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New analysis highlights importance of groundwater discharge into oceans

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An invisible flow of groundwater seeps into the ocean along coastlines all over the world. Scientists have tended to disregard its contributions to ocean chemistry, focusing on the far greater volumes of water and dissolved material entering the sea from rivers and streams, but a new study finds groundwater discharge plays a more significant role than had been thought.

The new findings, published January 8 in Nature Communications, have implications for global models of biogeochemical cycles and for the interpretation of isotope records of Earth’s climate history.

“It’s really hard to characterize groundwater discharge, so it has been a source of uncertainty in the modeling of global cycles,” said first author Kimberley Mayfield, who led the study as a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz. “It took a large effort by researchers around the world who came together to make this happen.” [Read more…] about New analysis highlights importance of groundwater discharge into oceans

Child marriage is ‘legal and persists across Canada’

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Canada is at the forefront of global efforts to end child marriage abroad. Yet this practice “remains legal and persists across the country”, according to research by McGill University.

In Canada, more than 3,600 marriage certificates were issued to children, usually girls, under the age of 18 between 2000 and 2018, according to a new study from researchers at McGill University. In recent years, an increasing number of child marriages have been common-law unions.

Child marriage, defined as formal or informal (common-law) marriage before the age of 18, is a globally-recognized indicator of gender inequality because the negative consequences for health and personal development disproportionately affect girls.

While much research has focused on developing countries, in wealthier nations like Canada, child marriage practices are overlooked and understudied. [Read more…] about Child marriage is ‘legal and persists across Canada’

Preserving workers’ hearing health by improving earplug efficiency

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Noise exposure accounts for 22% of worldwide work-related health problems. Excessive noise not only causes hearing loss and tinnitus, but also increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

To provide protection, workers normally wear earplugs. However, commonly available earplugs are often uncomfortable, since they don’t fit everyone’s ears equally well.

How could we improve the comfort and effectiveness of these earplugs? What aspects of the ear canal must be taken into account? [Read more…] about Preserving workers’ hearing health by improving earplug efficiency

Disposable surgical masks best for being heard clearly when speaking, study finds

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Researcher Ryan Corey recently heard from a friend who teaches at a school where some of the students have hearing loss.

The friend wanted to know if he had any ideas to help her communicate with these students while wearing a mask to slow the spread of Covid-19. Corey, who also has hearing loss, did not know what to tell her. So, he headed to the Illinois Augmented Listening Laboratory to look for solutions.

Corey, an electrical and computer engineering postdoctoral researcher under professor Andrew Singer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, leads a team that studies audio signal processing, especially for listening devices like hearing aids. The results of the team’s new study evaluating the acoustic effects of face masks on speech are published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. [Read more…] about Disposable surgical masks best for being heard clearly when speaking, study finds

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AI-designed serotonin sensor may help scientists study sleep and mental health

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Serotonin is a neurochemical that plays a critical role in the way the brain controls our thoughts and feelings. For example, many antidepressants are designed to alter serotonin signals sent between neurons.

In an article in Cell, National Institutes of Health-funded researchers described how they used advanced genetic engineering techniques to transform a bacterial protein into a new research tool that may help monitor serotonin transmission with greater fidelity than current methods. Preclinical experiments, primarily in mice, showed that the sensor could detect subtle, real-time changes in brain serotonin levels during sleep, fear, and social interactions, as well as test the effectiveness of new psychoactive drugs.

The study was funded, in part, by the NIH’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative which aims to revolutionize our understanding of the brain under healthy and disease conditions. [Read more…] about AI-designed serotonin sensor may help scientists study sleep and mental health

Shipwrecked ivory a treasure trove for understanding elephants and 16th century trading

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In 1533, a Portuguese trading vessel carrying forty tons of gold and silver coins along with other precious cargo went missing on its way to India. In 2008, this vessel, known as the Bom Jesus, was found in Namibia, making it the oldest known shipwreck in southern Africa. Now, an international collaboration of researchers in Namibia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States reporting in the journal Current Biology on December 17 have found that the ship’s cargo included more than 100 elephant tusks, which paleogenomic and isotopic analyses trace to many distinct herds that once roamed West Africa.

The study is the first to combine paleogenomic, isotopic, archeological, and historical methods to determine the origin, ecological, and genetic histories of shipwrecked cargo, according to the researchers. That’s noteworthy in part because ivory was a central driver of the trans-continental commercial trading system connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia via maritime routes. The findings also have implications for understanding African elephants of the past and present.

In the new study, the team, including Alfred L. Roca and Alida de Flamingh, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with Ashley Coutu and Shadreck Chirikure, affiliated with the University of Oxford and University of Cape Town, wanted to pinpoint the source of elephant ivory that was widely circulated in the Indian and Atlantic trading systems during early trade and globalization. [Read more…] about Shipwrecked ivory a treasure trove for understanding elephants and 16th century trading

Researchers compile world’s largest inventory of known plant species

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Leipzig could mean for the future of plant taxonomy what Greenwich meant for world time until 1972: it could become the reference city for correct scientific plant names.

In an outstanding feat of research, the curator of the Botanical Garden of Leipzig University, Dr Martin Freiberg, and colleagues from iDiv and UL have compiled what is now the largest and most complete list of scientific names of all known plant species in the world.

The Leipzig Catalogue of Vascular Plants (LCVP) enormously updates and expands existing knowledge on the naming of plant species, and could replace The Plant List (TPL) – a catalogue created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London which until now has been the most important reference source for plant researchers. [Read more…] about Researchers compile world’s largest inventory of known plant species

BfR consumer monitor special superfoods

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The term “superfood” is not legally regulated. Superfoods, however, are often referred to as foods whose ingredients are considered particularly beneficial to health – for example, due to their high content of vitamins or minerals and fibre. Only 8 percent of respondents associate health risks with the consumption of superfoods.

“Superfood products are often not sufficiently investigated to be able to evaluate them from a health perspective,” says BfR President Professor Dr Andreas Hensel.

“A balanced and varied diet remains the best basis for staying healthy. This can be supported by the consumption of imported superfoods just as by the consumption of local fruits and vegetables.” [Read more…] about BfR consumer monitor special superfoods

ECDC and WHO call for improved HIV testing in Europe

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The number of people living with undiagnosed HIV is increasing in the WHO European Region. According to data published today by ECDC and the WHO/Europe, more than 136 000 people were newly diagnosed in 2019 – roughly 20% of these diagnoses were in the EU/EAA and 80% in the eastern part of the European Region.

Every second HIV diagnosis (53%) happens at a late stage of the infection, when the immune system has already started to fail. This is a sign that testing strategies in the Region are not working properly to diagnose HIV early. [Read more…] about ECDC and WHO call for improved HIV testing in Europe

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Miniscule robots of metal and plastic

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Robots so tiny that they can manoeuvre through our blood vessels and deliver medications to certain points in the body – researchers have been pursuing this goal for years.

Now, scientists at ETH Zurich have succeeded for the first time in building such “micromachines” out of metal and plastic, in which these two materials are interlocked as closely as links in a chain. This is possible thanks to a new manufacturing technique they have devised.

“Metals and polymers have different properties, and both materials offer certain advantages in building micromachines. Our goal was to benefit from all these properties simultaneously by combining the two,” explains Carlos Alcântara, formerly a doctoral student in Salvador Pané’s group at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems and one of the two lead authors of the paper. [Read more…] about Miniscule robots of metal and plastic