPTION

Juvenile emerald coral goby

CREDIT

Patrick Smallhorn-West

The research team included Cornell University and the University of Wollongong.

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 841263.

The paper, published in the journal Molecular Ecology, is entitled: "Genetic relatedness in social groups of the emerald coral goby Paragobiodon xanthosoma creates potential for weak kin selection."