Intermittent fasting is safe, effective for those with Type 2 diabetes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO

Time-restricted eating, also known as intermittent fasting, can help people with Type 2 diabetes lose weight and control their blood sugar levels, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open from researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago.  

Participants who ate only during an eight-hour window between noon and 8 p.m. each day actually lost more weight over six months than participants who were instructed to reduce their calorie intake by 25%. Both groups had similar reductions in long-term blood sugar levels, as measured by a test of hemoglobin A1C, which shows blood sugar levels over the past three months. 

The study was conducted at UIC and enrolled 75 participants into three groups: those who followed the time-restricted eating rules, those who reduced calories and a control group. Participants’ weight, waist circumference, blood sugar levels and other health indicators were measured over the course of six months. 

Senior author Krista Varady said that participants in the time-restricted eating group had an easier time following the regime than those in the calorie-reducing group. The researchers believe this is partly because patients with diabetes are generally told to cut back on calories by their doctors as a first line of defense, so many of these participants likely had already tried — and struggled with — that form of dieting. And while the participants in the time-restricted eating group were not instructed to reduce their calorie intake, they ended up doing so by eating within a fixed window.

“Our study shows that time-restricted eating might be an effective alternative to traditional dieting for people who can’t do the traditional diet or are burned out on it,” said Varady, a professor of kinesiology and nutrition. “For many people trying to lose weight, counting time is easier than counting calories.” 

There were no serious adverse events reported during the six-month study. Occurrences of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) did not differ between the diet groups and control groups.

Today, 1 in 10 U.S. residents has diabetes, and that number is expected to rise to 1 in 3 by 2050 if current trends continue, the researchers explain. Finding more options for controlling weight and blood sugar levels for these patients, therefore, is crucial.  

Just over half the participants in the study were Black and another 40% were Hispanic. This is notable as diabetes is particularly prevalent among those groups, so having studies that document the success of time-restricted eating for them is particularly useful, the researchers said. 

The study was small and should be followed up by larger ones, said Varady, who is also a member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center. While it acts as a proof of concept to show that time-restricted eating is safe for those with Type 2 diabetes, Varady said people with diabetes should consult their doctors before starting this sort of diet. 

The other current and former UIC authors on the paper are Vasiliki Pavlou, Sofia Cienfuegos, Shuhao Lin, Mark Ezpeleta, Kathleen Ready, Sarah Corapi, Jackie Wu, Jason Lopez, Kelsey Gabel, Lisa Tussing-Humphreys, Vanessa Oddo, Julienne Sanchez and Dr. Terry Unterman. Other authors are from Northwestern University, the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and the University of Southern California.

Written by Emily Stone

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.39337 

ARTICLE TITLE

Effect of Time-Restricted Eating onWeight Loss in Adults With Type 2 Diabetes A Randomized Clinical Trial

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Oct-2023

COI STATEMENT

Ms Ready reported being a member of the Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and being employed as a clinician at Ascension Medical Group Weight Loss Solutions and Diabetes Education outside the submitted work. Dr Chow reported receiving nonfinancial support from DexCom Inc outside the submitted work. Dr Vidmar reported receiving consulting fees from Rhythm Pharmaceuticals Inc, Hippo Technologies Inc, and Guidepoint Inc and grant funding from DexCom Inc, outside the submitted work. Dr Varady reported receiving grant funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during the conduct of the study; receiving personal fees from the NIH for serving on the data and safety monitoring boards for the Health, Aging and Later-Life Outcomes and Dial Health studies; receiving author fees from Pan MacMillan for The Fastest Diet; and serving as the associate editor for nutrition reviews from Elsevier outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

 

Possible cause of male infertility

Bonn researchers decode gene that blocks sperm maturation in mice when altered

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITATSKLINIKUM BONN

 

IMAGE: 

POSSIBLE CAUSE OF MALE INFERTILITY:

GINA ESTHER MERGES AND PROF. HUBERT SCHORLE STUDY GENES INVOLVED IN SPERM MATURATION.

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL BONN (UKB) / ROLF MÜLLER

Bonn, 27. October - Mature spermatozoa are characterized by an head, midpiece and a long tail for locomotion. Now, researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the Transdisciplinary Research Unit "Life & Health" at the University of Bonn have found that a loss of the structural protein ACTL7B blocks spermatogenesis in male mice. The cells can no longer develop their characteristic shape and remain in a rather round form. The animals are infertile. The results of the study have now been published in the scientific journal "Development".

 

Male sperm cells are constantly produced in large quantities in the testicles during so-called spermatogenesis. In this process, the typical elongated sperm cells are formed from round germ cells. This enormous change in shape requires the fine tuned reorganization of specialized structural proteins. One of these structural proteins is ACTL7B. "Since it is exclusively made in humans and mice during the maturation of male sperm, it has been postulated that the protein is important for this phase of development," notes corresponding author Prof. Hubert Schorle from the Institute of Pathology at UKB, who is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) "Life & Health" at the University of Bonn.

 

To investigate the role of the structural protein in spermiogenesis, Prof. Schorle's team generated a mouse model with a mutation in the Actl7b gene using gene-editing technology. This results in a complete loss of function of ACTL7B. "Without ACTL7B, development is blocked, the cells often remain in a roundish shape, usually do not form the elongated, typical sperm shape and die to a large extent ," says first author Gina Esther Merges, a doctoral student in Professor Schorle’s laboratory.

 

Disruption in the network of proteins

 

In this context, the Bonn researchers found that ACTL7B is required for the reorganization of the cytoskeleton of spermatids. Using mass spectrometric analyses, they identified two interaction partners of ACTL7B, DYNLL1 and DYNLL2. "We were able to show that without the structural protein, DYNLL1 and 2 are not correctly localized in the round spermatids. Since it is probably a larger protein complex with further interaction partners, we attribute the above described effect to a loss of temporally and spatially precisely regulated and targeted redistribution of these proteins," Prof. Schorle notes.

 

This explains why the sperm of male mice with a mutated Actl7b gene is not able to develop the characteristic shape. Due to this, the animals are infertile. In addition, according to other research, there is evidence that levels of the protein ACTL7B are reduced in some fertility patients. "Our study shows that mutations in the Actl7b gene could be the cause of male infertility," says Prof. Schorle.

 

Publication:
Gina E. Merges, Lena Arévalo, Keerthika Lohanadan, Dirk G. de Rooij, Melanie Jokwitz, Walter Witke and Hubert Schorle; Development (2023) 150, dev201593;

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.201593

 

Press contact:

Dr. Inka Väth

Deputy Press Officer at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB)

Communications and Media Office at Bonn University Hospital

Phone: (+49) 228 287-10596

 

About the University Hospital Bonn: The UKB cares for about 500,000 patients per year, employs about 9,000 people and has a balance sheet total of 1.6 billion euros. In addition to the more than 3,300 medical and dental students, another 585 people are trained in numerous health professions each year. The UKB is ranked first among university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia in the science ranking and in the Focus clinic list and has the third-highest case mix index (severity of cases) in Germany. The F.A.Z. Institute has named UKB the most sought-after employer and training champion among public hospitals in Germany in 2022 and 2023.

 

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JOURNAL

Development

DOI

10.1242/dev.201593 

ARTICLE TITLE

Actl7b deficiency leads to mislocalization of LC8 type dynein light chains and disruption of murine spermatogenesis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Oct-2023

 

Membrane transporter ensures mobility of sperm cells

Newly discovered mechanism contributes to a better understanding of molecular foundations of fertility

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

STRUCTURE OF THE NEWLY DECODED PROTEIN FOUND IN THE MEMBRANE OF SPERM CELLS. COLOURS MARK THE DIFFERENT UNITS OF THE PROTEIN, WHICH CAN BE PUT TOGETHER TO MAKE A FUNCTIONING PROTEIN LIKE THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF A LEGO TOY.

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CREDIT: MARTIN F. PETER

Special proteins – known as membrane transporters – are of key importance for the mobility of sperm cells. A research team from the Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center (BZH) headed by Prof. Dr Cristina Paulino has, with the aid of cryo-electron microscopy, for the first time succeeded in decoding the structure of such a transporter and its mechanism. According to the researchers, these findings will enable a better understanding of the molecular foundations of reproductive capacity and could, in the long term, contribute to developing new approaches to treating fertility disorders and new methods of specific contraception.

Sperm cells differ fundamentally in structure and function from other cell types. After all, their only task is to track down and fuse with the egg. Sperm cells only achieve their full activity in what is called capacitation, which means the maturing of the cells in the semen. One of the final steps of this biochemical process involves increasing the sperm’s mobility. If the cells are not able to move autonomously, or only to a limited extent, the result is generally reduced fertility or a complete lack of reproductive capacity. The sperm cells cannot reach and fertilise the egg cell.

Within this final maturation process, special proteins found in the sperm membrane have a particular role. Known as membrane transporters, they are responsible for transporting nutrients, for instance, into or out of the cell. “Transporting certain ions into the cell leads to a rise in sperm mobility. For that reason, the proteins responsible for the transport are directly linked to the fertility of a sperm and thereby with the male capacity for reproduction,” Prof. Paulino underlines. Her research group at the BZH is working on the membrane transporters of sea urchins, a model system for investigating sperm.

With the assistance of cryo-electron microscopy, the scientists have now been able to decode the structure of an important sperm membrane transporter at the molecular level. Amongst other things, they discovered what its functional units look like, and how they interconnect and interact. “We have observed that the key protein is, like a lego toy, constructed from different building units. These building blocks are basically known from other proteins, but have never been observed in such a combination. With the aid of this information, we were able to decode the mechanism of this transporter for the first time,” explains Dr Valeria Kalienkova from the University of Bergen (Norway), a former member in Prof. Paulino’s research group.

According to Dr Martin Peter, a member of Prof. Paulino’s research team, these new findings will be helpful in the next step, developing potential substances that influence this mechanism. They may make it possible to activate or deactivate the functions of the proteins. The extent to which these findings can be transferred to the mechanisms of human sperm will call for further investigation. In the long term, they contain potential for finding new ways of treating infertility, or vice versa, of preventing the sperm from fertilising the egg cell.

The results of the research studies have appeared in the journal “Nature”. Due to the research group moving from the Netherlands to Germany, the studies were carried out both at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and at the Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center. They were funded by the Dutch Research Council, and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-023-06629-w 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Structures of a sperm-specific solute carrier gated by voltage and cAMP

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Oct-2023

Sperm's secret voltage switch: Scientists unlock the mystery of motility

Peer-Reviewed Publication

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

CHEMO-ATTRACTANT BINDING TO SPERM CAUSES A CHANGE IN VOLTAGE, WHICH ACTIVATES THE TRANSPORTER SLC9C1. THE STRUCTURE OF SLC9C1 IS HERE DESCRIBED FOR THE FIRST TIME. ONCE ACTIVATED THE SLC9C1 PROTEIN EXCHANGES NA+ FOR H+ IONS AND THIS MAKES THE SPERM FLAGELLUM MORE ALKALINE AND, TOGETHER WITH CAMP, LEADS TO THE OPENING OF CA2+-CHANNELS THAT RESULTS IN A DIRECTED MOVEMENT OF THE SPERM. THIS SEQUENCE OF EVENTS, PRESENT IN SPECIES AS DISTANT AS CORALS AND HUMAN, ARE ESSENTIAL FOR FERTILIZATION.

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CREDIT: ILLUSTRATION BY VED MEHTA/STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY.

Researchers at Stockholm University have unveiled the hidden intricacies of how sperm go from passive bystanders to dynamic swimmers. This transformation is a pivotal step in the journey to fertilization, and it hinges on the activation of a unique ion transporter.

Imagine sperm as tiny adventurers on a quest to reach the ultimate treasure, the egg. They don't have a map, but they make use of something even more extraordinary: chemo-attractants. These are chemical signals released by the egg that act as siren call, directing and activating the sperm. When these signals bind to receptors on the sperm's surface, it triggers a series of events, starting their movement towards the egg. And in this intricate scenario, one key player is a protein known as "SLC9C1."

It's exclusively found in sperm cells, and it is usually not active. However, when the chemo-attractants interact with the sperm’s surface, everything changes.

“SLC9C1 operates like a highly sophisticated exchange system. It swaps protons from inside the cell for sodium ions from the outside, temporarily creating a less acidic environment within the sperm. This change in the internal environment triggers increased sperm motility“, says David Drew, Professor in Biochemistry at Stockholm University. 

The activation of SLC9C1 is driven by a change in voltage that occurs when chemo-attractants attach to the sperm. To accomplish this, SLC9C1 uses a unique feature called a voltage-sensing domain (VSD). Typically, VSD domains are associated with voltage-gated ion channels. But in the case of SLC9C1, it's something truly exceptional in the realm of transporters.

Researchers, led by David Drew, have unveiled the secrets behind SLC9C1's inner workings and provides the first example of voltage-sensing domain activation of a transporter and its connection via an unusually long voltage-sensing (S4) helix.

“The VSD domain responds to the change in voltage by pushing its rodlike S4 helix inwards. This clears the way for ion exchange by SLC9C1, ultimately initiating sperm motility”, says David Drew. 

“Transporters work very differently than channels and, as such, the VSD is coupled to the sperm protein in a way that we have just never seen before, or even imagined. Its exciting to see how nature has done this and perhaps, in the future, we can learn from this to make synthetic proteins that can be turned-on by voltage or develop novel male contraceptives that work by blocking this protein”, David Drew notes. 

The research was made possible through funding from the European Research Council (ERC) grant EXCHANGE. 

 

Contact info: David Drew, Professor in Biochemistry, Stockholm University
Email: david.drew@dbb.su.se
Phone: +46 72-14 627 44

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-023-06518-2 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

'Structure and electromechanical coupling of a voltage-gated Na+/H+ exchanger'

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Oct-2023

 

Medication abortion safety and effectiveness with misoprostol alone

JAMA Network Open

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: The findings in this study of 637 callers to safe abortion hotlines and accompaniment groups in Argentina, Nigeria, and Southeast Asia suggest that misoprostol alone is a highly effective method of pregnancy termination. Future research should explore strategies to maximize the effectiveness of misoprostol alone in clinical and nonclinical settings. 

Authors: Ruvani Jayaweera, Ph.D., of Ibis Reproductive Health in Oakland, California, is the corresponding author. 

 To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.40042)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article 

 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.40042?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=102723

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

SwRI, GTI Energy, GE celebrate mechanical completion of $155 million supercritical CO2 pilot plant

Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) Demo pilot plant will use sCO2 power cycle to increase efficiency, lower costs and decrease environmental footprint

Business Announcement

SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: 

SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE, GTI ENERGY, GE GLOBAL RESEARCH AND THE U.S. DOE NATIONAL ENERGY TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY CELEBRATED THE COMPLETION OF THE STEP DEMO 10 MWE SCO2 PILOT PLANT, WHICH BEGAN CONSTRUCTION ON SWRI’S SAN ANTONIO HEADQUARTERS IN 2018. THE $155 MILLION, 10-MEGAWATT SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE (SCO2) TEST FACILITY WILL DEMONSTRATE THE NEXT GENERATION OF HIGHER-EFFICIENCY, LOWER-COST ELECTRIC POWER TECHNOLOGY.

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CREDIT: SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

SAN ANTONIO — October 27,2023 —Southwest Research Institute (SwRI®), GTI Energy, GE Vernova (GE) and the U.S. Department of Energy celebrated the ribbon-cutting of the Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) Demo pilot plant today. The $155 million, 10-megawatt supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) test facility at SwRI’s headquarters in San Antonio will demonstrate an innovative new method of higher-efficiency, lower-cost electric power generation.

“STEP will undoubtedly change the way we think about power generation,” said SwRI President and CEO Adam Hamilton, P.E. “It’s exciting to officially launch this pilot plant, which is home to potentially revolutionary technology developed right here at SwRI.”

“We are excited to collaborate with our partners through the STEP Demo pilot project to showcase the benefits of supercritical carbon dioxide technology for power production,” said Dr. Paula A. Gant, President and CEO, GTI Energy. “This innovation is set to deliver cost-effective, highly efficient, and transformative benefits.”

Unlike conventional power plants, which use water as the thermal medium in power cycles, STEP is designed to use high-temperature sCO2, which increases efficiency by as much as 10% due to its favorable thermodynamic properties. Carbon dioxide is nontoxic and nonflammable, and when CO2 is held above a critical temperature and pressure, it can act like a gas while having the density near that of a liquid. The sCO2 power cycle technology is also compatible with concentrated solar power and industrial waste heat.

“STEP Demo represents a shift toward more sustainable and efficient power generation, which has only been possible because of the ingenuity of the remarkable team that has supported this project at every stage,” said Dr. Tim Allison, director of SwRI’s Machinery Department.

One advantage to using sCO2 as a working fluid is that STEP Demo’s turbomachinery is approximately one-tenth the size of conventional power plant components, making it possible to shrink the footprint and construction cost of any new facilities. For example, STEP Demo’s desk-sized sCO2 turbine could power up to 10,000 homes.

SwRI’s John Klaerner, lead turbine engineer, and Dr. Jeff Moore, the principal investigator of the STEP Demo project, are pictured with the sCO2 turbine developed by SwRI for the 10 MWe demonstration plant. SwRI, GTI Energy, GE Global Research and the U.S. DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory celebrated the completion of the STEP Demo 10 MWe sCO2 pilot plant on October 26.

CREDIT

Southwest Research Institute

SwRI, GTI Energy, and GE broke ground on the STEP Demo site on October 15, 2018, and building construction was completed in 2020. The pilot plant achieved its first operation of its compressor with CO2 at supercritical fluid conditions earlier this year. Commissioning of the facility will continue through early next year.

The STEP Demo pilot plant is one of the largest demonstration facilities in the world for sCO2 technology. The project’s central goal is to dramatically improve the efficiency, economics, operational flexibility, space requirements and environmental performance of this new technology. SwRI, GTI Energy, and GE collaborated on the design of the plant, which is specially conceived to evolve over time to keep pace with industry advancements. The facility’s skid-mounted components provide flexibility and a unique, reconfigurable design.

SwRI is an industry leader in the development of sCO2 power cycles. Staff members have conducted numerous U.S. Department of Energy projects advancing the efficiency, reliability and commercial readiness of sCO2 power cycle turbomachinery, heat exchangers, cycles and systems. The team brings extensive experience with sCO2 technology and the key building blocks to make the STEP Demo project a success and a landmark demonstration.

For more information, visit https://step.swri.org.

 

AI can alert urban planners and policymakers to cities’ decay

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

 

IMAGE: 

YONG SUK LEE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY, ECONOMY AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS IN THE KEOUGH SCHOOL OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

By April Toler

More than two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to live in cities by 2050, according to the United Nations. As urbanization advances around the globe, researchers at the University of Notre Dame and Stanford University said the quality of the urban physical environment will become increasingly critical to human well-being and to sustainable development initiatives.

However, measuring and tracking the quality of an urban environment, its evolution and its spatial disparities is difficult due to the amount of on-the-ground data needed to capture these patterns. To address the issue, Yong Suk Lee, assistant professor of technology, economy and global affairs in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, and Andrea Vallebueno from Stanford University used machine learning to develop a scalable method to measure urban decay at a spatially granular level over time.

Their findings were recently published in Scientific Reports.

“As the world urbanizes, urban planners and policymakers need to make sure urban design and policies adequately address critical issues such as infrastructure and transportation improvements, poverty and the health and safety of urbanites, as well as the increasing inequality within and across cities,” Lee said. “Using machine learning to recognize patterns of neighborhood development and urban inequality, we can help urban planners and policymakers better understand the deterioration of urban space and its importance in future planning.”

Traditionally, the measurement of urban quality and quality of life in urban spaces has used sociodemographic and economic characteristics such as crime rates and income levels, survey data of urbanites’ perception and valued attributes of the urban environment, or image datasets describing the urban space and its socioeconomic qualities. The growing availability of street view images presents new prospects in identifying urban features, Lee said, but the reliability and consistency of these methods across different locations and time remains largely unexplored.

In their study, Lee and Vallebueno used the YOLOv5 model (a form of artificial intelligence that can detect objects) to detect eight object classes that indicate urban decay or contribute to an unsightly urban space — things like potholes, graffiti, garbage, tents, barred or broken windows, discolored or dilapidated façades, weeds and utility markings. They focused on three cities: San Francisco, Mexico City and South Bend, Indiana. They chose neighborhoods in these cities based on factors including urban diversity, stages of urban decay and the authors’ familiarity with the cities.

Using comparative data, they evaluated their method in three contexts: homelessness in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco between 2009 and 2021, a set of small-scale housing projects carried out in 2017 through 2019 in a subset of Mexico City neighborhoods, and the western neighborhoods of South Bend in the 2011 through 2019 period — a part of the city that had been declining for decades but also saw urban revival initiatives.

Researchers found that the trained model could adequately detect the objects it sought across different cities and neighborhoods, and did especially well where there are denser populations, such as San Francisco.

For instance, the maps allowed researchers to assess the temporal and geographic variation in homelessness in the San Francisco area, an issue that has grown over the years.

The model struggled in the more suburban area of South Bend, according to Lee, demonstrating a need to tweak the model and the types of objects identified in less dense populations. In addition, the researchers found there is still a risk for bias that should be addressed.

“Our findings indicate that trained models such as ours are capable of detecting the incidences of decay across different neighborhoods and cities, highlighting the potential of this approach to be scaled in order to track urban quality and change for urban centers across the U.S. and cities in other countries where street view imagery is available,” he said.

Lee said the model has potential to provide valuable information using data that can be collected in a more efficient way compared to using coarser, traditional economic data sources, and that it could be a valuable and timely tool for the government, nongovernmental organizations and the public.

“We found that our approach can employ machine learning to effectively track urban quality and change across multiple cities and urban areas,” Lee said. “This type of data could then be used to inform urban policy and planning and the social issues that are impacted by urbanization, including homelessness.”

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-023-44551-3 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Measuring urban quality and change through the detection of physical attributes of decay

 

NASA rocket to see sizzling edge of star-forming supernova

Business Announcement

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

A new sounding rocket mission is headed to space to understand how explosive stellar deaths lay the groundwork for new star systems. The Integral Field Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Experiment, or INFUSE, sounding rocket mission, will launch from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Oct. 29, 2023, at 9:35 p.m. MDT.

For a few months each year, the constellation Cygnus (Latin for “swan”) swoops through the northern hemisphere’s night sky. Just above its wing is a favorite target for backyard astronomers and professional scientists alike: the Cygnus Loop, also known as the Veil Nebula.

The Cygnus Loop is the remnant of a star that was once 20 times the size of our Sun. Some 20,000 years ago, that star collapsed under its own gravity and erupted into a supernova. Even from 2,600 light-years away, astronomers estimate the flash of light would have been bright enough to see from Earth during the day.

Supernovae are part of a great life cycle. They spray heavy metals forged in a star’s core into the clouds of surrounding dust and gas. They are the source of all chemical elements in our universe heavier than iron, including those that make up our own bodies. From the churned-up clouds and star stuff left in their wake, gases and dust from supernovae gradually clump together to form planets, stars, and new star systems.

“Supernovae like the one that created the Cygnus Loop have a huge impact on how galaxies form,” said Brian Fleming, a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and principal investigator for the INFUSE mission.

The Cygnus Loop provides a rare look at a supernova blast still in progress. Already over 120 light-years across, the massive cloud is still expanding today at approximately 930,000 miles per hour (about 1.5 million kilometers per hour).

What our telescopes capture from the Cygnus Loop is not the supernova blast itself. Instead, we see the dust and gas superheated by the shock front, which glows as it cools back down.

“INFUSE will observe how the supernova dumps energy into the Milky Way by catching light given off just as the blast wave crashes into pockets of cold gas floating around the galaxy,” Fleming said.

To see that shock front at its sizzling edge, Fleming and his team have developed a telescope that measures far-ultraviolet light – a kind of light too energetic for our eyes to see. This light reveals gas at temperatures between 90,000 and 540,000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 50,000 to 300,000 degrees Celsius) that is still sizzling after impact.

INFUSE is an integral field spectrograph, the first instrument of its kind to fly to space. The instrument combines the strengths of two ways of studying light: imaging and spectroscopy. Your typical telescopes have cameras that excel at creating images – showing where light is coming from, faithfully revealing its spatial arrangement. But telescopes don’t separate light into different wavelengths or “colors” – instead, all of the different wavelengths overlap one another in the resulting image.

Spectroscopy, on the other hand, takes a single beam of light and separates it into its component wavelengths or spectrum, much as a prism separates light into a rainbow. This procedure reveals all kinds of information about what the light source is made of, its temperature, and how it is moving. But spectroscopy can only look at a single sliver of light at a time. It’s like looking at the night sky through a narrow keyhole.

The INFUSE instrument captures an image and then “slices” it up, lining up the slices into one giant “keyhole.” The spectrometer can then spread each of the slices into its spectrum. This data can be reassembled into a 3-dimensional image that scientists call a “data cube” – like a stack of images where each layer reveals a specific wavelength of light.

Using the data from INFUSE, Fleming and his team will not only identify specific elements and their temperatures, but they’ll also see where those different elements lie along the shock front.

“It’s a very exciting project to be a part of,” said lead graduate student Emily Witt, also at CU Boulder, who led most of the assembly and testing of INFUSE and will lead the data analysis. “With these first-of-their-kind measurements, we will better understand how these elements from the supernova mix with the environment around them. It’s a big step toward understanding how material from supernovas becomes part of planets like Earth and even people like us.”

To get to space, the INFUSE payload will fly aboard a sounding rocket. These nimble, crewless rockets launch into space for a few minutes of data collection before falling back to the ground. The INFUSE payload will fly aboard a two-stage Black Brant 9 sounding rocket, aiming for a peak altitude of about 150 miles (240 kilometers), where it will make its observations, before parachuting back to the ground to be recovered. The team hopes to upgrade the instrument and launch again. In fact, parts of the INFUSE rocket are themselves repurposed from the DEUCE mission, which launched from Australia in 2022.

NASA's Sounding Rocket Program is conducted at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Virginia, which is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA's Heliophysics Division manages the sounding rocket program for the agency. The development of the INFUSE payload was supported by NASA’s Astrophysics Division.

 

New battery technology could lead to safer, high-energy electric vehicles

Maryland engineering researchers develop way to prevent damage that plagues next-gen lithium batteries

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

University of Maryland researchers studying how lithium batteries fail have developed a new technology that could enable next-generation electric vehicles (EVs) and other devices that are less prone to battery fires while increasing energy storage.

The innovative method, presented in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, suppresses the growth of lithium dendrites—damaging branch-like structures that develop inside so-called all-solid-state lithium batteries, preventing firms from broadly commercializing the promising technology. But this new design for a battery “interlayer,” led by Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Chunsheng Wang, stops dendrite formation, and could open the door for production of viable all-solid-state batteries for EVs.

At least 750,000 registered EVs in the U.S. run on lithium-ion batteries—popular because of their high energy storage but containing a flammable liquid electrolyte component that burns when overheated. While no government agency tracks vehicle fires by type of car, and electric car battery fires appear to be relatively rare, they pose particular risks; the National Transportation Safety Board reports that first responders are vulnerable to safety risks, including electric shock and the exposure to toxic gasses emanating from damaged or burning batteries.

All-solid-state batteries could lead to cars that are safer than current electric or internal combustion models, but creating a strategy to bypass the drawbacks was laborious, Wang said. When these batteries are operated at the high capacities and charging-discharging rates that electric vehicles demand, lithium dendrites grow toward the cathode side, causing short circuits and a decay in capacity.

He and Postdoctoral Associate Hongli Wan began to develop a theory for the formation of lithium dendrite growth in 2021; it remains a matter of scientific debate, the researchers said.

“After we figured out that part, we proposed the idea to redesign the interlayers that would effectively suppress the lithium dendrite growth,” he said.

Their solution is unique because of the stabilizing of the battery’s interfaces between the solid electrolyte and the anode (where electrons from a circuit enter the battery) and the electrolyte and the cathode (where energy flows out of the battery). The new battery structure adds a fluorine-rich interlayer that stabilizes the cathode side, as well as a modification of the anode’s interlayer with magnesium and bismuth—suppressing the lithium dendrite.

“Solid-state batteries are next-generation because they can achieve high energy and safety. In current batteries, if you achieve high energy, you’ll sacrifice safety,” said Wang.

Researchers have other challenges to solve before the product enters the market. To commercialize all-solid-state batteries, experts will have to scale down the solid electrolyte layer to achieve a similar thickness to the lithium-ion batteries’ electrolyte, which will improve energy density—or how much power the battery can store. High costs of basic materials are another challenge, the team said.

Aiming to release the new batteries to the market by 2026, advanced battery manufacturer Solid Power plans to begin trials of the new technology to assess its potential for commercialization. Continuing research aims to further boost energy density, the researchers said.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-023-06653-w 

ARTICLE TITLE

Interface design for all-solid-state lithium batteries

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Oct-2023