Monday, 28 February 2022

New group of plants was one of the first to colonize the land

FEBRUARY 18, 2022, by James Ashworth, Natural History Museum

The fossils were found near to Brown Clee Hill in Shropshire. 
Credit: USByeti/Shutterstock

Minute fossils unearthed in preserved charcoal point to the existence of an entirely unknown group of plants that were among the first to move onto land.

The eophytes offer a glimpse of the early evolution of life on land, and may be closely related to the ancestor of many terrestrial plants that followed.

Ancient plants measuring just two centimeters long could show what the ancestor of everything from roses to redwoods looked like.

Researchers from Cardiff University and the Museum identified a new group of plants, named 'early plants' or eophytes, from delicate remains that have been preserved as charcoal. Their characteristics make it possible they are closely related to the ancestor of all vascular plants, but the fragility of the specimens has made this difficult to confirm.

Lead author Professor Dianne Edwards says, "The nature of the first land flora is an enduring mystery where the principal players have never been seen in their entirety, yet much can be inferred about their characteristics from what they have left behind."

The scientists hope that their research, published in the journal New Phytologist, will inspire others to hunt for other eophyte fossils and uncover more about the earliest days of terrestrial life.

How did plants evolve?

When and how the ancestors of modern plants first adapted to life on land remains uncertain. It is thought that the ancestors of modern flora first moved onto land at some point between 450 and 500 million years ago.

One way of answering these questions is through cryptospores, which are the enigmatic fossilized remains of plant reproductive structures, although the exact plant they came from remained a mystery.

Dr. Paul Kenrick, an expert on fossilized plants at the Museum and co-author of this latest study, explains, "There are several ways that you can look at the fossils of plants. One of them is to look at the spores and pollen plants make because they produce it in vast numbers.

"The cryptospores date back to around 470 million years ago before disappearing around 70 million years later. They're called cryptospores because they're very distinct but we didn't know which plant produced them."

One of the issues with identifying where these spores came from is the difficulty for early plants to fossilize as they lack robust tissues which can be preserved over time. For delicate plants and tissues, charcoal is an important medium for preservation.

"These plants were caught in some of the earliest wildfires," Paul says. "When these plants burned, they didn't burn with enough oxygen to be turned to ash, so their structure is preserved. However, the problem with charcoal is that it is very fragile so we have very fragmentary remains."

Previous studies of these fossils have provided some hints to the origin of the cryptospores. Fragments recovered from Oman suggest that they probably formed in sporangia, similar to those found in modern mosses, ferns and liverworts.

The specimens were examined under the microscope to reveal structures such as sporangia. 
Credit: Edwards et al., licensed under CC BY 4.0 via New Phytologist.

Subsequent fossils found in Wales, which date towards the end of when cryptospores are found, suggest that the plants that produced them could be a sister group to the vascular plants, the group which includes most plants, such as trees, flowering plants and cacti.

But fossils in charcoal from Shropshire dating to between 410 and 419 million years ago have now led researchers to put a name to the enigmatic group of plants which produced these spores—the eophytes.

Excavating the eophytes

The eophytes are very different from modern plants. One of their most remarkable features is how small they are, measuring around two centimeters at their maximum length.

"Nowadays, around 80% of biomass in terms of carbon is locked up in plants," Paul says. "In this very early period, things were very different.

"The eophytes are really, really tiny. We're talking plants that could be millimeters in size, and this could be one of the reasons they have previously been overlooked.

"Their closest comparison in the modern world are the mosses, which they share some characteristics with but are not examples of. It tells us that the first plants which came on land were very simple and very small compared with their modern relatives."

Their size would probably have made them unable to control water flow in and out of their bodies, so instead they must have been able to tolerate drying out like modern mosses and liverworts.

"One of the really important things with modern plants is that they are generally homohydric, in other words that they can regulate their water to a great degree," Paul explains. "However, the eophytes were probably more like mosses in that they were unable to control their water, and so would have been able to dry out completely before rehydrating.

"It tells us that plants probably became resistant to drying out on land first before becoming able to control their surroundings, rather than having already been able to regulate water."

The eophytes do, however, appear to be able to move nutrients around their body using specialized structures known as food conducting cells (FCCs). Modern mosses have similar structures.

The FCCs also share characteristics with the phloem of vascular plants, which moves nutrients around the main structure of the plants. It is suggested that the FCCs were a very early step in the development of a complex vascular system, which would later allow plants to grow much larger and more varied, evolving into the species familiar to us today.

The researchers now hope to delve more deeply into how these plants lived, such as identifying aspects of their reproductive phase. To do this, more specimens will be required, which will involve returning to sites which have already been explored.

"These plants are forcing us to change what we search for in the fossil record," Paul says. "We now need to focus on a scale that is much smaller than what we normally look for, so we can go back to fossil sites we've already explored and look closer.

"There are also other sites where you get exceptional preservation, such as the Rhynie Chert, and it's in this sort of system you might find more information about the lifecycle of these plants."


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Rooftop rescues in Australia as tens of thousands evacuated from floods

FEBRUARY 28, 2022

A couple wades through a waterlogged street on the banks of the overflowing Brisbane River.

Tens of thousands of Australians were ordered to flee their homes Monday, as torrential rain sent floodwaters to record levels, leaving residents stranded on the rooftops of their homes.

Eight people have died, and the country's weather bureau has warned further severe thunderstorms and intense rainfall will cause "life-threatening flash flooding" across a swathe of the central Pacific coastal region.

In the country town of Lismore, resident Danika Hardiman woke Monday morning to find mud-brown floodwaters had reached the balcony of her second-floor apartment.

She and her partner managed to climb up to the roof, where they were spotted by passing kayakers, who flagged down a makeshift rescue boat.

"We were rescued by two guys in a boat, two locals," Hardiman told AFP, describing the scenes in Lismore as "horrific".

"Imagine you're in a boat sailing past people's roofs," she said.

"The scary thing is this is just the beginning, there's lots of rain to come."

With the town's levees already breached, 43,000 residents were ordered to leave by this morning.

Emergency services were overwhelmed by calls for aid, leading some locals—including Lismore's mayor Steve Krieg—to turn to social media for help.

"If anyone has a boat and can get to Engine Street, there's a pregnant lady sitting on her roof. HELP Please," he posted on Facebook Monday.

Emergency rescue services said they had also deployed a helicopter to pluck other stranded residents from rooftops.

More than 400 millimetres (16 inches) of rain has fallen in the past 24 hours around Lismore, with the town's Wilson River still rising, according to the weather bureau.

Water levels in Lismore have not yet reached their expected peak of 14 metres—but they are already the worst floods the town has experienced.

A miraculous rescue

Flooding across eastern Australia has now killed eight people, after a man in his 50s died Monday when his car was swept away by floodwaters in the northern state of Queensland.

Millions of people have been told to stay home and nearly 1,000 schools in Queensland remain closed because of the floods.

A 70-year-old man miraculously survived after his houseboat, swept along by the raging Brisbane River, collided with a ferry terminal and quickly sank.

Members of the public were able to rescue the man, with one telling public broadcaster ABC they had linked arms to create a human chain and fish the man from the river unharmed.

"I don't know how he survived it, to be honest," onlooker Matthew Toomey said.

Rain has battered eastern Australia for the better part of a week as an extreme weather system—the tail end of a wet summer fuelled by La Nina—has moved south down the country's coast, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Monday that some regions of her tropical state had experienced a year's worth of rainfall in just days.

Australia has been on the sharp end of climate change, with droughts, deadly bushfires, bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef and floods becoming more common and more intense as global climate patterns change.


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A Major UN Climate Change Report Was Just Approved by Nearly 200 Nations

AFP 27 FEBRUARY 2022

(Roc Canals/Getty Images)

Nearly 200 nations approved a major UN climate change report detailing the accelerating impacts of global warming on Sunday, at the end of a sometimes fraught two-week meeting overshadowed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that debates had concluded over the report's crucial "Summary for Policymakers" 
a 40-page overview distilling the thousands of pages of scientific research, which has been reviewed line-by-line and will be made public on February 28.

Species extinction, ecosystem collapse, mosquito-borne disease, deadly heat, water shortages, and reduced crop yields are already measurably worse due to global heating.

Just in the last year, the world has seen a cascade of unprecedented floods, heatwaves and wildfires across four continents.

All these impacts will accelerate in the coming decades even if the carbon pollution driving climate change is rapidly brought to heel, the report is expected to warn, according to an early draft seen by AFP in 2021.

It will also underscore the urgent need for "adaptation" – a term that refers to preparations for devastating consequences that can no longer be avoided.

In some cases this means that adapting to intolerably hot days, flash flooding and storm surges has become a matter of life and death.

The 2015 Paris deal calls for capping global warming at "well below" 2 °C, and ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

In August 2021, another IPCC report on the physical science of human-caused climate change found that global heating is virtually certain to pass 1.5 °C, probably within a decade.

Earth's surface has warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century.

"We cannot escape the climate crisis," said Mohamed Adow, the head of think tank Power Shift Africa.

He said the IPCC report would be useful for people to understand "the scale of the suffering we will endure" if humanity does not drastically cut greenhouse gas pollution – as well as adapting to the challenges to come.

"The backbone of climate action is science and the science is clear. It's telling us how dire our situation is. What is lacking is action from governments," he told AFP.

© Agence France-Presse


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Major hurdle cleared in plan to demolish 4 California dams

FEBRUARY 26, 2022, by Gillian Flaccus

This March 3, 2020, photo, shows the Iron Gate Dam, powerhouse and spillway on the lower Klamath River near Hornbrook, Calif. Federal regulators have issued on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022, a draft environmental impact statement on a plan to demolish four massive dams on Northern California's Klamath River, marking a major milestone in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history to save imperiled salmon. 
Credit: AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus, File

Federal regulators on Friday issued a draft environmental impact statement saying there were significant benefits to a plan to demolish four massive dams on Northern California's Klamath River to save imperiled migratory salmon, setting the stage for the largest dam demolition project in U.S. history.

The issuing of a statement by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission clears a major regulatory hurdle for the project and paves the way for public hearings on the document before a final draft is issued as soon as this summer.

A final environmental impact statement would allow the extensive preparations necessary for the nearly $500 million demolition and habitat restoration plan to begin in earnest. Dam removals could begin as early as next year if all goes smoothly, but a more likely scenario is 2024.

The aging dams near the Oregon-California border were built before current environmental regulations and essentially cut the 253-mile-long (407-kilometer-long) river in half for migrating salmon, whose numbers have plummeted. The project on California's second-largest river would be at the vanguard of a push to demolish dams in the U.S. as the structures age and become less economically viable and as concerns grow about their environmental impact, particularly on fish.

Regulators wrote that moving ahead with the proposal would "maximize benefits" to salmon fisheries important to local tribes and restore the landscape to a "more natural state."

Tribes that rely on the salmon for their sustenance and culture, including the Yurok and Karuk, cheered the milestone Friday. So did commercial fishermen and environmentalists who have worked for years to bring the dams down in a region already suffering through intense drought and dwindling water supplies.

"Our culture and our fisheries are hanging in the balance. We are ready to start work on dam removal this year," Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers said in a statement.

Coho salmon from the river are listed as threatened under federal and California law, and their population has fallen by anywhere from 52% to 95%. Spring chinook salmon, once the Klamath Basin's largest run, have dwindled by 98%.

Fall chinook, the last to persist in any significant numbers, have been so meager in the past few years that the Yurok Tribe canceled fishing last year for the first time in memory. In 2017, they bought fish at a grocery store for their annual salmon festival.

In recent years, as many as 90% of juvenile salmon sampled tested positive for a disease that flourishes when river flows are low.

"The dams are a key factor in the diseases that are wiping out entire generations of salmon," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.

Project proponents have thus far overcome opposition to the plan. Some local and state officials worry about flood control and residents who live around a large reservoir created by one of the dams have unsuccessfully sued to stop the project.

The dams don't store agricultural water, aren't used for flood control and aren't part of the 200,000-acre (80,900-hectare) Klamath Project, an irrigation project further north that straddles the Oregon-California border.

If the dams remained, power company PacifiCorp would likely have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit the structures to comply with today's environmental laws. As it is, the utility has said the electricity generated by the dams no longer makes up a significant part of its power portfolio.

The original demolition proposal foundered after regulators initially balked at allowing PacifiCorp to completely exit the project.

A historic deal reached in 2020 made Oregon and California equal partners in the demolition with a nonprofit entity called the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, which will oversee the project. That deal also added $45 million to the project's $450 million budget after concerns that the available funds weren't enough to cover any overruns.

Oregon, California and PacifiCorp, which operates the hydroelectric dams and is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway, each provided one-third of the additional funds.

Some critics have said governors in Oregon and California were irresponsible to assume financial responsibility for cost overruns and object that part of the project is financed by a voter-approved California water bond.


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Sunday, 27 February 2022

Medical Science News: What Makes Type O Blood the Most Common?

 

What Makes Type O Blood the Most Common?


Although there seems to be no apparent evolutionary advantage for one blood group over another, their distribution is markedly uneven. How did one blood group become more prevalent than others?


Rocky Mountain states to team up on hydrogen tech proposal

FEBRUARY 24, 2022, by Mead Gruver

In this photo taken Nov. 17, 2014, a Toyota Motor Corp.'s new hydrogen fuel cell vehicle Mirai arrives at a charge station near Toyota's showroom in Tokyo. Four Rocky Mountain states announced plans Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022, to cooperate on making the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen, more readily available and useful as fuel for cars, trucks and industry. 
Credit: AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, File

Four Rocky Mountain states will cooperate on developing ways to make the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen, more available and useful as clean-burning fuel for cars, trucks and trains, the states' governors announced Thursday.

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming will plan a "hydrogen hub" to be built somewhere in the region, drawing from $8 billion in recently approved federal infrastructure funding for four or more such regional hubs in the U.S.

"This coalition represents a shared vision for the future of hydrogen in the Mountain West region," Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon said in a joint statement with governors Jared Polis of Colorado, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Spencer Cox of Utah.

The Western Inter-State Hydrogen Hub will have facilities in all four states under plans to be submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy, according to an agreement signed Wednesday.

Goals will include economic development and the "latest science, research and technology for cost-effective generation, transportation, and use of clean hydrogen," the states' agreement said.

Hydrogen has long been eyed as an abundant, clean fuel. Companies including major auto manufacturers have been developing hydrogen-fueled cars, trucks, buses and trains.

Hydrogen can be derived from water using an electric current and when burned emits only water vapor as a byproduct. The fuel could theoretically reduce greenhouse emissions and air pollution, depending on how it's obtained.

As with electric vehicles, however, hydrogen's potential has been limited by infrastructure. Lack of fueling stations limits the market for hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Few hydrogen-fueled vehicles limits investment in producing and moving hydrogen.

In New Mexico, Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has amid criticism pushed aggressively to attract private investment and federal dollars for hydrogen production and distribution.

"Hydrogen is coming everywhere in the country," Lujan Grisham said last week at the close of the state's annual legislative session. "My job is to make sure we have the right safeguards and effort."

Critics point out that as it's now produced, hydrogen isn't green, carbon-free or unlimited. Currently nearly all hydrogen commercially produced in the U.S. comes not from water but natural gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

While advocates say using fossil fuels to produce hydrogen now can help to develop a clean industry later, environmentalists are skeptical.

"It's essentially a push for expanded oil and gas development. More oil and gas development is completely at odds with the need to confront the climate crisis and drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels," Jeremy Nichols with the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based environmental group WildEarth Guardians said by email.

Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming rank seventh, eighth and ninth, respectively, for U.S. onshore gas production. Utah also is significant gas-producing state, according to the Energy Information Administration.


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How To Ward Off Bone, Joint, and Muscle Pain Due to Aging

By UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH FEBRUARY 26, 2022

Those hoping to avoid one of the worst side effects of aging – bone, joint, and muscle pain that doesn’t go away – might need to exercise a lot harder and more often than previously believed.

According to a new study, only high levels of activity at least once a week – playing tennis, running, swimming, digging with a spade, or doing hard physical labor as part of your job – appears to help ward off chronic musculoskeletal pain in the long-term.

The study, led by Dr. Nils Niederstrasser at the University of Portsmouth, examined the data of 5,802 people aged 50 or more over ten years.

Nearly half – just over 2,400 – reported they suffered from musculoskeletal pain at the end of the ten-year period.

It’s well known that pain tends to be more common as we age, so it’s vital we look at what might help prevent and reduce it.

Dr. Niederstrasser said: “Chronic pain is a huge problem at any age, and one of the main causes for people calling in sick at work or visiting A&E. It is one of the most widespread and complex problems in the medical community and leads, for many who suffer with it, to a lower quality of life and poor wellbeing.

“It’s well known that pain tends to be more common as we age, so it’s vital we look at what might help prevent and reduce it.

“The lack of longitudinal studies among older adults of the risk factors for chronic pain is alarming.

“For many complex reasons, the solution to the problem of chronic pain in older people has proved elusive.”

The study is the first to examine the experience of chronic pain alongside gender, BMI, age, and wealth over a long time period.

Report co-author Dr. Nina Attridge, also at the University of Portsmouth, said all activity helped lower the chances of suffering pain but, over time, only high levels of physical activity appeared to lower the risk of someone developing musculoskeletal pain.

She said being poor, being female, and being overweight or obese were all found to independently be risk factors for suffering musculoskeletal pain.

She hopes the findings encourage those who design programs to help people avoid chronic pain to include regular vigorous physical activity, weight loss programs and find ways to address helping those on lower incomes.

For the study, moderate exercise included activities such as dancing, walking, stretching, and gardening.

Mild activity included activities such as doing laundry, vacuuming, and DIY.

Dr. Niederstrasser said: “Such activity – any activity – does help people stay well and feel better than not exercising, but mild exercise does not appear to have a long-term effect on the development of chronic pain.

“Activity needs to not only be vigorous, it needs to be done at least once a week.

“A person who cycles, for example, once a month and whose only other activity was light housework would still be classed as sedentary.”

The study found persistent pain was more common in women, possibly because of hormonal differences; in those who were obese or overweight, probably because extra weight adds a burden to the body’s joints; and in those who were less wealthy, possibly because higher disposable income may enable people to seek extra care, in addition to that covered by insurances or national health services, to treat ailments and injuries.

The study used data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.


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Junk Food and the Brain: How Modern Diets Lacking in Micronutrients May Contribute to Irritability and Anger

By BONNIE KAPLAN AND JULIA J RUCKLIDGE FEBRUARY 26, 2022

Research reveals links between the irritability, explosive rage, and unstable moods that have grown more common in recent years, and a lack of micronutrients that are important for brain function.

Emotional, non-rational, even explosive remarks in public discourse have escalated in recent years. Politicians endure insults during legislative discussions; scientists receive emails and tweets containing verbal abuse and threats.

What’s going on? This escalation in angry rhetoric is sometimes attributed to social media. But are there other influences altering communication styles?

As researchers in the field of nutrition and mental health, and authors of The Better Brain, we recognize that many in our society experience brain hunger, impairing their cognitive function and emotion regulation.

Ultra-processed products

Obviously, we are not deficient in macronutrients: North Americans tend to get sufficient protein, fats (though usually not the best fats) and carbohydrates (usually not the good complex carbs). But we are being cheated of micronutrients (minerals and vitamins), particularly in those whose food choices are dominated by ultra-processed products.

Ultra-processed products include things like soft drinks, packaged snacks, sweetened breakfast cereal and chicken nuggets. They generally contain only trivial amounts of a few micronutrients unless they are fortified, but even then, only a few at higher amounts.



Ultra-processed products contain only trivial amounts of vitamins and minerals.




Three published analyses from the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey and the 2018 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey revealed these sobering statistics: in Canada, in 2004, 48 percent of the caloric intake across all ages came from ultra-processed products; in the United States 67 percent of what children aged two to 19 years consumed and 57 percent of what adults consumed in 2018 were ultra-processed products.

Most of us are aware that dietary intake is a huge issue in physical health because diet quality is associated with chronic health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The public is less aware of the impact of nutrition on brain health.

Micronutrients and mental health symptoms

Given that our society’s food choices have moved so strongly toward ultra-processed products, we need to learn about the substantial scientific evidence proving that micronutrient intake influences mental health symptoms, especially irritability, explosive rage and unstable mood.

The scientific evidence base for this statement is now vast, though it is so rarely mentioned in the media that few in the public are familiar with it. A dozen studies from countries like Canada, Spain, Japan, and Australia have shown that people who eat a healthy, whole foods diet have fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety than people who eat a poor diet (mostly ultra-processed products).

Correlational studies cannot prove that nutritional choices are the cause of mental health problems: for that we turn to some compelling prospective longitudinal studies in which people with no apparent mental health problems enter the study, are evaluated for their health and dietary patterns, and are then followed over time. Some of the results have been astonishing.

In a study of about 89,000 people in Japan with 10-15 years of followup, the suicide rate in those consuming a whole foods diet was half that of those eating less healthy diets, highlighting an important new direction not yet covered in current suicide prevention programs.

Here in Canada, similarly powerful findings show how children’s dietary patterns, as well as following other health guidelines on exercise and screen time, predicted which children aged 10 to 11 years would be referred for diagnosis of a mental disorder in the subsequent two years. It follows that nutrition education ought to be one of the first lines of treatment for children in this situation.


A Mediterranean-style diet is typically high in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, seafood, and unsaturated fats such as olive oil.




Irritability and unstable mood often characterize depression, so it’s relevant that multiple independent studies have found that teaching people with depression, who were consuming relatively poor diets, how to change to a whole foods Mediterranean-style diet resulted in significant improvements. A Mediterranean-style diet is typically high in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, seafood and unsaturated fats such as olive oil.

In one such study, about one-third of the people who changed to a whole foods diet in addition to their regular treatment found their depression to be in remission after 12 weeks.

The remission rate in the control group using regular treatment but no diet changes was fewer than one in 10. The whole foods diet group also reported a cost savings of about 20 per cent in their weekly food budget. This final point helps to dispel the myth that eating a diet of ultra-processed products is a way to save money.

Important evidence that irritability, explosive rage and unstable mood can be resolved with improved micronutrient intake comes from studies evaluating micronutrient supplements to treat mental health problems. Most public awareness is restricted to the ill-fated search for magic bullets: studies of a single nutrient at a time. That is a common way to think about causality (for problem X, you need medication Y), but that is not how our brains work.

To support brain metabolism, our brains require at least 30 micronutrients to ensure the production of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, as well as breaking down and removing metabolic byproducts. Many studies of multi-nutrient treatments have found improved mood regulation and reduced irritability and explosive rage, including in placebo-controlled randomized trials of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and mood dysregulation.

The evidence is clear: a well-nourished population is better able to withstand stress. Hidden brain hunger is one modifiable factor contributing to emotional outbursts, aggression and even the loss of civility in public discourse.

Written by
Bonnie Kaplan – Professor Emerita, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
Julia J Rucklidge – Professor of Psychology, University of Canterbury

This article was first published in The Conversation.


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Saturday, 26 February 2022

Archaeology News: Archaeologists find massive collection of Egyptian pottery shards

 

Archaeologists find massive collection of Egyptian pottery shards


The ostraca reveal written 'punishments' students received in ancient Egypt. This is only the second such large hoard of ostraca ever found in Egypt.



A group of workers in the area where the ostraca were found. In the background, the hill of Athribis. (photo credit: Athribis-Project Tübingen)

A group of workers in the area where the ostraca were found. In the background, the hill of Athribis.
(photo credit: Athribis-Project Tübingen)

Two thousand years ago, deep in ancient upper Egypt, some 200 km. from the great city of Luxor, students were being made to repeat their writing lessons over and over and over again on pieces of broken pottery until their letters were written correctly. Apparently, this is much like students have been made to do the whole world over for centuries.

Evidence of these written “punishments” was discovered among a cache of 18,000 inscribed pottery shards uncovered by a team of German and Egyptian archaeologists in recent excavations of the ancient city of Athribis, located about seven km. southwest of the city of Sohag on the west bank of the Nile River.

Also among the shards, known as ostraca, were remains of vessels and jars used as writing materials documenting lists of names, purchases of food and other everyday objects, providing a variety of insights into the daily life of the residents of Athribis.

The ostraca were recovered during excavations led by Prof. Christian Leitz of the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Tübingen in Germany, in cooperation with Mohamed Abdelbadia and his team from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, who have excavated there since 2003-2019.

In ancient times, these ostraca were used in large quantities as writing material, using ink and a reed, or a hollow stick called a calamus, to inscribe the pottery.

Naughty pupils had to write lines - hundreds of these tablets were found, with the same symbol usually written on both front and back. (credit: Athribis-Project Tübingen) 


 Naughty pupils had to write lines - hundreds of these tablets were found, with the same symbol usually written on both front and back. (credit: Athribis-Project Tübingen)

“Papyrus was expensive, so people used the ostraca for daily use,” Leitz said. “They would write on the broken pottery for bills, or receipts if they gave someone three buckets of oil, or a sack of lentils. Or it could be used for writing material in school. You can copy on it and take notes, and save it for some time and keep it like we do today. Then when they didn’t need it anymore, they threw it away.”

The archaeological zone of Athribis, which is almost entirely unexcavated, extends over 30 hectares (74 acres) and consists of the temple district, the settlement, the necropolis and the quarries.

A 15-year project funded by the German Research Foundation began in 2005 to excavate and publish research about a large temple in Athribis built by Ptolemy XII, the father of the famous Cleopatra VII. With the completion of the project, the temple is now open to visitors.

The sanctuary was built about 2,000 years ago for the lion goddess Repit and her consort Min and was converted into a nunnery after pagan cults were banned in 380 CE.

SINCE SPRING 2018, excavations have been underway west of the temple at another sanctuary, and the team came across the numerous ostraca in the rubble. The excavations are ongoing.

It is very rare to find such a large quantity of ostraca, and this is only the second such large hoard ever found in Egypt. The first was a store of medical ostraca found in the workers’ settlement of Deir el-Medineh, near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, in French excavations between 1922 and 1951.


Naughty pupils had to write lines - hundreds of these tablets were found, with the same symbol usually written on both front and back. (credit: Athribis-Project Tübingen) 

 Naughty pupils had to write lines - hundreds of these tablets were found, with the same symbol usually written on both front and back. (credit: Athribis-Project Tübingen)

“The number of the finds will allow us to know much about daily life in the ancient city of Athribis, but analyzing and translating all these texts will take years,” Leitz said.

Around 80% of the shards are inscribed in Demotic, the common administrative script in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, which developed after 600 BC from Hieratic, the ancient Egyptian cursive writing used from the first dynasty until about 200 BC. Among the second-most common finds are ostraca with Greek script.

The team also found inscriptions in hieroglyphics and, in a smaller quantity, inscriptions in Coptic, which is associated with the early Christian church in Egypt and Arabic script – all attesting to the multicultural character of the city.

“Egypt at that time was for a good part bilingual,” Leitz said. “The native people were speaking Egyptian and writing in Demotic, but if you [wanted] to make a career, knowledge of Greek was necessary.”

The archaeologists also discovered pictorial ostraca that show various figurative representations, including animals such as scorpions and swallows, humans, gods from the nearby temple and geometric figures, he said.


Child’s drawing. (credit: Athribis-Project Tübingen) 
Child’s drawing. (credit: Athribis-Project Tübingen)

One ostracon that was found with the motif of a baboon and an ibis, and sacred animals of Toth, the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom, may have been associated with the school that is thought to have been located near the temple, Leitz said.

Hebrew University Egyptology Prof. Orly Goldwasser, who was not connected to the dig, said the finds were from the later Egyptian period, which is from when many finds have been excavated.

“The amount found is very big, and maybe when they go over all the material, they may find something interesting,” she said. “There may be administrative things for those who are interested in this period.

“Even if it is from the late period, to find such a huge amount of ostraca can be promising. At least we will have details of everyday life, which is always interesting. They may find other things, but they still need to do more studies.”

The contents of the ostraca are largely mundane lists of various names, different foods and other items of daily use. The team said it was surprised by an especially large number of the shards, which seem to have come from an ancient school.

“There are lists of months, numbers, arithmetic problems, grammar exercises and a ‘bird alphabet’ – each letter was assigned a bird whose name began with that letter,” Leitz said.

Some of the hundreds of samples of ancient school work are inscribed with the same one or two characters, on both the back and front of the shards, the researchers said, and that led them to believe these were sorts of “punishment” or practice exercises for students who did not know their letters correctly.

Leitz said the discovery of these texts that may prove the temple was part of the school was especially intriguing for him.

“Kids were sent to the temple to make copies of hieroglyphic texts,” he said.


"Do your homework little Ramses or your Mummy will cut your pocket money"


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FEBRUARY 24, 2022, by University of Copenhagen

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

For the first time, new research from the University of Copenhagen proves how plants defend themselves against herbivores. Spicy flavors that we know from delis and sushi bars are part of the explanation.

With their roots anchored in soil, plants are motionless buffet items for insect larvae and other herbivores. But after millions of years of evolution, plants have refined a way of deterring predatorial herbivores and ensuring for the survival for their next generation.

In scientific circles, the precise mechanisms of how plants defend themselves has been a bit of a mystery. Among the many observations made by researchers, the "optimal defense theory" of how plants defend themselves against herbivores was advanced in 1974. However, scientific evidence to support the theory was lacking.

Now, researchers from the University of Copenhagen's Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences have published a study in the scientific journal PNAS, proving for the first time how plants defend themselves.

"In the study, we prove that the old leaves of a plant selflessly sacrifice themselves by redirecting their defenses to younger leaves, for the sole purpose of scaring larvae and other herbivores away and off to the old leaves instead. By doing so, the plant ensures for the survival of its next generation," explains Professor Barbara Ann Halkier, who led the study.

The wasabi and mustard defense

The defensive chemistry of a plant includes the very same substances that cause wasabi and mustard to provoke a burning sensation in our mouths. But instead of serving as a culinary condiment, these pungent-tasting plant substances primarily serve to repel insatiable herbivores.

Glucosinolates, as these substances are known, occur naturally in plant leaves. It is only when herbivores begin eating the leaf, and plant tissue is crushed, that the enzyme myrosinase comes into contact with the glucosinolates, which split to release their strong and slightly toxic chemical deterrents. Plants can self-adjust the amount of these defensive substances in each leaf, which is particularly evident when new seeds are being produced.

"When a plant goes to flower, everything revolves around the next generation. At this point, it is more important to defend the young leaves that supply future seeds than to protect the older ones. As such, the concentration of glucosinolates in younger leaves increases, which is what we have scientifically proven for the first time," explains Professor Alexander Schulz.

Researchers helped by a mutant

By altering its genetic characteristics, the researchers created a mutant thale cress plant (Arabidopsis thaliana) which was reprogrammed to apportion its chemical defenses evenly among old and young leaves, as opposed to directing larger doses to the young leaves.

When the larvae were set loose, it was plain for the researchers to see that they indiscriminately devoured leaves young and old, while on a normal plant, the larvae passed on the pungent young leaves.

First and foremost, according to the researchers, the study findings provide definitive evidence of how plants optimize their defenses and protect the next generation. However, the result also supplies new knowledge that could be used in the more cautious control of agricultural pests like the African cotton leafworm (Spodoptera littoralis), one of the most devastating moth larvae for agricultural crops.

"The new knowledge could be used in other studies where one is trying to strengthen a plant's own defenses against pests, so as to limit agricultural pesticides use," concludes Barbara Ann Halkier.


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The Life of Earth

Plant disease outbreaks may be curbed by periodic wildfires

FEBRUARY 24, 2022, by National Science Foundation

Savanna bur oaks during a spring burn at the Cedar Creek Long-Term Ecological Research site. 
Credit: Susan Barrott CC BY-SA 4.0

Wildfires have made headlines worldwide in recent years. Evidence points to wildfires increasing in frequency and intensity across vulnerable ecosystems as climate change impacts grow more evident. But periodic wildfires in ecosystems adapted to them can help inhibit plant disease outbreaks, according to research by scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Science Foundation Cedar Creek Ecosystem Long-Term Ecological Research site in Minnesota.

Interactions between disturbances like fire and disease are likely to impact whether an ecosystem changes state, such as from a woodland to a grassland. But such interactions have rarely been studied over long periods.

Researchers surveyed vegetation plots at Cedar Creek for 35 years as part of a fire frequency experiment that has been maintained for more than a half-century. The temperate oak savanna-forest ecotone that comprises the plots recently experienced an outbreak of a fungal pathogen called oak wilt.

In the absence of disease, tree population sizes were strongly influenced by fire frequency, with unburned plots transitioning from savanna to forest, while intermediately and frequently burned plots remained savanna. However, oak wilt rapidly reversed the effect of fire exclusion, increasing mortality by 765% in unburned forests while having relatively minor effects in frequently burned savannas.

The savannas include two main tree species: Quercus ellipsoidalis (red oak group; northern pin oak) and Q. macrocarpa (white oak group; bur oak). At Cedar Creek, oak wilt, or Bretziella fagacearum, has spread rapidly in the last decade, leading to exponential increases in tree mortality, particularly of red oaks.

Trends in tree populations changed strikingly from 2010 to 2018, with rapid declines in tree biomass in several plots, coinciding with the outbreak of oak wilt.

Disease invasion decreased tree biomass, increased light penetration and grass cover, and shifted tree populations from being dominated by fire‐resistant adults to fire‐sensitive saplings, especially in the unburned plots. The results are published in Ecology Letters.


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Gene allowing humans to feel touch may play a role in sense of smell

FEBRUARY 23, 2022, by Southern Methodist University

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Can you smell those roses? There's a real possibility that the gene that helps you experience their heavenly fragrance may also help you feel the prick of their thorns.

Researchers from SMU (Southern Methodist University) have determined that a gene linked to feeling touch may moonlight as an olfactory gene. That's the conclusion drawn from studying a very small, transparent worm that shares many similarities with the human nervous system.

"This gene has previously been identified as a potential therapeutic target for chronic pain. Now that we know the gene is also involved in olfaction, it might present an opportunity for treating or understanding olfactory defects, such as the mysterious loss of smell that many COVID-19 patients have reported," said SMU's Adam D. Norris, co-author of a study published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

Norris is the Floyd B. James Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at SMU. He worked with SMU graduate students Xiaoyu Liang and Canyon Calovich-Benne, who are the lead authors of the study. Both are studying to get a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences.

Touch is one of the human body's most important senses, yet there is a lot we still don't understand, Norris says.

Scientists know that when we touch something, our nervous system takes the mechanical input it gets from touch receptors in our skin and converts it into electrical signals to the brain. This is known as mechanosensation and it's what allows the brain to tell us a variety of things about that touch, such as whether the object we touched was hot or cold or—in the case of a rose's thorns—sharp.

But the exact mechanics of "what's going on beneath the hood" during this electrical response to touch is poorly understood, because the human nervous system is so complex.

Adam Norris, Floyd B. James Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at SMU, and graduate students Xiaoyu Liang and Canyon Calovich-Benne have determined that a gene linked to feeling touch may moonlight as an olfactory gene. 
Credit: SMU (Southern Methodist University), Hillsman S. Jackson


What can worms tell us about human senses?

Scientists frequently study the nervous system of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans because it is a much simpler species. This worm has 302 nerve cells in its nervous system compared to the billions of nerve cells found in the human brain, yet many of the genes that create these neurons in C. elegans have functional counterparts in humans.

The SMU research team started with established knowledge—that a gene called mec-2 was crucial to activating touch neurons in C. elegans. What the SMU research team found, though, is that activating touch isn't its only role.

"In addition to turning genes on and off, another way to control a neuron's function is to generate different (but functionally similar) versions of a single gene called isoforms. We looked for different neurons that contain different isoforms of important genes," Norris said. "This led us to the fundamental discovery outlined in this paper, which is that different isoforms of a single gene (mec-2) work to enable both mechanosensation and olfaction."

Specifically, they learned that the mec-2 isoform responsible for mechanosensation requires the activity of a gene called mec-8 to be turned on, Norris explained. Neurons have the ability to express multiple genes inside of them. Those that express the mec-8 gene produce the olfactory isoform of mec-2 instead.

"Mec-8 makes sure that mec-2 is made in the mechanosensory isoform," he said.

Without it, mec-2 genes instead produce isoforms that are necessary for smell in C. elegans, SMU researchers found using cutting-edge techniques called "deep single cell sequencing."

"Single cell sequencing allows researchers to look at all of the genes turned on in a single cell. Deep single cell sequencing allows them to see the entirety of each gene, rather than just a small fragment from the end of the gene," Norris explained. "Together, deep single cell sequencing reveals all of the genes and all of the isoforms of those genes expressed in a single cell.

"Our use of this technology allowed us to determine isoforms in single sensory neurons with unprecedented sensitivity, directly leading to these discoveries," he said.

Could this lead to a therapeutic drug to treat loss of smell?

Now that they know mec-2's role in the sense of smell, Norris Lab's next step is to investigate whether a human gene called stomatin can do the same thing.

The mec-2 gene is found in worms, not humans. But stomatin is a gene produced by humans and has been proven to be highly similar to mec-2 with regard to touch sensation in humans.

If that is found to be true for smell as well, Norris said perhaps similar methods that are currently being studied to treat chronic pain could also be used to address loss of smell for people who have had COVID-19.

Therapeutic drugs work by identifying a molecular target that plays a role in a negative biological effect. Once that target is identified, the next step is to find a chemical key that can bind to the target and modify its behavior, so it doesn't create its usual negative effect. A therapeutic drug can then be created using this chemical key. In the case of the Norris team's research, scientists want to see if they can potentially modify mec-2 in worms—and eventually possibly stomatin in humans—so they can turn certain senses up or down.

"The idea in preclinical trials is to turn down the sensitivity of mechanosensory neurons without gumming up the sensory channels themselves by instead modulating the activity of mec-2 to relieve chronic pain," Norris said. "By doing so perhaps mec-2 can be used as a "sensory thermostat" to turn sensory activity up or down."

Norris stressed, though, that this theory needs more research.

"Thus far experiments have been done in C. elegans and mice that agree with each other. It is natural to hypothesize that similar results will hold in humans," he said. "But that needs to be proven."


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