A new way to control atomic interactions

by Adam Hadhazy, Stanford University

Image of the vacuum chamber on the optical table where the Stanford research team used precisely delivered light and magnetic fields to program a straight line of atoms into treelike shapes, a twisted loop called a Möbius strip and other patterns. Credit: Monika Schleier-Smith

In a new study, Stanford researchers demonstrate how to manipulate atoms so they interact with an unprecedented degree of control. Using precisely delivered light and magnetic fields, the researchers programmed a straight line of atoms into treelike shapes, a twisted loop called a Möbius strip and other patterns.

These shapes were produced not by physically moving the atoms, but by controlling the way atoms exchange particles and "sync up" to share certain properties. By carefully manipulating these interactions, researchers can generate a vast range of geometries. Importantly, they found that atoms at the far ends of the straight line could be programmed to interact just as strongly as the atoms located right next to each other at the center of the line. To the researchers' knowledge, the ability to program nonlocal interactions to this degree, irrespective of the atoms' actual spatial locations, had never been demonstrated before.

The findings could prove a key step forward in the development of advanced technologies for computation and simulation based on the laws of quantum mechanics—the mathematical description of how particles move and interact on the atomic scale.

"In this paper, we've demonstrated a whole new level of control over the programmability of interactions in a quantum mechanical system," said study senior author Monika Schleier-Smith, the Nina C. Crocker Faculty Scholar and associate professor in the Department of Physics in Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences. "It's an important milestone that we've long been working towards, while at the same time it's a starting point for new opportunities."

The study published Dec. 22 in the journal Nature.

Two graduate students, Avikar Periwal and Eric Cooper, as well as a postdoctoral scholar, Philipp Kunkel, are co-lead authors of the paper. Periwal, Cooper and Kunkel are researchers in Schleier-Smith's lab at Stanford.

"Avikar, Eric and Philipp worked tremendously well together as a team in running the experiments, devising clever ways of analyzing and visualizing the data and developing the theoretical models," said Schleier-Smith. "We're all very excited about these results."

"We chose some simple geometries, like rings and disconnected chains, just as proof of principle, but we also formed more complex geometries including ladder-like structures and treelike interactions, which have applications to open problems in physics," Periwal, Cooper and Kunkel said in a group statement.

Syncing up atoms on command

Periwal, Cooper, Kunkel and colleagues performed experiments for the study on apparatuses known as optical tables, a pair of which dominate the floorspace in Schleier-Smith's lab. The tables are inset with intricate arrays of electronic components strung together by multicolored wires. At the heart of one optical table is a vacuum chamber, consisting of a metallic cylinder studded with porthole windows. A pump expels all air from this chamber so that no other atoms can disturb the small bunches of rubidium atoms carefully placed inside it. The Stanford researchers beamed lasers into this airless chamber to trap the rubidium atoms, slowing the atoms' movement and cooling them down to within whiskers of absolute zero—the lowest temperature theoretically possible where particle movement comes to a virtual standstill. The extremely cold realm just above absolute zero is where quantum mechanical effects can dominate over those of classical physics, and thus where the atoms can be quantum mechanically manipulated.

Shining light through the bunches of atoms in this way also serves as a means of getting the atoms to "talk" to each other. As the light strikes each atom, it conveys information between them, generating patterns called "correlations" wherein every atom shares a certain desired quantum mechanical property. An example of a quantum mechanical property is the total angular momentum, known as the spin of an atom and which can have values of, for example, +1, 0 or –1.

Researchers at Stanford and elsewhere have correlated atomic networks before using systems of laser-cooled atoms, but, until recently, only two basic kinds of atomic networks could be made. In one, called an all-to-all network, every atom talks to every other atom. The second kind of network operates on what's known as a nearest neighbor principle, where laser-suspended atoms interact most strongly with adjacent atoms.

In this new study, the Stanford researchers debut a far more dynamic method that conveys information over specific distances between discrete groups of atoms. This way, spatial location does not matter, and a vastly richer set of correlations can be programmed.

"With an all-to-all network, it's like I'm sending a worldwide bulletin to everyone, while in a nearest-neighbor network, it's like I'm only talking to the person who lives next door," said Schleier-Smith. "With the programmability that we have now demonstrated in our lab, it's like I'm picking up a phone and dialing the exact person I want to talk to located anywhere in the world."

The researchers succeeded in creating these nonlocal interactions and correlations by controlling the frequencies of light shone at the trapped bunches of rubidium atoms and varying the strength of an applied magnetic field in the optical table. As the magnetic field strengthened in intensity from one end of the vacuum chamber to the other, it caused each bunch of atoms along the line to spin a bit faster than the prior, neighboring bunch. Although each atomic bunch had a unique rotation rate, every so often, certain bunches would nonetheless periodically arrive at the same orientation—rather like how a row of clocks with progressively faster-spinning hands will still momentarily read off the same times. The researchers used light to selectively enable and measure interactions between these momentarily synced-up atomic clouds. Overall, using a straight line of 18 clouds of atoms, the researchers could generate interactions between clouds at any specified set of distances along the line.

"The ability to generate and control these kinds of nonlocal interactions is powerful," Schleier-Smith added. "It fundamentally changes the way information can travel and the quantum systems we can engineer."

Benefitting from versatile control

One of the many applications of the Stanford team's work is the crafting of optimization algorithms for quantum computers—machines that rely on the laws of quantum mechanics for crunching numbers. Quantum computing has applications in artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity, financial modeling, drug development, climate change forecasting, logistics and scheduling optimization. For example, quantum computer-tailored algorithms could efficiently solve scheduling problems by finding the shortest possible routes for deliveries, or optimal scheduling of university classes so the greatest number of students can attend.

Another highly promising application is testing out theories of quantum gravity. The treelike shapes in this study were expressly designed for this purpose—they serve as basic models of space-time curved by a hypothetical new concept of gravity based on quantum mechanical principles that would revamp our understanding of gravity as described in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. A similar approach can also be applied to investigate the light-trapping, ultra-dense cosmic objects called black holes.

Schleier-Smith and colleagues are now working on showing that their experiments can produce quantum entanglement, where quantum states among atoms are correlated in a manner that can be harnessed for applications ranging from ultraprecise sensors to quantum computation.

"We made a lot of progress with this study and we're looking to build on it," said Schleier-Smith. "Our work demonstrates a new level of control that can help bridge the gap, in several areas of physics, between elegant theoretical ideas and actual experiments."Chaining atoms together yields quantum storage

More information: Avikar Periwal et al, Programmable interactions and emergent geometry in an array of atom clouds, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04156-0

Journal information: Nature 

Provided by Stanford University 

Kilonova afterglow potentially spotted for first time

by Amanda Morris, Northwestern University

An artist’s conception illustrates the aftermath of a 'kilonova,' a powerful event

 that happens when two neutron stars merge. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

For the first time, Northwestern University-led astronomers may have detected an afterglow from a kilonova

A kilonova occurs when two neutron stars—some of the densest objects in the universe—merge to create a blast 1,000 times brighter than a classical nova. In this case, a narrow, off-axis jet of high-energy particles accompanied the merger event, dubbed GW170817. Three-and-a-half years after the merger, the jet faded away, revealing a new source of mysterious X-rays.

As the leading explanation for the new X-ray source, astrophysicists believe expanding debris from the merger generated a shock—similar to the sonic boom from a supersonic plane. This shock then heated surrounding materials, which generated X-ray emissions, known as a kilonova afterglow. An alternative explanation is materials falling toward a black hole—formed as a result of the neutron star merger—caused the X-rays.

Either scenario would be a first for the field. The study was published today (Feb. 28), in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"We have entered uncharted territory here in studying the aftermath of a neutron star merger," said Northwestern's Aprajita Hajela, who led the new study. "We are looking at something new and extraordinary for the very first time. This gives us an opportunity to study and understand new physical processes, which have not before been observed."

Hajela is a graduate student at Northwestern's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

On Aug. 17, 2017, GW170817 made history as the first neutron-star merger detected by both gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation (or light). Since then, astronomers have been using telescopes around the world and in space to study the event across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers observed X-ray emissions from a jet moving very close to the speed of light produced by the neutron star merger. Starting in early 2018, the jet's X-ray emission steadily faded as the jet continued to slow and expand. Hajela and her team then noticed from March 2020 until the end of 2020, the decline in brightness stopped, and the X-ray emission was approximately constant in brightness.

This was a significant clue.

"The fact that the X-rays stopped fading quickly was our best evidence yet that something in addition to a jet is being detected in X-rays in this source," said Raffaella Margutti, astrophysicist at the University of California at Berkeley and a senior author of the study. "A completely different source of X-rays appears to be needed to explain what we're seeing."

The researchers believe a kilonova afterglow or black hole are likely behind the X-rays. Neither scenario has ever before been observed.

"This would either be the first time we've seen a kilonova afterglow or the first time we've seen material falling onto a black hole after a neutron star merger," said study co-author Joe Bright, also from the University of California at Berkeley. "Either outcome would be extremely exciting."

To distinguish between the two explanations, astronomers will keep monitoring GW170817 in X-rays and radio waves. If it is a kilonova afterglow, the X-ray and radio emissions are expected to get brighter over the next few months or years. If the explanation involves matter falling onto a newly formed black hole, then the X-ray output should stay steady or decline rapidly, and no radio emission will be detected over time.

"Further study of GW170817 could have far-reaching implications," said study co-author Kate Alexander, a CIERA postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern. "The detection of a kilonova afterglow would imply that the merger did not immediately produce a black hole. Alternatively, this object may offer astronomers a chance to study how matter falls onto a black hole a few years after its birth."Astronomers find x-rays lingering years after landmark neutron star collision

More information: The emergence of a new source of X-rays from the binary neutron star merger GW170817, arXiv:2104.02070 [astro-ph.HE] arxiv.org/abs/2104.02070

Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Letters , Astrophysical Journal 

Provided by Northwestern University 

 

New lightweight super material could battle bullets, deflect space debris

by Adam Malecek, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have created a nanofiber material that outperforms its widely used counterparts—including steel plates and Kevlar fabric—in protecting against high-speed projectile impacts.

Basically, it's better than bulletproof.

"Our nanofiber mats exhibit protective properties that far surpass other material systems at much lighter weight," says Ramathasan Thevamaran, a UW–Madison assistant professor of engineering physics who led the research.

He and his collaborators detailed the advance in a paper published recently in the journal ACS Nano.

To create the material, Thevamaran and postdoctoral researcher Jizhe Cai mixed multi-walled carbon nanotubes—carbon cylinders just one atom thick in each layer—with Kevlar nanofibers. The resulting nanofiber mats are superior at dissipating energy from the impact of tiny projectiles moving faster than the speed of sound.

The advance lays the groundwork for carbon nanotube use in lightweight, high-performance armor materials, for example, in bulletproof vests to better protect the wearer or in shields around spacecraft to mitigate damage from flying high-speed microdebris.

"Nano-fibrous materials are very attractive for protective applications because nanoscale fibers have outstanding strength, toughness, and stiffness compared to macroscale fibers," Thevamaran says. "Carbon nanotube mats have shown the best energy absorption so far, and we wanted to see if we could further improve their performance."

They found the right chemistry. The team synthesized Kevlar nanofibers and incorporated a tiny amount of them into their carbon nanotube mats, which created hydrogen bonds between the fibers. Those hydrogen bonds modified the interactions between the nanofibers and, along with just the right mixture of Kevlar nanofibers and carbon nanotubes, caused a dramatic leap in the overall material's performance.

"The hydrogen bond is a dynamic bond, which means it can continuously break and re-form again, allowing it to dissipate a high amount of energy through this dynamic process," Thevamaran says. "In addition, hydrogen bonds provide more stiffness to that interaction, which strengthens and stiffens the nanofiber mat. When we modified the interfacial interactions in our mats by adding Kevlar nanofibers, we were able to achieve nearly 100% improvement in energy dissipation performance at certain supersonic impact velocities."

Bring on the bullets. The researchers tested their new material using a laser-induced microprojectile impact testing system in Thevamaran's lab. One of only a handful like it in the United States, the system uses lasers to shoot micro-bullets into the material samples.

"Our system is designed such that we can actually pick a single bullet under a microscope and shoot it against the target in a very controlled way, with a very controlled velocity that can be varied from 100 meters per second all the way to over 1 kilometer per second," Thevamaran says. "This allowed us to conduct experiments at a time scale where we could observe the material's response—as the hydrogen bond interactions happen."

In addition to its impact resistance, another advantage of the new nanofiber material is that, like Kevlar, it is stable at both very high and very low temperatures, making it useful for applications in a wide range of extreme environments.

Synthesis of diamond-like carbon nanofiber film

More information: Jizhe Cai et al, Extreme Dynamic Performance of Nanofiber Mats under Supersonic Impacts Mediated by Interfacial Hydrogen Bonds, ACS Nano (2021). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c07465

Journal information: ACS Nano 

Provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison 

Social networking for fossils shows community impacts of mass extinctions

by University of Texas at Austin

An example of network with connections between various forms of ancient sea life. This 

chart is a teaching tool and is not the actual network constructed by researchers in the 

study. Credit: Drew Muscente.

By applying an algorithm akin to what Facebook uses to make friend suggestions, researchers have identified communities of ancient life in the fossil record and tracked how their numbers changed through each of the planet's mass extinctions.

As expected, the number of communities—a group of different species living in the same general area—dropped during mass extinction events. But the rate at which communities disappeared did not always track with the overall loss of life and biodiversity during an extinction, a result that suggests that the ecological impacts of an extinction are not always linked with the number of species that perish.

"There have been times in our history where there have been major events that saw tremendous changes in communities, but very few species disappeared," said lead author Drew Muscente, who conducted the study when he was a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences. "And there have been events where many species had disappeared and communities and ecosystems were barely affected at all."

Muscente is now an assistant professor at Cornell College. The study was recently published in the journal Geology.

The results underscore the importance of studying communities to get a broader perspective on environmental change—both in the past and in the present.

"We try to understand how changes in these communities lead to fundamental transformation of entire ecosystems," said coauthor Rowan Martindale, an associate professor at the Jackson School.

Identifying communities in the fossil record is notoriously difficult. Most research on paleocommunities focuses on comparing samples and collections of fossils that have been taken from rocks of various ages and locations. And although conventional computational methods can be used to group samples into paleocommunities, they work best with relatively small datasets of only a few hundred or thousand fossil collections. Due to this limitation, the conventional methods can only be applied to data from specific regions and time periods, as opposed to the entire record.

The researchers were able to overcome these challenges and examine the entire fossil record by applying a community detection algorithm based on network analysis methods. Social media companies are known for using these sorts of methods to connect users, but they are becoming increasingly applied across a range of scientific disciplines.

The researchers analyzed connections between 124,605 fossil collections, representing the

 entire history of marine animal life, and found that they can be grouped into 3,937

 paleocommunities (shown here as colored dots). Credit: Muscente et al.

According to Muscente, this study is the first time that network analysis has been applied to detect paleocommunities throughout the entire fossil record of marine animal life—from when animal life first appeared to the current geologic era.

Matthew Clapham, a paleobiology professor at the University of California Santa Cruz who was not involved with the study, said that another advantage of the network analysis method is the emphasis on visualizing connections, rather than just the types of animals present in an ecosystem.

"It brings the analysis closer to the way that the communities actually worked because communities and interactions between species are networks," he said.

Drawing on a database of 124,605 collections of marine animal fossils from around the world, and representing 25,749 living and extinct animal groups, or genera, the algorithm identified more than 47 million links between these samples and organized them into 3,937 distinct paleocommunities.

The study tracked the communities and biodiversity over the past 541 million years. The research showed that while mass extinction events took a toll on both, the degree of decline sometimes differed.

Some extinctions affected communities more than biodiversity. Some affected biodiversity more than communities. And some affected both about the same.

Furthermore, the researchers did not find a link between the cause of an extinction and whether it took a great toll on communities or biodiversity.

The results indicate that the larger ecological impacts of extinction are more about which species are lost rather than the number of species lost. If an environment's key players are preserved, communities can remain intact. But if too many of these players are removed, the community crumbles with it.

Muscente said he hopes that the network analysis methods first applied in this study can be improved and used to study modern ecosystems.

"I'd like to try and bridge the gap from the rock record to the present," he said.

Predator species help to buffer climate change impacts on biodiversity

More information: A.D. Muscente et al, Appearance and disappearance rates of Phanerozoic marine animal paleocommunities, Geology (2021). DOI: 10.1130/G49371.1

Journal information: Geology 

Provided by University of Texas at Austin 

Rise of termite clone queendoms offers clue to curb invasions

Preventing a homeowner headache

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

 

IMAGE: AN ALL-FEMALE DRYWOOD TERMITE COLONY view more 

CREDIT: TOMONARI NOZAKI

Four years ago, entomologists at the University of Sydney discovered the existence of all-female, forest-dwelling drywood termite colonies in Japan. Now, they have determined how they evolved, and the implications of insect ‘girl power’ for established termite species (hint: they’re bad).

Their new research shows all-female colonies of drywood termites (Glyptotermes nakajimai) developed through unwitting human-assisted hybridisation some time in the last century. Females from one lineage mated with males from another, as one lineage was unknowingly moved from a smaller island to mainland Japan, likely via boat. Their hybrid offspring are more genetically diverse, and likely to be more robust.

In addition to stronger offspring, the all-female colonies can clone themselves and do not require a male to procreate, resulting in double the amount of breeding. According to the researchers, this is bad news for the incumbent, non-hybrid species, which can be outcompeted by its hybrid relatives.

It’s also potentially bad news for property owners. Drywood termites, as their name suggests, do not require moist conditions to burrow into and eat wooden beams, walls, floors or furniture, and are commonly moved around the world by trade, opening the door to hybridisation events. Once an infestation occurs, it can be difficult to eradicate, potentially leading to structural damage to a building, or even collapse.

Professor Nathan Lo, who led the study with University of Sydney Postdoctoral Fellow Toshihisa Yashiro, said his findings have implications for biosecurity: “Our study highlights the importance of making sure termites from overseas are not permitted to establish themselves. If they were to hybridise with local termites, it might lead to even nastier lineages of termites for homeowners to deal with.”

‘Really weird’ males

Aside from discerning how the female colonies evolved, the researchers also studied several drywood termite colonies with males and females, which contained a quirk: the sperm of males consisted of either 15 Y or 15 X chromosomes, out of a total of 17. In most species, including humans, male sperm have only a single Y or X chromosome (out of 23, in the case of humans).

“It’s really weird,” said Professor Lo, who posits that this occurred out of necessity.

“Termite offspring can inherit nests from their parents, saving them the trouble of venturing into the dangers of the outside world, burrowing into wood, and creating their own nests. The problem with nest inheritance is that it results in a lot of inbreeding – sisters mate with brothers, and offspring may even mate with parents.

“As a solution, male termites probably evolved to have multiple Y chromosomes, making them harbour more genetic diversity than females. So, even if a sister and brother mate, they can produce viable offspring.”

The researchers say that this chromosomal pattern is found in some other organisms, including plants and huntsman spiders, but not usually to the extremes found in drywood termites.

About the study

The results have been published in the high-impact journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Termites were collected and preserved by Dr Yashiro prior to undertaking his fellowship in Professor Lo’s lab in Sydney, and DNA was analysed in Australia using nuclear SNP and mitochondrial markers. Chromosome analyses were performed using DNA stains and fluorescence microscopy.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2009533118 

 ELIMINATE THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Most older adults support steps to reduce firearm injury risk, study shows

National survey highlights the subgroups of people over 50 who might benefit most from counseling and programs designed to reduce risk for them and their children

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

A strong majority of American adults over 50 -- including the 37% of older adults who own guns or live with someone who does -- supports specific steps that could reduce the risk of firearm injury and death, a new national study shows.

The University of Michigan study shows support among older adults for everything from firearm safety counseling by health care providers, and background checks for firearm purchasers, to “red flag” policies that allow for temporary firearm removal from people at high risk of harming themselves or others.

The study also highlights opportunities to help older adults recognize and address the risks in their own homes, especially for those who live with children, have heightened suicide risk, or are beginning to experience cognitive decline and/or dementia.

For instance, the study shows 24% of firearm owners over age 50 regularly store at least one of their firearms loaded and unlocked, which past research has shown increases the potential risk of accidental or intentional injury. Gun locks and locked storage containers such as gun safes can reduce that risk, as can ‘smart guns’ that can only be fired by a specific individual.

Published this week in the journal Preventive Medicine, the study is based on a national survey of more than 2,000 adults aged 50 to 80 carried out by members of the U-M Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, Injury Prevention Center and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, along with a colleague from Michigan State University.

The researchers conducted the study because one-third of all firearm-related deaths in the United States occur among people in their 50s, 60s and 70s, with 84% of those deaths resulting from suicide.

Preventing injury and death among older adults, and the children and teens who live with them, has taken on new urgency because of the rise in such incidents in the past decade, the researchers say.

“Just as health care providers and health policymakers have worked to address other preventable causes of injury and death, we hope these findings will inform the effort to reduce the toll of firearm injuries among older adults, while respecting firearm ownership rights,” said study leader Patrick Carter, M.D., a U-M emergency physician who co-directs the U-M Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention and directs the Injury Prevention Center. “This is especially true for older adults experiencing depression, cognitive decline, and other conditions that may increase their risk for firearm injury, as well as those with children and teens living with or visiting them.”

Rebecca Cunningham, M.D., the study’s senior author and U-M vice president for research, added, “Firearm safety is about identifying and reducing risk, and creating policies, programs and education that can help achieve this. Every suicide, every accidental shooting, every homicide is a tragedy that affects far more people than just the person pulling the trigger or getting shot. These new data can help us move forward at the societal and personal level.”

Key findings:

The survey covered a wide range of topics, from firearm ownership and storage practices to attitudes toward specific policies and programs. Respondents were also asked about their own health and the presence of children in the home.

Ownership and storage

• 27% of older adults own at least one firearm, and most of these individuals own more than one. Another 10% say they live with someone who owns a firearm.
• 40% of firearm owners say they regularly store their firearms locked and unloaded, 35% say they store their firearms unlocked and unloaded, and 24% store their firearms loaded and unlocked.
• Storage practices differed by firearm type, with a larger proportion of handgun owners reporting they stored at least one firearm loaded and unlocked, while only 3% of long-gun owners reported keeping their long guns stored loaded and unlocked.
• 69% of those who own firearms cited protection as a reason, while 55% cited target shooting or hunting and 30% cited a constitutional right. (Respondents could choose more than one option.)
• Among those who cited protection as a reason for ownership, only 5% said it was to protect themselves against someone they specifically knew, while most endorsed a general sense they needed the weapon to protect themselves.
• 20% of firearm owners who have children living with them or visiting regularly said they store at least one firearm unlocked and loaded, compared with 35% of firearm owners who do not have children living with them or visiting. Other research has shown that 75% of adolescent suicides involve a gun from the teen’s own home or a relative.

Attitudes toward preventive programs and policies

• Most older adults, both firearm owners and non-firearm owners, said they would be comfortable being asked or counseled about firearm safety by a doctor or other clinician. 69% of firearm owners would be comfortable with healthcare-based screening for firearm ownership, and 63% would be comfortable with receiving counseling about safe firearm storage from a health care provider. The percentages were higher among non-firearm owners, including those who live with a firearm owner.

• “Red flag” laws and programs that allow family members or police to petition courts to restrict firearm access by people they believe to be a danger to themselves or others met with approval from 79% of firearm owners and 89% of non-firearm owners.
• 81% of firearm owners and 92% of non-firearm owners support efforts to remove firearms from the homes of older adults with dementia or confusion.
• 88% of firearm owners and 93% of non-firearm owners support restricting those who are under domestic violence restraining orders from owning or having access to firearms.
• Background checks for all firearm sales, including private ones between individuals, met with support from 85% of firearm owners and 93% of non-firearm owners.

Individual and family characteristics and risk factors

• Firearm owners were more likely to be white, male and veterans than non-firearm owners, and more likely to be in higher income brackets and to live in rural areas outside the Northeast.
• 77% of firearm owners had children living with them, or regularly visiting them, compared with 70% of non-firearm owners.
• 40% of non-firearm owners said that the presence of children in their home influenced their decisions about owning firearms, compared with 20% of those who owned firearms.
• 40% of firearm owners said they had experienced social isolation or lack of companionship in the last year; the survey was taken just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This percentage was much higher (89%) among older firearm owners who rated their physical or mental health as fair or poor.
• 9% of the older firearm owners in the survey met criteria for having depression, which is a risk factor for suicide, compared with 8% of non-firearm owners.

 

 

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (DA039341, CE003085).

In addition to Carter and Cunningham, the study’s authors are Eve Losman, M.D., Jessica Roche, M.P.H., Preeti Malani, M.D., Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., M.S., Erica Solway, Ph.D., M.P.H., Matthias Kirch, M.S., Dianne Singer, M.P.H,, Maureen Walton, Ph.D., of U-M and April Zeoli, Ph.D., of MSU.

Citation: Firearm ownership, attitudes, and safe storage practices among a nationally representative sample of older U.S. adults age 50 to 80, Preventive Medicine, Vol. 156, March 2022, DOI:10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.106955, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743522000032#

 

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JOURNAL

Preventive Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.106955 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Firearm ownership, attitudes, and safe storage practices among a nationally representative sample of older U.S. adults age 50 to 80

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not res

Better education needed about oral sex disease risk, poll of young people shows

Most teens and young adults underestimate sexually transmitted infection risk, and feel their generation needs better information

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Most teens and young adults know it’s possible to catch or spread a sexually transmitted infection by having unprotected oral sex, a new poll shows. But more than half underestimate the level of that risk, including many who focus on avoiding pregnancy risk, the data show.

Just over half (54%) of young people also feel their generation needs more education about the risks of oral sex, and how to reduce those risks by using protective barriers such as dental dams and condoms. One in five also called for more depictions or discussion of protection during oral sex in popular culture to normalize the concept.

The new study is published in the Annals of Family Medicine by a team from the MyVoice text-based poll based at the University of Michigan’s Department of Family Medicine. The study is based on answers from 909 young people across the country with an average age of 19.

Past research has shown that oral sex can transmit herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, HIV, and human papillomavirus, called HPV for short. In the last two decades, the number of Americans diagnosed with head and neck cancers linked to HPV infection, mainly due to oral sex, has surpassed the number diagnosed with HPV-related cervical cancer linked to vaginal sex. A vaccine against all HPV infections is available for both young women and men, but is not widely used among young men.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being least risky, 60% rated unprotected oral sex at 1, 2 or 3. But young women were more nearly twice as likely as young men to rate it as a 4 or 5 on the risk scale, while young men were twice as likely to rate it as a 1 or 2. Those who rated it low on the risk scale mostly focused on the lack of pregnancy risk and a lower risk of transmitting an STI compared with unprotected vaginal sex.

“Youth deserve to know the facts about the risks of oral sex,” said Tammy Chang, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., director of MyVoice and an associate professor of family medicine at Michigan Medicine. “It's not just about sexually transmitted infections, but also the risk for cancer later in life. Educating youth about the risks of oral sex today and making protection accessible and easy to use can begin to change the cultural norms around oral sex and save lives.”

The study’s co-first authors are U-M Medical School student Arianna Strome and U-M School of Public Health doctoral student N’dea Moore-Petinak. The study was funded by the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research, the U-M MCubed program, and the Department of Family Medicine.

Citation: Youths’ Knowledge and Perceptions of Health Risks Associated With Unprotected Oral Sex, The Annals of Family Medicine January 2022, 20 (1) 72-76; DOI: DOI:10.1370/afm.2761, https://www.annfammed.org/content/20/1/72

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JOURNAL

The Annals of Family Medicine

DOI

10.1370/afm.2761 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Youths’ Knowledge and Perceptions of Health Risks Associated With Unprotected Oral Sex

Wider-reaching solutions urgently needed to reach realistic 'net zero,' warn researchers

There should be greater investment in using a wider group of experts to make decisions about how the landscape is managed if the UK is to reach climate targets such as net zero, a new report warns.

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

 

IMAGE: LANDSCAPE VIEW OF WHINLATTER, CUMBRIA. view more 

CREDIT: BETH COLE/UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

There should be greater investment in using a wider group of experts to make decisions about how the landscape is managed if the UK is to reach climate targets such as net zero, a new report warns.

Tackling the climate emergency should involve those knowledgeable in the arts, business owners, farmers, landowners, developers and investors, the study says.

The interdisciplinary team of UK researchers have highlighted ‘multiple contradictions’ in the pathways to net zero climate targets and called for wider-reaching solutions to create a more sustainable future.

The Landscape Decisions Programme, led by the University of Leicester, has published a new research report with input from environmental scientists, ecosystem modellers, human geographers, humanities scholars, and other experts from Leicester, Reading, Exeter, Bangor, Leeds, Nottingham, Wales Trinity Saint David, and Robert Gordon universities, plus expertise from Rothamsted Research and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

The UKRI-funded report stresses the potential negative impact of existing pathways to net zero climate targets, which include losses in the benefits of biodiversity, human wellbeing and cultural knowledge of the landscape.

The UK government has previously set a net zero target of 2050, through a proposed reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and better management of so-called ‘carbon sinks’ such as peatlands and forests, and with new carbon capture technologies.

Recommendations made by the interdisciplinary group include a greater focus on locally-devolved decisions in land-use solutions, as a one-size-fits all approach to net zero landscape management could be damaging in certain environments.

As well as studying the physical impact of landscape decisions, these should be taken within the full context of the social consequences of these changes; for example, in the case of sudden large-scale changes to farming.

The group do, however, recognise that “swift action is essential, otherwise we head deeper towards an inability to reach net zero carbon targets, contribute to biodiversity collapse and, promote societal disengagement with landscapes”.

Dr Beth Cole is Senior Research Fellow for the Landscape Decisions Programme, based at the University of Leicester, and lead author for the report. She said:

“To reach the net zero goals we need to make some challenging decisions about the way we use, manage, and interact with landscapes in the UK. These landscape decisions are dependent upon many factors including the environmental characteristics, and the geographic location of the land, but in this report, we also consider the wider social framing of these decisions and call for inclusive, place-specific net zero practices within landscapes that support both biodiversity and people.

“Collaborating across disciplines this group of researchers together make a team that is greater than the sum of its parts and who have broken down some of the silos this urgent issue is normally approached from.”

Dr Katharine Earnshaw, a co-author based in the University of Exeter’s Department of Classics and Ancient History, said:

“We have an urgent need to think about the culture of change – not just what could be possible on paper. This means a better consideration of the whole picture: social and ethical ideas – the habits of thinking – alongside empirical evidence, taking account of past, present and future.

“This novel report demonstrates the genuine benefits of working across different subjects and with communities and businesses so that we do not reproduce the inequalities that have led us to this crisis.”

Co-author and natural scientist Professor Simon Willcock, of Rothamsted Research and Bangor University, added:

“Obviously, there is an urgent need to move towards net zero landscape decisions to limit the impacts of climate change. However, landscape changes impact a great variety of things – from the carbon and water cycles to biodiversity and local peoples.

“Only by making interdisciplinary decisions that take these many things into account can we move towards achieving sustainability more broadly – benefiting people and nature. Our report highlights this and provides key recommendations as to how net-zero can be achieved more inclusively.”

Professor Heiko Balzter is a Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Leicester and Director of the Centre for Landscape and Climate Research, and is Chair of the Programme Coordination Team for the UKRI Landscape Decisions Programme. He added:

“Our landscapes in the UK are about to change faster than they have done in a long time. These changes are driven by the urgent need to prevent catastrophic climate change by achieving net zero emissions no later than 2050, reversing the loss of many endangered animal and plant species, as well as improving food security and livelihoods of our farmers. This report highlights some key recommendations for decision-makers on ethical consideration, participatory approaches and the trade-offs and synergies between different goals and interventions.”

‘Landscape Decisions to Meet Net Zero Carbon: Pathways that consider ethics, socio-ecological diversity, and landscape functions’ is available in full at landscapedecisions.org.

Landscape Decisions is a Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) programme funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

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DOI

10.25392/leicester.data.19011629