A joint effort with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency, the Webb mission will explore every phase of cosmic history — from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe.

“Today, NASA achieved another engineering milestone decades in the making. While the journey is not complete, I join the Webb team in breathing a little easier and imagining the future breakthroughs bound to inspire the world,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The James Webb Space Telescope is an unprecedented mission that is on the precipice of seeing the light from the first galaxies and discovering the mysteries of our universe. Each feat already achieved and future accomplishment is a testament to the thousands of innovators who poured their life’s passion into this mission.”

The two wings of Webb’s primary mirror had been folded to fit inside the nose cone of an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket prior to launch. After more than a week of other critical spacecraft deployments, the Webb team began remotely unfolding the hexagonal segments of the primary mirror, the largest ever launched into space. This was a multi-day process, with the first side deployed Jan. 7 and the second Jan. 8.

Mission Operations Center ground control at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore began deploying the second side panel of the mirror at 8:53 a.m. EST. Once it extended and latched into position at 1:17 p.m. EST, the team declared all major deployments successfully completed.

The world’s largest and most complex space science telescope will now begin moving its 18 primary mirror segments to align the telescope optics. The ground team will command 126 actuators on the backsides of the segments to flex each mirror — an alignment that will take months to complete. Then the team will calibrate the science instruments prior to delivering Webb’s first images this summer.

“I am so proud of the team — spanning continents and decades — that delivered this first-of-its kind achievement,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate in NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Webb’s successful deployment exemplifies the best of what NASA has to offer: the willingness to attempt bold and challenging things in the name of discoveries still unknown.”

Soon, Webb will also undergo a third mid-course correction burn — one of three planned to place the telescope precisely in orbit around the second Lagrange point, commonly known as L2, nearly 1 million miles from Earth. This is Webb’s final orbital position, where its sunshield will protect it from light from the Sun, Earth, and Moon that could interfere with observations of infrared light. Webb is designed to peer back over 13.5 billion years to capture infrared light from celestial objects, with much higher resolution than ever before, and to study our own solar system as well as distant worlds.

“The successful completion of all of the Webb Space Telescope’s deployments is historic,” said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb program director at NASA Headquarters. “This is the first time a NASA-led mission has ever attempted to complete a complex sequence to unfold an observatory in space — a remarkable feat for our team, NASA, and the world.”

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate oversees the mission. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the project for the agency and oversees the Space Telescope Science Institute, Northrop Grumman, and other mission partners. In addition to Goddard, several NASA centers contributed to the project, including Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, and others.

For more information about the Webb mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/webb

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A new study by Georgia Tech researchers in the lab of Timothy C. Cope has found a novel pathway for understanding why these debilitating conditions happen for cancer patients and why scientists should focus on all of the possible neural processes that deliver sensory or motor problems to a patient’s brain — including the central nervous system — and not just the “peripheral degeneration of sensory neurons” that occurs away from the center of the body.

The new findings “Neural circuit mechanisms of sensorimotor disability in cancer treatment” are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and could impact development of effective treatments that are not yet available for restoring a patient’s normal abilities to receive and process sensory input as part of post cancer treatment, in particular.

Stephen N. (Nick) Housley, a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Biological Sciences, the Integrated Cancer Research Center, and the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech, is the study’s lead author. Co-authors include Paul Nardelli, research scientist and Travis Rotterman, postdoctoral fellow (both of the School of Biological Sciences), along with Timothy Cope, who serves as a professor with joint appointments in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech and in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Tech.

Neurologic consequences

“Chemotherapy undoubtedly negatively influences the peripheral nervous system, which is often viewed as the main culprit of neurologic disorders during cancer treatment,” shares Housley. However, he says, for the nervous system to operate normally, both the peripheral and central nervous system must cooperate.

“This occurs through synaptic communication between neurons. Through an elegant series of studies, we show that those hubs of communication in the central nervous system are also vulnerable to cancer treatment’s adverse effects,” Housley shares, adding that the findings force “recognition of the numerous places throughout the nervous system that we have to treat if we ever want to fix the neurological consequences of cancer treatment — because correcting any one may not be enough to improve human function and quality of life.”

“These disabilities remain clinically unmitigated and empirically unexplained as research concentrates on peripheral degeneration of sensory neurons,” the research team explains in the study, “while understating the possible involvement of neural processes within the central nervous system. The present findings demonstrate functional defects in the fundamental properties of information processing localized within the central nervous system,” concluding that “long-lasting sensorimotor and possibly other disabilities induced by cancer treatment result from independent neural defects compounded across both peripheral and central nervous systems.”

Sensorimotor disabilities and ‘cOIN’

The research team notes that cancer survivors “rank sensorimotor disability among the most distressing, long-term consequences of chemotherapy. Disorders in gait, balance, and skilled movements are commonly assigned to chemotoxic damage of peripheral sensory neurons without consideration of the deterministic role played by the neural circuits that translate sensory information into movement,” adding that this oversight “precludes sufficient, mechanistic understanding and contributes to the absence of effective treatment for reversing chemotherapy-induced disability.”

Cope says the team resolved this omission “through the use of a combination of electrophysiology, behavior, and modeling to study the operation of a spinal sensorimotor circuit in vivo” in a rodent model of “chronic, oxaliplatin (chemotherapy)-induced neuropathy: cOIN.”

Key sequential events were studied in the encoding of “propriosensory” information (think kinesthesia: the body’s ability to sense its location, movements, and actions) and its circuit translation into the synaptic potentials produced in motoneurons.

In the “cOIN” rats, the team noted multiple classes of propriosensory neurons expressed defective firing that reduced accurate sensory representation of muscle mechanical responses to stretch, adding that accuracy “degraded further in the translation of propriosensory signals into synaptic potentials as a result of defective mechanisms residing inside the spinal cord.”

Joint expression, independent defects

“These sequential, peripheral, and central defects compounded to drive the sensorimotor circuit into a functional collapse that was consequential in predicting the significant errors in propriosensory-guided movement behaviors demonstrated here in our rat model and reported for people with cOIN,” Cope and Housley report. “We conclude that sensorimotor disability induced by cancer treatment emerges from the joint expression of independent defects occurring in both peripheral and central elements of sensorimotor circuits.”

“These findings have broad impact on the scientific field and on clinical management of neurologic consequences of cancer treatment,” Housley says. “As both a clinician and scientist, I can envision the urgent need to jointly develop quantitative clinical tests that have the capacity to identify which parts of a patient nervous system are impacted by their cancer treatment.”

Housley also says that having the capacity to monitor neural function across various sites during the course of treatment “will provide a biomarker on which we can optimize treatment — e.g. maximize anti-neoplastic effects while minimizing the adverse effects,” adding that, as we move into the next generation cancer treatments, “clinical tests that can objectively monitor specific aspects of the nervous system will be exceptionally important to test for the presence off-target effect.”

The OLED display technology is based on the conversion of electricity into light using an organic material layer. OLEDs function as high quality digital displays, which can be made flexible and used in both large-scale devices such as television screens and monitors as well as handheld electronics such as smartphones. OLED displays have gained popularity because they are lightweight, power-efficient, thin and flexible, and offer a wide viewing angle and high contrast ratio.

“OLED displays are usually produced in big, expensive, ultra-clean fabrication facilities,” said Michael McAlpine, a University of Minnesota Kuhrmeyer Family Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the senior author of the study. “We wanted to see if we could basically condense all of that down and print an OLED display on our table-top 3D printer, which was custom built and costs about the same as a Tesla Model S.”

The group had previously tried 3D printing OLED displays, but they struggled with the uniformity of the light-emitting layers. Other groups partially printed displays but also relied on spin-coating or thermal evaporation to deposit certain components and create functional devices.

In this new study, the University of Minnesota research team combined two different modes of printing to print the six device layers that resulted in a fully 3D-printed, flexible organic light-emitting diode display. The electrodes, interconnects, insulation, and encapsulation were all extrusion printed, while the active layers were spray printed using the same 3D printer at room temperature. The display prototype was about 1.5 inches on each side and had 64 pixels. Every pixel worked and displayed light.

“I thought I would get something, but maybe not a fully working display,” said Ruitao Su, the first author of the study and a 2020 University of Minnesota mechanical engineering Ph.D. graduate who is now a postdoctoral researcher at MIT. “But then it turns out all the pixels were working, and I can display the text I designed. My first reaction was ‘It is real!’ I was not able to sleep, the whole night.”

Su said the 3D-printed display was also flexible and could be packaged in an encapsulating material, which could make it useful for a wide variety of applications.

“The device exhibited a relatively stable emission over the 2,000 bending cycles, suggesting that fully 3D printed OLEDs can potentially be used for important applications in soft electronics and wearable devices,” Su said.

The researchers said the next steps are to 3D print OLED displays that are higher resolution with improved brightness.

“The nice part about our research is that the manufacturing is all built in, so we’re not talking 20 years out with some ‘pie in the sky’ vision,” McAlpine said. “This is something that we actually manufactured in the lab, and it is not hard to imagine that you could translate this to printing all kinds of displays ourselves at home or on the go within just a few years, on a small portable printer.”

In addition to McAlpine and Su, the research team included University of Minnesota mechanical engineering researchers Xia Ouyang, a postdoctoral researcher; Sung Hyun Park, who is now a senior researcher at Korea Institute of Industrial Technology; and Song Ih Ahn, who is now an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Pusan National University in Korea.

Video: https://youtu.be/k7KV_lOIp8o

The research was funded primarily by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health (Award No. 1DP2EB020537) with additional support from The Boeing Company and the Minnesota Discovery, Research, and InnoVation Economy (MnDRIVE) Initiative through the State of Minnesota. Portions of this study were conducted in the Minnesota Nano Center, which is supported by the National Science Foundation through the National Nano Coordinated Infrastructure Network (NNCI).

New research from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), however, finds that Nematostella’s growth, development, and feeding ability are drastically impacted by present levels of common pollutants found in one of its native habitats, the U.S. East Coast.

“The numbers of Nematostella in the wild have been dramatically decreasing over time,” said senior author Karen Echeverri, associate scientist in the MBL’s Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering. This study pinpoints factors that threaten the species, which is already under protection in the United Kingdom.

The MBL team focused on phthalates (plasticizers), chemicals that are widely used in plastic packaging and other consumer products that wash into the ocean; and potassium nitrate, which enters marshes through runoff from lawn fertilizers.

When Nematostella embryos were exposed to phthalate and nitrate concentrations commonly found in coastal environments (1-20 µM), they showed a gross decrease in body size two weeks after exposure. The animals also had fewer tentacles, and the tentacles that did grow were misshapen or uneven in length or number. In addition, the pollutant-exposed animals had a severely reduced number of stinging cells (cnidocytes), which they use as a defense mechanism and to capture food.

“At a certain point, the animals just die, because they can’t defend themselves or feed themselves properly,” said Echeverri.

Because Nematostella is sessile (stationary), it must constantly acclimate to environmental changes, such as temperature and salinity. “They have what we call adaptive plasticity; they are resilient to change,” Echeverri said. “But we think there is a limit to that resilience. And as you bring in more pollution, they reach that limit of resilience much faster.”

The study is unusual in that it integrates assessment of the pollutants’ impact on Nematostella’s microbiome. Led by MBL scientists Mitchell Sogin and Emil Ruff, the team sequenced the microbiomes of animals after 10 days of pollutant exposure.

“Certain classes of microbes became much more dominant after exposure,” said Echeverri. “How this affects the physiology of the animal, we don’t completely know yet.”

Shifts in the microbiome can serve as sentinels of change in the health of the host, as shown by prior studies in other animals, including corals and humans.

“A next step is to link changes in the Nematostella microbiome to changes in the animal’s development,” Echeverri said.

Other studies of the effects of phthalates on embryonic development in vertebrates, including frogs and zebrafish, identified defects in body growth similar to what was found in Nematostella. These include slower body growth and defects of cells in the ectodermal lineage (such as the cnidocytes). Impacts on the endocrine system and on fertility have also been documented in other species.

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Materials provided by Marine Biological Laboratory. Original written by Diana Kenney. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The study, “Bioenergy sorghum’s deep roots: A key to sustainable biomass production on annual cropland,” was recently published in GCB Bioenergy.

According to the research, bioenergy sorghum hybrids capture and sequester significant amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide in soil. The crop can improve soil fertility and potentially earn carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, the study shows that bioenergy sorghum’s unusually deep root system can reach sources of water and nutrients untapped by other annual crops. These results suggest the crop can help manage fertilizer runoff from other annuals in a crop rotation.

The senior investigator for the work is John Mullet, Ph.D., professor and Perry L. Adkisson Chair in Agricultural Biology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. A key collaborator is Bill Rooney, Ph.D., professor and Borlaug-Monsanto Chair for Plant Breeding and International Crop Improvement, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. Both are in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Bryan-College Station.

The U.S. Department of Energy Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy funded the project.

Texas A&M-bred annual bioenergy crop

Mullet is an expert in bioenergy crops’ genomics, genetics and gene regulatory networks. Rooney spearheaded the development of bioenergy sorghum hybrids over the past 20 years. For the past 15 years, Rooney and Mullet have collaborated to develop bioenergy sorghum.

In fact, Mullet and Rooney have been working to improve bioenergy sorghum varieties to produce an ideal annual bioenergy crop. The hybrid used in the recent study creates high yields of biomass for fuel, power and bioproduct generation. The crop also has excellent drought resilience, good nitrogen-use efficiency and a deep root system.

“There is an assumption that the most sustainable bioenergy crops are perennial because they require fewer inputs and can sequester more biomass than annuals,” Rooney said. “Those statements are true, but U.S. agriculture always requires annual cropping varieties and options as well.”

New benchmark for carbon credit modeling, soil fertility

The study shows that an acre planted with a bioenergy sorghum hybrid accumulates about 3.1 tons of dry root biomass over the crop’s 155-day growing season. Bioenergy sorghum roots also grew to over 6.5 feet deep over their growing season.

These new metrics make it easier to predict how much atmospheric carbon dioxide might be captured inside roots. The numbers can also shed light on how many carbon credits a planted field might earn.

“Frankly, the numbers are quite favorable,” Rooney said.

The numbers are also important for understanding the crop’s potential to improve soil fertility and water-holding capacity by replenishing soil organic carbon. However, previous research has shown that in the U.S., soil organic carbon levels have fallen by 50% over the past 100 years in land planted with annual crops.

This drop in soil carbon levels could be due to cropping practices, microbial activity and changing land use, Rooney said. These complex factors mean that predicting how long it might take to replenish lost carbon requires sophisticated modeling. The restoration process is likely to take many decades.

“For modeling, they need to have a realistic number to start with,” Rooney said. “We haven’t historically had enough info to do that, but this study provides a benchmark for scientists and policymakers.”

A need for further research

In this study, Rooney and his team managed the field trials and helped with phenotyping. Mullet and his team characterized the root system and the genes expressed within.

Over multiple years, the study considered in-depth how one bioenergy sorghum hybrid interacts with two soil types, Rooney said. He stresses the need to conduct further research.

“In this study, we didn’t sample the genetic diversity of bioenergy sorghum at all, except for one standard type,” Rooney said. “And looking at multiple environments and expanding the range of we are evaluating is essential.”

Bioenergy sorghum as part of a sustainable bioenergy production system

Modeling studies estimate that millions of acres of abandoned and marginal cropland in the U.S. are available for planting. Many of those acres are in the Gulf Coast region. The region is ideal for bioenergy sorghum production because of ample rainfall, long growing seasons and low competition with grain crops, Mullet said. Furthermore, the crop has improved over the years in terms of productivity, resilience and composition, thanks to Mullet’s and Rooney’s efforts.

“Recently, I’ve decided the most important thing we can do is continue research on bioenergy sorghum optimization, but also to help design and build biorefineries that will process materials from the crop in a way that’s optimal,” Mullet said.

Carbon captured in biofuels and bioproducts at biorefineries, and by bioenergy sorghum roots could generate carbon credits, potentially benefiting producers and industry.

Yet despite the Gulf Coast’s excellent potential for biofuels production, there are no bioenergy research centers and very few biorefineries in the region, Mullet said.

Therefore, Mullet is now working to attract industry and government funding to help build the next generation of biorefineries designed to use bioenergy sorghum biomass for the production of biofuels, bioproducts and biopower.

“The project has expanded to not just producing biofuels and bioproducts, but also directly capturing carbon and sequestering it,” he said.

Amanda Gaulke, assistant professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences, found that students who return to college and finish a bachelor’s degree earn on average $4,294 more immediately after graduation and experience an extra income growth of $1,121 per year, on average. The Economics of Education Review recently published the study.

“No matter how I looked at the data, those who returned and finished a bachelor’s degree see an economically meaningful increase in income after degree completion,” Gaulke said. “The average age at graduation for this sample is 27, so they certainly have a lot of working years left to experience improved labor market outcomes.”

While current economic literature mainly focuses on the traditional college student — those who graduate high school, go to college, earn a degree, and then start a career — Gaulke wanted to determine if returning to finish a bachelor’s degree resulted in improved economic outcomes compared to both those who never returned and those who returned to complete a bachelor’s degree but dropped out again.

“This information is important for people who are wondering if they should return to school,” Gaulke said. “When thinking in terms of weighing costs and benefits, it is important for those people to know that there are real economic benefits of going back and completing a bachelor’s degree.”

Gaulke’s study also shows students who re-enroll and earn a degree are significantly more likely to be employed, work more weeks and work more full-time weeks each quarter. Additionally, those students who return but do not complete a degree also realized slight income gains.

Ultimately, businesses and the U.S. economy also benefit from having a trained workforce.

“To maximize economic output, we have to use resources efficiently,” Gaulke said. “If employees are not as productive or skilled because they are unable to make well-informed decisions about re-enrolling and completing their bachelor’s degrees, this reduces worker productivity.”

Gaulke said another benefit of this study is that many institutions of higher education have concerns about enrollment numbers and are expanding their recruitment efforts beyond students coming straight from high school. Many private sector companies now offer services to help colleges and universities re-enroll students who left without completing their degrees. The results of this study suggest that colleges and universities that develop or implement policies to help students re-enroll and finish a bachelor’s degree can potentially improve enrollment numbers and also help improve economic outcomes for these students as well.

Individuals interested in returning to K-State to finish a degree can discover more information about the university’s admission process for returning students and apply online today.

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