Tree pollen reveals 150,000 years of monsoon history—and a warning for Australia’s northern rainfall

Flinders University

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East Asia and Northern Australia. Traci Klarenbeek, Flinders University.

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Credit: Traci Klarenbeek, Flinders University.

Northern Australia's annual monsoon season brings relief to drought-stricken lands and revitalises crops and livestock for farmers. But a study of 150,000 years of climate records shows that the monsoon is likely to intensify — triggering a higher risk of flooding while worsening the impact of droughts in East Asia.

Led by Professor Michael Bird, researchers at James Cook University and Flinders University have assessed sediments at Girraween Lagoon near Darwin, revealing a continuous record of monsoon rainfall patterns dating back beyond the last interglacial period.

This research published in the scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews offers insight into how climate change could alter monsoon patterns across East Asia and Australia.

“This is the longest terrestrial record ever produced at the southern end of the Indo-Australian monsoon system, which delivers vital rainfall to millions across the Southern Hemisphere. The record also has implications for the Northern Hemisphere where tens of millions in Asia rely on monsoons for food and their livelihoods.

“Our study shows how the two monsoon systems are interrelated over thousands of years and reveals what causes them to change. Our analyses shows that that rainfall in northern Australia is closely tied to sea level changes, which shift the location of the northern coastline by up to 320 km.

These shifts strongly alter local rainfall, with wetter periods occurring when the coastline is closer to the Australian landmass and the oppose effect is prolonged drought in East Asia.”

“Intriguingly, the research also uncovered what we consider bursts of intense monsoon activity — some lasting less than 10,000 years. These bursts align with Heinrich events — abrupt pulses of freshwater into the North Atlantic from rapidly melting ice linked to the weakening of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean,” said Professor Bird.

These findings carry a warning from scientists because the Gulf Stream is already weakening due to climate change, and the study suggests this could lead to increased rainfall in northern Australia while contributing to droughts in parts of East Asia.

“This isn’t just ancient history. It is a window into the rainfall patterns that are emerging today. Our data suggest that the weather trends we’re witnessing like the drying in China and wetting in northern Australia could accelerate if the Gulf Stream continues to weaken, so we need to be ready for that scenario,” says study co-author, Professor Corey Bradshaw, a Global Ecologist at Flinders University.

“It’s not surprising. Decreasing rainfall in parts of the east Asian summer monsoon region has been identified in rainfall records since the 1960s, while increasing rainfall has been evident in north-western Australia since the last century, accelerating since the 1950s. Our new data suggest that further weakening of the Gulf Stream could reinforce these trends even more in the future, with consequences for both regions.”

“We need to put this impact into context because this region extends from China through Southeast Asia, the maritime continent, and western Indo-Pacific warm pool on the Equator, to Australia. The region is home to almost a billion people and five terrestrial Biodiversity Hotspots.”

The research was supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CE170100015) and Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CE230100009), and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship (FL140100044).

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Journal

Quaternary Science Reviews

DOI

10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109504 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Holocene hydroclimate inferred from alkane isotope and pollen records from monsoonal northern Australia

Article Publication Date

9-Jul-2025

 

Researchers find crab and clam resilience etched into shells

In the Broken Group Islands off western British Columbia, shellfish populations have evaded large-scale commercialization and remained stable for the past 3,000 years.

Hakai Institute

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A new study reveals a bright spot for shellfish populations in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Combining paleontological tools and archaeological data with conservation research, the paper finds that, for the past 3,000 years, crab and clam species have remained stable in the Broken Group Islands off the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. 

The results, published in the July 2025 issue of Biological Conservation, suggest that the area has been largely sheltered from large-scale commercialization during the past century—while also demonstrating the sustainable relationship between local Indigenous peoples and shellfish over millennia. 

“We always think of ourselves as separate from nature, but we are a part of our ecosystems,” says Kristina Barclay, a research scientist at the Hakai Institute who was the lead author on the study. “Indigenous peoples understand this inherently, and the archaeological record can also demonstrate that.”

Dungeness crab is one species of cultural importance to coastal First Nations, and the study—which Barclay conducted as part of a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Victoria (UVic), in collaboration with UVic researchers Julia Baum and Iain McKechnie as well as a Tseshaht First Nation representative, Denis St. Claire—finds that crab populations in the Broken Group have remained stable over thousands of years of harvesting. Crabs such as Dungeness have been largely overlooked in the archaeological record, despite concerns from First Nations on the central coast and other parts of British Columbia about species declines.

The paper takes a novel approach to studying the abundance of crabs and clams: it looks at evidence of crab predation efforts by Dungeness, red rock, and graceful rock crabs on littleneck and butter clams. When a crab attacks but fails to kill, it leaves a claw-shaped “repair scar” on the clam shell, “just like if you’ve healed from a broken bone,” Barclay says.

Repair scars have been used to assess the relative abundance of crab populations in modern contexts, but this is one of the first studies to consider scars as archaeological evidence of historical crab populations. For coastal First Nations and fisheries managers, this approach offers “one more tool in the tool box,” Barclay says, which could be applied more broadly on the BC coast, especially given the large number of archaeological sites. 

“The approach was originally developed to study predator-prey interactions in the fossil record and predator-prey evolution through time,” Barclay adds. “It’s really cool to apply it to other fields.”

The fact that the Broken Group Islands are a stronghold for shellfish populations may not come as a surprise; the archipelago is located within Tseshaht First Nation territories and Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and is only accessible by boat, thereby sheltering the region from the kind of commercial harvesting that’s devastated populations elsewhere. But Barclay says she was surprised that ocean acidification and warming ocean temperatures due to climate change haven’t yet made a bigger dent in the Broken Group.

“I was expecting more of a sad story and was very happy to see that these populations are resilient,” Barclay says.

But just because it’s a good news story now doesn’t mean things aren’t tenuous, she adds. “These ecosystems are still vulnerable to climate change, so we still really need conservation and to cut carbon emissions.”

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Journal

Biological Conservation

DOI

10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111186 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Merging coastal archaeology and conservation paleobiology to evaluate shellfish resilience to Indigenous harvest over the past 3000 years

Article Publication Date

8-Jul-2025

 

Best skin care ingredients revealed in thorough, national review

Top dermatologists nationwide list the best skin care ingredients for wrinkles, acne, dark spots and more

Northwestern University

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• Retinoids and mineral sunscreen among the most effective for multiple skin complaints

• Full list of recommended ingredients for each skin concern included in study

• Nearly 80 dermatologists from 43 institutions participated in a robust national ingredient review

CHICAGO --- From drugstore aisles to TikTok trends, consumers are bombarded with skin care products. But how do you know what really works, especially now with summer in full swing?

A Northwestern Medicine study offers clarity, identifying the ingredients that dermatologists agree are most effective for seven common skin complaints.

Senior study author Dr. Murad Alam, vice chair and professor of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, is available for interviews to explain the findings. Contact Ben Schamisso at ben.schamisso@northwestern.edu to schedule an interview.

One of the most recommended ingredients was mineral sunscreen for protecting against wrinkles, redness and dry skin. Retinoids, a vitamin A derivative, also were highly recommended for improving wrinkles, acne, dark spots, large pores and oily skin. A full list of dermatologist-recommended ingredients for each skin concern is in the published study.

Published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, the study used a rigorous process called a Delphi consensus in which dozens of top dermatologists rated skin care ingredients on a 1-9 scale. After two rounds of scoring and expert discussion, only ingredients with strong agreement made the final recommended list.

“This is the first time experts have come together nationally to cut through the overwhelming number of skin care options,” said Alam, who also is a Northwestern Medicine dermatologist and surgeon. “We wanted to help both doctors and everyday users understand which ingredients are backed by the most expert support.”

Alam added that when it comes to skin care, more isn’t always better.

“Using too many products can irritate your skin and make things worse,” he said. “It’s about knowing which ingredients are most effective for your specific concerns and are best for your routine.”

The study addresses a major gap for consumers trying to navigate skin care products, which typically don’t undergo the same rigorous review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as medications for medical conditions, Alam said.

The study is tited "Skincare ingredients recommended by cosmetic dermatologists: A Delphi consensus study."

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Journal

Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology

DOI

10.1016/j.jaad.2025.04.021 

 

New mathematical insights into Lagrangian turbulence

University of California - Santa Barbara

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A sneeze. Ocean currents. Smoke. What do these have in common? They’re instances of turbulence: unpredictable, chaotic, uneven fluid flows of fluctuating velocity and pressure. Though ubiquitous in nature, these flows remain somewhat of a mystery, theoretically and computationally.

“Most flows that we encounter in nature are turbulent — it does not matter whether it is the flow outside the airplane that makes us fasten our seatbelts, or the flow in a small stream,” said UC Santa Barbara mathematics professor Björn Birnir. “Turbulence is difficult to understand because the mathematical models that describe it are nonlinear, stochastic and the solutions are unstable. This made it necessary to develop new theories to truly understand the nature of turbulence.”

Fortunately, Birnir and Luiza Angheluta of the University of Oslo are getting us closer to being able to characterize turbulence, with an approach that captures some of the myriad complex phenomena that occur over the evolution of a turbulent flow. Their research is published in the journal Physical Review Research.

‘The most important unsolved problem’

Described in 1964 by famed physicist Richard Feynmann as “the most important unsolved problem of classical physics,” turbulence has accumulated its fair share of laws and theories, as researchers over two centuries contributed valuable insights and approaches to the study of this highly complex phenomenon. However, because of its nonlinearity, general unpredictability and also its multi-scale nature, generating the math that holds true for everything from the tiniest fluctuation to the entire flow with all its interacting vortices and eddies has been one of the primary challenges of the field.

This is particularly true of the turbulent flow called Lagrangian turbulence, where an observer follows the flow (as in an airplane). It starts by an initial ballistic flow (all particles stuck together and flowing in the same direction), goes through large Lagrangian vortices and later Eulerian turbulence (a homogeneous flow with smaller but more complex vortices).

“There has been a lot of speculation,” said Birnir, who directs the Center for Complex and Nonlinear Science at UCSB. “The ballistic region has a certain scaling. The Lagrangian region has another scaling, and 

A simulation of Lagrangian turbulence, with a ballistic region on the right, superdiffusing into a Lagrangian region, followed by an Eulerian region and finally, according to the researchers, a region of "free eddies."

then it looked like it was going into this region where there was Eulerian scaling.” Each scaling regime contains the math that best describes the forces and unique phenomena in only that particular evolution of the turbulent flow. “So you are basically seeing three types of scalings but there was no theory behind it and there was in fact no proof of it.” Instead of becoming clearer, the study of turbulence had become more confusing, he added.

While the ballistic and Eulerian flows have fairly well-established scaling laws, the region between them was relatively less understood.

“Different scaling regions, in time, is one of the main characteristics of Lagrangian turbulence,” Birnir explained. Another unique characteristic is the Lagrangian framework’s approach, which is to follow the turbulence from the point of view of a particle — a “tracer” — within the flow, as opposed to from a stationary point outside the flow, as is the case with Eulerian turbulence, where the flow is more homogenous.

Birnir and Angheluta investigated the statistical properties of a fully turbulent Lagrangian velocity field using a modeling framework called stochastic closure theory, which captures randomness as part of the system. They also used a set of relations called the Green-Kubo-Obukhov relations to characterize the effects of various forces on and conditions of the flow such as diffusion and viscosity, as well as the chaotic dynamics of the entire system.

The result is a mathematical model that demonstrates the presence of a Lagrangian scaling regime in the “passover region” between ballistic flows and Eulerian turbulence, while also connecting the three scaling regimes as the turbulent flow evolves from its initial conditions through the ballistic region, as it superdiffuses into the chaotic, multi-scale fluctuations and flows of the Lagrangian region and transitions to the more homogenous Eulerian region. Additionally, the researchers identify a fourth region “free eddies” — free-floating, rapidly swirling vortices that are disconnected from the earlier turbulence.  Their results, according to an introduction of their work in Physical Review Research, “show excellent agreement with Direct Navier-Stokes simulations.”

This enhanced statistical understanding of Lagrangian turbulence will be useful for tackling real-world puzzles of turbulence, such as tracking ocean currents, and predicting weather patterns and how pollutants and airborne pathogens spread.

“This gives us a little more foundation for calculating things like the spread of COVID and other aerosols,” said Birnir, who plans to write a biomedical paper to provide information on how to use this model to better calculate the infectiousness of diseases carried by airborne pathogens.

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Journal

Physical Review Research

Article Title

Scaling of Lagrangian structure functions

 

Can one video change a teen's mindset? New study says yes - but there’s a catch

University of East Anglia

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A mental health hack designed to promote mental well-being could shift how teenagers view themselves – according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

A new study published today shows how watching a one-off ten-minute video can positively change young people’s beliefs about their personality traits.

But the intervention appeared to have little immediate effect on symptoms of anxiety or depression.

The findings add to a growing body of evidence that mental health support delivered online can play a valuable role - but may work best as part of a broader toolkit of services.

The team say that more research to evaluate its longer-term effect is needed.

Dr Kenny Chiu, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Mental health conditions affect one in seven young people globally. In the UK, around one in five young people have probable mental health disorders, yet 75 per cent of them are not receiving any support.

“This is a huge problem – not least since most adult mental health conditions first emerge in childhood or teenage years.”

“It is therefore really important to promote positive emotional wellbeing and prevent mental health conditions from developing in the first place.”

Prof Richard Meiser-Stedman from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Experts in youth mental health have been exploring online single-session interventions (SSIs) as an accessible form of early support - particularly as traditional services face growing demand.

“Until now, most research in this area has been in the US.

“For the first time, we explored whether a brief video-based online intervention could help young people in the UK.”

The research team tested an intervention based on growth mindset principles - the belief that personal traits and abilities can change over time.

More than 100 teens were recruited through schools, charities, and social media.

Participants were randomly assigned to either complete a mindset intervention or join a waitlist control group.

They were asked to report their levels of anxiety, depression, and psychological flexibility, as well as their beliefs about personality, before the session and again one month later.

Dr Jessica Ball, who led this research as part of her doctoral clinical training at UEA, said:

“As one of the first UK-based low-cost online single session trials for youth mental health, our study shows promising results.

“While the video didn't significantly reduce feelings of anxiety and depression, it did seem to change how participants thought about their personality, fostering the development of a growth mindset.”

Dr Chiu said: "This study shows early promise in implementing a low-cost and scalable way to support young people's psychological development.”

This study was led by UEA in collaboration with Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Bath.

‘The Efficacy of an Online Self-Administered Single Session Intervention to Promote Growth Mindset in Adolescents: A Randomised Controlled Trial’ is published in the journal JCPP Advances.

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Journal

JCPP Advances

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

‘The Efficacy of an Online Self-Administered Single Session Intervention to Promote Growth Mindset in Adolescents: A Randomised Controlled Trial’

Article Publication Date

9-Jul-2025

 

How lakes connect to groundwater critical for resilience to climate change, research finds

Research presented at the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague

European Association of Geochemistry

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Rimov reservoir in the Czech Republic.

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Credit: Petr Znachor

Understanding whether lakes are fed predominantly by groundwater or rainwater is critical to managing our water resources in the face of droughts and shortages, new research has found.

The study drew on data from 350 lakes across 18 European countries, collected between 2022 and 2024, to provide a comprehensive picture of how the continent’s lakes are coping with climate change. The research is presented today [Wednesday 9 July, 2025] at the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague.

The researchers, from the Czech Academy of Sciences, analysed the proportions of stable hydrogen and oxygen isotopes (18O and 2H) in the lakes’ water. These isotopic signatures help reveal the influence of rainfall, assess the potential connection between groundwater and lakes, and determine the extent to which incoming water offsets losses from evaporation.

The team combined these variables with open access environmental data, including meteorological variables (mean annual temperature and precipitation, climate type, relative humidity), percentage of land use (bare land, cropland, forest, grassland, snow, urban), and catchment characteristics (lake type, size, maximum depth and altitude). Using a machine learning model, they identified the key factors sustaining a healthy water balance for each lake and predicted the impact in 2050 of changes in rainfall and temperature linked to climate change.

The study found that lakes with high potential connection from groundwater maintain more stable water levels and are more likely to be able to buffer the impacts of climate change. Shallow lakes, which tend to have a high surface area in relation to their volume, experience high evaporation rates compared to inflow, making them more vulnerable to rising temperatures and reduced rainfall.

The modelling highlighted that lakes in lowland areas are the most likely to reach critical evaporation to inflow ratios by 2050, leading to water scarcity and contamination, with artificial lakes such as reservoirs most at risk. This is because lakes in lowland areas tend to be shallower and often less connected to groundwater, which destabilises the balance between evaporation and inflow. Additionally, these lakes are more likely to be located in regions of intensive agriculture, where runoff from fertilizers and other inputs can lead to elevated nutrient levels and degraded water quality.

Lakes in higher-altitude or alpine areas were found to be most resilient, benefiting from lower temperatures, reduced evaporation rates, and often better connections to groundwater inflow. These lakes are currently less exposed to surrounding agricultural activity and so face fewer issues related to nutrient runoff. However, the researchers caution that agricultural land use is migrating to higher altitude, which could affect the water quality and availability of these lakes in the future.

Dr Ma. Cristina Paule-Mercado, from the Biology Centre, at the Czech Academy of Sciences, is presenting the research at the Goldschmidt Conference. She said: “We initially expected the same controlling factors to apply across all lakes, but that wasn't the case. While we can draw some general insights from the analysis, we also observed how each region has different dynamics driven by the interaction of multiple variables. This highlights the importance of considering all these factors – and particularly groundwater-lake connectivity – when designing sustainable management strategies to address climate change and water scarcity.”

The team continues to expand their dataset – now incorporating over 400 lakes – with an ambition to make this a global resource. While some of the environmental data come from open-access sources, the researchers also collect samples annually from hundreds of lakes, collaborate with other scientists, an engage in citizen science initiatives. These efforts help broaden their coverage and strengthen community involvement.

The Goldschmidt Conference is the world’s foremost geochemistry conference. It is a joint congress of the European Association of Geochemistry and the Geochemical Society (US), and over 4000 delegates attend. It takes place in Prague, Czech Republic, from 6-11 July 2025.