Earth

El Niño or correctly El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the strongest natural climate fluctuation on time scales of a few years. Through ocean and atmosphere interactions, El Niño (Spanish for The Christ Child) events cause significant warming of the eastern Pacific, accompanied by catastrophic rainfall over South America and droughts in the Indo-Pacific region. Powerful events have global effects that reach even into the extra-tropics. There is also an El Niño variant in the Atlantic, called the Atlantic Niño, which, for example, has effects on rainfall in West Africa as well as the development of tropical cyclones over the eastern tropical Atlantic. A better understanding of the poorly investigated little brother of the Pacific El Niño in the Atlantic could potentially improve climate forecasts in the region. The study now provides first results and suggests useful predictability of the Atlantic Niño.

"The Atlantic Niño, like its Pacific counterpart, exhibits a characteristic asymmetric structure in the changes of sea surface temperatures and surface winds from east to west, with the strongest warming occurring in the east. However, there are some differences: the Atlantic events are of smaller magnitude, shorter duration and less predictable, but the reasons for these differences are not fully understood", explains Mojib Latif from GEOMAR, co-author of the study. The researchers used data from various sources, including in situ observations, satellite and reanalysis products.

Unlike the Pacific El Niño, which typically lasts for a year, the Atlantic Niño is limited to just a few months. The team of scientists have now been able to decipher the cause. "In our analyses, we identified the movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a band of heavy rainfall stretching across the tropical Atlantic, as the reason", Latif continues. "The seasonal migration of the ITCZ has a significant influence on the interaction of sea surface temperature with the overlying atmosphere. Only when the ITCZ is very close to or over the equator the interaction is strong enough to cause large climate changes", explains Hyacinth Nnamchi, lead author of the study. "Or put another way: The fluctuations in sea surface temperature during the Atlantic Niño are not strong enough to keep the ITCZ at the equator, as in the case of its Pacific big brother", Nnamchi continues.

The authors intend to use their new findings to represent the ITCZ more realistically in climate models in order to enhance prediction of tropical precipitation. "The ultimate goal is seasonal climate forecasts that enable, for example, planning for agriculture and water management in West Africa", says Latif. Unlike in mid-latitudes, this is certainly possible for the tropics, says the climate researcher.

The Gulf of Mexico holds huge untapped offshore oil deposits that could help power the U.S. for decades.

The energy super basin's longevity, whose giant offshore fields have reliably supplied consumers with oil and gas since the 1960s, is the result of a remarkable geologic past - a story that began 200 million years ago among the fragments of Pangea, when a narrow, shallow seaway grew into an ocean basin, while around it mountains rose then eroded away.

The processes that shaped the basin also deposited and preserved vast reserves of oil and gas, of which only a fraction has been extracted. Much of the remaining oil lies buried beneath ancient salt layers, just recently illuminated by modern seismic imaging. That's the assessment of researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, who reviewed decades of geological research and current production figures in an effort to understand the secret behind the basin's success.

Because of its geological history, the Gulf of Mexico remains one of the richest petroleum basins in the world. Despite 60 years of continuous exploration and development, the basin's ability to continue delivering new hydrocarbon reserves means it will remain a significant energy and economic resource for Texas and the nation for years to come, said lead author John Snedden, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).

"When we looked at the geologic elements that power a super basin - its reservoirs, source rocks, seals and traps - it turns out that in the Gulf of Mexico, many of those are pretty unique," he said.

The research was featured in a December 2020 special volume of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin focused on the world's super basins: a small number of prolific basins that supply the bulk of the world's oil and gas.

According to the paper, the geologic elements that have made the Gulf of Mexico such a formidable petroleum resource include a steady supply of fine- and coarse-grained sediments, and salt: thick layers of it buried in the Earth, marking a time long ago when much of the ancient sea in the basin evaporated.

Geologically, salt is important because it can radically alter how petroleum basins evolve. Compared to other sedimentary rocks, it migrates easily through the Earth, creating space for oil and gas to collect. It helps moderate heat and keeps hydrocarbon sources viable longer and deeper. And it is a tightly packed mineral that seals oil and gas in large columns, setting up giant fields.

"The Gulf of Mexico has a thick salt canopy that blankets large portions of the basin and prevented us for many years from actually seeing what lies beneath," Snedden said. "What has kept things progressing is industry's improved ability to see below the salt."

According to the paper, the bulk of the northern offshore basin's potential remains in giant, deepwater oil fields beneath the salt blanket. Although reaching them is expensive and enormously challenging, Snedden believes they represent the best future for fossil fuel energy. That's because the offshore -- where many of the giant fields are located -- offers industry a way of supplying the world's energy with fewer wells, which means less energy expended per barrel of oil produced.

Snedden said there is still much to learn about hydrocarbons beneath the Gulf of Mexico, how they got there and how they can be safely accessed. This is especially true in the southern Gulf of Mexico, which was closed to international exploration until 2014. One of the few publicly available datasets was a series of UTIG seismic surveys conducted in the 1970s. Now, a wealth of prospects is emerging from new seismic imaging of the southern basin's deepwater region.

"When you look at recent U.S. oil and gas lease sales, Mexico's five-year plan, and the relatively small carbon footprint of the offshore oil and gas industry, I think it's clear that offshore drilling has an important future in the Gulf of Mexico," Snedden said.

Berkeley -- Most frogs emit a characteristic croak to attract the attention of a potential mate. But a few frog species that call near loud streams -- where the noise may obscure those crucial love songs -- add to their calls by visually showing off with the flap of a hand, a wave of a foot or a bob of the head. Frogs who "dance" near rushing streams have been documented in the rainforests of India, Borneo, Brazil and, now, Ecuador.

Conservation ecologist Rebecca Brunner, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, has discovered that the glass frog Sachatamia orejuela can be added to the list of species that make use of visual cues in response to their acoustic environments. This is the first time a member of the glass frog family (Centrolenidae) has been observed using visual communication in this manner.

"A handful of other frog species around the world use visual signaling, in addition to high-pitched calls, to communicate in really loud environments," Brunner said. "What's interesting is that these species are not closely related to each other, which means that these behaviors likely evolved independently, but in response to similar environments -- a concept called convergent evolution."

Sachatamia orejuela glass frogs are native to the rainforests of Ecuador and Colombia. They are especially unique because they are almost exclusively found on rocks and boulders within the spray zones of waterfalls, where rushing water and slippery surfaces offer some protection against predators, and their green-gray color and semi-transparent skin make them nearly impossible to spot. As a result, little is known about this species' mating and breeding behavior.

Brunner, who studies the bioacoustics of different ecological environments, was chest-deep in an Ecuadorean rainforest stream recording the call of a Sachatamia orejuela when she first observed this visual signaling behavior. As soon as she saw the frog repeatedly raising its front and back legs, Brunner climbed a slippery rock face and balanced on one foot to get video footage of the behavior.

"I was already over the moon because I had finally found a calling male after months of searching. Before our publication, there was no official record of this species' call, and basic information like that is really important for conservation," Brunner said. "But then I saw it start doing these little waves, and I knew that I was observing something even more special."

While she filmed, the frog continued to wave its hands and feet and bob its head. She also observed another male Sachatamia orejuela glassfrog a few meters away performing the same actions.

"This is a really exhilarating discovery because it's a perfect example of how an environment's soundscape can influence the species that live there. We've found that Sachatamia orejuela has an extremely high-pitched call, which helps it communicate above the lower-pitched white noise of waterfalls. And then to discover that it also waves its hands and feet to increase its chances of being noticed -- that's a behavior I've always loved reading about in textbooks, so it is beyond thrilling to be able to share another amazing example with the world," said Brunner.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has put a pause on Brunner's fieldwork, she hopes to return to Ecuador soon to continue her research, which links bioacoustics and conservation.

"One of the best things about fieldwork is that nature is always full of surprises -- you never know what discoveries you may happen upon," Brunner said. "I hope our findings can serve as a reminder that we share this planet with incredible biodiversity. Conserving ecosystems that support species like Sachatamia orejuela is important not only for our well-being, but also for our sense of wonder."

Partially protected areas - marine reserves that allow some forms of fishing - are no more effective socially or ecologically than open marine areas in Australia's Great Southern Reef, a new UNSW study has concluded.

The research, published in Conservation Biology today, comes at a time when the High Ambition Coalition of 50 countries of the world (which does not include Australia) have pledged to protect more than 30 per cent of the planet's lands and seas by the end of this decade. But not all protected areas are created equal.

The UNSW study discovered partially protected areas in southern Australia had no more fish, invertebrates or algae and no difference in the mix of users - and they were not valued any more highly by users than areas outside reserves (open areas).

The social and ecological researchers found fully protected areas (no-take or sanctuary zones), by comparison, had more fish, higher biodiversity of marine life and were an attraction to many coastal users both for their ecological and protection values.

Lead author John Turnbull, UNSW Science researcher, said partially protected areas appear to be the "red herrings" of marine conservation as they distract us from achieving more effective protection.

"Marine protected areas are the umbrella term for managed marine areas and can be fully or partially protected. They are a primary tool for the stewardship, conservation and restoration of marine ecosystems but globally, 69 per cent of marine protected areas are open to some form of fishing," Mr Turnbull said.

"This is a surprise to many people - almost half of the people we surveyed in partially protected areas (42 per cent) mistakenly thought they were in a reserve that protected fish.

"Just 12 per cent of people knew they were in a partially protected area, compared to 79 per cent of people in fully protected areas who correctly identified they were in one.

"This is not a small issue; three-quarters of Australia's marine protected area is open to fishing. Most partially protected areas in Australia even allow commercial fishing, which, on an industrial scale, is contrary to international ("IUCN" - International Union for Conservation of Nature) guidelines."

Australia's Great Southern Reef surveyed

The UNSW study spanned 7000km of coast and five states. The authors assessed 19 fully protected areas, 18 partially protected areas and 19 open areas. They each had different rules and marine communities but they all had broadly stated goals, such as the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity.

The researchers conducted 439 interviews and 190 observation surveys to gauge the social impact of each area (human use, perceptions and values), and analysed existing data from 625 underwater visual census Reef Life Surveys to determine the ecological impact of protection on marine communities (fish, invertebrates and algae).

Mr Turnbull said the research team found no social or ecological benefits for partially protected areas relative to open areas. For example, the ecological data revealed that fish species richness and biomass were higher in fully protected areas, but not in partially protected areas. There were 1.3x more fish species, 2.5x more fish biomass and 3.5x more large (20+ cm) fish biomass in fully protected areas compared to open areas.

Mr Turnbull said: "Global studies support our findings: there is a lot of research that shows a reduced, if any, impact of partial protection and it depends on the strength of that partial protection.

"Despite this, fully protected areas are often a very small percentage of a marine park; for example, Sydney's recently proposed marine park had less than three per cent designated as fully protected sanctuary zone, meaning 97 per cent of the area would be open to fishing if the park was approved. This is the degree of 'red herring' we are experiencing."

Fully protected areas more valued

Mr Turnbull said their research also busted the myth that fully protected areas were unpopular.

"On the contrary, 92 per cent of people we surveyed said they supported protected areas that restrict fishing. We believe our research reflects the general views of coastal users, because we designed our sampling to represent all the different types of user at each site; people swimming, walking, diving, fishing and so on.

"And there was virtually no difference in support for protected areas between people who fish and people who don't - just one per cent."

Mr Turnbull said the researchers also found most people were passionate about their local coastal areas.

"People want to see their area looked after and properly protected, especially with sanctuary zones. Often, people specifically visited these because they knew the area was fully protected, and they had personally observed the improvement in marine life" he said.

"In fully protected areas, we found a higher number of certain types of users; twice as many divers and over three times as many snorkelers. This showed people were directly experiencing the values of fully protected areas and acknowledged them and were attracted to them. This was not the case for partially protected areas; the mix and number of users in these areas were no different to open areas."

'Investment' should have a return

Study co-author and UNSW Dean of Science Professor Emma Johnston said if governments were going to allocate conservation resources to protect marine areas, they needed to be sure the "investment" was paying off.

"The current trend towards downgrading fully protected areas to partially protected areas in many parts of the world, including Australia, may be wasting precious conservation resources. Partially protected areas could still be useful but only for specific purposes; for example, to support traditional management practices, protect a particular threatened species, or to create a buffer zone for a fully protected area," Prof. Johnston said.

"But the results of our substantial study suggest that partially protected areas may be overused and represent a distraction from true conservation measures. The public are confused by partially protected areas and the general biodiversity is no better off."

Prof. Johnston said she hoped the researchers' findings would encourage decisionmakers to consider whether their conservation approach was fit for purpose.

"If we are going to truly protect our planet, partially protected areas must be monitored regularly and the results made public, because if they are failing to provide social or ecological returns, those areas should be upgraded to the level of protection that we know works," she said.

A research team led by scientists at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science (RNC) has successfully created larger-than-usual strains of zooplankton -- which are used in fish nurseries -- by creating mutations with a heavy ion beam. The new strains of zooplankton could contribute to improving the survival rate and optimizing the growth of juvenile fish in aquaculture.

Economically important fish species, such as bluefin tuna, yellowtail, flatfish and groupers, are fed live bait until they are large enough to be fed with artificial foods. Rotifers, a type of animal plankton, are commonly used as the initial live food. However, fish need progressively larger bait as they grow, but rotifers are generally small and often not large enough to satisfy the growing fish, leading to cannibalism or growth abnormalities and eventually lowering the survival rate. "We decided to try to do something to improve the survival rate of fish larvae, as this would help to increase aquaculture productivity. We thought that if we could create a large rotifer strain using our expertise, it would contribute to stabilizing the income for aquafarmers," says Tomoko Abe from RIKEN RNC, who led the study, published in Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry.

In collaboration with the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency and Nagasaki University, the research team began experimenting using a technique known as heavy ion beam irradiation in an attempt to create larger rotifers. Heavy ion breeding is a technique where cells are exposed to a beam of heavy atomic nuclei, creating mutations much more effectively than natural processes such as UV light. By adjusting the type of ion and dose, the beam is used to induce random mutations in the genome, and strains with desirable phenotypes can be selected. The team has already succeeded in developing highly effective mutant lines of oil-producing microalgae, high-yielding rice, and a commercialized sake yeast, using similar techniques.

Using the RIKEN RI Beam Factory (RIBF) the team irradiated proliferating rotifers with beams of argon and carbon ions. They then selected larger individuals and cultured the plankton for several generations to create a large mutant line. The bred rotifers were approximately 1.2 times larger than other strains, which the group judged would be an ideal size for growing juvenile fish. They also found that some of the strains were not only larger, but also grew more quickly than the parent strains. "In general, larger mutants grow more slowly than normal rotifers, but we were lucky to discover a line that grows not only larger but faster as well," Abe recalls. "However, picking a large mutant among live rotifers that are moving quickly around under a microscope was far more difficult than we had anticipated and actually was the hardest part of this study."

Food shortages due to population growth and increased consumption are a major global concern, and countries around the world are looking for ways to increase food production. Resources from the ocean, which occupies 70 percent of the Earth's surface area, can be an effective and promising solution to the problem. For Japan in particular, as an island nation with a large exclusive economic zone, increasing the production of marine resources is an attractive goal. The enlarged rotifers obtained in this study could potentially provide a stable supply of larger rotifers at low cost, enhancing aquaculture. Moving forward, the group now plans to use the larger rotifers in field tests to see if they can demonstrate improved survival.

In the last decades, Artificial Intelligence has shown to be very good at achieving exceptional goals in several fields. Chess is one of them: in 1996, for the first time, the computer Deep Blue beat a human player, chess champion Garry Kasparov. A new piece of research shows now that the brain strategy for storing memories may lead to imperfect memories, but in turn, allows it to store more memories, and with less hassle than AI. The new study, carried out by SISSA scientists in collaboration with Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience & Centre for Neural Computation, Trondheim, Norway, has just been published in Physical Review Letters.

Neural networks, real or artificial, learn by tweaking the connections between neurons. Making them stronger or weaker, some neurons become more active, some less, until a pattern of activity emerges. This pattern is what we call "a memory". The AI strategy is to use complex long algorithms, which iteratively tune and optimize the connections. The brain does it much simpler: each connection between neurons changes just based on how active the two neurons are at the same time. When compared to the AI algorithm, this had long been thought to permit the storage of fewer memories. But, in terms of memory capacity and retrieval, this wisdom is largely based on analysing networks assuming a fundamental simplification: that neurons can be considered as binary units.

The new research, however, shows otherwise: the fewer number of memories stored using the brain strategy depends on such unrealistic assumption. When the simple strategy used by the brain to change the connections is combined with biologically plausible models for single neurons response, that strategy performs as well as, or even better, than AI algorithms. How could this be the case? Paradoxically, the answer is in introducing errors: when a memory is effectively retrieved this can be identical to the original input-to-be-memorized or correlated to it. The brain strategy leads to the retrieval of memories which are not identical to the original input, silencing the activity of those neurons that are only barely active in each pattern. Those silenced neurons, indeed, do not play a crucial role in distinguishing among the different memories stored within a same network. By ignoring them, neural resources can be focused on those neurons that do matter in an input-to-be-memorized and enable a higher capacity.

Overall, this research highlights how biologically plausible self-organized learning procedures can be just as efficient as slow and neurally implausible training algorithms.

DALLAS, Jan. 14, 2021 -- Adults who smoke or who are genetically predisposed to smoking behaviors are more likely to experience a serious type of stroke called subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), according to new research published today in Stroke, a journal of the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association. The results of this study provide important evidence that there is a causal link between smoking and the risk of SAH.

SAH is a type of stroke that occurs when a blood vessel on the surface of the brain ruptures and bleeds into the space between the brain and the skull. It mainly affects middle-aged adults and has high rates of complications and death.

"Previous studies have shown that smoking is associated with higher risks of SAH, yet it has been unclear if smoking or another confounding condition such as high blood pressure was a cause of the stroke," said senior author of the study Guido Falcone, M.D., Sc.D., M.P.H, an assistant professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. "A definitive, causal relationship between smoking and the risk of SAH has not been previously established as it has been with other types of stroke."

To determine whether there is a causal effect of smoking and SAH, researchers analyzed the genetic data of 408,609 people from the UK Biobank, ages 40 to 69 at time of recruitment (2006-2010). Incidence of SAH was collected throughout the study, with a total of 904 SAHs occurring by the end of the study. Researchers developed a genetic risk scoring system that included genetic markers associated with risk of smoking and tracked smoking behavior data, which was collected at the time each participant was recruited.

Researchers found that:

the relationship between smoking and SAH risk appeared to be linear, with those who smoked half a pack to 20 packs of cigarettes a year having a 27% increased risk;

heavier smokers, those who smoked more than 40 packs of cigarettes a year, were nearly three times more at risk for SAH than those who did not smoke; and,

people who were genetically predisposed to smoking behaviors were at a 63% greater risk for SAH.

"Our results provide justification for future studies to focus on evaluating whether information on genetic variants leading to smoking can be used to better identify people at high risk of having one of these types of brain hemorrhages," said Julian N. Acosta, M.D., neurologist, postdoctoral research fellow at the Yale School of Medicine and lead study author. "These targeted populations might benefit from aggressive diagnostic interventions that could lead to early identification of the aneurysms that cause this serious type of bleeding stroke."

Researchers say while their findings suggest a more pronounced and harmful effect of smoking in women and adults with high blood pressure, they believe larger studies are needed to confirm these results. Their analysis is also limited by the type of data used in the UK Biobank, which, like all large information resources, rely on standardized treatment codes from medical charts, whereas smaller studies are focused on more detailed health records and information for each individual.

Women who are young, "conventionally attractive" and appear and act feminine are more likely to be believed when making accusations of sexual harassment, a new University of Washington-led study finds.

That leaves women who don't fit the prototype potentially facing greater hurdles when trying to convince a workplace or court that they have been harassed.

The study, involving more than 4,000 participants, reveals perceptions that primarily "prototypical" women are likely to be harassed. The research also showed that women outside of those socially determined norms -- or "nonprototypical" women -- are more likely perceived as not being harmed by harassment.

"The consequences of that are very severe for women who fall outside of the narrow representation of who a victim is," said Bryn Bandt-Law, a graduate student in psychology at the UW and one of the study's lead authors.

"Nonprototypical women are neglected in ways that could contribute to them having discriminatory treatment under the law; people think they're less credible -- and less harmed -- when they make a claim, and think their perpetrators deserve less punishment."

The study, published Jan. 14 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, is co-led by Jin Goh, a former postdoctoral researcher at the UW now at Colby College, and Nathan Cheek of Princeton University.

The researchers said the idea for the study came from the #MeToo movement, founded by Tarana Burke and popularized in 2017 after a number of actresses accused movie producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment and abuse. #MeToo and related movements empowered individuals to come forward about their experiences with sexual harassment, which the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defines as gender discrimination and/or unwelcome sexual behavior that can affect a person's job performance and work environment. The movement also encourages people to name perpetrators and in some cases pursue legal action.

But as the study's authors reflected on the celebrities who stepped forward, they wanted to explore further the notion of credibility. They set up a series of experiments to be divided among the 4,000 participants to address three research questions: who we think is sexually harassed; what constitutes harassment; and how claims of harassment are perceived. The experiments largely consisted of written scenarios and digitally manipulated headshots.

The team started with the research-supported premise that more women are sexually harassed than men. They employed a psychological framing of group membership, whereby a behavior -- in this case, sexual harassment -- is linked to a specific group, in this case women. Each group has prototypes for who is considered part of it: Past research has identified characteristics perpetuated in pop culture and society of the prototypical woman: young, feminine, conventionally attractive, and even weak and incompetent.

Researchers' scenarios drew upon different ways that psychologists say sexual harassment can manifest: coercion, with a quid pro quo expectation; unwanted advances, with no quid pro quo; and gender harassment, which are hostile comments and behaviors tied to a person's gender. In one scenario, for example, a supervisor who puts his hand around a female employee's waist; in another, a supervisor asks about a female employee's boyfriend. Some scenarios were clear and egregious violations of the law, some were clearly benign, and some were appropriately vague.

To address the research question of who we think is likely to be harassed, some participants were asked to draw a woman who was harassed -- or not harassed, depending on the assignment. This approach reveals people's conceptions and biases at a basic, freeform level, explained senior author and UW psychology professor Cheryl Kaiser. It has been used in other well-known experiments such as "draw a scientist," which often reveals gender bias.

Additional tests included presenting participants with digital headshots, in some cases manipulated to look more masculine or feminine, and asking them to choose, for example, which image best represented the woman in the scenario they read about. Some participants were asked to determine whether a scenario constituted harassment, to what degree a victim was harmed and whether the potential perpetrator deserved punishment.

The overall results were clear: Participants generally perceived sexual harassment victims to be prototypical women. In fact, the association between sexual harassment and prototypical women is so strong that the exact same woman was seen as more prototypical when people were told she was sexually harassed. In consequence, the exact same scenarios, presented with nonprototypical women, were less likely to be considered harassment, and nonprototypical victims are seen as less credible, less harmed by the harassment, and their harasser is seen as less deserving of punishment.

This is why the idea of a prototypical woman matters, Kaiser said. Sexual harassment most commonly happens to women. If only those women displaying certain characteristics are viewed as "women," then the belief persists that those without prototypical characteristics must not be subject to harassment.

"When you make a perception of harassment, you also make a connection to womanhood, but the way we understand womanhood is very narrowly defined. So for anyone who falls outside of that definition, it makes it hard to make that connection to harassment," Kaiser said.

One area that merits further study of harassment prototypes, the researchers said, are the many other between-group variations among women -- specifically, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity. Because white women are perceived as prototypical women, the researchers are currently exploring whether Black women are perceived as less credible and less harmed by sexual harassment. Such a finding would be consistent with Tarana Burke's criticism that the mainstream #MeToo movement has disproportionately centered and benefited a narrow group of women, such as white, conventionally feminine celebrities.

Overall, researchers believe their findings help illustrate how laws may not always protect the people they're designed to. Accusations must be deemed credible, and the incidents harmful, for harassment claims to lead to legal resolution. By recognizing that harassment can happen regardless of a person's fit within a prototype, the chances for justice are improved.

"If we have biased perceptions of harm for nonprototypical women, it will drastically change their legal outcomes," Bandt-Law said. "If they're not being believed, they're effectively being silenced."

In experiments in mouse tissues and human cells, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have found that removing a membrane that lines the back of the eye may improve the success rate for regrowing nerve cells damaged by blinding diseases. The findings are specifically aimed at discovering new ways to reverse vision loss caused by glaucoma and other diseases that affect the optic nerve, the information highway from the eye to the brain.

"The idea of restoring vision to someone who has lost it from optic nerve disease has been considered science fiction for decades. But in the last five years, stem cell biology has reached a point where it's feasible," says Thomas Johnson, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The research was published Jan. 12 in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

A human eye has more than 1 million small nerve cells, called retinal ganglion cells, that transmit signals from light-collecting cells called photoreceptors in the back of the eye to the brain. Retinal ganglion cells send out long arms, or axons, that bundle together with other retinal ganglion cell projections, forming the optic nerve that leads to the brain.

When the eye is subjected to high pressure, as occurs in glaucoma, it damages and eventually kills retinal ganglion cells. In other conditions, inflammation, blocked blood vessels, or tumors can kill retinal ganglion cells. Once they die, retinal ganglion cells don't regenerate.

"That's why it is so important to detect glaucoma early," says Johnson. "We know a lot about how to treat glaucoma and help nerve cells survive an injury, but once the cells die off, the damage to someone's vision becomes permanent."

Johnson is a member of a team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute looking for ways scientists can repair or replace lost optic neurons by growing new cells.

In the current study, Johnson and his team grew mouse retinas in a laboratory dish and tracked what happens when they added human retinal ganglion cells, derived from human embryonic stem cells, to the surface of the mouse retinas. They found that most of the transplanted human cells were unable to integrate into the retinal tissue, which contains several layers of cells.

"The transplanted cells clumped together rather than dispersing from one another like on a living retina," says Johnson.

However, the researchers found that a small number of transplanted retinal cells were able to settle uniformly into certain areas of the mouse retina. Looking more closely, the areas where the transplanted cells integrated well aligned with locations where the researchers had to make incisions into the mouse retinas to get them to lie flat in the culture dish. At these incision points, some of the transplanted cells were able to crawl into the retina and integrate themselves in the proper place within the tissue.

"This suggested that there was some type of barrier that had been broken by these incisions," Johnson says. "If we could find a way to remove it, we may have more success with transplantation."

It turns out that the barrier is a well-known anatomical structure of the retina, called the internal limiting membrane. It's a translucent connective tissue created by the retina's cells to separate the fluid of the eye from the retina.

After using an enzyme to loosen the connective fibers of the internal limiting membrane, the researchers removed the membrane and applied the transplanted human cells to the retinas. They found that most of the transplanted retinal ganglion cells grew in a more normal pattern, integrating themselves more fully. The transplanted cells also showed signs of establishing new nerve connections to the rest of the retinal structure when compared with retinas that had intact membranes.

"These findings suggest that altering the internal limiting membrane may be a necessary step in our aim to regrow new cells in damaged retinas," says Johnson.

The researchers plan to continue investigating the development of transplanted retinal ganglion cells to determine the factors they need to function once integrated into the retina.

August 2020 set new record high sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the northwestern Pacific Ocean and around the Japan coasts. A new study led by National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) researchers revealed that this warming record could not happen without human-induced climate changes.

The northwestern Pacific sea surface becomes warm seasonally around August every year. However, it was unprecedentedly high in August 2020, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The extremely high SSTs exceeding 30°C, which lasted until mid-September, may have intensified tropical cyclones such as Typhoon Haisheng, causing severe damages to the East Asian countries. Although human-induced greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide have gradually warmed the northwestern Pacific Ocean since the mid-20th century, it remains unclear yet how much past human activities may increase the occurrence likelihood of such regional record-warm SSTs.

"Understanding the tropical warm water expansion in the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic Oceans is essential for projecting changes in the characteristics of tropical cyclones and other weather events in the future," said Hideo Shiogama, a co-author and the head of Climate Risk Assessment Section at the Center for Global Environmental Research, NIES. "A quantitative evaluation of what drives regional extreme temperatures happening recently is necessary to take appropriate measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of global warming."

The paper published in Geophysical Research Letters illustrates the quantitative impact of greenhouse gases emitted by human activities on the unprecedentedly high SSTs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean in August 2020. By analyzing multiple observational datasets from 1901 to 2020 and a large number of experimental outputs from the state-of-the-art numerical climate models, a climate research group at NIES statistically estimated changes in the occurrence probability of the northwestern Pacific Ocean (120°E-180° and 20°N-35°N) condition exceeding the record-warm SST in August 2020 from the past to future. The scientists revealed that its probability in the present climate was increased from once-in-1000 years to once-in-15 years because of human-induced climate changes.

Detecting human-induced climate changes

"The numerical climate model ensembles are powerful tools to quantitatively distinguish between natural variability of the Earth system and climate changes caused by human activities," said corresponding lead author Michiya Hayashi, a research associate at NIES. The ensemble of 31 climate models participating in the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) consists of a series of historical experiments and future scenario experiments forced by greenhouse gas- and aerosol emissions from human activities and natural volcanic and solar variations from 1850 to 2100. "We can compare the historical and future experiments with a sub-ensemble of the CMIP6 climate models forced only by the natural volcanic and solar activities to estimate to what extent human-caused climate changes have altered the northwestern Pacific Ocean condition until today."

"The northwestern Pacific warming has proceeded clearly since the 1980s," stated Shiogama. "The warming speed has been accelerated in the last four decades as the reduced aerosol emissions do not cancel the warming signal forced by increasing greenhouse gas concentration anymore." The results show that the CMIP6 ensemble well reproduces the observed long-term change in the northwestern Pacific August SST within the range of 'once-in-20-year' events in the historical simulations. "The SSTs that exceed the pre-industrial range are rarely observed during the 20th century but have occurred frequently since 2010, indicating that human influences on the northwestern Pacific Ocean are already detectable in observations," noted a co-author Seita Emori, deputy director of the Center for Global Environmental Research at NIES.

This new study estimates that the occurrence frequency of high northwestern Pacific SSTs exceeding the August 2020 level has been increased from once-in-600 years in the 20th century (1901-2000) to once-in-15 years in the present climate (2001-2020) using the CMIP6 ensemble. On the other hand, in the sub-ensemble forced only by natural volcanic and solar activities, the frequency for 2001-2020 is estimated to be once-in-1000 years or less. "The record high level of the northwestern Pacific SST in August could have occurred approximately once per 15 years in 2001-2020, as observed, but it never likely occurred without human-induced greenhouse gases or in the 20th century," said Hayashi.

Importantly, the scientists also imply from the future scenario experiments that the 2020 record high SST is becoming a new normal climate condition in August at the northwestern Pacific region by 2031-2050 when the globally averaged air temperature relative to pre-industrial levels would exceed 1.5°C. In this case, the tropical warm sea surface water, exceeding 28°C, may reach Japan, the Korean Peninsula, the west coast of India, the east coast of the U.S. mainland, and the west of the Hawaiian Islands. "We might need to prepare for living with such warm ocean conditions even if we humans could achieve the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement," said Hayashi.

"The human-induced ocean warming may have impacted tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall, and marine life from the past to present and will continue in the future unless tremendous mitigation measures would be implemented," added Emori. "It is time to take prompt actions to transform our society for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and for adapting to a changing climate."

Tsukuba, Japan -- We laugh when we see Homer Simpson falling asleep while driving, while in church, and while even operating the nuclear reactor. In reality though, narcolepsy, cataplexy, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder are all serious sleep-related illnesses. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba led by Professor Takeshi Sakurai have found neurons in the brain that link all three disorders and could provide a target for treatments.

REM sleep correlates when we dream. Our eyes move back and forth, but our bodies remain still. This near-paralysis of muscles while dreaming is called REM-atonia, and is lacking in people with REM sleep behavior disorder. Instead of being still during REM sleep, muscles move around, often going as far as to stand up and jump, yell, or punch. Sakurai and his team set out to find the neurons in the brain that normally prevent this type of behavior during REM sleep.

Working with mice, the team identified a specific group of neurons as likely candidates. These cells were located in an area of the brain called the ventral medial medulla and received input from another area called the sublaterodorsal tegmental nucleus, or SLD. "The anatomy of the neurons we found matched what we know," explains Sakurai. "They were connected to neurons that control voluntary movements, but not those that control muscles in the eyes or internal organs. Importantly, they were inhibitory, meaning that they can prevent muscle movement when active." When the researchers blocked the input to these neurons, the mice began moving during their sleep, just like someone with REM sleep behavior disorder.

Narcolepsy, as demonstrated by Homer Simpson, is characterized by suddenly falling asleep at any time during the day, even in mid-sentence (he was diagnosed with narcolepsy). Cataplexy is a related illness in which people suddenly lose muscle tone and collapse. Although they are awake, their muscles act as if they are in REM sleep. Sakurai and his team suspected that the special neurons they found were related to these two disorders. They tested their hypothesis using a mouse model of narcolepsy in which cataplexic attacks could be triggered by chocolate. "We found that silencing the SLD-to-ventral medial medulla reduced the number of cataplexic bouts," says Sakurai.

Overall, the experiments showed these special circuits control muscle atonia in both REM sleep and cataplexy. "The glycinergic neurons we have identified in the ventral medial medulla could be a good target for drug therapies for people with narcolepsy, cataplexy, or REM sleep behavior disorder", says Sakurai. "Future studies will have to examine how emotions, which are known to trigger cataplexy, can affect these neurons."

The Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS) team of National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) and their collaborators of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) project released a giant 2D map of the universe, which paves the way for the upcoming new-generation dark energy spectroscopic survey.

Modern astronomical observations reveal that the universe is expanding and appears to be accelerating. The power driving the expansion of the universe is called dark energy by astronomers. The dark energy is still a mystery and accounts for about 68% of the substance of the universe.

Large-scale redshift measurements of galaxies can describe the 3D distribution of the matter and reveal the effect of dark energy on the expansion of the universe.
The DESI project is a new-generation cosmological redshift survey. ZHAO Gongbo, Deputy Director-General of NAOC and a member of DESI, said "DESI will execute a five-year mission to obtain the redshifts of millions of galaxies and construct the largest 3D universe. It is expected to solve the mystery of dark energy."

"Before DESI begins, researchers need a larger and deeper 2D map of the universe to meet the targeting requirements of such large-scale spectroscopic observations," said ZOU Hu, one of the BASS co-PIs and an associate professor in NAOC.

Nearly 200 researchers from NAOC and DESI collaborators put much effort on the joint observing and data analyzing in the past six years. They stitch together the observed images and form a giant 2D map of the universe.

Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, DESI co-spokesperson and a cosmologist at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), said "DESI wouldn't be getting anywhere without such large imaging surveys."

"This is the biggest map by almost any measure. The map covers half of the sky, and digitally sprawls over 10 trillion pixelsand contains about two billion objects," said David Schlegel, the co-project scientist for DESI and leader of the imaging project.

In the 2D map of the universe, the BASS contributes the northern sky. It is an international collaboration between NAOC and University of Arizona in the U.S. XUE Suijian from NAOC said "Chinese astronomers have joined in DESI as the builders due to the BASS contribution."

The DESI imaging team also released eight versions of data specially for the DESI targeting. This data release is the final release. It includes the largest imaging area and the most precise object measurements, according to CUI Chenzhou, the execute director of National Astronomical Data Center.

This release will ensure to implement the DESI project successfully. In addition, the data will become the legacy data for the astronomical community all around the world and play a valuable role on the scientific applications.

BASS was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program and External Cooperation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Climate and changes in it have direct impacts on species of plant and animals - but climate may also shape more complex biological systems like food webs. Now a research group from the University of Helsinki has investigated how micro-climate shapes each level of the ecosystem, from species' abundances in predator communities to parasitism rates in key herbivores, and ultimately to damage suffered by plants. The results reveal how climate change may drastically reshape northern ecosystems.

Understanding the impact of climatic conditions on species interactions is imperative, as these interactions include such potent ecological forces as herbivory, pollination and parasitism.

Lead researcher Tuomas Kankaanpaa from the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, investigated how insect communities are assembled along micro-climatic gradients found on a mountainside in Northeast Greenland. He then compared this variation in environmental conditions to variation in the structure and function of different compartments of a food web. This web consists of a flowering plant as the primary producer (mountain avens), of moth larvae feeding on the flowers as consumers, and of parasitic wasps and flies, which, in turn, use moth larvae as living nurseries for their own offspring.

The study identified the micro-climate as an important factor in determining the local structure of parasitoid communities. Even within the uniform focal habitat type (heathland dominated by mountain avens), the abundances of species and the strengths interspecific interactions changed with climatic factors. As parasitoids are fairly specialized predators, they are particularly sensitive to environmental changes.

"To understand the more general impact of climate, we cannot always go species-by-species in each area. Rather, we need to uncover the uniting characteristics of species which show similar responses to climatic conditions," explains Kankaanpaa.

For the parasitoid insects of the North, one key trait turned out to be the way in which parasitoid species use their hosts. Species that spend considerable time dormant inside of their host, waiting for it to grow, form one group: they tend to prefer sites on which snow melts early and summers which are hot and dry. Conversely, species that attack full-sized host larvae or pupae appear to do better at sites where thicker snow cover offers protection from cold winter temperatures.

The larvae of the dominant avens-feeding moth species also preferred warm and dry areas in the landscape. The same association was evident in a long time-series collected as a part of an ongoing monitoring program at the Zackenberg research station. During the past two decades, winters with thin snow cover and warm summers have resulted in an increased proportion of avens flowers being consumed.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SEASONALITY OF SPECIES SHIFTS?

A potentially serious consequence of climate change is a phenological mismatch - i.e. a situation in which the seasonality of interacting species change at a different rate. This can lead to situations where e.g. herbivorous insects escape some of their predators in time, thereby allowing herbivore populations to grow. The researchers found that the two dominant parasitoids preying on the focal moth larvae showed distinctly different temporal relationships with their host. One of the parasitoids matched the flowering of mountain avens and the development of its host larvae near perfectly across the wide range of spring arrival recorded within the study area. Yet, the other parasitoid species proved only loosely trimmed to coincide with specific life stages of its host. Such shifts can make a big difference once two parasitoids occupy the same host individual and competition within the still-living food source becomes physical. If one is then at the right stage and the other not, this can affect the outcome of the game.

"The parasitoids communities of the far North have previously received little attention. This is surprising, as these communities are species-poor, and thereby offer excellent opportunities to study what factors influence how species come together and interact," says Kankaanpaa.

The research group behind the study bridges two countries and two universities, the University of Helsinki and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). It is led by Professor Tomas Roslin. The group has studied insect interactions across the world and in Greenland and regards the Arctic as an ideal observatory for monitoring the effects of climate change. In the High Arctic, the climate is changing especially fast - and within this zone, North East Greenland offers a region where other human impacts are minimal, thereby allowing researchers to isolate the unique effects of climate.

How insect communities vary along landscape-level micro-climates provides clues as to how such communities may change with time. Kankaanpää stresses that there is much work to be done before we can fully understand how climate change will reverberate through networks of live interactions. Do, for example, the outbreaks of a single herbivore species pose direct risks to those other herbivores with which it happens to share parasitoids? Can the feeding of large hoards of the joint enemies eventually extirpate the rarer host?

Posidonia oceanica seagrass -an endemic marine phanerogam with an important ecological role in the marine environment- can take and remove plastic materials that have been left at the sea, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. The article's first author is the tenure-track 2 lecturer Anna Sànchez-Vidal, from the Research Group on Marine Geosciences of the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona (UB).

The study describes for the first time the outstanding role of the Posidonia as a filter and trap for plastics in the coastal areas, and it is pioneer in the description of a natural mechanism to take and remove these materials from the sea. Other authors of the study are the experts Miquel Canals, William P. de Haan and Marta Veny, from the Research Group on Marine Geosciences of the UB, and Javier Romero, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the UB.

A trap for plastics in coastal areas

The Posidonia oceanica makes dense prairies that make a habitat with a great ecological value (nutrition, shelter, reproduction, etc.) for marine biodiversity. As part of the study, the team analysed the trapping and extraction of plastic in great seagrasses of the Posidonia in the coasts of Majorca. "Everything suggests that plastics are trapped in the Posidonia seagrass. In the grasslands, the plastics are incorporated to agglomerates of natural fiber with a ball shape -aegagropila or Posidonia Neptune balls- which are expulsed from the marine environment during storms", notes Anna Sànchez-Vidal, member of the Department of Ocean and Earth Dynamics of the UB.

"According to the analyses -she continues- the trapped microplastics in the prairies of the Posidonia oceanica are mainly filaments, fibers and fragments of polymers which are denser than the sea water such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

How are Posidonia Neptune balls made?

This marine phanerogam has a vegetative structure made by a modified stem with a rhizome shape from which the roots and leaves appear. When the leaves fall, its bases (pods) are added to rhizomes and give them a feather-like appearance. "As a result of the mechanical erosion in the marine environment, those pods under the seafloors are progressively releasing lignocellulosic fibres which are slowly added and intertwined until they make agglomerates in a ball-shape, known as aegagropilae. Aegagropilae are expulsed from prairies during periods of strong waves and a certain part ends up in the beaches", says Professor Javier Romero, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the UB.

Posidonia aegagropilae are expelled from the prairies during periods of strong waves and a part ends up piled in the beaches. Although there are no studies that quantify the amount of aegagropilae expelled from the marine environment, it is estimated that about 1,470 plastics are taken per kilogram of plant fibre, amounts which are significantly higher than those captured through leaves or sand. As researcher Anna Sànchez-Vidal says, "we cannot completely know the magnitude of this plastic export to the land. However, first estimations reveal that Posidonia balls could catch up to 867 million plastics per year".

Plastic-free oceans: everyone's responsibility

The polluting footprint of plastics that come from human activity is a serious environmental problem affecting coastal and ocean ecosystems worldwide. Since plastics were created massively in the 20th century fifties, these materials have been left and accumulated at the sea -seafloors act as a sink for microplastics-- and are transported by ocean currents, wind and waves. "The plastics we find floating in the sea are only a small percentage of everything we have thrown onto the marine environment", warns Anna Sànchez-Vidal.

The paper published in the journal Scientific Reports has been carried out within the frame of the subject of the EHEA bachelor's degree final project of the degree in Marine Sciences of the Faculty of Earth Sciences, and counted on the support from the Scientific and Technological Centers of the UB (CCiTUB). The new ecosystemic service of the Posidonia described in the article has a significant value in a marine area such as the Mediterranean -with high quantities of floating plastic and in the seafloors-- and with Posidonia seagrass that can occupy large areas up to forty meters deep.

"This is why we need to protect and preserve these vulnerable ecosystems. However, the best environmental protection strategy to keep oceans free of plastic is to reduce landfills, an action that requires to limit its use by the population", conclude the experts.

Bacteria are likely triggering greater melting on the Greenland ice sheet, possibly increasing the island's contribution to sea-level rise, according to Rutgers scientists.

That's because the microbes cause sunlight-absorbing sediment to clump together and accumulate in the meltwater streams, according to a Rutgers-led study - the first of its kind - in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The findings can be incorporated in climate models, leading to more accurate predictions of melting, scientists say.

"These streams can be seen all over Greenland and they have a brilliant blue color, which leads to further melting since they absorb more sunlight than the surrounding ice," said lead author Sasha Leidman, a graduate student in the lab of co-author Asa K. Rennermalm, an associate professor in the Department of Geography in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. "This is exacerbated as dark sediment accumulates in these streams, absorbing even more sunlight and causing more melting that may increase sea-level rise."

The Greenland ice sheet covers about 656,000 square miles - most of the island and three times the size of Texas, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center. The global sea level would rise an estimated 20 feet if the thick ice sheet melted.

With climate change, sea-level rise and coastal storms threaten low-lying islands, cities and lands around the world.

YouTube video: Drone flight over a supraglacial stream in Greenland

Most scientists ignore sediment in glacial streams that form on top of the Greenland ice sheet as meltwater flows to the ocean, but the Rutgers-led team wanted to find out why they accumulated so much sediment. In 2017, scientists flew drones over an approximately 425-foot-long stream in southwest Greenland, took measurements and collected sediment samples. They found that sediment covers up to a quarter of the stream bottom, far more than the estimated 1.2 percent that would exist if organic matter and cyanobacteria did not cause sediment granules to clump together. They also showed that streams have more sediment than predicted by hydrological models.

"We found that the only way for sediment to accumulate in these streams was if bacteria grew in the sediment, causing it to clump into balls 91 times their original size," Leidman said. "If bacteria didn't grow in the sediment, all the sediment would be washed away and these streams would absorb significantly less sunlight. This sediment aggregation process has been going on for longer than human history."

The solar energy absorbed by streams likely depends on the health and longevity of the bacteria, and further warming in Greenland may lead to greater sediment deposits in glacial streams, the study says.

"Decreases in cloud cover and increases in temperature in Greenland are likely causing these bacteria to grow more extensively, causing more sediment-driven melting," Leidman said. "With climate change causing more of the ice sheet to be covered by streams, this feedback may lead to an increase in Greenland's contribution to sea-level rise. By incorporating this process into climate models, we'll be able to more accurately predict how much melting will occur, with the caveat that it is uncertain how much more melting will take place compared with what climate models predict. It will likely not be negligible."