Certain ash trees exhibit genetic variations that offer partial resistance to ash dieback
FLPA/Alamy
British ash trees are evolving resistant traits to combat ash dieback, evident from DNA sequences found in numerous specimens.
This discovery is promising, according to Richard Buggs at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, although complete resistance in ash trees is not anticipated soon. “A breeding program may be necessary to assist nature in this process,” he states.
Ash dieback, caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, progressively impairs the tree’s capacity to transport water. It began its spread across Europe in the 1990s and made its way to the UK in 2012.
The demise of ash trees leads to increased carbon dioxide release and threatens various species that depend on these trees for their ecosystem. Additionally, fallen trees pose risks to people and property. “There are numerous ash trees close to footpaths and roads, creating significant hazards,” Buggs notes.
Buggs’ team compared genomes of 128 adult European ash trees. Since fungi take considerably longer to kill mature trees than younger ones (Fraxinus excelsior), this also included 458 seedlings at a location called Marden Park in Surrey. They discovered thousands of variations previously linked to resistance were more prevalent in younger trees, likely because those without such variations perished.
This study provides the most comprehensive genetic insight into evolutionary responses observed in nature. “The significance of this research is its ability to characterize the genetic foundation and demonstrate the changes occurring within a single generation,” Buggs explains.
However, each gene variant offers only a marginal effect, failing to provide complete resistance. As the older ash trees diminish and fungal spores decrease, the rate of evolutionary change may also slow in the future. This indicates that younger ash trees might have better survival prospects, Buggs suggests.
“It poses a major challenge, but these trees won’t vanish entirely,” he remarks. “Our findings inspire hope that some of these younger ash trees may mature and undergo natural selection for subsequent generations, if feasible.”
Ash dieback has yet to invade North America; however, the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) has been introduced, actively decimating ash tree populations there. The outcome of both ash dieback and the emerald ash borer coexisting in the same region remains uncertain but might exacerbate the issue.
“Globalization is mixing insects and pathogens across the globe, leading to increasing challenges for these trees, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to adapt,” Buggs states. “Trees now face threats they have never experienced before, and at unprecedented speeds.”
He believes interventions are essential to help trees withstand these pressures, such as creating resistant hybrids between resilient species and native trees.
“One potential solution is to enhance the genetic diversity of trees globally, keeping pace with the array of pests and pathogens we are spreading,” he concludes.
Rising seas pose a significant threat to coastal cities.
Hugh R Hastings/Getty Images
A recent review of the latest scientific data indicates that capping global warming at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels won’t halt sea level rise for centuries to come.
“There seems to be a widespread belief that reaching 1.5°C will solve all our problems,” explained Chris Stokes from Durham University, UK. “While it should certainly be our goal, it won’t prevent sea level rise caused by the melting ice sheets.”
At present, global warming is on track for approximately 2.9°C by 2100, noted Jonathan Bamber from the University of Bristol, UK. “In terms of long-term impacts, we’re looking at a potential sea level rise of over 12 meters,” he stated.
Stokes, Bamber, and their colleagues have compiled data from satellite observations of ice loss and rising sea levels over the last three decades, historical data from warm periods, and satellite insights from models of ice sheets.
Older models that fail to incorporate crucial processes suggest that ice sheets take a significant amount of time to respond to warming, according to Bamber. However, satellite data indicates that the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are reacting much more swiftly.
“The data presents a very different narrative,” Bamber remarked. “The mass loss observed in Greenland is astonishing and truly unprecedented compared to model predictions.”
Both Greenland and West Antarctica are not only losing ice, but their rates of loss are increasing, said Stokes. “And this is occurring with just 1.2 degrees of warming,” he pointed out. “The notion that limiting warming to 1.5°C would resolve this is misleading.”
Research on previous warm spells over the past three million years reveals that sea levels were significantly higher during those times, as stated by Stokes.
The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 2021, forecasts a sea level rise of 1 to 2 meters over the coming centuries if global temperature rise is curtailed to 1.5°C, according to Stokes.
“We are pushing these projections forward,” he said. “It’s becoming evident that we are witnessing some of the worst-case scenarios manifesting right before us, based on mass balance satellite data.”
The team estimates that merely mitigating the pace of sea level rise from melting ice sheets to manageable levels will require the average global temperature to remain below 1°C above pre-industrial levels.
While wealthier nations may bolster their coastlines against rising seas, as ocean levels continue to escalate, this becomes more challenging and costly, Bamber warned. “Certain countries simply lack the financial resources for such measures.”
This highlights the urgency of taking action, according to Stokes. “Every fraction of a degree is crucial to the ice sheet,” he stated. “While I may alter certain points and thresholds, it’s vital to recognize that all degrees matter.”
Tropical riverbank ecosystems – what can be seen along rivers and wetlands – have now recovered within just two million years of North China's extinction. Terrestrial ecosystem.
An illustration depicting the beginning of the mass extinction of the Endopermians. Image credits: Dawid Adam Iurino/Paleofactory, Sapienza Rome University of Rome/Jurikova et aldoi: 10.1038/s41561-020-00646-4.
The mass extinction of the Endopermians occurred about 252 million years ago, and due to extreme environmental changes such as global warming, ocean acidification and long-term drought, more than 80% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species. I've cleared up all of that.
Dr. Li Tian, a researcher at the China University of Earth Sciences, said:
“It has long been theorized that low-latitude land areas remained uninhabited for a long period of time, 7-10 million years after extinction, but our results suggest that some ecosystems have previously been considered. It suggests it's more adaptable than it was.”
To reconstruct the timeline of ecosystem recovery on the land, Dr. Tian and colleagues analyzed trace fossils (such as burrows and footprints), plant relics, plant relics, and vertebrate fossils . 247 million years ago.
These fossils were obtained from lake and river deposits in central central China.
Researchers used a combination of techniques such as biostratigraphy, biology (studying microfossils), sedimentology, and geochemical analysis.
Their research suggests harsh environments at the beginning of the early Triassic period, with only sparse and simple living remaining.
Fossils of this era represent monospecific communities. This means that there is little evidence of biodiversity, and only a single type of organism dominates.
Fossils showed a significant decrease in biological size compared to before the end of Permian, a common indicator of extreme environmental stress.
However, fossils from the Spacyan stage (approximately 249 million years ago) show increased plant stems, root traces, and signs of piercing activity, suggesting a more stable and structured environment .
Scientists also discovered fossils of medium-sized carnivorous vertebrates, indicating that a multi-level food web was established at this stage.
The revival of the action that dug a hole that was largely vanished after the events of extinction was a significant discovery.
Hole-digging behavior promotes sediment and plays an important role in cycling nutrients in riverbank ecosystems, suggesting that animals adapted to environmental stress by escaping underground during this period. Masu.
The findings challenge the view that ecosystem recovery on post-extinction lands is far behind marine life, and that some ecosystems are already stable within relatively short geological time frames. It is revealed.
“Our research is the first to suggest that, contrary to past assumptions, life in the tropical House of Representatives' riparian ecosystems has recovered relatively quickly after the mass extinction of Permians,” said Jinnan. Dr. Tong also spoke from China's University of Earth Sciences.
“The fossil records we studied suggest that riparian zones played an important role in stabilizing post-extinction ecosystems.”
“The rivers and wetlands served as shelters, providing more stable conditions and more stable conditions, allowing life to rebound faster than in arid inland areas.”
Team's paper Published online in the journal Elif.
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Wenwei Guo et al. 2025. Following the mass extinction of Permians, rapid recovery of riparian ecosystems in the hypoxic environment of northern China. Elif 14: RP104205; doi: 10.7554/Elife.104205.1
Hello. Welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, technology news editor at Guardian US.
I’m taking over TechScape from Alex Hern. In this newsletter I would like to introduce myself and my ideas.
Blake Montgomery, new TechScape writer. Photo: The Guardian
A little about me: I started working for the Guardian the day Sam Bankman-Freed went to trial. My first break from my new job coincided with the shock firing of Sam Altman at OpenAI. A story I often tell at parties is how I was arrested and jailed while reporting. deadly testicular injection.
New newsletter: TechScape immerses you in the influence of politics, culture, and technology. We analyze the importance of the week’s most important technology news, explore odd niches, stay up to date with Guardian coverage, and give you helpful tips from time to time. My version of TechScape is a newsletter about technology and the people who make it. Technology, both as a product and as an industry, is the biggest driver of change in our time. It intersects every aspect of our lives and changes our daily behavior. Think of TechScape as your guide to the future and future present.
Thank you for your participation.
This week on iPhone
Yu-Gi-Oh! There’s a lot to explore in Master Duel. Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Average usage time per day: 6 hours 2 minutes.
Most used apps: Yu-Gi-Oh! master duel. I just downloaded this app last week and it stirs up some nostalgia in me. teenage trading card era for better or for worse. Quite a lot of things in the game have changed since then, so there’s a lot of digital territory to explore.
Silicon Valley’s elite schools are testing temporary bans on technology
There is a popular opinion that mobile phones are bad for everyone, especially children. Photo: The Guardian
Leaders in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe are debating whether students should have cellphones in their hands during class. A growing number of people in power, from presidents to school superintendents, think they shouldn’t do that.
California’s governor last week signed a bill requiring schools to reduce screen time for students, and the Los Angeles School District, the second largest in the United States, passed a ban on public high school phones on campus starting in 2025. The UK is not making this decision piecemeal. Similar to the US, ministers announced plans in February to ban phones in schools across the country. Hungary now requires schools to collect students’ devices at the start of the school day. France is in the midst of trialing a ban on the use of phones for students under 15. The Netherlands has banned the use of phones in schools from January 1, 2024.
Consensus is growing. Taking up arms against screen time is a popular stance among both conservatives and progressives. There is a popular opinion that phones are bad for everyone, especially children. One of the problems is that it is a universally acknowledged fact that everyone living in our time must have a smartphone. How can we prepare students to balance the two competing needs of screen time and screen-free time?
Will going tech-free help students learn better in school? Photo: The Guardian
An elite school in the heart of Silicon Valley is asking students to put down their devices and rethink their relationship with technology. The $62,400-a-year, private school for girls at Castile School in Palo Alto, Calif., has banned cell phones in classrooms since middle school principal Laura Zappas can remember. Also smart watches. The school has 185 students in grades 6, 7, and 8, aged 11 to 14.
Zappas instituted a completely technology-free week last school year, requiring all Castillaja students to lock their devices, including smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, and school-issued laptops, at the start of the school day for one week in March. The girls took notes, filled out all assignments on paper, and recorded data from their science experiments in graph journals. They wrote down the homework they needed to complete on paper planners that Zappas personally distributed. They complained of cramps because they handwritten more lines in a day than any other grade.
“We found that students with laptops had several screens open at the same time,” Zappas said. “They may be texting or playing games instead of taking notes. Or, a student’s urge to start class may be replaced by waiting for instructions from the teacher or what they are doing. Instead, I wanted to open my laptop as soon as I entered the classroom. I was always drawn to my laptop.”
The initiative, simply named “Tech Free Week,” served to reset digital-first educational practices during the pandemic, Zappas said. “I think before coronavirus, we were using a combination of paper and technology. And I think my own education has changed pretty dramatically with coronavirus, with all assignments now having to be submitted electronically. And since COVID-19, it has become our daily life.”
What does Unplugged look like as a way for students and teachers to think more deeply about our relationship with technology?
Administrators described Tech Free Week as a pause for rethinking. How can we participate as a community without screens?”
A recent study from Tech-Free Week found that 42% of students improved their ability to concentrate after returning to paper and pen. Photo: The Guardian
The results were positive, with 42% of students saying they were able to concentrate better in class and were less distracted during schoolwork, according to a survey conducted by the school. Almost three-quarters of teachers asked Zappas to repeat the effort. She is in discussions with administrators at the 9th- through 12th-grade high school to implement a technology-free week for older students.
Zappas emphasized that advance notice and careful preparation made Technology Free Week possible. She notified school teachers of the initiative four months in advance and pitched it to parents six weeks in advance. She asked both teachers and parents to consider how they can build healthy relationships. That a week without technology required so much planning shows that devices can be an inseparable part of modern life, even for 11-year-old students.
We have a French teacher and we gave them all the dictionaries and she said they had never seen a French dictionary before.
“We have a French teacher and we gave them all the dictionaries and she said they had never seen a French dictionary before,” Zappas said. “And it took a long time for them to figure out, ‘Okay, what’s the right word that I want to use here?’ How do I find that?”
I I don’t usually believe in life hacks. I’d like to imagine that with one simple adjustment my life would reappear like a cracked tennis court, but as time and experience have shown, positive change usually happens slowly and gradually.
But there is one hack that I truly believe in. It’s fast, free, and will instantly change your life for the better. Just mute the annoying people on social media.
The process varies by platform. Typically, you would go to the offending poster’s profile page or one of her posts and tap “Mute,” “Snooze,” or “Unfollow.” But that’s it. Thanks to this digital dust, social media is cleaner, or at least less dirty than it used to be. They’ll disappear from your timeline, and so will the various little annoyances they caused. Also, unlike unfollowing or blocking someone, the muted party won’t know they’ve been silenced, so there’s no risk of awkwardness or drama. .
Several people are muted. Some of them are people you don’t want to unfollow. I unfollowed some people, but I muted them because others might repost and pollute my pure timeline. One is a semi-celebrity who was rude to me about work many years ago. Another person was rude to my friend. There are also ex-lovers and people who are always humble and boastful and make you want to bang your head against something hard.
These people brought out the worst in me. When I saw their posts, I felt angry, mean, and small. I wondered how much it would cost to buy billboards along major highways with bullet points detailing just how bad it really is.
Luckily, I rarely think about these people anymore because I’ve muted them on all platforms. I usually forget these people exist unless someone brings it up in conversation. They were weeded from the lush garden of my brain.
Bailey Parnell, founder and president of the Center for Digital Wellbeing, said, “Muting accounts that repeatedly make you uncomfortable is setting up digital boundaries to create a healthier digital environment.” I am. This allows you to avoid offensive content without disconnecting. It’s a solution, she says, to the complicated situation where a relationship with someone is important to you despite their annoying online presence.
“This allows you to maintain your social and professional networks while also maintaining your mental health,” she says.
This may seem like obvious advice. Still, it can be difficult to follow. The frustration you feel when you see someone’s bad posts can be accompanied by a sense of satisfaction. It’s like, “Look!” It’s annoying!
“There can be a dopamine rush at the end of a big emotion,” says Monica Amorosi, a certified trauma therapist in New York City. We may begin to crave the adrenaline spike that comes with content that makes us feel shocked, angry, or disgusted.
“If we lead a mundane life, lack stimulation, are bored or overwhelmed, consuming this substance can be a form of entertainment or distraction,” says Amoros. says Mr.
Amorosi emphasizes the importance of not creating a “space of ignorance” in your feed by avoiding different perspectives on current events and alarming news. But this does not mean that social media should only be used to access upsetting information. Our feed can be used for “healthy, positive education, connecting with like-minded people, understanding the nuances and diversity of the world, fact-checking information, and learning new hobbies and ideas,” she says. say.
So muting is probably most effectively applied against people who annoy you in a bland, everyday way, such as an arrogant colleague. Not seeing humble braggarts pretending to be ashamed of their professional successes does not limit my worldview. Instead, I get back the 5-10 minutes I might have wasted taking screenshots of posts and complaining to friends about them.
Frankly, I haven’t done anything with the time I’ve gained by not badmouthing the people I’ve muted. But how nice that at least he has days when he’s comfortable for even five minutes.
So feel free to mute yourself and often. And what if you disagree with me? Please mute. You never know!
We have all experienced vomiting at some stage in our lives. Whether it’s due to a nasty bout of food poisoning or the well-known norovirus that infects the population episodically. And we can all agree that it’s scary.
But imagine what it would do to you physically, mentally, and emotionally if you were to expect constant nausea and vomiting at a critical stage in your life.this is the reality for them 4 in 5 women experience nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Even mild cases can cause unpleasant symptoms such as nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting.
According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2022 this will result in: 20,000 women hospitalized.
But until recently, little was known about the causes of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the more nausea and vomiting you have, the healthier your pregnancy, and even suggests that it is related to the number of babies you have.
However, real-world evidence shows this is not true. In fact, nausea and vomiting can vary widely in severity and pattern during pregnancy.
Often referred to as “morning sickness,” nausea and vomiting during pregnancy can occur at any time of the day or night. Usually it’s worse for the first 12 weeks, then it calms down. However, for many women, it lasts throughout the pregnancy.
Read more about women’s health:
However, after more than 20 years of research in this field, a breakthrough has been made that identifies a causal relationship. This was promoted by Dr. Malena Fezo, a geneticist at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.
Fezo was inspired to pursue this career after suffering from severe nausea and vomiting during her second pregnancy in 1999. She was unable to eat or drink without vomiting, and she rapidly lost weight and became so weak that she could no longer stand or walk.
However, doctors were skeptical that she might be exaggerating her symptoms to get attention. Fezo was eventually hospitalized and she miscarried at 15 weeks.
Fezo will conduct genetic research on previously pregnant women in collaboration with 23andMe, a private company that allows individuals to send samples of their DNA to determine health status and insights into their ancestry. did.
She identified a link with a woman who suffered from severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy (requiring an intravenous fluid). and a variant of the gene encoding a protein named GDF15, a hormone that acts on the brain stem.
This association pinpointed the need for further research to understand the role of GDF15 protein in pregnancy.
GDF15 is secreted by the placenta during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. It also likely plays a role in preventing the mother from biologically rejecting the baby, which is essential to allowing the pregnancy to continue. However, GDF15 has been shown to regulate physiological body weight and appetite through the brain. This substance is produced in excess in cancer patients who suffer from severe appetite and weight loss.
In addition to previous research, research led by Fejzo and the University of Cambridge Professor Stephen O'Rahilly We found that the level of GDF15 was high. Seen in women with severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. However, the effects of this hormone appear to depend on the woman's susceptibility and her exposure to GDF15 before pregnancy. Women who received higher levels of exposure before pregnancy had higher levels of the GDF15 hormone but did not have symptoms of nausea or vomiting.
It has been hypothesized that long-term exposure to GDF15 before pregnancy may have a protective effect and reduce a woman’s sensitivity to the hormonal surge caused by fetal development.
This exposure relationship is very unique and provides more understanding and knowledge as well as the potential that women may be desensitized by increasing their exposure to hormones before pregnancy. It also suggests possible treatments. Just like some people treat food allergies with controlled exposure therapy.
Many of the common symptoms affecting women, such as nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, are poorly understood despite their very high incidence. Women’s healthcare is not a niche, and there is much to understand and learn through this type of research.
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