A zone of preferential ion heating extends tens of solar radii from Sun

The extreme temperatures and non-thermal nature of the solar corona and solar wind arise from an unidentified physical mechanism that preferentially heats certain ion species relative to others. Spectroscopic indicators of unequal temperatures commence within a fraction of a solar radius above the surface of the Sun, but the outer reach of this mechanism has yet to be determined. Here we present an empirical procedure for combining interplanetary solar wind measurements and a modeled energy equation including Coulomb relaxation to solve for the typical outer boundary of this zone of preferential heating. Applied to two decades of observations by the Wind spacecraft, our results are consistent with preferential heating being active in a zone extending from the transition region in the lower corona to an outer boundary 20-40 solar radii from the Sun, producing a steady state super-mass-proportional $\alpha$-to-proton temperature ratio of $5.2-5.3$. Preferential ion heating continues far beyond the transition region and is important for the evolution of both the outer corona and the solar wind. The outer boundary of this zone is well below the orbits of spacecraft at 1 AU and even closer missions such as Helios and MESSENGER, meaning it is likely that no existing mission has directly observed intense preferential heating, just residual signatures. We predict that {Parker Solar Probe} will be the first spacecraft with a perihelia sufficiently close to the Sun to pass through the outer boundary, enter the zone of preferential heating, and directly observe the physical mechanism in action.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal on 1 August 201

Correction: Increased policy ambition is needed to avoid the effects of climate change and reach carbon removal targets in Portugal

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ licen ses/ by/4. 0/.J. Pedersen, L. F. Dias, P. M. M. Soares, and F. D. Santos would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the EEA-Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 and the Portuguese Environment Agency through Pre-defined Project-2 National Roadmap for Adaptation XXI (PDP-2), by the Portuguese Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) I.P./MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) - UIDB/00329/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00329/2020), UIDB/50019/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/50019/2020), UIDP/50019/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/50019/2020), and LA/P/0068/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0068/2020). J. Azevedo would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Portuguese Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) I.P./MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) - CIMO, UIDB/00690/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00690/2020), UIDP/00690/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/00690/2020), and SusTEC, LA/P/0007/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0007/2020).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Increased policy ambition is needed to avoid the effects of climate change and reach carbon removal targets in Portugal

The Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming hinges on forest carbon sequestration as a key in several national strategies. However, Portugal's rising forest fire occurrences threaten its ability to meet ambitious 2030 and 2050 carbon sequestration targets. Considering fire and forest trends, this study aims to quantify whether Portugal can reach its carbon sequestration ambitions as stated in its 2030 and 2050 targets. We tested three national forest scenario extensions of the global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Shared Policy Assumptions (SPAs) based on a dynamic model, simulating forest area and carbon sequestration related to future fire risk and policies of fire management, forest management, restoration of burnt areas, and climate change adaptation. The model projects a rapidly decreasing forest area under existing Portuguese policies (PT-SSP3), a slow decline under moderate policy improvements (PT-SSP2), and an almost stable forest area under long-term sustainable policy developments (PT-SSP1). In PT-SSP3, carbon sequestration will be reduced to 60% by 2050 compared to 2015, while it declines to about 85% and 90% under PT-SSP2 and PT-SSP1, respectively. It is still plausible to reach Portugal's 2030 sequestration obligations under the EU's Paris Agreement target under all three scenarios, while the Portuguese GHG neutrality target is not reached in the presented scenarios. Our four introduced policy areas (increasing focus on fire and forest management, forest restoration, and climate change adaptation of forest stands) must be supplemented by other policy strategies, such as reforestation.J. Pedersen, L. F. Dias, P. M. M. Soares, and F.D. Santos would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the EEA-Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 and the Portuguese Environment Agency through Pre-defined Project-2 National Roadmap for Adaptation XXI (PDP-2), by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) I.P./MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) - UIDB/00329/2020 (https:// doi. org/ 10. 54499/ UIDB/00329/ 2020), UIDB/50019/2020 (https:// doi. org/ 10.54499/ UIDB/50019/ 2020), UIDP/50019/2020 (https:// doi. org/ 10. 54499/ UIDP/50019/ 2020), and LA/P/0068/2020 (https:// doi. org/ 10. 54499/ LA/P/0068/ 2020). J. Azevedo would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) I.P./MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) - CIMO, UIDB/00690/2020 (https:// doi. org/ 10. 54499/ UIDB/ 00690/ 2020), UIDP/00690/2020 (https:// doi. org/ 10. 54499/ UIDP/ 00690/ 2020), and SusTEC, LA/P/0007/2020 (https://doi.org/10. 54499/ LA/P/0007/2020).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Glymphatic distribution of CSF-derived apoE into brain is isoform specific and suppressed during sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation reduces the dextran radial distribution and 125I-apoE inflow from CSF into brain. A-B) Representative images of cascade blue dextran (CB) in mice on normal sleep cycle (A) and in mice during sleep deprivation (SD) (B). Cascade blue dextran (10 kDa) was injected into cisterna magna and the mice perfusion fixed (PFA) at 15 min. The vasculature was outline by lectin (green). Scale bars 100 μm (A-B). C) 125I-ApoE2 (yellow column), 125I-apoE3 (red column) and 125I-apoE4 (orange column) inflow into brain from the CSF were reduced in SD mice. D) 14C-inulin inflow into brain from the CSF was reduced with SD and not affected by apoE isoforms. 125I-ApoE (10 nM) and 14C-inulin were intracisternally injected and the brain analyzed for radioactivity. Values are mean ± SEM. N = 6 mice per group. (EPS 15099 kb

Phase transition enhanced thermoelectric figure-of-merit in copper chalcogenides

While thermoelectric materials can be used for solid state cooling, waste heat recovery, and solar electricity generation, low values of the thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, have led to an efficiency too low for widespread use. Thermoelectric effects are characterized by the Seebeck coefficient or thermopower, which is related to the entropy associated with charge transport. For example, coupling spin entropy with the presence of charge carriers has enabled the enhancement of zT in cobalt oxides. We demonstrate that the coupling of a continuous phase transition to carrier transport in Cu 2Se over a broad (360–410 K) temperature range results in a dramatic peak in thermopower, an increase in phonon and electron scattering, and a corresponding doubling of zT (to 0.7 at 406 K), and a similar but larger increase over a wider temperature range in the zT of Cu 1.97 Ag .03Se (almost 1.0 at 400 K). The use of structural entropy for enhanced thermopower could lead to new engineering approaches for thermoelectric materials with high zT and new green applications for thermoelectrics

Correction: Increased policy ambition is needed to avoid the effects of climate change and reach carbon removal targets in Portugal

Correction: Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:62 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-024-02217-

Increased policy ambition is needed to avoid the effects of climate change and reach carbon removal targets in Portugal

The Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming hinges on forest carbon sequestration as a key in several national strategies. However, Portugal’s rising forest fire occurrences threaten its ability to meet ambitious 2030 and 2050 carbon sequestration targets. Considering fire and forest trends, this study aims to quantify whether Portugal can reach its carbon sequestration ambitions as stated in its 2030 and 2050 targets. We tested three national forest scenario extensions of the global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Shared Policy Assumptions (SPAs) based on a dynamic model, simulating forest area and carbon sequestration related to future fire risk and policies of fire management, forest management, restoration of burnt areas, and climate change adaptation. The model projects a rapidly decreasing forest area under existing Portuguese policies (PT-SSP3), a slow decline under moderate policy improvements (PT-SSP2), and an almost stable forest area under long-term sustainable policy developments (PT-SSP1). In PT-SSP3, carbon sequestration will be reduced to 60% by 2050 compared to 2015, while it declines to about 85% and 90% under PT-SSP2 and PT-SSP1, respectively. It is still plausible to reach Portugal’s 2030 sequestration obligations under the EU’s Paris Agreement target under all three scenarios, while the Portuguese GHG neutrality target is not reached in the presented scenarios. Our four introduced policy areas (increasing focus on fire and forest management, forest restoration, and climate change adaptation of forest stands) must be supplemented by other policy strategies, such as reforestation

Autism gene Ube3a and seizures impair sociability by repressing VTA Cbln1

Summary Maternally inherited 15q11-13 chromosomal triplications cause a frequent and highly penetrant autism linked to increased gene dosages of UBE3A, which both possesses ubiquitin-ligase and transcriptional co-regulatory functions. Here, using in vivo mouse genetics, we show that increasing UBE3A in the nucleus down-regulates glutamatergic synapse organizer cerebellin-1 (Cbln1) that is needed for sociability in mice. Epileptic seizures also repress Cbln1 and are found to expose sociability impairments in mice with asymptomatic increases of UBE3A. This Ube3a-seizure synergy maps to glutamate neurons of the midbrain ventral tegmental area (VTA) where Cbln1 deletions impair sociability and weaken glutamatergic transmission. We provide preclinical evidence that viral-vector-based chemogenetic activations of, or Cbln1 restorations in VTA glutamatergic neurons rescues sociability deficits induced by Ube3a and/or seizures. Our results suggest a gene × seizure interaction in VTA glutamatergic neurons that impairs sociability by downregulating Cbln1, a key node in the expanding protein interaction network of autism genes

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery