The 10 Hottest Fields of Science Research

Scientific research is a large and sprawling endeavor, with thousands of laboratories around the world studying their own ultra-specialized piece of a much more significant whole. It’s the logical intersection of reductionist scientific heritage and centuries of technological advances: in order to advance our understanding of the world around us, we must pursue increasingly specific sub-disciplines, from retina neural computation to space plasma physics.
Which is why Thomson Reuters’ scene-scoping study on “100 Key Scientific Research Fronts” is a welcome report for science enthusiasts eager to stay updated on cutting-edge research but lacking the time to read every issue of Science or Nature cover-to-cover.
The report ranks research areas with a special sauce formula that first divides the entirety of scientific research into 8,000 categories that form the “Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators” database. Within each subdivision, a set of core papers is designated by frequent and clustered citations, identifying foundational scientific literature that earned a lot of shout outs in reports of subsequent discoveries. To find today’s hottest research fields, only core papers published between 2007-2012 were considered; the number of citations of those papers and their average publication date were compiled. As the report notes, “a research front with many core papers of recent vintage often indicates a fast-moving or hot specialty.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean these fields are the most important or the most beneficial to society – it just means scientists (and, by extension, groups funding the research) are getting pretty excited about what they’re learning. Here, we take a quick look at the hottest research front in each of ten thematic categories – the sharpest of the cutting edge.
Image: The effects of climate change and ocean acidification on ocean habitats is one of the most active fields of research. 

Impact of Climate Change on Food Crops
Climate change is happening, and while current disruptions may mostly involve higher air conditioning bills, the very basis of the planet’s food supply may ultimately be at risk. Plant scientists are hard at work developing drought-resistant crop strains and determining how biomes will shift.

Tectonic Evolution of the Southern Central Asian Orogenic Belt
The Central Asian Orogenic Belt – a mountainous 5.3 million square kilometer region that includes this region of Uzbekistan – is a twisted amalgamation of re-purposed continental crust, sedimentary rocks, scraped-off seafloor sediments, and igneous rock. Just how it formed, however, is a matter of continued debate, with one team proposing continental collisions and another championing accretion of seafloor sediments during plate subductions.

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation
In 2002, a French doctor replaced a patient’s heart valve not by surgically opening the chest cavity, but by catheter, requiring only a small incision. This new method has gained popularity in treating cases of faulty aortic valves, and has been approved for use in dozens of countries, including the United States. 

DNA Methylation Analysis and Missing Heritability
DNA, the dogma goes, is the code of life, determining everything from hair color to our susceptibility to diseases. But many traits passed down from generation to generation are untraceable in the genome – a source of “missing heritability”. What if our environment changed gene expression, not only in our lifetime, but also in our children’s? Some studies are suggesting that this is precisely the case, potentially due to the addition of a CH3 group (methylation) to certain genes. It’s a controversial field, but one that will continue to examine the most essential questions of what our genetic code really means. (Image credit: Flickr/Natmandu)

Ocean Acidification and Marine Ecosystems
Increased quantities of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are generating higher concentrations of carbonic acid in the oceans, lowering the pH and dissolving some organisms’ shells or skeletons. How exactly the enormously complicated oceanic ecosystem – which remains poorly characterized – will respond to the shifting chemical milieu remains an open question. Above, a coral reef in Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.

Enhanced Visible Light Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production
Hydrogen fuel cells have been “the next big thing” in energy for years, with proponents trumpeting their potential to drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. But producing the hydrogen has been a stumbling block. New materials – complex catalysts often involving metals such as cobalt, nickel, iron, or molybdenum – have helped scientists learn more about the molecular mechanisms of water-splitting hydrogen production. With continued progress, futuristic fantasy of sunlight-powered cars may be resuscitated.

Alkali Doped Iron Selenide Superconductors
Superconductivity allows electrical current transmission with no resistance or loss of signal. Traditionally, this near-magical state could only be attained at extremely low temperatures , permitting only limited applications, but researchers have been coaxing the temperature of superconductivity steadily upward. Over the last several years, iron-arsenic compounds have been replaced by iron-selenium devices, generating a lot of buzz in the physics community.

Galileon Cosmology
The universe is getting bigger, and it’s doing so at ever faster rates. One explanation is “dark energy,” but skeptics consider its invocation mildly unsatisfying; an alternative approach, they propose, is to modify our mathematical treatment of gravity’s effects at large distances. The use of a particular method – the galileon scalar field – allows for self-accelerating solutions, which may ultimately be able to reconcile one of the universe’s biggest mysteries.

High Energy Rechargeable Lithium Air Batteries
Lithium air batteries strip electrons from lithium and shuttle them to oxygen, using the resulting current to drive electrical devices. The use of air-based oxygen as an electron acceptor means you don’t need to store an oxidizer in the battery, allowing for high energy densities comparable to those of gasoline-powered engines. Above, IBM’s effort to produce a scalable lithium-air battery. (Image credit: IBM)

Urban Policy Mobilities and Global Governance Issues
Every week, more than one million people move from rural regions to cities. This massive shift – a relocation unlike anything in human history – represents a complete reconfiguration of how people interact with the planet. How governments respond, though security, infrastructure, or economic instruments, may well determine if the global urban future will more closely resemble dystopian shanty towns or gleaming metropolises that foster collaboration and increase societal efficiency. Above, a sea of skyscrapers in Shanghai.

Source : Weird.com

Early preschool bedtimes cut risk of obesity later on

Kids in bed by 8 p.m. have half the risk of those who turn in late

Sleeping healthy toddler (stock image). Bedtimes after 9 p.m. appeared to double the likelihood of obesity later in life, according to a new study.

Credit: © Kenishirotie / Fotolia

 

Preschoolers who are regularly tucked into bed by 8 p.m. are far less likely to become obese teenagers than young children who go to sleep later in the evening, new research has found.

Bedtimes after 9 p.m. appeared to double the likelihood of obesity later in life, according to a study from The Ohio State University College of Public Health.
"For parents, this reinforces the importance of establishing a bedtime routine," said Sarah Anderson, lead author and associate professor of epidemiology.
It also arms pediatricians with scientifically based advice for parents.
"It's something concrete that families can do to lower their child's risk and it's also likely to have positive benefits on behavior and on social, emotional and cognitive development," Anderson said.
Excess weight in children is a major health concern in the United States. Approximately 17 percent -- 12.7 million -- of children and adolescents are obese, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Obesity can set kids up for a lifelong struggle with weight and health complications that can accompany it, including diabetes and heart disease.
The new research, which appears in the The Journal of Pediatrics, used data from 977 children who were part of the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. That project followed healthy babies born at 10 U.S. sites in 1991.
Anderson and her co-authors divided preschool bedtimes into three categories: 8 p.m. or earlier, between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., and after 9 p.m. The children were about 4 ½ years old when their mothers reported their typical weekday bedtime.
The researchers linked preschoolers' bedtimes to obesity when the kids were teens, at an average age of 15.
They found a striking difference: Only 1 in 10 of the children with the earliest bedtimes were obese teens, compared to 16 percent of children with mid-range bedtimes and 23 percent of those who went to bed latest. Half the kids in the study fell into the middle category. A quarter had early bedtimes and another quarter went to bed late.
Because the emotional climate at home can influence routines such as bedtime, Anderson and her colleagues also examined interactions between mothers and their children during a videotaped playtime. Scientists call the measurement "maternal sensitivity" and it factors in maternal support, respect for the child's autonomy and lack of hostility.
Regardless of the quality of the maternal-child relationship, there was a strong link between bedtimes and obesity, the researchers found. But the children who went to bed latest and whose moms had the lowest sensitivity scores faced the highest obesity risk.
The researchers also found that later bedtimes were more common in children who were not white, whose moms had less education and who lived in lower-income households.
Previous research has established a relationship between short sleep duration and obesity. And one study found a correlation between late bedtimes and obesity risk five years later. This new bedtime study is the first to use data on obesity collected about a decade after the children were in preschool, Anderson said.
Her team's previous research has illustrated the importance of household routines for preschool-aged children and this builds on that work, she said.
Anderson said she and her co-authors focused on bedtimes because they have a greater impact on the duration of sleep than do wake times, over which parents have less control.
When parents and older siblings must get up and out the door early, that often means young children rise early as well.
Putting a child to bed early doesn't guarantee he or she will fall immediately into a deep sleep, Anderson said, but establishing a consistent bedtime routine makes it more likely that children will get the amount of sleep they need to be at their best, Anderson said.
Recommending early bedtimes for young children may help to prevent obesity, and pediatricians are in a position to talk with parents about the importance of sleep for children's overall health. Pediatricians can also help to address obstacles families may face, she said.
"It's important to recognize that having an early bedtime may be more challenging for some families than for others," Anderson said.
"Families have many competing demands and there are tradeoffs that get made. For example, if you work late, that can push bedtimes later in the evening."
The majority of young children are biologically pre-programmed to be ready to fall asleep well before 9 p.m., according to previous research.
The study doesn't answer questions about how sleep time intertwines with a variety of other factors that can contribute to weight gain in childhood, including physical activity and nutrition, Anderson said, and that remains an active area of research.

---

Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Ohio State University. The original item was written by Misti Crane. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Electrical brain stimulation enhances creativity

Creative thinking. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) was used to stimulate an area of the brain known to be associated with creativity.

Credit: © Sergey Nivens / Fotolia

University of North Carolina Health Care,

Safe levels of electrical stimulation can enhance your capacity to think more creatively, according to a new study by Georgetown researchers.

Georgetown psychology professor Adam Green and Dr. Peter Turkeltaub of Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) and MedStar National Rehabilitation Network, and a team of colleagues published the study yesterday online in Cerebral Cortex.
The team used Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to stimulate an area of the brain known to be associated with creativity in combination with giving test subjects verbal cues to think more creatively.
"We found that the individuals who were most able to ramp up activity in a region at the far front of the brain, called the frontopolar cortex, were the ones most able to ramp up the creativity of the connections they formed," Green explains. "Since ramping up activity in frontopolar cortex appeared to support a natural boost in creative thinking, we predicted that stimulating activity in this brain region would facilitate this boost, allowing people to reach higher creative heights."
Use of tDCS targeting frontopolar cortex in two creativity tasks allowed the test subjects to form more creative analogical connections between sets of words, and to generate more creative associations between words.
"This work is a departure from traditional research that treats creativity as a static trait," Green says. "Instead, we focused on creativity as a dynamic state that can change quickly within an individual when they 'put their thinking cap on.' "
"The findings of this study offer the new suggestion that giving individuals a "zap" of electrical stimulation can enhance the brain's natural thinking cap boost in creativity," he adds.
The researchers wrote that their results provide "novel evidence" that tDCS enhances the "conscious augmentation of creativity elicited by cognitive intervention, and extends the known boundaries of tDCS enhancement to analogical reasoning, a form of creative intelligence that is a powerful engine for innovation."
Turkletaub, a GUMC cognitive neurologist, hopes that one day doctors may be able to improve creative analogical reasoning using both cueing and tDCS to help people with brain disorders.
"People with speech and language difficulties often can't find or produce the words they need," he explains. "Enhancing creative analogical reasoning might allow them to find alternate ways of expressing their ideas using different words, gestures, or other approaches to convey a similar meaning."
Green and Turkeltaub say that although their results are promising, "it is important to be cautious about applications of tDCS."
They say that much remains unknown about exactly how tDCS affects brain function, and early reports of tDCS effects need further replication before researchers can further gauge how substantive these effects are.
"Any effort to use electric current for stimulating the brain outside the laboratory or clinic could be dangerous and should be strongly discouraged," Green cautioned.
This work was supported by awards from the National Science Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences via Georgetown Howard Universities Center for Clinical and Translational Science (KL2 TR000102) and Pymetrics.

Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Georgetown University Medical Center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Social robots: Programmable by everyone

LuxAI's robot with Aida Nazariklorram, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer, and Dr. Pouyan Ziafati, founder and CEO.

Credit: Image courtesy of Université du Luxembourg

Vanderbilt University,

The startup LuxAI was created following a research project at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) of the University of Luxembourg, funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) under its Proof of Concept scheme.

The business model of LuxAI is developing and constructing so-called social robots. Such robots can be used, for example, in the educational or health system, where they would support trainers and therapists in their work. The robots can be programmed to practice vocabulary with children or to make rehabilitation exercises with stroke patients.
The "AI" in LuxAI stands for Artificial Intelligence. "Robots that are supposed to interact with humans have to process a great deal of information very quickly, and adapt their behaviours according to the interaction," says the CEO of LuxAI, Dr. Pouyan Ziafati. Ziafati wrote his doctoral thesis on artificial intelligence and robotics at the SnT -- and founded LuxAI based on it. "Our robot is the first social robot to come out of Luxembourg," says Ziafati: "We have already run the prototype through practical tests. It received excellent scores for its social expressiveness, emotionality and ease of use."
The heart of every robot is its programming -- the software. LuxAI's social robot is based on a so-called Robot Agent Programming Language, which Ziafati designed for his doctorate and adapted to the needs of social robots. Such programming, however, is only accessible to IT experts. "Practitioners who want to teach a robot how to train stroke patients, for example, can't learn their way into it," says Ziafati. "They need an interface by which they can program the robot intuitively and naturally"
LuxAI in cooperation with the Autonomous Robot Lab of the Computer Science and Communications Research Unit (CSC) of the University of Luxembourg has developed this very interface. It is based on the same Android platform as is widespread on smartphones, and can make social robots suitable for the mass market, as Ziafati assures. "Non-IT-expert people have made the first tests with our robots. They were able to program the robots for their purpose within 20 minutes. Our software lets anyone do it." Ziafati sees possibilities for many fields of application: as learning support for autistic children, in schools, in the entertainment industry or in geriatric care.
"Social robots will never replace qualified personnel -- but they can support them, since they have unlimited time and can take over routine tasks," says Ziafati. LuxAI is now working with Fondation Autisme Luxembourg and three departments in the University of Luxembourg on developing applications for autism therapy and behavioural regulation, geriatric medicine and teaching foreign languages to children in kindergartens.

Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Université du Luxembourg. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Parents aiming too high can harm child's academic performance

Credit: tamilnadumandaram.com

Aspiration can help academic achievement only if it is realistic

American Psychological Association,

When parents have high hopes for their children's academic achievement, the children tend to do better in school, unless those hopes are unrealistic, in which case the children may not perform well in school, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

"Our research revealed both positive and negative aspects of parents' aspiration for their children's academic performance. Although parental aspiration can help improve children's academic performance, excessive parental aspiration can be poisonous," said lead author Kou Murayama, PhD, of the University of Reading. The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Murayama and his colleagues analyzed data from a longitudinal study from 2002 to 2007 of 3,530 secondary school students (49.7 percent female) and their parents in Bavaria, Germany. The study assessed student math achievement as well as parental aspiration (how much they want their child to earn a particular grade) and expectation (how much they believe their child can achieve a certain grade) on an annual basis.
They found that high parental aspiration led to increased academic achievement, but only when it did not overly exceed realistic expectation. When aspiration exceeded expectation, the children's achievement decreased proportionately.
To reinforce the results, the researchers attempted to replicate the main findings of the study using data from a two-year study of over 12,000 U.S. students and their parents. The results were similar to the German study and provided further evidence that parents' overly high aspirations are associated with worse academic performance by their kids.
Previous psychological research has found the association between aspiration and academic achievement, but this study highlights a caveat, said Murayama.
"Much of the previous literature conveyed a simple, straightforward message to parents -- aim high for your children and they will achieve more," said Murayama. In fact, getting parents to have higher hopes for their children has often been a goal of programs designed to improve academic performance in schools. This study suggests that the focus of such educational programs should not be on blindly increasing parental aspiration but on giving parents the information they need to develop realistic expectations.
"Unrealistically high aspiration may hinder academic performance. Simply raising aspiration cannot be an effective solution to improve success in education," he said.

Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by American Psychological Association. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Intelligence is in your DNA

Scientists predict academic achievement from DNA alone

 Scientists have used a new genetic scoring technique to predict academic achievement from DNA alone. This is the strongest prediction from DNA of a behavioral measure to date. 

Credit: © zinkevych / Fotolia

 

Scientists from King's College London have used a new genetic scoring technique to predict academic achievement from DNA alone. This is the strongest prediction from DNA of a behavioural measure to date.

The research shows that a genetic score comprising 20,000 DNA variants explains almost 10 per cent of the differences between children's educational attainment at the age of 16. DNA alone therefore provides a much better prediction of academic achievement than gender or even 'grit', a personality trait thought to measure perseverance and passion for long-term goals.
Published today in Molecular Psychiatry, these findings mark a 'tipping point' in predicting academic achievement and could help with identifying children who are at greater risk of having learning difficulties.
Previous research on twin studies has found that 60 per cent of differences between individuals' educational achievement are due to differences in DNA. Whilst this may seem far from the 10 per cent predicted in this study, the authors note that twin studies examine the sum total of all genetic effects, including common and rare variants, interactions between genes, and gene-environment interactions. Twin studies can therefore tell us the overall genetic influence on a trait in a population. Polygenic scores however estimate genetic influence from common variants only, which explains the discrepancy between these DNA-based studies and twin studies (10 per cent vs 60 per cent).
As human traits are so complex and influenced by thousands of gene variants of very small effect, it is useful to consider the joint effects of all of these trait-associated variants -- and this principle underlies the polygenic score method. The value of polygenic scores is that they allow us to estimate genetic effects for academic achievement, or any other trait, at an individual level, based on a person's DNA.
Calculating an individual's polygenic score requires information from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) that finds specific genetic variants linked to particular traits, in this case academic achievement. Some of these genetic variants, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), are more strongly associated with the trait, and some are less strongly associated. In a polygenic score, the effects of these SNPs are weighed by the strength of association and then summed to a score, so that people with many SNPs related to academic achievement will have a higher polygenic score and higher academic achievement, whereas people with fewer associated SNPs will have a lower score and lower levels of academic achievement.
This new King's research is based on a recent GWAS that examined almost 10 million SNPs and identified 74 genetic variants that were significantly associated with years of completed education. 'Years of education' was used as a proxy measure for education achievement and related traits.
Using the GWAS to guide their selection of DNA variants, the researchers measured academic achievement in Mathematics and English at ages 7, 12 and 16 (GCSE), in a sample of 5,825 unrelated individuals from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS).
Their findings show that what makes students achieve differently in their educational achievement is strongly affected by DNA differences; on average those with a higher polygenic score would obtain a grade between A and B, whereas those with a lower score obtained an entire grade below in terms of GCSE scores at age 16. As well as this, 65 per cent of people in the higher polygenic group went on to do A-levels, whereas only 35 per cent from the lower group did so.
Saskia Selzam, first author from the MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) Centre at King's College London, said: 'We believe that, very soon, polygenic scores will be used to identify individuals who are at greater risk of having learning difficulties.
'Through polygenic scoring, we found that almost 10 per cent of the differences between children's achievement is due to DNA alone. 10 per cent is a long way from 100 per cent but it is a lot better than we usually do in predicting behaviour. For instance, when we think about differences between boys and girls in maths, gender explains around one per cent of the variance. Another example is 'grit', which describes the perseverance of an individual, and only predicts around five per cent of the variance in educational achievement.'
Professor Robert Plomin, senior author of the study, also from the MRC SGDP Centre at King's College London, added: 'We are at a tipping point for predicting individuals' educational strengths and weaknesses from their DNA.
'Polygenic scores could be used to give us information about whether a child may develop learning problems later on, and these details could guide additional support that is tailored to a child's individual needs. We believe personalised support of this nature could help to prevent later developmental difficulties.'
The Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) is supported by a programme grant from the Medical Research Council.

Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by King's College London. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Ancient rocks reveal how Earth recovered from mass extinction

Analysis of rocks unearthed in Oman that were formed in an ancient ocean around the time of Earth's greatest mass extinction have helped explain why life on Earth took so long to recover.

Credit: D. Astratti

University of Exeter,

Scientists have shed light on why life on Earth took millions of years to recover from the greatest mass extinction of all time.

The study provides fresh insight into how Earth's oceans became starved of oxygen in the wake of the event 252 million years ago, delaying the recovery of life by five million years.
Findings from the study are helping scientists to better understand how environmental change can have disastrous consequences for life on Earth.
The Permian-Triassic Boundary extinction wiped out more than 90 per cent of marine life and around two thirds of animals living on land. During the recovery period, Earth's oceans became starved of oxygen -- conditions known as anoxia.
Previous research suggested the mass extinction and delayed recovery were linked to the presence of anoxic waters that also contained high levels of harmful compounds known as sulphides.
However, researchers say anoxic conditions at the time were more complex, and that this toxic, sulphide-rich state was not present throughout all the world's oceans.
The team, led by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, used precise chemical techniques to analyse rocks unearthed in Oman that were formed in an ancient ocean around the time of the extinction.
Data from six sampling sites, spanning shallow regions to the deeper ocean, reveal that while the water was lacking in oxygen, toxic sulphide was not present. Instead, the waters were rich in iron.
The finding suggests that iron-rich, low oxygen waters were a major cause of the delayed recovery of marine life following the mass extinction.
The study also shows how oxygen levels varied at different depths in the ocean. While low oxygen levels were present at some depths and restricted the recovery of marine life, shallower waters contained oxygen for short periods, briefly supporting diverse forms of life.
The precise cause of the long recovery period remains unclear, but increased run-off from erosion of rocks on land -- caused by high global temperatures -- likely triggered anoxic conditions in the oceans, researchers say.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the International Centre for Carbonate Reservoirs. The work is a contribution to the UNESCO International Geoscience Programme. It was carried out in collaboration with the Universities of Leeds, Gratz, Bremen and Vienna University.
Dr Matthew Clarkson, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: "We knew that lack of oxygen in the oceans played a key role in the extinction and recovery processes, but we are still discovering how exactly it was involved. Our findings about the chemistry of the ocean at the time provide us with a clearer picture of how this complex process delayed the recovery of life for so long."
Professor Simon Poulton, of the University of Leeds, who co-authored the study, said: "The neat point about this study is that it shows just how critical an absence of oxygen, rather than the presence of toxic sulphide, was to the survival of animal life. We found that marine organisms were able to rapidly recolonise areas where oxygen became available."

 Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Edinburgh. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.