Batteries in older Nissan Leaf electric vehicles are getting a new life as portable power sources that can be used to run gadgets on the go or deliver emergency power in disasters

Alcohol addiction ruins millions of lives every year, but scientists may have found a cure for this terrible affliction. A new treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been trialled in monkeys with impressive results and, if these translate to human trials, the impact could be monumental. A team of neuroscientists and physiologists from across the US tested a new type of gene therapy to see if they could directly target the underlying brain circuitry associated with sustained heavy drinking. As they noted, in the journal Nature Medicine, people suffering from AUD commonly return to alcohol use even if they attempt to quit. This is largely to do with what’s known as mesolimbic dopamine (DA) signalling – meaning how the central nervous system circuit communicates the feelgood neurotransmitter dopamine. A protein called glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is key to keeping these neurons in this reward circuitry functioning. However, experts have found that levels of GDNF are reduced in people with AUD during periods of alcohol abstinence, most notably in a region of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), as IFLScience notes. Therefore, the researchers decided to test whether using gene therapy to deliver more GDNF to the VTA could help reinforce this crucial dopaminergic signalling and prevent patients from suffering an alcoholic relapse. The team of scientists explained how alcohol consumption in non-addicts prompts the release of dopamine, creating a pleasurable buzz feeling, but chronic alcohol use causes the brain to adapt and stop releasing so much dopamine. “So when people are addicted to alcohol, they don’t really feel more pleasure in drinking,” Dr Kathleen Grant, a senior co-author of the study, said in a statement. “It seems that they’re drinking more because they feel a need to maintain an intoxicated state.” For their research, Dr Grant and her colleagues used eight rhesus macaque monkeys, who were exposed to increasing concentrations of alcohol over four 30-day “induction” periods. The monkeys then had free access to alcohol and water for 21 hours a day for six months, during which they developed heavy drinking behaviours. This was then followed by a 12-week abstinence phase, with the GDNF treatment performed four weeks in for half of the subjects. The gene therapy was delivered using a a viral vector containing a copy of the human GDNF gene injected directly into the primate’s VTA, according to IFLScience. And the results were truly jaw-dropping. “Drinking went down to almost zero,” Dr Grant said. “For months on end, these animals would choose to drink water and just avoid drinking alcohol altogether. They decreased their drinking to the point that it was so low we didn’t record a blood-alcohol level.” The most exciting aspect of their findings is the suggestion that gene therapy could offer a permanent solution for people with the most severe cases of AUD. This will be a welcome glimmer of hope to many, given that some 29.5 million people were diagnosed with AUD in the US alone in 2021, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Of these 29.5 million sufferers, almost a million (894,000) were aged between 12 and 17. It’ll likely be some time before we know for sure whether the gene therapy can be rolled out in humans, but it’s an important first step in tackling this devastating disorder. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Scientists have built a breakthrough device that can clean dirty water and turn it into clean hydrogen fuel. The “simple” device could be used in areas without resources or places where people live off the grid. And it is just one example of the many solutions that will be required to respond to pollution and give people access to both clean fuel and water, the researchers behind it say. The system is inspired by photosynthesis, the process where plants turn light into food. But previous versions of those “artificial leaves” have required clean water sources – whereas the new device can be used with polluted water and even produce clean drinking water at the same time. As such, scientists believe that it could help solve two problems at once: making green fuel and cleaning water so that it is ready to drink. “Bringing together solar fuels production and water purification in a single device is tricky,” said Chanon Pornrungroj from the University of Cambridge, the paper’s co-lead author. “Solar-driven water splitting, where water molecules are broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, need to start with totally pure water because any contaminants can poison the catalyst or cause unwanted chemical side-reactions.” The system uses a carbon mesh to absorb light and heat, creating water favour that is then turned into hydrogen for fuel by a photocatalyst. That carbon mesh also repels water, so that the system can float and its important parts can be kept from being damaged by water. The device is also able to harness more of the Sun’s energy than previous examples, which have used only a small portion of the spectrum of light. The new system has a white layer on top to absorb UV rays, with the rest being used lower down to vaporise the water. “This way, we’re making better use of the light – we get the vapour for hydrogen production, and the rest is water vapour,” said Dr Pornrungroj. “This way, we’re truly mimicking a real leaf, since we’ve now been able to incorporate the process of transpiration.” The researchers behind the breakthrough noted that the system was simple to make, and was especially able to deal with very polluted water. As such, it could be a key way of working towards a sustainable future, they said – even though it is just a proof of concept for now. “The climate crisis and issues around pollution and health are closely related, and developing an approach that could help address both would be a game-changer for so many people,” said Cambridge’s Erwin Reisner, who led the work. The device is described in a new paper, ‘Hybrid photothermal-photocatalyst sheets for solar-driven overall water splitting coupled to water purification’, published in Nature Water today. Read More First carbon capture plant opens in the US to help avoid climate catastrophe Breakthrough solar system outperforms military-grade diesel generator Solar panel world record smashed with ‘miracle material’

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