NSF awards UMBC’s Lauren Clay $624K Convergence Accelerator grant to address food insecurity in disasters

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE COUNTY

 

IMAGE: LAUREN CLAY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND CHAIR OF EMERGENCY HEALTH SERVICES AT UMBC view more 

CREDIT: MARLAYNA DEMOND FOR UMBC

Longstanding food insecurity problems in the U.S. and around the world, exacerbated by the pandemic, are projected to increase over the coming decades, as food, water, and energy demands increase and environmental crises worsen. With this in mind, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing $11 million toward solutions to address the nutritional needs of vulnerable and under-resourced communities through its Convergence Accelerator Program. 

UMBC’s Lauren Clay, associate professor and chair of emergency health services, is one 16 Convergence Accelerator awardees selected for Phase I of the program. Clay was awarded $624,000 for her project to improve food system resilience and decrease disaster-induced food insecurity in communities impacted by hurricanes.

Supporting food system resilience

Clay’s proposal explains that 11-15 percent of the U.S. population experienced food insecurity annually between 2008 and 2018, and households that are struggling with food insecurity before a disaster are at greatest risk for serious food access issues when a disaster strikes, and long after. 

“Food and nutrition insecurity rates can increase threefold following disasters,” Clay notes. “Increased food and nutrition insecurity rates persist for years while households and communities recover.”

“Communities across the U.S. are planning for growing threats related to climate disasters. Food security is a basic human need and is highly susceptible to disruption when families and communities experience disasters,” says Clay. “I’m excited to work with a multi-disciplinary and multi-sector team to develop a new tool for measuring community food security to support communities planning for, responding to, and recovering from hurricanes.”

Converging on solutions

The NSF Convergence Accelerator Program seeks to address national-scale challenges in science, engineering, and society through a collaborative research process that brings together expertise from multiple scientific disciplines, known as convergence research. The food and nutrition focus was recently added to the Convergence Accelerator, which also includes approaches towards combating challenges related to population health and climate change.

“We hope to create a group of synergistic efforts that advance regenerative agriculture practices, reduce water usage, provide equitable access to nutritious and affordable food for disadvantaged communities, and spur technology and job creation,” says Douglas Maughan, head of the Convergence Accelerator, in NSF’s announcement of award recipients. 

Over the course of nine months, Clay and her team will work to develop the Food Index for Resilience, Security, & Tangible Solutions, called FIRST. This index will measure food system functioning in communities and is intended to be a resource that can be used to respond to and recover from disasters and environmental changes. 

This effort builds on Clay’s prior and ongoing research to address disaster-specific food insecurity issues. She was also recently awarded an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to develop a sociocultural model called Food Environment in Disasters (FED) and other tools to improve the understanding and monitoring of food availability, acceptability, and accessibility during disasters. 

Following Phase I of this project, participating teams will take part in a formal pitch and Phase II proposal and could receive up to $5 million of additional support. Selected Phase II teams will further develop their solutions and sustainability development plans over the course of 24 months, to rapidly meet the needs of global communities.

AIR POLLUTION

Researchers study new particle formation events in the urban atmosphere

Study gives first evidence on the importance of transport in these events in the urban atmosphere

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PARTICUOLOGY

 

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS FROM PEKING UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG, AND SHANGHAI ACADEMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES DISCOVERED THE COMBINED IMPACTS FROM REGIONAL TRANSPORT AND LOCAL NUCLEATION ON NANOPARTICLES IN THE URBAN ATMOSPHERE. view more 

CREDIT: DONGJIE SHANG, MIN HU, ET AL., PEKING UNIVERSITY (PKU)

An international research team has conducted a study of new particle formation (NPF) events in the atmosphere of Beijing, which provides the first evidence of the importance of transport in NPF events in the urban atmosphere. Such atmospheric NPF events influence air quality, climate, and human health.

 

The team's findings are published in the journal Particulology on January 9, 2023.

 

NPF events are an important source of secondary particles in the atmosphere, significantly influencing the cloud albedo and air quality. The mechanisms by which NPF events occur under high aerosol loadings (so called "polluted" NPF events) in the atmosphere previously have not been fully understood, resulting in limited precision of climate models and particle pollution control.

 

To better understand how these "polluted" NPF events occur, the research team conducted a one-month comprehensive field measurement in Beijing during the summer of 2016. The team discovered that the "clean" NPF events were caused by local nucleation and growth, while the "polluted" NPF events were caused by both local nucleation-growth and regional transport. Regional transport is the process in which the pollutants from upwind sources impact the air quality in a downwind location. The team's findings emphasize the importance of the transport for nanoparticles in relatively polluted atmospheres. This result shows that regional joint air pollution control is an essential policy.

 

Researchers have widely studied the atmospheric NPF in China because of its negative impact on air quality, climate factors and human health. Since 2004, the PKU aerosol team has conducted continuous measurements of NPF and observed a unique polluted type of NPF process in the atmosphere of Beijing. During this NPF process they observed, the background particle level was high, and the particle burst covered a wide range (3-20 nm). "Although many mechanisms of NPF events in clean atmosphere have been established, the mechanism of how polluted NPF events occurred remained ambiguous," said Min Hu, a professor at Peking University.

 

To analyze the effects of transport on NPF events, the team conducted their one-month observation during the summer of 2016 at a suburban site in Beijing, about 40 km northwest of the urban center. This site is strongly influenced by regional transport controlled by mountain and valley breeze. They comprehensively investigated both "clean" and "polluted" NPF events using particle, precursor and meteorological data. To discover if the NPF events occurred on a larger scale, they conducted simultaneous measurements in the urban area at the main campus of Peking University.

 

During the summer of 2016, the team found that the polluted NPF events are caused by both regional transport and local nucleation of the nanoparticles in the atmosphere. The transport brings 3-20 nm particles from upwind areas in the morning, and local nucleation contributes molecule clusters, such as sulfuric acid dimers, from around 12:00 local time. They found that the wind direction is also different on the "polluted" NPF days, compared with the normal "clean" NPF days and the days without NPF events. "Our findings imply that even when the local emission of particles and NPF gaseous precursors is strictly controlled, the transport can still produce large amounts of secondary particles in the local atmosphere and then trigger the haze events. Thus, joint control measures are highly required on the regional scale to achieve further particle pollution mitigation," said Hu.

 

Looking ahead to future research, the team plans to conduct on-site monitoring campaigns and laboratory simulations with more parameters including organic molecules, to gain a deeper and molecular understanding of the "polluted" NPF events. "The ultimate goal is to improve the mechanisms of NPF events, both clean and polluted type, in the air quality models and climate models, and to reduce uncertainties in policies addressing climate change and controlling air pollutions," said Hu.

 

The research team includes Dongjie Shang, Min Hu, Lizi Tang, Xin Fang, Ying Liu, Yusheng Wu, Zhuofei Du, Xuhui Cai from Peking University; Min Hu, Zhijun Wu, Song Guo, and Yuanhang Zhang from Peking University and Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology; Shengrong Lou from Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences; and Mattias Hallquist from University of Gothenburg.

 

This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the NSFC - Creative Research Group Fund, the NationalKey Research and Development Program of China, and the bilateral Sweden–China framework program "Photochemical smog in China: formation, transformation, impact and abatement strategies."

 

Particuology (IF=3.251) is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes frontier research articles and critical reviews on the discovery, formulation and engineering of particulate materials, processes and systems. Topics are broadly relevant to the production of materials, pharmaceuticals and food, the conversion of energy resources, and protection of the environment. For more information, please visit: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/particuology.

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JOURNAL

Particuology

DOI

10.1016/j.partic.2022.12.006 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Significant effects of transport on nanoparticles during new particle formation events in the atmosphere of Beijing

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Jan-2023

Solar-powered system converts plastic and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A SYSTEM THAT CAN TRANSFORM PLASTIC WASTE AND GREENHOUSE GASES INTO SUSTAINABLE FUELS AND OTHER VALUABLE PRODUCTS – USING JUST THE ENERGY FROM THE SUN. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Researchers have developed a system that can transform plastic waste and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels and other valuable products – using just the energy from the Sun.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed the system, which can convert two waste streams into two chemical products at the same time – the first time this has been achieved in a solar-powered reactor.

The reactor converts the carbon dioxide (CO2) and plastics into different products that are useful in a range of industries. In tests, CO2 was converted into syngas, a key building block for sustainable liquid fuels, and plastic bottles were converted into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry. The system can easily be tuned to produce different products by changing the type of catalyst used in the reactor.

Converting plastics and greenhouse gases – two of the biggest threats facing the natural world – into useful and valuable products using solar energy is an important step in the transition to a more sustainable, circular economy. The results are reported in the journal Nature Synthesis.

“Converting waste into something useful using solar energy is a major goal of our research,” said Professor Erwin Reisner from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, the paper’s senior author. “Plastic pollution is a huge problem worldwide, and often, many of the plastics we throw into recycling bins are incinerated or end up in landfill.”

Reisner also leads the Cambridge Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas), which aims to eliminate plastic waste by combining blue-sky thinking with practical measures.

Other solar-powered ‘recycling’ technologies hold promise for addressing plastic pollution and for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but to date, they have not been combined in a single process.

“A solar-driven technology that could help to address plastic pollution and greenhouse gases at the same time could be a game-changer in the development of a circular economy,” said Subhajit Bhattacharjee, the paper’s co-first author.

“We also need something that’s tuneable, so that you can easily make changes depending on the final product you want,” said co-first author Dr Motiar Rahaman.

The researchers developed an integrated reactor with two separate compartments: one for plastic, and one for greenhouse gases. The reactor uses a light absorber based on perovskite – a promising alternative to silicon for next-generation solar cells.

The team designed different catalysts, which were integrated into the light absorber. By changing the catalyst, the researchers could then change the end product. Tests of the reactor under normal temperature and pressure conditions showed that the reactor could efficiently convert PET plastic bottles and CO2 into different carbon-based fuels such as CO, syngas or formate, in addition to glycolic acid. The Cambridge-developed reactor produced these products at a rate that is also much higher than conventional photocatalytic CO2 reduction processes.

“Generally, CO2 conversion requires a lot of energy, but with our system, basically you just shine a light at it, and it starts converting harmful products into something useful and sustainable,” said Rahaman. “Prior to this system, we didn’t have anything that could make high-value products selectively and efficiently.”

“What’s so special about this system is the versatility and tuneability – we’re making fairly simple carbon-based molecules right now, but in future, we could be able to tune the system to make far more complex products, just by changing the catalyst,” said Bhattacharjee.

Reisner recently received new funding from the European Research Council to help the development of their solar-powered reactor. Over the next five years, they hope to further develop the reactor to produce more complex molecules. The researchers say that similar techniques could someday be used to develop an entirely solar-powered recycling plant.

“Developing a circular economy, where we make useful things from waste instead of throwing it into landfill, is vital if we’re going to meaningfully address the climate crisis and protect the natural world,” said Reisner. “And powering these solutions using the Sun means that we’re doing it cleanly and sustainably.”

The research was supported in part by the European Union, the European Research Council, the Cambridge Trust, Hermann and Marianne Straniak Stiftung, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Erwin Reisner is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge.

Researchers have developed a system that can transform plastic waste and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels and other valuable products – using just the energy from the Sun. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed the system, which can convert two waste streams into two chemical products at the same time – the first time this has been achieved in a solar-powered reactor.

CREDIT

University of Cambridge

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JOURNAL

Nature Synthesis

DOI

10.1038/s44160-022-00196-0 

ARTICLE TITLE

Photoelectrochemical CO2-to-fuel conversion with simultaneous plastic reforming

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Jan-2023

Chemical researchers discover catalyst to make renewable paints, coatings, and diapers

Research discovery will enable the manufacturing of biorenewable materials from trees and corn

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

 

IMAGE: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA RESEARCHERS HAVE INVENTED NEW CATALYST TECHNOLOGY THAT IMPROVES THE PROCESS AND SUBSTANTIALLY REDUCES THE COST OF MANUFACTURING RENEWABLE CHEMICALS THAT CAN BE USED IN A WIDE RANGE OF PRODUCTS INCLUDING PAINTS, COATINGS AND DIAPERS. view more 

CREDIT: JOHN BEUMER, NSF CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE POLYMERS, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

A team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers has invented a groundbreaking new catalyst technology that converts renewable materials like trees and corn to the key chemicals, acrylic acid, and acrylates used in paints, coatings, and superabsorbent polymers. The new catalyst technology is also highly efficient, which means lower costs for manufacturing renewable chemicals.

The new catalyst formulation converts lactic acid-based chemicals derived from corn to acrylic acid and acrylates with the highest yield achieved to date. The technology exhibits substantially higher performance when benchmarked against other classes of leading catalysts.

The research is published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society Gold (JACS Au), a leading open access journal of the American Chemical Society. 

The research team was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation through the NSF Center for Sustainable Polymers, a multi-university collaborative team with a mission to transform how plastics are made, unmade, and remade through innovative research.

The public is most familiar with acrylic acid and associated acrylates through its uses in everyday items from paints and coatings to sticky adhesives to superabsorbent materials used in diapers. These chemicals and materials have been made for the last century from fossil fuels. But in the last few decades, the corn industry has been growing to expand beyond food and livestock feed to manufacturing useful chemicals. One such corn-derived chemical is sustainable lactic acid, a key ingredient in the manufacturing of the renewable and compostable plastic used in many everyday applications.

Lactic acid can also be converted to acrylic acid and acrylates using catalysts. However, until this new catalyst discovery, traditional catalysts were very inefficient achieving low yields and making the overall process too expensive.

“Our new catalyst formulation discovery achieves the highest yield to date of acrylic acid from lactic acid,” said Paul Dauenhauer, professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. “We benchmarked the performance of our new catalyst to all prior catalysts, and the performance far exceeds previous examples.”

The new catalyst formulation substantially reduces the cost of manufacturing renewable acrylic acid and acrylates from corn by improving yield and reducing waste. For the first time, this could reduce the price of renewable acrylic acid below fossil-derived chemicals.

The economic opportunity generated by the new catalyst is being pursued by Låkril Technologies, a startup company that aims to manufacture low-cost renewable acrylic acid and acrylates. By licensing the catalyst technology from the University of Minnesota, Låkril Technologies will develop the technology beyond the laboratory.

“Chemical manufacturing has relied on a class of catalysts called ‘zeolites’ for half a century,” says Dr. Chris Nicholas, CEO of Låkril Technologies. “Because the new catalyst discovery is based on a zeolite formulation already available at scale, our new process to make acrylic acid and acrylates will achieve low cost with low risk.”

Låkril Technologies, located in Chicago, already has received $1.4 million in pre-seed financing to scale the process. The Iowa Corn Growers Association led the financing with participation from the Kentucky Corn Growers Association along with grants from the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council, Indiana Corn Marketing Council, Corn Marketing Council of Michigan, along with Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards from both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Energy.

At the University of Minnesota, the research team plans to continue their basic research on catalyst design to understand the fundamental aspects of the chemistry with financial support from the Center for Sustainable Polymers headquartered at the University of Minnesota.

“This is a wonderful example of how addressing important basic research questions that are at the heart of fundamental catalysis can lead to innovative new processes that have true technological promise,” said Marc Hillmyer, director of the Center for Sustainable Polymers and a professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Chemistry. “A grand challenge in the Center for Sustainable Polymers is the efficient and sustainable conversion of biomass to polymer ingredients, and this work represents a groundbreaking solution to that challenge that will have lasting impact.”

Learn more about renewable chemistry on the Dauenhauer Research Group website.

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JOURNAL

JACS Au

DOI

10.1021/jacsau.2c00513 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Multifunctional amine Modifiers for Selective Dehydration of Methyl Lactate to Acrylates

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Jan-2023

AI developed to monitor changes to the globally important Thwaites Glacier

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

 

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS HAVE MAPPED THE CREVASSES ON THE THWAITES GLACIER ICE TONGUE THROUGH TIME USING DEEP LEARNING. THIS NEW RESEARCH MARKS A CHANGE IN THE WAY IN WHICH THE STRUCTURAL AND DYNAMIC PROPERTIES OF ICE SHELVES CAN BE INVESTIGATED. CREDIT: TRYSTAN SURAWY-STEPNEY view more 

CREDIT: TRYSTAN SURAWY-STEPNEY, UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

AI developed to monitor changes to the globally important Thwaites Glacier 

Scientists have developed artificial intelligence techniques to track the development of crevasses - or fractures - on the Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue in west Antarctica.  

A team of scientists from the University of Leeds and University of Bristol have adapted an AI algorithm originally developed to identify cells in microscope images to spot crevasses forming in the ice from satellite images. Crevasses are indicators of stresses building-up in the glacier. 

Thwaites is a particularly important part of the Antarctic Ice Sheet because it holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by around 60 centimetres and is considered by many to be at risk of rapid retreat, threatening coastal communities around the world.

Use of AI will allow scientists to more accurately monitor and model changes to this important glacier. 

Published today (Monday, Jan 9) in the journal Nature Geoscience, the research focussed on a part of the glacier system where the ice flows into the sea and begins to float. Where this happens is known as the grounding line and it forms the start of the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf and the Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue, which is also an ice shelf.  

Despite being small in comparison to the size of the entire glacier, changes to these ice shelves could have wide-ranging implications for the whole glacier system and future sea-level rise. 

The scientists wanted to know if crevassing or fracture formation in the glacier was more likely to occur with changes to the speed of the ice flow. 

Development of the algorithm 

Using machine learning, the researchers taught a computer to look at radar satellite images and identify changes over the last decade. The images were taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites, which can “see” through the top layer of snow and onto the glacier, revealing the fractured surface of the ice normally hidden from sight.  

The analysis revealed that over the last six years, the Thwaites Glacier ice tongue has sped up and slowed down twice, by around 40% each time - from four km/year to six km/year before slowing. This is a a substantial increase in the magnitude and frequency of speed change compared with past records.  

The study found a complex interplay between crevasse formation and speed of the ice flow. When the ice flow quickens or slows, more crevasses are likely to form. In turn, the increase in crevasses causes the ice to change speed as the level of friction between the ice and underlying rock alters.  

Dr Anna Hogg, a glaciologist in the Satellite Ice Dynamics group at Leeds and an author on the study, said: “Dynamic changes on ice shelves are traditionally thought to occur on timescales of decades to centuries, so it was surprising to see this huge glacier speed up and slow down so quickly.”   

“The study also demonstrates the key role that fractures play in un-corking the flow of ice - a process known as 'unbuttressing'.  

“Ice sheet models must be evolved to account for the fact that ice can fracture, which will allow us to measure future sea level contributions more accurately.”  

Trystan Surawy-Stepney, lead author of the paper and a doctoral researcher at Leeds, added: “The nice thing about this study is the precision with which the crevasses were mapped.  

“It has been known for a while that crevassing is an important component of ice shelf dynamics and this study demonstrates that this link can be studied on a large scale with beautiful resolution, using computer vision techniques applied to the deluge of satellite images acquired each week.” 

Satellites orbiting the Earth provide scientists with new data over the most remote and inaccessible regions of Antarctica.  The radar on board Sentinel-1 allows places like Thwaites Glacier to be imaged day or night, every week, all year round.   

Dr Mark Drinkwater of the European Space Agency commented: “Studies like this would not be possible without the large volume of high-resolution data provided by Sentinel-1. By continuing to plan future missions, we can carry on supporting work like this and broaden the scope of scientific research on vital areas of the Earth’s climate system.”  

As for Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue, it remains to be seen whether such short-term changes have any impact on the long-term dynamics of the glacier, or whether they are simply isolated symptoms of an ice shelf close to its end. 

The paper - “Episodic dynamic change linked to damage on the thwaites glacier ice tongue” - was authored by Trystan Surawy-Stepney, Anna E. Hogg and Benjamin J. Davison, from the University of Leeds; and Stephen L. Cornford, from the University of Bristol. 

Crevasses on Antarctic ice shelves change the material properties of the ice and influence their flow-speed. Research shows this coupling to be relevant but more complicated than previously thought for the Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue.

CREDIT

Dr Anna Hogg, University of Leeds

Scientists have used radar imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites to measure flow speed of the Thwaites Glacier Ice Tongue (shown) and analyse its structural integrity using deep learning.

CREDIT

Benjamin J. Davison, University of Leeds

JOURNAL

Nature Geoscience

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Imaging analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Episodic dynamic change linked to damage on the thwaites glacier ice tongue

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Jan-2023

 Exotic wheat DNA helps breed ‘climate-proof’ crops

Peer-Reviewed Publication

EARLHAM INSTITUTE

Wheat containing exotic DNA from wild relatives benefits from up to 50 per cent higher yields in hot weather compared with elite lines lacking these genes.

Following a year when temperature records have been smashed, research from the Earlham Institute in Norwich, in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), offers much-needed hope for improving crop resilience and food security in the face of climate change. 

The field trials in Mexico also emphasise the importance of genetic diversity in key crops, where decades of selective breeding have reduced their ability to adapt to a rapidly warming planet.

There is growing uncertainty around the ability of major food crops to continue to meet global demand as temperatures rise and weather events become more extreme. 

Wheat provides more global calories than any other crop yet most of the wheat grown around the world has limited genetic variation, making it vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“Wheat is responsible for around 20 per cent of the calories consumed globally and is widely grown all over the world,” says Professor Anthony Hall, study author and Group Leader at the Earlham Institute. “But we don’t know whether the crops we’re planting today will be able to cope with tomorrow's weather.

“To make matters worse, developing new varieties can take a decade or more so acting quickly is vital.”

In collaboration with CIMMYT, Earlham Institute researchers set up a two-year field trial in Mexico’s Sonora desert. They studied 149 wheat lines, ranging from widely-used elite lines to those selectively bred to include DNA from wild relatives and landraces from Mexico and India. 

“Crossing elite lines with exotic material has its challenges,” said Matthew Reynolds, co-author of the study and leader of Wheat Physiology at CIMMYT.

“There’s a well-recognised risk of bringing in more undesirable than desirable traits, so this result represents a significant breakthrough in overcoming that barrier and the continued utilisation of genetic resources to boost climate resilience.”

The seeds were sown later in the season to force the plants to grow during hotter months, putting these crops under the kind of heat stress that is predicted to become the norm as global temperatures rise.

They found the plants bred with exotic DNA achieved a 50 per cent higher yield over wheat without this DNA. Importantly, the exotic lines didn’t perform any worse than the elite lines under normal conditions.

The researchers sequenced the plants to locate specific genetic differences responsible for the increased heat tolerance. They identified genetic markers that could allow the targeted introduction of this beneficial exotic DNA into elite lines, offering a quick way to improve climate resilience and mitigate against widespread crop failures.

Benedict Coombes, study author and PhD student at the Earlham Institute, said: “As we try to produce more food from less land to feed a growing global population, we urgently need to future-proof the crops we’re planting so they can thrive in an increasingly hostile climate.

“The key to this, we are increasingly finding, may lie within largely untapped genetic resources from wheat’s wild relatives and landraces.”

The researchers suggest breeding programmes incorporate the heat tolerance traits as a pre-emptive strategy to produce wheat crops that can cope with a less predictable climate.

“This is science we can now use to make an impact almost immediately,” added Professor Hall. “We’ve done the field trials, we know what genetic markers we’re looking for, and we’re starting conversations with wheat breeders so this is hopefully going to be the first of many steps to contribute to global food security in the coming years.

“The discoveries we’re making, and the action we’re taking, will hopefully mean people around the world can continue to have nutritious food on their plates.”

The research was funded by UKRI-BBSRC and supported by the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) and by the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) - an initiative from the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) and CIMMYT.

ENDS

For media enquiries, please contact Greg Bowker at the Earlham Institute on 01603 450 895 or 07792 154 497.

Notes to Editors:

The paper, Exotic alleles contribute to heat tolerance in wheat under field conditions, has been

published in the journal Communications Biology - https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-04325-5

About the Earlham Institute

The Earlham Institute is a hub of life science research, training, and innovation focused on understanding the natural world through the lens of genomics. Embracing the full breadth of life on Earth, our scientists specialise in developing and testing the latest tools and approaches needed to decode living systems and make predictions about biology.

The Earlham Institute is based within the Norwich Research Park and is one of eight institutes that receive strategic funding from UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC), as well as support from other research funders.

earlham.ac.uk

About CIMMYT

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis. Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agri-food systems. CIMMYT’s research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.  

CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.

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JOURNAL

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-022-04325-5 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Exotic wheat DNA helps breed ‘climate-proof’ crops

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jan-2023

Pandemic-forced shift to online education can be boon for future social workers

Study argues transition to online services can empower practitioners to better serve people virtually, in-person

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

LAWRENCE — The COVID-19 pandemic forced education, services, health care and many other aspects of everyday life online. For social work, that transition started as a challenge, but it can actually be an opportunity for educators, social workers and the people they serve. A University of Kansas professor has published a paper arguing that social work educators can adapt their teaching practices in a way that best prepares their students to interact with those they serve, whether online, in person or both.

Social welfare education, like most disciplines, was transitioning to online coursework in the years prior to the pandemic. The discipline features practice courses, in which students learn how to put the theories they learn into action. While it can be difficult to teach someone how to establish rapport with a client, assess progress of someone undergoing treatment, intervene with families in crisis or other skills online, it is necessary.

“Over about the last 10 years, we’ve gone from just teaching social welfare in person to teaching a blend of in-person and self-guided online content to teaching online hybrid courses that leverage teaching over a video conference platform for synchronous components that provide live interaction and using tools like Canvas for asynchronous components that allow for self-guided online activities,” said Nancy Kepple, associate professor of social welfare. “We’ve seen people try to translate exactly what they did in the classroom and say it didn’t work, or people change drastically what they did to make it fit within these virtual spaces. This paper basically says it’s not an either/or.”

While providing a framework for how to teach practice courses across modalities, Kepple and co-author D. Crystal Coles of Morgan State University argue that empowering future social workers to be comfortable working both in-person and online with clients is vital. Social work was already shifting to add more telehealth approaches, but the pandemic forced many services into an online space and revealed many people prefer to receive services online. The study was published in the Journal of Teaching in Social Work.

“In modern social work, we don’t only engage people in person anymore. I have colleagues in practice for whom working with people virtually is their preference, and this is the only way they engage with the people they serve.”

The article is titled “Maintaining the Magic,” as Kepple and Coles argue the strengths of one’s practice instruction can be maintained as it gets translated across modalities. Schools of social welfare/social work have returned to more in-person classes, but the main four modalities still exist: Traditional in-person; hybrid of in-person and self-guided online activities; online hybrid of synchronous virtual meetings and self-guided online activities; and fully asynchronous online. The article presents a framework in four parts for drawing on the strengths of each (while navigating their constraints) to ensure they are as effective as possible across modalities by considering structural components of space, time and people as well as a process component of interactivity.

In terms of learning location, educators designing practice courses need to consider space, whether a physical classroom, online space or self-guided course and how students will interact with each other and instructors. The authors give examples of how practice instructors can encourage people to work together based on the opportunities of physical or virtual spaces, maximizing what is available and unique to each. In regard to time, Kepple and Coles discuss how to ensure educators and students make the most of it. For example, in any online class, some amount of time is spent troubleshooting technology. While that may take time from instruction, educators can strategize ways to find additional time to give back to students and experiential practices. While considering people, educators should consider their own strengths as well as the experiences of those in the class and how those can be brought to the fore, whether in person or in online instruction. Finally, interactivity is key. Practice courses emphasize that students need interaction with their instructor, the ideas being conveyed and with fellow students to learn skills, such as making eye contact, empathizing with others, experiencing human warmth and other essential skills for social workers. The article provides strategies for role-playing and other ways to build interactions specific to each modality.

“Just reading about these ideas doesn’t teach you how to experience or convey these key skills. You have to understand what empathy is as a concept and as an experience to effectively convey it when interacting with someone,” Kepple said. “Social workers have to be prepared to work and help people in any space. Our field isn’t just confined to working with people in a 45- or 50-minute session in one room. We want to be on the leading edge of how we prepare our students for their profession.”

While technology has evolved to deliver education and social work services, the pandemic forced a quick adaptation. And though both life and education have somewhat shifted back to previous norms, the change showed an understanding of both technology and humanity is necessary, according to the authors. Some clients will need to receive services virtually because of distance or preference. Some educators may prefer in-person classes, but the student preferences are also diversifying. In addition, the students who will be the next generation of social workers will need to be prepared for new technologies. Educators thinking about how they can innovate in their approaches will help ensure new social workers are adaptable, the authors argue.

“It is important to think through how all of these pieces work and how that affects how we teach,” Kepple said. “It’s not brand new; it’s figuring out an intentional way of delivering what we know and what we do well in a new way. I want social workers and educators to believe they know what makes a good instructional space and that they can make practice spaces work across a range of methods.”

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JOURNAL

Journal of Teaching in Social Work

DOI

10.1080/08841233.2022.2120166 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Maintaining the Magic: Adapting Practice Pedagogies Across Course Modalities

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jan-2023