Drought events are increasingly impacting Europe. The study of past droughts helps disentangle the different factors that trigger hydrological drought, helping to forecast future drought severity. Here we identify the historical drought events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in geochemical records of a stalagmite from Caumont cave in Northern France and develop a mechanistic understanding of their root causes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTerrestrial and sub-Neptune planets are expected to form in the inner (less than 10 AU) regions of protoplanetary disks. Water plays a key role in their formation, although it is yet unclear whether water molecules are formed in situ or transported from the outer disk. So far Spitzer Space Telescope observations have only provided water luminosity upper limits for dust-depleted inner disks, similar to PDS 70, the first system with direct confirmation of protoplanet presence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe understanding of planet formation has changed recently, embracing the new idea of pebble accretion. This means that the influx of pebbles from the outer regions of planet-forming disks to their inner zones could determine the composition of planets and their atmospheres. The solid and molecular components delivered to the planet-forming region can be best characterized by mid-infrared spectroscopy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Osteoarthritis (OA) has recently been suggested to be associated with diabetes. However, this association often disappears when accounting for body mass index (BMI), suggesting that mechanical stress may be a confounding factor. We investigated the combined influence of glucose level and loading stress on OA progression using a novel whole joint-in-motion (JM) culture system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) is increasingly used to treat esophageal achalasia, but is associated with a high rate of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The aim of our meta-analysis was to compare short and standard POEM in terms of clinical success and postoperative GERD.
Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that compared POEM using short myotomy with standard myotomy.