Exposure to excess NOx emissions may lead to premature death.

Volkswagen Emissions Scandal May Increase European Mortality Rates

The lingering repercussions of the Volkswagen emission scandal may be more dire than we originally thought.


 Scientists now estimate that 1,200 people in Europe will die prematurely as a result of the excess nitrogen oxides (NO x ) emissions from the 2.6 million affected cars that were sold in Germany alone. The team of researchers from MIT and Harvard published their findings in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

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 The Volkswagen scandal erupted in September 2015, when the auto manufacturer admitted to rigging 11 million of its diesel cars worldwide with a software that cheated emissions tests. The software activated equipment that reduced emissions only when the vehicle sensed that it was being tested. At all other times, the diesel cars emitted more than four times the legal limit of NO x , a group of harmful air pollutants.


 Diesel cars burn fuel at much higher temperatures than vehicles that run on gasoline, and therefore, produce higher levels of NO x. Exposure to NO x has been shown to cause cardiopulmonary and respiratory disease.


 To predict the long-term effects of the additional exposure, the scientists combined data on measurements of driving behaviors in Germany with emissions from Volkswagen cars. They also developed a simulation of the atmosphere, modeling how NO x travels over long distances.


 They estimate that 500 people will die prematurely in Germany, each losing up to a decade of life, and 700 in surrounding countries like Poland, France, and the Czech Republic.


 And while the latest Volkswagen diesels have improved their emissions significantly, there’s still the matter of the offending vehicles that are still on the road.


 Here’s Steph Yin, reporting for the New York Times:

<blockquote>

 Andreas Meurer, a spokesman for Volkswagen, said that investigations by the German, French and British governments had found that emissions from the company’s vehicles “are comparable with, and in many cases even better, than those of our competitors.”


 While that may be true of Volkswagen’s most recent generation of cars, the company can still significantly cut emissions by removing test recognition software from older models, [lead author Guillaume] Chossière said. Such software has been
 <a href="https://www.epa.gov/vw/laws-and-regulations-related-volkswagen-violations">
 in the United States, but still occupies a
 </a>
<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/volkswagen-emissions-defeat-device-does-not-violate-european-law-516903">
 in Europe.
 </a>


 “A natural next step for us is to focus on excess emissions by all manufacturers,” Mr. Chossière added. “Europe has very severe air quality issues, and enforcing standards in diesel cars should be considered as a first step toward cleaner air.”

</blockquote>

 The scientists predict that by recalling and repairing the tampered vehicles to meet European emissions standards by the end of 2017, Volkswagen could prevent an additional 2,600 premature deaths and save $4.1 billion in health costs.

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 Photo credit:
 <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/l1mey/6799763066/">
 L1mey / Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
 </a>

The lingering repercussions of the Volkswagen emission scandal may be more dire than we originally thought.

Five new subatomic particles have been uncovered by LHC.

LHC Discovers Five New Particles at the Same Time

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 Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have discovered five new subatomic particles that “have been hiding in plain sight for years,” according to one of the researchers working at the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. By studying their properties, physicists may be able to develop a better understanding of how all matter is bound together.


 The particles are varied, high-energy forms of the Omega-c baryon—a subatomic particle made up of three smaller building blocks called quarks. Until now, physicists suspected but had not been able to verify the existence of the different forms of the Omega-c baryon.


 While the Omega-c baryon has been more mysterious, scientists know more about other baryons, the most common of which are neutrons and protons. These particles, along with their component quarks, are glued together by the nuclear “strong force,” which keeps the atom in tact.


 Quarks come in six “flavors”: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom. Neutrons and protons contain up and down quarks.

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 Here’s Pallab Ghosh, reporting for BBC News:

<blockquote>

 The Omega-c baryon is in the same family of particles as the neutron and proton, but it can be thought of as a more exotic cousin. It too is made up of quarks but they are called “Charm” and “Strange”, and they are heavier versions of the Up and Down quarks.

</blockquote>

 By studying how the two “strange” and one “charm” quark are bound together to make up the Omega-c baryon, physicists hope to shed more light on the strong force, which in turn will help us understand why neutrons and protons bind into the nuclei of atoms and not fly apart into space.


 CERN, the organization that runs the LHC, notes that the observation of five new particles at the same time is “a rather unique event.” The team has published detailed results
 <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04639">
 on the arXiv
 </a>
 .

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 Photo credit: LHCb collaboration

Physicists hope that high-energy forms of the Omega-c baryon will help us understand why matter sticks together.

Testing blood sugar levels is a regular exercise for people with diabetes.

Drug to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Passes Critical Test in Mice

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 In a groundbreaking study, researchers found that they were able to effectively reverse type 2 diabetes symptoms in mice by administering a daily oral drug with no adverse side effects.


 Millions of people worldwide suffer from diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes—which accounts for nearly 90% of all documented cases. If the medication is successful in humans, it would revolutionize how diabetes is treated.


 Type 2 diabetes is common in older individuals whose bodies’ do not respond as they should to insulin, the key hormone that regulates blood sugar. Most diabetics opt for insulin injections to control their blood sugar levels, while others rely on restrictive diets to avoid sugar altogether. Though both of these techniques help manage the disease, they cannot cure it. They come with a number of potential of side effects including weight gain and diarrhea.


 What’s more, dependence on insulin injections may lead to insulin resistance. And if untreated, type 2 diabetes can lead to health problems like kidney disease, nerve damage, and vision problems.


 The proposed daily pill would restore the body’s sensitivity to insulin and increase the activity of the insulin receptor in the liver. Researchers believe this could introduce a new therapeutic strategy to treating type 2 diabetes and hopefully result in a lessened reliance on insulin injections by people with adult-onset diabetes.

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 Here’s Andy Coghlan,
 <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2125924-diabetes-drug-could-be-the-first-to-reverse-the-disease/?utm_campaign=Echobox&amp;utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1490627257">
 reporting
 </a>
 for New Scientist:

<blockquote>

 The drug works by inhibiting an enzyme called low molecular weight protein tyrosine phosphatase (LMPTP), which seems to contribute to cells losing their sensitivity to insulin. By hindering LMPTP, the drug reawakens insulin receptors on the surface of cells – especially in the liver – which normally absorb excess sugar from the blood when they detect insulin.


 The gene that makes LMPTP has previously been linked with diabetes-like problems in people, prompting the team to investigate further. When the group stopped the gene working in mice, the animals no longer developed diabetes if fed a high-fat diet.

</blockquote>

 Researchers found that LMPTP promotes the insulin resistance that often develops during obesity. Therefore, by blocking the LMPTP enzyme, receptors became increasingly responsive to insulin and reversed the diabetes symptoms.


 The study proves that LMPTP can in fact be targeted without resulting in negative side effects—something researchers have been working toward for years. So far the drug has only been tested in mice, but the research suggest it could have similar effects in people with type 2 diabetes. The next step for researchers is to understand whether or not the treatment can be safely conducted in clinical trials.

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 Photo credit:
 <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ayurvedicmedicines/33547356802/in/photolist-T7sYpu-axKi8Q-5zr3ZY-edBJxA-nzSV1C-L6Gwo-ejYTLC-2Rbk9p-L6GvG-69PAou-5GvwXS-aFu5WV-7Gczut-7GczRr-qqWNbe-q9yZhm-qr7N7R-pu8uU1-qoQG67-axT4gi-pu8vgy-ayaQcf-q9FfDk-qr7M2K-q9GH2X-njemVd-q9FfE2-q9GHdi-T26NBt-pumWwX-q9y9g3-qr7MUB-aFu5HB-q9yYZ7-qr4eEu-pu8uff-pumWmX-qqWNf2-pu8uxQ-pumWPk-qr4eAS-pu8uKo-qqWMKe-qoQG79-pu8uMh-2aFSVd-qr7MGT-aFu68e-pumVTT-pu8vbo">
 Ayurvedic India/Flickr (Public Domain)
 </a>

Researchers were able to effectively reverse type 2 diabetes symptoms in mice by administering a daily oral drug with no adverse side effects.

Asteroid-Grabbing Spacecraft More “Realistic Than Perceived”

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 Asteroid mining may be closer to reality than it seems.
 

 In a 98-page report, analysts at investment banking firm Goldman Sachs claim that asteroid mining could result in tremendous profits.
 

 The report says that while the psychological barrier preventing asteroid mining may be high, the technological and financial barriers are much lower. The California Institute of Technology estimated that an asteroid-grabbing spacecraft would cost $2.6 billion. Asteroids are loaded with precious metals and minerals like platinum, which could potentially be worth quadrillions of dollars on Earth.
 
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<img alt="" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/asteroid_belt_around_sun_sized_star.width-990_6d7rXjU.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Analysts say asteroid mining for valuable metals is a highly conceivable idea.
 
 </figcaption>
</figure>

 Though this may seem pricey at first glance, it isn’t when you put it in context. For example, a recent MIT paper speculated that building a new, rare earth metal mine from scratch here on Earth could cost up to $1 billion.
 

 The price of new rockets has also declined dramatically in recent years, making space travel cheaper. Where it used to cost $35 million to send one person into space, it now only costs approximately $250,000.
 

 Here’s an excerpt from the Goldman Sachs report, which was
 <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-space-mining-asteroid-platinum-2017-4?r=UK&amp;IR=T">
 reported
 </a>
 on by Jim Edwards at Business Insider:
 
<blockquote>

 “Space mining could be more realistic than perceived. Water and platinum group metals that are abundant on asteroids are highly disruptive from a technological and economic standpoint. Water is easily converted into rocket fuel, and can even be used unaltered as a propellant. Ultimately being able to stockpile the fuel in LEO [low earth orbit] would be a game changer for how we access space.”
 
</blockquote>

 If such a scenario comes to fruition, the rewards would be astronomical. A single asteroid may contain around $50 billion worth of rare platinum. But the bonanza may not be sustainable. Asteroid mining could also cause the global platinum price to plummet.
 

 Goldman appears ready to put their money where their mouth is, suggesting that one of their next endeavors will be financing such a space mission.
 

 Those ambitions, though, may be hampered by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which states, “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” Given the paucity of cases involving property in outer space,
 <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/space/space-law/">
 lawyers are currently debating
 </a>
 whether space law currently allows for asteroid mining.
 

 It’s possible, then, that the biggest hurdle to asteroid mining may not be technological or financial, but legal.
 
</section>

 Image credit:
 <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1651.html">
 NASA/JPL-Caltech
 </a>

Biofuel CCS Plant Inches Us Closer to Negative Carbon Emissions

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 The first large-scale plant to take the carbon captured by photosynthesis and bury it underground opened last week, an important step in efforts to remove CO
 
 2
 
 from the atmosphere.
 

 Agricultural processor and ethanol producer Archer Daniel Midland (ADM) has flipped the switch on the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage. The facility, based in Decatur, Illinois, produces corn-based ethanol and injects the waste CO
 
 2
 
 into deep underground storage. It’s not clear if the process will be net negative—that is, remove more greenhouse gas than it produces—though it is an important first step.
 
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<img alt="" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/fullsizeoutput_3a.width-990_MHLcIwe.jpg"/>
<figcaption>Corn-based fuels, coupled with carbon capture and store technology, could help mitigate climate change.
 
 </figcaption>
</figure>

 The facility begins by capturing the CO
 
 2
 
 produced during the fermentation process that converts corn to ethanol, which can be used as a transportation fuel. The gas is then compressed into liquid form and stored in a saline water table a mile and a half underground.
 

 Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, also known as BECCS,
 <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/beccs/">
 isn’t a new idea
 </a>
 . But the ADM plant is the first large-scale project in the world to focus on biofuels and to take the CO
 
 2
 
 produced by burning or processing plant matter and store it.
 

 The
 <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/beccs/">
 Petra Nova project
 </a>
 , the other leading, operational CCS facility is in Texas and opened in January. The facility captures CO
 
 2
 
 emitted from burning coal for electricity and uses the stream of gas to boost production from old oil fields.
 

 While CCS plays an important role in climate change mitigation plans proposed by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, not everyone is supportive of the technology. Timothy Searchinger, senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and an outspoken critic of biofuels, argues that the impact of carbon-emitting fuels like coal, gasoline, or bioenergy cannot be neutralized by CCS.
 

 The new plant is projected to store 1.1 million tons of CO
 
 2
 
 every year for five years. ADM says Mt. Simon Sandstone, the geologic formation where the carbon from the Decatur project will be stored, has the capacity to hold billions more. Here’s Chris Mooney,
 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/10/the-quest-to-capture-and-store-carbon-and-slow-climate-change-just-reached-a-new-milestone/?tid=ss_tw&amp;utm_term=.1b650c7a1083">
 reporting
 </a>
 for The Washington Post:
 
<blockquote>

 Unlike in some other CCS projects, the carbon dioxide will not be used for the purposes of so-called “enhanced oil recovery” from depleted oil fields, Greenberg [a researcher at the Illinois State Geological Survey] said. This may add to the economic viability of CCS technology, but has drawn criticism because it promotes further use of fossil fuels.
 

 The Energy Department praised the initiative. “Today’s announcement marks a major step forward for the advancement of industrial carbon capture and storage technologies,” said Doug Hollett, Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy.
 
</blockquote>

 While researchers aren’t sure whether the ADM project will prove to be carbon negative just yet, they’re excited to find out. They say this technology is critical to limiting the planet’s warming and could serve as a model for reducing industrial carbon emissions elsewhere.
 
</section>

 Photo credit:
 <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/unitedsoybean/9622303883/">
 United Soybean Board/Flickr
 </a>

Solar-Powered Cube Can Extract Moisture From Desert Air

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 Chemists have developed a solar-powered sponge-like device that inhales cool air at night, clams up during the day, and someday could provide millions of people with freshwater in places where there is none.
 

 The device, developed by a research team led by Omar Yaghi, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, is made up of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), compounds made up of metal clusters that can form three-dimensional structures. This unique material is made up of organic, carbon-based molecules that allow structures to have lots of internal space where moisture can condense.
 
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<img alt="" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/water_harvester_evelyn_wang_mit.width-990_KvHGF8J.jpg"/>
<figcaption>A new water harvester technology uses sunlight to suck moisture from the air, even in low humidity.
 
 </figcaption>
</figure>

 At night, the device is opened and allows air to flow through the porous material that attracts and holds onto water molecules. Then during the day, the device closes, and sunlight beams through the window at the top of the device, generating heat which forces the MOF to release the water as vapor. The vapor then condenses into droplets to the cool surface below. The set up was first tested in the laboratory, then on a rooftop.
 

 Previous approaches to deriving water from the atmosphere have been rather unsuccessful, either requiring extremely humid air or too much electricity to function efficiently. This unpowered device, on the other hand, is reported to pull over a third of a gallon of water out of the atmosphere per day for every pound of MOF it contains (3 liters per kilogram).
 

 A minimum of 1.98 gallons of water per capita should be enough to support most people for one day, according to the World Health Organization. That means an average person would require around 37.5 square meters of MOF to survive.
 

 Here’s Scott K. Johnson, reporting for Ars Technica:
 
<blockquote>

 Because the demonstration prototype was a small device, it only captured a small amount of water, but the potential is there. Scaled up to one square meter, this version would harvest roughly 0.2 liters [6.76 fluid ounces] per day. But if the water-absorbing layer is kept thin, it can “fill up” in as little as an hour, so a once-per-day collection cycle is perhaps unnecessarily limiting. Shading the device periodically over the course of a day would increase the number of cycles and get you close to a liter per day per square meter.
 
</blockquote>

 One limitation to consider is the sheer price of the water harvesters. Zirconium, a critical component of the device, costs approximately $68 per pound ($150 per kilogram). However, Yaghi and his researchers have already begun experimenting with much cheaper metals, like aluminum, to take its place.
 

 According to Ars Technica, there’s an estimated 3.4 trillion gallons of water floating in the air at any given time. By using solar-powered technology, this device could be the first to effectively utilize untapped atmospheric water. Even the driest parts of the world could soon have the technology to ensure steady water supply to offer relief to billions of people.
 
</section>

 Image Credit: Evelyn Wang/MIT

Artificial Intelligence Detects Early Signs of Autism in Infants

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 By using artificial intelligence to decipher brain scans, researchers were able to predict with startling accuracy which high-risk infants ended up developing autism by age two.
 

 Detecting autism before age two has been notoriously difficult, in part because the disease is diagnosed based on behavioral traits, including a difficulty to make eye contact or respond to their name. Many of the telltale signs aren’t present in children that young, especially infants younger than one year old.
 

 But the study, reported in the journal
 
 Nature
 
 , suggests that identifying autism spectrum disorder (ASD) before symptoms arise may not be as far-fetched as scientists once thought.
 
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<img alt="" class="richtext-image full-width" src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/screen-shot-2017-02-23-at-2.02.55-pm.width-990_79OhEc5.jpg"/>
<figcaption>The colored cortical areas represent regions with significant expansion of surface area from six to 12 months.
 
 </figcaption>
</figure>

 Though doctors who monitor high-risk children with ASD currently do not intervene until clinical signs appear, researchers believe the brain changes that come with ASD develop much earlier, possibly as early as in the womb.
 

 According to the Center for Disease Control, approximately one in 68 children have ASD. However, infants with a diagnosed older sibling have a one in five chance of developing ASD. The new study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and scanned 106 high-risk infants at six, 12, and 24 months.
 

 At 24 months, 15 of the 106 babies were diagnosed with ASD. In the MRI results, researchers noticed that their brain volume grew more quickly in the 12 to 24 month period compared with those without ASD. During this time, behavioral symptoms of autism began to surface as well.
 

 But detectable changes started happening even earlier. In those same infants, between the six and 12 months, researchers also found rapid growth of the surface area of the cortex, which are the outside folds of the brain. While researchers have known since the 1990s that children with autism can have larger brains, suggesting it may be a telltale sign of the disorder, the timing and direct correlation of the enlargement to ASD behavioral symptoms have not been confirmed.
 

 The AI analysis of the MRI scans at six and 12 months allowed the researchers to forecast, with 81% accuracy, which high-risk infants would develop autism by age two.
 

 Here’s Delthia Ricks, reporting for Newsday:
 
<blockquote>

 Team members in the study, led by medical investigators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and including 10 other institutions, credited their predictions’ accuracy to a customized algorithm that was applied to the data in classifying children most likely to meet criteria for autism by age 2.
 

 Dr. Joseph Piven, the study’s senior author, said the findings open a new window into the diagnosis of autism.
 

 “Typically, the earliest an autism diagnosis can be made is between ages 2 and 3,” he said. “But for babies with older autistic siblings, our imaging approach may help predict during the first year of life which babies are most likely to receive an autism diagnosis at 24 months.”
 
</blockquote>

 The ability to diagnose autism through brain scans could potentially allow doctors to identify which patients would benefit from early intervention. Today, most efforts are directed at younger siblings of children diagnosed with autism, but not all of them go on to develop the disorder. Being able to more accurately target infants for early intervention would direct resources to where they’re most needed.
 

 Though the current study focused on siblings, researchers agree that a larger follow-up study of high-risk infants should be conducted to confirm the results and test whether ASD can be predicted in the general population as well.
 

 While there is no evidence that the risk of developing autism can be reduced in infants, an early diagnosis would be informative to not only test interventions, but also develop a better understanding of effective treatments.
 
</section>

 Photo credit:
 <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/nature21369.epdf">
 Piven et al. 2017
 </a>

Annette Choi

Articles