[…]

A research team in Finland, led by Robin Ras, from Aalto University, and aided by researchers from the University of Jyväskylä, has developed a mechanism to make water droplets slip off surfaces with unprecedented efficacy.

Cooking, transportation, optics and hundreds of other technologies are affected by how water sticks to surfaces or slides off them, and adoption of water-resistant surfaces in the future could improve many household and industrial technologies, such as plumbing, shipping and the auto industry.

The research team created solid silicon surfaces with a “liquid-like” outer layer that repels water by making droplets slide off surfaces. The highly mobile topcoat acts as a lubricant between the product and the water droplets.

The discovery challenges existing ideas about friction between solid surfaces and water, opening a new avenue for studying slipperiness at the molecular level.

Sakari Lepikko, the lead author of the study, which was published in Nature Chemistry on Monday, said: “Our work is the first time that anyone has gone directly to the nanometer-level to create molecularly heterogeneous surfaces.”

By carefully adjusting conditions, such as temperature and water content, inside a reactor, the team could fine-tune how much of the silicon surface the monolayer covered.

Ras said: “I find it very exciting that by integrating the reactor with an ellipsometer, that we can watch the self-assembled monolayers grow with extraordinary level of detail.

“The results showed more slipperiness when SAM [self-assembled monolayer] coverage was low or high, which are also the situations when the surface is most homogeneous. At low coverage, the silicon surface is the most prevalent component, and at high, SAMs are the most prevalent.”

Lepikko added: “It was counterintuitive that even low coverage yielded exceptional slipperiness.”

Using the new method, the team ended up creating the slipperiest liquid surface in the world.

According to Lepikko, the discovery promises to have implications wherever droplet-repellent surfaces are needed. This covers hundreds of examples from daily life to industrial environments.

[…]

“The main issue with a SAM coating is that it’s very thin, and so it disperses easily after physical contact. But studying them gives us fundamental scientific knowledge which we can use to create durable practical applications,” Lepikko said.

[…]

Source: Scientists create world’s most water-resistant surface | Materials science | The Guardian

A group of scientists studying the effects of rocket and satellite reentry vaporization in Earth’s atmosphere have found some startling evidence that could point to disastrous environmental effects on the horizon.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that around 10 percent of large (>120 nm) sulfuric acid particles in the stratosphere contain aluminum and other elements consistent with the makeup of alloys used in spacecraft construction, including lithium, copper and lead. The other 90 percent comes from “meteoric smoke,” which are the particles left over when meteors vaporize during atmospheric entry, and that naturally-occurring share is expected to plummet drastically.

“The space industry has entered an era of rapid growth,” the boffins said in their paper, “with tens of thousands of small satellites planned for low earth orbit.

“It is likely that in the next few decades, the percentage of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles that contain aluminum and other metals from satellite reentry will be comparable to the roughly 50 percent that now contain meteoric metals,” the team concluded.

Atmospheric circulation at those altitudes (beginning somewhere between four and 12 miles above ground level and extending up to 31 miles above Earth) means such particles are unlikely to have an effect on the surface environment or human health, the researchers opined.

Stratospheric changes might be even scarier, though

Earth’s stratosphere has classically been considered pristine, said Dan Cziczo, one of the study’s authors and head of Purdue University’s department of Earth, atmospheric and planetary studies. “If something is changing in the stratosphere – this stable region of the atmosphere – that deserves a closer look.”

One of the major features of the stratosphere is the ozone layer, which protects Earth and its varied inhabitants from harmful UV radiation. It’s been harmed by human activity before action was taken, and an increase in aerosolized spacecraft particles could have several consequences to our planet.

One possibility is effects on the nucleation of ice and nitric acid trihydrate, which form in stratospheric clouds over Earth’s polar regions where currents in the mesosphere (the layer above the stratosphere) tend to deposit both meteoric and spacecraft aerosols.

Ice formed in the stratosphere doesn’t necessarily reach the ground, and is more likely to have effects on polar stratospheric clouds, lead author and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists Daniel Murphy told The Register.

“Polar stratospheric clouds are involved in the chemistry of the ozone hole,” Murphy said. However, “it is too early to know if there is any impact on ozone chemistry,” he added

Along with changes in atmospheric ice formation and the ozone layer, the team said that more aerosols from vaporized spacecraft could change the stratospheric aerosol layer, something that scientists have proposed seeding in order to block more UV rays to fight the effects of global warming.

The materials being injected from spacecraft reentry is much smaller than amounts scientists have considered for intentional injection, Murphy told us. However, “intentional injection of exotic materials into the stratosphere could raise many of the same questions [as the paper] on an even bigger scale,” he noted.

[…]

Source: Spacecraft re-entry filling the atmosphere with metal vapor • The Register

[…]But these light sources [needed to experiment in the quantum realm] are not common. They’re expensive to build, require large amounts of land, and can be booked up by scientists months in advance. Now, a team of physicists posit that quasiparticles—groups of electrons that behave as if they were one particle—can be used as light sources in smaller lab and industry settings, making it easier for scientists to make discoveries wherever they are. The team’s research describing their findings is published today in Nature Photonics.

“No individual particles are moving faster than the speed of light, but features in the collection of particles can, and do,” said John Palastro, a physicist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester and co-author of the new study, in a video call with Gizmodo. “This does not violate any rules or laws of physics.”

[…]

In their paper, the team explores the possibility of making plasma accelerator-based light sources as bright as larger free electron lasers by making their light more coherent, vis-a-vis quasiparticles. The team ran simulations of quasiparticles’ properties in a plasma using supercomputers made available by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), according to a University of Rochester release.

[…]

In a linear accelerator, “every electron is doing the same thing as the collective thing,” said Bernardo Malaca, a physicist at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal and the study’s lead author, in a video call with Gizmodo. “There is no electron that’s undulating in our case, but we’re still making an undulator-like spectrum.”

The researchers liken quasiparticles to the Mexican wave, a popular collective behavior in which sports fans stand up and sit down in sequence. A stadium full of people can give the illusion of a wave rippling around the venue, though no one person is moving laterally.

“One is clearly able to see that the wave could in principle travel faster than any human could, provided the audience collaborates. Quasiparticles are very similar, but the dynamics can be more extreme,” said co-author Jorge Vieira, also a physicist at the Instituto Superior Técnico, in an email to Gizmodo. “For example, single particles cannot travel faster than the speed of light, but quasiparticles can travel at any velocity, including superluminal.”

“Because quasiparticles are a result of a collective behavior, there are no limits for its acceleration,” Vieira added. “In principle, this acceleration could be as strong as in the vicinity of a black-hole, for example.”

[…]

The difference between what is perceptually happening and actually happening regarding traveling faster than light is an “unneeded distinction,” Malaca said. “There are actual things that travel faster than light, which are not individual particles, but are waves or current profiles. Those travel faster than light and can produce real faster-than-light-ish effects. So you measure things that you only associate with superluminal particles.”

The group found that the electrons’ collective quality doesn’t have to be as pristine as the beams produced by large facilities, and could practically be implemented in more “table-top” settings, Palastro said. In other words, scientists could run experiments using very bright light sources on-site, instead of having to wait for an opening at an in-demand linear accelerator.

Source: Faster-Than-Light ‘Quasiparticles’ Touted as Futuristic Light Source

The vaccine has been developed by the University of Oxford and is only the second malaria vaccine to be developed.

Malaria kills mostly babies and infants, and has been one of the biggest scourges on humanity.

There are already agreements in place to manufacture more than 100 million doses a year.

It has taken more than a century of scientific effort to develop effective vaccines against malaria.

The disease is caused by a complex parasite, which is spread by the bite of blood-sucking mosquitoes. It is far more sophisticated than a virus as it hides from our immune system by constantly shape-shifting inside the human body.

[…]

The WHO said the effectiveness of the two vaccines was “very similar” and there was no evidence one was better than the other.

However, the key difference is the ability to manufacture the University of Oxford vaccine – called R21 – at scale.

The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer – the Serum Institute of India – is already lined up to make more than 100 million doses a year and plans to scale up to 200 million doses a year.

So far there are only 18 million doses of RTS,S.

The WHO said the new R21 vaccine would be a “vital additional tool”. Each dose costs $2-4 (£1.65 to £3.30) and four doses are needed per person. That is about half the price of RTS,S.

[…]

That makes it hard to build up immunity naturally through catching malaria, and difficult to develop a vaccine against it.

It is almost two years to the day since the first vaccine – called RTS,S and developed by GSK – was backed by the WHO.

Source: Malaria vaccine big advance against major child killer – BBC News

Climate breakdown is already changing the taste and quality of beer, scientists have warned.

The quantity and quality of hops, a key ingredient in most beers, is being affected by global heating, according to a study. As a result, beer may become more expensive and manufacturers will have to adapt their brewing methods.

Researchers forecast that hop yields in European growing regions will fall by 4-18% by 2050 if farmers do not adapt to hotter and drier weather, while the content of alpha acids in the hops, which gives beers their distinctive taste and smell, will fall by 20-31%.

“Beer drinkers will definitely see the climate change, either in the price tag or the quality,” said Miroslav Trnka, a scientist at the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and co-author of the study, published in the journal Nature Communications. “That seems to be inevitable from our data.”

Beer, the third-most popular drink in the world after water and tea, is made by fermenting malted grains like barley with yeast. It is usually flavoured with aromatic hops grown mostly in the middle latitudes that are sensitive to changes in light, heat and water.

[…]

Source: Climate crisis will make Europe’s beer cost more and taste worse, say scientists | Europe | The Guardian

[…]

The clouds around Japan’s Mount Fuji and Mount Oyama contain concerning levels of the tiny plastic bits, and highlight how the pollution can be spread long distances, contaminating the planet’s crops and water via “plastic rainfall”.

The plastic was so concentrated in the samples researchers collected that it is thought to be causing clouds to form while giving off greenhouse gasses.

“If the issue of ‘plastic air pollution’ is not addressed proactively, climate change and ecological risks may become a reality, causing irreversible and serious environmental damage in the future,” the study’s lead author, Hiroshi Okochi, a professor at Waseda University, said in a statement.

The peer-reviewed paper was published in Environmental Chemistry Letters, and the authors believe it is the first to check clouds for microplastics.

[…]

Waseda researchers gathered samples at altitudes ranging between 1,300-3,776 meters, which revealed nine types of polymers, like polyurethane, and one type of rubber. The cloud’s mist contained about 6.7 to 13.9 pieces of microplastics per litre, and among them was a large volume of “water loving” plastic bits, which suggests the pollution “plays a key role in rapid cloud formation, which may eventually affect the overall climate”, the authors wrote in a press release.

That is potentially a problem because microplastics degrade much faster when exposed to ultraviolet light in the upper atmosphere, and give off greenhouse gasses as they do. A high concentration of these microplastics in clouds in sensitive polar regions could throw off the ecological balance, the authors wrote.

The findings highlight how microplastics are highly mobile and can travel long distances through the air and environment. Previous research has found the material in rain, and the study’s authors say the main source of airborne plastics may be seaspray, or aerosols, that are released when waves crash or ocean bubbles burst. Dust kicked up by cars on roads is another potential source, the authors wrote.

Source: Microplastics detected in clouds hanging atop two Japanese mountains

When contemplating the emissions from road vehicles, our first thought is often about the various gases coming out of the tailpipe. However, new research shows that we should be more concerned with the harmful particles that are shed from tires and brakes.

Scientists have a good understanding of engine emissions, which typically consist of unburnt fuel, oxides of carbon and nitrogen, and particulate matter related to combustion. However, new research shared by Yale Environment 360 indicates that there may be a whole host of toxic chemicals being shed from tires and brakes that have been largely ignored until now. Even worse, these emissions may be so significant that they actually exceed those from a typical car’s exhaust output.

A research paper published in 2020 highlighted the impact of tire pollution by examining the plight of coho salmon in West Coast streams. Scientists eventually identified a chemical called 6PPD, typically used in tire manufacturing to slow cracking and degradation. When exposed to ozone in the atmosphere, the chemical transforms into multiple other species, including 6PPD-quinone—which was found to be highly toxic to multiple fish, including coho salmon. The same chemical has since been detected in human urine, though any potential health impacts remain unknown.

The discovery of 6PPD-q and its impact has brought new scrutiny to the pollution generated by particles shedding from tires and brakes. In particular, tire rubber is made up of over 400 different chemical compounds, many of which are known to have negative effects on human health.

Particulate emissions from tires—and, to a lesser extent, brakes—are becoming a new focus for researchers looking into automobile pollution.

New research efforts are only just beginning to reveal the impact of near-invisible tire and brake dust. A report from the Pew Charitable Trust found that 78 percent of ocean microplastics are from synthetic tire rubber. These toxic particles often end up ingested by marine animals, where they can cause neurological effects, behavioral changes, and abnormal growth.

Meanwhile, British firm Emissions Analytics spent three years studying tires. The group found that a single car’s four tires collectively release 1 trillion “ultrafine” particles for every single kilometer (0.6 miles) driven. These particles, under 100 nanometers in size, are so tiny that they can pass directly through the lungs and into the blood. They can even cross the body’s blood-brain barrier. The Imperial College London has also studied the issue, noting that “There is emerging evidence that tire wear particles and other particulate matter may contribute to a range of negative health impacts including heart, lung, developmental, reproductive, and cancer outcomes.”

It’s an emissions problem that won’t go away with the transition to EVs, either. According to data from Emissions Analytics, EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more from their tires due to their higher weight and high torque compared to traditional internal combustion engine-powered vehicles.

Indeed, the scale of these emissions is significant. Particulate emissions from tires and brakes, particularly in the PM2.5 and PM10 size ranges, are believed to exceed the mass of tailpipe emissions from modern vehicle fleets, as per a study published in Science of the Total Environment this year.

This issue has largely flown under the radar until recently. Tailpipe emissions are easy to study, simply requiring the capture or sensing of gases directly at the engine’s exhaust. Capturing the fine particulates emitted from tires and brakes is altogether more difficult. Doing so in a way that accurately reflects the quantity of those emissions is yet harder. Such pollution is perhaps unlikely to have a direct impact on issues like climate change, but the potential toxicity for humans, animals, and the broader environment is a prime concern.

Regulators are already scrambling to tackle this issue, heretofore largely ignored by governments around the world. In the EU, the Euro 7 standards will regulate tire and brake emissions from 2025. In the U.S., the California EPA will require tire manufacturers to find an alternative chemical to 6PPD by 2024, to help reduce 6PPD-q entering the environment going forward. In turn, manufacturers are exploring everything from alternate tire compositions to special electrostatic methods to capture particulate output.

Expect this issue to gain greater prominence in coming years as regulators have more accurate data to act upon. There is great scope to slash this form of pollution if we properly understand the impacts of our cars in full.

Source: Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics: Study

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have figured out a way to turn everyday earbuds into high-tech gadgets that can record electrical activity inside the brain. The 3D screen-printed, flexible sensors are not only able to detect electrophysiological activity coming from the brain but they can also harvest sweat. Yes, sweat.

More specifically, sweat lactate, which is an organic acid that the body produces during exercise and normal metabolic activity. Because the ear contains sweat glands and is anatomically adjacent to the brain, earbuds are an ideal tool to gather this kind of data.

You may be wondering why scientists are interested in collecting biometric info about brain activity at the intersection of human sweat. Together, EEG and sweat lactate data can be used to diagnose different types of seizures. There are more than 30 different types of recorded seizures, which are categorized differently according to the areas of the brain that are impacted during an event.

But even beyond diagnostics, these variables can be helpful if you want to get a better picture of personal performance during exercise. Additionally, these biometric data points can be used to monitor stress and focus levels.

And while in-ear sensing of biometric data is not a new innovation, the sensor technology is unique in that it can measure both brain activity and lactate. However, what’s more important is that the researchers believe, with more refinement and development, we will eventually see more wearables that use neuroimaging sensors like the one being made to collect health data on everyday devices. In a statement, UC San Diego bioengineering professor Gert Cauwenberghs said that, “Being able to measure the dynamics of both brain cognitive activity and body metabolic state in one in-ear integrated device,” can open up tremendous opportunities for everyday health monitoring.

[…]

Despite their capabilities and rosy future as a potential diagnostic aid, the 3D printed sensors really need a considerable amount of sweat in order to be useful for data analysis. But the researchers said down the line the sensors will be more precise, so hard workouts may not be necessary for meaningful sweat analysis.

[…]

Source: Researchers developed 3D-printed sensors that can record brain activity on earbuds

The ability to regrow your own teeth could be just around the corner.

A team of scientists, led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup, are getting set to start human trials on a new drug that has successfully grown new teeth in animal test subjects.

Toregem Biopharma is slated to begin clinical trials in July of next year after it succeeded growing new teeth in mice five years ago, the Japan Times reports.

Dr. Katsu Takahashi, a lead researcher on the project and head of the dentistry and oral surgery department at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital, says “the idea of growing new teeth is every dentist’s dream.”

“I’ve been working on this since I was a graduate student,” he told Japan’s national daily news site, the Mainichi, earlier this year. “I was confident I’d be able to make it happen.”

Research news
New drug to regenerate lost teethhttps://t.co/qisOck4zt2#kyotouniversity #kyoto #japan #research #teeth

— Kyoto University (@KyotoU_News) April 13, 2021

 

In his research, which he’s been conducting at Kyoto University since 2005, Takahashi learned of a particular gene in mice that affects the growth of their teeth.

The antibody for this gene, USAG-1, can help stimulate tooth growth if it is suppressed – and scientists have since worked to develop a “neutralizing antibody medicine” that is able to block USAG-1.

Now, his team has been testing the theory that “blocking” this protein could grow more teeth.

After their successful tests on mice, the team went on to perform similarly positive trials on ferrets – animals who have a similar dental pattern to humans.

Now, testing will turn to healthy adult humans and, if all goes well, the team plans to hold a clinical trial for the drug from 2025 for children between two and six years old with anodontia – a rare genetic disorder that results in the absence of six or more baby and/or adult teeth.

According to the Japan Times, the children involved in the clinical trial will be injected with one dose of the drug to see if it induces teeth growth.

If successful, the medicine could be available for regulatory approval by 2030.

Takahashi hopes the new medicine could be just another option for those who don’t have a full set of teeth.

“In any case, we’re hoping to see a time when tooth-regrowth medicine is a third choice alongside dentures and implants,” Takahashi told Mainichi.

Source: (1) World’s 1st drug to regrow teeth enters clinical trials – National | Globalnews.ca

Since 1999, Slashdot has been covering the annual Ig Nobel prize ceremonies — which honor real scientific research into strange or surprising subjects. “Each winner (or winning team) has done something that makes people LAUGH, then THINK,” explains the ceremony web page, promising that “a gaggle of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel laureates handed the Ig Nobel Prizes to the new Ig Nobel winners.” As co-founder Marc Abrahams says on his LinkedIn profile, “All these things celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.”

You can watch this year’s entire goofy webcast online. (At 50 minutes there’s a jaw-droppingly weird music video about running on water…) Slashdot reader Thorfinn.au shares this summary of this year’s winning research: CHEMISTRY and GEOLOGY PRIZE [POLAND, UK] — Jan Zalasiewicz, for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks.

LITERATURE PRIZE [FRANCE, UK, MALAYSIA, FINLAND] — Chris Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Baharin, and Akira O’Connor for studying the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING PRIZE [INDIA, CHINA, MALAYSIA, USA] — Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor Shimokusu, and Daniel Preston, for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools.

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE [SOUTH KOREA, USA] — Seung-min Park, for inventing the Stanford Toilet a computer vision system for defecation analysis et al.

COMMUNICATION PRIZE [ARGENTINA, SPAIN, COLOMBIA, CHILE, CHINA, USA] — María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo Berthier, and Adolfo García, for studying the mental activities of people who are expert at speaking backward.

MEDICINE PRIZE [USA, CANADA, MACEDONIA, IRAN, VIETNAM] — Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Tiana Mamaghani, Margit Juhasz, Jamie Wikenheiser, and Natasha Mesinkovska, for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person’s two nostrils.

NUTRITION PRIZE [JAPAN] — Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food.

EDUCATION PRIZE [HONG KONG, CHINA, CANADA, UK, THE NETHERLANDS, IRELAND, USA, JAPAN] — Katy Tam, Cyanea Poon, Victoria Hui, Wijnand van Tilburg, Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, Gigi Yuen, and Christian Chan, for methodically studying the boredom of teachers and students.

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [USA] — Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz for 1968 experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward.

PHYSICS PRIZE [SPAIN, GALICIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, UK] — Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies.

Source: ‘Laugh then Think’: Strange Research Honored at 33rd Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony – Slashdot

Though a cornerstone of thermodynamics, entropy remains one of the most vexing concepts to teach budding physicists in the classroom. As a result, many people oversimplify the concept as the amount of disorder in the universe, neglecting its underlying quantitative nature.

 

In The Physics Teacher, researcher T. Ryan Rogers designed a hand-held model to demonstrate the concept of entropy for students. Using everyday materials, Rogers’ approach allows students to confront the topic with new intuition—one that takes specific aim at the confusion between entropy and disorder.

“It’s a huge conceptual roadblock,” Rogers said. “The good news is that we’ve found that it’s something you can correct relatively easily early on. The bad news is that this misunderstanding gets taught so early on.”

While many classes opt for the imperfect, qualitative shorthand of calling entropy “disorder,” it’s defined mathematically as the number of ways energy can be distributed in a system. Such a definition merely requires students to understand how particles store energy, formally known as “degrees of freedom.”

To tackle the problem, Rogers developed a model in which small objects such as dice and buttons are poured into a box, replicating a simple thermodynamic system. Some particles in the densely filled box are packed in place, meaning they have fewer degrees of freedom, leading to an overall low-entropy system.

As students shake the box, they introduce energy into the system, which loosens up locked-in particles. This increases the overall number of ways energy can be distributed within the box.

“You essentially zoom in on entropy so students can say, ‘Aha! There is where I saw the entropy increase,'” Rogers said.

As students shake further, the particles settle into a configuration that more evenly portions out the energy among them. The catch: at this point of high entropy, the particles fall into an orderly alignment.

“Even though it looks more orientationally ordered, there’s actually higher entropy,” Rogers said.

All the students who participated in the lesson were able to reason to the correct definition of entropy after the experiment.

Next, Rogers plans to extend the reach of the model by starting a conversation about entropy with other educators and creating a broader activity guide for ways to use the kits for kindergarten through college. He hopes his work inspires others to clarify the distinction in their classrooms, even if by DIY means.

“Grapes and Cheez-It crackers are very effective, as well,” Rogers said.

The article, “Hands-on Model for Investigating Entropy and Disorder in the Classroom,” is authored by T. Ryan Rogers and is published in The Physics Teacher.

More information: T. Ryan Rogers, Hands-on Model for Investigating Entropy and Disorder in the Classroom, The Physics Teacher (2023). DOI: 10.1119/5.0089761

Source: Grasping entropy: Teachers and students investigate thermodynamics through a hands-on model

[…]

A study published last month in the journal Environmental Pollution outlines how paper cups can leach toxic materials into the surrounding environment. This is because paper cups are often coated in a layer of polylactic acid, otherwise known as PLA. It’s a bioplastic and is touted as a biodegradable alternative to traditional plastic. However, researchers found that it caused adverse health effects in aquatic midge larvae.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg tested the effects of both plastic cups and paper cups on the midge larvae. Both types of cups were put in water or sediments for up to four weeks. The larvae were then put into aquariums that contained the sediment and water that once held the plastic and paper cups. The contaminated sediment and water were tested separately.

“We observed a significant growth inhibition with all the materials tested when the larvae were exposed in contaminated sediment,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Developmental delays were also observed for all materials, both in contaminated water and sediment.”

They found that growth challenges and developmental delays were observed in environments where the cups leached into them for only one week. The negative effects of the exposure increased in the water and sediment that held the paper and plastic cups for longer periods of time. This challenges the belief that bioplastics are safer. PLA does break down faster than traditional fossil fuel-based plastic material, but the study results show that they aren’t much safer.

“Bioplastics does not break down effectively when they end up in the environment, in water,” Bethanie Carney Almroth, a professor at the University of Gothenburg and study author, said in a press release. “There may be a risk that the plastic remains in nature and resulting microplastics can be ingested by animals and humans, just as other plastics do. Bioplastics contain at least as many chemicals as conventional plastic.”

Other previous studies have found that the plastic coating in paper cups can also create microplastics that enter the liquid in the cup. In 2019, a research group based out of India filled paper cups with hot water and found that there were an alarming amount of microplastic particles in a paper cup after filling the cups with hot liquids, Wired reported. The researchers found that there were about 25,000 particles per 100 ml cup after 15 minutes.

[…]

Source: Paper Cups Are Bad for the Environment Too, Study Finds

[…]

Researchers at the University of Rhode Island exposed mice to different levels of microplastics via their drinking water to research the impacts on behaviors and how the plastics build up in their bodies. Researchers observed that the microplastics accumulated in the tissue of multiple organs, including those outside of the digestive systems of the mice.

[…]

“We expected to see the microplastics in the feces of the animal, that wasn’t altogether surprising,” Ross told Earther. “Then we found them deep inside liver cells, spleen, [and] kidneys. Not just the center of the digestive tract, but actually in the tissue of the digestive tract.”

[…]

The team of researchers also looked at behavioral changes in mice that had steadily ingested microplastics, versus those that did not and those with lower levels of exposure. After three weeks of drinking microplastics in their water, the mice were placed in something called an open-field test. They explored a low-lit chamber for 90 minutes and their spontaneous movements were monitored.

[…]

“They don’t [usually] hang out waiting to be scooped up by a predator…they feel more protective along the sides,” Ross said. “We look at that type of behavior to understand: Are they going around the outside of this chamber? Are they going into the center?”

The mice that had higher exposures to microplastics in their water were more likely to be out in the open of the “field” environment compared to mice that were not exposed and those that had lower microplastic exposures. These mice had more erratic movements and traveled longer distances in the artificial field. This was especially notable in older mice. The differences in behavior were alarming, especially because the mice intentionally ingested the microplastics for only three weeks.

When the mice were studied, researchers also noticed inflammation in their brains. They also recorded a decrease in a glial fibrillary acidic protein, which is also known as GFAP. This is a protein that supports cell processes in the brain. Lower levels of this protein are associated with early stages of some neurodegenerative diseases including mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, Ross said. The team hadn’t expected this finding, and they intend to conduct future research to further understand the role of microplastics in neurological disorders and disease.

[…]

Source: Microplastics Tied to Behavioral Changes in Mice, Study Finds

A two-year human trial conducted by James Cook University (JCU) has concluded, demonstrating positive results using low-dose human hookworm therapy to treat chronic conditions, particularly in relation to type 2 diabetes. New Atlas reports: [O]f the 24 participants who received worms, when offered a dewormer at the end of the second year of the trial, with the option to stay in the study for another 12 months, only one person chose to kill off their gut buddies — and it was only because they had an impending planned medical procedure. “All trial participants had risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes,” said Dr Doris Pierce, from JCU’s Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM). “The trial delivered some considerable metabolic benefits to the hookworm-treated recipients, particularly those infected with 20 larvae.”

In this double-blinded trial, 40 participants aged 27 to 50, with early signs of metabolic diseases, took part. They received either 20 or 40 microscopic larvae of the human hookworm species Necator americanus; another group took a placebo. As an intestinal parasite, the best survival skill is to keep the host healthy, which will provide a long-term stable home with nutrients ‘on tap.’ In return, these hookworms pay the rent in the form of creating an environment that suppresses inflammation and other adverse conditions that can upset that stable home. While the small, round worms can live for a decade, they don’t multiply unless outside the body, and good hygiene means transmission risk is very low.

As for the results, those with 20 hookworms saw a Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) level drop from 3.0 units to 1.8 units within the first year, which restored their insulin resistance to a healthy range. The cohort with 40 hookworms still experienced a drop, from 2.4 to 2.0. Those who received the placebo saw their HOMA-IR levels increase from 2.2 to 2.9 during the same time frame. “These lowered HOMA-IR values indicated that people were experiencing considerable improvements in insulin sensitivity — results that were both clinically and statistically significant,” said Dr Pierce. Those with worms also had higher levels of cytokines, which play a vital role in triggering immune responses. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Source: Hookworms Successfully Prevent Type 2 Diabetes In Human Trial – Slashdot

Once tooth decay has set in, all a dentist can do is fill the gap with an artificial plug — a filling. But in a paper published in Cell, Hannele Ruohola-Baker, a stem-cell biologist at the University of Washington, and her colleagues offer a possible alternative. Economist: Stem cells are those that have the capacity to turn themselves into any other type of cell in the body. It may soon be possible, the researchers argue, to use those protean cells to regrow a tooth’s enamel naturally. The first step was to work out exactly how enamel is produced. That is tricky, because enamel-making cells, known as ameloblasts, disappear soon after a person’s adult teeth have finished growing. To get round that problem, the researchers turned to samples of tissue from human foetuses that had been aborted, either medically or naturally. Such tissues contain plenty of functioning ameloblasts. The researchers then checked to see which genes were especially active in the enamel-producing cells. Tooth enamel is made mostly of calcium phosphate, and genes that code for proteins designed to bind to calcium were particularly busy. They also assessed another type of cell called odontoblasts. These express genes that produce dentine, another type of hard tissue that lies beneath the outer enamel. Armed with that information, Dr Ruohola-Baker and her colleagues next checked to see whether the stem cells could be persuaded to transform into ameloblasts.

The team devised a cocktail of drugs designed to activate the genes that they knew were expressed in functioning ameloblasts. That did the trick, with the engineered ameloblasts turning out the same proteins as the natural sort. A different cocktail pushed the stem cells to become odontoblasts instead. Culturing the cells together produced what researchers call an organoid — a glob of tissue in a petri dish which mimics a biological organ. The organoids happily churned out the chemical components of enamel. Having both cell types seemed to be crucial: when odontoblasts were present alongside ameloblasts, genes coding for enamel proteins were more strongly expressed than with ameloblasts alone. For now, the work is more a proof of concept than a prototype of an imminent medical treatment. The next step, says Dr Ruohola-Baker, is to try to boost enamel production even further, with a view to eventually beginning clinical trials. The hope is that, one day, medical versions of the team’s organoids could be used as biological implants, to regenerate a patient’s decayed teeth.

Source: Scientists Want To Fix Tooth Decay With Stem Cells – Slashdot

[…] Knowing the wave function of such a quantum system is a challenging task—this is also known as quantum state tomography or quantum tomography in short. With the standard approaches (based on the so-called projective operations), a full tomography requires large number of measurements that rapidly increases with the system’s complexity (dimensionality).

Previous experiments conducted with this approach by the research group showed that characterizing or measuring the high-dimensional quantum state of two entangled photons can take hours or even days. Moreover, the result’s quality is highly sensitive to noise and depends on the complexity of the experimental setup.

The projective measurement approach to quantum tomography can be thought of as looking at the shadows of a high-dimensional object projected on different walls from independent directions. All a researcher can see is the shadows, and from them, they can infer the shape (state) of the full object. For instance, in CT scan (computed tomography scan), the information of a 3D object can thus be reconstructed from a set of 2D images.

In classical optics, however, there is another way to reconstruct a 3D object. This is called digital holography, and is based on recording a single image, called interferogram, obtained by interfering the light scattered by the object with a reference light.

The team, led byEbrahim Karimi, Canada Research Chair in Structured Quantum Waves, co-director of uOttawa Nexus for Quantum Technologies (NexQT) research institute and associate professor in the Faculty of Science, extended this concept to the case of two photons.

Reconstructing a biphoton state requires superimposing it with a presumably well-known quantum state, and then analyzing the spatial distribution of the positions where two photons arrive simultaneously. Imaging the simultaneous arrival of two photons is known as a coincidence image. These photons may come from the reference source or the unknown source. Quantum mechanics states that the source of the photons cannot be identified.

This results in an interference pattern that can be used to reconstruct the unknown wave function. This experiment was made possible by an advanced camera that records events with nanosecond resolution on each pixel.

Dr. Alessio D’Errico, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa and one of the co-authors of the paper, highlighted the immense advantages of this innovative approach, “This method is exponentially faster than previous techniques, requiring only minutes or seconds instead of days. Importantly, the detection time is not influenced by the system’s complexity—a solution to the long-standing scalability challenge in projective tomography.”

The impact of this research goes beyond just the academic community. It has the potential to accelerate quantum technology advancements, such as improving quantum state characterization, quantum communication, and developing new quantum imaging techniques.

The study “Interferometric imaging of amplitude and phase of spatial biphoton states” was published in Nature Photonics.

More information: Danilo Zia et al, Interferometric imaging of amplitude and phase of spatial biphoton states, Nature Photonics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01272-3

Source: Visualizing the mysterious dance: Quantum entanglement of photons captured in real-time

[…] a new study published on Monday in the journal Nature Medicine. The gene therapy was tested on macaque monkeys over 12 months, revealing promising results.

[…]

At the beginning of the study, the monkeys were gradually given alcohol until an addiction was established. Then, they began self-regulating their own intake at an amount equating to roughly nine drinks per day for a human. The researchers separated the macaques into a control group and a separate group that received the gene therapy.

According to the study, the monkeys’ daily alcohol consumption increased over the first six months before an eight-week abstinence period was initiated. The gene therapy was applied by inserting two small holes in the macaques’ skulls, and researchers injected a gene that makes the glial-derived neurotrophic factor, or GDNF protein, which stimulates the amount of dopamine produced. Then the monkeys were given the option to drink water or alcohol for four weeks.

What researchers found astounded them. Just one round of gene therapy resulted in the test group reducing their drinking by 50% compared to the control group which didn’t receive therapy. Subsequent test periods used a four-week window of drinking and a four-week window of abstinence. With each round of therapy, researchers found the test group voluntarily consumed less alcohol after the abstinence period, and by the end of the 12-month study, that amount dropped by more than 90%.

[…]

However, researchers also found that the therapy could also influence other behaviors such as weight loss and water intake. The macaques in the test group drank less water compared to the control group and lost about 18% of their body weight

[…]

Source: Gene Therapy Rewired Monkey’s Brains to Treat Alcohol Use Disorder, Study Finds

I want video of this lab!

[…]

researchers are now waking up to another factor, one that could be filed under the category of unintended consequences: disappearing clouds known as ship tracks. Regulations imposed in 2020 by the United Nations’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) have cut ships’ sulfur pollution by more than 80% and improved air quality worldwide. The reduction has also lessened the effect of sulfate particles in seeding and brightening the distinctive low-lying, reflective clouds that follow in the wake of ships and help cool the planet. The 2020 IMO rule “is a big natural experiment,” says Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “We’re changing the clouds.”

By dramatically reducing the number of ship tracks, the planet has warmed up faster, several new studies have found. That trend is magnified in the Atlantic, where maritime traffic is particularly dense. In the shipping corridors, the increased light represents a 50% boost to the warming effect of human carbon emissions. It’s as if the world suddenly lost the cooling effect from a fairly large volcanic eruption each year, says Michael Diamond, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University.

The natural experiment created by the IMO rules is providing a rare opportunity for climate scientists to study a geoengineering scheme in action—although it is one that is working in the wrong direction. Indeed, one such strategy to slow global warming, called marine cloud brightening, would see ships inject salt particles back into the air, to make clouds more reflective. In Diamond’s view, the dramatic decline in ship tracks is clear evidence that humanity could cool off the planet significantly by brightening the clouds. “It suggests pretty strongly that if you wanted to do it on purpose, you could,” he says.

The influence of pollution on clouds remains one of the largest sources of uncertainty in how quickly the world will warm up, says Franziska Glassmeier, an atmospheric scientist at the Delft University of Technology. Progress on understanding these complex interactions has been slow. “Clouds are so variable,” Glassmeier says.

Some of the basic science is fairly well understood. Sulfate or salt particles seed clouds by creating nuclei for vapor to condense into droplets. The seeds also brighten existing clouds by creating smaller, more numerous droplets. The changes don’t stop there, says Robert Wood, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington. He notes that smaller droplets are less likely to merge with others, potentially suppressing rainfall. That would increase the size of clouds and add to their brightening effect. But modeling also suggests that bigger clouds are more likely to mix with dry air, which would reduce their reflectivity.

[…]

Source: ‘We’re changing the clouds.’ An unintended test of geoengineering is fueling record ocean warmth | Science | AAAS

A new study reports conclusive evidence for the breakdown of standard gravity in the low acceleration limit from a verifiable analysis of the orbital motions of long-period, widely separated, binary stars, usually referred to as wide binaries in astronomy and astrophysics.

The study carried out by Kyu-Hyun Chae, professor of physics and astronomy at Sejong University in Seoul, used up to 26,500 wide binaries within 650 light years (LY) observed by European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope. The study was published in the 1 August 2023 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

For a key improvement over other studies Chae’s study focused on calculating gravitational accelerations experienced by binary stars as a function of their separation or, equivalently the orbital period, by a Monte Carlo deprojection of observed sky-projected motions to the three-dimensional space.

Chae explains, “From the start it seemed clear to me that gravity could be most directly and efficiently tested by calculating accelerations because gravitational field itself is an acceleration. My recent research experiences with galactic rotation curves led me to this idea. Galactic disks and wide binaries share some similarity in their orbits, though wide binaries follow highly elongated orbits while hydrogen gas particles in a galactic disk follow nearly circular orbits.”

Also, unlike other studies Chae calibrated the occurrence rate of hidden nested inner binaries at a benchmark acceleration.

The study finds that when two stars orbit around with each other with accelerations lower than about one nanometer per second squared start to deviate from the prediction by Newton’s universal law of gravitation and Einstein’s general relativity.

For accelerations lower than about 0.1 nanometer per second squared, the observed acceleration is about 30 to 40% higher than the Newton-Einstein prediction. The significance is very high meeting the conventional criteria of 5 sigma for a scientific discovery. In a sample of 20,000 wide binaries within a distance limit of 650 LY two independent acceleration bins respectively show deviations of over 5 sigma significance in the same direction.

Because the observed accelerations stronger than about 10 nanometer per second squared agree well with the Newton-Einstein prediction from the same analysis, the observed boost of accelerations at lower accelerations is a mystery. What is intriguing is that this breakdown of the Newton-Einstein theory at accelerations weaker than about one nanometer per second squared was suggested 40 years ago by theoretical physicist Mordehai Milgrom at the Weizmann Institute in Israel in a new theoretical framework called modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) or Milgromian dynamics in current usage.

Moreover, the boost factor of about 1.4 is correctly predicted by a MOND-type Lagrangian theory of gravity called AQUAL, proposed by Milgrom and the late physicist Jacob Bekenstein. What is remarkable is that the correct boost factor requires the external field effect from the Milky Way galaxy that is a unique prediction of MOND-type modified gravity. Thus, what the wide binary data show are not only the breakdown of Newtonian dynamics but also the manifestation of the external field effect of modified gravity.

On the results, Chae says, “It seems impossible that a conspiracy or unknown systematic can cause these acceleration-dependent breakdown of the standard gravity in agreement with AQUAL. I have examined all possible systematics as described in the rather long paper. The results are genuine. I foresee that the results will be confirmed and refined with better and larger data in the future. I have also released all my codes for the sake of transparency and to serve any interested researchers.”

Unlike galactic rotation curves in which the observed boosted accelerations can, in principle, be attributed to dark matter in the Newton-Einstein standard gravity, wide binary dynamics cannot be affected by it even if it existed. The standard gravity simply breaks down in the weak acceleration limit in accordance with the MOND framework.

Implications of wide binary dynamics are profound in astrophysics, theoretical physics, and cosmology. Anomalies in Mercury’s orbits observed in the nineteenth century eventually led to Einstein’s general relativity.

Now anomalies in wide binaries require a new theory extending general relativity to the low acceleration MOND limit. Despite all the successes of Newton’s gravity, general relativity is needed for relativistic gravitational phenomena such as black holes and gravitational waves. Likewise, despite all the successes of general relativity, a new theory is needed for MOND phenomena in the weak acceleration limit. The weak-acceleration catastrophe of gravity may have some similarity to the ultraviolet catastrophe of classical electrodynamics that led to quantum physics.

Wide binary anomalies are a disaster to the standard gravity and cosmology that rely on dark matter and dark energy concepts. Because gravity follows MOND, a large amount of dark matter in galaxies (and even in the universe) are no longer needed. This is also a big surprise to Chae who, like typical scientists, “believed in” dark matter until a few years ago.

A new revolution in physics seems now under way. Milgrom says, “Chae’s finding is a result of a very involved analysis of cutting-edge data, which, as far as I can judge, he has performed very meticulously and carefully. But for such a far-reaching finding—and it is indeed very far reaching—we require confirmation by independent analyses, preferably with better future data.”

“If this anomaly is confirmed as a breakdown of Newtonian dynamics, and especially if it indeed agrees with the most straightforward predictions of MOND, it will have enormous implications for astrophysics, cosmology, and for fundamental physics at large.”

Xavier Hernandez, professor at UNAM in Mexico who first suggested wide binary tests of gravity a decade ago, says, “It is exciting that the departure from Newtonian gravity that my group has claimed for some time has now been independently confirmed, and impressive that this departure has for the first time been correctly identified as accurately corresponding to a detailed MOND model. The unprecedented accuracy of the Gaia satellite, the large and meticulously selected sample Chae uses and his detailed analysis, make his results sufficiently robust to qualify as a discovery.”

Pavel Kroupa, professor at Bonn University and at Charles University in Prague, has come to the same conclusions concerning the law of gravitation. He says, “With this test on wide binaries as well as our tests on open star clusters nearby the sun, the data now compellingly imply that gravitation is Milgromian rather than Newtonian. The implications for all of astrophysics are immense.”

More information: Kyu-Hyun Chae, Breakdown of the Newton–Einstein Standard Gravity at Low Acceleration in Internal Dynamics of Wide Binary Stars, The Astrophysical Journal (2023). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ace101

Source: Smoking-gun evidence for modified gravity at low acceleration from Gaia observations of wide binary stars

A team from the University of Chicago has announced the first evidence for “quantum superchemistry”—a phenomenon where particles in the same quantum state undergo collective accelerated reactions. The effect had been predicted, but never observed in the laboratory.

[…]

Chin’s group is experienced with herding atoms into quantum states, but molecules are larger and much more complex than atoms—so the group had to invent new techniques to wrangle them.

In the experiments, the scientists cooled down cesium atoms and coaxed them into the same quantum state. Next, they watched as the atoms reacted to form molecules.

In ordinary chemistry, the individual atoms would collide, and there’s a probability for each collision to form a molecule. However, quantum mechanics predicts that atoms in a quantum state perform actions collectively instead.

[…]

One consequence is that the reaction happens faster than it would under ordinary conditions. In fact, the more atoms in the system, the faster the reaction happens.

Another consequence is that the final molecules share the same molecular state. Chin explained that the same molecules in different states can have different physical and chemical properties—but there are times when you want to create a batch of molecules in a specific state. In traditional chemistry, you’re rolling the dice. “But with this technique, you can steer the molecules into an identical state,” he said.

[…]

More information: Zhendong Zhang et al, Many-body chemical reactions in a quantum degenerate gas, Nature Physics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-023-02139-8

Source: Scientists observe first evidence of ‘quantum superchemistry’ in the laboratory