Here comes the Sun: Planetary scientists find evidence of solar-driven change on the Moon

Tiny iron nanoparticles unlike any found naturally on Earth are nearly everywhere on the Moon -- and scientists are trying to understand why. A new study led by Northern Arizona University doctoral candidate Christian J. Tai Udovicic, in collaboration with associate professor Christopher Edwards, both of NAU's Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, uncovered important clues to help understand the surprisingly active lunar surface. In an article recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists found that solar radiation could be a more important source of lunar iron nanoparticles than previously thought.

Asteroid impacts and solar radiation affect the Moon in unique ways because it lacks the protective magnetic field and atmosphere that protect us here on Earth. Both asteroids and solar radiation break down lunar rocks and soil, forming iron nanoparticles (some smaller, some larger) that are detectable from instruments on satellites orbiting the Moon. The study used data from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spacecraft to understand how quickly iron nanoparticles form on the Moon over time.

"We have thought for a long time that the solar wind has a small effect on lunar surface evolution, when in fact it may be the most important process producing iron nanoparticles," Tai Udovicic said. "Since iron absorbs a lot of light, very small amounts of these particles can be detected from very far away -- making them a great indicator of change on the Moon."

Surprisingly, the smaller iron nanoparticles seemed to form at a similar rate as radiation damage in samples returned from the Apollo missions to the Moon, a hint that the Sun has a strong influence in their formation.

"When I saw the Apollo sample data and our satellite data side by side for the first time, I was shocked," Tai Udovicic said. "This study shows that the solar radiation could have a much larger influence in active change on the Moon than previously thought, not only darkening its surface, but it might also create small quantities of water usable in future missions."

As NASA prepares to land the first woman and the next man on the surface of the Moon by 2024 as part of the Artemis mission, understanding the solar radiation environment and possible resources on the Moon are critical. In future work recently awarded a NASA Future Investigators in Space Science and Technology (FINESST) grant, Tai Udovicic plans to broaden his targeted study to the entire Moon, but is also eager to take a closer look at mysterious lunar swirls, one of which was recently selected as a landing site for the upcoming Lunar Vertex rover. He also studies lunar temperatures and water ice stability to inform future missions.

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Researchers develop novel strategy for tuberculosis vaccine

Innovators at Purdue University and Houston Methodist Research Institute have created a novel strategy for developing an effective vaccine for a widespread form of tuberculosis.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is a leading cause of death worldwide, leading to over 1.5 million fatalities annually. Approximately one-third of the global population is infected with the latent form of Mtb. Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is widely used as a vaccine against tuberculosis but has a variable protection against neonatal and adult pulmonary TB. That protection can, however, range from zero to 80% among infants. Children are routinely vaccinated, yet Mtb dissemination into brain and tuberculosis meningitis continues to occur.

Purdue and Houston Methodist researchers have created this novel TB vaccine formulation by incorporating autophagy-mediated antigen presentation, which initiates an enhanced T cell response. Chinnaswamy Jagannath, professor of pathology and genomic medicine at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, which is an affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical College, showed that the novel formulation improves the development of tuberculosis-specific immune responses. Jagannath collaborates with Dr. Suresh Mittal, Distinguished Professor of Virology in Purdue's College of Veterinary Medicine.

"Our vaccine approach is equally effective without or with prior vaccination with BCG," Mittal said.

"It is vital since the majority of people in Mtb-endemic countries are already immunized with BCG," Jagannath said.

Mittal's lab studies delivery platforms for vaccines, and Jagannath's lab used the nasal delivery route for this TB vaccine development.

"The great thing about this work with TB is that it can translate to other infectious diseases and possibly cancer immunotherapy," Mittal said.

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Seeing both the forest and the trees: Trans-scale scope shows big picture of tiny targets

Scientists from the Transdimensional Life Imaging Division of the Institute for Open and Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives (OTRI) at Osaka University created an optical imaging system that can capture an unprecedented number of cells in a single image. By combining an ultra-high pixel camera and a huge lens, the team was able to easily observe exceedingly rare, "one-in-a-million" situations. This work provides a valuable new tool for the simultaneous observation of centimeter-scale dynamics of multicellular populations with micrometer resolution to see the functions of individual cells.

In biology, scientists are often interested in the outliers of a population, such as cells with a rare function that may appear in fewer than one in a million individuals. These experiments have been hampered by the inherent tradeoff with microscopes between seeing cells at a sufficient spatial resolution while still maintaining a large enough field of view to capture unusual specimens. Scientists often spend several minutes moving slides in search of just the right cells to study.

Now, a team of scientists led by Osaka University has devised a system that can produce an image containing up to a million cells at once. "Conventional biological microscopes can observe at most 1,000 cells, with a field of view limited to a few millimeters. Our setup uses machine vision powered by a high-pixel camera with a macro lens," first author Taro Ichimura says. The team built the optical imaging system with a 120-megapixel camera and a telecentric macro lens. This provided a much larger field of view than conventional microscopes, up to about one and half by one centimeter, while still resolving individual cells and the interactions between them that characterize the population. The team termed the imaging technology "trans-scale scope," which signifies that the technology can be applied to imaging from the micrometer-scale to the centimeter-scale. "As a technological singularity for a powerful cell measurement, our trans-scale scope system AMATERAS is expected to contribute to a wide range of applications, from basic research for understanding the operating mechanism of multicellular systems, to medical applications such as the quality control of artificial cell sheets," senior author Takeharu Nagai says.

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We can expect more emissions from oil refineries in the near-term future, analysis finds

A global inventory has revealed that CO2 emissions from oil refineries were 1.3 Gigatonnes (Gt) in 2018 and could be as large as 16.5 Gt from 2020 to 2030. Based on the results, the researchers recommend distinct mitigation strategies for refineries in different regions and age groups. The findings appear August 20 in the journal One Earth.

"This study provides a detailed picture of oil refining capacity and CO2 emissions worldwide," says Dabo Guan of Tsinghua University. "Understanding the past and future development trends of the oil refining industry is crucial for guiding regional and global emissions reduction."

Climate change is one of the most fundamental challenges facing humanity today, and continuous expansion of fossil-fuel-based energy infrastructure may be one of the key obstacles in achieving the Paris Agreement goals. The oil refining industry plays a crucial role in both the energy supply chain and climate change. The petroleum oil refining industry is the third-largest stationary emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, contributing 6% of all industrial greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, CO2 accounts for approximately 98% of greenhouse gases emitted by petroleum refineries.

In the new study, Guan and his collaborators developed a publicly available global inventory of CO2 emissions from 1,056 oil refineries from 2000 to 2018. CO2 emissions of the refinery industry were about 1.3 Gt in 2018. If all existing and proposed refineries operate as usual, without the adoption of any low-carbon measures, they could emit up to 16.5Gt of CO2 from 2020 to 2030. Based on the findings, the authors recommend mitigation strategies, such as improving refinery efficiency and upgrading heavy oil-processing technologies, which could potentially reduce global cumulative emissions by 10% from 2020 to 2030. The inventory will be updated and improved in the future as more and better data become available.

The study also showed that the average output of global oil refineries gradually increased from 2000 to 2018, in terms of barrels per day. But the results varied by refinery age group. Specifically, the average capacity of young refineries, which are mainly distributed in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, increased significantly from 2000 to 2018, while the average capacity of refineries older than 19 years remained stable. "Given the greater committed emissions brought about by the long remaining operating time of young refineries, there is an urgent need for these refineries to adopt low-carbon technologies to reduce their CO2 emissions," Guan says. "As for middle-aged and old refineries, improving operational efficiency, eliminating the backward capacity, and speeding up the upgrading of refining configuration are the key means to balance growing demand and reducing CO2 emissions."

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Evolution now accepted by majority of Americans

The level of public acceptance of evolution in the United States is now solidly above the halfway mark, according to a new study based on a series of national public opinion surveys conducted over the last 35 years.

"From 1985 to 2010, there was a statistical dead heat between acceptance and rejection of evolution," said lead researcher Jon D. Miller of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. "But acceptance then surged, becoming the majority position in 2016."

Examining data over 35 years, the study consistently identified aspects of education -- civic science literacy, taking college courses in science and having a college degree -- as the strongest factors leading to the acceptance of evolution.

"Almost twice as many Americans held a college degree in 2018 as in 1988," said co-author Mark Ackerman, a researcher at Michigan Engineering, the U-M School of Information and Michigan Medicine. "It's hard to earn a college degree without acquiring at least a little respect for the success of science."

The researchers analyzed a collection of biennial surveys from the National Science Board, several national surveys funded by units of the National Science Foundations, and a series focused on adult civic literacy funded by NASA. Beginning in 1985, these national samples of U.S. adults were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals."

The series of surveys showed that Americans were evenly divided on the question of evolution from 1985 to 2007. According to a 2005 study of the acceptance of evolution in 34 developed nations, led by Miller, only Turkey, at 27%, scored lower than the United States. But over the last decade, until 2019, the percentage of American adults who agreed with this statement increased from 40% to 54%.

The current study consistently identified religious fundamentalism as the strongest factor leading to the rejection of evolution. While their numbers declined slightly in the last decade, approximately 30% of Americans continue to be religious fundamentalists as defined in the study. But even those who scored highest on the scale of religious fundamentalism shifted toward acceptance of evolution, rising from 8% in 1988 to 32% in 2019.

Miller predicted that religious fundamentalism would continue to impede the public acceptance of evolution.

"Such beliefs are not only tenacious but also, increasingly, politicized," he said, citing a widening gap between Republican and Democratic acceptance of evolution.

As of 2019, 34% of conservative Republicans accepted evolution compared to 83% of liberal Democrats.

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Study reveals existing drugs that kill SARS-CoV2 in cells

Since the beginning of the pandemic, researchers worldwide have been looking for ways to treat COVID-19. And while the COVID-19 vaccines represent the best measure to prevent the disease, therapies for those who do get infected remain in short supply. A new groundbreaking study from U-M reveals several drug contenders already in use for other purposes -- including one dietary supplement -- that have been shown to block or reduce SARS-CoV2 infection in cells.

The study, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, uses artificial intelligence-powered image analysis of human cell lines during infection with the novel coronavirus. The cells were treated with more than 1,400 individual FDA-approved drugs and compounds, either before or after viral infection, and screened, resulting in 17 potential hits. Ten of those hits were newly recognized, with seven identified in previous drug repurposing studies, including remdesivir, which is one of the few FDA-approved therapies for COVID-17 in hospitalized patients.

"Traditionally, the drug development process takes a decade -- and we just don't have a decade," said Jonathan Sexton, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the U-M Medical School and one of the senior authors on the paper. "The therapies we discovered are well positioned for phase 2 clinical trials because their safety has already been established."

The team validated the 17 candidate compounds in several types of cells, including stem-cell derived human lung cells in an effort to mimic SARS-CoV2 infection of the respiratory tract. Nine showed anti-viral activity at reasonable doses, including lactoferrin, a protein found in human breastmilk that is also available over the counter as a dietary supplement derived from cow's milk.

"We found lactoferrin had remarkable efficacy for preventing infection, working better than anything else we observed," Sexton said. He adds that early data suggest this efficacy extends even to newer variants of SARS-CoV2, including the highly transmissible Delta variant.

The team is soon launching clinical trials of the compound to examine its ability to reduce viral loads and inflammation in patients with SARS-CoV2 infection.

The trials are adding to the list of ongoing studies of promising repurposed drugs. Sexton noted that over the course of the pandemic, other drug repurposing studies have identified different compounds with potential efficacy against SARS-CoV2. "The results seem to be dependent on what cell system is used," he said.

"But there is an emerging consensus around a subset of drugs and those are the ones that have the highest priority for clinical translation. We fully expect that the majority of these won't work in human beings, but we anticipate there are some that will."

A surprising finding about certain drugs and COVID

Remarkably, the U-M study also identified a class of compounds called MEK-inhibitors, typically prescribed to treat cancer, that appear to worsen SARS-CoV2 infection. The finding sheds light on how the virus spreads among cells.

"People going in for chemotherapy are at risk already due to a lowered immune response. We need to investigate whether some of these drugs worsen disease progression," said Sexton.

The next step, he noted, is to use electronic health records to see whether patients on these drugs have worse COVID-19 outcomes.

The work is one of the first major discoveries to come out of the new U-M Center for Drug Repurposing (CDR), which was established in November 2019, just as the pandemic began. The Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR), with partners across campus, launched the Center with the goal of finding potential therapeutics for the thousands of human diseases for which there is no treatment.

"Repurposing existing therapeutic interventions in the clinical setting has many advantages that result in significantly less time from discovery to clinical use, including documented safety profiles, reduced regulatory burden, and substantial cost savings," said George A. Mashour, MD, PhD, co-director of MICHR and founder/executive sponsor of the CDR.

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Novel AI blood testing technology can ID lung cancers with high accuracy

A novel artificial intelligence blood testing technology developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center was found to detect over 90% of lung cancers in samples from nearly 800 individuals with and without cancer.

The test approach, called DELFI (DNA evaluation of fragments for early interception), spots unique patterns in the fragmentation of DNA shed from cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream. Applying this technology to blood samples taken from 796 individuals in Denmark, the Netherlands and the U.S., investigators found that the DELFI approach accurately distinguished between patients with and without lung cancer.

Combining the test with analysis of clinical risk factors, a protein biomarker, and followed by computed tomography imaging, DELFI helped detect 94% of patients with cancer across stages and subtypes. This included 91% of patients with earlier or less invasive stage I/II cancers and 96% of patients with more advanced stage III/IV cancers. These results will be published in the August 20 issue of the journal Nature Communications.

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death, claiming almost 2 million lives worldwide each year. However, fewer than 6% of Americans at risk for lung cancers undergo recommended low-dose computed tomography screening, despite projections that tens of thousands of deaths could be avoided, and even fewer are screened worldwide, explains senior study author Victor E. Velculescu, M.D., Ph.D., professor of oncology and do-director of the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Program at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. This is due to a variety of reasons, including concerns of potential harm from investigation of false positive imaging results, radiation exposure or worries about complications from invasive procedures. "It is clear that there is an urgent, unmet clinical need for development of alternative, noninvasive approaches to improve cancer screening for high-risk individuals and, ultimately, the general population," says lead author Dimitrios Mathios, a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. "We believe that a blood test, or 'liquid biopsy,' for lung cancer could be a good way to enhance screening efforts, because it would be easy to do, broadly accessible and cost-effective."

The DELFI technology uses a blood test to indirectly measure the way DNA is packaged inside the nucleus of a cell by studying the size and amount of cell-free DNA present in the circulation from different regions across the genome. Healthy cells package DNA like a well-organized suitcase, in which different regions of the genome are placed carefully in various compartments. The nuclei of cancer cells, by contrast, are like more disorganized suitcases, with items from across the genome thrown in haphazardly. When cancer cells die, they release DNA in a chaotic manner into the bloodstream. DELFI helps identify the presence of cancer using machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence, to examine millions of cell-free DNA fragments for abnormal patterns, including the size and amount of DNA in different genomic regions. This approach provides a view of cell-free DNA referred to as the "fragmentome." The DELFI approach only requires low-coverage sequencing of the genome, enabling this technology to be cost-effective in a screening setting, the researchers say.

For the study, investigators from Johns Hopkins, working with researchers in Denmark and the Netherlands, first performed genome sequencing of cell-free DNA in blood samples from 365 individuals participating in a seven-year Danish study called LUCAS. The majority of participants were at high risk for lung cancer and had smoking-related symptoms such as cough or difficulty breathing. The DELFI approach found that patients who were later determined to have cancer had widespread variation in their fragmentome profiles, while patients found not to have cancer had consistent fragmentome profiles. Subsequently, researchers validated the DELFI technology using a different population of 385 individuals without cancer and 46 individuals with cancer. Overall, the approach detected over 90% of patients with lung cancer, including those with early and advanced stages, and with different subtypes. "DNA fragmentation patterns provide a remarkable fingerprint for early detection of cancer that we believe could be the basis of a widely available liquid biopsy test for patients with lung cancer," says author Rob Scharpf, Ph.D., associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

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A parent’s genes can influence a child’s educational success, inherited or not

A child's educational success depends on the genes that they haven't inherited from their parents, as well as the genes they have, according to a new study led by UCL researchers.

Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the study confirms that genes a person inherits directly are most likely to contribute to their achievements in education. But parent genes that aren't directly inherited, yet have still shaped parents' own education levels and subsequently influenced the lifestyle and family environment they provide for their children, are also important and can affect how well a person does at school and beyond.

The study, a systematic review and meta-analysis of prior evidence of genetic impacts on educational outcomes, is published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Children resemble their parents because of nature (the genes they inherit) and nurture (the environment they grow up in). But nature and nurture effects are intertwined.

Mothers and fathers each pass on half of their genes to their children, and although the other half of their genes are not passed on, they continue to influence the parents' traits and ultimately influence the traits in their children. For example, parents with a higher genetic propensity for learning may have a greater interest in activities such as reading that, in turn, nurture learning in their offspring.

This concept -- when parents' genes influence outcomes for their offspring by shaping the environment that they provide for them -- is called genetic nurture. It describes how parents' genes indirectly their children's characteristics.

For the current paper, researchers reviewed and analysed 12 studies in several countries and used a method called polygenic scoring to study the influence of millions of genetic variants on educational attainment in nearly 40,000 parent and child pairs.

The researchers found that genetic nurture had about half as much impact on education success as genetic inheritance.

Genetic nurture effects captured by polygenic scores in the studies explained at least 1.28% of variance in educational outcomes, while direct genetic effects explained at least 2.89% of variance in educational outcomes. The researchers say the findings are underestimated given that polygenic scores only capture a fraction of heritability in educational outcomes; the actual genetic effects could be multiple times higher, but direct genetic effects would probably still be roughly double those of genetic nurture effects.

Lead researcher Dr Jean-Baptiste Pingault (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) said: "We discovered genetic nurture has a significant effect on a child's educational achievement. The effects were mainly down to their parents' education and how it influences the environment they provide. We also found that fathers and mothers had similar genetic nurture effects, suggesting both parents are equally important in shaping and fostering an environment favourable for a child's learning.

"This study illustrates how complex the relationship between genes and the environment is. Although our study uses genetic methods, it provides strong evidence that, as well as genetics, the environment really matters when we talk about education.

"Two aspects are complementary here. First, some of it depends on the genetic lottery, so parents do not have complete control and not everything is down to what they do. That said, what parents do and their choices do seem to matter. Our findings show that socioeconomic status and parental education are probably key.

"It is really important to understand how educational attainment (years of education, highest degree obtained) and achievement (scores and grades achieved) are passed on through families, and how this knowledge could help us break cycles of disadvantage across generations."

First author of the paper, Dr Biyao Wang (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) said: "It is too early yet to say whether the most important is what happens within the family (such as parents reading to their children) or outside the family (such as parents choosing the best school and activities). Next we hope to work out which pathways genetic nurture operates through, if it changes during different stages of development, and identify what aspects of the environment are most important. This will be key to designing new interventions to encourage and support all children to succeed."

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Fast changes between the solar seasons resolved by new sun clock

Violent activity on our Sun leads to some of the most extreme space weather events on Earth, impacting systems such as satellites, communications systems, power distribution and aviation. The roughly 11 year cycle of solar activity has three 'seasons', each of which affects the space weather felt at Earth differently: (i) solar maximum, the sun is active and disordered, when space weather is stormy and events are irregular (ii) the declining phase, when the sun and solar wind becomes ordered, and space weather is more moderate and (iii) solar minimum, when activity is quiet.

In a new study led by the University of Warwick and published in The Astrophysical Journal, scientists found that the change from solar maximum to the declining phase is fast, happening within a few (27 day) solar rotations. They also showed that the declining phase is twice as long in even-numbered solar cycles as it is in odd-numbered cycles.

No two solar cycles are the same in amplitude or duration. To study the solar seasons, the scientists built a sun clock from the daily sunspot number record available since 1818. This maps the irregular solar cycles onto a regular clock. The magnetic polarity of the sun reverses after each roughly 11 year solar cycle giving a roughly 22 year magnetic cycle (named after George Ellery Hale) and to explore this, a 22 year clock was constructed. The effect on space weather at earth can be tracked back using the longest continuous records of geomagnetic activity over the past 150 years, and once the clock is constructed, it can be used to study multiple observations of seasonal solar activity which affect the earth.

With the greater detail afforded by the sun clock, the scientists could see that the switch from solar maximum to the declining phase is fast, occurring within a few (27 day) solar rotations. There was also a clear difference in the duration of the declining phase when the sun's magnetic polarity is 'up' compared to 'down': in even-numbered cycles it is around twice as long as odd-numbered cycles. As we are about to enter cycle 25, the scientists anticipate that the next declining phase will be short.

Lead author Professor Sandra Chapman of the University of Warwick Department of Physics said: "By combining well known methods in a new way, our clock resolves changes in the Sun's climate to within a few solar rotations. Then you find the changes between some phases can be really sharp.

"If you know you've had a long cycle, you know the next one's going to be short, we can estimate how long it's going to last. Knowing the timing of the climate seasons helps to plan for space weather. Operationally it is useful to know when conditions will be active or quiet, for satellites, power grids, communications."

The results also provide a clue to understanding how the Sun reverses polarity after every cycle.

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Attractiveness pays off at work — but there’s a trick to level the playing field

Beautiful people are more likely to get hired, receive better performance evaluations and get paid more -- but it's not just because of their good looks, according to new research from the University at Buffalo School of Management.

The study, forthcoming in Personnel Psychology, was recently published online. It found that while a "beauty premium" exists across professions, it's partially because attractive people develop distinct traits as a result of how the world responds to their attractiveness. They build a greater sense of power and have more opportunities to improve nonverbal communication skills throughout their lives.

"We wanted to examine whether there's an overall bias toward beauty on the job, or if attractive people excel professionally because they're more effective communicators," says Min-Hsuan Tu, PhD, assistant professor of organization and human resources in the UB School of Management. "What we found was that while good looking people have a greater sense of power and are better nonverbal communicators, their less-attractive peers can level the playing field during the hiring process by adopting a powerful posture."

The researchers conducted two studies that evaluated 300 elevator pitches of participants in a mock job search. In the first study, managers determined the good looking people to be more hirable because of their more effective nonverbal presence.

In the second study, the researchers asked certain participants to strike a 'power pose' by standing with their feet shoulder-width apart, hands on hips, chest out and chin up during their pitch. With this technique, the less attractive people were able to match the level of nonverbal presence that their more attractive counterparts displayed naturally.

"By adopting the physical postures associated with feelings of power and confidence, less attractive people can minimize behavioral differences in the job search," says Tu. "But power posing is not the only solution -- anything that can make you feel more powerful, like doing a confidence self-talk, visualizing yourself succeeding, or reflecting on past accomplishments before a social evaluation situation can also help."

From Science Daily