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Pteropods, or "wing-footed" sea snails and slugs, may be more resilient to acidic oceans than previously thought, scientists report.

By digging into their evolutionary history, the research team found that pteropods are much older than expected and survived past crises when the oceans became warmer and more acidic.

Their findings, published on the 24th September 2020 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), are a surprising turn of events, as these beautiful and enigmatic marine creatures are currently one of the most adversely affected by ocean acidification.

"Pteropods have been infamously called the "canaries in a coal mine" - they act as an early warning signal for increased ocean acidity," said senior author Dr. Ferdinand Marlétaz, who is visiting faculty at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and a former postdoctoral researcher in the OIST Molecular Genetics Unit, led by Pr. Daniel Rokhsar.

Ocean acidification is one of the consequences of human-induced climate change and occurs when increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolve into the ocean, reacting with water to form carbonic acid. Acidic oceans detrimentally impact marine creatures in countless ways, from triggering coral bleaching to preventing marine organisms from building and maintaining their shells and skeletons.

Pteropods are particularly vulnerable due to their aragonite shell, which over time has evolved to be thin and light-weight to suit their planktonic lifestyle. Aragonite is a highly soluble form of calcium carbonate. Dr. Marlétaz explained: "When conditions in the ocean are too acidic, these fragile shells can completely dissolve, and they die. So, pteropods will likely be seriously threatened as oceans acidify."

This is an issue as pteropods play an important role in the ocean's ability to capture carbon as they use carbon dioxide to form their calcium carbonate shell. Pteropods are also commonly found in planktonic communities, so their loss could upset the delicate balance of the food webs in the open ocean.

Many experimental studies are already testing the ability of pteropods to adapt to oceans with higher levels of carbon dioxide, but so far, little is known about their evolutionary history and how they might have responded to global changes in the past.

To uncover their evolutionary history, Dr. Katja Peijnenburg from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the University of Amsterdam, pteropod expert and lead author of the study, collected samples of 21 different pteropod speciesfrom the Atlantic Ocean. The team then used these preserved samples to extract genetic information on 2654 genes. The researchers also included genetic data from three other species of pteropods and three species of sea slugs and snails that were closely related to pteropods.

The scientists analyzed similarities and differences in the protein sequences of the genes shared across the species to construct an evolutionary tree. By calibrating the tree against pteropod fossils of a known date, the researchers could then calculate not only how, but when the main pteropod lineages diverged from a common ancestor to form new species.

"We found that the origin of the pteropods dated back to the early Cretaceous period when the main lineages of sea butterflies and sea angels diverged from each other, with the other main lineages splitting apart in the mid to late Cretaceous. This was much longer ago than previous molecular data had suggested and predates the oldest known fossils," said Dr. Marlétaz.

Importantly, this new date of origin and earlier diversification means that the main groups of currently existing pteropods experienced periods of dramatic environmental change that caused mass extinction.

Unlike the majority of species then present on earth, pteropods survived the asteroid strike at the end of the Cretaceous period around 66 million years ago which infamously wiped out the dinosaurs.

But more importantly, pteropods also overcame the challenges of the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum, a period about 55.5 million years ago where massive amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere caused the earth to warm and the oceans to acidify.

"The Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum was a period of crisis that was very similar to current changes we are seeing today," said Dr. Marlétaz. "These findings offer some hope that over evolutionary timescales, pteropods are able to adapt and acclimatize to changes in ocean temperature and acidity."

However, Dr. Marlétaz also offered a word of caution. He explained that just because pteropods survived previous increases in ocean acidity, does not mean that they are necessarily resilient to the climate crisis occurring today.

"What is striking with the changes we see now is that they are happening at a much more dramatic pace than previous events," he said. "The main groups of pteropods have shown a robustness and ability to adapt over longer timescales, but the quicker the changes, the less chance these creatures have."

A strong, black coffee to wake you up after a bad night's sleep could impair control of blood sugar levels, according to a new study.

Research from the Centre for Nutrition, Exercise & Metabolism at the University of Bath (UK) looked at the effect of broken sleep and morning coffee across a range of different metabolic markers.

Writing in the British Journal of Nutrition the scientists show that whilst one night of poor sleep has limited impact on our metabolism, drinking coffee as a way to perk you up from a slumber can have a negative effect on blood glucose (sugar) control.

Given the importance of keeping our blood sugar levels within a safe range to reduce the risk of conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, they say these results could have 'far-reaching' health implications especially considering the global popularity of coffee.

For their study, the physiologists at the University of Bath asked 29 healthy men and women to undergo three different overnight experiments in a random order:

In one, condition participants had a normal night's sleep and were asked to consume a sugary drink on waking in the morning.

On another occasion, participants experienced a disrupted night's sleep (where the researchers woke them every hour for five minutes) and then upon waking were given the same sugary drink.

On another, participants experienced the same sleep disruption (i.e. being woken throughout the night) but this time were first given a strong black coffee 30 minutes before consuming the sugary drink.

In each of these tests, blood samples from participants were taken following the glucose drink which in energy content (calories) mirrored what might typically be consumed for breakfast.

Their findings highlight that one night of disrupted sleep did not worsen participants' blood glucose / insulin responses at breakfast, when compared to a normal night's sleep. Past research suggests that losing many hours of sleep over one and/or multiple nights can have negative metabolic effects, so it is reassuring to learn that a single night of fragmented sleep (e.g. due to insomnia, noise disturbance or a new baby) does not have the same effect.

However, strong black coffee consumed before breakfast substantially increased the blood glucose response to breakfast by around 50%. Although population-level surveys indicate that coffee may be linked to good health, past research has previously demonstrated that caffeine has the potential to cause insulin resistance. This new study therefore reveals that the common remedy of drinking coffee after a bad night's sleep may solve the problem of feeling sleepy but could create another by limiting your body's ability to tolerate the sugar in your breakfast.

Professor James Betts, Co-Director of the Centre for Nutrition, Exercise and Metabolism at the University of Bath who oversaw the work, explains: "We know that nearly half of us will wake in the morning and, before doing anything else, drink coffee - intuitively the more tired we feel, the stronger the coffee. This study is important and has far-reaching health implications as up until now we have had limited knowledge about what this is doing to our bodies, in particular for our metabolic and blood sugar control.

"Put simply, our blood sugar control is impaired when the first thing our bodies come into contact with is coffee especially after a night of disrupted sleep. We might improve this by eating first and then drinking coffee later if we feel we still feel the need it. Knowing this can have important health benefits for us all."

Lead researcher, Harry Smith from the Department for Health at Bath added: "These results show that one night of disrupted sleep alone did not worsen participants' blood glucose/insulin response to the sugary drink compared to a normal night of sleep which will be reassuring to many of us. However, starting a day after a poor night's sleep with a strong coffee did have a negative effect on glucose metabolism by around 50%.

"As such, individuals should try to balance the potential stimulating benefits of caffeinated coffee in the morning with the potential for higher blood glucose levels and it may be better to consume coffee following breakfast rather than before.

"There is a lot more we need to learn about the effects of sleep on our metabolism, such as how much sleep disruption is necessary to impair our metabolism and what some of the longer-term implications of this are, as well as how exercise, for instance, could help to counter some of this."

This week marks International Coffee Day (1 October) in celebration of the widespread appeal of coffee around the world. Coffee is now the world's most popular drink, with around two billion cups consumed every day. In the US about half of the people in the United States aged 18 and over drink coffee every day, whilst in the UK, according to the British Coffee Association, 80% of households buy instant coffee for in-home consumption.

The cover for issue 39 of Oncotarget features Figure 4, "Apoptosis assay of NRXN1-targeted ADC at IC50 dose calculated by growth inhibition curves," by Yotsumoto, et al. which reported that the authors identified transmembrane proteins overexpressed specifically in SCLC with little or no expression in normal tissues and decided to focus on the cell adhesion molecule neurexin-1.

The cell surface overexpression of NRXN1 was confirmed using flow cytometry in SCLC cell lines.

The combination of a primary anti-NRXN1 monoclonal antibody and a secondary ADC exhibited anti-tumor activity in SCLC cell lines.

Moreover, the knockout of NRXN1 in SHP77 cells resulted in a loss of the anti-tumor activity of NRXN1-mediated ADC therapy.

Thus, NRXN1 could be a novel target for ADC therapy for the treatment of SCLC that is worth further research.

Dr. Daiya Takai from The University of Tokyo Hospital and Dr. Takuma Yotsumoto from The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine said, "Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) accounts for 10–15% of lung cancer, and its prognosis has remained relatively dismal for years."

Figure 4: Apoptosis assay of NRXN1-targeted ADC at IC50 dose calculated by growth inhibition curves. Late apoptotic cells were quantified by Cy7-conjugated annexin-V and PI using flow cytometry. Results were analyzed using a one-way ANOVA followed by the Dunnett multiple comparisons test (*P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.0001 versus no-treatment control group; Dunnett test). Error bars represent the SD of the mean. mAb, monoclonal antibody.

Considering the high sensitivity of SCLC to chemotherapy, the selective delivery of a cytotoxic agent using ADC could be a novel treatment strategy for SCLC.

Five ADCs have been approved by The Food and Drug Administration:

Brentuximab vedotin for Hodgkin lymphoma

Ado-trastuzumab emtansine for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer

Inotuzumab ozogamicin for acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Gemtuzumab ozogamicin for CD33-positive acute myeloid leukemia, and

Trastuzumab deruxtecan for unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer patients who have received two or more prior anti-HER2-based regimens in a metastatic setting.

In SCLC, DLL3, a cell surface Notch ligand that appears to be a direct downstream target of ASCL1, has been identified as a novel target for ADCs.

In this study, the Oncotarget authors aimed to identify novel molecular targets for ADCs in SCLC.

In this study, the Oncotarget authors aimed to identify novel molecular targets for ADCs in SCLC.

They herein report that NRXN1-mediated ADC exhibited anti-tumor activity in vitro, and thus NRXN1 could be a novel target of ADCs for SCLC.

The Takai/Yotsumoto Research Team concluded in their Oncotarget Research Paper "we identified NRXN1 as a new target for ADCs by screening membrane proteins using a computational-biological approach. The combination of the primary anti-NRXN1 monoclonal antibody and the secondary ADC exhibited anti-tumor activity in an NRXN1-expression dependent manner. NRXN1 could be a novel potential target of ADCs for SCLC that is worth further research."

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DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.27718

Full text - https://www.oncotarget.com/article/27718/text/

Correspondence to - Daiya Takai - dtakai-ind@umin.ac.jps and Takuma Yotsumoto - tyotsumoto-ths@umin.ac.jp

Keywords -
antibody-drug conjugates,
small cell lung cancer,
novel molecular targets,
NRXN1,
cell adhesion molecule

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Finding healthier products without harmful chemicals--shampoo free of parabens or fragrance-free deodorant-- is not always easy. It often involves scouring ingredients on individual product labels in search of key words. But is it worth it? New research shows that paying close attention to what's in the products you buy can pay off. In a study led by Silent Spring Institute, researchers found that consumers who avoided products containing specific endocrine disruptors had significantly lower levels of the chemicals in their bodies.

Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that are widely-used in personal care and household products. Scientists are concerned about the public's exposure because the chemicals can interfere with the body's hormones and lead to health problems such as reproductive disorders, thyroid disease, asthma, and cancers.

"That's why expert scientific panels and medical societies recommend that people take steps to limit their exposures to these chemicals," says lead author, Dr. Robin Dodson, an environmental exposure scientist at Silent Spring. "And, with the current pandemic, we see how diseases associated with environmental chemicals also make people more vulnerable to COVID-19--yet another reason to reduce exposures in the population."

To assess the influence of different types of products on people's exposures, Dodson and her team collected urine samples from 726 participants across the United States who signed up to join the Institute's crowdsourced biomonitoring project. Participants mailed in their samples and researchers analyzed the samples for 10 common endocrine disruptors.

Participants also completed an online survey that asked questions about the products they use and whether they avoid ones with specific chemicals listed on the label.

Reporting September 30 in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, the researchers found a large majority of participants (87%) were taking steps to avoid certain chemicals in products, and that overall participants had lower levels of parabens, BPA, triclosan, and benzophone-3 compared with the U.S. population. When the researchers compared participants with each other, they found:

People who avoided products with parabens, triclosan, BPA, and fragrances were twice as likely to be in the group with the lowest body burden for all chemicals combined.

Avoiding certain products and reading ingredient labels was most effective at reducing exposures to parabens, triclosan, and benzophenone-3.

In contrast, people who tried to avoid products containing BPA had levels similar to those who did not avoid the chemical, which suggests there are other sources of BPA that consumers may not be aware of.

"This study not only helped us gain a better understanding of how product choices influence people's exposures to endocrine disruptors, but it also provided us with an opportunity to educate consumers and empower them to make healthier choices," says Dodson.

After their urine samples were analyzed, Silent Spring sent each participant a personalized digital report that compared their levels with the collective data from all participants as well as national data. The interactive report also contained information on the different chemicals, the associated health effects, where they're found, and how to avoid them.

Participants were invited to download Silent Spring's free mobile app Detox Me to learn more about reducing their exposures in their everyday environments, either through the products they choose or through simple changes in their daily behaviors.

However, as Dodson points out, some chemicals are hard to avoid because it's unclear what products they're in. For instance, some of the participants said they either avoided products with parabens or used few products overall, and yet they still had high levels of parabens in their bodies. "What this study shows us is that people can't shop their way out of this problem," she says. "This is about much more than consumer choice."

Although requiring companies to be more transparent about the chemicals in their products through better labeling policies could help people further reduce their exposures, this still puts the onus on consumers. "Ultimately, encouraging companies to invest in safer alternatives and strengthening regulations to keep harmful chemicals out of products in the first place would be the most effective and equitable way to protect public health," says Dodson.

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, brought much-needed attention to the problem of potentially toxic metals being released from drinking water distribution pipes when water chemistry changes. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have investigated how hexavalent chromium, known as Cr(VI), can form in drinking water when corroded cast iron pipes interact with residual disinfectant. Their findings could suggest new strategies to control Cr(VI) formation in the water supply.

The metal chromium, known as Cr(0), is found in cast iron alloy, which is the most widely used plumbing material in water distribution systems. As pipes corrode, a buildup of deposits, known as scale, forms on the pipes' inner walls. Trace chemicals in water can react with scale, forming new compounds that could be released into the water. Some of these compounds contain Cr(VI), which, at high doses, can cause lung cancer, liver damage, reproductive issues and developmental problems. In 2014, California set a drinking water standard of 10 μg/L Cr(VI), but the guideline was later withdrawn because no economically feasible treatment to remove Cr(VI) from tap water existed. Haizhou Liu and colleagues wanted to find out how exactly Cr(VI) makes its way into drinking water, which might reveal new ways to prevent its formation.

The researchers collected two sections of cast iron pipe from two drinking water distribution systems in the U.S.: one from a system using groundwater with naturally high Cr(VI) levels (11-24 μg/L), and the other from a system using surface water with undetectable Cr(VI). The team scraped off scale from the pipes and analyzed its composition. The levels of total Cr were about 18 times higher in the first pipe than in the second. In both pipes, chromium existed in two oxidation states, Cr(0) and Cr(III). When the researchers added a chlorine- or bromine-containing disinfectant to the scale, it quickly reacted with Cr(0), rather than Cr(III) as previously suspected, to form Cr(VI). To help mitigate Cr(VI) levels, adding less-reactive disinfectants to treat drinking water could be explored, and cast iron pipes with chromium alloy should be used with caution, the researchers say.

A new tissue-transport device which was inspired by the egg-laying organs of parasitic wasps could greatly advance the field of minimally invasive surgery (MIS), according to a new study in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. The prototype, developed by researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, could allow MIS techniques to be used in previously hard-to-reach areas of the body and vastly reduce the trauma from surgery, and therefore recovery time, of patients.

The ovipositor is an ultra-thin organ, shaped like a flexible hollow needle, used by parasitic wasps to lay their eggs in trees or live hosts. Inside this delicate organ is a series of tiny blades that join together with a tongue-and-groove mechanism. The blades can slide independently of each other to create friction forces by using their mechanical movement, and it is these friction forces that the researchers used in the implementation of their design.

"The wasp ovipositor is so thin that it can't actually fit any muscles within it, so we knew it was a clever mechanical solution worth studying to see if we could recreate it," explains lead author Dr Aimée Sakes of the Bio-Inspired Technology Group at Delft University of Technology, led by Prof Dr Paul Breedveld.

"The ovipositor-inspired transport system uses friction generated between the blades and the tissues to transport those tissues, in the same way the wasp ovipositor works to transport wasp eggs."

Applying these friction based techniques in the design of new surgery devices may allow researchers to surpass the boundaries faced by current tools, which work by suction. This poses challenges, as suction-based devices lose their efficacy once they are decreased in size past a certain point, making it difficult to limit the tissue damage done in surgery.
Dr Sakes highlights: "We already see challenges arise with current devices, as they often get clogged when removing things like blood clots."

"We also currently can't reach remote locations in the human body or perform surgery in miniature structures, such as parts of the brain, due to the relatively large size of MIS instruments. However, our system could potentially enable the removal of tumorous tissues deep inside the human body through miniature incisions in future," says Dr Sakes.

The main drawback of the newly developed tool is that the speed at which it transports tissues is still substantially slower than current suction-based devices, so further research is still needed before the system is ready to be used in surgery. However, the research offers very promising potential for treating diseases currently not treatable and reachable with existing equipment, especially with a view to further reduction of patient trauma in MIS.

Fences are one of humanity's most frequent landscape alterations, with their combined length exceeding even that of roads by an order of magnitude. Despite their ubiquity, they have received far less research scrutiny than many human-built structures. Writing in BioScience, Alex McInturff, who was at the University of California, Berkeley, at the time of this research, and a global team characterize the current state of fence research and generate a typology to guide future efforts.

The authors argue that fences are a particularly difficult to study feature: "Fences have eluded systematic study for so long for good reason. Fences are both difficult to detect, and, at an even more basic level, difficult to define." For instance, definitions that might distinguish fences from walls are ever shifting. Compounding these challenges, McInturff and colleagues say, is the fact that "invasive species rapidly discover and exploit breaks in fences," and therefore, "even where fences can be mapped, either remotely or via ground surveys, characterizing their intactness or functionality requires a closer, and often infeasible, form of evaluation."

Despite the difficulty in studying these structures, the movement-restricting effects of fences have profound ecosystem consequences. "To put it simply, in a fenced world, there are winners and there are losers," say the authors. Generalist and disturbance specialist species fare well, whereas specialist species often struggle with restricted access to habitat, altered community composition, and changes to the ecosystems on which they depend. As an example of the potential "losers," the authors highlight research indicating that "a planned US-Mexico border fence would dangerously restrict gene flow among desert bighorn sheep, isolating populations across the border."

Despite the clear effects of fences on some species, many other interactions remain unexplored, and surprises abound. For instance, the authors describe an Australian conservation fence erected to protect an enclosed nature reserve. Despite performing its intended role well, the fence "was found to have unintended negative consequences for native reptile populations around the enclosure, especially for eastern longnecked turtles. The fence disrupted turtle movement patterns, isolated populations, and led to high mortality rates."

The authors' review of existing literature sheds light on similar knowledge shortfalls, with fences' effects on nontarget being particularly poorly studied. They found that "64% (285 of 446) of the studies were focused exclusively on the effects of fencing on target species--that is, species for which a fence was built. Only 24% of the studies included both target and nontarget species, and in a mere 12% were nontargeted species studied exclusively."

To better address fences' ecological effects, the authors advocate an increased focus on "fence design and placement and fence construction and removal." Only through such efforts, they say, can the field of fence ecology be well positioned to "provide the science to manage and mitigate one of humankind's most pervasive alterations of our planet."

Scientists at the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center have developed an unusually rich picture of who is eating whom off the Northeastern United States. The findings, published recently in Fish and Fisheries, provide a close look at fish feeding habits for 17 fish species, predators, and their prey.

The predators are divided into 48 predator-size categories, and 14 prey species. Fish predators included Atlantic cod, Atlantic herring, haddock, goosefish, pollock, spiny dogfish, winter flounder, and yellowtail founder among others. Prey species included forage fish, squid, zooplankton, shrimp-like crustaceans, shellfish, brittle stars, sand dollars, and sea urchins.

"We have the largest, continuous dataset of fish feeding habits in the world at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and that enabled us to do a study of this scale and scope," said Brian Smith, a food habits researcher at the center and lead author of the study. "We focused on common and important prey for the many predatory fishes of interest, and hopefully filled in some gaps in information relating prey availability to predation."

Feeding patterns within and among different groups of fishes vary by the size of the fish, the abundance or density of the prey, and other factors. Researchers who study marine ecosystems need to account for this predation in their models. Few studies, however, have looked simultaneously at the feeding patterns among different groups of predatory fish -- fish feeders, plankton feeders, and benthic or bottom feeders. The study also looked at how those groups interact with their prey throughout the water column.

Smith and co-author Laurel Smith tested three models using decades of fisheries data that included diet and prey density. The data were collected on the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf during benthic surveys in the 1950s and 1960s, and during ecosystem sampling surveys beginning in 1973. For this study, the data were used to gain insight into:

The relationship between the amount of prey available in the environment

Consumption rates among multiple prey species

Feeding patterns within and among different groups of fishes that eat similar items.

Among the study findings: most of the fish responded to changing abundance of prey by switching prey, or through a "learning period" when the prey in highest abundance was targeted. That response helps stabilize prey populations, and was prevalent among piscivores (fish eaters). It was often observed for predators with less-specialized feeding habits. Those predators included goosefish and larger sizes of other well-known commercial fishes.

High densities of invertebrate prey, however, revealed decreased feeding by fish that were planktivores and benthivores -- plankton and bottom feeders. For these fish, more food did not translate to more consumption. Researchers found that denser prey may disorient or confuse the planktivores, reducing their feeding on zookplankton. The planktivores include Atlantic herring, Atlantic mackerel, and smaller sizes of pollock, silver hake, spiny dogfish and white hake. Their feeding response is not often considered in studies of marine ecosystems.

The benthivores studied included smaller sizes of Atlantic cod, red hake, and winter skate, and all sizes of haddock, ocean pout, and several flounders and a few other species. These fish ate small benthic invertebrates as small and medium-sized fish. Larger individuals of those same species, however, ate mostly fish and had a different predator-prey relationship.

The study findings provide insight into predation on and by commercial fishery species throughout the water column. This will help with ecosystem modeling since predation needs to be accounted for as competition, or as a direct removal of commercially and ecologically important prey species. Refining the model inputs can also increase our understanding of continental shelf ecology, and improve decision-making for ecosystem-based fisheries management.

Philadelphia, September 29, 2020 - A study conducted by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Brown University found that the vast majority of license suspensions are for non-driving-related events, such as failure to pay a fine or appear in court, and that these suspensions disproportionately affect those living in low-income communities and in communities with a greater percentage of Black and Hispanic residents. The study, which was published in the Journal of Transport & Health, is the first large-scale empirical study to document widespread disparities in the prevalence of suspensions using individual-level data and to demonstrate how that prevalence has been changing over time.

"Every year, millions of Americans delay healthcare and miss out on employment opportunities due to transportation barriers," said Nina R. Joyce, PhD, lead author of the study, an associate fellow with the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at CHOP and a researcher and professor with the Brown University School of Public Health. "Our research shows that non-driving-related license suspensions are disproportionately imposed on drivers living in low-income neighborhoods and in neighborhoods with a greater percentage of Black and Hispanic residents in New Jersey."

The study team analyzed data from the New Jersey Safety and Health Outcomes Data Warehouse, which includes complete licensing information for New Jersey from January 2004 through December 2018, and compared individual and geographical characteristics between drivers with a non-driving-related suspension, a driving-related suspension, and no suspension.

The study found that among more than 7.6 million licensed NJ drivers, 424,869 (5.5%) of the state's driving population had a suspended license in 2018. Of those with suspended licenses, 91% were given for a non-driving-related event.

The researchers also found that the prevalence of non-driving-related suspensions is seven times greater in the lowest income neighborhoods versus the highest income neighborhoods (13.4% vs 1.9%) and five times greater in neighborhoods with the highest percentage of Black and Hispanic residents versus the lowest percentage of Black and Hispanic residents (13.2% vs 2.8%). More than 90 state census tracts had at least 1 in 5 drivers with a non-driving-related suspension.

Failure to pay a fine or fee was the most common reason for both new and existing non-driving-related license suspensions across all the years of the study, constituting 55% of existing and 58% of new non-driving-related suspensions respectively.

"What is particularly concerning is that the communities most burdened by license suspensions are already facing heightened barriers to employment and healthcare," says Allison E. Curry, PhD, MPH, senior co-author of the study and a senior scientist and director of Epidemiology and at the CIRP at CHOP and an assistant professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "We're also conducting a complementary study to learn firsthand from individuals whose licenses were suspended about how this transportation barrier affects their health and well-being."

Millions of years ago, fire swept across the planet, fueled by an oxygen-rich atmosphere in which even wet forests burned, according to new research by University of Colorado Boulder scientists.

The study, published today in Nature Geoscience, provides geochemical evidence showing that forest fires expanded dramatically, potentially burning up to 30 or 40 percent of global forests during a 100,000 year interval more than 90 million years ago. While today's fires are exacerbated by dry conditions, they found that forest fires during this period increased even in wet regions due to changes in global climate.

"Studying this period in Earth's history can shine light on how the modern and future Earth might behave under global change," said F. Garrett Boudinot, lead author and recent PhD graduate in the Department of Geological Sciences.

Boudinot analyzed samples from a rock core that spans what is known as the Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (OAE2) in the Cretaceous period, about 94 million years ago. He found that an increased amount of carbon buried in the oceans at the start of this event was associated with indications for the occurrence of wildfires, which might have been caused by an increase in oxygen in the atmosphere.

"One of the consequences of having more oxygen in the atmosphere is that it's easier to burn fires," said Boudinot. "It's the same reason you blow on embers to stoke a fire."

Large amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere--much like what Earth is projected to experience by 2100--kick-started this cycle.

For 50,000 years before the OAE2 began, algae and land plants drew down this carbon into the oceans through photosynthesis, causing microbial respiration to increase, which led parts of the oceans to become low in or even devoid of oxygen, known as anoxia. This same process exists today in waters where too many nutrients end up in one place, like the mouth of the Mississippi River, where excess fertilizer runoff accumulates and feeds algae--which are then eaten up by microbes that consume oxygen, creating a dead zone. In these kinds of anoxic waters, the organic carbon that is stored from the atmosphere is buried in sediments, while the oxygen that was part of the carbon dioxide (CO2) is released to the atmosphere.

After 100,000 years of this ocean anoxia event--which was intensified by warming temperatures--oceans sediments around the globe had stored enough organic carbon that the atmosphere became rich in oxygen, so much so that it might have facilitated the burning of up to 40 percent of forests across the planet, even in wet and humid regions.

The planet is undergoing a similar transformation today as it did at the beginning of this cycle, with carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and nutrients building up in the ocean. If these same patterns continue, history could repeat itself in the future, only centuries to millennia from today.

"It highlights that putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and nutrients into the ocean doesn't just potentially increase global temperatures. It has significant impacts on the fundamental biogeochemistry or ecology of the planet, like how forests respond to fire," said Boudinot, who now works in outreach at the Colorado Wildlife Council.

A mystery in Earth's history

Boudinot never intended to analyze the rock core, drilled in Utah, for remnants of forest fires. It was drilled to better understand other various elements of OAE2, including how marine ecosystems responded to global change at that time in Earth's history.

But he was also running another experiment at the same time, using an analytical method to identify molecular tracers of forest fires in rock samples from other times and locations. These tracers are called polycyclic, aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs--sometimes known as "pyro PAHs."

Within the Utah rock core were black shales laden with organic matter preserved from almost 94 million years ago, when that part of the country was covered with sea. So Boudinot thought why not? And ran these same tests on the OAE2 rock core, finding there were a significant amount of these pyro PAHs in it.

"These organic molecules basically serve as molecular fossils," said Julio Sepúlveda, senior author on the study, professor of geological sciences and fellow in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

These molecules are also related to the temperature of the fire itself. They indicated high temperature fires, created by forest fires.

The interval of OAE2 with more fires has also been something of a mystery to geologists. Not only is this new geochemical data rock solid, but it also represents a detailed evolution of the event--with each data point representing a smaller period of time. This gives scientists a clearer understanding of how carbon storage in the oceans is related to oxygen levels in the atmosphere and global temperatures, and the pace at which these climate feedbacks can occur.

While scientists suspect volcanic activity as the reason there was so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before this event in Earth's history began, Boudinot sees parallels to how much carbon dioxide humans are emitting today.

"This finding highlights the prolonged impacts of climate change. The climate change that we're causing now, it's not something where if we don't fix it, only our grandkids will have to deal with it," said Boudinot. "The history of climate change in Earth history tells us that the impacts are really long lasting."

Friend-to-friend text messaging may be the new door-to-door canvassing leading up to the 2020 election.

Columbia researchers have found that texting may be an effective alternative to conventional, face-to-face voter mobilization tactics during the COVID-19 pandemic. The team, which was led by Data Science Institute postdoctoral research fellow Aaron Schein, found that receiving a message from a friend led to increased voter turnout during the 2018 midterm elections. The estimated effect was equivalent to door-to-door canvassing, an important finding in the social distancing era.

Schein and his collaborators, including political scientist Donald Green, DSI member David Blei, DSI postdoctoral fellow Dhanya Sridhar, et al., partnered with Outvote, a get-out-the-vote tool, to conduct the study.

Outvote randomized an aspect of their system prior to the 2018 midterm elections to unobtrusively assess the causal effect of their users' messages on voter turnout. The Columbia team developed a statistical methodology to address the challenges of such data, and analyzed Outvote's previous findings. Their analysis reveals evidence of large and statistically significant treatment effects from friend-to-friend mobilization efforts. The statistical methodology may be used to study other friend-to-friend messaging efforts.

Schein uses statistical models to understand and predict factors that drive new voter turnout in U.S. political elections. He acknowledges that studying friend-to-friend appeals experimentally can be challenging. "If the study is too obtrusive, such that it hampers natural interaction, we may end up measuring the effect of friend-to-friend appeals that are stilted and inauthentic. On the other hand, if the experimental intervention is too weak, we may fail to estimate effects with precision," he said.

The study employed a "light-touch" scheme, Schein said, while injecting enough randomness into the system to identify causal effects. "The statistical challenges we overcome to estimate these effects are likely inherent to any study of authentic friend-to-friend appeals and are perhaps why there have been so few studies of this kind to date."

These research findings were presented to the 2020 International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2 2020). Schein received the 2020 Best Presentation award during the conference.

Much of the 'memory' of the world and all our digital activities are based on media, hard disks, where the information is encoded thanks to magnetism, by orienting the spin of electrons in one direction or the opposite.

An international team of scientists led by the Italian physicist Stefano Bonetti, professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the Stockholm University, has managed for the first time to observe the 'nutation' of these spins in magnetic materials, i.e. the oscillations of their axis during precession. The measured nutation period was of the order of one picosecond: one thousandth of a billionth of a second. The discovery was published by Nature Physics.

The axis of a spin performs nutation and precession, as with any object that revolves, from spinning tops to planets. In this research, physicists observed experimentally that the nutation of the magnetic spin axis is 1000 times faster than precession, a curiously similar ratio to that of Earth.

This new discovery on hitherto unknown physical characteristics of spins is fundamental in research to make digital technologies ever faster, compact and energetically efficient. To manipulate these phenomena at time scales of thousandths of billionths of a second, however, we first need to know their dynamics, including inertial dynamics.

"This is the first direct and experimental evidence of the inertial movements of magnetic spins," explains Stefano Bonetti, who coordinates an ERC project on ultrafast magnetism, "with implications that affect, for example, data centres that store almost all of humanity's digital information in bits with the north pole up or down, thus encoding the computer 0s and 1s. When these spins are reversed to write information, precession and nutation also come into play. Knowing the nutation period becomes essential as the rotation speed increases. This first observation of these movements paves the way for new technologies to improve the efficiency of our digital activities, which, among all human activities, are recording the highest increase in energy consumption."

The experiment
The experiment required collaboration with several European scientific laboratories in Germany (Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Chemnitz University of Technology, University of Duisburg-Essen, German Aerospace Center (DLR), TU Berlin) France (École Polytechnique) and Italy (Federico II University of Naples and 'Parthenope' University of Naples), with the key measurement made in the Helmholtz Research Centre in Dresden-Rossendorf, German. In this centre, the TELBE laboratory is capable of generating the intense terahertz radiation (i.e. the frequency range between microwaves and infrared) necessary for the experiment. The group led by Stefano Bonetti was among the first groups to use this laboratory and helped develop the actual machine.

"The first experiments were challenging," says the Ca' Foscari physicist, "but, after a couple of years, the machine was already operating at very high performance. These measurements were made over a year, on three different occasions, to check the reproducibility of this never-before observed effect."

Stefano Bonetti's activities are part of a broader context of investment by the Venetian university in scientific research and teaching of the Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems. Starting from this academic year, this department is launching a degree programme in Engineering Physics, coordinated by Bonetti, himself a physics engineer: "Science is always evolving, and who knows what we will be exploring ten years from now, but the idea of the new degree programme is precisely to prepare a new generation of scientists who will be ready for the challenges of the future."

If you dive in the Mediterranean Sea, the cluster anemone is among the most fascinating and magnificent corals you could see. You can find it on rocks or sponges, in scarcely lit areas such as sea caves and gorges, where it clusters in dense agglomerations resembling yellow and orange carpets. In a study published in Scientific Reports, a research group of the University of Bologna found evidence that some corals commonly labelled as "cluster anemones" may belong to different species.

Indeed, there are two types of Parazoanthus axinellae and they differ in size, colour and preferred substratum. Researchers sampled these corals in 11 locations of the Mediterranean Sea - from Banyuls-Sur-Mer (France) to Rovinj (Croatia), through Portofino, Olbia, Gallipoli and Chioggia (Italy) - and compared their DNA.

"We found evidence of marked genetic isolation between these two morphotypes of Parazoanthus axinellae. This leads us to believe that they may belong to two different species", explains Federica Constantini, one of the authors of the study who is also a professor at the Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Sciences of the University of Bologna. "We will need further investigations to confirm these hypotheses. Information on species composition and marine populations connectivity patterns is fundamental to devise effective actions for safeguarding biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea".

Which are, then, these two types of cluster anemone and how are they different? The first type (also known as "Slender" type) is spread across the entire Mediterranean Sea (including the Adriatic Coast) and presents a light-yellow colour, an elongated trunk and long, thin tentacles. The second type (also known as "Stocky" type) is to be found in the north-western Mediterranean and presents a deep orange colour, and a shorter, thicker trunk and tentacles. Moreover, the "Slender" morphotype mainly lives on the sponges of the genus Axinella, while the "Stocky" type lives primarily on rocky substrata.

Through their analyses, researchers also found that the "Slender" morphotype is genetically closer to two coral species that also colonise sponges but live in the Caribbean (Parazoanthus anguicomus and Parazoanthus capensis). On the other hand, the "Stocky" morphotype revealed genetic similarities with coral species that live in the shallow waters of the Pacific Ocean (Parazoanthus elongatus and Parazoanthus juanfernandezii) and with one species that instead lives in the deep waters of the Eastern Atlantic Ocean (Parazoanthus aliceae). None of these species was ever found colonizing sponges as they live primarily on rocky substrata.

In recent years, cluster anemones have experienced high mortality rates in some areas of the north-western Mediterranean because the temperature of the water is unusually high and periods of high temperatures are unusually long. These phenomena caused the proliferation of cyanobacteria that weakened the corals and, in some cases, led to the death of the corals themselves.

"The existence of 'complex of species' may render the management and conservation strategies of these corals difficult. Indeed, different species may present distinctive characteristics. For example, they may present different resistance to climate change-induced stress. These peculiarities could call for different management strategies", says Professor Costantini. "Finally, it should be taken into consideration that the diversity we observed within the Parazoanthidae family may be also found among other species that live in the fragile and delicate coralligenous habitat of the Mediterranean Sea".

As part of the Journal of Plasma Physics' continuing focus on the scientific progress in fusion physics, the journal editors and Cambridge University Press are proud to present an important Special Issue of JPP, the Status of the SPARC Physics Basis.

This special issue's seven peer-reviewed articles provide a comprehensive summary of the physics basis for SPARC: a compact, high-field, DT burning tokamak, currently under design by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

SPARC is a new nuclear reactor concept based on fusing hydrogen nuclei rather than splitting uranium atoms. The intense design work happening at MIT builds on two big ideas. They are leveraging decades of scientific progress in magnetic confinement fusion, and marrying that with recent breakthroughs in high-temperature superconductor technology. How they will handle the challenges of delivering on the promise of fusion energy with these foundations is laid out in these seven peer-reviewed articles that make up the special issue of JPP.

William Dorland, JPP Editor, University of Maryland, USA, said: "This is one of a growing number of fusion projects with significant non-governmental funding, and it is the first and only project with substantial private funding to publish a detailed, peer-reviewed study of the physics basis of the proposed experiment. I expect this collection of papers to raise the bar that private investors use to estimate the risks and rewards associated with fusion investments."

This progress puts researchers in a position to take advantage of a technological break-through developed outside of the field, namely the emergence of high-temperature superconductors (HTS) as a practical engineering material.

Guest Editorial Author Martin Greenwald, Plasma Science & Fusion Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "These studies put SPARC on a firm scientific basis. When we build and operate the machine as described in these papers, we fully expect to meet our target for fusion gain and produce a wealth of new and important information on burning plasmas"

Leveraging the broad progress in tokamak physics, the SPARC design has been fundamentally informed by existing experimental observations, as was ITER's, but also by first principles, theory-based modelling. Both approaches result in essentially the same prediction of overall plasma performance and fusion gain, thereby increasing confidence in the projections. Ongoing work features the use of state-of-the-art codes for calculation of RF heating, turbulent transport, pedestal structure, edge profiles, MHD stability, and ripple losses of fast alphas.

The seven papers review the basic parameters of the machine, predictions of core and pedestal performance, RF heating, divertor physics, MHD, disruptions and the confinement of fast particles.

"JPP is proud to host this set of important papers, which lay out how to use state-of-the-art plasma physics science to design and engineer a fusion reactor experiment. Plasma physicists are part of a vibrant scientific community that is driven by technological advances. We are excited to be the platform chosen by the SPARC team for this set of important scientific publications. This reinforces a standard for the way in which new experiments can be proposed: in an open-access, peer-reviewed format." - William Dorland

With the basic machine parameters set, the SPARC physics team has already begun a deeper level of physics analysis, aimed at informing and confirming design choices, developing a range of operational scenarios and control strategies, defining diagnostic needs and outlining the scientific research program.

Read the Introduction to the SPARC special issue: Status of the SPARC Physics Basis by Martin Greenwald at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022377820001063

All seven articles in the Journal of Plasma Physics Special Issue, Status of the SPARC Physics Basis, are open access and can be found at http://www.cambridge.org/plasma/sparc

The planting of woodlands in upland areas could play a significant role in preventing the flash flooding which has increasingly affected communities across the world in recent years.

A new study by the University of Plymouth (UK) has shown that within just 15 years of being planted, native broadleaf trees can have a marked impact on soil's response during extreme weather events.

It means the huge quantities of rainwater generated can be more readily absorbed, rather than it simply running over the surface and into rivers where it subsequently causes severe flooding.

Writing in Land Degradation & Development, scientists say their findings show the establishment of more native woodlands in upland areas could be an effective and natural flood management tool.

This nature-based solution could be extremely timely, given the UK government commitment to planting 30 million trees a year by 2025 and other environmental schemes designed to enhance carbon retention, biodiversity and flood prevention. They caution however, new woodlands will require careful placement if the benefits are to be maximised.

There have been a number well-documented extreme rainfall and flooding events in recent years, and they are predicted to increase in both frequency and severity in the coming decades as a consequence of human-induced climate change.

In fact, researchers from the University showed in November 2019 that the UK's uplands could see significantly more annual rainfall than is currently being predicted in national climate models.

This new research, completed with funding from the Environment Agency as part of the Dartmoor Headwaters Natural Flood Management Project, compared the physical and hydrological properties of surface soils across four flood vulnerable upland headwater catchments in Dartmoor National Park.

They showed that in areas where new woodlands have been planted, the ability of soil to absorb water was almost double that of areas with no trees, associated with increases in soil macro-pores and reductions in soil compaction.

This means the speed at which rainwater enters rivers during rainfall events is dramatically reduced, which helps lower peak flow.

However, the nature of the soil and location of the woodlands is also critical to their success, with steep hillside on the edge of upland areas providing the most effective location for tree plantations to serve as an effective flood prevention tool.

The research which was also supported by native woodland charity Moor Trees is the first to measure comparable differences in the water infiltration rates of soils, between native woodland and pasture sites, across multiple upland catchments.

Thomas Murphy, who led the research as part of his PhD, said: "Many UK upland areas have a history of soil compaction and the aim of our study was to define how quickly this nature-based solution could affect that. People perhaps think that trees need to be mature in order for them to have beneficial environmental effects. But across our four test sites, we showed they can make significant improvements to soil properties within just 15 years of establishment, meaning it can be a viable option for flood prevention in a relatively modest timeframe."

As well as the physical studies, the research involved meetings with resident groups and landowners in flood-vulnerable communities to get their thoughts on the nature of the problems but also to discuss the potential solutions.

Dr Paul Lunt, Associate Professor in Environmental Science and the study's senior author, added: "There are a lot of vulnerable upland catchment areas across the UK, where long-term grazing has led to soils becoming damaged. However, by working with farmers and the government's farm woodland grant scheme to exclude livestock on the steeper slopes and replace them with trees, this study has shown that soil damaged by compaction can recover rapidly. This is particularly evident on steeper slopes which are traditionally not so good for farming. So there is an opportunity for a joined-up approach which could benefit the uplands themselves, but also those people living on and around them."