UN: Trapped sediment robbing world’s large dams of vital water storage capacity; ~26% loss by 2050 foreseen

Dams' original storage capacity lost to sediment by 2050: 1.65 trillion cubic meters, roughly equal to the combined annual water use of India, China, Indonesia, France and Canada; Losses undermine water security, irrigation, power generation, more

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY - INSTITUTE FOR WATER, ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH

 

IMAGE: UN UNIVERSITY’S CANADIAN-BASED INSTITUTE FOR WATER, ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH APPLIED PREVIOUSLY-DETERMINED STORAGE LOSS RATES IN VARIOUS AREAS WORLDWIDE TO LARGE DAMS IN 150 COUNTRIES TO FORECAST CUMULATIVE RESERVOIR STORAGE LOSSES BY COUNTRY, REGION, AND GLOBALLY. view more 

CREDIT: UNU-INWEH

Trapped sediment has robbed roughly 50,000 large dams worldwide of an estimated 13% to 19% of their combined original storage capacity, and total losses will reach 23% to 28% by 2050, UN research warns.

The global loss from original dam capacity foreseen by mid-century – from ~6,300 billion to ~4,650 billion m3 in 2050, a difference of ~1,650 billion m3 – roughly equals the annual water use of India, China, Indonesia, France and Canada combined.

UN University’s Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health applied previously-determined storage loss rates in various areas worldwide to large dams in 150 countries to forecast cumulative reservoir storage losses by country, region, and globally. 

The United Kingdom, Panama, Ireland, Japan and Seychelles will experience the highest water storage losses by 2050 – between 35% and 50% of their original capacities – the study shows. By contrast, Bhutan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Guinea, and Niger will be the five least affected countries, losing less than 15% by mid-century.

“The decrease in available storage by 2050 in all countries and regions will challenge many aspects of national economies, including irrigation, power generation, and water supply,” says Dr. Duminda Perera, who co-authored the study with UNU-INWEH Director Vladimir Smakhtin and Spencer Williams of McGill University in Montreal. It is published by the journal Sustainability.

“The new dams under construction or planned will not offset storage losses to sedimentation. This paper sounds an alarm on a creeping global water challenge with potentially significant development implications.”

The researchers applied previously-established storage loss rates worldwide to a subset of nearly 60,000 dams in a database maintained by the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). The subset comprises 47,403 large dams for which original storage capacity and year of construction are known: 28,045 in Asia-Pacific, 2,349 in Africa, 6,651 in Europe, and 10,358 in North, Central and South America.

Large dams and reservoirs – defined as higher than 15 m, or between 5 and 15 m high impounding over 3 million m3 – are essential in many places for hydroelectricity, flood control, irrigation, and drinking water.

River sediment accumulates behind a dam’s barrier. The problem, often ignored, has now become a significant challenge to global water storage infrastructure that must be addressed with a long-term sediment management strategy.

“Sedimentation is a serious issue that endangers the sustainability of future water supplies for many,” says Dr. Smakhtin.

“It stimulates downstream flooding causing erosion, impacting wildlife habitats and coastal populations. And abrasive sediments can damage hydroelectric turbines and other dam components and mechanisms, decreasing their efficiency and increasing maintenance costs.”

Global average annual storage losses amount to approximately 0.36% of initial capacity, the UNU-INWEH study says, noting that figure may err on the conservative side. Previous attempts to estimate a global annual rate of loss from initial reservoir capacity generally agree on a range between 0.5% and 1%. 

Many other studies suggest, however, that reservoir sedimentation rates and associated storage losses are site-specific and vary significantly between regions.

For example, other researchers have estimated the loss from 190 California reservoirs at more than 50% from their original capacities, with 120 reservoirs having lost over 75%. A similar study predicted Japan’s Sakuma reservoir will lose around 44% of its initial capacity by 2040. 

Gibraltar Dam and Reservoir, Santa Barbara CA, USA, completed 1920; raised in 1940 after sedimentation severely reduced its capacity, and filling up again

CREDIT

Doc Pearls, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16951492

The Americas

The Americas’ 19 countries contain 10,358 large dams with an initial storage capacity of 2,810 billion m3 foreseen falling 28% to 2,014 billion m3 by 2050. And Panama’s 21 dams appear to be facing the highest storage loss: 38%, from an initial 9.5 billion m3 to 5.9 billion m3 by 2050.

Brazil, second after the USA in the Americas in number of large dams, will lose an estimated 23% of its initial storage of 600 billion m3 by 2050.

* * * * *

Europe

Europe’s 6,651 large dams across 42 countries had a total initial storage capacity of 895 billion m3.  The region has already lost 19% of that volume, will lose up to 21% by 2030 and 28% by 2050, the study found.

Among the 42 countries, 33 (~78%) will likely lose over 25% of initial storage by 2050 in part because of the dams’ age. Ireland can anticipate the greatest loss of storage by 2050 (39%), Denmark the least loss (20%). Turkey, Iceland, Hungary, and Cyprus appear to be Europe’s other least-impacted countries.

* * * * *

Africa

Already, the 2,349 dams across Africa’s 44 countries have lost about 702 billion m3 or 15% of their original storage capacity. By 2030 and 2050, cumulative storage losses are estimated at 17% and 24%, respectively.

The Seychelles’ two dams have to date lost about 30% of their original 1 million m3 capacity and are projected to lose 50% by 2050 – the greatest loss of any country. Madagascar, DR Congo, Chad, and Zambia are projected to lose 30% by 2050, while another 11 countries will lose an estimated 25% to 30% by mid-century. 

The lowest storage loss by 2050 is estimated for Niger (11%).  Losses of less than 15% are foreseen for Sierra Leone, Congo, Ethiopia, and Guinea, mostly attributable to their relatively young dams.

A previous study noted that the Aswan Dam on the Nile River, with 99% of estimated trapping efficiency, has almost completely blocked sediment flow to the Nile River Delta. 

The new UNU-INWEH study estimates Aswan dam storage losses at 18%, 21%, and 28% in 2022, 2030, and 2050 respectively.

* * * * *

Asia-Pacific

Combined with those in Australia, and New Zealand, Asia’s 43 countries are home to 35,252 large dams, making it the world’s most heavily dammed region. The region is home to 60% of the world’s population and water storage is crucial for sustaining water and food security. 

In 2022, the region is estimated to have lost 13% of its initial dam storage capacity. It will have lost nearly a quarter (23%) of initial storage capacity by mid-century. 

The loss of storage capacity of Japan’s 3,052 dams (average age: over 100 years) is the most acute in the region.  Having already lost 39% of their total initial storage capacity, they will have lost nearly 50% by 2050 on average, and 67% in some cases.

In 2015, India’s Central Water Commission reported that among 141 large reservoirs over 50 years old, one-quarter had already lost at least 30% of their initial storage capacity. UNU-INWEH estimates that India’s 3,700 large dams will have lost on average 26% of their initial total storage by 2050.

China, meanwhile, the world’s most heavily dammed nation, has lost about 10% of its storage and will lose a further 10% by 2050.

* * * * *

Authors of the new paper note that their rough estimates could be greatly improved through consistent basin-wide monitoring of sediment transport and frequent bathymetry surveys of individual reservoirs.

Dredging can be costly, they add, and only temporary. Sediment flushing is more financially attractive but may have significant adverse impacts downstream. 

Solutions such as bypass (or diversion) are gaining traction due to the growing public quest to minimize dams’ adverse environmental impacts. Bypassing is a technique that diverts the flow downstream via a separate channel to manage high-flow events during which sediment concentration is particularly high.

At their optimum operational levels, bypass tunnels can reduce sedimentation by 80%–90% as mentioned in a previous study. 

Enhancement of the dam height is another alternative to recover the storage loss due to sedimentation. However, this should be executed only after a careful assessment of the dam’s structural strength. 

Such an increase in height will also expand the reservoir area, potentially displacing communities and many species’ habitat. 

Complete dam removal, including those filled with sediments, is a slowly emerging practice, returning rivers to their natural state and reestablishing natural river sediment transport. Treatment and disposal of accumulated sediments may be needed as they may contain heavy metals and other toxins.

“Clearly, this study’s results need to be interpreted by local authorities with consideration given to local specifics and factors,” says Dr. Perera.

“What is most important to underline is the disturbing overall magnitude of water storage losses due to sedimentation.  This adds to the list of world water development issues we need to address with resolve.”

* * * * * 

UNU-INWEH (http://bit.ly/1vjfKAS)

The UNU Institute for Water, Environment and Health is a member of the United Nations University family of organizations. It is the UN Think Tank on Water created by the UNU Governing Council in 1996.

Its mission is to help resolve pressing water challenges of concern to the UN, its Member States and their people, through knowledge- based synthesis of existing bodies of scientific discovery; cutting edge targeted research that identifies emerging policy issues; application of on-the-ground scalable solutions based on credible research; and relevant and targeted public outreach. 

UNU-INWEH is hosted by the Government of Canada and McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.

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JOURNAL

Sustainability

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

Present and Future Losses of Storage in Large Reservoirs Due to Sedimentation

OCTOPUS, an optimized device for growing mini-organs in a dish

Engineers create device enabling intestinal organoids to develop to unprecedented levels of maturity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE

When it comes to human bodies, there is no such thing as typical. Variation is the rule. In recent years, the biological sciences have increased their focus on exploring the poignant lack of norms between individuals, and medical and pharmaceutical researchers are asking questions about translating insights concerning biological variation into more precise and compassionate care.

What if therapies could be tailored to each patient? What would happen if we could predict an individual body’s response to a drug before trial-and-error treatment? Is it possible to understand the way a person’s disease begins and develops so we can know exactly how to cure it?

Dan Huh, Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, seeks answers to these questions by replicating biological systems outside of the body. These external copies of internal systems promise to boost drug efficacy while providing new levels of knowledge about patient health.

An innovator of organ-on-a-chip technology, or miniature copies of bodily systems stored in plastic devices no larger than a thumb drive, Huh has broadened his attention to engineering mini-organs in a dish using a patient’s own cells.

A recent study published in Nature Methods helmed by Huh introduces OCTOPUS, a device that nurtures organs-in-a-dish to unmatched levels of maturity. The study leaders include Estelle Park, doctoral student in Bioengineering, Tatiana Karakasheva, Associate Director of the Gastrointestinal Epithelium Modeling Program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and Kathryn Hamilton, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and Co-Director of the Gastrointestinal Epithelial Modeling Program at CHOP.

In the study, the team used OCTOPUS (Organoid Culture-based Three-dimensional Organogenesis Platform with Unrestricted Supply of soluble signals) to learn more about the unique challenges faced by children suffering with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

“The aim of this research,” says Park, “is to create devices that give cells an environment as close as possible to the human body. We want their development in the dish to match the development of their source, so we have a true copy to learn from. In a world where more than 90 percent of pre-clinical animal studies fail before testing on human subjects, and the ethics of both are complex, OCTOPUS will be an invaluable addition to current laboratory practice.”

First developed in 2009, these organs-in-a-dish, known as “organoids,” opened doors to major improvements in medical research and patient care.

To make them, scientists collect organ-specific stem cells and introduce them into a droplet of three-dimensional gel. Nourished by a carefully developed chemical diet, the stem cells spontaneously organize themselves into an immature organ.

Compared to the simple two-dimensional cell cultures that form the backbone of laboratory testing, organoids hold a trove of information. Organs are made of up a variety of cell types, and these cells are more than the sum of their biological materials. They develop and function in communication with one another.

Organoids, unlike traditional cell cultures, allow these relationships to develop. They provide powerful tools for studying how organs develop and carry out their specialized functions.

Generating a wealth of difficult-to-access data about human bodies, organoids reproduce both healthy and abnormal aspects of individual patients’ organs. The more mature the organoid, the more they approximate the true complexity of the organ.

With OCTOPUS, Huh’s team has significantly advanced the frontiers of organoid research, providing a platform superior to the conventional gel droplets.

OCTOPUS splits the soft hydrogel culture material into a tentacled geometry. The thin, radial culture chambers sit on a circular disk the size of a U.S. quarter, allowing organoids to advance to an unprecedented degree of maturity.

“Limited tissue maturity is a significant problem in organoid and stem cell research,” says Huh.

“Efforts to address the issue have focused primarily on biochemistry by developing better media formulations that help stem cells differentiate into more mature tissues. As engineers, we tackled this problem from a different perspective by paying more attention to the physical aspects of how organoids grow. Redesigning the three-dimensional geometry of the hydrogel scaffold, we were able to engineer the biochemical environment of conventional culture models. OCTOPUS improves the transport of nutrients, oxygen, and growth factors without reformulating media biochemistry at all.”

The paper also introduces an enhanced version of the platform, called OCTOPUS-EVO, which takes maturity to the next level. Transforming the insert into a compartmentalized device with precise control of its fluid environment, Huh’s team used a variety of organ cell types to create organoids so advanced they developed functional blood vessels.

“The beauty of our technology,” says Huh, “is its minimalism. We designed the device with usability foremost in our minds. A simple insert, OCTOPUS can be effortlessly incorporated into existing laboratory techniques. The technology is easy to adopt and ready to make an immediate impact.”

Hamilton, whose lab currently uses OCTOPUS to grow organoids to study children’s gut diseases, describes the devices as transformative.

“The better medical researchers can faithfully reproduce the way the organ acts in the body, the better they can predict a patient’s response,” says Hamilton. “This technology is exactly what we need to screen drugs, test therapies, describe healthy behaviors and locate dysfunction. We’re learning new things every day.”

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JOURNAL

Nature Methods

DOI

10.1038/s41592-022-01643-8 

ARTICLE TITLE

Geometric engineering of organoid culture for enhanced organogenesis in a dish

COI STATEMENT

D.D.H. is a cofounder of Vivodyne Inc. and holds equity in Vivodyne Inc. and Emulate Inc. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

What makes brown rice healthy? Decoding the chemistry of its nutritional wealth

Researchers have found that the ester compound cycloartenyl ferulate is chiefly responsible for the health-promoting effects of brown rice

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OKAYAMA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: SEVERAL FAT-SOLUBLE COMPOUNDS PRESENT IN BROWN RICE HAVE ANTIOXIDANT CAPACITY BUT ARE PRESENT IN SMALL QUANTITIES. CYCLOARTENYL FERULATE, A RELATIVELY ABUNDANT MOLECULE, HAS BEEN REVEALED AS THE MAJOR COMPOUND RESPONSIBLE FOR SEVERAL HEALTH BENEFITS OF BROWN RICE. view more 

CREDIT: YOSHIMASA NAKAMURA

Asian diets feature rice as a staple grain, contributing towards nearly 90% of the world’s rice consumption. Brown rice, in particular, is known to have several health benefits. As a regular addition to the diet, it can help reduce body weight, lower cholesterol, and suppress inflammation. The ability of brown rice to neutralize reactive oxygen species and prevent cellular damage is vital to many of its health-promoting effects. Although previous studies have shown that the antioxidant compounds in brown rice can protect cells against oxidative stress, knowledge regarding which major compound contributes towards these beneficial properties has long remained a mystery.

 

In a recent study led by Professor Yoshimasa Nakamura from the Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science, Okayama University, researchers from Japan have identified cycloartenyl ferulate (CAF) as the main “cytoprotective” or cell-protecting compound in brown rice. CAF is a unique compound owing to its hybrid structure. As Professor Nakamura explains, “CAF is a hybrid compound of polyphenol and phytosterol and is expected to be a potent bioactive substance with various pharmacological properties, such as antioxidant effect and blood fat-lowering effect.”

 

The study published on January 3, 2023 in volume 24 issue 1 of International Journal of Molecular Sciences, was co-authored by Hongyan Wu, from Dalian Polytechnic University, and Toshiyuki Nakamura, from the Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science at Okayama University. In it, the researchers provide evidence of CAF’s antioxidant properties by demonstrating that it can protect cells from stress caused by hydrogen peroxide. Although hydrogen peroxide is a by-product of a cell’s metabolic processes, abnormal amounts of the compound can be toxic to cells and cause irreversible damage. Treatment of cells with CAF increased their resistance to toxic stress induced by hydrogen peroxide. Moreover, CAF provided greater protection from hydrogen peroxide-induced stress compared to alpha-tocopherol and gamma-tocopherol, two other prominent antioxidant compounds that were earlier speculated to be major contributors to the antioxidant capacity of brown rice.

 

According to the study’s estimates, the amount of CAF in the whole grain of brown rice is five-fold higher than that of other antioxidant compounds found in brown rice. Further, CAF increases the concentration of heme oxygenase-1 or HO-1, an enzyme that facilitates the production of antioxidants. “We demonstrated here that CAF significantly increased the mRNA level of HO-1, the small molecular weight antioxidant-producing enzyme, at concentrations similar to that required for cytoprotective effects in resistance to oxidative damage,” Professor Nakamura explains.

 

The researchers further explored this mechanism of action through experiments where blocking HO-1 activity using inhibitors reduced the antioxidant effect of CAF considerably. The high abundance and unique mechanism of action are evidence that CAF is the major contributing antioxidant in brown rice.

 

Through this study, the researchers have not only uncovered the secret to the health benefits of brown rice, but also locked down on the component that is majorly responsible for these benefits. This will allow the use of CAF in the development of better novel supplements and food products focused on consumer health. As an optimistic Professor Nakamura observes, “Our study can help in the development of new functional foods and supplements based on the functionality of CAFs, like CAF-based nutraceuticals.”

 

Although, with such naturally occurring health benefits, brown rice still very much looks to be on the menu!

 

About Okayama University, Japan

As one of the leading universities in Japan, Okayama University aims to create and establish a new paradigm for the sustainable development of the world. Okayama University offers a wide range of academic fields, which become the basis of the integrated graduate schools. This not only allows us to conduct the most advanced and up-to-date research, but also provides an enriching educational experience.

Website: https://www.okayama-u.ac.jp/index_e.html

 

About Professor Yoshimasa Nakamura from Okayama University, Japan

Dr Yoshimasa Nakamura is a professor at the Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science at Okayama University. He has nearly 30 years of research experience and has published over 317 scientific articles. His fields of academic interest include Phytochemicals, Reactive Oxygen Species and Antioxidants, Lipid Peroxidation, Apoptosis, Cell Apoptosis and GSH. Professor Nakamura has previously worked at Kyoto University, Nagoya University, and University of Illinois at Chicago.

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JOURNAL

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

DOI

10.3390/ijms24010822 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Cycloartenyl ferulate is the predominant compound in brown rice conferring cytoprotective potential against oxidative stress-induced cytotoxicity

Rice breeding breakthrough to feed billions

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS

 

IMAGE: IMTIYAZ KHANDAY AND VENKATESAN SUNDARESAN PHOTOGRAPHED WITH CLONED RICE PLANTS IN A GREEN HOUSE ON THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS. THEIR WORK HAS LED TO A BREAKTHROUGH IN APOMIXIS, PROPAGATING A HYBRID RICE VARIETY AS CLONAL SEEDS. view more 

CREDIT: KARIN HIGGINS/UC DAVIS

An international team has succeeded in propagating a commercial hybrid rice strain as a clone through seeds with 95 percent efficiency. This could lower the cost of hybrid rice seed, making high-yielding, disease resistant rice strains available to low-income farmers worldwide. The work was published Dec. 27 in Nature Communications. 

First-generation hybrids of crop plants often show higher performance than their parent strains, a phenomenon called hybrid vigor. But this does not persist if the hybrids are bred together for a second generation. So when farmers want to use high-performing hybrid plant varieties, they need to purchase new seed each season. 

Rice, the staple crop for half the world’s population, is relatively costly to breed as a hybrid for a yield improvement of about 10 percent. This means that the benefits of rice hybrids have yet to reach many of the world’s farmers, said Gurdev Khush, adjunct professor emeritus in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Working at the International Rice Research Institute from 1967 until retiring to UC Davis in 2002, Khush led efforts to create new rice high-yield rice varieties, work for which he received the World Food Prize in 1996.

One solution to this would be to propagate hybrids as clones that would remain identical from generation to generation without further breeding. Many wild plants can produce seeds that are clones of themselves, a process called apomixis. 

“Once you have the hybrid, if you can induce apomixis, then you can plant it every year,” Khush said.

However, transferring apomixis to a major crop plant has proved difficult to achieve. 

One Step to Cloned Hybrid Seeds

In 2019, a team led by Professor Venkatesan Sundaresan and Assistant Professor Imtiyaz Khanday at the UC Davis Departments of Plant Biology and Plant Sciences achieved apomixis in rice plants, with about 30 percent of seeds being clones. 

Sundaresan, Khanday and colleagues in France, Germany and Ghana have now achieved a clonal efficiency of 95 percent, using a commercial hybrid rice strain, and shown that the process could be sustained for at least three generations. 

The single-step process involves modifying three genes called MiMe which cause the plant to switch from meioisis, the process that plants use to form egg cells, to mitosis, in which a cell divides into two copies of itself. Another gene modification induces apomixis. The result is a seed that can grow into a plant genetically identical to its parent. 

The method would allow seed companies to produce hybrid seeds more rapidly and at larger scale, as well as providing seed that farmers could save and replant from season to season, Khush said. 

“Apomixis in crop plants has been the target of worldwide research for over 30 years, because it can make hybrid seed production can become accessible to everyone,” Sundaresan said. “The resulting increase in yields can help meet global needs of an increasing population without having to increase use of land, water and fertilizers to unsustainable levels.” 

The results could be applied to other food crops, Sundaresan said. In particular, rice is a genetic model for other cereal crops  including maize and wheat, that together constitute major food staples for the world. 

Khush recalled that he organized a 1994 conference on apomixis in rice breeding. When he returned to UC Davis in 2002, he gave a copy of the conference proceedings to Sundaresan. 

“It’s been a long project,” he said. 

Coauthors on the paper are: Aurore Vernet, Donaldo Meynard, Delphine Meulet, Olivier Gibert, Ronan Rivallan, Anne Cecilé Meunier, Julien Frouin, James Tallebois, Daphné Autran, Olivier Leblanc and Emmanuel Guiderdoni, CIRAD and University of Montpellier, France; Qichao Lian and Raphael Mercier, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany; Matilda Bissah, CSIR Plant Genetics Resources Research Institute, Ghana; and Kyle Shankle, UC Davis. Khush is not an author on the new paper.

The work was supported in part by funding from the Innovative Genomics Institute and the France-Berkeley Fund. 

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-35679-3 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

High-frequency synthetic apomixis in hybrid rice

COI STATEMENT

INRAE, the former employer of author R.M., holds patents on MiMe and its use to engineer apomixis. A provisional application for an US patent has been filed on October 3rd 2022 (# 63/412,667) by UC Davis, CIRAD and MPIPZ, with I.K., V.S., E.G., De.M., and R.M. as inventors. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Researchers uncover key codon repeats regulating chilling tolerance in rice

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

 

IMAGE: SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION DEMONSTRATING DOMESTICATION-SELECTED COLD11 MODULES FOR REPAIRING DNA DOUBLE-STRAND BREAK INDUCED BY CHILLING IN RICE. view more 

CREDIT: PROF. CHONG KANG'S GROUP

A recent study by Prof. CHONG Kang's group from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has revealed a novel cold domesticated repair mechanism for DNA damage in rice, providing corresponding elite modules for the improvement of chilling tolerance trait in rice with the codon repeats at a single site.

Results were published online in Science Advances.

Global climate change has led to a clear increase in abnormal environmental temperatures and extreme weather events in recent years. Thus, it is urgent that crops have the capacity to endure extreme temperatures in order to ensure stable yields. Although plants have evolved complicated and delicate protective mechanisms to survive chilling stress, DNA damage still occurs, thus lowering plants' defenses. Furthermore, the underlying regulatory mechanism has been largely unclear.

In this study, Prof. CHONG's group, in cooperation with Prof. LI Qizhai's group from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science of CAS, and Prof. CHENG Zhukuan's group from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of CAS, used an approach that combines population genetics, genomics, and cell and evolutionary biology to exploit the novel module for chilling tolerance.

The researchers performed data-merging genome-wide association studies (DM-GWAS) based on multidimensional scaling. A series of loci were identified by GWAS using merged phenotypic data. One of these was qCTS11-1 on chromosome 11, which makes a clear contribution to rice chilling tolerance. Its major gene, COLD11, was identified with fine-scale mapping. Loss-of-function mutations of COLD11 caused reduced chilling tolerance, according to the researchers.

Different types of GCG codon repeats encoding alanine in the first exon of COLD11 were observed for chilling-sensitive indica varieties and chilling-tolerant japonica varieties. The GCG codon repeat numbers had a clear, positive correlation with chilling tolerance. In addition, genome evolution analysis of representative rice germplasms suggested that numerous GCG sequence repeats were subjected to strong domestication selection during the northern expansion of rice planting.

Furthermore, COLD11 encodes a DNA repair protein that plays an essential role in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks. The GCG repeat numbers in its first exon showed a positive correlation with its biochemical activity. This is the first report of a domestication-selected DNA damage repair mechanism and its corresponding elite modules involving chilling stress.

Using DM-GWAS of japonica and indica—two rice subspecies with substantial divergence in chilling tolerance—this study reveals that COLD11 is a major quantitative trait loci gene for chilling tolerance.

The discovery of the key codon repeats in the first exon of COLD11, confirmed by phylogenetic and geographic distribution analysis, opens the way for fine regulation of rice chilling tolerance with a single site. It is a potentially useful molecular module for improving the chilling tolerance trait in rice through molecular design.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Natural variation of codon repeats in COLD11 endows rice with chilling resilience

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Rensselaer researchers work to avoid future FTX debacles

Team advocates for robust blockchain interoperability, devised model for predicting crypto scams

RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

The Center for Research toward Advancing Financial Technologies (CRAFT), a collaboration between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Stevens Institute of Technology, is dedicated to advancing blockchain technology so that scams along the lines of FTX’s can be avoided. CRAFT researchers from Rensselaer recently presented their findings on blockchain interoperability and cryptocurrency scam detection at the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data.

“The FTX debacle is just one instance of the range of challenges faced by a fragmented blockchain ecosystem that is unlikely to ever become completely decentralized,” said Aparna Gupta, CRAFT co-director and site director and Rensselaer professor of quantitative finance. “From Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) to transactions in a vast range of other digitized assets, sound blockchain interoperability is key to resilience.”

Oshani Seneviratne, assistant professor of computer science and associate director of the Tetherless World Constellation at Rensselaer, along with Gupta and doctoral student Inwon Kang researched different ways to achieve blockchain interoperability.

Now, customers largely choose among technologies, rather than benefit from being able to transmit tokens or execute smart contracts among platforms. With blockchain interoperability, transfers can be made among different blockchains without sacrificing performance or security.

The team found that three broad integration modes were common throughout: decentralized relays, hub and spoke, and decentralized oracles. In decentralized relay architecture, networks communicate through gateways that offer read and write access. With the hub and spoke architecture, both the hub and spoke are different blockchains that sync with the target chains. With decentralized relay, blockchains are connected with software rather than additional blockchains.

The researchers found that all of the modes have strengths and weaknesses and, although it is too early to decisively categorize one as superior, it is important for both users and developers to prioritize interoperability moving forward.

“It could be argued that FTX’s collapse would not have happened if it had embraced the principles that blockchain and cryptocurrencies were founded on, namely decentralization and transparency,” Seneviratne said. “However, exchanges such as FTX exist due to problems with asset custodianship, as novice crypto users can lose access to their assets in various decentralized systems if they lose their private keys. Therefore, as cryptocurrencies become more mainstream, and since there is no single, dominant blockchain, we need robust interoperability solutions that will provide stability in the absence of complete decentralization.”

Seneviratne and her undergraduate research student Jared Gridley also developed a model to predict cryptocurrency scams. Using graph mining techniques, they collected essential information on transactions. Then, the team applied Benford’s Law to extract distributional information on the unique, random sets of numbers and letters that are applied to each transaction.

Benford’s law is a natural phenomenon that maps the occurrence of first and second digits in many naturally occurring numerical sets. Simply put, according to Benford’s Law, the number one (“1”) will be the leading digit 30.1% of the time, number two (“2”) will be the leading digit 17.6% of the time, and each subsequent number will be the leading digit with decreasing frequency in a power law distribution. Any naturally occurring numerical dataset that deviates from this pattern typically has made-up data characteristic of scams, frauds, and attacks.

The team applied this methodology to Ethereum transaction data and reported scam data from Etherscan. Their labeled dataset consisted of thousands of suspected Ethereum scam addresses with approximately 2.6 million transactions. To get the features to train the model classifiers, the team extracted the transaction graph for each address and then generated a statistical representation of the transaction graph. They examined various features such as the number of transactions, unique addresses, values for gas limits, and value transferred. Each feature was broken down between incoming and outgoing, and to measure the fit of these features with Benford’s Law, the team separated the addresses by the scam and non-scam labels and used two statistical tests. They found that the scam addresses had a clear divergence, while non-scam transactions followed Benford’s law more closely.

“These findings are significant because it is one of the first uses of Benford’s Law to predict scams in cryptocurrencies,” Seneviratne said. “Further, Benford’s Law has been admitted as evidence in court, making it a valuable tool in legal proceedings.”

Seneviratne notes that the research was well-received at the IEEE conference and was a great achievement for Gridley as an undergraduate.

 

About Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:

Founded in 1824, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is America’s first technological research university. Rensselaer encompasses five schools, over 30 research centers, more than 140 academic programs including 25 new programs, and a dynamic community made up of over 6,800 students and 104,000 living alumni. Rensselaer faculty and alumni include upwards of 155 National Academy members, six members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, six National Medal of Technology winners, five National Medal of Science winners, and a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. With nearly 200 years of experience advancing scientific and technological knowledge, Rensselaer remains focused on addressing global challenges with a spirit of ingenuity and collaboration. To learn more, please visit www.rpi.edu.

Contact: 
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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

A new tool helps map out where to develop clean energy infrastructure

Reports and Proceedings

DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

 

IMAGE: GEM INTERFACE SHOWING WIND AND SOLAR POWER PLANT LOCATIONS WITH PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR POTENTIAL. view more 

CREDIT: (IMAGE BY ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY.)

The Geospatial Energy Mapper is an interactive online mapping tool that can help identify areas across the country that are suitable for wind, solar, and other clean energy infrastructure projects.

It can be hard to remember, or for some to even imagine, what life was like before most of us carried around a dynamic mapping platform in our back pocket. Being able to quickly map out the most efficient route by car, bike, or foot has become second nature. What if the same principle of having an easily accessible and easy-to-use tool could be applied to mapping energy infrastructure?

The Geospatial Energy Mapper (GEM) is a comprehensive, interactive online mapping tool that can help identify areas across the country that are suitable for wind, solar and more. First publicly launched in 2013 as the Energy Zones Mapping Tool (EZMT), GEM has been redesigned, rebranded and reengineered. GEM is hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory with funding from the DOE’s Office of Electricity.

“In GEM we applied lessons learned from almost 10 years hosting the EZMT, including making it easier to learn and use, updating the software architecture, and choosing a name fitting its current scope of uses,” said Jim Kuiper, principal geospatial engineer and GEM technical coordinator.

GEM offers an extensive catalog of mapping data. This includes energy resources and infrastructure, and other information that might influence energy infrastructure siting decisions. With over 190 different mapping layers — including demographics, boundaries and utilities — users can locate areas for clean power generation, electric vehicle charging stations and more.

One of the new features is mapping themes, which allow the map to be rapidly set up for a particular focus, like solar, wind or electric vehicles. This new feature helps users quickly load multiple layers related to a particular technology or resource without having to manually browse the mapping catalog and add individual layers to the map.

With GEMs modeling capabilities, users can generate a customized suitability map or ​“heat map.” This map shows which geographical areas in the United States are favorable for the development of certain energy resources and infrastructures. GEM includes preconfigured models for over 40 types of energy infrastructure. Land-based wind turbines or utility-scale photovoltaic solar are two examples. This provides a convenient starting point that users can then easily customize.

“Choosing where to build utility-scale renewable energy development is a tremendously important decision with effects that reverberate beyond the generation of electricity,” said Michael Levin, a GEM user and Ph.D. student studying renewable energy landscapes at Columbia University. ​“GEM not only makes energy suitability maps public but allows for the user to customize the model used to produce such a map.”

GEM has nearly 100 modeling criteria to choose from. Population density, proximity to nearest substation, slope, wildfire risk and low-income household percentage are just a few examples. Nine types of energy resources can be analyzed for clean energy resource development. They include biomass, coal (with carbon capture and sequestration), geothermal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, storage, water and wind.

GEM is expected to have a diverse community of users much like the EZMT. The tool has been used by planners and regulators at all levels of government. For instance, Kentucky’s Office of Energy Policy used the EZMT for prototyping their Solar Site Suitability on Reclaimed Mine Lands tool. Other users include private industry, public service commissions and regional transmission organizations. Finally, national laboratories, educational institutions, energy and natural resource non-profit organizations, and private individuals have all been EZMT users.

Argonne will host a virtual tutorial of GEM on Tuesday, January 17th at 2 PM CT. Click here to attend the webinar or join on the web using meeting ID: 239 067 030 426 and passcode: rmgSfv.

To stay informed about GEM, sign up for the GEM newsletter at https://​gem​.anl​.gov/, or contact gem@​anl.​gov.

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.

A person’s race influences question asking as much as their stroke history

Black women - regardless of neurological insult - ask fewer questions of health care providers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: A NEW STUDY FINDS THAT RACE IS IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER WHEN EVALUATING STROKE-RELATED COMMUNICATION DISORDERS. view more 

CREDIT: ERIN HULL, DUKE HEALTH

DURHAM, NC -- Strokes that occur on the right side of the brain can sometimes subtly impair social communication, which can be difficult for clinicians to assess.

But these impairments are a lot less subtle for the patients and their families, who often have their lives and livelihood upended, leading to significant life changes such as job loss and divorce.

Clinical researchers have developed a few diagnostic tools for right side, (right hemisphere) stroke survivors, but the tools have been largely based on data from White patients.

And that’s a problem, according to Duke speech pathologist and assistant professor Jamila Minga, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, because the few diagnostic tools available may be biased against the people most affected by stroke. Black men and women are twice as likely to have a stroke compared to White adults, and a person’s linguistic tendencies can vary based on their race and gender.

A new study from Duke and North Carolina Central University (NCCU) that Minga led verifies the suspicion that race changes how communication impairments present themselves.

Minga has found that some right brain stroke survivors ask fewer questions. But this new study also found that a person’s race – independent of brain injury – affects their inclination to ask questions.

The research appears on January 10 in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

While a stroke is just as likely to occur within the left or right side of the brain, research on stroke-related communication deficits has mostly focused on people who have survived a left hemisphere stroke.

“That's largely because communication impairments after a left hemisphere stroke are more overt,” said Minga, who recently joined Duke as an assistant professor in the department of head and neck surgery & communication sciences.

Instead, right hemisphere stroke survivors have what clinicians call apragmatism -- a difficulty understanding and producing language that is appropriate for different settings and situation. For example, Minga recalled the time she visited a patient’s room for a speech assessment and while his wife sat in a chair beside him, the patient asked Minga to join him in his hospital bed. He wasn’t joking or being deliberately crass.

“He could produce language. He was completely intelligible. His sentence structure, grammar and morphology were all fine,” Minga said. “The appropriateness? Not so much.”

It’s this subtlety in speech and social conventions that makes communication impairments so hard to pinpoint in right hemisphere stroke survivors, which leaves many undiagnosed and without assistance, Minga said.

Another study by Minga found that right hemisphere stroke participants asked fewer questions when getting to know a new person, inspiring her and others to measure the quantity and quality of question asking as a potential diagnostic tool.

“Everyone recognizes what a question is, no matter what language you speak,” Minga said. “It’s easily quantifiable. And questions are used to initiate, maintain and dissolve relationships. They're key to social communication.”

To address whether race affected a stroke survivor’s question-asking habits, Minga analyzed five-minute snippets of conversation from 32 women who had participated in a prior study and measured how many questions they asked while getting to know someone new. The participant pool consisted of an equal number of Black and White women, half of whom had sustained a right hemisphere stroke.

As Minga had found before, right hemisphere stroke participants asked fewer questions than their non-stroke counterparts no matter their race during the get-to-know-you chat with an unfamiliar person (a female speech pathology graduate student).

However, when Minga and her team analyzed the results by race, they discovered that no matter the stroke condition, Black women asked half as many questions as White participants, about 20 on average.

“White participants without stroke had the highest frequency of question-asking, followed by White participants who had a right hemisphere stroke,” Minga said. “Then the Black participants who did not have a stroke, and the lowest numbers seen were with Black participants who had experienced a right hemisphere stroke.”

The results highlight how diagnosing communication impairments resulting from a right hemisphere stroke may need to be adjusted based on race.

The research team is following up on this study to see whether pairing Black participants with a Black conversation partner changes the nature of question asking. (The vast majority of speech pathologists are White; only 4% identify as Black).

Minga hopes this work motivates clinicians to consider providing more information to patients rather than assuming someone’s reservedness is due to a lack of curiosity. Especially for Black women.

“For Black women who survive a stroke, the functional consequences of a communication impairment are significant,” Minga and her team write in their report. “It can impact financial stability, child rearing and daily socializing, which are all important for good health and well-being.”

Support for the research came from the U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (3R01-DC008524-11S1, L60 DC019755), the U.S. National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s Health (2K12-HD043446-16), the U.S. National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (5U54MD012392-03), and the Duke University School of Medicine.

CITATION: “Intersectionality of Race and Question-Asking in Women After Right Hemisphere Brain Damage,” Danai K. Fannin, Jada Elleby, Maria Tackett, Jamila Minga. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, Jan. 10, 2023. DOI: 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00327.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research

DOI

10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00327 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Intersectionality of Race and Question-Asking in Women After Right Hemisphere Brain Damage