Population-based emergence of unfamiliar climates

Time of emergence, which characterizes when significant signals of climate change will emerge from existing variability, is a useful and increasingly common metric. However, a more useful metric for understanding future climate change in the context of past experience may be the ratio of climate signal to noise (S/N)—a measure of the amplitude of change expressed in terms of units of existing variability. Here, we present S/N projections in the context of emergent climates (termed ‘unusual’, ‘unfamiliar’ and ‘unknown’ by reference to an individual’s lifetime), highlighting sensitivity to future emissions scenarios and geographical and human groupings. We show how for large sections of the world’s population, and for several geopolitical international groupings, mitigation can delay the onset of ‘unknown’ or ‘unfamiliar’ climates by decades, and perhaps even beyond 2100. Our results demonstrate that the benefits of mitigation accumulate over several decades, a key metric of which is reducing S/N, or keeping climate as familiar as possible. A relationship is also identified between cumulative emissions and patterns of emergent climate signals. Timely mitigation will therefore provide the greatest benefits to those facing the earliest impacts, many of whom are alive now

Identifying uncertainties in Arctic climate change projections

Wide ranging climate changes are expected in the Arctic by the end of the 21st century, but projections of the size of these changes vary widely across current global climate models. This variation represents a large source of uncertainty in our understanding of the evolution of Arctic climate. Here we systematically quantify and assess the model uncertainty in Arctic climate changes in two CO2 doubling experiments: a multimodel ensemble (CMIP3) and an ensemble constructed using a single model (HadCM3) with multiple parameter perturbations (THC-QUMP). These two ensembles allow us to assess the contribution that both structural and parameter variations across models make to the total uncertainty and to begin to attribute sources of uncertainty in projected changes. We find that parameter uncertainty is an major source of uncertainty in certain aspects of Arctic climate. But also that uncertainties in the mean climate state in the 20th century, most notably in the northward Atlantic ocean heat transport and Arctic sea ice volume, are a significant source of uncertainty for projections of future Arctic change. We suggest that better observational constraints on these quantities will lead to significant improvements in the precision of projections of future Arctic climate change

Enrichment analysis of Alu elements with different spatial chromatin proximity in the human genome

Transposable elements (TEs) have no longer been totally considered as “junk DNA” for quite a time since the continual discoveries of their multifunctional roles in eukaryote genomes. As one of the most important and abundant TEs that still active in human genome, Alu, a SINE family, has demonstrated its indispensable regulatory functions at sequence level, but its spatial roles are still unclear. Technologies based on 3C(chromosomeconformation capture) have revealed the mysterious three-dimensional structure of chromatin, and make it possible to study the distal chromatin interaction in the genome. To find the role TE playing in distal regulation in human genome, we compiled the new released Hi-C data, TE annotation, histone marker annotations, and the genome-wide methylation data to operate correlation analysis, and found that the density of Alu elements showed a strong positive correlation with the level of chromatin interactions (hESC: r=0.9, P<2.2×1016; IMR90 fibroblasts: r = 0.94, P < 2.2 × 1016) and also have a significant positive correlation withsomeremote functional DNA elements like enhancers and promoters (Enhancer: hESC: r=0.997, P=2.3×10−4; IMR90: r=0.934, P=2×10−2; Promoter: hESC: r = 0.995, P = 3.8 × 10−4; IMR90: r = 0.996, P = 3.2 × 10−4). Further investigation involving GC content and methylation status showed the GC content of Alu covered sequences shared a similar pattern with that of the overall sequence, suggesting that Alu elements also function as the GC nucleotide and CpG site provider. In all, our results suggest that the Alu elements may act as an alternative parameter to evaluate the Hi-C data, which is confirmed by the correlation analysis of Alu elements and histone markers. Moreover, the GC-rich Alu sequence can bring high GC content and methylation flexibility to the regions with more distal chromatin contact, regulating the transcription of tissue-specific genes

Consistent phenological shifts in the making of a biodiversity hotspot: the Cape flora

Background The best documented survival responses of organisms to past climate change on short (glacial-interglacial) timescales are distributional shifts. Despite ample evidence on such timescales for local adaptations of populations at specific sites, the long-term impacts of such changes on evolutionary significant units in response to past climatic change have been little documented. Here we use phylogenies to reconstruct changes in distribution and flowering ecology of the Cape flora - South Africa's biodiversity hotspot - through a period of past (Neogene and Quaternary) changes in the seasonality of rainfall over a timescale of several million years. Results Forty-three distributional and phenological shifts consistent with past climatic change occur across the flora, and a comparable number of clades underwent adaptive changes in their flowering phenology (9 clades; half of the clades investigated) as underwent distributional shifts (12 clades; two thirds of the clades investigated). Of extant Cape angiosperm species, 14-41% have been contributed by lineages that show distributional shifts consistent with past climate change, yet a similar proportion (14-55%) arose from lineages that shifted flowering phenology. Conclusions Adaptive changes in ecology at the scale we uncover in the Cape and consistent with past climatic change have not been documented for other floras. Shifts in climate tolerance appear to have been more important in this flora than is currently appreciated, and lineages that underwent such shifts went on to contribute a high proportion of the flora's extant species diversity. That shifts in phenology, on an evolutionary timescale and on such a scale, have not yet been detected for other floras is likely a result of the method used; shifts in flowering phenology cannot be detected in the fossil record

Patterns of Diversity in Soft-Bodied Meiofauna: Dispersal Ability and Body Size Matter

Background: Biogeographical and macroecological principles are derived from patterns of distribution in large organisms, whereas microscopic ones have often been considered uninteresting, because of their supposed wide distribution. Here, after reporting the results of an intensive faunistic survey of marine microscopic animals (meiofauna) in Northern Sardinia, we test for the effect of body size, dispersal ability, and habitat features on the patterns of distribution of several groups.Methodology/Principal Findings: As a dataset we use the results of a workshop held at La Maddalena (Sardinia, Italy) in September 2010, aimed at studying selected taxa of soft-bodied meiofauna (Acoela, Annelida, Gastrotricha, Nemertodermatida, Platyhelminthes and Rotifera), in conjunction with data on the same taxa obtained during a previous workshop hosted at Tjärnö (Western Sweden) in September 2007. Using linear mixed effects models and model averaging while accounting for sampling bias and potential pseudoreplication, we found evidence that: (1) meiofaunal groups with more restricted distribution are the ones with low dispersal potential; (2) meiofaunal groups with higher probability of finding new species for science are the ones with low dispersal potential; (3) the proportion of the global species pool of each meiofaunal group present in each area at the regional scale is negatively related to body size, and positively related to their occurrence in the endobenthic habitat.Conclusion/Significance: Our macroecological analysis of meiofauna, in the framework of the ubiquity hypothesis for microscopic organisms, indicates that not only body size but mostly dispersal ability and also occurrence in the endobenthic habitat are important correlates of diversity for these understudied animals, with different importance at different spatial scales. Furthermore, since the Western Mediterranean is one of the best-studied areas in the world, the large number of undescribed species (37%) highlights that the census of marine meiofauna is still very far from being complete

Brane-World Gravity

The observable universe could be a 1+3-surface (the "brane") embedded in a 1+3+\textit{d}-dimensional spacetime (the "bulk"), with Standard Model particles and fields trapped on the brane while gravity is free to access the bulk. At least one of the \textit{d} extra spatial dimensions could be very large relative to the Planck scale, which lowers the fundamental gravity scale, possibly even down to the electroweak ($\sim$ TeV) level. This revolutionary picture arises in the framework of recent developments in M theory. The 1+10-dimensional M theory encompasses the known 1+9-dimensional superstring theories, and is widely considered to be a promising potential route to quantum gravity. At low energies, gravity is localized at the brane and general relativity is recovered, but at high energies gravity "leaks" into the bulk, behaving in a truly higher-dimensional way. This introduces significant changes to gravitational dynamics and perturbations, with interesting and potentially testable implications for high-energy astrophysics, black holes, and cosmology. Brane-world models offer a phenomenological way to test some of the novel predictions and corrections to general relativity that are implied by M theory. This review analyzes the geometry, dynamics and perturbations of simple brane-world models for cosmology and astrophysics, mainly focusing on warped 5-dimensional brane-worlds based on the Randall--Sundrum models. We also cover the simplest brane-world models in which 4-dimensional gravity on the brane is modified at \emph{low} energies -- the 5-dimensional Dvali--Gabadadze--Porrati models. Then we discuss co-dimension two branes in 6-dimensional models.Comment: A major update of Living Reviews in Relativity 7:7 (2004) "Brane-World Gravity", 119 pages, 28 figures, the update contains new material on RS perturbations, including full numerical solutions of gravitational waves and scalar perturbations, on DGP models, and also on 6D models. A published version in Living Reviews in Relativit

Interaction of smoking and occupational noise exposure on hearing loss: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Noise is the most common hazardous agent at workplaces. Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) has been known since the industrial revolution. Although NIHL is permanent, irreversible and frequent, it is preventable. The economic costs of NIHL have been estimated to be about billions of dollars. Besides, cigarette smoking is a common habit worldwide, and according to some recent studies smoking and noise may act in common causal pathways for hearing loss.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study was designed to study the effect of smoking on NIHL in 206 male smoker workers and 206 male non-smoker workers in a large food-producing factory, in which workers were exposed to noise levels exceeding 85dBA. To determine noise exposure level, we used sound level measurements reported by industrial hygienists.</p> <p>A qualified audiologist assessed hearing acuity by using standardized audiometric procedures assuring at least 14 h of noise avoidance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We observed that the percentage of workers with hearing threshold differences of greater than or equal to 30 dB between 4000 Hz and 1000 Hz in both ears were 49.5% and 11.2% in smoker and non smoker groups, respectively (Odds ratio = 7.8, 95% CI = 4.7 – 13), and the percentage of workers with a hearing threshold of greater than 25dB at 4000 Hz in the better ear were 63.6% and 18.4% in smoker and non smoker groups, respectively. This difference was statistically significant after adjustment for age and exposure duration.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It can be concluded that smoking can accelerate noise induced hearing loss, but more research is needed to understand the underlying mechanisms. Accurate follow up of smoker workers who are exposed to noise levels exceeding 85 dBA is suggested. Smokers should periodically attend educational courses on "smoking cessation", especially in noisy workplaces.</p

Energetic Selection of Topology in Ferredoxins

Models of early protein evolution posit the existence of short peptides that bound metals and ions and served as transporters, membranes or catalysts. The Cys-X-X-Cys-X-X-Cys heptapeptide located within bacterial ferredoxins, enclosing an Fe4S4 metal center, is an attractive candidate for such an early peptide. Ferredoxins are ancient proteins and the simple α+β fold is found alone or as a domain in larger proteins throughout all three kingdoms of life. Previous analyses of the heptapeptide conformation in experimentally determined ferredoxin structures revealed a pervasive right-handed topology, despite the fact that the Fe4S4 cluster is achiral. Conformational enumeration of a model CGGCGGC heptapeptide bound to a cubane iron-sulfur cluster indicates both left-handed and right-handed folds could exist and have comparable stabilities. However, only the natural ferredoxin topology provides a significant network of backbone-to-cluster hydrogen bonds that would stabilize the metal-peptide complex. The optimal peptide configuration (alternating αL,αR) is that of an α-sheet, providing an additional mechanism where oligomerization could stabilize the peptide and facilitate iron-sulfur cluster binding