Dry grass: Research project explores the effect of multi-year drought on grasslands

As a dry spell stretches from months to years, grasslands can adapt — to a point.
Photo Credit: Scientific Frontline / Heidi-Ann Fourkiller

A recent paper in the journal Science, “Drought intensity and duration interact to magnify losses in primary productivity,” explores how moderate and extreme droughts affect grasslands around the world. The paper has more than 180 international co-authors, with Binghamton University Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Science Amber Churchill among them.

Known as a distributed network, research projects of this type call upon collaborators to perform the same experiments locally, Churchill explained.

“The idea is that everyone uses the same methodology, but each local site is independently responsible for the maintenance of their site, data collection and ongoing measurements,” she said. “Often, individual sites will collect data in addition to the core project’s data.”

The experiment measured productivity, or how much plant biomass grows in a year. Less rain typically means less productivity, but the long-term picture is complicated by a number of factors. For one, not all grasslands are created equal; they come in a variety of types, with varying precipitation levels. Removing 10% of rainfall in an arid grassland is the equivalent of removing 40% of the precipitation in a wetter ecosystem, according to the research.

Three new toad species skip the tadpole phase and give birth to live toadlets

One of the newly described toad species, Nectophrynoides luhomeroensis.
Photo credit: John Lyarkurwa

An international team of researchers have identified three new species of enchanting, pustular, tree-dwelling toads from Africa. Their solution for having offspring away from water? Skipping the tadpole phase altogether, and giving birth to live toadlets. The study is published today in the open access scientific journal Vertebrate Zoology.

Most textbooks will tell you only one story of frog reproduction: Eggs to tadpoles to froglets to adults. But for three newly discovered species found in Tanzania this is not the case. The three new species of frogs belong to an unusual group of African toads in the genus Nectophrynoides — commonly called “Tree Toads.”

Instead of laying eggs that hatch into tadpoles, the female Tree Toads carry their offspring inside their bodies and give birth to fully formed, tiny toads. This makes them among the very few amphibians in the world capable of internal fertilization and true live birth.

Physicists discover new state of matter in electrons, platform to study quantum phenomena

From left, researchers Cyprian Lewandowski, Aman Kumar and Hitesh Changlani.
Photo Credit: Devin Bittner/FSU College of Arts and Sciences

Electricity powers our lives, including our cars, phones, computers and more, through the movement of electrons within a circuit. While we can’t see these electrons, electric currents moving through a conductor flow like water through a pipe to produce electricity.

Certain materials, however, allow that electron flow to “freeze” into crystallized shapes, triggering a transition in the state of matter that the electrons collectively form. This turns the material from a conductor to an insulator, stopping the flow of electrons and providing a unique window into their complex behavior. This phenomenon makes possible new technologies in quantum computing, advanced superconductivity for energy and medical imaging, lighting, and highly precise atomic clocks. 

A team of Florida State University-based physicists, including National High Magnetic Field Laboratory Dirac Postdoctoral Fellow Aman Kumar, Associate Professor Hitesh Changlani and Assistant Professor Cyprian Lewandowski, have shown the conditions necessary to stabilize a phase of matter in which electrons exist in a solid crystalline lattice but can “melt” into a liquid state, known as a generalized Wigner crystal. Their work was published in npj Quantum Materials, a Nature publication. 

Plant protection products change the behavior of non-target organisms

The honeybee (Apis mellifera) served as the model organism for pollinating insects.   
Photo Credit: André Künzelmann / UFZ

Plant protection products protect crops from pests, diseases and weeds. However, many of the fungicides, herbicides and insecticides also have a negative effect on terrestrial and aquatic organisms such as pollinators or fish that are not the primary target of their use. How their behavior changes after exposure to plant protection products is now the focus of a cross-habitat study by scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). The behavioral changes found in the animal models were significant and are an indication of the effect of plant protection products on non-target organisms in the wild. The work indicates that more complex and relevant behavioural tests should be included in the risk assessment of plant protection products in the future. The study was published in the journal Environment International.

The application of plant protection products in agriculture is subject to strict regulations. Nevertheless, organisms that are not the primary target of their use, so-called non-target organisms, inevitably come into contact with these substances and can potentially be harmed by them. "Wild bees and other pollinators can come into contact with quite high concentrations shortly after spraying. But animals in aquatic habitats are also at risk," says UFZ biologist Prof. Martin von Bergen, one of the two joint principal investigators. "Rainfall gradually washes plant protection products into the surrounding waters. They don't simply remain and only affect the area where they are applied."

New modeling shows difficult future for the GBR under climate change

Coral bleached by high water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.
Photo Credit: Professor Peter Mumby

The most sophisticated modeling to date forecasts that under the current global emissions pathway the Great Barrier Reef could lose most of its coral by the end of the century, but curbing climate change and strategic management will help coral resilience.

A research team led by The University of Queensland simulated different future climate scenarios driven by a range of plausible global emissions trajectories.

Dr Yves-Marie Bozec from UQ’s School of the Environment said the comprehensive modelling of individual corals included their ability to adapt to warmer water, large-scale reef dynamics and their interconnections on ocean currents.

“We ran all of those factors with the most up to date climate projections – and the news was not good,” Dr Bozec said.

“We forecast a rapid coral decline before the middle of this century regardless of the emissions scenario.

“Corals may partially recover after 2050, but only if ocean warming is sufficiently slow to allow natural adaptation to keep pace with temperature changes.

“Adaptation may keep pace if global warming does not exceed 2 degrees by 2100.

“For that to happen, more action is needed globally to reduce carbon emissions which are driving climate change.”

Oxford scientists capture genome’s structure in unprecedented detail

Detailed map of the genome one pixel per nucleotide
Image Credit: Radcliffe Department of Medicine

Scientists from Oxford's Radcliffe Department of Medicine have achieved the most detailed view yet of how DNA folds and functions inside living cells, revealing the physical structures that control when and how genes are switched on.

Using a new technique called MCC ultra, the team mapped the human genome down to a single base pair, unlocking how genes are controlled, or, how the body decides which genes to turn on or off at the right time, in the right cells. This breakthrough gives scientists a powerful new way to understand how genetic differences lead to disease and opens up fresh routes for drug discovery.

‘For the first time, we can see how the genome’s control switches are physically arranged inside cells, said Professor James Davies, lead author of the study.

‘This changes our understanding of how genes work and how things go wrong in disease. We can now see how changes in the intricate structure of DNA leads to conditions like heart disease, autoimmune disorders and cancer.’

Long-lived contrails usually form in natural ice clouds

Contrails over Jülich, embedded in very thin and therefore barely visible cirrus clouds.
Photo Credit:© Andreas Petzold

Long-lived contrails form predominantly not in cloud-free skies, but within already existing ice clouds. This is the conclusion reached by a team of scientists from Forschungszentrum Jülich, the University of Cologne, the University of Wuppertal, and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Using extensive observational data, the researchers were able, for the first time, to systematically determine the atmospheric conditions under which long-lasting contrails form – whether in cloudless skies, in very thin and barely visible ice clouds, or in more clearly visible ice clouds, known as cirrus clouds. The result: more than 80 percent of all persistent contrails form within pre-existing clouds, mostly within natural cirrus clouds. The effects of this on the climate are not yet clearly understood. The study, now published in Nature Communications, provides important insights for further research – and, beyond that, strong arguments for taking cloud cover into account when planning flight routes adapted to climate considerations.

New study uncovers potential way to prevent breast cancer in premenopausal women

Photo Credit: Angiola Harry

A University of Manchester study funded by Breast Cancer Now and supported by Prevent Breast Cancer, reveals a drug approved for use in other conditions could be repurposed to prevent breast cancer in women before the menopause.

Researchers at the Manchester Breast Centre, based at The University of Manchester, found that blocking the effects of the hormone progesterone, using ulipristal acetate, a drug already used on the NHS, may reduce the risk of breast cancer developing in women before the menopause, with a strong family history of the disease.

Progesterone is a hormone that can drive breast cancer development. It promotes the growth of a type of breast cell, that has the potential to turn into breast cancer. It can also influence the environment inside the breast, making it easier for these healthy cells to transform into cancer cells.

Prime time for fiber optics to take a deep dive into brain circuits

Fiber-optic technology is being refined for brain research. WashU engineers have developed a way to vastly expand the utility of a single fiber-optic line that can fit in the brain.
Image Credit: JJ Ying

Fiber-optic technology revolutionized the telecommunications industry and may soon do the same for brain research.

A group of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis in both the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine have created a new kind of fiber-optic device to manipulate neural activity deep in the brain. The device, called PRIME (Panoramically Reconfigurable IlluMinativE) fiber, delivers multi-site, reconfigurable optical stimulation through a single, hair-thin implant.

“By combining fiber-based techniques with optogenetics, we can achieve deep-brain stimulation at unprecedented scale,” said Song Hu, professor of biomedical engineering, who collaborated with the laboratory of Adam Kepecs, professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at WashU Medicine. 

New study revises our picture of the most common planets in the galaxy

A new study finds that many “mini-Neptunes”—perhaps the most common planets in the galaxy—are under so much pressure from their heavy atmospheres that the surface is likely compressed solid. Illustration Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

As telescopes have become more powerful, it’s turned out our solar system is not the only game in town: There are millions of other planets out there in the galaxy. 

But we’re still teasing out clues about what they are actually like. 

One of the puzzles is a kind of planet that appears to be one of the most common types in the universe. Known as “mini-Neptunes” because they run a little smaller than Neptune in our solar system, these planets are made of some mix of rock and metal, with thick atmospheres mostly made of hydrogen, helium, and perhaps water. Strangely, despite their abundance elsewhere, they have no analogue in our own solar system, making the population something of an enigma. 

But a new study published Nov. 5, led by Prof. Eliza Kempton with the University of Chicago, adds a new wrinkle to our best picture yet of these distant worlds.