Wednesday, December 04, 2024

War in Lebanon has turned a decade of education crisis into a catastrophe - report

The recent conflict in Lebanon has deepened a national education crisis in which children have already lost up to 60% of school time over the past six years, new research warns.

University of Cambridge

The recent conflict in Lebanon has deepened a national education crisis in which children have already lost up to 60% of school time over the past six years, new research warns.

The report, which will be launched on 5 December by the Centre for Lebanese Studies and the University of Cambridge’s REAL Centre, is the first to assess the state of education since Israel began its ground offensive in Lebanon in October. Using surveys and interviews with parents and teachers, it provides a snapshot of the situation a few weeks before the new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The study stresses that even if that ceasefire holds, a co-ordinated, forward-thinking response is essential to prevent further learning losses in an already fragile education system.

Before the recent conflict, Lebanese schools had endured over a decade of compounded crises, including an influx of Palestinian and Syrian refugees, a major financial crisis, the 2020 Beirut explosion, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2018, the authors calculate, students have missed more than 760 teaching days due to strikes, disruption and closures.

The report shows that the effects of the latest violence have been uneven, depending on where families and teachers are based and their immediate circumstances. Refugee children and students with disabilities have been disproportionately affected and are among those who face the greatest risk of missing out further, even as the education system struggles to recover.

Maha Shuayb, Director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies, said: “The war has deepened learning losses that were already near-catastrophic. Whatever happens next, flexible, inclusive, multi-agency strategies are urgently needed to ensure education reaches those who need it most. Without thorough response planning, existing inequalities will become more entrenched, leaving entire sections of the younger generation behind.”

The report is the second in a series examining the impact of war on education in the Middle East. The previous report, on Gaza, warned that conflict there could set children’s education back by several years.

REAL Centre Director Pauline Rose said: “In Lebanon and Gaza, it is not only clear that violence, displacement and trauma are causing devastating learning losses; we also need a much more co-ordinated response. Education should not be an afterthought in times of crisis; it is vital to future stability.”

More than 1.3 million civilians have been displaced in Lebanon since Israel escalated its military operations. The new study was undertaken at the end of October, and involved a survey with 1,151 parents and teachers, supplemented with focus groups and interviews.

The authors calculate that by November, over 1 million students and 45,000 teachers had been directly affected by the conflict. About 40% of public (state-run) schools had been converted into shelters. A further 30% were in war zones, severely limiting space for schooling.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) attempted to reopen public schools on 4 November, but the study shows that for many people, violence, displacement and inadequate infrastructure impeded the resumption. Researchers found that 303 public schools were running in-person learning and 297 functioning online, but in conflict-hit regions like Baalbek-Hermel, the South, and Nabatiyyeh, barely any were physically open.

Many of the survey participants were living in shelters or overcrowded shared accommodation, where online learning – often the only option available – was difficult. Financial pressures, exacerbated by the war, have further disrupted education. 77% of parents and 66% of teachers said the conflict had reduced their incomes amid rising living costs.

While all teachers and parents wanted education to resume, the study therefore found that they were not universally prepared. Only 19% of teachers in areas heavily affected by the fighting, for example, considered restarting education a “high priority”. They also tended to prefer online learning, often for safety reasons, while those in less disrupted regions felt better prepared to resume education in-person.

Both parents and teachers highlighted the resource shortages hindering learning. Many lacked reliable internet, digital devices or even electricity. For example, only 62% of teachers and 49% of parents said they had an internet connection.

The report also highlights the extremely difficult experiences of Palestinian and Syrian refugee children and those with disabilities: groups that were disproportionately affected by systemic inequalities before the conflict began.

The authors estimate that as many as 5,000 children with disabilities could be out of school, with some parents reluctant to send children back due to a lack of inclusive provision. Refugee families, meanwhile, are among those who most urgently need food, shelter and financial help. Despite this, Syrian parents were statistically more likely to consider education a high priority. This may reflect concerns that they have been overlooked in MEHE’s plans.

Some families and teachers suggested the government’s November restart was proving chimerical. “The authorities claim that the school year has been launched successfully, but this isn’t reflective of reality,” one teacher said. “It feels more like a drive for revenue than a genuine commitment.”

MEHE’s attempts at a uniform strategy, the researchers stress, will not help everyone. “The focus has largely been on resuming schooling, with little attention paid to quality of learning," they write, adding that there is a need for a far more inclusive response plan, involving tailored strategies which reflect the different experiences of communities on the ground.

The report adds that this will require much closer collaboration between government agencies, NGOs, universities, and disability-focused organisations to address many of the problems raised by the analysis, such as financial instability, a lack of online learning infrastructure, and insufficient digital teaching capacity.

Even if the ceasefire holds, challenges remain. Many displaced families may not return home for weeks, while schools may still be used as shelters or require repairs. Temporary learning spaces, targeted infrastructure restoration, and trauma-informed approaches to helping children who need psychosocial learning recovery, will all be required.

Yusuf Sayed, Professor of Education, University of Cambridge said: “Everyone hopes that Lebanon will return to normality, but we have grave reservations about the quality, consistency and accessibility of education in the medium term. Addressing that requires better data collection and monitoring, a flexible plan and multi-agency support. Our working assumption should be that for more than a million children, this crisis is far from over.”

Concerns over potential harms of tests advertised directly to consumers

Consumers are at risk of buying products that do more harm than good, say experts

BMJ Group

Better information and regulation are essential to protect consumers from potential harms of tests advertised directly to consumers, argue experts in The BMJ today.

Emma Gram at the University of Copenhagen and colleagues warn that consumers are at risk of buying products that do more harm than good and say the public needs high quality information and effective communication to protect consumers from unbalanced and misleading marketing.

Advances in diagnostic technology and digital health have increased the variety and volume of direct-to-consumer (DTC) tests, ranging from self-test kits and multicancer detection tests to testosterone tests and food sensitivity tests.

Sales of these tests have surged from $15m in 2010 to $1.15bn in 2022 in the United States alone, but no dedicated regulatory framework exists to govern the appropriate use of these emerging products.

For example, they point to poor accuracy of tests to indicate menopause or chance of conceiving, which may provide incorrect or misleading information to women about fertility or symptoms.

They explain that that, while the availability of self-testing kits may encourage undertested communities such as key affected populations of sexually transmitted infections to better access testing, they say inaccurate tests may not be sufficient to rule out infection - any false positive results can cause unnecessary follow-up consultations and further testing, while false negative results would provide false reassurance, and therefore delay treatment.

And they warn that information provided in instructions, packaging, and advertising is sometimes incomplete, misleading, or even false, giving consumers false premises for decisions about their health.

Clinical tests marketed for assessing “wellness” such as hormone levels may also carry important harms, they write. Results may trigger over-testing, distress associated with abnormal results that are not clinically important, or lead to unnecessary use of non-evidence based supplements and treatments, which can carry significant health risks such as fertility and cardiovascular problems.

The marketing of these tests also target healthy people, who are least likely to benefit from testing.

The potential harms of multicancer detection tests could also be substantial, they add. These tests, currently being marketed and sold in the US, claim to detect over 50 types of cancer before symptoms have occurred. But Gram and colleagues argue that they are more likely to detect late stage cancers, causing significant harm without accompanying benefits.

They acknowledge that DTC tests may be beneficial in some cases, but say studies are yet to demonstrate that their use leads to better health outcomes.

To address potential consumer harms, professional organisations are calling for tests to have clear interpretations and results, and for patients to have clear information about when self-testing is recommended and when it is not. However, without official policy directives and regulation of commercial suppliers that operate outside the healthcare system, these changes are slow to happen.

“Clearly, current regulatory frameworks are inadequate in responding to the new ways in which DTC tests are being sold and used,” note the authors.

“Commercial suppliers should prove product benefit for their consumers, including clearly defining appropriate targeted populations of tests to avoid harmful misinterpretation,” they write. “In addition, industry and regulatory bodies should engage in broader concepts of harm such as financial burden, psychological and physical harm, overdiagnosis, and ineffective diagnosis associated with DTC testing.”

Finally, they say “more research on consumers’ perspectives and values in self-testing is critical for improving user centred practice, benefit, and safety.”

[Ends]

DOI

10.1136/bmj-2024-080460

Article Title

Direct-to-consumer tests: emerging trends are cause for concern

Article Publication Date

4-Dec-2024

COI Statement

Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following: AP holds grant funding from the NIHR School for Primary Care Research; DR reports consultancy fees from Mercy Bioanalytics and the National Cancer Institute for advisory work in discovery research on cancer screening tests; EGG, BSK, and SW are current members of the scientific committee for Preventing Overdiagnosis, for which they receive no financial support.

Lessons from Earth's hottest epoch in the last 65 million years: How global warming could shrink the tropics' rain belt

Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Earth's tropical rain belt, responsible for monsoons that sustain billions of people and vibrant ecosystems, has long been a reliable feature of the planet's climate. But new research reveals this vital system wasn't always so dependable. A study published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that during the early Eocene—the hottest period in the last 65 million years—the rain belt's seasonal shifts weakened dramatically. These ancient changes could offer critical warnings about the impact of modern global warming.

A Greenhouse Climate 50 Million Years Ago

The early Eocene was a time of intense volcanic activity, releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels surged to over 1600 ppmv—approximately six times preindustrial levels—causing global temperatures to rise by 9–23°C.

Researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences used climate simulations and reconstructions of ancient climate conditions to uncover a striking pattern: extreme warming expanded subtropical dry zones and shrank tropical wet regions. Central to this disruption was a reduced seasonal movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)—a band of clouds and heavy rainfall that shifts north and south along with the seasons.

The mechanism underlying the muted swing

The ITCZ's seasonal movement is controlled by the tug-of-war between solar radiation and latent heat flux—the energy transported into atmosphere as water evaporates from ocean surfaces. In modern climates, cooler oceans moderate evaporation’s sensitivity to wind, allowing the ITCZ to shift largely into the summer hemisphere as the sun’s position changes.

“In the early Eocene, much warmer oceans made evaporation far more sensitive to wind speed,” said Dr. REN Zikun, the study's lead author. “This heightened sensitivity amplified wind-driven differences in surface evaporation between hemispheres, disrupting the balance with solar heating. The result was a reduced seasonal reach of the ITCZ and a contraction of tropical wet zones.”

Relevance to Today's Warming World

If current greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, carbon dioxide levels could rise to levels seen during the early Eocene. Prof. ZHOU Tianjun, the corresponding author, highlighted the study's broader implications: “The deep-time history of Earth provides critical evidence of how greenhouse gases reshape the global climate. While the Eocene's changes occurred over millennia, similar shifts could happen at an unprecedented pace due to human activities. This serves as a stark warning about the urgent need for mitigation efforts.”

Journal

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

10.1029/2024GL108836

Article Title

Enhanced “Wind-Evaporation Effect” Drove the “Deep-Tropical Contraction” in the Early Eocene

Unlocking the science of sleep: how rest enhances language learning

University of South Australia

Sleep is critical for all sorts of reasons, but a team of international scientists has discovered a new incentive for getting eight hours of sleep every night: it helps the brain to store and learn a new language.

A study led by the University of South Australia (UniSA) and published in the Journal of Neuroscience has revealed that the coordination of two electrical events in the sleeping brain significantly improves our ability to remember new words and complex grammatical rules.

In an experiment with 35 native English-speaking adults, researchers tracked the brain activity of participants learning a miniature language called Mini Pinyin that is based on Mandarin but with similar grammatical rules to English.

Half of the participants learned Mini Pinyin in the morning and then returned in the evening to have their memory tested. The other half learned Mini Pinyin in the evening and then slept in the laboratory overnight while their brain activity was recorded. Researchers tested their progress in the morning.

Those who slept performed significantly better compared to those who remained awake.

Lead researcher Dr Zachariah Cross, who did his PhD at UniSA but is now based at Northwestern University in Chicago, says sleep-based improvements were linked to the coupling of slow oscillations and sleep spindles – brainwave patterns that synchronise during NREM sleep.

“This coupling likely reflects the transfer of learned information from the hippocampus to the cortex, enhancing long-term memory storage,” Dr Cross says.

“Post-sleep neural activity showed unique patterns of theta oscillations associated with cognitive control and memory consolidation, suggesting a strong link between sleep-induced brainwave co-ordination and learning outcomes.”

UniSA researcher Dr Scott Coussens says the study underscores the importance of sleep in learning complex linguistic rules.

“By demonstrating how specific neural processes during sleep support memory consolidation, we provide a new perspective on how sleep disruption impacts language learning,” Dr Coussens says. “Sleep is not just restful; it’s an active, transformative state for the brain.”

The findings could also potentially inform treatments for individuals with language-related impairments, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and aphasia, who experience greater sleep disturbances than other adults.

Research on both animals and humans shows that slow oscillations improve neural plasticity – the brain’s ability to change and adapt in response to experiences and injury.

“From this perspective, slow oscillations could be increased via methods such as transcranial magnetic stimulation to accelerate aphasia-based speech and language therapy,” Dr Cross says.

In future, the researchers plan to explore how sleep and wake dynamics influence the learning of other complex cognitive tasks.

“Understanding how the brain works during sleep has implications beyond language learning. It could revolutionise how we approach education, rehabilitation, and cognitive training.”

Notes for editors

“Slow oscillation-spindle coupling predicts sequence-based language learning” is authored by scientists from the University of South Australia; Northwestern University, Chicago; University of Tübingen, Germany; Monash University; University of Adelaide; University of York, United Kingdom; and UC Berkeley, United States. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2193-23.2024

Mini Pinyin contains 32 verbs and 25 nouns, including 10 human entities, 10 animals and five objects. Overall, the language contains 576 unique sentences.

Journal

Neuroscience

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2193-23.2024

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Slow oscillation-spindle coupling predicts sequence-based language learning

Independent rice paddy methane model validated for global applications: Study highlights emission mitigation potential

Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Rice paddies, responsible for approximately 10% of global anthropogenic methane (CH₄) emissions, are increasingly recognized as a key contributor to global warming. Reducing emissions from rice cultivation is essential to achieving international climate goals, especially in light of commitments to carbon neutrality and peak emissions targets.

A team led by Prof. LI Tingting from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has validated an independently developed methane emission model, CH4MOD, at the global scale. This research highlights the advantages of process-based models over the commonly used emission factor method. While the emission factor method relies on generalized estimates that often overlook environmental and management complexities, CH4MOD provides a detailed simulation of methane production, oxidation, and emissions, considering factors such as climate, soil properties, organic matter, and water management practices.

The study, published in iScience, validated CH4MOD using 986 methane flux observations worldwide. The model showed strong agreement with observed data, achieving a correlation coefficient of 0.76 and a model efficiency of 0.78. These results confirm CH4MOD’s ability to more accurately simulate rice paddy methane emissions under diverse conditions and management practices.

“Our findings demonstrate how mechanistic models like CH4MOD can reduce uncertainties in methane emission inventories and enable more effective mitigation strategies,” said PLI.

The study found that methane emissions could range from 8 to 78 Tg CH₄ annually under different management scenarios. This variability underscores the significant opportunities for mitigation by adjusting practices such as water management and organic matter use.

HU Qiwen, a visiting Ph.D. student at Sun Yat-sen University, is the first author of the paper. The research also represents a collaborative effort among researchers including Prof. QIN Zhangcai (Sun Yat-sen University), Prof. HUANG Yao (Institute of Botany, CAS), Prof. Josep Canadell (Global Carbon Project), Prof. YUAN Wenping (Peking University), and Assoc. Prof. YANG Jinyang (Nanjing Agricultural University).

Journal

iScience

DOI

10.1016/j.isci.2024.111237

Article Title

Independent Rice Paddy Methane Model Validated for Global Applications: Study Highlights Emission Mitigation Potential

Deforestation reduces malaria bed nets’ effectiveness

Trees and disease: Public health measures to fight malaria—including insecticide-treated bed nets—lose effectiveness as deforestation rises

University of Vermont

When a forest is lost to development, some effects are obvious. Stumps and mud puddles across the landscape, a plowed field or houses a year after that. But deforestation isn’t just a loss of trees; it’s a loss of the countless benefits that forests provide—one of which is control of disease.

Now, a startling new global study shows that a widespread malaria-fighting strategy—bed nets—becomes less effective as deforestation rises. The research underscores how important a healthy environment can be for human health.

Insecticide-treated bed nets are one of the most common malaria prevention measures. They prevent malaria-transmitting mosquitos from biting residents as they sleep, and nonprofits distribute them widely, spending into the billions of dollars, said Gund Institute Director Taylor Ricketts.

The researchers found that bed-net use was associated with up to 32% lower malaria rates in children. However, bed-nets were only effective in areas where forests remained over 50% intact. The findings were published in People and Nature.

In other words, “bed-net use is effective in areas with lower deforestation rates, but when deforestation rate exceeds 50% over the 20-year period studied, bed-net use has no effect,” said lead author Tafesse Estifanos, a former postdoctoral scholar at UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment and still an affiliated scholar there.

“Tafesse’s research is a wake-up call for those working in public and planetary health. He has shown that the effectiveness of what we typically do to control malaria depends on the state of nature around the people we're trying to help,” Ricketts said. “I think in global public health, there is still a huge blind spot regarding the importance of nature.”

For the study, the researchers combined several types of information: demographic, health, and economic data about residents of the study area—combined with geographic and environmental data including deforestation, climate, and population density. They developed four categories of deforestation rate, ranging from nearly no forest loss to over 50% loss over the course of 20 years. The team also included data on bed-net use and malaria cases among children residing in the study areas.

Why does deforestation increase malaria risk? There are probably several interacting reasons, noted Ricketts, but one of them is that deforestation creates ideal habitat for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, leaving puddles of sun-warmed water in which the insects breed and thrive. The researchers next plan to look for the exact mechanism through which forest loss changes bed-net efficacy, Ricketts added.

This work builds from an earlier study, in which researchers showed that deforestation increases risk of malarial infection in children across six countries, especially for those in low-income communities.

“We have lots of case studies that look at the adoption and efficacy of malaria prevention, especially bed net access and use,” noted study coauthor and Rubenstein School of Environment professor Brendan Fisher. “What we were able to do here is get data on close to 20,000 children in six malaria-endemic countries to test, on a large scale, how natural and human mechanisms for malaria prevention interact."

The take-home message, said Estifanos and Ricketts, is that maintaining intact forests is not just a conservation goal—it’s a public health measure. “Especially in developing countries, where the resources are scarce and poverty is a significant factor, conservation of the environment has a dual purpose,” Estifanos said.

It also means that government and NGO efforts to improve public health—and the money spent on these efforts—can be wasted if deforestation overwhelms their effectiveness, Ricketts said. “If we don’t treat nature well, we could undermine the impressive gains we’ve made in public health.”

“By conserving the environment, we can help public health policy interventions,” Estifanos said. “Our project examines how poverty and environmental conservation interact in malaria transmission, and shows that environmental conservation has public health benefits.”

World Health Organization data reports over 600,000 deaths worldwide from malaria in 2022, nearly all of which occurred in Africa. Children are particularly vulnerable: over 75% of these malaria deaths were children.

Learn about UVM’s Planetary Health Initiative, which explores connections between nature and human health so that people and planet can thrive.

Journal

People and Nature

Article Title

Deforestation changes the effectiveness of bed nets for malaria control

Article Publication Date

5-Dec-2024

Effects of bamboo invasion on forest structures and diameter–height allometries

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.

image:
The SEM shows the combined effects of bamboo invasion, climate, and soil on the scaling exponents of the DBH–height allometries for bamboo and tree.
view more
Credit: Ouyang, M., et al.

Bamboo invasion has been widely observed across Asia (e.g., China, Japan, and India), North America, South America (e.g., Brazil and Peru) and Africa. Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis), a large-running bamboo species native to subtropical China, is known for its invasive nature and ability to encroach upon adjacent communities, particularly derived forests. While some plot-based studies exist, our understanding of how forest structural dynamics and diameter–height allometric relationships respond to bamboo invasion has remained limited.

In a study published in the KeAi journal Forest Ecosystems, researchers from China systematically assessed forest structural dynamics and the interactive effects of invasion, climate, and soil on diameter–height allometry across a broad spatial scale.

“The invasion of P. edulis has caused numerous negative ecological impacts on forest ecosystems, including the suppression of tree growth, loss of local biodiversity, reduction of ecosystem carbon stocks, and disruption of nitrogen cycling,” said co-author Qingpei Yang, a professor of bamboo ecology at the Key Laboratory for Bamboo Germplasm Resources and Utilization, Jiangxi Agricultural University. “However, the mechanisms underlying these invasion-induced changes in ecosystem processes and functions remain poorly understood.”

Forest structure underpins ecosystem functioning, with the allometric relationship between DBH and height reflecting the balance between vertical and lateral growth strategies. Based on a large-scale field community survey, the data reveal that bamboo invasion decreases the mean and maximum diameter at breast height (DBH), maximum height, and total basal area (TBA) of stands, while increasing mean height and stem density.

Additionally, the scaling exponent of DBH–height decreases significantly for bamboo but increases indirectly for trees due to higher stem densities following the invasion.

“Notably, bamboo exhibits a higher scaling exponent than trees, particularly in mixed forests, suggesting a greater allocation of biomass to height growth,” added Yang. This phenotypic plasticity in diameter–height allometry may allow bamboo to outcompete trees, contributing to its invasive success.

“Through this large-scale study, we have quantified the general patterns of changes in forest structure and the shifts between vertical and lateral growth strategies under bamboo invasion,” said Ming Ouyang, the lead researcher of the study. “As community structure controls ecosystem functioning, future studies should further investigate the causes and consequences of bamboo invasion from a structure–function perspective.”

###

Contact the author: Ming Ouyang, School of Ecology and Environmental Science, and Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Transboundary Ecosecurity of Southwest, Yunnan University, Kunming, China, mingouyang@pku.edu.cn

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

Journal

Forest Ecosystems

DOI

10.1016/j.fecs.2024.100256

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Effects of bamboo invasion on forest structures and diameter–height allometries

Spotted lanternflies in the US are living longer—and cities may be helping them spread

NYU researchers find longer life cycles and urban connection for the invasive insects, which could spell trouble for local ecosystems, but also point to cities as “early-detection zones” for controlling the harmful pests

New York University

Spotted lanterfly — image:
A spotted lanterfly
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Credit: Rafael Baez, NYU

Spotted lanternflies—invasive insects that first landed in the United States a decade ago—are emerging earlier and staying active later each year, according to an analysis of citizen-science data by researchers at New York University. This longer life cycle and shift in activity may be driven in part by cities and their warmer climates.

The spotted lanternfly, native to parts of Asia, was first found in the US in 2014 in eastern Pennsylvania. Since then, the population has spread across the Northeast and into the Midwest and Southeast, sparking concerns about its impact on local plants and agriculture.

The colorful but harmful insects became a common sight in New York City in 2020—which wasn’t surprising to Kristin Winchell, an assistant professor of biology at NYU who studies ecology and evolution in urban environments. Cities are often home to invasive species for a number of reasons, including climate, commerce, and competition.

“Cities tend to have milder winters, creating favorable conditions for species that otherwise would only be able to live in hot, tropical climates,” explained Winchell. “Cities are also highly connected places where trade happens, and organisms may end up on shipments in planes or boats traveling between cities.”

“Finally, urban environments aren’t very friendly to a lot of native species, so you have a degraded ecological community that creates opportunities for new species to come in,” said Winchell.

Upon joining NYU in 2022—a time when spotted lanternflies were abundant in New York City—Winchell and her team grew curious about the spread of lanternflies in the US and whether urbanization was playing a role in the invasion.

Harnessing the power of citizen science

Because spotted lanternflies are easy to identify, thanks to distinctive markings on their bodies and wings, the public quickly learned to recognize and report them to state governments and citizen science platforms. One such platform, iNaturalist, provided a rich source of data for Winchell’s research team, including Hannah Owen, who led this study as undergraduate at NYU Shanghai after spending a semester in Winchell’s lab in New York City.

Owen analyzed nearly 20,000 photos of spotted lanternflies in the northeastern US that citizen scientists uploaded to iNaturalist between 2014 and 2022, noting the locations and life stages of the insects to explore population patterns and activity. The patterns of lanternflies documented in iNaturalist were consistent with their rapid growth in northeastern states in the early years of the invasion.

Together with Winchell and Fallon Meng, a PhD student in Winchell’s lab studying spotted lanternflies, Owen noticed that lanternflies—both nymphs and adults—were showing up earlier each year and remaining active later. This shift in the timing of their activity and extended life cycle coincided with the insects spreading farther north.

“This is important because a lengthening of the active period every year means they have more time to reproduce and spread,” said Winchell.

Looking at regional temperature and several measures related to urban areas—distance to a city center, tree canopy cover, and paved surfaces and roofs—the researchers found that both higher temperatures and urbanization were linked to the lanternflies emerging earlier. This suggests that cities and their warmer temperatures—known as the urban heat island effect—may be facilitating the spread of spotted lanternflies further north into colder regions, including areas previously thought to be too cold for the insects to thrive.

The researchers hope that their findings—published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society—might inform monitoring and mitigation efforts for spotted lanternflies and other invasive species, particularly in cities.

“If cities are more aware, then these large population centers can do more to contain invasive species,” said Owen.

“With spotted lanternflies showing up earlier each year, cities could become early-detection zones,” said Meng. “If people focus on urban areas for routine surveys, this could provide early warnings to new regions and faster response times to potentially limit the spread.”

Have New York City’s spotted lanternflies peaked?

In areas where lanternfly invasions started earlier, such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the populations initially grew exponentially, but the citizen-science data showed them peaking and declining after four or five years. While spotted lanternflies are still found in these states, they are far less prevalent than they were several years ago.

“This is a classic growth pattern that we see in invasive species as they become part of the ecological community,” said Winchell. “It makes sense that ecological pressures start to knock down the population—for instance, native species like spiders, wasps, and birds are learning to prey on the lanternflies.”

The iNaturalist data showed New York having the largest lanternfly population in 2022, and based on patterns in states with earlier invasions, the researchers predicted that the population would peak and decline in the years that followed—a prediction that played out this year, with far less frequent sightings of the insects.

Because of these patterns across states, Winchell thinks it’s more likely to be a natural ecological process playing out—not our individual efforts to stomp on bugs—changing the population’s trajectory. And based on the smaller but sustained populations of spotted lanternflies in places that peaked earlier, it’s likely that these insects are here to stay.

“Will they swarm again like they did a couple of years ago. Probably not,” she said. “But are they going away? No.”

Journal

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

DOI

10.1093/biolinnean/blae099

Article Title

Urbanization and Environmental Variation Drive Phenological Changes in the Spotted Lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae)

Article Publication Date

4-Dec-2024

SPACE/COSMOS

Astronomers close to solving mystery of how universe’s giant galaxies formed

University of Southampton

image:
Two antennae galaxies colliding - photo by NASA
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Credit: Photo by NASA

Astronomers say they are close to solving an intergalactic mystery about the creation of the universe's biggest galaxies which has puzzled experts for decades.

Scientists have discovered the birth sites of gigantic elliptical galaxies which they claim offer new clues about how they were formed.

The creation of these ancient galaxies, which look like bulging footballs compared to our flat disk-like Milky Way, remains a mystery to astrophysicists.

But now academics from the University of Southampton, working with experts across the world, say their new study may finally unravel the enigma.

Dr Annagrazia Puglisi from Southampton, who co-authored the research, said it is likely that large flows of cold gas and collisions between galaxies in the early universe created these giant systems.

She added: “Two disk galaxies smashing together caused gas – the fuel from which stars are formed – to sink towards their centre, generating trillions of new stars.

“These cosmic collisions happened some eight to 12 billion years ago, when the universe was in a much more active phase of its evolution.

“Our findings take us closer to solving a long-standing mystery in astronomy that will redefine our understanding of how galaxies were created in the early universe.”

The study, published in Nature, was a collaboration between Southampton, the Purple Mountain Observatory in China and the Chinese Academy of Science, among others.

Experts analysed more than 100 star-forming galaxies in the distant universe using the world’s largest radio telescope, known as ALMA, located in Chile’s Atacama desert.

The scientists made the discovery using a new technique which looked at the distribution of light emitted by distant and highly-luminous galaxies, said study lead Dr Qing-Hua Tan from the Purple Mountain Observatory.

She added: “This is the first real evidence that spheroids form directly through intense episodes of star formation located in the cores of distant galaxies.

“Astrophysicists have sought to understand this process for decades.

“These galaxies form quickly – gas is sucked inwards to feed black holes and triggers bursts of stars, which are created at rates ten to 100 times faster than our Milky Way.”

Researchers used the open-source A3COSMOS and A3GOODSS archival projects which enabled them to gather high-quality observations of many distant galaxies.

The scientists say they will combine their findings with data taken from telescopes aboard the JWST and Euclid satellites, as well as the Chinese Space Station, to map the stellar components of galaxies.

Dr Puglisi from Southampton added: “This will give us a more complete picture of early galaxy formation and deepen our understanding of how the universe has evolved since the beginning of time.”

ENDS
428 WORDS

Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-08201-6

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

In situ spheroid formation in distant submillimetre-bright Galaxies

Article Publication Date

4-Dec-2024

Astronomers witness the in situ spheroid formation in distant submillimetre-bright galaxies

Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe

image:
Schematic diagram shows how spheroid formation occurs in distant submillimetre-bright galaxies, and how this process connects to the evolution of giant elliptical galaxies in today's Universe. On the far left, we have RGB images from JWST (using F444W for red, F227W for green, and F150W for blue) showcasing examples from our sample of galaxies. The cyan dashed ellipse marks the concentrated region of submm emission, with zoomed-in views highlighting the ALMA submm images. Also shown is a classification of the galaxies' intrinsic shapes. The average shape parameters for our full sample (green ellipse), a subsample of submm-compact galaxies (orange ellipse), and a subsample of submm-extended galaxies (blue ellipse) are compared to local early-type galaxies (red ellipse) and late-type galaxies (represented by purple and cyan spiral shapes).
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Credit: Credit: Qing-Hua Tan

An international team of researchers including The University of Tokyo Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI) has found evidence showing that old elliptical galaxies in the universe can form from intense star formation within early galaxy cores. This discovery will deepen our understanding of how galaxies evolved from the early Universe, reports a new study in Nature.

Galaxies in today’s Universe are diverse in morphologies and can be roughly divided into two categories: younger, disk-like spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, that are still forming new stars; and older, elliptical galaxies, which are dominated by a central bulge, no longer forming stars and mostly lacking gas. These spheroidal galaxies contain very old stars, yet how they formed has remained a mystery—until now.

The discovery of the birth sites of giant, elliptical galaxies – announced in a paper published today in Nature – come from analyzing data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) on over 100 Submillimeter Bright Galaxies (SMGs) with redshifts dating to the “Cosmic noon” era, when the universe was between around 1.6 and 5.9 billion years old and many galaxies were actively forming stars. This study provides the first solid observational evidence that spheroids can form directly through intense star formation within the cores of highly luminous starburst galaxies in the early Universe, based on a new perspective from the submillimeter band. This breakthrough will significantly impact models of galaxy evolution and deepen our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve across the Universe.

In this study, researchers led by Chinese Academy of Sciences Purple Mountain Observatory Associate Researcher Qinghua Tan, and including Kavli IPMU Professor John Silverman, Project Researcher Boris Kalita, and graduate student Zhaoxuan Liu, used statistical analysis of the surface brightness distribution of dust emission in the submillimeter band, combined with a novel analysis technique. They found that the submillimeter emission in most of sample galaxies are very compact, with surface brightness profiles deviating significantly from those of exponential disks. This suggests that the submillimeter emission typically comes from structures that are already spheroid-like. Further evidence for this spheroidal shape comes from a detailed analysis of galaxies’ 3D geometry. Modeling based on the skewed-high axis-ratio distribution shows that the ratio of the shortest to the longest of their three axes is, on average, half and increases with spatial compactness. This indicates that most of these highly star-forming galaxies are intrinsically spherical rather than disk-shaped. Supported by numerical simulations, this discovery has shown us that the main mechanism behind the formation of these tri-dimensional galaxies (spheroids) is the simultaneous action of cold gas accretion and galaxy interactions. This process is thought to have been quite common in the early Universe, during the period when most spheroids were forming. It could redefine how we understand galaxy formation.

This research was made possible thanks to the A3COSMOS and A3GOODSS archival projects, which enabled researchers to gather a large number of galaxies observed with a high enough signal-to-noise ratio for detailed analysis. Future exploration of the wealth of ALMA observations accumulated over the years, along with new submillimeter and millimeter observations with higher resolution and sensitivity, will allow us to systematically study the cold gas in galaxies. This will offer unprecedented insight into the distribution and kinematics of the raw materials fueling star formation. With the powerful capabilities of Euclid, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the China Space Station Telescope (CSST) to map the stellar components of galaxies, we will gain a more complete picture of early galaxy formation. Together, these insights will deepen our understanding of how the Universe as a whole has evolved over time.

Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-08201-6

Article Title

In situ spheroid formation in distant submillimetre-bright Galaxies

Article Publication Date

4-Dec-2024

Researchers use data from citizen scientists to uncover the mysteries of a blue low-latitude aurora

Nagoya University

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One of the two photographs that captured blue-dominant aurora and were analyzed in this study.
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Credit: Takuya Usami

Colorful auroras appeared around Japan's Honshu and Hokkaido islands on May 11, 2024, sparked by an intense magnetic storm. Usually, auroras observed at low latitudes appear red due to the emission of oxygen atoms. But on this day, a salmon pink aurora was observed throughout the night, while an unusually tall, blue-dominant aurora appeared shortly before midnight.

Smartphone videos and amateur photos captured the event, enabling scientists to combine public data with their own research and study the phenomenon.

In a new study, researchers analyzed the videos and images of the blue-dominant aurora to estimate the area of the phenomenon and confirmed the estimates with spectrophotometers. Published in the journal Earth, Planets and Space, the research was led by Sota Nanjo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Sweden, and Professor Kazuo Shiokawa from the Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE) at Nagoya University in Japan.

Nanjo and Shiokawa’s investigation provided the first visualization of the spatial structure of blue-dominant auroras during a storm. The researchers found that the auroras had longitudinal structures that were aligned with magnetic field lines, the first time they had been identified in a low-latitude, blue-dominant aurora. They also found that the aurora spanned about 1200 km in longitude, consisted of three separated structures, and ranged in altitude from 400-900 km.

Nanjo and Shiokawa’s findings may change our understanding of blue auroras. The ring current, a donut-shaped region of charged particles encircling Earth, is believed to be the source of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) that produce low-latitude auroras, including the red aurora. According to this model, the storm likely energized the ENAs, creating a colorful display of light.

However, the group's discoveries cannot easily be explained by this mechanism. As Shiokawa explains: “In this study, a structure of several hundred kilometers was found in the blue-dominant aurora in the longitudinal direction, which is difficult to interpret by ENA activity only. In addition, ENAs are unlikely to create auroral structures aligned with magnetic field lines, as observed in this study.”

Another possibility was that the aurora was due to resonant scattering of nitrogen molecular ions caused by sunlight irradiation. However, the group's research suggests that a different process occurred, as sunlight only reached down to 700 km, not the 400 km observed by the researchers.

Instead, their results may indicate the intriguing possibility of an unidentified process. “Our findings suggest that nitrogen molecular ions may have accelerated upward by some mechanism and were responsible for the formation of the blue-dominant aurora,” Shiokawa said.

“To date, it is not well understood how nitrogen molecular ions with large molecular weight can exist at such high altitudes,” he continued. “Such ions are not easily able to exist for long periods of time due to their heavy mass and short dissociative-recombination time intervals; however, they are observed at high altitudes. The process is shrouded in mystery.”

Overall, repeated observations of blue-dominant auroras, such as the one observed in Japan, may provide clues to understand the principle behind how nitrogen can be found at these altitudes. As the process of nitrogen molecular ion outflow into the magnetosphere is important in everything from understanding geomagnetic storms and the radiation environment in space, these findings could help us understand the processes that take place hundreds of kilometers above us.

Blue-dominant aurora captured by another photographer was also analyzed in this study.

Credit

Mitsuhiro Ozaki

Journal

Earth Planets and Space

DOI

10.1186/s40623-024-02090-9