The Kap Kbenhavn Formation: A Forested Ecosystem once home to mastodons and reindeer since the 18th century
When the team matched these sequences to databases of genomes from plants and animals, a picture of Kap Kbenhavn emerged two million years ago. The researchers didn’t expect the forests of poplar, spruce and yew trees to be found at lower latitudes, and that they also didn’t expect the shrubs and Birch- tree species to grow in Greenland during that time period.
Two-million-year-old DNA sequences — the oldest ever obtained — recovered from frozen soil in the northeastern tip of Greenland suggest that the region was once home to mastodons and reindeer that roamed a forested ecosystem unlike any now found on Earth. Love Dalén, a palaeogeneticist says it is pretty awesome. Not in a million years, would you expect a mastodon up there? Reindeers were also unheard of in Greenland — suggesting that DNA could reveal much about ecosystems that was not recorded in the fossil record.
Love Dalén is a PhD student in the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm and she was not involved in the study. “Not in a million years would you expect a mastodon up there.”
Willerslev and his team have continually tested the Kap Kbenhavn Sediment as methods for retrieving and sequencing ancient genetic information have improved. They had their first success a couple of years ago. They looked at 16 billion DNA fragments, many of which were contaminated by modern microorganisms, to identify shards of authentic ancient DNA. It is a massive effort, according to Willerslev.
As it turned out, some of those samples had been sitting in a freezer in Copenhagen since 2006, when Willerslev visited northern Greenland looking for ancient human remains. While there, the team collected sediment from the region’s Kap København Formation, a 100-metre-thick deposit of frozen mud and sand that built up around 2 million years ago.
The Nomad Century: How COVID-19 influenced innovation in our planet and how climate change will affect our future. Anne Johnsen, the last thylacine, and Catherine Willerslev, the Tasmanian t
Willerslev thinks his team’s work could say something about how future ecosystems will respond to climate change, as well. It is not possible to predict the ability of organisms to adapt in composition and range.
The last thylacine’s skeleton has been in a museum cupboard for 30 years. The female Tasmanian tiger died in a zoo in 1936. Its remains were stored away and forgotten at the Art Gallery of Australia, after being part of an educational programme. The myth that a male called Benjamin was the last captive died down when the specimen was rediscovered.
The aerosol cloud created by the flushing toilet in a public restroom has been illuminated by lasers. Researchers have reported that lidless toilets can discharge droplets of urine, faeces and potentially infectious diseases over the course of a decade. What wasn’t clear is how quickly and widely the particles spread: within 8 seconds, they shoot up to people’s breathing zone. John hopes the findings will cause toilet redesigns. It couldn’t possibly be worse, he says.
The COVID-19 pandemic inspired innovation at breakneck speed: vaccines developed in less than a year, research grants diverted to urgent projects, and journals publishing relevant research with accelerated turnaround times. The rapid, coordinated, multi-pronged response is a reminder that the standard approach to innovation is not always enough, say scientists.
The staff of science news picks their favourite science books of the year and included a biography of the Milky Way and a portrait of the scientists who study it.
Climate change will cause large parts of the planet to be uninhabitable by the year 2200, says a science writer. She said that the kinds of extremes facing us are unprecedented in human history. She wrote a book called ‘Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World’, which is a kind of manifesto of her solutions for the choices and options we have now to survive that.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04421-w
The Fabric Problem in Science: The Case of a Poster for the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy 2018 International Working Group #ScientistAtWork
Rolled-up paper posters are unwieldy at the airport, so many scientists turn to fabric as a solution, folding it among their clothes. But fabric comes with its own problems. A photo taken by a researcher of a poster for the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy meeting in the United Kingdom in October 2020 was awarded a special prize by the judges of Nature’s #ScientistAtWork photo competition.