Uneven onset and pace of ice-dynamical imbalance in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica

We combine measurements acquired by five satellite altimeter missions to obtain an uninterrupted record of ice-sheet elevation change over the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica, since 1992. Using these data, we examine the onset of surface lowering arising through ice-dynamical imbalance, and the pace at which it has propagated inland, by tracking elevation changes along glacier flowlines. Surface lowering has spread slowest (<6 km/yr) along the Pope, Smith, and Kohler (PSK) Glaciers, due to their small extent. Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is characterized by a continuous inland spreading of surface lowering, notably fast at rates of 13 to 15 km/yr along tributaries draining the southeastern lobe, possibly due to basal conditions or tributary geometry. Surface lowering on Thwaites Glacier (THG) has been episodic, and has spread inland fastest (10 to 12 km/yr) along its central flowlines. The current episodes of surface lowering started approximately 10 yr before the first measurements on PSK, around 1990 on PIG, and around 2000 on THG. Ice-dynamical imbalance across the sector has therefore been uneven during the satellite record

Nonlinear landscape and cultural response to sea-level rise

Rising sea levels have been associated with human migration and behavioral shifts throughout prehistory, often with an emphasis on landscape submergence and consequent societal collapse. However, the assumption that future sea-level rise will drive similar adaptive responses is overly simplistic. While the change from land to sea represents a dramatic and permanent shift for preexisting human populations, the process of change is driven by a complex set of physical and cultural processes with long transitional phases of landscape and socioeconomic change. Here, we use reconstructions of prehistoric sea-level rise, paleogeographies, terrestrial landscape change, and human population dynamics to show how the gradual inundation of an island archipelago resulted in decidedly nonlinear landscape and cultural responses to rising sea levels. Interpretation of past and future responses to sea-level change requires a better understanding of local physical and societal contexts to assess plausible human response patterns in the future

The effect of landfast sea ice buttressing on ice dynamic speedup in the Larsen B embayment, Antarctica

We observe the evacuation of 11-year-old landfast sea ice in the Larsen B embayment on the East Antarctic Peninsula in January 2022, which was in part triggered by warm atmospheric conditions and strong offshore winds. This evacuation of sea ice was closely followed by major changes in the calving behaviour and dynamics of a subset of the ocean-terminating glaciers in the region. We show using satellite measurements that, following a decade of gradual slow-down, Hektoria, Green, and Crane glaciers sped up by approximately 20%-50% between February and the end of 2022, each increasing in speed by more than 100ma-1. Circumstantially, this is attributable to their transition into tidewater glaciers following the loss of their ice shelves after the landfast sea ice evacuation. However, a question remains as to whether the landfast sea ice could have influenced the dynamics of these glaciers, or the stability of their ice shelves, through a buttressing effect akin to that of confined ice shelves on grounded ice streams. We show, with a series of diagnostic modelling experiments, that direct landfast sea ice buttressing had a negligible impact on the dynamics of the grounded ice streams. Furthermore, we suggest that the loss of landfast sea ice buttressing could have impacted the dynamics of the rheologically weak ice shelves, in turn diminishing their stability over time; however, the accompanying shifts in the distributions of resistive stress within the ice shelves would have been minor. This indicates that this loss of buttressing by landfast sea ice is likely to have been a secondary process in the ice shelf disaggregation compared to, for example, increased ocean swell or the drivers of the initial landfast sea ice disintegration

Endovaginal magnetic resonance imaging of stage 1A/1B cervical cancer with A T2- and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance technique: effect of lesion size and previous cone biopsy on tumor detectability.

Objective To evaluate the effects of previous cone biopsy and lesion size on detectability of stage 1a/1b cervical cancer using endovaginal T2- and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging.Methods One hundred and thirteen patients with cervical tumor were imaged using an endovaginal coil with T2-weighted (T2-W) and diffusion-weighted single-shot echo-planar sequences; 85 managed surgically (58 with prior cone biopsy/LLETZ) were evaluated. T2-W images and ADC maps viewed simultaneously were scored positive or negative for tumor and compared with histology at surgery. MRI tumor volumes, maximum radiological and histological dimensions were recorded. ROC analysis determined the MRI volume with optimal sensitivity/specificity for identifying tumor in those without and with prior cone biopsy/LLETZ and the maximum histological dimension for correctly identifying tumor with MRI. Mean apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) from tumor and adjacent normal epithelium were compared.Results Sensitivity and specificity for detecting tumor in those without (100%; 100% respectively) and with (80%; 78.9% respectively) prior cone biopsy/LLETZ were significantly different (p<0.001). Following cone biopsy/LLETZ, MRI tumor volume of 83 mm3 detected tumor with 80% sensitivity, 94.7% specificity; a 5.3mm maximal histological dimension was detected on MRI with 100% sensitivity, 100% specificity. Tumor ADCs were significantly lower (p<0.001) than paired normal epithelial tissue (median, 988×10(-6) mm2/s vs. 1564×10(-6) mm2/s) but neither tumor nor epithelial ADCs differed significantly between patients with or without prior cone biopsy/LLETZ (p=0.48 and 0.15, respectively).Conclusions Endovaginal MRI with T2- and diffusion-weighted sequences has significantly lower sensitivity and specificity for tumor detection following cone biopsy/LLETZ

Genetic variants in the KIF6 region and coronary event reduction from statin therapy

A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in KIF6, a member of the KIF9 family of kinesins, is associated with differential coronary event reduction from statin therapy in four randomized controlled trials; this SNP (rs20455) is also associated with the risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in multiple prospective studies. We investigated whether other common SNPs in the KIF6 region were associated with event reduction from statin therapy. Of the 170 SNPs in the KIF6 region investigated in the Cholesterol and Recurrent Events trial (CARE), 28 were associated with differential event reduction from statin therapy (Pinteraction < 0.1 in Caucasians, adjusted for age and sex) and were further investigated in the Pravastatin or Atorvastatin Evaluation and Infection Therapy-Thrombolysis In Myocardial Infarction 22 (PROVE IT-TIMI22) and West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS). These analyses revealed that two SNPs (rs9462535 and rs9471077), in addition to rs20455, were associated with event reduction from statin therapy (Pinteraction < 0.1 in each of the three studies). The relative risk reduction ranged from 37 to 50% (P < 0.01) in carriers of the minor alleles of these SNPs and from −4 to 13% (P > 0.4) in non-carriers. These three SNPs are in high linkage disequilibrium with one another (r2 > 0.84). Functional studies of these variants may help to understand the role of KIF6 in the pathogenesis of CHD and differential response to statin therapy

Follow My Eyes: The Gaze of Politicians Reflexively Captures the Gaze of Ingroup Voters

Studies in human and non-human primates indicate that basic socio-cognitive operations are inherently linked to the power of gaze in capturing reflexively the attention of an observer. Although monkey studies indicate that the automatic tendency to follow the gaze of a conspecific is modulated by the leader-follower social status, evidence for such effects in humans is meager. Here, we used a gaze following paradigm where the directional gaze of right- or left-wing Italian political characters could influence the oculomotor behavior of ingroup or outgroup voters. We show that the gaze of Berlusconi, the right-wing leader currently dominating the Italian political landscape, potentiates and inhibits gaze following behavior in ingroup and outgroup voters, respectively. Importantly, the higher the perceived similarity in personality traits between voters and Berlusconi, the stronger the gaze interference effect. Thus, higher-order social variables such as political leadership and affiliation prepotently affect reflexive shifts of attention