Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

Renewable energy production is necessary to halt climate change and reverse associated biodiversity losses. However, generating the required technologies and infrastructure will drive an increase in the production of many metals, creating new mining threats for biodiversity. Here, we map mining areas and assess their spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities. Mining potentially influences 50 million km2 of Earth’s land surface, with 8% coinciding with Protected Areas, 7% with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16% with Remaining Wilderness. Most mining areas (82%) target materials needed for renewable energy production, and areas that overlap with Protected Areas and Remaining Wilderness contain a greater density of mines (our indicator of threat severity) compared to the overlapping mining areas that target other materials. Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation

Tc-99 Ion Exchange Resin Testing

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was contracted by CHPRC to evaluate the release of 99Tc from spent resin used to treat water from well 299-W15-765 and stored for several years. The key questions to be answered are: 1) does 99Tc readily release from the spent ion exchange resin after being in storage for several years; 2) if hot water stripping is used to remove the co-contaminant carbon tetrachloride, will 99Tc that has been sequestered by the resin be released; and 3) can spent resin be encapsulated into a cementitious waste form; if so, how much 99Tc would be released from the weathering of the monolith waste form? The results from the long term stability leach test results confirm that the resin is not releasing a significant amount of the sequestered 99Tc, evident by the less than 0.02% of the total 99Tc loaded being identified in the solution. Furthermore, it is possible that the measured 99Tc concentration is the result of 99Tc contained in the pore spaces of the resin. In addition to these results, analyses conducted to examine the impact of hot water on the release of 99Tc suggest that only a small percentage of the total is being released. This suggest that hot water stripping to remove carbon tetrachloride will not have a significant affect on the resin’s ability to hold-on to sequestered 99Tc. Finally, encapsulation of spent resin in a cementitious material may be a viable disposal option, but additional tests are needed to examine the extent of physical degradation caused by moisture loss and the effect this degradation process can have on the release of 99Tc

Valoración de la tipificación de canales ovinas como herramienta para mejorar el sistema de comercialización

p.103-111Actualmente existe interés en revitalizar la producción y consumo mundial de carne ovina. Los principales países exportadores de carne ovina realizaron modificaciones en sus sistemas productivos y comerciales para mejorar su posicionamiento en el mercado y la mayoría cuenta con un sistema de clasificación de las canales, lo cual mejora sus condiciones de comercialización. En la Argentina no existe una clasificación oficial de canales ovinas, por lo que cabe preguntarse si la posibilidad de contar con normas que incluyan medidas objetivas de calidad de las canales, podría mejorar la posición de la carne ovina, tanto en el mercado externo como el local. A partir de ello, se propone recoger la opinión de distintos actores involucrados en el sector ovino, respecto a las ventajas y desventajas de la implementación de un sistema oficial de tipificación, como herramienta comercial para aumentar la competitividad de la carne ovina argentina en el mercado local e internacional

Mutations in Bcl9 and Pygo genes cause congenital heart defects by tissue-specific perturbation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling

Bcl9 and Pygopus (Pygo) are obligate Wnt/β-catenin cofactors in Drosophila, yet their contribution to Wnt signaling during vertebrate development remains unresolved. Combining zebrafish and mouse genetics, we document a conserved, β-catenin-associated function for BCL9 and Pygo proteins during vertebrate heart development. Disrupting the β-catenin–BCL9–Pygo complex results in a broadly maintained canonical Wnt response yet perturbs heart development and proper expression of key cardiac regulators. Our work highlights BCL9 and Pygo as selective β-catenin cofactors in a subset of canonical Wnt responses during vertebrate development. Moreover, our results implicate alterations in BCL9 and BCL9L in human congenital heart defects

Experimental Limit to Interstellar 244Pu Abundance

Short-lived nuclides, now extinct in the solar system, are expected to be present in the interstellar medium (ISM). Grains of ISM origin were recently discovered in the inner solar system and at Earth orbit and may accrete onto Earth after ablation in the atmosphere. A favorable matrix for detection of such extraterrestrial material is presented by deep open-sea sediments with very low sedimentation rates (0.8-3 mm/kyr). We report here on the measurement of Pu isotopic abundances in a 1-kg deep-sea dry sediment collected in 1992 in the North Pacific. Our measured value of (3+-3)x10^5 244Pu atoms in the Pu-separated fraction of the sample shows no excess over the expected stratospheric nuclear fallout content and under reasonable assumptions we derive a limit of 2x10^-11 g-244Pu/g-ISM for the abundance of 244Pu in ISM.Comment: 10 p, 1 fig, LateX(AASTeX) Accepted for publication in ApJL, aug 2, 200

Present Status and Future Programs of the n_TOF Experiment

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License 3.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any noncommercial medium, provided the original work is properly citedThe neutron time-of-flight facility n_TOF at CERN, Switzerland, operational since 2001, delivers neutrons using the Proton Synchrotron (PS) 20 GeV/c proton beam impinging on a lead spallation target. The facility combines a very high instantaneous neutron flux, an excellent time of flight resolution due to the distance between the experimental area and the production target (185 meters), a low intrinsic background and a wide range of neutron energies, from thermal to GeV neutrons. These characteristics provide a unique possibility to perform neutron-induced capture and fission cross-section measurements for applications in nuclear astrophysics and in nuclear reactor technology.The most relevant measurements performed up to now and foreseen for the future will be presented in this contribution. The overall efficiency of the experimental program and the range of possible measurements achievable with the construction of a second experimental area (EAR-2), vertically located 20 m on top of the n_TOF spallation target, might offer a substantial improvement in measurement sensitivities. A feasibility study of the possible realisation of the installation extension will be also presented

Critical and direct involvement of the CD23 stalk region in IgE binding

BackgroundThe low-affinity receptor for IgE, FcεRII (CD23), contributes to allergic inflammation through allergen presentation to T cells, regulation of IgE responses, and enhancement of transepithelial allergen migration.ObjectiveWe sought to investigate the interaction between CD23, chimeric monoclonal human IgE, and the corresponding birch pollen allergen Bet v 1 at a molecular level.MethodsWe expressed 4 CD23 variants. One variant comprised the full extracellular portion of CD23, including the stalk and head domain; 1 variant was identical with the first, except for an amino acid exchange in the stalk region abolishing the N-linked glycosylation site; and 2 variants represented the head domain, 1 complete and 1 truncated. The 4 CD23 variants were purified as monomeric and structurally folded proteins, as demonstrated by gel filtration and circular dichroism. By using a human IgE mAb, the corresponding allergen Bet v 1, and a panel of antibodies specific for peptides spanning the CD23 surface, both binding and inhibition assays and negative stain electron microscopy were performed.ResultsA hitherto unknown IgE-binding site was mapped on the stalk region of CD23, and the non–N-glycosylated monomeric version of CD23 was superior in IgE binding compared with glycosylated CD23. Furthermore, we demonstrated that a therapeutic anti-IgE antibody, omalizumab, which inhibits IgE binding to FcεRI, also inhibited IgE binding to CD23.ConclusionOur results provide a new model for the CD23-IgE interaction. We show that the stalk region of CD23 is crucially involved in IgE binding and that the interaction can be blocked by the therapeutic anti-IgE antibody omalizumab