Culture

Destroying tropical ecosystems and replacing them with soybeans and other crops has immediate and devastating consequences for soybeans, according to new peer-reviewed research in the journal World Development. With 35.8 million hectare currently under soy cultivation in Brazil, extreme heat--which adjacent tropical forests help keep in check--has reduced soybean income by an average of approximately US$100 per hectare per year.

The study, Conserving the Cerrado and Amazon biomes of Brazil protects the soy economy from damaging warming, shows that protecting the Amazon and Cerrado can prevent the sort of high temperatures that damages the productivity of crops--estimated to cost the sector US$3.55 billion.

Another recent study found annual agricultural losses associated with deforestation-driven declines in precipitation at US$1 billion. Taken together, the two estimates reveal the massive economic impacts of destroying ecosystems on Brazil's agricultural sector; the annual losses are likely to be even higher than $US4.55 billion, which is only a conservative estimate.

"Destroying forests and other ecosystems instantly turns up the heat and reduces precipitation in the immediate vicinity where the destruction takes place, scorching soybean plants and inflicting great harm on the sector's profitability," said Rafaela Flach, the study's lead author.

"The economic fallout is big--and getting bigger, with serious impacts on global and local economics and food security. It's a local problem with global ramifications, and it's happening in tropical regions worldwide."

The research comes as Brazil faces its worst drought in almost a century, while deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has also expanded dramatically, setting new records for each of the past three months. With the fire season fast approaching, the overall trend has been one of accelerated ecosystem destruction with scant protection offered by the government. In three years, the Bolsonaro Administration has weakened 57 environmental laws, slashing environmental fines for illegal operations by 70% from March 2020 to August 2020 alone.

Scientists already have a well-established understanding of how tropical deforestation contributes to global climate change through emitting carbon and reducing the ability of the world's forests to take more carbon out of the atmosphere. A new body of research is emerging, showing how tropical deforestation has climate impacts beyond carbon: Deforestation immediately increases extreme heat locally and decreases regional and local rainfall.

These cascading impacts parch soil and harm crops and livestock, threatening agriculture both nearby and far away--with billion-dollar ramifications, as the report shows.

"The economic impacts of deforestation on extreme heat and reduced rainfall taken in isolation are troubling. But when we look at the impacts together and include climate change, the total effect can be overwhelming to the economy," said Flach. "While the global impacts should not be underestimated, the damage from ecosystem loss already being done to the Brazilian economy alone is severe."

In the new research, scientists analyzed the value of native vegetation in providing extreme heat regulation for soy production using two complementary approaches: soy revenue lost from the destruction of forests and other ecosystems and soy revenue gained from the conservation of these ecosystems.

For the analysis focused on ecosystem loss, they estimated the increased exposure to extreme heat for the amount of vegetation that was removed. For the conservation analysis, they modeled the value of standing forests and other ecosystems based on estimated regulation of extreme heat.

Soybean cultivation has expanded dramatically in Brazil, which is now the world's largest producer with 37% of global market share. Brazilian farmers have increased crop yields per hectare--from 1.7 to 3.2 tons per hectare between 1990 and 2019--while also expanding the land being planted--from 11.5 to 35.8 million ha between 1990 and 2019.

By 2019, soy constituted 49% of Brazilian cropland area and 41% of agricultural revenues. The two new studies reveal that farmers would have increased yields even more if they had not deforested, which would have held extreme heat at bay and maintained rainfall.

"The good news is that there's a win-win here. In the past and even today a lot of land is cleared to the detriment of food production and the climate" said Dr. Michael Obersteiner, a study co-author and the Director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. "The soy sector has a powerful opportunity to reduce this risk by stopping deforestation. In so doing, they benefit their industry--to say nothing of the major contribution to slowing global climate change."

PULLMAN, Wash. - After cutbacks and layoffs, remaining employees were more likely to feel they were treated fairly if the companies invested in them - and morale was less likely to plunge, according to new research.

Those investments can include training for workers, team-building exercises or improving company culture. Even keeping workloads manageable after layoffs can help employees' job attitudes, according to the Journal of Organizational Behavior study.

"Whenever possible, cost-cutting is best combined with signals that people remain the firm's most prized asset," said Jeff Joireman, the study's co-author and a professor in Washington State University's Carson College of Business.

Researchers reviewed 137 previous studies examining job attitudes before, during and after cost-cutting events or people-focused investments. By focusing on longitudinal studies that followed employees for up to two years after the events, they were able to document persistent changes in attitudes.

Layoffs, offshoring and other cost-cutting measures affect morale longer than most companies realize, according to Joireman and his co-authors from Vrije University in Amsterdam and Brussels.

For at least two years after the cost-cutting event, workers reported reduced job satisfaction and less loyalty toward the organization - with implications for the firms' productivity and employee turnover.

Cost-cutting measures shook up the employer-employee relationship, researchers found. Workers felt their employer had treated them unfairly, didn't care about them and had broken promises. Upgrading technology to reduce costs was the exception, generating a positive response from employees.

Investments in workers, on the other hand, led to employees feeling cared for and valued by their organizations, resulting in lasting improvements in job attitudes.

When investing in workers was combined with cost-cutting, employee job attitudes remained relatively stable over time. Company support for workers after downsizing was perceived as helping reestablish the employee-employer bond, the researchers found.

Joireman said the study's findings challenge assumptions that shifts in job attitudes are temporary.

"The prevailing attitude is that cost-cutting is really bad for employees' attitudes in the short-run, but in the long-run, employee's attitudes will return to the baseline," he said.

Without this kind of analysis, firms remain in the dark about the negative effects of cost-cutting over the long haul, and whether people-oriented interventions provide lasting benefits, Joireman added.

Human Usher syndrome (USH) is the most common form of hereditary deaf-blindness. Sufferers can be deaf from birth, suffer from balance disorders, and eventually lose their eyesight as the disease progresses. For some 25 years now, the research group led by Professor Uwe Wolfrum of the Institute of Molecular Physiology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has been conducting research into Usher syndrome. Working in cooperation with the group headed up by Professor Reinhard Lührmann at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, his team has now identified a novel pathomechanism leading to Usher syndrome. They have discovered that the Usher syndrome type 1G protein SANS plays a crucial role in regulating splicing process. Furthermore, the researchers have been able to demonstrate that defects in the SANS protein can lead to errors in the splicing of genes related to the Usher syndrome, which may provoke the disease.

Further research on how the SANS protein contributes to the development of blindness needed

"We are aiming to elucidate the molecular basis that leads to the degeneration of the light-sensitive photoreceptor cells in the eye in cases of Usher syndrome," said Professor Uwe Wolfrum. For sufferers with USH, cochlea implants can be used to compensate for hearing loss. However, there are currently no existing treatments for the associated blindness. The current investigation is focusing on one of the Usher syndrome proteins, the USH1G protein, known as SANS. Previous research undertaken by Wolfrum's team established that SANS acts as a scaffold protein. SANS has multiple domains to which other proteins can dock, thus ensuring correct cellular function. Mutations in the USH1G/SANS gene lead to malfunctions of the auditory and vestibular hair cells in the inner ear and of the photoreceptor cells of the retina, which are responsible for the sensory defects experienced by Usher syndrome patients.

It remains unclear how SANS contributes to pathogenic processes in the eye. Encoded by the USH1G gene, the protein is expressed in the photoreceptors of the retina and glia cells. "So far, we had thought of SANS simply as a scaffold molecule that participates in transport processes in the cytoplasm associated with ciliary extensions," said Wolfrum. "But recently, Adem Yildirim in his PhD thesis conducted in the International PhD Program (IPP) in Mainz discovered that SANS interacts with splicing factors to regulate pre-mRNA splicing."

SANS regulates the splicing of pre-mRNA

Splicing is an important process in path from the coding gene to the biosynthesis of proteins. What happens during splicing is that non-coding introns are removed from initially transcribed pre-mRNA or, in the case of alternative splicing, exons that are not required for the subsequent protein variant are excluded. The resulting mRNA is then used for protein biosynthesis. The splicing process is catalyzed in the nucleus by the spliceosome, a dynamic, highly complex molecular machine that is successively assembled during the splicing process from a number of subcomplexes of protein and RNA components.

"We were surprised by our finding that SANS is not only a component of the transport to cilia at the surface of the cell but also active in the nucleus and can modulate the splicing process there too", said Wolfrum, referring to their results published in Nucleic Acids Research. In the cell nucleus, SANS is responsible for transferring tri-snRNP complexes, or components of spliceosome subcomplexes, from the Cajal bodies, a kind of molecular assembly line, to the so-called nuclear speckles. In this compartment, tri-snRNP complexes bind to the spliceosome assembly to subsequently activate it. SANS is also likely to be involved in recycling the tri-snRNP components back to the Cajal bodies.

The absence of SANS and also pathogenic mutations of the USH1G/SANS gene prevent the spliceosome being correctly assembled and sequentially activated. This, in turn, suppresses the correct splicing of other Usher syndrome-related genes, ultimately leading to their dysfunction and therefore to the development of the disorder. "Thus, we provide the first evidence that splicing dysregulation may participate in the pathophysiology of Usher syndrome," is how the authors sum up their results in their article. And Professor Uwe Wolfrum added: "In addition to the new findings relating to the splicing mechanism, we have also identified new aspects that we aim to investigate with regard to developing concepts for the treatment and therapy of the Usher syndrome in future."

Co-authors Bulat Galimzyanov and Anatolii Mokshin (Department of Computational Physics) have developed a unique model that allows for a universal interpretation of experimental data on viscosity for systems of different types, while also proposing an alternative method for classifying materials based on a unified temperature scale.

The publication was funded by Russian Science Foundation's grant 'Theoretical, simulation and experimental studies of physical and mechanical features of amorphous systems with inhomogeneous local viscoelastic properties', guided by Professor Mokshin.

Using the developed viscosity model, scientists processed experimental data obtained for thirty different types of systems: from simple quartz glass to complex organic compounds such as salol and propylene carbonate.

"The model reproduces quite accurately the experimental temperature dependences of the viscosity of such materials both near the melting point and near the glass transition temperature, below which the system freezes while still preserving the liquid structure. At the same time, the model uses only two adjustable parameters. In comparison, other existing models use at least three of such parameters. Therefore, this model can be used to more accurately predict the low-temperature physical parameters of materials based on high-temperature characteristics such as thermal conductivity and entropy at the melting point," comments Associate Professor Galimzyanov.

The results were obtained using an original method of temperature scaling.

"Earlier, we have developed a method to scale the temperature and the phase diagram of various types of systems. This gave a toll to compare the experimental temperature dependences of the viscosity of systems regardless of their preparation conditions. This temperature scale formed the basis of the developed viscosity model, which made it possible to minimize the number of adjustable parameters and improve the accuracy of data approximation," adds Anatolii Mokshin.

The research contributes to making corrections to the existing methods of classification for glass-forming materials and to establishing a unified viscosity model for various types of compounds.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat today released the first official draft of a new Global Biodiversity Framework to guide actions worldwide through 2030 to preserve and protect Nature and its essential services to people.

The framework includes 21 targets for 2030 that call for, among other things:

At least 30% of land and sea areas global (especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people) conserved through effective, equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas (and other effective area-based conservation measures)

A 50% of greater reduction in the rate of introduction of invasive alien species, and controls or eradication of such species to eliminate or reduce their impacts

Reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, and pesticides by at least two thirds, and eliminating the discharge of plastic waste

Nature-based contributions to global climate change mitigation efforts of least 10 GtCO2e per year, and that all mitigation and adaptation efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity

Redirecting, repurposing, reforming or eliminating incentives harmful for biodiversity, in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least $US 500 billion per year

A $US 200 billion increase in international financial flows from all sources to developing countries

More than two years in development, the Framework will undergo further refinement during online negotiations in late summer before being presented for consideration at CBD's next meeting of its 196 parties at COP15, scheduled for Kunming, China October 11-24.

The full Global Biodiversity Framework is available at cbd.int

The Four Goals for 2050:

The draft framework proposes four goals to achieve, by 2050, humanity "living in harmony with nature," a vision adopted by the CBD's 196 member parties in 2010.

Goal A: The integrity of all ecosystems is enhanced, with an increase of at least 15% in the area, connectivity and integrity of natural ecosystems, supporting healthy and resilient populations of all species, the rate of extinctions has been reduced at least tenfold, and the risk of species extinctions across all taxonomic and functional groups, is halved, and genetic diversity of wild and domesticated species is safeguarded, with at least 90% of genetic diversity within all species maintained.

Goal B: Nature's contributions to people have been valued, maintained or enhanced through conservation and sustainable use supporting the global development agenda for the benefit of all;

Goal C: The benefits from the utilization of genetic resources are shared fairly and equitably, with a substantial increase in both monetary and non-monetary benefits shared, including for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

Goal D: The gap between available financial and other means of implementation, and those necessary to achieve the 2050 Vision, is closed.

Milestones to be reached by 2030

The four goals each have 2-3 broad milestones to be reached by 2030 (10 milestones in all):

Goal A:

Milestone A.1 Net gain in the area, connectivity and integrity of natural systems of at least 5%.

Milestone A.2 The increase in the extinction rate is halted or reversed, and the extinction risk is reduced by at least 10%, with a decrease in the proportion of species that are threatened, and the abundance and distribution of populations of species is enhanced or at least maintained.

Milestone A.3 Genetic diversity of wild and domesticated species is safeguarded, with an increase in the proportion of species that have at least 90% of their genetic diversity maintained.

Goal B:
M

Milestone B.1 Nature and its contributions to people are fully accounted and inform all relevant public and private decisions.

Milestone B.2 The long-term sustainability of all categories of nature's contributions to people is ensured, with those currently in decline restored, contributing to each of the relevant Sustainable Development Goals.

Goal C:

Milestone C.1 The share of monetary benefits received by providers, including holders of traditional knowledge, has increased.

Milestone C.2 Non-monetary benefits, such as the participation of providers, including holders of traditional knowledge, in research and development, has increased.

Goal D:

Milestone D.1 Adequate financial resources to implement the framework are available and deployed, progressively closing the financing gap up to at least US $700 billion per year by 2030.

Milestone D.2 Adequate other means, including capacity-building and development, technical and scientific cooperation and technology transfer to implement the framework to 2030 are available and deployed.

Milestone D.3 Adequate financial and other resources for the period 2030 to 2040 are planned or committed by 2030.

21 "Action Targets" for 2030

The framework then lists 21 associated "action targets" for 2030:

Reducing threats to biodiversity

Target 1

Ensure that all land and sea areas globally are under integrated biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning addressing land- and sea-use change, retaining existing intact and wilderness areas.

Target 2

Ensure that at least 20 per cent of degraded freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems are under restoration, ensuring connectivity among them and focusing on priority ecosystems.

Target 3

Ensure that at least 30 per cent globally of land areas and of sea areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.

Target 4

Ensure active management actions to enable the recovery and conservation of species and the genetic diversity of wild and domesticated species, including through ex situ conservation, and effectively manage human-wildlife interactions to avoid or reduce human-wildlife conflict.

Target 5

Ensure that the harvesting, trade and use of wild species is sustainable, legal, and safe for human health.

Target 6

Manage pathways for the introduction of invasive alien species, preventing, or reducing their rate of introduction and establishment by at least 50 per cent, and control or eradicate invasive alien species to eliminate or reduce their impacts, focusing on priority species and priority sites.

Target 7

Reduce pollution from all sources to levels that are not harmful to biodiversity and ecosystem functions and human health, including by reducing nutrients lost to the environment by at least half, and pesticides by at least two thirds and eliminating the discharge of plastic waste.

Target 8

Minimize the impact of climate change on biodiversity, contribute to mitigation and adaptation through ecosystem-based approaches, contributing at least 10 GtCO2e per year to global mitigation efforts, and ensure that all mitigation and adaptation efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity.

Meeting people's needs through sustainable use and benefit-sharing

Target 9

Ensure benefits, including nutrition, food security, medicines, and livelihoods for people especially for the most vulnerable through sustainable management of wild terrestrial, freshwater and marine species and protecting customary sustainable use by indigenous peoples and local communities.

Target 10

Ensure all areas under agriculture, aquaculture and forestry are managed sustainably, in particular through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, increasing the productivity and resilience of these production systems.

Target 11

Maintain and enhance nature's contributions to regulation of air quality, quality and quantity of water, and protection from hazards and extreme events for all people.

Target 12

Increase the area of, access to, and benefits from green and blue spaces, for human health and well-being in urban areas and other densely populated areas.

Target 13

Implement measures at global level and in all countries to facilitate access to genetic resources and to ensure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources, and as relevant, of associated traditional knowledge, including through mutually agreed terms and prior and informed consent.

Tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming

Target 14

Fully integrate biodiversity values into policies, regulations, planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies, accounts, and assessments of environmental impacts at all levels of government and across all sectors of the economy, ensuring that all activities and financial flows are aligned with biodiversity values.

Target 15

All businesses (public and private, large, medium and small) assess and report on their dependencies and impacts on biodiversity, from local to global, and progressively reduce negative impacts, by at least half and increase positive impacts, reducing biodiversity-related risks to businesses and moving towards the full sustainability of extraction and production practices, sourcing and supply chains, and use and disposal.

Target 16

Ensure that people are encouraged and enabled to make responsible choices and have access to relevant information and alternatives, taking into account cultural preferences, to reduce by at least half the waste and, where relevant the overconsumption, of food and other materials.

Target 17

Establish, strengthen capacity for, and implement measures in all countries to prevent, manage or control potential adverse impacts of biotechnology on biodiversity and human health, reducing the risk of these impacts.

Target 18

Redirect, repurpose, reform or eliminate incentives harmful for biodiversity, in a just and equitable way, reducing them by at least US$ 500 billion per year, including all of the most harmful subsidies, and ensure that incentives, including public and private economic and regulatory incentives, are either positive or neutral for biodiversity.

Target 19

Increase financial resources from all sources to at least US$ 200 billion per year, including new, additional and effective financial resources, increasing by at least US$ 10 billion per year international financial flows to developing countries, leveraging private finance, and increasing domestic resource mobilization, taking into account national biodiversity finance planning, and strengthen capacity-building and technology transfer and scientific cooperation, to meet the needs for implementation, commensurate with the ambition of the goals and targets of the framework.

Target 20

Ensure that relevant knowledge, including the traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities with their free, prior, and informed consent, guides decision?making for the effective management of biodiversity, enabling monitoring, and by promoting awareness, education and research.

Target 21

Ensure equitable and effective participation in decision-making related to biodiversity by indigenous peoples and local communities, and respect their rights over lands, territories and resources, as well as by women and girls, and youth.

Says CBD Executive Secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema: "Urgent policy action globally, regionally and nationally is required to transform economic, social and financial models so that the trends that have exacerbated biodiversity loss will stabilize by 2030 and allow for the recovery of natural ecosystems in the following 20 years, with net improvements by 2050."

"The framework aims to galvanize this urgent and transformative action by Governments and all of society, including indigenous peoples and local communities, civil society, youth and businesses and financial institutions. It will be implemented primarily through national-level activities, supported by subnational, regional and global-level actions."

"This is a global, outcome-oriented framework for the Convention's 196 Parties to develop national and regional goals and targets, to update national strategies and action plans as needed, and to facilitate regular monitoring and review of progress at the global level."

Implementation

The draft Global Biodiversity Framework notes that effective implementation requires mobilizing resources from both the public and private finance sectors, ongoing identification of risk associated with biodiversity loss capacity development, technical and scientific cooperation, technology transfer and innovation.

It also calls for integration with relevant multilateral environmental agreements and other relevant international processes, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and strengthening cooperation.

Successful implementation will also depend on effective outreach, awareness and uptake by all stakeholders, a comprehensive system for planning, monitoring, reporting and review that allows for transparent communication of progress, rapid course correction, and timely input in the preparation of a post-2030 Global Biodiversity Framework.

Background

Biodiversity and its benefits are fundamental to human well-being and a healthy planet. Despite ongoing efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide and this decline is projected to continue or worsen under business-as-usual scenarios.

The post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework builds on the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and sets out an ambitious plan to implement broad-based action to bring about a transformation in society's relationship with biodiversity and to ensure that, by 2050, the shared vision of living in harmony with nature is fulfilled.

The draft framework reflects input from the second meeting of a Working Group managing the framework's creation, as well as submissions received. The draft will be further updated in late summer with the benefit of input from the 24th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice and the 3rd meeting of the Subsidiary Body in Implementation, as well as the advice from thematic consultations.

Relationship with 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

The framework will contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At the same time, progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals will help to provide the conditions necessary to implement the framework.

Theory of change

The framework's theory of change assumes that transformative actions are taken to (a) put in place tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming, (b) reduce the threats to biodiversity and (c) ensure that biodiversity is used sustainably in order to meet people's needs and that these actions are supported by (i) enabling conditions, and (ii) adequate means of implementation, including financial resources, capacity and technology. It also assumes that progress is monitored in a transparent and accountable manner with adequate stocktaking exercises to ensure that, by 2030, the world is on a path to reach the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity.

The theory of change for the framework acknowledges the need for appropriate recognition of gender equality, women's empowerment, youth, gender-responsive approaches and the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in the implementation of this framework. Further, it is built upon the recognition that its implementation will be done in partnership with many organizations at the global, national and local levels to leverage ways to build a momentum for success. It will be implemented taking a rights-based approach and recognizing the principle of intergenerational equity.

The theory of change is complementary to and supportive of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It also takes into account the long-term strategies and targets of other multilateral environment agreements, including the biodiversity-related and Rio conventions, to ensure synergistic delivery of benefits from all the agreements for the planet and people.

For 30 years, University of Tokyo Associate Professor Hisayoshi Nozaki has traveled an hour west of Tokyo to visit the Sagami River and collect algal samples to understand how living things evolved different sexes. Through new analysis of samples collected in 2007 and 2013 from dam lakes along the river, Lake Sagami and Lake Tsukui, researchers identified a species of freshwater algae that evolved three different sexes, all of which can breed in pairs with each other.

This phenomenon of three sexes is slightly different from hermaphroditism. In species that normally have two sexes, a hermaphroditic individual who can produce both the male and female sex cells usually exists due to unusual gene expression. Many plants and some invertebrate species have three sexes due to normal gene expression, but this is the first time a species of algae or fungi has been identified with three sexes.

The threes sexes of the Pleodorina starrii algae are male, female, and a third sex that researchers call bisexual in reference to the fact that it can produce both male and female sex cells in a single genotype and exists due to normal expression of the species' genes. These algae are 32- or 64-celled organisms and have small mobile (male) and large immobile (female) sex cells.

"It seems very uncommon to find a species with three sexes, but in natural conditions, I think it may not be so rare," said Nozaki, the last author of the research paper published in Evolution.

Evoluntionarily ancient living things have sex cells that are similar in appearance and known as plus or minus, rather than male or female. More recently evolved species usually have dramatic differences between the sex cells, like the large egg and small spermatozoa of humans.

Nozaki and his colleagues are interested in Pleodorina starrii because it and its close evolutionary cousins use different sex systems, so they are useful models to study the genetics of how sex evolved. P. starrii had been identified decades prior, but had not been studied in detail.

In the lab, researchers can watch green P. starrii cells grow in spherical colonies with other individuals of their sex. Male colonies are recognizable by the clear packets of sperm they release into the water. The sperm packets swim until they hit a female colony, then split up into individual sperm cells that enter individual female cells and combine to produce a new generation.

Researchers separate colonies and then deprive them of nutrients to force them to reproduce sexually. In isolation, colonies reproduce asexually, forming cloned colonies of their same genotype. Isolated colonies of one sex can be mixed with isolated colonies of another sex and the ratio of their offsprings' sexes can be useful clues for researchers to understand the genetics of sex determination.

In 2006, Nozaki and other University of Tokyo experts were the first to find a male-specific gene in P. starrii, which they named OTOKOGI, a Japanese word meaning "manly." In 2010, they found a group of female-only genes and named them HIBOTAN, or "scarlet peony," after a 1960s film franchise where the lead female character had a red flower tattoo.

After genetic analysis and more mating trials, researchers eventually concluded that P. starrii has a "bisexual-factor" gene that is likely located on a chromosome separate from the OTOKOGI and HIBOTAN sex genes. Cells in genetically bisexual P. starrii possess both OTOKOGI and bisexual-factor genes, but they can produce normal male or female colonies when they reproduce sexually with other P. starrii colonies.

Genetically male P. starrii have only the OTOKOGI male-type gene and genetically female can have either only the female-type HIBOTAN genes or both HIBOTAN and the bisexual-factor genes.

More experiments are needed to understand genes in more detail, but researchers suspect that the bisexual factor may only be active in the presence of the "manly" OTOKOGI.

"This finding was possible because of our very long-term experience of going on field collection trips and our practice growing and studying algae. Continued, long-term studies are very important to unveil the true nature of species in the natural world," Nozaki commented.

China's first meteorological satellite launched in 1988. It was named Fengyun, which roughly translates to "wind and cloud". Since then, 17 more Fengyun meteorological satellites were launched, with seven still in operation, to monitor Earth's wind, clouds and, more recently, extreme weather events such as hurricanes and wildfires. With more than 30 years of Earth observational data freely available to international partners, the Fengyun Meteorological Satellite program works as part of Earth's operational observation system, along with the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites and Europe's polar orbiting meteorological satellite series to provide a more complete picture weather events and their global impacts

To highlight the Fengyun satellites' data applications and to encourage further research among domestic and international collaborators, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences published a special issue titled, "Fengyun Meteorological Satellites: Data, Application and Assessment," on 10 July, 2021. It's the first time international communities' evaluation and application of Fengyun satellites are collectively published in a journal.

The special issue is a culmination of research initiated at a 2019 conference for international users to develop a comprehensive, integrated approach for exchanging ideas and promoting global applications of the satellite data, according to Peng Zhang, the deputy director of the National Satellite Meteorological Center of the China Meteorological Administration. More than 200 people representing more than 30 countries attended. Since then, international users have applied the data in various research projects, and Zhang said the intention is for collaborations to grow as the data capabilities expand.

"In the last decade, great efforts have been made to improve the performance of the satellites and their on-board instrumentation," said Zhang, who organized the special issue. "With extensive, multi-modal observational capabilities on Fengyun satellites, international communities have and will continue to make use of this data."

Such capabilities include image navigation, radiometric calibration, multiband optical imaging, atmospheric sounding, microwave imaging, hyperspectral trace gas detection, full-band radiation budget measuring and more -- in short, an extensive list of ways to monitor weather events and atmospheric changes of Earth. Zhang also co-authored a data description paper, which summarizes not only the data available, but how international users can access it.

The critical factor, Zhang said, is in how these data can be applied. The rest of the special issue features work undertaken in each of the 2019 conference's sections: retrieval algorithms, used to interpret raw data; products validation, which cross-references satellite data with earth-based observations; numerical weather predictions, or how to predict future weather using models of current atmospheric conditions; and climate and environmental predictions, which involves using satellite data to estimate surface effects of atmospheric changes.

On 5 July, Fengyun 3E, the world's first early morning orbit weather satellite was launched, and it will improve global weather forecast by filling in the data gap in a certain time of a day and assist in achieving 100 percent global data coverage every six hours.

"Fengyun satellites will continue to play an important role in Earth sciences in the future, especially as the international community continues to collaborate and apply this data to research that benefits us all," Zhang said. "The new epoch for comprehensive Earth observations has begun."

"All living beings, including us, depend on photosynthesis," says Prof. Wataru Sakamoto of the Institute of Plant Science and Resources at Okayama University, Japan, as he begins to explain the core concepts behind a recent breakthrough in understanding plant physiology, which he was involved in. "Photosynthesis produces the energy needed to sustain plants and the oxygen we breathe. This reaction occurs in two steps, the first of which involves capturing light energy
and producing oxygen. This step takes place in a cell organelle in the plant cells called the chloroplast: specifically, in the membranes of one of its components, the thylakoid. The thylakoid membrane is unique to oxygen?producing organisms like plants and cyanobacteria,
and its role has been known for over 200 years. Yet, even today in the technology age, the precise mechanisms that that shape this structure are unknown to us."

Now, Prof. Sakamoto and an international team of scientists have answered part of this question by focusing on a membrane remodeling protein, called VIPP1, which has been found to be involved in maintaining the integrity of the thylakoid membrane. Using high resolution imaging via cryo?electron microscopy, they've elucidated the mechanism by which this protein protects thylakoid membrane integrity. Their findings are published in the journal Cell.

Speaking of his motivation for being part of this study, Prof. Sakamoto says, "Chloroplasts in land plants are thought to have been derived from the endosymbiosis of cyanobacteria in plants 1.5 billion years ago. I was very fascinated by this during my college years and decided to study such organelles containing multiple membranes and their own DNA, like mitochondria and chloroplasts. In my laboratory, I have been working on VIPP1 since 2006, and have reported several of its important characteristics."

In this study, what the scientists observed was remarkable. Three VIPP1 monomers 'flex and interweave' in a specific formation to create a nucleotide binding pocket. Nucleotide binding to specific layers of such interwoven monomers cause layer stacking that results in basketlike structures of different symmetries. A part of the monomer is an amphiphilic--structure containing both water?attracting and water?repelling portions--helix. Within the basket
structure, these helices are oriented such that their hydrophilic (water?attracting) portions face the outside of the basket and their hydrophobic (water?repelling) portions face the inside of the basket. The hydrophobic portions are also lipid (fat) attracting. Thylakoid membranes, like most cell membranes, are lipid membranes. The hydrophobic interior of the basket structure binds to the membrane and remodels it by increasing its curvature.

In their experiments, when the scientists added mutations to prevent the hydrophobic surfaces from forming, stress on the membrane from high intensity light caused the thylakoid membrane to swell up and get damaged. This damage did not occur in membranes which had access to VIPP1 oligomers with hydrophobic surfaces.

Dr. Sakamoto explains the importance of these results in the field of research: "Our study reports that the membrane?remodeling protein VIPP1 plays a critical role in maintaining thylakoid membranes. This protein appears to share a common structure with ESCRT?III, which
is important in membrane remodeling in humans and yeast, indicating that the mechanism at play here is a common mechanism regulating membrane integrity." Further referring to more tangible potential practical applications, he says: "Thylakoid is key to photosynthesis. Understanding its structure in detail can help crop production and thus food security. For instance, improving thylakoid membrane longevity can improve crop productivity." And of course, all things considered, this finding resolves a long?standing mystery in the biology underlying photosynthesis.

RUDN and Shahid Beheshti University (SBU) chemist proposed a protocol for converting cellulose into a catalyst for the synthesis of oxadiazoles. The new approach makes the catalyst 3 times more stable compared to the same catalyst obtained by the traditional method. The results are published in Carbohydrate Polymers

One of the directions of green chemistry is the biopolymers functionalization. Chemists modify polymers obtained from plants and animals -- they add functional molecular groups to them to get useful substances. For example, the catalysts for oxadiazoles synthesis are created from cellulose. They are necessary to produce polymers, dyes, medicines, and photographic materials. To do this, metals are added to the structure of cellulose. However, during use, especially at high temperatures, metal ions are leaching. It causes the reduction of catalytic activity, and environmental pollution. The RUDN University and SBU chemist with his colleagues from Iran created a method of cellulose functionalization, to strengthen the connection of cellulose with metal ions and prevents them from leaching.

"Cellulose as the eco-friendly, non-toxicity, cost-effectively, and renewability features biopolymer was employed in a three-component Betti reaction since its ability to generate functional ligands on the cellulose to complex with Cu(II)", Dr. Ahmad Shaabani from RUDN University and SBU.

Chemists used the Betti reaction, which is the addition of functional groups to phenols using aldehydes and aromatic amines. RUDN University researchers obtained dialdehyde cellulose, for this they mixed 0.5 g of cellulose and 0.01 grams of potassium periodate in water. The solution was mixed at 85? for 12 hours. After that, the reaction product was filtered out, washed with water, and left to dry in a vacuum at 70?. The resulting dialdehyde was used in the Betti reaction. To do this, the chemists added 0.11 g of benzylamine to the dialdehyde and dissolved them in acetic acid, stirring at room temperature for 4 hours. Then naphthol was added to the mixture and mixed for another day. The resulting product was filtered, washed, and dried in a vacuum at 50?. Finally, a similar procedure was repeated, mixing the functionalized cellulose with copper acetate. As a result, a Cu(II)@DAC-Betti catalyst was obtained.

RUDN University and SBU chemists studied the obtained cellulose using spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance. Its structure was examined under a scanning electron microscope. For comparison, the scientists took a copper-modified cellulose, which was obtained according to a standard protocol, without using the Betti reaction (Cu (II)@cellulose). The electron microscope images show that, in comparison with the usual one, the cellulose obtained through the Betti reaction does not have a smooth structure -- it has many outgrowths that firmly hold on to each other and to the cellulose fibers. Chemists compared how firmly the functional elements of cellulose obtained by new and standard methods hold. It turned out that the Betti reaction makes the modified cellulose 3 times more stable -- at a temperature of 600?, 17.2% of its mass was preserved, compared with 6.1% for cellulose obtained by the standard method.

"The result showed a high residual mass for Cu(II)@DAC-Betti, which established a high amount of Cu(II) loading in Cu(II)@DAC-Betti in comparison with Cu(II)@cellulose, thus reveals an efficiency of Betti functionalization in complexing of Cu(II) ions", Dr. Ahmad Shaabani from RUDN University and SBU.

The cave of Satsurblia was inhabited by humans in different periods of the Paleolithic: Up to date a single human individual dated from 15,000 years ago has been sequenced from that site. No other human remains have been discovered in the older layers of the cave.

The innovative approach used by the international team led by Prof. Ron Pinhasi and Pere Gelabert with Susanna Sawyer of the University of Vienna in collaboration with Pontus Skoglund and Anders Bergström of the Francis Crick Institute in London permits the identification of DNA in samples of environmental material, by applying extensive sequencing and huge data analysis resources. This technique has allowed the recovery of an environmental human genome from the BIII layer of the cave, which is dated before the Ice Age, about 25,000 years ago.

This new approach has evidenced the feasibility of recovering human environmental genomes in the absence of skeletal remains. The analysis of the genetic material has revealed that the SAT29 human environmental genome represents a human extinct lineage that contributed to the present day West-Eurasian populations. To validate the results, the researchers compared the recovered genome with the genetic sequences obtained from bone remains of the nearby cave of Dzudzuana, obtaining definitive evidence of genetic similarities. This fact validate the results and excludes the possibility of modern contamination of the samples.

Along with the identified human genome, other genomes such as wolf and bison have also been recovered from the environmental samples. The sequences have been used to reconstruct the wolf and bison Caucasian population history and will help better understand the population dynamics of these species.

The team now plans to perform further analyses of soil samples from the cave of Satsurbia with the objective of revealing interactions between extinct fauna and humans and the effect of climatic changes on mammalian populations. The ability to recover DNA from soil samples allows us the reconstruction of the evolution of whole past ecosystems .

A Moon-scanning method that can automatically classify important lunar features from telescope images could significantly improve the efficiency of selecting sites for exploration.

There is more than meets the eye to picking a landing or exploration site on the Moon. The visible area of the lunar surface is larger than Russia and is pockmarked by thousands of craters and crisscrossed by canyon-like rilles. The choice of future landing and exploration sites may come down to the most promising prospective locations for construction, minerals or potential energy resources. However, scanning by eye across such a large area, looking for features perhaps a few hundred meters across, is laborious and often inaccurate, which makes it difficult to pick optimal areas for exploration.

Siyuan Chen, Xin Gao and Shuyu Sun, along with colleagues from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, have now applied machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the identification of prospective lunar landing and exploration areas.

"We are looking for lunar features like craters and rilles, which are thought to be hotspots for energy resources like uranium and helium-3 -- a promising resource for nuclear fusion," says Chen. "Both have been detected in Moon craters and could be useful resources for replenishing spacecraft fuel."

Machine learning is a very effective technique for training an AI model to look for certain features on its own. The first problem faced by Chen and his colleagues was that there was no labeled dataset for rilles that could be used to train their model.

"We overcame this challenge by constructing our own training dataset with annotations for both craters and rilles," says Chen. "To do this, we used an approach called transfer learning to pretrain our rille model on a surface crack dataset with some fine tuning using actual rille masks. Previous approaches require manual annotation for at least part of the input images --our approach does not require human intervention and so allowed us to construct a large high-quality dataset."

The next challenge was developing a computational approach that could be used to identify both craters and rilles at the same time, something that had not been done before.

"This is a pixel-to-pixel problem for which we need to accurately mask the craters and rilles in a lunar image," says Chen. "We solved this problem by constructing a deep learning framework called high-resolution-moon-net, which has two independent networks that share the same network architecture to identify craters and rilles simultaneously."

The team's approach achieved precision as high as 83.7 percent, higher than existing state-of-the-art methods for crater detection.

Smoking among young teens has become an increasingly challenging and costly public healthcare issue. Despite legislation to prevent the marketing of tobacco products to children, tobacco companies have shrewdly adapted their advertising tactics to circumvent the ban and maintain their access to this impressionable--and growing--market share.

How they do it is the subject of a recent study led by Dr. Yael Bar-Zeev at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)'s Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine at HU-Hadassah Medical Center. She also serves as Chair of the Israeli Association for Smoking Cessation and Prevention, and teamed up with colleagues at HU and George Washington University. They published their findings in Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

Their study focused on Philip Morris' IQOS products--the popular electronic cigarette that heats tobacco--and specifically how they are marketed in Israeli stores. These heated tobacco products are often touted as being safer for smokers than are regular cigarettes. However, the medical establishment has deemed these devices harmful to users' health. While the tobacco companies comply with the letter of the law when it comes to the advertising ban, they target younger consumers in other ways: namely, by placing their products near toys, candy, and slush machines, and in stores that are in walking distance of local elementary- and high schools.

"These attempts by the tobacco companies are particularly alarming because we know that being exposed to tobacco products and advertisements at the point-of-sale is associated with significantly higher chances of experimenting with smoking and creating long-lasting smoking habits among youth," Bar-Zeev warned.

IQOS was introduced to the Israeli market in 2016. The tobacco industry repeatedly lobbied Israeli policy makers to regulate these products differently than they do cigarettes. However, Israel's Ministry of Health determined IQOS' causes significant negative health effects and therefore they will be regulated as a tobacco product and subject to the ban of advertising tobacco products in stores, aka at "points of sale".

As part of the study, the team performed a concealed audit of 80 point-of-sales locations that sell IQOS or its accompanying tobacco sticks (HEETS) in four of Israel's largest cities: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Beersheba. They found that despite overall compliance with the advertisement ban, tobacco companies found ways to circumvent the ban with special displays and signs that read "WE SELL TOBACCO". Further, a substantial number of stores placed IQOS/HEETS and other tobacco products near (within 30cm) other merchandise that targets young consumers, such as toys, candy, and slush machines. Nearly 70% of these stores were near (less than 300 meters) high schools, and 40% were in walking distance to elementary schools.

Further findings from this study suggest that IQOS products are being marketed to consumers in higher socio-economic demographic, as evidenced by the higher price tag and the higher-end neighborhoods that carry the product. This reality contradicts IQOS' claims that they've designed their product to help smokers quit cigarettes. Past research has shown that it is lower--not higher--socio-economic populations that have higher smoking rates and smoking cessation rates.

"The purpose of advertisement bans is to prevent children and youth exposure to all tobacco products. However, tobacco companies prove that they don't care and will do whatever it takes to continue marketing their products and increasing their revenue", shared Bar-Zeev. "Israel's government needs to act decisively, institute a license to sell tobacco, and ban the sale of tobacco products in locations that are in close proximity to schools."

One of the study researchers, Professor Hagai Levine at HU, added, "Israel's Minister of Health Nitzan Horowitz announced that he is committed to advancing tobacco legislation. These findings show that the current legislation has serious loopholes that need to be closed to protect public health here in Israel and, in particularly, to protect our youth from being exposed to tobacco products advertisements". This study has implications for smoking legislation globally, as it reveals how the tobacco industry uses marketing tactics designed to circumvent government' attempts to protect their publics' health".

Forest clearance in Southeast Asia is accelerating, leading to unprecedented increases in carbon emissions, according to new research.

The findings, revealed by a research team including University of Leeds academics, show that forests are being cut down at increasingly higher altitudes and on steeper slopes in order to make way for agricultural intensification.

As a result, more than 400 million metric tons of carbon are released into the atmosphere every year as forests are cleared in the region, with that emissions figure increasing in recent years.

The study, "Upward expansion and acceleration of forest clearance in the mountains of Southeast Asia", is published in Nature Sustainability.

Co-author Professor Dominick Spracklen, of Leeds' School of Earth and Environment, said: "Most lowland tropical forests in Southeast Asia have already been cleared for agriculture.

"In the past, mountain forests were often spared from clearance because steep slopes and high elevations made deforestation more difficult.

"Our work shows that deforestation has now moved into these mountain regions and has accelerated rapidly in the past 10 years.

"These mountain forests are amazingly rich in biodiversity and are crucial stores of carbon, so it is worrying to see that the frontier of deforestation is now moving upwards into the mountains of Southeast Asia.

"Loss of these forests will be a devasting blow for nature and will further accelerate climate change."

Southeast Asia contains about half of all tropical mountain forests, which are rich in biodiversity and contain a large amount of the planet's carbon.

The authors found that forest clearance in Southeast Asia's mountains has accelerated during the 21st century, accounting for a third of total forest loss in the region. New plantations primarily drove deforestation at high elevations.

Analysing high-resolution satellite data, the researchers found that average annual forest loss in the region was 3.22?million hectares per year during 2001-2019, with 31% occurring on mountains.

Over the last decade the average altitude of forest loss increased by 150 m and advanced onto steeper slopes that have high forest carbon density relative to the lowlands.

These shifts led to unprecedented annual forest carbon loss of 424?million metric tons of carbon?per year, but at an accelerating rate in recent years.

Co-author Professor Joseph Holden, from Leeds' School of Geography, said: "Forested mountains are critical zones for biodiversity, future climate resilience, water supplies and carbon storage.

"The loss of forests at higher elevations in mountain regions of southeast Asia over the last 20 years is therefore of major concern, particularly given that these regions are also concentrated zones of sensitive species and where carbon stocks are high.

"This research shows the value of high resolution satellite data for detecting change, and also highlights that the international community needs to continue to work hard to support forest conservation and carbon management."

The research was led by Associate Professor Zhenzhong Zeng at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen, China.

Combining forest loss data with a forest biomass carbon map, they discovered that carbon loss resulting from forest clearance was mainly in the lowlands in the 2000s, for example in Indonesia.

In the 2010s, however, lowland forest carbon loss decreased while mountain forest carbon loss in regions like Myanmar and Laos increased significantly.

Humans can easily identify sweet-tasting foods - and with pleasure. However, many carnivorous animals lack this ability, and whether birds, descendants of meat-eating dinosaurs, can taste sweet was previously unclear. An international team of researchers led by Max Planck Institute for Ornithology including Dr Simon SIN from Research Division for Ecology and Biodiversity, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has now shown that songbirds, a group containing over 4,000 species, can sense sweetness regardless of their primary diets. The study highlights a specific event in the songbird ancestors that allowed their umami (savoury) taste receptor to recognise sugar. This ability has been conserved in the songbird lineage, influencing the diet of nearly half of all birds living today.

Bitter, salty, sweet, sour and umami are the five basic tastes that we humans perceive. The sense of taste has an enormous influence on our diet - what we think tastes good often ends up on our plates. The rest of the animal kingdom is no different, as taste reliably helps to distinguish what is nutritious from what is poisonous. But what exactly do other animals taste?

It is well known that the sweet taste receptor is widespread among mammals. Birds, however, descend from carnivorous dinosaurs and lack an essential subunit of this receptor - presumably leaving most unable to detect sugar. The only known exception are the hummingbirds, who re-purposed their umami taste receptor to recognise carbohydrates.

But are all other birds unable to taste sugars?

First, the researchers from the international team systematically studied the diets of birds. Certain songbird lineages, such as sunbirds, sugarbirds, and honeycreepers, are known to regularly consume large quantities of nectar. However, the team found an above-average number of other songbird species across the entire radiation that occasionally consume nectar or fruit. "This was the first hint that we should concentrate on a range of songbirds, not only the nectar-specialised ones when searching for the origins of avian sweet taste," explains Dr Maude BALDWIN, an evolutionary biologist from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology who led the research. Indeed, their behavioural experiments showed that both a nectar specialist as well as a grain-eating songbird preferred sugar water to regular water.

The researchers dug deeper and found that the umami receptors of nectar specialist honeyeaters, as well as those of other songbirds with varying diets, also respond to sugar. They concluded that songbirds really do sense sweetness and, like hummingbirds, use the umami receptor to do so.

To identify the origin of this ability, the researchers reconstructed ancestral umami receptors at different locations on the songbird family tree. It turned out that the early ancestors of songbirds evolved the ability to sense sugar, even before they radiated out of Australia and spread across the planet. "We were very surprised by this result. Sweet perception emerged very early within the songbird radiation and then persisted even in species that do not rely primarily on sugary food," says Dr Baldwin.

In addition to the timing of the sensory change, the researchers were able to uncover its molecular basis. By comparing the sugar-indifferent and sugar-responding receptor sequences, they identified the modifications enabling sweet perception. Interestingly, these exact changes coincide only slightly with those seen in the distantly-related hummingbirds, even though similar areas of the receptor are modified. So, over evolutionary time, these distant bird groups converged on the same solution of re-purposing their umami taste receptors to sense sugar. However, each group modified the receptors in distinct ways to achieve the same outcome. "It is intriguing that hummingbirds and songbirds convergently evolved to taste sugar, but via different ways. This is an important study that shows how different evolutionary pathways could lead to the same adaptation," says Dr Sin.

Based on their findings, the scientists suspect that the new sensory percept of ancestral songbirds had far-reaching effects on their subsequent evolution. In Australia, where songbirds evolved, many different sugar sources are common, including insect secretions and tree sap. Sugary food sources may have helped songbirds to spread to other continents and successfully occupy a variety of ecological niches.

Future studies now aim to learn how sweet perception has coevolved with other physiological traits, such as changes in digestion and metabolism, across bird evolution.

In the vicinity of black holes, space is so warped that even light rays may curve around them several times. This phenomenon may enable us to see multiple versions of the same thing. While this has been known for decades, only now do we have an exact, mathematical expression, thanks to Albert Sneppen, student at the Niels Bohr Institute. The result, which even is more useful in realistic black holes, has just been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

You have probably heard of black holes -- the marvelous lumps of gravity from which not even light can escape. You may also have heard that space itself and even time behave oddly near black holes; space is warped.

In the vicinity of a black hole, space curves so much that light rays are deflected, and very nearby light can be deflected so much that it travels several times around the black hole. Hence, when we observe a distant background galaxy (or some other celestial body), we may be lucky to see the same image of the galaxy multiple times, albeit more and more distorted.

Galaxies in multiple versions

The mechanism is shown on the figure below: A distant galaxy shines in all directions -- some of its light comes close to the black hole and is lightly deflected; some light comes even closer and circumvolves the hole a single time before escaping down to us, and so on. Looking near the black hole, we see more and more versions of the same galaxy, the closer to the edge of the hole we are looking.

How much closer to the black hole do you have to look from one image to see the next image? The result has been known for over 40 years, and is some 500 times (for the math aficionados, it is more accurately the "exponential function of two pi", written e2π).

Calculating this is so complicated that, until recently, we had not yet developed a mathematical and physical intuition as to why it happens to be this exact factor. But using some clever, mathematical tricks, master's student Albert Sneppen from the Cosmic Dawn Center -- a basic research center under both the Niels Bohr Institute and DTU Space -- has now succeeded in proving why.

"There is something fantastically beautiful in now understanding why the images repeat themselves in such an elegant way. On top of that, it provides new opportunities to test our understanding of gravity and black holes," Albert Sneppen clarifies.

Proving something mathematically is not only satisfying in itself; indeed, it brings us closer to an understanding of this marvelous phenomenon. The factor "500" follows directly from how black holes and gravity work, so the repetitions of the images now become a way to examine and test gravity.

Spinning black holes

As a completely new feature, Sneppen's method can also be generalized to apply not only to "trivial" black holes, but also to black holes that rotate. Which, in fact, they all do.

"It turns out that when the it rotates really fast, you no longer have to get closer to the black hole by a factor 500, but significantly less. In fact, each image is now only 50, or 5, or even down to just 2 times closer to the edge of the black hole", explains Albert Sneppen.

Having to look 500 times closer to the black hole for each new image, means that the images are quickly "squeezed" into one annular image, as seen in the figure on the right. In practice, the many images will be difficult to observe. But when black holes rotate, there is more room for the "extra" images, so we can hope to confirm the theory observationally in a not-too-distant future. In this way, we can learn about not just black holes, but also the galaxies behind them:

The travel time of the light increases, the more times it has to go around the black hole, so the images become increasingly "delayed". If, for example, a star explodes as a supernova in a background galaxy, one would be able to see this explosion again and again.