Why did glacial cycles intensify a million years ago?

Something big happened to the planet about a million years ago. There was a major shift in the response of Earth's climate system to variations in our orbit around the Sun. The shift is called the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. Before the MPT, cycles between glacial (colder) and interglacial (warmer) periods happened every 41,000 years. After the MPT, glacial periods became more intense -- intense enough to form ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere that lasted 100,000 years. This gave Earth the regular ice-age cycles that have persisted into human time.

Scientists have long puzzled over what triggered this. A likely reason would be a phenomenon called Milankovitch cycles -- cyclic changes in Earth's orbit and orientation toward the Sun that affect the amount of energy that Earth absorbs. This, scientists agree, has been the main natural driver of alternating warm and cold periods for millions of years. However, research has shown that the Milankovitch cycles did not undergo any kind of big change a million years ago, so something else likely was at work.

Coinciding with the MPT, a large system of ocean currents that helps move heat around the globe experienced a severe weakening. That system, which sends heat north through the Atlantic Ocean, is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Was this slowdown related to the shift in glacial periods? If so, how and why? These have been open questions. A new paper published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences proposes an answer.

The researchers analyzed cores of deep-sea sediments taken in the south and north Atlantic, where ancient deep waters passed by and left chemical clues. "What we found is the North Atlantic, right before this crash, was acting very differently than the rest of the basin," said lead author Maayan Yehudai, who did the work as a PhD. student at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Prior to that oceanic circulation crash, ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere began to stick to their bedrock more effectively. This caused glaciers to grow thicker than they had before. This in turn led to a greater global cooling than before, and disrupted the Atlantic heat conveyor belt. This led to both stronger ice ages and the ice-age cycle shift, says Yehudai.

The research supports a long-debated hypothesis that the gradual removal of accumulated slippery continental soils during previous ice ages allowed ice sheets to cling more tightly to the older, harder crystalline bedrock underneath, and grew thicker and more stable. The findings indicate that this growth and stabilization just before the weakening of the AMOC shaped the global climate.

"Our research addresses one of the biggest questions about the largest climate change we had since the onset of the ice ages," said Yehudai. "It was one of the most substantial climate transitions and we don't fully understand it. Our discovery pins the origin of this change to the Northern Hemisphere and the ice sheets that evolved there as driving this shift towards the climate patterns we observe today. This is a very important step toward understanding what caused it and where it came from. It highlights the importance of the North Atlantic region and ocean circulation for present and future climate change."

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'Cold bone': Researchers discover first dinosaur species that lived on Greenland 214 million years ago

The two-legged dinosaur Issi saaneq lived about 214 million years ago in what is now Greenland. It was a medium-sized, long-necked herbivore and a predecessor of the sauropods, the largest land animals ever to live. It was discovered by an international team of researchers from Portugal, Denmark and Germany, including the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). The name of the new dinosaur pays tribute to Greenland's Inuit language and means "cold bone." The team reports on its discovery in the journal Diversity.

The initial remains of the dinosaur -- two well-preserved skulls -- were first unearthed in 1994 during an excavation in East Greenland by palaeontologists from Harvard University. One of the specimens was originally thought to be from a Plateosaurus, a well-known long-necked dinosaur that lived in Germany, France and Switzerland during the Triassic Period. Only a few finds from East Greenland have been prepared and thoroughly documented. "It is exciting to discover a close relative of the well-known Plateosaurus, hundreds of which have already been found here in Germany," says co-author Dr Oliver Wings from MLU.

The team performed a micro-CT scan of the bones, which enabled them to create digital 3D models of the internal structures and the bones still covered by sediment. "The anatomy of the two skulls is unique in many respects, for example in the shape and proportions of the bones. These specimens certainly belong to a new species," says lead author Victor Beccari, who carried out the analyses at NOVA University Lisbon.

The plant-eating dinosaur Issi saaneq lived around 214 million years ago during the Late Triassic Period. It was at this time that the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart and the Atlantic Ocean began forming. "At the time, the Earth was experiencing climate changes that enabled the first plant-eating dinosaurs to reach Europe and beyond," explains Professor Lars Clemmensen from the University of Copenhagen.

The two skulls of the new species come from a juvenile and an almost adult individual. Apart from the size, the differences in bone structure are minor and only relate to proportions. The new Greenlandic dinosaur differs from all other sauropodomorphs discovered so far, however it does have similarities with dinosaurs found in Brazil, such as the Macrocollum and Unaysaurus, which are almost 15 million years older. Together with the Plateosaurus from Germany, they form the group of plateosaurids: relatively graceful bipeds that reached lengths of 3 to 10 metres.

The new findings are the first evidence of a distinct Greenlandic dinosaur species, which not only adds to the diverse range of dinosaurs from the Late Triassic (235-201 million years ago) but also allows us to better understand the evolutionary pathways and timeline of the iconic group of sauropods that inhabited the Earth for nearly 150 million years.

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Giant leap taken in fighting antibiotic resistance

Scientists may have made a giant leap in fighting the biggest threat to human health by using supercomputing to keep pace with the impressive ability of diseases to evolve.

A new study by an international team, co-led by Dr Gerhard Koenig from the University of Portsmouth, tackled the problem of antibiotic resistance by redesigning existing antibiotics to overcome bacterial resistance mechanisms.

About 700,000 people are estimated to die every year because of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and that number is expected to rise to millions.

Without effective antibiotics, life expectancy is predicted to drop by 20 years.

The race has been on for many years to develop new antibiotics to fight disease faster than a disease can evolve.

Computers have been used in drug design for decades, but this is the first study to use a multi-pronged computer-guided strategy to make a new antibiotic from an existing one which bacteria have outwitted.

The research is published in PNAS.

Dr Koenig, a computational chemist and first author on the paper, said: "Antibiotics are one of the pillars of modern medicine and antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to human health. There's an urgent need to develop new ways of fighting ever-evolving bacteria.

"Developing a new antibiotic usually involves finding a new target that is essential for the survival of a wide range of different bacteria. This is extremely difficult, and only very few new classes of antibiotics have been developed in recent times.

"We have taken a simpler approach by starting from an existing antibiotic, which is ineffective against new resistant strains, and modifying it so it's now able to overcome resistance mechanisms."

The team has shown that their best drug candidate, which is yet to undergo clinical trials, is up to 56 times more active for the tested bacterial strains than two antibiotics on the World Health Organisation's (WHO) list of essential medicines, erythromycin and clarithromycin.

Dr Koenig said: "Not only is our best candidate more effective against the tested targets, but it also shows activity against the three top ranked bacteria from the WHO priority list where the tested existing antibiotics don't work.

"It's only a matter of time until bacteria develop counterstrategies against our counterstrategies and become resistant to the new antibiotic, so we will have to keep on studying bacterial resistance mechanisms and develop new derivatives accordingly."

The hope of this new work lies in showing that the resistance mechanisms of bacteria can be addressed in a systematic way, allowing science to continually fight back with a computational evolution of new antibiotics.

Dr Koenig said: "Our computers are becoming faster with every year. So, there is some hope that we will be able to turn the tide.

"If computers can beat the world champion in chess, I don't see why they should not also be able to defeat bacteria."

The international team, including Nobel Prize laureate Ada Yonath, carried out the research at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, the Weizmann Institute, and the universities of Duisburg-Essen, Bochum and Queensland.

They developed a strategy to simulate many aspects of a redesigned antibiotic at the same time, including how soluble it is, how effective it is at entering into the bacteria, and how efficient it is at blocking their protein production.

The computational work outlined in the research was done in a matter of weeks on one of the top supercomputers in Europe, but it took the international team several years to verify experimentally that their approach was indeed correct.

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Anxiety effectively treated with exercise

Both moderate and strenuous exercise alleviate symptoms of anxiety, even when the disorder is chronic, a study led by researchers at the University of Gothenburg shows.

The study, now published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, is based on 286 patients with anxiety syndrome, recruited from primary care services in Gothenburg and the northern part of Halland County. Half of the patients had lived with anxiety for at least ten years. Their average age was 39 years, and 70 percent were women.

Through drawing of lots, participants were assigned to group exercise sessions, either moderate or strenuous, for 12 weeks. The results show that their anxiety symptoms were significantly alleviated even when the anxiety was a chronic condition, compared with a control group who received advice on physical activity according to public health recommendations.

Most individuals in the treatment groups went from a baseline level of moderate to high anxiety to a low anxiety level after the 12-week program. For those who exercised at relatively low intensity, the chance of improvement in terms of anxiety symptoms rose by a factor of 3.62. The corresponding factor for those who exercised at higher intensity was 4.88. Participants had no knowledge of the physical training or counseling people outside their own group were receiving.

"There was a significant intensity trend for improvement -- that is, the more intensely they exercised, the more their anxiety symptoms improved," states Malin Henriksson, doctoral student at Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, specialist in general medicine in the Halland Region, and the study's first author.

Importance of strenuous exercise

Previous studies of physical exercise in depression have shown clear symptom improvements. However, a clear picture of how people with anxiety are affected by exercise has been lacking up to now. The present study is described as one of the largest to date.

Both treatment groups had 60-minute training sessions three times a week, under a physical therapist's guidance. The sessions included both cardio (aerobic) and strength training. A warmup was followed by circle training around 12 stations for 45 minutes, and sessions ended with cooldown and stretching.

Members of the group that exercised at a moderate level were intended to reach some 60 percent of their maximum heart rate -- a degree of exertion rated as light or moderate. In the group that trained more intensively, the aim was to attain 75 percent of maximum heart rate, and this degree of exertion was perceived as high.

The levels were regularly validated using the Borg scale, an established rating scale for perceived physical exertion, and confirmed with heart rate monitors.

New, simple treatments needed

Today's standard treatments for anxiety are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychotropic drugs. However, these drugs commonly have side effects, and patients with anxiety disorders frequently do not respond to medical treatment. Long waiting times for CBT can also worsen the prognosis.

The present study was led by Maria Åberg, associate professor at the University of Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska Academy, specialist in general medicine in Region Västra Götaland's primary healthcare organization, and corresponding author.

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Thinnest X-ray detector ever created

Scientists in Australia have used tin mono-sulfide (SnS) nanosheets to create the thinnest X-ray detector ever made, potentially enabling real-time imaging of cellular biology.

X-ray detectors are tools that allow energy transported by radiation to be recognised visually or electronically, like medical imaging or Geiger counters.

SnS has already shown great promise as a material for use in photovoltaics, field effect transistors and catalysis.

Now, members of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science, based at Monash Universityand RMIT University, have shown that SnS nanosheets are also excellent candidates for use as soft X-ray detectors.

Their research, published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, indicates that SnS nanosheets possess high photon absorption coefficients, allowing them to be used in making ultrathin soft X-ray detectors with high sensitivity and a rapid response time.

These materials were found to be even more sensitive than another emerging candidate (metal halide perovskites), boasting a faster response time than established detectors and are tuneable for sensitivity across the soft X-ray region.

The SnS X-ray detectors created by the team are less than 10 nanometres thick. To put things in perspective, a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometres thick, and your fingernails grow about one nanometre every second. Previously, the thinnest X-ray detectors created were between 20 and 50 nanometres.

Considerable work remains to explore the full potential of the SnS X-ray detectors, but Professor Jacek Jasieniak of Monash's Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the senior author of the paper, believes it's possible this could one day lead to real-time imaging of cellular processes.

"The SnS nanosheets respond very quickly, within milliseconds," he said.

"You can scan something and get an image almost instantaneously. The sensing time dictates the time resolution. In principle, given the high sensitivity and high time resolution, you could be able to see things in real time.

"You might be able to use this to see cells as they interact. You're not just producing a static image, you could see proteins and cells evolving and moving using X-rays."

Why are such sensitive and responsive detectors important? X-rays can be broadly divided into two types: 'Hard' X-rays are the kind used by hospitals to scan the body for broken bones and other illnesses.

Perhaps less well known but just as important are 'soft' X-rays, which have a lower photon energy and can be used to study wet proteins and living cells, a crucial component of cellular biology.

Some of these measurements take place in the 'water window', a region of the electromagnetic spectrum in which water is transparent to soft X-rays.

Soft X-ray detection can be conducted using a Synchrotron, a particle accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, but access to this type of hugely expensive infrastructure is difficult to secure.

Recent advances in non-synchrotron soft X-ray laser sources may allow lower cost, portable detection systems to be designed, providing an accessible alternative to Synchrotrons for researchers around the world.

But for this approach to work, we will need soft X-ray detector materials that are highly sensitive to low energy X-rays, provide excellent spatial resolution, and are cost effective.

Some existing soft X-ray detectors use an indirect mechanism, in which ionizing radiation is converted into visible photons. This approach allows for multiple energy ranges and frame rates to be studied, but is difficult to prepare and offers limited resolutions.

Direct detection methods are easier to prepare and offer better resolutions, because the detector material can be thinner than indirect approaches.

Good candidate materials need a high X-ray absorption coefficient, which is calculated using the atomic number of the absorbing atoms, X-ray incident energy, density and atomic mass of an atom.

High atomic mass and low energy X-rays favour high absorption, and soft X-rays are more strongly absorbed in thin materials compared to hard X-rays.

Nanocrystal films and ferromagnetic flakes have shown promise as certain types of soft X-ray detectors, but they are not well equipped to handle the water region.

That's where the SnS nanosheets come in.

One of the lead authors, Dr Nasir Mahmood of RMIT University, said the sensitivity and efficiency of SnS nanosheets depends greatly on their thickness and lateral dimensions, which are not possible to control through traditional fabrication methods.

Using a liquid metal-based exfoliation method allowed the researchers to produce high quality, large area sheets with controlled thickness, which can efficiently detect soft X-ray photons in the water region. Their sensitivity can be further enhanced by a process of stacking the ultrathin layers.

They represent major improvements in sensitivity and response time compared to existing direct soft X-ray detectors.

The researchers hope their findings will open new avenues for the development of next-generation, highly sensitive X-ray detectors based on ultrathin materials.

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Ecosystems worldwide are disrupted by lack of large wild herbivores – except in Africa

Biological research has repeatedly demonstrated that the relationship between the producer and the consumer is governed by a scaling law. An international research team has now looked into whether this law of nature can be reproduced in the relationship between the production of plants in an area and the number of large herbivores that graze on them. The study reveals that Africa is the only continent where the scaling law holds true.

June 2021 saw the start of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. A total of 115 countries have committed themselves to restoring up to a billion hectares of nature worldwide.

According to a group of researchers from Aarhus University and the University of Sussex, one of biggest challenges will be restoring the historical and prehistoric grazing of large mammals. What level of restoration should we aim for? How many large herbivores will we need? And how are we going to co-exist with these large animals?

A baseline in Africa

The researchers examined the current low densities of large herbivores in a scientific article in the Journal of Applied Ecology. In the article, they calculated a baseline for large animals based on the ratio between producer and consumer, i.e. plants and herbivores, in nature reserves in Africa.

They stress that this relationship between producers and consumers applies across ecosystems and biomes implying a close correlation between the biomass produced and the biomass of dependent consumers.

However, after investigating the density of large herbivores in nature reserves throughout the world, the researchers were only able to find such a close correlation on one continent: Africa. On the other continents, they found strong indications of impoverished fauna, even in protected natural areas.

"African ecosystems have species-rich mammal fauna and a large biomass of big herbivores that are significantly linked to plant productivity," says Camilla Fløjgaard from the Department of Ecoscience at Aarhus University and head of the research group.

"But we can't find this pattern on other continents, and in general the large herbivore biomass is much lower than we would expect considering the level of productivity," she adds.

Far fewer animals in European nature

The survey includes data from protected areas, reserves and several rewilding projects in Europe. The researchers found significant differences, as the biomass for large herbivores in natural areas was less than one-tenth of the biomass observed in fenced rewilding areas with restored herbivore fauna.

"It's thought-provoking that, even in many protected areas, the number of large herbivores is only a fraction of what the areas can actually sustain," says Camilla Fløjgaard.

Another and lower baseline

In the article, the researchers argue that large herbivores are still being displaced, hunted and eradicated, and that there is a widespread perception, even among game managers, that there are plenty of herbivores in the wild, perhaps even too many. This perception is not supported by the new study.

On the contrary, efforts to decrease populations of large herbivores can reflect a shifting baseline.

"Even though large herbivores have been wandering the landscape for millions of years, it seems that we have become accustomed to landscapes almost completely devoid of them, and we have come to accept this as the natural state of things," says Camilla Fløjgaard.

Large animals are 'troublesome'

In the EU alone, there is a plan is to allocate 30% of marine and land areas to the restoration of natural areas and ecosystems.

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Study of 18000+ US and Australian older people reveals moderate drinking protective against heart disease, more than for tea totalers

A landmark study by Monash University researchers has found that moderate drinking of alcohol is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and a lowering of mortality from all causes -- when compared to zero alcohol consumption. The study in more than 18,000 people in the US and Australia over the age of 70 is the first to look at the heart health implications of alcohol intake.

Excess alcohol consumption is a leading contributor to the global burden of disease and a major risk factor for mortality. Yet, prior studies suggested that moderate alcohol consumption may be associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events.

This Monash University study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology is the first to investigate the risk of CVD events and mortality, from all causes, associated with alcohol consumption in initially healthy, older individuals.

Populations around the world are ageing. The Monash University- led ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) clinical trial was a large-scale, long-term multi-centre, bi-national study of aspirin and health in older adults, with the purpose to discover ways to maintain health, quality of life and independence as we age.

This study, led by Dr Johannes Neumann, from the Monash University School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, analysed data from almost 18,000 ASPREE participants -- Australians and Americans mostly aged 70 years and older.

Participants in the study did not have prior CVD events, diagnosed dementia or independence-limiting physical disability. CVD events included coronary heart disease death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, fatal and non-fatal stroke, non-coronary cardiac or vascular death, and hospitalisation for heart failure. Information on alcohol consumption (days of drinking per week and average standard drinks per day) was assessed by self-reported questionnaire at baseline. The study excluded former alcohol consumers who may have stopped alcohol consumption for various health reasons, possibly introducing bias from reverse causality.

Based on this information, the alcohol intake was calculated as grams per week -- for US participants a standard drink was equivalent to 14 g and 10 g for Australian participants.

In the study, alcohol consumption was categorised as 0 (never drinks) and those who drink 1-50; 51-100; 101-150, and >150g/week. For Australians that is up to 5; 5-10; 10-14 and over 15 standard drinks per week. For Americans -- that is up to 3.5; 3.5-7; 7-10 and over 10 standard drinks per week. Of the almost 18,000 eligible participants with median age 74 years:
 

• 57% were female
• 43.3% were current or former smokers and
• mean BMI was 28.1 kg/m2

The participants reported that
 

• 18.6% ingested no alcohol every week
• 37.3% reported 1-50 g/week
• 19.7%reported 51-100 g/week
• 15.6% reported 101-150 g/week
• 8.9% reported >150 g/week

The participants were followed for an average of 4.7 years and the study found that there was a reduced risk of CVD events for individuals consuming alcohol of 51-100, 101-150, and >150 g/week, compared to never consuming alcohol, regardless of gender.

Consumption of 51-100 g/week was also associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality.

Lead author, Dr Neumann, says the findings need to be interpreted with caution, as study participants were all initially healthy without prior CVD or other severe diseases, and may have been more physically and socially active than the wider ageing population.

Furthermore, prior evidence showed that excess alcohol consumption increases the risk of other chronic diseases, such as cancer, liver disease or pancreatitis.

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COVID-19: The older you are, the more antibodies you have, study finds

With the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants worldwide, the pandemic's spread is accelerating. A research team led by Joelle Pelletier and Jean-François Masson, both professors in Université de Montréal's Department of Chemistry, wanted to find out whether natural infection or vaccination led to more protective antibodies being generated.

In their study published today in Scientific Reports, they observe that those who received the Pfizer BioNTech or AstraZeneca vaccine had antibody levels that were significantly higher than infected individuals. These antibodies were also effective against the Delta variant, which wasn't present in Quebec when the samples were collected in 2020.

Masson, a biomedical instruments specialist, and Pelletier, a protein chemistry expert, were interested in an understudied group: people who have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 but were not hospitalized as a result of the infection.

32 non-hospitalized COVID-19 positive Canadian adults

Consequently, 32 non-hospitalized COVID-19 positive Canadian adults were recruited by the Centre hospitalier de l'Université Laval 14 to 21 days after being diagnosed through PCR testing. This was in 2020, before the Beta, Delta and Gamma variants emerged.

"Everyone who had been infected produced antibodies, but older people produced more than adults under 50 years of age," said Masson. "In addition, antibodies were still present in their bloodstream 16 weeks after their diagnosis."

Antibodies produced after an infection by the original, "native" strain of the virus also reacted to SARS-CoV-2 variants that emerged in subsequent waves, namely Beta (South Africa), Delta (India) and Gamma (Brazil), but to a lesser extent: a reduction of 30 to 50 per cent.

A surprising reaction to the Delta variant

"But the result that surprised us the most was that antibodies produced by naturally infected individuals 50 and older provided a greater degree of protection than adults below 50, " said Pelletier.

"This was determined by measuring the antibodies' capacity to inhibit the interaction of the Delta variant's spike protein with the ACE-2 receptor in human cells, which is how we become infected," he added. "We didn't observe the same phenomenon with the other variants."

When someone who has had a mild case of COVID is vaccinated, the antibody level in their blood doubles compared to an unvaccinated person who has been infected by the virus. Their antibodies are also better able to prevent spike-ACE-2 interaction.

"But what's even more interesting," said Masson, "is that we have samples from an individual younger than 49 whose infection didn't produce antibodies inhibiting spike-ACE-2 interaction, unlike vaccination. This suggests that vaccination increases protection against the Delta variant among people previously infected by the native strain."

Both scientists believe more research should be conducted to determine the best combination for maintaining the most effective level of antibodies reactive to all variants of the virus.

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Jet from giant galaxy M87: Computer modelling explains black hole observations

The galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is located 55 million light years away from Earth in the Virgo constellation. It is a giant galaxy with 12,000 globular clusters, making the Milky Way's 200 globular clusters appear modest in comparison. A black hole of six and a half billion sun masses is harboured at the centre of M87. It is the first black hole for which an image exists, created in 2019 by the international research collaboration Event Horizon Telescope.

This black hole (M87*) shoots a jet of plasma at near the speed of light, a so-called relativistic jet, on a scale of 6,000 light years. The tremendous energy needed to power this jet probably originates from the gravitational pull of the black hole, but how a jet like this comes about and what keeps it stable across the enormous distance is not yet fully understood.

The black hole M87* attracts matter that rotates in a disc in ever smaller orbits until it is swallowed by the black hole. The jet is launched from the centre of the accretion disc surrounding M87, and theoretical physicists at Goethe University, together with scientists from Europe, USA and China, have now modelled this region in great detail.

They used highly sophisticated three-dimensional supercomputer simulations that use the staggering amount of a million CPU hours per simulation and had to simultaneously solve the equations of general relativity by Albert Einstein, the equations of electromagnetism by James Maxwell, and the equations of fluid dynamics by Leonhard Euler.

The result was a model in which the values calculated for the temperatures, the matter densities and the magnetic fields correspond remarkably well with what deduced from the astronomical observations. On this basis, scientists were able to track the complex motion of photons in the curved spacetime of the innermost region of the jet and translate this into radio images. They were then able to compare these computer modelled images with the observations made using numerous radio telescopes and satellites over the past three decades.

Dr Alejandro Cruz-Osorio, lead author of the study, comments: "Our theoretical model of the electromagnetic emission and of the jet morphology of M87 matches surprisingly well with the observations in the radio, optical and infrared spectra. This tells us that the supermassive black hole M87* is probably highly rotating and that the plasma is strongly magnetized in the jet, accelerating particles out to scales of thousands of light years."

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Low-gravity simulator design offers new avenues for space research and mission training

As humanity continues its exploration of the universe, the low-gravity environment of space presents unusual challenges for scientists and engineers.

Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory have developed a new tool to help meet that challenge -- a novel design for a low-gravity simulator that promises to break new ground for future space research and habitation.

Their new design for a magnetic levitation-based low-gravity simulator can create an area of low gravity with a volume about 1,000 times larger than existing simulators of the same type. The work was published in the journal npj Microgravity.

"Low gravity has a profound effect on the behaviors of biological systems and also affects many physical processes from the dynamics and heat transfer of fluids to the growth and self-organization of materials," said Wei Guo, associate professor in mechanical engineering and lead scientist on the study. "However, spaceflight experiments are often limited by the high cost and the small payload size and mass. Therefore, developing ground-based low-gravity simulators is important."

Existing simulators, such as drop towers and parabolic aircraft, use free fall to generate near-zero gravity. But these facilities typically have short low-gravity durations, i.e., several seconds to a few minutes, which makes them unsuitable for experiments that require long observation times. On the other hand, magnetic levitation-based simulators (MLS) can offer unique advantages, including low cost, easy accessibility, adjustable gravity, and practically unlimited operation time.

But a conventional MLS can only create a small volume of low gravity. When a typical simulator mimics an environment that is about 1 percent of Earth's gravity, the functional volume is only a few micro-liters, too small for practical space research and applications.

In order to increase the functional volume of an MLS, the researchers needed a magnet that would allow a uniform levitation force to be generated that would balance the gravitational force in a large volume. They found that they could achieve this by integrating a superconducting magnet with a gradient Maxwell coil -- a coil configuration that was first proposed in the 1800s by physicist James Clark Maxwell.

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