Earth

Earlier this year, Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) senior scientist and coral reef ecologist Eric Hochberg published a paper in the journal Coral Reefs that put numbers to a widely accepted concept in reef science: that materials in seawater (such as phytoplankton, organic matter, or suspended sediment) can affect how much light, as well as the wavelength of light, reaches the seafloor. This, in turn, impacts the ecology of organisms, including corals and algae, that live on the seafloor and rely on that light for photosynthesis.

"Given that reef ecosystems are driven by photosynthesis, there should really be a greater interest in light ecology on reefs," Hochberg said. "In order to do that, you need to have numbers, so this paper is a start in that it generates the first reasonably large data set on water clarity on reefs."

Along with Stacy Peltier, a former research technician at BIOS, and Ste'phane Maritorena, a researcher at the Earth Research Institute at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Hochberg collected and analyzed 199 water column profiles across the reefs and deep waters of Hawaii and Bermuda using an instrument called a profiling reflectance radiometer (PRR), or "water rocket."

A 2.5 foot-long (0.76 meter) metal tube with fins, the PRR simultaneously measures the spectrum (intensity for each color of the rainbow) of light in the water column coming down from the surface, as well as the spectrum of light reflected up from the bottom. The instrument is tethered to a laptop by a data cable and deployed over the side of a boat, allowing scientists to monitor it in real-time as it drifts to the bottom, collecting data profiles along the way at a rate of 15 measurements per second.

With these numbers, Hochberg and other coral reef scientists can begin to conduct models to address fundamental ecological questions, such as how much light reaches the various reef zones (fore-reef, reef flat, and lagoon) or how ecological zonation on reefs might be driven by light absorption.

For example, while the outer reef area is generally more clear and allows more blue light to penetrate to deeper depths, lagoon areas are more turbid (cloudy) and allow more green light to penetrate to deeper depths. "Different colors of water reach different depths in different zones, which matters for the communities that live on the bottom," Hochberg said. "The pigments that organisms have might change depending on light availability--not just how much light is available, but what color of light is available."

Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common solid tumor occurring extracranial diagnosed during childhood, and responds for 15% of all malignancy death in childhood. Although multiple cytotoxic therapies and advanced immunotherapies have been applied, the survival rate of NB remains below 50%. The genetic bases of sporadic NB remains unclear. Achievements are notable, the identified risk variants were only a small proportion of NB association variants. Some functional polymorphisms are missed by DNA chip-based GWAS. Thus, the additional predisposing variants of NB, especially based on various populations, are still needed to be discovered.

"According to the screening strategy of functional gene polymorphism, we have achieved some results. For example, screening strategy designed for polymorphism targeted by MYCN and important functional gene polymorphism sites missed by GWAS chip ". Said Prof. Guo, correspondence of this article. "Colleagues are concerned about why are we focused on the DDX1 gene this time. Interestingly, DDX1 loci locates very close to MYCN gene, it was predicted that it may be cis-regulated by MYCN. And we have found that highly expressed DDX1 is close associated to poor survival of neuroblastoma." Authors revealed genetic variation leading the increased DDX1 expression is associated with susceptibility to neuroblastoma. "MAX is the binding partner of the oncogenic transcription factor MYCN. Its binding affinity to DDX1 promoter rs72780850 C allele is higher than T allele. Interestingly, MYCN can active the reporter activity of DDX1 promoter, but cannot bind to the promoter alone. This result consistants with the way of MYCN working, like all members of the MYC family, requiring interaction with members of the MAX family to form a functional transcription factor." Said Dr. Jin, first author of this work. Their work systematically revealed the relationship between MYCN-related variants and neuroblastoma susceptibility in the Chinese population, and provided mechanisms for how this variant working.

Graphene is a modern wonder material possessing unique properties of strength, flexibility and conductivity whilst being abundant and remarkably cheap to produce, lending it to a multitude of useful applications - especially true when these 2D atom-thick sheets of carbon are split into narrow strips known as Graphene Nanoribbons (GNRs).

New research published in EPJ Plus, authored by Kristians Cernevics, Michele Pizzochero, and Oleg V. Yazyev, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, aims to better understand the electron transport properties of GNRs and how they are affected by bonding with aromatics. This is a key step in designing technology such chemosensors.

"Graphene nanoribbons - strips of graphene just few nanometres wide - are a new and exciting class of nanostructures that have emerged as potential building blocks for a wide variety of technological applications," Cernevics says.

The team performed their investigation with the two forms of GNR, armchair and zigzag, which are categorised by the shape of the edges of the material. These properties are predominantly created by the process used to synthesise them. In addition to this, the EPFL team experimented p-polyphenyl and polyacene groups of increasing length.

"We have employed advanced computer simulations to find out how electrical conductivity of graphene nanoribbons is affected by chemical functionalisation with guest organic molecules that consist of chains composed of an increasing number of aromatic rings," says Cernevics.

The team discovered that the conductance at energies matching the energy levels of the corresponding isolated molecule was reduced by one quantum, or left unaffected based on whether the number of aromatic rings possessed by the bound molecule was odd or even. The study shows this 'even-odd effect' originates from a subtle interplay between the electronic states of the guest molecule spatially localised on the binding sites and those of the host nanoribbon.

"Our findings demonstrate that the interaction of the guest organic molecules with the host graphene nanoribbon can be exploited to detect the 'fingerprint' of the guest aromatic molecule, and additionally offer a firm theoretical ground to understand this effect," Cernevics concludes: "Overall, our work promotes the validity of graphene nanoribbons as promising candidates for next-generation chemosensing devices."

These potentially wearable or implantable sensors will rely heavily on GRBs due to their electrical properties and could spearhead a personalised health revolution by tracking specific biomarkers in patients.

After firing the lasers and bombarding the molecules with light, the scientists gathered around the camera to check the results. By seeing how far these cold molecules expanded they would know almost instantly whether they were on the right track or not to charting new paths in quantum science by being the first to cool (aka slow down) a particularly complex, six-atom molecule using nothing but light.

"When we started out on the project we were optimistic but were not sure that we would see something that would show a very dramatic effect," said Debayan Mitra, a postdoctoral researcher in Harvard's Doyle Research Group. "We thought that we would need more evidence to prove that we were actually cooling the molecule, but then when we saw the signal, it was like, 'Yeah, nobody will doubt that.' It was big and it was right there."

The study led by Mitra and graduate student Nathaniel B. Vilas is the focus of a new paper published in Science. In it, the group describes using a novel method combining cryogenic technology and direct laser light to cool the nonlinear polyatomic molecule calcium monomethoxide (CaOCH3) to just above absolute zero.

The scientists believe their experiment marks the first time such a large complex molecule has been cooled using laser light and say it unlocks new avenues of study in quantum simulation and computation, particle physics, and quantum chemistry.

"These kinds of molecules have structure that is ubiquitous in chemical and biological systems," said John M. Doyle, the Henry B. Silsbee Professor of Physics and senior author on the paper. "Controlling perfectly their quantum states is basic research that could shed light on fundamental quantum processes in these building blocks of nature."

The use of lasers to control atoms and molecules -- the eventual building-blocks of a quantum computer -- has been used since the 1960s and has since revolutionized atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

The technique essentially works by firing a laser at them, causing the atoms and molecules to absorb the photons from the light and recoil in the opposite direction. This eventually slows them down and even stops them in their tracks. When this happens quantum mechanics becomes the dominant way to describe and study their motion.

"The idea is that on one end of the spectrum there are atoms that have very few quantum states," Doyle said. Because of this, these atoms are easy to control with light since they often remain in the same quantum state after absorbing and emitting light, he said. "With molecules they have motion that does not occur in atoms -- vibrations and rotations. When the molecule absorbs and emits light this process can sometimes make the molecule spin around or vibrate internally. When this happens, it is now in a different quantum state and absorbing and emitting light no longer works [to cool it]. We have to 'calm the molecule down,' get rid of its extra vibration before it can interact with the light the way we want."

Scientists -- including those from the Doyle Group which is part of the Harvard Department of Physics and a member of the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms -- have been able to cool a number of molecules using light, such as diatomic and triatomic molecules which each have two or three atoms.

Polyatomic molecules, on the other hand, are much more complex and have proven much more difficult to manipulate because of all the vibrations and rotations.

To get around this, the group used a method they pioneered to cool diatomic and triatomic molecules. Researchers set up up a sealed cryogenic chamber where they cooled helium to below four Kelvin (that's close to 450 degrees below zero in Fahrenheit). This chamber essentially acts as a fridge. It's this fridge where the scientists created the molecule CaOCH3. Right off the bat, it was already moving at a much slower velocity than it would normally, making it ideal for further cooling.

Next came the lasers. They turned on two beams of light coming at the molecule from opposing directions. These counterpropagating lasers prompted a reaction known as Sisyphus cooling. Mitra says the name is fitting since in Greek mythology Sisyphus is punished by having to roll a giant boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to roll back down when he nears the top.

The same principle happens here with molecules, Mitra said. When two identical laser beams are firing in opposite directions, they form a standing wave of light. There are places where the light is less intense and there are places where it is stronger. This wave is what forms a metaphorical hill for the molecules.

The "molecule starts at the bottom of a hill formed by the counter-propagating laser beams and it starts climbing that hill just because it has some kinetic energy in it and as it climbs that hill, slowly, the kinetic energy that was its velocity gets converted into potential energy and it slows down and slows down and slows down until it gets to the top of the hill where it's the slowest," he said.

At that point, the molecule moves closer to a region where the light intensity is high, where it will more likely absorb a photon and rolls back down to the opposite side. "All they can do is keep doing this again and again and again," Mitra said.

By looking at images from cameras placed outside the sealed chamber, the scientists then inspect how much a cloud of these molecules expands as it travels through the system. The smaller the width of the cloud, the less kinetic energy it has - therefore the colder it is.

Analyzing the data further, they saw just how cold. They took it from 22 milikelvin to about 1 milikelvin. In other words, just a few thousandths of a decimal above absolute zero.

In the paper, the scientists lay out ways get the molecule even colder and lay out some of the doors it opens in a range of modern physical and chemical research frontiers. The scientists explain, the study is a proof of concept that their method could be used to cool other carefully chosen complex molecules to help advance quantum science.

"What we did here is sort of extending the state of the art," Mitra said. "It's always been debated whether we would ever have technology that will be good enough to control complex molecules at the quantum level. This particular experiment is just a stepping stone."

Wind shear was affecting both Tropical Storm Paulette and Rene in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 11. Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed that strong southwesterly wind shear pushed against Paulette creating a wedge-shaped storm.

Wind Shear Affecting Paulette

Tropical cyclones that appear less than round are likely being affected by wind shear or outside winds transitioning into an extra-tropical cyclone or taking on the elongated appearance of a weather front. Today, Sept. 11, wind shear has given Paulette a wedge-shape.

The shape of a tropical cyclone provides forecasters with an idea of its organization and strength. When outside winds batter a storm, it can change the storm's shape. Winds can push most of the associated clouds and rain to one side of a storm.

In general, wind shear is a measure of how the speed and direction of winds change with altitude. Tropical cyclones are like rotating cylinders of winds. Each level needs to be stacked on top each other vertically in order for the storm to maintain strength or intensify. Wind shear occurs when winds at different levels of the atmosphere push against the rotating cylinder of winds, weakening the rotation by pushing it apart at different levels.

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on Sept. 11, "Paulette continues to experience the effects of 35 to 40 knots of southwesterly vertical shear, which has caused the center to occasionally become exposed to the south and southwest of the primary convective bursts," noted Jack Beven, Senior Hurricane Specialist at NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla.

Infrared Data Reveals Effects of Wind Shear 

NASA's Aqua satellite uses infrared light to analyze the strength of storms by providing temperature information about the system's clouds. The strongest thunderstorms that reach high into the atmosphere have the coldest cloud top temperatures.

On Sept. 11 at 12:35 a.m. EDT (0435 UTC), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite revealed a very small area of Paulette's most powerful thunderstorms around its center where cloud top temperatures were as cold as minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62.2 Celsius). A larger area of strong storms with cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6. degrees Celsius) surrounded the center. NASA research has found that storms with cloud tops as cold as at least minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit can generate heavy rain.

At 5 a.m. EDT on Sept. 11, NHC noted that the wind shear Paulette is currently experiencing should subside. However, it may be another 24 hours before it subsides enough so that significant strengthening can occur.

Paulette's Status on Sept. 11

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Paulette was located near latitude 23.1 degrees north and longitude 51.7 degrees west. That is about 810 miles (1,305 km) east-northeast of the Northern Leeward Islands. Paulette is moving toward the west-northwest near 10 mph (17 kph). Maximum sustained winds are near 65 mph (100 kph) with higher gusts.  Little change in strength is expected today. The estimated minimum central pressure is 991 millibars.

Paulette's Weekend Forecast

NHC forecasters expect a motion toward the northwest for the next few days.  On the forecast track, the center of Paulette should approach Bermuda Sunday night and Monday. Gradual strengthening is expected to begin tonight or on Saturday, and Paulette is forecast to become a hurricane this weekend.

Ocean Swells Expected from Paulette

Swells generated by Paulette are expected to reach portions of the Leeward Islands today and will continue to spread westward to portions of the Greater Antilles, Bahamas, Bermuda, and the southeastern United States into the weekend.  These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.

NASA Researches Earth from Space

For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration.

For updated forecasts, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

A molecule created by researchers can restore lost connections in the spinal cord and brain of mice with neurological disorders including cerebellar ataxia, Alzheimer's disease and spinal cord injury. The research, involving scientists in the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB), in Cambridge, and collaborators from Japan and Germany, describes how the molecule repaired function in cells and in mouse models of diseases and injury.

Inspired by the way brain cells usually connect, the researchers created a synthetic "molecular bridge" that allows novel interactions and opens the way to numerous applications in neuronal circuit repair and remodeling. The design, reported in Science this week, can be extended to connect other cell types or could be used to remove connections in other disorders such as epilepsy.

Cerebellin-1 is a molecule that links neuronal cells that send signals with those that receive them, transmitters and receivers, at special points of contact called synapses. This is why cerebellin-1 and related proteins, known as "synaptic organisers", are essential to help establish the vast communication network that underlies all nervous system functions.

The team wondered if they could cut and paste structural elements from different organizer molecules to generate new ones with different binding properties. One of these, called CPTX was produced and found to have an excellent ability to organise neuronal connections in cell cultures.

Radu Aricescu, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, says: "Damage in the brain or spinal cord often involves loss of neuronal connections in the first instance, which eventually leads to the death of neuronal cells. Prior to neuronal death, there is a window of opportunity when this process could be reversed in principle. We created a molecule that we believed would help repair or replace neuronal connections in a simple and efficient way. We were very much encouraged by how well it worked in cells and we started to look at mouse models of disease or injury where we see a loss of synapses and neuronal degeneration."

Following the successful cell culture experiments, the team tested their molecule's effect in mice with cerebellar ataxia. Cerebellar ataxia can result from many diseases and patients have problems with balance, gait and eye movements.

Injecting their molecule into the brains of these mice, the team observed the neuronal tissue repair, as well as improved motor performance. Further encouraged by these results, they explored whether similar effects could be observed in other mouse models of neuronal loss and degeneration, such as Alzheimer's disease and spinal cord injury.

The results were striking in all the animal models, with restored neuronal connections and improvements in memory, coordination and movement tests. They saw the greatest impact in spinal cord injury where motor function was restored for at least seven to eight weeks following a single injection into the site of injury. In the brain, the positive impact of injections was observed for a shorter time, down to only about one week in the ataxia model. As a result, new and more stable versions of CPTX are currently being developed.

The team caution that a lot more work is needed to find out if these findings in mice are applicable in humans. The scientists are excited that these results prove the concept that damaged connections can be recreated and the principles described in their research could be used to investigate other disorders associated with reduced neuronal connectivity.

Radu Aricescu adds: "There are many unknowns as to how synaptic organisers work in the brain and spinal cord, so we were very pleased with the results we saw. We demonstrate that we can restore neural connections that send and receive messages, but the same principle could be used to remove connections. The work opens the way to many applications in neuronal repair and remodelling: it is only imagination that limits the potential for these tools."

If you happen to dig up an ancient ceramic cooking pot, don't clean it. Chances are, it contains the culinary secrets of the past.

A research team led by University of California, Berkeley, archaeologists has discovered that unglazed ceramic cookware can retain the residue of not just the last supper cooked, but, potentially, earlier dishes cooked across a pot's lifetime, opening a window onto the past.

The findings, reported in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest that gastronomic practices going back millennia -- say, to cook Aztec turkey, hominy pozole or the bean stew likely served at the Last Supper -- can be reconstructed by analyzing the chemical compounds adhering to and absorbed by the earthenware in which they were prepared.

"Our data can help us better reconstruct the meals and specific ingredients that people consumed in the past which, in turn, can shed light on social, political and environmental relationships within ancient communities," said study co-lead author Melanie Miller, a researcher at Berkeley's Archaeological Research Facility and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

In a yearlong cooking experiment led by Miller and Berkeley archaeologist Christine Hastorf, seven chefs each prepared 50 meals made from combinations of venison, maize (corn) and wheat flour in newly purchased La Chamba ceramic pots. This robust, burnished black clay cookware dates back to pre-Columbian South America, and the handcrafted vessels remain popular for preparing and serving traditional foods today.

The group came up with the idea in Hastorf's Archaeology of Food graduate seminar at Berkeley. By analyzing the chemical residues of the meals cooked in each pot, the researchers sought to learn whether the deposits found in ancient cooking vessels would reflect the remains of only the last dish cooked, or previous meals, as well.

In addition to receiving donated deer roadkill, they purchased large quantities of whole grains and a mill, which Hastorf set up in her garage, to grind them. The group then developed a repertoire of six recipes using deer meat and whole and milled grain.

They picked staple ingredients that could be found in many parts of the world. For example, two recipes focused on hominy, which is made from soaking maize in an alkaline solution, while two others used wheat flour.

"We chose the food based on how easy it would be to distinguish the chemicals in the food from one another and how the pots would react to the isotopic and chemical values of the food," said Hastorf, a Berkeley professor of anthropology who studies food archaeology, among other things.

Each of the seven chefs cooked an experimental meal weekly in a La Chamba pot using the group's designated ingredients. "The mushy meals were bland, and we didn't eat them," Miller noted.

Every eighth meal was charred to replicate the kinds of carbonized residues that archaeologists often encounter in ancient pots and to mimic what would normally happen in a pot's lifetime. Between each meal, the pots were cleaned with water and a branch from an apple tree. Surprisingly, none of them broke during the course of the study.

At Berkeley's Center for Stable Isotope Biogeochemisty, the team conducted an analysis of the charred remains and the carbonized patinas that developed on the pots. Stable isotopes are atoms whose composition does not decay over time, which is useful for archaeological studies. An analysis of the fatty lipids absorbed into the clay cookware was performed at the University of Bristol in England.

Overall, chemical analyses of the food residues showed that different meal time scales were represented in different residues. For example, the charred bits at the bottom of a pot contained evidence of the latest meal cooked, while the remnants of prior meals could be found in the patina that built up elsewhere on the pot's interior and in the lipid residue that was absorbed into the pottery itself.

These results give scientists a new tool to study long-ago diets and also provide clues to food production, supply and distribution chains of past eras.

"We've flung open the door for others to take this experiment to the next level and record even longer timelines in which food residues can be identified," Miller said.

Researchers have shown why intense, pure red colours in nature are mainly produced by pigments, instead of the structural colour that produces bright blue and green hues.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used a numerical experiment to determine the limits of matt structural colour - a phenomenon which is responsible for some of the most intense colours in nature - and found that it extends only as far as blue and green in the visible spectrum. The results, published in PNAS, could be useful in the development of non-toxic paints or coatings with intense colour that never fades.

Structural colour, which is seen in some bird feathers, butterfly wings or insects, is not caused by pigments or dyes, but internal structure alone. The appearance of the colour, whether matt or iridescent, will depending on how the structures are arranged at the nanoscale.

Ordered, or crystalline, structures result in iridescent colours, which change when viewed from different angles. Disordered, or correlated, structures result in angle-independent matt colours, which look the same from any viewing angle. Since structural colour does not fade, these angle-independent matt colours would be highly useful for applications such as paints or coatings, where metallic effects are not wanted.

"In addition to their intensity and resistance to fading, a matt paint which uses structural colour would also be far more environmentally-friendly, as toxic dyes and pigments would not be needed," said first author Gianni Jacucci from Cambridge's Department of Chemistry. "However, we first need to understand what the limitations are for recreating these types of colours before any commercial applications are possible."

"Most of the examples of structural colour in nature are iridescent - so far, examples of naturally-occurring matt structural colour only exist in blue or green hues," said co-author Lukas Schertel. "When we've tried to artificially recreate matt structural colour for reds or oranges, we end up with a poor-quality result, both in terms of saturation and colour purity."

The researchers, who are based in the lab of Dr Silvia Vignolini, used numerical modelling to determine the limitations of creating saturated, pure and matt red structural colour.

The researchers modelled the optical response and colour appearance of nanostructures, as found in the natural world. They found that saturated, matt structural colours cannot be recreated in the red region of the visible spectrum, which might explain the absence of these hues in natural systems.

"Because of the complex interplay between single scattering and multiple scattering, and contributions from correlated scattering, we found that in addition to red, yellow and orange can also hardly be reached," said Vignolini.

Despite the apparent limitations of structural colour, the researchers say these can be overcome by using other kind of nanostructures, such as network structures or multi-layered hierarchical structures, although these systems are not fully understood yet.

New haven, CT: Researchers at Yale have identified a possible treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a rare genetic disease for which there is currently no cure or treatment, by targeting an enzyme that had been considered "undruggable." The finding appears in the Aug. 25 edition of Science Signaling.

DMD is the most common form of muscular dystrophy, a disease that leads to progressive weakness and eventual loss of the skeletal and heart muscles. It occurs in 16 of 100,000 male births in the U.S. People with the disease exhibit clumsiness and weakness in early childhood and typically need wheelchairs by the time they reach their teens. The average life expectancy is 26.

While earlier research had revealed the crucial role played by an enzyme called MKP5 in the development of DMD, making it a promising target for possible treatment, scientists for decades had been unable to disrupt this family of enzymes, known as protein tyrosine phosphatases, at the enzymes' "active" site where chemical reactions occur.

In the new study, Anton Bennett, the Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Pharmacology and professor of comparative medicine, and his team screened over 162,000 compounds. They identified one molecular compound that blocked the enzyme's activity by binding to a previously undiscovered allosteric site -- a spot near the enzyme's active site.

"There have been many attempts to design inhibitors for this family of enzymes, but those compounds have failed to produce the right properties," Bennett said. "Until now, the family of enzymes has been considered 'undruggable.'"

By targeting the allosteric site of MKP5 instead, he said, "We discovered an excellent starting point for drug development that circumvented the earlier problems."

The researchers tested their compound in muscle cells and found that it successfully inhibited MKP5 activity, suggesting a promising new therapeutic strategy for treating DMD.

The research was supported by a National Institutes of Health grant through the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, as well as by the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale, which annually presents awards to support the most promising life science discoveries from Yale faculty.

Bennett said that the Blavatnik funding, which is administered by the Yale Office of Cooperative Research, was critical in moving the research forward. "It resulted in a license with a major pharmaceutical company," he said, "and we hope they will rapidly move forward with the development of the new treatment."

The finding has implications well beyond muscular dystrophy, he added. The researchers have demonstrated that the MKP5 enzyme is broadly implicated in fibrosis, or the buildup of scar tissue, a condition that contributes to nearly one-third of natural deaths worldwide.

"Fibrosis is involved in the end-stage death of many tissues, including liver, lung, and muscle," Bennett said. "We believe this enzyme could be a target more broadly for fibrotic tissue disease."

Ongoing land clearing for agriculture, mining and urbanisation is isolating and disconnecting Earth's protected natural areas from each other, a new study shows.

Lead author Michelle Ward, from The University of Queensland's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the findings were "alarming".

"Protected areas are vital for the protection and survival of plants, animals and ecosystems," Ms Ward said.

"When intact, healthy habitat connects these protected areas, species can migrate, escape danger such as fires, and track their preferred microclimates under rapid climate change.

"Our research shows 40 per cent of the terrestrial planet is intact, but only 9.7 per cent of Earth's terrestrial protected network can be considered structurally connected.

"This means more than 90 per cent of protected areas are isolated, in a sea of human activities."

The study shows that, on average, 11 per cent of each country and territory's protected area estate can be considered connected.

Under international agreements, the global protected area network must be well connected and cover 17 per cent of land.

The study revealed, however, that only nine countries and territories - 4.6 per cent of them - have greater than 17 per cent of their land protected, and maintain greater than 50 per cent connectivity.

"On a positive note, our study provides a common framework - previously absent - for countries and territories to assess the connectivity performance of their existing and future protected areas, with access to information and metrics," Ms Ward said.

Professor James Watson of UQ and the Wildlife Conservation Society said the research highlighted the importance of better locating future protected areas and the need for more emphasis on wide-scale habitat protection and restoration.

"Protected areas increasingly are becoming the only tool conservationists talk about, but most nature lives beyond the protected area boundary," Professor Watson said.

"We need national and global conservation goals that address whole-of-landscape conservation and targets that halt the destruction of habitat between protected areas.

"Most of nature has no chance if it's to survive in just 20 per cent of the world.

"We hope this study provides essential information for conservation and development planning, helping guide future national and global conservation agendas."

Through a unique research collaboration, researchers at the University of Helsinki have exposed major changes taking place in the insect communities of the Arctic. Their study reveals how climate change is affecting small but important predators of other insects, i.e. parasitoids.

"Predators at the top of the food web give us a clue to what is happening to their prey species, too. These results increase our understanding of how global warming is changing nature. At the same time, they suggest new inroads for finding answers to big questions in the field of ecology," says Professor Tomas Roslin from the University of Helsinki and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).

The researchers' main discovery was that clear traces of climate change can already be seen in arctic insect communities.

"In areas where summers are rapidly warming, we find a higher proportion of cold-sensitive predators than we might expect based on the previous climate," Roslin notes.

The study joined research teams working in Greenland, Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland and Iceland, which together compared regions where the climate has changed at different rates and in different ways in recent decades.

Parasitoids are fierce predators but sensitive to changes in climatic conditions

"The climate of the Arctic is currently changing about twice as fast as the global average. Therefore, the Arctic region provides an important laboratory when we try to understand the effects of climate change on nature," says Tuomas Kankaanpää, lead author of the study and active at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki.

"To distinguish the key consequences of climate change, we have focused on some of the most important predators in the Arctic, parasitoid wasps and flies. These parasitoids are predators whose larvae develop on or within a single host individual and usually kill it in the process. And now we have found that climate change is dramatically affecting the relative dominance of different types of parasitoids."

The researchers found that the changes particularly affect the ratios between parasitoids adhering to different lifestyles. On the other hand, different parasitoid species use different hosts. In the Arctic, Lepidoptera i.e. butterflies and moths and Diptera such as flies and gnats are the largest host groups of the parasitoids. Diptera are more dominant towards the north, while the species richness of Lepidoptera increase towards the south.

"We have found that the proportion of parasitoids preying on warmth-loving butterflies is especially in areas where summer temperatures in particular have risen in recent decades. By contrast, winter-time warming is reflected in a large representation of parasitoid species feeding on Diptera," says Kankaanpää.

Cunning koinobionts and greedy idiobionts

"Beyond their host species, parasitoids can also be classified into two other groups based on how they use their host. Koinobionts are the true masters of the parasitic lifestyle and manipulate their host with surgical precision. Females lay their eggs in the host's egg or larva, where the parasitoid larva then waits patiently until the host has grown larger. To do this, the koinobiont must skillfully manipulate the host's immune defense to survive. The second group, idiobionts, are more reminiscent of classic predators. The larvae of idiobionts start eating the host as soon as they hatch," says Kankaanpää.

"These different strategies are directly reflected in the sensitivity of the two groups to climatic conditions. Koinobionts can wait until the host has retreated to sheltered conditions to hibernate before killing it. Thus, they get protection from the worst frosts. Idiobionts lack this advantage, and often paralyze the host where found, having to then live in it at the mercy of the weather."

New approaches bring synergies

"In our project, we have harnessed the ratio between parasitoids of Lepidoptera and Diptera, and between koinobionts and idiobionts, into a sensitive barometer of the effects of climate change, Kankaanpää says. To this end, we have adopted a number of effective solutions. A common approach to predicting the effects of climate change is to compare contemporary communities of organisms in different climates. We then assume that communities in cold areas will eventually begin to resemble their current counterparts in warmer regions as the climate warms. The time dimension of change is thus replaced by distance, in what is called a space for time substitution. Now, however, we can already compare areas where the climate has changed in different ways. This is especially true in the Arctic, where change, and at the same time regional disparities, are large," says Kankaanpää.

Professor Tomas Roslin has been the supervisor of Tuomas Kankaanpää and is equally enthusiastic about new ways of research - and also points out another advance.

"For studies like this, we are also cooperating in a new way. This allows us to ask questions that would otherwise be too expensive, difficult and logistically challenging to address. If one research team was to send its members around the world, it would cost hundreds of thousands of euros. But by collaborating with other scientists across the Arctic and asking them for a few working days, everyone can provide their piece of the bigger puzzle, as collected using uniform methods. This is how we put together the full picture with realistic resources. And I am convinced that this kind of collaboration will pave the way for new breakthroughs," Roslin says.

Fantastic parasitic beasts and where to find them

With their clever and slightly macabre lifestyles, parasitoids have inspired us humans as well. The monsters in the Alien movies are classical parasitoids which, just like some parasitic flies, leave their eggs waiting for a passing host. Due to their cruel appearance, parasitoid wasps are often despised. But at the same time, we have the parasitoids to thank for our crops and gardens. Parasitoids are among the main enemies of herbivorous insects, and without them much of the world's greenery could disappear into smaller mouths. In the Arctic, the parasitoids are, in fact, the most numerous and species-rich predators.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have conducted a study that has determined the role that a critical protein plays in the development of hair cells. These hair cells are vital for hearing. Some of these cells amplify sounds that come into the ear, and others transform sound waves into electrical signals that travel to the brain. Ronna Hertzano, MD, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at UMSOM and Maggie Matern, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, demonstrated that the protein, called GFI1, may be critical for determining whether an embryonic hair cell matures into a functional adult hair cell or becomes a different cell that functions more like a nerve cell or neuron.

The study was published in the journal Development, and was conducted by physician-scientists and researchers at the UMSOM Department of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery and the UMSOM Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS), in collaboration with researchers at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Hearing relies on the proper functioning of specialized cells within the inner ear called hair cells. When the hair cells do not develop properly or are damaged by environmental stresses like loud noise, it results in a loss of hearing function.

In the United States, the prevalence of hearing loss doubles with every 10-year increase in age, affecting about half of all adults in their 70s and about 80 percent of those who are over age 85. Researchers have been focusing on describing the developmental steps that lead to a functional hair cell, in order to potentially generate new hair cells when old ones are damaged.

Hair cells in the inner ear

To conduct her latest study, Dr. Hertzano and her team utilized cutting-edge methods to study gene expression in the hair cells of genetically modified newborn mice that did not produce GFI1. They demonstrated that, in the absence of this vital protein, embryonic hair cells failed to progress in their development to become fully functional adult cells. In fact, the genes expressed by these cells indicated that they were likely to develop into neuron-like cells.

"Our findings explain why GFI1 is critical to enable embryonic cells to progress into functioning adult hair cells," said Dr. Hertzano. "These data also explain the importance of GFI1 in experimental protocols to regenerate hair cells from stem cells. These regenerative methods have the potential of being used for patients who have experienced hearing loss due to age or environmental factors like exposure to loud noise."

Dr. Hertzano first became interested in GFI1 while completing her M.D., Ph.D. at Tel Aviv University. As part of her dissertation, she discovered that the hearing loss resulting from mutations in another protein called POU4F3 appeared to largely result from a loss of GFI1 in the hair cells. Since then, she has been conducting studies to discover the role of GFI1 and other proteins in hearing. Other research groups in the field are now testing these proteins to determine whether they can be used as a "cocktail" to regenerate lost hair cells and restore hearing.

"Hearing research has been going through a Renaissance period, not only from advances in genomics and methodology, but also thanks to its uniquely collaborative nature among researchers," said Dr. Herzano.

The new study was funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It was also funded by the Binational Scientific Foundation (BSF).

"This is an exciting new finding that underscores the importance of basic research to lay the foundation for future clinical innovations," said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. "Identifying the complex pathways that lead to normal hearing could prove to be the key for reversing hearing loss in millions of Americans."

An endangered fish in California might use its internal clock to decide when to migrate, according to a study by the University of Cincinnati.

UC visiting assistant professor of biology Michael Booth studied the migration patterns of steelhead, a subpopulation of rainbow trout that migrates to the Pacific Ocean, where the growing fish hunt and feed until they return to their natal freshwater streams to spawn.

While working at the United Water Conservation District, Booth used 19 years of records from a designated fish trap on southern California's Santa Clara River to identify potential environmental drivers that spur some fish to make the arduous trip to the Pacific Ocean. The trap is part of a diversion off the river where fish can be counted and, if necessary, relocated downstream past the river's low or dry spots.

He found that steelhead migration was triggered by the lengthening daylight of spring rather than factors like recent rains, which had little correlation to migration.

The study was published in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management.

The Santa Clara River is one of the largest coastal watersheds in southern California. It's an important source of water for Ventura County's $2 billion agriculture industry, famed for its strawberries, lemons, peppers and avocados.

But sections of the river often go dry completely, isolating fish in upstream tributaries until the seasonal rains return.

"The Santa Clara River is a massive desert river," Booth said. "The river channel is braided with sand and gravel. It's about 1,000 feet wide in its lower sections and it's always changing."

The river is fed by cold-water mountain streams typically associated with rainbow trout. Some of the fish remain in these tributaries their entire lives, spawning and dying not far from where they hatched. Others undergo physiological changes that allow them to tolerate the saltwater of the Pacific Ocean. While rainbow trout are typically green and pink, steelhead can take on a silvery sheen, giving them their name.

Steelhead in southern California are federally protected as an endangered species. Anglers must release any they catch.

Booth said there are big genetic benefits to making the dangerous trip to the Pacific Ocean. Steelhead grow much faster in the food-rich ocean than trout that remain in the freshwater streams. Fish that migrate to the ocean have an advantage in passing on their genes to subsequent generations when they return to spawn, he said.

"A 3-year-old resident trout might be a foot long, but a steelhead might be 3 feet long," he said. "Their fecundity is directly related to size. So the bigger the fish, the more eggs it can make. There's a really strong genetic advantage to making more babies."

The study recommended limiting the extraction of water from the Santa Clara River during the migration months of mid-March to May. Likewise, Booth said the water flow in the river should be maintained where possible to allow late migrating steelhead to return upstream.

The trout's migration opportunities might shrink from climate change, the study warned.

"There are a lot of challenges in the Santa Clara River. The water levels go up and down," he said. "This river has a massive sediment load. During a big storm, the river bed can erode 20 feet. The water looks like a smoothie coming downstream."

Booth said steelheads likely wait for sediment-choked river water to settle before migrating.

Since the river in most years is only navigable after storms get water flowing again, Booth hypothesized that heavy rains triggered the steelhead's movement to the ocean.

"We thought the fish would migrate when the river was flowing and wouldn't migrate in years without storm events," Booth said. "It turned out that wasn't the case. They migrated regardless of whether the river was flowing to the ocean."

Booth isn't sure if the fish that reach dry spots head back upstream or simply perish in the main stem of the river.

The study is significant because it could help wildlife managers and government regulators make more informed decisions about water use. The Santa Clara River is a major source of water for agriculture and people who live in the watershed. Knowing what months are crucial for steelhead migration could help wildlife managers avoid conflicts.

"It's really hard for a water manager to decide this is when we can and can't divert water if you have no data on when the fish are migrating," Booth said.

For fish that miss the narrow window to navigate the Santa Clara while it's running, there are few practical solutions, Booth said.

"This is a very wicked problem. The water available is dependent on rain, snowfall and the recharge of the groundwater," he said. "We can avoid taking water from the river or reducing extractions but there isn't an extra water source to make the river flow during droughts."

But Booth is optimistic the steelhead will persist in the Santa Clara River, at least for now.

"Steelhead are very resilient. They've been holding on for a while," he said

Media studies expert Professor Amanda Lotz, from QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre, said there is a lot of misunderstanding about the world’s biggest internet-distributed video service.

“Netflix must be examined as a zebra among horses,” said Professor Lotz who is in the middle of a three-year Australian Research Council Discovery Project - Internet-distributed television: Cultural, industrial and policy dynamics. She recently published an article in the International Journal of Cultural Studies - ‘In Between the Global and the Local: Mapping the Geographies of Netflix as a Multinational Service.’

“Few recognize the extent to which Netflix has metamorphosed into a global television service. Unlike services that distribute only US-produced content, Netflix has funded the development of a growing library of series produced in more than 27 countries, across six continents, including Australia.

“Netflix has regional offices now in Singapore, Amsterdam, and São Paulo. Last year it opened its Australian headquarters in Sydney.”

Along with QUT’s Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham and Dr Ramon Lobato, Senior Research Fellow, RMIT, Professor Lotz is investigating the impact of global subscription video-on-demand platforms on national television markets.

“Internet-distributed video services such as Netflix, have completely transformed the entertainment landscape and the competitive field in which free-to-air television operates, as well as turned the definition of ‘pay TV’ on its head,” Professor Lotz said.

“But the Netflix model has been the real gamechanger. Previously, the core business of channels like the BBC, ABC or NBC that commission and pay the lion’s share of production fees for series has been nation bound, even if those shows would someday be available to audiences in many countries.

“Netflix’s propensity to commission series in multiple countries, and then make them available to the full 150-some million subscribers simultaneously, is unprecedented and something no television channel could do.

“A local example of this is Hannah Gadsby: Nanette which has given the Australian comedian a new global profile. She now has a second Netflix show - Hannah Gadsby: Douglas.

“And although many believe Netflix competes with the likes of Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Stan and Disney+, none of these services show evidence of supporting multinational production at a scale comparable to Netflix.

“Our research project has compiled a database of series commissioned by Netflix (in whole or part) and their country of origin. We have found more than half of the titles are produced outside the US and initial analysis of Netflix original films suggests a similar pattern.”

However, Professor Lotz said Netflix could never develop the depth of content necessary to replace national providers, especially public service broadcasters central to cultural storytelling.

“It is difficult to appreciate whether some of Netflix’s peculiarity results from its global reach, business model, or distribution technology, but these are crucial questions to ask. And do these characteristics lead to the availability of stories, characters, and places not readily available? If so, this is a notable benefit to audiences,” she said.

“We should also ask how these characteristics affect opportunities available for writers, producers, and actors who might be rethinking the kind of stories that must be told to sell internationally.

“Appealing to audiences outside a commissioning channel’s country is increasingly necessary. Even if Netflix is unlikely to eliminate national providers, it is reconfiguring the competitive landscape.”

Professor Lotz also posted a blog series, Netflix 30 Q&A, in recent months that examines the differences of the SVOD business and how it allows Netflix different program strategies than linear, ad-supported channels.

“The long term and global rights the company seeks in its commissions have required significant changes in the remuneration norms for those who make its series, and it remains unclear whether the new norms amount to lower pay,” she said.

“National broadcasters worry about keeping up with the escalating fees Netflix can support for its prestige series’ and complain of an unfair playing field where Netflix isn’t subject to the same local content rules and other requirements.

“But business and cultural analysts must stop trying to shoehorn Netflix into the same category as linear channels and streaming services aimed at pushing US content abroad. Over its 23-year-existence, Netflix has evolved repeatedly. Perhaps this steady change fuels its misperception.”

Media contact:

Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 3151, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au

After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au

Journal

International Journal of Cultural Studies

DOI

10.1177/1367877920953166

An international study published in Science significantly improves the potential for understanding how the Earth's climate system evolved over the past 66 million years. The work reveals that the Earth system shifted abruptly between 4 distinct modes: hothouse, warmhouse, coolhouse, and icehouse during the period. The EU Horizon 2020 TiPES project contributed to the results.

The study, "An astronomically dated record of Earth's climate and its predictability over the last 66 Million Years", by Thomas Westerhold, MARUM, Bremen, Germany et. al presents a precisely dated paleoclimate record for the last 66 million years.

"The new dataset extends our knowledge on climate variability much further into the past and simultaneously has significantly improved temporal precision. It might, therefore, act as a new paleoclimate reference curve for researchers around the world," explains co-author Norbert Marwan of PIK-Potsdam, Germany.

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is a principal investigator in the TiPES project, which is coordinated from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The new dataset, CENOGRID has more detail and higher signal-to-noise ratio than any previous paleoclimate record covering the period. This means, climate science now has access to a longer series of precise paleoclimate data, which can be used to extract knowledge about the Earth system from the past.

"We now know more accurately when it was warmer or colder on the planet and we also have a better understanding of the underlying dynamics," explains first author Thomas Westerhold of MARUM.

Advanced statistical analysis of the new, accurately dated climate record confirmed 4 distinct climate modes which dominated the last 66 million years: Hothouse, warmhouse, coolhouse, and our current state: Ice-house.

"We were able to look more in details that were not visible at the first glance on the data," explains Dr. Norbert Marwan.

The shifts between states might have involved tipping points, which is the subject of further investigations.

The improved data resolution and dating of the evolution of past climate is an important contribution to climate science. Not least, because precise climate modeling, which is urgently needed today, relies on a good understanding of the Earth system.

Also, the quality of a climate model can be tested by having it simulate the climate of the past. Such a test is of course only possible if we know the evolution of the past climate in reasonable detail.

Thus, the work should lead to reduced uncertainty in predictions of future climate conditions.

In the study, sample material from the ocean floor, collected throughout the world for more than five decades through internationally coordinated expeditions of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and its predecessor programs was astronomically dated, using the so-called Milankovitch cycles.

The Milankovitch cycles are recurring variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. These variations influence the amount and distribution of solar energy reaching Earth. As it varies over time, regional climates fluctuate, leaving a climate signal in fossilized microscopic organisms.

The TiPES project is an EU Horizon 2020 interdisciplinary climate science project on tipping points in the Earth system, coordinated by The Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.