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The environmental severity of large impacts on Earth is influenced by their impact trajectory. Impact direction and angle to the target plane affect the volume and depth of origin of vaporized target, as well as the trajectories of ejected material. The asteroid impact that formed the 66 Ma Chicxulub crater had a profound and catastrophic effect on Earth’s environment, but the impact trajectory is debated. Here we show that impact angle and direction can be diagnosed by asymmetries in the subsurface structure of the Chicxulub crater. Comparison of 3D numerical simulations of Chicxulub-scale impacts with geophysical observations suggests that the Chicxulub crater was formed by a steeply-inclined (45–60° to horizontal) impact from the northeast; several lines of evidence rule out a low angle (<30°) impact. A steeply-inclined impact produces a nearly symmetric distribution of ejected rock and releases more climate-changing gases per impactor mass than either a very shallow or near-vertical impact. The authors here present a 3D model that simulates the formation of the Chicxulub impact crater. Based on asymmetries in the subsurface structure of the Chicxulub crater, the authors diagnose impact angle and direction and suggest a steeply inclined (60° to horizontal) impact from the northeast.

In conservation projects in and around protected areas (PAs), a suite of policy instruments are used to promote conservation behavior in local people. Few studies have related psychological research on motivational values to conservation in PAs. We conducted a systematic review of 120 peer-reviewed articles to assess the relative frequencies of policy instruments that aimed to foster intrinsic versus extrinsic motivations to conserve. We examined how the type of motivation engendered by the instrument (i.e., intrinsic or extrinsic motivation and based on the description of how the project was designed and implemented) influenced the ecological, economic, and social success of the project. We assessed the success of the project in only the case studies that included a quantitative or qualitative analysis of success. Projects designed to foster at least one intrinsically motivating instrument were 3 times more likely to meet socioeconomic or ecological goals. Although certain types of instruments such as payments or fines tended to be based on extrinsic motivators more often than education or monitoring programs, several successful projects involving payments or fines were linked to intrinsic motivation in the local community. Thus, our results suggest that rather than debating the relative merits of specific types of policy instruments, conservationists may have more success by focusing on how different motivators, suited to specific contexts, can better empower local communities to conserve. Broadly, our results suggest the current emphasis on social justice and well-being of local communities is a positive step toward protecting the world's remaining biodiversity. En los proyectos de conservación en y alrededor de las áreas protegidas (APs), un conjunto de instrumentos políticos es usado para promover el comportamiento de conservación entre la gente local. Pocos estudios han relacionado a la investigación psicológica sobre los valores motivacionales con la conservación en las APs. Realizamos una revisión sistemática de 120 artículos revisados por colegas para valorar las frecuencias relativas de los instrumentos políticos que buscaban fomentar las motivaciones intrínsecas para conservar contra las extrínsecas. Examinamos cómo los tipos de motivación generados por el instrumento (es decir, la motivación intrínseca o extrínseca y basado en la descripción de cómo el proyecto fue diseñado e implementado) influyeron sobre el éxito ecológico, económico y social del proyecto. Valoramos el éxito del proyecto sólo en los estudios de caso que incluyeron un análisis cualitativo o cuantitativo del éxito. Los proyectos diseñados para promover por lo menos un instrumento de motivación intrínseca tuvieron tres veces más probabilidad de alcanzar los objetivos ecológicos o socio-económicos. Aunque ciertos tipos de instrumentos, como los pagos o las multas, tuvieron la tendencia de estar basados en motivadores extrínsecos más veces que la educación o los programas de monitoreo, muchos proyectos exitosos que involucraban pagos o multas estuvieron conectados a la motivación intrínseca en la comunidad local. Por esto, nuestros resultados sugieren que en lugar de debatir los méritos relativos de los tipos específicos de instrumentos políticos, los conservacionistas pueden tener más éxito si se enfocan en cómo los motivadores diferentes, ajustados a contextos específicos, pueden empoderar de mejor manera a las comunidades locales para conservar. En general, nuestros resultados sugieren que el énfasis actual sobre la justicia social y el bienestar de las comunidades locales es un paso positivo hacia la protección de la biodiversidad mundial restante.

Large meteorite impact structures on the terrestrial bodies of the Solar System contain pronounced topographic rings, which emerged from uplifted target (crustal) rocks within minutes of impact. To flow rapidly over large distances, these target rocks must have weakened drastically, but they subsequently regained sufficient strength to build and sustain topographic rings. The mechanisms of rock deformation that accomplish such extreme change in mechanical behaviour during cratering are largely unknown and have been debated for decades. Recent drilling of the approximately 200-km-diameter Chicxulub impact structure in Mexico has produced a record of brittle and viscous deformation within its peak-ring rocks. Here we show how catastrophic rock weakening upon impact is followed by an increase in rock strength that culminated in the formation of the peak ring during cratering. The observations point to quasi-continuous rock flow and hence acoustic fluidization as the dominant physical process controlling initial cratering, followed by increasingly localized faulting. Catastrophic rock weakening upon impact of a meteorite, and hence flow, is shown to be followed by regained rock strength that enabled the formation of the peak ring during cratering.

High energy visible (HEV) blue light is an increasing source of concern for visual health. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), a group of compounds found in high concentrations in smokers and polluted environments, accumulate in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). HEV absorption by indeno [1,2,3-cd]pyrene (IcdP), a common PAH, synergizes their toxicities and promotes degenerative changes in RPE cells comparable to the ones observed in age-related macular degeneration. In this study, we decipher the processes underlying IcdP and HEV synergic toxicity in human RPE cells. We found that IcdP-HEV toxicity is caused by the loss of the tight coupling between the two metabolic phases ensuring IcdP efficient detoxification. Indeed, IcdP/HEV co-exposure induces an overactivation of key actors in phase I metabolism. IcdP/HEV interaction is also associated with a downregulation of proteins involved in phase II. Our data thus indicate that phase II is hindered in response to co-exposure and that it is insufficient to sustain the enhanced phase I induction. This is reflected by an accelerated production of endogenous reactive oxygen species (ROS) and an increased accumulation of IcdP-related bulky DNA damage. Our work raises the prospect that lifestyle and environmental pollution may be significant modulators of HEV toxicity in the retina.

Conservation interventions require evaluation to understand what factors predict success or failure. To date, there has been little systematic investigation of the effect of social and cultural context on conservation success, although a large body of literature argues it is important. We investigated whether local cultural context, particularly local institutions and the efforts of interventions to engage with this culture significantly influence conservation outcomes. We also tested the effects of community participation, conservation education, benefit provision, and market integration. We systematically reviewed the literature on community-based conservation and identified 68 interventions suitable for inclusion. We used a protocol to extract and code information and evaluated a range of measures of outcome success (attitudinal, behavioral, ecological, and economic). We also examined the association of each predictor with each outcome measure and the structure of predictor covariance. Local institutional context influenced intervention outcomes, and interventions that engaged with local institutions were more likely to succeed. Nevertheless, there was limited support for the role of community participation, conservation education, benefit provision, and market integration on intervention success. We recommend that conservation interventions seek to understand the societies they work with and tailor their activities accordingly. Systematic reviews are a valuable approach for assessing conservation evidence, although sensitive to the continuing lack of high-quality reporting on conservation interventions.

Payments for ecosystem services are becoming popular components in strategies to conserve ecosystems and biodiversity, but their effectiveness remains poorly documented. Here we present counterfactual-based evidence on the conservation outcomes of the pilot stage of Peru's National Forest Conservation Program (NFCP). The NFCP provides direct payments to indigenous communities in the Amazon, conditional on avoided deforestation and the adoption of sustainable production systems. Using a spatially explicit quasi-experimental evaluation design, we show that the payment scheme has achieved only small conservation impacts, in terms of avoided deforestation. Counter-intuitively, these materialized largely on land not enrolled for conservation, due to spillover effects. Conservation effects on contracted land were negligible because communities were not chosen according to high deforestation threats, and they self-enrolled low-pressure forest areas for conservation. Occasional non-sanctioned contract incompliance contributed to these outcomes. We highlight implications for the design and implementation of up-scaled national conservation programs. Methodologically, we demonstrate the important role of choosing the appropriate spatial scale in evaluating area-based conservation measures.

Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) are widely used in countries of the Global South to link conservation with rural socio-economic advances. Notwithstanding, ICDPs face much criticism. A dominant complaint is that ICDPs fail to provide evidence concerning the very purpose they were established for, namely, to erase poverty and institutional capacity barriers, which invariably lead to the reduction of adverse human impacts on nature. Here, I explore the challenges that ICDPs face in seeking to provide empirical proof for positive long-term effects at the local level. I highlight certain specific difficulties in monitoring and evaluating ICDPs, and also examine the role that performance evaluation may play for ICDPs as instruments leading to transformative change. Besides the fact that a diverse set of stakeholders, through negotiations of power, constantly challenge the implementation of ICDPs, I argue that the goals and values of donor parties ultimately drive the overall evaluation and long-term sustainability of ICDPs and will govern transformative change. Future research is needed to explore this relationship more fully.

Conservation projects in developing countries that depend on international donors or international capacity building partnerships often have to bridge a gap between donors’ or experts’ ideas of best practice and local ideas of best practice. We examine how this gap may be successfully bridged by examining the case of the Wangchuck Centennial National Park (WCNP) in Bhutan. This protected area was attracting considerable outside investment but presented an unusual situation in 2013: it was largely viewed positively by local communities living in the park, even though, five years after it was gazetted, it had no clear boundaries, and its management was identical to management outside the park. Why did the WCNP have this form, and why was it viewed favorably by local people? Our interviews and survey reveal that this may be due to practical and favourable integrated conservation and development projects implemented by the park management, more people-friendly rules adopted by the Bhutanese government, and a cultural ethos of sustainable development and environmentalist Buddhist sentiments. Applying the tacit working models of conservation framework, we argue that although the protected area as a form of conservation normally is designed to fit the ‘uniformity model’ of a bounded area with specific rules and management, the WCNP has been culturally re-designed to fit the more culturally suitable ‘normative model’ that is territorially extensive and values-based. We suggest that this adaptation of global conservation concepts to local cultural perspectives may be a factor in Bhutanese conservation success.

Background Enhancing holistic, biopsychosocial and person-centred care for older persons depends on developing competence in psychosocial care. To decrease the theory-practice-gap in person-centred care, there is a need for research to investigate adaptions of competence development within person-centred care that enables knowledge integration and reflexivity to practice. More research is needed on competence development in person-centred care that is tailored to the nursing home context. Methods This study aimed to explore how group leaders in International Caregiver Development Programme (ICDP) facilitated competence development within psychosocial care for multicultural healthcare teams in nursing homes. The qualitative design included five participatory observation sessions during the supervision of ICDP group leaders, one focus group interview conducted after the completion of ICDP, and the group leaders’ written logs and reflections from the ICDP group meetings. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results Three main themes were developed from the analysis:1) Creating the right atmosphere, consisting of (a) creating safety for openness, (b) highlighting mastery in practice and (c) helping ICDP participants to be mentally attuned; 2) Making the ICDP understandable, encompassing (a) transitioning to a reflective mode and (b) adapting the language level; and 3) Creating an inclusive and active learning environment, with (a) facilitating collective participation and (b) supporting the groups’ engagement as subthemes. Conclusions Study findings suggest that interventions for psychosocial competence development require adjustments based on healthcare workers’ need for security, a sense of mastery, present-moment awareness, reflection on practice, appropriate language level, commitment and motivation. Such adaptations may be crucial for healthcare workers’ ability to integrate knowledge, reflexivity and sensitivity into person-centred practice. ICDP appears to be flexible and adaptable to a nursing context. Further research is needed on the ICDP in relation to professional confidence, sick leave and sustainability. Clinical trial number Not applicable.

This study establishes the chronological framework of the sedimentary sequence deposited Dead Sea, ICDP 5017-1, Radiocarbon chronology during the past 50 ka at the deepest part of the Dead Sea (the ICDP 5017-1 site), which was recovered by the Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project (DSDDP) under the auspices of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP). The age-depth model is constructed using 38 14C dates of terrestrial plant remains in a composite 150-m-long profile, generated by anchoring 32 marker layers identified in five cores. The sedimentary records at the ICDP 5017-1 site fills gaps in those obtained from the exposed sections at the high margins of the lake, particularly in times of lake-level retreat, and allows for a high-resolution comparison between the lake’s margins and deepest floor.