Did these billionaires, celebrities jump the Covid-19 vaccine queue?

Socialite Kim Lim, who owns three medically licensed

 aesthetics clinics, got her first Covid-19 vaccine last month.

PHOTOS: ICON, KIM LIM/INSTAGRAM

Benson Ang


PUBLISHED FEB 20, 2021

SINGAPORE - With Covid-19 vaccinations under way worldwide, some celebrities, politicians and billionaires have recently been accused of using their privilege to move to the front of the line. Here are six people who have faced flak for allegedly doing so.
1. Kim Lim

On Jan 14, Singaporean socialite Kim Lim, daughter of billionaire Peter Lim, posted on Instagram that she received her first Covid-19 vaccine. Accusations that she jumped the queue came fast and furious.

But according to website 8 Days, the entrepreneur owns three medically licensed aesthetics clinics. This means she and her staff are within the healthcare sector, which is prioritised in Singapore's Covid-19 vaccination programme.


Ms Lim also said as much in her Instagram post: "For those wondering why we can take first, it is because we are considered (to be in the) healthcare sector as well. We have GP (general practitioner) clinics too. So those working there are eligible."

She explained to 8 Days that her doctor friends had told her: "Kim, you are the boss. You need to show your staff that it is okay to take the vaccine. If the boss is scared, then the staff will also be scared."

The 29-year-old added that it would have been "strange" if her staff had been vaccinated and she had not. She said: "In my company, we believe in 'all for one and one for all'. We are in this together."


2. Johann Rupert

PHOTO: GERMISTON CITY NEWS/FACEBOOK

South African billionaire Johann Rupert, whom Forbes lists as the fourth-richest person in Africa, was among the first to be vaccinated in Switzerland before the official launch of the local vaccination programme.

The tycoon reportedly flew to Switzerland in December 2020 and was vaccinated at a Swiss private clinic under the Hirslanden hospital group in the canton of Thurgau.

The group is owned by South Africa's Mediclinic, of which investment holding company Remgro holds a 45 per cent stake. Mr Rupert is chairman of Remgro.

Last month, the billionaire rejected the accusation that he jumped the queue, saying that as he is 70 years old and has co-morbidity issues as defined by Swiss law, his physician arranged the vaccination for him.

The Hirslanden hospital group also said it had permission to administer vaccines to "test subjects of their choice" before the vaccination campaign's official start.
3. Leszek Miller

PHOTO: EPA-EFE


On Dec 30 last year, when Covid-19 vaccines in Poland were available only to front-line healthcare workers, their families and parents of newborns, a former premier got his vaccination despite being none of the above.

Mr Leszek Miller, 74, was prime minister of Poland between 2001 and 2004 and is now a member of the European Parliament. Unsurprisingly, many were outraged at the news.

Mr Miller later explained to Polish media that he got the shot because he was a long-term patient of the Medical University of Warsaw's medical centre, which conducted "out-of-sequence" vaccinations.

He said on Polish news channel TVN24: "I am just a patient. Not the prime minister, but the patient. And the additional doses (given to the university) could be used, among other things, by the families of employees and patients of university institutions."

4. Miguel Angel Villarroya

PHOTO: EPA-EFE

Spain's top general resigned last month after allegations surfaced that he had received the vaccine before priority groups.

Around that time, news agencies reported that General Miguel Angel Villarroya, who was Spain's chief of defence staff, and other senior military officers had already received their jabs, sparking widespread indignation.

In a statement on his resignation, the country's defence ministry said Gen Villarroya "took decisions which he thought to be correct" but which "damaged the public image of the armed forces".

He is not the only Spaniard to have jumped the queue. Several local mayors have acknowledged that they received vaccinations before their turn, while the regional health chief of Ceuta, a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa, said he got vaccinated early under pressure from his staff.

CANADIAN, EH

5. Rod and Ekaterina Baker

PHOTO: EKATERINA BAKER/FACEBOOK

The casino mogul and his actress wife went out of their way to secure their Covid-19 jabs - and it cost them dearly. Mr Rod Baker was forced to resign from his position as the chief executive of casino firm Great Canadian Gaming Corp (GCGC).

The 55-year-old and his spouse, 32, who reportedly live in a suite at a posh hotel and condominium in Vancouver, had travelled to the Canadian city of Whitehorse and taken a private plane to Yukon, a remote territory with a faster vaccination rate compared with the rest of Canada.

There, they posed as motel workers to get the vaccine, but their ruse was uncovered when they asked to be taken to the airport straight after the shot.

The couple were charged with failing to quarantine for 14 days on arrival in Yukon. They were also fined and forced to walk back to the airport as none of the residents in Beaver Creek community was willing to give them a ride. In addition, GCGC told BBC last month that Mr Baker is no longer affiliated in any way with the company.

Its board of directors has "no tolerance for actions that run counter to the company's objectives and values", it added.

Two killed in Mandalay city in bloodiest day of Myanmar protests

A man injured during protests in Mandalay on Feb 20, 2021.PHOTO: REUTERS

MANDALAY (REUTERS) - Two people were killed in Myanmar’s second city Mandalay on Saturday (Feb 20) when police and soldiers fired to disperse protests against a Feb 1 military coup, emergency workers said, the bloodiest day in more than two weeks of demonstrations.

Protesters took to the streets in cities and towns across Myanmar with members of ethnic minorities, poets, rappers and transport workers among those demanding an end to military rule and the release from detention of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others.

Tensions escalated quickly in Mandalay where police and soldiers confronted striking shipyard workers and other protesters.

Some of the demonstrators fired catapults at police as they played cat and mouse through riverside streets. Police responded with tear gas and gunfire, and witnesses said they found the cartridges of both live rounds and rubber bullets on the ground.

“Twenty people were injured and two are dead,” said Ko Aung, a leader of the Parahita Darhi volunteer emergency service.

One man died from a head wound, media workers including Lin Khaing, an assistant editor with the Voice of Myanmar media outlet in the city, and a volunteer doctor said.

Ko Aung and the doctor said a second man was shot in the chest and died later of his wound. He was identified by relatives as Thet Naing Win, a 36-year-old carpenter.

“They took away the body to the morgue. I cannot bring him back home. Although my husband died, I still have my son,” his wife, Thidar Hnin, told Reuters by phone.

“I haven’t been involved in this movement yet but now I am going to... I am not scared now.”

Several other injured protesters were carried away on stretchers by volunteer medics, their clothes soaked in blood.


Police were not available for comment.

A young woman protester, Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, died on Friday after being shot in the head last week as police dispersed a crowd in the capital, Naypyitaw, the first death among anti-coup demonstrators.
Myanmar's bloodiest day of protest since coup


Police throwing projectiles towards protesters in Mandalay on Feb 20, 2021. PHOTO: AFP

A medical team treat a wounded man following a demonstration where security forces fired on and beat protesters in Mandalay on Feb 20, 2021.

The army says one policeman has died of injuries sustained in a protest.

The US Embassy in Myanmar said it was “deeply troubled” by Saturday’s fatal shootings in Mandalay and the death of Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing.

“No one should be harmed for exercising the right to dissent,” the embassy said in a statement on its Facebook page.

State television MRTV’s evening news broadcast made no mention of the protests or casualties.

In the main city Yangon, residents again banged pots and pans in a nightly ritual in defiance of the coup. Outside the US Embassy in the city, dozens of protesters, mostly women, gathered at twilight for a candlelit vigil, singing anti-coup songs.

Protesters holding out bullet cartridges and ammunition for slingshots after security forces fired on demonstrators in Mandalay on Feb 20, 2021. PHOTO: AFP

Civil disobedience

More than a fortnight of demonstrations and a civil disobedience campaign of strikes and disruptions show no sign of dying down. Opponents of the coup are sceptical of the army’s promise to hold a new election and hand power to the winner.

The demonstrators are demanding the restoration of the elected government and the release of Suu Kyi and others. They have also called for the scrapping of a 2008 constitution that has assured the army a major role in politics since nearly 50 years of direct military rule ended in 2011.

The army seized back power after alleging fraud in Nov 8 elections that Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy swept, detaining her and others. The electoral commission had dismissed the fraud complaints.

Nevertheless, the army says its action is within the constitution and is supported by a majority of the people. The military has blamed protesters for instigating violence.

Crowds also gathered on Saturday in the northern town of Myitkyina, the ancient capital of Bagan and in Pathein in the Irrawaddy river delta, pictures on social media showed.
Thousands march against coup in Myanmar's capital

Sanctions

The United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand have announced limited sanctions, with a focus on military leaders.

Several foreign governments have urged Myanmar’s military not to use force against protesters.

Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing was already under sanctions from Western countries following the crackdown on the Rohingya.

There is little history of Myanmar’s generals, with closer ties to China and to Russia, giving in to Western pressure.

Suu Kyi faces a charge of violating a Natural Disaster Management Law as well as illegally importing six walkie-talkie radios. Her next court appearance is on March 1.

Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said 546 people had been detained, with 46 released, as of Friday.

Myanmar's use of lethal weapons against unarmed civilians 'inexcusable': MFA

Police and soldiers are seen during a protest against the military coup in Mandalay on Feb 20, 2021.PHOTO: REUTERS


Aw Cheng Wei


PUBLISHEDFEB 20, 2021


SINGAPORE - The use of lethal weapons against unarmed civilians by Myanmar's security forces during protests is inexcusable, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said in a statement on Saturday (Feb 20).

"We are dismayed by the reports of civilian casualties following the use of lethal force by security forces against demonstrators in Myanmar. The use of lethal weapons against unarmed civilians is inexcusable," said MFA.

"We strongly urge the security forces to exercise utmost restraint to avoid further injuries and loss of lives, and take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation and restore calm. The authorities must prevent further violence and bloodshed."


Three people have died so far during the protests against the Feb 1 coup by the military. Police fired gunshots, tear gas and water cannons to quell demonstrations throughout the country which saw hundreds of thousands of protestors.

Twenty-year-old student Mya Thwate Thwate Kaing died on Friday in Naypyitaw, the first fatality in the unrest. A bullet had struck her in the head. At least 20 protestors were injured.

Two people were killed in the second largest city Mandalay on Saturday, with another 20 injured, according to media reports.

MFA said: "All parties should seek a political solution for national reconciliation, including a return to Myanmar's path of democratic transition, through dialogue without resorting to violence."

"If the situation continues to escalate, there will be serious adverse consequences for Myanmar and the region," it added.

The ministry also said that the Singapore embassy in Yangon has been in touch with Singaporeans in Myanmar.

"In view of the volatile situation, Singaporeans in Myanmar are advised to remain indoors as far as possible and avoid unnecessary travel to areas where protests are occurring," it added.

MFA reminded Singaporeans to remain vigilant and monitor local news closely. They should take necessary precautions for their personal safety, and register immediately at this website, so that the ministry can contact them should the need arise.

WAIT WHAT

New technology enables predictive design of engineered human cells

Capability could accelerate the development of new treatments for diseases

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: SYNTHETIC BIOLOGISTS ACHIEVE A BREAKTHROUGH IN THE DESIGN OF LIVING CELLS view more 

CREDIT: JUSTIN MUIR

Northwestern University synthetic biologist Joshua Leonard used to build devices when he was a child using electronic kits. Now he and his team have developed a design-driven process that uses parts from a very different kind of toolkit to build complex genetic circuits for cellular engineering.

One of the most exciting frontiers in medicine is the use of living cells as therapies. Using this approach to treat cancer, for example, many patients have been cured of previously untreatable disease. These advances employ the approaches of synthetic biology, a growing field that blends tools and concepts from biology and engineering.

The new Northwestern technology uses computational modeling to more efficiently identify useful genetic designs before building them in the lab. Faced with myriad possibilities, modeling points researchers to designs that offer real opportunity.

"To engineer a cell, we first encode a desired biological function in a piece of DNA, and that DNA program is then delivered to a human cell to guide its execution of the desired function, such as activating a gene only in response to certain signals in the cell's environment," Leonard said. He led a team of researchers from Northwestern in collaboration with Neda Bagheri from the University of Washington for this study.

Leonard is an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and a leading faculty member within Northwestern's Center for Synthetic Biology. His lab is focused on using this kind of programming capability to build therapies such as engineered cells that activate the immune system, to treat cancer.

Bagheri is an associate professor of biology and chemical engineering and a Washington Research Foundation Investigator at the University of Washington Seattle. Her lab uses computational models to better understand -- and subsequently control -- cell decisions. Leonard and Bagheri co-advised Joseph Muldoon, a recent doctoral student and the paper's first author.

"Model-guided design has been explored in cell types such as bacteria and yeast, but this approach is relatively new in mammalian cells," Muldoon said.

The study, in which dozens of genetic circuits were designed and tested, will be published Feb. 19 in the journal Science Advances. Like other synthetic biology technologies, a key feature of this approach is that it is intended to be readily adopted by other bioengineering groups.

To date, it remains difficult and time-consuming to develop genetic programs when relying upon trial and error. It is also challenging to implement biological functions beyond relatively simple ones. The research team used a "toolkit" of genetic parts invented in Leonard's lab and paired these parts with computational tools for simulating many potential genetic programs before conducting experiments. They found that a wide variety of genetic programs, each of which carries out a desired and useful function in a human cell, can be constructed such that each program works as predicted. Not only that, but the designs worked the first time.

"In my experience, nothing works like that in science; nothing works the first time. We usually spend a lot of time debugging and refining any new genetic design before it works as desired," Leonard said. "If each design works as expected, we are no longer limited to building by trial and error. Instead, we can spend our time evaluating ideas that might be useful in order to hone in on the really great ideas."

"Robust representative models can have disruptive scientific and translational impact," Bagheri added. "This development is just the tip of the iceberg."

The genetic circuits developed and implemented in this study are also more complex than the previous state of the art. This advance creates the opportunity to engineer cells to perform more sophisticated functions and to make therapies safer and more effective.

"With this new capability, we have taken a big step in being able to truly engineer biology," Leonard said.

###

The research was supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (award number 1R01EB026510), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (award number T32GM008152) and the National Cancer Institute (award number F30CA203325).

The title of the paper is "Model-guided design of mam

A speed limit also applies in the quantum world

Study by the University of Bonn determines minimum time for complex quantum operations

UNIVERSITY OF BONN

Research News

 

IMAGE: FIRST AUTHOR MANOLO RIVERA LAM (LEFT) AND PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR DR. ANDREA ALBERTI (RIGHT) AT THE INSTITUTE OF APPLIED PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN. view more 

CREDIT: © VOLKER LANNERT/UNI BONN

Even in the world of the smallest particles with their own special rules, things cannot proceed infinitely fast. Physicists at the University of Bonn have now shown what the speed limit is for complex quantum operations. The study also involved scientists from MIT, the universities of Hamburg, Cologne and Padua, and the Jülich Research Center. The results are important for the realization of quantum computers, among other things. They are published in the prestigious journal Physical Review X, and covered by the Physics Magazine of the American Physical Society.

Suppose you observe a waiter (the lockdown is already history) who on New Year's Eve has to serve an entire tray of champagne glasses just a few minutes before midnight. He rushes from guest to guest at top speed. Thanks to his technique, perfected over many years of work, he nevertheless manages not to spill even a single drop of the precious liquid.

A little trick helps him to do this: While the waiter accelerates his steps, he tilts the tray a bit so that the champagne does not spill out of the glasses. Halfway to the table, he tilts it in the opposite direction and slows down. Only when he has come to a complete stop does he hold it upright again.

Atoms are in some ways similar to champagne. They can be described as waves of matter, which behave not like a billiard ball but more like a liquid. Anyone who wants to transport atoms from one place to another as quickly as possible must therefore be as skillful as the waiter on New Year's Eve. "And even then, there is a speed limit that this transport cannot exceed," explains Dr. Andrea Alberti, who led this study at the Institute of Applied Physics of the University of Bonn.

Cesium atom as a champagne substitute

In their study, the researchers experimentally investigated exactly where this limit lies. They used a cesium atom as a champagne substitute and two laser beams perfectly superimposed but directed against each other as a tray. This superposition, called interference by physicists, creates a standing wave of light: a sequence of mountains and valleys that initially do not move. "We loaded the atom into one of these valleys, and then set the standing wave in motion - this displaced the position of the valley itself," says Alberti. "Our goal was to get the atom to the target location in the shortest possible time without it spilling out of the valley, so to speak."

The fact that there is a speed limit in the microcosm was already theoretically demonstrated by two Soviet physicists, Leonid Mandelstam and Igor Tamm more than 60 years ago. They showed that the maximum speed of a quantum process depends on the energy uncertainty, i.e., how "free" the manipulated particle is with respect to its possible energy states: the more energetic freedom it has, the faster it is. In the case of the transport of an atom, for example, the deeper the valley into which the cesium atom is trapped, the more spread the energies of the quantum states in the valley are, and ultimately the faster the atom can be transported. Something similar can be seen in the example of the waiter: If he only fills the glasses half full (to the chagrin of the guests), he runs less risk that the champagne spills over as he accelerates and decelerates. However, the energetic freedom of a particle cannot be increased arbitrarily. "We can't make our valley infinitely deep - it would cost us too much energy," stresses Alberti.

Beam me up, Scotty!

The speed limit of Mandelstam and Tamm is a fundamental limit. However, one can only reach it under certain circumstances, namely in systems with only two quantum states. "In our case, for example, this happens when the point of origin and destination are very close to each other," the physicist explains. "Then the matter waves of the atom at both locations overlap, and the atom could be transported directly to its destination in one go, that is, without any stops in between - almost like the teleportation in the Starship Enterprise of Star Trek."

However, the situation is different when the distance grows to several dozens of matter wave widths as in the Bonn experiment. For these distances, direct teleportation is impossible. Instead, the particle must go through several intermediate states to reach its final destination: The two-level system becomes a multi-level system. The study shows that a lower speed limit applies to such processes than that predicted by the two Soviet physicists: It is determined not only by the energy uncertainty, but also by the number of intermediate states. In this way, the work improves the theoretical understanding of complex quantum processes and their constraints.

The physicists' findings are important not least for quantum computing. The computations that are possible with quantum computers are mostly based on the manipulation of multi-level systems. Quantum states are very fragile, though. They last only a short lapse of time, which physicists call coherence time. It is therefore important to pack as many computational operations as possible into this time. "Our study reveals the maximum number of operations we can perform in the coherence time," Alberti explains. "This makes it possible to make optimal use of it."

###

Funding:

The study was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Collaborative Research Center SFB/TR 185 OSCAR. Funding was also provided by the Reinhard Frank Foundation in collaboration with the German Technion Society, and by the German Academic Exchange Service.

Publication: Manolo R. Lam, Natalie Peter, Thorsten Groh, Wolfgang Alt, Carsten Robens, Dieter Meschede, Antonio Negretti, Simone Montangero, Tommaso Calarco und Andrea Alberti: Demonstration of Quantum Brachistochrones between Distant States of an Atom; Physical Review X;
https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.011035

 

Biotechnologists developed an effective technology for nutrient biocapture from wastewater

RUDN UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: BIOTECHNOLOGISTS FROM RUDN UNIVERSITY IN COLLABORATION WITH LOMONOSOV MSU AND KURCHATOV INSTITUTE MADE AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION TO THE TECHNOLOGY OF PHOSPHATE AND NITRATE BIOCAPTURE FROM WASTEWATER USING LOBOSPHAERA ALGAE FIXED... view more 

CREDIT: RUDN UNIVERSITY

Biotechnologists from RUDN University in collaboration with Lomonosov MSU and Kurchatov institute made an important contribution to the technology of phosphate and nitrate biocapture from wastewater using Lobosphaera algae fixed on the filters.The biomass obtained in the course of this process can be used as a fertilizer. The results of the study were published in the Journal of Water Process Engineering.

Phosphates and nitrates get to the wastewater together with industrial and household waste, especially detergents. Both substances are parts of phosphorus and nitrogen chemical cycles. However, these cycles are disturbed by human activity, as the growing amounts of phosphates and nitrates cannot be processed by water ecosystems. As a result, these substances turn from useful nutrients to pollutants. Wastewater is treated with special equipment and microorganisms, including microalgae that consume phosphates and nitrates. A team of biotechnologists from RUDN University together with their colleagues from MSU and the Kurchatov Institute developed a biopolymer filter on which useful microalgae can be placed. The polymer is chitosan-based, safe for the algae, biodegradable, and captures chemical elements from wastewater more effectively than its existing analogs.

"Our team was the first to successfully use cross-linked chitosan polymers to immobilize unicellular algae and make them effectively consume nutrients while at the same time not preventing them from growing and photosynthesizing," said Alexei Solovchenko, a PhD in Biology from the Department of Agrobiotechnology, RUDN University.

Chitosan is a polysaccharide with amino groups and its chemical composition is similar to that of chitin that can be found in shellfish crusts and mushroom cell walls. Chitosan is not water-soluble and therefore can be used to grow algae. However, it is biodegradable. Using an original methodology developed in the Kurchatov Institute, it was cross-linked with glutaraldehyde molecules and thus turned into a strong biocompatible polymer. Then, the team grew the IPPAS C-2047 strain of the Lobosphaera incisa algae on it for seven days.

Based on the results of the seven-day long experiment, the team concluded that a complex of microalgae cells and chitosan-based polymer with a total molecular mass of 600 kDa was more effective than that with a molecular mass of 250 kDa. The algae on the filter captured the nutrients more efficiently than those suspended in the wastewater: specifically, they consumed phosphates 16.7 times and nitrates 1.3 times faster.

Used chitosan biofilters could be repurposed as fertilizers. With time, chitosan would degrade without causing any harm to the environment, while the algae would act as a source of accumulated phosphates and nitrates for the plants.

"Our team has demonstrated that cross-linked chitosan polymers are safe for the environment and effectively support the biocapture of nutrients from wastewater by unicellular algae. When added to a non-toxic medium, the algae biomass could be used as a fertilizer that would gradually release the accumulated nutrients into the soil," added Alexei Solovchenko from RUDN University.

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The melting of large icebergs is a key stage in the evolution of ice ages

UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA

Research News

 

IMAGE: SAMPLING AN ICEBERG DURING THE POWELL 2020 RESEARCH EXPEDITION CLOSE TO THE "JUAN CARLOS I " SPANISH ANTARCTIC BASE/JOSÉ ABEL FLORES view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA

A new study, in which the Andalusian Earth Sciences Institute (IACT) (CSIC-UGR) participated, has described for the first time a key stage in the beginning of the great glaciations and indicates that it can happen to our planet in the future. The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Nature

The study claims to have found a new connection that could explain the beginning of the ice ages on Earth

Antarctic iceberg melt could hold the key to the activation of a series of mechanisms that cause the Earth to suffer prolonged periods of global cooling, according to Francisco J. Jiménez-Espejo, a researcher at the Andalusian Earth Sciences Institute (CSIC-UGR), whose discoveries were recently published in the prestigious journal Nature.

It has long been known that changes in the Earth's orbit, as it moves around the Sun, trigger the beginning or end of glacial periods by affecting the amount of solar radiation that reaches the planet's surface. However, until now, the question of how small variations in the solar energy that reaches us can lead to such dramatic shifts in the planet's climate has remained a mystery.

In this new study, a multinational group of researchers proposes that, when the Earth's orbit around the sun is just right, the Antarctic icebergs begin to melt further and further away from the continent, moving huge volumes of freshwater from the Antarctic Ocean into the Atlantic.

This process causes the Antarctic Ocean to become increasingly salty, while the Atlantic Ocean becomes fresher, affecting overall ocean circulation patterns, drawing CO2 from the atmosphere and reducing the so-called greenhouse effect. These are the initial stages that mark the beginning of an ice age on the planet.

Within this study, the scientists used several techniques to reconstruct oceanic conditions in the past, including by identifying tiny fragments of rock that had broken away from Antarctic icebergs as they melted into the ocean. These deposits were obtained from marine sediment cores recovered by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) during Expedition 361 off the sea-margins of South Africa. These sediment cores enabled the scientists to reconstruct the history of the icebergs that reached these latitudes in the last million and a half years, this being one of the most continuous records known.

Climate simulations

The study describes how these rocky deposits appear to be consistently associated with variations in deep ocean circulation, which was reconstructed from chemical variations in minute deep-sea fossils known as foraminifera. The team also used new climate simulations to test the proposed hypotheses, finding that huge volumes of fresh water are carried northward by icebergs.

The first author of the article, PhD student Aidan Starr from the University of Cardiff, notes that the researchers are "surprised to have discovered that this teleconnection is present in each of the different ice ages of the last 1.6 million years. This indicates that the Antarctic Ocean plays a major role in the global climate, something that scientists have long sensed, but that we have now clearly demonstrated."

Francisco J. Jiménez Espejo, a researcher with the IACT, participated in his capacity as a specialist in inorganic geochemistry and physical properties during the IODP 361 expedition aboard the JOIDES Resolution research vessel. For two months, between January and March 2016, the research team sailed between Mauritius and Cape Town, collecting deep-sea sediment cores.

Jiménez Espejo's main contribution to the study focused on identifying the geochemical variations associated with glacial and interglacial periods, which has made it possible to estimate with greater accuracy the age of the sediment and its sensitivity to the different environmental changes associated with those periods.

Over the course of the last 3 million years, the Earth began to experience periodic glacial cooling. During the most recent episode, about 20,000 years ago, icebergs continuously reached the Atlantic coasts of the Iberian Peninsula from the Arctic. Currently, the Earth is in a warm interglacial period known as the Holocene.

However, the progressive increase in global temperature associated with CO2 emissions from industrial activities could affect the natural rhythm of glacial cycles. Ultimately, the Antarctic Ocean could become too warm for Antarctic icebergs to be able to carry freshwater north, and therefore a fundamental stage in the beginning of the ice ages--the variations in thermohaline circulation--would not take place.

Ian Hall, also of Cardiff University, who co-directed the scientific expedition, indicates that the results may contribute to understanding how the Earth's climate may respond to anthropic changes. Similarly, Jiménez Espejo, notes that "last year, during an expedition aboard Hespérides, the Spanish Navy research vessel, we were able to observe the immense A-68 iceberg that had just broken into several pieces next to the islands of South Georgia. Ocean warming may cause the trajectories and the melt patterns of these large icebergs to alter in the future, affecting the currents and, therefore, our climate and the validity of the models that scientists use to predict it."

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Bibliography:

DOI 10.1038/s41586-020-03094-7

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03094-7

'In the blink of an eye' statistics

People estimate size of the set of objects based on distance to them

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Research News

 

IMAGE: LEFT: SAMPLE WITH POSITIVE SIZE-DISTANCE CORRELATION; RIGHT: SAMPLE WITH NEGATIVE CORRELATION. IT MAY SEEM THAT SIZE VARIANCE ON THE LEFT IS HIGHER THAN ON THE RIGHT, BUT IN FACT, THE... view more 

CREDIT: YURY MARKOV, NATALIA TIURINA

HSE University researchers Yuri Markov and Natalia Tyurina discovered that when people visually estimate the size of objects, they are also able to consider their distance from the observer, even if there are many such objects. The observers rely not only on the objects' retinal representation, but also on the surrounding context. The paper was published in the journal Acta Psychologica.

Multiple studies in visual 'ensemble statistics' have proven that humans are able to visually estimate the statistical characteristics of multiple objects in a fast and rather precise manner. As an observer fixes the eye on a group of objects for a split second, they can estimate both the simple features of this set (mean size of set of circles) and the complex ones (mean emotion of people in the photo or mean price of a group of goods).

One feature that is most often looked in such studies is the size of objects. But in laboratory conditions, objects are displayed on a flat screen, while in real life, objects have a certain context, which, among other things, can characterize the distance from the observer.

There are two different representations of size in the visual system: 'retinal size' - the physical projection of an object on the retina, and 'perceived size' - the rescaled size of objects taking into account the distance to them. For example, the retinal sizes of two cups of tea placed at different distances from the observer will be different. Meanwhile, their perceived sizes will be the same, since we know that the reason for the difference in size is the distance rather than the difference between the cups.

It is still unknown what size is used to estimate the statistical features of an ensemble - 'retinal' or 'perceived'. In other words, is the visual system able to rescale the sizes of an ensemble of objects considering the distance before estimating their mean size?

To investigate this, the researchers carried out experiments with objects displayed at different depths. In the first experiment, the researchers demonstrated objects at different depths using a stereoscope - a device that uses mirrors to deliver images in different eyes with a small shift, which provides depth to the images (similar technology is used at 3D cinemas).

The second experiment used the Ponzo illusion, which also allows depth to be manipulated.

In both experiments, the scholars demonstrated differently sized objects at different depths and asked the respondents to estimate the variance of objects on the screen. In some samples, small objects were closer and big ones farther (positive size-distance correlation), while in the other samples it was the opposite (negative correlation).If 'retinal size' is used to estimate the variance in circle sizes, there will be no difference in answers to positive-correlation and negative-correlation samples. But if 'perceived size' is used for estimation, the circles in positive correlation (such as on the left picture) will be seen as those having higher variance due to the Ponzo illusion effect.

The results of both experiments confirmed that estimation is made according to 'perceived sizes': the respondents stated that in samples with positive correlation, circles had higher variance of sizes as compared to those with negative correlation.

These results prove that the visual system is able to estimate statistical characteristics of ensemble of objects quickly and automatically after rescaling them according to the distance.

'It seems that object rescaling by their distance happens very fast and very early in the visual system,' commented Yuri Markov, one of the study's authors. 'The information on the image is processed in high-level brain structures and, with the use of top-down feedback, regulates the activity of neurons responsible for object size assessment at earlier stages of processing. Only after that ensemble summary statistics are calculated.'

In addition to fundamental academic value, this conclusion can also help in better designing complicated VR/AR environments where the information may be presented for the user at varied distances.

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Combined vaccination and physical distancing enough to prevent future COVID-19 surges

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

Research News

 

IMAGE: (A) CHANGE OF TSCI IN WUHAN FROM DECEMBER 2019 THROUGH MAY 2020 IN THE FORM OF A PERCENTAGE OF THE AVERAGE PRE-LOCKDOWN LEVEL IN DECEMBER 2019 (100%). (B) THE ENLARGED... view more 

CREDIT: WORLDPOP, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

A combination of robust vaccination programmes and strict physical distancing rules could avoid recurring peaks of COVID-19 without the need to rely on stay-at-home restrictions, according to a new study by epidemiologists and demographers from WorldPop at the University of Southampton, in collaboration with The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

This research used anonymised mobile phone geolocation data with epidemiological and coronavirus case data from China to model the potential impact of vaccination and physical distancing on virus transmission. They predicted the effect of different combinations of interventions on low, medium and high density cities in the country.

The impact of physical distancing in containing future resurgences of COVID-19 depends greatly on the intensity of measures, population density, and the availability of vaccines across geographical areas and time. The researchers set out to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between these factors.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

The team predicts that in most cities, vaccination programmes and physical distancing combined will be enough to contain virus resurgence without the need to greatly restrict population mobility. Containment in this study was defined as maintaining a low transmission rate, or 'R' below one.

The researchers report cities with medium and high density populations will need both vaccination and distancing to prevent future intense waves of COVID-19, until herd immunity is reached. However, they suggest cities with low populations and effective vaccination could fully interrupt transmission without the need for physical distancing. In all cities, full 'stay-at-home' lockdowns would no longer be necessary.

The team's results also suggest strong physical distancing interventions implemented for short periods of time may be more effective than mild, longer term ones.

The author and spatial epidemiologist, Dr Shengjie Lai, Senior Research Fellow in Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Southampton comments: "Our research provides a framework and set of outputs that can be used by policy-makers and public health authorities to identify appropriate levels of intervention to keep COVID-19 outbreaks in check over time. Although our study was based on data from China, our methods and findings are applicable to cities worldwide with similar levels of population density and social contact patterns."

Director of WorldPop, Professor Andy Tatem, added: "Previous studies have assumed that when people reduce mobility, they proportionately reduce their social contacts, but this isn't necessarily the case and as more SARS-CoV-2 vaccines come online, there is an urgent need to understand the relationship between these factors, so we can adjust and tailor interventions and open up sections of society in a safer way."

The researchers recognise some limitations to their study, for example, the absence of data on the contribution of handwashing and face masks and challenges of vaccine supply, but emphasise that their approach can be quickly adapted to provide near real-time data to address emerging, time critical needs.

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Notes to Editors

1) The paper 'Integrated vaccination and physical distancing interventions to prevent future COVID?19 waves in Chinese cities,' is published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01063-2).

2) Mobility and social contact index data used in the study were aggregated and provided by Tencent, the largest social media company in China - covering 70 percent of the population in the mainland of the country. Epidemiological and coronavirus case data was sourced from records covering the Chinese city of Wuhan.

3) The University of Southampton drives original thinking, turns knowledge into action and impact, and creates solutions to the world's challenges. We are among the top 100 institutions globally (QS World University Rankings 2021). Our academics are leaders in their fields, forging links with high-profile international businesses and organisations, and inspiring a 22,000-strong community of exceptional students, from over 135 countries worldwide. Through our high-quality education, the University helps students on a journey of discovery to realise their potential and join our global network of over 200,000 alumni.
http://www.southampton.ac.uk

4) For more information on COVID-19 work being undertaken by WorldPop at the University of Southampton visit:
https://www.worldpop.org/covid19

5) For more about the The Chinese University of Hong Kong visit:
https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/english/index.html

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Eating more refined grains increases risk of heart attack & death: SFU researcher

The researchers examined diets from diverse populations in low, middle and high-income countries.

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

A new study published in The British Medical Journal by researchers including SFU health sciences professor Scott Lear found consuming a high number of refined grains, such as croissants and white bread, is associated with a higher risk of major cardiovascular disease, stroke and death.

The Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study has been examining diets from diverse populations in low-, middle- and high-income countries around the world. Over 16 years of analysis of 137,130 participants in 21 countries, including Canada, the researchers found the intake of refined grains and added sugars have greatly increased over the years.

Grains were categorized into three groups: refined grains, whole grains and white rice. Refined grains included goods made with refined (e.g. white) flour, including white bread, pasta/noodles, breakfast cereals, crackers, and bakery products/desserts containing refined grains. Whole grains included whole grain flours (e.g. buckwheat) and intact or cracked whole grains (eg. steel cut oats).

The study found that having more than seven servings of refined grains per day was associated with a 27 per cent greater risk for early death, 33 percent greater risk for heart disease and 47 per cent greater risk for stroke.

"This study re-affirms previous work indicating a healthy diet includes limiting overly processed and refined foods," says Lear.

No significant adverse health effects were found with consuming whole grains or white rice.

The study suggests eating whole grain foods like brown rice and barley, and having fewer cereal grains and refined wheat products. Reducing one's overall consumption of refined grains and having better quality car

 

Time-lapse reveals the hidden dance of roots

Scientists watch a plant root, then a root-like robot, waggle their way around obstacles to figure out how seedlings get their first foothold

DUKE UNIVERSITY

VIDEO: NEW TIME-LAPSE VIDEOS CAPTURE SOMETHING THAT'S TOO SLOW FOR OUR EYES TO SEE: THE GROWING TIPS OF RICE ROOTS MAKE CORKSCREW-LIKE MOTIONS, WAGGLING AND WINDING IN A HELICAL PATH AS... view more 

CREDIT: FOOTAGE COURTESY OF BENFEY/GOLDMAN LABS. PRODUCED BY VERONIQUE KOCH.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke researchers have been studying something that happens too slowly for our eyes to see. A team in biologist Philip Benfey's lab wanted to see how plant roots burrow into the soil. So they set up a camera on rice seeds sprouting in clear gel, taking a new picture every 15 minutes for several days after germination.

When they played their footage back at 15 frames per second, compressing 100 hours of growth into less than a minute, they saw that rice roots use a trick to gain their first foothold in the soil: their growing tips make corkscrew-like motions, waggling and winding in a helical path.

By using their time-lapse footage, along with a root-like robot to test ideas, the researchers gained new insights into how and why plant root tips twirl as they grow.

The first clue came from something else the team noticed: some roots can't do the corkscrew dance. The culprit, they found, is a mutation in a gene called HK1 that makes them grow straight down, instead of circling and meandering like other roots do.

The team also noted that the mutant roots grew twice as deep as normal ones. Which raised a question: "What does the more typical spiraling tip growth do for the plant?" said Isaiah Taylor, a postdoctoral associate in Benfey's lab at Duke.

Winding movements in plants were "a phenomenon that fascinated Charles Darwin," even 150 years ago, Benfey said. In the case of shoots, there's an obvious utility: twining and circling makes it easier to get a grip as they climb towards the sunlight. But how and why it happens in roots was more of a mystery.

Sprouting seeds have a challenge, the researchers say. If they're to survive, the first tiny root that emerges has to anchor the plant and probe downwards to suck up the water and nutrients the plant needs to grow.

Which got them thinking: perhaps in root tips this spiral growth is a search strategy -- a way to find the best path forward, Taylor said.

In experiments performed in physics professor Daniel Goldman's lab at Georgia Tech, observations of normal and mutant rice roots growing over a perforated plastic plate revealed that normal spiraling roots were three times more likely to find a hole and grow through to the other side.

Collaborators at Georgia Tech and the University of California, Santa Barbara built a soft pliable robot that unfurls from its tip like a root and set it loose in an obstacle course consisting of unevenly spaced pegs.

To create the robot, the team took two inflatable plastic tubes and nested them inside each other. Changing the air pressure pushed the soft inner tube from the inside out, making the robot elongate from the tip. Contracting opposing pairs of artificial "muscles" made the robot's tip bend side to side as it grew.

Even without sophisticated sensors or controls, the robotic root was still able to make its way past obstacles and find a path through the pegs. But when the side-to-side bending stopped, the robot quickly got stuck against a peg.

Finally, the team grew normal and mutant rice seeds in a dirt mix used for baseball fields, to test them out on obstacles a root would actually encounter in soil. Sure enough, while the mutants had trouble getting a toehold, the normal roots with spiral-growing tips were able to bore through.

A root tip's corkscrew growth is coordinated by the plant hormone auxin, a growth substance the researchers think may move around the tip of a growing root in a wave-like pattern. Auxin buildup on one side of the root causes those cells to elongate less than those on the other side, and the root tip bends in that direction.

Plants that carry the HK1 mutation can't dance because of a defect in how auxin is carried from cell to cell, the researchers found. Block this hormone and roots lose their ability to twirl.

The work helps scientists understand how roots grow in hard, compacted soil.

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This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (PHY-1915445, 1237975, GRFP-2015184268), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF3405), the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research (534683), the National Institutes of Health (GM122968) and the Dunn Family Professorship.

CITATION: "Mechanism and Function of Root Circumnutation," Isaiah Taylor, Kevin Lehner, Erin McCaskey, Niba Nirmal, Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin, Mason Murray-Cooper, Rashmi Jain, Elliot W. Hawkes, Pamela C. Ronald, Daniel I. Goldman, Philip N. Benfey. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb. 19, 2021. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2018940118.