There is no evidence that associations between adolescents' digital technology engagement and mental health problems have increased

ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

Research News

 

With the explosion in digital entertainment options over the past several decades and the more recent restrictions on outdoor and in-person social activities, parents may worry that excessive engagement with digital technology could have long-term effects on their children's mental health.

A new study published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, however, found little evidence for an increased association between adolescents' technology engagement and mental health problems over the past 30 years. The data did not consistently support the suggestion that the technologies we worry about most (e.g., smartphones) are becoming more harmful.

The new study, which included 430,000 U.K. and U.S. adolescents, investigated the links between social media use and depression, emotional problems, and conduct problems. It also examined the associations between television viewing and suicidality, depression, emotional problems, and conduct problems. Finally, the study explored the association between digital device use and suicidality.

Of the eight associations examined in this research, only three showed some change over time. Social media use and television viewing became less strongly associated with depression. In contrast, social media's association with emotional problems did increase, although only slightly. The study found no consistent changes in technology engagement's associations with conduct problems or suicidality.

"If we want to understand the relationship between tech and well-being today, we need to first go back and look at historic data--as far back as when parents were concerned too much TV would give their kids square eyes--in order to bring the contemporary concerns we have about newer technologies into focus," said Matti Vuorre, a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute and lead author on the paper.

The study also highlighted key factors preventing scientists from conclusively determining how technology use relates to mental health.

"As?more data accumulates on adolescents' use of emerging technologies, our knowledge of them?and their effects on mental health will become more precise," said Andy Przybylski, director of research at Oxford Internet Institute and senior author on the study. "So,?it's too soon to?draw?firm conclusions about the increasing, or declining, associations between social media and?adolescent mental health, and it is certainly way too soon to be making policy or regulation on this basis."?

"We need more transparent and credible collaborations between scientists and technology companies to unlock the answers. The data exists within the tech industry; scientists just need to be able to access it for neutral and independent investigation," Przybylski said.

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Reference: Vuorre, M., Orben, A., & Przybylski, A. (2021). There is no evidence that associations between adolescents' digital technology engagement and mental health problems have increased. Clinical Psychological Science. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702621994549

Chronic exposure to low levels of blast may be associated with neurotrauma

Exposure during occupational training is linked to biomarkers of brain damage

REMEMBER TRUMP DISMISSING THE BOMBING OF US TROOPS BY IRAN AFTER THE ASSISSINATION OF THE LEADER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS

WALTER REED ARMY INSTITUTE OF RESEARCH

Research News

 

Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research demonstrated that biomarkers associated with traumatic brain injury were elevated among law enforcement and military personnel, particularly in active duty participants with longer duration of service. Most notably, these elevated biomarker levels were observed in individuals without a diagnosed brain injury or concussion.

Some law enforcement and military personnel are regularly exposed to low levels of blast, particularly during training, due to the use of explosive charges and high caliber weapons. Understanding effects from these occupational exposures is a military health care priority to improve diagnosis and mitigation of ill effects.

While repeated exposure to low level blast is not known to result in clinically diagnosed traumatic brain injury, exposures have been linked to a series of reported symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, dizziness, memory difficulties, and tinnitus (ringing in the ears) -- collectively referred to as "breacher's brain" among members of affected communities.

This study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, measured neurotrauma biomarker concentrations in blood samples from 106 military and law enforcement personnel who were not actively engaged in training or physical activity at the time of blood collection and compared those concentrations with commercially available samples from individuals who were similar in sex and age but unlikely to have been exposed to blast.

"We found that five biomarkers previously associated with TBI and brain diseases were elevated among personnel when compared to controls," said Dr. Angela Boutte, lead author on the paper and a researcher at the WRAIR Brain Trauma Neuroprotection branch. "Given the difficulty of identifying and evaluating injury associated with repeated low level blast exposure, we hope these data are the first step in our collective goal to identify objective biomarkers as clinically relevant diagnostic tools."

Dr. Bharani Thangavelu and Dr. Walter Carr, WRAIR brain health researchers and co-authors, emphasized the potential impact of blast exposure experienced by military personnel stating, "Low level blast exposure in routine military training should not be expected to result in acute, gross behavioral deficits for the majority of personnel. However, repeated exposure across years does correlate with symptomology, especially when a history of chronic exposure is exacerbated by new, large magnitude exposures."

Efforts to identify and quantify the impact of blast and traumatic brain injury on Service Members have increased dramatically in recent years, including initiatives in response to Congressional mandates. Biomarkers of blast effects on brain health will be a useful tool in this effort, especially as tools that augment decision-making based on symptoms reported by personnel.

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About the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research is the oldest and most mission-diverse biomedical research laboratory in the Department of Defense. WRAIR provides unique research capabilities and innovative solutions to a range of force health and readiness challenges currently facing U.S. Service Members, along with threats anticipated during future operations. With research units in the state of Washington, Africa, Asia and the Caucasus region, WRAIR houses three centers, the Center for Infectious Disease Research, the Center for Military Psychiatry and Neuroscience and the Center for Enabling Capabilities. For more information, visit https://www.wrair.army.mil.

The WRAIR Brain Trauma Neuroprotection and Blast Induced Neurotrauma Branches develop ground-breaking preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic solutions to mitigate the effects of TBI at the point of injury to reduce morbidity and mortality.

Help for serious shopaholics

When does excessive buying become a disorder?

POST MODERN CAPITALISM IS CONSUMPTION NOT PRODUCTION

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: FLINDERS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY MIKE KYRIOS view more 

CREDIT: FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

For the first time, international experts in psychology have built a framework to diagnose Compulsive Buying-Shopping Disorder - promising help for people struggling to manage their spending behaviour and mental wellbeing.

The new guidelines, published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, confirms that excessive buying and shopping can be so serious as to constitute a disorder, giving researchers and clinicians new powers to develop more targeted interventions for this debilitating condition.

The international collaboration, led by Professor Mike Kyrios from Flinders University's Órama Institute for Mental Health and Wellbeing and Professor Astrid Müller from the Hannover Medical School in Germany, say evidence-based criteria for Compulsive Buying-Shopping Disorder (CBSD) are long overdue.

The phenomenon of excessive or uncontrolled buying or shopping has been described in a clinical setting for more than a century. Surprisingly, to date there is no formally accepted diagnosis for the disorder, despite being a highly prevalent, disabling and growing problem that contributes to overconsumption and debt.

Professor Kyrios describes the findings as a "game-changer" for research in the area of excessive buying, providing a springboard for much-needed treatments and better diagnostic processes in the future.

"In over 20 years, since I started investigating excessive buying, there has been an absence of commonly agreed diagnostic criteria which has hampered the perceived seriousness of the problem, as well as research efforts and consequently the development of evidence-based treatments," Professor Kyrios says.

This will now be possible with the world's leading experts agreeing on diagnostic criteria for the disorder, he says.

In the study, 138 international experts (researchers and clinicians) from 35 countries were evaluated to develop a consensus about proposed diagnostic criteria.

A key feature of the new diagnostic criteria is "excessive purchasing of items without utilising them for their intended purposes", with excessiveness described as "diminished control over buying/shopping". Another characteristic of the disorder is that "buying/shopping is used to regulate internal states, e.g., generating positive emotions or relieving negative mood".

"Clients who show excessive buying behaviour commonly have difficulties in regulating their emotions, so buying or shopping is then used to feel better. Paradoxically, if someone with Compulsive Buying-Shopping Disorder goes on a shopping trip, this will briefly improve their negative feelings, but will soon lead to strong feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment."

The Delphi research method was used to reach consensus from the panel of experts on a very complex psychological disorder.

"The Delphi technique is an ideal method to integrate diverse perspectives from international and interdisciplinary experts in the field of Compulsive Buying-Shopping Disorder," says co-investigator Dr Dan Fassnacht, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Flinders University.

"This helped us to developed diagnostic criteria featuring large agreement among experts in the field, and is an important milestone to better understand and treat this behaviour."

Dr Kathina Ali, Research Fellow at Flinders University and co-investigator of the study adds: "Previously, it was difficult to compare studies without agreed criteria. Now for the first time, we can start examining Compulsive Buying-Shopping Disorder more precisely which should help us the improve our treatments for this disabling condition."

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The study was an international collaboration with researchers from the Hannover Medical School at the University of Duisburg-Essen and University of Dresden in Germany funded by the German Academic Exchange Service and Universities Australia.

The paper 'Proposed diagnostic criteria for compulsive buying-shopping disorder: A Delphi expert consensus study' (2021) by Astrid Müller, Nora M. Laskowski, Patrick Trotzke, Kathina Ali, Daniel B Fassnacht, Martina de Zwaan, Matthias Brand, Michael Häder and Michael Kyrios has been published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, DOI: 10.1556/2006.2021.00013

Polarization and mobilization on social media affect infection figures

Model calculations reveal a link between political dissemination of information and Corona infections in the USA

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Research News

 

Measures to contain the Corona pandemic are the subject of politically charged debate and tend to polarize segments of the population. Those who support the measures motivate their acquaintances to follow the rules, while those who oppose them call for resistance in social media. But how exactly do politicization and social mobilization affect the incidence of infection? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have examined this question using the USA as an example. Their findings were published in Applied Network Science.

Limit crowds, keep a safe distance, and wear masks. Such non-pharmaceutical interventions, which should be implemented by everyone if possible in order to contain the incidence of infection, have played a central role since the beginning of the Corona pandemic. These measures have been disseminated via not only traditional media such as newspapers, radio, and television but also social media to a large extent. We can see that the appeals, recommendations, and regulations of governments are not only met with approval and understanding but also stimulate politically charged discussions, polarization, conspiracy narratives, and mobilization against the measures - often mixed with personal opinions.

But what does the rejection of Corona measures depend on? And is there a connection between the politicization of Corona topics in social networks and the development of the infection figures? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have investigated this using a mobilization model based on the example of Facebook in the USA. The subject of the study was a hypothetical political campaign in which the Democratic Party recommends non-pharmaceutical measures to combat the spread of Corona virus.

The results of the model calculations show that the hypothetical Democratic campaign would have spread to Democratic states three times faster than to Republican states. No matter in which direction, this political polarization makes it difficult to reach most segments of the population equally. "Accordingly, the acceptance and further dissemination of measures depends on whether the sender and receiver are politically like-minded," says Inho Hong, lead author of the study and a research grant holder in the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

The researchers then examined the relationship between social mobilization and the actual spread of COVID-19 cases in the USA. They found that, on one hand, mobilization can have a positive effect on pandemic response when large numbers of people join together online to support the regulations by disseminating them quickly and early. On the other hand, there are indications that the political charge and resulting actions may have exacerbated the incidence of infection in some geographies. For example, infection rates spiked starting in mid-April 2020 after Republicans demonstrated against the first lockdown and did not consistently comply with the specified hygiene rules. This means that political regulations such as lockdowns can have the opposite effect after they are reinterpreted by politically polarized opponents - and even exacerbate the situation.

The researchers used a mobilization model to simulate the processes of social mobilization. The data for this came from two sources: The "Facebook Social Connectedness Index", a measure for calculating social connections between people from different regions, and demographic information and data sets from election protocols of the New York Times. Based on this data, the researchers calculated how the Democratic campaign would have spread via Facebook and whether it would have led to political actions such as demonstrations.

In previous studies, researchers have used this mobilization model to examine how political actions have formed and spread on social networks in the USA. "The model has allowed us to show a link between the social divide in the USA, the spread of information via Facebook, and the evolution of the incidence of infection," says Alex Rutherford, senior research scientist and principal investigator with the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and co-author of the study.

The study results show that a political charging of the measures to combat the pandemic can have a counterproductive effect and even fuel the incidence of infection. "On social media, the mask was quickly re-interpreted as a political statement and used to polarize the population. Governments should therefore consider to whom and through which channels they disseminate information and whether they want to target mobilization," says Manuel Cebrian, Leader of the Digital Mobilization Research Group at the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and co-author of the study.

The focus of the study was on political attitudes of US citizens. Other possibly decisive social factors such as occupation, income, gender, and origin would have to be investigated in further studies. These could provide information for planning the communication of future measures - for example, government vaccination strategies.

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Max Planck Institute for Human Development

The Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin was founded in 1963. It is an interdisciplinary research institution dedicated to the study of human development and education. The Institute belongs to the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, one of the leading organizations for basic research in Europe.

Original investigation: When drug companies raise list prices, out-of-pocket costs for patients

When drug manufacturers raise the list price for brand-name prescription drugs, do patients' out-of-pocket costs rise too?

BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL

Research News

 

WHO Benjamin Rome, MD, Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and researcher in the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham and Women's Hospital; corresponding author of a paper published in JAMA Network Open.

WHAT When drug manufacturers raise the list price for brand-name prescription drugs, do patients' out-of-pocket costs rise too? A new study published in JAMA Network Open by Dr. Benjamin Rome and colleagues in the Brigham's Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics finds that more than half of patients may experience increases in out-of-pocket spending when drug prices increase.

Rome and co-authors studied 79 brand-name drugs and found that the "list price" charged by drug manufacturers increased 16.7 percent, the "net price" (after manufacturer rebates) by 5.4 percent, and average out-of-pocket costs by 3.5 percent from 2015 to 2017. Some commercially insured patients who pay only prescription drug copayments were insulated from the increase in drug's list prices, but patients with coinsurance or deductibles experienced out-of-pocket spending increases of 15 percent over this time, corresponding with the changes in prices. Among these patients, researchers found no evidence that manufacturer rebates offset out-of-pocket expenses.

"The exorbitant and unregulated prices set by drug manufacturers affect how much patients pay," said Rome. "Pharmaceutical companies often argue that the high list prices for their medicines are not important, but we found that many patients are responsible for coinsurance or deductibles, which exposes them to the annual price hikes that are common practice by many pharmaceutical companies."

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POST-SCARCITY ANARCHISM

BEFORE ECO SOCIALISM OR ECO MARXISM THERE WAS BOOKCHIN'S SOCIAL ECOLOGY

https://libcom.org/files/Bookchin-Murray-Post-Scarcity-Anarchism-1986.pdf

 

MARXISM AND ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS

TOWARD A RED AND GREEN POLITICAL ECONOMY

PAUL BURKETT

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM #11 

BOOK/PDF

 https://www.academia.edu/32106183/_Paul_Burkett_Marxism_and_Ecological_Economics_T_BookZZ_org_

KARL MARX ON TECHNOLOGY AND ALIENATION BOOK PDF

 https://www.academia.edu/35611406/Karl_Marx_on_Technology_and_Alienation_pdf

 

Cellphone converts into powerful chemical detector

With only $50 worth of components, an ordinary cellphone transforms into a sophisticated scientific instrument, capable of identifying chemicals, drugs, and pathogens

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Research News

 

IMAGE: PHOTO SHOWING RELATIVE SIZE OF SPECTROMETER (LEFT) AND CELLPHONE (RIGHT AND AT THE LOWER END OF THE SPECTROMETER). view more 

CREDIT: PETER RENTZEPIS

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2021 -- Scientists from Texas A&M have developed an extension to an ordinary cellphone that turns it into an instrument capable of detecting chemicals, drugs, biological molecules, and pathogens. The advance is reported in Reviews of Scientific Instruments, by AIP Publishing.

Modern cellphones include high-quality cameras capable of detecting low levels of light and eliminating digital noise through software processing of the captured images. Recent work has taken advantage of this sensitivity to produce cellphone cameras that can be used as portable microscopes and heart rate detectors.

The current advance is based on two types of spectroscopy. One type, known as fluorescence spectroscopy, measures the fluorescent light emitted by a sample. Another, known as Raman spectroscopy, is useful for detecting molecules, such as DNA and RNA, that do not fluoresce or emit light at very low intensities. Both types were used to develop this cellphone detector.

The system includes an inexpensive diode laser as a light source, oriented at right angles to the line connecting the sample and the cellphone camera. The right-angle arrangement prevents back reflected light from entering the camera.

"In addition, this right-angle excitation geometry has the advantage of being easier to use for the analysis of samples where a bulk property is to be measured," said author Peter Rentzepis.

The investigators studied a variety of samples using their constructed cellphone detector, including common solvents such as ethanol, acetone, isopropyl alcohol, and methanol. They recorded the Raman spectra of solid objects, including a carrot and a pellet of bacteria.

Carrots were chosen for this study because they contain the pigment carotene. The laser light used in their system has a wavelength that is easily absorbed by this orange pigment and by pigments in the bacteria.

The investigators compared the sensitivity of their system to the most sensitive industrial Raman spectrometers available. The ratio of signal to noise for the commercial instrument was about 10 times higher than the cellphone system.

The sensitivity of the cellphone detector could, however, be doubled by using a single RGB channel for analysis. The system has a rather limited dynamic range, but the investigators note that this problem can be easily overcome through several HDR, or High Dynamic Range, applications that combine images from multiple exposures.

The additional components, including the laser, add a cost of only about $50 to the price of a typical cellphone, making this system an inexpensive but accurate tool for detecting chemicals and pathogens in the field.

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The article "Cell-phone camera Raman spectrometer" is authored by Dinesh Dhankhar, Anushka Nagpal, and Peter M. Rentzepis. The article will appear in Review of Scientific Instruments on May 4, 2021 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0046281). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0046281.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Review of Scientific Instruments publishes novel advancements in scientific instrumentation, apparatuses, techniques of experimental measurement, and related mathematical analysis. Its content includes publication on instruments covering all areas of science including physics, chemistry, materials science, and biology. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/rsi.

Study reveals the gateway to conscious awareness

Michigan Medicine researchers find out how some sensory information breaks through to conscious experience

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Research News

 

During our waking hours, the brain is receiving a near-constant influx of sensory signals of various strengths. For decades, scientists have wondered why some signals rise to the light of conscious awareness while other signals of a similar strength remain in the dark shadows of unconsciousness. What controls the gate that separates the shadows and the light?

In a new study from the Department of Anesthesiology and Center for Consciousness Science at Michigan Medicine, researchers identify a key area in the cortex that appears to be the gate of conscious awareness.

"Information processing in the brain has two dimensions: sensory processing of the environment without awareness and the type that occurs when a stimulus reaches a certain level of importance and enters conscious awareness," explains Zirui Huang, Ph.D., research investigator in the Department of Anesthesiology.

Huang, along with lead researcher Anthony Hudetz, Ph.D. and their team, attempted to confirm that this switch occurs in a part of the brain called the anterior insular cortex, acting as a type of gate between low level sensory information and higher level awareness.

For the experiments, participants were put inside of a fMRI machine and administered the anesthetic drug propofol to control their level of consciousness. They were then asked to imagine themselves playing tennis, walking down a path or squeezing their hand, as well as asked to perform a motor activity (squeeze a rubber ball) as they gradually lost consciousness and regained it again after the propofol was stopped.

Previous research has shown that mental imagery produces brain activity similar to actually performing the activity. When participants imagine themselves playing tennis, the part of the brain responsible for controlling movement lights up. Other regions of the brain become deactivated when performing tasks, as mental attention is focused on the activity.

As the study participants began to lose consciousness, deactivations happened less frequently. When they completely lost consciousness, their corresponding brain areas also showed no activation in response to mental imagery tasks. As they regained some consciousness, they regained some activity related to mental imagery and with full consciousness shortly thereafter, their brain showed normal activation patterns.

Looking for the correlation across these states of consciousness revealed activation of the anterior insular cortex played a role in the successful switch between these activations and deactivations.

"A sensory stimulus will normally activate the anterior insular cortex," says Hudetz. "But when you lose consciousness, the anterior insular cortex is deactivated and network shifts in the brain that support consciousness are disrupted." The anterior insular cortex, he explains, might act as a filter that allows only the most important information to enter conscious awareness.

They sought to confirm their hypothesis with another classic psychological experiment, wherein a face is briefly flashed on a screen for a barely perceptible three hundredths of a second. The face image is followed by a noisy high contrast image designed to interrupt conscious processing of the face image. Participants were then asked whether they saw a face or not. Whether the face was consciously accessed was predicted by activation in the anterior insular cortex.

"Anterior insular cortex has continuously fluctuating activity," says Huang. "Whether you can detect a stimulus depends upon the state of the anterior insula when the information arrives in your brain: if the insula's activity is high at the point of stimulus, you will see the image. Based on evidence from these two experiments, we conclude that the anterior insular cortex could be a gate for conscious awareness."

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Paper cited: "Anterior insula regulates brain network transitions that gate conscious access," Cell Reports.

BLUE COLLAR LGBTQ

CN reviewing policy that withheld pension from gay widower

Duration: 02:10 

CN Rail says it's reviewing its policy that kept a Newfoundland man from getting his deceased same-sex partner's company pension as a surviving spouse. CN rejected his claim for years, but a legal expert says the company would have little chance in court.

CBC.CA

Climate action potential in waste incineration plants

ETH ZURICH

Research News

 

 

Over the coming decades, our economy and society will need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions as called for in the Paris Agreement. But even a future low-carbon economy will emit some greenhouse gases, such as in the manufacture of cement, steel, in livestock and crop farming, and in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. To meet climate targets, these emissions need to be offset. Doing so requires "negative emissions" technologies, by means of which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and permanently stored in underground repositories.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have now calculated the potential of one of these technologies for Europe: the combination of energy extraction from biomass with the capture and storage of CO2, or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) as it is known. The calculations revealed that if BECCS were exploited to its full potential, it would reduce carbon emissions in Europe by 200 million tonnes per year. This represents 5 percent of European emissions in 2018 and a substantial proportion of the 7.5 billion tonnes of CO2 that Europe has to cumulatively save by 2050 to reach its climate targets. As the authors of the study also point out, however, fully exploiting the calculated potential of BECCS will be challenging in practice.

Technology ready for action

BECCS involves capturing CO2 at the point sources where it is produced from biological material. In Europe, companies in the pulp and paper industry offer the greatest potential. Other sectors with potential are waste incineration plants (where around half the waste is from biomass), combined heat and power plants that run on wood, and biogas plants that use compostable municipal waste or plant and animal byproducts of food production that are not suitable for eating. Further sources are wastewater treatment plants and livestock manure.

"The technology for capturing carbon dioxide at such point sources is ready to go," explains Marco Mazzotti, Professor at the Institute of Energy and Process Engineering and head of the study. The carbon would then have to be transported to storage locations via a network yet to be created - in pipelines, for instance. "This is a major challenge," says Lorenzo Rosa, scientist in Mazzotti's group and lead author of the study. After all, CO2 is produced unevenly across Europe. Suitable storage sites are now present only in a few places, far from the CO2 point sources, such as underneath the seabed of the North Sea. However, this challenge is solvable if such a transport network were to be built up as quickly as possible, says Rosa.

Paper industry

As the calculations of the ETH researchers revealed, the potential of BECCS varies greatly from country to country. At one extreme is Sweden, which has a strong pulp and paper industry. By using BECCS, Sweden could capture almost three times as much carbon dioxide from biomass (and thus atmospheric origin) as it emits from fossil fuels today. "If Sweden were to exploit its full BECCS potential, it could trade emission certificates and thus offset emissions in other countries," says Rosa. Finland and Estonia could reduce their CO2 emissions by half, also possible thanks to a strong pulp and paper industry. In many other European countries, the potential is lower, with emissions reductions of around 5 percent or less.

For their calculations, the ETH scientists took into account only biomass that arises as a byproduct of industry or agriculture or as waste. They deliberately factored out crops grown for the primary purpose of energy production, a practice that is more widespread in other regions of the world than in Europe. Because such farming is in direct competition with food crops, it is not considered very sustainable. "With global food demand expected to double by 2050, there is a pressing need to develop BECCS technologies that do not rely on purpose-grown bio-energy plantations," says Rosa.

Waste as raw material

In Switzerland, the BECCS potential is about 6 percent. Waste incineration plants could make up a large portion of this total. "In many other regions of Europe, by contrast, this potential lies idle, as waste is dumped unused in landfills," says ETH Professor Mazzotti.

Waste incineration plants already fulfil three important functions today: they dispose of waste; they recycle raw materials, as far as possible; and they generate district heating and electricity. "Now a fourth function is being added: as significant negative emissions facilities, waste incineration plants can help reduce the carbon footprint of our society," says Mazzotti. At present, this potential is going untapped. For the most part, no carbon dioxide is being captured yet in paper, incineration or biogas plants. In the opinion of the ETH researchers, we should start doing so as soon as possible.

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Citrus derivative makes transparent wood 100 percent renewable

KTH, ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Research News

: AIMAGE PIECE OF THE TRANSPARENT WOOD IS DISPLAYED. view more 

 

T: CÉLINE MONTANARI

Since it was first introduced in 2016, transparent wood has been developed by researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology as an innovative structural material for building construction. It lets natural light through and can even store thermal energy.

The key to making wood into a transparent composite material is to strip out its lignin, the major light-absorbing component in wood. But the empty pores left behind by the absence of lignin need to be filled with something that restores the wood's strength and allows light to permeate.

In earlier versions of the composite, researchers at KTH's Wallenberg Wood Science Centre used fossil-based polymers. Now, the researchers have successfully tested an eco-friendly alternative: limonene acrylate, a monomer made from limonene. They reported their results in Advanced Science.

"The new limonene acrylate it is made from renewable citrus, such as peel waste that can be recycled from the orange juice industry," says lead author, PhD student Céline Montanari.

An extract from orange juice production is used to create the polymer that restores delignified wood's strength and allows light to pass through.

The new composite offers optical transmittance of 90 percent at 1.2 mm thickness and remarkably low haze of 30 percent, the researchers report. Unlike other transparent wood composites developed during the past five years, the material developed at KTH is intended for structural use. It shows heavy-duty mechanical performance: with a strength of 174 MPa (25.2 ksi) and elasticity of 17 GPa (or about 2.5 Mpsi).

Yet all along, sustainability has been a priority for the research group, says Professor Lars Berglund, the head of the KTH's Department of Fibre and Polymer Technology.

"Replacing the fossil-based polymers has been one of the challenges we have had in making sustainable transparent wood," Berglund says.

Environmental considerations and so-called green chemistry permeate the entire work, he says. The material is made with no solvents, and all chemicals are derived from bio-based raw materials.

The new advances could enable a yet unexplored range of applications, such as in wood nanotechnology, Berglund says. Possibilities include smart windows, wood for heat-storage, wood that has built-in lighting function - even a wooden laser.

"We have looked at where the light goes, and what happens when it hits the cellulose," Berglund says. "Some of the light goes straight through the wood, and makes the material transparent. Some of the light is refracted and scattered at different angles and gives pleasant effects in lighting applications."

The team is also working with Sergei Popov's photonics group at KTH to explore the nanotechnology possibilities even further.

CAPTION

Previous versions of the see-through wood developed at KTH, left, are seen together with the latest, more translucent type developed with citrus derivatives.

CREDIT

Céline Montanari

Surfaces can be designed with antiviral properties to mitigate COVID-19

An optimally designed surface can speed the decay of a viral load

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Research News

 

IMAGE: SURFACES WITH TALLER AND CLOSELY PACKED PILLARS WITH A CONTACT ANGLE OF AROUND 60 DEGREES SHOW THE STRONGEST ANTIVIRAL EFFECT OR SHORTEST DRYING TIME. view more 

CREDIT: S. CHATTERJEE, J.S. MURALLIDHARAN, A. AGRAWAL, AND R. BHARDWAJ

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2021 -- If a respiratory droplet from a person infected with COVID-19 lands on a surface, it becomes a possible source of disease spread. This is known as the fomite route of disease spread, in which the aqueous phase of the respiratory droplet serves as a medium for virus survival.

The lifespan of the respiratory droplet dictates how likely a surface is to spread a virus. While 99.9% of the droplet's liquid content evaporates within a few minutes, a residual thin film that allows the virus to survive can be left behind.

This begs the question: Is it possible to design surfaces to reduce the survival time of viruses, including the coronavirus that causes COVID-19? In Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, IIT Bombay researchers present their work exploring how the evaporation rate of residual thin films can be accelerated by tuning surfaces' wettability and creating geometric microtextures on them.

An optimally designed surface will make a viral load decay rapidly, rendering it less likely to contribute to the spread of viruses.

"In terms of physics, the solid-liquid interfacial energy is enhanced by a combination of our proposed surface engineering and augmenting the disjoining pressure within the residual thin film, which will speed drying of the thin film," said Sanghamitro Chatterjee, lead author and a postdoctoral fellow in the mechanical engineering department.

The researchers were surprised to discover that the combination of a surface's wettability and its physical texture determine its antiviral properties.

"Continuously tailoring any one of these parameters wouldn't achieve the best results," said Amit Agrawal, a co-author. "The most conductive antiviral effect lies within an optimized range of both wettability and texture."

While previous studies reported antibacterial effects by designing superhydrophobic (repels water) surfaces, their work indicates antiviral surface design can be achieved by surface hydrophilicity (attracts water).

"Our present work demonstrates that designing anti-COVID-19 surfaces is possible," said Janini Murallidharan, a co-author. "We also propose a design methodology and provide parameters needed to engineer surfaces with the shortest virus survival times."

The researchers discovered that surfaces with taller and closely packed pillars, with a contact angle of around 60 degrees, show the strongest antiviral effect or shortest drying time.

This work paves the way for fabricating antiviral surfaces that will be useful in designing hospital equipment, medical or pathology equipment, as well as frequently touched surfaces, like door handles, smartphone screens, or surfaces within areas prone to outbreaks.

"In the future, our model can readily be extended to respiratory diseases like influenza A, which spread through fomite transmission," said Rajneesh Bhardwaj, a co-author. "Since we analyzed antiviral effects by a generic model independent of the specific geometry of texture, it's possible to fabricate any geometric structures based on different fabrication techniques -- focused ion beams or chemical etching -- to achieve the same outcome."

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The article "Designing antiviral surfaces to suppress the spread of COVID-19" is authored by Sanghamitro Chatterjee, Janani Srree Murallidharan, Amit Agrawal, and Rajneesh Bhardwaj. It will appear in Physics of Fluids on May 4, 2021 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0049404). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0049404.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Physics of Fluids is devoted to the publication of original theoretical, computational, and experimental contributions to the dynamics of gases, liquids, and complex fluids. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/phf.

How the Full Moon briefly vanished, nearly a thousand years ago

Scott Sutherland 

According to records over nine hundred years old, witnesses reported that the Full Moon briefly vanished from the sky during a total lunar eclipse.

 Provided by The Weather Network

This image of the Super Blood Wolf Moon total lunar eclipse was shot on January 20, 2019, from Richmond, BC, before the Moon was completely enveloped in Earth's shadow. Credit: Tony Venezuela/UGC

According to the Peterborough Chronicle, which catalogued noteable events throughout out England's history, in the year 1110: "On the fifth night of the month of May the moon appeared shining brightly in the evening, and afterwards his light waned by little and little, and early in the night he was so wholly gone that neither light, nor circle, nor anything at all of him was to be seen, and thus it continued till near day, and then he appeared shining full and bright; he was a fortnight old the same day: the sky was very clear all the night, and the stars shone very brightly all over the heavens, and the fruit trees were greatly injured by that night's frost."

How did this vanishing act occur, though?

During a total lunar eclipse, the Moon passes directly through Earth's shadow. First, it simply grows dinner, then it appears as though a great disk of darkness slowly advances across its face until it is completely immersed in the darkest part of the shadow, the umbra. That is when we see it shine with the familiar dusky red colour we've come to expect during one of these events.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkThis exaggerated diagram shows how Earth's shadow is split into two parts, the dark red umbra and the more diffuse penumbra. Credit: NASA

At no time does the Moon appear to vanish, though. So, what happened during the May 5, 1110 eclipse to cause the Moon to disappear from sight?

The red colouration we see during a total lunar eclipse is from sunlight filtering through the planet's atmosphere. Essentially, it is the red tinge of every sunrise and sunset happening on Earth at the time, shining into the umbra and onto the Moon, all at once.

© Provided by The Weather Network

This simulated view shows what an astronaut on the Moon would see during a total lunar eclipse — all of Earth's sunrises and sunsets, all at once. Credit: NASA

What happens, though, if Earth's atmosphere doesn't allow any light to escape and shine into the umbra?

This appears to be what happened in 1110. As reported in a study published in 2020, scientists found that a series of eruptions of Japan's Mount Asama, starting two years before in August to October of 1108, may have been responsible.

During powerful volcanic eruptions, ash and other fine particles are blasted up into the stratosphere, high above the ground, where they can linger for years. The extra scattering of light produced by these particles can treat us to some vivid red sunsets. At the same time, though, they can completely scatter the visible light before it can escape back into space and shine into the umbra. Thus, a uniform blackness would replace the umbra's typical hue, and an eclipsed Moon could appear to vanish from the sky.

© Provided by The Weather Network

Although such a 'dark' lunar eclipse is extremely rare, it is possible that one could happen again. It only requires a sufficiently powerful volcanic eruption and an appropriately timed eclipse.

The next total lunar eclipse is the Super Blood Flower Moon, which will be visible across parts of Canada on the morning of May 26, 2021, with western regions of the country getting the best view.

This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by The Weather Network that features unique and informative stories from host Chris Mei.