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Friday, September 09, 2022
First discovery of microplastics from water trapped on plant leaves
IMAGE: MICROPLASTICS view more
CREDIT: KATARÍNA FOGAŠOVÁ
Although they have not been around for long, microplastics have found their way to almost every ecosystem on the planet. They have been discovered in the soil, in rivers, in our food and bottled water, and even in the human body. Recently, a team of researchers found, for the first time, microplastics in water trapped in plant leaf axils.
Katarína Fogašová, Peter Manko, and Jozef Obona of the University of Prešov, Slovakia, initially set out to Eastern Slovakia to study the organisms living in the little water puddles forming in teasel leaf axils.
Teasels of the genus Dipsacus have characteristic opposite leaves that grow on the stem above each other in several levels. As they clasp the stem, they form cup-like structures that collect water, known as telmata.
“Teasel phytotelmata are a relatively common but overlooked aquatic microcosm with a very short-term occurrence of only 3 to 4 months.“
To their surprise, they found differently coloured fragments and fibers, some reaching 2.4 mm in length, which were identified as microplastics.
“These phytotelmata are very small and have a short lifespan,” the researchers write in their paper, which was published in the journal BioRisk. “The question is, therefore, how were they polluted with microplastics?”
No other sources of contaminants were found in the studied area, so the fragments and fibers most likely came from polluted atmosphere, they suggest. Another theory is that snails may have transported them from the soil or from other plants, in or on their bodies.
“The first finding of microplastics in small short-term water reservoirs created by plants is further evidence that contamination of this kind spreads through various pathways and probably no environment on Earth is safe, which of course makes our discovery quite disheartening,” the researchers say.
“On the other hand, the results of our research of teasel phytotelmata, as a very unusual and highly specific natural environment, offer many possibilities for use in researching the spatio-temporal characteristics of the spread of microplastic pollution and its potential impact on the plants themselves, as well as organisms bound to them by ecological relations.”
They suggest that, due to their abundance and theoretical ability to capture microplastics in several ways from the environment, teasel phytotelmata could be a good indicator of microplastic presence.
“Our publication therefore not only brings the first discovery of microplastic pollution of habitats of this type, but also the first proposal of a new approach to the use of teasel phytotelmata and similar micro-ecosystems provided by plants (or artificially created), as bioindicators of the presence of microplastics in the environment, possible sources and pathways of their spread through the environment and spatio-temporal changes in microplastic contamination.”
CAPTION
The teasel Dipsacus
CREDIT
Katarína Fogašová
Fly pupae in teasel phytotelmata
CREDIT
Katarína Fogašová
An insect drowned in phytotelmata
CREDIT
Katarína Fogašová
Microplastics
CREDIT
Katarína Fogašová
Microplastics
CREDIT
Katarína Fogašová
Original source:
Fogašová K, Manko P, Oboňa J (2022) The first evidence of microplastics in plant-formed fresh-water micro-ecosystems: Dipsacus teasel phytotelmata in Slovakia contaminated with MPs. BioRisk 18: 133-143. https://doi.org/10.3897/biorisk.18.87433
JOURNAL
BIORISK – Biodiversity and Ecosystem Risk Assessment
ARTICLE TITLE
The first evidence of microplastics in plant-formed fresh-water micro-ecosystems: Dipsacus teasel phytotelmata in Slovakia contaminated with MPs
Could more of Earth’s surface host life?
Jupiter’s orbit shape plays key, overlooked role on Earth
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE: VISUAL EXAMPLES OF ORBITAL ECCENTRICITY. view more
CREDIT: PHOENIX7777
Of all known planets, Earth is as friendly to life as any planet could possibly be — or is it? If Jupiter’s orbit changes, a new study shows Earth could be more hospitable than it is today.
When a planet has a perfectly circular orbit around its star, the distance between the star and the planet never changes. Most planets, however, have “eccentric” orbits around their stars, meaning the orbit is oval-shaped. When the planet gets closer to its star, it receives more heat, affecting the climate.
Using detailed models based on data from the solar system as it is known today, UC Riverside researchers created an alternative solar system. In this theoretical system, they found that if gigantic Jupiter’s orbit were to become more eccentric, it would in turn induce big changes in the shape of Earth’s orbit.
“If Jupiter’s position remained the same, but the shape of its orbit changed, it could actually increase this planet’s habitability,” said Pam Vervoort, UCR Earth and planetary scientist and lead study author.
Between zero and 100 degrees Celsius, the Earth’s surface is habitable for multiple known life forms. If Jupiter pushed Earth’s orbit to become more eccentric, parts of the Earth would sometimes get closer to the sun. Parts of the Earth’s surface that are now sub-freezing would get warmer, increasing temperatures in the habitable range.
This result, now published in the Astronomical Journal, upends two long-held scientific assumptions about our solar system.
“Many are convinced that Earth is the epitome of a habitable planet and that any change in Jupiter’s orbit, being the massive planet it is, could only be bad for Earth,” Vervoort said. “We show that both assumptions are wrong.”
The researchers are interested in applying this finding to the search for habitable planets around other stars, called exoplanets.
“The first thing people look for in an exoplanet search is the habitable zone, the distance between a star and a planet to see if there’s enough energy for liquid water on the planet’s surface,” said Stephen Kane, UCR astrophysicist and study co-author.
During its orbit, different parts of a planet receive more or fewer direct rays, resulting in the planet having seasons. Parts of the planet may be pleasant during one season, and extremely hot or cold in another.
A habitable zone, shown in green here, is defined as the region around a star where liquid water, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, could potentially be present.
CREDIT
NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Having water on its surface a very simple first metric, and it doesn’t account for the shape of a planet’s orbit, or seasonal variations a planet might experience,” Kane said.
Existing telescopes are capable of measuring a planet’s orbit. However, there are additional factors that could affect habitability, such as the degree to which a planet is tilted toward or away from a star. The part of the planet tilted away from the star would get less energy, causing it to be colder.
This same study found that if Jupiter were positioned much closer to the sun, it would induce extreme tilting on Earth, which would make large sections of the Earth’s surface sub-freezing.
It is more difficult to measure tilt, or a planet’s mass, so the researchers would like to work toward methods that help them estimate those factors as well.
Ultimately, the movement of a giant planet is important in the quest to make predictions about the habitability of planets in other systems as well as the quest to understand its influence in this solar system.
“It’s important to understand the impact that Jupiter has had on Earth’s climate through time, how its effect on our orbit has changed us in the past, and how it might change us once again in the future,” Kane said.
JOURNAL
The Astronomical Journal
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Computational simulation/modeling
ARTICLE TITLE
System Architecture and Planetary Obliquity: Implications for Long-term Habitability
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
8-Sep-2022
Unraveling a mystery surrounding cosmic matter
UC Riverside physicist and colleague invoke the cosmological collider to explain why matter, and not antimatter, dominates the universe
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE: YANOU CUI IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY AT UC RIVERSIDE. view more
CREDIT: I. PITTALWALA/UC RIVERSIDE.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Early in its history, shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with equal amounts of matter and “antimatter” — particles that are matter counterparts but with opposite charge. But then, as space expanded, the universe cooled. Today’s universe is full of galaxies and stars which are made of matter. Where did the antimatter go, and how did matter come to dominate the universe? This cosmic origin of matter continues to puzzle scientists.
Physicists at the University of California, Riverside, and Tsinghua University in China have now opened a new pathway for probing the cosmic origin of matter by invoking the “cosmological collider.”
Not just any collider
High energy colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider, have been built to produce very heavy subatomic elementary particles that may reveal new physics. But some new physics, such as that explaining dark matter and the origin of matter, can involve much heavier particles, requiring much higher energy than what a human-made collider can provide. It turns out the early cosmos could have served as such a super-collider.
Yanou Cui, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at UCR, explained that it is widely believed that cosmic inflation, an era when the universe expanded at an exponentially accelerating rate, preceded the Big Bang.
“Cosmic inflation provided a highly energetic environment, enabling the production of heavy new particles as well as their interactions,” Cui said. “The inflationary universe behaved just like a cosmological collider, except that the energy was up to 10 billion times larger than any human-made collider.”
According to Cui, microscopic structures created by energetic events during inflation got stretched as the universe expanded, resulting in regions of varying density in an otherwise homogeneous universe. Subsequently, these microscopic structures seeded the large-scale structure of our universe, manifested today as the distribution of galaxies across the sky. Cui explained that new subatomic particle physics may be revealed by studying the imprint of the cosmological collider in the cosmos’ contents today, such as galaxies and the cosmic microwave background.
Cui and Zhong-Zhi Xianyu, an assistant professor of physics at Tsinghua University, report in the journal Physical Review Letters that by applying the physics of the cosmological collider and using precision data for measuring the structure of our universe from upcoming experiments such as SPHEREx and 21 cm line tomography, the mystery of the cosmic origin of matter may be unraveled.
“The fact that our current-day universe is dominated by matter remains among the most perplexing, longstanding mysteries in modern physics,” Cui said. “A subtle imbalance or asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the early universe is required to achieve today’s matter dominance but cannot be realized within the known framework of fundamental physics.”
Leptogenesis to the rescue
Cui and Xianyu propose testing leptogenesis, a well-known mechanism that explains the origin of the baryon — visible gas and stars — asymmetry in our universe. Had the universe begun with equal amounts of matter and antimatter, they would have annihilated each other into photon radiation, leaving nothing. Since matter far exceeds antimatter today, asymmetry is required to explain the imbalance.
“Leptogenesis is among the most compelling mechanisms generating the matter-antimatter asymmetry,” Cui said. “It involves a new fundamental particle, the right-handed neutrino. It was long thought, however, that testing leptogenesis is next to impossible because the mass of the right-handed neutrino is typically many orders of magnitudes beyond the reach of the highest energy collider ever built, the Large Hadron Collider.”
The new work proposes to test leptogenesis by decoding the detailed statistical properties of the spatial distribution of objects in the cosmic structure observed today, reminiscent of the microscopic physics during cosmic inflation. The cosmological collider effect, the researchers argue, enables the production of the super-heavy right-handed neutrino during the inflationary epoch.
“Specifically, we demonstrate that essential conditions for the asymmetry generation, including the interactions and masses of the right-handed neutrino, which is the key player here, can leave distinctive fingerprints in the statistics of the spatial distribution of galaxies or cosmic microwave background and can be precisely measured,” Cui said. “The astrophysical observations anticipated in the coming years can potentially detect such signals and unravel the cosmic origin of matter.”
Cui was supported in the research by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The title of the paper is “Probing Leptogenesis with the Cosmological Collider.”
The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.
JOURNAL
Physical Review Letters
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Data/statistical analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Probing Leptogenesis with the Cosmological Collider.
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
8-Sep-2022
Scientists uncover crimes from a millennium ago in extreme cold case
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE: THE MARBURG MALE MUMMY – MACROSCOPIC VIEWS OF THE WHOLE MUMMY view more
CREDIT: A-M BEGEROCK, R LOYNES, OK PESCHEL, J VERANO, R BIANUCCI, I MARTINEZ ARMIJO, M GONZÁLEZ, AG NERLICH
How frequent was violence in prehistoric human societies? One way to measure this is to look for trauma in prehistoric human remains. For example, a recent review of pre-Columbian remains found evidence of trauma from violence in 21% of males. So far, most studies of this kind focused on skulls and other parts of the skeleton, but a potentially richer source of information are mummies, with their preserved soft tissues.
Now in a new study in Frontiers in Medicine, researchers use 3D computed tomography (3D CT) to examine three mummies from pre-Columbian South America, conserved since the late 19th century in European museums.
“Here we show lethal trauma in two out of three South American mummies that we investigated with 3D CT. The types of trauma we found would not have been detectable if these human remains had been mere skeletons,” said Dr Andreas G Nerlich, a professor at the Department of Pathology of Munich Clinic Bogenhausen in Germany, the study’s corresponding author.
Nerlich and colleagues studied a male mummy at the ‘Museum Anatomicum’ of the Philipps University Marburg, Germany, as well as a female and a male mummy at the Art and History Museum of Delémont, Switzerland. Mummies can form naturally when dry environments, for example in deserts, soak up fluids from a decomposing body faster than the decay can proceed – conditions common in the southern zones of South America.
Died between 740 and 1120 years ago
The Marburg mummy belonged to the Arica culture in today’s northern Chile, and judging from the grave goods found with him, must have lived in a fishing community. Buried squatting down, he had well-preserved but misaligned teeth, with some abrasions as is typical for pre-Columbian people who used maize as a staple food. His lungs showed scars from past severe tuberculosis. From the features of the bones, the authors estimated that he was a young man between 20 and 25 years old, approximately 1.72 meters tall. He died between 996 and 1147 CE, as the radiocarbon results showed.
The Delémont mummies probably came from the region of Arequipa in today’s southwestern Peru, based on the ceramics among the grave goods. Both were buried lying face up, which is unusual for mummies from the highlands of South America. Radiocarbon data showed that the man died between 902 and 994 CE, and the woman between 1224 and 1282 CE. They wore textiles woven from cotton and hairs of llamas or alpacas as well as vizcachas, rodents related to chinchillas. The state of the aorta and large arteries showed that the man suffered from calcifying arteriosclerosis in life.
Two murder victims
The results show that both male mummies had died on the spot from extreme intentional violence. The authors reconstructed that the Marburg mummy had died because either “one assaulter hit the victim with full force on the head and [a] second assaulter stab[bed] the victim (who still was standing or kneeing) in the back. Alternatively, the same or another assaulter standing on the right side of the victim struck the head and then turned to the back of the victim and stabbed him.”
Similarly, the male mummy from Delémont showed “massive trauma against the cervical spine which represent most likely the cause of death. The significant dislocation of the two cervical vertebral bodies itself is lethal and may have led to immediate death.”
Only the female mummy had died of natural causes. She also showed extensive damage to the skeleton, but this occurred after death, probably during burial and not on purpose.
Nerlich said: “The availability of modern CT-scans with the opportunity for 3D reconstructions offers unique insight into bodies that would otherwise not have been detected. Previous studies would have either destroyed the mummy, while X-rays or older CT-scans without three-dimensional reconstruction functions could not have detected the diagnostic key features we found here.”
“Importantly, the study of human mummified material can reveal a much higher rate of trauma, especially intentional trauma, than the study of skeletons. There are dozens of South American mummies which might profit from a similar investigation as done here we did here.”
3D CT scan of the skull of the Délémont male mummy. (a-d): Features of perimortem skull trauma to the left side of the skull with a large perforating lesion at the left temporal region (arrow) and a fracture running into the skull. (d) shows the zygoma’s fracture of the left side (arrows).
CREDIT
A-M Begerock, R Loynes, OK Peschel, J Verano, R Bianucci, I Martinez Armijo, M González, AG
The “Delémont man” (right) and the “Delémont woman” (left) – overview of the two mummies in their repository case.
CREDIT
A-M Begerock, R Loynes, OK Peschel, J Verano, R Bianucci, I Martinez Armijo, M González, AG Nerlich
JOURNAL
Frontiers in Medicine
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Trauma of Bone and Soft Tissues in South American Mummies – New Cases Provide Further Insight into Violence and Lethal Outcome
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
9-Sep-2022
King Charles' succession stirs Caribbean calls for removal of monarch as head of state
And an eight-day tour in March by now heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife, Kate, to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas was marked by calls for reparation payments and an apology for slavery.
"As the role of the monarchy changes, we expect this can be an opportunity to advance discussions of reparations for our region," Niambi Hall-Campbell, a 44-year-old academic who chairs the Bahamas National Reparations Committee, said Thursday.
Hall-Campbell sent condolences to the Queen's family and noted Charles' acknowledgment of the "appalling atrocity of slavery" at a ceremony last year marking the end of British rule as Barbados became a republic.
She said she hopes Charles would lead in a way reflecting the "justice required of the times. And that justice is reparatory justice."
More than 10 million Africans were shackled into the Atlantic slave trade by European nations between the 15th and 19th centuries. Those who survived the brutal voyage were forced to labor on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas.
Jamaican reparations advocate Rosalea Hamilton said Charles' comments at the Kigali conference about his personal sorrow over slavery offered "some degree of hope that he will learn from the history, understand the painful impact that many nations have endured 'til today" and address the need for reparations.
The new king did not mention reparations in the Kigali speech.
The Advocates Network, which Hamilton coordinates, published an open letter calling for "apologies and reparations" during William and Kate's visit.
The Queen's grandchildren have the chance to lead the reparations conversation, Hamilton added.
Jamaica's government last year announced plans to ask Britain for compensation for forcibly transporting an estimated 600,000 Africans to work on sugar cane and banana plantations that created fortunes for British slave holders.
"Whoever will take over the position should be asked to allow the royal family to pay African people reparations," said David Denny, general secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, from Barbados.
"We should all work towards removing the royal family as head of state of our nations," he said.
Jamaica has signaled it may soon follow Barbados in ditching royal rule. Both remain members of the Commonwealth.
An August survey showed 56% of Jamaicans favor removing the British monarch as the head of state.
Mikael Phillips, an opposition member of Jamaica's parliament, in 2020 filed a motion backing the removal.
"I am hoping as the prime minister had said in one of his expressions, that he would move faster when there is a new monarch in place," Phillips said on Thursday.
Allen Chastanet, a former St. Lucia prime minister and now leader of the opposition, told Reuters he backed what he said was a "general" movement toward republicanism in his country.
"I certainly at this point would support becoming a republic," he said.
Reuters
Australian republicans offer condolences for Queen but call for debate
Reuters
Publishing date: Sep 09, 2022 •
SYDNEY — Australians on Friday mourned the death of Queen Elizabeth, but republicans also revived a longstanding debate on ending the country’s association with the 1,000-year-old monarchy.
The British monarch is the head of state in Australia, among 14 realms outside the United Kingdom, although the role is largely ceremonial.
Australia has long debated the need to keep a distant monarch. A 1999 referendum in Australia on becoming a republic lost with 55% of voters opposed.
“Our thoughts are with her family and all who loved her. Now Australia must move forward,” said Australian Greens Party leader, a prominent republican.
“We need Treaty with First Nations people, and we need to become a Republic,” he wrote on Twitter.
Bandt was accused, even by some fellow republicans, of being disrespectful by bringing up the issue just hours after the queen’s death.
“Not the right time to call for a republic irrespective of where you sit on the monarchy/ republic spectrum. Not respectful after her long life of service,” one of Bandt’s followers said in response to the tweet.
Bandt’s office did not immediate respond to an email seeking comment.
The Australian Republic Movement also offered condolences while noting that the queen had backed Australia’s right to become a fully independent nation during the 1999 referendum, saying she had affirmed it was “an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spoken in support of moving toward a republic. But on Friday he said: “Today’s a day for one issue and one issue only, which is to pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II.”
Similar debates are occurring in the Caribbean, where Jamaica has signaled it may soon follow Barbados in ditching royal rule.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by William)