Geosciences didactic experiences as a key component in Education for Sustainable Development.

This research project aims to contribute to the dissemination of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development topics among pupils and all school communities. Since Geosciences intersect most of the Agenda 2030 Goals, Sustainable Development has become one of the core subjects of this discipline, as well as teaching Geoscience represents a key aspect of Education for Sustainability. Several Geoscience topics, such as natural resources exploitation, responsible consumption, ecological and water footprint, circular economy and waste reduction are the main subjects addressed in this work. The choice of these research topics arises from both the many connections between Sustainability and everyday lifestyles and from their several linkages with different matters. This interdisciplinarity is in line with the Italian School Citizenship education guidelines about Sustainable Development and UNESCO key-competencies for Sustainability. In fact, Education for Sustainability is one of the three main components of Citizenship Education that has become mandatory for all Italian schools in the last two years. Moreover, the Italian School Department established that Citizenship Education has to be addressed using multidisciplinary approaches, involving all school’s teachers. For this reason and in order to support educators in developing interdisciplinary didactic pathways on Sustainability, I implemented some didactic activities with comprehensive ready-to-use tools that make them easily replicable. Moreover, starting from Geoscience educational experiences, like laboratorial activities about the water and ecological footprint topics, teachers could approach socio-economic issues both globally and locally with a contextualization in their own territory. The study has been proposed with the dual purpose of spreading Earth Sciences topics among k6-k8 students and of using them as interdisciplinary vectors in order to promote eco-friendly behaviours. Understanding how to improve pupils' ability to establish and justify the relationships between humans and the environment is essential to make the younger generation become conscious and responsible towards the environment itself. The topics developed in this research project are, in detail: 1- The ecological footprint and ecological rucksack of everyday life simple actions (like washing, eating, dressing...), with a special focus on natural resources exploitation (water, soil), waste production and the responsible actions of reducing, reusing, repairing and recycling. Team work and hands-on activities were carried out in order to improve students’ awareness about these Sustainability subjects, linking them to pupils’ real life. 2- Responsible food consumption and the ecological footprint of foods. Pupils were engaged in a team-challenge game, to discuss and think critically about the environmental impact of their daily diet, due to food production, transport, distribution and packaging. Topics like water, carbon and ecological footprint were developed, as well as agriculture and farming stress on our planet's health. 3- Agenda 2030 Goals (SDGs) and its call for immediate action towards responsible lifestyles. The several interconnections between Geosciences and the SDGs are deeply discussed with pupils and teachers, in order to highlight the key-role of this discipline in Education for Sustainability. Agenda 2030 is the core issue of all the activities realized for this research. Moreover, an educational game was developed, completely dedicated to this UN plan of action. It is a cardboard Game, called Sustainable City Game (S-City Game), planned in an interdisciplinary manner, that proposes topics related to Agenda 2030 and Sustainability (like SDGs and targets, circular economy, natural resources exploitation ...). Several school matters, such as Science, Math, Geography, Technology, History and Citizenship were involved in this game. As a follow-up work, a digital version of the S-City Game was developed, in order to involve teachers and pupils from home, during COVID-19 lockdown. Learning-by-doing, cooperative learning and learning-by-gaming are the methodological approaches used for the activities tested. In order to involve pupils in an active way and to make them think about simple responsible behaviours, manipulation, team-work and gaming have proven to be very useful educational tools to vehicle Sustainability topics. The experimentation was carried out with k6-k8 students from different Italian schools. The first segment of the project was tested through activities in presence, while the second one was experimented through distance learning, because of the COVID- 19 crisis. In fact, the activities in presence are based on practical and hands-on experiences, besides an educational cardboard game, called S-city game. As a follow- up work, the digital version of S-city game, included in a virtual environment, was implemented, in order to face the pandemic emergency that could stop the research experimentation. On the contrary, the use of virtual environments and digital gaming allowed us not only to reach students and teachers from different Italian regions, but also to obtain good results in terms of learning and satisfaction. Nevertheless the distance mode, the laboratorial didactic approach based on constructivism, continued to characterize this research. Thanks to the data collected during this PhD project experimentation, we can positively evaluate the didactic activities tested that constitute effective educational pathways for improving pupils' awareness towards eco-friendly and responsible lifestyles

Unwelcome guests – the role of gland-associated Helicobacter pylori infection in gastric carcinogenesis

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) are Gram-negative bacteria that cause chronic gastritis and are considered the main risk factor for the development of gastric cancer. H. pylori have evolved to survive the harsh luminal environment of the stomach and are known to cause damage and signaling aberrations in gastric epithelial cells, which can result in premalignant and malignant pathology. As well as colonizing the gastric mucus and surface epithelial cells, a subpopulation of H. pylori can invade deep into the gastric glands and directly interact with progenitor and stem cells. Gland colonization therefore bears the potential to cause direct injury to long-lived cells. Moreover, this bacterial subpopulation triggers a series of host responses that cause an enhanced proliferation of stem cells. Here, we review recent insights into how gastric gland colonization by H. pylori is established, the resulting pro-carcinogenic epithelial signaling alterations, as well as new insights into stem cell responses to infection. Together these point towards a critical role of gland-associated H. pylori in the development of gastric cancer

Unwelcome guests – the role of gland-associated Helicobacter pylori infection in gastric carcinogenesis

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) are Gram-negative bacteria that cause chronic gastritis and are considered the main risk factor for the development of gastric cancer. H. pylori have evolved to survive the harsh luminal environment of the stomach and are known to cause damage and signaling aberrations in gastric epithelial cells, which can result in premalignant and malignant pathology. As well as colonizing the gastric mucus and surface epithelial cells, a subpopulation of H. pylori can invade deep into the gastric glands and directly interact with progenitor and stem cells. Gland colonization therefore bears the potential to cause direct injury to long-lived cells. Moreover, this bacterial subpopulation triggers a series of host responses that cause an enhanced proliferation of stem cells. Here, we review recent insights into how gastric gland colonization by H. pylori is established, the resulting pro-carcinogenic epithelial signaling alterations, as well as new insights into stem cell responses to infection. Together these point towards a critical role of gland-associated H. pylori in the development of gastric cancer

Maned wolves retain moderate levels of genetic diversity and gene flow despite drastic habitat fragmentation

The maned wolf Chrysocyon brachyurus is the largest South American canid and categorized as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. The major threat to conservation efforts is the drastic reduction of suitable habitat for the species. A large portion of its range has been converted into farm and ranch lands as well as urban areas. To better understand the impact that these anthropogenic activities are having over the remaining populations across their current distribution range, we evaluated patterns of genetic variability and differentiation between them. We also compared these results with those obtained from captive maned wolves in order to make proper ex situ recommendations. We cross-amplified 12 microsatellite loci in maned wolf samples collected throughout their range (from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia) and from captive stocks (from captive breeding centers and zoos in Brazil, Argentina and the USA). We found that wild populations retain moderate levels of genetic variability compared with other microsatellite studies on wild canids, and our structure analysis revealed 2 genetic clusters in wild samples, one of which included samples exclusively from Bolivia. This cluster could represent a different management unit with conservation priority. The captive stock population showed higher levels of genetic variability, with the ones from Brazil being the most genetically diverse stock. The USA stock showed strong genetic differences with all other groups. This is the first study to examine the patterns of genetic diversity of both wild and captive populations of maned wolves. These results should be incorporated into further population viability assessments and in the Maned Wolf Species Survival Plan.Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovació

Signatures of the Optical Stark Effect on Entangled Photon Pairs from Resonantly-Pumped Quantum Dots

Two-photon resonant excitation of the biexciton-exciton cascade in a quantum dot generates highly polarization-entangled photon pairs in a near-deterministic way. However, there are still open questions on the ultimate level of achievable entanglement. Here, we observe the impact of the laser-induced AC-Stark effect on the spectral emission features and on entanglement. A shorter emission time, longer laser pulse duration, and higher pump power all result in lower values of concurrence. Nonetheless, additional contributions are still required to fully account for the observed below-unity concurrence.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Wavevector-resolved polarization entanglement from radiative cascades

The generation of entangled photons from radiative cascades has enabled milestone experiments in quantum information science with several applications in photonic quantum technologies. Significant efforts are being devoted to pushing the performances of near-deterministic entangled-photon sources based on single quantum emitters often embedded in photonic cavities, so to boost the flux of photon pairs. The general postulate is that the emitter generates photons in a nearly maximally entangled state of polarization, ready for application purposes. Here, we demonstrate that this assumption is unjustified. We show that in radiative cascades there exists an interplay between photon polarization and emission wavevector, which can be further amplified by embedding the emitters in micro-cavities. We discuss how the polarization entanglement of photon pairs from a biexciton-exciton cascade in quantum dots strongly depends on their propagation wavevector and we even observe entanglement vanishing for large emission angles. Our experimental results, backed by theoretical modeling, yield a brand-new understanding of cascaded emission for various quantum emitters. In addition, our model provides quantitative guidelines for designing optical microcavities that retain both a high degree of entanglement and collection efficiency, moving the community one step further towards an ideal source of entangled photons for quantum technologies

Maned wolves retain moderate levels of genetic diversity and gene flow despite drastic habitat fragmentation

The maned wolf Chrysocyon brachyurus is the largest South American canid and categorized as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. The major threat to conservation efforts is the drastic reduction of suitable habitat for the species. A large portion of its range has been converted into farm and ranch lands as well as urban areas. To better understand the impact that these anthropogenic activities are having over the remaining populations across their current distribution range, we evaluated patterns of genetic variability and differentiation between them. We also compared these results with those obtained from captive maned wolves in order to make proper ex situ recommendations. We cross-amplified 12 microsatellite loci in maned wolf samples collected throughout their range (from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia) and from captive stocks (from captive breeding centers and zoos in Brazil, Argentina and the USA). We found that wild populations retain moderate levels of genetic variability compared with other microsatellite studies on wild canids, and our structure analysis revealed 2 genetic clusters in wild samples, one of which included samples exclusively from Bolivia. This cluster could represent a different management unit with conservation priority. The captive stock population showed higher levels of genetic variability, with the ones from Brazil being the most genetically diverse stock. The USA stock showed strong genetic differences with all other groups. This is the first study to examine the patterns of genetic diversity of both wild and captive populations of maned wolves. These results should be incorporated into further population viability assessments and in the Maned Wolf Species Survival Plan

ETS-related gene (ERG) undermines genome stability in mouse prostate progenitors via Gsk3β dependent Nkx3.1 degradation.

21q22.2-3 deletion is the most common copy number alteration in prostate cancer (PCa). The genomic rearrangement results in the androgen-dependent de novo expression of ETS-related gene (ERG) in prostate cancer cells, a condition promoting tumor progression to advanced stages of the disease. Interestingly, ERG expression characterizes 5-30% of tumor precursor lesions - High Grade Prostatic Intraepithelial Neoplasia (HGPIN) - where its role remains unclear. Here, by combining organoids technology with Click-chemistry coupled Mass Spectrometry, we demonstrate a prominent role of ERG in remodeling the protein secretome of prostate progenitors. Functionally, by lowering autocrine Wnt-4 signaling, ERG represses canonical Wnt pathway in prostate progenitors, and, in turn, promotes the accumulation of DNA double strand breaks via Gsk3β-dependent degradation of the tumor suppressor Nkx3.1. On the other hand, by shaping extracellular paracrine signals, ERG strengthens the pro-oxidative transcriptional signature of inflammatory macrophages, which we demonstrate to infiltrate pre-malignant ERG positive prostate lesions. These findings highlight previously unrecognized functions of ERG in undermining adult prostate progenitor niche through cell autonomous and non-autonomous mechanisms. Overall, by supporting the survival and proliferation of prostate progenitors in the absence of growth stimuli and promoting the accumulation of DNA damage through destabilization of Nkx3.1, ERG could orchestrate the prelude to neoplastic transformation

Impacts of the 2014–2015 Holuhraun eruption on the UK atmosphere

Volcanic emissions, specifically from Iceland, pose a pan-European risk and are on the UK National Risk Register due to potential impacts on aviation, public health, agriculture, the environment and the economy, both from effusive and explosive activity. During the 2014–2015 fissure eruption of the Holuhraun in Iceland, the UK atmosphere was significantly perturbed. This study focuses on the first four months of the eruption (September to December 2014). During this period there was one major incursion in September 2014, affecting the surface concentrations of both aerosols and gases across the UK, with sites in Scotland experiencing the highest sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations. At the two UK EMEP supersite observatories (Auchencorth Moss, SE Scotland and Harwell, SE England) significant alterations in sulfate (SO42−) content of PM10 and PM2.5 during this event, concurrently with evidence of an increase in ultrafine aerosol, most likely due to nucleation and growth of aerosol within the plume, were observed. At Auchencorth Moss, higher hydrochloric acid (HCl) concentrations during the September event (max = 1.21 µg m−3, c.f annual average 0.12 µg m−3 in 2013), were assessed to be due to acid displacement of chloride (Cl−) from sea salt (NaCl) to form HCl gas rather than due to primary emissions HCl from Holuhraun. The gas and aerosol partioning at Auchencorth moss of inorganic species by thermodynamic modelling, confirmed the observed partioning of HCl. Volcano plume episodes were observed by the majority of the UK air quality monitoring networks during the first 4 months, at both hourly and monthly resolution. In the monthly networks, SO2 concentrations were significantly elevated at remote "clean" sites in NE Scotland and SW England, with record high SO2 concentrations for some sites. For sites which are regularly influenced by anthropogenic emissions, taking into account the underlying trends, the eruption led to statistically unremarkable SO2 concentrations (return probabilities > 0.1, ~ 10 months). However for a few sites, SO2 concentrations were clearly were much higher than has been previously observed (return probability < 0.005, > 3000 months). The Icelandic eruption has resulted in a unique study providing direct evidence of atmospheric chemistry perturbation of both gases and aerosols in the UK background atmosphere. The measurements can be used to both challenge and verify existing atmospheric chemistry of volcano plumes. If all European data sets were collated this would allow improved model verification and risk assessments for future volcanic eruptions

Extrusion of BMP2+ surface colonocytes promotes stromal remodeling and tissue regeneration

The colon epithelium frequently incurs damage through toxic influences. Repair is rapid, mediated by cellular plasticity and acquisition of the highly proliferative regenerative state. However, the mechanisms that promote the regenerative state are not well understood. Here, we reveal that upon injury and subsequent inflammatory response, IFN-γ drives widespread epithelial remodeling. IFN-γ promotes rapid apoptotic extrusion of fully differentiated surface colonocytes, while simultaneously causing differentiation of crypt-base stem and progenitor cells towards a colonocyte-like lineage. However, unlike homeostatic colonocytes, these IFN-γ-induced colonocytes neither respond to nor produce BMP-2 but retain regenerative capacity. The reduction of BMP-2-producing epithelial surface cells causes a remodeling of the surrounding mesenchymal niche, inducing high expression of HGF, which promotes proliferation of the IFN-γ-induced colonocytes. This mechanism of lineage replacement and subsequent remodeling of the mesenchymal niche enables tissue-wide adaptation to injury and efficient repair