It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, August 09, 2021
How weather influenced the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Randi Mann 23 mins ago
This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by Chris Mei from The Weather Network, featuring stories about people, communities and events and how weather impacted them.
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On Thursday, August 9, 1945, an atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki, Japan, three days after Hiroshima was destroyed the same way. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. This was an effort from the Allies to invade Japan during the final year of World War II. Weather conditions were a factor in these bombings. It needed to be a clear day so visibility was strong and photography opportunities were plenty.
On July 25, 1945, General Thomas Handy provided orders for the attack to General Carl Spaatz, the Guam-based commander of US Army Strategic Air Forces. The order said, "The 509th Composite Group, 20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki."
Further specifying, "To carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the War Department to observe and record the effects of the explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the bomb."
On Aug. 6, at 8:15 a.m., the 393d Bombardment Squadron B-29 Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb called "Little Boy" on Hiroshima. The Japanese city was the primary target with Kokura and Nagasaki as backups. Another plane followed, later names Necessary Evil, to photograph the event.
There was a crosswind that caused the bomb to miss the exact target, the Aioi Bridge, and land around 240 m away on Shima Surgical Clinic. Little Boy killed between 90,000 and 146,000 people.
Japan still didn't surrender, so the officials met in Guam to discuss the next move. The plan was to drop another bomb on Aug. 11, but the weather wasn't clear. The forecast was clear on Aug. 9, so the bombing was rescheduled for that date.
On Aug 9, Bockscar, a United States Army Air Forces B-29 bomber, piloted by the 393d Bombardment Squadron's commander, Major Charles W. Sweeney, headed to Kokura to drop the atomic bomb.
The weather conditions in Kokura were poor, which ultimately saved the area. The Bockscar crew couldn't see Kokura well so they set out to another target. The bomber was running low on fuel, so the crew decided to head 160 km south to Nagasaki.
Nagasaki was also overcast, but at 11:01, the was a break in the clouds. Bockscar's bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, saw the target and dropped the bomb. The bomb, named "Fat Man", detonated at 11:02, killing between 39,000 and 80,000 people.
To learn more about how weather impacted the Japan bombing, listen to today's episode of "This Day In Weather History."
'Boom, they were gone:' Alberta trainers mourn loss of two horses struck by lightning
SUNDRE, Alta. — A large dirt mound at the top of a green pasture in central Alberta is a reminder that tragedy can strike like lightning.
Two high-value horses being trained by Ian Tipton and his partner, Lisa Blanchart, died July 2, when a severe storm rolled in west of Sundre. High winds and 100 millimetres of rain fell in an hour, while multiple lightning strikes hit the house and nearby pasture.
When it was over, several horses charged up and down the pasture. Two of the 14 were gone.
"We've buried them near where they dropped," Tipton said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"These two were pretty special and now they have a resting place overlooking everything."
There are numerous hoofprints in the dirt on the grave.
A number of horses in the herd have made the area their new resting place. Czar, an old, grey Andalusian, stood over his two fallen comrades — Cipato and Jacinto — for 24 hours after they died, Tipton said, and never strays far away.
It's something Tipton, who has been working with horses for the past 50 years, has never seen before.
"Those horses never left them, not for a minute. The little black guy was trying to wake them up and this grey horse stood over them and would not leave them until they were in the ground," he said.
"Any time I look up here, it never changes ... morning to night. They come back."
Blanchart said the horses who died were like family.
"We were just absolutely devastated, just sick with both the sense of personal loss — and professionally," she said.
Tipton Horsemanship is an education centre for classical horsemanship. Staff train horses, some of them Grand Prix quality, and have clients from around the world who want to ride them.
Cipato, an eight-year-old Friesian quarter-horse cross, was likely worth up to US$70,000, said Tipton, while Jacinto, a purebred Portuguese Lusitano, was worth roughly US$30,000. Both were insured.
"It certainly doesn't replace the value they are to us as family members," Tipton said.
David Phillips, a senior climatologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said July is the deadliest month for lightning strikes.
Canada records over two million strikes a year, or about one every three seconds. The most hit Ontario, followed by Alberta and Saskatchewan.
"The average temperature of a lightning flash is about 30,000 degrees Celsius and typically the voltage is about 150 times more powerful than the electric chair," Phillips said.
The most prevalent time for the storms to hit are at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Very few lightning strikes are a direct hit. Phillips said most happen when lightning travels down an object then jumps, or when a current hits the ground then travels along the ground "and knocks you down."
Tipton said he is comforted knowing his two horses likely had a quick death.
"There was no suffering," Tipton said. "Both of those souls were perfectly happy and then boom they were gone."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2021.
Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
MINING IS NOT SUSTIANABLE GREEN OR NOT Billionaire-backed mining firm to seek electric vehicle metals in Greenland
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Mineral exploration company KoBold Metals, backed by billionaires including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, has signed an agreement with London-listed Bluejay Mining to search in Greenland for critical materials used in electric vehicles.
Reuters/POOL FILE PHOTO: Areas of Greenland are seen from an aerial helicopter tour
KoBold, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to hunt for raw materials, will pay $15 million in exploration funding for the Disko-Nuussuaq project on Greenland's west coast in exchange for a 51% stake in the project, Bluejay said in a statement.
Shares in BlueJay traded 26% higher on the news.
The license holds metals such as nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum and the funding will cover evaluation and initial drilling.
KoBold is owned by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate and technology fund backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Ray Dalio, founder of the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.
Other KoBold investors include Silicon Valley venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz and Norwegian state-controlled energy company Equinor.
BlueJay said previous studies found the area in western Greenland has similarities to the geology of Russia's Norilsk region, a main producer of nickel and palladium.
"This agreement is transformative for Bluejay," said the comany's CEO Bo Steensgaard. "We are delighted to have a partner at the pinnacle of technical innovation for new exploration methods, backed by some of the most successful investors in the world."
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by David Holmes)
KOBOLD ARE MINING CREATURES FROM ROLE PLAYING GAMES
Kobold
A kobold was a reptilian humanoid, standing between 2' and 2'6" (60cm – 75cm) tall, weighing 35 to 45 pounds (16 – 20kg), with scaled skin between reddish brown and black in color and burnt orange to red eyes. Their legs were sinewy and digitigrade. They had long, clawed fingers and a jaw …
Kobolds are aggressive, inward, yet industrious small humanoid creatures. They are noted for their skill at building traps and preparing ambushes, and mining. Kobolds are distantly related to dragons and urds and are often found serving the former as minions. Kobolds have specialized laborers, yet the majority of kobolds are miners.
Indonesian volcano churns out fresh clouds of ash, lava
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A volcanic eruption on Indonesia’s turbulent Mount Merapi churned and boiled Monday, sending renewed flows of lava and ash down its slopes for a second day.
Pyroclastic flows — avalanches of rock, ash and volcanic gas — burst from the mountain's actively growing lava dome inside the crater.
The 2,968-meter (9,737-foot) peak is near Yogyakarta, an ancient city of several hundred thousand people embedded in a large metro area on the island of Java. The city is a center of Javanese culture and a seat of royal dynasties going back centuries.
Mount Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people. Villagers living on Merapi’s fertile slopes were advised to stay 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) away from the crater’s mouth.
Hanik Humaida, the head of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center, said the lava dome had been partially collapsing since Sunday, when the latest eruption began. The initial blast sent hot ash 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) into the atmosphere.
The mountain spewed at least three new pyroclastic flows on Monday, Humaida said.
Mount Merapi is the most volatile of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, and Humaida said it's one of the most active worldwide. She said it’s common for eruptions to last several days.
The Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center did not raise Merapi’s alert status this week. It has been at the second-highest of four levels since the mountain began erupting last November.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the ocean.
Slamet Riyadi, The Associated Press
Small fungus formulations could make big difference to protect moose from winter ticks
DENVER/August 6, 2021 – In the battle to save moose from winter ticks, fungi on small grains of millet could be the ultimate weapon. Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers at the University of Vermont recently produced granular formulations of insect-killing fungi and successfully tested their efficacy against winter tick larvae under laboratory conditions. The team reported their findings inBiocontrol Science and Technology.
“There is a critical need to develop effective, high-quality, fungal-based biopesticides for use against ticks,” said Dr. Margaret Skinner, Research Professor at the University of Vermont’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Winter ticks kill too many moose, our icon of the north woods. But right now, the only management strategy we have to lessen the tick burden is through host reduction – killing moose to decrease ticks’ food source.”
Winter ticks have a one-year life cycle. After they hatch from their eggs over the summer, they cluster on the ground, waiting for the fall to attach to hosts. This is when the ticks are most vulnerable to threats, including insect-killing fungi that occur in the soil of moose habitats. The fungi do not naturally occur in high enough concentrations to eliminate large numbers of ticks.
A commercially available, fungal-based biopesticide was available for ticks, using the fungus Metarhizium brunneum. Skinner’s team theorized that a product with smaller particles would have a better chance of filtering down into leaf litter in higher amounts, increasing the chances that ticks would come in contact with its infective spores.
The researchers formulated their own prototype products using M. brunneum, as well as three similar fungi from California, South Korea and Vermont, all grown on millet grains.
The team tested the formulations’ efficacy on roughly 1,000 winter tick larvae hatched from wild-collected females. The larvae were divided into five groups, one for each formulation and an unexposed control group. The ticks lived in cups full of sand to replicate their natural habitat and researchers sprinkled the granules in them at two different rates.
The team found that 53%-98% of the ticks were killed by the formulations after nine weeks, with no significant difference between the two application rates.
“These results are really significant because they provide proof of concept for a management strategy that could be both safe and effective,” said Dr. Janet Patterson-Kane, Morris Animal Foundation Chief Scientific Officer. “Ticks have plagued moose for well over a century and are a burden for many other species. We need to do what we can to protect them.”
Skinner said her team’s next steps are to identify specific areas of moose habitats with high winter tick concentrations. Then her team can conduct field trials of their products.
Winter ticks are causing significant moose population declines in North America. In Vermont, on average, 47,000 ticks can be found on a single moose. A recent Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department study of collared moose concluded that winter ticks were the main cause in 74% of all mortalities and 91% of winter calf mortalities. While the Department believes the state’s moose population is “relatively stable at around 3,000 animals,” this is down from an estimated 4,800 animals in 2005.
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About Morris Animal Foundation
Morris Animal Foundation’s mission is to bridge science and resources to advance the health of animals. Headquartered in Denver, and founded in 1948, it is one of the largest nonprofit animal health research organizations in the world, funding more than $136 million in critical studies across a broad range of species. Learn more at morrisanimalfoundation.org.
JOURNAL
Biocontrol Science and Technology
DOI
10.1080/09583157.2021.1926428
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Animals
ARTICLE TITLE
Effectiveness of granular formulations of Metarhizium anisopliae and Metarhizium brunneum (Hypocreales: Clavicipitaceae) on off-host larvae of Dermacentor albipictus (Acari: Ixodidae)
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
16-May-2021
SCARIER; IT'S GOT FRIGGEN TEETH
Researchers find a ‘fearsome dragon’ that soared over outback Queensland
IMAGE: ARTIST’S IMPRESSION OF THE FEARSOME THAPUNNGAKA SHAWI.view more
CREDIT: ADOBE STOCK.
Australia’s largest flying reptile has been uncovered, a pterosaur with an estimated seven-metre wingspan that soared like a dragon above the ancient, vast inland sea once covering much of outback Queensland.
University of Queensland PhD candidate Tim Richards, from the Dinosaur Lab in UQ’s School of Biological Sciences, led a research team that analysed a fossil of the creature’s jaw, discovered on Wanamara Country, near Richmond in North West Queensland.
“It’s the closest thing we have to a real life dragon,” Mr Richards said.
“The new pterosaur, which we named Thapunngaka shawi, would have been a fearsome beast, with a spear-like mouth and a wingspan around seven metres.
“It was essentially just a skull with a long neck, bolted on a pair of long wings.
“This thing would have been quite savage.
“It would have cast a great shadow over some quivering little dinosaur that wouldn’t have heard it until it was too late.”
Mr Richards said the skull alone would have been just over one metre long, containing around 40 teeth, perfectly suited to grasping the many fishes known to inhabit Queensland’s no-longer-existent Eromanga Sea.
“It’s tempting to think it may have swooped like a magpie during mating season, making your local magpie swoop look pretty trivial – no amount of zip ties would have saved you.
“Though, to be clear, it was nothing like a bird, or even a bat – Pterosaurs were a successful and diverse group of reptiles – the very first back-boned animals to take a stab at powered flight.”
The new species belonged to a group of pterosaurs known as anhanguerians, which inhabited every continent during the latter part of the Age of Dinosaurs.
CAPTION
Hypothetical outline of Thapunngaka shawi with a 7 m wingspan, alongside a wedge-tailed eagle (2.5 m wingspan) and a hang-glider (10 m ‘wingspan’).
CREDIT
Tim Richards
Being perfectly adapted to powered flight, pterosaurs had thin-walled and relatively hollow bones.
Given these adaptations their fossilised remains are rare and often poorly preserved.
“It’s quite amazing fossils of these animals exist at all,” Mr Richards said.
“By world standards, the Australian pterosaur record is poor, but the discovery of Thapunngaka contributes greatly to our understanding of Australian pterosaur diversity.”
It is only the third species of anhanguerian pterosaur known from Australia, with all three species hailing from western Queensland.
Dr Steve Salisbury, co-author on the paper and Mr Richard’s PhD supervisor, said what was particularly striking about this new species of anhanguerian was the massive size of the bony crest on its lower jaw, which it presumably had on the upper jaw as well.
“These crests probably played a role in the flight dynamics of these creatures, and hopefully future research will deliver more definitive answers,” Dr Salisbury said.
The fossil was found in a quarry just northwest of Richmond in June 2011 by Len Shaw, a local fossicker who has been ‘scratching around’ in the area for decades.
CAPTION
Hypothetical outlines of Australian pterosaurs showing relative wingspan sizes. 1.8 m human for scale.
CREDIT
Tim Richards.
CAPTION
Reconstruction of the skull of Thapunngaka shawi (KKF494). From Richards et al. (2021)
CREDIT
Tim Richards
The name of the new species honours the First Nations peoples of the Richmond area where the fossil was found, incorporating words from the now-extinct language of the Wanamara Nation.
“The genus name, Thapunngaka, incorporates thapun [ta-boon] and ngaka [nga-ga], the Wanamara words for ‘spear’ and ‘mouth’, respectively,” Dr Salisbury said.
“The species name, shawi, honours the fossil’s discoverer Len Shaw, so the name means ‘Shaw’s spear mouth’.”
The fossil of Thapunngaka shawi is on display at Kronosaurus Korner in Richmond.
The research has been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
A new species of crested pterosaur (pterodactyloidea, anhangueridae) from the lower cretaceous (upper Albian) of Richmond, North West Queensland, Australia
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
8-Aug-2021
SCARY
Ancient, newly identified ‘mammoth weevil’ used huge ‘trunk’ to fight for mates
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University research has identified a 100-million-year-old weevil unlike any other known fossilized or living weevil.
George Poinar Jr., an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn about the biology and ecology of the distant past, calls the male specimen a “mammoth weevil” because of its “monstrous trunk” – also known as the weevil’s rostrum or beak.
Poinar said Rhamphophorus legalovii, as the long-bodied weevil fossil is known scientifically, probably wielded its trunk as a weapon while in combat with other males over females.
Encased in Burmese amber, the specimen represents a new tribe, genus and species. Rhamphophorus derives from a pair of Greek words meaning “curving beak” and “to bear,” and legalovii honors Russian weevil specialist Andrei A. Legalov.
“Entomologists will be discussing the systematic placement of this fossil for years since it is so bizarre,” said Poinar, who has a courtesy appointment in the OSU College of Science.
Findings were published in Cretaceous Research.
There are nearly 100,000 known species of weevils – small, plant-eating beetles known for their elongated snouts. Well-known North American species are the boll weevil that attacks cotton, the alfalfa weevil and the strawberry root weevil.
Weevils with straight antennae are categorized as primitive weevils, and those whose antennae feature an elbow-like bend are known as true weevils; Rhamphophorus is a primitive weevil with an 11-segment antenna and Poinar placed it in the Nemonychidae family, whose members are known as “pine flower weevils.”
“The story of the family’s ancient history is told by species in Mesozoic amber deposits, although no extinct or extant species with such elongated rostrums are known,” he said. “The larvae and adults of many nemonychids eat pollen from developing male cones of pines and other conifers.”
The newly identified weevil genus and species belongs to the sub-family Cimberidinae, consisting of particularly long-nosed weevils whose physical characteristics are developed like highly specialized tools. Of the 70 known species of Cimberidinae, many are sexually dimorphic – males and females look quite different from one another. Thus the female of Rhamphophorusprobably had a much shorter rostrum.
The new weevil, which likely lived on the ground rather than in trees, is 5.5 millimeters long, almost half of which is head and rostrum. The amber in which it is preserved came from the Noije Bum 2001 Summit Site mine first excavated in Myanmar’s Hukawng Valley in 2001.
“Rhamphophorushad extended middle foot segments that might have increased its ability to grasp plant surfaces or better reach its foes during fights for females,” Poinar said. “It would be interesting to know if females also had this feature.”
Injuries suffered by Rhamphophorus suggest it may have been doing battle with another male over a female just before it fell into the resin and was preserved.
“Rhamphophorus shows many features unknown on living or extinct fossil weevils,” Poinar said. “It shows how an adult beetle can become so specialized that even its family position can be questioned. Certainly lifestyle in conjunction with microhabitat influenced the evolutionary development of this weevil, which gives us an exciting glimpse of morphological diversity in mid-Cretaceous weevils.”
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JOURNAL
Cretaceous Research
DOI
10.1016/j.cretres.2021.104948
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Animals
ARTICLE TITLE
A new tribe, genus and species of weevil, Rhamphophorus legalovii gen. et sp. nov., (Coleoptera, Nemonychidae, Rhamphophorini tribe nov.) in Burmese amber
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
8-Jul-2021
TOO LATE ITS HERE AND NOW
Paleoclimatologist lead author on IPCC global climate change report
Team contributes to major report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, forming scientific underpinnings for negotiations to limit carbon emissions worldwide
IMAGE: NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY REGENTS’ PROFESSOR DARRELL KAUFMAN EXAMINES A LAKE SEDIMENT CORE HE AND HIS STUDENTS RECENTLY COLLECTED FROM CENTRAL ALASKA.view more
CREDIT: NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) has just released its latest major assessment report on global climate change, approved by the world’s governments.
Climate Change 2021: Physical Science Basis is the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The Working Group comprises more than 200 scientists from 66 countries who assessed the current scientific understanding of climate change. Northern Arizona University Regents’ Professor Darrell Kaufman of the School of Earth and Sustainability is a lead author of the report, which will form the scientific underpinnings for negotiations with governments later this year to limit global carbon emissions.
The IPCC report is the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative source of scientific information on understanding and responding to climate change. The report is based on a review of many thousands of scientific papers and is scrutinized by hundreds of scientists from around the world. Since the Fifth Assessment Report was published in 2013, new evidence shows how much humans are influencing the climate system, and how society’s actions to limit greenhouse gas emissions will determine the future of Earth’s climate.
Kaufman is a lead author on the chapter, “The changing state of the climate system,” which features information about natural climate variability over a wide range of time scales. “My role in the new report focused on changes in the climate system prior to industrialization, or ‘paleoclimate’, as context for understanding what’s happening now and what could happen in the future,” Kaufman said.
He also co-authored the report’s FAQs and summary documents, including the “Summary for policy makers,” which was subjected to an intense line-by-line approval process involving dialogue between the authors and delegates from more than 100 countries. “It was a lot of work, but super gratifying to have the opportunity to carry it through to the approval step. That’s where authors and governments collaborated to craft a summary that’s timely and most helpful for policy decisions.”
The IPCC represents the world’s scientific community by periodically reporting on the state of knowledge about climate change, following an extensive and transparent review process by experts and governments around the world to independently assess all published information and to summarize the most relevant advances in climate science.
Recent publications by Kaufman and other NAU paleoclimate scientists were featured prominently in the report. The paleoclimate team includes professor R. Scott Anderson, associate professor Nicholas McKay, assistant professor of practice John Fegyveresi and assistant research professors Michael Erb and Cody Routson, as well as their postdoctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students. They study how the climate system changes on time scales of decades to many thousands of years, as it responds to both natural and human-caused forcings.
“Understanding environmental change and its current trajectory requires a long-term perspective of the natural variability in the Earth system,” he said. “We conduct our field-oriented research in Arizona, Colorado, Alaska, Antarctica and New Zealand. In the lab, we analyze a variety of biological and physical properties of sediment cores that we collect from lakes, and ice cores from polar ice sheets. And in collaboration with our colleagues worldwide, we are developing major global datasets of long-term climate to better quantify past changes and to compare them with the output of Earth system models.
Key NAU studies inform IPCC assessment
Several major NAU research projects, funded chiefly through grants from the National Science Foundation, have been aimed at understanding the causes and effects of natural climate variability. The scientists’ recent work clarifies how unusual recent global warming has been compared to natural climate fluctuations of the past.
Evidence from warmer periods that occurred prior to industrialization, generated by NAU studies, was also used in the report to clarify how climate change will play out over multiple centuries and millennia, as polar ice, deep ocean circulation and other slow-moving features of the climate system adjust to a warmer world.
Key NAU studies that contributed to the upcoming IPCC report include the following:
Over the past 150 years, global warming has more than undone the global cooling that occurred over the past six millennia, according to a major study published in 2020 in Nature Research’s Scientific Data. The findings show that the millennial-scale global cooling began approximately 6,500 years ago when the long-term average global temperature topped out at around 0.7°C warmer than the mid-19th century. Since then, accelerating greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to global average temperatures that are now surpassing 1°C above the mid-19th century. Kaufman led this study, with McKay as co-author, along with collaborators Routson and Erb. The team worked with scientists from research institutions all over the world to reconstruct the global average temperature over the Holocene Epoch—the period following the Ice Age and beginning about 12,000 years ago. (See related story.)
In 2020, NAU doctoral candidate Ellie Broadman led a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Working with Kaufman and four noted British scientists, Broadman and the team compiled a new record of hydroclimatic change in the past 10,000 years in Arctic Alaska, revealing that periods of reduced sea ice result in isotopically heavier precipitation derived from proximal Arctic moisture sources. The researchers supported their findings about this systematic relationship through isotope-enabled model simulations and a compilation of regional paleoclimate records. (See related story.)
Also in 2020, an international group of 93 paleoclimate scientists from 23 countries—led by Kaufman, McKay, Routson and Erb—published a set of records in Scientific Data representing the most comprehensive paleoclimate data ever compiled for the past 12,000 years, compressing 1,319 data records based on samples taken from 679 sites globally. At each site, researchers analyzed ecological, geochemical and biophysical evidence from both marine and terrestrial archives, such as lake deposits, marine sediments, peat and glacier ice, to infer past temperature changes. Countless scientists working around the world over many decades conducted the basic research contributing to the global database.
In 2019, Routson led the paleoclimate team in a study published in Natureusing climate records dating back thousands of years to demonstrate that warming in the Arctic is associated with fewer storms and increased aridity in a huge swath of the Northern Hemisphere, including most of the continental United States. The scientists showed that this pattern could lead to dramatic effects on agriculture and population centers throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. (See related story.)
According to a 2016 study, global warming began in the Arctic and tropical oceans before thermometers were widespread enough to record the early signal. Kaufman andMcKay, along with scientists from around the world, discovered that human-caused global warming began in the mid-1800s. The NAU scientists, who co-authored the study published in Nature, examined the climate variation found in corals, ice cores, tree rings and the changing chemistry of stalagmites in caves worldwide. (See related story.)
Several other NAU scientists have served on IPCC working groups and/or contributed research to previous IPCC reports as well, including Regents’ Professor Scott Goetz, professor Kevin Gurney, Regents’ Professor Bruce Hungate, professor Yiqi Luo, Regents’ Professor Michelle Mack, and Regents’ Professor Ted Schuur. All NAU scientists’ efforts for the IPCC are voluntary.
About Northern Arizona University
Northern Arizona University is a higher-research institution providing exceptional educational opportunities in Arizona and beyond. NAU delivers a student-centered experience to its nearly 30,000 students in Flagstaff, statewide and online through rigorous academic programs in a supportive, inclusive and diverse environment. Dedicated, world-renowned faculty help ensure students achieve academic excellence, experience personal growth, have meaningful research opportunities and are positioned for personal and professional success.
*Note to reporters: The embargo date of Aug. 9 assumes that the report will be approved by the world’s governments prior to that date. Before Aug. 9, please direct media inquiries to the IPCC, which welcomes and supports media reports about its work and outcomes of its assessments The IPCC media office invites journalists to sign up for embargoed materials prior to the Aug. 9 press conference. For further information, photos and videos, visit the Media Contacts page on the IPCC website: https://www.ipcc.ch/news/media-contacts/. Once the embargo has been lifted, NAU Regents' Professor Darrell Kaufman is available to discuss his paleoclimate research and information in the report related to changes in the climate system prior to industrialization.
FINALLY, AFTER ALL THE BALLYHOO
Graphene binds drugs which kill bacteria on medical implants
IMAGE: USNIC ACID (YELLOW) IS INTEGRATED IN AND RELEASED FROM THE IMPLANT’S GRAPHENE COATING. THE USNIC ACID KILLS THE BACTERIA (GREEN) AND THEREBY PREVENTS THEM FROM FORMING INFECTIOUS BIOFILMS ON THE SURFACE.view more
CREDIT: YEN STRANDQVIST/CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
Bacterial infections relating to medical implants place a huge burden on healthcare and cause great suffering to patients worldwide. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new method to prevent such infections, by covering a graphene-based material with bactericidal molecules.
“Through our research, we have succeeded in binding water-insoluble antibacterial molecules to the graphene, and having the molecules release in a controlled, continuous manner from the material” says Santosh Pandit, researcher at the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering at Chalmers, and first author of the study which was recently published in Scientific Reports.
“This is an essential requirement for the method to work. The way in which we bind the active molecules to the graphene is also very simple, and could be easily integrated into industrial processes”.
Certain bacteria can form impenetrable surface layers, or ‘biofilms’, on surgical implants, such as dental and other orthopaedic implants, and represent a major problem for healthcare globally. Biofilms are more resistant than other bacteria, and the infections are therefore often difficult to treat, leading to great suffering for patients, and in the worst cases, necessitating removal or replacement of the implants. In addition to the effects on patients, this entails large costs for healthcare providers.
Graphene is suitable as an attachment material There are a variety of water-insoluble, or hydrophobic, drugs and molecules that can be used for their antibacterial properties. But in order for them to be used in the body, they must be attached to a material, which can be difficult and labour intensive to manufacture.
“Graphene offers great potential here for interaction with hydrophobic molecules or drugs, and when we created our new material, we made use of these properties. The process of binding the antibacterial molecules takes place with the help of ultrasound,” says Santosh Pandit.
In the study, the graphene material was covered with usnic acid, which is extracted from lichens, for example fruticose lichen. Previous research has shown that usnic acid has good bactericidal properties. It works by preventing bacteria from forming nucleic acids, especially inhibiting of RNA synthesis, and thus blocking protein production in the cell.
Simple method paves way for future drugs Usnic acid was tested for its resistance to the pathogenic bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis, two common culprits for biofilm formation on medical implants. The researchers’ new material displayed a number of promising properties. In addition to successful results for integrating the usnic acid into the surface of the graphene material, they also observed that the usnic acid molecules were released in a controlled and continuous manner, thus preventing the formation of biofilms on the surface.
“Even more importantly, our results show that the method for binding the hydrophobic molecules to graphene is simple. It paves the way for more effective antibacterial protection of biomedical products in the future. We are now planning trials where we will explore binding other hydrophobic molecules and drugs with even greater potential to treat or prevent various clinical infections,” says Santosh Pandit.
The research project is run by Professor Ivan Mijakovic's group at the Department of Biology and Biotechnology at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. It is funded by Formas and the Swedish Research Council.
Read about previous results from the research group
For more information, please contact Santosh Pandit, Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden +46 729 48 40 11, pandit@chalmers.se
JOURNAL
Scientific Reports
DOI
doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89452-5
ARTICLE TITLE
Sustained release of usnic acid from graphene coatings ensures long term antibiotic film protection
