It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, September 09, 2023
UK and Japan partnership to develop new technologies for nuclear waste disposal
New research that will develop technologies to detect and process radioactive waste has been awarded funding by the UK in partnership with the Japanese government.
The research will support work to decommission Sellafield Nuclear Plant in the UK and remove radioactive debris from the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.
Two projects have been awarded a share of £1 million, delivered by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, to address challenges in:
radioactive waste treatment, packaging, and storage;
remote handling, robotic, and autonomous systems in decommissioning;
environmental behaviour of radionuclide release and management of risk and degraded infrastructure.
The UK-Japan Civil Nuclear Research programme is a partnership between UK Research and Innovation and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).
This is the first UKRI award through the International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF) which was launched by Science Minister George Freeman in Japan in December.
The ISPF supports collaborations between UK researchers and innovators and their peers from around the world to address global challenges, build knowledge and develop the technologies of tomorrow on the major themes of our time: planet, health, tech and talent.
George Freeman MP, UK Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said:
“After I launched the International Science Partnerships Fund in Japan, last year, it is only fitting that our first UKRI award from the Fund, is in partnership with Japan too.
“Processing nuclear waste is an enormous challenge for human civilisation. Bringing together the UK and Japan’s brightest minds, to focus our shared expertise in sensing, data, chemistry and more, cuts to the core of what this Fund and our science superpower mission is all about – harnessing UK scientific leadership through deeper international collaboration for global good, to tackle the most pressing needs facing humanity.”
The research projects are being led by academics at the universities of Strathclyde and Sheffield.
Dr Paul Murray from the University of Strathclyde will lead research to improve the detection, safeguarding, retrieval and disposal of radioactive debris. Bringing together a team of researchers and industrialists from the UK and Japan, including: Lancaster University, the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), Osaka University, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Nippon Nuclear Fuel Development, the project will develop new inspection technologies using hyperspectral imaging (HSI) along with other sensor technologies, signal processing and data fusion.
Dr Brant Walkley, from the University of Sheffield, will lead a study to use calcined clays as natural resources to engineer ‘geopolymer binders’. The binders will safely cement solid radioactive fuel debris from molten core concrete comprising metallic alloys, oxides, and silicates, and slurries and sediments.
Professor Christopher Smith, International Champion at UKRI, said:
“International partnerships are crucial to ensuring we learn from each other and harness the extraordinary potential of research and innovation to overcome challenges and future proof our safety and wellbeing in the UK and around the world. These new investments are an example of this.
“Experts from across the UK and Japan will work together to find innovative solutions to safely detect and dispose of radioactive nuclear debris to protect and safeguard local environments now and for future generations.”
This programme builds on a long-standing relationship between EPSRC and the Japanese research community and government.
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the main funding body for engineering and physical sciences research in the UK. Our portfolio covers a vast range of fields from digital technologies to clean energy, manufacturing to mathematics, advanced materials to chemistry.
EPSRC invests in world-leading research and skills, advancing knowledge and delivering a sustainable, resilient and prosperous UK. We support new ideas and transformative technologies which are the foundations of innovation, improving our economy, environment and society. Working in partnership and co-investing with industry, we deliver against national and global priorities. www.ukri.org
IMAGE: THE PLANT IS ARTEMISIA ANNUA, OR SWEET ANNIE, AND IT CONTAINS MEDICINAL COMPOUNDS. UTSA RESEARCHERS ARE STUDYING THE PLANT TO UNDERSTAND THE BIOACTIVE PROPERTIES OF ONE OF THESE COMPOUNDS, ARTEANNUIN B, IN CANCER CELLS AND COVID, THE DISEASE CAUSED BY THE VIRUS, SARS-COV-2.view more
CREDIT: THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO
Vibrant green leaves sprout from tall fragrant plants sitting neatly in two rows of terracotta pots in Valerie Sponsel’s UTSA biology laboratory. One floor just above her is the chemistry lab of Francis Yoshimoto, who is extracting the plant’s leaves for medicinal compounds. Soon, the researchers will meet with UTSA researcher Annie Lin, who will test the extracted compounds on cancer cells.
The plant is Artemisia annua, or Sweet Annie, and it contains medicinal compounds. UTSA researchers are studying the plant to understand the bioactive properties of one of these compounds, Arteannuin B, in cancer cells and COVID, the disease caused by the virus, SARS-CoV-2.
“Around 50% of prescription drugs are derived from natural products. They’re made by plants, fungi or bacteria. Half of these drugs originated in plants. That’s astonishing when you think of all the medicines that exist in the world,” Sponsel said. “Different plants produce different medicinal compounds. As far as cancer is concerned, there are several types of compounds that have always existed but have only been discovered in the last half century. There’s never going to be one compound that treats all cancers, so that is why research continues."
Sweet Annie has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over 2,000 years. The plant produces artemisinin, which contains an endoperoxide, used for the treatment of malaria. Its leaf extracts have been used to treat a variety of other diseases, including cancer and COVID-19. Coffee infused with Sweet Annie is the focus of a current cancer-related clinical trial while the plant extract infused in tea has been used in Africa to potentially combat COVID.
Yet, until recently, researchers haven’t clearly understood how exactly the plant’s compounds work. Sponsel, Yoshimoto and Lin have been the first to demonstrate the mechanism of one of these molecules through their interdisciplinary work in biochemistry, chemistry, and biology.
“We’re in the first phases of studying the mechanism of action of Sweet Annie’s medicinal compounds to decide how to best deliver them and target therapy,” said Lin, an associate professor in the UTSA Department of Integrative Biology and the Department of Neurosciences, Developmental and Regenerative Biology. “We can be more specific. We can lower the concentration to directly target tumors. Right now, we’re looking at how to encapsulate the compound into various concentrations that will specifically target areas in need of the treatment.”
The research has been a collaborative effort with Mitchel S. Berger, professor and director of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Brain Tumor Center, and was recently published in Journal of Natural Products. Berger provided the resources for primary glioblastoma cells from the UCSF Brain Tumor Tissue Bank.
“We used methanol as the solvent to extract the compound, and that’s where I got the idea that this must be how it works in biological systems,” explained Yoshimoto, a UTSA assistant professor in chemistry.
Kaitlyn Varela, a doctoral student in Yoshimoto’s lab, fractionated and characterized the Sweet Annie leaf extracts by using NMR spectroscopy and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.
The researchers tested the fractions for cytotoxic activity (how toxic a substance is to cells) against glioblastoma (GBM) cells, a malignant form of brain tumor. Then they purified the fractions to identify and test their individual components against cancer cells one-by-one. Throughout the process, arteannuin B consistently demonstrated cytotoxic activity against GBM cancer cells. They believe it may inhibit the cysteine proteases (protein degrading enzymes) that are overexpressed in cancer cells.
“We then derivatized arteannuin B by chemically reducing it, and Dr. Lin showed that the reduced form of arteannuin B was not active against GBM at the same concentration. This result informed us how arteannuin B has bioactive properties,” said Yoshimoto. “To expand on our results, Kaitlyn showed that arteannuin B hinders the activity of SARS-CoV-2 main protease and caspase-8. Both enzymes are cysteine proteases.”
Yoshimoto added, “We want to know how this works so that we can give medicine to somebody in a smart way. All of our bodies are different. Cancer, for example, overexpresses certain genes and if you know what gene is being expressed then you can target it and block the activity of its protein product with a drug. One specific example is with tamoxifen, which is a prodrug that is metabolized to its active form, endoxifen, by a key enzyme in the body, cytochrome P450 2D6. Endoxifen blocks the activity of the estrogen receptor, which some estrogen-dependent breast cancers overexpress and need to grow. However, some people have less active forms of P450 2D6, so tamoxifen would not be effective in treating their estrogen-depedent cancers. To be able to understand the mechanism of how medicines work is really powerful because it enables medication to be given more effectively.”
JOURNAL
Journal of Natural Products
ARTICLE TITLE
Inhibition of Cysteine Proteases via Thiol-Michael Addition Explains the Anti-SARS-CoV-2 and Bioactive Properties of Arteannuin B
Artificial Intelligence: a step change in climate modelling predictions for climate adaptation
CMCC FOUNDATION - EURO-MEDITERRANEAN CENTER ON CLIMATE CHANGE
As of today, climate models face the challenge of providing the high-resolution predictions - with quantified uncertainties - needed by a growing number of adaptation planners, from local decision-makers to the private sector, who require detailed assessments of the climate risks they may face locally.
This calls for a step change in the accuracy and usability of climate predictions that, according to the authors of the paper “Harnessing AI and computing to advance climate modelling and prediction”, can be brought by Artificial Intelligence. The Comment was published in Nature Climate Change by a group of leading international climate scientists, including CMCC Scientific Director Giulio Boccaletti and CMCC President Antonio Navarra.
One proposed approach for a step change in climate modelling is to focus on global models with 1-km horizontal resolution. However, the authors explain, although kilometre-scale models have been referred to as ‘digital twins’ of Earth, they still have limitations and biases similar to current models. Moreover, given the high computational costs, they impose limitations on the size of simulation ensembles, which are needed both to calibrate the unavoidable empirical models of unresolved processes and to quantify uncertainties. Overall, kilometre-scale models do not offer the step change in accuracy that would justify accepting the limitations that they impose.
Rather than prioritizing kilometre-scale resolution, authors propose a balanced approach focused on generating large ensembles of simulations at moderately high resolution (10–50 km, from around 100 km, which is standard today) that capitalizes on advances in computing and AI to learn from data. By moderately increasing global resolution while extensively harnessing observational and simulated data, this approach is more likely to achieve the objective of climate modelling for risk assessment, which involves minimizing model errors and quantifying uncertainties and enables wider adoption.
1,000 simulations at 10-km resolution cost the same as 1 simulation at 1-km resolution. “Although we should push the resolution frontier as computer performance increases, climate modelling in the next decade needs to focus on resolutions in the 10–50 km range”, write the authors. “Importantly, climate models must be developed so that they can be used and improved on through rapid iteration in a globally inclusive and distributed research programme that does not concentrate resources in the few monolithic centres that would be needed if the focus is on kilometre-scale global modelling.”
The publication:
Schneider, T., Behera, S., Boccaletti, G. et al. Harnessing AI and computing to advance climate modelling and prediction. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 887–889 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01769-3
IMAGE: PROF. MAHENDRA RAI FROM SANT GADGE BABA AMRAVATI UNIVERSITY IN INDIA AND DR HAB. PATRYCJA GOLIŃSKA, PROF. NCU FROM DEPARTMENT OF MICROBIOLOGY, FACULTY OF BIOLOGICAL AND VETERINARY SCIENCES OF NCUview more
CREDIT: NCU/ANDRZEJ ROMAŃSKI
Nanoparticles are tiny structures up to 100 nanometers in size. They are characterized by different physical and chemical properties and biological activity than their larger material counterparts. - When the starting material on a micro-scale with a specific surface area is broken down to nano size, i.e. into smaller particles, its surface area will increase many times. And it is the ratio of surface to volume that results in the unique properties of nanoparticles, explains Prof. Mahendra Rai from Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University in India.
Nanoparticles can be mainly organic or inorganic. Among the organic ones, we can distinguish e.g. liposomes, micelles, and dendrimers. - Liposomes are vesicles made of a phospholipid bilayer with free space inside, in which you can put, for example, a drug and precisely deliver it to the target place in the body because the liposomes will disintegrate in the acidic environment of the tumor and release the drug in it – says, prof. Patrycja Golinska from the Department of Microbiology at the Faculty of Biological and Veterinary Sciences NCU. – Among inorganic nanoparticles, we can distinguish nanoparticles of metals such as silver, gold, titanium, copper, metal oxides (e.g. zinc oxide) and semi-metals (metalloids) such as silica, selenium, and aluminium. At Nicolaus Copernicus University, we focused mainly on metal nanoparticles. So far, we have mostly biosynthesized silver and gold nanoparticles. In recent years, we have also biosynthesized nanoparticles of zinc, copper, and magnesium oxides.
Nanoparticles can be obtained in various ways, but in recent years, the so-called green synthesis (biological synthesis or biosynthesis) has attracted increasing interest in nanotechnology. - It is environmentally friendly. In biological synthesis, unlike chemical or physical synthesis, the production of nanoparticles does not use toxic compounds and does not consume large amounts of energy - informs Prof. Rai. In addition, after the production of nanoparticles in a chemical or physical way, they still need to be stabilized, i.e. "coated" with other chemical compounds, which are usually also toxic. The point is that the nanoparticles do not aggregate, i.e. do not combine with each other into structures of larger sizes and do not lose their reaction surface and thus their unique properties.
Green nanotechnology
Biologists from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń became interested in biosynthesis, i.e. the synthesis of nanoparticles by microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria, as well as by algae and plants. During the visit of Prof. Rai in Poland, scientists focused on mycosynthesis, i.e. the synthesis of nanoparticles using fungi. – As part of the project, which Prof. Rai carried out at the Nicolaus Copernicus University, we synthesized silver nanoparticles using fungi, mainly of the genus Fusarium, which infect plants, including cereals, but also from other genera like Penicillium, which develop e.g. on tangerines and lemons - says prof. Golinska. – In such production, no toxic compounds are used and no toxic waste is produced.
The advantage of fungi over other microorganisms in the synthesis of nanoparticles is that they produce a large number of various metabolites, including many proteins, including enzymes, and many of these substances can be involved in the reduction of silver ions to nanosilver.
Applications
Nanotechnology can be used in the most important areas of human life: medicine, agriculture and the packaging industry, and food storage. Nanoparticles are highly active against various microorganisms. They fight pathogenic microbes very well and inhibit their spread, which can be used to produce various surfaces and materials in hospitals, such as masks with a nanosilver filter, which were created during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are effective against bacteria that are resistant to commonly used antibiotics. Silver nanoparticles also have anti-cancer properties.
Nanomaterials are smart, they can be administered, for example, intravenously, but they work at the target site, i.e. in a cancerous tumor, and not like chemotherapy, which is distributed throughout the body at the same time destroying both abnormal and healthy cells - explains Prof. Rai. In the case of nanoparticles, we can use targeted therapy, in which the anti-cancer drug will be released only at the site of the tumor. Nanoparticles themselves can be a drug, and also a drug carrier.
In agriculture, nanotechnology is used in three aspects. The first is the early detection of plant pathogens before the first symptoms of plant disease appear. The electronic nose is a technology that we do not deal with at the moment, but thanks to the use of nanomaterials such as nanowires or nanorods of zinc oxide in this device, it detects volatile substances produced by pathogenic fungi. Other types of nanobiosensors detecting the DNA of plant pathogens can also be used, says Prof. Golinska. - Thanks to this, appropriate agrotechnical treatments can be applied before we see the symptoms of plant infestation, e.g. discoloration, raids or necrosis of leaf blades.
The second aspect is the use of a solution of nanoparticles to directly combat pathogens that have already developed on plants. Such nanoparticles usually act at much lower concentrations than chemical fungicides, so their concentration in the environment is also much lower compared to commonly used fungicides.
The third area of application of nanomaterials in agriculture is the delivery of nutrients to plants. As in medicine, nanomaterials themselves can be a nutrient or a carrier containing a nutrient that can be released in a controlled manner. When farmers use traditional fertilizers, they deliver a huge amounts of them to the fields in a short time, which plants are unable to use and a large part of them penetrates deep into the soil to groundwater and, consequently, to water reservoirs (surface water). This adversely affects the aquatic environment leading to its eutrophication. Excessive fertilization also harms soil microorganisms and leads to the so-called. "Soil fatigue", i.e. a constant imbalance in the content of nutrients, which negatively affects the size of crops. Using nanoencapsulation, i.e. placing nanoparticles that are nutrients for plants in capsules or matrices, you can apply these nutrients by foliar or soil application. The biggest advantage of this solution is the release of nutrients in a controlled, slow and constant way. This is an element of sustainable development, which is extremely important nowadays – says Prof. Rai.
Friendly fungi
Prof. Rai came to Poland for two years thanks to a scholarship he received from the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). Under the proposed project, "Development of new environmentally-friendly and biologically active nanomaterials" together with a team consisting of Dr hab. Patrycja Golińska (prof. of NCU), Dr Magdalena Wypij, and PhD student Joanna Trzcińska-Wencel, dealt with the production of nanocomposites based on pullulan and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) for combating various microorganisms. Pullulan, a natural biodegradable polymer, was biosynthesized using fungi (Aureobasidium pullulans) and combined with silver nanoparticles, produced by green synthesis using mold fungi, which I mentioned earlier - explains Prof. Golińska, and we created films, i.e. thin and flexible foils, encrusted with silver nanoparticles. We tested these films, for example, to combat pathogens responsible for wound infections or those that develop in food, such as Listeria monocytogenes or Salmonella sp., i.e. de facto to extend the shelf life of food.
Pullulan incorporated with silver nanoparticles presents beneficial properties and therefore could be used, for example, in the production of food packaging or dressings which accelerate the healing of wounds, protecting them against the development of infection. - When we have more extensive wounds, e.g. burns, they are highly exposed to the development of infection - explains Prof. Golińska - Securing such a place with a biodegradable polymer with an agent inhibiting the development of pathogens will significantly accelerate wound healing.
The team intends to patent a method for obtaining pullulan-based nanocomposites and releasing nanoparticles from the film. Morover, Prof. Rai and Prof. Golińska edited three important books: "Microbial Nanotechnology", "Myconanotechnology: emerging trends and applications" and "Mycosynthesis of Nanomaterials: Perspectives and Challenges" published by the prestigious publishing house CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group. “We hope that these books will open up new possibilities in the field of environmentally friendly green nanomaterials,” says Prof. Rai.
In addition, two research papers were published during the professor's visit, namely “Biogenic nanosilver bearing antimicrobial and antibiofilm activities and its potential for application in agriculture and industry” (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1125685) and “Superior in vivo wound-healing activity of mycosynthesized silver nanogel on different wound models in rat” (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.881404), and another two "Biofabrication of novel silver and zinc oxide nanoparticles from Fusarium solani IOR 825 and their potential application in agriculture as biocontrol agents of phytopathogens, and seed germination and seedling growth promoters" (https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2023.1235437) and “Pullulan-based films impregnated with silver nanoparticles from Fusarium culmorum strain JTW1 for potential applications in food industry and medicine” (https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2023.1241739) were published just after Prof. Rai left from Poland. Another measurable effect of the cooperation of Prof. Rai with Prof. Golińska will be a visit to the Nicolaus Copernicus University of Dr. Aniketkumar K. Gade who received the grant from National Science Centre of Poland in the Polonez Bis 2 call, under which he will be employed for 24 months as an associate professor and come to Toruń in October. He will also implement a project related to the application of nanotechnology in agriculture. He will produce bionanoparticles encapsulated with casein, which will be used as fertilizer in the future.
The goal of the research team working at Nicolaus Copernicus University is to create nanoformulations used as nanofertilizers and agents for controlling the development of plant pathogens, which can be widely used in agriculture to replace chemical fertilizers and plant protection products currently used in a large amount. – This is to limit the use of chemicals in agriculture, lead to sustainable development and mitigate the effects of the changing climate – says Prof. Rai.
JOURNAL
Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology
ARTICLE TITLE
Pullulan-based films impregnated with silver nanoparticles from the Fusarium culmorum strain JTW1 for potential applications in the food industry and medicine
New study highlights feasibility and optimization of ammonia-based power generation for carbon neutrality
The study findings have been published ahead of their official publication in the online version of Chem. Eng. J. on May 13, 2023
ULSAN NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY(UNIST)
IMAGE: PROFESSOR HANKWON LIM (BOTTOM RIGHT) AND HIS RESEARCH TEAM IN THE SCHOOL OF ENERGY AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING AND THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF CARBON NEUTRALITY AT UNIST.view more
CREDIT: UNIST
Ammonia is emerging as a promising energy source to achieve carbon neutrality due to its inherent carbon-free nature. A recent study, led by Professor Hankwon Lim in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering and the Graduate School of Carbon Neutrality at UNIST, has evaluated the feasibility of ammonia-based power generation through techno-economic and carbon footprint analyses. The research focuses on an integrated system combining ammonia decomposition and phosphoric acid fuel cells.
The study, conducted using a commercial process simulator, unveils significant findings regarding the efficiency and economic viability of utilizing ammonia in power generation systems. Results indicate an impressive energy efficiency rate of 46.7% within the designed power generation process.
Through comprehensive economic analysis, the research team identified an upper limit for ammonia pricing at 421.3 $ tNH3–1 that allows competitive pricing against industrial electricity rates—a crucial factor in determining market competitiveness.
To further optimize ammonia imports into the Republic of Korea (KOR), five distinct scenarios were established based on historical data from the top ten exporting countries. Using the Monte Carlo method for ammonia production costs and carbon dioxide emissions in each nation, researchers optimized import quantities while minimizing overall emissions.
The results demonstrate that if solely reliant on carbon-based ammonia imports, carbon intensity ranges between 0.707–0.736 kgCO2-eq kWh−1—exceeding KOR’s average value over a 20-year period. However, achieving a ratio of over 78% of carbon-neutral ammonia (Scenario 4) can make both environmental and economic aspects more favorable.
According to the research team, their findings provide valuable insights into optimizing ammonia exports and reducing carbon intensity. By adopting a holistic approach that encompasses all stages of the supply chain, significant progress can be made towards sustainable energy solutions.
“Our study sheds light on the immense potential of ammonia as an energy source,” said Professor Lim. “We have analyzed costs and greenhouse gas emissions while considering different commercialized methods of producing ammonia. Although renewable energy sources were not part of this particular study, our findings offer crucial insights into enhancing ammonia exports and promoting sustainability.”
The study findings have been published ahead of their official publication in the online version of Chem. Eng. J. on May 13, 2023. This work has been supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), the Carbon Neutrality Demonstration and Research Center of UNIST, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Korea (MOTIE), and Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT). Their findings are expected to contribute to advancing the understanding and utilization of ammonia as a viable option for decentralized power generation systems.
Journal Reference Dongjun Lim, Jong Ah Moon, Yeong Jin Koh, et al., “Expansion and optimization of ammonia import to the Republic of Korea for electricity generation,” Chem. Eng. J., (2023).
Optimization results for importing ammonia from the top ten exporting countries (Scenario 3); The circle size represents the amount of imported ammonia and the color represents the ratio of carbon-based to carbon–neutral ammonia (gray indicates carbon-based ammonia and blue indicates carbon–neutral ammonia). (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
CREDIT
UNIST
JOURNAL
Chemical Engineering Journal
Bees struggle to find flowers because of air pollution
A new study has found that air pollution is preventing pollinators finding flowers because it degrades the scent.
A research team comprising the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and the Universities of Birmingham, Reading, Surrey and Southern Queensland, found that ozone substantially changes the size and scent of floral odour plumes given off by flowers, and that it reduced honeybees' ability to recognise odours by up to 90% from just a few metres away.
Ground-level ozone typically forms when nitrogen oxide emissions from vehicles and industrial processes react with volatile organic compounds emitted from vegetation in the presence of sunlight.
Professor Christian Pfrang from the University of Birmingham who collaborated on the research said: “Our study provides robust evidence that the changes due to ground-level ozone on floral scent cause pollinators to struggle to carry out their crucial role in the natural environment also with implications for food security.”
The findings suggest that ozone is likely to be having a negative impact on wildflower abundance and crop yields. International research has already established that ozone has a negative impact on food production because it damages plant growth.
Dr Ben Langford, an atmospheric scientist at UKCEH who led the study said: ”Some 75% of our food crops and nearly 90% of wild flowering plants depend, to some extent, upon animal pollination, particularly by insects. Therefore, understanding what adversely affects pollination, and how, is essential to helping us preserve the critical services that we reply upon for production of food, textiles, biofuels and medicines, for example.”
The researchers used a 30-m wind tunnel at Surrey University to monitor how the size and shape of odour plumes changed in the presence of ozone. As well as decreasing the size of the odour plume the scientists found that the scent of the plume changed substantially as certain compounds reacted away much faster than others.
Honeybees were trained to recognise the same odour blend and then exposed to the new, ozone-modified odours. Pollinating insects use floral odours to find flowers and learn to associate their unique blend of chemical compounds with the amount of nectar it provides, allowing them to locate the same species in the future.
The research showed that towards the centre of plumes, 52% of honeybees recognised an odour at 6 metres, decreasing to 38% at 12 m. At the edge of plumes, which degraded more quickly, 32% of honeybees recognised a flower from 6 m away and just a tenth of the insects from 12 m away.
The study indicates that ozone could also affect insects’ other odour-controlled behaviours such attracting a mate.
The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation, and was published in the journal Environmental Pollution.
Professor Christian Pfrang concluded: “We know that air pollution has a detrimental effect on human health, biodiversity and the climate, but now we can see how it prevents bees and other pollinating insects from carrying out their key job. This should act as a wake up call to take action on air pollution and help safeguard food production and biodiversity for the future.“
Mapping the effects of ozone pollution and mixing on floral odour plumes and their impact on plant-pollinator interactions
‘This isn’t your grandfather’s climate': DOE funding supports extreme weather research
U.S. Department of Energy funding will explore and simulate the atmospheric processes that lead to heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts and other potentially catastrophic weather events
IMAGE: JASON FURTADO, AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND A CARLISLE AND LURLINE MABREY PRESIDENTIAL PROFESSOR IN THE SCHOOL OF METEOROLOGY, COLLEGE OF ATMOSPHERIC AND GEOGRAPHIC SCIENCES, IS THE PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR OF THE PROJECT TO EXPLORE AND SIMULATE THE ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES THAT LEAD TO HEATWAVES, HEAVY PRECIPITATION, DROUGHTS AND OTHER POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC WEATHER EVENTS.view more
CREDIT: PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
Extreme weather events, like those impacting millions of Americans this summer, threaten public safety, destabilize supply chains and damage vital infrastructure. Researchers from the University of Oklahoma and the Los Alamos National Laboratory have been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to explore and simulate the atmospheric processes that lead to heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts and other potentially catastrophic weather events.
Jason Furtado, an associate professor and a Carlisle and Lurline Mabrey Presidential Professor in the School of Meteorology, College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, leads the project alongside co-investigators Steven Cavallo and James Ruppert with the OU School of Meteorology and James Benedict with the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“There are two problems we’re looking to address,” Furtado said. “The first is gaining a better handle on predicting extreme weather events beyond two or three weeks. The second is understanding how climate change is going to impact the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.”
For extreme weather events to occur, there needs to be a persistent, stagnant atmospheric pattern. Weather experts refer to these as blocking patterns.
“Imagine the atmospheric flow as a river. If you throw a boulder into that river, then the flow will be forced to go around it. These boulders are essentially the blocking patterns we’re researching,” Furtado said.
Weather experts don’t currently fully understand how blocking patterns are formed or how long they may persist. Models can produce blocks but are unable to maintain them for an extended period.
“The University of Oklahoma is uniquely positioned to tackle this kind of research,” Furtado said. “Not only do we have partnerships with the National Weather Center, NOAA and the South-Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, but our partners in the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences can also help us communicate our research to key decision makers.”
An additional component of this research focuses on the impact climate change is having on extreme weather events like wildfires, droughts and extreme winter weather. This research will help local, state and national leaders be prepared to deal with these situations.
“Understanding what a future climate might hold will be beneficial for people, their planning and the planning that cities will need to do,” Furtado said. “We all have to be better prepared for the new extreme weather frequency. This isn’t your grandfather’s climate anymore.”
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information visit www.ou.edu.
Printers’ widows in early modern Germany
Dr Saskia Limbach at Göttingen University’s Theology Faculty receives ERC Starting Grant
CREDIT: SLUB DRESDEN, DIGITAL.SLUB-DRESDEN.DE/ID2737423379 (PUBLIC DOMAIN MARK 1.0)
The historian Dr Saskia Limbach at the University of Göttingen has received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). For a period of five years, the ERC will fund her project "Widows in the Growing Print Industry, c. 1550-1700 (WidowsPrint)" with around 1.5 million euros. In addition, two ERC Starting Grants have been awarded to researchers at the University Medical Center Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences.
This funding will enable Limbach and her team to investigate the effects of the rapid economic change triggered by the printing press on the rights and agency of widows. The advent of the printing press spurred crucial intellectual, economic and social developments in early modern Europe. In Germany, the print industry grew faster than in most places and – what has often gone unnoticed – there was a conspicuously high number of widows involved. Yet the exact nature of the industry’s growth, and women’s contribution to it, is extremely difficult to reconstruct because the print runs of different editions of books are a mystery.
WidowsPrint will significantly break new ground by filling in these missing pieces. Based on a large array of different archival sources, the project will systematically record all known print runs to create a diverse and representative dataset for early modern Germany. Thus, we can establish which factors determined the size of the print run of an edition and survey the total output of individual print shops. The project will also analyse how widows' economic agency changed in the 16th and 17th century as book production progressively moved from single workshops to larger family enterprises.
"A major focus of the project is on reconstructing the professional networks of women book printers, especially their relationships with publishers who financed entire editions and thus increasingly controlled the book production," says Limbach. "To this end, we will use innovative methods, including new image recognition software, which will make it possible to identify the exact same images in different books. These could only have been produced by printers sharing wood blocks or printing plates. This will reveal the previously elusive networks of women printers."
Limbach received her PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2017 and has since conducted research in a range of international projects in Milan (EMoBookTrade), Mainz (OCR-D) and Heidelberg (CRC 933 Material Text Cultures) with a focus on economic history, digital humanities and cultural history.
Since October 2021, she has been a postdoctoral researcher in Church History at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Göttingen. Her research has already been funded by various institutions, such as the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Theory, the Royal Historical Society and the German History Society, and her work has been recognised with a number of awards. These include the 2022 Prize for the Humanities by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences in Lower Saxony for her dissertation.
ERC Starting Grants support outstanding early career researchers to build on and develop their research career. The funding is intended to enable them to develop an independent research profile and pursue innovative ideas.
LAWRENCE — Many of us know all too well the addictive nature of many foods marketed in the United States — most call it “junk food.” In fact, this kind of salty, sweet and high-fat fare makes up the lion’s share of what’s marketed to Americans.
Researchers employ a more scholarly term for food items featuring purposely tempting combinations of salts, fats and sugars: They’re “hyperpalatable.”
Now, an investigator at the University of Kansas has conducted research showing food brands owned by tobacco companies — which invested heavily into the U.S. food industry in the 1980s — appear to have “selectively disseminated hyperpalatable foods” to American consumers.
The study was published today in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction.
“We used multiple sources of data to examine the question, ‘In what ways were U.S. tobacco companies involved in the promotion and spread of hyperpalatable food into our food system?’” said lead author Tera Fazzino, assistant professor of psychology at KU and associate director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment at the KU Life Span Institute. “Hyperpalatable foods can be irresistible and difficult to stop eating. They have combinations of palatability-related nutrients, specifically fat, sugar, sodium or other carbohydrates that occur in combinations together.”
Fazzino’s previous work has shown today that 68% of the American food supply is hyperpalatable.
“These combinations of nutrients provide a really enhanced eating experience and make them difficult to stop eating,” she said. “These effects are different than if you just had something high in fat but had no sugar, salt or other type of refined carbohydrate.”
Fazzino and her co-authors found between 1988 and 2001, tobacco-owned foods were 29% more likely to be classified as fat-and-sodium hyperpalatable and 80% more likely to be classified as carbohydrate-and-sodium hyperpalatable than foods that were not tobacco-owned.
The KU researchers used data from a public repository of internal tobacco industry documents to determine ownership of food companies, then combed nutrition data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in longitudinal analyses to estimate how much foods were “formulated to be hyperpalatable, based on tobacco ownership.”
“The question about their intent —we can’t really say from this data,” Fazzino said. “But what we can say is there’s evidence to indicate tobacco companies were consistently involved with owning and developing hyperpalatable foods during the time that they were leading our food system. Their involvement was selective in nature and different from the companies that didn’t have a parent tobacco-company ownership.”
Fazzino’s co-authors were KU doctoral students Daiil Jun and Kayla Bjorlie, along with Lynn Chollet Hinton, assistant professor of biostatistics and data science at KU Medical Center.
The KU researchers said they built their investigation inspired by earlier work by Laura Schmidt at the University of California-San Francisco.
“She and her team established that the same tobacco companies were involved in the development and heavy marketing of sugary drinks to kids — that was R.J. Reynolds — and that Philip Morris was involved in the direct transfer of tobacco marketing strategies targeting racial and ethnic minority communities in the U.S. to sell their food products,” Fazzino said.
While tobacco companies divested from the U.S. food system between the early to mid-2000s, perhaps the shadow of Big Tobacco has remained. The new KU study finds the availability of fat-and-sodium hyperpalatable foods (more than 57%) and carbohydrate-and-sodium hyperpalatable foods (more than 17%) was still high in 2018, regardless of prior tobacco ownership, showing these foods have become mainstays of the American diet.
“The majority of what’s out there in our food supply falls under the hyperpalatable category,” Fazzino said. “It’s actually a bit difficult to track down food that’s not hyperpalatable. In our day-to-day lives, the foods we’re surrounded by and can easily grab are mostly the hyperpalatable ones. And foods that are not hyperpalatable, such as fresh fruits and vegetables – they’re not just hard to find, they’re also more expensive. We don’t really have many choices when it comes to picking between foods that are fresh and enjoyable to eat (e.g., a crisp apple) and foods that you just can’t stop eating.”
Fazzino said using metrics of hyperpalatability could be one way to regulate formulations of food that are engineered to induce sustained eating.
“These foods have combinations of ingredients that create effects you don’t get when you eat those ingredients separately,” the KU researcher said. “And guess what? These combinations don’t really exist in nature, so our bodies aren’t ready to handle them. They can excessively trigger our brain’s reward system and disrupt our fullness signals, which is why they’re difficult to resist.”
As a result, consumers of hyperpalatable foods are more prone to obesity and related health consequences, even when they don’t intend to overeat.
“These foods may be designed to make you eat more than you planned,” Fazzino said. “It’s not just about personal choice and watching what you eat – they can kind of trick your body into eating more than you actually want.”
