Earth

"The findings of our study tell us where and when greenhouse gas is being most absorbed in Arctic waters." Says Friederike Gründger, who conducted the study as part of her post-doctoral research at CAGE.

The study, which was conducted on the shallow shelf west of Svalbard, took a closer look at communities of bacteria that use methane as an energy source and carbon substrate for growth. The results from the study show that these methane-oxidizing bacteria are highly affected by the specific underwater landscape and seasonal conditions in the study area.

"Several large depressions, up to 40m deep, are observed along the shallow shelf off Western Svalbard, in an area which is also characterized by numerous methane flares. Our study shows that the bacteria are allowed to prosper in these sheltered depressions. We found 2 - 3 times higher methane consumption rates here than reported previously from other locations at the continental shelf around Svalbard ." Says Gründger

"Moreover, we found that in summer, these specific types of bacteria are much more active in utilizing methane, compared with other seasons. "

Microbial consumption is the final sink for the methane gas

Microbial methane oxidation is the final sink for the greenhouse gas that is released from the seafloor before it is liberated into the atmosphere. This means that they are able to dimmish the amount of methane reaching the atmosphere.

"Our results have considerably improved our understanding of the influence of the landscape, and seasonality on the relationship between methane release and microbial communities that thrive in the methane-rich environment."

It is extremely important for scientist to gain a better understanding of the diversity, distribution, and activity of methane-oxidizing bacteria. This allows them to better estimate the balance between the amounts of methane released from the sediments, converted into biomass and potentially released into the atmosphere.

WHAT:

A team of researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health has developed a new ultrasound technique to monitor the placenta for impaired fetal blood flow early in pregnancy. The technique, which uses conventional ultrasound equipment, relies on subtle differences in the pulsation of fetal blood through the arteries at the fetal and placental ends of the umbilical cord, potentially enabling physicians to identify placental abnormalities that impair fetal blood flow and, if necessary, deliver the fetus early. Like current ultrasound techniques, the new technique can also detect impaired flow of maternal blood through the placenta.

The study was conducted by John G. Sled, Ph.D., of The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and colleagues. It appears in eBioMedicine. Funding was provided in part by NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Researchers tested the new technique with ultrasound scans on women between the 26th and 32nd weeks of pregnancy and diagnosed those with circulatory problems in the maternal or fetal part of the placenta. After the women gave birth, the diagnoses were verified by comparing them to the results of physical examination of the placentas they delivered. Among them, 40 women had placentas without circulation problems, 16 had placentas with fetal circulation problems, and 30 had maternal placenta circulation problems.

The authors say their method provides a way to diagnose circulation problems in the placenta that can harm the fetus and would otherwise go undetected until late in pregnancy.

WHO:

David Weinberg, Ph.D., Project Lead of the NICHD Human Placenta Project, is available for comment.

ARTICLE:

Cahill LS, et al. Wave reflections in the umbilical artery measured by Doppler ultrasound as a novel predictor of placental pathology. eBioMedicine.2021.

The first mental health study of Black communities in Canada has found the majority of Black Canadians display severe depressive symptoms - women, even more so - with racial discrimination confirming the appearance of these signs for nearly all.

The study, published in Depression and Anxiety, discovered nearly two-thirds (65.87 percent) of surveyed participants reported severe depressive symptoms. Higher rates were found among women; those who are employed; those born in Canada; and nearly all who have been experienced high racial discrimination.

"Rates of depressive symptoms among Black individuals are nearly six times the 12-month prevalence reported for the general population in Canada," says Dr. Jude Mary Cénat, an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa whose study involved 846 Black individuals in Canada of which 76.6 percent were women, with an average age of nearly 25.

"Racial discrimination which significantly predicts greater depressive symptomatology is consistent with earlier studies in the United States and suggests that Canadian colorblind policies may inadvertently reinforce racial discrimination with detrimental effects to mental health," says Dr. Cénat, who saw that those who experienced a very high level of racial discrimination were 36 more times likely to be diagnosed with severe depression.

The study, which was funded by a grant from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), proposes concrete actions and paradigm shifts to end the colorblind approach in mental health services in Canada. This research comes during Mental Health Week (May 3-9), which is supported by the Canadian Mental Health Association to spotlight an important topic as the COVID-19 pandemic takes a toll on mental health of Canadians.

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., May 5, 2021-- A massive collaborative research project covered in the journal Nature this week offers projections to the year 2100 of future sea-level rise from all sources of land ice, offering the most complete projections created to date.

"This work synthesizes improvements over the last decade in climate models, ice sheet and glacier models, and estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions," said Stephen Price, one of the Los Alamos scientists on the project. "More than 85 researchers from various disciplines, including our team at Los Alamos National Laboratory, produced sea-level rise projections based on the most recent computer models developed within the scientific community and updated scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions," said Price.

The estimates show that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures would cut projected 21st century sea-level rise from land ice in half, relative to currently pledged emissions reductions. For example, the paper notes that, when looking at all land ice sources, the median projection of cumulative rise in sea level by the year 2100 decreases from approximately 25 cm to approximately 13 cm when emissions are limited.

The term "land ice" includes mountain glaciers such as those in Alaska, Europe, high-mountain Asia, etc.; ice caps including those of Iceland and the Canadian Arctic; and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Continental Wild Card

Interestingly, Price points out, Antarctica continues to be the wild card. "Future changes to Antarctica remain highly uncertain," he said. "Because of this, our high-end estimates for sea-level rise from land ice are more than twice as large as the 'most likely' estimate." This is largely due to substantial uncertainty in how strongly warm ocean waters erode floating parts of the ice sheet from beneath.

Apart from that uncertainty, the bulk of the Antarctic sea-level rise projections do not show a strong sensitivity to different emissions scenarios, but a small number of projections result in an up to five-fold increase in sea-level contribution, Price said. Indeed, improving DOE's ability to accurately simulate Southern Hemisphere climate and Antarctic ice sheet evolution has been a focus of Los Alamos efforts for more than a decade.

The Los Alamos role:

Los Alamos and the U.S. Department of Energy contributed at many stages of the newly published work, including:

evaluation and selection of the most appropriate climate models to use for exploring future changes to the Antarctic region;

the development of experimental protocols and the best methods for using climate model output to drive ice sheet models;

conducting ice sheet model simulations to project the future sea-level rise contribution from the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Since 2013, Los Alamos has been the lead institution on the Cryosphere Science Campaign within DOE's Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) project, which focuses on improving projections of Antarctic ice sheet evolution and sea level rise. Likewise, since 2010, Los Alamos has been the lead DOE institution on three DOE Office of Science funded projects around the development of "next generation" ice sheet models including ISICLES (2010-2012), PISCEES (2012-2017), and ProSPect (2017-2022). Los Alamos also currently leads or contributes to a number of ongoing efforts towards performing similar "end-to-end" analyses (climate change through future sea-level rise impacts) within a consistent, coupled Earth system modeling framework.

For this paper, Los Alamos's simulations were done using a combination of the Grizzly and Badger supercomputers at the Lab, and NERSC (Cori-KNL) high-performance computing resources. Additional Los Alamos contributors to this work include Xylar Asay-Davis, Alice Barthel, Matthew Hoffman, and Tong Zhang.

Sea ice cover in the Southern Hemisphere is extremely variable, from summer to winter and from millennium to millennium, according to a University of Maine-led study. Overall, sea ice has been on the rise for about 10,000 years, but with some exceptions to this trend.

Dominic Winski, a research assistant professor at the UMaine Climate Change Institute, spearheaded a project that uncovered new information about millennia of sea ice variability, particularly across seasons, in the Southern Hemisphere by examining the chemistry of a 54,000-year-old South Pole ice core.

The Southern Ocean experiences the largest seasonal difference in sea ice cover in the world, with Antarctica surrounded by 18.5 million-square-kilometers of sea ice in the winter and only 3.1 million-square-kilometers of it in the summer. According to researchers, this seasonal disparity in sea ice has a significant influence on regional and global climate, yet scientists for years knew relatively little about the extent of sea ice variation in the Southern Hemisphere before 1979.

When a team of scientists recently retrieved the deepest and oldest ice core from the South Pole and analyzed it, Winski saw an opportunity to learn more about seasonal and overall changes in sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere throughout the Holocene -- the last 11,400 years. The CCI research assistant professor and his colleagues decided to examine the chemistry of the ice core, particularly its sea salt concentrations, to learn more about sea ice variability in the region.

Karl Kreutz, a UMaine professor of Earth and climate sciences, and researchers from Dartmouth College, South Dakota State University, the University of Washington and the University of Colorado Boulder participated in the project. Geophysical Research Letters published the paper detailing their findings.

The team capitalized on the massive seasonal variations in Southern Ocean climate in order to create a sea ice record showing distinct summer and winter variability. They combined this information with a state-of-the-art atmospheric chemistry model to link the ice core measurements with sea ice variability. The result is a detailed record of Southern Ocean sea ice revealing major fluctuations, especially in wintertime sea ice.

Salt levels in the core, which are sensitive to sea ice changes, increased in the past 11,400 years, particularly in the past 8,000-10,000 years, correlating with a growth in ice cover. Winter sea salt concentrations, which originated primarily from salty snow atop sea ice, specifically increased over millennia, demonstrating an overall boost in wintertime sea ice. This pattern is seen elsewhere in Antarctica, which led the research team to hypothesize an Antarctic-wide increase in sea ice during this period.

"One of the most important and challenging goals in our field is to produce detailed reconstructions of sea ice variability. " Winski says. "The exceptional detail of the South Pole Ice Core combined with results from our modeling team gives us a powerful dataset for understanding Antarctic sea ice."

Winski and Kreutz helped retrieve the 54,000-year-old ice core they used for their recent study during two expeditions between 2014 and 2016.

The project, called SPICEcore (South Pole Ice Core), involved scientists from 18 institutions all aiming to create an archive of climate conditions in East Antarctica during the past 54,000 years, including changes in atmospheric chemistry, climate and biogeochemistry.

"The South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) is the most precisely dated climate record in this region of Antarctica. We put in a tremendous amount of effort to collect individual chemistry samples for every centimeter of ice," Winski says. "In total, we had to analyze the chemistry of over 100,000 vials of melted ice, but the effort paid off since now we have the rare opportunity to investigate seasonal changes in the Antarctic environment for over 10,000 years."

While the Southern Hemisphere experienced an overall increase in ice cover throughout the Holocene, researchers identified an abrupt drop in sea salt concentrations in the ice core that date back to between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. According to the team, the drop in salt levels indicates a decrease in ice cover specific to the South Atlantic at that time, a finding corroborated by earlier research.

Ice cover in the North Atlantic, conversely, was more extensive during that period, which researchers claim indicates "a linked and opposing sea ice signal in the North and South Atlantic most likely due to changing ocean circulation." This pattern of opposing North and South Atlantic climate is well-known during abrupt climate change events of colder times deep in the past. The findings of this study may be a hint that the same processes could still be relevant under modern conditions.

Accounting for seasonal variation when studying changes in sea ice across tens of thousands of years helps scientists not only to thoroughly describe past Antarctic climate, but also to understand the mechanisms and processes driving climate change.

"Huge changes in sea ice can occur very rapidly," Winski says, "leading to ramifications for climate worldwide. We still don't entirely understand the forces influencing sea ice variability, which is why detailed climate information from the past is absolutely critical."

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from INRAP, CNRS, the universities of Ottawa, Rennes 2, Toulouse III Paul Sabatier and the Max Planck Institute has recognised the soldiers of the last battles of the siege of Rennes in 1491. These are the only witnesses of the forces involved in the conflict between the armies of Duchess Anne of Brittany and the King of France. This research and its methodology are currently the subject of two articles in the PLOS ONE review.

The excavation of the Jacobins convent in Rennes

From 2011 to 2013, a team from INRAP excavated the convent of the Jacobins, site of the future congress centre in Rennes Métropole, giving rise to numerous scientific publications, particularly on Louise de Quengo (a noble Breton naturally mummified in her lead coffin), a musical score engraved on a slate and even the diet in Rennes during the Ancient Régime. The presence of two mass graves, containing more than thirty subjects, remained to be elucidated. These pits are contemporary and have 4 and at least 28 individuals respectively. The simultaneity of the deposits indicates a sudden episode: osteological analyses show that these soldiers, no doubt professional, died from stab wounds; radiocarbon analyses date the event from the mid-15th century to the end of the 16th century. All these criteria correspond to a single conflict: the War of Brittany (1487-1491).

The last Franco-Breton war

In the 15th century, the Duchy of Brittany experienced a period of prosperity due to the policy of the Montfort family, creating a princely state independent of the kingdom. Several reasons led to the conflict: the desire of the King of France, following the Hundred Years' War, to impose himself in Brittany; divisions within the Breton nobility and a ducal policy supporting revolts against the King of France. Moreover, since Duke François II did not have a male heir, the King of France, Charles VIII, claimed Brittany while the Duke positioned his daughters as the legitimate heirs. The war broke out in 1487. It involved many European forces: England, the Kingdoms of Castille and Aragon, the German Holy Roman Empire. The consequences of this conflict are still famous since it marked the end of Breton independence. The siege of Rennes in 1491 ended with the marriage of Duchess Anne of Brittany, then 14, to Charles VIII.

Two camps, two pits

The two pits excavated by INRAP in Rennes contained exclusively male skeletons. Large, mainly young, some are marked by perimortem trauma. But what camps did the Jacobin burials belong to? Sulphur, strontium and oxygen isotopic analyses were conducted to determine the geographical origin of these soldiers.

Preserved in mineralized tissues (bones and teeth), the proportions of these isotopes vary according to various factors such as geology (particularly for the strontium isotopes), climate, altitude and latitude (for the oxygen isotopes), and even distance to the coast (for the sulphur isotopes). By combining these three tracers, we can therefore identify restricted geographical areas for which all these criteria can explain the isotope values observed in the teeth (at the time of childhood and adolescence) and bones (approximately the last 10 years of life of the subject).

Thus, the first grave shows that 3 of the 4 skeletons have a high probability of Breton origin. The fourth has old stab wounds that have scarred over. Its sulphur isotopic values suggest that this was a professional soldier, allied to the Breton camp. Indeed, his diet rich in animal proteins and his genomic characteristics (his mitochondrial haplogroup is identical to that of Louise de Quengo and two of his burial neighbours) favour the hypothesis of a noble soldier rather than a mercenary. The combination of isotopic and genetic analyses reveal that this nobleman had family ties in Brittany, had grown up far from his region of origin, but had returned to fight in the war threatening his independence.

The 28 subjects in the other pit belong to the French camp. Indeed, sulphur isotopic analysis on most of the individuals indicates a non-Breton geographical origin. The geographical origin models based on sulphur, strontium and oxygen isotopes suggest that these soldiers come from the north of the Paris Basin, the Poitou region, the Rhône valley and the Alps. These geographical origins support the rare historical data on the recruitment of French soldiers during this war. Some individuals would have a more distant geography, and would come from Castille, Aragon, England and the German Holy Roman Empire. The isotopic analysis of their diet indicates heterogeneous consumption of animal proteins, suggesting soldiers of varied social status.

The study of human bone remains from mass graves provides unique, first-hand historical insights into sparsely documented conflicts. This research shows that the cross-use of three isotopes can verify assumptions about alliances and recruitment strategies in wars, and completes deficient historical archives about the lives of ordinary soldiers.

Predictive maps serving the history of migration

Here, the researchers develop geographical origin probability maps combining the sulphur, oxygen and strontium isotopes. They compiled 2,680 sulphur isotopic analyses from 221 sites across Western Europe in a database to observe the variations. These sulphur isotopic compositions across Europe are highly predictable and vary mainly with local deposits of sea salt and dust aerosols. Sulphur isotopes are highly complementary to those of strontium and oxygen and improve the accuracy of geographical attributions. The combination of these three isotopes then makes it possible to quantitatively and precisely assess the origin of the archaeological subjects, in particular making it possible to trace migratory flows.

PHILADELPHIA-- It turns out that not all build-ups of tau protein are bad, and a team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania developed a method to show that. Using mammalian cell models, the researchers combined extremely high-resolution microscopy with machine learning to show that tau actually forms small aggregates when a part of the body's normal physiology. Through this, they could distinguish between the aggregates occurring under healthy conditions from the ones associated with neurological diseases, potentially opening the door to screening for treatments that might break apart harmful aggregates. This research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

"There aren't many tools that can visualize small, pathological protein aggregates within cells," said the study's senior author, Melike Lakadamyali, PhD, an associate professor of Physiology. "But through machine learning informed by super-resolution microscopy, we believe we've been able to show that tau forms both normal physiological aggregates and distinct pathological aggregates. In doing so, we created a useful method that could be the basis for new research into the appropriate treatments for tau-related pathologies."

Tau is a protein that attaches to the microtubule structure of axons - which act much like highways in nerve cells. Previously, tau aggregates had been thought to only form once tau falls off the microtubules. These have been associated with some neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's and other types of dementia. However, it turns out that small tau aggregates can also form outside disease conditions.

"Intrinsically, there is value in being able to tell which tau aggregates are a part of a healthy person's nervous system, and which have formed harmful aggregates," said the study's lead author, Melina Theoni Gyparaki, a doctoral student in Lakadamyali's lab. "Unfortunately, there has not been a process sensitive enough to make that distinction yet inside cells. So we set out to create one using mammalian cell models."

First, the researchers used extremely high resolution microscopes capable of looking at single molecules to differentiate physiological and pathological oligomers (molecular formations). Monomers, dimers and trimers, which are oligomers made up of one, two, and three tau molecules, respectively, were most likely to end up associated with healthy physiological conditions because they were associated with microtubules and regular function.

When the team looked at tau structures associated with a mammalian cell model approximating frontotemporal dementia with Parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP-17) - a disease associated with tau aggregation - the structures were larger and more complex. These appeared to be the pathological tau aggregates that broke off.

With the differences in configuration established, the researchers created a machine learning algorithm to classify the pathological tau aggregates by shape alone. Additionally, they used antibodies that can detect and differentiate when the tau aggregates become "hyper-phosphorylated" - when they pick up a lot of phosphate groups and tend to harmfully break off. Combining these methods showed that tau containing phosphate groups on certain amino-acids was more likely to form linear fibrils, a thin structure, as opposed to other shapes of tau aggregates.

"The method we developed to identify tau aggregates is not yet a diagnostic tool, but we think it would be a useful research tool for anyone interested in studying the mechanisms that lead to pathological protein oligomerization in neurodegenerative disease," Lakadamyali said.

Tau aggregates aren't the only ones that this method could be used to classify, either. There's an opportunity to use it on other potentially pathological protein build-ups, such as alpha-synuclein, which is associated with Parkinson's disease, or huntingtin, related to Huntington's disease. It could also be used to screen for potential treatments for these conditions that don't harm the body's regular protein complexes.

The team is now studying potential mechanisms for clearing tau aggregates and determining what other pathways could be helpful in this regard.

"We are also further using the method we devised to visualize tau aggregates in human postmortem brain tissue slices from Alzheimer's disease to determine the role of tau's post-translational modifications in aggregation," Lakadamyali said.

When investigators in the UK recorded the calls of migratory birds called thrushes at night, they found that call rates were up to five times higher over the brightest urban areas compared with darker villages.

The findings, which are published in Ibis, provide support to previous and ongoing research indicating that artificial light at night affects migratory birds.

"We harnessed the respective strengths of citizen science, passive acoustic monitoring, and machine learning to gather evidence of the impact of artificial light at night on migratory birds," said corresponding author Simon Gillings, PhD, of The British Trust for Ornithology. "Finding that even modest urban areas without high-rise buildings can influence migration highlights the need for improved management of urban lighting."

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana - Stress levels of moms with preschoolers soared during the pandemic, with twice as many of the mothers reporting they lost sleep during the COVID-19 outbreak than before it.

"Moms of young children are already less likely to get the recommended amount of sleep and physical activity than women who don't have children. These shortfalls could raise the risk for obesity and poor health, and the lockdown worsened the situation by increasing the levels of stress and household chaos," said Chelsea Kracht, Ph.D., a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Pediatric Obesity and Health Behavior Laboratory at Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

The bottom line? "Mothers, especially those with preschoolers, need a lot more than flowers on Mother's Day," said Amanda Staiano, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director, Pediatric Obesity and Health Behavior Laboratory. "There are a number of ways moms can reduce stress, such as taking a break from the news and spending a few minutes unwinding before they go to sleep. But what moms really need is more support, from their family, workplaces and communities. They need systemic change."

Dr. Kracht agreed.

The study findings support the necessity of providing mothers with reliable, affordable childcare options and a clear path to maintaining a healthy work-life balance, she said.

Mothers who worked remotely during the COVID-19 shutdown reported more household chaos than those who were not teleworking, Dr. Kracht said. This is likely because the first group of mothers had to supervise their children's remote schooling and telework at the same time.

Having fathers or other family members take on some of the childcare and housework would help mothers balance the demands of their careers and personal lives, she said.

The new study looked at the relationship between household chaos -- disorder, noise, and crowding - stress, physical activity and sleep for moms. Researchers surveyed more than 1,700 mothers of 3-to-5-year-olds during May 2020. Moms in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. participated. The study was published in the scientific journal Women's Health.

Around half of the mothers in the study got the recommended amount of sleep and physical activity. Mothers with higher stress levels were far less likely to meet the sleep or physical activity guidelines.

"One of our goals as a research center is to break the generational cycle of obesity," said Pennington Biomedical Executive Director John Kirwan, Ph.D. "Research that shows how much the pandemic affected the health of mothers may help policymakers and providers take steps to better support mothers and avoid a related increase in chronic diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease."

A continental-scale network of conservation sites is likely to remain effective under future climate change scenarios, despite a predicted shift in key species distributions.

New research, led by Durham University and published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, investigates the impacts of potential climate change scenarios on the network of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) across the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

The research was carried out in collaboration with Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, BirdLife International and the National Audubon Society.

IBAs are sites identified as being internationally important for the conservation of bird populations, with over 13,000 sites identified across 200 countries in the last 40 years. Many are covered by formal protected areas, while others are conserved by community-managed reserves or indigenous lands.

Two of the principal responses of species to recent climate change events are changes in range and abundance, leading to a global reshuffling of populations.

Range changes may cause species to disappear from areas they occupy, whilst providing them with opportunities to colonise new sites.

This redistribution could affect the ability of international site networks (including protected areas) to conserve species. Therefore, identifying which sites will continue to provide suitable conditions and which are likely to become unsuitable is important for effective conservation planning as our planet continues to warm.

Estimating the impact of climate change on species' distributions, and the consequences for networks of sites identified to conserve them, can help to inform conservation strategies to ensure that these networks remain effective.

The research modelled the effects of different scenarios of climate change on the wider network.

It determined that, for 73 percent of the 939 species of conservation concern for which IBAs have been identified, more than half of the IBAs in which they currently occur were projected to remain climatically suitable and, for 90 per cent of species, at least a quarter of sites remain suitable.

These results suggest that the network will remain robust under climate change. What is concerning however, is that seven percent of the species of conservation concern are projected to have no suitable climate in the IBAs currently identified for them."

Professor Stephen Willis, Director of Research in the Durham University Department of Biosciences said "The Caribbean and Central and South American region supports about 40% of all the bird species of the world, so this network is vital for a large proportion of the world's birds.

To develop realistic predictions of future changes, we not only considered where suitable climate will occur for species in future but also the likelihood of species dispersing to newly suitable sites.

This information is helping to identify potential management strategies across the IBA network."

Stuart Butchart, Chief Scientist at BirdLife International and a co-author on the study, said: "These results highlight how critical it is to effectively conserve the network of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas across the Americas in order to help safeguard birds in the region under climate change.

"Despite projections of significant shifts in the distributions of individual species, the network as a whole will continue to play a key role in future conservation efforts."

Aurelio Ramos, Senior VP, Audubon International Alliances Program said "Applying this science to secure and strengthen IBAs in the Americas is essential to support the future of birds and people. Audubon, BirdLife International, American Bird Conservancy and REDLAC have partnered in the Americas on a project to strengthen protection of Climate secure IBAs identified in the research called Conserva Aves"

Alke Voskamp of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre added "The results of this study highlight the importance of a network-wide perspective when making conservation management decisions for individual sites when planning for climate change."

The researchers note that designating protected areas to safeguard biodiversity is a cornerstone of species conservation and the importance of considering local environmental management decisions and their impacts on wider, global conservation networks has never been more relevant.

In a recent article in Sustainability, scientists from Reykjavik University (RU), the University of Gothenburg, and the Icelandic Meteorological Office describe their finding of microplastic in a remote and pristine area of Vatnajokull glacier in Iceland, Europe's largest ice cap. Microplastics may affect the melting and rheological behaviour of glaciers, thus influencing the future meltwater contribution to the oceans and rising sea levels.

This is the first time that the finding of microplastic in the Vatnajökull glacier is described. The group visualised and identified microplastic particles of various sizes and materials by optical microscopy and μ-Raman spectroscopy.

The discussion about microplastics has mainly been focused on the contamination of the sea, but hitherto little research has been conducted on plastic in the earth's ice caps. To date, microplastic particles have been found in the Italian Alps, in the Ecuadorian Andes and icebergs at Svalbard. According to Dr Hlynur Stefansson, Associate Professor at the RU Department of Engineering and first author of the article, understanding the distribution of microplastic and its short and long-term effects on the dynamics of ice is of vital importance.

The findings confirm that microplastic particles are distributed through the atmosphere. "We do not understand well enough the pathways for microplastic particles in our environment. Is the plastic carried by snow and rain? We need to know more about the causes. The samples we took are from a very remote and pristine location in Vatnajokull glacier, with no easy access, so direct pollution from human activity is unlikely," Dr Stefansson says. "We also need to know much more about the short and long-term effects of microplastic on the dynamics of the ice and if they contribute to the melting of glaciers. If that is the case, it will play a critical role in future meltwater contribution to the oceans and rising sea levels. The plastic particles degrade very slowly in the cold glacier environment and can accumulate and persist in the glaciers for a very long time. Eventually, however, they will be released from the ice, contributing to pollution in rivers and the marine environment. It is therefore very important to map and understand the presence and dispersal of microplastics in glaciers on a global scale."

Scientists have developed a new "key-hole surgery" technique to extract metals from the earth - which could revolutionise the future of metal mining

A team of international researchers, including Dr Rich Crane from the Camborne School of Mines, University of Exeter, have developed a new method to extract metals, such as copper, from their parent ore body.

The research team have provided a proof of concept for the application of an electric field to control the movement of an acid within a low permeability copper-bearing ore deposit to selectively dissolve and recover the metal in situ.

This is in contrast to the conventional approach for the mining of such deposits where the material must be physically excavated, which requires removal of both overburden and any impurities within the ore (known as gangue material).

The researchers believe the new technique has the potential to transform the mining industry, because it has the capability to dissolve metals from a wide range of ore deposits that were previously considered inaccessible.

Furthermore, due to the non-invasive nature of the extraction, the research team are hopeful that the study will help usher in a more sustainable future for the industry.

This is urgently required now in order to provide the plethora of metals required to deliver green technology, such as renewable energy infrastructure and electrified vehicles, whilst limiting any potential environmental damage associated with the mining of such vitally important metals.

The study was recently published in Science Advances.

Dr Rich Crane from the Camborne School of Mines, University of Exeter, and co-author of the study, said: "This new approach, analogous to "key-hole surgery", has the potential to provide a more sustainable future for the mining industry, by enabling the recovery of metals, such as copper, which are urgently needed for our global transition to a new Green Economy, whilst avoiding unwanted environmental disturbance and energy consumption."

The central principle behind most modern mining techniques has not fundamentally changed since their original conception, which marked the beginning of the Bronze Age: metals are recovered from the subsurface via physical excavation, i.e., the construction of tunnels to gain access to the deposits, or by creating "open cast" mines.

This technique demands large volumes of surface soil, overburden and gangue material to also be excavated, which can contain millions of tonnes of material - and can also lead to habitat destruction.

In this new publication, experts from the University of Western Australia, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Technical University of Denmark and the University of Exeter, have demonstrated that a targeted electric field can be used to dissolve and then recover copper in situ from the ore - avoiding any requirement to physically excavate the material.

This new technology comprises the construction (drilling) of electrodes directly into an ore body. An electric current is then applied which can result in the transport of electrically charged metal ions, such as copper, through the rock via a process called electromigration.

The research team have now provided a Proof of Concept for this new technology at laboratory scale, which has also been verified using computer modelling. They are confident that the idea will work beyond the laboratory-scale.

Reston, VA--For patients with brain metastases, amino acid positron emission tomography (PET) can provide valuable information about the effectiveness of state-of-the-art treatments. When treatment monitoring with contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is unclear, adding 18F-FET PET can help to accurately diagnose recurring brain metastases and reliably assess patient response. This research was published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

Newer treatment options for patients with brain metastases--such as immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapies--are effective, but can cause a variety of side effects. As a result, imaging findings on contrast-enhanced MRI can be highly variable, and it can be difficult to tell whether a treatment is working.

"Essentially, these new treatments have requirements of brain imaging which cannot be met by conventional MRI," said Norbert Galldiks, MD, professor of neurology, neurologist and neuro-oncologist at the University Hospital Cologne and Research Center in Juelich, Germany. "In our study, we tried to determine if adding 18F-FET PET could help to overcome some of these imaging challenges."

The retrospective study included melanoma and lung cancer patients with brain metastases who had been treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors or targeted therapy alone or in combination with radiotherapy. 18F-FET PET imaging was shown to be a useful method when conventional MRI was inconclusive. It could correctly diagnose brain metastasis relapses and identify patients who were responding to treatment and those who were not.

"In cases of ambiguous MRI findings, supplemental FET PET is helpful for treatment monitoring. It provides physicians with a longer time window for subsequent patient management and allows them to optimize the treatment strategy for each individual patient," noted Galldiks. "Since this approach is so accurate, it has the potential to influence clinical decision making. This may help to reduce the number of invasive procedures and limit overtreatment for a considerable number of seriously ill patients with brain metastases."

This study was made available online in September 2020 ahead of final publication in print in April 2021.

The authors of "Treatment Monitoring of Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapy Using 18F-FET PET in Patients with Melanoma and Lung Cancer Brain Metastases: Initial Experiences," include Norbert Galldiks, Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, Center of Integrated Oncology, Universities of Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, and Duesseldorf, Germany, and Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3, -4), Research Center Juelich, Juelich, Germany; Diana S.Y. Abdulla, Matthias Scheffler and Jürgen Wolf, Center of Integrated Oncology, Universities of Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, and Duesseldorf, Germany, and Lung Cancer Group, Department I of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Fabian Wolpert and Michael Weller, Department of Neurology and Brain Tumor Center, University Hospital and University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Jan-Michael Werner and Gary Ceccon, Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Martin Hüllner, Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital and University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Gabriele Stoffels, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3, -4), Research Center Juelich, Juelich, Germany; Viola Schweinsberg, Max Schlaak, Nicole Kreuzberg and Cornelia Mauch, Center of Integrated Oncology, Universities of Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, and Duesseldorf, Germany, and Department of Dermatology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Jennifer Landsberg, Center of Integrated Oncology, Universities of Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, and Duesseldorf, Germany, and Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany; Philipp Lohmann and Martin Kocher, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3, -4), Research Center Juelich, Juelich, Germany, and Department of Stereotaxy and Functional Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Christian Baues, Maike Trommer and Simone Marnitz, Center of Integrated Oncology, Universities of Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, and Duesseldorf, Germany, and Department of Radiation Oncology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Eren Celik and Maximillian I. Ruge, Center of Integrated Oncology, Universities of Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, and Duesseldorf, Germany, and Department of Stereotaxy and Functional Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Gereon R. Fink, Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, and Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3, -4), Research Center Juelich, Juelich, Germany; Jörg-Christian Tonn, Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital LMU Munich, Munich, Germany; and Karl-Josef Langen, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3, -4), Research Center Juelich, Juelich, Germany, and Department of Nuclear Medicine, RWTH University Hospital Aachen, Aachen, Germany.

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New York, NY (May 4, 2021) - A powerful, long-term study from WCS adds scientific backing for global calls for conserving 30 percent of the world's ocean. The studied no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) increased the growth of fish populations by 42 percent when fishing was unsustainable in surrounding areas, achieving the benefits of stable and high production of fish populations for fishers, while protecting threatened ecosystems.

The study recorded fish catches for 24-years across a dozen fish landing sites within two counties in Kenya, which allowed scientists to evaluate the long-term impacts of two different fisheries management methods. While one county utilized a no-take MPA covering 30 percent of the fishery, the other focused on gear restrictions and prohibited the use of small-mesh nets.

The differences in outcomes for the fishers and the ecosystems were stark. Per-person daily catches rose 25 times faster near the no-take MPA than in fished areas with gear restrictions, showing that no-take MPAs were far more effective at sustaining stocks of fish than restricting destructive gear.

The study's lead author Dr. Tim McClanahan, Senior Coral Reef Scientist for WCS said "The no-take area in Mombasa occupied 30 percent of the studied fishing grounds. Fortuitously, this is the target for protection being proposed for the oceans, which is rarely tested and based on the results of simulation models. The empirical support for the models and the conservation proposal is reassuring along with the unexpected results of increased production of fish populations that compensated for the lost fishing area. This adds to the evidence that no-take protected areas of sufficient coverage may compensate for the lost fishing grounds, particularly when fisheries are not sustainably fished."

This new study from WCS represents the longest-ever continuous detailed fish catch record for coral reefs, and reveals patterns that took nearly 20 years to unfold due to the small annual increments of change. The time and resources it takes to complete these empirical studies has long been an impediment to testing the effectiveness of no-take MPAs on fisheries, and is also why simulation models were commonly used. Until this publication, most existing empirical studies were short-term and focused on the catch per fisher rather than the catch per area, which is a critical metric of sustainable yield estimates. Consequently, there is a compelling need to expand long-term studies to better calibrate and test fisheries production models.

This study shows that MPAs where no-take rules are followed can compensate for lost fishing grounds and stocks and therefore help people highly dependent on fish for income and nutritional security that is lost when catches are unsustainable. While gear restrictions did have positive benefits for short periods of time, they did not maximize fisheries production over the long-term. Some combination of closure and gear restrictions are therefore likely needed to achieve the full benefits to both fishers and ecosystems.

Harsh prison sentences for juvenile crimes do not reduce the probability of conviction for violent crimes as an adult, and actually increase the propensity for conviction of drug-related crimes, finds a new study by economists at UC Riverside and the University of Louisiana. Harsh juvenile sentences do reduce the likelihood of conviction for property crimes as an adult. But the increase in drug-related crimes cancels out any benefit harsh sentences might offer, researchers found.

"Juvenile incarceration is a double-edged sword which deters future property crimes but makes drug convictions more likely in adulthood. Thus, it's hard to make firm policy recommendations about sentencing," said first author Ozkan Eren, a professor of economics at UC Riverside. "That said, reducing time spent in prison combined with incorporating better rehabilitation programs into nonincarceration punishment may produce welfare-improving outcomes for convicted juveniles."

Eren and Naci Mocan at the University of Louisiana obtained special permission to view juvenile conviction records from the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Youth Services, Office of Juvenile Justice and reviewed records from the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Adult Services from 1996-2012. Each case record included demographic information about the juvenile or adult, the exact statute offense committed, and details about convictions and sentencing.

To measure recidivism, the researchers focused on juvenile case files from 1996 to 2004. This corresponded to the cohorts born between 1979 and 1987 and the researchers followed them until each one reached 25, observing their criminal conviction activity as young adults. All juveniles included in the study had been randomly assigned to a judge.

The average juvenile incarceration rate was about 25%, with an average age at conviction of 15 years old. Property and drug-related juvenile offenses comprised half of all juvenile convictions. As adults, about 39% of juvenile delinquents were convicted of another crime by age 25. Adults who had been incarcerated as juveniles had a 54.7% conviction rate. Those who had received probation or punishment other than incarceration as juveniles had a much lower conviction rate-- 33.5%.

Eren and Mocan found that juvenile incarceration overall had basically no effect on adult crime. They found, however, that incarceration influenced the types of crimes for which adults were convicted. While incarceration as juveniles had no effect on adult convictions for violent crimes, it reduced the likelihood of property crimes and increased the probability of drug convictions by 28%.

"In summary, juvenile incarceration, triggered by exposure to a harsher juvenile judge, has a deterrent effect on adult property crime conviction, a positive impact on conviction from a drug offense as an adult, and no effect on adult violent crime," the authors write.

The authors suggest a reason for these outcomes is that, during the period studied, Louisiana offered well-monitored, well-structured treatment programs for the incarcerated. Incarcerated juveniles had to participate in case-specific services and programs with quarterly evaluations of their rehabilitation by professional caseworkers. These plans included vocational training, which could lead to better job prospects and reduced propensity to commit property crimes.

But life in prison took an emotional toll. Of the individuals later convicted as adults for drug-related offenses, 95% received suspended sentences or probation, indicating that the overwhelming majority of convictions were for drug use rather than selling. The authors suggest that the stress and stigma of incarceration early in life contributed to substance abuse.

They also noted that incarceration had a detrimental impact on high school completion in earlier cohorts, but it had no impact on later cohorts. This is arguably because the school reforms Louisiana implemented in the early 2000s made it more difficult to obtain a high school diploma. That led to a decline in the graduation rate of the non-incarcerated population, while not altering the already-low graduation rate of those who are incarcerated.

The study concludes that less prison time¬--non-carceral options such as probation, or shorter sentences-- and better rehabilitation programs would maintain or improve current recidivism rates and possibly make a big reduction in drug-related crimes by reducing emotional distress.