Stars could be invisible within 20 years as light pollution brightens night skies

The increased use of light-emitting diodes is obscuring our  view of the Milky Way as well as taking a toll on human and  wildlife health

Robin McKie   27 May 2023 

The Herefordshire hills basked in brilliant sunshine last weekend. Summer had arrived and the skies were cloudless, conditions that would once have heralded succeeding nights of coal-dark heavens sprinkled with brilliant stars, meteorites and planets.

It was not to be. The night sky was not so much black as dark grey with only a handful of stars glimmering against this backdrop. The Milky Way – which would once have glittered across the heavens – was absent. Summer’s advent had again revealed a curse of modern times: light pollution.


The increased use of light-emitting diodes (LED) and other forms of lighting are now brightening the night sky at a dramatic rate, scientists have found. Indiscriminate use of external lighting, street illumination, advertising, and illuminated sporting venues is now blinding our view of the stars.


In 2016, astronomers reported that the Milky Way was no longer visible to a third of humanity and light pollution has worsened considerably since then. At its current rate most of the major constellations will be indecipherable in 20 years, it is estimated. The loss, culturally and scientifically, will be intense.

“The night sky is part of our environment and it would be a major deprivation if the next generation never got to see it, just as it would be if they never saw a bird’s nest,” said Martin Rees, the astronomer royal. “You don’t need to be an astronomer to care about this. I am not an ornithologist but if there were no songbirds in my garden, I’d feel impoverished.”

Rees is a founder of the all-party parliamentary group for dark skies which recently produced a report calling for a host of measures to counter the curse of light pollution. These include proposals to appoint a minister for dark skies, create a commission for dark skies and set strict standards for the density and direction of lighting.

The introduction of a carefully selected package of planning rules to control obtrusive light – backed by legal clout and penalties for non-compliance – could make major differences, the committee stressed. The alternative would be to lose sight of night skies “painted with unnumber’d sparks,” to quote Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Research by physicist Christopher Kyba, of the German Centre for Geosciences has revealed that light pollution is now causing the night sky to brighten at a rate of around 10% a year, an increase that threatens to obliterate the sight of all but the most brilliant stars in a generation. A child born where 250 stars are visible at night today would only be able to see about 100 by the time they reach 18.

Sea turtles are among the wildlife adversely affected by light pollution. Photograph: Alamy

Gazing at a night sky crossed by a glittering Milky Way has become a splendour of another age, Kyba told the Observer. “A couple of generations ago, people would have been confronted regularly with this glittering vision of the cosmos – but what was formerly universal is now extremely rare. Only the world’s richest people, and some of the poorest, experience that any more. For everybody else, it’s more or less gone.” Nevertheless, the introduction of only a modest number of changes to lighting could make a considerable improvement, Kyba argued. These moves would include ensuring outdoor lights are carefully shielded, point downwards, have limits placed on their brightness, and are not predominantly blue-white but have red and orange components.


“Measures like that would have an enormous impact,” he added.

The problem is that light pollution is still not perceived by the public to be a threat. As Professor Oscar Corcho, of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, has put it: “The negative consequences of light pollution are as unknown by the population as those of smoking in the 80s.”

Yet action is now urgently needed. Apart from its astronomical and cultural impact, light pollution is having serious ecological consequences. Sea turtles and migrating birds are guided by moonlight. Light pollution causes them to get confused and lose their way. Insects, a key source of food for birds and other animals, get drawn to artificial lights and are immediately killed upon contact with the source.

The case against light pollution goes further. Bluish emissions of LEDs are almost entirely lacking any red or near infrared light, said Prof Robert Fosbury, of the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London (UCL). “We are becoming starved of red and infra-red light and that has serious implications,” he said. “When reddish light shines on our bodies, it stimulates mechanisms including those that break down high levels of sugar in the blood or boost melatonin production. Since the introduction of fluorescent lighting and later LEDs, that part of the spectrum has been removed from artificial light and I think it is playing a part in the waves of obesity and rises in diabetes cases we see today.”

UCL researchers are preparing to install additional infrared lamps in hospitals and intensive care units to see if they have an effect on the recovery of patients who would otherwise be starved of light from this part of the spectrum.

“It’s going to take a huge effort to change the face of the planet and turn LEDs into more friendly lighting,” said Fosbury. It’s going to be a big job but we need to do it because it is having a very damaging effect on human health.”

Stars to become invisible to our eyes in two decades due to light pollution, warn scientists

London, United KingdomEdited By: PrishaUpdated: May 29, 2023

Representational image. Photograph:(Others)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The view of the Milky Way in the night sky is being obscured by the increased use of light-emitting diodes, which is also taking a toll on the health of humans and wildlife

Scientists have warned that the ability of humans to see the cosmos in the night sky may vanish in just 20 years because of light pollution.

“The night sky is part of our environment and it would be a major deprivation if the next generation never got to see it, just as it would be if they never saw a bird’s nest,” said Martin Rees, the British astronomer royal, while speaking to The Guardian.

“You don’t need to be an astronomer to care about this. I am not an ornithologist but if there were no songbirds in my garden, I’d feel impoverished,” he added.

ALSO READ | NASA spacecraft discovers how Jupiter's lightning shares similarity with Earth's

In the last few years, the issue of light pollution has rapidly worsened, especially since 2016 when it was reported by astronomers that the Milky Way is no longer visible to almost a third of the population, as per Rees.

Scientists stated that the increasing light pollution is now brightening up the night sky at a rate of around 10 per cent per year.

No cosmos for future generations

A child who is born in a place where 250 stars are currently visible in the night sky would be able to see only 100 by the time they reach the age of 18, stated Christopher Kyba, of the German Centre for Geosciences.

“A couple of generations ago, people would have been confronted regularly with this glittering vision of the cosmos – but what was formerly universal is now extremely rare. Only the world’s richest people, and some of the poorest, experience that anymore. For everybody else, it’s more or less gone,” Kyba added.

WATCH | IIST: WION reports from Indian institute of space science and technology

He further argued that the introduction of some changes to lighting can make a considerable improvement. These steps would include shielding outdoor lights and pointing them downwards, limiting the brightness of lights, and ensuring that they are not predominantly blue-white but have red and orange components. “Measures like that would have an enormous impact,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Prof Robert Fosbury, of the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London (UCL) claimed that bluish emissions of LEDs entirely lack any red or near-infrared light. “We are becoming starved of red and infra-red light and that has serious implications,” he stated.

“When reddish light shines on our bodies, it stimulates mechanisms including those that break down high levels of sugar in the blood or boost melatonin production. Since the introduction of fluorescent lighting and later LEDs, that part of the spectrum has been removed from artificial light and I think it is playing a part in the waves of obesity and the rise in diabetes cases we see today,” Fosbury added.

(With inputs from agencies)

ARACHNOPHOBES MOVE ON

Meet the tiny jumping spider that walks like a feisty ant to evade predators

Siler collingwoodi evades spider-eating spiders but does not fool all hunters, Peking University researchers find

‘Being a general mimic rather than perfectly mimicking one ant species could benefit the spiders by allowing them to expand their range’, study co-author says


Holly Chik

SCMP
Published: 28 May, 2023

Unlike other jumping spiders that copy ant movements, the Siler collingwoodii is brightly coloured. Photo: Zeng Hua


To avoid being eaten, a tiny Asian jumping spider walks like its insect neighbours, mimicking ants with strong defences that bite back with mandibles and may carry venom, according to a new study.


While its gait does not provide universal protection, the Siler collingwoodi spider also has a colourful body that aids its camouflage in the red-flowering West Indian jasmine, the plant it lives in.

Siler collingwoodi walking style is most similar to three similarly sized ant species, Chinese scientists find. Photo: Handout

A team from Peking University’s school of life sciences published its findings in the peer-reviewed journal iScience on May 17.

“We found that [the spiders] typically move in a fashion similar to that of multiple sympatric ants, whereas the bright-coloured appearance blends … well into their living environment,” the team wrote in the article.

The researchers collected samples of the S. collingwoodi spider from southern Hainan and observed how they moved in a laboratory.

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The scientists found that the spider walks in an antlike manner – raising its front legs to mimic an ant’s antennae, bobbing the abdomen and lifting its legs to walk, instead of jumping like typical jumping spiders.

The team found that the spider’s walking style was most similar to three co-occurring ant species, which were also closer in size to the spider.

“S. collingwoodi is not necessarily a perfect mimic, because its gait and trajectory showed high similarity with multiple ant species,” said study co-author and Peking University ecologist Zeng Hua.

“Being a general mimic rather than perfectly mimicking one ant species could benefit the spiders by allowing them to expand their range if the ant models occupy different habitats.”

Siler collingwoodi finds camouflage in a red-flowering tree. Photo: Chen Yuchang

She said the spider had brilliant body coloration, unlike typical ant-mimicking spiders which adopted the brown or black body colour of ants.

They found that the colourful spiders were better camouflaged on a red-flowering jasmine plant than in a tea tree, two plants they live on, from two likely predators.

Those predators are Portia labiata, a jumping spider of similar size and with colour vision that preys on other spiders, and Gonypeta brunneri, a generalist praying mantis that sees in monochrome.

The researchers said that from 17 trials where the predators could prey on the ant-mimicking spider and another jumping spider, the predator spider launched five attacks – all towards the non-mimic – while the mantises attacked both prey species equally.

“The simulated ant locomotion of S. collingwoodi only worked for the jumping spider predator, while the praying mantis showed indiscriminate attacks on both ants and mimics,” co-author Zhang Wei, a Peking University evolutionary ecologist, said.

Scientists seek to track butterflies in Hong Kong and mainland China
8 Feb 2023


“For the spider predator, a random attack on an ant could result in injury, so they are very careful predators and will only attack if they can distinguish S. collingwoodi from ants with a high degree of certainty.”

But because the praying mantises are much larger than their prey, they are able to eat spiny ants without risking serious injury.

Groundbreaking Images Of Root Chemicals Offer New Insights On Plant Growth

UC San Diego and Stanford scientists studied maize (corn) plant roots and their metabolites—molecules involved in the plant’s energy production—under different settings, including a control condition (left) and treated with aconitate (center) and succinate (right). CREDIT: Dickinson Lab, UC San Diego

May 28, 2023 By Eurasia Review

On a sunny springtime stroll through a park, it’s easy to ignore the parts of plants that are hidden from view. Plant biologists see things differently. They look below the surface where plant roots are organized in elaborate systems that are critical to the organism’s development. Intricately organized tree root systems, for example, can span as far underground as the tree grows high above the soil.

Applying an advanced imaging technology to plant roots, researchers at the University of California San Diego and Stanford University have developed a new understanding of essential root chemicals that are responsible for plant growth. Using a type of mass spectrometer, a study led by UC San Diego Biological Sciences Postdoctoral Scholar Tao Zhang and Assistant Professor Alexandra Dickinson produced a “roadmap” that profiles where key small molecules are distributed along stem cells of maize (corn) plant roots and how their placement factors into the plant’s maturation. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.

“This chemical roadmap provides a resource that scientists can use to find new ways of regulating plant growth,” said Dickinson, a faculty member in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. “Having more information about how roots grow could be useful in conservation as we think about protecting our plants in natural environments and making them more sustainable, especially in agriculture.”

While working as a visiting scientist at Stanford University, Dickinson began collaborating with study co-first author Sarah Noll and Professor Richard Zare, who developed a mass spectrometry imaging system that helps surgeons distinguish between cancerous and benign tissue during tumor-removal operations.

Dickinson, Zare and Noll adapted the technology—called “desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging” or DESI-MSI—to probe plant roots for the chemicals involved in growth and energy production. They initially focused on maize plants at the root tips, where stem cells play an active role in the plant’s development. Their method involved cutting through the center of the root to get a clear image of the chemicals inside.

“To help understand plant roots from the biology side, we needed to find out which chemicals are there,” said Zare. “Our imaging system sprays out droplets that strike different portions of the root and dissolve chemicals at that location. A mass spectrometer collects the droplet splash and tells us what those dissolved chemicals are. By systematically scanning the droplet target spot we make a spatial map of the root chemicals.”

The resulting images, believed to be some of the first to reveal the transition between stem cells and mature root tissue, show the foundational role of metabolites—molecules involved in the plant’s energy production. Tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle metabolites became the focus of the research since they were found to be a key player in controlling root development.

Coming into the study, the researchers expected a relatively uniform distribution of chemicals. Instead, with their chemical roadmap in hand, they found that TCA metabolites are clustered in patches across the root.

“I was surprised by how many chemicals are featured in really distinct patterns,” said Dickinson. “We can see that the plant is doing this on purpose—it needs these molecules in specific regions to grow properly.” The Dickinson lab showed that these TCA metabolites have predictable effects in development, not only in maize, but in another plant species as well (Arabidopsis). This is likely because TCA metabolites are highly conserved—they are made in all plants as well as animals.

Also emerging from the new images were previously unidentified chemical compounds. Dickinson says the mystery compounds could be critical for plant growth since they also are grouped in patterns at specific locations, suggesting a prominent role in development. Dickinson and her colleagues are now investigating these compounds and comparing varieties of maize that have different levels of stress resistance for adverse threats such as severe climate conditions and drought. The new information will help them develop novel chemical and genetic strategies for improving plant growth and stress resilience.

“We’re looking at different maize plants that have drought resistance to see if we’ve already found chemicals that are specific to that variety that we haven’t seen in other varieties,” said Dickinson. “We think that could be a way to find new compounds that can promote growth, especially in harsh conditions.”

Bird brains can flick switch to perceive Earth’s magnetic field  

Research on how animals move around the world helps determine the influence of human activity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO

Earth’s magnetic field, generated by the flow of molten iron in the planet’s inner core, extends out into space and protects us from cosmic radiation emitted by the Sun. It is also, remarkably, used by animals like salmon, sea turtles and migratory birds for navigation.   

But how? And why? A new study from researchers at Western’s Advanced Facility for Avian Research (AFAR), home to the world’s first hypobaric climatic wind tunnel for bird flight, explores a brain region called cluster N that migratory birds use to perceive Earth’s magnetic field. The team discovered the region is activated very flexibly, meaning these birds have an ability to process, or ignore, geomagnetic information, just as you may attend to music when you are interested or tune it out when you are not.

More specifically, the research team led by psychology PhD candidate Madeleine Brodbeck and AFAR co-director Scott MacDougall-Shackleton studied white-throated sparrows and found they were able to activate cluster N at night when they were motivated to migrate (to avoid prey and fly during cooler periods) and make it go dormant when they were resting at a stopover site.  

This is the first demonstration of this brain region functioning in a North American bird species, as all prior research in this area was completed in Europe. 

“This brain region is super important for activating the geomagnetic compass, especially for songbirds when they migrate at night,” said Brodbeck. “Almost all previous work on this specific brain function was done at one lab in Europe, so it was great to replicate it in a North American bird like the white-throated sparrow.” 

Earth’s magnetic field, likely first investigated and identified by German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss in the 1830s, has long fascinated physicists, aerospace engineers and even science fiction writers like Frank Herbert and Stephen King. Brodbeck, a bird psychologist, is equally intrigued.  

“Magnetic fields are really fun to think about because they’re invisible to humans. We can’t see them or sense them, but most animals perceive them in some way,” said Brodbeck. “For birds, using Earth’s magnetic field to know if they’re going towards a pole or towards the equator is obviously really helpful for orientation and migration. It’s incredible that they can activate their brain in this way, and we can’t.”  

Understanding the physical mechanisms of how animals make their way around in the world is a fundamentally important question for researchers, says MacDougall-Shackleton, a psychology professor and cognitive neuroscientist.   

“If we want to understand bird migration or how other animals move from one place to another, we need to know how they do it. And more importantly, we need to know what we’re doing, as humans, that might influence them,” said MacDougall-Shackleton. 

The findings were published in the journal, European Journal of Neuroscience.  

“Birds don’t just use their magnetic compass. We know they pay attention to the Sun and the stars as cues too. And we also know that things like lights at night, or windows in buildings, and all these things that we put in the world disrupt their migrations,” said MacDougall-Shackleton. “This type of basic research informs us and lets us know the full suite of ways that animals perceive the world when they’re migrating and what we as humans need to do to minimize our impact.” 

---

JOURNAL

European Journal of Neuroscience

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Neuronal activation in the geomagnetic responsive region Cluster N covaries with nocturnal migratory restlessness in white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis)

Nature’s Alchemy: Cellular Waste Transformed Into Essential Chemicals

By BOYCE THOMPSON INSTITUTE MAY 27, 2023

In a recent Nature Chemical Biology article, researchers revealed a previously unknown biochemical recycling process in animals that uses cellular waste to produce new, vital chemicals. These chemicals play important roles in regulating behavior, development, and aging. Contrary to previous belief, genes thought to code for carboxylesterases, enzymes that hydrolyze esters, actually assemble a variety of new metabolites from cellular waste. This discovery could revolutionize our understanding of animal and human functioning, opening up new research avenues to explore the structure and function of over 100,000 distinct, uninvestigated chemicals. Credit: Boyce Thompson Institute

A recent study uncovers a biochemical recycling process in animals that uses cellular waste to create vital chemicals, revolutionizing our understanding of animal and human functioning. This discovery opens up new research avenues for exploring over 100,000 uninvestigated chemicals.

A new perspective published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology uncovers a previously unknown biochemical recycling process in animals. The authors review a flurry of recent papers demonstrating that animals extensively recycle biochemical waste to produce novel chemicals that play key roles in biology, from regulating behavior to development and aging.

These studies show that the genes previously thought to code for carboxylesterases, enzymes that hydrolyze esters, actually play a pivotal role in assembling a wide range of new metabolites from building blocks generally considered “cellular waste.” Surprisingly, the so-called carboxylesterases were found to contribute to the formation of esters and amide bonds, a function opposite to that predicted by computational algorithms.

“This discovery reveals that our understanding of biochemistry remains largely incomplete,” says the perspective’s lead author, Frank Schroeder, a professor at Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI). “This research has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of how animals, including humans, function.”

Recent investigations indicate that animals and humans may produce over 100,000 distinct chemicals, most of which have not been investigated. This unknown structure space is a treasure trove of chemicals, which may hold the key to understanding many biological processes. One major challenge to understanding how these metabolites contribute to survival is that the enzymes that produce them are also unknown.

“The discovery of this biochemical recycling mechanism opens up exciting new avenues for future research, with the potential to dramatically accelerate the structural and functional annotation of unknown metabolites,” says Chester Wrobel, a graduate student in the Schroeder lab and co-author of the perspective.

Reference: “Repurposing degradation pathways for modular metabolite biosynthesis in nematodes” by Chester J. J. Wrobel and Frank C. Schroeder, 6 April 2023, Nature Chemical Biology.
DOI: 10.1038/s41589-023-01301-w

Study shows more mutations likely with genetically engineered synthetic DNA

by University of Surrey

A scheme that shows all base pairs proposed in hachimoji DNA by Hoshika.10 (a) 

corresponds to the standard Watson–Crick pairs, while (b) corresponds to the analogous

 hachimoji extension. The letters represent the atoms in the bases, while R is where the

 base connects to the phosphate backbone. 

Credit: RSC Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1039/D3RA00983A

Unlocking the potential of laboratory-crafted DNA, known as synthetic DNA, holds the key to groundbreaking advancements across multiple domains, according to quantum biologists from the University of Surrey.

Unlike naturally occurring DNA, synthetic DNA could allow scientists to engineer fresh genes or enhance existing ones, opening doors to transformative possibilities in medicine and biotechnology. Synthetic DNA could also sustain Darwinian evolution, paving the way for exciting advancements in the understanding of genetic systems.

In a unique study, quantum biologists from Surrey investigated how protons move in hachimoji DNA, which is a synthetic form of DNA not yet found in natural life.

Using a method called density functional theory, the team from Surrey calculated the speed of proton transfer and how it's affected by temperature. They found that proton transfer happens more easily in hachimoji DNA compared to regular DNA. Specifically, certain pairs of bases in hachimoji DNA allow protons to move 30% faster than in regular DNA. This suggests that hachimoji DNA might have a higher chance of mutations compared to normal DNA.

Dr. Louie Slocombe, lead researcher on the project at the University of Surrey commented, "The exploration of hachimoji DNA and its distinctive properties presents exciting prospects for synthetic biology and genetic research. Our study provides invaluable insights into the dynamics of proton transfer within hachimoji DNA, shedding light on its potential implications for mutation rates.

"This knowledge has the potential to guide future advancements in DNA engineering and expand our comprehension of genetic systems here on our planet and beyond."

Hachimoji DNA is synthetic DNA created in a laboratory that expands the genetic code beyond the usual four letters (A, T, C, G). It incorporates four additional building blocks (Z, P, S, B), allowing for more diverse possibilities in genetic information and, crucially, opening up new avenues in genetic research, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology. Hachimoji DNA is seen as a promising candidate for engineering organisms with unique capabilities and for developing innovative drugs.

Dr. Marco Sacchi, co-author of the study from the University of Surrey, said, "The University of Surrey remains committed to pioneering scientific research and driving transformative discoveries. The investigation into hachimoji DNA exemplifies the University's excellence in quantum biology and the potential of this new field of research to unravel the intricacies of genetic systems and harness the power of innovative technologies."

More information: Harry Warman et al, How proton transfer impacts hachimoji DNA, RSC Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1039/D3RA00983A

Journal information: RSC Advances 

Provided by University of Surrey Enzymes could be key to understanding how DNA mutates, quantum biologists find

 

Are fairy tales fair? AI helps find gender bias in children's storybooks

by Cody Mello-Klein, Northeastern University

Book binding stock. Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University

Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty have more in common than their origins as classic fairy tale figures and, now, part of Disney's famous roster of characters. Their fairy tales are also full of gender bias and stereotypes, according to literature scholars––and now AI.

A team of researchers from Northeastern University, University of California Los Angeles and IBM Research have created an artificial intelligence framework that can analyze children's storybooks and detect cases of gender bias. Their research has been published on the arXiv preprint server.

The way fairy tales depict and teach lessons, morals and sociocultural roles to children, particularly young girls, has been discussed in academia and beyond for decades. These stories are full of princesses who need saving and handsome princes who are there to save them.

The hope is that the AI-driven, spellcheck-like tool his team has created will be used by writers and publishers, as well as researchers, to create more inclusive stories for children, says Dakuo Wang, an associate professor at Northeastern and one of the researchers on the project.

"If in the future I have a baby girl, I don't want her to feel discouraged to take on those tasks or conquer those challenges [or] say, someone will come save me or it's not supposed to be something I would do as a girl," Wang says. "If we can develop a technology to automatically detect or flag those kinds of gender biases and stereotypes, then it can at least serve as a guardrail or safety net not just for ancient fairy tales but the new stories being written and created every day today."

All of this work started as part of the team's ongoing research into how AI can help build language learning skills for young children. The team was already interested in fairy tales as tools for language learning and had collected hundreds of stories from around the world to use as the "corpus" for their algorithm to analyze.

They recruited a group of educational experts––teachers and scholars––to comb through the stories and create a list of questions and answers that would help prove whether a child was learning from these stories. The end result was 10,000 question-answer pairs––and the realization that all of these stories, no matter where they came from, had "stubborn and profound" gender stereotypes in them.

The princess eats a poison apple, gets imprisoned, kidnapped or cursed or dies and has no agency to change her situation. Meanwhile male characters––princes, kings and heroes––were killing dragons, breaking the curses and saving the princess.

Previous research in this area focused on what Wang calls the "superficial level" of bias. That meant analyzing stories and identifying word or phrase pairings, like "prince" and "brave," that connect ideas and identities in specific ways. But Wang and the rest of the team wanted to go deeper.

They focused on "temporal narrative event chains," the specific combination, and order, of events and actions a character experiences or takes.

"It's actually the experience and the action that defines who this person is, and those actions influence our readers about what [they] should do or shouldn't do to mimic that fictional character," Wang says.

Using the hundreds of stories they had collected, the team created automated processes to extract character names and genders along with every event. They then aligned those events as a chain for each character. They also automated a process to group events and actions by specific categories. Each event was analyzed and given an odds ratio, how frequently it was connected to a male or female character.

Of the 33,577 events analyzed in the study, 69% were attributed to male characters and 31% to female characters. The events associated with female characters were often connected to domestic tasks like grooming, cleaning, cooking and sewing, while those for male characters were connected to failure, success or aggression.

With all that information, Wang and the team created a natural language processing tool that could go beyond analyzing individual events to find bias in event chains.

"Someone is being saved and then getting married and then living happily ever after; some others killed the monster, saved the princess and lived happily ever after," Wang says. "It's not the 'lived happily ever after' part or 'get married' part that are different. It's actually the events happening before these events in a chain that make a difference."

By automating this process, Wang says he hopes the tool will find use among people outside the research community who are actually creating––or recreating––these stories. In the process, they can start preventing stories from passing down these outdated, harmful ideas to the next generation.

"With our tool, they can simply upload their first draft into a tool like this and it should generate some score or meter that indicates, "Here are the things you may or may not want to check. If this intention is not what you would want to express, then maybe you should think about a rewrite. Here are some suggestions,'" Wang says.

Moving forward, Wang and the team plan on expanding their work to look at other forms of bias. They will also be using their tool to evaluate the biases of other AI. They hope to use their algorithm to analyze whether ChatGPT has the same gender biases and stereotypes when it creates content based on these stories.

"We are proposing that this is actually a task, a task that the technical community can actually help to conquer," Wang says. "We're not saying our method is the best. We're just saying our method is the first to do this task, and this task is so predominant. Maybe we should shift some of our attention to these existing social challenges and tasks."

More information: Paulina Toro Isaza et al, Are Fairy Tales Fair? Analyzing Gender Bias in Temporal Narrative Event Chains of Children's Fairy Tales, arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2305.16641

Journal information: arXiv 

Provided by Northeastern University 

 

New study finds strengthening protection of existing parks is crucial for biodiversity conservation

by Durham University

Credit: Durham University

In a new study, bioscientists argue that strengthening the protection given to areas already protected under law or by local communities is as critical for safeguarding biodiversity as creating new protected areas.

The research team, which included scientists from Durham University, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Princeton University, found that about 70% of the roughly 5,000 species analyzed either have no apparent representation in protected areas, occur in protected areas that have been downgraded, downsized or degazetted, or would be especially vulnerable to extinction from future land-use change.

But, by enhancing the protection of existing protected areas, and by expanding the existing park networks across just 1% of the planet's land area, the essential habitats of 1,191 animal species that are especially at risk of extinction can be protected.

The study has been published in the journal Science Advances.

Protected areas can be vulnerable to harmful human activities if there is insufficient enforcement or a lack of political backing for wildlife conservation.

Parks become less effective at protecting species when they experience such downgrading, downsizing or degazettement (PADDD) events, which occur when a government decides to roll-back the legal protections governing a park, diminishing the degree or extent of protection afforded to it.

These changes could result in forest clearance for infrastructure expansion, mining or other activities, and translate to the loss or degradation of habitats. As of 2021, over 278 million hectares of parks are known to have been cumulatively subject to PADDD events, the researchers found.

For example, Megophrys damrei is a critically endangered frog found only in Cambodia and nowhere else in the world. Even though its habitat is protected, the area continues to experience habitat degradation and loss within national park boundaries and in the adjacent surroundings.

Additionally, expanding the protected area network could benefit species whose habitats currently lack sufficient protection. For instance, the study found that protecting an additional 330 square kilometers of natural landscapes within Indonesia would safeguard the suitable habitats of 53 species that currently lack protected area coverage and have limited area of habitat.

For example, the Sangihe golden bulbul is a critically endangered songbird species found only on Sangihe Island in Indonesia and nowhere else in the world. Estimates put the entire population of the species at between 50 and 230 individuals remaining at one site, which is not protected. This species is absent from plantations, suggesting it is a sensitive species that can only thrive in good forests and would benefit from enhanced conservation.

Reflecting on the research findings, Dr. Rebecca Senior of Durham University, said, "There are many wonderful examples in conservation of people fighting to protect species, but there is always a risk that when you take your eye off the ball, pressure builds, and hard-won protection is lost.

"Designating parks on paper is not enough; they need to be in the right places, with the right management, and they need to last."

Lead author of the study, Dr. Zeng Yiwen of NUS, said, "This study establishes a geography of arks: Where new parks can be created, and where to restore and reinforce existing parks, to boost wildlife conservation."

"Many global discussions on conservation rightfully center around the need to create new protected areas. These include discussions at the COP15 United Nations biodiversity conference in December 2022, where a target to protect 30% of the planet's lands and seas was adopted. But our study also shows the importance of ensuring that protected areas remain effective at keeping out harmful human activity."

The findings of the new study come amid growing recognition of the need to conserve the planet's biodiversity by creating new protected areas. At the United Nations biodiversity conference COP15 in December 2022, for example, countries had agreed on a target to set aside 30% of the planet's lands and seas as protected areas.

The latest research sheds light on another important aspect of wildlife conservation: ensuring that already protected areas, or parks, continue to remain a safe space for biodiversity.

More information: Yiwen Zeng et al, Gaps and weaknesses in the global protected area network for safeguarding at-risk species, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adg0288. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg0288

Journal information: Science Advances 

Provided by Durham University Protected areas may not serve as 'stepping stones' under climate change