 |
| https://www.academia.edu/36000543/Black_Sun?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper |
Thursday, August 26, 2021
Rotating presence at school, work limits COVID spread: study
The best way to keep COVID cases out of businesses and schools while maintaining some in-person presence is to create two rotating groups, a French study showed Thursday.
Several research institutions including the CNRS and the University of Paris mapped real-world contact networks using data from a high school, a primary school and a business in France.
They then used the networks to simulate the spread of coronavirus from a single case, testing what method of partial teleworking would most efficiently mitigate an outbreak.
They looked at scenarios in which an entire population would alternate its presence daily or weekly, as well as scenarios in which populations would be divided into two groups rotating daily or weekly.
For all three settings, two groups rotating weekly work best to slow transmission of an infection, the study published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology concluded.
The second most effective method is to have two groups rotate daily, it found.
Alternating the presence of a whole population of students or workers on a weekly or daily basis, however, was found to be least effective for social cohesion.
Researchers used information on real-world interactions between individuals and simulated the spread of coronavirus using known information about the virus's behaviour.
They accounted for the fact that COVID can be contagious before symptoms appear and included random "super-spreader" events in their models.
In a baseline scenario—a primary school with normal attendance—there was a 27 percent chance that a positive case will lead to an outbreak, which is defined as one person infecting at least five others.
But that likelihood falls to just 12 percent if the population is divided into groups that rotate weekly. The risk is only slightly higher for groups that rotate daily, 12.3 percent.
The weekly rotation model is also the most efficient at delaying an outbreak and at limiting the overall number of infections.
But these strategies only work if the amount of virus circulating in the local population remains limited.
If the average number of persons infected by a single case is more than 1.7, "then none of these strategies, except for the full-time telecommuting, suffices to prevent the onset of an outbreak", the study says.
But if the virus is spreading at a rate of 1.4 new cases for each infected person, "all four of these strategies are satisfactory and manage to curb the epidemic", the study shows.
An in-person return to school is planned for all students in France next week.
A system of weekly rotating groups applied to some middle- and high-schools across the country could return if cases start to rise again, officials have saidWhen thinking about reopening schools, the rate of community transmission is a key factor
More information: Simon Mauras et al, Mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks in workplaces and schools by hybrid telecommuting, PLOS Computational Biology (2021). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009264
Journal information: PLoS Computational Biology
© 2021 AFP
New study: Heat stress in dairy cows damages health of calves
Researchers reporting in JDS CommunicationsTM found that heat stress of pregnant dairy cows reduces fetal growth and influences performance and immune development of the offspring
IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCHERS STUDIED THE EFFECTS OF HEAT STRESS IN DAIRY COWS FROM MOTHERS TO CALVES. view more
CREDIT: JIMENA LAPORTA
Philadelphia, August 26, 2021 – As scientists continue to explore the wide-ranging effects of heat stress on the health of dairy cattle, a new study by researchers from the University of Florida, published in the September issue of JDS Communications, adds to the growing understanding of the negative influences of heat stress, not just throughout the lifespan but across generations.
With the goals of evaluating the effects of in utero heat stress on overall fetal and organ growth, particularly organs associated with immune function, and examining the cellular mechanism of altered passive immunity in neonatal bull calves after maternal heat stress, the team exposed pregnant Holstein cows to the extreme heat of the Florida summer and gathered data about the resulting offspring, comparing these against data on calves born to cows provided with cooling measures during late pregnancy. The team found that calves born to heat-stressed cows had lower birth weights, lower weights of organs, including the heart, liver, kidneys, thymus, and spleen, and higher rates of cell death in the intestine.
The lower birth weights observed by the researchers suggest reduced placental function and earlier delivery, with less progressed fetal development. The lower weights of the heart, liver, and kidneys among calves born to heat-stressed dams also suggest compromised placental and fetal development.
Senior author Geoffrey E. Dahl, PhD, of the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, explains that “Calves, like all young animals, are prone to elevated rates of mortality and morbidity in the neonatal period, and preterm birth may further exacerbate that problem. Early-life losses may result from organ immaturity and dysfunction, notably of the gastrointestinal tract and the immune system.”
The team suggests that reduced weights of the thymus and spleen may be associated with slowed fetal growth and compromised immune function, as these organs play important roles in the development of a robust immune system. The higher rate of intestinal cell death among calves born to heat-stressed cows suggests that these calves may have a reduced ability to absorb immune factors from colostrum, essential to the transfer of maternal immunity to the immature and vulnerable calf, in the critical first hours after birth. “Passive uptake of immunoglobulins from colostrum is the only mechanism of immunoprotection in the bovine,” Dahl points out.
The authors speculate that decreased nutrient uptake and reduced immune function following gestational heat stress may lead to reduced health and growth of the calf in the long term. Dahl notes that “Acceleration of gut closure appears to occur even before birth and before colostrum consumption. Thus, it may be challenging to reverse after birth, so management efforts should focus on cooling pregnant cows during late gestation.” As the dairy industry continuously strives to improve animal welfare and environmental and financial sustainability, such research is of greater importance than ever.
JOURNAL
Journal of Dairy Science
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Animals
ARTICLE TITLE
Maternal heat stress reduces body and organ growth in calves: Relationship to immune status
Using yeast to create alternative petrochemical processes
Integrating cellular engineering with cell-free biosynthesis could lead to efficient ways to power the earth
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE: YEAST STRAINS ENGINEERED FOR THE BIOCHEMICAL CONVERSION OF GLUCOSE TO VALUE-ADDED PRODUCTS ARE LIMITED IN CHEMICAL OUTPUT DUE TO GROWTH AND VIABILITY CONSTRAINTS. CELL EXTRACTS PROVIDE AN ALTERNATIVE FORMAT FOR CHEMICAL SYNTHESIS IN THE ABSENCE OF CELL GROWTH BY ISOLATING THE SOLUBLE COMPONENTS OF LYSED CELLS. BY SEPARATING THE PRODUCTION OF ENZYMES (DURING GROWTH) AND THE BIOCHEMICAL PRODUCTION PROCESS (IN CELL-FREE REACTIONS), THIS FRAMEWORK ENABLES BIOSYNTHESIS OF DIVERSE CHEMICAL PRODUCTS AT VOLUMETRIC PRODUCTIVITIES GREATER THAN THE SOURCE STRAINS. view more
CREDIT: BLAKE RASOR
As climate change continues to do more damage to our planet, scientists are working to find more efficient and cleaner ways to power the earth. One appealing alternative to common petrochemical processes that generate significant greenhouse gases and other waste products could come from biological systems.
Recent work from Northwestern Engineering’s Michael Jewett and researchers from the University of Texas at Austin has led to advances in understanding of biochemical pathways and increased rates of chemical production by biological systems. The findings could bring us closer to implementing sustainable alternatives to synthesizing materials, fuels, and other oil-derived products.
The paper “An Integrated In Vivo/In Vitro Framework to Enhance Cell-Free Biosynthesis with Metabolically Rewired Yeast Extracts,” published Aug. 26 in the journal Nature Communications, describes the development of optimized in vitro biosynthesis (biochemical production) processes that use cell extracts from engineered strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer’s yeast). Along with Jewett, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, the paper was written by Blake Rasor, a PhD student in Jewett’s lab. The investigation was conducted in collaboration with the research group of Hal Alper, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
The work was supported through the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute’s Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program (ETOP). The ETOP provides funding to seed the development of new technologies offered to those researchers worldwide who tap JGI’s user programs to advance energy and environmental applications.
Decades of metabolic studies and genetic tool development make S. cerevisiae a highly controllable framework for biochemical production. Beyond historical applications in baking and brewing, this yeast has been engineered to produce innumerable target molecules used in industrial and therapeutic applications.
However, cellular production systems have an internal tug-of-war between making more cells and making the engineered product. Jewett’s group avoids these growth and viability constraints by breaking the biological machinery out of cells and using the extracted material for cell-free biochemical reactions, which enables the optimization of levers that are not easily tuned in living cells.
Previously, cell-free biosynthesis efforts with crude cell extracts have primarily used unmodified strains of E. coli. The researchers expanded the scope of this technique by using extracts from S. cerevisiae and by incorporating cellular metabolic engineering techniques to enhance the biosynthetic potential of cell-free reactions. This demonstrates that metabolic rewiring in cells produces extracts with greater volumetric outputs than wildtype (unchanged) extracts and the corresponding cell cultures.
Specifically, the cell-free production of three chemical products (butanediol, glycerol, itaconic acid) at a rate up to 10 times faster than corresponding cellular approaches points to the flexibility and efficacy of integrating cellular engineering with cell-free biosynthesis.
“This could expand the breadth of biological platforms underpinning efforts in sustainability,” Rasor said.
“Our work further joins an emerging area of science that seeks to use cell-free systems from crude cell extracts for designing cellular function, on-demand biomanufacturing, and portable diagnostics,” said Jewett, director of the Center for Synthetic Biology. “Indeed, these efforts are expanding the definition of biomanufacturing to build a sustainable bioeconomy.”
As for next steps, Jewett said he and his collaborators are building on this work both for pathway prototyping in the context of altered metabolism and for cell-free biomanufacturing to complement current cell-based approaches.
“Expanding the integrated cell/cell-free metabolic engineering strategy to yeast strains producing other value-added biochemical products and increasing the scale of cell-free reactions could spearhead the development of sustainable, economically viable alternatives to current chemical production processes,” he said.
###
JOURNAL
Nature Communications
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Cells
ARTICLE TITLE
An integrated in vivo/in vitro framework to enhance cell-free biosynthesis with metabolically rewired yeast extracts
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
26-Aug-2021
Space Pioneer Award for Klaus Schilling
IMAGE: KLAUS SCHILLING WITH THE SATELLITES THAT HAVE ACCOMPANIED HIS PROFESSIONAL LIFE. UWE AND NETSAT IN THE FOREGROUND; ON THE POSTERS IN THE BACKGROUND HUYGENS AND ROSETTA, WHICH WERE REALISED DURING HIS WORK IN INDUSTRY. view more
CREDIT: COMPUTER SCIENCE VII / UNIVERSITY OF WUERZBURG
Klaus Schilling leads the Chair of Computer Science VII (Robotics and Telematics) at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany, since 2003. He initiated the JMU space study programs and successfully started a popular hands-on program for the development of miniature satellites.
Advances in miniaturization technology decreasing satellite mass and volume. Small satellites already account for the majority of satellites launched into orbit. "It is expected that 90 percent of the satellites launched into space until 2030 will be small satellites with less than 500 kilograms," says the JMU professor.
The short construction times enable rapid technological advances and thus lead to innovative applications. "It is crucial that the disadvantages of miniaturization, such as increased sensitivity to the harsh space radiation are compensated for by intelligent software," explains Schilling.
On the microcomputers on board, algorithms for rapid fault detection, identification and recovery ensure reliable operation. Small companies, start-ups and universities like JMU have been able to provide essential contributions to this alternative “New Space” approach.
Technology breakthroughs realized in orbit
Building on his experience in the space industry, Schilling developed the University Würzburg’s Experimental satellites, or UWE as shorhandt, together with a lot of international students at JMU. This team realized in 17 years numerous technology breakthroughs for small satellites and proved them in orbit.
Today, the UWE satellites are considered a pioneering achievement: in 2005, UWE-1 was the first German pico-satellite with a mass of less than one kilogram. As the first of its kind, its engineering model has been presented in an appropriate location since 2012 – the Deutsches Museum in Munich. UWE-1 served industry as a test laboratory for highly efficient solar cells. In the meantime, this technology has become established in space: today, it generates the energy on the majority of European satellites.
While the internet in space was initially the focus of Schilling's research at JMU, the foundations for self-organizing multi-satellite formations became core of research and were realized step by step in over 17 years. As single small satellites are already an economic reality, Schilling's research is focusing on swarms of distributed satellite networks, including functionalities like avoiding collisions or that perform complex joint observations from complementary angles of view.
Early perception of relevant future technology developments
Schilling has now received the Eugen-Sänger-Medal 2020 from the German Aerospace Society DGLR for his special services to advance space science and space equipment.
"From the very beginning, Professor Schilling has recognised and promoted the importance of interdisciplinary technological cross-fertilization between computer science, automation, software development and robotics. His satellites impressively reflect this interaction of different components," said DGLR President Professor Rolf Henke.
Schilling is very pleased about the medal, which is considered the most important German award in the space sector: "This recognition is a great incentive for our team to continue working intensively on sophisticated space technology. The medal recognizes contributions, that were only possible through the cooperation of large teams. My special thanks therefore go to the competent international teams that I had the privilege of coordinating."
The award is named after the rocket scientist Eugen Sänger (1905-1964). In the 55 years of its existence, it has only been awarded 26 times to international space pioneers. Previous recipients were the rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun (1973), the founder of Germany's largest space company OHB Manfred Fuchs (1991), and also the astronauts Ernst Messerschmidt and Thomas Reiter (2017).
Space education and research in Würzburg
Parallel to the UWE research work, Schilling organized the first space technology lectures at JMU in the summer semester 2003, together with international experts. The great popularity among the students led to this offer being expanded further and further.
With the support of the European Union, the European elite program "SpaceMaster – Master in Space Science and Technology" was introduced in 2005, funded by scholarships under the EU's Erasmus Mundus program. For this joint Master, six European partner universities cooperated for 13 years; the first semester started in Würzburg for all students.
The impressive acceptance of the program by international applicants – typically there were 600 applications for 50 places offered – led to a further expansion of the JMU space activities to six professorships in this field today and to new curricula, such as the Bachelor's and Master's degree in Aerospace Informatics and the international Master's degree in Satellite Technology in the Elite Network of Bavaria (as the successor to the SpaceMaster).
Orbit of a small satellite changed for the first time
Among other things, Schilling's team in Würzburg succeeded in modifying orbits of a pico-satellites for the first time. In 2018, the use of electric thrusters on a small satellite was demonstrated for the first time worldwide on UWE-4. This technology opens up new possibilities, for example, in removal of space debris, in collision avoidance or in extending the operational period of satellites.
Multi-satellite systems in formation
In 2007, the JMU professor founded the independent research institute Zentrum für Telematik e.V. (ZfT), where he acts as president. In 2020, he and his ZfT team succeeded in launching four NetSat nano-satellites the size of a shoebox into space, with the aim of exchanging via intersatellite link relevant data and coordinating joint measurements.
"Up to now, almost all satellites are tele-commanded from ground control centers. Thus, modern digitalization technology based on distributed networked systems, which has already changed our everyday life on Earth, is now transferred into space," explains Schilling.
In the next step, it is planned to use these technologies of formation flight for new types of applications: In the CloudCT project, a formation of ten small satellites is used to characterize the interior of clouds by computed tomography methods. In subsequent missions information from three-dimensional images of Earth and of clouds will be employed for improved climate forecasts.
Numerous prizes and awards received
Schilling was able to finance the development of the control and self-organization approaches with two of the prestigious research prizes from the European Research Council (ERC). For the CloudCT mission (Cloud Tomography by Satellites for Better Climate Prediction), he and two Israeli colleagues received in 2018 the highest-ever European research award of 14 million euros, an ERC Synergy Grant.
In the field of robotics, Schilling was awarded the Walter-Reis-Award for Mobile Robots in 2008 and the Walter-Reis-Award for Innovations in Robotics for a robotic motion compensation in medical radiotherapy in 2012. In 2010, he was selected as member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
The International Federation of Automation Engineers IFAC appointed him to the technical committees for mechatronics, telematics, aeronautics and astronautics, where he also held leadership positions. In 2014, IFAC honoured Schilling with its "Outstanding Service Award".
His students and partners also received numerous awards: VDE awards, VDI awards, faculty awards, first prize in the Audi Innovation Competition, the Rotary Culture Award 2011, ZARM Award 2006, IABG Award 2008, Young Scientists Group Werner-von-Siemens Foundation 2016 and 2019, Award of British Interplanetary Society 2006, gold medal at graduate student contest IAC 2006, silver medal at IAC 2008, gold medal at IAC 2013, Leonardo da Vinci Award 2016, Women in Aerospace Award 2017 or the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2018.
Career of Klaus Schilling
Klaus Schilling, born in Bayreuth in 1956, studied mathematics, physics and biology in Bayreuth and Munich. After completing his doctorate, he moved to the space industry in 1985: at Dornier System, he headed the "Mission and System Analyses" group in the scientific satellites division. On behalf of the European Space Agency ESA, his team was then responsible for the conception of the interplanetary space probes HUYGENS (to the Saturn system) and ROSETTA (for comet research).
Afterwards, until his appointment at JMU, Schilling taught the fields of artificial intelligence, computer science and robotics at the Ravensburg-Weingarten University of Applied Sciences. There he was also elected Vice-Rector for Research and International Relations. In 1992, he founded the Steinbeis Transfer Centre ARS, which focused on the use of advanced control, robotics and computer technology in industrial production.
###
DOE IS PART OF DOD
Department of Energy announces $17.5 million for particle accelerators for science & society and workforce training
Projects to benefit science, medicine, security, the environment, and industry
Grant and Award AnnouncementWASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $17.5 million in funding for advanced research projects in particle accelerator science and technology as well as university-based traineeships that will build a diverse, skilled pipeline of American scientists and engineers in the fields of high energy physics accelerators and instrumentation.
Particle accelerators produce beams of charged particles that can be used for scientific research, medical imaging, cancer therapy, semiconductor manufacturing, and much more. High energy physics instrumentation includes technologies like particle detectors, that can withstand challenging environments such as very high levels of radiation, cryogenic temperatures, or limited access over long periods of times.
“Particle accelerator and detector technology enables us to tackle challenges at the frontiers of science and benefits our nation’s high-tech industries, modern medicine, and national security,” said Dr. Steve Binkley, Acting Director of DOE’s Office of Science. “The awards announced today will advance the state-of-the-art in accelerator technology while helping deploy these technologies in commercial applications in the health, security, environmental, and industrial sectors. In addition, new programs at American universities will help ensure that our nation has a skilled and diverse workforce to develop the accelerator and detector technology needed to meet the scientific challenges of the future.”
A total of $6.5 million will fund 11 projects in the Accelerator Stewardship program, which works to make particle accelerator technology widely available to science and industry by supporting use-inspired basic R&D on accelerator technology that will advance science, healthcare, the economy, and national security. The research projects involve scientists at 28 U.S. institutions—including 12 universities, 5 national laboratories, and 11 companies—who are working together to solve some of the most challenging problems in medical, industrial, environmental, and security applications of accelerator technology. Projects include research to produce compact, low-cost accelerators for cancer therapy and security applications; high-power accelerator technologies for environmental and industrial applications; R&D to advance ultrafast laser technology, beam physics, and novel superconductors; and workshops to develop a long-term strategy for accelerator technology.
For 2021, a total of $3 million will support traineeships at Old Dominion University, an institution with an existing accelerator program. That award includes partnerships with a national lab and two historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). These partnerships will help to increase the pool of qualified students who wish to pursue careers in accelerator physics and engineering but whose home institutions have no accelerator program. Since the inception of the program in 2017, a total of four accelerator science and technology traineeship awards have now been made.
A total of $8 million over five years will support three graduate-level traineeship programs involving teams across more than 10 universities with existing instrumentation programs in HEP detector technologies as well as design of integrated circuits. The programs include partnerships with six DOE National Labs and one Office of Science national scientific user facility to provide the participants with hands-on research experiences.
The projects were selected by competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcements, FY2021 Research Opportunities in Accelerator Stewardship, DOE Traineeship in Accelerator Science & Engineering, and DOE Traineeship in High Energy Physics Instrumentation.
The lists of projects and more information can be found on the HEP website under “What’s New.”
It’s a dirty job but WVU scientists will do it: Team earns $2.9 million to monitor wastewater statewide for COVID-19
IMAGE: ERIC LUNDSTROM, DOCTORAL STUDENT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, TAKES A WATER SAMPLE WITH A PIPETTE. view more
CREDIT: WVU PHOTO/ALAYNA FULLER
Just like the COVID-19 virus itself, the means of monitoring and testing for it in wastewater have evolved into a new beast more than a year later.
In 2020, West Virginia University researchers would prop open a manhole cover, dip down a bottle to collect wastewater and then take it to a lab to analyze for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 (infected people shed virus particles through their feces).
With the new academic year, researchers have resumed on-campus sampling. And these days, they use an egg-shaped robot called an autosampler that lurks in the sewers and collects samples every 20 minutes over a 24-hour period.
It’s part of a $2.9 million statewide project geared at developing a testing network throughout West Virginia and identifying communities of concern for COVID-19. The project, supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, will monitor sewage at more than 50 wastewater plants, in addition to high-risk congregant settings like college campuses, around the state.
A year ago, Timothy Driscoll, project leader and associate professor of biology, and his team were sampling around 15 sites on campus. Last September, they started testing at a local wastewater treatment plant to see if it was feasible to test and monitor on a larger scale to inform public health officials. It worked, and now those efforts have expanded.
“The scope is different now,” Driscoll said. “We’ll still test at the building level but now we’re shifting more toward the communities at-large.”
From a lab perspective, the testing process has trimmed down from 16 hours to six hours, he said, thanks to a new pathogen testing laboratory in the biology department.
“We're using a totally new process to concentrate viral particles out of wastewater,” Driscoll said. “It uses magnetic beads that stick to the viral particles. Then you just remove all the liquid, and you are left with just virus stuck to the beads.”
This is already proving useful: several sites have shown recent increases in COVID-19, corresponding with the arrival of the delta variant to West Virginia. That information is helping public health officials respond appropriately, Driscoll said.
The new process also poses the possibility to test for influenza, RSV, HIV and other viruses. It isn’t limited to infectious diseases, either. Scientists can also use it to watch for signs of antibiotic-resistance genes.
“Our team hopes to expand upon the initial wastewater testing infrastructure to include other conditions of importance to West Virginia,” said Brian Hendricks, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics in the School of Public Health, a project co-investigator
“We strongly believe that wastewater surveillance is a very important part of public health, but it requires tools that often involve complex methods that may not be available in the state laboratories but are available at many universities such as ours,” said Gordon Smith, another team member and the Stuart M. and Joyce N. Robbins Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Health. “The work we are doing is a perfect example of collaboration of a land-grant university—with its mission to serve the state—and the people of the state. We’ve got the scientific expertise to do the testing, interpret the results and work with the state to put it into practice.”
Emily Garner, project co-investigator and assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is leading the field sampling.
By using the autosamplers, researchers have the ability to program them to collect wastewater at certain intervals, she said. They settled on every 20 minutes.
“That gives us a great chance of getting a good distribution of what the wastewater looks like throughout the day,” Garner said. “For many wastewater treatment plants, they already collect samples that might be valuable for this testing, so we can leverage those efforts. But in some cases, plants may not have the right equipment or permitting for frequent sampling. Then we’d send some of these autosamplers out into those communities.
“Monitoring wastewater provides a powerful opportunity to gain an early indicator of changes in community level spread of COVID-19,” she added. “Through this project, we will work to develop a testing network throughout West Virginia aimed at improving the utility of this approach as an early warning system for COVID-19 outbreaks in rural communities.”
The official name of the project is WaTCH-WV (Wastewater Testing for Community Health in West Virginia). Collaborators with Marshall University are also conducting testing in the Huntington area.
People often avoid feeling compassion for others, feel it's a lot of effort
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Compassion helps us relate to and feel sympathy for others as they experience hardships, but a new study suggests some people may actively avoid feeling compassion when given the choice.
In a series of studies, the researchers found that when given the option, people often chose to avoid feeling compassion for others and reported that doing so was mentally effortful, which were linked to their choices. However, the researchers also found that if the situation involved a person they were close to, such as a family member, people were more likely to choose to feel compassion and that being compassionate in this context was easier.
Julian Scheffer, a Penn State graduate and postdoctoral research fellow at University of California, Berkeley, said the findings suggest a need for new ways to encourage people to open themselves up to feeling compassion for others -- especially in times of division and hardship.
“Experiencing compassion often leads to wanting to help others and improve their welfare, but we found that people may be unwilling to experience compassion and find it mentally taxing,” Scheffer said. “Knowing when effort matters for compassion can help inform how we think about weaker compassionate responses, whether in response to a stranger or even mass suffering, as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Daryl Cameron, assistant professor of psychology and research associate in Penn State's Rock Ethics Institute, said the studies were among the first to examine how and when people choose to feel compassion.
“These choices track with felt cognitive costs,” Cameron said, “so cultivating compassion for your family may feel easier than cultivating compassion for a stranger, and this may be one reason why people tend to show such biases in their compassionate responding.”
Scheffer added that one solution could be preparing people to take on compassion’s mental demands, which might help people be willing to experience it. Otherwise, compassion may be harder to approach than once imagined.
“Oftentimes, people are asked to have empathy or compassion for others, with the idea that these feelings will lead to more openness, cooperation, and a willingness to help those who are suffering,” Scheffer said. “We wanted to examine how people choose to engage with these emotional processes, whether they would be approached or avoided, and why this would be the case.”
To explore these questions, the researchers performed a series of studies with the number of participants ranging from 62 to 215 in each. They designed three virtual card decks that participants could choose from and would instruct their response to other people -- one that asked them to feel compassion for the person on the card, one that asked them to feel empathy, and one that asked them to remain objective and simply describe the person -– that they then used in several experiments.
While compassion and empathy may have similarities, Scheffer said, some separate compassion as feelings of caring or sympathy for another person, while empathy is thought to involve taking on another person's suffering and experiences as if they were your own.
In the first two studies, participants were split into two groups. One was asked to choose between drawing from the compassion or objective decks, and the other was asked to choose between the empathy and objective decks. Participants chose the compassion deck over the objective deck only about 25% of the time in the first study and about 21% in the second. Additionally, they chose the empathy deck about 30% and 29% of the time in each study, respectively.
Next, participants were asked to choose between drawing from the compassion or empathy decks. This time, people were more likely to choose empathy over compassion. However, when they could choose between the empathy, compassion and objective decks, participants were more likely to opt to remain objective.
“Some psychologists and philosophers have said compassion is easier than empathy,” Cameron said. “One way to test that assumption is to directly compare them and give people a choice. When we asked people if they wanted to feel compassion, at least for strangers, they typically didn’t want to and found it more challenging than empathy.”
Finally, participants were once again presented with the decks as in previous experiments, but this time instead of the decks containing images of strangers, they included cards with the names of people each participant either knew very well or were just acquainted with.
“We found that people were more willing to experience compassion for their loved ones compared to strangers, and this linked with experiencing reduced difficulty with compassion for loved ones,” Scheffer said. “Compassion may be more desirable when directed toward more familiar loved ones, and potentially feel less difficult.”
Scheffer said he hopes the findings -- recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General -- will give insight about why some might resist experiencing compassion for others, despite it being considered a generally positive feeling.
“More people are finding it increasingly difficult to engage with each other, and as people are overwhelmed with the amount of suffering right now due to the pandemic, it may make compassion particularly difficult,” Scheffer said. “Finding ways to better manage the mental challenges of compassion may provide a more rewarding route to generating prosocial motivation, especially in this particularly troubling time.”
Michael Inzlicht, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, also participated in this work.
The National Science Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Penn State's Rock Ethics Institute helped support this research.
JOURNAL
Journal of Experimental Psychology General
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
How extreme cold can crack lithium-ion battery materials, degrading performance
Lithium ion batteries are a bit famous for their poor cold-weather performance, and that has consequences for some of their most important applications – everything from starting an electric car in a Wisconsin winter to flying a drone on Mars.
Now, researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have identified an overlooked aspect of the problem: Storing lithium-ion batteries at below-freezing temperatures can crack some parts of the battery and separate them from surrounding materials, reducing their electric storage capacity.
SLAC scientist Yijin Liu and postdoctoral fellow Jizhou Li made the discovery while looking at the cold-weather performance of the cathode, the part of the battery electrons flow into when it’s in use. Initial studies found that storing cathodes at temperatures below zero degrees Celsius led batteries to lose up to 5% more of their capacity after 100 charges than batteries stored at warmer temperatures.
To understand why, the researchers turned to a combination of X-ray analysis methods at SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource and machine learning techniques that Li has been working on over the last several years. The combination allows them to identify individual cathode particles – meaning the team could study thousands of particles at once, compared to just the handful they could identify with their eyes alone.
Together, those methods revealed that cold temperatures were shrinking the meatball-like particles within the cathode and in the process cracking them – or making existing cracks even worse, Liu said. And, since materials differ in the way they expand and contract in response to changing temperatures, extreme cold was also detaching the cathodes from surrounding materials.
The results point to some possible fixes, Liu said. By looking for battery materials that are better matched in terms of their temperature response, scientists could address the detachment issue. Doing so could help improve other batteries as well, since all batteries expand and contract as they heat up and cool down. And by engineering different particle structures inside a battery – notably, building them up from smoother, less meatball-like particles – researchers could help prevent cracking and improve long-term lithium-ion battery capacity.
The research was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation. SSRL is a DOE Office of Science user facility.
JOURNAL
Advanced Energy Materials
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Multiphase, Multiscale Chemomechanics at Extreme Low Temperatures: Battery Electrodes for Operation in a Wide Temperature Range
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
21-Aug-2021
WILL THEY PRESENT NUDE
PETA scientists to showcase cutting-edge animal-free research at international conference
Maastricht, the Netherlands — This week marks the 11th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences, and the thousands of scientists attending this year’s virtual conference will hear from PETA scientists on matters ranging from scientific and ethical concerns regarding inflicting permanent brain damage on primates to toxicity testing in rabbits.
“PETA has more scientists working on non-animal testing methods than any other animal protection organization, and we’re proud to share our research at the premier conference on modern research,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Superior, cutting-edge tools are the future, and we’re eager to work with the global research community to advance their use.”
PETA scientists are chairing four sessions and will present two oral presentations and 16 posters. Posters by the group’s scientists, including Trunnell, will include the following.
- The Rodent in the Room—Considering Sentience in Research Programs Using Mice and Rats: This poster showcases how the mounting scientific evidence for sentience in animals commonly used in experimentation must be considered in harm/benefit analyses of biomedical research.
- Global Effort to End Animal Testing for Health Claims of Foods and Beverages: This poster, to be presented by Cheng, highlights PETA’s successful efforts to get food and beverage companies to stop conducting tests on animals in order to make health claims about their products.
- International Harmonization of Non-Animal Methods for Biomedical Training: This poster, also to be presented by Cheng, shares information about the cost-effective, human-relevant technological advances that can replace the millions of dogs, cats, rabbits, and other animals used in biomedical training every year.
- The Problem of Pain in Animal Experimentation: This poster explores the scientific and ethical ramifications of the high rate of untreated pain in animals used in experiments.
- In Vitro Approach for Assessing Respiratory Toxicity in Human Lung Cells: This poster describes how human cell-based systems can replace the use of rats and mice in tests to assess how inhaled chemicals affect the lungs.
- International Approaches to Implementing Alternative Test Methods for Marine Biotoxins in Shellfish: This poster outlines how non-animal methods are superior for detecting toxins in shellfish than tests involving injecting them into the abdomens of mice.
- Certain Harms and Uncertain Benefits in Animal Models for the Study of Human Depression and Anxiety: This poster critiques several harmful and commonly used animal models of anxiety and depression, including the forced swim test, the tail suspension test, and the elevated plus maze.
- Ethical and Scientific Concerns Regarding the Continued Use of Experimentally Induced Brain Injuries in Primates: This poster discusses whether inflicting permanent, debilitating brain damage on primates is ethically or scientifically justifiable.
The conference will screen the award-winning film Test Subjects, which profiles three PETA scientists who faced pressure in graduate school to experiment on animals. PETA scientists will also present details on their Research Modernization Deal, a commonsense plan to phase out the use of ineffective animal tests in the U.S., the EU, and India.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)