Wastewater could be used as a surveillance tool to monitor the invasion, spread and eradication of COVID-19 in communities.
A recent review paper from an international research group involving Hokkaido University and the University of Yamanashi in Japan shows how wastewater could provide a useful tool for monitoring COVID-19 and highlights the further research needed to develop this as a viable method for tracking virus outbreaks. This research was published in Science of the Total Environment.

The major transmission routes of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are via inhalation from person to person, aerosol or droplets, and transmission via hands or contaminated materials. However, there is growing evidence of gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea amongst COVID-19 patients, and genetic material from the virus has been found not only in patients’ feces but also in wastewater.

“The presence of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material in wastewater provides an opportunity to monitor the spread of COVID-19 in a community. Although wastewater is not widely used as a disease surveillance tool, it is starting to gain some traction,” says Masaaki Kitajima, an environmental engineer at Hokkaido University.

• Child poverty was rising rapidly before coronavirus hit family incomes
• Between 2014/15 and 2018/19, child poverty increased by nearly a fifth, from 15.6% to 18.4%, before the pressure of rising housing costs on families is taken into account
• Loughborough University analysis shows how this increase varies greatly across the UK
• Highest increase came in the North East, where child poverty rose from 17.3% to 23.7% (+6.5%)
• The East Midlands region remains unchanged at 16.6% (-/+0%)
• However, the West Midlands, it rose from 19.1% to 23.8%, widening the gap between the two Midlands regions
• Temporary boosts to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit should be made permanent and more widely available to help those families who are struggling

New research shows that child poverty in the UK has increased by 2.8% in the last four years, but experts fear the figure will grow due to the impact of coronavirus.

Researchers from Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) have analysed data that shows which regions, local authorities and parliamentary constituencies are most at risk of deprivation. The report, published today by the charity End Child Poverty, highlights the North East as the biggest regional area of concern, with a 6.5% rise between 2014/15 and 2018/19.

È uno dei pochi modelli computazionali che, riproducendo l'attività di diversi network genetici, è in grado di fare predizioni poi verificate in vivo. Lo studio, coordinato dal Dipartimento di Biologia e biotecnologie Charles Darwin della Sapienza in collaborazione con l’Università di Utrecht, è stato pubblicato sulla rivista Developmental Cell
La crescita di un organo è un processo articolato in cui l’attività delle cellule e dei tessuti che lo compongono deve essere finemente regolata per garantire una forma e una dimensione finale compatibili con la sua funzione. Ciò vale anche per i vegetali, dei quali sono ancora poco noti i meccanismi alla base della formazione di organi, quali radici, fusti e foglie.

Con le moderne tecnologie di analisi molecolare ad ampio spettro è stato possibile raccogliere negli ultimi anni un'enorme quantità di dati di rilevanza biologica, ma la possibilità di integrarli in un modello capace di predire il comportamento in funzione di alcuni parametri resta ancora molto limitata.

Zampa: “Dopo il forzato isolamento le bambine, i bambini e gli adolescenti devono giocare, stare con gli amici, apprendere e nutrirsi in modo equilibrato e completo, tornando a una sana vita di relazione con adulti e coetanei”

Siglato il protocollo di intesa tra Ministero della Salute, Società Italiana di Pediatria (SIP) e Save the Children - l’Organizzazione che da oltre 100 anni lotta per salvare i bambini a rischio e garantire loro un futuro -, su interventi innovativi rivolti a bambini, adolescenti e alle loro famiglie, la cui condizione di vulnerabilità si è acuita a seguito dell’emergenza Covid19, perché in condizione di povertà economica ed educativa e marginalizzazione sociale, nonché vittime o a rischio di abusi in ambito familiare.

Tra gli interventi, in presenza e online, da destinare ai bambini, alle bambine e agli adolescenti beneficiari di Save the Children durante l’estate del 2020 e in fase di post-emergenza, attività di educazione sanitaria, educazione alla salute e a sani stili di vita, supporto psicosociale e sostegno nel contatto con la rete sociosanitaria territoriale, valorizzando gli aspetti di empowerment di comunità e di partecipazione attiva dei minori coinvolti.

Mysterious material properties are laying the groundwork for photon-electron channels communication devices: the TOCHA project

Typical activities in ordinary life consist of sending and receiving information. The news or notifications we see on smartphones, from magazine gossip to football scores, reach the device from a domestic Wi-Fi router or mobile phone mast, which receives input from a giant server network disseminated across the world.

Zooming in the path, two particles are information vehicles: photons, from servers to devices, and electrons inside the devices. These two communication mechanisms require different hardware platforms that, when combined, are often inefficient and dissipate energy. Could scientists improve on this process by producing more stable channels for information?

The TOCHA project is trying to send information with the smallest waste of energy by identifying efficient channels at the nanometre scale – one billionth of a meter. Set across nine European research institutions, the project is coordinated by the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) and funded by the EU’s FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) programme.

Immagine del cristallo che cattura la luce

Come una foglia artificiale, un cristallo, in cui sono integrati motori molecolari e molecole fotosensibili, può catturare la luce e trasformarla in energia, utile a generare un moto rotatorio unidirezionale.

E’ questo il risultato dello studio condotto dal gruppo di ricercatori guidato da Angiolina Comotti, Professore Ordinario presso il Dipartimento di Scienza dei materiali dell’Università di Milano-Bicocca (www.mater.unimib.it), in collaborazione con il team del Professor Ben Feringa dell’Università di Groningen, Premio Nobel nel 2016 per la scoperta delle macchine molecolari.

La ricerca internazionale, pubblicata su “Journal of American Chemical Society” (doi.org/10.1021/jacs.0c03063), rappresenta un approccio innovativo poiché consente di attivare un motore molecolare, sfruttando una fonte di energia largamente disponibile, qual è la luce visibile. Si garantisce in questo modo un processo energeticamente sostenibile.

The human immune system is reactive to more than just the viral protein on which researchers have focused to date. This is relevant for tests and potential vaccines.

Research teams from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and Essen University Hospital have identified the parts of the Sars-Cov-2 virus to which the human immune system reacts: in addition to the spike protein, which has been the focus so far, two other proteins can also trigger a strong immune response. This discovery is relevant for the development of diagnostic tests and vaccines. “We shouldn’t focus exclusively on the spike protein,” says the principal investigator of the study Professor Nina Babel from the Centre for Translational Medicine at Marien Hospital Herne, the RUB’s university hospital. The study, which is currently being reviewed by independent experts, is available online on a preprint server.

On 14 February, nine National University of Singapore (NUS) researchers hopped onboard a vessel to start a 37-day expedition to explore an understudied area nestled in the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ). Flat and deep — reaching down between 4,000 to 6,000 metres below the surface — the CCZ is often referred to as an abyssal plain.

The CCZ is characterised by polymetallic nodule fields which contain commercially valuable metals such as manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare earth elements, formed over millions of years. The expedition is part of Keppel-NUS Corporate Laboratory’s research, and it was led by Keppel Corporation’s subsidiary, Ocean Mineral Singapore (OMS) - the only Singapore company awarded an exploration contract for polymetallic nodules by the International Seabed Authority. The team aimed to conduct environmental studies and surveys for the collection of these polymetallic nodule deposits in an environmentally friendly way. This is the second such expedition involving NUS researchers to CCZ.

Polymetallic nodules contain cobalt, copper, nickel, manganese and other valuable ores which are used in electronics and green technologies, such as electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels.Mr Aziz Merchant, Director of OMS, said, “Keppel is committed to sustainable urbanisation and we are pleased to partner NUS in conducting feasibility studies to ensure that deep-sea mineral collection can be conducted with minimal disruption to the environment.”

L’ultimo numero della rivista Research*eu è ora disponibile in formato PDF, accessibile e gratuito.

La biodiversità rende possibile la vita: ci nutre, fornisce innumerevoli benefici per la salute e offre addirittura molte opportunità di lavoro e crescita economica (turismo, tecnologie verdi, sforzi di conservazione, ecc.). Sia che si tratti di un immacolato litorale sabbioso dall’acqua chiara e cristallina, di una brughiera brontiana selvaggia e battuta dal vento, di una foresta pluviale tropicale che pullula di vita o addirittura del parco locale in fondo alla via, gli esseri umani vivono all’interno di una relazione simbiotica complessa e sempre più fragile con la natura e la biodiversità che ci circonda.
Prima che la COVID-19 scuotesse il mondo, la tutela della biodiversità, la conservazione e, ovviamente, i cambiamenti climatici erano costantemente al centro dell’agenda globale. Una volta terminata la crisi attuale, tali questioni riacquisteranno molto probabilmente rilevanza. Forse verranno alla luce anche nuovi punti di vista di dibattito e analisi su questi argomenti che non godevano prima di una così alta considerazione, perché senza alcun dubbio, quando si sarà depositato il polverone della crisi attuale, molti scienziati, responsabili politici e cittadini potrebbero tutti essere troppo contenti per discutere della misura in cui la nostra attuale relazione con l’ambiente naturale abbia contribuito all’aumento e alla proliferazione della pandemia.

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) found quasi-periodic flickers in millimeter-waves from the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius (Sgr) A*. The team interpreted these blinks to be due to the rotation of radio spots circling the supermassive black hole with an orbit radius smaller than that of Mercury. This is an interesting clue to investigate space-time with extreme gravity.
“It has been known that Sgr A* sometimes flares up in millimeter wavelength,” tells Yuhei Iwata, the lead author of the paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and a graduate student at Keio University, Japan. “This time, using ALMA, we obtained high-quality data of radio-wave intensity variation of Sgr A* for 10 days, 70 minutes per day. Then we found two trends: quasi-periodic variations with a typical time scale of 30 minutes and hour-long slow variations.”

Astronomers presume that a supermassive black hole with a mass of 4 million suns is located at the center of Sgr A*. Flares of Sgr A* have been observed not only in millimeter wavelength, but also in infrared light and X-ray. However, the variations detected with ALMA are much smaller than the ones previously detected, and it is possible that these levels of small variations always occur in Sgr A*. The black hole itself does not produce any kind of emission. The source of the emission is the scorching gaseous disk around the black hole. The gas around the black hole does not go straight to the gravitational well, but it rotates around the black hole to form an accretion disk.