It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
IMAGE: TEMPERATURES WERE MEASURED AT 35 GROUNDWATER STATIONS IN BAVARIA, GERMANY view more
CREDIT: APPLIED GEOLOGY / UNI HALLE
Groundwater reservoirs in Bavaria have warmed considerably over the past few decades. A new study by researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) compares temperatures at 35 measuring stations, taken at different depths, with data from the 1990s. Water found at a depth of 20 metres was almost one degree warmer on average than 30 years ago. The findings were published in the journal "Frontiers in Earth Science".
As the air warms, the ground also becomes warmer over time - ultimately resulting in warmer groundwater. Geologists call this thermal coupling. "Unlike the atmosphere, however, the earth's sub-surface is very sluggish," explains Professor Peter Bayer, a geoscientist at MLU and co-author of the study. Because the ground below the surface does not react to short-term temperature fluctuations and thus tends to reflect long-term trends, it is a good indicator of climate change.
"This ground warming effect has been known to scientists, however there is still little data on it," explains Bayer. For the new study, Bayer and his doctoral student Hannes Hemmerle repeated measurements that had been carried out in the 1990s at 35 measuring stations in groundwater reservoirs in Bavaria. The measuring points are distributed throughout the state, which provides a rare insight into the development of an entire region.
The geologists were able to show that almost all the groundwater reservoirs they investigated had warmed up in a similar way over the decades. "Climate change has a very clear effect at depths starting at around 15 metres; at that point short-term local or seasonal fluctuations can no longer be measured," explains Hemmerle. The groundwater at depths of 20 metres was, on average, nearly 0.9 degrees Celsius warmer than in the 1990s. At depths of 60 metres it was still nearly 0.3 degrees warmer. During the same period, the average air temperature rose by 1.05 degrees Celsius.
"It can be assumed that the groundwater will warm up even more as a delayed reaction to air temperatures and that it will continue to react to rising atmospheric temperatures in the future," says Hemmerle. The consequences of this warming are still difficult to gauge, says Bayer, who adds, higher water temperatures affect the growth of microbes and put pressure on underground ecosystems that are adapted to very constant temperatures.
In order to get a feel for the magnitude of the measurements, Bayer and Hemmerle also compared ground warming at a depth of 15 metres with Bavaria's annual heating requirements. Their findings: the increase in temperature correlates to about ten percent of demand. "At least a portion of the heat could possibly be reused as geothermal energy," says Bayer. However, the results cannot be directly transferred to the whole of Germany. "But it can be assumed that the trend is the same," says Hemmerle.
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The study was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).
Hydrogen-powered heavy duty vehicles could contribute significantly to achieving climate goals
Analysis of the climate protection effect of green hydrogen on heavy duty vehicles
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES E.V. (IASS)
A partial transition of German road transport to hydrogen energy is among the possibilities being discussed to help meet national climate targets. A team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) has examined the hypothetical transition to a hydrogen-powered transport sector through several scenarios. Their conclusion: A shift towards hydrogen-powered mobility could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and greatly improve air quality - in particular, heavy duty vehicles represent a low-hanging fruit for decarbonization of German road transport.
"Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles offer competitive advantages over battery electric vehicles regarding heavy loads, longer driving ranges and shorter fuelling times - making them particularly attractive to the heavy duty vehicle segment" explains lead author Lindsey Weger: "Moreover, transitioning heavy-duty vehicles to green hydrogen could already achieve a deep reduction in emissions - our results indicate a potential of -57 MtCO2eq annually, which translates to about a 7 percent drop in German greenhouse gas emissions for the current conditions".
Accordingly, heavy duty vehicles (which here include not only trucks but also commercial vehicles and buses) equipped with (green) hydrogen fuel cells are a possibility worth considering on the path to road transport decarbonization.
Road transport is a major source of emissions
Transport is one of the most emission-intensive sectors for both climate and air pollutants. In 2017, for example, Germany's transport sector accounted for 18.4 percent of CO2eq emissions; 96 percent of which derived from road traffic.
While Germany has successfully decreased its emissions considerably in most areas of the economy since 1990, little progress has been made in the transport sector, which is in large part responsible for Germany's failure to meet its target of a (lasting) 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
The major reasons for this are:
- the increasing kilometres travelled;
- the continued dominance of fossil fuels in transport;
- and high average vehicular CO2 emissions.
Due to extraordinary circumstances, including the countermeasures adopted to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, Germany is now set to meet its original 2020 emissions reduction target. However, this reduction is not expected to be lasting, with emissions from the transport sector almost returning to their original levels in mid-June 2020.
Green hydrogen: a key to reducing emissions
The overall emissions impact depends on the method of hydrogen production: According to the analysis, emissions change between -179 and +95 MtCO2eq annually from a hypothetical full transition to hydrogen vehicular traffic, with the greatest emissions reduction afforded by green hydrogen production (i.e., zero-carbon hydrogen based on renewable-powered water electrolysis), while the greatest emissions increase results from electrolysis using the fossil fuel-intense current electricity mix. Hence green hydrogen in particular could contribute significantly towards achieving Germany's future greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.
The green hydrogen scenario also promises to deliver the largest reduction in air pollutants - up to 42 percent for NMVOCs, NOx and CO - compared to emissions from the German energy sector for the current conditions. However, producing hydrogen with the current (fossil fuel-intense) electricity mix would result in an increase or minimal effect (i.e., no benefit) in emissions of some pollutants.
Transitioning only heavy duty vehicles to green hydrogen would already deliver a large reduction in emissions (-57 MtCO2eq). "According to our calculations, if only the HDV vehicle segment were to undergo this transition, then we would already get nearly a third of the total possible reduction, with only one third of total hydrogen demand that would be needed to fuel the entire vehicle fleet - a clear low-hanging fruit", says scientist Weger. In conclusion, the team of authors argue that commercial and large vehicles powered by hydrogen could make a rapid and substantial contribution to Germany's overall reduction in emissions.
Background information on hydrogen:
Hydrogen is a non-toxic, colourless, and odourless gas. It has been safely produced for decades and is used in industry and space research. Hydrogen has the highest energy density by mass among conventional fuels (although not by volume at standard atmospheric pressures) and, crucially, hydrogen refuelling infrastructure is comparable to that used for conventional road fuels.
In addition, hydrogen can be produced from a wide range of energy forms, including renewable electricity. It can be easily stored, compressed or liquefied either in pure form, mixed with natural gas, or bound with larger molecules. Hydrogen is easily transported by pipeline, truck, or ship. It can be safely used to fuel vehicles and is in many respects even safer than petrol and diesel.
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Cost of planting, protecting trees to fight climate change could jump
Planting trees and preventing deforestation are considered key climate change mitigation strategies, but a new analysis finds the cost of preserving and planting trees to hit certain global emissions reductions targets could accelerate quickly.
In the analysis, researchers from RTI International (RTI), North Carolina State University and Ohio State University report costs will rise steeply under more ambitious emissions reductions plans. By 2055, they project it would cost as much as $393 billion per year to pay landowners to plant and protect enough trees to achieve more than 10 percent of total emissions reductions that international policy experts say are needed to restrict climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The findings were published today in the journal Nature Communications.
"The global forestry sector can provide a really substantial chunk of the mitigation needed to hit global climate targets," said Justin Baker, co-author of the study and associate professor of forest resource economics at NC State. "The physical potential is there, but when we look at the economic costs, they are nonlinear. That means that the more we reduce emissions - the more carbon we're sequestering - we're paying higher and higher costs for it."
The researchers found that The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects forestry to play a critical role in reducing climate change. To analyze the cost of preserving forest, preventing harvest and deforestation, and planting trees, researchers used a price model called the Global Timber Model. That model estimates costs of preserving trees in private forests owned and managed by companies for harvesting for pulp and paper products, as well as on publicly owned land, such as U.S. national parks.
"Protecting, managing and restoring the world's forests will be necessary for avoiding dangerous impacts of climate change, and have important co-benefits such as biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service enhancement and protection of livelihoods," said Kemen Austin, lead author of the study and senior policy analyst at RTI. "Until now, there has been limited research investigating the costs of climate change mitigation from forests. Better understanding the costs of mitigation from global forests will help us to prioritize resources and inform the design of more efficient mitigation policies."
The researchers estimated it would cost $2 billion per year to prevent 0.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide from being released by 2055. Comparatively, $393 billion annually would sequester 6 gigatons, or the equivalent of emissions from nearly 1.3 billion passenger vehicles driven for one year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.
"It's not clear from these results that you'll have consistent low-cost mitigation from the global forest sector as other studies have indicated," Baker said.
The tropics are expected to play the biggest role in reducing emissions, with Brazil - the country that contains the largest share of the Amazon rainforest - the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Indonesia contributing the largest share. The tropics will contribute between 72 and 82 percent of total global mitigation from forestry in 2055.
The researchers also found that forest management in temperate regions, such as forestland in the southern United States, will play a significant role, especially under higher price scenarios. They expect that afforestation, which is introducing trees to areas that are not actively in forest, and managing existing forestland will be important strategies in the United States.
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The paper, "The economic costs of planting, preserving and managing the world's forests to mitigate climate change," was published in Nature Communications on Dec. 1. In addition to Austin and Baker, other authors included B.L. Sohngen, C.M. Wade, A. Daigneault, S.B. Ohrel, S. Ragnauth and A. Bean. The study was supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Note to editors: The abstract follows.
"The economic costs of planting, preserving and managing the world's forests to mitigate climate change"
Authors: K.G. Austin, J. Baker, B.L. Sohngen, C.M. Wade, A. Daigneault, S.B. Ohrel, S. Ragnauth, and A. Bean.
Published: online in Nature Communications on Dec. 1.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19578-z
Abstract: Forests are critical for stabilizing our climate, but costs of mitigation over space, time, and stakeholder group remain uncertain. Using the Global Timber Model, we project mitigation potential and costs for four abatement activities across sixteen regions for carbon price scenarios of $5 - $100/tCO2. We project 0.6 - 6.0 GtCO2yr-1 in global mitigation by 2055 at costs of 2 - 393 billion USD/yr, with avoided tropical deforestation comprising 30 - 54% of total mitigation. Higher prices incentivize larger mitigation proportions via rotation and forest management activities in temperate and boreal biomes. Forest area increases 415 - 875 Mha relative to the baseline by 2055 at prices $35 - $100/tCO2, with intensive plantations comprising <7% of this increase. Mitigation costs borne by private land managers comprise less than one-quarter of total costs. For forests to contribute ~10% of mitigation needed to limit global warming to 1.5?C, carbon prices will need to reach $281/tCO2 in 2055.
New research reveals 'megatrends' that will affect forests in the next decade
IMAGE: A GROUP OF EXPERTS FROM ACADEMIC, GOVERNMENTAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS HAVE IDENTIFIED FIVE LARGE-SCALE 'MEGATRENDS' AFFECTING FORESTS AND FOREST COMMUNITIES, PUBLISHED TODAY IN NATURE PLANTS. THESE ARE LIKELY TO HAVE... view more
CREDIT: THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
A group of experts from academic, governmental and international organisations have identified five large-scale 'megatrends' affecting forests and forest communities, published today in Nature Plants. These are likely to have major consequences - both positively and negatively - over the coming decade.
Around the world, 1.6 billion people live within 5km of a forest, and millions rely on them for their livelihoods, especially in poorer countries. They are also home to much of the world's biodiversity, and regulate key aspects of the carbon cycle. In short, forests are vital in global and national efforts to combat climate change and biodiversity loss, and eradicate hunger and poverty.
Despite their importance, research on forests and livelihoods to date has mainly focused on understanding local household and community-level dynamics - identifying the links between human and natural systems at the regional and global scales is critical for future policy and action.
The five trends revealed by the research are:
1. Forest megadisturbances
Droughts and excessive precipitation are increasing forests' susceptibility to diseases and human-induced wildfires and floods - this is leading to defoliation, tree mortality and declines in forest productivity at unprecedented scales, and there is increasing evidence that forest disturbance can result in the emergence of diseases with the ability to spread globally.
Policy responses to these disturbances will require balancing a range of mitigation and adaptation efforts - whilst opportunities and challenges are likely to arise from efforts to align forest conservation and restoration with other sustainability priorities, such as poverty alleviation.
2. Changing rural demographics
Increased migration to urban areas is causing an unprecedented exodus among forest-reliant communities. The effects of these demographic shifts, including forest resurgence on formerly agricultural lands and participation in decision-making, are not well understood.
Populations shifts could result in opportunities for effective forest conservation, whilst on the other hand could lead to deforestation as greater urban demand and large industrial projects are created.
3. The rise of the middle class
By 2030 the middle class in low and middle income countries will grow to almost 5 billion people - around 50% of the global population. The growth in demand that this creates will increase pressure on land and other resources.
Growing consumption and demand of commodities has already seen large scale corporate-led land acquisitions for industrial production of cattle, soy and palm oil in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Between 2001-2015, 27% of forest disturbance was attributed to commodity-driven deforestation. Further growth in demand and a continuing culture of consumerism will alter local and global consumption patterns, with potentially severe effects on deforestation rates, emissions, wildlife populations, ecosystem services and rural communities.
4. Use of digital technologies
Access to digital communication technology has grown exponentially in recent years, with a sevenfold increase in internet and mobile cellular use since 2000. The majority of this growth has come outside industrialised countries, and is likely to have a transformational impact on the forest sector. Technologies that collect and disseminate data are increasingly accurate and easy-to-use, including land mapping tools, real-time satellite data and crowd-sourced data.
Although they can be accessed by those involved in illicit activity such as logging and mining, these technologies also provide opportunities. Increasingly available data can benefit a wide range of forest sector stakeholders including policymakers, oversight bodies, non-governmental actors, managers and local communities. New technologies are already supporting the surveillance and certification of global production networks, which is aiding regulatory control of forest-based products and people threatening forests.
5. Infrastructure development
Large scale infrastructure projects such as China's Belt and Road initiative are likely to have transformational impacts on forests and rural communities. To accommodate demand for energy, natural resources and transport, many countries have planned ambitious infrastructure growth.
By 2050, there is expected to be at least 25 million km of new roads globally to help facilitate commodity flow between transport hubs; governments in the Amazon basin alone are developing 246 new hydroelectric dams; and illegal mining activities are expanding rapidly across the globe. These can lead to forest loss, displaces people, disrupts livelihoods and provokes social conflicts as communities lose access to land and resources.
These five megatrends are creating new agricultural and urban frontiers, changing landscapes, opening spaces for conservation and facilitating an unprecedented development of monitoring platforms that can be used by local communities, civil society organisations, governments and international donors. Understanding these larger-scale dynamics is key to support not only the critical role of forests in meeting livelihood aspirations locally, but also a range of other sustainability challenges globally.
"Our study allows us to take stock of key socioeconomic, political and environmental issues affecting forests and rural communities, and identify trends likely to have disproportionate impacts on forests and forest-livelihoods in the coming decade," says Johan Oldekop, an associate professor in the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester and a lead author of the report.
"The trends we identify are important, because they represent human and environmental processes that are exceptionally large in geographical extent and magnitude, and are difficult to reverse," Oldekop says. "Developing a new research agenda that is able to better understand these trends and identify levers of change will require novel ways of combining new and existing data sources, the strengthening of existing collaborations between researchers, local communities and policymakers, as well as the development of new types of partnerships with public and private stakeholders."
"The assembled expert panel is unique as it brings together a range of subject expertise, region-specific knowledge, as well as academic, governmental and non-governmental institutions, including international donor organizations," adds Laura Vang Rasmussen, an assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management at the University of Copenhagen, and one of the lead authors of the report.
IMAGE: THALE CRESS GROWN WITHOUT INHERITED MEMORIES (LEFT) AND GROWN WITH THE MEMORIES (RIGHT) view more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
Plants have the unique capability to sense and adapt to changes in their environment
This information is stored in the form of 'epigenetic memory' which can be passed on to the offspring, resulting in defects in growth and development.
Researchers have identified two proteins responsible for erasing plant memory to maximise chances of offspring survival.
Researchers at the University of Warwick have uncovered the mechanism that allows plants to pass on their 'memories' to offspring, which results in growth and developmental defects.
In order to survive and thrive, plants have the unique capability to sense and remember changes in their environment. This is linked to the chemical modification of DNA and histone proteins, which alters the way in which DNA is packaged within the cell's nucleus and genes are expressed - a process known as epigenetic regulation.
Usually, this epigenetic information is reset during sexual reproduction to erase any inappropriate 'memories' from being passed on to ensure the offspring grows normally. In the paper, 'A new role for histone demethylases in the maintenance of plant genome integrity' published in the journal elife, it was found that some plants were unable to forget this information and passed it on to their offspring, thereby affecting their chances of survival.
The researchers identified two proteins in Thale Cress (Arabidopsis), previously known only to control the initiation and timing of flowering, that are also responsible for controlling 'plant memory' through the chemical modification (demethylation) of histone proteins.
They showed that plants unable to reset these chemical marks during sexual reproduction, passed on this 'memory' to subsequent generations, resulting in defects in growth and development.
Some of these defects were linked to the activation of selfish DNA elements, also known as 'jumping genes' or transposons, thus indicating that the erasure of such 'memory' is also critical for maintaining the integrity of plant genomes by silencing transposons.
Prof. Jose Gutierrez-Marcos, a senior author on the paper from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick commented:
"Our study into the proteins that regulate plant memory has shown how important it is for chemical marks to be reset during sexual reproduction in order to avoid offspring inheriting inappropriate 'memories' that lead to growth and developmental defects associated with genome instability.
"The next step is to work out how to manipulate such 'memories' for plant breeding purposes, so that subsequent generations show greater adaptability to allow them to thrive in a changing environment."
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This work was carried out by an international team of researchers based at the University of Warwick (UK), Université Paris Saclay (France), Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology (Germany), The Ohio State University and Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (USA) and Nagoya University (Japan).
Researchers at IST Austria gain deeper knowledge of plant growth by treating seedlings with painkillers like Aspirin and the like; new study published in Cell Reports
IMAGE: TO DEVELOP ALONG THE GRAVITATION FACTOR - LEAVES TOWARD THE SUN AND ROOTS TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE EARTH - THE PLANT HORMONE AUXIN HAS TO BE ASYMMETRICALLY DISTRIBUTED WITHIN... view more
When pathogens enter a plant, infected cells set off an alarm before they die. They discharge methylsalicylic acid, which is later transformed into salicylic acid, triggering an immune response. Hence, salicylic acid is a stress signal in plants, but it also participates in regulating plant growth and development. In humans, salicylic acid proofed to be useful in a different way: Already in prehistoric times people realized that when they were drinking willow bark tea or taking other willow bark preparations, fever dropped and pain disappeared. Centuries later, scientists developed salicylic acid derivatives such as Aspirin and Ibuprofen. These so called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) suppress the inflammatory response of mammalian cells, thereby making us feel better when we have a cold. But how do they affect plants?
Losing the sense of direction
"When I got the idea, I had a really serious toothache and I had some Ibuprofen at hands," explains Shutang Tan, who at that time was a postdoc at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria working in the group of Professor Ji?í Friml. "I simply used the tablets from the pharmacy and I took the same amount as in my previous experiments with salicylic acid. Then, I observed the effect of the Ibuprofen on Arabidopsis seedlings." The primary roots of the plant were significantly shorter and instead of growing downward, they were curling up, unable to respond to gravity. Furthermore, the plants developed fewer or no lateral roots at all.
Together with colleagues at the IST Austria and six other research institutions Shutang Tan looked at the effects of 20 different painkillers on Arabidopsis seedlings. "We found that all of the painkillers we tested, including Aspirin and Ibuprofen, were interfering with the auxin flow," explains Tan. The plant hormone auxin is essential for all developmental processes within a plant. It is especially responsible for a plants ability to stretch its leaves towards the sun and its roots towards the center of the earth. So called PIN proteins regulate the flow of auxin from one cell to the other, depending on which side of the cell they are sitting. If the PIN proteins are not at the right location within the cell, the flow of auxin is disturbed, leading to a faulty development of the plant. Hence, the painkillers seemed to interfere with the localization of the PIN proteins. But it didn't stop there.
Looking closely, the scientists discovered that the effect is not limited to PIN proteins, but that the drugs interfere with the whole endomembrane system, suppressing the movement and trafficking of substances within the cells. The painkillers impair the dynamics of the cytoskeleton of the cells, a network of interlinking proteins, which among many other things gives the cell its shape and is involved in the uptake of extracellular material. Together with Markus Geisler's group at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, the researchers at IST Austria uncovered that one group of painkillers, including the drugs Meclofenamic acid and Flufenamic acid, directly target an immunophilin-like protein, called TWISTED DWARF1, to realize these physiological and cellular activities.
Furthermore, the scientists were able to show, that NSAIDs have similar physiological and cell biological effects as auxin transport inhibitors - important chemical tools in cell biology, which interfere with the transport of auxin. "It would be very interesting to find out, if these auxin transport inhibitors can also be used as painkillers in animals. That is one big question we still need to answer" concludes Tan. Together with IST Professor Ji?í Friml, Shutang Tan, who is now establishing his own laboratory at the University of Science and Technology of China, wants to investigate
Scientists solve big limitation of stratospheric balloon payloads
How do you cool a large telescope to absolute zero while flying it from a huge balloon at 130,000 feet?
IMAGE: THE BOBCAT PAYLOAD HANGS FROM THE LAUNCH VEHICLE DURING TESTING PRIOR TO LAUNCHING FROM FORT SUMNER, NEW MEXICO, IN AUGUST 2019. view more
CREDIT: NICK BELLIS
WASHINGTON, December 1, 2020 -- Nearly all photons emitted after the Big Bang are now visible only at far-infrared wavelengths. This includes light from the cold universe of gas and dust from which stars and planets form, as well as faint signals from distant galaxies tracing the universe's evolution to today.
Earth's atmosphere blocks most of this light, and space missions are an ideal but prohibitively expensive way to explore it. So scientists are turning to huge stratospheric balloons -- the size of an entire football stadium -- because they are a tiny fraction of the cost.
In Review of Scientific Instruments, from AIP Publishing, Alan J. Kogut, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and colleagues found a way to solve a widely recognized limitation of stratospheric balloon payloads, which fly at altitudes of 130,000 feet above 99% of the atmosphere.
"To really peer into the cold universe, you need a large telescope cooled to near absolute zero, flying above Earth's atmosphere," Kogut said. "By large, I mean a telescope mirror the size of a living room. Why so cold? Heat from the telescope can wipe out images from deep space, like overexposing a camera. To see faint cold signals from deep space, the telescope must be cooled to 10 K (minus 440 F), only a few degrees above absolute zero."
It may sound simple in theory, but it is quite difficult to cool a telescope the size of a living room to nearly absolute zero while flying it from a balloon.
"Liquid helium can easily cool the telescope, but keeping it cold means putting the entire telescope into a giant thermos bottle called a dewar," he said. "A thermos bottle the size of a living room would weigh several tons -- more than even the largest balloons can carry."
This is where the Balloon-Borne Cryogenic Telescope Testbed (BOBCAT) comes in.
"BOBCAT develops technology for ultralight dewars to reduce their weight enough to allow really big ones to fly on a balloon," said Kogut.
Dewars have an inner cup holding the cold liquid, surrounded by an outer shell. The gap between them has no air within it, a vacuum, to prevent air from carrying heat from the outside world into the cold interior.
A dewar is heavy, because its walls need to hold a vacuum against sea-level air pressure. But a dewar meant to work on a balloon does not need to work at sea level. It must work at 130,000 feet above sea level, where there is almost no air pressure.
The scientists designed a dewar with extremely thin walls, not much thicker than a soda can's, which can launch at room temperature. It has a valve, so the vacuum gap between the inner cup and outer wall vents during ascent to let air out.
"Once the balloon reaches 130,000 feet, the valve closes to create a proper vacuum space, and it cools the telescope by pumping liquid nitrogen or liquid helium into the dewar from separate storage tanks," Kogut said. "The storage tanks are small and don't weigh much. Now, we have a cold telescope above the atmosphere, able to see faint images from the cold or distant universe."
The first flight was a success, and the next step is to re-fly the payload carrying an ultralight dewar.
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The article, "The Balloon-Borne Cryogenic Telescope Testbed mission: Bulk cryogenic transfer at 40 km altitude," is authored by Alan J. Kogut, Thomas Essinger-Hileman, Samuel Denker, Nicholas Bellis, Luke Lowe, and Paul Mirel. The article will appear in Review of Scientific Instruments on Dec. 1, 2020 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0021483). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0021483.
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
Review of Scientific Instruments publishes novel advancements in scientific instrumentation, apparatuses, techniques of experimental measurement, and related mathematical analysis. Its content includes publication on instruments covering all areas of science including physics, chemistry, materials science, and biology. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/rsi.
Transportation of water into the deep Earth by Al-phase D
IMAGE: (A) SHEAR VELOCITY CONTRAST BETWEEN THE AL-RICH HYDROUS LAYER (INCLUDING AL-PHASE D) AND THE DRY MANTLE FOR TWO MODEL COMPOSITIONS: HYDROUS PYROLITE (H-PYROLITE) AND HYDROUS HARZBURGITE (H-HARZBURGITE). (B) HYPOTHETICAL MECHANISMS... view more
CREDIT: EHIME UNIVERSITY
Since the discovery of a water-bearing ringwoodite specimen trapped in a superdeep diamond from Brazil by Pearson et al., in 2014 (published in Nature), there is a regained interest for finding and characterizing the potential carrier and host minerals of water in the deep Earth's interior. Among the candidate minerals, Dense Hydrous Magnesium Silicates (DHMSs) are considered as primary water carriers from the shallow lithosphere to the deep mantle transition zone (MTZ; 410-660 km in depth), but because of their relative instability against pressure (P) and temperature (T), DHMSs were generally associated with the presence of water up to the middle-part of the MTZ.
An experimental study published also in 2014, in the journal Nature Geoscience however showed that when aluminum incorporates DHMSs, their stability against P and T is drastically improved, allowing those minerals to transport and host water up to depths of 1200 km in the lower mantle (Pamato et al., 2014). Their experiments indeed showed that the aluminum-bearing DHMS mineral called Al-phase D is likely to form at the uppermost lower mantle P and T conditions, from the recrystallization of hydrous melt at the boundary of the mantle and the subducted slab. Although this reaction was justified by laboratory experiments, there were no direct measurement of the sound velocities of Al-phase D and therefore it was difficult to associate the presence of Al-rich hydrated rocks to the seismic observations at the bottom of the MTZ and in the uppermost lower mantle.
The researchers at Ehime successfully measured the longitudinal (VP) and shear (VS)
Is it better to give than receive?
Children who experienced compassionate parenting were more generous than peers, study suggests
Young children who have experienced compassionate love and empathy from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis, study suggests.
In lab studies, children tested at ages 4 and 6 showed more willingness to give up the tokens they had earned to fictional children in need when two conditions were present -- if they showed bodily changes when given the opportunity to share and had experienced positive parenting that modeled such kindness. The study initially included 74 preschool-age children and their mothers. They were invited back two years later, resulting in 54 mother-child pairs whose behaviors and reactions were analyzed when the children were 6.
"At both ages, children with better physiological regulation and with mothers who expressed stronger compassionate love were likely to donate more of their earnings," said Paul Hastings, UC Davis professor of psychology and the mentor of the doctoral student who led the study. "Compassionate mothers likely develop emotionally close relationships with their children while also providing an early example of prosocial orientation toward the needs of others," researchers said in the study.
The study was published in November in Frontiers in Psychology: Emotion Science. Co-authors were Jonas G. Miller, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University (who was a UC Davis doctoral student when the study was written); Sarah Kahle of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UC Davis; and Natalie R. Troxel, now at Facebook.
In each lab exercise, after attaching a monitor to record children's heart-rate activity, the examiner told the children they would be earning tokens for a variety of activities, and that the tokens could be turned in for a prize. The tokens were put into a box, and each child eventually earned 20 prize tokens. Then before the session ended, children were told they could donate all or part of their tokens to other children (in the first instance, they were told these were for sick children who couldn't come and play the game, and in the second instance, they were told the children were experiencing a hardship.)
At the same time, mothers answered questions about their compassionate love for their children and for others in general. The mothers selected phrases in a survey such as:
"I would rather engage in actions that help my child than engage in actions that would help me."
"Those whom I encounter through my work and public life can assume that I will be there if they need me."
"I would rather suffer myself than see someone else (a stranger) suffer."
Taken together, the findings showed that children's generosity is supported by the combination of their socialization experiences -- their mothers' compassionate love -- and their physiological regulation, and that these work like "internal and external supports for the capacity to act prosocially that build on each other."
The results were similar at ages 4 and 6.
In addition to observing the children's propensity to donate their game earnings, the researchers observed that being more generous also seemed to benefit the children. At both ages 4 and 6, the physiological recording showed that children who donated more tokens were calmer after the activity, compared to the children who donated no or few tokens. They wrote that "prosocial behaviors may be intrinsically effective for soothing one's own arousal." Hastings suggested that "being in a calmer state after sharing could reinforce the generous behavior that produced that good feeling."
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This work was supported by the Fetzer Institute (grant 2347.07), Mindfulness Connections, and the National Institute of Mental Health (grant T32MH019908).
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Bridges between villages in Nicaragua serve as links to markets
Eliminating uncertainty in market access: The impact of new bridges in rural Nicaragua
Many residents of flood-prone areas of rural Nicaragua face uncertain economic futures each season. In a new paper, EGC faculty affiliate Kevin Donovan and co-author Wyatt Brooks of Arizona State University examine the role of footbridges in providing rural households reliable access to larger and higher-paying urban labor markets. They find that bridge construction increases integration, leading to substantial positive economic impact on rural economies.
The paper underscores the increased benefits of rural integration in the context where income is derived both from farming and labor markets - a common feature of households in developing countries. Moreover, it analyzes the spillover effects of improved access to the labor market on the agricultural economy and shows that bridges might have a compounding positive impact: not only does labor income rise, but agricultural investment increases along with increased profits.
In Nicaragua, both policymakers and residents cite flooding and the resulting isolation of villages as a critical development constraint. During periods of flooding, villagers are cut off from access to outside markets as crossing the river carries a risk of injury or death. Since most rural households are active in the labor market, inaccessible outside labor markets during floods limit choices available and incomes earned.
The researchers worked with an NGO to identify 15 villages in similar need of a bridge. Out of this group, bridges were built in six villages based on the feasibility criteria comprising the characteristics of the riverbed - a feature uncorrelated with any relevant village characteristics. In this quasi-experimental setting, the researchers could compare outcomes between these two sets of villages (i.e., those with and those without a bridge) using causal inference.
The researchers collected data from both annual surveys with all households in each of the 15 villages and biweekly surveys with a subset of households to understand the contemporaneous impact of flooding on household outcomes.
A bridge eliminates the loss of income during floods
In the absence of a bridge, a flood depresses weekly labor market earnings by 18 percent, and increases the probability of reporting no income from 25 percent to 32 percent compared to a week without a flood. When a bridge was constructed, both of these effects disappeared. Hence, the bridge offsets the negative impact of floods on labor income.
Certain access to outside labor markets increases labor income in non-flood periods by expanding choices
The presence of a bridge also increases labor income for households in non-flood periods by influencing choices. Men shift their time from relatively lower-paying jobs in the village to higher-paying jobs outside the village, while women increase their participation in the labor force by 65 percent. Moreover, those who stay in the village for work benefit from the general equilibrium increase: their daily wages rise as village labor supply declines.
Agricultural productivity and profits rise as farmers redirect resources toward investment
In villages with a bridge, farmers spend nearly 60 percent more on fertilizers, and farm profits increase by 75 percent. Protected from unpredictable fluctuations in income induced by floods, villagers are free to spend a larger part of their precautionary savings on productive farm activities.
Agricultural storage declines from 90 to 80 percent of the harvest, suggesting that farmers sell a greater share of their harvest and use the proceeds to invest more in their farms. These results imply that a lack of access to the outside market may have a substantial impact on long-term agricultural decisions in rural economies.
With a bridge, the increase in welfare is larger than the increase in income due to the ability to mitigate risk
According to a model produced by the authors, the introduction of the bridge increases consumption-equivalent welfare by 11 percent. This increase in welfare comes both from an increase in consumption and the decrease in the volatility of consumption. This underscores the importance of reduction in risk that comes with the presence of a bridge.
Bridges are highly cost-effective
The authors find that bridges have an internal rate of return of nearly 20%, since each bridge costs about $40,000 (or C$1,100,000), generates an annual benefit of $7800 (or C$217,000) and lasts at least 40 years. Spillover effects are critical to this calculation. A full third of this internal rate of return is due to the increase in farm profit alone. Given that other benefits are not measured comprehensively, this is likely a conservative estimate of the actual returns.
