New alpine moth solves a 180-year-old mystery

PENSOFT PUBLISHERS

Research News

IMAGE: THE NEWLY DISCOVERED DICHRORAMPHA VELATA MOTH view more 

CREDIT: JÜRG SCHMID

Butterflies and moths (order Lepidoptera) are one of the most diverse animal groups. To date, scientists have found as many as 5,000 species from the Alps alone. Having been a place of intensive research interest for 250 years, it is considered quite a sensation if a previously unknown species is discovered from the mountain range these days. This was the case when a Swiss-Austrian team of researchers described a new species of alpine moth in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Alpine Entomology, solving a 180-year-old mystery.

Decades of research work

Initially, the team - Jürg Schmid, a full-time dentist, author and passionate butterfly and moth researcher from Switzerland, and Peter Huemer, head of the natural science collections of the Tyrolean State Museums in Innsbruck and author of more than 400 publications, needed a lot of patience.

Almost thirty years ago, in the 1990s, the two researchers independently discovered the same moth species. While they found it was similar to a moth of the leaf-roller family Tortricidae and commonly named as Dichrorampha montanana which had been known to science since 1843, it was also clearly different. Wing pattern and internal morphology of genitalia structures supported a two-species hypothesis. Moreover, the two were found at the same time in the same places - a further indication that they belong to separate species. Extensive genetic investigations later confirmed this hypothesis, but the journey of presenting a new species to science was far from over.

The Hidden Alpine Moth

To "baptise" a new species and give it its own name, scientists first have to check that it hasn't already been named. This prevents the same species from having two different names, and essentially means looking at descriptions of similar species and comparing the new one against them to prove it is indeed unknown to science. In the case of this new moth, there were six potentially applicable older names that had to be ruled out before it could be named as new.

Intensive and time-consuming research of original specimens in the nature museums of Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt and London eventually led to the finding that all six ancient names actually referred to one and the same species - Dichrorampha alpestrana, which has been known since 1843 and had to be adopted as the valid older name for Dichrorampha montanana as having been described a couple of months earlier. Similarly, all other available names proved to belong to Dichrorampha alpestrana. The species discovered by Schmid and Huemer, however, was different, not yet named, and could finally be described as new to science. The authors chose to name it Dichrorampha velata - the Latin species name means "veiled" or "hidden," pointing to the complicated story behind its discovery.

Lots of unanswered questions

The Hidden Alpine Moth is a striking species with a wingspan of up to 16 mm and a characteristic olive-brown color of the forewings with silvery lines. It belongs to a group of mainly diurnal moths and is particularly common locally in colorful mountain flower meadows. For now, we know that its distribution extends at least from Salzburg and Tyrol through southern Switzerland and the Jura to the French and Italian Alps, with isolated finds known from the Black Forest in Germany, but the researchers believe it might have a wider range in Central Europe.

The biology of the new species is completely unknown, but Huemer and Schmid speculate that its caterpillars may live in the rhizome of yarrow or chrysanthemums like other species of the same genus. As with many other alpine moths, there is a strong need for further research, so we can get a better understanding of this fascinating insect.

CAPTION

Habitat of the new moth species Dichrorampha velata

CREDIT

Juerg Schmid

Original source:

Schmid J, Huemer P (2021) Unraveling a complex problem: Dichrorampha velata sp. nov., a new species from the Alps hitherto confounded with D. alpestrana ([Zeller], 1843) sp. rev. = D. montanana (Duponchel, 1843) syn. nov. (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae). Alpine Entomology 5: 37-54. https://doi.org/10.3897/alpento.5.67498

Why is the eastern monarch butterfly disappearing?

A Spartan-led research team has uncovered an answer -- at least for the most recent population decline -- with a huge assist from volunteers

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

Michigan State University ecologists led an international research partnership of professional and volunteer scientists to reveal new insights into what's driving the already-dwindling population of eastern monarch butterflies even lower.

Between 2004 and 2018, changing climate at the monarch's spring and summer breeding grounds has had the most significant impact on this declining population. In fact, the effects of climate change have been nearly seven times more significant than other contributors, such as habitat loss. The team published its report July 19 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

"What we do is develop models to understand why monarchs are declining and what's happening to biodiversity in general," said Erin Zylstra, the study's lead author. Zylstra is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Biology and the Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Program, both in MSU's College of Natural Science.

"A lot of it is not good news. But in understanding the reasons why a species is declining, there is also a message of hope: there's something we can do about it," said Zylstra. "We did this study not just to say what's causing changes in the monarch butterfly population, but also learn how we can make it better."

Understanding the monarch decline and doing what we can to reverse it is important not just for preserving biodiversity, but also because insects are prolific pollinators. The eastern population of monarchs migrates between Mexico and the eastern half of the U.S. and southern Canada every year -- with summer layovers in Michigan and other U.S. states. Since the mid-1990s, though, there has been a dramatic decline in their population, with worst-case estimates projecting that the current population is a mere 20% of what it was just a few decades ago.

The mid-1990s through the mid-2000s saw the most dramatic decline, coinciding with a period when glyphosate weed killers became hugely popular in the agricultural industry. Farmers grew crops that were engineered to be resistant to glyphosate, allowing them to apply the chemical widely, decimating milkweed plants that are the sole host and food source for monarch caterpillars.

The prevailing theory during that period has been that the loss of milkweed from agricultural areas was responsible for the severe declines. Since then, monarch populations have continued to fall. Although glyphosate-driven milkweed loss remained one possible explanation, other theories emerged over time. Today, researchers are divided on what's stunting the monarch's population.

About a decade ago, however, Leslie Ries of Georgetown University and Elise Zipkin, now an associate professor of integrative biology at MSU, came to a realization. Researchers and volunteers were collecting an increasing amount of data that could help make a more definitive determination of what's driving the monarch population decline.

"People have different hypotheses," said Zipkin, the senior author on the new study and director of the Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Program. "So we tried to come in as an impartial team, take the time and put all these pieces together to really parse out the contributions of various stressors."

Part of what makes it so difficult to understand the decline is the eastern monarch's complicated life cycle. These monarchs spend their winters, November through February, in central Mexico. When the weather starts to warm, they head north to the southeastern U.S., particularly eastern Texas.

Once there, the adults breed, lay eggs and then die. It's the next generation that continues the migration, starting in about May, flying to the Midwest and parts of Canada, where they produce two to three more generations. The butterflies that develop in late August shut down their reproductive systems and spend their energy migrating south back to Mexico, where the cycle begins anew.

With support from the National Science Foundation, the team analyzed data from more than 18,000 surveys of monarchs in different locations across the midwestern U.S., central Mexico and southern Canada between 1994 and 2018. Most of these surveys were performed by local volunteers who helped count adult butterflies.

"Almost all of those data were not collected by professional scientists and that is really, really cool," Zipkin said. "There is no group of scientists out there that could collect all the data that we needed. But these volunteers go out every year and record data in a very structured way. That's the only way we could do this analysis."

"The level of expertise among the volunteers is really incredible," said Zylstra.

Zylstra led the effort to develop a model based on these observations and draw meaningful conclusions. In particular, the team was interested in what the data said about the three leading theories behind the eastern monarch's population decline: milkweed habitat loss, mortality during the autumn migration and resettlement on the overwintering grounds, and climate change's detrimental impact on monarch breeding success.

"I think that everyone is partially right. All of these things do play some role. With monarchs, everything is nuanced, and everything is tricky," said Zylstra. "But in recent years, as glyphosate applications have remained more stable, although still very high, there is strong evidence that population changes are driven by climate on the spring and summer breeding grounds."

Each of these hypotheses can contribute to lost butterflies at smaller scales, Zylstra explained. But looking at the problem holistically -- across many years and multiple countries -- makes it clear that climate change has been the dominant disruptive force since 2004. Unfortunately, there isn't enough data in agricultural regions to definitively determine what happened between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s, the period of the most pronounced decline.

To get the full picture of the population decline, the team needed to understand the dynamics of many generations in many locations. Hence the need for thousands upon thousands of surveys. The herculean effort of collecting and making sense of this data has also reaped two large rewards.

First, by proving the model's potential to tease out population dynamics for something as complicated as the eastern monarch, the team is optimistic it can adapt the model to understand what's driving population changes in other species, too.

Secondly, this understanding should help inform where conservation efforts can provide the greatest benefit for the eastern monarch's numbers.

"This study gives us information on where to spend our limited dollars on restoration," Zylstra said.

Although we can't simply turn off climate change, we can, for example, focus on restoring milkweed in the regions that remain most conducive to monarch reproduction despite warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns, she said. That said, anything we can do to curb climate change will also improve the outlook for both monarchs and humanity, she added.

And although curbing climate change is a huge lift, Zipkin pointed out that this study reminds us of the power of partnerships to confront large challenges.

"We're talking about three countries that this is directly affecting: the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It's not something that we have to do alone," Zipkin said. "Partnerships do matter."

Working out what's behind the population decline proved that. Between the professional scientists and volunteer data collectors, residents of all three countries made this study possible.

"You need those kinds of partnerships. You need people with different expertise. We showed that's how we can figure out what's going on. Now, what can we do with conservation?" Zipkin asked. "We can work together."

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uOttawa study first to investigate newly introduced butterfly which could become widespread in Canada

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

Research News

IMAGE: MALE AND FEMALE POLYOMMATUS ICARUS MATING view more 

CREDIT: STEPHANIE A. RIVEST

This summer, if you see a butterfly with wings that are blue on top with orange spots underneath, you may have crossed paths with a male European Common Blue (or Polyommatus icarus), a newly introduced species in Canada.

Could it be a fluke? Probably not, according to a group of researchers from the University of Ottawa who have taken a close look at this captivating blue creature. They are in fact the first to study its ecology.

"The results of our study suggest that the Polyommatus icarus (P. icarus) could become widespread in the future since it prefers urban areas," said uOttawa PhD student Stephanie Rivest, who is the first author of the article "Anthropogenic disturbance promotes the abundance of a newly introduced butterfly, the European common blue (Polyommatus icarus; Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae), in Canada" published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology.

"It can reach extremely high densities and its caterpillars depend on a host plant that is ubiquitous across Canada."

A new home

Commonly found in Europe, P. icarus was discovered near Montreal, Québec in 2005. Its introduction provided Rivest's team with a rare opportunity to study a non-native insect during the early stages of its colonization and gain further insights into the progression of an invasion.

"The rate that animal and plant species are being introduced beyond their home ranges is increasing globally, but only a few of these species will become invasive - which means they are widespread, abundant, and have negative effects on ecological communities," explained Rivest. "That's why it's so important for newly introduced species to be studied, like we did here, so that we can better understand and predict which introduced species are likely to become invasive."

CAPTION

Polyommatus icarus on Birds Foot Trefoil marked with an identification number used during Rivest's study.

CREDIT

Stephanie A. Rivest

Predicting the spread

"We found that P. icarus is most abundant in urban areas and where its preferred caterpillar food plant, Birds Foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), is found," said Rivest. "This plant was introduced to North America in the mid-1700s and can now be found in every Canadian province."

"Our study also shows that P. icarus can reach extremely high densities relative to native butterflies and that it is a low-moderate disperser - that is, adults are not great fliers," explained Rivest.

This butterfly might not win a flying contest, but it could still become widespread in Canada.

"Building on our initial assessment of P. icarus, we need future studies to model the predicted trajectory of range expansion and to investigate other potentially important factors," added Dr. Heather Kharouba, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa and head of the lab where the research was conducted.

CAPTION

Polyommatus icarus mud-puddling.

CREDIT

Stephanie A. Rivest

A population on the rise

When the study began in 2017, the European Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) could only be found in southwestern Québec. That's where Rivest and her colleagues conducted their field surveys. They collected information about butterfly communities and their habitat in several sites, and later measured the ability of P. icarus adults to fly. To do that, they marked as many P. icarus individuals as possible with a permanent marker.

"Each individual received a unique marking on their wing so that if they were ever recaptured, we could measure the distance they flew," said Rivest. "We captured and marked an astounding number of individuals, 4629 to be exact!"

These butterflies have now found their way outside of Québec.

"Since our study began in 2017, there has been an increase in the number of P. icarus observations on citizen science websites like eButterfly and iNaturalist," said Stephanie Rivest. "These observations suggest that P. icarus has expanded its range since individuals can now be found in Toronto, over 400 km away from our study region."

"We encourage the public to contribute to the monitoring of P. icarus by uploading their observations of this easy to identify butterfly species."

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More bullying of LGBTQ+ students in politically conservative districts

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

PULLMAN, Wash. --Students who identify as LGBTQ+ in Washington state school districts with conservative voting records reported experiencing more bullying than their peers in more politically liberal areas, according to a new study.

For the study in the journal Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, researchers explored the relationships among school district voting records in the 2016 presidential election, bullying experiences in schools and mental health outcomes of LGBTQ+ youth in the state.

The study shows LGBTQ+ students are at a higher risk for psychological distress and suicidality as a result of bullying, particularly in school districts that voted for former President Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Students in conservative voting districts also reported their teachers were less likely to intervene in instances of bullying than students who responded from more liberal voting districts.

"To my knowledge, nobody has really looked at this connection between a school district's political attitudes and the experiences of LGBTQ+ students in schools," said Paul Kwon, professor of psychology at Washington State University and coauthor of the study. "This project highlights an inequity that is not talked about a lot and shows the need for more explicit and inclusive anti-bullying legislation and policies that help mitigate the risks to LGBTQ+ youth regardless of district political attitudes."

Kwon and his colleagues' work supports previous research showing anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice is consistently related to political ideology and beliefs. For the current study, they analyzed the responses of nearly 50,000 students in 8-12 grades to the 2018 Washington State Healthy Youth Survey. The survey asks students about a variety of factors including sexual and gender identity, bullying and whether or not teachers intervened during instances of bullying. In total, 20% or nearly 10,000 students in the survey identified as being LGBTQ+.

According to the analysis, when teachers intervened "almost always" in instances of bullying, LGBTQ+ students reported experiencing bullying rates that were nearly identical to non-LGBTQ+ students.

When intervention did not occur, LGBTQ+ youth experienced more bullying, and subsequently, more psychological distress and suicidality.

"This was especially prevalent in more conservative school districts where LGBTQ+ youth report less teacher intervention despite experiencing more bullying," Kwon said. "Over 35% of youth in our study are students in a conservative leaning school district, possibly placing them at greater risk for more bullying experiences and higher psychological distress."

While each school district in Washington is mandated to enact policy that at minimum, complies with legislation prohibiting harassment, intimidation and bullying, Kwon and colleagues suggest individual school boards, regardless of political leanings, implement policy that goes beyond minimum protections for LGBTQ+ youth.

For example, the researchers suggest school policy should include explicit parameters for training and education for teachers regarding LGBTQ+ bullying as well as steps for teachers and administrators to intervene following LGBTQ+ bullying experiences. In addition, they suggest that all school websites explicitly describe anti-bullying policies as they relate to LGBTQ+ youth using specific examples.

"We also recommend educators discuss anti-bullying policy with students and families at the start of each school year, while concurrently highlighting LGBTQ+ identities, particularly in conservative districts," Kwon said. "After all, students have little choice in the school they attend, almost no choice in the school district they belong to and are unable to vote until they are 18. Thus, they are subjected to the environment of the school and broader culture of the school district chosen for them."

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Inadequate protection for women and girls seeking refuge in Germany

"Shadow report" with input from the University of Göttingen criticises the Federal Government's implementation of the Istanbul Convention

UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN

Research News

Germany is not meeting its legal obligations to protect refugee women and girls from discrimination. This is the conclusion of a "shadow report" by the University of Göttingen, the association Pro Asyl and the refugee councils of Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Shadow reports are a useful tool to present important information in parallel with official government reports. Based on current research results and a survey of 65 women's counselling centres, psychosocial counselling centres and institutions working with refugees from all 16 federal states, the study finds that Germany does not adequately protect refugee women and girls and does not meet the requirements of the Istanbul Convention.

"The Istanbul Convention - also known as the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence - has been in force in Germany for over two years," explains migration researcher Professor Sabine Hess from the University of Göttingen. "With its ratification, the Federal Republic of Germany made a binding commitment to protect women from all forms of violence, regardless of their residence status, to contribute to the elimination of discrimination against them and to promote their equality and rights."

The authors of the report criticise the situation in Germany. In particular, they highlight: long periods of time in holding centres for refugees; the lack of strategies for protection against violence in these camps; the lack of expertise with regard to vulnerable people and those affected by violence; inadequate healthcare for women and girls as well as inadequate counselling and support structures.

"The German government is really not fulfilling its legal obligations, under the Istanbul Convention, to protect women and girls from violence, regardless of their residence status," says Hess. "On the contrary, the recent tightening of German asylum and residence law is emphatically at odds with the concept of protection against violence. It is absolutely essential that action is taken to change this."

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The full report can be found in English and German here: https://uni-goettingen.de/en/647126.html

http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/208718.html

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsi

 

Scientists on the scent of flavor enhancement

Researchers study sense of smell to optimize food for consumption

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Flavor is the name of the game for scientists who want to optimize food for consumption in ways that improve nutrition or combat obesity.

But there is more to flavor than the substances that meet the mouth. Olfaction, our sense of smell, is a major contributor to how we perceive aromas, especially those related to what we eat.

With hopes to capitalize on the smell factor in flavor development, researchers are exploring how the route an aroma takes to get to the olfactory system, through the nose or the back of the throat, influences our response to the scent in question.

In a new study, when participants were asked to match a known scent such as rose with one of four unknown scents, they did best when the aromas were introduced in the same way, either through sniffing them in a vial or drinking them in a solution - an expected result.

The scientists were surprised to find, however, that participants were also better at matching aromas when the reference scent - the one that they were going to try to find a match for - was not labeled with its familiar name. The less they knew about the reference aroma, the higher their chances of correctly identifying a match - a finding that suggests aroma detection involves learning, memory and cognitive strategy.

The team eventually wants to consider other factors that could influence the perception of aromas and flavors, such as genetics and our microbiomes, the communities of microbes living in our nasal passages and oral cavities.

"A better understanding of these mechanisms could give us another way to modulate flavors and to modulate food-related experiences," said Christopher Simons, associate professor of food science and technology at The Ohio State University and senior author of the study. "It's really hard to understand what people experience, and I don't have access to your brain to see exactly what you're perceiving. But if there are ways to influence that perception, maybe that's a way to get people to eat healthier."

The study is published in the September 2021 issue of the journal Physiology and Behavior.

Simons and colleagues were testing the theory known as the "duality of smell," which posits that how we perceive what we're smelling depends on which path it takes to get to the olfactory system.

The theory has been supported by tests of food flavors that we're used to putting in our mouths. In this study, the researchers used less familiar floral scents - which study participants drank in a solution to activate the sense of smell through the back of the throat and sniffed from a vial to activate the sense of smell through the nose.

The 34 participants would first either sniff or drink the reference scent, which was labeled with its common name - the choices were rose, lavender, honeysuckle or jasmine - its Latin name, or a generic label that gave no information. They then sampled the same unnamed four floral scents - either through the same sense-of-smell pathway or its opposite - with the goal of finding the match to the reference aroma.

When the routes of delivery differed, participants made more mistakes, meaning there was something about those delivery systems to the nose that altered their ability to recognize similar scents - further supporting the duality of smell hypothesis.

But the finding that no information was better than a clear scent name was unexpected - and also suggests that this is where cognitive activity comes into play.

"If I say 'rose,' there's information that will affect the way you process and smell those aromas. When there's no identifying information, what you have to do is profile - smell it and find something distinguishing about that particular aroma. That's much harder than knowing what you're looking for," Simons said.

"We think there's cognitive interference from the language centers that impacts how people do this matching and searching test. ... Fundamentally, the fact you have exactly the same stimulus that activates exactly the same receptors, and you can't make a match - that's fascinating."

Simons is interested in repeating this kind of test with unpleasant aromas to see if the theory holds up, and also hopes to conduct experiments that could reveal whether our genetic makeup or the array of microbes and enzymes in our noses and mouths hold secrets to why the duality of smell exists in the first place.

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This work was supported by state and federal funds appropriated to Ohio State's Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. Co-authors Mackenzie Hannum and Jenna Fryer were students in Simons' lab.

African swine fever: No risk to consumers

Pathogen cannot be transferred to humans

BFR FEDERAL INSTITUTE FOR RISK ASSESSMENT

Research News

African swine fever (ASF), first detected in Germany in domestic pigs on 15 July 2021, does not pose a health hazard to humans. "The ASF pathogen cannot be transferred to humans", explains Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel, President of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). "No risk to health is posed by direct contact with diseased animals or from eating food made from infected domestic pigs or wild boar".

The ASF pathogen is a virus which infects domestic pigs and wild boar and which leads to a severe, often lethal, disease in these animals. It is transferred via direct contact or with excretions from infected animals, or through ticks. The ASF virus is endemic to infected wild animals in Africa, but there have also repeatedly been outbreaks in southern Europe. The pathogen has been spreading north-westwards since 2007 from Georgia through Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. Cases of ASF have been registered in wild boar along with outbreaks in domestic pigs in the Baltic states since 2014. The virus has also been detected in Romania, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. In September 2018, the pathogen was also found in wild boars in Belgium and thus for the first time in Western Europe. On 10 September 2020, the ASF virus has been detected for the first time in Germany in a wild boar in Brandenburg. The first cases of ASF in domestic pigs in Germany were detected in two pig farms in Brandenburg on 15 July 2021.

The pathogen is very stable and can remain infectious in food over several months. If unheated food or food scraps from infected animals are fed to non-infected animals, the virus can therefore spread to previously ASF-free regions, thus infecting domestic pig herds too.

Although the ASF virus does not pose a hazard or a risk to humans, the meat of domestic pigs and wild boar should always be prepared under hygienic conditions, just like all other raw meats, as it can also contain other pathogens, advises the BfR. It should be kept refrigerated and prepared separately from other foods before cooking. When heating, a temperature of 70 degrees Celsius or higher should be reached at all parts of the food for at least two minutes, the BfR recommends.

The BfR has compiled some frequently asked questions about ASF for further information. They can be downloaded on the BfR website.

https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/frequently_asked_questions_about_african_swine_fever__asf_-205379.html

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About the BfR

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is a scientifically independent institution within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in Germany. It advises the Federal Government and Federal Laender on questions of food, chemical and product safety. The BfR conducts its own research on topics that are closely linked to its assessment tasks.

This text version is a translation of the original German text which is the only legally binding version.

No stone unturned: An extensive search for cation substitution in lithium-ion batteries

Scientists demonstrate an inexpensive computational technique to screen for atomic substitutions in lithium-ion batteries to boost their capacity

JAPAN ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Research News

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS USED DENSITY FUNCTIONAL THEORY (DFT) AND SCAN EXCHANGE-CORRELATION FUNCTIONAL TO QUANTITATIVELY DERIVE RELIABLE DISCHARGE PROFILES (RIGHT), ALLEVIATING THE QUANTITATIVE INCONSISTENCIES OF TRADITIONAL DFT. view more 

CREDIT: COURTESY: RYO MAEZONO FROM JAIST

Ishikawa, Japan - Powering everything from smartphones to electric cars, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have evolved markedly with advances in technology and revolutionized our world. The next step in the progress of technology is developing even better batteries to power electronic devices for longer durations. One promising technique for increasing battery performance involves the atomic substitution of positively charged ions or "cations" in the cathode material. However, doing so systematically for different substituent cations to determine the ideal ones experimentally is complex and expensive, leaving us with simulations as the only viable option for narrowing down the choices.

Several studies have reported an improved battery life and thermal stability based on their findings using a simulation-based approach. However, such improvements have, in turn, lowered the discharge capacity of the battery, which is the amount of energy that a battery can supply in a single discharge. As a result, an extensive search must be performed for the cation substituent that enhances the discharge capacity.

Against this backdrop, a team of scientists led by Prof. Ryo Maezono from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) conducted an extensive screening of different cations for partial substitution of nickel in a nickel-based LIB with the intent of enhancing the battery discharge capacity.

"The discharge capacity can be determined using the discharge profile, which is the voltage change during the charge-discharge process," explains Prof. Maezono. "We used first-principles calculations to evaluate the discharge profiles of materials that, in turn, determines their discharge capacities. However, these calculations are computationally costly, so we integrated other methods to narrow down the candidates for cation replacement. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that successfully predicts cation substitution to increase battery capacity." The groundbreaking study has been published in a recent issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

A prominent strategy for successfully predicting the discharge voltage profile is the "strongly constrained and appropriately normed" (SCAN) functional. However, due to the large computing costs involved, such methods are impractical for extensive screening. So, the team began by using relatively inexpensive techniques such as density functional theory and cluster expansion to identify suitable candidates for cation replacement and then applied SCAN functional to the inferred candidates to assure reliability and accuracy in voltage predictions.

The screening process revealed that the highest discharge capacity was obtained when nickel was partially substituted with platinum and palladium in nickel-based LIB. These results were consistent with the experimental data, validating the proposed methodology.

While Prof. Maezono emphasizes the need for additional research, he is optimistic about the future of their low-cost screening process. "Our findings indicate that substituents such as rhenium and osmium offer high discharge capacities. However, these elements are rare and costly, and putting them to practical use would be challenging. Further study is needed to achieve the same effect with less substitution, multiple element substitution, or anion substitution," he says. "Having said that, our novel computational technique will accelerate the search for optimal materials that improve battery performance at lower costs, allowing us to replace the bulk of our current electricity sources with carbon-free alternatives."

Hopefully, such advances will bring humankind one step closer to becoming an environment-friendly species in the near future!

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Reference

Title of original paper: "High-Throughput Evaluation of Discharge Profiles of Nickel Substitution in LiNiO2 by Ab Initio Calculations"

Journal: The Journal of Physical Chemistry C

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c11589

About Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Founded in 1990 in Ishikawa prefecture, the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) was the first independent national graduate school in Japan. Now, after 30 years of steady progress, JAIST has become one of Japan's top-ranking universities. JAIST counts with multiple satellite campuses and strives to foster capable leaders with a state-of-the-art education system where diversity is key; about 40% of its alumni are international students. The university has a unique style of graduate education based on a carefully designed coursework-oriented curriculum to ensure that its students have a solid foundation on which to carry out cutting-edge research. JAIST also works closely both with local and overseas communities by promoting industry-academia collaborative research.

About Professor Ryo Maezono from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Dr. Ryo Maezono has been a Professor at the School of Information Science at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) since 2017. He earned his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 2000 and worked as a researcher at the National Institute for Materials Science in Ibaraki, Japan from 2001 to 2007. His research areas include material informatics and condensed matter theory using high-performance computing. He is a senior researcher with 101 papers and 1519 citations to his name.

Funding information

This research received financial support from HPCI System Research Project (Project ID: hp190169), MEXT-KAKENHI (JP16H06439, JP17K17762, JP19K05029, JP19H05169, JP19H04692, and JP16KK0097), FLAGSHIP2020 (Project Nos. hp190169 and hp190167 at K-computer), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR-AOARD/FA2386-17-1-4049; FA2386-19- 1-4015), and JSPS Bilateral Joint Projects (with India DST).

Unsustainable Arctic shipping risks accelerating damage to the Arctic environment

The economic and environmental pros and cons of melting Arctic ice creating shorter shipping routes through the polar region are weighed up in ground-breaking research from UCL experts in energy and transport.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

Research News

The economic and environmental pros and cons of melting Arctic ice creating shorter shipping routes through the polar region are weighed up in ground-breaking research from UCL experts in energy and transport.

They conclude that policy makers must properly assess the environmental trade-offs and costs in addition to the commercial benefits and opportunities in Arctic shipping. The authors also want to see more incentives to drive technological developments that will accelerate the uptake of green fuels and technologies.

The Arctic is the fastest-warming region on the planet.

Shorter Arctic shipping routes, which mean less fuel used are already used by a handful of ships, when areas of the Arctic ice melt during the summer. But the period when these routes are navigable is predicted to extend with increases in global warming and, if warming fails to remain within the 1.5?C/2?C limit set out in the Paris agreement, permanent Arctic ice may be a thing of the past.

The research, published in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, looked at the financial competitiveness of Arctic shipping, considering the impact of emissions from these vessels on the environment.

They looked at two policy scenarios, one being business-as-usual, where there is no policy on emissions, and the other operating under an Arctic specific zero-emissions policy, where ships which could run using energy from renewable sources were considered.

When environmental costs are ignored, fossil fuel based residual fuel oil is cheaper than alternative fuels. However, when the environmental impacts of accelerating climate change and the adverse effects of ship emissions on human health are considered, residual fuel ships are no longer feasible because of their contribution to greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions.

The experts conclude that, in the second scenario, green ammonia fuel cell ships are the most commercially viable and that policies which facilitate the introduction of such zero carbon fuels and zero emission technologies should be encouraged. Green ammonia is an example of a fuel that can be emissions free in both its production and use, given a green electric infrastructure.

Lead author Joseph Lambert (UCL Energy Institute) said: "Significant change is under way in the Arctic region due to global warming and from a shipping perspective we should prepare for what this means through assessing all the opportunities, risks and trade-offs that aren't exclusively financial. These routes may become more financially competitive as global warming increases and Arctic ice retreats, but more factors must be considered. It is critical that the Arctic ice maintains its permanency - in order to stay within global warming targets and to protect the region's ecology."

Co-author Dr Tristan Smith (UCL Energy Institute), who supervised the research, said: "This is a novel work that shows the economic costs alongside the environmental costs for the Arctic route, as well as showing how certain technology choices, that could be incentivised through policy, could significantly reduce the environmental costs that would otherwise arise from Arctic shipping. The paper shows a clear justification for governments to intervene now to prevent a melting Arctic's enabling of a reduction in shipping costs because of further acceleration of the degradation of this crucial ecosystem."

The researchers say impacts that need to be explored include the effects of ecological damage, and how policy can be structured to address the environmental concerns.

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Notes to Editors

For more information, embargoed copies of the paper, or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact:

Jane Bolger, UCL Media Relations. T: +44 (0)20 3108 9040, E: j.bolger@ucl.ac.uk

A techno-economic environmental cost model for Arctic shipping is published in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice

The DOI for this paper is: 10.1016/j.tra.2021.06.022

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Survey shows rise in vaccine hesitancy in Ghana

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

Research News

Research led by the University of Southampton into the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in Ghana, West Africa has concluded that vaccine hesitancy has seen a small, but significant increase over the last three months. This research is in collaboration with youth-led not-for-profit organisation PACKS Africa.

In the latest survey of 1,295 unvaccinated people, in May/June 2021, willingness to be vaccinated remained relatively high at just over 71.4 percent. However, this figure is down 11 percent on results from March 2021 when an earlier version of the same survey was conducted.

The latest findings show 28.6 percent of respondents are still either undecided or unwilling to get the jab. Among this 28.6 percent group, a little over half said they didn't have enough information, with some believing the vaccine to be dangerous and others mistrusting the government. The odds of accepting the vaccine was 1.43 times higher for respondents who got their vaccine-related information from the Ghana Health Service.

Report author and Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, Dr Ken Brackstone said: "Proactive health promotion and public health messaging is vital to reassure the Ghanaian general public about vaccine safety. Vaccine supply to Ghana and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa is too slow and when supplies do arrive, they will undoubtedly be limited, so it's imperative that they end up in people's arms."

Just under a third of all those who took part in the survey reported that they had seen or heard stories about the indecision surrounding the rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe and North America, with many admitting this made them concerned about accepting a COVID-19 vaccine in the future.

Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health at Southampton who also worked on the report, commented: "The COVID-19 vaccines will be the key tools that underpin the global route out of the pandemic. Therefore, an observed increase in hesitancy gives some cause for concern. The actions of how we in Europe and North America handle these vaccines is seen all over the world, and we don't want the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine to be widely viewed as ineffective or dangerous, when the evidence shows it is safe and effective."

The survey also found that education, religion and political alignment play a part in influencing vaccination acceptance. Interestingly, it revealed that people educated to University level are more likely to show vaccine hesitancy than those who aren't.

Kirchuffs Atengble, Executive Director of PACKS Africa said: "In recent times, the political terrain in Ghana has become very fluid and volatile, influencing policy response by a good number of citizens. Following positive vaccine response from the leadership of the two major political parties, the Ghana Health Service may want to pursue multidimensional strategies to increase COVID-19 vaccination uptake, including vaccine communication through political agents across the divides, community opinion leaders and repentant anti-vaccine campaigners."

The findings are presented in a report (not yet a peer-reviewed paper - journal papers are being prepared) Examining Drivers of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Ghana. The team hopes the findings will be useful for stakeholders in Ghana, and that lessons can be learned, adapted and adopted by other African nations.

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Notes to Editors

1) For interviews with Dr Michael Head contact Peter Franklin, Media Relations, University of Southampton. Tel: +44 07748 321087 Email: p.franklin@southampton.ac.uk

2) For Ghana interviews with Kirchuffs Atengble, Executive Director of PACKS Africa, contact kirchuffs.atengble@gmail.com.

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 on the University of Southampton Global Health Research Institute visit: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/global-health/index.page

5) For more about PACKS Africa visit: https://www.packs-africa.org/