Monday, March 17, 2025
Home Blog Page 1482

Study shows artificial light at night changes the behavior of fish, even into the next generation

0
Study shows artificial light at night changes the behavior of fish, even into the next generation


When darkness never falls
Shoreline habitats that are most affected by artificial light at night are vitally important to many aquatic species. Credit: MPI of Animal Behavior/ Alex Jordan

Scientists have shown that light pollution—especially light in the blue spectrum—can alter the behavior of fish after only a few nights, and have knock-on effects for their offspring. The team from China has studied how female zebrafish responded after being exposed to artificial light at night, which is considered to be the main source of the world’s light pollution.

Fish were exposed to varying wavelengths of artificial light at night over nine nights, which caused them to swim less, stick closer together, and spend more time near the wall of the aquarium. These anxiety-like behaviors were seen in fish under all wavelengths of light, but short wavelength light in the blue spectrum caused the fastest and strongest changes.

The results further reveal that light pollution can have long-lasting effects: offspring born from light-exposed mothers swam less despite never being exposed themselves. The study is published in the journal Science of The Total Environment.

Artificial light at night pollutes the environment by adding luminescence to places that would otherwise be dark at nighttime. It exists outdoors through the lights that brighten streets, buildings, and industrial areas all night; and it exists indoors through the devices that hold our attention into the evening.

Artificial light at night is known to impact most organisms by disrupting the natural rhythms of biological processes, which are coordinated by cycles of light and dark.

“Sleep is one of the main processes of animals that is disrupted by artificial light at night, so we were curious to know what that means for their ability to navigate their lives. In other words, what does it mean for their behavior?” says Wei Wei Li, the study’s first author who did the work as a doctoral student in the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.

“The light levels that we used in our study matched what is already shining into the homes of animals at night through the many sources we place outdoors. And we found extremely strong and clear negative effects on the behavior of fish and their offspring after only a few bright nights.”

The dangers of blue light

Because the negative effects of artificial light at night are known to occur in humans from exposure to light in the blue spectrum, the team wanted to know if different wavelengths also affected the behavior of fish differently.

They exposed female zebrafish to all-night light at 10 light regimes: nine separate wavelengths across the visible spectrum as well as white light. Lights were set at 20 lux, approximately the intensity of streetlights seen at a distance, and what animals would be exposed to in outdoor environments.

They found that after eight nights of exposure, all wavelengths caused fish to swim less, stick closer together, and spend more time near the wall of the aquarium, a behavior known as “thigmotaxis” or wall-hugging, which is an indicator of animal anxiety. However, the effect of blue light could be seen sooner, after only five days of exposure, with light at 470 nm having the strongest effect of all.

“This is consistent with what is known in humans, that exposure to the blue light of our electronic displays has the biggest effect on our sleep and possibly other physiological cycles,” says co-author Aneesh Bose, who did the work while at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.

The study did not set out to uncover a mechanism, but the authors speculate that sleep deprivation could be what underlies the patterns in their data. Their finding that behavioral changes revealed themselves after five or eight nights of exposure, rather than immediately, could be explained by lack of sleep.

“The fish could pull a few all-nighters, but after too many nights of disrupted sleep it eventually caught up to them,” explains Bose, who is now a researcher at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Long-lasting changes

The study also revealed that the impacts of light pollution did not end in the individual, but were passed down to offspring. After exposure to artificial light at night, the study’s female zebrafish were allowed to breed and the team raised their offspring under natural light conditions.

After 15 days, the researchers tested the swimming behaviors of larvae using specialized automated tracking software designed to quantify activity levels of the tiny fish. Offspring of exposed mothers showed decreased daytime movement despite themselves never being exposed to lights at night.

“We found that light pollution disrupted the natural behavior of fish, and this disruption may have fitness and performance consequences,” says Ming Duan, the study’s final author from the Institute of Hydrobiology Chinese Academy of Sciences.

To mitigate these consequences of artificial light at night on wild animals, the authors say that special attention needs to be paid to what light is emitted by human sources. Adds Duan, “Many of the places we light up at night are close to animal habitats. The best thing we can do is to minimize the use of blue wavelength light sources where animals are trying to sleep.”

More information:
Weiwei Li et al, Behavioural and transgenerational effects of artificial light at night (ALAN) of varying spectral compositions in zebrafish (Danio rerio), Science of The Total Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176336

Provided by
Max Planck Society


Citation:
Study shows artificial light at night changes the behavior of fish, even into the next generation (2024, September 23)
retrieved 23 September 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-09-artificial-night-behavior-fish-generation.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.





Source link

Murdoch’s REA ups offer for property website Rightmove

0
Murdoch’s REA ups offer for property website Rightmove


Rupert Murdoch's REA Group said has now made three offers to buy UK property platform Rightmove
Rupert Murdoch’s REA Group said has now made three offers to buy UK property platform Rightmove.

REA Group, the Australian online property website majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire, said Monday it has made a third multi-billion-pound offer to buy British peer Rightmove.

The latest proposal, worth £6.1 billion (US$8.1 billion), comes after Rightmove rejected REA’s previous two bids made this month.

“We are genuinely disappointed at the lack of engagement by Rightmove’s Board,” REA CEO Owen Wilson said in a statement published on the London Stock Exchange.

Rightmove confirmed in a statement that it had received a third proposal that was “unsolicited, non-binding and highly conditional”.

Rightmove chairman Andrew Fisher said the board rejected the first two proposals as they “were uncertain, highly opportunistic and unattractive”.

He added, “The Board will continue to act on behalf of our shareholders and respond to the most recent proposal in due course.”

Shares in Rightmove were up 2.8 percent in early deals on London’s FTSE 100 index.

REA made public its interest on September 2, noting “clear similarities” between the pair “in terms of their leading market positions in the core residential business”.

The first offer was worth £5.6 billion. Rightmove rejected a second proposal on September 18.

REA reiterated that should it succeed in buying Rightmove, it would apply for a secondary stock market listing in London, in addition to its current trading on the Australian Securities Exchange.

“This would provide the opportunity for a wider pool of investors to gain exposure to a global and diversified digital property company on the London Stock Exchange,” it said.

© 2024 AFP

Citation:
Murdoch’s REA ups offer for property website Rightmove (2024, September 23)
retrieved 23 September 2024
from https://techxplore.com/news/2024-09-murdoch-rea-ups-property-website.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.





Source link

New physics needed? Experts suggest possibility of updating fundamental physics concepts

0
New physics needed? Experts suggest possibility of updating fundamental physics concepts


New physics needed? Maybe
An unexpected finding about how our universe formed is again raising the question: do we need new physics? The answer could fundamentally change what physics students are taught in classes around the world. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC

An unexpected finding about how our universe formed is again raising the question: do we need new physics? The answer could fundamentally change what physics students are taught in classes around the world.

A study from SMU and three other universities, available on the arXiv preprint server, delved into the possibility of updating fundamental physics concepts.

SMU played a significant part in the analysis, using the university’s high-performance computing capabilities to explore different scenarios that could explain the findings.

“The data from what’s known as DESI, or Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, combined with what we already had, is the most precise data we’ve seen so far, and it is hinting at something unlike what we would have expected,” explained one of the study’s co-authors Joel Meyers, an associate professor of physics at SMU. “Now, we need to get to the bottom of why that is.”

Working with Meyers on this analysis were theoretical physicists Nathaniel Craig at UC Santa Barbara and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Daniel Green at UC San Diego and Surjeet Rajendran at Johns Hopkins University.

What DESI found…and why it was surprising

DESI is creating the largest, most accurate 3D map of our universe, providing a key measurement that enables cosmologists to calculate what they call the absolute mass scale of neutrinos.

This absolute mass scale was determined based on new measurements from the so-called baryonic acoustic oscillations from DESI, plus information physicists already had from the “afterglow” of the Big Bang—when the universe was created—known as the cosmic microwave background.

Throughout the evolution of the universe, the behavior of neutrinos impacted the growth of large-scale structures, such as clusters of galaxies across vast reaches of space that we see today. Neutrinos are one of the most abundant subatomic particles in the universe, but they’re as mysterious as they are ubiquitous. One reason physicists want to know the mass scale of neutrinos is that it can help them get a better understanding of how matter clustered as the universe evolved.

Cosmologists—those who study the origin and development of the universe—have long thought that massive neutrinos kept matter in the universe from clustering as much as it otherwise might have over 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution.

“But rather than the expected suppression of matter clustering, the data instead favors enhanced matter clustering, meaning matter in the cosmos is more clumped than one would expect,” said Meyers, who specializes in theoretical cosmology, including the cosmic microwave background, the early universe and connections to high energy and particle physics.

“Explaining this enhancement may point toward some problem with the measurements, or it could require some new physics not included in the Standard Model of particle physics and cosmology.”

The Standard Model of particle physics—the one that students likely learned in physics class—has long been scientists’ best theory to explain how the basic building blocks of matter interact. This finding of neutrinos is the latest measurement, similar to what’s referred to as “the Hubble tension,” to hint that we might not know our universe as well as we think we do, Meyers said.

In their study, Meyers and his colleagues looked into scenarios where physicists might need to tweak the Standard Model, but not throw it out entirely. They also examined introducing new concepts of physics. And they also explored whether systematic errors of key measures could account for the surprising DESI finding.

It will likely take years to know which of the researchers’ theories is correct. But the study gives a blueprint for future research.

More information:
Nathaniel Craig et al, No νs is Good News, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.00836

Journal information:
arXiv


Citation:
New physics needed? Experts suggest possibility of updating fundamental physics concepts (2024, September 23)
retrieved 23 September 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-09-physics-experts-possibility-fundamental-concepts.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.





Source link

Amazon launches Project Amelia, an AI assistant for third-party sellers

0
Amazon launches Project Amelia, an AI assistant for third-party sellers


amazon
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Amazon launched a new AI-powered personal assistant for third-party vendors Thursday, one of many new features the company rolled out for its independent sellers this week.

The assistant, internally called Project Amelia, answers questions for sellers, offers advice and, down the line, will diagnose problems and take action.

Amazon has already integrated generative artificial intelligence into some services for sellers, like the ability to use AI to write suggested product listings, and has launched other AI-powered tools, including the shopping assistant Rufus and the chatbot Q. It is also reportedly working on an upgrade to its personal voice assistant Alexa, using AI to power a new, paid subscription service.

Project Amelia will run on Amazon Bedrock, an Amazon Web Services offering that provides different foundational learning models for companies, including Amazon itself, to build and scale AI-powered applications.

Amazon has been working on Project Amelia for more than a year, Dharmesh Mehta, vice president for selling partner services, said in an interview Wednesday with The Seattle Times. The project got its name because it was housed in the company’s Amelia building in South Lake Union. That building was named in honor of Amelia Earhart.

In its beta version, launched Thursday, Project Amelia is able to answer questions about a seller’s inventory, sales and customer traffic, as well as offer advice about how to launch a new product or prepare for the upcoming holiday season. It may recommend that a seller add more keywords to a product listing or promote festive items before the holiday.

It may also prompt a seller to try Amazon’s other services, like Fulfillment by Amazon, a service that third-party sellers can sign up for to use Amazon’s fulfillment network to ship orders.

Right now, Project Amelia looks and acts like other chatbots on the internet—a user types a question in a text box at the bottom of the screen and sends it over to Amelia, which takes its time thinking about the response and then generates a few lines of information. The bot then suggests follow-up questions the user may want to ask next.

But, Mehta imagines an iteration of Project Amelia that doesn’t require as much back and forth. He hopes the assistant could one day offer to take action for the seller. Rather than talking with a seller about the upcoming holidays, he pictures Project Amelia one day offering to set up a 20% discount on festive T-shirts before the holidays.

“We’re leveraging generative AI throughout the shopping experience, and if we can create a better shopping experience, then customers love the products, they come more often, that’s all good for sellers,” Mehta said.

“We’ll keep innovating on the shopping experience [and] if I think about every part of the selling experience, we can continue to reinvent some of those or transform them with generative AI,” he continued.

Mehta compared Project Amelia’s beta version to a concierge service. The assistant takes in all sorts of user questions and then works behind the scenes to find an answer.

Sometimes the concierge has to call in a plumber or an electrician to make the fix, but the user doesn’t have to know that. In the AI world, the plumbers and electricians are other data models trained to be subject-matter experts on all sorts of topics.

In the last three months, Amazon has seen a surge in interest in its AI tools that help sellers write product listings, Mehta said. After launching last year, the company has continued to refine the capabilities and, as more sellers use them, the AI gets smarter, he said.

At first, sellers had to input keywords. Then, they could add images or send a URL. Soon, Mehta said, sellers can upload a product catalog and the tool will do the rest. And, Amazon plans to launch a new feature that will use AI to generate advertising videos for sellers.

This week, at Amazon’s annual conference for third-party sellers, Amazon announced a range of other new services—like new capabilities to ship products from overseas, a new app for those sellers who use Amazon Shipping and a new offering to automatically replenish products for third-party sellers when inventory runs low.

Amazon also announced new partnerships with three other major players in the e-commerce space: Google, TikTok and PayPal.

Third-party sellers who use Buy With Prime—a way for customers to shop using Amazon Prime on third-party websites—can now display the Prime check mark and estimated delivery speeds on TikTok and Google’s shopping platforms.

On PayPal, merchants can now offer Prime as a delivery option for shoppers.

2024 The Seattle Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Citation:
Amazon launches Project Amelia, an AI assistant for third-party sellers (2024, September 23)
retrieved 23 September 2024
from https://techxplore.com/news/2024-09-amazon-amelia-ai-party-sellers.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.





Source link

Data from robots show steady increase in deep-ocean warming

0
Data from robots show steady increase in deep-ocean warming


Data from robots shows steady increase in deep-ocean warming
Scientists deploy a Deep Argo float in 2018 from Research Vessel Kaʻimikai-O-Kanaloa at the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii. The ocean robot will track ocean temperature, salinity and other data down to 3 to 4 miles deep in the ocean. Credit: NOAA

New research published Sept. 19 in Geophysical Research Letters shows that using data collected by deep ocean robots, called Deep Argo floats, combined with historical data from research vessels has increased confidence that parts of the global deep ocean are warming at a rate of .0036 to .0072°F (.002 to .004°C) each year.

“Ocean warming is the dominant element of global warming and a major driver of climate change,” said Greg Johnson, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab and lead author of the study.

“This study confirms the previously reported deep ocean warming, and reduces the uncertainties about the global ocean heat uptake in waters below 1.2 miles (2,000 meters), a key area of the ocean for predicting sea level rise and extreme weather.”

The new research also provides more detailed information about the geographic patterns of the deep ocean warming, which can help scientists better understand changes in the global ocean conveyor belt called the global meridional overturning circulation, also key to predicting weather and climate changes.

The research shows that the deepest ocean waters off Antarctica are a hot spot for warming. These bottom waters carry the warming north, traveling along the ocean conveyor belt. Another hot spot of warming is in the deep ocean waters off Greenland, which no longer receive large amounts of sinking cold waters from the ocean surface due to increased atmospheric warming and freshening of those surface waters from ice melt.

More detailed information about deep ocean warming can help improve climate models used to prepare society for future changes in ocean and air temperatures that drive sea level increases, precipitation, tropical cyclone frequency and intensity, and their impacts on humans and the environment.

Johnson said that scientists first began seeing this deep ocean warming trend off Antarctica without the benefit of Deep Argo data some two decades ago. But the size of the warming trend was quite uncertain because of the sparse measurements available previously. The new data from Deep Argo have helped to reduce the uncertainty in the size of the trend by a factor of two.

NOAA’s partners in the Argo Program first launched Deep Argo floats that could measure ocean temperature, salinity and other data down to a depth of 3.7 miles (6,000 meters) in 2014 in the Southwest Pacific off New Zealand.

Since that time, arrays of Deep Argo floats to measure deep ocean changes have been expanded in the Southwest Pacific and added in the South Atlantic off Brazil and Argentina, the South Indian Ocean between Australia and Antarctica, and the North Atlantic between Florida and North Africa.

“Right now, Deep Argo consists of pilot arrays in key regions,” said Johnson. “If we can build a global array we’ll be able to quantify the warming rate over shorter periods of time to see how that rate is changing.

“We have hints that the rate is changing but we need to be able to tease that out better. Measuring evolving temperature salinity patterns in the deep ocean will also aid in predicting climate changes decades in advance.”

Deep Argo is part of the overall Argo program, which is supported by NOAA’s Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program. Since its inception in 1999, the Argo Program has revolutionized our ability to track changes in the ocean with a global array of autonomous profiling floats, providing nearly four times the ocean information as all other observing tools combined.

More information:
Gregory C. Johnson et al, Refined Estimates of Global Ocean Deep and Abyssal Decadal Warming Trends, Geophysical Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2024GL111229

Provided by
NOAA Headquarters


Citation:
Data from robots show steady increase in deep-ocean warming (2024, September 23)
retrieved 23 September 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-09-robots-steady-deep-ocean.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.





Source link