Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
February 2025
The Red Sea, a nascent ocean basin connected to the Indian Ocean via a shallow strait, is assumed to have experienced significant environmental changes during the last glacial period due to a sea-level drop likely exceeding 110 m. This study investigates the hypothesis that hydrodynamic restriction led to severe ecological impacts, including basin-wide extinction due to elevated salinity followed by a short time of oxygen depletion. Uranium-Thorium dating of deep-water corals (DWCs) from 26 northern Red Sea sites reveals coral growth during and after the Last Glacial sea-level lowstand, indicating tolerable seawater chemistry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntense rain can trigger flashfloods in Arabia. Torrential rains in 2024 sowed widespread chaos in the region. Sediment-loaded plumes discharged by flashfloods deposit onto the seabed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: This study was undertaken to validate a set of candidate biomarkers of seizure susceptibility in a retrospective, multisite case-control study, and to determine the robustness of these biomarkers derived from routinely collected electroencephalography (EEG) within a large cohort (both epilepsy and common alternative conditions such as nonepileptic attack disorder).
Methods: The database consisted of 814 EEG recordings from 648 subjects, collected from eight National Health Service sites across the UK. Clinically noncontributory EEG recordings were identified by an experienced clinical scientist (N = 281; 152 alternative conditions, 129 epilepsy).
Over the past few years, insects have been used as samplers of vertebrate diversity by assessing the ingested-derived DNA (iDNA), and dung beetles have been shown to be a good mammal sampler given their broad feeding preference, wide distribution and easy sampling. Here, we tested and optimized the use of iDNA from dung beetles to assess the mammal community by evaluating if some biological and methodological aspects affect the use of dung beetles as mammal species samplers. We collected 403 dung beetles from 60 pitfall traps.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBrine pools in deep-sea environments provide unique perspectives into planetary and geological processes, extremophile microbial communities, and sedimentary records. The NEOM Brine Pool Complex was the first deep-sea brine pool system found in the Gulf of Aqaba, representing a significant extension of the geographical range and depositional setting of Red Sea brine pools. Here, we use a combination of brine pool samples collected via cast using a conductivity, temperature, depth instrument (CTD), as well as interstitial porewaters extracted from a sediment core collected in the NEOM Brine Pool to characterize the chemical composition and subsurface evolution of the brine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF