Enantioselective Crystallization of Sodium Chlorate in the Presence of Racemic Hydrophobic Amino Acids and Static Magnetic Fields

We study the bias induced by a weak (200 mT) external magnetic field on the preferred handedness of sodium chlorate crystals obtained by slow evaporation at ambient conditions of its saturated saline solution with 20 ppm of added racemic (dl) hydrophobic amino acids. By applying the Fisher test to pairs of experiments with opposing magnetic field orientation we conclude, with a confidence level of 99.7%, that at the water-air interface of this saline solution there is an enantioselective magnetic interaction that acts upon racemic mixtures of hydrophobic chiral amino acids. This interaction has been observed with the three tested racemic hydrophobic amino acids: dl-Phe, dl-Try and dl-Trp, at ambient conditions and in spite of the ubiquitous chiral organic contamination. This enantioselective magnetic dependence is not observed when there is only one handedness of added chiral amino-acid, if the added amino acid is not chiral or if there is no additive. This effect has been confirmed with a double blind test. This novel experimental observation may have implications for our view of plausible initial prebiotic scenarios and of the roles of the geomagnetic field in homochirality in the biosphere.This research was supported by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aerospacial (INTA) and by the grant AYA2006-15648-C02-02 of the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) and by the project grants AYA2011-25720 and AYA2012-38707 of MINECO (Spain).We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).Peer reviewe

No sólo la apertura define a los estudiantes con mayor potencial creativo

Introducción. La relevancia de estudiar los rasgos de personalidad en los estudiantes creativos dentro del ámbito educativo implica su identificación y posterior respuesta educativa adecuada a los diferentes perfiles creativos que manifiestan. Por tanto, el objetivo fue analizar la relación entre los rasgos de la personalidad y las habilidades creativas, así como profundizar en qué rasgos de personalidad son los que definen a los estudiantes con mayor potencial creativo en una muestra de adolescentes, basándonos en el modelo de los Cinco Grandes Factores de la personalidad (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Método. Participaron 178 estudiantes de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO) de la Región de Murcia (España), con edades entre los 12 y los 17 años (M = 14.59; DT = 1.40). De los cuales un 49.3% eran varones. Los instrumentos utilizados fueron: el TTCT (Torrance, 1974), para valorar la creatividad; y el BFQ-NA (Big Five Questionnaire de Personalidad para niños y adolescentes; Barbaranelli, Caprara y Rabasca, 1998) y NEO-FFI (Inventario de Personalidad NEO Revisado, versión reducida; Costa & McCrae, 2008), para los rasgos de personalidad. Para valorar las diferencias en personalidad realizamos tres grupos en función de su nivel de creatividad (alta, media y baja). Resultados.: Los datos sugieren que fueron tres los rasgos de la personalidad relacionados con las dimensiones creativas: la Extraversión, la Conciencia y la Apertura. Mientras que, las personas más creativas presentaron puntuaciones significativamente más elevadas en los siguientes rasgos de personalidad: Extraversión, Conciencia y Amabilidad. Discusión y conclusiones. A nivel general se observa cierta relación entre las habilidades creativas y los rasgos de personalidad. Concretante son la Extraversión, la Conciencia y la Apertura las dimensiones más relacionadas con la creatividad. De las cuales, la Extraversión y la Conciencia son las que definen en mayor medida un perfil creativo. Resultados en esta línea son los obtenidos por Chamorro-Premuzic y Reichenbacher (2008), Furnham (2015), y Szobiová (2006)

Prebiotic chemistry in neutral/reduced-alkaline gas-liquid interfaces.

Acknowledgements The authors used the research facilities of the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) and were supported by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial “Esteban Terradas” (INTA) and by the Spanish MINECO project ESP2014-55811-C2-2-P. M.R.M.-Y. was supported by a research training grant from INTA. C.M. and P.E. were fellows of “Plan de Formación” from INTA. M.-P.Z. and E.G.-T. acknowledge the Spanish MINECO projects CGL2014-55230-R and CGL2015-69758-P. Additionally, we are grateful to M.T. Fernández for the recording of the FT-IR spectra.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Pensamiento científico-creativo y rendimiento académico || Scientific-creative thinking and academic achievement

The aim of this work is to study the relationship between scientific-creative thinking construct and academic performance in a sample of adolescents. In addition, the scientific-creative thinking instrument’s reliability will be tested. The sample was composed of 98 students (aged between 12-16 years old) attending to a Secondary School in Murcia Region (Spain). The used instruments were: a) the Scientific-Creative Thinking Test designed by Hu and Adey (2002), which was adapted to the Spanish culture by the High Abilities research team at Murcia University. The test is composed of 7 task based in the Scientific Creative Structure Model. It assesses the dimensions fluency, flexibility and originality; b) The General and Factorial Intelligence Test (IGF/5r; Yuste, 2002), which assess the abilities of general intelligence and logic reasoning, verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning and spatial reasoning; c) Students’ academic achievement by domains (scientific-technological, social-linguistic and artistic) was collected. The results showed positive and statistical significant correlations between the scientific-creative tasks and academic achievement of different domains.El objetivo del trabajo es estudiar la relación del constructo de pensamiento científico-creativo con el rendimiento académico en una muestra de alumnos adolescentes. Además de ello, se analizará la fiabilidad de la prueba de pensamiento científico-creativo que se va a utilizar en el presente trabajo. En el estudio participaron 98 estudiantes (12-16 años) de un instituto de Educación Secundaria de la Región de Murcia (España). Los instrumentos utilizados fueron: a) el test de Pensamiento Científico-Creativo (Hu y Adey, 2002); adaptado en nuestro país por el Equipo de Altas Habilidades de la Universidad de Murcia. El test consta de 7 tareas que se fundamentan en el Modelo Estructural de la Creatividad Científica (SCSM, Scientific Creativity Structure Model; Hu y Adey, 2002); mediante este test se valoran las dimensiones de fluidez, flexibilidad y originalidad; b) el test de Inteligencia General y Factorial (IGF/5r; Yuste, 2002), que evalúa las habilidades de Inteligencia General y Factorial, razonamiento lógico, razonamiento verbal, razonamiento numérico y razonamiento espacial; y c) el rendimiento académico de los alumnos por ámbitos (científico-tecnológico, lingüístico-social y artístico). Los resultados mostraron relaciones positivas y estadísticamente significativas entre las tareas de la prueba de creatividad científica y el rendimiento académico en los diferentes ámbitos

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.140364

The fate of the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole in amended soils remains unclear, moreover in basic soils. This work aimed to assess the adsorption, leaching, and biodegradation of sulfamethoxazole in unamended and biochar from holm oak pruning (BC)- and green compost from urban pruning (CG)-amended basic soil. Adsorption properties of the organic amendments and soil were determined by adsorption isotherms of sulfamethoxazole. The leachability of this antibiotic from unamended (Soil) and BC- (Soil + BC) and GC- (Soil + GC) amended soil was determined by leaching columns using water as solvent up to 250 mL. Finally, Soil, Soil + BC, and Soil + GC were spiked with sulfamethoxazole and incubated for 42 days. The degradation rate and microbial activity were periodically monitored. Adsorption isotherms showed poor adsorption of sulfamethoxazole in unamended basic soil. BC and CG showed good adsorption capacity. Soil + BC and Soil + GC increased the sulfamethoxazole adsorption capacity of the soil. The low sulfamethoxazole adsorption of Soil produced quick and intense sulfamethoxazole leaching. Soil + BC reduced the sulfamethoxazole leaching, unlike to Soil + GC which enhanced it concerning Soil. The pH of adsorption isotherms and leachates indicate that the anion of sulfamethoxazole was the major specie in unamended and amended soil. CG enhanced the microbial activity of the soil and promoted the degradability of sulfamethoxazole. In contrast, the high adsorption and low biostimulation effect of BC in soil reduced the degradation of sulfamethoxazole. The half-life of sulfamethoxazole was 2.6, 6.9, and 11.9 days for Soil + GC, Soil, and Soil + BC, respectively. This work shows the benefits and risks of two organic amendments, BC and GC, for the environmental fate of sulfamethoxazole. The different nature of the organic carbon of the amendments was responsible for the different effects on the soilPDC 2021-120744-I0

Biopharmaceutical optimization in neglected diseases for paediatric patients by applying the provisional paediatric biopharmaceutical classification system

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146268/1/bcp13650.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146268/2/bcp13650_am.pd

Procesos Cognitivos de la Creatividad en Estudiantes Universitarios

One of the leading trends in the study of creativity refers to the cognitive processes used to solve tasks which require a great level of creativity or divergent thinking. The aim of this piece of research is to study the creative cognitive processes in a sample of university students, and analyse the type of processes used depending on the specific knowledge domain of their degree (technical areas, social studies, humanities and health domain). To do so a total of 236 students with different backgrounds took the Miller’s questionnaire on cognitive processes (Miller, 2009; 2013 forthcoming). The questionnaire is composed of 28 items aimed at ssessing the following processes: idea manipulation, perspective-taking, flow, analogical-me taphorical thinking, generation of ideas, and incubation. In this piece of research the participating 240 students come from different degrees done at Murcia and Cartagena Universities. The results show that there are statistical significant differences in the use of those processes depending on the students’ background. Those studying Infant Education score higher than their peers, whereas students of the Speech Therapy degree score significantly lower than their peers.Uno de los temas punteros en el estudio de la creatividad es el uso que hacen los estudiantes de sus procesos cognitivos cuando intentan resolver una tarea que exige grandes dosis de creatividad o pensamiento divergente. El objetivo del trabajo es estudiar los procesos cognitivocreativos de una muestra de estudiantes universitarios, con el fin de analizar el tipo de procesos o mecanismos que los estudiantes utilizan en función del dominio de conocimientos en la educación universitaria (ámbitos técnicos, sociales, humanidades y sanitarios). El instrumento utilizado es la Escala de Procesos Cognitivo-Creativos (Miller, 2009; 2013 en prensa). La escala consta de 28 ítems orientados a evaluar los siguientes procesos: manipulación de ideas; toma de perspectiva o manipulación de ideas; flujo de  ideas; pensamiento analógico-metafórico; generación de ideas e incubación de ideas. La muestra de participantes está formada por 240 alumnos de diferentes titulaciones de la Universidad de Murcia y de la Politécnica de Cartagena. Los resultados muestran diferencias estadísticamente significativas en el uso de los procesos creativos dependiendo de los conocimientos o dominios a los que pertenecen los estudiantes; siendo los del Grado de Educación Infantil, quienes obtienen  puntuaciones más altas que el resto de sus compañeros; mientras que los del Logopedia obtienen puntuaciones más bajas con respecto al resto de suscompañeros

Detecting Nonvolatile Life- and Nonlife-Derived Organics in a Carbonaceous Chondrite Analogue with a New Multiplex Immunoassay and Its Relevance for Planetary Exploration

Potential martian molecular targets include those supplied by meteoritic carbonaceous chondrites such as amino acids and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and true biomarkers stemming from any hypothetical martian biota (organic architectures that can be directly related to once-living organisms). Heat extraction and pyrolysis-based methods currently used in planetary exploration are highly aggressive and very often modify the target molecules, making their identification a cumbersome task. We have developed and validated a mild, nondestructive, multiplex inhibitory microarray immunoassay and demonstrated its implementation in the SOLID (Signs of Life Detector) instrument for simultaneous detection of several nonvolatile life- and nonlife-derived organic molecules relevant in planetary exploration and environmental monitoring. By utilizing a set of highly specific antibodies that recognize D- or L-aromatic amino acids (Phe, Tyr, Trp), benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), pentachlorophenol, and sulfone-containing aromatic compounds, respectively, the assay was validated in the SOLID instrument for the analysis of carbon-rich samples used as analogues of the organic material in carbonaceous chondrites or even Mars samples. Most of the antibodies enabled sensitivities at the 1–10 ppb level and some even at the part-per-trillion level. The multiplex immunoassay allowed the detection of B[a]P as well as aromatic sulfones in a water/methanol extract of an Early Cretaceous lignite sample (ca. 140 Ma) representing type IV kerogen. No L- or D-aromatic amino acids were detected, reflecting the advanced diagenetic stage and the fossil nature of the sample. The results demonstrate the ability of the liquid extraction by ultrasonication and the versatility of the multiplex inhibitory immunoassays in the SOLID instrument to discriminate between organic matter derived from life and nonlife processes, an essential step toward life detection outside EarthThis work was supported by granted projects AYA2011-24803, ESP2014-51989-P, and ESP2015-69540-R, from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) of Spain, and by Grant No. ST/N000803/1 (United Kingdom). A. G-C was a fellow of ‘‘Plan de Formación from INTA.Peer reviewe

How socio-emotional competences work on students with high abilitie

El objetivo del trabajo consiste en estudiar las competencias socioe mocionales en un grupo de talentos. En el estudio han participado 1237 estudiantes de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO); de los cuales 231 alumnos, un 8,3%, han sido identificados como talentos figurativos; un 2,7% como talentos académicos, y un 7,6% como talentos combinados (figurativos y académicos), de los cuales 145 son chicos (el 62,8%). El rango de edad está comprendido entre los 11 y los 17 años (M = 13,91; DT = 1,182). Todos ellos cursan sus estudios en distintos centros tanto públicos como concertados de España. La identificación se hizo de acuerdo a los criterios de Castelló y Batlle (1998). El instrumento utilizado para evaluar las competencias socioemocionales ha sido el Inventario de Inteligencia Emocional (Emotional Quotient Inventory EQ-i: Youth Version. EQ-i:YV, Bar-On y Parker, 2000). Es un autoinforme que consta de 60 ítems orientado a medir la IE de niños y adolescentes con edades comprendidas entre 7 y 18 años. Los datos señalan que los talentos figurativos manifiestan un alto manejo del estrés; mientras que los talentos combinados (académicos y figurativos) muestran elevadas competencias intraper sonales y de adaptabilidad.The aim of this paper is to study social-emotional competences of a group of talented students. For this purpose 1237 secondary school students have participated, in which 231 students a 8.3% were identified as figurative talents, a 2.7% as academical talents and a 7.6% as combined talents (figurative and academical), where 145 (62.6%) were boys. All of them are studying in different education centres in Spain both public and private. Identification was made according to the criteria developed by Castelló & Battle (1998). The students ages range from 11 to 17 years old (M = 13.91; DT = 1.182). The instrument used to measure social-emotional competences was the Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version, EQ-i:YV (Bar-On & Parker, 2000). The Bar-On EQ-i:YV is a 60-item self-report inventory which assesses emotional intelligence (EI) in youths aged from 7 to 18 years old. The results indicate that figurative talented students show a higher stress management; while the combinated talents (figurative and academical talent) show higher intrapersonal and adaptability competences