Sunday, September 24, 2023

New Indo-European language discovered during excavation in Turkey

by Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg

An excavation in Turkey has brought to light an unknown Indo-European language. Professor Daniel Schwemer, an expert for the ancient Near East, is involved in investigating the discovery.

The new language was discovered in the UNESCO World Heritage Site Boğazköy-Hattusha in north-central Turkey. This was once the capital of the Hittite Empire, one of the great powers of Western Asia during the Late Bronze Age (1650 to 1200 BC).

Excavations in Boğazköy-Hattusha have been going on for more than 100 years under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute. The site has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986; almost 30,000 clay tablets with cuneiform writing have been found there so far. These tablets, which were included in the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage in 2001, provide rich information about the history, society, economy and religious traditions of the Hittites and their neighbors.

Yearly archaeological campaigns led by current site director Professor Andreas Schachner of the Istanbul Department of the German Archaeological Institute continue to add to the cuneiform finds. Most of the texts are written in Hittite, the oldest attested Indo-European language and the dominant language at the site. Yet the excavations of this year yielded a surprise: Hidden in a cultic ritual text written in Hittite is a recitation in a hitherto unknown language.

Hittites were interested in foreign languages

Professor Schwemer, head of the Chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Germany, is working on the cuneiform finds from the excavation. He reports that the Hittite ritual text refers to the new idiom as the language of the land of Kalašma. This is an area on the north-western edge of the Hittite heartland, probably in the area of present-day Bolu or Gerede.

The discovery of another language in the Boğazköy-Hattusha archives is not entirely unexpected, as Prof. Schwemer explains: "The Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages."

Such ritual texts, written by scribes of the Hittite king reflect various Anatolian, Syrian, and Mesopotamian traditions and linguistic milieus. The rituals provide valuable glimpses into the little known linguistic landscapes of Late Bronze Age Anatolia, where not just Hittite was spoken. Thus cuneiform texts from Boğazköy-Hattusha include passages in Luwian and Palaic, two other Anatolian-Indo-European languages closely related to Hittite, as well as Hattic, a non-Indo-European language. Now the language of Kalasma can be added to these.

More precise classification of the new language is in progress

Being written in a newly discovered language the Kalasmaic text is as yet largely incomprehensible. Prof. Schwemer's colleague, Professor Elisabeth Rieken (Marburg University), a specialist in ancient Anatolian languages, has confirmed that the idiom belongs to the family of Anatolian-Indo-European languages.

According to Rieken, despite its geographic proximity to the area where Palaic was spoken, the text seems to share more features with Luwian. How closely the language of Kalasma is related to the other Luwian dialects of Late Bronze Age Anatolia will be the subject of further investigation.

Provided by Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg Ancient Hittite cuneiform scripts will soon be accessible online

Understanding the role of pareidolia in early human cave art

by Durham University

Understanding early human cave art — *A Paleolithic painting of an aurochs from the cave of La Pasiega. The Paleolithic artist*

A psychological phenomenon where people see meaningful forms in random patterns, such as seeing faces in clouds, may have stimulated early humans to make cave art.

Research published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal by the departments of Archaeology and Psychology at Durham University has found that Ice Age cave art made as early as 40,000 years ago was influenced in part by a visual psychological phenomenon called pareidolia.

Pareidolia and early human artists

The research team, led by Dr. Izzy Wisher, who was a Durham Ph.D. student at the time of the study, examined paintings of animals in caves in Northern Spain to look for any evidence that pareidolia had an influence on the early artists.

If so, they would have expected the majority of depictions to include features of the cave walls within them (such as cracks and curves) and to take relatively simple forms.

The researchers also used modified virtual reality gaming software to model the cave walls and replicate the light sources used by the artists, (most likely flickering firelight produced by small torches or lamps), to understand the visual effects on the cave wall by tracking the eye-movement of participants.

Influence and inspiration

Their study found that over 50% of depictions showed a strong relationship to the natural features of the cave wall and were simple in nature (lacking detail such as eyes or hair), suggesting strongly that pareidolia partly guided artists' creations.

Examples included where the curved edges of the cave wall were used to represent the backs of animals such as wild horses, or where natural cracks were used as bisons' horns.

However, pareidolia cannot explain all the images and the researchers believe that the art may have been part of a "creative conversation" with the cave walls—with early artists both guided by what they saw emerging from the cracks and shapes of the cave wall, but also using their own creativity.

Systematic testing

The team believes their study offers the first systematic testing of the much-discussed theory that pareidolia influenced cave artists and is the first to utilize simulated lighting conditions in virtual reality as part of this. It advances Durham's research into visual paleopsychology.

More information: Izzy Wisher et al, Conversations with Caves: The Role of Pareidolia in the Upper Palaeolithic Figurative Art of Las Monedas and La Pasiega (Cantabria, Spain), Cambridge Archaeological Journal (2023). DOI: 10.1017/S0959774323000288

Journal information: Cambridge Archaeological Journal

Provided by Durham University Missing topographical elements of Paleolithic rock art revealed by stereoscopic imaging

Exotic tree species in the forest mean loss of grazing land for reindeer

by Sara-Lena Brännström, Umea University

Semi-domesticated reindeer avoid winter habitats with exotic lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), introduced from Northern America. Reduced food supply and dense stands probably contribute to the reindeers' avoidance behavior of areas with tall P. contorta-trees. This is reported by researchers from Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agriculture, SLU in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

P. contorta [TH1] has been planted mainly in northern Sweden since the 1960s, as it is expected to grow faster than the native pine (P. sylvestris). However, it has been reported that both plants and animals can be negatively affected in stands with P. contorta. Reindeer herders have also reported that reindeer do not find enough forage in these stands, and that these stands can be an obstacle for their movements. Based on the reindeer herders' observations, the research group analyzed the reindeer's habitat selection in detail.

"Using GPS data from reindeer collected by reindeer herders in the herding district Vilhelmina norra, we analyzed how the reindeer moved in the landscape during three different winters. We investigated which areas the reindeer preferred to stay in and which they avoided. We were interested in investigating whether we could find the same behavioral pattern observed by reindeer herders," says Tim Horstkotte, research engineer at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science (EMG) at Umeå University.

Using data on the reindeer's movement patterns over three winters, the research group investigated the reindeer's behavior on the herding district's winter pastures. They also investigated whether the amount of terricolous lichen differs in different forest types, as well as on which soil types the box pine grows.

Results consistent with observations

The study shows that tree height was an important factor in how much more reindeer avoid stands with P. contorta compared to stands with our native pine.

"If the P. contorta trees were higher than 3 meters, our results show that the reindeer avoided these areas relative to other forest types. Where the P. contorta trees were lower, the reindeer's choice of forest type was not affected—regardless of whether there was P. contorta in the stand or not," says Tim Horstkotte.

"It is also important to highlight that we also saw that there was less terricolous lichens in the P. contorta stands, even though P. contorta is often planted on dry land that is actually favorable for these lichens. This may indicate that planting P. contorta affects lichen occurrence negatively, even if the soil conditions should be favorable."

P. contorta is a challenge for many

Jörgen Sjögren, researcher at SLU in Umeå and who also participated in the study, emphasizes the importance of this type of investigations:

"Today, P. contorta in Sweden is planted on an area that covers just over 600,000 hectares. For having such a huge area with a tree species that does not originate on this side of the Atlantic, we know surprisingly little about the ecological consequences. This study contributes significantly to the state of knowledge."

The researchers point out that planting P. contorta on land that is suitable for terricolous lichens contributes to a reduction in winter grazing for the reindeer. Within the entire reindeer husbandry area in Sweden, access to winter pastures with a high presence of terricolous lichens is a bottleneck. This, in combination with other external pressures on reindeer herding, including climate change, makes the conditions for reindeer herding more difficult.

More information: Tim Horstkotte et al, Semi-domesticated reindeer avoid winter habitats with exotic tree species Pinus contorta, Forest Ecology and Management (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2023.121062

Journal information: Forest Ecology and Management

Provided by Umea University Supplementary feeding changing reindeer behavior and reindeer husbandry culture

The silver lining to storm surge: How some baby fish ride out hurricanes to success

by Bill Kearney, South Florida Sun Sentinel

Humans loathe the deadly impact of storm surge, and for good reason. But new research shows how juvenile tarpon and snook can actually benefit from it. In turn, scientists are learning how to design more eco-friendly developments that help the fish survive.

Ongoing studies by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust show that young-of-the-year tarpon and snook take advantage of storm surge and king tides, essentially riding the water into remote semi-landlocked ponds. When the water recedes, the small tarpon and snook rule their new micro kingdoms, the proverbial big fish in small ponds.

Several studies pieced together indicate that spawning season for both tarpon and snook coincides with summer high tides and storm season, said JoEllen Wilson, a biologist with the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust.

"We have extra high water and winds that are pushing (the newborn fish) back into these habitats. They're adapted to be able to reach what we call ephemerally connected or intermittently connected locations."

The advantage of being swept into these shallow, often inhospitable ponds is twofold.

Firstly, the yearling tarpon and snook are protected from larger predatory fish such as sharks, jacks and adult snook that don't have access.

Secondly, they are precisely adapted to survive in low-oxygen water, giving them an advantage over both prey and rivals.

While most fish need to pass oxygen-rich water through their gills, tarpon are able to gulp air and absorb oxygen through their swim bladders, allowing them to survive in hot, low-oxygen conditions that kill competitors like snapper, sea trout or freshwater gar (some of the ponds are brackish or freshwater).

Young snook can't gulp air, but can survive in very low oxygen habitats as well.

As they mature, they seem to lose that ability.

"Once they reach these habitats, they're the sole large predatory fish that can survive in there," said the FWC's Matt Bunting, whose research tracked the yearling fish in and out of these isolated ponds on Florida's west coast. He said the same behavior plays out on the east coast as well.

Bunting, who grew up in Cooper City fishing for small tarpon in suburban canals and ponds, has seen juvenile tarpon surviving in water temperatures greater than 100 degrees, with dissolved oxygen levels at zero, "to the point where there's been a mass fish die-off in one of these ponds, and tarpon are the sole fish that are surviving," he said.

The result is that the yearling snook and tarpon can feast on little mosquito fish in these semi-landlocked ponds, and have all the food to themselves.

Bunting's research showed that the tarpon and snook will stay in the ponds from one to three years, but the closer they are to the estuary the earlier they might leave. Sometimes a king tide will bring enough water.

His study showed some fish left after three years—the time it took for a second tropical storm or hurricane surge to reach them.

To gain data, Bunting and his team outfitted yearling tarpon and snook with acoustic transmitters that would ping when the fish swam near any number of receivers installed in the pond and downstream creek system.

Researchers also placed water-level sensors in the ponds. The study showed that the fish would leave when water levels rose.

Bunting and his team tagged fish in the spring, when they were about 12 inches long and less than a year old. He said they would usually leave the ponds during flooding events in summer and fall.

No one knows exactly how small the fish are when they first get swept into the ponds.

But tarpon spawn offshore in spring and summer, and snook spawn in inlets in the summer.

Their fry are swept up and down coastal areas, and into estuaries where seek both shelter and food. Their ability to shelter in semi-landlocked ponds is an evolutionary tweak that gives them an advantage in a brutal fish-eat-fish world.

It's also something that conservationists can use to emphasize eco-friendly waterfront design.

Wilson's research looks at how best to redesign canal systems to benefit the survival of juvenile tarpon and snook. One study took a pre-existing canal area and built various shallow estuary environments off of it. Some had open creek mouths while others were semi-landlocked and shallow like the ponds in Bunting's study.

She found higher growth rates for baby tarpon and snook in the built estuaries than in the straight deep canals. She also found that the most productive environment for tarpon and snook was a shallow estuary creek with an open mouth for travel, but with a semi-landlocked shallow area in the back end for shelter.

Climate change, and the ensuing sea-level rise in Florida, are part of the equation.

King tides can now reach farther inland. And larger storm surge, due to more intense hurricanes, can do the same. Juvenile tarpon and snook seem adapted to it.

But what they're not adapted to is habitat loss. Florida is the fastest-growing state in the union, and now has 22 million people, double the population in the 1980s. Much of that growth is in coastal areas, where subdivisions gobble up estuaries and wetlands.

"Stormwater ponds can benefit fish," she said, "but they need to be designed to allow the occasional inflow and outflow of small fish."

By looking at both Bunting's natural pond study and her research, Wilson hopes to find a way for ecosystems and human development to coexist.

"Development is going to occur, especially in this region," she said. "The question is, can we develop in a way that also allows highly functioning nursery habitats (for tarpon and snook)?"

2023 South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Freshwater flow affects Everglades fish, but how?

Research reveals surprising influences on an employee's intention to quit

by David Bradley, Inderscience

quit job — Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Research in the International Journal of Enterprise Network Management reveals unexpected factors that influence an employee's intentions to quit their job in information technology. The findings challenge the received wisdom and could shed light on the dynamic role of online professional networking and social media profile updates.

There has been much research in employee intention to quit as it can have a significant impact on a wide range of organizations. Conventionally, researchers have focused on factors such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. These are the standard key indicators that can help predict which employees might be planning to leave and so allow organizations to perhaps manage staff turnover more effectively.

However, there was an obvious gap in understanding how online activities, such as updating job profiles on social media platforms and engaging in professional networking sites, affect a person's intention to leave a job.

Ashish Kumar Biswas of Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (Deemed to be University) in Hyderabad, R. Seethalakshmi of VIT-AP University in Amaravati, and Prabha Mariappan of Veltech University in Chennai, India, have employed a quantitative survey approach involving almost 600 participants and used a structural equation model to test their hypothesis and hopefully help fill this gap in our understanding of employee intention to quit.

The team found that, as one might anticipate, an increased engagement in professional networking sites ultimately influences an individual's intention to leave their current job and find employment elsewhere. This is not necessarily an obvious factor as many people might daydream about finding a new job and investigate their options, perhaps even uploading their CV (curriculum vitae or résumé) to a job-seekers web site, but a certain level of activity might nudge them towards quitting whereas casual interaction with such websites would not necessarily reinforce the tendency.

Online activity of this kind cannot be ignored as an influential factor in affecting an individual's intentions in much the same way as job satisfaction and level of engagement should not be ignored, especially if they are dwindling. Moreover, the research suggests that employee commitment to a job is dynamic and can fluctuate with changing circumstances.

The team suggests that even highly committed employees might intensify their job search efforts, but this doesn't necessarily translate to higher turnover rates. In contrast, those members of staff who are not committed to their jobs may choose to stay with their current employer for various reasons, such as a competitive job market or personal obligations, and perhaps because they do not see the opportunities that might exist via social media and job-seekers websites.

More information: Ashish Kumar Biswas et al, An emerging approach towards intention to quit among IT employees, International Journal of Enterprise Network Management (2023). DOI: 10.1504/IJENM.2023.132967

Provided by Inderscience UK survey shows 8% average drop in employee engagement since the pandemic

Overfishing and climate change impacts on New Zealand's fish populations were hidden—until now

by Sea Around Us

Pelagic-oceanic fish commonly caught in warmer waters, such as skipjack tuna and blue mackerel, have been increasing in New Zealand's waters since the 1950s, while cold-water species such as southern bluefin tuna display strong reductions in overall catch from the 1970s onwards, new research has found.

In a paper published in the journal PeerJ, an international team of researchers shows that, despite ocean water temperature around the island country modestly increasing by 0.04°C per decade from 1950–2019, the presence of warmer-climate species is a clear indicator of the impacts of climate change on marine life.

"The problem is that these trends had been 'hidden' or masked because, as technology progressed, fishing fleets have been able to continue catching cold water species. These, however, are not the same species as before but rather deep-sea fish—where the water is cooler," Charles Lavin, lead author of the study and a doctoral fellow at Nord University, explained. "As gear development promoted further expansion into deeper and cooler waters, snoek or barracouta, southern blue whiting and hoki started dominating New Zealand's fisheries catches."

To reach these conclusions, Lavin and his co-authors applied the Mean Temperature of the Catch (MTC) to New Zealand's catch data for the past 60+ years. This indicator measures the average temperature preference of exploited fish species weighted by their annual catch for a given area. If it goes up—as it did in this case –, it means that the proportion of species associated with warmer waters has risen.

"Given the growing ability of fleets to fish deeper and further offshore, we estimated the MTC not for the entire Exclusive Economic Zone altogether but rather by habitat classification and fishing gear. This allowed us to group species based on similar environmental conditions and habitats," Lavin said.

The expansion of fishing operations hasn't only occurred in terms of depth but also in terms of width. The study notes that starting in the late 1960s, New Zealand's fishing operations began moving further offshore as they were given economic incentives including subsidies for new vessels and an expanded list of exploitable species.

"This expansion also helped mask the fact that they were fishing down the marine food web as nearshore stocks were depleted," said Daniel Pauly, co-author of the study and the principal investigator of the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia. "Once the largest species, often of the highest trophic levels and long-lived, were depleted near the coast, fishing pressure shifted to smaller, shorter-lived species of lower trophic levels and also further offshore."

By going farther, fisheries were able to tap into previously untapped stocks of big fish higher in the food chain, at least for a while.

By combining two indexes that help determine the trophic level of the species dominating the catch, the researchers noted that from 1950 to 2000, high trophic level species were caught but thereafter, low trophic level fish became more common.

"Using these indicators, we were able to identify that from 1950 to about 1965, fisheries were targeting a couple of fish stock assemblages along the New Zealand shelf. As the fishing industry developed, high trophic level fish stocks became fully exploited and the catch started showing signs of fishing down," said Mark Costello, co-author of the paper and a researcher at Nord University. "This incentivized the expansion, in 1969, into a previously unexploited stock assemblage located offshore."

So far, this offshore stock assemblage has allowed New Zealand's fisheries to maintain big fish catches, but this is due to the dominance of hoki or blue grenadier, which is commercially important but also a deeper-water species.

"Our results highlight the pervasiveness of fishing down the food web in New Zealand fisheries and how this trend can be obscured by technological developments that enabled fisheries' geographic expansion," Costello said. "When designing policies, management must consider the compound effects of fishing pressure and ocean-warming-induced changes in fish populations. This means that fishing effort should probably be reduced on stocks that are overexploited and/or shifting their geographic distribution away from areas where they have been historically fished."

More information: Lavin CP, Pauly D, Dimarchopoulou D, Liang C, Costello MJ. 2023. Fishery catch is affected by geographic expansion, fishing down food webs and climate change in Aotearoa, New Zealand. PeerJ(2023). DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16070

Journal information: PeerJ

Provided by Sea Around Us New study reveals global patterns in marine fish body size and trophic traits with latitude and depth

Investigating invasive plants as roadside contaminant removal tools

by Elaina Hancock, University of Connecticut

Plants as a tool for roadside contaminant removal — Equipment harvesting the invasive plants.

Tall, densely growing Phragmites and cattail (Typha) are familiar plants alongside highways and byways in the northern United States, flourishing in salty roadsides and degraded wetland environments created by chemicals applied to roads in the colder months known as deicers.

Recently, a team of researchers from UConn's College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources and Loyola University Chicago decided to investigate whether these invasive species can help remove some of the salt and metal contaminants along those same roads. Their findings are published in Ecological Engineering.

Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Associate Professor Beth Lawrence has been working with researchers at Loyola interested in the management and restoration of wetlands in the Great Lakes region, focusing primarily on invasive plant species. After wetlands are invaded by tall, nutrient-loving, and salt-tolerant species like Phragmites and cattail, conditions become too shady and crowded for native species to thrive, eventually resulting in a homogenized environment that reduces wildlife habitat viability, changes nutrient cycling, and alters greenhouse gas emissions.

"When these invasive species come in, they change the nature of the ecosystem. We are interested in promoting biodiversity and oftentimes managers want to get rid of those invasive species," Lawrence says.

Typically, herbicides are used to kill invasive plants, but this approach is limited in effectiveness, says Lawrence, so the researchers were interested to see if mechanical harvesting methods could be a sustainable option for restoring the ecosystem.

Lawrence says that after World War II, the quantity of road salt application has grown exponentially, and there are growing concerns about their impact on the environment. Roadside ecosystems are increasingly saline and contain high loads of heavy metals like zinc and lead from cars and their emissions. The chemistry of salt ions mobilizes heavy metals in soil, making it easier for them to move around the environment and cause problems.

"There is pressure from the public and environmental groups to mitigate road salt impacts. As a society, we demand drivable roads after storms, but there are clear environmental costs. Once road salts get out into the environment they can contaminate our aquifers, groundwater or surface waters," says Lawrence.

Once the salt is in the environment, it is very difficult to remove; however, some plants that grow in brackish conditions take up and store salt in their tissues. The researchers wondered if cattail and Phragmites are taking up salts and metals along busy roads, and if so, whether harvesting the plant material would reduce the contaminants in the environment.

The team worked with the Illinois Tollway to identify 10 wetland detention basins that were all between half a hectare to one-and-a-half hectares in size. Lawrence says what's unique about this study is the scale: much of this kind of work has been done experimentally in the greenhouse in small pots, but the researchers here got to work with hectares of land.

The locations were all dominated by either cattail or Phragmites, and the team estimated the percentages of each. Half of the locations were randomly designated as controls and the team harvested biomass from the other half for two growing seasons. They also measured a variety of conditions before they started the experiment, such as biomass, soil chemistry, and the chemistry of the plant tissues.

After harvest, the researchers analyzed the plant materials for salts and metals and they found that cattail was more effective at taking up salts, with the highest amounts stored in green tissue.

Credit: University of Connecticut

"Plants have different strategies for dealing with salt and cattail is a salt accumulator," Lawrence says. "This makes it an ideal plant to target for salt remediation, especially the green tissue, because we found much higher sodium and chloride content in the green live tissue than the senesced litter, or dead plant material from previous years."

In contrast, Lawrence says Phragmites tended to be better at accumulating metals and contained higher levels of zinc and copper stored evenly between the green and dead tissue.

"Your target contaminant should determine when and what to harvest. If you're focusing on metals, maybe focus on Phragmites and you could probably harvest in the winter, whereas if you are focusing on removing salts, it makes more sense to harvest cattail during the growing season."

These results sound promising, but Lawrence says that when the amount of salt applied to roads each year is compared to the amount of salt these plants take up, this method is not a silver bullet for removing road salts and metals.

"We really need to focus on reducing the amount of salt that we're applying to this already very salty system," says Lawrence. "Assuming the rates of salt applications along with our estimates of how much biomass was growing, a complete removal of all above-ground biomass within a one-hectare basin would remove less than half of a percent of the salts that were applied along a one kilometer section of the Illinois Tollway. The percent of salts that are removed is dependent on the rate of application, how robustly the plants are growing, and the residence time of the water."

Fortunately, Lawrence says in a lot of areas of Connecticut, less salt is added to the roads compared to application rates on Chicago area roads, so harvesting cattail would likely remove a higher percentage of the salt in less-urban areas of the Nutmeg State.

Another issue for consideration is what to do with the contaminated biomass once it's been harvested.

"In our work over the last decade or so looking at invasive species and biomass harvest, we've pursued different avenues for what we can do with this. We're trying to close the loop and be more sustainable," says Lawrence.

"We've had projects where we've made pellets for pellet stoves out of invasive species biomass, and that's potentially viable, but it needs to be done at scale with an industrial partner to move forward. We've taken invasive species biomass and digested it in anaerobic digesters in the Midwest, and it's a viable feedstock but it really depends on where the feedstock or the biomass is collected because the potential for contaminants is a big deal. If there's salt and metal in your plant tissue, you don't necessarily want to compost it and then spread it in a garden because you're just spreading the salt and metals elsewhere, you're just moving the problem."

Lawrence says her main take-home message from the project is that plant remediation by harvesting plants along road edges could be a viable strategy to reduce downstream salt and heavy metal loads, but what we really need to do is reduce how much salt we're adding to the environment in the first place.

"It takes a lot of energy to run the harvesting equipment and to move the biomass around. Then can we remove the pollutants from the biomass? Yes, I'm sure we could, but again, it's going to take a lot of energy to extract. We need to be more conservative with how much salt we're releasing into the environment in the first place, but this is a tool in the roadside manager's toolbox to improve environmental quality."

More information: Andrew M. Monks et al, Complementarity of road salt and heavy metal pollutant removal through invasive Typha and Phragmites harvest in urban wetland detention basins, Ecological Engineering (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoleng.2023.107058

Journal information: Ecological Engineering

Provided by University of Connecticut Road salt pollution in many US lakes could stabilize at or below thresholds set by the EPA

Video: Firefoxes and whale spouts light up Earth's shield

by European Space Agency

Did you know the Northern lights or Aurora Borealis are created when the mythical Finnish "firefox" runs so quickly across the snow that its tail causes sparks to fly into the night sky?

At least, that's one of the stories that has been told in Finland about this beautiful phenomenon. Another that we love comes from the Sámi people of Finnish Lapland (among others), who describe them as plumes of water ejected by whales.

What do they look like to you?

Today's scientific explanation for the origin of the Aurora wasn't thought up until the 20th century, by the Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland. Charged particles, electrons and protons, are constantly emitted by the sun, making up the solar wind. This wind slams into Earth's ionosphere—sometimes sped up to vast speeds by solar storms—and the charged particles are deflected towards the poles by the magnetosphere.

Molecules in our atmosphere then absorb energy from these charged particles from the sun, and re-release it in their own unique set of colors. Oxygen produces green, but at high altitudes can create red, nitrogen creates blues, and colors can overlap creating purple. Waves, twists and streams are caused by variations in Earth's magnetic fields.

This striking video shows the Aurora over Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden. It's composed of images taken by the Kiruna all-sky camera every minute for about ten hours over 18–19 September 2023.

Credit: All-sky camera, Kiruna Atmospheric and Geophysical Observatory (KAGO) within the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF). Data provided as part of ESA’s Space Weather Service Network

The all-sky auroral camera is operated by the Kiruna Atmospheric and Geophysical Observatory (KAGO) within the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF), and data from here is provided as part of ESA's network of space weather services within the Agency's Space Safety Program.

Recently, a sequence of multiple coronal mass ejections—large, sudden ejections of plasma and magnetic field from the sun—struck Earth and we are still recovering from the passage of the last one. The fastest was traveling at around 700 km/s, considered a small event.

The sun is getting close to its time of peak solar activity—predicted for 2024/2025—in its current 11-year cycle, Solar Cycle 25. Solar storms are causing an increase in geomagnetic activity; temporary disturbances in Earth's magnetosphere, which has led to increased light shows at Earth's poles.

A modern interpretation of the meaning of the Aurora could focus on Earth's remarkable way of protecting life, so far, the only life we know of in the universe. The colors of the Aurora reveal the normally invisible complex molecular soup in just the right composition for life to thrive. Those molecules form our atmosphere, a thin shield against electromagnetic radiation and even the small asteroids that constantly bombard our home.

The shapes of the Aurora tell the story of the usually invisible protective magnetic field, holding back dangerous elements from reaching us on the ground, like charged particles from the sun. It also pulls every compass needle north, helping us navigate stormy seas.

While humans on Earth are protected by Earth's magnetic field, space weather can have an extreme and disruptive impact on satellites in orbit and infrastructure on Earth, and ultimately our society. For this reason, ESA's Space Weather Service Network continues to monitor our star and the conditions around Earth, to provide information to keep our systems safe.

In 2030, ESA will launch the first-of-its-kind Vigil mission to monitor the sun from a unique vantage point. Studying our star from the side, it will provide a stream of data that will warn of potentially hazardous regions before they roll into view from Earth.

Provided by European Space Agency

Solar storm stirs stunning aurora

Exploring Earth's mantle through microseisms

by Rebecca Owen, Eos

The ocean is constantly whirring with activity. The pressure from this constant roiling and swelling is one cause of microseisms—random, nearly imperceptible vibrations of Earth that also can be produced by human activities like vehicular traffic.

Microseisms release far less energy than earthquakes, but they still offer scientists important information. Instead of the isolated shock of an earthquake, microseisms happen all the time, producing a constant background hum that can provide insights into deep-Earth structure not available from studies of larger seismic events.

As with larger seismic waves, microseisms can travel along Earth's surface as surface waves, or through its interior as body waves. In new research published in Geophysical Research Letters, Kato and Nishida study body wave microseisms emerging from the ambient noise of the ocean and traveling through the mantle.

The researchers looked at data from 690 seismic stations recording 5,780 microseisms that occurred in the North Atlantic Ocean as well as the North and South Pacific. Instead of analyzing the microseisms using seismic interferometry—a technique often used to study seismic noise under the assumption that microseisms are generated everywhere—they examined the tiny tremors more like they would larger earthquakes.

By developing a novel receiver function method and treating the microseismic body waves as having spatially isolated source locations, they produced 3D imaging of Earth's mantle structure.

The imaging corroborated the depths of mantle discontinuities—changes in rock density and composition that mark the transition zone between the upper and the lower mantle—at 410 and 660 kilometers below the surface. According to the authors, the new technique for unpacking microseismic body waves could lead to a more thorough understanding—and future exploration—of Earth's enigmatic inner structure.

More information: S. Kato et al, Extraction of Mantle Discontinuities From Teleseismic Body‐Wave Microseisms, Geophysical Research Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2023GL105017

Journal information: Geophysical Research Letters

Provided by Eos

This story is republished courtesy of Eos, hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Read the original story here.Internet cable reveals the source of underwater vibrations

Newer diabetes treatments are understudied in Black populations and may be less beneficial

by SAGE Publications

elderly black people — Credit: CC0 Public Domain

New research analyzing the effects of two drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes indicates a consistent lack of cardiovascular and renal benefits in Black populations. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of severe illness and death associated with type 2 diabetes. Renal disease is also a common complication of type 2 diabetes.

The drugs, called sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2-Is) and glucogen-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP1-RAs), are some of the newer treatments prescribed to lower blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes.

The research findings, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, show that for white and Asian populations, SGLT2-Is and GLP1-RAs have beneficial effects on blood pressure, weight control and renal function, and significantly reduce the risk of severe heart problems and kidney disease. However, the research shows no evidence of these beneficial effects in Black populations.

Researchers at the Diabetes Research Centre at the University of Leicester analyzed the results of 14 randomized controlled trials of SGLT2-Is and GLP1-RAs reporting cardiovascular and renal outcomes by race, ethnicity and region.

Lead researcher Professor Samuel Seidu, Professor in Primary Care Diabetes and Cardio-metabolic Medicine at the University of Leicester, said, "Given the well-documented evidence that Black and other ethnic minority populations are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and at a younger age, the consistent lack of benefits we observed among Black populations is concerning.

"Minimizing racial and ethnic variations in the cardiovascular and renal complications of type 2 diabetes requires targeted improved access to care and treatment for those most at risk."

The researchers suggest there are many factors that could have contributed to the lack of evidence of beneficial effects for Black and other non-white populations. Low statistical power due to small sample sizes of these populations may be partly responsible.

"It is quite clear from the current data that some racial/ethnic groups such as Black populations were underrepresented in all the included trials," pointed out Professor Seidu.

Enrollment in the trials ranged from 66.6% to 93.2% for white populations, 1.2% and 21.6% for Asian populations, and 2.4% to 8.3% for Black populations.

However, the researchers suggest that given the consistent nature of the significant lack of beneficial effects across the majority of outcomes for Black populations, other factors may also be at play.

"Whether the differences are due to issues with under-representation of Black populations and low statistical power or to racial/ethnic variations in the way the body and these drugs interact with each other needs further investigation," said Professor Seidu. "It is therefore important that prescribers don't hasten to deny these newer treatments to Black populations on the back of this research."

More information: Racial, ethnic and regional differences in the effect of sodium–glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists on cardiovascular and renal outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cardiovascular outcome trials, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1177/01410768231198442

Journal information: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

Provided by SAGE Publications SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP1 receptor antagonists improve type-2 diabetes outcomes, but are not cost effective

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