E.P.A. Decides Against Limiting Perchlorate in Drinking Water

Drinking water for as many as 16 million Americans may be contaminated with perchlorate, a chemical that can harm the development of fetuses and children.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday said it would uphold a Trump-era decision and not impose limits in drinking water of perchlorate, a contaminant that has been linked to brain damage in infants.

The announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency shocked public health advocates who had denounced the Trump administration in 2020 for opting not to regulate perchlorate. The chemical is a component in rocket fuel, ammunition and explosives. Exposure can damage the development of fetuses and children and cause a measurable decrease in I.Q. in newborns.

The Trump administration had found that perchlorate did not meet the criteria for regulation because it did not appear in drinking water “with a frequency and at levels of public health concern.” Activists at the time accused the E.P.A. of disregarding science.

After President Biden took office, the agency launched a review of the decision and on Thursday endorsed it, saying it was “supported by the best available peer-reviewed science.”

The E.P.A. said it would take other action, like setting up new monitoring tools and doing more to clean up contaminated sites, “to ensure that public health is protected from perchlorate in drinking water.”

In a statement, the agency said it will “continue to consider new information on the health effects and occurrence of perchlorate.” The E.P.A. said its decision does not affect any state standards for the chemical. California and Massachusetts, for example, have set their own limits for perchlorate in drinking water.

Erik D. Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, said those measures aren’t enough.

“We are extremely disappointed and think that it’s unscientific and unlawful to not regulate this contaminant that’s in millions of people’s drinking water,” he said. “They’re not following the best science.”

Perchlorate can occur naturally, but high concentrations have been found in at least 26 states, often near military installations where it has been used as an additive in rocket fuel, making propellants more reliable. Research has shown that by interfering with the thyroid gland’s iodine uptake, perchlorate can stunt the production of hormones essential to the development of fetuses, infants and children.

Bill Romanelli, a spokesman for the Perchlorate Information Bureau, a coalition funded by aerospace contractors including Aerojet Rocketdyne, American Pacific Corporation and Lockheed Martin, applauded the Biden administration.

“Today’s decision by E.P.A. that perchlorate does not merit additional federal regulation is based on the best available scientific information, ensures protection of public health and the environment, and assures access to clean water,” Mr. Romanelli wrote in a statement.

He called perchlorate “one of the most well-studied environmental chemicals E.P.A. has ever evaluated.” He said peer-reviewed studies have found that the chemical does not occur with a frequency and at a level in public water systems to cause concern.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change

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Ice shelf collapses. For the first time since satellites began observing Antarctica nearly half a century ago, an ice shelf has collapsed on the eastern part of the continent. The 450-square-mile ice shelf was located in an area known as Wilkes Land; the loss occurred in mid-March.

A massive leak. Startlingly large amounts of methane are leaking from wells and pipelines in New Mexico’s Permian Basin, according to a new analysis of aerial data, suggesting that the oil and gas industry may be contributing more to climate change than was previously known.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. A wide stretch of the Great Barrier Reef has been hit by a sixth mass bleaching event, an alarming indicator that the area is under intense stress from the waters around them, which have been growing steadily warmer as a result of climate change..

Enduring drought. Drought conditions are likely to continue across more than half of the continental United States through at least June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. Nearly 60 percent of the continental United States is experiencing drought.

The battle over perchlorate dates back to the early 2000s, when the administration of President George W. Bush decided not to regulate it.

The Obama administration reversed that decision, issuing a finding in 2011 that perchlorate in drinking water posed a serious health risk for as many as 16 million people in the United States. It issued a recommendation to states that 15 micrograms per liter is the highest concentration of perchlorate in water that the most sensitive populations, like pregnant women, should ingest.

But the Defense Department and military contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman waged aggressive efforts to block the controls, and the fight dragged on.

The Trump administration in 2020 reversed the Obama decision and additionally overturned the health finding, saying it was “not in the public interest” to regulate the contaminant.

Environmental groups sued the E.P.A. over the decision not to regulate, but suspended their lawsuit after President Biden was inaugurated in 2021.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which had told the agency that perchlorate can cause a significant drop in the I.Q. of newborns and urged the “strongest possible” limits on the contaminant, declined to comment on Thursday.

Mr. Olson said the litigation against the E.P.A. will now restart with the goal of compelling the agency to impose standards for perchlorate.

#Environment | https://sciencespies.com/environment/e-p-a-decides-against-limiting-perchlorate-in-drinking-water/

How is haze formed?

Haze is formed when a cocktail of various gaseous pollutants is oxidized and forms particulate matter diffusing sunlight. This process is mainly mediated by hydroxyl radicals (OH), and researchers have now discovered a new route to their formation. This newly discovered radical-building mechanism could also offer new perspectives for air purification and the energy industry, as the study published in Angewandte Chemie shows.

Haze consists of fine particulate matter containing soot. It is formed when gaseous pollutants, which are from industrial emissions, vehicle exhausts, and other sources, are converted to condensable matter. "This condensation is remarkably accelerated under the action of OH radicals," says Joseph S. Francisco from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA, who is co-author of the study.

The commonly known sources for OH radicals, such as nitrogen oxide and ozone, only partly account for the vast haze events which keep occurring in haze-afflicted regions such as the megacities of East and South Asia.

In a cooperation, the teams of Hong He at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiao Cheng Zeng at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, and Francisco have now taken a closer look at the chemical activity of soot particles. Soot originates from diesel engine exhaust fumes or is spread by slash-and-burn practices or forest fires. However, to date, soot particles consisting of uncombusted carbon have been considered more as a sink of hydroxyl radicals, rather than a source.

Despite this, Francisco and the team's new experiments showed that soot particles can produce OH radicals if air and water vapor are blown over the particles while being irradiated with light.

It was expected, though, that hydroxyl species formed in this process would not leave the surface of the soot and would quickly react again. However, energy calculations showed that the hydroxyl exhibited "roaming-like features," as the authors stated it: they migrated over the surface, ultimately leaving it.

The results of their study led the team to the conclusion that soot particles play an active role in smog formation. But the researchers aren't stopping there: since it seems that light radiation is sufficient to decompose water molecules into radicals, this material could potentially be used to develop metal-free carbocatalysts. Such soot-based catalysts could either help purify the air from pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), or they could be used to generate chemical energy from light energy. This could pave the way for an environmentally friendly form of artificial photosynthesis.

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Materials provided by Wiley. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

#Environment | https://sciencespies.com/environment/how-is-haze-formed/

African network protects key turtle sites

A network of West African Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) covers key sites used by green turtles, new research shows.

The RAMPAO network runs along the coast of seven countries, from Cape Verde to Sierra Leone, protecting vital habitats for many species.

The new study tracked 45 female green turtles from Poilão Island, in Guinea-Bissau's Bijagós Archipelago, which hosts the largest population in the Eastern Atlantic.

The tracked turtles were found to spend most of their time during nesting and foraging periods inside the MPA network.

However, just 21% of key "migration corridors" are protected.

The study was carried out by a team including the University of Exeter (UK), MARE -- ISPA, Instituto Universitário (Portugal), the Institute of Biodiversity and Protected Areas (Guinea Bissau) and the Banc d'Arguin National Park (Mauritania). Additionally, youngsters of local Bijagós villages were engaged in fieldwork activities.

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"RAMPAO is a great example of an MPA network, with good connections between the MPAs and strong links between the organisations that oversee them," said Dr Rita Patrício, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, and MARE.

"West Africa has very rich marine ecosystems. Conservation efforts initially focussed on key habitats, such as seagrass, mangroves, estuaries and intertidal flats, which are used by populations of global importance of coastal and seabirds, and by charismatic species such as humpback dolphins, West African manatees and green turtles.

"Our study is part of wider efforts to discover where species are distributed in the region, to ultimately find the most effective ways of protecting them.

"Green turtles have complex life-cycles, involving large-scale migrations between breeding and feeding sites.

"It is essential to understand the connectivity between these areas, to estimate the level of protection, and to ensure that conservation efforts on breeding sites are not cancelled out by lack of protection at feeding sites, and vice-versa.

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"In the case of green turtles, our study shows the MPA network in the region covers almost all marine areas used during the nesting period and most feeding areas too. This is hugely encouraging.

"Our finding that most key corridors used by the turtles currently fall outside the MPA network suggests there is an opportunity to increase protection even further."

During the nesting period, turtles spent an average of 95% of their time within the limits of the MPA network, and among the 35 turtles successfully tracked into the foraging period, 28 of them used waters within MPAs.

Key migration corridors were mostly located close to the shore, where regionally important fisheries activities can make effective marine protection more challenging.

Dr Patrício said green turtle populations in this region "look stable" -- but this is "conservation-dependent."

"If you remove the conservation effort, the population could drop very quickly," she said.

The United Nations global target to protect 10% of the world's ocean by 2020 was not achieved, but the coverage of protected areas is increasing -- and there are now calls to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030.

Balancing marine protection with the needs of human coastal communities is vital, and Dr Patricio said a key goal is to bring all parties together to improve conservation in a way that works for people and ecosystems.

Funders of the research included the MAVA Foundation, the Regional Partnership for Coastal and Marine Conservation (PRCM) and the La Caixa Foundation.

The paper, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, is entitled: "Green turtles highlight connectivity across a regional marine protected area network in West Africa."

#Nature | https://sciencespies.com/nature/african-network-protects-key-turtle-sites/

Fossil Holds Clues to How Some Owls Evolved Into Daytime Hunters

The bird, which sought prey in a part of China 6 million years ago, had eyes shaped in a way that suggest it was not nocturnal like most owls living today.

In the silty red soil of Gansu Province in China, a small owl has lain nestled for about 6 million years, since an era known as the Late Miocene. The fossilized bird’s talons are outstretched, one of its wings is spread wide and its sharp beak is turned back over its shoulder.

You might imagine this little hunter swooping down on some unsuspecting mammal one chilly night long ago. But an analysis of the fossil published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science suggests the scene should probably be set in the light of day: Judging from the size and shape of its eye sockets, the owl hunted under the sun, rather than the moon. The fossil could offer clues into the evolutionary forces that transformed this bird and some other species into the owl equivalent of a morning person.

The fossil owl, an extinct species that the researchers have named Miosurnia diurnal, is exquisitely preserved, said Li Zhiheng, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an author of the new paper. This allowed the team to take precise measurements of its bones, something that had not been possible with most other fossil owls. They then fed the bird’s dimensions into a computer program that made predictions about an organism’s lifestyle, comparing the data with the anatomies of a variety of reptile and bird species.

Owls are known best for their nighttime hunting and hoots, and indeed, many modern owls are nocturnal. They prey primarily on creatures that are also awake at night. The eyes of night owls have many more rod cells than cone cells, allowing them to see better in dim light.

An artist’s reconstruction of Miosurnia.Alex Boersma/PNAS

But some of the birds are crepuscular, meaning they come out at dawn and dusk, and still others, a small handful that includes burrowing owls, are diurnal, meaning they are active in the daytime. Scientists suspect that these daywalker owls evolved from nocturnal ancestors, meaning that they shifted their period of activity at some point in the past. But there are no clear answers to explain how a limited assortment of owls came to thrive in the daytime.

The fossil in the new study has elongated eye sockets and rings of bone around the eyes. These shapes resemble those of modern diurnal owls. The researchers found that with eyes of this size and shape, it is more likely than not that the owl was seeing by daylight. Of course, Dr. Li said, without anyone having been around to observe the owl in action, researchers have to make educated guesses — no one knows for sure what this owl’s behavior was.

Still, if some owls shifted to a diurnal lifestyle as early as six million years ago, it may be possible to find clues about what caused them to make this change in what we know about their environment. The part of Gansu Province where the fossil was found is near the Tibetan Plateau, and it was likely a cold, harsh place to live, Dr. Li said. Perhaps the small mammals that owls preyed on evolved away from nighttime activity to take advantage of warmer temperatures in the day. They would perhaps have drawn their predators, over the eons, into the light themselves.

For now, the group is looking forward to analyzing another already unearthed, well-preserved owl of another species, one that they suspect was also diurnal and could offer additional clues to what made some owls take this leap.

“There are more stories to tell about the eye,” said Dr. Li.

#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/fossil-holds-clues-to-how-some-owls-evolved-into-daytime-hunters/

How the Ukraine War Gave Fracking in the U.K. a Second Chance

Russia’s invasion has disrupted the global energy market and led to higher prices across Europe. That has reopened the debate in Britain over shale gas extraction.

LITTLE PLUMPTON, England — There’s not much left of Britain’s only operable fracking site, which was mothballed in 2019 when it caused earth tremors so strong that they were felt miles away.

A flare stack for burning off methane gas rises above the green security fence, but the drilling rig is gone and the plan was to pour concrete down the wells, consigning Britain’s experiment with shale gas extraction to history.

But with war ravaging Ukraine and disrupting the global energy supply, Britain’s fracking industry has won an 11th-hour reprieve.

Workers were expected to start sealing the two wells this month, but — to the alarm of local campaigners — the energy firm, Cuadrilla, is instead discussing with regulators an extension to its license.

The town of Kirkham lies a few miles away from the drilling site. Nearby areas were affected by tremors from the many small earthquakes produced by the fracking process.Andrew Testa for The New York Times

“It’s frustrating, because they were so close to actually capping the wells,” said Susan Holliday, who lives a few hundred meters from the site in Lancashire, in northwestern England. She has opposed fracking for eight years and had thought that victory was within her grasp.

“If it had been a month earlier, it would have been too late, they would have done it,” she said.

Yet following the Russian invasion of Ukraine Europe is scrambling for new energy supplies as it tries to wean itself off imports from Russia, and Germany on Wednesday took the first step toward an emergency plan that could eventually lead to gas rationing.

In Britain around 30 lawmakers from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s governing Conservative Party have appealed to him to end a moratorium on fracking, and the business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng recently conceded that, at this moment, “it didn’t necessarily make any sense to concrete over the wells.”

Enthusiasts who go further include Andy Mayer, energy analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a free-market think tank, who argues that “capping these wells now is like dynamiting a gold mine in a gold rush.”

The push to save hydraulic fracking — which creates fractures in rock formations to release the natural gas trapped inside — is part of a wider assessment of energy policy in the light of a global crisis that has also put pressure on companies to extract more of Britain’s dwindling North Sea energy resources.

“It’s frustrating, because they were so close to actually capping the wells,” said Susan Holliday, who lives a few hundred meters from the Little Plumpton fracking site.Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Less than six months after Mr. Johnson hosted the COP26 climate summit, politicians are beginning to challenge the country’s decarbonization strategy amid soaring energy costs for consumers.

Domestic gas and electricity bills could triple this year — alongside a wider squeeze on living standards — and Nigel Farage, the veteran pro-Brexit campaigner, has called for a referendum on scrapping the government’s plan to meet a net-zero target for carbon emissions by 2050.

According to the British government, in 2020, 41.9 percent of energy consumed was from gas, 31.2 percent from oil and 3.4 percent from coal.

Britain imports relatively little energy from Russia (and plans to phase out all purchases of oil this year).

But the global price spike is affecting all countries that rely to some extent on imported oil and gas, and in Britain it is causing a reassessment of the government’s energy policy. Even before the war in Ukraine, a rise in costs had driven 30 British power companies, most on the smaller side, out of business.

Against this backdrop, Mr. Johnson plans to outline a new energy security strategy soon that is expected to call for more renewable and nuclear power.

Given his political vulnerability after a scandal over Downing Street parties that violated pandemic lockdown rules, Mr. Johnson is likely to at least keep open the door for fracking, which has the support of a hard-line caucus within his own party that could make trouble for him.

Protesters in Lancashire have long opposed shale gas extraction in the area. The moratorium on fracking has been in place since the Little Plumpton site caused a 2.9-magnitude earthquake three years ago.Andrew Testa for The New York Times

This month, one energy minister, Greg Hands, said that “shale gas and new approaches could be part of our future energy mix” as the country transitions to green energy, while adding that “scientific evidence and local support was vital.”

Proponents of fracking include Jacob Rees-Mogg, a senior minister, and David Frost, Mr. Johnson’s former cabinet colleague. They express hope that Britain can replicate the experience of the United States, which became an energy exporter largely because of shale.

In a statement, Francis Egan, Cuadrilla’s chief executive, expressed frustration that the government, despite its rhetoric, had not yet given clear instructions to its energy regulator to allow fracking to proceed. He appealed to ministers to “ensure that companies like Cuadrilla and others aren’t forced to suffer the risk and financial cost of operating in a position where a government can keep changing its mind and require wells to be cemented whilst they are eminently useful.”

The moratorium on fracking has been in place since the Lancashire site caused an earthquake with a magnitude of 2.9 three years ago, prompting the government to say that, before continuing, Cuadrilla must show that shale could be extracted safely.

Critics doubt it can do so, but the rewards for gaining a green light could be high. According to one report, the central estimate of reserves is 1,329 trillion cubic feet in a country that consumes about 2.8 trillion cubic feet of gas per year.

Barbara Richardson, a former voter for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, is one of the protesters in Lancashire who have promised to oppose any resumption of fracking.Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Experts are not so optimistic, however, because the real quantities that can be extracted only become clear once serious drilling begins. They say that any significant quantities of shale would take years to come on line, and so would not help the immediate crisis.

Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments

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The state of peace talks. Pessimism about Russia’s willingness to tame its attacks in Ukraine is growing amid mixed signals from Kremlin officials on peace talks and reports of new strikes near Kyiv and Chernihiv, where Russia had vowed to sharply reduce combat operations.

Putin’s advisers. U.S. intelligence suggests that President Vladimir V. Putin has been misinformed by his advisers about the Russian military’s struggles in Ukraine. The intelligence shows what appears to be growing tension between Mr. Putin and the Ministry of Defense, U.S. officials said.

On the ground. As the Ukrainian military has kept Russian forces from taking over Kyiv and even regained some ground in the northeast, Russia appears to be shifting its focus to eastern Ukraine, particularly the Donbas region, which borders Russia and where residents tend to feel a connection to Russia.

“It’s likely to be considerably more expensive here than in the U.S. because we don’t have the wide-open spaces; we are a very densely populated island,” said Dieter Helm, a professor of energy policy at Oxford University. He said that the geology in Britain was much more complex than in the shale-producing regions of the United States, and that the extent of reserves generally only became clear when companies drilled.

“My guess is that the combination of the complexities and the dense population make it an order of magnitude more expensive than the U.S.,” he added.

Nonetheless, supporters of shale think that the current energy crisis presents an opportunity to persuade consumers to think again. Speaking in Parliament, Andrea Leadsom, a Conservative lawmaker, said that communities should be asked whether they would be willing to commit to shale gas extraction in their area if it meant that they would be compensated with free gas.

Outside a supermarket in Kirkham, not far from the Lancashire fracking site, shoppers expressed concern about the looming rise in energy bills.

“We are going to be hit, for sure, but what can you do?” said Bob Whiteside, a retired driver, as he stood by an A.T.M., adding that he would welcome fracking if it cut bills. “Just get on with it,” he said.

But not everyone shares his attitude.

The entrance to the Quadrilla fracking site in Little Plumpton. Supporters of shale think that the current energy crisis presents an opportunity to persuade consumers to think again.Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Claire Stephenson, an opponent of fracking, described the noise of the 2019 quake as “an internal roar, the most bizarre thing I’ve ever experienced,” adding, “You could hear the ground and feel it shake: My cat fell off the bed.”

Protesters in Lancashire who promise to oppose any resumption of fracking include Barbara Richardson, a former voter for Mr. Johnson’s Conservatives.

“I’ve never been an environmentalist, I’ve never been a protester, we are not ‘Nimbys,’ we are not ‘green blobs,’” she said, referring to some of the descriptions applied by critics to groups in Lancashire opposed to shale gas.

What’s happening now, she added, is “a last-ditch attempt by the fracking industry to try and get some credibility, and what’s despicable is that they are using the Ukrainian crisis to do it.”

Locals thought that their opposition had killed off fracking, she said, “so I think a lot of people are shocked that it’s back on the table.”

#Environment | https://sciencespies.com/environment/how-the-ukraine-war-gave-fracking-in-the-u-k-a-second-chance/

Argon found in air of ancient atmosphere

Researchers have discovered argon trapped in air-hydrate crystals in ice cores, which can be used to reconstruct past temperature changes and climate shifts.

On the massive sheets of ice that stretch across Greenland and Antarctica, the temperature is so low that not even the summer sun can melt the snow deposited onto them. As the snow accumulates without melting and settles deeper into the ice sheet, it traps air from the atmosphere, which forms small air bubbles when the snow transforms into ice. Over centuries or millennia, the ice builds up, increasing the pressure on and dropping the temperature in the bubbles, until the trapped atmospheric molecules convert into cage-like crystals, preserving the ancient air samples for hundreds of thousands of years. These crystals, called air-hydrate crystals, could reveal how the Earth's atmosphere, and climate, has changed over hundreds of thousands of years -- if their composition can be accurately measured.

Previous measurement methods were limited to a couple of elements, such as oxygen and nitrogen. Now, an international research team has developed a new approach to identify more elusive, previously unconfirmed constituents, such as argon, which could help reconstruct a more precise understanding of past climates. They published their approach and their findings -- including the first direct discovery of argon in air-hydrate crystals -- in the Journal of Glaciology.

"The air bubbles in an ice core are the only known paleoenvironmental archive of the actual ancient atmosphere with a time axis in the depth direction," said first author Tsutomu Uchida, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at Hokkaido University. He explained that argon could be extracted from the ice via melting or cutting, but its location in the undisturbed ice was a mystery. "If we can understand where argon is located in ice, we can improve our understanding of the movement of gas molecules in ice and contribute to improving the accuracy of environmental reconstruction."

The researchers examined five air-hydrate crystals in an ice core extracted from Greenland and containing ice dating to about 130,000 years ago. They used a combination of scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to visualize and identify the molecules contained in the air-hydrate crystals. They found argon.

"Argon was assumed to be in the air-hydrate crystals, but was never confirmed directly by microscopic analysis," said co-author Kumiko Goto-Azuma, a Professor with The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, and the National Institute of Polar Research. "Such direct observation is difficult because it has a very small mixing ratio with neighboring elements and it is an inert gas, which makes it hard to measure by the common methods used for nitrogen and oxygen."

The researchers plan to refine their approach to better understand the distribution of argon in ice with the goal of elucidating the mechanism of changes and more accurately estimating the impact of human activities in the global environment.

"With this new approach, we believe that we can improve the accuracy of ice core analysis to elucidate how much argon existed in the ancient atmosphere and how it has changed with the earth's environment," said co-author Tomoyuki Homma, an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Engineering at Nagaoka University of Technology.

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Materials provided by Hokkaido University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

#Environment | https://sciencespies.com/environment/argon-found-in-air-of-ancient-atmosphere/

Flowers' unseen colors can help ensure pollination, survival

You can't see it, but different substances in the petals of flowers create a "bulls-eye" for pollinating insects, according to a Clemson University scientist whose research sheds light on chemical changes in flowers which helps them respond to environmental changes, including climate change, that might threaten their survival.

Matthew H. Koski, an assistant professor of biological sciences in the Clemson College of Science, led a research team that studied the bright, yellow flowers of Argentina anserina -- a member of the rose family commonly known as silverweed -- to learn how pigments in the petals that are visible only in the ultraviolet spectrum play an integral part in the plant's plasticity; that is, its ability to quickly respond to a changing environment. The team also included Clemson researchers Lindsay M. Finnell, Elizabeth Leonard and Nishanth Tharayil.

The journal Evolution featured the findings on the cover of its March edition.

The researchers studied silverweed growing at different elevations in southwestern Colorado to better understand the roles of the various UV-absorbing chemicals in the plants' petals and how these chemicals work to aid in pollination and, thus, reproduction.

Koski explained that although humans cannot see the UV patterns on the flower's petals, many of its pollinators can.

"I've always been fascinated with how [color variation of flowers] arises and how it evolves and what factors drive the evolution of color variation," Koski said, "so I got interested in thinking about how we perceive color versus how the organisms that interact more frequently with flowers perceive color."

"Insects -- pollinators, for example -- see in the ultraviolet spectrum," he continued. "So, flowers that reflect or absorb ultraviolet wavelengths give (to pollinators) the perception of different colors that we can't see. I've been fascinated with uncovering what these UV signals might be doing functionally with respect to pollination. When I thought about the trait of interest in ultraviolet absorption, it is biochemistry. It's a biochemical trait that leads to different perceptions of UV absorption and reflectance."

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Koski said a wide range of plants have concentrations of UV-absorbing chemicals at the base of the flower's petals, while the tips of the petals have more UV-reflecting chemicals. He said this creates an overall "bulls-eye" effect that guides insects in their search for pollen.

The team wanted to uncover more about how the plants adapt to thrive in different environments -- in this case, a difference in altitude of 1,000 meters. They found that flowers at different altitudes adapt to their environments by producing differing amounts of UV-blocking or UV-absorbing chemicals.

"At higher elevations, there are always more UV-absorbing compounds or larger spatial area of UV absorption on the petals, compared to the low-elevation populations," Koski said.

The researchers said this demonstrates the plant's plasticity, which Koski defined as how differing traits arise in the same organisms under different environmental conditions. This is a critical step in understanding how organisms adapt to survive change.

"What's important about plasticity is, when we think about climate change and global change, plasticity is one mechanism by which natural populations can respond really rapidly to changing climates and persist under those climates," he said. "The process of evolution, where you're getting changes in the genetic code over time, is thought to proceed more slowly than just responding plastically to environmental change."

Koski said that one question raised by the research is whether plastic responses to environmental situations are adaptive. Do they offer any advantage to an organism, or are they changes in how a trait develops because of the environment without impacting plant fitness?

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"One thing this study found is that the plastic change in UV pigmentation benefited the plant, especially the ones at high elevations because increases in ultraviolet absorption on the petals resulted in increased pollen viability," he explained.

Koski went on to say the research will help scientists better understand how organisms respond to environmental changes and even predict if or how well some organisms would be able to survive rapid environmental change, such as from global climate change. The research could also be important for agriculture, he said, because some of the same UV-sensitive pigments at work in silverweed are also present in commercial crops such as mustard and sunflowers.

"It's interesting to think about if abiotic factors like UV or temperature are shifting the expression of these traits, how is that going to impact how pollinators view the flowers, and how's that going to affect things like yield and seed production in crops, for example," Koski said.

The team's research could even be important for home gardeners trying to attract specific types of pollinators to their plants.

"I think one thing people think about is planting a diversity of flowers with different colors and morphologies to attract many different types of pollinators, like a pollinator-friendly garden," Koski said. "One thing to think about is that we often don't know all the details of what colors are perceived by pollinators, and how that could be changing with the seasons. Just because things may look very similar to us, they may actually be very diverse to pollinators and could attract a different suite of pollinators than we expect."

#Nature | https://sciencespies.com/nature/flowers-unseen-colors-can-help-ensure-pollination-survival/

How Your Sense of Direction Is Shaped by Where You Grew Up

Childhood environments shape people’s navigational skills, researchers reported. The findings one day may lead to better tests for early dementia.

As a child in Chicago, Stephanie de Silva found that the city helped her get where she was going. Streets had directional names like “West” or “North,” and they often met at neat right angles. If all else failed, Lake Michigan could situate her.

But when Ms. de Silva, 23, moved to London, where she now studies cognitive science, she suddenly could not navigate to a restaurant two blocks from home without a smartphone map. The streets were often crooked. Sometimes they seemed to lead nowhere.

“I don’t think the cardinal directions exist here,” she said. “I’ve lived here for six months now, and I don’t know which direction I’m facing.”

Scientists in Ms. de Silva’s lab at University College London, along with colleagues in Britain and France, have now arrived at an explanation: People who grow up in predictable, gridlike cities like Chicago or New York seem to struggle to navigate as easily as those who come from more rural areas or more intricate cities.

Those findings, published in Nature on Wednesday, suggest that people’s childhood surroundings influence not only their health and well-being but also their ability to get around later in life. Much like language, navigation is a skill that appears to be most malleable when people’s brains are developing, the researchers concluded.

The authors hope the findings eventually lead to navigation-based tests to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. Getting lost can sometimes occur earlier in the course of the illness than memory problems, they said.

Researchers have developed virtual navigation tests for cognitive decline, but they can interpret the results only if they know what other factors influence people’s way-finding abilities.

Among the forces shaping people’s navigation skills, the study suggested, was what kind of places they experienced as a child.

“The environment matters,” said Hugo Spiers, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and one of the study’s lead authors. “The environment we’re exposed to has a knock-on effect, into the 70s, on cognition.”

People in countries whose biggest cities were complex patchworks, like Barcelona, Spain, may have sharpened their navigational skills by dealing with chaotic street layouts, scientists suggested. Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

It took a series of unlikely events — involving a cellphone company, a controversial YouTuber and a custom-made video game — to generate the large data set behind the study.

In 2015, Michael Hornberger, who studies dementia at University of East Anglia in England, heard about a company that wanted to invest in dementia-related research.

Having just attended a workshop about gaming in science, he proposed a video game that could help him figure out how people of different ages, genders and locations performed on navigation tasks. Such a game, he thought, could create benchmarks against which to assess patients who might be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

To his surprise, the company — Deutsche Telekom, a major stakeholder in T-Mobile — funded his idea. Known as “Sea Hero Quest,” the smartphone game involved steering a boat to find sea creatures. To recruit players, the company launched an advertising campaign that included a video from PewDiePie, YouTube’s biggest star at the time, who was later penalized by the platform for using antisemitic language.

The scientists had hoped that the game would draw 100,000 people in Western Europe. The participants would be testing their navigation skills while also providing basic demographic details, like whether they had grown up in or outside of cities.

Instead, over 4.3 million people joined in, generating a global database of clues about people’s ability to get around. “We underestimated the gaming world,” Dr. Hornberger said. “It went beyond our wildest dreams.”

For all its simplicity, the game has been shown to predict people’s ability to get around real places, including London and Paris. In recent years, the research team has used the resulting data to show that age gradually erodes people’s navigation skills and that gender inequality is a predictor of whether men will perform slightly better than women.

The latest study addressed what its authors described as a more vexing question: Do cities, however grid-like, have the effect of honing people’s navigational skills by offering them a plethora of options for moving around? Or do people from more rural areas, where distances between places are long and paths are winding, develop superior navigation abilities?

Ms. de Silva’s childhood in Chicago, a gridlike city, left her struggling to navigate her new home, London.Lyndon French for The New York Times

To find out, the researchers studied game data from roughly 400,000 players from 38 countries. The effect was clear: People who reported growing up outside cities showed better navigation skills than those from within cities, even when the scientists adjusted for age, gender and education levels.

The only situation in which people accustomed to more predictably arranged cities did better was on simpler levels of the video game.

Players of varying nationalities performed differently. Urbanites from some places, like Spain, came very close to matching the navigation skills of their rural counterparts. In other nations, like the United States, people raised in cities were at a huge disadvantage.

One explanation, the researchers suggested, was that in countries whose biggest cities were complex patchworks, like Spain, chaotic street layouts had sharpened navigation skills. By contrast, nations known for more predictable urban designs, like the United States, put people from outside cities at a bigger advantage.

“If you grew up in a city like Chicago or Buenos Aires or Montreal — cities that are very grid-like — you don’t train as much your navigation skills as if you grew up in a more complex city, like London or Paris, where the streets are much more convoluted,” said Antoine Coutrot, a scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research and another lead author of the paper.

To address concerns that people from outside cities were only succeeding because the video game was set in nature, the study’s authors wrote that they replicated the findings in a smaller group of participants recruited to play a different game: “City Hero Quest,” with the same goals but a car in place of a boat.

For that experiment, the researchers asked more detailed background questions, including what environment the participants currently lived in. As a result, they were able to learn that people’s present-day surroundings did not significantly affect their performance on the video games.

“It really tells you that when your brain is developing, this is the key period,” Dr. Coutrot said. “It’s a bit like when you want to learn a new language.”

The study speculated that more complex environments might help new neurons form in the hippocampus, a brain structure important in memory. The authors, though, emphasized that people still were able to develop navigation skills later in life.

Some of the authors also noted that street layout was not the only factor making a city harder or easier to navigate. Visible landmarks can be important but are harder to quantify for research purposes than a street network.

London’s finanical district and Canary Wharf, a confusing jumble.Hannah Mckay/Reuters

The sea creature game also steered clear of specific questions about people’s locations, professions or how they got around, part of an effort to assuage privacy concerns and keep the science from intruding on the gaming.

That hid potentially relevant elements of someone’s upbringing from the research team, even as some commentators remained skeptical of the project on privacy grounds. Among the unknowns was how the Global Positioning System had changed people’s navigational experiences, though Dr. Spiers noted that younger participants produced results similar to those of older people.

Outside scientists said that the range and number of participants were far greater than usual.

“Lots of different nations are represented, and lots of different types of geographical landscapes are represented,” said Amber Watts, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas who has studied neighborhood layout and cognition but was not involved in the study.

Whether the cognitive benefits of more unpredictable city designs were worth the cost of making places more complicated to navigate — including for people already struggling with impairments — was less clear.

“Does this mean we should design environments that should be more cognitively challenging?” Dr. Watts said. “If I went to an urban planner and said make it as confusing as possible to get around a city, that’s probably not going to sell well.”

Paolo Santi, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Senseable City Lab who was not part of the “Sea Hero Quest” team, said that the results called to mind how he would give directions to tourists in the Italian cities where he grew up.

If directions in Manhattan were sometimes as simple as down and over a few blocks, directions in Italian cities had to be more forgiving of grid-minded tourists.

“Rather than telling you something you’ll forget, I say to just remember the first part, and when you get there, there are plenty of people to ask again,” he said.

Of a place like New York, he said, “On the one hand, you can say the city’s designed well because it’s simplified for the main task, which is getting around. On the other hand, if we don’t challenge ourselves, in a sense we do not fully exploit the potential of our brains.”

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OPEC and Russia to Meet as War in Ukraine Roils Oil Market

In the last month, oil markets have been shaken by a war that has sparked a jump in prices and threatened a critical shortfall in crude and other petroleum products.

But when most of the world’s largest oil producers meet by teleconference on Thursday to discuss supplies, analysts don’t expect much action. Officials from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia are likely to do little more than announce their usual modest monthly production increases, leading to questions about how much oil the group really does have in the tank.

Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine are likely to lead to the loss of substantial quantities of both crude and oil products, especially diesel fuel, from the market. Already, major buyers of Russian oil, like Shell and TotalEnergies, have said they will gradually purge petroleum of Russian origin from their vast networks.

“These losses will be enduring as Russia will likely remain the most sanctioned country on earth for the foreseeable future,” wrote Helima Croft, head of commodities at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank, in a note to clients on Wednesday.

Russia is one of the world’s top three oil producers, along with the United States and Saudi Arabia, and exports about eight million barrels a day in crude and products. The International Energy Agency, the Paris-based group, estimates that as much as three million barrels a day of Russian oil, or about 3 percent of world supplies, could soon be shut down in what “could turn into the biggest supply crisis in decades.”

Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates could produce substantially more crude “that could help offset a Russian shortfall,” the agency said in its latest oil market report.

Yet these countries — the de facto leader of OPEC and a key ally — don’t seem inclined to act, a stance that seems puzzling given their longstanding security and commercial links to the West.

Jennifer M. Granholm, the energy secretary, said, “The urgent need to accelerate the equitable transition to clean energy remains a top priority, and must be accelerated.”Mohammed Badra/EPA, via Shutterstock

“The wider question is: Do even they face some technical obstacles” to bringing large additional volumes of oil online? said Richard Bronze, head of geopolitics at Energy Aspects, a research firm. Saudi Arabia says it has the ability to produce about 12.5 million barrels a day, more than two million barrels a day above recent output.

Certainly most members of a group of OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC Plus, have already run out of firepower, as countries like Nigeria and Angola have been unable to keep up with recent targets. The group is likely to add only a small fraction of the output increase it announces Thursday, Mr. Bronze figures. Russia clearly won’t be able to increase production, because it is already running out of storage tanks for unsold oil.

Moreover, the group is approaching the end, later this year, of unwinding the steep production cuts of early 2020 that helped bolster the market when demand and prices plummeted in the early days of the pandemic.

The Saudis and the Emiratis may figure that, with prices gyrating and the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine far from clear, now is not the time to unleash what resources they have left. While events like the coronavirus lockdowns in China are probably reducing demand, oil consumption is still likely to be higher in the summer driving season and output may potentially be lower.

The fact that closing prices for Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, have swung in recent weeks from as high as nearly $130 a barrel to below $100 allows the group to argue, however unconvincingly, that geopolitics rather than shortfalls are adding a premium to the price and go on taking in huge volumes of cash.

“Current volatility is not caused by changes in market fundamentals but by current geopolitical developments,” the group said after its last meeting on March 2.

In addition, the International Energy Agency is in the early stages of coordinating a 60-million-barrel release of oil, announced on March 1, from the reserves of the United States and about two dozen other countries. These additions to supply reduce the incentive for OPEC Plus to try to influence the markets, analysts say.

Also, OPEC Plus does not seem ready to act against the interests of Russia, a co-chair of the group, which presumably would oppose an additional increase in production that would help countries live without Russian crude.

An oil storage tank in Saudi Arabia, one of the few countries with the resources to substantially increase oil production.  Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

The United Arab Emirates, in particular, seems sympathetic to Russia’s concerns in the conflict with Ukraine and threatened by the prospect of democratic revolution that the Ukrainian government represents.

The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global Economy

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Rising concerns. Russia’s invasion on Ukraine has had a ripple effect across the globe, adding to the stock market’s woes. The conflict has already caused​​ dizzying spikes in energy prices and is causing Europe to raise its military spending.

The cost of energy. Oil prices already were the highest since 2014, and they have continued to rise since the invasion.  Russia is the third-largest producer of oil, so more price increases are inevitable.

Gas supplies. Europe gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and it is likely to be walloped with higher heating bills. Natural gas reserves are running low, and European leaders worry that Moscow could cut flows in response to the region’s support of Ukraine.

Food prices. Russia is the world’s largest supplier of wheat; together, it and Ukraine account for nearly a quarter of total global exports. Countries like Egypt, which relies heavily on Russian wheat imports, are already looking for alternative suppliers.

Shortages of essential metals. The price of palladium, used in automotive exhaust systems and mobile phones, has been soaring amid fears that Russia, the world’s largest exporter of the metal, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, another key Russian export, has also been rising.

Financial turmoil. Global banks are bracing for the effects of sanctions intended to restrict Russia’s access to foreign capital and limit its ability to process payments in dollars, euros and other currencies crucial for trade. Banks are also on alert for retaliatory cyberattacks by Russia.

“There is an affinity for Russia and authoritarians in general” among the U.A.E.’s leaders, said Karen Young, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a research organization in Washington.

OPEC Plus officials have also voiced frustration with being asked to solve what they view as problems created by poorly thought-out Western policies on climate change. OPEC officials say they are being asked to increase output while Western governments and investors are leaning on energy companies to cut investments in oil and gas to meet climate goals.

The argument among many producing countries in the Middle East is that painfully high oil and gas prices are the bitter fruit of trying to dispense with fossil fuels before sufficient alternative resources like wind and solar power are available.

“We cannot and must not unplug the current energy system before we have built a new one,” Sultan al Jaber, the chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said at a recent Atlantic Council conference.

Yet there is little sign that the West is backing off on moving away from oil and gas, especially from potentially unreliable suppliers like Russia. In fact, Moscow’s use of energy to put political pressure on European countries may prove to be an incentive for Western countries to reduce consumption of fossil fuels faster. Germany, for instance, is moving fast to sever energy ties with Moscow, which has long been its key supplier.

“The urgent need to accelerate the equitable transition to clean energy remains a top priority, and must be accelerated,” Jennifer M. Granholm, the U.S. energy secretary, said last week.

The Saudis and the United Arab Emirates have other reasons not to rush to comply with Western requests. They are worried about intensifying missile attacks on energy installations and other targets in their countries by the Yemeni-based Houthi group, and suggest that Washington is not doing enough to stop them.

Saudi Arabia recently warned that it would not be responsible if these incidents knocked out oil exports to the world. These countries are also skeptical of Washington’s efforts to restore the nuclear deal with Iran and, thus, allow Tehran to sell more oil. The Saudis blame Iran for supplying the Houthis with the missiles launched against them.

In the meantime, analysts say there is little reason to think that the current oil crunch won’t worsen as buyers shy away from Russian oil. “I am surprised at how low prices are,” said David Wech, chief economist at Vortexa, a data analytics firm.





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Gotcha! A successful hunter wins the latest WildArt photo competition

Kicking off their hunt for an overall photo competition winner in 2022, WildArt Photographer of the Year have announced the winners of its first competition category for 2022. The theme of this category was ‘wet’.

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Each month for the next ten months, WildArt will announce ten category winners. These winners will then go forward to the final at the end of the year.

WildArt Photographer of the Year is a wildlife photography competition created by wildlife photographers, for wildlife photographers and judged by wildlife photographers.

The winner of this first category was a beautiful but cold-looking Lynx, who despite the freezing temperatures, managed to return home with plenty of food. We bring you the full gallery of winners and highly commended images, and they are an impressive bunch.

Gold winner – The successful hunt

A Bobcat (Lynx rufus) trudges away with a mallard duck in his mouth following a successful hunt in Yellowstone National Park, USA. Photo by Vicki Santello/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Silver winner – Splash down

A group of Blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) are seen crossing the Mara river in Kenya. Photo by Vicki Jauron/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Bronze winner – Golden rain

Banded Demoiselle damselfly (Calopteryx splendens) photographed during a shower in Duna-Ipoly National Park, Hungary. Photo by Norbert Kaszas/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Founder’s choice winner – Rainforest echo

The Long-nosed Horned Frog (Megophrys nasuta) is an iconic species from the South East Asian tropics. This male positioned itself on an elevated rock right in front of a waterfall, and started calling to females. Photographed near Kuching, Borneo. Photo by Bernhard Schubert/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Highly commended – I’m stuck!

This Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is pictured taking a drink from a frozen river near Warsaw, Poland. Photo by Lukasz Sokol/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Highly commended – Making waves

A young African elephant (Loxodonta africana) seems to be having massive amounts of fun at this waterhole. This is one of a group of young elephants being reintegrated into the wild at David Sheldricks Ithumba camp in Tsavo, east Kenya. Photo by Vicki Jauron/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Highly commended – Dippers in frosty river

White-throated dipper (Cinclus cinclus) is encircled by freezing waters in Viken, Norway, while the air temperature plummets to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Photo by Pal Hermansen/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Highly commended – Quick breath

Every year, during the first rains of springs, Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) make a mass breeding migration to vernal pools, like this one in New Jersey, USA. Photo by Matthew Sullivan/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Highly commended – Shake it off

This Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus) was raised by people. It is able to roam freely and wanders off for days until it leaves for good one day. When this image was taken, this individual swam through a stream and came out on the other side soaking wet. After a couple of steps on the other side it shook off the water. Photo by Florian Warnecke/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Highly commended – Dancing on the water

Common whirligig beetle (Gyrinus natator) photographed in the quiet backwater of a stream in Hungary, orbiting the surface of the water. Photo by Norbert Kaszas/WildArt Photographer of the Year

More galleries from Science Focus:

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Young photographer winner – Kingfisher reflection

A young female common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) sits among reeds on a riverbank in Germany, gearing up to hunt for fish. Photo by Luca Lorenz/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Highly commended – Silky sunset

A silky shark (Carcharhinus falciformis) swims underneath the setting sun in Jardines de la Reina, Cuba. This species is a pelagic shark (one that lives in open water), and is common around the Jardines de la Reina area. They get excited and curious as the night draws in, frequently coming in for closer inspection of the strange humans that have entered their world. Photo by Sean Chinn/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Highly commended – Port

Mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) gather on the edge of a frozen lake in Soltvadkert, Hungary, in this drone shot taken in the winter of 2021. Photo by Csaba Daroczi/WildArt Photographer of the Year

Authors

James Cutmore is the picture editor of BBC Science Focus Magazine, researching striking images for the magazine and on the website. He is also has a passion for taking his own photographs

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