What is the Anthropocene? – current definition and status

The ‘Anthropocene’ is a term widely used since its coining by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000 to denote the present geological time interval, in which many conditions and processes on Earth are profoundly altered by human impact. This impact has intensified significantly since the onset of industrialization, taking us out of the Earth System state typical of the Holocene Epoch that post-dates the last glaciation.

The ‘Anthropocene’ has developed a range of meanings among vastly different scholarly communities. Here we examine the Anthropocene as a geological time (chronostratigraphic) unit and potential addition to the Geological Time Scale, consistent with Crutzen and Stoermer’s original proposal. The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) is charged with this task as a component body of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) which is itself a constituent body of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS).

Phenomena associated with the Anthropocene include: an order-of-magnitude increase in erosion and sediment transport associated with urbanization and agriculture; marked and abrupt anthropogenic perturbations of the cycles of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and various metals together with new chemical compounds; environmental changes generated by these perturbations, including global warming, sea-level rise, ocean acidification and spreading oceanic ‘dead zones’; rapid changes in the biosphere both on land and in the sea, as a result of habitat loss, predation, explosion of domestic animal populations and species invasions; and the proliferation and global dispersion of many new ‘minerals’ and ‘rocks’ including concrete, fly ash and plastics, and the myriad ‘technofossils’ produced from these and other materials.

Many of these changes will persist for millennia or longer, and are altering the trajectory of the Earth System, some with permanent effect. They are being reflected in a distinctive body of geological strata now accumulating, with potential to be preserved into the far future.

The Anthropocene is not currently a formally defined geological unit within the Geological Time Scale; officially we still live within the Meghalayan Age of the Holocene Epoch. A proposal to formalise the Anthropocene is being developed by the AWG. Based on preliminary recommendations made by the AWG in 2016, this proposal is being developed on the following basis:

It is being considered at series/epoch level (and so its base/beginning would terminate the Holocene Series/Epoch as well as Meghalayan Stage/Age);

It would be defined by the standard means for a unit of the Geological Time Scale, via a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), colloquially known as a ‘golden spike’;

Its beginning would be optimally placed in the mid-20th century, coinciding with the array of geological proxy signals preserved within recently accumulated strata and resulting from the ‘Great Acceleration’ of population growth, industrialization and globalization;

The sharpest and most globally synchronous of these signals, that may form a primary marker, is made by the artificial radionuclides spread worldwide by the thermonuclear bomb tests from the early 1950s.

Analyses of potential ‘golden spike’ locations are underway. The resultant proposal, when made, would need supermajority (>60%) agreement by the AWG and its parent bodies (successively the SQS and ICS) and ratification by the Executive Committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences. The success of any such proposal is not guaranteed.

Broadly, to be accepted as a formal geological time term the Anthropocene needs to be (a) scientifically justified, i.e. the ‘geological signal’ currently being produced in strata now forming must be significantly large, clear and distinctive; sufficient evidence has now been gathered to demonstrate this phenomenon (b) useful as a formal term to the scientific community. In terms of (b), the currently informal term ‘Anthropocene’ has already proven highly useful to the global change and Earth System science research communities and thus will continue to be used. Its value as a formal geological time term to other communities continues to be discussed

The Anthropocene has emerged as a popular scientific term used by scientists, the scientifically engaged public and the media to designate the period of Earth’s history during which humans have a decisive influence on the state, dynamics and future of the Earth System. It is widely agreed that the Earth is currently in such a state. The term has also been used in a non-chronostratigraphic context to be an informal term to denote a broader interpretation of anthropogenic impact on the planet that is markedly diachronous, reaching back many millennia. In geology, such an interpretation is already encompassed by lithostratigraphy, in which the character of stratified rocks is based solely on their physical features and not by age. Such an interpretation represents a concept sharply distinct from the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphic unit, though it can be complementary with it

Working Group communications:

Newsletter No.1 2009
Newsletter No.2 2010
Newsletter No.3 2012
Newsletter No.4 2013
Newsletter No.5 2014
Newsletter No.6 2015
Newsletter No.7 2017
Newsletter No.8 2018
Newsletter No.9 2019
Publications of the Working Group on the ‘Anthropocene’

2020


Syvitski, J. et al. (in press). Extraordinary human energy consumption and resultant geological impacts beginning around 1950 CE initiated the proposed Anthropocene Epoch. Communications Earth & Environment.
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C. and Williams, M. (in press). Chapter 31: The Anthropocene. In: Gradstein, F., Ogg, J., Schmitz, M. and Ogg, G. (eds.) A Geologic Time Scale 2020.

2019


Williams, M. et al. 2019. Underground metro systems: a durable geological proxy of rapid urban population growth and energy consumption during the Anthropocene. In Craig Benjamin, Esther Quaedakers and David Baker (Eds.) Anthropocene: The Routledge Handbook of Big History (Routledge Companions). Oxon: Taylor & Francis.
Zalasiewicz, J., Gabbott, S.E. and Waters C.N. 2019. Chapter 23: Plastic Waste: how plastic has become part of the Earth’s geological cycle. In: Trevor M. Letcher and Dan A Vallero (eds.) Waste: A Handbook for Management, 2nd edition. Elsevier, New York, 443-452.
Zalasiewicz, J. et al. 2019. A formal Anthropocene is compatible with but distinct from its diachronous anthropogenic counterparts: a response to WF Ruddiman’s ‘three flaws in defining a formal Anthropocene’. Progress in Physical Geography, 43(3): 319-333.
Zalasiewicz, J, Waters, CN et al. (Eds.) (2019). The Anthropocene as a Geological Time Unit. CUP.The Anthropocene, a term launched into public debate by Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen, has been used informally to describe the time interval during which human actions have had a drastic effect on the Earth and its ecosystems, including anthropogenic climate change. This book presents the underpinning geological evidence for defining the Anthropocene as a geological epoch, written by the high-profile international team tasked with analysing its potential addition to the Geological Time Scale. It discusses Anthropocene stratigraphy and ongoing changes to the Earth system, including the climate, oceans and biosphere.
The evidence for the Anthropocene is examined in detail, ranging from chemical signals arising from pollution, to physical changes to the landscape associated with urbanisation and biological changes associated with species invasion and extinctions. The scale, manner and rate of global environmental change is placed within the context of planetary processes and deep geological time, allowing the reader to appreciate the scale of human-driven change to the Earth system, and compare the global transition taking place today with major transitions in Earth history. Key aspects of the geological background are explained, providing an authoritative review of the Anthropocene for graduate students and academic researchers across a broad range of scientific, social science and humanities disciplines.

2018


Cooper, Anthony H.et al. 2018 Humans are the most significant global geomorphological driving force of the 21st Century.Anthropocene Review. 1-8.
Summerhayes, C. and Zalsiewicz, J. 2018. Global warming and the Anthropocene. Geology Today, 34(5): 194-200.
Waters, C N. et al. 2018. A Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs) for the Anthropocene Series: Where and how to look for a potential candidate. Earth-Sci. Rev., 178, 379-429.
Waters, C N. et al. 2018. How to date natural archives of the Anthropocene. Geology Today, 34(5):182-187.
Waters, C N. and Zalasiewicz, J. 2018. Concrete: the most abundant novel rock type of the Anthropocene. In Dominick A. DellaSala and Michael I. Goldstein (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene: Vol. 1 (75-85). Oxford: Elsevier.
Williams, M. et al. 2018. The palaeontological record of the Anthropocene. Geology Today, 24(5): 188-193.
Zalasiewicz, J. et al. 2018. The Anthropocene. Geology Today, 34(5): 177-181.
Zalasiewicz, J. et al. 2018. The stratigraphical signature of the Anthropocene in England and its wider context. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 129(3): 482-491.
Zalasiewicz, J, and Waters, C N. 2018. Arguments for an official Global Stratotype Section and Point for the Anthropocene. In Dominick A. DellaSala and Michael I. Goldstein (Eds.) The Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene: Vol. 1 (29-34). Oxford: Elsevier.

2017


Grinevald, J. et al. 2017. Les preuves jusifiant une nouvelle période géologique ne manquent pas. La Recherche, 520: 87-88.
Williams, M., Zalasiewicz, J. and Waters, C N. 2017. The Anthropocene: a geological perspective. In Heikkurinen, P. (Ed.), Sustainability and Peaceful Coexistence for the Anthropocene. Oxon: Taylor & Francis.
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C N. and Williams, M. 2017. Les strates de la ville de l’Anthropocène. Annels, Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 72(2): 329-351.
Zalasiewicz, J, Waters, CN & Head, MJ 2017. Anthropocene: its stratigraphic basis. Nature, 541 (7637): 289.
Zalasiewicz, J, Waters, CN et al. 2017. Making the case for a formal Anthropocene Epoch: an analysis of ongoing critiques. Newsletters on Stratigraphy, 50(2): 205-226.
Zalasiewicz, J, Williams, M, Waters, CN et al. 2017. Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere: a geological perspective. Rev., 4(1): 9-22.
Zalasiewicz, J. et al. 2017. The geological and Earth System reality of the Anthropocene: Reply to Bauer and Ellis. Current Anthropology, 59(2): 220-223.
Zalasiewicz, J. et al. 2017. The Working Group on the ‘Anthropocene’: Summary of evidence and recommendations. Anthropocene 19: 55-60.

2016


Edgeworth, M. et al. 2016. Second Anthropocene Working Group Meeting (Conference Report). The European Archaeologist 47.
Steffen, W, Leinfelder, R, Zalasiewicz, J, Waters, CN et al. 2016. Stratigraphic and Earth System Approaches to Defining the Anthropocene. Earth’s Future. DOI: 10.1002/2016EF000379.
Waters, CN et al. 2016. The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science, 351 (6269): 137.
Williams, M. et al. The Anthropocene: a conspicuous stratigraphical signal of anthropogenic changes in production and consumption across the biosphere. Earth’s Future 4(3): 34-53.
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, CN et al. 2016. The geological cycle of plastics and their use as a stratigraphic indicator of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene, 13: 4-17.
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M. and Waters, C N. 2016. Anthropocene. In Joni Adamson, William A. Gleason, and David N. Pellow (Eds.) Keywords in the Study of Environment and Culture (14-16). New York: NYU Press.
Zalasiewicz, J. et al. 2016. Petrifying earth process: the stratigraphic imprint of key earth parameters in the Anthropocene. Theory, Culture & Society, 34(2-3): 83-104.
Zalasiewics, J. et al. 2016 Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere: a geological perspective. The Anthropocene Review, 4(1): 9-22.

2015


Edgeworth, M, Richter, D DeB, Waters, CN et al. Diachronous beginnings of the Anthropocene: The lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits. Anth. Rev. 2(1): 1-26.
Waters, CN et al. 2015. Can nuclear weapons fallout mark the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch? Atom. Sci., 71(3): 46-57.
Zalasiewicz, J, Waters, CN et al. Colonization of the Americas, ‘Little Ice Age’ climate, and bomb-produced carbon: Their role in defining the Anthropocene. Anth. Rev., 2(2): 117-127.
Zalasiewicz, J, Waters, CN et al. When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal. Quat. Int., 383: 196-203.
Zalasiewicz, J. and Waters, C N. 2015. The Anthropocene. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Framing Concepts in Environmental Science.

2014


Waters, CN et al. 2014. A Stratigraphical basis for the Anthropocene. Geological Society, London, Special Publication, 395, 321pp.
Zalasiewicz, J, Waters, CN & Williams, M 2014. Human bioturbation, and the subterranean landscape of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene, 6: 3-9.
Zalasiewicz, J, Williams, M, Waters, CN et al. 2014. The technofossil records of humans. Rev., 1(1), 34-43.

2011


Williams, M et al. (Eds.) 2011. Theme issue ‘The Anthropocene: a new epoch of geological time?’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369(1938).

2008


Zalasiewicz, J, Williams, M, Smith, A, Barry, TL, Coe, AL, Bown, PR, Brenchley, P, Cantrill, D, Gale, A, Gibbard, P, Gregory, FJ, Hounslow, MW, Kerr, AC, Pearson, P, Knox, R, Powell, JH, Waters, CN et al. 2008. Are we living in the Anthropocene? GSA Today, 18(2): 4-8.

2007


Steffen, W et al. 2007. The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature? Ambio 36(8): 614-621.

2002


Crutzen, P.J. 2002. Geology of Mankind. Nature 415(6867), 23.

2000


Crutzen, P.J. & Stoermer, E.F. 2000. The “Anthropocene”. Global Change Newsletter 41: 17-18.


The Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) is a constituent body of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), the largest scientific organisation within the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS).

 

Unprecedented energy use since 1950 has transformed humanity's geologic footprint

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

Research News

 

A new study coordinated by CU Boulder makes clear the extraordinary speed and scale of increases in energy use, economic productivity and global population that have pushed the Earth towards a new geological epoch, known as the Anthropocene. Distinct physical, chemical and biological changes to Earth's rock layers began around the year 1950, the research found.

Led by Jaia Syvitski, CU Boulder professor emerita and former director of the Institute of Alpine Arctic Research (INSTAAR), the paper, published today in Nature Communications Earth and Environment, documents the natural drivers of environmental change throughout the past 11,700 years--known as the Holocene Epoch--and the dramatic human-caused shifts since 1950. Such planetary-wide changes have altered oceans, rivers, lakes, coastlines, vegetation, soils, chemistry and climate.

"This is the first time that scientists have documented humanity's geological footprint on such a comprehensive scale in a single publication," said Syvitski, former executive director of the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System, a diverse community of international experts from who study the interactions between the Earth's surface, water and atmosphere.

In the past 70 years, humans have exceeded the energy consumption of the entire preceding 11,700 years--largely through combustion of fossil fuels. This huge increase in energy consumption has then allowed for a dramatic increase in human population, industrial activity, pollution, environmental degradation and climate change.

The study is the result of work by the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), an interdisciplinary group of scientists analyzing the case for making the Anthropocene a new epoch within the official Geological Time Scale, characterized by the overwhelming human impact on the Earth.

The word Anthropocene follows the naming convention for assigning geologically defined lengths of time and has come to embody the present time during which humans are dominating planetary-scale Earth systems.

In geological time, an epoch is longer than an Age but shorter than a Period, measured in tens of millions of years. Within the Holocene epoch, there are several Ages--but the Anthropocene is proposed as a separate Epoch within Earth's planetary history.

"It takes a lot to change the Earth's system," said Syvitski. "Even if we were to get into a greener world where we were not burning fossil fuels, the main culprit of greenhouse gases, we would still have a record of an enormous change on our planet."

Unambiguous markers of the Anthropocene

The 18 authors of the study compiled existing research to highlight 16 major planetary impacts caused by increased energy consumption and other human activities, spiking in significance around or since 1950.

Between 1952 and 1980, humans set off more than 500 thermonuclear explosions above ground as part of global nuclear weapons testing, which have forever left a clear signature of human-caused radionuclides--atoms with excess nuclear energy--on or near the surface of the entire planet.

Since about 1950, humans have also doubled the amount of fixed nitrogen on the planet through industrial production for agriculture, created a hole in the ozone layer through the industrial scale release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), released enough greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels to cause planetary level climate change, created tens of thousands more synthetic mineral-like compounds than naturally occur on Earth and caused almost one-fifth of river sediment worldwide to no longer reach the ocean due to dams, reservoirs and diversions.

Humans have produced so many millions of tons of plastic each year since the middle of the 20th century that microplastics are "forming a near-ubiquitous and unambiguous marker of Anthropocene," according to the study.

Not all of these planetary level changes may define the Anthropocene geologically, according to Syvitski and her co-authors, but if present trends continue, they can lead to markers in the rock record that will.

Syvitski credits her time as director of INSTAAR from 1995 to 2007 for enabling her to bring together scientists from the different environmental disciplines needed for the study, including geology, biology, geography, anthropology and history.

In a similar way, she sees a need for people of different backgrounds and experiences around the world to come together to work toward solutions.

"We humans collectively got ourselves into this mess, we need to work together to reverse these environmental trends and dig ourselves out of it," said Syvitski. "Society shouldn't feel complacent. Few people who read the manuscript should come away without emotions bubbling up, like rage, grief and even fear."

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Co-authors of this publication include Colin Waters, Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams, University of Leicester; John Day, Louisiana State University; John Milliman, College of William and Mary; Colin Summerhayes, Scott Polar Research Institute; Will Steffen, Australian National University; Alejandro Cearreta, University of the Basque Country -- UPV/EHU; Agnieszka Ga?uszka, Jan Kochanowski University; Irka Hajdas, ETH Zu?rich; Martin Head, Brock University; Reinhold Leinfelder, Freie Universitat Berlin; J. R. McNeill, Georgetown University; Clement Poirier, Normandie University; Neil Rose, University College London; William Shotyk, University of Alberta; and Michael Wagreich, University of Vienna.

Mystery over decline in sea turtle sightings

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research News

 

IMAGE: GREEN TURTLE view more 

CREDIT: ROD PENROSE, MEM

The number of sea turtles spotted along the coasts of the UK and Ireland has declined in recent years, researchers say.

University of Exeter scientists studied records going back more than a century (1910-2018) and found almost 2,000 sea turtles had been sighted, stranded or captured. Recorded sightings increased dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s - possibly due to more public interest in conservation, and better reporting schemes. Numbers have dropped since 2000, but the reasons for this are unclear.

"Lots of factors could affect the changing of numbers of sea turtles sighted," said Zara Botterell, of the University of Exeter and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. "Climate change, prey availability and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill could all influence turtle numbers and behaviour.

"However, sea turtle populations in the North Atlantic are largely stable or increasing, and the apparent decrease may represent reduced reporting rather than fewer turtles in our seas. One reason for this could be that fewer fishing boats are at sea now than in the past - and fishers are the most likely people to see and report turtles."

The most common turtles spotted off the UK and Ireland are leatherbacks - making up 1,683 of the 1,997 sightings since 1910. Leatherbacks are thought to be the only sea turtle species that "intentionally" visits these waters, with adults arriving in summer in search of their jellyfish prey.

Meanwhile, juvenile loggerheads (240 since 1910) and Kemp's ridley turtles (61) are more often spotted in winter - likely carried on currents and finding themselves stranded in cold waters.

There are seven sea turtle species in total, and the others are much rarer in UK and Irish waters. Only 11 green turtle sightings were found in the records (all from 1980 to 2016), while just one hawksbill (Cork, Ireland in 1983) and one olive ridley (Anglesey, Wales in 2016) have been recorded. The only species never recorded in UK or Irish waters is the flatback, which is only found around Northern Australia, Southern Indonesia and Southern Papua New Guinea.

Most of the recorded sightings of turtles in the UK and Ireland were along western and southern coasts. Of the 1,997 turtles sighted, 143 were "bycatch" (caught accidentally) in fishing lines, nets and ropes - and the large majority of these were released alive.

The study used the TURTLE database, operated by Marine Environmental Monitoring.

The research team thanked the many members of the public who have reported turtle sightings and strandings, and noted the "pivotal role" of the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) and Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS), funded by UK governments.

"We have been lucky to analyse this unique dataset that exists because Britain and Ireland are a real hotbed of engaged citizen science, where members of the public report their sightings in schemes supported by conservation charities and government bodies," said Professor Brendan Godley, who leads the Exeter Marine research group.

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The paper, published in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, is entitled: "Long-term insights into marine turtle sightings, strandings and captures around the UK and Ireland (1910-2018)."

 

Hesitancy about a COVID-19 vaccine is linked to beliefs about origin of the virus

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Research News

 

IMAGE: FIGURE. PERCENTAGE OF PARTICIPANTS WHO RESPONDED "YES " TO THE QUESTION OF WHETHER THEY WOULD VACCINATE THEMSELVES AND THEIR CHILDREN FOR COVID-19 IN TURKEY (N= 3936) AND THE UK (N= 1088)... view more 

CREDIT: DR GUL DENIZ SALALI

More than a third of people (34%) in Turkey and one sixth of people (17%) in the UK are 'hesitant' about a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a study by UCL and Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey.

The research, published in the journal Psychological Medicine, asked over 5,000 participants in Turkey and the UK about their willingness to vaccinate for a potential COVID-19 vaccine and beliefs on the origin of the novel coronavirus. The findings show concerning levels of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Lead author, Dr Gul Deniz Salali, an evolutionary anthropologist at UCL, said: "From an evolutionary point of view, natural selection should favour a bias towards making the least costly decision when there is uncertainty. This is why when people face a choice between taking a specific action or doing nothing, they sometimes prefer to do nothing. This cognitive bias, called the omission bias, may kick in when people make vaccination decisions."

The researchers examined the factors that are associated with acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine. One of the key factors that explained the probability of vaccine acceptance was a person's belief on the origin of the novel coronavirus.

Odds of vaccine acceptance were 26% higher in Turkey and 63% higher in the UK if a person believed in the natural origin, compared to those who were not sure about the virus origin. In Turkey, participants who believed in the artificial origin of the virus (i.e. SARS-Cov-2 was human-made) were 54% more likely to be vaccine-hesitant.

The research is led by Dr Salali and conducted in collaboration with a social psychology doctoral researcher, Mete Sefa Uysal at Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey.

The study reported several other behavioural and demographic factors that influenced vaccination and origin beliefs. Participants who had higher levels of pandemic related anxieties, such as being more worried about catching or passing on the virus, were more likely to accept COVID-19 vaccination. Compared to women, men in Turkey were more likely to accept a COVID-19 vaccine and believe in the natural origin of the virus.

Dr Salali said "From an evolutionary perspective, emotions can be seen as detectors helping us to avoid death or promote reproduction, especially under uncertainty. The positive correlation between COVID-19 related anxiety and vaccine acceptance can be rooted in the adaptive function of anxiety in decreasing mortality risk."

"Because women are more likely to take healthcare decisions for their children, they may also be more likely to seek out information about vaccines and be exposed to online anti-vaccination content. Moreover, women score higher on disgust sensitivity which is associated with vaccine hesitancy."

Much research effort is focused on developing an effective vaccine for combatting COVID-19. Vaccine development itself, however, will not be enough given that a sufficient amount of people will need to be vaccinated for widespread immunity. The study findings point at a concerning level of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, especially in Turkey, and suggest that wider communication of the scientific consensus on the origin of the novel coronavirus with the public may help future campaigns targeting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

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Scientists improve model of landslide-induced tsunami

MOSCOW INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY

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IMAGE: TSUNAMI INDUCED BY A LANDSLIDE. view more 

CREDIT: DARIA SOKOL/MIPT PRESS OFFICE

MIPT researchers Leopold Lobkovsky and Raissa Mazova, and their young colleagues from Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University have created a model of landslide-induced tsunamis that accounts for the initial location of the landslide body. Reported in Landslides, the model reveals that tsunami height is affected by the coastal slope and the position of the land mass before slipping. The highest and most devastating waves result from onshore landslide masses. This realization will make future predictions of tsunamis more accurate, as well as providing deeper insights into past events.

The recent decades have seen unusually large tsunamis that had on-shelf sources and were not always accompanied by seismic events. Instead, the underlying cause may be a fully or partially underwater landslide.

Researchers come up with models to predict wave runup onto the shore following a landslide on an underwater slope. The challenging part is to account for the nonlinear nature of wave runup and rundown, as well as the complex shelf zone geometry. Another important factor at the heart of the models is the technique used to compute landslide mass movement.

A number of landslide-induced tsunami models have been developed, with two of them used the most. The so-called rigid-block models assume a solid state perspective on the motion of the landslide, with shallow-water equations governing the generation of surface water waves. Models of the other type -- referred to as viscoplastic -- rely on shallow-water equations to describe both surface wave generation and landslide movement.

Despite a number of refinements accounting for some features of landslide mass movement, the models have so far remained hydrodynamic in their nature. This means they are not helpful for analyzing the detailed structure of the landslide body or the characteristics of its constituents during the slip. But unless the actual physical properties of the landslide mass are considered, modeling its movement is problematic.

The study reported in this story employs an elastoplastic model presented in 2000 by Igor Garagash and Leopold Lobkovsky. It accounts for the detailed structure of the landslide body and the mechanical characteristics of the land mass constituents during the slip, as well as incorporating the processes occurring in the landslide body. The model implementation in the study relied on the programming code called FLAC 3D, which enables calculations under an explicit finite-difference scheme for solving three-dimensional problems of continuum mechanics.

The researchers found that wave runup onto the shore varied considerably depending on the initial position of the landslide body on the shelf slope, even when the other parameters were fixed.

"In contrast to other models, where the tsunami wave climbs the original coastal slope, here the slope surface is continuously transformed during the landslide motion," study co-author Raissa Mazova from MIPT explained. "In other words, at each moment of time, the tsunami runup occurs onto a new surface of the coastal slope, which leads to a complex displacement of the shoreline. Such an effect has not been obtained before, and it is impossible to obtain within the framework of the movement of a landslide as a solid body or within the framework of a viscous model."

The role of the sediment layer on the slope also proved substantial. The numerical simulation predicts maximum runup on the slope for tsunamis induced by landslide masses initially located on a dry shore.

"Rather than attempting to implement a novel methodology for calculating a landslide model, we used a familiar model, introducing additional boundary conditions," commented Leopold Lobkovsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the head of the MIPT Laboratory of Geophysical Research of the Arctic and Continental Margins of the World Ocean. "Our findings demonstrate that shoreline dynamics significantly depend on the initial location of the landslide body, with the shoreline point potentially shifting. This feature may enable us to infer some information about the location of the submarine landslide by solving the inverse problem after a tsunami has taken place."

"However, the inverse problem is fairly difficult to solve, even when determining the location of the seismic source of a tsunami, and it is not always possible to achieve adequate results. That said, we have already begun a study to that end, and hope to estimate the locations of the landslides and gain insights into their nature," the researcher added.

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Light pollution alters predator-prey interactions between cougars and mule deer in western US

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Research News

 

A new study provides strong evidence that exposure to light pollution alters predator-prey dynamics between mule deer and cougars across the intermountain West, a rapidly growing region where nighttime skyglow is an increasing environmental disturbance.

The University of Michigan-led study, published online Oct. 18 in the journal Ecography, is the first to assess the impacts of light pollution on predator-prey interactions at a regional scale. It combines satellite-derived estimates of artificial nighttime lights with GPS location data from hundreds of radio-collared mule deer and cougars across the intermountain West.

The study found that:

• Mule deer living in light-polluted areas are drawn to artificial nighttime lighting, which is associated with green vegetation around homes.
• Cougars, also known as mountain lions and pumas, are able to successfully hunt within light-polluted areas by selecting the darkest spots on the landscape to make their kill.
• While mule deer that live in dark wildland locations are most active around dawn and dusk, those living around artificial night light forage throughout the day and are more active at night than wildland deer--especially during the summer.

The animal data used in the study were collected by state and federal wildlife agencies across the region. Collation of those records by the study authors yielded what is believed to be the largest dataset on interactions between cougars and mule deer, two of the most ecologically and economically important large-mammal species in the West.

"Our findings illuminate some of the ways that changes in land use are creating a brighter world that impacts the biology and ecology of highly mobile mammalian species, including an apex carnivore," said study lead author Mark Ditmer, formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, now at Colorado State University.

The intermountain West spans nearly 400,000 square miles and is an ideal place to assess how varying light-pollution exposures influence the behavior of mule deer and cougars and their predator-prey dynamics. Both species are widely distributed throughout the region--the mule deer is the cougar's primary prey species--and the region presents a wide range of nighttime lighting conditions.

The intermountain West is home to some of the darkest night skies in the continental United States, as well as some of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas, including Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Between the dark wildlands and the brightly illuminated cities is the wildland-urban interface, the rapidly expanding zone where homes and associated structures are built within forests and other types of undeveloped wildland vegetation.

For their study, the researchers obtained detailed estimates of nighttime lighting sources from the NASA-NOAA Suomi polar-orbiting satellite. They collected GPS location data for 117 cougars and 486 mule deer from four states: Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California. In addition, wildlife agencies provided locations of 1,562 sites where cougars successfully killed mule deer.

"This paper represents a massive undertaking, and to our knowledge this dataset is the largest ever compiled for these two species," said study senior author Neil Carter, a conservation ecologist at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

Deer in the arid West are attracted to the greenery in the backyards and parks of the wildland-urban interface. Predators follow them there, despite increased nighttime light levels that they would normally shun. Going into the study, the researchers suspected that light pollution within the wildland-urban interface could alter cougar-mule deer interactions in one of two ways.

Perhaps artificial nighttime light would create a shield that protects deer from predators and allows them to forage freely. Alternatively, cougars might exploit elevated deer densities within the wildland-urban interface, feasting on easy prey inside what scientists call an ecological trap.

Data from the study provides support for both the predator shield and ecological trap hypotheses, according to the researchers. At certain times and locations within the wildland-urban interface, there is simply too much artificial light and/or human activity for cougars, creating a protective shield for deer.

An ecological trap occurs when an animal is misled, or trapped, into settling for apparently attractive but in fact low-quality habitat. In this particular case, mule deer are drawn to the greenery of the wildland-urban interface and may mistakenly perceive that the enhanced nighttime lighting creates a predator-free zone.

But the cougars are able to successfully hunt within the wildland-urban interface by carefully selecting the darkest spots on the landscape to make their kill, according to the study. In contrast, cougars living in dark wildland locations hunt in places where nighttime light levels are slightly higher than the surroundings, the researchers found.

"The intermountain West is the fastest-growing region of the U.S., and we anticipate that night light levels will dramatically increase in magnitude and across space," said U-M's Carter. "These elevated levels of night light are likely to fundamentally alter a predator-prey system of ecological and management significance--both species are hunted extensively in this region and are economically and culturally important."

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The other authors of the Ecography paper, in addition to Ditmer and Carter, are: David Stoner and Terry Messmer of Utah State University, Clinton Francis of California Polytechnic University, Jesse Barber of Boise State University, James Forester the University of Minnesota, David Choate of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, Kirsten Ironside and Kathleen Longshore of the U.S. Geological Survey, Kent Hersey and Daniel Olson of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Randy Larson and Brock McMillan of Brigham Young University, Alyson Andreasen of the University of Nevada at Reno, Jon Beckmann of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Brandon Holton of Grand Canyon National Park.

Funding for the project was provided by NASA; the National Park Service; the U.S. Geological Survey; the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources; the Nevada Department of Wildlife; the Arizona Game and Fish Department; the U.S. Department of Energy; Grand Canyon, Zion and Capitol Reef national parks; the Bureau of Land Management; the U.S. Forest Service; the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services; and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Subsidiary funding was provided by the Utah Army National Guard, Kennecott Utah Copper Corp., the African Safari Club of Florida, Utah's Hogle Zoo, and the Utah Chapter of the American Association of Zoo Keepers.

Study: Artificial nightlight alters the predator-prey dynamics of an apex carnivore

Neil Carter

Photos and graphic link at top: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mQ7_bd3Hs9W2YHyENpMNflLOlG8gCxeO

 

Media's reporting on gun violence does not reflect reality, study finds

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Research News

 

A new study, led by the doctors who regularly treat gunshot victims, examined the way the media covers shootings and found that news reports place a disproportionate emphasis on fatal and multiple shootings, while also focusing on uncommon victims, such as women. The researchers fear that the gap between what is covered - and what goes uncovered - in the news could be painting an unrealistic picture of gun violence, which might affect the way the public perceives it. The study was published today in the journal Preventive Medicine.

"As a trauma surgeon, and someone who feels very connected to my patients, I take notice of gun violence coverage in the news--most often the lack thereof. I am particularly saddened when I find there was no media reporting on the shootings that have caused injury and death to my patients, which is most often the case," said the study's lead author, Elinore Kaufman, MD, an assistant professor of Surgery in Traumatology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "While I was not surprised to see data on under-reporting in the media, I was startled to see how much it varied related to victim characteristics."

Kaufman and her fellow researchers drew on police reports and information kept by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit research group, to monitor media reporting during 2017 inthree different cities: Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Rochester, NY. Of the 1,801 victims of intentional shootings (outside of self-inflicted shootings), the researchers saw that almost exactly half, 900, were covered in the news.

Of these victims, roughly 83 percent were Black, but just 49 percent of them made the news. Moreover, if the victim was a man, he was about 40 percent less likely to be covered on the news than a woman.

Disparities in news coverage continued when the deadliness of the shootings was examined. Although 16 percent of the victims from the analyzed shootings died, these fatal shootings accounted for 83 percent of the cases covered by the news.

"A vast majority of the victims of gun violence survive, but I don't think the public knows much about people whose lives have been disrupted in so many ways by their injuries, and who need all our support to recover," Kaufman said. "I like to think that more public awareness of the impact of gun violence on survivors would lead to broader support for the services and programs that they need."

Statistics have shown that one in four Americans perceive mass shootings to be the greatest gun violence threat facing their communities, but the study showed that shootings with multiple victims occurred just 22 percent of the time. However, mass shootings were almost six times as likely to make the news.

"This skews our focus toward things like active shooter drills in schools, and away from the kind of community investment that we need to prevent the forms of gun violence that are so much more common," Kaufman said.

There were some differences on the city level data that the study uncovered. Philadelphia had the most shooting victims in 2017 with 1,216 (compared to 407 in Cincinnati and 178 in Rochester), but those victims were also covered the least: only 46 percent of the time (compared to 55 percent in Cincinnati and 65 percent in Rochester).

"I think the news media in any given market has limited space for reporting on violence, and so in areas where violence is common, there's going to be a lot of underreporting. The opposite could be true as well: In areas with little violence, the reporting may be disproportionate," she explained.

While the study focused on the numbers and percentages associated with media reporting on gun violence, Kaufman and her fellow researchers believe that it is just the beginning of the story. Public perception and support are key to making public health policy changes, and media reporting clearly has an influence on them. As such, changing the content of the reports appears key.

That might especially be important as newsrooms are hit by budget cuts and downsizing. With a smaller pool of reporters to cover incidents, shifting the focus of coverage to more truly represent the realities of gun violence could solve issues the study found.

"We understand that reporting community gun violence is an interminable obligation, especially for contracting newsrooms," said senior author Jim McMillan, the director of the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting, a project of the Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting. "But instead of trying to double down on incident coverage, we recommend that journalists collaborate with other stakeholders to advance best reporting practices such as focusing on evidence-based solutions to the crisis."

So while every instance may not make the news due to the realities of modern newsrooms, such shifts in focus could go a long way toward solving perception issues.

"Many of these reports that we counted were one- or two-liners that tell very little about the humans whose lives are impacted by these shootings," Kaufman said. "We hope to soon study how widely reporters are able to engage more deeply and substantively with the subject, and perhaps even measure the impact of different kinds of stories on readers and watchers of the news."

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How a greenhouse catastrophe killed nearly all life

Scientists show the unfolding of one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth's history

GFZ GEOFORSCHUNGSZENTRUM POTSDAM, HELMHOLTZ CENTRE

Research News

 

IMAGE: ILLUSTRATION DEPICTING THE ONSET OF THE PERMIAN-TRIASSIC MASS EXTINCTION BASED ON FINDINGS OF JURIKOVA ET AL. (2020). OCEAN ACIDIFICATION AND VANISHING MARINE LIFE IN THE SURFACE OCEAN CAUSED BY A... view more 

CREDIT: (PALEOFACTORY, SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY OF ROME) FOR JURIKOVA ET AL. (2020).

Earth's history knows catastrophes which are unimaginable for humans. For example, around 66 million years ago an asteroid impact marked the end of the dinosaur era. Long before however, 252 million years ago at the boundary between the Permian and Triassic epochs, Earth witnessed a far more extreme mass extinction event that extinguished about three-quarters of all species on land and some 95 percent of all species in the ocean. Volcanic activity on an enormous scale in today's Siberia has long been debated as a likely trigger of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, but the exact sequence of events that led to the extinction remained highly controversial. Now, a team of researchers from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, in collaboration with the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and Italian and Canadian universities, provides for the first time a conclusive reconstruction of the key events that led to the mega-catastrophe. Their research also draws bleak lessons for the future. They report about their discoveries in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The international team led by Hana Jurikova studied isotopes of the element boron in the calcareous shells of fossil brachiopods - clam-like organisms - and with it determined the rate of ocean acidification over the Permian-Triassic boundary. Because the ocean pH and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) are closely coupled, the team was able to reconstruct changes in atmospheric CO2 at the onset of the extinction from boron and carbon isotopes. They then used an innovative geochemical model to study the impact of the CO2 injection on the environment. Their findings showed that volcanic eruptions, from the then active flood basalt province "Siberian Traps", released immense amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. This large CO2 release lasted several millennia and led to a strong greenhouse effect on the late Permian world, causing extreme warming and acidification of the ocean. Dramatic changes in chemical weathering on land altered productivity and nutrient cycling in the ocean, and ultimately led to vast de-oxygenation of the ocean. The resulting multiple environmental stressors combined to wipe out a wide variety of animal and plant groups. Dr. Jurikova says: "We are dealing with a cascading catastrophe in which the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere set off a chain of events that successively extinguished almost all life in the seas.".

Hana Jurikova adds: "Ancient volcanic eruptions of this kind are not directly comparable to anthropogenic carbon emissions, and in fact all modern fossil fuel reserves are far too insufficient to release as much CO2 over hundreds of years, let alone thousands of years as was released 252 million years ago. But it is astonishing that humanity's CO2 emission rate is currently fourteen times higher than the annual emission rate at the time that marked the greatest biological catastrophe in Earth's history".

A large part of the work was done by the researcher at GEOMAR in Kiel, but she later joined the GFZ (Section 4.3) in Potsdam, and the "icing on the cake" for her were the results from a collaboration with the SIMS laboratory led by Michael Wiedenbeck at the GFZ (Section 3.1). Using the state-of-the-art large-geometry secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS), the isotopic composition of the shells could be measured directly on the specimens at the micrometer-scale. This made it possible to determine the boron isotopic composition even in the smallest fragments of brachiopod shells. Depending on the degree of acidification of the seas, the calcareous shells of the organisms living in them differ ever so slightly in their chemical composition. In this way, the pH value of long vanished oceans could be determined in the remains of the shells preserved as fossils in the rock record.

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This work is part of the 'BASE-LiNE Earth' Innovative Training Network (ITN) funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (No 643084).

Reference:

Jurikova H., Gutjahr M., Wallmann K., Flögel S., Liebetrau V., Posenato R., Angiolini L., Garbelli C., Brand U., Wiedenbeck M., Eisenhauer A. (2020): Permian-Triassic mass extinction pulses driven by major marine carbon cycle perturbations. Nature Geoscience, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-020-00646-4.

 

A first-of-its-kind catalyst mimics natural processes to break down plastics

DOE/AMES LABORATORY

Research News

 

While plastics recycling is not new science, current processes don't make it economically worthwhile-- waste plastics get "down-cycled" into lower grade, less useful material. It's a challenge that continues to be an obstacle in tackling a growing global pollution crisis in single use plastics.

A multi-institutional team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory has developed a first-of-its-kind catalyst that is able to process polyolefin plastics such as polyethylene and polypropylene, types of polymers widely used in things like plastic grocery bags, milk jugs, shampoo bottles, toys, and food containers. The process results in uniform, high-quality components that can be used to produce fuels, solvents, and lubricating oils, products that have high value and could potentially turn these and other used plastics into an untapped resource.

"We've made a big step forward with this work," said Aaron Sadow, a scientist at Ames Laboratory and the Director of the Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics (iCOUP). "We hypothesized that we could borrow from nature, and mimic the processes by which enzymes precisely break apart macromolecules like proteins and cellulose. We succeeded in doing that, and we're excited to pursue optimizing and developing this process further."

The unique process relies on nanoparticle technology. Ames Lab scientist Wenyu Huang designed a mesoporous silica nanoparticle consisting of a core of platinum with catalytic active sites, surrounded by long silica pores, or channels, through which the long polymer chains thread through to the catalyst. With this design, the catalyst is able to hold on to and cleave the longer polymer chains into consistent, uniform shorter pieces that have the most potential to be upcycled into new, more useful end products.

"This type of controlled catalysis process has never before been designed based on inorganic materials," Huang, who specializes in the design of structurally well-defined nano-catalysts. "We were able to show that the catalytic process is capable of performing multiple identical deconstruction steps on the same molecule before releasing it."

Ames Laboratory's solid state NMR expert Fred Perras' measurements allowed the team to scrutinize the catalyst's activity at the atomic scale, and confirmed that the long polymer chains moved readily through the catalyst pores in the manner resembling the enzymatic processes that the scientists were aiming to emulate.

This research will be expanded and continued under direction of the Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics (iCOUP), led by Ames Laboratory. iCOUP is an Energy Frontier Research Center consisting of scientists from Ames Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, UC Santa Barbara, University of South Carolina, Cornell University, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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The research is further discussed in the paper, "Catalytic upcycling of high-density polyethylene via a processive mechanism," authored by Akalanka Tennakoon, Xun Wu, Alexander L. Paterson, Smita Patnaik, Yuchen Pei, Anne M. LaPointe, Salai C. Ammal, Ryan A. Hackler, Andreas Heyden, Igor I. Slowing, Geoffrey W. Coates, Massimiliano Delferro, Baron Peters, Wenyu Huang, Aaron D. Sadow, and Frédéric A. Perras; and published in Nature Catalysis.

Ames Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated by Iowa State University. Ames Laboratory creates innovative materials, technologies and energy solutions. We use our expertise, unique capabilities and interdisciplinary collaborations to solve global problems. DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

 

Unique program aims to educate Muslim teens on HIV prevention

WOLTERS KLUWER HEALTH

Research News

 

October 19, 2020 - Cultural taboos may leave Muslim American adolescents uninformed about romantic relationships and sex, placing them at risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). A sex education program designed specifically for Muslim teens - with a foundation in Islamic morals and values - is reported in the November/December issue of The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC). The official journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, JANAC is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

Titled Sex Education in the Mosque, the program "addressed sex education and HIV prevention with a primary focus on abstinence and making self-empowered choices," according to the new research by Shaakira Abdullah, DNP, FNP-BC, of Widener University, Chester, Pa., and colleagues. They report on the development and initial evaluation of their program: the first evidence-based curriculum to address sexual education in the Muslim community.

Teens Learn About Sex and Relationships - With a Focus on Muslim Values

Islamic teachings focus on the value of chastity and forbid having sex before marriage. But many Muslim parents do not talk about sex with their children. "Refraining from discussing issues of sexuality in the home in an effort to prevent promiscuity often backfires and leads adolescents to learn from unreliable sources and engage in risky behaviors, potentially exposing themselves to HIV/STIs or teen pregnancy," Dr. Abdullah and coauthors write. They cite statistics showing that Muslim adolescents have risky sexual behaviors similar to their non-Muslim peers.

Sex Education in the Mosque was designed as a comprehensive sex education program for Muslim youth and adolescents, grounded in the framework of Islamic teachings. The authors report their experience with initial implementation of the program in New Jersey, home to the second-largest Muslim population in the United States, with 18 adolescent Muslim females, average age 16 years, at a mosque in Newark. Mosques were targeted to recruit participants because of their integral role in lifelong education in Muslim communities. The program was implemented with the full support of mosque Imams and administrators.

On pretest questionnaires, the young women had low understanding of HIV, STIs, and pregnancy. Posttest questionnaires showed significant gains in knowledge, which were well-maintained at three months' follow-up.

"There was also an increase in positive attitudes and intentions to abstain from sex before marriage on the posttests," the researchers write. All of the young women gave the program positive ratings; one teen wrote that she appreciated learning "many methods on how to be true to ourselves and cool at the same time!"

The program was adapted from an established curriculum that uses social and behavior theories to educate young people about their sexuality. Dr. Abdullah and colleagues integrated Muslim values and a focus on having a strong Islamic identity to strengthen teens' self-confidence and ability to make healthy decisions. "The program distinguished itself from typical abstinence-based programs because it portrayed sex as a pleasurable and natural experience," according to the authors.

"This project laid the groundwork for creating an effective curriculum that can address Muslim youth's unique needs," Dr. Abdullah and coauthors write. They also discuss important lessons for future implementations: many parents felt their daughters didn't need sex education or misunderstood the purpose of the program. The researchers plan to incorporate parental education sessions into future programs.

In response to interest in sex education and HIV prevention from other communities, Dr. Abdullah has initiated a nonprofit organization called Love Beyond Love, dedicated to strengthening and expanding the program. She and her coauthors conclude: "Muslim youth have the power and potential to hold themselves to a higher standard when given the opportunity to access knowledge, confidence, and skills needed to meet today's challenges."

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Click here to read "Sex Education in the Mosque: An HIV Prevention Initiative for Muslim Adolescents."

DOI: 10.1097/JNC.0000000000000187

About JANAC

The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (JANAC) is a peer-reviewed, international nursing journal that covers the full spectrum of the global HIV epidemic, focusing on prevention, evidence-based care management, interprofessional clinical care, research, advocacy, policy, education, social determinants of health, epidemiology, and program development. JANAC functions according to the highest standards of ethical publishing practices and offers innovative publication options, including Open Access and prepublication article posting, where the journal can post articles before they are published with an issue.

About the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care

Since 1987, the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC) has been the leading nursing organization responding to HIV/AIDS. The mission of ANAC is to foster the professional development of nurses and others involved in the delivery of health care for persons at risk for, living with, and/or affected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and its co-morbidities. ANAC promotes the health, welfare and rights of people living with HIV around the world.

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Wolters Kluwer reported 2019 annual revenues of €4.6 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 19,000 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands.

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