Combined road noise and air pollution raises blood pressure

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND

 

IMAGE: COMBINED ROAD NOISE AND AIR POLLUTION RAISES BLOOD PRESSURE view more 

CREDIT: UWS

A link between noisy road traffic with air pollutant and an increased chance of hypertension – a top risk factor for heart attack and stroke – has been identified by University of the West of Scotland (UWS) researchers.

The study looked at the relationship between environmental quality and direct health impacts, monitoring traffic noise at different frequencies and registered hypertension cases in a number of locations in urban Glasgow. A significant correlation between noise, air pollution and hypertension were observed within high-traffic-flow residential areas.

This research provides an important case study for an increasing international evidence base to support future environment policy and support public health measures, such as setting stricter noise guidelines and improving technology on quieter vehicles and urban design.

Professor Andrew Hursthouse, lead supervisor, UWS’s School of Computing Engineering and Physical Sciences, said: “This work is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration with Mr Jan Miller, HLS and Dr Daniel Boakye, formerly HLS, to support the efforts of PhD student Wisdom Adza, highlighting the potential of joining skills to address societal problems.

"The increasing evidence highlighting environmental conditions and public health impacts is a game-changer when it comes to the prevention of hypertension at individual and societal level."

The research demonstrates that multiple environmental indicators can be combined to provide information to support impact assessment for public health in urban environments. Additionally, the findings could support local authorities in planning and managing the built environment, as well as affording opportunities for tools to be developed to improve public heath decision making.

Mr Wisdom Adza, UWS PhD student, and main investigator of the study, added: “A review of this area identifies opportunities for including broader indicators in public health policy.

"Although further investigation is needed, this should not delay actions to recognise that traffic noise is a potential risk factor for hypertension, and heart diseases more generally, in the development of clinical guideline and environmental policy."

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Combined road noise and air pollution raises blood pressure

Group cyclists urged to spread out as it can affect exposure to vehicle emissions 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

The notion that in a group of cyclists, the person in front of the group is always the most exposed to harmful vehicle pollutants has been debunked by the University of Surrey. 

A series of unique experiments were carried out in Surrey’s Environmental Flow (EnFlo) wind tunnel, capturing results from a vehicle driving in front and adjacent to the riders.  

With a vehicle in front of a cycling group and little wind movement, the findings confirm that pollutant exposure decreases the further the cyclist is from the vehicle. However, with more wind, riding towards the back of the group can be a good strategy to minimise exposure.  

When the vehicle is adjacent to the cycling group, results show how exhaust fumes can be trapped by a complex aerodynamic field, making the front riding position the place with the least exposure despite its proximity with the vehicle.  

Joy Schmeer, Postgraduate Researcher at the University of Surrey and lead author said: 

“Cycling is encouraged to reduce congestion on the roads, as well as traffic emissions, yet despite many encouraging health aspects of cycling, the exposure to and inhalation of vehicle pollutants is something not to be forgotten, especially when used as a regular alternative transport method.  

“The findings of these experiments highlight group cyclists needs to consider their routes and position within a group, especially when roads become busier and narrower.” 

Dr Marco Placidi, Senior Lecturer in Experimental Fluid Mechanics at the University of Surrey commented: 

“The results of these experiments reveal important recommendations that cyclists and drivers should know to increase health and safety while cycling in groups.  

“While drivers need to maximise their distance away from riders before overtaking them, cyclists should aim to distance themselves from the vehicle’s exhaust, but also potentially from other riders if a vehicle is driving adjacent to them. As for further recommendations, experiments like these show the need to consider repercussion of peak utilisation of urban cycle lanes during their design stages.” 

The paper was published in the Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics. 

   

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Notes to Editors 

• Reference: Joy Schmeer, Paul Hayden, Alan Robins, Prashant Kumar, Marco Placidi, Group riding: Cyclists exposure to road vehicle emissions in urban environments, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, Volume 235, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jweia.2023.105333 

• The authors of the study are available upon request 

• Contact the University of Surrey’s press office via mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk 

 

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JOURNAL

Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics

DOI

10.1016/j.jweia.2023.105333 

ARTICLE TITLE

Group riding: Cyclists exposure to road vehicle emissions in urban environments

Study finds significant variation in anatomy of human guts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: NEW RESEARCH FINDS THERE IS SIGNIFICANT VARIATION IN THE ANATOMY OF THE HUMAN DIGESTIVE SYSTEM, WITH PRONOUNCED DIFFERENCES POSSIBLE BETWEEN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS. THE FINDING HAS IMPLICATIONS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE THAT THE DIGESTIVE TRACT’S ANATOMY CAN PLAY IN AFFECTING HUMAN HEALTH, AS WELL AS PROVIDING POTENTIAL INSIGHTS INTO MEDICAL DIAGNOSES AND THE MICROBIAL ECOSYSTEM OF THE GUT. IN THIS PHOTO, A RESEARCHER TAKES A GUT MEASUREMENT IN THE LAB. view more 

CREDIT: LAUREN NICHOLS

New research finds there is significant variation in the anatomy of the human digestive system, with pronounced differences possible between healthy individuals. The finding has implications for understanding the role that the digestive tract’s anatomy can play in affecting human health, as well as providing potential insights into medical diagnoses and the microbial ecosystem of the gut.

“There was research more than a century ago that found variability in the relative lengths of human intestines, but this area has largely been ignored since then,” says Amanda Hale, co-first author of the study and a Ph.D. candidate at North Carolina State University. “When we began exploring this issue, we were astonished at the extent of the variability we found.”

“If you’re talking to four different people, odds are good that all of them have different guts, in terms of the relative sizes of the organs that make up that system,” says Erin McKenney, corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor of applied ecology at NC State. “For example, the cecum is an organ that’s found at the nexus of the large and small intestine. One person may have a cecum that is only a few centimeters long, while another may have a cecum the size of a coin purse. And we found similar variability for many digestive organs.”

In another striking example, the researchers found that women tend to have longer small intestines than men.

“Because having a longer small intestine helps you extract nutrients from your diet, this finding supports the canalization hypothesis, which posits that women are better able to survive during periods of stress,” says Hale.

“Given that there is more variation in human gut anatomy than we thought, this could inform our understanding of what is driving a range of health-related issues and how we treat them,” says McKenney. “Basically, now that we know this variability exists, it raises a number of research questions that need to be explored.”

For this study, the researchers measured the digestive organs of 45 people who donated their remains to the Anatomical Gifts Program at the Duke University School of Medicine.

In addition to shedding light on the unexpected variability in human anatomy, this project also led to rediscovering the importance of teaching anatomical variation to medical students.

“It’s particularly important in medical training, because if students are only learning about a ‘normal’ or ‘average’ anatomy, that means they are not going to be familiar with the scope of human variation,” says Roxanne Larsen, co-author of the paper and an associate professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at the University of Minnesota. “It’s increasingly clear that the medical field is moving toward individualized medicine to improve patient outcomes and overall health and well-being. Garnering experience in understanding anatomical variation can play a critical role in helping future doctors understand the importance of individualized medicine.”

“We’re excited about this discovery and future directions for the work,” McKenney says. “It underscores just how little we know about our own bodies.”

The paper, “Hidden Diversity: Comparative Functional Morphology of Humans and Other Species,” will be published April 24 in the open-access journal PeerJ. The paper was co-authored by Janiaya Anderson, a former undergraduate at NC State; Colleen Grant, a former research scientist at NC State; and by Rob Dunn, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Applied Ecology and Senior Vice Provost for University Interdisciplinary Programs at NC State.

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JOURNAL

PeerJ

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Hidden Diversity: Comparative Functional Morphology of Humans and Other Species

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Apr-2023

Study finds stool transplants more effective than antibiotics for treating recurring, life-threatening gut infections

A new Cochrane Review has found that, compared with standard antibiotic treatment, stool transplantation can increase the number of people recovering from Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection from 40% to 77%

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COCHRANE

A new Cochrane Review led by an Upstate Medical University professor has found that, compared with standard antibiotic treatment, stool transplantation can increase the number of people recovering from Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection, a condition which causes potentially life-threatening diarrhea. 77 percent of people who received a stool transplant did not experience reinfection within eight weeks, compared to 40 percent of those who received antibiotics alone.

C. diff is a bacterium that can cause life-threatening diarrheal illness in individuals with an unhealthy mixture of gut bacteria, known as dysbiosis. The most common cause of dysbiosis is treatment with antibiotics, and while antibiotics can be very effective against bacterial infections, they can also harm the beneficial bacteria colonizing the gut, known as the intestinal microbiome. Usually this ecosystem of “good” bacteria recovers quickly, but occasionally “bad” species like C. diff take over and cause serious diarrhea.

The standard treatment of C. diff infection includes antibiotics, which may further exacerbate dysbiosis. This can lead to a vicious cycle of brief treatment effect followed by a recurrent infection. This happens in nearly a third of infected individuals. According to the CDC, every year there are around a quarter of a million C. diff infections in the US alone, causing approximately 12,000 fatalities.

Transplanting healthy donor stool into a gut with dysbiosis is intended to balance the gut microbes and reestablish a healthy microbiome, thus significantly reducing the risk of C. diff recurring. Stool donation operates much the same way as blood donation. Donors are screened for diseases and infections before they can donate their stool. The stool can be transplanted via colonoscopy, nasogastric or nasoduodenal tube, enema or via a capsule. The US Food and Drug Administration has recently approved a stool transplant product for prevention of recurrence of C. diff that can be administered as enema.

The new Cochrane Review, led by pediatric gastroenterologist Aamer Imdad MBBS, examined data from six clinical trials with a total of 320 adults that assessed the efficacy and safety of stool transplantation for the treatment of repeated C. diff infection. Two studies were conducted in Denmark, and one each in the Netherlands, Italy, Canada, and the United States. Most of the included studies compared stool transplantation with a standard antibiotic treatment using vancomycin, which is commonly used for this kind of infection.

The review found that stool transplantation leads to a larger increase in resolution of repeated infections of C. diff than other treatments studied, as well as a decrease in side effects when compared with standard treatment using antibiotics.

“After a person with a C. diff infection gets treated with antibiotics, there is about a 25 percent chance that they will have another episode of C. diff infection in the next 8 weeks”, Imdad said. “The risk of recurrence increases to about 40 percent with the second episode and to nearly 60 percent with the third episode. So, once you are in this cycle, it gets more and more difficult to break out of it. Stool transplants can reverse the dysbiosis and thus decrease the risk of recurrence of the disease.”

A second Cochrane Review, also led by Dr. Imdad, looks at the use of stool transplants for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a term mainly used to describe two conditions: ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. The review shows promising results for ulcerative colitis; however, the data is not conclusive yet. Results for Crohn’s disease are even less conclusive. More research will be required before stool transplants can be considered for the treatment of IBD.

Imdad collaborated with doctors around the country on both studies, including Nathan Zev Minkoff, a graduate from the Norton College of Medicine, Upstate students Natasha Pandit and Muiz Zaman, Class of 2023 in the Norton College of Medicine and Melissa Medina, Class of 2026 in the Department of Public Health and Preventative Medicine, on the C-diff study. The other collaborators included Dr. Maribeth Nicholson and Dr. Sari Acra from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Dr. Scheherzade Asalam from University of Nebraska, Dr. Emily E Tanner Smith from University of Oregon, Dr. Oscar Gomez from University of Buffalo and Dr.  Joseph Zackular from University of Pennsylvania.

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JOURNAL

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

DOI

10.1002/14651858.CD013871.pub2 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Systematic review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Fecal microbiota transplantation for thetreatment of recurrent Clostridioidesdifficile (Clostridium difficile)

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Apr-2023

As “deprescribing” medicines for older adults catches on, poll shows need for patient-provider dialogue

Majority of people over 50 are open to stopping one or more of their medications -- but some of those who already did so didn’t talk with a health provider first

Reports and Proceedings

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

 

IMAGE: KEY FINDINGS FROM THE NATIONAL POLL ON HEALTHY AGING ABOUT THE USE OF PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS BY PEOPLE AGE 50 TO 80, AND THEIR ATTITUDES AND EXPERIENCES TOWARD DEPRESCRIBING AT LEAST ONE PRESCRIPTION MEDICINE THEY'VE BEEN TAKING FOR A YEAR OR MORE. view more 

CREDIT: EMILY SMITH - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

As the movement toward “deprescribing” medications among older adults grows, a new poll shows strong interest in this idea.

A full 80% of adults aged 50 to 80 would be open to stopping one or more of the prescription medicines they’ve been taking for more than a year, if a health care provider said it was possible. Already, 26% said they have done so in the past two years.

Of those willing to stop a medicine, 67% said they would likely ask for advice about doing so at their next visit with a provider, according to the new findings from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging.

But the poll also shows the importance of communication between patients and providers when deprescribing – a concept that includes both decreasing and stopping a medication because a temporary health condition has resolved, the medicine might clash with others, or the overall benefits and risks of taking it have changed.

“Deprescribing, which can include prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, and dietary supplements, should be based on dialogue between patients and providers, and sometimes family members,” says Sarah Vordenberg, Pharm.D., M.P.H., a U-M College of Pharmacy clinical associate professor who worked on the poll.

More than a third of older adults who said they had stopped taking a prescription medicine they’d been on for more than a year, and didn’t start on a replacement for it, said they did so without talking with a health professional such as a doctor, pharmacist or nurse practitioner.

The poll is based at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center.

The poll has implications for many older adults, because it finds that 82% of people age 50 to 80 take at least one prescription medicine regularly. Of them, 28% say they believe they take too many medicines.

More than half of those polled take three or more prescription medications. In addition, 11% of those polled regularly take three or more over-the-counter medicines and 38% take three or more vitamins, minerals or supplements.

Medication reviews needed

The poll suggests more people should take advantage of a little-known benefit offered by Medicare and other insurance: a comprehensive medication review by a pharmacist or other provider.

“While we found that over 90% of older adults who take at least one prescription medicine expect their provider to review their list of medicines at least annually, research has shown this is often not the case,” Vordenberg adds. “This drives home the importance of comprehensive medication reviews, which can often be billed to insurance by clinics and pharmacies as a separate patient encounter.”

“Another key aspect of deprescribing conversations and comprehensive medication reviews should be cost, because inability to afford medications can lead people to stop taking or alter the dose of medications that are important to their health,” says poll director Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., an associate professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine and physician and researcher at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

“In our poll, cost was a driver behind stopping a medication for 15% of older adults with health or disability issues that limit their daily activities, twice as high as the percentage for those without these conditions,” he says. 

People with a health problem or disability that limits their usual activities, and those who said they were in fair or poor physical or mental health, were also nearly twice as likely overall to say they had stopped taking a medication in the past two years, compared to those in better health.

More than a third (38%) of those taking five or more prescription medications also said they had stopped taking a medication, compared with 23% of those taking three to four prescription medications and 17% of those taking one to two prescription medications. 

In 2020, a previous report from the National Poll on Healthy Aging found that 24% of adults age 50 to 80 who take two or more prescription drugs, and 25% of those who have Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, had had a comprehensive medication review. The vast majority of those who had not had a CMR were unaware that their insurance might cover the cost of such a review.

“Adults ages 65 and older take 4.6 medications per month on average,” said Susan Reinhard, Senior Vice President at AARP Public Policy Institute. “It’s important that patients not only have regular communication about the risks and benefits of each prescription with health care providers, but also with loved ones and family caregivers. Research shows improved outcomes when family members help make decisions in the deprescribing process.”

The poll report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for IHPI and administered online and via phone in January 2023 among 2,563 adults aged 50 to 80. The sample was subsequently weighted to reflect the U.S. population. For the previous poll, a different sample of older adults was asked about medication use and comprehensive medication reviews, but both samples were weighted to reflect the population of U.S. adults aged 50 to 80.

Read past National Poll on Healthy Aging reports and about the poll methodology.

 

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

Hidden RNA repair mechanism discovered in humans

Konstanz researchers discover the function of a previously unexplored protein: In three characteristic steps, "C12orf29" links the ends of RNA strands. Proteins that perform this kind of RNA ligation were previously unknown in humans

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ

Ribonucleic acids (RNAs) are single-stranded molecules that play an essential role in the cells of all living organisms. As "transcripts" of our genes, mRNAs, for example, are involved in the translation of genetic information by carrying in their own sequence the instructions for the creation of a protein. "In order to fulfil their diverse functions in the cell, RNAs often need to be chemically modified after their creation or repaired after damage," explains Andreas Marx, professor of organic and cellular chemistry at the University of Konstanz.

One chemical reaction that plays a role here is the three-step linking (ligation) of two RNA strands at their respective opposite ends. This reaction is triggered by specialized enzymes called RNA ligases and is present in all forms of life, from viruses to fungi and plants. In vertebrates, including humans, such RNA ligases had yet to be identified. An interdisciplinary research team from Konstanz has now discovered the first human RNA ligase of this type, the protein C12orf29. At the cellular level, the study results, published in Nature Communications, suggest a protective function of the enzyme against cellular stress.

Antioxidant defence system of our cells
"We noticed C12orf29 during extensive studies of human lung carcinoma and kidney cells that we performed in search of proteins with a specific chemical signature and for which we used new chemical tools. It caught our attention because until then it was not understood what the protein's functions were," Marx says. The researchers therefore developed and used various protocols to purify and predict the structure of the unexplored protein and performed experiments to track down its chemical function. They were thus able to prove what was initially only a reasonable suspicion: C12orf29 links RNA strands using adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

The researchers were able to show in detail that this process follows a characteristic, three-step reaction pattern known from other RNA ligases of other life forms. To learn more about the function of C12orf29 at the cellular level, the researchers went one step further after elucidating the chemical mechanism. "We used the CRISPR/Cas gene scissors to generate a line of human kidney cells in which the gene encoding C12orf29 was knocked out. We were then able to compare these knockout (KO) cells with 'normal' kidney cells under varying experimental conditions," Marx explains.

In particular, when treating the cells with menadione, a K vitamin, clear differences were observed between KO cells and the wild-type cells with functional RNA ligase: Comparatively low concentrations of menadione were sufficient to damage KO cells. In contrast, the wild-type cells were only damaged at significantly higher concentrations. Since menadione is known to cause oxidative stress, the researchers concluded from this result that C12orf29 protects against oxidative cellular stress. "We assume that a previously hidden human RNA repair mechanism underlies this biological function of C12orf29. We now need to examine this mechanism in further studies," Marx says.

Key facts:

 

• Original publication: Y. Yuan, F.M. Stumpf, L.A. Schlor et al. (2023) Chemoproteomic discovery of a human RNA ligase. Nature Communications; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36451-x
• Konstanz researchers elucidate the function of a previously uncharacterized human protein (C12orf29). The RNA ligase catalyzes a reaction for which no example was previously known in humans. The results of the study suggest a previously hidden RNA repair mechanism in humans.
• Interdisciplinary collaboration project of different research teams in the Departments of Chemistry and Biology at the University of Konstanz
• Funding: Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (ERC; project: "AMP-Alarm") for Andreas Marx and open access funding via the DEAL project

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-36451-x 

ARTICLE TITLE

Chemoproteomic discovery of a human RNA ligase

Research reveals that many of the performance-enhancing substances that Danes buy online are counterfeited

What is the true content of the tablets and ampoules that young men, in particular, order from abroad in order to gain bigger muscles or better performance? For the first time, a Danish study is throwing light on this.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: WITH HER PHD PROJECT, PIA HEINSVIG HAS FOR THE FIRST TIME CREATED AN OVERVIEW OF THE CONTENT, ORIGIN AND QUALITY OF THE PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING SUBSTANCES THAT DANES ORDER FROM ABROAD. view more 

CREDIT: LINE RØNN, AARHUS UNIVERSITY

If you buy illegal tablets or injections online in order to improve your physique, it is impossible to be sure of what is in them.

This is shown by a new PhD project from the Department of Forensic Medicine at Aarhus University, which has just been published in the journal Drug Testing and Analysis.

PhD student Pia Johansson Heinsvig has examined all of the doping drugs seized in the course of a year in three Danish police districts – a total of 764 products – and the chemical analyses reveal that the substances far from always contain what is written on the packaging.

7% of the bottles and ampoules bought, for example, contained no active pharmaceutical ingredient at all. That means that the users have actually been cheated and may be injecting themselves with cooking oil instead of steroids, Pia Johansson Heinsvig explains.

In 22% of the tablets and 27% of the oil-based products, the content of the products was not consistent with what was printed on the packaging. In some cases, it was a pharmaceutical ingredient other than the one stated, while in others, the product contained an extra active substance that the user had no chance of discovering.

“This might for example mean that you get a pain-relieving substance instead of a steroid – or another steroid than labelled,” says the researcher.

Can cause depression, reduced fertility and cardiac arrest

It is for example in sub-cultures within fitness environments that Danes buy performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) as a supplement to their training and diet – in order to improve their appearance and possible athletic performance.

In Denmark and most other western countries, the substances cannot be bought over the counter, but are easily available online, where they can be ordered illegally. These products are either produced on a large scale in a country where the production of doping is legal, or in illegal laboratories around the world.

The new study is the first of its kind in a Danish context, and shows that many different companies are producing performance and image-enhancing drugs for the Danish market, and that counterfeit and low-quality products are widespread.

“From the packaging, we can see that the products in the study originate from 37 countries, mainly India and the US. The majority come from Asia (37%), and the most popular manufacturer is Alpha Pharma,” says Pia Johansson Heinsvig.

Steroids make up almost 60% of the seized products. These drugs constitute a health problem, as long-term use of anabolic steroids can have serious consequences, including cardiovascular disease, impaired fertility, liver damage, depression and heart failure.

A professional appearance

You should not allow yourself to be fooled by the professional appearance of the products if you are tempted to buy performance-enhancing products online, says Pia Johansson Heinsvig.

“Although the products look credible, they may come from companies with low standards of quality, or from illegal productions with no quality control at all, which could potentially constitute an additional health risk for the end-user,” she says.

“Many of the products look as though they have been legitimately produced, as the packaging is professional, often with the company name and other relevant information on the package. But counterfeit medicine can contain incorrect ingredients, no active ingredients, inadequate ingredients, low-quality ingredients or an incorrect dosage,” says the researcher.

 

Facts:

• The study investigates doping products seized by the police in three police districts in Denmark (North Jutland, Funen and Copenhagen) from December 2019 to December 2020.
• A total of 764 products were seized during the period. These substances were for example seized by customs, or confiscated directly from the user, because it is illegal to possess them.
• The study describes the seized products in relation to their country of origin, manufacturing process and the active pharmaceutical ingredient listed on the packaging, as against that identified by subsequent chemical analysis.
• Amongst other things, the products contained anabolic–androgenic steroids (found in 60 per cent of the samples), Viagra and selective oestrogen receptor modulators.
• Many of the products have a professional appearance that meets most EU requirements for packaging information. However, some of the products contained either no pharmaceutical ingredient or an active pharmaceutical ingredient which was not the one stated on the product (see figure).
• The products came from 37 countries – mainly in Asia (37%), Europe (23%) and North America (13%).
• 193 different companies could be identified from the packaging.

 

Behind the research results

• The study constitutes a qualitative determination of the content of doping products through the use of GC-MS.
• Partners: North Jutland Police, Funen Police and the Copenhagen Police
• The project is financed by Anti Doping Denmark
• Read more: https://analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dta.3472

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JOURNAL

Drug Testing and Analysis

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Do you get what you see? The illicit doping market in Denmark—An analysis of performance and image enhancing drugs seized by the police over a 1-year period

Transforming highways for high-speed travel and energy transport

Revolutionary design could combine superconductor levitation, lossless electricity transmission, and liquid hydrogen transportation into one system.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

 

IMAGE: SCHEMATIC ILLUSTRATION OF THE SUPERCONDUCTING HIGHWAY FOR ENERGY TRANSPORT AND STORAGE AND SUPERCONDUCTOR LEVITATION FOR THE TRANSPORT OF PEOPLE AND GOODS. view more 

CREDIT: VAKALIUK ET AL.

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2023 – Superconductors can conduct electricity without any resistance or power loss, and they can effortlessly cause magnets to levitate above them. These properties would make superconductors useful for high-speed trains or long-distance power transmission, except for one glaring problem: superconductors only work at low temperatures, more than a hundred degrees below zero.

This one requirement makes building a hyperefficient electrical grid or high-speed rail network very expensive. Unless, that is, a superconductor network could accomplish both tasks at the same time.

In APL Energy, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Houston, Adelwitz Technologiezentrum GmbH, and the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research developed a proof of concept for a superconducting highway that could transport vehicles and electricity, cooling the necessary superconductors with a pipeline of liquid hydrogen.

Most magnetic levitation designs feature the superconductor inside the vehicle, which is suspended above a magnetic track. The authors decided to flip that arrangement upside down, putting the superconductor on the ground and giving each vehicle a magnet. The result is a system with multiple uses, placing it within the realm of affordability.

“Superconductor-levitated magnetic vehicles, instead of magnet-levitated superconducting vehicles, can provide additional benefits such as electrical power transmission and storage,” said author Zhifeng Ren. “We developed a new superconducting system that can transport and store a huge amount of energy and also transport people and goods with speeds of at least 400 miles per hour.”

Their design solves the problem of superconductor cooling with a liquid hydrogen pipeline. Hydrogen is a promising clean fuel source with a complex handling issue: It is a gas at room temperature, so transporting and storing it involves either dangerous pressurized tanks or costly cryogenic temperatures. In the team’s proposal, the cost of cooling the superconductor and the cost of transporting hydrogen become the same.

Using a scale model in the lab, they demonstrated that these applications can coexist, and now they hope to build a full-scale demonstration. The authors envision their system would sit underneath existing highways to make use of current infrastructure.

“People can drive onto the superconducting highway any time without waiting for a train or airplane, and modifying the existing highways means there is no need to acquire land for the tracks,” said Ren. “With enough financial support, we could make a working system over a relatively short distance, like from Houston to Austin.”

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The article “A multifunctional highway system incorporating superconductor levitated vehicles and liquefied hydrogen” is authored by Oleksii Vakaliuk, Shaowei Song, Uta Floegel-Delor, Frank N. Werfel, Kornelius Nielsch, and Zhifeng Ren. It will appear in APL Energy on April 24, 2023 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0139834). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0139834.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

APL Energy is an open access journal that features original research on significant topical issues related to energy and the integration of different energy technologies. See http://aplenergy.aip.org.

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JOURNAL

APL Energy

DOI

10.1063/5.0139834 

ARTICLE TITLE

A multifunctional highway system incorporating superconductor levitated vehicles and liquefied hydrogen

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Apr-202

Researchers design battery prototype with fiber-shaped cathode

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

In a new study, North Carolina State University researchers made a cathode, or the positive end of a battery, in the shape of a thread-like fiber. The researchers were then able to use the fiber to create a zinc-ion battery prototype that could power a wrist watch.

Published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, the proof-of-concept study is a step forward in the development of a fiber-shaped battery that could ultimately be integrated into garments.

“Ultimately, we want to make a yarn-shaped battery, so we could put it in a real garment, and preferably hide it,” said the study’s corresponding author Wei Gao, associate professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science at NC State. “In this study, we created a yarn-shaped cathode. Our findings were pretty promising for such a short strip of fiber, and we hope to continue this work to improve the performance, safety, and mechanical properties of our designs.”

To create the cathode, the researchers utilized the unique properties of graphene – a strong material with a high surface area and good conductivity - to make a yarn-shaped zinc-ion battery.

In their study, the researchers created different manganese dioxide microparticles in various shapes and sizes. Then, they used a solution-spinning process to form a fiber made of graphene oxide, with manganese dioxide particles embedded within. They studied the electrochemical and other properties of the fibers.

“Since we are trying to make a fiber-shaped zinc-ion battery, we care not only about the battery performance, but also about the mechanical properties – we need the fiber to be strong, and also flexible,” Gao said.

Researchers found the shape of the graphene oxide and manganese dioxide materials that they used to make the cathode affected its electrochemical function. Specifically, they found the shorter, rod-shaped manganese dioxide components mixed homogeneously with the graphene, allowing researchers to make a fiber that could operate as a functional battery prototype. Comparatively, they found that when the manganese dioxide had a “sea urchin” shape, the fiber couldn’t be used in a functional battery.

“When the graphene and manganese dioxide were well-mixed, you can use the fiber to create a functional battery,” said the study’s first author, Nakarin Subjalearndee, a former graduate student at NC State. “If the manganese dioxide was shaped like a sea urchin, it meant the cathode thread had a rough surface, and could not be used.”

“The rod-shaped manganese dioxide gave us the best performance,” Gao added. “These particles mimicked the configuration or geometry of the fiber, as compared to the sea urchin-shaped particles, which were round with all kinds of edges pointing out. They disturbed the stacking of the graphene oxide nanosheets within the fiber.”

Though the battery’s performance was low, the researchers were able to use it to power a wrist watch. The team wants to continue their work to improve the design’s performance.

“This study shows that the shape and size of the additives in the fiber affected the fiber formation process of graphene oxide,” Gao said. “We hope to keep developing this system; we want our design to be comparable to a commercial battery.”

The study, “Wet Spinning of Graphene Oxide Fibers with Different MnO2 Additives,” was published online in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Co-authors included Nanfei He, Hui Cheng, Panpanat Tesatchabut, Priew Eiamlamai, Somruthai Phothiphiphit, Orapan Saensuk, Pimpa Limthongkul, Varol Intasanta, and Xiangwu Zhang. This work was supported by startup funding from the NC State Wilson College of Textiles; the Thailand National Nanotechnology Center (NANOTEC); the Thailand National Science and Technology Development Agency (1751526), and Energy Innovation Program; and the Thailand Technology Development Groups on Energy, National Science and Technology Development Agency (project number 822 PO2050291)

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Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.

Wet Spinning of Graphene Oxide Fibers with Different MnO2 Additives

Authors: Nakarin Subjalearndee, Nanfei He, Hui Cheng, Panpanat Tesatchabut, Priew Eiamlamai, Somruthai Phothiphiphit, Orapan Saensuk, Pimpa Limthongkul, Varol Intasanta, Wei Gao and Xiangwu Zhang.

Published: April 5, 2023, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

DOI: 10.1021/acsami.3c02989

Abstract: We present the fabrication of graphene oxide (GO) and manganese dioxide (MnO2) composite fibers via wet spinning processes, which entails the effects of MnO2 micromorphology and mass loading on the extrudability of GO/MnO2 spinning dope and on the properties of resulted composite fibers. Various sizes of rod and sea-urchin shaped MnO2 microparticles have been synthesized via hydrothermal reactions with different oxidants and hydrothermal conditions. Both the microparticle morphology and mass loading significantly affect the extrudability of the GO/MnO2 mixture. In addition, the orientation of MnO2microparticles within the fibers is largely affected by their microscopic surface areas. The composite fibers have been made electrically conductive via chemical or thermal treatments and then applied as fiber cathodes in Zn-ion battery prototypes. Thermal annealing under an argon atmosphere turns out to be an appropriate method to avoid MnO2 dissolution and leaching, which have been observed in the chemical treatments. These rGO/MnO2 fiber cathodes have been assembled into prototype Zn-ion batteries with Zn wire as the anode and xanthan-gum gel containing ZnSO4 and MnSO4 salts as the electrolyte. The resulted electrochemical output depends on the annealing temperature and MnO2 distribution within the fiber cathodes, while the best performer shows stable cycling stability at a maximum capacity of ca. 80 mA h/g.

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JOURNAL

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

DOI

10.1021/acsami.3c02989 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Wet Spinning of Graphene Oxide Fibers with Different MnO2 Additives