Floating gardens: More than just a pretty place

Research presented at the 2020 GSA Annual Meeting

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Research News

 

IMAGE: FLOATING GARDEN IN SUMMER. view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT ABIGAIL HEATH.

Boulder, Colo., USA: Floating gardens sound so idyllic. Now, a study proves that they are more than just a pretty place. The study, by researchers at Illinois State University, demonstrates that such constructed gardens can have a measurable, positive impact on water quality.

Floating gardens are essentially rafts built on a frame of plastic caging, wrapped in coconut husks, and filled in with native plantings. As plants grow, they extend their roots into the water, growing hydroponically. On Chicago's North Branch of the Chicago River, non-profit Urban Rivers and partners are developing a mile-long, floating eco-park. Dubbed the Wild Mile, the re-development of this former industrial canal is Urban Rivers' flagship project. As part of the park, floating gardens, attached to shore, are being installed.

The primary intent of the floating gardens is beautification. But the Illinois State team, from the University's Department of Geology, Geography, and the Environment, saw an ideal setup for a controlled experiment. "We got involved because it's the perfect opportunity to see if there's an impact on water quality," explains lead author Abigail Heath.

Heath will present the results of the study in an online talk on Tuesday from 10:45 to 11:00 a.m. EDT, during the Geological Society of America's annual meeting.

The study is novel: previous studies have explored floating gardens' impact on water quality over time, primarily in wastewater treatment ponds, but not over space, in moving water. The project also meshes well with Urban Rivers' broader goals. "The city is interested in water quality," says Phil Nicodemus, Urban Rivers Director of Research. "Happily, Illinois State got involved.

Starting in spring 2018, Heath and co-authors have sampled water immediately upstream and downstream of a narrow 3 meter by 50 meter floating garden installed along the shoreline. Samples are collected weekly, at the surface and from 0.3 meters deep, the depth where roots reach from the garden's base into the water. Although the garden is set at the edge of Chicago's urban core, water quality is also impacted by upstream agriculture. Analyses are focused on nutrients including nitrate as nitrogen, chloride, sulfate, and phosphate.

Could this small slice of human-made paradise improve water quality? An average of data collected over the course of the study show modest but definitive improvement. For example, nitrate as nitrogen dropped from 4.69 milligrams per liter in surface water just upstream of the garden to 4.43 milligrams per liter just downstream, a drop of about 1 percent. Phosphate was also lower downstream of the garden.

"Despite how small this garden was there was measurable improvement in water quality from upstream to downstream, especially for nitrates," notes Heath. She and colleagues see this as a scalable model for how larger floating gardens might help remediate water in similar settings. "Even this tiny garden makes a difference," she says.

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Contact: Abigail Heath
Illinois State University
Department of Geography, Geology and the Environment
Felmly Hall 206
Campus Box 4400
Normal, Illinois 61790-4400
aheath1@ilstu.edu
Phone (Dr. Eric Peterson): 309-438-7865

FEATURED ABSTRACT:
60-4: Assessment of Floating Gardens to Improve the Water Quality of the Chicago River (10:45 a.m. EDT) https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2020AM/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/355783

The Geological Society of America, founded in 1888, is a scientific society with over 20,000 members from academia, government, and industry in more than 100 countries. Through its meetings, publications, and programs, GSA enhances the professional growth of its members and promotes the geosciences in the service of humankind. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, GSA encourages cooperative research among earth, life, planetary, and social scientists, fosters public dialogue on geoscience issues, and supports all levels of earth-science education.

https://www.geosociety.org

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Ancient Maya Built Sophisticated Water Filters


Ancient Maya in the once-bustling city of Tikal built sophisticated water filters using natural materials they imported from miles away, according to the University of Cincinnati.

UC researchers discovered evidence of a filter system at the Corriental reservoir, an important source of drinking water for the ancient Maya in what is now northern Guatemala.

A multidisciplinary team of UC anthropologists, geographers and biologists identified crystalline quartz and zeolite imported miles from the city. The quartz found in the coarse sand along with zeolite, a crystalline compound consisting of silicon and aluminum, create a natural molecular sieve. Both minerals are used in modern water filtration.

The filters would have removed harmful microbes, nitrogen-rich compounds, heavy metals such as mercury and other toxins from the water, said Kenneth Barnett Tankersley, associate professor of anthropology and lead author of the study.

“What’s interesting is this system would still be effective today and the Maya discovered it more than 2,000 years ago,” Tankersley said.

UC’s discovery was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The Maya created this water filtration system nearly 2,000 years before similar systems were used in Europe, making it one of the oldest water treatment systems of its kind in the world, Tankersley said.

Researchers from UC’s College of Arts and Sciences traced the zeolite and quartz to steep ridges around the Bajo de Azúcar about 18 miles northeast of Tikal. They used X-ray diffraction analysis to identify zeolite and crystalline quartz in the reservoir sediments.

At Tikal, zeolite was found exclusively in the Corriental reservoir.

For the ancient Maya, finding ways to collect and store clean water was of critical importance. Tikal and other Maya cities were built atop porous limestone that made ready access to drinking water difficult to obtain for much of the year during seasonal droughts.

UC geography professor and co-author Nicholas Dunning, who has studied ancient civilizations most of his career, found a likely source of the quartz and zeolite about 10 years ago while conducting fieldwork in Guatemala.

“It was an exposed, weathered volcanic tuff of quartz grains and zeolite. It was bleeding water at a good rate,” he said. “Workers refilled their water bottles with it. It was locally famous for how clean and sweet the water was.”

Dunning took samples of the material. UC researchers later determined the quartz and zeolite closely matched the minerals found at Tikal.

UC assistant research professor Christopher Carr, an expert in geographic information system mapping, also conducted work on the UC projects at Bajo de Azúcar and Corriental.

“It was probably through very clever empirical observation that the ancient Maya saw this particular material was associated with clean water and made some effort to carry it back,” Dunning said.

UC anthropology professor emeritus Vernon Scarborough, another co-author, said most research on ancient water management has tried to explain how civilizations conserved, collected or diverted water.

“The quality of water put to potable ends has remained difficult to address,” Scarborough said. “This study by our UC team has opened the research agenda by way of identifying the quality of a water source and how that might have been established and maintained.”

Of course, reconstructing the lives, habits and motivations of a civilization 1,000 years ago is tricky.

“We don’t have absolute proof, but we have strong circumstantial evidence,” Dunning said. “Our explanation makes logical sense.”

“This is what you have to do as an archaeologist,” UC biologist and co-author David Lentz said. “You have to put together a puzzle with some of the pieces missing.”

Lentz said the filtration system would have protected the ancient Maya from harmful cyanobacteria and other toxins that might otherwise have made people who drank from the reservoir sick.

“The ancient Maya figured out that this material produced pools of clear water,” he said.

Complex water filtration systems have been observed in other ancient civilizations from Greece to Egypt to South Asia, but this is the first observed in the ancient New World, Tankersley said.

“The ancient Maya lived in a tropical environment and had to be innovators. This is a remarkable innovation,” Tankersley said. “A lot of people look at Native Americans in the Western Hemisphere as not having the same engineering or technological muscle of places like Greece, Rome, India or China. But when it comes to water management, the Maya were millennia ahead.”

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Header Image Credit – ohhenry415 – CC BY-SA 2.0

Chilling find shows how Henry VIII planned every detail of Boleyn beheading

Archives discovery shows the calculated nature of the execution and reinforces the image of the king as a ‘pathological monster’

The execution of Anne Boleyn, on 19 May, 1536, was conducted by a French swordsman to limit her pain. Photograph: Bettmann Archive

Dalya Alberge
Sun 25 Oct 2020 THE GUARDIAN


It is a Tudor warrant book, one of many in the National Archives, filled with bureaucratic minutiae relating to 16th-century crimes. But this one has an extraordinary passage, overlooked until now, which bears instructions from Henry VIII explaining precisely how he wanted his second wife, Anne Boleyn, to be executed.

In this document, the king stipulated that, although his queen had been “adjudged to death… by burning of fire… or decapitation”, he had been “moved by pity” to spare her the more painful death of being “burned by fire”. But he continued: “We, however, command that… the head of the same Anne shall be… cut off.”

Tracy Borman, a leading Tudor historian, described the warrant book as an astonishing discovery, reinforcing the image of Henry VIII as a “pathological monster”. She told the Observer: “As a previously unknown document about one of the most famous events in history, it really is golddust, one of the most exciting finds in recent years. What it shows is Henry’s premeditated, calculating manner. He knows exactly how and where he wants it to happen.” The instructions laid out by Henry are for Sir William Kingston, constable of the Tower, detailing how the king would rid himself of the “late queen of England, lately our wife, lately attainted and convicted of high treason”.

Boleyn was incarcerated in the Tower of London on 2 May 1536 for adultery. At her trial, she was depicted as unable to control her “carnal lusts”. She denied the charges but was found guilty of treason and condemned to be burned or beheaded at “the King’s pleasure”.

Most historians agree the charges were bogus – her only crime had been her failure to give Henry a son. The most famous king in English history married six times in his relentless quest for a male heir. He divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to marry Boleyn – the marriage led him to break with the Catholic church and brought about the English Reformation. Boleyn did bear him a daughter, who became Elizabeth I.

Anne’s real ‘crime’ was her failure to produce a male heir.

 Photograph: Roger-Viollet/Rex Features

In recent years, the story of Boleyn’s life and death have reached a new audience thanks to Hilary Mantel’s bestselling saga tracing the life of Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith’s son who became one of Henry VIII’s most trusted advisers. In the Booker-prize-winning Bring Up the Bodies, she explored the destruction of Boleyn, writing of her execution: “Three years ago when she went to be crowned, she walked on a blue cloth that stretched the length of the abbey… Now she must shift over the rough ground… with her body hollow and light and just as many hands around her, ready to retrieve her from any stumble and deliver her safely to death.”

The warrant book reveals that Henry worked out details such as the exact spot for the execution (“upon the Green within our Tower of London”), making clear Kingston should “omit nothing” from his orders.

Borman is joint chief curator for Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that manages the Tower of London, among other sites. She will include the discovery in her forthcoming Channel 5 series, The Fall of Anne Boleyn, which begins in December.

She had visited the National Archives to study the Anne Boleyn trial papers when archivist Sean Cunningham, a Tudor expert, drew her attention to a passage he had discovered in a warrant book. Most of these warrants are “just the minutiae of Tudor government”, she said. “They’re pretty dull. The Tudors were great bureaucrats, and there are an awful lot of these warrant books and account books within the National Archives… It’s thanks to Sean’s eye for detail that it was uncovered.”

Borman argues that, despite the coldness of the instructions, the fact Henry spared Boleyn from being burned – a slow, agonising death – was a real kindness by the standards of the day. A beheading with an axe could also involve several blows, and Henry had specified that Boleyn’s head should be “cut off’, which meant by sword, a more reliable form of execution, but not used in England, which is why he had Cromwell send to Calais for a swordsman.

Henry’s instructions were not followed to the letter, though, partly due to a series of blunders, Borman said. “The execution didn’t take place on Tower Green, which is actually where we still mark it at the Tower today. More recent research has proved that… it was moved to opposite what is today the Waterloo Block, home of the crown jewels.”

She added: “Because we know the story so well, we forget how deeply shocking it was to execute a queen. They could well have got the collywobbles and thought we’re not going to do this. So this is Henry making really sure of it. For years, his trusty adviser Thomas Cromwell has got the blame. But this shows, actually, it’s Henry pulling the strings.”

• This article was amended on 26 October 2020. An earlier version said that Anne Boleyn “refuted the charges”. To clarify: she “denied the charges”.

 

Postpartum depression may persist three years after giving birth

NIH study suggests women with mood disorders, gestational diabetes may have a higher risk

NIH/EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Research News

 

A National Institutes of Health study of 5,000 women has found that approximately 1 in 4 experienced high levels of depressive symptoms at some point in the three years after giving birth. The rest of the women experienced low levels of depression throughout the three-year span. The study was conducted by researchers at NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). It appears in the journal Pediatrics.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that pediatricians screen mothers for postpartum depression at well-child visits at one, two, four and six months after childbirth. Researchers identified four trajectories of postpartum depressive symptoms and the factors that may increase a woman's risk for elevated symptoms. The findings suggest that extending screening for postpartum depressive symptoms for at least two years after childbirth may be beneficial, the authors write.

"Our study indicates that six months may not be long enough to gauge depressive symptoms," said Diane Putnick, Ph.D., the primary author and a staff scientist in the NICHD Epidemiology Branch. "These long-term data are key to improving our understanding of mom's mental health, which we know is critical to her child's well-being and development."

The researchers analyzed data from the Upstate KIDS study, which included babies born between 2008 and 2010 from 57 counties in New York State. The study followed 5,000 women for three years after their children were born.

Researchers assessed women's symptoms through a brief, five-item depression screening questionnaire, but the study did not clinically diagnose depression in the women. Women with underlying conditions, such as mood disorders and/or gestational diabetes, were more likely to have higher levels of depressive symptoms that persisted throughout the study period.

The researchers noted that the study participants were primarily white, non-Hispanic women. Future studies should include a more diverse, broad population to provide more inclusive data on postpartum depression, Dr. Putnick said.

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Reference
Putnick, D, et al. Trajectories of Postpartum Depressive Symptoms. Pediatrics. September 2020.

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD):

NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit http://www.nichd.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):

NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov

How Last Year's Pandemic Simulation Foreshadowed Covid-19

GIZMONDO

https://gizmodo.com/how-last-years-pandemic-simulation-foreshadowed-covid-1-1845484059

One year ago, at the last minute, I decided to attend a presentation held by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at a Manhattan hotel facing Central Park. Epidemiologists, economists, and other public health experts ran a simulation of what a realistic pandemic would look in the modern world. The basic conclusion of the Event 201 exercise—that we were nowhere near ready to handle the next outbreak—has proven frightfully true over the past year.

“It has been a bit surreal to see so many of the story elements in Event 201 play out in real life, but also sad”

To be very clear, Event 201 did not preview a “plan” for covid-19, as the conspiracy-soaked corners of the internet now argue. Their fictional germ was also a coronavirus related to SARS, but that’s nothing to raise an eyebrow at; scientists have long worried about the potential for coronaviruses in the wild to cross over to humans and spark the next major epidemic. There are also plenty of clear differences between the mock pandemic of the fictional CAPS (Coronavirus Acute Pulmonary Syndrome) and covid-19, such as their respective origins. Even if you wanted to humor the conspiracy angle, you’d have to wonder why anyone would publicly reveal their grand plan (for a never-explained goal) months before schedule, like a Z-grade Scooby Doo villain.

We're Not Ready for the Next Pandemic
If the seeds of a pandemic illness were planted tomorrow, how would the world fare? Well, according

But having attended Event 201, I can say that it certainly foreshadowed at least some of the world’s response to covid-19. Go ahead and read this section from my write-up and see if any of it rings familiar:

Within the first few months, CAPS spread to several countries, aided by international travel and the fact that, like with many real-life diseases, not all people infected with the virus ended up sick and others only experienced mild flu-like symptoms. As it raged on in poorer and richer countries alike, governments and pundits squabbled about where to allocate money and resources, including experimental antiviral drugs. Social media outlets also fanned the flames by allowing trolls and even governments to spread disinformation about CAPS, such as blaming foreigners for the problem; that in turn made people even less likely to trust public health experts.

There have been genuinely unexpected bright spots during our real-life pandemic. Scientists around the world were able to quickly band together and study the coronavirus, leading to a diagnostic test in a matter of weeks. And the breakthrough pace in developing potential vaccines has been nothing short of remarkable. It’s possible, even likely, that we could have a successful vaccine ready to go into mass production by early next year. Many countries throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe have also had success in avoiding the worst of the viral illness, and some have even been able to resume some semblance of normal life through a hard-fought suppression of outbreaks within their borders.

“The positive surprise is that measures to flatten the curve worked so well—much better than expected,” Eric Toner, a senior scholar with the Center for Health Security and project director of Event 201, said in an email. “The flip side is that many governments gave up on them too soon.”

Indeed, the broad strokes of Event 201’s forecast have been uncannily accurate.

The U.S., in particular, has failed by every metric to combat covid-19, leading to a death toll of over 220,000 Americans and counting—by far the deadliest single epidemic seen in the country in over a century. Led by President Trump and the GOP, the federal government has routinely downplayed the pandemic, while Trump blames everyone but himself—especially China—for these deaths. This weekend, the White House’s Mark Meadows all but announced the country’s surrender to the coronavirus, stating it wasn’t possible to control its spread.

Though most if not all other countries have fared better than the U.S., much of the world is now facing a second wave, and over a million people worldwide have died. Hard-hit hospitals are still struggling to secure essential medical resources. Disinformation about covid-19 continues to spread largely unchecked on Facebook and Twitter, not to mention from Trump’s mouth.

“It has been a bit surreal to see so many of the story elements in Event 201 play out in real life, but also sad, because we included them in the scenario because they reflect many of the policy mistakes that are often made in large epidemics,” Toner said.

The moral of Event 201 wasn’t that a pandemic and its effects could be entirely prevented. Past a certain point, once a novel and highly contagious disease has gone global, there’s only so much you can do. The real hard work is supposed to come beforehand, as Toner himself noted when we spoke last year. Back then, he warned about the need to stockpile medical supplies—another concern that proved unfortunately correct during this pandemic.

Look at This Horrible, Horrible Map
Here’s the most depressing map you’re likely to see this week, courtesy of Anthony Fauci, head of…Read more

Like all natural disasters, covid-19 will eventually come to an end. But it’s only a matter of time before the next potential pandemic rears its microscopic head. Hopefully, the experiences of covid-19 will provide enough of an incentive for countries and other parties to invest in the things that will either prevent pandemics from starting, like widescale disease surveillance, or in the crucial resources needed once a pandemic has begun, like protective equipment for medical workers. But just judging from our recent track record, that’s going to be a tall order.Subscribe to our newsletter!

“Event 201 illustrated, among other things, the need for robust, consistent, evidence-based, and truthful communications from governments,” Toner said. “We did anticipate that there could be disinformation from governments, but we underestimated the degree to which it would occur.”

Vampire bats social distance when they get sick

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS USA

Research News

 

IMAGE: A NEW PAPER IN BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY FINDS THAT WILD VAMPIRE BATS THAT ARE SICK SPEND LESS TIME NEAR OTHERS FROM THEIR COMMUNITY, WHICH SLOWS HOW QUICKLY A DISEASE WILL SPREAD.... view more 

CREDIT: SHERRI AND BROCK FENTON/BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY

A new paper in Behavioral Ecology, published by Oxford University Press, finds that wild vampire bats that are sick spend less time near others from their community, which slows how quickly a disease will spread. The research team had previously seen this behavior in the lab, and used a field experiment to confirm it in the wild.

As a pathogen spreads across a population, changes in social behavior can alter how the disease spreads. Transmission rates can increase when parasites change host behavior or decrease when healthy individuals avoid sick ones. In certain social insects, sick ones might self-isolate voluntarily or be excluded by their colony mates. A simpler mechanism causing reduced transmission is that infected animals often show sickness behavior, which includes increased lethargy and sleep, and reduced movement and sociality. This sickness-induced social distancing does not require cooperation from others and is probably common across species.

Researchers here conducted a field experiment to investigate how sickness behavior affects relationships over time using a dynamic social network created from high-resolution proximity data. After capturing 31 adult female vampire bats from a roost inside a hollow tree at Lamanai, Belize, researchers simulated "sick" bats by injecting a random half of bats with the immune-challenging substance, lipopolysaccharide, while the control group received saline injections.

Over the next three days, the researchers glued proximity sensors to the bats, released them back into their hollow tree, and tracked changes over time in the associations among all 16 "sick" bats and 15 control bats under natural conditions.

Compared to control bats, "sick" bats associated with fewer groupmates, spent less time with others, and were less socially connected to healthy groupmates when considering both direct and indirect connections. During the six hours of the treatment period, a 'sick' bat associated on average with four fewer associates than a control bat. A control bat had, on average, a 49% chance of associating with each control bat, but only a 35% chance of associating with each "sick" bat. During the treatment period, "sick" bats spent 25 fewer minutes associating per partner. These differences declined after the treatment period and when the bats were sleeping or foraging outside the roost.

"The sensors gave us an amazing new window into how the social behavior of these bats changed from hour to hour and even minute to minute during the course of the day and night, even while they are hidden in the darkness of a hollow tree," said the study's lead author, Simon Ripperger. "We've gone from collecting data every day to every few seconds."

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The paper "Tracking sickness effects on social encounters via continuous proximity-sensing in wild vampire bats" is available (at midnight on October 27) at: https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/araa111.

 

The BrainHealth project could create a resilient economy

As part of a global collaboration, the Center for BrainHealth proposes a holistic economic reimagination that focuses on brain health to improve employees' resilience

CENTER FOR BRAINHEALTH

Research News

 

DALLAS (October 26, 2020) - After the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the global economy, scientists at the Center for BrainHealth®, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, worked with researchers across the world to develop a science-based plan that could help the economy recover and prevent similar collapses in the future. The Brain Capital Grand Strategy is an economic reimagination wherein organizations invest in employees' brain health as a critical, measurable asset. Improving brain health - emotional, behavioral and cognitive functioning - helps people tap into their brain's limitless potential, catalyze innovative thinking and improve their productivity, in turn strengthening the transforming economy.

The paper was recently published in Molecular Psychiatry. The Brain Capital Grand Strategy was a massive collaborative effort by numerous researchers, including Sandra Bond Chapman, PhD, founder and chief director of the Center for BrainHealth, and Ian Robertson, PhD, both co-directors of The BrainHealth Project. The author group also included experts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Science has shown that many people think about intellect as fixed. This is inaccurate and limits the potential of the human mind. The BrainHealth Project - the largest scientific study to redefine brain health and provide strategies for improving and maintaining the brain's performance - is central to the Brain Capital Grand Strategy. The BrainHealth Project defines brain health as a holistic health measure that includes components like a person's psychological well-being, social adeptness, and capacity for innovation.

This measure, known as the BrainHealth Index™, could serve as a predictor of when a community, corporation or country have the wherewithal to be resilient.

"The BrainHealth Index will be a central component of the Brain Capital strategy," said Harris Eyre, MD PhD, the senior author on the paper. "This measurement of brain health will allow for us to track, benchmark and implement the Brain Capital Grand Strategy in policy. This Index can also be used by executives, human resource managers and board members," he said.

In today's economy, many jobs require strong cognitive, emotional and social skills. Holistic education and policies promoting brain health through investment in brain capital could help people build cognitive resilience. Cognitive resilience is crucial in an economy where brain skills are central to productivity, especially in the midst of massive change. By redefining brain health and improving employees' resilience, The BrainHealth Project provides an avenue for lasting economic reform.

"Brain Capital is the economic benefit that accrues from keeping our brains powered at the highest level," said Dr. Chapman. "This is exactly what The BrainHealth Project is all about: helping people everywhere realize that they have this limitless power to become a more resilient version of themselves at all ages."

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About Center for BrainHealth

The Center for BrainHealth, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, is a research institute committed to enhancing, preserving and restoring brain health across the lifespan. Scientific exploration at the Center for BrainHealth is leading edge, improving lives today and translating groundbreaking discoveries into practical clinical application. By delivering science-based innovations that enhance how people think, work and live, the Center and its Brain Performance Institute™ are empowering people of all ages to unlock their brain potential. Major research areas include the use of functional and structural neuroimaging techniques to better understand the neurobiology supporting cognition and emotion in health and disease.

Further funding: Jean-Jacques DeGroof and other sponsors of the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering National Institute of Mental Health R01 grant (R01MH094151-01 to DJ [PI]), and the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the University of California San Diego. GBHI ALZ UK-20-640170 and from Oregon Health Authority. NIMH, NIA, NCCIH, NIAMS, PCORI, Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation. E. NIH, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Red Cross, Greater Houston Community Foundation, ReBuild Texas. CONICET, ANID/FONDAP/15150012, the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), GBHI ALZ UK-20-639295, and the Multi-partner Consortium to Expand Dementia Research in Latin America (ReDLat; NIH NIA R01 AG057234, Alzheimer's Association SG-20-725707, Tau Consortium, and Global Brain Health Institute).

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Common liverwort study has implications for crop manipulation

A new study on genetic pathways in the common liverwort could have future implications for crop manipulation

MONASH UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

A new study on genetic pathways in the common liverwort could have future implications for crop manipulation.

The findings of the US-led study, co-authored by genetic biologist Professor John Bowman from the Monash University School of Biological Sciences, are published today in Nature Plants.

Earlier this year researchers confirmed a new role for the well-known plant molecule known as 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC), providing the first clear example of it acting on its own as a likely plant hormone.

ACC is the precursor of the plant hormone ethylene which has many roles in growth and development.

"Ethylene was the first gaseous hormone identified over 100 years ago in flowering plants," explains Professor Bowman.

"It is the 'ripening hormone', that is, the one bad apple spoils the lot," he said.

"The ethylene signalling pathway has been characterised in flowering plants, and its disruption results in a number of defects, including fruit ripening.

However, land plants evolved from an aquatic alga, and genes encoding the ethylene signalling pathway can be found in extant algae, and were likely acquired from the cyanobacterial endosymbiont that evolved into the chloroplast, suggesting the pathway long predated the evolution of fruit ripening.

"Being able to understand and control ethylene production has major implications for agriculture and horticulture."

Professor Bowman and collaborators investigated the ethylene signalling pathway in the liverwort Marchantia, and showed that while ethylene acted as a signalling molecule similar to the situation in flowering plants, the enzymatic precursor to ethylene in flowering plants, ACC, was a biologically active molecule as well.

"As liverworts do not make ethylene via ACC, it suggests that ACC was a biologically active molecule in the ancestral land plant, and that the ethylene pathway as we know it in flowering plants evolved via co-option of pre-existing pathways," Professor Bowman said.

"These pathways likely still exist in flowering plants and may be able to be manipulated to affect ethylene signalling, and its incumbent biological processes in crop plants," he said.

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PALEONTOLOGISTS IN MONGOLIA UNEARTH STRIKING NEW SPECIES OF HIGH-FLYING PTEROSAUR

Oct 26, 2020, 7:21 PM EDT (Updated)

Gliding over the primeval landscape of ancient China like a living jet airliner, pterosaurs were the kings of the airways during the Age of the Dinosaurs and existed in their prime between 210 and 65 million years ago on Earth.

These magnificent airborne reptiles were the planet's first flying vertebrates, arriving far earlier than bats or birds, and many species, like the giant azhdarchids, were the biggest soaring creatures ever to have existed, with impressive wingspans of more than 30 feet and standing as tall as today's African bull elephants and even adult male giraffes.

Credit: Chuang Zhao

Adding to the awesome aviary of lofty pterosaurs, a freshly identified species officially named Ordosipterus planignathus has just been identified and detailed in a new report recently published in the online journal China Geology. Unearthed in remote Inner Mongolia, Ordosipterus planignathus thrived in the Early Cretaceous period between 120 and 110 million years ago.

This new genus and species was catalogued based on fossilized specimens of its incomplete lower jaws unearthed in the Luohandong Formation near Xinzhao village in Inner Mongolia, China. It's a member of the Dsungaripteridae family of evolved pterosaurs that can be added to the group of several similar genera and species previously found in Asia and South America.



Credit: Shu-an Ji, doi: 10.31035/cg2020007.

“As a member of the Dsungaripteridae family, Ordosipterus planignathus enlarges the geographical distribution of the dsungaripterid pterosaurs from the northwestern China — with western Mongolia — to central North China,” explained Dr. Shu-an Ji, a paleontologist in the Institute of Geology at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and the Key Laboratory of Stratigraphy and Palaeontology at China’s Ministry of Natural Resources. “The specimen consists of the anterior portion of articulated lower jaws, with a partial tooth and several alveoli. The rostral tip of the mandibular symphysis is missing. The preserved segments of the left and right dentaries measure 7.7 cm (3 inches) and 4.5 cm (1.8 inches) long, respectively.”

Geosternbergia pterosaurs fighting over small fish. Credit: Getty Images

Ordosipterus planignathus represents the first definitive pterosaur hailing from the Ordos Region in Inner Mongolia, and only the second pterosaur species from the same territory after Huanhepterus quingyangensis in China's Gansu Province.

“This fossil further strengthens the opinion that the northern China and Mongolia belong to a unique and endemic dinosaur biogeographic realm featured by the presence of Psittacosaurus and pterosaurs during the Early Cretaceous period," he added.

MORE DINOSAURS

Terrifying new species of turkey-like dinosaur discovered in the Gobi Desert

9-year-old boy searching for walnut cracker discovers nest full of dinosaur eggs

POLITICS

Wheeler asks DOJ to probe 'foreign 

influence' over enviros

Kevin Bogardus, E&E News reporter Published: Monday, October 26, 2020

 ALBERTA HAS AN ANTI-GREEN WAR ROOM

DOING THE SAME THING ABOUT US GREEN

INVOLVEMENT IN CANADA 

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. @EPAAWheeler/Twitter

This story was updated at 10:15 p.m. EDT.

Prompted by concerns raised by Republican lawmakers, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether environmental groups should register as agents for foreign governments.

Wheeler said in a letter today that EPA will turn to DOJ's Foreign Agents Registration Unit given Republican lawmakers' worries about overseas money being given to green groups.

"Given heightened concern that foreign countries, primarily China and Russia, are potentially funding U.S.-based 'green' groups to undermine American energy independence and to help maintain the integrity of EPA's decision-making, EPA will refer this matter to the DOJ FARA Unit," Wheeler said.

"The DOJ can then determine what appropriate steps to take, if any, including whether those entities should be registered as a foreign agent," he said.

Wheeler noted it's not a violation of law for nonprofit groups to accept foreign funding. In addition, foreign groups can submit comments to EPA and meet with U.S. government officials. He stressed, however, "foreign influence should not be covert."

In his letter, Wheeler was responding to concerns raised by Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas).

The EPA administrator added, "Should additional groups, beyond those listed in your letter, including any funded by Sea Change Foundation, be identified as potential sources of foreign influence EPA will refer those matters to DOJ as well."

EPA Chief of Staff Mandy Gunasekara also tweeted out Wheeler's letter.

"If not properly disclosed, this could be a violation of the law," she said. "We are on it."

Gooden had asked EPA in an Oct. 8 letter to investigate some environmental groups.

"I respectfully request that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conduct a swift and thorough investigation into foreign influence, financial involvement, and election interference by a number of environmental groups in the United States, including the Sea Change Foundation, the Sierra Club, and the Sunrise Movement," Gooden said.

"Based on information recently brought to my attention, I believe there is considerable evidence of foreign interference in our government, perpetrated through environmental groups like these taking shelter behind the non-profit status of donor anonymity," he wrote.

The Sea Change Foundation referred E&E News to a July 2018 statement from Nat Simons, its director. Simons said press reports saying Klein Ltd., a Bermuda-based charity affiliated with the group and renamed Sea Change Foundation International Ltd., has received funding from outside sources are "factually incorrect and have no basis."

"Neither Klein nor Sea Change Foundation has ever solicited or accepted contributions from non-family related sources," Simons said.

A spokesman for the Sierra Club referred E&E News to a response from Melinda Pierce, the group's legislative director, in 2017.

"If congressional Republicans are so concerned about Russian influence, they should start seriously investigating that country's interference in our election, not attacking long-standing environmental organizations," Pierce told Politico at the time.

Erin Bridges, the Sunrise Movement's fundraising director, said in a statement shared with E&E News that there were "no grounds for this accusation."

"This is nothing less than a bogus far-right conspiracy propped up by Trump's corrupt EPA head, Andrew Wheeler, who is a former coal and gas lobbyist. It's another exhausted attempt from fossil fuel cronies to conjure up some vast conspiracy theory that's been debunked again and again," Bridges said. She also noted Gooden has received campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry's PACs and executives.

"We're not intimidated by the Congressman who is bankrolled by fossil fuel executives in order to do their bidding," Bridges said.

Other Republican lawmakers have long sought to tie environmental activists to foreign governments. Last month, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) requested DOJ investigate several green groups for "potential foreign influence" in a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr (E&E Daily, Sept. 17).

The environmental movement has been heavily critical of the Trump administration over its moves to roll back several environmental regulations. It has also been a big financial backer of President Trump's Democratic opponent in the presidential campaign, Joe Biden, and other Democratic candidates.

Twitter: @KevinBogardusEmail: kbogardus@eenews.n