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11 Nov 2022

Monica Montgomery – Policies for Peace

Author: Lucy Thompson Monica Montgomery is the Political Director for the non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization Council for a Livable World. The organization is dedicated to reducing the danger of nuclear weapons and eventually eliminating them through advocating sensible national security policies and helping elect congressional candidates who support them. Today, we discuss Monica’s journey into policymaking, the importance of representation, and the intersection of peace and policy within society.    Photo credit: Monica Montgomery What was your inspiration that led you to your current role?  I first became interested in nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament work through my undergraduate studies at University of Notre Dame, where I had a professor who had extensively worked in Washington, DC on disarmament issues. He organized a trip to the Vatican for a conference that was hosted by Pope Francis himself on issues of nuclear disarmament. I attended this conference and I was really inspired by the message of the Pope. I’ve had Catholic schooling all my life, but this was not something that I had really ever engaged in or had ever thought of nuclear arms control within this sphere.  I think that a lot of the younger generation in the US, at […]

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11 Nov 2022

Having good friendships may make for a healthier gut microbiome

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Grooming rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago. Image credit: Lauren Brent Researchers show for the first time that monkeys that are more sociable – eg, grooming or being groomed more often, and with more grooming partners – have a healthier gut microbiome. For example, they have more of the beneficial bacteria Faecalibacterium and Prevotella, and fewer of the typically pathogenic bacteria Streptococcus. This is further evidence that in primates, social connectedness translates into good physical and mental health, and vice versa. Social connections are essential for good health and wellbeing in social animals, such as ourselves and other primates. There is also increasing evidence that the gut microbiome – through the so-called ‘gut-brain axis’ – plays a key role in our physical and mental health and that bacteria can be transmitted socially, for example through touch. So how does social connectedness translate into the composition and diversity of the gut microbiome? That’s the topic of a new study in Frontiers in Microbiology on rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta. Lead author Dr Katerina Johnson, a research associate at the Department of Experimental Psychology and the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Oxford, said: “Here we show […]

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09 Nov 2022

Birkbeck, University of London has joined the Frontiers – JISC national open access deal

We would like to announce that Birkbeck, University of London has joined the national open access deal agreed between Jisc Collections and Frontiers.  This landmark deal provides a simplified and streamlined route to open access publishing for researchers in the UK, who publish 7% of the world’s research.  Eligible authors will benefit from a streamlined invoicing process, relieving authors of the responsibility of payment. Furthermore, Birkbeck, University of London will benefit from a discount on Article Processing Charges (APCs) for articles covered by this agreement.  Birkbeck, University of London supports its researchers in making their research more widely available. This agreement will further encourage Birkbeck, University of London researchers to publish open access, increasing the volume of research openly available. While this reduces costs for the researcher, it also benefits the wider research community and the public at large.    For more information on Frontiers’ institutional agreements please visit our institutional memberships page or contact institutions@frontiersin.org to discuss the possibilities for your own organization.   Information for authors:  To submit your article under this agreement, please select ‘Birkbeck, University of London’ as the payer in the invoice section when submitting your article.  Frontiers will then verify your eligibility with Birkbeck, University of London and, if confirmed, the […]

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09 Nov 2022

Frontiers in Aerospace Engineering Online Webinars: Intelligent Aerospace Systems

This Webinar Series is presented by a Specialty Chief Editor of the Frontiers in Aerospace Engineering journal, Professor Kelly Cohen (University of Cincinnati) and members of the Intelligent Aerospace Systems Editorial Board. Growing trends in Artificial Intelligence coupled with increasingly autonomous aerospace systems are bringing about a major paradigm shift resulting in new opportunities that have the potential to radically extend the state of the art in aerospace systems. These innovative technologies are pushing the market into new areas such as advanced air mobility with autonomy of such systems a key enabler which need to be trustworthy, synergize with human operators to augment performance, and assure safety and reliability of operations. The goal of this Webinar Series in Intelligent Aerospace Systems is to promote new advances in AI-systems and technologies that incorporates exciting and relevant developments in the Industrial Revolution 4.0/5.0. Editorial Board members and invited external speakers will discuss their work on these issues, covering a review of trustworthiness in AI and Intelligent systems, applications to existing architectures, and the state-of-the-art. Speaker: Doctor Krishna Kalyanam, NASA Ames Aviation Systems Division Talk Title: Bringing the fruits of AI/ML to Aviation and Air Traffic Management Date and Time: Monday November 28th […]

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07 Nov 2022

5 articles you need to check out on the future of materials research

By Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com In a fast-moving field of research like materials science, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest breakthroughs. Now at Frontiers, we highlight just five of the latest research articles to shed more light on the way we build our world around us, published by top researchers in the Frontiers in Materials Research Topic ‘Horizons in Materials’. Growing green technology: from trees to tech Scientists aiming to power the appliances of the future are developing special phenolic compounds from resins instead of petrol – a first step towards organic electrodes. Since biomass is the only green, renewable source of carbon materials, carbon-based electrodes for new-generation metal-ion batteries could be a more eco-friendly replacement for lithium-ion batteries. Some of the methods to make these compounds currently available are problematic because they require dangerously high temperatures and pressures and hazardous chemicals, but new methods are being developed which use mechanical forces instead. If these compounds can be developed into renewable sources for electronics, Dr Javier Quílez-Bermejo and his team at the Université de Lorraine point out, the potential for revolutionizing electronic devices would be huge, opening the way for greener fuel […]

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04 Nov 2022

From ghost gear to microbe memories: 4 Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just four amazing papers you may have missed. The hunt for ghost gear 25-30% of the plastic waste in the sea is lost fishing gear, or ‘ghost gear’, some of it now up to 60 years old. This ghost gear devastates the environment not only through continuing to trap fish, but also by shedding microplastics into the environment which then enter the food chain. Once it sinks as far as the sea floor, it becomes invisible from above – a hidden threat to the marine ecosystem. A team led by Andrea Stolte from the World Wildlife Foundation, writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, reported a successful ghost-hunting collaboration between fisherfolk, scientists, and divers in the Baltic Sea. This coalition of stakeholders had several options for hunting down the ghost gear. Traditionally, when lost gear is spotted, fisherfolk use search hooks and other similar tools to try to retrieve it. However, this proved to be inefficient and damaging to the […]

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03 Nov 2022

60% of home ‘compostable’ plastic doesn’t fully break down, ending up in our soil

By Suzanna Burgelman, Frontiers science writer Image: Citizen scientist image from www.bigcompostexperiment.org.uk In a UK-wide study, researchers found that 60% of home-compostable plastics do not fully disintegrate in home compost bins, and inevitably end up in our soil. The study also found that citizens are confused about the labels of compostable and biodegradable plastics, leading to incorrect plastic waste disposal. These results highlight the need to revise and redesign this supposedly sustainable plastic waste management system. Global plastic pollution remains one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time. A new OECD report shows that plastic consumption has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Globally, only 9% of plastic waste is recycled, while 50% ends up in landfills, 22% evades waste management systems, and 19% is incinerated. In response to this pollution crisis, several countries have set targets to eliminate all single-use plastics and to make plastic packaging 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025.  Compostable plastics are becoming more common as the demand for sustainable products grows. The main applications of compostable plastics include food packaging, bags; cups and plates, cutlery, and bio-waste bags. But there are some fundamental problems with these types of plastics. They are largely unregulated and […]

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02 Nov 2022

Italian researchers discover new recipe for extending shelf life of fresh pasta by 30 days

By Peter Rejcek, science writer Image credit: Raimunda Losantos / Shutterstock.com Pasta is one of the most popular food staples in the world, but fresh pasta has a limited shelf life. Scientists in Italy have cooked up a novel process for preventing or delaying spoilage by changing packaging protocols, as well as adding antimicrobial probiotics to the dough. Not only does this new method extend storage of fresh pasta by 30 days, it helps reduce food waste. Pasta is serious business in Italy, with reportedly more than 300 specific forms known by some 1,300 names. There is even a 55-year-old ‘pasta law’ that governs its production and manufacture. But that doesn’t mean the beloved food staple is shut off from innovation. ► Read original article► Download original article (pdf) Now, Italian researchers have cooked up a new process for extending the shelf life of fresh pasta by 30 days, using a novel packaging process that also involves applying bioprotective probiotic cultures to the dough. They published this new recipe for better preserving fresh pasta in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. The problem with fresh pasta Most fresh pasta sold in stores today is produced through an industrial process that includes heat-treating the […]

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01 Nov 2022

Open science platform Frontiers publishes new Nobel Collection articles

Five more Nobel Prize winners publish free scientific article collection for children Last year in September, as many young people prepared to go back to school, the very first Nobel Collection, featuring articles written by Nobel Laureates, was launched by Frontiers for Young Minds (FYM), a unique, completely free, open access kids’ science journal. The Collection has been a huge success, having been viewed over half a million times online.    Today marks the release of the second Nobel Collection articles, connecting curious minds of all ages to exceptionally high-caliber scientists and offering exciting insights into the world of real science. As for all FYM publications, each of the five articles has been written for young people aged 8 to 15 and has been reviewed by kids themselves to ensure they are understandable, fun, and engaging.  Photo credit: Frontiers Freely available to people everywhere from today, the 2022 Nobel Collection aims to ignite interest in various fields, and is comprised of the following contributions:  Gravitational Waves – a new window on the Universe, written by Barry C. Barish, awarded The Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017. Did you know that the phenomenon of gravitational waves was predicted by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity? In this […]

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31 Oct 2022

Response to the Leiden Madtrics blog – 31 October 2022

Leiden Madtrics is the official blog of the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University. Below, we offer our acknowledgment and our response to this blog about Frontiers. We are glad that the editors are pleased and proud of the outcome of their Research Topic project. This is a hugely important area and their contribution will serve to inform and encourage debate, which is something we, at Frontiers, always welcome. Further, we are sorry that they were dissatisfied with their experience and felt their opinions went unheard. The subject area of their collection proved to be particularly challenging to the AI algorithms we employ at Frontiers, including for the identification of reviewers, which in general have been less well-trained in the social sciences, although this is an area we continually are seeking to improve. We still feel that an editorial was not the appropriate channel for the discussion, but we had not yet ruled out its publication. We had suggested that we use their experiences as feedback to our product development team, to have a constructive discussion directly with those who are working on the Frontiers platform, and from there create lasting improvements. We will take this as an opportunity to learn […]

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28 Oct 2022

Real-time space observations can now keep watch over ‘super emitter’ power plants

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Bełchatόw power station in central Poland. Image credit: Pawel Brzozowski / Shutterstock.com Under the Paris Agreement, countries will need to track greenhouse gas emissions at the level of individual ‘super emitters’, such as power plants, in close-to-real time. Researchers show for the first time that this is already possible with data from existing satellites and instruments like NASA’s OCO-2 and OCO-3 (attached to the International Space Station), both designed to measure emissions at much larger spatial scales. This proof-of-principle indicates that the EU’s ‘CO2M’ pair of satellites, planned for 2025 or 2026, with a joint coverage a hundred times greater than OCO-2 and OCO-3, should be able to deliver on future needs.  Countries signed up to the 2015 Paris Agreement have committed themselves to keep the rise in average global temperature ‘well below’ 2 °C. Every five years, they are to issue so-called ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs), describing their actions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. Countries will thus need to track their carbon emissions, not only at a national level, but also at the scale of individual ‘super emitters’ such as power plants, megacities, refineries, and giant […]

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27 Oct 2022

How do we stop ‘robot evolution’ from spiraling out of control? Two essential articles on the future of robotics and AI

By Colm Gorey, Frontiers Science Communications Manager Image: Shutterstock.com Robotics and AI have quickly outgrown as tropes of science fiction and are almost ubiquitous in our daily lives, even if we don’t realize it. Now, Frontiers highlights just some of the latest top articles in this fascinating field. Whether it’s wheeled robots whizzing around city-sized warehouses, or if it’s just a smart assistant in your phone, robotics and AI has quickly become integral technologies in our lives. And while big tech companies and gadget lovers are quick to speak of its enormous benefits, those closely studying the field are calling on more caution. These technologies are working well now, but can we allow them to develop indefinitely? That’s among the questions being asked by some of the largest governmental bodies in the world – such as the EU and UN – who believe stricter rules and regulations are needed to keep technology not only within the realms of rapidly-outdated laws, but make sure they don’t eventually lead to our downfall. To that end, here are some of the latest articles published to Frontiers authored by some of the top researchers in their field as part of the research topic ‘Horizons […]

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26 Oct 2022

‘Virtual autopsy’ identifies a 17th century mummified toddler hidden from the sun

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Riderfoot/Shutterstock.com Scientists used a ‘virtual autopsy’ to examine the mummy of a child found in an aristocratic family crypt, revealing him most probably as Reichard Wilhelm (1625-1626). Despite his wealthy background, the child experienced extreme nutritional deficiency and a tragically early death from pneumonia. A team of scientists based in Germany have examined a 17th century child mummy, using cutting-edge science alongside historical records to shed new light on Renaissance childhood. The child was found in an aristocratic Austrian family crypt, where the conditions allowed for natural mummification, preserving soft tissue that contained critical information about his life and death. Curiously, this was the only unidentified body in the crypt, buried in an unmarked wooden coffin instead of the elaborate metal coffins reserved for the other members of the family buried there. The team, led by Dr Andreas Nerlich of the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen, carried out a virtual autopsy and radiocarbon testing, and examined family records and key material clues from the burial, to try to understand who the child was and what his short life looked like. “This is only one case,” said Nerlich, lead author of the paper published today […]

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24 Oct 2022

CO2 ventilation breakthrough could turn city rooftops into bumper vegetable gardens

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com Scientists find that expelled air from ventilation systems can make corn and spinach grow taller and larger, recycling CO2-rich indoor air to fertilize edible plants. As the world’s cities grow, the hunt is on for ways to make them greener, more sustainable, and more livable. Rooftop farms and gardens that take advantage of underutilized roof space are a popular option, providing new food resources while simultaneously cooling the surrounding area, increasing building insulation, and improving air quality. But the conditions on rooftops — greater solar radiation, more wind exposure, lesser soil moisture — often mean that plants are smaller and less healthy. A team led by Dr Sarabeth Buckley, now at the University of Cambridge, theorized that repurposing the CO2 from building exhaust as a kind of fertilizer might help counter some of these challenges. To explore this, they grew corn and spinach on the roof of a campus building at Boston University. “We wanted to test whether there is an untapped resource inside buildings that could be used to make plants grow larger in rooftop farms,” said Buckley, whose team named their experimental garden BIG GRO and published their work […]

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21 Oct 2022

Secret behind spectacular blooms in world’s driest desert is invisible to human eyes

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer The 2021 ‘desierto florido’ near Caldera, Chile. The purple flowers are the pussypaw Cistanthe longiscapa (family Montiaceae), the object of this study. Image credit: Oven Pérez-Nates A ‘desierto florido’ mass bloom happened in the northern Atacama desert in 2021, which was even visible from space. Researchers used advanced imaging techniques to measure the variation in flower color and pattern for the dominant species, the pussypaw Cistanthe longiscapa. They found that this variation is much greater when viewed by the UV-sensitive eyes of hymenopteran pollinators, and caused by differences in the mix of betalain pigments in the petals. Evolution is probably ongoing, driven by the species-specific visual preferences of pollinators, which could ultimately lead to new species. The Atacama desert, which stretches for approximately 1,600 km along the western coast of the cone of South America, is the driest place on Earth. Some weather stations there have never recorded rainfall throughout their existence. But it‘s far from barren: many species live here that occur nowhere else, adapted to its extreme conditions. And approximately every five to 10 years, from September to mid-November, the Atacama hosts one of the most spectacular sights of the natural world: […]