Decked Out for Success: A Novel Card Game to Support School Teaching of Radioactivity and Nuclear Science.

The global nuclear skills shortage requires a comprehensive investment in training at all levels of education. With focus on post-18 and vocational education, there is a lack of resource and awareness for teaching nuclear skills to students between the ages of 11 to 18 years of age. This age group is vital if interest in this industry is to be nurtured and the skills gap is to be addressed.

Shifting Antarctic Circumpolar Current south of Africa over the past 1.9 million years.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) dominates the transfer of heat, salt, and tracers around the Southern Ocean (SO), driving the upwelling of carbon-rich deep waters around Antarctica. Paleoclimate reconstructions reveal marked variability in SO circulation; however, few records exist coupling quantitative reconstructions of ACC flow with tracers of SO upwelling spanning multiple Pleistocene glacial cycles. Here, we reconstruct near-bottom flow speed variability in the SO south of Africa, revealing systematic glacial-interglacial variations in the strength and/or proximity of ACC jets.

Revisiting the mid-Pleistocene transition ocean circulation crisis.

The mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT) [~1.25 to 0.85 million years ago (Ma)] marks a shift in the character of glacial-interglacial climate (, ).

Protein plant factories: production and resource use efficiency of soybean proteins in vertical farming.

Background: Controlled environment agriculture, particularly vertical farms (VF), also called plant factories, is often claimed as a solution for global food security due to its ability to produce crops unaffected by weather or pests. In principle, essential macronutrients of the human diet, like protein, could technically be produced in VF. This aspect becomes relevant in the era of protein transition, marked by an increasing consumer interest in plant-based protein and environmental challenges faced by conventional farming.

Sustaining work ability amongst female professional workers with long COVID.

Background: Long COVID (LC) compromises work ability (WA). Female worker WA has been more adversely impacted than WA in men. Exploration of lived experiences could elucidate the WA support required.

Current and emerging technologies for the remediation of difficult-to-measure radionuclides at nuclear sites.

Difficult-to-measure radionuclides (DTMRs), defined by an absence of high energy gamma emissions during decay, are problematic in groundwaters at nuclear sites. DTMRs are common contaminants at many nuclear facilities, with (often) long half-lives and high radiotoxicities within the human body. Effective remediation is, therefore, essential if nuclear site end-state targets are to be met.

Sedimentary DNA reveals the link between microbial community dynamics and climate during the late last glaciation in the offshore region of the Zambezi River, Southwest Indian Ocean.

Reconstructing the relationship between microbial communities and past abrupt climate change is of great importance for understanding current biodiversity patterns and predicting changes under future climate scenarios. However, little is currently known about how microbial communities respond to changes in key environmental stages due to a lack of research in this area. Here, we examine the variability in the communities of bacteria, archaea, and fungi from sediments deposited offshore region of the Zambezi River between 21.

Episodic intraplate magmatism fed by a long-lived melt channel of distal plume origin.

In the past decade, marine geophysical observations have led to the discovery of thin channels at the base of oceanic plates with anomalous physical properties that indicate the presence of low-degree partial melts. However, mantle melts are buoyant and should migrate toward the surface. We show abundant observations of widespread intraplate magmatism on the Cocos Plate where a thin partial melt channel was imaged at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary.

Lettuce Production in Intelligent Greenhouses-3D Imaging and Computer Vision for Plant Spacing Decisions.

Recent studies indicate that food demand will increase by 35-56% over the period 2010-2050 due to population increase, economic development, and urbanization. Greenhouse systems allow for the sustainable intensification of food production with demonstrated high crop production per cultivation area. Breakthroughs in resource-efficient fresh food production merging horticultural and AI expertise take place with the international competition "Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge".

Episodes of Early Pleistocene West Antarctic Ice Sheet Retreat Recorded by Iceberg Alley Sediments.

Ice loss in the Southern Hemisphere has been greatest over the past 30 years in West Antarctica. The high sensitivity of this region to climate change has motivated geologists to examine marine sedimentary records for evidence of past episodes of West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) instability. Sediments accumulating in the Scotia Sea are useful to examine for this purpose because they receive iceberg-rafted debris (IBRD) sourced from the Pacific- and Atlantic-facing sectors of West Antarctica.

Ancient marine sediment DNA reveals diatom transition in Antarctica.

Antarctica is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change on Earth and studying the past and present responses of this polar marine ecosystem to environmental change is a matter of urgency. Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) analysis can provide such insights into past ecosystem-wide changes. Here we present authenticated (through extensive contamination control and sedaDNA damage analysis) metagenomic marine eukaryote sedaDNA from the Scotia Sea region acquired during IODP Expedition 382.

What workers can tell us about post-COVID workability.

Background: The apparent functional impact of post-COVID-19 syndrome has workability implications for large segments of the working-age population.

Aims: To understand obstacles and enablers around self-reported workability of workers following COVID-19, to better guide sustainable workplace accommodations.

Methods: An exploratory online survey comprising quantitative and qualitative questions was disseminated via social media and industry networks between December 2020 and February 2021, yielding usable responses from 145 workers.

Persistent influence of precession on northern ice sheet variability since the early Pleistocene.

Prior to ~1 million years ago (Ma), variations in global ice volume were dominated by changes in obliquity; however, the role of precession remains unresolved. Using a record of North Atlantic ice rafting spanning the past 1.7 million years, we find that the onset of ice rafting within a given glacial cycle (reflecting ice sheet expansion) consistently occurred during times of decreasing obliquity whereas mass ice wasting (ablation) events were consistently tied to minima in precession.

Antiphased dust deposition and productivity in the Antarctic Zone over 1.5 million years.

The Southern Ocean paleoceanography provides key insights into how iron fertilization and oceanic productivity developed through Pleistocene ice-ages and their role in influencing the carbon cycle. We report a high-resolution record of dust deposition and ocean productivity for the Antarctic Zone, close to the main dust source, Patagonia. Our deep-ocean records cover the last 1.

A large West Antarctic Ice Sheet explains early Neogene sea-level amplitude.

Early to Middle Miocene sea-level oscillations of approximately 40-60 m estimated from far-field records are interpreted to reflect the loss of virtually all East Antarctic ice during peak warmth. This contrasts with ice-sheet model experiments suggesting most terrestrial ice in East Antarctica was retained even during the warmest intervals of the Middle Miocene. Data and model outputs can be reconciled if a large West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) existed and expanded across most of the outer continental shelf during the Early Miocene, accounting for maximum ice-sheet volumes.

Indo-Pacific Walker circulation drove Pleistocene African aridification.

Today, the eastern African hydroclimate is tightly linked to fluctuations in the zonal atmospheric Walker circulation. A growing body of evidence indicates that this circulation shaped hydroclimatic conditions in the Indian Ocean region also on much longer, glacial-interglacial timescales, following the development of Pacific Walker circulation around 2.2-2.

Using the patient activation measure to examine the self-management support needs of a population of UK workers with long-term health conditions.

Objectives: To examine differences in patient activation and self-management support needs in a population of UK workers with long-term health conditions.

Methods: Demographic, health and activation information were taken from the data of participants with long-term conditions, collected via an online cross-sectional survey of workers. The 13-item British patient activation measure measured workers knowledge, skills and confidence towards self-managing.

New radiometric Ar-Ar dates and faunistic analyses refine evolutionary dynamics of Neogene vertebrate assemblages in southern South America.

The vertebrate fossil record of the Pampean Region of Argentina occupies an important place in South American vertebrate paleontology. An abundance of localities has long been the main basis for constructing the chronostratigraphical/geochronological scale for the late Neogene-Quaternary of South America, as well as for understanding major patterns of vertebrate evolution, including the Great American Biotic Interchange. However, few independently-derived dates are available for constraining this record.

Towards the application of electrokinetic remediation for nuclear site decommissioning.

Contamination encountered on nuclear sites includes radionuclides as well as a range of non-radioactive co-contaminants, often in low-permeability substrates such as concretes or clays. However, many commercial remediation techniques are ineffective in these substrates. By contrast, electrokinetic remediation (EKR), where an electric current is applied to remove contaminants from the treated media, retains high removal efficiencies in low permeability substrates.

Antarctic icebergs reorganize ocean circulation during Pleistocene glacials.

The dominant feature of large-scale mass transfer in the modern ocean is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The geometry and vigour of this circulation influences global climate on various timescales. Palaeoceanographic evidence suggests that during glacial periods of the past 1.

Cherry Tomato Production in Intelligent Greenhouses-Sensors and AI for Control of Climate, Irrigation, Crop Yield, and Quality.

Greenhouses and indoor farming systems play an important role in providing fresh and nutritious food for the growing global population. Farms are becoming larger and greenhouse growers need to make complex decisions to maximize production and minimize resource use while meeting market requirements. However, highly skilled labor is increasingly lacking in the greenhouse sector.

Sequential extraction procedure to obtain the composition of terrigenous detritus in marine sediments.

The geochemical and isotopic composition of terrigenous clays from marine sediments can provide important information on the sources and pathways of sediments. In order to extract the detrital signal from bulk marine sediments, standard sediment leaching methods are commonly applied to remove carbonate and ferromanganese oxides. In comparison to most previous studies that aimed to extract the terrestrial signal from marine sediments we additionally applied a CsCl wash throughout the sample preparation Simon et al.