Increase in colonic PRopionate as a method of prEVENTing weight gain over 12 months in adults aged 20-40 years (iPREVENT): a multi-centre, double-blind, randomised, parallel-group trial.

Background: Obesity drives metabolic disease development. Preventing weight gain during early adulthood could mitigate later-life chronic disease risk. Increased dietary fibre intake, leading to enhanced colonic microbial fermentation and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production, is associated with lower body weight.

Performance of empirical and model-based classifiers for detecting sucrase-isomaltase inhibition using theC-sucrose breath test.

TheC-sucrose breath test (C-SBT) has been proposed to estimate sucrase-isomaltase (SIM) activity and is a promising test for SIM deficiency, which can cause gastrointestinal symptoms, and for intestinal mucosal damage caused by gut dysfunction or chemotherapy. We previously showed how various summary measures of theC-SBT breath curve reflect SIM inhibition. However, it is uncertain how the performance of these classifiers is affected by test duration.

Effect of Sustainably Sourced Protein Consumption on Nutrient Intake and Gut Health in Older Adults: A Systematic Review.

Diet is integral to the healthy ageing process and certain diets can mitigate prolonged and deleterious inflammation. This review aims to assess the impact of diets high in sustainably sourced proteins on nutrient intake, gut, and age-related health in older adults. A systematic search of the literature was conducted on 5 September 2023 across multiple databases and sources.

High spatial resolution assessment of air quality in urban centres using lichen carbon, nitrogen and sulfur contents and stable-isotope-ratio signatures.

Air pollution and poor air quality is impacting human health globally and is a major cause of respiratory and cardiovascular disease and damage to human organ systems. Automated air quality monitoring stations continuously record airborne pollutant concentrations, but are restricted in number, costly to maintain and cannot document all spatial variability of airborne pollutants. Biomonitors, such as lichens, are commonly used as an inexpensive alternative to assess the degree of pollution and monitor air quality.

The Winchcombe meteorite, a unique and pristine witness from the outer solar system.

Direct links between carbonaceous chondrites and their parent bodies in the solar system are rare. The Winchcombe meteorite is the most accurately recorded carbonaceous chondrite fall. Its pre-atmospheric orbit and cosmic-ray exposure age confirm that it arrived on Earth shortly after ejection from a primitive asteroid.

Mercury speciation in Scottish raptors reveals high proportions of inorganic mercury in Scottish golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos): Potential occurrence of mercury selenide nanoparticles.

Knowledge of the uptake and fate of mercury (Hg) compounds in biota is important in understanding the global cycling of Hg and its transfer pathways through food chains. In this study, we analysed total mercury (T-Hg) and methylmercury (MeHg) concentrations in 117 livers of Scottish birds of prey that were found across Scotland and submitted for post-mortem examination through the Raptor Health Scotland project between 2009 and 2019. Statistical comparisons focussed on six species (barn owl, Tyto alba; Eurasian common buzzard, Buteo buteo; golden eagle, Aquila chrysaetos; hen harrier, Circus cyaneus; Eurasian sparrowhawk, Accipiter nisus; and tawny owl, Strix aluco) and showed that golden eagles had a statistically lower fraction of MeHg compared to other raptor species.

Constraining the effectiveness of inherent tracers of captured CO for tracing CO leakage: Demonstration in a controlled release site.

Geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO) is an integral component of cost-effective greenhouse gas emissions reduction scenarios. However, a robust monitoring regime is necessary for public and regulatory assurance that any leakage from a storage site can be detected. Here, we present the results from a controlled CO release experiment undertaken at the K-COSEM test site (South Korea) with the aim of demonstrating the effectiveness of the inherent tracer fingerprints (noble gases, δC) in monitoring CO leakage.

Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age.

Present-day people from England and Wales have more ancestry derived from early European farmers (EEF) than did people of the Early Bronze Age. To understand this, here we generated genome-wide data from 793 individuals, increasing data from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age in Britain by 12-fold, and western and central Europe by 3.5-fold.

First observation of radiolytic bubble formation in unstirred nano-powder sludges and a consistent model thereof.

Experiments involving the irradiation of water contained within magnesium hydroxide and alumina nanoparticle sludges were conducted and culminated in observations of an increased yield of molecular hydrogen when compared to the yield from the irradiation of bulk water. We show that there is a relationship linking this increased yield to the direct nanoscale ionization mechanism in the nanoparticles, indicating that electron emission from the nanoparticles drives new radiative pathways in the water. Because the chemical changes in these sludges are introduced by irradiation only, we have a genuinely unstirred system.

InterCarb: A Community Effort to Improve Interlaboratory Standardization of the Carbonate Clumped Isotope Thermometer Using Carbonate Standards.

Increased use and improved methodology of carbonate clumped isotope thermometry has greatly enhanced our ability to interrogate a suite of Earth-system processes. However, interlaboratory discrepancies in quantifying carbonate clumped isotope (Δ) measurements persist, and their specific sources remain unclear. To address interlaboratory differences, we first provide consensus values from the clumped isotope community for four carbonate standards relative to heated and equilibrated gases with 1,819 individual analyses from 10 laboratories.

Moderate intensity exercise training combined with inulin-propionate ester supplementation increases whole body resting fat oxidation in overweight women.

Background: Our previous work has shown that oral supplementation with inulin propionate ester (IPE) reduces intra-abdominal fat and prevents weight gain and that oral propionate intake enhances resting fat oxidation. The effects of IPE combined with exercise training on energy substrate utilisation are unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of 4-weeks IPE supplementation, in combination with a moderate intensity exercise training programme, on whole body fat oxidation and on plasma GLP-1 and PYY.

Temperature and moisture are minor drivers of regional-scale soil organic carbon dynamics.

Storing large amounts of organic carbon, soils are a key but uncertain component of the global carbon cycle, and accordingly, of Earth System Models (ESMs). Soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics are regulated by a complex interplay of drivers. Climate, generally represented by temperature and moisture, is regarded as one of the fundamental controls.

A large explosive silicic eruption in the British Palaeogene Igneous Province.

Large-volume pyroclastic eruptions are not known from the basalt-dominated British Palaeogene Igneous Province (BPIP), although silicic magmatism is documented from intra-caldera successions in central volcanoes and from small-volume ash-layers in the associated lava fields. Exceptions are the Sgùrr of Eigg (58.7 Ma) and Òigh-sgeir pitchstones in the Inner Hebrides (>30 km apart), which have been conjectured to represent remnants of a single large silicic event.

Transient hydrodynamic effects influence organic carbon signatures in marine sediments.

Ocean dynamics served an important role during past dramatic climate changes via impacts on deep-ocean carbon storage. Such changes are recorded in sedimentary proxies of hydrographic change on continental margins, which lie at the ocean-atmosphere-earth interface. However, interpretations of these records are challenging, given complex interplays among processes delivering particulate material to and from ocean margins.

Rapid recovery of life at ground zero of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

The Cretaceous/Palaeogene mass extinction eradicated 76% of species on Earth. It was caused by the impact of an asteroid on the Yucatán carbonate platform in the southern Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago , forming the Chicxulub impact crater. After the mass extinction, the recovery of the global marine ecosystem-measured as primary productivity-was geographically heterogeneous ; export production in the Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic-western Tethys was slower than in most other regions, taking 300 thousand years (kyr) to return to levels similar to those of the Late Cretaceous period.

Local variance of atmospheric C concentrations around Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant from 2010 to 2012.

Radiocarbon (C) has been measured in single tree ring samples collected from the southwest of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant. Our data indicate south-westwards dispersion of radiocarbon and the highest C activity observed so far in the local environment during the 2011 accident. The abnormally high C activity in the late wood of 2011 ring may imply an unknown source of radiocarbon nearby after the accident.

Journey to the east: Diverse routes and variable flowering times for wheat and barley en route to prehistoric China.

Today, farmers in many regions of eastern Asia sow their barley grains in the spring and harvest them in the autumn of the same year (spring barley). However, when it was first domesticated in southwest Asia, barley was grown between the autumn and subsequent spring (winter barley), to complete their life cycles before the summer drought. The question of when the eastern barley shifted from the original winter habit to flexible growing schedules is of significance in terms of understanding its spread.

Taking the pulse of Mars via dating of a plume-fed volcano.

Mars hosts the solar system's largest volcanoes. Although their size and impact crater density indicate continued activity over billions of years, their formation rates are poorly understood. Here we quantify the growth rate of a Martian volcano by Ar/Ar and cosmogenic exposure dating of six nakhlites, meteorites that were ejected from Mars by a single impact event at 10.

Rapid global ocean-atmosphere response to Southern Ocean freshening during the last glacial.

Contrasting Greenland and Antarctic temperatures during the last glacial period (115,000 to 11,650 years ago) are thought to have been driven by imbalances in the rates of formation of North Atlantic and Antarctic Deep Water (the 'bipolar seesaw'). Here we exploit a bidecadally resolved C data set obtained from New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) to undertake high-precision alignment of key climate data sets spanning iceberg-rafted debris event Heinrich 3 and Greenland Interstadial (GI) 5.1 in the North Atlantic (~30,400 to 28,400 years ago).

Integrated behavioural and stable isotope data reveal altered diet linked to low breeding success in urban-dwelling blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus).

Animals often show reduced reproductive success in urban compared to adjacent natural areas. The lower availability and quality of natural food in cities is suggested as one key limiting factor. However, only few studies have provided conclusive support by simultaneously assessing food availability, diet and fitness.