Washington (AFP) - In 1997, a lone wolf crossed an ice bridge that briefly connected Canada with the remote Isle Royale, which lies off the coast of Michigan in Lake Superior and is renowned for its rich biodiversity. His arrival revived the flagging fortunes of the wider wolf population, which had been hit by disease and inbreeding, and triggered cascading effects that improved the health of the overall forest ecosystem, a study in Science Advances showed Wednesday. "Issues like inbreeding and low genetic diversity are an important concern for scientists," first author Sarah Hoy, an ecologist...
India on Wednesday became the first nation to land a craft near the Moon's south pole, a historic triumph for the world's most populous nation and its ambitious, cut-price space programme.
The unmanned Chandrayaan-3, which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit, touched down at 6:04 pm India time (1234 GMT) as mission control technicians cheered wildly and embraced their colleagues.
Its landing comes days after a Russian probe crashed in the same region and four years since the previous Indian attempt failed at the last moment.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi smiled broadly and waved an Indian flag on a live broadcast to announce the mission's success as a triumph that extended beyond his country's borders.
"On this joyous occasion I would like to address the people of the world," said Modi from the sidelines of the BRICS diplomatic summit in South Africa.
"India's successful moon mission is not just India's alone," he added. "This success belongs to all of humanity."
The Chandrayaan-3 mission has captivated public attention since launching nearly six weeks ago in front of thousands of cheering spectators.
Politicians staged Hindu prayer rituals to wish for the mission's success and schoolchildren followed the final moments of the landing from live broadcasts in classrooms.
Chandrayaan-3 took much longer to reach the Moon than the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days.
India used rockets much less powerful than the ones the United States used back then, meaning the probe had to orbit the Earth several times to gain speed before embarking on its month-long journey.
The lander, Vikram, which means "valour" in Sanskrit, detached from its propulsion module last week and has been sending images of the Moon's surface since entering lunar orbit on August 5.
Now that Vikram has landed, a solar-powered rover will explore the surface and transmit data to Earth over its two-week lifespan.
- Ambitious program -
India is closing in on milestones set by global space powers such as the United States and Russia, conducting many of its missions at much lower price tags.
The South Asian nation has a comparatively low-budget space program, but one that has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the Moon in 2008.
The latest mission has a cost of $74.6 million -- far lower than those of other countries, and a testament to India's frugal space engineering.
Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts' wages.
In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to put a craft into orbit around Mars and is slated to launch a three-day crewed mission into Earth's orbit by next year.
Wednesday's landing had been eagerly awaited by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) after the frustrating failure of its previous mission at the last hurdle in 2019.
Back then, mission control lost contact with the Chandrayaan-2 lunar module moments before its slated landing.
- 'Very, very important' -
Former ISRO chief K. Sivan told AFP that India's efforts to explore the relatively unmapped lunar south pole would make a "very, very important" contribution to scientific knowledge.
Only Russia, the United States and China have previously achieved controlled landings on the Moon.
Russia launched a lunar probe in August -- its first in nearly half a century.
If successful, it would have beaten Chandrayaan-3 by a matter of days to become the first mission from any nation to make a controlled landing around the south pole.
But Luna-25 crashed on Saturday after an unspecified incident as it prepared to descend.
New research provides evidence that the presence of early minor hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease patients, along with specific patterns of brainwave activity, can serve as indicators of more rapid cognitive decline. The findings, published in Nature Mental Health, have important implications for the early identification of cognitive impairment and the potential for interventions to mitigate its effects in patients with Parkinson’s disease. There is a pressing need to detect and intervene in neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease at an early stage, before they advance to a poi...
In “The Orchid Thief,” author Susan Orlean wrote of a “phantom” flower hidden deep in the swamps of Southwest Florida “so bewitching that it could seduce people to pursue it year after year and mile after mile.” Her best-seller about an obsessive poacher would help make the once-obscure ghost orchid the most famous wild flower in the sprawling Everglades ecosystem. Twenty-five years later, the ghost orchid remains a star attraction during its summer bloom at the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, one of the few places where everyday nature-goers can see one without slogging through muck and ch...
Washington (AFP) - From Quebec to British Columbia to Hawaii, North America is facing an extraordinary wildfire season -- and regions both near and far have found themselves increasingly blighted by smoke exposure. Here's what you should know about air pollution from these blazes. What we knowOne of the defining aspects of smoke from wildfires is "particulate matter" -- toxins that, in their numbers, can make smoke visible. Particulate matter of 2.5 micron diameter, PM2.5, is "particularly dangerous for human health and emitted in really large quantities," Rebecca Hornbrook, an atmospheric che...
San Jose, California (tca/dpa) — Before Los Altos psychologist Eric FitzMedrud donned a pink tie and joined his wife for a date night to see the summer blockbuster movie “Barbie,” he was all too familiar with the anxiety that the character of Ken feels about his place in the world and in Barbie’s life. FitzMedrud specializes in counseling individuals and couples on relationships and sexual issues and is set to publish a book, “The Better Man: A Guide to Consent, Stronger Relationships, and Hotter Sex” (Wonderwell, 2023), in September. The book offers men advice on how to get past the conflicti...
The underlying problem has been known for decades: Fossil-fuel vehicles and power plants, deforestation and unsustainable agricultural practices have been putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the Earth’s systems can naturally remove, and that’s heating up the planet.
Geoengineering, theoretically, aims to restore that balance, either by removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reflecting solar energy away from Earth.
But changing Earth’s complex and interconnected climate system may have unintended consequences. Changes that help one region could harm another, and the effects may not be clear until it’s too late.
Rising temperatures are raising fears that geoengineering may become necessary. Video: NASA.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy also discussed these concerns in its July 2023 research plan for investigating potential climate interventions.
Risks of solar radiation management
When people hear the word “geoengineering,” they probably picture solar radiation management. These technologies, many of them still theoretical, aim to reflect solar energy away from Earth’s surface.
The idea of stratospheric aerosol injection, for example, is to seed the upper atmosphere with billions of tiny particles that reflect sunlight directly out to space. Cirrus cloud thinning aims to reduce the impact of high-altitude, wispy clouds that trap energy within the atmosphere by making their ice crystals larger, heavier and more likely to precipitate. Another, cloud brightening, aims to increase the prevalence of brighter, lower-level clouds that reflect sunlight, possibly by spraying seawater into the air to increase water vapor concentration.
Some scientists have suggested going further and installing arrays of space mirrors that could reduce global temperature by reflecting solar energy away before it reaches the atmosphere.
While theoretically capable of cooling the planet, solar radiation management could have drasticside effects by shifting patterns of global atmospheric circulation that can lead to more extreme weather events. It also does nothing to reduce harms of excess greenhouse gases, including ocean acidification. A 2022 study published in the scientific journal Nature predicted that stratospheric aerosol injection could alter global precipitation patterns and reduce agricultural productivity.
Cloud brightening, while effective in theory, also needs more research to make sure that efforts to expand lower-level reflective clouds that can help cool Earth’s surface do not also increase the prevalence of the high-altitude clouds that warm the planet.
Space mirrors placed between the Sun and Earth could theoretically block 2% of incoming solar radiation and stabilize global temperature. But the technology is at least 20 years away from implementation and would cost trillions of dollars. More importantly, the overall global impact of shading Earth’s surface is largely unknown. It will decrease regional ocean and air temperatures in ways that may affect changes in the jet stream, rainfall, snow cover, storm patterns and possibly even monsoons. Much more research is needed to clarify these uncertainties.
Removing carbon dioxide from the air
Carbon dioxide removal technologies generally carry lower risks than manipulating solar energy.
Carbon capture and storage removes carbon dioxide from power plants and factories and stores it underground in deep geological reservoirs. This has proven potential, but it raises concerns that leaks might contaminate aquifers, harm public health and ultimately fail to keep carbon out of the atmosphere.
The technology is also expensive and depends on the proximity of suitable reservoirs for storage.
Climeworks launched the first large-scale direct air capture facility in Iceland in 2021. It uses filters to extract 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, heats it to condense the carbon dioxide and stores it underground.Halldor Kolbeins/AFP via Getty Images
There are also natural ways to remove carbon. Planting trees, for example, can remove carbon directly from the atmosphere, but this is not enough. If all the land available for reforestation were replanted, it would still not be enough to reverse current global warming trends.
Ocean fertilization is another geoengineering hack intended to boost carbon sequestration, but research is at an early stage. The technique provides nutrients such as iron to increase the growth of phytoplankton, which use dissolved carbon from the atmosphere to grow their shells and tissue. But it may also have unintended effects for the food chain that could harm ocean life.
The legal void
Beyond safety, another important question involves accountability.
There’s a good chance that geoengineering meant to help one region would harm others. That’s because ocean and weather systems are globally interconnected.
So, who gets to decide which projects can go ahead? Right now, that’s a legal void.
There is no regulatory framework that can determine who is liable if something goes wrong. Multinational alliances, individual states, corporations and even rich individuals can act independently without consulting anyone. In the event of harm that crosses national boundaries, there is currently no clear path for recourse.
Striking the right balance
None of this is to say that the world should dismiss geoengineering.
Carbon dioxide removal techniques, such as planting trees and increasing soil carbon sequestration – retaining more organic carbon in fertile soils – may provide additional benefits to ecosystem services by increasing species diversity and boosting agricultural productivity. These are all positive outcomes and should be part of a global climate response.
Some forms of stratospheric aerosol injection might avoid the destruction of ozone and have short life spans in the atmosphere. However, more rigorous research, transparent global governance and robust legal and ethical frameworks to manage risks and ensure equity are needed first.
I believe all the technologies must be complemented by deep and sustained efforts to reduce emissions and transform the energy system to avoid the global impacts of sea-level rise, soaring temperature, droughts, storms, floods, fires, famine, species extinction and increasing human conflict.
As Riley Duren, a systems engineer from NASA, said in an interview with the space agency: “Geoengineering is not a cure. At best, it’s a Band-Aid or tourniquet; at worst, it could be a self-inflicted wound.”
Stem cells are special kinds of cells in our body that can become any other type of cell. They have huge potential for medicine, and trials are currently under way using stem cells to replace damaged cells in diseases like Parkinson’s.
One way to get stem cells is from human embryos, but this has ethical concerns and practical limitations. Another way is to turn adult cells from the skin or elsewhere into what are called “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPS cells).
However, these cells sometimes carry a “memory” of the kind of cell they used to be, which can make them less predictable or efficient when we try to turn them into other types of cells.
We have found a way to erase this memory, to make iPS cells function more like embryonic stem cells. Our study is published in Nature.
Great promise for regenerative medicine
Mature, specialized cells like skin cells can be reprogrammed into iPS cells in the lab. These “blank slate” cells show great promise in regenerative medicine, a field focused on regrowing, repairing or replacing damaged or diseased cells, organs or tissues.
Scientists can make iPS cells from a patient’s own tissue, so there’s less risk the new cells will be rejected by the patient’s immune system.
To take one example, iPS cells are being tested for making insulin-producing pancreas cells to help people with diabetes. We’re not there yet, but it’s an example of what might be possible.
Research using iPS cells is a rapidly advancing field, yet many technical challenges remain. Scientists are still figuring out how to better control what cell types iPS cells become and ensure the process is safe.
One of these technical challenges is “epigenetic memory”, where the iPS cells retain traces of the cell type they once were.
Epigenetic memory and how can it impair the use of iPS cells
To understand “epigenetic memory”, let’s first talk about epigenetics. Our DNA carries sequences of instructions known as genes. When various factors influence gene activity (turning them on or off) without changing the DNA sequence itself, this is known as epigenetics – literally meaning “above genetics”.
A cell’s epigenome is a collective term to describe all the epigenetic modifications in a cell. Each of our cells contains the same DNA, but the epigenome controls which genes are turned on or off, which determines whether it becomes a heart cell, a kidney cell, a liver cell, or any other cell type.
You can think of the DNA as a cookbook and the epigenome as a set of bookmarks. The bookmarks don’t alter the recipes, but they direct which ones are used.
Similarly, epigenetic marks guide cells to interpret the genetic code without changing it.
When we reprogram a mature cell into an iPS cell, we want to erase all its “bookmarks”. However, this doesn’t always work completely. When some bookmarks remain, this “epigenetic memory” can influence the behavior of the iPS cells.
An iPS cell made from a skin cell can retain a partial “memory” of being a skin cell, which makes it more likely to turn back into a skin-like cell and less likely to turn into other cell types. This is because some of the DNA’s epigenetic marks can tell the cell to behave like a skin cell.
This can be a hurdle for using iPS cells because it can impact the process of turning iPS cells into the types of cells you want. It might also affect the function of the cells once they’re created. If you want to use iPS cells to help repair a pancreas, but the cells have a “memory” of being skin cells, they might not function so well as true pancreatic cells.
How we managed to clear iPS cell epigenetic memory and improve their function
Overcoming the issue of epigenetic memory in iPS cells is a widely recognised challenge for regenerative medicine.
By studying how the epigenome transforms when we reprogram adult skin cells into iPS cells, we discovered a new way to reprogram cells that more completely erases epigenetic memory. We made this discovery by reprogramming cells using a method that imitates how the epigenome of embryo cells is naturally reset.
During the early development of an embryo, before it is implanted into the uterus, the epigenetic marks inherited from the sperm and egg cells are essentially erased. This reset allows the early embryo cells to start fresh and become any cell type as the embryo grows and develops.
By introducing a step during the reprogramming process that briefly mimics this reset process, we made iPS cells that are more like embryonic stem cells than conventional iPS cells.
More effective epigenetic memory erasure in iPS cells will enhance their medical potential. It will allow the iPS cells to behave as “blank slates” like embryonic stem cells, making them more likely to transform into any desired cell type.
If iPS cells can forget their past identities, they can more reliably become any type of cell and help create specific cells needed for therapies, like new insulin-producing cells for someone with diabetes, or neuronal cells for someone with Parkinson’s. It could also reduce the risk of unexpected behaviours or complications when iPS cells are used in medical treatments.
Can you imagine a scientist who could neither read nor write, who spoke their wisdom in riddles, in tales of fantastic beings flying through the sky, fighting each another furiously and noisily, drinking the ocean dry, and throwing giant spears with force enough to leave massive holes in rocky headlands?
Our newly published research in the journal Oral Tradition shows memories of a volcanic eruption in Fiji some 2,500 years ago were encoded in oral traditions in precisely these ways.
They were never intended as fanciful stories, but rather as the pragmatic foundations of a system of local risk management.
Life-changing events
Around 2,500 years ago, at the western end of the island of Kadavu in the southern part of Fiji, the ground shook, the ocean became agitated, and clouds of billowing smoke and ash poured into the sky.
When the clouds cleared, the people saw a new mountain had formed, its shape resembling a mound of earth in which yams are grown. This gave the mountain its name – Nabukelevu, the giant yam mound. (It was renamed Mount Washington during Fiji’s colonial history.)
Nabukelevu from the northeast, its top hidden in cloud. Inset: Nabukelevu from the west in 1827 after the drawing by the artist aboard the Astrolabe, the ship of French explorer Dumont d’Urville. It is an original lithograph by H. van der Burch after original artwork by Louis Auguste de Sainson. Wikimedia Commons; Australian National Maritime Museum, CC BY-SA
So dramatic, so life-changing were the events associated with this eruption, the people who witnessed it told stories about it. These stories have endured more than two millennia, faithfully passed on across roughly 100 generations to reach us today.
Scientists used to dismiss such stories as fictions, devalue them with labels like “myth” or “legend”. But the situation is changing.
Today, we are starting to recognise that many such “stories” are authentic memories of human pasts, encoded in oral traditions in ways that represent the worldviews of people from long ago.
In other words, these stories served the same purpose as scientific accounts, and the people who told them were trying to understand the natural world, much like scientists do today.
Battle of the vu
The most common story about the 2,500-year-old eruption of Nabukelevu is one involving a “god” (vu in Fijian) named Tanovo from the island of Ono, about 56km from the volcano.
Tanovo’s view of the sunset became blocked one day by this huge mountain. Our research identifies this as a volcanic dome that was created during the eruption, raising the height of the mountain several hundred feet.
Enraged, Tanovo flew to Nabukelevu and started to tear down the mountain, a process described by local residents as driva qele (stealing earth). This explains why even today the summit of Nabukelevu has a crater.
But Tanovo was interrupted by the “god” of Nabukelevu, named Tautaumolau. The pair started fighting. A chase ensued through the sky and, as the two twisted and turned, the earth being carried by Tanovo started falling to the ground, where it is said to have “created” islands.
We conclude that the sequence in which these islands are said to have been created is likely to represent the movement of the ash plume from the eruption, as shown on the map below.
Smaller offshore islands named in seven versions of the Nabukelevu story as having formed following the Nabukelevu eruption. Inset shows the possible trace of the ash cloud based on the stories. Author provided, CC BY-ND
‘Myths’ based in fact
Geologists would today find it exceedingly difficult to deduce such details of an ancient eruption. But here, in the oral traditions of Kadavu people, this information is readily available.
Another detail we would never know if we did not have the oral traditions is about the tsunami the eruption caused.
In some versions of the story, one of the “gods” is so frightened, he hides beneath the sea. But his rival comes along and drinks up all the water at that place, a detail our research interprets as a memory of the ocean withdrawing prior to tsunami impact.
Other details in the oral traditions recall how one god threw a massive spear at his rival but missed, leaving behind a huge hole in a rock. This is a good example of how landforms likely predating the eruption can be retrofitted to a narrative.
The hole made when a spear was thrown by one god at the other, on the north coast of eastern Kadavu. Author provided, CC BY-ND
Our study adds to the growing body of scientific research into “myths” and “legends”, showing that many have a basis in fact, and the details they contain add depth and breadth to our understanding of human pasts.
The Kadavu volcano stories discussed here also show ancient societies were no less risk aware and risk averse than ours are today. The imperative was to survive, greatly aided by keeping alive memories of all the hazards that existed in a particular place.
Literate people, those who read and write, tend to be impressed by the extraordinary time depth of oral traditions, like those about the 2,500-year old eruption of Nabukelevu. But not everyone is.
In early 2019, I was sitting and chatting to Ratu Petero Uluinaceva in Waisomo Village, after he had finished relating the Ono people’s story of the eruption. I told him this particular story recalled events which occurred more than two millennia ago – and thought he might be impressed. But he wasn’t.
“We know our stories are that old, that they recall our ancient history,” he told me with a grin. “But we are glad you have now learned this too!”
Acknowledgements: The original research was conducted in collaboration with Loredana Lancini and Rita Compatangelo-Soussignan (University of Le Mans), Meli Nanuku and Kaliopate Tavola (Fiji Museum), Taniela Bolea (University of the Sunshine Coast) and Paul Geraghty (University of the South Pacific).
"I don't know what to do!" Boredom can frustrate kids and set them whining. So should parents rush to the rescue? Absolutely not, says psychologist and author Rüdiger Maas, founding director of the Institute for Generation Research in Augsburg, Germany. The title of one of his books translates as "Happiness via Frustration: Why Boredom and Obstacles Make Our Children Strong." In an interview with dpa, Maas advises parents of bored kids to relax and take a wait-and-see approach. Why can boredom and frustration do kids good sometimes? Maas: Boredom is very important because it makes them creativ...
There is no denying the importance of sleep. Everyone feels better after a good night of sleep, and lack of sleep can have profoundly negative effects on both the body and the brain. So what can be done to substitute for a lack of sleep? Put another way, how can you get less sleep and still perform at your peak? As a psychologist who studies the ways in which sleep benefits memory, I’m also interested in how sleep deprivation harms memory and cognition. After some initial research on sleep deprivation and false confessions, my students at Michigan State University’s Sleep and Learning Lab and ...
A recent neuroimaging study has found that adolescents displaying heightened brain activity in response to emotionally charged tasks in the right inferior occipital gyrus, a brain region responsible for processing visual stimuli, tended to exhibit lower distress tolerance and increased levels of depressive symptoms two years later. The study was published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. Distress tolerance, denoting the capacity to endure and effectively manage emotional distress, discomfort, or pain without resorting to harmful behaviors or becoming overwhelmed, is a pivotal psychologica...
When people notice new things in their environment, it tends to help them remember things better afterward. However, new research published in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science indicates that this “novelty boost” in memory performance is reduced among those with paranoid tendencies. The new study was motivated by the desire to better understand the relationship between memory impairment and psychotic-like symptoms, particularly focusing on paranoia, in individuals across the psychosis spectrum. Memory impairment is a well-documented feature of psychosis disorders, including s...
