Did Mineral Surface Chemistry and Toxicity Contribute to Evolution of Microbial Extracellular Polymeric Substances?

Modern ecological niches are teeming with an astonishing diversity of microbial life in biofilms closely associated with mineral surfaces, which highlights the remarkable success of microorganisms in conquering the challenges and capitalizing on the benefits presented by the mineral-water interface. Biofilm formation capability likely evolved on early Earth because biofilms provide crucial cell survival functions. The potential toxicity of mineral surfaces toward cells and the complexities of the mineral-water-cell interface in determining the toxicity mechanisms, however, have not been fully appreciated. Here, we report a previously unrecognized role for extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), which form biofilms in shielding cells against the toxicity of mineral surfaces. Using colony plating and LIVE/DEAD staining methods in oxide suspensions versus oxide-free controls, we found greater viability of wild-type, EPS-producing strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 compared to their isogenic knockout mutant with defective biofilm-producing capacity. Oxide toxicity was specific to its surface charge and particle size. High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images and assays for highly reactive oxygen species (hROS) on mineral surfaces suggested that EPS shield via both physical and chemical mechanisms. Intriguingly, qualitative as well as quantitative measures of EPS production showed that toxic minerals induced EPS production in bacteria. By determining the specific toxicity mechanisms, we provide insight into the potential impact of mineral surfaces in promoting increased complexity of cell surfaces, including EPS and biofilm formation, on early Earth

Regional Estimation of Soil Carbon and Other Environmental Indicators Using EPIC and i_EPIC

Computer models are important tools for assessing regional carbon sequestration and other environmental impacts of agricultural management practices. The Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model is a very flexible model that has been used to make a wide range of field- and regional-scale environmental assessments. Large regional-scale applications of EPIC and similar models can require thousands of runs, resulting in a huge data management task. To address this problem, the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) has developed an interactive EPIC (i_EPIC) software package that provides an automated approach to executing large sets of EPIC simulations. Overviews of both the latest EPIC version and the i_EPIC software package are presented. We also present examples of regional applications using both EPIC and i_EPIC conducted by the Resource and Environmental Policy Division of CARD, by the Joint Global Change Research Institute of the University of Maryland and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and by the Resource Assessment Division of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Calibration and Flight Results for the Ares I-X 5-Hole Probe

Flight and calibration results are presented for the Ares I-X 5-hole probe. The probe is calibrated by using a combination of wind tunnel, CFD, and other numerical modeling techniques. This is then applied to the probe flight data and comparisons are made between the vanes and 5-hole probe. Using this and other data it is shown the probe was corrupted by water rendering that measurement unreliable

Scaling up climate services for farmers: Mission Possible. Learning from good practice in Africa and South Asia

This report presents lessons learned from 18 case studies across Africa and South Asia that have developed and delivered weather and climate information and related advisory services for smallholder farmers. The case studies and resulting lessons provide insights on what will be needed to build effective national systems for the production, delivery, communication and evaluation of operational climate services for smallholder farmers across the developing world. The case studies include two national-scale programmes that have been the subject of recent assessments: India’s Integrated Agrometeorological Advisory Service (AAS) Program, which provides tailored weather-based agrometeorological advisories to millions of farmers; and Mali’s Projet d’Assistance Agro-meteorologique au Monde Rural, which provided innovative seasonal agrometeorological advisory services for smallholder farmers and 16 less mature initiatives operating at a pilot scale across Africa and South Asia. The case studies were examined from the standpoint of how they address five key challenges for scaling up effective climate services for farmers: salience, access, legitimacy, equity and integration

Cost-effective targeting of conservation investments to reduce the northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone

A seasonally occurring summer hypoxic (low oxygen) zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico is the second largest in the world. Reductions in nutrients from agricultural cropland in its watershed are needed to reduce the hypoxic zone size to the national policy goal of 5,000 km2 (as a 5-y running average) set by the national Gulf of Mexico Task Force’s Action Plan. We develop an integrated assessment model linking the water quality effects of cropland conservation investment decisions on the more than 550 agricultural subwatersheds that deliver nutrients into the Gulf with a hypoxic zone model. We use this integrated assessment model to identify the most cost-effective subwatersheds to target for cropland conservation investments. We consider targeting of the location (which subwatersheds to treat) and the extent of conservation investment to undertake (how much cropland within a subwatershed to treat). We use process models to simulate the dynamics of the effects of cropland conservation investments on nutrient delivery to the Gulf and use an evolutionary algorithm to solve the optimization problem. Model results suggest that by targeting cropland conservation investments to the most cost-effective location and extent of coverage, the Action Plan goal of 5,000 km2 can be achieved at a cost of $2.7 billion annually. A large set of cost-hypoxia tradeoffs is developed, ranging from the baseline to the nontargeted adoption of the most aggressive cropland conservation investments in all subwatersheds (estimated to reduce the hypoxic zone to less than 3,000 km2 at a cost of$5.6 billion annually)

Temporal associations between national outbreaks of meningococcal serogroup W and C disease in the Netherlands and England: an observational cohort study.

Since 2009, the incidence of meningococcal serogroup W disease has increased rapidly in the UK because of a single strain (the so-called original UK strain) belonging to the hypervirulent sequence type-11 clonal complex (cc11), with a variant outbreak strain (the so-called 2013 strain) emerging in 2013. Subsequently, the Netherlands has had an increase in the incidence of meningococcal serogroup W disease. We assessed the temporal and phylogenetic associations between the serogroup W outbreaks in the Netherlands and England, and the historical serogroup C outbreaks in both countries

The driver landscape of sporadic chordoma.

Chordoma is a malignant, often incurable bone tumour showing notochordal differentiation. Here, we defined the somatic driver landscape of 104 cases of sporadic chordoma. We reveal somatic duplications of the notochordal transcription factor brachyury (T) in up to 27% of cases. These variants recapitulate the rearrangement architecture of the pathogenic germline duplications of T that underlie familial chordoma. In addition, we find potentially clinically actionable PI3K signalling mutations in 16% of cases. Intriguingly, one of the most frequently altered genes, mutated exclusively by inactivating mutation, was LYST (10%), which may represent a novel cancer gene in chordoma.Chordoma is a rare often incurable malignant bone tumour. Here, the authors investigate driver mutations of sporadic chordoma in 104 cases, revealing duplications in notochordal transcription factor brachyury (T), PI3K signalling mutations, and mutations in LYST, a potential novel cancer gene in chordoma

Invited Editorial: Health as a crucial driver for climate policy

Health impacts of climate change and the need to prevent them should be at centre stage of the ongoing debate on climate policies (1). We have specifically prepared this series of papers to be available for the COP151 conference in Copenhagen, to which the world looks to agree on targets and procedures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on the basis of fair burden-sharing between high and low-income countries

Evo-devo of human adolescence: beyond disease models of early puberty

Despite substantial heritability in pubertal development, much variation remains to be explained, leaving room for the influence of environmental factors to adjust its phenotypic trajectory in the service of fitness goals. Utilizing evolutionary development biology (evo-devo), we examine adolescence as an evolutionary life-history stage in its developmental context. We show that the transition from the preceding stage of juvenility entails adaptive plasticity in response to energy resources, other environmental cues, social needs of adolescence and maturation toward youth and adulthood. Using the evolutionary theory of socialization, we show that familial psychosocial stress fosters a fast life history and reproductive strategy rather than early maturation being just a risk factor for aggression and delinquency. Here we explore implications of an evolutionary-developmental-endocrinological-anthropological framework for theory building, while illuminating new directions for research