Recent Work Challenges View of Early Mars, Picturing a Warm Desert With Occasional Rain The Grand Canyon (a) versus a Martian dendritic river system (b) (Arabia quadrangle; 12 degrees N, 43 degrees E). Slight morphologic differences between terrestrial and Martian comparisons may be attributed to the great differences in age. Scale bar is 60 km long. The climate of early Mars is a subject of debate. While it has been thought that Mars had a warm and wet climate, like Earth, other researchers suggested early Mars might have been largely glaciated. A recent study by Ramses Ramirez from the Earth-Life Science Institute (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) and Robert Craddock from the National Air and Space Museum's Center for Earth and Planetary Studies (Smithsonian Institution, USA) suggests that the early Martian surface may not have been dominated by ice, but instead it may have been modestly warm and prone to rain, with only small patches of ice. While there is little debate about whether water previously existed on Mars, the debate regarding what the climate of Mars was like around 4 billion years ago has persisted for decades. Mars has a surprisingly diverse landscape, made up of valley networks, lake basins and possible ocean shorelines. These ancient fluvial features all provide clues that early Mars may have had a warm and wet climate, similar to Earth's. However, this idea has challenges. First, the amount of solar energy entering the atmosphere at the time was considered to be too low to support a warm and wet climate. Secondly, recent climate studies have argued that Mars' ancient fluvial features can be accounted for with an icy climate, where widespread surfaces of ice promoted cooling by reflecting solar radiation. Occasional warming events would have triggered large amounts of ice-melt, and fluvial activity as a result. However, Ramses Ramirez (Earth-Life Science Institute, Japan) and Robert Craddock (Smithsonian Institution, USA) suggest that early Mars was probably warm and wet, and not so icy, after a careful geological and climatological analysis revealed little evidence of widespread glaciation. Recently, the authors' study, published in Nature Geoscience, argues that volcanic activity on a relatively unglaciated planet could explain Mars' fluvial features. Volcanic eruptions releasing CO2, H2, and CH4 may have contributed to the greenhouse effect, which in turn may have promoted warming, precipitation (including rain), and the flow of water that carved out the valleys and fluvial features. However, this climate would not have been as warm and wet as Earth's, with precipitation rates of around 10 centimeters per year (or less), similar to Earth's semi-arid regions. This drier climate suggests that small amounts of ice deposits could have also existed, though these would have been thin, and liable to melt, contributing to the fluvial system. In the future, the authors will be using more complex models in their analysis to investigate their warm, semi-arid climate hypothesis further. They will also be aiming to find out what the climate was like before these fluvial features formed on Mars. This will involve investigating the earliest history of Mars, which is a mysterious subject since little is currently known about it.

For people who have hypertension and certain other conditions, eating too much salt raises blood pressure and increases the likelihood of heart complications. To help monitor salt intake, researchers have developed a flexible and stretchable wireless sensing system designed to be comfortably worn in the mouth to measure the amount of sodium a person consumes. Based on an ultrathin, breathable elastomeric membrane, the sensor integrates with a miniaturized flexible electronic system that uses Bluetooth technology to wirelessly report the sodium consumption to a smartphone or tablet. The researchers plan to further miniaturize the system -- which now resembles a dental retainer -- to the size of a tooth. "We can unobtrusively and wirelessly measure the amount of sodium that people are taking in over time," explained Woon-Hong Yeo, an assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "By monitoring sodium in real-time, the device could one day help people who need to restrict sodium intake learn to change their eating habits and diet." Details of the device are reported May 7 in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The device has been tested in three adult study participants who wore the sensor system for up to a week while eating both solid and liquid foods including vegetable juice, chicken soup and potato chips. According to the American Heart Association, Americans on average eat more than 3,400 milligrams of sodium each day, far more than the limit of 1,500 milligrams per day it recommends. The association surveyed a thousand adults and found that "one-third couldn't estimate how much sodium they ate, and another 54 percent thought they were eating less than 2,000 milligrams of sodium a day." The new sodium sensing system could address that challenge by helping users better track how much salt they consume, Yeo said. "Our device could have applications for many different goals involving eating behavior for diet management or therapeutics," he added. Key to development of the intraoral sensor was replacement of traditional plastic and metal-based electronics with biocompatible and ultrathin components connected using mesh circuitry. Sodium sensors are available commercially, but Yeo and his collaborators developed a flexible micro-membrane version to be integrated with the miniaturized hybrid circuitry. "The entire sensing and electronics package was conformally integrated onto a soft material that users can tolerate," Yeo explained. "The sensor is comfortable to wear, and data from it can be transmitted to a smartphone or tablet. Eventually the information could go a doctor or other medical professional for remote monitoring." The flexible design began with computer modeling to optimize the mechanical properties of the device for use in the curved and soft oral cavity. The researchers then used their model to design the actual nanomembrane circuitry and choose components. The device can monitor sodium intake in real-time, and record daily amounts. Using an app, the system could advise users planning meals how much of their daily salt allocation they had already consumed. The device can communicate with a smartphone up to ten meters away. Next steps for the sodium sensor are to further miniaturize the device, and test it with users who have the medical conditions to address: hypertension, obesity or diabetes. The researchers would like to do away with the small battery, which must be recharged daily to keep the sensor in operation. One option would be to power the device inductively, which would replace the battery and complex circuit with a coil that could obtain power from a transmitter outside the mouth. The project grew out of a long-term goal of producing an artificial taste system that can sense sweetness, bitterness, pH and saltiness. That work began at Virginia Commonwealth University, where Yeo was an assistant professor before joining Georgia Tech.

This is an experimental setup to investigate implicit learning of surroundings. Spatial representations of surroundings, including those outside the visual field, are crucial for guiding movement in a three-dimensional world. The visual system appears to provide sufficient information for movement despite our visual field being limited to the frontal region. However, this theory had not been scientifically tested until now. A group led by Professor Satoshi Shioiri from the Research Institute of Electrical Communication at Tohoku University in Japan, used a visual search experiment to demonstrate that the human visual system indeed has the ability to perceive things beyond the limits of the visual field. The team designed a 6-panel-display which covered the 360 degree area surrounding the viewer. On each panel display, six letters appeared at the same time. The viewer was asked to find a particular letter and the time it took to find the target was recorded. After repeated exposure to the same spatial layouts surrounding the viewer, locating the target object became faster even if the viewer had no explicit knowledge of the repetition. This happened even when the target object was located in the rear, which shows that visual processing is not limited to the visual field, but extends to a wider field around the viewer. The results indicate that representations of surroundings exist in the brain that can be used to "look back" without the need for turning, perhaps for smooth and efficient movement. In other words, our brain constructs a 360-degree world even though visually we are usually only aware of the area in front of us. This is the first study that has scientifically sought to demonstrate this spatial ability. It is an important step for revealing the brain function which links perception and movement.

A study published in the BMJ Open journal shows that even moderate coffee consumption during pregnancy, one to two cups per day, is related to a risk of overweight or obesity in school age children. It has not been clearly shown if caffeine is the direct cause of the overweight, but the relationship, alone, has caused researchers to encourage increased caution. "There may be good cause to increase the restriction of the recommended maximum of three cups of coffee per day. Caffeine is not a medicine that needs to be consumed," says Verena Sengpiel, Associate Professor in obstetrics and gynecology at Sahlgrenska Academy, Sweden, and specialist physician at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, studied information on 50 943 pregnant women, in one of the world's largest health surveys of pregnant women, the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). The results show that children born to mothers who consumed caffeine during pregnancy are at greater risk of being overweight at preschool and school ages. Children were followed until eight years of age. Being overweight in childhood has previously been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes later in life. For example, at age five, the share of children who were overweight or obese was five percent greater in the group whose mothers had the highest caffeine consumption in the study, compared to those whose mothers had the lowest caffeine consumption. The association between caffeine consumption during pregnancy and the risk of excess growth and overweight or obesity in children could also be seen in women who had followed the recommended amount for pregnant women. According to the National Food Agency, Sweden, pregnant women should not consume more than 300 milligrams of caffeine per day, which is equivalent to three cups of coffee (1.5 dl each) or six mugs of black tea (2 dl each). The results of the current study are supported by at least two other studies; however, these included significantly fewer subjects and fewer sources of caffeine. This time, coffee, tea, chocolate, energy drinks and other sources were included. "In the Nordic countries, coffee is the primary source, while, women in, for example, England receive the greatest amount of caffeine from black tea. If you look at mothers in the younger age group, it comes from energy drinks. We included different sources in the study and found a similar association between caffeine consumption from these different sources and children's growth," says Verena Sengpiel. In general, the gestational environment is viewed as being important in the turning off and on of genes and metabolic programming for the duration of life. Previous animal studies, where embryos were exposed to caffeine in the womb, were also followed by excess growth and cardiometabolic disease in the offspring. "Even if more studies are needed before we can say what this finding really means, caffeine is a substance that you can choose to reduce consumption of or completely refrain from during pregnancy," notes Verena Sengpiel.

Clostridium difficile (C. diff) causes severe gastrointestinal tract infections. The 3-D structure shows how a key C. diff toxin, TcdB (in orange), recognizes the human Frizzled protein (in green) as its receptor to invade cells, leading to damage in the intestinal barrier. Shown in the background is immunofluorescent staining of the healthy mouse cecum tissue (left) and the one damaged by TcdB (right). Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and Harvard University have discovered how the Clostridium difficile toxin B (TcdB) recognizes the human Frizzled protein, the receptor it uses to invade intestinal cells and lead to deadly gastrointestinal infections. The findings, published today in Science, could pave the way for new C. diff antitoxins and also show potential for the development of novel anti-cancer drugs. In a C. diff infection (CDI), TcdB targets colonic epithelia and binds to what are called Frizzled (FZD) receptors. Researchers in the labs of Rongsheng Jin, PhD, professor of physiology & biophysics from the UCI School of Medicine, and Min Dong, PhD, from Boston Children's Hospital -- Harvard Medical School, found that during this binding process, the toxin locks certain lipid molecules in FZD, which block critical Wnt signaling that regulates renewal of colonic stem cells and differentiation of the colonic epithelium. "This toxin is indeed very smart. It takes advantage of an important lipid that FZD uses for its own function, to improve its binding affinity and specificity to FZD," said Jin, "However, the need for this lipid also exposes a vulnerability of TcdB that could be exploited to develop antitoxins that block toxin-receptor recognition." Jin and Dong believe that the novel FZD-antagonizing mechanism exploited by toxin B could be used to turn this deadly toxin into a potential pharmacological tool for research and therapeutic applications, including anti-cancer drugs. The team's preliminary data show that a non-toxic fragment of TcdB that they identified could significantly inhibit the growth of some cancer cells with dysregulation in Wnt signaling. A patent application has been filed. Clostridium difficile, also called "C. diff," causes severe gastrointestinal tract infections and tops the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's list of urgent drug-resistant threats. Clostridium difficile infection has become the most common cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and gastroenteritis-associated death in developed countries, accounting for half-million cases and 29,000 deaths annually in the United States. It is classified as one of the top three "urgent threats" by the CDC. The research was funded with National Institute of Health grants R01AI091823, R01AI125704, and R21AI123920 to Jin, and R01 NS080833 and R01 AI132387 to Dong.

Researchers envision thermoacoustics in solids eventually harnessing the extreme temperature gradient of outer space for electricity on satellites. A solid can serve as a medium for heat and sound wave interactions just like a fluid does for thermoacoustic engines and refrigerators -- resulting in leak-free machines that can stay operating longer. Leaky systems have limited how engineers design thermoacoustic devices that rely on the interplay between temperature oscillations and sound waves. Researchers at Purdue and the University of Notre Dame have demonstrated for the first time that thermoacoustics could theoretically occur in solids as well as fluids, recently presenting their findings at the 175th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. "Although still in its infancy, this technology could be particularly effective in harsh environments, such as outer space, where strong temperature variations are freely available and when system failures would endanger the overall mission," said Fabio Semperlotti, Purdue assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Thermoacoustics has been an established and well-studied phenomenon in fluids -- whether as a gas or liquid -- for centuries. "Applying heat to a fluid enclosed in a duct or cavity will cause the spontaneous generation of sound waves propagating in the fluid itself," said Carlo Scalo, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue. "This results in so-called singing pipes, or thermoacoustics machines." While fluids have been historically used for these systems, the extra step of building something to contain the fluids and prevent leaks is cumbersome. This led the researchers to consider solids as a replacement. "Properties of solids are more controllable, which could make them potentially better suited to these applications than fluids. We needed to first verify that this phenomenon could theoretically exist in solid media," said Haitian Hao, Purdue graduate research assistant in mechanical engineering. Thermoacoustics enables either waste heat or mechanical vibrations to be converted into other useful forms of energy. For refrigerators, sound waves generate a temperature gradient of hot and cold. The vibrating motion makes cold areas colder and hot areas hotter. Engines use an opposite process: a temperature gradient provided by waste heat leads to mechanical vibrations. Solid state thermoacoustics initially seemed unlikely, since solids are somewhat more "stable" than fluids and tend to dissipate mechanical energy more readily, making it harder for heat to generate sound waves. The researchers developed a theoretical model demonstrating that a thin metal rod can exhibit self-sustained mechanical vibrations if a temperature gradient is periodically applied to segments of the rod. This balanced unwanted mechanical energy dissipation and showed that, like fluids, solids contract when they cool down and expand when they heat up. If the solid contracts less when cooled and expands more when heated, the resulting motion will increase over time. Solids can also be engineered to achieve the needed properties for achieving high thermoacoustics performance. "Fluids do not allow us to do this," Semperlotti said. Extreme temperature differences in space would be perfect for generating mechanical vibrations that are then converted to electrical energy on spacecraft. "A solid state device would use the sun as its heat source and radiation towards deep space as its cold source," Semperlotti said. "These systems could operate indefinitely, given that they do not have any part in motion or fluid that could leak out." Researchers still need to complete an experimental setup to validate this design idea and better understand the thermoacoustics of solids as discovered through mathematical calculations and modeling. "Possible applications and performance of these devices are still in the realm of pure speculation at this point," Semperlotti said. "But the phenomenon exists and it has the potential to open some remarkable directions for the design of thermoacoustic devices."

Chiral molecule. Today, a new study published in Science by Professors Yossi Paltiel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ron Naaman from the Weizmann Institute of Science describes a breakthrough technology with the power to create drugs with fewer unwanted side effects. Chemical compounds are made up of molecules. The most important molecules in biology are chiral molecules. "Chiral," the Greek word for "hand," describes molecules that look almost exactly alike and contain the same number of atoms but are mirror images of one another -- meaning some are "left-handed" and others are "right-handed." This different "handedness" is crucial and yields different biological effects. Understanding chiral differences was made painfully clear by the drug thalidomide. Marketed to pregnant women in the 1950's and 1960's to ease morning sickness, thalidomide worked well under a microscope. However, thalidomide is a chiral drug -its "right" chiral molecule provides nausea relief while the "left" molecule causes horrible deformities in babies. Since the drug company producing Thalidomide did not separate out the right and left molecules, Thalidomide had disastrous results for the children of women who took this medication. Though a crucial step for drug safety, the separation of chiral molecules into their right- and left- handed components is an expensive process and demands a tailor-made approach for each type of molecule. Now, however, following a decade of collaborative research, Paltiel and Naaman have discovered a uniform, generic method that will enable pharmaceutical and chemical manufactures to easily and cheaply separate right from left chiral molecules. Their method relies on magnets. Chiral molecules interact with a magnetic substrate and line up according to the direction of their handedness -- "left" molecules interact better with one pole of the magnet, and "right" molecules with the other one. This technology will allow chemical manufacturers to keep the "good" molecules and to discard the "bad" ones that cause harmful or unwanted side effects. "Our finding has great practical importance," shared Prof. Naaman. "It will usher in an era of better, safer drugs, and more environmentally-friendly pesticides." While popular drugs, such as Ritalin and Cipramil, are sold in their chirally-pure (i.e., separated) forms, many generic medications are not. Currently only 13% of chiral drugs are separated even though the FDA recommends that all chiral drugs be separated. Further, in the field of agrochemicals, chirally-pure pesticides and fertilizers require smaller doses and cause less environmental contamination than their unseparated counterparts. With these statistics in mind, Paltiel and Naaman's simple and cost effective chiral separation technique has the ability to produce better medical and agricultural products, including medicines, food ingredients, dietary supplements and pesticides. "We are now transforming our science into practice, with the help of Weizmann's and the Hebrew University's technology transfer companies. Placing better medical and environmental products on the market is a win-win for industry and for patients," concluded Paltiel.

To test the rats' memory, IU researchers placed the animals inside an "arena" with different odors. The rats were rewarded when they identified the second-to-last item or fourth-to-last odor from a list of unpredictable length. Neuroscientists at Indiana University have reported the first evidence that non-human animals can mentally replay past events from memory. The discovery could help advance the development of new drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease. The study, led by IU professor Jonathon Crystal, appears today in the journal Current Biology. "The reason we're interested in animal memory isn't only to understand animals, but rather to develop new models of memory that match up with the types of memory impaired in human diseases such as Alzheimer's disease," said Crystal, a professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and director of the IU Bloomington Program in Neuroscience. Under the current paradigm, Crystal said most preclinical studies on potential new Alzheimer's drugs examine how these compounds affect spatial memory, one of the easiest types of memory to assess in animals. But spatial memory is not the type of memory whose loss causes the most debilitating effects of Alzheimer's disease. "If your grandmother is suffering from Alzheimer's, one of the most heartbreaking aspects of the disease is that she can't remember what you told her about what's happening in your life the last time you saw her," said Danielle Panoz-Brown, an IU Ph.D. student who is the first author on the study. "We're interested in episodic memory -- and episodic memory replay -- because it declines in Alzheimer's disease, and in aging in general." Episodic memory is the ability to remember specific events. For example, if a person loses their car keys, they might try to recall every single step -- or "episode" -- in their trip from the car to their current location. The ability to replay these events in order is known as "episodic memory replay." People wouldn't be able to make sense of most scenarios if they couldn't remember the order in which they occurred, Crystal said. To assess animals' ability to replay past events from memory, Crystal's lab spent nearly a year working with 13 rats, which they trained to memorize a list of up to 12 different odors. The rats were placed inside an "arena" with different odors and rewarded when they identified the second-to-last odor or fourth-to-last odor in the list. The team changed the number of odors in the list prior to each test to confirm the odors were identified based upon their position in the list, not by scent alone, proving the animals were relying on their ability to recall the whole list in order. Arenas with different patterns were used to communicate to the rats which of the two options was sought. After their training, Crystal said, the animals successfully completed their task about 87 percent of the time across all trials. The results are strong evidence the animals were employing episodic memory replay. Additional experiments confirmed the rats' memories were long-lasting and resistant to "interference" from other memories, both hallmarks of episodic memory. They also ran tests that temporarily suppressed activity in the hippocampus -- the site of episodic memory -- to confirm the rats were using this part of their brain to perform their tasks. Crystal said the need to find reliable ways to test episodic memory replay in rats is urgent since new genetic tools are enabling scientists to create rats with neurological conditions similar to Alzheimer's disease. Until recently, only mice were available with the genetic modifications needed to study the effect of new drugs on these symptoms. "We're really trying push the boundaries of animal models of memory to something that's increasingly similar to how these memories work in people," he said. "If we want to eliminate Alzheimer's disease, we really need to make sure we're trying to protect the right type of memory."

Participating in the Eurovision Song Contest may be linked to an increase in a nation's life satisfaction, according to new research. The study, by scientists at Imperial College London, found that people were four per cent more likely to be satisfied with their life for every increase of ten places on the final score board -- e.g. their country finishing 2nd rather than 12th. The research, published in the journal BMC Public Health, also found doing badly in the contest was associated with a greater increase in life satisfaction compared to not taking part at all. The team, who were surprised to find the result, say the research chimes with previous studies that show success in big events, such as sporting fixtures, can boost a nation's health and wellbeing. Dr Filippos Filippidis, lead author of the research from the School of Public Health at Imperial, said: "This finding emerged from a jokey conversation in our department. Our 'day job' involves investigating the effect of public policies, environmental factors and economic conditions on people's lifestyle and health. Our department employs people from lots of different countries and around the time of the Eurovision Song Contest we were chatting about whether the competition could also affect a country's national wellbeing. We looked into it and were surprised to see there may be a link." The researchers analysed data from over 160,000 people from 33 European countries. All the people completed a questionnaire as a part of a survey called the Eurobarometer, which is conducted several times each year by the European Commission. Among other things, the survey asks people how satisfied they feel with their life. The team, who analysed data collected around the time of the Eurovision Song Contest (May and June) between 2009-2015, found that people reported being more satisfied with their life if their country had done well in the Eurovision Song Contest that year. The researchers then calculated an increase of 10 places on the final scoreboard -- e.g. if a country finished 2nd instead of 12th -- was associated with a four per cent higher chance of being satisfied with life. However, winning the competition was not associated with an additional increase in life satisfaction. The scientists then compared data from countries who participated but did badly, to countries who didn't take part at all. They found that taking part but finishing near the bottom of the table was associated with a 13 per cent higher chance of life satisfaction compared to not taking part in the competition. The team stress the research only shows there is an association -- rather than directly showing the contest is responsible for raising life satisfaction. However, Dr Filippidis says the work highlights the possible impact of big events on a nation's psyche. "Previous work, by other teams around the world, has shown that national events may affect mood and even productivity -- for instance research suggests an increase in productivity in the winning city of the US Super Bowl." He added that doing well in Eurovision or even just being part of it gives people something positive to discuss -- rather than more negative events in the news. "It increases the amount of good feeling around, even among people who are not particularly interested in the competition. I remember when Greece won in 2005 -- in the weeks that followed people seemed to be in a better mood." He added: "Our research shows that science can be used to test unexpected questions, but more importantly we hope it will encourage people to consider how our wellbeing, and consequently our health, can be influenced by a range of factors in the public sphere." But he admits he wouldn't call himself a fan of the competition. "I've been known to occasionally watch it in previous years. It's certainly entertaining, but I don't take it too seriously."

An image of Hurricane Harvey taken by the GOES-16 satellite as the storm collided with the Texas coast. In the weeks before Hurricane Harvey tore across the Gulf of Mexico and plowed into the Texas coast in August 2017, the Gulf's waters were warmer than any time on record, according to a new analysis led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). These hotter-than-normal conditions supercharged the storm, fueling it with vast stores of moisture, the authors found. When it stalled near the Houston area, the resulting rains broke precipitation records and caused devastating flooding. "We show, for the first time, that the volume of rain over land corresponds to the amount of water evaporated from the unusually warm ocean," said lead author Kevin Trenberth, an NCAR senior scientist. "As climate change continues to heat the oceans, we can expect more supercharged storms like Harvey." Despite a busy 2017 hurricane season, Hurricane Harvey was more or less isolated in location and time, traveling solo over relatively undisturbed waters in the Gulf of Mexico. This gave Trenberth and his colleagues an opportunity to study in detail how the storm fed off the heat stored in that 930-mile wide ocean basin. The team compared temperatures in the upper 160 meters (525 feet) of the Gulf before and after the storm using data collected by Argo, a network of autonomous floats that measure temperature as they move up and down in the water. To measure rainfall over land, the scientists took advantage of a new NASA-based international satellite mission, dubbed Global Precipitation Measurement. The study appears in the journal Earth's Future, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and by the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR's sponsor. Other co-authors of the paper are Yongxin Zhang and John Fasullo, also of NCAR; Lijing Cheng, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Peter Jacobs, of George Mason University. Matching evaporation and rain As hurricanes move over the ocean, their strong winds strafe the sea surface, making it easier for water to evaporate. The process of evaporation also requires energy from heat, and the warmer the temperatures are in the upper ocean and at the ocean surface, the more energy is available. As the storm progresses over the ocean, evaporating water as it goes, it leaves a cold wake in its path. In the case of Hurricane Harvey, the scientists found the cold wake was not very cold. So much heat was available in the upper layer of the ocean that, as the surface temperature was cooled from the storm, heat from below welled up, rewarming the surface waters and continuing to feed the storm. The near-surface ocean temperature before the storm's passage was upward of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), and after passage the temperature was still around 28.5 C (83 F). Sea surface temperatures above 26 C (79 F) are typically needed for a hurricane to continue to grow. Even after Harvey made landfall, its arms reached out over the ocean, continuing to draw strength (and water) from the still-warm Gulf. "The implication is that the warmer oceans increased the risk of greater hurricane intensity and duration," Trenberth said. "While we often think of hurricanes as atmospheric phenomena, it's clear that the oceans play a critical role and will shape future storms as the climate changes." The scientists were able to measure the total loss in ocean heat, mostly due to evaporation, as the storm moved over the Gulf. They also measured the latent heat released over land as the water vapor turned back into liquid water and fell as rain. They then compared those two measurements and found that they corresponded. The study highlights the increased threat of future supercharged hurricanes due to climate change, Trenberth said. "We know this threat exists, and yet in many cases, society is not adequately planning for these storms," Trenberth said. "I believe there is a need to increase resilience with better building codes, flood protection, and water management, and we need to prepare for contingencies, including planning evacuation routes and how to deal with power cuts."

3-D displacements derived from radar imagery with arrows indicating horizontal, color indicating vertical motions spanning the explosion and about 1 week of additional deformation. Black outline derived from ALOS-2 coherence loss indicates the substantial surface disturbance and large displacement gradients caused by the explosion over an area of about 9 square kilometers. Thin gray lines are topographic contours at 100-meter intervals. Red square in the upper right inset shows the location of Mt. Mantap in North Korea. Red stars indicate the locations of previous nuclear bomb tests. Beach balls show locations and focal mechanisms of the Mw 5.24 and Mw 4.47 events on Sept. 3, 2017 Credit: Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University As North Korea's president pledges to "denuclearize" the Korean peninsula, an international team of scientists is publishing the most detailed view yet of the site of the country's latest and largest underground nuclear test on Sept. 3, 2017. The new picture of how the explosion altered the mountain above the detonation highlights the importance of using satellite radar imaging, called SAR (synthetic aperture radar), in addition to seismic recordings to more precisely monitor the location and yield of nuclear tests in North Korea and around the world. The researchers -- Teng Wang, Qibin Shi, Shengji Wei and Sylvain Barbot from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Douglas Dreger and Roland Bürgmann from the University of California, Berkeley, Mehdi Nikkhoo from the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Mahdi Motagh from the Leibniz Universität Hannover, and Qi-Fu Chen from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing -- will report their results online this week in advance of publication in the journal Science. That explosion took place under Mt. Mantap at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the country's north, rocking the area like a 5.2-magnitude earthquake. Based on seismic recordings from global and regional networks, and before-and-after radar measurements of the ground surface from Germany's TerraSAR-X and Japan's ALOS-2 radar imaging satellites, the team showed that the underground nuclear blast pushed the surface of Mt. Mantap outward by as much as 11 feet (3.5 meters) and left the mountain about 20 inches (0.5 meters) shorter. By modelling the event on a computer, they were able to pinpoint the location of the explosion, directly under the mile-high summit, and its depth, between a quarter and a third of a mile (400-600 meters) below the peak. They also located more precisely another seismic event, or aftershock, that occurred 8.5 minutes after the nuclear explosion, putting it some 2,300 feet (700 meters) south of the bomb blast. This is about halfway between the site of the nuclear detonation and an access tunnel entrance and may have been caused by the collapse of part of the tunnel or of a cavity remaining from a previous nuclear explosion. "This is the first time the complete three-dimensional surface displacements associated with an underground nuclear test were imaged and presented to the public," said lead author Teng Wang of the Earth Observatory of Singapore at Nanyang Technological University. Putting all of this together, the researchers estimate that the nuclear test, North Korea's sixth and the fifth inside Mt. Mantap, had a yield between 120 and 300 kilotons, about 10 times the strength of the bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima during World War II. That makes it either a small hydrogen, or fusion, bomb or a large atomic, or fission, bomb. The new scenario differs from two reports last week, one of which has been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, that pinpointed the blast nearly a kilometer to the northwest of the site identified in the new paper, and concluded that the blast rendered the entire mountain unfit for future nuclear tests. "SAR really has a unique role to play in monitoring explosions because it is direct imaging of the local ground surface, unlike seismology, where you learn the nature of the source analyzing waves radiating outward from the event at distant stations," said Dreger, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science and a member of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. "SAR provides some measure of ground truthing of the location of the event, a very challenging thing to get at. This is the first time anyone has actually modeled the mechanics of an underground explosion using satellite and seismic data together." "As opposed to standard optical imaging satellite imagery, SAR can be used to measure earth deformation day and night and under all weather conditions," added Dreger's colleague and co-author Roland Bürgmann, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science. "By precisely tracking the image pixel offsets in multiple directions, we were able to measure the full three-dimensional surface deformation of Mt. Mantap." According to Dreger, the new information suggests the following scenario: The explosion occurred more than a quarter mile (450 meters) below the summit of Mt. Mantap, vaporizing granite rock within a cavity about 160 feet (50 meters) across -- the size of a football stadium -- and damaging a volume of rock about 1,000 feet (300 meters) across. The blast likely raised the mountain six feet (2 meters) and pushed it outward up to 11 feet (3-4 meters), though within minutes, hours or days the rock above the cavity collapsed to form a depression. Eight and a half minutes after the bomb blast, a nearby underground cavity collapsed, producing the 4.5-magnitude aftershock with the characteristics of an implosion. Subsequently, a much larger volume of fractured rock, perhaps 1 mile (1-2 kilometers) across, compacted, causing the mountain to subside to about 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) lower than before the blast. "There may be continuing post-explosion compaction at the mountain. It takes time for these aseismic processes to occur," Dreger said. While it is possible to discriminate explosions from natural earthquakes using seismic waveforms, the uncertainty can be large, Dreger said. Explosions often trigger nearby earthquake faults or other natural rock movements that make the seismic signals look earthquake-like, confusing the analysis. The SAR data revealed that additional constraints from the local static displacement can help to narrow down the source. "I am hoping that by jointly analyzing the geodetic and seismic data, we will be able to improve discrimination between earthquakes and explosions, and certainly help with estimating the yield of an explosion and improving our estimation of source depth," Dreger said. "This study demonstrates the capability of spaceborne remote sensing to help characterize large underground nuclear tests, if any, in the future," Wang said. "While surveillance of clandestine nuclear tests relies on a global seismic network, the potential of spaceborne monitoring has been underexploited." The work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Singapore, as well as the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

Researchers turned the ventral midline thalamus on and off in mice to study the animals' responses to visual threats. Activated brain cells are shown in green. In a study of mice, National Institutes of Health-funded researchers describe a new circuit involved in fine-tuning the brain's decision either to hide or confront threats. The study, published in Nature, was partially funded by the NIH's Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. "Being able to manipulate specific circuits can uncover surprising relationships between brain areas and provide great insight into how the sensory, emotional, and behavioral centers work together to drive reactions," said Jim Gnadt, Ph.D., program director at the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and a team lead for the BRAIN Initiative. "The tools and technologies developed through the BRAIN Initiative have made studies such as this one possible." A team of researchers led by Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology and of ophthalmology at Stanford University in California, investigated the role of the ventral midline thalamus (vMT) in determining how animals respond to visual threats. The thalamus is a brain region that acts as a relay station, taking in sensory information, such as what is seen and heard, and sorting out where in the brain to send that information. Dr. Huberman and his colleagues showed that the vMT was activated when mice were confronted with a threat, specifically a black circle that grew larger on top of their cage, mimicking the experience of something looming over them. When faced with the looming threat, the mice spent most of the time freezing or hiding and very little time rattling their tails, which is typically an aggressive response. To further investigate the role of vMT, Dr. Huberman's team used state-of-the-art tools, including designer drugs that allowed specific circuits to be turned on and off. Although inactivating the vMT had no effect on freezing and hiding, it eliminated the tail rattling response. Turning on the vMT increased the number of tail shaking responses and caused the mice to move around more and spend less time hiding or freezing. Dr. Huberman's group also discovered that the vMT sends information primarily to two brain areas: the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These circuits turned out to be critical in determining how the mice reacted to a visual threat. Turning on the circuit that projected to the BLA caused more freezing responses, while activating the mPFC circuit increased tail shaking responses. "Dr. Huberman's work is opening a new area of vision research with the looming threat model, helping us understand how circuitry in the brain works from sensation to behavior," said Thomas Greenwell, Ph.D., program director at the NIH's National Eye Institute, which co-funded the study. Dr. Huberman and his team showed that activation of the vMT increased arousal, a state of heightened alertness. Mice preferred spending more time in a room where they received vMT activation, suggesting that turning on that brain circuit made them feel good. Although there may have been a difference in response to the visual threat, either tail shaking or freezing, the underlying positive feeling was the same for both types of reactions. "This study may help explain why acts of courage, such as standing up for yourself or for a cause, or a physical challenge can feel empowering. Experiencing that good feeling can also make it more likely to respond to future threats in a similar way," said Dr. Huberman. "Although our study was done in mice, learning more about the vMT may provide some insight into conditions such as generalized anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and we are now pursuing study of the human vMT for that reason." Future research is needed to increase understanding of ways in which the vMT circuit affects behavior and how to develop treatments that can target specific parts of this system. This study was supported by the NINDS (NS090562) and the National Eye Institute (EY022157).

New research has revealed a deadly disease that threatens the survival of the world's frogs originated from East Asia, and global trade was almost certainly responsible for the disease's spread. The frog chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) has long been identified as a cause of the decline and extinction of species of amphibians across several continents since the 1970s. It has spread around the world but until now it has remained unclear where killer strains of the pathogen first emerged. An international team of researchers led by Imperial College London, including four scientists from the One Health Research Group at James Cook University, traced the ancestor of the pathogen to a single strain in East Asia. Their findings support the idea that rather than dating back thousands of years, as previously thought, the range of the disease expanded greatly between 50 and 120 years ago, coinciding with the rapid global expansion of intercontinental trade. According to the researchers, human movement of amphibians -- such as through the pet trade -- has directly contributed to spreading the pathogen around the world. JCU's Dr Lee Skerratt, one of the authors of the paper, said the findings highlight the importance of global biosecurity measures. "Australia has strict rules and regulations surrounding biosecurity and this finding confirms why regulations are so important," Dr Skerratt said. "We hope this news will push policy change in countries with less strict biosecurity measures." The team also uncovered additional strains of the fungus that could cause further species decline, highlighting the importance of strict biosecurity policies. "If more strains are allowed to spread we could see additional extinctions," Dr Skerratt said. "Countries need to act now to improve regulations before these additional strains spread." Chytrid fungus causes a disease called chytridiomycosis that leads to heart failure, and is responsible for the decline or extinction of hundreds of species of frogs. The paper, Recent Asian origin of chytrid fungi causing global amphibian declines, was published in Science today. These findings come on the 20th anniversary of Dr Lee Berger's discovery during her PhD that the chytrid fungus is the cause of global amphibian species decline. Dr Berger led the Australian contribution and was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at James Cook University from 2004 to 2016.

SPEAK EASY People who start learning English as a second language by age 10 to 12 attain high levels of grammar knowledge, researchers say. Bilingual success starting at such late ages suggests language learning happens over a much longer period than typically thought. Language learning isn’t kid stuff anymore. In fact, it never was, a provocative new study concludes. A crucial period for learning the rules and structure of a language lasts up to around age 17 or 18, say psychologist Joshua Hartshorne of MIT and colleagues. Previous research had suggested that grammar-learning ability flourished in early childhood before hitting a dead end around age 5. If that were true, people who move to another country and try to learn a second language after the first few years of life should have a hard time achieving the fluency of native speakers. But that’s not so, Hartshorne’s team reports online May 2 in Cognition. In an online sample of unprecedented size, people who started learning English as a second language in an English-speaking country by age 10 to 12 ultimately mastered the new tongue as well as folks who had learned English and another language simultaneously from birth, the researchers say. Both groups, however, fell somewhat short of the grammatical fluency displayed by English-only speakers. After ages 10 to 12, new-to-English learners reached lower levels of fluency than those who started learning English at younger ages because time ran out when their grammar-absorbing ability plummeted starting around age 17. In another surprise, modest amounts of English learning among native and second-language speakers continued until around age 30, the investigators found, although most learning happened in the first 10 to 20 years of life. Earlier investigations have included too few monolingual and bilingual participants — typically no more than 250 per study — to reveal the entire timeline of grammar learning, Hartshorne says. Aiming for a sample of tens of thousands of volunteers, he began by contacting friends on Facebook to take an online English grammar quiz, which used a person’s responses to guess his or her native language and dialect of English. After completing the quiz, volunteers filled out a questionnaire asking where they had lived, languages they had spoken from birth, the age at which they began learning English and the number of years they had lived in an English-speaking country. As Hartshorne had hoped, the quiz was shared widely on Facebook and other social media, allowing the researchers to analyze responses of 669,498 native and nonnative English speakers. Statistical calculations focused on estimating at what ages people with varying amounts of experience speaking English reached peak grammar ability. Researchers who study language learning regard the new study as intriguing, but preliminary. “I see this as a first foray, a blast of data that, while powerful, lacks precision,” says psycholinguist David Barner of the University of California, San Diego. For instance, Hartshorne’s team can’t yet say that language skill develops along a single timeline. Different elements of grammar, such as using correct word order or subjects and verbs that agree with one another, might be learned at different rates, Barner says. It’s also unclear whether the responses of volunteers to an online, 132-item grammar test reflect how well or poorly they actually speak English, he says. The new results are unlikely to hold up if large numbers of native and nonnative English speakers are quizzed on a broader range of grammatical rules than those included in the new study, says psycholinguist Elissa Newport of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Some quiz items simply asked participants to choose which of two sentences sounded most natural, a tactic to shorten the quiz that also left many grammatical issues unaddressed, she says. Newport emphasizes that hundreds of previous studies, including hers, have found that native language learning largely occurs by age 7 , and second-language learning proceeds best for those who start by around age 5. What’s more, language learning involves more than a crucial period for acquiring grammar, cautions linguist David Birdsong of the University of Texas at Austin. For instance, growing up speaking two languages at once puts still poorly understood strains on the ability to grasp grammar, he says. In the new study, people who were bilinguals from birth fell short of peak English grammar scores achieved by English-only speakers. That’s consistent with evidence that bilinguals cannot easily turn off one language while speaking another, Birdsong says. Interactions between tongues spoken by one person may slightly depress how much can be learned about both languages, even if bilingual communication still reaches high levels, he suggests.

Around 70,000 years ago, a supervolcano named Toba erupted, blowing roughly 670 cubic miles (2,800 cubic kilometers) of vaporized rock and debris into the air. This is thought to have caused a massive struggle for humanity, ultimately leading to a population bottleneck that whittled down our numbers to as few as 1,000 reproductive adults. According to a 2015 study, during this pivotal point in human history, a small reddish star also was likely passing within a light-year of the Sun, just skimming the outer rim of the Oort cloud (the extended shell of over a trillion icy objects that is thought to cocoon the outer solar system). Previously, astronomers believed that this wandering star — dubbed Scholz’s star — passed relatively peacefully by the Oort cloud, influencing very few (if any) outer solar system objects. But, according to a new study, researchers now think that Scholz’s star may have caused more of a ruckus than we initially gave it credit for. In the study, published February 6 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, researchers analyzed the orbital evolution of 339 known minor objects (like asteroids and comets) with hyperbolic orbits that will eventually usher them out of the solar system. By running full N-body simulations with these objects in reverse for 100,000 years, the team was able to accurately estimate the point in the sky where each body appears to have come from. Surprisingly, the team found that over 10 percent of the objects (36) originated from the direction of the constellation Gemini. This spot in the sky also happens to be exactly where astronomers would expect objects to come from if they were nudged by Scholz’s star during its close pass 70,000 years ago. “Using numerical simulations, we have calculated the radiants, or positions in the sky, from which all these hyperbolic objects seem to come,” said lead author Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, an astronomer at the Complutense University of Madrid, in a statement. “In principle, one would expect those positions to be evenly distributed in the sky, particularly if these objects come from the Oort Cloud; however, what we find is very different: a statistically significant accumulation of radiants,” he said. “The pronounced over-density appears projected in the direction of the constellation of Gemini, which fits the close encounter with Scholz’s star.” tZPB700.jpg This graphic from the study shows the distribution and statistical significance of the radiants (points of origin in the sky) for all objects analyzed. The dark blue spot of high statistical significance toward the right shows that many more objects come from this area of the sky than would be expected by chance. This location is also where objects ejected by Scholz’s star would appear to originate. In addition to finding evidence that Scholz’s star had an ancient interaction with the Oort cloud, the team also determined that eight of the objects they studied (including the recent interstellar visitor ‘Oumuamua) are traveling so quickly that they likely originated from outside the solar system. Furthermore, these eight objects all have radiants that are relatively well separated from the others, which suggests their orbital paths are unique and uncorrelated. Two of these objects, C/2012 SI (ISON) and C/2008 J4 (McNaught), have extreme velocities of around 9,000 miles (14,500 km) per hour, which strongly indicates they are interstellar objects zipping through our solar system. Although more research is needed to confirm the study’s findings, the results show that astronomers may not need to wait to study an interstellar object until it serendipitously slingshots around the Sun like ‘Oumuamua did. Instead, statistical studies like this could be used to help astronomers proactively identify the most likely extrasolar visitors for future analysis.

In a first, an international team of scientists has discovered an exoplanet with no clouds. The team, led by Nikolay Nikolov, an astronomer at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, detected this hot gas giant, known as WASP-96b, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. The team determined the atmospheric makeup of the exoplanet by studying it as it passed in front of its host star and measuring how the planet and its atmosphere affected light from the star. A planet's atmospheric makeup influences the light that scientists can measure as it passes by its host star. This creates a spectrum, which is like a unique fingerprint. Typically, clouds obscure the light released by a planet and affect the spectrum that researchers can study from Earth, according to a statement released yesterday (May 7) by the University of Exeter. But for WASP-96b, an extremely clear signature for the element sodium was observed. Because clouds typically obscure such signatures, the clarity of this spectrum suggested that the planet's atmosphere has no clouds at all. With its his is the first evidence of an entirely cloudless planet and the first time a planet with such a clear sodium signature has been found, the researchers said. With its uniquely clear signature, WASP-96b is the first-ever cloudless planet discovered. Being the first of its kind, the exoplanet is now considered "a benchmark for characterization," Nikolov said in the statement. This characterizing spectrum appears in the shape of a camping tent. This uncommon and easy-to-identify shape had never been seen before "because the characteristic 'tent-shaped' profile can only be produced deep in the atmosphere," Nikolov said. He added that for most planets, clouds get in the way, making this shape difficult to discern. Aside from having an unusually cloudless, sodium-rich atmosphere, WASP-96b is extremely hot, at 1,300 kelvins (1,900 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1,000 degrees Celsius), and extremely large — 20 percent larger than Jupiter. The planet's mass is similar to Saturn's, so researchers classify the alien world as a "hot Saturn." In addition, the sodium levels in WASP-96b's atmosphere are similar to those found throughout our solar system. Sodium is the seventh most abundant element in the universe, and for a long time, scientists have thought that large gas giants had sodium-rich atmospheres, according to the statement. But until now, such clear evidence to support this idea has not existed, so the observance of WASP-96b solidifies scientists' understanding of gas giants. Because of WASP-96b's cloudless skies, studying the exoplanet will provide researchers with a "unique opportunity to determine the abundances of other molecules, such as water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, with future observations," Ernst de Mooij,a researcher at Dublin City University and a co-author of a new study describing the findings, said in the statement. So, by identifying the signatures of other molecules using telescopes like Hubble and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, scientists can gain a better understanding of planets both within and outside our solar system, the researchers said.

Christopher Nolan may have left Gotham City behind. But in a wide-ranging two-hour talk at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, the director offered a unique take on his “Dark Knight” trilogy. “To me, each film is a different genre,” Nolan said, about the movies starring Christian Bale as Batman. “They tend to be defined by the villain.” Nolan explained that he saw 2005’s “Batman Begins” as a straightforward origins story. “The villain”–Henri Ducard (played by Liam Neeson)–“is an appropriate adversary,” Nolan said. “He’s a mentor-turned-enemy.” Next, came the second movie in 2008 with Heath Ledger. “‘The Dark Knight for me was always a crime drama in the mold of a Michael Mann film. The Joker was a terrorist, an agent of chaos set loose.” Finally, in 2012’s the grand finale, “The Dark Knight Rises,” co-starring Tom Hardy, Nolan envisioned “this historical epic. Bane as a militarist foe helped that.” Interestingly enough, Nolan didn’t necessarily see himself launching a “Batman” franchise, when he took the job at Warner Bros. 13 years ago. “We hadn’t planned on doing a sequel,” Nolan said. “So shifting genres and the nature of the antagonist felt the way to take the audience on a journey and tell them something different about Bruce Wayne.” Nolan admitted that he approached the comic-book world through a different lens, as a noir-thriller. “Yes, it’s a superhero, but it’s based on ideas of guilt, fear, these strong impulses that the character has,” Nolan said. “Bruce Wayne doesn’t have any super powers other than extraordinary wealth. But really, he’s just someone who does a lot of push-ups. In that sense, he’s very relatable and human. I think that’s why I gravitated towards it.” When asked if his “Batman” paid homage to James Bond, Nolan admitted a connection. “We mercilessly pillaged from the James Bond films for certain aspects,” Nolan said, adding that they wanted to make him as compelling as 007. He noted how Gotham’s chief inventor Lucius Fox is similar to Bond’s Agent Q, who has a closet full of gadgets. “But I think if I made my version of James Bond, ‘Inception’ is far more guilty of that than ‘The Dark Knight,’” Nolan said. Nolan’s visit to the Cannes Film Festival (his first) was for the premiere of a 70 mm print of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which screened on Friday. “Films that are made in an analog way ought to be presented in an analog way whenever possible,” Nolan said. Nolan spent much of his talk explaining why he preferred shooting on film instead of digital. “Film still stands as the best analogy for the way the eye sees,” he said. “For my purposes, I find it to be the most immersive and emotionally involving tool for drawing the audience into the story.” Nolan first saw “2001” at the age of 7, in London with his dad, after it had be re-released on the big screen following the success of 1977’s “Stars Wars.” “I think what I’ve carried about that experience as far as my own films is really just a sense that films can be anything,” Nolan said. “What Kubrick did in 1968, he simply refused to acknowledge that there were any rules you had to play by in terms of narrative.” That was a lesson that he carried with him throughout his career. “It’s incumbent on us to push whatever boundaries we can and not be beholden to the theoretical rules,” Nolan said. His 2000 indie breakout hit “Memento” proved that. “It’s often referred to as a non-linear film, and it’s not,” Nolan said. “It’s intensely linear, but it runs backwards. For that reason, you couldn’t eliminate a scene, you couldn’t change the order. I had to do that in the script stage.” Nolan gave credit to his wife, Emma Thomas, who produces all his films. “Emma is my longest and closest collaborator,” he said. “It’s great to be able to work with people who don’t have an agenda other than helping make the best films you can. It surprising how difficult it is to forge those relationships.” Another family member who has doubled as a co-worker has been his brother, Jonathan. They wrote much of the “Dark Knight” trilogy in rooms—or “in the back of cars, boats, planes”—together. “‘Interstellar’ was a project [Jonathan] had written for Steven Spielberg many years before,” Nolan said. “I took that screenplay and combined it with ideas of mine own while he was doing other things.” Nolan grew up wanting to direct, but he majored in another subject in college. “I studied English because that was the academic subject I was best at,” Nolan said. “What I found when I studied it, it greatly informed my filmmaking process, my writing process. I began to become at ease with the literary concepts that underline criticism.” The younger version of him struggled with the concept of authorial intent not lining up with a reader’s interpretation. “In studying English literature, storytellers grasp evocative symbols,” Nolan said. “They do have … subconscious layers of resonation. That is something I needed to learn and get on board with.” Nolan described his style as a director. He doesn’t like to employ a second unit because he prefers to shoot every scene himself—even if it’s a quick shot of an actor’s hand. “There’s performance in those gestures,” he said. On movies where he had to divide up those scenes, “it always bothered me afterwards,” he said. “If I’m the director, I have to be shooting all the shots that go into a film.” He also doesn’t use a common prop in Hollywood. “I don’t use a monitor on the set,” Nolan said. “I stay by the camera. I want to see where things are in a three-dimensional space.”

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The LG V35 ThinQ has received its regulatory certifications in both the US and Russia. The existence of the upcoming LG V30 variant was first revealed last month, with more recent information going on to confirm its design and the fact that it will be the exclusive LG offering that is coming to AT&T this summer. And, indicative of the smartphone’s nearing launch, the LG V35 ThinQ has now visited both the FCC and the EEC. Going by the model number “LM-V350EM,” the upcoming smartphone's FCC listing in the US shows that it will support a number of 2G, 3G, and 4G LTE bands, just like most 2018 smartphones. In addition, NFC support is also confirmed to be present alongside wireless charging tech. Regarding the Russian EEC certificate, no device details are revealed other than the model name, but it certainly suggests that the smartphone will not be a US exclusive. Until now, it was understood that LG was developing the device for AT&T’s customers specifically as an alternative to the recently-launched LG G7 ThinQ which the carrier chose not to launch. Because of this, and the fact that the company recently released the LG V30S ThinQ, the V35 ThinQ was understood to be a US-market exclusive. However, it now appears LG has some international plans for the smartphone, suggesting the brand could be preparing for a later-than-usual LG V40 launch. If this is the case it wouldn’t exactly be surprising – the company has confirmed that it will introduce new products when it deems them necessary and will also extend product cycles by introducing different variants. LG is yet to announce the device officially or reveal any details in regards to its release date but, in terms of specifications, the LG V35 ThinQ is expected to boast a 6-inch OLED display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. Additionally, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 could be present alongside 6GB of RAM.

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While single-player focused adventure games like God of War and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are becoming more common in the AAA gaming space, they certainly aren't cheap to make. Eidos Montréal head David Anfossi told GamesIndustry.biz that from his experience these type of games cost "$75-100 million," and that the estimate was " production only" as promotion for a key title will take up another $35 million dollars. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the third adventure game starring Lara Croft since the 2013 reboot, which renewed interest in the series and even spawned a new film adaptation earlier this year. While the first two titles were developed primarily by Crystal Dynamics, who is currently busy working on an Avengers game, 2018's Tomb Raider is being made by Square Enix's Eidos Montréal studio. The Canadian developer is best known for the recent Deus Ex and Thief titles, and have assisted in previous Tomb Raider games. Anfossi admitted that a game like Rise of the Tomb Raider costing so much to make is stressful on a developer. He said the studio balances out the large games by having "incubation projects and to try small things... that gives us the opportunity to test, prepare and secure some stuff, and remove some risk." Anfossi ultimately looks at these experiments as a long-term investment for the studio. "Even if it doesn't make sense right now, at some point you'll come across something cool to base a game on, or to put in a game." Similar to God of War director Cory Barlog, Anfossi doesn't believe that single-player and multiplayer experiences are really competing (after all, Shadow of the Tomb Raider will have a mysterious multiplayer mode of its own). He says that every year there's a new trend in gaming, such as battle royale titles, and that developers just have to wait until the time is right to do an experience that may seem less popular at the moment. "I don't want to change a Deus Ex game or experience. We want to be respectful to that." Considering how bullish studios are on making top quality single-player games, and how well they're currently selling, players don't have to worry about them going away. If anything, they're becoming one of the aforementioned trends that are on the rise. They'll never fade away into obscurity, but this certainly isn't a down period for these type of high-budget solo gaming experiences.

IMAX and Saudi Arabia’s General Culture Authority have signed a non-binding agreement to jointly seek opportunities to identify and develop local IMAX-format films in the kingdom. Under the non-exclusive pact, unveiled Saturday, the partners will seek opportunities to help Saudi studios and directors release films with cross-border appeal and potentially tap into the IMAX global distribution platform to export their films to non-Arabic markets. IMAX has successfully implemented this approach in markets such as China and India, where it remasters and distributes local-language blockbusters both in-country and to its wider global network. The agreement is part of the Saudi culture authority’s efforts to develop a dynamic and sustainable film industry in Saudi Arabia. “I expect to have 20 to 30 theaters there in three to five years there, which would be our biggest territory in the Middle East,” IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond told Variety earlier, on Friday. But he cautioned that “people are talking about the opportunity in Saudi [Arabia], and it’s a great one, but it’s not going to be a China-sized opportunity.” On April 30, IMAX opened its first commercial multiplex theater together with VOX Cinemas in Riyadh, with its debut timed to the release of Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War.” IMAX has built a substantial footprint in the Middle East with 20 theaters in operation in many of the region’s top-performing screens and another 12 in backlog. IMAX will also explore the establishment of a film-technology lab to train and work with Saudi filmmakers on IMAX-format documentaries and Arabic-language films that showcase the kingdom’s geography, culture and heritage, as well as the filmmakers themselves.

The Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) will be launched on June 12 this year. The head of the Turkish Energy Ministry Berat Albayrak said this on Friday, May 11, Anadolu news agency reported. "Putting TANAP into operation is a guarantee of continuation of Ankara's active energy policy," he said. Presidents of Turkey and Azerbaijan - Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ilham Aliyev will take part in the ceremony of launching the new gas pipeline, he said. Albayrak compared the projects of TANAP and Nabucco. "Discussions on the implementation of Nabucco continued for many years, but progress was not achieved. At the same time, thanks to the cooperation between Turkey and Azerbaijan, the implementation of the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline construction project is nearing its end, "the minister said. In the summer of this year, Turkey will begin deep-sea drilling in the Mediterranean, he added. The initial throughput capacity of the TANAP gas pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters per year. About six billion cubic meters will be supplied to Turkey, and the rest to Europe. On April 30, the Russian concern Gazprom announced the completion of the construction of the sea section of the first thread of the Turkish Stream. In February, vice president of Socar Azerbaijan Vitaly Beglyarbekov in an interview with Reuters confirmed that gas exports to Europe via TANAP will begin in the coming years. "YUGK (Southern Gas Corridor - note" Lenty.ru ") will be launched on time - in 2020," he said. Gas supplies to Turkey for TANAP will begin in early July this year, said Beglyarbekov. TANAP is an alternative to the Russian gas supply to Europe project - the Turkish Stream pipeline. The Trans-Anatolian pipeline is part of the Southern Gas Corridor. It is assumed that it will be supplied with fuel from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to the EU countries.

MOSCOW, May 12 - RIA Novosti. Colleagues on the stage of the soloist of the Ukrainian rock band Vopli Vidoplyasova reacted to the musician's words that because of his Russophobic remarks from the concert in The Hague, a third of spectators left. Oleg Skripka apologized to the pranks for the words about the ghetto for Russian-speaking Singer Yuri Loza believes that the statement of Violin does not mean anything. "The dog is barking - the wind carries ... Who is Violin in general? Who is he? A politician? Does it depend on him? <...> This does not affect our welfare, our attitude to the world, or even the world - to What is he, a great musician, or what? " - said the musician in an interview with the TV channel "360". According to Loza, Ukrainian singers do everything to quarrel with Russia, as their country "fulfills the US order." The leader of the group "Kalinov Bridge" Dmitry Revyakin admitted that the news shocked him, since they knew each other personally and played together many times. "Maybe Oleg Skripka is asked to return all the money he earned in Russia? I do not have any words, I've known him personally since 1988, when we were together playing in Lithuania at a rock festival where there were musicians from England, Finland, the USSR , Including the group "Vopli Vidoplyasova." I gave him my book of poetry recently, in 2013. For me it's strange when people say so, "the singer said in a conversation with" 360 ". Earlier, Violin on the air "112" said, "Vopli Vidoplyasova" lost part of the audience at a concert in The Hague due to the Russophobic statement of his soloist. The musician admitted that during the speech he behaved too emotionally and "blurted out" the phrase that offended part of the audience. "It's nice here, in Holland, in Europe, in The Hague, to speak, where the trial of Russia will soon be," said Violin. After that, according to the musician, a third of the visitors left the concert. Nevertheless, the artist did not apologize for his behavior, but reassured himself that among the departed were only the Russians. Earlier, the leader of the group "Vopli Vidoplyasova" already caused scandal with ambiguous statements. So, in April last year, the musician said that Ukrainians, who can not learn the state language, have low IQ, so they need to be settled in the ghetto. These words aroused public resonance both in Ukraine and in Russia. The official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, proposed to issue this statement in the form of extensions to greet the participants and hang around Kiev from Boryspil airport to Khreshchatyk. Head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry Arsen Avakov, in turn, called the words of Violin "disgusting." Note: Google translation

Open rebellion? Europe signals patience drying up as US re-imposes harmful Iran sanctions Europeans are angry over the latest US-imposed set of sanctions harming EU interests in the wake of Donald Trump quitting the Iran nuclear deal. The EU needs to decide whether to finally stand up for itself, analysts told RT. Aside from imperiling a landmark international accord and endangering regional and global security, the US pull-out from the 2015 agreement with Iran will have crushing economic consequences for Europe. French, German and UK firms stand to lose billions of euros in investments and trade if they are forced to comply with the sanctions that will be re-imposed and expanded now that the US is no longer a signatory of the nuclear deal. Now, facing the ruinous economic and political fallout from Washington’s unwillingness to honor its agreements, Europe has signaled that it may choose to pursue its own interests – as opposed to obediently swallowing what the US dictates. ‘Crucial turning point for Europe’ “At the moment, there’s a lot of anger in Europe about [US President Donald] Trump and the way he’s pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal. European politicians are reacting to that anger,” journalist Neil Clark told RT. He noted that Europe faced a similar predicament following the 2014 Ukraine crisis, when the Barack Obama administration rolled out sanctions aimed at Russia. Back then, Europe went along with the sanctions that “were clearly not in the interest of EU nations,” but now the discontent seems to have reached the boiling point. “The key thing is: What actions will follow?” Clark notes. It remains unclear whether Brussels will take matters into its own hands – even as top European officials are making highly critical statements about their American allies. The loudest has probably come from Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, who, on Wednesday, suggested that the EU should “replace” the US in the global arena. “At this point, we have to replace the United States which as an international actor has lost vigor, and because of it, in the long-term, influence,” Juncker said, accusing Washington of being unwilling “to cooperate with other parts of the world.” For now, the top Eurocrat offered no actual roadmap leading to the bloc’s superpower status that could rival the US. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, was more cautious in her State of the Union speech on Friday, but she stressed that the EU is “determined” to work and deliver on the Iran nuclear deal. “I know that this is not the mood of our times. It seems that screaming, shouting, insulting and bullying, systematically destroying and dismantling everything that is already in place, is the mood of our times,” Mogherini said, without pointing her finger at anyone in particular, adding that “the secret of change… is to put all energies not in destroying the old, but rather in building the new.” When reacting to Trump’s decision Tuesday, she also pointed out that “the nuclear deal is not a bilateral agreement and it is not in the hands of any single country to terminate it unilaterally.” France, which was apparently among those countries trying to talk Trump out of quitting the deal, did not hide its bitter disappointment. Reacting to Washington’s threats to penalize countries that continue dealing with Iran, French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire hit at the “vassal” status of France and other European states when it comes to economic affairs with the US. “Do we want the United States to be the economic policeman of the planet? Or do we Europeans say that we have economic interests, we want to continue to trade with Iran as part of a strategic agreement?” le Maire asked in a Friday interview. “Do we want to be vassals who obey decisions taken by the United States while clinging to the hem of their trousers?” the minister fumed. He added that “it’s time for all European states to open their eyes.” The stinging comments are particularly remarkable because Paris has previously opted to acquiesce to draconian sanctions. An $8.9-billion fine was imposed by the US on French bank BNP for doing business with Iran. In 2014, the bank agreed to pay the fine to avoid being tried in court for violating US sanctions. “Things are being said now in Europe which have not been said for a long time,” John Laughland, an Oxford-educated historian and specialist in international affairs, told RT. He believes, however, that, so far, the protest statements coming from Europe appear to be empty rhetoric. “I’m waiting to see if the rhetoric translates into anything real.” “This is a crucial turning point now in Europe’s history – whether a new independent Europe will emerge from this,” Clark said. “It’s time for action. Is Europe ready for the role? Of course it’s ready. It’s always been ready. It just needs the leadership to say to American: ‘No, we’re going to look after our own interests,’” he said. “Until we see European companies, and European governments actively opposing the United States, we won’t be able to conclude that there’s been a real change,” Laughland argued. Warning to Germany: a step too far for Washington? Earlier this week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel assured Iranian President Hassan Rouhani of Berlin’s full support for maintaining the nuclear deal, provided that Tehran continues to abide by its terms. German-Iran trade stands at 3 billion euros annually. While it’s but a fraction compared to Germany’s other trade partners, exports to Iran have seen a 50 percent increase since sanctions were lifted as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal, and German companies are not at all happy at the prospects of scaling back trade or having to dodge new US sanctions. Adding fuel to fire were comments made by the US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell just hours after Trump announced the move on Tuesday. The newly-minted ambassador tweeted that German companies should “wind down” in Iran or risk being targeted by sanctions. “US Sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy,” Grenell said.“German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.” According to Clark, the Twitter gaffe showed Washington’s true colors – and provides yet another reason for Europe to pursue its own independent economic and foreign policies. “This isn’t 1945, it’s 2018,” Clark said. “It shows how arrogant the US has been towards Europe.” German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier has stated that the German government will do everything it can to “minimize the negative consequences” of US sanctions, describing Berlin’s strategy going forward as “damage limitation.” And while the German government has conceded that it may not be able to shield German companies that do business in Iran from US sanctions, German business leaders say there’s always a workaround. Michael Tockuss, who is with the German-Iran Chamber of Commerce Association in Hamburg, commented after the US sanctions were announced that German businesses will find a way to keep their doors open in Iran. “Even during the sanctions time, there was business between Europe and Iran,” Tockuss noted during an interview with Marketplace. “The backbone of trade between Germany and Iran is done by these small and medium companies in the field of machinery and plant manufacturers. And these companies, they have a different risk calculation than international big operating companies. A lot of them, they don't have set ups in the United States and they are not as frightened as international operating companies. As long as there is a legal basis according to German and European law, I can guarantee you these companies will continue to do business with Iran.” Adding Turkey to the mix NATO ally and long-time EU member hopeful Turkey has also taken a stand against the US sanctions. Iran is a major trading partner for Ankara, and, considering the less than stellar condition of US-Turkey relations, it’s not difficult to imagine Turkey ignoring Washington’s orders. Already, Turkey’s leaders have signaled their displeasure with Trump’s pull-out. “We don’t need new crises in the region,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip said in an interview with CNN, warning the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal could have regional, as well as global, repercussions. Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci has outright called the situation with Iran an “opportunity.” “The US decision on sanctions against Iran is an opportunity for Turkey. I will continue to trade with Iran, observing the terms of UN resolutions,” the minister said. Erdogan reportedly doubled-down on Turkey’s economic commitment to Tehran in a conversation Wednesday with Rouhani. Bilateral trade between the two neighbors was around $10 billion in 2016, but they have since committed themselves to expanding trade to $35 billion. Given that Turkey and Iran have also been closely working politically in the Syrian peace process, trying to drive a wedge between the two could have the opposite effect for the US. Power vs international law? Even if the EU chooses to honor its international agreements, how will the bloc enforce its will without the vast military power of the United States at its disposal? “Perhaps this crisis in the beginning of a change, but we mustn’t underestimate the difficulty of there being a real change in the international system. Because the realities of power are that the United States has military bases all over Western Europe, its military spending, as everybody knows, is as much as the next seven countries put together,” Laughland said. “This is a gigantic imbalance of power, and military power of course translates into political power.” He added: “The Europeans to say that they want to liberate themselves from American hegemony, that’s a message that I’m very happy to hear, personally, but it really does require actions to prove it. It requires very substantial action. And I’m not convinced that those actions are possible. And the reason why I’m not convinced, is that however much I may disapprove of Trump’s decision, the fact is that he thinks in terms of power. The Europeans think in terms of international law.” Laughland said that international law doesn’t mean much when you are powerless. “We know that Merkel, Macron and Boris Johnson all went to Washington to try to prevent this from happening, and they failed. So that is a demonstration of their lack of power,” he said.