Lithium-Metal Battery Outlasts Lithium-Ion

Scientists find solution to the sudden death common to these batteries

From: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

By Tom Rickey, PNNL

June 28, 2021 – RICHLAND, Wash.— Researchers have increased the lifetime of a promising electric vehicle battery to a record level, an important step toward the goal of lighter, less expensive and long-lasting batteries for future electric vehicles. The work is reported June 28 in the journal Nature Energy.

Such batteries—the goal of research groups the world over—are seen as an important part of the solution to reduce the effects of climate change, and scientists are exploring a dizzying array of options.

One solution on the horizon is a lithium-metal battery for electric vehicles. These batteries hold almost twice the energy of their widely used lithium-ion counterparts, and they’re lighter. That combination offers the enticing prospect of an electric vehicle that would be lighter and go much farther on a single charge. But lithium-metal batteries in the laboratory have been plagued by premature death, lasting only a fraction of the time of today’s lithium-ion batteries.

Now, a team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has created a lithium-metal battery that lasts for 600 cycles, far longer than other reported results. That means it can be fully charged and discharged 600 times before it dies.

It’s a big step forward for a promising technology, but lithium-metal technology is not yet ready for prime time. While the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles today hold less energy, they last longer, typically at least 1,000 cycles. But vehicles won’t go as far on one charge as they would with an effective lithium-metal battery.

The new research was done through DOE’s Innovation Center for Battery500 Consortium, a multi-institution effort led by PNNL to develop electric vehicle batteries that are lighter, more energy intensive and less expensive than those currently used. PNNL leads the consortium and is responsible for integrating the latest advances from partner institutions into devices known as high-energy pouch cells and demonstrating improved performance under realistic conditions.

Lithium metal: thin strips of lithium translate to longer lifetime

The PNNL team found a way to increase the battery’s lifetime by taking a surprising approach. Instead of using anodes with more lithium, the team used incredibly thin strips of lithium, just 20 microns wide, far thinner than the width of a human hair.

“Many people have thought that thicker lithium would enable the battery to cycle longer,” said Jie Xiao, who along with Jun Liu, the director of the Battery500 Consortium, is a corresponding author of the paper. “But that is not always true. There is an optimized thickness for each lithium-metal battery depending on its cell energy and design.”

The lithium-metal battery created by the Battery500 team has an energy density of 350 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg)—very high but not unprecedented. The value of the new findings has more to do with the battery’s lifetime. After 600 cycles, the battery retained 76 percent of its initial capacity.

Just four years ago, an experimental lithium-metal battery could operate for 50 cycles. That has increased rapidly; two years ago the PNNL team achieved 200 cycles—and now 600. Moreover, the PNNL battery is a pouch cell, which more closely mirrors real-world conditions than does a coin cell, a less realistic type of device used in many battery research projects.

Lithium metal: why thickness matters

The team’s decision to try thinner lithium strips was based on its detailed understanding of the molecular dynamics of the anode as explained in the Nature Energy paper.

The scientists found that thicker strips contribute directly to battery failure. That’s due to complex reactions around a film on the anode known as the solid electrolyte interphase, or SEI. The SEI is the byproduct of side reactions between lithium and the electrolyte. It acts as an important gatekeeper that allows certain molecules to go from the anode to the electrolyte and back again while keeping other molecules at bay.

It’s an important job. An SEI working effectively allows certain lithium ions to pass through but limits unwanted chemical reactions that reduce battery performance and accelerate cell failure. A primary goal for researchers has been to reduce unwanted side reactions between the electrolyte and the lithium metal—to encourage vital chemical reactions while restraining unwanted ones.

The team found that thinner lithium strips are adept at creating what one might call good SEI, while the thicker strips have a higher chance of contributing to what one might call harmful SEI. In their paper, the researchers use the terms “wet SEI” and “dry SEI.” The wet version retains contact between the liquid electrolyte and the anode, making important electrochemical reactions possible.

But in the dry version, the liquid electrolyte doesn’t reach all of the lithium. Simply, because the lithium strips are thicker, the electrolyte needs to flow into deeper pockets of the lithium, and as it does so, it leaves other portions of the lithium dry. This stops important reactions from occurring, effectively smothering necessary electrochemical reactions, and contributes directly to the early death of the battery.

It’s an important issue, especially in realistic batteries like pouch cells, where the amount of electrolyte available is 20 to 30 times less than that used in experimental coin cells.

Consider how a frying pan gradually builds up a layer of grease if not cleaned thoroughly after each time it is used. Over time, the layer builds up and acts as a barrier, reducing the flow of energy and making the surface less effective. In the same way, an unwanted, dry SEI layer prevents the effective transfer of energy needed inside a battery.

Progress thanks to Battery500

The progress on lithium-metal batteries has been substantial, thanks to the Battery500 Consortium. The goal is to increase the amount of energy packed into a long-duration, safe, affordable battery. More energy per pound of material translates to a lighter vehicle that can go farther on one charge. Today’s electric vehicle batteries are in the neighborhood of 200-250 Wh/kg; Battery500 is aiming for a cell level of 500 Wh/kg.

“The Battery500 Consortium has made great progress in increasing the energy density and extending the cycle life,” said Distinguished Professor M. Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University, the 2019 Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry and a coauthor of the paper. “But much more needs to be done. In particular, there are safety issues with lithium-metal batteries that must be addressed. That’s something that the Battery500 team is working hard to resolve.”

The work was funded by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office. Much of the microscopy to evaluate the battery was done at EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science user facility located at PNNL.

In addition to Liu, Xiao and Whittingham, authors include PNNL scientists Chaojiang Niu, Dianying Liu, Joshua Lochala, Cassidy Anderson, Xia Cao, Mark Gross, Wu Xu and Ji-Guang (Jason) Zhang. Xiao and Liu also have appointments at the University of Washington.

      Longer-Lived Lithium-Metal Battery Marks Step Forward for Electric Vehicles | PNNL

New Path to Artificial Intelligence Discoveries

Nanowire network is trained to solve a simple problem by mimicking neural pathways

From:  University of Sydney

June 29, 2021 -- Some neuroscience theories suggest the human brain operates best 'at the edge of chaos'. Now scientists have found that keeping a nanowire network at the edge of becoming chaotic is the best state for it to produce useful signals to solve problems.

Scientists at the University of Sydney and Japan's National Institute for Material Science (NIMS) have discovered that an artificial network of nanowires can be tuned to respond in a brain-like way when electrically stimulated.

The international team, led by Joel Hochstetter with Professor Zdenka Kuncic and Professor Tomonobu Nakayama, found that by keeping the network of nanowires in a brain-like state "at the edge of chaos," it performed tasks at an optimal level.

This, they say, suggests the underlying nature of neural intelligence is physical, and their discovery opens an exciting avenue for the development of artificial intelligence.

The study is published today in Nature Communications.

"We used wires 10 micrometres long and no thicker than 500 nanometres arranged randomly on a two-dimensional plane," said lead author Joel Hochstetter, a doctoral candidate in the University of Sydney Nano Institute and School of Physics.

"Where the wires overlap, they form an electrochemical junction, like the synapses between neurons," he said. "We found that electrical signals put through this network automatically find the best route for transmitting information. And this architecture allows the network to 'remember' previous pathways through the system."

ON THE EDGE OF CHAOS

Using simulations, the research team tested the random nanowire network to see how to make it best perform to solve simple tasks.

If the signal stimulating the network was too low, then the pathways were too predictable and orderly and did not produce complex enough outputs to be useful. If the electrical signal overwhelmed the network, the output was completely chaotic and useless for problem solving.

The optimal signal for producing a useful output was at the edge of this chaotic state.

"Some theories in neuroscience suggest the human mind could operate at this edge of chaos, or what is called the critical state," said Professor Kuncic from the University of Sydney. "Some neuroscientists think it is in this state where we achieve maximal brain performance."

Professor Kuncic is Mr Hochstetter's PhD adviser and is currently a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California in Los Angeles, working at the intersection between nanoscience and artificial intelligence.

She said: "What's so exciting about this result is that it suggests that these types of nanowire networks can be tuned into regimes with diverse, brain-like collective dynamics, which can be leveraged to optimise information processing."

OVERCOMING COMPUTER DUALITY

In the nanowire network the junctions between the wires allow the system to incorporate memory and operations into a single system. This is unlike standard computers, which separate memory (RAM) and operations (CPUs).

"These junctions act like computer transistors but with the additional property of remembering that signals have travelled that pathway before. As such, they are called 'memristors'," Mr Hochstetter said.

This memory takes a physical form, where the junctions at the crossing points between nanowires act like switches, whose behaviour depends on historic response to electrical signals. When signals are applied across these junctions, tiny silver filaments grow activating the junctions by allowing current to flow through.

"This creates a memory network within the random system of nanowires," he said.

Mr Hochstetter and his team built a simulation of the physical network to show how it could be trained to solve very simple tasks.

"For this study we trained the network to transform a simple waveform into more complex types of waveforms," Mr Hochstetter said.

In the simulation they adjusted the amplitude and frequency of the electrical signal to see where the best performance occurred.

"We found that if you push the signal too slowly the network just does the same thing over and over without learning and developing. If we pushed it too hard and fast, the network becomes erratic and unpredictable," he said.

The University of Sydney researchers are working closely with collaborators at the International Center for Materials Nanoarchictectonics at NIMS in Japan and UCLA where Professor Kuncic is a visiting Fulbright Scholar. The nanowire systems were developed at NIMS and UCLA and Mr Hochstetter developed the analysis, working with co-authors and fellow doctoral students, Ruomin Zhu and Alon Loeffler.

REDUCING ENERGY CONSUMPTION

Professor Kuncic said that uniting memory and operations has huge practical advantages for the future development of artificial intelligence.

"Algorithms needed to train the network to know which junction should be accorded the appropriate 'load' or weight of information chew up a lot of power," she said.

"The systems we are developing do away with the need for such algorithms. We just allow the network to develop its own weighting, meaning we only need to worry about signal in and signal out, a framework known as 'reservoir computing'. The network weights are self-adaptive, potentially freeing up large amounts of energy."

This, she said, means any future artificial intelligence systems using such networks would have much lower energy footprints.

                    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210629101157.htm

Character Actor and Comedian Foster Brooks

Foster Brooks (May 11, 1912 – December 20, 2001) was an American actor and comedian best known for his portrayal of a lovable drunk in nightclub performances and television programs.

Early Life and Varied Career

Brooks was born in Louisville, Kentucky on May 11, 1912 to Edna (née Megowan) and Pleasant M. Brooks. He had seven brothers.  His career started in radio, notably with station WHAS (AM) in Louisville. He was a staff announcer, and his deep baritone voice was also well-suited for singing. Brooks gained fame for his reporting of the Ohio River flood of 1937, where he was featured on emergency broadcasts by WHAS and also WSM (AM) from Nashville, Tennessee. In 1952, Brooks appeared on local TV in a short-lived spoof of Gene Autry and his "Singing Cowboys".

He later worked in local broadcasting as a radio and TV personality in Buffalo and Rochester, New York, before moving to the West Coast to launch a career as a stand-up comic and character actor.  In Buffalo, Brooks performed with a country and western vocal group known as the Hi-Hatters.

In 1960, Brooks moved with his family to Los Angeles to seek more professional opportunities. During this time, he appeared on the television comedies The Munsters, The Monkees and Bewitched.  Brooks also delivered Christmas mail and phone books, and managed an apartment building in North Hollywood.  In addition, he worked as a security guard for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.

On the syndicated Steve Allen Show of the 1960s, Allen introduced Brooks as an important movie producer. Brooks stumbled on stage doing his drunk act, fooling some of the other guests. Brooks claimed to be the executive in charge of editing movies for television. His biggest success, he said, was the famous movie The Three Commandments. His character also claimed to have invented the concept of removing clips from the movies and inserting commercials.

In 1969, game show icon and television personality Dennis James took his friend Brooks to a North Carolina charity golf tournament to tell some jokes, and then introduced Brooks to good friend, singer Perry Como, who in turn gave the comedian his major break. Como chose Brooks to open for him at a Las Vegas hotel. When the hotel's owners balked at Como's choice due to Brooks' age and lack of fame, Como insisted and the owners acquiesced. Brooks was an instant hit. He made his first appearance soon thereafter on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Comedy Career

Brooks regularly appeared on The Dean Martin Show television program in the 1970s (for which he garnered an Emmy Award nomination in 1974) as well as many situation comedies, talk shows (including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson), and a few films.

His signature routine was the basis of a hit comedy album titled Foster Brooks, The Lovable Lush (later retitled Los Angeles Earthquake), released in the early 1970s. As his "Lovable Lush" character, Brooks usually portrayed a conventioneer who had had a few too many drinks — not falling-down drunk, but inebriated enough to mix up his words and burp to comedic delight. Brooks is best remembered for his appearances on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast during the 1970s, where he roasted other comedians, such as Don Rickles, Johnny Carson and Lucille Ball, and serious public figures such as writer Truman Capote, consumer activist Ralph Nader, and former vice-president Hubert Humphrey.

Brooks drew upon his own battles with alcohol for his act. During his period of greatest fame, Brooks rarely drank.  Of giving up drinking to win a bet in 1964, Brooks said, "A fellow made me a $10 bet I couldn't quit, and I haven't had a drink since. At the time I needed the $10."

He would occasionally make cameo appearances in which his character was perfectly sober, such as his appearance in a 1968 episode of Adam-12 playing a strait-laced citizen who tries to get out of a parking ticket by dropping the name of an officer senior to the main characters. He also played the character Harry Sachs in a 1969 episode of Adam-12 in which he performed as a highly intoxicated man standing in the middle of a street, waving his suit jacket at oncoming traffic, as if he were a bullfighter.  In a later Adam-12 episode, he plays a stoned man, stopped for erratic driving, who tries to hide the burning marijuana "joint" in his suit's front pocket. In a more serious Adam-12 appearance, he portrayed a drunken driver who killed another driver in an accident on Christmas Eve.

On the comedy series Green Acres in the 1969 episode "Economy Flight to Washington", Brooks' boozy, bobble-headed character meets and befriends the pig Arnold Ziffel in a hotel bar. In the scene, ostensibly through the haze of alcohol, Brooks mistakes the anthropomorphic pig for a U.S. Air Force lieutenant, since the animal is sitting on a bar stool and is wearing a white leather aviator's cap, goggles, and a red scarf. Brooks acted again on Green Acres in 1969, this time giving a "sober" performance as Charlie Williams, a chemist, in the episode "The Milk Maker." The following year he returned to his whiskey-soaked persona on the television western The High Chaparral.  Brooks asked Dean Martin to join his group "Alcoholics Unanimous", a play on Alcoholics Anonymous.  He boasted he and Martin were charter members of the DUI (Driving Under the Influence) Hall of Fame.

In the 1970s, Brooks appeared as a celebrity panelist on the game shows Hollywood Squares and Match Game, and in 1979, he appeared in the film The Villain as a bank clerk.

Public sensibilities had changed regarding alcoholics and public drunkenness by the 1980s, so Brooks moved away from his drunken character. In 1983, Brooks appeared in the film Cannonball Run II with comedians Louis Nye and Sid Caesar as fishermen in a rowboat.  He had a recurring role as Mr. Sternhagen, Mindy's boss on Mork & Mindy. His name was a moniker on a Louisville celebrity golf tournament benefiting Kosair Charities.  Brooks was a Shriner and member of the Al Malaikah Shriners, Los Angeles.  He also made occasional guest appearances on TV shows in which he would demonstrate his singing voice.

Brooks' last performance was at a celebrity roast in Las Vegas for Zsa Zsa Gabor.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_Brooks

Hong Kong Newspaper "Apple Daily" Closes

Apple Daily (Chinese: 蘋果日報) was a tabloid-style newspaper published in Hong Kong from 1995 to 2021. Founded in 1995 by Jimmy Lai, it was one of the best-selling Chinese language newspapers in Hong Kong.  Along with entertainment magazine Next Magazine, Apple Daily was part of Next Digital.  The paper published print and digital editions in Traditional Chinese, as well as a digital-only English edition. A sister publication of the same name is published online in Taiwan under a joint venture between Next Digital and other Taiwanese companies.

In a Reuters Institute poll conducted in January 2019, the Apple Daily newspaper and its news website were the second most used in Hong Kong.  The survey showed it was the third least trusted major source of news in the same year.  However, according to a survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Apple Daily was the third most trusted paid newspaper in 2019.

The reporting and editorials of Apple Daily have been described as favoring the Hong Kong pro-democracy camp and critical of the Chinese government.  On the other hand, it was accused of spreading Sinophobia.  As a result of its editorial position, it was subject to advertising boycotts and political pressure. After the controversial Hong Kong national security law was enacted, its headquarters faced a police raid on 10 August 2020, which was condemned worldwide.

In June 2021, the government of Carrie Lam forced the closure of the journal in Hong Kong by conducting a high-profile raid and the arrest of company executives on 17 June 2021; and the asset freeze order issued by the Secretary of Security Bureau John Lee for allegedly violating the national security law.  The paper was unable to continue operational existence due to the freezing of the local bank accounts of the journal as well as the personal accounts of proprietor Jimmy Lai.  The final print edition was published on 24 June, and Apple Daily thus ceased operations.  The YouTube channel of "Apple Daily" and its supplement "Fruit Seed" had ceased service at 23:59 on 23 June 2021. The Taiwanese version of the website remains online as of 24 June 2021.  However, the Taiwanese print edition did not outlive its Hong Kong counterpart, having ceased publishing on 18 May due to financial troubles in the Taiwanese branch unrelated to the situation in Hong Kong.

2021 Arrests and Closure

On 17 June 2021, Hong Kong Police raided Apple Daily's headquarters again, this time bringing 500 officers and arresting CEO Cheung Kim-hung, COO Royston Chow, Chief Editor Ryan Law, Associate Publisher Chan Pui-man and Platform Director of Apple Daily Digital Cheung Chi-wai, charging them with violating Article 29 of the national security law by "collu[ding] with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security".  Apple Daily warned that press freedom in Hong Kong was "hanging by a thread."

The raid and arrests were criticized by the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom, as well as the United Nations' human rights spokesperson.  The criticism that the national security law was being used to suppress press freedom has been rejected by China who insisted that "the cases have nothing to do with press freedom" and that external forces should "stop undermining Hong Kong's rule of law on the pretext of press freedom".  Supporters in Hong Kong showed support for the newspaper by buying it, which increased its print run to 500,000 the day after the arrests.

The assets of three companies, Apple Daily Ltd, Apple Daily Printing Ltd, and AD Internet Ltd, had also been frozen since 14 May, as were accounts belonging to Jimmy Lai worth more than $500m.  On 21 June, the paper announced that unless the accounts were unfrozen, it would have to close as it was unable to pay its staff or operating costs.  On 23 June, it announced that the paper would close "in view of staff members' safety", and that the print run of 24 June would be its last.  Apple Daily also announced that its digital version would be switched off on 23 June at 23:59 Hong Kong time.

Activists backed up the news articles from the Apple Daily on various block chain platforms to ensure the content was available and free from Chinese censorship.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Daily#2021_arrests_and_closure

DNA Offers the Mushroom a Tree of Life

Genetic material from fungi collections helped a team of researchers resolve the mushroom 'tree of life,' a map of the relationships between key mushroom species and their evolutionary history that scientists have struggled to piece together for more than 200 years.

From:  Perdue University

May 22, 2015 -- The group used DNA from frozen, heat-dried and freeze-dried specimens to analyze a dataset of 39 genomes representing most of the known families in Agaricales (ah-gehr-ah-KAY-leez), the order that houses some of the most familiar kinds of mushrooms, including cultivated edible mushrooms, magic mushrooms and the deadly destroying angel. High-throughput sequencing technology allowed the scientists to define seven new suborders and the "trunk" of the Agaricales tree, providing a framework for testing hypotheses of the evolution of mushrooms.

"Mycology really is one of the last frontiers in biology," said Catherine Aime, associate professor of mycology, the study of fungi. "We know there are six to 20 times more species of fungi than plants, but we don't really know much about them. People have tried to figure out how mushrooms are related since the time of Linnaeus. It's gratifying to finally solve this mystery."

Fungi are essential to the health of ecosystems, plants and animals. They decompose fallen wood and other organic matter, breaking down material and freeing up nutrients for other organisms. Most land plants rely on beneficial fungi to deliver water and other nutrients, and the gut fungi of ruminants such as cows play a vital role in digestion. Most humans also host fungi, which help maintain the balance of our natural flora.

But despite their importance and rich diversity, comparatively little is known about fungi. Many species have "cryptic and unpredictable life histories," Aime said, making them difficult to study. The vast majority of fungi are microscopic with few orders producing visible mushrooms. Some species have complicated lifecycles that have no analogy in other multicellular organisms. Others are extremely rare and represented by only a few records or are impossible to detect with conventional methods.

The elusiveness of fungi is one reason why fungaria -- collections of preserved fungal specimens -- are so valuable, Aime said. They offer a panorama of the diversity of known fungi and are often the only places where rare species can be studied.

"To go out and recollect many of these specimens from nature would take decades, if not lifetimes," she said.

But until recently, fungaria were of limited use for genetic research because of the technical complexity of genome sequencing and the poor quality of DNA samples obtained from old, dried specimens. Advances in technology, however, enabled Aime and her fellow researchers to use short DNA sequences from fungaria at Purdue and Kew to knit together entire genomes and identify genes that could be used as markers to link related species of mushrooms, resulting in the tree of life.

The tree provides the clearest and most detailed glimpse to date of the fundamental relationships between mushrooms and when certain types may have evolved. Aime said that the tree suggests the earliest Agaricales were decomposers or biotrophs, organisms that derive their nutrition from other living organisms, a category that includes pathogens.

"We've had this view that organisms became more 'selfish' as they evolved, learning how to take advantage of the system by becoming pathogens," she said. "But it's possible that selfishness happened first, and over time, some of these species coevolved to become more mutualistic."

Aime said that the study also highlighted the importance of fungaria as scientific resources for the genomic age.

"We may be on the verge of a major collections-based revolution," she said. "People think of fungaria as similar to stamp collections -- they're not. These collections anchor our concepts of everything in biology and are our only repositories for some dying or possibly already-extinct species. It's extraordinarily important that we try to collect and preserve as many species as we can. Future technology may allow us to use those materials in ways we can't even imagine now. We've got to get them before they go."

      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150522141336.htm

New Technology Can Diagnose Infections Fast

Patients will be able to receive confirmed diagnosis at the doctor's office

From: McMaster University

June 24, 2021 – Hamilton, Ontario -- The idea of visiting the doctor's office with symptoms of an illness and leaving with a scientifically confirmed diagnosis is much closer to reality because of new technology developed by researchers at McMaster University.

Engineering, biochemistry and medical researchers from across campus have combined their skills to create a hand-held rapid test for bacterial infections that can produce accurate, reliable results in less than an hour, eliminating the need to send samples to a lab.

Their proof-of-concept research, published today in the journal Nature Chemistry, specifically describes the test's effectiveness in diagnosing urinary tract infections from real clinical samples. The researchers are adapting the test to detect other forms of bacteria and for the rapid diagnosis of viruses, including COVID-19. They also plan to test its viability for detecting markers of cancer.

"It's going to mean that patients can get better treatment, faster results and avoid serious complications. It can also avoid the unnecessary use of antibiotics, which is something that can buy us time in the battle against antimicrobial resistance," says Leyla Soleymani, the paper's co-corresponding author and an associate professor of engineering physics.

"This will give doctors the science to support what they already suspect based on their skills and experience," says co-corresponding author Yingfu Li, a professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences.

The new DNA-based technology uses a handheld device similar to a blood-glucose monitor. A microchip analyzes a droplet of bodily fluid such as blood, urine or saliva, using molecules that can detect the specific protein signature of an infection. The device, about the size of a USB stick, plugs into a smartphone, which displays the result.

The invention combines electrochemical engineering technology developed by Soleymani and her team with biochemical technology developed by Li and his colleague Dingran Chang. They worked with infectious disease clinician Marek Smeija, a professor of medicine who provided samples from real patients, and with Todd Hoare, a professor of chemical engineering.

"As scientists, we want to enable things," says Li, "We are knowledgeable in different scientific and engineering principles, and when you put them together to help people, that's a special feeling. Having the chance to impact society is the reason we all do this work."

Existing practice typically requires sending samples to laboratories to be cultured, a process that can take days. Providing immediate results to patients can reduce the spread of infection, improve patients' quality of life and simplify the work of busy clinicians.

The new technology can distinguish strains of the same bacteria that can be treated with antibiotics from others that are resistant to antibiotics, a critical distinction that can help battle the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR.

"Clinicians identified testing delays as a problem that needed to be resolved," says Soleymani, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Miniaturized Biomedical Devices. "We wanted to build a system that could give as much information as possible to the physician during the patient's first visit."

The researchers are in the midst of testing an adaptation of the same technology for the virus that causes COVID-19, using samples from a Hamilton clinic.

"This technology is very versatile and we're getting very close to using the same technology for COVID-19 testing," says Li, who is also a member of McMaster's Michael Groote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.

The researchers are exploring regulatory approvals and industry partnerships to get the technology into wide use as quickly as possible, not only in Canada, but around the world, especially where access to lab testing is limited or non-existent.

"I think this technology is a step toward democratizing disease diagnosis and management," says lead author Richa Pandey, a post-doctoral research fellow in Soleymani's lab. "This is technology that can go anywhere in the world where testing is needed."

The research exemplifies the work of Canada's Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats at McMaster University, which brings together an international network of researchers, government, industry, health care and other partners with the goal of finding solutions to the current pandemic, while preparing for future global health threats such as antimicrobial resistance.

    https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/mu-nlr062221.php

Another Extinct Human Type Identified

The bones of an early human, unknown to science, who lived in the Levant at least until 130,000 years ago, were discovered in excavations at the Nesher Ramla site, near the city of Ramla.

From: Tel-Aviv University

June 24, 2021 -- Recognizing similarity to other archaic Homo specimens from 400,000 years ago, found in Israel and Eurasia, the researchers reached the conclusion that the Nesher Ramla fossils represent a unique Middle Pleistocene population, now identified for the first time.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have identified a new type of early human at the Nesher Ramla site, dated to 140,000 to 120,000 years ago. According to the researchers, the morphology of the Nesher Ramla humans shares features with both Neanderthals (especially the teeth and jaws) and archaic Homo (specifically the skull). At the same time, this type of Homo is very unlike modern humans -- displaying a completely different skull structure, no chin, and very large teeth. Following the study's findings, researchers believe that the Nesher Ramla Homo type is the 'source' population from which most humans of the Middle Pleistocene developed. In addition, they suggest that this group is the so-called 'missing' population that mated with Homo sapiens who arrived in the region around 200,000 years ago -- about whom we know from a recent study on fossils found in the Misliya cave.

Two teams of researchers took part in the dramatic discovery, published in the journal Science: an anthropology team from Tel Aviv University headed by Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, Dr. Hila May and Dr. Rachel Sarig from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research and the Shmunis Family Anthropology Institute, situated in the Steinhardt Museum at Tel Aviv University; and an archaeological team headed by Dr. Yossi Zaidner from the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Timeline: The Nesher Ramla Homo type was an ancestor of both the Neanderthals in Europe and the archaic Homo populations of Asia.

Prof. Israel Hershkovitz: "The discovery of a new type of Homo" is of great scientific importance. It enables us to make new sense of previously found human fossils, add another piece to the puzzle of human evolution, and understand the migrations of humans in the old world. Even though they lived so long ago, in the late middle Pleistocene (474,000-130,000 years ago), the Nesher Ramla people can tell us a fascinating tale, revealing a great deal about their descendants' evolution and way of life."

The important human fossil was found by Dr. Zaidner of the Hebrew University during salvage excavations at the Nesher Ramla prehistoric site, in the mining area of the Nesher cement plant (owned by Len Blavatnik) near the city of Ramla. Digging down about 8 meters, the excavators found large quantities of animal bones, including horses, fallow deer and aurochs, as well as stone tools and human bones. An international team led by the researchers from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem identified the morphology of the bones as belonging to a new type of Homo, previously unknown to science. This is the first type of Homo to be defined in Israel, and according to common practice, it was named after the site where it was discovered -- the Nesher Ramla Homo type.

Dr. Yossi Zaidner: "This is an extraordinary discovery. We had never imagined that alongside Homo sapiens, archaic Homo roamed the area so late in human history. The archaeological finds associated with human fossils show that "Nesher Ramla Homo" possessed advanced stone-tool production technologies and most likely interacted with the local Homo sapiens." The culture, way of life, and behavior of the Nesher Ramla Homo are discussed in a companion paper also published in Science journal today.

Prof. Hershkovitz adds that the discovery of the Nesher Ramla Homo type challenges the prevailing hypothesis that the Neanderthals originated in Europe. "Before these new findings," he says, "most researchers believed the Neanderthals to be a 'European story', in which small groups of Neanderthals were forced to migrate southwards to escape the spreading glaciers, with some arriving in the Land of Israel about 70,000 years ago. The Nesher Ramla fossils make us question this theory, suggesting that the ancestors of European Neanderthals lived in the Levant as early as 400,000 years ago, repeatedly migrating westward to Europe and eastward to Asia. In fact, our findings imply that the famous Neanderthals of Western Europe are only the remnants of a much larger population that lived here in the Levant -- and not the other way around."

According to Dr. Hila May, despite the absence of DNA in these fossils, the findings from Nesher Ramla offer a solution to a great mystery in the evolution of Homo: How did genes of Homo sapiens penetrate the Neanderthal population that presumably lived in Europe long before the arrival of Homo sapiens? Geneticists who studied the DNA of European Neanderthals have previously suggested the existence of a Neanderthal-like population which they called the 'missing population' or the 'X population' that had mated with Homo sapiens more than 200,000 years ago. In the anthropological paper now published in Science, the researchers suggest that the Nesher Ramla Homo type might represent this population, heretofore missing from the record of human fossils. Moreover, the researchers propose that the humans from Nesher Ramla are not the only ones of their kind discovered in the region, and that some human fossils found previously in Israel, which have baffled anthropologists for years -- like the fossils from the Tabun cave (160,000 years ago), Zuttiyeh cave (250,000), and Qesem cave (400,000) -- belong to the same new human group now called the Nesher Ramla Homo type.

"People think in paradigms," says Dr. Rachel Sarig. "That's why efforts have been made to ascribe these fossils to known human groups like Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis or the Neanderthals. But now we say: No. This is a group in itself, with distinct features and characteristics. At a later stage small groups of the Nesher Ramla Homo type migrated to Europe -- where they evolved into the 'classic' Neanderthals that we are familiar with, and also to Asia, where they became archaic populations with Neanderthal-like features. As a crossroads between Africa, Europe and Asia, the Land of Israel served as a melting pot where different human populations mixed with one another, to later spread throughout the Old World. The discovery from the Nesher Ramla site writes a new and fascinating chapter in the story of humankind."

Prof. Gerhard Weber, an associate from Vienna University, argues that the story of Neanderthal evolution will be told differently after this discovery: "Europe was not the exclusive refugium of Neanderthals from where they occasionally diffused into West Asia. We think that there was much more lateral exchange in Eurasia, and that the Levant is geographically a crucial starting point, or at a least bridgehead, for this process."

      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210624141540.htm

Life Can Be Detected from Remote Signatures

It could be a milestone on the path to detecting life on other planets: Scientists detect a key molecular property of all living organisms from a helicopter flying several kilometers above ground. The measurement technology could also open up opportunities for remote sensing of the Earth.

From: University of Bern

June 18, 2021 -- It could be a milestone on the path to detecting life on other planets: Scientists under the leadership of the University of Bern and of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS detect a key molecular property of all living organisms from a helicopter flying several kilometers above ground. The measurement technology could also open up opportunities for remote sensing of the Earth.

Left hands and right hands are almost perfect mirror images of each other. But whatever way they are twisted and turned, they cannot be superimposed onto each other. This is why the left glove simply won't fit the right hand as well as it fits the left. In science, this property is referred to as chirality.

Just like hands are chiral, molecules can be chiral, too. In fact, most molecules in the cells of living organisms, such as DNA, are chiral. Unlike hands, however, that usually come in pairs of left and right, the molecules of life almost exclusively occur in either their "left-handed" or their "right-handed" version. They are homochiral, as researchers say. Why that is, is still not clear. But this molecular homochirality is a characteristic property of life, a so-called biosignature.

As part of the MERMOZ project, an international team led by the University of Bern and the National Centre of Competence in Research NCCR PlanetS, has now succeeded in detecting this signature from a distance of 2 kilometers and at a velocity of 70 kph. Jonas Kühn, MERMOZ project manager of the University of Bern and co-author of the study that has just been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, says: "The significant advance is that these measurements have been performed in a platform that was moving, vibrating and that we still detected these biosignatures in a matter of seconds."

An instrument that recognizes living matter

"When light is reflected by biological matter, a part of the light's electromagnetic waves will travel in either clockwise or counterclockwise spirals. This phenomenon is called circular polarization and is caused by the biological matter's homochirality. Similar spirals of light are not produced by abiotic non-living nature," says the first author of the study Lucas Patty, who is a MERMOZ postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern and member of the NCCR PlanetS,

Measuring this circular polarization, however, is challenging. The signal is quite faint and typically makes up less than one percent of the light that is reflected. To measure it, the team developed a dedicated device called a spectropolarimeter. It consists of a camera equipped with special lenses and receivers capable of separating the circular polarization from the rest of the light.

Yet even with this elaborate device, the new results would have been impossible until recently. "Just 4 years ago, we could detect the signal only from a very close distance, around 20 cm, and needed to observe the same spot for several minutes to do so," as Lucas Patty recalls. But the upgrades to the instrument he and his colleagues made, allow a much faster and stable detection, and the strength of the signature in circular polarisation persists even with distance. This rendered the instrument fit for the first ever aerial circular polarization measurements.

Useful measurements on earth and in space

Using this upgraded instrument, dubbed FlyPol, they demonstrated that within mere seconds of measurements they could differentiate between grass fields, forests and urban areas from a fast moving helicopter. The measurements readily show living matter exhibiting the characteristic polarization signals, while roads, for example, do not show any significant circular polarization signals. With the current setup, they are even capable of detecting signals coming from algae in lakes.

After their successful tests, the scientists now look to go even further. "The next step we hope to take, is to perform similar detections from the International Space Station (ISS), looking down at the Earth. That will allow us to assess the detectability of planetary-scale biosignatures. This step will be decisive to enable the search for life in and beyond our Solar System using polarization," says MERMOZ principal investigator and co-author Brice-Olivier Demory, professor of astrophysics at the University of Bern and member of the NCCR PlanetS says.

The sensitive observation of these circular polarization signals is not only important for future life detection missions. Lucas Patty explains: "Because the signal directly relates to the molecular composition of life and thus its functioning, it can also offer valuable complementary information in Earth remote sensing." It can for instance provide information about deforestation or plant disease. It might even be possible to implement circular polarization in the monitoring of toxic algal blooms, of coral reefs and the effects of acidification thereon.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Bern. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210618133959.htm

Footnote by the Blog Author

Previous posts of this blog have dealt with chirality.  See the posts of June 8, 2020; March 2, 2020; July 10, 2017; November 27, 2015; and particularly April 5, 2011.

The Earth Has a Pulse

27.5-Million-Year Cycle of Geological Activity Discovered

From:  New York University

June 20, 2021 – Geologic activity on Earth appears to follow a 27.5-million-year cycle, giving the planet a “pulse,” according to a new study published in the journal Geoscience Frontiers.

“Many geologists believe that geological events are random over time. But our study provides statistical evidence for a common cycle, suggesting that these geologic events are correlated and not random,” said Michael Rampino, a geologist and professor in New York University’s Department of Biology, as well as the study’s lead author.

Over the past five decades, researchers have proposed cycles of major geological events — including volcanic activity and mass extinctions on land and sea — ranging from roughly 26 to 36 million years. But early work on these correlations in the geological record was hampered by limitations in the age-dating of geologic events, which prevented scientists from conducting quantitative investigations.

However, there have been significant improvements in radio-isotopic dating techniques and changes in the geologic timescale, leading to new data on the timing of past events. Using the latest age-dating data available, Rampino and his colleagues compiled updated records of major geological events over the last 260 million years and conducted new analyses.

The team analyzed the ages of 89 well-dated major geological events of the last 260 million years. These events include marine and land extinctions, major volcanic outpourings of lava called flood-basalt eruptions, events when oceans were depleted of oxygen, sea-level fluctuations, and changes or reorganization in the Earth’s tectonic plates.

They found that these global geologic events are generally clustered at 10 different timepoints over the 260 million years, grouped in peaks or pulses of roughly 27.5 million years apart. The most recent cluster of geological events was approximately 7 million years ago, suggesting that the next pulse of major geological activity is more than 20 million years in the future.

The researchers posit that these pulses may be a function of cycles of activity in the Earth’s interior — geophysical processes related to the dynamics of plate tectonics and climate. However, similar cycles in the Earth’s orbit in space might also be pacing these events.

“Whatever the origins of these cyclical episodes, our findings support the case for a largely periodic, coordinated, and intermittently catastrophic geologic record, which is a departure from the views held by many geologists,” explained Rampino.

Reference: “A pulse of the Earth: A 27.5-Myr underlying cycle in coordinated geological events over the last 260 Myr” by Michael R. Rampino, Ken Caldeira and Yuhong Zhu, 17 June 2021, Geoscience Frontiers.  DOI: 10.1016/j.gsf.2021.101245

In addition to Rampino, study authors include Yuhong Zhu of NYU’s Center for Data Science and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-earth-has-a-pulse-27-5-million-year-cycle-of-geological-activity-discovered/

Antibiotic for Better Tuberculosis Recovery

Doxycycline, in combination with TB drug treatment, reduces the size of lung cavities and accelerates markers of lung recovery. This was done in a trial with 30 pulmonary tuberculosis patients.

Source:  National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine

June 19, 2021 -- Globally, an estimated 10 million people develop tuberculosis (TB) each year and the disease remains a leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. Standard short-course anti-TB treatment still requires a regimen of at least six months of antimicrobial drugs, and drug-resistant TB is an increasing public health threat. Even after the traces of TB disease are quashed, patients often suffer from significant sequelae, such as lung scarring. TB survivors have approximately three to four times greater mortality than their local population.

In pulmonary TB, the most common form of active TB disease, the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria causes the formation of sites of high bacterial load, known as cavities. These cavities are poorly penetrated by TB drugs. After TB treatment is complete, there is likely to be tissue damage within the lungs that can lead to further lung problems such as permanent respiratory dysfunction leading to difficulty in breathing, stiffness in the lungs and bronchiectasis, which can make people cough up blood.

Researchers from NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine's Infectious Diseases Translational Research Programme have discovered that the use of a common antibiotic, doxycycline, in combination with TB drug treatment, reduces the size of lung cavities and accelerates markers of lung recovery.

In the Phase 2 double-blind trial conducted at the National University Hospital and TB Control Unit, the treatment was found to be safe, with side effects similar to patients on placebo pills. The study shows promise in delivering a new standard-of-care which can potentially prevent long term complications and the study team is seeking funds for a fully-powered larger scale Phase 3 trial to verify these findings.

"Pulmonary TB patients tend to suffer from lung damage after TB, which is associated with mortality, and poorer quality of life. Doxycycline is a cheap and widely available antibiotic that can decrease lung damage, and potentially improve quality of life for these patients," said Assistant Professor Catherine Ong, Principal Investigator of the study and member of the Infectious Diseases Translational Research Programme (TRP) at NUS Medicine. The study findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Professor Paul Tambyah, who was also involved in the study and is Deputy Director of the Infectious Diseases TRP commented, "While we have been able to successfully treat most cases of TB for the last few decades, we have seen many people suffer the complications of the lung damage from the original TB infection. If this common drug, doxycycline, can help prevent the complications of "Long TB" (to use a term currently in vogue), this will really help a lot of patients in Singapore and worldwide."

The Infectious Diseases TRP aims to provide a holistic, patient-centric approach to infectious diseases that are relevant to Singapore and the region. The Programme focuses on programmatic research areas including pathogen evolution and transmission, host-microbe interactions and vaccine and therapeutics development.

      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210619160806.htm

How Britain Maintained Its Empire in 1942

Michael M. Rosen wrote a June 20, 2021 article for National Review that reviews a new book, by Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg, War of Shadows.  This book discusses the Nazi failed effort in 1942 to split the British Empire in two by taking Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt and controlling the Suez Canal.

It is a great review of an interesting book that fundamentally stresses the urgent importance of good intelligence and with code breaking.  The review is available on line at:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-key-that-unlocked-world-war-ii/ar-AALeL7M?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

Successful International “ANOM” Sting Operation

The ANOM (also stylized as AN0M or ΛNØM) sting operation (known as Operation Trojan Shield or Operation Ironside) is a collaboration by law enforcement agencies from several countries, running between 2018 and 2021, that intercepted millions of messages sent through the supposedly secure smartphone-based messaging app ANOM. The ANOM service was widely used by criminals, but instead of providing secure communication, it was actually a Trojan horse covertly distributed by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), enabling them to monitor all communications. Through collaboration with other law enforcement agencies worldwide, the operation resulted in the arrest of over 800 suspects allegedly involved in criminal activity, in 16 countries. Among the arrested people were alleged members of Australian-based Italian mafia, Albanian organized crime, outlaw motorcycle clubs, drug syndicates and other organized crime groups.

Background

The shutdown of the Canadian secure messaging company Phantom Secure in March 2018 left international criminals in need of an alternative system for secure communication.  Around the same time, the San Diego FBI branch had been working with a person who had been developing a "next-generation" encrypted device for use by criminal networks. The person was facing charges and cooperated with the FBI in exchange for a reduced sentence. The person offered to develop ANOM and then distribute it to criminals through their existing networks.  The first communication devices with ANOM were offered by this informant to three former distributors of Phantom Secure in October 2018.

The FBI also negotiated with an unnamed third country to set up a communication interception, but based on a court order that allowed passing the information back to the FBI. Since October 2019, ANOM communications have been passed on to the FBI from this third country.

The FBI named the operation "Trojan Shield", and the AFP named it "Ironside".

Distribution and Usage

The ANOM devices consisted of a messaging app running on smartphones that had been specially modified to disable normal functions such as voice telephony, email, or location services.  After checking that normal functionality was disabled, the messaging apps then communicated with one another via supposedly secure proxy servers, which then copied all sent messages to servers controlled by the FBI. The FBI could then decrypt the messages with a private key associated with the message, without ever needing remote access to the devices.  The devices also had a fixed identification number assigned to each user, allowing messages from the same user to be connected to each other.  According to a since-deleted Reddit post discovered by Motherboard, the ANOM app was "for Android"; a WordPress blog post described the app as using a "custom Android OS".

About 50 devices were distributed in Australia for beta testing from October 2018. The intercepted communications showed that every device was used for criminal activities, primarily being used by organized criminal gangs.

Use of the app spread through word of mouth, and was also encouraged by undercover agents; drug trafficker Hakan Ayik was identified "as someone who was trusted and was going to be able to successfully distribute this platform", and without his knowledge was encouraged by undercover agents to use and sell the devices on the black market, further expanding its use.  After users of the devices requested smaller and newer phones, new devices were designed and sold.  The most commonly used languages on the app were Dutch, German and Swedish.

After a slow start, the rate of distribution of ANOM increased from mid-2019. By October 2019, there were several hundred users. By May 2021, there had been 11,800 devices with ANOM installed, of which about 9,000 were in use.  New Zealand had 57 users of the ANOM communication system.  The Swedish Police had access to conversations from 1,600 users, of which they focused their surveillance on 600 users.  Europol stated 27 million messages were collected from ANOM devices across over 100 countries.

Some skepticism of the app did exist; one March 2021 WordPress blog post called the app a scam.

Arrests and Reactions

The sting operation culminated in search warrants that were executed simultaneously around the globe on 8 June 2021.  It is not entirely clear why this date was chosen, but news organizations have speculated it might be related to a warrant for server access expiring on 7 June.  The background to the sting operation and its transnational nature was revealed following the execution of the search warrants. Over 800 people were arrested in 16 countries.  Among the arrested people were alleged members of Australian-based Italian mafia, Albanian organized crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs, drug syndicates and other crime groups.  In the European Union, arrests were coordinated through Europol.  Arrests were also made in the United Kingdom, although the National Crime Agency was unwilling to provide details about the number arrested.

The seized evidence included almost 40 tons of drugs (over eight tons of cocaine, 22 tons of cannabis and cannabis resin, six tons of synthetic drug precursors, two tons of synthetic drugs), 250 guns, 55 luxury cars and more than $48 million in various currencies and cryptocurrencies. In Australia, 224 people were arrested on 526 total charges.  In New Zealand, 35 people were arrested and faced a total of 900 charges. Police seized $3.7 million in assets, including 14 vehicles, drugs, firearms and more than $1 million in cash.

Over the course of the three years, more than 9,000 police officers across 18 countries were involved in the sting operation. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that the sting operation had "struck a heavy blow against organized crime". Europol described it as the "biggest ever law enforcement operation against encrypted communication".

No arrests were made in the United States because of privacy laws that prevented law enforcement from collecting messages from domestic subjects.

                            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOM

New Israeli Government Voted Into Office

 New Israeli Government Voted Into Office

The thirty-sixth government of Israel, or the Bennett–Lapid government, is the cabinet of Israel formed on 13 June 2021 after the 2021 Israeli legislative election.

On 2 June 2021, a coalition agreement was signed between Yesh Atid, Blue and White, Yamina, the Labor Party, Yisrael Beiteinu, New Hope, Meretz, and the United Arab List.

The government is expected to have two prime ministers during its duration. Namely, under a rotation agreement, Naftali Bennett of Yamina will serve as prime minister until 27 August 2023, when he will cede the position to Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid, who would then hold office until November 2025.  In addition, Yamina and Yesh Atid will become the fourth and fifth parties, respectively, to lead an Israeli government – following Mapai/Labor Party (1948–1977; 1984–1986; 1992–1996; 1999–2001), Likud (1977–1984; 1986–1992; 1996–1999; 2001–2005; 2009–2021), and Kadima (2005–2009).

The government is the first to include an independent Arab Israeli party as an official member of the governing coalition.  Furthermore, it is Israel's second government, after the Netanyahu-Gantz rotation government, to function under an automatic and legally-binding system of rotation in the position of prime minister.  The investiture vote in the Knesset was held on 13 June 2021.  The Bennett-Lapid government was confirmed by a vote of 60 to 59, with one MK from the United Arab List abstaining.  Bennett was thus sworn in as Israel's 13th prime minister, with Lapid serving as alternative prime minister.

Investiture Vote

The outgoing speaker of the Knesset, Yariv Levin, a member of prime minister Netanyahu's Likud party, had indicated that he would attempt to delay the holding of an investiture vote for the proposed Bennett-Lapid government for as long as legally possible.  Thus, on 3 June 2021, some of the parties of the "change bloc" initiated a motion of no-confidence in Levin, with the aim of replacing him with Mickey Levy of Yesh Atid and bringing the investiture vote forward.  Immediately thereafter, Yamina MK Nir Orbach indicated that he would oppose the move, and it was then instead unilaterally endorsed by all six MKs from the Joint List.  However, both Yesh Atid and Yamina rejected the Joint List's offer of support, and Yamina even indicated that it would only support the election of a new speaker when the new government itself had already been sworn in.  On 13 June 2021, the incoming government nominated Levy for the post of speaker, while Shas in turn nominated its MK Yaakov Margi. Levy defeated Margi by a margin of 67–52 and immediately took over the presiding of the Knesset session from Levin.

The investiture vote for the government was also held on 13 June 2021.  While the eight parties of the so-called "change bloc" coalition formally had an absolute majority consisting of 62 Knesset members, one Yamina MK, Amichai Chikli, had already ruled out supporting the incoming government.  As of the proposed government's announcement on 2 June 2021, the only opposition MKs who had not yet declared how they would vote were the two members of the Arab Israeli Ta'al faction within the Joint List.  On 13 June 2021, Ta'al's MKs indicated that they would be ready to abstain during the investiture vote if the proposed government lost its own majority through defections. This would likely have allowed the Bennett-Lapid government to be confirmed to office by a plurality of MKs.  Ultimately, the new government was successfully voted in by a margin of 60 to 59, with the only abstention being that of United Arab List MK Said al-Harumi.

 

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-sixth_government_of_Israel