The Greenhouse gas Observations of Biospheric and Local Emissions from the Upper sky (GOBLEU): a mission overview, instrument description, and results from the first flight.

Background: The Greenhouse gas Observations of Biospheric and Local Emissions from the Upper sky (GOBLEU) is a new joint project by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and ANA HOLDING INC. (ANAHD), which operates ANA flights. GOBLEU aims to visualizes our climate mitigation effort progress in support of subnational climate mitigation by collecting greenhouse gas (GHG) data as well as relevant data for emissions (nitrous dioxide, NO) and removals (Solar-Induced Fluorescence, SIF) from regular passenger flights.

A Spatially Resolved and Environmentally Informed Forecast Model of West Nile Virus in Coachella Valley, California.

West Nile virus (WNV) is the most significant arbovirus in the United States in terms of both morbidity and mortality. West Nile exists in a complex transmission cycle between avian hosts and the arthropod vector, spp. mosquitoes.

Circuits and Biomarkers of the Central Nervous System Relating to Astronaut Performance: Summary Report for a NASA-Sponsored Technical Interchange Meeting.

Biomarkers, ranging from molecules to behavior, can be used to identify thresholds beyond which performance of mission tasks may be compromised and could potentially trigger the activation of countermeasures. Identification of homologous brain regions and/or neural circuits related to operational performance may allow for translational studies between species. Three discussion groups were directed to use operationally relevant performance tasks as a driver when identifying biomarkers and brain regions or circuits for selected constructs.

A window into prebiotic worlds?

Zircon s reveal the geochemistry of Earth's earliest hydrothermal systems.

Satellites for long-term monitoring of inland U.S. lakes: The MERIS time series and application for chlorophyll-a.

Lakes and other surface fresh waterbodies provide drinking water, recreational and economic opportunities, food, and other critical support for humans, aquatic life, and ecosystem health. Lakes are also productive ecosystems that provide habitats and influence global cycles. Chlorophyll concentration provides a common metric of water quality, and is frequently used as a proxy for lake trophic state.

Mitochondria-Targeted Human Catalase in the Mouse Longevity MCAT Model Mitigates Head-Tilt Bedrest-Induced Neuro-Inflammation in the Hippocampus.

Microgravity (modeled by head-tilt bedrest and hind-limb unloading), experienced during prolonged spaceflight, results in neurological consequences, central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction, and potentially impairment during the performance of critical tasks. Similar pathologies are observed in bedrest, sedentary lifestyle, and muscle disuse on Earth. In our previous study, we saw that head-tilt bedrest together with social isolation upregulated the milieu of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the hippocampus and plasma.

NASA GEOS Composition Forecast Modeling System GEOS-CF v1.0: Stratospheric Composition.

The NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) provides recent estimates and 5-day forecasts of atmospheric composition to the public in near-real time. To do this, the GEOS Earth system model is coupled with the GEOS-Chem tropospheric-stratospheric unified chemistry extension (UCX) to represent composition from the surface to the top of the GEOS atmosphere (0.01 hPa).

What you see is what you breathe? Estimating air pollution spatial variation using street level imagery.

High spatial resolution information on urban air pollution levels is unavailable in many areas globally, partially due to high input data needs of existing estimation approaches. Here we introduce a computer vision method to estimate annual means for air pollution levels from street level images. We used annual mean estimates of NO and PM concentrations from locally calibrated models as labels from London, New York, and Vancouver to allow for compilation of a sufficiently large dataset (~250k images for each city).

Vertical stratification of aerosols over South Asian cities.

This study examines vertically resolved aerosol optical properties retrieved from Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) onboard CALIPSO satellite over several cities across South Asia from March 2010 to February 2021. Atmospheric layer-specific stratification of aerosols and dominant aerosol sub-types was recognized over each city with their seasonal trends. A contrasting pattern in aerosol vertical distribution over cities across Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) was noted compared to non-IGP cities, with considerable dependency on geographic location of the city itself.

A Deep Learning Approach for Meter-Scale Air Quality Estimation in Urban Environments Using Very High-Spatial-Resolution Satellite Imagery.

High-spatial-resolution air quality (AQ) mapping is important for identifying pollution sources to facilitate local action. Some of the most populated cities in the world are not equipped with the infrastructure required to monitor AQ levels on the ground and must rely on other sources, like satellite derived estimates, to monitor AQ. Current satellite-data-based models provide AQ mapping on a kilometer scale at best.

Sampling forests with terrestrial laser scanning.

Background And Aims: Terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) have successfully captured various properties of individual trees and have potential to further increase the quality and efficiency of forest surveys. However, TLSs are limited to line of sight observations, and forests are complex structural environments that can occlude TLS beams and thereby cause incomplete TLS samples. We evaluate the prevalence and sources of occlusion that limit line of sight to forest stems for TLS scans, assess the impacts of TLS sample incompleteness, and evaluate sampling strategies and data analysis techniques aimed at improving sample quality and representativeness.

Knowledge Network Embedding of Transcriptomic Data from Spaceflown Mice Uncovers Signs and Symptoms Associated with Terrestrial Diseases.

There has long been an interest in understanding how the hazards from spaceflight may trigger or exacerbate human diseases. With the goal of advancing our knowledge on physiological changes during space travel, NASA GeneLab provides an open-source repository of multi-omics data from real and simulated spaceflight studies. Alone, this data enables identification of biological changes during spaceflight, but cannot infer how that may impact an astronaut at the phenotypic level.

Surface and satellite observations of air pollution in India during COVID-19 lockdown: Implication to air quality.

The strict nationwide lockdown imposed in India starting from 25 March 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 disease reduced the mobility and interrupted several important anthropogenic emission sources thereby creating a temporary air quality improvement. This study conducts a multi-scale (national-regional-city), multi-species, and multi-platform analysis of air pollutants and meteorological data by synergizing surface and satellite observations. Our analysis suggests a significant reduction in surface measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO) (46-61 %) and fine particulate matter (PM) (42-60 %) during the lockdown period that are also corroborated by the reduction in satellite observed aerosol optical depth (AOD) (3-56 %) and tropospheric NO column density (25-50 %) data over multiple cities.

Fundamental Biological Features of Spaceflight: Advancing the Field to Enable Deep-Space Exploration.

Research on astronaut health and model organisms have revealed six features of spaceflight biology that guide our current understanding of fundamental molecular changes that occur during space travel. The features include oxidative stress, DNA damage, mitochondrial dysregulation, epigenetic changes (including gene regulation), telomere length alterations, and microbiome shifts. Here we review the known hazards of human spaceflight, how spaceflight affects living systems through these six fundamental features, and the associated health risks of space exploration.

DNA Damage Baseline Predicts Resilience to Space Radiation and Radiotherapy.

Deep space exploration will require real-time, minimally invasive monitoring of astronaut health to mitigate the potential health impairments caused by space radiation and microgravity. Genotoxic stress in humans can be monitored by quantifying the amount of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) in immune cells from a simple finger prick. In a cohort of 674 healthy donors, we show that the endogenous level of DSBs increases with age and with latent cytomegalovirus infection.

Considering Cell Proliferation to Optimize Detection of Radiation-Induced 53BP1 Positive Foci in 15 Mouse Strains Ex Vivo.

Due to high metabolic activity, proliferating cells continuously generate free radicals, which induce DNA double-strand breaks (DSB). Fluorescently tagged nuclear foci of DNA repair protein 53 binding protein-1 (53BP1) are used as a standard metric for measuring DSB formation at baseline and in response to environmental insults such as radiation. Here we demonstrate that the background level of spontaneous 53BP1+ foci formation can be modeled mathematically as a function of cell confluence, which is a metric of their proliferation rate.

In Situ Detection of Complex DNA Damage Using Microscopy: A Rough Road Ahead.

Complexity of DNA damage is considered currently one if not the primary instigator of biological responses and determinant of short and long-term effects in organisms and their offspring. In this review, we focus on the detection of complex (clustered) DNA damage (CDD) induced for example by ionizing radiation (IR) and in some cases by high oxidative stress. We perform a short historical perspective in the field, emphasizing the microscopy-based techniques and methodologies for the detection of CDD at the cellular level.

53BP1 Repair Kinetics for Prediction of In Vivo Radiation Susceptibility in 15 Mouse Strains.

We present a novel mathematical formalism to predict the kinetics of DNA damage repair after exposure to both low- and high-LET radiation (X rays; 350 MeV/n 40Ar; 600 MeV/n 56Fe). Our method is based on monitoring DNA damage repair protein 53BP1 that forms radiation-induced foci (RIF) at locations of DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) in the nucleus and comparing its expression in primary skin fibroblasts isolated from 15 mice strains. We previously reported strong evidence for clustering of nearby DSB into single repair units as opposed to the classic "contact-first" model where DSB are considered immobile.

Abrupt decline in tropospheric nitrogen dioxide over China after the outbreak of COVID-19.

China's policy interventions to reduce the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 have environmental and economic impacts. Tropospheric nitrogen dioxide indicates economic activities, as nitrogen dioxide is primarily emitted from fossil fuel consumption. Satellite measurements show a 48% drop in tropospheric nitrogen dioxide vertical column densities from the 20 days averaged before the 2020 Lunar New Year to the 20 days averaged after.

Review: Strategies for using satellite-based products in modeling PM and short-term pollution episodes.

Short-term air pollution episodes motivate improved understanding of the association between air pollution and acute morbidity and mortality episodes, and triggers required mitigation plans. A variety of methods have been employed to estimate exposure to air pollution episodes, including GIS-based dispersion models, interpolation between sparse monitoring sites, land-use regression models, optimization models, line- or area-dispersion plume models, and models using information from imaging satellites, often including land-use and meteorological variables. There has been increasing use of satellite-borne aerosol products for assessing short-term air quality events.

Pinpointing nitrogen oxide emissions from space.

Satellite observations of nitrogen dioxide (NO) provide valuable information on the location and strength of NO emissions, but spatial resolution is limited by horizontal transport and smearing of temporal averages due to changing wind fields. In this study, we map NO emissions on high spatial resolution from TROPOMI observations of NO combined with wind fields based on the continuity equation. The divergence of horizontal fluxes proves to be highly sensitive for point sources like exhaust stacks.