Turtle scavenging critical to freshwater ecosystem health

by Nature Publishing Group

Adult Emydura macquarii. Credit: Claudia Santori.

Freshwater turtles may have a role in regulating water quality in river systems by scavenging fish carcasses, suggests a study of Emydura macquarii, a vulnerable freshwater turtle species found in Australia. The findings are published in Scientific Reports.

Carp are a major pest in many parts of Australia and ammonia, a by-product of carp carcass decomposition, is toxic to animals in high concentrations. Ricky-John Spencer and colleagues measured the impact of scavenging turtles on the water quality of artificial wetlands containing carp carcasses, using five groups of four male Emydura macquarii caught at Hawksview Lagoon in New South Wales. Each artificial wetland contained either four or no turtles and consisted of a tank filled with flowing water, cement blocks for turtles to bask on and plastic tunnels for shelter. Carp carcasses were left in each artificial wetland until they had either been fully eaten by turtles or had fully decomposed. When turtles were present, carp carcasses were removed three times faster and water quality returned to initial conditions more quickly, as indicated by a fall in ammonia levels and the recovery of dissolved oxygen levels. Aquatic animals need dissolved oxygen to breathe.

The Murray-Darling basin is a river system that supports 40% of Australia's agricultural production. It is the main water source for more than 2.8 million people. Freshwater turtles are scarce in the Murray-Darling basin due to death on roads and nest destruction by foxes. The water quality and ecosystems of the basin could be severely affected by plans by the Australian government to reduce the number of invasive carp through the introduction of a naturally occurring carp virus as there are fewer turtles present to scavenge on carcasses, the authors suggest.

The state-of-art experimental wetland facility at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury campus. Credit: Ricky Spencer and Claudia Santori.
Baby Emydura macquarii. Credit: Tom Burd.
Day one of the mesocosm experiments within the state-of-art experimental wetland facility at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury campus - a carp carcass is added to the water. Credit: Ricky Spencer and Claudia Santori.

Day nine of the mesocosm experiments within the state-of-art experimental wetland facility at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury campus - with turtles present in the water, the carp carcass has been completely devoured. Credit: Ricky Spencer and Claudia Santori.

Day nine of the mesocosm experiments within the state-of-art experimental wetland facility at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury campus - without turtles present in the water, the carp carcass continues to decompose and water quality deteriorates. Credit: Ricky Spencer and Claudia Santori.

The state-of-art experimental wetland facility at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury campus. Credit: Ricky Spencer and Claudia Santori.

Baby Emydura macquarii. Credit: Tom Burd.


Explore further Millions of rotting fish—turtles and crays can save us from carpageddon

More information: Scavenging by threatened turtles regulates freshwater ecosystem health during fish kills, Scientific Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-71544-3 , www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71544-3

Journal information: Scientific Reports


Provided by Nature Publishing Group

Taxing online sports betting, fantasy sports may help states cover pandemic losses

by Avery Ruxer Franklin, Rice University

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Taxing online fantasy sports and sports betting may help states recoup some of the sales tax revenue lost during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a finance expert at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.


Joyce Beebe, a fellow in public finance, writes that COVID-19 has saddled state governments with large revenue shortages, highlighted by a 21% plunge in average sales tax revenue in May 2020 compared with a year earlier. Some states have been exploring creative ways to raise money—like imposing excise taxes on sports betting and daily fantasy sports (DFS).

"When excise taxes are levied on potentially harmful goods and activities, such as cigarettes, gambling and alcoholic beverages, they are often called 'sin taxes,'" Beebe wrote. "Over time, what constitutes 'sinful' products varies as a result of evolving cultural, health and social perspectives. Although 'sin taxes' arguably focus on goods and activities that aren't overly controversial, the public debate is no less intense, because the tax is imposed, in part, to change people's behaviors."

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal law prohibiting sports betting in 2018, allowing states to decide on the issue for themselves. As of 2020, sports betting is legal—and providing tax revenue—in 23 states and Washington, D.C. Yet, not all of these states allow DFS, and not all states that allow DFS permit sports betting.

"The distinction generally lies in whether the fantasy sports are considered a 'game of chance' or a 'game of skills' under state law, where the former falls in the definition of gambling and the latter is generally authorized," Beebe wrote. "As such, some DFS industry groups maintain the distinction between DFS and sports betting by emphasizing the skill element of DFS, hoping to increase the chance of legalizing DFS—although their goal is to ultimately legalize both."

COVID-19 has provided an unexpected environment for DFS to flourish due to social distancing measures, Beebe argues. She wrote that such measures may continue to "fuel the popularity of online sports betting, and the pandemic will motivate more states to accelerate its legalization."

"When debating whether to legalize sports betting, the real gain is that states can regulate the activities and provide a legitimate environment that protects consumers from disreputable operations and limits the risk of addiction," Beebe wrote.


Explore furtherPoll: Majority of Americans support legalization of sports betting

More information: 

Be a good sport (and pay your taxes): blog.bakerinstitute.org/2020/0 … -and-pay-your-taxes/

Provided by Rice University

Study shows quizzes improve academic performance
NOT TESTING!!!
by Iowa State University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

About a year ago, a conversation during a faculty meeting piqued Marcus Crede's interest.

 A senior faculty member in Iowa State University's Department of Psychology said that he believed frequent quizzes help students better grasp classroom material.

 Crede, an associate professor of psychology, was skeptical that something as simple as a quiz could positively impact students' academic performance. He decided to dig deeper and conduct a meta-analytic study of existing research to see if there was any merit to the claim. What he discovered truly surprised him.


"I have a long history of trying to understand the variables that contribute to learning and performance in the classroom," Crede said. "For me, this study is part of a larger effort to understand what works and what doesn't work. It turned out to be a much more interesting paper than I thought it was going to be. I was surprised."

The study

Crede teamed up with psychology graduate student Lukas Sotola, who took the lead on much of the research. They analyzed data from previously published studies that examined 52 classes with almost 8,000 students, primarily college-level courses, to determine if frequent quizzes improved the students' academic performance. Laboratory settings were excluded from the study because Crede and Sotola wanted to observe whether similar studies from labs would apply to general classrooms. They defined quizzes as low-stakes assessments of learned material that occurred at least once a week.

Crede emphasizes that this study did not involve true experiments, where some students were randomly assigned quiz conditions and others were not.

"As soon as we don't have random assignments, we can't be 100% certain that the difference is really do to the quizzes. It could be something else."

Nevertheless, the results suggest there may be a strong link between frequent quizzing and student success.

The study's results are detailed in the paper, "Regarding Class Quizzes: A Meta-analytic Synthesis of Studies on the Relationship Between Frequent Low-stakes Testing and Class Performance," published last month in the journal Educational Psychology Review.

A few surprises

Crede and Sotola discovered that when students are quizzed over class material at least once a week, they tend to perform better on midterm and final exams compared to students who did not take quizzes. They also found that students who took frequent quizzes were less likely to fail the class, especially if they were struggling with the course content.

"I was surprised the effect of quizzes was relatively strong," Crede said. "I was skeptical. I didn't think this would have much of an effect. The other surprising thing was how much quizzes helped reduce failure rates in classes. The odds of passing a class went through the roof where instructors used this."


Even if quizzes only modestly impact students' ability to pass a class, Sotola said this tool should be part of an instructor's teaching curriculum.

"A modest effect can have a large impact over the course of many years," Sotola said. "If quizzes improve performance and lead to even a slightly lower percentage of students failing their classes, then that will presumably have positive effects on graduation and drop-out rates down the road, which will save students and institutions time and money."

Crede noted that students who struggle the most in a class seem to benefit the greatest from frequent quizzes. This is a profound finding, he said, especially since implementing short quizzes into course curriculum is a relatively simple task.

"In many universities, including Iowa State, there's often concern about drop-out rates and failure rates, and so the fact that we can apparently do so much with so little effort is really encouraging for us," Crede said.

In addition to quiz frequency, another factor that seemed to positively impact students' performance was immediate feedback from instructors. Also, Crede and Sotola said quizzes that required students to answer with written responses proved more beneficial to their understanding of class material compared to multiple-choice questions, though their pool of data for this particular aspect of the study was small.

"You have to be cautious about the amount of data we have, but multiple-choice questions seem to be a little less effective than what we call a constructive-response question, when you actually have to come up with the answer yourself," Crede said. "It's about recognizing the right answer and actually remembering what the right answer is."

Crede acknowledges that asking teachers to grade written quizzes daily or weekly may discourage some from implementing them in their classes. Instead, he recommends instructors utilize online quizzes that can be automatically graded by a course management system, such as Canvas.

Crede and Sotola said some quiz attributes proved insignificant in their study, including whether the tests were pop quizzes versus planned, or if they were online or on paper. No matter how they are delivered, Crede and Sotola agree that their study shows frequent quizzes with immediate instructor feedback help students, especially those who are having difficulties, succeed in the classroom.

"The impact on struggling students was really remarkable," Crede said. "Again, we only have data on about 1,000 students, but it's really quite dramatic. If it's even remotely in that neighborhood, this is something we should all be doing."


Explore further  No evidence that grit improves performance, analysis finds

More information: Lukas K. Sotola et al, Regarding Class Quizzes: a Meta-analytic Synthesis of Studies on the Relationship Between Frequent Low-Stakes Testing and Class Performance, Educational Psychology Review (2020). DOI: 10.1007/s10648-020-09563-9

Provided by Iowa State University

Future teachers often think memorization is the best way to teach math and science – until they learn a different way

by Peter C. Cormas, The Conversation

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

I found that college students who are taking courses to become teachers can change their beliefs of how science and mathematics should be taught to and learned by K-12 students.

Most of these future teachers tell me when they start my course, they believe that K-12 students must memorize science and mathematics knowledge to learn it. They also believe that students cannot acquire knowledge through a process used by scientists and mathematicians called problem-solving. Problem-solving asks students to solve engaging and challenging problems that are provided without a strategy or solution. It also involves group work and a time to present and justify their strategies and solutions to the class.

To challenge my students' beliefs, I ask future teachers to teach science and mathematics to students with problem-solving. At first they often resist because they believe that their students can only memorize science and mathematics knowledge. However, after they have asked the students to use problem-solving and find it successful, they discover that students can learn like scientists and mathematicians The evidence and experiences start to change their beliefs.

The way I reached these conclusions was by studying future teachers over the course of four years. I studied 113 future teachers' beliefs in 10 sections of a course that I taught on how to teach science and mathematics. Throughout the course, I asked the future teachers to discover science and mathematics knowledge with problem-solving. I also had the future teachers teach students at a local school by asking them to learn with problem-solving.

To measure changes in future teachers' beliefs following completion of the class, I asked them to complete a survey at the start and end of the course. At the end, the findings showed that the future teachers were significantly more likely to teach in a way that reflected how scientists and mathematicians solve problems.

It also appeared that their teaching of science with problem-solving encouraged their use of the method when they taught mathematics. Conversely, their teaching of mathematics with problem-solving encouraged their use of the method when they taught science.

This study matters because a teacher's beliefs – their personal philosophy about teaching and learning—often determine how they will teach and what students will learn. And because problem-solving is necessary for scientific and mathematical literacy, students need teachers who will expose them to problem-solving.

This study also matters because college professors who work with future teachers can employ similar strategies. They can place future educators in situations in which they must confront their beliefs about teaching and learning with evidence and experiences that contradict their beliefs.

Those who do similar research are trying to figure out how to assure future teachers use problem-solving in their future classrooms. I have taught many education students who did quite well in my course, and successfully used science and mathematics problem-solving with their students. However, former students that I ran into years later often told me that they do not use problem-solving as teachers. Instead, they reverted to simply asking students to memorize science and mathematics information. They told me the reason for this is that teachers in their present schools do not use problem-solving. I find this troubling.

It may be that one way to solidify beliefs about teaching through problem-solving instead of memorization would be for science and mathematics faculty to use problem-solving in their college classrooms. Research shows that similarities and coherence between college courses may increase the likelihood that future teachers will believe in the value of problem-solving. If so, then my students may become less likely to abandon the methods learned in their courses. In turn, they may be more likely to help make their future students more adept at mathematics and science.


Explore furtherCreativity important to lift math education

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Could breadfruit be the next superfood?

by University of British Columbia

UBC Okanagan researchers say breadfruit is nutritionally sound and has the potential to improve worldwide food security issues.

Credit: Jan Vozenilek, Copper Sky Productions, Kelowna.

A fruit used for centuries in countries around the world is getting the nutritional thumbs-up from a team of British Columbia researchers.

Breadfruit, which grows in abundance in tropical and South Pacific countries, has long been a staple in the diet of many people. The fruit can be eaten when ripe, or it can be dried and ground up into a flour and repurposed into many types of meals, explains UBC Okanagan researcher Susan Murch.

"Breadfruit is a traditional staple crop from the Pacific islands with the potential to improve worldwide food security and mitigate diabetes," says Murch, a chemistry professor in the newly-created Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. "While people have survived on it for thousands of years there was a lack of basic scientific knowledge of the health impacts of a breadfruit-based diet in both humans and animals."

Breadfruit can be harvested, dried and ground into a gluten-free flour. For the project, researchers had four breadfruits from the same tree in Hawaii, shipped to the Murch Lab at UBC Okanagan. Doctoral student Ying Liu led the study examining the digestion and health impact of a breadfruit-based diet.

"Detailed and systematic studies of the health impacts of a breadfruit diet had not previously been conducted and we wanted to contribute to the development of breadfruit as a sustainable, environmentally-friendly and high-production crop," Liu says.

The few studies done on the product have been to examine the glycemic index of breadfruit—with a low glycemic index it is comparable to many common staples such as wheat, cassava, yam and potatoes.

"The objective of our current study was to determine whether a diet containing breadfruit flour poses any serious health concerns," explains Liu, who conducted her research with colleagues from British Columbia Institute of Technology's Natural Health and Food Products Research Group and the Breadfruit Institute of the National Tropical Botanic Garden in Hawaii.

The researchers designed a series of studies—using flour ground from dehydrated breadfruits—that could provide data on the impacts of a breadfruit-based diet fed to mice and also an enzyme digestion model.

The researchers determined that breadfruit protein was found to be easier to digest than wheat protein in the enzyme digestion model. And mice fed the breadfruit diet had a significantly higher growth rate and body weight than standard diet-fed mice.

Liu also noted mice on the breadfruit diet had a significantly higher daily water consumption compared to mice on the wheat diet. And at the end of the three-week-trial, the body composition was similar between the breadfruit and wheat diet-fed mice.

"As the first complete, fully-designed breadfruit diet study, our data showed that a breadfruit diet does not impose any toxic impact," says Liu. "Fundamental understanding of the health impact of breadfruit digestion and diets is necessary and imperative to the establishment of breadfruit as a staple or as a functional food in the future."

The use of breadfruit is nutritious and sustainable and could make inroads in food sustainability for many populations globally, she adds. For example, the average daily consumption of grain in the United States is 189 grams (6.67 ounces) per day. Liu suggests if a person ate the same amount of cooked breadfruit they can meet up to nearly 57 per cent of their daily fiber requirement, more than 34 per cent of their protein requirement and at the same time consume vitamin C, potassium, iron, calcium and phosphorus.

"Overall, these studies support the use of breadfruit as part of a healthy, nutritionally balanced diet," says Liu. "Flour produced from breadfruit is a gluten-free, low glycemic index, nutrient-dense and complete protein option for modern foods."

The study was recently published in PLOS ONE.


Explore furtherStudies confirm breadfruit's ability to repel insects

More information: Ying Liu et al, Breadfruit flour is a healthy option for modern foods and food security, PLOS ONE (2020). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236300

Journal information: PLoS ONE


Provided by University of British Columbia

Sugar promotes sperm longevity in pig reproductive tract

by Lauren Quinn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Pig sperm. Credit: University of Wisconsin Madison

For many livestock species, artificial insemination (AI) is standard. But it can be tricky to achieve success the first time, thanks to variability in ovulation timing across the herd.

Sperm remains viable for a day or two once they reach the oviduct, the tube connecting the uterus with the ovaries, in pigs and cattle. The amount of time sperm can be stored in the oviduct has a direct bearing on AI success; if ovulation happens just outside that window, the effort and expense of AI has to be repeated.

A new University of Illinois study identifies a naturally occurring sugar that slows the maturation of sperm in pigs, opening up the possibility of extending sperm storage time within the female reproductive tract and increasing the chances of successful fertilization through AI.

"We knew there was something about the oviduct that was increasing sperm lifespan, but we didn't know what it was, exactly," says David Miller, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Illinois and co-author on the PLOS One study. "In this study, we discovered the molecules of the oviduct that bind sperm and increase their lifespan are complex sugars called glycans."

After screening more than 400 sugars for their capacity to hold sperm, Miller's team had an inkling glycans were a candidate for pigs. To confirm, they isolated various sugars from the pig oviduct and applied them to beads in the laboratory, mimicking the oviduct lining. Compared with other sugars, the glycan-treated beads bound more sperm.

But it wasn't just the physical act of slowing sperm down that increased their lifespan.

"We found out glycans were delaying the normal influx of calcium into sperm," Miller says. "Normally, calcium slowly comes into sperm as they mature, and that triggers them on their differentiation pathway, which makes them capable of fertilization. But binding to these immobilized sugars actually stops that calcium movement inside the cells. So it in a sense, the glycans are blocking their differentiation pathway and making them live longer."

Miller sees several potential applications for this discovery. For example, it might be possible to conduct a fertility test for sperm using glycans in the lab. Sperm whose lifespan didn't increase when exposed to glycans would likely be less fertile and could be discarded. It might also be possible, someday, to introduce supplemental glycans in the oviduct during AI to create a larger reservoir of viable sperm.

The results also extend scientists' understanding of fertility across animal species. Miller has done research to show a similar sugar binds and extends longevity in bovine sperm, and he's currently looking for genetic similarities in sperm storage organs among a wide variety of animal groups. Nature may use the same mechanisms to lengthen sperm lifespan after mating in several species.

The article, "Adhesion to oviduct glycans regulates porcine sperm Ca2+ influx and viability," is published in PLOS One.


Explore further

A novel sperm selection technology to increase success rates of in vitro fertilization

More information: Sergio A. Machado et al, Adhesion to oviduct glycans regulates porcine sperm Ca2+ influx and viability, PLOS ONE (2020). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0237666

Journal information: PLoS ONE

Provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Discovery of microbes with mixed membranes sheds new light on early evolution of life

by Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

View from the RV Pelagia during the expedition on the Black Sea

Photo: Laura Villanueva

Current research suggests that more complex life-forms, including humans, evolved from a symbiosis event of Bacteria and another single-celled organism known as Archaea. However, evidence of a transition period in which the two organisms mixed where nowhere to be found. That is, until now. In the deep waters of the Black Sea, scientists found microbes that can make membrane lipids, a layer that surrounds a cell like a skin, of unexpected origin. Researchers from NIOZ and Utrecht University have published their findings in the prestigious ISME Journal.


Changing skins

Cells are surrounded by a layer of membrane lipids that protect them from changes in their environment such as temperature, much in the same way that our skin changes when we are cold or exposed to the sun. Lead author and NIOZ senior scientist Laura Villanueva explains why they make such interesting biomarkers. "When a cell dies, these lipids preserve like fossils and hold ancient-old information on Earths' early environmental conditions." Our tree of life includes small and simple cells (Bacteria and Archaea) and more complex cells (Eukaryotes), including animals and humans. Bacteria and Eukaryotes share a similar lipid membrane. Looking at Archaea, their 'skin' or membrane looks very different and is primarily designed to help these microorganisms to survive in extreme environments. Villanueva: "This 'lipid divide,' or difference in membranes between Bacteria and Eukaryotes on the one hand and Archaea on the other, is believed to have happened after the emergence of Bacteria and Archaea from the last universal cellular ancestor (LUCA)."

Missing piece hidden in the deep Black Sea

The leading theory is that Eukaryotes evolved from a symbiosis event between archaeal and bacterial cells in which the archaeal cell was the host. But how does this work when their 'skins' are so different and share no sign of common ancestry? Villanueva: "To explain the creation of more complex life-forms, the archaeal membrane must have made a switch to a bacterial type membrane. Such a switch likely needed a transition period in which the two membrane types were mixed." However, mixed lipid membranes had never been found in microbes until the team of Villanueva made an unexpected discovery in de deep waters of the Black Sea.

Villanueva notes, "We found a possible missing piece of this puzzle in the Black Sea. Here, an abundant group of bacteria thrive in the deep-sea, absent of oxygen and with high sulfide concentration. We discovered that the genetic material of this group did not only carry pathway genes for bacterial lipids but archaeal ones as well." The peculiarity was also found in the genetic material of other, closely related Bacteria and supports the idea that this ability to create 'mixed' membranes is more widespread than previously thought. This discovery sheds new light on the evolution of all cellular life forms and may have important consequences for the interpretation of archaeal lipid fossils in the geological record and paleoclimate reconstructions.


Explore furtherNew insight into the evolution of complex life on Earth

More information: Laura Villanueva et al, Bridging the membrane lipid divide: bacteria of the FCB group superphylum have the potential to synthesize archaeal ether lipids, The ISME Journal (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41396-020-00772-2

Journal information: ISME Journal


Provided by Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

Wildfires can leave toxic drinking water behind – here's how to protect the public

by Andrew J. Whelton and Caitlin R. Proctor, The Conversation

Debris in Paradise, California, after the Camp Fire, Nov. 17, 2018. 

Credit: Senior Airman Crystal Housman/U.S. Air National Guard, CC BY

Less than halfway through the 2020 wildfire season, fires are burning large swaths of the western U.S. As in previous years, these disasters have entered populated areas, damaging drinking water networks. Water systems have lost pressure, potentially sucking in pollutants, and several utilities are warning of possible and confirmed chemical contamination.


We are environmental engineers who help communities affected by disasters, including support for responses to the 2017 Tubbs Fire and 2018 Camp Fire in California. As we concluded in a recently published study of burned areas, communities need to upgrade building codes to keep wildfires from causing widespread contamination of drinking water systems. They also need to act more aggressively to protect residents from possible toxic exposure immediately after fires.

How wildfires poison water systems

After both the 2017 Tubbs Fire in California's Sonoma and Napa counties and the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, California, drinking water tests revealed a plethora of acutely toxic and carcinogenic pollutants. Water inside homes was not safe to use—or even to treat.

Water pipes buried underground and inside of buildings were extensively contaminated. Both fires destroyed fire hydrants, water pipes and meter boxes. Leaks and ruptured hydrants were common.

After the fires passed, testing ultimately revealed widespread hazardous drinking water contamination in areas affected by both fires. Evidence suggests that the toxic chemicals originated from a combination of burning vegetation, structures and plastic materials.

Chemicals in the air may have also been sucked into hydrants as water pipes lost pressure. Some water system plastics decomposed and leached chemicals directly into water. Toxic chemicals then spread throughout pipe networks and into buildings.


Limited water testing by state and local agencies showed that benzene and naphthalene were present at levels that could cause immediate physical harm. These chemicals, as well as methylene chloride, styrene, toluene and vinyl chloride, exceeded limits for longer-term exposure.

All of these substances are volatile organic compounds – chemicals that readily evaporate into the air at room temperature. Many of them cause cancer. All can cause vomiting, diarrhea and nausea after a brief high-concentration exposure.

Simply running a cold water faucet can release volatile organic compounds from tap water into the air. Heating water for showers or cooking makes them enter the air even faster, creating a more severe inhalation risk. Some can also be absorbed through the skin.

Pipes, water meters and meter covers after wildfires destroyed them. 

Credit: Caitlin Proctor, Amisha Shah, David Yu, and Andrew Whelton/Purdue University, CC BY-ND

Protecting the public

In our view, agencies should not underestimate health hazards posed by fire-damaged drinking water systems. Just in the past month, after the CZU Lightning Complex Fire burned parts of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, California officials and a water utility issued and reissued an advisory allowing children to bathe in potentially contaminated drinking water. Five days later, when limited test results became available, both organizations recanted and said no one should bathe in the water.

To avoid this kind of error, we recommend issuing "Do Not Use" orders in the wake of major fires to protect the public before water testing results are available. We believe it is acceptable to use water for fire fighting and toilet flushing, but not for purposes that involve ingestion, skin exposure or inhalation, such as bathing or cooking.

Under no circumstance should people be told to smell the water to determine its safety, as officials recommended for months after the Camp Fire. Many harmful chemicals have no odor, so only testing can determine safety.

Advisories to boil water should not be used, since boiling speeds up the release of toxic chemicals into the air. Nor do we recommend "Do Not Drink/Do Not Boil" advisories, which allow bathing in contaminated water.

Before agencies lift or modify advisories, we believe they should be required to carry out thorough chemical screens of water systems. Too often, officials charged with protecting public health fail to take this step, exposing people to needless risk. More typically, they act like California's San Lorenzo Valley Water District, which lifted a post-wildfire "Do Not Drink/Do Not Boil" order in parts of its territory on Sept. 7, 2020 with a notice to ratepayers that "If test results reveal anything harmful, you will be advised promptly."

Agencies also need to test buildings for water contamination. Home drinking water quality can differ from room to room, so reliable testing should sample both cold and hot water at many locations within each building.

While infrastructure is being repaired, survivors need a safe water supply. Water treatment devices sold for home use, such as refrigerator and faucet water filters, are not approved for extremely contaminated water, although sales representatives and government officials may mistakenly think the devices can be used for that purpose. While survivors wait for safe water to return, government agencies should ensure that reliable emergency water supplies are available.

Update building codes for future fires

Our research underscores that community building codes are inadequate to prevent wildfire-caused pollution of drinking water and homes.

Adopting codes that require builders to install fire-resistant meter boxes and place them farther from vegetation would help prevent infrastructure from burning so readily in wildfires. Concrete meter boxes and water meters with minimal plastic components would be less likely to ignite. Some plastics may be practically impossible to make safe again, since all types are susceptible to fire and heat.

Installing one-way valves, called backflow prevention devices, at each water meter can prevent contamination rushing out of the damaged building from flowing into the larger buried pipe network. Water main shutoff valves and water sampling taps should exist at every water meter box. Sample taps can help responders quickly determine water safety.

As the past several years have shown, many communities need to be better prepared for wildfires. Two years after the Camp Fire, the town of Paradise, California is still clearing and repairing its water system, at an estimated cost of up to US$150 million. We believe the time to upgrade in other towns is now.


Explore further

Wildfires can poison drinking water: Here's how communities can be better prepared

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Unknown details identified in the Lions' Courtyard at the Alhambra

by University of Seville

A novel methodology was followed based on three complementary graphic analyses: first, outstanding images from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries were reviewed; then new computer drawings were made of their muqarnas, following the theoretical principles of their geometrical grouping; and finally, a three-dimensional scan was made to ascertain their precise current state from the point cloud obtained. Credit: Universidad de Sevilla

Through drawings, researchers from the University of Seville, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) and the University of Granada have identified details hitherto unknown in the muqarnas of the temples of the Lions' Courtyard at the Alhambra in Granada, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


In order to better understand and facilitate the conservation of these fourteenth-century architectural elements, following a review of numerous repairs performed over the intervening centuries, a novel methodology was followed based on three complementary graphic analyses: first, outstanding images from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries were reviewed; then new computer drawings were made of their muqarnas, following the theoretical principles of their geometrical grouping; and finally, a three-dimensional scan was made to ascertain their precise current state from the point cloud obtained.

The comparison of drawings has allowed us to verify for the first time that the muqarnas of the two temples have a different configuration and different number of pieces. In addition, geometric deformations have been detected in the original Nasrid design, identifying hitherto unknown pieces, plus other deformations due to the various repairs from major threats that the temples and their muqarnas have survived for centuries, despite their fragile construction.

"For the first time, this article documents and analyses details that were hitherto practically absent from the scientific literature", says Antonio Gámiz, professor at the University of Seville and co-author of this work.

The muqarnas are one of the most unique architectural episodes of the Nasrid Alhambra and of medieval Islamic art because of their sophisticated three-dimensional geometrical construction. They are small prisms that are grouped together and create a great diversity of spatial configurations, adapting their composition to very diverse architectural situations in cornices, arches, capitals and vaults. They reached a virtuous zenith during the reign of Muhammad V (1354-1359 and 1362-1391) when crucial works were undertaken in the palaces of the Alhambra.


Explore furtherArchitects have recreated the Puerta de Triana (Triana Gate) in Seville

More information: Antonio Gámiz-Gordo et al, The Pavilions at the Alhambra's Court of the Lions: Graphic Analysis of Muqarnas, Sustainability (2020). DOI: 10.3390/su12166556

Provided by University of Seville

Momentum of unprecedented Chilean uprising stalled by COVID-19 pandemic

by Binghamton University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The uprising that erupted in fall 2019 in Chile against the post-dictatorship government may be diminished by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.


Despite a reputation for equitable development and robust democratic institutions, post-dictatorship Chile proved incapable of guaranteeing economic and social protections for vast swaths of the population and of adequately representing their needs and policy preferences, according to René Rojas, assistant professor of human development at Binghamton University. Over the last 10 years, stagnation, intensified insecurity and oligarchic politics promoted an upsurge in popular protests that finally erupted in October 2019, as a furious and seemingly uncontainable rebellion. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, may give the post-authoritarian regime a new lease on life, as it undermines possibilities for ongoing collective action and places the prospects for meaningful reform on hold.

"As the insurgency set about to resolve its differences and confront inevitable exhaustion, the arrival of the coronavirus and its recent surge have placed mobilizations on hold, threatening to restore the fragile balance of the pre-rebellion order," wrote Rojas in a new paper in New Labor Forum. "In one swoop, the pandemic snatched from the movement its crucial weapon for securing concessions—its capacity for disruption."

Fear of the virus and its economic consequences has stymied the uprising, and Chileans have redirected their energies toward holding on to work and whatever income they might secure. Whether the uprising can find its momentum again amidst the ongoing pandemic remains to be seen. Some developments indicate that as the pandemic reveals the inadequacy of official relief measures and re-exposes deep inequalities at the heart of the Chilean governing model, mass mobilization might retake center stage, wrote Rojas.

"The question in coming months will be whether Chile's new mass movement can regroup and win the reforms it forced onto the national agenda or whether neoliberal elites will succeed in reviving the developed world's least representative and most unequal political system," said Rojas.


Explore further COIVD-19: A barometer for social justice in New York City  

More information: René Rojas, Can the Chilean Uprising Survive the Pandemic?, New Labor Forum (2020). DOI: 10.1177/1095796020949487

Provided by Binghamton University
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Mobile phone radiation may be killing insects: German study

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Radiation from mobile phones could have contributed to the dramatic decline in insect populations seen in much of Europe in recent years, a German study showed Thursday.


On top of pesticides and habitat loss, increased exposure to electromagnetic radiation is "probably having a negative impact on the insect world", according to the study presented in Stuttgart, which is yet to be peer reviewed.

The analysis of 190 scientific studies was carried out by Germany's Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) together with two NGOs, one from Germany and one from Luxembourg.

Of the 83 studies deemed scientifically relevant, 72 showed that radiation had a negative effect on bees, wasps and flies.

These effects ranged from a reduced ability to navigate due to the disturbance of magnetic fields to damage to genetic material and larvae.

Mobile phone and Wi-Fi radiation in particular opens the calcium channels in certain cells, meaning they absorb more calcium ions.

This can trigger a biochemical chain reaction in insects, the study said, disrupting circadian rhythms and the immune system.

"The study shows that we must keep our eyes open in all directions when analysing the causes of the dramatic insect decline," said Johannes Enssle, head of NABU in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

"The subject is uncomfortable for many of us because it interferes with our daily habits and there are powerful economic interests behind mobile communication technology," Enssle said.

Peter Hensinger of the German consumer protection organisation Diagnose Funk said closer attention must be paid to the possible negative effects of radiation on both animals and humans, particularly with regard to the introduction of 5G technology.

Networks equipped with 5G are expected to offer speeds 100 times faster than existing 4G networks, but the technology has been met with strong opposition from some quarters, especially among environmental campaigners.


Explore further Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

© 2020 AFP

How environmental cues can affect behavior

by Raleigh McElvery, Marine Biological Laboratory

Hydra in control media before contraction (left) and during contraction (right). 

Credit: Wataru Yamamoto

Although it may seem counterintuitive, researchers are turning to an animal without a brain to crack the neural code underlying behavior.

Hydra vulgaris, a tiny, tentacled, freshwater organism, uses "nets" of neurons dispersed throughout its tube-like body to coordinate stretching, contracting, somersaulting, and feeding movements. This simple nervous system is one reason that Hydra is well suited for studying how electrical activity translates into motion.

In a study published in eNeuro, a duo from Columbia University and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has begun to crack the neural code behind Hydra's simplest behavior, called contraction bursts (when the torso shrinks down and expands outward, over and over again). The scientists found that the concentration of dissolved particles in the surrounding water—a property known as osmolarity—affects the activity of a neural circuit in one of Hydra's nerve nets, which can trigger a specific set of muscle cells to contract the torso.

"One by one, we want to decipher the neural and muscular activity behind each of Hydra's behaviors," says senior author and MBL Whitman Center Fellow, Rafael Yuste of Columbia University. "This paper is the beginning of our journey."

Five Hydra freely behaving in 50mM sucrose (high osmolarity) solution. This video is sped up 300-fold. Credit: Wataru Yamamoto

Yuste and first author Wataru Yamamoto conducted their experiments in Woods Hole during the summers of 2017 and 2018, in consultation with their MBL Hydra Lab research consortium. They used whole-body calcium imaging to visualize Hydra's neurons and muscles, and tested whether tweaking various environmental conditions such as water temperature, body size, nutritional state, and osmolarity would affect contractions. They were surprised to find that just one of those parameters, osmolarity, had an impact.

Boosting the concentration of sugar particles in the water triggered fewer contractions and decreased activity in the "contraction burst" (CB) neural circuit as well as in one set of muscles. Lowering particle concentration had the opposite effect, increasing cellular activity and contractions. Although additional experiments are needed to confirm their theory, the researchers propose that CB neurons respond to changes in osmolarity by altering muscle activity, which in turn influences contraction frequency.

Hydra ectoderm muscle activity during contraction in control media. The animal was allowed to move between coverslips in the mounted configuration. This video is sped up 20-fold. Credit: Wataru Yamamoto

Reacting to changes in particle concentration could mean the difference between life and death for Hydra—especially if salt is involved. As freshwater dwellers lacking advanced excretory systems, Hydra are not well-equipped to maintain the proper balance of salinity inside and outside their bodies. Water is constantly flowing in and out of their gastrovascular cavities, and too much internal salty solution causes them to balloon and literally explode. The researchers surmise that Hydra contract in response to high osmolarity to "wring" themselves out and expel excess water.

Freely-behaving Hydra vulgaris exhibiting different motor behaviors (elongation, contraction, somersaulting). Credit: Wataru Yamamoto

In addition to affecting contractions, osmolarity also influenced how often Hydra detached and repositioned its tube foot, likely preparing to move to a new location. Yamamoto plans to continue to investigate how and why this happens. He hopes his line of inquiry will eventually help decode a more complex behavior: somersaulting, when Hydra flips tentacles-over-tube foot, like a circus acrobat.

Explore further 

How does the nervous system create behavior? Muscle activity map in Hydra gives insight

More information: Wataru Yamamoto et al, Whole-Body Imaging of Neural and Muscle Activity during Behavior in Hydra vulgaris: Effect of Osmolarity on Contraction Bursts, eneuro (2020). DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0539-19.2020

Provided by Marine Biological Laboratory

Brexit: Ireland's land bridge to the continent boosts air pollution in the UK

by John Bryson, Omid Ghaffarpasand, William Bloss, The Conversation

Credit: Duncan Andison/Shutterstock

A no-deal Brexit could cost up to 5,000 jobs in Ireland's fisheries, but it's not just access to the UK's coastal waters that the country is hoping to hold on to in any post-Brexit arrangement. Perhaps more important to Ireland is the UK's motorway network.


Every year, more than 150,000 trucks transport over 3 million tons of freight to and from Ireland to the rest of the single market across the UK land bridge. One route involves goods being shipped from Dublin to Holyhead by ferry and then by road to Dover before being shipped to Calais.

It's difficult to overestimate the importance of this land bridge for Ireland. A 2017 study found that 40% of Ireland's exports to the EU reached the continent via the UK's roads, with an estimated value of €18.2 billion (£16.3 billion). Journey times to the EU market are less than 20 hours by the land bridge, but up to 40 to 60 hours by sea. That's why it's the preferred route for companies moving food, live animals and other high-value goods, such as heavy machinery and transport equipment.

A no-deal outcome could sever Ireland's most important route to EU markets. But what might the loss of Ireland's land bridge mean for the UK? Our research has found that it could entail substantial benefits for air quality and roads throughout the country.

Irish freight, British pollution

From January 1 2021, British goods will be treated as third-country freight by the EU, meaning they will be subject to customs and regulatory controls at European ports. These ports aren't yet able to differentiate between British and Irish freight, but once they are, a two-speed processing system would ensure Irish trucks are fast tracked through the system and UK trucks subject to regulatory delays. The Irish government is keen to ensure that the land bridge isn't considered a major negotiating point in UK-EU trade negotiations.


But for the UK, there is another dimension to the land bridge that has been completely overlooked. All the benefits that come from it accrue to Ireland and the EU, while all the negatives are borne by British citizens and companies.

The 150,000 truck journeys that Ireland's imports and exports add to the UK's road network often cause local congestion. Lorries also cause more damage to road surfaces than most other vehicles, with one study calculating that a six-axle, 44-ton truck is over 138,000 times more damaging to the foundations of a road than a small, one-ton car with two axles. These extra costs are covered by the UK taxpayer.

For the UK, the land bridge means that a third country is directly contributing to national air pollution, with all the health consequences that entails. Exposure to nitrogen dioxide pollution can trigger and exacerbate asthma symptoms, and it's also associated with heart disease and birth complications. Inhaling fine particulate matter (often called "PM2.5," as these particles are smaller than 2.5 micrometers) is linked to a host of medical conditions, including lung cancer.

We calculated the quantities of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and PM2.5 produced from 150,000 heavy goods vehicle journeys from Holyhead to Felixstowe (329 miles, or 529 kilometers) and found that it results in an additional 34 tons of NOx and 0.7 tons of PM2.5 per year being emitted across Wales and England. The PM2.5 calculation is based on exhaust emissions only though, it excludes particulates shed from brakes and tires. Total UK road transport NOx emissions in 2018 were 258,000 tons.

The Irish lorry fleet is also quite a lot older than the UK's. By 2020, 90% of UK lorries were at Euro VI standard and none were Euro III. In comparison, the latest data for the Irish fleet reveals that almost 20% is Euro III and only 22% Euro VI. This matters, as Euro III engines emit about 30 times more NOx than Euro VI.

Brexit has made visible a source of UK air pollution that is unrelated to the UK economy. The UK-EU trade negotiations should include air pollution and any agreement should include regulations that prevent highly polluting heavy goods vehicles from using the land bridge.

Perhaps one of the strangest outcomes of a no-deal Brexit may be that, for all the potential economic consequences for both Ireland and the UK, Britain's air pollution problem might substantially improve.


Explore further Research finds air pollution in Ireland associated with strokes

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Additional warming of just 0.5 C has a huge effect on global aridity

by University of Tokyo
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

In a new climate modeling study, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo have revealed major implications for global drought and aridity when limiting warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Drought has serious negative impacts on both human society and the natural world and is generally projected to increase under global climate change. As a result, assessment of the risk of drought under climate change is a critical area of climate research.


In the 2015 Paris Agreements, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) proposed that the increase in global average temperature should be limited to between 1.5°C and 2°C above pre-industrial levels to limit the effects of severe climate change. However, there have been few studies focusing on the relative importance of this 0.5°C of global average temperature rise and what effect it might have on drought and aridity around the world.

"We wanted to contribute to the understanding of how important that 0.5°C could be, but it such a study is not easy to conduct based on previous modeling approaches," explains corresponding author Hyungjun Kim. "This is mainly because most models look at the extreme high levels and you cannot simply take a slice out of the data while the model spins up to this maximum. Therefore, we used data from the specially designed Half a degree Additional warming Prognosis and Projected Impacts (HAPPI) project to assess the impacts on aridity based on estimations of the balance between water and energy at the Earth's surface."

The study revealed that 2°C of warming led to more frequent dry years and more severe aridification in most areas of the world compared with 1.5°C, which emphasizes that efforts should be made to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

"There is a really strong message that some parts of the world could have more frequent drought at 2°C than at 1.5°C. This situation could be especially severe in the Mediterranean, western Europe, northern South America, the Sahel region, and southern Africa," says lead author Akira Takeshima. "However, this situation is highly regional. In some parts of the world, like Australia and some of Asia, the opposite situation was simulated, with a wetter climate at 2°C than at 1.5°C."

These findings show the importance of considering the regional impacts of the additional 0.5°C of warming, especially with respect to any future relaxation of the 1.5°C target.


Explore furtherLatest climate models show more intense droughts to come

More information: Akira Takeshima et al, Global aridity changes due to differences in surface energy and water balance between 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming, Environmental Research Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab9db3

Journal information: Environmental Research Letters


Provided by University of Tokyo 

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What the wildfires tell us about the shortcomings of California's electric grid

by Sean Brenner, University of California, Los Angeles

Fournier said the grid's operations depend heavily on transmission infrastructure to move power around. Credit: Sean Brenner

In addition to the vast destruction they have caused, the wildfires that have engulfed California in recent weeks have laid bare serious concerns about the state's electric grid.

In an email interview, UCLA's Eric Fournier explains why the architecture of California's grid isn't well suited for such extreme conditions and what it would take to improve it. Fournier has been research director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability since 2018—he joined UCLA as a postdoctoral researcher in 2016—and his research involves analyzing energy systems and the mechanics of the electric power system.

What are the core issues that the wildfires have exposed about our power grid?

The wildfires are exposing some of the inherent weaknesses of the grid's current architecture, which relies upon highly centralized sources of power generation.

The grid has historically been designed to support the unidirectional flow of power from a few large generator stations to many smaller consumers. That architecture seeks to take advantage of the economies of scale in power production that come from building generator stations as large as possible.

One thing that happens under this approach, however, is that these large generator stations tend to be built far away from the consumers. For fossil fuel–based generator plants, that's because their operations produce large amounts of harmful air emissions that can negatively affect public health. For renewable generator plants, it's because they need to be on sites with access to renewable energy flows—whether that's wind, sun or hydraulic potential, for example—and those locations are typically remote.

As a result, the grid's operations depend heavily on transmission infrastructure to move power around. If this infrastructure becomes compromised either due to age or some other external hazard—like extremely high heat or wildfire—grid operators have a difficult time maintaining reliable service.

The public safety power shut-offs in response to wildfires and other high-risk weather conditions are attempts to mitigate the grid's exposure to these hazards. These measures are obviously not ideal, however, because power outages result in significant disruptions to the lives of large numbers of people.


Ideally, we should be taking a longer-term view on how we can mitigate both these underlying hazards as well as the extent of the grid's exposure to them.

What are some ways California could realistically address those problems?

Adopting distributed renewable energy generation and storage would have a number of potential benefits, in terms of both mitigating hazards and reducing exposures.

In the former case, generating energy renewably avoids the emissions of greenhouse gases. This would help slow the rate of climate change and reduce the likelihood of more severe wildfires occurring in the future. In the latter case, generating energy in a distributed way helps reduce our reliance upon transmission infrastructure, and it would provide some capacity to continue making power available to consumers in the event of a transmission infrastructure failure.

What would it take to make those things happen?

There are a number of barriers to achieving a more renewable, more decentralized energy future. Some of them are technical and some are legal and administrative.

On the technical side, the grid will require extensive modernization upgrades to support higher levels of distributed energy resource penetration and, even further down the road, fully bi-directional power flows. These efforts will need to be supported by a dramatic expansion in the grid's capacity to store and share the energy that is produced by renewable sources—such as with batteries. This will be necessary to address problems related to many types of renewables' only intermittent ability to produce electric power.

On the legal and administrative side, there needs to be a recognition of the benefits associated with decentralized energy solutions. And these benefits should be considered during long-term energy system planning.

Utility companies have extensive experience building, operating and maintaining the grid as it currently exists. The proposed alternative represents a paradigm shift within this sector and will have to be supported with strong policy mandates. Otherwise, it is highly likely that in the future we will simply replace our existing, large-scale, remote, fossil fuel generation facilities with new, large-scale, remote, renewable generation facilities. That would mean that we would be retaining all of the same systemic vulnerabilities to climate change and wildfire that are inherent to the current system.

Finally, relative to this idea that we should promote greater decentralization: It is crucial that questions of equity be considered in the process. These solutions will fundamentally not work if they are only the provenance of the rich. Thus, we need to be forceful about ensuring that residents of disadvantaged communities are not left behind due to the cost or other difficulties associated with the adoption of these types of new technologies.


Explore further  Inertia and the power grid: A guide without the spin

Provided by University of California, Los Angeles

New method adds and subtracts for sustainability's true measure

by Michigan State University

The captive giant pandas in China's Wolong National Nature are a huge tourist draw. Credit: Michigan State University Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

From loaning pandas to welcoming tourists to hike to sacred monuments, to regulating the sale of wild animals for meat, policies across the world seek to forge clear paths to sustainability.


A group of sustainability scientists at Michigan State University (MSU) examined those policies and discovered they sometimes have more success than intended to achieve some of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet in some cases, those paths have created roadblocks and detours to success. The example of such unintended sidesteps is starkly illustrated in wildlife trading that provides economic benefits but has resulted in outbreaks of diseases that jump to humans, such as the current novel coronavirus.

The work is published in this week's open-access journal Sustainability.

"Today's world is extremely connected, and decisions are not created in a bubble," said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, MSU Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability. "Our analysis has shown how important it is not just to look at the direct relationship between an action and a specific problem. It's crucial to look far and wide to see what else has been affected. Sometimes there are more wins. Sometimes, a problem solved in one place creates another elsewhere. We are learning the hard way how an action in one part of the world can have consequences thousands of miles away."

The scientists looked at 22 cases of tourism and instances of wildlife being relocated for various reasons across six continents. They looked at these cases through the lens of metacoupling—a new framework that helps scientists examine an action from the perspective of human-nature interactions across space and time.

In this paper, they lined up these cases with the 17 SDGs, adopted by world leaders from 193 countries and identify synergies—cases where success begat more success—or trade-offs, in which gaining ground in an SDG in one place meant losing ground on another SDG elsewhere.

The scorecard: they found 33 synergies and 14 trade-offs among 10 SDGs within the systems between which tourism, trade or animal movement happened—and across spillover systems—the places between.

Tourism accounts for one in 11 jobs worldwide (in the time frame of this study, before the pandemic) and is specifically called out in SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth). They found in the 12 cases they studied that beyond SDG 8, tourism in protected areas enhanced or compromised other SDGs, including SDGs 2 (zero hunger), 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), 12 (responsible consumption and production), 14 (life below water), 15 (life on land) and 17 (partnerships) within focal systems, and 1 (no poverty).

Examples of synergy can be found in Sagarmatha National Park of Nepal and Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, where tourism not only fulfilled SDG 8, but also contributed management funds for the parks—a win for SDG 15. But things were different in Peru's Machu Picchu, where the 900,000 visitors limited access for indigenous peoples and degradation of the site—a blow to SDG 12.

Moving animals around by trade, as a method of conservation or animal management—can have great benefits or harms. When raccoons were moved from their Florida homes to West Virginia to boost the local population, an SDG 15 win, SDG 3's good health and wellbeing took a hit when the Florida coons brought rabies with them.

The current pandemic is a dramatic call to better understand how the world works, and how to scrutinize actions for possible outcomes, according to the paper's first author Zhiqiang Zhao, who was a postdoctoral associate at MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS). Liu is CSIS director.

The trade of bats in China may not have seemed relevant to people in Europe or America, yet it shows us it's just one stark reminder that it both is critical to do better to pursue global sustainability and to make sure our good intentions continue to result in good," Zhao said. "We are following the flows and working to show ways to quickly see all sides of a story."


Explore furtherStriving and stumbling towards sustainability amongst pandas and people

More information: Zhiqiang Zhao et al, Metacoupled Tourism and Wildlife Translocations Affect Synergies and Trade-Offs among Sustainable Development Goals across Spillover Systems, Sustainability (2020). DOI: 10.3390/su12187677

Provided by Michigan State University

Hubble captures crisp new portrait of Jupiter's storms

by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This latest image of Jupiter, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on Aug. 25, 2020, was captured when the planet was 406 million miles from Earth. A unique and exciting detail of Hubble's snapshot appears at mid-northern latitudes as a bright, white, stretched-out storm traveling around the planet at 350 mph. Hubble shows that the Great Red Spot, rolling counterclockwise in the planet's southern hemisphere, is plowing into the clouds ahead of it, forming a cascade of white and beige ribbons. Jupiter's icy moon Europa, thought to hold potential ingredients for life, is visible to the left of the gas giant. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL team

This latest image of Jupiter, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on Aug. 25, 2020, was captured when the planet was 406 million miles from Earth. Hubble's sharp view is giving researchers an updated weather report on the monster planet's turbulent atmosphere, including a remarkable new storm brewing, and a cousin of the famous Great Red Spot region gearing up to change color—again.


A unique and exciting detail of Hubble's snapshot appears at mid-northern latitudes as a bright, white, stretched-out storm traveling around the planet at 350 miles per hour (560 kilometers per hour). This single plume erupted on Aug. 18, 2020—and ground-based observers have discovered two more that appeared later at the same latitude.

While it's common for storms to pop up in this region every six years or so, often with multiple storms at once, the timing of the Hubble observations is perfect for showing the structure in the wake of the disturbance, during the early stages of its evolution. Trailing behind the plume are small, rounded features with complex "red, white, and blue" colors in Hubble's ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light image. Such discrete features typically dissipate on Jupiter, leaving behind only changes in cloud colors and wind speeds, but a similar storm on Saturn led to a long-lasting vortex. The differences in the aftermaths of Jupiter and Saturn storms may be related to the contrasting water abundances in their atmospheres, since water vapor may govern the massive amount of stored-up energy that can be released by these storm eruptions.

Hubble shows that the Great Red Spot, rolling counterclockwise in the planet's southern hemisphere, is plowing into the clouds ahead of it, forming a cascade of white and beige ribbons. The Great Red Spot is currently an exceptionally rich red color, with its core and outermost band appearing deeper red.

An image of Jupiter taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light on Aug. 25, 2020, is giving researchers an entirely new view of the giant planet and offers insights into the altitude and distribution of the planet's haze and particles. This complements Hubble's visible-light pictures that show the ever-changing cloud patterns. In this photo, the parts of Jupiter's atmosphere that are at higher altitude, especially over the poles, look red from atmospheric particles absorbing ultraviolet light. Conversely, the blue-hued areas represent the ultraviolet light being reflected off the planet. A new storm at upper left, which erupted on Aug. 18, 2020, is grabbing the attention of scientists in this image. The "clumps" trailing the white plume appear to be absorbing ultraviolet light, similar to the center of the Great Red Spot, and Red Spot Jr. directly below it. This provides researchers with more evidence that this storm may last longer on Jupiter than most storms. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL team

Researchers say the Great Red Spot now measures about 9,800 miles across, big enough to swallow Earth. The super-storm is still shrinking as noted in telescopic observations dating back to 1930, but the reason for its dwindling size is a complete mystery.

Another feature researchers are noticing has changed is Oval BA, nicknamed by astronomers as Red Spot Jr., which appears just below the Great Red Spot in this image. For the past few years, Red Spot Jr. has been fading in color to its original shade of white after appearing red in 2006. However, now the core of this storm appears to be darkening slightly. This could hint that Red Spot Jr. is on its way to turning to a color more similar to its cousin once again.

Hubble's image shows that Jupiter is clearing out its higher altitude white clouds, especially along the planet's equator, where an orangish hydrocarbon smog wraps around it.

The icy moon Europa, thought to hold potential ingredients for life, is visible to the left of the gas giant.

This Hubble image is part of yearly maps of the entire planet taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program, or OPAL. The program provides annual Hubble global views of the outer planets to look for changes in their storms, winds, and clouds.


Explore furtherHubble showcases new portrait of Jupiter

Provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

 

Sea ice triggered the Little Ice Age, finds a new study

by University of Colorado at Boulder

The map shows Greenland and adjacent ocean currents. Colored circles show where some of the sediment cores used in the study were obtained from the seafloor. The small historical map from the beginning of the 20th century shows the distribution of Storis, or sea ice from the Arctic Ocean, which flows down the east coast of Greenland. The graphs show the reconstructed time series of changes in the occurrence of sea ice and polar waters in the past. The colors of the curves correspond to the locations on the map. The blue shading represents the period of increased sea ice in the 1300s. Credit: The figures are modified from Miles et al., 2020.

A new study finds a trigger for the Little Ice Age that cooled Europe from the 1300s through mid-1800s, and supports surprising model results suggesting that under the right conditions sudden climate changes can occur spontaneously, without external forcing.

The study, published in Science Advances, reports a comprehensive reconstruction of sea ice transported from the Arctic Ocean through the Fram Strait, by Greenland, and into the North Atlantic Ocean over the last 1400 years. The reconstruction suggests that the Little Ice Age—which was not a true ice age but a regional cooling centered on Europe—was triggered by an exceptionally large outflow of sea ice from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic in the 1300s.

While previous experiments using numerical climate models showed that increased sea ice was necessary to explain long-lasting climate anomalies like the Little Ice Age, physical evidence was missing. This study digs into the geological record for confirmation of model results.

Researchers pulled together records from marine sediment cores drilled from the ocean floor from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic to get a detailed look at sea ice throughout the region over the last 1400 years.

"We decided to put together different strands of evidence to try to reconstruct spatially and temporally what the sea ice was during the past one and a half thousand years, and then just see what we found," said Martin Miles, an INSTAAR researcher who also holds an appointment with NORCE Norwegian Research Centre and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Norway.

The cores included compounds produced by algae that live in sea ice, the shells of single-celled organisms that live in different water temperatures, and debris that sea ice picks up and transports over long distances. The cores were detailed enough to detect abrupt (decadal scale) changes in sea ice and ocean conditions over time.

The records indicate an abrupt increase in Arctic sea ice exported to the North Atlantic starting around 1300, peaking in midcentury, and ending abruptly in the late 1300s.

"I've always been fascinated by not just looking at sea ice as a passive indicator of climate change, but how it interacts with or could actually lead to changes in the climate system on long timescales," said Miles. "And the perfect example of that could be the Little Ice Age."


"This specific investigation was inspired by an INSTAAR colleague, Giff Miller, as well as by some of the paleoclimate reconstructions of my INSTAAR colleagues Anne Jennings, John Andrews, and Astrid Ogilvie," added Miles. Miller authored the first paper to suggest that sea ice played an essential role in sustaining the Little Ice Age.

Scientists have argued about the causes of the Little Ice Age for decades, with many suggesting that explosive volcanic eruptions must be essential for initiating the cooling period and allowing it to persist over centuries. One the hand, the new reconstruction provides robust evidence of a massive sea-ice anomaly that could have been triggered by increased explosive volcanism. One the other hand, the same evidence supports an intriguing alternate explanation.

Climate models called "control models" are run to understand how the climate system works through time without being influenced by outside forces like volcanic activity or greenhouse gas emissions. A set of recent control model experiments included results that portrayed sudden cold events that lasted several decades. The model results seemed too extreme to be realistic—so-called Ugly Duckling simulations—and researchers were concerned that they were showing problems with the models.

Miles' study found that there may be nothing wrong with those models at all.

"We actually find that number one, we do have physical, geological evidence that these several decade-long cold sea ice excursions in the same region can, in fact do, occur," he said. In the case of the Little Ice Age, "what we reconstructed in space and time was strikingly similar to the development in an Ugly Duckling model simulation, in which a spontaneous cold event lasted about a century. It involved unusual winds, sea ice export, and a lot more ice east of Greenland, just as we found in here." The provocative results show that external forcing from volcanoes or other causes may not be necessary for large swings in climate to occur. Miles continued, "These results strongly suggest...that these things can occur out of the blue due to internal variability in the climate system."

The marine cores also show a sustained, far-flung pulse of sea ice near the Norse colonies on Greenland coincident with their disappearance in the 15th century. A debate has raged over why the colonies vanished, usually agreeing only that a cooling climate pushed hard on their resilience. Miles and his colleagues would like to factor in the oceanic changes nearby: very large amounts of sea ice and cold polar waters, year after year for nearly a century.

"This massive belt of ice that comes streaming out of the Arctic—in the past and even today—goes all the way around Cape Farewell to around where these colonies were," Miles said. He would like to look more closely into oceanic conditions along with researchers who study the social sciences in relation to climate.


Explore further Increasing Arctic freshwater is driven by climate change

More information: Martin W. Miles et al, Evidence for extreme export of Arctic sea ice leading the abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba4320
Journal information: Science Advances


Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder