New Fish Species Discovered at Remote Islands Off Mexico’s Pacific Coast

Two females of the newly discovered species, Halichoeres sanchezi or the tailspot wrasse. The males are larger and have different coloration.
Photo Credit: Allison & Carlos Estape

A team of scientists including Ben Frable of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have discovered a new species of tropical fish during an expedition to the remote islands of the Revillagigedo Archipelago off Mexico’s Pacific coast. The fish is likely endemic to these islands, meaning it is found no place else on Earth. The Revillagigedos are sometimes called the “Mexican Galapagos” for their trove of marine biodiversity and rugged beauty. 

The researchers describe the new species, dubbed Halichoeres sanchezi or the tailspot wrasse, in a paper published Feb. 28 in the journal PeerJ. Halichoeres sanchezi was named in honor of marine scientist Carlos Armando Sánchez Ortíz of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur (UABCS) who collected the first specimen and who organized the 2022 expedition that led to the fish’s discovery.

The eight specimens of the new species collected by the team range in size from around an inch long to nearly six inches. The smaller females of the species are mostly white with reddish horizontal stripes along their top half and black patches on their dorsal fin, behind their gills, and just ahead of their tail fin. Frable described the males as “orangy red up top fading to a yellow belly with a dark band at the base of the tail.” 

Halichoeres sanchezi is a member of the wrasse family, a highly diverse and colorful group of more than 600 species. Most wrasse are less than seven inches long, such as the bluestreak cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus), but some get much larger like the California sheephead (Semicossyphus pulcher) or the massive humphead wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus), which can reach seven feet in length.

Researchers encountered the new wrasse species inhabiting an underwater field of volcanic rubble at a depth of around 70 feet near San Benedicto Island.

Sikorsky Looks to Future Family of VTOL Systems

Hybrid-electric demonstrator will test electrification and autonomy for next-gen products
Photo Credit: Lockheed Martin

Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, today unveiled its plan to build, test and fly a hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing demonstrator (HEX / VTOL) with a tilt-wing configuration.

The design is the first in a series of large, next generation VTOL aircraft — ranging from more traditional helicopters to winged configurations — which will feature varying degrees of electrification, and an advanced autonomy system for optionally piloted flight.

“We never stop innovating at Sikorsky,” said Sikorsky President Paul Lemmo. “Autonomy and electrification will bring transformational change to flight safety and operational efficiency of large VTOL aircraft. Our HEX demonstrator program will provide valuable insights as we look to a future family of aircraft built to the scale and preferred configurations relevant to commercial and military customers.”

The HEX program will put a premium on greater than 500 nautical mile range at high speed, fewer mechanical systems to reduce complexity, and lower maintenance costs.

Scientists provide first detailed estimates of how much sediment is supplied to coral islands from the reef system

The island of Dhigelabadhoo in the Maldives is the main field site of the ARISE program
Credit: University of Plymouth

Scientists have produced the first detailed estimates of how much sediment is transported onto the shores of coral reef islands, and how that might enable them to withstand the future threats posed by climate change.

Coral reef islands are low-lying accumulations of sand and gravel-sized sediment deposited on coral reef surfaces.

The sediments are derived from the broken down remains of corals and other organisms that grow on the surrounding reef. Therefore, the rate of supply of sediment from reefs is a critical control on island formation and future change.

The international team of researchers used data available for 28 reef islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, widely acknowledged to be among the world’s most vulnerable environments to rising seas.

By identifying the amount of sediment present within reef islands, and comparing this against the known age of the islands, they were able to determine the average amount of sediment delivered to the islands from surrounding coral reefs over their histories.

Biomolecules from Formaldehyde on Ancient Mars

Diagram showing the formation of formaldehyde (H2CO) in the warm atmosphere of ancient Mars and its conversion into molecules vital for life in the ocean.
Illustration Credit: ©Shungo Koyama

Organic materials discovered on Mars may have originated from atmospheric formaldehyde, according to new research, marking a step forward in our understanding of the possibility of past life on the Red Planet.

Scientists from Tohoku University have investigated whether the early atmospheric conditions on Mars had the potential to foster the formation of biomolecules - organic compounds essential for biological processes. Their findings, published in Scientific Reports, offer intriguing insights into the plausibility of Mars harboring life in its distant past.

Today, Mars presents a harsh environment characterized by dryness and extreme cold, but geological evidence hints at a more hospitable past. About 3.8-3.6 billion years ago, the planet probably had a temperate climate, sustained by the warming properties of gases like hydrogen. In such an environment, Mars may have had liquid water, a key ingredient for life as we know it.

Diamonds are a chip's best friend

Highly precise optical absorption spectra of diamond reveal ultra-fine splitting
Illustration Credit: KyotoU/Nobuko Naka

Besides being "a girl's best friend," diamonds have broad industrial applications, such as in solid-state electronics. New technologies aim to produce high-purity synthetic crystals that become excellent semiconductors when doped with impurities as electron donors or acceptors of other elements.

These extra electrons -- or holes -- do not participate in atomic bonding but sometimes bind to excitons -- quasi-particles consisting of an electron and an electron hole -- in semiconductors and other condensed matter. Doping may cause physical changes, but how the exciton complex -- a bound state of two positively-charged holes and one negatively-charged electron -- manifests in diamonds doped with boron has remained unconfirmed. Two conflicting interpretations exist of the exciton's structure.

An international team of researchers led by Kyoto University has now determined the magnitude of the spin-orbit interaction in acceptor-bound excitons in a semiconductor.

"We broke through the energy resolution limit of conventional luminescence measurements by directly observing the fine structure of bound excitons in boron-doped blue diamond, using optical absorption," says team leader Nobuko Naka of KyotoU's Graduate School of Science.

Walleye struggle with changes to timing of spring thaw

Within a few days of ice-off, when a lakes’ frozen lid has melted away, walleye begin laying eggs and fertilizing them. When lakes thaw earlier than usual, the young walleye that hatch in Midwestern waters may have a more difficult time surviving.
Image Credit: Copilot AI

Walleye are one of the most sought-after species in freshwater sportfishing, a delicacy on Midwestern menus and a critically important part of the culture of many Indigenous communities. They are also struggling to survive in the warming waters of the Midwestern United States and Canada.

According to a new study published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters, part of the problem is that walleye are creatures of habit, and the seasons — especially winter — are changing so fast that this iconic species of freshwater fish can’t keep up.

The timing of walleye spawning — when the fish mate and lay their eggs — has historically been tied to the thawing of frozen lakes each spring, says the study’s lead author, Martha Barta, a research technician at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Now, due to our changing climate, walleye have been “unable to keep up with increasingly early and more variable ice-off dates,” Barta says.

Within a few days of ice-off, when a lakes’ frozen lid has melted away, walleye begin laying eggs and fertilizing them. In a normal year, that timing sets baby fish up for success once they hatch. But, Barta says, “climate change is interrupting the historical pairing of ice-off and walleye spawning, and that threatens the persistence of walleye populations across the Upper Midwest.”

You may be breathing in more tiny nanoparticles from your gas stove than from car exhaust

Brandon Boor, a Purdue associate professor of civil engineering, studies how everyday activities like cooking on a gas stove can affect indoor air quality.
Photo Credit: Kelsey Lefever / Purdue University

Cooking on your gas stove can emit more nano-sized particles into the air than vehicles that run on gas or diesel, possibly increasing your risk of developing asthma or other respiratory illnesses, a new Purdue University study has found.

“Combustion remains a source of air pollution across the world, both indoors and outdoors. We found that cooking on your gas stove produces large amounts of small nanoparticles that get into your respiratory system and deposit efficiently,” said Brandon Boor, an associate professor in Purdue’s Lyles School of Civil Engineering, who led this research.

Based on these findings, the researchers would encourage turning on a kitchen exhaust fan while cooking on a gas stove. 

The study, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, focused on tiny airborne nanoparticles that are only 1-3 nanometers in diameter, which is just the right size for reaching certain parts of the respiratory system and spreading to other organs. 

Recent studies have found that children who live in homes with gas stoves are more likely to develop asthma. But not much is known about how particles smaller than 3 nanometers, called nanocluster aerosol, grow and spread indoors because they’re very difficult to measure.

“These super tiny nanoparticles are so small that you’re not able to see them. They’re not like dust particles that you would see floating in the air,” Boor said. “After observing such high concentrations of nanocluster aerosol during gas cooking, we can’t ignore these nano-sized particles anymore.”

Glacier melting destroys important climate data archive

Corbassière glacier at Grand Combin in the canton of Valais
Photo Credit: Peter Meyer-Herzog

As part of the Ice Memory initiative, PSI researchers, with colleagues from the University of Fribourg and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice as well as the Institute of Polar Sciences of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), analyzed ice cores drilled in 2018 and 2020 from the Corbassière glacier at Grand Combin in the canton of Valais. A comparison of the two sets of ice cores published in Nature Geoscience shows: Global warming has made at least this glacier unusable as a climate archive.

Reliable information about the past climate and air pollution can no longer be obtained from the Corbassière glacier in the Grand Combin massif, because alpine glacier melting is progressing more rapidly than previously assumed. This sobering conclusion was reached by researchers led by Margit Schwikowski, head of the Laboratory for Environmental Chemistry at PSI, and Carla Huber, PhD student and first author of the study, when they compared the signatures of particulate matter locked in the annual layers of the ice. Glaciers are invaluable for climate research. The climatic conditions and atmospheric compositions of past ages are preserved in their ice. Therefore, they can serve, in much the same way as tree rings and ocean sediments, as a so-called climate archive for research.

Normally, the amount of particle-bound trace substances in ice fluctuates with the seasons. SubstPeter Meyer-Herzogances such as ammonium, nitrate, and sulfate come from the air and are deposited on the glacier through snowfall: The concentrations are high in summer and low in winter, because lower amounts of polluted air can rise from the valley when the air is cold. The 2018 ice core, which was drilled from depths of up to 14 meters during a preliminary study and contains deposits dating back to 2011, shows these fluctuations as expected. But the core from 2020, from a depth of up to 18 metres – drilled under the leadership of PSI researcher Theo Jenk – shows those fluctuations only for the upper three or four annual layers. Deeper in the ice – that is, farther in the past – the curve indicating the concentration of trace substances becomes noticeably flatter, and the total amount is lower. Schwikowski’s team reports on this in the current issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Vital Seagrasses in Gulf of Mexico Are Retreating Amid Rapid Sea Level Rise

Marine Science professor Ken Dunton (left) and doctoral student Kyle Capistrant-Fossa (right) in the Gulf of Mexico.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of Texas at Austin

The Gulf of Mexico is experiencing sea level rise two to three times as fast as the global average due to a combination of warmer waters and wind circulation patterns. Now, a newly released long-term study from marine scientists at The University of Texas at Austin has found rising sea levels can be linked to a loss of valuable seagrass habitats in Texas.

The paper appears in Communications Earth & Environment.

Seagrasses are recognized globally as a foundation species that play a key role in supporting fisheries and mitigating climate change, efficiently storing substantial amounts of carbon. Meadows occur in shallow waters, and the species are dependent on light for photosynthesis and growth. The researchers are the first to find that sea level rise is yet another human impact that is responsible for the worldwide decline in seagrasses.

Ken Dunton, a professor in UT’s Marine Science Institute, and Kyle Capistrant-Fossa, a doctoral student, made the discovery while examining a 30-year database of observations that Dunton had collected at his study site in the Laguna Madre next to Padre Island. Capistrant-Fossa found that the slow loss of vegetation at the site during the past decade was also coincident with an unprecedented rise in sea level. They also found that seagrasses were disappearing from their historical deeper water ranges throughout the Upper Laguna Madre. But they noted that these losses could be compensated by plant expansion into areas that were once too shallow.

Bariatric surgery provides long-term blood glucose control, type 2 diabetes remission

Photo Credit: Fernando Zhiminaicela

NIH-supported study shows long-term benefits of surgery compared to medication and lifestyle change.

People with type 2 diabetes who underwent bariatric surgery achieved better long-term blood glucose control compared to people who received medical management plus lifestyle interventions, according to a new study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The participants who underwent bariatric surgery, also called metabolic or weight-loss surgery, were also more likely to stop needing diabetes medications and had higher rates of diabetes remission up to 12 years post-surgery. Results of the study were published in JAMA and funded by the National institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of NIH.

“While there are many factors involved, and not all of them are completely understood, bariatric surgery typically results in greater weight loss that effects a person’s metabolic hormones, which improves the body’s response to insulin and ability to maintain healthy blood glucose levels,” said Dr. Jean Lawrence, NIDDK project scientist. “These results show that people with overweight or obesity and type 2 diabetes can make long-term, improvements in their health and change the trajectory of their diabetes through surgery.”