Saturday Citations: Hydroclimate whiplash in a catastrophic era, cellular coordination, a really old ice core

Ongoing catastrophe

The U.S. West Coast is experiencing deadly consequences of unchecked carbon emissions as wildfires blasted by the Santa Ana winds tore through the Los Angeles area, burning thousands of homes and other buildings. California experienced years of severe drought conditions, which were followed by a period starting in 2022 in which dozens of atmospheric rivers brought record-breaking precipitation, deluging valleys and mountain towns with rain and snow. But summer 2024 brought record-high temperatures and record-low December rainfall, and high winds and dry vegetation became a devastating combination.

S. rosetta has a life stage in which colonies form through cell division, similarly to the embryos of animals. But they remain individual cells without differentiation. The researchers used a new genetic technology that visualizes calcium activity. In S. rosetta, the individual cells were synchronizing their behavior through the same voltage-gated calcium channels found in the neural systems of animals.

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Saturday Citations: Hydroclimate whiplash in a catastrophic era, cellular coordination, a really old ice core (2025, January 11)
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This week, researchers at the Desert Research Institute reported that lead pollution likely caused widespread IQ declines in ancient Rome. An archaeological study in northern Israel challenged popular wisdom about prehistoric diets, finding that hunter-gatherers relied heavily on starchy plants for nutrition. And geophysicists at ETH Zurich modeled the Earth’s lower mantle, finding areas in the planet’s interior that appear to be the remains of submerged tectonic plates.

Additionally, the release of a hydroclimate study coincided with the terrible fires in Los Angeles; researchers proposed that cellular coordination preceded the development of multicellular organisms; and an international group drilled all the way to Arctic bedrock to retrieve one of the oldest-ever ice cores.

“Since our study reveals that colonial choanoflagellates coordinate their movements through shared signaling pathways, it offers fascinating insights into early sensory-motor systems,” says the study’s last author, Pawel Burkhardt.

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