Scientists use novel method to make promising battery material

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

 

IMAGE: IMAGES PRODUCED BY TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY VERIFIED THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ELECTRODE MATERIAL FROM A DISORDERED ARRANGEMENT OF ATOMS (LEFT) TO AN ORDERED, CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE (RIGHT). view more 

CREDIT: (IMAGE BY ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY.)

Charging and discharging a battery cell transforms its electrode material into a ​“super” material.

Over the last decade, advances in research and development have led to more efficient lithium-ion batteries. Yet, significant shortcomings remain. One challenge is the need for faster charging, which can help speed the adoption of electric vehicles.

A research team led by Boise State University and the University of California San Diego has taken an unconventional approach to this problem. Using the resources of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, they created a high performance material for battery electrodes. The compound, niobium pentoxide, has a novel crystalline structure. It shows promise for speeding up charging while providing excellent storage capacity.

During charging, lithium ions move from the positive electrode (cathode) to the negative electrode (anode), commonly made of graphite. At higher charging speeds, lithium metal tends to accumulate on the graphite’s surface. This effect, known as plating, tends to degrade performance and can cause batteries to short circuit, overheat and catch on fire.

“The facilities and staff at Argonne are world-class. This work to discover the unique transformation in niobium pentoxide benefited tremendously from the collaboration with Argonne scientists.” — Claire Xiong, Boise State

Niobium pentoxide is much less susceptible to plating, potentially making it safer and more durable than graphite. In addition, its atoms can arrange in many different stable configurations that don’t require much energy to reconfigure. This presents opportunities for researchers to discover new structures that could enhance battery performance.

For this study, the researchers built a coin cell with niobium pentoxide as the electrode material. (A coin cell, also known as a button cell, is a small, circular-shaped battery device.) The niobium pentoxide had an amorphous structure — in other words, a disordered arrangement of atoms. When the cell was charged and discharged numerous times, the disordered structure transformed into an ordered, crystalline one. This particular structure had never been previously reported in the scientific literature.

Compared to the disordered arrangement, the crystalline structure enabled easier, faster transport of lithium ions into the anode during charging. This finding points to the material’s promise for fast charging, and other measurements suggest that it can store a large amount of charge.

Argonne provides several complementary tools

Because of the complex changes during the charge-discharge cycle, several complementary diagnostic tools were needed for a comprehensive understanding. That’s where Argonne — and a pair of DOE Office of Science user facilities at the laboratory — came in.

Yuzi Liu, a scientist in Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), used a technique called transmission electron microscopy to verify the structural transformation from amorphous to crystalline. This technique sends high-energy electron beams through a material sample. It creates digital images based on the interaction of the electrons with the sample. The images show how atoms are arranged.

“Since the electron beam is focused on a small area of the sample, the technique provides detailed information about that particular area,” said Liu.

Hua Zhou, a physicist in Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source (APS), confirmed the structural change with another technique known as synchrotron X-ray diffraction. This involves hitting the sample with high-energy X-ray beams, which are scattered by the electrons of the atoms in the material. A detector measures this scattering to characterize the material’s structure.

X-ray diffraction is effective for providing information about overall structural changes across an entire material sample. This can be helpful in studying battery electrode materials because their structures tend to vary from one area to another.

“By hitting the anode material with X-ray beams at different angles, I confirmed that it was uniformly crystalline along the surface and in the interior,” said Zhou.

The research also drew upon other Argonne capabilities for characterizing materials. Justin Connell, a materials scientist in Argonne’s Electrochemical Discovery Laboratory, used a tool called X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to evaluate the anode material. Connell shot X-ray beams into the anode, ejecting electrons from it with a certain energy.

“The technique revealed that niobium atoms gain multiple electrons as the cell is charged,” said Connell. ​“This suggests that the anode has a high storage capacity.”

Argonne physicist Sungsik Lee also evaluated niobium’s gain and loss of electrons. He used another technique called X-ray absorption spectroscopy. This involved hitting the anode material with intense synchrotron X-ray beams and measuring the transmission and absorption of the X-rays in the material.

“The technique provided an overall picture of the state of the electrons across the entire anode,” said Lee. ​“This confirmed that niobium gains multiple electrons.”

Argonne is unusual in that it has all these research capabilities on its campus. Claire Xiong, the study’s lead investigator, did her postdoctoral research at Argonne’s CNM before joining the Boise State faculty as a materials scientist. She was quite familiar with Argonne’s extensive capabilities and had previously collaborated with the Argonne scientists who contributed to the study.

“The facilities and staff at Argonne are world-class,” said Xiong. ​“This work to discover the unique transformation in niobium pentoxide benefited tremendously from the collaboration with Argonne scientists. It also benefited from the access to the APS, Electrochemical Discovery Laboratory and CNM.”

New synthesis method could support innovation in many areas

It is very difficult to make the high performance, crystalline niobium pentoxide with traditional synthesis methods, such as those that subject materials to heat and pressure. The unconventional synthesis approach used successfully in this study — charging and discharging a battery cell — could be applied to make other innovative battery materials. It could potentially even support fabrication of novel materials in other fields, such as semiconductors and catalysts.

The study was published in Nature Materials in May 2022. Besides the aforementioned Argonne scientists and Boise State’s Xiong, the other authors were:

• Pete Barnes, Kiev Dixon, Dewen Hou, Changjian Deng, Kassiopeia Smith, Eric Gabriel, Olivia O. Maryon, Paul H. Davis, Hoayu Zhu, Paul J. Simmonds, Ariel E. Briggs, Darin Schwartz, Hui Xiong (Boise State)
• Yunxing Zuo, Ji Qi, Zhuoying Zhu, Chi Chen, Shyue Ping Ong (University of California San Diego)
• Zhiyuan Ma (Argonne)
• Yingge Du, Zihua Zhu, Yadong Zhou (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

About Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials
The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit https://​sci​ence​.osti​.gov/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​-​a​t​-​a​-​G​lance.

The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), a DOE Energy Innovation Hub, is a major partnership that integrates researchers from many disciplines to overcome critical scientific and technical barriers and create new breakthrough energy storage technology. Led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, partners include national leaders in science and engineering from academia, the private sector, and national laboratories. Their combined expertise spans the full range of the technology-development pipeline from basic research to prototype development to product engineering to market delivery.

About the Advanced Photon Source

The U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world’s most productive X-ray light source facilities. The APS provides high-brightness X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use the APS to produce over 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. APS scientists and engineers innovate technology that is at the heart of advancing accelerator and light-source operations. This includes the insertion devices that produce extreme-brightness X-rays prized by researchers, lenses that focus the X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes the way the X-rays interact with samples being studied, and software that gathers and manages the massive quantity of data resulting from discovery research at the APS.

This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.

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JOURNAL

Nature Materials

DOI

10.1038/s41563-022-01242-0 

ARTICLE TITLE

Electrochemically induced amorphous-to-rock-salt phase transformation in niobium oxide electrode for Li-ion batteries.

Black children with complex communication needs face instructional deficits

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Early childhood is a critical period for language development. For children with complex communication needs, support and training during this period of life can be essential for the development of effective communication skills. Unfortunately, the services that children need may not be available to everyone equally. New research led by Penn State has revealed that Black children with complex communication needs receive less of a critically important type of instruction than their white counterparts.  

Previous research has consistently shown that Black children in the United States systematically encounter barriers to accessing the same educational opportunities as their white peers. In a new article in American Journal of Speech Language Pathology the researchers found this same inequity occurs in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) instruction for young children. The article was authored by Lauramarie Pope, doctoral candidate in communication sciences and disorders at Penn State; Janice Light, professor of communication sciences and disorders, Hintz Family Endowed Chair in Children's Communicative Competence at Penn State; and Amber Franklin, associate professor of speech pathology and audiology at Miami University.

Augmentative and alternative communication

According to the researchers, the term "complex communication needs" refers to any condition where people cannot meet their communication needs using only speech. Among children with complex communication needs, 70% have been diagnosed with a developmental delay or autism spectrum disorder. For people with complex communication needs, AAC can facilitate more accurate and expansive communication. 

AAC can include any device or technique that people use to support or replace speech. In recent years, tablets, like iPads, and other technological advances have increased the set of AAC tools available, allowing children with complex communication needs to select icons or words from a display or to spell words that the device repeats out loud. These technological advancements have greatly expanded the accessibility of communication supports among children with complex communication needs.

Proper training with AAC can literally transform a child’s ability to communicate. Research has shown that, during preschool and lower elementary school, access to AAC-based instruction is critical to support a child’s participation in school, social development, and communication, and impacts their outcomes later in life.  

The racial divide in opportunities

The researchers examined two waves of publicly available data about for 78 children with complex communication needs. One wave was collected during preschool, and another wave was collected two years later. At both times, teachers reported the amount of AAC-based instruction each student received per week. At the start of the study, 63% of white students received 90 minutes or more of AAC-based instruction each week. This level of instruction, however, was reported for only 29% of Black students.

“Without access to AAC at an early age, children with complex communication needs have no effective way to communicate and are severely restricted in their participation in education, family life, and community activities,” said Light, who co-authored the article. “They are at risk in all aspects of development and fall further and further behind their peers. Early AAC instruction is essential to enhance communication, bolster language learning, increase participation in daily activities, improve speech, and decrease the challenging behaviors that occur when children are unable to communicate.”

By the end of the study, the amount of AAC instruction that children were receiving was even lower. Two years after they were first measured in preschool, 52% of white students received 90 minutes or more of AAC-based instruction each week. This level of instruction was reported for only 25% of Black students.

Troublingly, said the researchers, 75% of Black children were receiving fewer than 60 minutes per week of AAC instruction by the end of the study. Prior research has shown that at least 60 minutes per week is needed to address these students’ needs.

“It is widely understood among researchers that racial disparities in educational opportunities, instruction and outcomes are very common,” said Pope, who was lead author of the article. “It was not surprising that the same pattern emerged in the use of AAC. These data fit the pattern that has been seen across educational fields. That being the case, we decided that it was time to sound the alarm bell, so to speak.”

A call for self-examination

The article provides specific recommendations for practitioners, administrators, researchers, preservice preparation programs and professional organizations. Specifically, the researchers suggest that professionals who provide services to young students with complex communication needs, as well as the organizations that train them, audit their programs to see if any racial imbalance exists in the services they provide. An audit, according to the researchers, would not take much time or money, but it could help identify opportunities to improve the equity of services.

“Most speech language pathologists and educators truly want to serve all children equally,” said Pope. “Hopefully, these findings inspire practitioners to examine their work in order to identify any racial discrepancies. Understanding whether a problem exists is the first step toward fixing that problem.”  

Pope said that the researchers wrote the article to raise awareness about racial inequities in access to services for students that use AAC. The researchers said they believe that if the professionals and organizations undertake these equity audits, it could be a step toward educational equity for all children, which could lead more children to clear and effective communication throughout their lives. 

This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research.

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology

DOI

10.1044/2022_AJSLP-22-00079 

 Tiny biohybrid robots for intelligent drug delivery

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BEIJING INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PRESS CO., LTD

A review paper by scientists at the Zhejiang University summarized the development of continuum robots from the aspects of design, actuation, modeling and control field.

The new review paper, published on Jul. 26 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, provided an overview of the classic and advanced technologies of continuum robots, along with some prospects urgently to be solved.

“Some small-scale continuum robots with new actuation methods are being widely investigated in the field of interventional surgical treatment or endoscopy, however, the characterization of mechanical properties of them is still different problem.” explained study author Haojian Lu , a professor at the Zhejiang University.

In order to realize the miniaturization of continuum robots, many cutting-edge materials have been developed and used to realize the actuation of robots, showing unique advantages. The continuum robots embedded with micromagnet or made of ferromagnetic composite material have accurate steering ability under an external controllable magnetic field; Magnetically soft continuum robots, on the other hand, can achieve small diameters, up to the micron scale, which ensures their ability to conduct targeted therapy in bronchi or in cerebral vessels.

However, it is difficult for magnetically soft continuum robots to maintain stability under external forces, and the tiny rigid magnet tips risk falling off inside the body during operation. To achieve safer and more reliable control, shape memory materials are used to drive the continuum robot and for cardiovascular examination and nasopharyngeal administration. The key advantage of this self-deforming material is that it provides extension, bending, and torsion for the main stem and can achieve overall actuation while maintaining a small scale, but its inherent hysteresis makes it difficult to achieve rapid response and precise positioning at the same time, and it has a low load capacity and quite complex pipeline wiring.

Considering the nonlinear deformations caused by actuation, material elasticity, and sensitivity to contact with the environment, continuum robots face great challenges in precise analytical modeling.

One of the major challenges in modeling is to simplify the models and compromise the relationship between computation complexity and model accuracy.

Similarly, the control problem is also a great challenge for the continuum robot.  is to find the proper actuation value to reach the desired state to perform a given task. Model-based control is highly dependent on the precise modeling of the continuum robot and the perception accuracy of the sensors. The data-driven control method learn the nonlinear model of the robot, so as to achieve efficient control. In addition, remote operation is often used to control the continuum robot in the medical field.

Besides,“The research field of continuum robots has made great progress, but there are still some problems to be solved including the miniaturization, more powerful perception and the stable simulation engine.” said Lu.

Authors of the paper include Jingyu Zhang, Qin Fang, Pingyu Xiang, Danying Sun, Yanan Xue, Rui Jin, Ke Qiu, Rong Xiong, Yue Wang, Haojian Lu.

Fundamental Research Funds for the Zhejiang Provincial Universities (2021XZZX021), Science and Technology on Space Intelligent Control Laboratory (2021-JCJQ-LB-010-13), and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LD22E050007)  support this work.

The paper, "A Survey on Design, Actuation, Modeling, and Control of Continuum Robot," was published in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems on July26, 2022, at DOI: https://doi.org/10.34133/2022/9783517

 

Reference

Authors: Jingyu Zhang, Qin Fang, Pingyu Xiang, Danying Sun, Yanan Xue, Rui Jin, Ke Qiu, Rong Xiong, Yue Wang, Haojian Lu

Title of original paper: A Survey on Design, Actuation, Modeling, and Control of Continuum Robot

Journal: Cyborg and Bionic Systems

DOI: 10.34133/2022/9783517

 

Affiliations:

1 State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control and Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

2 Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, The Department of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

3 Department of Plastic Surgery, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University of Medicine, Hangzhou 310016, China

 

A brief introduction about yourself.

About Dr. Jingyu Zhang:

Jingyu Zhang received the M. Eng. degree in Nanjing University of Science and Technology from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China and is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in robotics with the ZJU Robotics Lab, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. He has previously worked on medical ultrasound scanning system and is currently developing novel different scale of soft continuum to augment the operation ability of surgeons.

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JOURNAL

Cyborg and Bionic Systems

ARTICLE TITLE

A Survey on Design, Actuation, Modeling, and Control of Continuum Robot

Brazil has two populations of American bullfrogs, an exotic species that transmits a deadly fungus

Genetic analysis of Aquarana catesbeiana, a species that originally came from North America and is now found in nine Brazilian states, shows that the lineage introduced in 1935 prevails in both captive and feral bullfrogs. Law enforcement to maintain sani

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS COLLECTING FERAL BULLFROGS. STUDY CONFIRMED THE EXISTENCE OF AT LEAST TWO DIFFERENT POPULATIONS OF BULLFROGS view more 

CREDIT: ANA PAULA BRANDÃO

Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) have conducted the most comprehensive genetic analysis ever of the American bullfrog (Aquarana catesbeiana) in Brazil, concluding that there are two populations of the species here, living on frog farms or invading local ecosystems. Bullfrogs are considered the world’s main invasive amphibian. 

An article on the study, which was supported by FAPESP, is published in Scientific Reports.

“We confirmed the existence of at least two different populations of bullfrogs. One probably descends from the first bullfrogs introduced into Brazil. This population is present in practically all the South and Southeast. The other is basically confined to the state of Minas Gerais, but occurs in small numbers in other states,” said Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen, first author of the article. The study was part of his master’s research at the Institute of Biosciences (IB-USP) with a scholarship from Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

A. catesbeiana is native to North America and was brought to Rio de Janeiro in 1935 to produce meat. It is now farmed throughout the South and Southeast and has also spread in the wild, with adverse impacts on local ecosystems, such as diseases against which Brazil’s native species have no defenses.

“Our results show that captive and invasive bullfrogs are genetically indistinguishable, reinforcing the importance of preventing escape from frog farms,” said Taran Grant, a professor at IB-USP supported by FAPESP and principal investigator for the study.

If the populations were genetically different, it would be possible to know the provenance of each animal. In theory, analysis of a captured bullfrog could point to a region or frog farm from which it or a close relative had escaped, so that monitoring and law enforcement would be feasible. Compared with introduced populations of the species studied in other countries, however, the Brazilian groups have the least diversity. 

State policy 

The researchers analyzed specific genes in 324 tissue samples. Specimens came from 38 sites in seven of the nine Brazilian states where captive and feral bullfrogs are found. They concluded that the vast majority belong to the same population, which descends from the animals first brought from North America to Rio de Janeiro in 1935, after which the bullfrogs spread out across the country in response to incentives offered as a matter of state policy.

The other population descends from a batch of animals brought in the 1970s to Minas Gerais under a public policy implemented later in the state. These included breeding pairs probably imported from the United States. The species is native to the eastern US, as well as northern Mexico and southern Canada.

“The results of the genetic analyses match these two more well-documented introductions, although there’s anecdotal evidence of others in the 1980s and 2000s, and isolated initiatives by some producers. If there were other introductions, the animals concerned could have had the same origin or may have interbred and merged with the existing population. Alternatively, we simply didn’t collect samples from these individuals,” said Jorgewich-Cohen, currently a PhD candidate at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

Bullfrog farming peaked in the 1980s in Brazil. Some 2,000 farms were producing at that time. The activity declined in the ensuing decades owing to a number of factors, such as lack of private investment and public incentives. Many farms were abandoned, and animals escaped into the wild.

“The species reproduces easily, laying many eggs and growing quickly until individuals reach 15 cm. In addition, it’s highly resistant to disease and can coexist with the fungi and viruses that have led to a global decline in populations of other amphibians, without necessarily seeing its development impaired,” said Luís Felipe Toledo, the other co-author of the article. Toledo is a professor at the State University of Campinas’s Biology Institute (IB-UNICAMP) and is supported by FAPESP.

American invasion

These characteristics are desirable in any breeder species but become a major environmental problem when the animals in question invade wilderness areas. In the case of A. catesbeiana, the adverse effects include competition with native species for food and other resources. The North American species is also a voracious predator, feeding on other frogs as well as snakes, birds, and even mammals, and its loud croaking interferes with the reproduction of native amphibians. “These alterations can have a significant impact on reproduction since most anurans [frogs and toads] depend on acoustic communication to locate, appraise and choose mates,” Grant said.

The most serious environmental problem, or at least the most well-documented to date, is the transmission of diseases. “Having spread through the Atlantic Rainforest biome from Rio de Janeiro to Rio Grande do Sul [Brazil’s southernmost state], bullfrogs affect native wildlife in various ways. The main problem is that they’re carriers of the amphibian chytrid fungus [Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis] and ranavirus. Native amphibians lack their resistance to these two pathogens, which have even led to species extinction,” Toledo said.

Chytrid fungus causes chytridiomycosis, an infectious disease that penetrates the skin of adult amphibians, which become unable to breathe and die from cardiac arrest. It has decimated the populations of at least 501 species of amphibians worldwide (more at: agencia.fapesp.br/37145/ and agencia.fapesp.br/30127/). 

Ranavirus is also associated with the decline in populations of these animals and has been detected in the Atlantic Rainforest (more at: agencia.fapesp.br/30808/). Brazilian law requires anyone detecting chytrid fungus or ranavirus in farmed animals to notify the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (MAPA) and perform “sanitary slaughter” (or depopulation), destroying all animals and disinfecting the facility before starting a new breeding cycle, but this is not what happens.

“We detected chytrid fungus in almost all the frog farms we visited. There’s a great deal of movement of bullfrogs around the country. Producers swap animals based on the mistaken idea that this increases their genetic diversity,” said Toledo, who works with MAPA and state departments of agriculture to try to improve the legislation and control bullfrog breeding and marketing.

The study shows that frog farms have merely consolidated the same populations with low genetic diversity by exchanging animals. The practice does not necessarily have economic or financial drawbacks. Brazil currently produces 400 metric tons of frog meat per year, all of which is sold on the domestic market. 

“Interest in preventing the diseases caused by chytrid fungus and ranavirus is very incipient. Many producers can’t sell all the meat they produce. Oversight and inspection need to be greatly improved. An alternative strategy would be to develop the industry if the large meatpackers were interested in the product. In that case, high sanitary standards would have to be enforced by both producers and consumers,” Toledo said.

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-13870-2 

ARTICLE TITLE

Genetic structure of American bullfrog populations in Brazil

What makes the 'Appalachian truffle’ taste and smell delicious

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

 

IMAGE: THESE APPALACHIAN TRUFFLES MIGHT ONE DAY BE JUST AS PRIZED AS THOSE FROM EUROPE. view more 

CREDIT: DAVID FORTIER

A hallmark of a truly luxurious meal is a sprinkling of truffle shavings — the fungal kind, not the chocolate. Nicknamed “diamonds” of the culinary world, these fanciful fungi are prized for their unique flavor and scent. But newer truffle species are fighting to achieve that same gourmet status. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Omega have performed the first full aroma characterization of the Appalachian truffle, unlocking the potential for a new North American “black diamond.”

The gourmet delicacies known as truffles are subterranean fungi of the Tuber species that require several years and very particular conditions to grow. Figuring out how to cultivate the fungi efficiently has been very difficult, so most people forage for them in the wild using trained animals, such as pigs or dogs, that can uncover these hidden gems. Because truffles are so rare and challenging to obtain, they are very expensive. For example, a large 3.3-pound behemoth from Italy cost $330,000 at auction several years ago. Commercial truffles most often originate from Europe, Australia and the western U.S., but different species exist all over the world. Unlike the fancy white or black truffles grown in Italy or France, however, many unearthed in North America have not been well studied. So, Normand Voyer and colleagues wanted to thoroughly analyze the aromatic profile of one of these North American varieties, known as Tuber canaliculatum, or Appalachian truffle.

To accomplish this, the researchers investigated three T. canaliculatum samples using headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). With these techniques, the team identified the species’ “volatilome,” or the chemical fingerprint responsible for its aroma. A total of 30 different compounds, including six that had never been reported in other truffle species, were identified. Some, such as 2,4-dithiapentane, are found in many truffle species and give truffle oil its unique smell. The most prevalent compounds were described as having strong odors of garlic, fungus and even a cabbage-like, rotten smell that was found in higher concentrations in older samples. The researchers say that this work could spur future studies of T. canaliculatum, which might one day place it at the same high status as its European cousins.

The authors acknowledge funding from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Nature et Technologies.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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JOURNAL

ACS Omega

DOI

10.1021/acsomega.2c02877 

ARTICLE TITLE

Characterization of the Volatilome of Tuber canaliculatum Harvested in Quebec, Canada

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Aug-2022

Cli­mate change threat­ens ice caves in Aus­tria

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK

 

IMAGE: THE EISGRUBEN EISHÖHLE IN UPPER AUSTRIA IS ONE OF THE EIGHT CAVES STUDIED IN AUSTRIA. IT LOST 10 METRES OF ICE IN 40 YEARS. view more 

CREDIT: CHRISTOPH SPÖTL

There are several thousand documented ice caves worldwide, and Austria is one of the countries with the highest density of ice caves - but only a few have been studied in detail. Over the past few years, a team of researchers from the Universities of Innsbruck and Belfast has now analysed in detail eight ice caves with a descending morphology in Tyrol, Styria, Upper Austria and Carinthia, choosing a comparative research approach. "There are already some good studies on single ice caves. However, this was the first time a comparative analysis was carried out and we focused on the ice development in several caves that are also in comparable settings: similar altitude and a steep to vertically sloping geometry," explains Tanguy Racine from the Quaternary Research Group around Christoph Spötl at the Department of Geology. His dissertation dealt with the topic in detail. Ice bodies in these caves are formed from solid precipitation: snow falls and slides into the cave in winter and then subsequently turns to ice at low temperatures.

Charlotte Honiat and Tanguy Racine from the Department of Geology pack ice samples in the Tyrolean Guffert Eisschacht for further analysis in the laboratory.

Similar development of ice caves and glaciers

Using the radiocarbon method, the team determined the age of the ice layers in the caves, which are often many metres thick: "To date the ice, we focused on the tiniest inclusions of wood in the ice layers. The age of these wood fragments, which fell into the caves from the outside, can be determined precisely," Tanguy Racine explains the procedure. The large database of a total of 107 dates of wood inclusions from the ice draws an accurate picture of the increase and decrease of ice in the ice caves - the so-called mass balance - and this over a period of up to 2000 years in the past. This approach enabled the team to prove the hypothesis that historically documented glacier advances, such as during the "Little Ice Age", are also represented in the increase in ice mass in ice caves and coincide in time. " We can document comparable ups and downs in the development of ice in ice caves and glaciers for the period of the last two millennia. For both, it is essential how much snow falls in winter and how warm the summers are. The results also show us that a large part of the underground ice in Austria originates from the "Little Ice Age" between about the 15th and 19th centuries," says the geologist.

Massive declines in the last decades

In the recent past, the balance of ice caves is clearly negative: "Glaciers are not alone in showing an above-average negative mass balance especially in the last decades. Ice caves have also been severely affected by the consequences of rising temperatures and declining precipitation," says Tanguy Racine. "We are seeing a rate of ice retreat that has not been observed in any period in our measurement period over the last 2000 years. To give a few examples: Monitoring in the Guffert Eisschacht in Steinberg am Rofan showed a decline of almost three metres in the snow surface between 2019 and 2021, while Eisgruben Eishöhle at Sarstein in Upper Austria has lost 10 metres of ice thickness within 40 years. The ice loss in Kraterschacht in the Sengsen Mountains of Upper Austria is 20 metres in 20 years." The explanation for this development, analogous to the glaciers, is human-induced climate change. "Especially for the medium-sized and smaller ice caves, we have to assume that they will massively lose ice mass or even become completely ice-free in the next few years to decades," Racine clarifies. "The clock is ticking loudly."

The Innsbruck researchers plan to selectively take ice cores from alpine ice caves in the coming years and store them cooled in order to preserve the valuable climate information for science in the long term.

The studied Austrian caves are:
Tyrol: Hundsalm Eis- und Tropfsteinhöhle; Guffert Eisschacht
Styria: Bärenloch Eishöhle; Tremml-Schacht
Upper Austria: Eisgruben Eishöhle; Kraterschacht; Hochschneid Eishöhles
Carinthia: Großer Naturschacht

  

CAPTION

Charlotte Honiat and Tanguy Racine from the Department of Geology pack ice samples in the Tyrolean Guffert Eisschacht for further analysis in the laboratory.

CREDIT

Christoph Spötl

Publication:
Racine, T.M.F., Reimer, P.J. & Spötl, C. Multi-centennial mass balance of perennial ice deposits in Alpine caves mirrors the evolution of glaciers during the Late Holocene. Sci Rep 12, 11374 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15516-9

Quaternary Research Group: https://quaternary.uibk.ac.at/

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-15516-9 

ARTICLE TITLE

Multi-centennial mass balance of perennial ice deposits in Alpine caves mirrors the evolution of glaciers during the Late Holocene

Monkeypox spread could be monitored with wastewater, study suggests

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Monkeypox, a virus that causes painful rashes and flu-like symptoms, is spreading rapidly throughout many parts of the world, including the U.S. To get a fast understanding of how the virus is moving through communities, researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters suggest turning to wastewater epidemiology. They show how the method — widely applied to monitor SARS-CoV-2 transmission — could be optimized for monkeypox, potentially detecting as few as seven infections per 100,000 people.

Like SARS-CoV-2, the monkeypox virus can shed from infected people through their feces, urine and saliva. Recently, researchers have detected its DNA in wastewater using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. However, monitoring current monkeypox outbreaks in the U.S. with wastewater-based epidemiology has been limited, despite its success in tracking community-level SARS-CoV-2 prevalence. So, Kyle Bibby and William Chen wanted to evaluate the feasibility of this technique for detecting monkeypox viral DNA in different wastewater scenarios.

The researchers collected information from previous scientific studies about the shedding of monkeypox viral DNA from saliva, stool and urine into wastewater streams. They analyzed that data in combination with people’s daily water usage, concluding that infected people can shed from 13,000 to 208 billion genome copies daily into sewers, with most of that amount coming from stool. These results indicated that a single PCR assay conducted at the lowest level of sensitivity, or 10 genome copies per liter of wastewater, could theoretically detect seven cases out of 100,000 people at the average U.S. wastewater treatment plant. In addition, replicate assays could likely identify even lower infection rates.

Next, the team developed a computer-based strategy to determine the number of PCR assays that would need to be run for wastewater samples collected in the U.S. and other countries, depending on the expected case rates of monkeypox and the desired level of sensitivity. For the U.S., at the average case rate as of July 15, 2022, each sample would need eight replicate assays using a moderately high level of sensitivity to correctly detect monkeypox in the sewage, whereas at a suspected maximum case rate (0.0012%) only four replicates at a lower level of sensitivity would be needed. Since mid-July, case rates have likely increased, so the researchers predict that a lower number of replicates could be implemented now in the U.S. Although there is a lack of information about monkeypox DNA shedding from humans and its persistence wastewater, the researchers say that their computer model can still be a useful framework for developing robust community monitoring programs.

The authors acknowledge funding from a University of Notre Dame Dean’s Fellowship.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

DOI

10.1021/acs.estlett.2c00496 

ARTICLE TITLE

Model-Based Theoretical Evaluation of the Feasibility of Using Wastewater-Based Epidemiology to Monitor Monkeypox

Clinical trial evaluating monkeypox vaccine begins

NIH trial is evaluating intradermal delivery to expand the vaccine supply

Business Announcement

NIH/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

 

IMAGE: COLORIZED TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROGRAPH OF MONKEYPOX PARTICLES (GREEN) FOUND WITHIN AN INFECTED CELL (PINK AND PURPLE), CULTURED IN THE LABORATORY. IMAGE CAPTURED AT THE NIAID INTEGRATED RESEARCH FACILITY (IRF) IN FORT DETRICK, MARYLAND. view more 

CREDIT: NIAID

A clinical trial evaluating alternative strategies for administering the JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine to increase the number of available doses has begun enrolling adult volunteers. The trial, which will enroll more than 200 adults across eight U.S. research sites, is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. JYNNEOS is manufactured by Bavarian Nordic, based in Copenhagen. It is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the prevention of smallpox and monkeypox disease in adults 18 years of age and older determined to be at high risk for smallpox or monkeypox infection. 

JYNNEOS contains an attenuated orthopoxvirus called modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA), which does not replicate in human cells. It is approved for administration by two subcutaneous (in the tissue beneath the skin) injections 28 days apart; however, the FDA recently authorized intradermal (between layers of the skin) administration of the vaccine for adults, which expands the number of people who can be vaccinated with the currently limited supply. This alternative intradermal dosing regimen uses one-fifth of the standard dose used for subcutaneous administration, allowing health care providers to administer up to five times the number of vaccine doses per vial of JYNNEOS vaccine. NIH-supported researchers demonstrated in a 2015 publication that intradermal administration at one-fifth of the standard dose induced an immune response in recipients that was comparable to the subcutaneous method of administration. 

“To halt the global outbreak of monkeypox and to help protect those at risk of infection, we need to ensure we have an adequate supply of monkeypox vaccine,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “NIAID’s trial of JYNNEOS will provide important information on the immunogenicity, safety, and tolerability of alternative dosing approaches that would expand the current supply of vaccine.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 20,733 cases of monkeypox in the United States since May 2022. The global outbreak is primarily affecting men who have sex with men. The virus usually causes painful skin lesions and flu-like symptoms. Serious complications—which have been rare in the United States—can include dehydration, bacterial infections, pneumonia, brain inflammation, sepsis, eye infections and death. Historically, the virus is known to be transmitted from person to person through direct contact with skin lesions, body fluids, and respiratory droplets and by indirect contact with items such as contaminated clothing or bedding. Preliminary analyses indicate that sexual transmission may be playing a role in the current outbreak. 

Adults ages 18 to 50 years who have not been vaccinated against smallpox or monkeypox previously are eligible to enroll in the NIAID trial. Investigators aim to include a demographically diverse group of volunteers that represents those affected by monkeypox. All trial participants will receive the JYNNEOS vaccine in some form. Participants will be assigned at random to one of three study arms:

• One arm will receive the standard, licensed regimen of 1x108 infectious virus particles administered subcutaneously. 
• Another arm will receive 2x107 infectious virus particles (one-fifth of the standard regimen) administered intradermally, the regimen recently authorized by the FDA.
• A third arm will receive one-tenth (1x107 infectious virus particles) of the standard regimen of JYNNEOS administered intradermally. 

Investigators will assess whether the peak immune responses induced in recipients receiving the vaccine intradermally are at least as good as those induced by the licensed subcutaneous regimen and will compare the relative safety and tolerability of the different regimens.

Volunteers will be asked to participate in eight study visits over the course of a year where they will undergo physical examinations and provide blood samples for laboratory evaluations. An independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) will monitor participant safety throughout the duration of the study.

The trial will enroll volunteers at the following sites:

• Saint Louis University in Missouri 
• Baylor College of Medicine in Houston
• Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston
• The NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland
• George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
• Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee
• The Hope Clinic at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia
• The University of California, San Diego

Investigators anticipate the trial will take 15 months to complete; however, initial results could be available in early 2023. For more information, please visit clincialtrials.gov and search identifier NCT05512949.

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NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website. 

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov. 

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