E-Mail
Credit: IOCAS
Earthquakes and volcanoes in subduction zones may cause great human catastrophe. Previous studies on subduction zone structure and causal mechanisms of giant megathrust earthquakes (M ≥ 9.0) have mainly focused on aspects like subducting plates and plate interfaces.
In contrast, the oceanic asthenosphere structure beneath the subducting slab (at depths of 100-250 km) and its influence on the nucleation of giant megathrust earthquakes have not been well studied.
Recently, Dr. FAN Jianke from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and Prof. ZHAO Dapeng from Tohoku University turned their attention to this problem by investigating the oceanic asthenosphere structure of six subduction zones where giant earthquakes have occurred.
The development of livestock husbandry has led to the discharge of a huge amount of arsenic (As) and copper (Cu) ions together with swine urine into water bodies and soil.
Researchers have identified an entirely new group of microbes quietly living in hot springs, geothermal systems, and hydrothermal sediments around the world
They appear to play an important role in the global carbon cycle by helping to break down decaying plants without producing the greenhouse gas methane, the researchers report.
“Climate scientists should take these new microbes into account in their models to more accurately understand how they will impact climate change,” says Brett Baker, assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Marine Science Institute and lead author of the paper in
The new group, which biologists call a phylum, is named
Credit: Wanli Liu
A vital intermediate in normal cell metabolism is also, in the right context, a trigger for cell death, according to a new study from Wanli Liu and Yonghui Zhang of Tsinghua University, and Yong Zhang of Peking University in Beijing, publishing 26th April 2021 in the open access journal PLOS biology. The discovery may contribute to a better understanding of the damage caused by stroke, and may offer a new drug target to reduce that damage.
Farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP) is an intermediate in the mevalonate pathway, a series of biochemical reactions in every cell that contributes to protein synthesis, energy production, and construction of cell membranes. During a search for regulators of immune cell function, the authors unexpectedly discovered that FPP, when present at high concentrations outside of cells, caused rapid and extensive death of cells. FPP carries both a highly charged phosphate head and a long hydrophobic hydrocarbon tail, and by altering each in turn
How Wuhan scientists at Chinese lab helped army in top secret project to discover animal viruses
Updated: Apr 25 2021, 8:03 ET
SCIENTISTS studying bat diseases at a maximum-security lab in Wuhan helped military officials in a top secret project designed to investigate animal viruses, it has been reported.
The nationwide scheme, directed by a leading state body, is said to have launched nine years ago to find new bugs.
4
Shi Zhengli works with other researchers in a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in central China s Hubei provinceCredit: AP
Documents seen by The Mail on Sunday detail the major project called the discovery of animal-delivered pathogens carried by wild animals .