O:9:"MagpieRSS":22:{s:6:"parser";i:0;s:12:"current_item";a:0:{}s:5:"items";a:10:{i:0;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:85:"Culprit behind destruction of New York’s first dinosaur museum revealed – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:111:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/culprit-behind-destruction-of-new-yorks-first-dinosaur-museum-revealed-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 15 May 2023 13:23:36 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:111:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/culprit-behind-destruction-of-new-yorks-first-dinosaur-museum-revealed-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:1079:"

Journal Reference: Victoria Coules, Michael J. Benton. The curious case of Central Park’s dinosaurs: The destruction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ Paleozoic Museum revisited. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2023.04.004 In New York, in May of 1871, the partially built, life-size models of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures destined for a prestigious new museum ... Read more

The post Culprit behind destruction of New York’s first dinosaur museum revealed – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:5436:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Victoria Coules, Michael J. Benton. The curious case of Central Park’s dinosaurs: The destruction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ Paleozoic Museum revisited. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2023.04.004

In New York, in May of 1871, the partially built, life-size models of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures destined for a prestigious new museum in Central Park were totally destroyed in a violent act of malicious vandalism by a gang of thugs with sledgehammers. The shattered pieces were carted away and buried somewhere in the park, never to be seen again.

Until now, the heinous act had been tributed to former American politician William ‘Boss’ Tweed.

But now, a new paper from Ms Victoria Coules of Bristol’s Department of History of Art and Professor Michael Benton of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences sheds new light on the incident and, contrary to previous accounts, identifies who was really behind the order and what drove them to such wanton destruction — an odd man known as Henry Hilton, the Treasurer and VP of Central Park.

“It’s all to do with the struggle for control of New York city in the years following the American Civil War (1861-1865),” said Ms Coules. “The city was at the centre of a power struggle — a battle for control of the city’s finances and lucrative building and development contracts.”

As the city grew, the iconic Central Park was taking shape. More than just a green space, it was to have other attractions, including the Paleozoic Museum. British sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, who had created the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, the life-size models of prehistoric creatures in London — had travelled to America and was commissioned to build American versions of the models for the Paleozoic museum.

But the notorious William “Boss” Tweed had taken command of the city and, in sweeping changes to the city’s governance, put his own henchmen in charge of city departments — including Central Park. They cancelled the partially complete project in late 1870, and there the matter would have lain but in May 1871 someone ordered the gang of workmen to destroy all of its partly finished contents.

Professor Benton explains: “Previous accounts of the incident had always reported that this was done under the personal instruction of “Boss” Tweed himself, for various motives from raging that the display would be blasphemous, to vengeance for a perceived criticism of him in a New York Times report of the project’s cancellation.”

“Reading these reports, something didn’t look right,” Ms Coules said. “At the time Tweed was fighting for his political life, already accused of corruption and financial wrong-doings, so why was he so involved in a museum project?” She added, “So we went back to the original sources and found that it wasn’t Tweed — and the motive was not blasphemy or hurt vanity.”

The situation was complicated by two other projects in development at the same time in Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Central Park Zoo. But, as Professor Benton explained, “drawing on the detailed annual reports and minutes of Central Park, along with reports in the New York Times, we can show that the real villain was one strange character by the name of Henry Hilton.”

Ms Coules adds: “Because all the primary sources are now available online, we could study them in detail — and we could show that the destruction was ordered in a meeting by the real culprit, Henry Hilton, the Treasurer and VP of Central Park — and it was carried out the day after this meeting.”

Hilton was already notorious for other eccentric decisions. When he noticed a bronze statue in the Park, he ordered it painted white, and when a whale skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History, he had that painted white as well. Later in life, other ill-judged decisions included cheating a widow out of her inheritance, squandering a huge fortune, and trashing businesses and livelihoods along the way.

Professor Benton concluded: “This might seem like a local act of thuggery but correcting the record is hugely important in our understanding of the history of palaeontology. We show it wasn’t blasphemy, or an act of petty vengeance by William Tweed, but the act of a very strange individual who made equally bizarre decisions about how artefacts should be treated — painting statues or whale skeletons white and destroying the museum models. He can be seen as the villain of the piece but as character, Hilton remains an enigmatic mystery.”

Culprit behind destruction of New York’s first dinosaur museum revealed – NovLink

The post Culprit behind destruction of New York’s first dinosaur museum revealed – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:1079:"

Journal Reference: Victoria Coules, Michael J. Benton. The curious case of Central Park’s dinosaurs: The destruction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ Paleozoic Museum revisited. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2023.04.004 In New York, in May of 1871, the partially built, life-size models of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures destined for a prestigious new museum ... Read more

The post Culprit behind destruction of New York’s first dinosaur museum revealed – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:5436:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Victoria Coules, Michael J. Benton. The curious case of Central Park’s dinosaurs: The destruction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ Paleozoic Museum revisited. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2023.04.004

In New York, in May of 1871, the partially built, life-size models of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures destined for a prestigious new museum in Central Park were totally destroyed in a violent act of malicious vandalism by a gang of thugs with sledgehammers. The shattered pieces were carted away and buried somewhere in the park, never to be seen again.

Until now, the heinous act had been tributed to former American politician William ‘Boss’ Tweed.

But now, a new paper from Ms Victoria Coules of Bristol’s Department of History of Art and Professor Michael Benton of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences sheds new light on the incident and, contrary to previous accounts, identifies who was really behind the order and what drove them to such wanton destruction — an odd man known as Henry Hilton, the Treasurer and VP of Central Park.

“It’s all to do with the struggle for control of New York city in the years following the American Civil War (1861-1865),” said Ms Coules. “The city was at the centre of a power struggle — a battle for control of the city’s finances and lucrative building and development contracts.”

As the city grew, the iconic Central Park was taking shape. More than just a green space, it was to have other attractions, including the Paleozoic Museum. British sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, who had created the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, the life-size models of prehistoric creatures in London — had travelled to America and was commissioned to build American versions of the models for the Paleozoic museum.

But the notorious William “Boss” Tweed had taken command of the city and, in sweeping changes to the city’s governance, put his own henchmen in charge of city departments — including Central Park. They cancelled the partially complete project in late 1870, and there the matter would have lain but in May 1871 someone ordered the gang of workmen to destroy all of its partly finished contents.

Professor Benton explains: “Previous accounts of the incident had always reported that this was done under the personal instruction of “Boss” Tweed himself, for various motives from raging that the display would be blasphemous, to vengeance for a perceived criticism of him in a New York Times report of the project’s cancellation.”

“Reading these reports, something didn’t look right,” Ms Coules said. “At the time Tweed was fighting for his political life, already accused of corruption and financial wrong-doings, so why was he so involved in a museum project?” She added, “So we went back to the original sources and found that it wasn’t Tweed — and the motive was not blasphemy or hurt vanity.”

The situation was complicated by two other projects in development at the same time in Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Central Park Zoo. But, as Professor Benton explained, “drawing on the detailed annual reports and minutes of Central Park, along with reports in the New York Times, we can show that the real villain was one strange character by the name of Henry Hilton.”

Ms Coules adds: “Because all the primary sources are now available online, we could study them in detail — and we could show that the destruction was ordered in a meeting by the real culprit, Henry Hilton, the Treasurer and VP of Central Park — and it was carried out the day after this meeting.”

Hilton was already notorious for other eccentric decisions. When he noticed a bronze statue in the Park, he ordered it painted white, and when a whale skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History, he had that painted white as well. Later in life, other ill-judged decisions included cheating a widow out of her inheritance, squandering a huge fortune, and trashing businesses and livelihoods along the way.

Professor Benton concluded: “This might seem like a local act of thuggery but correcting the record is hugely important in our understanding of the history of palaeontology. We show it wasn’t blasphemy, or an act of petty vengeance by William Tweed, but the act of a very strange individual who made equally bizarre decisions about how artefacts should be treated — painting statues or whale skeletons white and destroying the museum models. He can be seen as the villain of the piece but as character, Hilton remains an enigmatic mystery.”

Culprit behind destruction of New York’s first dinosaur museum revealed – NovLink

The post Culprit behind destruction of New York’s first dinosaur museum revealed – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684157016;}i:1;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:113:"Like ancient mariners, ancestors of Prochlorococcus microbes rode out to sea on exoskeleton particles – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:141:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/like-ancient-mariners-ancestors-of-prochlorococcus-microbes-rode-out-to-sea-on-exoskeleton-particles-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 15 May 2023 09:40:03 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:140:"http://bbc-edition.com/science/like-ancient-mariners-ancestors-of-prochlorococcus-microbes-rode-out-to-sea-on-exoskeleton-particles-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:1214:"

Journal Reference: Giovanna Capovilla, Rogier Braakman, Gregory P. Fournier, Thomas Hackl, Julia Schwartzman, Xinda Lu, Alexis Yelton, Krista Longnecker, Melissa C. Kido Soule, Elaina Thomas, Gretchen Swarr, Alessandro Mongera, Jack G. Payette, Kurt G. Castro, Jacob R. Waldbauer, Elizabeth B. Kujawinski, Otto X. Cordero, Sallie W. Chisholm. Chitin utilization by marine picocyanobacteria and the evolution ... Read more

The post Like ancient mariners, ancestors of Prochlorococcus microbes rode out to sea on exoskeleton particles – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:8197:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Giovanna Capovilla, Rogier Braakman, Gregory P. Fournier, Thomas Hackl, Julia Schwartzman, Xinda Lu, Alexis Yelton, Krista Longnecker, Melissa C. Kido Soule, Elaina Thomas, Gretchen Swarr, Alessandro Mongera, Jack G. Payette, Kurt G. Castro, Jacob R. Waldbauer, Elizabeth B. Kujawinski, Otto X. Cordero, Sallie W. Chisholm. Chitin utilization by marine picocyanobacteria and the evolution of a planktonic lifestyle. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023; 120 (20) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2213271120

But Prochlorococcus didn’t always inhabit open waters. Ancestors of the microbe likely stuck closer to the coasts, where nutrients were plentiful and organisms survived in communal microbial mats on the seafloor. How then did descendants of these coastal dwellers end up as the photosynthesizing powerhouses of the open oceans today?

MIT scientists believe that rafting was the key. In a new study they propose that ancestors of Prochlorococcus acquired an ability to latch onto chitin — the degraded particles of ancient exoskeletons. The microbes hitched a ride on passing flakes, using the particles as rafts to venture further out to sea. These chitin rafts may have also provided essential nutrients, fueling and sustaining the microbes along their journey.

Thus fortified, generations of microbes may have then had the opportunity to evolve new abilities to adapt to the open ocean. Eventually, they would have evolved to a point where they could jump ship and survive as the free-floating ocean dwellers that live today.

“If Prochlorococcus and other photosynthetic organisms had not colonized the ocean, we would be looking at a very different planet,” says Rogier Braakman, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “It was the fact they were able to attach to these chitin rafts that enabled them to establish a foothold in an entirely new and massive part of the planet’s biosphere, in a way that changed the Earth forever.”

Braakman and his collaborators present their new “chitin raft” hypothesis, along with experiments and genetic analyses supporting the idea, in a study appearing this week in PNAS.

MIT co-authors are Giovanna Capovilla, Greg Fournier, Julia Schwartzman, Xinda Lu, Alexis Yelton, Elaina Thomas, Jack Payette, Kurt Castro, Otto Cordero, and MIT Institute Professor Sallie (Penny) Chisholm, along with colleagues from multiple institutions including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

A strange gene

Prochlorococcus is one of two main groups belonging to a class known as picocyanobacteria, which are the smallest photosynthesizing organisms on the planet. The other group is Synechococcus, a closely related microbe that can be found abundantly in ocean and freshwater systems. Both organisms make a living through photosynthesis.

But it turns out that some strains of Prochlorococcus can adopt alternative lifestyles, particularly in low-lit regions where photosynthesis is difficult to maintain. These microbes are “mixotrophic,” using a mix of other carbon-capturing strategies to grow.

Researchers in Chisholm’s lab were looking for signs of mixotrophy when they stumbled on a common gene in several modern strains of Prochlorococcus. The gene encoded the ability to break down chitin, a carbon-rich material that comes from the sloughed-off shells of arthropods, such as insects and crustaceans.

“That was very strange,” says Capovilla, who decided to dig deeper into the finding when she joined the lab as a postdoc.

For the new study, Capovilla carried out experiments to see whether Prochlorococcus can in fact break down chitin in a useful way. Previous work in the lab showed that the chitin-degrading gene appeared in strains of Prochlorococcus that live in low-light conditions, and in Synechococcus. The gene was missing in Prochlorococcus inhabiting more sunlit regions.

In the lab, Capovilla introduced chitin particles into samples of low-light and high-light strains. She found that microbes containing the gene could degrade chitin, and of these, only low-light-adapted Prochlorococcus seemed to benefit from this breakdown, as they appeared to also grow faster as a result. The microbes could also stick to chitin flakes — a result that particularly interested Braakman, who studies the evolution of metabolic processes and the ways they have shaped the Earth’s ecology.

“People always ask me: How did these microbes colonize the early ocean?” he says. “And as Gio was doing these experiments, there was this ‘aha’ moment.”

Braakman wondered: Could this gene have been present in the ancestors of Prochlorococcus, in a way that allowed coastal microbes to attach to and feed on chitin, and ride the flakes out to sea?

It’s all in the timing

To test this new “chitin raft” hypothesis, the team looked to Fournier, who specializes in tracing genes across species of microbes through history. In 2019, Fournier’s lab established an evolutionary tree for those microbes that exhibit the chitin-degrading gene. From this tree, they noticed a trend: Microbes start using chitin only after arthropods become abundant in a particular ecosystem.

For the chitin raft hypothesis to hold, the gene would have to be present in ancestors of Prochlorococcus soon after arthropods began to colonize marine environments.

The team looked to the fossil record and found that aquatic species of arthropods became abundant in the early Paleozoic, about half a billion years ago. According to Fournier’s evolutionary tree, that also happens to be around the time that the chitin-degrading gene appears in common ancestors of Prochlorococcus and Synecococchus.

“The timing is quite solid,” Fournier says. “Marine systems were becoming flooded with this new type of organic carbon in the form of chitin, just as genes for using this carbon spread across all different types of microbes. And the movement of these chitin particles suddenly opened up the opportunity for microbes to really make it out to the open ocean.”

The appearance of chitin may have been especially beneficial for microbes living in low-light conditions, such as along the coastal seafloor, where ancient picocyanobacteria are thought to have lived. To these microbes, chitin would have been a much-needed source of energy, as well as a way out of their communal, coastal niche.

Braakman says that once out at sea, the rafting microbes were sturdy enough to develop other ocean-dwelling adaptations. Millions of years later, the organisms were then ready to “take the plunge” and evolve into the free-floating, photosynthesizing Prochlorococcus that exist today.

“In the end, this is about ecosystems evolving together,” Braakman says. “With these chitin rafts, both arthropods and cyanobacteria were able to expand into the open ocean. Ultimately, this helped to seed the rise of modern marine ecosystems.”

This research was supported by the Simons Foundation, the EMBO Long-Term Fellowship, and by the Human Frontier Science Program. This paper is a contribution from the Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology (SCOPE).

Like ancient mariners, ancestors of Prochlorococcus microbes rode out to sea on exoskeleton particles – NovLink

The post Like ancient mariners, ancestors of Prochlorococcus microbes rode out to sea on exoskeleton particles – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:1214:"

Journal Reference: Giovanna Capovilla, Rogier Braakman, Gregory P. Fournier, Thomas Hackl, Julia Schwartzman, Xinda Lu, Alexis Yelton, Krista Longnecker, Melissa C. Kido Soule, Elaina Thomas, Gretchen Swarr, Alessandro Mongera, Jack G. Payette, Kurt G. Castro, Jacob R. Waldbauer, Elizabeth B. Kujawinski, Otto X. Cordero, Sallie W. Chisholm. Chitin utilization by marine picocyanobacteria and the evolution ... Read more

The post Like ancient mariners, ancestors of Prochlorococcus microbes rode out to sea on exoskeleton particles – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:8197:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Giovanna Capovilla, Rogier Braakman, Gregory P. Fournier, Thomas Hackl, Julia Schwartzman, Xinda Lu, Alexis Yelton, Krista Longnecker, Melissa C. Kido Soule, Elaina Thomas, Gretchen Swarr, Alessandro Mongera, Jack G. Payette, Kurt G. Castro, Jacob R. Waldbauer, Elizabeth B. Kujawinski, Otto X. Cordero, Sallie W. Chisholm. Chitin utilization by marine picocyanobacteria and the evolution of a planktonic lifestyle. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023; 120 (20) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2213271120

But Prochlorococcus didn’t always inhabit open waters. Ancestors of the microbe likely stuck closer to the coasts, where nutrients were plentiful and organisms survived in communal microbial mats on the seafloor. How then did descendants of these coastal dwellers end up as the photosynthesizing powerhouses of the open oceans today?

MIT scientists believe that rafting was the key. In a new study they propose that ancestors of Prochlorococcus acquired an ability to latch onto chitin — the degraded particles of ancient exoskeletons. The microbes hitched a ride on passing flakes, using the particles as rafts to venture further out to sea. These chitin rafts may have also provided essential nutrients, fueling and sustaining the microbes along their journey.

Thus fortified, generations of microbes may have then had the opportunity to evolve new abilities to adapt to the open ocean. Eventually, they would have evolved to a point where they could jump ship and survive as the free-floating ocean dwellers that live today.

“If Prochlorococcus and other photosynthetic organisms had not colonized the ocean, we would be looking at a very different planet,” says Rogier Braakman, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “It was the fact they were able to attach to these chitin rafts that enabled them to establish a foothold in an entirely new and massive part of the planet’s biosphere, in a way that changed the Earth forever.”

Braakman and his collaborators present their new “chitin raft” hypothesis, along with experiments and genetic analyses supporting the idea, in a study appearing this week in PNAS.

MIT co-authors are Giovanna Capovilla, Greg Fournier, Julia Schwartzman, Xinda Lu, Alexis Yelton, Elaina Thomas, Jack Payette, Kurt Castro, Otto Cordero, and MIT Institute Professor Sallie (Penny) Chisholm, along with colleagues from multiple institutions including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

A strange gene

Prochlorococcus is one of two main groups belonging to a class known as picocyanobacteria, which are the smallest photosynthesizing organisms on the planet. The other group is Synechococcus, a closely related microbe that can be found abundantly in ocean and freshwater systems. Both organisms make a living through photosynthesis.

But it turns out that some strains of Prochlorococcus can adopt alternative lifestyles, particularly in low-lit regions where photosynthesis is difficult to maintain. These microbes are “mixotrophic,” using a mix of other carbon-capturing strategies to grow.

Researchers in Chisholm’s lab were looking for signs of mixotrophy when they stumbled on a common gene in several modern strains of Prochlorococcus. The gene encoded the ability to break down chitin, a carbon-rich material that comes from the sloughed-off shells of arthropods, such as insects and crustaceans.

“That was very strange,” says Capovilla, who decided to dig deeper into the finding when she joined the lab as a postdoc.

For the new study, Capovilla carried out experiments to see whether Prochlorococcus can in fact break down chitin in a useful way. Previous work in the lab showed that the chitin-degrading gene appeared in strains of Prochlorococcus that live in low-light conditions, and in Synechococcus. The gene was missing in Prochlorococcus inhabiting more sunlit regions.

In the lab, Capovilla introduced chitin particles into samples of low-light and high-light strains. She found that microbes containing the gene could degrade chitin, and of these, only low-light-adapted Prochlorococcus seemed to benefit from this breakdown, as they appeared to also grow faster as a result. The microbes could also stick to chitin flakes — a result that particularly interested Braakman, who studies the evolution of metabolic processes and the ways they have shaped the Earth’s ecology.

“People always ask me: How did these microbes colonize the early ocean?” he says. “And as Gio was doing these experiments, there was this ‘aha’ moment.”

Braakman wondered: Could this gene have been present in the ancestors of Prochlorococcus, in a way that allowed coastal microbes to attach to and feed on chitin, and ride the flakes out to sea?

It’s all in the timing

To test this new “chitin raft” hypothesis, the team looked to Fournier, who specializes in tracing genes across species of microbes through history. In 2019, Fournier’s lab established an evolutionary tree for those microbes that exhibit the chitin-degrading gene. From this tree, they noticed a trend: Microbes start using chitin only after arthropods become abundant in a particular ecosystem.

For the chitin raft hypothesis to hold, the gene would have to be present in ancestors of Prochlorococcus soon after arthropods began to colonize marine environments.

The team looked to the fossil record and found that aquatic species of arthropods became abundant in the early Paleozoic, about half a billion years ago. According to Fournier’s evolutionary tree, that also happens to be around the time that the chitin-degrading gene appears in common ancestors of Prochlorococcus and Synecococchus.

“The timing is quite solid,” Fournier says. “Marine systems were becoming flooded with this new type of organic carbon in the form of chitin, just as genes for using this carbon spread across all different types of microbes. And the movement of these chitin particles suddenly opened up the opportunity for microbes to really make it out to the open ocean.”

The appearance of chitin may have been especially beneficial for microbes living in low-light conditions, such as along the coastal seafloor, where ancient picocyanobacteria are thought to have lived. To these microbes, chitin would have been a much-needed source of energy, as well as a way out of their communal, coastal niche.

Braakman says that once out at sea, the rafting microbes were sturdy enough to develop other ocean-dwelling adaptations. Millions of years later, the organisms were then ready to “take the plunge” and evolve into the free-floating, photosynthesizing Prochlorococcus that exist today.

“In the end, this is about ecosystems evolving together,” Braakman says. “With these chitin rafts, both arthropods and cyanobacteria were able to expand into the open ocean. Ultimately, this helped to seed the rise of modern marine ecosystems.”

This research was supported by the Simons Foundation, the EMBO Long-Term Fellowship, and by the Human Frontier Science Program. This paper is a contribution from the Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology (SCOPE).

Like ancient mariners, ancestors of Prochlorococcus microbes rode out to sea on exoskeleton particles – NovLink

The post Like ancient mariners, ancestors of Prochlorococcus microbes rode out to sea on exoskeleton particles – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684143603;}i:2;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:65:"Celestial monsters at the origin of globular clusters – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:94:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/celestial-monsters-at-the-origin-of-globular-clusters-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 15 May 2023 05:56:35 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:94:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/celestial-monsters-at-the-origin-of-globular-clusters-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:1006:"

Journal Reference: C. Charbonnel, D. Schaerer, N. Prantzos, L. Ramírez-Galeano, T. Fragos, A. Kuruvanthodi, R. Marques-Chaves, M. Gieles. N-enhancement in GN-z11: First evidence for supermassive stars nucleosynthesis in proto-globular clusters-like conditions at high redshift? Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2023; 673: L7 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346410 Globular clusters are very dense groupings of stars distributed in a sphere, with ... Read more

The post Celestial monsters at the origin of globular clusters – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:4468:"

Journal Reference:

  1. C. Charbonnel, D. Schaerer, N. Prantzos, L. Ramírez-Galeano, T. Fragos, A. Kuruvanthodi, R. Marques-Chaves, M. Gieles. N-enhancement in GN-z11: First evidence for supermassive stars nucleosynthesis in proto-globular clusters-like conditions at high redshift? Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2023; 673: L7 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346410

Globular clusters are very dense groupings of stars distributed in a sphere, with a radius varying from a dozen to a hundred light years. They can contain up to 1 million stars and are found in all types of galaxies. Ours is home to about 180 of them. One of their great mysteries is the composition of their stars: why is it so varied? For instance, the proportion of oxygen, nitrogen, sodium and aluminium varies from one star to another. However, they were all born at the same time, within the same cloud of gas. Astrophysicists speak of ”abundance anomalies”.

Monsters with very short lives

A team from the universities of Geneva (UNIGE) and Barcelona, and the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (CNRS and Sorbonne University) has made a new advance in the explanation of this phenomenon. In 2018, it had developed a theoretical model according to which supermassive stars would have “polluted” the original gas cloud during the formation of these clusters, enriching their stars with chemical elements in a heterogeneous manner. ”Today, thanks to the data collected by the James-Webb Space Telescope, we believe we have found a first clue of the presence of these extraordinary stars,” explains Corinne Charbonnel, a full professor in the Department of Astronomy at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, and first author of the study.

These celestial monsters are 5,000 to 10,000 times more massive and five times hotter at their centre (75 million °C) than the Sun. But proving their existence is complex. ”Globular clusters are between 10 and 13 billion years old, whereas the maximum lifespan of superstars is two million years. They therefore disappeared very early from the clusters that are currently observable. Only indirect traces remain,” explains Mark Gieles, ICREA professor at the University of Barcelona and co-author of the study.

Revealed by light

Thanks to the very powerful infrared vision of the James-Webb telescope, the co-authors were able to support their hypothesis. The satellite captured the light emitted by one of the most distant and youngest galaxies known to date in our Universe. Located at about 13.3 billion light-years, GN-z11 is only a few tens of millions of years old. In astronomy, the analysis of the light spectrum of cosmic objects is a key element in determining their characteristics. Here, the light emitted by this galaxy has provided two valuable pieces of information.

”It has been established that it contains very high proportions of nitrogen and a very high density of stars,” says Daniel Schaerer, associate professor in the Department of Astronomy at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, and co-author of the study. This suggests that several globular clusters are forming in this galaxy and that they still harbour an active supermassive star. ”The strong presence of nitrogen can only be explained by the combustion of hydrogen at extremely high temperatures, which only the core of supermassive stars can reach, as shown by the models of Laura Ramirez-Galeano, a Master’s student in our team,” explains Corinne Charbonnel.

These new results strengthen the international team’s model. The only one currently capable of explaining the abundance anomalies in globular clusters. The next step for the scientists will be to test the validity of this model on other globular clusters forming in distant galaxies, using the James-Webb data.

Celestial monsters at the origin of globular clusters – NovLink

The post Celestial monsters at the origin of globular clusters – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:1006:"

Journal Reference: C. Charbonnel, D. Schaerer, N. Prantzos, L. Ramírez-Galeano, T. Fragos, A. Kuruvanthodi, R. Marques-Chaves, M. Gieles. N-enhancement in GN-z11: First evidence for supermassive stars nucleosynthesis in proto-globular clusters-like conditions at high redshift? Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2023; 673: L7 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346410 Globular clusters are very dense groupings of stars distributed in a sphere, with ... Read more

The post Celestial monsters at the origin of globular clusters – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:4468:"

Journal Reference:

  1. C. Charbonnel, D. Schaerer, N. Prantzos, L. Ramírez-Galeano, T. Fragos, A. Kuruvanthodi, R. Marques-Chaves, M. Gieles. N-enhancement in GN-z11: First evidence for supermassive stars nucleosynthesis in proto-globular clusters-like conditions at high redshift? Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2023; 673: L7 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346410

Globular clusters are very dense groupings of stars distributed in a sphere, with a radius varying from a dozen to a hundred light years. They can contain up to 1 million stars and are found in all types of galaxies. Ours is home to about 180 of them. One of their great mysteries is the composition of their stars: why is it so varied? For instance, the proportion of oxygen, nitrogen, sodium and aluminium varies from one star to another. However, they were all born at the same time, within the same cloud of gas. Astrophysicists speak of ”abundance anomalies”.

Monsters with very short lives

A team from the universities of Geneva (UNIGE) and Barcelona, and the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (CNRS and Sorbonne University) has made a new advance in the explanation of this phenomenon. In 2018, it had developed a theoretical model according to which supermassive stars would have “polluted” the original gas cloud during the formation of these clusters, enriching their stars with chemical elements in a heterogeneous manner. ”Today, thanks to the data collected by the James-Webb Space Telescope, we believe we have found a first clue of the presence of these extraordinary stars,” explains Corinne Charbonnel, a full professor in the Department of Astronomy at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, and first author of the study.

These celestial monsters are 5,000 to 10,000 times more massive and five times hotter at their centre (75 million °C) than the Sun. But proving their existence is complex. ”Globular clusters are between 10 and 13 billion years old, whereas the maximum lifespan of superstars is two million years. They therefore disappeared very early from the clusters that are currently observable. Only indirect traces remain,” explains Mark Gieles, ICREA professor at the University of Barcelona and co-author of the study.

Revealed by light

Thanks to the very powerful infrared vision of the James-Webb telescope, the co-authors were able to support their hypothesis. The satellite captured the light emitted by one of the most distant and youngest galaxies known to date in our Universe. Located at about 13.3 billion light-years, GN-z11 is only a few tens of millions of years old. In astronomy, the analysis of the light spectrum of cosmic objects is a key element in determining their characteristics. Here, the light emitted by this galaxy has provided two valuable pieces of information.

”It has been established that it contains very high proportions of nitrogen and a very high density of stars,” says Daniel Schaerer, associate professor in the Department of Astronomy at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, and co-author of the study. This suggests that several globular clusters are forming in this galaxy and that they still harbour an active supermassive star. ”The strong presence of nitrogen can only be explained by the combustion of hydrogen at extremely high temperatures, which only the core of supermassive stars can reach, as shown by the models of Laura Ramirez-Galeano, a Master’s student in our team,” explains Corinne Charbonnel.

These new results strengthen the international team’s model. The only one currently capable of explaining the abundance anomalies in globular clusters. The next step for the scientists will be to test the validity of this model on other globular clusters forming in distant galaxies, using the James-Webb data.

Celestial monsters at the origin of globular clusters – NovLink

The post Celestial monsters at the origin of globular clusters – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684130195;}i:3;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:37:"Everybody needs some body – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:66:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/everybody-needs-some-body-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 15 May 2023 02:14:27 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:65:"http://bbc-edition.com/science/everybody-needs-some-body-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:856:"

Journal Reference: Richard J. Archer, Shogo Hamada, Ryo Shimizu, Shin-Ichiro M. Nomura. Scalable Synthesis of Planar Macroscopic Lipid-Based Multi-Compartment Structures. Langmuir, 2023; 39 (14): 4863 DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c02859 Much like how complex living organisms are formed, molecular robots derive form and functionality from assembled molecules. Such robots could have important applications, such as being used to ... Read more

The post Everybody needs some body – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:3608:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Richard J. Archer, Shogo Hamada, Ryo Shimizu, Shin-Ichiro M. Nomura. Scalable Synthesis of Planar Macroscopic Lipid-Based Multi-Compartment Structures. Langmuir, 2023; 39 (14): 4863 DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c02859

Much like how complex living organisms are formed, molecular robots derive form and functionality from assembled molecules. Such robots could have important applications, such as being used to treat and diagnose diseases in vivo.

The first challenge in building a molecular robot is the same as the most basic need of any organism: the body, which holds everything together. But manufacturing complex structures, especially at the microscopic level, has proven to be an engineering nightmare, and many limitations on what is possible currently exist.

To address this problem, a research team at Tohoku University has developed a simple method for creating molecular robots from artificial, multicellular-like bodies by using molecules which can organize themselves into the desired shape.

The team, including Associate Professor Shin-ichiro Nomura and postdoctoral researcher Richard Archer from the Department of Robotics at the Graduate School of Engineering, recently reported their breakthrough in the American Chemical Society’s publication, Langmuir.

“Our work demonstrated a simple, self-assembly technique which utilizes phospholipids and synthetic surfactants coated onto a hydrophobic silicone sponge,” said Archer.

When Nomura and his colleagues introduced water into the lipid coated sponge, the hydrophilic and hydrophobic forces enabled the lipids and surfactants to assemble themselves, thereby allowing water to soak in. The sponge was then placed into oil, spontaneously forming micron sized, stabilized aqueous droplets as the water was expelled from the solid support. When pipetted on the surface of water, these droplets quickly assembled into larger planar macroscopic structures, like bricks coming together to form a wall.

“Our developed technique can easily build centimeter size structures from the assembly of micron sized compartments and is capable of being done with more than one droplet type,” adds Archer. “By using different sponges with water containing different solutes, and forming different droplet types, the droplets can combine to form heterogeneous structures. This modular approach to assembly unleashes near endless possibilities.”

The team could also turn these bodies into controllable devices with induced motion. To do so, they introduced magnetic nanoparticles into the hydrophobic walls of the multi-compartment structure. Archer says this multi-compartment approach to robot design will allow flexible modular designs with multiple functionalities and could redefine what we imagine robots to be. “Future work here will move us closer to a new generation of robots which are assembled by molecules rather than forged in steel and use functional chemicals rather than silicon chips and motors.”

Everybody needs some body – NovLink

The post Everybody needs some body – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:856:"

Journal Reference: Richard J. Archer, Shogo Hamada, Ryo Shimizu, Shin-Ichiro M. Nomura. Scalable Synthesis of Planar Macroscopic Lipid-Based Multi-Compartment Structures. Langmuir, 2023; 39 (14): 4863 DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c02859 Much like how complex living organisms are formed, molecular robots derive form and functionality from assembled molecules. Such robots could have important applications, such as being used to ... Read more

The post Everybody needs some body – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:3608:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Richard J. Archer, Shogo Hamada, Ryo Shimizu, Shin-Ichiro M. Nomura. Scalable Synthesis of Planar Macroscopic Lipid-Based Multi-Compartment Structures. Langmuir, 2023; 39 (14): 4863 DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c02859

Much like how complex living organisms are formed, molecular robots derive form and functionality from assembled molecules. Such robots could have important applications, such as being used to treat and diagnose diseases in vivo.

The first challenge in building a molecular robot is the same as the most basic need of any organism: the body, which holds everything together. But manufacturing complex structures, especially at the microscopic level, has proven to be an engineering nightmare, and many limitations on what is possible currently exist.

To address this problem, a research team at Tohoku University has developed a simple method for creating molecular robots from artificial, multicellular-like bodies by using molecules which can organize themselves into the desired shape.

The team, including Associate Professor Shin-ichiro Nomura and postdoctoral researcher Richard Archer from the Department of Robotics at the Graduate School of Engineering, recently reported their breakthrough in the American Chemical Society’s publication, Langmuir.

“Our work demonstrated a simple, self-assembly technique which utilizes phospholipids and synthetic surfactants coated onto a hydrophobic silicone sponge,” said Archer.

When Nomura and his colleagues introduced water into the lipid coated sponge, the hydrophilic and hydrophobic forces enabled the lipids and surfactants to assemble themselves, thereby allowing water to soak in. The sponge was then placed into oil, spontaneously forming micron sized, stabilized aqueous droplets as the water was expelled from the solid support. When pipetted on the surface of water, these droplets quickly assembled into larger planar macroscopic structures, like bricks coming together to form a wall.

“Our developed technique can easily build centimeter size structures from the assembly of micron sized compartments and is capable of being done with more than one droplet type,” adds Archer. “By using different sponges with water containing different solutes, and forming different droplet types, the droplets can combine to form heterogeneous structures. This modular approach to assembly unleashes near endless possibilities.”

The team could also turn these bodies into controllable devices with induced motion. To do so, they introduced magnetic nanoparticles into the hydrophobic walls of the multi-compartment structure. Archer says this multi-compartment approach to robot design will allow flexible modular designs with multiple functionalities and could redefine what we imagine robots to be. “Future work here will move us closer to a new generation of robots which are assembled by molecules rather than forged in steel and use functional chemicals rather than silicon chips and motors.”

Everybody needs some body – NovLink

The post Everybody needs some body – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684116867;}i:4;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:96:"Newfound link between Alzheimer’s and iron could lead to new medical interventions – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:122:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/newfound-link-between-alzheimers-and-iron-could-lead-to-new-medical-interventions-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 14 May 2023 22:32:50 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:122:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/newfound-link-between-alzheimers-and-iron-could-lead-to-new-medical-interventions-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:1071:"

Journal Reference: Yuting Wu, Seyed-Fakhreddin Torabi, Ryan J. Lake, Shanni Hong, Zhengxin Yu, Peiwen Wu, Zhenglin Yang, Kevin Nelson, Weijie Guo, Gregory T. Pawel, Jacqueline Van Stappen, Xiangli Shao, Liviu M. Mirica, Yi Lu. Simultaneous Fe 2+ /Fe 3 imaging shows Fe 3 over Fe 2 enrichment in Alzheimer’s disease mouse brain. Science Advances, 2023; ... Read more

The post Newfound link between Alzheimer’s and iron could lead to new medical interventions – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:4843:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Yuting Wu, Seyed-Fakhreddin Torabi, Ryan J. Lake, Shanni Hong, Zhengxin Yu, Peiwen Wu, Zhenglin Yang, Kevin Nelson, Weijie Guo, Gregory T. Pawel, Jacqueline Van Stappen, Xiangli Shao, Liviu M. Mirica, Yi Lu. Simultaneous Fe 2+ /Fe 3 imaging shows Fe 3 over Fe 2 enrichment in Alzheimer’s disease mouse brain. Science Advances, 2023; 9 (16) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ade7622

A team from The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign published a study today on the new imaging technique and findings in Science Advances.

“The link between iron redox and Alzheimer’s disease has been a black box,” said Yi Lu, corresponding author and professor of chemistry at UT Austin. “The most exciting part to me is that we now have a way to shine light into this black box so that we can begin to understand this whole process in much more detail.”

About a decade ago, scientists discovered ferroptosis, a process in the body that is dependent on elevated iron levels, leads to cell death and plays a key role in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. Using magnetic resonance imaging on living Alzheimer’s patients, scientists have observed that these patients tend to have elevated iron levels in the brain, although that method doesn’t differentiate between different forms of iron. Together, these findings suggested that iron might play a role in destroying brain cells in Alzheimer’s patients.

For the new study, the researchers developed DNA-based fluorescent sensors that can detect two different forms of iron (Fe2+ and Fe3+) at the same time in cell cultures and in brain slices from mice genetically modified to mimic Alzheimer’s. One sensor glows green for Fe2+ and the other glows red for Fe3+. This is the first imaging technique that can simultaneously detect both forms of iron in cells and tissue while also indicating their quantity and spatial distribution.

“The best part about our sensor is that we can now visualize the changes of Fe2+ and Fe3+ and their ratios in each location,” said Yuting Wu, a co-first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in Lu’s lab at UT Austin. “We can change one parameter at a time to see if it changes the plaques or the oxidative states of iron.”

That ability could help them better understand why there is an increased ratio of Fe3+ to Fe2+ in the location of amyloid beta plaques and whether increased iron redox is involved in forming the plaques.

Another key question is whether the iron redox is directly involved in cell death in Alzheimer’s, or simply a byproduct. The researchers plan to explore this question in Alzheimer’s mice. If further research determines that iron and its redox changes indeed cause cell death in Alzheimer’s patients, that information could provide a potential new strategy for drug development. In other words, perhaps a drug that change the ratio Fe3+ to Fe2+ could help protect brain cells. The new imaging probe could be used to test how well drug candidates work at changing the ratio.

To develop the sensors, the scientists first hired a commercial lab to produce a library of 100 trillion short DNA strands, through a chemical process called oligonucleotide synthesis. They then conducted a screening process to find those strands that recognize — or in chemistry parlance “bind tightly to and conduct a catalytic reaction with” — a specific form of iron and not any other forms. To complete the sensors, other components were added including molecules called fluorophores that glow in a specific color when the probe recognizes the specific form of iron.

Lu, who moved his lab to UT Austin from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the summer of 2021, collaborated with researchers there including professor of chemistry Liviu Mirica.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer’s Association and the Robert A. Welch Foundation. Lu holds the Richard J.V. Johnson — Welch Regents Chair in Chemistry.

Newfound link between Alzheimer’s and iron could lead to new medical interventions – NovLink

The post Newfound link between Alzheimer’s and iron could lead to new medical interventions – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:1071:"

Journal Reference: Yuting Wu, Seyed-Fakhreddin Torabi, Ryan J. Lake, Shanni Hong, Zhengxin Yu, Peiwen Wu, Zhenglin Yang, Kevin Nelson, Weijie Guo, Gregory T. Pawel, Jacqueline Van Stappen, Xiangli Shao, Liviu M. Mirica, Yi Lu. Simultaneous Fe 2+ /Fe 3 imaging shows Fe 3 over Fe 2 enrichment in Alzheimer’s disease mouse brain. Science Advances, 2023; ... Read more

The post Newfound link between Alzheimer’s and iron could lead to new medical interventions – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:4843:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Yuting Wu, Seyed-Fakhreddin Torabi, Ryan J. Lake, Shanni Hong, Zhengxin Yu, Peiwen Wu, Zhenglin Yang, Kevin Nelson, Weijie Guo, Gregory T. Pawel, Jacqueline Van Stappen, Xiangli Shao, Liviu M. Mirica, Yi Lu. Simultaneous Fe 2+ /Fe 3 imaging shows Fe 3 over Fe 2 enrichment in Alzheimer’s disease mouse brain. Science Advances, 2023; 9 (16) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ade7622

A team from The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign published a study today on the new imaging technique and findings in Science Advances.

“The link between iron redox and Alzheimer’s disease has been a black box,” said Yi Lu, corresponding author and professor of chemistry at UT Austin. “The most exciting part to me is that we now have a way to shine light into this black box so that we can begin to understand this whole process in much more detail.”

About a decade ago, scientists discovered ferroptosis, a process in the body that is dependent on elevated iron levels, leads to cell death and plays a key role in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. Using magnetic resonance imaging on living Alzheimer’s patients, scientists have observed that these patients tend to have elevated iron levels in the brain, although that method doesn’t differentiate between different forms of iron. Together, these findings suggested that iron might play a role in destroying brain cells in Alzheimer’s patients.

For the new study, the researchers developed DNA-based fluorescent sensors that can detect two different forms of iron (Fe2+ and Fe3+) at the same time in cell cultures and in brain slices from mice genetically modified to mimic Alzheimer’s. One sensor glows green for Fe2+ and the other glows red for Fe3+. This is the first imaging technique that can simultaneously detect both forms of iron in cells and tissue while also indicating their quantity and spatial distribution.

“The best part about our sensor is that we can now visualize the changes of Fe2+ and Fe3+ and their ratios in each location,” said Yuting Wu, a co-first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in Lu’s lab at UT Austin. “We can change one parameter at a time to see if it changes the plaques or the oxidative states of iron.”

That ability could help them better understand why there is an increased ratio of Fe3+ to Fe2+ in the location of amyloid beta plaques and whether increased iron redox is involved in forming the plaques.

Another key question is whether the iron redox is directly involved in cell death in Alzheimer’s, or simply a byproduct. The researchers plan to explore this question in Alzheimer’s mice. If further research determines that iron and its redox changes indeed cause cell death in Alzheimer’s patients, that information could provide a potential new strategy for drug development. In other words, perhaps a drug that change the ratio Fe3+ to Fe2+ could help protect brain cells. The new imaging probe could be used to test how well drug candidates work at changing the ratio.

To develop the sensors, the scientists first hired a commercial lab to produce a library of 100 trillion short DNA strands, through a chemical process called oligonucleotide synthesis. They then conducted a screening process to find those strands that recognize — or in chemistry parlance “bind tightly to and conduct a catalytic reaction with” — a specific form of iron and not any other forms. To complete the sensors, other components were added including molecules called fluorophores that glow in a specific color when the probe recognizes the specific form of iron.

Lu, who moved his lab to UT Austin from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the summer of 2021, collaborated with researchers there including professor of chemistry Liviu Mirica.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer’s Association and the Robert A. Welch Foundation. Lu holds the Richard J.V. Johnson — Welch Regents Chair in Chemistry.

Newfound link between Alzheimer’s and iron could lead to new medical interventions – NovLink

The post Newfound link between Alzheimer’s and iron could lead to new medical interventions – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684103570;}i:5;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:79:"Potential found to counter depression by restoring key brain rhythm – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:108:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/potential-found-to-counter-depression-by-restoring-key-brain-rhythm-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 14 May 2023 18:51:24 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:108:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/potential-found-to-counter-depression-by-restoring-key-brain-rhythm-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:1080:"

Journal Reference: Qun Li, Yuichi Takeuchi, Jiale Wang, Levente Gellért, Livia Barcsai, Lizeth K. Pedraza, Anett J. Nagy, Gábor Kozák, Shinya Nakai, Shigeki Kato, Kazuto Kobayashi, Masahiro Ohsawa, Gyöngyi Horváth, Gabriella Kékesi, Magor L. Lőrincz, Orrin Devinsky, György Buzsáki, Antal Berényi. Reinstating olfactory bulb-derived limbic gamma oscillations alleviates depression-like behavioral deficits in rodents. Neuron, 2023; ... Read more

The post Potential found to counter depression by restoring key brain rhythm – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:7769:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Qun Li, Yuichi Takeuchi, Jiale Wang, Levente Gellért, Livia Barcsai, Lizeth K. Pedraza, Anett J. Nagy, Gábor Kozák, Shinya Nakai, Shigeki Kato, Kazuto Kobayashi, Masahiro Ohsawa, Gyöngyi Horváth, Gabriella Kékesi, Magor L. Lőrincz, Orrin Devinsky, György Buzsáki, Antal Berényi. Reinstating olfactory bulb-derived limbic gamma oscillations alleviates depression-like behavioral deficits in rodents. Neuron, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.04.013

Publishing in the journal Neuron online May 9, the study results revolve around nerve cells (neurons), which “fire” — or emit electrical signals — to transmit information. Researchers in recent years discovered that effective communication between brain regions requires groups of neurons to synchronize their activity patterns in repetitive periods (oscillations) of joint silence followed by joint activity. One such rhythm, called “gamma,” repeats about 30 times or more in a second, and is an important timing pattern for the encoding of complex information, potentially including emotions.

Although its causes remain poorly understood, depression is reflected in gamma oscillation changes, according to past studies, as an electrophysiological marker of the disease in brain regions that manage the sense of smell, which have also been tied to emotions. These regions include the olfactory bulb adjacent to the nasal cavity, which is thought to be a source and “conductor” of brain-wide gamma oscillations.

To test this theory, the current study authors shut down the function of the bulb using genetic and cell signaling techniques, observed a related increase of depression-like behaviors in study rodents, and then reversed these behaviors using a device that boosted gamma signals of the brain at their natural pace.

“Our experiments revealed a mechanistic link between deficient gamma activity and behavioral decline in mice and rat models of depression, with the signal changes in the olfactory and connected limbic systems similar to those seen in depressed patients,” says corresponding study author Antal Berényi, MD, PhD, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at NYU Langone Health. “This work demonstrates the power of gamma-enhancement as a potential approach for countering depression and anxiety in cases where available medications are not effective.”

Major depressive disorder is a common, severe psychiatric illness often resistant to drug therapy, the researchers say. The prevalence of the condition has dramatically increased since the start of the pandemic, with more than 53 million new cases estimated.

Gamma Waves Linked to Emotions

Disease-causing changes in the timing and strength of gamma signals, potentially caused by infections, trauma, or drugs, from the olfactory bulb to other brain regions of the limbic system, such as the piriform cortex and hippocampus, may alter emotions. However, the research team is not sure why. In one theory, depression arises, not within the olfactory bulb, but in changes to its outgoing gamma patterns to other brain targets.

Removal of the bulb represents an older animal model for the study of major depression, but the process causes structural damage that may cloud researchers’ view of disease mechanisms. Thus, the current research team designed a reversible method to avert damage, starting with a single, engineered strand of DNA encapsulated in a harmless virus, which when injected into neurons in the olfactory bulbs of rodents caused the cells to build certain protein receptors on their surfaces.

This let the researchers inject the rodents with a drug, which spread system-wide, but only shut down the neurons in the bulb that had been engineered to have the designed drug-sensitive receptors. This way the investigators could selectively and reversibly switch off the communication between the bulb partner brain regions. These tests revealed that chronic suppression of olfactory bulb signals, including gamma, not only induced depressive behaviors during the intervention, but fordays afterward.

To show the effect of the loss of gamma oscillation in the olfactory bulb, the team used several standard rodent tests of depression, including measures of the anxiety that is one of its main symptoms. The field recognizes that animal models of human psychiatric conditions will be limited, and so uses a battery of tests to measure depressed behaviors that have proven useful over time.

Specifically, the tests looked at how long animals would spend in an open space (a measure of anxiety), whether they stopped swimming earlier when submerged (measures despair), whether they stopped drinking sugar water (took less pleasure in things), and whether they refused to enter a maze (avoided stressful situations).

The researchers next used a custom-made device that recorded the natural gamma oscillations from the olfactory bulb, and sent those paced signals back into the rodents’ brains as closed-loop electrical stimulation. The device was able to suppress gamma in healthy animals or amplify it. Suppression of gamma oscillations in the olfactory lobe induced behaviors resembling depression in humans. In addition, feeding an amplified olfactory bulb signal back into the brains of depressed rats restored normal gamma function in the limbic system, and reduced the depressive behaviors by 40 percent (almost to normal).

“No one yet knows how the firing patterns of gamma waves are converted into emotions,” says senior study author György Buzsáki, MD, PhD, the Biggs Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at NYU Langone Health and a faculty member in its Neuroscience Institute. “Moving forward, we will be working to better understand this link in the bulb, and in the regions it connects to, as behavior changes.”

Along with Berényi and Buzsáki, the study was led by Orrin Devinsky, MD, professor in the in Department of Neurology at NYU Langone, and director of its Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. Berényi is also principal investigator of the Momentum Oscillatory Neuronal Networks Research Group, Department of Physiology at the University of Szeged in Hungary, along with first study authors Qun Li and Yuichi Takeuchi, and authors Jiale Wang, Levente Gellért, Livia Barcsai, Lizeth Pedraza, Anett Nagy, Gábor Kozák, Gyöngyi Horváth, Gabriella Kékesi and Magor L?rincz. Study authors Shinya Nakai and Masahiro Ohsawa are with the Department of Neuro-pharmacology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, at Nagoya City University in Japan. Takeuchi is also faculty in the Department of Physiology, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hokkaido University in Japan. Also study authors were Shigeki Kato and Kazuto Kobayashi Department of Molecular Genetics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine in Japan.

Potential found to counter depression by restoring key brain rhythm – NovLink

The post Potential found to counter depression by restoring key brain rhythm – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:1080:"

Journal Reference: Qun Li, Yuichi Takeuchi, Jiale Wang, Levente Gellért, Livia Barcsai, Lizeth K. Pedraza, Anett J. Nagy, Gábor Kozák, Shinya Nakai, Shigeki Kato, Kazuto Kobayashi, Masahiro Ohsawa, Gyöngyi Horváth, Gabriella Kékesi, Magor L. Lőrincz, Orrin Devinsky, György Buzsáki, Antal Berényi. Reinstating olfactory bulb-derived limbic gamma oscillations alleviates depression-like behavioral deficits in rodents. Neuron, 2023; ... Read more

The post Potential found to counter depression by restoring key brain rhythm – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:7769:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Qun Li, Yuichi Takeuchi, Jiale Wang, Levente Gellért, Livia Barcsai, Lizeth K. Pedraza, Anett J. Nagy, Gábor Kozák, Shinya Nakai, Shigeki Kato, Kazuto Kobayashi, Masahiro Ohsawa, Gyöngyi Horváth, Gabriella Kékesi, Magor L. Lőrincz, Orrin Devinsky, György Buzsáki, Antal Berényi. Reinstating olfactory bulb-derived limbic gamma oscillations alleviates depression-like behavioral deficits in rodents. Neuron, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.04.013

Publishing in the journal Neuron online May 9, the study results revolve around nerve cells (neurons), which “fire” — or emit electrical signals — to transmit information. Researchers in recent years discovered that effective communication between brain regions requires groups of neurons to synchronize their activity patterns in repetitive periods (oscillations) of joint silence followed by joint activity. One such rhythm, called “gamma,” repeats about 30 times or more in a second, and is an important timing pattern for the encoding of complex information, potentially including emotions.

Although its causes remain poorly understood, depression is reflected in gamma oscillation changes, according to past studies, as an electrophysiological marker of the disease in brain regions that manage the sense of smell, which have also been tied to emotions. These regions include the olfactory bulb adjacent to the nasal cavity, which is thought to be a source and “conductor” of brain-wide gamma oscillations.

To test this theory, the current study authors shut down the function of the bulb using genetic and cell signaling techniques, observed a related increase of depression-like behaviors in study rodents, and then reversed these behaviors using a device that boosted gamma signals of the brain at their natural pace.

“Our experiments revealed a mechanistic link between deficient gamma activity and behavioral decline in mice and rat models of depression, with the signal changes in the olfactory and connected limbic systems similar to those seen in depressed patients,” says corresponding study author Antal Berényi, MD, PhD, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at NYU Langone Health. “This work demonstrates the power of gamma-enhancement as a potential approach for countering depression and anxiety in cases where available medications are not effective.”

Major depressive disorder is a common, severe psychiatric illness often resistant to drug therapy, the researchers say. The prevalence of the condition has dramatically increased since the start of the pandemic, with more than 53 million new cases estimated.

Gamma Waves Linked to Emotions

Disease-causing changes in the timing and strength of gamma signals, potentially caused by infections, trauma, or drugs, from the olfactory bulb to other brain regions of the limbic system, such as the piriform cortex and hippocampus, may alter emotions. However, the research team is not sure why. In one theory, depression arises, not within the olfactory bulb, but in changes to its outgoing gamma patterns to other brain targets.

Removal of the bulb represents an older animal model for the study of major depression, but the process causes structural damage that may cloud researchers’ view of disease mechanisms. Thus, the current research team designed a reversible method to avert damage, starting with a single, engineered strand of DNA encapsulated in a harmless virus, which when injected into neurons in the olfactory bulbs of rodents caused the cells to build certain protein receptors on their surfaces.

This let the researchers inject the rodents with a drug, which spread system-wide, but only shut down the neurons in the bulb that had been engineered to have the designed drug-sensitive receptors. This way the investigators could selectively and reversibly switch off the communication between the bulb partner brain regions. These tests revealed that chronic suppression of olfactory bulb signals, including gamma, not only induced depressive behaviors during the intervention, but fordays afterward.

To show the effect of the loss of gamma oscillation in the olfactory bulb, the team used several standard rodent tests of depression, including measures of the anxiety that is one of its main symptoms. The field recognizes that animal models of human psychiatric conditions will be limited, and so uses a battery of tests to measure depressed behaviors that have proven useful over time.

Specifically, the tests looked at how long animals would spend in an open space (a measure of anxiety), whether they stopped swimming earlier when submerged (measures despair), whether they stopped drinking sugar water (took less pleasure in things), and whether they refused to enter a maze (avoided stressful situations).

The researchers next used a custom-made device that recorded the natural gamma oscillations from the olfactory bulb, and sent those paced signals back into the rodents’ brains as closed-loop electrical stimulation. The device was able to suppress gamma in healthy animals or amplify it. Suppression of gamma oscillations in the olfactory lobe induced behaviors resembling depression in humans. In addition, feeding an amplified olfactory bulb signal back into the brains of depressed rats restored normal gamma function in the limbic system, and reduced the depressive behaviors by 40 percent (almost to normal).

“No one yet knows how the firing patterns of gamma waves are converted into emotions,” says senior study author György Buzsáki, MD, PhD, the Biggs Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at NYU Langone Health and a faculty member in its Neuroscience Institute. “Moving forward, we will be working to better understand this link in the bulb, and in the regions it connects to, as behavior changes.”

Along with Berényi and Buzsáki, the study was led by Orrin Devinsky, MD, professor in the in Department of Neurology at NYU Langone, and director of its Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. Berényi is also principal investigator of the Momentum Oscillatory Neuronal Networks Research Group, Department of Physiology at the University of Szeged in Hungary, along with first study authors Qun Li and Yuichi Takeuchi, and authors Jiale Wang, Levente Gellért, Livia Barcsai, Lizeth Pedraza, Anett Nagy, Gábor Kozák, Gyöngyi Horváth, Gabriella Kékesi and Magor L?rincz. Study authors Shinya Nakai and Masahiro Ohsawa are with the Department of Neuro-pharmacology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, at Nagoya City University in Japan. Takeuchi is also faculty in the Department of Physiology, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hokkaido University in Japan. Also study authors were Shigeki Kato and Kazuto Kobayashi Department of Molecular Genetics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine in Japan.

Potential found to counter depression by restoring key brain rhythm – NovLink

The post Potential found to counter depression by restoring key brain rhythm – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684090284;}i:6;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:72:"New research sheds light on how human vision perceives scale – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:101:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/new-research-sheds-light-on-how-human-vision-perceives-scale-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 14 May 2023 15:09:33 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:101:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/new-research-sheds-light-on-how-human-vision-perceives-scale-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:970:"

Journal Reference: Tim S. Meese, Daniel H. Baker, Robert J. Summers. Blurring the boundary between models and reality: Visual perception of scale assessed by performance. PLOS ONE, 2023; 18 (5): e0285423 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285423 The study, published on 8 May in the journal PLOS ONE, explored the computational mechanisms used by the human brain to perceive ... Read more

The post New research sheds light on how human vision perceives scale – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:3713:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Tim S. Meese, Daniel H. Baker, Robert J. Summers. Blurring the boundary between models and reality: Visual perception of scale assessed by performance. PLOS ONE, 2023; 18 (5): e0285423 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285423

The study, published on 8 May in the journal PLOS ONE, explored the computational mechanisms used by the human brain to perceive the size of objects in the world around us.

The research, led by Professor Tim Meese, in the School of Optometry at Aston University and Dr Daniel Baker in the Department of Psychology at University of York, tells us more about how our visual system can exploit ‘defocus blur’ to infer perceptual scale, but that it does so crudely.

It is well known that to derive object size from retinal image size, our visual system needs to estimate the distance to the object. The retinal image contains many pictorial cues, such as linear perspective, which help the system derive the relative size of objects. However, to derive absolute size, the system needs to know about spatial scale.

By taking account of defocus blur, like the blurry parts of an image outside the depth of focus of a camera, the visual system can achieve this. The maths behind this has been well worked out by others, but the study asked the question: does human vision exploit this maths?

The research team presented participants with photographic pairs of full-scale railway scenes subject to various artificial blur treatments and small-scale models of railway scenes taken with a long exposure and small aperture to diminish defocus blur. The task was to detect which photograph in each pair was the real full-scale scene.

When the artificial blur was appropriately oriented with the ground plane (the horizontal plane representing the ground on which the viewer is standing) in the full-scale scenes, participants were fooled and believed the small models to be the full-scale scenes. Remarkably, this did not require the application of realistic gradients of blur. Simple uniform bands of blur at the top and bottom of the photographs achieved almost equivalent miniaturisation effects.

Tim Meese, professor of vision science at Aston University, said: “Our results indicate that human vision can exploit defocus blur to infer perceptual scale but that it does this crudely — more a heuristic than a metrical analysis. Overall, our findings provide new insights into the computational mechanisms used by the human brain in perceptual judgments about the relation between ourselves and the external world.”

Daniel Baker, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of York, said: “These findings demonstrate that our perception of size is not perfect and can be influenced by other properties of a scene. It also highlights the remarkable adaptability of the visual system. This might have relevance for understanding the computational principles underlying our perception of the world. For example, when judging the size and distance of hazards when driving.”

New research sheds light on how human vision perceives scale – NovLink

The post New research sheds light on how human vision perceives scale – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:970:"

Journal Reference: Tim S. Meese, Daniel H. Baker, Robert J. Summers. Blurring the boundary between models and reality: Visual perception of scale assessed by performance. PLOS ONE, 2023; 18 (5): e0285423 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285423 The study, published on 8 May in the journal PLOS ONE, explored the computational mechanisms used by the human brain to perceive ... Read more

The post New research sheds light on how human vision perceives scale – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:3713:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Tim S. Meese, Daniel H. Baker, Robert J. Summers. Blurring the boundary between models and reality: Visual perception of scale assessed by performance. PLOS ONE, 2023; 18 (5): e0285423 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285423

The study, published on 8 May in the journal PLOS ONE, explored the computational mechanisms used by the human brain to perceive the size of objects in the world around us.

The research, led by Professor Tim Meese, in the School of Optometry at Aston University and Dr Daniel Baker in the Department of Psychology at University of York, tells us more about how our visual system can exploit ‘defocus blur’ to infer perceptual scale, but that it does so crudely.

It is well known that to derive object size from retinal image size, our visual system needs to estimate the distance to the object. The retinal image contains many pictorial cues, such as linear perspective, which help the system derive the relative size of objects. However, to derive absolute size, the system needs to know about spatial scale.

By taking account of defocus blur, like the blurry parts of an image outside the depth of focus of a camera, the visual system can achieve this. The maths behind this has been well worked out by others, but the study asked the question: does human vision exploit this maths?

The research team presented participants with photographic pairs of full-scale railway scenes subject to various artificial blur treatments and small-scale models of railway scenes taken with a long exposure and small aperture to diminish defocus blur. The task was to detect which photograph in each pair was the real full-scale scene.

When the artificial blur was appropriately oriented with the ground plane (the horizontal plane representing the ground on which the viewer is standing) in the full-scale scenes, participants were fooled and believed the small models to be the full-scale scenes. Remarkably, this did not require the application of realistic gradients of blur. Simple uniform bands of blur at the top and bottom of the photographs achieved almost equivalent miniaturisation effects.

Tim Meese, professor of vision science at Aston University, said: “Our results indicate that human vision can exploit defocus blur to infer perceptual scale but that it does this crudely — more a heuristic than a metrical analysis. Overall, our findings provide new insights into the computational mechanisms used by the human brain in perceptual judgments about the relation between ourselves and the external world.”

Daniel Baker, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of York, said: “These findings demonstrate that our perception of size is not perfect and can be influenced by other properties of a scene. It also highlights the remarkable adaptability of the visual system. This might have relevance for understanding the computational principles underlying our perception of the world. For example, when judging the size and distance of hazards when driving.”

New research sheds light on how human vision perceives scale – NovLink

The post New research sheds light on how human vision perceives scale – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684076973;}i:7;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:90:"New study puts a definitive age on Saturn’s rings — they’re really young – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:109:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/new-study-puts-a-definitive-age-on-saturns-rings-theyre-really-young-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 14 May 2023 11:27:47 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:109:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/new-study-puts-a-definitive-age-on-saturns-rings-theyre-really-young-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:1041:"

Journal Reference: Sascha Kempf, Nicolas Altobelli, Jürgen Schmidt, Jeffrey N. Cuzzi, Paul R. Estrada, Ralf Srama. Micrometeoroid infall onto Saturn’s rings constrains their age to no more than a few hundred million years. Science Advances, 2023; 9 (19) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf8537 The research, to be published May 12 in the journal Science Advances, pegs the age ... Read more

The post New study puts a definitive age on Saturn’s rings — they’re really young – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6123:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Sascha Kempf, Nicolas Altobelli, Jürgen Schmidt, Jeffrey N. Cuzzi, Paul R. Estrada, Ralf Srama. Micrometeoroid infall onto Saturn’s rings constrains their age to no more than a few hundred million years. Science Advances, 2023; 9 (19) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf8537

The research, to be published May 12 in the journal Science Advances, pegs the age of Saturn’s rings at no more than 400 million years old. That makes the rings much younger than Saturn itself, which is about 4.5 billion years old.

“In a way, we’ve gotten closure on a question that started with James Clerk Maxwell,” said Kempf, associate professor in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder.

The researchers arrived at that closure by studying what might seem like an unusual subject: dust.

Kempf explained that tiny grains of rocky material wash through Earth’s solar system on an almost constant basis. In some cases, this flux can leave behind a thin layer of dust on planetary bodies, including on the ice that makes up Saturn’s rings.

In the new study, he and his colleagues set out to put a date on Saturn’s rings by studying how rapidly this layer of dust builds up — a bit like telling how old a house is by running your finger along its surfaces.

“Think about the rings like the carpet in your house,” Kempf said. “If you have a clean carpet laid out, you just have to wait. Dust will settle on your carpet. The same is true for the rings.”

It was an arduous process: From 2004 to 2017, the team used an instrument called the Cosmic Dust Analyzer aboard NASA’s late Cassini spacecraft to analyze specks of dust flying around Saturn. Over those 13 years, the researchers collected just 163 grains that had originated from beyond the planet’s close neighborhood. But it was enough. Based on their calculations, Saturn’s rings have likely been gathering dust for only a few hundred million years.

The planet’s rings, in other words, are new phenomena, arising (and potentially even disappearing) in what amounts to a blink of an eye in cosmic terms.

“We know approximately how old the rings are, but it doesn’t solve any of our other problems,” Kempf said. “We still don’t know how these rings formed in the first place.”

From Galileo to Cassini

Researchers have been captivated by these seemingly-translucent rings for more than 400 years. In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei first observed the features through a telescope, although he didn’t know what they were. (Galileo’s original drawings make the rings look a bit like the handles on a water jug). In the 1800s, Maxwell, a scientist from Scotland, concluded that Saturn’s rings couldn’t be solid but were, instead, made up of many individual pieces.

Today, scientists know that Saturn hosts seven rings comprised of countless chunks of ice, most no bigger than a boulder on Earth. Altogether, this ice weighs about half as much as Saturn’s moon Mimas and stretches nearly 175,000 miles from the planet’s surface.

Kempf added that for most of the 20th Century, scientists assumed that the rings likely formed at the same time as Saturn.

But that idea raised a few issues — namely, Saturn’s rings are sparkling clean. Observations suggest that these features are made up of roughly 98% pure water ice by volume, with only a tiny amount of rocky matter.

“It’s almost impossible to end up with something so clean,” Kempf said.

Cassini offered an opportunity to put a definitive age on Saturn’s rings. The spacecraft first arrived at Saturn in 2004 and collected data until it purposefully crashed into the planet’s atmosphere in 2017. The Cosmic Dust Analyzer, which was shaped a bit like a bucket, scooped up small particles as they whizzed by.

Engineers and scientists at LASP designed and built a much more sophisticated dust analyzer for NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2024.

The team estimated that this interplanetary grime would contribute far less than a gram of dust to each square foot of Saturn’s rings every year — a light sprinkle, but enough to add up over time. Previous studies had also suggested that the rings could be young but didn’t include definitive measures of dust accumulation.

Stroke of luck

The rings might already be vanishing. In a previous study, NASA scientists reported that the ice is slowly raining down onto the planet and could disappear entirely in another 100 million years.

That these ephemeral features existed at a time when Galileo and the Cassini spacecraft could observe them seems almost too good to be true, Kempf said — and it begs an explanation for how the rings formed in the first place. Some scientists, for example, have posited that Saturn’s rings may have formed when the planet’s gravity tore apart one of its moons.

“If the rings are short lived and dynamical, why are we seeing them now?” he said. “It’s too much luck.”

Co-authors on the new study include Nicolas Altobelli of the European Space Agency; Jürgen Schmidt of the Freie Universität Berlin; Jeffrey Cuzzi and Paul Estrada of the NASA Ames Research Center; and Ralf Srama of the Universität Stuttgart.

New study puts a definitive age on Saturn’s rings — they’re really young – NovLink

The post New study puts a definitive age on Saturn’s rings — they’re really young – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:1041:"

Journal Reference: Sascha Kempf, Nicolas Altobelli, Jürgen Schmidt, Jeffrey N. Cuzzi, Paul R. Estrada, Ralf Srama. Micrometeoroid infall onto Saturn’s rings constrains their age to no more than a few hundred million years. Science Advances, 2023; 9 (19) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf8537 The research, to be published May 12 in the journal Science Advances, pegs the age ... Read more

The post New study puts a definitive age on Saturn’s rings — they’re really young – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:6123:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Sascha Kempf, Nicolas Altobelli, Jürgen Schmidt, Jeffrey N. Cuzzi, Paul R. Estrada, Ralf Srama. Micrometeoroid infall onto Saturn’s rings constrains their age to no more than a few hundred million years. Science Advances, 2023; 9 (19) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf8537

The research, to be published May 12 in the journal Science Advances, pegs the age of Saturn’s rings at no more than 400 million years old. That makes the rings much younger than Saturn itself, which is about 4.5 billion years old.

“In a way, we’ve gotten closure on a question that started with James Clerk Maxwell,” said Kempf, associate professor in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder.

The researchers arrived at that closure by studying what might seem like an unusual subject: dust.

Kempf explained that tiny grains of rocky material wash through Earth’s solar system on an almost constant basis. In some cases, this flux can leave behind a thin layer of dust on planetary bodies, including on the ice that makes up Saturn’s rings.

In the new study, he and his colleagues set out to put a date on Saturn’s rings by studying how rapidly this layer of dust builds up — a bit like telling how old a house is by running your finger along its surfaces.

“Think about the rings like the carpet in your house,” Kempf said. “If you have a clean carpet laid out, you just have to wait. Dust will settle on your carpet. The same is true for the rings.”

It was an arduous process: From 2004 to 2017, the team used an instrument called the Cosmic Dust Analyzer aboard NASA’s late Cassini spacecraft to analyze specks of dust flying around Saturn. Over those 13 years, the researchers collected just 163 grains that had originated from beyond the planet’s close neighborhood. But it was enough. Based on their calculations, Saturn’s rings have likely been gathering dust for only a few hundred million years.

The planet’s rings, in other words, are new phenomena, arising (and potentially even disappearing) in what amounts to a blink of an eye in cosmic terms.

“We know approximately how old the rings are, but it doesn’t solve any of our other problems,” Kempf said. “We still don’t know how these rings formed in the first place.”

From Galileo to Cassini

Researchers have been captivated by these seemingly-translucent rings for more than 400 years. In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei first observed the features through a telescope, although he didn’t know what they were. (Galileo’s original drawings make the rings look a bit like the handles on a water jug). In the 1800s, Maxwell, a scientist from Scotland, concluded that Saturn’s rings couldn’t be solid but were, instead, made up of many individual pieces.

Today, scientists know that Saturn hosts seven rings comprised of countless chunks of ice, most no bigger than a boulder on Earth. Altogether, this ice weighs about half as much as Saturn’s moon Mimas and stretches nearly 175,000 miles from the planet’s surface.

Kempf added that for most of the 20th Century, scientists assumed that the rings likely formed at the same time as Saturn.

But that idea raised a few issues — namely, Saturn’s rings are sparkling clean. Observations suggest that these features are made up of roughly 98% pure water ice by volume, with only a tiny amount of rocky matter.

“It’s almost impossible to end up with something so clean,” Kempf said.

Cassini offered an opportunity to put a definitive age on Saturn’s rings. The spacecraft first arrived at Saturn in 2004 and collected data until it purposefully crashed into the planet’s atmosphere in 2017. The Cosmic Dust Analyzer, which was shaped a bit like a bucket, scooped up small particles as they whizzed by.

Engineers and scientists at LASP designed and built a much more sophisticated dust analyzer for NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2024.

The team estimated that this interplanetary grime would contribute far less than a gram of dust to each square foot of Saturn’s rings every year — a light sprinkle, but enough to add up over time. Previous studies had also suggested that the rings could be young but didn’t include definitive measures of dust accumulation.

Stroke of luck

The rings might already be vanishing. In a previous study, NASA scientists reported that the ice is slowly raining down onto the planet and could disappear entirely in another 100 million years.

That these ephemeral features existed at a time when Galileo and the Cassini spacecraft could observe them seems almost too good to be true, Kempf said — and it begs an explanation for how the rings formed in the first place. Some scientists, for example, have posited that Saturn’s rings may have formed when the planet’s gravity tore apart one of its moons.

“If the rings are short lived and dynamical, why are we seeing them now?” he said. “It’s too much luck.”

Co-authors on the new study include Nicolas Altobelli of the European Space Agency; Jürgen Schmidt of the Freie Universität Berlin; Jeffrey Cuzzi and Paul Estrada of the NASA Ames Research Center; and Ralf Srama of the Universität Stuttgart.

New study puts a definitive age on Saturn’s rings — they’re really young – NovLink

The post New study puts a definitive age on Saturn’s rings — they’re really young – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684063667;}i:8;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:69:"Bacteria killing material could tackle hospital superbugs – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:98:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/bacteria-killing-material-could-tackle-hospital-superbugs-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 14 May 2023 07:44:54 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:98:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/bacteria-killing-material-could-tackle-hospital-superbugs-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:1003:"

Journal Reference: Rowan Watson, Maria Maxwell, Sophie Dunn, Alexander Brooks, Long Jiang, Harriet J. Hill, Georgia Williams, Anna Kotowska, Naa Dei Nikoi, Zania Stamataki, Manuel Banzhaf, David Scurr, Jack Alfred Bryant, Felicity de Cogan. Development of biocide coated polymers and their antimicrobial efficacy. Nano Select, 2023; DOI: 10.1002/nano.202300005 Scientists at the University of Nottingham’s School ... Read more

The post Bacteria killing material could tackle hospital superbugs – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:4545:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Rowan Watson, Maria Maxwell, Sophie Dunn, Alexander Brooks, Long Jiang, Harriet J. Hill, Georgia Williams, Anna Kotowska, Naa Dei Nikoi, Zania Stamataki, Manuel Banzhaf, David Scurr, Jack Alfred Bryant, Felicity de Cogan. Development of biocide coated polymers and their antimicrobial efficacy. Nano Select, 2023; DOI: 10.1002/nano.202300005

Scientists at the University of Nottingham’s School of Pharmacy took chlorhexidine, often used by dentists to treat mouth infections and for pre-surgical cleaning, and used it to coat the polymer, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The new study published in Nano Select shows that this new material was found to be effective in killing the microbes responsible for a range of infections and illnesses and could be used as an effective antimicrobial coating on a range of plastic products.

Plastics are widely used in medical settings, from intravenous bags and implantable devices to hospital beds and toilet seats. Some microbial species can survive in a hospital setting despite enhanced cleaning regimes, leading to an increased risk of patients getting infections whilst in hospital which then need antibiotic treatment. These microorganisms can survive and remain infectious on abiotic surfaces, including plastic surfaces, for extended periods, sometimes up to several months.

Dr Felicity de Cogan, Assistant Professor in Pharmaceutical Science of Biological Medicines led this study, she said: “As plastic is such a widely used material that we know can harbour infectious microorganisms we wanted to investigate a way to use this material to destroy the bacteria. We achieved this by bonding a disinfectant with the polymer to create a new coating material and discovered not only does it act very quickly, killing bacteria within 30 minutes, it also doesn’t spread into the environment or leach from the surface when touched. Making plastic items using this material could really help tackle the issue of antibiotic resistance and reduce hospital acquired infections.”

The researchers used a special imaging technique called Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) to examine the material at molecular level. This revealed the material was antimicrobial and rapidly killed microbes and after 45 minutes the surfaces were still clear of these microbes. It was also effective against SARS-COV-2, with no viable virions found after 30 minutes. Additionally, the surfaces were also effective in killing chlorhexidine-resistant strains of bacteria.

The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn increased attention to hospital-acquired infections, as it has been estimated that 20% of all patients hospitalized with COVID-19 contracted the virus while already in hospital. It has been estimated that in 2016/17, 4.7% of adult hospital inpatients contracted an infection whilst in hospital, with 22,800 patients dying due to these infections despite these deaths being preventable. The most common pathogens that cause hospital-acquired infections are Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Clostridium difficile. Outbreaks of infection in the clinic are frequently caused by strains resistant to antimicrobial drugs.

Dr de Cogan continues: “Research has shown that contaminated surfaces, including plastic surfaces, can act as a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance genes, encouraging the spread of antimicrobial resistance across bacterial species through horizontal gene transfer despite deep cleaning practices. It is paramount that new technologies are developed to prevent the spread of pathogenic microorganisms to vulnerable patients and address the ever-increasing threat of antimicrobial resistance.

“This research offers an effective way to do this and the material could be added to plastic materials during manufacture, it could also potentially be used as a spray.”

Bacteria killing material could tackle hospital superbugs – NovLink

The post Bacteria killing material could tackle hospital superbugs – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";}s:7:"summary";s:1003:"

Journal Reference: Rowan Watson, Maria Maxwell, Sophie Dunn, Alexander Brooks, Long Jiang, Harriet J. Hill, Georgia Williams, Anna Kotowska, Naa Dei Nikoi, Zania Stamataki, Manuel Banzhaf, David Scurr, Jack Alfred Bryant, Felicity de Cogan. Development of biocide coated polymers and their antimicrobial efficacy. Nano Select, 2023; DOI: 10.1002/nano.202300005 Scientists at the University of Nottingham’s School ... Read more

The post Bacteria killing material could tackle hospital superbugs – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:4545:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Rowan Watson, Maria Maxwell, Sophie Dunn, Alexander Brooks, Long Jiang, Harriet J. Hill, Georgia Williams, Anna Kotowska, Naa Dei Nikoi, Zania Stamataki, Manuel Banzhaf, David Scurr, Jack Alfred Bryant, Felicity de Cogan. Development of biocide coated polymers and their antimicrobial efficacy. Nano Select, 2023; DOI: 10.1002/nano.202300005

Scientists at the University of Nottingham’s School of Pharmacy took chlorhexidine, often used by dentists to treat mouth infections and for pre-surgical cleaning, and used it to coat the polymer, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The new study published in Nano Select shows that this new material was found to be effective in killing the microbes responsible for a range of infections and illnesses and could be used as an effective antimicrobial coating on a range of plastic products.

Plastics are widely used in medical settings, from intravenous bags and implantable devices to hospital beds and toilet seats. Some microbial species can survive in a hospital setting despite enhanced cleaning regimes, leading to an increased risk of patients getting infections whilst in hospital which then need antibiotic treatment. These microorganisms can survive and remain infectious on abiotic surfaces, including plastic surfaces, for extended periods, sometimes up to several months.

Dr Felicity de Cogan, Assistant Professor in Pharmaceutical Science of Biological Medicines led this study, she said: “As plastic is such a widely used material that we know can harbour infectious microorganisms we wanted to investigate a way to use this material to destroy the bacteria. We achieved this by bonding a disinfectant with the polymer to create a new coating material and discovered not only does it act very quickly, killing bacteria within 30 minutes, it also doesn’t spread into the environment or leach from the surface when touched. Making plastic items using this material could really help tackle the issue of antibiotic resistance and reduce hospital acquired infections.”

The researchers used a special imaging technique called Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) to examine the material at molecular level. This revealed the material was antimicrobial and rapidly killed microbes and after 45 minutes the surfaces were still clear of these microbes. It was also effective against SARS-COV-2, with no viable virions found after 30 minutes. Additionally, the surfaces were also effective in killing chlorhexidine-resistant strains of bacteria.

The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn increased attention to hospital-acquired infections, as it has been estimated that 20% of all patients hospitalized with COVID-19 contracted the virus while already in hospital. It has been estimated that in 2016/17, 4.7% of adult hospital inpatients contracted an infection whilst in hospital, with 22,800 patients dying due to these infections despite these deaths being preventable. The most common pathogens that cause hospital-acquired infections are Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Clostridium difficile. Outbreaks of infection in the clinic are frequently caused by strains resistant to antimicrobial drugs.

Dr de Cogan continues: “Research has shown that contaminated surfaces, including plastic surfaces, can act as a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance genes, encouraging the spread of antimicrobial resistance across bacterial species through horizontal gene transfer despite deep cleaning practices. It is paramount that new technologies are developed to prevent the spread of pathogenic microorganisms to vulnerable patients and address the ever-increasing threat of antimicrobial resistance.

“This research offers an effective way to do this and the material could be added to plastic materials during manufacture, it could also potentially be used as a spray.”

Bacteria killing material could tackle hospital superbugs – NovLink

The post Bacteria killing material could tackle hospital superbugs – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684050294;}i:9;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:51:"Why do we fall for certain individuals? – NovLink";s:4:"link";s:79:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/why-do-we-fall-for-certain-individuals-novlink/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:0:"";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 14 May 2023 04:02:52 +0000";s:8:"category";s:7:"science";s:4:"guid";s:79:"https://bbc-edition.com/science/why-do-we-fall-for-certain-individuals-novlink/";s:11:"description";s:903:"

Journal Reference: Charles Chu, Brian S. Lowery. Self-essentialist reasoning underlies the similarity-attraction effect.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2023; DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000425 This is called the similarity-attraction effect: we generally like people who are like us. Now, new findings from a Boston University researcher have uncovered one reason why. In a series of studies, Charles ... Read more

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Journal Reference:

  1. Charles Chu, Brian S. Lowery. Self-essentialist reasoning underlies the similarity-attraction effect.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2023; DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000425

This is called the similarity-attraction effect: we generally like people who are like us. Now, new findings from a Boston University researcher have uncovered one reason why.

In a series of studies, Charles Chu, a BU Questrom School of Business assistant professor of management and organizations, tested the conditions that shape whether we feel attracted to — or turned off by — each other. He found one crucial factor was what psychologists call self-essentialist reasoning, where people imagine they have some deep inner core or essence that shapes who they are. Chu discovered that when someone believes an essence drives their interests, likes, and dislikes, they assume it’s the same for others, too; if they find someone with one matching interest, they reason that person will share their broader worldview. The findings were published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“If we had to come up with an image of our sense of self, it would be this nugget, an almost magical core inside that emanates out and causes what we can see and observe about people and ourselves,” says Chu, who published the paper with Brian S. Lowery of Stanford Graduate School of Business. “We argue that believing people have an underlying essence allows us to assume or infer that when we see someone who shares a single characteristic, they must share my entire deeply rooted essence, as well.”

But Chu’s research suggests this rush to embrace an indefinable, fundamental similarity with someone because of one or two shared interests may be based on flawed thinking — and that it could restrict who we find a connection with. Working alongside the pull of the similarity-attraction effect is a countering push: we dislike those who we don’t think are like us, often because of one small thing — they like that politician, or band, or book, or TV show we loathe.

“We are all so complex,” says Chu. “But we only have full insight into our own thoughts and feelings, and the minds of others are often a mystery to us. What this work suggests is that we often fill in the blanks of others’ minds with our own sense of self and that can sometimes lead us into some unwarranted assumptions.”

Trying to Understand Other People

To examine why we’re attracted to some people and not to others, Chu set up four studies, each designed to tease out different aspects of how we make friends — or foes.

In the first study, participants were told about a fictional person, Jamie, who held either complementary or contradictory attitudes to them. After asking participants their views on one of five topics — abortion, capital punishment, gun ownership, animal testing, and physician-assisted suicide — Chu asked how they felt about Jamie, who either agreed or disagreed with them on the target issue. They were also quizzed about the roots of their identity to measure their affinity with self-essentialist reasoning.

Chu found the more a participant believed their view of the world was shaped by an essential core, the more they felt connected to the Jamie who shared their views on one issue.

In a second study, he looked at whether that effect persisted when the target topics were less substantive. Rather than digging into whether people agreed with Jamie on something as divisive as abortion, Chu asked participants to estimate the number of blue dots on a page, then categorized them — and the fictional Jamie — as over- or under-estimators. Even with this slim connection, the findings held: the more someone believed in an essential core, the closer they felt to Jamie as a fellow over- or under-estimator.

“I found that both with pretty meaningful dimensions of similarity as well as with arbitrary, minimal similarities, people who are higher in their belief that they have an essence are more likely to be attracted to these similar others as opposed to dissimilar others,” says Chu.

In two companion studies, Chu began disrupting this process of attraction, stripping out the influence of self-essentialist reasoning. In one experiment, he labeled attributes (such as liking a certain painting) as either essential or nonessential; in another, he told participants that using their essence to judge someone else could lead to an inaccurate assessment of others.

“It breaks this essentialist reasoning process, it cuts off people’s ability to assume that what they’re seeing is reflective of a deeper similarity,” says Chu. “One way I did that was to remind people that this dimension of similarity is actually not connected or related to your essence at all; the other way was by telling people that using their essence as a way to understand other people is not very effective.”

Negotiating Psychology — and Politics — at Work

Chu says there’s a key tension in his findings that shape their application in the real world. On the one hand, we’re all searching for our community — it’s fun to hang out with people who share our hobbies and interests, love the same music and books as us, don’t disagree with us on politics. “This type of thinking is a really useful, heuristic psychological strategy,” says Chu. “It allows people to see more of themselves in new people and strangers.” But it also excludes people, sets up divisions and boundaries — sometimes on the flimsiest of grounds.

“When you hear a single fact or opinion being expressed that you either agree or disagree with, it really warrants taking an additional breath and just slowing down,” he says. “Not necessarily taking that single piece of information and extrapolating on it, using this type of thinking to go to the very end, that this person is fundamentally good and like me or fundamentally bad and not like me.”

Chu, whose background mixes the study of organizational behavior and psychology, teaches classes on negotiation at Questrom and says his research has plenty of implications in the business world, particularly when it comes to making deals.

“I define negotiations as conversations, and agreements and disagreements, about how power and resources should be distributed between people,” he says. “What inferences do we make about the other people we’re having these conversations with? How do we experience and think about agreement versus disagreement? How do we interpret when someone gets more and someone else gets less? These are all really central questions to the process of negotiation.”

But in a time when political division has invaded just about every sphere of our lives, including workplaces, the applications of Chu’s findings go way beyond corporate horse trading. Managing staff, collaborating on projects, team bonding — all are shaped by the judgments we make about each other. Self-essentialist reasoning may even influence society’s distribution of resources, says Chu: who we consider worthy of support, who gets funds and who doesn’t, could be driven by “this belief that people’s outcomes are caused by something deep inside of them.” That’s why he advocates pushing pause before judging someone who, at first blush, doesn’t seem like you.

“There are ways for us to go through life and meet other people, and form impressions of other people, without constantly referencing ourselves,” he says. “If we’re constantly going around trying to figure out, who’s like me, who’s not like me?, that’s not always the most productive way of trying to form impressions of other people. People are a lot more complex than we give them credit for.”

Why do we fall for certain individuals? – NovLink

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Journal Reference: Charles Chu, Brian S. Lowery. Self-essentialist reasoning underlies the similarity-attraction effect.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2023; DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000425 This is called the similarity-attraction effect: we generally like people who are like us. Now, new findings from a Boston University researcher have uncovered one reason why. In a series of studies, Charles ... Read more

The post Why do we fall for certain individuals? – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

";s:12:"atom_content";s:8569:"

Journal Reference:

  1. Charles Chu, Brian S. Lowery. Self-essentialist reasoning underlies the similarity-attraction effect.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2023; DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000425

This is called the similarity-attraction effect: we generally like people who are like us. Now, new findings from a Boston University researcher have uncovered one reason why.

In a series of studies, Charles Chu, a BU Questrom School of Business assistant professor of management and organizations, tested the conditions that shape whether we feel attracted to — or turned off by — each other. He found one crucial factor was what psychologists call self-essentialist reasoning, where people imagine they have some deep inner core or essence that shapes who they are. Chu discovered that when someone believes an essence drives their interests, likes, and dislikes, they assume it’s the same for others, too; if they find someone with one matching interest, they reason that person will share their broader worldview. The findings were published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“If we had to come up with an image of our sense of self, it would be this nugget, an almost magical core inside that emanates out and causes what we can see and observe about people and ourselves,” says Chu, who published the paper with Brian S. Lowery of Stanford Graduate School of Business. “We argue that believing people have an underlying essence allows us to assume or infer that when we see someone who shares a single characteristic, they must share my entire deeply rooted essence, as well.”

But Chu’s research suggests this rush to embrace an indefinable, fundamental similarity with someone because of one or two shared interests may be based on flawed thinking — and that it could restrict who we find a connection with. Working alongside the pull of the similarity-attraction effect is a countering push: we dislike those who we don’t think are like us, often because of one small thing — they like that politician, or band, or book, or TV show we loathe.

“We are all so complex,” says Chu. “But we only have full insight into our own thoughts and feelings, and the minds of others are often a mystery to us. What this work suggests is that we often fill in the blanks of others’ minds with our own sense of self and that can sometimes lead us into some unwarranted assumptions.”

Trying to Understand Other People

To examine why we’re attracted to some people and not to others, Chu set up four studies, each designed to tease out different aspects of how we make friends — or foes.

In the first study, participants were told about a fictional person, Jamie, who held either complementary or contradictory attitudes to them. After asking participants their views on one of five topics — abortion, capital punishment, gun ownership, animal testing, and physician-assisted suicide — Chu asked how they felt about Jamie, who either agreed or disagreed with them on the target issue. They were also quizzed about the roots of their identity to measure their affinity with self-essentialist reasoning.

Chu found the more a participant believed their view of the world was shaped by an essential core, the more they felt connected to the Jamie who shared their views on one issue.

In a second study, he looked at whether that effect persisted when the target topics were less substantive. Rather than digging into whether people agreed with Jamie on something as divisive as abortion, Chu asked participants to estimate the number of blue dots on a page, then categorized them — and the fictional Jamie — as over- or under-estimators. Even with this slim connection, the findings held: the more someone believed in an essential core, the closer they felt to Jamie as a fellow over- or under-estimator.

“I found that both with pretty meaningful dimensions of similarity as well as with arbitrary, minimal similarities, people who are higher in their belief that they have an essence are more likely to be attracted to these similar others as opposed to dissimilar others,” says Chu.

In two companion studies, Chu began disrupting this process of attraction, stripping out the influence of self-essentialist reasoning. In one experiment, he labeled attributes (such as liking a certain painting) as either essential or nonessential; in another, he told participants that using their essence to judge someone else could lead to an inaccurate assessment of others.

“It breaks this essentialist reasoning process, it cuts off people’s ability to assume that what they’re seeing is reflective of a deeper similarity,” says Chu. “One way I did that was to remind people that this dimension of similarity is actually not connected or related to your essence at all; the other way was by telling people that using their essence as a way to understand other people is not very effective.”

Negotiating Psychology — and Politics — at Work

Chu says there’s a key tension in his findings that shape their application in the real world. On the one hand, we’re all searching for our community — it’s fun to hang out with people who share our hobbies and interests, love the same music and books as us, don’t disagree with us on politics. “This type of thinking is a really useful, heuristic psychological strategy,” says Chu. “It allows people to see more of themselves in new people and strangers.” But it also excludes people, sets up divisions and boundaries — sometimes on the flimsiest of grounds.

“When you hear a single fact or opinion being expressed that you either agree or disagree with, it really warrants taking an additional breath and just slowing down,” he says. “Not necessarily taking that single piece of information and extrapolating on it, using this type of thinking to go to the very end, that this person is fundamentally good and like me or fundamentally bad and not like me.”

Chu, whose background mixes the study of organizational behavior and psychology, teaches classes on negotiation at Questrom and says his research has plenty of implications in the business world, particularly when it comes to making deals.

“I define negotiations as conversations, and agreements and disagreements, about how power and resources should be distributed between people,” he says. “What inferences do we make about the other people we’re having these conversations with? How do we experience and think about agreement versus disagreement? How do we interpret when someone gets more and someone else gets less? These are all really central questions to the process of negotiation.”

But in a time when political division has invaded just about every sphere of our lives, including workplaces, the applications of Chu’s findings go way beyond corporate horse trading. Managing staff, collaborating on projects, team bonding — all are shaped by the judgments we make about each other. Self-essentialist reasoning may even influence society’s distribution of resources, says Chu: who we consider worthy of support, who gets funds and who doesn’t, could be driven by “this belief that people’s outcomes are caused by something deep inside of them.” That’s why he advocates pushing pause before judging someone who, at first blush, doesn’t seem like you.

“There are ways for us to go through life and meet other people, and form impressions of other people, without constantly referencing ourselves,” he says. “If we’re constantly going around trying to figure out, who’s like me, who’s not like me?, that’s not always the most productive way of trying to form impressions of other people. People are a lot more complex than we give them credit for.”

Why do we fall for certain individuals? – NovLink

The post Why do we fall for certain individuals? – NovLink first appeared on BBC-Edition.

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