Methane production may increase as Arctic lakes warm

 

Fältarbete vid sjöar nära Abisko naturvetenskapliga station.
Photo Credit: Sofia Kjellman

A warmer and wetter climate makes lakes more productive – which in turn leads to more methane being released from sediments. A new study involving Umeå University shows that Arctic lakes may contribute even more to the greenhouse effect in the future.

Methane is more than 25 times stronger as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Arctic lakes account for a significant share of global methane emissions, but until now, knowledge about the processes in northern lakes has been limited. An international team of researchers from Norway, Sweden and Spain has now shown that methane production varies greatly between lakes and is closely linked to their characteristics.

The researchers investigated ten lakes on Svalbard and in the subarctic region of Scandinavia, three of them via the Abisko Scientific Research Station. They found that most methane production occurs in the top ten centimeters of lake sediments, where there is abundant organic matter and favorable conditions for microbes.

Sandia team creates X-ray images of the future

Courtney Sovinec examines the multi-patterned target used to create a new type of X-ray image at Sandia National Laboratories.
Photo Credit: Vince Gasparich

When German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in the late 1800s while experimenting with cathode ray tubes, it was a breakthrough that transformed science and medicine. So much so that the basic concept remains in use today. But a team of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories believes they’ve found a better way, harnessing different metals and the colors of light they emit.

“It’s called colorized hyperspectral X-ray imaging with multi-metal targets, or CHXI MMT for short,” said project lead Edward Jimenez, an optical engineer. Jimenez has been working with materials scientist Noelle Collins and electronics engineer Courtney Sovinec to create X-rays of the future.

“With this new technology, we are essentially going from the old way, which is black and white, to a whole new colored world where we can better identify materials and defects of interest,” Collins said.

The team found they could achieve this using tiny, patterned samples of varied metals such as tungsten, molybdenum, gold, samarium and silver.

Stronger together: a new fusion protein boosts cancer immunotherapy

An immune cell (small, orange) attacking a cancer cell (large, dark red).
Image Credit: M Oeggerli (Micronaut 2019), M P Trefny, and A Zippelius, Translational Oncology, University Hospital Basel, supported by Pathology University Hospital Basel, and Bio-EM Lab, Biozentrum, University of Basel

A newly developed molecule brings together two powerful immunotherapy strategies in one treatment. Researchers at the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel have demonstrated that this fusion protein can both block the “do not attack” signal used by cancer cells and selectively activate tumor-fighting immune cells. This dual action could pave the way for more effective cancer therapies with fewer side effects.

Back in the early 1980s, Linda Taylor, just 33 years old, was diagnosed with advanced skin cancer and faced a grim prognosis. Luckily, she met Dr. Stephen Rosenberg from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, who treated her with an experimental approach harnessing the body’s own immune system to fight the disease. In 1984, Taylor became the first patient ever to be cured through immunotherapy – a groundbreaking case that forever changed the landscape of cancer treatment.

That pioneering therapy relied on interleukin-2 (IL-2), a signaling molecule that activates many types of immune cells to attack tumors. IL-2 later became the first immunotherapy approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, while effective, IL-2 therapy often causes severe side effects and can also stimulate regulatory T cells, which dampen the immune response instead of boosting it.

New Mars research reveals multiple episodes of habitability in Jezero Crater

Jerezo Carter: Mars 2020 Rover Landing Site
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHUAPL

New research using NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered strong evidence that Mars’ Jezero Crater experienced multiple episodes of fluid activity — each with conditions that could have supported life.

By analyzing high-resolution geochemical data from the rover, scientists have identified two dozen types of minerals, the building blocks of rocks, that help reveal a dynamic history of volcanic rocks that were altered during interactions with liquid water on Mars. The findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, provide important clues for the search for ancient life and help guide Perseverance’s ongoing sampling campaign.

The study was led by Rice University graduate student Eleanor Moreland and employed the Mineral Identification by Stoichiometry (MIST) algorithm — a tool developed at Rice — to interpret data from Perseverance’s Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL). PIXL bombards Martian rocks with X-rays to reveal their chemical composition, offering the most detailed geochemical measurements ever collected on another planet, according to the study.

Measuring the quantum W state

Achieving the entanglement measurement of the W state
Image Credit: KyotoU / Takeuchi lab

The concept of quantum entanglement is emblematic of the gap between classical and quantum physics. Referring to a situation in which it is impossible to describe the physics of each photon separately, this key characteristic of quantum mechanics defies the classical expectation that each particle should have a reality of its own, which gravely concerned Einstein. Understanding the potential of this concept is essential for the realization of powerful new quantum technologies.

Developing such technologies will require the ability to freely generate a multi-photon quantum entangled state, and then to efficiently identify what kind of entangled state is present. However, when performing conventional quantum tomography, a method commonly used for state estimation, the number of measurements required grows exponentially with the number of photons, posing a significant data collection problem.

Woodrats’ dietary choices driven by constraints

A woodrat munches on a juniper berry.
Photo Credit: Sara Weinstein/USU

It’s not easy eating green, as most plants have chemical defenses to deter would-be grazers. Getting enough to eat, while minimizing exposure to toxins, is a persistent challenge that shapes an herbivore’s foraging choices. Do they boost their survival by eating a bit of everything, bypass biological booby traps by specializing on one plant or adapt their strategy as environmental conditions change?

The diversity of an animal’s diet—known as dietary niche breadth—is critical to a species’ resilience, yet it remains poorly understood in mammalian herbivores. In a new study, researchers report findings from an eight-year, large-scale survey exploring the dietary choices of a model herbivore, the woodrat (genus: Neotoma). By analyzing plant DNA in the rodents’ droppings, the scientists compared dietary breadth between individuals, within populations and across species of woodrats throughout North America.

Woodrats exhibited a wide spectrum of diet diversity that included both generalists and specialists. Species-level specialists stuck to narrow food niches, with little difference between individual diets. In contrast, generalist populations contained individuals with more varied diets. Even these individuals appeared to forage on a consistent subset of plants, which likely helps them to manage the risks of consuming potentially poisonous food.

Subtle cues between cells and immune system contribute to spread of cancer

Purdue University researcher John Tesmer is deciphering an intricate cell signaling system critical to immune response.
 Photo Credit: Alisha Willett / Purdue University

In the march of metastasis, a molecular trail of crumbs guides some cancer cells from the primary tumor to establish new colonies within the body. Blocking the cells’ ability to follow the trail might halt metastasis but could also meddle with an intricate cellular signaling system critical to immune response. Purdue University scientists are deciphering this signaling system to better understand how it could be used to address multiple diseases, including cancer.

Recent work, published in Nature, focused on a specific transaction inside the cell but is broadly applicable to how cells respond to signals from the endocrine system, a hormonal messaging system that influences metabolism, growth and reproduction and helps the body maintain homeostasis.

“There are multiple pathways inside a cell that are triggered by this messaging system and when they don’t work together properly, it promotes disease,” said research lead John Tesmer, the Walther Distinguished Professor in Cancer Structural Biology in the College of Science and a member of the Purdue Institute for Cancer Research. “Some of these pathways are useful, so ideally, we shouldn’t just turn off the signal at the source. But maybe we can find compounds that elicit a more nuanced response inside the cell, such as by preserving good pathways and dampening those that are bad.”

Coral reefs set to stop growing as climate warms

Dead reef crest on Mexico's Caribbean coast.
Photo Credit Chris Perry

Most coral reefs will soon stop growing and may begin to erode – and almost all will do so if global warming hits 2°C, according to a new study in the western Atlantic.

An international team, led by scientists from the University of Exeter, assessed 400 reef sites around Florida, Mexico and Bonaire.

The study, published in the journal Nature, projects that more than 70% of the region’s reefs will stop growing by 2040 – and over 99% will do so by 2100 if warming reaches 2°C or more above pre-industrial levels.

Climate change – along with other issues such as coral disease and deteriorating water quality – reduces overall reef growth by killing corals and impacting colony growth rates.

To understand how changing reef ecology is impacting reef growth potential – in other words, how the balance of living organisms translates into vertical “accretion” (reef-building) – the team analysed fossil reefs from across the tropical western Atlantic region to improve understanding of how reef growth rates vary depending on the types of coral present.

Sandy Seafloors: An Overlooked Source of Greenhouse Gas

Photo Credit: Walter Frehner

A new study reveals that methane can form in the upper layers of sandy seabeds — something that has taken scientists by surprise. Special microorganisms are at work, and the phenomenon may be happening along coastlines all over the world.  

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, produced in many natural environments by microorganisms.  

Until recently, scientists believed these microbes were intolerant of oxygen and could only survive in oxygen-free zones. But new research shows they can, in fact, persist in oxygenated environments — lying dormant until the oxygen disappears. That means an entirely new source of methane emissions has just been discovered.  

“We do not yet know how much methane these microbes are producing. That is the next big question. But we suspect the contribution is significant and widespread in sandy coastal zones. This is not something confined to a few isolated spots on the globe,” says Ronnie N. Glud, professor at the Department of Biology and an expert in biogeochemistry.  

Study links folic acid to gestational diabetes

Image Credit: Anna Mysłowska-Kiczek

New research led by Flinders University highlights the urgent need to establish a safe upper limit for folic acid intake during pregnancy and to improve guidelines on folic acid supplementation during pregnancy.

A new study by published in the journal Nutrients links the rise in gestational diabetes in part to excess maternal folate levels, due to the dual impact of folic acid (FA, or synthetic folate) in food fortification and higher-than-recommended supplementation doses during pregnancy.

National surveillance shows the incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in Australia has more than tripled, rising from 5.6% in 2010 to 19.3% in 2022.