Category Archives: Peer Reviewed Article Review

the latest on trees and ecosystem services

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I don’t have to be sold on trees and ecosystem services at this point. Planting a ton of trees in cities, and maintaining them well, should be a priority given what we know at this point. I wish we were doing that and ready to move on to talk about adding other layers of vegetation in cities, and designing networks and corridors to connect urban green infrastructure to neighborhood and regional parks and larger reserves outside the city. We are not there, at least in my city, which is generally viewed as somewhat progressive. Anyway, here are some new papers and resources I have come across while perusing the various Elsevier journals:

Urban Heat Islands in Relation to Green Land Use in European Cities

Effect of native habitat on the cooling ability of six nursery-grown tree species and cultivars for future roadside plantings

The effects of trees on air pollutant levels in peri-urban near-road environments

Carbohydrate dynamics in roots, stems, and branches after maintenance pruning in two common urban tree species of North America

Wetlands and carbon revisited

Every breath you take, every move you make: Visits to the outdoors and physical activity help to explain the relationship between air pollution and subjective wellbeing

Physiological and psychological effects of viewing urban forest landscapes assessed by multiple measurements

freshwater salinization syndrome

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The National Academy of Sciences has a new study out on “freshwater salinization syndrome“. If I understand it correctly, it goes something like this: Air pollution and acid rain leach minerals like calcium out of all the concrete we use for pavement and buildings. All the road salt we apply leaches minerals like calcium out of soil and replaces it with sodium. The result is a lot more minerals like calcium in freshwater, which changes its alkalinity, or in high school science terms, its pH and ability to resist changes in pH.

Salt pollution and human-accelerated weathering are shifting the chemical composition of major ions in fresh water and increasing salinization and alkalinization across North America. We propose a concept, the freshwater salinization syndrome, which links salinization and alkalinization processes. This syndrome manifests as concurrent trends in specific conductance, pH, alkalinity, and base cations. Although individual trends can vary in strength, changes in salinization and alkalinization have affected 37% and 90%, respectively, of the drainage area of the contiguous United States over the past century. Across 232 United States Geological Survey (USGS) monitoring sites, 66% of stream and river sites showed a statistical increase in pH, which often began decades before acid rain regulations. The syndrome is most prominent in the densely populated eastern and midwestern United States, where salinity and alkalinity have increased most rapidly. The syndrome is caused by salt pollution (e.g., road deicers, irrigation runoff, sewage, potash), accelerated weathering and soil cation exchange, mining and resource extraction, and the presence of easily weathered minerals used in agriculture (lime) and urbanization (concrete). Increasing salts with strong bases and carbonates elevate acid neutralizing capacity and pH, and increasing sodium from salt pollution eventually displaces base cations on soil exchange sites, which further increases pH and alkalinization. Symptoms of the syndrome can include: infrastructure corrosion, contaminant mobilization, and variations in coastal ocean acidification caused by increasingly alkaline river inputs. Unless regulated and managed, the freshwater salinization syndrome can have significant impacts on ecosystem services such as safe drinking water, contaminant retention, and biodiversity.

It’s a little ironic that this is happening to fresh water at the same time we are worried about ocean acidification. There is also a larger context to me though – even if our waters meet numerical standards we set for water quality, they just don’t have the same chemistry, biology, or links to the land that they used to. This would still happen even if we were able to eliminate all pollution that is directly toxic to aquatic life.

cities and gamification

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This article is about applying gamification to the planning and running of cities.

Cities and the politics of gamification

Gamification is widely intended as the mobilisation and implementation of game elements in extra-ludic situations, including the management of social problems and issues. By mobilising virtual rewards and playful elements, mobile apps, websites, social initiatives and even urban policies are getting more and more gamified. The aim of this viewpoint paper is to stimulate a critical discussion on the potential relationships between gamification processes and cities, particularly by reflecting on the cultures of gamification and by discussing potential lines of research for urban studies.

more on gene circuits

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This is pretty dense, but what it is talking about is the idea of programming genes like circuits.

Enzyme-free nucleic acid dynamical systems

Abstract chemical reaction networks have been proposed as a programming language for complex dynamics, along with their systematic implementation using short synthetic DNA molecules. We developed this technology for dynamical systems by identifying critical design principles and codifying them into a compiler automating the design process. Using this approach, we built an oscillator containing only DNA components, establishing that Watson-Crick base-pairing interactions alone suffice for complex chemical dynamics and that autonomous molecular systems can be designed via molecular programming languages.

BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN URBAN GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING

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I like this article from Italy a lot because it represents a practical approach to focusing on ecosystem services in urban areas.

BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN URBAN GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING: A CASE STUDY FROM THE METROPOLITAN AREA OF ROME (ITALY)

Target 2 of the European Biodiversity Strategy promotes the maintenance and enhancement of ecosystem services < (ES) as well as the restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems by creating green infrastructure (GI). The purpose of the this research is to present a GI proposal that combines the delivery of regulating services with the restoration and ecological reconnection of urban forests and trees in a densely urbanised context.

The project area covers about 3 000 ha in the urban sector of the metropolitan area of Rome and the GI components consist of 533 ha of areal green spaces and of more than 500 km of road verges. Planned interventions include forest restoration and tree plantations, with a varying service supply according to type and condition of the different components. Potential natural vegetation (PNV) models and dispersal potential of representative forest species, together with structural and functional vegetation models for the enhancement of air pollutants removal, guided the selection of the species to be promoted and of the planting pattern. Environmental benefits of the proposal include more than 30 ha of restored urban forests, about 15 000 planted individuals of native oaks, a sevenfold improvement in ecological connectivity and halved isolation between green spaces. On the other hand, the expected socio-economic benefits include almost 300 000 potential beneficiaries of the improved air quality and avoided costs for damages to human health that range between 40 700 and 130 200 EUR per year.

Notwithstanding their preliminary character, these estimates allowed the proposal to highlight the relationship between GI and public health. Moreover, they showed the economic and social effectiveness of nature-based solutions in comparison with further development of grey infrastructure. These results promote the definition of a national GI strategy in Italy.

electroshock therapy for the brain

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Someday you might be able to have a device implanted in your brain which can give it a little electric shock each time it is thinking about reaching for that junk food. This has just been treid in mice.

Closing the loop on impulsivity via nucleus accumbens delta-band activity in mice and man

Reward hypersensitization is a common feature of neuropsychiatric disorders, manifesting as impulsivity for anticipated incentives. Temporally specific changes in activity within the nucleus accumbens (NAc), which occur during anticipatory periods preceding consummatory behavior, represent a critical opportunity for intervention. However, no available therapy is capable of automatically sensing and therapeutically responding to this vulnerable moment in time when anticipation-related neural signals may be present. To identify translatable biomarkers for an off-the-shelf responsive neurostimulation system, we record local field potentials from the NAc of mice and a human anticipating conventional rewards. We find increased power in 1- to 4-Hz oscillations predominate during reward anticipation, which can effectively trigger neurostimulation that reduces consummatory behavior in mice sensitized to highly palatable food. Similar oscillations are present in human NAc during reward anticipation, highlighting the translational potential of our findings in the development of a treatment for a major unmet need.

Maybe pedophiles could be given this option in exchange for getting out of jail. Or maybe it won’t be an option. Maybe it could be implanted at birth and used, just as an example, if someone is thinking of pulling the wrong lever in a voting booth.

RFID vital signs monitoring

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Heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and breathing can now be monitored remotely using a simple RFID chip.

Monitoring the heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate and breath effort of a patient is critical to managing their care, but current approaches are limited in terms of sensing capabilities and sampling rates. The measurement process can also be uncomfortable due to the need for direct skin contact, which can disrupt the circadian rhythm and restrict the motion of the patient. Here we show that the external and internal mechanical motion of a person can be directly modulated onto multiplexed radiofrequency signals integrated with unique digital identification using near-field coherent sensing. The approach, which does not require direct skin contact, offers two possible implementations: passive and active radiofrequency identification tags. To minimize deployment and maintenance cost, passive tags can be integrated into garments at the chest and wrist areas, where the two multiplexed far-field backscattering waveforms are collected at the reader to retrieve the heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate and breath effort. To maximize reading range and immunity to multipath interference caused by indoor occupant motion, active tags could be placed in the front pocket and in the wrist cuff to measure the antenna reflection due to near-field coherent sensing and then the vital signals sampled and transmitted entirely in digital format. Our system is capable of monitoring multiple people simultaneously and could lead to the cost-effective automation of vital sign monitoring in care facilities.

Sounds good, as long as they don’t make us wear these walking through airport security. But come to think of it, that could definitely happen.

What are the trends in ecology and evolution for 2018?

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The journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution does an annual “Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation and Biological Diversity”. I can only see the abstract so here is the one sentence describing the trends:

The issues highlighted span a wide range of fields and include thiamine deficiency in wild animals, the geographic expansion of chronic wasting disease, genetic control of invasive mammal populations and the effect of culturomics on conservation science, policy and action.

I was new to the term culturomics, and thought it might have something to do with synthesizing new compounds in giant vats of yogurt. But no, according to Wikipedia it is not that kind of culture, but relates to search and synthesis algorithms for scientific articles, which does indeed seem to be a recurring theme on this blog lately.

Culturomics is a form of computational lexicology that studies human behavior and cultural trends through the quantitative analysis of digitized texts.[1][2] Researchers data mine large digital archives to investigate cultural phenomena reflected in language and word usage.[3] The term is an American neologism first described in a 2010 Science article called Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books, co-authored by Harvard researchers Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden.[4]

At that point, I just needed to figure out what a neologism was, so I looked it up in Webster’s 1913 which some people say is the most artfully written dictionary:

Ne*ol”o*gism (?), n. [Cf. F. néologisme.]

1. The introduction of new words, or the use of old words in a new sense. Mrs. Browning.

2. A new word, phrase, or expression.

3. A new doctrine; specifically, rationalism.

Mrs. Browning? Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a long poem called Aurora Leigh which contains the word. And no, I wouldn’t have learned that if I had looked up neologism in the New Oxford American Dictionary.

I learnt my complement of classic French
(Kept pure of Balzac and neologism,)
And German also, since she liked a range
Of liberal education,–tongues, not books.
I learnt a little algebra, a little
Of the mathematics,–brushed with extreme flounce
The circle of the sciences, because
She misliked women who are frivolous.

It goes on like that. Forever.

Oh okay, one more, here is the definition of flounce in Webster’s 1913:

Flounce, v. t. To deck with a flounce or flounces; as, to flounce a petticoat or a frock.

Flounce, n. [Cf. G. flaus, flausch, a tuft of wool or hair; akin to vliess, E.fleece; or perh. corrupted fr. rounce.] An ornamental appendage to the skirt of a woman’s dress, consisting of a strip gathered and sewed on by its upper edge around the skirt, and left hanging.

Flounce (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p.Flounced (flounst); p. pr. & vb. n.Flouncing(?).] [Cf. OSw. flunsa to immerge.] To throw the limbs and body one way and the other; to spring, turn, or twist with sudden effort or violence; to struggle, as a horse in mire; to flounder; to throw one’s self with a jerk or spasm, often as in displeasure.

To flutter and flounce will do nothing but batter and bruise us.

Barrow.

With his broad fins and forky tail he laves
The rising sirge, and flounces in the waves.

Addison.

“Sirge” I think is an old-timey spelling of “surge”. And if you look up “surge” in this dictionary, its usage is quite interesting and you want to go on. But that’s it for me.

 

Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, and open science

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Wired talks about how Google Scholar is changing the academic publishing industry as open science starts to take hold, and how Microsoft Academic might be an even better search engine. There are also a lot of other emerging search engines out there, which the article goes into.

I use Google Scholar quite a bit, even though Google sort of stopped advertising it and makes you go through a couple extra clicks to get to it. I didn’t know Microsoft Academic or most of these other tools existed.

should we intentionally seed life on other planets?

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Some bacteria have been found surviving on the outside of the International Space Station. Tardigrades are an even hardier form of microbe that can supposedly survive even close to absolute zero. They can essentially go dormant in a state very, very near death, then bounce back if and when they find themselves in suitable conditions later on. There is even speculation that life on Earth could have arrived from space in a form like this, and/or life forms originating on Earth could be living on other planets right now.

Space dust collisions as a planetary escape mechanism (In press Astrobiology, 2017)

Hypervelocity space dust is a unique entity in planetary systems like our Solar System, which is able to go past and enter the atmosphere of planets, collect samples of those planets and deposit samples of other planets. The entire system of fast space dust in a planetary system thus contains the atoms, molecules and possibly even microbial life, from all the planets and provides a means to mix them up amongst the different planets. For collecting atoms and molecules that form atmospheres, the mechanism proposed in this paper is fairly straightforward. For collecting life and life related molecules this mechanism has interesting features, but many detailed issues would still need to be studied. The violent collisions involved in this mechanism could make it difficult for life to remain intact. There are several possible collision scenarios that would all need to be explored to get a definitive answer to this problem. But even if life itself does not remain intact, it could still permit the complex molecules associated with life to get propelled into space, and that is also interesting for the panspermia process. Since space dust is ubiquitous all over the Solar System and is believed to exist in interstellar and probably intergalactic space, the mechanism proposed in this paper for propelling small particles into space could provide a universal mechanism both for the exchange of the atomic and molecular constituents between distant planetary atmospheres and for initiating the first step of the panspermia process.

According to Wikipedia, panspermia is “the hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by meteoroids, asteroids, comets,[1] planetoids,[2] and also by spacecraft in the form of unintended contamination by microorganisms.”

Of course there is still the Fermi Paradox – if life is so common, why haven’t we been able to find any evidence of it, anywhere, even once? There are ethical implications of all this. We would like to perpetuate our human species and current form of civilization, of course, and that means getting into space eventually. But if we don’t manage to pull that off, and all life on Earth is wiped out for one reason or another, panspermia means that life exists elsewhere, and somewhere, sometime, intelligent life will evolve again if it hasn’t already. But if there is absolutely no life anywhere else in the universe, the loss of it on Earth would mean the end of all life forever. That would be too heavy a burden to bear, and would mean we have a strong ethical obligation to get some self-sustaining human colonies out into space as an insurance policy. But there could be a cheaper form of insurance policy – intentionally contaminate space and nearby planets with hardy germs from Earth, and in a few billion years something will survive and evolve, somewhere, into something. Do this enough and again, eventually you will have intelligent life somewhere. But finally, if it turns out there is life on other nearby planets, even very primitive life, then intentionally contaminating them with our germs would not seem like such an ethical thing to do after all.