Science

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/15471892

In our latest study we found that samples taken from mothers and newborn babies younger than one week in Nigeria already had colistin-resistant bacteria present in their bodies. But neither the babies nor their mothers had been treated with colistin.

Colistin is one of the last remaining antibiotics that is still effective in killing bacteria and fighting infections such as pneumonia. It is deemed critically important for human medicine by the World Health Organization.

We surmise that mothers may have picked up these colistin resistant bacteria from the environment. We cannot speculate on the specific mechanism. The babies, meanwhile, could have picked up the bacteria from the hospital, the community, or from their mothers. It’s not yet known if these colistin-resistant bacteria stay in the mothers or babies – but if they do this may increase their chances of acquiring future drug-resistant infections.

Pretty interesting find. (Not completely sure if this is the right community for this- let me know if you know where else it would be a good fit!)

UChicago Pritzker Molecular Engineering Prof. Y. Shirley Meng’s Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion has created the world’s first anode-free sodium solid-state battery.

With this research, the LESC – a collaboration between the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the University of California San Diego’s Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering – has brought the reality of inexpensive, fast-charging, high-capacity batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage closer than ever.

“Although there have been previous sodium, solid-state, and anode-free batteries, no one has been able to successfully combine these three ideas until now,” said UC San Diego PhD candidate Grayson Deysher, first author of a new paper outlining the team’s work.

The paper, published today in Nature Energy, demonstrates a new sodium battery architecture with stable cycling for several hundred cycles. By removing the anode and using inexpensive, abundant sodium instead of lithium, this new form of battery will be more affordable and environmentally friendly to produce. Through its innovative solid-state design, the battery also will be safe and powerful.

This work is both an advance in the science and a necessary step to fill the battery scaling gap needed to transition the world economy off of fossil fuels.

https://pme.uchicago.edu/news/uchicago-prof-shirley-mengs-laboratory-energy-storage-and-conversion-creates-worlds-first