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Loss Of Intertidal Ecosystem Exposes Coastal Communities
December 19, 2018: UNSW & University of QueenslandArtificial intelligence and extensive satellite imagery have allowed researchers to map the world's intertidal zones for the first time, revealing a significant loss of the crucial ecosystem.
The University of Queensland and University of New South Wales study has shown that global foreshore environments declined by up to 16 per cent between 1984 and 2016.
Professor Richard Fuller, from UQ's School of Biological Sciences, said the zone between low and high tide lines protected more than 625 million people around the world from storms and sea level rises.
"Identifying areas where intertidal zones are being lost to development and rising seas is critical to safeguard coastal communities," Professor Fuller said.
"Our research will have significant international benefits, with more than 1.4 billion people expected to live in coastal areas by 2060."
The study used artificial intelligence known as machine-learning to analyse more than 700,000 satellite images to map changing global distribution of intertidal areas over a 30-year period.
UQ and UNSW Faculty of Science researcher Dr Nick Murray said it was made possible by a unique collaboration of conservation biologists, and marine, coastal, remote sensing, and computer scientists.
"It required nearly one million hours of computation, run on 22,000 machines via the Google Earth Engine," Dr Murray said.
"We applied machine learning classifiers to every pixel from each satellite image available to us from along the world's coastlines."
The findings lay the ground-work for a global coastal monitoring system for international conservation and sustainable development targets.
"A system like this could enable scientists, governments and the wider community to take stock of the services that coastal ecosystems provide," Dr Murray said.
"An online app, the Intertidal Change Explorer, offers open access to the dataset and supports its use to understand and conserve coastal ecosystems worldwide."
Nicholas J. Murray, Stuart R. Phinn, Michael DeWitt, Renata Ferrari, Renee Johnston, Mitchell B. Lyons, Nicholas Clinton, David Thau, Richard A. Fuller. The global distribution and trajectory of tidal flats. Nature, 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0805-8
Sampling invertebrates within deep mudflats in Gladstone, Australia. Credit: Chi-Yeung Choi
December 19, 2018: UNSW & University of Queensland
Artificial intelligence and extensive satellite imagery have allowed researchers to map the world's intertidal zones for the first time, revealing a significant loss of the crucial ecosystem.
The University of Queensland and University of New South Wales study has shown that global foreshore environments declined by up to 16 per cent between 1984 and 2016.
Professor Richard Fuller, from UQ's School of Biological Sciences, said the zone between low and high tide lines protected more than 625 million people around the world from storms and sea level rises.
"Identifying areas where intertidal zones are being lost to development and rising seas is critical to safeguard coastal communities," Professor Fuller said.
"Our research will have significant international benefits, with more than 1.4 billion people expected to live in coastal areas by 2060."
The study used artificial intelligence known as machine-learning to analyse more than 700,000 satellite images to map changing global distribution of intertidal areas over a 30-year period.
UQ and UNSW Faculty of Science researcher Dr Nick Murray said it was made possible by a unique collaboration of conservation biologists, and marine, coastal, remote sensing, and computer scientists.
"It required nearly one million hours of computation, run on 22,000 machines via the Google Earth Engine," Dr Murray said.
"We applied machine learning classifiers to every pixel from each satellite image available to us from along the world's coastlines."
The findings lay the ground-work for a global coastal monitoring system for international conservation and sustainable development targets.
"A system like this could enable scientists, governments and the wider community to take stock of the services that coastal ecosystems provide," Dr Murray said.
"An online app, the Intertidal Change Explorer, offers open access to the dataset and supports its use to understand and conserve coastal ecosystems worldwide."
Nicholas J. Murray, Stuart R. Phinn, Michael DeWitt, Renata Ferrari, Renee Johnston, Mitchell B. Lyons, Nicholas Clinton, David Thau, Richard A. Fuller. The global distribution and trajectory of tidal flats. Nature, 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0805-8
Sampling invertebrates within deep mudflats in Gladstone, Australia. Credit: Chi-Yeung Choi
Investigations Into Fish Kill At Menindee
Warriewood's Raymax Lasers Are Revolutionising The 3D Metal Printing Market
Raymax Applications has supplied innovative laser solutions to companies, universities, government departments and research institutes across Australia and New Zealand for over 25 years.
Lasers can be used for a myriad of tasks and situations: attached to a robot arm, or on the side of a bottling line, or inside a protective chamber for 3D printing metal parts. This wide variation in applications requires expert installation, support and training to ensure effective incorporation of the laser system. Sometimes, Raymax is presented with the challenge of a ‘never done before’ solution: a new application or use for a laser system.
“These are the challenges we love,” says John Grace, Managing Director of Raymax.“We not only get to apply our knowledge and skill, but we are giving the user an opportunity to do something they could never have done before, and that’s pretty satisfying for everyone.”
Lasers provide the opportunity to innovate, change and improve processes. For example, materials-processing applications such as welding, cutting and cladding in fields as diverse as consumer electronics, automotive manufacturing and defence, are now dominated by industrial lasers. This uptake changes traditional processes, influenced by the advantages of a more precise alternative to traditional processing.
In today’s fast-paced industrial and manufacturing sectors, demand for the latest technology has led Raymax into the realm of additive manufacturing (AM). By introducing laser cladding and welding systems with the installation of Laserline lasers, damaged parts can be repaired that are otherwise expensive to replace or take inordinate time to be delivered. Such economic advantages are being provided to mining and drilling operators, for aircraft part maintenance, in repair of generator turbine blades, and so on. Lasercladding has been shown not just to be an economical solution, but parts are proving far more robust that the original part, extending usable life.
Over the past three years Raymax has become the distributor of Europe’s leading 3D metal printing laser systems: SLM Solutions. SLM predicts that in Europe and the US, metal AM is set to revolutionise the automotive market; from high-performance racing cars to production vehicles, the benefits of design freedom and maximised functionality are increasing demand.
Terry Wohlers, a renowned commentator on 3D printing, emphasises the importance of design for AM (DfAM). Courses in this area are being offered in collaboration with RMIT in Melbourne, where four SLM laser systems are housed. Parts designed for conventional manufacturing are expensive to produce by AM. However, when parts are redesigned, benefits can be realised in terms of greater functionality, consolidation of assembly, inclusion of cooling channels, along with the benefit of using metals that offer reduced weight of the finished part.
Wohlers emphasises that one of the biggest barriers to the uptake of AM is the lack of knowledge and skills among the design and engineering workforce – a skills gap that needs filling quickly if manufacturers are to reap the benefits. Australia’s universities are filling an important role, providing research centres while offering testing facilities and application support to local industry as well as specific training.
“Our partnerships with universities is crucial to the introduction of new technology, particularly where it requires training and skills development,” says Grace. “Most major universities across the country offer access to SLM laser systems. Companies only have to ask!”
More at: www.raymax.com.au
Melting Ice Sheets Release Tons Of Methane Into The Atmosphere
January 3rd, 2019: University of Bristol
The Greenland Ice Sheet emits tons of methane according to a new study, showing that subglacial biological activity impacts the atmosphere far more than previously thought.
An international team of researchers led by the University of Bristol camped for three months next to the Greenland Ice Sheet, sampling the meltwater that runs off a large catchment (> 600 km2) of the Ice Sheet during the summer months.
As reported in Nature, using novel sensors to measure methane in meltwater runoff in real time, they observed that methane was continuously exported from beneath the ice.
They calculated that at least six tons of methane was transported to their measuring site from this portion of the Ice Sheet alone, roughly the equivalent of the methane released by up to 100 cows.
Professor Jemma Wadham, Director of Bristol's Cabot Institute for the Environment, who led the investigation, said: "A key finding is that much of the methane produced beneath the ice likely escapes the Greenland Ice Sheet in large, fast flowing rivers before it can be oxidized to CO2, a typical fate for methane gas which normally reduces its greenhouse warming potency."
Methane gas (CH4) is the third most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere after water vapour and carbon dioxide (CO2). Although, present in lower concentrations that CO2, methane is approximately 20-28 times more potent. Therefore smaller quantities have the potential to cause disproportionate impacts on atmospheric temperatures. Most of the Earth's methane is produced by microorganisms that convert organic matter to CH4 in the absence of oxygen, mostly in wetlands and on agricultural land, for instance in the stomachs of cows and rice paddies. The remainder comes from fossil fuels like natural gas.
While some methane had been detected previously in Greenland ice cores and in an Antarctic Subglacial Lake, this is the first time that meltwaters produced in spring and summer in large ice sheet catchments have been reported to continuously flush out methane from the ice sheet bed to the atmosphere.
Lead author, Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon, from Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said: "What is also striking is the fact that we've found unequivocal evidence of a widespread subglacial microbial system. Whilst we knew that methane-producing microbes likely were important in subglacial environments, how important and widespread they truly were was debatable. Now we clearly see that active microorganisms, living under kilometres of ice, are not only surviving, but likely impacting other parts of the Earth system. This subglacial methane is essentially a biomarker for life in these isolated habitats."
Most studies on Arctic methane sources focus on permafrost, because these frozen soils tend to hold large reserves of organic carbon that could be converted to methane when they thaw due to climate warming. This latest study shows that ice sheet beds, which hold large reserves of carbon, liquid water, microorganisms and very little oxygen -- the ideal conditions for creating methane gas -- are also atmospheric methane sources.
Co-researcher Dr Elizabeth Bagshaw from Cardiff University added: "The new sensor technologies that we used give us a window into this previously unseen part of the glacial environment. Continuous measurement of meltwater enables us to improve our understanding of how these fascinating systems work and how they impact the rest of the planet."
With Antarctica holding the largest ice mass on the planet, researchers say their findings make a case for turning the spotlight to the south. Mr Lamarche-Gagnon added: "Several orders of magnitude more methane has been hypothesized to be capped beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet than beneath Arctic ice-masses. Like we did in Greenland, it's time to put more robust numbers on the theory."
Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon, Jemma L. Wadham, Barbara Sherwood Lollar, Sandra Arndt, Peer Fietzek, Alexander D. Beaton, Andrew J. Tedstone, Jon Telling, Elizabeth A. Bagshaw, Jon R. Hawkings, Tyler J. Kohler, Jakub D. Zarsky, Matthew C. Mowlem, Alexandre M. Anesio, Marek Stibal. Greenland melt drives continuous export of methane from the ice-sheet bed. Nature, 2019; 565 (7737): 73 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0800-0
This photo shows a rhodamine dye injection into the proglacial river, just before a waterfall. The pink dye (the rhodamine) is used to calculate the water discharge of the proglacial river (i.e. how much water/melt if flowing in the river at that time). Credit: Jakub D Zarsky
The Long Memory Of The Pacific Ocean
January 4th, 2019: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The ocean has a long memory. When the water in today's deep Pacific Ocean last saw sunlight, Charlemagne was the Holy Roman Emperor, the Song Dynasty ruled China and Oxford University had just held its very first class. During that time, between the 9th and 12th centuries, the earth's climate was generally warmer before the cold of the Little Ice Age settled in around the 16th century. Now ocean surface temperatures are back on the rise but the question is, do the deepest parts of the ocean know that?
Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Harvard University have found that the deep Pacific Ocean lags a few centuries behind in terms of temperature and is still adjusting to the entry into the Little Ice Age. Whereas most of the ocean is responding to modern warming, the deep Pacific may be cooling.
"These waters are so old and haven't been near the surface in so long, they still 'remember' what was going on hundreds of years ago when Europe experienced some of its coldest winters in history," said Jake Gebbie, a physical oceanographer at WHOI and lead author of the study published Jan. 4, 2019, in the journal Science.
"Climate varies across all timescales," adds Peter Huybers, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University and co-author of the paper. "Some regional warming and cooling patterns, like the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period, are well known. Our goal was to develop a model of how the interior properties of the ocean respond to changes in surface climate."
What that model showed was surprising.
"If the surface ocean was generally cooling for the better part of the last millennium, those parts of the ocean most isolated from modern warming may still be cooling," said Gebbie.
The model is, of course, a simplification of the actual ocean. To test the prediction, Gebbie and Huybers compared the cooling trend found in the model to ocean temperature measurements taken by scientists aboard the HMS Challenger in the 1870s and modern observations from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment of the 1990s.
The HMS Challenger, a three-masted wooden sailing ship originally designed as a British warship, was used for the first modern scientific expedition to explore the world's ocean and seafloor. During the expedition from 1872 to 1876, thermometers were lowered into the ocean depths and more than 5,000 temperature measurements were logged.
Painting of HMS Challenger by William Frederick Mitchell
"We screened this historical data for outliers and considered a variety of corrections associated with pressure effects on the thermometer and stretching of the hemp rope used for lowering thermometers," said Huybers.
The researchers then compared the HMS Challenger data to the modern observations and found warming in most parts of the global ocean, as would be expected due to the warming planet over the 20th Century, but cooling in the deep Pacific at a depth of around two kilometers.
"The close correspondence between the predictions and observed trends gave us confidence that this is a real phenomenon," said Gebbie.
These findings imply that variations in surface climate that predate the onset of modern warming still influence how much the climate is heating up today. Previous estimates of how much heat the Earth had absorbed during the last century assumed an ocean that started out in equilibrium at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. But Gebbie and Huybers estimate that the deep Pacific cooling trend leads to a downward revision of heat absorbed over the 20th century by about 30 percent.
"Part of the heat needed to bring the ocean into equilibrium with an atmosphere having more greenhouse gases was apparently already present in the deep Pacific," said Huybers. "These findings increase the impetus for understanding the causes of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as a way for better understanding modern warming trends."
G. Gebbie, P. Huybers. The Little Ice Age and 20th-century deep Pacific cooling. Science, 2019; 363 (6422): 70 DOI: 10.1126/science.aar8413
Cold waters that sank in polar regions hundreds of years ago during the Little Ice Age are still impacting deep Pacific Ocean temperature trends. While the deep Pacific temperature trends are small, they represent a large amount of energy in the Earth system.
Credit: Photo by Larry Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Insect Biological Control Shields Tropical Forests
January 8th, 2019
Though often perceived as an environmentally-risky practice, biological control of invasive species can restore crop yields, ease land pressure and contribute to forest conservation. This paper illustrates the positive impacts of biological control using the cassava mealybug Phenacoccus manihoti (Hemiptera) as an example. Cassava is a key food, feed and fiber crop grown on around 4 million ha in tropical Asia, where use of a parasitic wasp lowers crop losses, restores farm profitability and slows deforestation.
During 2009-2010, the invasive mealybug caused 18% drops in Thailand's cassava yields, triggering sharp increases in cassava prices and spurring a region-wide expansion of cassava crop surfaces. This coincided with 185-608% surges in peak deforestation rates in neighboring countries. Following release of the host-specific parasitoid Anagyrus lopezi (Hymenoptera) in 2010, mealybug outbreaks were reduced, the cropped area contracted, and the pace of deforestation slowed by 31-95% in individual countries. Hence, when used according to established guidelines, biological control of a crop pest can avert the need for synthetic pesticides, shield tropical biodiversity and deliver long-lasting environmental benefits on a macro-scale.
Insects provide invaluable services to humanity, including the natural control of agricultural pests, a service worth at least $4.5 billion annually to US agriculture alone. This week's study in Communications Biology reveals how a judiciously-selected pest-killing insect -- a minute parasitic wasp -- helps resolve invasive pest problems, augments crop yields and protects tropical biodiversity. "Insect biological control reconnects insect friends and foes, and restores ecological balance in invaded agro-ecosystems," says Kris Wyckhuys, agro-ecologist at University of Queensland (Australia) and IPP-CAAS (China), and coordinator of the study. "Such nature-based approaches provide a 'win-win' solution that addresses invasive species mitigation, biodiversity conservation and profitable farming. Collaboration between conservation biologists and crop protection scientists can thus be beneficial to balance farmer realities on the ground with biodiversity conservation."
The study underlines the ample environmental benefits of insect biological control, as a desirable alternative to insecticide-based approaches for tackling pest problems, supporting sustainable intensification and sparing land for conservation. "It is often difficult to reconcile socio-economic and ecological issues, and smallholder farmers are regularly tempted to resort to costly and environmentally-damaging chemical pesticides to control pests. This study confirms that appropriate use of biological control can resolve socio-economic, environmental and ecological issues simultaneously, especially in tropical countries," adds Jean-Philippe Deguine, agro-ecologist and entomologist at CIRAD and co-author of the paper. By opting for biological control, farmers defuse pest problems, enhance profitability of their operations and concurrently become stewards of the environment.
Agro-ecological Crop Protection, a way to preserve biodiversity in the tropics
When used with established safeguards, biological control can permanently resolve invasive species problems. The scientifically-guided introduction of specialist natural enemies to provide pest control services in field crops is in line with agro-ecological crop protection. As a cost-effective alternative to pesticide-based approaches, and relying upon nature's services to suppress crop pests, agro-ecological crop protection aims to restore and optimize ecosystem functioning and helps ensure that crop protection benefits farmers' pockets, consumer and producer health and the broader farming environment.
K. A. G. Wyckhuys, A. C. Hughes, C. Buamas, A. C. Johnson, L. Vasseur, L. Reymondin, J. -P. Deguine, D. Sheil. Biological control of an agricultural pest protects tropical forests. Communications Biology, 2019; 2 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s42003-018-0257-6
One invasive mealybug species - Phenacoccus manihoti - caused major cassava p.roduction losses in Thailand during 2009-2010 Credit: P. Moonjuntha (Thailand Department of Agriculture)
Computers Can Be A Real Pain In The Neck
January 4th, 2019: San Francisco State University
It's a posture so common we almost don't notice it anymore: someone sitting at a computer jutting his or her head forward to look more closely at the screen. But this seemingly harmless position compresses the neck and can lead to fatigue, headaches, poor concentration, increased muscle tension and even injury to the vertebrae over time. It can even limit the ability to turn your head.
"When your posture is tall and erect, the muscles of your back can easily support the weight of your head and neck -- as much as 12 pounds," explains San Francisco State University Professor of Holistic Health Erik Peper. "But when your head juts forward at a 45 degree angle, your neck acts like a fulcrum, like a long lever lifting a heavy object. Now the muscle weight of your head and neck is the equivalent of about 45 pounds. It is not surprising people get stiff necks and shoulder and back pain."
Peper, Associate Professor of Health Education Richard Harvey and their colleagues, including two student researchers, tested the effects of head and neck position in a recent study published in the journal Biofeedback. First they asked 87 students to sit upright with their heads properly aligned on their necks and asked them to turn their heads. Then the students were asked to "scrunch" their necks and jut their heads forward. Ninety-two percent reported being able to turn their heads much farther when not scrunching. In the second test, 125 students scrunched their necks for 30 seconds. Afterwards, 98 percent reported some level of pain in their head, neck or eyes.
The researchers also monitored 12 students with electromyography equipment and found that trapezius muscle tension increased in the scrunched, head forward position.
So if you suffer from headaches or neck and backaches from computer work, check your posture and make sure your head is aligned on top of your neck, as if held by an invisible thread from the ceiling. "You can do something about this poor posture very quickly," said Peper. To increase body awareness, Peper advises purposefully replicating the head-forward/neck scrunched position. "You can exaggerate the position and experience the symptoms. Then when you find yourself doing it, you can become aware and stop."
Other solutions he offers include increasing the font on your computer screen, wearing computer reading glasses or placing your computer on a stand at eye level, all to make the screen easier to read without strain.
Quantum Scientists Demonstrate World-First 3D Atomic-Scale Quantum Chip Architecture
January 8th, 2019: University NSW
UNSW researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) have shown for the first time that they can build atomic precision qubits in a 3D device -- another major step towards a universal quantum computer.
The team of researchers, led by 2018 Australian of the Year and Director of CQC2T Professor Michelle Simmons, have demonstrated that they can extend their atomic qubit fabrication technique to multiple layers of a silicon crystal -- achieving a critical component of the 3D chip architecture that they introduced to the world in 2015. This new research was published today in Nature Nanotechnology.
The group is the first to demonstrate the feasibility of an architecture that uses atomic-scale qubits aligned to control lines -- which are essentially very narrow wires -- inside a 3D design.
What's more, the team was able to align the different layers in their 3D device with nanometer precision -- and showed they could read out qubit states single shot, i.e. within one single measurement, with very high fidelity.
"This 3D device architecture is a significant advancement for atomic qubits in silicon," says Professor Simmons. "To be able to constantly correct for errors in quantum calculations -- an important milestone in our field -- you have to be able to control many qubits in parallel.
"The only way to do this is to use a 3D architecture, so in 2015 we developed and patented a vertical crisscross architecture. However, there were still a series of challenges related to the fabrication of this multi-layered device. With this result we have now shown that engineering our approach in 3D is possible in the way we envisioned it a few years ago."
In this paper, the team has demonstrated how to build a second control plane or layer on top of the first layer of qubits.
"It's a highly complicated process, but in very simple terms, we built the first plane, and then optimized a technique to grow the second layer without impacting the structures in first layer," explains CQC2T researcher and co-author, Dr Joris Keizer.
"In the past, critics would say that that's not possible because the surface of the second layer gets very rough, and you wouldn't be able to use our precision technique anymore -- however, in this paper, we have shown that we can do it, contrary to expectations."
The team also demonstrated that they can then align these multiple layers with nanometer precision.
"If you write something on the first silicon layer and then put a silicon layer on top, you still need to identify your location to align components on both layers. We have shown a technique that can achieve alignment within under 5 nanometers, which is quite extraordinary," Dr Keizer says.
Lastly, the researchers were able to measure the qubit output of the 3D device with what's called single shot -- i.e. with one single, accurate measurement, rather than having to rely on averaging out millions of experiments. "This will further help us scale up faster," Dr Keizer explains.
Towards commercialisation
Professor Simmons says that this research is a major milestone in the field.
"We are working systematically towards a large-scale architecture that will lead us to the eventual commercialisation of the technology.
"This is an important development in the field of quantum computing, but it's also quite exciting for SQC," says Professor Simmons, who is also the founder and a director of SQC.
Since May 2017, Australia's first quantum computing company, Silicon Quantum Computing Pty Limited (SQC), has been working to create and commercialise a quantum computer based on a suite of intellectual property developed at CQC2T and its own proprietary intellectual property.
"While we are still at least a decade away from a large-scale quantum computer, the work of CQC2T remains at the forefront of innovation in this space. Concrete results such as these reaffirm our strong position internationally," she concludes.
Matthias Koch, Joris G. Keizer, Prasanna Pakkiam, Daniel Keith, Matthew G. House, Eldad Peretz, Michelle Y. Simmons. Spin read-out in atomic qubits in an all-epitaxial three-dimensional transistor. Nature Nanotechnology, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41565-018-0338-1
These are study authors Professor Michelle Simmons and Joris Keizer, UNSW Sydney. Credit: UNSW Sydney