Wiltshire firm Dyson fined more than a million pounds after machine falls on worker



Wednesday 3 August 2022 

Dyson headquarters in Malmesbury.

Credit: PA

Wiltshire engineering firm Dyson has been fined more than a million pounds after one of its workers was injured when a milling machine fell on him.

The company was ordered to pay £1.2m at Swindon Magistrates Court after admitting breaching health and safety laws.

A man at the site in Malmesbury was injured in the chest and head when the 1.5 tonne piece of equipment - the same weight as a standard car - fell on top of him in August 2019.

He and a colleague had been moving the the machine using a jack and were replacing some wheels with wooden blocks when it happened.

The incident at Dyson's factory in Malmesbury 'could have been fatal'.

Credit: ITV West Country

The worker only avoided being crushed because the machine landed on two toolboxes and the handle of another machine.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigators found that Dyson had not provided "suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training" to its staff.

It also did not have systems in place to ensure that the machine was moved safely.

Health and Safety Executive inspector James Hole said: "This incident could have been fatal.

"Those in control of work have a duty to assess the risks, devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workforce.

"Had a suitable safe system of work been in place, this incident and the related injuries could have been prevented."

The injured man has been able to return to work at the factory.

Credit: Dyson

A spokesperson for Dyson said: "The health, safety and well-being of Dyson's people is our number one priority. Prior to this case, Dyson has had no convictions, or enforcement history, related to health and safety at work.

"We are thankful that the employee was not more seriously hurt and has been able to return to work at Dyson.

"As an engineering company, we use complex and often heavy equipment and take care to do so safely. We deeply regret that this happened and we accept the court's decision today."

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says jurors in his defamation trial 'don't know what planet they're on'

Mark Bankston, lawyer for the parents of slain six-year-old Jesse Lewis, accused Jones of approaching the trial in bad faith, citing broadcasts where he said the trial was rigged against him

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones attempts to answer questions about his emails asked by Mark Bankston, lawyer for Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, during trial at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin. Picture: Briana Sanchez/Austin American-Statesman via AP, Pool

WED, 03 AUG, 2022 - 21:42
JACK MCQUEEN

An attorney for the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting showed a video to jurors in the defamation trial of Alex Jones on Wednesday in which the US conspiracy theorist tells his Infowars viewers the jury pool is full of people who "don't know what planet they're on."

Jones, founder of the Infowars radio show and webcast, is on trial in Texas to determine how much he must pay for spreading falsehoods about the killing of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012.

Mark Bankston, lawyer for the parents of slain six-year-old Jesse Lewis, accused Jones of approaching the trial in bad faith, citing broadcasts where he said the trial was rigged against him.

Bankston showed a video of Jones saying in his broadcast on Friday that the jury pool was full of people who "don't know what planet they're on".

He also showed jurors an image from Jones's show that Bankston said depicted Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, who is overseeing the case, on fire. Jones responded that the image shows Lady Justice on fire, not Gamble.

Legal team 'messed up' and sent texts to prosecution

In an unusual development, Bankston said during cross-examination on Wednesday that Jones’ legal team had "messed up" and inadvertently sent the plaintiffs' legal team a file containing trial strategy notes and years of texts.

The parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, are seeking as much as $150m from Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems LLC. Closing arguments were under way on Wednesday afternoon.

Judge Gamble admonished Jones on Tuesday for not telling the truth under oath after he falsely told the jury he was bankrupt and had complied with discovery in the case.

"It seems absurd to instruct you again that you must tell the truth while you testify," she said. "Yet here I am."

Jones has already been found liable for defamation by Gamble, who issued a rare default judgment against him in 2021.

Jones on Wednesday sought to distance himself from previous falsehoods that the shooting was a hoax, saying it was “crazy” of him to repeatedly make this claim.

Jones, who has previously acknowledged the shooting took place, told jurors that the shooting was “100% real.”

Heslin testified on Tuesday that the falsehoods Jones spread to his millions of listeners made his life “hell” and resulted in a campaign of harassment and death threats against him by people who believed he lied about his son’s death.

Lewis said she believes that Jones knew that the hoax claims were false but spread them anyway because they attracted listeners and helped him market his supplements and other products.

Free Speech Systems declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals.

The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle to carry out the massacre. It ended when Lanza killed himself with the approaching sound of police sirens.

Biden predicts mid-term pro-abortion vote following Kansas referendum upset

Online News EditorAugust 3, 2022

Washington, Aug 3 (EFE).- President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the result of the referendum on abortion in Kansas is a sign that in the mid-term elections in November, voters will cast their ballots to protect women’s right to choose to terminate their pregnancies if they so desire.

“The voters of Kansas sent a powerful signal that this fall the American people will vote to preserve and protect the rights, and refuse to let them be ripped away by politicians,” Biden said at the start of the first meeting of his administration’s task force on reproductive health care, a meeting in which he participated virtually since he is still self-isolating after testing positive for Covid-19.

Biden called upon Congress to restore Roe v. Wade protections, which were overturned by the Supreme Court in June.

“If Congress fails to act, the people of this country need to elect senators and representatives who will restore Roe and protect the right to privacy, freedom and equality,” he said.

Biden, who has received much criticism for allegedly not doing enough to defend the right to abortion, on Tuesday signed an executive order in which he instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to provide coverage for patients seeing “reproductive health services” in states where such services are legal.

The order comes just hours after Kansas voters cast their ballots in favor of keeping the right to abortion intact in their state in the first state referendum on the matter since in June the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, thus eliminating the federal right to abortion and providing states with the authority to legislate on the issue.

The Kansas referendum was especially relevant because it could set a precedent for other states where Republican lawmakers are working to limit or eliminate abortion.

Present at the White House meeting on Wednesday was Vice President Kamala Harris, who said that the people of Kansas “spoke loud and clear. They said this is not a partisan issue … this is a matter of defense of basic principles of liberty and freedom in America … And they spoke loudly in saying that they trust women to make decisions about their own lives and their bodies.”

Also present was US Attorney General Merrick Garland, who insisted that the Department of Justice will respond to every one of the laws being implemented by the states, a fight that will include the filing of lawsuits like the one announced yesterday against Idaho.

In the first DOJ action against a state since the high court ruling, Garland’s department said that Idaho had put in place a law “criminalizing” doctors and preventing them from freely interrupting pregnancies when the life of the mother is at risk.

Garland also said that the DOJ would move to dismiss a Texas lawsuit against the administration’s guidance reminding healthcare providers that US law requires them to provide abortions in medical emergencies.

The meeting on Wednesday was the first public session of the administration’s working group on reproductive rights – a group made up of members of various US government agencies, created after the Supreme Court decision and dedicated to evaluating “the changing panorama” of state laws.

Biden’s executive order establishes that patients who are seeking reproductive health services will be covered by Medicaid, the federal program subsidizing medical care for low-income people.

It also seeks to guarantee that providers of medical services abide by non-discrimination laws, especially amid the chaotic scenario and uncertainty opened up by decision of the high court, where a 6-3 rightist majority holds sway.

The executive order also seeks to promote research and the collection of data on the effects on mothers’ health of reducing access to reproductive services.

EFE pem/pamp/cpy/bp

Iceland: Volcano erupts near island's main airport for second time in a year

By Euronews with AP • Updated: 03/08/2022 - 

Aerial shot of activity from the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland on Wednesday Aug. 3, 2022, which is located 32k, southwest of the capital Reykjavik - 

 Copyright AP Photo / Ernir Snær

A volcano in southwest Iceland began erupting Wednesday, the country’s meteorological authorities said - just eight months after its last eruption officially ended.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office urged people not to go near the Fagradalsfjall volcano, which is located some 32 kilometers southwest of the capital, Reykjavik.

The eruption in an uninhabited valley is not far from Keflavik Airport, Iceland’s international air traffic hub. The airport remained open and no flights were disrupted.

A live video feed from the site showed magma spewing from a narrow fissure about 100 to 200 meters long over a field of lava from last year’s eruption, the first on the Reykjanes Peninsula in almost 800 years.



Scientists had anticipated an eruption somewhere on the peninsula after a series of earthquakes over the past week indicated volcanic activity close to the crust.

Volcanologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson said that the eruption appeared to be small.

“But we don’t know where in the process things are at,” he said as he boarded a helicopter for a first look.

The 2021 eruption in the same area produced spectacular lava flows for several months. Hundreds of thousands people flocked to see the spectacular sight.

Iceland, located above a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic, averages an eruption every four to five years.

The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which sent clouds of ash and dust into the atmosphere, interrupting air travel for days between Europe and North America because of concerns the ash could damage jet engines. More than 100,000 flights were grounded, stranding millions of passengers.

Shares in Iceland's flagship airline, Icelandair, rose 6% when news of the eruption broke Wednesday. Investors and residents alike had been spooked by the possibility of a much more disruptive eruption in a populated area of the peninsula.

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The effect of dark traits such as Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy on salesperson performance

News from the Journal of Marketing

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

Researchers from University of New Hampshire, University of Kentucky, Texas A&M University, and Florida State University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines the effect among salespeople of three negative personality traits – Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Understanding the Performance Effects of ‘Dark’ Salesperson Traits: Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy” and is authored by Cinthia B. Satornino, Alexis Allen, Huanhuan Shi, and Willy Bolander.

What makes a good salesperson?

Ads for sales jobs usually emphasize a preference for positive personality traits such as self-motivation, ability to be a team player, ethical behavior, and enthusiasm. Academic research also has traditionally focused on positive performance drivers, such as adaptiveness, conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion. Allen says that “While hiring people with these traits is desirable, it ignores the importance among salespeople of three negative traits – Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy – collectively known as the dark triad (DT).” Except for CEOs, lawyers, and celebrities, salespeople score higher on these dark traits than all other professions, which has led to sales professionals being characterized as conniving snakes.

That these dark personalities are employed by sales organizations suggests the ability of some salespeople to mask the dysfunctional manifestations of DT traits, such as callous self-interest, with more functional ones, such as charisma, during the hiring process. DT traits can offer significant advantages for some salespeople to get ahead and secure longer tenures. But there are downsides in the long run, too. Over time, the self-interested, antagonistic behaviors associated with DT traits are likely to undermine their relationships with colleagues, diminish their social capital, and subsequently reduce their performance.

The researchers conducted two studies to explore how and why dark salespeople persevere, and even thrive, in organizations. They investigate: (1) how dark salespeople perform over time relative to their low DT peers and (2) how ambient social structures, such as organizational social networks into which salespeople are embedded, influence these salespeople’s performance.

The first study provides empirical evidence that narcissism and psychopathy allow dark salespeople to succeed in the short term, but eventually lead to a “fall from grace,” including lost performance gains. In contrast, results show that Machiavellianism produces little in the short term, but manifests in long-term performance benefits.

The second study measures the reach efficiency of the dark personality’s social network. When a person’s network exhibits high reach efficiency, information about their actions becomes socially visible to others (i.e., friends of friends) who are indirectly connected to the dark personality. Low reach efficiency, however, impedes the spread of information and delays the social visibility of individual actions. Satornino explains that “If the network structure obscures information regarding the misdeeds of a dark salesperson, it enhances the probability for performance-enhancing cooperation between the dark personality and his or her unsuspecting peers.”

Results show that narcissism and psychopathy influence performance similarly, while Machiavellianism has the inverse effect. When reach efficiency is high, narcissism and psychopathy lead to decreased sales performance in subsequent periods. On the other hand, those with Machiavellianism benefit from high reach efficiency, which results in enhanced performance in subsequent periods.

The research team offers three key recommendations for chief sales officers:

• Hiring managers should be trained specifically to recognize signs of DT traits in the interview process using tools such as behavioral questions that highlight past or potential behaviors and characteristics typical of dark personalities.
• Sales managers should be trained to be cognizant of the performance patterns that may signal a dark personality to determine if interventions are needed.
• Sales managers should leverage social networks and peer feedback to facilitate unmasking dark personalities.

Full article and author contact information available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221113254

About the Journal of Marketing 

The Journal of Marketing develops and disseminates knowledge about real-world marketing questions useful to scholars, educators, managers, policy makers, consumers, and other societal stakeholders around the world. Published by the American Marketing Association since its founding in 1936, JM has played a significant role in shaping the content and boundaries of the marketing discipline. Shrihari Sridhar (Joe Foster ’56 Chair in Business Leadership, Professor of Marketing at Mays Business School, Texas A&M University) serves as the current Editor in Chief.
https://www.ama.org/jm

About the American Marketing Association (AMA) 

As the largest chapter-based marketing association in the world, the AMA is trusted by marketing and sales professionals to help them discover what is coming next in the industry. The AMA has a community of local chapters in more than 70 cities and 350 college campuses throughout North America. The AMA is home to award-winning content, PCM® professional certification, premiere academic journals, and industry-leading training events and conferences.
https://www.ama.org

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JOURNAL

Journal of Marketing

DOI

10.1177/00222429221113254 

ARTICLE TITLE

Understanding the Performance Effects of “Dark” Salesperson Traits: Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy

This is how highly resistant strains of fungi emerge

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RUHR-UNIVERSITY BOCHUM

An international research team has deciphered the mechanism by which the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans is resistant to fungus-specific drugs. It is a yeast-like fungus that can infect humans. Specific drugs, named antifungals, are available for treatment, but they don’t always work – a phenomenon similar to antibiotic resistance. A team from Duke University in the USA and Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) has used genetic, bioinformatic and microbiological techniques to decipher the mechanism underlying this resistance. They describe it in the journal Nature Microbiology, published online on 2 August 2022.

“The results are highly relevant for combating fungal infections in clinical practice, veterinary medicine and agriculture,” says Professor Ulrich Kück, Senior Professor in General and Molecular Botany at RUB. He cooperated for the project with the Bochum researcher Dr. Tim Dahlmann and the team headed by Professor Dr. Joe Heitman, who is currently based at Duke University in North Carolina and has been a visiting professor at RUB on several occasions.

Number of fungal infections on the rise

“In the western hemisphere, the number of people with a lowered immune defence is increasing, because life expectancies are rising rapidly and treatment with immunosuppressants after organ transplants is becoming more common,” explains Ulrich Kück. “This is associated with an increase in fungal infections.” Cryptococcus neoformans is one of the most significant human pathogenic fungi responsible for so-called cryptococcosis. It triggers acute infections in immunocompromised patients; and the mortality rate may be as high as 70 per cent. This is because fungal strains that are resistant to the drugs often evolve in hospitals, which makes treatment more difficult. So far, it was unclear which cellular and genetic mechanisms lead to this resistance.

So-called transposons, however, were known to play a role in the resistances. Transposons are jumping genes, i.e. DNA segments that can change their position in the genome and thus affect the function of genes. If a transposon jumps into a gene that’s critical for susceptibility to a drug, it’s possible for resistance to emerge. The mobility of the transposons is controlled by regulatory RNAs, so-called small interfering RNA, or siRNA for short.

RNA mechanism causes resistance

In their current study, the researchers discovered gene mutations in resistant isolates that led to siRNA control being switched off. By introducing an intact copy of the gene, it was possible to restore siRNA control; as a result, the researchers were able to prevent the transposons from jumping and shed light on the cause of resistance. Due to their small size, the gene segments that code for siRNAs are not easy to find in the genome. Tim Dahlmann managed to locate them with special bioinformatic analyses. By identifying the resistance mechanisms, it will be possible to use them for the treatment of mycoses in humans in the future.

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JOURNAL

Nature Microbiology

DOI

10.1038/s41564-022-01183-z 

ARTICLE TITLE

Uncontrolled transposition following RNAi loss causes hypermutation and antifungal drug resistance in clinical isolates of Cryptococcus neoformans

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Aug-2022

Global spread of powdery mildew through migration and trade

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH

Wheat is one of the world’s most important staple foods – its significance for global food security was recently thrown into focus by the loss of grain exports from Ukraine due to the war. A more common threat to crops are fungal diseases, which can result in economic losses and famine. One of the most destructive pathogens is powdery mildew, a fungus which drastically reduces crop yields.

Agricultural arms race

To prevent infestation, huge sums are currently invested in the breeding of mildew-resistant grain varieties. In order to infect the crop plant, the pathogen must be an optimal match for its host – with resistant varieties, the fungus cannot attack. But powdery mildew constantly and rapidly adapts to new hosts. To be able to keep the disease under control in the long term, it is vital that scientists gain a better understanding of the pathogen. This is where historical data is crucial: powdery mildew is as old as wheat itself, but until now, it was not known how it had been able to spread worldwide on different grains.

A modern globetrotter

A research team led by Thomas Wicker and Beat Keller of the University Research Priority Program (URPP) Evolution in Action at the University of Zurich has now managed to uncover the secret of the wheat mildew’s success. To do so, they compared the genetic composition of 172 powdery mildew strains from 13 countries on five continents. “With our analyses we were able to prove that the mildew first appeared around 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, which is also the birthplace of agriculture and modern wheat,” explains Alexandros Georgios Sotiropoulos, PhD candidate at the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. “In the Stone and Bronze Ages, agriculture spread to Europe and Asia. The pathogen was also spread to these new regions through human migration and trade. Around 300 years ago, European settlers introduced powdery mildew along with wheat to North and South America.”

Adaptation through rapid evolution

The data confirmed what had previously been suspected: as wheat was introduced to more and more corners of the Earth, powdery mildew was brought with it and underwent hybridization along the way, i.e. it genetically mixed with local powdery mildew species and formed hybrids that are better adapted to local agricultural environments. “This appears to be the cause of the rapid evolution of powdery mildew’s pathogenicity,” explains Kentaro Shimizu, co-director of the URPP. “A particularly clear example of this is seen in the many American wheat varieties brought to Japan over the past 120 years for cross-breeding with traditional East Asian wheat. The powdery mildew from the USA, which was also imported, hybridized with the resident Japanese mildew strains, and the resulting hybrids successfully attacked newly bred wheat varieties.”

To study the spread of powdery mildew, researchers used theoretical analyses originally created to study the evolutionary history of mankind. “Our study shows once again that collaboration between academic disciplines and the use of unconventional methods to research complex topics offers great potential and has implications for modern crop breeding,” says Kentaro Shimizu.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-31975-0 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Global genomic analyses of wheat powdery mildew reveal association of pathogen spread with historical human migration and trade

Volcanic super eruptions are millions of years in the making – followed by swift surge, scientists find

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

Researchers at the University of Bristol and Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre have discovered that super-eruptions occur when huge accumulations of magma deep in the Earth’s crust, formed over millions of years, move rapidly to the surface disrupting pre-existing rock.

Using a model for crustal flow, an international team of scientists were able to show that pre-existing plutons – a body of intrusive rock made from solidified magna or lava - were formed over a few million years prior to four known gigantic super eruptions and that the disruption of these plutons by newly emplaced magmas took place extraordinarily rapidly. While the magma supplying super eruptions takes place over a prolonged period of time, the magma disrupts the crust and then erupts in just a few decades.

The findings, published today in Nature, explain these extreme differences in time ranges for magma generation and eruption by flow of hot but solid crust in response to ascent of the magma, accounting for the infrequency of these eruptions and their huge volumes.

Professor Steve Sparks of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences explained: “The longevity of plutonic and related volcanic systems contrasts with short timescales to assemble shallow magma chambers prior to large-magnitude eruptions of molten rock. Crystals formed from earlier magma pulses, entrained within erupting magmas are stored at temperatures near or below the solidus for long periods prior to eruption and commonly have very short residence in host magmas for just decades or less.”

This study casts doubt on the interpretation of prolonged storage of old crystals at temperatures high enough for some molten rocks to be present and indicates the crystals derived from previously emplaced and completely solidified plutons (granites).

Scientists have known that volcanic super-eruptions eject crystals derived from older rocks. However, before this, they were widely thought to have originated in hot environments above the melting points of rock. Previous studies that show the magma chambers for super-eruptions form very rapidly but there was no convincing explanation for this rapid process. While modelling suggested that super-volcanic eruptions would need to be preceded by very long periods of granite pluton emplacement in the upper crust, evidence for this inference was largely lacking.

Prof Sparks added: “By studying of the age and character of the tiny crystals erupted with molten rock, we can help understand how such eruptions happen.

“The research provides an advance in understanding the geological circumstances that enable super eruptions to take place. This will help identify volcanoes that have potential for future super-eruptions.”

Such eruptions are very rare and Bristol scientists estimate only one of these types of eruptions occur on earth every 20,000 years. However such eruptions are highly destructive locally and can create global scale severe climate change that would have catastrophic consequences.

This project was supported by the Mining company BHP and by NERC.

Paper:

‘Time scales for pluton growth, magma chamber formation and super-eruptions’ by Prof Stephen Sparks et al in Nature.

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JOURNAL

Nature

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Time scales for pluton growth, magma chamber formation and super-eruptions’

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Aug-2022

Nanoscale observations simplify how scientists describe earthquake movement

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

 

IMAGE: GRADUATE STUDENT BINXIN FU, LEFT, AND CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING PROFESSOR ROSA ESPINOSA-MARZAL USED MICROSCOPIC-SCALE OBSERVATIONS TO SIMPLIFY HOW SCIENTISTS DESCRIBE MACROSCALE EARTHQUAKE MOVEMENT. view more 

CREDIT: MICHELLE HASSEL

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Using single calcite crystals with varying surface roughness allows engineers to simplify the complex physics that describes fault movement. In a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, researchers show how this simplification may lead to better earthquake prediction.

Scientists describe fault behavior using models based on observational studies that account for the frictional coefficients of rocks and minerals. These “rate-and-state” equations calculate the fault strength, which has implications for earthquake strength and frequency. However, applying these empirical models to earthquake prediction is not practical because of the number of unique variables to be considered for each fault, including the effect of water.

The study, led by civil and environmental engineering professor Rosa Espinosa- Marzal, looks at the relationship between friction and the surface roughness of calcite – one of the most common rock-forming minerals in Earth’s crust – to formulate a more theoretical approach to defining rate-and-state laws.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our goal is to examine the nanoscale processes that may trigger fault movement,” said Binxin Fu, a CEE graduate student and the first author of the study. “The processes we investigate at the nanoscale are less complex than macroscale processes. Because of this, we aim to use microscopic observations to bridge the gap between the nanoscale and macroscale worlds to describe fault behavior using less complexity.”

The roughness of a mineral crystal depends primarily on its atomic structure. However, the researchers said the rocks in contact zones are scraped, dissolved and annealed as they rub past each other, also affecting their nanoscale texture.

To test how nanoscale mineral roughness can affect fault behavior, the team prepared atomically smooth and rough calcite crystals in dry and wet environments to simulate dry rocks and those containing pore water. Atomic force microscopy measured friction by dragging a tiny, pressure-mounted silicon tip across different crystal surfaces exposed to simulated fault zone conditions: wet surface and smooth calcite; wet surface and rough calcite; dry surface and smooth calcite; and dry surface with rough calcite.

“Friction can increase or decrease with sliding velocity depending on the mineral types and the environment,” Espinosa-Marzal said. “We found that in calcite, friction typically increases with sliding rate along rougher mineral surfaces – and even more in the presence of water. By using data from such a common mineral type and a limited number of contact scenarios, we reduce the analysis’s complexity and provide a fundamental understanding of the rate-and-state equations.”

The team compared its experimental results to studies from natural settings with calcite-containing rock at shallow crustal levels.

“Our results agree with a recent study showing that water lowers the fault strength compared with dry conditions,” Espinosa-Marzal said. ”Our findings are also consistent with another study showing that low–frequency earthquakes tend to occur along wet faults, suggesting that decreased friction – caused by water – may be a mechanism for slow earthquakes in some environments.”

This advance may help seismologists redefine rate-and-state laws to determine where stress is building up in the crust – and give clues to where and when future earthquakes may occur.

The team acknowledges that there are still many other factors to consider, including temperature and the influence of other common crustal minerals such as quartz and mica. The researchers plan to incorporate these variables into future models.

The National Science Foundation supported this study.

Espinosa-Marzal also is a professor of materials science and engineering, and affiliated with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the U. of I.

Editor’s notes:

To reach Rosa Espinosa-Marzal, call 217-300-4380; email rosae@illinois.edu.

The paper “Velocity-weakening and -strengthening friction at single and multiasperity contacts with calcite single crystals” is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2112505119

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2112505119 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Velocity-weakening and -strengthening friction at single and multiasperity contacts with calcite single crystals

Smells experienced in nature evoke positive wellbeing

Smells experienced in nature can make us feel relaxed, joyful, and healthy, according to new research led by the University of Kent’s Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE)

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KENT

Smells experienced in nature can make us feel relaxed, joyful, and healthy, according to new research led by the University of Kent’s Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE).

Smells were found to play an important role in delivering wellbeing benefits from interacting with nature, often with a strong link to people’s personal memories, and specific ecological characteristics and processes (e.g. fallen leaves rotting in the winter).

Nature is known to play an integral role in promoting human health and wellbeing, shown especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, previous research has been limited in investigating which attributes of nature (e.g. smells, sounds, colours) affect human wellbeing and why.

This study published by Ambio (A Journal of Environment and Society) examines the role of smell in influencing wellbeing through nature. Researchers found that smells affected multiple types of human wellbeing, with physical wellbeing noted most frequently, particularly in relation to relaxation, comfort and rejuvenation. Absence of smell was also perceived to improve physical wellbeing, providing a cleansing environment due to the removal of pollution and unwanted smells associated with urban areas, and therefore enabling relaxation. Relaxation reduces stress and lowers cortisol levels, which is often linked to a multitude of diseases, and so these findings could be particularly significant to public health professionals.

The research, carried out in woodland settings across four seasons, also found that smells evoked memories related to childhood activities. Many participants created meaningful connections with particular smells, rather than the woodland itself, and associated this with a memorable event. This, in turn, appeared to influence wellbeing by provoking emotional reactions to the memory.

The study was co-led by Dr Jessica Fisher, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at DICE. She said: ‘Nature is a multisensory experience and our research demonstrates the potential significance of smell for wellbeing.

‘The study provides findings that can inform the work of practitioners, public health specialists, policy-makers and landscape planners looking to improve wellbeing outcomes through nature. Small interventions could lead to public health benefits.’

The research paper titled ‘Nature, smells, and human wellbeing’ is published by Ambio. doi: 10.1007/s13280-022-01760-w

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JOURNAL

AMBIO

DOI

10.1007/s13280-022-01760-w 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Nature, smells, and human wellbeing