Earth

Water and its movements within or between atmosphere, land, and ocean defines the global water cycle and is central to the climate system. Almost all weather and climate phenomena are in some way tied to the water cycle. Examples include extreme rainfall during thunderstorms, hurricanes and tropical cyclones, flooding, droughts, and sea level rise.

Now the water cycle is changing in important ways, as the climate changes. Theory and models suggest that as the Earth is warming, the global water cycle amplifies, i.e., more water is evaporated from the ocean, and consequently precipitation is increasing as well. Yet the observational confirmation of this prediction has been difficult, since past changes of the water cycle are were poorly observed due to the difficulty of measuring global-scale evaporation and precipitation and the complexity of their spatial and temporal variability.

The new study, published in Journal of Climate, overcomes many of the previous limitations, and derives a new estimate of water cycle change based on a new salinity data product since 1960. From this, they provided new strong evidence that the global water cycle has amplified substantially in the past 50 years, confirming theory and models. The study is led by Lijing Cheng from the Institute of Atmospheric at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who collaborated with a group of international scientists from National Center for Atmospheric Research, U.S.; ETH Zurich; University of St. Thomas, U.S.; Pennsylvania State University, U.S.

"Ocean salinity change can be used to estimate water cycle change, because it reveals the modification of global surface freshwater exchanges: evaporation takes freshwater from the ocean into the atmosphere and increases the ocean salinity; precipitation puts more freshwater into the ocean and reduces the salinity. Consequently, salinity changes integrate effects over broad areas and provide an excellent indicator for water cycle change." Lijing Cheng introduced.

"However, as previous salinity datasets show severe biases or shortcomings, we thereby need better salinity data. This study provides new monthly gridded salinity fields for the upper 2000 m since 1960" John Abraham said, "To perform interpolation across data sparse intervals and regions, the method uses information on the spatio-temporal co-variability of salinity taken from the historical coupled climate model simulations. The method is then rigorously verified".

"The new product is clearly more reliable for examining long-term salinity changes, as we show that this new salinity reconstruction has much better continuity through changes in the observing-system (from altimeters on satellites and profiling floats (Argo) in the ocean." a co-author, Kevin Trenberth from NCAR said, "The new data demonstrate that the existing salinity pattern has amplified. In other words, 'the fresh gets fresher, and the salty gets saltier' in much of the ocean. Also, we show, for the first time, that the ocean 0-2000m averaged salinity trend indicates freshening in almost the entire Pacific Ocean, broad salinification in the low- and middle-latitudes Atlantic, pronounced freshening in North Atlantic, and contrasts between the north and south Indian ocean" .

The salinity change is spatially complicated, this study uses a simple index to synthesize these changes, named the Salinity Contrast (SC) index, which is defined as the difference between the salinity averaged over high-salinity and low-salinity regions. "This metric provides a simple but powerful means of synthesizing the observed salinity pattern changes" said Nicolas Gruber, a coauthor of this study from ETH: "we show that 0-2000m salinity pattern has amplified by 1.6% and surface salinity has amplified by 7.5%. We also show that this increase is due to human influence, and this anthropogenic signal has exceeded the natural background variability."

An improved estimate of the global water cycle change has been compiled based on the new salinity data, salinity-contrast metrics and model simulations. It shows that the water cycle has been already amplified by 2~4 % per degree Celsius since 1960 (Figure 1). "Our ocean-based result is broadly consistent with many recent atmospheric based estimates and strengthens the evidence that the global water cycle has been intensified with global warming." Said John Fasullo from NCAR, U.S.

This result has important implications for the future climate. In a world warmed by +2°C (the upper limit of the "Paris Agreement" target), the water cycle will amplify by 4~8%. This amplification will be even stronger if the aerosol impacts are smaller in the future than today (i.e. if the air pollution can be controlled). Consequently, there will be stronger evaporation: the drier regions will get even drier and further increase the odds of worsening drought. Droughts affect livestock and crops and increase risk of damaging and sometimes deadly wildfire in many regions, including the U.S., China, Australia, Brazil, and other countries, posing severe risks to food safety and human health. There will also be greatly increased risk of heavy and extreme rains. The more intense rainstorms cause major problems like extreme flooding around the world. The rainfall associated with tropical cyclones and hurricanes will continue to grow and increase damage not only to coastal and small island communities, but well inland as well (as in Isaias).

"This study is a significant advance in the field", said Michael Mann from Pennsylvania State University, U.S.: "First, the new, more accurate estimates of salinity changes provide a better basis for comparison with climate model simulations. Secondly, the Salinity-Contrast index provides a key measure of climate change impact on the global water hydrological cycle and helps distinguish the signal. We find that it takes a little more than a decade to isolate the climate change signal from background noise in this particular metric, suggesting it should be used more widely by the climate research community."

Syracuse, N.Y. - A recent study by researchers from Syracuse University shows that the average daily increase in rural COVID-19 mortality rates has been significantly higher in counties with the largest percentages of Black and Hispanic residents.

The study "COVID-19 Death Rates Are Higher in Rural Counties With Larger Shares of Blacks and Hispanics" was recently published in the Journal of Rural Health.

Blacks and Hispanics have suffered a disproportionate burden of COVID-19 in the United States, but so far, most attention to racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 outcomes has been focused on cities rather than rural areas. Rural does not automatically equate to white. Racial/ethnic minorities account for 20 percent of the U.S. rural population, are geographically isolated, and face significant health challenges.

Here are the key findings from the study conducted by researchers from Syracuse University's Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Center for Aging and Policy Studies:

Compared to rural counties with the lowest percent Black populations (bottom quartile), rural counties in the top quartile of percent Black have had a 70 percent higher average daily increase in their COVID-19 mortality rate.

Compared to rural counties with the lowest percent Hispanic populations (bottom quartile), rural counties in the top quartile of percent Hispanic have had a 50 percent higher average daily increase in their COVID-19 mortality rate.

The research team included Lerner Center Director Shannon Monnat and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs PhD students Kent Cheng and Yue Sun. All three authors are also affiliated with the Policy, Place, and Population Health Lab in the Maxwell School.

"COVID-19 mortality is not distributed equally across the rural U.S., and the COVID-19 race penalty is not restricted to cities," Monnat said. "Several interventions are needed to reduce these geographic and racial/ethnic disparities.

"First, we must increase access to free COVID-19 testing in rural areas generally, but especially in rural areas with vulnerable population groups," Monnat continued. "Second, local governments should work with trusted community-based organizations, including the faith-based community, to help educate, conduct testing and contact tracing, and provide necessary personal protective resources to Black and Hispanic residents."

For more information about the potential explanations for these geographic disparities and potential interventions to address them, read the Lerner Center for Public Health promotion research brief "Rural COVID-19 Mortality Rates are Highest in Counties with the Largest Percentages of Blacks and Hispanics."

For the first time, scientists have viewed the deepest regions of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, discovered five undescribed species consisting of black corals and sponges, and recorded Australia's first observation of an extremely rare fish. They also took critical habitat samples that will lead to a greater understanding of the spatial relationships between seabed features and the animals found in the Coral Sea.

The complex and scientifically challenging research was completed aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor, on its fourth expedition of the year, as part of the Institute's Australia campaign. Using a remotely operated underwater robot to view high-resolution video of the bottom of the ocean floor, some 1,820 meters deep, the science team examined deep sea bathymetry, wildlife, and ecosystems. The collaborative mission brought together scientists from Geoscience Australia, James Cook University, University of Sydney, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Queensland Museum Network, and Queensland University of Technology, to answer a range of questions about the geological evolution and biology of the deep sea canyons and reefs.

"This included the most comprehensive midwater robotic dive survey series to ever have been conducted in the South Pacific," said Dr. Brendan Brooke, the expedition's lead scientist from Geoscience Australia. "Research vessel Falkor has integrated a range of technologies that have allowed us to work across the full range of ocean depths in the Coral Sea and to provide data for multiple disciplines including geology, biology, and oceanography."

During the expedition, researchers took the deepest samples ever collected of soft coral and scleractinian coral in the Coral Sea. They also collected the first sample of ancient bedrock beneath the Great Barrier Reef, estimated to be between 40 and 50 million years old. Scientists made the first recorded observation in Australia of the extremely rare fish Rhinopias agroliba , a colorful and well-camouflaged ambush predator in the scorpionfish family. The cruise also included the most comprehensive survey of midwater jellyfish in the South Pacific.

In addition to the underwater dives, high-resolution mapping of the seafloor was conducted and covered 38,395 square kilometers, an area three times greater than Sydney. The maps include all the major coral atolls on the Queensland Plateau within the Coral Sea Marine Park
and an 80-kilometer section of canyons off the northern Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

"These maps, samples, and images are fascinating and provide a new understanding of the geological diversity and biological wealth of a region that is already world-renowned for its natural beauty," said Dr. Jyotika Virmani, executive director of Schmidt Ocean Institute. "The data will help marine park managers to protect these ecosystems that are so vital for our global biodiversity and human health. "

Live streaming of the 18 underwater robotic dives via Schmidt Ocean's channel on YouTube and 112 hours of high definition underwater video during the month-long expedition, which ended August 30, allowed the science team to share their knowledge and excitement of the voyage's discoveries with the world. Through the livestreams, the scientists could interact directly with the public via chat and commentary.

"Schmidt Ocean Institute and the technology that it has brought to Australia is a huge enabler in better understanding our marine resources from a lens of diverse disciplines," said Dr. Scott Nichol, one of the lead expedition scientists from Geoscience Australia. "This work brings new
understanding and will keep the scientists busy for years."

Changes in the external environment always affect the success of companies and may even tilt previously valid laws of business off balance. In a new study, Jan Recker, Chair for Information Systems and Systems Development at the University of Cologne's Faculty of Management, Economics, and Social Sciences, writes that companies should learn to recognize and use these disruptive changes - currently the worldwide corona pandemic - to their advantage. His paper 'External Enablement of New Venture Creation: A Framework' has been published in Academy of Management Perspectives.

'If you want to survive in a "post-Covid-19 world", you should pause and question your current strategy. Every crisis leads to change. But that also means that crises can lead to new, even better business strategies. A look at the global financial crisis of 2008 confirms this', said Recker. The financial crisis gave rise to start-ups like Airbnb and Uber. Previously, private individuals had had reservations about letting strangers into their own cars or homes, but in view of the financial bottlenecks caused by the crisis, these business models became accepted and successful.

Another example, the digitalization expert says, is the temperance movement in the USA in the 1920s, which proved successful for soft drink giants such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

Recker remarked: 'Understanding the changes that are taking place, how they affect companies and what can be done about them, is not only crucial for companies to survive this change, but can also be turned into a benefit. In the current situation, however, most companies look for temporary interim solutions until they can return to "normal operations". However, whether there will ever be a "return" and what our new "normality" will be cannot be predicted. Good business models have to be able to adapt.'

Recker describes several external factors in his paper, such as changes in the socio-cultural, economic, political, or ecological environment, and how they affect entrepreneurship. 'Looking back, we can clearly see one thing', he said. 'History repeats itself. And we can learn from it.'

Feeling misunderstood by other groups makes people more likely to support separatist causes like Brexit and Scottish independence, new research suggests.

The University of Exeter studied links between political views and so-called "felt understanding" - feeling understood and listened to by other groups, such as Europeans and EU institutions (in the case of Brexit), or the English public and politicians (in the case of Scottish independence).

The research also examined Protestant-Catholic relations in Northern Ireland and Basque-Spanish relations. In all cases, feeling poorly understood by other groups was linked to dramatically higher levels of support for separatism.

In the Basque study, people one point lower on a seven-point "felt understanding" scale (feeling less understood by Spanish people) were more than six times more likely to back independence.

However, "felt understanding" was also a unique predictor of trust and forgiveness - the more people felt understood by members of the other group, the more likely they were to trust and forgive them.

"Our research demonstrates the critical role of 'felt understanding' in relations between groups of people," said lead author Dr Andrew Livingstone, of the University of Exeter.

"When people - individually and collectively - feel that those around them aren't 'getting' their point of view, and if people feel they lack the ability to determine their own future, you get responses that are about 'taking back control'.

"Such responses might, in large part, be about people making their voices heard.

"Voting is fundamentally an act of communication, though it's not always easy to interpret what voters 'mean' by their vote."

Felt understanding was found to be a stronger predictor of separatism than beliefs about the "out-group" (ie Europeans, English people, etc) or "meta-beliefs" (what people imagined the out-group thought of them).

It was also a stronger predictor of Brexit vote than more commonly-discussed factors like age or highest educational qualification.

Dr Livingstone said the research, which included data from more than 7,000 participants, showed the vital importance of making people feel heard.

"Even if people have been brought to a belief by misinformation, it doesn't mean their belief is insincere," he said.

"One of the worst ways to change such a belief is to tell people their views aren't genuine, or that they are fools.

"The first step is to ask people why they hold a particular belief, and to listen to the answer.

"It's not about pretending to agree - it's about showing them you've really listened and understood their point of view, even if you ultimately disagree."

Following the 2019 UK general election and the divisive debate over Brexit, Dr Livingstone noted the call from Prime Minister Boris Johnson to "let the healing begin".

"Boris Johnson had to acknowledge the fact that people want respect for the way they see the world," he said.

The studies of Scottish independence, Brexit, Northern Ireland and Basque separatism did not address cause and effect.

This was tested by a fifth study in which young people in Spain saw one of two mock newspaper articles - one suggesting that older people understood them and cared about their concerns, and the other suggesting they didn't.

Young people who were told older people understood them (higher "felt understanding") reported more positive views of older people.

Racism Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic -- a Path Forward

Media Contact: Kim Polyniak, M.A., kpolyni1@jhmi.edu

Because SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was first discovered in China, Chinese American families in the United States have reported an increase in racist experiences during the ongoing pandemic. Tina Cheng, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Children's Center and a Chinese academic pediatrician, and her daughter, Alison Conca-Cheng, a third-year medical student, wrote a commentary published in Pediatrics on Sept. 1 in response to a study on racism affecting Chinese American parents and children. Both Cheng and Conca-Cheng report that they have experienced -- both inside and outside the health care setting -- implicit and explicit bias.

In their commentary, Cheng and Conca-Cheng say racism against any group is an "enduring crisis which is inflamed in the presence of other crises," adding that addressing such racism is necessary to achieve health equity. They offer critical steps to combat the problem, including calling on people to learn about the history of racial bias and how it affects families, as well as urging parents and schools to teach children about it. They also urge clinicians to understand how race is a social determinant of health and how racial biases continue to be correlated with poorer health outcomes. They ask clinicians to learn about and address their own biases, which they say can affect patient interactions, medical training and workplace conditions.

Cheng has limited availability for media interviews about racism and COVID-19.

Washington, DC, September 9, 2020 - A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports on three key factors found amongst adolescents that could be used to predict the first occurrence of nonsuicidal self-harm, over a 3 year period. Factors included low conscientiousness, high avoidance and parent's substance abuse history.

"Self-injury is common in adolescents, especially among girls," stated lead author Monika Waszczuk, PhD, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University, New York. "This largely hidden condition is characterized by deliberate self-inflicted harm, such as cutting or burning. Many young people who experienced this potentially life-threatening behavior do not seek treatment, and more than half continue to self-harm into adulthood.

"To help identify adolescent girls who may need support prior to the first occurrence of self-injury, we sought a better understanding of psychological vulnerabilities to this behavior."

The findings are based on the Adolescent Development of Emotions and Personality Traits study: an ongoing longitudinal project tracking the health and wellbeing of girls from Long Island, New York. The study began in 2013.

A sample of 462 girls between the ages of 13-15-years old who had never experienced self-harm at the start of the study completed measures of psychological vulnerabilities, including personality traits and psychological symptoms. Mental health was also assessed in parents of participants. Next, girls were asked about self-injury during interviews conducted multiple times over the three-year follow up period.

Over the course of the study, 42 girls reported that they started to self-harm. Their baseline psychological vulnerabilities were compared to the remaining 420 girls who never self-injured. Girls who began to self-harm were found to have significantly lower baseline levels of conscientiousness and higher levels of avoidance. They were also twice as likely to have a parent who had a substance abuse problem at some point in life. A psychological profile combining these factors achieved a good accuracy in distinguishing girls who initiated self-harm during the following three years in this study from those who did not.

"These results point to two main psychological pathways to adolescent self-harm. The first is disinhibition - an urgency to act and a difficulty regulating one's behavior, often when faced with strong negative emotions," described Molly Gromatsky, PhD, who led the study during her graduate training and is now a Postdoctoral researcher at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, New York. "The second pathway is avoidance of upsetting memories or thoughts, with self-harm used as a maladaptive coping strategy to distract from intense negative feelings. Parental substance abuse might play a role via inherited genetic susceptibility to mental health problems, as well as via environmental transmission of risk."

Based on past research, traumatic experiences such as violence and abuse, as well as childhood poverty and bullying have significant impacts on nonsuicidal self-harm and other psychological vulnerabilities. This study did not directly assess these factors, however, so determining whether the avoidance trait specifically leads to avoidance of traumatic memories as a step in the development of nonsuicidal self-harm will be an important topic for future research.

"In addition to expanding our understanding of the development of self-harm, the present study derived a personality profile with a good ability to identify adolescent girls who are at risk of initiating self-harm. If replicated in independent samples, this small set of traits would allow for a rapid psychological screening that is feasible to collect in community samples of adolescents (e.g., in schools or primary care, facilitating targeted prevention)." said lead author Roman Kotov, PhD, a Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University, New York.

Conservation action has prevented the global extinction of at least 28 bird and mammal species since 1993, a study led by Newcastle University, UK and BirdLife International has shown. The species include Puerto Rican Amazon Amazona vittata, Przewalski's Horse Equus ferus, Alagoas Antwren Myrmotherula snowi, Iberian Lynx Lynx pardinus, and Black Stilt Himantopus novaezelandiae, among others.

Publishing their findings in the journal Conservation Letters, an international team of scientists have estimated the number of bird and mammal species that would have disappeared forever without the efforts of conservationists in recent decades.

The researchers found that 21-32 bird and 7-16 mammal species extinctions have been prevented since 1993, with the ranges reflecting the uncertainty inherent in estimating what might have happened under hypothetical circumstances.

The study has highlighted the most frequent actions to prevent extinctions in these bird and mammal species. Twenty-one bird species benefited from invasive species control, 20 from conservation in zoos and collections, and 19 from site protection. Fourteen mammal species benefited from legislation, and nine from species re-introductions and conservation in zoos and collections.

The research team, involving experts from BirdLife International, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and the Zoological Society of London, among others, identified bird and mammal species that were listed as threatened on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List.

Led by Dr Rike Bolam and Professor Phil McGowan, from Newcastle University's School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, and Dr Stuart Butchart, Chief Scientist at BirdLife International, the team compiled information from 137 experts on the population size, trends, threats and actions implemented for the most threatened birds and mammals to estimate the likelihood that each species would have gone extinct without action.

Their findings show that without conservation actions, extinction rates would have been around 3-4 times greater.

Species for which extinction was prevented

One of the species the team evaluated was the Puerto Rican Amazon Amazona vittata, a small parrot species that lives on the island of Puerto Rico. The formerly abundant population was at its lowest in 1975, when only 13 individuals remained in the wild. Since 2006, efforts were made to reintroduce the species to the Rio Abajo State Park on Puerto Rico. In 2017, hurricanes wiped out the original population, only leaving the reintroduced population at Rio Abajo. Without the reintroduction efforts, the parrots would have gone extinct in the wild.

Other species remain only in captivity, but there is hope for such species to be reintroduced into the wild. The Przewalski's Horse Equus ferus went extinct in the wild in the 1960s. In the 1990s, reintroduction efforts started, and in 1996, the first individual was born in the wild. Now more than 760 Przewalski's horses are roaming the steppes of Mongolia once again. This gives hope that other species that are now only held in zoos, collections, or for plants in botanic gardens and seed banks, will be successfully returned to the wild in the future.

However, some species included in the study, such as the Vaquita Phocoena sinus, a species of porpoise, are still rapidly declining. While conservation may have successfully slowed declines, it may not be possible to prevent extinction in the near future without substantially greater resources, action, and political will.

Dr Rike Bolam from Newcastle University, lead author of the study, said: "It is encouraging that some of the species we studied have recovered very well. Our analyses therefore provide a strikingly positive message that conservation has substantially reduced extinction rates for birds and mammals. While extinctions have also occurred over the same time period, our work shows that it is possible to prevent extinctions."

Professor Phil McGowan, who leads an IUCN Species Survival Commission task force that provides scientific input into current negotiations on a new set of intergovernmental commitments on biodiversity and who is Professor of Conservation Science and Policy at Newcastle University, added: "While this is a glimmer of hope - that if we take action we can prevent the irreversible loss of the last individuals of a species - we mustn't forget that in the same period, 15 bird and mammal species went extinct or are strongly suspected to have gone extinct.

"We usually hear bad stories about the biodiversity crisis and there is no doubt that we are facing an unprecedented loss in biodiversity through human activity. The loss of entire species can be stopped if there is sufficient will to do so. This is a call to action: showing the scale of the issue and what we can achieve if we act now to support conservation and prevent extinction."

New UN framework for tackling biodiversity loss

The findings are highly relevant to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which came into force in 1993. Over its lifetime, at least 28-48 bird and mammal species extinctions have been prevented. Through the Convention, governments adopted the 'Aichi Biodiversity Targets' in 2010, which committed countries to tackling the loss of nature.

It is widely expected that the 5th Global Biodiversity Outlook - the CBD's official report due to be released on 15th September -- will show that most targets have not been met. The study provides a quantitative test of target 12, which aimed to prevent extinctions of known threatened species by 2020. The research found that 11-25 bird and mammal species extinctions were prevented over this timeframe, and that extinction rates would have been 3-4 times higher without action. Negotiations are now underway to develop a new framework to tackle biodiversity loss by 2030.

"These results show that despite the overall failure to meet the targets for conserving nature set through the UN a decade ago, significant success in preventing extinctions was achieved" said Dr Stuart Butchart, Chief Scientist at BirdLife International, and instigator of the study. "This should encourage governments to reaffirm their commitment to halt extinctions and recover populations of threatened species in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework currently being negotiated. Such a commitment is both achievable and essential to sustain a healthy planet".

Sunspots are darker regions which often appear on the Sun's surface. They are caused by strong concentrations of magnetic field, and can be as big as the Earth, or even much bigger.

From the end of the 1960's the presence of oscillations in the atmospheres of these spots has been known, and interpreted as evidence for magnetic waves. These waves have attracted the interest of the researchers, because they could transport energy from the interior layers of the Sun up to the outer regions of the solar atmosphere. They have been proposed as one of the mechanisms which can explain the very high temperatures of the Sun's outer atmosphere, the Corona, one of the major questions in Solar Physics.

The new results show that these waves are partly trapped in a region of the atmosphere above the sunspots, giving rise to resonances. "This phenomenon -says Tobías Felipe, a researcher at the IAC and the first author on both articles- is similar to that produced within a wind instrument or on the strings of a guitar. As the waves are confined within a cavity, certain frequencies are strengthened. In the Sun, the strong variation in temperature close to the surface and in a zone called the transition region causes the waves to be reflected and can be enclosed in these resonant cavities".

For this study numerical simulations have been carried out on the Teide-HPC supercomputer, run by the Institute of Technology and Renewable Energies (ITER), in Tenerife. "Thanks to the simulations, we have been able to evaluate a very large number of models which have allowed us to identify what are the best observational measurements needed to confirm the presence of a resonant cavity, and to rule out those whose interpretation could be challenged", explains Christoph Kuckein, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics at Potsdam and a coauthor of the studies.

"The high resolution observations taken with the solar telescopes at the Teide Observatory, (GREGOR and VTT) -adds Sergio González Manrique, a researcher who has recently joined the IAC- let us follow in detail the fluctuations in velocity and temperature of several layers of the solar atmosphere. The data agree perfectly with the predictions of the numerical simulations".

As well as explaining a mystery which has lasted several decades, this finding provides a new method for inferring the properties of the solar atmosphere using its oscillations. "Future investigations will benefit from the data obtainable from the coming generation of solar telescopes, such as the European Solar Telescope, which will be installed on La Palma", concludes Tobías Felipe.

In a collaboration between experimental physicists and theoretical physicists in the framework of the Dynamics and Topology (TopDyn) excellence project, a system of many small magnetic whirls could be engineered to form a regularly ordered state. Such a transition from a disordered to an ordered phase is analogous to the well-known crystallization, which, however, occurs here in two dimensions. For the research work at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), experimental physicists around Professor Mathias Kläui cooperated with a group of theoretical physicists around Dr. Peter Virnau. The results have been published recently in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. The TopDyn research center is funded by the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Two-dimensional systems are a topical area of research in theoretical and experimental physics. These systems can attain a number of exotic states and exhibit transitions that do not exist in three dimensions. One such example is the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, for which the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 2016. Another example is the so-called hexatic phase, which occurs in systems of two-dimensional hard discs in between the disordered liquid and strongly ordered solid phase.

Two-dimensional model system generated from skyrmions

In the work now presented, magnetic whirls, so called skyrmions, were realized in ultra-thin metal multilayer films. The number of skyrmions and their size could be tuned by applied magnetic fields. These are ideal conditions for the experimental realization of dense two-dimensional model systems. In particular, the researchers were able to generate an experimental system that exhibits the signature of an emerging hexatic phase. This demonstrates that the system indeed behaves like a two-dimensional system and can be described by hard discs. Furthermore, the results allowed for the determination of the repulsive interaction between skyrmions, which could be modelled by computer simulations.

"I am very glad that the joint work between the Soft Matter Theory group of Dr. Peter Virnau and our experimental group led to this exciting work. Such new collaborations are exactly the aim of the TopDyn research center," said Professor Mathias Kläui, TopDyn spokesman.

Since the properties of skyrmions can be tuned by external magnetic fields, this is an important first step towards the tailored preparation and analysis of the dynamics of two-dimensional phases and phase transitions. Perspectives of further possibilities of effects to be studied in such systems can be found in a recently published News & Views Article in Nature Nanotechnology.

The Dynamics and Topology research center was founded in 2019 as a collaborative center of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, TU Kaiserslautern, and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz. It is funded by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and pursues a highly interdisciplinary approach.

Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and Stanford University have pinpointed the circuit in the brain that is responsible for sleepless nights in times of stress--and it turns out that circuit does more than make you toss and turn. Their study, done in mice, ties the same neuronal connections that trigger insomnia to stress-induced changes in the immune system, which weaken the body's defenses against a host of threats.

The study, reported September 9, 2020, in the journal Science Advances, connects and explains two familiar problems, says CSHL Assistant Professor Jeremy Borniger. "This sort of stress-induced insomnia is well known among anybody that's tried to get to sleep with a looming deadline or something the next day," he says. "And in the clinical world, it's been known for a long time that chronically stressed patients typically do worse on a variety of different treatments and across a variety of different diseases."

Like many aspects of the body's stress response, these effects are thought to be driven by the stress hormone cortisol. Working in the Stanford lab of Luis de Lecea, where Borniger completed a postdoctoral fellowship prior to joining CSHL, the research team found a direct connection between stress-sensitive neurons in the brain that trigger cortisol's release and nearby neurons that promote insomnia.

In mice, they found that signals from the hormone-releasing brain cells have a strong effect on the insomnia-inducing neurons. Interfering with that connection enabled mice to sleep peacefully even after being exposed to a stressful situation, whereas artificial simulation of the stress-sensitive cells instantly roused slumbering animals. "It seems like it's a pretty sensitive switch, in that even very weak stimulation of the circuit can drive insomnia," says Borniger.

The same connection, they found, also has a potent effect on the immune system. Stress significantly disrupts the abundance of certain immune cells in the blood, as well signaling pathways inside them, and the team was able to recreate these changes simply by stimulating the same neurons that link stress to insomnia.

Understanding this circuitry opens the door to a deeper understanding of the consequences of stress, not just in healthy individuals but also in disease, Borniger says:

"I'm really interested in how we can manipulate distinct circuits in the brain to control not just the immune system at baseline, but in disease states like inflammatory bowel disease or in cancer or in psoriasis--things that are associated with systemic inflammation. Because if we can understand and manipulate the immune system using the natural circuitry in the body rather than using a drug that hits certain targets within the system, I think that would be much more effective in the long run, because it just co-opts the natural circuits in the body."

HOUSTON - (Sept. 9, 2020) - National parks are safe havens for endangered and threatened species, but an analysis by Rice University data scientists finds parks and protected areas can preserve more than species.

In a study published online this week in the journal Biotropica, Rice ecologists and data scientists Daniel Gorczynski and Lydia Beaudrot used thousands of camera trap photos to assess the large mammal diversity in the protected rainforest of Costa Rica's Braulio Carrillo National Park.

In wildlife conservation, diversity often refers to the variety of species in an ecosystem. But ecologists also study functional diversity, the abundance and variation of traits like body size, diet and reproductive rate. Trait diversity can be measured independent of species diversity and provide additional insight about the overall health of an ecosystem.

In the study, Gorczynski and Beaudrot analyzed more than 4,200 photos of mammals taken in the park between 2007 and 2014 and found the diversity of mammal traits within the park did not decline, despite deforestation that fragmented the forests on more than half of the surrounding private lands.

"It is a bit of a surprise," said Gorczynski, a Ph.D. student in Rice's Department of Biosciences. "Previous studies in other places have shown that trait diversity is more sensitive to human disturbance than species diversity. Trait diversity can decline more quickly than species diversity, both in cases where species go extinct and where they don't."

There were no mammal extinctions in Braulio Carrillo during the eight years of the study, and Beaudrot, an assistant professor of biosciences at Rice, said the trait analysis revealed a level of functional redundancy that could allow the park's ecosystem to continue functioning even if some of its mammals go extinct in the future.

"It's well-established that national parks preserve species, and our results show national parks can be more resilient than expected, at least over the time period we examined," she said.

Beaudrot said the results are encouraging, but she said it would be a mistake to assume that all national parks are as resilient as Braulio Carrillo.

"This shows what's possible, but the situation could be very different at other parks or over longer time periods," she said. "We need comparable studies for other parks, other protected areas and nonprotected areas.

"This is an area where data science can make a difference," she said. "Some of the data needed to make those comparisons are already available."

There they were, in all their weird quantum glory: ultracold lithium atoms in the optical trap operated by UC Santa Barbara undergraduate student Alec Cao and his colleagues in David Weld's atomic physics group. Held by lasers in a regular, lattice formation and "driven" by pulses of energy, these atoms were doing crazy things.

"It was a bit bizarre," Weld said. "Atoms would get pumped in one direction. Sometimes they would get pumped in another direction. Sometimes they would tear apart and make these structures that looked like DNA."

These new and unexpected behaviors were the results of an experiment conducted by Cao, Weld and colleagues to push the boundaries of our knowledge of the quantum world. The outcomes? New directions in the field of dynamical quantum engineering, and a tantalizing path toward a link between classical and quantum physics.

Their research is published in the journal Physical Review Research.

"A lot of funny things happen when you shake a quantum system," said Weld, whose lab creates "artificial solids" -- low-dimensional lattices of light and ultracold atoms -- to simulate the behavior of quantum mechanical particles in more densely packed true solids when subjected to driving forces. The recent experiments were the latest in a line of reasoning that stretches back to 1929, when physicist and Nobel Laureate Felix Bloch first predicted that within the confines of a periodic quantum structure, a quantum particle under a constant force will oscillate.

"They actually slosh back and forth, which is a consequence of the wave nature of matter," Weld said. While these position-space Bloch oscillations were predicted almost a century ago, they were directly observed only relatively recently; in fact Weld's group was the first to see them in 2018, with a method that made these often rapid, infinitesimal sloshings large and slow, and easy to see.

A decade ago, other experiments added a time dependency to the Bloch oscillating system by subjecting it to an additional, periodic force, and found even more intense activity. Oscillations on top of oscillations -- super Bloch oscillations -- were discovered.

For this study, the researchers took the system another step further, by modifying the space in which these atoms interact.

"We're actually changing the lattice," said Weld, by way of varying laser intensities and external magnetic forces that not only added a time dependency but also curved the lattice, creating an inhomogenous force field. Their method of creating large, slow oscillations, he added, "gave us the opportunity to look at what happens when you have a Bloch oscillating system in an inhomogenous environment."

This is when things got weird. The atoms shot back and forth, sometimes spreading apart, other times creating patterns in response to the pulses of energy pushing on the lattice in various ways.

"We could follow their progress with numerics if we worked hard at it," Weld said. "But it was a little bit hard to understand why they do one thing and not the other."

It was insight from Cao, the paper's lead author, that led to a way of deciphering the strange behavior.

"When we investigated the dynamics for all times at once, we just saw a mess because there was no underlying symmetry, making the physics challenging to interpret," said Cao, who is beginning his fourth year at UCSB's College of Creative Studies.

To draw out the symmetry, the researchers simplified this seemingly chaotic behavior by eliminating a dimension (in this case, time) by utilizing a mathematical technique initially developed to observe classical nonlinear dynamics called a Poincaré section.

"In our experiment, a time interval is set by how we periodically modify the lattice in time," Cao said. "When we chucked out all the 'in-between' times and looked at the behavior once every period, structure and beauty emerged in the shapes of the trajectories because we were properly respecting the symmetry of the physical system." Observing the system only at periods based on this time interval yielded something like a stop-motion representation of these atoms' complicated yet cyclical movements.

"What Alec figured is that these paths -- these Poincaré orbits -- tell us exactly why in some regimes of driving the atoms get pumped, while in other regimes of driving the atoms spread out and break up the wave function," Weld added. One direction the researchers could take from here, he said, is to use this knowledge to engineer quantum systems to have new behaviors through driving, with applications in burgeoning fields such as topological quantum computing.

"But another direction we can take is looking at whether we can study the emergence of quantum chaos as we start to do things like add interactions to a driven system like this," Weld said.

It's no small feat. Physicists for decades have been trying to find links between classical and quantum physics -- a common math that might explain concepts in one field that seem to have no analog in the other, such as classical chaos, the language for which does not exist in quantum mechanics.

"You've probably heard of the butterfly effect -- a butterfly flapping its wings in the Caribbean can cause a typhoon somewhere across the world," said Weld. "That's actually a feature of classical chaotic systems, which have a sensitive dependence on initial conditions. That feature is actually very hard to reproduce in quantum systems -- it's puzzling to come up with the same explanation in quantum systems. So this is maybe a small piece of that body of research."

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed a new compact and ultrafast, high-power yellow laser. The tunable laser exhibits excellent beam quality and helps fill the need for a practical yellow light source emitting ultrafast pulses of light.

"The yellow-orange spectral range is highly absorbed by hemoglobin in the blood, making lasers with these wavelengths particularly useful for biomedical applications, dermatology treatments and eye surgery," said research team member Anirban Ghosh from the Photonic Sciences Lab at the Physical Research Laboratory in India. "A femtosecond, tunable yellow laser source might one day offer medical treatments that produce less thermal damage and are more selective."

In The Optical Society (OSA) journal Optics Letters, researchers led by Goutam K. Samanta describe how they used an optical phenomenon known as nonlinear frequency conversion to convert mid-infrared laser light into yellow light that can be tuned from 570 nm to 596 nm.

"We demonstrate a robust, high-power, ultrafast, tunable yellow radiation in a rather simple experimental configuration," said Ghosh. "In addition to biomedical applications, this is a sought-after wavelength range for full-color video projection and could be used for a variety of spectral applications."

Building a better yellow laser

Although studies have shown that laser emitting in the yellow spectral range are optimal for various medical treatments, such wavelengths are usually created using bulky and inefficient copper vapor lasers, dye lasers and optical parametric oscillators. These sources have been used successfully for various applications, but they suffer from one or more drawbacks such as low average power, lack of good spatial beam profile, limited or no wavelength tunability and broad output pulses.

"Femtosecond lasers are important for many applications because they emit a large number of photons in a short period to provide a very high intensity and extremely high precision without causing any thermal damage," said Ghosh. "However, there is no commercially available femtosecond yellow laser that can provide all the desired parameters needed for the applications that would benefit from this wavelength range."

To address these limitations in a single experimental configuration, the researchers used a recently developed ultrafast solid-state Cr2+:ZnS laser emitting in the mid-infrared range along with a two-stage frequency-doubling process. Frequency doubling an ultrafast laser is not an easy process and requires identifying the right crystal to produce a quality laser output with the desired properties.

"We frequency-doubled the ultrafast mid-infrared laser with a peak wavelength at 2360 nm in two different nonlinear crystals and used simple optical components available in any standard optics laboratory to achieve high power, tunable, ultrafast yellow laser source," said Ghosh. "As a byproduct, our source provides tunable ultrafast near-infrared radiation with substantial average power useful for various fields, including spectroscopy, material processing and imaging."

Tests of the new laser showed that it can provide a maximum output average power over 1 W with 130 femtosecond pulses at a repetition rate of 80 MHz with an outstanding spatial beam profile. The researchers also observed excellent power stability over a long duration.

The researchers plan to further improve the laser's pulse duration, efficiency and compactness. They are also working to optimize the laser so that it can operate at room temperature to make it more practical for long-term use.

A new low-temperature multi-phase process for upgrading lignin bio-oil to hydrocarbons could help expand use of the lignin, which is now largely a waste product left over from the productions of cellulose and bioethanol from trees and other woody plants.

Using a dual catalyst system of superacid and platinum particles, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have shown they can add hydrogen and remove oxygen from lignin bio-oil, making the oil more useful as a fuel and source of chemical feedstocks. The process, based on an unusual hydrogen cycle, can be done at low temperature and ambient pressure, improving the practicality of the upgrade and reducing the energy input needed.

"From an environmental and sustainability standpoint, people want to use oil produced from biomass," said Yulin Deng, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Renewable Bioproducts Institute. "The worldwide lignin production from paper and bioethanol manufacturing is 50 million tons annually, and more than 95% of that is simply burned to generate heat. My lab is looking for practical methods to upgrade low molecular weight lignin compounds to make them commercially viable as high-quality biofuel and biochemicals."

The process was described September 7 in the journal Nature Energy. The research was supported by the Renewable Bioproducts Institute at Georgia Tech.

Cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin are extracted from trees, grasses and other biomass materials. The cellulose is used to make paper, ethanol and other products, but the lignin - a complex material that gives strength to the plants - is largely unused because it's difficult to break down into low-viscosity oils that could serve as the starting point for kerosene or diesel fuel.

Pyrolysis techniques done at temperatures over 400 degrees Celsius can be used to create bio-oils such as phenols from the lignin, but the oils lack sufficient hydrogen and contain too many oxygen atoms to be useful as fuels. The current approach to addressing that challenge involves adding hydrogen and removing oxygen through a catalytic process known as hydrodeoxygenation. But that process now requires high temperatures and pressures ten times higher than ambient, and it produces char and tar that quickly reduce the efficiency of the platinum catalyst.

Deng and colleagues set out to develop a new solution-based process that would add hydrogen and remove the oxygen from the oil monomers using a hydrogen buffer catalytic system. Because hydrogen has very limited solubility in water, the hydrogenation or hydrodeoxygenation reaction of lignin biofuel in solution is very difficult. Deng's group used polyoxometalate acid (SiW12) as both a hydrogen transfer agent and reaction catalyst which helps transferring hydrogen gas from the gas-liquid interphase into the bulk solution through a reversible hydrogen extraction. The process then released hydrogen as an active species H* at a platinum-on-carbon nanoparticle surface, which solved the key issue of low solubility of hydrogen in water at low pressure.

"On the platinum, the polyoxometalate acid captures the charge from the hydrogen to form H+ which is soluble in water but the charges can be reversibly transferred back to H+ to form active H* inside the solution," Deng said. As an apparent result, hydrogen gas is transferred to water phase to form active H* which can directly react with lignin oil inside the solution.

In the second part of the unusual hydrogen cycle, the polyoxometalate acid sets the stage for removing oxygen from the bio-oil monomers.

"The super-acid can reduce the activation energy required for removing the oxygen, and at the same time, you have more active hydrogen H* in the solution, which reacts on the molecules of oil," Deng said. "In the solution there is a quick reaction with active hydrogen atom H* and lignin oil on the surface of the catalyst. The reversible reaction of hydrogen with polyoxometalate to form H+ and then to hydrogen atom H* on platinum catalyst surface is a unique reversible cycle."

The platinum particles and polyoxometalate acid can be reused for multiple cycles without reducing the efficiency. The researchers also found that the efficiency of hydrogenation and hydrodeoxygenation of lignin oil varied depending on the specific monomers in the oil.

"We tested 15 or 20 different molecules that were produced by pyrolysis and found that the conversion efficiency ranged from 50 percent on the lower end to 99 percent on the higher end," Deng said. "We did not compare the energy input cost, but the conversion efficiency was at least ten times better than what has been reported under similar low temperature, low hydrogen pressure conditions."

Operating at lower temperatures - below 100 degrees Celsius - reduced the problem of char and tar formation on the platinum catalyst. Deng and his colleagues found that they could use the same platinum at least ten times without deterioration of the catalytic activity.

Among the challenges ahead are improving the product selectivity by using different metal catalyst system, and developing new techniques for separation and purification of the different lignin biochemicals in the solution. Platinum is expensive and in high demand for other applications, so finding a lower-cost catalyst could boost the overall practicality of the process - and perhaps make it more selective.

While helping meet the demand for bio-based oils, the new technique could also benefit the forest products, paper and bioethanol industries by providing a potential revenue stream for lignin, which is often just burned to produce heat.

"The global lignin market size was estimated at $954.5 million in 2019, which is only a very small portion of the lignin that is produced globally. Clearly, the industry wants to find more applications for it by converting the lignin to chemicals or bio-oils," Deng said. "There would also be an environmental benefit from using this material in better ways."