The Arctic is a region where little is known about plate tectonics far back in time. That is one of the reasons why Australian Grace E. Shephard decided to join the CEED team of the University of Oslo. Photo: Dag Inge Danielsen/UiO

We think of oceans as being stable and permanent. However, they move at about the same speed as your fingernails grow. Geoscientists at CEED, University of Oslo have found a novel way of mapping the Earth’s ancient oceans. The surface of the Earth is in constant motion. New crust is formed at mid-oceanic ridges, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and older crust is destroyed.  If we go millions of years back in time, the oceans and the continents of planet Earth were very different. Oceans that once existed are now buried deep inside the interior of the Earth, in the mantle. Seismic tomography uses earthquakes to image Earth’s interior down to approximately 2,800 km.  Models based on this technique are used to show how the surface of our planet may have looked like up to 200 million years ago.

A high percentage of adolescents decided on their own to use dietary supplements, according to a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior . Adolescents in developed countries frequently use dietary supplements despite a lack of knowledge about possible harmful effects or drug interactions. Often males turn to dietary supplements in an attempt to increase their performance for sports while females are more concerned with preventing illness and disease. To understand the underlying reasons and sources of recommendation for dietary supplement use among adolescents in Slovenia, researchers at the University of Ljubljana studied both athletes and nonathletes. “According to the existing information, adolescents are the most susceptible and misinformed group of customers; thus this population is the target market for dietary supplements,” said lead author Katja Zdešar Kotnik, BSc, member of the Biotechnical Faculty at the University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

 Jellyfish could be a resource in producing microplastic filters, fertilizer or fish feed. A new 6 million euro project called GoJelly, funded by the EU and coordinated by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Germany and including partners at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNNU) and SINTEF, hopes to turn jellyfish from a nuisance into a useful product. Global climate change and the human impact on marine ecosystems has led to dramatic decreases in the number of fish in the ocean. It has also had an unforseen side effect: because overfishing decreases the numbers of jellyfish competitors, their blooms are on the rise. The GoJelly project, coordinated by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Germany, would like to transform problematic jellyfish into a resource that can be used to produce microplastic filter, fertilizer or fish feed. The EU has just approved funding of EUR 6 million over 4 years to support the project through its Horizon 2020 programme.

Researchers from the University of Granada say that blue light accelerates the relaxation process after acute psychosocial stress such as arguing with a friend or when someone pressures you to quickly finish some task. Researchers from the University of Granada (UGR), in collaboration with the School for Special Education San Rafael (Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God, Granada, Spain) have proven, by means of an objective evaluation using electrophysiological measurements, that blue lighting accelerates the relaxation process after acute psychosocial stress in comparison with conventional white lighting. Said stress is a kind of short-term stress (acute stress) that occurs during social or interpersonal relationships, for example while arguing with a friend or when someone pressures you to finish a certain task as soon as possible. The researchers, which belong to the BCI Lab (Brain-Computer Interface Lab) at the University of Granada, note that psychosocial stress produces some physiological responses that can be measured by means of bio-signals. That stress is very common and negatively affects people’s health and quality of life.

Ruthenium 106 has been detected in late September by several European networks involved in the monitoring of atmospheric radioactive contamination, at levels of a few milliBecquerels per cubic meter of air. IRSN's investigations make it possible to provide information on the possible location of the source of the release as well as the order of magnitude of the quantities released. As soon as it became aware of the first detections of Ruthenium 106 in the atmosphere in Europe, IRSN mobilized all its means of radiological monitoring of the atmosphere and conducted regular analysis of the filters from its monitoring stations. For the period from September 27 to October 13, 2017, only the stations of Seyne-sur-Mer, Nice and Ajaccio revealed the presence of Ruthenium 106 in trace amounts. Since October 13, 2017, Ruthenium 106 is no longer detected in France.