Transport needs in a climate-constrained world. A novel framework to reconcile social and environmental sustainability in transport

The amount of energy and carbon emissions that is required to satisfy transport needs in developed countries is high, has increased rapidly in the past few decades, and is likely to continue to do so in the future. In some contexts, such as car-dependent peri-urban and rural areas, the satisfaction of basic needs has come to depend on extensive use of carbon-intensive transport modes. This creates a tension between social and environmental sustainability, and gives rise to justice dilemmas. In this article, a novel framework is proposed to conceptualise the connections and tensions between justice in transport and accessibility, on one hand, and the consequences of transport emissions on global and intergenerational justice, on the other hand. The framework is based on the integration of philosophical (human needs theory) and sociological (structuration theory) perspectives. While human needs are anthropological invariants, need satisfiers are relative, contextual and historical. Over time, satisfiers can become more travel- and carbon-intensive through unintentional structuration processes. This encourages a critical look towards how the role of transport in need satisfaction has changed over time, how it might change in the future, and the role of 'excess travel' practices in pushing the envelope of transport needs

Islands in the Pacific: Settings, Distribution and Classification

Oceanic islands have a history of being misunderstood by outsiders, commonly marginalized in global synthesis and planning, their considerable diversity often understated. To capture and explain the diversity of islands in the Pacific, a classification is developing using elevation and lithology (rock type) as the highest level criteria. For each of the 1779 islands, defined as ocean-bounded landmasses ≥1 ha (0.01 km2) in area, data were collected on locations and shapes, areas, names, elevations and lithologies. Eight island types were identified—volcanic high islands (≥30 amsl, ≥80% igneous); volcanic low islands

Human aging in the post-GWAS era: further insights reveal potential regulatory variants

NoHuman aging involves a gradual decrease in cellular integrity that contributes to multiple complex disorders such as neurodegenerative disorders, cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) play a key role in discovering genetic variations that may contribute towards disease vulnerability. However, mostly disease-associated SNPs lie within non-coding part of the genome; majority of the variants are also present in linkage disequilibrium (LD) with the genome-wide significant SNPs (GWAS lead SNPs). Overall 600 SNPs were analyzed, out of which 291 returned RegulomeDB scores of 1-6. It was observed that just 4 out of those 291 SNPs show strong evidence of regulatory effects (RegulomeDB score < 3), while none of them includes any GWAS lead SNP. Nevertheless, this study demonstrates that by combining ENCODE project data along with GWAS reported information will provide important insights on the impact of a genetic variant-moving from GWAS towards understanding disease pathways. It is noteworthy that both genome-wide significant SNPs as well as the SNPs in LD must be considered for future studies; this may prove to be crucial in deciphering the potential regulatory elements involved in complex disorders and aging in particular