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, June 17, 2024
From western fire to eastern heat, fossil-fueled extremes menace U.S.
As the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. braced for what could be the longest heatwave in decades for some locations, a wildfire near Los Angeles forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate over Father's Day weekend.
The climate crisis caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels is making both heatwaves and wildfires more frequent and extreme, and politicians and environmental advocates pointed out the role that state and national policy can play in fueling extreme weather.
"Each of the last 12 months have been the hottest on record," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media on Sunday. "This week, cities across the country will see record-high temperatures. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to surrender the fight against the devastation of climate change. We cannot let that happen."
"Politicians making bad policy decisions (like killing congestion pricing) is the number one cause of climate change, which makes heatwaves like this one worse."
Former U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told oil and gas executives this spring that donating $1 billion to his campaign would be a "deal" for them because he would dismantle the Biden administration's climate regulations.
Sanders' remarks came as the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Prediction Center forecast that "record-breaking heat" would "expand from the Midwest and Great Lakes to the Northeast this week, potentially lingering through early next week."
NWS said the heatwave would be the "first significant" heatwave of the season and could break daily temperature records and some monthly June temperature records for the portion of the country stretching from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast between Monday and next Saturday.
"The longevity of dangerous heat forecasted for some locations has not been experienced in decades," NWS said.
The heat index could come close to 105°F in many places, and nighttime temperatures of around 75°F mean that those without cooling infrastructure will see "little to no relief."
The high temperatures could impact millions of people from Michigan to Maine. As of Saturday, 22.6 million people were under extreme heat warnings, watches, or advisories, according toThe New York Times.
University of California, Los Angeles, climate scientist Daniel Swain told the Times that the heat would "affect a bunch of highly populated areas where there hasn't been quite as many stories about extreme heat recently," adding, "Now, it's New England's turn."
The NWS warned, "With the intense heat and high humidity it is important to take precautions to protect one's health, particularly those without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a warning on social media on Saturday, pointing out that extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S.
However, climate advocates criticized Hochul for exacerbating the root cause of more extreme heatwaves with her last-minute cancellation of a New York City congestion pricing plan earlier this month.
"Politicians making bad policy decisions (like killing congestion pricing) is the number one cause of climate change, which makes heatwaves like this one worse," the Sunrise Movementwrote in response to Hochul's post.
Long-time climate advocate and author Bill McKibbensaid: "This governor just blocked congestion pricing, one of the most important climate policy advances possible. She's redefining trolling."
Climate Central noted that, "while heatwaves are common in summer, this early season excessive, likely record-breaking heat is made as much as two times to five times MORE likely to occur in mid-June due to human-caused climate change (particularly overnight warmth)."
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the Post Fire ignited at around 1:45 pm on Saturday local time in Los Angeles County, California, about 65 miles from downtown Los Angeles, The Washington Post reported.
As of Sunday afternoon, it had spread 12,265 acres and was 2% contained, according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Fire officials said the blaze was fanned by heat, low humidity, and wind and had damaged two structures.
"Currently crews are working to construct perimeter fire lines around the flakes of the fire. Aircraft are working to stop forward progress but have limited visibility," Cal Fire wrote on Sunday, adding that "the fire is pushing up into Hungry Valley Park. California State Park Services have evacuated 1,200 people from Hungry Valley Park. Pyramid Lake is closed because of the threat of the Post Fire."
One of those evacuated was 33-year-old Oscar Flores, who was visiting Hungry Valley Park with his 12-year-old son on Saturday.
"It looked like it was the last day of the world," Flores told the Los Angeles Times. "People were loading quickly and merging out, driving fast. The ranger said you have 10 minutes [to get] whatever you can pack."
Site new care homes near trees and away from busy roads to protect residents’ lungs, says new study
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY
To shield older residents from dangerous air pollution, new care homes should be built as far from heavy traffic as possible, according to a new study from the University of Surrey.
Researchers also found that trees planted between the homes and the road could significantly mitigate the impact of air pollution.
“Older adults in care settings can be especially vulnerable to poor quality air. Our study confirms that building care homes next to busy roads without adequate tree planting can significantly increase their exposure to deadly fine particle pollution.
“We hope planners will be able to use our findings to make sure care homes are built in safer locations – striking the right balance between the convenience of urban living and better air quality.”
Researchers studied three care homes in the Chinese city of Nanjing. They measured fine particle pollution (PM2.5) at various locations in and around the care homes.
They found that the amount of pollution inside the care home decreased exponentially, the further it was from the road.
Huaiwen Wu, a researcher at GCARE, said:
“Our study gives so many useful insights into where to build new care homes.
“For instance, there was a significant relationship between outdoor and indoor pollution. This tells us that bedrooms should be kept on the far side of the building where possible."
Professor Shi-Jie Cao, Visiting Professor at GCARE and Professor at the Southeast University, China, said:
“We also saw how pollution was highest during rush hour. Concentrations were higher during spells of lighter winds, and during colder seasons when more people are heating their homes.
“As such, care homes near busy roads could keep their windows closed more during those periods – then open them afterwards to mitigate the accumulation of emissions.”
ITHACA, N.Y. – In addition to its human consequences, cocaine trafficking harms the environment and threatens habitats important to dozens of species of migratory birds, according to a new study.
Two-thirds of the areas that are most important to forest birds – including 67 species of migratory birds that breed in the U.S. and Canada and overwinter in Central America – are at increased risk from cocaine trafficking activities, according to the study, “Intersection of Narco-Trafficking, Enforcement and Bird Conservation in the Americas,” published June 12 in Nature Sustainability.
“When drug traffickers are pushed into remote forested areas, they clear land to create landing strips, roads and cattle pastures,” said lead author Amanda Rodewald, senior director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Those activities – and the counterdrug strategies that contribute to them – can deforest landscapes and threaten species.”
In the study, scientists from four universities, as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, combined measures of various landscape characteristics and concentrations of migratory birds in Central America to highlight the unexpected connection between a pervasive social problem and biodiversity.
More than half of the global population of one in five migratory species inhabit areas that became more attractive to trafficking following peak law enforcement pressure, measured as the volume of cocaine seized. For example, 90% of the world’s population of federally endangered golden-cheeked warblers and 70% of golden-winged warblers and Philadelphia vireos winter in those vulnerable landscapes.
The largest remaining forests in Central America, which are disproportionately inhabited by Indigenous people – known as the Five Great Forests – are seeing growing levels of cocaine trafficking.
“U.S. drug policy in Central America focuses on the supply side of the equation, and law-enforcement pressure plays a significant role in the movement of trafficking routes and locations of narco-deforestation,” said co-author Nicholas Magliocca, associate professor at the University of Alabama. “After 40 years that approach has not worked. In fact, cocaine trafficking has only expanded and become a worldwide network. It used to be that cocaine was just passing through Central America, but now it’s become a hub of global trans-shipment.”
This study builds upon previous ethnographic and modeling work done by Magliocca and a core group of researchers examining land-use conditions and decisions made by the traffickers themselves based on perceived risk and profit.
“This research gives an even fuller accounting of the harms caused by drug trafficking and the way we currently go about fighting it,” Magliocca said. “Adaptive behavior by the traffickers must be taken into consideration. You have to do more than reactively chase after the drug traffickers, who have nearly unlimited money and power in the region. No question it’s a complex, fluid and dangerous situation.”
“Incorporating measures that build capacity in local communities and governments to monitor and protect their forests, grow alternate forms of income, and resolve unclear land tenure would go a long way,” Rodewald said. “Our study is a reminder that we can’t address social problems in a vacuum because they can have unintended environmental consequences that undermine conservation.” This research was conducted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, University of Alabama, Ohio State University, Northern Arizona University, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service with funding from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University and NASA.
An international team of scientists has identified the oldest fossil of a sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere – a nothosaur vertebra found on New Zealand’s South Island. 246 million years ago, at the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs, New Zealand was located on the southern polar coast of a vast super-ocean called Panthalassa.
Reptiles first invaded the seas after a catastrophic mass extinction that devastated marine ecosystems and paved the way for the dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs almost 252 million years ago. Evidence for this evolutionary milestone has only been discovered in a few places around the world: on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, northwestern North America and southwestern China. Although represented by just a single vertebra that was excavated from a boulder in a stream bed at the foot of Mount Harper on the South Island of New Zealand – this discovery has shed new light on the previously unknown record of early sea reptiles from the Southern Hemisphere.
The New Zealand nothosaur was discovered during a geological survey in 1978, but its importance was not fully recognised until palaeontologists from Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Australia and East Timor joined their expertise to examine and analyse the vertebra and other associated fossils.
“The nothosaur found in New Zealand is over 40 million years older than the previously oldest known sauropterygian fossils from the Southern Hemisphere. We show that these ancient sea reptiles lived in a shallow coastal environment teeming with marine creatures within what was then the southern polar circle,” explains Dr Benjamin Kear from The Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University, lead author on the study.
The oldest nothosaur fossils are around 248 million years old and have been found along an ancient northern low-latitude belt that stretched from the remote northeastern to northwestern margins of the Panthalassa super-ocean. The origin, distribution and timing of when nothosaurs reached these distant areas are still debated. Some theories suggest that they either migrated along northern polar coastlines, or swam through inland seaways, or used currents to cross the Panthalassa super-ocean.
The new nothosaur fossil from New Zealand has now upended these long-standing hypotheses.
“Using a time-calibrated evolutionary model of sauropterygian global distributions, we show that nothosaurs originated near the equator, then rapidly spread both northwards and southwards at the same time as complex marine ecosystems became re-established after the cataclysmic mass extinction that marked the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs” says Kear.
“The beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs was characterised by extreme global warming, which allowed these marine reptiles to thrive at the South Pole. This also suggests that the ancient polar regions were a likely route for their earliest global migrations, much like the epic trans-oceanic journeys undertaken by whales today. Undoubtedly, there are more fossil remains of long-extinct sea monsters waiting to be discovered in New Zealand and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere,” says Kear.
Original fossil of the New Zealand nothosaur vertebra. The oldest sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere. Image by Benjamin Kear
Computerised tomography image of the New Zealand nothosaur vertebra. The oldest sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere. Image by Aubrey Roberts.
Reconstruction of the New Zealand nothosaur. The oldest sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere. Artwork by Johan Egerkrans
The New Zealand nothosaur fossil is held in the National Palaeontological Collection at GNS Science in New Zealand.
Dr Benjamin Kear, Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Researcher in Palaeontology at The Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University. Tel: +46 70-818 87 82 Email: benjamin.kear@em.uu.se
New Curtin University-led research has identified 100-million-year-old fossilised bones discovered in western Queensland as belonging to a newly identified species of pterosaur, which was a formidable flying reptile that lived among the dinosaurs.
Unearthed in 2021 by Kronosaurus Korner museum curator Kevin Petersen, the fossilised remains have been found to belong to Haliskia peterseni, a new genus and species of anhanguerian pterosaur.
Based on the shape of its skull, arrangement of teeth and shape of the shoulder bone, a research team led by PhD student Adele Pentland, from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, identified the specimen as an anhanguerian, which is a group of pterosaurs known to have lived across the world, including in what is now Brazil, England, Morocco, China, Spain and the United States.
“With a wingspan of approximately 4.6m, Haliskia would have been a fearsome predator around 100 million years ago when much of central western Queensland was underwater, covered by a vast inland sea and globally positioned about where Victoria’s southern coastline is today,” Ms Pentland said.
“Careful preparation by Mr Petersen has provided the remains of the most complete specimen of an anhanguerian, and of any pterosaur, discovered in Australia to date.
“Haliskia is 22 per cent complete, making it more than twice as complete as the only other known partial pterosaur skeleton found in Australia.
“The specimen includes complete lower jaws, the tip of the upper jaw, 43 teeth, vertebrae, ribs, bones from both wings and part of a leg. Also present are very thin and delicate throat bones, indicating a muscular tongue, which helped during feeding on fish and cephalopods.”
Haliskia peterseni joins several significant marine fossil specimens on display at Kronosaurus Korner, including Kronosaurus queenslandicus, the largest marine reptile with a skull at least 2.4m long, the most complete plesiosaur from Australia and bones from the plesiosaur Eromangasaurus and the ichthyosaur Platypterygius.
Mr Petersen said this latest discovery was an exciting boost for science, education and regional tourism.
“I’m thrilled that my discovery is a new species, as my passion lies in helping shape our modern knowledge of prehistoric species,” Mr Petersen said.
The full study titled ‘Haliskia peterseni, a new anhanguerian pterosaur from the late Early Cretaceous of Australia’ will be published in the journal Scientific Reports/Springer Nature (doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-60889-8).
Haliskia peterseni, a new anhanguerian pterosaur from the late Early Cretaceous of Australia’
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
12-Jun-2024
Discovery of the microfossil Qingjiangonema from the 518-million-year-old Qingjiang biota sheds light on the adaptive evolution of sulfate-reducing bacteria in response to oxygenation in Earth’s history
SCIENCE CHINA PRESS
IMAGE:
(A) OPTICAL PHOTOGRAPH OF A SOFT-BODIED MACROFOSSIL (SPECIMEN NO. CY266) OF UNKNOWN AFFINITY, WITH ABUNDANT FILAMENTOUS MICROFOSSILS OF Q. CAMBRIA (B–G) PRESENT ON THE SURFACE. (B) SEM IMAGE OF ROD-SHAPED CELLS, PHOTOGRAPHED AFTER ACID MACERATION, SHOWING EQUIMORPHIC AND EQUIDIMENSIONAL MICROCRYSTALS WITHIN EACH CELL. (C) SEM IMAGE, SHOWING A CELL EMBEDDED IN CLAYSTONE SEDIMENTS. (D, E) BSEM IMAGES, SHOWING MULTICELLULAR FILAMENTS. (F) SEM IMAGE OF A FOUR-CELL FILAMENT, SHOWING ELONGATED CELLS WITH A DIVISION GROOVE AT THE MID LENGTH (ARROWS). (I) BSEM IMAGE OF A FILAMENT COMPOSED OF CELLS OF VARIABLE LENGTH; NOTE CONSTRICTIONS BETWEEN NEIGHBORING CELLS.
Microbial sulfate reduction dating back to the Paleoarchean plays a crucial role in driving global carbon and sulfur cycles in ancient and modern Earth. Over 150 species of sulfate reducers from bacterial and archaeal phyla have been identified across a range of different environments. However, their origin is elusive and unequivocal fossils are lacking. Recently, a 518-million-year-old microbial fossil from China identified as an ancient sulfate-reducing bacterium sheds light on the adaptive evolution of sulfate-reducing bacteria in response to Earth’s oxygenation events. This new fossil, named as Qingjiangonemacambria, is reported by a research team led by Prof. Xingliang Zhang from the Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Early Life and Environments at Northwest University, Prof. Jinhua Li from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) and Prof. Yinzhao Wang from the School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Qingjiangonema was discovered in black shales of the Shuijingtuo Formation that yields the Qingjiang biota, an early Cambrian Burgess Shale–type (BST) fossil Lagerstätte of South China. And it appears as a long filament comprising hundreds of rod-shaped cells. Cells are constricted at junctions, ∼1 to 3 μm wide and ∼0.8 to 11.0 μm long. Each cell is externally enveloped by a trilaminar ultrathin film and internally filled by equimorphic and equidimensional pyrite microcrystals. The unique chain-like morphology and its presence in black shales (cemented anoxic mud), provide crucial clues to determine the biological affinity of Qingjiangonema. The faithful replication of cell morphology by pyrite microcrystals infilling suggests that Qingjiangonema be able to precipitate minerals intracellularly when it was alive.
To further determine the physiology of Qingjiangonema, in situ sulfur isotope analyses of intracellular pyrite microcrystals using Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) were carried out, and the result shows the intracellular pyrite microcrystals have a light sulfur isotope composition and large isotopic fractionation which are comparable to that of the modern Desulfonema in anoxic mud.
Interestingly, among the vast array of modern sulfate-reducing bacteria and their relatives, only the members of Desulfonema and cable bacteria within the phylum Desulfobacterota exhibit similar chain-like morphologies. Desulfonema species are filamentous sulfate reducers characterized by reducing sulfate under anoxic condition with a large sulfur isotope fractionation from sulfate to sulfide. The cable bacteria, however, are opposite in metabolism. They are aerobic sulfide-oxidizing bacteria well-known for long-distance electron transport over centimeter-scale distances and share canonical sulfate-reducing genes with the members in Desulfobacterota.
Overall, multiple lines of evidence including fossil morphology, living condition assessment and isotope analyses demonstrate that Qingjiangonema was a filamentous multicellular sulfate-reducing microfossil.
The discovery of this remarkable microfossil sheds light on the evolution of sulfate-reducing bacteria and cable bacteria. Phylogenomic and molecular clock analyses confirm an independent origin of multicellularity of Desulfonema and cable bacteria within the phylum Desulfobacterota. More importantly, these molecular biological analyses infer that Desulfobacterota, encompassing majorities of sulfate-reducing taxa, diverged ~2.4 billion years ago during the Paleoproterozoic Great Oxygenation Event (GOE), while cable bacteria diverged ~0.56 billion years ago during or after Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event.
Taking together, the authors considered that Qingjiangonema cambria is either akin to Desulfonema or represents a sulfate-reducing ancestor to cable bacteria. They proposed that sulfate-reducing bacteria were firstly diversified in response to the increase of oceanic sulfate concentrations during the GOE and that sulfur-oxidizing cable bacteria evolved from a filamentous multicellular sulfate-reducing ancestor by reversal of the sulfate reduction pathway when large areas of the seafloor became oxygenated during or after the NOE.
See the article:
The Cambrian microfossil Qingjiangonema reveals the co-evolution of sulfate-reducing bacteria and the oxygenation of Earth’s surface
Ultrastructures of the microfossil Qingjiangonema cambria.
(a, b) SEM images of a Q. cambria on the macrofossil in Fig. 2a, indicating FIB milling positions of longitudinal and cross sections, respectively. (c) STEM-HAADF image of the ultrathin cross section in (b), showing microcrystals tightly packed within a thin envelope. (d) STEM-HAADF image of the ultrathin longitudinal section in (a), showing that neighboring cells are disconnected with intercellular boundaries, note that microcrystals are much smaller in the smaller cell than those in the larger neighboring cells. (e) Close-up of the boxed area in (c), showing the ultra-thin, multilayered film comparable to the typical cell envelope of Gram-negative bacteria, which comprises a cytoplasmic membrane (CM), a periplasmic space (PS) and an outer membrane (OM).
(a) Time tree of the major lineages of the phylum Desulfobacterota, with the sulfate-reducing Desulfonema and sulfide-oxidizing cable bacteria falling in two separate linages. (b) Evolution of Earth’s atmospheric oxygen content through time, PAL = present atmospheric level. (c) Simplified estimate for the history of seawater sulfate concentrations. Shaded areas crossing (a) to (c) represent time intervals of GOE and NOE, respectively, highlighting the coincidence between phylogenetic evolution of the sulfate-reducing bacteria and major increases of Earth’s atmospheric oxygen content as well as oceanic sulfate concentrations.
Humans are outsized actors in the world’s wild places where there are struggles to preserve and protect vital natural resources and animals, birds and plants. Yet people and their plus-sized footprint are rarely discussed in models seeking to predict and plan for trajectories of endangered species.
Sustainability scholars at Michigan State University in this week’s journal Nature Ecology and Evolution reveal the decades-long gaps in research and propose a new way of creating accurate visions for endangered species.
To map and predict species geographic distributions around the globe and understand the factors that drive them, ecologists, conservation biologists and others use powerful computational tools called species distribution models (SDMs). These tools are used for conservation, understanding disease spread, food security, policy planning, and many other applications. To inform their predictions, scientists typically include the surrounding environment, such as climate and natural habitat.
But according to PhD candidate Veronica Frans, “we have a new reality that must be recognized if we want SDM predictions to be realistic and most helpful: we live in a human-dominated world.”
Frans and her advisor Jianguo “Jack” Liu, Rachel Carson chair in sustainability and director of MSU’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, reviewed and synthesized 12,854 published studies covering over 58,000 species around the world, modeled across local to global spatial scales. They found that only 11 percent of those studies included human activities – which Frans said doesn’t reflect reality.
“Nearly half the articles projecting to future climates held human predictors constant over time,” Frans said. “That’s risking false optimism about the effects of human activities compared to climate change.”
They also found how scientists have been considering the future: nearly half of the SDM studies predicting species distributions have used different future climate scenarios but left data related to human activities constant over time. This means that modelers trying to understand where species will be distributed in the next 50 to 100 years were assuming human activities, development, infrastructure, and other human pressures will not change in the future.
“In our current era, human influence is pervasive and human-species interactions are diversifying and amplifying, and yet it is not being well accounted for in one of the most popular modeling tools in ecology,” Frans said.
They noted that modelers haven’t had a choice in the matter: geographic data on future human development have been sparse.
“This is an important aspect we must work to improve, since nature and humans are tightly linked, not only locally, but also across long distances” Liu said. “They form metacoupled human and natural systems. We will only be able to make significant and swift progress toward global sustainability when we consider all aspects of our real world.”
The article “Gaps and opportunities in modeling human influence on species distributions in the Anthropocene,” was funded by the National Science Foundation and Michigan AgBioResearch.
