Global peatlands store more carbon than is naturally present in the atmosphere
. However, many peatlands are under pressure from drainage-based agriculture, plantation development and fire, with the ...equivalent of around 3 per cent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gases emitted from drained peatland
. Efforts to curb such emissions are intensifying through the conservation of undrained peatlands and re-wetting of drained systems
. Here we report eddy covariance data for carbon dioxide from 16 locations and static chamber measurements for methane from 41 locations in the UK and Ireland. We combine these with published data from sites across all major peatland biomes. We find that the mean annual effective water table depth (WTD
; that is, the average depth of the aerated peat layer) overrides all other ecosystem- and management-related controls on greenhouse gas fluxes. We estimate that every 10 centimetres of reduction in WTD
could reduce the net warming impact of CO
and CH
emissions (100-year global warming potentials) by the equivalent of at least 3 tonnes of CO
per hectare per year, until WTD
is less than 30 centimetres. Raising water levels further would continue to have a net cooling effect until WTD
is within 10 centimetres of the surface. Our results suggest that greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands drained for agriculture could be greatly reduced without necessarily halting their productive use. Halving WTD
in all drained agricultural peatlands, for example, could reduce emissions by the equivalent of over 1 per cent of global anthropogenic emissions.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK, ZAGLJ
ABSTRACT
Scaling laws of dust, H i gas, and metal mass with stellar mass, specific star formation rate, and metallicity are crucial to our understanding of the build-up of galaxies through their ...enrichment with metals and dust. In this work, we analyse how the dust and metal content varies with specific gas mass (MH i/M⋆) across a diverse sample of 423 nearby galaxies. The observed trends are interpreted with a set of Dust and Element evolUtion modelS (DEUS) – including stellar dust production, grain growth, and dust destruction – within a Bayesian framework to enable a rigorous search of the multidimensional parameter space. We find that these scaling laws for galaxies with −1.0 ≲ log MH i/M⋆ ≲ 0 can be reproduced using closed-box models with high fractions (37–89 ${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$) of supernova dust surviving a reverse shock, relatively low grain growth efficiencies (ϵ = 30–40), and long dust lifetimes (1–2 Gyr). The models have present-day dust masses with similar contributions from stellar sources (50–80 ${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$) and grain growth (20–50 ${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$). Over the entire lifetime of these galaxies, the contribution from stardust (>90 ${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$) outweighs the fraction of dust grown in the interstellar medium (<10 ${{\ \rm per\ cent}}$). Our results provide an alternative for the chemical evolution models that require extremely low supernova dust production efficiencies and short grain growth time-scales to reproduce local scaling laws, and could help solving the conundrum on whether or not grains can grow efficiently in the interstellar medium.
We present a detailed report on sterile neutrino oscillation and 235Uν¯e energy spectrum measurement results from the PROSPECT experiment at the highly enriched High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at ...Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In 96 calendar days of data taken at an average baseline distance of 7.9 m from the center of the 85 MW HFIR core, the PROSPECT detector has observed more than 50,000 interactions of νe produced in beta decays of 235U fission products. New limits on the oscillation of ν¯e to light sterile neutrinos have been set by comparing the detected energy spectra of ten reactor-detector baselines between 6.7 and 9.2 meters. Measured differences in energy spectra between baselines show no statistically significant indication of ν¯e to sterile neutrino oscillation and disfavor the reactor antineutrino anomaly best-fit point at the 2.5σ confidence level. The reported 235U ν¯e energy spectrum measurement shows excellent agreement with energy spectrum models generated via conversion of the measured 235U beta spectrum, with a χ2/d.o.f. of 31/31. PROSPECT is able to disfavor at 2.4σ confidence level the hypothesis that 235U ν¯e are solely responsible for spectrum discrepancies between model and data obtained at commercial reactor cores. A data-model deviation in PROSPECT similar to that observed by commercial core experiments is preferred with respect to no observed deviation, at a 2.2σ confidence level.
Full text
Available for:
CMK, CTK, FMFMET, IJS, NUK, PNG, UM
Many life‐history traits co‐vary across species, even when body size differences are controlled for. This phenomenon has led to the concept of a “fast‐slow continuum,” which has been influential in ...both empirical and theoretical studies of life‐history evolution. We present a comparative analysis of mammalian life histories showing that, for mammals at least, there is not a single fast‐slow continuum. Rather, both across and within mammalian clades, the speed of life varies along at least two largely independent axes when body size effects are removed. One axis reflects how species balance offspring size against offspring number, while the other describes the timing of reproductive bouts.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Analysis of a 60 km segment of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea coast using a time‐series of aerial photography revealed that mean annual erosion rates increased from 6.8 m a−1 (1955 to 1979), to 8.7 m a−1 ...(1979 to 2002), to 13.6 m a−1 (2002 to 2007). We also observed that spatial patterns of erosion have become more uniform across shoreline types with different degrees of ice‐richness. Further, during the remainder of the 2007 ice‐free season 25 m of erosion occurred locally, in the absence of a westerly storm event. Concurrent arctic changes potentially responsible for this shift in the rate and pattern of land loss include declining sea ice extent, increasing summertime sea surface temperature, rising sea‐level, and increases in storm power and corresponding wave action. Taken together, these factors may be leading to a new regime of ocean‐land interactions that are repositioning and reshaping the Arctic coastline.
Full text
Available for:
FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The world's population will reach 10.4 billion in 2067, with 81% residing in Africa or Asia. Arable land available for food production will decrease to 0.15 ha per person. Temperature will increase ...in tropical and temperate zones, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, and this will push growing seasons and dairy farming away from arid areas and into more northern latitudes. Dairy consumption will increase because it provides essential nutrients more efficiently than many other agricultural systems. Dairy farming will become modernized in developing countries and milk production per cow will increase, doubling in countries with advanced dairying systems. Profitability of dairy farms will be the key to their sustainability. Genetic improvements will include emphasis on the coding genome and associated noncoding epigenome of cattle, and on microbiomes of dairy cattle and farmsteads. Farm sizes will increase and there will be greater lateral integration of housing and management of dairy cattle of different ages and production stages. Integrated sensors, robotics, and automation will replace much of the manual labor on farms. Managing the epigenome and microbiome will become part of routine herd management. Innovations in dairy facilities will improve the health of cows and permit expression of natural behaviors. Herds will be viewed as superorganisms, and studies of herds as observational units will lead to improvements in productivity, health, and well-being of dairy cattle, and improve the agroecology and sustainability of dairy farms. Dairy farmers in 2067 will meet the world's needs for essential nutrients by adopting technologies and practices that provide improved cow health and longevity, profitable dairy farms, and sustainable agriculture.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Adding abiraterone acetate with prednisolone (AAP) or docetaxel with prednisolone (DocP) to standard-of-care (SOC) each improved survival in systemic therapy for advanced or metastatic prostate ...cancer: evaluation of drug efficacy: a multi-arm multi-stage platform randomised controlled protocol recruiting patients with high-risk locally advanced or metastatic PCa starting long-term androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The protocol provides the only direct, randomised comparative data of SOC+AAP versus SOC+DocP.
Recruitment to SOC+DocP and SOC+AAP overlapped November 2011 to March 2013. SOC was long-term ADT or, for most non-metastatic cases, ADT for≥2years and RT to the primary tumour. Stratified randomisation allocated pts 2:1:2 to SOC; SOC+docetaxel 75mg/m2 3-weekly×6+prednisolone 10mg daily; or SOC+abiraterone acetate 1000mg+prednisolone 5mg daily. AAP duration depended on stage and intent to give radical RT. The primary outcome measure was death from any cause. Analyses used Cox proportional hazards and flexible parametric models, adjusted for stratification factors. This was not a formally powered comparison. A hazard ratio (HR) <1 favours SOC+AAP, and HR>1 favours SOC+DocP.
A total of 566 consenting patients were contemporaneously randomised: 189 SOC+DocP and 377 SOC+AAP. The patients, balanced by allocated treatment were: 342 (60%) M1; 429 (76%) Gleason 8–10; 449 (79%) WHO performance status 0; median age 66years and median PSA 56ng/ml. With median follow-up 4years, 149 deaths were reported. For overall survival, HR=1.16 (95% CI 0.82–1.65); failure-free survival HR=0.51 (95% CI 0.39–0.67); progression-free survival HR=0.65 (95% CI 0.48–0.88); metastasis-free survival HR=0.77 (95% CI 0.57–1.03); prostate cancer-specific survival HR=1.02 (0.70–1.49); and symptomatic skeletal events HR=0.83 (95% CI 0.55–1.25). In the safety population, the proportion reporting≥1 grade 3, 4 or 5 adverse events ever was 36%, 13% and 1% SOC+DocP, and 40%, 7% and 1% SOC+AAP; prevalence 11% at 1 and 2 years on both arms. Relapse treatment patterns varied by arm.
This direct, randomised comparative analysis of two new treatment standards for hormone-naïve prostate cancer showed no evidence of a difference in overall or prostate cancer-specific survival, nor in other important outcomes such as symptomatic skeletal events. Worst toxicity grade over entire time on trial was similar but comprised different toxicities in line with the known properties of the drugs.
Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT00268476.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Identification, understanding, and manipulation of novel magnetic textures are essential for the discovery of new quantum materials for future spin-based electronic devices. In particular, materials ...that manifest a large response to external stimuli such as a magnetic field are subject to intense investigation. Here, we study the kagome-net magnet YMn6Sn6 by magnetometry, transport, and neutron diffraction measurements combined with first-principles calculations. We identify a number of nontrivial magnetic phases, explain their microscopic nature, and demonstrate that one of them hosts a large topological Hall effect (THE). We propose a previously unidentified fluctuation-driven mechanism, which leads to the THE at elevated temperatures. This interesting physics comes from parametrically frustrated interplanar exchange interactions that trigger strong magnetic fluctuations. Our results pave a path to chiral spin textures, promising for novel spintronics.Identification, understanding, and manipulation of novel magnetic textures are essential for the discovery of new quantum materials for future spin-based electronic devices. In particular, materials that manifest a large response to external stimuli such as a magnetic field are subject to intense investigation. Here, we study the kagome-net magnet YMn6Sn6 by magnetometry, transport, and neutron diffraction measurements combined with first-principles calculations. We identify a number of nontrivial magnetic phases, explain their microscopic nature, and demonstrate that one of them hosts a large topological Hall effect (THE). We propose a previously unidentified fluctuation-driven mechanism, which leads to the THE at elevated temperatures. This interesting physics comes from parametrically frustrated interplanar exchange interactions that trigger strong magnetic fluctuations. Our results pave a path to chiral spin textures, promising for novel spintronics.
Recent analyses suggest that distance residuals measured from Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are correlated with local host galaxy properties within a few kiloparsecs of the SN explosion. However, the ...well-established correlation with global host galaxy properties is nearly as significant, with a shift of 0.06 mag across a low to high mass boundary (the mass step). Here, with 273 SNe Ia at z < 0.1, we investigate whether the stellar masses and rest-frame u − g colors of regions within 1.5 kpc of the SN Ia explosion site are significantly better correlated with SN distance measurements than global properties or properties measured at random locations in SN hosts. At 2 significance, local properties tend to correlate with distance residuals better than properties at random locations, though despite using the largest low-z sample to date, we cannot definitively prove that a local correlation is more significant than a random correlation. Our data hint that SNe observed by surveys that do not target a pre-selected set of galaxies may have a larger local mass step than SNe from surveys that do, an increase of 0.071 0.036 mag (2.0 ). We find a 3 local mass step after global mass correction, evidence that SNe Ia should be corrected for their local mass, but we note that this effect is insignificant in the targeted low-z sample. Only the local mass step remains significant at >2 after global mass correction, and we conservatively estimate a systematic shift in H0 measurements of −0.14 km s−1 Mpc−1 with an additional uncertainty of 0.14 km s−1 Mpc−1, ∼10% of the present uncertainty.
PDF
