The waters surrounding Spain aren’t particularly recognized for being home to great white sharks. With that in mind, you’d be hard-pressed to spot one in the wild there. But in a stroke of luck, Spanish animal conservation group Alnitak happened upon one last week while studying various marine animals, such as dolphins, manta rays, and sea turtles, just to name a few. Image Credit: Alnitak Marine Science and Education Specialists who were with the conservation group at the time allegedly followed the large fish for an hour while to capture video footage to document the historic sighting. “We saw a black fin and straight away could see it was a very big shark,” recalled Fernando López-Mirones, a documentary creator that happened to be on the boat with the Alnitak researchers at the time. “The conditions in the sea were amazing and we had the specimen around three meters from the boat, and we could watch it up close for 70 minutes,” he continued. Related: Florida man charged after punching a hammerhead shark to death What makes the great white shark sighting such a momentous event? Mostly because there haven’t been any ‘officially’ documented great white shark sightings in Spain since 1976 – that’s more than four decades ago. Related: Current fishing trends surrounding the Shortfin Mako Shark are unsustainable There have been numerous undocumented great white shark encounters in Spain over the years, but each case lacked video evidence. Thursday’s sighting, which conveniently came with video verification, involved a five-meter-long specimen and validates the longstanding claims that great white sharks still inhabit these parts of the ocean. More importantly, the sighting may spur additional great white shark-related research to see just how many of the large fish inhabit these waters. Either way, it should be interesting to see how this sighting might impact animal conservation in the region. Source: Alnitak via The Guardian

In a 2021 study published in PNAS, an international team of researchers suggest that cave paintings found in Cueva de Ardales, Spain were made by Neanderthals more than 60,000 years ago. The researchers hailed from Spain, Portugal, France, Norway, and Germany, and this study opens the door for discussing the presence of Neanderthals on the European continent more than 20,000 years before modern humans showed up. This present study came about after a 2018 study caused turmoil within the paleoarchaeology community discussed how red ocher pigment found within these caves were attributed to our extinct “cousin” species, with the suggested dating of the paintings to be at least 64,800 years old. Sample sites within the Cueva de Ardales caves in Málaga, Spain. P-ARD-6 indicates the large sample region, which is enlarged in B and offers a close-up of additonal sample sites. Scale bars, 50 cm. (Credit: Pitarch Martí et al. (2021) The symbolic role of the underground world among Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals. PNAS. Vol. 118, No. 33 e2021495118) However, these findings were so controversial that “a scientific article said perhaps these pigments were a natural thing,” a result of iron oxide flow, said Dr. Francesco d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux, a co-author of the most recent study, to Agence France-Presse. This most recent study disclosed that both the placement and composition of the pigments emplaced through blowing and scattering, as opposed to natural processes. They also note the texture of the originated from an external source when compared with natural samples that were removed from the caves. “Close-up view of red stains (A–E), microphotographs (F–J), and selected SEM images in backscattered electron mode (K–O) of red microsamples extracted from panel II.A.3. (A) Curtain 9, (B and C) Curtain 8, (D) Curtain 6, (E) Curtain 5, (F and K) P-ARD-02, (G and L) P-ARD-03, (H and M) P-ARD-04, (I and N) P-ARD-05, and (J and O) P-ARD-06. Arrows in A–E indicate the extraction spot. Scale bars in A–E, 1 cm.” (Credit: Pitarch Martí et al. (2021) The symbolic role of the underground world among Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals. PNAS. Vol. 118, No. 33 e2021495118) After applying more detailed dating, it was also found some of the pigments were separated by more than 10,000 years, indicating some of the pigments were applied at individual points in history. These findings “support the hypothesis that the Neanderthals came on several occasions, over several thousand years, to mark the cave with pigments, said d’Errico. The findings in this new study add to increasing evidence that Neanderthals, who are believed to have completely gone extinct 40,000 years ago, were not the coarse and ill-bred relatives of Homo sapiens they have long been portrayed as being. Sources: PNAS, Science As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Featured Image: Sanple sites within the Cueva de Ardales caves in Málaga, Spain. P-ARD-6 indicates the large sample region, which is enlarged in B and offers a close-up of additonal sample sites. Scale bars, 50 cm. (Credit: Pitarch Martí et al. (2021) The symbolic role of the underground world among Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals. PNAS. Vol. 118, No. 33 e2021495118)

It is the job of a shepherd to keep herds of sheep in check and prevent them from meandering where they don’t belong. Unfortunately for a shepherd in Spain earlier this month, catching a nap from his severe tiredness was more important than tending to his sheep. You can only imagine what went from there. After the shepherd wasn’t attentive enough to take care of the sheep, the herd of approximately 1300 four-legged animals went for a stroll into the black of the night into the Spanish city of Huesca. As the Telegraph reports, at approximately 4:30 A.M. Spanish police got the call from a civilian that there were a bunch of sheep just going to walk across town. Police then had to get in contact with the sleeping shepherd to alert him that his sheep had gotten loose. From this point, the police worked with the sleepy shepherd to get the sheep out of the city and back on track for their grazing destination for the Summer. A video uploaded by the local police department shows the 1300 sheep going for a walk across the Spanish asphalt and crossing a roundabout. The herder was trying to lead the sheep through an ancient herding route known as cañana real, which just so happens to go through Huesca. When he wasn’t awake, they had managed to get off track and needed to be redirected. This is a tradition that shepherds are said to follow one day annually to continue the ancient tradition of herding sheep. It’s definitely an oopsie that the shepherd isn’t likely to let happen again in the future, although the ancient tradition of herding isn’t going anywhere in Spain for a very long time, as many shepherds continue to follow this tradition. Source: The Telegraph

In a recent study published in the Journal of Human Evolution, an international team of researchers led by Binghamton University examine an almost 150-year-old fossil mandible discovered in Banyoles, Spain, that was once considered belonging to a Neanderthal dated between 45,000 and 65,000-years-old and conclude this fossil might belong to one of the first Homo sapiens ever recorded in Europe. This study holds the potential to help scientists both better understand human evolution and how and when the first humans existed on Earth. "The mandible has been studied throughout the past century and was long considered to be a Neanderthal based on its age and location, and the fact that it lacks one of the diagnostic features of Homo sapiens: a chin," said Brian Keeling, who is a Binghamton University graduate student, and lead author on the study. For the study, the researchers used a CT scanner to virtually rebuild missing parts of the fossil mandible, along with creating a 3D model so a computer could examine it. The researchers then compared the virtual model to distinct features that vary between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. "Our results found something quite surprising -- Banyoles shared no distinct Neanderthal traits and did not overlap with Neanderthals in its overall shape," said Keeling. In the end, the researchers determined the Banyoles mandible could represent a member of a previously unknown population of Homo sapiens that might have coexisted with Neanderthals, or a potential hybrid between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. "If Banyoles is really a member of our species, this prehistoric human would represent the earliest H. sapiens ever documented in Europe," said Keeling. Sources: Journal of Human Evolution As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

A strategic sharing of resources is a common feature of many different kinds of communities, even throughout the animal kingdom. Scientists have now found evidence for sharing among bacterial communities. Reporting in Science, researchers at the University of California San Diego have discovered that if bacterial groups have a limited energy resources, they will alternate times in which the different groups harvest the energy. "What's interesting here is that you have these simple, single-celled bacteria that are tiny and seem to be lonely creatures, but in a community, they start to exhibit very dynamic and complex behaviors you would attribute to more sophisticated organisms or a social network," said Süel, Associate Director of the San Diego Center for Systems Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Simons Faculty Scholar at UC San Diego. "It's the same timesharing concept used in computer science, vacation homes and a lot of social applications." Working in collaboration, molecular biologist Gürol Süel of UC San Diego's Division of Biological Sciences and colleagues from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain observed the behavior of communities of bacteria that had to compete for a limited amount of food. The investigators demonstrated that bacteria are able to devise a timesharing method that alternates feeding periods, thus consuming the resources in the most efficient way for both groups. In the video above, reported in the journal Science by the Süel lab, you can see a time-lapse movie of in-phase oscillations in a pair of Bacillus subtilis biofilms that have been grown together in a microfluidic chamber. The cyan color indicates fluorescence from the membrane potential dye Thioflavin T. Süel and his team have previously learned that bacteria living in an ordered community called biofilms, utilize electrical signals to communicate with other bacterial species that are nearby; the local bacteria can be recruited into the community. This new study examines the interaction between two biofilm communities. By using mathematical models and data collected in the lab by microfluidic techniques and time-lapse microscopy, the scientists discovered that biofilm communities close to one another engage in synchronized behaviors using the previously described electrical signals. You can see another Süel lab video of the biofilms below showing the oscillations between them. The biofilms were confronted with scenarios in which they had a limited amount of nutrients; the bacteria then alternated their feeding times. That cooperation stopped any bottlenecks in the drive to consume the resources. "It is common for living systems to operate in unison, but here we're showing that working out-of-sync can also provide a biological benefit," explained study co-author Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo, a Professor of Systems Biology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain. "These bacteria are just about everywhere—from your teeth to soil to drain pipes," said Süel. "It's interesting to think that these simple organisms two billion years ago developed the same timesharing strategy that we humans are now using for all kinds of purposes," he concluded. Sources: Phys.org via UCSD, Science

Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) have some good news for winemakers and wine lovers. Delicate wine grapes are highly susceptible to changes in temperature, which means that rising temperatures associated with climate change threaten worldwide wine production. According to a news release from UBC regarding the study, 51% of current wine growing regions would be wiped out if global temperatures rise by an average of 2 degrees Celsius. However, new research from UBC—published today online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—demonstrates that shifting grapes for more drought and heat tolerant varieties may help winemakers move forward in a changing climate. Elizabeth Wolkovich, senior author and professor of conservation sciences, told UBC reporters, “these aren’t painless shifts to make, but they can ease winegrowers’ transitions to a new and warmer world.” The team studied the 11 most popular wine grape varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon, Chasselas, Chardonnay, Grenache, Merlot, Mourvedre, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, and Trebbiano. They built models of cultivation timing using three different warming scenarios (0, 2, and 4 degrees of warming). Then, they used climate change projections to see where each of the 11 varieties could survive in the future. According to the study, losses in any scenario are unavoidable. However, if wine growers switch varieties that can tolerate the changing climate, only 24% of winegrowing areas would be lost. An example given by Wolkovich in the UBC news release suggests “growers in regions such as Bordeaux may swap our Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot for Mourvedre.” The study shows that cooler winegrowing regions—Germany, New Zealand, and the Pacific Northwest in the United States—would not be as heavily impacted as other regions. The research suggests that they may even be more suitable for warmer varieties such as merlot and grenache. Areas already limited to warmer types—such as Italy, Spain, and Australia—would experience the most substantial losses since they are already hot. Wolkovich and the research team acknowledge that these shifts are not without cultural, legal, and financial challenges. Some of the legal conversations have started regarding legislation that would allow growers to switch varieties. However, Wolkovich says, “Growers still must learn to grow these new varieties. That’s a big hurdle in some regions that have grown the same varieties for hundreds and hundreds of years.” Sources: UBC, PNAS

In a recent study published in Applied Optics, an international team of researchers led by the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom have developed a method to use a novel near-infrared light imaging system to capture images of cross-sectional carbon dioxide (CO2) exhaust plumes from a commercial jet engine. This study holds the potential to designing engines and jet fuels that are more friendly to the environment and was collaborate with scientists from both the United Kingdom and Spain. "This approach, which we call chemical species tomography, provides real-time spatially resolved information for carbon dioxide emissions from a large-scale commercial engine," said Dr. Michael Lengden from the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom, and a co-author on the study. "This information has not been available before at this industrial scale and is a big improvement over the current industry-standard emissions measurement, which involves taking gas from the exhaust to a gas analyzer system in a different location." The method the researchers used works similar to X-ray-based CT scans in medicine, with the exception of their method uses near-infrared laser light that’s tuned to the absorption wavelength of a target molecule. The caveat is this method requires fast imaging speeds to capture a combustion’s dynamic processes. The results demonstrated that, at all levels of thrust, a high CO2 concentration in the form of a ring-structure existed at the engine’s central region. A raised region was also observed in the middle of the plume, likely from the engine’s shape. "The aviation industry is a major contributor to global carbon dioxide emissions so there is a need for turbine and fuel technologies to improve radically," said Dr. Lengden. "By providing fully validated emissions measurements, our new method could help the industry develop new technology that reduces the environmental impact of aviation." Sources: Applied Optics As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

What can lava tubes on Earth teach us about finding life on Mars? This is a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how molecular biomarkers found in volcanic lava caves on Earth could teach us about ancient subsurface Earth environments which could serve as analogs for how life could have formed and evolved on Mars. This study holds the potential to help researchers expand the locations of finding life in unlikely environments, both on Earth and other worlds, as well. For the study, the researchers examined mineral deposits in six lava tubes spread across Lanzarote, which is part of the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco but managed by Spain. Using sophisticated methods to analyze the deposits for signs of molecular biomarkers, the researchers identified signs that bacteria was active in the lava caves long ago due to calcium and sodium sulfates their instruments found. The researchers postulate that the reason these bacteria are preserved was due to the cooling lava acting as a shield against weathering that would otherwise erode the preservations away. Image of organic-rich sulfate deposits inside a lava cave on the island of Lanzarote, Spain. (Credit: Bogdan Onac) “This study adds to our understanding of geological and environmental changes on Earth and highlights lava tubes as potential refuges for microbial life, holding significant implications for astrobiology, particularly in identifying biosignatures on Mars and other celestial bodies,” said Dr. Bogdan Onac, who is a professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of South Florida and a co-author on the study. Lava tubes have become an increasingly crucial topic of discussion within the scientific community regarding how future astronauts could live on Mars due to the increased shielding from cosmic and solar radiation that constantly bombards the Red Planet’s surface. Now, this study postulates how these lava tubes could be catacombs for past life on the Red Planet and could help determine if life ever existed on Mars, and if it exists there today. What new discoveries will researchers make in Earth lava caves that could teach us about finding life beyond Earth in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: Communications Earth & Environment, EurekAlert!, Wikipedia

What can lava tubes on Earth teach us about finding life on Mars? This is a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how molecular biomarkers found in volcanic lava caves on Earth could teach us about ancient subsurface Earth environments which could serve as analogs for how life could have formed and evolved on Mars. This study holds the potential to help researchers expand the locations of finding life in unlikely environments, both on Earth and other worlds, as well. For the study, the researchers examined mineral deposits in six lava tubes spread across Lanzarote, which is part of the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco but managed by Spain. Using sophisticated methods to analyze the deposits for signs of molecular biomarkers, the researchers identified signs that bacteria was active in the lava caves long ago due to calcium and sodium sulfates their instruments found. The researchers postulate that the reason these bacteria are preserved was due to the cooling lava acting as a shield against weathering that would otherwise erode the preservations away. Image of organic-rich sulfate deposits inside a lava cave on the island of Lanzarote, Spain. (Credit: Bogdan Onac) “This study adds to our understanding of geological and environmental changes on Earth and highlights lava tubes as potential refuges for microbial life, holding significant implications for astrobiology, particularly in identifying biosignatures on Mars and other celestial bodies,” said Dr. Bogdan Onac, who is a professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of South Florida and a co-author on the study. Lava tubes have become an increasingly crucial topic of discussion within the scientific community regarding how future astronauts could live on Mars due to the increased shielding from cosmic and solar radiation that constantly bombards the Red Planet’s surface. Now, this study postulates how these lava tubes could be catacombs for past life on the Red Planet and could help determine if life ever existed on Mars, and if it exists there today. What new discoveries will researchers make in Earth lava caves that could teach us about finding life beyond Earth in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: Communications Earth & Environment, EurekAlert!, Wikipedia

According to a new study, combining the drugs hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and azithromycin (AZM) was shown to reduce cardiovascular complications and overall mortality rate. "Hydroxychloroquine, both alone and in combination with azithromycin, gained strong consideration as a potential COVID treatment without a large-scale study of its overall safety profile," said Daniel Prieto-Alhambra, PhD, co-senior author on this study. "We had access to an unprecedented amount of data on this drug, and we were relieved to find no worrying side effects in the short-term use of hydroxychloroquine. However, when prescribed in combination with azithromycin, it may induce heart failure and cardiovascular mortality and we would urge caution in using the two together." Learn more about cardiovascular complications: Findings were published in Lancet Rheumatology. "At medical school we were taught to 'first do no harm' and to me, our study focuses on this core belief of modern medicine," said Jennifer Lane, MD, who served as co-lead author on this study along with Jamie Weaver. "OHDSI has the power to investigate this question in a very thorough way and to go through rigorous steps. We are looking at patients from the general population, which is why it is so important to look at data from multiple countries. There are reasons why you may get bias from one data source, but if we find a signal in the Netherlands, and we find it in Spain, and we find it in the U.S., then we know we have something." Source: Science Daily

A collaboration between researchers throughout Europe has found a correlation between antibiotic-resistant genes in wastewater and antibiotic consumption by patients in the region. The study was published in Science Advances and looked at water treatment plants in Finland, Norway, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus. It is important to evaluate the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria within our systems because of the risk of dispersion. If these bacteria were to make their way from wastewater into the environment and to the irrigation water used in agriculture, humans and wildlife alike would be gravely affected. This fear is particularly high as climate change-related weather events increase the frequency of flooding and overflow of water systems. The results from this study have several conclusions, the first of which is that southern Europe uses more antibiotics than northern Europe. More specifically, antibiotic use is relatively high in Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, and Ireland, whereas in Finland, Norway and Germany antibiotics are prescribed and used less. Perhaps unsurprisingly, people living in southern Europe also tend to carry a much higher number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria than those living in northern Europe; which is to say the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Cypriots, and the Irish have more antibiotic-resistant bacteria than the Finns, the Norwegians, and the Germans. Though every country participating in the study receives antibiotic-resistant genes into their wastewater treatment plants, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, and Ireland did follow the above-described correlation, showing that more antibiotic-resistant genes enter treatment plants in southern Europe than in Finland, Norway, and Germany. The upside of this investigation is that wastewater treatment plants were found to be quite effective overall. Apart from one Portuguese treatment facility where the relative number of antibiotic resistance genes increased during the purification process, the researchers found that treatment plants are largely able to rid the resistant genes from a majority of samples. "In this study, 11 of the 12 wastewater treatment plants under investigation mitigated the resistance problem, which seems to indicate that modern plants work well in this regard," said Marko Virta, a University of Helsinki microbiologist from the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. "At the same time, an older plant or otherwise deficient purification process may end up increasing antibiotic resistance in the environment. We need more research findings from countries with high antibiotic consumption and less developed wastewater treatment practices." Virta and colleagues are hoping to conduct further research in Asia and West Africa in order to explain the anomaly in their results. The team did find that the correlation was maintained for treated water leaving the treatment facilities. In other words, the higher the resistance in the incoming wastewater (southern European countries), the higher it remained in the water leaving the plant. Sources: Science Daily, Science Advances

When you think about exoplanet research, NASA’s now-retired Kepler Space Telescope comes to mind. Kepler did a lot of the heavy lifting concerning exoplanet discovery, and now it’s up to space agencies around the world to learn more about the thousands of exoplanets we’ve already discovered. The European Space Agency’s upcoming CHaracterizing ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) will do just that, and the ESA just recently announced when it would be sending CHEOPS into space to commence its scientific research. Image Credit: ESA–A. Conigli In an official statement, we learn that the ESA plans to launch CHEOPS sometime between October 15th and November 14th of next year (2019). It’s poised to launch from a Russian Soyuz rocket, which will allegedly ignite its engines from a spaceport located in Kourou. Related: Will NASA's TESS mission provide new insights regarding exoplanets? When CHEOPS reaches outer space, it will follow a Sun-synchronous orbit around the Earth; this means riding along the boundary of day and night as it transpires on our planet. This type of orbit will help CHEOPS’ onboard instruments study previously-discovered exoplanets without hindrance from the Sun’s light. Since we’ve already discovered all the targets that CHEOPS will set its sights on, analyzing them should be a piece of cake. According to the ESA, it will focus primarily on exoplanets believed to be in the Earth-to-Neptune size range. After CHEOPS homes in on these exoplanets, its sensitive instruments will gather planetary transit information. This data should help astronomers discern precise measurements concerning the exoplanets’ sizes, masses, and composition, among other things. If successful, then it will become the first real step toward characterizing worlds outside of our solar system. The data CHEOPS collects should also help planetary scientists better understand how these worlds came to be. This data is valuable to scientists because it could potentially translate to better understanding our solar system and how it formed. Related: Do the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets have what it takes to support life? The CHEOPS satellite currently resides at the Airbus Defense and Space headquarters in Spain where it’s preparing to undergo final tests ahead of next year’s launch. If everything goes according to plan, then the ESA shouldn’t expect any delays. It should be interesting to see what CHEOPS learns about the many distant worlds outside of our solar system. After all, it’s no easy task identifying and studying exoplanets that reside several light-years away from Earth. Source: ESA

At six light-years away from Earth, Barnard’s Star holds the title of the second-closest stellar neighbor to our solar system. Astronomers have long studied this red dwarf to learn more about it, but it wasn’t until recently that something eccentric captivated their attention. Image Credit: IEEC/Science-Wave - Guillem Ramisa A paper published just this week in the journal Nature by an international team of researchers denotes how recent observations of Bernard’s Star turned up some rather peculiar wobbling motions. Astronomers have long thought that stellar wobbling transpires when an orbiting body, such as an exoplanet, gravitationally tugs on the host star. That said, could this explain what was happening here? Given the open-ended circumstances, the researchers dug a bit deeper. They turned to more than two decades’ worth of archived astronomical data and compared it with recent observations made with the CARMENES spectrometer in Spain, the ESO/HARPS instrument in Chile, and the HARPS-N instrument in the Canary Islands. As it turns out, the additional legwork was well worth the effort. The astronomers discerned a bevy of clues that were consistent with the notion that a terrestrial exoplanet some 3.2 times more massive than Earth orbits Bernard’s Star. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the astronomers have named their so-called exoplanet ‘Bernard’s Star b.’ "After a very careful analysis, we are over 99 percent confident that the planet is there since this is the model that best fits our observations," explained Dr. Ignasi Ribas, the lead author of the paper. "However, we must remain cautious and collect more data to nail the case in the future." Related: Proxima b may not be a habitable world after all Admittedly, the discovery of this exoplanet is still very much theoretical. None of the astronomers physically laid eyes Bernard’s Star b, but all the circumstantial evidence thus far implies that it exists. Assuming Bernard’s Star b does exist, then the astronomers are relatively sure that it resides far outside of Bernard’s Star’s habitable zone and orbits the host star once every 233 days. Consequently, the exoplanet’s surface temperature is rather chilly at -170 Celsius, and it’s unlikely that a world this cold would be habitable. As you can probably imagine, additional observations are already underway to validate the team’s findings. Even if they don’t find anything worthwhile, perhaps NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will. Either way, it should be interesting to see how this pans out. Source: EurekAlert, Nature

A European Bison was reportedly found poisoned and decapitated in the Valdeserrillas Reserve in Valencia, Spain on Friday. Other animals across the reserve have also reportedly been poisoned, and others are nowhere to be found. Image Credit: Carlos Alamo/Facebook The European Bison is considered vulnerable by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and there are only believed to be a little more than 5,500 of them in the wild today. They have faced terrible dwindling numbers over the years due to habitat development and hunting. The reserve was supposed to be an attempt to conserve the species. Authorities are currently looking for the person(s) who committed the heinous act on the animal. The European Bison’s carcass was found headless by the reserve’s staff and apparently belonged to a known specimen who went by the name Souron. He was reportedly the largest and strongest of the herd. At more than 1,700 pounds, he was a star at the reserve. “He was called Sauron after the Lord of the Rings character because he was the biggest and the most powerful,” said Rodolfo Navarro, a spokesman for the reserve. “He was a beautiful animal that weighed nearly 800 kilograms [1,764 pounds]. He was sort of the symbol of the reserve.” The head may have been taken as a kind of trophy of sorts to be sold on the black market by a team of wrongdoers, as one person alone wouldn’t have been strong enough to do this. Reports indicate that the head appeared to be bluntly removed by way of axe, and that the poisoning was a way to weaken the herd to make the attack possible. Police have taken blood and fur samples from the carcass to attempt to find traces of the poison that might lead to its origin. Forensic analysts can track down its composition and then head to the sources to dig for clues. “It was like a murder,” Navarro continued. “It’s just senseless and it’s really damaged not only our image and Valencia’s, but also Spain’s.” Source: The Guardian, Facebook

A USC-led research team discovered the unique role that a light-capturing marine microbe plays in regulating Earth’s climate. The team consisted of scientists from California, China, the UK, and Spain. The results of their study were published this week in Science Advances. Laura Gómez-Consarnau led the research team and is an assistant professor of biology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. In a press release from USC regarding the nature of the study, she explained that "oceans are important for climate change because they play a key role in the carbon cycle. Understanding how that works, and the marine organisms involved, helps us refine our climate models to predict climate in the future." Their research focused on rhodopsins—microbes with light-sensitive proteins that trap sunlight similar to how the human eye gathers light. When organic matter is scarce, rhodopsins use sunlight to create energizing adenosine triphosphate. Prior to the discovery of rhodopsins about 20 years ago, it was thought that ocean sunlight was only metabolized by chlorophylls in algae and bacteria. However, although rhodopsins use sunlight to create energy, they don’t absorb CO2 in the way that marine algae do. Previous research estimated that rhodopsins represent 80% of marine bacteria. A 2014 study discovered that bacteria containing rhodopsin were much more abundant than previously thought. Additionally, they discovered that rhodopsins were concentrated in nutrient-poor waters in which they trap more sunlight that algae. The existence of low-nutrient zones throughout the global ocean is expected to increase with rising ocean temperatures. As a result, rhodopsins will be able to utilize sunlight and thrive in the absence of nutrients whereas algae will be limited. The effects of this shift will have cascading impacts on climate regulation, resulting in less carbon sequestering in the ocean. Gómez-Consarnau explained that “with fewer nutrients near the surface, algae will have limited photosynthesis, and the rhodopsin process will be more abundant.” As a result of this shift, “the ocean won't be able to absorb as much carbon as it does today. So more CO2 gas may remain in the atmosphere, and the planet may warm faster." Sources: USC, Science Advances

Researchers from the University of Malaga in Spain recently come across a shark embryo with two heads, something that is relatively rare in nature for the most part, but has been more and more common as of recent years. Image Credit: Journal of Fish Biology It’s an embryo of an Atlantic Sawtail Catshark (Galeus atlanticus), which had not only two heads, but also two hearts, two stomachs, two esophagi, and even two livers, despite sharing the same single body. Published in the Journal of Fish Biology, this unique finding out of 797 individual embryo samples stood out the most to the researchers. Although two-headed sharks have been documented in the past in other shark species, their situations are a little different from this one for a very important reason. Two-headed sharks have been observed in both viviparous and ovoviviparous species; the former means the species develops inside the mother’s body without eggs, and the latter means the species is hatched inside the mother’s body from eggs. In this case however, it is the first time this has been documented in an oviparous species, which is a species that lays eggs outside the body to hatch. The double-headed phenomenon is believed to occur only in vertebrates as a genetic mutation. It has been seen in much more than just sharks, including but not limited to snakes, lizards, dolphins. Overfishing may have some impact on the condition, known as dicephaly, as it leads to inbreeding and causes genetic mutations to happen on a larger scale. Source: National Geographic

Mosquito and tick bites can spread several different diseases, and the ranges of these insects are shifting as the climate changes. One tick-borne disease is Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF), which is now affecting people in Europe as well as Africa and Asia. For now, the European cases seem to have been confined to Spain, Russia, Turkey, and the Balkan region. In 2010, surveillance efforts revealed that there were ticks in Spain that were infected with Nairovirus, a virus in the Bunyaviridae family that causes CCHF. In 2016, doctors there began to identify the first cases of CCHF in people, which were outlined in a 2017 report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The first patient that fell ill succumbed to the disease while the second survived. Eight other cases have been reported in Spain since then. While tick bites often spread CCHF, it can also be transmitted through direct contact with infected bodily fluids from animals or humans. As such, veterinarians, health care workers, and agricultural workers are at risk. Right now there are not any treatments or vaccines that are made specifically for CCHF. The virus typically incubates for three to seven days. About 80 percent of cases or more seem to be mild, or even asymptomatic, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. If the disease does cause symptoms, they can include fever, fatigue, headache, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or vomiting. In the worst cases, hemorrhaghic symptoms emerge. It's estimated that about 10,000 to 15,000 cases of CCHF occur around the world every year, and about 500 of those cases are fatal. Around 30 percent of people who are hospitalized for the disease end up dying from it. The World Health Organization has warned that the disease poses a major threat to human health, noting the high case fatality rate among those who are hospitalized. Other diseases are on the move too. Dengue fever is caused by dengue virus, which is spread by a type of mosquito called the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) that has migrated to Southern Europe from the tropics. Doctors are also about to announce a case of dengue fever that occurred in a British woman who went to Nice, France for vacation and contracted the illness there. Other people who stayed where she was in France had also fallen ill with the same symptoms, but she did not seek care until returning home to the UK. About 30 cases of dengue fever were confirmed in the south of France in 2022, according to Dr. Owain Donnelly of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. After her symptoms, including muscle pain, fever, headache, and a widespread rash were evaluated, the Rare Imported Pathogens Laboratory (RIPL) in the UK confirmed that it was dengue fever. The patient recovered on her own. While it's estimated that about 75 percent of dengue fever cases are asymptomatic, anywhere from one to five percent of people who are infected will get a severe illness and potentially, dengue hemorrhagic fever. Sources: New England Journal of Medicine, Horizon: The EU Research & Innovation Magazine, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

NASA and private space infrastructure developer, Axiom Space, recently announced the approval for Axiom-4, which will be the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and is currently scheduled to launch no sooner than August 2024 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and slated to be docked to the ISS for 14 days. "Our Axiom Space team is looking forward to a fourth mission to the International Space Station,” said Michael Suffredini, who is the CEO and president of Axiom Space. “Each mission allows us to build on the foundation we have set for the world's first commercial space station, Axiom Station, preparing our teams and orbital platform to succeed the International Space Station operations in low Earth orbit.” The approval for Axiom-4 comes after NASA approved the Axiom-3 mission in March of this year with a scheduled launch date of no sooner than January 2024, and builds upon the previous successes of Axiom-1 and Axiom-2, which stayed docked to the ISS for 16 days and 8 days, respectively. While the crew for Axiom-3 and Axiom-4 haven’t been announced yet, the crews of Axiom-1 and Axiom-2 featured crews of diverse backgrounds, with astronauts representing the United States, Spain, Israel, Canada, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with being comprised of former NASA astronauts, entrepreneurs, military and civilian pilots, investors, and a biomedical researcher. Image of Axiom-2’s SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft docked to the International Space Station after launching the four-person crew to the orbital laboratory on May 22, 2023. (Credit: NASA) “These missions are instrumental in expanding commercial space activities and access to space for individuals and nations around the world, as well as developing the knowledge and experience needed to normalize living and working in microgravity,” said Suffredini. Like the previous Axiom missions, Axiom-4 will launch to the ISS onboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, and the crew will conduct their training alongside NASA, SpaceX, and international partners to achieve maximum mission success. Along with carrying out a variety of research tasks on the ISS, the Axiom-4 crew will also be tasked with returning scientific samples to Earth. As stated by CEO Suffredini, the goal of Axiom Space is to build Axiom Station, which is currently under construction on Earth and slated to be the world’s first commercial space station operating in low-Earth orbit. Axiom-4 will continue a successful trend of sending private astronauts to the ISS while conducting valuable science and teaching private astronauts how to live and work in space. How will Axiom-4 continue to establish a commercial presence in outer space? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: NASA, NASA (1), Axiom Space, Axiom Space (1), Axiom Space (2)

Have you ever heard of biocrusts? No, it’s not a new kind of pizza crust. Biocrusts refer to a group of tiny desert organisms (like mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria, and fungi) that live on the surface of dryland soils. While they’re so small you might not even notice them, new research published in Global Change Biology, suggests they play a very important role for our planet. In a collaboration of researchers from UNSW Sydney, the United States, Spain, Germany, Mexico and China, the report details a comprehensive meta-analysis of the largest global database on the effects of biocrusts on water movement, storage and erosion in dryland soils. Lead author Professor David Eldridge from UNSW Science comments, “Biocrusts are critically important because they fix large amounts of nitrogen and carbon, stabilize surface soils, and provide a home for soil organisms. But we still have a poor understanding of just how biocrusts influence hydrological cycles in global drylands. "Accounting for biocrusts and their hydrological impacts can give us a more accurate picture of the impacts of climate change on dryland ecosystems and improve our capacity to manage those effects," Eldridge said. Drylands are the most expansive biome covering land on Earth (they cover almost half of Earth's land surface and support almost 40% of the global human population) and biocrusts are often the most prevalent surface covering on dryland soils, so you can understand why it’s important to understand these little creatures. Yet, as co-author Dr. Samantha Travers explains, "The global literature on biocrust effects on hydrology has often been conflicting, preventing us from making broadscale recommendations on how to manage them to manage water.” From their analysis, the researchers concluded that the presence of biocrusts increase water storage in the uppermost layers of the soil and reduce water erosion by an average of 68%. This was the general finding, they explain, despite the influence that soil disturbance and biocrust type had on water storage. "This upper layer is where most of the nutrients and microbes are found -- it is a critical zone for plant production and stability in dryland soils," Eldridge said. "More water in the upper layers means greater productivity and stability." "Cyanobacteria in the crusts secrete organic gels and polysaccharides that help to bind small soil particles into stable surfaces. Mosses in the crusts also trapped water and sediment on the soil surface, preventing the removal of soil particles," Dr. Travers said. This field is emerging as evermore crucial because of the implications that it has for the millions of people, livestock, and wildlife that live in drylands. "The results of this work will be incorporated into global water balance and soil loss models so that managers and governments have a better understanding of the implications of losing biocrusts on the world's dwindling water supplies," commented Eldridge. Sources: Global Change Biology, Science Daily

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently used its powerful Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to peer into the very center of our Milky Way Galaxy, revealing stunning details in a star-forming region known as Sagittarius C (Sgr C) like never before, which includes approximately 500,000 in this single image. Sgr C is located approximately 300 light-years from the exact center of the Milky Way known as Sagittarius A*, which is a supermassive black hole. For context, the Milky Way is approximately 105,000 light-years across, so Sgr C being only 300 light-years from the center of the Milky Way is extremely close. “The galactic center is a crowded, tumultuous place. There are turbulent, magnetized gas clouds that are forming stars, which then impact the surrounding gas with their outflowing winds, jets, and radiation,” said Dr. Rubén Fedriani, who is a Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Fellow at the Instituto Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain and a co-investigator of the project. “Webb has provided us with a ton of data on this extreme environment, and we are just starting to dig into it.” Image from JWST’s NIRCam instrument of Sagittarius C which is located approximately 300 light-years from the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, Sagittarius A*. This image contains approximately 500,000 stars, some of which are protostars, which are stars that are still growing. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and S. Crowe (University of Virginia)) The “star” attraction in this single image of approximately 500,000 stars are a group of densely packed protostars, which are stars that are still growing, and includes a protostar whose mass is estimated to be greater than 30 times that of our Sun. Within this group of protostars is a massive cloud whose density is so great that JWST in unable to detect the light from the protostars that are behind the cloud. Astronomers know there are protostars behind it from the number of protostars that are emerging from behind the cloud. “The image from Webb is stunning, and the science we will get from it is even better,” said Samuel Crowe, who is an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and principal investigator of the team. “Massive stars are factories that produce heavy elements in their nuclear cores, so understanding them better is like learning the origin story of much of the universe.” What new discoveries will JWST make about protostars and the center of our Milky Way in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: NASA, NASA (1), NASA (2), EurekAlert!, NASA (3), Wikipedia

Because Mars is a big area of interest right now, especially with NASA and SpaceX wanting to send people to the red planet within the next couple of decades, you can bet we’re performing experiments in space to see just how habitable the red planet really is; can it support life? An experiment recently took place on board the International Space Station, which involved attaching a special atmosphere controlled experimentation platform to the outside of the space station, made by the European Space Agency, to simulate the Martian atmosphere. Inside of the experimentation platform, which was called the EXPOSE-E, were samples of fungi and lichens that were collected from rocks in Antarctica from Earth. The goal of the experiment was to see how well these fungi and lichen species could survive in the Martian conditions. The inside of the module had an atmosphere that was 95% carbon dioxide, 1.6% argon, 0.15% oxygen, 2.7% nitrogen, and 370 parts per million of water at a pressure of 1000 pascals. To further simulate the Martian environment, ultraviolet radiation was controlled to simulate radiation from the Sun since Mars has a significantly weaker magnetic field than the Earth does. The fungi and lichens stayed inside of this controlled Martian-like environment for 18 months before scientists decided to look at the results. Interestingly, the fungi and lichens had performed significantly well in the Martian-like environment, despite the doubts the researchers had. The findings are published in the journal Astrobiology. “The most relevant outcome was that more than 60% of the cells of the endolithic communities studied remained intact after ‘exposure to Mars’, or rather, the stability of their cellular DNA was still high,” highlights Rosa de la Torre Noetzel from Spain’s National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), co-researcher on the project. Although 60% doesn’t seem like a high amount, it is when you consider living for a year and a half in conditions very different from here on Earth, where the air you rely on is significantly different, along with protection from radiation. The new data gives scientists a better understanding of the long-term side effects of the Martian environment on life, and raises more questions as to how the Martian environment may impact other life forms. This type of testing can also be used to invent technologies to help the life forms better survive in these conditions. Source: SINC

Scientists have long understood the correlation between volcanic eruptions that trigger landslides. But recent research from a study of one of the largest volcanoes on Earth suggests that the street doesn’t only go one way; landslides may also trigger eruptions. The study, published in Nature Scientific Reports, looked at Teide, a volcano that sits at 12,198 feet in Tenerife in the Canary Islands of Spain. Like many large volcanoes, Teide has seen its fair share of seismic evolution, with cycles of eruptions, collapse, and regrowth. This has allowed scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) to look at deposits from previous submarine landslides, from which they determined that the beginning stages of landslides have happened underwater and – this is the key part – before the eruptions. They figured this out by analyzing the thin volcanic clay layers between landslide and eruption deposits. Looking at these deposits on a timescale continuum with the knowledge that it takes a certain amount of time for clay to settle out of the ocean, the scientists could approximate the amount of time between the first underwater landslide and following eruption. According to their findings, there were roughly 10 hours in between the events. The fact that the landslide did not trigger an eruption immediately is the key point to understand. In past seismic events such as those at Mt. St. Helens, scientists have observed immediate consequences. Dr. James Hunt, the lead author of the research, explained "Crucially, this new research shows that after the initial submarine landslide there could be between ten hours to several weeks until the eruption is finally triggered -- very different from the near-instantaneous landslide triggering of the 1980 Mt St Helens eruption. This information could help inform hazard mitigation strategies for volcanoes similar to Teide, such as Mt St Helens or Montserrat." As the authors write in their study, “This time lag succeeding landslide-generated static decompression has implications for the response of magmatic systems to un-roofing and poses a significant implication for ocean island volcanism and civil emergency planning.” The team hopes that this new information will help shed light on volcanic eruptions and provide a new depth to geohazard assessment and planning in the future. Sources: Science Daily, Nature Scientific Reports

Knowing more than one language has been associated with lifelong advantages including the enhancement of communication skills to boosting professional networks and the improvement of cognitive effects of aging. Now, scientists at the University of Washington found that children born to parents who are monolingual can learn a second language much faster but the change is how to expand their program. The answer to that is creating a software program that could train language tutors online how to teach babies. Yes, that's right it's as simple as just taking an online class. "We knew our research-based method worked to boost second language skills rapidly in infants, without negatively affecting their first language, but the question was, how can we train people worldwide to use it? Here, we show that online training works," said Naja Ferjan Ramírez, the lead author of both studies who is a new assistant professor of linguistics at the UW and a former I-LABS research scientist. The study was built on previous research on whether infants can learn a second language if exposed to an early education center. Findings showed that bilingual teaching among infants led to sustained English-language comprehension and vocabulary-building. Researchers believe that the technique could be scaled up to serve more economically diverse children. Results were described in the journal Mind, Brain, and Education and examines 280 children at four infant education centers in Madrid, Spain. The software program, known as SparkLing, is hoping to explore how to spread benefits of bilingual education to a diverse population and reach tutors 24/7 from where they live. Learn more about the benefits of a bilingual brain: "Parents worldwide have a common problem: They want their children to speak a second language, but many don't speak that language themselves. We know that zero to 5 is a critical age, a window of opportunity for second language learning, and our newest study shows that when teachers in early education classrooms are trained online to use our method and curriculum, children's learning seems almost magical," said Kuhl, who is also a UW professor or speech and hearing sciences. Source: Science Daily

Concern about the use of acetaminophen (paracetamol or N-acetyl-p-aminophenol (APAP)) during pregnancy has prompted a group of scientists, medical professionals, and public health experts from the University of Massachusetts School of Health Sciences, Yale, Aarhus University, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, University of Copenhagen, and other institutions to publish a statement in Nature Reviews Endocrinology. They are warning that evidence is mounting that fetal development is altered by prenatal exposure to acetaminophen. The potential disruption to the fetus may increase the risk of a wide variety of health problems. The report cautions that acetaminophen can be found in over 600 over the counter and prescription medications that treat pain and lower fevers, and sales of these products are increasing around the world. Acetaminophen can cause side effects and is a common cause of acute liver failure in children and adults. In Iceland, France, Spain, Sweden, and Finland, products containing APAP are only sold at pharmacies. Yet, this drug is a still commonly thought to be safe for pregnant women to use. You can find alternatives to this drug at 90daymeds.com, that are safe to use. The authors noted that the rates of neurological, reproductive, and urogenital disorders are increasing. They added that the incidence of behavioral and cognitive problems in children is on the rise, another cause for concern. The review suggested that acetaminophen use could be related to these increases. There is evidence that prenatal exposure to environmental chemicals like BPA or pharmaceuticals could be having a detrimental impact on sperm count and testis size. Research in Science Translational Medicine has indicated that prolonged exposure to acetaminophen can reduce the level of testosterone in an animal model, while only a single dose of acetaminophen had no similar effect. Many male reproductive disorders have been associated with low testosterone levels during development. Other research has noted that when people are unintentionally exposed to pharmaceuticals, those drugs can cause serious harm. The statement acknowledged that not many pain relievers and fever reducers are available, and that sometimes, pregnant women need to use acetaminophen. However, they urge caution; pregnant women might consider not taking acetaminophen or medicine that contains APAP for a long period of time. The authors noted that this study only investigated the consequences of APAP on pregnancy in cis-gender women. The Know Your Dose campaign is trying to raise awareness about this issue, and is urging people to check drug labels so they don't take too much acetaminophen, and take only one medicine that contains APAP at a time. People that drink alcohol should consult with their healthcare provider to ensure they aren't at risk of liver damage. Learn more about acetaminophen and the risks here. Sources: Science Translational Medicine, Nature Reviews Endocrinology

THC-rich cannabis is well known to bring relief for some chronic pain sufferers. But the downside, off putting for many users and a barrier to more widespread legalization, are the side effects that can come from the fact that THC is psychoactive. For many it causing significant side effects such as memory issues, sleepiness or irritability. Now, scientists have developed a peptide that’s been shown in animal studies to allow THC to fight pain without the side effects. The researchers from Spain and Portugal, had previously identified two peptides that disrupt an interaction between a receptor that's the target of THC and another receptor that binds serotonin, which regulates learning, memory and other cognitive functions. When the researchers injected these peptides into the brains of mice, the mice had fewer memory problems caused by THC. In the current study, reported in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry the team, led by Rafael Maldonado and David, the experiment was refined by improving the peptides to make them smaller, more stable, and able to cross the blood-brain barrier when consumed orally. The researchers then gave the new, most promising peptide — an orally active 16-residue peptide — to the mice orally, along with a THC injection, before testing the mice's pain threshold and memory. Mice treated with both THC and the optimized peptide reaped the pain-relieving benefits of THC and also showed improved memory compared with mice treated with THC alone. Another encouraging finding was that multiple treatments with the peptide did not promote an immune response, which would be an unwanted response in a potential new drug candidate. Together these positive findings suggest that this optimized peptide has potential in the development of an effective THC-rich cannabis medicine, but without the unwanted cognitive side effects. "Our efforts have culminated in the identification of an ideal candidate for cannabis-based pain management,” the researchers concluded. Sources: Science Daily, ACS

People from all over the world have different accents. A lot of the time, people have a different accent because they are used to speaking a foreign language, but sometimes accents come from differing dialects in different parts of a country. What do we mean by this? For example: in the United States, English is the primary spoken language, but the way you speak may sound different depending on whether you're from New York City, California, or from the South. Those from Boston have a completely different sound to their spoken English entirely. The diversity of English accents in the United States offers just a small scope of the accents that exist. Those from foreign countries, including Spain, Germany, or Russia (just to name a few) will also sound different while speaking English than a native English speaker will. This is because those who are native to speaking different languages are used to pronouncing sounds a certain way, and it puts a different spin on English words. Many studies also exist that show how accents have an impact on how someone judges you when you speak. Of course, there's nothing wrong with showing your roots in the way you pronounce your words! Toh-may-toh/Toh-mah-toh.

A University of Colorado Boulder and North Carolina State University-led team has produced the first atlas of airborne microbes across the continental United States, a feat that has implications for better understanding health and disease in humans, animals, and crops.The researchers collected outdoor dust samples from roughly 1,200 homes in all 50 states from both urban and rural areas using a powerful DNA sequencing technique to identify specific bacteria and fungal species. While standard, culture-based surveys are able to detect only a handful of different species, the high-tech molecular technique revealed that an average dust sample from the study contained roughly 4,700 different bacterial species and about 1,400 fungal species.The total number of bacterial species identified in the study was more than 110,000, along with more than 55,000 fungal species, many unknown to science. But not all bacteria and fungi are harmful-many have health benefits, researchers now know."We inhale thousands of airborne microbes every hour we spend outdoors, some of which can cause illnesses or trigger allergic disorders," says lead study author and associate professor Noah Fierer, ecology and evolutionary biology department. "This study provides the first glimpse of the continental-scale distributions of microorganisms in the atmosphere, giving us the baseline data to ask all sorts of interesting questions."It might now be possible to correlate specific areas in cities or states where people are especially sensitive to fungal allergies or asthma, for example, with areas that have particular fungal types regularly swirling in the outdoor air, Fierer says.A paper on the subject was published in the April 20 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Several patterns emerged during the study, says Fierer, also a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). The team found a "bicoastal" pattern showing that microbial communities from homes on the East Coast and West Coast were more similar to each other than those from homes in the nation's interior.Airborne microbes are capable of being transported phenomenal distances-aerosols in Saharan dust clouds from Africa, for instance, have been shown to impact the ecology of lakes in Spain and coral reefs in the Caribbean Sea. While the microbial communities in the study were highly variable in composition across America, their geographic patterns are associated in large part with variability in climate and soils, Fierer said.Volunteers collected the samples as part of Wild Life in Our Homes project, a national citizen-scientist effort coordinated by NCSU. Participants from all 50 states used kits mailed to them to swab the dust from the upper door trim on the outside surface of an exterior door for bacteria and fungal samples. Door trim is an ideal site: It's found on virtually every home and collects outdoor aerosols with little or no direct contact by home occupants.While there is the perception that those living in the country breathe in far different types of bacteria and fungi than those living in cities, that does not seem to be the case, said the study authors. Even though urban and rural samples of dust were not distinct from each other, the study does suggest urbanization leads to at least some degree of homogenization of airborne microbe types.The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Microbiology of the Built Environment program and the National Science Foundation funded the study.Fierer likened the new United States microbial map to botanical maps of the country assembled by US scientists more than 150 years ago."Going into this study, we didn't even know answers to basic questions like whether the airborne bacteria and fungi in Denver were different from those in San Francisco," says co-author Albert Barberan, a CIRES postdoctoral researcher. "But we saw certain patterns, and now we have the methods and tools to answer new questions."The PNAS paper is a companion study to one published last week in the journal PLOS ONE showing fungal DNA can be used to track the origin of dust samples, making it a potential forensic tool for use by law enforcement officials or archaeologists. Given a swab of dust from anywhere in the country, the team can identify its geographic origin, sometimes within 60 miles or less.[Source: University of Colorado Boulder]

Climate change impacts every species on Earth, including some of the smallest insects that rely on just the right weather conditions to reproduce. According to a new study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, climate change may be hindering the ability of reproduction for a number of insects, which means they’re not multiplying like they could be. Image Credit: Nuzree/Pixabay The study focused primarily on that of fruit fly populations. It found that populations based in higher-latitude regions, such as that of Sweden, were more found to be more vulnerable to warming climate than those found at lower-latitude regions, such as that of Spain. This is probably due to the fact that insects at lower latitudes were already used to more sporadic weather, thanks to evolution. That said, mountainous regions have the most potential for noticeable impact to insect populations from climate change. During lab testing, when the insects were exposed to a warmer temperature difference of 9.9º Fahrenheit more than they were accustomed to, it was enough to throw their reproductive cycle out of whack permanently. While the study acknowledges that it’s long been known that climate change can impact insects, they add that their study shows climate change making an impact at far lower temperatures than ever before seen. “We already knew that insects are feeling the effect of climate change but we now know they are felt at much lower temperatures,” said Dr Rhona Snook, a co-author of the study. “Our study is unique as we only exposed the insects to mild heat but tested the long-term impact this had on them as both juveniles and when they reached adulthood. The results show that even small increases in temperature may still cause populations to decline because -- while these insects don't die because of the mild heat -- they produce fewer offspring.” Moreover, although the study focuses primarily on fruit flies, it goes without saying that other insects are probably also effected, but more research would have to be conducted to confirm that for sure. In the meantime, the goal of the scientists is to learn more of the genetics behind the two differing populations that are found at different latitudes in order to learn more about their differences and what makes certain populations more resistant than others. “We are now interested in finding out what genes differ between Spanish and Swedish populations that allow the Spanish flies to cope better,” Snook added. “Identifying genes that are linked to increased and decreased reproduction is something which may be very useful not only in understanding how insects will cope with climate change but from the perspective of controlling insect pests.” While this could provide insight and answers to many questions, it could also help provide important answers to pest control products. On the other hand, as climate change is expected to continue to get worse in the future, this could spell trouble for the future of insects around the world. Source: BBC, Science Daily