Flood Frequency in China's Poyang Lake Region: Trends and Teleconnections

Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province is the largest freshwater lake in China and is historically a region of significant floods.Annual events of peak lake stage and of severe floods have increased dramatically during the past few decades. This trend is related primarily to levee construction at the periphery of the lake and along the middle of the Changjiang (Yangtze River), which protects a large rural population. These levees reduce the area formerly available for floodwater storage resulting in higher lake stages during the summer flood season and catastrophic levee failures. The most severe floods in the Poyang Lake since 1950, and ranked in descending order of severity, occurred in 1998, 1995, 1954, 1983, 1992, 1973, and 1977. All of these floods occurred during or immediately following El Ni˜no events, which are directly linked to rainfall in central China. The 2-year recurrence interval for maximum annual lake stage during El Ni˜no years is 1.2 m higher than during non-El Ni˜no years. The 10-year recurrence interval is 1.4 m higher during El Ni˜no years than during non-El Ni˜no years

Meditation-induced bliss viewed as release from conditioned neural (thought) patterns that block reward signals in the brain pleasure center

The nucleus accumbens orchestrates processes related to reward and pleasure, including the addictive consequences of repeated reward (e.g., drug addiction and compulsive gambling) and the accompanying feelings of craving and anhedonia. The neurotransmitters dopamine and endogenous opiates play interactive roles in these processes. They are released by natural rewards (i.e., food, water, sex, money, play, etc.) and are released or mimicked by drugs of abuse. Repeated drug use induces conditioned down-regulation of these neurotransmitters, thus causing painful suppression of everyday pleasure. As with many spiritual traditions, Buddhism provides strong advice against the pursuit of worldly pleasures to attain the ‘‘good life.’’ In contrast, many forms of meditation give rise to an immense and abiding joy. Most of these practices involve ‘‘stilling the mind,’’ whereby all content-laden thought (e.g., fantasies, daydreams, plans) ceases, and the mind enters a state of openness, formlessness, clarity, and bliss. This can be explained by the Buddhist suggestion that almost all of our everyday thoughts are a form of addiction. It follows that if we turn off this internal ‘‘gossip of ego,’’ we will find relief from the biochemical dopamine/opiate down-regulation, which is, perhaps, the perpetual concomitant of our daily rumination

Greening China naturally

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 40 (2011): 828-831, doi:10.1007/s13280-011-0150-8.China leads the world in afforestation, and is one of the few countries whose forested area is increasing. However, this massive ‘‘greening’’ effort has been less effective than expected; afforestation has sometimes produced unintended environmental, ecological, and socioeconomic consequences, and has failed to achieve the desired ecological benefits. Where afforestation has succeeded, the approach was tailored to local environmental conditions. Using the right plant species or species composition for the site and considering alternatives such as grassland restoration have been important success factors. To expand this success, government policy should shift from a forest-based approach to a results-based approach. In addition, long-term monitoring must be implemented to provide the data needed to develop a cost-effective, scientifically informed restoration policy.This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (HJ2010-3) and the CAS/ SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams of ‘‘Ecosystem Processes and Services’’

The Outer Solar System Origins Survey : I. Design and First-Quarter Discoveries

We report the discovery, tracking, and detection circumstances for 85 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) from the first 42 deg(2) of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey. This ongoing r-band solar system survey uses the 0.9 deg(2) field of view MegaPrime camera on the 3.6m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Our orbital elements for these TNOs are precise to a fractional semimajor axis uncertaintyPeer reviewe

Using What We Know About Threat Reactivity Models to Understand Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by unprecedented levels of stress and threats in a variety of domains (e.g., health, livelihood). Individual differences in threat reactivity may explain why some individuals are at elevated risk for the development or maintenance of psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article describes several prominent models, mechanisms, and components of threat reactivity (e.g., appraisals, intolerance of uncertainty, avoidance) and discusses how they might help improve understanding of changes in psychopathology during and following the COVID-19 pandemic

POPULATION DYNAMICS OF SUGAR MAPLE (ACER SACCHARUM MARSH.) AT THE SOUTHERN PORTION OF ITS RANGE: IMPLICATIONS FOR RANGE MIGRATION AND SUCCESSION by CRAIG TURBERVILLE

ABSTRACT Evidence for climate change driven range migration exists for a variety of tree species in eastern North America. Northward range migration for tree species in the region requires a decrease in population density near the southern range boundary coupled with an increase in population density at the northern range boundary. Sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) is one such species that has been projected by some biogeographic models to shift north in accord with climate. However, a widespread pattern of increased sugar maple density has been reported in the forest science literature from a variety of sites throughout the species' range. This pattern is linked to a complex of interacting factors and has been hypothesized to represent a positive feedback that facilitates sugar maple regeneration. The primary goal of my study was to test which of these hypotheses (range migration or succession) was correct for the southern portion of the sugar maple range. I used Forest Inventory and Analysis program data to compare regionwide population dynamics for this species on a plot-by-plot basis. Changes in frequency, density, and dominance of sugar maple trees and seedlings were compared over multiple years for the states of Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Plot data for all states were combined to determine changes in frequency, density, and dominance for the contiguous and non-contiguous regions of sugar maple's southern range portion. Results indicated increases in frequency, density, and dominance of sugar maple within its contiguous range coupled with decreases outside of the contiguous range. It is postulated based on these data that sugar maple's southern range boundary will remain stabilized while the northern boundary will continue to migrate with increasing global temperatures. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT