It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, January 06, 2023
YOU ARE YOUR BATTERY
Next-generation wireless technology may leverage the human body for energy
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst use the body to harvest waste energy to power wearable devices
IMAGE: THE TEAM EXPERIMENTED USING DIFFERENT DAILY OBJECTS TO AMPLIFY THE HARVESTED POWER, AND DISCOVERED THAT THE HUMAN BODY IS ONE OF THE BEST MATERIALS.view more
CREDIT: CUI ET AL., 10.1145/3560905.3568526
January 4, 2023
Next-generation Wireless Technology May Leverage the Human Body for Energy
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst use the body to harvest waste energy to power wearable devices
AMHERST, Mass. – While you may be just starting to reap the advantages of 5G wireless technology, researchers throughout the world are already working hard on the future: 6G. One of the most promising breakthroughs in 6G telecommunications is the possibility of Visible Light Communication (VLC), which is like a wireless version of fiberoptics, using flashes of light to transmit information. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced that they have invented a low-cost, innovative way to harvest the waste energy from VLC by using the human body as an antenna. This waste energy can be recycled to power an array of wearable devices, or even, perhaps, larger electronics.
“VLC is quite simple and interesting,” says Jie Xiong, professor of information and computer sciences at UMass Amherst and the paper’s senior author. “Instead of using radio signals to send information wirelessly, it uses the light from LEDs that can turn on and off, up to one million times per second.” Part of the appeal of VLC is that the infrastructure is already everywhere—our homes, vehicles, streetlights and offices are all lit by LED bulbs, which could also be transmitting data. “Anything with a camera, like our smartphones, tablets or laptops, could be the receiver,” says Xiong.
Previously, Xiong and first author Minhao Cui, a graduate student in information and computer sciences at UMass Amherst, showed that there’s significant “leakage” of energy in VLC systems, because the LEDs also emit “side-channel RF signals,” or radio waves. If this leaked RF energy could be harvested, then it could be put to use.
The team’s first task was to design an antenna out of coiled copper wire to collect the leaked RF, which they did. But how to maximize the collection of energy?
The team experimented with all sorts of design details, from the thickness of the wire to the number of times it was coiled, but they also noticed that the efficiency of the antenna varied according to what the antenna touched. They tried resting the coil on plastic, cardboard, wood and steel, as well as touching it to walls of different thicknesses, phones powered on and off and laptops. And then Cui got the idea to see what happened when the coil was in contact with a human body.
Immediately, it became apparent that a human body is the best medium for amplifying the coil’s ability to collect leaked RF energy, up to ten times more than the bare coil alone.
After much experimentation, the team came up with “Bracelet+,” a simple coil of copper wire worn as a bracelet on the upper forearm. While the design can be adapted for wearing as a ring, belt, anklet or necklace, the bracelet seemed to offer the right balance of power harvesting and wearability.
“The design is cheap—less than fifty cents,” note the authors, whose paper won the prestigious Best Paper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems. “But Bracelet+ can reach up to micro-watts, enough to support many sensors such as on-body health monitoring sensors that require little power to work owing to their low sampling frequency and long sleep-mode duration.”
“Ultimately,” says Xiong, “we want to be able to harvest waste energy from all sorts of sources in order to power future technology.”
Bracelet+: Harvesting the Leaked RF Energy in VLC with Wearable Bracelet Antenna
The team experimented using different daily objects to amplify the harvested power, and discovered that the human body is one of the best materials.
Different coil designs influence the amount of power harvested.
Different coil designs influence the amount of power harvested.
CREDIT
Cui et al., 10.1145/3560905.3568526
The brain’s ability to perceive space expands like the universe
Salk researchers find that neural networks responsible for spatial perception change in a nonlinear manner and may have implications for neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease
IMAGE: NEW EXPERIENCES ARE ABSORBED INTO NEURAL REPRESENTATIONS OVER TIME, SYMBOLIZED HERE BY A HYPERBOLOID HOURGLASS.view more
CREDIT: SALK INSTITUTE
LA JOLLA (January 4, 2023)—Young children sometimes believe that the moon is following them, or that they can reach out and touch it. It appears to be much closer than is proportional to its true distance. As we move about our daily lives, we tend to think that we navigate space in a linear way. But Salk scientists have discovered that time spent exploring an environment causes neural representations to grow in surprising ways.
The findings, published in Nature Neuroscience on December 29, 2022, show that neurons in the hippocampus essential for spatial navigation, memory, and planning represent space in a manner that conforms to a nonlinear hyperbolic geometry—a three-dimensional expanse that grows outward exponentially. (In other words, it’s shaped like the interior of an expanding hourglass.) The researchers also found that the size of that space grows with time spent in a place. And the size is increasing in a logarithmic fashion that matches the maximal possible increase in information being processed by the brain.
This discovery provides valuable methods for analyzing data on neurocognitive disorders involving learning and memory, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our study demonstrates that the brain does not always act in a linear manner. Instead, neural networks function along an expanding curve, which can be analyzed and understood using hyperbolic geometry and information theory,” says Salk Professor Tatyana Sharpee, holder of the Edwin K. Hunter Chair, who led the study. “It is exciting to see that neural responses in this area of the brain formed a map that expanded with experience based on the amount of time devoted in a given place. The effect even held for miniscule deviations in time when animal ran more slowly or faster through the environment.”
Sharpee’s lab uses advanced computational approaches to better understand how the brain works. They recently pioneered the use of hyperbolic geometry to better understand biological signals like smell molecules, as well as the perception of smell.
In the current study, the scientists found that hyperbolic geometry guides neural responses as well. Hyperbolic maps of sensory molecules and events are perceived with hyperbolic neural maps. The space representations dynamically expanded in correlation with the amount of time the rat spent exploring each environment. And, when a rat moved more slowly through an environment, it gained more information about the space, which caused the neural representations to grow even more.
“The findings provide a novel perspective on how neural representations can be altered with experience,” says Huanqiu Zhang, a graduate student in Sharpee’s lab. “The geometric principles identified in our study can also guide future endeavors in understanding neural activity in various brain systems.”
“You would think that hyperbolic geometry only applies on a cosmic scale, but that is not true,” says Sharpee. “Our brains work much slower than the speed of light, which could be a reason that hyperbolic effects are observed on graspable spaces instead of astronomical ones. Next, we would like to learn more about how these dynamic hyperbolic representations in the brain grow, interact, and communicate with one another.”
Other authors include P. Dylan Rich of Princeton University and Albert K. Lee of the Janelia Research Campus at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The research was supported by an AHA-Allen Initiative in Brain Health and Cognitive Impairment award made jointly through the American Heart Association and the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group (19PABH134610000), the Dorsett Brown Foundation, the Mary K. Chapman Foundation, an Aginsky Fellowship, the National Science Foundation (IIS-1724421), the National Science Foundation Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience Program (Award 2014217), the National Institutes of Health (U19NS112959 and P30AG068635), and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies:
Every cure has a starting point. The Salk Institute embodies Jonas Salk’s mission to dare to make dreams into reality. Its internationally renowned and award-winning scientists explore the very foundations of life, seeking new understandings in neuroscience, genetics, immunology, plant biology, and more. The Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and architectural landmark: small by choice, intimate by nature, and fearless in the face of any challenge. Be it cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, aging, or diabetes, Salk is where cures begin. Learn more at: salk.edu.
IMAGE: LOW CONCENTRATIONS WERE FOUND IN THE QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU, AND THEN NUTRIENTS INCREASE IN THE RIVER AT 3500 KM-3000 KM UPSTREAM THE RIVER MOUTH AND FURTHER DOWNWARDS TO THE RIVER MOUTH. VERTICAL ARROWS SHOW THE CONFLUENCE OF MAJOR TRIBUTARIES, AND HORIZONTAL ARROW INDICATES THE LOCATION OF THE THREE GORGES RESERVOIR.view more
This study has examined the state changes of nutrients (N, P, and Si) from one of the top ten largest world river system, Changjiang, based on field expeditions and time-series data since early 1980s. The study covers an area of ca. 80% of the whole drainage basin (i.e. 1.8×106 km2) and 70% of water course, including main stream and 15 major tributaries.
A considerable increase in anthropogenic nutrients (e.g. N and P) appears when the river lefts the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and changes in species ratio have been identified from some of the major tributaries draining through high population and extensive agriculture areas. This influence can be tracked further downstream and all way to the estuary.
Different from the previous studies, the present study provides evidence that Three Gorges Dam and the reservoir have a rather limited impact on the so called “Trapping of Nutrients”. Examination of data in 2003-2016 indicates that there is a lack of systematics (i.e. trend) between upstream the reservoir and downstream the dam, even though for dissolved silicates.
Time-series data at the river mouth since 1980s indicate a continuous increasing mode for dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. Particularly, nitrogen in the river started to be high in early 1980s, while a considerable increase in phosphate appeared later in mid-1990s with higher rate than that for nitrogen. This makes the Changjiang outstanding in terms of loadings and species ratio for anthropogenic nutrients compared to other top-ten world river systems.
Furthermore, the present study reveals that tidal-influenced deltaic area has an important but previously ignored role in regulating seaward flux of the Changjiang. Remobilization of nutrients from the tidal-influenced deltaic area contribute additional 5%-10% for dissolve inorganic nitrogen and silicates, but up to 20% for phosphate. Such an amount of nutrients is not related to the agriculture but to coastal urbanization.
In comparison to other rivers, watersheds of the Changjiang is still in the accumulation phase for anthropogenic nutrients, and a “legacy” source can sustain relatively high concentrations in the river even in the period of reduction of application of chemical fertilizers in agriculture. Hence, management strategy needs to take into consideration of the potential of legacy source.
At drainage basin scale, the continuous increase of anthropogenic nutrients in the Changjiang is mainly regulated by the human activities, while the influence of climate variability is rather limited and not systematic based on the current data sets.
Zhang J, Zhang G, Du Y, Zhang A, Chang Y, Zhou Y, Zhu Z, Wu Y, Zhang Z, Liu S. 2022. From the water sources of the Tibetan Plateau to the ocean: State of nutrients in the Changjiang linked to land use changes and climate variability. Science China Earth Sciences, 65(11): 2127–2174, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-021-9969-0
Construction of nutrient trends using time-series data at the river mouth of Changjiang, which has been maintained at monthly scale since early 1980s.
Concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphate increase both over last three decades, while dissolved silicates remain rather stable. Beside the annual trend, fluxes in flood (July) and dry (January) periods are also compared
Summary of nutrient budgets for the Changjiang drainage basin, taking into consideration of major pathways.
Major source and sink terms are compared and summarized for anthropogenic nutrients (i.e. N and P) based on expeditions and data compilation in the literature for the period of 2003-2015. In comparison to the retention of nutrients in the watersheds, seaward riverine flux is rather minor.
NIH/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES
IMAGE: AIR EMISSIONS AT A MANUFACTURING COMPLEX IN TORONTO, CANADA.view more
CREDIT: UN PHOTO/KIBAE PARK
Moderate levels of two outdoor air pollutants, ozone and fine particulate matter, are associated with non-viral asthma attacks in children and adolescents who live in low-income urban areas, a study funded by the National Institutes of Health has found. The study also identifies associations between exposure to the two pollutants and molecular changes in the children’s airways during non-viral asthma attacks, suggesting potential mechanisms for those attacks. The observational study is one of the first to link elevated levels of specific outdoor air pollutants in particular urban locations to distinct changes in the airways during asthma attacks not triggered by respiratory viruses, according to the investigators. The findings were published today in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health.
“The strong association this study demonstrates between specific air pollutants among children in impoverished urban communities and non-viral asthma attacks further augments the evidence that reducing air pollution would improve human health,” said Hugh Auchincloss, M.D., acting director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH.
The study was conducted by the NIAID-funded Inner City Asthma Consortium under the leadership of Matthew C. Altman, M.D., M.Phil., and Daniel J. Jackson, M.D. Dr. Altman is an associate professor in the department of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and an associate scientist at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason in Seattle. Dr. Jackson is a professor of pediatrics and medicine in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Asthma is caused by chronic inflammation of the airways. During an asthma attack, the airway lining swells, muscles around the airways contract, and the airways produce extra mucus, substantially narrowing the space for air to move in and out of the lungs. Children who live in low-income urban environments in the United States are at particularly high risk for attack-prone asthma. Asthma attacks provoked by respiratory virus infections—a common trigger—have been studied extensively, but those that occur independently of such infections have not.
In the current study, investigators examined the relationship between air pollutant levels and asthma attacks occurring in the absence of a respiratory virus among 208 children ages 6 to 17 years who had attack-prone asthma and lived in low-income neighborhoods in one of nine U.S. cities. Then the researchers validated the associations they found between air pollutant levels and non-viral asthma attacks in an independent cohort of 189 children ages 6 to 20 years with persistent asthma who also lived in low-income neighborhoods in four U.S. cities.
The investigators followed the children prospectively for up to two respiratory illnesses or approximately six months, whichever came first. Each illness was classified as viral or non-viral and as involving an asthma attack or not. The researchers matched each illness with air quality index values and levels of individual air pollutants recorded by the Environmental Protection Agency in the relevant city on the dates surrounding the illness. The investigators subsequently adjusted their data for city and season to decrease the impact of these variables on the findings.
The scientists found that asthma attacks had a non-viral cause in nearly 30% of children, two to three times the proportion seen in non-urban children, according to previously published reports. These attacks were associated with locally elevated levels of fine particulate matter and ozone in outdoor air. The investigators linked changes in the expression of specific sets of genes that play a role in airway inflammation to elevated levels of these two pollutants by analyzing nasal cell samples obtained from the children during respiratory illnesses. Some of the identified gene-expression patterns suggest that unique biological pathways may be involved in non-viral asthma attacks.
Given the study findings, it will be important to develop and test different strategies to see if they prevent or reduce pollution-associated asthma attacks in urban children. These strategies may include treatments designed to counteract the harmful effects of elevated levels of outdoor air pollutants on airway inflammatory responses linked to non-viral asthma attacks, and devices for personalized monitoring of local outdoor air pollutant levels to inform asthma management.
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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JOURNAL
The Lancet Planetary Health
Antibiotic residues in water a threat to human health
KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET
Antibiotic residues in wastewater and wastewater treatment plants in the regions around China and India risk contributing to antibiotic resistance, and the drinking water may pose a threat to human health, according to a comprehensive analysis from Karolinska Institutet published in The Lancet Planetary Health. The researchers also determined the relative contribution of various sources ofantibiotic contamination in waterways, such as hospitals,municipals, livestock, and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
”Our results can help decision-makers to target risk reduction measures against environmental residues of priority antibiotics and in high-risk sites, to protect human health and the environment,” says Nada Hanna, researcher at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and the study’s first author. “Allocating these resources efficiently is especially vital for resource-poor countries that produce large amounts of antibiotics.”
Bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics are a global threat that can lead to untreatable bacterial infections in animals and humans.
Antibiotics can enter the environment during their production, consumption and disposal. Antibiotic residues in the environment, such as in wastewater and drinking water, can contribute to the emergence and spread of resistance.
Among the largest producers of antibiotics
The researchers have examined the levels of antibiotic residues that are likely to contribute to antibiotic resistance from different aquatic sources in the Western Pacific Region (WPR) and the South-East Asia Region (SEAR), regions as defined by the World Health Organization. These regions include China and India, which are among the world’s largest producers and consumers of antibiotics.
This was done by a systematic review of the literature published between 2006 and 2019, including 218 relevant reports from the WPR and 22 from the SEAR. The researchers also used a method called Probabilistic Environmental Hazard Assessment to determine where the concentration of antibiotics is high enough to likely contribute to antibiotic resistance.
Ninety-two antibiotics were detected in the WPR, and forty five in the SEAR. Antibiotic concentrations exceeding the level considered safe for resistance development (Predicted No Effect Concentrations, PNECs) were observed in wastewater, influents and effluents of wastewater treatment plants and in receiving aquatic environments. The highest risk was observed in wastewater and influent of wastewater treatment plants. The relative impact of various contributors, such as hospital, municipal, livestock, and pharmaceutical manufacturing was also determined.
Potential threat to human health
In receiving aquatic environments, the highest likelihood of levels exceeding the threshold considered safe for resistance development was observed for the antibiotic ciprofloxacin in drinking water in China and the WPR.
”Antibiotic residues in wastewater and wastewater treatment plants may serve as hot spots for the development of antibiotic resistance in these regions and pose a potential threat to human health through exposure to different sources of water, including drinking water,” says Nada Hanna.
Limitations to be considered when interpreting the results are the lack of data on the environmental occurrence of antibiotics from many of the countries in the regions and the fact that only studies written in English were included.
The research has been funded by the Swedish Research Council. The researchers declare no competing interests.
”Antibiotic concentrations and antibiotic resistance in aquatic environments of the Western Pacific and South-East Asia Regions: a systematic review and probabilistic environmental hazard assessment”
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
4-Jan-2023
Seasonal peak photosynthesis is hindered by late canopy development in northern ecosystems
PKU study reveals seasonal peak photosynthesis hindered by late canopy development in northern ecosystems
A study led by PKU staff and students reveals that late canopy development in Northern ecosystems hinders seasonal peak photosynthesis.
The dynamic change mechanism of the seasonal peak rate of photosynthesis, also known as GPPmax (Maximum Gross Primary Productivity), has become a hot topic in carbon cycle research. In the Northern Hemisphere, the GPPmax of vegetation is closely related to the year-on-year variation of the ecosystem carbon sink function. Climate conditions and canopy structure are equally important factors affecting the size and occurrence time of the GPPmax of vegetation. The compatibility of their seasonal peak timings directly determines whether GPPmax is able to reach its maximum potential.
Therefore, in order to more accurately understand the carbon sequestration potential of vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere, it is necessary to understand how the canopy structure of vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere adjusts to changes in environmental conditions, thereby affecting the occurrence time of GPPmax, in times of rapid climate change.
The research group led by Academician Piao Shilong from Peking University College of Urban and Environmental Sciences conducted quantitative analysis on the GPPmax time and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, which characterizes the canopy structure of vegetation) of vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere from the past 20 years, and compared the differences in seasonal peak timings and variation mechanisms. Their research was based on multisource remote sensing and flux observation data, combined with machine learning methods.
The study found that compared with the GPPmax time of vegetation, the seasonal peak time of vegetation canopy structure lagged by an average of 8 days, mainly due to climate and nutrient limitations (as shown in the figure below). Over the past 20 years, the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration has led to an earlier GPPmax time of vegetation. However, the peak time of vegetation canopy structure remained relatively stable, limited by climate and nutrient conditions. As a result, the mismatch in peak timing between the two is increasing. The study proved that the current ecosystem model does not accurately reflect the spatial-temporal dynamics between GPPmax time of vegetation and peak time of canopy structure. Therefore, related mechanisms have to be enhanced. This study provides a new perspective for understanding the dynamic mechanism of vegetation growth seasons in the Northern Hemisphere.
The study, titled “Seasonal peak photosynthesis is hindered by late canopy development in Northern ecosystems” (doi: 10.1038/s41477-022-01278-9), has been published in Nature Plants. The first author of the paper is Zhao Qian, a doctoral student at Peking University College of Urban and Environmental Sciences since 2020. Piao Shilong and Zhu Zaichun, a researcher at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, are co-corresponding authors.
Wind turbines are built at an increasing pace but their effect on nature and animals are poorly known. Researchers from the Universities of Turku and Helsinki in Finland have investigated the impact of wind turbines on bat presence and activity in boreal forests. The results indicate clearly that bats don’t like wind turbines.
The researchers recorded bat acoustic activity for an entire summer at seven wind farms located in forests situated on the western coastline of Finland. By setting up recorders at varying distances from the wind turbines, they were able to see how bat activity and presence differed closer to the turbines as well as further away.
The researchers studied two groups of bats: the Northern bat, which is the most common species in Finland, and the Myotis, a group of five species, including the very common Daubenton’s bat.
“Our results showed that bat presence was impacted by the presence of wind turbines as both studied groups were found more often further away from the wind turbines. Northern bats were repelled up to 800 metres from the wind turbines, but for the Myotis species the negative impact of wind power was even greater than one kilometre, which was the maximum distance we studied”, summarises lead author, Doctoral Researcher Simon Gaultier from the University of Turku.
“Regarding the results, it is not yet clear if bats avoid the wind turbines themselves, or the surrounding area”, explains Simon Gaultier, and continues: “In Finland, building turbines in forests requires cutting down a number of trees and building large roads to bring turbine parts to the construction sites. Bats like the Myotis don’t like these kinds of changes and prefer dense forests with no open areas. This could be the explanation as why they tend to avoid wind farms.”
Other explanations, such as the noise and lighting emitted by wind turbines or the impact of these machines on insects, have been proposed as potential causes behind bats’ avoidance of wind farms. Regardless of the real causes, this avoidance can drive bats away from habitats that are important for their movement or feeding. This consequence is exacerbated when considering the cumulative effect of all wind turbines already operating or planned in Finland.
“More and more wind farms are being built or planned every year, especially on the western coastline where the winds are stronger. All these future turbines will likely have the same repelling effect on bats”, points out Academy Research Fellow Thomas Lilley from the University of Helsinki, another author of the study.
At the moment, up to 7 percent of the total area in Finland is impacted by the presence of existing or planned wind turbines. At the same time, bats’ migration routes go through western Finland making it of key importance for bats, but also the same area where most of the country’s wind power is being planned.
Because the reasons for bats’ avoidance of wind power are not clearly understood yet, the authors recommend further research on the topic. They emphasise that although clean energy production is greatly needed, biodiversity has to be protected at the same time.
