Treadmill performance predicts mortality

                               Treadmill (stock image). Credit: © viktoriagavril / Fotolia

Analyzing data from 58,000 heart stress tests, Johns Hopkins cardiologists report they have developed a formula that estimates one's risk of dying over a decade based on a person's ability to exercise on a treadmill at an increasing speed and incline.

Several exercise-based risk scoring systems already in use are designed to measure short-term risk of dying but do so strictly among patients with established heart disease or overt signs of cardiovascular trouble. Such scores factor in multiple variables and incorporate results from additional tests, including electrocardiograms (EKGs).

By contrast, the new algorithm, dubbed the FIT Treadmill Score and described in the March 2 issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, can gauge long-term death risk in anyone based solely on treadmill exercise performance. The score, the research team says, could yield valuable clues about a person's health and should be calculated for the millions of patients who undergo cardiac stress testing in the United States each year.

"The notion that being in good physical shape portends lower death risk is by no means new, but we wanted to quantify that risk precisely by age, gender and fitness level, and do so with an elegantly simple equation that requires no additional fancy testing beyond the standard stress test," says lead investigator Haitham Ahmed, M.D. M.P.H., a cardiology fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

In addition to age and gender, the formula factors in peak heart rate reached during intense exercise and the ability to tolerate physical exertion as measured by so-called metabolic equivalents, or METs, a gauge of how much energy the body expends during exercise. More vigorous activities require higher energy output (higher METs), better exercise tolerance and higher fitness level. An activity such as slow walking equals two METs, compared with eight for running.

"The FIT Treadmill Score is easy to calculate and costs nothing beyond the cost of the treadmill test itself," says senior study author Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H., director of clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease. "We hope the score will become a mainstay in cardiologists and primary clinicians' offices as a meaningful way to illustrate risk among those who undergo cardiac stress testing and propel people with poor results to become more physically active."

Exercise stress tests -- commonly used to determine who needs invasive cardiac testing and inform treatment decisions -- measure how well the heart and lungs respond to physical exertion while a person is walking on a treadmill at progressively higher speed and elevation. The test is stopped once a person reaches the point of exhaustion or develops chest pain, dizziness or heart rhythm abnormalities. Those who have abnormal findings on their EKG tracings during exercise or who develop symptoms suggestive of abnormal heart strain during the test are referred for angiography, an invasive procedure to examine the interior of the heart's main blood vessels. Those who have normal EKG readings and no alarming symptoms while exercising are said to have "normal" results and typically do not require further testing.
However, the researchers say, the new data show varying degrees of fitness among those with "normal" stress test results that reveal telling clues about cardiac and respiratory fitness and, therefore, overall death risk over time.

"Stress test results are currently interpreted as 'either/or' but we know that heart disease is a spectrum disorder," Ahmed says. "We believe that our FIT score reflects the complex nature of cardiovascular health and can offer important insights to both clinicians and patients."
For the study, the team analyzed information on 58,020 people, ages 18 to 96, from Detroit, Michigan, who underwent standard exercise stress tests between 1991 and 2009 for evaluation of chest pain, shortness of breath, fainting or dizziness. The researchers then tracked how many of the participants within each fitness level died from any cause over the next decade. The results reveal that among people of the same age and gender, fitness level as measured by METs and peak heart rate reached during exercise were the greatest indicators of death risk. Fitness level was the single most powerful predictor of death and survival, even after researchers accounted for other important variables such as diabetes and family history of premature death -- a finding that underscores the profound importance of heart and lung fitness, the investigators say.

Scores ranged from negative 200 to positive 200, with those above 0 having lower mortality risk and those in the negative range facing highest risk of dying. Patients who scored 100 or higher had a 2 percent risk of dying over the next 10 years, while those with scores between 0 and 100 faced a 3 percent death risk over the next decade. In other words, two of 100 people of the same age and gender with a score of 100 or higher would die over the next decade, compared with three out of 100 for those with a fitness score between 0 and 100. People with scores between negative 100 and 0 had an 11 percent risk of dying in the next 10 years, while those with scores lower than negative 100 had a 38 percent risk of dying.

Published along with the study is a chart depicting death risk by age, gender and fitness level, which can be printed on placards for use in physician's offices to guide clinical advice.

For example, a 45-year-old woman with a fitness score in the bottom fifth percentile is estimated to have a 38 percent risk of dying over the next decade, compared with 2 percent for a 45-year-old woman with a top fitness score.
"We hope that illustrating risk that way could become a catalyst for patients to increase exercise and improve cardiovascular fitness," Blaha says.

Other Johns Hopkins investigators involved in the research included John McEvoy, Roger Blumenthal and Steven Jones.
Researchers from other institutions included Mouaz Al-Mallah, Clinton Brawner and Steven Keteyian of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and Khurram Nasir of Baptist Health Medical Group in Miami Beach, Fla.

Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

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Stars found far from galaxy center - Nasa

The newfound young star clusters lie thousands of light-years below the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, a flat spiral disk seen in this artist's conception. If alien lifeforms were to develop on planets orbiting these stars, they would have views of a portion, or all, of the galactic disk. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Astronomers using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have found a cluster of stars forming at the very edge of our Milky Way galaxy.

"A stellar nursery in what seems to be the middle of nowhere is quite surprising," said Peter Eisenhardt, the project scientist for the WISE mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "But surprises turn up when you look everywhere, as the WISE survey did."
The discovery, led by Denilso Camargo of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, appears in a new study in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Milky Way, the galaxy we live in, has a barred spiral shape, with arms of stars, gas and dust winding out from a central bar. Viewed from the side, the galaxy would appear relatively flat, with most of the material in a disk and the central regions.

Using infrared survey images from WISE, the team discovered two clusters of stars thousands of light-years below the galactic disk. The stars live in dense clumps of gas called giant molecular clouds.

This is the first time astronomers have found stars being born in such a remote location. Clouds of star-forming material at very high latitudes away from the galactic plane are rare and, in general, are not expected to form stars.

"Our work shows that the space around the galaxy is a lot less empty that we thought," said Camargo. "The new clusters of stars are truly exotic. In a few million years, any inhabitants of planets around the stars will have a grand view of the outside of the Milky Way, something no human being will probably ever experience."

To learn more about the discovery, and what might have caused the stars to form at the edge of our galaxy, read the Royal Astronomical Society news release.

JPL managed and operated WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The spacecraft was put into hibernation mode in 2011, after it scanned the entire sky twice, completing its main objectives. Edward Wright was the principal investigator and is at UCLA. In September 2013, the WISE spacecraft was reactivated, renamed NEOWISE and assigned a new mission to assist NASA's efforts to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

The WISE mission was selected competitively under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Source: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Beliefs can regulate effects of nicotine on the human brain

Two identical cigarettes led to a new discovery. Study participants inhaled nicotine, yet they showed significantly different brain activity. Why the difference? Some subjects were told their cigarettes were nicotine free. Credit: © Nomad_Soul / Fotolia
Two identical cigarettes led to a discovery by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. Study participants inhaled nicotine, yet they showed significantly different brain activity. Why the difference? Some subjects were told their cigarettes were nicotine free.

"Our research group has begun to show that beliefs are as powerful a physical influence on the brain as neuroactive drugs," said Read Montague, director of the Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and lead author of a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nicotine has formidable effects throughout the brain, especially in the reward-based learning pathways. Nicotine teaches the brain that smoking leads to reward. Once the brain learns that correlation, the addictive chemical cycle is difficult to break. In this study, scientists tracked the brain responses using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

"We suspected that we would be able to see neural signals based on the subjects' belief rather than their actual nicotine intake," said Montague, who is also a professor of physics in Virginia Tech's College of Science.

After smoking cigarettes, volunteers played a reward-based learning game while their brains were scanned. The subjects viewed a historical stock price graph, made an investment, and repeated the cycle multiple times.

Researchers used computational models of learning signals thought to be generated by the brain during these kinds of tasks. In each subject, the individually tracked signals were specifically influenced by beliefs about nicotine.

Montague and his team found that the people who believed they had smoked nicotine cigarettes made different choices and had different neural signals than the other participants, despite the fact that both groups had consumed the same substance.

The scientists also found people who believed they had smoked nicotine had significantly higher activity in their reward-learning pathways. Those who did not believe they had smoked nicotine did not exhibit those same signals.

"It was the belief alone that modulated activity in the learning pathway," Montague said. "This goes beyond the placebo effect."

Multiple studies support the placebo effect, showing sham treatments can improve a patient's condition simply because the person believed it would be helpful. In the current study, however, researchers found belief alone could actually erase or enhance the effects of nicotine in participants who were under the influence of the active drug.

The study was featured in an editorial commentary by Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The current findings extend the relevance of dopamine-guided learning processes to the experience of how drug intoxication influences the way the human brain works and orchestrates our behaviors," Volkow wrote in the commentary.

Volkow suggested previously shrouded mechanisms behind beliefs and learned responses could be manipulated as a target for new addiction treatments.

"Nothing is more convincing than how a drug can make you feel differently," Montague said. "A drug can induce a belief state, which itself causes the change."

Scientists might be able to harness this belief system, capable of inducing physiological changes, to reverse-engineer addiction.

"Just as drugs micromanage the belief state," Montague said, "maybe we can micromanage beliefs to better effect behavior change in addiction."

Source: Virginia Tech

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Genetically speaking, mammals are more like their fathers

Newborn baby and his father's hand. Specifically, the research shows that although we inherit equal amounts of genetic mutations from our parents -- the mutations that make us who we are and not some other person -- we actually "use" more of the DNA that we inherit from our dads. Credit: © millaf / Fotolia

You might resemble or act more like your mother, but a novel research study from UNC School of Medicine researchers reveals that mammals are genetically more like their dads. Specifically, the research shows that although we inherit equal amounts of genetic mutations from our parents -- the mutations that make us who we are and not some other person -- we actually "use" more of the DNA that we inherit from our dads.

The research, published in the journal Nature Genetics, has wide implications for the study of human disease, especially when using mammalian research models. For instance, in many mouse models created for the study of gene expression related to disease, researchers typically don't take into account whether specific genetic expression originates from mothers or fathers. But the UNC research shows that inheriting a mutation has different consequences in mammals, depending on whether the genetic variant is inherited from the mother or father.

"This is an exceptional new research finding that opens the door to an entirely new area of exploration in human genetics," said Fernando Pardo-Manuel de Villena, PhD, professor of genetics and senior author of the paper. "We've known that there are 95 genes that are subject to this parent-of-origin effect. They're called imprinted genes, and they can play roles in diseases, depending on whether the genetic mutation came from the father or the mother. Now we've found that in addition to them, there are thousands of other genes that have a novel parent-of-origin effect."

These genetic mutations that are handed down from parents show up in many common but complex diseases that involve many genes, such as type-2 diabetes, heart disease, schizophrenia, obesity, and cancers. Studying them in genetically diverse mouse models that take parent-of-origin into account will give scientists more precise insights into the underlying causes of disease and the creation of therapeutics or other interventions.

The key to this research is the Collaborative Cross -- the most genetically diverse mouse population in the world, which is generated, housed, and distributed from UNC. Traditional lab mice are much more limited in their genetic diversity, and so they have limited use in studies that try to home in on important aspects of diseases in humans. The Collaborative Cross bred together various wild type mice to create wide diversity in the mouse genome. Pardo-Manuel de Villena said that this diversity is comparable to the variation found in the human genome. This helps scientists study diseases that involve various levels of genetic expression across many different genes.

Gene expression connects DNA to proteins, which then carry out various functions inside cells. This process is crucial for proper human health. Mutations that alter gene expression are called regulatory mutations.

"This type of genetic variation is probably the most important contributor -- not to simple Mendelian diseases where there's just one gene mutation [such as cystic fibrosis] -- but to much more common and complex diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, neurological conditions, and a host of others," Pardo-Manuel de Villena said. "These diseases are driven by gene expression, not of one gene but of hundreds or thousands of genes.

"The Collaborative Cross and the expertise we have at UNC allow us to look at different gene expression for every gene in the genome of every kind of tissue," said Pardo-Manuel de Villena, who directs the Collaborative Cross.

For the Nature Genetics study, Pardo-Manuel de Villena's team, including first author James Crowley, PhD, assistant professor of genetics, selected three genetically diverse inbred strains of mice that were descended from a subspecies that evolved on different continents. These mice were bred to create nine different types of hybrid offspring in which each strain was used as both father and mother. When the mice reached adulthood, the researchers measured gene expression in four different kinds of tissue, including RNA sequencing in the brain. They then quantified how much gene expression was derived from the mother and the father for every single gene in the genome.

"We found that the vast majority of genes -- about 80 percent -- possessed variants that altered gene expression," Crowley said. "And this was when we discovered a new, genome-wide expression imbalance in favor of the dad in several hundred genes. This imbalance resulted in offspring whose brain gene expression was significantly more like their father's."

For every gene a scientist is interested in, Pardo-Manuel de Villena's team can create mice that have low, intermediate, or high expression of genes. And they can explore if that expression is associated with a specific disease.

"This expression level is dependent on the mother or the father," Pardo-Manuel de Villena said. "We now know that mammals express more genetic variance from the father. So imagine that a certain kind of mutation is bad. If inherited from the mother, the gene wouldn't be expressed as much as it would be if it were inherited from the father. So, the same bad mutation would have different consequences in disease if it were inherited from the mother or from the father."

These types of genetic mutations across hundreds of genes are hard to study and a major bottleneck to realizing the promises of the post-genome era. But Pardo-Manuel de Villena said, "Thanks to the Collaborative Cross, the mouse can be used to model how these genes work and how they impact health and disease in any kind of tissue in the body."

Source: University of North Carolina Health Care

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Old-looking galaxy in a young universe: Astronomers find dust in the early universe

This spectacular view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the rich galaxy cluster Abell 1689. The huge concentration of mass bends light coming from more distant objects and can increase their total apparent brightness and make them visible. One such object, A1689-zD1, is located in the box -- although it is still so faint that it is barely seen in this picture. New observations with ALMA and ESO's VLT have revealed that this object is a dusty galaxy seen when the Universe was just 700 million years old.  Credit: NASA; ESA; L. Bradley (Johns Hopkins University); R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz); H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University); and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)

Dust plays an extremely important role in the universe -- both in the formation of planets and new stars. But dust was not there from the beginning and the earliest galaxies had no dust, only gas. Now an international team of astronomers, led by researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, has discovered a dust-filled galaxy from the very early universe. The discovery demonstrates that galaxies were very quickly enriched with dust particles containing elements such as carbon and oxygen, which could form planets. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature.

Cosmic dust are smoke-like particles made up of either carbon (fine soot) or silicates (fine sand). The dust is comprised primarily of elements such as carbon, silicon, magnesium, iron and oxygen. The elements are synthesised by the nuclear combustion process in stars and driven out into space when the star dies and explodes. In space, they gather in clouds of dust and gas, which form new stars, and for each generation of new stars, more elements are formed. This is a slow process and in the very earliest galaxies in the history of the universe, dust had not yet formed.

But now a team of researchers have discovered a very distant galaxy that contains a large amount of dust, changing astronomers' previous calculations of how quickly the dust was formed.

"It is the first time dust has been discovered in one of the most distant galaxies ever observed -- only 700 million years after the Big Bang. It is a galaxy of modest size and yet it is already full of dust. This is very surprising and it tells us that ordinary galaxies were enriched with heavier elements far faster than expected," explains Darach Watson, an astrophysicist with the Dark Cosmology Centre at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

Darach Watson led the project, with Lise Christensen from the Dark Cosmology Centre and researchers from Sweden, Scotland, France and Italy.

Lucky location

Because the galaxy is very distant and therefore incredibly faint, it would not usually be detectable from Earth. But a fortunate circumstance means the light from it has been amplified. This is because a large cluster of galaxies called Abell 1689, lies between the galaxy and Earth. The light is refracted by the gravity of the galaxy cluster, thus amplifying the distant galaxy. The phenomenon is called gravitational lensing and it works like a magnifying glass.

"We looked for the most distant galaxies in the universe. Based on the colours of the light observed with the Hubble Space Telescope we can see which galaxies could be very distant. Using observations from the very sensitive instrument, the X-shooter spectrograph on the Large Telescope, VLT in Chile, we measured the galaxy's spectrum and from that calculated its redshift, i.e. the change in the light's wavelength as the object recedes from us. From the redshift we can calculate the galaxy's distance from us and it turned out to be, as we suspected, one of the most distant galaxies we know of to date," explains Lise Christensen, an astrophysicist at the Dark Cosmology Centre at the Niels Bohr Institute.

Early planet formation

Darach Watson explains that they then studied the galaxy with the ALMA telescopes, which can observe far-infrared wavelengths and then it became really interesting, because now they could see that the galaxy was full of dust. He explains that young stars in early galaxies emit hot ultraviolet light. The hot ultraviolet radiation heats the surrounding ice-cold dust, which then emits light in the far-infrared.

"It is this far-infrared light, which tells us that there is dust in the galaxy. It is very surprising and it is the first time that dust has been found in such an early galaxy. The process of star formation must therefore have started very early in the history of the universe and be associated with the formation of dust. The detection of large amounts of solid material shows that the galaxy was enriched very early with solids which are a prerequisite for the formation of complex molecules and planets," explains Darach Watson.

Now the researchers hope that future observations of a large number of distant galaxies using the ALMA telescopes could help unravel how frequently such evolved galaxies occur in this very early epoch of the history of the universe.

Source: University of Copenhagen - Niels Bohr Institute

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Newborn neurons in adult brain may help us adapt to environment

Neurons . "New neurons may serve as a means to fine-tune the hippocampus to the predicted environment," Opendak says. "In particular, seeking out rewarding experiences or avoiding stressful experiences may help each individual optimize his or her own brain.
Credit: © ktsdesign / Fotolia
The discovery that the human brain continues to produce new neurons in adulthood challenged a major dogma in the field of neuroscience, but the role of these neurons in behavior and cognition is still not clear. In a review article published by Cell Press February 21st in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Maya Opendak and Elizabeth Gould of Princeton University synthesize the vast literature on this topic, reviewing environmental factors that influence the birth of new neurons in the adult hippocampus, a region of the brain that plays an important role in memory and learning.

The authors discuss how the birth of such neurons may help animals and humans adapt to their current environment and circumstances in a complex and changing world. They advocate for testing these ideas using naturalistic designs, such as allowing laboratory rodents to live in more natural social burrow settings and observing how circumstances such as social status influence the rate at which new neurons are born.

"New neurons may serve as a means to fine-tune the hippocampus to the predicted environment," Opendak says. "In particular, seeking out rewarding experiences or avoiding stressful experiences may help each individual optimize his or her own brain. However, more naturalistic experimental conditions may be a necessary step toward understanding the adaptive significance of neurons born in the adult brain."

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that environmental influences have a profound effect on the adult brain in a wide range of mammalian species. Stressful experiences, such as restraint, social defeat, exposure to predator odors, inescapable foot shock, and sleep deprivation, have been shown to decrease the number of new neurons in the hippocampus. By contrast, more rewarding experiences, such as physical exercise and mating, tend to increase the production of new neurons in the hippocampus.

The birth of new neurons in adulthood may have important behavioral and cognitive consequences. Stress-induced suppression of adult neurogenesis has been associated with impaired performance on hippocampus-dependent cognitive tasks, such as spatial navigation learning and object memory. Stressful experiences have also been shown to increase anxiety-like behaviors that are associated with the hippocampus. In contrast, rewarding experiences are associated with reduced anxiety-like behavior and improved performance on cognitive tasks involving the hippocampus.

Although scientists generally agree that our day-to-day actions change our brains even in adulthood, there is some disagreement on the adaptive significance of new neurons. For instance, the literature presents mixed findings on whether new neurons generated under a specific experimental condition are geared toward the recognition of that particular experience or if they provide a more naive pool of new neurons that enable environmental adaptation in the future.

Gould and her collaborators recently proposed that stress-induced decreases in new neuron formation might improve the chances of survival by increasing anxiety and inhibiting exploration, thereby prioritizing safety and avoidant behavior at the expense of performing optimally on cognitive tasks. On the other hand, reward-induced increases in new neuron number may reduce anxiety and facilitate exploration and learning, leading to greater reproductive success.

"Because the past is often the best predictor of the future, a stress-modeled brain may facilitate adaptive responses to life in a stressful environment, whereas a reward-modeled brain may do the same but for life in a low-stress, high-reward environment," says Gould, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University.

However, when aversive experiences far outnumber rewarding ones in both quantity and intensity, the system may reach a breaking point and produce a maladaptive outcome. For example, repeated stress produces continued reduction in the birth of new neurons, and ultimately the emergence of heightened anxiety and depressive-like symptoms.

"Such a scenario could represent processes that are engaged under pathological conditions and may be somewhat akin to what humans experience when exposed to repeated traumatic stress," Opendak says.

Because many studies that investigate adult neurogenesis use controlled laboratory conditions, the relevance of the findings to real-world circumstances remains unclear. The use of a visible burrow system--a structure consisting of tubes, chambers, and an open field--has allowed researchers to recreate the conditions that allow for the production of dominance hierarchies that rats naturally form in the wild, replicating the stressors, rewards, and cognitive processes that accompany this social lifestyle.

"This more realistic setting has revealed individual differences in adult neurogenesis, with more new neurons produced in dominant versus subordinate male rats," Gould says. "Taking findings from laboratory animals to the next level by exploring complex social interactions in settings that maximize individual variability, a hallmark of the human experience, is likely to be especially illuminating."

Source: Cell Press

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Is not there Big Bang ? A quantum equation show that the universe has no beginning

The universe could have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement the theory of general relativity of Einstein. The model can also explain dark matter and dark energy.

The widely accepted age of the universe, according to estimates of general relativity, is 13,800 million years. At first, everything was dealt a single infinitely dense point or, in other words, the singularity. After that point began to expand to trigger the Big Bang, considered the origin of the universe, has  Science Direct .

Although the Big Bang singularity arises directly and inevitably mathematics of general relativity, some scientists consider the problematic issue because mathematics can only explain what happened after and not before the singularity .

However, Ahmed Ali Farag, Benha University, Egypt, and Saurya Das University of Lethbridge, Canada, say the Big Bang singularity can be resolved by its new model in which the universe has no beginning nor end .

The researchers used Raychaudhuri equation and the Friedmann equations, which describe the expansion and evolution of the universe (including the Big Bang) in the context of general relativity. The model of Ali and Das contains elements of both quantum theory, of general relativity .

In physical terms, the model describes the universe as full of "quantum fluid" . Scientists propose that this fluid could be composed of gravitons, hypothetical massless particles that mediate the force of gravity.

To understand the origin of the universe, they analyzed the behavior of the fluid over time. Surprisingly, they found that this does not converge towards the singularity, but, on the contrary, the universe seems to have always existed . Although it was smaller in the past, says Das.

Source: RT

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The 500 million years ocean history

Brachiopod Paraspirifer bownockeri from the Middle Devonian of Ohio (USA); Width: 5.6 cm. Picture: U. Jansen, Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt am Main.

GEOMAR coordinates European research and education project BASE-LiNE Earth
02.03.2015 / Kiel. As the history of the oceans can be reconstructed in the past 500 million based on calcareous shells of fossil marine life, busy to date with the research project BASE-LiNE Earth. At the same time it enables talented young scientists and scientists a doctorate in an international research environment. The European Union supports the at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel coordinated project with a total of 3.8 million euros.

Almost all life on earth would be extinct - and that at least five times in the past 500 million years. The environmental changes that have each led to the mass extinction, the oceans play an important role in almost all cases. How did it happen that was phased so hostile to life as a life-giving force sea? And why have some species still survive? These are fundamental questions that will be examined in the next three years as part of the European research project BASE-LiNE Earth with innovative technologies and methods. In addition to answering the research questions BASE LiNE Earth serves as the training of talented young scholars and scientists who are recruited by means of a demanding selection process from all over the world and doctorate within the scope of the project. 

The EU promotes the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel coordinated project under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action in Horizon2020-Pogramm with a total of 3.8 million euros. The challenge for the future BASE-LiNE Earth-doctoral students, is to provide information to gain from distant epochs of earth's history. "When historians want to know about events 100 or 200 years ago, they visit libraries or archives where there is written evidence from these times," says project coordinator Prof. Dr. Anton Eisenhauer from GEOMAR. "We also use archives. 
However, they see something different. It is, for example, the calcareous shells of fossil brachiopods in which the relevant data on the chemical history of ocean water are stored reliably, "explains the Kiel geochemist on. 

The information is in the calcite shells of course not writing before, but encrypted in the chemical and mineralogical composition. "If we precise the ratios of elements such as strontium, magnesium, boron, or measure of the isotopic to each other, we can decrypt the information," says Professor Eisenhauer.

This then the age of the shell, as well as the chemical composition of the previous ocean and prevailing environmental conditions such as water temperature and the acidity of the water can be reconstructed. We know, for example, know that during the greatest mass extinction 251 million years ago, the ocean contained no oxygen and was acidified to a large extent. 

"This is similar to some scenarios that we expect for the future of our ocean," explains Professor Eisenhauer. Model calculations are carried out within the framework of the project should show how far the former changes in the environment are transferable to the present day. The challenge is to gain this information and to make it usable. In collaboration with industry partners modern analytical methods for obtaining information in cooperation with business partners in this area in the context of BASE-LiNE Earth therefore be generated and developed. The project involves a total of 21 scientific institutions from eight European countries and partners from Canada, Israel, Palestine and Australia involved. 15 PhD positions will announce the project this spring, two of them for the GEOMAR in Kiel. 

The Integrated School of Ocean Sciences (ISOS) provides at the University of Kiel for a comprehensive training program in which the scholars not only pursue their academic goals, but also learn more professional qualifications, skills and interact with each other.  In the coming years, the parties want to do their topic also by means of exhibitions and school supplies to a wider audience. "Of course we also bind the doctoral students, which thus also learn to communicate their work understandable," says the project coordinator. For more information on the project website www.baseline-earth.eu.

Source: Geomar

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The role of gravitational instabilities in deposition of volcanic ash: The example of Eyjafjallajökull

Figure 1 from Manzella et al.: Original and processed snapshot of the video of the Eyjafjallajökull (Iceland) plume as observed on 4 May 2010. White arrows indicate finger positions. This article is Open Access.

Boulder, Colo., USA – Volcanic ash poses a significant hazard for areas close to volcanoes and for aviation. For example, the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland, clearly demonstrated that even small-to-moderate explosive eruptions, in particular if long-lasting, can paralyze entire sectors of societies, with significant, global-level, economic impacts. In this open-access Geology article, Irene Manzella and colleagues present the first quantitative description of the dynamics of gravitational instabilities and particle aggregation based on the 4 May 2010 eruption.

Their analysis also reveals some important shortcomings in the Volcanic Ash Transport and Dispersal Models (VATDMs) typically used to forecast the dispersal of volcanic ash. In particular, specific processes exist that challenge the view of sedimentation of fine particles from volcanic plumes and that are currently poorly understood: particle aggregation and gravitational instabilities. These appear as particle-rich "fingers" descending from the base of volcanic clouds and have commonly been observed during volcanic explosive eruptions.

Based on direct observations of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull plume, on the correlation with the associated fallout deposit, and on dedicated laboratory analogue experiments, Irene Manzella and colleagues show how fine ash in these particle-rich fingers settles faster than individual particles and that aggregation and gravitational instabilities are closely related. Both phenomena can significantly contribute to reducing fine-ash lifetime in the atmosphere and, therefore, it is crucial to include them in VATDMs in order to provide accurate forecasting of ash dispersal and sedimentation.

Source: Gsa

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The Technion Researchers Find to NanoParticles may Threaten Heart

Nanoparticles, extremely tiny particles measured in billionths of a meter, are increasingly everywhere, and especially in biomedical products. Their toxicity has been researched in general terms, but now a team of Israeli scientists has for the first time found that exposure nanoparticles (NPs) of silicon dioxide (SiO2) can play a major role in the development of cardiovascular diseases when the NP cross tissue and cellular barriers and also find their way into the circulatory system. Their study is published in the December 2014 issue of Environmental Toxicology.

Prof. Michael Aviram
The research team was comprised of scientists from the Technion Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Rambam Medical Center, and the Center of Excellence in Exposure Science and Environmental Health (TCEEH).

“Environmental exposure to nanoparticles is becoming unavoidable due to the rapid expansion of nanotechnology,” says the study’s lead author, Prof. Michael Aviram, of the Technion Faculty of Medicine, “This exposure may be especially chronic for those employed in research laboratories and in high tech industry where workers handle, manufacture, use and dispose of nanoparticles. Products that use silica-based nanoparticles for biomedical uses, such as various chips, drug or gene delivery and tracking, imaging, ultrasound therapy, and diagnostics, may also pose an increased cardiovascular risk for consumers as well.”

In this study, researchers exposed cultured laboratory mouse cells resembling the arterial wall cells to NPs of silicon dioxide and investigated the effects. SiO2 NPs are toxic to and have significant adverse effects on macrophages. a type of white blood cell that take up lipids, leading to atherosclerotic lesion development and its consequent cardiovascular events, such as heart attack or stroke. Macrophages accumulation in the arterial wall under atherogenic conditions such as high cholesterol, triglycerides, oxidative stress – are converted into lipids, or laden “foam cells” which, in turn, accelerate atherosclerosis development.

“Macrophage foam cells accumulation in the arterial wall are a key cell type in the development of atherosclerosis, which is an inflammatory disease” says co-author Dr. Lauren Petrick. “The aims of our study were to gain additional insight into the cardiovascular risk associated with silicon dioxide nanoparticle exposure and discover the mechanisms behind Si02’s induced atherogenic effects on macrophages. We also wanted to use nanoparticles as a model for ultrafine particle (UFP) exposure as cardiovascular disease risk factors.”

Both NPs and UFPs can be inhaled and induce negative biological effects. However, until this study, their effect on the development of atherosclerosis has been largely unknown. Here, researchers have discovered for the first time that the toxicity of silicon dioxide nanoparticles has a “significant and substantial effect on the accumulation of triglycerides in the macrophages,” at all exposure concentrations analyzed, and that they also “increase oxidative stress and toxicity.”

A recent update from the American Heart Association also suggested that “fine particles” in air pollution leads to elevated risk for cardiovascular diseases. However, more research was needed to examine the role of “ultrafine particles” (which are much smaller than “fine particles”) on atherosclerosis development and cardiovascular risk.

“The number of nano-based consumer products has risen a thousand fold in recent years, with an estimated world market of $3 trillion by the year 2020,” conclude the researchers. “This reality leads to increased human exposure and interaction of silica-based nanoparticles with biological systems. Because our research demonstrates a clear cardiovascular health risk associated with this trend, steps need to be taken to help ensure that potential health and environmental hazards are being addressed at the same time as the nanotechnology is being developed.

The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is a major source of the innovation and brainpower that drives the Israeli economy, and a key to Israel’s renown as the world’s “Start-Up Nation.” Its three Nobel Prize winners exemplify academic excellence. Technion people, ideas and inventions make immeasurable contributions to the world including life-saving medicine, sustainable energy, computer science, water conservation and nanotechnology. The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute is a vital component of Cornell NYC Tech, and a model for graduate applied science education that is expected to transform New York City’s economy.

American Technion Society (ATS) donors provide critical support for the Technion—more than $1.95 billion since its inception in 1940. Based in New York City, the ATS and its network of chapters across the U.S. provide funds for scholarships, fellowships, faculty recruitment and chairs, research, buildings, laboratories, classrooms and dormitories, and more.

Source: ATS

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From Pig to Fuel - Anaerobic digester generates energy, reduces odors

 Teng Lim is operating a small-scale anaerobic digester at the MU swine farm in Columbia. The system generates energy and can mitigate hog odor. Courtesy Jon Lamb.

The University of Missouri has unveiled a prototype small-scale anaerobic digestion system that produces biogas from pig manure. The biogas can be used to heat a farm and create electricity. The device also reduces odor from swine operations.

“What we want to do is improve and fully utilize all the biogas for energy production,” said Teng Lim, Extension Ag Systems Management associate professor.

Funded by the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, the anaerobic digester consists of three tanks. Manure from the hog barn pit is pumped into one tank where the manure is stored and mixed. The anaerobic digestion takes place in the other two tanks, where bacteria break down the manure in these warm and oxygen-free tanks.

The biogas from the manure can be used for electricity and hot water production. With some further treatment it can also be stored as a compressed natural gas, for heating or even vehicle fuel.

PigsLim says a larger scale digester could supply a farm’s energy needs and also be sold to the grid to provide electricity to the community.

There are other benefits to anaerobic digestion in addition to energy generation. The digested manure retains the nutrients to be good fertilizer while becoming a more consistent product. Also, the digester can reduce odor emissions.

“When the manure is treated by the digester process the odor concentration is significantly reduced,” Lim said. “There is still going to be odor, but it’s going to be much lower and less fluctuation than the raw manure.”

A Lot of Pork

The swine industry is big in the United States – there are 73,150 pork farms in America with 120 million pigs marketed each year.

Before the 1960s, most pork in the U.S. was raised in outside lots or on pasture systems. With the development of slotted floors and liquid manure handling equipment, it became possible for producers to more easily care for larger numbers of animals. Enclosed buildings overcame most weather problems and predators, and minimized the potential pollution from outside lot runoff.

Typically, pig odor is a localized air quality problem, with low concentrations of odorous gases such as p-cresol. Odor problems are often a starting point for litigation. Many farmers can go out of business just fighting a lawsuit.

An Important Part of Future Farms?

There are challenges to anaerobic digestion, the biggest being cost and management. In a commercial setting the digester would be 100 times larger than the one at MU’s swine research facility.

Lim pointed out that industry leaders and scientists believe anaerobic digesters will be an important piece of future farms, both to mitigate odor and for generating renewable energy.  The cost is a major obstacle now. The team is working closely with industry experts from Martin Machinery, a Missouri company who specializes in biogas generators and control systems.

MU researchers are using the scaled down digester to find ways to make digesters more affordable and easier to manage. They are also using it as an education tool to show producers the potentials, what it takes to process the manure, and to train people how to properly run a system like this.

Source: Cafnr

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Deep Sea Mining: What are the risks?

During the launch event in Kiel, the project partners plan investigations to ecosystems around the manganese nodules. Photo: J. Steffen, GEOMAR

GEOMAR coordinates European cooperation for the risk assessment
01.29.2015 / Kiel. 50 specialists in deep-sea ecology, marine mining and deep-sea observation of 25 European research institutions meeting this week at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. This will free the start of a three-year research project to investigate the risks of potential ore mining on the seabed. The project called "JPI Oceans Ecological aspects of deep-sea mining" is coordinated at GEOMAR.

The world population is growing. This also means that more and more people need a home, want to work with computers and other electronic devices and consume energy. For the construction of houses for the manufacture of electronic goods, but also for the production of wind turbines will require significant amounts of various metals. Currently, all metal ores are promoted on almost a third of the earth's surface - on the continents. 

In some regions of the ocean manganese nodules are recorded in the Atlantic as here, close together on the ocean floors. Photo: Nils Brenke, CeNak

However, in recent decades engaged again, the other two thirds, the oceans, the focus of governments and resource companies. "Many questions about a potential ore mining in the deep sea, however, are still open," says Dr. Matthias Haeckel from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. He is the scientific coordinator of the "Ecological aspects of deep-sea mining" project to investigate the potential environmental risks in the next three years. A consortium of research ministries in eleven European countries promotes it as part of the Joint Programme Healthy and Productive Seas (JPI Oceans) initiative with a total of 9.5 million euros. 

 In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone are the largest known manganese nodule deposits. Here, the ISA has been awarded 13 research licenses. Image Reproduced from the GEBCO world map 2014

This week, the project starts with a kick-off meeting at GEOMAR. A total of 25 partner institutions from these eleven countries involved in the project. The focus is primarily known as manganese nodules. It is spherical or cauliflower-shaped Erzknollen, which are usually at depths below 4000 meters on the large abyssal plains. They consist not only from the eponymous manganese, but also contain iron and coveted metals such as copper, cobalt or nickel. Already in the 1970s, there were initial plans to reduce manganese nodules from the deep sea, but never came out on trials. The largest reserves are currently known from the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone in the central Pacific. As a result of these activities in international waters on the basis of the International Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the International Seabed Authority (International Seabed Authority, ISA) was founded in 1994. 

It manages the entire seabed beyond the exclusive economic zone (200 nautical miles) of individual states. To date, the ISA has awarded 13 research licenses for exploration of manganese nodule fields in the Pacific, including in Germany and other European countries. 

                     Sample of the seabed in DISCOL area with top resting manganese nodules. 
                                                    Photo: M. Haeckel, GEOMAR

"But there is no mining licenses, which would only be a next step," said Dr. Haeckel. Since the ISA also aims to ensure effective protection of the marine environment from the potential consequences of ocean mining, relevant research for the licensees are required. "Of course industrial activities on the ocean floor will have an impact, because they disturb the soil and the water column about it," says Dr. Haeckel. Therefore, it is important to know the ecosystems on the sea floor and its local, regional and national connections and interactions accurately. Already this year, several expeditions of the new German research vessel SONNE in the Pacific are planned. 

The first trips in March and April perform the participating scientists to the German, Belgian and French license areas and in a defined by the ISA reserve in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Further trips from July to October have the so-called DISCOL area in Peru Basin to the destination. There, in 1989, a very limited area of the seabed was plowed for research purposes. "The goal of this experiment is to recognize the long-term consequences of large-area device used for deep-sea sediments," explains Professor Jens Greinert from GEOMAR, who will lead one of the exits to DISCOL area. Now, a quarter century after the disturbance experiment, the scientists will examine the then machined seabed areas exactly compare with adjacent undisturbed areas to determine, can recover disturbed communities in the deep sea as fast. "We should get to know each other better before we start, a large area to intervene in the deep sea it easy," says project coordinator Dr. Haeckel. 

Source: GEOMAR

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Drilling Reveals Fault Rock Architecture in New Zealand’s Central Alpine Fault

            Figure 1: Location map of study by Virginia Toy et al. Image Credit: GSA
Boulder, Colo., USA - Rocks within plate boundary scale fault zones become fragmented and altered over the earthquake cycle. They both record and influence the earthquake process. In this new open-access study published in Lithosphere on 4 Feb., Virginia Toy and colleagues document fault rocks surrounding New Zealand's active Alpine Fault, which has very high probability of generating a magnitude 8 or greater earthquake in the near future.

Descriptions already suggest that the complex fault rock sequence results from slip at varying rates during multiple past earthquakes, and even sometimes during aseismic slip. They also characterize this fault before rupture; Toy and colleagues anticipate that repeat observations after the next event will provide a previously undescribed link between changes in fault rocks and the ground shaking response. They write that in the future this sort of data might allow realistic ground shaking predictions based on observations of other "dormant" faults.

The first phase of the Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP-1) yielded a continuous lithological transect through fault rock surrounding the Alpine fault (South Island, New Zealand). This allowed micrometer- to decimeter-scale variations in fault rock lithology and structure to be delineated on either side of two principal slip zones intersected by DFDP-1A and DFDP-1B. Here, we provide a comprehensive analysis of fault rock lithologies within 70 m of the Alpine fault based on analysis of hand specimens and detailed petrographic and petrologic analysis. The sequence of fault rock lithologies is consistent with that inferred previously from outcrop observations, but the continuous section afforded by DFDP-1 permits new insight into the spatial and genetic relationships between different lithologies and structures. We identify principal slip zone gouge, and cataclasite-series rocks, formed by multiple increments of shear deformation at up to coseismic slip rates. A 20−30-m-thick package of these rocks (including the principal slip zone) forms the fault core, which has accommodated most of the brittle shear displacement. 

This deformation has overprinted ultramylonites deformed mostly by grain-size-insensitive dislocation creep. Outside the fault core, ultramylonites contain low-displacement brittle fractures that are part of the fault damage zone. Fault rocks presently found in the hanging wall of the Alpine fault are inferred to have been derived from protoliths on both sides of the present-day principal slip zone, specifically the hanging-wall Alpine Schist and footwall Greenland Group. This implies that, at seismogenic depths, the Alpine fault is either a single zone of focused brittle shear that moves laterally over time, or it consists of multiple strands. Ultramylonites, cataclasites, and fault gouge represent distinct zones into which deformation has localized, but within the brittle regime, particularly, it is not clear whether this localization accompanies reductions in pressure and temperature during exhumation or whether it occurs throughout the seismogenic regime. These two contrasting possibilities should be a focus of future studies of fault zone architecture.

Source:GSA

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What is the Benefits of ISS Research - A interview Video

Earth framing the International Space Station

Earth framing the International Space Station in May 2010 following undocking of Atlantis during the STS-132 mission. (NASA)

Almost as soon as the International Space Station was habitable, researchers began using it to study the impact of microgravity and other space effects on several aspects of our daily lives. This unique scientific platform continues to enable researchers from all over the world to put their talents to work on innovative experiments that could not be done anywhere else. 

Although each space station partner has distinct agency goals for station research, each partner shares a unified goal to extend the resulting knowledge for the betterment of humanity. We may not know yet what will be the most important discovery gained from the space station, but we already have some amazing breakthroughs! In the areas of human health, telemedicine, education and observations of Earth from space, there are already demonstrated benefits to human life. Vaccine development research, station-generated images that assist with disaster relief and farming, and education programs that inspire future scientists, engineers and space explorers are just some examples of research benefits. 

The stories featured here summarize the scientific, technological and educational accomplishments of research on the space station that has and will continue to have an impact on life on Earth.

The benefits outlined here serve as examples of the space station's potential as a groundbreaking scientific research facility. Through advancing the state of scientific knowledge of our planet, looking after our health, and providing a space platform that inspires and educates the science and technology leaders of tomorrow, these benefits will drive the legacy of the space station as its research strengthens economies and enhances the quality of life here on Earth for all people.

WATCH VIDEO HERE


Source: Nasa

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A Long dry spell doomed Mexican city 1,000 years ago

Ruins of the city of Cantona in the Mexican state of Puebla, with the mountain Cerro Pizarro in the background. The city was abandoned almost 1,000 years ago, probably as a result of a prolonged dry spell. (Ines Urdaneta image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

A UC Berkeley study sheds new light on this question, providing evidence that a prolonged period of below-average rainfall was partly responsible for the abandonment of one such city, Cantona, between A.D. 900 and A.D. 1050.

At its peak, Cantona, located in a dry, volcanic basin (La Cuenca Oriental) east of today’s Mexico City, was one of the largest cities in the New World, with 90,000 inhabitants. The area was a major source of obsidian, and the city may have played a military role alongside an important trade route from the Veracruz coast into the highlands.

To assess the climate in that area before and after Cantona’s collapse, UC Berkeley geographers analyzed sediment cores from a lake located 20 miles south of the former city. They found evidence of a 650-year period of frequent droughts that extended from around A.D. 500 to about A.D. 1150. This was part of a long-term drying trend in highland Mexico that started 2,200 years ago, around 200 B.C. The climate became wetter again in about A.D. 1300, just prior to the rise of the Aztec empire.

“The decline of Cantona occurred during this dry interval, and we conclude that climate change probably played a role, at least towards the end of the city’s existence,” said lead author Tripti Bhattacharya, a UC Berkeley graduate student.

Surprisingly, the population of Cantona increased during the early part of the dry period, perhaps because of political upheaval elsewhere that increased the importance of the heavily fortified city, she said. Teotihuacan, less than 100 miles to the west, was in decline at the time, also possibly because of more frequent droughts. 

Lake Aljojuca, Mexico
The maar lake Aljojuca, 20 miles south of Cantona, yielded sediments that recorded a lengthy series of droughts between A.D. 500 and 1150. (Tripti Bhattacharya photo)

“In a sense the area became important because of the increased frequency of drought,” said UC Berkeley associate professor of geography Roger Byrne. “But when the droughts continued on such a scale, the subsistence base for the whole area changed and people just had to leave. The city was abandoned.”

Bhattacharya, Byrne and their colleagues report their findings in an article appearing this week in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The UC Berkeley researchers analyzed lake cores provided by scientists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Juriquilla, Querétaro, Mexico and the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany.

Political upheaval and climate change

Byrne emphasized that the area’s typical monsoon weather with wet summers and dry winters did not stop, but was interrupted by frequent short-term droughts, no doubt affecting crops and water supplies. Today the area is close to the northern limit of maize production without irrigation, and would have been particularly vulnerable to drier conditions, he said.

Byrne, a member of the Berkeley Initiative on Global Change Biology (BiGCB) and curator of fossil pollen in the Museum of Paleontology, has studied sediment cores from many lakes in Mexico and California, and is particularly interested in possible links between climate change and human activities.

Nearly 20 years ago, he learned of Cantona and traveled with students to the areas three times to obtain cores from lakes near the site, most of which are maar lakes created by magma explosions. They are deep and often contain undisturbed and regularly layered sediments ideal for chronological studies.

Tripti Bhattacharya
Tripti Bhattacharya analyzed carbonates in lake sediments to explore the climate history of the Cuenca Oriental east of Mexico City. (Ellie Broadman photo)

German colleagues cored this particular lake, Aljojuca, in 2007, and Bhattacharya traveled to Potsdam to collect sediment samples. Oxygen isotope ratios in carbonate sediments are correlated with the ratio of precipitation to evaporation and thus indicate aridity. Organic material in the sediments was used for accelerator mass spectroscopy carbon-14 dating.

“We can show that both the growth and decline of the site took place during a time period of frequent drought, which forces us to think in more nuanced ways about how political and social factors interact with environmental factors to cause social and cultural change,” Bhattacharya said. “That makes the study particularly interesting.”

Bhattacharya noted that more studies are necessary to reconstruct the prehistoric climate of highland Mexico. Such studies could reveal the causes of prehistoric climatic change and whether they were similar to the factors that regulate the region’s climate today, such as the El Niño/Southern Oscillation.

Co-authors include Harald Böhnel and Kurt Wogau of UNAM, Juriquilla; Ulrike Kienel of the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam; B. Lynn Ingram of UC Berkeley; and Susan Zimmerman of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Source: UC Berkeley

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