Earth

What The Study Did: In a study of 27,000 nursing home residents in Canada with advanced dementia who died, researchers describe differences between men and women in receiving burdensome interventions in the last 30 days of life (including invasive procedures and physical restraints) and antibiotic therapy.

Authors: Paula A. Rochon, M.D., M.P.H., of the Women's College Hospital in Toronto, is the corresponding author.

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.9557)

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

Cancer does not affect men and women equally, but we know little about the molecular causes underlying this difference. Published in Science Advances, a study by the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) involving the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, has identified possible regulators that determine differences in tumours between sexes.

"We have identified possible regulators responsible for tumour differences between male and female flies," says ICREA researcher Cayetano González, head of the Laboratory of Cell Division at IRB Barcelona. "The results also show that these genes could be potential targets to neutralize their degree of malignancy," adds the researcher.

Epidemiological studies have shown that there are notable differences in the degree of incidence and survival of cancer between men and women, even in tumours not related to reproductive organs. This is the case, for example, in certain types of brain tumour, and also in the case of children in which the influence of risk habits can be ruled out.

González and his team compared the development of experimental tumours induced in the brains of male and female vinegar flies. They observed that the former tumours were more aggressive and identified numerous proteins whose expression was markedly higher in tumour cells of male flies compared to females.

"Many of the possible regulators of sex-dependent differences in tumours that we have identified in our Drosophila model are highly conserved proteins that are also found in humans," says González.

Among the proteins identified in this study, the researchers focused on the so-called Phf7, which is also found in humans. Phf7 is present in tumour cells in males, which show more aggressiveness, and absent in tumour cells in females. They found that by removing this protein in male flies, the aggressiveness of the tumours was markedly reduced, reaching levels similar to those present in female flies.

"Our results show that the proteins responsible for the differences in tumours between males and females can be regulated to reduce the degree of malignancy that is associated with the sex of the individual affected," explains Cristina Molnar, postdoctoral researcher at IRB Barcelona and first author of the study.

"Understanding the molecular basis responsible for the sex-related differences in the incidence and development of cancer may allow us to find specific treatments for men and women," González adds.

This study was carried out in the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster, an experimental model that been used for research purposes for more than a hundred years and that has allowed the discovery of many of the proteins that are of great relevance in human cancer. In recent decades, experimental models of various types of human cancer, such as leukaemia, neuroblastoma, glioblastoma and ovarian cancer, among others, have been developed in this animal model.

WASHINGTON (Aug. 16, 2019) -- The extracellular regulated kinase (ERK) protein is an important mechanism behind platinum-resistance in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, according to a study from a research team at the George Washington University (GW) Cancer Center. The study, which is the first to provide clinical evidence confirming a link between ERK and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF-1α), is published in Clinical Cancer Research.

Platinum-based chemotherapy drugs, are among the strongest and most widely used against cancer. Up to 80% of ovarian cancer patients develop platinum-resistance over the course of their treatment. Studies have found that HIF-1α -- a subunit of HIF-1, a heterodimeric transcription factor that regulates multiple cellular pathways -- is an important mechanism governing platinum resistance. However, the mechanism regulating HIF-1α stability in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer was largely unknown.

"Platinum-based chemotherapy is such a powerful treatment for cancer patients, however so many develop a resistance," said Wenge Zhu, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences and senior author on the study. "We wanted to figure out how that resistance happens for the cancer cells."

The research team evaluated a combination of inhibitors of HIF-1α, ERK, and TGF-β1 with platinum drugs by in vitro and in vivo experiments. They found prolyl hydroxylase domain-containing protein 2 (PHD2) to be an underlying layer of ERK. Zhu and his team observed that from clinical samples the activation of the ERK/PHD2/HIF-1α axis in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer patients, correlated highly with poor prognoses for patients.

"We found that HIF-1α stabilization is regulated by the TGF-β1/ERK/PHD2 axis in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer cell," Zhu said. "Now we can consider inhibiting any of those components as a potential strategy for treating platinum-resistant patients."

This study also provides insight for further investigation into whether this novel mechanism regulates the development of tumors and future chemotherapy response.

The plant and animal kingdoms are rich in odours that function as key communication modules. Specifically, the interactions between plants and insects come with a plethora of odour exchanges. While some scents help attract pollinators, others act as defence signals. The latter chemicals are typically used to protect against insects that infest plants.

Have the herbivores learnt to, "smell" these chemicals and counteract? This is a question that has kept researchers at the Chemical Ecology lab at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR) busy for some time now. A recent study led by Dr Radhika Venkatesan has identified that herbivores are capable of decoding the scent of a plant and using these cues to augment their immunity. These findings have been published in the Journal of Chemical Ecology, with the striking image grabbing the journal's cover page.

Plants, when attacked by herbivores, are known to release chemicals as an indirect defence mechanism and also as a warning signal to neighbouring individuals. These chemicals are highly volatile, and therefore known as herbivore-induced plant volatiles. One of the important functions of these volatile chemicals is to recruit bodyguards or natural enemies of herbivores that can help eliminate the insect from the plant. For example, parasitoid wasps that are attracted by certain plant volatiles parasitise the herbivore larvae and ultimately kill them. This "tri-trophic" interaction, mediated by volatile chemicals, brings together the plant, attacking herbivore, and the parasitoid plant protector.

Researchers at NCBS pursued a unique angle in this tri-trophic relationship, by asking if herbivores could sense these plant volatiles and prepare themselves for an impending attack by the plant bodyguards (parasitoids).

"We felt that if the volatiles can attract the parasitoids, then being in the nearest vicinity, herbivores should also be able to perceive them and react," says Enakshi Ghosh, recollecting her entry into this project.

For her investigations, Ghosh, used the common cutworm - a voracious pest of more than 120 agricultural plants as a study system. In the laboratory, she reared the cutworm larvae on castor bean plants and tested to see if they larvae reacted to various plant volatile encounters. Specifically, she wanted to find out if exposure to plant volatiles triggered an immune response in the cutworm larvae. For this, she looked at the insect immune cells (hemocytes), whose numbers are known to increase during an immune reaction.

Interestingly, three out of the six plant volatiles tested showed an increase in hemocytes of the cutworm larvae - a clear sign of immune response. Among the volatiles tested, (E)-β-ocimene, a herbivore-induced plant volatile known to attract parasitoids seemed to trigger the maximum immune response.

Next, Ghosh wanted to test to see if this heightened immune reaction also translated to protection from parasitoid attacks. Indeed, adult female parasitoid wasps that normally laid eggs on the larvae (and eventually killing them), seemed to avoid this egg-laying behaviour when they encountered larvae exposed to (E)-β-ocimene. Similarly, larvae exposed to plant volatiles survived an attack by the bacteria, Bacillus thuringenesis, far better than those without prior exposure to the scent.

This immunity, however, comes with a catch. Just like humans have several immune cells (B cells and T cells); insects also have a variety of immune cells, each performing a different function. The study found that only an increase in a specific combination of these insect hemocytes could help the larvae counteract the parasitoid attacks.

These findings convinced the authors that the herbivorous caterpillar could indeed decode this scent of the plant, which was previously thought of as a secret communication route between the plants and their bodyguard parasitoids. In fact, the insect larvae were using these plant volatile cues to pump up their immune response in anticipation of a parasitoid attack.

"This whole part of, "cue-based priming" was a big surprise. It will be interesting to see if this phenomenon exists in all herbivores or if it is specific to our insect model. Further, can parasitoids modulate themselves to improve their success against the herbivores?" These are the ideas and questions Dr Venkatesan's team is gearing up to answer in the near future.

A new study from the University of Helsinki using miniaturized satellite-based tags revealed that during drier periods desert bats must fly further and longer to fulfil their nightly needs. According to researchers this signals their struggle in facing dry periods.

Wildlife tracking has revolutionized the study of animal movement and their behavior. Yet, tracking small, flying animals such as desert bats remained challenging. Now a new generation of miniaturized satellite-based tags is allowing unique insights into the life of these mysterious mammals.

Researchers used 1 g GPS devices to reconstruct the movements of yellow-winged bats, one of two false vampire bats occurring in Africa and one of the few desert bats large enough to carrying this innovative technology. "GPS tags have seen up to now a limited use with insectivorous bats due to weight constraints and low success in data collection - we achieved great results in tracking such a light species", says Irene Conenna, a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki and the lead author of the study.

Future under the changing climate?

"Bats are some of the most successful desert mammals. Powered flight allows them to efficiently track scarce resources and their nocturnal lifestyle buffers them from the baking sun. However, they still struggle to find enough resources during the drier periods of the year", says Ricardo Rocha, one of the co-authors of the paper.

The study was conducted in Sibiloi National Park, Northern Kenya, along the shores of Lake Turkana, the world's largest desert lake. Researchers placed GPS loggers in 29 bats, 15 in the rainy season and 14 in the dry and, for one week. Their whereabouts were recorded every 30 to 60 minutes every night. This revealed that during dry periods bats used larger home ranges and had extended activity periods, potentially to compensate for a shortage in food resources.

Bats comprise roughly one fifth of all mammal species and deserts are home to over 150 bat species. They display wide variation in morphology, foraging behavior, and habitat use, making them an excellent indicator group for assessing how species respond to changes in their habitats. "The responses exhibited by bats offer important insights into the responses of other taxonomic groups", explains Conenna. "These new miniaturized satellite-based tags now allow us to better understand how increased aridity affects bats foraging efficiency, leading us one step forward to understanding limits in aridity tolerance and impacts of climate change", adds Conenna.

Deserts around the world are getting warmer and as they warm desert creatures need to cope with even harsher conditions. "Understanding how animals cope with seasonal changes is key to understand how they might react to the challenges in the horizon. New technological devices, such as miniaturized satellite-based loggers, go a long way to help us in this task.", adds Mar Cabeza, senior author of the study, University of Helsinki.

Scientists have found how to relieve a bottleneck in the process by which plants transform sunlight into food, which may lead to an increase in crop production. They discovered that producing more of a protein that controls the rate in which electrons flow during photosynthesis, accelerates the whole process.

"We tested the effect of increasing the production of the Rieske FeS protein, and found it increases photosynthesis by 10 percent," said lead researcher Dr Maria Ermakova from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (CoETP).

"The Rieske FeS protein belongs to a complex which is like a hose through which electrons flow, so the energy can be used by the carbon engine of the plant. By overexpressing this protein, we have discovered how to release the pressure of the hose, so more electrons can flow, accelerating the photosynthetic process," said Dr Ermakova, who works at The Australian National University (ANU) Centre Node.

Dr Ermakova, the lead author of the paper published this week in the journal Communications Biology, said that this is the first time that scientists have generated more of the Rieske FeS protein inside plants that use the C4 photosynthesis pathway.

Until now, the majority of efforts to improve photosynthesis have been done in species that use C3 photosynthesis, such as wheat and rice, but not a lot has been done in enhancing C4 photosynthesis.

This is despite the fact that C4 crop species-- like maize and sorghum--play a key role in world agriculture, and are already some of the most productive crops in the world.

"These results demonstrate that changing the rate of electron transport enhances photosynthesis in the C4 model species, Setaria viridis, a close relative of maize and sorghum. It is an important proof of concept that helps us enormously to understand more about how C4 photosynthesis works," said CoETP's Deputy Director Professor Susanne von Caemmerer, one of the co-authors of this study.

The Rieske protein is particularly important in environments with high radiance, where C4 plants grow. Previous research has shown that overexpressing the Rieske protein in C3 plants improves photosynthesis, but more research was needed in C4 plants.

"It is really exciting, as we are now ready to transform this into sorghum and test the effect it has on biomass in a food crop," Professor von Caemmerer says.

The research is the result of an international collaboration with researchers from the University of Essex in the UK, who are part of the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) project.

"This is a great example that we need international collaborations to solve the complex challenges faced in trying to improve crop production," said University of Essex researcher Patricia Lopez-Calcagno, who was involved in producing some of the essential genetic components for the plant transformation.

"In the last 30 years, we have learnt a lot about how C4 plants work by making them worse--by breaking them as part of the process of discovery. However, this is the first example in which we have actually improved the plants," says Professor Robert Furbank, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis and one of the authors of the study.

"Our next steps are to assemble the whole protein FeS complex, which has many other components. There is a lot more to do and lots of things about this protein complex we still don't understand. We have reached 10 percent enhancement by overexpressing the Rieske FeS component, but we know we can do better than that," says Professor Furbank.

"Soft tissue damage associated with the bit is a common concern in the equine world, but no prior studies on the topic have been carried out among trotters in Finland. This is why we surveyed the oral health of trotters after a race as part of a welfare project coordinated by Suomen Hippos, the Finnish trotting and breeding association," says veterinarian Kati Tuomola, a doctoral student at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland.

A total of 261 randomly chosen horses between 3 and 15 years of age were examined for the purposes of the study. The horses took part in 115 races in 10 different meetings at four tracks in western Finland. Of the total, 78 were Finnhorses, an indigenous coldblood breed, while 151 were warmbloods and 32 ponies. Each horse was only examined once in the study. Of the 261 horses examined, 84% had injuries in the bit area. According to the classification used in the study, 21% of the horses had mild lesions, 43% moderate lesions and 20% severe lesions.

Blood-tinged saliva was observed in 2% of the horses outside the mouth, in addition to which 5% had blood on their bit. Blood-tinged saliva is an indicator routinely monitored by veterinarians at trotting meetings.

The Finnish trotting and breeding association Suomen Hippos instructs that should blood be observed before a race, the horse must be examined and, when necessary, removed from the competition. If blood is observed after a race, the horse is to be examined and a temporary suspension as well as a veterinary examination can be imposed before registering the horse for future meetings is allowed.

"Oral examinations require a headlamp and nimble hands, but other than that the procedure is fairly easy. Examining the mouth only takes a couple of minutes, something that could be done by the horse's caretaker or trainer as part of their weekly care routines," Tuomola says.

"Our findings are in line with a handful of previously completed studies. However, comparisons are difficult without the establishment of a standardised system of classification for injuries. This is why we hope that the system developed by Kati Tuomola in this study, which is suited for use in the field, will make it easier to conduct comparative research," says Professor Anna Valros from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. 

Careful evaluation and selection of datasets for scientific research are essential, particularly for poorly observed regions such as Central Asia. The ERA5, the new generation reanalysis of European Centre for Medium?Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), is the most reliable in revealing the spatiotemporal characteristics of precipitable water vapor (PWV) in Central Asia, compared with other reanalysis datasets, according to a recent study published in Earth and Space Science.

The study specifically focuses on Central Asia, a vast semi-arid to arid region, as it has been suffering severe water shortages in the recent half century, impacting the sustainable development of society. As a basic component of the water cycle, atmospheric water vapor plays an important role in the climate system and water resources. Understanding the spatiotemporal variations of atmospheric water vapor is essential for the understanding of the water cycle and management of water resources.

"Station observations are limited in Central Asia due to the sparse spatial distributions and the inhomogeneities of observations," said Jie Jiang of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the paper's first author. "Satellite products and reanalysis datasets are useful complements of in situ observations. However, the reliability and accuracy of these datasets in Central Asia remain unclear."

Scientists evaluated multiple satellite and reanalysis PWV datasets against radiosonde observations in Central Asia. The evaluation showed that two major satellite products, namely, Atmospheric Infrared Sounder-only (AIRS-only) and Atmospheric Infrared Sounder/Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AIRS/AMSU), can reasonably capture the climatological distributions, annual cycle and monthly variations of PWV. Among the eight current state?of?the?art reanalysis datasets, including ECMWF interim reanalysis (ERAIM), the fifth generation ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis (ERA5), National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)1, NCEP2, Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), 55?year modern Japanese Reanalysis Project (JRA55), Modern Era Retrospective?Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), and MERRA version 2 (MERRA2), ERA5 and MERRA2 have better performance in both climatological characteristics and interannual variations, while NCEP1 and NCEP2 perform worse as these products has not assimilated either AIRS or AMSU data.

"There is no 'best' reanalysis dataset, as different datasets have their own strengths and weaknesses in different aspects," commented Prof. Tianjun Zhou, corresponding author on the paper and senior scientist at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Thus, they further constructed a skill-weighted ensemble mean of the reanalysis datasets, based on the different performances of individual datasets. "It is expected to be more reliable in revealing the climatological spatial patterns of PWV, compared with the simple ensemble mean and individual datasets," Zhou added.

The team further studied the physical processes dominating the PWV variations in Central Asia. They found the year-to-year variations in PWV are largely modulated by the local water cycle, followed by the remote forcing from North Atlantic

"This work provides valuable information for future research on water cycle in Central Asia. The use of skill weighting is a new attempt in merging different reanalysis datasets, as the method is generally more often used in multimodel studies," Zhou said.

Berkeley -- Needle pricks not your thing? A team of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, is developing wearable skin sensors that can detect what's in your sweat.

They hope that one day, monitoring perspiration could bypass the need for more invasive procedures like blood draws, and provide real-time updates on health problems such as dehydration or fatigue.

In a paper appearing today (Friday, August 16) in Science Advances, the team describes a new sensor design that can be rapidly manufactured using a "roll-to-roll" processing technique that essentially prints the sensors onto a sheet of plastic like words on a newspaper.

They used the sensors to monitor the sweat rate, and the electrolytes and metabolites in sweat, from volunteers who were exercising, and others who were experiencing chemically induced perspiration.

"The goal of the project is not just to make the sensors but start to do many subject studies and see what sweat tells us -- I always say 'decoding' sweat composition," said Ali Javey, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley and senior author on the paper.

"For that we need sensors that are reliable, reproducible, and that we can fabricate to scale so that we can put multiple sensors in different spots of the body and put them on many subjects," said Javey, who also serves as a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The new sensors contain a spiraling microscopic tube, or microfluidic, that wicks sweat from the skin. By tracking how fast the sweat moves through the microfluidic, the sensors can report how much a person is sweating, or their sweat rate.

The microfluidics are also outfitted with chemical sensors that can detect concentrations of electrolytes like potassium and sodium, and metabolites like glucose.

Javey and his team worked with researchers at the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland to develop a way to quickly manufacture the sensor patches in a roll-to-roll processing technique similar to screen printing.

"Roll-to-roll processing enables high-volume production of disposable patches at low cost," Jussi Hiltunen of VTT said. "Academic groups gain significant benefit from roll-to-roll technology when the number of test devices is not limiting the research. Additionally, up-scaled fabrication demonstrates the potential to apply the sweat-sensing concept in practical applications."

To better understand what sweat can say about the real-time health of the human body, the researchers first placed the sweat sensors on different spots on volunteers' bodies -- including the forehead, forearm, underarm and upper back -- and measured their sweat rates and the sodium and potassium levels in their sweat while they rode on an exercise bike.

They found that local sweat rate could indicate the body's overall liquid loss during exercise, meaning that tracking sweat rate might be a way to give athletes a heads up when they may be pushing themselves too hard.

"Traditionally what people have done is they would collect sweat from the body for a certain amount of time and then analyze it," said Hnin Yin Yin Nyein, a graduate student in materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley and one of the lead authors on the paper. "So you couldn't really see the dynamic changes very well with good resolution. Using these wearable devices we can now continuously collect data from different parts of the body, for example to understand how the local sweat loss can estimate whole-body fluid loss."

They also used the sensors to compare sweat glucose levels and blood glucose levels in healthy and diabetic patients, finding that a single sweat glucose measurement cannot necessarily indicate a person's blood glucose level.

"There's been a lot of hope that non-invasive sweat tests could replace blood-based measurements for diagnosing and monitoring diabetes, but we've shown that there isn't a simple, universal correlation between sweat and blood glucose levels," said Mallika Bariya, a graduate student in materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley and the other lead author on the paper. "This is important for the community to know, so that going forward we focus on investigating individualized or multi-parameter correlations."

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Clinical research funding continues to lag for the U.S. population of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, even though the nation's largest biomedical funding agency has pledged to prioritize research on diverse populations, a new study from Oregon State University shows.

"We looked at how this commitment has translated to funding and we found that things really haven't changed," said Lan Doan, a doctoral candidate in public health at OSU.

"Population projections indicate we are going to be a very diverse America," she said. "But if we don't recognize the diversity with the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations, we're not going to have a good picture of the health outcomes for these groups."

The findings were published recently by JAMA Network Open, the open-access arm of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Co-authors include Yumie Takata, Kari-Lyn Sakuma and Veronica Irvin, all assistant professors in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

The National Institutes of Health is the largest biomedical research funder in the United States and the agency has established that projects focused on diverse populations should be a priority, Doan said. Her work was designed to explore how this commitment has impacted research on Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations.

Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations are the fastest-growing racial/ethnic group in the United States and represent more than 50 countries or cultures of origin. But Asians have often been viewed as a model minority - a stereotype indicating they don't face societal barriers, including health disparities, compared to other minority groups because they are highly educated and wealthy. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations are either combined with Asian Americans or excluded from studies altogether, despite the fact that they are distinct racial/ethnic groups.

Lumping these diverse populations together can hide real differences when it comes to health issues, Doan said. When all Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are lumped together, adult rates of liver cancer are double those of non-Hispanic white adults. But when the data is further broken down, incidence of liver cancer is seven times higher for Laotian men and nine times higher for Laotian women.

Even things like smoking rates can vary widely across groups within the larger population. Social differences, such as how and why a population first moved to the U.S. in large numbers, also can influence health, the researchers said.

That's why funding for projects that break down racial and ethnic data beyond the broad categories is so important, the researchers said. Funding for projects that look more deeply at issues facing specific Asian American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander populations is also key.

Doan reviewed 529 clinical research projects funded by the NIH between 1992 and 2018, focusing on those that included Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander participants. She found that those studies made up only 0.17% of the NIH budget. Prior to 2000, those projects made up 0.12% of the NIH budget, and after 2000, 0.18%.

The findings indicate that change is needed on multiple levels, Doan said. More studies that focus on specific populations and more studies that include more specific data about the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations are needed.

"There are ethnic and cultural groups that need more tailored health interventions," Doan said. "Public health is not one size fits all."

Also needed is better access to existing data collected by researchers but not included in studies because the numbers are small and hard to draw conclusions from, said Irvin. Researchers also could do more to recruit Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander participants, she said.

"We need to raise awareness among researchers and funders that Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander health is important and there are health concerns that can be addressed," Irvin said.

NASA's Aqua satellite provided forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center with infrared data and cloud top temperature information for Tropical Storm Krosa as it was making landfall in southern Japan.

Cloud top temperatures provide information to forecasters about where the strongest storms are located within a tropical cyclone. The stronger the storms, the higher they extend into the troposphere, and they have the colder cloud temperatures. NASA's Aqua satellite took Tropical Storm Krosa's cloud top temperatures to get that information and found the strongest storms south of the storm's center.

NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed the storm on Aug. 15, at 12:05 a.m. EDT (0405 UTC) using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument. AIRS found coldest cloud top temperatures as cold as or colder than minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius) south of the center and over the waters of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.. Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms that have the capability to create heavy rain.

Over the next 10 hours, the center of Krosa crossed southern Japan and emerged into the Sea of Japan. By 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), satellite imagery showed the system continued to erode and unravel as It exited into the Sea of Japan.

At 11 a.m. EDT (01500 UTC) on Tropical storm Krosa was centered near 25.9 degrees north latitude and 133.1 degrees east longitude. That's about 108 miles north-northeast of Iwakuni, Japan. It was moving to the northeast and had maximum sustained winds 40 knots (46 mph/74 kph).

Krosa is moving to the northeast through the Sea of Japan. The storm is forecast to become extra-tropical within 24 hours.

Energy use in buildings--from heating and cooling your home to keeping the lights on in the office--is responsible for over one-third of all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States. Slashing building CO2 emissions 80% by 2050 would therefore contribute significantly to combatting climate change. A new model developed by researchers at two U.S. national laboratories suggests that reaching this target will require the installation of highly energy-efficient building technologies, new operational approaches, and electrification of building systems that consume fossil fuels directly, alongside increases in the share of electricity generated from renewable energy sources. Their work appears August 15 in the journal Joule.

"Buildings are a substantial lever to pull in trying to reduce total national CO2 emissions since they are responsible for 36% of all energy-related emissions in the U.S.," says Jared Langevin, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and lead author of the study. "Because the buildings sector uses energy in a multitude of ways and is responsible for such a large share of electricity demand, buildings can help accelerate the cost-effective integration of clean electricity sources on top of contributing direct emissions reductions through reduced energy use."

To estimate the magnitude of possible CO2 emissions reductions from the U.S. buildings sector over several decades, the researchers considered three types of efficiency measures--technologies with higher energy performance than typical alternatives, such as dynamic windows and air sealing of walls, sensing and control strategies that improve the efficiency of building operations, and conversion of fuel-fired heating and water heating equipment to comparable systems that can run on electricity. They also considered how parallel incorporation of renewable energy sources into the electric grid would shift emissions reduction estimates from each building efficiency measure and the buildings sector as a whole.

"While building CO2 emissions are quite sensitive to the greenhouse gas intensity of the electricity supply, measures that improve the efficiency of energy demand from buildings need to be part of the solution," Langevin says. "Getting close to the 80% emissions reduction target requires concurrent reductions in building energy demand, electrification of this demand, and substantial penetration of renewable sources of electricity--nearly half of annual electricity generation by 2050. Moreover, buildings can support the cost-effective integration of variable renewable sources by offering flexibility in their operational patterns in response to electric grid needs."

Examining results for specific efficiency measures, the researchers identified two particularly promising avenues for reducing emissions. The first involves energy-saving retrofits and upgrades to walls, windows, roofs, and insulation--the so-called building "envelope"--approaches that can also boost living and working comfort for building occupants. The second focuses on smart software that is capable of optimizing when, where, and to what degree energy-intensive building heating, cooling, lighting, and ventilation services should be provided.

The researchers stress that bringing these strategies and emissions benefits to fruition is contingent upon complementary action by policymakers, manufacturers and vendors, building service professionals, and consumers. "Regulations and incentives that support the sale of more efficient, less carbon-intensive technology options, early-stage research and development that drives breakthroughs in technology performance, aggressive marketing of those technologies once developed, training for local contractors charged with technology installation, and consumer willingness to consider purchasing newer options on the market are all needed to achieve the 80% emissions reduction goal by 2050," says Langevin.

To promote the transparency and repeatability of their analysis, the researchers have published their efficiency measures and results data, all generated using Scout, a model that is annually updated to reflect key changes in the building energy use and electricity supply landscapes. "We look forward to periodically revisiting this analysis to reassess where emissions from the buildings sector stand relative to the 2050 target, under both business-as-usual and more optimistic scenarios of efficient technology adoption and renewable electricity supply," Langevin says.

Faster rates of climate change could be increasing the diversity of plant species in many places, according to research from the University of York.

Researchers have discovered that the numbers of plant species recorded by botanists have increased in locations where the climate has changed most rapidly, and especially in relatively cold parts of the world.

Human activity has been responsible for substantial declines in biodiversity at the global level, to such an extent that there are calls to describe the modern epoch as 'The Anthropocene'.

But although the total number of plant species on the planet may be in decline, the average number of plant species found locally - the so-called local or alpha diversity of a site - seems to be stable, or even increasing in places.

Scientists at the University of York think that the 'disruption' of these local plant communities by rapid climate change, especially changes in rainfall, may be allowing new species in and fuelling these local diversity increases.

Lead author, Dr Andrew Suggitt from the University of York's Department of Biology, said: "We used a large dataset of over 200 studies in which botanists had counted the number of plant species present in survey plots situated all around the world.

"We tested for the influence of climate change alongside other well-known drivers of diversity change, finding that the local differences in climate, and exposure to climate change, were responsible for a substantial part of the change in plant species numbers found in these surveys".

"Our models suggest that typical rates of climate change in cooler regions of the world are driving an increase in local species richness of 5% per decade.

This is really quite a large number if it continues for 13 decades or more, given that humans have already been changing the climate for over half a century, and climate change is set to continue until the year 2100, at least. What we are observing has substantial implications for future ecosystems".

Co-author Professor Chris Thomas added: "This does not mean that the botanical world gets a clean bill of health. We are living in 'The Anthropocene' epoch, and some plant species have become globally extinct. Many, many more are endangered.

"However, there is a disconnect between what is happening at that global level and the average change to plant diversity that can be observed in, say, a one metre square plot of ground.

"The effect of climate change may not be as dramatic as a meadow being turned into a car park, or a forest being cut down, but it's a pervasive effect that is already evident over vast areas of the Earth's land surface.

"For example, warmth-loving bee orchids (Ophrys apifera) have started arriving at a much wider variety of sites across the north of England, taking advantage of the changing climate.

"The data we have analysed tells us that colonists are tending to arrive faster than incumbents disappear, giving rise to slight increases in plant diversity in places where the climate is changing the most".

Dr Suggitt added: "The recent global assessment report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services* highlighted worrying declines in plants and animals around the world.

"But it also highlighted the sore need for greater clarity over how climate change is shuffling the deck of plant species found in particular locations - especially in under-sampled areas such as the tropics, Africa and Asia.

"We hope our study opens the door to a fuller understanding of how climate change is affecting plant communities, and what this means for the conservation of nature and its contribution to people".

It has been recognised for a long time that a child's attachment and ability to regulate emotions are built on a reasonably good interaction with their parents. The importance of the quality of interaction is emphasised during the first few years, when the child's brain is still particularly sensitive to the effects of the environment. Sufficient predictability of the environment and interaction is thought to be an important factor in an infant's brain development.

The newly published joint study of the University of Turku, Finland, and the University of California-Irvine, US, used a novel method for analysing interaction between a parent and child. Professor Elysia Poggi Davis from the University of Denver, Professor Tallie Z. Baram from the University of California-Irvine, and their research groups have developed a completely new tool for studying the predictability of parents' interaction signals on a micro level called Estimation of Behavioral Entropy Rate.

- The method is used to objectively calculate how predictable interaction patterns are formed from a parent's single interaction signals. Its development was based on animal studies which showed that the predictability of interaction signals are connected to the development of the offspring's brain, says Professor Poggi Davis.

Predictable interaction has a positive effect on child's self-regulation

The study showed that a higher predictability of the parent's interaction signals in infancy was associated with the child's ability to better control and regulate their own actions and emotions.

- In other words, poorly predictable or intermittent interactions were associated with a poorer self-regulation in the child. The same result was found in both Finnish and Californian data, despite their socio-economic and cultural differences, explains Associate Professor Riikka Korja from the University of Turku.

The study supports the idea that it is important to have peaceful and uninterrupted moments of interaction with infants every day.

- Parents of young children should be provided with all the support they need to reduce stress. The parent's own self-regulation and ability of settling into their infant's early months is tied to their situation in life, adds Korja.

At present, it is especially important to study the unpredictability of the environment and its significance as interaction between the parent and infant is threatened by surprising interruptions, such as pressure of being online all the time and stress factors related to a hectic lifestyle.

A colossal, head-on collision between Jupiter and a still-forming planet in the early solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago, could explain surprising readings from NASA's Juno spacecraft, according to a study this week in the journal Nature.

Astronomers from Rice University and China's Sun Yat-sen University say their head-on impact scenario can explain Juno's previously puzzling gravitational readings, which suggest that Jupiter's core is less dense and more extended that expected.

"This is puzzling," said Rice astronomer and study co-author Andrea Isella. "It suggests that something happened that stirred up the core, and that's where the giant impact comes into play."

Isella said leading theories of planet formation suggest Jupiter began as a dense, rocky or icy planet that later gathered its thick atmosphere from the primordial disk of gas and dust that birthed our sun.

Isella said he was skeptical when study lead author Shang-Fei Liu first suggested the idea that the data could be explained by a giant impact that stirred Jupiter's core, mixing the dense contents of its core with less dense layers above. Liu, a former postdoctoral researcher in Isella's group, is now a member of the faculty at Sun Yat-sen in Zhuhai, China.

"It sounded very unlikely to me," Isella recalled, "like a one-in-a-trillion probability. But Shang-Fei convinced me, by shear calculation, that this was not so improbable."

The research team ran thousands of computer simulations and found that a fast-growing Jupiter can have perturbed the orbits of nearby "planetary embryos," protoplanets that were in the early stages of planet formation.

Liu said the calculations included estimates of the probability of collisions under different scenarios and distribution of impact angles. In all cases, Liu and colleagues found there was at least a 40% chance that Jupiter would swallow a planetary embryo within its first few million years. In addition, Jupiter mass-produced "strong gravitational focusing" that made head-on collisions more common than grazing ones.

Isella said the collision scenario became even more compelling after Liu ran 3D computer models that showed how a collision would affect Jupiter's core.

"Because it's dense, and it comes in with a lot of energy, the impactor would be like a bullet that goes through the atmosphere and hits the core head-on," Isella said. "Before impact, you have a very dense core, surrounded by atmosphere. The head-on impact spreads things out, diluting the core."

Impacts at a grazing angle could result in the impacting planet becoming gravitationally trapped and gradually sinking into Jupiter's core, and Liu said smaller planetary embryos about as massive as Earth would disintegrate in Jupiter's thick atmosphere.

"The only scenario that resulted in a core-density profile similar to what Juno measures today is a head-on impact with a planetary embryo about 10 times more massive than Earth," Liu said.

Isella said the calculations suggest that even if this impact happened 4.5 billion years ago, "it could still take many, many billions of years for the heavy material to settle back down into a dense core under the circumstances suggested by the paper."

Isella, who is also a co-investigator on the Rice-based, NASA-funded CLEVER Planets project, said the study's implications reach beyond our solar system.

"There are astronomical observations of stars that might be explained by this kind of event," he said.

"This is still a new field, so the results are far from solid, but as some people have been looking for planets around distant stars, they sometimes see infrared emissions that disappear after a few years," Isella said. "One idea is that if you are looking at a star as two rocky planets collide head-on and shatter, you could create a cloud of dust that absorbs stellar light and reemits it. So, you kind of see a flash, in the sense that now you have this cloud of dust that emits light. And then after some time, the dust dissipates and that emission goes away."

The Juno mission was designed to help scientists better understand Jupiter's origin and evolution. The spacecraft, which launched in 2011, carries instruments to map Jupiter's gravitational and magnetic fields and probe the planet's deep, internal structure.