#Maryland Institute Of Research

[minnesotafollower]

Will the World’s Population Cease To Expand?  

This blog has published many posts about the U.S. currently experiencing a declining and aging population and seeing one solution in encouraging immigration from other countries that have increasing and younger populations.[1] This perspective is complicated by some population experts seeing a future peak in world population and a subsequent shrinkage in same without reaching a plateau and stable…

[reasonsforhope]

Story from the Washington Post here, non-paywall version here.

Washington Post stop blocking linksharing and shit challenge.

"The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses’ station — unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was.

Her name was April Burrell.

Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself.

April was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, an often devastating mental illness that affects approximately 1 percent of the global population and can drastically impair how patients behave and perceive reality.

“She was the first person I ever saw as a patient,” said Sander Markx, director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, who was still a medical student in 2000 when he first encountered April. “She is, to this day, the sickest patient I’ve ever seen.” ...

It would be nearly two decades before their paths crossed again. But in 2018, another chance encounter led to several medical discoveries...

Markx and his colleagues discovered that although April’s illness was clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia, she also had lupus, an underlying and treatable autoimmune condition that was attacking her brain.

After months of targeted treatments [for lupus] — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up.

The awakening of April — and the successful treatment of other people with similar conditions — now stand to transform care for some of psychiatry’s sickest patients, many of whom are languishing in mental institutions.

Researchers working with the New York state mental health-care system have identified about 200 patients with autoimmune diseases, some institutionalized for years, who may be helped by the discovery.

And scientists around the world, including Germany and Britain, are conducting similar research, finding that underlying autoimmune and inflammatory processes may be more common in patients with a variety of psychiatric syndromes than previously believed.

Although the current research probably will help only a small subset of patients, the impact of the work is already beginning to reshape the practice of psychiatry and the way many cases of mental illness are diagnosed and treated.

“These are the forgotten souls,” said Markx. “We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.” ...

Waking up after two decades

The medical team set to work counteracting April’s rampaging immune system and started April on an intensive immunotherapy treatment for neuropsychiatric lupus...

The regimen is grueling, requiring a month-long break between each of the six rounds to allow the immune system to recover. But April started showing signs of improvement almost immediately...

A joyful reunion

“I’ve always wanted my sister to get back to who she was,” Guy Burrell said.

In 2020, April was deemed mentally competent to discharge herself from the psychiatric hospital where she had lived for nearly two decades, and she moved to a rehabilitation center...

Because of visiting restrictions related to covid, the family’s face-to-face reunion with April was delayed until last year. April’s brother, sister-in-law and their kids were finally able to visit her at a rehabilitation center, and the occasion was tearful and joyous.

“When she came in there, you would’ve thought she was a brand-new person,” Guy Burrell said. “She knew all of us, remembered different stuff from back when she was a child.” ...

The family felt as if they’d witnessed a miracle.

“She was hugging me, she was holding my hand,” Guy Burrell said. “You might as well have thrown a parade because we were so happy, because we hadn’t seen her like that in, like, forever.”

“It was like she came home,” Markx said. “We never thought that was possible.”

...After April’s unexpected recovery, the medical team put out an alert to the hospital system to identify any patients with antibody markers for autoimmune disease. A few months later, Anca Askanase, a rheumatologist and director of the Columbia Lupus Center,who had been on April’s treatment team, approached Markx. “I think we found our girl,” she said.

Bringing back Devine

When Devine Cruz was 9, she began to hear voices. At first, the voices fought with one another. But as she grew older, the voices would talk about her, [and over the years, things got worse].

For more than a decade, the young woman moved in and out of hospitals for treatment. Her symptoms included visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as delusions that prevented her from living a normal life.

Devine was eventually diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which can result in symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. She also was diagnosed with intellectual disability.

She was on a laundry list of drugs — two antipsychotic medications, lithium, clonazepam, Ativan and benztropine — that came with a litany of side effects but didn’t resolve all her symptoms...

She also had lupus, which she had been diagnosed with when she was about 14, although doctors had never made a connection between the disease and her mental health...

Last August, the medical team prescribed monthly immunosuppressive infusions of corticosteroids and chemotherapy drugs, a regime similar to what April had been given a few years prior. By October, there were already dramatic signs of improvement.

“She was like ‘Yeah, I gotta go,’” Markx said. “‘Like, I’ve been missing out.’”

After several treatments, Devine began developing awareness that the voices in her head were different from real voices, a sign that she was reconnecting with reality. She finished her sixth and final round of infusions in January.

In March, she was well enough to meet with a reporter. “I feel like I’m already better,” Devine said during a conversation in Markx’s office at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where she was treated. “I feel myself being a person that I was supposed to be my whole entire life.” ...

Her recovery is remarkable for several reasons, her doctors said. The voices and visions have stopped. And she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria for either schizoaffective disorder or intellectual disability, Markx said...

Today, Devine lives with her mother and is leading a more active and engaged life. She helps her mother cook, goes to the grocery store and navigates public transportation to keep her appointments. She is even babysitting her siblings’ young children — listening to music, taking them to the park or watching “Frozen 2” — responsibilities her family never would have entrusted her with before her recovery.

Expanding the search for more patients

While it is likely that only a subset of people diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychotic disorders have an underlying autoimmune condition, Markx and other doctors believe there are probably many more patients whose psychiatric conditions are caused or exacerbated by autoimmune issues...

The cases of April and Devine also helped inspire the development of the SNF Center for Precision Psychiatry and Mental Health at Columbia, which was named for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which awarded it a $75 million grant in April. The goal of the center is to develop new treatments based on specific genetic and autoimmune causes of psychiatric illness, said Joseph Gogos, co-director of the SNF Center.

Markx said he has begun care and treatment on about 40 patients since the SNF Center opened. The SNF Center is working with the New York State Office of Mental Health, which oversees one of the largest public mental health systems in America, to conduct whole genome sequencing and autoimmunity screening on inpatients at long-term facilities.

For “the most disabled, the sickest of the sick, even if we can help just a small fraction of them, by doing these detailed analyses, that’s worth something,” said Thomas Smith, chief medical officer for the New York State Office of Mental Health. “You’re helping save someone’s life, get them out of the hospital, have them live in the community, go home.”

Discussions are underway to extend the search to the 20,000 outpatients in the New York state system as well. Serious psychiatric disorders, like schizophrenia, are more likely to be undertreated in underprivileged groups. And autoimmune disorders like lupus disproportionately affect women and people of color with more severity.

Changing psychiatric care

How many people ultimately will be helped by the research remains a subject of debate in the scientific community. But the research has spurred excitement about the potential to better understand what is going on in the brain during serious mental illness...

Emerging research has implicated inflammation and immunological dysfunction as potential players in a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, depression and autism.

“It opens new treatment possibilities to patients that used to be treated very differently,” said Ludger Tebartz van Elst, a professor of psychiatry and psychotherapy at University Medical Clinic Freiburg in Germany.

In one study, published last year in Molecular Psychiatry, Tebartz van Elst and his colleagues identified 91 psychiatric patients with suspected autoimmune diseases, and reported that immunotherapies benefited the majority of them.

Belinda Lennox, head of the psychiatry department at the University of Oxford, is enrolling patients in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of immunotherapy for autoimmune psychosis patients.

As a result of the research, screenings for immunological markers in psychotic patients are already routine in Germany, where psychiatrists regularly collect samples from cerebrospinal fluid.

Markx is also doing similar screening with his patients. He believes highly sensitive and inexpensive blood tests to detect different antibodies should become part of the standard screening protocol for psychosis.

Also on the horizon: more targeted immunotherapy rather than current “sledgehammer approaches” that suppress the immune system on a broad level, said George Yancopoulos, the co-founder and president of the pharmaceutical company Regeneron.

“I think we’re at the dawn of a new era. This is just the beginning,” said Yancopoulos."

-via The Washington Post, June 1, 2023

[hussyknee]

The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses’ station — unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was. Her name was April Burrell. Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself. April was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, an often devastating mental illness that affects approximately 1 percent of the global population and can drastically impair how patients behave and perceive reality. “She was the first person I ever saw as a patient,” said Sander Markx, director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, who was still a medical student in 2000 when he first encountered April. “She is, to this day, the sickest patient I’ve ever seen.” It would be nearly two decades before their paths crossed again. But in 2018, another chance encounter led to several medical discoveries reminiscent of a scene from “Awakenings,” the famous book and movie inspired by the awakening of catatonic patients treated by the late neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks. Markx and his colleagues discovered that although April’s illness was clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia, she also had lupus, an underlying and treatable autoimmune condition that was attacking her brain. After months of targeted treatments — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up. The awakening of April — and the successful treatment of other peoplewith similar conditions — now stand to transform care for some of psychiatry’s sickest patients, many of whom are languishing in mental institutions. Researchers working with the New York state mental health-care system have identified about 200 patients with autoimmune diseases, some institutionalized for years, who may be helped by the discovery. And scientists around the world, including Germany and Britain, are conducting similar research, finding that underlying autoimmune and inflammatory processes may be more common in patients with a variety of psychiatric syndromes than previously believed. Although the current research probably will help only a small subset of patients,the impact of the work is already beginning to reshape the practice of psychiatry and the way many cases of mental illness are diagnosed and treated. “These are the forgotten souls,” said Markx. “We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.”

– A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years. Her story may change psychiatry.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change after the state suffered catastrophic summer flooding and damage from other extreme weather.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law without his signature late Thursday, saying he is very concerned about the costs and outcome of the small state taking on “Big Oil” alone in what will likely be a grueling legal fight. But he acknowledged that he understands something has to be done to address the toll of climate change.

“I understand the desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in so many ways,” Scott, a moderate Republican in the largely blue state of Vermont, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

The popular governor who recently announced that he’s running for reelection to a fifth two-year term, has been at odds with the Democrat-controlled Legislature, which he has called out of balance. He was expected by environmental advocates to veto the bill but then allowed it to be enacted. Scott wrote to lawmakers that he was comforted that the Agency of Natural Resources is required to report back to the Legislature on the feasibility of the effort.

Last July’s flooding from torrential rains inundated Vermont’s capital city of Montpelier, the nearby city Barre, some southern Vermont communities and ripped through homes and washed away roads around the rural state. Some saw it as the state’s worst natural disaster since a 1927 flood that killed dozens of people and caused widespread destruction. It took months for businesses — from restaurants to shops — to rebuild, losing out on their summer and even fall seasons. Several have just recently reopened while scores of homeowners were left with flood-ravaged homes heading into the cold season.

Under the legislation, the Vermont state treasurer, in consultation with the Agency of Natural Resources, would provide a report by Jan. 15, 2026, on the total cost to Vermonters and the state from the emission of greenhouse gases from Jan. 1, 1995, to Dec. 31, 2024. The assessment would look at the effects on public health, natural resources, agriculture, economic development, housing and other areas. The state would use federal data to determine the amount of covered greenhouse gas emissions attributed to a fossil fuel company.

It’s a polluter-pays model affecting companies engaged in the trade or business of extracting fossil fuel or refining crude oil attributable to more than 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions during the time period. The funds could be used by the state for such things as upgrading stormwater drainage systems; upgrading roads, bridges and railroads; relocating, elevating or retrofitting sewage treatment plants; and making energy efficient weatherization upgrades to public and private buildings. It’s modeled after the federal Superfund pollution cleanup program.

“For too long, giant fossil fuel companies have knowingly lit the match of climate disruption without being required to do a thing to put out the fire,” Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said in a statement. “Finally, maybe for the first time anywhere, Vermont is going to hold the companies most responsible for climate-driven floods, fires and heat waves financially accountable for a fair share of the damages they’ve caused.”

Maryland, Massachusetts and New York are considering similar measures.

The American Petroleum Institute, the top lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, has said it’s extremely concerned the legislation “retroactively imposes costs and liability on prior activities that were legal, violates equal protection and due process rights by holding companies responsible for the actions of society at large; and is preempted by federal law.”

“This punitive new fee represents yet another step in a coordinated campaign to undermine America’s energy advantage and the economic and national security benefits it provides,” spokesman Scott Lauermann said in a statement Friday.

Vermont lawmakers know the state will face legal challenges, but the governor worries about the costs and what it means for other states if Vermont fails.

State Rep. Martin LaLonde, a Democrat and an attorney, believes Vermont has a solid legal case. Legislators worked closely with many legal scholars in crafting the bill, he said in statement.

“Most importantly, the stakes are too high – and the costs too steep for Vermonters – to release corporations that caused the mess from their obligation to help clean it up,” he said.

[genderkoolaid]

His work through EEF was crucial to improving the lives of countless trans people. In addition to funding many of the earliest research projects, his two main contributions were the financial support he gave to the Harry Benjamin Foundation and the first North American gender clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Erickson funded international conferences on trans topics in 1969 (cosponsored by the Albany Trust of London), 1971, and 1973. Later conferences were organized by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) founded in 1979. It changed its name to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) in 2007. EEF made major contributions to growing public awareness, too, through funding lectures, educational films, newspaper articles, radio, and television programs, and books including Money and Green’s Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 1969, and Money and Ehrhardt’s Man, Woman, Boy, Girl, 1972. [...] After learning about Los Angeles-based gay and lesbian rights group ONE, Inc., which published the highly influential ONE magazine, in 1964, Erickson began giving them money after convincing them to form the nonprofit, tax-exempt Institute for the Study of Human Resources. With the huge amounts of money he gave them over the years that other gay groups at the time could barely dream of (some $1.5 million in today’s dollars), they published a two-volume Annotated Bibliography of Homosexuality and created a variety of unprecedented gay equality focused research and education programs including lectures, and, ultimately, accreditation in 1981 by the state of California as a graduate degree-granting institution.

[mindblowingscience]

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland and elsewhere have conducted transmission spectroscopy of a nearby super-Earth exoplanet known as L98-59 d. Results of these observations, available in a research paper published August 28 on the pre-print server arXiv, suggest that the planet has a sulfur-rich atmosphere. L98-59 is a bright M-dwarf star located some 34.6 light years away. It is known to be orbited by at least four planets, and one of them is L98-59 d—a super-Earth about 58% larger than the Earth, with a mass of 2.31 Earth masses. L98-59 d orbits its host every 7.45 days, at a distance of approximately 0.05 AU. The planet's equilibrium temperature is estimated to be 416 K.

Continue Reading.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

The recent research explores the possibility of closed-timelike curves, or CTCs—a hypothetical pathway back in time. The curve is a worldline—the arc of a particle in spacetime over the course of its existence—that runs backwards. Steven Hawking posited in his 1992 “Chronology protection conjecture” paper that the laws of physics don’t allow for closed timelike curves to exist—thus, that time travel is impossible. “Nevertheless,” the recent study authors wrote, “they can be simulated probabilistically by quantum-teleportation circuits.”

The team’s Gedankenexperiment goes like this: Physicists put photonic probes through a quantum interaction, yielding a certain measurable result. Based on that result, they can determine what input would have yielded an optimal result—hindsight is 20/20, just like when you can look over a graded exam. But because the result was yielded from a quantum operation, instead of being stuck with a less-than-optimal result, the researchers can tweak the values of the quantum probe via entanglement, producing a better result even though the operation already happened. Capiche?

The team demonstrated that one could “probabilistically improve one’s past choice,” explained study co-author Nicole Yunger Halpern, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland at College Park, in an email to Gizmodo, though she noted that the proposed time travel simulation has not yet taken place. 

[petervintonjr]

Meet the unsung contributor to revolutionary breakthroughs in treating polio, cancer, HPV, and even COVID-19: Henrietta Lacks. Born in 1920 Roanoke, Virginia, Henrietta's mother Eliza died when she was only four, and she was ultimately raised by her maternal grandfather in Clover, Virginia. Henrietta worked as a tobacco farmer and attended a segregated school until the age of 14, when she gave birth to a son, Lawrence. A daughter, Elsie, was born three years later --to compound the family's difficulties, Elsie had cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Henrietta and her now-husband David Lacks moved to Turner Station (now Dundalk), Maryland where David had landed a job with a nearby steel plant. At the time Turner Station was one of the oldest African-American communities in Baltimore County and there was sufficient community support for the family to buy a house and produce three more children.

In 1951 at the age of 31, Henrietta died at Johns Hopkins Hospital of cervical cancer, mere months after the birth of the family's youngest son. But before her death --and without her or her family's consent-- during a biopsy two tumour cell samples were taken from Henrietta's cervix and sent to Johns Hopkins researchers. Hernietta's cells carried a unique trait: an ability to rapidly multiply, producing a new generation every 24 hours; a breakthrough that no other human cell had achieved. Prior to this discovery, only cells that had been transformed by viruses or genetic mutations carried such a characteristic. With the prospect of now being able to work with what amounted to the first-ever naturally-occurring immortal human cells, researchers created a patent on the HeLa cell line but hid the donor's true identity under a fake name: Helen Lane.

It is no exaggeration to state that in the 70 years since her death, Henrietta's cells have been bought, sold, packaged, and shipped by thousands of laboratories; with her cells being used as a baseline in as many as 74,000 different studies (including some Nobel Prize winners). Her cells have even been sent into space to study the effects of microgravity, and were instrumental in the Human Genome Project. While no actual law (or even a code of ethics) necessarily required doctors to ask permission before taking tissue from a terminal patient, there was a very clear Maryland state law on the books that forbade tissue removal from the dead without permission, throwing the situation into something of a legal grey area. However because Henrietta was poor, minimally educated, and Black, this standard was quietly (and easily) circumvented and she was never recognized for her monumental contributions to science and medicine ...and her family was never compensated. The family remained unaware of Henrietta's contribution until 1975, when the HeLa line's provenance finally became public. Henrietta had been buried in an unmarked grave in the family cemetery in Clover, Virginia but in 2010 a new headstone was donated and dedicated, acknowledging her phenomenal contribution. That same year the John Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research established a new Henrietta Lacks Memorial lecture series. A statue of Lacks was commissioned in 2022, to be erected in Lacks's birthplace of Roanoke, Virginia --pointedly replacing a previous statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which had been removed following nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd.

Dive into The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, originally published in 2011 and subsequently adapted into an HBO movie in 2017, starring Oprah Winfrey as Henrietta's daughter Deborah and Renee Elise Goldberry as Henrietta. (And yes, this book has been challenged and banned in more than one school district.)

[minnesotafollower]

Will the World’s Population Cease To Expand?  

This blog has published many posts about the U.S. currently experiencing a declining and aging population and seeing one solution in encouraging immigration from other countries that have increasing and younger populations.[1] This perspective is complicated by some population experts seeing a future peak in world population and a subsequent shrinkage in same without reaching a plateau and stable…

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ned Holstein

Published: Oct 8, 2014

A little-noticed research revolution confirms that our family courts are damaging the health of our children on a daily basis.

In 2014, three separate and independent groups of experts reviewed decades of child development research. They found that after parents separate or divorce, children do much better with shared parenting — joint custody — on multiple measures of wellbeing than with single parenting. Yet in more than eight out of 10 custody cases today, one parent (usually the mother) is awarded sole guardianship.

The negative impact on our children is dramatic. For instance, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Census Bureau, children raised by single parents account for:

63 percent of teen suicides,

70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions,

71 percent of high school dropouts,

75 percent of children in chemical abuse centers,

85 percent of those in prison,

85 percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders

And 90 percent of homeless and runaway children.

Last year’s formation of Gov. O’Malley’s Commission on Child Custody Decision Making is a promising start to tackling the problem. However, much work remains to ensure that more children experience the benefits of shared parenting, which include fewer behavioral and emotional problems, higher self-esteem, better family relations and better school performance than children in sole custody arrangements, according to 2002 Maryland research. Psychologist Robert Bauserman, then of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, conducted a meta-analysis of 33 studies between 1982 to 1999 that examined 1,846 sole-custody and 814 joint-custody children and found that children in joint custody arrangements were as well adjusted as intact family children on the same measures.

As the International Council on Shared Parenting put it in July, “shared parenting is a viable post-divorce parenting arrangement that is optimal to child development and well-being, including for children of high conflict parents.” This represented the consensus of nearly 100 experts from over 20 countries. Similar sentiments were recently expressed by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (“Children’s best interests are furthered by parenting plans that provide for continuing and shared parenting relationships “), and by 110 experts around the world who endorsed a consensus statement published in February the journal of the American Psychological Association (“shared parenting should be the norm”).

Shared parenting is also better for parents. The claim is often made that joint custody exposes children to ongoing parental conflict. In fact, the studies in Mr. Bauserman’s review found lower levels of conflict with shared parenting, possibly by disposing of the winner-loser feelings that come with a sole custody decision. Shared parenting also gives each parent a break from continuous child care responsibilities.

Towson dad Mark Cyzyk reports that, “12 years out” his teen-aged daughter is thriving. She recently brought home straight A’s, has a good group of friends and appears well adjusted. “For as far back as she can remember,” Mr. Cyzyk said, “she’s had two homes, two extended families, and now with remarriages that’s four extended families, all of whom care for her deeply. I couldn’t be more proud of her and am lucky to have been awarded shared physical custody years ago. But I should not have had to rely on luck — nor should she.”

And neither should the other Maryland children whose parents separate or divorce. The alternative to reform in Maryland is a continuation of the one-size-fits-all tradition of giving sole custody to one parent. This is the outcome in more than 80 percent of cases, so that 35 percent of American children are being raised by only one parent, according to the U.S Census Bureau. In some cases, one parent has walked away from the children. But in most cases, the family courts have created a sole custody arrangement even though both parents are fit and both wish to remain closely involved with their children.

Governor O’Malley’s commission holds out hope that family structure after separation or divorce will become part of Maryland’s dialogue about children’s health, emotional balance, educational difficulties, substance abuse problems, bullying and violence. Family court reforms that return both parents to 35 percent of our children where possible would help them in all these realms at no cost to the taxpayer, while bringing children what they most want: two loving parents actively involved in their lives.

Dr. Ned Holstein is founder and chair of National Parents Organization, which has an affiliate in Maryland. His email is nedholstein@nationalparentsorganization.org.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Experiment demonstrates continuously operating optical fiber made of thin air

Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have demonstrated a continuously operating optical fiber made of thin air.

The most common optical fibers are strands of glass that tightly confine light over long distances. However, these fibers are not well-suited for guiding extremely high-power laser beams due to glass damage and scattering of laser energy out of the fiber. Additionally, the need for a physical support structure means that glass fiber must be laid down long in advance of light signal transmission or collection.

Howard Milchberg and his group in UMD's Departments of Physics and Electrical & Computer Engineering and Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics have demonstrated an optical guiding method that beats both limitations, using auxiliary ultrashort laser pulses to sculpt fiber optic waveguides in the air itself.

These short pulses form a ring of high-intensity light structures called "filaments," which heat the air molecules to form an extended ring of low-density heated air surrounding a central undisturbed region; this is exactly the refractive index structure of an optical fiber. With air itself as the fiber, very high average powers can potentially be guided. And for collection of remote optical signals for detecting pollutants and radioactive sources, for example, the air waveguide can be arbitrarily "unspooled" and directed at the speed of light in any direction.

Read more.

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - April 8-14

(Actually 8-12 due to irl obligations)

Like these weekly compilations? Support me on Ko-fi! Also, if you tip me on here or Ko-fi, at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week - almost double the content! (I'm new to taking tips on here; if it doesn't show me your username or if you have DM's turned off, please send me a screenshot of your payment)

1. Interior Department Finalizes Action to Strengthen Endangered Species Act

“These revisions, which will increase efficiency by reducing the time and cost to develop and negotiate permit applications, will encourage more individuals and companies to engage in conservation benefit agreements and habitat conservation plans, generating greater conservation results overall.”

2. Young Puerto Ricans Restore Habitat Damaged by Hurricane While Launching Conservation Careers

“Corps members help restore the island’s environmental and cultural assets and volunteer in hard-hit local communities. They also gain valuable paid work experience and connections to possible future employers, something many young Puerto Ricans struggle to find.”

3. Australian-born cheetah released in Africa for the first time ever. Watch the heart-warming moment Edie is set free

““The Metapopulation Initiative will bring in appropriate males, probably two initially, to breed with Edie,” King says. “It’s those future cubs, and their cubs, that will ensure the legacy of spreading Edie’s genetics across the southern African metapopulation. And we will have also provided Edie – a wild animal, let’s not forget – with a chance of a life in the wild.””

4. Baby Bald Eagles Confirmed in 2 of 4 Nests in Will County Forest Preserves

“A pair of fuzzy eaglet heads were spotted popping up out of one of the nests this week, officials said. Two weeks ago, monitors noticed adult eagles feeding an unseen hatchling (or hatchlings) in a different nest.”

5. New Hope for Love for Japanese Children Needing Families

“The new system, established by a 2022 law, offers private childcare institutions financing to transform their business model into “Foster Care Support Centers” that recruit, train, select, and support foster parents, and assist the independence of children living in foster families. If a childcare institution becomes a Foster Care Support Center, the government will fund full-time staff members based on the number of foster households they cater to.”

6. Nexamp nabs $520M to build community solar across the US

“Nexamp, a community solar developer and project owner, has secured a whopping $520million to install solar arrays around the nation in one of the largest capital raises to date for this growing sector. Community solar gives renters, small businesses and organizations the chance to benefit from local solar power even if they can’t put panels on their own roofs.”

7. A natural touch for coastal defense: Hybrid solutions which combine nature with common “hard” coastal protection measures may offer more benefits in lower-risk areas

“Common “hard” coastal defenses, like concrete sea walls, might struggle to keep up with increasing climate risks. A new study shows that combining them with nature-based solutions could, in some contexts, create defenses which are better able to adapt.”

8. Rewilding program ships eggs around the world to restore Raja Ampat zebra sharks

“A survey estimated the zebra shark had a population of 20 spread throughout the Raja Ampat archipelago, making the animal functionally extinct in the region. […] Researchers hope to release 500 zebra sharks into the wild within 10 years in an effort to support a large, genetically diverse breeding population.”

9. Forest Loss Plummets in Brazil and Colombia

“New data reveals a decline in primary forest loss in Brazil and Colombia, highlighting the significant impact of environmental reforms in curbing deforestation. According to 2022-2023 data from the University of Maryland’s GLAD Lab and World Resource’s Institute (WRI), primary forests in Brazil experienced a 36 per cent decrease in deforestation under President Inácio Lula da Silva’s leadership, reaching its lowest level since 2015. Colombia nearly halved (by 49 per cent) its forest loss under the administration of President Gustavo Petro Urrego, who has prioritised rural and environmental reform.”

10. New Agreement Paves the Way for Ocelot Reintroduction on Private Lands

“With the safe harbor agreement in place, partners plan to begin developing a source stock of ocelots for reintroduction. Over the next year, they plan to construct an ocelot conservation facility in Kingsville to breed and raise ocelots. Producing the first offspring is expected to take a few years.”

April 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[missathlete31]

Blair Witch Meets Top Gun Maverick AU

I apologize in advance this one is definitely a little out there 🙈

30 years ago Nicholas ‘Goose’ Bradshaw and Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell headed into the woods of Burkittsville Maryland to research the urban legend of the Blair Witch. 82 hours later Pete would be found wandering the roads on on the outskirts of the forest covered in dirt and blood, muttering about an old woman whose feet never touched the ground. Search parties were sent out but Nick was never found and Pete, beyond mentioning being forced into a corner once to the police, went mute when questioned about what happened and had to be committed.

Now, decades later Nick’s son Bradley, who has become obsessed with the legend that took his father, is setting out to see if he can find the answers he seeks in those same set of woods. He is bringing along his best friend Natasha and the man he lost to his obsession years ago, Jake. Though broken up, Jake knows that something evil lurks in Burkittsville and he’ll be damned if he lets the love of his life go in there without him. Armed with cameras and a map, they hope to find some clues as to what happened that night 30 years ago. But before they step inside Bradley is forced to bring one more person with them, the man who escaped the Blair Witch’s clutches, his godfather, and the last person who saw Bradley’s dad alive: Pete Mitchell. The older man signs himself out of the mental institute and joins them on this adventure.

With this knowledgeable guide, the group gets a little more hopeful. They start their journey and head into the thick of the forest, Maverick leading them silently but forcefully, bringing them deeper and deeper into the dark of the thick trees. As night falls, noises can be heard and the group huddle together as the sounds of something horrific seems to stalk them. The next day they go to move on but can’t seem to find the right way to go, even Pete looks confused; and it is discovered that they have been going in circles for hours. Soon more strange things begin to occur and tempers flare.

As the worst seems to be happening and history looks to repeat, Bradley can’t help but wonder if maybe Pete was allowed to escape all those years ago just for this moment here, to bring the Blair Witch new victims to claim.

[lboogie1906]

Dr. Pedro Barbosa III (September 6, 1944) is a distinguished entomologist who has taught at the University of Maryland since 1979. Born on September 6, 1944, he acquired his BS at the City College of New York and his MS and Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts. He taught entomology at Rutgers University (1971-73) and at the University of Massachusetts (1973-79).

He has utilized research grants from the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Stations and the National Biological Control Institute, has been a fellow of both the Ford Foundation and the Entomological Society of America, and honored by the Ciba-Geigy Recognition Award, the Science Award from the Institute of Puerto Rico of New York, and the Bussart Memorial Award, among others.

His teaching and research specialties pertain to the biological suppression of plant pests and animal-plant interactions. His books are Ecology of Predator-Prey Interactions, Insect Outbreaks, Introduction to Forest and Shade Tree Insects, Microbial Mediation of Plant-Herbivore Interactions, and Novel Aspects of Insect-Plant Interactions. He is a past president of the eastern branch of the Entomological Society of America. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA's EXCITE mission prepared for scientific balloon flight

Scientists and engineers are ready to fly an infrared mission called EXCITE (EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope) to the edge of space.

EXCITE is designed to study atmospheres around exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, during circumpolar long-duration scientific balloon flights. But first, it must complete a test flight during NASA's fall 2024 scientific ballooning campaign from Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

"EXCITE can give us a three-dimensional picture of a planet's atmosphere and temperature by collecting data the whole time the world orbits its star," said Peter Nagler, the mission's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Only a handful of these types of measurements have been done before. They require a very stable telescope in a position to track a planet for several days at a time."

EXCITE will study hot Jupiters, giant gas exoplanets that complete an orbit once every one to two days and have temperatures in the thousands of degrees. The worlds are tidally locked, which means the same side always faces the star.

The telescope will observe how heat is distributed across the planet, from the scalding hemisphere facing the star to the relatively cooler nightside.

It will also determine how molecules in a world's atmosphere absorb and emit light over the entire orbit, a process called phase-resolved spectroscopy. Not only can this data reveal the presence of compounds—like water, methane, carbon dioxide, and others—but also how they circulate globally as the planet orbits its star.

NASA's Hubble, James Webb, and retired Spitzer space telescopes have collected a handful of these measurements between them.

In 2014, for example, Hubble and Spitzer observed an exoplanet called WASP-43 b. To collect data over the world's 22-hour day, scientists needed 60 hours of Hubble time and 46 hours from Spitzer. Resource-intensive studies like this on space-based observatories are difficult. Time is a limited resource, and studies must compete with hundreds of other requests for that time.

"During its first science flight, EXCITE aims to fly for over a dozen days from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility's site in Antarctica," said Kyle Helson, an EXCITE team member and a research scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and NASA Goddard.

"And at the pole, the stars we'll study don't set, so our observations won't be interrupted. We hope that the mission will effectively double the number of phase-resolved spectra available to the science community."

EXCITE will fly to about 132,000 feet (40 kilometers) via a scientific balloon filled with helium. That takes it above 99.5% of Earth's atmosphere. At that altitude, the telescope will be able to observe multiple infrared wavelengths with little interference.

"The telescope collects the infrared light and beams it into the spectrometer, where it kind of goes through a little obstacle course," said Lee Bernard, an EXCITE team member and a graduate research assistant at Arizona State University in Tempe.

"It bounces off mirrors and through a prism before reaching the detector. Everything must be aligned very precisely—just a few millimeters off center and the light won't make it."

The spectrometer rests inside a vessel called a cryostat situated behind the telescope. The cryostat cools the spectrometer's detector—once a flight candidate from Webb'sNIRSpec (Near InfraRed Spectrograph)— to about 350 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (minus 210 degrees Celsius) so it can measure tiny intensity changes in the infrared light.

The entire telescope and cryostat assembly rests in a rowboat-shaped base where it can rotate along three axes to maintain stable pointing down to 50 milliarcseconds. That's like holding a steady gaze on a U.S. quarter coin from 65 miles away.

"Several different institutions contributed to EXCITE's subsystems," said Tim Rehm, an EXCITE team member and a graduate research assistant at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. "It's great to see them all assembled and working together. We're excited to do this test flight, and we're looking forward to all the future science flights we hope to have."

The EXCITE instrument was primarily built by NASA Goddard, Brown, Arizona State University, and StarSpec Technologies in Ontario, with additional support from collaborators in the U.S., Canada, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

NASA's scientific balloons offer frequent, low-cost access to near-space to conduct scientific investigations and technology maturation in fields such as astrophysics, heliophysics, and atmospheric research, as well as training for the next generation of leaders in engineering and science.

IMAGE: EXCITE (EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope) hangs from a ceiling at the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility's location in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The mission team practiced taking observations ahead of flight by looking out the hanger doors at night. Credit: NASA/Jeanette Kazmierczak

[historicity-was-already-taken]

I do have several questions about publishing serious non-fiction with a trade press... My first question is affiliated, and is about whether you're still in academia or not. If you're not, I'd be interested in hearing how you go about your work - whether you have peer reviewers etc. and whether you know them from uni (either as classmates or professors) or not.

Secondly, how did you approach finding a press? Did you have a draft finished when you secured your deal, and what are the major differences a trade press versus university press request/demand?

I'm sorry for the load of questions by the way, I finished my MA degree in history (medieval) last year, I miss doing the research and writing, and you're really the first person I've seen online who has found a trade press. I considered asking you some of those questions before actually, so I kinda jumped on the chance with... much enthusiasm, lol.

First, affiliation. I ~identify~ as an independent scholar. However, as you know, connections and status mean everything in both academia and the publishing industry (and as an academic writing for a trade press, you have to demand respect from both), so I always make my credentials very clear:

MA in Modern Jewish History from the University of Maryland, thesis defended on first try with no revisions; I also name drop my adviser and certain committee members depending on who I'm talking to.

MLIS from the same institution, focus in Archival Science.

Seven year's employment as an archivist and content creator at the American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History

Six figures of followers on social media

The combination of education, platform, and work experience is particularly important for convincing agents and publishers that you're a worthwhile investment.

In terms of reviewers, I networked with and cold emailed two well respected academics in my specific subfield(s), and just asked them if they'd be down to peer review my work. I will be paying them out of my own pocket. The press doesn't require this as, as far as they're concerned, I'm the expert; but it's something I require for myself. It's important that this book not simply present a strong, readable, gripping narrative, but that it's also accurate and rigorous.

Now on to your second question. For serious nonfiction the first step is to get a literary agent. Literary agents sign clients for non-fiction based on book proposal and ~two sample chapters. They neither want nor expect the entire manuscript at this point. The agent is the party who has the relationships with acquisitions editors at the major publishing houses.

Once an agent signs you, you do some editorial work together, if necessary, and then you go on submission. The "on sub" process is basically your agent doing a series of targeted sales pitches to acquisitions editors. If an acquisitions editor wants to buy the project, they will have to present it to their team(s), and argue in favor of investing in the project; ie, they have to convince potentially multiple teams that this project will make them money.

The book proposal is an incredibly weird, complex piece of writing, and I advise hiring an editor to work with you on this. The best editors/consultants for book proposals tend to be what I call "behind the scenes big shots." These are usually people with journalistic training, who ghostwrite for a lot of very big names. These editors do not come cheap. In fact, I paid for mine with a round of crowdfunding y'all helped me with a few years ago. If you're interested, I could potentially put you in touch with mine.

Now once the proposal is ready and you've workshopped your query letter, you need to do some heavy research and make a list of lit agents you think could be a good fit for your project. You should have an A List, B List, and C List, and send them out in batches of 5-10 to keep this manageable. I can answer further questions about this research process, if you'd like.

The getting-an-agent process is probably the hardest part. It took me five years to get from "Holy shit this is my book I'm gonna do a book," to "I have an agent and we're going on sub." It's HARD and you'll really be forced to reframe how you understand success and failure. Like, the first time I got a personalized rejection with feedback I fucking PARTIED. A personalized rejection is huge, and FEEDBACK, omg.

The big difference, is that for academic presses you need a PhD and a genuine intervention in the historiography. For trade press, you need to convince multiple parties that the project can sell, and that you're qualified to write it.

Now some candor: you have to be incredibly single-minded to push through this process. Like, to the point that you're willing to sacrifice your day job and let your health fall by the wayside. Which leads us to: privilege!

It's very difficult to be able to put all your single-minded energy behind this process if you a. are not independently wealthy; b. are not married to a person with a lot of money; or c. do not have well-off parents who are able to support you. I can honestly say that, if I were not in category c, the process would have been much slower; I'm not even sure if it would be happening yet.

My publisher's advance--which was generous for a first time, untested writer--over one year was enough to MAYBE cover my health insurance and my monthly storage unit; I also have two part time jobs. And that's it. My parents handle the rest [ETA: to clarify, I do live with them]. Publisher's advances are not something you can live on unless you already have clout, or fame. And if you have a one year deadline, your writing will be full time. I'm not telling you this to discourage you. Professionally I have found myself in many fields where the silent part is "we assume you have family/spousal wealth because lol no one can live on this amount of money." It's not okay and it pisses me the fuck off. I feel like, if I didn't make this clear, I'd be complicit in maintaining those structural inequalities. I don't know how to dismantle them (it's gonna take way more than one person) but saying the quiet part out loud is a start. Anyway, hope I answered all your questions and also didn't discourage you! Also, you never need a reason to ask me about this stuff.