A non-land policy for global sustainable land use?

What are new ways and future options for the international governance of sustainable land use? Effective policies towards more sustainable land use should not only deal with land and soil. These policies need to address various drivers and different contexts in an integrated manner

Hydration Repulsion Effects of the Formation of Supported Lipid Bylayers

When zwitterionic lipids fuse onto substrates such as silica (SiO2), the water of hydration between the two approaching surfaces must be removed, giving rise to an effective hydration repulsion. Removal of water around the polar headgroups of the lipid and the silanols (SiOH) of SiO2 allows supported lipid bilayer (SLB) formation, although an interstitial water layer remains between the lipid and surface. The importance of hydration repulsion in SLB formation is demonstrated by monitoring fusion of zwitterionic lipids onto silica (SiO2) nanoparticles heat treated to control the silanol group (SiOH) density and thus the amount of bound water. SLB formation, observed by cryo-TEM and nanodifferential scanning calorimetry, was found to be slower for the more hydrated surfaces. Although the SiOH density decreased with increasing heat treatment temperature, z-potentials were the same for all the SiO2. This arose since at the pH ¼ 8 of the experiments, only isolated silanols, with a pKa ¼ 4.9, and not hydrogen bonded silanols, with a pKa ¼ 8.5, were dissociated/charged.1 Since there were no differences in double layer forces between the SUVs and SiO2, which are the largest and most important interactions determining lipid fusion onto surfaces,2,3 the slower rate of SLB formation of DMPC onto SiO2 nanoparticles with higher silanol densities and more bound water was therefore attributed to greater hydration repulsion of the more hydrated nanoparticles. For SiO2 heated to 1000 °C, with only a few isolated silanols, little adsorbed water and many hydrophobic Si–O–Si groups, particle aggregation occurred and lipid sheaths formed around the nanoparticle aggregates

Systems maps and analytical framework. Mapping food waste drivers across the food supply chain

This report generated 17 systems maps for five contrasting product types that were investigated along their supply chains. The system maps identify: (1) Product specific drivers: drivers specific to the selected food products at a specific stage of the supply chain); (2) Generic drivers: drivers which concern two or more selected products (e.g. labelling errors, limited shelf life etc.); (3) Systemic drivers: drivers that are interlinked with more than one step of the supply chain (e.g. minimum orders, last minute cancellation, lack of data and communication, minimum life on receipt criteria etc.). The cross cutting systemic drivers emphasized supply chain issues, e.g. regarding notably the interactions between the different businesses and unfair trading practices. The systems map approach also shed light on two key factors that impact drivers according to the product specificity: (1) Impacts of food waste drivers highly depend on the level of perishability and microbiological risk of food products. For example, less perishable food products such as frozen and canned products are more likely to be wasted because of product damage, labelling errors and/or equipment breakdown. More perishable and higher risk food products are more likely to be wasted when approaching the \u201cbest before\u201d date or because of supply and demand imbalances and poor information sharing along the supply chain. (2) Lack of communication and cooperation is a central drivers of food waste. The impacts of these are higher in more complex products/supply chains where trouble with one ingredient affects the whole product (e.g. prepared meals). Finally, the systems mapping shed light on drivers which were \u201chiding\u201d behind other drivers. For example, the question of date labelling is a well-known cause of waste for perishable products, but very often there are further drivers behind it (e.g. overstocking in the retail sector)

Tree rings reveal globally coherent signature of cosmogenic radiocarbon events in 774 and 993 CE

This study was funded by the WSL-internal COSMIC project (5233.00148.001.01), the ETHZ (Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF Grant 200021L_157187/1), and as the Czech Republic Grant Agency project no. 17-22102s.Though tree-ring chronologies are annually resolved, their dating has never been independently validated at the global scale. Moreover, it is unknown if atmospheric radiocarbon enrichment events of cosmogenic origin leave spatiotemporally consistent fingerprints. Here we measure the 14C content in 484 individual tree rings formed in the periods 770–780 and 990–1000 CE. Distinct 14C excursions starting in the boreal summer of 774 and the boreal spring of 993 ensure the precise dating of 44 tree-ring records from five continents. We also identify a meridional decline of 11-year mean atmospheric radiocarbon concentrations across both hemispheres. Corroborated by historical eye-witness accounts of red auroras, our results suggest a global exposure to strong solar proton radiation. To improve understanding of the return frequency and intensity of past cosmic events, which is particularly important for assessing the potential threat of space weather on our society, further annually resolved 14C measurements are needed.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Detectable clonal mosaicism and its relationship to aging and cancer

In an analysis of 31,717 cancer cases and 26,136 cancer-free controls from 13 genome-wide association studies, we observed large chromosomal abnormalities in a subset of clones in DNA obtained from blood or buccal samples. We observed mosaic abnormalities, either aneuploidy or copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity, of >2 Mb in size in autosomes of 517 individuals (0.89%), with abnormal cell proportions of between 7% and 95%. In cancer-free individuals, frequency increased with age, from 0.23% under 50 years to 1.91% between 75 and 79 years (P = 4.8 × 10(-8)). Mosaic abnormalities were more frequent in individuals with solid tumors (0.97% versus 0.74% in cancer-free individuals; odds ratio (OR) = 1.25; P = 0.016), with stronger association with cases who had DNA collected before diagnosis or treatment (OR = 1.45; P = 0.0005). Detectable mosaicism was also more common in individuals for whom DNA was collected at least 1 year before diagnosis with leukemia compared to cancer-free individuals (OR = 35.4; P = 3.8 × 10(-11)). These findings underscore the time-dependent nature of somatic events in the etiology of cancer and potentially other late-onset diseases