scientificamerican--2020-08-12--America Is Preparing for the Wrong Arctic Crisis

In late July , the Trump Administration appointed James DeHart as the first U.S .
Coordinator for the Arctic .
A career member of the Senior Foreign Service , Mr. DeHart has spent much of his 28-year career working to resolve conflict .
He led the U.S .
Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan , directed the State Department ’ s Office of Afghanistan Affairs , and most recently as the top U.S. negotiator in defense cost-sharing talks with South Korea .
While Mr. DeHart ’ s post as Deputy Chief of Mission in Oslo provides him with three years of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expertise in armed competition and great power diplomacy that has gained attention .
His appointment follows an unusually combative speech made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at last year ’ s Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Finland .
Marking a stark departure from the traditional conciliatory remarks of past secretaries , Secretary Pompeo detailed the dangers of Chinese investment and Russian military mobilization to US national interest in the region , and issued a stern warning to Russia and China : respect American interests in the Arctic , or face the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem : in the Arctic , cooperation consistently prevails over conflict .
It ’ s a region where transnational governance is based on dialogue , mutual interest and respect for Indigenous rights .
The U.N. Law of the Sea dictates who owns what , and the Arctic Council remains an active forum for cooperation , coordination and interaction amongst all Arctic states .
Even as tensions simmer between Russia , the West and China further south , the North continues to prove itself to be a place where risk of conflict is minimal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cold War in the Arctic , the area is witnessing an equally catastrophic crisis : climate change .
The northern polar region is warming at about three times the rate of the rest of the world .
This July , Arctic sea ice hit an all-time low .
In June , heat waves rippled across the area , with the Siberian Arctic town of Verkhoyansk recording an all-time high for the Arctic Circle of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit .
And Arctic wildfires now rage so fiercely that they have burned from one summer through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without dying .
Climate change is not some distant threat in the North .
It is already an everyday , life-threatening reality .
The four million people who call the Arctic home live in a continual state of emergency , facing threats to their family ’ s health , to their food security and to local economies that support global fishing , mining and shipping industries .
DeHart ’ s impressive capabilities of negotiating status of force and defense cooperation is critical to lead in conflict-torn regions like Central Asia .
It does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a region where climate change , not armed conflict , is the number one threat .
With a vacuum of leadership , inadequate investment and no strategic vision for the region ’ s future , the United States is often described as a reluctant Arctic nation .
The U.S. can not afford to maintain its ambivalence toward the Arctic in a rapidly warming world .
We need a whole-of-government approach to address today ’ s economic , emergency response , and human security challenges .
I argued as much in testimony before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fall .
But we do not have time for a U.S. arctic coordinator who has to learn on the job .
We need leadership driven by regional expertise , experience and respect—someone who not only understands Arctic-specific challenges like thawing permafrost and sea ice melt but can also lead regional cooperation amidst these increasingly common climate disasters .
Such seasoned Arctic leaders already exist in the many well-qualified Alaska Native diplomats who serve in Indigenous people ’ s organizations that have Permanent Participant status at the Arctic Council .
These leaders already represent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand the gravity of climate impacts and make informed policy decisions based on the nuanced , localized knowledge that comes from living in the Arctic .
Past and current U.S. chairs of organizations like the Inuit Circumpolar Council ; Gwich ’ in Council International ; and Aleut International Association offer a robust pool of capable candidates to coordinate U.S. Arctic policy .
These individuals can build a more inclusive dialogue on diplomacy , policy and government investment in and for the Arctic , and ensure that decisions made in Washington , DC are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change impacts that are already costing billions of dollars in damages , devastating family livelihoods and inflicting irreplaceable cultural loss further north .
In his first public appearance as U.S. coordinator for the Arctic region , DeHart noted that “ 80 percent of success is showing up.
” But we need more from our leaders than just showing up .
We need our leaders to act , ambitiously and boldly , to define America ’ s role in the North .
By choosing DeHart to lead U.S. Arctic policy , we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a time when the region is undergoing abrupt and dangerous climate changes , it ’ s a mistake we can not afford to make .

In late July, the Trump Administration appointed James DeHart as the first U.S. Coordinator for the Arctic. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Mr. DeHart has spent much of his 28-year career working to resolve conflict. He led the U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan, directed the State Department’s Office of Afghanistan Affairs, and most recently as the top U.S. negotiator in defense cost-sharing talks with South Korea.
While Mr. DeHart’s post as Deputy Chief of Mission in Oslo provides him with three years of Arctic experience, it’s his expertise in armed competition and great power diplomacy that has gained attention. His appointment follows an unusually combative speech made by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at last year’s Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Finland. Marking a stark departure from the traditional conciliatory remarks of past secretaries, Secretary Pompeo detailed the dangers of Chinese investment and Russian military mobilization to U.S. national interest in the region, and issued a stern warning to Russia and China: respect American interests in the Arctic, or face the consequences.
There’s just one problem: in the Arctic, cooperation consistently prevails over conflict. It’s a region where transnational governance is based on dialogue, mutual interest and respect for Indigenous rights. The U.N. Law of the Sea dictates who owns what, and the Arctic Council remains an active forum for cooperation, coordination and interaction amongst all Arctic states. Even as tensions simmer between Russia, the West and China further south, the North continues to prove itself to be a place where risk of conflict is minimal.
Yet while there is no new Cold War in the Arctic, the area is witnessing an equally catastrophic crisis: climate change. The northern polar region is warming at about three times the rate of the rest of the world. This July, Arctic sea ice hit an all-time low. In June, heat waves rippled across the area, with the Siberian Arctic town of Verkhoyansk recording an all-time high for the Arctic Circle of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. And Arctic wildfires now rage so fiercely that they have burned from one summer through the winter and into the next summer without dying.
Climate change is not some distant threat in the North. It is already an everyday, life-threatening reality. The four million people who call the Arctic home live in a continual state of emergency, facing threats to their family’s health, to their food security and to local economies that support global fishing, mining and shipping industries. DeHart’s impressive capabilities of negotiating status of force and defense cooperation is critical to lead in conflict-torn regions like Central Asia. It does not prepare him to coordinate U.S. policy in a region where climate change, not armed conflict, is the number one threat.
With a vacuum of leadership, inadequate investment and no strategic vision for the region’s future, the United States is often described as a reluctant Arctic nation. The U.S. cannot afford to maintain its ambivalence toward the Arctic in a rapidly warming world. We need a whole-of-government approach to address today’s economic, emergency response, and human security challenges. I argued as much in testimony before the House Committee of Homeland Security last fall.
But we do not have time for a U.S. Arctic coordinator who has to learn on the job. We need leadership driven by regional expertise, experience and respect—someone who not only understands Arctic-specific challenges like thawing permafrost and sea ice melt but can also lead regional cooperation amidst these increasingly common climate disasters. Such seasoned Arctic leaders already exist in the many well-qualified Alaska Native diplomats who serve in Indigenous people’s organizations that have Permanent Participant status at the Arctic Council. These leaders already represent U.S. citizens in Arctic Council negotiations, understand the gravity of climate impacts and make informed policy decisions based on the nuanced, localized knowledge that comes from living in the Arctic.
Past and current U.S. chairs of organizations like the Inuit Circumpolar Council; Gwich’in Council International; and Aleut International Association offer a robust pool of capable candidates to coordinate U.S. Arctic policy. These individuals can build a more inclusive dialogue on diplomacy, policy and government investment in and for the Arctic, and ensure that decisions made in Washington, DC, are made with reference to addressing the climate change impacts that are already costing billions of dollars in damages, devastating family livelihoods and inflicting irreplaceable cultural loss further north.
In his first public appearance as U.S. coordinator for the Arctic region, DeHart noted that “80 percent of success is showing up.” But we need more from our leaders than just showing up. We need our leaders to act, ambitiously and boldly, to define America’s role in the North. By choosing DeHart to lead U.S. Arctic policy, we’re preparing for the wrong threat. At a time when the region is undergoing abrupt and dangerous climate changes, it’s a mistake we cannot afford to make.


scientificamerican--2020-08-12--Women in Science May Suffer Lasting Career Damage from COVID-19

On a recent weeknight , biochemist and postdoctoral researcher Emilia Arturo read to her two children , tucked them into bed , then slipped into her car and drove 15 minutes to the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California , arriving just after 10 P.M .
In the lab , Arturo prepared grids of viral proteins to better visualize a particular pathogen—a type of arenavirus—and discover how to neutralize it .
She did not leave until nearly 4 A.M .
Although Arturo regularly pulled all-nighters as a graduate student , she is not a night owl by nature .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ one to get her work done .
Arturo is a single parent with no in-state relatives , and with summer camps offering significantly reduced hours , the only time she can count on help from her live-in partner is overnight .
These nights are so exhausting that “ I can only handle three of [ them ] in a week , ” she says .
Stories like Arturo ’ s are becoming common .
Early research shows the pandemic is hitting female scientists especially hard as more people are forced to work from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and support systems—perform a disproportionate amount of familial duties , such as caring for children .
The research , while unsurprising , raises concerns that COVID-19 could set back women in science significantly .
If school and childcare facilities remain closed in the coming months , their careers could be derailed .
One recent study , for example , tallied the apparent gender of U.S.-affiliated authors of nearly 1,900 novel-coronavirus-related medical papers published this year , as well as those of more than 85,000 papers published in the same journals last year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to COVID-19 in order to home in on work done after the pandemic disruptions began , says Reshma Jagsi , an oncologist at the University of Michigan and a co-author of the study , which was published in June in eLife .
Jagsi and her colleagues found that the proportion of papers with first authors who were women was 19 percent smaller in 2020 than it was in 2019 .
The percentage of female last authors ( who are typically senior-level scientists ) was also 5 percent lower this year .
Jagsi says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic is impacting women more than men in science .
But “ particularly compelling is the fact that , in a society that still embraces a gendered division of domestic labor , women with children may have been affected disproportionately by school closures and limited access to childcare , ” she says .
A recent Understanding America Study survey backs up Jagsi ’ s assertion : of the 5,900 adults surveyed , 33 percent of employed mothers responded that they have been primarily responsible for providing childcare during COVID-19 school closures , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fathers .
A May analysis of more than 300,000 preprint papers and registered reports ( descriptions of planned studies ) across all fields of science found a similar pattern of women being left out of recent research : they made up a smaller percentage of first authors in the early months of 2020 than they did during the same months last year .
That finding is significant , because first authors are typically early-career scientists—and those who are women are more likely to be mothers of small children , says Cassidy Sugimoto , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information scientist at Indiana University Bloomington .
And a recent survey of more than 4,500 U.S.- and Europe-based scientists—distributed approximately one month after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic—revealed that female scientists report having less time to spend on research than male scientists : the difference was about five percentage points .
The study was published in Nature Human Behaviour .
“ The pandemic has involved much more than simply forcing scientists to work from home , ” says Kyle Myers , a co-author of the survey of U.S. and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Business School .
“ It has forced them to manage childcare in new ways , prevented serendipitous conversations in the office hallways , and limited their ability to attend conferences or work at field sites or access certain equipment.
” For Arturo , lost lab hours have meant having to take on fewer projects—and fewer high-risk , high-reward endeavors that might set her apart from others .
She has also had less time to collaborate with peers and mentors .
“ [ Postdoctoral researchers ] are supposed to not just publish but also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ network , ” she says .
“ I have zero time to do that.
” Arturo adds that she began her postdoctoral position with the goal of landing an independent research assignment , “ where I might run my own lab as a principal investigator.
” About a month ago , however , “ I realized I have no chance of running my own lab , ” she says .
“ I can ’ t keep up with people.
” Crystal D. Rogers , a biologist who leads a less-than-one-year-old laboratory at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taking care of her five-year-old son and her live-in immunocompromised mother , who recently began chemotherapy treatments .
Although Rogers recognizes the need to publish her work—it is “ necessary for promotion and tenure , ” she says—she has not been able to pursue grants and funding aggressively because of increased responsibilities at home .
Rogers says she has no doubt her lab will continue operating , yet she is unsure whether she can attain tenure now .
“ You have to be excellent to continue moving [ forward ] in the field @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how do you maintain excellence while you ’ re also trying to balance life ?
” Liz McCullagh , a biologist at Oklahoma State University , was teaching her very first class when COVID-19 forced it to go online and her lab to temporarily shutter .
She and her husband split watching their two children as evenly as possible .
The reality of working at home with kids , however , means that they often interrupt her work , no matter whose parenting “ shift ” it is , McCullagh says .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when you ’ re getting to work—to stay focused on it when there ’ s a kid screaming downstairs or Dad ’ s watching [ them ] , but they only want Mom , ” she says .
Like Rogers , McCullagh worries that her lack of productivity could hinder her ability to get tenure .
And while the chair of her department has advised her to keep notes tracking the tangible things that have prevented her from accomplishing certain benchmarks , she remains unsure of how to quantify the intangible challenges she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ near-constant stress , concern about meeting her students ’ needs in an online setting and workflow interruptions .
“ Things like that will have long-term impacts , and I can ’ t put a number on them , ” McCullagh says .
“ That ’ s really frustrating.
” Experts are concerned that if institutions and employers in science do not recognize the often uneven burden the pandemic and its consequences have had on women , the effects could outlast the public health crisis .
Gretchen Goldman , research director of the Center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Concerned Scientists , leads the Sci-Mom Journeys project at 500 Women Scientists , a nonprofit dedicated to helping make science more inclusive .
She handily ticks off a list of women she knows personally who have been forced to only work part-time or labor overnight in order to complete their research .
“ Our entire support network has been ripped out from under us , ” Goldman says .
“ Some women will be forced out of the workforce entirely , ” she adds , warning that “ others are being given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s so easy for employers to simply just turn around and give it to the [ male employee ] who has a stay-at-home spouse or who doesn ’ t have children.
” Indeed , Florida State University recently made headlines when it made an announcement that seemed to say that , starting in early August , it would not allow employees to work from home while taking care of their children .
The move was criticized , and the university has since said it will allow employees to work from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long as they coordinated their schedules with their supervisors .
( Many of the female scientists working for a university who were interviewed for this article noted their institution is looking into ways to be supportive . )
“ These are highly educated women who could be working on tremendous advancements for humanity and for our planet , ” says Kimberly Churches , CEO of the American Association of University Women .
“ And yet they ’ re being pulled [ out of work ] because of the stereotypes about motherhood.
” She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terms—pausing or extending the clock or reevaluating the qualifications to attain it .
Flexible work schedules that do not demand 40 hours a week—and often more—would allow women to be both scientists and mothers , Churches says .
“ I feel like everybody ’ s got stuff going on , ” Rogers says , “ and we just need to be a little bit kinder and more compassionate when it comes to assessing other people and how successful they are as [ scientists ] .
I hope that kind of compassion can make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here .
And read coverage from our international network of magazines here .

On a recent weeknight, biochemist and postdoctoral researcher Emilia Arturo read to her two children, tucked them into bed, then slipped into her car and drove 15 minutes to the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California, arriving just after 10 P.M. In the lab, Arturo prepared grids of viral proteins to better visualize a particular pathogen—a type of arenavirus—and discover how to neutralize it.
She did not leave until nearly 4 A.M.
Although Arturo regularly pulled all-nighters as a graduate student, she is not a night owl by nature. The pandemic has forced her to be one to get her work done. Arturo is a single parent with no in-state relatives, and with summer camps offering significantly reduced hours, the only time she can count on help from her live-in partner is overnight. These nights are so exhausting that “I can only handle three of [them] in a week,” she says.
Stories like Arturo’s are becoming common. Early research shows the pandemic is hitting female scientists especially hard as more people are forced to work from home. And women—including those with partners and support systems—perform a disproportionate amount of familial duties, such as caring for children. The research, while unsurprising, raises concerns that COVID-19 could set back women in science significantly. If school and childcare facilities remain closed in the coming months, their careers could be derailed.
One recent study, for example, tallied the apparent gender of U.S.-affiliated authors of nearly 1,900 novel-coronavirus-related medical papers published this year, as well as those of more than 85,000 papers published in the same journals last year. The researchers focused on 2020 studies related to COVID-19 in order to home in on work done after the pandemic disruptions began, says Reshma Jagsi, an oncologist at the University of Michigan and a co-author of the study, which was published in June in eLife. Jagsi and her colleagues found that the proportion of papers with first authors who were women was 19 percent smaller in 2020 than it was in 2019. The percentage of female last authors (who are typically senior-level scientists) was also 5 percent lower this year.
Credit: Amanda Montañez; Source: “COVID-19 Medical Papers Have Fewer Women First Authors Than Expected,” by Jens Peter Andersen et al., in eLife, Vol. 9, Article No. e58807; June 15, 2020
Jagsi says there are many possible explanations for why the pandemic is impacting women more than men in science. But “particularly compelling is the fact that, in a society that still embraces a gendered division of domestic labor, women with children may have been affected disproportionately by school closures and limited access to childcare,” she says.
A recent Understanding America Study survey backs up Jagsi’s assertion: of the 5,900 adults surveyed, 33 percent of employed mothers responded that they have been primarily responsible for providing childcare during COVID-19 school closures, compared with only 7 percent of employed fathers.
Credit: Amanda Montañez; Source: Gender Differences in the Impact of COVID-19. Gema Zamarro et al. Understanding Coronavirus in America, June 18, 2020
A May analysis of more than 300,000 preprint papers and registered reports (descriptions of planned studies) across all fields of science found a similar pattern of women being left out of recent research: they made up a smaller percentage of first authors in the early months of 2020 than they did during the same months last year. That finding is significant, because first authors are typically early-career scientists—and those who are women are more likely to be mothers of small children, says Cassidy Sugimoto, a co-author of the analysis and an information scientist at Indiana University Bloomington.
And a recent survey of more than 4,500 U.S.- and Europe-based scientists—distributed approximately one month after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic—revealed that female scientists report having less time to spend on research than male scientists: the difference was about five percentage points. The study was published in Nature Human Behaviour.
“The pandemic has involved much more than simply forcing scientists to work from home,” says Kyle Myers, a co-author of the survey of U.S. and European scientists and an economist at Harvard Business School. “It has forced them to manage childcare in new ways, prevented serendipitous conversations in the office hallways, and limited their ability to attend conferences or work at field sites or access certain equipment.”
For Arturo, lost lab hours have meant having to take on fewer projects—and fewer high-risk, high-reward endeavors that might set her apart from others. She has also had less time to collaborate with peers and mentors. “[Postdoctoral researchers] are supposed to not just publish but also get a network—a research network and professional network,” she says. “I have zero time to do that.”
Arturo adds that she began her postdoctoral position with the goal of landing an independent research assignment, “where I might run my own lab as a principal investigator.” About a month ago, however, “I realized I have no chance of running my own lab,” she says. “I can’t keep up with people.”
Crystal D. Rogers, a biologist who leads a less-than-one-year-old laboratory at the University of California, Davis, balances taking care of her five-year-old son and her live-in immunocompromised mother, who recently began chemotherapy treatments. Although Rogers recognizes the need to publish her work—it is “necessary for promotion and tenure,” she says—she has not been able to pursue grants and funding aggressively because of increased responsibilities at home. Rogers says she has no doubt her lab will continue operating, yet she is unsure whether she can attain tenure now. “You have to be excellent to continue moving [forward] in the field,” she says. “But how do you maintain excellence while you’re also trying to balance life?”
Liz McCullagh, a biologist at Oklahoma State University, was teaching her very first class when COVID-19 forced it to go online and her lab to temporarily shutter. She and her husband split watching their two children as evenly as possible. The reality of working at home with kids, however, means that they often interrupt her work, no matter whose parenting “shift” it is, McCullagh says. “It requires a lot more mental energy—even when you’re getting to work—to stay focused on it when there’s a kid screaming downstairs or Dad’s watching [them], but they only want Mom,” she says.
Like Rogers, McCullagh worries that her lack of productivity could hinder her ability to get tenure. And while the chair of her department has advised her to keep notes tracking the tangible things that have prevented her from accomplishing certain benchmarks, she remains unsure of how to quantify the intangible challenges she faces: the anxiety that comes from near-constant stress, concern about meeting her students’ needs in an online setting and workflow interruptions. “Things like that will have long-term impacts, and I can’t put a number on them,” McCullagh says. “That’s really frustrating.”
Experts are concerned that if institutions and employers in science do not recognize the often uneven burden the pandemic and its consequences have had on women, the effects could outlast the public health crisis.
Gretchen Goldman, research director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, leads the Sci-Mom Journeys project at 500 Women Scientists, a nonprofit dedicated to helping make science more inclusive. She handily ticks off a list of women she knows personally who have been forced to only work part-time or labor overnight in order to complete their research. “Our entire support network has been ripped out from under us,” Goldman says. “Some women will be forced out of the workforce entirely,” she adds, warning that “others are being given less work and [fewer] opportunities. It’s so easy for employers to simply just turn around and give it to the [male employee] who has a stay-at-home spouse or who doesn’t have children.”
Indeed, Florida State University recently made headlines when it made an announcement that seemed to say that, starting in early August, it would not allow employees to work from home while taking care of their children. The move was criticized, and the university has since said it will allow employees to work from home while caring for children, as long as they coordinated their schedules with their supervisors. (Many of the female scientists working for a university who were interviewed for this article noted their institution is looking into ways to be supportive.)
“These are highly educated women who could be working on tremendous advancements for humanity and for our planet,” says Kimberly Churches, CEO of the American Association of University Women. “And yet they’re being pulled [out of work] because of the stereotypes about motherhood.” She says institutions should look at changing tenure-track terms—pausing or extending the clock or reevaluating the qualifications to attain it. Flexible work schedules that do not demand 40 hours a week—and often more—would allow women to be both scientists and mothers, Churches says.
“I feel like everybody’s got stuff going on,” Rogers says, “and we just need to be a little bit kinder and more compassionate when it comes to assessing other people and how successful they are as [scientists]. I hope that kind of compassion can make us a better community.”
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here. And read coverage from our international network of magazines here.


scientificamerican--2020-08-13--Why Lava Worlds Shine Brightly (It's Not The Lava)

Here on Earth , your best bet for seeing lava is to go to a volcano .
But out in space , there are entire exoplanets made of the stuff .
These so-called `` lava worlds '' orbit so close to their stars that their surface temperatures can melt rock .
Which might sound familiar , says space technologist Mihkel Pajusalu of the University of Tartu , in Estonia .
`` For example from science fiction , we know from Stars Wars , episode 3 , Mustafar planet… '' Kinda like that , but , you know—without the light sabers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these real lava worlds were extraordinarily bright and reflective .
But why ?
`` There was the idea that maybe it comes from the fact lava itself is basically a liquid , and a smooth surface can reflect light .
Like the surface of water for example . ''
So Pajusalu and his colleagues did what anyone would do to test that idea .
They made their own lava .
Here 's MIT ’ s Zahra Essack , who led the team .
`` When we removed the lava from the furnace you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you .
Even from six feet away , it felt like you were standing right on the edge of a roaring bonfire .
The crucible , which was the container holding the lava , was glowing so brightly it made my eyes water .
It was an incredible experience . ''
After producing the lava , the researchers calculated its reflectivity , in both the molten and solid states .
And they realized that lava was n't reflective enough to explain these bright exoplanets they were seeing .
Instead , Essack says , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet another way .
`` We think that lava planets could have exotic reflective atmospheres consisting of silica , which is the main component of rocks , and metals like sodium and potassium that could reflect starlight and make the planets appear very bright . ''
The work appears in The Astrophysical Journal .
[ Zahra Essack , Sara Seager , and Mihkel Pajusalu ; Low Albedo Surfaces of Lava Worlds ] If lava worlds feel very far away , and perhaps irrelevant , Essack brought up the fact that Earth was once @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its formation .
So by studying planets around distant stars , we might better understand the history of our own .
[ The above text is a transcript of this podcast . ]

Full Transcript
Here on Earth, your best bet for seeing lava is to go to a volcano. But out in space, there are entire exoplanets made of the stuff. These so-called lava worlds orbit so close to their stars that their surface temperatures can melt rock—which might sound familiar, says space technologist Mihkel Pajusalu of the University of Tartu in Estonia.
“For example, from science fiction, we know, from Stars Wars: Episode III, Mustafar planet ...”
[CLIP: Star Wars scene]
Kinda like that but, you know, without the light sabers. Scientists had noticed that some of these real lava worlds were extraordinarily bright and reflective. But why?
“There was the idea that maybe it comes from the fact lava itself is basically a liquid, and a smooth surface can reflect light. Like the surface of water, for example.”
So Pajusalu and his colleagues did what anyone would do to test that idea: they made their own lava. Here’s M.I.T.’s Zahra Essack, who led the team.
“When we removed the lava from the furnace, you could instantly feel the heat wash over you. Even from six feet away, it felt like you were standing right on the edge of a roaring bonfire. The crucible, which was the container holding the lava, was glowing so brightly, it made my eyes water. It was an incredible experience.”
After producing the lava, the researchers calculated its reflectivity in both the molten and solid states. And they realized that lava wasn’t reflective enough to explain these bright exoplanets they were seeing. Instead, Essack says, perhaps these planets could be remarkable in yet another way.
“We think that lava planets could have exotic reflective atmospheres consisting of silica, which is the main component of rocks, and metals like sodium and potassium that could reflect starlight and make the planets appear very bright.”
The work appears in the Astrophysical Journal. [Zahra Essack et al., Low-albedo surfaces of lava worlds]
If lava worlds feel very far away, and perhaps irrelevant, Essack brought up the fact that Earth was once covered in sloshing lava early in its formation. So by studying planets around distant stars, we might better understand the history of our own.
—Christopher Intagliata
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]


scientificamerican--2020-08-12--Antarctica's Ice Shelves Have Lost Millions of Metric Tons of Ice

Antarctic ice shelves have lost nearly 4 trillion metric tons of ice since the mid-1990s , scientists say .
Ocean water is melting them from the bottom up , causing them to lose mass faster than they can refreeze .
That 's according to a new study analyzing satellite data from 1994 to 2018 .
The results were published yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience .
That spells bad news for the hundreds of glaciers spread out along the Antarctic coastline .
Ice shelves are ledges of ice that jut out from the edge of the continent into the ocean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , holding them in place .
As ice shelves melt , they become thinner , weaker and more likely to break .
When this happens , they can unleash streams of ice from the glaciers behind them , raising global sea levels .
Scientists have grown more concerned about Antarctic ice shelves in recent years .
Research increasingly suggests that ice shelves in certain regions of the continent — particularly in West Antarctica and parts of the Antarctic Peninsula — are melting and thinning from the bottom up .
The new study confirms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shelves jutting into the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas , which back up to the coast of West Antarctica and the western flank of the Antarctic Peninsula .
Melting ice shelves account for only some of the ice that Antarctica loses in any given year .
Research suggests that the continent is losing billions of tons of ice each year .
Some of the mass loss comes from melting ice shelves , and some of it comes from melting on the surface of the ice sheet .
A majority of it comes from chunks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sea .
And thinning , weakening ice shelves can speed up that process .
Currents of warm ocean water appear to be the culprit .
This warm water originates in the Pacific and Indian oceans , flowing south toward Antarctica .
It 's typically a deep-water current .
But when it reaches the Antarctic continent , some of it is able to bubble up toward the surface .
There , it 's able to seep beneath nearby ice shelves and melt the ice from the bottom up .
The new study shows that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over time .
The melting appeared to speed up in the late 2000s , before eventually slowing back down again in the 2010s .
That 's likely due in part to the influence of El Niño and La Niña patterns in the Pacific Ocean , according to lead study author Susheel Adusumilli , a doctoral student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California , San Diego .
These natural climate patterns can cause ocean temperatures to oscillate between warmer and cooler cycles .
Still , many researchers believe that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the melting ice shelves .
Research suggests that climate change may influence certain wind patterns around Antarctica , which can stir up the waters in the Southern Ocean and increase the amount of warm water that wells up to the surface .
Modeling studies suggest this process may become more intense in the coming decades as the Earth continues to warm .
And even when the melt rates are slower than they 've been in the past , the ice shelves are still losing mass overall .
If the ice shelves were in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they might oscillate back and forth between gaining mass and losing mass , Adusumilli noted .
But for the last 25 years , `` there 's always mass loss , '' he said .
`` It goes from a small amount of mass loss to a large amount of mass loss to a small amount of mass loss again .
It never goes from mass gain to mass loss . ''
Rising sea levels are the biggest concern about ice loss from Antarctic glaciers .
But melting ice shelves are worth keeping an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added .
The influx of meltwater pouring into the sea can alter the ocean in some significant ways .
The cold , fresh water can form a rigid layer on the surface of the ocean .
Some researchers believe that this , in turn , could allow deeper , warmer layers of the ocean to grow even warmer .
And when these warm layers well up at the edge of the continent , they could cause the ice shelves to melt even faster .
`` People kind of talk about how increased ice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of grounded ice and sea-level rise , '' Adusumilli said .
`` But then the immediate influence of ice shelves on the ocean is also very important . ''
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E & E News .
E & E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net .

Antarctic ice shelves have lost nearly 4 trillion metric tons of ice since the mid-1990s, scientists say. Ocean water is melting them from the bottom up, causing them to lose mass faster than they can refreeze.
That's according to a new study analyzing satellite data from 1994 to 2018. The results were published yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
That spells bad news for the hundreds of glaciers spread out along the Antarctic coastline.
Ice shelves are ledges of ice that jut out from the edge of the continent into the ocean. They help to keep glaciers stable, holding them in place.
As ice shelves melt, they become thinner, weaker and more likely to break. When this happens, they can unleash streams of ice from the glaciers behind them, raising global sea levels.
Scientists have grown more concerned about Antarctic ice shelves in recent years. Research increasingly suggests that ice shelves in certain regions of the continent — particularly in West Antarctica and parts of the Antarctic Peninsula — are melting and thinning from the bottom up.
The new study confirms that the fastest-melting areas are mainly ice shelves jutting into the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas, which back up to the coast of West Antarctica and the western flank of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Melting ice shelves account for only some of the ice that Antarctica loses in any given year.
Research suggests that the continent is losing billions of tons of ice each year. Some of the mass loss comes from melting ice shelves, and some of it comes from melting on the surface of the ice sheet. A majority of it comes from chunks of ice pouring from glaciers into the sea.
And thinning, weakening ice shelves can speed up that process.
Currents of warm ocean water appear to be the culprit. This warm water originates in the Pacific and Indian oceans, flowing south toward Antarctica.
It's typically a deep-water current. But when it reaches the Antarctic continent, some of it is able to bubble up toward the surface. There, it's able to seep beneath nearby ice shelves and melt the ice from the bottom up.
The new study shows that the melting hasn't been totally consistent over time. The melting appeared to speed up in the late 2000s, before eventually slowing back down again in the 2010s.
That's likely due in part to the influence of El Niño and La Niña patterns in the Pacific Ocean, according to lead study author Susheel Adusumilli, a doctoral student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. These natural climate patterns can cause ocean temperatures to oscillate between warmer and cooler cycles.
Still, many researchers believe that climate change is likely also contributing to the melting ice shelves. Research suggests that climate change may influence certain wind patterns around Antarctica, which can stir up the waters in the Southern Ocean and increase the amount of warm water that wells up to the surface.
Modeling studies suggest this process may become more intense in the coming decades as the Earth continues to warm.
And even when the melt rates are slower than they've been in the past, the ice shelves are still losing mass overall.
If the ice shelves were in a stable, steady state, then they might oscillate back and forth between gaining mass and losing mass, Adusumilli noted.
But for the last 25 years, "there's always mass loss," he said. "It goes from a small amount of mass loss to a large amount of mass loss to a small amount of mass loss again. It never goes from mass gain to mass loss."
Rising sea levels are the biggest concern about ice loss from Antarctic glaciers. But melting ice shelves are worth keeping an eye on for another reason, Adusumilli added.
The influx of meltwater pouring into the sea can alter the ocean in some significant ways.
The cold, fresh water can form a rigid layer on the surface of the ocean. Some researchers believe that this, in turn, could allow deeper, warmer layers of the ocean to grow even warmer.
And when these warm layers well up at the edge of the continent, they could cause the ice shelves to melt even faster.
"People kind of talk about how increased ice shelf melt can lead to more discharge of grounded ice and sea-level rise," Adusumilli said. "But then the immediate influence of ice shelves on the ocean is also very important."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.


scientificamerican--2020-08-12--Russia's Fast-Track Coronavirus Vaccine Draws Outrage over Safety

Russia ’ s president Vladimir Putin announced on August 11 that the country ’ s health regulator had become the world ’ s first to approve a coronavirus vaccine for widespread use — but scientists worldwide have condemned the decision as dangerously rushed .
Russia hasn ’ t completed large trials to test its safety and efficacy , and rolling out an inadequately vetted vaccine could put at risk people who receive it , researchers say .
It could also impede global efforts to develop quality COVID-19 immunizations , they suggest .
“ That the Russians may be skipping such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ community of vaccine scientists .
If they get it wrong it could undermine the entire global enterprise , ” says Peter Hotez , a vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston , Texas .
“ This is a reckless and foolish decision .
Mass vaccination with an improperly tested vaccine is unethical .
Any problem with the Russian vaccination campaign would be disastrous both through its negative effects on health , but also because it would further set back the acceptance of vaccines in the population , ” Francois Balloux , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said in a statement distributed by the UK Science Media Centre .
In his announcement , Putin said that the Russian regulator had approved a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow , even though phase III trials of the vaccine had yet to be completed .
Such trials involve giving thousands of people a vaccine or a placebo injection , and then following them to see if the vaccine prevents disease .
They also allow researchers to confirm the vaccine ’ s safety and look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been observed in smaller , earlier stage trials .
Russian health-care minister Mikhail Murashko said that the vaccine would be gradually introduced to citizens , and given to health workers and teachers first .
More than 200 COVID-19 vaccines are in development worldwide and several are already in phase III trials , with more frontrunners slated to begin theirs soon .
But researchers think that the earliest one of those vaccines could be approved is still months away .
The Gamaleya vaccine has been given to 76 volunteers as part of two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no results from those trials or other preclinical studies have been published , and little else is known about the experimental vaccine .
According to the ClinicalTrials.gov listings , the vaccine , which is given in two doses , is made of two adenoviruses that express the coronavirus spike protein .
The first dose is an Ad26 virus — the same strain being used in an experimental vaccine being developed by pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen — while the second ‘ booster ’ dose is made of an Ad5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experimental jab being developed CanSino Biologics in China .
According to the vaccine ’ s Russian-language registration certificate , all 38 participants who received one or two doses of the vaccine had produced antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 ’ s spike protein , including potent neutralizing antibodies that inactivate viral particles .
These findings are similar to results of early-stage trials of other candidate vaccines .
Side effects were also similar , such as fever , headache and skin irritation at the site of injection .
Hotez expects that the Gamaleya vaccine will elicit a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The technical feat of developing a COVID19 vaccine is not very complicated , ” he says .
“ The hard part is producing these vaccines under quality umbrellas — quality control and quality assurance — and then assuring the vaccines are safe and actually work to protect against COVID19 in large phase III clinical trials.
” But little is known about phase III trial plans for the Gamaleya vaccine .
“ I simply haven ’ t managed to find any published details of a protocol , ” says Danny Altmann , an immunologist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the trial is closely tracking the immune responses of participants and looking out for any side effects .
The head of a Russian government-supported investment fund said the vaccine would go through phase III testing in the United Arab Emirates , Saudi Arabia and other countries , according to the state-owned TASS Russian News Agency .
The official said that purchase requests for 1 billion doses had been received by 20 countries , in Latin America , the Middle East , Asia and elsewhere , and that manufacturing was in place to produce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the works .
Altmann says he is concerned that the vaccine could cause an exacerbated disease that occurs when antibodies generated by the vaccine carry the virus into cells , after exposure to the virus .
Another problem could be an asthma-like immune reaction that became an issue with some experimental vaccines against the SARS ( sever acute respiratory syndrome ) virus .
Picking up these reactions would require comparing thousands of people who received a vaccine or placebo and potentially became exposed to SARS-CoV-2 .
“ It ’ s ridiculous , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these data , ” says Svetlana Zavidova , head of Russia ’ s Association of Clinical Trials Organizations , which works with international pharmaceutical companies and research organizations .
Without a completed phase III trial , Zavidova also worries that it will not be clear whether the vaccine prevents COVID-19 or not — or causes any harmful side effects , because of gaps in how Russia monitor the effects of medicines .
“ Our system for safety monitoring , I think , is not the best , ” she says .
Zavidova also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be “ very harmful ” for efforts to run clinical trials of other COVID-19 vaccines and other medicines in Russia .
“ Not sure what Russia is up to , but I certainly would not take a vaccine that hasn ’ t been tested in Phase III , ” said Florian Krammer , an immunologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City , in a tweet .
“ Nobody knows if it ’ s safe or if it works .
They are putting [ health-care workers ] and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is reproduced with permission and was first published on August 11 , 2020 .
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here .
And read coverage from our international network of magazines here .

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin announced on August 11 that the country’s health regulator had become the world’s first to approve a coronavirus vaccine for widespread use — but scientists worldwide have condemned the decision as dangerously rushed. Russia hasn’t completed large trials to test its safety and efficacy, and rolling out an inadequately vetted vaccine could put at risk people who receive it, researchers say. It could also impede global efforts to develop quality COVID-19 immunizations, they suggest.
“That the Russians may be skipping such measures and steps is what worries our community of vaccine scientists. If they get it wrong it could undermine the entire global enterprise,” says Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
“This is a reckless and foolish decision. Mass vaccination with an improperly tested vaccine is unethical. Any problem with the Russian vaccination campaign would be disastrous both through its negative effects on health, but also because it would further set back the acceptance of vaccines in the population,” Francois Balloux, a geneticist at University College London, said in a statement distributed by the UK Science Media Centre.
In his announcement, Putin said that the Russian regulator had approved a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, even though phase III trials of the vaccine had yet to be completed. Such trials involve giving thousands of people a vaccine or a placebo injection, and then following them to see if the vaccine prevents disease. They also allow researchers to confirm the vaccine’s safety and look for rarer side effects that may not have been observed in smaller, earlier stage trials. Russian health-care minister Mikhail Murashko said that the vaccine would be gradually introduced to citizens, and given to health workers and teachers first.
More than 200 COVID-19 vaccines are in development worldwide and several are already in phase III trials, with more frontrunners slated to begin theirs soon. But researchers think that the earliest one of those vaccines could be approved is still months away.
Lack of data
The Gamaleya vaccine has been given to 76 volunteers as part of two early-stage trials listed on ClinicalTrials.gov, but no results from those trials or other preclinical studies have been published, and little else is known about the experimental vaccine.
According to the ClinicalTrials.gov listings, the vaccine, which is given in two doses, is made of two adenoviruses that express the coronavirus spike protein. The first dose is an Ad26 virus — the same strain being used in an experimental vaccine being developed by pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen — while the second ‘booster’ dose is made of an Ad5 virus, like the one in an experimental jab being developed CanSino Biologics in China.
According to the vaccine’s Russian-language registration certificate, all 38 participants who received one or two doses of the vaccine had produced antibodies against SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein, including potent neutralizing antibodies that inactivate viral particles. These findings are similar to results of early-stage trials of other candidate vaccines. Side effects were also similar, such as fever, headache and skin irritation at the site of injection.
Hotez expects that the Gamaleya vaccine will elicit a decent immune response against SARS-CoV-2. “The technical feat of developing a COVID19 vaccine is not very complicated,” he says. “The hard part is producing these vaccines under quality umbrellas — quality control and quality assurance — and then assuring the vaccines are safe and actually work to protect against COVID19 in large phase III clinical trials.”
But little is known about phase III trial plans for the Gamaleya vaccine. “I simply haven’t managed to find any published details of a protocol,” says Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London. He hopes the trial is closely tracking the immune responses of participants and looking out for any side effects.
The head of a Russian government-supported investment fund said the vaccine would go through phase III testing in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries, according to the state-owned TASS Russian News Agency. The official said that purchase requests for 1 billion doses had been received by 20 countries, in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere, and that manufacturing was in place to produce 500 million doses, with more capacity in the works.
‘Ridiculous authorization’
Altmann says he is concerned that the vaccine could cause an exacerbated disease that occurs when antibodies generated by the vaccine carry the virus into cells, after exposure to the virus. Another problem could be an asthma-like immune reaction that became an issue with some experimental vaccines against the SARS (sever acute respiratory syndrome) virus. Picking up these reactions would require comparing thousands of people who received a vaccine or placebo and potentially became exposed to SARS-CoV-2.
“It’s ridiculous, of course, to get authorization on these data,” says Svetlana Zavidova, head of Russia’s Association of Clinical Trials Organizations, which works with international pharmaceutical companies and research organizations. Without a completed phase III trial, Zavidova also worries that it will not be clear whether the vaccine prevents COVID-19 or not — or causes any harmful side effects, because of gaps in how Russia monitor the effects of medicines. “Our system for safety monitoring, I think, is not the best,” she says.
Zavidova also worries the vaccine’s approval will be “very harmful” for efforts to run clinical trials of other COVID-19 vaccines and other medicines in Russia.
“Not sure what Russia is up to, but I certainly would not take a vaccine that hasn’t been tested in Phase III,” said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, in a tweet. “Nobody knows if it’s safe or if it works. They are putting [health-care workers] and their population at risk.”
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on August 11, 2020.
Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here. And read coverage from our international network of magazines here.


scientificamerican--2020-08-12--Aardvarks Are Ailing amid Heat and Drought

The aardvark is a rare animal—alphabetically , at least , where it ’ s the first creature listed in English-language dictionaries .
And they ’ re usually rarely seen in their African home .
But that ’ s because they ’ re nocturnal , solitary and live in underground burrows .
They ’ re actually fairly common .
And in recent years , they ’ re being seen more frequently .
While that may be fortunate for tourists and wildlife enthusiasts , it ’ s not really good news for the aardvarks themselves .
“ Southern Africa is becoming gradually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which is occurring there more rapidly than in other parts of the world .
And I therefore chose to dedicate my Ph.D. to investigating how climate change affects the aardvark in the hottest and driest habitat in Africa in which they occur , which is the Kalahari semi-desert.
” Nora Weyer from South Africa ’ s University of the Witwatersrand .
For more than three years , she and her team followed the activities of a dozen aardvarks in the Kalahari via tiny tracking units they implanted in the animals .
Aardvarks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day and emerge during the cooler nighttime hours to eat ants and termites .
But Weyer found that during a drought , they were likely to be active during the day .
The Kalahari is always arid , but one summer a lack of rain caused a big vegetation die-off .
Ants and termites disappeared , which made aardvarks go hungry .
“ Usually , the period of the year during which very little food is available is winter .
So if you come out during a winter day , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” During the cold , dry winter , a hungry aardvark has trouble regulating its body temperature to stay warm .
The survival strategy they evolved is to become more active during the day , when it is warmer outside .
But Weyer ’ s aardvarks were going hungry during the summer .
Their strategy of being active during the day , which is a smart move during the winter , became a trap during the summer : they faced hunger , heat stress and dehydration .
The findings are in the journal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Weyer et al.
, Increased diurnal activity is indicative of energy deficit in a nocturnal mammal , the aardvark ] “ These energy-saving mechanisms that aardvarks showed were not always enough for them to save energy during droughts .
And several aardvarks in our study , and also other aardvarks , died.
” Climate change is expected to bring more frequent droughts and heat waves to the Kalahari .
And aardvarks might not be able to cope .
Aardvarks are ecosystem engineers .
Their burrows are used by warthogs , porcupines , meerkats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from heat and cold .
If aardvarks can ’ t survive a hotter , drier Kalahari , what does it mean for the rest of their ecological community ?
[ The above text is a transcript of this podcast . ]

Full Transcript
The aardvark is a rare animal—alphabetically, at least, where it’s the first creature listed in English-language dictionaries. And they’re usually rarely seen in their African home. But that’s because they’re nocturnal, solitary and live in underground burrows. They’re actually fairly common. And in recent years, they’re being seen more frequently. While that may be fortunate for tourists and wildlife enthusiasts, it’s not really good news for the aardvarks themselves.
“Southern Africa is becoming gradually hotter and drier due to climate change, which is occurring there more rapidly than in other parts of the world. And I therefore chose to dedicate my Ph.D. to investigating how climate change affects the aardvark in the hottest and driest habitat in Africa in which they occur, which is the Kalahari semi-desert.”
Nora Weyer from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand. For more than three years, she and her team followed the activities of a dozen aardvarks in the Kalahari via tiny tracking units they implanted in the animals.
Aardvarks generally sleep during the heat of the day and emerge during the cooler nighttime hours to eat ants and termites. But Weyer found that during a drought, they were likely to be active during the day. The Kalahari is always arid, but one summer a lack of rain caused a big vegetation die-off. Ants and termites disappeared, which made aardvarks go hungry.
“Usually, the period of the year during which very little food is available is winter. So if you come out during a winter day, it’s nice and warmish and not too hot.”
During the cold, dry winter, a hungry aardvark has trouble regulating its body temperature to stay warm. The survival strategy they evolved is to become more active during the day, when it is warmer outside.
But Weyer’s aardvarks were going hungry during the summer. Their strategy of being active during the day, which is a smart move during the winter, became a trap during the summer: they faced hunger, heat stress and dehydration. The findings are in the journal Frontiers in Physiology. [Nora Marie Weyer et al., Increased diurnal activity is indicative of energy deficit in a nocturnal mammal, the aardvark]
“These energy-saving mechanisms that aardvarks showed were not always enough for them to save energy during droughts. And several aardvarks in our study, and also other aardvarks, died.”
Climate change is expected to bring more frequent droughts and heat waves to the Kalahari. And aardvarks might not be able to cope.
Aardvarks are ecosystem engineers. Their burrows are used by warthogs, porcupines, meerkats and even by endangered pangolins as shelter from heat and cold. If aardvarks can’t survive a hotter, drier Kalahari, what does it mean for the rest of their ecological community?
—Jason G. Goldman
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]


scientificamerican--2020-08-11--Amazon Deforestation Falls Where Land Is under Indigenous Control

Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon with full ownership rights over their land saw a two-thirds decrease in the rate of deforestation on their land in the world 's most important rainforest , a new study finds .
At issue is the impact of homologation — the final step in designating land as Indigenous property in a process laid out in Brazil 's Constitution — on destruction of Earth 's largest tropical forest .
After homologation , economic activity ca n't be carried out in designated lands without consent from both the tribe and the federal government .
And the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California , San Diego , and Columbia University found that between 1982 and 2016 , deforestation inside homologated territories declined from an average of about 3 % a year to 1 % a year .
`` Indigenous tribes are really linked to biodiversity management and reductions in deforestation , and it 's because they live on the land and I think they have kind of a very keen sense of what it would mean to upset the ecosystem around them , '' said Kathryn Baragwanath , a UCSD researcher and one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the property rights gives them the legal basis to actually ensure that these ecosystems are preserved in the lands where they live . ''
But no new land has been demarcated for Indigenous use under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro or Michel Temer , his immediate predecessor .
And Bolsonaro has taken steps to erode protections for Indigenous land and to make it easier for non-Indigenous Brazilians to carry out economic activity in the Amazon .
He has tried to shift more authority , including over Indigenous land demarcation , away from agencies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and toward the Ministry of Agriculture , which has a vested interest in expanding development .
Not all of those efforts have been successful , but the study , published yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , estimates that the Bolsonaro and Temer presidencies ' refusal to grant Indigenous communities control of new territories may have resulted in an extra 1.5 million hectares of deforestation per year .
That translates to carbon dioxide leaked into the global atmosphere that would otherwise remain sequestered in the Amazon .
But Bolsonaro has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world has a stake in Brazil 's land-use policies because of climate change .
He used his speech at the start of the U.N. General Assembly gathering in New York last year to declare it a `` fallacy '' that the Amazon is the `` lungs of the world '' because of its role in sequestering carbon .
He said his foreign critics `` called into question that which we hold as the most sacred value : our own sovereignty . ''
Deforestation and forest fires are linked in the Amazon .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ land for agricultural development in the region , often by farmers who believe they have the president 's support in conducting burns .
Last year 's vicious fire season drew international attention , but Bolsonaro vehemently denied that the scale of the burn was unusual or that his policies had anything to do with it .
Eduardo Taveira , environment secretary for the Brazilian state of Amazonas , told E & E News in New York City last September that the Amazonian fires are `` a cultural and historical process . ''
`` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new technologies to use better the land , try to produce without fire , '' said Taveira , who attended last year 's Climate Week NYC as part of a delegation of environment ministers tasked with addressing global concern about the Amazon fires .
But Taveira , who is from the same political party as Bolsonaro , called it a local issue .
`` The world has a wrong perspective about this problem in the Amazon , '' he said .
`` I know we have some issues to address for the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have fires in the forest .
But the problem is how to control the fire , how to deliver for the farmers new technology to fight the fires . ''
This year , Bolsonaro 's government has introduced some new measures to stop illegal burning , but early indications are that the fire season could be worse than last year 's .
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E & E News .
E & E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net .

Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon with full ownership rights over their land saw a two-thirds decrease in the rate of deforestation on their land in the world's most important rainforest, a new study finds.
At issue is the impact of homologation — the final step in designating land as Indigenous property in a process laid out in Brazil's Constitution — on destruction of Earth's largest tropical forest. After homologation, economic activity can't be carried out in designated lands without consent from both the tribe and the federal government. And the study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Columbia University found that between 1982 and 2016, deforestation inside homologated territories declined from an average of about 3% a year to 1% a year.
"Indigenous tribes are really linked to biodiversity management and reductions in deforestation, and it's because they live on the land and I think they have kind of a very keen sense of what it would mean to upset the ecosystem around them," said Kathryn Baragwanath, a UCSD researcher and one of the study's co-authors. "The granting of the property rights gives them the legal basis to actually ensure that these ecosystems are preserved in the lands where they live."
But no new land has been demarcated for Indigenous use under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro or Michel Temer, his immediate predecessor. And Bolsonaro has taken steps to erode protections for Indigenous land and to make it easier for non-Indigenous Brazilians to carry out economic activity in the Amazon. He has tried to shift more authority, including over Indigenous land demarcation, away from agencies whose mission is to protect Indigenous rights and toward the Ministry of Agriculture, which has a vested interest in expanding development.
Not all of those efforts have been successful, but the study, published yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, estimates that the Bolsonaro and Temer presidencies' refusal to grant Indigenous communities control of new territories may have resulted in an extra 1.5 million hectares of deforestation per year.
That translates to carbon dioxide leaked into the global atmosphere that would otherwise remain sequestered in the Amazon. But Bolsonaro has pushed back fiercely against all suggestions that the world has a stake in Brazil's land-use policies because of climate change. He used his speech at the start of the U.N. General Assembly gathering in New York last year to declare it a "fallacy" that the Amazon is the "lungs of the world" because of its role in sequestering carbon.
He said his foreign critics "called into question that which we hold as the most sacred value: our own sovereignty."
Fire cycle
Deforestation and forest fires are linked in the Amazon. Fires are frequently set intentionally to clear land for agricultural development in the region, often by farmers who believe they have the president's support in conducting burns. Last year's vicious fire season drew international attention, but Bolsonaro vehemently denied that the scale of the burn was unusual or that his policies had anything to do with it.
Eduardo Taveira, environment secretary for the Brazilian state of Amazonas, told E&E News in New York City last September that the Amazonian fires are "a cultural and historical process."
"We need to find new ways, new technologies to use better the land, try to produce without fire," said Taveira, who attended last year's Climate Week NYC as part of a delegation of environment ministers tasked with addressing global concern about the Amazon fires.
But Taveira, who is from the same political party as Bolsonaro, called it a local issue.
"The world has a wrong perspective about this problem in the Amazon," he said. "I know we have some issues to address for the next year; probably next year we'll have fires in the forest. But the problem is how to control the fire, how to deliver for the farmers new technology to fight the fires."
This year, Bolsonaro's government has introduced some new measures to stop illegal burning, but early indications are that the fire season could be worse than last year's.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.


scientificamerican--2020-08-13--The Science of Sourdough: How Microbes Enabled a Pandemic Pastime

The Covid-19 pandemic has tightened our social circles and narrowed the scope of our lives in ways no one imagined just a year ago .
But the lockdown also brought an unexpected solace : Everyone , it seems , turned to baking sourdough bread .
Social media has been overflowing with photos of frothy sourdough starters — many of them named , like a family pet — and the fresh-baked loaves that result .
And though peak sourdough may have passed , many a fridge still contains that jar of starter .
Most home sourdough bakers know that their starter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which leaven and flavor their bread .
But where conventional breads rely on a single species of baker ’ s yeast — the microbial equivalent of a cattle ranch — sourdough is more like the Serengeti , a diverse ecosystem of interacting yeasts and bacteria .
The nature of that ecosystem , and hence the flavor of the bread , is a profound expression of a particular time and place .
Scientists are beginning to discover that the microbes in a sourdough depend not just on the native microbial flora of the baker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also on other factors like the choice of flour , the temperature of the kitchen , and when and how often the starter is fed .
“ When we study sourdough science , we learn that we know remarkably little for a technology that ’ s — what ?
— 12,000 years old , ” says Anne Madden , a microbiologist at North Carolina State University .
But even that limited knowledge is enough to cast light on a diverse , tumultuous microbial world — and provide a few hints to home bakers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We probably still have plenty of time to be baking , alas . )
Mix flour and water in a bowl and you have papier-mâché paste .
But almost immediately , yeasts and bacteria from the environment and the flour itself begin feeding on the sugars in the flour , explains Erin McKenney , a microbial ecologist also at North Carolina State who has studied the events that unfurl as a sourdough starter forms .
At first , just about any microbe can grow on this rich , new energy source , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why brand-new sourdough starters often go through a black , putrid-smelling phase . )
But soon , conditions begin to change .
One group of those early colonists begins to acidify the starter .
By Day 3 , these so-called lactic acid bacteria — named for one of the main acids they produce , which is also found in yogurt , cheese and other fermented milk products — have made the starter so acidic that many of the early colonists can ’ t survive , leaving only the lactic acid bacteria and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , together with vinegary-smelling acetic acid , gives sourdough its characteristic tang .
It may also improve the nutritional quality of the bread , says microbiologist Guylaine Lacaze of the Belgian bakers ’ supply and consulting company Puratos ( she is aware of four as-yet-unpublished studies on the topic ) .
The increased acidity activates an enzyme , phytase , that makes minerals like calcium and phosphate more available , she says .
By Days 10 to 14 , the starter has settled into a stable state where yeasts and lactic acid bacteria @ @ @ @ @ @ @ carbon dioxide to leaven a loaf of bread .
The starter is ready to use .
But the fact that new starters settle down within a couple of weeks doesn ’ t mean that they all end up with the same set of microbes .
In one recent study , McKenney and her colleagues shipped bags of the same flour to 18 professional bakers around the world , who then used the flour to create starters in their own kitchens using identical techniques .
About a month later , the bakers and their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used DNA sequencing to identify the microbes in each starter .
Even though all the bakers started with the same flour , their starters were all different .
Most contained various strains of common baker ’ s yeast , Saccharomyces cerevisiae , along with a host of other yeasts in varying proportions , they found .
The starters also contained a wide range of lactic acid bacteria , mostly in the genus Lactobacillus — though once again , the details varied widely from one starter to the next .
Most microbes appeared to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different draw each time — though a few also originated with the baker ’ s hands or kitchen .
Other research groups in Europe have seen similar diversity .
“ My conclusion is that every sourdough is different , ” says Marco Gobbetti , a microbiologist at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy .
Indeed , he suspects , a constant flux of species may be the norm for any given sourdough over time , though what little evidence is available is still equivocal .
This casts some doubt on treasured heirloom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ passed down for generations .
While their owners may like to think that they ’ re baking with the same microbes their ancestors used , Gobbetti is skeptical .
But even if every sourdough is different , might they fall into several distinct groups based on the microbes that are present , in much the same way that terrestrial plant communities can be grouped into grasslands and forests despite a changing mix of species ?
The answer to that question might be coming soon .
Elizabeth Landis , a microbiologist at Tufts University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Madden and McKenney ) identified the microbes in 560 starters submitted by bakers around the world , then looked for recurrent groupings of microbes .
Some species do appear to co-occur frequently , they found , perhaps because they specialize in feeding on distinct sugars .
Baker ’ s yeast , for example , can ’ t use the sugar maltose , which is therefore available for the lactic acid bacteria .
( The paper describing these results is still under review , so Landis isn ’ t sharing details just yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produce its own unique flavor profile , too , McKenney says .
Some produce more lactic acid , which gives a yogurty flavor ; others yield a sharper , more vinegary note from lots of acetic acid .
And because each species of microbe has slightly different metabolic pathways , each is likely to add other flavorful metabolic byproducts to the mix — a big reason sourdough tends to have a subtler , more complex flavor than ordinary bread .
“ You could compare it to one single flower compared to a nice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of all these different compounds is what you find in a sourdough bread , ” says Karl De Smedt , who maintains a library of sourdough starters at Puratos .
Not everyone agrees that sourdough microbial communities are so variable .
In commercial bakers ’ sourdoughs , which are fed daily or even more often , the microbes always have plenty of food .
That creates a race , with the fastest-reproducing microbes dominating over time , says Michael Gänzle , a food microbiologist at the University of Alberta , Canada .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the winners are the yeast Kazachstania and the lactic acid bacterium Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis ( recently renamed Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis ) .
That ’ s not necessarily good news for the resulting bread : L. sanfranciscensis grows fastest because it has one of the smallest genomes among lactic acid bacteria , which means it has fewer metabolic pathways and thus fewer flavor-producing by-products than other bacteria , Gänzle says .
( Score one for home sourdoughs , which Landis says might be more diverse . )
But the flavor of a sourdough bread depends on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ present in the starter .
“ You can have really different sourdoughs even if the microflora is the same , ” says Lacaze .
“ It depends also on the recipe of the sourdough , the parameters of the culture.
” Stiffer starters — that is , those made with a lower proportion of water — trap more oxygen within the dough , and this encourages lactic acid bacteria to produce sharper-tasting acetic acid ; in runnier starters , the same bacteria produce softer-tasting lactic acid .
Temperature matters , too .
Lactic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conditions , for example , so fermenting in a warm kitchen makes for a sourer dough , while cooler conditions lead to more of the fruity flavors produced by the yeast .
Moreover , lactic acid bacteria , despite what you ’ d think , aren ’ t fond of highly acid environments .
Home bakers who leave an acidic starter in a cold fridge for weeks between bakings can find they end up with a blander bread that lacks the distinctive tang contributed by the bacteria .
( Pro tip : If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ starter in the fridge for longer than a week , make sure to refrigerate it immediately after adding fresh flour , when it ’ s least acidic .
That , says Lacaze , will help the lactic acid bacteria survive the prolonged cold to acidify the rising dough . )
One of the biggest ways that bakers can influence the flavor of their sourdough bread is through their choice of flours for the starter .
To demonstrate this , McKenney and her team made four starters each from 10 different grains .
Because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they make available to sourdough microbes — corn , for example , lacks a starch-digesting enzyme that creates maltose — they might lead to different sets of microbes and , hence , different flavors .
And that ’ s exactly what McKenney found ( again , the results are not yet published ) .
Starters made from amaranth flour tended toward meaty , toasty aromas .
Those made from teff ( an African grain ) and sorghum gave fermented smells , while emmer and buckwheat gave more vinegary starters .
So far , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only baby steps toward designer sourdoughs : Their science has not yet caught up to folk wisdom .
“ People would like to know step by step : ‘ How do I make the end product I desire ?
’ ” McKenney says .
“ We can ’ t begin to offer anything that ’ s better than common baking knowledge or the best practices you learn from blogs or talking to friends.
” More answers could be coming soon , thanks to new citizen-science initiatives .
McKenney , Madden and their colleagues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ invites home bakers to experiment with flours and growing conditions and report their results .
Similarly , Puratos has launched the Quest for Sourdough , where anyone from newbies to professionals can register their sourdough .
Those with particularly interesting or unique starters might be invited to submit them to Puratos ’ s sourdough library for further analysis .
But sourdough is interesting to more than just bakers .
Sourdough and other food fermentations such as those that give us cheese , sauerkraut and kimchi provide relatively simple , easy-to-handle model ecosystems for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There ’ s lots of insights you can gain from studying fermented foods that you can then transfer to more complex microbial communities as well , ” says Paul Cotter , a microbiologist at the Teagasc Food Research Centre in Ireland , and co-author of an article on food microbiology in the Annual Review of Food Science and Technology .
Sourdough offers an additional benefit , especially relevant in pandemic times when the microbial world seems so full of threat .
“ Sourdough is this one space where we all agree , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us do wonderful things , ” Madden says .
“ If you love sourdough , you love wild microbes in our lives.
” This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine , an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews .
Sign up for the newsletter .

The Covid-19 pandemic has tightened our social circles and narrowed the scope of our lives in ways no one imagined just a year ago. But the lockdown also brought an unexpected solace: Everyone, it seems, turned to baking sourdough bread. Social media has been overflowing with photos of frothy sourdough starters — many of them named, like a family pet — and the fresh-baked loaves that result. And though peak sourdough may have passed, many a fridge still contains that jar of starter.
Most home sourdough bakers know that their starter contains a vibrant herd of microbes, which leaven and flavor their bread. But where conventional breads rely on a single species of baker’s yeast — the microbial equivalent of a cattle ranch — sourdough is more like the Serengeti, a diverse ecosystem of interacting yeasts and bacteria. The nature of that ecosystem, and hence the flavor of the bread, is a profound expression of a particular time and place. Scientists are beginning to discover that the microbes in a sourdough depend not just on the native microbial flora of the baker’s house and hands, but also on other factors like the choice of flour, the temperature of the kitchen, and when and how often the starter is fed.
“When we study sourdough science, we learn that we know remarkably little for a technology that’s — what? — 12,000 years old,” says Anne Madden, a microbiologist at North Carolina State University. But even that limited knowledge is enough to cast light on a diverse, tumultuous microbial world — and provide a few hints to home bakers hoping to up their game. (We probably still have plenty of time to be baking, alas.)
Rise of the microbes
Mix flour and water in a bowl and you have papier-mâché paste. But almost immediately, yeasts and bacteria from the environment and the flour itself begin feeding on the sugars in the flour, explains Erin McKenney, a microbial ecologist also at North Carolina State who has studied the events that unfurl as a sourdough starter forms. At first, just about any microbe can grow on this rich, new energy source, including spoilage bacteria. (That’s why brand-new sourdough starters often go through a black, putrid-smelling phase.)
But soon, conditions begin to change. One group of those early colonists begins to acidify the starter. By Day 3, these so-called lactic acid bacteria — named for one of the main acids they produce, which is also found in yogurt, cheese and other fermented milk products — have made the starter so acidic that many of the early colonists can’t survive, leaving only the lactic acid bacteria and a few acid-tolerant yeasts. This lactic acid, together with vinegary-smelling acetic acid, gives sourdough its characteristic tang.
It may also improve the nutritional quality of the bread, says microbiologist Guylaine Lacaze of the Belgian bakers’ supply and consulting company Puratos (she is aware of four as-yet-unpublished studies on the topic). The increased acidity activates an enzyme, phytase, that makes minerals like calcium and phosphate more available, she says.
By Days 10 to 14, the starter has settled into a stable state where yeasts and lactic acid bacteria grow vigorously, the yeasts producing enough carbon dioxide to leaven a loaf of bread. The starter is ready to use.
But the fact that new starters settle down within a couple of weeks doesn’t mean that they all end up with the same set of microbes. In one recent study, Madden and her colleagues shipped bags of the same flour to 18 professional bakers around the world, who then used the flour to create starters in their own kitchens using identical techniques.* About a month later, the bakers and their starters convened in Belgium, where researchers used DNA sequencing to identify the microbes in each starter.
Even though all the bakers started with the same flour, their starters were all different. Most contained various strains of common baker’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, along with a host of other yeasts in varying proportions, they found. The starters also contained a wide range of lactic acid bacteria, mostly in the genus Lactobacillus — though once again, the details varied widely from one starter to the next. Most microbes appeared to have come from the flour — a different draw each time — though a few also originated with the baker’s hands or kitchen.
Other research groups in Europe have seen similar diversity. “My conclusion is that every sourdough is different,” says Marco Gobbetti, a microbiologist at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy. Indeed, he suspects, a constant flux of species may be the norm for any given sourdough over time, though what little evidence is available is still equivocal. This casts some doubt on treasured heirloom sourdoughs, some of which have been passed down for generations. While their owners may like to think that they’re baking with the same microbes their ancestors used, Gobbetti is skeptical.
But even if every sourdough is different, might they fall into several distinct groups based on the microbes that are present, in much the same way that terrestrial plant communities can be grouped into grasslands and forests despite a changing mix of species? The answer to that question might be coming soon. Elizabeth Landis, a microbiologist at Tufts University in Boston, and her colleagues (including Madden and McKenney) identified the microbes in 560 starters submitted by bakers around the world, then looked for recurrent groupings of microbes. Some species do appear to co-occur frequently, they found, perhaps because they specialize in feeding on distinct sugars. The yeast Kazachstania humilis, for example, can’t use the sugar maltose, which is therefore available for the lactic acid bacteria.** (The paper describing these results is still under review, so Landis isn’t sharing details just yet.)
Each microbial community seems to produce its own unique flavor profile, too, McKenney says. Some produce more lactic acid, which gives a yogurty flavor; others yield a sharper, more vinegary note from lots of acetic acid. And because each species of microbe has slightly different metabolic pathways, each is likely to add other flavorful metabolic byproducts to the mix — a big reason sourdough tends to have a subtler, more complex flavor than ordinary bread. “You could compare it to one single flower compared to a nice bouquet of different flowers. The complexity of all these different compounds is what you find in a sourdough bread,” says Karl De Smedt, who maintains a library of sourdough starters at Puratos.
Care and feeding
Not everyone agrees that sourdough microbial communities are so variable. In commercial bakers’ sourdoughs, which are fed daily or even more often, the microbes always have plenty of food. That creates a race, with the fastest-reproducing microbes dominating over time, says Michael Gänzle, a food microbiologist at the University of Alberta, Canada. In the long run, he says, the winners are the yeast Kazachstania and the lactic acid bacterium Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis (recently renamed Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis).
That’s not necessarily good news for the resulting bread: L. sanfranciscensis grows fastest because it has one of the smallest genomes among lactic acid bacteria, which means it has fewer metabolic pathways and thus fewer flavor-producing by-products than other bacteria, Gänzle says. (Score one for home sourdoughs, which Landis says might be more diverse.)
But the flavor of a sourdough bread depends on more than just the species of microbes present in the starter. “You can have really different sourdoughs even if the microflora is the same,” says Lacaze. “It depends also on the recipe of the sourdough, the parameters of the culture.” Stiffer starters — that is, those made with a lower proportion of water — trap more oxygen within the dough, and this encourages lactic acid bacteria to produce sharper-tasting acetic acid; in runnier starters, the same bacteria produce softer-tasting lactic acid.
Temperature matters, too. Lactic acid bacteria do best in relatively warm conditions, for example, so fermenting in a warm kitchen makes for a sourer dough, while cooler conditions lead to more of the fruity flavors produced by the yeast. Moreover, lactic acid bacteria, despite what you’d think, aren’t fond of highly acid environments. Home bakers who leave an acidic starter in a cold fridge for weeks between bakings can find they end up with a blander bread that lacks the distinctive tang contributed by the bacteria. (Pro tip: If you’re going to leave your starter in the fridge for longer than a week, make sure to refrigerate it immediately after adding fresh flour, when it’s least acidic. That, says Lacaze, will help the lactic acid bacteria survive the prolonged cold to acidify the rising dough.)
One of the biggest ways that bakers can influence the flavor of their sourdough bread is through their choice of flours for the starter. To demonstrate this, McKenney and her team made four starters each from 10 different grains. Because grains differ in the mix of sugars they make available to sourdough microbes — corn, for example, lacks a starch-digesting enzyme that creates maltose — they might lead to different sets of microbes and, hence, different flavors. And that’s exactly what McKenney found (again, the results are not yet published). Starters made from amaranth flour tended toward meaty, toasty aromas. Those made from teff (an African grain) and sorghum gave fermented smells, while emmer and buckwheat gave more vinegary starters.
So far, McKenney and other sourdough researchers have taken only baby steps toward designer sourdoughs: Their science has not yet caught up to folk wisdom. “People would like to know step by step: ‘How do I make the end product I desire?’” McKenney says. “We can’t begin to offer anything that’s better than common baking knowledge or the best practices you learn from blogs or talking to friends.”
More answers could be coming soon, thanks to new citizen-science initiatives. McKenney, Madden and their colleagues run the Wild Sourdough Project, which invites home bakers to experiment with flours and growing conditions and report their results. Similarly, Puratos has launched the Quest for Sourdough, where anyone from newbies to professionals can register their sourdough. Those with particularly interesting or unique starters might be invited to submit them to Puratos’s sourdough library for further analysis.
But sourdough is interesting to more than just bakers. Sourdough and other food fermentations such as those that give us cheese, sauerkraut and kimchi provide relatively simple, easy-to-handle model ecosystems for studying microbial ecology more generally. “There’s lots of insights you can gain from studying fermented foods that you can then transfer to more complex microbial communities as well,” says Paul Cotter, a microbiologist at the Teagasc Food Research Centre in Ireland, and co-author of an article on food microbiology in the Annual Review of Food Science and Technology.
Sourdough offers an additional benefit, especially relevant in pandemic times when the microbial world seems so full of threat. “Sourdough is this one space where we all agree, as a society, that microbes are helping us do wonderful things,” Madden says. “If you love sourdough, you love wild microbes in our lives.”
This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.
*Editor’s Note (8/13/20): Our partners at Knowable Magazine have edited this sentence after posting to correct the described authorship of the study. Anne Madden and her colleagues conducted the study, not Erin McKenney and her colleagues, as was originally stated.
**Editor’s Note (8/19/20): Our partners at Knowable Magazine have revised this sentence to correct an error in citing a type of yeast that is unable to use the sugar maltose.