Dark Winter Research Articles

Weapons of Mass Hysteria (WMH), Faulty Bio-Threat Predictions and its Impact on National (In)Security

Biothreat projections are generated by a straight-forward (computational) system using mathematical modeling. This method typically assigns three variables involved in disease transmission with a value culled from assorted past epidemics. In most models the data selected assumes absolute worst case scenarios; in all models biological plausibility, relevant historical data, and modern medical practice is ignored. Worst-case scenario data (such as the ‘Dark Winter’ scenario) involves mixing and matching individual worst datum from different epidemics, (again without regard to biological plausibility or societal/health system relevance) and is programmed to produce extreme calculations. These catastrophic predictions generate fear and hysteria, and as a by-product establish the predicate for maximum federal funding. Past pandemic projections (Avian-Flu, Smallpox, Anthrax, Swine Flu and Ebola) demonstrate that current models grotesquely overestimate incidence and severity. Some flawed estimates generated adverse health consequences more severe than a realistic epidemic, such as adverse incidents (and deaths) from the smallpox vaccine, along with diverting resources from necessary but less glamorous quotidian public health concerns. Allocation of billions of dollars to futile biodefense endeavors is clearly wasteful. But it also breeds a climate of suspicion of governmental ability to accurately predict and prepare for bio-threats. And consistent overestimation of epidemic risks suggests a systemic failure in methodology, threatening to damage confidence in governmental anti-terrorism programs and homeland security preparedness. Nevertheless, for fear of being under prepared, reliance on these models continues. Trying to prove that worst-case mathematical modelling to predict case/case-fatality numbers is an invalid method - is fraught with political danger. What if these “worst case” scenarios are in fact correct? Ignoring the possibility of calamity is a consideration no politician wishes to contemplate, even if ultimately more harm is caused by overzealous projections. Unless the validity of the model can be conclusively disproved, (and of course proving a negative is virtually impossible) the use of the current model continues, notwithstanding harm (and expense) which result. This work seeks to persuasively demonstrate that using mathematical models in a vacuum for projection purposes, including reliance on worst-case (or even averaged) values, mixing and matching values from different epidemics, and straight line (unadjusted) use of data across generations without considering historical details, is invalid - and dangerous, and possibly motivated by personal interests. Further, this work raises historical facts which seriously undermine several assumptions used in homeland security planning for smallpox, considerations which may be applicable to overall pandemic planning and preparedness.

Scientific Goals of the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS)

AbstractThe high Antarctic plateau provides exceptional conditions for infrared observations on account of the cold, dry and stable atmosphere above the ice surface. This paper describes the scientific goals behind the first program to examine the time-varying universe in the infrared from Antarctica — the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS). This will employ a 50cm telescope to monitor the southern skies in the 2.4μmKdark window from China's Kunlun station at Dome A, on the summit of the Antarctic plateau, through the uninterrupted 4-month period of winter darkness. An earlier paper discussed optimisation of the Kdark filter for sensitivity (Li et al. 2016). This paper examines the scientific program for KISS. We calculate the sensitivity of the camera for the extrema of observing conditions that will be encountered. We present the parameters for sample surveys that could then be carried out for a range of cadences and sensitivities. We then discuss several science programs that could be conducted with these capabilities, involving star formation, brown dwarfs and hot Jupiters, exoplanets around M dwarfs, the terminal phases of stellar evolution, fast transients, embedded supernova searches, reverberation mapping of AGN, gamma ray bursts and the detection of the cosmic infrared background.

Uncertainty: Words on the loose [Future Trends in I&M

Dear readers, The guest author for writing the column of this issue dedicated to young and brilliant engineers is Roberto Tinarelli. Perhaps no longer so young but surely brilliant! He is Senior Member IEEE and recipient of the 2013 Outstanding Reviewers award from the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society. Roberto distinguishes himself not only for his long list of publications but also for his presence in three world patents: a presettable transducer for electrical quantities; a capacitive sensor to sense an electric field generated by a conductor; and an apparatus for sensing the impact of a body on a strip located on a support. I leave you to his nice contribution! All the best, Simona It was a dark and cold winter afternoon when my mobile phone rang. Hey Robby, how are you? Simona said. Why don't you write something of interest for the column that I take care of in I&M Magazine? first of all I know that the column is for young and brilliant researchers, I replied. So, I thank you very much for considering me a brilliant guy but I am not more so young... I also thought that, given that I am little older than Simona, this was a way for her to considerer herself younger than she is. However, I never told her about this and she never must know what I thought... Moreover, I am not sure I can write something that can be suitable for the column topic as well as of interest for the magazine readers...

Aurora Borealis: Frederic Edwin Church.

Earth’s magnetic field shields it from a constant stream of charged subatomic particles emitted by the sun. As these charged particles approach the earth’s atmosphere, they collide with nitrogen and oxygen atoms and eject photons in visible wavelengths. Near the north and south poles, where magnetic field lines are nearly perpendicular to the earth’s surface, a shimmering, folded curtain of colored light can be seen by human observers. In arctic and subarctic regions, this display is called the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Magnetic turbulence creates movement in the auroral display. The American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900) based his painting Aurora Borealis on sketches by the explorer Isaac Israel Hayes. In this image Hayes’ steamship United States is frozen in the pack ice of the Kennedy Channel, an ocean strait that separates Ellesmere Island, Canada, from the northwestern coast of Greenland. The only signs of life in this scene are the cabin’s lighted windows and a tiny dogsled returning to the ship. The promontory behind the ship is the coast of Ellesmere Island, and the sharp mountaintop behind the promontory is Church Peak, which was named after the painter by Hayes. On this dark winter day, the only sounds heard by the explorers would have been the wind, the faint barking of sled dogs, and the sudden crack of ice under pressure. Church was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1826. He studied with the landscape painters Alexander H. Emmons, Benjamin H. Coe, and Thomas Cole (no relation to the author of this essay). Church was known for painting large landscapes and exhibiting them one at a time for his admiring public. The first painting by Church to achieve international recognition was Niagara (1857), a view of Niagara Falls

Environmental constraints on terrestrial vertebrate behaviour and reproduction in the high Arctic of the Late Cretaceous

Reconstructions of temperature and moisture regimes based on fossil leaves, combined with tree ring studies, detail the light regime, length of the growing season, and summer and winter temperatures of the Late Cretaceous Arctic. Such constraints have important implications for dinosaur feeding and reproductive behaviour, and the capacity to reside year-round in near-polar environments.At the highest palaeolatitudes where dinosaurs have been found (82–85 °N) winter darkness lasted for ~120days and the spring and autumn twilight periods for ~15days. A mostly cloud and mist-shrouded environment witnessed a mean annual temperature (MAT) of 6–7°C, a warm month mean temperature (WMMT) of 14.5±3.1°C and a cold month mean temperature (CMMT) of −2±3.9°C. Growth rings in wood suggest summer temperatures frequently fell below +10°C. Winter temperatures as low as −10°C were likely for short periods. Spring bud break in late February to early March and leaf fall in early October limited the time when fresh food was available in any quantity to not more than 6months.The diversity of Arctic dinosaur body sizes implies a range of overwintering strategies but year-round residency requires reproduction. Burrowing and enclosed nest building no doubt facilitated overwintering for small animals, but for larger dinosaurs shelter was problematical. No dinosaur egg remains have yet been found as far north as 82° palaeolatitude, but they occur 6° further south in the Early Maastrichtian Kakanaut Formation, Northeastern Russia. Here the winter darkness was shorter (45days), and the temperature regime warmer (MAT 10°C, WMMT 19°C, CMMT +3°C). The growing season (temperatures>10°C) was ~6.3months and fresh food was available in quantity for slightly longer. These summer temperatures constrain the thermal regime of nest environments and suggest sophisticated nest management and possibly brooding strategies for the necessary rapid incubation and hatching before the onset of winter.

Describing a Thought-Path

Describing a Thought-Path Chris Arthur (bio) What descriptions—or good ones anyway—actually describe is consciousness, the mind playing over the world of matter, finding there a glass various and lustrous enough to reflect back the complexities of the self that’s doing the looking. —Mark Doty, The Art of Description EVEN in term time, in the middle of the day, it’s rarely crowded. In the early morning when I cycle, it’s unusual to meet anyone. Sometimes there’s a jogger, or dog-walker, or one of the university porters going in to work. But mostly the path is deserted and I have it to myself. It runs for several hundred yards between farmland and playing fields. On the playing field side a dense coniferous hedge borders the path. Cherry trees are set into its dark foliage like pillars. There are maybe thirty of them, planted at regular intervals along the full length of the path. Sometimes, on breezy mornings, they remind me of the wooden stakes sewn into the canvas windbreak that we unfurled around us when I was little, on family picnics at the beach. When the wind is strong, the hedge is blown into canvas-like bulges, straining between their cherry stakes. In a gale it’s almost like a long ribbon of sail with the cherries resembling a flotilla of masts holding each billowing section in place. A seven-strand wire fence, strung between chest-high wooden posts, runs parallel to the hedge on the other side of the path. It marks the boundary between path and fields. When the wind is strong enough to flex and curve the sections of hedge between the cherries, the wires sometimes sing eerie, plaintive notes. Whenever that happens, I think of the fence as a kind of unearthly seven-stringed instrument whose invisible player places ghostly fingers along the frets of the posts, subtly altering the volume and modulation of the wail. The path is as well surfaced as a road. It’s lit by streetlights, and is just wide enough to take a car—though vehicles, other than [End Page 447] bikes, are prohibited. At one end of the path there’s a village-sized cluster of student halls of residence; at the other, a sports center. From the sports center it’s just a short walk to most of the university’s science departments. Mostly the path is used by students taking a shortcut between living quarters and lectures, but it also offers cyclists an appealing alternative to the main road. The routes I take in the morning vary. I’m cycling for exercise—and pleasure—before I start to write. It’s not as if I’m forced along one track of iron routine dictated by a daily commute. But despite this freedom, almost invariably, whatever route I decide to follow, it will at some point incorporate the path. Though it took a while for me to recognize the fact, the path has become a special place for me, a place that exerts a kind of magnetism that I find perplexing yet irresistible. My motive in writing about it here is straightforward: I want to try to describe and bring into clearer focus the nature of the path’s appeal, and so begin to understand why it keeps drawing me back. In part there’s nothing mysterious about this. There are enough factors to offer a plausible, commonsense explanation of the path’s attraction. Straight, well-lit on dark winter mornings, smooth surfaced, no cars, few pedestrians, and on only a gentle gradient—the path offers a short stretch of well-nigh ideal cycling terrain. Not only that, but for someone interested in natural history like me, the path is close enough to countryside for it to be a fruitful locus for the sighting of creatures that don’t venture into town. I’ve seen hares, weasels, and foxes here; the birdlife too is varied. Cycling along the path I’ve spotted goldfinches, yellowhammers, curlews, oystercatchers, herons, sparrowhawks, owls, and more. The verge that runs along the farmland side of the path is dotted and clumped in midsummer with untidy arrays of wildflowers...

Cultural Technique in Creative Practice: Exploring Cultural Embodiment in the Movement of the Body in a Studio Space

Cultural Technique in Creative Practice: Exploring Cultural Embodiment in the Movement of the Body in a Studio Space

Fluorescent water-soluble organic aerosols in the High Arctic atmosphere.

Organic aerosols are ubiquitous in the earth’s atmosphere. They have been extensively studied in urban, rural and marine environments. However, little is known about the fluorescence properties of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) or their transport to and distribution in the polar regions. Here, we present evidence that fluorescent WSOC is a substantial component of High Arctic aerosols. The ratios of fluorescence intensity of protein-like peak to humic-like peak generally increased from dark winter to early summer, indicating an enhanced contribution of protein-like organics from the ocean to Arctic aerosols after the polar sunrise. Such a seasonal pattern is in agreement with an increase of stable carbon isotope ratios of total carbon (δ13CTC) from −26.8‰ to −22.5‰. Our results suggest that Arctic aerosols are derived from a combination of the long-range transport of terrestrial organics and local sea-to-air emission of marine organics, with an estimated contribution from the latter of 8.7–77% (mean 45%).

Winter diversity and expression of proteorhodopsin genes in a polar ocean.

Mixotrophy is a valuable functional trait used by microbes when environmental conditions vary broadly or resources are limited. In the sunlit waters of the ocean, photoheterotrophy, a form of mixotrophy, is often mediated by proteorhodopsin (PR), a seven helices transmembrane protein binding the retinal chromophore. Altogether, they allow bacteria to capture photic energy for sensory and proton gradient formation cell functions. The seasonal occurrence and diversity of the gene coding for PR in cold oligotrophic polar oceans is not known and PR expression has not yet been reported. Here we show that PR is widely distributed among bacterial taxa, and that PR expression decreased markedly during the winter months in the Arctic Ocean. Gammaproteobacteria-like PR sequences were always dominant. However, within the second most common affiliation, there was a transition from Flavobacteria-like PR in early winter to Alphaproteobacteria-like PR in late winter. The phylogenetic shifts followed carbon dynamics, where patterns in expression were consistent with community succession, as identified by DNA community fingerprinting. Although genes for PR were always present, the trend in decreasing transcripts from January to February suggested reduced functional utility of PR during winter. Under winter darkness, sustained expression suggests that PR may continue to be useful for non-ATP forming functions, such as environmental sensing or small solute transport. The persistence of PR expression in winter among some bacterial groups may offer a competitive advantage, where its multifunctionality enhances microbial survival under harsh polar conditions.

A 600 years warm-season temperature record from varved sediments of Lago Plomo, Northern Patagonia, Chile (47°S)

High-resolution records of calibrated proxy data for the past millennium are fundamental to place current changes into the context of pre-industrial natural forced and unforced variability. Although the need for regional spatially-explicit comprehensive reconstructions is widely recognized, the proxy data sources are still scarce, particularly for the Southern Hemisphere and especially for South America.We present a 600-year long warm season temperature record from varved sediments of Lago Plomo, a proglacial lake of the Northern Patagonian Ice field in Southern Chile (46°59′S, 72°52′W, 203 m a.s.l.). The thickness of the bright summer sediment layer relative to the dark winter layer (measured as total brightness; % reflectance 400–730 nm) is calibrated against warm season SONDJF temperature (1900–2009; r = 0.58, p(aut) = 0.056, RE = 0.52; CE = 0.15, RMSEP = 0.28 °C; five-year triangular filtered data). In Lago Plomo, warm summer temperatures lead to enhanced glacier melt and suspended sediment transport, which results in thicker light summer layers and to brighter sediments. Although Patagonia shows pronounced regional differences in decadal temperature trends and variability, the 600 years temperature reconstruction from Lago Plomo compares favourably with other regional/continental temperature records, but also emphasizes significant regional differences for which no data and information existed so far. These regional differences seem to be real as they are also reflected in modern climate data sets (1900–2010). The reconstruction shows pronounced subdecadal – multidecadal variability with cold phases during parts of the Little Ice Age (16th and 18th centuries) and in the beginning of the 20th century. The most prominent warm phase is the 19th century which is as warm as the second half of the 20th century. The exceptional summer warmth AD 1780–1810 is also found in other archives of Northern Patagonia and Central Chile. Our record shows the delayed 20th century warming in the Southern Hemisphere.The comparison between winter precipitation and summer temperature (inter-seasonal coupling) from Lago Plomo reveals alternating phases with parallel and contrasting decadal trends of winter precipitation and summer temperature (positive and negative running correlations Rwinter PP; summer TT). This observation from the sediment proxy data is also confirmed by two sets of reanalysis data for the 20th century. Reanalysis data show that phases with negative correlations between winter precipitation and summer temperature (e.g., dry winters and warm summers) at Lago Plomo are characteristic for periods when circumpolar Westerly flow is displaced southward and enhanced around 60°S.

Adequate vitamin D levels in a Swedish population living above latitude 63°N: The 2009 Northern Sweden MONICA study

BackgroundEven though vitamin D is mainly produced by exposure to sunlight, little is known regarding vitamin D levels in populations living in sub-Arctic areas with little or no daylight during winter.ObjectiveWe describe distributions of vitamin D3 and the prevalence of adequate levels in a population living above 63°N.DesignWe sampled 1,622 randomly selected subjects, aged 25–74 years, between January and May, 2009, as part of the Northern Sweden MONICA study (69.2% participation rate). By using HPLC, 25(OH) vitamin D3 was analysed. Levels used for definitions were deficient, D3<25 nmol/l (<10 ng/ml); insufficient, D3 25–49.9 nmol/l (10–20 ng/ml); and adequate, D3≥50 nmol/l (20 ng/ml).ResultsMean (median) level of vitamin D3 was 65.2 (63.6) nmol/l in men and 71.0 (67.7) nmol/l in women. Adequate levels were found in 79.2%, more often in women (82.7%) than in men (75.6%). Only 0.7% of the population were vitamin D3–deficient but 23.1% of men and 17.1% of women had insufficient levels. Levels of vitamin D3 increased with age and insufficient status was most common among those aged 25–34 years, 41.0% in men and 22.3% in women.If subjects using vitamin D-supplementation are excluded, the population level of D3 is 1–2 nmol/l lower than in the general population across sex- and age groups. There were no differences between the northern or the southern parts, between urban or rural living or according to educational attainment. Those subjects born outside of Sweden or Finland had lower levels.ConclusionThe large majority living close to the Arctic Circle in Sweden have adequate D3 levels even during the second half of the dark winter. Subjects with D3 deficiency were uncommon but insufficient levels were often found among young men.

Temporal and spatial variability in sea-ice carbon:nitrogen ratios on Canadian Arctic shelves

Abstract To enhance the accuracy of carbon cycling models as applied to sea ice in the changing Arctic, we analyzed a large data set of particulate organic carbon (POC) and nitrogen (PON) measurements in first-year bottom sea ice (n = 257) from two Arctic shelves, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Beaufort Sea shelf, including dark winter and spring seasonal measurements. Wide ranges of sea-ice POC:PON ratios were observed during both the dark winter (12–46 mol:mol) and spring (3–24 mol:mol) periods. Sea-ice POC:PON ratios and chlorophyll a concentrations were significantly higher in the Archipelago versus the Beaufort Sea shelf (p &amp;lt; 0.01), yet there was a highly significant relationship between sea-ice POC and PON during spring for both shelves (r2 = 0.94). POC:PON ratios were not consistent over the range of measured POC and PON concentrations, justifying the use of a power function model to best describe the relationship between POC and PON. Distinct relationships between POC:PON ratios and chlorophyll-based biomass were observed for the dark winter and the spring: dark winter sea-ice POC:PON ratios decreased with increasing sea-ice biomass whereas spring POC:PON ratios increased with increasing sea-ice biomass. The transition from the dark period to the spring growth period in first-year sea ice represented a distinct stoichiometric shift in POC:PON ratios. Our results demonstrate that the Redfield ratio has limited applicability over the four-order of magnitude range of biomass concentrations observed in first-year sea ice on Arctic shelves. This study emphasizes the need for variable POC:PON stoichiometry in sea-ice biogeochemical models and budget estimates, in particular at high biomass concentrations and when considering seasonality outside of the spring period in first year ice. The use of a power function model for POC:PON relationships in sea ice is also recommended to better constrain carbon estimates in biogeochemical sea-ice models.

Simon and the Bear: A Hanukkah Tale by Eric A. Kimmel (review)

Reviewed by: Simon and the Bear: A Hanukkah Tale by Eric A. Kimmel Jeannette Hulick Kimmel, Eric A. Simon and the Bear: A Hanukkah Tale; illus. by Matthew True-man. Disney Hyperion, 2014 36 p ISBN 978-1-4231-4355-0 $16.99 R 6–8 yrs Simon sets out for America aboard the HMS Atlantic, but the ship collides with an iceberg mid-journey. Saving himself by leaping onto the menorah, he decides (since it is the first night of Hanukkah) that he will light the first candle in the menorah he has brought from home, in hopes of inviting a similarly miraculous salvation. His miracle shows up—a huge polar bear—and Simon feeds her some of the latkes his mother has packed. The kindly bear allows Simon to sleep next to her, keeping him warm, and brings him fish the next day, and the next, until Simon has lit all eight of his Hanukkah candles and used up all of his food supply. On the eighth night, rescue comes from a ship, sent to investigate the source of the mysterious light on the iceberg. Picturesque but pithy details add nuance and readaloud value to this original and inventive Hanukkah tale. Strong artistic compositions and an atmospheric use of a range of shadowy blues and whites effectively capture the wintry seascapes and night skies, and Trueman brings a masterful hand to textures ranging from the bear’s thickly stippled coat to the craquelure of the ice. Simon’s crimson hat provides a note of contrast and cheerful hope against the starker backgrounds, and the bear is both cuddly-looking and realistically intimidating in her size and in her triangular claws. This has multiple use possibilities, from holiday celebrations to polar bear storytimes to immigration-themed units, but it could also simply add some light and inspiration to a cold, dark winter’s night. Copyright © 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Contributions of Human Osteo-archaeology to the reconstruction of climatic shifts in medieval Romania

Huizinga (1996) used striking but quite realistic words to describe the Middle Ages: ‘When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now [...] Sickness contrasted more strongly with health. The cutting cold and the dreaded darkness of winter were more concrete evils’. This picture is particularly appropriate for depicting the ‘Little Ice Age’ (c. 14th – 19th centuries), a period which strongly contrasted with the previous ‘Medieval Warm Period’. It was a time of hardships for populations across Europe, tormented by climatic shifts, famine, epidemics and wars for many consecutive years, sometimes even decades, when seasons manifested their extremes in long, harsh winters, cool and wet summers, and cold peaks such as the so called Great Frost in 1709. Scholars and scientists have used several tools for the reconstruction of past climates and the understanding of the complex human-environment relations. The most ‘traditional’ indicators are human instrumental and non-instrumental records, natural proxies, and archaeological sources. Where available, church archives, journals and chronicles written by travellers and diplomats are very useful sources of information before technological devices to measure temperature and precipitation were invented. However, in recent years more disciplines have joined this ever-growing inter-disciplinary network. In Romania, historical (Cernovodeanu and Binder 1993) and new climatologic (Geantă et al. 2012; Cristea et al. 2014) studies have shown that during the late medieval period a substantial climate change occurred in the Romanian Countries as in the more documented Western countries.

HO&amp;lt;sub&amp;gt;2&amp;lt;/sub&amp;gt;NO&amp;lt;sub&amp;gt;2&amp;lt;/sub&amp;gt; and HNO&amp;lt;sub&amp;gt;3&amp;lt;/sub&amp;gt; in the coastal Antarctic winter night: a &amp;quot;lab-in-the-field&amp;quot; experiment

Abstract. Observations of peroxynitric acid (HO2NO2) and nitric acid (HNO3) were made during a 4 month period of Antarctic winter darkness at the coastal Antarctic research station, Halley. Mixing ratios of HNO3 ranged from instrumental detection limits to ~8 parts per trillion by volume (pptv), and of HO2NO2 from detection limits to ~5 pptv; the average ratio of HNO3 : HO2NO2 was 2.0(± 0.6) : 1, with HNO3 always present at greater mixing ratios than HO2NO2 during the winter darkness. An extremely strong association existed for the entire measurement period between mixing ratios of the respective trace gases and temperature: for HO2NO2, R2 = 0.72, and for HNO3, R2 = 0.70. We focus on three cases with considerable variation in temperature, where wind speeds were low and constant, such that, with the lack of photochemistry, changes in mixing ratio were likely to be driven by physical mechanisms alone. We derived enthalpies of adsorption (ΔHads) for these three cases. The average ΔHads for HNO3 was −42 ± 2 kJ mol−1 and for HO2NO2 was −56 ± 1 kJ mol−1; these values are extremely close to those derived in laboratory studies. This exercise demonstrates (i) that adsorption to/desorption from the snow pack should be taken into account when addressing budgets of boundary layer HO2NO2 and HNO3 at any snow-covered site, and (ii) that Antarctic winter can be used as a natural "laboratory in the field" for testing data on physical exchange mechanisms.

Winter Tales: the dark side of planktonic life

This paper presents the first comprehensive insight into the structure of planktonic communities, from nanoprotists to mesozooplankton in the waters north of Svalbard during the dark Arctic winter. Our investigations were carried out in two contrasting locations comparing a shallow fjord, Rijpfjorden, and a deep ice-covered region, Sofiadjupet, in January 2012. They revealed low chloro- phyll a concentrations (\0.05 mg m -2 ), as a result of the low protist biomass (0.54-2.04 mg C m -2 ). Overall, 27 plastidic protist taxa were observed including 14 auto- trophic taxa and one typical early Arctic spring bloom species (Entomoneis sp.). The presence of these photo- trophic organisms, mostly dinoflagellates, showed that some pelagic autotrophs are able to survive the dark winter period. The high mesozooplankton biomass (6-8 g C m -2 ) indicated a healthy community despite the scarcity of pri- mary producers. Three Calanus species dominated the mesoplanktonic biomass (79 %) in Rijpfjorden, whereas in Sofiadjupet carnivorous Chaetognatha (72 %) were domi- nant. Vertical distribution/profiles of the different trophic categories showed that herbivores were concentrated in the surface water layers (20-0 and 100-10 m) at both sites, whereas predators were occupying the deeper waters (600-100 m) of Sofiadjupet. Our results indicate that high mesozooplankton biomass is concentrated in surface waters. This contradicts the paradigm that mid-January, Arctic zooplankton communities overwinter in deep waters in a dormant state. Moreover, this work fills an evident gap in existing knowledge of Arctic plankton standing stocks and the relationships between its various size fractions during the polar night.

Autonomous Year-Round Sampling and Sensing to Explore the Physical and Biological Habitability of Permanently Ice-Covered Antarctic Lakes

AbstractThe lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, are some of the only systems on our planet that are perennially ice-covered and support year-round metabolism. As such, these ecosystems can provide important information on conditions and life in polar regions on Earth and on other icy worlds in our solar system. Working in these extreme environments of the Dry Valleys poses many challenges, particularly with respect to data collection during dark winter months when logistical constraints make fieldwork difficult. In this paper, we describe the motivation, design, and challenges for this recently deployed instrumentation in Lake Bonney, a lake that has been the subject of summer research efforts for more than 40 years. The instrumentation deployed includes autonomous water, phytoplankton, and sediment samplers as well as cable-mounted profiling platforms with dissolved gas and fluorometry sensors. Data obtained from these instruments will allow us, for the first time, to define the habitability of this environment during the polar night. We include lessons learned during deployment and recommendations for effective instrument operation in these extreme conditions.

Long, light summer nights

Brenda Williams' poem heralds the longest day on 21st June and encourages children to think about the differences between summer light and winter darkness, and make up some midsummer's night dreams!

Comparison of the antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of selected wheat varieties

Antibacterial and antioxidant activities of wheat seed ethyl acetate extracts for Jokyoung (JK), Dark northern spring (DNS), Keumkang (KK), Woori (WR), and Winter wheat (WW) were investigated. Antibacterial activities were evaluated in vitro against the common food and cosmetic industry contaminants Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Staphylococcus aureus using well diffusion assays. WW had the highest inhibitory activity against all tested strains, with S. aureus being the most sensitive strain. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of WW and WR against S. aureus were 0.50 and 1.25 mg/mL, respectively. The 2,6-dimethoxy-1,4- benzoquinone (DMBQ) content was measured using HPLC. The antibacterial activities of wheat seed extracts were correlated with the total phenolic contents (Pearson’s correlation coefficient=0.994), with the ABTS radical scavenging activity (0.978), and with the DMBQ content (0.968). WW and WR have potential for use as natural antimicrobials for prevention of food and cosmetics spoilage.

A Hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) Kanguk Formation of Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, Canada, and Its Ecological and Geographical Implications

A hadrosaurid vertebra was recovered during a palynological survey of the Upper Cretaceous Kanguk Formation in the eastern Canadian Arctic. This vertebra represents the farthest north record of any non-avian dinosaur to date. Although highly abraded, the fossil nonetheless represents an interesting biogeographic data point. During the Campanian, when this vertebra was deposited, the eastern Canadian Arctic was likely isolated both from western North America by the Western Interior Seaway and from more southern regions of eastern North America by the Hudson Seaway. This fossil suggests that large-bodied hadrosaurid dinosaurs may have inhabited a large polar insular landmass during the Late Cretaceous, where they would have lived year-round, unable to migrate to more southern regions during winters. It is possible that the resident herbivorous dinosaurs could have fed on non-deciduous conifers, as well as other woody twigs and stems, during the long, dark winter months when most deciduous plant species had lost their leaves.