In Review: Discover

In recent years scientists have learned to create so-called “living materials” by embedding biological cells into a nonliving matrix. The idea is to harness the power of living cells to respond to their environment and bring that same property to materials in a variety of applications.

In a paper published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, associate professor of biology Anne S. Meyer and colleagues at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands report that they’ve developed a novel, photosynthetic living material by combining bacterial cellulose, which is nonliving, with algae. One day, you may be wearing it.

Why the two ingredients? And why in clothes?

Bacterial cellulose, a compound produced and excreted by bacteria, has flexibility, toughness, strength, and an ability to retain its shape, even when twisted, crushed, or otherwise physically distorted. Algae is photosynthetic; it can harvest the energy of the sun to feed and regenerate itself.

The two ingredients, combined in a 3D printer using a bioprinting technique developed by Meyer and her colleagues, have resulted in “the first example of an engineered photosynthetic material that is physically robust enough to be deployed for real-world applications,” says Meyer.

Although Meyer envisions multiple applications for the material, including in the energy and medical sectors, clothing—so-called biogarments—may be the most intriguing. Biogarments made from algae would be sustainably produced and completely biodegradable. They would also work to purify the air by removing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and would not need to be washed as often as conventional garments. They would save water—as well as trips to the laundry.

—Lindsey Valich

Inside Jupiter, It’s Raining Helium

It’s been decades since scientists first predicted the existence of helium rain inside planets composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, such as Jupiter and Saturn.

But achieving the experimental conditions necessary to test the hypothesis has not been possible until recently. In a paper published in Nature, Rochester researchers report that by combining the powers of a diamond anvil cell and the Omega Laser at the University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), they were able to reproduce the high pressures and temperatures believed to prevail at the cores of those planets.

“Our experiments suggest that deep inside Jupiter and Saturn, helium droplets are falling through a massive sea of liquid metallic hydrogen,” says Gilbert (Rip) Collins, the Tracy Hyde Harris Professor of Mechanical Engineering; associate director of science, technology, and academics at LLE; and director of Rochester’s Center for Matter at Atomic Pressures. “That is a pretty amazing thing to think about next time you look up at Jupiter in the night sky.”

It’s also useful information in the quest to understand the nature and evolution of Jupiter. Collins says Jupiter is believed to be “somewhat of a space trash collector—protecting our planet in the solar system.” That’s because its strong gravitational field traps asteroids and comets as they fly through the solar system.

—Lindsey Valich

Successful Alcohol Intervention Efforts Need to Include Partners of Mothers-to-be

A study by a team of Rochester psychologists and other researchers in the Collaborative Initiative on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders finds that partners of mothers-to-be can directly influence a pregnant woman’s likelihood of drinking alcohol and feeling depressed, which affects their babies’ development.

The study, which appeared in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, highlights the importance of engaging partners in intervention and prevention efforts to help pregnant women avoid drinking alcohol.

A baby’s prenatal alcohol exposure carries the risk of potential lifelong problems, including premature birth, delayed infant development, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).

“The findings emphasize how many factors influence alcohol use during pregnancy,” says lead author Carson Kautz-Turnbull, a third-year graduate student in Rochester’s Department of Psychology. “The more we learn about these factors, the more we can reduce stigma around drinking during pregnancy and help in a way that’s empowering and meaningful.”

The team followed 246 pregnant women at two sites in western Ukraine as part of an international consortium of researchers that includes members of the University’s Mt. Hope Family Center. The collaboration is funded by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The team found that higher use of alcohol and tobacco by partners as well as pregnant women’s lower relationship satisfaction increased the likelihood of their babies’ prenatal alcohol exposure.

Conversely, women who felt supported by their partners reported lower rates of depressive symptoms and were less likely to drink during pregnancy.

—Sandra Knispel

What Tweets Reveal about Anti-Asian Hate

Last spring, tweets displaying the hashtags #StopAsianHate and #StopAAPIHate spiked sharply after March shootings in Atlanta, in which six of the eight fatalities were Asian women.

To gauge the public response to the hashtags, an interdepartmental team of researchers from computer science, political science, and the Goergen Institute for Data Science analyzed postings by nearly 50,000 Twitter users across 30 states over a three-and-a-half-week period following the shootings.

In results posted on the open-access scholarly repository arXiv, the team reported that a growing political divide in the US was reflected in responses to the hashtags. Supporters of President Joe Biden were more likely to support the hashtags, while supporters of former President Donald Trump were more likely to express negative views about the hashtags.

The researchers also found that the hashtags received more support in states with higher percentages of Asian populations and a higher incidence of racially motivated hate crimes; and that the hashtags attracted more participation from women and younger adults, and within Asian and Black communities.

“Our interest is to always understand public opinion first, and then maybe discover some insight into how the situation can be improved,” says Jiebo Luo, a professor of computer science and one of the authors. Luo and coauthor Bruce Lyu, a PhD student in Luo’s lab, conducted a similar study in April 2020 that connected use of terms like “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan virus” on social media to increased reports of attacks on people of Asian descent.

—Bob Marcotte

COVID-19 Infection, Death Linked to Racial Disparity in Nursing Homes

People in nursing homes with higher concentrations of Black and Latino residents were more than 50 percent more likely to be infected with COVID-19 and twice as likely to die in the first months of the pandemic, compared to those in homes with predominately white populations.

That’s according to a study led by Yue Li, a professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and published in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

The new research adds to previous studies by Li and his colleagues that found older residents from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds and their caregivers bore the severest brunt from COVID, and linked the COVID toll in nursing homes to staffing levels and quality scores.

For the new study researchers analyzed cases and death reports for a 10-week period between April 13 and June 19, 2020, in nursing homes in Connecticut, one of the few states to provide weekly counts early in the pandemic. The researchers found disparities in nursing home infections and deaths increased as the pandemic progressed. By week 10 of the study data, the infection rate was 54 percent higher and the death rate was 117 percent higher in nursing homes with larger proportions of underrepresented residents compared to those with a whiter population.

Says Li: “Going forward, it is imperative that future federal, state, and local initiatives are designed to couple efforts to fight the pandemic and those designed to redress enduring disparities in health outcomes, while also avoiding programs that may perpetuate systematic inequalities and discriminations.”

—Mark Michaud