Children and nearby nature: A nationwide parental survey from Norway

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to describe the availability of and use of nearby outdoor spaces along a nature continuum by Norwegian children. We carried out a nationwide survey of 3 160 parents with children aged 6–12 years, using a comprehensive web-based questionnaire. Results from the survey show forests are the most common outdoor space in residential areas in Norway. In all, 97% of parents state that their children have access to forests within walking or cycling distance from home. When it comes to suitability for play, 88% state that their child, in general, has good or very good opportunities for play in nearby nature. A key finding of the study is that nearby nature spaces have a much more sporadic daily use by children than outdoor developed spaces such as playgrounds and sports facilities. The paper discusses reasons for this observed pattern focusing on the play environment and opportunities for children to play in nature. A central question for future research is why children merely play in their own garden and not in the forest

A constitutive catabolite repression mutant of a recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain improves xylose consumption during fermentation

Efficient xylose utilisation by microorganisms is of importance to the lignocellulose fermentation industry. The aim of this work was to develop constitutive catabolite repression mutants in a xylose-utilising recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain and evaluate the differences in xylose consumption under fermentation conditions. S. cerevisiae YUSM was constitutively catabolite repressed through specific disruptions within theMIG1 gene. The strains were grown aerobically in synthetic complete medium with xylose as the sole carbon source. Constitutive catabolite repressed strain YCR17 grew four-fold better on xylose in aerobic conditions than the control strain YUSM. Anaerobic batch fermentation in minimal medium with glucose-xylose mixtures and N-limited chemostats with varying sugar concentrations were performed. Sugar utilisation and metabolite production during fermentation were monitored. YCR17 exhibited a faster xylose consumption rate than YUSM under high glucose conditions in nitrogen-limited chemostat cultivations. This study shows that a constitutive catabolite repressed mutant could be used to enhance the xylose consumption rate even in the presence of high glucose in the fermentation medium. This could help in reducing fermentation time and cost in mixed sugar fermentation.Vasudevan Thanvanthri Gururajan, Marie-F. Gorwa-Grauslund, Bärbel Hahn-Hägerdal, Isak S. Pretorius and Ricardo R. Cordero Oter