This study explores the uncertainty introduced in global assessments of coastal flood exposure and risk by not accounting for water level attenuation due to land–surface characteristics. We implement a range of plausible water level attenuation values in the flood module of the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment (DIVA) modelling framework and assess the sensitivity of flood exposure and flood risk indicators to differences in attenuation rates. Results show a reduction of up to 47 % in area exposure and even larger reductions in population exposure and expected flood damages.

Climate change is a well-documented driver of both wildlife extinction and disease emergence, but the negative impacts of climate change on parasite diversity are undocumented. We compiled the most comprehensive spatially explicit data set available for parasites, projected range shifts in a changing climate, and estimated extinction rates for eight major parasite clades.

Natural environments, including green spaces, may have beneficial impacts on brain development. However, longitudinal evidence of an association between long-term exposure to green spaces and cognitive development (including attention) in children is limited. The researchers evaluated the association between lifelong residential exposure to green space and attention during preschool and early primary school years.

Original Source

This article discusses a novel way of purifying biodiesel without using water in the biodiesel purification process.In this work, waterless purification of biodiesel has been investigated using cow dung ash as an adsorbent.

Conditions experienced during larval development of holometabolous insects can affect adult traits, but whether differences in the bacterial communities of larval development sites contribute to variation in the ability of insect vectors to transmit human pathogens is unknown. We addressed this question in the mosquito Aedes aegypti, a major arbovirus vector breeding in both sylvatic and domestic habitats in Sub-Saharan Africa. Targeted metagenomics revealed differing bacterial communities in the water of natural breeding sites in Gabon.

The Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field protects local life by shielding us against Solar particle flows, just like the sun's magnetic field deflects cosmic particle radiation. Generally, magnetic fields can affect terrestrial life such as migrating animals. Thus, terrestrial life is connected to astronomical interrelations between different magnetic fields, particle flows and radiation. Mass strandings of whales have often been documented, but their causes and underlying mechanisms remain unclear.

Depression among adolescents is a rising problem globally. There is a need to understand the factors associated with depression among adolescents. This study was conducted to ascertain the prevalence of depressive disorders and associated factors among schoolgoing adolescents in government and private schools in Chandigarh, India.

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Designing biologically inspired nanoscale molecular assembly with desired functionality is a challenging endeavour. Here we report the designing of fbrin-inspired nanostructured peptide based sealants which facilitate remarkably fast entrapping of blood corpuscles (~28 seconds) in contrast to fbrin (~56 seconds). Our engineered sealants are stabilized by lysine-aspartate ionic interactions and also by Nε (γ-glutamyl) lysine isopeptide bond mediated covalent interaction.

Bacterial drug resistance has emerged as a serious global threat mandating the development of novel methodologies that allow facile modulation of antimicrobial action in a controlled fashion. Conjugating antibiotics to nanoparticles helps to meet this goal by increasing the drug’s overall avidity, bioavailability and easier internalisation into mammalian cells, targeting bacteria that otherwise escape antibacterial action by host cell-localisation.