UMass Amherst-led team creates biofilm-resistant glass for marine environments

The invention prevents biofilm formation by 98% and is poised to help solve a major issue for the U.S. Navy

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

 

IMAGE: 

THE GLASS TREATED WITH ULTRAVIOLET RAYS (INSIDE), HAD 98% LESS BIOFILM GROWTH THAN THE UNTREATED GLASS (OUTSIDE).

view more 

CREDIT: LANZARINI-LOPES RESEARCH GROUP

AMHERST, Mass. – A group of researchers led by University of Massachusetts Amherst engineers have created ultraviolet (UV) rays-emitting glass that can reduce 98% of biofilm from growing on surfaces in underwater environments, as reported in the journal Biofilm. 

 

Biofilm is a slimy layer of various types of microorganisms that grows on wet surfaces. “If you look down your sink and touch the inner side of it—that slimy substance is biofilm,” describes Mariana Lanzarini-Lopes, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at UMass Amherst, and a corresponding author on the paper.  

 

Biofilm is a significant issue for underwater applications. The United States Navy estimates that biofilms cost its fleet between $180 and $260 million annually. Biofilm growth on all underwater surfaces increases a ship’s drag and subsequent fuel usage, as well as corrosion damage on ships or oceanographic equipment.  

 

Biofilm can also fog up windows used for cameras and other sensing devices that rely on transparency, and transport non-native species across the seas.  

 

Current solutions for dealing with biofilm rely on chemical agents like biocidal coatings to kill the organisms or nonstick coatings to prevent biofilms from attaching in the first place. However, these methods can have negative effects on the ecosystem and only last for a short duration.  

 

As an alternative to these chemical methods the UMass Amherst team, with funding from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR), developed biofilm-resistant glass using UVC radiation, the shortest and most effective at disinfecting wavelength of UV radiation. Lopes’s lab has already demonstrated that UV side-emitting optical fiber can distribute UVC radiation in small channels, like medical equipment (i.e. endoscopes, catheters and respirators), home devices (coffee makers and refrigerators) and water storage/distribution systems (pipes, bladders, membranes) to inactivate pathogenic organisms and prevent bacteria growth on surfaces. 

 

“A lot of people know about UV for disinfecting surfaces, air and water,” says Lopes.  “People started using it a lot more especially because it was really effective for disinfection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”  

 

However, in an underwater environment, it’s not as simple as shining UV light onto glass. “We cannot use traditional light sources to distribute light evenly on the surface,” for several reasons, says Leila Alidokht, postdoctoral research associate in Lopes’s lab and lead study author. Light becomes weaker as it moves away from the source, making it difficult to cover large surface areas. The UV waves can also be disrupted by how murky the surrounding water. 

 

Uneven distribution of the UV light gives biofilm-forming microorganisms a foothold and leaves the whole surface vulnerable: “If the biofilm can attach to a part of the surface, it can spread to other parts,” she adds. 

 

The team’s solution is a silica-nanoparticle coating on the glass. “The UV LED is connected from the cross-section of the glass,” Alidokht describes. “As UV enters the glass, we scatter the UV from inside of the glass to the outside,” using these light-scattering nanoparticles. The silica does not absorb the UV rays. The waves continue to bounce off the nanoparticles and through the glass interior which enables an evenly “glowing” glass surface.  

 

To test it, the researchers, in partnership with Florida Tech and the Navy, submerged this UV-emitting glass in the waters of Port Canaveral, Florida for 20 days. Compared to untreated glass, this glass reduced visible biofilm growth by 98%. 

“Contrary to external UV irradiation technique, UV-emitting glass inhibits biofilm formation directly at the surface of interest—the surface itself serves as a UVC source,” says Alidokht. 

 

She is excited that this discovery opens the door for diverse disinfection applications. “The developed technology can be used for disinfection of transparent surfaces such as windows of ships, flotation spheres and moored buoys, camera lenses and sensors for oceanographical, agricultural and water treatment applications,” she says. 

 

The team has received a provisional patent for their discovery.  

 

Now that the team has proven that this glass effectively resists biofilm formation (known as biofouling), they are excited to optimize their discovery: testing long-term applications, assessing any effects on the environment and creating larger surface areas. 

 

Another future avenue of exploration: “We’re also trying to prevent biofilm on camera lenses,” adds Lopes. “The maininhibitor of the length of time for deployment [of underwater cameras] is biofouling, so as long as you can decrease the rate of biofouling, you can increase how long you deploy all this optical equipment.”

Because the glass has a silica nanoparticle coating, the UV waves bounce through the glass interior which enables an evenly “glowing” glass surface.

CREDIT

Lanzarini-Lopes research group

Lanzarini-Lopes (center) with Alidokht (right) and graduate research assistant, Athira Haridas (left) 

CREDIT

Lanzarini-Lopes research group

---

JOURNAL

Biofilm

DOI

10.1016/j.bioflm.2024.100186 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

UV emitting glass: A promising strategy for biofilm inhibition on transparent surfaces

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Feb-2024

COI STATEMENT

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:Mariana Lanzarini-Lopes reports a relationship with Optical Waters that includes: board membership, equity or stocks, and funding grants. Katrina Fitzpatrick reports a relationship with Optical Waters that includes: board membership, equity or stocks, and funding grants. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Sunrise to sunset, new window coating blocks heat — not view

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

 

IMAGE: 

RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME HAVE DEVELOPED A NEW WINDOW COATING TO BLOCK HEAT-GENERATING ULTRAVIOLET AND INFRARED LIGHT AND ALLOW FOR VISIBLE LIGHT, REGARDLESS OF THE SUN’S ANGLE.

view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Windows welcome light into interior spaces, but they also bring in unwanted heat. A new window coating blocks heat-generating ultraviolet and infrared light and lets through visible light, regardless of the sun’s angle. The coating can be incorporated onto existing windows or automobiles and can reduce air-conditioning cooling costs by more than one-third in hot climates.  

“The angle between the sunshine and your window is always changing,” said Tengfei Luo, the Dorini Family Professor for Energy Studies at the University of Notre Dame and the lead of the study. “Our coating maintains functionality and efficiency whatever the sun’s position in the sky.”

Window coatings used in many recent studies are optimized for light that enters a room at a 90-degree angle. Yet at noon, often the hottest time of the day, the sun’s rays enter vertically installed windows at oblique angles.

Luo and his postdoctoral associate Seongmin Kim previously fabricated a transparent window coating by stacking ultra-thin layers of silica, alumina and titanium oxide on a glass base. A micrometer-thick silicon polymer was added to enhance the structure’s cooling power by reflecting thermal radiation through the atmospheric window and into outer space.

Additional optimization of the order of the layers was necessary to ensure the coating would accommodate multiple angles of solar light. However, a trial-and-error approach was not practical, given the immense number of possible combinations, Luo said.

To shuffle the layers into an optimal configuration — one that maximized the transmission of visible light while minimizing the passage of heat-producing wavelengths — the team used quantum computing, or more specifically, quantum annealing, and validated their results experimentally.

Their model produced a coating that both maintained transparency and reduced temperature by 5.4 to 7.2 degrees Celsius in a model room, even when light was transmitted in a broad range of angles. The lab’s results were recently published in Cell Reports Physical Science.  

“Like polarized sunglasses, our coating lessens the intensity of incoming light, but, unlike sunglasses, our coating remains clear and effective even when you tilt it at different angles,” Luo said.

The active learning and quantum computing scheme developed to create this coating can be used to design of a broad range of materials with complex properties.

---

JOURNAL

Cell Reports Physical Science

DOI

10.1016/j.xcrp.2024.101847 

ARTICLE TITLE

Wide-Angle Spectral Filter for Energy-Saving Windows Designed by Quantum Annealing-Enhanced Active Learning

Researchers use smartphone screen to create 3D layered holographic images

Full-color 3D display method holds promise for augmented and virtual reality

OPTICA

 

IMAGE: 

RESEARCHERS DEVELOPED A 3D FULL-COLOR DISPLAY METHOD THAT USES A SMARTPHONE SCREEN, RATHER THAN A LASER, TO CREATE HOLOGRAPHIC IMAGES. SHOWN ARE THEIR EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS, IN WHICH A CONTINUOUS TRANSITION FROM THE FIRST LAYER TO THE SECOND LAYER IS OBSERVABLE.

view more 

CREDIT: RYOICHI HORISAKI, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a 3D full-color display method that uses a smartphone screen, rather than a laser, to create holographic images. With further development, the new approach could be useful for augmented or virtual reality displays.

Whether augmented and virtual reality displays are being used for gaming, education or other applications, incorporating 3D displays can create a more realistic and interactive user experience.

“Although holography techniques can create a very real-looking 3D representation of objects, traditional approaches aren’t practical because they rely on laser sources,” said research team leader Ryoichi Horisaki, from The University of Tokyo in Japan. “Lasers emit coherent light that is easy to control, but they make the system complex, expensive and potentially harmful to the eyes.”

In the Optica Publishing Group journal Optics Letters, the researchers describe their new method, which is based on computer-generated holography (CGH). Thanks to a new algorithm they developed, they were able to use only an iPhone and an optical component called a spatial light modulator to reproduce a 3D color image that consisted of two holographic layers.

“We believe that this method could eventually be useful for minimizing the optics, reducing costs and decreasing the potential harm to eyes in future visual interfaces and 3D display applications,” said Otoya Shigematsu, the paper’s first author. “More specifically, it has the potential to enhance the performance of near-eye displays, such as the ones being used in high-end virtual reality headsets.”

A more practical approach

Although CGH uses algorithms to produce images, the coherent light from a laser is typically required to display these holographic images. In a previous study, the researchers showed that spatiotemporally incoherent light emitted from a white chip-on-board light-emitting diode could be used for CGH. However, this setup required two spatial light modulators — devices that control the wavefronts of light — which is impractical because of their expense.

In the new study, the researchers developed a less expensive and more practical incoherent CGH method. “This work aligns with our laboratory’s focus on computational imaging, a research field dedicated to innovating optical imaging systems by integrating optics with information science,” said Horisaki. “We focus on minimizing optical components and eliminating impractical requirements in conventional optical systems.”

The new approach passes light from the screen through a spatial light modulator, which presents multiple layers of a full-color 3D image. Although this may seem simple, it required carefully modeling the incoherent light propagation process from the screen and then using this information to develop a new algorithm that coordinated the light coming from the device screen with a single spatial light modulator.

Holographic images from a smartphone

“Holographic displays that use low-coherence light could enable realistic 3D displays while potentially reducing costs and complexity,” said Shigematsu. “Although several groups, including ours, have demonstrated holographic displays using low-coherence light, we took this concept to the extreme by using a smartphone display.”

To demonstrate the new method, the researchers created a two-layer optical reproduction of a full-color 3D image by displaying one holographic layer on the screen of an iPhone 14 Pro and a second layer on a spatial light modulator. The resulting image measured a few millimeters on each side.

The researchers are now working to improve the technology so that it can display larger 3D images with more layers. Additional layers would make images look more realistic by improving spatial resolution and allowing objects to appear at several different depths, or distances, from the viewer.

Paper: O. Shigematsu, M. Naruse, R. Horisaki, “Computer-generated holography with ordinary display,” Opt. Lett., 49, 8 (2024).
DOI: doi.org/10.1364/OL.516005

First author Otoya Shigematsu is shown in the laboratory with the optical experiment setup used for the work.

CREDIT

Ryoichi Horisaki, The University of Tokyo

About Optics Letters

Optics Letters offers rapid dissemination of new results in all areas of optical science with short, original, peer-reviewed communications. Optics Letters accepts papers that are noteworthy to a substantial part of the optics community. Published by Optica Publishing Group and led by Editor-in-Chief Miguel Alonso, Institut Fresnel, École Centrale de Marseille and Aix-Marseille Université, France, University of Rochester, USA. For more information, visit Optics Letters.

 

About Optica Publishing Group

Optica Publishing Group is a division of Optica, Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide. It publishes the largest collection of peer-reviewed content in optics and photonics, including 18 prestigious journals, the society’s flagship member magazine, and papers from more than 835 conferences, including 6,500+ associated videos. With over 400,000 journal articles, conference papers and videos to search, discover and access, Optica Publishing Group represents the full range of research in the field from around the globe.

JOURNAL

Optics Letters

DOI

10.1364/OL.516005 

ARTICLE TITLE

Computer-generated holography with ordinary display

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Apr-2024

 

Photonic feature extractor for broadband radio-frequency signals

LIGHT PUBLISHING CENTER, CHANGCHUN INSTITUTE OF OPTICS, FINE MECHANICS AND PHYSICS, CAS

 

IMAGE: 

A, THE PHOTONIC FEATURE EXTRACTOR IMITATES A CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORK. THE INPUT RF SIGNALS (ECHOES REFLECTED FROM THE TARGETS) FROM ANTENNAS ARE PROCESSED IN THE ANALOG DOMAIN AND THE OUTPUT IS THE EXTRACTED FEATURES. FEATURES ARE RECORDED BY ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTERS (ADCS) AND A FULLY-CONNECTED NETWORK CLASSIFIES THE TARGETS. B, THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE PHOTONIC CHIP AND PACKAGED MODULE. C, THE VISUALIZATION ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS. BEFORE PHOTONIC FEATURE EXTRACTION, THE EMBEDDING OF TARGETS CANNOT BE EASILY DISTINGUISHED. AFTER THE PHOTONIC FEATURE EXTRACTION, THE EMBEDDINGS OF THE TARGETS ARE DISTINGUISHABLE.

view more 

CREDIT: BY SHAOFU XU, BINSHUO LIU, SICHENG YI, JING WANG, AND WEIWEN ZOU

In intelligent sensing fields such as radar, machine vision, medical imaging, etc., the critical information used for decision making is often sparse. For example, a monosyllabic waveform requires thousands of sampling points, but contains only a few bits of information. If the key information can be extracted directly in the analog link of signal reception, the redundancy of data can be drastically reduced as well as the data rate. The challenge of digital processing can be significantly lessened. Therefore, the so-called “analog feature extraction (AFE)” strategy have received extensive attention in the field of intelligent sensing. However, in the field of RF sensing, broadband signals of several GHz are usually required to discriminate target details. Under the bandwidth and reconfigurability bottlenecks of the existing RF circuits, the application of AFE strategy in the field of RF sensing faces challenges.

 

In a new paper published in Light Science & Application, a team of scientists, led by Professor Weiwen Zou from State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Intelligent Microwave Lightwave Integration Innovation Center (imLic), Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and co-workers have developed a photonic scheme to accomplish AFE of broadband RF signals. In principle, photonics is considered a competitive candidate for RF signal processing due to its broadband capability and reconfigurability. If the physical structure of feature extraction in implemented in the photonic circuits, the input signals can be directly transformed into features without digital processing. Based on this idea, they implemented a photonic chip that can output key features directly from the original RF signals received by the antenna. With these features, different targets are recognized with high accuracy. The reported scheme will provide a promising path for the efficient signal processing involved in autonomous driving, robotics, and smart factories.

 

The key part of their scheme is the photonic chip. The scientists summarize the working principle of their photonic chip: “The feature extraction structure is essentially a convolutional neural network that outputs the spatiotemporal feature of the input signals. The photonic chip imitates the neural network to conduct feature extraction for the RF signals. Additionally, we designed an efficient training method especially for the photonic feature extraction system. It drastically decreases the cost of neural network training and makes the training possible.”

 

“The experimental results indicates that the photonic feature extractor compresses the data rate 4 times while maintains a good target recognition accuracy of 97.5%. We analyzed the results and found that the photonic spatiotemporal feature extractor achieves 7.7% better recognition accuracy than that without feature extraction. Compared with one-dimensional feature extraction, the spatiotemporal feature extraction performs 6% better. So, we testified the effectiveness of the photonic feature extractor.” They added, “We believe that our proposal will catalyze the development of naturally-efficient AFE strategies for broadband RF signal processing, and provide a promising path for the next-generation cognitive RF sensing systems.”

---

JOURNAL

Light Science & Applications

DOI

10.1038/s41377-024-01390-9 

 

US Electron-ion collider set to begin long-lead procurements

EIC project passes Critical Decision 3A (CD-3A), official OK to procure key components for building state-of-the-art collider

DOE/BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY

 

IMAGE: 

A CUTAWAY SHOWING ACCELERATOR COMPONENTS INSIDE THE FUTURE ELECTRON-ION COLLIDER TUNNEL. 

view more 

CREDIT: BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY

UPTON, N.Y. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Under Secretary for Science and Innovation has approved Critical Decision 3A (CD-3A) for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a state-of-the-art particle collider for nuclear physics research that will be located at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and built in partnership with DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab). This milestone gives the project the formal go-ahead to purchase “long-lead procurements” — equipment, services, and/or materials that must be ordered well in advance of assembling the collider because of the long delivery times for such items.

“The EIC project can now move forward with the execution of contracts with industrial partners that will significantly reduce project technical and schedule risk,” said EIC Project Director Jim Yeck.

Purchasing materials and equipment needed to build sophisticated components for the EIC accelerator, detector, and supporting infrastructure prior to construction ensures, for example, that the team will be able to adjust for any supply chain issues and work out any technical details and challenges.

“Passing this milestone and getting these procurements underway will help us achieve our ultimate goal of efficiently delivering a unique high-energy, high-luminosity polarized beam electron-ion collider that will be one of the most challenging and exciting accelerator complexes ever built. The DOE-Brookhaven-Jefferson Lab Integrated Project Team is ready to work together on this new phase,” Yeck said.

“I want to thank the Project Team members for their determination, resourcefulness, and dedication in reaching this important project milestone,” said EIC Project Manager Luisella Lari. “This long lead procurement approval will allow both Brookhaven and Jefferson Lab to proceed full speed ahead on the EIC to bring its exciting physics results and other benefits to society.”

“This authorization for long-lead procurements would not have been possible without the dedicated work and support of many people here in the U.S. and internationally,” said Jim Fast, Jefferson Lab's associate project manager for EIC. “We are eager to continue this partnership between Brookhaven and Jefferson Lab in collaboration with our many colleagues. This commitment by the DOE underscores the worldwide interest in the science that will be enabled by the EIC and fosters international partner commitments for in-kind contributions to the EIC.”

The EIC, funded primarily by the federal government through the DOE Office of Science, will be a 2.4-mile-circumference particle collider, the first of its kind in the world. It will steer beams of high-energy polarized electrons into collisions with polarized protons and atomic nuclei to produce precision 3D snapshots of those particles’ internal structures. Experiments at the EIC will help scientists unlock the secrets of the strongest force in nature and explore how tiny particles called quarks and gluons build up the mass, spin, and other properties of essentially all visible matter.

The world-leading science that the EIC will enable and the technological innovations needed to make it a reality have the potential to inspire the technologies of tomorrow.

Long-lead purchases for project readiness

The EIC project will draw on expertise throughout the DOE national laboratory system and from universities and research institutions worldwide. The total project cost is expected to fall in the range of $1.7-2.8 billion.

The current approval for long-lead procurements (LLPs) will allow the purchase of approximately $90 million in materials and items. These include superconducting wires and materials for making magnets, cryogenic equipment for superconducting accelerator devices, lead tungstate crystals and scintillating fibers for detectors, substations for new power-supply and support infrastructure buildings, and other specialized accelerator and detector components. The equipment will be purchased from industrial technology specialists through Brookhaven’s and Jefferson Lab’s full and open-competition procurement processes. Purchasers will prioritize U.S.-based small and/or women-/veteran-/minority-owned businesses.

Funding for LLP purchases will come, in part, from Inflation Reduction Act funding awarded to the EIC project in 2022 to stimulate economic development and through annual appropriations funding from the DOE Office of Science. Equipment and materials will be delivered to Brookhaven Lab and Jefferson Lab, where experts will assemble, test, and troubleshoot components to ensure readiness for installation when construction begins.

The EIC construction plan makes use of key infrastructure of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven, with the majority of EIC accelerator components designed to fit within the existing RHIC tunnel. The project will also reuse additional key infrastructure.

Project timing is planned to make optimal use of the highly skilled RHIC accelerator workforce in a seamless way when RHIC operations conclude. Making early procurements will ensure that equipment required to be installed at that time is in place so these scientists, engineers, and technicians can pivot to EIC assembly as soon as RHIC operations cease.

Benefits for science and society

Building the EIC will maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear physics and accelerator science — fields that are crucial to our technological, economic, and national security. The project will also provide educational and workforce development opportunities to train the next generation of experts in these fields.

In addition, the technological advances already under development to make the EIC a reality — innovative accelerator and particle-tracking components and data-management tools and techniques — could have widespread impacts. These include new approaches to cancer therapy, solving other “big data” challenges, and improving accelerator facilities for testing batteries, catalysts, and other energy-related materials.

The knowledge stemming from research at the EIC will be published in the open scientific research literature and will be available to all partners, including commercial partners.

The collider-accelerator infrastructure that powers the EIC at Brookhaven will also be available to researchers who use particle beams to produce and conduct studies on isotopes for medical, national security, and industrial applications, and to researchers who study the effects of simulated space radiation with the aim of protecting future astronauts.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

Follow @BrookhavenLab on social media. Find us on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and Facebook.

 

Bringing race into focus: celebrating a special issue of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS

“You’re a medievalist?”

This is the question that Cord J. Whitaker, an expert in Medieval English literature and the history of race, found himself facing as an early career scholar. Both his identity as a Black American man and his research, which employs elements of critical race theory, were seen as too niche or simply outside the scope of mainstream medieval studies.

Whitaker details these challenges in the introduction to the April 2024 issue of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. Co-edited by Whitaker, Nahir I. Otaño Gracia, and François-Xavier Fauvelle, this special issue is entitled “Race, Race-Thinking, and Identity in the Global Middle Ages.” It aims to legitimize and advance the field of premodern critical race studies (PCRS) and to elevate the voices of early career authors. The issue marks a major contribution to the field of medieval studies, but it also serves as a timely response to recent assaults on critical race theory in U.S. curricula and the appropriation of the Middle Ages by White supremacists.

As the flagship journal of the Medieval Academy of America, Speculum is a highly regarded platform for scholarship on the Middle Ages. When Katherine L. Jansen became editor in 2019, it became clear to her that the journal needed “to engage with the ideas, topics, and methods of PCRS . . . an area which was thriving, even if unappreciated by [Speculum].” The April 2024 issue not only foregrounds the methodologies and topics of PCRS, but it also highlights work by early career researchers—a departure from the journal’s reputation as a forum for established scholars. As the issue editors put it, this energetic array of perspectives reflects “the shimmering brilliance of our field’s future.”

The articles in the April 2024 issue of Speculum deal with a wide variety of topics from within the Global Middle Ages. Some of these essays identify resonances between medieval history and present-day disputes. For example, an article by Soojung Choe traces modern discourse on Asian food and foodways back to medieval racializing tropes. In another piece, Thai-Catherine Matthews reads abolitionist Harriet Jacobs in tandem with the English anchorite Julian of Norwich. Other articles in the issue range far and wide, from medieval Scandinavia to Afro-Eurasia, posing important questions that reveal historical systems of control and oppression. As the issue editors put it, “a PCRS approach exposes how power shapes narrative and how narrative, in turn, informs power.”

Emphasizing the critical and timely nature of the articles in the April 2024 issue of Speculum, Whitaker, Otaño Gracia, and Fauvelle close their introduction with a hopeful vision for the journal:

“This volume aims to usher Speculum into a new era that would see works on race and race-making not as the stuff of a niche subfield but as an integral framework within the one field—as multifaceted as it is—that medieval studies endeavors to be.”

---

Founded in 1926, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies was the first journal in North America devoted to the Middle Ages. It publishes interdisciplinary medieval scholarship that covers a broad cultural landscape. The journal is the most widely distributed journal of medieval studies and is received by all members of the Medieval Academy of America as a benefit of membership.

---

JOURNAL

Speculum

 

Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers develop early osteoarthritis detection tool

MORRIS ANIMAL FOUNDATION

 

IMAGE: 

RESEARCHERS CREATE NEW TOOL FOR OSTEOARTHRITIS DETECTION IN HORSES.

view more 

CREDIT: CLÉMENT PROUST

Media Alert: DENVER/April 2, 2024 — Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers introduced a straightforward questionnaire to help horse owners identify and monitor signs of osteoarthritis pain in their equine companions. This initiative aims to facilitate earlier and more effective treatment, ultimately enhancing the quality of life for horses.

Created by Dr. Janny de Grauw, Senior Lecturer at The Royal Veterinary College in the United Kingdom, Bryony Lancaster, Program Director, MSc Equine Science of the University of Edinburgh and Dr. Diane Howard, the questionnaire is modeled after the Brief Pain Inventory used to evaluate pain severity and its impact on functioning.

“Horses are another long-lived athletic species, and there is some thought that arthritis studies in horses may also apply to people, so having a similar instrument could help with that research,” Howard said. “The questionnaire can also serve as an objective tool for veterinarians to assess and monitor the adequacy of treatment plans and so determine if changes in a protocol need to be made.”

A preliminary trial of the questionnaire, which involved 25 owners/caretakers of horses diagnosed with arthritis, revealed that 88% of participants found the questionnaire beneficial, while 84% appreciated its simplicity and ease of use.

One significant insight from the study highlighted by Howard is that many horse owners blame themselves for their horse’s arthritis or believe it to be a natural occurrence beyond treatment.

“In general, it’s not the owner or trainer’s fault, and once they realize that, they could be more willing to think, ‘Maybe my horse is hurting a bit, and maybe it’s arthritis,’” Howard said. “There are currently no ways of curing it, but there are certainly ways of controlling the pain and slowing the progress of the disease.”
 
About Morris Animal Foundation
Morris Animal Foundation’s mission is to bridge science and resources to advance the health of animals. Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Denver, it is one of the largest nonprofit animal health research organizations in the world, funding nearly $160 million in more than 3,000 critical animal health studies to date across a broad range of species. Learn more at morrisanimalfoundation.org.

Media Contact: Annie Mehl

---

JOURNAL

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Development and Preliminary Validation of an Equine Brief Pain Inventory for Owner Assessment of Chronic Pain Due to Osteoarthritis in Horses

 

Last chance to record archaic Greek language ‘heading for extinction’

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

 

IMAGE: 

PROFESSOR IOANNA SITARIDOU (RIGHT) WITH A 100 YEARS-OLD ROMEYKA SPEAKER IN TURKEY'S TRABZON REGION.

view more 

CREDIT: PROFESSOR IOANNA SITARIDOU

A new data crowdsourcing platform aims to preserve the sound of Romeyka, an endangered millennia-old variety of Greek. Experts consider the language to be a linguistic goldmine and a living bridge to the ancient world.

 

The initiative, led by Professor Ioanna Sitaridou from the University of Cambridge, contributes to the UN’s International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-32), which aims ‘to draw global attention on the critical situation of many indigenous languages and to mobilise stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalization and promotion.’

Romeyka is thought to have only a couple of thousand native speakers left in Turkey’s Trabzon region, but the precise number is hard to calculate especially because of the fact that there is also a large number of heritage speakers in the diaspora and the ongoing language shift to Turkish.

Romeyka does not have a writing system and has been transmitted only orally. Extensive contact with Turkish, the absence of support mechanisms to facilitate intergenerational transmission, socio-cultural stigma, and migration have all taken their toll on Romeyka. A high proportion of native speakers in Trabzon are over 65 years of age and fewer young people are learning the language.

The newly launched trilingual Crowdsourcing Romeyka platform invites members of the public from anywhere in the world to upload audio recordings of Romeyka being spoken.

“Speech crowdsourcing is a new tool which helps speakers build a repository of spoken data for their endangered languages while allowing researchers to document these languages, but also motivating speakers to appreciate their own linguistic heritage. At the same time, by creating a permanent monument of their language, it can help speakers achieve acknowledgement of their identity from people outside of their speech community,” said Prof. Sitaridou, who has been studying Romeyka for the last 16 years.  

The innovative tool is designed by a Harvard undergraduate in Computer Science, Mr Matthew Nazari, himself a heritage speaker of Aramaic. Together they hope that this new tool will also pave the way for the production of language materials in a naturalistic learning environment away from the classroom, but based instead around everyday use, orality, and community.

To coincide with the platform’s launch, Sitaridou is unveiling major new findings about the language’s development and grammar at an exhibition in Greece (details below).

Sitaridou’s most important findings include the conclusion that Romeyka descends from Hellenistic Greek not Medieval Greek, making it distinct from other Modern Greek dialects. “Romeyka is a sister, rather than a daughter, of Modern Greek,” said Sitaridou, a Fellow of Queens' College and Professor of Spanish and Historical Linguistics in Cambridge’s Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics. “Essentially this analysis unsettles the claim that Modern Greek is an isolate language”.

Over the last 150 years, only four fieldworkers have collected data on Romeyka in Trabzon. By engaging with local communities, particularly female speakers, Sitaridou has amassed the largest collection of audio and video data in existence collected monolingually and amounting to more than 29GB of ethically sourced data, and has authored 21 peer-reviewed publications. A YouTube film about Sitaridou’s fieldwork has received 723,000 views to-date.

The valleys of Tonya in Turkey's Trabzon region

CREDIT

Professor Ioanna Sitaridou

Grammar and a new phylogeny for Greek

Sitaridou’s analysis of the Romeyka infinitive is key. All other Greek dialects known today have stopped using the infinitive found in ancient Greek. So speakers of Modern Greek would say I want that I go instead of I want to go. But, in Romeyka, the infinitive lives on and Sitaridou has observed uncontroversial proof that this Ancient Greek infinitive can be dated back to Hellenistic Greek due to its preservation in a structure which became obsolete by early Mediaeval times in all other Greek varieties, but continued to be used in Romeyka while also undergoing a cross-linguistically rare mutation to a negative item.

Sitaridou’s findings have significant implications for our understanding of the evolution of Greek, because they suggest that there is more than one Greek language on a par with the Romance languages (which all derived out of Vulgar Latin rather than out of each other).

 

Historical context and new field work sites

The roots of the Greek presence in the Black Sea are steeped in myth: from the journey of Jason and the Argonauts to Colchis, to the Amazons. But what we know is that the Greeks began to spread around the Black Sea from approximately the 6th Century BCE. Ionians founded Miletus, which, in turn, founded Sinope, which, eventually, colonized Trebizond. In the Pontus, the language of the first Greek colonizers of Trebizond was the Ionic Greek of Sinope.

In the 4th Century BCE, the passage of Alexander the Great’s army contributed to the creation of another Greek-speaking centre, to the South of Pontus, at Cappadocia. It is possible that from Cappadocia, Greek may have also spread northwards towards Pontus.

However, the decisive phase for the expansion of the Greek language seems to be Christianization. The inhabitants of Pontus were among the first converts and are mentioned in the New Testament. The Soumela monastery was founded in 386 CE, around 20 years after the region officially adopted Christianity. The fall of Trebizond to the Ottomans in 1461 led to the city becoming majority Muslim.

Prof. Sitaridou said: “Conversion to Islam across Asia Minor was usually accompanied by a linguistic shift to Turkish, but communities in the valleys retained Romeyka. And because of Islamization, they retained some archaic features while the Greek-speaking communities who remained Christian grew closer to Modern Greek, especially because of extensive schooling in Greek in the 19th and early 20th centuries.”

Recently, Prof. Sitaridou started field working in a new site, Tonya, where no other field worker has ever reached, only to reveal significant grammatical variation between the valleys indicating different Islamisation onset. In a publication, to appear soon, it is argued that both the syntax of subordination and negation systems in Tonya show different patterns and thus diachronic development from the Çaykara variety.

In 1923, under the Greco-Turkish population exchange, Greek-speaking Christians of Pontus were forced to leave Turkey and relocate to Greece while Romeyka-speaking Muslim communities in the Trabzon area remained in their homeland as they professed Islam, explaining why this Greek variety is still spoken in small enclaves in the region. Since 1923 and until very recently the two speech communities were oblivious of each other’s existence.

 

Preservation of heritage languages and why it matters

Speakers are still reluctant to identify Romeyka as one of their languages since, for Turkish nationalists, speaking Greek goes against the very fundamentals of one’s belonging. From a Greek nationalist perspective, these varieties are deemed ‘contaminated’ and/or disruptive to the ideology of one single Greek language spoken uninterruptedly since antiquity, as Sitaridou explains in an article which is about to be published by the Laz Institute in Istanbul.

In Greece, Turkey and beyond, Sitaridou has used her research to raise awareness of Romeyka, stimulate language preservation efforts and enhance attitudes. In Greece, for instance, Sitaridou co-introduced a pioneering new course on Pontic Greek at the Democritus University of Thrace since the number of speakers of Pontic Greek is also dwindling.

“Raising the status of minority and heritage languages is crucial to social cohesion, not just in this region, but all over the world,” Prof. Sitaridou said. “When speakers can speak their home languages they feel “seen” and thus they feel more connected to the rest of the society; on the other hand, not speaking the heritage or minority languages creates some form of trauma which in fact undermines the integration which linguistic assimilation takes pride in achieving”.

The same ethos traverses a new AHRC-funded project about the documentation of a critically endangered language, Sri Lanka Portuguese, among Afrodescent communities in north-western Sri Lanka. Sitaridou  will be documenting and analysing manja, the only remaining linguistic and cultural expression of African heritage for these communities.

 

Exhibition at Mohamed Ali’s historical House in Kavala this April

The Romeyka exhibition runs at the MOHA Research Centre in Kavala, Greece, from 29th March – 28th April 2024.

The exhibition features previously unpublished archival material from Exeter College, Oxford and photographic material from British School of Athens which give us a glimpse into the Greek-speaking communities and language in the southern Black Sea shores 110 years ago taken by R.M. Dawkins, one of the first field workers in the area. This is combined with photographs and video material from Prof. Sitaridou’s own fieldwork, interspersed with panels and audio material to communicate her linguistic findings.

The exhibition aims to generate further reflections on endangered heritages, fragmented and shared identities and collective memory as well as helping us get a better grasp of multilingualism, localised experiences, intergenerational stories of co-existence and displacement, diasporic selves and language loss, and alternative modalities of being and belonging both in Greece and Turkey.

 

These plants evolved in Florida millions of years ago. They may be gone in decades.

FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

 

IMAGE: 

THERE ARE 24 SPECIES OF SCRUB MINT NATIVE TO THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES, AND MORE THAN HALF OF THEM ARE CONSIDERED THREATENED OR ENDANGERED.

view more 

CREDIT: FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY PHOTO BY KRISTEN GRACE

Scrub mints are among the most endangered plants you’ve probably never heard of. More than half of the 24 species currently known to exist are considered threatened or endangered at the state or federal level, and nearly all scrub mints grow in areas that are being rapidly developed or converted to agricultural pasture.

In a new study, researchers analyzed a distinct type of DNA marker, which shows there are likely more scrub mint species waiting to be scientifically described. And at least one species has been left without federal protection because of a technicality.

“The Titusville balm is currently considered to be a recent hybrid,” said lead author Andre Naranjo, who conducted the study while completing a Ph.D. with the Florida Museum of Natural History. “When you describe something as a hybrid, that implies that it’s not a true species, and it can’t be protected under the Endangered Species Act.”

Naranjo found no evidence for recent hybridization in Titusville balms (Dicerandra thinicola), and his results suggest that a group called the calamints may contain cryptic diversity that requires further study.

Scrub mints evolved during a period of rapid climate change

Naranjo and his colleagues conducted the study to learn about the evolutionary history of scrub mints. The group is native to the southeastern United States and originated during a turbulent time in Earth’s past.

Three million years ago, during a period called the Pliocene, temperatures were 2-3 degrees C warmer than they are today, and sea levels were up to 30 meters higher. At the time, the central and southern half of Florida was an archipelago. But as temperatures cooled over the next several million years, the waters receded, and the Florida Peninsula took on its modern-day dimensions.

Much of this newly surfaced habitat wasn’t exactly prime real estate. Where soils did exist, they were primarily composed of sand, and the cooler temperatures resulted in less rainfall. This was particularly true of the elevated areas that had been islands before sea levels fell.

What’s left of these ancient shorelines is now located near the center of the Florida Peninsula and is often referred to as sand pine scrub. Plants and animals that moved into these vacant spaces had to contend with little water, few nutrients and rampant wildfires.

The species that managed to survive tended to do well within this narrow framework of harsh conditions but lost the ability to live just about anywhere else. Today, 40-60% species that live in these areas are endemic, meaning they can be found only in southeastern scrub habitats.

Scrub mints are among the few plants that staked a claim in the new Florida frontier. Originating in the panhandle, the ancestor of modern scrub mints dispersed south as soon as there was land to grow on.

At the height of the ice ages during the Pleistocene, when much of the planet’s reserve of water was locked away in massive glaciers, Florida was up to twice the size it is today, and scrub mints flourished.

“These plants had a much wider range in the past and were readily sharing DNA with one another,” Naranjo said.

But their habitat soon shrank. There were at least 17 ice ages during the Pleistocene, when scrub mints were evolving, and each cold period was separated by warm intervals in which much of Florida was swallowed by the sea.

Widespread scrub environments were repeatedly reduced to islands, severing the connection between mint populations. They began to grow apart, and soon each scrub island contained its own unique mint species. During the cold periods, when sea levels fell, scrub mint populations again overlapped, and these unique species hybridized with each other.

This ancient intermingling created the scrub mints as they’re known today.

The storied history of scrub mints cut short by development

Naranjo sequenced nuclear DNA from scrub mints for the study. Unlike the plastid DNA often used to study plants, which is produced by structures called chloroplasts, the DNA from plant nuclei is especially useful for scientists trying to tease apart historical interactions between species.

According to his results, annual scrub mints in the genus Dicerandra — which grow north into South Carolina and die back during the winter — originated from a back-to-back hybridization event between the ancestors of perennial scrub mints, which have a distribution further south and grow year-round.

Hybridization is a common form of diversification in plants, so much so that nearly every group of plants you might come across has had a hybridization event occur at some point in its evolutionary history.

Crucially, Naranjo’s findings indicate the scrub mints that currently exist have been on separate evolutionary trajectories for hundreds of thousands of years. When modern humans diverged from Neanderthals around 500,000 years ago, scrub mints were already well on their way to becoming separate species.

The study also suggests that calamints are genetically diverse, so much so that new species designations are likely warranted. This is especially true for those with large ranges in the southeastern U.S., including the scarlet calamint (Clinopodium coccineum) and Georgia calamint (Clinopodium georgianum), neither of which is considered to be endangered.

Even if additional species are afforded protection, Naranjo fears it may not be enough to stave off declines and eventual extinction. Lakela’s mint (Dicerandra immaculata), for example, is listed as critically endangered and only grows along a three-mile stretch of scrub, almost all of which is privately owned.

Conditions that once allowed these plants to thrive, such as periodic wildfires, are now impractical, due to nearby urban areas that would be negatively affected. And invasive species are encroaching on what little pristine scrub is left. Work to remove invasives is often done by volunteers, if they’re removed at all.

“If we continue with business as usual, this entire group of plants could go extinct within the next 100 years. And we won’t just lose these species. We’ll lose the scrub, one of the most truly authentic and formerly ubiquitous Florida habitats will just go away,” Naranjo said. 

The study was published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

Christine Edwards of the Missouri Botanical Garden, Matthew Gitzendanner of the University of Florida, and Pamela and Douglas Soltis of the Florida Museum of Natural History are also co-authors on the study.

---

JOURNAL

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

DOI

10.1016/j.ympev.2024.108014 

ARTICLE TITLE

Abundant incongruence in a clade endemic to a biodiversity hotspot: Phylogenetics of the scrub mint clade (Lamiaceae)