Jellyfish shown to learn from past experience for the first time

by University of Copenhagen

A Caribbean box jellyfish. Black dots embedded low on the bell are the animal’s visual 

sensory and learning center called rhopalia. Credit: Jan Bielecki

Jellyfish are more advanced than once thought. A new study from the University of Copenhagen has demonstrated that Caribbean box jellyfish can learn at a much more complex level than ever imagined—despite only having one thousand nerve cells and no centralized brain. The finding changes our fundamental understanding of the brain and could enlighten us about our own mysterious brains.

After more than 500 million years on Earth, the immense evolutionary success of jellyfish is undeniable. Still, we've always thought of them as simple creatures with very limited learning abilities.

The prevailing opinion is that more advanced nervous systems equate with more advanced learning potential in animals. Jellyfish and their relatives, collectively known as cnidarians, are considered to be the earliest living animals to develop nervous systems and to have fairly simple nervous systems and no centralized brain.

For more than a decade, neurobiologist Anders Garm has been researching box jellyfish, a group of jellyfish commonly known for being among the world's most poisonous creatures. But these lethal jellies are interesting for another reason as well: it turns out that they are not quite as simple as once believed. And this shakes our entire understanding of what simple nervous systems are capable of.

"It was once presumed that jellyfish can only manage the simplest forms of learning, including habituation—i.e., the ability to get used to a certain stimulation, such as a constant sound or constant touch. Now, we see that jellyfish have a much more refined ability to learn, and that they can actually learn from their mistakes. And in doing so, modify their behavior," says Anders Garm, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Biology.

One of the most advanced attributes of a nervous system is the ability to change behavior as a result of experience—to remember and learn. The research team, headed by Jan Bielecki of Kiel University and Anders Garm, set out to test this ability in box jellyfish. The findings have just been published in the journal Current Biology.

A thousand nerve cells are more capable than once thought

The scientists studied the Caribbean box jellyfish, Tripedalia cystophora, a fingernail-sized medusa that lives in Caribbean mangrove swamps. Here, they use their impressive visual system including 24 eyes to hunt for tiny copepods among mangrove roots. While making for a good hunting grounds, the web of roots is also a dangerous place for soft-bodied jellies.

So, as the small box jellyfish approach the mangrove roots, they turn and swim away. Should they veer too soon, they won't have enough time to catch any copepods. But if they turn too late, they risk bumping into the root and damaging their gelatinous bodies. Thus, assessing distances is crucial for them. And here, contrast is the key, as the researchers discovered:

"Our experiments show that contrast, i.e., how dark the root is in relation to the water, is used by the jellyfish to assess distances to roots, which allows them to swim away at just the right moment. Even more interesting is that the relationship between distance and contrast changes on a daily basis due to rainwater, algae and wave action," says Anders Garm.

"We can see that as each new day of hunting begins, box jellyfish learn from the current contrasts by combining visual impressions and sensations during evasive maneuvers that fail. So, despite having a mere one thousand nerve cells—our brains have roughly 100 billion—they can connect temporal convergences of various impressions and learn a connection—or what we call associative learning. And they actually learn about as quickly as advanced animals like fruit flies and mice."

Credit: University of Copenhagen

The new research results break with previous scientific perceptions of what animals with simple nervous systems are capable of:

"For fundamental neuroscience, this is pretty big news. It provides a new perspective on what can be done with a simple nervous system. This suggests that advanced learning may have been one of the most important evolutionary benefits of the nervous system from the very beginning," says Anders Garm.

Seeking the brain cells where memory is housed

The research team has also shown where the learning is happening in these box jellyfish. This has given them unique opportunities for how to now study the precise changes that occur in a nerve cell when it is involved in advanced learning.

"We hope that this can become a supermodel system for looking at cellular processes in the advanced learning of all sorts of animals. We are now in the process of trying to pinpoint exactly which cells are involved in learning and memory formation. Upon doing so, we will be able to go in and look at what structural and physiological changes occur in the cells as learning takes place," says Anders Garm.

If the scientists are able to pinpoint the exact mechanisms in jellyfish involved in learning, the next step will be to find out whether it applies specifically to jellies or if it can be found in all animals.

"Eventually, we will look for the same mechanisms in other animals, to see if this is how memory works in general," says the researcher.

This kind of groundbreaking knowledge could be used for a wealth of purposes, according to Anders Garm.

"Understanding something as enigmatic and immensely complex as the brain is in itself an absolutely amazing thing. But there are unimaginably many useful possibilities. One major problem in the future will undoubtedly be various forms of dementia. I don't claim that we are finding the cure for dementia, but if we can gain a better understanding of what memory is, which is a central problem in dementia, we may be able to lay a building block to better understand the disease and perhaps counteract it," concludes the researcher.

About Tripedalia cystophora

• Box jellyfish are a class of jellyfish known for being among the most poisonous animals in the world. They use their venom to catch fish and large shrimp. Tripedalia cystophora has a somewhat milder venom and feeds on tiny copepods.
• Box jellyfish do not have a centralized brain like most animals. Instead, they have four parallel brain-like structures, with approximately holds a thousand nerve cells in each. A human brain has approximately 100 billion nerve cells.
• Box jellyfish have twenty four eyes distributed among their four brain-like structures. Some of these eyes are image forming, providing box jellyfish with more complex vision than other types of jellyfish.
• To find their way through murky mangroves, four of Tripedalia cystophora's eyes look up through the surface of the water and navigate using the mangrove canopies.
• Tripedalia cystophora is one of the smallest box jellyfish species, with a body of only about one centimeter in diameter. It lives in the Caribbean Sea and Central Indo-Pacific.
• Unlike many jellyfish species, Tripedalia cystophora actually mates as the male captures the female with its tentacles. A female's eggs are then fertilized in their gut system, where they also develop into larvae.

A Caribbean box jellyfish. Credit: Jan Bielecki

The researchers replicated mangrove swamp conditions in the laboratory, where box jellyfish were placed in a behavioral arena. Here, the researchers manipulated jellyfish behavior by changing the contrast conditions to see what effect this had on their behavior.

They learned that jellyfish learning takes place through failed evasions. That is, they learn from misinterpreting contrast and bumping into roots. Here they combined the visual impression and mechanical shock they got whenever they bumped into a root—and in doing so, learned when to veer away.

"Our behavioral experiments demonstrate that three to five failed evasive maneuvers are enough to change the jellyfish's behavior so that they no longer hit the roots. It is interesting that this is roughly the same repetition rate that a fruit fly or mouse needs to learn," says Anders Garm.

The learning was further verified through electrophysiology and classical conditioning experiments, which also showed where in the jellyfish's nervous system the learning takes place.

The study was conducted by Jan Bielecki from Kiel University and Anders Garm, Sofie Katrine Dam Nielsen and Gösta Nachman from the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen.

More information: Jan Bielecki et al, Associative learning in the box jellyfish Tripedalia cystophora, Current Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.056. www.cell.com/current-biology/f … 0960-9822(23)01136-3

Journal information: Current Biology 

Provided by University of Copenhagen Team discovers new box jellyfish species in Hong Kong

 

A possible explanation for an increasing trend in the cyclone Genesis Potential Index in the Arabian Sea

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

Tropical Cyclones (TC) in the Arabian Sea and its changes during 1979–1997 and 

1998–2021. a TC genesis locations in the AS, (b)TC Genesis Potential Index (GPI) 

during post-monsoon season (October–November–December; OND) from 1979 to 2021,

 (c) Number of cyclones (Depressions are not included) in the AS during the post-monsoon

 season. The black dash box in (a) indicates the TC genesis region (60–78°E & 5–20°N) 

while the filled colors indicate the intensity (category) of the TC. The dashed black and red

 lines in (b) indicate the trend lines and "r" and "p" indicate the regression slope and its 

significance, respectively, in each period. p values are computed using the student's 

two-tailed t-test. 

Credit: npj Climate and Atmospheric Science (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41612-023-00476-2

A team of Earth scientists and oceanographers affiliated with several institutions in India, working with a colleague from the U.S., has developed possible explanations for some of the factors involved in the observed increasing trend in the cyclone Genesis Potential Index (GPI) in the Arabian Sea.

In their study, reported in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, the group used data from multiple other studies to learn more about the drivers of cyclonic GPI in the Arabian Sea.

Prior research has suggested that climate change is going to have a major impact on weather around the world. Much effort has gone into studying such changes but they are still difficult to predict. One change already occurring is a reduction in the amount of monsoon rainfall over the Indian subcontinent over the past several decades.

The region has also seen an increase in extreme rainfall events, changes in heat waves and droughts and the number of cyclones that come ashore. Prior research has also shown a dramatic change in the potential for cyclone formation over the Arabian Sea during roughly the same time period.

As the researchers note, it is easy to pin such changes on climate change—much more difficult is to explain just what is happening as the climate changes at a more local level. In this new effort, the research team sought to find all of the factors, or as many as possible, that lead to an increase in cyclonic GPI in the Arabian Sea.

They note that prior research has shown that the factors that lead to changes in GPI in general are related to changes in water temperature, how much heat the ocean is holding, and changes in wind, including rotation near the sea surface. This, they suggest, indicates that one or more of these factors must be responsible for the GPI change in the Arabian Sea.

The team found that over the past 30 years, all such drivers (except wind rotation) would seem to favor an increase in cyclone formation. That led them to ask why that is. They found a shift in the "warm Arctic, cold Eurasian" pattern—a pattern of warm sea surface temperatures over the Arctic Ocean that have been associated with a mass of cold sea surface temperatures over Eurasia. The pattern is believed to be connected to the circulation of upper air over the entire region.

As to why such changes there have occurred, the team cannot say, other than to suggest that it is likely tied to global warming.

More information: P. J. Vidya et al, Intensification of Arabian Sea cyclone genesis potential and its association with Warm Arctic Cold Eurasia pattern, npj Climate and Atmospheric Science (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41612-023-00476-2

Journal information: npj Climate and Atmospheric Science 

© 2023 Science X Network

Winds of change bring winter rain to eastern Arabia

 

Pollen analysis suggests dispersal of modern humans occurred during a major Pleistocene warming spell

by University of Kansas

Map showing theorized migration routes of early Homo sapiens from Africa across

 Eurasia. Credit: Ted Goebel

It's an Ice Age mystery that's been debated for decades among anthropologists: Exactly when and how did the flow of Homo sapiens in Eurasia happen? Did a cold snap or a warming spell drive early human movement from Africa into Europe and Asia?

A study appearing in Science Advances compares Pleistocene vegetation communities around Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia, to the oldest archaeological traces of Homo sapiens in the region. The researchers use the "remarkable evidence" to tell a compelling story from 45,000–50,000 years ago with new detail: how the first humans migrated across Europe and Asia.

The new pollen data suggest warming temperatures supported forests that expanded into Siberia and facilitated early human migration there, at roughly the same time as more and western areas of Eurasia.

"This research addresses long-standing debates regarding the environmental conditions that early Homo sapiens faced during their migration into Europe and Asia around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago," said co-author Ted Goebel, professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas. "It provides critical insights into environmental conditions at Lake Baikal, using pollen records to reveal surprising warmth during this period."

Indeed, the pollen data suggest that the dispersal of people occurred during some of the highest temperatures in the late Pleistocene, which also would have featured higher humidity. The ancient pollen record shows coniferous forests and grasslands characterized the region, able to support foraging and hunting by humans. Goebel said the environmental data, combined with archaeological evidence, tell a new story.

"This contradicts some recent archaeological perspectives in Europe," said the KU researcher. "The key factor here is accurate dating, not just of human fossils and animal bones associated with the archaeology of these people, but also of environmental records, including from pollen. What we have presented is a robust chronology of environmental changes in Lake Baikal during this time period, complemented by a well-dated archaeological record of Homo sapiens' presence in the region."

Chikoi River valley, Trans-Baikal region. Credit: Ted Goebel

Goebel's collaborators were lead author Koji Shichi of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute in Kochi, Japan; Masami Izuho of Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji, Japan; and Kenji Kashiwaya of Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan.

While the pollen analysis was carried out in Japan, Goebel and Izuho tied the pollen data to important evidence in the archaeological record of early human migration.

Goebel said the emergence of full-fledged Homo sapiens in the archaeological record corresponds to changes in culture and behavior. Early modern humans of this period were making stone tools on long, slender blades, working bone, antler and ivory to craft tools—including some of the first bone needles with carved eyelets for sewing and early bone and antler spear points.

"Some of us argue that as the anatomical changes were occurring, as evidenced by the fossil record, there was a simultaneous shift in behavior and cognition," Goebel said.

"These early humans were becoming more creative, innovative and adaptable. This is when we start to observe significant changes in the archaeological record, such as cave paintings. We also find mobile art, like the early carvings known as Venus figurines. In Central Europe, there's even an ivory sculpture dating back to this early period, depicting a lion-headed man. It's not just replicating nature; it's about creative expression, inventing new things, exploring new places."

At least one human bone has been found in the region that dates to the era, according to the KU researcher.

"There is one human fossil from Siberia, although not from Lake Baikal but farther west, at a place called Ust'-Ishim," Goebel said. "Morphologically, it is human, but more importantly, it's exceptionally well-preserved. It has been directly radiocarbon-dated and has yielded ancient DNA, confirming it as a representative of modern Homo sapiens, distinct from Neanderthals or Denisovans, or other pre-modern archaic humans."

Goebel said the earliest human inhabitants of the area likely would have lived in extended nuclear families or small bands, as they seem to have done in other areas of Eurasia. But because so much archaeological evidence is degraded, it's difficult to know with certainty.

"At Ust'-Ishim in Siberia, we have evidence of a fully modern human co-existing with the sites we've been discussing," he said.

"However, Ust'-Ishim was an isolated discovery, found by geologists eroding from a riverbank. We lack information about its archaeological context, whether it was part of a settlement or simply a solitary bone washed downstream. Consequently, linking that single individual to the archaeological sites in the Baikal region is tenuous—do they represent the same population? We think so, but definitely need more evidence."

More information: Koji Shichi, Climate amelioration, abrupt vegetation recovery, and the dispersal of Homo sapiens in Baikal Siberia, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi0189. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi0189

Journal information: Science Advances 

Provided by University of Kansas 

Stone tools reflect three waves of migration of the earliest Homo sapiens into Europe

 

The deep genetic structure of Africa reveals unique ancestry of inhabitants of the Angolan Namib

by Max Planck Society

Namib desert in the southwest of Angola. Credit: Sandra Oliveira

Africa is the birthplace of modern humans and the continent with the highest level of genetic diversity. While ancient DNA studies are revealing some aspects of the genetic structure of Africa before the spread of food production, issues concerning DNA preservation have limited the insights from ancient DNA.

Hoping to find clues in modern populations, researchers from a Portuguese-Angolan TwinLab ventured into the Angolan Namib desert—a remote, multi-ethnic region where different traditions met. The work is published in the journal Science Advances.

"We were able to locate groups which were thought to have disappeared more than 50 years ago," says Jorge Rocha, a population geneticist from Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos (CIBIO, University of Porto) who led the fieldwork, together with Angolan anthropologists Samuel and Teresa Aço from the Centro de Estudos do Deserto (CEDO).

Among the communities the team encountered are the Kwepe, a pastoral group who used to speak a language known as Kwadi. "Kwadi was a click-language that shared a common ancestor with the Khoe languages spoken by foragers and herders across southern Africa," explains Anne-Maria Fehn, a linguist from CIBIO who participated in the fieldwork and was able to interview what may well be the last two speakers of Kwadi.

"Khoe-Kwadi languages have been linked to a prehistoric migration of eastern African pastoralists," adds Rocha, whose research focuses on southern African population history.

In addition, the team contacted Bantu-speaking groups that are part of the dominant pastoral tradition of southwest Africa, as well as marginalized groups whose origins have been associated with a foraging tradition, distinct from that of the neighboring Kalahari peoples, and whose original language was supposedly lost.

The last two speakers of Kwadi. Credit: Jorge Rocha

Kuvale settlement in Virei, Namibe province of Angola. Credit: Sandra Oliveira

Modern DNA research can complement ancient DNA studies

The team's new study shows that the inhabitants of the Angolan Namib are quite divergent from other modern populations but also highly structured among themselves.

"In agreement with our previous studies on the maternally-inherited DNA, most genome-wide diversity segregates according to socio-economic status. A lot of our efforts were placed in understanding how much of this local variation and global excentricity was caused by genetic drift—a random process that disproportionally affects small populations—and by admixture from vanished populations," says Sandra Oliveira, a researcher at the University of Bern in Switzerland who worked with these populations during her Ph.D. and post-doc studies with Rocha and Mark Stoneking at CIBIO and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany

The team demonstrated that besides the high impact of genetic drift, which contributed to differences among neighboring groups of different socio-economic status, the descendants of Kwadi speakers and the marginalized communities of the Namib Desert retain a unique Pre-Bantu ancestry that is only found in populations from the Namib desert.

Mark Stoneking, who contributed to the earliest genome-wide studies on southern African foragers and participated in this study says, "Previous studies revealed that foragers from the Kalahari desert descend from an ancestral population who was the first to split from all other extant humans. Our results consistently place the newly identified ancestry within the same ancestral lineage but suggest that the Namib-related ancestry diverged from all other southern African ancestries, followed by a split of northern and southern Kalahari ancestries."

With this new information, the researchers could reconstruct the fine-scale histories of contact emerging from the migration of Khoe-Kwadi-speaking pastoralists and Bantu-speaking farmers into southern Africa. Moreover, the study demonstrates that modern DNA research targeting understudied regions of high ethnolinguistic diversity can complement ancient DNA studies in probing the deep genetic structure of the African continent.

More information: Sandra Oliveira et al, Genome wide variation in the Angolan Namib desert reveals unique Pre-Bantu ancestry, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh3822. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh3822

Journal information: Science Advances 

Provided by Max Planck Society Human ancestry has been shaped by mixing and matching alleles, show two recent studies

New asphalt binder alternative is less toxic, more sustainable than conventional blend

by Theresa Grant, Arizona State University

The ASU Parking and Transit Services team adds final touches to the AirDuo 

asphalt patch in the Gammage Auditorium parking lot.

 From left: Douglas Dexter, maintenance technician, PTS; Benjamin Fulkerson,

 maintenance technician, PTS; Associate Professor Ellie Fini, SSEBE; 

and Roy Armenta, maintenance technician. One of the key advantages of the 

patching mixture is that it emits fewer fumes than traditional asphalt and is 

therefore safer for workers. Credit: Bobbi Ramirez/Arizona State University

Asphalt is primarily known for use in roadways, but it's also used to pave playgrounds, bicycle paths, running tracks and tennis and basketball courts—all platforms for activities where breathing toxic fumes can be dangerous. Outdoor use on driveways, rooftops and parking lots, especially in the Arizona sun, also can lead to toxic fume exposure.

A team from Arizona State University, led by Associate Professor Ellie Fini in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment (SSEBE), has developed AirDuo, a new, patent-pending asphalt binder that not only diminishes toxic fumes of the overall asphalt-surfaced area, but also increases sustainability.

But perhaps most importantly for Fini, it reduces health hazards for those exposed to asphalt-surfaced areas, especially for those performing the installation.

AirDuo's first local trial was initiated in late August as a patch in ASU's Gammage Auditorium parking lot. ASU Facility Maintenance helped get the research out of the lab and into the parking lot, facilitating the lab-to-market transition. On the morning of the install, the Parking and Transit Services team completed the patchwork in a few hours.

Attendees of a theater production at Gammage the same night gave the patch a workout as they arrived and departed, and Castro reported to Fini the next day that the patch had "held up great."

Fini envisions the new low-carbon, bio-based binder will ultimately be used for all asphalt paving products, not just patches.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration notes that about a half-million workers annually are exposed to fumes from asphalt, with health effects that include headache, skin rash, fatigue, throat and eye irritation, cough and skin cancer.

Asphalt binder is the glue that holds together the stones, sand, gravel and other aggregates in asphalt pavements. The AirDuo binding mixture is composed of low-carbon, bio-based materials that are an alternative to more toxic petroleum products, also known as bitumen. Moreover, AirDuo acts as a toxicity filter for the overall product.

After the traditional blend of aggregates and binder is laid on the roadways, the stress from heat, sun, weather and traffic causes the release of breakdown products—molecules that vaporize—some of which are odorous, highly toxic or both.

"We breathe 11,000 liters of air per day," Fini said. "But our nose isn't smart enough to know when the air may be dangerous for our health. That new-car smell people like? That may not be good for your lungs. We run away from a smelly trash can, but the pleasant smell or fumes from certain materials can be far more toxic."

Fini and Judith Klein-Seetharaman, a professor in both ASU's College of Health Solutions and School of Molecular Sciences, collaborated to review literature about the health effects of various asphalt mixtures and mapped the effects on a network of biomarkers. Citing specific contaminants present in asphalt, the team discovered that all are not created equal and that different formulas have different levels of toxicity—the majority of which have not been studied comprehensively.

According to Klein-Seetharaman, there have not been sufficient studies of the long-term effects of asphalt-related toxins on the body.

"To give justice to the complexity of the problem, we need a systems-level view of the interactions between asphalt fume components and their biological targets," Klein-Seetharaman said. "There are thousands of molecules present in asphalt, as well as thousands of biomolecular targets inside the human body that can bind to these molecules and respond to their presence with downstream biological effects, some of which can lead to adverse health outcomes."

Fini has conducted ongoing research to investigate alternative asphalt binders, including a study published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering on how iron-rich biochar absorbs volatile organic compounds from asphalt surfaces, and a second study published in Advanced Sustainable Systems on how it is both an eco-friendly and cost-effective alternative to bitumen components.

"When we use algae to make AirDuo, as we did from last year's November harvest from ASU's Center for Algae Technology and Innovation (AzCATI), it can be carbon negative," said Fini, who collaborated on the algal components of the project with Peter Lammers, a research professor in SSEBE; Taylor Weiss, a Polytechnic School assistant professor; and Shuguang Deng, a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy (SEMTE).

"The use of algae in the AirDuo binder provides a critically important environmental benefit," Lammers said. "As algal photosynthesis removes carbon dioxide from the air, the AirDuo manufacturing process retains that carbon in an improved asphalt product relative to petroleum-derived binders."

"We plan to scale up the process by growing algae on wastewater, thus providing an additional ecosystem service," he said of future plans for substituting algae for petroleum products in other roadway projects.

Other bio-based materials the team has used include biochar from fire-reduction efforts in California and northern Arizona. Process sustainability depends on the feedstock sourcing and, in the case of AirDuo, the use of biomass waste from forest residue, according to Fini.

"This promotes resource conservation and waste valorization, as well as enhances public health and safety—all while providing a more sustainable pavement material."

SSEBE Professor Mahour Parast oversaw sourcing and supply chain to enable scale-up for AirDuo. DPE Materials, the team's partner based in Yuma, brought 10 40-pound bags of AP1 (AirDuo Paving) for the patch at Gammage.

"AirDuo represents a complete sustainability package," Fini explained. "We are using biomass as our feedstock—it has already pulled CO2 from the air prior to harvesting. The AP1 helps create a sustainable built environment and provides reduced health risks to both asphalt workers and those using asphalt-surfaced areas."

Fini's lab studies showed a nearly 70% reduction in emission when AirDuo was used. While not a one-to-one translation to the field, according to Fini, it clearly illustrates toxic fume reduction. The mix also had notably less smell than any other mix made in the plant.

The research on bitumen asphalt binder alternatives began with a 2019 grant from the National Science Foundation on algae-derived products. A grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture with a focus on emission reduction and environmental health supported the research and also helped with the lab-to-market transition.

"Our next steps are larger projects on the ASU campus, and then perhaps in Flagstaff and Tucson. Our team invites other states and institutions to join the AP1 (AirDuo Paving) campaign and test it on their sites, too," Fini said.

But Fini and her team are delighted ASU is leading the effort.

"It is an Arizona-born technology inspired by Arizona's sun and heat," Fini said. "Arizona is ideal for growing our feedstock algae, and also a great testbed for AirDuo. With 320 days of sun in the Valley, the smell of asphalt-surfaced areas never stops.

"You can verify this the next time you get out of your car in an open parking lot in summer."

More information: Masoumeh Mousavi et al, Iron-Rich Biochar to Adsorb Volatile Organic Compounds Emitted from Asphalt-Surfaced Areas, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c06292

Farideh Pahlavan et al, Bio‐Carbon as a Means of Carbon Management in Roads, Advanced Sustainable Systems (2023). DOI: 10.1002/adsu.202300054

Journal information: ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 

Provided by Arizona State University 

Improving asphalt road pavement with nano-engineered particles

 

Self-driving cars will be part of the future, but researchers fear we are leaving the disabled behind

by University of Warwick

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Self-driving cars will be part of the future, but researchers fear people with disabilities are being left behind in the development of the technology.

Over the past two decades, transportation has become more accessible, but people with disabilities still face significant barriers to accessing these services. While self-driving cars (also known as autonomous vehicles) have the potential to dramatically improve the lives of those with disabilities, helping them to travel independently, experts fear their views are being neglected in the development of the new technology.

To address this, researchers from Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at The University of Warwick and leading disability charities have considered the impact of self-driving taxis on people with disabilities, an area that has seen limited improvement over recent years. Their findings will be presented at 26th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems held in Bilboa, Spain, Sept. 24–28.

They found that the absence of a driver was strongly correlated with feelings and perceptions of increased travel freedom, indicating that autonomous taxis could provide greater accessibility for those with disabilities—without the limitations or biases associated with their current experiences with traditional taxis and drivers.

The team also considered current issues people who have disabilities face with transport—particularly in booking taxi journeys. Participants expressed concerns about driver attitudes and behavior as negative experiences with traditional taxis.

Lead author Shravani Sharma, Ph.D. Researcher, WMG, University of Warwick, said, "Our research highlights the current issues those with disabilities face when booking taxis—with many reporting that their trips have been canceled due to their use of a wheelchair. Drivers might feel the extra time wheelchairs add to journeys would reduce their earnings. While there are laws in place preventing black cab drivers canceling journeys for those with wheelchairs—there are no such laws for other companies.

"Self-driving taxis could provide those with disabilities more freedom and reduce fear of discrimination. So, it's crucial we listen to their opinions in developing the technology

"We worked with charities including CASBA (Citizen Advocacy South Birmingham Area), which supports people with learning difficulties, Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and Cerebral Palsy Midlands to name a few, providing a wide range of voices and expertise. This represented many different visible and non-visible disabilities—including blindness, mobility problems, hearing loss, cerebral palsy and ADHD among others. The perspectives of more than 39,000 different organization members were included.

"Alongside the current problems those with disabilities face when booking taxis, we highlighted their concerns for future, self-driving taxis. The main concern was the availability of human assistance to meet specific user needs throughout the journey."

Examples of concerns for future, self-driving taxis:

• The challenges faced by individuals in wheelchairs when attempting to enter a car without assistance are multifaceted. Tasks include placing their wheelchair inside the car, securing themselves within it, disassembling and carefully navigating the wheelchair upon departure.
• For those with visual impairments, the struggle lies in identifying their vehicle within a crowded setting, such as a bustling railway station.
• The loss of social interactions and the light-hearted atmosphere during journeys. Many individuals with disabilities unfortunately contend with feelings of loneliness and isolation, making everyday conversations a vital source of companionship and comfort throughout their journey.

Shravani added, "It is also important that manufacturers consider the wide range of disabilities and the intricate needs for passengers—remembering that not all disabilities are visible."

Dr. Roger Woodman, Head of Human Factors, at the University of Warwick, said, "Self-driving vehicles will open up driving to people that have never been on their own in a vehicle before. It has the potential to transform their lives—with reduced reliance on others to help them get from A to B.

"Driving is a very complex task to complete, so self-driving cars could enable someone with a disability, for example, cerebral palsy or tremors, to simply press a button and go."

Ginny Cullen, CEO of CASBA, added, "CASBA exists to ensure people with learning disabilities speak up for themselves, express their views, make their choices, and are valued as citizens. We were therefore delighted to have had the opportunity to be included in this research on new autonomous vehicles to ensure driving is accessible to all."

More information: Shravani Sharma et al, Exploring the Impact of Autonomous Taxis on People with Disabilities: www.researchgate.net/publicati … le_with_Disabilities

Provided by University of Warwick Self-driving taxis could be a setback for those with different needs – unless companies embrace accessible design now

 

Fast fashion's waste problem could be solved by recycled textiles but brands need to help boost production

by Quynh Do Nhu and Mark Stevenson, The Conversation

Credit: Fascinadora/Shutterstock

Earlier this year, fast fashion retailer Zara released its first womenswear collection made of recycled poly-cotton textile waste. The collection is available for sale in 11 countries, helping clothing made of blended textile waste reach the mass market.

The collection came about after Zara's parent company Inditex invested in textile recycler Circ. This follows a €100 million (£87 million) deal between Inditex and Finnish textile recycler Infinited Fiber Company for 30% of its recycled output. Zara's fast fashion rival H&M has also entered a five-year contract with Swedish textile recycler Renewcell to acquire 9,072 tons of recycled fiber—equivalent to 50 million T-shirts.

There is a growing appetite among some fashion retailers to turn old clothes into high-quality fibers, and then into new clothes. But even though well-known brands are developing lines using recycled textiles, this movement has not yet reached the scale needed to have a truly global impact.

Before this recent growth in interest in textile recycling, fast fashion's efforts to tackle throwaway attitudes towards affordable clothing often simply added to the global textile waste mountain—especially in developing countries, say campaigners like Greenpeace.

For example, a skirt deposited at a London chain store under a take-back scheme was reportedly found in a landfill in Bamako, Mali. This is not an isolated incident, it's a sector-wide problem that sees old clothes being collected but not disposed of properly. An estimated 15 million used clothing items are shipped to Ghana each week from around the world and many end up in the country's landfills. This is often referred to as waste colonialism.

The fast fashion industry needs greater access to recycled textiles to address this problem. But this means having the means to track "thrown-away" garments to collect those suitable for recycling. The industry also needs facilities that are big enough to turn this waste into new materials for clothing at the scale needed to meet mass market demand.

This is particularly important as these firms prepare for an EU crackdown on the region's own waste mountain. Following the EU strategy for Sustainable and Circular textiles 2022, the European Commission is drafting new legislation over the next five years to make the fashion industry pay for the cost of processing discarded clothing.

Under the new EU rules, companies will be expected to collect waste equivalent to a certain percentage of their production. While the exact amount has not yet been confirmed yet, European commissioner for the environment Virginijus Sinkevičius has said it will "definitely" be more than 5% of production. Companies may have to pay a fee (reportedly equivalent to €0.12 per T-shirt) towards local authorities' waste collection work.

But fast fashion brands must ensure that this doesn't just dump the problem of textile waste into other countries' landfills. Instead, developing lines out of recycled textiles could give these old clothes a new lease of life.

A Fashion Pact signed by more than 160 brands (a third of the sector by volume) commits companies to ensure that, by 2025, 25% of the raw materials such as textiles that they use have a low impact on the environment—recycled fiber is considered a low-impact material. Some brands have set more ambitious targets, including Adidas, which has committed to using 100% recycled plastics by 2024, and Zara-owner Inditex, which pledged to source 40% of its fibers from recycling processes by 2030.

These impending deadlines, plus the EU legislation, should motivate brands to use more recycled fibers. While the supply of such material is currently limited, an influx of recycling start-ups are finding ways to turn old clothes into new fibers that replicate the look and feel of virgin materials.

Start-ups like Spinnova, Renewcell and Infinited Fiber have developed chemical recycling technologies to create new fibers from cotton-rich clothing. And while cheap low-cost blended materials like poly-cotton are difficult to separate and recycle, firms like Worn Again, Envrnu, and Circ are tackling this problem, too.

Worn Again plans to build a new recycling demo plant in Switzerland, paving the way for 40 licensed plants by 2040, which would be capable of processing 1.8 million tons of textile waste per year.

Taking textile recycling from hype to reality

Up to 26% of Europe's textile waste could be recycled by 2030, according to some estimates, according to a 2022 McKinsey report. This would generate €3.5-€4.5 billion in economic output for the EU, create 15,000 new jobs, and save 3.6 million tons of CO². But only 1% of textiles are currently being recycled globally into new clothes—the recycling technology needed for this shift is still in its infancy.

Part of the challenge in scaling up textile recycling to this degree is the lack of information available about what happens to clothes that are thrown away. Sharing data on the volume, locations and compositions of waste generated in the supply chain and collected post-consumption would help evaluate the full potential of textile recycling. Companies like Reverse Resources already provide online databases of information on textile waste—in this case for a global network of 70 recyclers, 44 waste handlers and 1,287 manufacturers in 24 countries.

Increasing textile recycling will require a collaborative approach, as will the development of the technology needed to create high-quality recycled textiles. Brands, investors, suppliers, recyclers, technology providers and local governments must come together to find ways to grow the textile recycling industry. The recent New Cotton Project that involves 12 brands (including H&M group and Adidas), manufacturers, suppliers and research institutes is a first step towards increasing textile recycling.

More money is also needed from all of these groups. To reach the recycling rate of 18%-26% by 2030, it will take billions in infrastructure investment for collecting, sorting and processing textile waste.

Textile recycling is no longer for a few "sustainable" fashion firms—it is quickly becoming a reality that no fast fashion firm can ignore. Shoppers must demand that the brands they love show their commitment to textile recycling beyond marketing campaigns and low-volume fashion collections.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Clothing manufacturers aim to get fashionable with greener practices