A Road to Sustainability

The paper reviews some past and present (new, known, and forgotten) lessons to help us face the challenge of natural resource, ecological, and human sustainability, how that might be accomplished, and to provide vital information from current literature dealing with petroleum, climate change, and, of course, water on this third planet from our Sun, erroneously called “Earth.

Smaller, Closer, Dirtier: Diesel Backup Generators in California

Quantifies the threat to air quality and human health by backup generators, and examines air quality in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, and Fresno, with some analysis of San Francisco as well

Prospects for the cavity-assisted laser cooling of molecules

Cooling of molecules via free-space dissipative scattering of photons is thought not to be practicable due to the inherently large number of Raman loss channels available to molecules and the prohibitive expense of building multiple repumping laser systems. The use of an optical cavity to enhance coherent Rayleigh scattering into a decaying cavity mode has been suggested as a potential method to mitigate Raman loss, thereby enabling the laser cooling of molecules to ultracold temperatures. We discuss the possibility of cavity-assisted laser cooling particles without closed transitions, identify conditions necessary to achieve efficient cooling, and suggest solutions given experimental constraints. Specifically, it is shown that cooperativities much greater than unity are required for cooling without loss, and that this could be achieved via the superradiant scattering associated with intracavity self-localization of the molecules. Particular emphasis is given to the polar hydroxyl radical (OH), cold samples of which are readily obtained from Stark deceleration.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Identifying biological pathways that underlie primordial short stature using network analysis

Mutations in CUL7, OBSL1 and CCDC8, leading to disordered ubiquitination, cause one of the commonest primordial growth disorders, 3-M syndrome. This condition is associated with i) abnormal p53 function, ii) GH and/or IGF1 resistance, which may relate to failure to recycle signalling molecules, and iii) cellular IGF2 deficiency. However the exact molecular mechanisms that may link these abnormalities generating growth restriction remain undefined. In this study, we have used immunoprecipitation/mass spectrometry and transcriptomic studies to generate a 3-M ‘interactome’, to define key cellular pathways and biological functions associated with growth failure seen in 3-M. We identified 189 proteins which interacted with CUL7, OBSL1 and CCDC8, from which a network including 176 of these proteins was generated. To strengthen the association to 3-M syndrome, these proteins were compared with an inferred network generated from the genes that were differentially expressed in 3-M fibroblasts compared with controls. This resulted in a final 3-M network of 131 proteins, with the most significant biological pathway within the network being mRNA splicing/processing. We have shown using an exogenous insulin receptor (INSR) minigene system that alternative splicing of exon 11 is significantly changed in HEK293 cells with altered expression of CUL7, OBSL1 and CCDC8 and in 3-M fibroblasts. The net result is a reduction in the expression of the mitogenic INSR isoform in 3-M syndrome. From these preliminary data, we hypothesise that disordered ubiquitination could result in aberrant mRNA splicing in 3-M; however, further investigation is required to determine whether this contributes to growth failure

Potential sources of bias in the climate sensitivities of fish otolith biochronologies

Analysis of growth increments in the hard parts of animals (e.g., fish otoliths) can be used to assess how organisms respond to variability in environmental conditions. In this study, mixed-effects models were applied to otolith data simulated for two hypothetical fish populations with assumed biological parameters and known growth response to environmental variability. Our objective was to assess the sensitivity of environment–growth relationships derived from otolith biochronologies when challenged with a range of realistic ageing errors and sampling regimes. We found that the development of a robust biochronology and the precision of environmental effect estimates can be seriously hampered by insufficient sample size. Moreover, the introduction of even moderate ageing error into the data can cause substantial underestimation of environmental sources of growth variation. This underestimation diminished our capacity to correctly quantify the known environment–growth relationship and more generally will lead to overly conservative conclusions concerning the growth response to environmental change. Careful study design, reduction of ageing errors, and large sample sizes are critical prerequisites if robust inferences are to be made from biochronological data.publishedVersio

Health outcomes of a subsidised fruit and vegetable program for Aboriginal children in northern New South Wales

Objective: To evaluate the impact of a fruit and vegetable subsidy program on short-term health outcomes of disadvantaged Aboriginal children.Design, setting and participants: A before-and-after study involving clinical assessments, health record audits and blood testing of all children aged 0–17 years (n = 167) from 55 participating families at baseline and after 12 months at three Aboriginal community-controlled health services in New South Wales. All assessments were completed between December 2008 and September 2010.Intervention: A weekly box of subsidised fruit and vegetables linked to preventive health services and nutrition promotion at an Aboriginal Medical Service.Main outcome measures: Change in episodes of illness, health service and emergency department attendances, antibiotic prescriptions and anthropometry.Results: There was a significant decrease in oral antibiotics prescribed (− 0.5 prescriptions/year; 95% CI, − 0.8 to − 0.2) during 12 months of participation in the program compared with the 12 months before the program. The proportion of children classified as overweight or obese at baseline was 28.3% (38/134) and the proportion in each weight category did not change (P = 0.721) after 12 months. A small but significant increase in mean haemoglobin level (3.1 g/L; 95% CI, 1.4–4.8 g/L) was shown, although the proportion with iron deficiency (baseline, 41%; follow-up, 37%; P = 0.440) and anaemia (baseline, 8%; follow-up, 5%; P = 0.453) did not change significantly.Conclusion: This fruit and vegetable subsidy program was associated with improvements in some indicators of short-term health status among disadvantaged Aboriginal children. A controlled trial is warranted to investigate the sustainability and feasibility of healthy food subsidy programs in Australia

A burst chasing x-ray polarimeter

Gamma-ray bursts are one of the most powerful explosions in the universe and have been detected out to distances of almost 13 billion light years. The exact origin of these energetic explosions is still unknown but the resulting huge release of energy is thought to create a highly relativistic jet of material and a power-law distribution of electrons. There are several theories describing the origin of the prompt GRB emission that currently cannot be distinguished. Measurements of the linear polarization would provide unique and important constraints on the mechanisms thought to drive these powerful explosions. We present the design of a sensitive, and extremely versatile gamma-ray burst polarimeter. The instrument is a photoelectric polarimeter based on a time-projection chamber. The photoelectric time-projection technique combines high sensitivity with broad band-pass and is potentially the most powerful method between 2 and 100 keV where the photoelectric effect is the dominant interaction process. We present measurements of polarized and unpolarized X-rays obtained with a prototype detector and describe the two mission concepts; the Gamma-Ray Burst Polarimeter (GRBP) for the U.S. Naval Academy satellite MidSTAR-2, and the Low Energy Polarimeter (LEP) onboard POET, a broadband polarimetry concept for a small explorer mission

Comparing the effects of sun exposure and vitamin D supplementation on vitamin D insufficiency, and immune and cardio-metabolic function: the Sun Exposure and Vitamin D Supplementation (SEDS) Study

BACKGROUND Adults living in the sunny Australian climate are at high risk of skin cancer, but vitamin D deficiency (defined here as a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration of less than 50 nmol/L) is also common. Vitamin D deficiency may be a risk factor for a range of diseases. However, the optimal strategies to achieve and maintain vitamin D adequacy (sun exposure, vitamin D supplementation or both), and whether sun exposure itself has benefits over and above initiating synthesis of vitamin D, remain unclear. The Sun Exposure and Vitamin D Supplementation (SEDS) Study aims to compare the effectiveness of sun exposure and vitamin D supplementation for the management of vitamin D insufficiency, and to test whether these management strategies differentially affect markers of immune and cardio-metabolic function. METHODS/DESIGN The SEDS Study is a multi-centre, randomised controlled trial of two different daily doses of vitamin D supplementation, and placebo, in conjunction with guidance on two different patterns of sun exposure. Participants recruited from across Australia are aged 18-64 years and have a recent vitamin D test result showing a serum 25(OH)D level of 40-60 nmol/L. DISCUSSION This paper discusses the rationale behind the study design, and considers the challenges but necessity of data collection within a non-institutionalised adult population, in order to address the study aims. We also discuss the challenges of participant recruitment and retention, ongoing engagement of referring medical practitioners and address issues of compliance and participant retention. TRIAL REGISTRATION Australia New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN12613000290796 Registered 14 March 2013

Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers in Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus

The diagnosis of idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is still challenging. Alzheimer's disease (AD), along with vascular dementia, the most important differential diagnosis for iNPH, has several potential cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers which might help in the selection of patients for shunt treatment. The aim of this study was to compare a battery of CSF biomarkers including well-known AD-related proteins with CSF from patients with suspected iNPH collected from the external lumbar drainage test (ELD). A total of 35 patients with suspected iNPH patients were evaluated with ELD. CSF was collected in the beginning of the test, and the concentrations of total tau, ptau181, Aβ42, NFL, TNF-α, TGFβ1, and VEGF were analysed by ELISA. Twenty-six patients had a positive ELD result—that is, their gait symptoms improved; 9 patients had negative ELD. The levels of all analyzed CSF biomarkers were similar between the groups and none of them predicted the ELD result in these patients. Contrary to expectations lumbar CSF TNF-α concentration was low in iNPH patients