Tyler O'Neal, Staff Editor GOVERNMENT

At future Mars landing spot, Brown scientists spy mineral that could preserve signs of past life

Next year, NASA plans to launch a new Mars rover to search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. A new study shows that the rover's Jezero crater landing site is home to deposits of hydrated silica, a mineral that just happens to be particularly good at preserving biosignatures.

"Using a technique we developed that helps us find rare, hard-to-detect mineral phases in data taken from orbiting spacecraft, we found two outcrops of hydrated silica within Jezero crater," said Jesse Tarnas, a Ph.D. student at Brown University and the study's lead author. "We know from Earth that this mineral phase is exceptional at preserving microfossils and other biosignatures, so that makes these outcrops exciting targets for the rover to explore." Jezero crater, where NASA plans to land a new Mars rover next year, is home to the remains of an ancient river delta. Researchers have now found deposits of hydrated silica, a mineral that's especially good at preserving microfossils and other signs of past life, near the delta.{module INSIDE STORY}

The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

NASA announced late last year that its Mars 2020 rover would be headed to Jezero, which appears to have been home to an ancient lake. The star attraction at Jezero is a large delta deposit formed by ancient rivers that fed the lake. The delta would have concentrated the wealth of material from a vast watershed. Deltas on Earth are known to be good at preserving signs of life. Adding hydrated silica to the mix at Jezero increases that preservation potential, the researchers say. One of the silica deposits was found on the edge of the delta at low elevation. It's possible that the minerals formed in place and represent the bottom layer of the delta deposit, which is a great scenario for preserving signs of life.

"The material that forms the bottom layer of a delta is sometimes the most productive in terms of preserving biosignatures," said Jack Mustard, a professor at Brown and study co-author. "So if you can find that bottom set layer, and that layer has a lot of silica in it, that's a double bonus."

For the study, researchers used data from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The technique applied to the CRISM data used big data analysis methods to tease out the weak spectral signature of the silica deposits.

While the geologic context of the deposits suggests they could have formed at the base of the delta, it's not the only possibility, the researchers say. The minerals could have formed upstream in the watershed that fed Jezero and been washed subsequently into the crater, by volcanic activity or later episodes of water saturation in the Jezero crater lake. The rover should be able to isolate the real source, the researchers say.

"We can get amazing high-resolution images and compositional data from orbit, but there's a limit on what we can discern in terms of how these minerals formed," Tarnas said. "Given instruments on the rover, however, we should be able to constrain the origin of these deposits."

The rover will be able to perform fine-scale chemical analysis of the deposits and provide a close-up view of how the deposits are situated in relation to surrounding rock units. It will also have a sensor similar to CRISM to link orbital and lander data. That will go a long way to determining how the deposits formed. What's more, one instrument aboard the rover is able to look for complex organic material. If the silica deposits have high concentrations of organics, it would be an especially intriguing find, the researchers say.

And in addition to the work, the rover does on-site, it will also cache samples to be returned to Earth by future missions.

"If these deposits present themselves in the form of rocks that are big and competent enough to drill into, they could be put into the cache," Mustard said. "This work suggests that they'd be a great sample to have."

German scientists develop maps showing how the Zika virus can spread

Tyler O'Neal, Staff Editor GOVERNMENT

The spread of infectious diseases such as Zika depends on many different factors. Environmental factors play a role, as do socioeconomic factors. Recently, several attempts have been made to predict the transmission risk of the Zika virus at a global and local level, but the spatial and temporal patterns of transmission are still not well understood. Researchers from Goethe University and the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research in Frankfurt were now able to generate reliable maps for the transmission risk of the Zika virus in South America. The results have been published in the scientific journal “PeerJ”. Based on the models for South America, they will use the method to determine the Zika risk for Europe as well.

In most cases, mosquitoes of the genus Aedes transmit the Zika virus to humans. Primary vectors are the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) and the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus). Both mosquito species are widespread in South America. Whereas the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes albopictus) is nearly absent in Europe, the Asian tiger mosquito is widespread in the Mediterranean region. Zika infection risk modelled for South America.{module INSIDE STORY}

“With our new modeling approaches we can illustrate the risk areas for Zika infections in Latin America,” says Sven Klimpel Professor for Parasitology and Infection Biology at Goethe University in Frankfurt and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre. “The models additionally allow us to illustrate Zika risk areas for Europe. For example, our models indicate the two autochthonous cases in southern France in Département Var (see illustration).” At the end of October, French authorities announced the first Zika case in Europe; about a week later, a second case was made public.

According to the researcher’s calculations, the Zika infection risk in South America is highest along the Brazilian East Coast and in Central America. The risk is moderate in the Amazon region and lowest in the southern areas of the continent. The following countries are especially affected according to the model: Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. In Europe, a risk of infection exists mainly in the Mediterranean region, but also in the inland regions of France and the Rhine areas of Baden-Württemberg.

To determine the infection risk of a specific area, the researchers Dr. Sarah Cunze and Professor Sven Klimpel modeled the potential spread of the two species of mosquito, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. Since the mosquitoes can only transmit the Zika virus in regions where the virus is present in the first place, the researchers included an Evidence Consensus Map in their risk model. This map categorizes the number of reported Zika illnesses at the regional level. The average temperature of the warmest quarter was also incorporated in the model since the temperature has a significant influence on whether the virus can survive and multiply in the mosquito. Finally, the scientists added socioeconomic factors such as population density and gross domestic product to their risk model

Finland's HELICS lab puts a conservation finger on the internet's pulse

Tyler O'Neal, Staff Editor GOVERNMENT

Scientists from the University of Helsinki have figured out how to mine people's online reactions to endangered animals and plants so that they can reduce the chance of pushing species toward extinction.

When the last male northern white rhinoceros died in March 2018, online news printed obituaries, and millions of people grieved on social media. This one event alone quadrupled the number of posts using the keyword rhino, with the general sentiment expressed becoming distinctly negative.

Researchers at the Helsinki Lab of Interdisciplinary Conservation Science are keeping tabs on online trends that affect rhinos and other endangered species. They have developed a computer algorithm that continuously measures the volume of online discussions on the topic, and measures the emerging sentiments from users.

And it's this key information that alerts the scientists whenever the average sentiment exceeds the norm, highlighting that a major event affecting species has occurred. CAPTION Rhinoceros are threatened so severly by an illegal trade in their horns that tourists are advised not share the locations they spotted the animals in, so poachers cannot easily locate them. CREDIT Christoph Fink{module INSIDE STORY}

In their article published in the journal Biological Conservation, lead researcher Christoph Fink and his team highlight the possibilities and the precision of their online-mining method. Compiling an exhaustive list of all rhino-related online events that happened around the world over five months, the researchers' method successfully identified all the major rhino-related events.

"We found that social media users and online news writers care most about rhinos when tragic events take place, such as the death of the last northern white rhino", Mr. Fink said. "But people love to share happy moments too, such as a rhino calf being born in a zoo."

Social media posts and online news articles mostly agree on which events are important, the researchers found. However, most posts came from countries that do not have rhinos.

"We don't think that this had much to do with the generally poorer internet access in countries where wild rhinos live, but more because many environmental agencies are based in Europe and in North America," Mr. Fink added.

New methods for complex data

"We're combining technologies from several fields, such as computer science, geography, and linguistics," Mr. Fink said. "Automatic sentiment analysis reveals the feelings people express in text, and other so-called natural language processing techniques have not been used much in conservation science."

The research team has collected around 5000 Twitter posts and 1000 online news articles in 20 different languages each day over the last five years. "But not every post is relevant", explains Dr. Anna Hausmann, one of the team members, "It's so much data that we have to boil it down to the essential information. For instance, a government official might want to keep an eye on if and how people embrace a new conservation action, but they cannot possibly look through tens of thousands of posts each day to get the vibe of the population".

Versatile applications

The researchers' new method can now be used for a wide range of conservation applications. Understanding how the public feels about the protection of certain animals, plants or landscapes will help in designing conservation policies that will be widely accepted or to adapt strategies facing pushback.

The algorithm can also slow the spread of misinformation, fight prejudices, and debunk ineffective solutions promoted in social-media bubbles. The method can also be used to measure the effectiveness of education programs and outreach campaigns, and it serves as a good starting point for gathering feedback on conservation tourism.

"We have finally shown how to use online network information to help conserve endangered animals and plants", said team leader, Associate Professor Enrico Di Minin. "Ultimately, we want to gain a deeper understanding of how much people care about other species, and how much they are willing to invest to save them." "Discerning how much people want to conserve species is essential for fighting the environmental crises unfolding around the world."