Image Credit Research Articles

Nationally reported metrics can’t adequately guide transformative change in biodiversity policy

Biodiversity loss is rampant (1⇓–3). To safeguard the future of life on Earth, there are growing calls for transformative change in biodiversity policy [i.e., for a fundamental and system-wide reorganization of how such policy is designed, implemented, and enforced across scales and sectors (1)]. Here we argue that to achieve this change, nations need to urgently implement robust biodiversity metrics into decision-making processes and policy. To have any chance of retaining the globe’s biodiversity, nations must implement better, more robust biodiversity metrics into decision-making processes and policy. Image credit: Shutterstock/Stu Shaw. Because biodiversity sustains human life and economy, biodiversity metrics should be elevated to the same level as other core statistics and should be regarded as essential for guiding societies toward transformative change. Biodiversity metrics should be held to the same standards, rigor, and accuracy as any other nationally reported data, such as those on human population size, age structure, economic growth, and agricultural or industrial production. Measures of the state of biodiversity should thus be published as part of national statistics and mandated by legislation to ensure delivery. In March 2021, the 52nd United Nations Statistical Commission introduced the notion of biodiversity accounting in economic and financial decision-making, a move that represents an important step in changing international attitudes toward enhancing biodiversity policies. As researchers continue to gather knowledge on the structure, mechanisms, and determinants of biodiversity, governments should leverage that knowledge to guide policy. We therefore call for stronger efforts to implement monitoring schemes that provide species abundance data and for metrics that are globally harmonized to provide a more accurate quantification of patterns of biodiversity change (4, 5). To guide policy, governments and institutions require statistics that adequately and sensitively reflect ongoing change. Most current assessments of biodiversity status and trends are … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: tomas.roslin{at}helsinki.fi or anna-liisa.laine{at}uzh.ch. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Cover Image: Volume 25 Number 3, March 2022

The cover image is based on the Letter AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds by Tobias et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. The sword-billed hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) is exquisitely adapted to its trophic niche as an aerial pollinator of flowerings plants (angiosperms) in the high Andes. A new global dataset of detailed ecomorphological traits for all birds offers a resource with numerous potential uses in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. Image Credit: Cover Image © Oliver Krüger. Reproduced with permission.

A High‐Lift Micro‐Aerial‐Robot Powered by Low‐Voltage and Long‐Endurance Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (Adv. Mater. 7/2022)

Soft Robots The muscle-like dielectric elastomer actuators developed by Yufeng Chen and co-workers in article number 2106757 lead to insect-scale flapping-wing aerial soft robots that resemble the size, weight, and performance of honeybees in nature. The actuators consist of soft elastomers and carbon nanotube electrodes, and they are made through novel fabrication methods to significantly reduce operating voltage and improve lifetime. Cover image credit: Photography and art by Julian Kamzol and Sampson Wilcox.

Cover Feature: Revisiting the Fundamental Nature of Metal‐Ligand Bonding: An Impartial and Automated Fitting Procedure for Angular Overlap Model Parameters (Chem. Eur. J. 9/2022)

Our work on ligand field theory—an automated fitting procedure for Angular Overlap Model (AOM) parameters—is reflected by Van Gogh's Field with Irises near Arles. We showcase the capabilities of this procedure with a two-dimensional spectrochemical series with the metals manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel and copper and the halides fluoride, chloride, bromide and iodide. The perspective in van Gogh's field resembles a correlation we found between the halide ligands’ AOM parameters and their chemical hardness. More information can be found in the Research Article by V. Krewald et al. (DOI: 10.1002/chem.202103775). Original image credit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

Cover Image

The cover image is based on the Viewpoint A global agenda for advancing freshwater biodiversity research by Alain Maasri et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13931. Image Credit: Solvin Zankl.

To assess marine cloud brightening's technical feasibility, we need to know what to study—and when to stop

To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, it’s paramount that we decarbonize the economy and preserve and restore natural ecosystems. Unfortunately, pledges made from countries thus far will not limit warming to below 1.5 °C, even after accounting for the more ambitious targets set at the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow (1). Meeting the 1.5 °C Paris Agreement goal will likely require a massive deployment of CO2 removal technologies that remain unproven at scale (2). As a result, many scientists—including an expert panel recently convened by the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM)—have advocated for research into solar climate interventions that would offset some effects of greenhouse gas-driven warming by reflecting more sunlight back to space (3). This would temporarily cool the Earth, giving mitigation and adaptation efforts more time to scale up. One such approach, marine cloud brightening (MCB), would seed low-altitude clouds over the ocean with salt particles to produce more and smaller cloud droplets, leading to brighter clouds (4, 5). Right now, research into climate interventions such as marine cloud brightening lacks a comprehensive framework to produce and assess the information needed for sound decision making. Image credit: Shutterstock/Venera Salman. A view of marine clouds as seen from the International Space Station. Bands of brighter clouds are created by the pollution from ships' smokestacks. Marine cloud brightening proposals would aim to replicate this effect using sea salt. Astronaut photograph ISS059-E-36734. Image credit: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center, and NASA Earth Observatory. We endorse the need for a transdisciplinary research program focused on MCB and other solar climate interventions. However, climate intervention research currently lacks a comprehensive framework to objectively produce and assess the information needed for sound decision-making. This is attributable in part to a … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: michael.diamond{at}noaa.gov. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Cover Image

The cover image is based on the Editorial Anatomy of reducing left liver lobe grafts and monosegmental liver transplantation: Tell it as it is by Jean de Ville de Goyet https://doi.org/10.1111/petr.14145. Image Credit: MeVis Medical Solutions AG.

Complex and yet predictable: The message of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics

Syukuro (Suki) Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, and Georgio Parisi were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics. At first blush, this prize appears to recognize unrelated work in disparate fields. Even one of the Nobel Committee members acknowledged in the postannouncement press conference that it looks like a “split prize.” Upon reflection, however, there is a common thread running through the works of the awardees. Simply put, this year’s prize in physics acknowledges that disordered systems are predictable and that systems that behave chaotically can respond predictably to changes in external parameters. Earth’s climate is one such complex system, and it is of great importance to humanity. Its future must be predicted to guide policy. The prize also acknowledges that changes in the climate, like the properties of disordered condensed matter, are predictable using methods grounded in sound physics. Therefore, it is very appropriate to jointly recognize the foundational work done by these three visionary researchers with the Nobel Prize in Physics. This Nobel Prize in Physics is very different from the earlier Nobel Peace Prize awarded in 2007 to former Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which recognized the importance of human-induced climate change and the actions needed to understand and mitigate it. It is also different from the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Profs. Rowland, Molina, and Crutzen for their work on a global environmental problem arising from ozone depletion by manufactured chemicals, some of which were also major greenhouse gases. In contrast to those two earlier awards, the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes the fundamental scientific basis of climate predictability, detection of change due to known external forcings, and the predictability of disordered condensed matter. Syukuro Manabe. Image credit: Denise Applewhite (Princeton University, Princeton, NJ). Climate scientists Syukuro Manabe and … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: a.r.ravishankara{at}colostate.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Mechanical Behavior and Dendrite Resistance of closo‐Hydroborate Solid Electrolyte (Adv. Mater. Interfaces 3/2022)

Closo-Hydroborate Solid Electrolyte The solid electrolyte Na4(CB11H12)2(B12H12) at the interface with Na anode is tested as a function of battery stack pressure and current density in article number 2101254 by Matteo Brighi, Fabrizio Murgia, and Radovan Černý. Employing two different polyanions allows tuning locally the electrochemical properties while preserving structural and chemical coherence. Image credit: Xavier Ravinet & Olivier Gaumer - University of Geneva.

Profile of David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian: 2021 Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine

Three apparently unrelated findings led to the discovery of the temperature receptors: a better understanding of pain-sensing, the molecular nature of the channels in charge of touch and proprioception, and the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine bestowed to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian. In 1953, state-of-the-art research in temperature sensing concluded that temperature afferent fibers came in two flavors, “cold” and “warm,” characterized by discharging by a lowering in temperature and an increase in temperature, respectively (1). Hensel and Zotterman had previously described the sensitizing effect of menthol upon cold receptors (2). It is also an old observation that acute application of capsaicin, the active component of chili peppers, causes intense pain, and that its repeated administration renders animals insensitive to the action of this vanilloid compound (3). The fact that capsaicin induces a depolarization of ventral root neurons from the isolated rat spinal cord suggested to Theriault et al. (4) that capsaicin’s acute and chronic effects on nociception could be explained by a direct action on primary sensory neurons. On the other hand, McCarter et al. (5) demonstrated the existence of mechanosensitive currents in rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells, clearly pointing to the existence of mechanosensitive ion channels as being responsible for the sense of touch. David Julius. Image credit: University of California, San Francisco. Since temperature is an “intensive” thermodynamic parameter (i.e., one that does not depend on the size of the system), it was difficult to think of specialized temperature receptors. However, the seminal 1997 Nature paper from Julius’ laboratory demonstrated that living beings have evolved to transduce all stimuli coming from the external world using ion channels, including temperature (6). Caterina et al. (6) used an expression cloning strategy to search for the capsaicin receptor and found a single clone in which capsaicin induced a significant … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: ramon.latorre{at}uv.cl. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Opinion: To save whales, look to the sky

Human activity threatens whales. Whale populations face indirect impacts such as ocean noise and pollution, as well as direct impacts from whaling, fishing gear entanglements, and ship collisions (1). Such collisions are believed to kill about 80 whales on the US West Coast each year (2). Although precise estimates have not been tabulated, whale deaths likely amount to several thousand annually worldwide. Simple steps could reduce this toll, but these have yet to be put in place in a systemized way (3⇓–5). With maritime traffic expanding, the threat to whales can be expected to increase. It is therefore critical that we investigate what can be learned from the management of other transport systems to reduce collision and improve whale conservation. Shipping routes have been compared with roads, and concepts from terrestrial ecology have been borrowed to assess the direct and indirect ecological impacts from shipping on marine giants (6). For example, some have suggested that the addition of transition zones adjacent to maritime routes may help buffer the spread of shipping environmental impact. We extend this approach to draw lessons from the aviation industry on how to manage collisions with wildlife, lessons that point to crucial steps for better protecting the ocean’s whales (Fig. 1). Fig. 1. The aviation industry offers useful lessons for the shipping industry on how to manage wildlife collisions, which point to crucial steps for better protecting whales. Image credit: Shutterstock/Manamana. Fig. 2. Comparing the primary features of wildlife–vehicle collisions among four transportation industries highlights important differences and commonalities. Whale–ship collisions share more characteristics with bird–aircraft collisions than with terrestrial wildlife–vehicle collisions. There are some key theoretical similarities with the aviation industry (Fig. 2). Both whale–ship and bird–aircraft collisions occur in three-dimensional space. Ship draught can reach a depth of 20 m, and some whale … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: maxime.sebe{at}polytechnique.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Front Cover

The cover image relates to the Research Article https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13447 “Habitat model forecasts suggest potential redistribution of marine predators in the southern Indian Ocean” by Reisinger et al. An adult male southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) at Marion Island, southern Indian Ocean. Image credit: Ryan Reisinger.

Allow Golden Rice to save lives

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) has killed millions of children in less-developed countries for at least the last three decades—roughly 2 million annually in the early 1990s alone (1⇓⇓–4). Although the number is declining, it was estimated to be 266,200 (4) at the start of the millennium. Widespread consumption of the genetically modified rice variety known as Golden Rice offers a potent and cost-effective strategy to combat vitamin A deficiency. Image credit: International Rice Research Institute; photo licensed under CC BY 2.0. The consumption of the genetically modified rice variety known as Golden Rice (GR) offers a potent and cost-effective strategy to combat VAD. But this innovation has been cast aside owing to fear or false accusations, resulting in numerous lives needlessly lost (1⇓–3). With the recent exception of the Philippines, governments have not approved the cultivation of GR (5). We believe it should be broadly approved and given the opportunity to save and improve lives. In high-income nations where populations have access to a diversity of foods, VAD is rare. In many low-income nations, however, populations have limited access to foods rich in vitamin A or beta-carotene, a vitamin A precursor; hence, VAD rates can be dangerously high in children. There have been recent improvements: from 1991 to 2013, the VAD rate among children in low- and middle-income countries declined from 39% to 29%, with notable improvements among children in East and Southeast Asia (4). However, children in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia continue to disproportionately experience VAD and its associated risks: infectious and diarrheal diseases, irreversible blindness and other sensory losses, and premature death (1, 4, 6). VAD has not been eradicated despite a variety of strategies used globally, including education on the value of dietary diversity, … [↵][1]2To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: zilber11{at}berkeley.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Cover Image

The cover image is based on the Letter Process-explicit models reveal pathway to extinction for woolly mammoth using pattern-oriented validation by Damien A. Fordham et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13911. Image Credit: Mauricio Anton.

Green ammonia could produce climate-friendly ways to store energy and fertilize farms

Curbing climate change goes hand-in-hand with decarbonizing energy production. But how can communities continue to meet the global demand for electricity without releasing more CO2? A cadre of chemists says one solution may be hiding in an unlikely source: ammonia—the pungent, clear, nitrogen-rich gas, or liquid, that’s most often used as an agricultural fertilizer. Most of the ammonia produced in the world goes to crops, with the rest ending up in plastics, explosives, fabrics, and other materials. Ammonia is appealing as a means of storing and transporting energy, and it could offer a way to package and store hydrogen. But the conventional process for making ammonia at plants like this one involves liberating hydrogen from the hydrocarbons in fossil fuels and hence results in CO2 emissions. Image credit: Shutterstock/saoirse2013. But to researchers looking for carbon-neutral energy, ammonia makes an appealing fuel. Made of nitrogen and hydrogen, it burns without releasing carbon. [In 2014, Japanese researchers unveiled the first turbine powered by ammonia combustion (1).] Ammonia is also appealing as a way to store energy that’s transported from where it’s made to where it’s needed. And some researchers say that ammonia could be used to package and store hydrogen, which could be readily cracked out of the liquid or gas and used in fuel cells. And yet, several challenges remain if ammonia is to help with the globe’s massive carbon emissions conundrum. The conventional process for making ammonia involves liberating hydrogen from the hydrocarbons in fossil fuels, often methane, which adds CO2 to the atmosphere. By some estimates, ammonia production is responsible for roughly 2% of fossil fuel use, worldwide, and releases more than 400 millions of tons of CO2, representing more than 1% of total annual global emissions of the greenhouse gas. Those numbers …

What lies beneath

The Valles Marineris Hemisphere of Mars. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) It took several centuries of theorisation and many decades of seismic data collection and analysis to determine Earth’s internal structure. However, we now have a good understanding of the layering seen within our planet: from the crust – oceanic and continental – through the upper mantle, […]

The hidden lives of volcanic plumes provide clues about eruption activity

Volcanoes can pave their surroundings with lava, send clouds of hot ash downslope to smother cities, and even generate massive tsunamis. The most recent high-profile eruption on the Canary Islands spawned viral videos of slow, steady folds of smoldering lava enveloping houses and swimming pools. A volcano’s plume, such as this one from the 2009 Sarychev Peak eruption on the Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East, can send long-distance signals that indicate an eruption has occurred. Image credit: NASA/Mike Barratt (photographer). But the perils volcanoes pose aren’t limited to ground level: Their ash plumes threaten aircraft passing overhead, even those flying at cruise altitude. In the case of a sudden and explosive eruption, those clouds of ash—which are in fact small bits of rock—can reach elevations of 10,000 meters in just a few minutes. Despite these impressive displays, volcanic eruptions, especially remote ones situated far away from seismic instruments, can be hard to detect. There are some clues: Plume-induced lightning often betrays the presence of ash clouds once they’ve reached high altitude. But recent studies suggest that a different kind of electrical discharge—one generated near the base of a volcanic plume and nowhere else—could provide researchers with a heads-up that an eruption has commenced. Another analysis hints that other unseen signals, the low-frequency warbles known as infrasound, could help researchers monitor changes in ongoing eruptions that signal danger for people nearby. Dozens of aircraft have had run-ins with plumes of volcanic ash, although none of these encounters has been fatal. One of the most dramatic encounters occurred in December 1989 when KLM flight 867 from Amsterdam ran into an ash cloud as it approached its destination in Anchorage, AK. Ash sandblasted the plane’s windshields; airspeed sensors began to give false readings and then failed. All four engines died; the …

Nonlinearity, Multilinearity, Simultaneity

This paper addresses three paradigms in epistemological structures that could serve as preliminary classifications enabling a systematic approach to past and current media phenomena such as hypertext, diagrams and ubiquitous computing. Nonlinearity is discussed by Vilém Flusser in the context of "technical images." In his own approach to go beyond linear text, Flusser and his publisher created a digital version of his book Die Schrift on a floppy disk (1987), enabling the reader to jump between chapters or to rewrite the text. Multilinearity is a concept that is revived within the diagrammatology discourse, transcending linearity through topographical ways of reading. Current examples can be found in arts and narratives such as Chris Ware's comics, who uses diagrammatics to blur the lines between the reader and the author. Simultaneity as a technological attribute is essential to current ubiquitous and pervasive technologies and services and draws heavily on Heideggerian concepts such as readiness-to-hand and background. In this epistemological shift, the information is instantaneously organized according to the user's needs. Each of these epistemological structures offers a different idea about receiving and creating knowledge, information and communication, paving the way for narrative and media strategies that are more and more determined by a 'reader' becoming a 'user' and a 'text' becoming a 'service.' Image Credit: Chris Ware’s Diagram on the interior of the dust-jacket from Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth.

Old Plays, New Narratives

When a theatrical performance is digitally broadcast live to cinemas, the limitations of temporal and spatial specificity are removed and the theatrical experience is simultaneously opened up to a wider audience and inherently altered. One such production, Coriolanus (Donmar Warehouse, 2013-14), starring an actor with a particularly enthusiastic online fan community, was broadcast to cinemas by National Theatre Live, where fans recorded it on digital devices, extracted clips and produced animated gifs, which they captioned to reinterpret the play, sharing them online, removed from their original context. The transformation of theatre texts to cinemas to social media platforms raises exciting questions related to how fans interact with culture both as consumers and as producers of new media texts. How do the different transformations (technical and actively fan-produced) affect both the narrative and the cultural experience? How do new texts function as surrogates for, and extensions of, the ‘official' narrative, as well as new interactive narratives in their own right? This paper addresses these questions in the context of a specific theatrical event as it crossed the boundary from a live, co-located experience first into cinema, and then into interactive hypertexts and memes. Drawing on theories of fandom and participatory culture, as well as post-Web 2.0 analyses of Internet behaviours, the paper examines fan production of new media texts and how they both transmit and transform the source narrative via interpretation, re-interpretation, and misinterpretation. Image Credit: Still of fromhiddleswithlove (2014)

Profile of Ginés Morata

Gines Morata grew up in remote village in southeast Spain. As a child, he says, he had no scientific role models or sources of inspiration. Yet, by the end of graduate school, Morata had made two groundbreaking discoveries in Drosophila that are still influencing the field of developmental biology, including the discoveries of developmental compartments and the phenomenon of cell competition. His Inaugural Article examines how mutant cells in Drosophila outsmart cell competition to form tumors (1). For his accomplishments, Morata has received multiple awards, including Spain’s Prince of Asturias Prize for Science and Technology and foreign membership in the Royal Society in London. A research professor at the Spanish National Research Council and the Autonomous University of Madrid, Morata was elected as an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2018. Morata grew up in a modest household in Rioja, Almeria, Spain. His father was a traffic cop, and his mother stayed home with their four sons and a daughter. Although neither parent had any formal education, both emphasized the importance of school, says the second-born Morata. The family did not have money for secondary school, let alone college, but Morata’s good grades earned him scholarships that sent him first to the nearby city of Almeria for secondary school and, later, to the Complutense University in Madrid for college. Gines Morata. Image credit: Jose A. Perez (Centro de Biologia Molecular, Madrid, Spain). Although Morata loved watching birds and snakes as a child, he did not feel any affinity for biology at that age. When he went off to Madrid for college, he thought he might study mathematics or physics, inspired by a particularly adept mathematics teacher. However, a chance discovery helped change his course. “I read a book by Linus Pauling, where he made the point …