The role of elections as drivers of tropical deforestation

Tropical forests support immense biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services for billions of people. Despite this value, tropical deforestation continues at a high rate. Emerging evidence suggests that elections can play an important role in shaping deforestation, for instance by incentivising politicians to allow increased utilisation of forests in return for political support. Nevertheless, the role of elections as driver of deforestation has not yet been comprehensively tested at broad geographic scales. Here, we created an annual database from 2001 to 2018 on political elections and forest loss for 55 tropical nations and modelled the effect of elections on deforestation. In total, 1.5 million km2 of forest was lost during this time period, especially in the Amazon, the Congo Basin and in Southeast Asia. The annual rate of deforestation increased in 37 (67 %) of the analysed countries. Deforestation was significantly lower in years with uncompetitive lower chamber elections compared to competitive election years (i.e. when the opposition can participate in elections and has a legitimate chance to gain governmental power). Our results show a pervasive loss of tropical forests and suggest that competitive elections can be potential drivers of deforestation. Future analyses at higher resolution (intra-annual deforestation and sub-national governance) and simultaneous collection of data on additional mechanisms (legislative changes, financial investments, and binding term limits) will likely provide additional insights into the impacts of elections. We therefore recommend that organisations monitoring election transparency and fairness should also monitor environmental impacts such as forest loss, habitat destruction and resource exploitation.Environmental Biolog

Farnesoid X receptor and liver X receptor ligands initiate formation of coated platelets

The liver X receptors (LXRs) and farnesoid X receptor (FXR) have been identified in human platelets. Ligands of these receptors have been shown to have nongenomic inhibitory effects on platelet activation by platelet agonists. This, however, seems contradictory with the platelet hyper-reactivity that is associated with several pathological conditions that are associated with increased circulating levels of molecules that are LXR and FXR ligands, such as hyperlipidemia, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and obesity. We, therefore, investigated whether ligands for the LXR and FXR receptors were capable of priming platelets to the activated state without stimulation by platelet agonists. Treatment of platelets with ligands for LXR and FXR converted platelets to the procoagulant state, with increases in phosphatidylserine exposure, platelet swelling, reduced membrane integrity, depolarization of the mitochondrial membrane, and microparticle release observed. Additionally, platelets also displayed features associated with coated platelets such as P-selectin exposure, fibrinogen binding, fibrin generation that is supported by increased serine protease activity, and inhibition of integrin αIIbβ3. LXR and FXR ligand-induced formation of coated platelets was found to be dependent on both reactive oxygen species and intracellular calcium mobilization, and for FXR ligands, this process was found to be dependent on cyclophilin D. We conclude that treatment with LXR and FXR ligands initiates coated platelet formation, which is thought to support coagulation but results in desensitization to platelet stimuli through inhibition of αIIbβ3 consistent with their ability to inhibit platelet function and stable thrombus formation in vivo

Radio detection of cosmic ray air showers with LOPES

In the last few years, radio detection of cosmic ray air showers has experienced a true renaissance, becoming manifest in a number of new experiments and simulation efforts. In particular, the LOPES project has successfully implemented modern interferometric methods to measure the radio emission from extensive air showers. LOPES has confirmed that the emission is coherent and of geomagnetic origin, as expected by the geosynchrotron mechanism, and has demonstrated that a large scale application of the radio technique has great potential to complement current measurements of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. We describe the current status, most recent results and open questions regarding radio detection of cosmic rays and give an overview of ongoing research and development for an application of the radio technique in the framework of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: 8 pages; Proceedings of the CRIS2006 conference, Catania, Italy; to be published in Nuclear Physics B, Proceedings Supplement

Air Shower Measurements with the LOPES Radio Antenna Array

LOPES is set up at the location of the KASCADE-Grande extensive air shower experiment in Karlsruhe, Germany and aims to measure and investigate radio pulses from Extensive Air Showers. Since radio waves suffer very little attenuation, radio measurements allow the detection of very distant or highly inclined showers. These waves can be recorded day and night, and provide a bolometric measure of the leptonic shower component. LOPES is designed as a digital radio interferometer using high bandwidths and fast data processing and profits from the reconstructed air shower observables of KASCADE-Grande. The LOPES antennas are absolutely amplitude calibrated allowing to reconstruct the electric field strength which can be compared with predictions from detailed Monte Carlo simulations. We report about the analysis of correlations present in the radio signals measured by the LOPES 30 antenna array. Additionally, LOPES operates antennas of a different type (LOPES-STAR) which are optimized for an application at the Pierre Auger Observatory. Status, recent results of the data analysis and further perspectives of LOPES and the possible large scale application of this new detection technique are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, Contribution to the Arena 2008 conference, Rome, June 200