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Large, intact areas of tropical peatland are highly threatened at a global scale by the expansion of commercial agriculture and other forms of economic development. Conserving peatlands on a landscape scale, with their hydrology intact, is of international conservation importance to preserve their distinctive biodiversity and ecosystem services and maintain their resilience to future environmental change. We explored threats to and opportunities for conserving remaining intact tropical peatlands; thus, we excluded peatlands of Indonesia and Malaysia, where extensive deforestation, drainage, and conversion to plantations means conservation in this region can protect only small fragments of the original ecosystem. We focused on a case study, the Pastaza-Marañón Foreland Basin (PMFB) in Peru, which is among the largest known intact tropical peatland landscapes in the world and is representative of peatland vulnerability. Maintenance of the hydrological conditions critical for carbon storage and ecosystem function of peatlands is, in the PMFB, primarily threatened by expansion of commercial agriculture linked to new transport infrastructure that is facilitating access to remote areas. There remain opportunities in the PMFB and elsewhere to develop alternative, more sustainable land-use practices. Although some of the peatlands in the PMFB fall within existing legally protected areas, this protection does not include the most carbon-dense (domed pole forest) areas. New carbon-based conservation instruments (e.g., REDD+, Green Climate Fund), developing markets for sustainable peatland products, transferring land title to local communities, and expanding protected areas offer pathways to increased protection for intact tropical peatlands in Amazonia and elsewhere, such as those in New Guinea and Central Africa which remain, for the moment, broadly beyond the frontier of commercial development. Extensas e intactas áreas de turberas tropicales están severamente amenazadas a escala mundial, debido a la expansión de la agricultura comercial y a otras formas de desarrollo económico. La conservación de las turberas como parte del medio natural, con su hidrología no intervenida, es de importancia internacional para asegurar la conservación de su biodiversidad tan característica y de los servicios ambientales que ofrecen, y así mantener su resiliencia ante futuros cambios ambientales. Exploramos las amenazas y las oportunidades para conservar las turberas tropicales intactas y remanentes. Nuestro enfoque por lo tanto excluye las turberas de Indonesia y Malasia, donde la deforestación de forma extensiva y el drenado para el establecimiento de plantaciones hace que la conservación en estas regiones pueda proteger solo pequeños fragmentos del ecosistema original En este estudio, nos enfocamos en las cuencas del Pastaza Marañón (PMFB, siglas en inglés) en Perú, que comprende una de las turberas tropicales intactas más extensas del mundo y es representativa de la vulnerabilidad que las amenaza. El mantenimiento de las condiciones hidrológicas críticas para el almacenamiento de carbono y la función ambiental de las turberas está, en la PMFB, amenazada principalmente por la expansión de la agricultura comercial y las nuevas vías de transporte que facilitan el acceso a las áreas remotas. En la PMFB y en otros lugares aún hay oportunidades para desarrollar prácticas alternativas y sostenibles del uso del suelo. Aunque algunas de las turberas en la PMFB caen dentro de áreas naturales protegidas, esta protección no incluye las áreas con mayor densidad de carbono (varillal hidromórfico). Nuevas herramientas para la conservación basada en el carbono (p.e. REDD+, Fondo Verde para el Clima), el desarrollo de mercados para los productos de las turberas, la transferencia de títulos de propiedad de la tierra a las comunidades locales, y la expansión de las áreas protegidas ofrecen alternativas para una mayor protección de las turberas tropicales intactas en la Amazonia y en otros lugares, como las turberas de Nueva Guinea y África Central que permanecen, por el momento, alejadas de la frontera de desarrollo comercial.

A high-resolution pollen record from western Greece shows that the amplitude of millennial-scale oscillations in tree abundance during the last glacial period was subdued, with temperate tree populations surviving throughout the interval. This provides evidence for the existence of an area of relative ecological stability, reflecting the influence of continued moisture availability and varied topography. Long-term buffering of populations from climatic extremes, together with genetic isolation at such refugial sites, may have allowed lineage divergence to proceed through the Quaternary. Such ecologically stable areas may be critical not only for the long-term survival of species, but also for the emergence of new ones.

PurposeIn the 30 years since the Stockholm Workshop Scale (SWS) was published, the scientific literature on hand–arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) has grown and experience has been gained in its practical application. This research was undertaken to develop an up-to-date evidence-based classification for HAVS by seeking consensus between experts in the field.MethodsSeven occupational physicians who are clinically active and have had work published on HAVS in the last 10 years were asked to independently take part in a three-round iterative Delphi process. Consensus was taken when 5/7 (72%) agreed with a particular statement. Experts were asked to provide evidence from the literature or data from their own research to support their views.ResultsConsensus was achieved for most of the questions that were used to develop an updated staging system for HAVS. The vascular and neurological components from the SWS are retained, but ambiguous descriptors and tests without adequately developed methodology such as tactile discrimination, or discriminating power such as grip strength, are not included in the new staging system. A blanching score taken from photographs of the hands during vasospastic episodes is recommended in place of self-recall and frequency of attacks to stage vascular HAVS. Methods with the best evidence base are described for assessing sensory perception and dexterity.ConclusionsA new classification has been developed with three stages for the clinical classification of vascular and neurological HAVS based on international consensus. We recommend it replaces the SWS for clinical and research purposes.

SNO+ is a large liquid scintillator-based experiment located 2 km underground at SNOLAB, Sudbury, Canada. It reuses the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory detector, consisting of a 12 m diameter acrylic vessel which will be filled with about 780 tonnes of ultra-pure liquid scintillator. Designed as a multipurpose neutrino experiment, the primary goal of SNO+ is a search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) of 130Te. In Phase I, the detector will be loaded with 0.3% natural tellurium, corresponding to nearly 800 kg of 130Te, with an expected effective Majorana neutrino mass sensitivity in the region of 55–133 meV, just above the inverted mass hierarchy. Recently, the possibility of deploying up to ten times more natural tellurium has been investigated, which would enable SNO+ to achieve sensitivity deep into the parameter space for the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy in the future. Additionally, SNO+ aims to measure reactor antineutrino oscillations, low energy solar neutrinos, and geoneutrinos, to be sensitive to supernova neutrinos, and to search for exotic physics. A first phase with the detector filled with water will begin soon, with the scintillator phase expected to start after a few months of water data taking. The 0νββ Phase I is foreseen for 2017.

Aim To characterize the changing fire regime of a Mediterranean landscape during the Holocene and the Last Interglacial and, by comparing the two periods, to improve our understanding of the extent and timing of human alteration of natural fire regimes. Location Lake Ioannina, north-western Greece (39°45′ N, 20°51′ E). Methods Using a long sequence of lake sediments, we measured the charcoal content of the sediment over the course of the Holocene and the Last Interglacial. We compared the charcoal data with pollen data for the same periods. Results Charcoal was present in all samples analysed. Charcoal influx was greater during interglacials, which at Ioannina were forested, than during glacials, when tree populations were small. Charcoal influx was greater and more variable during the Holocene than during the Last Interglacial. Main conclusions Fire was a persistent feature throughout the periods studied, under both glacial and interglacial conditions. Overall, more biomass was burned during interglacials than during glacials, and peak burning occurred at intermediate values of moisture availability. There is little evidence that the composition of forests significantly affected burning regimes. Enhanced burning during the Holocene relative to the Last Interglacial may reflect human impact, as well as climatic or vegetational differences between the two periods.

The Science and Religion Forum (SRF) promotes discussion on issues at the interface of science and religion. The forum membership is diverse and it holds an annual conference to encourage exploration of issues that arise at the interface of science and religion. This article provides an overview of the hybrid conference that took place at the Woodbrooke Centre in Birmingham in May 2022. The conference addressed the issue of information and reality for religions and science across two broad themes. The first focused on metaphysical matters and the impact of the idea that information (quantum, biological, digital) are the fundamental building blocks of the universe, on our theological discourse. The second took a more ethical turn focusing on the issues raised by the interaction of information (biological, personal, digital) and science in society. This thematic section includes articles that span both strands of the conference including the public Gowland Lecture and the winning essay from the Peacocke Prize.

Our limited knowledge of the size of the carbon pool and exchange fluxes in forested lowland tropical peatlands represents a major gap in our understanding of the global carbon cycle. Peat deposits in several regions (e.g. the Congo Basin, much of Amazonia) are only just beginning to be mapped and characterised. Here we consider the extent to which methodological improvements and improved coordination between researchers could help to fill this gap. We review the literature on measurement of the key parameters required to calculate carbon pools and fluxes, including peatland area, peat bulk density, carbon concentration, above-ground carbon stocks, litter inputs to the peat, gaseous carbon exchange, and waterborne carbon fluxes. We identify areas where further research and better coordination are particularly needed in order to reduce the uncertainties in estimates of tropical peatland carbon pools and fluxes, thereby facilitating better-informed management of these exceptionally carbon-rich ecosystems.

New pollen data from three contrasting sites in northern Greece allow an analysis of spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation change during the Holocene and Lateglacial in northern Greece. At the principal site, Nisi Fen, six cores from the thickest surficial peat deposits have yielded a detailed, composite, AMS 14C-dated pollen record covering the period from 20000 cal. BP almost to the present-day. Cores Kp-4 and Bor-3 were taken from small mires at high elevations in the Boras mountains, a few kilometres to the north of Nisi, in which peat has been accumulating since the mid-Holocene. Our results show that only Pinus expanded significantly during the Lateglacial Interstadial, although small thermophilous tree populations were present in the region. The Younger Dryas chronozone is at best marked by subtle vegetational change in favour of steppe taxa. Tree cover increased rapidly at the beginning of the Holocene, with deciduous woodland probably expanding above its present-day altitudinal limits. There is evidence for drier and/or warmer summers, and mild winters, between c. 10500 and 7500 cal. BP, although the vegetation was not as markedly sclerophyllous as at many sites elsewhere in Greece. The mid-Holocene saw a reorganization of the woodland, with first Abies and then Fagus becoming important at high altitudes, and an increase in the diversity of deciduous woodland at medium elevations. The suggestion of human impact in the form of a decline in woodland and the appearance of crops in the pollen record can be found at all altitudes in the later Holocene.

DAMIC (Dark Matter in CCDs) is an experiment searching for dark matter particles employing fully-depleted charge-coupled devices. Using the bulk silicon which composes the detector as target, we expect to observe coherent WIMP-nucleus elastic scattering. Although located in the SNOLAB laboratory, 2 km below the surface, the CCDs are not completely free of radioactive contamination, in particular coming from radon daughters or from the detector itself. We present novel techniques for the measurement of the radioactive contamination in the bulk silicon and on the surface of DAMIC CCDs. Limits on the Uranium and Thorium contamination as well as on the cosmogenic isotope 32 Si, intrinsically present on the detector, were performed. We have obtained upper limits on the 238 TJ (232 Th) decay rate of 5 (15) kg_1 d_1 at 95% CL. Pairs of spatially correlated electron tracks expected from 32 Si-32 P and 210 Pb-210 Bi beta decays were also measured. We have found a decay rate of 80+l10 -65 kg_1 d_1 for 32 Si and an upper limit of - 35 kg-1 d-1 for 210 Pb, both at 95% CL.

The PICASSO and COUPP collaborations use superheated liquid detectors to search for cold dark matter through the direct detection of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). These experiments, located in the underground laboratory of SNOLAB, Canada, detect phase transitions triggered by nuclear recoils in the keV range induced by interactions with WIMPs. We present details of the construction and operation of these detectors as well as the results, obtained by several years of observations. We also introduce PICO, a joint effort of the two collaborations to build a second generation ton-scale bubble chamber with 250 liters of active liquid.