Earth

Tropical Storm Cosme formed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean over the weekend of July 6 and 7 and after two days, the storm already weakened to a remnant low pressure area. NASA's Aqua satellite found the storm devoid of strong thunderstorms and appeared as a wispy ring of clouds.

Tropical Storm Cosme formed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean over the weekend of July 6 and 7 and after two days, the storm already weakened to a remnant low pressure area. NASA's Aqua satellite found the storm devoid of strong thunderstorms and appeared as a wispy ring of clouds.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) on Saturday, July 6, Tropical Storm Cosme formed near latitude 15.6 degrees north and longitude 115.7 degrees west. That is about 630 miles (1,015 km) southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico.

On July 8 at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 UTC), NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the Cosme from space. The storm appeared to have a circulation of wispy high clouds. Five hours later, the low pressure area was devoid of precipitation and the National Hurricane Center noted, "Cosme has degenerated into a large swirl of mostly cold-air stratocumulus clouds."

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Cosme was located near latitude 20.5 North, longitude 120.7 West. Cosme reached its peak later on the day it formed when maximum sustained winds topped out at 50 mph (85 kph) around 5 p.m. EDT. Since then, Cosme was on a weakening trend.

The update on July 8 at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) was the last public advisory issued by the National Hurricane Center on Cosme. Cosme degenerated into a post-tropical remnant low pressure area. At that time, Cosme was located about 710 miles (1,140 km) west of the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico. The National Hurricane Center noted that the post-tropical cyclone is moving toward the northwest near 8 mph (13 kph) and this general motion is expected to continue for the next couple of days with a decrease in forward speed. Maximum sustained winds are near 30 mph (45 kph) with higher gusts.

Weakening is expected during the next 48 hours, and the remnant low pressure area is forecast to dissipate by Wednesday, July 10.

Grandparents have long been associated with letting their grandchildren do things their parents would never permit. Candy. Extended bedtime. Too much television. Carefree fun. They like to spoil their grandchildren.

A new study by Rutgers and other researchers finds that today's grandparents are still true to their traditional fun-loving image -- allowing their grandchildren, while under their supervision, to spend about half of their time on a mobile phone, tablet, computer or TV.

The study, published in the Journal of Children and Media, suggests that grandparents should restrict media use by setting simple rules for screen time when babysitting. This is particularly needed when children bring a device from home and expect to watch even more.

"Grandparents play a very significant role in raising their grandchildren. We need to educate them about the impact of media on children's lives and on proper use that will benefit the wellbeing of their grandchildren," said study co-author Dafna Lemish, a distinguished professor of journalism and media studies and associate dean for programs at Rutgers University-New Brunswick's School of Communication and Information.

The study reviewed the experiences of grandparents of children ages 2-7 who take care of their grandchildren at least once per week and found that during an average four-hour visit, the children spent two hours either watching videos or playing games on electronic devices.

Among the findings:

Many grandparents feel less confident in managing children's use of interactive media, such as games, than in managing their use of non-interactive videos. This may be due to lack of experience with games or apps.

Some children's parents give the grandparents instructions about how to handle media use. This, ironically, leads to more screen time viewing.

Grandfathers in the study allowed more interactive screen time than did grandmothers, perhaps because they are more comfortable with the technology.

On average, grandparents had more difficulty in managing the media use of boys and older children than of girls and younger children. Boys on average spent 17 minutes more than girls with media related activities.

Grandparents allow more screen time when they care for children in their own homes versus the children's homes. They also allow more screen time when the child brings a tablet or other device from home, as 22 percent of grandchildren do.

The lowest amount of time dedicated to media use per visit with grandparents was found among children aged 2 to 3, at an average of 98 minutes per visit. Children aged 4 to 5 spent an average of 106 minutes with electronic devices, and children aged 6 to 7 had 143 minutes of screen time, on average per visit.

The study offers the following recommendations:

Grandparents who set strict rules (such as not more than an hour; not before bedtime; not during meals) succeed in reducing their grandchildren's screen time.

Parents should supply toys, games and books to help grandparents keep children busy.

ITHACA, N.Y. - A breakthrough imaging technique developed by Cornell University researchers shows promise in decontaminating water by yielding surprising and important information about catalyst particles that can't be obtained any other way.

Chemistry professor, Peng Chen has developed a method that can image nonfluorescent catalytic reactions - reactions that don't emit light - on nanoscale particles. An existing method can image reactions that produce light, but that applies only to a small fraction of reactions, making the new technique potentially significant in fields ranging from materials engineering to nanotechnology and energy sciences.

The researchers then demonstrated the technique in observing photoelectrocatalysis - chemical reactions involving interactions with light - a key process in environmental remediation.

"The method turned out to be actually very simple - quite simple to implement and quite simple to do," said Chen, senior author of "Super-Resolution Imaging of Nonfluorescent Reactions via Competition," which published July 8 in Nature Chemistry. "It really extends the reaction imaging to an almost unlimited number of reactions."

Catalytic reactions occur when a catalyst, such as a solid particle, accelerates a molecular change. Imaging these reactions at the nanoscale as they happen, which the new technique allows scientists to do, can help researchers learn the optimal size and shape for the most effective catalyst particles.

In the paper, the researchers applied the new technique to image the oxidation of hydroquinone, a micropollutant found in water, on bismuth vanadate catalyst particles, and discovered previously unknown behaviors of catalysts that helped render hydroquinone nontoxic.

"Many of these catalyzed reactions are environmentally important," Chen said. "So you could study them to learn how to remove pollutants from an aqueous environment."

Previously, Chen's research group pioneered the application of single-molecule fluorescence imaging, a noninvasive, relatively inexpensive and easily implemented method that allows researchers to observe chemical reactions in real time. Because the method was limited to fluorescent reactions, however, his team worked for years on a more widely applicable method.

The technique they discovered relies on competition between fluorescent and nonfluorescent reactions. The competition suppresses the fluorescent reaction, allowing it to be measured and mapped, which in turn provides information about the nonfluorescent reaction.

The researchers named their method COMPetition Enabled Imaging Technique with Super-Resolution, or COMPEITS.

"This highly generalizable technique can be broadly applied to image various classes of nonfluorescent systems, such as unlabeled proteins, neurotransmitters and chemical warfare agents," Peng said. "Therefore, we expect COMPEITS to be a breakthrough technology with profound impacts on many fields including energy science, cell biology, neuroscience and nanotechnology."

Three researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington have made a groundbreaking discovery that could enhance the ability of reef-building corals to survive a rapidly warming and disease-filled ocean.

In a newly published paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society, Bradford Dimos, Laura Mydlarz and Mark Pellegrino, all from the Department of Biology in the College of Science, report their identification of a mitochondrial unfolded protein response in an endangered coral species.

The cellular stress response promotes mitochondrial protein homeostasis, free radical detoxification and innate immunity. Its existence in corals was previously unknown.

"We understood that there is a target gene essentially used as a biomarker for diseased and distressed corals, and that gene is induced by the response pathway that my lab studies," said Pellegrino, assistant professor of biology.

Pellegrino, who had never previously studied coral, is an expert in mitochondria and cell biology. In discussions with Mydlarz, whose portfolio is focused on coral immunity, the two hypothesized that investigating the mitochondrial unfolded protein response in coral could have relevance in protecting the coral reefs. They were right.

"This is a true collaboration bringing together the tools in Mark's lab with the data available in my lab," said Mydlarz, professor of biology. "But it wasn't until Brad joined my lab, with his experience in studying mitochondria, and took this on as his project that we were able to investigate."

Dimos, a second-year graduate student in Mydlarz's lab and first author on the paper, said the gene they discovered acts as a "master regulator" that unlocks hundreds of other genes.

"There has been a lot of well-done work in the past that has identified various genes that could be important for immunity in coral, but our gene potentially regulates a lot of those," Dimos said. "We've uncovered a single target that has a broad scope of impact. This is a huge step forward in making any interventions to preserve coral more efficiently."

The team plans to move forward with testing the genetic pathway in a model organism to determine if the newly discovered gene can protect against the heat stress and infection that corals face in the ocean, Pellegrino said.

"A lot of these genes in this pathway are involved in protecting the mitochondria," Pellegrino said. "In addition to protecting against heat stress, this stress response pathway could also possibly protect against infection owing to its role in regulating innate immunity."

Coral reefs not only create vibrant underwater landscapes, but they support 25% of all marine species on the planet. But they have recently experienced massive declines driven by disease and thermally induced mass coral bleaching in the face of increased environmental disturbances.

"Corals build the reef and are the base of the ecosystem," Mydlarz said. "Without live coral, the reef doesn't have the structure it needs to support the life that relies on it. It's ecologically important, but also has great socioeconomic significance. Understanding the existence of this gene means that there is now the potential to identify if corals are experiencing stress before they appear dead or bleached."

Dimos said the ability to predict coral survival will help scientists and conservationists allocate resources and determine which species to prioritize as the environment increasingly becomes more unstable.

Clay Clark, chair of the Department of Biology, said the work of Dimos, Mydlarz and Pellegrino is making significant contributions to UTA's commitment to address critical issues related to the global environment.

"It is exciting to see two labs combine their strengths and resources to tackle a major issue with numerous critical implications," Clark said. "Bradford, Laura and Mark are showcasing the power of research as they move swiftly and thoroughly in response to a rapidly growing issue. I look forward to how this breakthrough will lead them to protect these vital organisms to secure invaluable biodiversity."

Racial residential segregation is the predominant factor that explains why some cities have greater racial disparities in fatal police shootings than others, according to a new study by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers published in the Journal of the National Medical Association.

“Interventions such as inherent bias training aim to alter the way police officers interact with Black individuals, but our research suggests that what is needed is training that changes the way police interact with Black neighborhoods,” says study lead author Dr. Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at BUSPH. “Ultimately, countering structural racism itself, particularly in the form of racial segregation, is critical.”

Siegel and his colleagues used data from the Mapping Police Violence Project to calculate the ratio of Black and White victims of police shootings in 69 of the largest American cities between 2013 and 2017. They found that, across these cities, a Black person was 3.5 times more likely to be fatally shot by police than a White person. However, this ratio ranged widely: A Black person was no more likely than a White person to be fatally shot by police in Mesa, Arizona; Honolulu, Hawaii; Lexington, Kentucky; and Henderson, Nevada—but 46.7 times more likely in Santa Ana, California.

To measure the level of Black-White racial segregation in each city, the researchers used an established measure called the index of dissimilarity—in this case, what percent of Black people in a city would have to move in order to produce an equal distribution of White and Black people across each US Census block of that city. They then controlled for a city’s Black median income, proportion of the Black population living in rental housing, Black representation in the police force, size of the police force relative to the city’s population, crime rates, what percent of the population was Black and what percent was Hispanic, and the city’s overall population.

They found that, for each percent of a city’s Black population that would have to move for an equal distribution, the ratio of police shooting rates of Black compared to White victims increased by 44 percent. In contrast, the racial composition of a police force had no impact.

An unprecedented belt of brown algae stretches from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico--and it's likely here to stay. Scientists at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg's College of Marine Science used NASA satellite observations to discover and document the largest bloom of macroalgae in the world, dubbed the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, as reported in Science.

Based on computer simulations, they confirmed that this belt of the brown macroalgae Sargassum forms its shape in response to ocean currents. It can grow so large that it blankets the surface of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. In 2018, more than 20 million tons of it - heavier than 200 fully loaded aircraft carriers - floated in surface waters and became a problem to shorelines lining the tropical Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and east coast of Florida, as it carpeted popular beach destinations and crowded coastal waters.

"The scale of these blooms is truly enormous, making global satellite imagery a good tool for detecting and tracking their dynamics through time," said Woody Turner, manager of the Ecological Forecasting Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Chuanmin Hu of the USF College of Marine Science, who led the study, has studied Sargassum using satellites since 2006. Hu spearheaded the work with first author Dr. Mengqiu Wang, a postdoctoral scholar in his Optical Oceanography Lab at USF. The team included others from USF, Florida Atlantic University, and Georgia Institute of Technology. The data they analyzed from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) between 2000-2018 indicates a possible regime shift in Sargassum blooms since 2011.

In the satellite imagery, major blooms occurred in every year between 2011 and 2018 except 2013. This information, coupled with field measurements, suggests that no bloom occurred in 2013 because the seed populations of Sargassum measured during winter of 2012 were unusually low, Wang said.

Before 2011, most of the free floating Sargassum in the ocean was primarily found in patches around the Gulf of Mexico and Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso Sea is located on the western edge of the central Atlantic Ocean and named after its popular algal resident. In patchy doses in the open ocean, Sargassum contributes to ocean health by providing habitat for turtles, crabs, fish, and birds and, like other plants, producing oxygen via photosynthesis. But too much of this seaweed can crowd out marine species, especially near the coast.

In 2011, Sargassum populations started to explode in places it hadn't been before, like the central Atlantic Ocean, and then it arrived in gargantuan gobs that suffocated shorelines and introduced a new nuisance for local environments and economies.

"The ocean's chemistry must have changed in order for the blooms to get so out of hand," Hu said. Sargassum reproduces from fragments of the parent plant, and it probably has several initiation zones around the Atlantic Ocean. It grows faster when nutrient conditions are favorable, and when its internal clock ticks in favor of reproduction.

The team identified key factors that are critical to bloom formation: a large seed population in the winter left over from a previous bloom, nutrient input from West Africa upwelling in winter, and nutrient input in the spring or summer from the Amazon River. Such discharged nutrients may have increased in recent years due to increased deforestation and fertilizer use, though Hu noted that the evidence for nutrient enrichment is preliminary and based on limited available data, and the team needs more research to confirm this hypothesis. In addition, Sargassum only grows well when salinity is normal and surface temperatures are normal or cooler.

"Earth's ocean biogeochemistry is changing in response to natural and human forcings. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt suggests that we may be witnessing ecosystem shifts in our ocean that could have important implications for marine organisms and ecosystem services, which humans depend on," said Dr. Paula Bontempi, who manages NASA's Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program and serves as acting deputy director of NASA's Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters.

"This is all ultimately related to climate change, as climate affects precipitation and ocean circulation and even human activities [that can lead to Sargassum blooms], but what we've shown is that these blooms do not occur because of increased water temperature," Hu said. "They are probably here to stay."

This work was funded by several programs in NASA's Earth Science Division, NOAA RESTORE Science Program, the JPSS/NOAA Cal/Val project, the National Science Foundation, and by a William and Elsie Knight Endowed Fellowship.

Banner Photo: Sargassum off Big Pine Key in the lower Florida Keys. Credit: Brian Lapointe, Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute

Drylands cover approximately 50% of the land surface in China, among which semi-arid regions are the main dryland type. However, these semi-arid regions have undergone continuous expansion and a significant drying trend in recent decades, which increases the risk of land degradation and deterioration in China. Fully understanding the characteristics and dynamics of semi-arid climate change in China is essential for delaying desertification, protecting renewable regional resources and developing reasonable policies, according to Prof. Jianping Huang at the Key Laboratory for Semi-arid Climate Change of the Ministry of Education, College of Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University.

Huang's article co-authored with his team of researchers from the College of Atmospheric Sciences, Lanzhou University, has been published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. It is one of the papers included in a special issue on the National Report (2011-2018) to the International Union on Geophysics and Geodesy (IUGG) Centennial by the China National Committee for IAMAS.

In their paper, the authors systematically review the characteristics of semi-arid climate change in China, and highlight the dynamic processes and mechanisms affecting semi-arid climate change. The projection of semi-arid climate change and many issues that need to be further investigated are also summarized and discussed.

Studies have shown that semi-arid regions dominate the coverage of drylands in northern China, which have experienced the largest warming and significant expansion during the last 60 years. The climate in expanded semi-arid regions has become drier and warmer, particularly in the newly formed semi-arid areas, and the drying trend is strongly associated with the weakened East Asian summer monsoon. The intensity of the regional temperature response over these regions has been amplified by land-atmosphere interactions and human activities, and the decadal to interdecadal climate variation in semi-arid regions is regulated by oceanic oscillations. Dust-cloud-precipitation interactions may have altered semi-arid precipitation by affecting the local energy and hydrological cycles.

"In the 21st century, semi-arid regions in China are projected to continuously expand. It will increase the challenges in dealing with desertification, food security and water supply." Said Huang.

Collapsed houses, destroyed port facilities and thousands of victims -- on 22 May 1766 an earthquake of approximately 7.5 magnitude units and a subsequent water surge triggered a catastrophe in Istanbul. The origin of the quake was located along the North Anatolian fault in the Sea of Marmara. It was the last major earthquake to hit the metropolis on the Bosporus.

Researchers of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany), together with colleagues from France and Turkey, have now been able to demonstrate for the first time with direct measurements on the seafloor that considerable tectonic strain has built up again on the North Anatolian fault below the Sea of Marmara. "It would be sufficient to trigger another earthquake with magnitudes between 7.1 to 7.4," says geophysicist Dr. Dietrich Lange of GEOMAR. He is the lead author of the study published today in the international journal Nature Communications.

The North Anatolian fault zone marks the boundary between the Eurasian and Anatolian plates. "Strong earthquakes occur when the fault zone becomes locked. Then tectonic strain accumulates, and the seismic energy is released in an earthquake", explains Dr. Lange. The last time this happened was in 1999 at a section of the North Anatolian fault near Izmit, about 90 kilometers east of Istanbul.

Tectonic strain build-up along fault zones on land has been regularly monitored for years using GPS or land surveying methods. This is not possible in seabed fault zones due to the low penetration depth of the GPS satellite signals under water. However, the section of the North Anatolian fault that poses the considerable threat to the Istanbul metropolitan region is located underwater in the Marmara Sea.

Up to now, it has only been possible to extrapolate, for example using land observations, whether the plate boundaries there are moving or locked. However, the methods could not distinguish between a creeping movement and the complete locking of the tectonic plates. The new GeoSEA system developed at GEOMAR measuring acoustic distances on the seabed now enables scientists for the first time to directly measure crustal deformation with mm-precision. Over a period of two and a half years, a total of ten measuring instruments were installed at a water depth of 800 metres on both sides of the fault. During this time, they carried out more than 650,000 distance measurements.

"In order to get measurements accurate within a few millimetres over several hundred of metres, very precise knowledge of the speed of sound underwater is required. Therefore, pressure and temperature fluctuations of the water must also be measured very precisely over the entire period," explains Prof. Dr. Heidrun Kopp, GeoSEA project manager and co-author of the current study.

"Our measurements show that the fault zone in the Marmara Sea is locked and therefore tectonic strain is building up. This is the first direct proof of the strain build-up on the seabed south of Istanbul", emphasizes Dr. Lange.

"If the accumulated strain is released during an earthquake, the fault zone would move by more than four metres. This corresponds to an earthquake with a magnitude between 7.1 and 7.4," adds Professor Kopp. Such an event would very probably have similar far-reaching consequences for nearby Istanbul as the 1999 earthquake for Izmit with over 17,000 casualties.

Tsukuba, Japan - A team at the University of Tsukuba introduced a new procedure of harvesting energy and organic molecules from algae using nanoporous graphene and porous graphene foams. By developing a reusable system that can evaporate water at high rate without the need for centrifugation or squeezing. This research has a great potential for the application of producing cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient biofuels, vitamins, and chemicals.

In the fight against global climate change, algae biomass is a very exciting field of research, because they are photosynthetic microorganisms that convert light energy from the sun into energy-rich biomolecules. When algae are grown and harvested on an industrial scale, these molecules can be converted into a wide array of important compounds, including biofuel, medicines, omega-3 dietary supplements, and many other valuable bio-products. Algae are also able to absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, switching from traditional fossil fuels to biofuels holds the promise of slashing net greenhouse gas emissions. However, micro-algae cultures consist primarily of water at low solid content (0.05 - 1.0 wt%) and harvesting the organic material due to solid-liquid separation techniques usually requires multiple dehydration steps.

Now, scientists at the University of Tsukuba introduced a new method for removing water from algae biomass that does not damage the fragile compounds to be harvested. In contrast with previous methods which rely on mechanical centrifugation or squeezing, while this approach uses solar irradiation and reusable, nanostructured support materials. The fabrication of hierarchically-structured nanoporous graphene and porous graphene foams creates tiny channels for water to be pulled upwards from deep inside the sample.

This novel developed material protects the biomass from overheating while capturing more of the sun's energy to evaporate the water. "We needed a material that absorbs light, has a low specific heat and thermal conductivity, but is still hydrophilic and porous, with a large surface area," says first author Professor Yoshikazu Ito. "Fortunately, nitrogen-doped nanostructured graphene possesses all of these qualities."

"The more energy efficient we can make the dehydration process, the more we can preserve the environmental benefits of using biomass in the first place," says senior author Dr. Andreas Isdepsky.

For the first time, scientists have captured high-resolution, three-dimensional images of an enzyme in the process of precisely cutting DNA strands.

The images--captured using a technique called cryogenic electron microscopy, or cryo-EM--reveal new information about how a gene-editing tool called CRISPR-Cas9 works, which may help researchers develop versions of it that operate more efficiently and precisely to alter targeted genes.

The findings--published today in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology--hold promise for future treatment and prevention of a range of human diseases caused by DNA mutations, from cancer to cystic fibrosis and Huntington disease.

"It is exciting to be able to see at such a high level of detail how Cas9 actually works to cut and edit DNA strands," said UBC researcher Sriram Subramaniam, who led the cryo-EM studies. "These images provide us with invaluable information to improve the efficiency of the gene-editing process so that we can hopefully correct disease-causing DNA mutations more quickly and precisely in the future."

CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing tool in which the enzyme Cas9 acts like a pair of molecular scissors, capable of cutting strands of DNA. Once the enzyme makes cuts in DNA at specific sites, insertions and edits can be made, therefore changing the DNA sequence.

To better understand the sequence of events involved in the process, Subramaniam and colleagues used cryo-EM technology to image the Cas9 enzyme at work. The images provide unprecedented glimpses of the stepwise molecular motions that occur in the course of DNA cutting by Cas9, including a snapshot of the cut DNA still attached to the enzyme immediately before release.

"One of the main hurdles preventing the development of better gene-editing tools using Cas9 is that we didn't have any images of it actually cutting DNA," said the study's co-senior author, University of Illinois researcher Miljan Simonovic. "But now we have a much clearer picture, and we even see how the major domains of the enzyme move during reaction and this may be an important target for modification."

The Subramaniam laboratory was the first to achieve atomic resolution imaging of proteins and protein-bound drug molecules using cryo-EM. In the last few years, they have pioneered the use of cryo-EM to visualize a variety of proteins including metabolic enzymes, brain receptors and DNA-protein complexes.

The study was supported by the funds from the US National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health grants, the UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences, and by a Canada Excellence Research Chair position awarded to Subramaniam.

As the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design, Subramaniam directs a laboratory aimed at bringing about transformative discoveries in cancer, neuroscience and infectious disease. Xing Zhu, the study's first author, as well as co-author Sagar Chittori are members of the Subramaniam laboratory at UBC.

Dates are one of the most significant fruit crops grown in the Middle East; however, little is known about how these resilient palm trees flourish in the high temperatures of desert habitats. Now, KAUST researchers have shown that date palms, after germination, can pause their early development within womb-like root structures in the soil, ready to grow when the environmental conditions are just right.

"Date palms are of huge importance to desert agriculture, especially in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where they are considered as a symbol of vitality and prosperity," says Ting Ting Xiao, who worked on the study with an international project team, under the supervision of KAUST's Ikram Blilou. "Dates are known for their medicinal and nutritional values. In Europe, they are considered a delicacy, while in the desert they are a promising sustainable food source."

"Our research was driven by curiosity. While there have been genomic and tissue-culture studies of date palms, there is little literature on the plant's embryo development and organ formation," Blilou explains.

Date palms employ a method of remote germination: rather than growing the first shoot and root right next to the seed and close to the surface of the soil, the whole seedling (root and shoot) remains within a multilayered root-like structure that buries deep into the soil to protect the young plant.

"It is what happens during remote germination that really surprised and delighted us," says Xiao. "Using a combination of state-of-the-art high-resolution imaging and molecular tools, we found that date palms can pause their development--rather like some animals whose pregnancy lies dormant until conditions are favorable."

When the time is right, such as when soil temperature increases, the plant emerges with a fully developed leaf and delicate root system, thereby maximizing its nutrients and water uptake in harsh surroundings.

"This is a real breakthrough in understanding plant adaptations to hostile desert environments," says Blilou. "Our insights could have an immediate use for growers, who can focus on the root system to screen for new cultivars. Ultimately, this knowledge could help us in the fight against desertification."

In a combined effort, KAUST plant science groups also plan to assess the genetic diversity of date palms in the Kingdom using genome resequencing as well as establishing breeding strategies for date palm. This work will contribute to improving date palm fruit production and quality for this important crop.

For more than 150 years, scientists have debated whether the success of organisms is mainly down to environmental factors such as climate change or whether - as advocated by Charles Darwin - interaction between species has a significantly more important role to play. A British-German study involving palaeobiologist Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kießling from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has now shown that the influence of environmental factors was considerably greater at the early stages of the evolution of animal life before becoming significantly less important 170 million years ago.

The team investigated the fossil record of marine life over the past 400 million years. The ecological success of marine organisms, measured by the proliferation of the various species, was strongly dependent on suitable chemical and climate conditions until roughly the middle of the Jurassic period. During the Jurassic period, approximately 170 million years ago, the situation changed. Since then, it would appear that biological interactions have played the major role.

Why this sudden change and why at this particular time? 'The answer probably lies with microscopic organisms, or plankton. The rise of planktonic algae with a calcified shell began in the Jurassic period. Gigantic quantities of these calcifying algae are still drifting in the ocean today and form calciferous sediment on the ocean floor after they die. The calcite helps to balance out acid. This facilitates the formation of calcified shells and allows organisms to use their energy differently,' explains Professor Wolfgang Kießling.

Another explanation can be found in the organisms' metabolism itself. On average, evolution made animals more and more active. Increased activity goes hand in hand with an improved physiological buffer. A coral is more at the mercy of the environment than a snail, for example.

A greater level of activity also means, however, an increased need for oxygen. Again, the algae appear to have had a crucial impact: Calcifying plankton have a higher sinking velocity which allows them to reach greater depths before they are eventually eaten by other organisms consuming oxygen. This increases the oxygenation of shallow waters. 170 million years ago, small algae had a genuinely revolutionary effect on the rules of the game for evolution, which still apply today.

Certain plants, insects, crustaceans and fish possess the uncanny ability to change the sex of their offspring before they are born. Mammals have never before demonstrated this genetic skill, until now.

A new Tel Aviv University study reveals a genetic system in mammals that enables two animals to mate and produce only females. A similar system based on identical principles would produce only males.

Research for the breakthrough study was led by Prof. Udi Qimron, Dr. Ido Yosef and Dr. Motti Gerlic and conducted by Dr. Liat Edry-Botzer, Rea Globus, Inbar Shlomovitz and Prof. Ariel Munitz, all of the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at TAU's Sackler School of Medicine. The research was published on July 1 in EMBO Reports.

"The research provides the world's first proof-of-concept for mammals to genetically produce only female progeny," says Prof. Qimron. "We proved the concept in mouse models, but the concept could also be demonstrated in cattle, swine, goats, chickens and other animals.

"The current approach uses sex-sorted cattle semen to control the sex of their offspring," Prof. Qimron explains. "Farmers in the dairy and layer-poultry industries obviously prefer female calves and chicks, but to date, there was no accessible genetic way to regulate the sex ratio, which is naturally left around 50-50. We approached this problem in an innovative way, using genetic engineering."

The researchers crossed two types of genetically engineered mice. The maternal mouse encoded a Cas9 protein, a CRISPR-protein that is inactive unless guided by special "guide-RNAs." The paternal mouse encoded these guide-RNAs on the Y-sex chromosome, a sex chromosome present only in males. After fertilization, the guide-RNAs from the paternal sperm and the Cas9 protein from the maternal egg were combined in the male mouse embryos, but not in the female embryos (because the females lack the Y chromosome). The combination of guide-RNAs with Cas9 results in a complex that eliminates the male embryos.

"We showed that Cas9 was specifically activated only in male embryos," says Prof. Qimron. "Our results pave the way for a genetic system that allows biased sex production. When two transgenic types of mice encoding Cas9 or Y-chromosome-encoded guide-RNAs are crossed, lethality of males occurs because Cas9 is guided from the Y chromosome to target essential genes. This does not happen in females because the Y chromosome is not transferred to them. This cross thus halts embryonic development of males without affecting the development of females.

"Importantly, the system can also be used to produce only males. Engineering the guide-RNAs on the paternal X-sex chromosome should result in the exclusive elimination of females, resulting in males-only progeny, which are more beneficial in the beef industry."

The research presents a first-of-its-kind approach to determining mammalian sex through genetic means, Prof. Qimron says. "We believe that the producers of cattle, swine and chicken may benefit greatly from the technology."

A new study, published in Psychiatry Research, has concluded that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools to identify discrete mental health disorders.

The study, led by researchers from the University of Liverpool, involved a detailed analysis of five key chapters of the latest edition of the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), on 'schizophrenia', 'bipolar disorder', 'depressive disorders', 'anxiety disorders' and 'trauma-related disorders'.

Diagnostic manuals such as the DSM were created to provide a common diagnostic language for mental health professionals and attempt to provide a definitive list of mental health problems, including their symptoms.

The main findings of the research were:

Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules

There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses

Almost all diagnoses mask the role of trauma and adverse events

Diagnoses tell us little about the individual patient and what treatment they need

The authors conclude that diagnostic labelling represents 'a disingenuous categorical system'.

Lead researcher Dr Kate Allsopp, University of Liverpool, said: "Although diagnostic labels create the illusion of an explanation they are scientifically meaningless and can create stigma and prejudice. I hope these findings will encourage mental health professionals to think beyond diagnoses and consider other explanations of mental distress, such as trauma and other adverse life experiences."

Professor Peter Kinderman, University of Liverpool, said: "This study provides yet more evidence that the biomedical diagnostic approach in psychiatry is not fit for purpose. Diagnoses frequently and uncritically reported as 'real illnesses' are in fact made on the basis of internally inconsistent, confused and contradictory patterns of largely arbitrary criteria. The diagnostic system wrongly assumes that all distress results from disorder, and relies heavily on subjective judgments about what is normal."

Professor John Read, University of East London, said: "Perhaps it is time we stopped pretending that medical-sounding labels contribute anything to our understanding of the complex causes of human distress or of what kind of help we need when distressed."

Travelling abroad for the summer can change a person's perspective--and it can also change the makeup of his gut.

A San Diego State University researcher has found evidence that a virus nicknamed crAssphage, found in the guts of about 70 percent of the world's population, has a country-specific biomarker that changes rapidly as humans travel from one location to another.

Bioinformatics researcher and professor Rob Edwards' study is the first to examine the global similarity of viruses in the human microbiome. His research also suggests that a relative of this crAssphage was living in primates and may have evolved alongside humans for millions of years. The research will be published in Nature Microbiology July 8th.

Edwards and colleagues discovered the existence of crAssphage in 2014 by using computer software rather than petri dishes to analyze fecal samples. This data-driven approach indicated crAssphage was not only "a benign globetrotter," but also "an integral part of the normal human gut virome."

He challenged the scientific community to join him in a kind of global treasure hunt for the virus, also called a bacteriophage. The response was overwhelming: 117 researchers, clinicians and academics together analyzed 32,273 different crAssphage sequences from more than 65 countries on six continents and found the phage, a type of virus that specifically infects bacteria, to be "a cosmopolitan inhabitant of the human gut the world over."

Key to this discovery were the worldwide scientific community of volunteers who helped make it happen by testing water from sewage plants, rivers, lakes, and ponds in their native countries.

Edwards said this recent discovery "is an illustration of how viruses move around the planet and are reflected in our microbiomes. We're just beginning to scratch the surface, but eventually, we may be able to manipulate the microbiome to target harmful bacteria. That would be a key step toward personalized medicine."