Six out of every 10 teachers believe that changing the design of the classroom is key to improving learning

Several studies have already acknowledged the benefits of a suitably designed classroom.

UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA (UOC)

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IMAGE: SCIENCE TELLS US THAT WE LEARN BETTER AND MORE BY COLLABORATING, AND THEREFORE THE SPACE MUST FAVOUR THIS view more 

CREDIT: (PHOTO: SMARTCLASSROOMPROJECT.COM)

The image of rows of chairs and desks facing a teacher at a blackboard has been a reality for decades. However, research reveals that this way of organizing the classroom furniture in schools is not the best way for favouring the learning process. Especially if the needs of 21st-century students are taken into account, who, according to the OECD, require a social environment that fosters autonomy, flexibility, decision-making capacity and the connection of knowledge by individual students or through teamwork.

It is also the opinion of 6 out of every 10 teachers that changing the design of the classroom is key to improving learning. This was the result of a recent study conducted by researchers of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Universitat de Vic (UVic) and Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB), in which 847 preschool, primary and secondary school teachers from 40 schools participated. "We assume that's what the spaces should be like without giving it much thought or without connecting what we're innovating in terms of methodology with the place in which we're going to put that into practice," said Guillermo Bautista, member of the Smart Classroom Project research group of the UOC and principal investigator in this study. That's why we need to make the Smart Learning Space a reality: "a space that meets any learning need or proposal, that is flexible and not zoned, in which physical and psychological well-being are prioritized as the foundations upon which the learning activity can take place, in which the pupils play a proactive and autonomous role," said Bautista.

Several studies have already acknowledged the benefits of a suitably-designed classroom. This was one of the reasons why the Consorci d'Educació de Barcelona started replacing the furniture in 487 classrooms a few weeks ago, whilst also reorganizing the spaces to obtain motivating environments that encourage discovery. And, as the authors of the UOC-led study point out, it's that the skills and learning needs of today's pupils not only oblige us to rethink our teaching practices or the inclusion of digital resources, they also require changes in the learning spaces in general.

Guillermo Bautista demonstrates this with an example: as he explains, science tells us that we learn better and more by collaborating, and therefore the space must favour this collaboration and interaction, also taking into account what research tells us about collaborative learning. If we organize the activity with groups of four students based on a challenge or a project, it would be logical that the space should be suitable to enable the group to collaborate and also enable a certain amount of autonomy for using the resources it needs, for moving, looking around, experimenting, and self-organizing, etc. "This means that not all of the groups will be doing the same thing at the same time, and the same resources will not be necessary for everyone. The activity in the classroom is diverse and the space must constantly respond to this organizational diversity of use, resources, movements," he explained.

However, the strong assumption upheld for decades that the classroom is as it is, has resulted in us proposing few changes. And when these are finally being proposed, the direction of these changes is not easy to decide upon, "and that is why our research is necessary, to help establish criteria so that the space is changed with guarantees," he said.

Changes in the design of secondary school classrooms also

Currently, most teachers negatively rate the organization of the environment in their classroom. This is one of the findings of the study, whereby low or moderate scores were obtained regarding the suitability of current classrooms to serve as comprehensive learning spaces. But differences exist between the different levels of education, as the design of preschool and primary education learning spaces is generally more flexible, collaborative and personal, affirm the authors of the study, who point to a possible reason for this scenario. "It is precisely in the infant and primary stages where teaching trends such as those applied since the early 20th century (in which the spaces, their layout, furniture, etc. were already linked to clear educational meanings) have been most present and usually more visible," said Angelina Sánchez-Martí, researcher of the Smart Classroom Project and Serra Húnter professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

On the other hand, the traditional layout of the spaces is much more established among secondary school centres and teachers. That's why the authors of the study positively value the fact that during the study it was confirmed that there are teachers and centres from this stage of education who are aware that their spaces do not correspond with the methodologies that they want to implement. "The Smart Spaces that we have implemented as part of the research are co-designed, applying a thoroughness, rigorousness, and seeking to meet the highest objectives and results for learning proposed by each centre. And these spaces are needed in all of the stages," said Bautista.

Another result to highlight is that the teachers are especially critical when it comes to appraising the integration of technology in the classrooms. But in the opinion of the authors of the study, this data is not surprising as "it is precisely the new technologies that are threatening the traditional times and spaces, and therefore demand great flexibility and a constant adaptation to change, as well as a reformulation of the learning spaces", said Sánchez-Martí. She added that the possibilities that technological integration offers in terms of creating new ways to relate and learn "completely clashes with the very standardized design derived from the idea that schools must be based on classrooms per se, when this does not necessarily have to be the case."

CAPTION

example of a Smart classroom

CREDIT

(Photo: Smartclassroomproject.com

This research by the UOC supports Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 4, on Quality Education

Reference article:

Bautista Pérez, G., Rubio Hurtado, M.J. & Sánchez-Martí, A. Towards smart learning spaces in Catalan schools: teachers' perceptions of change. Learning Environ Res (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-021-09357-y

This study has been financed by the RecerCaixa Smart Classroom project. Codesign of innovative learning environments. Investigating new classroom models.

UOC R&I

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century, by studying interactions between technology and human & social sciences with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health. Over 500 researchers and 51 research groups work among the University's seven faculties and two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and open knowledge serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information: research.uoc.edu. #UOC25years

How to level up soft robotics

Mechanical engineer offers perspective on the maturation of the field of soft robotics

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

Research News

 

The field of soft robotics has exploded in the past decade, as ever more researchers seek to make real the potential of these pliant, flexible automata in a variety of realms, including search and rescue, exploration and medicine.

For all the excitement surrounding these new machines, however, UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering professor Elliot Hawkes wants to ensure that soft robotics research is more than just a flash in the pan. "Some new, rapidly growing fields never take root, while others become thriving disciplines," Hawkes said.

To help guarantee the longevity of soft robotics research, Hawkes, whose own robots have garnered interest for their bioinspired and novel locomotion and for the new possibilities they present, offers an approach that moves the field forward. His viewpoint, written with colleagues Carmel Majidi from Carnegie Mellon University and Michael T. Tolley of UC San Diego, is published in the journal Science Robotics.

"We were looking at publication data for soft robotics and noticed a phase of explosive growth over the last decade," Hawkes said. "We became curious about trends like this in new fields, and how new fields take root."

The first decade of widespread soft robotics research, according to the group, "was characterized by defining, inspiring and exploring," as roboticists took to heart what it meant to create a soft robot, from materials systems to novel ways of navigating through and interacting with the environment.

However

Small galaxies likely played important role in evolution of the Universe

Researchers find first-ever galaxy observed in a 'blow-away' state

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Research News

IMAGE: THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA STUDY SHOWS THAT HIGH-ENERGY LIGHT FROM SMALL GALAXIES, LIKE THE POX 186 GALAXY DEPICTED ABOVE, MAY HAVE PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THE REIONIZATION AND EVOLUTION... view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: PODEVIN, J.F., 2006

A new study led by University of Minnesota astrophysicists shows that high-energy light from small galaxies may have played a key role in the early evolution of the Universe. The research gives insight into how the Universe became reionized, a problem that astronomers have been trying to solve for years.

The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy.

After the Big Bang, when the Universe was formed billions of years ago, it was in an ionized state. This means that the electrons and protons floated freely throughout space. As the Universe expanded and started cooling down, it changed to a neutral state when the protons and electrons combined into atoms, akin to water vapor condensing into a cloud.

Now however, scientists have observed that the Universe is back in an ionized state. A major endeavor in astronomy is figuring out how this happened. Astronomers have theorized that the energy for reionization must have come from galaxies themselves. But, it's incredibly hard for enough high energy light to escape a galaxy due to hydrogen clouds within it that absorb the light, much like clouds in the Earth's atmosphere absorb sunlight on an overcast day.

Astrophysicists from the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering may have found the answer to that problem. Using data from the Gemini telescope, the researchers have observed the first ever galaxy in a "blow-away" state, meaning that the hydrogen clouds have been removed, allowing the high energy light to escape. The scientists suspect that the blow-away was caused by many supernovas, or dying stars, exploding in a short period of time.

"The star-formation can be thought of as blowing up the balloon," explained Nathan Eggen, the paper's lead author who recently received his master's degree in astrophysics from the University of Minnesota. "If, however, the star-formation was more intense, then there would be a rupture or hole made in the surface of the balloon to let out some of that energy. In the case of this galaxy, the star-formation was so powerful that the balloon was torn to pieces, completely blown-away."

The galaxy, named Pox 186, is so small that it could fit inside the Milky Way. The researchers suspect that its compact size, coupled with its large population of stars--which amount to a hundred thousand times the mass of the sun--made the blow-away possible.

The findings confirm that a blow-away is possible, furthering the idea that small galaxies were primarily responsible for the reionization of the Universe and giving more insight into how the Universe became what it is today.

"There are a lot of scenarios in science where you theorize that something should be the case, and you don't actually find it," Eggen said. "So, getting the observational confirmation that this sort of thing can happen is really important. If this one scenario is possible, then that means that there are other galaxies that also existed in blow-away states in the past. Understanding the consequences of this blow-away gives direct insight into the impacts similar blow-aways would have had during the process of reionization."

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In addition to Eggen, the research team included Claudia Scarlata and Evan Skillman, both professors in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, and Anne Jaskot, an assistant professor of astronomy at Williams College.

The research was funded by grants from the University of Minnesota and NASA. Researchers made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) and NASA's Astrophysical Data System.

Read the full paper entitled, "Blow-Away in the Extreme Low-Mass Starburst Galaxy Pox 186" on The Astrophysical Journal website.

Plankton have a genome like no other

KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (KAUST)

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH TEAM DISCOVERED THAT THE GENOME OF DINOFLAGELLATES IS ORGANIZED IN A UNIQUE WAY COMPARED TO OTHER EUKARYOTIC GENOMES. view more 

CREDIT: © 2021 KAUST

The genome of single-celled plankton, known as dinoflagellates, is organized in an incredibly strange and unusual way, according to new research. The findings lay the groundwork for further investigation into these important marine organisms and dramatically expand our picture of what a eukaryotic genome can look like.

Researchers from KAUST, the U.S. and Germany have investigated the genomic organization of the coral-symbiont dinoflagellate Symbiodinium microadriaticum. The S. microadriaticum genome had already been sequenced and assembled into segments known as scaffolds but lacked a chromosome-level assembly.

The team used a technique known as Hi-C to detect interactions in the dinoflagellate's chromatin, the combination of DNA and protein that makes up a chromosome. By analyzing these interactions, they could figure out how the scaffolds were connected together into chromosomes, giving them a view into the spatial and structural organization of the genome.

A striking finding was that the genes in the genome tended to be organized in alternating unidirectional blocks. "That's really, really different to what you see in other organisms," says Octavio Salazar, a Ph.D. student in Manuel Aranda's group at KAUST and one of the lead authors of the study. The orientation of genes on a chromosome is usually random. In this case, however, genes were consistently oriented one way and then the other, with the boundaries between blocks showing up clearly in the chromatin interaction data.

"Nature can work in a completely different way than we thought."

This organization is also reflected in the three-dimensional structure of the genome, which the team inferred comprises rod-shaped chromosomes that fold into structural domains at the boundaries where gene blocks converge. Even more intriguingly, this structure appears to be dependent on transcriptional activity. When the researchers treated cells with a chemical that blocks gene transcription, the structural domains disappeared.

This unusual link is consistent with another strange fact about dinoflagellates -- they have very few transcription factors in their genome and do not seem to respond to environmental changes by altering gene expression. They may use gene dosage to control expression and adapt to the environment by losing or gaining chromosomes or perhaps via epigenetic structural modifications. The researchers plan to explore all of these questions.

Another open question is the origin of this exceptional genome structure. Dinoflagellates produce very few histones, the proteins used by other eukaryotes to structure their DNA, instead using viral proteins incorporated into their genome long ago. The extraordinary genome structure and genetic regulation may be a consequence of how these viral proteins work, but that remains to be confirmed.

The dinoflagellate genome defies the expectation and dogmas built from studying other eukaryotes. "It shows that nature can work in a completely different way than we thought," says Salazar. "There are so many possibilities for what could have happened as life evolved."

New Geology articles published online ahead of print in April

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Research News

 

Boulder, Colo., USA: Thirty-one new articles were published online ahead of print for Geology in April. Topics include shocked zircon from the Chicxulub impact crater; the Holocene Sonoran Desert; the architecture of the Congo Basin; the southern Death Valley fault; missing water from the Qiangtang Basin; sulfide inclusions in diamonds; how Himalayan collision stems from subduction; ghost dune hollows; and the history of the Larsen C Ice Shelf. 

LINKS TO ARTICLES

New Geology articles published online ahead of print in April | EurekAlert! Science News

These Geology articles are online at https://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/early/recent .

Discarded ostrich shells provide timeline for our early African ancestors

Uranium-series dating shows South African midden is world's oldest

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY

Research News

 

IMAGE: ANCIENT OSTRICH EGGSHELLS FROM YSTERFONTEIN 1, A MIDDLE STONE AGE MIDDEN IN SOUTH AFRICA. SHOWN ARE SELECTED EGGSHELLS FROM THE TOP LAYER OF THE MIDDEN DATED BY URANIUM-THORIUM (U-TH, OR... view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE COURTESY OF E. NIESPOLO.

Archeologists have learned a lot about our ancestors by rummaging through their garbage piles, which contain evidence of their diet and population levels as the local flora and fauna changed over time.

One common kitchen scrap in Africa -- shells of ostrich eggs -- is now helping unscramble the mystery of when these changes took place, providing a timeline for some of the earliest Homo sapiens who settled down to utilize marine food resources along the South African coast more than 100,000 years ago.

Geochronologists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Geochronology Center (BGC) have developed a technique that uses these ubiquitous discards to precisely date garbage dumps -- politely called middens -- that are too old to be dated by radiocarbon or carbon-14 techniques, the standard for materials like bone and wood that are younger than about 50,000 years.

In a paper published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, former UC Berkeley doctoral student Elizabeth Niespolo and geochronologist and BGC and associate director Warren Sharp reported using uranium-thorium dating of ostrich eggshells to establish that a midden outside Cape Town, South Africa, was deposited between 119,900 and 113,100 years ago.

That makes the site, called Ysterfontein 1, the oldest known seashell midden in the world, and implies that early humans were fully adapted to coastal living by about 120,000 years ago. This also establishes that three hominid teeth found at the site are among the oldest Homo sapiens fossils recovered in southern Africa.

The technique is precise enough for the researchers to state convincingly that the 12.5-foot-deep pile of mostly marine shells -- mussels, mollusks and limpets -- intermixed with animal bones and eggshells may have been deposited over a period of as little as 2,300 years.

The new ages are already revising some of the assumptions archeologists had made about the early Homo sapiens who deposited their garbage at the site, including how their population and foraging strategies changed with changing climate and sea level.

"The reason why this is exciting is that this site wouldn't have been datable by radiocarbon because it is too old," Niespolo said, noting that there are a lot more such sites around Africa, in particular the coastal areas of South Africa.

"Almost all of this sort of site have ostrich eggshells, so now that we have this technique, there is this potential to go and revisit these sites and use this approach to date them more precisely and more accurately, and more importantly, find out if they are the same age as Ysterfontein or older or younger, and what that tells us about foraging and human behavior in the past," she added.

Because ostrich eggshells are ubiquitous in African middens -- the eggs are a rich source of protein, equivalent to about 20 chicken eggs -- they have been an attractive target for geochronologists. But applying uranium-thorium dating -- also called uranium series -- to ostrich shells has been beset by many uncertainties.

"The previous work to date eggshells with uranium series has been really hit and miss, and mostly miss," Niespolo said.

CAPTION

Eggshell structures exert a primary control on the distribution of secondary U and Th, so spatial characterization of key elements and careful sampling are required to produce accurate ages by 230Th/U dating. Scale bars are 1 mm. A. Thin section photomicrograph of a modern ostrich eggshell in cross section, and corresponding eggshell structures denoted by V (vertical layer), P (palisade or prismatic layer), and C (cone layer). Pores serving as oxygen pathways for incubating chicks are visible as open holes penetrating through the eggshell. B. Epoxy-mounted fragment of an ancient eggshell from Ysterfontein 1 in cross section, showing the same eggshell structures are well preserved in deep time. Analyses from laser ablation are evident along pitted lines and track concentrations of U and Th. A pore is apparent in the center of the mounted fragment. 230Th/U burial ages of eggshells from this layer are ~118 thousand years old.

CREDIT

Images courtesy of E. Niespolo.

Precision dating pushed back to 500,000 years ago

Other methods applicable to sites older than 50,000 years, such as luminescence dating, are less precise -- often by a factor of 3 or more -- and cannot be performed on archival materials available in museums, Sharp said.

The researchers believe that uranium-thorium dating can provide ages for ostrich eggshells as old as 500,000 years, extending precise dating of middens and other archeological sites approximately 10 times further into the past.

"This is the first published body of data that shows that we can get really coherent results for things well out of radiocarbon range, around 120,000 years ago in this case," said Sharp, who specializes in using uranium-thorium dating to solve problems in paleoclimate and tectonics as well as archeology. "It is showing that these eggshells maintain their intact uranium-series systems and give reliable ages farther back in time than had been demonstrated before."

"The new dates on ostrich eggshell and excellent faunal preservation make Ysterfontein 1 the as-yet best dated multi-stratified Middle Stone Age shell midden on the South African west coast," said co-author Graham Avery, an archeozoologist and retired researcher with the Iziko South African Museum. "Further application of the novel dating method, where ostrich eggshell fragments are available, will strengthen chronological control in nearby Middle Stone Age sites, such as Hoedjiespunt and Sea Harvest, which have similar faunal and lithic assemblages, and others on the southern Cape coast."

The first human settlements?

Ysterfontein 1 is one of about a dozen shell middens scattered along the western and eastern coasts of Western Cape Province, near Cape Town. Excavated in the early 2000s, it is considered a Middle Stone Age site established around the time that Homo sapiens were developing complex behaviors such as territoriality and intergroup competition, as well as cooperation among non-kin groups. These changes may be due to the fact that these groups were transitioning from hunter-gatherers to settled populations, thanks to stable sources of high-quality protein -- shellfish and marine mammals -- from the sea.

Until now, the ages of Middle Stone Age sites like Ysterfontein 1 have been uncertain by about 10%, making comparison among Middle Stone Age sites and with Later Stone Age sites difficult. The new dates, with a precision of about 2% to 3%, place the site in the context of well-documented changes in global climate: it was occupied immediately after the last interglacial period, when sea level was at a high, perhaps 8 meters (26 feet) higher than today. Sea level dropped rapidly during the occupation of the site -- the shoreline retreated up to 2 miles during this period -- but the accumulation of shells continued steadily, implying that the inhabitants found ways to accommodate the changing distribution of marine food resources to maintain their preferred diet.

The study also shows that the Ysterfontein 1 shell midden accumulated rapidly -- perhaps about 1 meter (3 feet) every 1,000 years --- implying that Middle Stone Age people along the southern African coast made extensive use of marine resources, much like people did during the Later Stone Age, and suggesting that effective marine foraging strategies developed early.

For dating, eggshells are better

Ages can be attached to some archeological sites older than 50,000 years through argon-argon (40Ar/39Ar) dating of volcanic ash. But ash isn't always present. In Africa, however -- and before the Holocene, throughout the Middle East and Asia -- ostrich eggshells are common. Some sites even contain ostrich eggshell ornaments made by early Homo sapiens.

Over the last four years, Sharp and Niespolo conducted a thorough study of ostrich eggshells, including analysis of modern eggshells obtained from an ostrich farm in Solvang, California, and developed a systematic way to avoid the uncertainties of earlier analyses. One key observation was that animals, including ostriches, do not take up and store uranium, even though it is common at parts-per-billion levels in most water. They demonstrated that newly laid ostrich shells contain no uranium, but that it is absorbed after burial in the ground.

The same is true of seashells, but their calcium carbonate structure -- a mineral called aragonite -- is not as stable when buried in soil as the calcite form of calcium carbonate found in eggshell. Because of this, eggshells retain better the uranium taken up during the first hundred years or so that that they are buried. Bone, consisting mostly of calcium phosphate, has a mineral structure that also does not remain stable in most soil environments nor reliably retains absorbed uranium.

Uranium is ideal for dating because it decays at a constant rate over time to an isotope of thorium that can be measured in minute amounts by mass spectrometry. The ratio of this thorium isotope to the uranium still present tells geochronologists how long the uranium has been sitting in the eggshell.

Uranium-series dating relies on uranium-238, the dominant uranium isotope in nature, which decays to thorium-230. In the protocol developed by Sharp and Niespolo, they used a laser to aerosolize small patches along a cross-section of the shell, and ran the aerosol through a mass spectrometer to determine its composition. They looked for spots high in uranium and not contaminated by a second isotope of thorium, thorium-232, which also invades eggshells after burial, though not as deeply. They collected more material from those areas, dissolved it in acid, and then analyzed it more precisely for uranium-238 and thorium-230 with "solution" mass spectrometry.

These procedures avoid some of the previous limitations of the technique, giving about the same precision as carbon-14, but over a time range that is 10 times larger.

"The key to this dating technique that we have developed that differs from previous attempts to date ostrich egg shells is the fact that we are explicitly accounting for the fact that ostrich eggshells have no primary uranium in them, so the uranium that we are using to date the eggshells actually comes from the soil pore water and the uranium is being taken up by the eggshells upon deposition," Niespolo said.

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Working with UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology Todd Dawson, Niespolo also analyzed other isotopes in eggshells -- stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen -- to establish that the climate rapidly became drier and cooler over the period of occupation, consistent with known climate changes at that time.

Niespolo, now a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology but soon to be an assistant professor at Princeton University, is working with Sharp to date middens at other sites near Ysterfontein. She also is developing the uranium-series technique to use with other types of eggs, such as those of emus in Australia and rheas in South America, as well as the eggs of now extinct flightless birds, such as the two-meter (6.6-foot) tall Genyornis, which died out some 50,000 years ago in Australia.

The work was supported by the Leakey Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation and National Science Foundation (BCS-1727085).

An OU-led study sheds new insight on forest loss and degradation in Brazilian Amazon

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

Research News

   

IMAGE: INTERANNUAL CHANGES OF FOREST AREA, ABOVEGROUND BIOMASS (AGB), ACTIVE FIRE AREA, BURNED AREA, AND ATMOSPHERIC CO2 CONCENTRATION IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON view more 

CREDIT: XIANGMING XIAO

An international team led by Xiangming Xiao, George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences, published a paper in the April issue of the journal Nature Climate Change that has major implications on forest policies, conservation and management practices in the Brazilian Amazon. Xiao also is director of OU's Center for Earth Observation and Modeling. Yuanwei Qin, a research scientist at the Center for Earth Observation and Modeling, is the lead author of the study.

For the study described in the paper, "Carbon loss from forest degradation exceeds that from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon," Xiao, Qin and a team of research scientists and faculty from institutes and universities in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Denmark and China used satellite data to track spatial-temporal changes of forest area and aboveground biomass in the Brazilian Amazon from 2010 to 2019. They discovered that carbon loss from forest degradation was greater than that resulting from deforestation in the region, which indicates forest degradation should become a high priority in policies, conservation and management.

Tropical forests in the Amazon account, Qin notes, for approximately 50% of the rainforests in the world and are important for global biodiversity, hydrology, climate and the carbon cycle. Accurate and timely data on vegetation aboveground biomass and forest area in the region at various spatial and temporal scales are also essential for data-based policies and decision making. This international team harnessed diverse data for monitoring, reporting and verification of tropical forests. The paper published in Nature Climate Change is a follow-up of a previous study published in Nature Sustainability in 2019, which reported improved estimates of forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon.

Hubble watches how a giant planet grows

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Research News

 

IMAGE: THIS ILLUSTRATION OF THE NEWLY FORMING EXOPLANET PDS 70B SHOWS HOW MATERIAL MAY BE FALLING ONTO THE GIANT WORLD AS IT BUILDS UP MASS. BY EMPLOYING HUBBLE'S ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT (UV)... view more 

CREDIT: CREDITS: NASA, ESA, STSCI, JOSEPH OLMSTED (STSCI)

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a rare look at a Jupiter-sized, still-forming planet that is feeding off material surrounding a young star.

"We just don't know very much about how giant planets grow," said Brendan Bowler of the University of Texas at Austin. "This planetary system gives us the first opportunity to witness material falling onto a planet. Our results open up a new area for this research."

Though over 4,000 exoplanets have been cataloged so far, only about 15 have been directly imaged to date by telescopes. And the planets are so far away and small, they are simply dots in the best photos. The team's fresh technique for using Hubble to directly image this planet paves a new route for further exoplanet research, especially during a planet's formative years.

This huge exoplanet, designated PDS 70b, orbits the orange dwarf star PDS 70, which is already known to have two actively forming planets inside a huge disk of dust and gas encircling the star. The system is located 370 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

"This system is so exciting because we can witness the formation of a planet," said Yifan Zhou, also of the University of Texas at Austin. "This is the youngest bona fide planet Hubble has ever directly imaged." At a youthful five million years, the planet is still gathering material and building up mass.

Hubble's ultraviolet light (UV) sensitivity offers a unique look at radiation from extremely hot gas falling onto the planet. "Hubble's observations allowed us to estimate how fast the planet is gaining mass," added Zhou.

The UV observations, which add to the body of research about this planet, allowed the team to directly measure the planet's mass growth rate for the first time. The remote world has already bulked up to five times the mass of Jupiter over a period of about five million years. The present measured accretion rate has dwindled to the point where, if the rate remained steady for another million years, the planet would only increase by approximately an additional 1/100th of a Jupiter-mass.

Zhou and Bowler emphasize that these observations are a single snapshot in time - more data are required to determine if the rate at which the planet is adding mass is increasing or decreasing. "Our measurements suggest that the planet is in the tail end of its formation process."

The youthful PDS 70 system is filled with a primordial gas-and-dust disk that provides fuel to feed the growth of planets throughout the entire system. The planet PDS 70b is encircled by its own gas-and-dust disk that's siphoning material from the vastly larger circumstellar disk. The researchers hypothesize that magnetic field lines extend from its circumplanetary disk down to the exoplanet's atmosphere and are funneling material onto the planet's surface.

"If this material follows columns from the disk onto the planet, it would cause local hot spots," Zhou explained. "These hot spots could be at least 10 times hotter than the temperature of the planet." These hot patches were found to glow fiercely in UV light.

These observations offer insights into how gas giant planets formed around our Sun 4.6 billion years ago. Jupiter may have bulked up on a surrounding disk of infalling material. Its major moons would have also formed from leftovers in that disk.

A challenge to the team was overcoming the glare of the parent star. PDS 70b orbits at approximately the same distance as Uranus does from the Sun, but its star is more than 3,000 times brighter than the planet at UV wavelengths. As Zhou processed the images, he very carefully removed the star's glare to leave behind only light emitted by the planet. In doing so, he improved the limit of how close a planet can be to its star in Hubble observations by a factor of five.

"Thirty-one years after launch, we're still finding new ways to use Hubble," Bowler added. "Yifan's observing strategy and post-processing technique will open new windows into studying similar systems, or even the same system, repeatedly with Hubble. With future observations, we could potentially discover when the majority of the gas and dust falls onto their planets and if it does so at a constant rate."

The researchers' results were published in April 2021 in The Astronomical Journal.

CAPTION

The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope caught the first clear image of a forming planet, PDS 70b, around a dwarf star in 2018. The planet stands out as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the light of the central star.

CREDIT

Credits: ESO, VLT, André B. Müller (ESO

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C

CAPTION

Hubble observations pinpoint planet PDS 70b. A coronagraph on Hubble's camera blocks out the glare of the central star for the planet to be directly observed. Though over 4,000 exoplanets have been cataloged so far, only about 15 have been directly imaged to date by telescopes. The team's fresh technique for using Hubble to directly image this planet paves a new route for further exoplanet research, especially during a planet's formative years.

CREDIT

Credits: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Combining solar panels and lamb grazing increases land productivity, study finds

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News 

IMAGE: SHEEP GRAZING UNDERNEATH SOLAR PANELS AT OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY. view more 

CREDIT: SEAN NEALON, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Land productivity could be greatly increased by combining sheep grazing and solar energy production on the same land, according to new research by Oregon State University scientists.

This is believed to be the first study to investigate livestock production under agrivoltaic systems, where solar energy production is combined with agricultural production, such as planting agricultural crops or grazing animals.

The researchers compared lamb growth and pasture production in pastures with solar panels and traditional open pastures. They found less overall but higher quality forage in the solar pastures and that lambs raised in each pasture type gained similar amounts of weight. The solar panels, of course, provide value in terms of energy production, which increases the overall productivity of the land.

Solar panels also benefit the welfare of the lambs by providing shade, which allows the animals to preserve energy. Also lamb grazing alleviates the need to manage plant growth under the solar panels through herbicides or regular mowing, which require extra labor and costs.

"The results from the study support the benefits of agrivoltaics as a sustainable agricultural system," said Alyssa Andrew, a master's student at Oregon State who is the lead author of the paper published in Frontier in Sustainable Food Systems.

Solar photovoltaic installation in the U.S. has increased by an average of 48% per year over the past decade, and current capacity is expected to double again over the next five years, the researchers say.

Past research has found that grasslands and croplands in temperate regions are the best places to install solar panels for maximum energy production. However, energy production in photovoltaic systems requires large areas of land, potentially causing a competition between agricultural uses.

Agrivoltaics looks to diffuse that competition by measuring the economic value of energy production and agricultural use of the same land. Past research has focused on crops and solar panels and found that some crops, particularly types that like shade, can be more productive in combination with solar panels.

Another recent Oregon State study found that shade provided by solar panels increased the abundance of flowers under the panels and delayed the timing of their bloom, both findings that could aid the agricultural community.

The just-published study with lambs and solar panels was carried out in 2019 and 2020 at Oregon State's campus in Corvallis. Findings included:

• The lambs gained almost the same amount of weight in the two pasture types in both years.
• The daily water consumption of the lambs in the two pasture types in spring 2019 were similar during early spring, but lambs in open pastures consumed more water than those grazed under solar panels in the late spring period. There was no difference observed in water intake of the lambs in spring 2020.
• Over the two years, solar pastures produced 38% less forage than open pastures.
• Overall, the return from grazing was $1,046 per hectare (one hectare equals 2.47 acres) per year in open pastures and $1,029 per hectare per year in pastures with solar panels.

"The overall return is about the same, and that doesn't take into account the energy the solar 

Lightning and subvisible discharges produce molecules that clean the atmosphere

PENN STATE

Research News

 

IMAGE: NITROGEN, OXYGEN AND WATER VAPOR MOLECULES ARE BROKEN APART BY LIGHTNING AND ASSOCIATED WEAKER ELECTRICAL DISCHARGES, GENERATING THE REACTIVE GASES NO, O3, HO2, AND THE ATMOSPHERE'S CLEANSER, OH. view more 

CREDIT: JENA JENKINS, PENN STATE

Lightning bolts break apart nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere and create reactive chemicals that affect greenhouse gases. Now, a team of atmospheric chemists and lightning scientists have found that lightning bolts and, surprisingly, subvisible discharges that cannot be seen by cameras or the naked eye produce extreme amounts of the hydroxyl radical -- OH -- and hydroperoxyl radical -- HO2.

The hydroxyl radical is important in the atmosphere because it initiates chemical reactions and breaks down molecules like the greenhouse gas methane. OH is the main driver of many compositional changes in the atmosphere.

"Initially, we looked at these huge OH and HO2 signals found in the clouds and asked, what is wrong with our instrument?" said William H. Brune, distinguished professor of meteorology at Penn State. "We assumed there was noise in the instrument, so we removed the huge signals from the dataset and shelved them for later study."

The data was from an instrument on a plane flown above Colorado and Oklahoma in 2012 looking at the chemical changes that thunderstorms and lightning make to the atmosphere.

But a few years ago, Brune took the data off the shelf, saw that the signals were really hydroxyl and hydroperoxyl, and then worked with a graduate student and research associate to see if these signals could be produced by sparks and subvisible discharges in the laboratory. Then they did a reanalysis of the thunderstrom and lightning dataset.

"With the help of a great undergraduate intern," said Brune, "we were able to link the huge signals seen by our instrument flying through the thunderstorm clouds to the lightning measurements made from the ground."

The researchers report their results online today (April 29) in Science First Release and the Journal of Geophysical Research -- Atmospheres.

Brune notes that airplanes avoid flying through the rapidly rising cores of thunderstorms because it is dangerous, but can sample the anvil, the top portion of the cloud that spreads outward in the direction of the wind. Visible lightning happens in the part of the anvil near the thunderstorm core.

"Through history, people were only interested in lightning bolts because of what they could do on the ground," said Brune. "Now there is increasing interest in the weaker electrical discharges in thunderstorms that lead to lightning bolts."

Most lightning never strikes the ground, and the lightning that stays in the clouds is particularly important for affecting ozone, and important greenhouse gas, in the upper atmosphere. It was known that lightning can split water to form hydroxyl and hydroperoxyl, but this process had never been observed before in thunderstorms.

What confused Brune's team initially was that their instrument recorded high levels of hydroxyl and hydroperoxyl in areas of the cloud where there was no lightning visible from the aircraft or the ground. Experiments in the lab showed that weak electrical current, much less energetic than that of visible lightning, could produce these same components.

While the researchers found hydroxyl and hydroperoxyl in areas with subvisible lightning, they found little evidence of ozone and no evidence of nitric oxide, which requires visible lightning to form. If subvisible lightning occurs routinely, then the hydroxyl and hydroperoxyl these electrical events create need to be included in atmospheric models. Currently, they are not.

According to the researchers, "Lightning-generated OH (hydroxyl) in all storms happening globally can be responsible for a highly uncertain but substantial 2% to 16% of global atmospheric OH oxidation."

"These results are highly uncertain, partly because we do not know how these measurements apply to the rest of the globe," said Brune. "We only flew over Colorado and Oklahoma. Most thunderstorms are in the tropics. The whole structure of high plains storms is different than those in the tropics. Clearly we need more aircraft measurements to reduce this uncertainty."

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Other researchers at Penn State include Patrick J. McFarland, undergraduate; David O. Miller, doctoral recipient; and Jena M. Jenkins, doctoral candidate, all in meteorology and atmospheric science.

Also working on the project were Eric Bruning, associate professor of atmospheric science, Texas Tech University; Sean Waugh, research meteorologist, and Donald MacGorman, senior research scientist, both at NOAA National Severe Storm Laboratory; Xinrong Ren, physical scientist, NOAA Air Resources Laboratory; Jingqiu Mao, assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry, Univeristy of Alaska; and Jeff Peischl, senior professional research assistant, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder.

The National Science Foundation, NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration supported this work.