My science news roundup for this week includes a warning about the “dangerous male-oriented urinal.”
- Discovery of how bacterial cells will sacrifice themselves so their neighbors can survive.
- Bird responses to extreme weather.
- Record net loss of Greenland’s ice sheet.
- Which non-human animals are most susceptible to COVID-19.
- Confirmation that systemic racism is bad for the environment.
- GM skeeter release in Key West.
Of course due to that click bait title, you probably are anxious to learn about urinals so here’s a teaser. The actual research on “male-oriented” urinal COVID-19 splashback is further down. TL;DR version — the virus can splash 0.84 m high in 5.5 seconds when the urinal flushes. This means it lands on your thighs guys, or higher.
Phys.org —
Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered how some cells within a bacterial swarm will sacrifice themselves so that other cells in the swarm have a better chance of surviving onslaught by antibiotics, in a discovery important for efforts to address antibiotic resistance.
As bacterial cells within a cluster or swarm die, they release chemical death cries, which scientists call necrosignaling. These signals act like a kind of early warning system, allowing the surviving bacterial cells to prepare a type of resistance to antibiotics. The process of necrosignaling is outlined in a new paper out today in Nature Communications. [...]
...when bacterial swarms moved into an area that was treated with antibiotics, about 25% of the cells in the swarm died. They wondered if this massive cell death was altruistic in actually helping the community as a whole survive. The results in the paper out today show that this is true. As they died, the cells released a protein that would bind to the surface of the surviving bacterial cells. This acted like a signal, letting survivors in the bacterial swarm know to start pumping the antibiotic out of the cells using specialized molecular machines called efflux pumps.
"While this resistance is physiological, it buys the bacteria time to acquire mutations that would eventually lead to genetic resistance," Harshey said.
The eastern Arctic Ocean's winter ice grew less than half as much as normal during the past decade, due to the growing influence of heat from the ocean's interior, researchers have found. [...]
The moorings measured the heat released from the ocean interior to the upper ocean and sea ice during winter. In 2016-2018, the estimated heat flux was about 10 watts per square meter, which is enough to prevent 80-90 centimeters (almost 3 feet) of sea ice from forming each year. Previous heat flux measurements were about half of that much.
"In the past, when weighing the contribution of atmosphere and ocean to melting sea ice in the Eurasian Basin, the atmosphere led," said Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at UAF's International Arctic Research Center and FMI. "Now for the first time, ocean leads. That's a big change."
As the United States exceeds 5 million reported coronavirus cases—the world's first country to do so—epidemiologists have pinpointed what helped to set the country on this path.
Research from the University of Notre Dame estimates that more than 100,000 people were already infected with COVID-19 by early March—when only 1,514 cases and 39 deaths had been officially reported and before a national emergency was declared. The study provides insight into how limited testing and gaps in surveillance during the initial phase of the epidemic resulted in so many cases going undetected. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We weren't testing enough," said Alex Perkins, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, an expert in infectious disease epidemiology and population biology and the lead of the study. "The number of unobserved infections appears to be due to very low rates of case detection during a critical time, when the epidemic was really starting to take hold in this country. Part of it was the availability of testing, but another huge part was case definitions and the fact that they were overly restrictive early on."
When it comes to climate change, University of Wisconsin-Madison forest and wildlife ecology Professor Ben Zuckerberg says birds are the proverbial canary in the coal mine. They are both responsive and sensitive to changes in the environment, including the extreme weather events associated with a warming planet.
However, not all birds are the same, and not all weather events have the same impact. How do different bird species respond to extreme weather events that occur for different amounts of time, ranging from weekly events like heat waves to seasonal events like drought? And how do traits unique to different species—for example, how far they migrate or how commonly they occur—predict their vulnerability to extreme weather? [...]
In a study recently published in the journal Global Change Biology, the researchers show that not all birds are equally vulnerable to the effects of extreme weather resulting from climate change. As the planet warms, some species will adapt while others may struggle without conservation measures. The results of this study could help conservationists target their efforts to vulnerable species, as well as locations where extreme weather events are predicted.
Greenland's massive ice sheet saw a record net loss of 532 billion tonnes last year, raising red flags about accelerating sea level rise, according to new findings.
That is equivalent to an additional three million tonnes of water streaming into global oceans every day, or six Olympic pools every second.
Crumbling glaciers and torrents of melt-water slicing through Greenland's ice block—as thick as ten Eiffel Towers end-to-end—were the single biggest source of global sea level rise in 2019 and accounted for 40 percent of the total, researchers reported in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
physics of fluids —
A virus-laden particle movement from urinal flushing is simulated. Similar to the toilet-induced flushing, results indicate that the trajectory of the particles triggered by the urinal flushing manifests an external spread type. Even more alarmingly, the particle can reach 0.84 m (man’s thigh) in 5.5 s when compared with the diffusion performance of the toilet-induced one (around 0.93 m in 35 s). [...]
Recently, researchers extracted the virus particle of “SARS-CoV-2” from urine of a confirmed case of COVID-19, which means urine-based transmission could be a previously ignored transmission route.9 It means that besides the toilet, the male-oriented urinal, which is a common facility in the male public restroom, could become another dangerous item. However, there are few relevant studies focusing on the health problems brought from the urinal. “Can a male-oriented urinal promote the virus transmission?” is the question needed to be answered with the assistance of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in this Letter as urinal flushing, where turbulence can be observed from daily life experiences, occurs frequently as well. [...]
It can be predicted that in public restrooms, especially those in densely populated areas, urinals are used more frequently and particles will travel faster and fly farther, which poses a great challenge to the public health.
science news —
After a decade of fits and starts, officials in the Florida Keys have voted to allow the first test in the United States of free-flying, genetically modified mosquitoes as a way to fight the pests and the diseases they spread.
The decision came after about two hours of contentious testimony in a virtual public hearing on August 18. Many speakers railed against uncertainties in releasing genetically engineered organisms. [...]
Sometime after January 1, 2021, Florida workers will set out boxes of eggs of specially bred male yellow fever mosquitoes (a recent version called OX5034) in a stretch of Monroe County still to be chosen. The eggs, shipped from the biotech company Oxitec based in Abingdon, England, will grow into normal-looking males. Like other male mosquitoes, they drink flower nectar, not blood.
Then planners hope that during tests, these Oxitec foreigners will charm female mosquitoes into mating. A bit of saboteur genetics from the males will kill any female offspring resulting from the mating, and over time that should shrink the swarms. Sons that inherit their dad’s no-daughter genes will go on to shrink the next generation even further.
eureka alert —
The airborne transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 via aerosol particles in indoor environment seems to be strongly influenced by relative humidity. This is the conclusion drawn by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig and the CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi from the analysis of 10 most relevant international studies on the subject. Therefore, they recommend controlling the indoor air in addition to the usual measures such as social distancing and masks. A relative humidity of 40 to 60 percent could reduce the spread of the viruses and their absorption through the nasal mucous membrane. To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, it is therefore extremely important to implement standards for indoor air humidity in rooms with many people, such as hospitals, open-plan offices or public transport, writes the research team in the scientific journal Aerosol and Air Quality Research.
Rather than trying to fit existing static and dynamic formulas together, Qiu and his peers developed an approach for creating new formulas that could bridge the two. Their approach centers on using an artificial intelligence tool known as a neural network.
"A neural network can create a map between a specific input and a specific output," said Yichen Zhang, Argonne postdoctoral appointee and lead author of the study. "If I know the conditions we start with and those we end with, I can use neural networks to figure out how those conditions map to each other."
While their neural network approach can apply to bulk-power systems, the team tested it on a microgrid system, a controllable network of distributed energy resources, such as diesel generators and solar photovoltaic panels.
An analysis of facial expressions in ancient Mesoamerican sculptures finds that some emotions expressed in these artworks match the emotions that modern U.S. participants would anticipate for each discernible context, including elation, sadness, pain, anger, and determination or strain. For instance, elation was predicted in the context of social touch while anger was predicted in the context of combat. The results support the hypothesis that some emotions conveyed through facial expressions are universal, reinforcing that feelings can be expressed nonverbally in ways that transcend culture.
There are more than 70 species of flavivirus, and many cause diseases in humans and animals, including dengue, Zika and yellow fever viruses. A novel flavivirus identification test that is both fast and sensitive has been validated in Brazil by Mariana Sequetin Cunha and collaborators at the Adolfo Lutz Institute, a leading epidemiological surveillance laboratory that reports to the São Paulo state government.
"Until recently, the main method used in Brazil to identify flaviviruses required inoculating the brains of newborn mice with suspected material sampled from human patients or animals," Sequetin said. "When I joined the Adolfo Lutz Institute as a researcher in 2012, I decided to establish an alternative method that would not require the mice but would submit the patient's blood, serum or viscera sample directly to RT-qPCR."
science daily —
An international team of scientists used genomic analysis to compare the main cellular receptor for the virus in humans -- angiotensin converting enzyme-2, or ACE2 -- in 410 different species of vertebrates, including birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. [...]
Several critically endangered primate species, such as the Western lowland gorilla, Sumatran orangutan and Northern white-cheeked gibbon, are predicted to be at very high risk of infection by SARS-CoV-2 via their ACE2 receptor.
Other animals flagged as high risk include marine mammals such as gray whales and bottlenose dolphins, as well as Chinese hamsters.
Domestic animals such as cats, cattle and sheep were found to have a medium risk, and dogs, horses and pigs were found to have low risk for ACE2 binding.
Lithium-ion batteries are used in various electronic devices. But, they also come with potential hazards, particularly if the battery is damaged or overcharged. This usually occurs because, in its overcharged state, spiky structures called 'lithium dendrites' get deposited in the battery. Now, scientists use a technique called 'operando nuclear magnetic resonance' to track the precise mechanism of dendrite formation. They also extend their experiments to sodium-ion batteries, making their practical application easier.
The research found that facial muscular activity not only alters the recognition of facial expressions but also body expressions, with both generating more positive emotions.
Lead researcher and human and artificial cognition expert, UniSA's Dr Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says the finding has important insights for mental health.
"When your muscles say you're happy, you're more likely to see the world around you in a positive way," Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.
"In our research we found that when you forcefully practise smiling, it stimulates the amygdala -- the emotional centre of the brain -- which releases neurotransmitters to encourage an emotionally positive state.
Are you smiling now?
Myths, mysteries and legends surround the origin of albariño, widely regarded as Spain’s finest white wine, and how the grape from which it derives wound up in the far north-west of the country.
Now scientists at a research institute in Galicia have debunked theories that it originates in the Rhine valley or was brought by French Cistercian monks on pilgrimage from Cluny in the 12th century.
The grape, they said, is native to the region and albariño wine has been produced there since Roman times.
“We were already sure it didn’t come from the Rhine,” said Carmen Martínez, the head of viticulture at the biological research centre in Pontevedra. “Studies show that there is nothing like it in the Rhine valley, not even under another name.”
bbc science and environment
A little-known mammal related to an elephant but as small as a mouse has been rediscovered in Africa after 50 years of obscurity.
The last scientific record of the "lost species" of elephant shrew was in the 1970s, despite local sightings.
The creature was found alive and well in Djibouti, a country in the Horn of Africa, during a scientific expedition.
Elephant shrews, or sengis, are neither elephants nor shrews, but related to aardvarks, elephants and manatees.
They have distinctive trunk-like noses, which they use to feast on insects.
today is the ray bradbury centennial on what would have been his 100th birthday
