Universitätsmedizin der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

UVB has utility in processes such as detoxifying pollutants and treating dermatological disorders, but it can only be produced by inefficient and environmentally harmful methods. Research teams have developed a new system using organic molecules to upconvert blue LED light to UVB. Moreover, the system does not use the heavy metals commonly used in such processes, leading the way for a more sustainable approach to UVB production. An international team of researchers from Japan and Germany has developed a new system that upconverts blue LED light into high-energy Ultraviolet B, or UVB, light. As the system does not require any of the toxic and inefficient materials that are traditionally used for UVB production, it opens the door for applications using UVB that are more sustainable and eco-friendly. The results were reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie. It is hard to avoid talk about ultraviolet light -- especially during the summertime. These high-energy rays produced by the sun are outside the visible light spectrum and a well-known culprit for suntans and sunburns. UV light is subdivided into three types depending on its wavelength: A, B, and C. UVA contains the long-wave UV light that reaches the surface of Earth, whereas shorter-wave UVB and UVC are mostly absorbed by the ozone layer. Nonetheless, scientists have found that artificially produced UVB and UVC are useful in applications such as disinfection. UVB specifically has been applied in processes including photochemical reactions, detoxification of pollutants, and wastewater treatment. It is even used in the medical field in treatments for skin disorders such as eczema and vitiligo. However, generating UVB currently requires sources such as mercury lamps, which are inefficient and toxic if improperly disposed. One way around this is to generate UVB by 'upconverting' the light produced by LEDs. Upconversion is a method in which a material absorbs two photons of light of lower energy and combines their energy to emit one photon of higher energy light. The method usually occurs using a series of organic materials. Over the years, two research teams in Japan and Germany, led by Nobuhiro Yanai of Kyushu University's Graduate School of Engineering and Christoph Kerzig of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, respectively, have been working on evaluating various compounds for upconverting blue light from LEDs into UV light. "Blue LED light's wavelength is the closest on the visible light spectrum to UV light. We've had success in converting longer wavelength blue LED light into shorter wavelength UVA. So, our next step was to find compounds that could convert blue LED light to UVB," explains Yanai. "With our collaborators at Mainz, we constructed candidate molecules and began screening their characteristics." The collaboration was a profound success to say the least. Not only were they able to develop molecules that upconverted blue LED light into UVB, they were able to avoid the use of heavy metals that are traditionally used in such processes. "Our investigations show evidence for a hitherto unreported blue-to-UVB upconversion that is also an avenue for safer and more sustainable production of UVB," concludes Yanai. "However, this first upconversion system is liquid-based and relies on several bimolecular reactions that hamper its stability and long-term usage. Moreover, the current rate of conversion is around 1%, naturally our next goal is to increase efficiency while developing reusable materials for versatile applications."

The remains of a huge carp fish mark the earliest signs of cooking by prehistoric human to 780,000 years ago, predating the available data by some 600,000 years, according to researchers. A remarkable scientific discovery has been made by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU), Tel Aviv University (TAU), and Bar-Ilan University (BIU), in collaboration with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Oranim Academic College, the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research (IOLR) institution, the Natural History Museum in London, and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. A close analysis of the remains of a carp-like fish found at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY) archaeological site in Israel shows that the fish were cooked roughly 780,000 years ago. Cooking is defined as the ability to process food by controlling the temperature at which it is heated and includes a wide range of methods. Until now, the earliest evidence of cooking dates to approximately 170,000 years ago. The question of when early man began using fire to cook food has been the subject of much scientific discussion for over a century. These findings shed new light on the matter and was published in Nature Ecology and Evolution. The study was led by a team of researchers: Dr. Irit Zohar, a researcher at TAU's Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and curator of the Beit Margolin Biological Collections at Oranim Academic College, and HU Professor Naama Goren-Inbar, director of the excavation site. The research team also included Dr. Marion Prevost at HU's Institute of Archaeology; Prof. Nira Alperson-Afil at BIU's Department for Israel Studies and Archaeology; Dr. Jens Najorka of the Natural History Museum in London; Dr. Guy Sisma-Ventura of the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute; Prof. Thomas Tütken of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and Prof. Israel Hershkovitz at TAU's Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Zohar and Dr. Prevost: "This study demonstrates the huge importance of fish in the life of prehistoric humans, for their diet and economic stability. Further, by studying the fish remains found at Gesher Benot Ya'aqob we were able to reconstruct, for the first time, the fish population of the ancient Hula Lake and to show that the lake held fish species that became extinct over time. These species included giant barbs (carp like fish) that reached up to 2 meters in length. The large quantity of fish remains found at the site proves their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques. These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for the sustenance of prehistoric man, but also illustrate prehistoric humans' ability to control fire in order to cook food, and their understanding the benefits of cooking fish before eating it." In the study, the researchers focused on pharyngeal teeth (used to grind up hard food such as shells) belonging to fish from the carp family. These teeth were found in large quantities at different archaeological strata at the site. By studying the structure of the crystals that form the teeth enamel (whose size increases through exposure to heat), the researchers were able to prove that the fish caught at the ancient Hula Lake, adjacent to the site, were exposed to temperatures suitable for cooking, and were not simply burned by a spontaneous fire. Until now, evidence of the use of fire for cooking had been limited to sites that came into use much later than the GBY site -- by some 600,000 years, and ones most are associated with the emergence of our own species, homo sapiens. Prof. Goren-Inbar added: "The fact that the cooking of fish is evident over such a long and unbroken period of settlement at the site indicates a continuous tradition of cooking food. This is another in a series of discoveries relating to the high cognitive capabilities of the Acheulian hunter-gatherers who were active in the ancient Hula Valley region. These groups were deeply familiar with their environment and the various resources it offered them. Further, it shows they had extensive knowledge of the life cycles of different plant and animal species. Gaining the skill required to cook food marks a significant evolutionary advance, as it provided an additional means for making optimal use of available food resources. It is even possible that cooking was not limited to fish, but also included various types of animals and plants." Prof. Hershkovitz and Dr. Zohar note that the transition from eating raw food to eating cooked food had dramatic implications for human development and behavior. Eating cooked food reduces the bodily energy required to break down and digest food, allowing other physical systems to develop. It also leads to changes in the structure of the human jaw and skull. This change freed humans from the daily, intensive work of searching for and digesting raw food, providing them free time in which to develop new social and behavioral systems. Some scientists view eating fish as a milestone in the quantum leap in human cognitive evolution, providing a central catalyst for the development of the human brain. They claim that eating fish is what made us human. Even today, it is widely known that the contents of fish flesh, such as omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iodine and more, contribute greatly to brain development. The research team believe that the location of freshwater areas, some of them in areas that have long since dried up and become arid deserts, determined the route of the migration of early man from Africa to the Levant and beyond. Not only did these habitats provide drinking water and attracted animals to the area but catching fish in shallow water is a relatively simple and safe task with a very high nutritional reward. The team posits that exploiting fish in freshwater habitats was the first step on prehistoric humans' route out of Africa. Early man began to eat fish around 2 million years ago but cooking fish -- as found in this study -- represented a real revolution in the Acheulian diet and is an important foundation for understanding the relationship between man, the environment, climate, and migration when attempting to reconstruct the history of early humans. It should be noted that evidence of the use of fire at the site -- the oldest such evidence in Eurasia -- was identified first by BIU's Prof. Nira Alperson-Afil. "The use of fire is a behavior that characterizes the entire continuum of settlement at the site," she explained. "This affected the spatial organization of the site and the activity conducted there, which revolved around fireplaces." Alperson-Afil's research of fire at the site was revolutionary for its time and showed that the use of fire began hundreds of thousands of years before previously thought. HU's Goren-Inbar added that the archaeological site of GBY documents a continuum of repeated settlement by groups of hunter-gatherers on the shores of the ancient Hula Lake which lasting tens of thousands of years. "These groups made use of the rich array of resources provided by the ancient Hula Valley and left behind a long settlement continuum with over 20 settlement strata," Goren-Inbar explained. The excavations at the site have uncovered the material culture of these ancient hominins, including flint, basalt, and limestone tools, as well as their food sources, which were characterized by a rich diversity of plant species from the lake and its shores (including fruit, nuts, and seeds) and by many species of land mammals, both medium-sized and large. Dr. Jens Najorka of the Natural History Museum in London explained: "In this study, we used geochemical methods to identify changes in the size of the tooth enamel crystals, as a result of exposure to different cooking temperatures. When they are burnt by fire, it is easy to identify the dramatic change in the size of the enamel crystals, but it is more difficult to identify the changes caused by cooking at temperatures between 200 and 500 degrees Celsius. The experiments I conducted with Dr. Zohar allowed us to identify the changes caused by cooking at low temperatures. We do not know exactly how the fish were cooked but given the lack of evidence of exposure to high temperatures, it is clear that they were not cooked directly in fire, and were not thrown into a fire as waste or as material for burning." Dr. Guy Sisma-Ventura of the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute and Prof. Thomas Tütken of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz were also part of the research group, providing analysis of the isotope composition of oxygen and carbon in the enamel of the fishes' teeth. "This study of isotopes is a real breakthrough, as it allowed us to reconstruct the hydrological conditions in this ancient lake throughout the seasons, and thus to determine that the fish were not a seasonal economic resource but were caught and eaten all year round. Thus, fish provided a constant source of nutrition that reduced the need for seasonal migration."

A study has shown that teaching children how to manage their attention and impulses in primary school has a positive long-term effect on their later educational success. A study by the universities of Zurich and Mainz has shown that teaching children how to manage their attention and impulses in primary school has a positive long-term effect on their later educational success. Self-regulation, i.e., the ability to manage attention, emotions and impulses, as well as to pursue individual goals with perseverance, is not a skill that we usually associate with young children. However, the school closures due to the pandemic and the increased usage of digital media by children have now shown how important these abilities are, especially for children. Studies show that people who demonstrated self-regulation as children go on to have on average higher income, better health and greater life satisfaction. They also show that the ability to exert self-regulation can already be trained in a targeted manner in childhood. How can the training of self-regulation skills be integrated into the standard elementary school day without taking up too much teaching time? Is it possible to teach young pupils an abstract self-regulation strategy in an appropriate way? Does teaching such skills have the potential to improve long-term educational success? Self-regulation improves even with short training units An international team from the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany) examined these questions. Using a randomized controlled study in elementary schools involving more than 500 first graders, the research team was able to show that even a short training unit led to a significant and sustainable improvement in self-regulation. The training did not just affect self-regulation abilities; the children had significantly improved reading ability and an improved focus on careless mistakes one year after the training, and were also considerably more likely to be admitted to a selective academic secondary school (Gymnasium) three years after the training. "Our study has shown how the training of this skill can be explicitly embedded in primary school teaching at an early stage. An increase in self-regulation enables children to take on more responsibility for their own learning and to set goals on their own and work toward them," says Ernst Fehr, professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich. According to the last author, children's comprehensive key skills that are of fundamental importance for good educational attainment and a successful later life can be improved thanks to the simple scalability of the program. Easily integrated into the regular timetable Due to concerns from previous practical experience, the study authors designed the training units in an extremely cost-effective and time-saving manner, in such a way that they could be introduced in any primary school setting: the training unit lasted only five hours, and teachers participated in a three-hour training session and received completely developed teaching materials which they could integrate directly into the regular class schedule. The training units were based on the MCII Strategy ("Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions"), which has already been the subject of excellent research studies in adults and older students. The teachers presented the abstract strategy in a playful manner using a picture book and the role model of a hurdle jumper. In a first step, the children imagined the positive effects of reaching a goal. They contrasted them with the obstacles that might face them on the way ("Mental Contrasting"). The children then identified specific behaviors to face the obstacles and develop "when-then" plans ("Implementation Intention"). Positive effect on society "The special feature of our study is the long-term ripple effects that this short training unit can have. These effects benefit the child, and they are transferred in many ways to society as a whole over the course of the child's life," says first author Daniel Schunk, professor of public and behavioral economics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. "The fact that early investments in such fundamental skills not only benefit the child alone, but also society, should be given more attention in education policy."