Artificial light alters natural regimes of night-time sky brightness

PMCID: PMC3634108Open access journalArtificial light is globally one of the most widely distributed forms of anthropogenic pollution. However, while both the nature and ecological effects of direct artificial lighting are increasingly well documented, those of artificial sky glow have received little attention. We investigated how city lights alter natural regimes of lunar sky brightness using a novel ten month time series of measurements recorded across a gradient of increasing light pollution. In the city, artificial lights increased sky brightness to levels six times above those recorded in rural locations, nine and twenty kilometers away. Artificial lighting masked natural monthly and seasonal regimes of lunar sky brightness in the city, and increased the number and annual regime of full moon equivalent hours available to organisms during the night. The changes have potentially profound ecological consequences.European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013

Source partitioning using stable isotopes: coping with too much variation.

Final published version of the article deposited in accordance with SHERPA RoMEO guidelinesStable isotope analysis is increasingly being utilised across broad areas of ecology and biology. Key to much of this work is the use of mixing models to estimate the proportion of sources contributing to a mixture such as in diet estimation

Common European birds are declining rapidly while less abundant species' numbers are rising

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Biodiversity is undergoing unprecedented global decline. Efforts to slow this rate have focused foremost on rarer species, which are at most risk of extinction. Less interest has been paid to more common species, despite their greater importance in terms of ecosystem function and service provision. How rates of decline are partitioned between common and less abundant species remains unclear. Using a 30-year data set of 144 bird species, we examined Europe-wide trends in avian abundance and biomass. Overall, avian abundance and biomass are both declining with most of this decline being attributed to more common species, while less abundant species showed an overall increase in both abundance and biomass. If overall avian declines are mainly due to reductions in a small number of common species, conservation efforts targeted at rarer species must be better matched with efforts to increase overall bird numbers, if ecological impacts of birds are to be maintained.RSPBEuropean Commissio

Gemini Deep Deep Survey VI: Massive Hdelta-strong galaxies at z=1

We show that there has been a dramatic decline in the abundance of massive galaxies with strong Hdelta stellar absorption lines from z=1.2 to the present. These ``Hdelta-strong'', or HDS, galaxies have undergone a recent and rapid break in their star-formation activity. Combining data from the Gemini Deep Deep and the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys to make mass-matched samples (M*>=10^10.2 Msun), with 25 and 50,255 galaxies, respectively), we find that the fraction of galaxies in an HDS phase has decreased from about 50% at z=1.2 to a few percent today. This decrease in fraction is due to an actual decrease in the number density of massive HDS systems by a factor of 2-4, coupled with an increase in the number density of massive galaxies by about 30 percent. We show that this result depends only weakly on the threshold chosen for the Hdelta equivalent width to define HDS systems (if greater than 4 A) and corresponds to a (1+z)^{2.5\pm 0.7} evolution. Spectral synthesis studies of the high-redshift population using the PEGASE code, treating Hdelta_A, EW[OII], Dn4000, and rest-frame colors, favor models in which the Balmer absorption features in massive Hdelta-strong systems are the echoes of intense episodes of star-formation that faded about 1 Gyr prior to the epoch of observation. The z=1.4-2 epoch appears to correspond to a time at which massive galaxies are in transition from a mode of sustained star formation to a relatively quiescent mode with weak and rare star-formation episodes. We argue that the most likely local descendants of the distant massive HDS galaxies are passively evolving massive galaxies in the field and small groups.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, uses emulateapj.sty; updated to match the version accepted by ApJ. One figure added, conclusions unchange

Agrárpiaci Jelentések ÉLŐÁLLAT ÉS HÚS

Az Amerikai Egyesült Államok agrárminisztériumának (USDA) októberben megjelent rövid távú projekciója szerint a világ marhahústermelése 930 ezer tonnával 61,4 millió tonnára emelkedhet az idén a 2016. évihez képest. Az USDA adatai szerint az Egyesült Államokban a bika ára 3,82 dollár (USD)/kilogramm hasított hideg súly volt 2017 szeptemberében, 1,6 százalékkal nőtt az egy évvel korábbihoz viszonyítva. Brazíliában a szarvasmarha ára brazil reálban kifejezve 4,4 százalékkal csökkent 2017 szeptemberében az előző év azonos hónapjának átlagárához képest. Argentínában a szarvasmarha ára argentin pezóban kifejezve 10 százalékkal emelkedett ugyanekkor. Az Európai Bizottság októberben megjelent rövid távú előrevetítése szerint az EU marhahústermelése várhatóan 7,9 millió tonna körül alakul 2017-ben, nem változik számottevően az előző évihez viszonyítva. A projekció szerint a marhahús kibocsátása 2018-ban előreláthatóan 7,85 millió tonnára csökken. Az Európai Unióban a fiatal bika „R3” kereskedelmi osztály vágóhídi belépési ára 3,83 euró/kilogramm hasított hideg súly volt 2017 szeptemberében, 5,3 százalékkal nőtt az egy évvel korábbihoz képest. Magyarországon a fiatal bika termelői ára 793 forint/kilogramm hasított meleg súly volt 2017 szeptemberében, 1,4 százalékkal nőtt az előző év azonos hónapjának átlagárához viszonyítva. A vágótehén ára 18,1 százalékkal, a vágóüszőé 22,9 százalékkal emelkedett ugyanekkor

Red Nuggets at z~1.5: Compact passive galaxies and the formation of the Kormendy Relation

We present the results of NICMOS imaging of a sample of 16 high mass passively evolving galaxies with 1.3<z<2, taken primarily from the Gemini Deep Deep Survey. Around 80% of galaxies in our sample have spectra dominated by stars with ages >1 Gyr. Our rest-frame R-band images show that most of these objects have compact regular morphologies which follow the classical R^1/4 law. These galaxies scatter along a tight sequence in the Kormendy relation. Around one-third of the massive red objects are extraordinarily compact, with effective radii under one kiloparsec. Our NICMOS observations allow the detection of such systems more robustly than is possible with optical (rest-frame UV) data, and while similar systems have been seen at z>2, this is the first time such systems have been detected in a rest-frame optical survey at 1.3<z<2. We refer to these compact galaxies as "red nuggets". Similarly compact massive galaxies are completely absent in the nearby Universe. We introduce a new "stellar mass Kormendy relation" (stellar mass density vs size) which isolates the effects of size evolution from those of luminosity and color evolution. The 1.1 < z < 2 passive galaxies have mass densities that are an order of magnitude larger then early type galaxies today and are comparable to the compact distant red galaxies at 2 < z < 3. We briefly consider mechanisms for size evolution in contemporary models focusing on equal-mass mergers and adiabatic expansion driven by stellar mass loss. Neither of these mechanisms appears able to transform the high-redshift Kormendy relation into its local counterpart. Comment: Accepted version (to appear in ApJ

Lenalidomide for the Treatment of Relapsed and Refractory Multiple Myeloma

Lenalidomide is an amino-substituted derivative of thalidomide with direct antiproliferative and cytotoxic effects on the myeloma tumor cell, as well as antiangiogenic activity and immunomodulatory effects. Together with the introduction of bortezomib and thalidomide, lenalidomide has significantly improved the survival of patients with relapsed and refractory myeloma. The most common adverse events associated with lenalidomide include fatigue, skin rash, thrombocytopenia, and neutropenia. In addition, when lenalidomide is combined with dexamethasone or other conventional cytotoxic agents, there is an increase in the incidence of venous thromboembolic events. There is now evidence that continued treatment with lenalidomide has a significant impact on survival by improving the depth and duration of response. This highlights the value of adverse event management and appropriate dose adjustments to prevent toxicity, and of allowing continued treatment until disease progression. In this review, we will discuss the different lenalidomide-based treatment regimens for patients with relapsed/refractory myeloma. This is accompanied by recommendations of how to manage and prevent adverse events associated with lenalidomide-based therapy

Resolving issues with environmental impact assessment of marine renewable energy installations

Growing concerns about climate change and energy security have fueled a rapid increase in the development of marine renewable energy installations (MREIs). The potential ecological consequences of increased use of these devices emphasizes the need for high quality environmental impact assessment (EIA). We demonstrate that these processes are hampered severely, primarily because ambiguities in the legislation and lack of clear implementation guidance are such that they do not ensure robust assessment of the significance of impacts and cumulative effects. We highlight why the regulatory framework leads to conceptual ambiguities and propose changes which, for the most part, do not require major adjustments to standard practice. We emphasize the importance of determining the degree of confidence in impacts to permit the likelihood as well as magnitude of impacts to be quantified and propose ways in which assessment of population-level impacts could be incorporated into the EIA process. Overall, however, we argue that, instead of trying to ascertain which particular developments are responsible for tipping an already heavily degraded marine environment into an undesirable state, emphasis should be placed on better strategic assessment.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe