Lagrange Point

​As our climate changes, feeding the planet without making things worse is a big challenge. How do plants work together to survive extreme weather events? When there is a large drought or extreme weather event what works better, single species or mixed? Plant diversity can help plants weather the storm of climate change and come out stronger. How do cover crops help 'fix' nitrogen in the soil and reduce negative climate impacts. Excess fertiliser is not only expensive for farmers but damaging to the local and global environment. How can cover crops help soil recover and reduce negative climate change impacts of mono cropping. 

1. Yuxin Chen, Anja Vogel, Cameron Wagg, Tianyang Xu, Maitane Iturrate-Garcia, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Alexandra Weigelt, Nico Eisenhauer, Bernhard Schmid. Drought-exposure history increases complementarity between plant species in response to a subsequent drought. Nature Communications, 2022; 13 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30954-9

The brain is incredibly important and needs to be protected by your body but this also makes it hard to treat. Brain tumours can be stubborn to root out because many treatments are blocked by the blood brain barrier. The blood brain barrier blocks many cancer treatments, but with the right disguise and nano coating cancer treatments can sneak past. Brain tumours can block the immune system from functioning, but sneaking through the right treatment can help the immune system fight back. Traumatic brain injury and subsequent inflammation can lead to significant damage, and normal anti-inflammatory methods are blocked by the blood brain barrier. If you can't sneak anti-inflammatories through the blood brain barrier, why not just boost their production locally? T Cells can fight back against inflammation after a traumatic brain injury if there's enough food for them to thrive on. 

1. Yshii, L., Pasciuto, E., Bielefeld, P. et al. Astrocyte-targeted gene delivery of interleukin 2 specifically increases brain-resident regulatory T cell numbers and protects against pathological neuroinflammation. Nat Immunol, 2022 DOI: 10.1038/s41590-022-01208-z

How can plants adapt to a changing climate and strange volcanic soils. By tracking the divergent evolution of Thale Cress, scientists can track the genetic changes needed to thrive in weird soil. Volcanic soil can have benefits along with risks, but how can plants adapt quickly to odd soil types? How did plants learn to thrive on a volcanic island, Pico de Fogo. What can a long running study tell us about plants adapting to a changing climate. Extra CO2 is good for plants...to up to a point. For plants in wetlands its a race between rising sea levels and extra CO2. 

1. Emmanuel Tergemina, Ahmed F. Elfarargi, Paulina Flis, Andrea Fulgione, Mehmet Göktay, Célia Neto, Marleen Scholle, Pádraic J. Flood, Sophie-Asako Xerri, Johan Zicola, Nina Döring, Herculano Dinis, Ute Krämer, David E. Salt, Angela M. Hancock. A two-step adaptive walk rewires nutrient transport in a challenging edaphic environment. Science Advances, 2022; 8 (20) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm9385

How do seismic waves travel through our planet? Is it possible to 'slow down' a seismic wave? What causes 'hotspot volcanoes'? What strange things happen at the boundary between the core and the mantle? The mantle is a dynamic place, and pockets of 'dense' rock can slow and shape heat flow from deep below to the surface. Dense iron rich pockets of rock at the edge of the Core could influence where hotspot volcanoes occur. 

1. Zhi Li, Kuangdai Leng, Jennifer Jenkins, Sanne Cottaar. Kilometer-scale structure on the core–mantle boundary near Hawaii. Nature Communications, 2022; 13 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30502-5

Jupiter's moons may be way more dynamic than we previously thought. Europa has the most potential to harbor life outside of Earth, but it's ice sheets may be more Earth like than we imagined. Europa's spectacular double ridges are similar to those found in Greenland. The ice sheets on Europa may not be static and still, but churning. Melting and refreezing could drive exchange between the surface of Europa and it's icey depths. How do you form sand dunes without any wind? Is it possible to form a Dune on Io using just volcanic flows and sulfur snows?

1. Culberg, R., Schroeder, D.M. & Steinbrügge, G. Double ridge formation over shallow water sills on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Nat Commun, 2022 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29458-3

Supernova get all the press, but Nova and Micronova are still pretty powerful. White dwarf stars are normally pretty inactive, unless some hydrogen ends up kickstarting them again. Enough helium leeched from a nearby star can ignite the entire surface of a white dwarf. Nova may not destroy the star, but they can create immensely powerful explosions and particles. The right combination of White Dwarf and Red Giant can create powerful particles near the speed of light. Micronova sound small but they are still colossal and brief explosions on white dwarf stars. Not powerful enough to ignite the whole surface of a star, but definitely enough to destroy a planet, micronova are quite deadly.

1. Scaringi, S., Groot, P.J., Knigge, C. et al. Localized thermonuclear bursts from accreting magnetic white dwarfs. Nature, 2022 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04495-6

Using sequencing techniques we can find all kinds of hidden life in our oceans. RNA viruses are ancient, but their old genes can help us spot them in great numbers in our oceans. There are huge amounts of 'life' in our oceans that we don't know about. No matter if you think viruses are 'alive' or not, there are way more than we imagined in our oceans. RNA viruses are easier to spot in our oceans if you look for the right ancient gene. Using gene sequencing we can find fish that are hidden in our reefs. Visually spotting fish is helpful but can overlook sneak fish. Using environemtnal sequencing techniques way more diverse range of fish can be found.

1. Ahmed A. Zayed, James M. Wainaina, Guillermo Dominguez-Huerta, Eric Pelletier, Jiarong Guo, Mohamed Mohssen, Funing Tian, Akbar Adjie Pratama, Benjamin Bolduc, Olivier Zablocki, Dylan Cronin, Lindsey Solden, Erwan Delage, Adriana Alberti, Jean-Marc Aury, Quentin Carradec, Corinne da Silva, Karine Labadie, Julie Poulain, Hans-Joachim Ruscheweyh, Guillem Salazar, Elan Shatoff, Ralf Bundschuh, Kurt Fredrick, Laura S. Kubatko, Samuel Chaffron, Alexander I. Culley, Shinichi Sunagawa, Jens H. Kuhn, Patrick Wincker, Matthew B. Sullivan, Silvia G. Acinas, Marcel Babin, Peer Bork, Emmanuel Boss, Chris Bowler, Guy Cochrane, Colomban de Vargas, Gabriel Gorsky, Lionel Guidi, Nigel Grimsley, Pascal Hingamp, Daniele Iudicone, Olivier Jaillon, Stefanie Kandels, Lee Karp-Boss, Eric Karsenti, Fabrice Not, Hiroyuki Ogata, Nicole Poulton, Stéphane Pesant, Christian Sardet, Sabrinia Speich, Lars Stemmann, Matthew B. Sullivan, Shinichi Sungawa, Patrick Wincker. Cryptic and abundant marine viruses at the evolutionary origins of Earth’s RNA virome. Science, 2022; 376 (6589): 156 DOI: 10.1126/science.abm5847

How can bacteria turn methane directly into electricity? Why waste time producing bio gas to burn when bacteria could produce electricity directly.  When bacteria take over corn, before they wreck the join they order in delivered food. Bacteria enjoy a huge feast when taking over maize, then they get to work wrecking the joint. Bacteria ends up in spots its not meant to be and redirects food away from plant cells. Redirected takeout food keeps bacteria alive as they settle into their corn host in preparation for taking over. When moving into a new house it helps to get food delivered at first, which is exactly what bacteria does.

1. Heleen T. Ouboter, Tom Berben, Stefanie Berger, Mike S. M. Jetten, Tom Sleutels, Annemiek Ter Heijne, Cornelia U. Welte. Methane-Dependent Extracellular Electron Transfer at the Bioanode by the Anaerobic Archaeal Methanotroph “Candidatus Methanoperedens”. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2022; 13 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.820989

Can fish count? What purpose does a stingray have with addition and subtraction? Why are fish and stingrays able to do basic arithmetic without a cerebral cortex? Scientists taught fish to do arithmetic with some help from Bees. What happens with you put a spider web in an anechoic chamber? How do spiders tune their webs to detect sound? Spiders webs act as powerful microphone arrays that are also cable of carrying sound across long distances. Spider webs make powerful microphone arrays that allow spiders to hear great with great fidelity.

1. V. Schluessel, N. Kreuter, I. M. Gosemann, E. Schmidt. Cichlids and stingrays can add and subtract ‘one’ in the number space from one to five. Scientific Reports, 2022; 12 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-07552-2

Water has some pretty amazing properties. We dive into some of the strange things water does from the molecular level all the way to planet scale water flows. We all know H2O but studying the way water molecules move around each other is very difficult to isolate. H2O molecules had to be taken to 0.4 Kelvin and shot with a powerful laser to shed light on the way they shake. The way H2O interacts between molecules by moving, rotating and shaking can help explain some of the weird properties. H2O has weird properties like being at its highest density at 4 degrees. Turning salt water into fresh water often involves a lot of electricity, but a new method using Ionic salts may get by with barely any heat. How can water make its way down towards the core of the earth? Water masqueraded inside minerals to migrate deep down beneath the surface of the earth.

1. Martina Havenith-Newen, Raffael Schwan, Chen Qu, Devendra Mani, Nitish Pal, Gerhard Schwaab, Lex van der Meer, Britta Redlich, Claude LeForestier, Joel Bowman. Observation of the low frequency spectrum of water dimer as a sensitive test of the water dimer potential and dipole moment surfaces. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2019; DOI: 10.1002/anie.201906048