Helium or neopentane can be used as surrogate gas fill for deuterium (D2) or deuterium-tritium (DT) in laser-plasma interaction studies. Surrogates are convenient to avoid flammability hazards or the integration of cryogenics in an experiment. To test the degree of equivalency between deuterium and helium, experiments were conducted in the Pecos target chamber at Sandia National Laboratories. Observables such as laser propagation and signatures of laser-plasma instabilities (LPI) were recorded for multiple laser and target configurations. It was found that some observables can differ significantly despite the apparent similarity of the gases with respect to molecular charge and weight. While a qualitative behaviour of the interaction may very well be studied by finding a suitable compromise of laser absorption, electron density, and LPI cross sections, a quantitative investigation of expected values for deuterium fills at high laser intensities is not likely to succeed with surrogate gases.

Seabirds are highly threatened, including by fisheries bycatch. Accurate understanding of offshore distribution of seabirds is crucial to address this threat. Tracking technologies revolutionised insights into seabird distributions but tracking data may contain a variety of biases. We tracked two threatened seabirds (Salvin’s Albatross Thalassarche salvini n = 60 and Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni n = 46) from their breeding colonies in Aotearoa (New Zealand) to their non-breeding grounds in South America, including Peru, while simultaneously completing seven surveys in Peruvian waters. We then used species distribution models to predict occurrence and distribution using either data source alone, and both data sources combined. Results showed seasonal differences between estimates of occurrence and distribution when using data sources independently. Combining data resulted in more balanced insights into occurrence and distributions, and reduced uncertainty. Most notably, both species were predicted to occur in Peruvian waters during all four annual quarters: the northern Humboldt upwelling system for Salvin’s Albatross and northern continental shelf waters for Black Petrels. Our results highlighted that relying on a single data source may introduce biases into distribution estimates. Our tracking data might have contained ontological and/or colony-related biases (e.g. only breeding adults from one colony were tracked), while our survey data might have contained spatiotemporal biases (e.g. surveys were limited to waters <200 nm from the coast). We recommend combining data sources wherever possible to refine predictions of species distributions, which ultimately will improve fisheries bycatch management through better spatiotemporal understanding of risks.

The fossil record is notoriously imperfect and biased in representation, hindering our ability to place fossil specimens into an evolutionary context. For groups with fossil records mostly consisting of disarticulated parts (e.g., vertebrates, echinoderms, plants), the limited morphological information preserved sparks concerns about whether fossils retain reliable evidence of phylogenetic relationships and lends uncertainty to analyses of diversification, paleobiogeography, and biostratigraphy in Earth's history. To address whether a fragmentary past can be trusted, we need to assess whether incompleteness affects the quality of phylogenetic information contained in fossil data. Herein, we characterize skeletal incompleteness bias in a large dataset (6585 specimens; 14,417 skeletal elements) of fossil squamates (lizards, snakes, amphisbaenians, and mosasaurs). We show that jaws + palatal bones, vertebrae, and ribs appear more frequently in the fossil record than other parts of the skeleton. This incomplete anatomical representation in the fossil record is biased against regions of the skeleton that contain the majority of morphological phylogenetic characters used to assess squamate evolutionary relationships. Despite this bias, parsimony- and model-based comparative analyses indicate that the most frequently occurring parts of the skeleton in the fossil record retain similar levels of phylogenetic signal as parts of the skeleton that are rarer. These results demonstrate that the biased squamate fossil record contains reliable phylogenetic information and support our ability to place incomplete fossils in the tree of life.

Rock debris covers ~30% of glacier ablation areas in the Central Himalaya and modifies the impact of atmospheric conditions on mass balance. The thermal properties of supraglacial debris are diurnally variable but remain poorly constrained for monsoon-influenced glaciers over the timescale of the ablation season. We measured vertical debris profile temperatures at 12 sites on four glaciers in the Everest region with debris thickness ranging from 0.08 to 2.8 m. Typically, the length of the ice ablation season beneath supraglacial debris was 160 days (15 May to 22 October)—a month longer than the monsoon season. Debris temperature gradients were approximately linear (r2 > 0.83), measured as −40°C m–1 where debris was up to 0.1 m thick, −20°C m–1 for debris 0.1–0.5 m thick, and −4°C m–1 for debris greater than 0.5 m thick. Our results demonstrate that the influence of supraglacial debris on the temperature of the underlying ice surface, and therefore melt, is stable at a seasonal timescale and can be estimated from near-surface temperature. These results have the potential to greatly improve the representation of ablation in calculations of debris-covered glacier mass balance and projections of their response to climate change.

The objective of this research was to evaluate producers’ perspectives of four key precision agriculture technologies (variable rate fertilizer application, precision soil sampling, guidance and autosteer, and yield monitoring) in terms of the benefits they provide to their farms (increased yield, reduced production costs, and increased convenience) using a best-worst scaling choice experiment. Results indicate that farmers’ perceptions of the benefits derived from various precision agriculture technologies are heterogeneous. To better understand farmers’ adoption decisions, or lack thereof, it is important to first understand their perceptions of the benefits precision agriculture technologies provide.

Early Norian silicified bivalves from Hells Canyon in the Wallowa terrane of northeastern Oregon are part of a rich molluscan biota associated with a tropical island arc. The Hells Canyon locality preserves lenses of silicified shells formed as tempestites in a shallow subtidal carbonate environment. These shell assemblages are parautochthonous and reflect local, rather than long-distance, transport. Silicification at this locality involved small-scale replacement of original calcareous microstructures, or small-scale replacement of neomorphosed shells, without an intervening phase of moldic porosity. This incremental replacement of carbonate by silica contrasts markedly with void-filling silicification textures reported previously from silicified Permian bivalve assemblages.

The bivalve paleoecology of this site indicates a suspension feeding biota existing on and within the interstices of coral-spongiomorph thickets, and inhabiting laterally adjacent substrates of peloidal carbonate sand. The bivalve fauna is ecologically congruent with the reef-dwelling molluscs associated with Middle Triassic sponge-coral buildups in the Cassian Formation of the Dolomites (Fuersich and Wendt, 1977). Hells Canyon is a particularly important early Norian locality because of the diversity of substrate types and because the site includes many first occurrences of bivalves in the North American Cordillera. These first occurrences include the first documentation of the important epifaunal families Pectinidae and Terquemiidae in Triassic rocks of the North American Cordillera.

The large number of biogeographic and geochronologic range extensions discovered in this single tropical Norian biota indicates that use of literature-based range data for Late Triassic bivalves may be very hazardous. Many bivalve taxa formerly thought to have gone extinct in Karnian time have now been documented from Norian strata in this arc terrane. These range extensions, coupled with the high bivalve species richness of the Hells Canyon site, suggest that the Karnian mass extinction in several literature-based compilations may be an artifact of incomplete sampling. Even for the Norian, present compilations of molluscan extinction may have an unacceptably large artifactual component.

Thirty-five bivalve taxa from the Hells Canyon locality are discussed. Of these, seven are new: the mytilid Mysidiella cordillerana n. sp., the limacean Antiquilima vallieri n. sp., the true oyster Liostrea newelli n. sp., the pectinacean Crenamussium concentricum n. gen. and sp., the unioid Cardinioides josephus n. sp., the trigoniacean Erugonia canyonensis n. gen. and sp., and the carditacean Palaeocardita silberlingi n. sp.

The target site of glyphosate [N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine] inhibition in plants and bacteria is 5-enolpyruvylshikimate 3-phosphate (EPSP) synthase. Our strategy for developing glyphosate-resistant crops has been to genetically engineer plants with a gene that codes for EPSP synthase with low sensitivity in glyphosate. We cloned such a gene from the aroA locus of a glyphosate-resistant mutagenized strain of Salmonella typhimurium. The enzyme encoded by this gene has a single amino acid change resulting in lower affinity for glyphosate and higher affinity for substrates than either plant or wild-type bacterial counterpart. A chimaeric gene containing the mutant aroA gene behind the octopine synthase promoter was constructed and integrated into Agrobacterium T-DNA vectors. Analysis of gall tissue from Brassica campestris L. (turnip rape) infected with A. tumefaciens K12 containing this chimaera showed mRNA and protein expressed from the bacterial gene; 50% of the total EPSP synthase activity present had kinetic properties of the mutant bacterial enzyme. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. ‘Xanthi′) plants have been regenerated from cocultivation with A. rhizogenes containing the same construct; analysis indicates expression of the gene and enhanced tolerance to glyphosate.

The Permian is regarded as one of the most crucial intervals during echinoid evolution because crown group echinoids are first widely known from the Permian. New faunas provide important information regarding the diversity of echinoids during this significant interval as well as the morphological characterization of the earliest crown group and latest stem group echinoids. A new fauna from the Capitanian Lamar Member of the Bell Canyon Formation in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas comprises at least three new taxa, including Eotiaris guadalupensis Thompson n. sp. an indeterminate archaeocidarid, and Pronechinus? sp. All specimens represented are silicified and known from disarticulated or semiarticulated interambulacral and ambulacral plates and spines. This assemblage is one of the most diverse echinoid assemblages known from the Permian and, as such, informs the paleoecological setting in which the earliest crown group echinoids lived. This new fauna indicates that crown group echinoids occupied the same environments as stem group echinoids of the Archaeocidaridae and Proterocidaridae. Furthermore, the echinoids described herein begin to elucidate the order of character transitions that likely took place between stem group and crown group echinoids. At least one of the morphological innovations once thought to be characteristic of early crown group echinoids, crenulate tubercles, was in fact widespread in a number of stem group taxa from the Permian as well. Crenulate tubercles are reported from two taxa, and putative cidaroid style U-shaped teeth are present in the fauna. The presence of crenulate tubercles in the archaeocidarid indicates that crenulate tubercles were present in stem group echinoids, and thus the evolution of this character likely preceded the evolution of many of the synapomorphies that define the echinoid crown group.

In North America, terrestrial records of biodiversity and climate change that span Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 are rare. Where found, they provide insight into how the coupling of the ocean–atmosphere system is manifested in biotic and environmental records and how the biosphere responds to climate change. In 2010–2011, construction at Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) revealed a nearly continuous, lacustrine/wetland sedimentary sequence that preserved evidence of past plant communities between ~140 and 55 ka, including all of MIS 5. At an elevation of 2705 m, the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site also contained thousands of well-preserved bones of late Pleistocene megafauna, including mastodons, mammoths, ground sloths, horses, camels, deer, bison, black bear, coyotes, and bighorn sheep. In addition, the site contained more than 26,000 bones from at least 30 species of small animals including salamanders, otters, muskrats, minks, rabbits, beavers, frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, and birds. The combination of macro- and micro-vertebrates, invertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic plant macrofossils, a detailed pollen record, and a robust, directly dated stratigraphic framework shows that high-elevation ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are climatically sensitive and varied dramatically throughout MIS 5.

We present an overview of the survey for radio emission from active stars that has been in progress for the last six years using the observatories at Fleurs, Molonglo, Parkes and Tidbinbilla. The role of complementary optical observations at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, Mount Burnett, Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories and Mount Tamborine are also outlined. We describe the different types of star that have been included in our survey and discuss some of the problems in making the radio observations.

Although cognitive deficits are common in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), no study to date has investigated whether these deficits extend to the capacity to execute delayed intentions (prospective memory, PM). This is a surprising omission given the critical role PM plays in correctly implementing many important CHF self-care behaviors. The present study aimed to provide the first empirical assessment of PM function in people with CHF. The key dependent measure was a laboratory measure of PM that closely simulates PM tasks in daily life – Virtual Week. A group comparison design was used, with 30 CHF patients compared to 30 demographically matched controls. Background measures assessing executive functions, working memory, and verbal memory were also administered. The CHF group exhibited significant PM impairment, with difficulties generalizing across different types of PM tasks (event, time, regular, irregular). The CHF group also had moderate deficits on several of the background cognitive measures. Given the level of impairment remained consistent even on tasks that imposed minimal demands on memory for task content, CHF-related difficulties most likely reflects problems with the prospective component. However, exploratory analyses suggest that difficulties with retrospective memory and global cognition (but not executive control), also contribute to the PM difficulties seen in this group. The implications of these data are discussed, and in particular, it is argued that problems with PM may help explain why patient engagement in CHF self-care behaviors is often poor. (JINS, 2015, 21, 1–10)