Bridge in London

The center of London is actively condensed. Therefore there it's simply impossible to squeeze any new construction. But the requirement for them constantly appears. For example, the project of architect James Gardener on bridge building through Thames, the bridge will become simultaneously and as new parkway in the center of London, and also will create set of the new areas in the same place.
High Tide Street, the new bridge through Thames, will created from several floating platforms. In these platforms also there will be infrastructural city elements: library, a concert hall, floor spaces.
Here it will be possible to go in for sports, and simply to have a rest on a bench. Here after all there will be no car nearby. Therefore air here will be pure!

The bridge over Thames

Besides, into this architectural project will be possible to add a new element and even the whole branches.

At the Heart of United Kingdom

We needed an identity that could reflect what's special about our product, capture ITV's humanness and warmth and make the brand feel alive. We needed a logo that could wrap itself around a broad range of content rather than feel like a corporate badge.

Our creative platform was born from the fact that at ITV, we don't just make TV programmes, we capture life in all its glory and put it centre stage for everyone to enjoy. The new identity needed to bridge all these areas.

ITV is home to the biggest and best loved shows and talent in British popular culture; we reflect and enhance British life and at times define it. We've never told anyone who we are or why we matter. As a result, their affection was with our shows, not the brand. We were a faceless corporation without a heart.

Our brief was to create an identity that could build an emotional connection with the nation and turn them from pure viewers into fans of ITV, not just our programming.

We required a unique and approachable identity to reflect ITV's position as a human and friendly broadcaster 'at the heart of popular culture'. We based the marque on handwriting, its curves signalling an intimacy with audiences without jeopardizing the organisation's status as large and corporate.

The logotype was divided into five segments: each of which 'picks' a different colour from its background. The ability to pick colours from the background allowed the logo to compliment its surroundings. This creates a unique innovation where no two logos are ever alike.

By Week 5 of the rebrand, 52% like or love the new logo. Prompted Awareness of the new logo is now on par with the weekly reach of ITV. Reactions are really positive; it is seen as modern and eye catching. Just over half of those who were aware of a change to ITV, either loved or liked it. When compared with other broadcasters' logos, ITV's was seen as modern, colourful, bright and attractive while BBC, Channel 4 and FIVE were stronger for being boring, old fashioned and dull.

Type of entry: Graphic Design & Design Crafts;
Category: Large Scale Logo and Visual Design;
Advertiser: ITV;
Product/Service: ITV NETWORK;
Agency: ITV CREATIVE London, UNITED KINGDOM;
Executive Creative Director: Phil Lind (ITV Creative);
Head Of Design: Neill Pitt (ITV Creative);
Head Of Design: Mark Gouldie (ITV Creative);
Designer: Jason Ford (ITV Creative);
Designer: Joe Lewis (ITV Creative);
Brand Designer: Matt Rudd (Rudd Studio).

Architecture of London

The architecture of London is presented almost by all architectural styles: from the baroque and art-deco to a postmodernism and hi-tech. Many medieval buildings have not saved because of the Great fire of 1666 which has destroyed more than 13,000 London buildings, and air-bombardments during the Second World War.

The Norman architecture to England was brought by William the Conqueror. From constructions of Norman style is known the London Tower which has started to be constructed by William the Conqueror and was repeatedly completed by other British Kings. Besides in the same style is executed the Westminster Hall constructed in 1097. At that point in time it was the biggest hall in Europe.

Norman Architectural Style for London

One of the brightest samples of this architectural style is the Westminster Abbey. Other samples of this period in London have not remained. The XIX-century is the time of the variety of architectural styles. In the neo-Gothic Style is constructed the well-known building of Parliament with Big Ben Tower. This building has been constructed after a fire on October, 16th, 1834 on a place of the old Westminster palace.

London City Hall by Fosters + Partners

In the XX-century in a London City there were skyscrapers: the Shard by Renzo Piano, the Lloyd’s of London, a mega-complex the Canary Wharf (Docklands). Norman Foster became the leading British architect, he constructed skyscraper SwissRe or 30 St Mary Axe and the New City Hall (the mayor house).

An ancient basin hidden beneath the Greenland ice sheet, discovered by researchers at the University of Bristol, may help explain the location, size and velocity of Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland's fastest flowing outlet glacier.

The research also provides an insight into what past river drainage looked like in Greenland, and what it could look like in the future as the ice sheet retreats.

Michael Cooper and colleagues from Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences and Cabot Institute, and Imperial College London, studied the bedrock in Greenland using data collected mainly by NASA (through Operation Ice Bridge), as well as various researchers from the UK and Germany, over several decades. This data is collected by aircraft using ice penetrating radar, which bounces back off the bedrock underneath the ice (as ice is mostly transparent to radio waves at certain frequencies).

Mr Cooper said: "The drainage basin we discovered shows signs of being carved by ancient rivers, prior to the extensive glaciation of Greenland (i.e. before the Greenland Ice Sheet existed), rather than being carved by the movement of ice itself. It has been remarkably well preserved – and has not been eroded away by successive glaciations. The channel network has never been seen before by humans – it was last uncovered around 3.8 million years ago."

The size of the drainage basin the team discovered is very large, at around 450,000 km2, and accounts for about 20 per cent of the total land area of Greenland (including islands).

This is comparable to the size of the Ohio River drainage basin, which is the largest tributary of the Mississippi. The channels the team mapped could more appropriately be called 'canyons', with relative depths of around 1,400 metres in places, and nearly 12km wide, all hidden underneath the ice.

As well as being an interesting discovery of great size, the channel network and basin was instrumental in influencing the flow of ice from the deep interior to the margin, both now and over several glacial cycles, as well as influencing the location and speed of the Jakobshavn ice stream.

The study is published in >Geophysical Research Letters.

Source: University of Bristol [June 14, 2016]

Some of the final results sent back by ESA's Venus Express before it plummeted down through the planet's atmosphere have revealed it to be rippling with atmospheric waves – and, at an average temperature of -157°C, colder than anywhere on Earth.

As well as telling us much about Venus' previously-unexplored polar regions and improving our knowledge of our planetary neighbour, the experiment holds great promise for ESA's ExoMars mission, which is currently winging its way to the Red Planet. The findings were published in the journal Nature Physics.

ESA's Venus Express arrived at Venus in 2006. It spent eight years exploring the planet from orbit, vastly outliving the mission's planned duration of 500 days, before running out of fuel. The probe then began its descent, dipping further and further into Venus' atmosphere, before the mission lost contact with Earth (November 2014) and officially ended (December 2014).

However, Venus Express was industrious to the end; low altitude orbits were carried out during the final months of the mission, taking the spacecraft deep enough to experience measurable drag from the atmosphere. Using its onboard accelerometers, the spacecraft measured the deceleration it experienced as it pushed through the planet's upper atmosphere – something known as aerobraking.

"Aerobraking uses atmospheric drag to slow down a spacecraft, so we were able to use the accelerometer measurements to explore the density of Venus' atmosphere," said Ingo Müller-Wodarg of Imperial College London, UK, lead author of the study. "None of Venus Express' instruments were actually designed to make such in-situ atmosphere observations. We only realised in 2006 – after launch! – that we could use the Venus Express spacecraft as a whole to do more science."

When Müller-Wodarg and colleagues gathered their observations Venus Express was orbiting at an altitude of between 130 and 140 kilometres near Venus' polar regions, in a portion of Venus' atmosphere that had never before been studied in situ.

Previously, our understanding of Venus' polar atmosphere was based on observations gathered by NASA's Pioneer Venus probe in the late 1970s. These were of other parts of Venus' atmosphere, near the equator, but extrapolated to the poles to form a complete atmospheric reference model.

These new measurements, taken as part of the Venus Express Atmospheric Drag Experiment (VExADE) from 24 June to 11 July 2014, have now directly tested this model – and reveal several surprises.

For one, the polar atmosphere is up to 70 degrees colder than expected, with an average temperature of -157°C (114 K). Recent temperature measurements by Venus Express' SPICAV instrument (SPectroscopy for the Investigation of the Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Venus) are in agreement with this finding.

The polar atmosphere is also not as dense as expected; at 130 and 140 km in altitude, it is 22% and 40% less dense than predicted, respectively. When extrapolated upward in the atmosphere, these differences are consistent with those measured previously by VExADE at 180 km, where densities were found to be lower by almost a factor of two.

"This is in-line with our temperature findings, and shows that the existing model paints an overly simplistic picture of Venus' upper atmosphere," added Müller-Wodarg. "These lower densities could be at least partly due to Venus' polar vortices, which are strong wind systems sitting near the planet's poles. Atmospheric winds may be making the density structure both more complicated and more interesting!"

Additionally, the polar region was found to be dominated by strong atmospheric waves, a phenomenon thought to be key in shaping planetary atmospheres – including our own.

"By studying how the atmospheric densities changed and were perturbed over time, we found two different types of wave: Atmospheric gravity waves and planetary waves," explained co-author Sean Bruinsma of the Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France. "These waves are tricky to study, as you need to be within the atmosphere of the planet itself to measure them properly. Observations from afar can only tell us so much."

Atmospheric gravity waves are similar to waves we see in the ocean, or when throwing stones in a pond, only they travel vertically rather than horizontally. They are essentially a ripple in the density of a planetary atmosphere – they travel from lower to higher altitudes and, as density decreases with altitude, become stronger as they rise. The second type, planetary waves, are associated with a planet's spin as it turns on its axis; these are larger-scale waves with periods of several days.

We experience both types on Earth. Atmospheric gravity waves interfere with weather and cause turbulence, while planetary waves can affect entire weather and pressure systems. Both are known to transfer energy and momentum from one region to another, and so are likely to be hugely influential in shaping the characteristics of a planetary atmosphere.

"We found atmospheric gravity waves to be dominant in Venus' polar atmosphere," added Bruinsma. "Venus Express experienced them as a kind of turbulence, a bit like the vibrations you feel when an aeroplane flies through a rough patch. If we flew through Venus' atmosphere at those heights we wouldn't feel them because the atmosphere just isn't dense enough, but Venus Express' instruments were sensitive enough to detect them."

Venus Express found atmospheric waves at an altitude of 130-140 km that the team think originated from the upper cloud layer in Venus' atmosphere, which sits at and below altitudes of approximately 90 km, and a planetary wave that oscillated with a period of five days. "We checked carefully to ensure that the waves weren't an artefact of our processing," said co-author Jean-Charles Marty, also of CNES.

This is not just a first for Venus Express; while the aerobraking technique has been used for Earth satellites, and was previously used on NASA-led missions to Mars and Venus, it had never before been used on any ESA planetary mission.

However, ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which launched earlier this year, will use a similar technique. "During this activity we will extract similar data about Mars' atmosphere as we did at Venus," added Håkan Svedhem, project scientist for ESA's ExoMars 2016 and Venus Express missions.

"For Mars, the aerobraking phase would last longer than on Venus, for about a year, so we'd get a full dataset of Mars' atmospheric densities and how they vary with season and distance from the Sun," added Svedhem. "This information isn't just relevant to scientists; it's crucial for engineering purposes as well. The Venus study was a highly successful test of a technique that could now be applied to Mars on a larger scale – and to future missions after that."

Source: European Space Agency [April 19, 2016]

Genes that drive the shape of human noses have been identified by a UCL-led study. The four genes mainly affect the width and 'pointiness' of noses which vary greatly between different populations. The new information adds to our understanding of how the human face evolved and may help contribute to forensic DNA technologies that build visual profiles based on an individual's genetic makeup.

The study, published today in >Nature Communications, analysed a population of over 6,000 people with varied ancestry across Latin America to study the differences in normal facial features and identify the genes which control the shape of the nose and chin.

The researchers identified five genes which play a role in controlling the shape of specific facial features. DCHS2, RUNX2, GLI3 and PAX1 affect the width and pointiness of the nose and another gene -- EDAR -- affects chin protrusion.

"Few studies have looked at how normal facial features develop and those that have only looked at European populations, which show less diversity than the group we studied. What we've found are specific genes which influence the shape and size of individual features, which hasn't been seen before.

"Finding out the role each gene plays helps us to piece together the evolutionary path from Neanderthal to modern humans. It brings us closer to understanding how genes influence the way we look, which is important for forensics applications," said the first author of the report, Dr Kaustubh Adhikari, UCL Cell & Developmental Biology.

People have different shaped facial features based on their genetic heritage and this is partly due to how the environment influenced the evolution of the human genome. The nose, for example, is important for regulating the temperature and humidity of the air we breathe in so developed different shapes in warmer and cooler climates.

"It has long been speculated that the shape of the nose reflects the environment in which humans evolved. For example, the comparatively narrower nose of Europeans has been proposed to represent an adaptation to a cold, dry climate. Identifying genes affecting nose shape provides us with new tools to examine this question, as well as the evolution of the face in other species. It may also help us understand what goes wrong in genetic disorders involving facial abnormalities," explained Professor Andrés Ruiz-Linares UCL Biosciences, who led the study.

The team collected and analysed DNA samples from 6,630 volunteers from the CANDELA cohort recruited in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru. After an initial screen, a sample size of 5,958 was used. This group included individuals of mixed European (50%), Native American (45%) and African (5%) ancestry, resulting in a large variation in facial features.

Both men and women were assessed for 14 different facial features and whole genome analysis identified the genes driving differences in appearance.

A subgroup of 3,000 individuals had their features assessed using a 3D reconstruction of the face in order to obtain exact measurements of facial features and the results identified the same genes.

The study identified genes that are involved in bone and cartilage growth and the development of the face. GLI3, DCHS2 and PAX1 are all genes known to drive cartilage growth -- GLI3 gave the strongest signal for controlling the breadth of nostrils, DCHS2 was found to control nose 'pointiness' and PAX1 also influences nostril breadth. RUNX2 which drives bone growth was seen to control nose bridge width.

The genes GLI3, DCHS2 and RUNX2 are known to show strong signals of recent selection in modern humans compared to archaic humans such as Neanderthals and Denisovans; GLI3 in particular undergoing rapid evolution.

Source: University College London [May 19, 2016]

An intriguing study involving walking stick insects led by the University of Sheffield in England and the University of Colorado Boulder shows how natural selection, the engine of evolution, can also impede the formation of new species.

The team studied a plant-eating stick insect species from California called Timema cristinae known for its cryptic camouflage that allows it to hide from hungry birds, said CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Samuel Flaxman. T. cristinae comes in several different types -- one is green and blends in with the broad green leaves of a particular shrub species, while a second green variant sports a white, vertical stripe that helps disguise it on a different species of shrub with narrow, needle-like leaves.

While Darwinian natural selection has begun pushing the two green forms of walking sticks down separate paths that could lead to the formation of two new species, the team found that a third melanistic, or brown variation of T. cristinae appears to be thwarting the process, said Flaxman. The brown version is known to successfully camouflage itself among the stems of both shrub species inhabited by its green brethren, he said.

Using field investigations, laboratory genetics, modern genome sequencing and computer simulations, the team concluded the brown version of T. cristinae is shuttling enough genes between the green stick insects living on different shrubs to prevent strong divergent adaptation and speciation. The brown variant of the walking stick species also is favored by natural selection because it has a slight advantage in mate selection and a stronger resistance to fungal infections than its green counterparts.

"This is one of the best demonstrations we know of regarding the counteractive effects of natural selection on speciation," said Flaxman of CU-Boulder's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, second author on the new study. "We show how the brown population essentially carries genes back and forth between the green populations, acting as a genetic bridge that causes a slowdown in divergence."

A paper on the subject appeared in a recent issue of the journal Current Biology. Other study co-authors were from the University of Sheffield, Royal Holloway University of London, Utah State University, the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

"This movement of genes between environments slows down the genetic divergence of these stick insect populations, impeding the formation of new species," said Aaron Comeault, a former CU-Boulder graduate student and lead study author who conducted the research while at the University of Sheffield. Comeault is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The new results underscore how combining natural history and cutting-edge genetics can help researchers gain a better understanding of how evolution operates in nature. It also shows how natural selection can sometimes promote but other times hinder the formation of new species, according to the research team.

Walking sticks are one of nature's oddest insect groups and range in size from the half-inch long T. cristinae to species in Borneo and Vietnam that are more than a foot long. Most walking sticks rely on plant mimicry to protect them from predators.

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder [August 06, 2015]

Rope-way, Thames, London

In London constantly are under construction the most modern infrastructural objects of type of new Wembley Stadium or the Big London Eye, but there never was a rope-way. However this city lack will be fast eliminated. The Mace Group has declared the intention to construct the 1st cable car in London.
Today, the capital of Great Britain actively prepares for 2012 Summer Olympic Games. All forces and all city resources are thrown on creating an infrastructure necessary for this grand action. And, if artificial clouds, most likely, are not constructed — the rope-way will appear in this city by next summer.

Legendary Mace Group Projects

Mace Group company is known in London thanks to infrastructural projects of a new formation. It has erected already mentioned big wheel the London Eye, the London City-Hall (residence of Administration of the Greater London), skyscraper «Shard London Bridge» and many other architectural objects. Thus, in a year, in the track record of Mace Group will also the first rope-way in London.

One station of this new kind of the London transport will be on the Greenwich Peninsula near huge entertainment complex «O2». The second — on other party of Thames, around the central input in the British Museum. The length of this cable car: about 1 km. There are suspicions that a cable car will use, first of all, not as public transport, and as tourist way.

New archaeological research, carried out by Museum of London Archaeology (Mola), of a previously unknown early Roman fort built in AD63 as a direct response to the sacking of London by the native tribal Queen of the Iceni, Boudicca. The revolt razed the early Roman town to the ground in AD60/61 but until now little was understood about the Roman’s response to this devastating uprising.

The excavations at Plantation Place for British Land on Fenchurch Street in the City of London exposed a section of a rectangular fort that covered 3.7acres. The timber and earthwork fort had 3metre high banks reinforced with interlacing timbers and faced with turves and a timber wall. Running atop the bank was a ‘fighting platform’ fronted by a colossal palisade, with towers positioned at the corners of the gateways. This formidable structure was enclosed by double ditches, 1.9 and 3m deep, forming an impressive obstacle for would be attackers.

The Roman army were experts in construction; proficiently sourcing local materials from nearby woods and even using debris from buildings burnt in the revolt. It is estimated that a fort of this size would have housed a cohort of approximately 500 men but could have been built by hand in a matter of weeks, perhaps with the help of captive Britons. Archaeologists uncovered a pick axe and a hammer, tools that would have been available to the army for building projects.

Within the fort, evidence for roads was uncovered alongside storage and administrative facilities, a granary, cookhouse and even a latrine. The fort was kept clean but a few fragments of armour, including part of a helmet and mounts from horse harnesses were discovered.

Only in active use for fewer than 10 years and with evidence pointing towards the use of tents rather than permanent structures for barracks, the fort was evidently erected as an emergency measure to secure the important trading post of London and to aid with the reconstruction and reestablishment of London at this turbulent time.

A number of major infrastructure projects contemporary with the fort point to the army playing a crucial role in this rebuilding, providing labour and engineering expertise for roads, a new quay and a water lifting machine, all vital for trading and civilian life to thrive once again.

Positioned over the main road into London, commanding the route into the town from London Bridge and overlooking the river, the fort would have dominated the town at this time, perhaps reflecting the absence of civilian life and the utter destruction wrought by the native Britons on Roman London.

In AD 120 the much larger Cripplegate fort was constructed and in the 3rd century a substantial wall erected around the town. Archaeologists are yet to find evidence of an earlier fort or military structures for the intervening periods but their search continues.

The research has been published by Mola in >An early Roman fort and urban development on Londinium’s eastern hill by Lesley Dunwoodie, Chiz Harward and Ken Pitt, available priced £30 via Mola's publications pages.

Source: Museum of London Archaeology [May 13, 2016]

Clues to what became of North Carolina's fabled Lost Colony could lie in a waterfront tract where developers once wanted to build thousands of condos - and now, one of those would-be developers is seeking millions of dollars to preserve the property.

The effort to save the 1,000 acres in rural Bertie County is in an early stage. Even the environmental group that developer Michael Flannelly hopes will help hasn't seen the property yet. But Flannelly said he's optimistic that his vision will eventually become a reality.

"I want to see the site preserved," said Flannelly, who lives on a boat that's usually docked in Norfolk, Virginia, or near his land in Bertie County. "I think it would make a fantastic place for people to come."

The mystery of the Lost Colony - England's first settlement in North America - has intrigued historians and the popular imagination for centuries.

In 1587, 116 English settlers landed on Roanoke Island, led by explorer John White. He left them there when he sailed back to England that same year for more supplies. Delayed by war between England and Spain, he didn't return until 1590 - and when he did, he discovered the entire colony had simply vanished.

White knew the majority had planned to move "50 miles into the maine," as he wrote, referring to the mainland. The only clues he found about the fate of the other two dozen were the word "CROATOAN" carved into a post and "CRO" lettered on a tree trunk, leading historians to believe they moved south to live with American Indians on what's now Hatteras Island.

But some archaeologists now suspect that at least some of the Roanoke colonists found their way to the inland site south of the Chowan River bridge, roughly 50 miles from Roanoke. It first came to light in 2012, when researchers at the British Museum in London announced they had found a drawing of a fort that had been obscured under a patch on a map of Virginia and North Carolina drawn by White in the 1580s.

The drawing placed the fort in an area of Bertie County where archaeologists had found colonial-era English pottery and signs of a Native American village several years earlier during a dig that the state required before Flannelly and his partners could get permits for the subdivision that was never built. Archaeologists have since found further evidence on the tract, dubbed Site X, including bale seals used to verify cloth quality and 16th-century nails.

Before the site can be preserved, Flannelly must buy out his former development partners.

Flannelly estimates it will take $4 million to $5 million, along with a conservation group willing to help raise the money and preserve the land. To any cynics who suspect Flannelly is doing this only for the money, he says he would get 8 percent of any sale, plus a tax credit. And the proposed buyout is far less than the $10 million Flannelly says the developers paid for the property.

A spokesman for the company, Forest City, said in an email that officials know about the archaeological finds but have no other updates about the status of the property. Forest City no longer works in land development, spokesman Jeff Linton said.

Flannelly said that when archaeologists uncovered the property's historical significance, he insisted that those areas be cordoned off as green space and not developed.

Flannelly personally owns 15 acres that include the possible Lost Colony site, but said he didn't know about the artifacts when he chose that land for his own home. "They felt the same I did," he said of the settlers. "That's the best piece of property on the whole tract."

He has turned to North Carolina's Coastal Land Trust, a nonprofit that has preserved more than 65,000 undeveloped acres in 31 counties since 1992. Lee Leidy, attorney and northeast regional director for the trust, said officials there hope to view the property later this month.

"It's fascinating," she said. "It's one that we're very excited to take a look at and learn more about."

But raising funds to preserve the land presents a challenge, since limited conservation dollars must cover many projects, she said.

"If it's done properly, I think it could be tremendous," said Arwin Smallwood, who wrote "Bertie County: An Eastern North Carolina History" and chairs the history department at N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro. "Right now in Bertie County, you can have a true sense of history and what the landscape was like."

Tourists travel by the thousands to Dare County, home of the outdoor performance of "The Lost Colony" at an outdoor amphitheater on Roanoke Island. Now Bertie County residents have adopted the settlers as their own as well. More than 300 people attended the town of Windsor's first Lost Colony Festival in April, said Billy Smithwick, the town fire chief and tourism manager. In addition, the county is acquiring 137 acres for a nearby park.

"I think it would be quite a tourist attraction," said Smithwick. "The Lost Colony is the greatest mystery in history that there is."

Author: Martha Waggoner | Source: Associated Press [July 22, 2016]

The first eukaryote is thought to have arisen when simpler archaea and bacteria joined forces. But in an Opinion paper published in >Trends in Cell Biology, researchers propose that new genomic evidence derived from a deep-sea vent on the ocean floor suggests that the molecular machinery essential to eukaryotic life was probably borrowed, little by little over time, from those simpler ancestors.

"We are beginning to think of eukaryotic origins as a slow process of growing intimacy--the result of a long, slow dance between kingdoms, and not a quick tryst, which is the way it is portrayed in textbooks," says Mukund Thattai of the National Centre for Biological Sciences in India.

The eukaryotic cells of plants, animals, and protists are markedly different from those of their single-celled, prokaryotic relatives, the archaea and bacteria. Eukaryotic cells are much larger and have considerably more internal complexity, including many internal membrane-bound compartments.

Although scientists generally agree that eukaryotes can trace their ancestry to a merger between archaea and bacteria, there's been considerable disagreement about what the first eukaryote and its immediate ancestors must have looked like. As Thattai and his colleagues Buzz Baum and Gautam Dey of University College London explain in their paper, that uncertainty has stemmed in large part from the lack of known intermediates that bridge the gap in size and complexity between prokaryotic precursors and eukaryotes. As a result, they say, the origin of the first eukaryotic cell has remained "one of the most enduring mysteries in modern biology."

That began to change last year with the discovery of DNA sequences for an organism that no one has ever actually seen living near a deep-sea vent on the ocean floor. The genome of the archaeon known as Lokiarchaeum ('Loki' for short) contains more "eukaryotic signature proteins" (ESPs) than any other prokaryote. Importantly, among those ESPs are proteins (small Ras/Arf-type GTPases) critical for eukaryotes' ability to direct traffic amongst all those intercellular compartments.

The authors consider the available data to explore an essential question: what might the archaeal ancestor of all eukaryotes look like? "If we could turn back the clock and peer inside this cell, would its cellular organization have been like that of an archaeal cell or more eukaryote-like?" Dey says.

As the closest known archaeal relative of eukaryotes, Loki helps to answer that question. The researchers say that the ESPs found in Loki are unlikely to work in the same way they do in eukarytoes. That's because Loki doesn't appear to have enzymes required for ESP association with membranes or key building blocks of the membrane trafficking machinery.

"However," Baum says, "the genome can be seen as 'primed' for eukaryogenesis. With the acquisition of a number of key genes and lipids from a bacterial symbiont, it would be possible for Loki-type cells to evolve a primitive membrane trafficking machinery and compartmentalization."

The researchers predict that, when Loki is finally isolated or cultured, "it will look more like an archaeon than a proto-eukaryote and will not have internal compartments or a vesicle-trafficking network." But its morphology and/or cell cycle might have complexities more often associated with eukaryotes.

Baum and Dey say they now plan to explore the basic cell biology of the related archaea Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, first isolated from an acidic hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.

"We believe it will be very difficult to crack the mysteries of eukaryogenesis without first understanding the archaeal cell biology," Dey says. "We are currently developing tools in the lab to study the cell cycle and cellular morphology of Sulfolobus at the single-cell level under the microscope. We would also love to catch a glimpse of Loki."

Source: Cell Press [June 16, 2016]

The arrival of intense cold similar to the one raged during the “Little Ice Age”, which froze the world during the XVII century and in the beginning of the XVIII century, is expected in the years 2030–2040.

These conclusions were presented by Prof. V. Zharkova (Northumbria University) during the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno in Wales by the international group of scientists, which also includes Dr Helen Popova of the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics and of the Faculty of Physics of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, professor Simon Shepherd of Bradford University (UK) and Dr Sergei Zharkov of Hull University (UK).

It is known, that the Sun has its own magnetic field, the amplitude and spatial configuration of which vary with time. The formation and decay of strong magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere results in the changes of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun, of the intensity of plasma flows coming from the Sun, and the number of sunspots on the Sun’s surface. The study of changes in the number of sunspots on the Sun’s surface has a cyclic structure vary in every 11 years that is also imposed on the Earth environment as the analysis of carbon-14, beryllium-10 and other isotopes in glaciers and in the trees showed.

There are several cycles with different periods and properties, while the 11-year cycle, the 90-year cycle are the best known of them. The 11-year cycle appears as a cyclical reduction in stains on the surface of the Sun every 11 years. Its 90-year variation is associated with periodic reduction in the number of spots in the 11-year cycle in the 50-25%. In 17th century though there was a prolonged of the solar activity called the Maunder minimum, which lasted roughly from 1645 to 1700. During this period, there were only about 50 sunspots instead of the usual 40-50 thousand sunspots. Analysis of solar radiation showed that its maxima and minima almost coincide with the maxima and minima in the number of spots.

In the current study published in 3 peer-reviewed papers the researchers analyzed a total background magnetic field from full disk magnetograms for three cycles of solar activity (21-23) by applying the so-called “principal component analysis”, which allows to reduce the data dimensionality and noise and to identify waves with the largest contribution to the observational data. This method can be compared with the decomposition of white light on the rainbow prism detecting the waves of different frequencies. As a result, the researchers developed a new method of analysis, which helped to uncover, that the magnetic waves in the Sun are generated in pairs, with the main pair covering 40% of variance of the data (Zharkova et al, 2012, MNRAS). The principal component pair is responsible for the variations of a dipole field of the Sun, which is changing its polarity from pole to pole during 11 year solar activity.

The magnetic waves travel from the opposite hemisphere to the Northern hemisphere (odd cycles) or to Southern hemisphere (even cycles), with the phase shift between the waves increasing with a cycle number. The waves interacts with each other in the hemisphere where they have maximum (Northern for odd cycles and Southern for even ones). These two components are assumed to originate in two different layers in the solar interior (inner and outer) with close, but not equal, frequencies and a variable phase shift (Popova et al, 2013, AnnGeo).

The scientists managed to derive the analytical formula, describing the evolution of these two waves and calculated the summary curve which was linked to the variations of sunspot numbers, the original proxy of solar activity, if one used the modulus of the summary curve (Shepherd et al, 2014, ApJ). By using this formula the scientists made first the prediction of magnetic activity in the cycle 24, which gave 97% accuracy in comparison with the principal components derived from the observations.

Inspired by this success, the authors extended the prediction of these two magnetic waves to the next two cycle 25 and 26 and discovered that the waves become fully separated into the opposite hemispheres in cycle 26 and thus have little chance of interacting and producing sunspot numbers. This will lead to a sharp decline in solar activity in years 2030 – 2040 comparable with the conditions existed previously during the Maunder minimum in the XVII century when there were only about 50-70 sunspots observed instead of the usual 40-50 thousand expected.

The new reduction of the solar activity will lead to reduction of the solar irradiance by 3W/m^2 according to Lean (1997). This resulted in significant cooling of Earth and very severe winters and cold summers. “Several studies have shown that the Maunder Minimum coincided with the coldest phase of global cooling, which was called “the Little Ice Age”. During this period there were very cold winters in Europe and North America. In the days of the Maunder minimum the water in the river Thames and the Danube River froze, the Moscow River was covered by ice every six months, snow lay on some plains year round and Greenland was covered by glaciers” – says Dr Helen Popova, who developed a unique physical-mathematical model of the evolution of the magnetic activity of the sun and used it to gain the patterns of occurrence of global minima of solar activity and gave them a physical interpretation.

If the similar reduction will be observed during the upcoming Maunder minimum this can lead to the similar cooling of the Earth atmosphere. According to Dr Helen Popova, if the existing theories about the impact of solar activity on the climate are true, then this minimum will lead to a significant cooling, similar to the one occurred during the Maunder minimum.

However, only the time will show soon enough (within the next 5-15 years) if this will happen.

“Given that our future minimum will last for at least three solar cycles, which is about 30 years, it is possible, that the lowering of the temperature will not be as deep as during the Maunder minimum. But we will have to examine it in detail. We keep in touch with climatologists from different countries. We plan to work in this direction”, — Dr Helen Popova said.

The notion that solar activity affects the climate, appeared long ago. It is known, for example, that a change in the total quantity of the electromagnetic radiation by only 1% can result in a noticeable change in the temperature distribution and air flow all over the Earth. Ultraviolet rays cause photochemical effect, which leads to the formation of ozone at the altitude of 30-40 km. The flow of ultraviolet rays increases sharply during chromospheric flares in the Sun. Ozone, which absorbs the sun’s rays well enough, is being heated and it affects the air currents in the lower layers of the atmosphere and, consequently, the weather. Powerful emission of corpuscles, which can reach the Earth’s surface, arise periodically during the high solar activity. They can move in complex trajectories, causing aurorae, geomagnetic storms and disturbances of radio communication.

By increasing the flow of particles in the lower atmospheric layers air flows of meridional direction enhance: warm currents from the south with even greater energy rush in the high latitudes and cold currents, carrying arctic air, penetrate deeper into the south. In addition, the solar activity affects the intensity of fluxes of galactic cosmic rays. The minimum activity streams become more intense, which also affects the chemical processes in the Earth’s atmosphere

The study of deuterium in the Antarctic showed that there were five global warmings and four Ice Ages for the past 400 thousand years. The increase in the volcanic activity comes after the Ice Age and it leads to the greenhouse gas emissions. The magnetic field of the Sun grows, what means that the flux of cosmic rays decreases, increasing the number of clouds and leading to the warming again. Next comes the reverse process, where the magnetic field of the Sun decreases, the intensity of cosmic ray rises, reducing the clouds and making the atmosphere cool again. This process comes with some delay.

Dr Helen Popova responds cautiously, while speaking about the human influence on climate.

“There is no strong evidence, that global warming is caused by human activity. The study of deuterium in the Antarctic showed that there were five global warmings and four Ice Ages for the past 400 thousand years. People first appeared on the Earth about 60 thousand years ago. However, even if human activities influence the climate, we can say, that the Sun with the new minimum gives humanity more time or a second chance to reduce their industrial emissions and to prepare, when the Sun will return to normal activity”, — Dr Helen Popova summarized.

Source: Lomonosov Moscow State University [July 17, 2015]