NASA's Maven observes martian night sky pulsing in ultraviolet light

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

 

IMAGE: THIS IS AN IMAGE OF THE ULTRAVIOLET "NIGHTGLOW " IN THE MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE. GREEN AND WHITE FALSE COLORS REPRESENT THE INTENSITY OF ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT, WITH WHITE BEING THE BRIGHTEST. THE NIGHTGLOW... view more 

CREDIT: CREDITS: NASA/MAVEN/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/CU/LASP

Vast areas of the Martian night sky pulse in ultraviolet light, according to images from NASA's MAVEN spacecraft. The results are being used to illuminate complex circulation patterns in the Martian atmosphere.

The MAVEN team was surprised to find that the atmosphere pulsed exactly three times per night, and only during Mars' spring and fall. The new data also revealed unexpected waves and spirals over the winter poles, while also confirming the Mars Express spacecraft results that this nightglow was brightest over the winter polar regions.

"MAVEN's images offer our first global insights into atmospheric motions in Mars' middle atmosphere, a critical region where air currents carry gases between the lowest and highest layers," said Nick Schneider of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), Boulder, Colorado. The brightenings occur where vertical winds carry gases down to regions of higher density, speeding up the chemical reactions that create nitric oxide and power the ultraviolet glow. Schneider is instrument lead for the MAVEN Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument that made these observations, and lead author of a paper on this research appearing August 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics. Ultraviolet light is invisible to the human eye but detectable by specialized instruments.

The diagram explains the cause of Mars' glowing nightside atmosphere. On Mars' dayside, molecules are torn apart by energetic solar photons. Global circulation patterns carry the atomic fragments to the nightside, where downward winds increase the reaction rate for the atoms to reform molecules. The downwards winds occur near the poles at some seasons and in the equatorial regions at others. The new molecules hold extra energy which they emit as ultraviolet light.

"The ultraviolet glow comes mostly from an altitude of about 70 kilometers (approximately 40 miles), with the brightest spot about a thousand kilometers (approximately 600 miles) across, and is as bright in the ultraviolet as Earth's northern lights," said Zac Milby, also of LASP. "Unfortunately, the composition of Mars' atmosphere means that these bright spots emit no light at visible wavelengths that would allow them to be seen by future Mars astronauts. Too bad: the bright patches would intensify overhead every night after sunset, and drift across the sky at 300 kilometers per hour (about 180 miles per hour)."

The pulsations reveal the importance of planet-encircling waves in the Mars atmosphere. The number of waves and their speed indicates that Mars' middle atmosphere is influenced by the daily pattern of solar heating and disturbances from the topography of Mars' huge volcanic mountains. These pulsating spots are the clearest evidence that the middle atmosphere waves match those known to dominate the layers above and below.

"MAVEN's main discoveries of atmosphere loss and climate change show the importance of these vast circulation patterns that transport atmospheric gases around the globe and from the surface to the edge of space." said Sonal Jain, also of LASP.

Next, the team plans to look at nightglow "sideways", instead of down from above, using data taken by IUVS looking just above the edge of the planet. This new perspective will be used to understand the vertical winds and seasonal changes even more accurately.

The Martian nightglow was first observed by the SPICAM instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft. However, IUVS is a next-generation instrument better able to repeatedly map out the nightside glow, finding patterns and periodic behaviors. Many planets including Earth have nightglow, but MAVEN is the first mission to collect so many images of another planet's nightglow.

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The research was funded by the MAVEN mission. MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, and NASA Goddard manages the MAVEN project. NASA is exploring our Solar System and beyond, uncovering worlds, stars, and cosmic mysteries near and far with our powerful fleet of space and ground-based missions.

For video, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2020/mars-nightglow

Rock debris protects glaciers from climate change more than previously known

A new study which provides a global estimate of rock cover on the Earth's glaciers has revealed that the expanse of rock debris on glaciers, a factor that has been ignored in models of glacier melt and sea level rise, could be significant.

NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: ROCK DEBRIS COVER ON GLACIERS IN THE ALASKA RANGE. view more 

CREDIT: SAM HERREID

A new study which provides a global estimate of rock cover on the Earth's glaciers has revealed that the expanse of rock debris on glaciers, a factor that has been ignored in models of glacier melt and sea level rise, could be significant.

The Northumbria University study, which has been published in Nature Geoscience this week, is the first to manually verify the rock debris cover on every one of the Earth's glaciers.

As glaciers shrink, their surrounding mountain slopes become exposed and eroded rock debris slides down and accumulates on glacier surfaces. This debris forms a protective layer that can be many metres thick, reducing the rate at which the ice below melts. Although the effects of this protective cover are known, it has never been carefully mapped until now, and so has not been included in global glacier models.

As well as revealing where rock debris is located on Earth's glaciers, the researchers also found and corrected key errors within the Randolph Glacier Inventory - a global inventory of glacier outlines on which hundreds of studies are based.

Using Landsat imagery, the research team from Northumbria University's Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences and the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL spent three years painstakingly examining and manually verifying more than 923,000 square kilometres of glacier worldwide.

The exercise allowed them to analyse the debris cover on a global-, regional-, as well as individual glacier-scale and created the world's first baseline dataset of glaciers in their current state.

They found more than 29,000 square kilometres of the world's mountain glacier area is covered in rock debris - an area equivalent to almost 500 Manhattan Islands.

Lead researcher Sam Herreid undertook the study for his PhD at Northumbria University and is now believed to be the only person who has examined every glacier on Earth, manually correcting the Randolph Glacier Inventory and bringing a level of consistency that has never before been present in a global glacier dataset.

A caribou roaming in front of the Gakona Glacier in Alaska

He explained: "The structure of the debris cover of each glacier is unique and sensitive to climate, but until now, global glacier models have omitted debris cover from their forecasts of how glaciers respond to a changing climate.

"We now know that debris cover is present on almost half of Earth's glaciers, with 7.3% of the world's total mountain glacier area being debris covered.

"When we consider that much of this debris cover is located at the terminus, or toe, of a glacier where melt would usually be at its highest, this percentage becomes particularly important with respect to predicting future water resources and sea level rise."

The study also uncovered errors within the Randolph Glacier Inventory, finding an error rate of 3.3%. One of their findings revealed that 10,000 square kilometres of mapped glacier area was not actually glacier, but rather bedrock or vegetated ground that was either incorrectly mapped previously or glacier area that has since melted away.

This, combined with the melt reduction from debris insulating the ice below, means that all past global glacier models based on the Inventory are likely to have overestimated the true volume of glacier melt, run off and subsequent contribution to global sea level rise.

They described the 10.6% of glacier area that requires an updated approach to estimating melt as "an alarmingly high number" and said that their work provides a key dataset for revising, and likely lowering, the glacier contribution to sea level rise.

The team also devised a way to analyse how the world's debris-covered glaciers will evolve over the coming centuries.

By comparing the many states of glaciers present on Earth today, from those considered to be 'young' and icy in Greenland, to 'old' and rock covered in the Himalaya, they were able to piece together a conceptual timeline which they believe outlines how a glacier might evolve in the future.

Their timeline reveals that many glaciers are at the older end of the spectrum and can therefore be considered to be on the decline.

Landsat imagery of 'young' debris cover in SE Greenland (left) and 'old' cover in the Everest region of the Himalaya, with the arrow pointing to one of the debris covered glacier tongues. It is believed that the debris bands in the Everest region would have looked similar to Greenland many hundreds of years ago, but have widened over time, filling the full width of the glacier with rocks.

Co-author Francesca Pellicciotti of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL and an Associate Professor at Northumbria University, explained: "The upper levels of the glaciers are constantly accumulating snow and will always be debris free, so we looked only at the lower levels of glaciers which is where rock debris can accumulate.

"Ice melts and flows away as water, but the rocks do not, and accumulate at the surface. Changes in the rate of mountain erosion as well as glacier changes in a warming climate will affect the size and shape of the rock layer at the surface of a glacier at any one time.

"Although we can't say exactly what year a glacier will evolve to a certain state, say, a state where it is almost entirely covered in rocks, we were able to place each glacier on a conceptual timeline and learn roughly how far along this line each glacier is to becoming almost entirely covered in rocks.

She added: "We found that the bulk of glaciers that have a debris cover today are beyond a peak debris cover formation state and are trending closer to the "old" Himalayan glaciers that might not be around for much longer.

"From a climate change perspective this is one more indication of the toll a warming climate is having on Earth's glaciers. However, we now have a benchmark measurement of debris cover for all of Earth's glaciers and new tools to monitor and predict the rate of changes couple to a warming climate."

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Northumbria University is renowned for being one of the leading centres in Europe for research into cold and palaeo environments. In recent years the University has been granted major research funding to investigate and model changes to Antarctica's major glaciers. It is the only UK university to be involved in two investigations in the £20 million UK-US International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration.

The study The state of rock debris covering Earth's glaciers is now available in Nature Geoscience.

Why are butchered dolphins washing ashore in France's Brittany?

On Aug. 2, a walker happened across the butchered body of a dolphin on a beach in La Torche, France. (Photo: Sea Shepherd/Facebook)

FRANCE / ANIMAL CRUELTY - 08/06/2020

A photo posted online shows the butchered remains of a dolphin washed up on the beach in western France. This isn’t the first time that a dolphin, skinned or carved, has startled beachgoers in Brittany.

In early August, a beachgoer walking in La Torche, in the French department of Finistère, found the body of a dolphin whose upper dorsal section was completely carved out.


“These are protected species. These barbaric ‘customs’ must end,” this poster writes above a picture of a slaughtered dolphin discovered on a French beach and posted on Facebook Aug. 2.

This picture shows one of several dead dolphins found over the weekend on beaches around La Torche. While it was the only one that was butchered, others had their tails cut off, a common practice used by fishermen to release dolphins trapped in nets.

découverts hier après midi sur la plage LA TORCHE près du Guilvenec, en Bretagne.

...See More

3 dauphins échoués ce matin sur la plage de Plovan (Bretagne), dont 2 avec la queue coupée et un aileron attaché avec un câble métallique... Servirait-il d’appât aux pêcheurs Mme la ministre ⁦@AnnickGirardin⁩ ? pic.twitter.com/xY2lkanL75 Cyrille (@cyrillegagliano) August 2, 2020

A beachgoer found the remains of three dead dolphins on Plovan beach in Brittany and posted these photos on Twitter Aug. 2.

Locals in the region had found similarly mutilated bodies of dolphins back in January.


Three mutilated dolphins were found on Jan. 12, 2020 on La Torche beach in Brittany.

Un dauphin dépecé retrouvé sur une plage du Pays bigouden. Il a été trouvé mercredi. https://t.co/mrkYHTfgbk pic.twitter.com/i4IET99jKG Ouest-France 29 (@OuestFrance29) January 30, 2020
On Jan 29, 2020, a carved up dolphin was found on the beach in the Bigouden region in the French department of Finistère.


“Death by the agony of the deep”

The common dolphin, present in the waters on the coast of northern and western France, is a protected species. In France, it is illegal to capture, transport, kill or mutilate these creatures.

Dolphins and other aquatic mammals are commonly caught as unintentional “bycatch” in the nets of fisherman trawling for fish. Trawl nets are towed behind boats to catch schools of moving fish such as anchovies, bass or tuna. Dolphins can be pulled into the net accidentally or swim into the nets to feed, where they become trapped and drown. Legally, fishermen must release and report all dolphins accidentally caught in their nets, but nonprofit conservation organisation Sea Shepherd reports that fewer than 1% of dolphins caught in fishing nets are reported.

The Paris Administrative Court condemned French authorities on July 2 for failing to take measures to prevent dolphin bycatch, based in part on the nation’s inadequate reporting and monitoring systems.

Bycatch is blamed for the death of numerous dolphins every year off France’s Atlantic coast. From Jan. 1 to Mar. 18, 2020, nearly 1,000 dolphins were found dead on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, according to the Pelagis Observatory. More than 70% of them showed signs and injuries from bycatch.

Since dolphins and fishermen are searching for the same prey, dolphins commonly end up near fishing vessels. In the Bay of Biscay, a popular area to catch sea bass, dolphins are plentiful.


This map shows the number of aquatic mammals that washed up on beaches around the Bay of Biscay between Jan. 1 and Mar. 18, 2020. (Source: Pelagis Observatory)
The number of dolphins found washed ashore represent only a fraction of the number killed in fishermen’s nets at sea each year. According to Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, only 18% of dead dolphins actually wash up on shore.

It’s only the tip of the iceberg. For years, fishermen have denied responsibility, saying dolphins die just from being sick or drowning in storms. But when scientists do autopsies on these dolphins, most are healthy with no sign of sickness. Then when you open them up you can see their lungs exploded in their bodies because they couldn’t breathe. They call that death by the agony of the deep, it’s a very painful death.

Last year, 26 European NGOs asked the European Commission to prosecute 15 EU countries, including France, for failing to protect dolphins. In July 2020, the European Commission gave France three months to implement measurements preventing dolphin deaths on its coasts.

Several measures have been implemented in France to reduce bycatch, such as placing neutral inspectors on fishing vessels to observe their catches. All trawler boats over 12 metres are required to use “pingers” which emit a high sound deterring dolphins from approaching. However, Sea Shepherd argues that these devices may actually cause more harm to the species by pushing dolphins away from their feeding grounds, making it harder for them to survive.


But why are some dolphins ending up butchered on beaches?

Essemlali explained:

The way the dolphin is butchered is typical of what fishermen do when they eat dolphins. We have been receiving more and more testimonies from fishermen reporting this behaviour. There are certain people who consider dolphins to be like fish, that they can be eaten. But as a protected species, it’s illegal to eat them even if they are captured as bycatch.

On Jan. 21, 2020, Sea Shepherd published a video showing unidentified fishermen butchering a dolphin for its meat.


In this video published by Sea Shepherd Jan. 21, 2020, fishermen are seen butchering a dolphin while saying, “It’s red meat” and “A good steak” in French.

French officials condemned the actions shown in this video and called them “isolated behaviors", but Essemlali does not believe this video is unique.

We used to believe this only happened occasionally, but we are getting more and more testimonies from fishermen who tell us it is a common practice. It’s very hard to estimate how many dolphins are being butchered like this but we have many different fishermen, who don’t know each other, telling us the same thing about different vessels. We have even heard of people who intentionally hunt dolphins with harpoons. They tell us it’s so easy because dolphins are so curious and friendly they come so close to fishing vessels. For them, it’s just free fish. There is also a black market for dolphin meat in France.

Sea Shepherd continues to advocate for dolphins and recommends that consumers reduce their fish intake and that the fishing industry be drastically reduced. They continue to organise nightly patrols in the Bay of Biscay to document and observe fishing methods.

Article by Pariesa Young

Study finds high levels of toxic pollutants in stranded dolphins and whales

Researchers examine 83 stranded dolphins and whales in North Carolina and Florida

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: GERVAIS' BEAKED WHALE THAT STRANDED IN ST. LUCIE COUNTY IN FLORIDA IN 2019. (THE FAU HARBOR BRANCH RESCUE TEAM OPERATES AS A MARINE MAMMAL STRANDING RESPONDER UNDER A LETTER OF... view more 

CREDIT: ANNIE PAGE-KARJIAN

A study led by researchers at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute examined toxins in tissue concentrations and pathology data from 83 stranded dolphins and whales along the southeastern coast of the United States from 2012 to 2018. Researchers examined 11 different animal species to test for 17 different substances in animals found on the shores in North Carolina and Florida.

This is the first study to date to publish a report examining concentrations in blubber tissues of stranded cetaceans of atrazine, an herbicide, DEP, (a phthalate ester found in plastics), NPE or nonylphenol ethoxylate commonly used in food packing, and triclosan, an antibacterial and antifungal agent present in some consumer products, including toothpaste, soaps, detergents and toys.

The study also is the first to report concentrations of toxicants in a white-beaked dolphin and in Gervais' beaked whales, species for which the scientific literature remains sparse. Documenting toxicants in cetaceans is a critical step in tracing chemical contaminants within the marine food web and understanding their effects on biological systems.

For the study, just published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, lead author Annie Page-Karjian, D.V.M., Ph.D., an assistant research professor and clinical veterinarian at FAU's Harbor Branch, and collaborators, analyzed blubber samples for five organic toxicants including atrazine, DEP, NPE, bisphenol-A, diethyl phthalates and triclosan. They also analyzed liver samples for five non-essential elements (arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, thallium), six essential elements (cobalt, copper, manganese, iron, selenium, zinc) and one toxicant mixture class (Aroclor, a highly toxic industrial compound).

Results of the study showed that toxin and element concentrations varied based on animal demographic factors including species, sex, age and location. Liver samples from bottlenose dolphins had significantly higher average concentrations of lead, manganese, mercury, selenium, thallium, and zinc, and lower average concentrations of NPE, arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, and iron than samples from pygmy sperm whales. In adult female bottlenose dolphins, average arsenic concentrations were significantly higher and iron concentrations were significantly lower than in adult males. Adult bottlenose dolphins had significantly higher average concentrations of lead, mercury, and selenium, and significantly lower average manganese concentrations compared to juveniles.

Melon-headed whale that stranded in Sebastian in Florida in 2015. [The FAU Harbor Branch rescue team operates as a marine mammal stranding responder under a letter of authorization issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)]

Geography also had an impact. Dolphins that stranded in Florida had significantly higher average concentrations of lead, mercury, and selenium, and lower concentrations of iron than dolphins that stranded in North Carolina.

Toxicants in the marine environment result from polluted runoff and chemicals in waterways from fossil fuels as well as single-use plastics commonly used by humans. These plastic objects include packaging film, detergents and some children's toys and contain dangerous phthalates.

"We must do our part to reduce the amount of toxicants that enter into our marine environment, which have important health and environmental implications not just for marine life but for humans," said Page-Karjian. "These chemicals work their way up through the food chain and get more concentrated the higher up they go. When dolphins and whales eat fish with concentrations of the chemicals, the toxic elements enter their bodies. Dolphins eat a variety of fish and shrimp in these marine environments and so do humans."

The same Gervais' beaked whale being moved up the beach in St. Lucie County in Florida in 2019. [The FAU Harbor Branch rescue team operates as a marine mammal stranding responder under a letter of authorization issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)].

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Collaborators of the study are the University of Georgia; North Carolina State University; Marine Mammal Pathology Services; Colorado State University; Michigan State University; Marine Mammal Stranding Network of the Central North Carolina Coast; North Carolina Aquariums; and Loggerhead Marinelife Center.

Funding for this work was provided by the Florida State License Program 'Protect Wild Dolphins' and 'Protect Florida Whales' grants (administered by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Foundation), and the John H. Prescott Grant #'s NA14NMF4390181, NA11NMF4390065, NA17NMF4390103, NA12NMF4390165 and NA16NMF4390141.

About Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute: Founded in 1971, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University is a research community of marine scientists, engineers, educators and other professionals focused on Ocean Science for a Better World. The institute drives innovation in ocean engineering, at-sea operations, drug discovery and biotechnology from the oceans, coastal ecology and conservation, marine mammal research and conservation, aquaculture, ocean observing systems and marine education. For more information, visit http://www.fau.edu/hboi.

About Florida Atlantic University: Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University, with an annual economic impact of $6.3 billion, serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at sites throughout its six-county service region in southeast Florida. FAU's world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University is placing special focus on the rapid development of critical areas that form the basis of its strategic plan: Healthy aging, biotech, coastal and marine issues, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, informatics, lifespan and the environment. These areas provide opportunities for faculty and students to build upon FAU's existing strengths in research and scholarship. For more information, visit fau.edu.

THIRD WORLD USA 

Study: Most Americans don't have enough assets to withstand 3 months without income

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- A new study from Oregon State University found that 77% of low- to moderate-income American households fall below the asset poverty threshold, meaning that if their income were cut off they would not have the financial assets to maintain at least poverty-level status for three months.

The study compared asset poverty rates in the U.S. and Canada. Canada's asset poverty rate has improved over the past 20 years while the U.S. rate has worsened, but still, 62% of low- to moderate-income Canadians also fall below the asset poverty threshold.

The implications of these findings have become starkly apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, said David Rothwell, lead author on the study and an associate professor in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

"The fact that the U.S. safety net is so connected to work, and then you have this huge shock to employment, you have a system that's not prepared to handle such a big change to the employment system ... It results concretely in family stress and strain, and then that strain and stress relates to negative outcomes for children and families," Rothwell said.

The study, published last week in the journal Social Policy Administration, looked at financial assets such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds, rather than real assets like houses and property, because financial assets are easier to cash in and use in an emergency. Existing research has found that U.S. wealth inequality is more pronounced that income inequality.

Researchers used data from nationally representative financial surveys in Canada and the U.S. from 1998 through 2016, looking at low- to moderate-income households, defined as those in the bottom 50% of income distribution in each country, headed by working age adults age 25-54.

Rothwell and co-authors Leanne Giordono from OSU and Jennifer Robson from Carleton University in Ontario, Canada, were investigating how asset poverty changed over time in the two countries and how that change was affected by changes in transfer share -- the portion of household income that comes from government assistance. They chose the U.S. and Canada because of their close geographic proximity and similar legal traditions but significantly different welfare policies.

In 1998, Canada's asset poverty rate among low- to moderate-income households was 74%, compared with 67% in the U.S. The two rates were nearly identical in 2005, then Canada's kept falling and the U.S. rate kept rising, arriving at 62% and 77% in 2016.

Canada spends twice what the U.S. does on financial assistance for families, and much of it is spent in cash benefits, rather than in-kind benefits like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP, formerly food stamps) in the U.S. In 2016, 96% of low- to moderate-income Canadian households received some transfer income from the government. In the U.S., that number was 41%.

For the most part, results showed that more generous welfare policies were associated with greater rates of asset poverty in Canada, Rothwell said. There, as the government reduced the amount of public assistance families received as a proportion of their income over time, asset poverty improved.

However, he said, this relationship between welfare generosity and asset poverty should be interpreted as correlational, not causal, and the topic warrants further study. Because the levels of public assistance are greater in Canada than the U.S., it's hard to extend results from one country to the other, but when controlling for demographic characteristics, researchers found that decreasing transfer share has no impact on the risk of asset poverty in the U.S.

"What stands out there is, so few American families receive any type of transfers at all, compared to other countries, and small adjustments to an already minimal safety net was not related to asset poverty in this study," Rothwell said. In contrast, Canadian families receive a child benefit, a monthly cash payment of several hundred dollars to help with the cost of raising a child.

Many safety net programs, including Medicaid and SNAP, also disincentivize saving because they impose asset limits on people seeking assistance. Rothwell calls these a "poverty trap."

"If you have someone who's low-income and they are working hard trying to save money but you're telling them that they're going to lose benefits if they save over some given threshold, that's a disincentive to accumulate wealth," he said.

Rothwell notes that asset poverty rates are much higher among people of color, due to decades of discriminatory laws and policies that prevented Black people, in particular, from buying and owning homes or securing well-paying jobs.

"This is the story of COVID, as I see it -- it's just exposing these existing inequalities, and the people who are most vulnerable going into the crisis are magnified in their vulnerability getting through it," Rothwell said.

A study coming out later this year from the same research team will look specifically at racial and ethnic asset disparities and how they impact people's health, he said.

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Lava tubes on Mars and the Moon are so wide they can host planetary bases

UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA

IMAGE: THE MORPHOLOGICAL SURFACE EXPRESSION OF LAVA TUBES ON MARS AND THE MOON IS SIMILAR TO THEIR TERRESTRIAL COUNTERPART. view more 

CREDIT: ESA / LUCA RICCI

The international journal Earth-Science Reviews published a paper offering an overview of the lava tubes (pyroducts) on Earth, eventually providing an estimate of the (greater) size of their lunar and Martian counterparts.

This study involved the Universities of Bologna and Padua and its coordinators are Francesco Sauro and Riccardo Pozzobon. Francesco Sauro is a speleologist and head of the ESA programmes CAVES and PANGAEA, he is also a professor at the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna. Riccardo Pozzobon is a planetary geologist at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua.

"We can find lava tubes on planet Earth, but also on the subsurface of the Moon and Mars according to the high-resolution pictures of lava tubes' skylights taken by interplanetary probes. Evidence of lava tubes was often inferred by observing linear cavities and sinuous collapse chains where the galleries cracked", explains Francesco Sauro. "These collapse chains represent ideal gateways or windows for subsurface exploration. The morphological surface expression of lava tubes on Mars and the Moon is similar to their terrestrial counterpart. Speleologists thoroughly studied lava tubes on Earth in Hawaii, Canary Islands, Australia and Iceland".

"We measured the size and gathered the morphology of lunar and Martian collapse chains (collapsed lava tubes), using digital terrain models (DTMs), which we obtained through satellite stereoscopic images and laser altimetry taken by interplanetary probes", reminds Riccardo Pozzobon. "We then compared these data to topographic studies about similar collapse chains on the Earth's surface and to laser scans of the inside of lava tubes in Lanzarote and the Galapagos. These data allowed to establish a restriction to the relationship between collapse chains and subsurface cavities that are still intact".

Researchers found that Martian and lunar tubes are respectively 100 and 1,000 times wider than those on Earth, which typically have a diameter of 10 to 30 meters. Lower gravity and its effect on volcanism explain these outstanding dimensions (with total volumes exceeding 1 billion of cubic meters on the Moon).

Riccardo Pozzobon adds: "Tubes as wide as these can be longer than 40 kilometres, making the Moon an extraordinary target for subsurface exploration and potential settlement in the wide protected and stable environments of lava tubes. The latter are so big they can contain Padua's entire city centre".

"What is most important is that, despite the impressive dimension of the lunar tubes, they remain well within the roof stability threshold because of a lower gravitational attraction", explains Matteo Massironi, who is professor of Structural and Planetary Geology at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua. "This means that the majority of lava tubes underneath the maria smooth plains are intact. The collapse chains we observed might have been caused by asteroids piercing the tube walls. This is what the collapse chains in Marius Hills seem to suggest. From the latter, we can get access to these huge underground cavities".

Francesco Sauro concludes: "Lava tubes could provide stable shields from cosmic and solar radiation and micrometeorite impacts which are often happening on the surfaces of planetary bodies. Moreover, they have great potential for providing an environment in which temperatures do not vary from day- to night-time. Space agencies are now interested in planetary caves and lava tubes, as they represent a first step towards future explorations of the lunar surface (see also NASA's project Artemis) and towards finding life (past or present) in Mars subsurface".

Researchers also point out how this study opens up to a completely new perspective in planetary exploration, which is increasingly focusing on the subsurface of Mars and the Moon.

"In autumn 2019, ESA called up universities and industries with a campaign seeking ideas for developing technologies for lunar caves exploration. They are specifically looking for systems that would land on the lunar surface to operate missions exploring lunar tubes", clarifies Unibo professor Jo De Waele, who is one of the authors of the study and a speleologist. "Since 2012, in collaboration with some European universities including Bologna and Padua, ESA has been carrying out two training programmes for astronauts focusing on the exploration of underground systems (CAVES) and planetary geology (PANGAEA). These programmes include lava tubes on the island of Lanzarote. So far, 36 astronauts from five space agencies have received training in cave hiking; moreover, six astronauts and four mission and operation specialists have received geological field training".

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The title of this study is "Lava tubes on Earth, Moon and Mars: A review on their size and morphology revealed by comparative planetology" and it was published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews. The authors are: Francesco Sauro, Jo De Waele and Pierluigi De Berardinis (Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences of the University of Bologna); Riccardo Pozzobon and Matteo Massironi (Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua); Tommaso Santagata (VIGEA - Virtual Geographic Agency in Reggio Emilia).

Raphael's face reconstructed to solve tomb mystery

Issued on: 06/08/2020 - 18:28

This is how Raphael looked, although he wouldn't have liked the accurate depiction of his nose Tor Vergata University of Rome/AFP

Rome (AFP)

Art sleuths have created a 3D reconstruction of the face of Italian painter Raphael, solving an age-old mystery over his final resting place, Rome's Tor Vergata University told AFP Thursday.

The artist, a child prodigy and part of a trinity of Renaissance greats along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, died in 1520, aged only 37. A red rose graces his tomb in Rome's Pantheon all year round.

His body was exhumed in the 19th century, at which point a plaster cast of his skull was made. But experts were not sure the remains really belonged to Raphael, for the excavation also unearthed other full and partial skeletons.
Several of the skeletons belonged to the artist's students, but others went unidentified.

Popular myth has it that the Renaissance painter, who was said to have had an active sex life, succumbed to syphilis in 1520, though experts widely agree that he died of pneumonia, possibly after visiting lovers late on freezing nights.

As Rome marked 500 years since his death this year, the university team set about making a 3D reconstruction of the plaster cast.

It found a clear match with the Raphael pictured in portraits by other artists in the period, as well as the artist's self-portraits, molecular biology expert Mattia Falconi told AFP.

"We have concrete evidence for the first time that the skeleton exhumed in 1833 belongs to Raffaello Sanzio," Falconi said.

- 'Not his nose' -

A 3D-reconstruction "only captures 80 percent of the original face, but there's no doubt about the result. It looks nothing like the students we know are buried there, and it would be too much of a coincidence for a stranger to look so similar".

Falconi said the only part of the face that could not be reconstructed this way were the ears -- "but fortunately Raphael had long hair that covered his ears".
Confirmation the skeleton is Raphael's opens the door to further analysis of the skeleton to determine hair and eye colour.

A project to re-exhume the body this year was put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, but if it resumes Falconi said his team would be interested in seeing how faithful the artist was to his real self.

"The 3D model shows the eyes and mouth (in the portraits) are his, but he has been kind to himself about his nose," he said.

"We know that Raphael often painted himself younger than his years, and this model allows us to see him as he really was".

A life-size 3D-printed bust of the man dubbed the "Prince of Painters" by fellow artist and famed 16th-century biographer Giorgio Vasari will go on display at the museum at his birthplace in Urbino in Italy's Marche region.

Despite his premature death, Raphael produced a vast oeuvre of seminal work, much of it at the Vatican, whose opulent museums include several rooms filled with his frescoes.

Completed by Raphael's students after his death, they remain some of the Vatican's most popular rooms.

© 2020 AFP

Climate change to bring longer droughts in Europe: study

The intense drought in Europe from 2018 to 2019 was the first two-year dry period in 250 years, the study found 

Patrick Pleul dpa/AFP/File
Issued on: 06/08/2020 

Paris (AFP)

Punishing two-year droughts like the record-breaking one that gripped Central Europe from 2018 to 2019 could become much more frequent if the region fails to curb greenhouse gas emissions, researchers said Thursday, affecting huge swathes of its cultivated land.

The five hottest years in recorded history have occurred in the last five years.

This extreme heat was exacerbated in 2018 and 2019 by two consecutive summers of drought that affected more than half of Central Europe, according to a new study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

Researchers in Germany and the Czech Republic used data going back to 1766 to conclude the drought was the largest-scale and most severe dry spell ever recorded.

"The observational record suggests that the ongoing 2018–2019 European drought event is unprecedented in the last 250 years, with substanprolongedtial implications for vegetation health," the study said.

Researchers then sought to estimate whether prolonged droughts would become more frequent in the future by using global climate change models.

Under a scenario where greenhouse gas emissions continue their inexorable rise, the researchers predicted that the number of extreme two-year droughts will increase sevenfold in Europe in the second half of this century.

"This projection also suggested that drought-affected cropland areas across Central Europe will nearly double," said co-author Rohini Kumar, of the UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, in Leipzig.

This would result in a total of 40 million hectares of cultivated land affected -- equivalent to 60 percent of all crop areas in the region.

When researchers modelled for moderate emissions, the predicted number of two-year droughts halved compared to the worst case scenario, while the area expected to be hit by the drought also reduced.

Kumar said this suggests a reduction in emissions could lower the risk of these damaging dry periods.

- Threat to agriculture -


The researcher said a two-year dry period presents a far greater threat to vegetation than the single-summer droughts of previous years because the land cannot recover as quickly.

He said around a fifth of the Central European region had recorded poor vegetation health in the last two years.

"Thus, it is with the utmost urgency that we need to recognise the importance of these persevering consecutive year events, and to develop a holistic framework to model the risk," he added.

The study defined Central Europe as including parts of Germany, France, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, as well as Czech Republic, Belgium, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia.

Over 34 percent of the total land area in the region is extensively used for agricultural purposes, it said.

The 2015 Paris climate deal commits nations to capping temperature rises to "well-below" 2C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and to strive for a 1.5C limit if at all possible.

With just 1C of warming so far, Earth is already buffeted by record-breaking droughts, wildfires and super storms made more potent by rising sea levels.

To keep in line with the 1.5C target, the United Nations says global emissions must fall by 7.6 percent every year this decade.

© 2020 AFP

What we know so far about COVID-19 and children

Issued on: 06/08/2020

We know for sure children are less likely to fall seriously ill from the coronavirus, and emerging evidence suggests they're less likely to be infected too; what's less clear is how much they spread the virus once infected CESAR MANSO AFP/File

Washington (AFP)

President Donald Trump has been censored on Facebook and Twitter after saying children are "almost immune" from COVID-19. What do the facts say?

We know for sure children are less likely to fall seriously ill from the coronavirus, and emerging evidence suggests they're less likely to be infected too.

What's less clear is how much they spread the virus once infected.


- Children rarely become seriously ill -

Under-18s have accounted for just two percent of hospitalized COVID-19 cases and less than 0.1 percent of all deaths in the United States, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A total of 45 children died from the coronavirus in the United States between February 1 and August 1 -- compared to 105 who died from seasonal flu -- out of a total of 13,000 children who died of all of causes over the period.

When they do catch the virus, children are far less likely than adults to fall seriously ill.

An informative study of 2,143 confirmed or suspected cases of coronavirus among children in China found 94 percent of cases were asymptomatic, mild or moderate.

Those children who do fall ill often have underlying conditions. A study found all 10 pediatric patients who were hospitalized in Chicago in March and April with COVID-19 had either pre-existing conditions or co-infections.

The bottom line here is that children get sick and die from COVID-19 far less often than adults do, though that does not mean they are immune.

Some limited research indicates infants (under one) may be at slightly higher risk than older children.

It's worth emphasizing that given that children are more prone to severe cases of flu, it wasn't obvious at the start of the pandemic that children would be less susceptible to COVID-19.

There is also a highly rare, post-viral condition called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) which can develop about a month after SARS-CoV-2 infection and causes multiple organs to become painfully inflamed.

As of July 15, the CDC had reported 342 cases and six deaths -- a death rate of under two percent. The average age was eight-years-old, and 70 percent of cases occurred among either Hispanic or black children.

- They seem less likely to contract the virus -

The next question is, are children major drivers of viral transmission? This breaks down into two parts: 1) How easily do they become infected? 2) How much do they spread the virus once they have it?

There have now been several studies on the first part that do indeed seem to suggest children, especially younger children are infected less often.

Icelandic researchers selected just over 13,000 people for viral screening, including some 850 children under 10. The overall prevalence of the coronavirus was 0.8 percent, but no children under 10 were infected.

Similar surveys carried out in Spain, Italy and Switzerland all had similar results, finding children accounted for a far smaller proportion of infections compared to adults.

That said, this remains an area of ongoing study.

In the US, top infectious diseases official Anthony Fauci is leading a study into the question of infection and transmission rates among children and adults, with results expected by December.

- We don't know yet how contagious children are -

This is perhaps the most pressing question as authorities consider when and how to reopen schools.

If children are major spreaders, then they could cause fresh outbreaks within their homes and communities -- and unfortunately the evidence right now on this point is mixed.

A study out of Chicago that appeared last week found that children under the age of five carry between 10 to 100 times greater levels of viral nucleic acid in their noses compared to adults.

Since this genetic material causes the virus to grow in labs, the authors suggested that children are probably important drivers of transmission.

That hypothesis merits more study but is not yet proven.

Another way of approaching the problem is through the lens of epidemiology -- that is, what happened in real life?

On the one hand, spectacular clusters have erupted -- for example at a summer camp in the US state of Georgia where hundreds of unmasked children who slept together in large dorms were infected.

Israel, too has been a cautionary tale, with outbreaks in multiple schools that infected hundreds of students, teachers and relatives.

Conversely, a large study in South Korea showed that children under the age of 10 infect household contacts at much lower rates than those above 10 and adults.

As for possible reasons as to why children seem to get infected less -- no one knows for sure, but there are ideas.

Maybe the virus can't latch on as readily to the cell receptors of children.

Another theory gaining more traction is that the four coronaviruses that cause the common cold are remembered by the body's T cells -- white blood cells that fight infections -- which then provide cross immunity.

Since children often get colds, they may have more immunity than adults.

The hypothesis remains to be tested through widespread screening.

© 2020 AFP

Authorities evacuate homes near melting glacier in Italian Alps


Homes were evacuated Thursday near the Planpinceux Glacier on Mont Blanc amid fears of an imminent landslide, in Valle d'Aosta, northwest Italy. File Photo by Riccardo Dalle Luche/EPA-EFE

Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Italian authorities evacuated homes and closed roads in the Aosta Valley Thursday amid concerns that portions of the Mont Blanc glacier could break apart.

At least 65 people, most tourists, were evacuated in the hamlet of Val Ferret beneath the Planpincieux Glacier in Grandes Jorasses Park.

Glacier experts from the Safe Mountains Foundation warned that 500,000 cubic meters of ice are in danger of breaking off. Mont Blanc is the highest peak in the Alps at 15,748 feet.A similar threat last fall forced officials to close roads around the glacier. The region has been closely monitored since 2013 because of the speed of the glacier's melting ice.

A couple died in the area two years ago when their vehicle was swept off the road during a heavy storm. That road has remained closed.