International Research Awards on New Science Inventions

As the United States races to achieve its goal of zero-carbon electricity generation by 2035, energy providers are swiftly ramping up renewable resources such as solar and wind. But because these technologies churn out electrons only when the sun shines and the wind blows, they need backup from other energy sources, especially during seasons of high electric demand. Currently, plants burning fossil fuels, primarily natural gas, fill in the gaps. “As we move to more and more renewable penetration, this intermittency will make a greater impact on the electric power system,” says Emre Gençer, a research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). That’s because grid operators will increasingly resort to fossil-fuel-based “peaker” plants that compensate for the intermittency of the variable renewable energy (VRE) sources of sun and wind. “If we’re to achieve zero-carbon electricity, we must replace all greenhouse gas-emitting sources,” Gençer says. Low- and zero-carbon alternativ

How flowers form properly within a limited time frame has been a mystery, at least until now. Researchers from Japan and China have discovered how a multi-tasking protein helps flowers to develop as expected. In a study published in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. , researchers from Nanjing University and Nara Institute of Science and Technology have revealed that a small protein plays multiple roles to ensure that floral reproductive organs are formed properly within a short space of time. Flowers develop from floral meristems, which differentiate to produce the sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels. The proper development of these floral organs depends on meristem development being completed within a certain time period. In the early stages of flower development, stem cells provide the cell source for floral organ formation. In floral meristems, stem cell activities are maintained via a feedback loop between  WUSCHEL  ( WUS ), a gene that identifies floral s

A new study by Tel Aviv University and University of California, Berkeley proposes a model according to which the establishment of seaweed farms in river estuaries significantly reduces nitrogen concentrations in the estuary and prevents pollution in estuarine and marine environments. The study was headed by doctoral student Meiron Zollmann, under the joint supervision of Prof. Alexander Golberg of the Porter School of Environmental and Earth Sciences and Prof. Alexander Liberzon of the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University. The study was conducted in collaboration with Prof. Boris Rubinsky of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley. The study was published in the prestigious journal Communications Biology. As part of the study, the researchers built a large seaweed farm model for growing the ulva sp. green macroalgae in the Alexander River estuary, hundreds of meters from the open sea. The Alexander

Anxiety, addiction, and other psychiatric disorders are often characterized by intense states of what scientists call arousal: The heart races, blood pressure readings rise, breaths shorten, and “bad” decisions are made. In an effort to understand how these states influence the brain’s decision-making processes, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai analyzed the data from a previous study of non-human primates. They found that two of the brain’s decision-making centers contain neurons that may exclusively monitor the body’s internal dynamics. Furthermore, a heightened state of arousal appeared to rewire one of the centers by turning some decision-making neurons into internal state monitors. “Our results suggest that the brain’s decision-making circuits may be wired to constantly monitor and integrate what is happening inside the body. Because of that, changes in our level of arousal can alter the way that these circuits work,” said Peter Rudebeck, PhD, Associate P

Hispanic people with a high percentage of American Indigenous ancestry are at increased risk of an omega-3 nutritional deficiency that could affect their heart health and contribute to harmful inflammation, new research suggests. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and their collaborators have linked American Indigenous ancestry with increased risk of omega-3 fatty acid deficiency among Hispanic Americans. Found in foods such as fatty fish and certain nuts, omega-3s are thought to be important in preventing heart disease and play an important role in the immune system. Doctors can use the new findings, the researchers say, to identify Hispanic patients at risk of omega-3 deficiency and to help them correct the problem with nutritional guidance or supplements. This could help the patients avoid heart problems and other health issues down the road. “Our research provides a path toward precision nutrition in which dietary recommendations can be tailored to an

A new paper co-written by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign scholar who studies the legal and ethical implications of advanced biotechnologies outlines an unexplored tool to regulate the medically and ethically dubious practice of heritable human-genome editing: patent law. Applied judiciously, patent law could create an “ethical thicket” around human genome editing that ultimately discourages access to “germline editing” – that is, changing sperm and egg to create designer children – in more permissive countries such as China, Greece, Mexico, Spain, and Ukraine, said  Jacob S. Sherkow , a professor of  law  and an affiliate of the  Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology  at Illinois. The World Health Organization has explored international governance tools for human genome engineering, but as long as individual countries are allowed to set and enforce their own policies, the possibility of people engaging in medical tourism to other countries to circumvent domestic pr

Wind energy continues to see strong growth, solid performance, and low prices in the U.S., according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). With levelized costs of just over $30 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for newly built projects, the cost of wind is well below its grid-system, health, and climate benefits. “Wind energy prices ­– ­particularly in the central United States, and supported by federal tax incentives – remain low, with utilities and corporate buyers selecting wind as a low-cost option,” said Berkeley Lab Senior Scientist Ryan Wiser. “Considering the health and climate benefits of wind energy makes the economics even better.” Key findings from the DOE’s annual “Land-Based Wind Market Report” include: Wind comprises a growing share of electricity supply.  U.S. wind power capacity grew at a record pace in 2020, with nearly $25 billion invested in 16.8 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. Wind e

A single glass of wine can quickly – significantly – raise the drinker’s risk for atrial fibrillation, according to new research by UC San Francisco. The study provides the first evidence that alcohol consumption substantially increases the chance of the heart rhythm condition occurring within a few hours. The findings might run counter to a prevailing perception that alcohol can be “cardioprotective,” say the authors, suggesting that reducing or avoiding alcohol might help mitigate harmful effects. The paper is published Aug. 30 in  Annals of Internal Medicine . “Contrary to a common belief that atrial fibrillation is associated with heavy alcohol consumption, it appears that even one alcohol drink may be enough to increase the risk,” said  Gregory Marcus , MD, MAS, professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at UCSF. “Our results show that the occurrence of atrial fibrillation might be neither random nor unpredictable,” he said. “Instead, there may be identifiable and mo

In a new study published in  The Lancet Infectious Diseases , researchers at Public Health England and the MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, found that the estimated risk of hospital admission was two times higher for individuals diagnosed with the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, compared to those with the Alpha variant, after adjusting for differences in age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, region of residence, date of positive test and vaccination status. When broadening the scope to look at the risk of either hospital admission or emergency care attendance, the risk was 1.45 times higher for Delta than Alpha. This is the largest study to date to report on the risk of hospitalisation outcomes for cases with the Delta compared to the Alpha variant, using 43,338 Alpha and Delta cases confirmed through whole-genome sequencing who tested positive for COVID-19 between 29th March and 23rd May 2021. It is crucial to note that most of the Alpha and Delta cases in the stu

For decades, research has shown the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease in the United States is dramatically higher among African American populations than in non-Hispanic white populations. Scientists have suspected a variety of contributing factors, but the underlying reasons have remained unclear. Now, a new study in  The   Journals of Gerontology ,  conducted in collaboration with researchers across the country, points to environmental neurotoxins – specifically, ambient fine particles in the air known as PM2.5 – as possible culprits in the disproportionate number of African American, particularly Black women, affected by dementia. Zeroing in on fine particle pollution as a factor in racial/ethnic disparities “Data increasingly show that older people are more likely to develop dementia if they live in locations with high PM2.5, and African American populations are more likely to live in neighborhoods near polluting facilities — like power-generating and petrochemical plants

Since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States in early 2020, scientists have struggled to find laboratory models of SARS-CoV-2 infection, the respiratory virus that causes COVID-19. Animal models fell short; attempts to grow adult human lungs have historically failed because not all of the cell types survived. Undaunted, stem cell scientists, cell biologists, infectious disease experts and cardiothoracic surgeons at University of California San Diego School of Medicine teamed up to see if they could overcome multiple hurdles. Writing in a paper publishing August 31, 2021 in  eLife , the team describes the first adult human “lung-in-a-dish” models, also known as lung organoids that represent all cell types. They also report that SARS-CoV-2 infection of the lung organoids replicates real-world patient lung infections, and reveals the specialized roles various cell types play in infected lungs. “This human disease model will now allow us to test drug efficacy and toxicity, and

by Sarah Wild Rail transportation is core to Europe’s plans to become carbon neutral by 2050, but noisy trains are an obstacle that will need to be first overcome. ‘We have a lot of resistance from people (living) beside the tracks who are against all construction and upgrades of the lines,’ said Rudiger Garburg, senior consultant for noise and vibrations technology at German railway company Deutsche Bahn AG. ‘It really is a bottleneck, (when) we speak about transforming transport and transferring traffic from road to rail.’ Greenhouse gas emissions from transport in Europe increased in 2018 and 2019, according to the  European Environment Agency , and road transport was responsible for almost three-quarters of those emissions. In its  ‘Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy’ , the European Commission aims to shift traffic from road to rail and double its high-speed passenger rail traffic across Europe by 2030 and double rail freight by 2050. To get community buy-in, howev

Wide Area Networks (WANs), the global backbones and workhorses of today’s internet that connect billions of computers over continents and oceans , are the foundation of modern online services. As Covid-19 has placed a vital reliance on online services, today’s networks are struggling to deliver high bandwidth and availability imposed by emerging workloads related to machine learning, video calls, and health care.  To connect WANs over hundreds of miles, fiber optic cables that transmit data using light are threaded throughout our neighborhoods, made of incredibly thin strands of glass or plastic known as optical fibers . While they’re extremely fast, they’re not always reliable: They can easily break from weather, thunderstorms, accidents, and even animals. These tears can cause severe and expensive damage, resulting in 911 service outages, lost connectivity to the internet, and inability to use smartphone apps.  Scientists from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligenc

In recent years, scientists have developed monoclonal antibodies — proteins that mimic the body’s own immune defenses — that can combat a variety of diseases, including some cancers and autoimmune disorders such as Crohn’s disease. While these drugs work well, one drawback to them is that they have to be injected. A team of MIT engineers, in collaboration with scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Novo Nordisk, is working on an alternative delivery strategy that could make it much easier for patients to benefit from monoclonal antibodies and other drugs that usually have to be injected. They envision that patients could simply swallow a capsule that carries the drug and then injects it directly into the lining of the stomach. “If we can make it easier for patients to take their medication, then it is more likely that they will take it, and healthcare providers will be more likely to adopt therapies that are known to be effective,” says Giovanni Traverso, the Karl van Ta

More than a year after the pandemic resulted in many employees shifting to remote work, virtual meetings have become a familiar part of daily life. Along with that may come “Zoom fatigue” – a feeling of being drained and lacking energy following a day of virtual meetings. New research conducted by  Allison Gabriel , McClelland Professor of Management and Organizations and University Distinguished Scholar in the University of Arizona  Eller College of Management , suggests that the camera may be partially to blame. Gabriel’s research,  published in the  Journal of Applied Psychology , looks at the role of cameras in employee fatigue and explores whether these feelings are worse for certain employees. “There’s always this assumption that if you have your camera on during meetings, you are going to be more engaged,” Gabriel said. “But there’s also a lot of self-presentation pressure associated with being on camera. Having a professional background and looking ready, or keeping childre