Spending time in the garden linked to better health and well being
by University of Exeter

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Spending time in the garden is linked to similar benefits for health and wellbeing as living in wealthy areas, according to a new large-scale study.

Research conducted by the University of Exeter and the Royal Horticultural Society charity, published in Elsevier's Landscape and Urban Planning, analysed data from nearly 8,000 people collected by Natural England between 2009 and 2016. The research, conducted with funding from Innovate UK and NIHR, found that people who spend time in the garden are significantly more likely to report general good health, higher psychological wellbeing and greater physical activity levels than those who do not spend time in the garden.

The study found the benefits of gardening to health and wellbeing were similar to the difference in health between people living in the wealthiest parts of the country, compared to the poorest. The benefits applied whether people spent their time gardening or simply relaxing. People who regularly spend time in their garden were also more likely to visit nature elsewhere once a week.

The study also found that people with access to a private garden had higher psychological wellbeing and those with an outdoor space such as a yard were more likely to meet physical activity guidelines. These benefits were in comparison to people who did not have a garden or outdoor space.

Dr. Sian de Bell, of the University of Exeter Medical School, lead author of the study, said: "A growing body of evidence points to the health and wellbeing benefits of access to green or coastal spaces. Our study is one of the largest to date to look at the benefits of gardens and gardening specifically. Our findings suggest that whilst being able to access an outdoor space such as a garden or yard is important, using that space is what really leads to benefits for health and wellbeing."

Dr. Becca Lovell, also of the University of Exeter Medical School and project lead, said: "Gardens are a crucial way for people to access and experience the natural environment. Our new evidence highlights that gardens may have a role as a public health resource and that we need to ensure that their benefit is available equally."

Prof Alistair Griffiths, Director of Science and Collections at the Royal Horticultural Society and co-author on the paper, said: "This work adds to the increasing body of scientific evidence on the health benefits of gardens and gardening. As the current COVID crisis has demonstrated, there's an urgent need to include the provision of private gardens in the planning process to better support the UK's preventative health agenda and the wellbeing of our nation."

There is growing evidence that living in a greener neighbourhood can be good for health and wellbeing, but most research has focused on public green spaces such as parks and playing fields. The current research used data collected by Natural England's Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment Survey, the world's largest survey collecting data on people's weekly contact with the natural world.

Marian Spain, Interim Chief Executive of Natural England, said:

"In these unprecedented times, the government's priority continues to be making sure people stay at home to help protect the NHS and save lives. The benefits of spending time around nature during this time, be that in our back gardens or in local green spaces as part of our daily exercise, cannot be underestimated—and this research shines a light on the impact this has on people's health and wellbeing.

"We know that not everyone has easy access to nature or green spaces, and that's why we've launched our #BetterWithNature campaign to inspire more people to connect with nature safely during this period. Longer term, this campaign aims to bring the benefits of nature to as many people as possible through initiatives like our Nature Recovery Network, which will see more green spaces created near where people live and work."


Explore furtherTwo hours a week is key dose of nature for health and wellbeing

Two hours a week is key dose of nature for health and wellbeing
More information: Siân de Bell et al, Spending time in the garden is positively associated with health and wellbeing: Results from a national survey in England, Landscape and Urban 

Planning (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103836

Robots help some firms, even while workers across industries struggle

by Peter Dizikes, Massachusetts Institute of Technolog

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Overall, adding robots to manufacturing reduces jobs—by more than three per robot, in fact. But a new study co-authored by an MIT professor reveals an important pattern: Firms that move quickly to use robots tend to add workers to their payroll, while industry job losses are more concentrated in firms that make this change more slowly.


The study, by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu, examines the introduction of robots to French manufacturing in recent decades, illuminating the business dynamics and labor implications in granular detail.

"When you look at use of robots at the firm level, it is really interesting because there is an additional dimension," says Acemoglu. "We know firms are adopting robots in order to reduce their costs, so it is quite plausible that firms adopting robots early are going to expand at the expense of their competitors whose costs are not going down. And that's exactly what we find."

Indeed, as the study shows, a 20 percentage point increase in robot use in manufacturing from 2010 to 2015 led to a 3.2 percent decline in industry-wide employment. And yet, for firms adopting robots during that timespan, employee hours worked rose by 10.9 percent, and wages rose modestly as well.

A new paper detailing the study, "Competing with Robots: Firm-Level Evidence from France," will appear in the May issue of the American Economic Association: Papers and Proceedings. The authors are Acemoglu, who is an Institute Professor at MIT; Clair Lelarge, a senior research economist at the Banque de France and the Center for Economic Policy Research; and Pascual Restrepo Phd '16, an assistant professor of economics at Boston University.

A French robot census

To conduct the study, the scholars examined 55,390 French manufacturing firms, of which 598 purchased robots during the period from 2010 to 2015. The study uses data provided by France's Ministry of Industry, client data from French robot suppliers, customs data about imported robots, and firm-level financial data concerning sales, employment, and wages, among other things.

The 598 firms that did purchase robots, while comprising just 1 percent of manufacturing firms, accounted for about 20 percent of manufacturing production during that five-year period.


"Our paper is unique in that we have an almost comprehensive [view] of robot adoption," Acemoglu says.

The manufacturing industries most heavily adding robots to their production lines in France were pharmaceutical companies, chemicals and plastic manufacturers, food and beverage producers, metal and machinery manufacturers, and automakers.

The industries investing least in robots from 2010 to 2015 included paper and printing, textiles and apparel manufacturing, appliance manufacturers, furniture makers, and minerals companies.

The firms that did add robots to their manufacturing processes became more productive and profitable, and the use of automation lowered their labor share—the part of their income going to workers—between roughly 4 and 6 percentage points. However, because their investments in technology fueled more growth and more market share, they added more workers overall.

By contrast, the firms that did not add robots saw no change in the labor share, and for every 10 percentage point increase in robot adoption by their competitors, these firms saw their own employment drop 2.5 percent. Essentially, the firms not investing in technology were losing ground to their competitors.

This dynamic—job growth at robot-adopting firms, but job losses overall—fits with another finding Acemoglu and Restrepo made in a separate paper about the effects of robots on employment in the U.S. There, the economists found that each robot added to the work force essentially eliminated 3.3 jobs nationally.

"Looking at the result, you might think [at first] it's the opposite of the U.S. result, where the robot adoption goes hand in hand with destruction of jobs, whereas in France, robot-adopting firms are expanding their employment," Acemoglu says. "But that's only because they're expanding at the expense of their competitors. What we show is that when we add the indirect effect on those competitors, the overall effect is negative and comparable to what we find the in the U.S."

Superstar firms and the labor share issue

The competitive dynamics the researchers found in France resemble those in another high-profile piece of economics research recently published by MIT professors. In a recent paper, MIT economists David Autor and John Van Reenen, along with three co-authors, published evidence indicating the decline in the labor share in the U.S. as a whole was driven by gains made by "superstar firms," which find ways to lower their labor share and gain market power.

While those elite firms may hire more workers and even pay relatively well as they grow, labor share declines in their industries, overall.

"It's very complementary," Acemoglu observes about the work of Autor and Van Reenen. However, he notes, "A slight difference is that superstar firms [in the work of Autor and Van Reenen, in the U.S.] could come from many different sources. By having this individual firm-level technology data, we are able to show that a lot of this is about automation."

So, while economists have offered many possible explanations for the decline of the labor share generally—including technology, tax policy, changes in labor market institutions, and more—Acemoglu suspects technology, and automation specifically, is the prime candidate, certainly in France.

"A big part of the [economic] literature now on technology, globalization, labor market institutions, is turning to the question of what explains the decline in the labor share," Acemoglu says. "Many of those are reasonably interesting hypotheses, but in France it's only the firms that adopt robots—and they are very large firms—that are reducing their labor share, and that's what accounts for the entirety of the decline in the labor share in French manufacturing. This really emphasizes that automation, and in particular robots, is a critical part in understanding what's going on."


Explore furtherHow many jobs do robots really replace?
More information: This is part 2 of a three-part series examining the effects of robots and automation on employment, based on new research from economist and Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu.



Part 1: techxplore.com/news/2020-05-jobs-robots.html

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching.
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Both conservatives and liberals want a green energy future, but for different reasons
by Deidra Miniard, Joe Kantenbacher and Shahzeen Attari, The Conversation

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Political divisions are a growing fixture in the United States today, whether the topic is marriage across party lines, responding to climate change or concern about coronavirus exposure. Especially in a presidential election year, the vast divide between conservatives and liberals often feels nearly impossible to bridge.


Our research examines what people know about the energy sources in use today in the United States, and what types of energy they would like to see the nation using in 2050. Energy connects to many important issues, including climate change, jobs and economic growth, equity and social justice, and international relations. It would be easy to assume that America's energy future is a highly polarized topic, especially when the Trump administration is clashing with many states led by Democrats over energy policies.

However, in a nationwide online survey, we recently found that broad support exists across the political spectrum for a future powered mostly by renewable energy sources. Our work highlights a consensus around the idea that the United States needs to move its entire energy system away from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources.

Assessing perceptions

To explore people's views on energy sources, we conducted an online survey of 2,429 adults across the U.S. Our participants represented a range of political ideologies, with 51% self-identifying as liberals, 20% as moderate and 29% as conservative. To investigate patterns in the data, we analyzed responses based on participants' political ideologies.

Our survey asked people to estimate the shares that various energy sources contributed to all energy use in the United States, including activities like generating electricity, running factories, heating homes and powering vehicles. We asked participants to estimate what percentage of U.S. total energy used came from nine energy sources: coal, oil, natural gas, solar, wind, hydro, biomass, geothermal and nuclear power.


Next we had participants describe what they viewed as an optimal mix of these nine energy sources that they hoped the U.S. would use in the year 2050. We also asked what kinds of policies they would support to move the nation from its current status to the future that they envisioned. In a follow-on study, we are examining how factors such as cost and environmental impact influence people's preferences for one energy source versus others.

Estimations of today's energy mix

We found that our respondents had some misperceptions about where energy in the U.S. comes from. They tended to underestimate U.S. reliance on oil and natural gas and overestimate coal's contribution. We believe Americans may not realize how dramatically electric utilities have switched from coal to gas for power generation over the past decade, and may therefore have dated impressions of coal's prevalence.

Conversely, we found that participants overestimated the contribution of lesser-used energy sources—specifically, renewables like wind and solar power. This pattern may partially be explained by people's general tendency to inflate estimates of small values and probabilities, which has been seen in areas ranging from household energy use and water use to risk of death.

In the case of the U.S. energy system, this bias means that people think our current energy system is greener than it really is, which could reduce the perceived urgency of shifting to lower-carbon sources.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called on world governments to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 in order to slow climate change – a goal that may not motivate conservative Americans.

Shared goals, divergent pathways

When we asked participants to indicate the amount of each energy source they hoped the U.S. would use in 2050, the broad consensus favored a future in which the nation primarily relied on renewable energy and used much less fossil fuel. Conservatives, moderates and liberals shared this outlook.

Particular preferences for a lower-carbon future varied somewhat by political ideology, but on average all groups supported an energy mix in which at least 77% of overall energy use came from low-carbon energy sources, including renewable fuels and nuclear power.

This bipartisan consensus wavered, though, when we asked participants whether they supported or opposed 12 energy policies—six that would lead to larger roles for low-carbon energy sources, and six that would increase use of fossil fuels.

Liberal participants showed strong support for policies consistent with increased use of low-carbon energy sources, such as providing government funding for renewable energy and subsidies for purchasing electric vehicles. They strongly opposed actions that would increase reliance on fossil fuels, such as relaxing oil drilling regulations or lowering fuel economy standards.

On average, conservative participants supported several policies that favored low-carbon energy use, though not as strongly as their liberal counterparts. Conservatives tended to be closer to neutral or only slightly opposed to policies that promote fossil fuel use.

The sharpest contrast between the two political groups was over building and completing pipelines to move oil from extraction points to refineries in the U.S. Several proposed pipelines have generated intense controversy in the past years. Conservatives generally supported pipeline development, and liberals generally opposed it.

Achieving a low-carbon future

An important argument for transitioning to low-carbon energy sources is to limit climate change to manageable levels. Recent polls show that climate change remains a politically divisive issue, with far more Democrats than Republicans rating it as extremely important to their vote in the 2020 presidential race.

Recent research has shown that both Democrats and Republicans strongly support renewable energy development, but do so for different reasons. Democrats prioritize curbing climate change, while Republicans are more motivated by reducing energy costs. We see these motivations playing out in the real world, where conservative oil-producing states like Texas are experiencing huge booms in renewable energy generation, driven primarily by the improving economics of renewable energy.

Realizing the shared vision of an energy system dominated by renewable energy will mean reconciling partisan differences over how to achieve that future. While there is no single rationale that will convince all Americans to support a transition to low-carbon energy sources, our results are encouraging because we find consensus on the U.S. energy future—everyone agrees that it should be green.


Explore furtherU.S. needs to reduce fossil-fuel dependence, but parties disagree about how to do it
Provided by The Conversation

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

COOPERATION & MUTUAL AID
Selfishness is not the way forward: Researcher makes the case for shared spectrum

by University of Oulu MAY 5, 2020

Marja Matinmikko-Blue, senior research fellow and adjunct professor from the University of Oulu, Finland. Credit: University of Oulu

"Radio frequencies are a natural resource, and as such, there is fierce competition on who gets to use them. It really is a fight over natural resources, and we must work toward a more fair and sustainable use of the radio spectrum," says Marja Matinmikko-Blue, senior research fellow and adjunct professor from the University of Oulu.


As the mobile telecommunication world is gradually shifting to 5G, the fight over frequencies is going on as strong as ever. Whoever has control of the spectrum will hold on to it and not let others use it, even if they themselves are not using it everywhere. Think of it like this: There is a village, and in this village, there is a farm that has more water than it needs for irrigation. But instead of sharing the water with others who want to grow crops, they keep it to themselves to use at a later time. Sharing water instead of just sitting on it would grow the total yield for the entire village.

Holding two Ph.D.s in telecommunications engineering and in industrial engineering and management, Matinmikko-Blue has been making the case for shared spectrum use for years. She says the opposition to sharing underutilized spectrum is still strong after decades of intensive research on spectrum sharing that would allow wireless systems to operate in the same frequency band following predefined rules and conditions.

"The fact is that for all the G's, they have always wanted to have all the frequencies they can get. 3G, 4G, 5G, it's always the same. The problem is that there are other users on those frequencies already, so what's the solution? Push others out? Or share?" Matinmikko-Blue says.

"Mobile network operators always want more and more spectrum because they see that as being their competitive edge and a way of maintaining their position in the marketplace. They want to restrict competition and keep everyone else out. And there are huge forces at work here, because everyone is vying for the same frequencies. The telecom operators are on one side of it, terrestrial broadcasting or satellite companies on another, and so on."

Matinmikko-Blue is in her early 40s, but has already been working in the field for over 20 years. She first got into telecommunications when she landed a summer job as a student at Nokia and their plant in Oulu, being around network equipment like base stations.

"That was the time when 3G was coming around. I remember being in a training where a tech person explained what's inside these new boxes and how they work. That was the thing that really sparked my interest in this stuff, this hands-on experience. And realizing that Oulu is actually quite the hotspot for telecom, both in research and in industry," Matinmikko-Blue says.


When she got back to her studies, she enrolled in a lot of telecommunication classes, taking the same courses as the electrical engineering students. The ball had started rolling, and she found herself being drawn to a researcher's life. The next major step in her career was as a research scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., where she ended up working for 15 years.

"VTT had a lot of close collaboration with industry and I learned a lot while I was there. I was a young woman in my twenties there, so it was not always easy, but I had a lot of responsibility there, being in charge of projects. I also got involved in a major EU project called WINNER in 2004, with all the big companies in the industry. I was lucky to be 25 years old and being able to work with all these people who had so much more experience than I."

Efficiency, equality, exercising control

Matinmikko-Blue found herself working in close collaboration with industry and regulators on mobile communications spectrum requirements for the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2007 at the International Telecommunication Union, or ITU. Increasingly, she became involved in bridging the gaps between industry, academic research and regulators. In this role she got a call from the University of Oulu and was offered a position there, which was tailored to her expertise.

"It really was a position built around spectrum management, regulation, industry collaboration and research, and everything I was interested in. They had realized that this is a critical part of telecommunications research, seeing how things work in the real world and what are the forces that drive or oppose change," Matinmikko-Blue explains.

And change is something that Matinmikko-Blue believes in strongly. In the future, she wants to see a world where spectrum sharing is the norm, for many reasons.

"It is about efficiency. If there is spectrum that's not being used efficiently, it is a resource that's being wasted. It is also about equality. 5G is happening in the big cities, it's not reaching the rural areas or remote locations. If there was local licensing, smaller stakeholders could set up their own wireless networks to serve less populated areas where operators do not build their networks. And it is also about taking control. Right now, businesses are beginning to look at networks as something they want to have control over and not have to rely on operators to make changes in the quickly changing world," Matinmikko-Blue says.

A turning point in the conversation

Right now, the world is also dealing with the COVID-19 crisis that is affecting everyone. This crisis has also highlighted the need for reliable telecommunication networks. Online teaching is just one example, but it underscores the meaning of connectivity in modern society, and how that connectivity has the power to join people together or separate them.

"If we leave spectrum management, local licensing, sharing of this natural resource to the whims of the marketplace, it will not happen. Not in a world where we still grant exclusive nationwide rights to deploy 5G networks for decades. Money should not be the only yardstick with which we measure success," Matinmikko-Blue muses.

And this concept of allowing different stakeholders to operate their own local cellular networks is picking up momentum. Matinmikko-Blue says that she really felt a change happen in the European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC) that took place in Oulu in 2017.

"At the conference I was in a panel discussion explaining the upcoming 5G spectrum situation and its potential ramifications as well as options in moving forward, and I really felt that it was a kind of a turning point. All these EU representatives and national regulators were attending and they picked up the conversation. Who gets to operate 5G networks? This has been a conversation that has been slow in getting started but is gaining momentum. However, in Finland the operator dominance has continued in 5G and the same auction mechanisms are still used although the spectrum bands have very different deployment characteristics," Matinmikko-Blue says.

Matinmikko-Blue has been putting in a lot of effort to this. She has worked on cognitive radio systems and chaired studies on them at the ITU. She has also led the development of pioneering Licensed Shared Access field trials in Finland using 4G networks and developed local 5G licensing and alternative local operator models. She has been the advocate for pushing stakeholder management perspectives into spectrum discussions to respond to the changing world. As such, she does see encouraging examples of optimizing spectrum use in different countries.

"In the United Kingdom, for instance, the regulatory body is very progressive. If an operator is not utilizing a part of their spectrum, there are mechanisms that allow the band to be put to good use. The UK regulator has been inspired by our studies. In addition to Britain, local licensing has become possible in several other countries in the past few months," Matinmikko-Blue says.

Matinmikko-Blue is also the Research Coordinator of 6G Flagship. Together with 30 international experts, she has been writing a White Paper on the connection between 6G and United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The final paper is out this summer and it is built around the idea that the UN SDGs should drive the development of 6G.

With all of this, Matinmikko-Blue is invested in building a world where flexibility and sharing are a given and where efficient spectrum use is seen sustainable at a societal level. Of course, change happens slowly especially when a major paradigm shift is needed. But technology continues to evolve at an ever faster rate. Just look at where we were ten years ago, where we are now, and think of where we will be in another ten years' time. Especially if we think of the entire village, not just our farm.

Japan computer-savvy teen designs app to fight pandemic

by Yuri Kageyama

In this Dec. 14, 2019, photo released by Syu Kato, Syu Kato takes a selfie in Guam. Curbing the spread of the coronavirus outbreak rests on accurate knowledge of where infected people have been and whom they have come in contact with so they can be tested and treated. Kato, a 16-year-old Japanese computer whiz, has designed an iPhone software application that uses GPS so people can keep their own records of where they've been. (Syu Kato via AP)

Curbing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic rests on knowing where infected people have been and who they've come in contact with so they can be tested and treated.

Like many teens, 16-year-old Syu Kato loves skateboarding, Bruno Mars and hamburgers. But he's putting his knack for programming to good use. Kato has designed an iPhone software application that uses GPS so individuals can keep their own records of their whereabouts in their mobile phone, to help with such contact tracing.

Called Asiato, for "footprint," the app keeps track of a phone's movements within a distance of 10 meters (33 feet) or more. An English version of the app is available free from the iPhone App Store.

The app works like a diary, but keeps track of locations. To protect privacy, the data is stored in the phone and is not automatically shared.

If a person discovers they have COVID-19, Asiato identifies where they've been in the past several weeks. They would need to reach out on their own to people they may have infected, or inform health authorities if asked.

Under Japan's pandemic state of emergency, citizens are asked, not ordered, to stay home. Keeping track of their movements remains a crucial way to help control the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. It also could be used elsewhere as economies reopen around the world, Kato said.

Kato got an early start in putting his knack for programming to good use. In the fifth grade, he designed a mathematics application to do division that gives the remainder as a number for the answer, not decimal points.

While in sixth grade, he developed a program for writing book reports. The 240 yen (about $2) program simplifies the process and no cheating is involved, he says.

In 2017, Kato won the "super creator" award from the government-backed Mitou Foundation, set up to support innovation, for his DrawCode, which simplifies writing the language for web pages and programs, known as HTML, so children can do programming.

Yu Ukai, who heads the foundation's youth efforts, said he was impressed with Kato's passion and the speed with which he identifies problems and comes up with solutions.

In this Dec. 20, 2018, photo released by Kenichi Kato, Syu Kato poses for a photo in Hawaii. Curbing the spread of the coronavirus outbreak rests on accurate knowledge of where infected people have been and whom they have come in contact with so they can be tested and treated. Kato, a 16-year-old Japanese computer whiz, has designed an iPhone software application that uses GPS so people can keep their own records of where they've been. (Kenichi Kato via AP)

"There are a lot of ways young people like Syu can contribute to society during the pandemic as the crisis reveals many challenges that can be solved using technology," Ukai said.


Kato's new project is setting up a website for restaurants and customers to share menus and other takeout information.

Tokyo and other major cities have Uber Eats and other services. But in places like Hokkaido, northern Japan, where Kato lives, it's harder for people stuck at home to find options for food takeout or delivery. Such a site would also help hard-hit restaurants find customers.

Kato is a digital whiz in what he says is an "analog" family. His parents run a small amusement park and his older brother works there. The downturn in tourism due to the pandemic has devastated the family business.

Plans for Kato to attend school in the U.S. later this year were canceled because of the pandemic and he is studying online. But he hopes eventually to travel overseas and maybe start his own venture.

What draws him to coding is the sheer joy of creation, he said.

"Then if I can also make a bit of money, that would be great," he laughed.

It's tough competing as the little guy against big players, Kato said.

Going after niche needs sometimes fails because you've gone after something too niche, he said.

"It's not enough to be able to program," Kato said. "You have to make it a real product and release it to the world, without giving up, so lots of people can download it and experience it."

© 2020 The Associated Press

Researchers develop chemistry needed to create marijuana breathalyzer
by University of California, Los Angeles

The legalization and decriminalization of marijuana in California and elsewhere have made marijuana detection especially important, said senior author Neil Garg. Credit: Jesse Herring

UCLA chemists have reported the key chemical discovery necessary for the creation of a small, electronic marijuana breathalyzer. The research is published in Organic Letters, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society.


The legalization and decriminalization of marijuana in California and elsewhere have made marijuana detection especially important, said senior author Neil Garg, UCLA's Kenneth N. Trueblood Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and chair of UCLA's department of chemistry and biochemistry.

"When I grew up, people were taught not to drive drunk," Garg said. "I haven't seen the same type of messages for marijuana yet, and statistics indicate more than 14 million people in the U.S. smoke marijuana and drive. Our goal was to devise a very simple solution that could be adopted by society. We have shown in this study we can change the chemical structure and properties of THC—the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana—using perhaps the simplest chemical means possible: electricity, to determine whether a person is impaired."

"We want a simple breathalyzer that doesn't require specialized training because a police officer is not a trained synthetic organic chemist," said lead author Evan Darzi, a former postdoctoral scholar in Garg's laboratory.

While Darzi and Garg have developed the chemistry that would be at the heart of a marijuana breathalyzer, they have not created an actual device. "We have established the fundamental proof of concept," said Garg, who received the 2018 Robert Foster Cherry Award—which is the largest university teaching prize in the U.S., awarded by Baylor University—and was named the 2015 California Professor of the Year.

Darzi and Garg developed a simple oxidation process similar to that used in an alcohol breathalyzer. Oxidation is the loss of an electron from a molecule. The researchers removed a hydrogen molecule from THC (whose full name is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). Alcohol breathalyzers convert ethanol to an organic chemical compound, and hydrogen is lost through the oxidation process.

"The chemistry we are doing with THC is the same thing," Garg said. "We remove a molecule of hydrogen from THC. That is oxidation. This leads to changes in the color of the molecule that can be detected."


Darzi and Garg report two ways to do the oxidation of THC. Their preferred, inexpensive approach is to use electricity.

"Some of our initial ideas involved trying to get complicated molecules to bind to THC in order to detect a signal," Garg said. "After a while, we realized the simplest solution is to pump electricity into THC and have a chemical reaction occur that produces a change we can detect. It doesn't matter what the change is, as long as it is easy to detect. Oxidation is one of the simplest reactions one can do to a molecule."

The structure of THC includes a unit called a phenol. When chemists oxidize a phenol, the oxidation produces a member of a class of organic compounds called quinones. "We know how to oxidize a phenol into a quinone," Garg said.

THC and the quinone absorb light differently. "Once we knew that," Garg said, "we decided to use electricity to perform the oxidation." Darzi used a new device in Garg's laboratory (called an ElectraSyn 2.0 by IKA Works) that allows him to perform electrochemical reactions.

The chemists saw a change in where the molecules absorb light. THC absorbs light at a certain wavelength, and Darzi and Garg found that when it is oxidized, it absorbs light at a different wavelength.

"Doing organic chemistry using electrochemistry is not something that people in my field historically have done regularly," Garg said. "Evan studied different variations of how to set up the chemical reactions until he found the best way to oxidize THC."

In order to conduct the research, the chemists first obtained a license from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to study THC in their laboratory.

The chemists said they have had positive responses from other chemists with whom they have shared their research.

The next big step, Garg said, is to achieve the same result with a breath sample from a person who has very recently consumed marijuana, and to avoid false positives. Studies suggest marijuana on the breath can reliably reveal whether marijuana was smoked or otherwise consumed in the last four or five hours, Darzi said. Garg hopes his laboratory will continue this research in collaboration with a company interested in developing the technology. However, he noted there are significant challenges to develop this technology at a university due to federal regulations. UCLA has filed a provisional patent application on the THC oxidation.

Garg's hope is that a marijuana breathalyzer would be inexpensive enough for consumers to buy so they can test themselves before deciding whether to drive. Garg and Darzi expect that a marijuana breathalyzer would produce a numerical result, perhaps similar to the blood alcohol level measurements of an alcohol breathalyzer—but the details go beyond the scope of this research.

"Professor Garg and I both have young children," Darzi said, "and our children will grow up in a world where marijuana is legal. We're glad we can play a role in helping society address this issue."


Explore further  Researchers create breathalyzer that can detect marijuana

More information: Evan R. Darzi et al, Electrochemical Oxidation of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol: A Simple Strategy for Marijuana Detection, Organic Letters (2020). 

DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.0c01241

Journal information: Organic Letters

Provided by University of California, Los Angeles

New genetic study of lions may help to prevent them going extinct

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A large international team of researchers has conducted an extensive genetic analysis of lions, and in so doing, has learned about their evolutionary history. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes how they confirmed long-term divisions between extant lion populations and showed genetic diversity among modern samples.


Prior research has shown that historically, lions have lived in many parts of the word, even in America. Most such species went extinct, however, including the cave lions that once roamed what is now Eurasia approximately 15,000 years ago. Today, lions live in parts of Africa and India and are endangered—just 20,000 African lions remain in the wild today, and their numbers are dwindling. In this new effort, the researchers carried out an extensive examination of the lion genome as part of an effort to save them from extinction.

The work involved analyzing the genomes of 20 specimens, including the cave lion and 12 historic lines that were known to live sometime between the 15th and 20th centuries—and six specimens from modern African and Asiatic lions.

One of the major findings was that modern lions and several extinct lions shared a common ancestor. They also found that approximately 70,000 years ago, two unique lineages of modern lion lineages emerged—and that cave lions lived in cold climates.

The researchers note that prior studies of the lion genome involved analysis of mitochondrial DNA—in this study, they went much further by looking at the whole genome—some of which was derived from 30,00-year-old lion fossils. They learned that modern lines split off from two different lineages in Africa—one in northern parts of Africa, the other in the south.

The researchers also found that the Asiatic lions living in the Gir forest in India have low genetic diversity due to their small population. And they found that the Asiatic lions evolved from the northern range lions in Africa, though they still had remnants of southern lions in their genome. They did not find any evidence of African lions being introduced into India in modern times. The researchers suggest their findings will help with lion conservation efforts in both India and Africa.

Amphibian study shows stress increases vulnerability to virus
by Washington State University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Even the anti-freeze frog is not invulnerable to stress, according to a new study led by Washington State University researchers.


The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on May 5, found that wood frogs, known for their ability to survive being frozen through, are more susceptible to lethal ranavirus infections if they have been raised in ponds high in salinity from road deicer. The findings lend more weight to the stress-induced susceptibility hypothesis, which could help explain dramatic wildlife population declines in recent years.

"We're seeing these mass mortality events in wildlife that are often due to infectious diseases; while at the same time, we notice an association with some kind of environmental change," said Emily Hall, the lead author on the study, which was part of her dissertation at Washington State University.

The researchers studied wood frog larvae in ponds in the northeastern U.S. where the use of salt as a road deicer is common. Originally, Hall was interested in the effect of road salt in ponds on the frog's development, but at some of her study sites, all the tadpoles simply died.

"It's really dramatic when you go to a pond and suddenly all the little tadpoles are floating on the surface," Hall said. She discovered they had died of ranavirus, a common viral pathogen that healthy wood frogs often survive.

Working with her advising professor Erica Crespi, who specializes in stress physiology, and Jesse Brunner, a disease ecologist, Hall started a new study using a combination of field work and lab studies to look at the potential link between the stress of salinity and susceptibility to infection.

The researchers found the animals who had been exposed to salt had 10 times more intense infections when exposed to ranavirus. The salt-water tadpoles were also more infectious, shedding five times as much virus into the water as infected animals who had grown up in freshwater without salt added.

The researchers did not see an increase in the frogs' corticosteroids, stress hormones, just from salinity. It was only with the virus infection did they see the magnified hormone levels and that inhibited the immune response.


This finding has implications beyond the small northeastern ponds, said Crespi.

"We may be studying an amphibian-pathogen system, but what we saw is being played out right now with the COVID-19 epidemic," Crespi said. "Chronic non-lethal stressors can cause health outcomes that we aren't aware of until a crisis happens. People, who are in constant socioeconomic stress or have higher incidence of metabolic disease or asthma, are experiencing more severe infections and higher incidence of mortality. That's also what we saw in our salty ponds."

The WSU study also has implications for how scientists approach wildlife conservation and mass die-offs of species. Unlike other species of amphibians, the wood frog is not experiencing major population declines. It is a common, usually resilient frog with a range that extends from Alabama to the Arctic. Mass mortality events from the virus have been observed in many parts of the world, but why one population experiences a die-off and not another is an open question. Researchers hypothesized that underlying poor conditions that elevate stress could play a role in where these mortality events occur.

"Since wood frogs are not a species of concern, people might not consider this a conservation story, but I do," Crespi said. "No one predicts die-offs. It's not a linear progression of decline. It's always a confluence of multiple things that act synergistically to cause an outcome that's more severe than expected. We should consider looking at preventative medicine in conservation."

Practicing preventative conservation would require monitoring populations, evaluating the complex relationship of stressors and health threats as well as looking for ways to reduce the threats, Crespi said. In this case, the researchers recommended that road crews look for opportunities to reduce the use of salt in winter road treatments while balancing safety, such as using gravel as is done in parts of the Pacific Northwest.


Explore further  Study shows hope for fighting disease known as Ebola of frogs

More information: Salinity stress increases the severity of ranavirus epidemics in amphibian populations, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, rspb.royalsocietypublishing.or … .1098/rspb.2020.0062

Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

DESPITE COVID-19 SCIENCE MUST GO ON

Tummy rumbles? Otters juggle pebbles when hungry, study finds

Asian otters’ playfulness with rocks a mystery but Exeter study links juggling to hunger



Nicola Davis Wed 6 May 2020 THE GUARDIAN

Whether tossing pebbles between their paws or rolling stones on their chest and even into their mouth, otters are experts at rock juggling. Now researchers say the behaviour largely appears to be linked to a rumbling tummy.

Many species of otters are known to toss pebbles around, often while lying on their backs, in what appears to be an example of animals playing with inanimate objects. Mari-Lisa Allison, of the University of Exeter, said: “[I have seen] an otter at the fence putting a pebble through the mesh and then catching it underneath and rolling it round, round the fence”.

But quite why otters rock-juggle has been something of a conundrum. Now Allison and colleagues say their experiments back up the view that otters rock-juggle more when they are hungry.

“This seems to be the immediate driver of the behaviour. There, in that moment, they are rock juggling because they are hungry, they are anticipating food and they are getting excited,” said Allison. But, she noted, further research is needed. “The ultimate function is still quite a mystery,” she said.

Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Allison and colleagues told of examining the behaviour of otters at three wildlife parks and zoos in the UK. The team recorded about 12 hours of observations for each of 48 otters, six of which were smooth-coated otters and 42 of which were Asian small-clawed otters.

The team note the small-clawed otters forage for shellfish and crabs, while the smooth-coated feeds on fish. This difference suggested the latter might juggle rocks more frequently as they relied on dexterous movements to a greater degree. However the team found no such difference, although they said that could be due to the small number of smooth-coated otters observed, adding that the two species did show different juggling actions.

Further analysis revealed that among otters aged 11 years or below, juggling was more frequent the younger the animal, suggesting, the team said, that the movements could help with the development of motor skills.

However, the behaviour was also common among senior otters. Perhaps, the team said, the juggling had a role in preventing cognitive decline, although more work is needed to explore the idea.

The researchers also found otters juggled more frequently if they had not been fed for two or more hours. The team said that that could support previous suggestions that rock juggling was a type of “misdirected foraging” – in other words the hungry otters could be performing the type of dexterous movements they would use when extracting meat from shellfish but on rocks or pebbles instead.

Yet rock juggling does not seem to be a way by which the otters practise or improve their skills. The team presented the otters with minced meat inside medicine bottles, tennis balls and between two plastic bricks, but those experiments gave no sign that otters who juggled more frequently had greater success with solving puzzles.

But the team say the experiment had limitations; many of the older otters were arthritic, and the animals could have been put off by the unfamiliar nature of the task or might not have understood the puzzle.


Prof Hannah Dugdale, of the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the work, welcomed the study. “The reason why otters juggle rocks has been difficult to study as there are many different variables that need to be considered at the same time, such as the age of individuals and how hungry they are,” she said, adding that the new study helped tease apart such factors.

But, she added, more work is needed to explore factors involved in rock juggling in wild otters, and its frequency, to fully understand the evolution of such behaviour.

Dr Elizabeth Chadwick, of Cardiff University, who is principal investigator of the Cardiff University Otter Project, also said questions remained. “Otters are absolutely captivating and rock juggling is one of their most intriguing behaviours,” she said. “The study helps explore and describe some of the differences in rock juggling between individuals, but is unable to provide the elusive answer as to why otters juggle.”

Otters juggle stones when hungry, research shows

by University of Exeter
 

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Hunger is likely to be the main driver of stone juggling in otters, new research has shown.

Researchers from the University of Exeter have carried out an extensive study into why captive otters tend to play with stones, commonly referred to as "rock juggling".

The dextrous mammals are often seen lying on their backs and batting the stones into the air, catching them and rolling them around their chests and necks.

Experts had suggested the behaviour might help the animals practise the foraging skills they need to extract foods from complex prey such as mussels and clams.

However, while the new research showed that young and older otters tended to juggle more than reproductive adults, these frequent jugglers were no better at solving food puzzles—suggesting the practice does not hone foraging skills.

Instead, the study showed that otters juggle more when hungry, in anticipation of feeding times in captivity—suggesting that it could be excitement for food.

The study is published in Royal Society Open Science on Wednesday, May 6th 2020.

Mari-Lisa Allison, lead author of the study said: "Zoo visitors are often enthralled by the otters' playfulness. Surprisingly, very few studies have investigated why otters are so keen to juggle stones. Our study provides a glimpse into this fascinating behaviour. While hunger is likely to drive rock juggling in the moment, the ultimate function of the behaviour is still a mystery."

For the new study, the research team analysed rock juggling in Asian small-clawed (Aonyx cinereus) and smooth-coated (Lutrogale perspicillata) otters found in zoo environments.

While the species are closely related, Asian small-clawed otters perform extractive foraging movements to exploit crabs and shellfish, while smooth-coated otters forage on fish.

The team set a series of puzzles for the otters to solve in order to gain access to a reward of food, to see whether the otters that juggled more frequently were faster at solving the puzzles. They also investigated whether sex, age and hunger levels could explain why some otters juggled more than others.

The team found that both juvenile and senior otters juggled more than adults. The authors suggested that the function of the behaviour may change over an otter's lifetime—aiding development in juveniles while potentially keeping the brain active in seniors. Otter parents may have been juggling less as they did not have the time while looking after their pups. However, rock-juggling frequency did not differ between species or sexes.

Crucially, otters juggled more when "hungry", indicating that juggling may be a misdirected behaviour in anticipation of feeding time.

Senior author Dr. Neeltje Boogert added: "While it did not appear that frequent jugglers solved food puzzles faster, more research is needed to exclude the "practise makes perfect" hypothesis to explain rock juggling in otters.


Explore further  Otters learn by copying each other

More information: The drivers and functions of rock juggling in otters, Royal Society Open Science, royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.200141

Journal information: Royal Society Open Science

Trump's Wuhan Lab Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory Is Bogus, According to, Uh, Everyone

The WHO and Dr. Anthony Fauci have both poured cold water on the conspiracy theory Trump and Mike Pompeo are spreading.

By Tim Hume May 5 2020

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s claims that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan lab are getting little support elsewhere, with the World Health Organization, Western intelligence sources and even Trump’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci all saying there is no evidence to back the theory.

Trump made the claims at a White House press briefing last Thursday, claiming he had seen evidence that COVID-19 had originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo doubled-down on Sunday, saying there was “enormous evidence” to back up the theory.

But the narrative has found little support elsewhere, with leading health and intelligence authorities pushing back on the claim and saying the evidence pointed elsewhere.

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, (the scientific evidence) is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated,” Dr. Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told National Geographic in an interview published Monday.

“Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that (this virus) evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

The World Health Organization — which Trump slammed last week as acting “like the public relations agency for China” — also dismissed the president’s claims Monday, describing the theory as “speculative.”

“We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus — so from our perspective, this remains speculative,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told an online press conference.

Meanwhile, intelligence sources in Britain and Australia told The Guardian that there is no evidence that the virus had leaked from the Chinese lab.

The sources also cast doubt on a recent “15-page dossier” — purportedly leaked from the Five Eyes intelligence network comprising the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and Canada — that was the basis of a report in Australia’s Daily Telegraph on Saturday, claiming that a researcher at the Wuhan lab was the virus’s patient zero, and that China had orchestrated a cover-up.

The sources told The Guardian that the dossier did not appear to be based on classified Five Eyes documents but rather on open source, public domain material.

Three of the four other members of Five Eyes have declined to back up Trump’s claims on the origin of the virus so far, with officials in Ottawa and London saying it was too early to draw conclusions, and that further investigations are needed. On Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison went further, saying it was “most likely” that the virus had come from a wildlife wet market in Wuhan, while calling for an independent international investigation.

As the virus has ravaged the U.S., both Washington and Beijing have sought to blame the other for the catastrophic spread of the virus, prompting warnings from the WHO that the politicized blame-laying could hamper efforts to respond to the pandemic.

The Trump administration, which has long angered Beijing by referring to coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan virus,” has recently ratcheted up efforts to paint China as the villain, reportedly pushing U.S. intelligence agencies for information that could support the theory that the outbreak began in the Wuhan lab. The push prompted concern among analysts that the intelligence could be distorted for use in a growing clash over the pandemic with Beijing.

For its part, China has sought to portray itself as a country that has successfully contained its own outbreak and has been using its resources and expertise to help the rest of the world, while spreading a conspiracy theory via state media that a U.S. military athlete brought the virus to Wuhan during the World Military Games in October.

READ: China is blaming a lone U.S. cyclist for coronavirus

Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies director, warned Monday against politicizing any inquiry into the origin of the virus, saying that if the questions were framed as an “aggressive investigation of wrongdoing, then I believe that's much more difficult to deal with.”

“Science needs to be at the center,” he said. “If we have a science-based investigation and a science-based inquiry... then that will benefit everybody on the planet.”

Already, the allegations from Trump and Pompeo have drawn a bristling response from Beijing, with Chinese state media editorials accusing the Secretary of State of “bluffing” with his “groundless accusations."

“Since Pompeo said his claims are supported by ‘enormous evidence,’ then he should present this so-called evidence to the world, and especially to the American public who he continually tries to fool,” read an editorial in the state-run Global Times newspaper Monday.

READ: The Chinese government has convinced its citizens that the U.S. Army brought coronavirus to Wuhan

“The truth is that Pompeo does not have any evidence, and during Sunday's interview, he was bluffing.”

Cover: President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with Daniel O'Day, CEO of Gilead Sciences Inc., in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, May 1, 2020, in Washington. U.S. regulators are allowing emergency use of first drug shown to help coronavirus patients that is made by Gilead. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)