Science Literacy and media Literacy: a missing link?

The study of science in the media is increasingly highlighted within science programmes and represents an authentic context for interdisciplinary collaboration. Yet the literature on ‘media across the curriculum’ makes surprisingly little mention of links to science and cross-curricular approaches to teaching about and with science-based media resources is an area that is under-explored. This research study focuses on science in the news. The project involved 28 teachers from seven schools and brought together science and English teachers to explore collaborative working with the aim of promoting critical engagement with media reports with a science component. Teachers planned, developed and implemented a school-based activity with an emphasis on ‘connected learning’ rather than the compartmentalised learning that tends to accompany the discrete treatment of science matters in science class and media matters in English class. Not only did the project raise teachers’ awareness of science in the media as a potential, purposeful and profitable area for collaborative working, but it demonstrated how the synergy of the different experiences and expertise of science and English teachers produced very varied approaches to a programme of activities with an enhanced capacity to promote criticality in relation to science literacy and media literacy.

Early Holocene M similar to 6 explosive eruption from Plosky volcanic massif (Kamchatka) and its tephra as a link between terrestrial and marine paleoenvironmental records

We report tephrochronological and geochemical data on early Holocene activity from Plosky volcanic massif in the Kliuchevskoi volcanic group, Kamchatka Peninsula. Explosive activity of this volcano lasted for similar to 1.5 kyr, produced a series of widely dispersed tephra layers, and was followed by profuse low-viscosity lava flows. This eruptive episode started a major reorganization of the volcanic structures in the western part of the Kliuchevskoi volcanic group. An explosive eruption from Plosky (M similar to 6), previously unstudied, produced tephra (coded PL2) of a volume of 10-12 km(3) (11-13 Gt), being one of the largest Holocene explosive eruptions in Kamchatka. Characteristic diagnostic features of the PL2 tephra are predominantly vitric sponge-shaped fragments with rare phenocrysts and microlites of plagioclase, olivine and pyroxenes, medium- to high-K basaltic andesitic bulk composition, high-K, high-Al and high-P trachyandesitic glass composition with SiO2 = 57.5-59.5 wt%, K2O = 2.3-2.7 wt%, Al2O3 = 15.8-16.5 wt%, and P2O5 = 0.5-0.7 wt%. Other diagnostic features include a typical subduction-related pattern of incompatible elements, high concentrations of all REE (> 10x mantle values), moderate enrichment in LREE (La/Yb similar to 5.3), and non-fractionated mantle-like pattern of LILE. Geochemical fingerprinting of the PL2 tephra with the help of EMP and LA-ICP-MS analyses allowed us to map its occurrence in terrestrial sections across Kamchatka and to identify this layer in Bering Sea sediment cores at a distance of > 600 km from the source. New high-precision C-14 dates suggest that the PL2 eruption occurred similar to 10,200 cal BP, which makes it a valuable isochrone for early Holocene climate fluctuations and permits direct links between terrestrial and marine paleoenvironmental records. The terrestrial and marine C-14 dates related to the PL2 tephra have allowed us to estimate an early Holocene reservoir age for the western Bering Sea at 1,410 +/- A 64 C-14 years. Another important tephra from the early Holocene eruptive episode of Plosky volcano, coded PL1, was dated at 11,650 cal BP. This marker is the oldest geochemically characterized and dated tephra marker layer in Kamchatka to date and is an important local marker for the Younger Dryas-early Holocene transition. One more tephra from Plosky, coded PL3, can be used as a marker northeast of the source at a distance of similar to 110 km.

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms.