Science

April 24, 2019 - Associate Professor of Biology John Burt and his Marine Biology Laboratory Manager Grace Vaughan, along with Associate Professor of Mathematics Francesco Paparella and NYUAD Undergraduate Student Chenhau Zu have developed a cross-disciplinary collaboration to publish a paper entitled “Coral Bleaching in the Persian/Arabian Gulf Is Modulated by Summer Winds”. Paparella Francesco, Xu Chenhao, Vaughan Grace O., Burt John A. (2019). Frontiers in Marine Science. Vol. 6, Article 25, pp.1-15.

This paper uses several years of reef-based temperature logger data as well as hydrodynamic modeling to show that coral bleaching events in the southern Arabian Gulf are the direct results of weak wind conditions, and that non-bleaching years are due to the presence of occasional shamal wind events which cool sea temperatures through evaporative heart loss.

May 22, 2019: NYUAD Research Scientists Farah Benyettou and Thirumurugan Prakasam from the Trabolsi Research Group, led by NYUAD Associate Professor of Chemistry Ali Trabolsi, published a paper entitled, Potent and Selective in vitro and in vivo Antiproliferative Effects of Metal–Organic Trefoil Knots. Farah Benyettou, Thirumurugan Prakasam,  Anjana Ramdas Nair, Ini-Isabee Witzel, Marwa Alhashimi, Tina Skorjanc,  John-Carl Olsen, Kirsten C. Sadler and  Ali Trabolsi. (2019). Chem. Sci., Advance Article.

The researchers developed and studied the biological activity of five new, metal-organic hybrid knotted molecules, termed metal-organic trefoil knots (M-TKs). These molecules can effectively deliver metals to cancer cells, demonstrating the potential to act as a new category of anti-cancer agents. The findings reveal that these nanoscale, water-soluble M-TKs showed high potency in vitro against six cancer cell lines and in vivo in zebrafish embryos. Zebrafish-related studies were performed by NYUAD Postdoctoral Associate Anjana Ramdas Nair from the Sadler Lab.

April 24, 2019 - Associate Professor of Mathematics Francesco Paparella and NYUAD Undergraduate Student Chenhau Zu have developed a cross-disciplinary collaboration with Associate Professor of Biology John Burt and his Marine Biology Laboratory Manager Grace Vaughan to publish a paper entitled “Coral Bleaching in the Persian/Arabian Gulf Is Modulated by Summer Winds”. Paparella Francesco, Xu Chenhao, Vaughan Grace O., Burt John A. (2019). Frontiers in Marine Science. Vol. 6, Article 25, pp.1-15.

The manuscript shows that summer shamal winds play a crucial role in  modulating and mitigating coral bleaching. Thanks to in-situ data and a mathematical model, the results show that the evaporative cooling of shamal winds can easily exceed 300 watts/sq. m. The data reveals that bleaching years have coincided with unusually calm summer winds.

29 April, 2019: Assistant Professor of Physics David Russell and a group of collaborators co-authored a paper in the journal Nature, entitled A Rapidly Changing Jet Orientation in the Stellar-Mass Black-Hole System V404. Cygni. James C. A. Miller-Jones, Alexandra J. Tetarenko, Gregory R. Sivakoff, Matthew J. Middleton, Diego Altamirano, Gemma E. Anderson, Tomaso M. Belloni, Rob P. Fender, Peter G. Jonker, Elmar G. Körding, Hans A. Krimm, Dipankar Maitra, Sera Markoff, Simone Migliari, Kunal P. Mooley, Michael P. Rupen, David M. Russell, Thomas D. Russell, Craig L. Sarazin, Roberto Soria & Valeriu Tudose. (2019). Nature 569, 374–377.

24 April, 2019: Associate Professor of Physics Francesco Arneodo and a group of collaborators co-authored a paper entitled, Observation of Two-Neutrino Double Electron Capture in 124Xe with XENON1T. *Xenon Collaboration. (2019). Nature 568, 532–535.

Published in the journal Nature, the findings were also featured on the front cover.

May 2019: Assistant Professor of Psychology Jocelyn Bélanger, together with and Postdoctoral Associates Claudia Nisa and Birga Schumpe, published a paper entitled, "Parts Greater than their Sum: Randomized Controlled Trial Testing Partitioned Incentives to Increase Cancer Screening." Nisa, Claudia & Bélanger, Jocelyn & Schumpe, Birga. (2019). Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 10.2139/ssrn.3254985. 

This paper demonstrates that segregating a single patient incentive in two equivalent smaller gains increased cancer screening rates by 20% - a cost-free intervention that can save lives.