A global spectral library to characterize the world's soil

Soil provides ecosystem services, supports human health and habitation, stores carbon and regulates emissions of greenhouse gases. Unprecedented pressures on soil from degradation and urbanization are threatening agro-ecological balances and food security. It is important that we learn more about soil to sustainably manage and preserve it for future generations. To this end, we developed and analyzed a global soil visible-near infrared (vis-NIR) spectral library. It is currently the largest and most diverse database of its kind. We show that the information encoded in the spectra can describe soil composition and be associated to land cover and its global geographic distribution, which acts as a surrogate for global climate variability. We also show the usefulness of the global spectra for predicting soil attributes such as soil organic and inorganic carbon, clay, silt, sand and iron contents, cation exchange capacity, and pH. Using wavelets to treat the spectra, which were recorded in different laboratories using different spectrometers and methods, helped to improve the spectroscopic modelling. We found that modelling a diverse set of spectra with a machine learning algorithm can find the local relationships in the data to produce accurate predictions of soil properties. The spectroscopic models that we derived are parsimonious and robust, and using them we derived a harmonized global soil attribute dataset, which might serve to facilitate research on soil at the global scale. This spectroscopic approach should help to deal with the shortage of data on soil to better understand it and to meet the growing demand for information to assess and monitor soil at scales ranging from regional to global. New contributions to the library are encouraged so that this work and our collaboration might progress to develop a dynamic and easily updatable database with better global coverage. We hope that this work will reinvigorate our community's discussion towards larger, more coordinated collaborations. We also hope that use of the database will deepen our understanding of soil so that we might sustainably manage it and extend the research outcomes of the soil, earth and environmental sciences towards applications that we have not yet dreamed of

ConectCat : aplicación web : fiestas locales y otros servicios y puntos de interés en Cataluña

Aplicación web basada en mapas interactivos y timeline. Permite visualizar las fiestas locales así como otros servicios y puntos de interés de Cataluña

Gallic Acid Induces S and G2 Phase Arrest and Apoptosis in Human Ovarian Cancer Cells In Vitro

Ovarian cancer (OC) is among the top gynecologic cancers in the US with a death tally of 13,940 in the past year alone. Gallic acid (GA) is a natural compound with pharmacological benefits. In this research, the role of GA on cell proliferation, cell apoptosis, cell cycle-related protein expression was explored in OC cell lines OVCAR-3 and A2780/CP70. After 24, 48 and 72 h of GA treatment, the IC50 values in OVCAR-3 cells were 22.14 ± 0.45, 20.36 ± 0.18, 15.13 ± 0.53 μM, respectively and in A2780/CP70 cells IC50 values were 33.53 ± 2.64, 27.18 ± 0.22, 22.81 ± 0.56, respectively. Hoechst 33,342 DNA staining and flow cytometry results showed 20 μM GA exposure could significantly accelerate apoptosis in both OC cell lines and the total apoptotic rate increased from 5.34%(control) to 21.42% in OVCAR-3 cells and from 8.01%(control) to 17.69% in A2780/CP70 cells. Western blot analysis revealed that GA stimulated programmed OC cell death via a p53-dependent intrinsic signaling. In addition, GA arrested cell cycle at the S or G2 phase via p53-p21-Cdc2-cyclin B pathway in the same cells. In conclusion, we provide some evidence of the efficacy of GA in ovarian cancer prevention and therapy