The spreading of the invasive sacred ibis in Italy

The spreading of invasive species in new continents can vary from slow and limited diffusion to fast colonisations over vast new areas. We studied the sacred ibis Threskiornis aethiopicus along a 31-year period, from 1989 to 2019, with particular attention to the first area of release in NW Italy. We collected data on species distribution through observations by citizen science projects, population density by transects with distance method, breeding censuses at colonies, and post breeding censuses at roosts. The birds counted at winter roosts in NW Italy increased from a few tens up to 10,880 individuals in 2019. Sacred ibises started breeding in 1989, with a single nest in north-western Italy. The number of breeders remained very low until 2006, when both overwintering and breeding sacred ibises started to increase exponentially and expand their range throughout northern Italy with isolated breeding cases in central Italy. In 2019, the number of nests had increased to 1249 nests in 31 colonies. In NW Italy, the density of foraging birds averaged 3.9 ind./km2 in winter and 1.5 ind./km2 in the breeding period, with a mean size of the foraging groups of 8.9 and 2.1 birds respectively. Direct field observations and species distribution models (SDM) showed that foraging habitats were mainly rice fields and wetlands. A SDM applied to the whole Italian peninsula plus Sardinia and Sicily showed that the variables best related to the SDM were land class (rice fields and wetlands), altitude, and the temperature seasonality. The areas favourable for species expansion encompass all the plains of Northern Italy, and several areas of Tuscany, Latium, Sardinia, and Apulia

Progress towards measuring the fall of antimatter in Earth's gravitational field

The AEgIS (Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) experiment, located at the Antimatter Factory at CERN, aims to study the asymmetry between matter and antimatter. In particular, its first goal is to measure the effect of gravity on antimatter. The method chosen is to determine the fall of a pulsed beam of anti-hydrogen, caused by the Earth's gravitational field, by mean of a moiré deflectometer. In this contribution the new anti-hydrogen production scheme is presented, together with the improvements that the experimental setup underwent in the last years, deemed necessary in order to reach an antihydrogen flux with the characteristics needed to obtain a precise gravity measurement. Last, the first technical results are described and the future steps outlined

Main performance results of the EDEN ISS rack-like plant growth facility

Plant cultivation in large-scale closed environments is challenging and several key technologies necessary for space-based plant production are not yet space-qualified or remain in early stages of development. The Horizon2020 EDEN ISS project aims at development and demonstration of higher plant cultivation technologies, suitable for near term deployment on the International Space Station (ISS) and from a long-term perspective, within Moon and Mars habitats. The EDEN ISS consortium, as part of the performed activities, has designed and built a plant cultivation system to have form, fit and function of an European Drawer Rack 2 (EDR II) payload, with a modularity that would allow its incremental installation in the ISS homonymous rack, occupying from one-quarter rack to the full system. The construction phase is completed, and the developed system is being tested in a laboratory environment, planned for further validation at the highly-isolated German Antarctic Neumayer Station III, in a container-sized test facility to provide realistic mass flow relationships and interaction with a crewed environment. This paper describes the system as built and the key results of the first ISPR plant growth facility laboratory tests

Status of the EDEN ISS Rack-like food production unit after five months in Antarctica

Plant cultivation in large-scale closed environments is challenging and several key technologies necessary for space-based plant production are not yet space-qualified or remain in early stages of development. The Horizon2020 EDEN ISS project aims at development and demonstration of higher plant cultivation technologies, suitable for near term deployment on the International Space Station (ISS) and from a long-term perspective, within Moon and Mars habitats. The EDEN ISS consortium, as part of the performed activities, has designed and built a plant cultivation system to have form, fit and function of an European Drawer Rack 2 (EDR II) payload, with a modularity that would allow its incremental installation in the ISS homonymous rack, occupying from one-quarter rack to the full system. The developed system has been completed and tested in a laboratory environment in early 2017. The system was then integrated and tested at DLR Bremen into the main transport container (MTF). In the last 5 months the system was operated also in the highly-isolated German Antarctic Neumayer Station III, in the container-sized test facility to provide realistic mass flow relationships and interaction with a crewed environment. This paper describes the key results of the Bremen test phase as well as initial ISPR plant growth facility tests in Antarctica as space-analogue environment

Redox thermodynamics of cytochrome c adsorbed on mercaptoundecanol monolayer electrodes

The redox potentials E-0\ub4 of bovine cytochrome c adsorbed on an 11-mercapto-1-undecanol/Au self-assembled monolayer electrode were studied through direct electrochemistry as a function of the temperature in non-isothermal experiments carried out in the presence of different anions and changes of the ionic strength. The thermodynamic parameters for protein reduction (DeltaH(rc)(0\ub4) and DeltaS(rc)(0\ub4)) re were determined for adsorbed and solution cytochrome and the differences in E-0\ub4 discussed in terms of the enthalpic and entropic contributions. The adsorption process seems to remove the ability of perchlorate anion to bind to the protein surface, while a certain direct interaction is still retained in the case of chloride and phosphate. A moderate increase in E-0\ub4 of adsorbed cytochrome was measured at increasing ionic strength and discussed in the light of the opposite effect observed for solution protein

Mutations at position 1122 in the catalytic domain of the mouse ras-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor CDC25Mm originate both loss-of-function and gain-of-function proteins

AbstractThe role of two residues within the catalytic domain of CDC25Mm, a mouse ras-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF), was investigated by site-directed mutagenesis. The function of the mutant proteins was tested in vivo in both a Saccharomyces cerevisiae cdc25 complementation assay and in a mammalian fos-luciferase assay, and in in vitro assays on human and yeast Ras proteins. Mutants CDC25MmE1048K and CDC25MmS1122V were shown to be (partly) inactive proteins, similar to their yeast homologs. Mutant CDC25MmS1122A showed higher nucleotide exchange activity than the wild type protein on the basis of both in vitro and in vivo assays. Thus, alanine and valine substitutions at position 1122 within the GEF catalytic domain originate mutations with opposite biological properties, indicating an important role for position 1122 in GEF function

Oxygen Regeneration by Algae Cultivation in Photo-Bioreactor for ISS Cabin Technology Demonstrator

International audienceOxygen regeneration from ambient carbon dioxide is a fundamental technology building block for future life support systems for space applications. BIORAT1 Phase B2 project consists in the development of the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) level design of an On Board Demonstrator (OBD) to be hosted in European Drawer Rack 2(EDR2) facility on board of the ISS. The core of the OBD is a Photo-Bioreactor (PBR) filled with spirulina (Limnospira indica PCC 8005) producing oxygen from carbon dioxide and light by photosynthesis. A Liquid Loop (LL) transports the oxygen & carbon dioxide dissolved into the cultivation medium liquid between the Photobioreactor (PBR) and the ISS cabin ambient air. The Gas Exchange Module (GEM) enables the exchange of Oxygen & Carbon Dioxyde separates the cultivation medium liquid to the ambient air while keeping the liquid inside the LL. The design of this flight hardware is supported by tests results obtained with a Bread Board Model (BBM). In this paper, we present the results of the long duration spirulina cultivation test performed with the BBM. allowing verification of the long term functionality of the PBR & LL including the GEM. The PBR performances together with correlation to the model of the cultivated algae growth and oxygen production are presented. Future development and expected results and perspectives are also presented and discussed