Friday, August 28, 2020

Zena Werb (1945–2020)
Zena Werb (1945–2020) | Science
Nancy Boudreau1,
Mina Bissell2

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Science 28 Aug 2020:
Vol. 369, Issue 6507, pp. 1059
DOI: 10.1126/science.abe0952\

Zena Werb, renowned cancer biologist, passed away on 16 June. She was 75 years old. Zena was recognized internationally in the fields of proteolysis, development, and inflammation in breast cancer. Her studies of the development of the mammary gland and its neoplastic conversion during the initiation and progression of breast cancer revolutionized the fields of development and tumor biology and metastasis. Zena also served as a mentor and role model for myriad scientists.

Zena was born in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in March 1945. Her parents had been forced to separate during World War II, but after a fortunate reunion, they moved to Canada in 1948. Zena earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and physiology from the University of Toronto in 1966 and a Ph.D. in cell biology from the Rockefeller University in New York City in 1971. She conducted postdoctoral research at the Strangeways Research Laboratory in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where she studied matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs)—a type of enzyme that breaks down proteins—and then she taught briefly at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. In 1976, she launched her own laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she would spend the rest of her career, most recently as professor and vice-chair in the department of anatomy and the associate director for basic science at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Through her pioneering work, Zena demonstrated the critical roles of MMPs in tissue functions during development and in disease. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, emerging evidence suggested that the extracellular proteins, which were targets of the lytic activity of MMPs, were providing not just structural support for cells but also cues that directly influence cellular signaling and behavior. These interactions between cells and extracellular proteins were suspected to be both dynamic and reciprocal. Zena elegantly showed that when cells bind to the extracellular protein fibronectin through a specific cell-surface receptor, intracellular signaling changes and the cell's production of MMPs increases. This critical piece of data demonstrated the bidirectional nature of interactions between cells and their extracellular environment (i.e., dynamic reciprocity).

Knowing that a complete understanding of MMPs would require the study of the complex biology of a variety of organs and conditions, Zena immersed herself in the biology of bone, mammary and salivary glands, embryonic development, wound healing, and then cancer. When the cancer field was coalescing around the notion that MMP inhibitors might prevent tumor metastasis, Zena was one step ahead. She knew that this strategy would wreak havoc on normal tissue function and potentially exacerbate the disease and also that metastasis was much more involved than simple protease-assisted breaching of basement membranes


Zena Werb, Ph.D, “Queen of the Matrix”: In Memoriam (1945–2020) | Cancer  Research

Zena's research provided a molecular and mechanistic framework for understanding how the extracellular matrix contributed to tissue morphogenesis and remodeling and the tumor microenvironment. Her ground-breaking proposals required both courage and insight. In recognition of her pioneering work, she received the Excellence in Science Award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the E. B. Wilson Medal awarded by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) “for far-reaching contributions to cell biology over a lifetime in science,” and the ASCB Sandra K. Masur Senior Leadership Award. In 2010, Zena was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

I (M.B.) became a close friend and collaborator of Zena's in 1987. I (N.B.) met Zena when I was a postdoctoral fellow in M.B.'s lab; Zena was a co-mentor for our work on cell death and the extracellular matrix. We both remember how excited Zena was about every experiment, regardless of success or failure. She had a passion for exploration and an ability to distill highly complex biological questions into manageable and testable hypotheses.

Sharing knowledge with students was a thrill for Zena. When she taught, her mesmerizing encyclopedic knowledge was on full display. Those who did not know Zena personally were sometimes intimidated by her direct style, which was evident in her keynote lectures and her questions to other presenters. However, her eagerness to ask the difficult questions and her expectation of thoughtful answers were rooted in her passion for good science.

Those of us who were fortunate to know Zena personally found her to be kind-hearted and generous. She was never too busy to provide advice to the many who sought her input. She was sincerely interested in her mentees and loved to engage in lively discussions with colleagues, always showing an interest that extended beyond their ideas to their personal well-being. Her support for students and colleagues was well recognized: The American Association for Cancer Research and its Women in Cancer Research member group gave her the Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship for her meritorious contributions to the field of cancer research and her work advancing women in science. UCSF also honored her with a Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award.

Zena's extraordinary career and research were complemented by her humility and humanity. She will be remembered for her original, creative, and fearless thinking, which led to her seminal work demonstrating how the extracellular environment influences the function of normal and malignant cells. Her rich legacy supporting the careers of others will live on in the scientists she mentored.




Zena Werb 1945–2020

Unlike 30 years ago, when the notion of tumor cells being regulated by cell-extrinsic mechanisms was akin to heresy, the tumor microenvironment (TME) is now recognized as a hallmark of cancer, with a broad community of researchers focusing on how it regulates malignant transformation, metastasis and therapy response. We owe this evolution in thinking to several scientific giants, but perhaps none more impactful in changing the storyline than Zena Werb, our intellectually fearless colleague, beloved mentor and generous friend, who died suddenly on 16 June 2020 at the age of 75.

Zena Werb as a graduate student at Rockefeller University, circa 1971. Credit: Rockefeller Grad – News and Notes. June 1971 Vol 2. No 10.
Zena was a professor and vice chair in the Department of Anatomy at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) for over 40 years and was the associate director for basic science at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her foundational work on macrophage physiology, the extracellular matrix (ECM), mammary gland development, breast cancer and tumor-associated inflammation made her one of the most respected researchers in the world. Zena’s contributions led to numerous awards and honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for Cancer Research, presidency of the American Society of Cell Biology, the E.B. Wilson Medal from the American Society of Cell Biology and the Paget-Ewing Award from the Metastasis Research Society. However, Zena, as a devoted mentor and a fierce advocate for junior faculty and particularly women, took special pride in the UCSF Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award, which she received in 2015. Thus, the story of Zena Werb and the TME is also the story of her dedicated mentoring.
Zena was born in 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp in Germany. After the war, her family emigrated to Canada, and she grew up in a rural community, where she attended a one-room schoolhouse. Following her undergraduate studies, Zena conducted her graduate research with Zanvil A. Cohn at Rockefeller University, focusing on lipid metabolism in macrophages. Despite being biochemically inclined, Zena was enthralled when she first observed macrophages moving in real time under the microscope — an experience that laid the foundation for her later love of cell biology, innate immunity and intravital microscopy. During her postdoctoral training with John T. Dingle at the Strangeways Research Laboratory, in Cambridge, England, she began investigating a new (at the time) family of proteolytic enzymes secreted by fibroblasts, called matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). This class of ECM-remodeling enzymes would comprise another cornerstone of her life’s work. After starting her own lab at Dartmouth Medical School, Zena relocated to UCSF in 1976, where she quickly established her reputation as a rigorous and prolific scientist. Much of her early independent research focused on fibroblast and macrophage MMPs, and she and her first postdoctoral fellow, Michael J. Banda, were the first to purify and characterize MMP12.
Her research on MMPs and their targets led her to study ECM remodeling and resultant cellular behavior, including cell proliferation and survival. Some of her seminal work laid the framework for new fields of research investigating the microenvironmental regulation of developmental processes, tissue homeostasis and disease pathogenesis, including cancer. Establishing these new areas was interwoven with launching the careers of some of her other early trainees, including James McKerrow, Steven Frisch and Caroline Alexander. It was also during this time frame that Zena forged an enduring collaboration with Mina J. Bissell, who introduced her to mammary gland development and cancer. Together they published innovative research that changed the fields of cell biology and cancer, including studies on how ECM remodeling regulates mammary gland branching morphogenesis and involution, stem cell behavior, and cancer cell invasion and metastatic dissemination. This pivotal collaboration also launched the careers of numerous trainees, including Nancy Boudreau, Leif Lund, Andre Lochter, Farrah Kheradmand, Derek Radisky, Bryan Welm, Mark Sternlicht, Laurie Littlepage and Valerie M. Weaver, many of whom are recognized as leaders in their fields. Zena and Mina loved to challenge prevailing dogma. Among their notable work from this period was demonstrating that collagenolytic enzymes lead to the generation of oxygen radicals, and that ECM remodeling regulates growth factor receptor and integrin signaling and controls cell polarity, differentiation, proliferation and death. Among their more groundbreaking discoveries were the findings that MMP overexpression causes epithelial mesenchymal transition and genomic instability in non-transformed mammary epithelial cells, and that MMP overexpression is sufficient to induce tumors in the normal mouse mammary gland.
Another critical collaboration was with Douglas Hanahan. Together with their trainees Thiennu Vu, Gabriele Bergers and Lisa Coussens, they published a series of highly influential papers showing that when MMP9 is secreted by macrophages, mast cells or osteoclasts, it promotes angiogenesis during normal development and cancer. These reports coincided with the development of MMP inhibitors for cancer therapy. Nevertheless, Zena recognized early that some functions of MMPs also paradoxically protect against malignancy, and that the same is true for many TME-derived factors that both promote and inhibit neoplastic progression by context-dependent mechanisms. When MMP-inhibitor efficacy was not realized in the clinic, Zena turned to using MMPs as tools for understanding biology rather than as therapeutic targets. This strategy served as the foundation for mechanistic studies addressing the role of chronic inflammation in cancer, as discussed in a highly cited Nature article coauthored by Lisa Coussens and Zena in 2002.
Zena was scientifically fearless, routinely reinventing herself, while basing her research decisions on rigorous scientific facts. She was excited when findings were contrary to accepted dogma and especially when they went against her own expectations. She often said “the data are the data, and you follow the data.” Beyond steadfastly urging her mentees to follow their data wherever they led, she encouraged them to adopt or develop new technological approaches as needed. One such example was her early adoption of intravital imaging, which she used with Bryan Welm, Andrew Ewald and Mikala Egeblad to study cell invasion during mammary gland branching morphogenesis and cancer. This work yielded new insights into underlying mechanisms and striking similarities between the invasive programs of normal mammary epithelial cells and those of breast cancer cells, as she predicted. When intravital imaging of tumors revealed that non-tumor cells were far more motile than neoplastic cells were, Zena realized that the highly motile cells were monocytes and neutrophils. With Mikala Egeblad and another instrumental collaborator, Matthew Krummel, she refocused her work toward understanding the contributions of innate immune cells to the resistance of tumors to therapy.
In the past several years, Zena was increasingly determined to understand the mechanisms that regulate metastasis. With postdoctoral fellows Devon Lawson and Kai Kessenbrock, she embraced single-cell sequencing to reveal that breast cancer metastases are initiated by stem-like cells, while also using the technique to compare cancer cells with normal breast epithelial cells — an ever-present theme in her research. Until the end, Zena remained highly focused not only on understanding metastasis but also on identifying new biomarkers and therapies, using her encyclopedic knowledge of the ECM and inflammation, and her understanding of normal development.
Zena’s quirky personality endeared her to mentees, whether they were lab members, junior faculty or senior colleagues. Many were treated as family and were nurtured with scientific wisdom and witty remarks (“stressed is desserts spelled backwards” was a favorite line to worried senior trainees), as well as tickets to local museums, the symphony or opera, and Zena’s exceptional cooking. She maintained contact with her mentees as they transitioned into independent positions, and in many instances the mentoring relationships blossomed into deep kinships and productive collaborations — such as those we three experienced with her. With her passing, we grieve the loss of our cherished mentor and collaborator, and our loyal and unfailingly honest friend. Science has lost an original, indefatigable cell biologist and TME researcher. But we remind ourselves that although Zena was big-hearted, she was not sentimental. We can picture her telling us “Now, get on with it! Science needs you, and there’s a whole new generation of trainees who need mentoring.” So we will listen to our dear mentor, roll up our sleeves, nurture our mentees (sadly with our more pedestrian cooking) and follow the data. We — and so many others — carry some of her within us, ensuring that her wisdom, fearlessness and kindness remain, to become part of the fabric within which we pursue the scientific questions we seek to answer.

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Correspondence to Valerie M. Weaver.

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Egeblad, M., Coussens, L.M. & Weaver, V.M. Zena Werb 1945–2020. Nat Cancer 1, 753–754 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-020-0101-z
NASA sees cost ballooning 30% on Boeing rocket for moon missions


Justin Bachman, Bloomberg News

Workers near the top of the 526 ft. Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center spruce up the NASA logo standing on scaffolds in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday, May 20, 2020. , The Associated Press

Boeing Co.’s Space Launch System, the largest rocket in NASA’s history, will carry a price tag of at least US$9.1 billion -- or 30 per cent more than the previous estimate for a key element in the agency’s plan to return to the moon.

Additionally, the costs for new ground infrastructure at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to support the deep-space exploration program has jumped to US$2.4 billion, Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator for human spaceflight, said in a blog post Wednesday. That’s also a 30 per cent increase, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said in an email Thursday.

“NASA has notified Congress of these new commitments, and we are working at the best possible pace toward launch, including streamlining operational flow at Kennedy and assessing opportunities to further improve the efficiency of our integration activities,” Lueders wrote.

The new cost estimates are based on NASA’s pledge to fly the first SLS-powered Artemis mission around the moon, without crew, in November 2021. Addressing the escalating costs, NASA referred to its previous statements on “challenges associated with design development, manufacturing development, first-time production, and initial operations for SLS.”

Coronavirus Uncertainty


While the space agency is confident of meeting the November 2021 flight date, it’s too early to predict the full impact of work delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Lueders said. NASA will follow the first SLS flight with a crewed mission in 2023. A third Artemis flight to put astronauts on the moon is planned for 2024 to meet a challenge set by the Trump administration.

“Boeing is responsible for the rocket core and upper stages and we are making great progress,” the Chicago-based company said in a statement.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., the prime contractor for the ground support work at Kennedy Space Center, didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

In March, a NASA Inspector General report on the SLS program found that the agency has struggled with rising costs and delays, citing “program management, technical issues, and contractor performance.” By the end of the current U.S. fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, NASA will have spent more than US$17 billion on the overall SLS program, according to the report. That’s 60 per cent more than NASA’s 2014 cost estimate.

The next big test for the SLS, which will stand taller than the Statue of Liberty, will be in October when engineers plan to fire all four main RS-25 engines simultaneously and drain the fuel tanks within eight minutes, simulating flight conditions.

NASA approved the rocket’s development in August 2014, setting the cost at US$7.02 billion with a first flight “no later than November 2018.” Throughout its history, the SLS program has enjoyed immense support in the Senate, and Congress has continued to fund the program despite setbacks in cost and schedule.
Germany Set to Start Coal Phaseout Tenders Amid Legal Challenge

As the effort to phase out coal by 2038 begins, the question of whether the market would have done the job sooner lingers.

JOHN PARNELL AUGUST 27, 2020

Germany's coal phaseout plan awaits approval from the European Commission.

The best compromises tend to leave all parties equally dissatisfied. By that measure, the German coal phaseout looks like a great compromise.

The first tender to pay German coal power plants to close will begin next week, and no one is entirely happy. Environmental groups say the closures will come too late to align with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Utilities have asked for swift compensation payouts, but the European Commission has yet to give the program its seal of approval. Even with compensation, utility RWE thinks it will face a €900 million ($1.06 billion) loss from the deal.

In 2018, Germany appointed a commission drawn from industry, government and civil society to find a broadly acceptable way to close the nation’s substantial coal mining and power plant infrastructure. Despite its long-time leadership in wind and solar energy, Germany still had 44 gigawatts of coal plants running at the end of 2019, and parts of the country remain economically reliant on coal.

The final coal deal, approved by Germany's parliament last month, will see all of the country's capacity closed by 2038, with more than half of it shut down by 2030. For €40 billion of compensation to actually start flowing, the European Commission must grant State Aid approval — what essentially amounts to an endorsement that the government is not distorting the market with its payments.

In recent earning calls, RWE, one of the major recipients of compensation, said the European Commission's final approval is not expected until the autumn. Germany is rolling ahead anyway, working under the assumption that Brussels will eventually sign off on the plan.
Coal phaseout process set to begin

The process will compensate shuttering lignite, or "brown coal," plants, which are the most heavily polluting, via a flat rate. RWE and Leag are the only operators with more than 1 gigawatt of affected capacity. RWE is set to receive €2.6 billion; Leag will receive €1.75 billion.

Hard coal plants, or those burning more carbon-dense and less-polluting types of coal, by contrast, will be closed via least-cost tenders. These will be held sporadically through 2024.

There are also compensation packages for workers in mines and power plants who lose their job as a result of the coal exit laws. Those payments will last till 2048 and are estimated at €5 billion.

On September 1, hard-coal plant operators can bid into the first tender for the early closure of 4 gigawatts of generation capacity. The maximum payment per megawatt of capacity shutdown is €165,000 ($196,000) for this initial tender. That price ceiling gradually falls over time, with the final auction capped at €89,000 per megawatt.

So far, the most intense controversy has centered on the flat-rate compensation for the lignite plants, which was calculated behind closed doors. Environmental legal organization ClientEarth has tried, so far in vain, to have these calculations made public. ClientEarth also alleges that the Leag payments are contrary to the EU electricity market regulations.

Maximilian Boemke, a partner at the German office of law firm Watson Farley & Williams, thinks that the calculation of the flat-rate lignite compensation will be key to the European Commission’s decision.

“The EU Commission will have to review if the calculation method, as well as the assumptions, are plausible. We cannot exclude [the possibility] that it might reject the flat-rate calculation in view of the volatility of the energy markets and the costs of CO2 certificates,” Boemke told GTM by email.

Essentially, the argument boils down to whether the new market reality means those plants would have been squeezed out anyway. The merit order system — the method by which European and many other grid operators and energy markets choose the lowest-operating-cost resources to be brought online before more expensive alternatives — means that this is a question of whether natural-gas prices will keep gas-fired plants competitive with coal during its sunset years.
The debate over coal plants' future market prospects

In other words, a €40 billion policy's future at least partly relies on accurate natural-gas forecasting 18 years into the future. There are reasons to doubt that lignite plants being offered the current flat-rate payments to shut down early could remain competitive in the market long enough to earn their equivalent if they were to remain open.


“The lignite plants in the first and second stage of the phaseout will be approaching 50, and in some cases, 60 years of operation when they close,” said Dan Eager, principal analyst for European power at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. “It could be argued...that many of these assets [would] have been decommissioned around this time anyway or risk falling to pieces.”

That’s not a universal story, he pointed out. The youngest plant, Datteln 4, is both flexible and cost-competitive, and it could serve as a useful counterweight to a renewable-heavy grid, carbon emissions aside.

State Aid approval of a previously completed round of German coal closures, which paid lignite plants to go on standby, was approved in 2016. The 2016 mechanism also left the level of compensation up to the energy regulator, but it was set using a formula, rather than a flat rate. This State Aid approval, and another for a €52.5 million payment to Vattenfall for the closure of the Hemweg 8 plant in the Netherlands, suggests the German plan is likely to be approved as well.

But aside from the flat-rate compensation structure, there is another key difference between those approved plans and Germany’s phaseout: Those shutdowns happened in the near term, not over the course of 18 years.

Boemke pointed out that it is a reasonable assumption that the plant closures involved in the 2016 measures were missing out on money-earning years of operations by going on standby or shutting down entirely “According to some studies, this seems less certain for the plants in question today,” he said. “Germany will have to provide evidence to the EU Commission that the plants would not have closed [due to market pressures] before 2030.”

Broadly speaking, however, coal's market prospects are not great.

“Growth in low-short-run-cost renewables, expectations of sustained low gas prices for the next few years, and increasing carbon prices are putting tremendous pressure on the margins of coal-fired assets across Europe," said Wood Mackenzie's Eager. "Our data shows that German coal generation was down 26 percent in 2019 relative to the previous year, with gas generation up 10 percent and renewables up 14 percent. We can expect further reductions once the 2020 results are in."

In many parts of Europe, coal is already on the ropes. A recent report by the think tank Ember estimated that coal power plant utilization rates in the European Union have dropped to 24 percent.

France and the U.K. have both brought forward their own coal phaseouts by a year to 2022 and 2024, respectively. In the U.K., the market has more or less phased out coal this year. It contributed 3 percent of U.K. power in Q1 2020 compared to 39 percent in Q1 2000.

Given what's happening elsewhere in Western Europe, then, critics argue the German phaseout plan locks it into an artificially drawn-out shutdown process.

“Our analysis suggests that the German coal law, and the contracts with operators that it relies on, actually maintains a situation that no longer reflects economic reality. Worse still, it is set to make climate action even more difficult in the future,” said Ida Westphal, an energy lawyer at ClientEarth's Berlin office, in an email.
What if the State Aid approval isn’t granted?

If the State Aid approval is rejected by the EU Commission, an already-lengthy process will be stretched out further. An initial rejection would trigger a month-long public consultation and a fresh round of talks with the authorities.

“The German government and the coal industry could, of course, try to challenge a negative decision by the commission...[in] the EU courts, but that is lengthy, costly and the aid could still not be paid in the meantime — so amending the law could be quicker and more effective,” Westphal said, adding that a challenge in the courts could run in parallel.

With so much work already done to develop the existing coal phaseout laws, anything that jeopardizes it will likely be unpalatable to the government. Utilities might, for example, try to negotiate higher payouts if consideration of the law is reopened.

More likely is that the existing agreement, should it be found deficient by the EC, will be amended until it can be approved.

“Given the long discussions about the phaseout and the [difficulty] of finding a compromise, I do not think that the phaseout plan will be touched again,” said Christine Bader of Watson Farley & Williams.
The Arecibo Telescope Is Damaged — And That's A Big Deal

August 28, 2020





Since its completion in 1963, the Arecibo Observatory has played a key role in discoveries ranging from new insights into pulsars to detecting planets outside our solar system.Universal Images Group via Getty


SCIENCE
Puerto Rico's Arecibo Radio Telescope Damaged By Falling Cable


THE TWO-WAY
Puerto Rico's Arecibo Radio Telescope Suffers Hurricane Damage

In early August a cable snapped at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, causing substantial damage to one of the largest single dish radio telescopes in the world. Planetary scientist Edgard Rivera-Valentín explains what's at stake until the damage can be repaired, and the unique role the telescope plays in both scientific research and popular culture.

This episode was produced by Brit Hanson, fact-checked by Viet Le and edited by Deborah George.

Increase in release of underground CO2 emissions in Italy tied to earthquakes


by Bob Yirka , Phys.org
The amount of CO2 dissolved in groundwater is so large that, in some cases, strong free CO2 emissions are associated with the water discharges. The emission in the picture is located at San Vittorino plain (Rieti) about 30 km far from the epicenter of the April 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. Credit: Giovanni Chiodini - INGV (first author)

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Italy has found a possible link between increases in CO2 emissions from groundwater and earthquake occurrences in Italy's Apennine Mountains. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their decade-long study of CO2 emissions in the area and what they learned about them.


Prior research has shown that carbon dioxide in the air can become trapped in rocks—the resulting rocks are known as carbonates.Additionally, the carbon dioxide in those rocks can be released by heat from within the Earth and other tectonic forces. When the carbon is released, it tends to be sequestered in pockets belowground or in underground reservoirs. Carbon that makes its way into such reservoirs quite often ends up in the nearby water table, and can rise to the surface via springs. In this new effort, the researchers studied fluctuations in the amount of carbon dioxide being released from spring water at several sites in the Apennine Mountains near the site of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake. They did so by collecting samples over the years 2009 to 2018.

As part of their study of the samples they collected, the researchers also looked at seismic data, which, in addition to normal seismic events, also showed occurrences of several small earthquakes. They found that levels of CO2 emissions from spring water in the area rose when there were earthquakes and then dropped again after the quakes were over. More specifically, they found that when quakes of magnitude 6 or higher struck, CO2 emission levels rose to an average of 600 metric tons per day. During quiet periods, CO2 emissions in the same area were typically between 400 and 500 metric tons per day.

The researchers suggest that pressure created by increases in CO2 gas underground might be the factor setting off the earthquakes. They further suggest that if CO2 does set off some earthquakes, measuring it might be a way of predicting some of them. They also note that their findings highlight a source of carbon emissions into the atmosphere that needs to be added to global warming models.
In the Apennine mountains (Italy), the emission of CO2 of deep origin is well correlated with earthquakes occurrence during the last decade. In fact, during 2007-2019, the seismic events (including the destructive events of 2009 and 2016) were accompanied by evident peaks in the amount of deep CO2 dissolved and transported by the groundwaters in the area. In the diagram FCO2 (t d-1) indicates the total amount of CO2 discharged by the large springs in tons per day. Credit: Giovanni Chiodini - INGV (first author)


Explore further
Study shows global warming could push methane emissions from wetlands 50 to 80 percent higher
More information: G. Chiodini et al. Correlation between tectonic CO2 Earth degassing and seismicity is revealed by a 10-year record in the Apennines, Italy, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc2938
Journal information: Science Advances



© 2020 Science X Network
Animated Baby Cthulhu is Monstrously Adorable
Writer H.P. Lovecraft created a whole cadre of ancient “Elder Gods” in his stories. But nearly a century later, it is his creation Cthulhu who looms largest in pop culture. But that’s what happens when you create an enormous being with an octopus-like head, with a tentacle face, scary claws, and long narrow bat-wings sprouting out of its back. He’ll stand out in a crowd.
But like most scary creatures in pop culture, it’s inevitable someone on the internet will eventually give us the cute version. Artist and animator Fernando Alves has made a series of videos which showcase a wee baby Cthulhu, doing all the adorable things babies do. You know, like turning pitch black and flying around the bathroom. And occasionally eating a small kitten.
While a commenter on his YouTube video was dismayed at the fate of the kitty, Alves suggested the little furball could still be alive. “I heard sometimes they spit out their prey… I didn’t see him spitting the cat… I hope so..”
In response to another comment, Alves joked, “Baby Cthulhu eats any living thing small enough to swallow whole, so I give him chicklets, but he loves to hunt insects, rats, pigeons… and some cats and dogs went missing in my neighborhood, and I pretend I don’t know anything… fortunately, human children are too big for him..”
Although Cthulu is his cutest creation, Alves also has a few videos of an equally adorable baby Baphomet. For those of you out there that aren’t Dungeons & Dragons adjacent, Baphomet is the Medieval deity that later got conflated with Satan. The Baphomet imagery is where most modern folks derive their conceptions of the Devil. But Alves’ little Baby Baphomet only look devilishly adorable.
For more of Fernando Alves videos and art, be sure to head on over to his Instagram and YouTube channels.
Featured Image: Fernando Alves

The pandemic has slowed human consumption of Earth's resources — for now 

Earth Overshoot Day: Measuring our consumption of natural resources


(Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
Each year, the Global Footprint Network, an international non-profit organization that aims to draw attention to sustainability, releases an estimate on the day when humanity's demand for ecological resources surpasses what the planet can regenerate in that year.
Called Earth Overshoot Day, it has fallen earlier and earlier based on historical data going back to 1970. But this year, there was a bit of good news: the date moved ahead by three weeks, from July 29 (in 2019) to Aug. 22, owing to a 9.3 per cent reduction in the world's ecological footprint. 
By this calculation, we are living as though we had the resources of 1.6 Earths.
To take a more local perspective, if everyone consumed resources at the rate of Canada, Earth Overshoot Day this year would be March 18. (Put another way, we would need 4.75 Earths in a year.) As a comparison, with a country like Mexico, Earth Overshoot Day would occur on Aug. 17.
According to the Global Footprint Network, Canada's large ecological impact is because of our high land use, fuel consumption and production, as well as how much we import and export.
While the news for 2020 is more positive, the Global Footprint Network warns that it was largely because of the pandemic, which resulted in shutdowns around the world.
"Yes, we reduced our demand, but it is reduced by disaster, not by design," said Mathis Wackernagel, CEO and founder of the Global Footprint Network. 
This isn't without precedent. Similar trends have occurred at times of global crisis, such as the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, the savings and loans crisis in the 1980s and the post-2008 global financial crisis. But every time, as governments try to stimulate the economy and thus increase the demand for resources, our ecological footprint eventually pushes that date earlier and earlier.
Some don't entirely agree with Earth Overshoot Day, saying it doesn't accurately take into account all metrics for measuring our environmental impact. But Wackernagel said that the overarching message is "to translate the numbers in a way that people can understand."
Eric Cole, director of the Ecological Footprint Initiative at York University, which provides the Global Footprint Network with the data, said it is taken from official statistics, including ones provided to United Nations agencies, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, and Comtrade, which collects international trade statistics.
"I would compare this to economic statistics about the world: how much stuff is produced and consumed. It's all very similar." 
Cole said Earth Overshoot Day is another way of looking at the big picture when it comes to trying to plan for sustainable practices. 
"The nice thing about the data is we can use it to answer all kinds of interesting questions, such as if we wanted to, let's say, devote more of our lands to soaking up carbon emissions, what would that take?" he said. "And if we're doing that, we can't also at the same time use them for providing timber products … or we can't also use them for providing housing and commercial areas and so on."
That, he said, helps us look at the limits and trade-offs.
Wackernagel believes Earth Overshoot Day is an important part of looking at our planet and our consumption of finite resources.
"What we provide is a fuel gauge," said Wackernagel. "A plane doesn't only fly with a fuel gauge — but a plane without a fuel gauge is very dangerous."
— Nicole Mortillaro

The push to save a rare ecosystem in Nova Scotia

(Moira Donovan/CBC)
Just outside Kingston, N.S., biologist Sherman Boates crouches over a yellow flower growing out of the sand. "Watch your feet," he says. "It's an endangered species." 
The flower, known as rock rose or Canada frostweed, isn't all that's facing extinction along this stretch of highway. So is its entire habitat, a globally rare ecosystem known as the Annapolis Valley sand barrens. 
The area is "very rare in terms of North America, but many of us locally don't really know that it exists, or how interesting and how important it is," said Boates. 
Over hundreds of years, human activity has reduced the sand barrens to roughly three per cent of their original size. Now, scientists and a community organization called Clean Annapolis River Project are trying to build awareness about the ecosystem to stem further decline.
The Annapolis Valley sand barrens — "barren" because there are few trees and vegetation is low to the ground — are formed by ancient sand deposits running from roughly Kentville to Middleton. "It's quite a big ecosystem," said Boates, but much of it has been destroyed or degraded by activities such as agriculture. 
He said that for decades, scientists had resigned themselves to the disappearance of the habitat. But that's changed thanks to measures such as federal funding aimed at identifying places important for species at risk.
A project aimed at protecting the sand barrens, run by Clean Annapolis River Project, has set out to identify the threats and develop ways to address them. 
While all levels of government have potential roles in the project, community members have a particularly important part to play, said Katie McLean, CARP's communications and outreach co-ordinator. 
"If people can recognize maybe three of these plants that we see covering the ground around us, they're going to start to recognize if they're recreating or if they're living in sand barrens," said McLean.
With that recognition, they may start to take steps to preserve this ecosystem, MacLean said.
In its initial stages, the project is asking people to get involved by helping to document some of the species found in the sand barrens. In future years, the organization hopes to expand to restoration efforts, by encouraging people to change how they manage their land to include more plants that grow naturally in the ecosystem.
The sand barrens wouldn't support growth of Kentucky bluegrass lawns, "but a lot of people want their lawns to look like that," said McLean. "Unfortunately, [sand barrens] has a bad reputation. I recall one person kind of lamenting … 'How do we get rid of it?' So there's still that work to do to help people understand that this is something we should be excited to see and celebrate."
In the long term, McLean said the work CARP is doing now could help make a case for designating the sand barrens as an entire ecosystem in need of protection. Sherman Boates agrees.
"Just like we don't want to see the piping plover disappear, we don't want to see the Annapolis Valley sand barrens get smaller and smaller, and more and more degraded, and blink out before we even know."
— Moira Donovan

The Big Picture: Wildfire damage in the U.S.

It's been a week of hellacious weather in the U.S. While the country is contending with Hurricane Laura on its southern coast, California is in the middle of another pitched battle with wildfires. It is estimated that 90 per cent of wildfires are caused by humans (either deliberately or through negligence), but scientists say that climate change tends to make them worse. While California has become synonymous with fires, it isn't the only state with this problem. The graphic below shows the states with the highest susceptibility to wildfires — and how many homes are at risk of damage.
(CBC)