Earth

Ozone is a pollutant at ground level, but very high in the atmosphere's "ozone layer," it absorbs damaging ultraviolet radiation. Past studies have examined ozone levels in the Southern Hemisphere, but little is known about levels of the molecule in Antarctica over long periods. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have analyzed more than 25 years of Antarctic data, finding that concentrations near the ground arose from both natural and human-related sources.

Ozone gas has a sharp or acrid scent that sometimes accompanies smog or summer storms. It forms when sunlight reacts with gases produced by industrial and transportation activities, biomass burning or with naturally produced gases originating from lightning and microorganisms. However, when sunlight is very strong, it breaks down the molecule. Most ozone resides about 9-18 miles above Earth in the ozone layer, an atmospheric band within the stratosphere that protects the Earth from harmful UV radiation. But ozone in the lower atmosphere, or troposphere, is harmful and causes smog and throat and lung irritation. It's also a concern because the molecule traps heat 1,000 times better than carbon dioxide, and therefore, can have a large impact on global warming. While previous researchers have shown the rise of ozone in the troposphere across the Southern Hemisphere, there has not been a regional study reported for the remote Antarctic continent over a long period. So, Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath and colleagues wanted to use measurements made over Antarctica to determine where the ozone comes from and how levels have changed over time.

The researchers compiled ozone data measured between 1992 and 2018 at ground level and through the atmosphere, from the lower atmosphere into the ozone layer, at eight stations across Antarctica. Their analyses showed the amount of ozone throughout the troposphere was lowest during December, January and February, corresponding to summer in the Southern Hemisphere when the sun is intense enough that it breaks apart more ozone than it creates. Dominant sources of ozone were both natural -- from snow-pack on the large plateau in Eastern Antarctica and air mixing from the upper stratosphere to the troposphere -- and from humans, as some originated from the southern tip of South America. The researchers also found that ozone at ground level had risen up to 0.14 ppb per year over the 26 years that were reviewed, even when accounting for seasonal and natural patterns. Because of ozone's ability to hold heat near Earth's surface, the increasing trend could have negative impacts on the region in the future, the researchers say.

Thirty state-of-the-art IPCC-climate models predict dramatically different climates for the Northern Hemisphere, especially Europe. An analysis of the range of responses now reveals that the differences are mostly down to the individual model's simulations of changes to the North Atlantic ocean currents and not only - as normally assumed - atmospheric changes. The work, by Katinka Bellomo, National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, and colleagues is published today in Nature Communications and is part of the European science collaboration, TiPES, coordinated by the University of Copenhagen.

All climate models vary in the details. Variables such as atmospheric pressure, cloud cover, temperature gradients, sea surface temperatures, and many more are tuned to interact slightly differently for every model. This means, the predictions of the many models also vary.

International modelling centers run a coordinated set of climate model simulations, which are then assessed by the IPCC and summarized in a balanced report. But naturally, an uncertainty remains, reflecting the many different tunings of models.

"We want to understand the differences among these models. Why does one model project an overall global temperature change of two degrees while another one of four degrees? Our objective is to narrow down this inter-model uncertainty. We also want to understand the differences in these models in terms of regional climate change," explains Dr. Katinka Bellomo.

Two types of climate scenarios

Bellomo and colleagues analyzed simulations from thirty different climate models and found an important difference. There is disagreement among the models on the rate of the decline in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), a large system of ocean currents in the North Atlantic which overturns surface water to a deep ocean current and plays a crucial role in the distribution of heat from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere.

"To see how this difference was reflected in projections of the future climate, we grouped together the top ten models (from a total of thirty) in which the AMOC decline is smaller. We then compared the group with the average of the 10 models that have the largest decline," explains Bellomo.

The analysis revealed two distinct types of climate scenarios. In models where the AMOC decline is large, Europe warms only slightly, but wind patterns in Europe and precipitation patterns in the tropics change dramatically. However, in models where the AMOC decline is smaller, the Northern hemisphere heats up considerably, and a well-known pattern of wet-regions-get- wetter, dry-get-dryer emerges.

Tease mechanisms apart

This means, that the uncertainties in predictions of the future climate may to a large degree depend on how climate models predict changes in the overturning circulation in the North Atlantic. Thus, the result challenges the previous understanding of mechanisms controlling climate change over the North Atlantic, in which parameterizations of the atmosphere have been suspected to cause the main part of the uncertainty.

"This is important because it points to the AMOC as one of the largest sources of uncertainties in climate prediction," says Katinka Bellomo.

"I am excited about this research. Because there is so much more that can be done in addition to this. We need to investigate the processes leading to the inter-model differences in the ocean circulation response, the link between the ocean circulation response and precipitation change, and we also need to compare this with near-future projections of climate change," says Bellomo.

The TiPES project, investigating tipping points in the Earth system has received funding from the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme.

A study led by Fernando Colchero, University of Southern Denmark and Susan Alberts, Duke University, North Carolina, that included researchers from 42 institutions across 14 countries, provides new insights into the aging theory "the invariant rate of ageing hypothesis", which states that every species has a relatively fixed rate of aging.

- Human death is inevitable. No matter how many vitamins we take, how healthy our environment is or how much we exercise, we will eventually age and die, said Fernando Colchero.

He is an expert in applying statistics and mathematics to population biology and an associate professor at Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Southern Denmark.

"We were able to shed light on the invariant rate of ageing hypothesis by combining an unpresented wealth of data and comparing births and deaths patterns on nine human populations with information from 30 non-human primate populations, including gorillas, chimpanzees and baboons living in the wild and in zoos" said Fernando Colchero.

In order to explore this hypothesis, the researchers analyzed the relationship between life expectancy, this is the average age at which individuals die in a population, and lifespan equality, which measures how concentrated deaths are around older ages.

Their results show that, as life expectancy increases, so does lifespan equality. So, lifespan equality is very high when most of the individuals in a population tend to die at around the same age such as observed in modern Japan or Sweden - which is around their 70s or 80s. However, in the 1800s lifespan equality was very low in those same countries, since deaths were less concentrated at old ages, resulting also in lower life expectancy.

- Life expectancy has increased dramatically and still does in many parts of the world. But this is not because we have slowed our rate of aging; the reason is that more and more infants, children and young people survive and this brings up the average life expectancy, said Fernando Colchero.

Previous research from some of the authors of the study has unraveled the striking regularity between life expectancy and lifespan equality among human populations, from pre-industrial European countries, hunter gatherers, to modern industrialize countries.

However, by exploring these patterns among our closest relatives, this study shows that this pattern might be universal among primates, while it provides unique insights into the mechanisms that produce it.

"We observe that not only humans, but also other primate species exposed to different environments, succeed in living longer by reducing infant and juvenile mortality. However, this relationship only holds if we reduce early mortality, and not by reducing the rate of ageing" said Fernando Colchero.

Using statistics and mathematics the authors show that even small changes in the rate of ageing would make a population of, say, baboons, to demographically behave as a population of chimpanzees or even humans.

'Not all is lost', says Fernando Colchero, 'medical science has advanced at an unprecedented pace, so maybe science might succeed in achieving what evolution could not: to reduce the rate of ageing'.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (JUNE 15, 2021). In this longitudinal study, researchers from Wake Forest School of Medicine and the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, Texas, examined the frequency and severity of head impacts experienced by youth football players and how exposure to head impacts changes from one year to the next in returning players. The researchers then compared the resulting data with findings on neuroimaging studies obtained over consecutive years in the same athletes. The comparison demonstrated a significant positive association between changes in head impact exposure (HIE) metrics and changes in abnormal findings on brain imaging studies. Full details of this study can be found in the article "Analysis of longitudinal head impact exposure and white matter integrity in returning youth football players" by Mireille E. Kelley, PhD, and colleagues, published today in the
Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.

Illustrating the considerable variability in head impacts among football players, Kelley et al. inform us that in one football season, youth football players (10-13 years of age) can sustain between 26 and 1003 head impacts, and high school players can sustain between 129 and 1258 head impacts. Fortunately, most of these impacts do not result in concussions. In fact, most of these subconcussive impacts do not produce any acute signs or symptoms attributed to concussions.

Nevertheless, there is concern that, over time, repetitive subconcussive impacts may cause damage to contact-sport athletes' brains. This is particularly of concern when we are speaking of young athletes, who have many years ahead of them in their sport and in their lives.

To examine changes in head impact exposure (HIE) from year to year, the researchers focused on a group of 47 athletes who participated in youth football for two or more consecutive years sometime between 2012 and 2017. The athletes played on a variety of teams. All wore football helmets outfitted with the Riddell Head Impact Telemetry System™, which measures linear and rotational head accelerations that occur during a head impact. The outfitted helmets were worn during all football sessions--both practices and games. Biomechanical data on head impacts were transmitted in real time via radio waves to a sideline data collection field unit for later analysis. Altogether, the data covered 109 football athlete-seasons with 41,148 head impacts. Despite the large number of head impacts, none of the 47 youth athletes sustained a clinically diagnosed concussion during the study period.

Kelley et al. examined a variety of HIE metrics: number of head impacts, 50th percentile of impacts per football session (game, practice, and both); 95th percentile peak linear and rotational accelerations measured by the Head Impact Telemetry System System™; and risk-weighted cumulative exposure, a metric summarizing the frequency and magnitude of head impacts experienced by the athlete over a single season. The researchers found that variations in HIE metrics differed from year to year and between athletes. For example, in an examination of data from three consecutive seasons, some youths experienced more impacts in their second year of play than in their first, while other youths experienced fewer impacts in later years of play.

Although trends in increasing mean number of game impacts, mean 50th percentile of impacts per football session, and mean 50th percentile of impacts per game session were identified over three seasons, the differences between the means were not statistically significant. The researchers did note "significant variability in several HIE metrics among teams," but this was not the focus of this study.

In 19 of the 47 youth football athletes, brain images were obtained pre- and post-season for two consecutive football seasons. This was done using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a type of magnetic resonance imaging that can be used to assess the integrity of the brain's white matter, indicating possible sites of injury. Using this technique, the researchers evaluated changes in the following scalar metrics: fractional anisotropy; mean diffusivity; and linear, planar, and spherical anisotropy coefficients.

A group of 16 youth athletes who participated in non-contact sports (for example, swimming, tennis, track) underwent DTI two times (baseline and follow-up studies, four months apart) and served as a control group. Abnormal white matter voxels (small three-dimensional areas) on youth football players' brain images were defined as voxels in which DTI scalar values increased or decreased throughout the football season significantly (two standard deviations above or below those of mean values in the control group).

Similar to the pattern of HIE, the researchers found "both increases and decreases in the number of abnormal voxels between season 1 and season 2" in the youth football athletes.

Linear regression analyses were performed to assess relationships between changes in HIE metrics and changes in DTI scalar metrics from one year to the next. There was a significant positive correlation between changes in the number of head impacts per practice session and every DTI scalar metric. In addition, significant positive correlations were determined between changes in both the 50th percentile impacts per practice sessions and the 50th percentile impacts per football sessions (including both practice and game sessions) and the various DTI scalar metrics.

In summary, the major findings of this longitudinal study include the following:

HIE varied among individual athletes from one season to the next. Increases and decreases in HIE across three consecutive seasons in individual youth football players were observed; the changes were not significant from one season to the next.

Trends in DTI imaging changes varied among individual athletes from one season to the next. Increases and decreases in the number of abnormal voxels on DTI from the first to second season were identified in individual players.

The amount of HIE an athlete experienced in football, particularly in practice, was associated with the amount of change in neuroimaging metrics. Positive associations between changes in abnormal voxels on DTI and the number of head impacts per practice session, 50th percentile impacts per practice session, and 50th percentile impacts per session overall (including both practice and game sessions) between consecutive seasons (seasons 1 and 2) were found.

Because of the significant positive correlations between changes in HIE metrics and changes in the number of abnormal voxels on DTI between consecutive seasons, the authors support efforts to reduce the number and frequency of head impacts, particularly those occurring during practice sessions, when the majority of head impacts occur. They believe this action may reduce the number of abnormal imaging findings in youth football athletes from one football season to the next.

When asked about the findings of the study, Dr. Jillian Urban, Assistant Professor at Wake Forest School of Medicine, responded, "Our findings further support ongoing efforts to reduce the number of head impacts in football practices. In an upcoming study, we plan to engage stakeholders in the youth football community to develop and test practical solutions informed by the biomechanical data we collect on field to reduce head impacts in practice."

What The Study Did: In this survey of 1,186 medical, graduate and health professional school faculty, more faculty considered leaving since the COVID-19 pandemic than before. Faculty with children, particularly female faculty with children, were more likely to consider leaving since the pandemic.

Authors: Susan A. Matulevicius, M.D., M.S.C.S., of the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.13539)

Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - June 15, 2021 - With preseason football training on the horizon, a new study shows that head impacts experienced during practice are associated with changes in brain imaging of young players over multiple seasons.

The research, conducted by scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine and the University of Texas Southwestern, is published in the June 15 issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.

"Although we need more studies to fully understand what the measured changes mean, from a public health perspective, it is motivation to further reduce head impact drills used during practice in youth football," said the study's corresponding author Jill Urban, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Wake Forest School of Medicine.

The purpose of the study was to examine changes in head impact exposure (HIE) pre- and post-season in a group of 47 athletes who participated in youth football for two or more consecutive years between 2012 and 2017. None of the 47 youth athletes sustained a clinically diagnosed concussion during the study period.

A group of 16 youth athletes who participated in non-contact sports, such as swimming, tennis and track, served as the control group.

Pre- and post-season MRIs were completed for both groups of study participants using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a type of neuroimaging that can be used to assess the integrity of the brain's white matter, indicating possible sites of injury.

In addition, the research team gathered biomechanical data of linear and rotational head accelerations of head impacts from the football group during all practice and games via the Riddell Head Impact Telemetry System in the helmets. That information was transmitted in real time to a sideline data collection field unit for later analysis.

In 19 of the 47 youth football athletes, brain images were obtained pre- and post-season for two consecutive football seasons. Using data from the DTIs and the head impact telemetry system, the researchers found variations in head impact exposures (i.e., the number and severity of head impacts measured) from year-to-year and between athletes. For example, in an examination of data from three consecutive seasons, some youths experienced more impacts in their second year of play than in their first, while other youths experienced fewer impacts in later years of play.

"We observed variability in the amount and direction of imaging changes in the brain related to the amount of exposure that the players experienced on the field," Urban said. "If we can take efforts to reduce that exposure on-field, we can potentially mitigate changes in brain imaging.

"Our findings further support ongoing efforts to reduce the number of head impacts in football practices. In an upcoming study, we plan to engage stakeholders in the youth football community to develop and test practical solutions informed by the data we collect on the field to reduce head impacts in practice."

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Artificial intelligence (AI) may offer a way to accurately determine that a person is not infected with COVID-19. An international retrospective study finds that infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, creates subtle electrical changes in the heart. An AI-enhanced EKG can detect these changes and potentially be used as a rapid, reliable COVID-19 screening test to rule out COVID-19 infection.

The AI-enhanced EKG was able to detect COVID-19 infection in the test with a positive predictive value -- people infected -- of 37% and a negative predictive value -- people not infected -- of 91%. When additional normal control subjects were added to reflect a 5% prevalence of COVID-19 -- similar to a real-world population -- the negative predictive value jumped to 99.2%. The findings are published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

COVID-19 has a 10- to 14-day incubation period, which is long compared to other common viruses. Many people do not show symptoms of infection, and they could unknowingly put others at risk. Also, the turnaround time and clinical resources needed for current testing methods are substantial, and access can be a problem.

"If validated prospectively using smartphone electrodes, this will make it even simpler to diagnose COVID infection, highlighting what might be done with international collaborations," says Paul Friedman, M.D., chair of Mayo Clinic's Department of Cardiovascular Medicine in Rochester. Dr. Friedman is senior author of the study.

The realization of a global health crisis brought together stakeholders around the world to develop a tool that could address the need to rapidly, noninvasively and cost-effectively rule out the presence of acute COVID-19 infection. The study, which included data from racially diverse populations, was conducted through a global volunteer consortium spanning four continents and 14 countries.

"The lessons from this global working group showed what is feasible, and the need pushed members in industry and academia to partner in solving the complex questions of how to gather and transfer data from multiple centers with their own EKG systems, electronic health records and variable access to their own data," says Suraj Kapa, M.D., a cardiac electrophysiologist at Mayo Clinic. "The relationships and data processing frameworks refined through this collaboration can support the development and validation of new algorithms in the future."

The researchers selected patients with EKG data from around the time their COVID-19 diagnosis was confirmed by a genetic test for the SARS-Co-V-2 virus. These data were control-matched with similar EKG data from patients who were not infected with COVID-19.

Researchers used more than 26,000 of the EKGs to train the AI and nearly 4,000 others to validate its readings. Finally, the AI was tested on 7,870 EKGs not previously used. In each of these sets, the prevalence of COVID-19 was around 33%.

To accurately reflect a real-world population, more than 50,000 additional normal EKGs were then added to reach a 5% prevalence rate of COVID-19. This raised the negative predictive value of the AI from 91% to 99.2%.

Zachi Attia, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic engineer in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, explains that prevalence is a variable in the calculation of positive and negative predictive values. Specifically, as the prevalence decreases, the negative predictive value increases. Dr. Attia is co-first author of the study with Dr. Kapa.

"Accuracy is one of the biggest hurdles in determining the value of any test for COVID-19," says Dr. Attia. "Not only do we need to know the sensitivity and specificity of the test, but also the prevalence of the disease. Adding the extra control EKG data was critical to demonstrating how a variable prevalence of the disease -- as we have encountered with regions having widely different rates of disease at different stages of the pandemic -- would impact how the test would perform."

"This study demonstrates the presence of a biological signal in the EKG consistent with COVID-19 infection, but it included many ill patients. While it is a hopeful signal, we must prospectively test this in asymptomatic people using smartphone-based electrodes to confirm that it can be practically used in the fight against the pandemic," notes Dr. Friedman. "Studies are underway now to address that question."

In the heart of their Antarctic habitat, krill populations are projected to decline about 30% this century due to widespread negative effects from human-driven climate change. However, these effects on this small but significant species will be largely indistinguishable from natural variability in the region's climate until late in the 21st century, finds new University of Colorado Boulder research.

Published today in Frontiers in Marine Science, the study has important implications for not only the local food web, but for the largest commercial fishery in the Southern Ocean: A booming $2 billion fish oil industry, sold as Omega-3 supplements in retail giants like Costco.

"Krill are what links the ecosystem together," said Zephyr Sylvester, lead author on the paper and graduate student in environmental studies. "They're really important to the Southern Ocean for pretty much every predator species."

Because these tiny animals live in one of the most sensitive areas in the world to climate change, explicitly separating trends associated with human-driven warming from those arising naturally in krill habitat is a crucial step for planning and mapping harvest limits.

This study is also the first of its kind to use a group of climate models to demonstrate that climate change has the potential to dramatically alter Antarctic marine ecosystems, but that natural climate variability can obscure human-driven trends.

Small but significant

Krill are about 2.5 inches (6 cm) long, fast swimming zooplankton that live in large groups. They're key to the region's food chain, eaten by just about everything that lives in the waters surrounding Antarctica: Penguins, seals, fish and whales, some of which are still recovering from overharvesting in previous centuries.

But while they are one of the most abundant species on Earth--their total biomass estimated at 300 to 500 million tons--krill can only survive in a narrow temperature range and are strongly affected by variables in their underwater environment.

Currently, fishing in the Southern Ocean is managed by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, known as CCAMLR (pronounced "cam-ah-lar"), an international body established as part of the Antarctic Treaty System.

The first item on their agenda? Krill. Yet 40 years after their founding, their catch limits on this creature are still only set using a stock assessment that does not account for natural environmental variability or climate change impacts.

While today there is widespread international recognition of the importance of understanding the impacts of climate change on this marine ecosystem, knowing how the climate naturally varies is an important prerequisite, according to Sylvester.

"The thing that we really have to understand is: Is there enough krill to feed everything that needs to eat it in the Southern Ocean, as well as humans?" said Cassandra Brooks, co-author on the paper and assistant professor of environmental studies. "My hope is that we can take this as a first step to understanding how to manage krill better."

What is natural variability?

Every environment on Earth naturally varies a bit each year in its weather, temperature and precipitation. For example, some winters in Colorado have more snowfall, some have less. Some will be a bit warmer, some colder. Human-driven climate change aside, each year in the state has a unique pattern of precipitation and temperature due to natural variability.

But separating the effects of human-driven climate change from natural changes in a region is no easy task. To be able to pull apart the variables affecting the Southern Ocean over this century, the researchers ran a larger group of models many times, known as a large ensemble earth system model. It's the first time this has been done for the Southern Ocean and for krill.

"Then we were able to look at the different trends and quantify how much the natural variability was masking the signal for climate change," said Sylvester.

This research addresses one of the biggest disconnects between scientists and fishery managers: understanding and communicating uncertainty. By being able to quantify how much change is likely to occur from natural variability, and separately from climate change, it allows everyone involved to plan better for the future and sustain krill for those who depend on it, according to Brooks.

"Even if we won't see this really strong signal from climate change until later, what's important for us to understand is that the Southern Ocean is a very dynamic system and we absolutely have to be managing for natural variability," said Brooks. "And we should be ready to manage for the broader impacts of climate change."

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Millions of people experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime and assessment is important in conducting therapy and assisting victims. A team of psychologists at Binghamton University, State University of New York have evaluated dozens of available measures used to assess intimate partner violence and have pinpointed the most effective ones.

IPV is a blanket term used to refer to not only acts of physical violence, but other abusive behaviors, such as psychological and emotional abuse or control tactics. According to estimates by the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, within the United States, 22.3% of women and 14% of men experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes.

Binghamton University doctoral student Erin F. Alexander and Professor of Psychology Matthew D. Johnson typically administer a measure of IPV to couples therapy patients, and they became curious about which measures are best to use in a clinical practice as well as in research.

"When we located 87 measures, we realized that before conducting any further research, one of the most important contributions we could make to the field is sorting through these measures to identify which measures are of the highest quality," said Alexander.

The researchers examined prior research on each measure. After evaluating each one, they recommended 18 of the available 87. The measures fit different purposes including brief screening instruments, measures of severity, measures used in criminal justice settings, measures of attitudes related to violence without overtly asking about violent behaviors, and measures of specific forms of abuse (e.g., physical, sexual, psychological).

"These measures are recommended because they have been studied more thoroughly than the other measures, and the results from the studies on these measures show consistently that the measure is a valid indicator of IPV in a relationship," said Alexander.

It is best practice for a couples therapist to evaluate a couple for violence in the relationship before beginning therapy, said Alexander. Based on the level of violence, the types of therapeutic interventions that may be appropriate and helpful for a couple are different. Some studies suggest it is unsafe to conduct couples therapy in certain types of abusive relationships. Having a valid measure to administer at the beginning of therapy can help therapists know whether a couple is experiencing IPV, how severe it is and what types of abuse are occurring.

"This can allow therapists to make the best decisions for how to help the couple -- whether that be couples therapy, individual therapy, or taking safety measures to help a victim remove his/herself from a dangerous situation," said Alexander.

Alexander has plans to create her own measure that pulls from the strongest qualities of the existing measures. She also plans to use only the strongest measures that she has identified in assessing IPV in future research and with couples' patients moving forward.

Data collected for over two decades shows that rising Baltic Sea water temperature is one of the main factors in the increasingly earlier appearance and faster growth of Baltic herring larvae.

Baltic herring (Clupea harengus membras) is commercially the most important fish species in Finland, and an important part of the Baltic marine ecosystem. Conditions during herring spawning may have cascading effects on the whole Baltic ecosystem.

According to a recent research, both developmental stages in Baltic herring larvae, small and large, have shifted their timing to earlier dates.

"This suggests that herring spawn earlier and larvae grow faster, by about 7.7 days per decade. Water temperature and the amount of chlorophyll a in the water, the latter serving as an estimate for the larval food resources, were strong drivers of this change," says postdoctoral researcher Benjamin Weigel from the University of Helsinki.

"The results of the study describe the effects of climate change on the Baltic Sea ecosystem and one of its key species," says research programme leader Meri Kallasvuo from Natural Resources Institute Finland.

Temporal changes in the biological life cycle of Baltic herring can become critical for the survival of species when there is a mismatch in timing between prey and consumer, especially during early life stages.

Researchers from the University of Helsinki and Natural Resources Institute Luke used data collected over 22 years from a herring larvae survey that was conducted in several areas along the whole Baltic coast of Finland.

"Usually there are no exact dates of first larvae hatching available, so we modelled changes in the Baltic herring larvae based on occurrence probabilities and relative abundances of different size classes of fish larvae. We predicted the day of the year when the smallest larvae had a high probability of occurrence, and when largest larvae made up a significant percentage of all larvae. Earlier dates in high occurrence probabilities of the smallest larvae indicate relatively earlier spawning, and earlier dates in proportions of the largest larvae would indicate faster larvae growth," Benjamin Weigel points out.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki and the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow have discovered how mutated cells promote their chances to form cancer. Typically, the accumulation of harmful cells is prevented by active competition between multiple stem cells in intestinal glands, called crypts.

"The functioning of intestinal stem cells relies on growth factors, named Wnts, produced by the surrounding environment. Intestinal cancers typically originate from stem cells where mutations allow growth independent of these factors. When we removed a gene called Notum, which renders Wnts inactive, from mutated stem cells, the number of precancerous adenomas in the intestine was greatly reduced. We found that mutated cells use this gene to block environmental factors critical to normal stem cells gaining advantage in competition," says Postdoctoral Researcher Nalle Pentinmikko.

The research group of Assistant Professor Pekka Katajisto at the Institute of Biotechnology of the University of Helsinki had already previously discovered that the same gene, also called an 'ageing gene', is expressed in normal tissue when we age, reducing the ability of stem cells to repair damage. The current study shows that mutated cells use the same gene in order to establish a permanent footing in the tissue.

"Mutated cells kind of hijack the ageing gene and use it against the healthy stem cells," Katajisto says.

The results from this study may lead to the development of new therapies, because the function of the enzyme encoded by the ageing gene can be blocked pharmacologically. The research group led by Katajisto has previously used a compound for this purpose in aged research animals to enhance the function of aged stem cells. In the current study, researchers used the same method to reduce the chance of mutated cells winning in competition. A three-week treatment reduced the number of adenomas in animal models.

"The results are promising and create a foundation for developing new therapies for patients predisposed to intestinal cancers. This research demonstrates that by enhancing the natural mechanisms of how tissues remove damaged cells, we could also reduce cancer risk in other tissues," Pekka Katajisto concludes.

Researchers have identified two subgroups of adolescents who self-harm and have shown that it is possible to predict those individuals at greatest risk almost a decade before they begin self-harming.

The team, based at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, found that while sleep problems and low self-esteem were common risk factors, there were two distinct profiles of young people who self-harm - one with emotional and behavioural difficulties and a second group without those difficulties, but with different risk factors.

Between one in five and one in seven adolescents in England self-harms, for example by deliberately cutting themselves. While self-harm is a significant risk factor for subsequent suicide attempts, many do not intend suicide but face other harmful outcomes, including repeatedly self-harming, poor mental health, and risky behaviours like substance abuse. Despite its prevalence and lifelong consequences, there has been little progress in the accurate prediction of self-harm.

The Cambridge team identified adolescents who reported self-harm at age 14, from a nationally representative UK birth cohort of approximately 11,000 individuals. They then used a machine learning analysis to identify whether there were distinct profiles of young people who self-harm, with different emotional and behavioural characteristics. They used this information to identify risk factors from early and middle childhood. The results are published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Because the data tracked the participants over time, the researchers were able to distinguish factors that appear alongside reported self-harm behaviour, such as low self-esteem, from those that precede it, such as bullying.

The team identified two distinct subgroups among young people who self-harm, with significant risk factors present as early as age five, nearly a decade before they reported self-harming. While both groups were likely to experience sleep difficulties and low self-esteem reported at age 14, other risk factors differed between the two groups.

The first group showed a long history of poor mental health, as well as bullying before they self-harmed. Their caregivers were more likely to have mental health issues of their own.

For the second group, however, their self-harming behaviour was harder to predict early in childhood. One of the key signs was a greater willingness to take part in risk-taking behaviour, which is linked to impulsivity. Other research suggests these tendencies may predispose the individual towards spending less time to consider alternate coping methods and the consequences of self-harm. Factors related to their relationships with their peers were also important for this subgroup, including feeling less secure with friends and family at age 14 and a greater concern about the feelings of others as a risk factor at age 11.

Stepheni Uh, a Gates Cambridge Scholar and first author of the study, said: "Self-harm is a significant problem among adolescents, so it's vital that we understand the nuanced nature of self-harm, especially in terms of the different profiles of young people who self-harm and their potentially different risk factors.

"We found two distinct subgroups of young people who self-harm. The first was much as expected - young people who experience symptoms of depression and low self-esteem, face problems with their families and friends, and are bullied. The second, much larger group was much more surprising as they don't show the usual traits that are associated with those who self-harm."

The researchers say that their findings suggest that it may be possible to predict which individuals are most at risk of self-harm up to a decade ahead of time, providing a window to intervene.

Dr Duncan Astle said: "The current approach to supporting mental health in young people is to wait until problems escalate. Instead, we need a much better evidence base so we can identify who is at most risk of mental health difficulties in the future, and why. This offers us the opportunity to be proactive, and minimise difficulties before they start.

"Our results suggest that boosting younger children's self-esteem, making sure that schools implement anti-bullying measures, and providing advice on sleep training, could all help reduce self-harm levels years later.

"Our research gives us potential ways of helping this newly-identified second subgroup. Given that they experience difficulties with their peers and are more willing to engage in risky behaviours, then providing access to self-help and problem-solving or conflict regulation programmes may be effective."

Professor Tamsin Ford from the Department of Psychiatry added: "We might also help at-risk adolescents by targeting interventions at mental health leaders and school-based mental health teams. Teachers are often the first people to hear about self-harm but some lack confidence in how to respond. Providing them with training could make a big difference."

Local rice varieties in Vietnam could be used to help breed improved crops with higher resilience to climate change, according to a new study published in Rice.

Earlham Institute researchers are part of an international collaboration with genebanks and rice breeders in Vietnam - championed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to help abolish world poverty and hunger - are aiming to identify varieties that can survive an increasingly unpredictable climate.

The new genomic data they have generated will significantly support efforts to breed resilient rice crops for optimum global production.

The unparalleled geography and history of Vietnam, together with its diverse range of ecosystems and latitudinal range, means it has been blessed with a vast diversity of rice landraces.

Rice production in Vietnam is of enormous value, both as an export commodity and a daily food staple for the more than 96 million people who live there. An important part of diets worldwide, rice is a healthy, versatile and cheap carbohydrate.

However, climate change is threatening its wide availability, with the country's unique geography and environments putting Vietnam at particular risk.

Critically, it is the world's poorest that are most dependent on this crop, who are also under the most threat from climate change - amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting food and nutrition security for billions of people.

Green super rice

To fully understand the uniqueness and potential of this native crop diversity, the research team analysed 672 Vietnamese rice genomes; 616 were newly sequenced, which encompass the range of rice varieties grown in the diverse ecosystems found throughout Vietnam.

The team of scientists discovered a previously overlooked 'I5 Indica' large rice subpopulation in some regions of Vietnam, which had not been used before to produce the more common elite rice varieties resulting from previous rice improvement studies.

These locally adapted rice varieties provide a potential source of novel genes that carry important agronomic traits, which can potentially be leveraged by future rice breeding programmes.

This will help with a new generation of 'Green Super Rice', designed to lower production input while enhancing nutritional content and suitability for growing on marginal lands - resulting in a sustainable and resilient rice to better withstand extreme weather conditions.

First author Dr Janet Higgins at the Earlham Institute, said: "Vietnam has a rich history in rice breeding, especially at the local level. The adaptation to multiple environmental conditions and regional preferences has created a wide range of varieties.

"Studies like this suggest that this diversity constitutes a largely untapped and highly valuable genetic resource for local and international breeding programmes."

To understand how rice diversity within Vietnam relates to worldwide varieties, the team analysed nine landrace subpopulations that were likely adapted to the demands in the different regions of origin.

They then compared this new data to the previous global study on rice diversity in Asia, consisting of fifteen worldwide Asian subpopulations (from 89 countries) in the publicly available '3000 Rice Genomes Project'. From this, the Earlham Institute researchers discovered how the new rice varieties native to Vietnam were related to the global Asian data set - leading to the I5 Indica subpopulation finding.

Sustainable rice breeding

This genetic diversity is a highly valuable resource when the highest rice production areas in the low-lying Mekong and Red River Deltas are enduring increasing threats from climate changes - unpredictable weather patterns, increasing sea levels causing overflow of saltwater, and consequential drought in the upland areas.

Dr Higgins, explains: "Improved varieties, which are high yielding but can also be grown sustainably, are needed to ensure we can continue to meet the worldwide demand for rice. Salt and drought tolerance are related critical traits which need to be addressed in order to secure future rice production.

"This requires agronomic, smart crop management practices and genomic solutions to stop the vicious cycle of rice contributing to global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions from crop fields, and areas of production being threatened by climate change.

"We are now analysing the Indica I5 subpopulation in further detail. We hope to try and detect regions of the genome which have been selected in the Indica I5 subpopulation and relate these to traits of interest for sustainable rice crops.

"It would be fantastic if the IRRI were in a position to incorporate some of the Indica I5 varieties from Vietnam we describe in our study in their future breeding programmes. We believe this new data will massively help optimise sustainable rice production for global demand while protecting our planet."

The paper 'Resequencing of 672 Native Rice Accessions to Explore Genetic Diversity and Trait Associations in Vietnam' is published in the journal Rice.

The influx of warmer water masses from the North Atlantic into the European marginal seas plays a significant role in the marked decrease in sea-ice growth, especially in winter. Sea-ice physicists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) together with researchers from the US and Russia, now present evidence for this in two new studies, which show that heat from the Atlantic has hindered ice growth in the Barents and Kara Seas for years. Furthermore, they demonstrate that the invasion of warm Atlantic water masses further east, at the northern edge of the Laptev Sea, can have such a long-term impact on the increase in ice thickness that the effects are evident a year later, when the ice has drifted towards Greenland via the North Pole and leaves the Arctic through Fram Strait. This study also includes data from the MOSAiC expedition.

Marine researchers refer to this increasing influx of warm Atlantic water masses into the Arctic Ocean as 'Atlantification'. To date, this process has mainly been investigated from an oceanographic perspective. In two new studies, AWI sea-ice physicists have, for the first time, estimated the effects of the input of heat on the sea-ice growth in the Arctic. Of note here: in those places where the sea ice completely melts in summer, in the following winter the sea releases especially large amounts of heat into the atmosphere. As a result, the sea freezes so rapidly that it compensates for the summertime ice losses. "Young, thin sea ice conducts heat significantly better than thick ice, and therefore less effectively protects the sea from cooling. At the same time, more water freezes on the underside of the ice, which is why thin ice grows more quickly than thick ice," explains AWI sea-ice physicist Dr Robert Ricker.

The important winter growth no longer takes place as smoothly in all marginal seas, as Ricker and colleagues found using long-term data on the thickness, concentration and drift of Arctic sea ice. "We analysed satellite data from the ESA Climate Change Initiative and found that in the period from 2002 to 2019, less and less sea ice formed, especially in the Barents Sea and Kara Sea," Ricker reports. In the East Siberian Sea, as well as in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, on the other hand, the winter ice production is still great enough to compensate for the losses in summer.

To determine the cause of these varying regional trends, the researchers simulated the interaction between the ocean, ice, wind, and air temperature for the past four decades using two coupled ice-ocean models. Both simulations led to the same conclusion. "The warm water masses that flow from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean are responsible for slowing or even preventing ice growth in the Barents and Kara Seas. If new ice does form, it's significantly thinner than before," says Ricker, adding: "If Atlantification persists to this extent, and the winter temperatures in the Arctic continue to rise, in the long term we will also see changes in the regions of the Arctic Ocean further east. In that case, the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean will decline and become thinner and more fragile than it already is.

Signs of rising heat at the northern edge of the Laptev Sea

In the second study, AWI sea-ice physicists report on the first indications that the rising ocean heat is also slowing ice formation in the Laptev Sea, which also includes measurements of the ice floe from the one-year MOSAiC expedition in late summer 2020. In it, the researchers analyse the long-term data from their sea-ice thickness measuring programme in the Arctic, 'IceBird', and trace the origins of the unusually thin sea ice that they observed from the research aeroplane in the northern Fram Strait in summer 2016. At that time, the ice was just 100 centimetres thick, making it 30 percent thinner than in the previous year - a difference that the researchers were initially unable to explain. "To solve the puzzle, we first retraced the ice's drift route with the help of satellite images. It originated in the Laptev Sea," explains AWI sea-ice physicist Dr Jakob Belter. The experts then examined the weather along the route. However, the atmospheric data for the period 2014 to 2016 didn't show any abnormalities.

That meant the answer had to lie in the ocean - and indeed: from January to May 2015, experts from the University of Alaska Fairbanks recorded unusually high temperatures in the waters north of the Laptev Sea. We now know that the heat rose from the depths with Atlantic water masses, and slowed the winter ice growth. "Using the satellite data, we were able to show that the thin ice that we recorded in Fram Strait in July 2016 had previously passed through this unusually warm area off the Russian continental shelf," says Belter. Furthermore, the ocean heat wave must have been so extreme that its effects on the growth in sea-ice thickness couldn't be compensated for during its drift across the Arctic Ocean.

The two new studies highlight the importance of long-term datasets for sea-ice research in the Arctic. "If we are to understand the changes in the Arctic sea ice, long-term observations of ice thickness using satellites and aircraft are vital. Combined with modelling data they provide an overall picture that is sufficiently detailed to allow us to identify the key processes in the changing Arctic," explains Jakob Belter.

The research - published ahead of World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on 17 June 2021 - examines recent and projected climate change impacts on water security across the world's drylands up to the year 2100.

It concludes that more efficient water management, technology and infrastructure, and better demand and supply management can offer more equitable access to water resources and help to achieve development goals.

Lead author, Professor Lindsay Stringer from the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of York said "People in dryland areas are already adapting to climate changes, but they need to be supported with coherent system-oriented policies and institutions that put water security at their core."

Globally, water scarcity already affects between one and two billion people. Drylands in hot, tropical areas have already experienced temperature rises under climate change that is higher than the global average.

Projected climate changes indicate that in a few decades, millions more people (approximately half the world's population) will be living under conditions of high water stress.

The drylands' human and environmental systems could be hampered in their ability to adapt to water dynamics under climate change, with knock-on effects for other places beyond the drylands as well.

The paper's authors strongly support the integration of water concerns across borders and sectors, through approaches such as Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).

Professor Stringer said "To make sure no one gets left behind, more attention needs to be paid to how decisions about water management link to other things, like food, energy, livelihoods, migration and human health."

Professor Stringer also argues that achieving water security is not just an environmental challenge, but also a governance issue "We need to ensure access to water and its quality is properly managed. That requires political will, capacity, resourcing and leadership to develop a truly integrated approach to delivering water-related decisions."

"Stakeholder engagement is increasingly important, particularly in complex contexts where dryland rivers flow across multiple national borders, and approaches like IWRM are really vital in shaping more equitable water resource allocation."

The research is published in One Earth.