Portland State University

The fracturing and friction of coffee beans during grinding generates electricity that causes coffee particles to clump together and stick to the grinder. Researchers report that coffee beans with higher internal moisture produce less static electricity, which means less coffee is wasted and there is less mess to clean up. This effect can be simulated by adding a small amount of water to beans immediately before grinding them. The team also showed that grinding with a splash of water produces more consistent and intense espresso. The fracturing and friction of coffee beans during grinding generates electricity that causes coffee particles to clump together and stick to the grinder. Researchers report December 6 in the journal Matter that coffee beans with higher internal moisture produce less static electricity, which means less coffee is wasted and there is less mess to clean up. This effect can be simulated by adding a small amount of water to beans immediately before grinding them. The team also showed that grinding with a splash of water produces more consistent and intense espresso. "Moisture, whether it's residual moisture inside the roasted coffee or external moisture added during grinding, is what dictates the amount of charge that is formed during grinding," says senior author Christopher Hendon (@chhendon), a computational materials chemist at the University of Oregon. "Water not only reduces static electricity and therefore reduces mess as you're grinding, but it can also make a major impact on the intensity of the beverage and, potentially, the ability to access higher concentrations of favorable flavors. These improvements to coffee extraction could have massive economic implications for the coffee industry, which is worth $343.2 billion or 1.5% of the US gross domestic product, the researchers say. "Pushing the concentration up by 10%-15% for the same dry coffee mass has huge implications for saving money and improving quality," says Hendon. That coffee grinding produces static electricity has long been known within the coffee industry, where this electrification causes clumping and occasional zaps, but little was known about how different coffee attributes contribute to this phenomenon or how it impacts brewing. To identify factors associated with static electricity generation during coffee grinding, Hendon teamed up with volcanologists who study similar electrification processes during volcanic eruptions. "During eruption, magma breaks up into lots of little particles that then come out of the volcano in this big plume, and during that whole process, those particles are rubbing against each other and charging up to the point of producing lightning," says first author and volcanologist Joshua Méndez Harper   at Portland State University. "In a simplistic way, it's similar to grinding coffee, where you're taking these beans and reducing them to fine powder." The researchers measured the amount of static electricity produced when they ground different commercially and in-house roasted coffee beans that varied by factors including country of origin, processing method (natural, washed, or decaffeinated), roast color, and moisture content. They also compared the impact of grinding coarseness on the amount of electricity produced. There was no association between static electricity and the coffee's country of origin or processing method, but the researchers did find associations between electrification and water content, roast color, and particle size. Less electricity was produced when coffee had a higher internal moisture content and when coffee was ground at a coarser setting. Light roasts produced less charge, and this charge was more likely to be positive, while darker roasts -- which also tend to be drier -- charged negatively and produced more overall charge. The researchers also showed that dark roast coffees produce much finer particles than light roasts when ground at the same setting. Next, the team tested whether grinding with water changed the way espresso is brewed. When they compared espresso made with identical coffee beans ground either with or without a splash of water, they found that grinding with water resulted in a longer extraction time and a stronger brew. Grinding with water also resulted in espresso shots that were more similar from shot to shot, overcoming a major hurdle for baristas and industrial coffee brewers. Though they only tested espresso, the researchers say these benefits would apply to many other brewing methods. "The central material benefit of adding water during grinding is that you can pack the bed more densely because there's less clumping," says Hendon. "Espresso is the worst offender of this, but you would also see the benefit in brew formats where you pour water over the coffee or in small percolation systems like a stovetop Bialetti. Where you're not going to see a benefit during brewing is for methods like the French press, where you submerge the coffee in water." The researchers plan to follow up with more investigations into how to prepare the perfect coffee. "Now that we know what grind settings to use to make reproducible espresso, we can start to try to understand what factors give rise to sensory differences in coffee taste," says Hendon. Their work also has implications beyond the daily brew, as the electrification of granular materials is an active area of research in material science, geophysics, and engineering. "It's sort of like the start of a joke -- a volcanologist and a coffee expert walk into a bar and then come out with a paper," says Méndez Harper, "but I think there are a lot more opportunities for this sort of collaboration, and there's a lot more to know about how coffee breaks, how it flows as particles, and how it interacts with water. These investigations may help resolve parallel issues in geophysics -- whether it's landslides, volcanic eruptions, or how water percolates through soil." This research was supported by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and the Coffee Science Foundation with support from Nuova Simonelli.

Investments will help address the increasing demand for registered nurses, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and nurse faculty, Department of Health and Human Services officials said. The Biden administration announced a $100 million investment to train more nurses and grow the workforce as the healthcare industry faces a critical nurse shortage. Officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday the investments will help address the increasing demand for registered nurses, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and nurse faculty.  The funding, announced Thursday, will go toward increasing the number of nursing school faculty, supporting the career ladders for licensed practical nurses and vocational nurses to become registered nurses and training more nurses to become primary care providers to address mental health issues, substance use disorder issues and maternal health, Carole Johnson, administrator for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) within HHS, said during a call with reporters Thursday. "We're going to do everything we can to stand up nurses to help those who wish to become nurses get through the process and not make the decision to forego nursing school because they can't afford it. We're going to do everything we can to expand the number of nurses we have in the field of mental health. We're going to try to make sure that we address burnout," HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said during the call. A recent study found that 100,000 nurses left the field during COVID-19, and 800,000 are likely to follow them out the door by 2027. Many of the nurses surveyed reported burnout and feeling emotionally drained. The U.S. is projected to experience a shortage of registered nurses (RNs) that is expected to intensify as baby boomers age and the need for healthcare grows, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The RN workforce is expected to grow from 3.1 million in 2021 to 3.3 million in 2031, an increase of 195,400 nurses, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But, the bureau also projects 203,200 openings for RNs each year through 2031 when nurse retirements and workforce exits are factored into the number of nurses needed in the U.S. According to a recent poll, 94 out of 100 senior health system executives described their nursing shortage as “critical,” and just over two-thirds said they don’t have adequate nursing staff to handle a large-scale health crisis. Labor shortages are impacting healthcare organizations financially as well. The increased use of contracted workers, including contract nurses, helped fuel a 20% growth in labor expenses in the healthcare system from March 2022 to March 2023, a Kaufman Hall analysis found. "We don't have enough doctors or nurses and nurses practicing. We don't have enough psychologists or counselors to address the rising rates of substance use disorders. We don't have enough midwives, pharmacists and professional caregivers to meet the needs of Americans. We need more," Becerra told reporters. In conversations with education leaders across the country, the No. 1 issue that comes up is the shortage of faculty to teach the next generation of nursing students, Becerra noted. "The president of Portland State University told me they are turning away qualified, eligible applicants for their nursing program because they don't have enough nursing faculty," he said. "It's tough to lure an experienced nurse practitioner, a licensed practitioner to teach because they lose so much income." As part of the $100 million investment, HHS awarded $34.8 million to 56 organizations to increase the number of primary care nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists and certified nurse midwives trained and prepared to provide primary care services, mental health and substance use disorder care, and/or maternal health care. Those awards, which average about $250,000, are part of HRSA's Advanced Nursing Education Workforce Program, Johnson said. "We're providing tuition assistance and other support to trainees and really building partnerships between academic medical training programs and community settings where we want nurses to practice so that nurses can lead when it comes to delivering primary care, maternal health care support, mental health and substance use disorders, all the places where we know there are gaps in services. And we know advanced practice nurses can fill those critical gaps," she said. The agency awarded $30 million to 45 organizations as part of its Nurse Practitioner Residency and Fellowship Program to increase the number of trained advanced practice nurses in primary care. "We train physicians in residency programs all the time. That is part of the natural training process for physicians; they spend multiple years in clinical practice with preceptor oversight and good mentoring to be able to make sure that they can do the things that they need to do once they launch themselves in their individual practices," Johnson said. "This is our program where we create a similar residency-led model for nurses to get intensive training to provide and then launch their own primary care practices. We're also focused on integrating behavioral health into this training." To support more nurse faculty, HRSA also awarded $26.5 million to 88 schools, through its Nurse Faculty Loan Program, to provide low-interest loans and loan cancelation to incentivize careers as nursing school faculty. That program provides up to 85% loan cancelation of the original loan amount, plus interest, upon completion of up to four years post-graduation of full-time nurse faculty employment. "We think, through this investment, we could produce 3,000 more faculty," Johnson said. Close to $9 million will go to nine organizations as part of a pathway program for licensed practical nurses to become RNs. "These funds support things like stipends and tuition assistance and other social support, like transportation and childcare assistance, that can really help individuals who were able to get their certificate and their credential to be an LPN to get them on a pathway to be an RN," Johnson said. HRSA also awarded $2.2 million to 64 schools to support a nurse anesthetist traineeship program. "These are smaller awards to help build the pipeline of nurse anesthetists who are really filling critical gaps in rural and underserved communities when it comes to access to things like surgery and other support," Johnson noted.

Scientists have discovered that the breakup of tectonic plates is the main driving force behind the generation and eruption of diamond-rich magmas from deep inside the Earth. An international team of scientists led by the University of Southampton has discovered that the breakup of tectonic plates is the main driving force behind the generation and eruption of diamond-rich magmas from deep inside the Earth. Their findings could shape the future of the diamond exploration industry, informing where diamonds are most likely to be found. Diamonds, which form under great pressures at depth, are hundreds of millions, or even billions, of years old. They are typically found in a type of volcanic rock known as kimberlite. Kimberlites are found in the oldest, thickest, strongest parts of continents -- most notably in South Africa, home to the diamond rush of the late 19th century. But how and why they got to Earth's surface has, until now, remained a mystery. The new research examined the effects of global tectonic forces on these volcanic eruptions spanning the last billion years. The findings have been published in the journal Nature. Southampton researchers collaborated with colleagues from the University of Birmingham, the University of Potsdam, the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Portland State University, Macquarie University, the University of Leeds, the University of Florence, and Queen's University, Ontario. Tom Gernon, Professor of Earth Science and Principal Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, and lead author of the study, said: "The pattern of diamond eruptions is cyclical, mimicking the rhythm of the supercontinents, which assemble and break up in a repeated pattern over time. But previously we didn't know what process causes diamonds to suddenly erupt, having spent millions -- or billions -- of years stashed away 150 kilometres beneath the Earth's surface." To address this question, the team used statistical analysis, including machine learning, to forensically examine the link between continental breakup and kimberlite volcanism. The results showed the eruptions of most kimberlite volcanoes occurred 20 to 30 million years after the tectonic breakup of Earth's continents. Dr Thea Hincks, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, said: "Using geospatial analysis, we found that kimberlite eruptions tend to gradually migrate from the continental edges to the interiors over time at rates that are consistent across the continents." Geological processes This discovery prompted the scientists to explore what geological process could drive this pattern. They found that the Earth's mantle -- the convecting layer between the crust and core -- is disrupted by rifting (or stretching) of the crust, even thousands of kilometres away. Dr Stephen Jones, Associate Professor in Earth Systems at the University of Birmingham, and study co-author said: "We found that a domino effect can explain how continental breakup leads to formation of kimberlite magma. During rifting, a small patch of the continental root is disrupted and sinks into the mantle below, triggering a chain of similar flow patterns beneath the nearby continent." Dr Sascha Brune, Head of the Geodynamic Modelling Section at GFZ Potsdam, and a co-author on the study, ran simulations to investigate how this process unfolds. He said: "While sweeping along the continental root, these disruptive flows remove a substantial amount of rock, tens of kilometres thick, from the base of the continental plate." The typical migration rates estimated in models matched what the scientists observed from kimberlite records. "Remarkably, this process brings together the necessary ingredients in the right amounts to trigger just enough melting to generate kimberlites," added Dr Gernon. The team's research could be used to identify the possible locations and timings of past volcanic eruptions tied to this process, offering valuable insights that could enable the discovery of diamond deposits in the future. Professor Gernon, who was recently awarded a major philanthropic grant from the WoodNext Foundation to study the factors contributing to global cooling over time, said the study also sheds light on how processes deep within the Earth control those at the surface: "Breakup not only reorganises the mantle, but may also profoundly impact Earth's surface environment and climate, so diamonds might be just a part of the story."